| dc.description.abstract | In that remote age of which no personal records remain, but whose
history may be derived from the known dispersion of races and
languages ? as the geologist, from fragments of rock, traces the
events of the primeval world ? we find that the Celtic race, first of
the Indo-European nations, fled from their primitive homes in Central
Asia, and, by the succeeding waves of emigration, were forced
further and further to the West. It does not necessarily follow that
their migrations, in the ante-historical period, were caused by war;
although, amongst the races of men, whilst in an imperfect state of
development, the tie of country is so strong that nothing but the
most positive evils of war, pestilence, and famine will compel them
to abandon their native land. But the early migrations of the Celts
may have been also caused by the pressure of the new Eastern
populations forcing the tribes least willing or able to labor into new
and virgin soils, producing a greater return in proportion to the
farmer's toil. It has been conclusively established by Pritchard and
Donaldson, following in the track of many continental ethnologists
and philologists, that the Celtic and German languges, with their
derivatives, as well as the ancient Greek and Latin, all belong to
the same family with the Sanscrit, and are in fact different modifications
of the same language. From this, coupled with the slender
traditions of the ante-historical period, it is concluded that the Celtic
people of are Eastern origin?a kindred tribe with the nations
who have settled on the Indus, as well as on the shores of the
Mediterranean and Baltic. | en |
