Beer is probably a word of German, as ale, signifying the same thing, is of Scandinavian origin. But the source of the German word is a moot question of comparative philology. Those interested in this matter may find abundant information in a note inserted by M. A. Schleicher in the _Zeitschrift_ of Kuhn. We are led thereby to a Gothic form, _pius_, which in its turn conducts us to the Lithuanian _pyvas_. _Pyvas_ or _pivas_—since etymology is a science _dans laquelle les consonants font peu de chose, et les voyelles rien de tout_—may be easily attached to the secondary root _piv_ found in the Sanskrit _pivâmi._ In Indo-European tongues, and in accordance with the dictum of Voltaire, p, b, v, are interchangeable as labials. And so we come to the conclusion that _pivas_, or its descendant _beer_, means nothing else but _drink_; or, in other words, that this particular form of drink is _the_ drink _par excellence_. And so we might rest content, were it not for the uneasy scruples of a certain M. Pictet, who has introduced a Slavic origin. But of etymology this taste will suffice. Twenty centuries before the Christian era, Osiris, according to some authors, invented beer,[103] and according to others it has been at all times a drink of the Hebrews. We have, indeed, heard of Adam’s ale, but that term has been generally applied to a species of drink which would hardly come under our present category. It is perhaps more probable that the beverage of Osiris and the early Hebrews was a simple infusion of barley without more. Pliny, however, Theophrastus, and Tacitus, speak of beer as known from very early times to the people of the North, who were prevented by their situation from the cultivation of wine.[104] The ancient beer of Egypt is compared by Diodorus Siculus to wine on account of its strength and flavour. This Egyptian beer is indeed spoken of by Herodotus as _barley wine_, a title which still survives in some of the windows of our public-houses. At present beer is the habitual drink of the English, German, Dutch, and Scandinavian races. A drink, better called _barley water_ than _beer_, appears to have been the favourite beverage of the Danes and Anglo-Saxons, our ancestors in the remote past. Before Christianity had enlightened and corrected their views about the delights of a future state, these benighted folk supposed that the chief felicity enjoyed by the good—in those days synonymous with the brave—after their death and transplantation into Odin’s paradise, would be to drink in large goblets large quantities of ale. Perpetual intoxication thus entered largely into their conception of celestial joy.