[26] This contravenes an opinion to which I have elsewhere committed myself (_Man and his Migrations_, pp. 161-162). Acting upon the doctrine that Ireland must be considered to have been peopled from the nearest part of the nearest land of a more continental character than itself, unless reason could be shewn to the contrary, I ignored the statement of Beda altogether, and peopled Ireland from the parts about the Mull of Cantyre. The present change of opinion has arisen out of no change in the valuation of Beda's statement. The extent to which the forms in _aber_ are found in Scotland, and the extent to which the name _sliabh_ (with a few others) is wanting, are the real reasons. CHAPTER XII. ANALYSIS OF THE GERMANIC POPULATIONS OF ENGLAND.--THE JUTE ELEMENT QUESTIONABLE.--FRISIAN ELEMENTS PROBABLE.--OTHER GERMAN ELEMENTS, HOW FAR PROBABLE.--FORMS IN -ING. The present chapter will examine the extent to which certain Germanic populations mentioned by Beda and other writers as having taken part in the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Great Britain actually did so; it will also inquire whether certain other populations _not_ so mentioned may not, nevertheless, have joined in those invasions, although their share in them has been unrecorded. _The Jutes._--Did Jutes, rather than Angles or any other allied population, effect the conquest and occupancy of parts of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight as they are said to have done? Let us suppose the case of an American archæologist, in the absence of any authentic history, reasoning about the origin of the three populations of Plymouth, New Jersey, and Portsmouth, three populations lying within no great distance of each other. He knows that, as a general rule, they are to be deduced from England; and he studies the map of England accordingly. On the south-coast he finds a Jersey, which he reasonably infers is the _Old_ Jersey, the mother-country of the Americans of the _New_. He also finds a Plymouth, from which he draws the same equally reasonable inference. Lastly, he sees a town named Portsmouth--and here he repeats his reasoning--reasoning which is eminently logical, cogent, and apparently conclusive. It passes without challenge or objection, and the origin of the three populations gradually loses its inferential character, and assumes that of a fact founded upon evidence. A writer who adopts his views, perhaps the very writer himself, more or less unconsciously, next believes that his doctrine has an historical rather than a logical basis, and it passes for a fact founded upon records, or at least on tradition. In such a case a sentence like the following might easily be written--"they" (viz., the populations of New Jersey, Plymouth, and Portsmouth) "came from three of the more powerful populations of England, _i.e._, those of Jersey, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. From those of Jersey came the men of New Jersey, from those of Plymouth the men of Plymouth, and from those