They have always been a religious race, and gave the three great religions, Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, to the world, as well as some of the most debasing superstitions and forms of idolatry ever known. The larger part of the population of Asia is still Turanian, and the Semites now occupy about the same area as in prehistoric times; but the Hamites have been overpowered and have lost their clearly distinctive character as a family, unless represented by the negro tribes. 7. The third great family, the Aryan, called also the Japhetic, from Japhet, the third son of Noah, and from the regions they peopled and made illustrious by their genius and activity, the Indo-European, was the last to leave the birthplace of mankind. The other races were incapable of carrying the fortunes of humanity beyond a certain point, of themselves alone, as the history of Turanian China, Hamitic Egypt and the Semitic Mohammedans and Jews clearly proves. The history of the Aryans shows them to possess inexhaustible mental power and physical stamina, with a vigorous ambition, always dissatisfied with the present, and constantly seeking something better in the future and the distant, that have produced the happiest effect on the destinies of the human race. 8. It would seem that while the Turanians, Hamites, and Semites were taking the lead of the world and building up the empires of prehistoric times, whose mighty ruins have been the wonder of later ages, the Aryans were all united in following peaceful pursuits, which the common features of their languages indicate were chiefly the care of flocks and herds. They were much farther removed from barbarism than any of the other races when they began their wanderings. Warlike, agricultural and nautical terms, and the names of wild animals are not often found in the common vocabulary; while family relations, domestic animals and their uses, the heavenly bodies in connection with worship and the priestly relation of the father of the family, and terms indicating a considerable cultivation of sensibility and thoughtfulness, imply a purer social and religious condition, and more elevated mental traits, than in the primitive forefathers of the other families. Their language was highly picturesque, and its peculiar terms for natural phenomena are believed by some to have originated the mythological histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans and Teutonic nations. The ancient language used epithets and names, so glowing with personality, that the imaginative descendants of the primitive stock, when their early history was forgotten, believed them to contain an account of the origin of things, and the early deeds of gods and heroes; and the genius of the poets clothed the supposed marvels in the immortal dress of fiction which we find in Homer and Hesiod, in Virgil, the Indian Vedas, and the Sagas and Scalds of northern Europe. This, at least, is the conclusion reached by some of the most eminent