are both Aryan; but both families may be supposed to have largely absorbed other elements and thereby become more or less mixed. Such is doubtless the case with South Germany, where the bulk of the population still adhere to the Church of Rome, and such it is in most Celtic lands; nor is it irrelevant to note that druidism would seem to have been most powerful in those districts where a pre-Celtic population may naturally be conjectured to have survived in the greatest numbers, namely, in the west of Gaul, in the west of Britain, and in Ireland. That could not, however, afford an adequate foundation for the sweeping generalizations often made with regard to the Celts of the present day, that, as compared with nations of the Teutonic stock, they are naturally and essentially superstitious and fanatic, only fit to be ridden by priest or preacher, even where the parson has just been thrown off. Such a belief may prove as unfounded as another lately shattered, namely, that our Celts were incapable of advance in their political ideas; for it has come to this, that they are now hated of Jute and Saxon for entertaining views which Jute and Saxon, rightly or wrongly, hold to be too advanced. In matters of religion and dogma, a Celt can undoubtedly go, for better or for worse, as far as a Teuton: witness the case of the ancient Brythonic heresiarch, Morien,[1]
- ↑ The Welsh account of Morien as a heretic will be found in the Iolo MSS. pp. 42-3, 420-1. The oldest attested form of the name Morien is Morgen, which must have meant Sea-born or Offspring of the Sea, whence he was called Pelagius; but Morgen is not to be confused with the modern name Morgan, the old form of which was Morcant, though the error has the sanction of the translators of the Book of Common Prayer, who have made the 'Pelagians' of Article IX. into Morganiaid, or 'Morgans.'
