-suo-; Sanscrit -nah-, Latin -neo-, Greek --netho--, are alike
in all Indo-Germanic languages. This cannot, however, be equally
affirmed of the higher art of weaving.(5) The knowledge of the
use of fire in preparing food, and of salt for seasoning it, is a
primeval heritage of the Indo-Germanic nations; and the same may
be affirmed regarding the knowledge of the earliest metals employed
as implements or ornaments by man. At least the names of copper
(-aes-) and silver (-argentum-), perhaps also of gold, are met with
in Sanscrit, and these names can scarcely have originated before
man had learned to separate and to utilize the ores; the Sanscrit
-asis-, Latin -ensis-, points in fact to the primeval use of metallic
weapons.

No less do we find extending back into those times the fundamental
ideas on which the development of all Indo-Germanic states ultimately
rests; the relative position of husband and wife, the arrangement
in clans, the priesthood of the father of the household and the
absence of a special sacerdotal class as well as of all distinctions
of caste in general, slavery as a legitimate institution, the days
of publicly dispensing justice at the new and full moon. On the
other hand the positive organization of the body politic, the decision
of the questions between regal sovereignty and the sovereignty of
the community, between the hereditary privilege of royal and noble
houses and the unconditional legal equality of the citizens, belong
altogether to a later age.

Even the elements of science and religion show traces of a community
of origin. The numbers are the same up to one hundred (Sanscrit
-satam-, -ekasatam-, Latin -centum-, Greek --e-katon--, Gothic
-hund-); and the moon receives her name in all languages from the