The most remarkable perhaps of the sepulchral discoveries that illustrate this period appears to show that old persisted along with new. Hard by the family circles of the Aylesford cemetery, Dr. Arthur Evans opened three cists, each containing a contracted skeleton, the upper slab of one being pierced with a hole which may perhaps have been intended to let the ghost escape;[1226] while almost side by side with elegant Late Celtic vases he picked up fragments of the old-fashioned finger-dented ware, including a drinking-cup and a cinerary urn.[1227]
It would be interesting to learn whether any Celtic prophet, like the great preachers of India and Palestine, taught that mercy is better than sacrifice. If we may trust Diogenes Laertius,[1228] the Druids bade their disciples not only to fear the gods, but to do no wrong and to quit themselves like men. At all events the study of Celtic religion is inseparable from that of Druidism.
Where did Druidism originate? Caesar, in a well-known passage, remarks that it was believed to have arisen in Britain and to have been imported thence into Gaul;[1229] and some scholars accept this tradition as literally true. The earliest extant mention of Druids[1230] was made about the commencement of the second century before Christ,--not long after the Belgic conquest of Britain began; and it has been supposed that the conquerors found Druidism flourishing there, and made it known in the land from which they had set out. But the Belgae were not the first Celtic conquerors of Britain; and it is reasonable to suppose that if Druidism was of British origin, it would have been imported into Gaul long before. The common view is that on both sides of the Channel it originated among the neolithic population; and Caesar’s words are sometimes explained in the sense that in his time it was more vigorous in Britain than in Gaul, and that Gallic Druids therefore travelled to Britain in order to be initiated into its mysteries. At all events it is not unreasonable to believe that the Celts learned it from some non-Aryan people; for there is nothing to show that the Gauls whom the Romans first encountered had ever heard of it. The Germans, with whom the Celts were long in contact in Central Europe and to whom they were ethnically akin, had no Druids;[1231] and although it may be true that the intense devotion to religious observances which Caesar remarked among the mixed population of Gaul[1232] did not exceed that of other barbarians,[1233] it appeared to him to contrast sharply with the temper of the peoples beyond the Rhine.[1234] This spirit led them to connect religion with every act of life: in the chase,[1235] in all the operations of war, after victory or defeat, before undertaking an expedition, in selecting the site of a town, the gods were regularly invoked:[1236] there was no distinction between the sacred and the profane; or rather, nothing was profane. The contrast which Caesar observed supports the theory of the non-Aryan origin of Druidism.