The presumption may of course be removed by evidence to the contrary; but, until such evidence is produced it has weight, and constitutes an argument, the force of which is considerable.
In the present instance the presumption raised is met by no argument of any great weight; while on the other hand it receives important confirmation from several different quarters.

It is said, indeed, that as all, or almost all, the other nations of these parts were confessedly Arians (e.g.the Bactrians, the Sogdians, the Chorasmians, the Margians, the Arians of Herat, the Sagartians, the Sarangians, and the Hyrcanians), it would be strange if the Parthians belonged to a wholly different ethnic family.

But, in the first place, the existence of isolated nationalities, detached fragments of some greater ethnic mass, embodied amid alien material, is a fact familiar to ethnologists; and, further, it is not at all certain that there were not other Turanian races in these parts, as, for instance, the Thamanasans.

Again, it is said that the Parthians show their Arian extraction by their names; but this argument may be turned against those who adduce it.

It is true that among the Parthian names a considerable number are not only Arian, but distinctly Persian--e.g., Mith-ridates, Tiridates, Artabanus, Orobazus, Rhodaspes--but the bulk of the names have an entirely different character.