xiii. 235), and the classical epic of the Ceropes, "founded

on the transformation of a set of jugglers into monkeys." But if compared with the above tradition, I think that the only two instances (Tylor, i. 341) which seem to bear out the opposite theory will wear a different aspect. I quote from Tylor as above--"Wild tribes of the Malay peninsula, looked down upon as lower animals by the more warlike and civilised Malays, have among them traditions of their own descent from _a pair_ of the "unka-putch" or _white_ monkeys, who reared their young ones _and sent them into the plains_, and there they perfected so well that they and their descendants became men, but those _who returned to the mountains_ still remained apes. The Buddhist legend relates the origin of the flat-nosed uncouth tribes of Tibet, offspring of _two miraculous apes_, transformed to _people_ the snow-kingdom. Taught to till the ground, when they had grown corn and eaten it, their tails and hair gradually disappeared, they began to speak, became men, and clothed themselves with leaves. The population grew closer, the land was more and more cultivated, and at last a prince of the race of Sakya, driven from his home in India, _united their isolated tribes_ into a single kingdom."--Comp. Cecrops, &c., p. 332, _infra_.

Now, just as the tribes who said they were created "under the ground" implied the same tradition as those who said they were created _out of_ the ground, so, too, the tribes who said they were created "under the water" probably held the tradition that the creation of the race preceded the Deluge.

The tradition which connects the creation with "the rocky caverns of the mountains" is more recondite--may it possibly be a recollection of the commencement of civil life after the Deluge, when Noah led them, according to tradition, from the mountains to the plains?

M. L'Abbé Gainet says (i. 176)--"The Lord repeated four times the promise that He would not send another deluge.... The children of Noah were long scared by the recollection of the dreadful calamity.... It is probable that they did not decide upon leaving the 'plateaux' of the mountains till quite late. Moreover, caverns have been found in the mountains of the Himalaya, and in many other elevated regions of Asia, which they suppose to have been formed by the first generations of man after the Deluge. The works of the learned M. de Paravey make frequent mention of them." This tradition is supported by the lines of Virgil referring to Saturn (_vide infra_, p. 210).

"Is genus indocile, ac dispersum _montibus altis_ Composuit; legesque dedit."--_Æn._ viii. 315.

I give these suggestions for what they may be worth.[115] Truly, where some see nothing but harmony, others see nothing but diversity. Only to put it to a fair test, I should like to see Mr Catlin or some one else group these various traditions round any one tradition which they believe to be at variance with the revelation of Genesis, and which, at the same time, they happen to consider to be the true one. It must be conceded that in one way the facts accord with Mr Catlin's theory--contradicted, however, by other evidence (_infra_, ch. xi.)--that the Indians were created on the American continent. But upon any theory that they were not created at all, but existed always in pantheistic transformation, or had progressed from the monkey, or had been developed in evolution from some protoplasm, is not the tradition incongruous and inexplicable?

[115] It occurs to me as possible that these various traditions may have had their foundation in the recollection of hardship, at some early period of their subsequent migration, which were transferred back and connected with their tradition of the altered state of things after the Deluge, arising out of the substitution of animal for vegetable food--of which the notion that man once lived on acorns may have been only an extreme form of expression. The following tradition of Saturn (_vide infra_, Saturn, p. 210), seems to tend in this direction: "Diodorus Siculus gives the same history of Saturn as is by Plutarch above given of Janus--[Greek: ex agriou diaitês eis êmeron Bion metarêsa anthrôpous].--Diodorus, 1. 5, p. 334. He brought mankind from their foul and savage way of _feeding_ to a more mild and rational _diet_."--Bryant, ii. 261.

To take another instance. The Hindoos had a fanciful notion that the world was supported by an elephant, and the elephant by a tortoise. Nothing can be imagined more incongruous and grotesque. Yet Dr Falconer has recently discovered, in his explorations in India, a fossil tortoise adequate to the support of an elephant. The incongruity then of the tradition disappears; its grotesqueness remains. I cannot help thinking, however, that it may have been the embodiment in symbol, or else the systematisation of the confused medley of their tradition of the order, _i.e. of the sequence of days of the creation_ (_vide_ Appendix to this chapter).[116]

[116] This fable of the tortoise is also among the Mandans, whom, Catlin (_supra_, 135) says, had no other tradition of the Creation than that they were created under the ground. Their tradition is confused with the Deluge, which dominates in their tradition.

"The Mandans believed that the earth rests on four tortoises. They say that "each tortoise rained ten days, making forty days in all, and the waters covered the earth" (_vide_ "O-kea-pa," p. 39, _infra_, ch. xi.) Does not this tradition of the tortoise decide the _Oriental_ origin of the North American Mandans?

Falconer's "Palæontological Mem.," 1868, i. 297, ii. 377-573, &c., "As the pterodactyle more than realised the most extravagant idea of the winged dragon, so does this huge tortoise come up to the lofty conceptions of Hindoo mythology; and could we but recall the monsters to life, it were not difficult to imagine an elephant supported on its back"(i. 27).

The New Zealanders have a curious tradition of their ancestors having encountered a gigantic saurian species of reptile, which must have been before they arrived in New Zealand. _Vide_ Shortland's "Traditions of the New Zealanders," p. 73.

I have alluded, p. 199, to the tradition preserved by Berosus, that Oannes, whom I identify with Noah, left writings upon the origin of the world, in which he says, "that there was a time when all was darkness and water, and that this darkness and water contained _monstrous animals_." Here, perhaps, two distinct traditions are confused; but is not the tradition of animals so much out of the ordinary nature of things as to be called monstrous sufficiently marked to make us ask if the discovery of the skeleton of the "megatherium" ought to have come upon the scientific world as a surprise? Might they not have anticipated the discovery if they had duly trusted tradition?

Other instances might doubtless be adduced. My present object is merely to suggest that there may be truths in tradition not dreamt of by modern philosophy. If the human intellect were as capacious as it is acute, we might then listen with greater submission to its strictures upon tradition; because then we might at least believe that its vision extended to all the facts. But in truth, no intellect, however encyclopædic, can grasp them all. Indeed, knowledge in many departments is becoming more and more the tradition of experts, and must be taken by the outside world on faith. How many facts, again, once in tradition, but at some period put on record, lie as deeply shrouded in the dust of libraries as they had previously lain hidden in the depths of ages? Who will say what facts are traditional in different localities? Barely do we move from place to place without eliciting some information strange and new. Who again will say what ideas are traditional in different minds? Barely is there a discussion which provokes traditional lore or traditional sentiment which does not bring to light some such thought or experience, re-appearing, like the lines in family feature, after the lapse of several generations.

Whenever, then, mankind is called upon to discard its traditions at the voice of any intellect, however powerful, is it unreasonable to demand that some cognizance should be taken of these facts.[117]

[117] I have elsewhere (_vide_ ch. iv., _et seq._, x., xi.) traced the tradition of the Deluge, of the chronology of the world, &c., &c.

Let us now, returning to the tradition we have more especially in view, ask this further question,--What could the human intellect have done towards the regeneration of the race if there had been no revelation and no tradition?

It is not often that unbelief is constructive and supplies us with the necessary data with which to furnish the answer. But recently a work which is said to embody considerable learning has appeared, entitled, "The Origin and Development of Religious Belief," which is written "from a philosophic and not from a religious point of view;" in which "the existence of a God is not assumed, the truth of revelation is not assumed," and "the Bible is quoted not as an authoritative, but as an historical record open to criticism."--Mr Baring Gould, "Origin and Development of Religious Belief," preface, 1869.

Here then, if anywhere, we are likely to get the solution from the point of view of unbelief.

At p. 119, Mr B. Gould thus summarises his views:--

"Religion, as has been already shown, is the synthesis of thought and sentiment. It is the representation of a philosophic idea. It always reposes on some hypothesis. At first it is full of vigour, constantly on the alert to win converts. Then the hypothesis is acquiesced in, it is received as final, its significance evaporates. The priests of ancient times were also philosophers, but not being able always to preserve their intellectual superiority, their doctrines became void of meaning, hieroglyphs of which they had lost the key; and then speculation ate its way out of religion, and left it an empty shell of ritual observance, void of vital principle. Philosophy alone is not religion, nor is sentiment alone religion; but religion is that which, based on an intelligent principle, teaches that principle as dogma, exhibits it in worship, and applies it in discipline. Dogma worship and discipline are the constituents, so to speak, the mind spirit, and body of religion."--"_Origin and Development of Religious Belief._" By S. Baring Gould, M.A. Rivingtons, 1869. Part i., p. 119.

Here it is said that "religion is the representative of a philosophic idea. It always reposes on some hypothesis." This philosophic idea may be that there must necessarily be a Creator. But also it may not be, for "the existence of God is not assumed" (_vide_ preface). If it is not, then, according to this definition, religion may be the representative of any philosophic idea (_i.e._ any idea of any philosopher), even that which may be diametrically opposed to the existence and goodness of God.[118] But if, on the other hand, the existence of God is this primary philosophic idea, then all other philosophic ideas must succumb to it. It is a point which you must settle at starting in your definition of religion.

[118] Devil-worship is based upon the hypothesis that the evil spirit exists, and is the influence from which man has most to dread. Prudence suggests that it is wise to propitiate evil when it is powerful; and if "the existence of God is not assumed," or the conception of God not yet developed, it is hard to see how the conclusion can be impugned; and (_vide_ next page) Mr Baring Gould endorses Grimm's opinion that man's first "idea of God is the idea of a _devil_."

What follows seems to assume that some individual, or some set of individuals, at a period more or less remote, evolved the idea of God and religion out of their own consciousness; but that, as the descendants of these individuals had not the same intellectual vigour, the conception lapsed,--"their doctrines became hieroglyphs of which they had lost the key." Nothing can be more conformable to the theory of tradition;[119] but from the point of view of Mr Baring Gould, what was to forbid other individuals broaching fresh conceptions? Is there, however, any instance known to us? Is there any instance of a religion not eclectic or pantheistic (the one being the mere revivalism or reconstruction of the elements of former beliefs, and the other their absorption), any religion "based on an intelligible principle," heretofore unknown to mankind, rising up and obtaining even a temporary ascendancy among mankind? No; mankind, even in the darkness of Paganism, persistently distinguished between religion and philosophy, priests and sophists--though intellectually so much alike--and this I consider to be a master-key to the history of the past (_ante_, p. 109).

[119] The most favourable review of Mr B. Gould's work which I have seen says:--"In tracing the origin and development of religious belief, the object of Mr Baring Gould is to establish the foundation of _Christian_ doctrine on the nature, the intuitions, and the reason of man, _rather than upon traditionary dogmas_, historical documents, or written inspirations. He is of opinion that the elements of true religion are to be found in a revelation naturally impressed upon the soul of man, and that the investigation of man's moral nature will be found to disclose the surest proofs of his religious wants and destination. The author holds that if theological doctrines can be inculcated by demonstrative evidence of their harmony with man's intellectual and moral constitution, they will be received with more perfect acquiescence and conviction than when appeals are made simply to man's veneration for antiquity and authority." I think I am, at any rate, right in taking Mr B. G.'s as the view most directly opposed to tradition, and it is from this point of view that I am brought into collision with him.

There is a further point which Mr Baring Gould must settle. Religion may be theoretically regarded as an affair of growth, progressive, or as an affair of revelation, or something so nearly counterfeiting revelation as to arise spontaneously; but it cannot well be both. Now, in the pages of Mr Baring Gould it appears at one time "springing into life" (p. 109), and, as in the passage above, analogously to a conception in the mind:--"_At first_ it is full of vigour, constantly on the alert to win converts;" at another, "as a conception slowly evolved;" then all at once "a living belief, vividly luminous" (p. 109). Again (p. 110), "Religion does not reach perfection of development at a bound; generations pass away, before," &c.; and (p. 329) we find that in all _primitive_ religions the idea of God is the idea of a _devil_, or (_id._) "that the first stage in the conception of a devil is the attribution of evil to God," which is different, inasmuch as it supposes man to start with the knowledge of God, and is, moreover, inconsistent with what is said at page 113:--"The shapeless religion of a primitive people gradually assumes a definite form. It is that of _nature_ worship. It progresses through polytheism and idolatry, and emerges into monotheism or pantheism." Of course this is said upon _the assumption_ that the primitive man was barbarous. But however remote from the fact, it is theoretically as conceivable that man should worship nature as an ideal of beauty and power, as that he should regard it from the first as an apparition of terror; or, in other words, that taking nature-worship for granted, Mr Max Müller's view of it, viz.:--"He begins to lift up his eyes, he stares at the tent of heaven, and asks who supports it? He opens his eyes to the winds, and asks them whence and whither? He is awakened from darkness and slumber by the light of the sun, and Him whom his eyes cannot behold, and who seems to grant him the daily pittance of his existence, he calls 'his life, his breath, his brilliant Lord and Protector'" (Chips, i. 69, _apud_ B. G., 139),--is as likely to be the true one as Mr Baring Gould's,[120] viz.:--"At first man is ... antitheist; but presently he feels resistances.... The convulsions of nature, the storm, the thunder, the exploding volcano, the raging seas, fill him with a sense of there being a power superior to his own, before which he must bow. His religious thought, vague and undetermined, is roused by the opposition of nature to his will" (p. 137).

[120] _Vide_, however, Dr Newman's "Grammar of Assent," p. 386, _et seq._

Mr Baring Gould postulates, I am aware, the lapse of several generations for the evolution of these ideas. But there is nothing in Mr Baring Gould's statement of the progression or development of the conception of the Deity among mankind which might not pass in rapid sequence through the mind of the primitive man,--call him "Areios," if you shrink from close contact with history, and refuse to call him Adam. Why then the indefinite lapse of time? why the progressive advance of the idea through successive generations of mankind? Why, except that the primitive barbarism _must_ be assumed; and because (p. 239), "in the examination of the springs of religious thought, we have to return again and again to the wild bog of savageism in which they bubble up." But if the savagery was so great, the perplexity how man ever came to make the first step in the induction is much greater than that, having made it, he should proceed on to make the last.

It is certain that reason can prove the existence of God and His goodness, and this knowledge evokes the instincts of love and worship. It is true also that man has a conscience of right and wrong, and that among its dictates is a sense of the obligation of love and worship. Still this will not account for the existence of religion in the world. Much less will Mr Baring Gould's theory of an induction by mankind collectively, spread over several centuries, account either for the notion or for the institution.

Neither, apart from direct or indirect revelation, would it prove more than that man was religious, though without religion; capable of arriving at the knowledge of God's existence, but without any knowledge how to propitiate him; seeking God, but not able to find Him.

Therefore, Mr Baring Gould truly says--"Philosophy alone is not religion." Philosophy, as we have seen, may prove the existence of God. But religion, from the commencement of the world, has conveyed the idea that there is a particular mode in which God must be worshipped. Here philosophy is entirely at fault. Mr Baring Gould again truly says that "dogma, worship, and discipline are the constituents, so to speak, the mind, spirit, and body of religion" (p. 119). But he goes no further, and does not explain how it came about that mankind in all ages have adhered with singular pertinacity to the notion that religion could teach that on which philosophy must perforce be silent. Has not the greater intellect ever been on the side of philosophy? Nay,[121] in the epochs in which intellectual superiority was undeniably on the side of philosophy, did the populace go to the academy or to the oracles? If the human intellect had originally framed the ritualistic observances, which bore so strange a resemblance in different parts of the world; if human sagacity had originated the idea of sacrifice (and wherefore sacrifice from the point of view of human sagacity?); if philosophy had revealed to them the religious conceptions which they retained, and had been able to define the relation of man to the Divinity--would not mankind, in all ages, have had recourse to its greatest intellects for the solution of its doubts, rather than to the guardians of an obscure and corrupt tradition? The question no doubt is complicated with the evidence as to demonolatry; but the extent to which this prevailed only enforces the argument against Mr Baring Gould, to whom, apparently, the demon (p. 135) is not a real existence, but only the embodiment of a phase of thought, and must seriously embarrass those who attribute the regeneration of man from savagery to intellectual growth and natural progress.

[121]

"The lively Grecian, in a land of hills, Rivers, and fertile plains, and sounding shores, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In despite Of the gross fictions chanted in the streets By wandering rhapsodists, and in contempt Of doubt and bold denial hourly urged Amid the wrangling schools, a Spirit hung, Beautiful region! o'er thy towns and farms, Statues and temples, and memorial tombs; And emanations were perceived, and acts Of immortality, in nature's course, Exemplified by mysteries that were felt As bonds, _on grave philosopher imposed_, And armed warrior; and in every grove A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed, When piety more awful had relaxed." --WORDSWORTH, _Excursion_, B. iv.

But demonology apart, what would have countervailed against the superiority of reason and the intellectual prestige of the world except a belief in a tradition of primitive revelation? What else will account for the different recognitions of philosophy and religion--priests and sophists? What else would have prevented mankind from resorting in their difficulties to where the greatest intellect was found?

At page 134, this truth seems to gain partial recognition in the pages of Mr Baring Gould:--

"In conclusion, it seems certain that for man's spiritual well-being, these forces ('the tendency to crystallise, and the tendency to dissolve') need co-ordination. Under an infallible guide, regulating every moral and theological item of his spiritual being, his mental faculties are given him that they may be atrophied, like the eyes of the oyster, which, being useless in the sludge of its bed, are re-absorbed. Under a perpetual modification of religious belief, his convictions become weak and watery, without force, and destitute of purpose. In the barren wilderness of Sinai there are here and there green and pleasant oases. How come they there? By basaltic dykes arresting the rapid drainage which leaves the major part of that land bald and waste. So in the region of religion, _revelations and theocratic systems have been the dykes saving it_ from barrenness, and encouraging mental and sentimental fertility" (p. 134).

It is impossible that we should quarrel with this illustration, it is so exactly to our point. Is it not another way of affirming the position which I maintain against Sir John Lubbock? (ch. xii.) May not we, too, take our stand upon these "oases" of tradition, which "revelations" and "theocratic systems" have formed, and ask what the human intellect has been able to achieve for the spiritual cravings of man in the waste around?

Mr Baring Gould, indeed, says (p. 61):--

"A power of free volition within or outside all matter in motion was a rational solution to the problems of effects of which man could not account himself the cause. Such is the origin of the idea of God--of God _whether many_, inhabiting each brook and plant, and breeze and planet, _or as_ being a world-soul, _or as_ a supreme cause, the Creator and sustainer of the universe. The common consent of mankind has been adduced as a proof of a tradition of a revelation in past times; but the fact that most races of men believe in one or more deities proves nothing more than that all men have drawn the same inference from the same premises. It is idle to speak of a 'Sensus Numinis' as existing as a primary conviction in man, when the conception may be reduced to more rudimentary ideas. The revelation is in man's being, in his conviction of the truth of the principle of causation, and thus it is a revelation made to every rational being."

Grant that it is so, there is nothing here which militates against our position, which is this,--not certainly that there is not a revelation of God in man's being, made to every rational creature, but that there has been an express revelation superadded to it; and that it is not true that "the common consent of mankind to the existence of God has been adduced as a proof of a tradition of a revelation in past times," but that the mode and manner of the consent attests the fact of tradition and the fact of revelation. But what have we just heard? That there is a revelation of God's existence in man's nature, _i.e._ in _each_ man's nature--"it is a revelation made to every man's nature." Then the indefinite lapse of time demanded for the evolution of the ideas, which we have just been combating, is not after all necessary. "_Habemus reum confitentum._"

But inasmuch as the consent of mankind is only "to one or more deities," it is only so far a testimony to the existence of God as it is shown that polytheism arose out of the corruption of this belief; and, moreover, by no means proves "that all men have drawn the same inference from the same premises," even if it were possible to reconcile this statement with what is said at page 113--"The shapeless religion of a primitive people gradually assumes a definite form. It is that of nature-worship. _It progresses through_ polytheism and idolatry, _and emerges into_ monotheism or pantheism" (_vide infra_).

At this point I should wish to put in the accumulation of evidence which L'Abbe Gainet has collected to prove that monotheism was the primitive belief.[122] When this evidence is dispersed, it will be time enough to return to the subject.

[122] "Monotheisme des Peuples Primitifs," in vol. iii. of "La Bible sans la Bible."

In any case, we may fall back upon the following testimony in Mr Baring Gould:--

"It is the glory of the Semitic race to have given to the world, in a compact and luminous form, that monotheism which the philosophers of Greece and Rome only vaguely apprehended, and which has become the heritage of the Christian and Mohammedan alike. Of the Semitic race, however, one small branch, Jewdom, preserved and communicated the idea. Every other branch of that race _sank into_ polytheism (_vide supra_).... It is at first sight inexplicable that Jewish monotheism, which was in time to exercise such a prodigious influence over men's minds, should have so long remained the peculiar property of an insignificant people. But every religious idea has its season, and the thoughts of men have their avatars.... It was apparently necessary that mankind should be given full scope for unfettered development, that they should feel in all directions after God, if haply they might find Him, in _order that_ the foundations of _inductive philosophy might be laid_, that the religious idea might run itself out through polytheistic channels _for the development of art_. Certainly Jewish monotheism remained in a state of congelation till the religious thought of antiquity _had exhausted its own vitality_, and _had worked out every other problem of theodicy_; then suddenly thawing, it poured over the world its fertilising streams" (p. 259).[123]

[123] Mr B. Gould also says, p. 104--"The Semitic divine names bear _indelibly on their front the stamp of their origin_, and the language itself testifies against the insulation and abstraction of these names from polytheism. The Aryan's tongue bore no such testimony to him. The spirit of his language _led him away from monotheism_, whilst that of the Shemite was an ever-present monitor, directing him to a God, sole and undivided. 'The glory of the Semitic race is this,' says M. Renan, 'that from _its earliest days_ it grasped that notion of the Deity which all other people have had to adopt from its example, and on the faith of its declaration.'"

From all this it results that, so far as the testimony of the Semitic race is concerned (which, by the by, a concurrence of tradition points to as the oldest), the human race did not "emerge into monotheism," but "sank into polytheism;" that monotheism was their belief from "their earliest days," and their language bearing testimony to the same, shows also that it was primitively so. It moreover results, that although mankind may have been allowed to sink into polytheism, as a warning or a chastisement, it certainly could not have been "in order that the foundations of inductive philosophy might be laid;" for it is quite apparent from this extract that the induction was _never made_ that man did _not_ "emerge into monotheism;" but that having "_exhausted its vitality_," and "worked out every problem of theodicy" in the way of corruption, it _received_ monotheism back again from the only people who had preserved it intact.

At any rate, monotheism came to it _ab extra_, and before polytheism had attained the "full scope of that development" which was necessary for the perfection of art!

But Mr Baring Gould having a perception that this admission (although he has not apparently seen its full significance) is fatal to his theory, hastens to unsay it at page 261, "Whence did the Jews derive their monotheism? Monotheism is _not_ a feature of any primitive religion; but that which is a feature of secondary religions is the appropriation to a tribe of a particular god, which that tribe exalts above all other gods." In support of this view, Mr Baring Gould quotes certain texts of Scripture--Isa. xxxvi. 19, 20 (_i.e._ words spoken by Rabsaces the Assyrian), and Jos. xxiv. 15, "But if it seem evil to you to serve _the Lord_, you have your choice: choose this day that which pleaseth you, whom you would rather serve, whether the gods which your fathers served in Mesopotamia [query, an allusion to the idolatry in the patriarchal households? Gen. xxxv. 2, "the gods" being of the same kind with "the gods of the Amorites"], or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve _the Lord_." One would have thought this text too plain to be cavilled at. Is not _the Lord_ whom Josue invokes _the same Lord_ who (Gen. i. 1) "in the beginning created heaven and earth," and who said to Noah (Gen. vi. 7), "I will destroy _man whom I have created_, from the face of the earth;" and who (Exod. iii. 2) appeared to Moses in a flame of fire in the bush which was not consumed; and to whom Moses said, "Lo, I shall go to the children of Israel, and say to them, _The God of your fathers_ hath sent me to you; if they should say to me, What is His name? what shall I say to them? (ver. 14), God said to Moses, _I am who am_: He said thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, _He who is_ hath sent me to you." When or where has monotheism been more explicitly declared? Is there any phrase which the human mind could invent in which it could be more adequately defined? And when God speaks as "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," is it not as if He would say, I am not only the God who speaks to the individual heart, but who is _also traditionally_ known to you all collectively through my manifestations and revelations to your forefathers? Compare Matt. xxii. 32.

_Inter alia_, Mr B. Gould also instances such unmistakable orientalisms as "'Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord,' says David, and he exalts Jehovah above the others as a 'King above all gods.'" Where, then, may we ask, is the monotheism, "the glory of the Semitic race," to be found, if not in the time of David?

The proof which follows is more clinching still--

"Jacob seems to have made a sort of bargain with Jehovah that he would serve Him instead of other gods, on condition that He took care of him during his exile from home. The _next_ stage in popular Jewish theology was a denial of the power of the Gentile gods, and the treatment of them as idols. Tradition and history point to Abraham as the first on whom the idea of the impotence of the deities of his father's house first broke. He is said to have smashed the images in Nahor's oratory, and to have put a hammer into the hands of one idol which he left standing, as a sign to Nahor that that one had destroyed all the rest."

Unfortunately for this view--according to the only authentic narrative we have of the facts, Gen. xii.--Abraham must have preceded Jacob by at least two generations!

I think that, after this, we may fairly ask Mr Baring Gould, who is learned in medieval myths, to trace for us more distinctly the notion of the chronicler who had a theory that Henry II. lived before Henry I.

With this passage I shall conclude this chapter, merely observing, that if any department of study existed which had for its special object the investigation of tradition,[124] it is simply impossible that a work (clever in many respects) such as that of Mr Baring Gould should ever have been written.

[124] I append, however, the following passage from Mr Baring Gould, as it may be serviceable in tracing tradition, and to which I may have occasion to recur (p. 161):--"Among the American Indians an object of worship, and the centre of a cycle of legend, is Michabo, the great hare or rabbit. From the remotest wilds of the north-west to the coast of the Atlantic, from the southern boundaries of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of Hudson's Bay, the Algonquins are never tired of gathering round the winter fire, and repeating the story of Manibozho or Michabo, the Great Hare. With entire unanimity, their various branches, the Powhatans, &c., ... and the western tribes, perhaps without exception, spoke of this 'chimerical beast,' as one of the old missionaries called it, as their common ancestor (Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 162). Michabo is described as having been four-legged, monstrous, crouching on the face of the primeval waste of waters, with all his court, composed of four-footed creatures, around him. He formed the earth out of a grain of sand taken from the bottom of the ocean. It is strange that such an insignificant creature as a hare should have received this apotheosis, and it has been generally regarded as an instance of the senseless brute-worship of savages. But its prevalence leads the mythologist to suspect that some confusion of words has led to a confusion of ideas, a suspicion which becomes a certainty when the name is analysed, for it is then found to be The Great White One, or Great Light, and to be in reality the sun, a fact of which the modern Indians are utterly unaware."

If Mr Baring Gould finds that the word Michabo also signifies "The Great Light," or "The Great White One," it goes far to identify the worship of the hare with the worship of the sun, more especially when it is noted (_vide_ Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico," i. 103) that the hare was one of the four hieroglyphics of the year among the ancient Mexicans.[A] Animal worship seems here plainly connected with sun-worship. But above and beyond it, do we not here also get a glimpse of more celestial light? "The Great Light" is also "The Great White One." He is described as "crouching on the face of the primeval waste of waters." In these phrases we seem almost to read the text of Gen. i. 3, "And God said, Be light, and light was made;" ver. 2, "Darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved over the waters."

The Indians also say that he "formed the earth out of a grain of sand taken from the bottom of the ocean." Does not this not only embody the tradition that God created the world out of nothing, but also the mode of the creation by the separation of the water from the land: ver. 9, "God also said, Let the waters that are under the heavens be gathered together in one place; and let the dry land appear.... And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called seas."

[A] These hieroglyphics were symbolical of the four elements. Prescott adds--"It is not easy to see the connection between the terms 'rabbit' and 'air,' which lead the respective series." Possibly he may not have been aware of the tradition of the Algonquins as above.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII.

CARDINAL WISEMAN ("Lectures on Science and Religion," ii. 228-232), in speaking of what was characteristic of most Oriental religions--a belief "in the existence of emanated influences intermediate between the divine and earthly natures," is led on to give an account of the curious Gnostic sect, the Nazarians--"The first of these errors was common, perhaps, to other Gnostic sects; but in the Codex Nasaræus we have the two especially distinguished as different beings--light and life. In it the first emanation from God is the king of light; the second, fire; the third, water; the fourth, life." I wish to note that, whether or not their notions as to emanations originally meant more than the act of creation, a tradition as to the successive order of the creation seems clearly embodied in the text. God created first of all light; _then_ the sun (the firmament) is fire (the distinct creation of the light and the sun in Genesis is so marked as to create a special difficulty in the cosmogony); _then_ water; _then_ life, in beasts, birds, reptiles, &c.; lastly, man. Comp. with _supra_, p. 138, and with the above legend of Michabo.

"A SLAVONIAN ACCOUNT OF CREATION.--The current issue of the Literary Society of Prague includes a volume of popular tales collected in all the Slavonian countries, and translated by M. Erben into Czech. We extract the shortest--'_In the beginning there was only God, and He lay asleep and dreamed._ At last it was time for Him to wake and look at the world. Wherever He looked through the sky, a star came out. He wondered what it was, and got up and began to walk. At last He came to our earth; He was very tired; the sweat ran down His forehead, and a drop fell on the ground. We are all made of this drop, and that is why we are the sons of God. Man was not made for pleasure; he was born of the sweat of God's face, and now he must live by the sweat of his own: that is why men have no rest.'"--_The Academy_, Feb. 12, 1870.

I wish also to examine, in greater detail than I should have had space for in a note, how far the case of the Samoyeds bears out Mr Baring Gould's theory of the development of idolatry from its grosser to its more refined manifestations, or of the progress of the human race from barbarism to the light of religion and of civilisation.

Mr Baring Gould says, p. 136--

"'When a Schaman is aware that I have no household god,' said a Samoyed to M. Castren, the linguist, 'he comes to me, and I give him a squirrel, or an ermine skin.' This skin he brings back moulded 'into a human shape.' ... 'This Los is a fetish; it is not altogether an idol; it is a spirit entangled in a material object. What that object is matters little; a stump of a tree, a stone, a rag, or an animal, serves the purpose of condensing the impalpable deity into a tangible reality.' Through this coarse superstition glimmers an intelligent conception. It is that of an all-pervading Deity, who is focussed, so to speak, in the fetish. This deity is called Num. 'I have heard some Samoyeds declare that the earth, the sea--all nature, in short--are Num.' 'Where is Num? asked Castren of a Samoyed, and the man pointed to the blue sea: but an old woman told him that the sun was Num. The Siethas, worshipped by the Lapps, had no certain figure or shape formed by nature or art; they were either trees or rough stones, much _worn by water_. Tomæus says they were often mere tree stumps with the roots upwards."[125]

[125] Is not "Num" cognate to "Numen?" and their worship of trees and worn stones worship of memorials of the Deluge? Compare Boulanger, _infra_, ch. xi., and on the regard for boulders in India (_vide_ Gainet, vol. i.) Bryant ("Mythology," iii. 532) says, speaking of the Egyptians--"I have mentioned that they showed a reverential regard to fragments of rock which were particularly uncouth and horrid; and this practice seems to have prevailed in _many other countries_." Probably for the same reason the Lapps worshipped their lakes and rivers, as is known from the names annexed to them--"Ailekes Jauvre," that is, sacred lake, &c. _Vide_ Pinkerton, i. 468. (Leems.)

It is curious to contrast this recent account of the Samoides with an account, apparently well informed and discriminating, in 1762. Pinkerton, i. 522--"The religion of the Samoides is very simple.... They _admit the existence of a Supreme Being_, Creator of all things, eminently good and beneficent; a quality which, according to their mode of thinking, dispenses them from any adoration of Him, or addressing their prayers to Him, because they suppose this Being takes no interest in mundane affairs; and consequently, does not exact nor need the worship of man. They join to this idea that of a being eternal and invisible, very powerful, though subordinate to the first, and disposed to evil. It is to this being that they ascribe all the misfortunes which befall them in this life. Nevertheless, they do not worship, although much in fear of him. If they place any reliance in the counsels of Koedesnicks or Tadebes (the 'Schamans' referred to above), it is only on account of the connection which they esteem these people to have with this evil being; otherwise they submit themselves with perfect apathy to all the misfortunes which can befall them." "The sun and moon, as well, hold the place of subaltern deities. It is by their intervention, they imagine, that the Supreme Being dispenses His favours; but they worship them as little as the idols or fitches (fetishes) which they carry about them according to the recommendation of their Koedesnicks." Without pursuing the investigation further, it seems plain that the Samoides, from being (at least) Deists in the last century (Dr Hooker, "Himalayan Journal," gives a similar account of the Lepchas), have lapsed, apparently through sun-worship, to a state of Pantheism, if not Fetishism.

Of the Tongusy, a people who, if not kin to the Samoides, have an analogous worship--("They are altogether unacquainted with any kind of literature, and worship the sun and moon. They have many Shamans among them, who differ little from those I formerly described."--Bell's "Travels in Asia, Siberia")--Bell, travelling in Siberia, 1720, says--"Although I have observed that the Tongusy in general worship the sun and moon, there _are many exceptions_ to this observation. I have found intelligent people among them who believed there was a Being superior to both sun and moon, and who _created them and all the world_." If, then, we may connect the Tongusy with the Samoides, it would appear that whereas Mr Baring Gould (_i.e._, Castren) finds the latter sunk in Fetishism, they were, the one in 1762, the other in 1720, the worshippers of the sun and moon, joined with the knowledge and tradition of the true God still subsisting amongst them.

F. Schlegel ("Phil. of History," p. 138) says--"The Greeks, who described India in the time of Alexander the Great, divided the Indian religious sects into Brachmans and _Samaneans_.... But by the Greek denomination of _Samaneans_ we must certainly understand the Buddhists, as among the _rude nations of Central Asia_, as in other countries, the priests of the religion of Fo bear _at this day_ the name of _Schamans_." Compare Professor Rawlinson, "Ancient Monarchies," i. 139, 172. (_Vide infra_, p. 163, 164, 205.)