CHAPTER XIII.

_NOAH AND THE GOLDEN AGE._

Taking as the basis of this theory that the law of nations forms part of a tradition, that the stream of this tradition has never ceased to flow, and that the diffusion of its waters has ever been the source and condition of fecundity; and further, that this tradition in its main current has run in the channels which Dr Newman (_infra_, p. 338) has indicated--for although there are other reservoirs, they have become stagnant, and exist like the fresh-water lake, the Bahr-i-Nedjig (_vide_ Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," i. 18), whose waters are "fresh and sweet" so long as they communicate with the Euphrates, but when they are cut off become "unpalatable," so that those "who dwell in the vicinity are no longer able to drink of it"--taking these various facts as the basis, we come inevitably to the question--Whence this tradition arose, and upon what authority and sanction it rests?

In answer to this I do not hesitate to affirm that presumptively it goes back to the commencement of human history, and more demonstrably to that commencement--which for historical and practical purposes is sufficient--the era of Noah.

I propose now to inquire how near this theory can be brought to the facts.

A fairer opportunity could hardly have been afforded for ascertaining the force and fulness of primitive tradition than the discovery of the American continent; yet this opportunity was totally disregarded by the Spanish conquerors,[266]--rough men, and for the most part the offscourings of Spain,--and its evidences were but sparsely and negligently collected by the explorers of a different character who followed at a later date.

[266] The works of Garcilasso de la Vega, Valera, P. de Cieza, and De Sahagun must be excepted. As an instance of the neglect which we have reason to regret, the former gives an account of one only (the Raymi) of the four annual festivals of the Peruvians.--Hakluyt Soc. ed. ii. 155. He gives the name, however, of another--namely, the _Si_tua.

Something, however, of primitive tradition has been thus preserved (_vide_ Help's "Spanish Conquest of America," i. 278, 286, 290; Prescott, "Mexico," i. 54). Indeed, the approximation to the biblical narrative is so close that the suspicion would be quite reasonable that missionaries of whom we have no record had found their way to these people before the continent became known to us; or that the people themselves were of Jewish descent; or that they had left the Asiatic mainland subsequently to the preaching of St Thomas the apostle. Manco Capac (_vide infra_), according to this conjecture, may have been one of these missionaries; or it may even be that in the venerable image which the description calls up we see in vision the apostle himself.

When, however, the description is compared with the traditions I have collated of a patriarchal character--still more remote and venerable, "Him of mazy counsel--Saturn" (Hesiod), I shall ask the reader to decide whether the more improbable conjecture, measured according to time and distance, has not the greater weight of evidence.

I proceed to place in juxtaposition a recapitulation of the classical and oriental traditions, and the quotations from Helps above referred to.

"One peculiar circumstance, as Humboldt remarks, is very much to be noted in the ancient records and traditions of the Indian nations. In no less than three remarkable instances has superior civilisation been attributed to the sudden presence amongst them of persons differing from themselves in appearance and descent."

[As to the argument to be derived from colour and appearance, _vide supra_, p. 79.]

"Bochica, a white man with a beard, appeared to the Mozca Indians in the plains of Bogota, _taught them how to build and to sow_, formed them _into communities_, gave an outlet _to the waters of the great lake_ [compare _supra_, p. 70, Chronology], and having settled the government, civil and ecclesiastical, retired into a monastic state of penitence for two thousand years.[267]

[267] Probably a tradition of the penitence of Adam.

"In like manner Manco Capac, accompanied by his sister Mama Ocllo, descended amongst the Peruvians, gave them _a code of admirable laws_, reduced them into communities, and then ascended to his father the Sun."[268] (A confusion with the tradition of Enoch, parallel to the like confusion in the person of Xisuthrus,[269] unmistakably identified with Noah in the Babylonian tradition.)

[268] Here, the admixture of sun-worship, as identifying the mythology at any rate with the Hamitic and "Cuthite," directly militates in favour of my view against the conjecture that Manco Capac was a missionary.

[269] _Vide_ also the like confused tradition of Nimrod (Assyria) and Menes (Egypt), Bunsen, p. 192.

"Amongst the Mexicans there suddenly appeared Quetzalcohuatl, the green-feathered (_i.e._ elegant) snake" (compare with Chaldæan fish-god, p. 199), "a white and bearded man of broad brow, dressed in strange dress, a _legislator_ who recommended severe penances, lacerating his own body with the prickles of the agave and the thorns of the cactus, but who dissuaded his followers from human sacrifices. While he remained in Anahuana it was a Saturnian reign; but this _great legislator_, after moving on to the plains of Cholulas, and governing the Cholulans with wisdom, passed away to a distant country" [if this looks more like the movement among them of some apostolic missionary, it is also in keeping with the journey of Bacchus, "travelling through all nations," &c.], "and was never heard of more." It is said briefly of him, that "he _ordained sacrifices_ of flowers and fruit, and stopped his ears, when he was spoken to of war."[270] Such a saint is needed in all times, even in the present advanced state of civilisation in the old world."[271]--_Help's "Spanish Conquest of America,"_ i. 286.

[270] If an identity has been established between Quetzalcohuatl and Manco Capac (_vide_ Prescott "Conquest of Peru," i. 9), it will appear that this legislator, who shut his ears when he was spoken to of war, did nevertheless leave them admirable maxims (compare with Indian (Aryan) maxims, p. 400) and laws of war, _e.g._ Prescott, "Peru," p. 69. Compare extract from Davies--_vide supra_, preface.

"The Peruvian soldier was forbidden to commit any _trespass on the property_ of the inhabitants whose territory lay in the line of march. From the moment _war was proclaimed_," &c., "in every stage of the war he was open to _propositions for peace_, and although he sought to reduce his enemies by carrying off their harvests and destressing them by famine, the Peruvian monarch allowed his troops to commit no unnecessary outrage on person or property." It is not to the point that these rules were not always observed.

[271] Compare _supra_, p. 201, note to Manou (Bacchus).

I have shown (p. 211) that Calmet (and other authorities of the same date might be adduced) identifies Saturn with Noah. Among other proofs he points to the tradition of Saturn devouring his children (with the exception of three), as a distorted tradition of the destruction of mankind according to the prediction of Noah, upon the canon of interpretation, "that men are said often to do what they do not prevent, or even what they predict." I have also shown that this conjecture receives attestation from a fragment of Sanchoniathon's (Phoenician),important whether regarded as a more ancient parallel tradition, or as the same tradition nearer the fountain-head.

Without recapitulating the other points of resemblance (_vide_ ch. x.), let us compare what is said of Saturn with what is said of Bochica, Manco Capac, &c.

"Under Saturn," says Plutarch, "was the golden age." "Saturn is represented with a scythe, as the _inventor of_ agriculture." Virgil (Æn. viii. 315) describes Saturn as bringing the dispersed people from the mountains and _giving them laws_. I have also drawn attention to the _Saturnalia_ as connecting _Bacchus_ with _Saturn_. Now Cicero tells us that one Bacchus was king of _Asia_, and author of _laws called Subazian_; and Bacchus is also said to _have travelled_ through _all nations doing good_, in all places, and teaching many things profitable to the life of man.

Noah has also been identified with Janus, and under Janus as under Saturn was the golden age; and it is, moreover, said (_vide_ p. 218), "that in the time of Janus all families were full of religion and holiness." He is said to have been _the first that built temples_ and _instituted sacred rites_, and was therefore always mentioned at the beginning of sacrifices. [This, in common with what is said of Quetzalcohuatl is again possibly a combined tradition of Enoch and Noah.]

Let both these traditions be compared with Berosus' account of Hoa, or the fish-god (_vide_ Rawlinson, "Anct. Mon." i. p. 155, and _supra_, p. 238).

"He is said to have transmitted to mankind the knowledge of grammar and mathematics, and of all arts (or of any kind of art), and of the _polity of cities_, the _construction_ and _dedication of temples_, the _introduction of laws_, to have taught them geometry, and _to have shown them by example_, the _mode of sowing the seed_ and gathering the _fruits of the earth_; and along with them to have tradated _all the secrets which tend to harmonise life_. And no one else in that time was found so experienced as he."[272]

[272] Compare with Gen. vi. 18, viii. 15, "And God spoke to Noe, saying"; also vi. 13, ix. 8; and Gen. viii. 20--"And Noe built an altar unto the Lord, and taking of all cattle"; and ix. 20--"And Noe, a husbandman, began to till the ground, and planted a vineyard." Also Ecclesiasticus xliv. 1, 3, 4, 19, "The covenants of the world were made with him." Compare also with the "Oracula Sybillina," _supra_, p. 237.

In the traditions, however, which connect Noah with the Saturnian reign,[273] it appears to me that threefold confusion has to be disentangled.

[273] It may be well here to recall to recollection the well-known lines of Virgil--

"Ultima Cumæi venit jam carminis ætas: Magnus ab integro seclorum nascitur ordo, Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna Jam nova progenies coelo dimittitur alto." _Eclogues_ IV.

I. There is a tradition of a golden and of a silver age frequently transfused.

II. When thus transfused there is often along with the tradition of a golden or silver age trace of a subordinate and incongruous tradition of a state of nature as a state of barbarism--both at the early commencement of things.

III. There is a double tradition of the succession of ages, the one ante-, the other post-diluvian.

* * * * *

I. The tradition of the golden age is primarily the tradition of Paradise, to which succeeded in gradation of degeneracy a silver, brass, and iron age. Of this line of tradition we have seen distinct trace in Sanchoniathon (_supra_, p. 127).

But there is also, as we have just seen, a tradition of another golden age connected with Saturn, Janus, &c., and of this perhaps we have the most direct testimony in the Chinese tradition.

"The Chinese traditions," says Professor Rawlinson (Bampton Lectures, ii., quoting "Horæ Mos." iv. 147) "are said to be less clear and decisive (than the Babylonian). They speak of a 'first heaven' and age of innocence when 'the whole creation enjoyed a state of happiness; when everything was beautiful, everything was good; all things were perfect in their kind. Whereunto succeeded a _second heaven, introduced by a great convulsion_, in which the pillars of heaven were broken, the earth shook to its foundations, the heavens sank lower towards the north, the sun, moon, and stars changed their motions, the earth fell to pieces, and _the waters enclosed within its bosom burst forth with violence and overflowed_,'" &c.

Here, then, is a tradition of a second heaven, or a Saturnian reign, following a convulsion which will perhaps be conceded to be a tradition of the _universal_ Deluge (_vide_ p. 223), and which links the tradition of the Saturnian reign with the patriarch Noah?[274]

[274] Boulanger ("L'Antiquité Devoilée," i. 10), recognises, although it perplexes him, the tradition which places the gold and silver age after the Deluge--"à la suite de cet évenement, les traditions de l'age d'or, et du regne des Dieux paroissent encore plus bizarres;" also _id._ iii. 338; also 308. Also 328, "Ce n'est donc point un état politique qu'il faut chercher dans l'age d'or, ce fut un état tout religieux. Chaque famille pénétrée des jugemens d'en haut, vecut quelque temps sous la conduite des pères qui rassembloient leurs enfans." It is thus that Seneca depicts the golden age. _Vide_ p. 231.

I ask now to be allowed to look at the same tradition from a different point of view.

I have elsewhere shown (p. 27) that according to the operation of natural causes everything in the primitive ages would have led to dispersion, but however probable or even certain these conjectures may be, we know as a fact that they did not operate (Gen. xi. 1, 3, 8) for some three hundred years or more, probably until after the death of Noah. Does not this look as if mankind were kept together for a period, in order that they might become settled in their ideas and confirmed in their maxims, under the influence and direction of the second father of mankind, whose direct communications with the Most High had been manifest, and whose authority necessarily commanded universal respect--"Him of mazy counsel, Saturn?" (Hesiod, "Theog.")[275]

[275] It might be a sufficient answer to say that they did not operate because a miraculous intervention ordained it otherwise; but if we seek the explanation in natural causes they will be found such as will exactly confirm the theory. The causes which lead to dispersion are the necessities of the pastoral life. If there, then, was no dispersion, the conclusion is that during the three or four centuries after the Deluge mankind were mainly engaged in husbandry--"and Noe, a husbandman, _began_ to till the ground." But husbandry is the first and essential condition of civilisation. We have seen that Mr Mill, Mr Hepworth Dixon, &c., believe that mankind _slowly_ arrived at this stage through the intermediate stages of shepherd and hunter. On the contrary it would appear that they _started_ in this career. Again, given the conditions which Genesis describes--families living in patriarchal subjection to a chief who had the knowledge of husbandry--cultivation would be the natural consequence; for the one and only hindrance to cultivation, supposing the knowledge, is insecurity. "Most critical of all are the causes which conduce to agriculture, agriculture at once the most fruitful and the most dangerous expedients for life. He who tills the soil exposes his valuable stores to the malice or enmity of the whole world. Any marauder," &c. ("Miscell." by Francis W. Newman, 1869). But as the conditions described in Genesis exclude the probability of such interruption--agriculture would have been the preferable resource of life--and so it would have continued until circumstances led to the extension of the pastoral mode. So far, then, as we are brought to regard the different modes of life as progressive or successive (I believe that even at this early stage they were contemporaneous), the order of the succession according to the theory now in vogue must be reversed; and we must regard mankind as first a community of husbandmen, gradually extending themselves as shepherds, to be finally still more dispersed in some of their branches as hunters.

If this theory appears far-fetched and fanciful, let it be recollected, on the other hand, that there has long subsisted a tradition among mankind of a code of nature as connected with a state of nature, which has to be accounted for (_vide_ chap. ii.)

And when we consider how the impulsion which a nation receives at the commencement of its history continues--how much, for instance, at the distance of a thousand years we resemble our Saxon ancestors of the eighth century, and even our ancestors of the German forest in identity of character, sentiment, and institution--we must not make the lapse of centuries an impassable barrier to a belief in the traditions of mankind in the early periods of history.

Let us also, in regarding the golden or silver age, glance beyond it to that iron age which ultimately followed it, in which the world, becoming crowded and also corrupted, many families and tribes collected together for warfare, and in which one nation swallowed another until all came to be absorbed, at least on the Asiatic continent, into one or two great empires, which again contended for supreme dominion. An age of universal war, of many sorrows, of great perturbations, but one in which the process of dispersion was stayed, and mankind settled down within certain definite lines of demarcation, which in great part have continued to this day.

No wonder, then, that men turned to each other in these dark days, and talked with regret of the simple agricultural and pastoral age which had passed, and which came variously to be called, in their recollection, the second heaven, the Arcadian era, the Saturnia regna,[276] the golden age. Neither is it surprising that the idea of a state of nature misconceived as to the facts, and of a law of nature dimly remembered and distorted by human perversity, has so often obtained among mankind in modern times and also in antiquity. This is a point which I shall discuss with reference to the historical evidence in another chapter.

[276] "And truly there is a sap in nations as well as in trees, a vigorous inward power, ever tending upwards, drawing its freshest energies from the simplest institutions, and the purest virtues and the healthiest moral action.... And if of nations we may so speak, what shall we say of the entire human race, when all its energies were, in a manner, pent up in its early and few progenitors; when the children of Noah, removed but a few generations from the recollections and lessons of Eden, and possessing the accumulated wisdom of long-lived patriarchs, were marvellously fitted to receive those strange and novel impressions, which a world, just burst forth in all its newness, was calculated to make?"--Card. Wiseman, "Science and Revealed Religion," Lect. ii.

It is to this period that I am inclined to refer the belief in an age of high chivalry and virtue, with subsequent degeneracy, widely diffused in the legends of King Arthur. I will surrender my opinion whenever the historical information respecting that monarch shall have been more exactly determined.

* * * * *

II. The conception of the state of nature (chap. ii.) as a basis of theory and belief arose in the main out of the speculations of lawyers and philosophers; yet it is curious that we frequently come upon a concurrent yet always subordinate tradition of equality associated with the tradition of a golden age which, if the age of Noah, we know _aliunde_ to have been a state of hierarchical subordination to a patriarchal chief; and, along with a reminiscence of a time of peaceful prosperity at the commencement of things, the tradition of the primitive age as one of great barbarism and privation, man living on acorns, &c.

That these testimonies of tradition are incongruous and confused, I am bound to admit; but then, looked at from the point of view of tradition, they seem to me to have their explanation. If this happens to be deemed somewhat fanciful, I contend that the test in all these cases must be--(1.) Does the key fit the lock? (2.) Is there any other key producible?[277] I venture, then, to suggest (p. 211) that the notion of the primitive equality may be traced through the Bacchanalian traditions; and the tradition of a primitive age of great privation I believe to be the recollection of that brief but probably sharp period of suffering during which mankind clung to the mountains in distrust of the Divine injunction and promise, until brought into the plains by Noah.[278] (_Vide_ p. 137.)

[277] "The evidence, therefore, of the meaning of this part of the Homeric system is like that which is obtained, when, upon applying a new key to some lock that we have been unable to open, we find it fits the wards and puts back the bolt."--Gladstone, "Homer and the Homeric Age," ii. 30.

[278] Plato's testimony to this tradition is remarkable (Plato de Legibus, lib. i.) Boulanger extracts the passage with reference to the golden age (iii. 296). (_Vide_ also Grote's Plato, iii. 337.) Plato says--"That it is a tradition that there was formerly a great destruction of mankind caused by inundations and other general calamities [are not these calamities those to which Horace alludes, I. Ode iii.,

"Semotique prius tarda necessitas Lethi corripuit gradum,"

from which only a few escaped?] those who were spared led a pastoral life _on the mountains_. We may suppose," he adds, "that these men possessed the knowledge of some useful arts, of some usages to which they had previously conformed." Plato indeed goes on to tell how this knowledge must have been lost, and one reason he gives is, "mankind remained _many_ centuries on the _summits_ of the highest mountains--fear and remembrance of the past did not permit them to _descend into the plains_." Strabo (_apud_ Boulanger, iii. 301) also discusses this question. He says that mankind descended into the plains at different periods according to their courage and sociability (lib. xiii.) Varro (De re Rustica, lib. xiii. cap. i.) says they were a long time before they descended." Now, in these passages from Plato, Strabo, and Varro, there is distinct testimony to the fact of mankind remaining on the mountains after the Deluge, and their subsequent inferences are drawn from the fact that they supposed them to have remained there a long time. Is not this merely that they have recorded one tradition to the exclusion of another--viz., that mankind were brought into the plains by Saturn, in accordance with the indications in Genesis ix. 20, "and Noe, a husbandman began to till the ground." Compare _supra_, p. 137, and p. 212; Bryant, "Mythology," iii. p. 22, following [St] Epiphanius, says the descendants of Noah remained 659 years in the vicinity of Ararat--_i.e._ five generations.

Moreover, the characteristics of this subsequent period, when mankind were living together in groups of families under the mild sway of the patriarch, when "all families were good" (p. 218), and when

... "With abundant goods midst quiet lands, All willing shared the gatherings of their hands."

was just that semi-state of nature which it only required the Bacchanalian tradition on the one side to transform into the fiction of the state of savage and absolute equality, or the touch of poetry to convert into the golden reminiscence on the other.

In this way, in the person of the patriarch Noah, the fiction of a state of nature was brought into contact with the tradition of a law of nature and a law of nations, regarded as the law of mankind "when men were nearest the gods."

* * * * *

III. I have already noticed (p. 127) the double tradition of the succession of ages, the tradition from the fragment of Sanchoniathon, upon which Mr M'Lennan relies, being ante-, that of Hesiod partly ante- and partly post-diluvian. The following lines of Hesiod, for instance, bearing allusion to the confusion of tongues and the shortening of life, being plainly post-diluvian:--

"When Gods alike and mortals rose to birth, The immortals formed a _golden race_ on earth Of _many-languaged men_; they lived of old, When Saturn reigned in Heaven; an age of gold.

"The Sire of Heaven and earth created then A race the third, of _many-languaged men_, Unlike the silver they; of brazen mould, Strong with the ashen spear, and fierce and bold."[279]

[279] With reference to the stone age, _vide_ p. 288.

And again, of the iron race which followed them, he says--

"Jove on this race of many-languaged men Speeds the swift ruin which but slow began; For scarcely spring they to the light of day E'er age untimely strews their temples grey."

I must here, too, point out how curiously the testimonies of tradition and science coincide.[280] _Both_ are agreed as to the transition from a brass (bronze) to an iron age; but in one it is referred to as evidence of degeneracy--in the other, the transition is adduced in proof of progress. But the fact is established by the evidence of tradition, as certainly as by the conclusions of science, and is referred to accordingly by Sir John Lubbock ("Pre-historic Times," p. 6).

[280] Concerning the evident tradition of the dispersion in Hesiod, "Theog." v. 836, _vide_ Bryant's "Mythology," iii. 51, _et seq._

The lines of Lucretius are certainly remarkable--

"Arma antiqua, manus ungues dentesque fuerunt, Et lapides, et item sylvarum fragmina rami Posterius ferri vis est, ærisque reperta, Sed prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus. Quo facilis magis est natura et copia major Ære solum terræ tractabunt, æreque belli Miscebant fluctus."--_De Rerum Natura_, lib. 5.

But here I cannot help thinking the tradition has reference rather to the use than to the knowledge of metals. We have seen, for instance, that the cultivation of the ground commenced with Noah--the fact being attested both by Scripture and tradition. Now, in the above passage, although the primitive weapons are referred to, as of stones, yet it is said "æreque solum terræ tractabunt," an averment which no doubt has reference to the brazen age; yet nothing forbids the construction, which on other grounds seems the more natural that the land was from the first so cultivated,[281] and that in strictness the commencement of the brazen age was identical with the commencement of cultivation, although in the mind of the poet it had reference to the introduction of bronze weapons and implements of war. Moreover, the _sylvarum fragmina rami_ may point to the period immediately preceding cultivation, when the human race clung to the mountains. The testimony of Scripture to the point seems plain. Not only does the construction of the ark appear to imply the use of metals, but the reference to Tubalcain, "who was a hammerer and artificer in every work of brass and iron" (Gen. iv. 22), seems to put the antediluvian knowledge of metals beyond question.

[281] This appears to me to be borne out by the Sanscrit root "_ar_, to plough," being seemingly cognate with "æs, _ær_is," and with the produce corn = "_aris_ta," aroum, aratrum, Greek [Greek: arsmêa], &c.

Sanscrit, "ar, to plough," _vide_ note 1 in Brace's "Ethnology." _Vide_ also Max Müller, "Science of Language," _id._ _Vide_ also Max Müller, "Chips," ii. p. 45.

"The name of the plough (in Egypt) was [Greek: ZHbix], _ploughed land_, appears to _have been_ [Greek: art], a word still traced in the Arabic 'hart,' which has the same import; and the Greek [Greek: arêtron] and Roman _aratrum_ appears to indicate, like the [Greek: aroura], an Egyptian origin."--_Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, i. 45.

If "ar," as in "[Greek: aristos]," should be proposed as the primitive root, it must be after rejection of the evidence of secondary derivation; but does not our common parlance still run to the comparison of virtues with metals, "good as gold," "hard as iron," "true as steel." Why then at a later period should not brass have become the expression for _best_ in the brazen or warlike age, when courage was the virtue principally regarded? If this is accepted, "[Greek: Arês]," or Mars, so far from being the root, would be a tertiary derivation--the embodiment and deification of what was regarded as best in the brazen age. Gladstone ("Homer," ii. p. 225), shows that Mars was a deity of late invention, and not one of the traditionary deities. Rawlinson, _vide supra_, p. 164, identifying Ares with Nimrod.

Bunsen ("Egypt," iii. 466), says in a note, "Arya" in Indian means lord. Its original meaning was equivalent to "upper noble." The popular name "Arja" is derived from it, and means "descended from a noble." I will only add that "Ari" in Egyptian means "honourable" (in Nofruari). But "ar" might mean to plough; for the Aryans were originally and essentially an agricultural, and therefore a peasant race. Agriculture at the time we are contemplating would have been the most honourable employment (_supra_, p. 329), it would not have been "an agricultural and therefore peasant" employment till insecurity brought about the state of dependence and vassalage. The Aryans would have been noble as being of the Japhetic race.

In the first commencement after the Deluge, unless miraculously supplied, there would have been no grain or bread food until time had been allowed for its production. During this interval acorns, &c., may have been the only food. Perhaps it was so ordained to incite to the new permission to eat flesh meat. On the other hand, I ask, in those ages when men were supposed to live exclusively on acorns, was not flesh meat eaten,--were there no hunters? Had man no control over the domestic animals?

That in a peaceful period, and the intercommunication of families previous to the dispersion implies a state of peace (ch. xiii.), in a period in which, if we follow the other traditions, "all families were good," and were under the rule of an old man, "who held his hands to his ears when they spoke to him of war," it is not surprising to learn either that they had no weapons, or that they were of the simplest description. It is characteristic of an age which piques itself upon the perfection of its artillery, and whose greatest triumphs and inventions have been in the science of destruction, to look back upon a totally different age which happened only to have stone weapons, as necessarily an age of barbarism. But from our point of view it must be regarded not as an age of barbarism, but of prosperity,--not as a state of equality, but of the subordination of the members of the family to each chief, and of families relatively to each other; an age of much mental vigour and spiritual intuition, and, so far from being a period of misery, it left reminiscences of happiness such as lingered long in the memory of mankind.