{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43813/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43813","id":"gutenberg_43813","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43813","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Dreams","Folklore","Mythology"],"text":"MYTHS AND DREAMS\n\n\n\n\n  MYTHS AND DREAMS\n\n\n  BY EDWARD CLODD\n\n  AUTHOR OF\n  \u2018THE CHILDHOOD OF THE WORLD,\u2019\n  \u2018THE STORY OF CREATION,\u2019 ETC.\n\n\n  _SECOND EDITION, REVISED_\n\n\n  London\n  CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY\n  1891\n\n\n\n\nTO RICHARD A. PROCTOR, B.A.,\n\nAUTHOR OF \u2018THE SUN,\u2019 \u2018OTHER WORLDS,\u2019 ETC., EDITOR OF \u2018KNOWLEDGE.\u2019\n\nMY DEAR PROCTOR--The best gifts of life are its friendships, and to you,\nwith whom friendship has ripened into fellowship, and under whose\neditorial wing some of the chapters of this book had temporary shelter, I\ninscribe them in their enlarged and independent form.\n\n  Yours sincerely,\n    EDWARD CLODD.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe object of this book is to present in compendious form the evidence\nwhich myths and dreams supply as to primitive man\u2019s interpretation of his\nown nature and of the external world, and more especially to indicate how\nsuch evidence carries within itself the history of the origin and growth\nof beliefs in the supernatural.\n\nThe examples are selected chiefly from barbaric races, as furnishing the\nnearest correspondences to the working of the mind in what may be called\nits \u201ceocene\u201d stage, but examples are also cited from civilised races, as\nwitnessing to that continuity of ideas which is obscured by familiarity or\nignored by prejudice.\n\nHad more illustrations been drawn from sources alike prolific, the\nevidence would have been swollen to undue dimensions without increasing\nits significance; as it is, repetition has been found needful here and\nthere, under the difficulty of entirely detaching the arguments advanced\nin the two parts of this work.\n\nMan\u2019s development, physical and psychical, has been fully treated by Mr.\nHerbert Spencer, Dr. Tylor, and other authorities, to whom students of the\nsubject are permanent debtors, but that subject is so many-sided, so\nfar-reaching, whether in retrospect or prospect, that its subdivision is\nof advantage so long as we do not permit our sense of inter-relation to be\ndulled thereby.\n\nMy own line of argument will be found to run for the most part parallel\nwith that of the above-named writers; there are divergences along the\nroute, but we reach a common terminus.\n\nThe footnotes indicate the principal works which have been consulted in\npreparing this book, but I desire to express my special thanks to Mr.\nAndrew Lang for his kindness in reading the proofs, and for suggestions\nwhich, in the main, I have been glad to adopt.\n\nE. C.\n\n  ROSEMONT, TUFNELL PARK,\n    LONDON, _March 1885_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  PART I.\n\n  MYTH: ITS BIRTH AND GROWTH.\n\n  SECTION                                                             PAGE\n\n     I. ITS PRIMITIVE MEANING                                            3\n\n    II. CONFUSION OF EARLY THOUGHT BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE\n        NOT LIVING                                                      12\n\n   III. PERSONIFICATION OF THE POWERS OF NATURE                         19\n          (_a._) The Sun and Moon                                       19\n          (_b._) The Stars                                              29\n          (_c._) The Earth and Sky                                      34\n          (_d._) Storm and Lightning, etc.                              41\n          (_e._) Light and Darkness                                     48\n          (_f._) The Devil                                              53\n\n    IV. THE SOLAR THEORY OF MYTH                                        61\n\n     V. BELIEF IN METAMORPHOSIS INTO ANIMALS                            81\n\n    VI. TOTEMISM: BELIEF IN DESCENT FROM ANIMAL OR PLANT                99\n\n   VII. SURVIVAL OF MYTH IN HISTORY                                    114\n\n  VIII. MYTH AMONG THE HEBREWS                                         131\n\n    IX. CONCLUSION                                                     137\n\n\n  PART II.\n\n  DREAMS: THEIR PLACE IN THE GROWTH OF BELIEFS IN THE SUPERNATURAL.\n\n  SECTION                                                             PAGE\n\n     I. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SAVAGE AND CIVILISED MAN                    143\n\n    II. LIMITATIONS OF BARBARIC LANGUAGE                               148\n\n   III. BARBARIC CONFUSION BETWEEN NAMES AND THINGS                    154\n\n    IV. BARBARIC BELIEF IN VIRTUE IN INANIMATE THINGS                  160\n\n     V. BARBARIC BELIEF IN THE REALITY OF DREAMS                       168\n\n    VI. BARBARIC THEORY OF DISEASE                                     174\n\n   VII. BARBARIC THEORY OF A SECOND SELF OR SOUL                       182\n\n  VIII. BARBARIC PHILOSOPHY IN \u201cPUNCHKIN\u201d AND ALLIED STORIES           188\n\n    IX. BARBARIC AND CIVILISED NOTIONS OF THE SOUL\u2019S NATURE            198\n\n     X. BARBARIC BELIEF IN SOULS IN BRUTES AND PLANTS AND\n        LIFELESS THINGS                                                207\n\n    XI. BARBARIC AND CIVILISED NOTIONS ABOUT THE SOUL\u2019S\n        DWELLING PLACE                                                 215\n\n   XII. CONCLUSIONS FROM THE FOREGOING                                 222\n\n  XIII. DREAMS AS OMENS AND MEDIA OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN GODS\n        AND MEN                                                        236\n\n        INDEX                                                          245\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nMYTH: ITS BIRTH AND GROWTH.\n\n\n\u201cUnchecked by external truth, the mind of man has a fatal facility for\nensnaring, entrapping, and entangling itself. But, happily, happily for\nthe human race, some fragment of physical speculation has been built into\nevery false system. Here is the weak point. Its inevitable destruction\nleaves a breach in the whole fabric, and through that breach the armies of\ntruth march in.\u201d\n\nSir H. S. MAINE.\n\n\nMYTH: ITS BIRTH AND GROWTH.\n\n\n\u00a7 I.\n\nITS PRIMITIVE MEANING.\n\nIt is barely thirty years ago since the world was startled by the\npublication of Buckle\u2019s _History of Civilisation_, with its theory that\nhuman actions are the effect of causes as fixed and regular as those which\noperate in the universe; climate, soil, food, and scenery being the chief\nconditions determining progress.\n\nThat book was a _tour de force_, not a lasting contribution to the\nquestion of man\u2019s mental development. The publication of Darwin\u2019s\nepoch-making _Origin of Species_[1] showed wherein it fell short; how the\nimportance of the above-named causes was exaggerated and the existence of\nequally potent causes overlooked. Buckle probably had not read Herbert\nSpencer\u2019s _Social Statics_, and he knew nothing of the profound revolution\nin silent preparation in the quiet of Darwin\u2019s home; otherwise, his book\nmust have been rewritten. This would have averted the oblivion from which\nnot even its charm of style can rescue it. Its brilliant but defective\ntheories are obscured in the fuller light of that doctrine of descent with\nmodifications by which we learn that external circumstances do not alone\naccount for the widely divergent types of men, so that a superior race, in\nsupplanting an inferior one, will change the face and destiny of a\ncountry, \u201cmaking the solitary place to be glad, and the desert to rejoice\nand blossom as the rose.\u201d Darwin has given us the clue to those subtle and\nstill obscure causes which bring about, stage by stage, the unseen\nadaptations to requirements varying a type and securing its survival, and\nwhich have resulted in the evolution of the manifold species of living\nthings. The notion of a constant relation between man and his surroundings\nis therefore untenable.\n\nBut incomplete as is Buckle\u2019s theory, and all-embracing as is Darwin\u2019s, so\nfar as organic life is concerned, the larger issue is raised by both, and\nfor most men whose judgment is worth anything it is settled. Either man is\na part of nature or he is not. If he is not, there is an end of the\nmatter, since the materials lie beyond human grasp, and cannot be examined\nand placed in order for comparative study. Let Christian, Brahman,\nBushman, and South Sea Islander each hold fast his \u201cform of sound words\u201d\nabout man\u2019s origin. One is as good as another where all are irrational and\nbeyond proof. But if he is, then the inquiry concerning him may not stop\nat the anatomy of his body and the assignment of his place in the\nsuccession of life on the globe. His relation, materially, to the\nsimplest, shapeless specks of living matter; structurally, to the highest\nand more complex organisms, is demonstrated; the natural history of him is\nclear. This, however, is physical, and for us the larger question is\npsychical. The theory of evolution must embrace the genesis and\ndevelopment of mind, and therefore of ideas, beliefs, and speculations\nabout things seen and unseen.\n\nIn the correction of our old definitions a wider meaning must be given to\nthe word _myth_ than that commonly found in the dictionaries. Opening any\nof these at random we find myth explained as fable, as something\ndesignedly fictitious, whether for amusement only, or to point a moral.\nThe larger meaning which it holds to-day includes much more than this--to\nwit, the whole area of intellectual products which lie beyond the historic\nhorizon and overlap it, effacing on nearer view the lines of separation.\nFor the myth, as fable only, has no place for the crude fancies and\ngrotesque imaginings of barbarous races of the present day, and of races\nat low levels of culture in the remote past. And so long as it was looked\nupon as the vagrant of fancy, with no serious meaning at the heart of it,\nand as corresponding to no yearning of man after the truth of things,\nsober treatment of it was impossible. But now that myth, with its prolific\noffspring, legend and tradition, is seen to be a necessary travailing\nthrough which the mind of man passed in its slow progress towards\ncertitude, the study and comparison of its manifold, yet, at the centre,\nallied forms, and of the conditions out of which they arose, takes rank\namong the serious inquiries of our time.\n\nNot that the inquiry is a new one. The limits of this book forbid detailed\nreferences to the successive stages of that inquiry--in other words, to\nthe pre-Christian, patristic, and pseudo-scientific theories of myth which\nremained unchallenged, or varied only in non-essential features, till the\nrise of comparative mythology. But apology for such omission here is the\nless needful, since the list of ancient and modern vagaries would have the\nmonotony of a catalogue. However unlike on the surface, they are\nfundamentally the same, being the products of non-critical ages, and one\nand all vitiated by assumptions concerning gods and men which are to us as\n\u201cold wives\u2019 fables.\u201d\n\nIn short, between these empirical theories and the scientific method of\ninquiry into the meaning of myth there can be no relation. Because, for\nthe assigning of its due place in the order of man\u2019s mental and spiritual\ndevelopment to myth, there is needed that knowledge concerning his origin,\nconcerning the conditions out of which he has emerged, and concerning the\nmythologies of lower races and their survival in unsuspected forms in the\nhigher races, which was not only beyond reach, but also beyond conception,\nuntil this century.\n\nExcept, therefore, as curiosities of literature, we may dismiss the\nLempri\u00e8re of our school-days, and with him \u201cCausabon\u201d-Bryant and his\nsymbolism of the ark and traces of the Flood in everything. Their keys,\nArkite and Ophite, fit no lock, and with them we must, in all respect be\nit added, dismiss Mr. Gladstone, with his visions of the Messiah in\nApollo, and of the Logos in Ath\u00ean\u00ea.\n\nThe main design of this book is to show that in what is for convenience\ncalled _myth_ lie the germs of philosophy, theology, and science, the\nbeginnings of all knowledge that man has attained or ever will attain, and\ntherefore that in myth we have his serious endeavour to interpret the\nmeaning of his surroundings and of his own actions and feelings. In its\nunbroken sequence we have the explanation of his most cherished and now,\nfor the most part, discredited beliefs, the persistence of which makes it\nessential and instructive not to deal with the primitive myth apart from\nits later and more complex phases. Myth was the product of man\u2019s emotion\nand imagination, acted upon by his surroundings, and it carries the traces\nof its origin in its more developed forms, as the ancestral history of the\nhigher organisms is embodied in their embryos. Man wondered before he\nreasoned. Awe and fear are quick to express themselves in rudimentary\nworship; hence the myth was at the outset a theology, and the gradations\nfrom personifying to deifying are too faint to be traced. Thus blended,\nthe one as inevitable outcome of the other, they cannot well be treated\nseparately, as if the myth were earth-born and the theology heaven-sent.\nAnd to treat them as one is to invade no province of religion, which is\nquite other than speculation about gods. The awe and reverence which the\nfathomless mystery of the universe awakens, which steal within us unbidden\nas the morning light, and unbroken on the prism of analysis; the\nconviction, deepening as we peer, that there is a Power beyond humanity,\nand upon which humanity depends; the feeling that life is in harmony with\nthe Divine order when it moves in disinterested service of our kind--these\ntheology can neither create nor destroy, neither verify nor disprove. They\ncan be bound within no formula that man or church has invented, but\nundefined\n\n  \u201cAre yet the fountain life of all our day,\n   Are yet a master light of all our seeing.\u201d\n\nAt what epoch in man\u2019s history we are to place the development of the\nmyth-making faculty must remain undetermined. It is of course coincident\nwith the dawn of thought. We cannot credit the nameless savage of the\nAncient Stone Age with it. If he had brains and leisure enough to make\nguesses about things, he has left us no witness of the fact. His relics,\nand those of his successors to a period which is but as yesterday in the\nhistory of our kind, are material only; and not until we possess the\nsymbols of his thought, whether in language or rude picture, do we get an\ninkling of the meaning which the universe had for him, in the details of\nhis pitiless daily life, in the shapes and motions of surrounding\nobjects, and in the majesty of the heavens above him. Even then the\nthought is more or less crystallised, and if we would watch it in the\nfluent form we must have a keen eye for the like process going on among\nsavages yet untouched by the Time-spirit, although higher in the scale\nthan the Papuans and hill tribes of the Vindhya. Although we cannot so far\nlull our faculty of thought as to realise the mental vacuity of the\nsavage, we may, from survivals nowadays, lead up to reasonable guesses of\nsavage ways of looking at things in bygone ages, and the more so when we\ncan detect relics of these among the ignorant and superstitious of modern\ntimes.\n\nWhat meaning, then, had man\u2019s surroundings to him, when eye and ear could\nbe diverted from prior claims of the body, and he could repose from\nwatching for his prey, and from listening to the approach of wild beast or\nenemy? He had the advantage, from greater demand for their exercise, in\nkeener senses of sight, hearing, smell, and touch, than we enjoy; nor did\nhe fail to take in facts in plenty. But there was this vital defect and\ndifference, that in his brains every fact was pigeon-holed, charged with\nits own narrow meaning only, as in small minds among ourselves we find\nplace given to inane peddling details, and no advance made to general and\nwide conception of things. In sharpest contrast to the poet\u2019s utterance:\n\n  \u201cNothing in this world is single,\n     All things by a law divine\n   In one another\u2019s being mingle,\u201d\n\nevery fact is unrelated to every other fact, and therefore interpreted\nwrongly.\n\nMan, in his first outlook upon nature, was altogether ignorant of the\ncharacter of the forces by which he was environed; ignorant of that\nunvarying relation between effect and cause which it needed the experience\nof ages and the generalisations therefrom to apprehend, and to express as\n\u201claws of nature.\u201d He had not even the intellectual resource of later times\nin inventing miracle to explain where the necessary relation between\nevents seemed broken or absent.\n\nHis first attitude was that of wonder, mingled with fear--fear as\ninstinctive as the dread of the brute for him. The sole measure of things\nwas himself, consequently everything that moved or that had power of\nmovement did so because it was alive. A personal life and will was\nattributed to sun, moon, clouds, river, waterfall, ocean, and tree, and\nthe varying phenomena of the sky at dawn or noonday, at gray eve or\nblack-clouded night, were the manifestation of the controlling life that\ndwelt in all. In a thousand different forms this conception was expressed.\nThe thunder was the roar of a mighty beast; the lightning a serpent\ndarting at its prey, an angry eye flashing, the storm demon\u2019s outshot\nforked tongue; the rainbow a thirsty monster; the waterspout a long-tailed\ndragon. This was not a pretty or powerful conceit, not imagery, but an\nexplanation. The men who thus spoke of these phenomena meant precisely\nwhat they said. What does the savage know about heat, light, sound,\nelectricity, and the other modes of motion through which the\nProteus-force beyond our ken is manifest? How many persons who have\nenjoyed a \u201cliberal\u201d education can give correct answers, if asked off-hand,\nexplaining how glaciers are born of the sunshine, and why two sounds,\ntravelling in opposite directions at equal velocities, interfere and cause\nsilence? The percentage of young men, hailing from schools of renown, who\ngive the most ludicrous replies when asked the cause of day and night, and\nthe distance of the earth from the sun, is by no means small.\n\nWhilst the primary causes determining the production of myths are uniform,\nthe secondary causes, due in the main to different physical surroundings,\nvary, bringing about unlikeness in subject and detail. Nevertheless, in\ngrouping the several classes of myths, those are obviously to be placed\nprominently which embrace explanations of the origin of things, from sun\nand star to man and insect, involving ideas about the powers to whom all\nthings are attributed. But in this book no exhaustive treatment is\npossible, only some indication of the general lines along which the\nmyth-making faculty has advanced, and for this purpose a few illustrations\nof barbaric mental confusion between the living and the not living are\nchosen at the outset. They will, moreover, prepare us for the large\nelement of the irrational present in barbaric myth, and supply a key to\nthe survival of this in the mythologies of civilised races.\n\n\n\u00a7 II.\n\nCONFUSION OF EARLY THOUGHT BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE NOT LIVING.\n\nIn selecting from the literature of savage mythology the material\noverburdens us by its richness. Much of it is old, and, like refuse-heaps\nin our mining districts once cast aside as rubbish but now made to yield\nproducts of value, has, after long neglect, been found to contain elements\nof worth, which patience and insight have extracted from its travellers\u2019\ntales and quaint speculations. That for which it was most prized in the\ndays of our fathers is now of small account; that within it which they\npassed by we secure as of lasting worth. Much of that literature is,\nhowever, new, for the impetus which has in our time been given to the\nrescue and preservation of archaic forms has reached this, and a host of\naccomplished collectors have secured rich specimens of relics which, in\nthe lands of their discovery, have still the authority of the past,\nunimpaired by the critical exposure of the present.\n\nThe subject itself is, moreover, so wide reaching, bringing the ancient\nand the modern into hitherto unsuspected relation, showing how in customs\nand beliefs, to us unmeaning and irrational, there lurk the degraded\nrepresentations of old philosophies, and in what seems to us burlesque,\nthe survivals of man\u2019s most serious thought.\n\nOne feels this difficulty of choice and this temptation to digress in\ntreating of the confusion inherent in the savage mind between things\nliving and not living, arising from superficial analogies and its\nattribution of life and power to lifeless things. The North American\nIndians prefer a hook that has caught a big fish to the handful of hooks\nthat have never been tried, and they never lay two nets together lest they\nshould be jealous of each other. The Bushmen thought that the traveller\nChapman\u2019s big waggon was the mother of his smaller ones; and the natives\nof Tahiti sowed in the ground some iron nails given them by Captain Cook,\nexpecting to obtain young ones. When that ill-fated discoverer\u2019s ship was\nsighted by the New Zealanders they thought it was a whale with wings. The\nking of the Coussa Kaffirs having broken off a piece of the anchor of a\nstranded ship soon afterwards died, upon which all the Kaffirs made a\npoint of saluting the anchor very respectfully whenever they went near it,\nregarding it as a vindictive being. But perhaps one of the most striking\nand amusing illustrations is that quoted by Sir John Lubbock from the\n_Smithsonian Reports_ concerning an Indian who had been sent by a\nmissionary to a colleague with four loaves of bread, accompanied by a\nletter stating their number. The Indian ate some of the bread, and his\ntheft was, of course, found out. He was sent on a second errand with a\nsimilar batch of bread and a letter, and repeated the theft, but took the\nprecaution to hide the letter under a stone while he was eating the\nloaves, so that it might not see him! As the individual is a type of the\nrace, so in the child\u2019s nature we find analogy of the mental attitude of\nthe savage ready to hand. To the child everything is alive. With what\ntimidity and wonder he first touches a watch, with its moving hands and\nclicking works; with what genuine anger he beats the door against which he\nhas knocked his head, whips the rocking-horse that has thrown him, then\nkisses and strokes it the next moment in token of forgiveness and\naffection.\n\n  \u201cAs children of weak age\n     Lend life to the dumb stones\n   Whereon to vent their rage,\n     And bend their little fists, and rate\n         the senseless ground.\u201d[2]\n\nEven among civilised adults, as Mr. Grote remarks, \u201cthe force of momentary\npassion will often suffice to supersede the acquired habit, and an\nintelligent man may be impelled in a moment of agonising pain to kick or\nbeat the lifeless object from which he has suffered.\u201d The mental condition\nwhich causes the wild native of Brazil to bite the stone he stumbled over\nmay, as Dr. Tylor has pointed out in his invaluable _Primitive Culture_,\nbe traced along the course of history not merely in impulsive habit, but\nin formally enacted law. If among barbarous peoples we find, for example,\nthe relatives of a man killed by a fall from a tree taking their revenge\nby cutting the tree down and scattering it in chips, we find a continuity\nof idea in the action of the court of justice held at the Prytaneum in\nAthens to try any inanimate object, such as an axe, or a piece of wood or\nstone, which has caused the death of any one without proved human agency,\nand which, if condemned, was cast in solemn form beyond the border. \u201cThe\nspirit of this remarkable procedure reappears in the old English law,\nrepealed only in the present reign, whereby not only a beast that kills a\nman, but a cart-wheel that runs over him, or a tree that falls on him and\nkills him, is deodand or given to God, _i.e._ forfeited and sold for the\npoor.\u201d Among ancient legal proceedings at Laon we read of animals\ncondemned to the gallows for the crime of murder, and of swarms of\ncaterpillars which infected certain districts being admonished by the\nCourts of Troyes in 1516 to take themselves off within a given number of\ndays, on pain of being declared accursed and excommunicated.[3]\n\nBarbaric confusion in the existence of transferable qualities in things,\nas when the New Zealander swallows his dead enemy\u2019s eye that he may see\nfarther, or gives his child pebbles to make it stony and pitiless of\nheart; and as when the Abipone eats tiger\u2019s flesh to increase his courage,\nhas its survival in the old wives\u2019 notion that the eye-bright flower,\nwhich resembles the eye, is good for diseases of that organ, in the\nmedi\u00e6val remedy for curing a sword wound by nursing the weapon that caused\nit, and in the old adage, \u201cTake a hair of the dog that bit you.\u201d As\nillustrating this, Dr. Dennys[4] tells a story of a missionary in China\nwhose big dog would now and again slightly bite children as he passed\nthrough the villages. In such a case the mother would run after him and\nbeg for a hair from the dog\u2019s tail, which would be put to the part bitten,\nor when the missionary would say jocosely, \u201cOh! take a hair from the dog\nyourself,\u201d the woman would decline, and ask him to spit in her hand, which\nitself witnesses to the widespread belief in the mystical properties of\nsaliva.[5] Among ourselves this survives, degraded enough, in the cabmen\u2019s\nand boatmen\u2019s habit of spitting on the fare paid them. _Treacle_ (Greek\n_th\u0113riake_, from _th\u0113rion_, a name given to the viper) witnesses to the\nold-world superstition that viper\u2019s flesh is an antidote to the viper\u2019s\nbite. Philips, in his _World of Words_, defines treacle as a \u201cphysical\ncompound made of vipers and other ingredients,\u201d and this medicament was a\nfavourite against all poisons. The word then became applied to any\nconfection or sweet syrup, and finally and solely to the syrup of\nmolasses.\n\nThe practice of burning or hanging in effigy, by which a crowd expresses\nits feelings towards an unpopular person, is a relic of the old belief in\na real and sympathetic connection between a man and his image; a belief\nextant among the unlettered in by-places of civilised countries. When we\nhear of North American tribes making images of their foes, whose lives\nthey expect to shorten by piercing those images with their arrows, we\nremember that these barbarous folk have their representatives among us in\nthe Devonshire peasant, who hangs in his chimney a pig\u2019s heart stuck all\nover with thorn-prickles, so that the heart of his enemy may likewise be\npierced. The custom among the Dyaks of Borneo of making a wax figure of\nthe foe, so that his body may waste away as the wax is melted, will remind\nthe admirers of Dante Rossetti how he finds in a kindred medi\u00e6val\nsuperstition the subject of his poem \u201cSister Helen,\u201d while they who prefer\nthe authority of sober prose may turn to that storehouse of the curious,\nBrand\u2019s _Popular Antiquities_. Brand quotes from King James, who, in his\n_D\u00e6monology_, book ii. chap. 5, tells us that \u201cthe devil teacheth how to\nmake pictures of wax or clay, that by roasting thereof the persons that\nthey bear the name of may be continually melted or dried away by continual\nsickness;\u201d and also cites Andrews, the author of a _Continuation of\nHenry\u2019s Great Britain_, who, speaking of the death of Ferdinand, Earl of\nDerby, by poison, in the reign of Elizabeth, says, \u201cThe credulity of the\nage attributed his death to witchcraft. The disease was odd, and operated\nas a perpetual emetic; and a waxen image, with hair like that of the\nunfortunate earl, found in his chamber, reduced every suspicion to\ncertainty.\u201d A century and half before this the Duchess of Gloucester did\npenance for conspiring with certain necromancers against the life of Henry\nVI. by melting a waxen image of him, while, as hinging the centuries\ntogether, \u201conly recently a _corp cr\u00e9_, or clay image, stuck full of birds\u2019\nclaws, bones, pins, and similar objects, was found in one of the\nInverness-shire rivers. It was a fetish which, as it dissolved away by the\naction of the stream, was supposed to involve the \u2018wearing away\u2019 of the\nperson it was intended to represent.\u201d[6] The passage from practices born\nof such beliefs to the use of charms as protectives against the\nevil-disposed and those in league with the devil, and as cures for divers\ndiseases, is obvious. Upon this it is not needful to dwell; the\nsuperstitious man is on the same plane as the savage, but, save in rare\ninstances, without such excuse for remaining, as Bishop Hall puts it, with\n\u201cold wives and starres as his counsellors, charms as his physicians, and a\nlittle hallowed wax as his antidote for all evils.\u201d\n\nBut we have travelled in brief space a long way from our picture of man,\nweaving out of streams and breezes and the sunshine his crude philosophy\nof personal life and will controlling all, to the peasant of to-day, his\nintellectual lineal descendant, with his belief in signs and wonders, his\nforecast of fate and future by omens, by dreams, and by such pregnant\noccurrences as the spilling of salt, the howling of dogs, and changes of\nthe moon; in short, by the great mass of superstitions which yet more or\nless influence the intelligent, terrorise the ignorant, and delight the\nstudent of human development.\n\n\n\u00a7 III.\n\nPERSONIFICATION OF THE POWERS OF NATURE.\n\n(_a._) _The Sun and Moon._\n\nA good deal hinges upon the evidences in savage myth-making of the\npersonification of the powers of nature. Obviously, the richest and most\nsuggestive material would be supplied by the striking phenomena of the\nheavens, chiefly in sunrise and sunset, in moon, star, star-group and\nmeteor, cloud and storm, and, next in importance, by the strange and\nterrible among phenomena on earth, whether in the restless waters, the\nunquiet trees, the grotesquely-shaped rocks, and the fear inspired in man\nby creatures more powerful than himself. Through the whole range of the\nlower culture, sun, moon, and constellations are spoken of as living\ncreatures, often as ancestors, heroes, and benefactors who have departed\nto the country above, to heaven, the _heaved_, up-lifted land. The Tongans\nof the South Pacific say that two ancestors quarrelled respecting the\nparentage of the first-born of the woman Papa, each claiming the child as\nhis own. No King Solomon appears to have been concerned in the dispute,\nalthough at last the infant was cut in two. Vatea, the husband of Papa,\ntook the upper part as his share, and forthwith squeezed it into a ball\nand tossed it into the heavens, where it became the sun. Tonga-iti\nsullenly allowed the lower half to remain a day or two on the ground,\nbut, seeing the brightness of Vatea\u2019s half, he compressed his share into a\nball and tossed it into the dark sky, during the absence of the sun in the\nnether world. Thus originated the moon, whose paleness is owing to the\nblood having all drained out of Tonga-iti\u2019s half as it lay upon the\nground. Mr. Gill, from whose valuable collection of southern myth this is\nquoted, says that it seems to have its origin in the allegory of an\nalternating embrace of the fair Earth by Day and Night. But despite the\nexplanations, more or less strained, which some schools of comparative\nmythologists find for every myth, the savage is not a conscious weaver of\nallegories, or an embryo Cabalist, and we shall find ourselves more in\naccord with the laws of his intellectual growth if, instead of delving for\nrecondite and subtle meanings in his simple-sounding explanations of\nthings, we take the meaning to be that which lies on the surface. More on\nthis, however, anon. Among the Red races one tribe thought that sun, moon,\nand stars were men and women who went into the sea every night and swam\nout by the east. The Bushmen say that the sun was once a man who shed\nlight from his body, but only for a short distance, until some children\nthrew him into the sky while he slept, and thus he shines upon the wide\nearth. The Australians say that all was darkness around them till one of\ntheir many ancestors, who still shine from the stars, shedding good and\nevil, threw, in pity for them, an emu\u2019s egg into space, when it became the\nsun. Among the Manacicas of Brazil, the sun was their culture-hero,\nvirgin-born, and their jugglers, who claimed power to fly through the air,\nsaid that his luminous figure, as that of a man, could be seen by them,\nalthough too dazzling for common mortals.\n\nThe sun has been stayed in his course in other places than Gibeon,\nalthough by mechanical means of which Joshua appears to have been\nindependent. Among the many exploits of Maui, abounding in Polynesian\nmyth, are those of his capture of the sun. He had, like Prometheus,\nsnatched fire from heaven for mortals, and his next task was to cure Ra,\nthe sun-god, of his trick of setting before the day\u2019s work was done. So\nMaui plaited thick ropes of cocoa-nut fibre, and taking them to the\nopening through which Ra climbed up from the nether world, he laid a\nslip-noose for him, placing the other ropes at intervals along his path.\nLying in wait as Ra neared, he pulled the first rope, but the noose only\ncaught Ra\u2019s feet. Nor could Maui stop him until he reached the sixth rope,\nwhen he was caught round the neck and pulled so tightly by Maui that he\nhad to come to terms, and agree to slacken his pace for the future. Maui,\nhowever, took the precaution to keep the ropes on him, and they may still\nbe seen hanging from the sun at dawn and eve. In Tahitian myth Maui is a\npriest, who, in building a house which must be finished by daylight,\nseizes the sun by its rays and binds it to a tree till the house is built.\nIn North American myth a boy had snared the sun, and there was no light on\nthe earth. So the beasts held council who should undertake the perilous\ntask of cutting the cord, when the dormouse, then the biggest among them,\nvolunteered. And it succeeded, but so scorched was it by the heat that it\nwas shrivelled to the smallest of creatures. Such a group of myths is not\neasy of explanation; but when we find the sun regarded as an ancestor, and\nas one bound, mill-horse like, to a certain course, the notion of his\ncontrol and check would arise, and the sun-catchers take their place in\ntradition among those who have deserved well of their race. It is one\namong numberless aspects under which the doings of the sun and of other\nobjects in nature are depicted as the doings of mortals, and the crude\nconceptions of the Ojibwas and the Samoans find their parallel in the\nmythologies of our Aryan ancestors. Only in the former we see the mighty\none shorn of his dignity, with noose round his neck or chains on either\nside; whilst in the latter we see him as Herakles, with majesty\nunimpaired, carrying out the twelve tasks imposed by Eurystheus, and thus\nwinning for himself a place among the immortals.\n\nThe names given to the sun in mythology are as manifold as his aspects and\ninfluences, and as the moods of the untutored minds that endowed him with\nthe complex and contrary qualities which make up the nature of man. _Him_,\nwe say, not _it_, thus preserving in our common speech a relic not only of\nthe universal personification of things, but of their division into sex.\n\nThe origin of gender is most obscure, but its investment of both animate\nand inanimate things with sexual qualities shows it to be a product of\nthe mythop\u0153ic stage of man\u2019s progress, and demands some reference in these\npages. The languages of savages are in a constant state of flux, even the\nmost abiding terms, as numerals and personal pronouns, being replaced by\nothers in a few years. And the changes undergone by civilised speech have\nso rubbed away and obscured its primitive forms that, look where he may,\nthe poverty of the old materials embarrasses the inquirer. If the similar\nendings to such undoubtedly early words as father, mother, brother,\nsister, in our own and other related languages, notably Sanskrit, afford\nany clue, it goes rather to show that gender was a later feature than one\nmight think. But there is no uniformity in the matter. It seems pretty\nclear that in the early forms of our Indo-European speech there were two\ngenders only, masculine and feminine. The assignment of certain things\nconceived of as sexless to neither gender, _neutrius generis_, is of later\norigin. Some of the languages derived from Latin, and, to name one of a\ndifferent family, the Hebrew, have no neuter gender, whilst others, as the\nancient Turkish and Finnish, have no grammatical gender. In our own, under\nthe organic changes incident to its absorption of Norman and other foreign\nelements, gender has practically disappeared (although ships and nations\nare still spoken of as feminine), the pronouns _he_, _she_, _it_, being\nits representatives. Such a gain is apparent when we take up the study of\nthe ancestral Anglo-Saxon, with its masculine, feminine, and neuter\nnouns, or of our allied German with its perplexities of sex, as, _e.g._,\nits masculine spoon, its feminine fork, and its neuter knife. Turning for\na moment to such slight aid as barbaric speech gives, we find in the\nlanguages of the hill tribes of South India a curious distinction made;\nrational beings, as gods and men, being grouped in a \u201chigh-caste or major\ngender,\u201d and living animals and lifeless things in a \u201ccasteless or minor\ngender.\u201d The languages of some North American and South African tribes\nmake a distinction into animate and inanimate gender; but as non-living\nthings, the sun, the thunder, the lightning, are regarded as persons, they\nare classed in the animate gender.\n\nFurther research into the radicals of so relatively fixed a language as\nChinese, and into more mobile languages related to it, may, perhaps,\nenlighten the present ignorance; but one thing is certain, that language\nwas \u201conce the scene of an immense personification,\u201d and has thereby added\nvitality to myth. Analogies and conceptions apparent to barbaric man, and\nin no way occurring to us, caused him to attribute sexual qualities not\nonly to dead as to living things, but to their several parts, as well as,\nin the course of time, to intellectual and abstract terms. Speaking\nbroadly, things in which were manifest size and qualities, as strength,\nindependence, governing or controlling power, usually attaching to the\nmale, were classed as masculine; whilst those in which the gentler and\nmore subordinate features were apparent were classed as feminine. Of\ncourse marked exceptions to this will at once occur to us, as, _e.g._, in\ncertain savage and civilised languages, where the sun is feminine and the\nmoon is masculine, but in the main the division holds good. The big is\nmale and the small is female. The Dyaks of Borneo call a heavy downpour of\nrain a _he_ rain; and, if so strength-imparting a thing as bread is to be\nclassed as either masculine or feminine, we must agree with the negro who,\nin answer to his master\u2019s question, \u201cSambo, where\u2019s the bread?\u201d replied,\n\u201cDe bread, massa? him lib in de pantry.\u201d The medi\u00e6val Persians are said to\nhave distinguished between male and female even in such things as food and\ncloth, air and water, and prescribed their proper use accordingly; while,\nas Dr. Tylor, from whom the above is quoted, adds, \u201ceven we, with our\nblunted mythologic sense, cannot give an individual name to a lifeless\nobject, such as a boat or a weapon, without in the very act imagining for\nit something of a personal nature.\u201d\n\nBut we must not stay longer in these attractive byways of philology,\nhowever warranted the digression may be, and must return to the\nmany-titled sun.\n\nWhilst in the more elaborate mythologies of classic peoples we find him\naddressed in exalted terms which are still the metaphors of poetry, we are\nnearer the rough material out of which all myth is shaped when among races\nwho speak of sun, moon, and stars as father, mother, and children, and who\nmean exactly what they say. We may find similar relationships in the solar\nand lunar deities of Egyptian and classic myth, but profound moral\nelements have entered into these and dissolved the material. We are face\nto face with the awful and abiding questions personified in Osiris and\nIsis, in \u0152dipus and Jocaste, where for us the sunlight pales and the storm\nclouds are dispersed before the dazzling mysteries of human life and\ndestiny.\n\nNo such matters confront us when in Indian myth we read that the moon is\nthe sun\u2019s sister, an aged, pale-faced woman, who in kindness led to her\nbrother two of the tribe who had sprung through a chasm in the sky to the\npleasant moonlit land. Neither do they in Australian myth, which shows\nthat the dwellers on Olympus had no monopoly of conjugal faithlessness.\nFor in it Mityan, the moon, is a native cat, who fell in love with\nsomebody else\u2019s wife, and has been driven to wander ever since. Among the\nBushmen, the moon has incurred the sun\u2019s anger, and is hacked smaller and\nsmaller by him, till, begging for mercy, a respite is given. But as soon\nas he grows larger the sun hacks him again. In Slavonic myth the sun\ncleaves him through for loving the morning star. The Indians of the far\nwest say that, when the moon is full, evil spirits begin nibbling at it,\nand eat a portion every night till it is all gone; then a great spirit\nmakes a new moon, and, weary with his toil, falls asleep, when the bad\nspirits renew their attack. Another not uncommon group of myths is that\nwhich speaks of sun and moon as borne across the heavens on the backs of\nancestors, as in Greek myth Atlas supports the world, or as in ceaseless\nflight, dogged by some pursuer, moon-dog, or \u201csun-wolf,\u201d as parhelion is\ncalled in Swedish. The group of kindred myths to which eclipses gave rise,\nwhen the cloud-dragon or serpent tries to swallow sun or moon, and for a\ntime succeeds, is too well known to need other than passing reference\nhere.\n\nA widespread body of myth has its source in the patches on the moon\u2019s\nface. In the Samoan Islands these are said to be a woman, a child, and a\nmallet. A woman was once hammering out paper-cloth, and seeing the moon\nrise, looking like a great bread-fruit, she asked it to come down and let\nher child eat a piece of it. But the moon was very angry at the idea of\nbeing eaten, and gobbled up the woman, child, and mallet, and there they\nare to this day. The Selish Indians of North-Western America say that the\nlittle wolf was in love with the toad, and pursued her one moonlight\nnight, till, as a last chance, she made a desperate spring on to the face\nof the moon, and there she is still. People in the East see the figure of\na hare in the patches, and both in Buddhist J\u00e2takas and Mongolian myth\nthat animal is carried by the moon. In Greenland myth the moon was in love\nwith his sister, and stole in the dark to caress her. She, wishing to find\nout who her lover was, blackened her hands so that the marks might be left\non him, which accounts for the spots. The Khasias of the Him\u00e2laya say that\nthe moon falls in love every month with his mother-in-law, who, like a\nwell-conducted matron, throws ashes in his face. Grimm quotes a medi\u00e6val\nmyth that the moon is Mary Magdalene, and the spots her tears of\nrepentance, whilst in Chaucer\u2019s _Testament of Cressida_ the moon is Lady\nCynthia.--\n\n  \u201cOn her brest a chorl paintid ful even,\n     _Bering a bush of thornis on his bake_,\n   Which for his _theft_ might clime no ner the heven.\u201d\n\nComparing these with more familiar myths, we have our own man in the moon,\nwho is said to be the culprit found by Moses gathering sticks on the\nSabbath, although his place of banishment is a popular addition to the\nScripture narrative. According to the German legend he was a scoffer who\ndid the same heinous offence on a Sunday, and was given the alternative of\nbeing scorched in the sun or frozen in the moon. The Frisians say that he\nstole cabbages, the load of which he bears on his back. He does not appear\nas a member of the criminal classes in China, his function being that of\ncelestial matchmaker, who ties together future couples with an invisible\nsilken cord which breaks not during life. In Icelandic myth the two\nchildren familiar to us as Jack and Jill were kidnapped by the moon, and\nthere they stand to this day with bucket on pole across their shoulders,\nfalling away one after the other as the moon wanes,--a phase described in\nthe couplet:--\n\n  \u201cJack fell down and broke his crown,\n   And Jill came tumbling after.\u201d\n\nMr. Baring Gould, whose essay on this subject in his _Curious Myths of the\nMiddle Ages_ gives a convenient summary of current legends, contends that\nJack and Jill are the Hjuki and Bil of the _Edda_, and signify the waxing\nand waning of the moon, their bucket indicating the dependence of rainfall\non her phases--a superstition extant among us yet.\n\nThe group of customs observed amongst both barbaric and civilised peoples\nat the changes of the moon, customs which are meaningless except as relics\nof lunar worship, belong to the passage of mythology into religion, of\npersonifying into deifying.\n\n(_b._) _The Stars._\n\nIn the great body of nature-myth the stars are prominent members. In their\nmultitude; their sublime repose in upper calms above the turmoil of the\nelements; their varying brilliancy, \u201cone star differing from another star\nin glory\u201d; their tremulous light; their scattered positions, which lend\nthemselves to every vagary of the constellation-maker; their slow\nprocession, varied only by sweeping comet and meteor, or falling showers\nof shooting stars; they lead the imagination into gentler ways than do the\nvaster bodies of the most ancient heavens. Nor, although we may compute\ntheir number, weigh their volume, in a few instances reckon their\ndistance, and, capturing the light that has come beating through space for\nunnumbered years, make it reveal the secret of their structure, is the\nimagination less moved by the clear heavens at night, or the feeling of\nawe and reverence blunted before that \u201cmighty sum of things for ever\nspeaking.\u201d\n\nIn barbaric myth the stars are spoken of as young suns, the children of\nthe sun and moon, but more often as men who have lived on the earth,\ntranslated without seeing death. The single stars are individual chiefs or\nheroes; the constellations are groups of men or animals. To the natives of\nAustralia the brilliant Jupiter is a chief among the others; and the stars\nin Orion\u2019s belt and scabbard are young men dancing a corroboree, the\nPleiades being girls playing to them. The Kasirs of Bengal say that the\nstars are men who climbed to the top of a tree, and were left in the\nbranches by the trunk being cut away. To the Eskimos the stars in Orion\nare seal-hunters who have missed their way home. And in German folk-lore\nthey are spoken of as the mowers, because, as Grimm says, \u201cthey stand in a\nrow like mowers in a meadow.\u201d In North American myth two of the bright\nstars are twins who have left a home where they were harshly treated, and\nleapt into the sky, whither their parents followed them and ceaselessly\nchase them. In Greek myth the faintest star of the seven Pleiades is\nMerope, whose light was dimmed because she alone among her sisters married\na mortal. The New Zealanders say that those stars are seven chiefs who\nfell in battle, and of whom only one eye of each is now visible. In Norse\nmyth Odin having slain a giant, plucks out his eyes and flings them up to\nthe sky, where they become two stars. In German star-lore the small star\njust above the middle one in the shaft of Charles\u2019s Wain, is a waggoner\nwho, having given our Saviour a lift, was offered the kingdom of heaven\nfor his reward, but who said he would sooner be driving from east to west\nto all eternity, and whose desire was granted--a curious contrast to the\nwandering Jew, cursed to move unresting over the earth until the day of\njudgment, because he refused to let Jesus, weary with the weight of the\ncross, rest for a moment on his doorstep. The Housatonic Indians say that\nthe stars in Charles\u2019s Wain are men hunting a bear, and that the chase\nlasts from spring to autumn, when the bear is wounded and its dripping\nblood turns the leaves of the trees red. With this may be cited the myth\nthat the red clouds at morn and eve are the blood of the slain in battle.\nIn the Northern Lights the Greenlanders see the spirits of the departed\ndancing, the brighter the flashes of the Aurora the greater the merriment,\nwhilst the Dacotas say of the meteors that they are spirits flying through\nthe air.\n\nOf the Milky Way--so called because H\u00ear\u00ea, indignant at the bantling\nHerakles being put to her breast, spilt her milk along the sky (the solar\nmythologers say that the \u201cred cow of evening passes during the night\nacross the sky scattering her milk\u201d)--the Ottawas say that it was caused\nby a turtle swimming along the bottom of the sky and stirring up the mud.\nAccording to the Patagonians it is the track along which the departed\ntribesmen hunt ostriches, the clouds being their feathers; in African myth\nit is some wood-ashes long ago thrown up into the sky by a girl, that her\npeople might be able to see their way home at night; in Eastern myth it\nis chaff dropped by a thief in his hurried flight.\n\nThe idea of a land beyond the sky--be it the happy hunting-ground of the\nIndian, or the Paradise of Islam, or the new Jerusalem of the\nApocalypse--would not fail to arise, and in both the Milky Way and the\nRainbow barbaric fancy sees the ladders and bridges whereby the departed\npass from earth to heaven. So we find in the lower and higher culture\nalike the beautiful conceptions of the _chemin des ames_, the Red man\u2019s\nroad of the dead to their home in the sun; the ancient Roman path of, or\nto, the gods; the road of the birds, in both Lithuanian and Finnish myth,\nbecause the winged spirits flit thither to the free and happy land. In\nprosaic contrast to all this, it is curious to find among ourselves the\nMilky Way described as Watling Street! That famous road, which ran from\nRichborough through Canterbury and London to Chester, now gives its name\nto a narrow bustling street of Manchester warehousemen in the City. But\nwho the W\u00e6tlingas were--whether giants, gods, or men--and why their name\nwas transferred from Britain to the sky, we do not know,[7] although the\nfact is plainly enough set down in old writers, foremost among whom is\nChaucer. In his _House of Fame_[8] he says:--\n\n  \u201cLo, there, quod he, cast up thine eye,\n   se yondir, to, the galaxie,\n   the whiche men clepe the Milky Way,\n   for it is white, and some parfay\n   ycallin it han Watlingestrete.\u201d\n\nTo the savage the rainbow is a living monster, a serpent seeking whom it\nmay devour, coming to earth to slake its unquenchable thirst, and preying\non the unwary. But in more poetic myth, its mighty many-coloured arch\ntouching, as it seems to do, the earth itself, is a road to glory. In the\n_Edda_ it is the three-coloured bridge Bifr\u00f6st, \u201cthe quivering track\u201d over\nwhich the gods walk, and of which the red is fire, so that the\nFrost-giants may not cross it. In Persian myth it is Chinvad, the \u201cbridge\nof the gatherer,\u201d flung across the gloomy depths between this world and\nthe home of the blessed; in Islam it is El-Sirat, the bridge thin as a\nhair and sharp as a scimitar, stretching from this world to the next;\namong the Greeks it was Iris, the messenger from Zeus to men, charged with\ntidings of war and tempest; to the Finns it was the bow of Tiernes, the\ngod of thunder; whilst to the Jew it was the messenger of grace from the\nEternal, who did set \u201chis bow in the clouds\u201d as the promise that never\nagain should the world be destroyed by flood. Such belief in the heavens\nas the field of activities profoundly affecting the fortunes of mankind,\nand in the stars as influencing their destinies, has been persistent in\nthe human mind. The delusions of the astrologer are embalmed in language,\nas when, forgetful of a belief shared not only by sober theologians, but\nby Tycho Brahe and Kepler, we speak of \u201cdisaster,\u201d and of our friends as\n\u201cjovial,\u201d \u201csaturnine,\u201d or \u201cmercurial.\u201d But the illusions of the savage or\nsemi-civilised abide as an animating part of many a faith, undisturbed by\na science which has swept the skies and found no angels there, and whose\nkeen analysis separates for ever the ancient belief in a connection\nbetween the planets and man\u2019s fate. For convenience\u2019 sake, we retain on\nour celestial maps and globes the men and monsters pictured by barbaric\nfancy in the star-positions and clusters, noting these as interesting\nexamples of survival. Yet we are the willing dupes of illusions nebulous\nas these, and, charm he never so wisely, the Time-spirit fails to\ndisenchant us.\n\n(_c._) _The Earth and Sky._\n\nIf the sun and moon are the parents of the stars, the heavens and the\nearth are the parents of all living things. Of this widely-found myth, one\nof the most striking specimens occurs among the Maoris. From Rangi, the\nheaven, and Papa, the earth, sprang all living things; but earth and sky\nclave together, and darkness rested on them and their children, who\ndebated whether they should rend them asunder or slay them. Then\nTane-mahuta, father of forests, reasoned that it was better to rend them,\nso that the heaven might become a stranger, and the earth remain as their\nnursing-mother. One after another they strove to do this, but in vain,\nuntil Tane-mahuta, with giant strength and strain, pressed down the earth\nand thrust upward the heaven. But one of his brothers, father of wind and\nstorm, who had not agreed to this parting of his parents, followed Rangi\ninto the sky, and thence sent forth his progeny, \u201cthe mighty winds, the\nfierce squalls, the clouds dense and dark, wildly drifting, wildly\nhunting,\u201d himself rushing on his foe, snapping the huge trees that barred\nhis path, and strewing their trunks and branches on the ground, while the\nsea was lashed into high-crested waves, and all the creatures therein\naffrighted. The fish darted hither and thither, but the reptiles fled into\nthe forests, causing quarrel between Tangaroa, the ocean-god, and\nTane-mahuta for giving them shelter. So the brothers fought, the ocean-god\nwrecking the canoes and sweeping houses and trees beneath the waters, and\nhad not Papa hidden the gods of the tilled food and the wild within her\nbosom, they would have perished. Wars of revenge followed quickly one upon\nthe other; the storm-god\u2019s anger was not soon appeased; so that the\ndevastation of the earth was well-nigh complete. But, at last, light arose\nand quiet ensued, and the dry land appeared. Rangi and Papa, parted for\never, quarrelled no more, but helped the one the other, and \u201cman stood\nerect and unbroken on his mother Earth.\u201d\n\nThe myth of Cronus will at once occur to the reader. Heaven (Uranus) and\nEarth (Gaea) were husband and wife, and their many children all hated\ntheir father for concealing them between the hollows of their mother\u2019s\nbreasts, so that they were shut out from light. Gaea sided with them and\nprovided Cronus, the youngest, with an iron sickle wherewith he unmanned\nUranus and separated him from Gaea. Cronus married his sister Rhea, and,\nat the advice of his parents, swallowed his children one by one as they\nwere born, lest they grew up and usurped his place among the Immortals.\nBut when Zeus was born, and Cronus asked for the child, Rhea deceived him\nby giving him a stone wrapped in swaddling bands. When Zeus grew up he\ngave his father an emetic, whereupon the children were all disgorged, and\nwith them the stone, which became a sacred object at Delphi. There is no\nsuch being as Cronus in Sanskrit, but what may be called the Vedic variant\nof the myth is that in which Dyaus (Heaven) and Prithiv\u00ee (Earth), were\nonce joined and subsequently separated.\n\nIn China we find a legend of \u201ca person called Puangku, who is said to have\nseparated the heaven and the earth, they formerly being pressed down close\ntogether,\u201d and, as one might expect, such a transparent nature-myth of the\nrending asunder of the world and sky is widespread.\n\nThe solar mythologists were perplexed at its presence among the refined\nand cultured Greeks. \u201cHow can we imagine that a few generations before the\ntime of Solon the highest notions of the Godhead among the Greeks were\nadequately expressed by the story of Uranus maimed by Cronus, of Cronus\neating his own children, swallowing a stone, and vomiting out alive his\nown progeny. Among the lowest tribes of Africa and America we hardly find\nanything more hideous and revolting.\u201d So the moral character of the Greeks\nand the exclusive comparative method of Professor Max M\u00fcller and his\nadherents were vindicated by the discovery that as Cronus means time, the\napparently repulsive myth simply means that time swallows up the days\nwhich spring from it; \u201cand,\u201d remarks Sir G. W. Cox in his _Manual of\nMythology_, \u201cthe old phrase meant simply this and nothing more, although\nbefore the people came to Greece they had forgotten its meaning.\u201d[9]\nCronus is a more than usually troublesome _crux_ to the etymologists.\n\nHere, as elsewhere, \u201cthe letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life;\u201d and\nwe may turn to the fundamental idea resident in the myth. The savage, in\nthe presence of recurring light and darkness, of the clouds lifting and\ndispersing before the sunrise, has his legend of a time when this was not\nso, but when heaven and earth were closed-in one upon the other till some\nhero thrust them apart. And, to his rude intelligence, the conception of\nnight as a devouring monster, might easily \u201cstart the notion of other\nswallowing and disgorging beings.\u201d In brief, to quote Mr. Andrew Lang,\n\u201cjust as the New Zealander had conceived of heaven and earth as at one\ntime united, to the prejudice of their children, so the ancestors of the\nGreeks had believed in an ancient union of heaven and earth. Both by\nGreeks and Maoris, heaven and earth were thought of as living persons,\nwith human parts and passions. Their union was prejudicial to their\nchildren, and so the children violently separated their parents.\u201d[10]\n\nThe beliefs of the ancient Finns, as described in the _Kalevala_, in the\nworld as a divided egg, of which the white is the ocean, the yolk the sun,\nthe arched shell the sky, and the darker portions the clouds; and of the\nPolynesians that the universe is the hollow of a vast cocoa-nut shell, at\nthe tapering bottom of which is the root of all things, are to us so\ngrotesque that it is not easy to regard them as explanations seriously\ninvented by the human mind. Yet these, together with the notions of the\ntwo halves of the shell of Brahma\u2019s egg, and of the two calabashes which\nform the heaven and the earth in African myth, find their correspondences\nin the widespread conception of the over-arching firmament as a hard and\nsolid thing,[11] with holes (or windows[12]) to let the rain through, with\ngates through which angels descend,[13] or through which prophets peer\ninto celestial mysteries;[14] a firmament outside which other people live,\nas instanced by the Polynesian term for strangers, \u201cpapalangi,\u201d or\n\u201cheaven-bursters.\u201d In Esthonian myth Ilmarine hammers steel into a vault\nwhich he strained like a tent over the earth, nailing thereon the silver\nstars and moon, and suspending the sun from the roof of the tent with\nmachinery to lift it up and let it down. The like achievement is recorded\nof Ilmarinen in the _Kalevala_, the cosmogony of which corresponds to that\nof the Esthonian _Kalevip\u00f6eg_.\n\nThese are the less refined forms of myths which have held their ground\nfrom pre-scientific times till now, and the rude analogies of which are\njustified by the appearances of things as presented by the senses. Man\u2019s\nintellectual history is the history of his escape from the illusions of\nthe senses, it is the slow and often tardily accepted discovery that\nnature is quite other than that which it seems to be. And this variance\nbetween appearances and realities remained hidden until the intellect\nchallenged the report about phenomena which the sense-perceptions brought.\nFor in the ages when feeling was dominant, and the judgment scarce\nawakened, the simple explanations in venerable legends sung by bard or\ntold by aged crone--legends to which age had given sanctity which finally\nplaced them among the world\u2019s sacred literatures--were received without\ndoubt or question. But, as belief in causality spread, men were not\ncontent to rest in the na\u00efve explanations of an uncritical age. What man\nhad guessed about nature gave place to what nature had to say about\nherself, and with the classifying of experience science had its birth.\n\nMeanwhile, until this quite recent stage in man\u2019s progress was reached,\nthe senses told their blundering tale of an earth flat and fixed, with\nsun, moon, and stars as its ministering servants, while gods or beasts\nupbore it, and mighty pillars supported the massive firmament In Hindu\nmyth the tortoise which upholds the earth rests upon an elephant, whose\nlegs _reach all the way down_! In Bogot\u00e0 the culture-god Bochica punishes\na lesser and offending deity by compelling him to sustain the part of\nAtlas, and it is in shifting his burden from shoulder to shoulder that\nearthquakes are caused. The natives of Celebes say that these are due to\nthe world-supporting Hog as he rubs himself against a tree; the\nThascaltecs that they occur when the deities who hold up the world relieve\none another; the Japanese think that they are caused by huge dragons\nwriggling underground, an idea probably confirmed by the discovery of\nmonster fossil bones. In Algonquin myth the mighty man Earthquake \u201ccan\npass along under the ground, and make all things shake and tremble by his\npower.\u201d\n\nAs the myths about earth-bearers prevail in the regions of earthquakes, so\ndo those about subterranean beings in the neighbourhood of volcanoes. The\nsuperstitions which mountainous countries especially foster are\nintensified when the mountains themselves cast forth their awful and\ndevastating progeny, \u201cred ruin\u201d and the other children born of them. Man\nin his dread, \u201ccaring in no wise for the external world, except as it\ninfluenced his own destiny; honouring the lightning because it could\nstrike him, the sea because it could drown him,\u201d[15] could do naught else\nthan people them with maleficent beings, and conceive of their\nsulphur-exhaling mouths as the jaws of a bottomless pit.\n\n(_d._) _Storm and Lightning, etc._\n\nIf in freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the \u201csolar\u201d theory we shackled\nourselves with some other, we should certainly prefer that which is known\nas the \u201cmeteorological,\u201d and which, in the person of Kuhn and other\nsupporters, finds a more rational and persistent source of myth in\nphenomena which are fitful and startling, such as hurricane and tempest,\nearthquake and volcanic outburst. Sunrises and sunsets happen with a\nregularity which failed to excite any strong emotion or stimulate\ncuriosity, and the remotest ancestor of the primitive Aryan soon shook off\nthe habit--if, indeed, he ever acquired it--of going to bed in fear and\ntrembling lest the sun should not come back again. Nature, in her softer\naspects and her gracious bounties, in the spring-time with its promise,\nthe summer with its glory, the autumn with its gifts, has moved the heart\nof man to song and festival and procession; as, by contrast, the frosts\nthat nipped the early buds and the fierce heat that withered the\napproaching harvest gave occasion for plaintive ditty and sombre ceremony.\nIt is in the fierce play and passionate outbursts of the elements, in the\nstorm, the lightning, and the thunder, that the feelings are aroused and\nthat the terror-stricken fancy sees the strife of wrathful deities, or\ndepicts their dire work amongst men. Hence, all the world over, the\nstorm-god and the wind-god have played a mighty part.\n\nTo the savage, the wind, blowing as it listeth, its whence and whither\nunknown, itself invisible, yet the sweep and force of its power manifest\nand felt, must have ranked amongst the most striking phenomena. And, as\nwill be seen hereafter, the correspondences between wind and breath, and\nthe connection between breath and life, added their quota of mystery in\nman\u2019s effort to account for the impalpable element. Of this\npersonification of the elements the following Ojibway folk-tale, cited by\nDorman, gives poetic illustration:--\u201cThere were spirits from all parts of\nthe country. Some came with crashing steps and roaring voice, who directed\nthe whirlwinds which were in the habit of raging about the neighbouring\ncountry. Then glided in gently a sweet little spirit, which blew the\nsummer gale. Then came in the old sand-spirit, who blew the sand-squalls\nin the sand-buttes toward the west. He was a great speech-maker, and shook\nthe lodge with his deep-throated voice, as he addressed the spirits of the\ncataracts and waterfalls, and those of the islands who wore beautiful\ngreen blankets.\u201d\n\nIn the legends of the Quiches, the mysterious creative power is Hurakan\n(whence _hurricane_), among the Choctaws the original word for Deity is\nHushtoli, the storm-wind, and in Peru to kiss the air was the commonest\nand simplest sign of adoration of the collective divinities. The\nGuayacuans of South America, when a storm arose and there was much thunder\nor wind, all went out in troops, as it were to battle, shaking their clubs\nin the air, shooting flights of arrows in that direction whence the storm\ncame.[16]\n\nThe Araucanians thought that gales and thunderstorms were the battles\nfought between the spirits of the dead and their foes.\n\nTurning to the literatures of higher races, we find in the prose _Edda_,\nwhen Gangler asks whence comes the wind, that Ha answers him: \u201cThou must\nknow that at the northernmost point in the heavens sits a giant,\n\n  \u201cIn the guise of an eagle;\n     And the winds, it is said,\n   Rush down on the earth\n     From his outspreading pinions.\u201d\n\nIn Finnish myth the north wind Pulmri, father of the frost, is sometimes\nimaged as an eagle.\n\n\u201cThe Indians believe in a great bird called by them _Wochowsen_ or\n_Wuchowsen_, meaning Wind-Blow or the Wind-Blower, who lives far to the\nnorth, and sits upon a great rock at the end of the sky. And it is because\nwhenever he moves his wings the wind blows they of old times called him\nthat.\u201d And in another Algonquin myth: \u201cGa-oh is the Spirit of the Winds.\nHe moves the winds, but he is chained to a rock. The winds trouble him,\nand he tries very hard to get free. When he struggles the winds are\nforced away from him, and they blow upon the earth. Sometimes he suffers\nterrible pain, and then his struggles are violent. This makes the winds\nwild, and they do damage on the earth. Then he feels better and goes to\nsleep, and the winds become quiet also.\u201d[17]\n\nIn the _Veda_ the Maruts or Storm-gods, to whom many of the hymns are\naddressed, \u201cmake the rocks to tremble and tear asunder the kings of the\nforest,\u201d like Hermes in his violence and like Boreas in his rage. Whether\nor no they become in Scandinavian legend the grim and fearful Ogres\nswiftly sailing in their cloud-ships, we may see in them the \u201ccrushers\u201d\nand \u201cgrinders,\u201d[18] as their name imports, the types of northern deities\nlike Odin, long degraded into the Wild Huntsman and his phantom crew,\nwhose uncouth yells the peasant hears in the midnight air.[19] Among the\nAztecs Cuculkan, the bird-serpent, was a personification of the wind,\nespecially of the east wind, as bringer of the rain. It was at one of his\nshrines, to which pilgrimages were made from great distances, that the\nSpaniards first saw to their surprise a cross surmounting the temple of\nthis god of the wind, whence arose a legend that the Apostle Thomas had\nevangelised America. But, in fact, the pagan cross of Central America and\nMexico was the symbol of the four cardinal points.\n\nIn his valuable book on the _Myths of the Red Race_ Dr. Brinton has\nbrought together a mass of evidence in support of a theory that the\nsanctity in which the number four is held by the American races is due to\nthe adoration of the cardinal points, which are identified with the four\nwinds, who in hero-myths are the four ancestors of the human race. The\nillustrations with which the argument is supported are numerous and\nvaluable, but the argument itself is made to rest too strongly on an\nassumed primitive symbolism, whereas it suffices to show how the early\nnotion of the flat world, as also square, would lead to the myth of the\nfour winds blowing from the four corners, a myth often illustrated in\nancient maps with an angel at each corner from whose mouth the wind\nissues. The official title of the Incas was \u201cLord of the four quarters of\nthe earth,\u201d and the number appears in all sorts of combinations, but the\ntheory may be pushed to extremes in compelling every fact to square with\nit.[20] As the illustrations given above show, we are some steps nearer to\nthe primitive myth when we find the wind conceived of as a mighty bird,\nwhich indeed is in both old and new world mythology a common symbol of\nthunder and lightning also. On this matter Dr. Brinton\u2019s remarks bear\nquoting.\n\n    Like the wind the bird sweeps through the a\u00ebrial spaces, sings in the\n    forests, and rustles on its course; like the cloud it floats in\n    mid-air, and casts its shadow on the earth; like the lightning it\n    darts from heaven to earth to strike its unsuspecting prey. These\n    tropes were truths to savage nations, and led on by that law of\n    language which forced them to conceive everything as animate or\n    inanimate, itself the product of a deeper law of thought which urges\n    us to ascribe life to whatever has motion, they found no animal so\n    appropriate for their purpose here as the bird. Therefore the\n    Algonquins say that birds always make the winds, that they create the\n    waterspouts, and that the clouds are the spreading and agitation of\n    their wings; the Navajos that at each cardinal point stands a white\n    swan, who is the spirit of the blasts; so also the Dakotas frequently\n    explain the thunder as the sound of the cloud-bird flapping his wings;\n    the lightning as the fire that flashes from his tracks, like the\n    sparks which the buffalo scatters when he scours over a stony plain.\n\nEstimates differ much as to the size of the Thunder-Bird. In one tradition\nan Indian found its nest, and secured a feather which was above two\nhundred feet long, while in another tradition the bird is said to be no\nbigger than one\u2019s little finger. But among the Western Indians he is an\nimmense eagle. \u201cWhen this a\u00ebrial monster flaps his wings loud peals of\nthunder roll over the prairie; when he winks his eye it lightens; when he\nwags his tail the waters of the lake which he carries on his back overflow\nand produce rain.\u201d Mixcoatl, the Mexican Cloud-Serpent, as well as Jove,\ncarries his bundle of arrows or thunderbolts, which in the hand of Thor\nare represented by his mighty club or hammer. The old and universal belief\nthat stones were hurled by the Thunder-God is not so far-fetched as we, in\nour pride of science, might think, for the flints which are mistaken for\nthunderbolts, and which become objects of adoration as well as charms,\nproduce a flash when struck by the lightning. In the lightning flash man\nwould see the descent of fire from heaven for his needs. That he should\nregard it, like water, as a living creature, with power to hurt or help\nhim, is in keeping with attribution of life to all that moved. Its\napparent connection with the great source of heat would foster the feeling\nwhich expressed itself in fire-worship, with its curious survivals to\nmodern times. No element was more calculated to excite awe in its seeming\nunrelation to the objects which produced it. Once secured, to guard it\nfrom extinction or theft was a serious duty, and everything from which it\nissued, trees as its hiding-place, since it came from the wood when\nrubbed, stones also, since sparks shot from them when struck, were held\nsacred. In the manifold myths about its origin one feature is common, that\nits seed was stolen, the chief agents (probably as the messengers between\nearth and sky) being birds, or men assuming the form of birds. The Sioux\nIndians say that their first ancestor procured his fire from the sparks\nwhich a panther struck from the rocks as he bounded up a hill. But of\nexamples from the lower culture, forerunners of the Zeus-defying\nPrometheus, Mr. Gill\u2019s _Myths of the South Pacific_ supplies one which may\nbe taken as a sample of the rest. Maui, a famous South Sea hero, finding\nsome cooked food in a basket brought by Buataranga from the nether world,\nand relishing it more than raw food, determines to steal the fire, and\nflying to the Buataranga\u2019s realm frightens the fire-god by threats and\nblows into revealing the secret. Then wresting the fire-sticks from him he\nsets the under-world in flames, and returns with his prize to the\nupper-world; thenceforth \u201call the dwellers there used fire-sticks, and\nenjoyed the luxuries of light and of cooked food.\u201d\n\n(_e._) _Light and Darkness._\n\nAs in the conflict raging in the sky during gale or tempest, when the\nlight and the darkness alternately prevail, the barbaric mind sees war\nwaged between the heroes of the spirit-land who have carried their\nunsettled blood feuds thither, so in many myths the lightning is no\ncomrade of the thunder, but its foe, the battle of bird with serpent. The\nresemblance of the lightning flash to the sharp, sudden, zigzag movements\nof the serpent, a creature so mysterious to barbaric man in its unlikeness\nto the beasts of the field, accounts for a myth the influence of which as\na terrorising agent on human conduct is in course of rapid decay. Its\nimportance in the history of belief in the supernatural is too\nfar-reaching to be passed over, and in tracing its course it is necessary\nto show its connection with the group of storm-myths and sun-myths of the\nAryan race in the battles between Indra and Vritra, Ormuzd and Ahriman,\nThor and Midgard, Hercules and Cacus, Apollo and Pyth\u00f4n, and St. George\nand the Dragon.\n\nAll the Aryan nations have among their legends, often exalted into epic\nthemes, the story of a battle between a hero and a monster. In each case\nthe hero conquers, and releases treasures, or in some way renders succour\nto man, through his victory. In Hindu myth this battle is fought between\nIndra and Vritra.\n\nIndra, one of the Vedic gods, comes, according to Professor Max M\u00fcller,\nfrom the same root as the Sanskrit _indu_, drop, sap, but the etymology is\ndoubtful. What is not doubtful is that he is the god of the bright sky,\nand although, like the other gods invoked in the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_,\na departmental or tribal deity, he is a sort of _primus inter pares_, of\nwhose many titles, Vritrahan or \u201cVritra-slayer\u201d is the pre-eminent one.\nThe benefits showered by him upon mortals caused the attribution of moral\nqualities to him, and he was adored as \u201clord of the virtues,\u201d while the\njuice of the sacred soma plant was offered in his honour, for which reason\nhe is also called Somap\u00e2 or \u201csoma-drinker.\u201d It is his struggle with Vritra\nwhich is a constant theme of the Vedic hymns, the burden of which remind\nus of the praises offered in the Psalms to Yahweh as a man of war, as\nmighty in battle. \u201cThe gods do not reach thee, nor men, thou overcomest\nall creatures in strength.... Thou thunderer, hast shattered with thy bolt\nthe broad and massive cloud into fragments, and has sent down the waters\nthat were confined in it to flow at will; verily thou alone possessest all\npower.\u201d The primitive physical meaning of the myth is clear. Indra is the\nsun-god, armed with spears and arrows, for such did the solar rays\nsometimes appear to barbaric fancy. The rain-clouds are imprisoned in\ndungeons or caverns by Vritra, the \u201cenveloper,\u201d the thief, serpent, wolf,\nwild boar, as he is severally styled in the _Rig-Veda_. Indra attacks him,\nhurls his darts at him, they pierce the cloud-caverns, the waters are\nreleased, and drop upon the earth as rain.\n\nThis explanation, which has many parallels in savage myth, is\nself-consistent as fitting into crude philosophy of personal life and\nvolition in sun and cloud, and is fraught with deep truth of meaning in\nregions like the Punjaub, where drought brought famine in its train.\n\nThe Aryans were a pastoral people, their wealth being in flocks and\nherds.[21] The cow yielded milk for the household; her dung fertilised the\nsoil; her young multiplied the wealth of the family at an ever-increasing\nrate, and she naturally became the symbol of fruitfulness and prosperity,\nultimately an object of veneration; while, for the functions which the\nbull performed, he was the type of strength. The Aryan\u2019s enemy was he who\nstole or injured the cattle; the Aryan\u2019s friend was he who saved them from\nthe robber\u2019s clutch.\n\nIntellectually, the Aryan tribes were, speaking broadly, in the mythop\u0153ic\nstage, and the personification of phenomena was rife among them. Their\nbarbaric fancy, as kindred myths all the world over testify, would find\nample play in the fleeting and varied scenery of the cloud-flecked\nheavens, suggestive, as this would be, of bodies celestial and bodies\nterrestrial. To these children of the plain the heavens were a vast, wide\nexpanse, over which roamed supra-mundane beasts, the two most prominent\nfigures in their mythical zoology being the cow and the bull. The sun,\ngiver of blessed light, was the bull of majesty and strength; the white\nclouds were cows, from whose swelling udders dropped the milk of\nheaven--the blessed rain. But there were dark clouds also, clouds of night\nand clouds of storm, and within these lurked the monster-robber; into them\nhe lured the herds, and withheld both light and rain from the children of\nmen. To the sun-god, therefore, who smote the thief-dragon, Vritra, with\nhis shaft, and set free the imprisoned cows, went up the shout of praise,\nthe song of gratitude. This myth survives in many legends of the Aryan\nrace, and their family likeness is unmistakable. In its Latin guise it\nappears as Hercules[22] and Cacus, although the preciseness of detail\nnarrated by Virgil, Livy, and other writers, has given it quasi-historical\nrank. Hercules, after his victory over Geryon, stops to rest by the Tiber,\nand while he is sleeping the three-headed monster, Cacus, steals some of\nhis cattle, dragging them by their tails into his cavern in Mons\nAvertinus. Their bellowing awakens Hercules, who attacks the cavern, from\nthe mouth of which Cacus vomits flames, and roars as in thunder. But the\nhero slays him and frees the cattle, a victory which the earlier Romans\ncelebrated with solemn rites at the Ara Maxima. In Greek myth the most\nfamiliar examples are the struggles between the sun-god, Apollo, and the\nstorm-dragon, Pyth\u00f4n, and the deliverance of the Princess Andromeda by\nPerseus from the sea-monster sent by Poseid\u00f4n to ravage the land. In the\nnorthern group we have the battle of Siegfried with the Niflungs, or\nNiblungs, and of Sigurd with the dragon Fafnir, who guards golden\ntreasures; while, in the _Edda_, Thor goes fishing with the giant Hymir,\nand catches the demon Loki, whose foul brood are Hell, the wolf Fenri, and\nthe Earth-girdling Serpent. Amongst ourselves, Beowulf, hero of the poem\nof that name, attacks the dragon or fire-drake Grendel, who, with his\ntroll-mother, haunts a gloomy marsh-land. Thence he stole forth at night\nto seize sleeping champions, taking them to his dwelling-place to devour\nthem, and this in such numbers that scarce a man was left. One pale night,\nBeowulf awaited the coming of the monster, and, gripping him tightly,\nsnapped his limbs asunder, so that he died.\n\nThese brief illustrations would hardly be complete without some reference\nto our national saint. Opinions differ as to his merits, Gibbon\nstigmatising him as a fraudulent army contractor,[23] while the researches\nof M. Ganneau seek to establish his relation to the Egyptian Horus and\nTyphon. Be this as it may, the stirring old legend tells how George of\nCappadocia delivered the city of Silene from a dragon dwelling in a lake\nhard by. Nothing that the people could give him satisfied his insatiate\nmaw, and in their despair they cast lots who among their dearest ones\nshould be flung to the dread beast. The lot fell to the king\u2019s daughter,\nand she went unflinchingly, like Jephthah\u2019s daughter, to her fate. But on\nthe road the hero learns her sad errand, and bidding her fear not, he,\nmaking sign of the cross, brandishes his lance, attacks and transfixes the\ndragon, and leading him into Silene, beheads him in sight of all the\npeople, who, with their king, are baptized to the glory of Him who made\nSt. George the victor.[24]\n\n(_f._) _The Devil._\n\nWhile, however, the myth of Indra and Vritra has in its western variants\nremained for the most part a battle between heroes and dragons, the moral\nelement rarely obscuring the physical features, it gave rise among the\nIranians or ancient Persians to a definite theology, the strange fortunes\nof which have, as remarked above, profoundly affected Christendom.\n\nAlthough in the Vedic hymns the features of the primitive nature-myth\nreappear again and again, Indra himself boasting, \u201cI slew Vritra, O\nMaruts, with might, having grown strong with my own vigour; I who hold the\nthunderbolt in my arms, I have made these all-brilliant waters to flow\nfreely for man,\u201d we find an approach in them to some conception of that\nspiritual conflict of which the physical conflict was so complete a\nsymbol. Indra as victor, is an object of adoration and invested with\npurity and goodness; Vritra, as the enemy of men, is an object of dread,\nand invested with malice and evil.\n\nBut while in the Zend-Avesta, the Scriptures of the old Iranian religion,\nthe struggle between Thraeta\u00f4na and the three-headed serpent Azhi-Dah\u00e2ka\n(in which names are recognisable the Traitana and Ahi of the _Veda_ and\nthe Feridun and Zohak of Persian epic) is narrated, the moral idea is\ndominant throughout. The theme is not the attack of the sun-god to recover\nstolen milch cows from the dragon\u2019s cave, but the battle between Ormuzd,\nthe Spirit of Light, and Ahriman, the Spirit of Darkness. The one seeks to\nmar the earth which the other has made. Into the fair paradise,\nAirayana-Va\u00eaj\u00f4, \u201ca delightful spot,\u201d as the Avesta calls it, \u201cwith good\nwaters and trees,\u201d and into other smiling lands which Ormuzd has blessed,\nAhriman sends \u201ca mighty serpent ... strong, deadly frost ... buzzing\ninsects, and poisonous plants ... toil and poverty,\u201d and, worse than all,\n\u201cthe curse of unbelief.\u201d[25] Between these two spiritual powers and their\narmies of good and bad angels the battle rages for supremacy in the\nuniverse, for possession of the citadel of Mansoul.\n\nEarly in the history of the Asiatic Aryan tribes there had arisen a\nquarrel between the Brahmanic and Iranian divisions. The latter had\nbecome a quiet-loving, agricultural people, while the former remained\nmarauding nomads, attacking and harassing their neighbours. In their\nplundering inroads they invoked the aid of spells and sacrifices, offering\nthe sacred soma-juice to their gods, and nerving themselves for the fray\nby deep draughts of the intoxicating stuff. Not only they, but their gods\nas well, thereby became objects of hatred to the peaceful Iranians, who\nforeswore all worship of freebooter\u2019s deities, and transformed these\n_devas_ of the old religion into demons. That religion, as common to the\nIndo-European race, was polytheistic, a worship of deities each ruling\nover some department of nature, but a worship exalting now one, now\nanother god, be it Indra, or Varuna, or Agni, according to the indications\nof the deity\u2019s supremacy, or according to the mood of the worshipper. As\nremarked by Jacob Grimm, \u201cthe idea of the devil is foreign to all\nprimitive religions,\u201d obviously because in all primitive thought evil and\ngood are alike regarded as the work of deities. In the Old Testament,\nYahweh is spoken of as the author of both;[26] the angels, whether charged\nwith weal or woe, are his messengers. In the _Iliad_ Zeus dispenses\nboth:--\n\n  \u201cTwo urns by Jove\u2019s high throne have ever stood,\n   The source of evil one, the other good;\n   From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,\n   Blessings to these, to those distribute ills,\n   To most, he mingles both,\u201d[27]\n\nand \u2019tis a far cry from this to the loftier conception of Euripides: \u201cIf\nthe gods do evil, then are they no gods.\u201d So there was a monotheistic--or,\nas Professor Max M\u00fcller terms it, a henotheistic--element in the Vedic\nreligion which in the Iranian religion, and this mainly through the\nteaching of the great thinker and reformer Zarathushtra (Zoroaster), was\nlargely diffused. In his endeavour to solve the old problem of reconciling\nsin and misery with omnipotent goodness, he supposes \u201ctwo primeval\ncauses,\u201d one of which produced the \u201creality,\u201d or good mind; the other the\n\u201cnon-reality,\u201d or evil mind. Behind these was developed belief in a\nphilosophical abstraction, \u201cuncreate time,\u201d of which each was the product;\nbut such doctrines were too subtle for the popular grasp, and, wrapped in\nthe old mythological garb, they appeared in concrete form as dualism.\nVritra survived in Ahriman, who, like him, is represented as a serpent;\nand in Ormuzd we have the phonetic descendant of Ahura-mazda.\n\nNow, it was with this dualism, this transformed survival of the sun and\ncloud myth, that the Jews came into association during their memorable\nexile in Babylon. Prior to that time their theology, as hinted above, had\nno devil in it. But in that belief in spirits which they held in common\nwith all semi-civilised races, as a heritage from barbarous ancestors,\nthere were the elements out of which such a personality might be readily\nevolved. Their _satan_, or \u201caccuser,\u201d as that word means, is no prince of\nthe demons, like the Beelzebul of later times; no dragon or old serpent,\nas of the Apocalypse, defying Omnipotence and deceiving the whole world;\nbut a kind of detective who, by direction of Yahweh, has his eye on\nsuspects, and who is sent to test their fidelity. In all his missions he\nacts as the intelligent and loyal servant of Yahweh. But although\ntherefore not regarded as bad himself, the character and functions with\nwhich he was credited made easy the transition from such theories about\nhim to theories of him as inherently evil, as the enemy of goodness, and,\ntherefore, of God. He who, like Vritra, was an object of dread, came to be\nregarded as the incarnation of evil, the author and abettor of things\nharmful to man. Persian dualism gave concrete form to this conception, and\nfrom the time of the Exile we find Satan as the Jewish Ahriman, the\nantagonist of God. Not he alone, for \u201cthe angels that kept not their first\nestate\u201d were the ministers of his evil designs, creatures so numerous that\nevery one has 10,000 at his right hand and 1000 at his left hand, and\nbecause they rule chiefly at night no man should greet another lest he\nsalute a demon. They haunt lonely spots, often assume the shape of beasts,\nand it is their presence in the bodies of men and women which is the cause\nof madness and other diseases.[28]\n\nFrom the period when the Apocryphal books, especially those having traces\nof Persian influence, were written,[29] this doctrine of an arch-fiend\nwith his army of demons received increasing impetus. It passed on without\ncheck into the Christian religion, and wherever this spread the heathen\ngods, like the _devas_ of Brahmanism among the Iranians, were degraded\ninto demons, and swelled the vast crowd of evil spirits let loose to\ntorment and ruin mankind.\n\nThis doctrine of demonology, it should be remembered, was but the\nelaborated form of ancestral belief in spirits referred to above. In the\nChristian system it was associated with that belief in magic which has its\nroots in fetishism, and from the two arose belief in witchcraft. The\nuniversal belief in demons in early and medi\u00e6val times supplied an easy\nexplanation of disasters and diseases; the sorcerers and charm-workers,\nthe wizards and enchanters, had passed into the service of the devil. For\npower to work their spite and malevolence they had bartered their souls to\nhim, and sealed the bargain with their blood. It was enough for the\nignorant and frightened sufferers to accuse some poor, misshapen,\nsquinting old woman of casting on them the evil eye, or of appearing in\nthe form of a cat, to secure her trial by torture and her condemnation to\nan unpitied death. The spread of popular terror led to the issue of Papal\nbulls and to the passing of statutes in England and in other countries\nagainst witchcraft, and it was not until late in the eighteenth century\nthat the laws against that imaginary crime were repealed.\n\nThere is no sadder chapter in the annals of this tearful world than this\nghastly story of witch-finding and witch-burning. Sprenger computes that\nduring the Christian epoch no less than _nine millions_ of persons, mostly\nwomen of the poorer classes, were burned; victims of the survival into\nrelatively civilised times of an illusion which had its source in\nprimitive thought. It was an illusion which had the authority of Scripture\non its side;[30] the Church had no hesitation concerning it; such men as\nLuther, Sir Thomas Browne, and Wesley never doubted it; the evidence of\nthe bewitched was supported by honest witnesses; and judges disposed to\nmercy and humanity had no qualms in passing the dread sentence of the law\non the condemned.[31]\n\nAnd although it exists not to-day, save in by-places where gross darkness\nlurks, it was not destroyed by argument, by disproof, by direct assault,\nbut only through the quiet growth and diffusion of the scientific spirit,\nbefore which it has dispersed. It could not live in an atmosphere thus\npurified, an atmosphere charged with belief in unchanging causation and in\na definite order unbroken by caprice or fitfulness, whether in the sweep\nof a planet or the pulsations of a human heart.\n\nOf course the antecedents of the arch-fiend himself could not fail to be\nthe subject of curious inquiry in the time when his existence was no\nmatter of doubt. The old theologians scraped together enough material\nabout him from the sacred books of the Jews and Christians to construct an\nelaborate biography of him; but in this they would seem to have explained\ntoo much in certain directions and not enough in others, thus provoking a\nreaction which ultimately discredited their painful research. Their\ngenealogy of him was carried farther back than they intended or desired,\nfor the popular notions credited him with both a mother and grandmother.\nTheir theory of his fall from heaven gave rise to the droll conception of\nhis lameness and to the legends of which the \u201cdevil on two sticks\u201d is a\ntype. Their infusion of foreign element into his nature aided his\npictorial presentment in motley form and garb, as seen in the old\nmiracle-plays. To Vedic descriptions of Vritra\u2019s darkness may perchance be\ntraced his murkiness and blackness; to Greek satyr and German\nforest-sprite his goat-like body, his horns, his cloven hoofs, his tail;\nto Thor his red beard; to dwarfs and goblins his red cloak and nodding\nplume; to theories of transformation of men and spirits into animals his\nmanifold metamorphoses, as black cat, wolf, hellhound, and the like.\n\nBut his description was his doom; it was by a natural sequence that the\nlegends of medi\u00e6val times present him, not, with the Scotch theologians,\nas a scholar and a swindler, disguising himself as a parson, but as\ngullible and stupid, as over-reaching himself and as befooled by mortals.\nAnd, like the Trolls of Scandinavian folk-lore who burst at sunrise, it\nneeded only the full light thrown upon his origin and development by the\nresearches of comparative mythologists to dissipate this creation of man\u2019s\nfears and fancies into the vaporous atmosphere where he had his birth.\n\n\n\u00a7 IV.\n\nTHE SOLAR THEORY OF MYTH.\n\nThe cogency of the evidence concerning the development of belief in Satan\nout of light-and-darkness myths is generally admitted, but it is of a kind\nthat must not be pushed too far. For the phases of Nature are manifold;\nmanifold also is the life of man; and we must not lend a too willing ear\nto theories which refer the crude explanations of an unscientific age,\nwhen the whole universe is Wonderland, to one source. _Cave hominem unius\nlibri_, says the adage, and we may apply it, not only to the man of one\nbook, but also to the man of one idea, in whom the sense of proportion is\nlacking, and who sees only that for which he looks. Here such caution is\nintroduced as needful of exercise against the comparative mythologists\nwho, not content with showing--as abundant evidence warrants--that myth\nhas its germs in the investment of the powers of nature with personal life\nand consciousness, contend that the great epics of our own and kindred\nraces are, from their broadest features to minutest detail, but\nnature-myths obscured and transformed.\n\nCertain scholars, notably Professor Max M\u00fcller, Sir G. W. Cox, and\nProfessor de Gubernatis, as interpreters of the myths of the Indo-European\npeoples, and Dr. Goldziher, as an interpreter of Hebrew myth and cognate\nforms, maintain that the names given in the mythop\u0153ic age to the sun, the\nmoon, and the changing scenery of the heaven as the fleeting forms and\nmyriad shades passed over its face, lost their original signification\nwholly or partially, and came to be regarded as the names of veritable\ndeities and men, whose actions and adventures are the disguised\ndescriptions of the sweep of the thunder-charged clouds and of the victory\nof the hero-god over their light-engulfing forces. But it is better to\nstate the theory in the words of its exponents, and for that purpose a\ncouple of extracts from Sir George Cox\u2019s _Mythology of the Aryan Nations_\nwill suffice.\n\n    In the spontaneous utterances of thoughts awakened by outward\n    phenomena, we have the source of myths which must be regarded as\n    _primary_. But it is obvious that such myths would be produced only so\n    long as the words employed were used in their original meaning. If\n    once the meaning of the word were either in part or wholly forgotten,\n    the creation of a new personality under this name would become\n    inevitable, and the change would be rendered both more certain and\n    more rapid by the very wealth of words which were lavished on the\n    sights and objects which most impressed their imagination. A thousand\n    phrases would be used to describe the action of a beneficent or\n    consuming sun, of the gentle or awful night, of the playful or furious\n    wind; and every word or phrase become the germ of a new story as soon\n    as the mind lost its hold on the original force of the name. Thus, in\n    the polyonymy (by which term Sir George Cox means the giving of\n    several names to one object), which was the result of the earliest\n    form of human thought, we have the germ of the great epics of later\n    times, and of the countless legends which make up the rich stores of\n    mythical tradition ... and the legends so framed constitute the class\n    of _secondary_ myths (p. 42).\n\n    Henceforth the words which had denoted the sun and moon would denote\n    not merely living things but living persons.... Every word would\n    become an attribute, and all ideas, once grouped round a single\n    object, would branch off into distinct personifications. The sun had\n    been the lord of light, the driver of the chariot of the day; he had\n    toiled and laboured for the sons of men, and sunk down to rest, after\n    a hard battle, in the evening. But now the lord of light would be\n    Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n, while Helios would remain enthroned in his fiery\n    chariot, and his toils and labours and death-struggles would be\n    transferred to Herakl\u00eas. The violet clouds which greet his rising and\n    his setting would now be represented by herds of cows which feed in\n    earthly pastures. There would be other expressions which would still\n    remain as floating phrases, not attached to any definite deities.\n    These would gradually be converted into incidents in the life of\n    heroes, and be woven at length into systematic variations. Finally,\n    these gods and heroes, and the incidents of their mythical career,\n    would receive each \u201ca local habitation and a name.\u201d These would remain\n    as genuine history when the origin and meaning of the words had been\n    either wholly or in part forgotten (p. 51).\n\nSuch is the \u201csolar myth\u201d theory. \u201cWe can hardly,\u201d as Mr. Matthew Arnold\nsays, \u201cnow look up at the sun without having the sensations of a moth,\u201d\nand if occasion has not been given to the adversary to blaspheme, he has\nbeen supplied with ample material for banter and ridicule. Some of the\nhappiest illustrations of this are made by Mr. Foster in his amusing and\nreally informing essay on \u201cNature Myths in Nursery Rhymes,\u201d reprinted in\n_Leisure Readings_,[32] an essay which it seems the immaculate critics\ntook _au s\u00e9rieux_! With a little exercise of one\u2019s invention, given also\nability to parody, it will be found that many noted events, as well as the\nlives of the chief actors in them, yield results comforting to the solar\nmythologists. Not only the _Volsungs_ and the _Iliad_, but the story of\nthe Crusades and of the conquest of Mexico; not only Arthur and Baldr, but\nC\u00e6sar and Bonaparte, may be readily resolved, as Professor Tyndall says we\nall shall be, \u201clike streaks of morning cloud, into the infinite azure of\nthe past.\u201d Dupuis, in his researches into the connection between astronomy\nand mythology, had suggested that Jesus was the sun, and the twelve\napostles the zodiacal signs; and Goldziher, analysing the records of a\nremote period, maintains the same concerning Jacob and his twelve sons. M.\nSenart has satisfied himself that Gotama, the Buddha, is a sun-myth.\nArchbishop Whately, to confound the sceptics, ingeniously disproved the\nexistence of Bonaparte; and a French ecclesiastic has, by witty\netymological analogies, shown that Napoleon is cognate with Apollo, the\nsun, and his mother Letitia identical with Leto, the mother of Apollo;\nthat his _personnel_ of twelve marshals were the signs of the zodiac; that\nhis retreat from Moscow was a fiery setting, and that his emergence from\nElba, to rule for twelve months, and then be banished to St. Helena, is\nthe sun rising out of the eastern waters to set in the western ocean after\ntwelve hours\u2019 reign in the sky. But upon this solar theory let us cite\nwhat Dr. Tylor, whose soberness of judgment renders him a valuable guide\nalong the zigzag path of human progress, says: \u201cThe close and deep\nanalogies between the life of nature and the life of man have been for\nages dwelt upon by poets and philosophers, who, in simile or in argument,\nhave told of light and darkness, of calm and tempest, of birth, growth,\nchange, decay, dissolution, renewal. But no one-sided interpretation can\nbe permitted to absorb into a single theory such endless many-sided\ncorrespondences as these. Rash inferences which, on the strength of mere\nresemblance, derive episodes of myth from episodes of nature, must be\nregarded with utter mistrust, for the student who has no more stringent\ncriterion than this for his myths of sun and sky and dawn, will find them\nwherever it pleases him to seek them.\u201d\n\nThe investigations of comparative mythologists, more particularly in this\ncountry and Germany, have thrown such valuable light on the history of\nideas, that it will be instructive to learn what excited the inquiry. The\nresearches of Niebuhr and his school into the credibility of early history\nmade manifest that the only authority on which the chroniclers relied was\ntradition. To them--children of an uncritical age--that tradition was\nvenerable with the lapse of time, and binding as a revelation from the\ngods. To us the charm and interest of it lie in detecting within it the\nancient deposit of a mythop\u0153ic period, and in deciphering from it what\nmanner of men they must have been among whom such explanation of the\nbeginnings had credence. And in such an inquiry nothing can be \u201ccommon or\nunclean,\u201d nothing too trivial or puerile for analysis; for where the most\ngrotesque and impossible are found, there we are nearer to the conditions\nof which we would know more.\n\nThe serious endeavour to get at the fact underlying the fabulous was\nextended to the great body of mythology which had not been incorporated\ninto history, and the interpretations of which satisfied only those who\nsuggested them. As hinted already, the Greeks had sought out the meaning\nof their myths, with here and there a glimpse of the truth gained; but\nthis was confined to the philosophers and poets. Euh\u00eameros degraded them\ninto dull chronicle, making Herakl\u00eas a thief who carried off a crop of\noranges; Jove a king crushing rebellion; Atlas an astronomer; Pyth\u00f4n a\nfreebooter; \u00c6olus a weather-wise seaman, and so on. Plutarch tried to\n\u201crestore\u201d them, but only defaced them, and after centuries of neglect they\nwere discovered by Lord Bacon to be allegories with a moral. Then Banier\nand Lempri\u00e8re emptied out of them what little life Euh\u00eameros had left, and\nthe believers in Hebrew as the original speech of mankind saw in them the\nfragments of a universal primitive revelation! Even Professor Max M\u00fcller\nis so upset by the many loathsome and revolting stories in a mythology\ncurrent in the land of Lykurgos and Solon, such as the marriage of his\nmother Jocasta by \u0152dipus, and the swallowing of his own children by\nCronus, that he inquires (as if he half believed it possible) whether\nthere was not \u201ca period of temporary insanity through which the human mind\nhad to pass,\u201d and a degradation from lovely metaphor to coarse fact which\nonly a \u201cdisease of language,\u201d or the confusion arising from the forgotten\nmeanings of words, explains. There is no need, however, for assumptions of\nthis or of any other kind. This is best shown by a summary of facts which\nled, more or less directly, to the formulation of the solar theory.\n\nSome fifty years ago a good many idle speculations, products of a reverent\nand uncurbed fancy concerning Hebrew as the primitive speech of mankind,\nwere laid to rest when the sober guess of Schlegel as to the connection of\nthe leading languages of Europe and those of India and Persia, was\nconverted into certainty by Bopp, Jacob Grimm, Schleicher, and later\nscholars.\n\nBy the application of the comparative method to philology, _i.e._ the\ninterpretation of any set of facts by comparison with corresponding facts,\ndue allowance being made for differences which Grimm\u2019s law (see _infra_)\nexplains, the relation of Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Teutonic, and Keltic to\none another and to Indian and Persian, and their consequent descent from a\ncommon parent language, was proved. To this group the term Aryan (from a\nSanskrit word cognate with the root _ar_, our English word _ear_, to\nplough), is given, a term which ancient records show was applied by the\nAsiatic Aryans to themselves as the lords of the soil, the dominant race.\nThe names Indo-Germanic, and, more appropriately as roughly defining the\npeoples included thereunder, Indo-European, have been suggested in its\nstead, but Aryan, as the more convenient term, has come into general use.\n\nThe survival of grammatical forms common to the Aryan ancestors, and the\nlikeness between words necessary for daily use, evidenced to one parent\nprimitive speech, and, passing from words to the ideas and things which\nthey connoted, philologists were able to infer what manner of men these\nAryans were, and under what conditions they dwelt. In the enthusiasm\nexcited by so brilliant a discovery the soberest scholars were apt to\nover-colour their accurately-outlined picture of old Aryan life; to read\nmodern meanings into the ancient words. But, making good allowance for\nthis, the sketch which was presented in Max M\u00fcller\u2019s famous paper on\n_Comparative Mythology_[33] remains a credit to scholarship in its vivid\ngeneralisations from immaterial data.\n\nProfessor Max M\u00fcller, in agreement with Pictet and others, placed the\noriginal settlement of the Aryans as probably in the region between the\nHindu Kush Mountains and the Caspian Sea. But the opinion of later\nscholars of cooler judgment leans to Europe rather than to Asia as the\nprimitive home of the Aryan tribes. The scanty hints which survive point\nto a larger acquaintance with European flora and fauna than with Asiatic;\nto a southward course, whilst silent about westward migration; the\nmovement of races inclines from less genial to more genial zones; the\ntraditions of certain branches, as the Greeks, tell of them as\nautochthones, or born on the soil where they are found; and the judgment\nof experts is decisive as to the greater nearness of the European\nlanguages to the original speech as contrasted with Sanskrit and Iranian.\nThese are the principal reasons adduced in support of the theory of a\nEuropean origin. Benfey places the old Aryan home in the neighbourhood of\nthe Black Sea, Schrader and Geiger in Middle Germany, Karl Penka in\nScandinavia. But in speculating on the exact habitation of congeries of\ntribes requiring vast tracts of country for support, no rigid boundaries\ncan be fixed, and there is room for the play of both theories, the more so\nas theories they must remain.[34]\n\nAt the back of this unsettled question lies the interesting subject of the\ncivilisation of pre-Aryan races on the European-Asiatic Continent. In the\nNewer Stone Age this continent was inhabited by races of short stature,\nwith long and narrow skulls, and probably dark complexions, races whom the\nAryans, a tall, round-skulled, fair-complexioned race, conquered, and with\nwhom they so largely intermingled that the varieties of fair and dark\npeople in Europe at this day, speaking an Aryan language, are past finding\nout. Indeed, there are probably no unmixed races throughout Europe and\nAsia; the conquering race imposed its language on the conquered, and thus\nis explained the community of speech without community of race which must\nbe recognised in the composite European peoples.\n\nWith this qualification the kinship of the Aryan-language-speaking peoples\nis demonstrated, and the like kind of evidence by which this is proved has\nbeen applied to establish the identity of their mythologies, legends, and\nfolk-tales. The meaning of the proper names of these once determined, the\nkey to the meaning of the myth or tale was clear; because, it is\ncontended, the names contain the germs or oldest surviving part. This is\nto make the last first; but the result, as already shown in the Aryan\nlight-and-darkness myths, has been to bring out a few striking\ncorrespondences in Greek and Vedic names, although by no means so intimate\nand frequent as the solar mythologists assume. The uniform behaviour of\nthe untutored mind before like phenomena to which barbaric myth witnesses\nprepares us for general correspondences, but not in such details as we\nfind in the Aryan group. On what theory these, notably in the case of the\nfolk-tales, are to be accounted for, it is not easy to say, for the mode\nof their diffusion from India to Iceland is obscure. But the fact abides\nthat nursery stories told in Norway and Tyrol, in Scotland and the Deccan,\nare identical. After allowing for local colouring and for changes incident\nto the lapse of time, they are the variants of stories presumably related\nin the Aryan fatherland at a period historically remote, and, moreover,\nare told in words which are phonetically akin. Their resemblances in\nminor incident and detail are not easily explained by theories of\nborrowing, for apparently no trace of intercourse between the Asiatic\nAryans and the Aryans of extreme Western Europe occurs until after the\ndomiciling of the stories where we find them. Nor did they with such close\nresemblances as appear between the German Faithful John and the Hindu Rama\nand Luxman; between our own Cinderella, the German Aschenp\u00fcttel and the\nHindu Sodewa Bai, spring native from their respective soils.[35] And there\nis just that unlikeness in certain details which might be expected from\nthe different positions and products of the several Aryan lands. They\nexplain, for example, the absence from Scandinavian folk-tale of creatures\nlike the elephant, the giant, ape, and turtle, which figure in the\nBrahmanic.\n\nWhen we turn to the great Aryan epics, the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_; the\n_Volsungs_; the _Nibelungs_; _King Arthur and his Round Table_; the\n_Ram\u00e2yan\u00e2_ and the _Mah\u00e2 Bh\u00e2rat\u00e2_; the _Shah Nameh_, and so forth, we find\nsimilarities of incident and episode which point to a common derivation\nfrom old Aryan myth. That common synonyms occur in cognate languages is to\nbe expected, but so far as the names and the characteristics of the heroes\nand heroines are concerned, the phonetic identity is proven in a far less\nnumber of cases than the solar mythologists, working on their too\nexclusive method, argue. The key which for them unlocks the meaning of\nevery Aryan myth is Sanskrit. In tracing the history of the Indo-European\nfamily of speech, it served as the starting-point, because it has more\nthan any other member preserved the roots and suffixes, if not in their\noldest, still in their most accessible form. And in tracing the course of\nIndo-European mythology, it is in the Vedic texts, chiefly the most\nancient, the _Rig-Veda_, that we find the materials for comparative study,\nsince in these venerable hymns of a Bible older than our own are preserved\nthe earliest recorded forms of that mythology. That is to say, we have not\nin any European branch of Aryan speech any documentary relic of the age of\nthe _Rig-Veda_, otherwise we might find ourselves in possession of more\nancient relics of that speech. So that although the value of Sanskrit as\nthe guide without which knowledge of the Aryan mother-tongue would have\nremained vague, indeed have been beyond reach, cannot be over-estimated,\nwe must not accept as of universal worth what is local and special in\nit.[36]\n\nThe phonetic kinship and actual identity which comparative philologists\nhave sought to establish between the proper names of gods and heroes of\nthe Greek and Vedic mythologies (for the inquiry has been chiefly\nrestricted to these two), is based on the collection of rules by which we\ncan at once tell what sounds in one language correspond to those of its\nkindred tongues, called, after its discoverer, \u201cGrimm\u2019s Law.\u201d This law\ngave the quietus to theories of common origin and variation of words based\non specious resemblances (theories satirised by Dean Swift in his\nderivation of _ostler_ from _oatstealer_), and introduced a scientific\nmethod into etymological study.\n\nThe varying pronunciation of certain words among the Aryan-speaking\npeoples which were common to them was discovered by Grimm to be constant;\nfor example, a Greek _th_ answers to an English _d_, and, _vice vers\u00e2_, a\nGerman _s_ or _z_ to an English _t_, and so forth, so that by comparing\nthese altered forms the common form from which they spring is reached.\n\nAt what fluent period in the history of the Aryan languages these changes\nof one sound into another were induced is unknown, nor are their precise\ncauses easy of ascertainment, being referable to physical influences,\nclimatal and local, which in the course of time brought about changes in\nthe organs of speech, such, for example, as make our _th_ so difficult of\npronunciation to a German, in whose language _d_ takes its place, as\n_drei_ for _three_, _durstig_ for _thirsty_, _dein_ for _thine_, etc. We\nmay note tendencies to variation in children of the same household, their\nprattle often affording striking illustration of Grimm\u2019s law, and it is\neasy to see that among semi-civilised and isolated tribes, where no check\nupon the variations is imposed, they would tend to become fixed and give\nrise to new dialects.\n\nTracing the operation of that law in the changes in proper names in Greek\nand Vedic mythology, their correlation is proved in a few important\ninstances. The Greek _Zeus_, the Latin _Deus_ (whence French _Dieu_ and\nour _deity_, and also _deuce_), the Lithuanian _Diewas_, and the Sanskrit\n_Dyaus_ all come from an old Aryan root, _div_ or _dyu_, meaning \u201cto\nshine.\u201d The Sanskrit _dyu_, as a noun means \u201csky\u201d or \u201cday,\u201d and in the\n_Veda Dyaus_ is the bright sky or heaven. _Varuna_, the noblest figure in\nthe Vedic religion, the \u201cenveloper\u201d or all-surrounding heaven, is cognate\nwith the Greek _Ouranos_ or _Uranus_, the common root being _var_, \u201cto\nveil\u201d or \u201ccover.\u201d Agni, the fire-god, to whom the larger number of hymns\noccur in the _Veda_, is related to the Latin _ignis_, fire, and so forth.\n\nThe heavens and the earth and all that in them is are the raw material on\nwhich man works, and the comparative philologists have established exactly\nwhat might have been predicated, the nature-origin of the Greek, Vedic,\nand other Aryan myths. They might well have rested content with this\nconfirmation which their method gives to results arrived at by other\nmethods, and not weakened or discredited it by applying it all round to\nevery leading name in Aryan myth. For this has only revealed the\nfundamental differences among themselves as to the etymologies and\nmeanings of such names. But not satisfied with the demonstration that the\nmajestic epics have their germs in the phenomena of the natural world, and\nthe course of the day and year, they strain the evidence by contending\nthat \u201cthere is absolutely nothing left for further analysis in the\nstories;\u201d that their \u201cresemblances in detail defy the influences of\nclimate and scenery;\u201d[37] that every incident has its birth in the journey\nof the sun, the death of the dawn, the theft of the twilight by the powers\nof darkness, evidence which, in Sir George Cox\u2019s words, \u201cnot long hence\nwill probably be regarded as excessive.\u201d\n\nThey are nature-myths; but, and in this is the secret of their enduring\nlife, they are much more than that. The impetus that has shaped them as we\nnow know them came from other forces than clouds and storms.\n\nWithout such caution as these remarks are designed to supply, any reader\nof the _Mythology of the Aryan Nations_ would conclude that the\nphilological method had proved the meteorological origin of every epic and\nfolk-tale among the Indo-European peoples. He would learn that, in a way\nrudely analogous to the supernatural guidance of the Christian Church, the\nseveral Aryan tribes had received from the fathers of the race an\nunvarying canon of interpretation of the primitive myths, a canon\nseemingly preserved with the jealous veneration with which the Jew\nregarded the _Thorah_, and the Brahman the _Veda_. He would also learn\nthat the details of Norse and classic myth can be traced to the _Veda_,\nthat these details, not of incident alone, but of thought and expression,\nsurvived unimpaired by time and untouched by circumstance, whilst, strange\nto say, the more prominent names and the leading characters became\nobscured in their meaning. Strange indeed, and not true. For what are the\nfacts?\n\nLong before the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_ existed as we know them (and they\nhave remained an inviolate sacred text since 600 B.C., when every verse,\nword, and syllable were counted) the Aryan tribes had swarmed from their\nparent hive across boundless steppes and over winding mountain passes,\nsome to the westward limits of Europe, others southward into Hindustan.\nAmong the slender intellectual capital of which they stood possessed was\nthe common mythology of their savage ancestors, in which, as we have seen,\nsun and moon, storm and thunder-cloud, and all other natural phenomena,\nwere credited with personal life and will. But that mythology had\ncertainly advanced beyond the crude primitive form and entered the heroic\nstage, wherein the powers of nature were half human, half divine. Their\nlanguage had passed into the inflective or highest stage, and had\nundergone such changes that the relationship between its several groups\nand their origin from one mother-tongue was obscured, and remained so\nuntil laid bare in our day. In short, the Aryan tribes had attained no\nmean state of civilisation, some being more advanced than the others,\naccording as external circumstances helped or hindered, and one by one\nthey passed from the condition of semi-civilised nomads to become fathers\nand founders of nations that abide to this day.\n\nThese being the facts to which language itself bears witness, how was it\npossible for their mythologies, _i.e._ their stock of notions about\nthings, to remain unaffected and secure of transmission without organic\nchange? The myths, unfixed in literary form, yielded themselves with ease\nas vehicles of new ideas; their ancient meaning, already faded, paled\nbefore the all-absorbing significance of present facts. These were more\npotent realities than the kisses of the dawn; the human and the personal,\nin its struggles, of mightier interest than the battle of rosy morn or\npurple eve with the sons of thunder; and Homer\u2019s music would long since\nhave died away were Achilles\u2019 \u201cbaneful wrath\u201d but a passively-told tale of\nthe sun\u2019s grief for the loss of the morning.\n\nIn brief, the complex and varying influences which have transformed the\nprimitive myth are the important factors which the solar theorists have\nomitted in their attempted solution of the problem. They have forgotten\nthe part which, to borrow a term from astronomy, \u201cpersonal equation\u201d has\nplayed. They have not examined myth in the light of the long history of\nthe race; and the new elements which it took into itself, while never\nwholly ridding itself of the old, have escaped them. They have secured a\nmechanical unity, whereas, by combination of the historical with their own\nmethod, they might have secured a vital unity.\n\nTo all which classic myth itself bears record. The Greeks were of Aryan\nstock, but the time of their settlement is unknown. The period between\nthis and the Homeric age was, however, long enough to admit of their\nadvance to the state of a nation rejoicing in the fulness of intellectual\nlife. They remembered not from what rock they were hewn, from what pit\nthey were digged. The nature-gods of their remote ancestors had long since\nchanged their meteorological character, and appeared in the likeness of\nmen, or, at least, played very human pranks on Olympus. In the _Veda_ the\nprimitive nature-myth, although exalted and purified, is persistent; under\none name or another it is still the ceaseless battle between the darkness\nand the light; Dyaus was still the bright sky, the cattle of Siva were\nstill the clouds. But the Greek of Homer\u2019s time, and his congener in the\nfar north, had forgotten all that; the war in heaven was transferred to\nthe strife of gods and men on the shores of the Hellespont and by the\nbleak seaboard of the Baltic. Their gods and goddesses, improved by age\nand experience, put off their physical and put on the ethical; the\nheaven-father became king of gods and men, source of order, law, and\njustice; the sun and the dawn, Apollo and Ath\u00ean\u00ea, became wisdom, skill,\nand guardianship incarnate. And the story of human vicissitudes found in\nsolar myth that \u201cpattern of things in the heavens\u201d which conformed to its\ndesign.\n\nThus Homer, in whose day the old nature-myth had become confused with the\nvague traditions of veritable deeds of kings and heroes but dimly\nremembered, touched it as with heavenly fire unquenchable. The siege of\nTroy, so say the solar mythologists, \u201cis a repetition of the daily siege\nof the east by the solar powers that every evening are robbed of their\nhighest treasures in the west.\u201d It is surely a truer instinct which,\nrecognising the physical framework of the great epics, feels that the\nvitality which inheres in them is due to whatever of human experience,\njoy, and sorrow is the burden of their immortal song. As to the repulsive\nfeatures of Greek myth, one can neither share the distress of the solar\ntheorists nor feel their difficulties. Both are self-created, and are\naggravated by suggestions, serious or otherwise, of \u201cperiods of temporary\ninsanity through which the human mind had to pass,\u201d as the rude health of\nchildhood is checked by whooping-cough and measles. They are explained by\nthe persistence with which the lower out of which man has emerged asserts\nitself, as primary rocks pierce through and overlap later strata.\n\nThe ancestors of the Aryans were savages in the remote past, and the \u201cold\nAdam\u201d was never entirely cast out; indeed it is with us still. There are\nsuperstitions and credulities in our midst, in drawing-rooms as well as\ngipsy camps, quite as gross in nature, if less coarse in guise, as those\nextant among the Greeks. The future historian of our time, as he turns\nover the piles of our newspapers, will find contrasts of ignorance and\nculture as startling as any existing in the land of Homer, of Archimedes,\nand Aristotle. Spirit-rapping and belief in the \u201cevil eye\u201d have their cult\namong us, although Professor Huxley\u2019s _Hume_ can be bought for two\nshillings, and knowledge has free course. And it certainly accords best\nwith all that we have learnt as to the mode of human progress to believe\nthat the old lived into the new, than that the old had been cast out, but\nhad gained re-entry, making the last state of the Greeks to be worse than\nthe first.\n\nIn this matter the Vedic hymns do not help us much. The conditions under\nwhich they took the form that insured their transmission are _ipso facto_\nas of yesterday, compared with the period during which man\u2019s endeavour was\nmade to get at that meaning of his surroundings wherein is found the germ\nof myth throughout the world. They are the products of a relatively\nhighly-civilised time; the conception of sky and dawn as living persons\nhas passed out of its primitive simplicity; these heavenly powers have\nbecome complex deities; there is much confounding of persons, the same god\ncalled by one or many names. The thought is that of an age when moral\nproblems have presented themselves for solution, and the references to\nsocial matters indicate a settled state of things far removed from the\nfisher and the hunter stage. Nevertheless there lurk within these sacred\nwritings survivals of the lower culture, traces of coarse rites, bloody\nsacrifices, of repulsive myths of the gods, and of cosmogonies familiar to\nthe student of barbaric myth and legend.\n\nEnough has been said to show that the extreme and one-sided\ninterpretations of the solar mythologists are due to a one-sided method.\nThe philological has yielded splendid results; this the solar theorists\nhave done; the historical yields results equally rich and fertile; this\nthey have left undone. Language has given us the key to the kinship\nbetween the several members of the great body of Aryan myths; the study of\nthe historical evolution of myths, the comparison of these, without regard\nto affinity of speech, will give us the key to the kinship between savage\ninterpretation of phenomena all the world over. The mythology of Greek and\nBushman, of Kaffir and Scandinavian, of the Red man and the Hindu, springs\nfrom the like mental condition. It is the uniform and necessary product of\nthe human mind in the childhood of the race.\n\n\n\u00a7 V.\n\nBELIEF IN METAMORPHOSIS INTO ANIMALS.\n\nThe belief that human beings could change themselves into animals has been\nalready alluded to, but in view of its large place in the history of\nillusions, some further reference is needful.\n\nSuperstitions which now excite a smile, or which seem beneath notice, were\nno sudden phenomena, appearing now and again at the beck and call of\nwilful deceivers of their kind. That they survive at all, like organisms,\natrophied or degenerate, which have seen \u201cbetter days,\u201d is evidence of\nremote antiquity and persistence. Every seeming vagary of the mind had\nserious importance, and answered to some real need of man as a sober\nattempt to read the riddle of the earth, and get at its inmost secret.\n\nSo with this belief. It is the outcome of that early thought of man which\nconceived a common nature and fellowship between himself and brutes, a\nconception based on rude analogies between his own and other forms of\nlife, as also between himself and things without life, but having motion,\nbe they waterspouts or rivers, trees or clouds, especially these last,\nwhen the wind, in violent surging and with howling voice, drove them\nacross the sky. Where he blindly, timidly groped, we walk as in the light,\nand with love that casts out fear. Where rough resemblances suggested to\nhim like mental states and actions in man and brute, the science of our\ntime has, under the comparative method, converted the guess into a\ncertainty; not to the confirmation of his conclusions, but to the proof of\nidentity of structure and function, to the demonstrating of a common\norigin, however now impassable the chasm that separates us from the lower\nanimals.\n\nThe belief in man\u2019s power to change his form and nature is obviously\nnearly connected with the widespread doctrine of metempsychosis, or the\npassing of the soul at death into one or a series of animals, generally\ntypes of the dead man\u2019s character, as where the timid enter the body of a\nhare, the gluttonous that of a swine or vulture.\n\n  \u201cFills with fresh energy another form,\n   And towers an elephant or glides a worm;\n   Swims as an eagle in the eye of noon,\n   Or wails a screech-owl to the deaf, cold moon,\n   Or haunts the brakes where serpents hiss and glare,\n   Or hums, a glittering insect, in the air.\u201d\n\nBut while in transmigration the soul returns not to the body which it had\nleft, transformation was only for a time, occurring at stated periods, and\neffected by the will of the transformed, or by the aid of sorcery or\nmagic, or sometimes imposed by the gods as a punishment for impious\ndefiance and sin.\n\nOther causes, less remote, aided the spread of a belief to which the mind\nwas already inclined. Among these were the hallucinations of men who\nbelieved themselves changed into beasts, and who, retreating to caves and\nforests, issued thence howling and foaming, ravening for blood and\nslaughter; hallucinations which afflicted not only single persons, as in\nthe case of Nebuchadnezzar, whose milder monomania (he, himself, saying in\nthe famous prize poem:--\n\n  \u201cAs he ate the unwonted food,\n     \u2018It may be wholesome, but it is not good\u2019\u201d),\n\nrather resembled that of the daughters of Pr\u00e6tus, who believed themselves\ncows, but which also spread as virulent epidemic among whole classes. It\nis related that, in 1600, multitudes were attacked by the disease known as\nlycanthropy, or wolf-madness (from Greek, _lukos_, a wolf, and\n_anthropos_, a man), and that they herded and hunted in packs, destroying\nand eating children, and keeping in their mountain fastnesses a cannibal\nor devil\u2019s sabbath, like the nocturnal meetings of witches and demons\nknown as the Witches\u2019 Sabbath. Hundreds of them were executed on their own\nconfession, but some time elapsed before the frightful epidemic, and the\npanic which it caused, passed away. Besides such delusions, history down\nto our own time records instances where a morbid innate craving for blood,\nleading sometimes to cannibalism, has shown itself. Mr. Baring-Gould, in\nhis _Book of Werewolves_, cites a case from Gall of a Dutch priest who had\nsuch a desire to kill and to see killed that he became chaplain to a\nregiment for the sake of witnessing the slaughter in battle. But still\nmore ghastly are the notorious cases of Elizabeth, a Hungarian lady of\ntitle, who inveigled girls into her castle and murdered them, that she\nmight bathe her body in human blood to enhance her beauty; and of the\nMar\u00e9chal de Retz who, cursed with the abnormal desire to murder children,\nallured them with promises of dainties into his kitchen, and killed them,\ninhaling the odour of their blood with delight, and then burned their\nbodies in the huge fireplace in the room devoted to these horrors. When\nthe deed was done the Mar\u00e9chal would lie prostrate with grief, \u201cwould toss\nweeping and praying on a bed, or recite fervent prayers and litanies on\nhis knees, only to rise with irresistible craving to repeat the crime.\u201d\n\nSuch instances as the foregoing, whether of delusion or morbid desire to\ndestroy, are among secondary causes; they may contribute, but they do not\ncreate, being inadequate to account for the world-wide existence of\ntransformation myths. The animals which are the supposed subject of these\nvary with the habitat, but are always those which have inspired most\ndread from their ferocity. In Abyssinia we find the man-hy\u00e6na; in South\nAfrica, the man-lion; in India, the man-tiger; in Northern Europe, the\nman-bear; and in other parts of Europe the man-wolf, or werewolf (from\nA.-S. _wer_, a man).\n\nAmong the many survivals of primitive thought in the Greek mythology,\nwhich are the only key to its coarser features, this of belief in\ntransformation occurs, and, indeed, along the whole line of human\ndevelopment it appears and re-appears in forms more or less vivid and\ntragic. The gods of the south, as of the north, came down in the likeness\nof beasts and birds, as well as of men, and among the references to these\nmyths in classic writers, Ovid, in the _Metamorphoses_, tells the story of\nZeus visiting Lykaon, king of Arcadia, who placed a dish of human flesh\nbefore the god to test thereby his omniscience. Zeus detected the trick,\nand punished the king by changing him into a wolf, so that his desire\nmight be towards the food which he had impiously offered to his god.\n\n  \u201cIn vain he attempted to speak; from that very instant\n   His jaws were bespluttered with foam, and only he thirsted\n   For blood, as he raged amongst flocks and panted for slaughter.\n   His vesture was changed into hair, his limbs became crooked.\n   A wolf--he retains yet large traces of his ancient expression,\n   Hoary he is as afore, his countenance rabid,\n   His eyes glitter savagely still, the picture of fury.\u201d\n\nBut we may pass from this and such-like tales of the ancients to the grim\nrealities of the belief in medi\u00e6val times.\n\nIf wolves abounded, much more did the werewolf abound. According to Olaus\nMagnus, the sufferings which the inhabitants of Prussia and neighbouring\nnations endured from wolves were trivial compared with the ravages wrought\nby men turned into wolves. On the feast of the Nativity, these monsters\nwere said to assemble and then disperse in companies to kill and plunder.\nAttacking lonely houses, they devoured all the human beings and every\nother animal found therein. \u201cThey burst into the beer-cellars and there\nthey empty the tuns of beer or mead, and pile up the empty casks one above\nanother in the middle of the cellar, thus showing their difference from\nnatural wolves.\u201d In Scandinavia it was believed that some men had a second\nskin out of which they could slip and appear in the shape of a beast.\nPerhaps the phrase \u201cto jump out of one\u2019s skin\u201d is a relic of this notion.\nThe Romans believed that the werewolf simply effected the change by\nturning his skin inside out, hence the term \u201cversipellis,\u201d or\n\u201cskin-changer.\u201d So in medi\u00e6val times it was said that the wolf\u2019s skin was\nunder the human, and the unhappy suspects were hacked and tortured for\nsigns of such hairy growth. Sometimes the change was induced, it is said,\nby putting on a girdle of human skin round the waist; sometimes by the use\nof magical ointment. Whatever the animal whose shape a man took could do,\nthat he could do, plus such power as he possessed in virtue of his\nmanhood or acquired by sorcery, his eyes remaining as the only features by\nwhich he could be recognised. If he was not changed himself, some charm\nwas wrought on the eyes of onlookers whereby they could see him only in\nthe shape which he was supposed to assume. The genuine monomaniacs aided\nsuch an illusion. The poor demented one who conceived himself a dog or a\nwolf, who barked, and snapped, and foamed at the mouth, and bit savagely\nat the flesh of others, was soon clothed by a terror-stricken fancy in the\nskin of either brute, and believed to have the canine or lupine appetite\nin addition to his human cunning. The imagination thus projects in visible\nform the spectres of its creation; the eye in this, as in so much else,\nsees the thing for which it looks. Some solid foundation for the belief\nwould, however, exist in the custom among warriors of dressing themselves\nin the skins of beasts to add to their ferocious appearance. And it was\namidst such that the remarkable form of mania in Northern Europe known as\nthe Berserkr rage (\u201cbear-sark\u201d or \u201cbear-skin\u201d wearer) arose. Working\nthemselves by the aid of strong drink or drugs and contagious excitement\ninto a frenzy, these freebooters of the Northland sallied forth to break\nthe backbones and cleave the skulls of quiet folk and unwary travellers.\nAs with flashing eyes and foaming mouth they yelled and danced, seemingly\nendowed with magic power to resist assault by sword or club, they aroused\nin the hysterically disposed a like madness, which led to terrible crimes,\nand which died away only as the killing of one\u2019s fellows became less the\nbusiness of life. History supplies many examples of strange mental\nepidemics which sped through towns and provinces in medi\u00e6val times. They\nwere induced by religious enthusiasm and other extreme and harmful forms\nof mental stimulation, the most notorious being the great St. Vitus\u2019\ndance, and the procession of Flagellants, to which in their mad orgies the\nhysterical ceremonies of barbarous tribes correspond. Of that tendency\ntowards imitation which these freaks of erratic and unbalanced minds\nfoster Dr. Carpenter[38] quotes an illustration from Zimmerman. A nun in a\nlarge convent in France began to mew like a cat, and shortly afterwards\nother nuns also mewed. At last all the nuns mewed every day at a given\ntime and for several hours together. And this cat\u2019s concert was only\nstopped by the military arriving and threatening to whip the nuns.\n\nDuring the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the belief in men-beasts\nreached its maximum, and met with no tender treatment at the hands of a\nchurch whose founder had manifested such soothing pity towards the\n\u201cpossessed\u201d of Galilee and Jud\u00e6a. That church had a cut-and-dried\nexplanation of the whole thing, and applied a sharp and pitiless remedy.\nIf the devil, with countless myrmidons at his command, was \u201cgoing to and\nfro in the earth, and walking up and down in it,\u201d what limit could be put\nto his ingenuity and arts? Could he not as easily change a man into a wolf\nor a bear as a woman into a cat? and had not each secured this by a\ncompact with him, the foe of God and His Church? The evidence in support\nof the one was as clear and cogent as in support of the other; hence\nwerewolf hunting and burning became as Christian a duty and as paying a\nprofession as witch-smelling and torturing. Any cruelty was justified by\nits perpetrators when the object in view was the vindication of the\nmajesty of God; and not until the advancing intelligence of men recoiled\nagainst the popular explanations of witchcraft and lycanthropy were the\nlaws against both repealed.\n\nThose explanations were survivals of savage mental philosophy blended with\na crude theology. To the savage, all diseases are the work of evil\nspirits. If a man hurts himself against a stone, the demon in the stone is\nthe cause. If the man falls suddenly ill, writhes or shrieks in his pain,\nthe spirit which has smuggled itself in with the food or the drink or the\nbreath is twisting or tearing him; if he has a fit, the spirit has flung\nhim; if he is in the frenzy of hysteria, the spirit within him is laughing\nin fiendish glee. And when the man suddenly loses his reason, goes, as\npeople say, \u201cout of his mind,\u201d acts and looks no longer like his former\nself, still more does this seem the work of an evil agent within him. It\nis kindred with the old belief that the sickly and ugly infant had been\nleft in the cradle by the witch in place of the child stolen by her before\nits baptism.[39] And the thing to do is to find some mode of conjuring or\nfrightening or forcing the demon out of the man, just as it became a\nsacred duty to watch over the newly-born until the sign of the cross had\nbeen made on its forehead, and the regenerating water sprinkled over it.\n\n\u201cPresbyter is but old priest writ large.\u201d And the theory of demoniacal\nagency was but the savage theory in a more elaborate guise. To theologians\nand jurists it was a sufficing explanation; it fitted in with the current\nnotions of the government of the universe, and there was no need to frame\nany other. Body and mind were to them as separate entities as they are to\nthe savage and the ignorant. Each regarded the soul as independent of the\nbody, and framed his theories of occasional absence therefrom accordingly.\nBut science has taught us to know ourselves not as dual, but as one. She\nlays her finger on the subtle, intricate framework of man\u2019s nervous\nsystem, and finds in the derangement of this the secret of those delusions\nand illusions which have been so prolific in agony and suffering. She\nmakes clear how the yielding to morbid tendencies can still foster\ndelusions, which, if no longer the subject of pains and penalties in the\nbody politic, are themselves ministers of vengeance in the body where they\narise. And in the recognition of a fundamental unity between the physical\nand the mental, in the healthy working of the one as dependent on the\nwholesome care of the other, she finds not only the remedy against mental\nderangement and all forms of harmful excitement, but also the prevention\nwhich is better than cure.\n\nTraditions of transformation of men into beasts are not confined to the\nOld world.[40] In Dr. Rink\u2019s _Tales of the Eskimo_ there are numerous\nstories both of men and women who have assumed animal form at will, as\nalso incidental references to the belief in stories such as that telling\nhow an Eskimo got inside a walrus skin, so that he might lead the life of\nthat creature. And among the Red races, that rough analogy which led to\nthe animal being credited with life and consciousness akin to the human,\nstill expresses itself in thought and act. If even now it is matter of\npopular belief in the wilds of Norway that Finns and Lapps, who from\nremote times have passed as skilful witches and wizards, can at pleasure\nassume the shape of bears, the common saying, according to Sir George\nDasent, about an unusually daring and savage beast being, \u201cthat can be no\nChristian bear,\u201d we may not be surprised that lower races still ascribe\npower of interchange to man and brute. The werewolf superstition is extant\namong the North-Western Indians, but free from those diabolical features\nwhich characterised it in medi\u00e6val times among ourselves. It takes its\nplace in barbaric myth generally, and although it may have repellent or\ncruel elements, it was never blended with belief in the demoniacal. The\nAhts say that men go into the mountains to seek their manitou (that is,\nthe personal deity, generally the first animal seen by a native in the\ndream produced by his fasting on reaching manhood), and, mixing with\nwolves, are after a time changed into these creatures. Although the\nillustration bears more upon what has to be said concerning the barbaric\nbelief in animal-ancestors, it has some reference to the matter in hand to\ncite the custom among the Tonkanays, a wild and unruly tribe in Texas, of\ncelebrating their origin by a grand annual dance. One of them, naked as he\nwas born, is buried in the earth, then the others, clothed in wolf-skins,\nwalk over him, sniff around him, howl in wolfish style, and then dig him\nup with their nails.[41] The leading wolf solemnly places a bow and arrow\nin his hands, and, to his inquiry as to what he must do for a living,\nadvises him \u201cto do as the wolves do--rob, kill, and rove from place to\nplace, never cultivating the soil.\u201d Dr. Brinton, in quoting the above from\nSchoolcraft, refers to a similar custom among the ancient dwellers on\nMount Soracte.\n\nAs in past times among ourselves, so in times present among races such as\nthe foregoing, their wizards and shamans are believed to have power to\nturn themselves as they choose into beasts, birds, or reptiles. By\nwhatever name these professional impostors are known, whether as\nmedicine-men, or, as in Cherokee, by the high-sounding title of\n\u201cpossessors of the divine fire,\u201d they have traded, and wherever credulity\nor darkest ignorance abide, still trade on the fears and fancies of their\nfellows by disguising themselves in voice and gait and covering of the\nanimal which they pretend to be. Among races believing in transformation\nsuch tricks have free course, and the more dexterous the sorcerer who\ncould play bear\u2019s antics in a bear\u2019s skin proved himself in throwing off\nthe disguise and appearing suddenly as a man, the greater his success, and\nthe more firmly grounded the belief.\n\nThe whole subject, although presented here only in the barest outline,\nwould not be fitly dismissed without some reference to the survival of the\nprimitive belief in men-animals in the world-wide stories known as\nbeast-fables, in which animals act and talk like human beings. When to us\nall nature was Wonderland, and the four-footed, the birds, and the fishes,\namong our play-fellows; when in fireside tale and rhyme they spoke our\nlanguage and lived that free life which we then shared and can never share\nagain, the feeling of kinship to which the old fables gave expression may\nhave checked many a wanton act, and, if we learned it not fully then, we\nmay have taken the lesson to heart since--\n\n  \u201cNever to blend our pleasure or our pride\n   With sorrow of the meanest thing that lives.\u201d\n\nAnd then those _Fables_ of \u00c6sop, even with the tedious drawback of the\n\u201cmoral,\u201d as powder beneath the jam, did they not lighten for us in\nschool-days the dark passages through our Valpy (for the omniscient Dr.\nWilliam Smith was not then the tyro\u2019s dread), and again give us communion\nwith the fowl of the air and the beast of the field? Now our mature\nthought may interest itself in following the beast-myths to the source\nwhence Babrius and Ph\u00e6drus, knowing not its springhead and antiquity, drew\ntheir vivid presentments of the living world, and find in the storied East\nthe well-spring that fed the imagination of youngsters thousands of years\nago. Such tales have not fallen in the East to the low level which they\nhave reached here, because they yet accord in some degree with extant\nsuperstitions in India, whereas in Europe they find little or nothing to\nwhich they correspond. With some authorities the Egyptians have the credit\nof first inventing the beast-fable, but among them, as among every other\nadvanced race, such stories are the remains of an earlier deposit; relics\nof a primitive philosophy in which wisdom and skill and cunning are no\nmonopoly of man\u2019s. The fondness of the negro races, whose traditions are\nnot limited to South and Central Africa, for such fables is well known, as\nwitness the tales of which \u201cUncle Remus\u201d is a type, and it is strikingly\nillustrated in the history of the Vai tribe, who having, partly through\ncontact with whites, elaborated a system of writing, made the beast-fable\ntheir earliest essay in composition.[42]\n\nThe evidence in support of the common ancestry of the languages spoken by\nthe leading peoples in Europe, and by such important historical races in\nAsia as the Hindu and the Persian, has been already summarised. That\nevidence, it was remarked, is considered corroborative not only of the\ncommon origin of the myths on which the framework of the great\nIndo-European epics rests, but also of the possession by the several clans\nof a common stock of folk-lore and folk-tale, in which, of course, the\nbeast-fables are included, these being the relics in didactic or humorous\nguise of that serious philosophy concerning the community of life in man\nand brute amongst the barbaric ancestors of the Indo-Europeans, upon which\nstress enough has been laid.\n\nEven if the common origin be disproved, the evidence would be shifted\nmerely from local to general foundations, because the uniform attitude of\nmind before the same phenomena would have further confirmation; but the\nresemblances are too minute in detail to be explained by a theory of\nindependent creation of the tales where we now find them. The likenesses\nare many, the unlikenesses are few, being the result of local colouring,\nhistorical fact blended with the fiction, popular belief, and\nsuperstition, all affected by the skill of the professional story-teller.\nAs in the numerous variants of the familiar Cinderella, Beauty and the\nBeast, Punchkin, and the like, the same fairy prince or princess, the same\nwicked magician and clever versatile Boots, peep through, disclosing the\nnear relationship of Hindu nursery tales to the folk-tales of Norway and\nthe Highlands, of Iceland and Ceylon, of Persia and Serbia, of Russia and\nthe lands washed by the Mediterranean.\n\nIn the venerable collection of _Buddhist Birth Stories_, now in course of\ntranslation by Dr. Rhys Davids,[43] and to which is prefaced an\ninteresting introduction on the source and migration of folk-tales, we are\nface to face with many a fable familiar to us in the _\u00c6sop_ of our\nschool-days. There is the story of the Ass in the Lion\u2019s Skin, not in\nwhich, as \u00c6sop has it, the beast dressed himself, but which the hawker put\non him to frighten the thieves who would steal his goods. Left one day to\nbrowse in a field whilst his master refreshed himself at an inn, some\nwatchmen saw him, and, raising hue and cry, brought out the villagers,\narmed with their rude implements. The ass, fearing death, made a noise\nlike an ass, and was killed. Long might he, adds the ancient moral--\n\n      \u201cClad in a lion\u2019s skin\n  Have fed on the barley green;\n  But he brayed!\n  And that moment he came to ruin.\u201d\n\nThe variants of this old fable are found in medi\u00e6val, in French, German,\nIndian, and Turkish folk-lore, as are also those of the tortoise who lost\nhis life through \u201cmuch speaking.\u201d Desiring to emigrate, two ducks agreed\nto carry him, he seizing hold of a stick which they held between their\nbeaks. As they passed over a village the people shouted and jeered,\nwhereupon the irate tortoise called out: \u201cWhat business is it of yours?\u201d\nand, of course, thereby let go the stick and, falling down, split in two.\nTherefore--\n\n  \u201cSpeak wise words not out of season;\n   You see how, by talking overmuch,\n   The tortoise fell.\u201d\n\nIn _\u00c6sop_ the tortoise asks an eagle to teach him to fly; in Chinese\nfolk-lore he is carried by geese.\n\nJacob Grimm\u2019s researches concerning the famous medi\u00e6val fable of \u201cReynard\nthe Fox\u201d revealed the ancient and scattered materials out of which that\nwonderful satire was woven, and there is no feature of the story which\nreappears more often in Eastern and Western folk-lore than that cunning of\nthe animal which has been for the lampooner and the satirist the type of\nself-seeking monk and ecclesiastic. When Chanticleer proudly takes an\nairing with his family, he meets master Reynard, who tells him he has\nbecome a \u201creligious,\u201d and shows him his beads, and his missal, and his\nhair shirt, adding, in a voice \u201cthat was childlike and bland,\u201d that he had\nvowed never to eat flesh. Then he went off singing his Credo, and slunk\nbehind a hawthorn. Chanticleer, thus thrown off his guard, continues his\nairing, and the astute hypocrite, darting from his ambush, seizes the\nplump hen Coppel. So in Indian folk-tale a wolf living near the Ganges is\ncut off from food by the surrounding water. He decides to keep holy day,\nand the god Sakka, knowing his lupine weakness, resolves to have some fun\nwith him, and turns himself into a wild goat \u201cAha!\u201d says the wolf, \u201cI\u2019ll\nkeep the fast another day,\u201d and springing up he tried to seize the goat,\nwho skipped about so that he could not be taken. So Lupus gives it up, and\nsays as his solatium: \u201cAfter all, I\u2019ve not broken my vow.\u201d\n\nThe Chinese have a story of a tiger who desired to eat a fox, but the\nlatter claimed exemption as being superior to the other animals, adding\nthat if the tiger doubted his word he could easily judge for himself. So\nthe two set forth, and, of course, every animal fled at sight of the\ntiger, who, too stupid to see how he had been gulled, conceived high\nrespect for the fox, and spared his life.\n\nSometimes the tables are turned. Chanticleer gets his head out of\nReynard\u2019s mouth by making him answer the farmer, and in the valuable\ncollection of Hottentot tales which the late Dr. Bleek, with some warrant,\ncalled _Reynard in South Africa_, the cock makes the jackal say his\nprayers, and flies off while the outwitted beast folds his hands and shuts\nhis eyes.\n\nBut further quotations must be resisted; enough if it is made clearer that\nthe beast-fable is the lineal descendant of barbaric conceptions of a life\nshared in common by man and brute, and another link thus added to the\nlengthening chain of the continuity of human history.\n\n\n\u00a7 VI.\n\nTOTEMISM: BELIEF IN DESCENT FROM ANIMAL OR PLANT.\n\nIn addition to the beliefs in the transformation of men into animals and\nin the transmigration of souls into the bodies of animals, we find among\nbarbarous peoples a belief which is probably the parent of one and\ncertainly nearly related to both, namely, in descent from the animal or\nplant, more often the former, whose name they bear. Its connection with\ntransmigration is seen in the belief of the Moquis of Arizona, that after\ndeath they live in the form of their totemic animal, those of the deer\nfamily becoming deer, and so on through the several gentes. The belief\nsurvives in its most primitive and vivid forms among two races, the\naborigines of Australia and the North American Indians. The word\n\u201ctotemism,\u201d given to it both in its religious and social aspects, is\nderived from the Algonquin \u201cdodaim\u201d or \u201cdodhaim,\u201d meaning \u201cclanmark.\u201d\nAmong the Australians the word \u201ckobong,\u201d meaning \u201cfriend\u201d or \u201cprotector,\u201d\nis the generic term for the animal or plant by which they are known. It is\nsomewhat akin in significance to the Indian words \u201cmanitou,\u201d \u201coki,\u201d etc.,\ncomprehending \u201cthe manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying no\nsense of personal unity,\u201d which are commonly translated by the misleading\nword \u201cmedicine;\u201d hence \u201cmedicine-men.\u201d\n\nThe family name, or second name borne by all the tribes in lineal descent,\nand which corresponds to our surname, _i.e._ _super nomen_, or\n\u201cover-name,\u201d is derived from names of beasts, birds, plants, etc., around\nwhich traditions of their transformation into men linger. Sir George\nGrey[44] says that there is a mysterious connection between a native and\nhis kobong. It is his protecting angel, like the \u201cdaim\u00f4n\u201d of Socrates,\nlike the \u201cgenius\u201d of the early Italian. \u201cIf it is an animal, he will not\nkill one of the species to which it belongs, should he find it asleep, and\nhe always kills it reluctantly and never without affording it a chance of\nescape. The family belief is that some one individual of the species is\ntheir dearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime,\u201d as, in Hindu\nbelief, when a Rajah was said to have entered at death into the body of a\nfish, a \u201cclose time\u201d was at once decreed. Among the Indian tribes we find\nwell-nigh the whole fauna and flora represented, their totems being the\nBear, Turtle, Deer, Snake, Eagle, Pike, Corn, Tobacco, etc. Like the\nAustralians, these tribes regarded themselves as being of the breed of\ntheir particular animal-totem, and avoided hunting, slaying, and eating\n(of which more presently) the creature under whose form the ancestor was\nthought to be manifest. The Chippeways carried their respect even farther.\nDeriving their origin from the dog, they at one time refrained from\nemploying their supposed canine ancestors in dragging their sledges. The\nBechuana and other people of South Africa will avoid eating their\ntribe-animal or wearing its skin. The same prohibitions are found among\ntribes in Northern Asia, and the Vogulitzi of Siberia, when they have\nkilled a bear, address it formally, maintaining \u201cthat the blame is to be\nlaid on the arrows and iron, which were made and forged by the Russians!\u201d\nAmong the Delawares the Tortoise gens claimed supremacy over the others,\nbecause their ancestor, who had become a fabled monster in their\nmythology, bore their world on his back. The California Indians are in\ninteresting agreement with Lord Monboddo when, in claiming descent from\nthe prairie wolf, they account for the loss of their tails by the habit of\nsitting, which, in course of time, wore them down to the stump! The\nKickapoos say their ancestors had tails, and that when they lost them the\n\u201cimpudent fox sent every morning to ask how their tails were, and the bear\nshook his fat sides at the joke.\u201d The Patagonians are said to have a\nnumber of animal deities, creators of the several tribes, some being of\nthe caste of the guanaco and others of the ostrich. In short, the group of\nbeliefs and practices found among races in the lower stages of culture\npoint to a widespread common attitude towards the mystery of life around\nthem. In speaking of totemism among the Red races Dr. Brinton thinks that\nthe free use of animate symbols to express abstract ideas, which he finds\nso frequent, is the source of a confusion which has led to their claiming\nliteral descent from wild beasts. But the barbaric mind bristles with\ncontradictions and mutually destructive conceptions; nothing is too\nwonderful, too _bizarre_, for its acceptance, and the belief in actual\nanimal descent is not the most remarkable or far-fetched among the\narticles of its creed.\n\nThe subject of totemism is full of interest both on its religious and\nsocial side:--\n\nOn its religious side it has given rise, or, if this be not conceded,\nimpetus, to that worship of animals which assuredly had its source in the\nattribution of mysterious power through some spirit within them, making\nthem deity incarnate.\n\nOn its social side it has led to prohibitions which are inwoven among the\ncustoms and prejudices of civilised communities. But, before speaking of\nthese prohibitions, the barbaric mode of reckoning descent should be\nnoticed.\n\nThe family name borne by most Australian tribes is perpetuated by the\nchildren, whether boys or girls, taking their mother\u2019s name. Precisely the\nsame custom is found among some American Indians, the children of both\nsexes being of the mother\u2019s clan. Among the Moquis of Arizona all the\nmembers of each gens trace descent from a common ancestor; they are\nregarded as brothers and sisters.[45] Now, the family, as we define it,\ndoes not exist in savage communities, nor, as Mr. McLennan says in his\nvery remarkable work on _Primitive Marriage_, had \u201cthe earliest human\ngroups any idea of kinship, ... the physical root of which could be\ndiscerned only through observation and reflection.\u201d Where the relations\nof the sexes were confused and promiscuous, the oldest system in which the\nidea of blood-ties was expressed was a system of kinship through the\nmother. The habits of the \u201cmuch-married\u201d primitive men made mistake about\nany one\u2019s mother less likely than mistake about his father; and, if in\ncivilised times it is, as the saying goes, a wise child that knows its own\nfather, he was, in barbarous times, a wise father who knew his own child.\nExamples tracing the kinship through females, father and offspring being\nnever of the same clan, abound in both ancient and modern authorities, and\nperhaps the most amusing one that can be given is found in Dr. Morgan\u2019s\n_Systems of Consanguinity_. He says that the \u201cnatives of the province of\nKeang-se are celebrated among the natives of the other Chinese provinces\nfor the mode or form used by them in address, namely, \u2018Laon peaon,\u2019 which,\nfreely translated, means, \u2018Oh, you old fellow, brother mine by some of the\nramifications of female relationship!\u2019\u201d[46]\n\nThe prohibitions arising out of or confirmed by totemism are two: 1.\nAgainst intermarriage between those of the same name or crest. 2. Against\nthe eating of the totem by any member of the tribe called after it.\n\n1. Among both Australians and Indians a man is forbidden to marry in his\nown clan, _i.e._ any woman of his own surname or badge, no matter where\nshe was born or however distantly related to him. The Navajoes of Arizona\nsay that if they married in their own clan \u201ctheir bones would dry up and\nthey would die.\u201d\n\nWere this practice of \u201cExogamy,\u201d as marriage outside the totem-kin is\ncalled, limited to one or two places, it might be classed among\nexceptional local customs based on a tradition, say, of some heated\nblood-feud between the tribes. But its prevalence among savage or\nsemi-savage races all the world over points to reasons the nature of which\nis still a _crux_ to the anthropologists. The late Mr. McLennan, whose\nopinion on such a matter is entitled to the most weight, connects it with\nthe custom of female infanticide, which, rendering women scarce, led at\nonce to polyandry, or one female to several males, within the tribe, and\nto the capturing of women from other tribes. This last-named practice\nstrengthens Mr. McLennan\u2019s theory. He cites numerous instances from past\nand present barbarous races, and traces its embodiment in formal code\nuntil we come to the mock relics of the custom in modern times, as, for\nexample, the harmless \u201csurvival\u201d in bride-lifting, that is, stealing, as\nin the word \u201ccattle-lifting.\u201d\n\nConnected with this custom is the equally prevailing one which forbids\nintercourse between relations, as especially between a couple and their\nfathers and mothers-in-law, and which also forbids mentioning their names.\nSo far as the aversion which the savage has to telling his own name, or\nuttering that of any person (especially of the dead) or thing feared by\nhim is concerned, the reason is not far to seek. It lies in that\nconfusion between names and things which marks all primitive thinking. The\nsavage, who shrinks from having his likeness taken in the fear that a part\nof himself is being carried away thereby, regards his name as something\nthrough which he may be harmed. So he will use all sorts of roundabout\nphrases to avoid saying it, and even change it that he may elude his foes,\nand puzzle or cheat Death when he comes to look for him. But why a\nson-in-law should not see the face of his mother-in-law, for so it is\namong the Navajoes, (where the offender would, they say, go blind), the\nAranaks of South America, the Caribs and other tribes of more northern\nregions, the Fijians, Sumatrans, Dyaks, the natives of Australia, the\nZulus, in brief, along the range of the lower culture, is a question to\nwhich no satisfactory answer has been given, and to which reference is\nhere made because of its connection with totemism.\n\n2. That the animal which is the totem of the tribe should not be eaten,\neven where men did not hesitate to eat men of another totem, is a custom\nfor which it is less hard to account. The division of flesh into two\nclasses of forbidden and permitted, of clean and unclean, with the\nresulting artificial liking or repulsion for food which custom arising out\nof that division has brought about, is probably referable to old beliefs\nin the inherent sacredness of certain animals. The Indians of Charlotte\nIsland never eat crows, because they believe in crow-ancestors, and they\nsmear themselves with black paint in memory of that tradition; the\nDacotahs would neither kill nor eat their totems, and if necessity compels\nthese and like barbarians to break the law, the meal is preceded by\nprofuse apologies and religious ceremonies over the slain. Although the\naborigines of Victoria, who are to be ranked among the lowest savages\nextant, devour the most loathsome things, worms, slugs, and vermin, they\nhave a classification of meats to be eaten or avoided. A Kumite is deeply\ngrieved when hunger compels him to eat anything which bears his name, but\nhe may satisfy his hunger with anything that is Krokee. The abstention of\nthe Brahmans from meat, the pseudo-revealed injunction to the Hebrews\nagainst certain flesh-foods (has that against pork its origin in the\nforgotten tradition of descent from a boar?), need no detailing here. But,\nas parallels, some restrictions amongst the ancient dwellers in these\nislands are of value. It was, according to C\u00e6sar,[47] a crime to eat the\ndomestic fowl, or goose, or hare, and to this day the last-named is an\nobject of disgust in certain parts of Russia and Brittany. The oldest\nWelsh laws contain several allusions to the magical character of the hare,\nwhich was thought to change its sex every month or year, and to be the\ncompanion of the witches, who often assumed its shape.[48] The revulsion\nagainst horse-flesh as food may have its origin in the sacredness of the\nwhite horses, which, as Tacitus remarks,[49] were kept by the Germans at\nthe public cost in groves holy to the gods, whose secrets they knew, and\nwhose decrees regarding mortals their neighings interpreted. That this\nanimal was a clan-totem among our forefathers there can be no doubt, and\nthe proofs are with us in the white horses carved in outline on the chalk\nhills of Berkshire and the west, as in the names and crests of clan\ndescendants.\n\nThe totem is not only the clan-name indicating descent from a common\nancestor. It is also the clan-symbol, badge, or crest. Where the tribes\namong whom it is found are still in the picture-writing stage, _i.e._ when\nthe idea is expressed by a portrait of the thing itself instead of by some\nsound-sign--a stage in writing corresponding to the primitive stage in\nlanguage, when words were imitative--there we find the rude hieroglyphic\nof the totem a means of intercourse between different tribes, as well as\nwith whites. A striking example of the use of such totemic symbols occurs\nin a petition sent by some Western Indian tribes to the United States\nCongress for the right to fish in certain small lakes near Lake Superior.\n\nThe leading clan is represented by a picture of the crane; then follow\nthree martens, as totems of three tribes; then the bear, the man-fish, and\nthe cat-fish, also totems. From the eye and heart of each of the animals\nruns a line connecting them with the eye and heart of the crane, to show\nthat they are all of one mind, and the eye of the crane has also a line\nconnecting it with the lakes on which the tribes have their eyes, and\nanother line running towards Congress.\n\nIn the barbaric custom of painting or carving the totem on oars, on the\nbows and sides of canoes, on weapons, on pillars in the front of houses,\nand on the houses themselves; in tattooing it on various parts of the body\n(in the latter case, in some instances, together with pictures of\nexploits; so that the man carries on his person an illustrated history of\nhis own life) we have the remote and forgotten origin of heraldic emblems.\nThe symbols of civilised nations, as, _e.g._ the Imperial eagle, which so\nmany states of ancient and modern renown have chosen; the crests of\nfamilies of rank, with their fabulous monsters, as the cherub, the Greek\n_gryps_, surviving in the griffin, the dragon, the unicorn, which, born of\nrude fancy or terrified imagination, are now carved on the entrance-gates\nto the houses of the great; the armorial bearings on carriages; the crest\nengraven on ring or embossed on writing-paper, these are the lineal\ndescendants of the totem; and the Indians, who could see no difference\nbetween their system of manitous and those of the white people, with their\nspread-eagle or their lion-rampant, made a shrewd guess that would not\noccur to many a _parvenu_ applying at the Heralds\u2019 College for a crest.\nThe continuity is traceable in the custom of the Mexicans and other\ncivilised nations of painting the totemic animals on their banners, flags,\ncrests, and other insignia; and it would seem that we have in the totem\nthe key to the mystery of those huge animal-shaped mounds which abound on\nthe North American continent.\n\nThe arbitrary selection in the \u201cages of chivalry\u201d of such arms as pleased\nthe knightly fancy or ministered to its pride, or, as was often the case,\nresembled the name in sound, together with the ignorance then and till\nrecently existing as to the origin of crests, and also the discredit into\nwhich a seemingly meaningless vanity had fallen, have made it difficult to\ntrace the survival of the totem in the crests even of that numerous\ncompany of the Upper Ten who claim descent from warriors who came over\nwith the Conqueror. But there is no doubt that an inquiry conducted on the\nlines suggested above, and not led into by-paths by false analogies, would\nyield matter of interest and value. It would add to the evidence of that\ncommon semi-civilised stage out of which we have risen. Such names as the\nHorsings, the Wylfings, the Derings, the Ravens, the Griffins, perhaps\nhold within themselves traces of the totem name of the horse, wolf, deer,\nraven, and that \u201canimal fantasticall,\u201d the griffin. In Scotland we find\nthe clan Chattan, or the wild cat; in Ireland \u201cthe men of Osory were\ncalled by a name signifying the wild red deer.\u201d On the other hand such\nnames may have been given merely as nicknames (_i.e._ ekename or the\n_added_ name, from _eke_, \u201calso,\u201d or \u201cto augment\u201d), suggested by the\nphysical or mental likeness to the thing after which they are called.\n\nBut it is time to turn to the religious significance of the totem, as\nshown among races worshipping the animal which is their supposed ancestor.\n\nAt first glance this seems strong argument in support of Mr. Herbert\nSpencer\u2019s theory that all forms of religion, and all myth, have their\norigin in ancestor worship. The mysterious power of stimulation, of\nexcitation to frenzy, or of healing and soothing, or of poisoning, which\ncertain plants possess, has been attributed to indwelling spirits, which,\nas Mr. Spencer contends, are regarded as human and ancestral. Very many\nillustrations of this occur, as, _e.g._ the worship of the Soma plant, and\nits promotion as a deity among the Aryans; the use of tobacco in religious\nceremonies among the tribes of both Americas; whilst now and again we find\ntrees and plants as totems. The Moquis have a totem-kin called the\ntobacco-plant, and also one called the seed-grass. One of the Peruvian\nIncas was called after the native name of the tobacco-plant; and among the\nOjibways the buffalo grass was carried as a charm, and its god said to\ncause madness.\n\nIn Algonquin myth \u201cthere is a spirit for the corn, another for beans,\nanother for squashes. They are sisters, and are very kind to each other.\nThere are spirits in the water, in fire, in all the trees and berries, in\nherbs and in tobacco, in the grass.\u201d\n\nThe worship of animals is on Mr. Spencer\u2019s theory explained as due to the\ngiving of a nickname of some beast or bird to a remote ancestor, the\nbelief arising in course of time that such animal was the actual\nprogenitor, hence its worship. We call a man a bear, a pig, or a vampire,\nin symbolic phrase, and the figure of speech remains a figure of speech\nwith us. But the savage loses the metaphor, and it crystallises into hard\nmatter-of-fact. So the traditions have grown, and Black Eagle, Strong\nBuffalo, Big Owl, Tortoise, etc., take the shape of actual forefathers of\nthe tribe bearing their name and crest. According to the same theory the\nadoration of sun, moon, and mountains, etc., is due to a like source. Some\nfamous chief was called the Sun; the metaphor was forgotten; the personal\nand concrete, as the more easily apprehended, remained; hence worship of\nthe powers of nature \u201cis a form of ancestor-worship, which has lost in a\nstill greater degree the character of the original.\u201d[50]\n\nThe objection raised in these pages to the extreme application of the\nsolar theory applies with equal force to Mr. Spencer\u2019s limitation of the\norigin of myth and religion to one source. Having cleared Scylla, we must\nnot dash against Charybdis. Religion has its origin neither in fear of\nghosts, as Mr. Spencer\u2019s theory assumes, nor in a perception of the\nInfinite inherent in man, as Professor Max M\u00fcller holds. Rather does it\nlie in man\u2019s sense of vague wonder in the presence of powers whose force\nhe cannot measure, and his expressions towards which are manifold. There\nis underlying unity, but there are, to quote St. Paul, \u201cdiversities of\noperation.\u201d There is just that surface unlikeness which one might expect\nfrom the different physical conditions and their resulting variety of\nsubtle influences surrounding various races; influences shaping for them\ntheir gods, their upper and nether worlds; influences of climate and soil\nwhich made the hell of volcanic countries an abyss of sulphurous stifling\nsmoke and everlasting fire, and the hell of cold climates a place of\ndeathly frost; which gave to the giant-gods of northern zones their rugged\nawfulness, and to the goddesses of the sunny south their soft and stately\ngrace. The theory of ancestor-worship as the basis of every form of\nreligion does not allow sufficient play for the vagaries in which the same\nthing will be dressed by the barbaric fear and fancy, nor for the\nimagination as a creative force in the primitive mind even at the lowest\nat which we know it. And, of course, beneath that lowest lies a lower\nnever to be fathomed. We are apt to talk of primitive man as if his\nrepresentatives were with us in the black fellows who are at the bottom of\nthe scale, forgetting that during unnumbered ages he was a brute in\neverything but the capacity by which at last the ape and tiger were\nsubdued within him. Of the beginnings of his _thought_ we can know\nnothing, but the fantastic forms in which it is first manifest compel us\nto regard him as a being whose feelings were uncurbed by reason. That\nancestor-worship is one mode among others of man\u2019s attitude towards the\nawe-begetting, mystery-inspiring universe, none can deny. That his\nearliest temples, as defined sacred spots, were tombs; that he prayed to\nhis dead dear ones, or his dead feared ones, as the case may be, is\nadmitted. From its strong personal character, ancestor-worship was,\nwithout doubt, one of the earliest expressions of man\u2019s attitude before\nthe world which his fancy filled with spirits. It flourishes among\nbarbarous races to-day; it was the prominent feature of the old Aryan\nreligion; it has entered into Christian practice in the worship of saints,\nand perhaps the only feature of religion which the modern Frenchman has\nretained is the _culte des morts_. That it was a part of the belief of the\nEmperor Napoleon III. the following extract from his will shows:--\u201cWe must\nremember that those we love look down upon us from heaven and protect us.\nIt is the soul of my great Uncle which has always guided and supported me.\nThus will it be with my son also if he proves worthy of his name.\u201d\n\nBut the worship of ancestors is not primal. The comparatively late\nrecognition of kinship by savages, among whom some rude form of religion\nexisted, tells against it as the earliest mode of worship. Moreover,\nNature is bigger than man, and this he was not slow to feel. Even if it be\nconceded that sun-myth and sun-worship once arose through the nicknaming\nof an ancestor as the Sun, we must take into account the force of that\nimagination which enabled the unconscious myth-maker, or creed-maker, to\ncredit the moving orbs of heaven with personal life and will. The faculty\nwhich could do that might well express itself in awe-struck forms without\nintruding the ancestral ghost. Further, the records of the classic\nreligions, themselves preserving many traces of a primitive\nnature-worship, point to an adoration of the great and bountiful, as well\nas to a sense of the maleficent and fateful, in earth and heaven which\nseem prior to the more concrete worship of forefathers and chieftains.\n\nIf for the worship of these last we substitute a general worship of\nspirits, there seems little left on which to differ. As aids to the\nexplanation of the belief in animal ancestors and their subsequent\ndeification and worship, as of the lion, the bull, the serpent, etc., we\nhave always present in the barbaric mind the tendency to credit living\nthings, and indeed lifeless, but moving ones, with a passion, a will, and\na power to help or harm immeasurably greater than man\u2019s. This is part and\nparcel of that belief in spirits everywhere which is the key to savage\nphilosophy, and the growth of which is fostered by such secondary causes\nas the worship of ancestors.\n\n\n\u00a7 VII.\n\nSURVIVAL OF MYTH IN HISTORY.\n\nFor proofs of the emergence of the higher out of the lower in philosophy\nand religion, to say nothing of less exalted matters, whether the\nbeast-fable or the nursery rhyme, as holding barbaric thought in solution,\nexamples have necessarily been drawn from the mythology of past and\npresent savage races. But these are too remote in time or standpoint to\nstir other than a languid interest in the reader\u2019s mind; their purpose is\nserved when they are cited and classified as specimens. Not thus is it\nwith examples drawn nearer home from sources at which our young thirst for\nthe stirring and romantic was slaked. When we learn that famous names and\nstriking episodes are in some rare instances only transformed and\npersonified natural phenomena, or, as occurring everywhere, possibly\nvariants of a common legend, the far-reaching influence of primitive\nthought comes to us in more vivid and exciting form. And although one\ntakes in hand this work of disenchantment in no eager fashion, the loss is\nmore seeming than real. Whether the particular tale of bravery, of\nselflessness, of faithfulness, has truth of detail, matters little\ncompared with the fact that its reception the wide world over witnesses to\nhuman belief, even at low levels, in the qualities which have given man\nempire over himself and ever raised the moral standard of the race.\nMoreover, in times like these, when criticism is testing without fear or\nfavour the trustworthiness of records of the past, whether of Jew or\nGentile, the knowledge of the legendary origin of events woven into sober\nhistory prepares us to recognise how the imagination has fed the stream of\ntradition, itself no mean tributary of that larger stream of history, the\npurity of which is now subject of analysis. As a familiar and interesting\nexample let us take the story of William Tell.\n\nEverybody has heard how, in the year 1307 (or, as some say, 1296) Gessler,\nVogt (or Governor) of the Emperor Albert of Hapsburg, set a hat on a pole\nas symbol of the Imperial power, and ordered every one who passed by to do\nobeisance to it; and how a mountaineer named Wilhelm Tell, who hated\nGessler and the tyranny which the symbol expressed, passed by without\nsaluting the hat, and was at once seized and brought before Gessler, who\nordered that as punishment Tell should shoot an apple off the head of his\nown son. As resistance was vain, the apple was placed on the boy\u2019s head,\nwhen Tell bent his bow, and the arrow, piercing the apple, fell with it to\nthe ground. Gessler saw that Tell, before shooting, had stuck a second\narrow in his belt, and, asking the reason, received this for answer: \u201cIt\nwas for you; had I shot my child, know that this would have pierced your\nheart.\u201d\n\nNow, this story first occurs in the chronicle of Melchior Russ, who wrote\nat the end of the fifteenth century, _i.e._ about one hundred and seventy\nyears after its reputed occurrence. The absence of any reference to it in\ncontemporary records caused doubt to be thrown upon it three centuries\nago. Guillimann, the author of a work on Swiss antiquities, published in\n1598, calls it a fable, but subscribes to the current belief in it because\nthe tale is so popular! The race to which he belonged is not yet extinct.\nA century and a half later a more fearless sceptic, who said that the\nstory was of Danish origin, was condemned by the Canton of Uri to be burnt\nalive, and in the well-timed absence of the offender his book was ordered\nto be burnt by the common hangman. But the truth is great, and prevails.\nG. von Wyss, the Swiss historian, has pointed out that the name of Wilhelm\nTell does not occur even once in the history of the three cantons, neither\nis there any trace that a Vogt named Gessler ever served the house of\nHapsburg there. Moreover, the legend does not correspond to any fact of a\nperiod of oppression of the Swiss at the hands of their Austrian rulers.\n\n\u201cThere exist in contemporary records no instances of wanton outrage and\ninsolence on the Hapsburg side. It was the object of that power to obtain\npolitical ascendancy, not to indulge its representatives in lust or wanton\ninsult,\u201d and, where records of disputes between particular persons occur,\n\u201cthe symptoms of violence, as is natural enough, appear rather on the side\nof the Swiss than on that of the aggrandising Imperial house.\u201d[51]\n\nCandour, however, requires that the \u201cevidence\u201d in support of the legend\nshould be stated. There is the fountain on the supposed site of the\nlime-tree in the market-place at Altdorf by which young Tell stood, as\nwell as the colossal plaster statue of the hero himself which confronts us\nas we enter the quaint village. But more than this, the veritable\ncross-bow itself is preserved in the arsenal at Zurich!\n\nHowever, although the little Tell\u2019s chapel, as restored, was opened with\na national _f\u00eate_, in the presence of two members of the Federal Council,\nin June 1883,[52] the Swiss now admit in their school-teaching that the\nstory of the _Apfelschusz_ is legendary.\n\nFreudenberger, who earned his death-sentence for affirming that the story\ncame from Denmark, was on the right track, for the following variant of it\nis given by Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish writer of the twelfth century, who\nputs it as happening in the year 950:--\n\n    Nor ought what follows to be enveloped in silence. Palnatoki, for some\n    time in the body-guard of King Harold (Harold Gormson, or Bluetooth),\n    had made his bravery odious to many of his fellow-soldiers by the zeal\n    with which he surpassed them. One day, when he had drunk too much, he\n    boasted that he was so skilled a bowman that he could hit the smallest\n    apple, set on the top of a stick some way off, at the first shot,\n    which boast reached the ears of the king. This monarch\u2019s wickedness\n    soon turned the confidence of the father to the peril of the son, for\n    he commanded that this dearest pledge of his life should stand in\n    place of the stick, adding a threat that if Palnatoki did not at his\n    first shot strike off the apple, he should with his head pay the\n    penalty of making an empty boast. This command forced him to attempt\n    more than he had promised, and what he _had_ said, reported by\n    slanderous tongues, bound him to accomplish what he had _not_ said.\n    Yet did not his sterling courage, though caught in the snare of\n    slander, suffer him to lay aside his firmness of heart. As soon as the\n    boy was led forth Palnatoki warned him to await the speeding of the\n    arrow with calm ears and unbent head, lest by any slight movement of\n    the body he should frustrate the archer\u2019s well-tried skill. He then\n    made him stand with his back towards him, lest he should be scared at\n    the sight of the arrow. Then he drew three arrows from his quiver, and\n    with the first that he fitted to the string he struck the apple. When\n    the king asked him why he had taken more than one arrow from his\n    quiver, when he was to be allowed to make but one trial with his bow,\n    he made answer, \u201cThat I might avenge on thee the swerving of the first\n    by the points of the others, lest perchance my innocence might have\n    been punished, while your violence escaped scot-free.\u201d[53]\n\nGoing farther northward we find tales corresponding in their main features\nto the above, in the Icelandic _Saga_, the Vilkina; in the Norse _Saga_ of\nSaint Olaf or Thidrik; and in the story of Harold, son of Sigurd. In the\nOlaf _Saga_ it is said that the saint or king, desiring the conversion of\na brave heathen named Eindridi, competed with him in various athletic\nsports, swam with him, wrestled with him, and then shot with him. Olaf\nthen dared Eindridi to strike a writing-tablet from off his son\u2019s head\nwith an arrow, and bade two men bind the eyes of the child and hold the\nnapkin so that the boy might not move when he heard the whizz of the\narrow. Olaf aimed first, and the arrow grazed the lad\u2019s head. Eindridi\nthen prepared to shoot, but the mother of the boy interfered and persuaded\nthe king to abandon this dangerous test of skill. The story adds that had\nthe boy been injured Eindridi would have revenged himself on the king.[54]\n\nSomewhat like this, as from the locality might be expected, is the Far\u00f6e\nIsles variant. King Harold challenges Geyti, son of Aslak, and, vexed at\nbeing beaten in a swimming match, bids Geyti shoot a hazel-nut from off\nhis brother\u2019s head. He consents, and the king witnesses the feat, when\nGeyti\n\n  \u201cShot the little nut away,\n   Nor hurt the lad a hair.\u201d\n\nNext day Harold sends for the archer, and says:--\n\n  \u201cList thee, Geyti, Aslak\u2019s son,\n   And truly tell to me,\n   Wherefore hadst thou arrows twain\n   In the wood yestreen with thee?\u201d\n\nTo which Geyti answers:--\n\n  \u201cTherefore had I arrows twain\n   Yestreen in the wood with me,\n   Had I but hurt my brother dear\n   The other had pierced thee.\u201d\n\nWith ourselves it is the burden of the ballad of William of Cloudeslee,\nwhere the brave archer says:--\n\n  \u201cI have a sonne seven years old;\n   Hee is to me full deere;\n   I will tye him to a stake--\n   All shall see him that bee here--\n   And lay an apple upon his head,\n   And goe six paces him froe;\n   And I myself with a broad arroe\n   Shall cleave the apple in towe.\u201d\n\nIn the _Malleus Maleficarum_ Puncher, a magician on the Upper Rhine, is\nrequired to shoot a coin from off a lad\u2019s head; while, travelling\neastwards as far as Persia, we find the Tell myth as an incident in the\npoem _Mantic Ultra\u00efr_, a work of the twelfth century.\n\nThus far the variants of the legend found among Aryan peoples have been\nsummarised, and it is tempting to base upon this diffusion of a common\nincident a theory of its origin among the ancestors of the Swiss and the\nNorseman, the Persian and the Icelander. But it is found among non-Aryans\nalso. The ethnologist, Castr\u00e9n, whose researches in Finland have secured a\nvaluable mass of fast-perishing materials, obtained this tale in the\nvillage of Ultuwa. \u201cA fight took place between some freebooters and the\ninhabitants of the village of Alaj\u00e4rai. The robbers plundered every house,\nand carried off amongst their captives an old man. As they proceeded with\ntheir spoils along the strand of the lake a lad of twelve years old\nappeared from among the reeds on the opposite bank, armed with a bow and\namply provided with arrows; he threatened to shoot down the captors unless\nthe old man, his father, was restored to him. The robbers mockingly\nreplied that the aged man would be given to him if he could shoot an apple\noff his head. The boy accepted the challenge, pierced the apple and freed\nhis father.\u201d Among a people in close contact with an Aryan race as the\nFinns are in contact with both Swedes and Russians, the main incident of\nthe Tell story may easily have been woven into their native tales. But in\nreference to other non-Aryan races Sir George Dasent, who has treated of\nthe diffusion of the Tell story very fully in the Introduction to his\n_Popular Tales from the Norse_ (a reprint of which would be a boon to\nstudents of folk-lore), says that it is common to the Turks and\nMongolians, and a legend of the wild Samoyedes, who never heard of Tell or\nsaw a book in their lives, relates it, chapter and verse, of one of their\nmarksmen. What shall we say, then, but that the story of this bold\nmastershot was prominent amongst many tribes and races, and that it only\ncrystallised itself round the great name of Tell by that process of\nattraction which invariably leads a grateful people to throw such mythic\nwreaths, such garlands of bold deeds of precious memory, around the brow\nof its darling champion. Of course the solar mythologists see in Tell the\nsun or cloud deity; in his bow the storm-cloud or the iris; and in his\narrows the sun-rays or lightning darts.\n\nThis is a question which we may leave to the champions concerned to\nsettle. Apart from the evidence of the survival of legend in history, and\nthe lesson of caution in accepting any ancient record as gospel which we\nshould learn therefrom, it is the human element in the venerable tale\nwhich interests us most.\n\nRemote in time, far away in place, as is its origin, it moves us yet. The\nennobling qualities incarnated in some hero (whether he be real or ideal\nmatters not) meet with admiring response in the primitive listeners to the\nstory, else it would have been speedily forgotten. Thus does it retain for\nus witness to the underlying oneness of the human heart beneath all\nsurface differences.\n\nWidespread as a myth may be, it takes depth of root according to the more\nor less congenial soil where it is dropped. That about Tell found\nfavourable home in the uplands and the free air of Switzerland; with us S.\nGeorge, falling on times of chivalry, had abiding place, as also, less\nrugged of type than the Swiss marksman, had Arthur, the \u201cBlameless King,\u201d\nwho, if he ever existed, is smothered in overgrowth of legends both native\nand imported.\n\nFor such cycle of tales as gathered round the name of Arthur, and on which\nour youthhood was nourished, is as mythical as the wolf that suckled\nRomulus and Remus. Modern criticism and research have thoroughly sifted\nthe legendary from the true, and if the past remains vague and shadowy, we\nat least know how far the horizon of certainty extends. The criticism has\nmade short work of the romancing chronicles which so long did duty for\nsober history, and has shown that no accurate knowledge of the sequence of\nevents is obtainable until late in the period of the English invasions.\nSave in scattered hints here and there, we are quite in the dark as to the\ncondition of this island during the Roman occupation, whilst for anything\nthat is known of times prior to this, called for convenience\n\u201cpre-historic,\u201d we are dependent upon unwritten records preserved in tombs\nand mounds. The information gathered from these has given us some clue to\nwhat manner of men they were who confronted the first Aryan immigrants,\nand, enriched by researches of the ethnologist and philologist, enabled us\nto trace the movements of races westwards, until we find old and new\ncommingled as one English-speaking folk.\n\nAll or any of which could not be known to the earlier chroniclers. When\nGeoffry of Monmouth set forth the glory and renown of Arthur and his Court\nhe recorded and embellished traditions six hundred years old, without\nthought of weighing the evidence or questioning the credibility of the\ntransmitters. Whether there was a king of that name who ruled over the\nSilures, and around whom the remnant of brave Kelts rallied in their final\nstruggle against the invading hordes, and who, wounded in battle, died at\nGlastonbury, and was buried, or rather sleeps, as the legend has it, in\nthe Vale of Avilion, \u201chath been,\u201d as Milton says, \u201cdoubted heretofore, and\nmay again, with good reason, for the Monk of Malmesbury and others, whose\ncredit hath swayed most with the learned sort, we may well perceive to\nhave known no more of this Arthur nor of his doings than we now\nliving.\u201d[55]\n\nIn the group of legends both of the Old and New World, which, the solar\ntheorists tell us, symbolise the long sleep of winter before the sweet\nawakening of the spring, Arthur of course has place. \u201cMen said he was not\ndead, but by the will of our Lord Jesus Christ was in another place, and\nmen say that he will come again ... that there is written on his tomb this\nverse:\n\n  \u2018Hic jacet Arthurus rex quondam, Rexque futurus.\u2019\u201d\n\nSo Charlemagne reposes beneath the Untersberg, waiting for the appointed\ntime to rise and do battle with anti-Christ; Tell slumbers ready-panoplied\nto save Switzerland when danger threatens; the hero-deity of the\nAlgonquins, when he left the earth, promised to return, but has not,\nwherefore he is called Glooskap, or the Liar; St. John sleeps at Ephesus\ntill the last days are at hand; and the Church militant awaits the return\nof her Lord at the Second Advent.\n\nThe comparative mythologists say that Arthur is a myth, pure and simple, a\nvariant of Sigurd and Perseus; the winning of his famous sword but a\nrepetition of the story of the Teutonic and Greek heroes; the gift of\nGuinevere as fatal to him as Helen to Menelaus; his knights but\nreproductions of the Achaian hosts--much of which may be true; but the\nromance corresponded to some probable event; it fitted in with the\nnational traditions. There were struggles between the Kelts and subsequent\ninvaders--Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes. There were brave chieftains who\nled forlorn hopes or fought to the death in their fastnesses. There were,\nin the numerous tribal divisions, petty kings and queens ruling over mimic\ncourts, with retinues of knights bent on chivalrous, unselfish service.\nThese were the nuclei of stories which were the early annals of the tribe,\nthe glad theme of bards and minstrels, and from which a long line of poets\nto the latest singer of the _Idylls of the King_ have drawn the materials\nof their epics. The fascination which such a cycle of tales had for the\npeople, especially in days when the ballad was history and poetry and all\nliterature rolled into one, was so strong, that the Church wisely imported\nan element which gave loftier meaning to the knightly life, and infused\nreligious ardour into the camp and court. To the stories of Tristram and\nGawayne, already woven into the old romance, she added the half-Christian,\nhalf-pagan, legend of the knights who left the feast at the Round Table to\ntravel across land and sea that they might free the enslaved, remove the\nspell from the enchanted, and deliver fair women from the monsters of\ntyranny and lust, setting forth on what in her eyes was a nobler quest--to\nseek and look upon the San Graal, or Holy Vessel used by Jesus at the Last\nSupper, and into which Joseph of Arimathea collected the blood and water\nthat streamed from the side of the crucified Jesus. This mystic cup, in\nwhich we have probably a sacrificial relic of the old British religion\nimported into the Christian incident with which it blended so well,\nfloated, according to Arthurian legend, suddenly into the presence of the\nKing and his Round Table knights at Camelot as they sat at supper, and was\nas suddenly borne away, to be henceforth the coveted object of knightly\nendeavour. Only the baptized could hope to behold it; to the unchaste it\nwas veiled: hence only they among the knights who were pure in heart and\nlife vowed to go in quest of the San Graal, and return not until they had\nseen it. So to Sir Galahad, the \u201cjust and faithful,\u201d Tennyson sings how\nthe sacred cup appeared--\n\n  \u201cSometimes on lonely mountain meres\n     I find a magic bark;\n   I leap on board: no helmsman steers:\n     I float till all is dark.\n   A gentle sound, an awful light!\n     Three angels bear the holy Grail:\n   With folded feet, in stoles of white,\n     On sleeping wings they sail.\n   Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!\n     My spirit beats her mortal bars,\n   As down dark tides the glory slides,\n     And, star-like, mingles with the stars.\u201d\n\nWhilst in such legends as the Arthurian group the grain of truth, if it\nexists, is so embedded as to be out of reach, there are others concerning\nactual personages, notably Cyrus and Charlemagne, not to quote other names\nfrom both \u201cprofane\u201d and sacred history, in which the fable can be\nseparated from the fact without difficulty. Enough is known of the life\nand times of such men to detach the certain from the doubtful, as, _e.g._,\nwhen Charlemagne is spoken of as a Frenchman and as a Crusader before\nthere was a French nation, or the idea of Crusades had entered the heads\nof most Christian kings; and as in the legends of the infancy of Cyrus,\nwhich are of a type related to like legends of the wonderful round the\nearly years of the famous.\n\nThis, however, by the way. Leaving illustration of the fabulous in heroic\nstory, it will be interesting to trace it through such a tale of pathos\nand domestic life as the well-known one of Llewellyn and his faithful\nhound, Gellert.\n\nWhose emotions have not been stirred by the story of Llewellyn the Great\ngoing out hunting, and missing his favourite dog; of his return, to be\ngreeted by the creature with more than usual pleasure in his eye, but with\njaws besmeared with blood; of the anxiety with which Llewellyn rushed into\nthe house, to find the cradle where had lain his beautiful boy upset, and\nthe ground around it soaked with blood; of his thereupon killing the dog,\nand then seeing the child lying unharmed beneath the cradle, and sleeping\nby the side of a dead wolf, from whose ravenous maw the faithful Gellert\nhad delivered it? Most of us, in our visits to North Wales, have stood by\nGellert\u2019s grave at Beddgelert, little suspecting that the affecting story\noccurs in the folk-lore of nearly every Aryan people, and of several\nnon-Aryan races, as the Egyptians and Chinese.\n\nProbably it comes to us as many other tales have come, through collections\nlike the well-known _Gesta Romanorum_, compiled by medi\u00e6val monks for\npopular entertainment. In the version given in that book the knight who\ncorresponds to Llewellyn, after slaying his dog, discovers that it had\nsaved his child from a serpent, and thereupon breaks his sword and departs\non a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. But the monks were no inventors of such\ntales; they recorded those that came to them through the pilgrims,\nstudents, traders, and warriors who travelled from west to east and from\neast to west in the Middle Ages, and it is in the native home of fable and\nimagery the storied Orient, that we must seek for the earliest forms of\nthe Gellert legend. In the _Panchatantra_, the oldest and most celebrated\nSanskrit fable-book, the story takes this form:--An infirm child is left\nby its mother while she goes to fetch water, and she charges the father,\nwho is a Brahman, to watch over it. But he leaves the house to collect\nalms, and soon after this a snake crawls towards the child. In the house\nwas an ichneumon, a creature often cherished as a house pet, who sprang at\nthe snake and throttled it. When the mother came back, the ichneumon went\ngladly to meet her, his jaws and face smeared with the snake\u2019s blood. The\nhorrified mother, thinking it had killed her child, threw her water-jar at\nit, and killed it; then seeing the child safe beside the mangled body of\nthe snake, she beat her breast and face with grief, and scolded her\nhusband for leaving the house.\n\nWe find the same story, with the slight difference that the animal is an\notter, in a later Sanskrit collection, the _Hitopadesa_, but we can track\nit to that fertile source of classic and medi\u00e6val fable, the Buddhist\n_J\u00e2takas_, or _Birth Stories_, a very ancient collection of fables, which,\nprofessing to have been told by the Buddha, narrates his exploits in the\n550 births through which he passed before attaining Buddhahood. In the\n_Vinaya Pitaka_ of the Chinese Buddhist collection, which, according to\nMr. Beal, dates from the fifth century A.D., and is translated from\noriginal scriptures supposed to have existed near the time of Asoka\u2019s\ncouncil in the third century B.C., we have the earliest extant form of\nthe tale. That in the _Panchatantra_ is obviously borrowed from it, the\ndifferences being in unimportant detail, as, for example, the nakula, or\nmongoose, is killed by the Brahman on his return home, the wife having\nneglected to take the child with her as bidden by him. He is filled with\nsorrow, and then a Deva continues the strain:--\n\n  \u201cLet there be due thought and consideration,\n   Give not way to hasty impulse,\n   By forgetting the claims of true friendship\n   You may heedlessly injure a kind heart (person)\n   As the Brahman killed the nakula.\u201d\n\nThe several versions of the story which could be cited from German,\nRussian, Persian, and other Aryan folk-lore, would merely present certain\nvariations due to local colouring and to the inventiveness of the\nnarrators or transcribers; and, omitting these, it will suffice to give\nthe Egyptian variant or corresponding form, in which the tragical has\ngiven place to the amusing, save, perhaps, in the opinion of the Wali.\nThis luckless person \u201conce smashed a pot full of herbs which a cook had\nprepared. The exasperated cook thrashed the well-intentioned but\nunfortunate Wali within an inch of his life, and when he returned,\nexhausted with his efforts at belabouring the man, he discovered among the\nherbs a poisonous snake.\u201d\n\nIn pointing to the venerable Buddhist _Birth Stories_ as the earliest\nextant source of Aryan fables, it should be added that these were with the\nBuddha and his disciples the favourite vehicle of carrying to the hearts\nof men those lessons of gentleness and tenderness towards all living\nthings which are a distinctive feature of that non-persecuting religion.\n\n\n\u00a7 VIII.\n\nMYTH AMONG THE HEBREWS.\n\nWith the important exception of reference to the change effected in the\nJewish doctrine of spirits, and its resulting influence on Christian\ntheology, by the transformation of the mythical Ahriman of the old Persian\nreligion into the archfiend Satan, but slight allusion has been made in\nthese pages to the myths and legends of the Semitic race. Under this term,\nborrowed from the current belief in their descent from Shem, are included\nextant and extinct people, the Assyrians, Chaldeans or Babylonians,\nPh\u0153nicians, Arabs, Syrians, Jews, and Ethiopians.\n\nThe mythology of the Aryan nations has had the advantage of the most\nscholarly criticism, and the light which this has thrown upon the racial\nconnection of peoples between whom all superficial likeness had long\ndisappeared, as well as upon the early condition of their common\nancestors, is of the greatest value as aid to our knowledge of the mode of\nman\u2019s intellectual and spiritual growth. And the comparisons made between\nthe older and cruder forms underlying the elaborated myth and the myths of\nsemi-barbarous races have supported conclusions concerning man\u2019s\nprimitive state identical with those deduced from the material relics of\nthe Ancient and Newer Stone Ages, namely, that the savage races of to-day\nrepresent not a degradation to which man has sunk, but a condition out of\nwhich all races above the savage have, through much tribulation, emerged.\nAn important exception to this has, however, been claimed on behalf of at\nleast one branch of the Semitic race--namely, the Hebrews or Jews. This\nclaim has rested on their assumed selection by the Deity for a definite\npurpose in the ordering and directing of human affairs; but no assumption\nof supernatural origin can screen the documents of disputed authorship and\nuncertain meaning on which that claim is based from the investigation\napplied to all ancient records; nor can the materials elude dissection\nbecause hitherto regarded as organic parts of revelation. The real\ndifficulties are in the structure of the language and in the scantiness of\nthe material as contrasted with the flexile and copious mythology of the\nAryan race. And the investigation has been in some degree checked by the\nmistaken dicta of authorities such as M. Renan and the late Baron Bunsen;\nthe former contending that \u201cthe Semites never had a mythology,\u201d and the\nlatter (although any statement of his carries far less weight) that \u201cit is\nthe grand, momentous, and fortunate self-denial of Judaism to possess\nnone.\u201d\n\nBut, independently of the refusal of the student of history to admit that\nexceptional place has been accorded of direct Divine purpose to any\nparticular race, the discoveries of literatures much older than the\nHebrew, and in which legends akin to those in the earlier books of the Old\nTestament are found, together with the proofs of historical connection\nbetween the peoples having these common legends, have given the refutation\nto the distinctive character of the Semitic race claimed by M. Renan. That\na people dwelling for centuries, as the Hebrews did, in a land which was\nthe common highway between the great nations of antiquity; a people\nsubject to vicissitudes bringing them, as the pipkin between iron pots,\ninto collision and subject relations to Egyptians, Persians, and other\npowerful folk, should remain uninfluenced in their intellectual\nspeculations and religious beliefs, would indeed be a greater miracle than\nthat which makes their literature inspired in every word and vowel-point.\nThe remarkable collection of cuneiform inscriptions (so called from their\nwedge-like shape: Latin, _cuneus_, a wedge) on the baked clay cylinders\nand tablets of the vast libraries of Babylon and Nineveh, has brought out\none striking fact, namely, that the Semitic civilisation, venerable as\nthat is, was the product of, or at least, greatly influenced by, the\nculture of a non-Semitic people called the Akkadians, from a word meaning\n\u201chighlanders.\u201d These more ancient dwellers in the Euphrates valley and\nuplands were not only non-Semitic but non-Aryan, and probably racially\nconnected with the complex group of peoples embracing the\nTatar-Mongolians, the distinguishing features of whose religion are\nShamanistic, with belief in magic in its manifold forms. \u201cIn Babylonia,\nunder the non-Semitic Akkadian rule, the dominant creed was the fetish\nworship, with all its ritual of magic and witchcraft; and when the Semites\nconquered the country, the old learning of the land became the property of\nthe priests and astrologers, and the Akkadian language the Latin of the\nEmpire.\u201d[56]\n\nIt was during the memorable period of the Exile that the historical\nrecords of the Jews underwent revision, and from that time dates the\nincorporation into them of legends and traditions which, invested with a\npurity and majesty distinctively Hebrew, were borrowed from the\nBabylonians, although primarily Akkadian. They are here, as elsewhere, the\nproduct of the childhood of the race, when it speculates and invents,\nframing its theory of the beginnings, their when and how; when it prattles\nof the Golden Age, which seems to lie behind, in the fond and not extinct\ndelusion that \u201cthe old is better;\u201d when it frames its fairy tales, weird\nor winsome, in explanation of the uncommon, the unknown, and the\nbewildering.\n\nThe Babylonian origin of the early biblical stories is now generally\nadmitted, although the dogmas based upon certain of them still retard the\nacceptance of this result of modern inquiry in some quarters. That\nreluctance is suggestively illustrated in Dr. Wm. Smith\u2019s _Dictionary of\nthe Bible_, where, turning to the heading \u201cDeluge,\u201d the reader is referred\nto \u201cFlood\u201d and thence to \u201cNoah!\u201d\n\nSo much for the legendary; but the analysis of the more strictly mythical,\nthe names of culture-ancestors and heroes, sons of Anak and of God,\nscattered over the Pentateuch, is not so easy a matter. The most important\nwork in this direction has been attempted by Dr. Goldziher,[57] but even\nhis scholarship has failed to convince sympathetic readers that Abraham\nand Isaac are sun-myths, and that the twelve sons of Jacob are the\nzodiacal signs! Under the Professor\u2019s etymological solvent the personality\nof the patriarchs disappears, and the charming idylls and pastorals of old\nEastern life become but phases of the sun and the weather. The Hebrew,\nlike the Aryan myth-maker, speaks of the relations of day and night, of\ngray morning and sunrise, of red sunset and the darkness of night, as of\nlove and union, or strife and pursuit, or gloomy desire and coy evasion.\nAbh-r\u00e2m is the High or Heaven-Father (from _r\u00e2m_, \u201cto be high\u201d) with his\nnumberless host of descendants. Yis-ch\u00e2k, commonly called Isaac, denotes\n\u201che who laughs,\u201d and so the Laughing one, whom the High Father intends to\nslay, is the smiling day or the smiling sunset, which gets the worst of\nthe contest with the night sky, and disappears. Sarah signifies princess,\nor the moon, the queen who rules over the great army glittering amidst the\ndarkness. The expulsion of Hagar (derived from a root _hajara_, meaning\n\u201cto fly,\u201d and yielding the word hijr\u00e2 or \u201cflight,\u201d whence the Mohammadan\nHegira) is the Semitic variant of that inexhaustible theme of all\nmythology, the battle of Day and Night; Hagar flying before the inconstant\nsun and the jealous moon. And so on through the whole range of leading\ncharacters in Hebrew history; Cain and Abel, in which Dr. Goldziher, to\nwhom they are the sun and dark sky, overlooks the more likely explanation\nof the story as a quarrel between nomads and tillers of the soil;\nJephthah, in which the sun-god kills at mid-day the dawn, his own\noffspring; Samson, or more correctly Shimsh\u00f4n, from the Hebrew word for\nsun, the incidents of whose life, as expounded by Professor Steinthal,[58]\nare more clearly typical of the labours of the sun; Jonah and the fish, a\nstory long ago connected with the myth of Herakles and H\u00easion\u00ea; \u201cas on\noccasion of the storm the dragon or serpent swallows the sun, so when he\nsets he is swallowed by a mighty fish, waiting for him at the bottom of\nthe sea. Then when he appears again on the horizon, he is spat out on the\nshore by the sea-monster.\u201d[59]\n\nThese bare references must suffice to show that there is in Hebrew\nliterature a large body of material which must undergo the sifting and the\ncriticism already applied with success to Indo-European and non-Aryan\nmyth. This done, the Semitic race will contribute its share of evidence in\nsupport of those conditions under which it has been the main purpose of\nthis book to show that myth has its birth and growth.\n\n\n\u00a7 IX.\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\nThe multitude of subjects traversed in the foregoing sections has\ncompelled presentment in so concise a form that any attempt to gather into\na few sentences the sum of things said would be as a digest of a digest,\nand it is, therefore, better to briefly emphasise the conclusions to which\nthe gathered evidence points. It was remarked at the outset, when\ninsisting on the serious meaning which lies at the heart of myths, that\nthey have their origin in the endeavour of barbaric man to explain his\nsurroundings. The mass of fact brought together illustrates and confirms\nthis view, and has thereby tended to raise what was once looked upon as\nfantastic, curious, and lawless, to the level of a subject demanding sober\ntreatment and examination on strictly scientific methods.\n\nArchbishop Trench, in his _Study of Words_, quotes Emerson\u2019s happy\ncharacterisation of language as fossil poetry and fossil history: \u201cJust as\nin some fossil, curious and beautiful shapes of vegetable or animal life,\nthe graceful fern, or the finely-vertebrated lizard, such as have been\nextinct for thousands of years, are permanently bound up with the stone,\nso in words are beautiful thoughts and images, the imagination and the\nfeeling of past ages, of men long since in their graves, of men whose very\nnames have perished, preserved and made safe for ever.\u201d In like manner we\nmay speak of myths as fossil ethics and fossil theology, but, with more\nappositeness, as embryonic ethics and theology, since they contain\npotentially all the philosophies and theologies \u201cthat man did ever find.\u201d\n\nAnd to the student of the history of humanity who rejoices in the sure\nfoundation on which, tested in manifold ways, the convictions of the\nhighest and noblest of the race rest, the value of myth is increased in\nits being a natural outgrowth of the mind when, having advanced to the\npoint at which curiosity concerning the causes of surrounding things\narises, it frames its crude explanations. For not that which man claims to\nhave received as a message from the gods, as a revelation from heaven, but\nthat which he has learned by experience often painful and bitter, and\nwhich succeeding generations have either verified or improved upon, or\ndisproved altogether, is, in the long run, of any worth. Through it alone,\nas we follow the changes wrought in the process from guess to certainty,\ncan we determine what was the intellectual stage of man in his mental\ninfancy, and how far it finds correspondences in the intellectual stage of\nexisting barbaric races.\n\nThus, the study of myth is nothing less than the study of the mental and\nspiritual history of mankind. It is a branch of that larger, vaster\nscience of evolution which so occupies our thoughts to-day, and with it\nthe philosopher and the theologian must reckon. The evidence which it\nbrings from the living and dead mythologies of every race is in accord\nwith that furnished by their more tangible relics, that the history of\nmankind is a history of slow but sure advance from a lower to a higher; of\nascent, although with oft backslidings. It confirms a momentous canon of\nmodern science, that the laws of evolution in the spiritual world are as\ndeterminable as they are in the physical. To this we, for the enrichment\nof our life and helpful service of our kind, do well to give heed.\nWherever we now turn eye or ear the unity of things is manifest, and their\nunbroken harmony heard. With the theory of evolution in our hands as the\nmaster-key, the immense array of facts that seemed to lie unrelated and\ndiscrete are seen to be interrelated and in necessary dependence--\u201ca\nmighty sum of things for ever speaking.\u201d That undisturbed relation of\ncause and effect which science has revealed and confirmed extends\nbackwards as well as reaches forwards; its continuity involves the\ninclusion of man as a part of nature, and the study of his development as\none in which both the biologist and the mythologist engage towards a\ncommon end.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nDREAMS: THEIR PLACE IN THE GROWTH OF BELIEFS IN THE SUPERNATURAL.\n\n\n\u201cThe physical world is made up of atoms and ether, and there is no room\nfor ghosts.\u201d\n\nW. K. CLIFFORD.\n\n\n\u201cIf ghos\u2019es want me to believe in \u2019em, let \u2019em leave off skulking i\u2019 the\ndark and i\u2019 lone places--let \u2019em come where there\u2019s company and candles.\u201d\n\nGEORGE ELIOT.\n\n\nDREAMS: THEIR PLACE IN THE GROWTH OF BELIEFS IN THE SUPERNATURAL.\n\n\n\u00a7 I.\n\nDIFFERENCE BETWEEN SAVAGE AND CIVILISED MAN.\n\nThe evidence as to pre-historic man\u2019s material furniture and surroundings,\nwhich was first gathered from and restricted to ancient river valleys and\nbone caverns of Great Britain, France, and Belgium, is no longer isolated.\nIt is supported by evidence which has been collected from every part of\nthe globe inhabited in past or present times, and its uniform character\nhas enabled us to determine what lies beyond an horizon which within the\nlast half century was bounded by the hazy line of myth and tradition. So\nrigid seemed the limit defining man\u2019s knowledge of his past that some\nforty years ago even the Geological Society of London recorded with barest\nreference the unearthing of relics witnessing to his presence in Britain\nhundreds of thousands of years ago. The canon was closed, and no one\nventured to add to the sayings of the book. But the discoveries which had\ndisproved belief in the earth\u2019s supremacy in the universe, and in its\ncreation in six days, led the way to researches into the history of the\nlife upon its surface, and especially of that which, in the language of\nancient writ, was \u201cmade in the image of God.\u201d When the long-forbidding\nline, imaginary as the equator and lacking its convenience, was crossed,\nthere was found the evidence of the conditions under which man emerged\nfrom a state quite other than that which had formed the burden of legends\nsacred with the hoariness of time. Those conditions, it is well-nigh\nneedless to remind the reader, accord with that theory which holds man to\nbe no specially-created being, started on this earth, fully equipped,\nMinerva-like, with all ripeness of wisdom and loftiness of soul, but the\nlast and long result of an ever-ascending series of organisms ranging from\nthe lowest, shapeless, nerveless specks to _homo sapiens_, \u201cthe foremost\nin the files of time.\u201d Evolution is advance from the simple to the\ncomplex. The most primitive forms reach maturity in a shorter time than\nthe higher forms, and fulfil their purpose quicker, and this doctrine\napplies not only in relation to man and the inferior creatures, but as\nbetween the several races of man himself. Herein the differences, which\nare determined by size, still more by increase in complexity, of\nbrain-stuff, are greater than between the lowest man and the highest\nanimals--that is to say, the savage and civilised man are farther apart\nthan the savage and the anthropoid ape. The cranial capacity of the\nmodern Englishman surpasses that of the non-Aryan inhabitant of India by a\ndifference of sixty-eight cubic inches, while between this non-Aryan skull\nand the skull of the gorilla the difference in capacity is but eleven\ninches,[60] and if we were to take into account the differences in\nstructural complexity, as indicated by the creasing and furrowing of the\nbrain surface, the contrast would be still more striking.\n\nThe brains of the earliest known races, the men of the Ancient Stone Age,\nape-like savages who fought with woolly-haired elephants, cave-lions, and\ncave-bears, amidst the forests and on the slopes of the valleys and hills\nwhere London now stands, and who in the dawn of human intelligence,\napplying means to ends, came off victorious, were doubtless much nearer to\nthe chimpanzee with his thirty-five cubic inches than to the Papuan with\nhis fifty-five cubic inches. Indeed, we need not travel beyond this age\nor island; it suffices to compare the brain quality of the rustic,\nthinking of \u201cmaistly nowt,\u201d with that of the highest minds amongst us, as\nevidence of the enormous diversity between wild and cultivated stocks of\nmankind.\n\nUnless we are so enchained to fond delusions as to place man in a kingdom\nby himself, and deny in the sympathetic, moral, and intellectual faculties\nin brutes the germs of those capacities which, existing in a pre-human\nancestry, have flowered in the noblest and wisest of our race, we may find\nin such differences as are shown to occur between civilised and primitive\nman further evidence of the enormous time since the latter appeared. For\nunnumbered ages man--then physically hardly distinguishable from apes--may\nhave remained stationary. Certainly the relics from the Drift show no\nadvance: given no change in the conditions, the species do not vary, and\nman, once adapted to his surroundings, changed only as these changed. But,\nobscure as are the causes, there came a period when conditions arose\ninducing some variation, no matter how slight, in brain development, which\nwas of more need than any variation in the rest of the body, and when an\nimpetus was given which, leaving the latter but slightly affected,\nquickened the former, so that man passed from the highest animality to the\nlowest humanity. Slowly, in the course of a struggle not yet ended, \u201cthe\nape and tiger\u201d were subdued within him, and those social conditions\ninduced to which are due that progress which ever draws him nearer to the\nangels.\n\nThe discussion of this in detail lies outside the limits of these pages.\nHere, after briefly noting on what lines it must run, we are concerned\nwith man at that far later stage in his development when the physical and\nmaterial evidence respecting his bodily development gives place to the\npsychical and immaterial evidence respecting his mental development.\nChipped flints, flakes, and scrapers of the Drift are indispensable\nwitnesses to his primitive state, but during the long ages that he was\nmaking shift with them he remains within the boundaries of the zoological;\nhe is more geological than human. Gleams of the soul within that will one\nday be responsive to grace of form and harmony of colour appear in the\nrude portraits of mammoth, reindeer, urus, whale, and man himself,\nscratched on ivory and horn. Indications of germinal ideas about an\nafter-life are present in the contents of tumuli with the skeletons in\ndefined positions, and with weapons presumably for the use of the departed\nin the happy hunting-grounds. In these last we are nearing the historic\nperiod, for a vast interval exists between the tomb-building races and the\nmen of the Reindeer Period, yet even then the ages are many before man had\nso advanced as to bequeath the intangible relics of his thought,\ndisclosing what answer he had beat out for himself to the riddle of the\nearth and the mysteries of life and death. Although the story of his\nintellectual and spiritual development is a broken one, of the earlier\nchapters of which we have no record, enough survives to induce and\nstrengthen the conviction that in this, as in aught else, there is no\nreal disconnection. In the shaping of the rudest pointed flint-tool and\nweapon there are the germs of the highest mechanical art; in the\ndiscordant war-whoop of the savage the latent strains of the\n\u201cMarseillaise,\u201d as, quoting Tennyson, in the eggs of the nightingale\nsleeps the music of the moon. If we cannot get so near to the elemental\nforms of thought as we could wish, we must lay hold of the lowest extant,\nand trace in these the connection to be sought between the barbaric and\ncivilised mind. We must have understanding of the mental condition of\nraces, still on low levels of culture, and if the result is to show that\nmany highly-elaborated beliefs among advanced peoples are but barbaric\nphilosophies \u201cwrit large,\u201d the conception of an underlying unity between\nall nations of men that do dwell, or have dwelt, on the face of the earth,\nwill receive additional proof.\n\n\n\u00a7 II.\n\nLIMITATIONS OF BARBARIC LANGUAGE.\n\nIllustrations of the low intellectual stage of some extant races not quite\nat the bottom of the scale, drawn from simple matters, will make clearer\nhow they will interpret matters of a more complex order, and interpret\nthem only in one way.\n\nOf the beginning of thought we can know nothing. For numberless ages man\nwas marked out from the animals most nearly allied to him by that power\nof more readily adapting means to ends which gave him mastery over nature.\nThrough that dim and dateless time he thought without knowing that he\nthought. \u201cHis senses made him conversant only with things externally\nexisting and with his own body, and he transcended his senses only far\nenough to draw concrete inferences respecting the action of these\nthings.\u201d[61] He is human only when the thought reaches us through\narticulate speech. Language, as a means of communication between him and\nhis fellows, denotes the existence of the social state, the play of the\nsocial evolution which gives the impetus to ideas. Language is the outcome\nof man\u2019s social needs and nature; he speaks not so much because he thinks\nand feels as because he must perforce tell his thoughts and feelings to\nothers. And by the richness or poverty of his speech we may assess the\nrichness or poverty of his ideas, since language cannot transcend the\nthought of which it is the vehicle.\n\nBy what tones and gestures, by what signs and grimaces, the beginnings of\nspeech were made, we know not. Countless processions of races appeared and\nvanished before language had reached a stage when the elements of which\nwords are built up could be separated, and the reason which governed the\nchoice of this and that sound or symbol discovered. Now and again, when a\ncorrespondence is found between the roots of terms in use amongst the\nhigher races and the names given by lower races to the same thing, we get\nnearer primitive thought, the correspondence being not always in sound or\nspelling, which may be delusive, but in physical or sensible meaning. It\nwould be a wholesome corrective of theories concerning the origin of\nlanguages to which many are yet wedded to show that terms not only for\nthings material and concrete, but also for things immaterial and abstract,\nare of purely physical origin, _i.e._ have been chosen from their analogy\nto something real. But the consideration of such matters lies outside the\npurpose of this work.\n\nLanguage proves the limited range of ideas among barbaric peoples in the\nabsence of their capacity to generalise. They have a word for every\nfamiliar thing, sound, and colour, but no word for animal, plant, sound,\nor colour as abstract terms. It is the concrete, the special shape and\nfeature and action of a thing, which strike the senses at the outset; to\nstrip it of these accidents, as we call them, and merge it in the general,\nand realise its relation to what is common to the class to which it\nbelongs, is an effort of which the untutored mind is incapable. Many of\nthe northern non-Aryan tribes, as among the Mongols, have names for the\nsmallest rivulet, but no word for river; names for each finger, but no\nword for finger. The Society Islanders have a separate name for the tails\nof various animals, but no name for tail. The Mohicans have verbs for\nevery kind of cutting, but no verb \u201cto cut.\u201d The Australians and other\nsouthern aborigines have no generic term for tree, neither have the\nMalays, yet they have words for the several parts, the root, stem, twig,\netc. When the Tasmanians wished to express qualities of things, as hard,\nsoft, warm, long, round, they would say for hard, \u201clike a stone\u201d; for\ntall, \u201clong legs\u201d; for round, \u201clike the moon,\u201d and so on. Certain\nhill-tribes of India give names to sunshine, candle, and flames of fire,\nbut \u201clight\u201d is a high abstraction which they are unable to grasp. Some of\nthe Red Race languages have separate verbs for \u201cI wish to eat meat,\u201d or \u201cI\nwish to eat soup,\u201d but no verb for \u201cI wish.\u201d Of course, the verb \u201cto be,\u201d\nwhich, as Adam Smith remarked long ago, is the most abstract and\nmetaphysical of all words, and therefore of no early coinage, is absent\nfrom a large number of barbaric languages. Abstract though it be, it is,\nas Professor Whitney points out, made up of the relics of several verbs\nwhich once had, like all elements and parts of speech, a distinct physical\nmeaning. As in \u201cbe\u201d and \u201cbeen\u201d the idea of \u201cgrowing\u201d is contained, so in\n\u201cam,\u201d \u201cart,\u201d \u201cis,\u201d and \u201care,\u201d the idea of \u201csitting\u201d (or, as some think, of\n\u201cbreathing\u201d) is embodied. As an example of its absence, the Abipones\ncannot say \u201cI am an Abipone,\u201d only \u201cI Abipone.\u201d Turning to another class\nof illustration, we have proof what a far cry it is from the savage to the\nSenior Wrangler in the powerlessness of the former to count beyond his\nfingers; indeed, he cannot always count as far as that, any number beyond\ntwo bewildering him. One of the best stories to the point is given in Mr.\nGalton\u2019s _Tropical South Africa_.\n\n\u201cWhen the Dammaras wish to express four they take to their fingers, which\nare to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding rule is\nto an English schoolboy. They puzzle very much after five, because no\nspare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for\nunits. Yet they seldom lose oxen; the way in which they discover the loss\nof one is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but by the\nabsence of a face they know. When bartering is going on, each sheep must\nbe paid for separately. Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate\nof exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Dammara to take two\nsheep and give him four sticks. I have done so, and seen a man put two of\nthe sticks apart, and take a sight over them at one of the sheep he was\nabout to sell. Having satisfied himself that that one was honestly paid\nfor, and finding to his surprise that exactly two sticks remained in hand\nto settle the account for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with\ndoubts; the transaction seemed to come out too \u201cpat\u201d to be correct, and he\nwould refer back to the first couple of sticks; and then his mind got hazy\nand confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off\nthe transaction until two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep\ndriven away, and then the other two sticks given him and the second sheep\ndriven away. Once while I watched a Dammara floundering hopelessly in a\ncalculation on one side of me, I observed Dinah, my spaniel, equally\nembarrassed on the other. She was overlooking half a dozen of her new-born\npuppies, which had been removed two or three times from her, and her\nanxiety was excessive, as she tried to find out if they were all present,\nor if any were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her eyes over\nthem, backwards and forwards, but could not satisfy herself. She evidently\nhad a vague notion of counting, but the figure was too large for her\nbrain. Taking the two as they stood, dog and Dammara, the comparison\nreflected no great honour on the man.\u201d\n\nDr. Rae says that if an Eskimo is asked the number of his children he is\ngenerally puzzled. After counting some time on his fingers he will\nprobably consult his wife, and the two often differ, even though they may\nnot have more than four or five in family. Of the languages of the\nAustralian savages, who are the lowest extant, examined by Mr. Crawfurd,\nthirty were found to have no number beyond four, all beyond this being\nspoken of as \u201cmany,\u201d whilst the Brazilian Indians got confused in trying\nto reckon beyond three. The list of such cases might be largely extended,\nand although exceptions occur where savages are found with a fairly wide\nrange of numbers, notably where barter prevails, the larger proportion of\nuncivilised people are bewildered at any effort to count beyond three or\nfive. The fingers have, in most cases, determined the limits, for men\ncounted on these before they gave words to the numbers, the words being at\nlast borrowed from the fingers, as in our \u201cfive,\u201d which is cognate with\nthe Greek \u201cpente,\u201d and the Persian \u201cpendji\u201d (said to be derived from the\nword for \u201chand\u201d), and \u201cdigits,\u201d from Latin \u201cdigitus,\u201d a finger. This\nlimited power of numeration thus shown to be possessed by the savage\njustifies the statement that he is nearer to the ape than to the average\ncivilised man, nearer, as the extract from Mr. Galton shows, to the\nspaniel than to the mathematician. What conception of the succession of\ntime, still less of it as a confluence of the eternities, can he have\nwhose feeble brain cannot grasp a to-morrow! And yet the difference is not\none of kind, but of degree, which separates the aborigines of Victoria or\nPapua from the astronomer who is led by certain irregularities in the\nmotion of a planet to calculate the position of the disturbing cause, and\nthereby to discover it nearly a thousand million miles beyond in the\nplanet Neptune.\n\n\n\u00a7 III.\n\nBARBARIC CONFUSION BETWEEN NAMES AND THINGS.\n\nRaces which have names for different kinds of oaks, but none for an oak,\nstill less for a tree, and who cannot count beyond their fingers, may be\nexpected to have hazy notions concerning the objective and subjective; or,\nto put these in terms less technical, concerning that which belongs to the\nobject of thought, and that which is to be referred to the thinking\nsubject. Although primitive religion and philosophy are too nearly allied\nto admit of sharp definitions, the former may be said, if the slang is\nallowed, to be one of funk, and the latter one of fog. There are those\namongst us who say that the terrorism which lies at the base of the one\nand the mist which is an element of the other, linger yet in extant belief\nand metaphysics. What man cannot understand he fears; and in all primary\nbeliefs the powers around which seem to him so wayward are baleful, to be\nappeased by sacrifice or foiled by sorcery. And the confusion which reigns\nin his cosmos extends to his notion of what is in the mind and what is out\nof it. He cannot distinguish between an illusion and a reality, between a\nsubstance and its image or shadow; and it needs only some bodily ailment,\nas indigestion through gorging, or delirium through starving, to give to\nspectres of diseased or morbid origin, airy nothings, a substantive\nexistence, a local habitation, and a name.\n\nThe tangle between things and their symbols is well illustrated in the\nbarbaric notion that the name of a man is an integral part of himself, and\nthat to reveal it is to put the owner in the power of another. An Indian\nasked Kane whether his wish to know his name arose from a desire to steal\nit; the Araucanians would not allow their names to be told to strangers,\nlest these should be used in sorcery. So with the Indians of British\nColumbia; and among the Ojibways husbands and wives never told each\nother\u2019s names, the children being warned against repeating their own names\nlest they stop growing. Dobrizhoffer says that the Abipones of Paraguay\nhad the like superstition. They would knock at his door at night, and when\nasked who was there, no answer would come, through dread of uttering their\nnames. Mr. im Thurn tells us that, although the Indians of British Guiana\nhave an intricate system of names, it is \u201cof little use, in that owners\nhave a very strong objection to telling or using them, apparently on the\nground that the name is part of the man, and that he who knows it has part\nof the owner of that name in his power.\u201d In Borneo the name of a sickly\nchild is changed, to deceive the evil spirits that have tormented it; the\nLapps change the baptismal name of a child for the same reason; and among\nthe Abipones, the Fuegians, the Lenguas of Brazil, the North-West Indians,\nand other tribes at corresponding low levels, when any member died the\nrelatives would change their names to elude Death when he should come to\nlook for them, as well as give their children horrid names to frighten the\nbad spirits away. All over the barbaric world we find a great horror of\nnaming the dead, lest the ghost appear. An aged Indian of Lake Michigan\nexplained why tales of the spirits were told only in winter, by saying\nthat when the deep snow is on the ground the voices of those repeating\ntheir names are muffled; but that in summer the slightest mention of them\nmust be avoided, lest the spirits be offended. Among the Californian\ntribes the name of the departed spoken inadvertently caused a shudder to\npass over all those present. Among the Iroquois the name of a dead man\ncould not be used again in the lifetime of his oldest surviving son\nwithout the consent of the latter, and the Australians believe that a dead\nman\u2019s ghost creeps into the liver of the impious wretch who has dared to\nutter his name. Dr. Lang tried to get the name of a relative who had been\nkilled from an Australian. \u201cHe told me who the lad\u2019s father was, who was\nhis brother, what he was like, how he walked, how he held his tomahawk in\nhis left hand instead of his right, and who were his companions; but the\ndreaded name never escaped his lips, and I believe no promises or threats\ncould have induced him to utter it.\u201d Dorman gives a pathetic illustration\nof this superstition in the Shawnee myth of Yellow Sky. \u201cShe was a\ndaughter of the tribe, and had dreams which told her she was created for\nan unheard-of mission. There was a mystery about her being, and none could\ncomprehend the meaning of her evening songs. The paths leading to her\nfather\u2019s lodge were more beaten than those to any other. On one condition\nalone at last she consented to become a wife, namely, that he who wedded\nher should never mention her name. If he did, she warned him that a sad\ncalamity would befall him, and he would for ever thereafter regret his\nthoughtlessness. After a time Yellow Sky sickened and died, and her last\nwords were that her husband might never breathe her name. For five summers\nhe lived in solitude, but, alas, one day as he was by the grave of his\ndead wife, an Indian asked him whose it was, and in forgetfulness he\nuttered the forbidden name. He fell to the earth in great pain, and as\ndarkness settled round about him a change came over him. Next morning,\nnear the grave of Yellow Sky a large buck was quietly feeding. It was the\nunhappy husband.\u201d\n\nThe original meaning has dropped out of the current saying, \u201cTalk of the\ndevil and you\u2019ll see his horns,\u201d but savage philosophy recovers it for us.\nAnd the shrinking from naming persons is still more marked as we ascend\nthe scale of principalities and powers. In the South Sea Islands not only\nare the names of chiefs tabooed, but also words and syllables resembling\nthose names in sound. The Tahitians have a custom called _Te pi_, which\nconsists in avoiding in daily language those words which form a part or\nthe whole of the names of the king and royal family, and in inventing new\nterms in their place. The king\u2019s name being _Tu fetu_, \u201cstar,\u201d had to be\nchanged into _fetia_, and _tui_, \u201cto strike,\u201d became _tiai_. In New\nZealand knives were called _nekra_, because a chief\u2019s name was _Maripi_,\nor \u201cknife.\u201d It is, Professor Max M\u00fcller aptly remarks, as if with the\naccession of Queen Victoria either the word _victory_ had been tabooed\naltogether, or only part of it, as _tori_, so as to make it high treason\nto speak of _Tories_ during her reign. The secret name of Pocahontas was\nMatokas, which was concealed from the English through superstitious fear;\nand in the mythical story of \u201cHiawatha\u201d the same metonymic practice\noccurs, his real name being Tarenyawagon. A survival of the dislike to\ncalling exalted temporal, and also spiritual, beings by their names,\nprobably lies at the root of the Jews\u2019 unwillingness to use the name of\nYahweh (commonly and incorrectly spelt Jehovah[62]), and in the name\n\u201cAllah,\u201d which is an epithet or title of the Mohammadan deity, and not the\n\u201cgreat name\u201d; whilst the concealment by the Romans of the name of the\ntutelary deity of their city was fostered by their practice, when\nbesieging any place, to invoke the treacherous aid of its protecting god\nby offering him a high place in their Pantheon. And in the title of\nEumenid\u00eas, or the \u201cgracious ones,\u201d given to the Furies by the Greeks, may\nbe noted a survival of the verbal bribes by which the thing feared was\n\u201csquared.\u201d For example, the Finnish hunters called the bear \u201cthe apple of\nthe forest,\u201d \u201cthe beautiful honey-claw,\u201d \u201cthe pride of the thicket\u201d; the\nLaplander speaks of it as \u201cthe old man with the fur coat\u201d; in Annam the\nnatives call the tiger \u201cgrandfather,\u201d or \u201clord\u201d; and the Dyaks of Borneo\nspeak of the small-pox as \u201cthe chief,\u201d or \u201cjungle leaves.\u201d\n\nThe confusion between ideas and objects which these examples illustrate is\nshared by us, although in a remote degree. If the initials of any\nwell-known name are transposed, for example, let W. E. Gladstone be\nprinted E. W. Gladstone; or if some familiar name is altered, for example,\nlet John Bright be misprinted James Bright, it is curious to note how for\na moment the identity is obscured in one\u2019s mind. Another personality,\nindistinct and bewildering, rises before us, showing how we have come to\nlink together a man and his name even to the details of his initials. That\nwhich we feel momentarily the uncivilised feels constantly. He cannot\nthink of himself, of his squaw, of his children, or of his\nfellow-tribesmen, apart from names which are more significant to him than\nours are to us. With us the reason which governed selection is forgotten\nor obscured, the physical features and conditions no longer correspond to\nancestral names; but with barbarous peoples those features and conditions\nare more apparent. Besides which, children are often named by the\nmedicine-man, and the name is thus endowed with a charm which may roughly\nbe analogous to the halo round a name confirmed by baptism to one simply\nrecorded in the office of a Registrar of Births.\n\n\n\u00a7 IV.\n\nBARBARIC BELIEF IN VIRTUE IN INANIMATE THINGS.\n\nThe artificial divisions which man in his pride of birth made between the\nseveral classes of phenomena in the inorganic world, and also between the\ninorganic and the organic, are being swept away before the larger\nknowledge and insight of our time. Indeed, it would seem that the surest\ntest we can apply to the worth of any kind of knowledge is whether it adds\nto or takes from our growing conception of unity. If it does the former,\nwe cannot overthrow it; if it does the latter, then is it science \u201cfalsely\nso called.\u201d\n\nThat notable doctrine known as the correlation of physical forces, or the\nconvertibility into one another of heat, light, electricity, chemical\naffinity, etc., each being a mode of manifestation of an unknown energy\nwhich \u201clives through all life, extends through all extent,\u201d has its\ncounterpart in the correlation of spiritual forces. Varied as are the\nmodes of expression of these, that variety is on the surface only. Deep\ndown lies the one source that feeds them, the one heart to whose existence\ntheir pulsations witness. All primitive philosophies, all religions \u201cthat\nman did ever find,\u201d are but as the refractions of the same light dispersed\nthrough different media; are the result of the speculations of the same\nsubject, allowances being made for local and non-essential differences\nupon like objects. And, therefore, in treating of the nature and\nlimitations of man\u2019s early thought concerning his surroundings, whether\nthese be the broad earth bathed in the sunshine or swathed in the\ndarkness, or the sounds that come from unseen agents, the sight of\nspectral visitants of whom he cannot have touch, and out of which are\nbuilt up his theories of the invisible world, the reader may find\nreference to the same conditions which were shown in former pages to give\nbirth and sustenance to primitive myth. The same fantastic conclusions,\ndrawn from rude analyses and associations, and from seeming connections of\ncause and effect, the same bewildering entanglement between things which\nwe know can have nothing in common, meet us; and the same scientific\nmethod by which we determine the necessary place of each in the advance of\nman to truth through illusion is applied.\n\nThe illustrations of the vital connection which the savage assumes between\nhimself and his name show how easy is the passage from belief in life\ninhering in everything to belief in it as capable of power for good or\nevil. This can be shown by illustrations from more tangible things than\nnames. The savage who is afraid to utter these also shrinks from having\nhis likeness taken, in the feeling that some part of him is transferred,\nand at the mercy of the sorcerer and enemy. The Malemutes of North America\nrefused to risk their lives before a photographic apparatus. They said\nthat those who had their likenesses had their spirit, and they would not\nlet these pass into the keeping of those who might use them as instruments\nof torment. Catlin relates that he caused great commotion among the Sioux\nby drawing one of their chiefs in profile. \u201cWhy was half his face left\nout?\u201d they asked; \u201cMahtocheega was never ashamed to look a white man in\nthe face.\u201d The chief himself did not take offence, but Shouka the Dog\ntaunted him, saying: \u201cThe Englishman knows that you are but half a man; he\nhas painted but one-half of your face, and knows that the rest is good\nfor nothing.\u201d This led to a quarrel, and in the end Mahtocheega was shot,\nthe fatal bullet tearing away just that part of the face which Catlin had\nnot drawn! He had to make his escape, and the matter was not settled till\nboth Shouka and his brother had been killed in revenge for Mahtocheega\u2019s\ndeath. The Yanktons accused Catlin of causing a scarcity of buffaloes by\nputting a great many of them in his book, and refused to let him take\ntheir portraits. So with the Araucanians, who ran away if any attempt was\nmade to sketch them. Among such races we find great care exercised lest\ncuttings of hair, parings of nails, saliva, refuse of food, water in which\nthey had washed, etc., should fall into unfriendly or mistrusted hands.\nThe South Sea Island chiefs had servants following them with spittoons,\nthat the saliva might be buried in some hidden place. Among the\nPolynesians any one who fell ill attributed it to some sorcerer, who had\ngot hold of refuse from the sick and was burning it, and the quiet of the\nnight was often broken by the blowing of shell-trumpets, as signals for\nthe sorcerer to stop until the gifts on their way to appease him could\narrive. The idea is common both to Eskimo and Indian that so long as a\nfragment of a body remains unburnt, the being, man or beast, may, by\nmagic, be revived from it. As with the name or the portrait, whoever\npossessed a part of the material substance possessed a part of the\nspiritual, and in this world-wide belief in a sympathetic connection\nbetween things living and not living lies the whole philosophy of\nsorcery, of charms, amulets, spells, and the general doctrine of luck\nsurviving through the successive stages of culture to this day. And he who\nwould prevent anything from his person getting into hostile hands,\nnaturally sought after things in which coveted qualities were believed to\ndwell, and avoided those of a reverse nature. So we find tiger\u2019s flesh\neaten to give courage, and the eyes of owls swallowed to give good sight\nin the dark. The Kaffirs prepare a powder made of the dried flesh of\nvarious wild beasts, the leopard, tiger, elephant, snake, etc., so as to\nabsorb the several virtues of these creatures. The Tyrolese hunter wears\nhis tuft of eagle\u2019s down to gain long sight and daring, and the Red Indian\nstrings bears claws round his neck to get Bruin\u2019s savage courage. The\ncustoms of scalping and, in some measure, of cannibalism, may be referred\nto the same notion, for the Red man will risk his life to prevent a\ntribesman\u2019s scalp being captured by the foe, and the New Zealander will\nswallow the eyes of his slain enemy to improve his sight. In Greenland \u201ca\nslain man is said to have power to avenge himself upon the murderer by\n_rushing into him_, which can only be prevented by eating a piece of his\nliver.\u201d[63] When a whaler died the Eskimos distributed portions of his\ndried body among his friends, and rubbed the points of their lances with\nthem, it being held that a weapon thus charmed would pierce a vital part\nin a whale, where another would fail. Sometimes the body was laid in a\ncave, and, before starting for the chase, the whalers would assemble, and,\ncarrying it to a stream, plunge it in, and then drink the water. When the\nheroic Jesuit Br\u00e9beuf was tortured by the Iroquois, they were so\nastonished at his endurance that they laid open his breast and came in a\ncrowd to drink the blood of so valiant a foe, thinking to imbibe with it\nsome portion of his courage, while a chief tore out his heart and devoured\nit.\n\nCannibalism, it may be remarked, _en passant_, is also found to have a\nreligious significance, on the supposition, which has unsuspected survival\namong advanced races, that eating the body and drinking the blood\ncommunicates the spirit of the victim to the consumer. It is not always\nthe most savage races who practise it; for example, the Australians,\ndespite the scarcity of large animals for food supply, rarely ate the\nflesh of man, whilst the New Zealanders, who rank far above them, and had\nnot the like excuse, were systematic feeders on human flesh.\n\nAs examples of a reverse kind, but witnessing to the play of like beliefs\nin qualities passing from brutes and lifeless things, we find some races\navoiding oil, lest the game slip through their fingers, abstaining from\nthe flesh of deer, lest it engenders timidity, and from that of pigs and\nof tortoises lest the eater has very small eyes. Dr. Tylor gives an\napposite illustration of a kindred superstition in the Hessian lad who\nthinks that he may escape the conscription by carrying a baby-girl\u2019s cap\nin his pocket as a symbolical way of repudiating manhood. So the thief of\nour London slums hopes to evade the police by carrying a piece of coal or\nslate in his pocket for luck. Among ourselves there was an old medical\nsaw, \u201cHare-flesh engendereth melancholy bloude,\u201d and in Swift\u2019s _Polite\nConversation_ we have this reason assigned by Lady Answerall when asked to\neat it; whilst faith is not yet extinct in the \u201cDoctrine of Signatures,\u201d\nor the notion that the appearance of a plant indicates the disease for\nwhich it is a remedy, as the \u201ceye-bright,\u201d the black purple spot on the\ncorolla of which was said to show that it was good for weak eyes. In\nreferring to the mandrake superstition (a plant whose roots are said to\nrudely resemble the human form) as illustration of the \u201crecognised\nprinciples in magic that things like each other, however superficially,\naffect each other in a mystic way and possess identical properties,\u201d Mr.\nAndrew Lang quotes a Melanesian belief that a stone in the shape of a pig,\nof a bread-fruit, of a yam, was a most valuable find, because it made pigs\nprolific and fertilised bread-fruit trees and yam-plots.[64]\n\nBrand remarks[65] that the custom of giving infants coral to help in\ncutting the teeth is said to be a survival of an old belief in it as an\namulet; and in English, Sicilian, and West Indian folk-lore, we find the\nbelief that it changes colour in sympathy with the pale or healthy look of\nthe wearer. An old Latin author says,[66] \u201cIt putteth of lightenynge,\nwhirle-wynde, tempeste, and storms fro shyppes and houses that it is in.\u201d\n\nWe are each of us hundreds of thousands of years old, and although our\ncustoms and beliefs have a far less venerable antiquity, their sources lie\nnot less in primitive thought. Like the survival of the ancient Roman\nworkman\u2019s \u201ccasula\u201d or \u201clittle house\u201d or \u201cshelter\u201d in the chasuble of the\npriest; like the use of stone knives in circumcision long after the\ndiscovery of metals; the general tends to become special; the common, its\nprimitive need or service forgotten, to become sacred. Sometimes the early\nidea abides; the Crees, who carry about the bones of the dead carefully\nwrapped up as a fetish; the Caribs, who think such relics can answer\nquestions; the Xomanes, who drink the powdered bones in water, that they\nmay receive the spirit; the Algonquins, whose god Manobozho turned bits of\nhis own flesh or his wife\u2019s into raccoons for food; the Iroquois cited\nabove; represent the barbarous ancestry of higher races, whether of the\nBacchanalians described by Arnobius,[67] who thought that the fulness of\nthe divine majesty was imparted to them when they tore and ate the\nstruggling rams with mouths dripping with gore, or of the faithful who\nreceive nutriment through the symbols of the Cross. And the prayers of\nsavage and civilised have this in common, that some advantage is thereby\nsought by the utterer; their sacrifices are alike the giving up of one\u2019s\ngoods or one\u2019s self to a deity who may be appeased or bribed thereby;\ntheir fastings are cultivated as inducing the abnormal states in which\ntheir old men dream dreams and their young men see visions of spirits\nappearing as angels ascending and descending between earth and the abode\nof the blest. Baptisms are the ancient lustrations, which water, as the\ncleansing element, suggested; and the eastward position, over which\npriests and ecclesiastics have fought, is the undoubted relic of worship\nof the rising sun.\n\nIn short, there is no rite or ceremony yet practised and revered amongst\nus which is not the lineal descendant of barbaric thought and usage,\nexpressing a need which, were men less the slaves of custom and indolence,\nwould long since have found loftier form than in genuflexion before shrine\nand reliquary. By an exercise of imagination not possible but for these\nbeing a felicitous \u201cgesture language\u201d of the cries of human souls, a mass\nof heathen and pagan rites have been transformed into those of the\nChristian faith. That they have come to be mistaken for the ideas\nsymbolised, that with the loftiest spiritual teaching there should remain\ncommingled belief in miraculous power in fragments (mostly spurious) of\ndead men and their clothes; only shows the persistency of that notion of a\nvital connection between the lifeless and the living which this section\nhas sought to illustrate.\n\n\n\u00a7 V.\n\nBARBARIC BELIEF IN THE REALITY OF DREAMS.\n\nThe confusion in the barbaric mind between the objective and the\nsubjective, and between the name and the person or thing, which has been\nillustrated in the foregoing pages, will enable us to see more clearly how\nthe like confusion must enter into the interpretation of such occult and\ncompound phenomena as dreams, and all their kind.\n\nThey supply the conditions for exciting and sustaining that feeling of\nmystery which attends man\u2019s endeavour to get at the meaning of his\nsurroundings. The phantasies which have defiled through the brain in\ncoherent order, or danced in mazy whirl about its sinuous passages when\ncomplete sleep was lacking, leave their footprints on the memory, and they\nare strong of head and heart, true pepticians, like the countryman cited\nby Carlyle, who, \u201cfor his part, had no system,\u201d whose composure on awaking\nis not affected by the harmonious or discordant, the pleasant or\ndisagreeable, illusions which have made up their dreams. In the felicitous\nwords of Lucretius, \u201cWhen sleep has chained down our limbs in sweet\nslumber, and the whole body is sunk in profound repose, yet then we seem\nto ourselves to be awake and to be moving our limbs, and amid the thick\ndarkness of night we think we see the sun and the daylight; and though in\na confined room, we seem to be passing to new climates, seas, rivers,\nmountains, and to be crossing plains on foot, and to hear voices, though\nthe austere silence of night prevails all round, and to be uttering\nspeech, though quite silent. Many are the other things of this marvellous\nsort we see, which all seek to shake, as it were, the credit of the\nsenses: quite in vain, since the greatest part of these cases cheat us on\naccount of the mental suppositions which we add of ourselves, taking those\nthings as seen which have not been seen by the senses. For nothing is\nharder than to separate manifest facts from doubtful, which the mind\nwithout hesitation adds on of itself.\u201d[68]\n\nWhile for us dreams fill an empty moment in the telling, albeit now and\nagain nurturing such remains of superstition as cling to the majority of\npeople, they are to the untrained intelligence, unable to distinguish fact\nfrom fiction, or to follow any sequence of ideas, as solid as the\nexperiences of waking moments. As a Zulu, well expressing the limits of\nsavage thought, said to Bishop Callaway, \u201cOur knowledge does not urge us\nto search out the roots of it, we do not try to see them, if any one\nthinks ever so little, he soon gives it up, and passes on to what he sees\nwith his eyes; and he does not understand the real state of even what he\nsees.\u201d Nor does his language clear the confusion within when he tells what\nhe has seen and heard and felt, where he has been and what he has done,\nfor the speech cannot transcend the thought, and therefore can represent\nneither to himself nor to his hearers the difference between the illusions\nof the night and the realities of the day. The dead relatives and friends\nwho appear in dreams and live their old life, with whom he joins in the\nbattle, the chase, and the feast, the foes with whom he struggles, the\nwild beasts from whom he flees, or in whose clutches he feels himself, and\nwith shrieks awakens his squaw, the long distances he travels to sunnier\nclimes lit by a light that never was on land or sea, are all real, and no\n\u201cbaseless fabric of a vision.\u201d That now and again he should have walked in\nhis sleep would confirm the seeming reality; still more so would the\nintensified form of dreaming called \u201cnightmare,\u201d[69] when hideous spectres\nsit upon the breast, stopping breath and paralysing motion, and to which\nis largely due the creation of the vast army of nocturnal demons that fill\nthe folk-lore of the world, and that, under infinite variety of repellent\nform, have had place in the hierarchy of religions.\n\nDreams are in the main referred by the savage either to the entrance into\nhim of some outside spirit, as among the Fijians, who believe that the\nspirit of a living man will leave the body to trouble sleeping folk, or to\nthe real doings of himself.\n\nWhen the Greenlander dreams of hunting, or fishing, or courting, he\nbelieves that the soul quits the body; the Dyaks of Borneo think that\nduring sleep the soul sometimes remains in the body or travels far away,\nbeing endowed, whether present or absent, with conditions which in waking\nmoments are lacking. Wherever we find a low state of mental development\nthe like belief exists. In Mr. im Thurn\u2019s elaborate work on the _Indians\nof Guiana_ we have corroborative evidence, the more valuable because of\nits freshness. He tells us that the dreams which come to the Indian are to\nhim as real as any of the events of his waking life. To him dream-acts\nand waking-acts differ only in one respect--namely, that the former are\ndone only by the spirit, the latter are done by the spirit in its body.\nSeeing other men asleep, and afterwards hearing from them the things which\nthey suppose themselves to have done when asleep, the Indian has no\ndifficulty in reconciling that which he hears with the fact that the\nbodies of the sleepers were in his sight and motionless throughout the\ntime of supposed action, because he never questions that the spirits,\nleaving the sleepers, played their part in dream-adventures. Mr. im Thurn\nillustrates the complete belief of the Indian in the unbroken continuity\nof his dream-life and waking-life by incidents which came under his own\nnotice, and which are quoted as serving the present argument better than\nany theorising.\n\n    One morning when it was important to me to get away from a camp on the\n    Essequibo River, at which I had been detained for some days by the\n    illness of some of my Indian companions, I found that one of the\n    invalids, a young Macusi, though better in health, was so enraged\n    against me that he refused to stir, for he declared that, with great\n    want of consideration for his weak health, I had taken him out during\n    the night and had made him haul the canoe up a series of difficult\n    cataracts. Nothing could persuade him that this was but a dream, and\n    it was some time before he was so far pacified as to throw himself\n    sulkily into the bottom of the canoe. At that time we were all\n    suffering from a great scarcity of food, and, hunger having its usual\n    effect in producing vivid dreams, similar events frequently occurred.\n    More than once the men declared in the morning that some absent man,\n    whom they named, had come during the night, and had beaten, or\n    otherwise maltreated them; and they insisted on much rubbing of the\n    bruised parts of their bodies. Another instance was amusing. In the\n    middle of one night I was awakened by an Arawak named Sam, the captain\n    or head-man of the Indians who were with me, only to be told the\n    bewildering words, \u201cGeorge speak me very bad, boss; you cut his bits!\u201d\n    It was some time before I could collect my senses sufficiently to\n    remember that \u201cbits,\u201d or fourpenny-pieces, are the units in which,\n    among Creoles and semi-civilised Indians, calculation of money, and\n    consequently of wages, is made; that to cut bits means to reduce the\n    number of bits or wages given; and to understand that Captain Sam,\n    having dreamed that his subordinate George had spoken insolently to\n    him, the former, with a fine sense of the dignity of his office, now\n    insisted that the culprit should be punished in real life. One more\n    incident, of which the same Sam was the hero, may be told for the sake\n    of the humour, though it did not happen within my personal experience,\n    but was told me by a friend. This friend, in whose employ Sam was at\n    the time, told his man, as they sat round the fire one night, of the\n    Zulu or some other African war which was then in progress, and in so\n    doing inadvertently made frequent use of the expression, \u201cto punish\n    the niggers.\u201d That night, after all in camp had been asleep for some\n    time, they were raised by loud cries for help. Sam, who was one of the\n    most powerful Indians I ever saw, was \u201cpunishing a nigger\u201d who\n    happened to be one of the party; with one hand he had firmly grasped\n    the back of the breeches-band of the black man, and had twisted this\n    round so tightly that the poor wretch was almost cut in two. Sam\n    sturdily maintained that he had received orders from his master for\n    this outrageous conduct, and on inquiry it turned out that he had\n    dreamed this.[70]\n\nTaking an illustration from nearer home, although from a more remote time,\nwe have in the Scandinavian _Vatnsd\u00e6la Saga_ a curious account of three\nFinns who were shut up in a hut for three nights, and ordered by\nIngimund, a Norwegian chief, to visit Iceland, and inform him of the line\nof the country where he was to settle. Their bodies became rigid, and they\nsent their souls on their errand, and, on their awaking at the end of\nthree days, gave an accurate account of the Vatnsd\u00e6l, in which Ingimund\nultimately dwelt. No wonder that in medi\u00e6val times, when witches swept the\nair and harried the cattle, swooning and other forms of insensibility were\nadduced in support of the theory of soul-absence, or that we find among\nsavages--as the Tajals of the Luzon islands--objections to waking a\nsleeper lest the soul happens to be out of the body. As a corollary to\nthis belief in soul-absence, fear arises lest it be prolonged to the peril\nof the owner, and hence a rough and ready theory of the cause of disease\nis framed, for savages rarely die in their beds.\n\n\n\u00a7 VI.\n\nBARBARIC THEORY OF DISEASE.\n\nThat disease is a derangement of functions interrupting their natural\naction, and carrying attendant pain as its indication, could not enter the\nhead of the uncivilised: and, indeed, among ourselves a cold or a fever is\ncommonly thought of as an entity in the body which has stolen in, and,\nhaving been caught, must be somehow expelled. With the universal primitive\nbelief in spiritual agencies everywhere inhaled with the breath or\nswallowed with the food or drink, all diseases were regarded as their\nwork, whether, as remarked above, through absence of the rightful spirit\nor subtle entrance of some hostile one. If these be the causes to which\nsicknesses are due, obviously the only cure is to get rid of them, and\nhence the sorcerer and the medicine-man find their services in request in\ncasting out the demon by force, or enticing him by cajolery, or in\nbringing back the truant soul.\n\nTo the savage mind no other explanation of illness is possible than that\nit is due to the exit of one\u2019s own spirit or to the intrusion of a\nstronger one, whether of revengeful man or animal. An old Dakota, whose\nson had sore eyes, said that nearly thirty years before, when the latter\nwas a boy, he fastened a pin to a stick and speared a minnow with it, and\nit was strange that after so long a time the fish should come to seek\nrevenge. When an Indian is attacked by any wild beast he believes that the\navenging Kenaima has transferred his spirit to the animal which seizes\nhim, and if he has even a toothache, of which more presently, then the\nKenaima has insinuated himself in the shape of a worm. The tribal chief\namong the Brazilian natives acts as doctor, and when he visits the sick he\nasks what animal the patient has offended, and if no cure is effected, the\nconvenient explanation is at hand that the right animal has not been\nfound. At the death of Iron Arms, a noted North American Indian warrior,\nit was said that he died because the doctor made a mistake, thinking that\na prairie-dog had entered him, when it was a mud-hen. In the weird\nmythology of the Finns the third daughter of the ruler of Tuonela, the\nunderworld, sits on a rock rising from hell-river, beneath which the\nspirits of all diseases are shut up. As she whirls the rock round like a\nmillstone the spirits escape and go on their torturing errand to mortals.\nThe more abnormal and striking phases of disease manifest when a man is\nwrithing under intense agony, as if torn and twisted by some fiendish\nliving thing, or when in delirium he raves and starts, or when thrown down\nin epilepsy he struggles convulsively, or when he shivers in an ague, or\nwhen in more violent forms of madness he seems endowed with superhuman\nstrength; the various symptoms attending hysteria; each and all support\nthat theory of spirit-influence which survives among advanced races in\nreferring disease to supernatural causes. For the ancient theories of a\ndivine government under which disease is the expression of the anger of\nthe gods, and medicine the token of their healing mercy, and the current\nnotions that any epidemic or pestilence is a visitation of God, are\nidentical in character, however improved in feature, with the barbaric\nbelief illustrated above; and in the ages when belief in the devil as one\nwalking to and fro upon the earth was rampant, he especially was regarded\nas bringer of both bane and antidote. \u201cHe may,\u201d says an old writer,\n\u201cinflict diseases, which is an effect he may occasion _applicando activa\npassivis_ (by applying actives to passives), and by the same means he may\nlikewise cure ... and not only may he cure diseases laid on by himself, as\nWierus observes, but even natural diseases, since he knows the natural\ncauses and the origin of even those better than the physicians can, who\nare not present when diseases are contracted, and who, _being younger than\nhe_, must have less experience.\u201d[71] In Lancashire folk-lore \u201ccasting out\nthe ague\u201d was but another name for \u201ccasting out the devil\u201d; in the Arabic\nlanguage the words for epilepsy and possession by demons are the same; and\nin such phrases as a man being \u201cbeside himself,\u201d \u201ctransported,\u201d \u201cout of\nhis mind,\u201d or in the converse, as when it is said in the parable of the\nprodigal son, \u201che came to himself\u201d; in the words \u201cecstasy,\u201d which means a\ndisplacement or removal of the soul, and \u201ccatalepsy,\u201d a seizing of the\nbody by some external power, we have language preserving the primitive\nideas of an intruding or departing spirit. Such minor actions as gaping\nand sneezing confirm the belief. The philosophy of the latter, as Mr. Gill\nremarks in his _Myths and Songs of the South Pacific_, is that the spirit\nhaving gone travelling about, its return to the body is naturally attended\nwith some difficulty and excitement, occasioning a tingling and enlivening\nsensation all over the body. And the like explanation lies at the root of\nthe mass of customs attendant on sneezing, and of the superstitions\ngenerated by it, which extend through the world.\n\nWilliams tells us that among the Fijians, when any one faints or dies,\ntheir spirit, it is said, may sometimes be brought back by calling after\nit, and occasionally the ludicrous scene is witnessed of a stout man lying\nat full length and bawling out lustily for the return of his soul. So in\nChina, when a child is lying dangerously ill, its mother will go outside\ninto the garden and call its name, in the hope of bringing back the\nwandering spirit. But for all the ills that flesh is heir to, from\nhiccupping to madness, from toothache to broken limbs, the patient seldom\ndares to doctor himself; neither the etiquette of the ordained\nmedicine-man nor the orthodox therapeutics favour that show of\nindependence. The methods adopted by the faculty vary in detail, but they\nare ruled by a single assumption. When a Chinaman is dying, and the soul\nis believed to be already out of the body, a relative holds up his coat on\na bamboo stick, and a Taoist priest seeks by incantations to bring back\nthe truant soul so that it may re-enter the sick man. Among the Six\nNations the Indians sought to discover the intruder by gathering a\nquantity of ashes and scattering them in the cabin where the sick person\nwas lying. A similar recipe for tracking demons is given in the _Talmud_;\nbut, as more nearly bearing on the Indian practice, a Polish custom\nmentioned by Grimm[72] may be quoted. When the white folk torment a sick\nman a friend walks round him carrying a sieveful of ashes on his back, and\nlets the ashes run out till the floor round the bed is covered with them.\nThe next morning all the lines in the ashes are counted, and the result\ntold to a wise woman, who prescribes accordingly.\n\nA favourite mode of treatment is blowing upon or sucking the diseased\norgan, and deception is no infrequent resort when the sorcerer secretes\nthorns or fishbones, beetles or worms, in his mouth, and then pretends\nthat he has extracted them. Cranz says that the Eskimo old women appear to\nsuck from a swollen leg scraps of leather or a parcel of hair which they\nhave previously crammed into their mouths, and in Australia the same dodge\nis practised, when the sorcerer makes believe that he has drawn out a\npiece of bone from the affected part. That toothache is due to a worm is a\nbelief which exists throughout Europe and Asia, and from the Orkneys to\nNew Zealand. Shakspere refers to it in _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act III.\nScene ii.--\n\n  _Don Pedro._ What! sigh for the toothache?\n\n  _Leonata._ Where is but a humour or a worm;\n\nand instances are current of this superstition being acted upon in rural\ndistricts, whilst in China the itinerant dentist conceals a worm in the\nstick which he applies to the aching tooth, and on the stick being gently\ntapped, the worm wriggles out to the satisfaction of the sufferer. But\namong barbaric races the treatment of disease is ordinarily the reverse of\nsoothing. Here and there the virtues of some plant have been discovered by\naccident, and, whilst exalted into a deity in its native home, it has\nbecome, like cinchona, a priceless boon to the fever-stricken all over the\nworld; but, speaking broadly, the medicine-man is no Melampus, winning\nthe secret of their healing balm from herb and tree. Nor has he much faith\nin magic or charm compared to his faith in noise, in incantations, with\ntheir accompanying hideous grimaces and gestures, and their deafening\nyells with clang of instrument to drown the sufferer\u2019s groans and chase\naway the demon. Not unfrequently, when the patient is kept without food so\nas to starve out the indwelling enemy, or when the body is pommelled and\nsqueezed to force him out, the remedy helps the disease! An illustration\nor two from a great mass at command must suffice. Among the Mapuches the\nsorcerer adopts the canonical howls and grimaces. Making himself as\nhorrible-looking as he can, he begins beating a drum and working himself\ninto a frenzy until he falls to the ground with his breast working\nconvulsively. As soon as he falls, a number of young men outside the hut,\nwho are there to help him in frightening the disease-bringing spirit out\nof the patient, add their defiant yells, and dash at full speed, with\nlighted torches, against the hut. If this does not succeed, and the\npatient dies, the result is attributed to witchcraft. When a Pawnee chief\nhad some ribs and an arm broken, the medicine-men danced round him, and\nraised their voices from murmurous chants to howls, accompanying the music\nby blows upon the wounded man\u2019s breast to banish the bad spirit. In olden\ntime this rough-and-tumble business of blows, to which immersion was\nadded, was applied to lunatics in these islands. And, in fact, until some\nlocal paper narrates a current superstition, we seldom awaken to the fact\nhow widely the theological explanation of diseases and the empirical\nchoice of remedies still obtains, each being survivals of barbaric theory\nand practice.\n\nThe savage who has more faith, as a curative, in plants that grow on\nburial-places, and the Christian, who ascribed special healing power to\nturf and dew from a saint\u2019s grave,[73] differ no whit in kind; and so\ningrained was the medicinal belief in virtue inhering in fragments of the\ndead, that not even the satire of \u201cReynard the Fox,\u201d telling how the wolf\nwas cured of his earache, and the hare of his fever, the moment that they\nlay down on the grave of the martyred hen, could give quietus to the\nnotion that grated skulls and sacramental shillings were specifics for the\nhealing of the faithful.\n\nThis reference to like practices reminds us how belief in the action of\ninvisible agencies has passed into the practice of confession among\nadvanced races outside Christendom, as in Mexico and Peru. The Roman\nCatholic priests were not less astonished at finding this in vogue on\ntheir arrival in South America than the good Father Huc when, on reaching\nTibet, he found shaven monks wearing rosaries, worshipping relics, using\nholy water, and a grand Lama decked in mitre, cope, and cross.[74] But, as\nthe Italian proverb has it, the world is one country, and \u201cwe have all\none human heart,\u201d so that the confessional has the like explanation in\neast as in west. If the disease be the work of an offended deity or of an\navenging spirit, let the wrong-doer admit his fault, and trust to him who\nis credited with influence with the unseen to exorcise the intruder.\n\n\n\u00a7 VII.\n\nBARBARIC THEORY OF A SECOND SELF OR SOUL.\n\nIn thus far illustrating the confusion inherent in the barbaric mind\nbetween what is and what is not external to itself, the explanation given\nof matters still dividing philosophers into opposite camps has been hardly\nindicated. The uniformity of this confusion among the lower intelligence\nin every zone and age might surprise us, and we should be in bondage to\nthe theory which explains it by assumption of primal intuitions of the\nrace, were we not rejoicing in the freedom of the truth of the doctrine of\nthe descent, or ascent, of man from an ape-like ancestry, and the\nresulting slow development of his psychical faculties, involving his\naccounting for motion in things around by the like personal life and will\nof which he is conscious in himself, and for his regarding the world of\ngreat and small alike as the home and haunt of spirits.\n\nFor the assumption underlying the savage explanation of such things as\ndreams and diseases involves a larger assumption--namely, that the spirit\nwhich acts thus arbitrarily, playing this game of hide-and-seek, now, as\nit were, caught up into Paradise, and now dodging its owner and worrying\nits enemy on earth--is, to quote Mr. Spencer\u2019s appropriate term, a man\u2019s\n_other self_. It is, at least, what the scientists call a working\nhypothesis; it is the only possible explanation which the uncultivated\nmind can give of what it has not the power to see is a subjective\nphenomenon. Odd and out-of-the-way events have happened to the dreamer; he\nhas been to strange places and seen strange doings, but waking up, he\nknows that he is in the same wigwam where he laid down to sleep, and can\nbe convinced by his squaw that he has not moved therefrom all night.\nTherefore it is the other self, this phantom-soul, which has been away for\na time, seeing and taking part in things both new and old. We civilised\nfolk, as Dr. Wendell Holmes remarks, not rarely find our personality\ndoubled in our dreams, and do battle with ourselves, unconscious that we\nare our own antagonists. Dr. Johnson dreamed that he had a contest with an\nopponent and got the worst of it; of course, he found the argument for\nboth! Tartini heard the devil play a wonderful sonata, and lay entranced\nby the arch-fiend\u2019s execution. On waking he seized his violin, and\nalthough he could not reproduce the actual succession of notes, he\nrecovered sufficient impressions to compose his celebrated \u201cDevil\u2019s\nSonata.\u201d Obviously the devil was no other than Tartini.\n\nThus the philosopher, to whom dreaming merely indicates a certain amount\nof uncontrolled mental activity, may satisfy himself; not thus can the\nsavage, who cannot even think that he thinks, and to whom the phenomena of\nshadows, reflection, and echoes bring confirming evidence of the existence\nof his mysterious double. What else than a veritable entity can his shadow\nbe to him? Its intangibility feeds his awe and wonder, and increases his\nbewilderment; its actions, ever corresponding with his own, make it, even\nmore than its outline, a part of himself, the loss of which may be\nserious. Only when the light is withdrawn or intercepted does the shadow\ncease to accompany, precede, or follow him, and to lengthen, shorten, or\ndistort itself; whilst not he alone, but all things above and around, have\nthis phantom attendant. The Choctaws believed that each man has an outside\nshadow, _shilombish_, and an inside shadow, _shilup_, both of which\nsurvive his decease. Among the Fijians a man\u2019s shadow is called the dark\nspirit, which goes to the unseen world, while the other spirit, which is\nhis likeness reflected in water or a mirror, stays near the place where he\ndies. The Basutos are careful, when walking by a river, not to let their\nshadow fall on the water, lest a crocodile seize it, and harm the owner.\nAmong the Algonquin Indians sickness is accounted for by the patient\u2019s\nshadow being unsettled or detached from the body; the Zulus say that a\ncorpse cannot cast a shadow, and in the barbaric belief that its loss is\nbaleful, we have the germ of the medi\u00e6val legends of shadowless men and of\ntales of which Chamisso\u2019s story of Peter Schlemihl is a type. The New\nEngland tribes called the soul _chemung_, the shadow, and in the Quiche\nand Eskimo languages, as also in the several dialects of Costa Rica, the\nsame word expresses both ideas; while civilised speech indicates community\nof thought in the _skia_ of the Greeks, the _manes_ or _umbra_ of the\nRomans, and the _shade_ of our own tongue. Still more complete in the\nmimicry is the reflection of the body in water or mirror, the image\nrepeating every gesture and adopting every colour, whilst in the echoes\nwhich forest and hillside fling back, the savage hears confirmation of his\nbelief in the other self, as well as in the nearness of the spirits of the\ndead. The Sonora Indians say that departed souls dwell among the caves and\nnooks of the cliffs, and that the echoes are their voices, and in South\nPacific myth echo is the first and parent fairy, to whom at Marquesas\ndivine honours are still paid as the giver of food, and as she who \u201cspeaks\nto the worshippers out of the rocks.\u201d In Greek myth she is punished by\nJuno for diverting her attention whilst Jupiter flirts with the nymphs,\nand at last, pining in grief at her unrequited love for Narcissus, there\nremains nothing but her voice.\n\nBut what, in primitive conception, is the more specific nature of the\nother self, and how does it make the passage from within to without, and\n_vice vers\u00e2_? Very early in man\u2019s history he must have wondered at the\ndifference between a waking and a sleeping person, a living and a dead\none, and sought wherein this consisted. There lay the body in the repose,\nmore or less broken, of sleep, or in the undisturbed repose of the\nunawakening sleep; in the latter case, with nothing tangible or visible\ngone, but that which was once \u201cquick\u201d and warm, which had spoken, moved,\nsmiled, or frowned but a little while before, and which still came in\ndream or vision, was now cold and still.\n\nIt should here be remarked, in passing, that many savage races do not\nbelieve in death as a natural event, but regard it as differing from sleep\nonly in the length of time that the spirit is absent from the body. No\nmatter what any one\u2019s age may be, if his death is not caused by wounds, it\nis attributed to magic, and the search for the sorcerer becomes a family\nduty, like the vendetta for other injuries. The widespread myths which\naccount for death have as their underlying idea the infraction of some law\nor custom, for which the offender pays the extreme penalty. And that\npersonification of it which pervades barbaric thought, whilst undergoing\nmany changes of form, yet retains its hold in popular conception as well\nas in poetry. Pictured as the messenger of Deity, as the awful angel who\nsought the rebellious and impious, or who, in mission of tenderness, bore\nthe soul to its home in the bosom of the Eternal, it was transformed and\ndegraded by the grotesque fancy of a later time into a grim and dancing\nskeleton whetting his sickle for ingathering of the young and fair to\ntheir doom, or into the grinning skull and crossbones of Christian\nheadstones. So when the maiden Proserpine is plucking the spring flowers,\n\u201ccrocuses and roses and fair violets,\u201d in the Elysian fields, Hades,\nregent of hell, regardless of her cries, carries her off to his invisible\nrealm.\n\nBut to resume. Whilst shadows, reflections, and echoes, one and all,\nseemed to satisfy the uncivilised mind as to the existence of the other\nself, they gave no key to its nature, to what it is like. Obviously the\ndifference between death and life lay in some unsubstantial or\nsemi-substantial thing. Perhaps, thought some races, it lies in the blood,\nwith the unchecked outflow of which death ensues, and the idea of this\nconnection has not been confined to barbaric peoples. Perhaps, thought\nother races, it lies in the heart, which, say the Basutos, has gone out of\nany one dead, but has returned when the sick have recovered. Among the\nGreeks some philosophers held that it was fire, which was extinct when the\nfuel of life was burnt out, or water, which would evaporate away. But, as\nlanguage shows, it is with the _breath_ that the other self of the savage\nand the vital principle of the philosopher has been most widely\nidentified. For it is the cessation of breathing which would in the\nlong-run be noted as the unfailing accompaniment of death; and the\ncondensing vapour, as it was exhaled, would confirm the existing theories\nof a shadowy and gaseous-like soul. In this, as the illustrations to be\nadduced from various languages will evidence, the continuity of idea which\ntravels along the whole line of barbaric and learned speculation is\nunbroken.\n\n\n\u00a7 VIII.\n\nBARBARIC PHILOSOPHY IN \u201cPUNCHKIN\u201d AND ALLIED STORIES.\n\nAs bearing upon the barbaric belief in the soul leaving the body at\npleasure, there is a remarkable group of stories, the central idea of\nwhich is the dwelling apart of the soul or heart, as the seat of life, in\nsome secret place, in an egg, or a necklace, or a flower, the good or evil\nfortunes of the soul involving those of the body. To this group the name\nof \u201cPunchkin,\u201d the title of one of the older specimens, may conveniently\nbe given. In Miss Frere\u2019s _Old Deccan Days_ it takes the following form.\n\nA Rajah has seven daughters, and his wife dying when they were quite\nchildren, he marries the widow of his prime minister. Her cruelty to his\nchildren made them run off to a jungle, where seven neighbouring princes,\nwho were out hunting, found them, and each took one of them to wife. After\na time they again went hunting, and did not come back. So when the son of\nthe youngest princess, who had also been enchanted away, grew up, he set\nout in search of his mother and father and uncles, and at last discovered\nthat the seven princes had been turned into stone by the magician\nPunchkin, who had shut up the princess in a tower because she would not\nmarry him. Recognising her son, she plotted with him to feign agreement to\nmarry Punchkin if he would tell her where the secret of his life was\nhidden. Overjoyed at her yielding to his wish, the magician told her that\nit was true that he was not as others.\n\n    \u201cFar, far away, hundreds of thousands of miles from this, there lies a\n    desolate country covered with thick jungle. In the midst of the jungle\n    grows a circle of palm-trees, and in the centre of the circle stand\n    six chattees full of water, piled one above another; below the sixth\n    chattee is a small cage which contains a little green parrot; on the\n    life of the parrot depends my life, and if the parrot is killed I must\n    die. But,\u201d he added, \u201cthis was not possible, because thousands of\n    genii surround the palm-trees, and kill all who approach the place.\u201d\n\nThe princess told her son this, and he set forth on his journey. On the\nway he rescued some young eagles from a serpent, and the grateful birds\ncarried him until they reached the jungle, where, the genii being overcome\nwith sleep by the heat, the eaglets swooped down. \u201cDown jumped the prince;\nin an instant he had overthrown the chattees full of water and seized the\nparrot, which he rolled up in his cloak,\u201d then mounted again into the air\nand was carried back to Punchkin\u2019s palace. Punchkin was dismayed to see\nthe parrot in the prince\u2019s hands, and asked him to name any price he\nwilled for it, whereupon the prince demanded the restoration of his father\nand his uncles to life. This was done; then he insisted on Punchkin doing\nthe like to \u201call whom he had thus imprisoned,\u201d when, at the waving of the\nmagician\u2019s wand, the whole garden became suddenly alive.\n\n\u201cGive me my parrot!\u201d cried Punchkin. Then the boy took hold of the\nparrot, and tore off one of his wings; and as he did so the magician\u2019s\nright arm fell off. He then pulled off the parrot\u2019s second wing, and\nPunchkin\u2019s left arm fell off; then he pulled off the bird\u2019s legs, and down\nfell the magician\u2019s right leg and left leg. Nothing remained of him save\nthe limbless body and the head; but still he rolled his eyes, and cried,\n\u201cGive me my parrot!\u201d \u201cTake your parrot, then,\u201d cried the boy, and with\nthat he wrung the bird\u2019s neck, and threw it at the magician, and as he did\nso, Punchkin\u2019s head twisted round, and, with a fearful groan, he died. Of\ncourse, all the rest \u201clived very happily ever afterwards,\u201d as they do in\nthe plays and the novels.\n\nIn the stories of _Chundum Rajah_, and of _Sodewa Bai_, the Hindu\nCinderella, the heroine\u2019s soul is contained in a string of golden beads.\nWhen the Ranee, jealous of her husband\u2019s love for Sodewa Bai, asked her\nwhy she always wore the same beads, she replies: \u201cI was born with them\nround my neck, and the wise men told my father and mother that they\ncontained my soul, and that if any one else wore them I should die.\u201d\nWhereupon the Ranee instructed her servant to steal the beads from the\nprincess when she slept; then she died, but her body did not decay, and in\nthe end she was restored to life by the recovery of her necklace. In the\nBengali tale, _Life\u2019s Secret_, a Rajah\u2019s favourite wife gives birth\nmiraculously to a boy, whose soul is bound up in a necklace in the stomach\nof a boal-fish. In both instances the ornaments are stolen, and while\nthey are worn by the thieves, prince and princess alike are lifeless,\nwhilst with the recovery of the beads life returned to each. A not unlike\nidea occurs in the story, _Truth\u2019s Triumph_. The children of a village\nbeauty, whom the Rajah had married, are changed into mango trees, to save\nthem from the fury of the jealous Ranee, until the time of danger was\npast.\n\nIn Miss Stokes\u2019 collection of _Indian Fairy Tales_, we have variants\ncorresponding more closely to _Punchkin_. In _Brave Hir\u00e1l\u00e1lb\u00e1s\u00e1_, a\nRakshas (the common name for demon) is induced to reveal the secret of his\nlife. He says, \u201cSixteen miles from here is a tree, round it are tigers and\nbears and other animals, on the top of it is a large flat snake, on the\nhead of which is a bird in a cage, and my soul is in that bird.\u201d By\nenchantment Hir\u00e1l\u00e1lb\u00e1s\u00e1 reached the tree and secured the cage. He pulled\nthe bird\u2019s limbs off, and the Rakshas\u2019 arms and legs fell off; then he\nwrung its neck, and the Rakshas fell dead. And in the tale of _The Demon\nand the King\u2019s Son_, from the same collection, the prince falls in love\nwith the monster\u2019s daughter, who is dead during the day and alive in the\nnight. The prince asks what she would do, if whilst she is dead, her\nfather were to be killed? She tells him it is impossible for any one to\nkill her father, for his life is in a _main\u00e1_ (starling), which is in a\nnest in a tree on the other side of the sea, and if, she adds, any one in\nkilling the bird spilt the blood on the ground, a hundred demons would be\nborn from it. The prince reached the other side, and taking the _main\u00e1_,\nproceeded to kill it, but first wrapt it in his handkerchief, that no\nblood might be spilt. The demon, who was far away, knew that the bird was\ncaught, and he set out at once to avert his doom. The story ends, like the\npreceding one, with the dismemberment of the bird, and the consequent\ndeath of the demon.\n\nThe nearest approach to tales similar to these in the _Buddhist\nBirth-stories_, is in one or two isolated cases, when the Karma of a human\nbeing is spoken of as immediately transferred to an animal.\n\nIn _Tales from the Norse_ the one in most striking correspondence with the\nPunchkin group is that of _The giant who had no heart in his body_. The\nmonster turns six princes and their wives into stone, whereupon the\nseventh and only surviving son, Boots, sets out to avenge their fate. On\nhis journey he saves the lives of a raven, a salmon, and a wolf, and the\nwolf, having eaten his horse, compensates Boots by carrying him to the\ngiant\u2019s castle, where the lovely princess who is to be his bride is\nconfined. She promises to find out where the giant keeps his heart, and by\nblandishments and divers arts known to the fair sex both before and since\nthe time of Delilah, she worms out the secret. He tells her that \u201cfar, far\naway in a lake lies an island; on that island stands a church; in that\nchurch is a well; in that well swims a duck; in that duck is an egg; and\nin that egg lies my heart, you darling!\u201d Boots, taking fond farewell of\nthe princess, rides on the wolf\u2019s back to the island. Then the raven he\nhad befriended flies to the steeple and fetches the key of the church; the\nsalmon, in like return for kindness, brings him the egg from the well\nwhere the duck had dropped it.\n\n    Then the wolf told him to squeeze the egg, and as soon as ever he did\n    so, the giant screamed out. \u201cSqueeze it again,\u201d said the wolf; and\n    when the prince did so, the giant screamed still more piteously, and\n    begged and prayed so prettily to be spared, saying he would do all\n    that the prince wished if he would only not squeeze his heart in two.\n    \u201cTell him if he will restore to life again your six brothers and their\n    brides, you will spare his life,\u201d said the wolf. Yes, the giant was\n    ready to do that, and he turned the six brothers into kings\u2019 sons\n    again, and their brides into kings\u2019 daughters. \u201cNow squeeze the egg in\n    two,\u201d said the wolf. With questionable morality, doing evil that good\n    might come, Boots squeezed the egg to pieces, and the giant burst at\n    once.\n\nAsbj\u00f6rnsen\u2019s _New Series_ gives a variant in which a Troll who has seized\na princess tells her that he and all his companions will burst, as did the\nheartless giant, when there passes above them \u201cthe grain of sand that lies\nunder the ninth tongue in the ninth head\u201d of a certain dragon. The grain\nof sand is found and passed over them, when the Troll and all his brood\nare destroyed. In the Gaelic stories, for which we are indebted to the\nskill of an early worker in this field, the late Mr. J. F. Campbell, that\nof the _Young King of Easaidh Ruadh_ locates the secret thus: \u201cThere is a\ngreat flagstone underneath the threshold. There is a wether under the\nflagstone. There is a duck in the wether\u2019s belly, and an egg in the duck,\nin the egg is my soul.\u201d In the _Sea-Maiden_ there is a \u201cgreat beast with\nthree heads, which cannot be killed until an egg is broken which is in the\nmouth of a trout, which springs out of a crow, which flies out of a hind,\nwhich lives on an island in the middle of the loch.\u201d\n\nIn his valuable collection of _Russian Folk-Tales_, which is enriched by\ncomparative notes, Mr. Ralston supplies some interesting variants of\nPunchkin. Koshchei, called \u201cthe immortal or deathless,\u201d is merely one of\nthe many incarnations of the dark spirit which takes so many monstrous\nshapes in folk-tales. Sometimes his death, that is, the object with which\nhis life is indissolubly connected, does exist within his body. In one\nstory he carries off a queen, for whom her three sons, one after another,\ngo in search. Prince Ivan, the youngest, at last discovers where his\nmother dwells, and she at the approach of Koshchei hides her son away. The\nmonster sniffs the blood of a Russian, and inquires if her son has not\nbeen with her. She assures him it is only the Russian air in his nostrils.\nThen after talking to him affectionately on one thing and another, she\nasks where his death is, and he tells her that, \u201cunder an oak is a casket,\nin the casket is a hare, in the hare is a duck, in the duck an egg, in the\negg is my death.\u201d Prince Ivan found the egg, and reached his mother\u2019s\nhouse with it. Presently Koshchei flew in and said, \u201cPhoo, phoo; no\nRussian bone can the ear hear or the eye see, but there\u2019s a smell of\nRussia here.\u201d Then Prince Ivan came out from his hiding place, and,\nholding up the egg, said, \u201cThere is your death, oh Koshchei!\u201d then he\nsmashed it, and Koshchei fell dead. In another story Koshchei is killed by\na blow on the forehead from the mysterious egg. Mr. Ralston also quotes a\nTransylvanian Saxon story concerning a witch\u2019s life, which is a light\nburning in an egg inside a duck that swims on a pond inside a mountain,\nand she dies when the light is put out. In the Bohemian story of the\n_Sun-horse_ a warlock\u2019s strength lies in an egg in a duck, which is within\na stag under a tree. A seer finds the egg and sucks it. Then the warlock\nbecomes as weak as a child, \u201cfor all his strength had passed into the\nseer.\u201d\n\nIn Servian folk-tale the strength of a baleful being who had stolen a\nprincess lies in a bird which is inside the heart of a fox, and when the\nbird was taken out of the heart and set on fire, that moment the\nwife-stealer falls down dead, and the prince regains his bride. From the\nsame source we have the tale of the _Golden-haired Twins_, with an\nincident akin to that in Punchkin. When the king\u2019s stepmother buries the\ntwins whom she had stolen, there spring from the spot where they lie trees\nwith golden leaves and blossoms. The king\u2019s admiration of them aroused her\njealousy, and she had them cut down, but eventually his golden-haired\nprinces are restored to him.\n\nThus far the illustrations have been drawn solely from the folk-tales of\nthe widespread Indo-European races, but they are not confined to these.\nFrom non-Aryan sources we have the Tatar story of the demon-giant who\nkept his soul in a twelve-headed snake carried in a bag on his horse\u2019s\nback. The hero finds out the secret, kills the snake, and the giant dies.\nIn one of the Samoyed tales a man had no heart in his body, and could\nrecover it only on restoring to life a woman whom he had killed. Then the\nman said to his wife, \u201cGo to the place where the dead lies; there you will\nfind a purse, in that purse is her soul; shake the purse over her bones,\nand she will come to life.\u201d The wife did as she was ordered, and the woman\nrevived, whereupon her son dashed the heart to the ground, and the man\ndied.[75]\n\nMore elaborate than these are the tales from _The Thousand and One\nNights_. In _Seyf-el-Mulook_ the jinnee\u2019s soul is enclosed in the crop of\na sparrow, and the sparrow is imprisoned in a small box, and this is in\nseven other boxes which are put into seven chests; these are enclosed in a\ncoffer of marble that is sunk in the ocean surrounding the world. By the\naid of Suleyman\u2019s seal-ring Seyf-el-Mulook raises the coffer, and\nextricating the sparrow, strangles it, whereupon the jinnee\u2019s body is\nconverted into a heap of black ashes. In some tales not included by\nGalland or Lane, which Mr. Kirby has translated and edited under the title\nof the _New Arabian Nights_, we have a variant of the above under the\ntitle of _Joadar of Cairo and Mahmood of Tunis_. Joadar is bent on\nreleasing his enchanted betrothed, which he does by also strangling a\nsparrow, the ogre being simultaneously dissolved into a heap of ashes.\n\nThe most venerable illustration of the leading idea in the Punchkin group\nis however found, though in more subtle form, in the Egyptian tale of the\n_Two Brothers_. This is of great value on account of its high antiquity,\nand, moreover, specially interesting as recording an incident similar to\nthat narrated in the life of Joseph. It is contained in the D\u2019Orbiney\npapyrus preserved in the Biblioth\u00e8que Imp\u00e9riale, the date being about the\nfourteenth or fifteenth century B.C.\n\nThere were two brothers, Anepou and Satou, joined as one in love and\nlabour. One day Satou was sent to fetch seed-corn from Anepou\u2019s house,\nwhere he found his brother\u2019s wife adorning her hair. She urged him to stay\nwith her, but he refused, promising, however, to keep her wickedness\nsecret. When Anepou returned at even, she, being afraid, \u201cmade herself to\nseem as a woman that had suffered violence,\u201d and told him exactly the\nreverse of what had happened. Anepou\u2019s wrath was kindled against Satou,\nand he went out to slay him; but Satou called on Phra to save him, and the\ngod placed a river between the brothers, so that when day dawned Anepou\nmight hear the truth. At sunrise Satou tells his story, and, mutilating\nhimself, he says that he will leave Anepou and go to the valley of the\ncedar, in the cones of which he will deposit his heart, \u201cso that if the\ntree be cut his heart will fall to the earth, and he must die.\u201d\n\nFor us the value of these folk-tales lies in the relics of barbaric\nnotions concerning the nature of man and his relation to external things\nwhich they preserve. They have amused our youth-hood; they may instruct\nour manhood. But if we go to the solar mythologists for their\ninterpretation, we shall learn from Sir G. W. Cox that the \u201cmagician\nPunchkin and the heartless giant are only other forms of the Panis who\nsteal bright treasures from the gleaming west,\u201d that \u201cBalna herself is\nHelen shut up in Ilion ... the eagles the bright clouds,\u201d[76] and from\nProfessor de Gubernatis that the duck is the dawn and the egg the sun.\n\nThese venerable tales have a larger, richer meaning than this, expressive\nof the wonder deep-seated in the heart of man. Like the \u201cdrusy\u201d cavity in\ngranite rock which, when broken open, reveals beautiful prisms of topaz\nand beryl, the folk-tales disclose under analysis that thought, now\ncrystallised, which confuses ideas and objects, illusions and realities,\nsubstances and shadows.\n\n\n\u00a7 IX.\n\nBARBARIC AND CIVILISED NOTIONS OF THE SOUL\u2019S NATURE.\n\nIn proof of the closing remarks in \u00a7 VII., that the breath has given the\nchief name to the soul, we find the Western Australians using the same\nword, _waug_, for \u201cbreath, spirit, soul\u201d; in Java the word _nawa_ is used\nfor \u201chealth, life, soul\u201d; in the Dakota tongue _niya_ is literally\n\u201cbreath,\u201d figuratively \u201clife\u201d; in Netela _piuts_ is \u201cbreath\u201d and \u201csoul\u201d;\nin Eskimo _silla_ means \u201cair\u201d and \u201cwind,\u201d and is also the word that\nconveys the highest idea of the world as a whole, and of the reasoning\nfaculty. The supreme existence they call _Sillam Innua_, Owner of the Air,\nor of the All; in the Yakama tongue of Oregon _wkrisha_ signifies \u201cthere\nis wind,\u201d _wkrishwit_, \u201clife\u201d; with the Aztecs _ehecatl_ expressed \u201cair,\nlife, and the soul,\u201d and, personified in their myths, it was said to have\nbeen born of the breath of Tezcatlipoca, their highest divinity, who\nhimself is often called Yoalliehecatl, the Wind of Night.[77] This\nidentity of wind with breath, of breath with spirit, and thence of spirit\nwith the Great Spirit, which\n\n  \u201cSees God in clouds, and hears Him in the wind,\u201d\n\nhas further illustration in the legends of the Quiches, in which the\nunknown creative power is Hurakan, a name familiar to us under the form\n_hurricane_, and in our own sacred records, where the advent of the Holy\nSpirit is described \u201cas of a rushing mighty wind.\u201d In the Mohawk language\n_atonritz_, the \u201csoul,\u201d is from _atonrion_, \u201cto breathe\u201d; whilst, as\nshowing the analogy between the effects of restricted sense and restricted\ncivilisation, Dr. Tylor quotes the case of a girl who was a deaf-mute as\nwell as blind, and who, when telling a dream in gesture language, said:\n\u201cI thought God took away my breath to heaven.\u201d Among the higher languages\nthe same evidence abides.\n\n  \u201cThe spirit doth but mean the breath.\u201d\n\nThat word _spirit_ is derived from a verb _spirare_, which means \u201cto draw\nbreath.\u201d _Animus_, \u201cthe mind,\u201d is cognate with _anima_, \u201cair\u201d; in Irish,\nwhich belongs to the same family of speech as Latin, namely, the Aryan or\nIndo-European, we have _anal_, \u201cbreath,\u201d and _anam_, \u201clife,\u201d or \u201csoul\u201d;\nand in Sanskrit we find the root _an_, to \u201cblow\u201d or \u201cbreathe,\u201d whence\n_anila_, \u201cwind,\u201d and in Greek _anemos_, with the like meaning. In\nHampole\u2019s _Ayenbite of Inwyt_, _i.e._ \u201cPrick or Remorse of Conscience,\u201d a\npoem of the fourteenth century, we find _ande_ or \u201cbreath\u201d used as \u201csoul.\u201d\n\n  \u201cThus sall ilka saul other se (_i.e._ in the other world)\n   For nan of tham may feled be\n   Na mar than here a man, ande may\n   When it passes fra his mouthe away.\u201d[78]\n\nThe Greek _psyche_, _pneuma_, and _thymos_, each meaning \u201csoul\u201d and\n\u201cspirit,\u201d are from roots expressing the wind or breath. In Slavonic the\nroot _du_ has developed the meaning of breath into that of soul or spirit,\nand the dialect of the gipsies has _duk_ with the meanings of breath,\nspirit, ghost. That word _ghost_, the German _geist_, the Dutch _geest_,\nfrom a root meaning \u201cto blow with violence,\u201d is connected with _gust_,\n_gas_, _geyser_; in Scandinavian, _gl\u00f6sor_, \u201cto pour forth.\u201d In non-Aryan\nlanguages, as the Finnish, _far_ means \u201csoul, breath, spirit, wind\u201d;\n_henki_, \u201cspirit, person, breath, air\u201d; the Hebrew _nephesh_, \u201cbreath,\u201d\nhas also the meanings of \u201clife, soul, mind\u201d; and _ruach_ and _neshamah_,\nto which the Arabic _nefs_ and _ruh_ correspond, pass from meaning\n\u201cbreath\u201d to \u201cspirit.\u201d The legend of man\u2019s creation records that he became\na living soul through God breathing into his nostrils \u201cthe breath of\nlife,\u201d and concerning this the Psalmist says of all that live, \u201cThou\ntakest away their breath, they die, and return unto the dust.\u201d As a final\nillustration, the Egyptian _kneph_ has the alternative meanings of \u201clife\u201d\nand \u201cbreath.\u201d[79]\n\nWhen we pass from names to descriptions, we find the same underlying idea\nof the ethereal nature of spirit. The natives of Nicaragua, California,\nand other countries remote from these, agree in describing the other self\nas air or breeze, which passes in and out through the mouth and nostrils.\nThe Tongans conceived it as the a\u00ebriform part of the body, related to it\nas the perfume to the flower. The Greenlanders describe it as pale and\nsoft, as without flesh and bone, so that he who tries to seize it grasps\nnothing. The Lapps say that the ghosts are invisible to all but the\nShamans. The Congo negroes leave the house of the dead unswept for a year,\nlest the dust should injure the delicate substance of the ghost; and the\nGerman peasants have a saying that a door should not be slammed, lest a\nsoul gets pinched in it. In some parts of Northern Europe, when the\nwind-god, Odin, rides the sky with his furious spectral host, the peasants\nopen the windows of every sick-room that the soul of the dying may have\nfree exit to join the wild chase; whilst both here and in France it is\nstill no uncommon practice to open doors and windows that the soul may\ndepart quickly. Dr. Tylor[80] cites a passage from Hampole, in which the\nauthor speaks of the intenser suffering which the soul undergoes in\npurgatory by reason of its delicate organisation.\n\n  \u201cThe soul is more tendre and nesche (soft)\n   Than the bodi that hath bones and fleysche;\n   Thanne the soul that is so tendere of kinde,\n   Mote nedis hure penaunce hardere-y-finde,\n   Than eni bodi that evere on live was,\u201d\n\na doctrine clearly due to Patristic theories of incorporeal souls. And a\nmodern poet, Dante Rossetti, in his _Blessed Damozel_, when he describes\nher as leaning out from the gold bar of heaven and looking down towards\nthe earth, that \u201cspins like a fretful midge,\u201d whence she awaits the coming\nof her lover, depicts the souls mounting up to God as passing by her \u201clike\nthin flames.\u201d The Greeks and, following them, the Romans, conceived the\nsoul as of thin, impalpable texture, as exhaled with the dying breath, or,\nas in Homer, rushing out through the wound that causes the warrior\u2019s\ndeath. In the metaphysical Arabian romance of Yokdhan, the hero seeks the\nsource of life and thought, and discovers in one of the cavities of the\nheart a bluish vapour, which was the living soul. Among the Hebrews it was\nof shadowy nature, with echoless motion, haunting a ghostly realm:\n\n  \u201cIt is a land of shadows; yea, the land\n   Itself is but a shadow, and the race\n   That dwell therein are voices, forms of forms.\u201d\n\nSuch conceptions are but little varied; and, to this day, the intelligence\nof the major number of people who think about the thing at all presents\nthe departing soul as something vaporous, as a little white cloud.\n\nIn keeping with such ideas, the belief in transfer of spirit expresses\nitself. Algonquin women who desired to become mothers flocked to the couch\nof those about to die, in hope that the vital principle as it passed from\nthe body would enter theirs. Among the Seminoles of Florida, when a woman\ndied in childbirth, the infant was held over her face to receive her\nparting spirit, and thus acquire strength and knowledge for its future\nuse. So among the T\u00e1kahlis, the priest is accustomed to lay his hand on\nthe head of the nearest relative of the deceased, and to blow into him the\nsoul of the departed, which is supposed to come to life in his next\nchild.[81]\n\nIn Harland and Wilkinson\u2019s _Lancashire Folk-lore_ it is related that while\na well-known witch lay dying, \u201cshe must needs, before she could \u2018shuffle\noff this mortal coil,\u2019 transfer her _familiar spirit_ to some trusty\nsuccessor. An intimate acquaintance from a neighbouring township was\nconsequently sent for in all haste, and on her arrival was immediately\ncloseted with her dying friend. What passed between them has never fully\ntranspired, but it is asserted that at the close of the interview this\nassociate _received the witch\u2019s last breath into her mouth, and with it\nher familiar spirit_. The powers for good or evil of the dreaded woman\nwere thus transferred to her companion, and on passing along the road from\nBurnley to Blackburn we can point out a farmhouse at no great distance,\nwith whose thrifty matron no neighbouring farmer will yet dare to\nquarrel.\u201d When a Roman lay at the point of death, his nearest relative\ninhaled the last breath; in New Testament story, the risen Jesus breathes\non His disciples, that they may receive the Holy Spirit, and the form thus\nadopted in conferring supernatural grace is still used in the rites and\nceremonies of the Catholic Church.\n\nSpeculation about the other self could not, however, stop at identifying\nit with a man\u2019s breath or shadow, or with regarding it as absolutely\nimpalpable. These nebulous and gaseous theories necessarily condensed, as\nit were, into theories of semi-substantiality still charged with ethereal\nconceptions, but giving embodiment to the soul to account for the\nappearances of both dead and living in dreams, when their persons were\nclasped, their forms and features seen, and their voices heard.\n\nSuch theories involve a kind of continuity of identity, and often take the\nform of belief in the soul as a replica of the body, and as suffering\ncorresponding mutilation. When the native Australian has slain his foe, he\ncuts off his right thumb, so as to prevent him from throwing a shadowy\nspear; the Chinese dread of decapitation, lest their spirits are headless,\nis well known; but a more telling illustration is that cited by Dr. Tylor,\nfrom Waitz, of the West Indian planter, whose slaves sought refuge from\nthe lash and toil in suicide. But he was too cunning for them; he cut off\nthe heads and hands of the corpses, that the survivors might see that not\neven death could save them from a taskmaster who could maim their souls in\nthe next world. Among advanced nations the same conceptions survived.\nAchilles, resting by the shore, sees the dead Patroclus in a dream. \u201cAy\nme, there remaineth then, even in the house of Hades, a spirit and phantom\nof the dead, albeit the life be not anywise therein; for all night long\nhath the ghost of hapless Patroclus stood over me, wailing and making\nmoan, and wondrous like his living self it seemed.\u201d[82] Virgil portrays\n\u00c6neas, and Homer describes Ulysses, as recognising their old comrades\nwhen they enter the \u201cviewless shades,\u201d where the dwellers continue the\ntasks of their earthly life. In Hebrew legend Saul recognises the shade of\nSamuel when the magic spell of the Witch of Endor evokes it, although the\ngrave of the old \u201cjudge\u201d was sixty miles away. The monarch-shades of\n\u201cSheol\u201d hail with derision the entrance of the King of Babylon among them.\nIn New Testament narrative the risen Jesus is alternately material and\nspiritual, now passing through closed doors, and now submitting his\nwound-prints to the touch of the doubter. In _Hamlet_ the ghost is as \u201cthe\nair, invulnerable,\u201d yet \u201clike a king\u201d ...\n\n  \u201c... that fair and warlike form\n   In which the majesty of buried Denmark\n   Did sometimes march.\u201d\n\nNotions of material punishments and rewards involved notions of a material\nsoul, even pending its reunion with the body at the general resurrection.\nThe angels are depicted as weighing souls in a literal balance, while\ndevils clinging to the scales endeavour to disturb the equilibrium.[83] In\nsome frescoes of the fourteenth century, on the walls of the Campo Santo,\nat Pisa, illustrations of these notions abound; the soul is portrayed as a\nsexless child rising out of the mouth of the corpse, and eagerly awaited\nas the crown of rejoicing of the angels, or as the lawful prey of the\ndemons. After this it is amusing to learn that extreme tests of the\nweight of ghosts are now and then forthcoming,[84] from the assertion of a\nBasuto divine that the late queen had been bestriding his shoulders, and\nhe never felt such a weight in his life, to the alleged modern\nspiritualistic reckoning of the weight of a human soul at from three to\nfour ounces! And do not spirit-photographs adorn the albums of the\ncredulous?\n\n\n\u00a7 X.\n\nBARBARIC BELIEF IN SOULS IN BRUTES AND PLANTS AND LIFELESS THINGS.\n\nMore graceful is the conception which makes the soul spring up as a flower\nor cleave the air as a bird. It is, of course, the purified survival of\nthe primitive thought which did not limit its belief in an indwelling\nspirit to man, but extended it to brutes and plants, and even to lifeless\nthings. For the lower creatures manifested the phenomena from which the\nbelief in spirits in higher creatures was inferred. They moved and\nbreathed, their life ceased with their breath; they cast shadows and\nreflections; their cries, which to the savage seemed so like human\nspeech,[85] awakened echoes; and they appeared in dreams. Among the\nwestern tribes of North America the phantoms of all animals are supposed\nto go to the happy beasts\u2019 grounds, and in Assam the ghosts of those slain\nbecome the property of the hunter who kills them; whilst the custom of\nbegging pardon of the animal before or after despatching it, as among the\nRed Indians, who even put the pipe of peace in the dead creature\u2019s mouth,\nfurther evidences to barbarian belief in beast-souls. Although the belief\nin the immortality of brutes has now no place in serious philosophy, it\nhas been a favourite doctrine from the Kamchadales, who believe in the\nafter-life of flies and bugs, to the eminent naturalist Agassiz, who\nadvocates the doctrine in his _Essay on Classification_; and in a list of\n4977 books on the nature and future of the soul given in Mr. Alger\u2019s\nelaborate critical history of the subject, nearly 200 deal with the\nafter-life of animals. The advocates have often felt the difficulty of\ngranting this after-life to man and denying it to creatures to which he\nstands so closely related in ultimate community of origin; but science,\nwhile it finds links of sympathy with the ideas of rude races respecting\nthe common life of all that moves, and presents evidence in support of the\ncommon destiny, lends no support to the doctrine of the immortality of\noysters. The custom of apologising to doomed brutes is practised in regard\nto plants. If they exhibit the phenomena of life in a lesser degree,\nenough are shown to justify the accrediting of them with souls. Besides\nflinging wavy shadows and reflections (and it cannot be too often enforced\nthat to the barbaric intelligence motion is a prime sign of life), they\nare not voiceless. Murmurs are heard in their leaves; sounds echo from\ntheir hollow trunks, or tremble, \u00c6olian-like, through their branches; and\nin their juices are the sources of repose or frenzy.\n\n\u201cThe Ojibways believed that trees had souls, and in pagan times they\nseldom cut down green or living trees, for they thought it put them to\npain. They pretended to hear the wailing of the trees when they suffered\nin this way. On account of these noises, real or imaginary, trees have had\nspirits assigned them, and worship offered to them. A mountain-ash, in the\nvicinity of South Ste. Marie, which made a noise, had offerings piled up\naround it. If a tree should emit from its hollow trunk or branches a sound\nduring a calm state of the atmosphere, or should any one fancy such\nsounds, the tree would be at once reported, and soon come to be regarded\nas the residence of some local god.\u201d[86] As expressed in Greek myth,\npurified in this case from grosser elements, we have the Dryades, who were\nbelieved to die together with the trees in which their life had begun to\nbe, and in which they had dwelt. As expressed in folk-lore and its poetic\nforms, it is in the growth or blossoming of flowers, or the intertwining\nof branches, that the idea survives. In the ballad of \u201cFair Margaret and\nSweet William\u201d--\n\n  \u201cOut of her brest there sprang a _rose_,\n   And out of his a _briar_;\n   They grew till they grew unto the church-top,\n   And there they tyed in a true lover\u2019s knot;\u201d[87]\n\nin the story of \u201cTristram and Ysonde,\u201d \u201cfrom his grave there grew an\neglantine which twined about the statue, a marvel for all men to see; and,\nthough three times they cut it down, it grew again, and ever wound its\narms about the image of the fair Ysonde;\u201d[88] while the conception often\nlends itself to the poet\u2019s thoughts, from Laertes\u2019 words over Ophelia:--\n\n            \u201cLay her i\u2019 the earth,\n  And from her fair and unpolluted flesh\n  May violets spring,\u201d\n\nto Tennyson\u2019s\n\n  \u201cAnd from his ashes may be made\n   The violet of his native land.\u201d\n\nIn Grimm\u2019s _Teutonic Mythology_ a number of illustrations are supplied of\nthe vagaries of popular imagination, which picture the soul as a bird\nflying out of a dead person\u2019s mouth, and, as a cognate example from rude\nculture, we find a belief among the Powhatans that \u201ca certain small wood\nbird received the souls of their princes at death, and they religiously\nrefrained from doing it harm; while the Aztecs and various other nations\nthought that all good people, as a reward of merit, were metamorphosed at\nthe close of life into feathered songsters of the grove, and in this form\npassed a certain term in the umbrageous bowers of Paradise.\u201d[89] But many\npages might be filled with examples of varying conceptions of the soul,\nthe major number of which (for the idea of it as a mouse, snake, etc.,\nmust not be forgotten) have as their nucleus its ethereal nature and\nfreedom from the limitations of solid earth, although round that nucleus\ngather some more concrete ideas for the mind, desiring something more\nsubstantial than symbols, to grasp. The belief that inanimate things as\nwell as animals and plants have a dual being is not so obvious at first\nsight, and yet, given the reasons for the latter, there are as good\ngrounds, because like in kind, for the former. The Algonquins told Father\nCharlevoix that \u201csince hatchets and kettles have shadows, as well as men\nand women, it follows that these shadows must pass along with human\nshadows into the spirit-land.\u201d When the tools or weapons are injured or\ndone with, their souls must cross the water to the Great Village, where\nthe sun sets. Besides, spears and pots and pans, as well as men and dogs,\nappear in dreams; they throw shadows and images in the water, they give\nforth a sound when struck, and, as the Fijians also argue, \u201cif an animal\nor plant die, its soul goes to Bolotoo; if a stone or anything else is\nbroken, it has its reward there; nay, has equal good luck with men and\nhogs and yams. If an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, away flies\nits soul for the service of the gods.\u201d Logically, the savage who believes\nthat in the other world\n\n  \u201cThe hunter still the deer pursues,\n   The hunter and the deer a shade,\u201d\n\nmust put in the hands of the one a shadow spear. So when an Ojibway\nchief, after a four days\u2019 trance, gave an account of his visit to the land\nof shadows, he told of the hosts whom he had met travelling there laden\nwith pipes and kettles and weapons. These primitive ideas explain, once\nand for all, matters which have too often been explained by fanciful\ntheories, or cited as evidences of the benighted condition of those places\nwhich on missionary maps of the world are painted black. They disclose the\nreason why food and utensils and weapons were broken and buried with the\ndead; why fires were lighted round the grave; why animals were slain on\nthe death of a chief; why the Greenlanders, when a child dies, bury a dog\nwith him, because the dog, they say, is able to find his way anywhere; why\nNorth American Indian mothers in pathetic custom drop their milk on the\nlips of the dead child; and why, what seemed so inexplicable to the early\nmissionaries to the East, ignorant of the practice of widow-sacrifice\namong the ancient peoples of the West, as the Gauls, Teutons, and others,\nwives and slaves were burned on the funeral pyre. Among the Mexicans\nsometimes a very rich man would even have his chaplain slaughtered, that\nhe might not be deprived of his support in the other world.\n\nIn their initial stage all these gifts are made, all these rites\nperformed, for the supposed need of the dead. Every one had his _manes_,\nwhich followed him into the next world, and, lacking which, he would be as\npoor as if in this world he had lacked it. The spiritual counterpart of\nthe offerings was consumed by his spirit, just as the old deities were\nthought to enjoy the sweet-smelling savour of the burnt sacrifices; the\nfires were kindled that the soul might not grope about in darkness. So the\nobolus was put into the mouth of the dead, that its _manes_ might be\npayment to Charon for the ferry of the Styx, as money is put in the\ncorpse\u2019s hand or mouth among the German and Irish peasants to this day; so\nthe warrior\u2019s horse was slain at his tomb and the armour laid therein,\nthat he might enter Valhalla riding, and clothed with the tokens of his\nright to the abode reserved for those who had fallen in battle.\n\nAny explanation of customs like the foregoing, persistent as they are in\nkind, however varying in expression, is defective which does not take into\naccount what large part the emotions play in all that is connected with\ndeath, and how they infuse such customs with vitality. The bereaved refuse\nto believe that those whom they have lost have no more concern in the\ninterests of life once common and dear to both. As among the Dakotas, when\na mother feels a pain at her breast, they say that her dead child is\nthinking of her. The place where the body lies becomes the connecting link\nbetween it and the soul which is still the solicitude and care, or, it may\nbe, the dread of the living; succouring and protecting, or, on the other\nhand, avenging.\n\nThe element of dread undoubtedly comes into play early. The awe which we\nfeel in the presence of death, or in passing in the dark through a\nchurchyard, takes in the savage the form of terror. The behaviour of the\nghost in dreams, its ability to do what men still in the flesh cannot do,\nquicken the belief in occult power, and the desire to propitiate it. Among\nthe Lapps red-hot stones are cast behind the coffins of the dead, and\ntheir graves fenced round to prevent their return to earth. The articles\nplaced in the grave as gifts for the dead become sacrifices laid on the\naltar to appease malignant spirits; the mound or tomb becomes a temple,\nand awe passes by easy degrees into worship. The prevalence in one form or\nanother of ancestor-worship has, as remarked already, led Mr. Spencer to\nthe conclusion that it is the rudimentary form of all religions; even sun,\nmoon, volcano, river, etc., being feared and adored because they were\nbelieved to be the dwelling-places of ancestral ghosts. The facts are\nagainst this theory. It is to the larger, the more impressive phenomena of\nthe natural world, the sun in noontide strength and splendour, the\nlightning and the thunder, that we must look for the primary causes which\nawakened the fear, the wonder, and the adoration in which lie the germs of\nthe highest religions. Such causes are not only sufficient, but more\noperative on the undeveloped intelligence than the belief in ancestral\nspirits of the mountain and the sea, which involves a more complex mental\naction.[90] The one is contributory, but subordinate, to the other. It is,\nas M. R\u00e9ville remarks, \u201cthe phenomena of nature regarded as animated and\nconscious that wake and stimulate the religious sentiments, and become\nthe objects of the adoration of man.... If nature-worship, with the\nanimism that it engenders,[91] shapes the first law to which nascent\nreligion submits in the human race, anthropomorphism furnishes the second,\ndisengaging itself ever more and more completely from the zoomorphism\nwhich generally serves as an intermediary. This is so _everywhere_.\u201d[92]\n\n\n\u00a7 XI.\n\nBARBARIC AND CIVILISED NOTIONS ABOUT THE SOUL\u2019S DWELLING-PLACE.\n\nThe existence of the ghost-soul or other self being unquestioned, the\ninquiry follows, where does it dwell? Like the trolls of Norse myth, who\nburst at sunrise, the flitting spirit vanishes in the light and comes with\nthe darkness; but what places does it haunt when the quiet of the night is\nunbroken by its intrusion, and where are they?\n\nThe answers to these are as varied as the vagaries of rude imagination\npermit. We must not expect to find any theories of the soul\u2019s prolonged\nafter-existence among races who have but a dim remembrance of yesterday,\nand but a hazy conception of a to-morrow. Neither, among such, any\ntheories of the soul abiding in a place of reward or punishment, as the\nresult of things done in the body. Speaking of the heaven of the Red man,\nDr. Brinton remarks that \u201cnowhere was any well-defined doctrine that moral\nturpitude was judged and punished in the next world. No contrast is\ndiscoverable between a place of torment and a realm of joy; at the worst\nbut a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the niggard.\u201d\nIdeas of a devil and a hell are altogether absent from the barbaric mind,\nsince it is obvious that any theory of retribution could arise only when\nman\u2019s moral nature had so developed as to awaken questions about the\ngovernment of the universe, and to call another world into existence to\nredress the wrongs and balance the injustices of this. His earliest\nqueries were concerned with the whereabouts of the soul more than with its\ndestiny, and it was, and still is, among the lower races, thought of as\nhaunting its old abode or the burial-place of its body, and as acting very\nmuch as it had acted when in the flesh. The shade of the Algonquin hunter\nchases the spirits of the beaver and the elk with the spirits of his bow\nand arrow, and stalks on the spirits of his snow-shoes over the spirit of\nthe snow. Among the Costa Ricans the spirits of the dead are supposed to\nremain near their bodies for a year, and the explorer Swan relates that\nwhen he was with the North-Western Indians he was not allowed to attend a\nfuneral, lest he offended the spirits hovering round; whilst the Indians\nof North America often destroy or abandon the dwellings of the dead, the\nobject being to prevent the ghost from returning, or to leave it free so\nto do. But it is needless to multiply illustrations of a belief which has\nbeen persistent in the human mind from the dawn of speculation about the\nfuture of the soul to the present day. The barbarians who think that the\nspirits of the dead move and have their being near the living, join them\non their journeys, and sit down, unseen visitants, at their feasts (to be\ndriven off, as among the Eskimos, by blowing the breath), are one with the\nmultitudes of folks in Europe and America who, sorrowing over their dead,\nthink of them as ministering with unfelt hands, and as keenly interested\nin their concerns.\n\n  \u201cWe meet them at the doorway, on the stair,\n   Along the passages they come and go,\n   Impalpable impressions on the air,\n   A sense of something moving to and fro.\u201d\n\nThe Ojibway, who detects their tiny voices in the insect\u2019s hum, and thinks\nof them as sheltering themselves from the rain by thousands in a flower,\nas sporting by myriads on a sunbeam, is one with the Schoolmen who\nspeculated on the number of angels that could dance on a needle\u2019s point,\nand with Milton in his poetic rendering of the belief of his time, that\n\n  \u201cMillions of spiritual creatures walk the earth\n   Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.\u201d\n\nThe Hottentot who avoids a dead man\u2019s hut lest the ghost be within, is one\nwith the believers in haunted houses, in banshees, wraiths, and spectres.\nSuch as he should not be excluded as \u201ccorresponding members\u201d of the\nSociety for Psychical Research in the invitations[93] which its committee\nissues to folks who have seen apparitions, and slept, or tried to sleep,\nin the dreaded chamber of some moated hall of mystery.\n\nIf we look in vain for any consistency of idea or logical relation in\nbarbaric notions, our wonder ceases at the absence of these when we note\nthe conflicting conceptions entertained among intelligent people. But the\nunderlying thought is identical. The examples given in a foregoing section\non the belief in the passage of the soul into other human bodies, into\nanimals and stones, strengthened as this is by the likeness in mind and\nbody between children and dead relatives, by the human expression noted on\nmany a brute, by the human shape of many a stone, show how the theory of\nthe soul as nigh at hand finds many-sided support. In this belief, too,\nlie the germs of theories of successive transmigrations elaborated in the\nfaiths of advanced races, when the defects of body and character were\nexplained as the effects of sin committed in a former existence.\n\nNext in order of conception appears to be that of the soul as living an\nindependent existence, an improved edition of the present, in an under or\nupper world, into which the dead pass without distinction of caste or\nworth.\n\nThe things dreamed about respecting the land of spirits and their\noccupations are woven of the materials of daily life. Whether to the\nsleeping barbarian in his wigwam, or to the seer banished in Patmos;\nwhether to the Indian travelling in his dreams to the happy\nhunting-ground, or to the apostle caught up in trance into paradise;\nearth, and earth alone, supplies the materials out of which man everywhere\nhas shaped his heaven. Her dinted and furrowed surface; valleys and\nmountain-tops; islands sleeping in summer seas, or fretted by winter\nstorms; cities walled and battlemented; glories of sunrise and sunset;\ngave variety enough for play of the cherished hopes and imaginings of men.\nIf we collect any group of barbaric fancies, we find, speaking broadly,\nthat a large proportion have pictured the home of souls as in the west,\ntowards the land of the setting sun. Seen from many a standpoint to sink\nbeneath river, lake, or ocean, which for untutored man enclosed his world,\nit led to the myth of waters of death dividing earth from heaven, which\nthe soul, often at perilous risk, must cross. Such was the Ginnunga-gap of\nthe Vikings; the nine seas and a half across which travellers to Manala,\nthe under-world of the Finns, must voyage; the great water of the Red\nIndians; the Vaitarani of the Brahmans; the Stygian stream of the Greeks;\nand the Jordan of the Christians, that flows between us and the Celestial\nCity, \u201cwhere the surges cease to roll.\u201d The sinking of the sun below the\nhorizon obviously led to belief in an under-world, whither the ghosts\nwent. Barbaric notions are full of this, and the lower culture out of\nwhich their beliefs arose is evidenced in the Orcus of the Romans, the\nHades of the Greeks, the Helheim of the Norsemen, the Sheol of the\nHebrews, and the Amenti of the Egyptians, the solar features of which last\nare clearly traceable in their doctrine. Among the Hebrews, Sheol\n(translated, curiously enough, thirty-one times as \u201cgrave,\u201d and thirty-one\ntimes as \u201chell,\u201d in our Authorised Version) was a vast cavernous space in\nwhich the shades of good and bad alike wandered--\u201cthe small and great are\nthere, and the servant is free from his master.\u201d It is akin in character\nto the Greek Hades, where they \u201cwander mid shadows and shade, and wail by\nimpassable streams.\u201d As ideas of a Divine rule of the world grew, its\nmanifestations in justice were looked for, and the mystery of iniquity,\nthe wicked \u201cflourishing like a green bay tree,\u201d led to the conception of a\nfuture state, in which Lazarus and Dives would change places. Sheol thus\nbecame, on the one hand, a land of delight and repose for the faithful,\nand, on the other hand, one of punishment for the wicked.\n\nPersian, and still older, influences had largely leavened Hebrew\nconceptions, and local conditions in Judea added pungent elements. The\nValley of Hinnom, or Gehenna, \u201cthe place where lie the corpses of those\nwho have sinned against Jehovah, where their worm shall not die, neither\ntheir fire be quenched;\u201d the dreary volcanic region around the Dead Sea,\nwith its legend of doomed cities, supplied their imagery of hell with its\nlake of fire and brimstone. And, as the belief travelled westward, it fell\ninto congenial soil. The sulphurous stench around Lacus Avernus, the smoke\nof Vesuvius, Stromboli, and Etna, wreathed themselves round the hell of\nChristianity and the under-world of barbaric myth; and from Talmudic\nwriter to classic poet, to Dante and to Milton, the imagination exhausted\nthe material of the horrible to describe the several tortures of the\ndamned. The hell of our northern forefathers remained below the flat\nearth, but the cold, misty Niflheim melted away before the fiery perdition\nof Christian dogma. And, in the region bordering thereon, the _limbus\npatrum_, the _limbus infantum_, etc., we have the survival of belief in\nseparate hells characteristic of the Oriental religions, and of the\nsub-divisions of the lower world in more rudimentary religions.\n\nBeyond the narrow horizon which bounded the world of the ancients, lay the\nimaginary land of the immortals, the Blessed, the Happy, the Fortunate\nIsles. But as that horizon enlarged, the Elysian Fields and Banquet Halls\nwere transferred to an upper sphere. In the wonder aroused by the\nfirmament above, with its solid-looking vault across which sun, stars,\nand clouds traversed; in the place it plays in dreams of barbarian and\npatriarch, when the sleeper is carried thither; in its brightness of\nnoonday glory as contrasted with the dark sun-set under-world, we may find\nsome of the materials of which the theory of an upper world, a heaven\n(\u201cthe heaved\u201d) is made up. There the barbarian places his paradise to\nwhich the rainbow and the Milky Way are roads; there he meets his kindred,\nand lives where cold, disease, and age are not, but everlasting summer and\nsummer fruits. There, too, for the conceptions of advanced races are drawn\nfrom the same sources, the civilised peoples of Europe and America have\nplaced their heaven. And, save in refinement of detail incident to\nintellectual growth, there is nothing to choose between the earlier and\nthe later; the same gross delights, the same earth-born ideas are there,\nwhether we enter the Norseman\u2019s Valhalla, the Moslem\u2019s Paradise, or the\nChristian\u2019s New Jerusalem.\n\n\n\u00a7 XII.\n\nCONCLUSIONS FROM THE FOREGOING.\n\nIt would exceed the limits and purport of this book to follow the\nextension of the belief in spirits to its extreme range; in other words,\nto belief in controlling spirits in inanimate objects, which were advanced\n_pari passu_ with man\u2019s advancing conceptions to place and rank as the\nhigher gods of polytheism. Such belief, as already indicated, is the\noutcome of that primitive philosophy which invests the elements above and\nthe earth beneath with departmental deities, until, through successive\nstages of dualism, the idea of a Supreme Deity is reached, and the\napproach is thus made towards a conception of the unity and unvarying\norder of nature. Deferring reference to the part played by dreams as media\nof communication between heaven and earth, and as warnings of coming\nevents, let us summarise the evidence which has been gathered, and ask\nwhether it warrants the conclusions drawn from it in the present work.\n\nIt has been shown that races have existed, and exist still, at so low a\nlevel that their scanty stock of words has to be supplemented by gestures,\nrendering converse in the dark next to impossible. Such people are\nbewildered by any effort to count beyond their fingers; they have no idea\nof the relation of things, or of their differences; they have no power of\ngeneralisation by which to merge the accidental in the essential. They\nbelieve that their names and likenesses are integral parts of themselves,\nand that they can be bewitched or harmed through them at the hands of any\none who knows the one or has obtained the other. As an important result of\ntheir confusion between the objective and the subjective, we find a vivid\nand remarkable belief in the reality of their dreams. The events which\nmake up these are explained only on the theory that if the body did not\nmove from its sleeping place, something related to it did, and that the\npeople, both living and dead, who appeared in dream and vision, did in\nvery presence come. The puzzle is solved by the theory of a second self\nwhich can leave the body and return to it. For the savage knows nothing of\n_mind_. The belief in this other self is strengthened (possibly more or\nless created) by its appearance in shadow or reflection, in mocking echo,\nin various diseases, especially fits, when the sufferer is torn by an\nindwelling foe, and writhes as if in his merciless grasp. The belief in\nsuch a ghost-soul, as to the form and ethereal nature of which all kinds\nof theories are started, is extended to animals and lifeless things, since\nlike evidence of its existence is supplied by them. The fire that destroys\nhis hut, the wind that blows it down, the lightning that darts from the\nclouds and strikes his fellow-man dead beside him, the rain-storm that\nfloods his fields, the swollen river that sweeps away his store of\nfood--these and every other force manifest in nature add their weight to\nthe inferences which rude man has drawn. The phenomena which have\naccounted for the vigour of life and the prostration of disease account\nfor the motion of things in heaven above and the earth beneath, and the\nbarbaric mind thus enlarges its belief in a twofold existence in man to a\nfar-reaching doctrine of spirits everywhere. Step by step, from ghost-soul\nflitting round the wigwam to the great spirits indwelling in the powers of\nnature, the belief in supernatural beings with physical qualities arises,\nuntil the moral element comes in, and they appear as good and evil gods\ncontending for the mastery of the universe. Passing by details as to the\nwhereabouts of the other self and its doings and destiny in the other\nworld which the dream involves, and following the order of ideas on\nscientific lines, two queries arise:--\n\n1. Does the evidence before us suffice to warrant the conclusions drawn\nfrom it as to the serious and permanent part which dreams have played in\nthe origin and growth of primitive belief in spirits; in short, of belief\nin supernatural agencies from past to present times? In this place the\nanswer is brief. Of course the antecedent conditions of man\u2019s developed\nemotional nature, and of the universe of great and small, which is the\nfield of its exercise, are taken for granted.\n\nThe general animistic interpretation which man gives to phenomena at the\noutset expressed itself in the particular conceptions of souls everywhere,\nof which dreams and such-like things supplied the raw material. If they\ndid not, what did? Denying this, we must fall back on a theory of\nintuition or on revelation. As to the former, it begs the whole question;\nas to the latter, can that which is itself the subject of periodical\nrevision be an infallible authority on anything?\n\nIf dreams, apparitions, shadows, and the like, are sufficing causes, then,\nin obedience to the Law of Parsimony (as it is termed in logic), we need\nnot invoke the play of higher causes when lower ones are found competent\nto account for the effects. If it seems to some that the base is too\nnarrow, the foundation too weak for the superstructure, and that our\nmetaphysics and our beliefs regarding the invisible rest upon something\nwider and stronger than the illusions of a remote savage ancestry, the\nfacts of man\u2019s history may be adduced as witness to his continuous passage\ninto truth through illusions; to the vast revolutions and readjustments\nmade in his correction of the first impressions of the senses. There is\nnot a belief of the past, from the notions of savages about their dreams\nand ghost-world to those of more advanced races about their spirit-realms\nand its occupants, to which this does not apply. In the more delicate\nobservations of the astronomer he must, when estimating the position of\nany celestial body, take into account its apparent displacement through\nthe refractive properties of the atmosphere, and must also allow for\ndefects of perception in himself due to what is called \u201cpersonal\nequation.\u201d And in ascertaining our place in the scale of being, as well as\nin seeking for the grounds of belief concerning our own nature, we have to\ntake into account the refracting media of dense ignorance and prejudice\nthrough which these beliefs have come, and to allow for the confirming\nerror due to personal equation--fond desire. The result will be the\nvanishing of illusions involving momentous changes in psychology, ethics,\nand theology. Instead of groping among mental phenomena for explanations\nof themselves, they will be analysed by the methods already indicated.\nInstead of resting the authority for moral injunctions on innate ideas of\nright and wrong, and on inspired statutes and standards, it will rest on\nthe accredited, because verifiable, experience of man. Instead of finding\nincentives to, or restraints on, conduct by operating on men\u2019s hope of\nfuture reward, or fear of hell as \u201changman\u2019s whip to keep the wretch in\norder,\u201d they will be supplied by an ever-widening sense of duty, quickened\nby love and loyalty to a supreme order, in obedience to which the ultimate\nhappiness of humanity in the life that is will be secured.\n\nIn this, and not in theories of an hereafter whose origin and persistence\nare explained, will man find his satisfaction, and the springs of motive\nto whatever is ennobling, lovely, and of good report. With the poet, who,\nlaying bare the sources of the unrest of his time, has led us to the\nsecret of its peace, he will ask--\n\n          \u201cIs it so small a thing\n          To have enjoyed the sun,\n          To have lived light in the spring,\n          To have loved, to have thought, to have done,\n  To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes--\n          That we should feign a bliss\n          Of doubtful future date,\n          And while we dream on this,\n          Lose all our present state,\n    And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?\u201d[94]\n\n2. Does the theory of evolution in its application to the development of\nthe spiritual nature of man, and to the origin and growth of ideas, find\nany breach of continuity? In its inclusion of him as a part of nature, in\naccounting for his derivation from pre-human ancestry by a process of\nnatural selection, and in its proofs of his unbroken development from the\nembryo to adult life, it embraces the growth and development of mind and\nall that mind connotes. In the words of Professor Huxley, \u201cAs there is an\nanatomy of the body, so there is an anatomy of the mind; the psychologist\ndissects mental phenomena into elementary states of consciousness, as the\nanatomist resolves limbs into tissues, and tissues into cells. The one\ntraces the development of complex organs from simple rudiments; the other\nfollows the building up of complex conceptions out of simpler constituents\nof thought. As the physiologist inquires into the way in which the\nso-called \u2018functions\u2019 of the body are performed, so the psychologist\nstudies the so-called \u2018faculties\u2019 of the mind. Even a cursory attention to\nthe ways and works of the lower animals suggests a comparative anatomy and\nphysiology of the mind; and the doctrine of evolution presses for\napplication as much in the one field as in the other.\u201d[95]\n\nAny coherent explanation of the operations of nature was impossible while\nman had no conception or knowledge of the interplay of its several parts.\nNow, by the doctrine of continuity, not only are present changes referred\nto unvarying causes, but the past is interpreted by the processes going on\nunder our eyes. We can as easily calculate eclipses backward as forward;\nwe can learn in present formations of the earth\u2019s crust the history of the\ndeposition of the most ancient strata; we read in a rounded granite pebble\nthe story of epochs, the fire that fused its organic or inorganic\nparticles, the water that rubbed and rolled it; we reconstruct from a few\nbones the ancestry of obscure forms, and find in the fragments the missing\nlinks that connect species now so varied. And the like method is applied\nto man in his _tout ensemble_. His development is not arbitrary; what he\nis is the expansion of germs of what he was.\n\nTill these latter days he has, on the warrant of legends now of worth only\nas witnesses to his crude ideas, presumed on an isolated place in\ncreation, and excepted his race from an inquiry made concerning every\ncreature beneath him. The pride of birth has hindered his admission of\nlineal connection between the beliefs of cultured races and the beliefs of\nsavages, and pseudo-scientific writers still confuse issues by assuming\ndistinctions between races to whom spiritual truths have been revealed and\nraces from whom these truths have been withheld. But the only tenable\ndistinction to be drawn nowadays is between the scientific and\npre-scientific age in the history of any given race.\n\nIn these times, when many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased, we\nforget how recent are the tremendous changes wrought by the science that--\n\n                \u201cReaches forth her arms\n  To feel from world to world, and charms\n    Her secret from the latest moon.\u201d\n\nDulled by familiarity, we forget how operative these changes are upon\nopinions which have been--save now and again by voices speedily\nsilenced--unquestioned during centuries. It is, in truth, another world to\nthat in which our forefathers lived. Even in science itself the revolution\nwrought by discoveries within the last fifty years is enormous. Our old\nstandard authorities, especially in astronomy and geology, are now of\nvalue only as historical indices to the progress of those sciences, while\nin the domain of life itself the distinctions between plant and animal,\nassumed under the terms Botany and Zoology, are effaced and made one under\nthe term Biology. Sir James Paget, in a profoundly interesting address on\n_Science and Theology_, has pointed out that it was once thought profane\nto speak of life as in any kind of relation or alliance with chemical\naffinities manifest in lifeless matter; now, the correlation of all the\nforces of matter is a doctrine which investigation more and more confirms.\nIt was believed--many believe it still--that an impassable chasm separates\nthe inorganic from the organic, the latter being attained only through\noperations of a \u201cvital force\u201d external to matter. That chasm is imaginary.\nEven the supposed difference between plants and animals in the existence\nin the latter of a stomach by which to digest and change nutritive\nsubstances, vanishes before the experiments on carnivorous plants. And not\nonly do the observations of Mr. Darwin go far to show the existence of a\nnervous system in plants, but examination of crystals shows that a \u201ctruly\nelemental pathology must be studied in them after mechanical injuries or\nother disturbing forces.\u201d And is man, \u201cthe roof and crown of things,\u201d to\nwitness to diversity amidst this unity?\n\nIf we hesitate to believe that our metaphysics have been evolved from\nsavage philosophy, that our accepted opinions concerning man\u2019s nature and\ndestiny are but the improved and purified speculations of the past, we\nmust remember what long years had elapsed before the spirit of science\narose and breathed its air of freedom on the human mind. The Christian\nreligion wrought no change in the attitude of man towards the natural\nworld; it remained as full of mystery and miracle to the pagan after his\nconversion as before it. When that religion was planted in foreign soil it\nhad, as the condition of its thriving, to be nourished by the alien\njuices. It had to take into itself what it found there, and it found very\nmuch in common. Although it displaced and degraded the _Dii majores_ of\nother faiths, it had its own elaborated order of principalities and\npowers; it had as real a belief in demons and goblins as any pagan; and it\nwas, therefore, simply a question of baptizing and rechristening the\nghost-world of heathendom, substituting angels for swan-maidens and elves,\ndevils for demons, and retaining unchanged the army of evil agencies, who\nas witches and wraiths swarmed in the night and wrought havoc on soul and\nbody.\n\nThe doctrine of continuity admits no exceptions; it has no \u201cfavoured\nnation\u201d clause for man. Its teaching is of order, not confusion; of\ngradual development, not spasmodic advance; of banishment of all\ncatastrophic theories in the interpretation of the history of man as of\nnature. In its exposition nothing is \u201ccommon or unclean;\u201d nothing too\ntrivial for notice in study of the growth of language, of law, of social\ncustoms and institutions, of religion, or of aught else comprised in the\nstory of our race. The nursery rhyme and the \u201cwise saw\u201d embody the serious\nbelief of past times; ceremonial rites and priestly vestments preserve the\nsignificance and sacredness gathering round the common when it becomes\nspecialised. And in this belief in spiritual powers and agencies within\nand without, the line uniting the lower and the higher culture is\nunbroken. Nor can it be otherwise, if it be conceded that the sources of\nman\u2019s knowledge do not transcend his experience, and that within the\nlimits of this we have to look for the origin of all beliefs, from the\ncrudest animism to the most ennobling conceptions of the Eternal.\n\n  \u201cThis world is the nurse of all we know,\n   This world is the mother of all we feel.\u201d\n\nAnd yet we find this denied by professed scientists, whose minds are\nbuilt, as it were, in water-tight compartments. The theistic philosopher,\ntrembling at the bogey of human automatism, creates an Ego, \u201can entity\nwherein man\u2019s nobility essentially consists, which does not depend for its\nexistence on any play of physical or vital forces, but which makes these\nforces subservient to its determinations.\u201d[96] The biologist, shrinking\nfrom the application of the theory of evolution to the descent of man,\nargues that \u201chis animality is distinct in nature from his rationality,\nthough inseparably joined during life in one common personality.\u201d His body\n\u201cwas derived from pre-existing materials, and therefore, only derivatively\ncreated; that is, by the operation of secondary laws.\u201d His soul, on the\nother hand, was created in quite a different way, not by any pre-existing\nmeans external to God Himself, but by the direct action of the Almighty\nsymbolised by the term \u201cbreathing.\u201d[97] As this compound nature of man is\ndefended in a scientific treatise, the question that leaps to the lips is,\nWhen did the inoculating action take place?--in the embryonic stage, or at\nbirth, or at the first awakenings of the moral sense?\n\nReaders of that eccentric book, _The Unseen Universe_, published some\neight years ago, may remember that the authors built up a spiritual body\nwhose home lay beyond the visible cosmos.[98] Their argument was to the\nfollowing effect:--Just as light is held to result from vibrations of the\nether set in motion by self-luminous or light-reflecting bodies, so every\nthought occasions molecular action in the brain, which gives rise to\nvibrations of the ether. While the effect of a portion of our mental\nactivity is to leave a permanent record on the matter of the brain, and\nthus constitute an organ of memory, the effect of the remaining portion is\nto set up thought-waves across the ether, and to construct by these means,\nin some part of the unseen universe, what may be called our \u201cspiritual\nbody.\u201d By this process there is being gradually built up, as the resultant\nof our present activities, our future selves; and when we die our\nconsciousness is in some mysterious way transferred to the spiritual body,\nand thus the continuity of identity is secured.\n\n  \u201cEternal form shall still divide\n   Th\u2019 eternal soul from all beside.\u201d\n\nWe may well quote the ancient words: \u201cIf they do these things in a green\ntree, what shall be done in the dry?\u201d The physicists, who thus locate the\nsoul in limitless space, and call it vibrations; the mathematician, who\nsaid it must be extension; and the musician, who said, like Aristoxenus,\nthat it was harmony; the Cartesian philosopher, who locates it in the\npineal gland; the Costa Rican, who places it in the liver; the Tongans,\nwho make it co-extensive with the body; and the Swedenborgians, who assume\nan underlying, inner self pervading the whole frame--these have met\ntogether, the lower and the higher culture have kissed each other.\n\nThe tripartite division of man by the Rabbis, the Platonists, the\nPaulinists, the Chinese, the medi\u00e6val theories of vegetal, sensitive, and\nrational souls; what are these but the \u201cother self\u201d of savage philosophy\nwrit large? Plato\u2019s number is found among the Sioux: of their three souls\none goes to a cold place, another to a warm place, and the third stays to\nguard the body. Washington Matthews, in his _Ethnology and Philology of\nthe Hidatsa Indians_, says:--\u201cIt is believed by some of the Hidatsa that\nevery human being has four souls in one. They account for the phenomena of\ngradual death, when the extremities are apparently dead while\nconsciousness remains, by supposing the four souls to depart, one after\nanother, at different times. When dissolution is complete, they say that\nall the souls are gone, and have joined together again outside the body. I\nhave heard a Minsutaree quietly discussing this doctrine with an\nAssinneboine, who believed in only one soul to each body.\u201d\n\nLet it not be thought that because science explains the earth-born origin\nof some of man\u2019s loftiest hopes, she makes claim to have spoken the last\nword, and forbids utterance from any other quarter. The theologian is not\nless free to assume such miraculous intervention in man\u2019s development as\nmarks him nearer to the angel than to the ape, only his assumptions lie\nbeyond the scope of scientific inquiry. And it should be noted that whilst\nscience takes away, she gives with no niggard hand, so that the loss is\nmore seeming than real.\n\nWhen belief in the earth\u2019s central and supreme place in the universe was\nsurrendered at the bidding of astronomy, there was compensation in the\nrevelation of a universe to which thought can fix no limits. And if man\nis bidden to surrender belief in his difference in kind from other living\ncreatures, he will be given the conception of a collective humanity whose\nduties and destiny he shares. That conception will not be the destruction,\nbut the enlargement, of the field of the emotions, and, in contrasting the\nevanescence of the individual with the permanence of the race, he may find\na profounder meaning in the familiar words--\n\n  \u201cWe are such stuff as dreams are made on,\n   And our little life is rounded with a sleep.\u201d\n\n\n\u00a7 XIII.\n\nDREAMS AS OMENS AND MEDIA OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN GODS AND MEN.\n\nReference has now to be made to the part played by dreams as supposed\nchannels of communication between heaven and earth; as portents, omens,\netc. The common belief among the nations of antiquity that they were sent\nby the gods, and the like belief lurking in the minds of the superstitious\nto this day, are the scarcely-altered survivals of barbaric confusion\nrespecting them.\n\nWhen man had advanced from the earlier stages of undefined wonder and\nbewilderment concerning the powers around and above him to anthropomorphic\nconceptions of them, _i.e._ to making them in his own image, the events of\nhis dreams were striking confirmation of his notions about the constant\nintervention of spiritual beings, gods, chiefs, and ancestors, in the\naffairs of life. That personal life and will with which the rude\nintelligence invests the objects of its awe; waving trees, swirling\nwaters, drifting clouds, whirling winds, stately march of sun and star,\nseemed especially manifest in dreams and visions. In their unrelated and\nbewildering, or, on the other hand, their surpassingly clear, incidents,\nthe powers indwelling in all things seemed to come nearer than in the less\nsensational occurrences of the day, uttering their monitions, or making\nknown their will. They were the media by which this and that thing was\ncommanded or forbidden, or by which guidance and counsel and knowledge of\nthe future were given. To induce them, therefore, became a constant\neffort. The discovery that fasting is a certain method of procuring them\nis one reason of its prevalence in the lower culture. Amongst all the\nindigenous races of North America abstinence has been practised as a chief\nmeans of securing supernatural inspiration. The Redskin, to become a\nsorcerer or to secure a revelation from his _totem_, or the Eskimo, to\nbecome _Angekok_, will endure the most severe privations.\n\nIt is believed that whatever is seen in the first dream thus produced by\nfasting becomes the manitou, or guardian spirit of life, corresponding to\nthe \u201cdaimon\u201d of Socrates. And whoever by much fasting is favoured with\ndreams, and cultivates the art of explaining them as bearing on the\nfuture, becomes the feared and consulted \u201cmedicine man\u201d of his tribe. His\n_kee-ke\u00e9-wins_, or records, are finally shown to the old people, who meet\ntogether and consult upon them. They in the end give their approval, and\ndeclare that he is gifted as a prophet, is inspired with wisdom, and is\nfit to lead in the councils of the people.[99]\n\nVery slender data were needed for the conclusions first drawn from dreams;\nlet the death of a friend or foe be the incident, and the event happen;\nlet a hunting-path fill the half-torpid fancy, and a day\u2019s fasting follow;\nlet the mother of a young sportsman dream that she saw a bear in a certain\nplace, and the son, guided by her account, find the bear where indicated,\nand kill it; the arbitrary relation is set up forthwith. As Lord Bacon\nsays, \u201cMen mark the hits, but not the misses,\u201d and a thousand dreams\nunfulfilled count as nothing against one dream fulfilled. Out of that is\nshaped, as dream-lore shows, a canon of interpretation by which whole\nraces will explain their dreams, never staying, when experience happens to\nconfirm it, to wonder that the correspondences are not more frequent than\nthey are. Where the arbitrary act was wrought, the isolated or conflicting\ninfluences manifest, there deity or demon was working. So the passage from\nthe crude interpretation of his dreams by the barbarian to the formal\nelaboration of the dream-oracle is obvious. It was only one of many modes\nby which the gods were thought to hold converse with man, and by which\ntheir will was divined. It was one phase of that many-sided belief in\npower for good or evil inhering in everything, and which led man to see\nomens in the common events of life, in births, in the objects any one met\nin a journey or saw in the sky; to divine the future by numbers, by the\nlines in the hand, by the song and flight of birds (lurking in the word\n_augury_), by the entrails of sacrificed men and animals.[100] Sometimes\nthe god sends the message through a spiritual being, an angel (literally\n\u201cmessenger\u201d); sometimes he, himself, speaks in vision, but more often\nthrough the symbolism of both familiar and unfamiliar things. To interpret\nthis is a serious science, and skill and shrewdness applied therein with\nsuccess were passports to high place and royal favour. In this we have the\nfamiliar illustrations of Joseph and Daniel, and, indeed, we need not\ntravel beyond the books of the Old Testament for abundant and varied\nexamples of the importance attached to dreams and visions, and of the\nplace accorded to dreams,[101] an importance undiminished until we come to\nthe literature of the centuries just before Christ. For example, in the\nBook of Jesus the Son of Sirac, we read--\n\n  \u201cVain and deceitful hopes befit the senseless man,\n   And dreams make fools rejoice,\n   Like one who grasps at a shadow and chases the wind,\n   Is he who puts trust in dreams.\u201d[102]\n\nIn the belief that through dreams and oracles Yahweh made known his will,\nthe influence of older beliefs and their literature is apparent. Among the\nAccadians, a pre-Semitic race in Babylonia, there existed a mass of\ntreatises on magic and divination by dreams and visions, and both from\nthis and from Egyptian sources, blended with survivals from their barbaric\npast, the Hebrews largely drew.\n\nIn this, too, \u201cthere is nothing new under the sun.\u201d Homer, painting the\nvividness and agonising incompleteness of the passing visions, affirms\nthat dreams from Jove proceed, although sometimes to deceive men; Plato\nassigns prophetic character to the images seen in them; Aristotle sees a\ndivination concerning some things in dreams which is not incredible; the\nanswer to oracles was sought in them, as when the worshipper slept in a\ntemple on the skin of a sacrificed ram, and learned his destiny through\nthe dream that came. The Stoics argued that if the gods love and care for\nmen and are all-knowing, they will tell their purposes to men in sleep.\nCicero attaches high importance to the faculty of interpreting them; their\nphenomena, like those of oracles and predictions, should, he contends, be\nexplained just as the grammarians and the commentators explain the\npoets.[103]\n\nWith the influence of these beliefs in the air, and with the\nlegend-visions of Scripture as authority, the divine origin of dreams\nbecame a doctrine of the Christian Church. Tertullian says that \u201cwe\nreceive dreams from God, there being no man so foolish as never to have\nknown any dreams come true,\u201d and in his _De Anima_ reference is made to a\nhost of writers of dream treatises. For the most part they are but names;\ntheir treatises have perished, but enough remains for the perusal of the\ncurious regarding ancient rules of interpretation and the particular\nsignificance of certain dreams. The current views of dreams in classic\nantiquity are believed to be partly embodied in the \u2019\u039f\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u2019 of\nArtemidorus of Ephesus, who flourished about the middle of the second\ncentury, and who reduces dream interpretation to a body of elaborate\nrules, while amongst Christian writers Synesius of Cyrene, who lived two\ncenturies later, holds a corresponding place.\n\nBoth classic and patristic writers supply copious details concerning the\nclasses into which dreams were divided, and which have some curious\ncorrespondences among the Oriental nations, as well as in our dream-lore,\n_e.g._, when Artemidorus says that he who dreams he hath lost a tooth\nshall lose a friend, we may compare with this a quotation which Brand\ngives from the _Sapho and Phao_ of Lily, a playwright of the time of\nElizabeth. \u201cDreams have their trueth. Dreams are but dotings, which come\neither by things we see in the day or meates that we eat, and so the\ncommon-sense preferring it to be the imaginative. \u2018I dreamed,\u2019 says\nIsmena, \u2018mine eyetooth was loose, and that I thrust it out with my\ntongue.\u2019 \u2018It foretelleth,\u2019 replies Mileta, \u2018the loss of a friend; and I\never thought thee so full of prattle that thou wouldst thrust out the best\nfriend with thy tatling.\u2019\u201d\n\nIt is, however, needless to quote from Artemidorus and others of their\nkin. They do but furnish samples of the ingenuity applied to profitless\nspeculations on matters which were fundamental then, and around which the\nmind played unchecked and unchallenged. Moreover, the subtle distinctions\nmade between dreams in former times were slowly effaced, or sank to their\nproper level in the gossip of chap books--our European _kee-ke\u00e9-wins_. But\nthe belief in the dream as having a serious meaning, and in the spectral\nappearances in visions as real existences, remained as strong as in any\nbarbarian or pagan. In an atmosphere charged with the supernatural,\napparitions and the like were matters of course, the particular form of\nthe illusion to which the senses testified being in harmony with the ideas\nof the age. The devil does not appear to Greek or Roman, but he sorely\ntroubled the saints, unless their nerves were, like Luther\u2019s, strong\nenough to overmaster him. Luther speaks of him as coming into his cell,\nand making a great noise behind the stove, and of his walking in the\ncloister above his cell at night; \u201cbut as I knew it was the devil,\u201d he\nsays, \u201cI paid no attention to him, and went to sleep.\u201d Sceptics now and\nagain arose protesting against the current belief, but they were as a\nvoice crying in the desert. One Henry Cornelius Agrippa, in the fifteenth\ncentury, a man born out of due time, says, \u201cTo this delusion not a few\ngreat philosophers have given not a little credit, especially Democritus,\nAristotle, Sincsius, etc., so far building on examples of dreams, which\nsome accident hath made to be true, that thence they endeavour to persuade\nmen that there are no dreams but what are real.\u201d\n\nHis words have not yet lost their purport. For the credulity of man, the\npersistence with which he clings to the shadow of the supernatural after\nhaving surrendered the substance, seem almost a constant quantity, varying\nonly in form. Unteachable by experience, fools still pay their guineas to\nmediums to rap out inane messages from the departed, and send postage\nstamps to the Astronomer Royal, asking him to \u201cwork the planets\u201d for them,\nand secure them luck in love and law-suits. Nor is there any cure for this\nbut in wise culture of the mind, wise correction, and wholesome control of\nthe emotions. \u201cBy faithfully intending the mind to the realities of\nnature,\u201d as Bacon has it, and by living and working among men in a\nhealthy, sympathetic way, exaggeration of a particular line of thought or\nfeeling is prevented, and the balance of the faculties best preserved.\nFor, adds Dr. Maudsley, in pregnant and well-chosen words, \u201cthere are not\ntwo worlds--a world of nature and a world of human nature--standing over\nagainst one another in a sort of antagonism, but one world of nature, in\nthe orderly evolution of which human nature has its subordinate part.\nDelusions and hallucinations may be described as discordant notes in the\ngrand harmony. It should, then, be every man\u2019s steadfast aim, as a part of\nnature--his patient work--to cultivate such entire sincerity of relations\nwith it; so to think, feel, and act always in intimate unison with it; to\nbe so completely one with it in life, that when the summons comes to\nsurrender his mortal part to absorption into it, he does so, not\nfearfully, as to an enemy who has vanquished him, but trustfully, as to a\nmother who, when the day\u2019s task is done, bids him lie down to sleep.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n  Abipone, 15, 151, 156.\n\n  Abraham, 135.\n\n  Accadians, 134, 240.\n\n  \u00c6sop, 96.\n\n  Agassiz, 208.\n\n  Agni, 74.\n\n  Agrippa, Cornelius, 243.\n\n  Ahriman, 54.\n\n  Alger, 208.\n\n  Algonquins, 40, 43, 46, 91, 99, 110, 125, 167, 184, 203, 211, 216.\n\n  Allah, 159.\n\n  Ancestors, sun and moon as, 19.\n    worship of, 110, 112, 214.\n\n  Ancient Stone Age, 8.\n\n  Animal, descent from, 99.\n    worship, 110.\n\n  Animals, transformation into, 81.\n    virtue in flesh of, 164.\n    souls in, 207.\n\n  Apollo, 52.\n\n  Arabian folk-tales, 196.\n    notion of soul, 202.\n\n  Araucanians, 43, 163.\n\n  Arnobius, 167.\n\n  Arnold, Matthew, 14, 227.\n\n  Art, primitive, 147.\n\n  Artemidorus, 241.\n\n  Arthur, King, 123.\n\n  Aryan epics, 71.\n\n  Aryan folk-tales, 70, 95.\n    languages, 67.\n    myths, 51, 76.\n\n  Aryans, primitive home of, 69.\n\n  Astrology, 33.\n\n  Australians, 20, 26, 30, 99, 103, 150, 153, 157, 165, 179, 198, 205.\n\n  Aztecs, 44, 199, 210.\n\n\n  Barbaric belief in dreams, 168-174.\n    belief in souls in brutes, etc., 207-213.\n    belief in virtue in lifeless things, 12, 160-168, 181.\n    confusion about names, 154-159.\n    cures for disease, 179.\n    dread of portrait-taking, 162.\n    language, 150.\n    notions of soul\u2019s abode, 215-222.\n    theory of disease, 174, 182.\n    theory of a soul, 182-187.\n    theory of soul\u2019s nature, 198-206.\n\n  Baring Gould, 28, 84.\n\n  Basutos, 184.\n\n  Beast-fables, 94, 98.\n\n  Beowulf, 52.\n\n  Berserkr, 87.\n\n  Bifr\u00f6st, 33.\n\n  Bird, soul as, 210.\n    wind as, 43-45.\n\n  Body, soul apart from, 188.\n    soul as replica of, 205.\n\n  Bohemian folk-tale, 195.\n\n  Bonaparte, 64.\n\n  Brain of man and ape, 144.\n\n  Brand, 17, 166, 241.\n\n  Brazilian Indians, 153, 156, 175.\n\n  Breath, soul as, 187, 198 ff.\n\n  Br\u00e9beuf, 165.\n\n  Brinton, 45, 92, 101, 210.\n\n  Brutes, souls in, 207.\n\n  Bryant, 7.\n\n  Buckle, 3.\n\n  Buddha, 64.\n\n  Buddhist fables (_see_ J\u00e2takas).\n\n  Bunsen, 132.\n\n  Bushmen, 13, 20, 26.\n\n\n  C\u00e6sar, 106.\n\n  Callaway, Bishop, 170.\n\n  Campbell, J. F., 193.\n\n  Cannibalism, 165.\n\n  Cardinal points, symbol of, 44.\n\n  Caribs, 167.\n\n  Carpenter, Dr., 88, 232.\n\n  Catlin, 162.\n\n  Charlemagne, 125.\n\n  Charles\u2019s Wain, 30.\n\n  Charms, philosophy of, 164.\n\n  Chasuble, 167.\n\n  Chaucer, 28, 32.\n\n  Child and savage, 14.\n\n  Chimpanzee, brain of, 145.\n\n  Chinese myth, 16, 36.\n\n  Choctaws, 42, 184.\n\n  Christian heaven, 220.\n    religion, 231.\n\n  Cicero, 240.\n\n  Civilised theories of soul\u2019s nature, 198, 203.\n\n  Clan-totems, 107, 109.\n\n  Cloud-serpent, 46.\n\n  Clouds as cows, 51.\n\n  Confession, 181.\n\n  Congo Negroes, 202.\n\n  Continuity, doctrine of, 228, 231.\n\n  Coral, 166.\n\n  Costa Ricans, 216, 234.\n\n  Counting, savage, 153.\n\n  Cox, Sir G. W., 37, 62, 75, 198.\n\n  Crest, totem as, 108.\n\n  Cronus, 35, 37.\n\n  Cross as wind symbol, 44.\n\n  _Custom and Myth_, 38.\n\n\n  Dakotas, 31, 46, 106, 175, 199, 213.\n\n  Dammaras, 151.\n\n  Darwin, 3, 230.\n\n  Dasent, 91, 121.\n\n  Dead, burial of food with, 212.\n    road of the, 32.\n\n  Death, savage notion of, 186.\n\n  Demons, 58, 178.\n\n  Dennys, 15.\n\n  Deodand, 15.\n\n  Devil, 53, 56, 60.\n    as disease-bringer, 176.\n\n  Disease, savage theory of, 89, 174 ff.\n    savage remedies for, 179.\n\n  Doctrine of signatures, 166.\n\n  Dorman, 42, 157, 209.\n\n  Dragons, battles with, 52.\n\n  Dreams as source of belief in soul, 183, 225.\n\n  Dreams, duality in, 183.\n    savage belief in reality of, 168-174.\n    omens from, 236-242.\n\n  Dyaks, 17, 25, 159, 171.\n\n  Dyaus, 36, 74.\n\n\n  Earth as source of heaven-theories, 219.\n\n  Earth-bearers, 40.\n\n  Echo, soul as, 185.\n\n  _Edda_, 15, 29, 33, 43, 52.\n\n  Effigy, burning in, 16.\n\n  Egg, world as, 38.\n\n  Ego, the, 232.\n\n  Egyptian folk-tale, 197.\n\n  Epics, Aryan, 71.\n\n  Epidemic delusions, 88.\n\n  Eskimos, 30, 91, 153, 163, 179, 199, 217, 237.\n\n  Esthonian myth, 39.\n\n  Euh\u00eameros, 66.\n\n  Eumenid\u00eas, 159.\n\n  Evolution, 144.\n    of mind, 5, 228.\n\n  Exile, Jewish, 134.\n\n  Exogamy, 104.\n\n  Eye-bright, 15, 166.\n\n\n  Fasting, 237.\n\n  Fijians, 171, 177, 184, 211.\n\n  Fingers in counting, 153.\n\n  Finnish myth, 16, 32, 38, 43, 45, 121, 176, 196, 219.\n\n  Finns, 159, 173.\n\n  Fire myths, 47.\n\n  Food, forbidden, 105.\n\n  Foster, Thomas, 63.\n\n  Frisian moon myth, 28.\n\n\n  Gaea, 35.\n\n  Galton, 151.\n\n  Gellert myth, 128.\n\n  Gender, origin of, 22.\n\n  _Gesta Romanorum_, 128.\n\n  Giant with no heart in his body, 192.\n\n  Gill, W. W., 20, 47, 177.\n\n  Gladstone, W. E., 7.\n\n  Gods, revelation from, through dreams, 239.\n\n  Goldziher, 62, 64, 135.\n\n  Greek myth, 33, 77.\n    notion of soul, 202.\n\n  Greenlanders, 27, 164, 171, 201, 212.\n\n  Grimm, 27, 30, 32, 55, 97, 178, 181, 201, 209, 210.\n\n  Grimm\u2019s Law, 73.\n\n  Grote, 14.\n\n\n  Hades, 220.\n\n  Hall, Bishop, 18.\n\n  Heaven, 19.\n    imagery of, 221.\n    and earth, myths of, 34.\n\n  Hebrew myth, 33, 39, 64, 131-136.\n    notion of soul, 206.\n\n  Hell, 220.\n\n  Herakl\u00eas, 22, 31, 51, 63, 136.\n\n  H\u00ear\u00ea, 31.\n\n  Hiawatha, 158.\n\n  Hidatsa Indians, 235.\n\n  History, myth in, 114.\n\n  _Hitopadesa_, 129.\n\n  Holmes, 183.\n\n  Homer, 240.\n\n  Hottentot, 217.\n\n  Huc, Father, 181.\n\n  Hurricane, 199.\n\n  Huxley, 145, 228.\n\n\n  Icelandic moon myth, 28.\n\n  Iliad, 55, 64, 205.\n\n  Ilmarine, 39.\n\n  Im Thurn, 156, 171, 207.\n\n  Inanimate things, criminality of, 15.\n    sex in, 24.\n    souls in, 211.\n\n  Incas, 45.\n\n  _Indian Fairy Tales_, 191.\n\n  Indians, Columbian, 155.\n    Housatonic, 31.\n    North American, 13, 17, 21, 26, 30, 151, 156, 162, 164, 175, 199, 207,\n        212, 216, 219, 235, 237.\n    of Guiana, 156, 171.\n    Selish, 27.\n    Western, 46, 107.\n\n  Indra, 49, 53.\n\n  Iroquois, 156, 165, 167.\n\n  Isaac, 135.\n\n  Islam, 33.\n\n\n  Jack and Jill, 28.\n\n  Japanese myth, 40.\n\n  J\u00e2takas, 27, 96, 129, 192.\n\n  Jehovah, 159.\n\n  Johnson, Dr., 183.\n\n  Jonah, 136.\n\n\n  Kaffirs, 13, 164.\n\n  _Kalevala_, 38.\n\n  _Kalevip\u00f6eg_, 39.\n\n  Kane, Dr., 155.\n\n  Kasirs, 30.\n\n  Kenaima, 175.\n\n  Khasias moon myth, 27.\n\n  Kinship, primitive, 102.\n\n  Kirby, 196.\n\n  Kuhn, 41.\n\n\n  Lancashire folk-lore, 177, 204.\n\n  Lang, Andrew, 37, 166, 205.\n\n  Lang, Dr., 157.\n\n  Language, personification of, 24.\n    physical base of, 150.\n    primitive, 149.\n\n  Languages, savage, 23.\n    limitations of, 150.\n\n  Lapps, 156, 159, 201.\n\n  Leland, 44.\n\n  Lightning myths, 47.\n\n  Lithuanian, 32.\n\n  Living and not living, savage confusion between, 12, 160-168, 181.\n\n  Llewellyn myth, 128.\n\n  Lucretius, 169.\n\n  Luther, 242.\n\n  Lycanthropy, 83.\n\n  Lyell, 145.\n\n\n  Malays, 150.\n\n  Man, mental development of, 147, 228.\n    primitive interpretation of nature by, 10.\n    relation of, to nature, 4, 228.\n    savage and civilised, 144.\n\n  Manacicas, 20.\n\n  _Manes_, 212.\n\n  Maoris, 34.\n\n  Mapuches, 180.\n\n  Marriage, primitive, 103.\n\n  Maruts, 44, 53.\n\n  Matthews, Washington, 235.\n\n  Maudsley, Dr., 243.\n\n  Maui, sun-catcher, 21.\n    fire-bringer, 47.\n\n  M\u2019Lennan, 102, 104.\n\n  Medicine-men, 92, 99, 237.\n\n  Melanesian, 166.\n\n  Men-beasts, 86.\n\n  Metamorphosis, 81.\n\n  Metempsychosis, 82.\n\n  Mexicans, 212.\n\n  Milky Way, 31, 222.\n\n  Mind, evolution of, 5, 228.\n\n  Mivart, 233.\n\n  Mohawk, 199.\n\n  Mohicans, 150.\n\n  Mongolian moon myth, 27.\n\n  Mongols, 150.\n\n  Moon, as mother, 25.\n    as sun\u2019s sister, 26.\n    man in the, 28.\n    myths, 10, 19, 20.\n    patches, 27.\n\n  Moquis, 99, 102, 110.\n\n  M\u00fcller, Max, 37, 49, 56, 62, 66, 68, 111, 158.\n\n  Multiple souls, 234.\n\n  Myth in history, 114.\n    origin of, 17.\n    primitive meaning of, 3, 10.\n    serious meaning in, 7.\n    solar theory of, 61-81.\n    value of study of, 138.\n\n  Myths of Creation, 38.\n    earth-bearers, 40.\n    fire-stealers, 47.\n    heaven and earth, 34.\n    lightning, 47.\n    Milky Way, 31.\n    moon, 20, 27.\n    Northern Lights, 31.\n    rainbow, 32, 33.\n    stars, 30.\n    sun, 19, 21.\n    swallowing, 36.\n    wind, 42-45.\n\n\n  Names, savage dread of, 104.\n    savage confusion about, 154-159.\n\n  Napoleon III., will of, 113.\n\n  New Zealanders, 13, 15, 30, 158, 164.\n\n  Niebuhr, 65.\n\n  Nightmare, 171.\n\n  Non-Aryan, brain of, 144.\n    races, languages of, 201.\n\n  _Norse, Tales from the_, 192.\n\n  Northern Lights, 31.\n\n\n  Odin, 30, 44, 202.\n\n  Ogres, 44.\n\n  Ojibways, 42, 110, 155, 209, 212, 217.\n\n  _Old Deccan Days_, 188.\n\n  Omens, dreams as, 236-242.\n\n  Oracles, 240.\n\n  Origin of gender, 22.\n    moon, 20.\n    myth, 7.\n    religion, 111.\n    sun, 19.\n\n  Orion, 30.\n\n  Ormuzd, 54.\n\n  Other self, barbaric theory of, 183.\n    conceived as breath, 187, 199.\n    passage from within to without, 185.\n\n  Ottawas, 31.\n\n  Ouranos, 74.\n\n  Ovid, 85.\n\n\n  Paget, Sir J., 230.\n\n  _Panchatantra_, 129.\n\n  Papa, 19, 34.\n\n  Papuan, brain of, 145.\n\n  Patagonians, 31.\n\n  Persians, 25, 33, 57.\n\n  Picture-writing, 107.\n\n  Plant, descent from, 99.\n\n  Plants, souls in, 208.\n\n  Pleiades, 30.\n\n  Pocahontas, 158.\n\n  Polynesians, 38, 163.\n\n  Prithiv\u00ee, 36.\n\n  Prytaneum, 15.\n\n  Psychical Research, Society of, 217.\n\n  Punchkin, 188 ff.\n\n\n  Quiches, 42, 199.\n\n\n  Ra, 21.\n\n  Rae, Dr., 153.\n\n  Rain, gender in, 25.\n\n  Rainbow, 32.\n\n  Ralston, 194.\n\n  Rangi, 34.\n\n  Religion, origin of, 111.\n\n  R\u00e9nan, 132.\n\n  R\u00e9ville, 214.\n\n  Reynard the fox, 97, 181.\n\n  _Rig-Veda_, 44, 49, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80.\n\n  Rink, Dr., 165.\n\n  Road of the dead, 32.\n\n  Roman notion of soul, 202.\n\n  Rossetti, 17, 202.\n\n  _Russian Folk-Tales_, 194.\n\n\n  St. George, 53.\n\n  Saliva, virtue in, 16, 163.\n\n  Samoan moon myth, 27.\n\n  Samoyed folk-tale, 196.\n\n  Samson, myth of, 137.\n\n  San Graal, 126.\n\n  Sanskrit, 72.\n\n  Satan, 57.\n\n  Savage and civilised man, 144.\n    belief in dreams, 168-174.\n    confusion between living and not living, 13, 160-168.\n    confusion between names and things, 105, 155.\n    cures for disease, 179.\n    interpretation of nature, 10.\n    languages, 23, 150.\n    mode of counting, 152.\n    theory of disease, 89, 174-182.\n    theory of soul, 182-187.\n    theory of soul\u2019s abode, 215-222.\n    theory of soul\u2019s nature, 198-207.\n\n  Science, progress of, 230.\n\n  Seminoles, 203.\n\n  Semitic languages, 159.\n    myth, 132.\n\n  Senses, illusions of the, 39, 226.\n\n  Servian folk-tale, 195.\n\n  Shadow, soul as, 184.\n\n  Shawnee name myth, 157.\n\n  Sheol, 206, 220.\n\n  Sioux, 47, 162.\n\n  Skulls, capacity of, 145.\n\n  Slavonic sun myth, 26.\n\n  Sleeping heroes, 124.\n\n  Smith, Adam, 151.\n\n  Sneezing, 177.\n\n  Society Islanders, 150.\n\n  Solar theory of myth, 61-81.\n\n  Sonora Indians, 185.\n\n  Sorcerers, 163.\n\n  Soul, absence in disease, 178.\n    absence in dreams, 171.\n    as breath, 187, 199 ff.\n    as shadow, etc., 184.\n    barbaric theory of, 182-187, 225, 234.\n    dwelling-place of, 215-222.\n    in brutes, plants, etc., 207.\n    occupation of, 216.\n    tales of, apart from body, 188 ff.\n    theories of nature of, 198-207, 234.\n    transfer of, 203.\n    weight of, 207.\n\n  South Sea Islanders, 158, 163, 185.\n\n  Spencer, Herbert, 110, 149, 183, 214.\n\n  Spirit as breath, 200.\n\n  Spirits, offerings to, 213 (see also Soul).\n\n  Star myths, 30.\n\n  Stars as persons, 20, 25.\n\n  Storm-gods, 44.\n\n  Sun as ancestor, 19, 20.\n    as father, 25.\n    capture of, 21.\n    myths, 10, 19, 51.\n\n  Swedenborgians, 234.\n\n  Swift, Dean, 73, 166.\n\n\n  Taboo of names, 158.\n\n  Tacitus, 16, 106.\n\n  Tahitians, 158.\n\n  T\u00e1kahlis, 203.\n\n  _Talmud_, 178.\n\n  Tasmanians, 150.\n\n  Tatar folk-tale, 196.\n\n  Tell myth, 116 ff.\n\n  Tertullian, 241.\n\n  Thor, 46, 52, 60.\n\n  Thunder-bird, 46.\n\n  To be, the verb, 151.\n\n  Tools, primitive, 147.\n\n  Toothache, 175, 179.\n\n  Totemism, 99, 102, 237.\n\n  Totems as badge, 107.\n    as crest, 108.\n    Red Indian, 100.\n    worship of, 110.\n\n  Tongans, 19, 201, 234.\n\n  Tonkanays, 92.\n\n  Transformation, 85, 91.\n\n  Treacle, 16.\n\n  Tree, criminality of, 15.\n\n  Trees, soul in, 209.\n\n  Trench, Archbishop, 137.\n\n  Troyes, Courts of, 15.\n\n  Tylor, 14, 25, 65, 165, 199, 202, 205, 207.\n\n  Tyrolese, 164.\n\n\n  Underworld, 220.\n\n  _Unseen Universe_, 233.\n\n  Uranus, 35.\n\n\n  Varuna, 74.\n\n  Vatea, 19.\n\n  _Vatnsd\u00e6la Saga_, 173.\n\n  _Veda_ (see _Rig-Veda_).\n\n  _Vinaya Pitaka_, 129.\n\n  Vritra, 49, 53, 60.\n\n\n  Waitz, 205.\n\n  Wandering Jew, 31.\n\n  Water between earth and heaven, 219.\n\n  Watling Street, 32.\n\n  Werewolves, 84, 86, 91.\n\n  West, soul abode in, 219.\n\n  Whitney, 151.\n\n  Wind, myths of, 42-45.\n    soul as, 199.\n\n  Witchcraft, 58.\n\n  Witches, 83, 91.\n\n  World as egg, 38.\n\n  Worship of ancestors, 110, 214.\n\n\n  Xomanes, 167.\n\n\n  Yahweh, 55, 57, 159.\n\n\n  _Zend-Avesta_, 54.\n\n  Zeus, 33, 36, 55, 74, 85.\n\n  Zoroaster, 56.\n\n  Zulu, 170, 184.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Buckle\u2019s work appeared in 1857, Darwin\u2019s in 1859.\n\n[2] Matthew Arnold, _Empedocles on Etna_.\n\n[3] Countess Cesaresco\u2019s _Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs_, p. 183.\n\n[4] _The Folk-Lore of China_, p. 52.\n\n[5] Mark vii. 33, John ix. 6. Cf. Tacitus, _Hist._ iv. 81--\u201cA certain man\nof the Alexandrian populace afflicted with wasted eyes kept imploring the\nprince to deign to spatter saliva on his cheek and eyeballs.\u201d In Finnish\nmyth the demon Hiisi forms a huge snake from the spittle of a\nfellow-demon. Cf. also Thomson\u2019s _Masai Land_, pp. 288-290.\n\n[6] Henderson\u2019s _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 229; cf. Horace,\n_Sat._ i. 8, 30; Frazer\u2019s _Golden Bough_, i. 9; Scot\u2019s _Discoverie of\nWitchcraft_, p. 208.\n\n[7] Grimm, _T. M._, 356, 357.\n\n[8] II. 427.\n\n[9] Page xvi.\n\n[10] _Custom and Myth_, pp. 49, 50. While these sheets are passing through\nthe press I am glad to take occasion to commend Mr. Lang\u2019s scholarly and\nfascinating book to the reader. As an explanation of the survival of crude\nand irrational elements in the myths of civilised races, it is a book to\nbe reckoned with by the advocates of the solar theory.\n\n[11] \u201cAnd said the gods, let there be a hammered plate in the midst of the\nwaters, and let it be dividing between waters and waters.\u201d Gen. i. 6. The\nverb from which the substantive is derived signifies, among other\nmeanings, \u201cto beat out into thin plates.\u201d\n\n[12] Gen. viii. 2.\n\n[13] Gen. xxviii. 17.\n\n[14] Ezek. i. 1.\n\n[15] _Modern Painters_, iii. 154.\n\n[16] Dorman\u2019s _Primitive Superstitions_, p. 350.\n\n[17] Leland\u2019s _Algonquin Legends_, pp. 111, 204.\n\n[18] From Sans. _mar_, to \u201cgrind.\u201d Ares and Mars come from the same root.\n\n[19] _Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iv. sc. 4.\n\n[20] In Finnish myth the dwarfs punish with pimples and ringworm those who\nenter new houses without bowing to the four corners.\n\n[21] Both \u201cpecuniary\u201d and \u201cfee\u201d are, as established by Grimm\u2019s law, from\n_pecu_. Latin _pecu-a_, pl. _pecus_, \u201ccattle\u201d; Sanskrit _pa\u00e7u_, \u201ccattle,\u201d\nfrom _pac_, to fasten (that which is tied up, _i.e._ domestic cattle). Cf.\nSkeats\u2019 _Etymol. Dict._ _in loc._ A.S. _feoh_ is cognate with German\n_vich_, and the ideas these express occur in _kt\u0113ma_, the Greek word for\n\u201cproperty,\u201d which Grimm derives from the verb _keto_, \u201cto feed cattle.\u201d\n\n[22] Not the same as the Greek Herakl\u00eas. The similarity of name led the\nRomans to identify their Hercules, who was a god of boundaries, like\nJupiter Terminus, with the Greek hero. _Cacus_ is not cognate with Greek\n_kakos_, bad, but was originally _C\u00e6cius_, the \u201cblinder\u201d or \u201cdarkener.\u201d\n\n[23] _Decline and Fall_, iii. 171; Emerson\u2019s _English Traits_, p. 123.\n\n[24] See Ralston\u2019s _Russian Folk-Tales_, p. 347, for similar Bulgarian\nlegend about St. George.\n\n[25] Haug\u2019s _Essays on the Parsis_, tr. Vendid\u00e2d, pp. 225 ff.\n\n[26] Cf. Isaiah xlv. 7, 1 Kings xxii. 21-23, Amos iii. 6.\n\n[27] _Iliad_, Book xxiv. 663 ff., and cf. Lang\u2019s tr., p. 494.\n\n[28] _Vide_ my _Jesus of Nazareth_, p. 144.\n\n[29] Notably _Tobit_ and _Baruch_, and cf. _Book of Wisdom_, ii. 24, for\nearliest indications of the belief. The Asmodeus of _Tobit_, iii. 8 and\n17, appears to be the Aeshm\u00f4 d\u00e2ev\u00f4 of the Zend-Avesta.\n\n[30] Exodus xxii. 18.\n\n[31] For details of witch trials in this island cf. Mrs. Lynn Linton\u2019s\n_Witch Stories_, passim.\n\n[32] _Knowledge Library._\n\n[33] Vide _Chips_, ii. 1-146.\n\n[34] Cf. Professor Keane\u2019s Appendix to Sir A. C. Ramsay\u2019s _Europe_, p. 557\n\n[35] Cf. \u201cLittle Saddlehurst\u201d in Mr. Geldart\u2019s _Folk-Lore of Modern\nGreece_, p. 27.\n\n[36] Cf. on this matter Whitney\u2019s _Oriental and Linguistic Studies_, p.\n203.\n\n[37] _Mythology of the Aryan Nations_, i. 108.\n\n[38] _Mental Physiology_, p. 315.\n\n[39] Spenser says--\n\n  \u201cSuch, men do _changelings_ call, so changed by fairies\u2019 theft.\u201d\n\n[40] An Algonquin legend begins: \u201cIn old times, in the beginning of\nthings, men were as animals and animals as men; how this was, no one\nknows.\u201d--Leland\u2019s _Algonquin Legends_, p. 31.\n\n[41] And cf. Bourke\u2019s _Snake Dance of the Moquis_, passim.\n\n[42] Cf. Mahaffy\u2019s _Prolegomena to Ancient History_, p. 392.\n\n[43] Vol. i., Tr\u00fcbner and Co. See for some valuable illustrations from\nearly English and other sources an article by Rev. Dr. Morris, in\n_Contemp. Rev._, May 1881, and the _Folk-Lore Journal_, 1884-85, for\ntranslations of J\u00e2takas, also by Dr. Morris.\n\n[44] _Travels in N.W. and W. Australia_, ii. 229.\n\n[45] Bourke\u2019s _Snake Dance of the Moquis_, p. 136.\n\n[46] Cf. Art. \u201cFamily,\u201d _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_.\n\n[47] _De Bell. Gall._, v. c. 12.\n\n[48] _Elton\u2019s Origins of English History_, p. 297.\n\n[49] _Germania_, ix. 10.\n\n[50] _Principles of Sociology_, p. 413.\n\n[51] _Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1869, p. 134. Article on Rilliet\u2019s \u201cOrigines\nde la Conf\u00e9d\u00e9ration Suisse: Histoire et L\u00e9gende.\u201d\n\n[52] _Times\u2019_ telegram from Geneva, June 25, 1883.\n\n[53] Book x. p. 166. Cf. Baring Gould\u2019s _Curious Myths_, p. 117, and\nFiske\u2019s _Myths and Myth-makers_, p. 4.\n\n[54] Baring Gould, p. 119.\n\n[55] Cf. Prof. Rhys\u2019s _Arthurian Legend_, _passim_.\n\n[56] _Academy_, Nov. 17, 1877, p. 472.\n\n[57] _Mythology among the Hebrews, and its Historical Development_\n(London: Longmans), 1877.\n\n[58] _Goldziher_, p. 392 ff.\n\n[59] _Ibid._, p. 103.\n\n[60] The following paragraph from Professor Huxley\u2019s _Observations on the\nHuman Skulls of Engis and Neanderthal_ is extracted from Lyell\u2019s\n_Antiquity of Man_, p. 89 (4th edition).\n\n\u201cThe most capacious healthy European skull yet measured had a capacity of\n114 cubic inches, the smallest (as estimated by weight of brain) about 55\ncubic inches, while, according to Professor Schaaffhausen, some Hindu\nskulls have as small a capacity as about 46 cubic inches (27 oz. of\nwater). The largest cranium of any gorilla yet measured contained 34.5\ncubic inches.\u201d\n\nCommenting on this paper Sir Charles Lyell remarks that \u201cit is admitted\nthat the differences in character between the brain of the highest races\nof man and that of the lowest, though less in degree, are of the same\norder as those which separate the human from the Simian brain,\u201d and that\nthe statements of both Professor Huxley and Dr. Morton show \u201cthat the\nrange of size or capacity between the highest and lowest human brain is\ngreater than that between the highest Simian and the lowest human brain.\u201d\n\n[61] Spencer\u2019s _Principles of Sociology_, p. 147.\n\n[62] The peculiar feature of the Semitic languages is that the consonants\nare everything and the vowels nothing, every word consisting, in the first\ninstance, merely of three consonants, which form, so to speak, the soul of\nthe idea to be expressed by that word. And as in ancient times the\nconsonants only were written, the name Jehovah appeared as JHVH. Its exact\npronunciation is utterly lost, and such veneration gathered round it, that\nwhen the Jews came to it they substituted some other name--usually Adonai.\nAfterwards, when vowels were added to the Hebrew text, those in Adonai, or\nits phonetic form Edona, were inserted between the letters of the sacred\nname, and thus JHVH was written Jehovah.\n\n[63] Rink\u2019s _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_, p. 45.\n\n[64] Vide _Custom and Myth_; Art. \u201cMoly and Mandragora,\u201d p. 146.\n\n[65] _Popular Antiquities_, ii. 85.\n\n[66] Dyers _Folk-Lore_, p. 179.\n\n[67] Arnobius _adv. Gentes._, v. 19.\n\n[68] _De rerum Natura_, Book iv. 453-468.\n\n[69] According to Professor Skeat, from A.S. _niht_, night; _mara_, lit.\n\u201ca crusher,\u201d from Aryan root, MAR, to crush. Cf. _Etymol. Dict._\n\n[70] _Among the Indians of Guiana_, pp. 344-346.\n\n[71] W. G. Black: _Folk-Medicine_, p. 13.\n\n[72] _Teut. Mythol._, 1165.\n\n[73] Cf. Grimm, _Teut. Mythol._ 1177.\n\n[74] \u201cVoil\u00e0 autant de rapports que les Bouddhistes ont avec nous,\u201d adds\nthe traveller, for hinting at which analogies between Buddhists and\nCatholics the Pope put his book on the Index.\n\n[75] In a Finnish legend, which is the subject of Southey\u2019s \u201cDonica,\u201d a\nmaiden of that name moves about seemingly alive after her death in virtue\nof a parchment as magic spell, which is fastened to her wrist, until a\nsorcerer finds out the secret of the connection and unfastens the\nparchment, when the counterfeit life departs.\n\n[76] _Mythology of the Aryan Nations_, i. 140.\n\n[77] Brinton\u2019s _Myths of the New World_, p. 51 (second edition).\n\n[78] I am indebted to the Rev. Richard Morris for this reference.\n\n[79] Jacob Grimm remarks that whilst the more palpable breath, as spirit,\nis masculine, the living, life-giving soul is treated as a delicate\nfeminine essence. _Soul_ is the Icelandic _s\u00e1la_, German _seele_, Gothic\n_saiwala_, akin to _saivs_, which means \u201cthe sea.\u201d _Saivs_ is from a root,\n_si_, or _siv_, the Greek _seio_, to shake, and this choice of the word\n_saivala_ may indicate that the ancient Teutons conceived of the soul \u201cas\na sea within, heaving up and down with every breath, and reflecting heaven\nand earth on the mirror of the deep.\u201d--_T. M._ p. 826.\n\n[80] _Prim. Culture_, i. 412.\n\n[81] _Brinton_, p. 271.\n\n[82] _Iliad_, xxiii. 103 (trans. Lang and others).\n\n[83] Cf. Lecky\u2019s _History of Rationalism_, i. 340.\n\n[84] _Prim. Culture_, i. 411. See _Soul Shapes_ (Fisher Unwin, 1890).\n\n[85] \u201cTo the ear of the savage, animals certainly seem even to talk. This\nfact is universally evident, and ought to be fully realised.\u201d--Im Thurn\u2019s\n_Guiana_, p. 351.\n\n[86] _Dorman_, pp. 287, 288.\n\n[87] Grimm\u2019s _Teutonic Mythology_, p. 827.\n\n[88] Cox and Jones, _Popular Romances_, p. 139.\n\n[89] _Brinton_, p. 107.\n\n[90] Cf. _Ante_, pp. 110-114.\n\n[91] More correctly, \u201cthat engenders it.\u201d\n\n[92] _Hibbert Lectures_, 1884, pp. 39, 40.\n\n[93] The Society\u2019s advertisement is as follows:--\n\n\u201cTHOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE, APPARITIONS, etc.--The Society for Psychical\nResearch will be grateful for any good evidence bearing on such phenomena\nas thought-reading, clairvoyance, presentiments, and dreams, noted at the\ntime of occurrence and afterwards confirmed; unexplained disturbances in\nplaces supposed to be haunted; apparitions at the moment of death or\notherwise; and of such other abnormal events as may seem to fall under\nsomewhat the same categories. Communications to be addressed to E. Gurney,\n14 Dean\u2019s Yard, S.W.; or to F. W. H. Myers, Leckhampton House, Cambridge.\nApplications for information or for membership to be addressed to the\nSecretary, at the Society\u2019s Offices, 14 Dean\u2019s Yard, S.W.\u201d\n\n[94] Matthew Arnold, _Empedocles on Etna_.\n\n[95] _Hume_, p. 50.\n\n[96] Dr. Carpenter\u2019s _Mental Physiology_, p. 27.\n\n[97] St. Geo. Mivart\u2019s _Genesis of Species_, p. 325. In the second edition\nof this work Professor Mivart cites with satisfaction the authority of S.\nThomas Aquinas and of Cardinal Newman on the matter!\n\n[98] For criticism of this pseudo-scientific theory see Professor\nClifford\u2019s brilliant paper in _Lectures and Essays_, i. 228, ff.; and a\nreview of \u201cThe Unseen Universe\u201d by the present writer, _Fraser\u2019s Mag._,\nJan. 1876.\n\n[99] The following Mohammadan recipe for summoning spirits is given in\nKlunzinger\u2019s _Upper Egypt_. \u201cFast seven days in a lonely place, and take\nincense with you, such as benzoin, aloeswood, mastic, and odoriferous wood\nfrom Soudan, and read the chapter 1001 times (from the Koran) in the seven\ndays--a certain number of readings, namely, for every day one of the five\ndaily prayers. That is the secret, and you will see indescribable wonders;\ndrums will be beaten beside you, and flags hoisted over your head, and you\nwill see spirits full of light and of beautiful and benign aspect.\u201d--(P.\n386).\n\n[100] In Roget\u2019s _Thesaurus_, sect. 511, a curious and instructive list of\nterms expressive of the different forms of divination is given.\n\n[101] Numb. xii. 6; 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, 15, etc.\n\n[102] Chap. xxxiv.\n\n[103] Cf. _Ency. Brit._, Art. \u201cDreams.\u201d","title":"Myths and Dreams","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":65590}