Chapter VII: The Tradition of the Human Race (1)

"Tradition reveals the past to us, and consequently it reveals
to us also the future. It is the tie which binds the past, the
present, and the future together, and is the science of them
all. If we possessed the memory of mankind, as we do that of our
personal existence, we should know all. But if we have not the
memory of mankind, does not mankind possess it? Is mankind without
memory, without tradition?... There is no nation which does not
exist through tradition, not only historical traditions relative to
its earthly existence, but through religious traditions relative to
its eternal destiny. To despise this treasure, what is it but to
despise life, and that which constitutes its connection, its unity,
its light, as we have just seen?... When God spoke to men His Word
passed into time ... Happily tradition seized upon it as soon as it
left the threshold of eternity; and tradition is neither an ear,
nor a mouth, nor an isolated memory, but the ear, the mouth, and
the memory of generations united together by tradition itself, and
imparting to it an existence superior to the caprices and weakness
of individuals. Nevertheless, God would not trust to oral tradition
alone ... Symbolical tradition was to add itself to oral tradition
by sustaining and confirming it ... The five terms constituting
the mystery of good and evil: the existence of God, the creation
of the world and of man by God, the fall of man, his restoration
by a great act of divine mercy, and, lastly, the final judgment
of mankind ... and that which oral tradition declared, symbolical
tradition should repeat at all times and in all places, in order
that the obscured or deceived memory of man might be brought back
again to truth by an external, a public, an universal, all-powerful
spectacle. [Lacordaire is speaking principally with reference to
sacrifice and the sacrifice of Mount Calvary.] ... Each time that
oral tradition underwent a movement of renovation by the breath of
God, symbolical tradition felt the effects of it. The sacrifice
of Abel marks the era of patriarchal tradition; the sacrifice of
Abraham marks the era of Hebrew tradition; the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ, the final and consummating sacrifice, marks the era of
Christian tradition.... Such is the nature of tradition, and such
its history. Tradition is the connection of the present with the
past, of the past with the future; it is the principle of identity
and continuity which forms persons, families, nations, and mankind.
It flows in the human race by three great streams which are clearly
perceptible--the Christian, the Hebrew, and the patriarchal or
primitive; in all these three it is oral and symbolical, and
whether as oral or symbolical it speaks of God, the creation, the
fall, reparation and judgment.... Without occupying ourselves with
the question as to whether Scripture was a gift from above or an
invention of men, we see that there exists two kinds of it--human
and sacred scripture. I understand by human scripture, that which
is considered by men as the expression of the ideas of a man; I
understand by sacred scripture that which is venerated by nations
as containing something more than the ideas of a man.... There are
in the world an innumerable quantity of books, nevertheless there
are but six of them which have been venerated by nations as sacred.
These are the 'Kings' of China, the Vedas of India, the Zend-Avesta
of the Persians, the Koran of the Arabs, the Law of the Jews, and
the Gospel. And at first sight I am struck with this rarity of
sacred writings. So many legislators have founded cities, so many
men of genius have governed the human understanding, and yet all
these legislators, all these men of genius, have not been able to
cause the existence of more than six sacred books upon earth!...
Every sacred book is a traditional book, it was venerated before
it existed, it existed before it appeared. The Koran, which is
the last of the sacred writings in the order of time, offers to
us a proof of this worthy of our thoughtful attention. Without
doubt, Mahommed relied upon pretended revelations; however, it
is clear to all those who read the Koran, that the Abrahamic
tradition was the true source of its power.... The same traditional
character shines upon each page of the Christian and Hebrew books;
we find it also in the Zend-Avesta, the Vedas, and the Kings of
the Chinese. Tradition is everywhere the mother of religion; it
precedes and engenders sacred books, as language precedes and
engenders scripture; its existence is rendered immovable in the
sacred books ... a sacred book is a religious tradition which has
had strength enough to sign its name.... The sacred writings are,
then, traditional; it is their first character. I add that they are
constituent, that is to say, they possess a marvellous power for
giving vitality and duration to empires. Strange to say, the most
magnificent books of philosophers have not been able to found, I do
not say a people, but a small philosophical society; and the sacred
writings, without exception, have founded very great and lasting
nations. Thus the Kings founded China, the Vedas India, &c.... Look
at Plato ... how is it that Plato has not been able to constitute,
I do not say a nation, but simply a permanent school? How is it
that communities totter when thinkers meddle with them, and that
the _precise moment of their fall_ is that when men announce to
them that mind is emancipated, that the old forms which bound
together human activity are broken, that the altar is undermined
and reason is all-powerful? Philosophers! if you speak the truth,
how is it that the moment when all the elements of society become
more refined and develop themselves, _is the moment of its
dissolution_?"--_From Père Lacordaire's "Conferences." Conf. 9 and
10._ (Tran. H. Langdon; Richardson, 1852.)

I should also wish M. Auguste Nicolas' "Etudes Philosophiques
sur le Christianisme"--particularly lib. I. chap. v., "Necessite
d'une revelation Primitive;" and lib. II. chap. iv., "Traditions
universelles"--to be read in connection with the following chapter.
I did not become acquainted with M. Nicolas until after the chapter
was concluded. I have, however, fulfilled my obligations in the
above extract from L'Abbe Lacordaire, which lies more _au fond_ of
my view than the chapters referred to in M. Nicolas. I also wish to
direct attention to a remarkable article in the _Home and Foreign
Review_, Jan. 1864, entitled "Classical Myths in relation to the
Antiquity of Man," signed F. A. P.

Tradition, in the sense in which we have just seen it used by Lacordaire, in what we may call its widest signification, is not limited to oral tradition, but may be termed the connection of evidence which establishes the unity of the human race; and, with this evidence, establishes the identity and continuity of its belief, laws, institutions, customs, and manners (Manners, _vide_ Goguet's "Origin of Laws," i. 327-329). The more closely the tradition is investigated, the more thoroughly will it be found to attest a common origin, and the more fully will its conformity with the scriptural narrative be made apparent.

Now, although in all ages there have been men of great intellect who have held to tradition, it may be stated as one of those truths, _qui saute aux yeux_, and which will not be gainsaid, that the human intellect has been throughout opposed to tradition, has been its most constant adversary, equally when it was the tradition of a corrupt polytheism, as when it was the tradition of uncontested truth; and so active has been this antagonism, that the marvel is that anything of primitive tradition should have remained.

Hence arose the divergence between religion and philosophy--a divergence which, as it seems to me, is inexplicable from the point of view of those who believe that, in the centuries which preceded the coming of our Lord,[78] religion simply was not, had ceased to be; unless we suppose that a tradition of the antagonism had survived, which would still partially disclose how it came about that when religion had ceased to be (_pro argumento_), or had become corrupt, philosophy, which then (_ex hypothesi_) alone soared above the intellect of the crowd, did not, and could not become a religion to them, _infra_, pp. 142, 145, 146.

[78] Such appears to me to be the conclusion of Mr Allies in his
learned work ("The Formation of Christendom," ii. chap. viii.
57), "Universality of false worship in the most diverse
nations the summing up of man's whole history." I request
attention, however, to the following passage, at page 382,
which has an especial bearing upon my argument:--"No doubt the
Greek mind had lived and brooded for ages upon the remains
of original revelation, nor can any learning now completely
unravel the interwoven threads of tradition and reason so as
to distinguish their separate work. However, it is certain
that in the sixth century B.C., the Greeks were
without a hierarchy, and without a definite theology: not
indeed without individual priesthoods, traditionary rites,
and an existing worship, as well as certain mysteries which
professed to communicate a higher and more recondite doctrine
than that exposed to the public gaze. But in the absence of
any hierarchy ... a very large range indeed was given to the
mind, acting upon this shadowy religious belief, and re-acted
upon by it, to form their philosophy. The Greeks did not, any
more than antiquity in general, use the acts of religious
service for instruction by religious discourse. In other
words, there was no such thing as preaching among them. A
domain, therefore, was open to the philosopher, on which he
might stand without directly impeaching the ancestral worship,
while he examined its grounds, and perhaps _sapped its
foundations_. He was therein taking up a position which these
priests, the civil functionaries of religious rites, _scarcely
any longer_ retaining a spiritual meaning or a moral cogency,
had not occupied."

And the history of this antagonism seems to be, that the human intellect has ever had, and now more confidently than ever, the aim and ambition to substitute something better than the revelation of primitive tradition, and the experiences of the human race.

It is quite conceivable that human life and human institutions might have been arranged upon some scheme different from that of the divine appointment; and although we may believe that any such scheme would result in ultimate confusion and the final extinction of the human race, it is still theoretically possible that the experiment might have been made.[79]

[79] Take for instance Mr J. S. Mill's peculiar views as to the
status of women, "The law of servitude in marriage" ["Wives
be obedient to your husbands," St Paul], he says, "is in
monstrous contradiction to all the principles of the modern
world" (p. 147). "Marriage is the only actual bondage known
to our law," _id._ But at p. 49, Mr Mill says, "The general
opinion of men is supposed to be, that the natural vocation
of a woman is that of a wife and mother." But he then adds
(p. 37), "It will not do to assert in general terms that the
experience of mankind has pronounced in favour of the existing
system. Experience cannot possibly have decided between two
courses, so long as there has only been _experience of one_.
If it be said that the doctrine of the equality of the sexes
rests only on theory, it must be remembered that the contrary
doctrine also has only theory to rest upon. All that is
proved in its favour by direct experience, is that mankind
have been able to exist under it, and to attain the degree of
improvement and prosperity which we now see; but whether that
prosperity has been attained sooner, or is now greater than it
would have been under the other system, experience does not
say."

Take in illustration, again, the communistic schemes
as against the institution of property. Now, although
Christianity has realised all that will ever be possible in
the way of communism in its religious orders, the communistic
sects have always instinctively directed their first efforts
against religion as against the basis of the social order of
things which they attacked. This was forcibly brought out in
certain letters on "European Radicalism," in the _Pall Mall
Gazette_, October and November 1869, _e.g._ "all the contests
on the three capital questions ('government, property,
religion') which we are now engaged in, are but continuations
of the _original divergence_ of opinion (before settled
government), considerably modified, of course, under the
influence of time, the various _traditional notions_ mankind
preserves under the _name of beliefs_, and the whole stock of
experience it has accumulated under the name of knowledge. So
like, indeed, are the ancient and modern contests on these
matters," &c.... (Letter I.) Again (Letter V.), speaking of
our English socialist discussing "the necessity of building
social edifices upon material, not religious grounds," the
writer adds, that among continental socialists "no one thinks
there of the possibility of matters standing otherwise;" and
that in the socialist workshops of France and Germany it is
well known "that the very basis of social radicalism requires
the abandonment of all kinds of religious discussion, as
matter of purely personal inclination, and the abolition of
all kinds of privileges as incompatible with equality." [All
this has been put out of date by the deeds of the Commune
and the programme of the "International Society"--viz. "_The
burning of Paris_ we _accept the responsibility of_. _The old
society must_ and will perish."] The _Spectator_, December
1869, speaks still more explicitly:--"Infirm and crippled
though she be, the Roman Church is still the only one who
has the courage to be cosmopolitan, and claim the right to
link nation with nation, and literature with literature. Such
an assembly as the Council is, at least, an extraordinary
testimony to the cosmopolitanism of the great Church
which seems trembling to its fall; and who can doubt that
that fall, whenever it comes, will be followed by a great
temporary loosening of the faith in human unity--in spite of
the electric telegraph--by a deepening of the chasm between
nation and nation, by the loss of at least a most potent
spell over the imagination of the world, by a contraction
of the spiritual ideal of every church? This ideal, even
Protestants, even Sceptics, even Positivists have owed, and
have owned that they owed, to the Roman Church, the only
Church which has really succeeded in uniting the bond between
any one ecclesiastical centre and the distant circumference
of human intelligence and energy. But if the consequence of
the collapse of Romanism would be in this way a loss of power
to the human race, think only of the gain of power which
would result from the final death of sacerdotal ideas, from
the final blow to the system of arbitrary authority exercised
over the intellect and the conscience, from the new life which
would flow into a faith and science resting on the steady
accumulation of moral and intellectual facts and the personal
life of the conscience in Christ--from the final triumph of
moral and intellectual order and freedom. It would doubtless
be a new life, subject to great anarchy at first; but the old
authoritative systems have themselves been of late little more
than anarchy just kept under by the authority of prescription
and tradition; and one can only hope for the new order from
the complete recognition that it is to have no arbitrary or
capricious foundation."

Here comes in, with its full significance, the great saying of Lacordaire's--"Order I compare to a pyramid reaching from heaven to earth. Men cannot overthrow its base, because the finger of God rests upon its apex."

If the finger of God did not so rest, there is no assignable reason why this pyramid--this incubus, as some would call it--which goes back, stone upon stone, to the primitive ages, should not have been overturned, and some system purely atheistical, purely material, purely communistic, substituted for it. But I believe that no democratic organisation, however extended among the masses, will overthrow the established order of things, so long as the possessors of property, the upper classes, are true to the objects for which property was instituted.

Considering how much man has effected in the material order, and considering also the varied intellectual faculties with which he is endowed, it strikes one as strange, as something which has to be accounted for, that he has been able to effect so little in the moral order. It is the same whether we regard the action of the intellect upon the individual man, or upon society. And from this latter point of view it is so true, that it is more than doubtful whether those epochs in which man has attained the highest point of intellectual and material civilisation, are not those also in which he has reached the lowest depths of immorality;[80] and in which--having touched the lowest point of corruption--the human intellect is unable to devise any better plan for the government of mankind, than the repression of despotism.[81]

[80] "It is, upon the whole, extremely doubtful whether those
periods which are the richest in literature, possess the
greatest shares, either of moral excellence or of political
happiness. We are well aware that the true and happy ages of
Roman greatness long preceded that of Roman refinement and
Roman authors; and, I fear, there is but too much reason to
suppose that in the history of the modern nations we may find
many examples of the same kind" (F. Schlegel's "History of
Literature," i. 373). See also the account of the corruption
of morals in Rome in the Augustan period (Allies' "Form. of
Christendom," I. Lect. I.) "It is curious to observe that the
more eloquent, polite, and learned the Greeks became, in the
same proportion they became the more degraded and corrupt in
their national religion" (Godfrey Higgins' "Celtic Druids,"
1829, p. 207).

[81] "Il n'y a, Messieurs, que deux sortes de repression
possibles: l'une intérieure, l'autre extérieure.... Elles
sont de telle nature que quand le thermomètre politique est
élevé, le thermomètre de la religion est bas, et quand le
thermomètre religieux est bas, le thermomètre politique, la
repression politique, la tyrannie s'élève. Ceci est une loi
de l'humanité, une loi de l'histoire." _Vide_ Disc. de Donoso
Cortes (Marq. de Valdegamas), 4th January 1849; in which he
pursues this remarkable parallelism throughout history.

But if the human intellect cannot prevent or control corruption, cannot it disenchant vice of its evil, and so counteract its effects? Is there no new conception of virtue with which to allure mankind? No second decalogue which will attract by its novelty, or convince by logical cogency and force? The Comtists, I believe, have a scheme for setting all these things right. But what portion of mankind do they influence? They are at present formidable only as may be the cloud on the horizon, nor have they found sympathy even where they might have had some expectation of finding it. If there was any separate section of mankind which might have given them countenance, it would, one would think, be the rationalist section, whose principles would disincline them to regard old modes of thought with undue partiality. It is from this quarter, if I mistake not, that the unkindest cut has come, and that it has been said that "the latter half of Comte's career and writings is the despair and bewilderment of those who admire the preceding half;" yet in this latter half he only aimed at converting rationalism from a negative to a positive system. But, allowing that a system of some sort might thus be constructed, can positivism be defined as more than the system of those who are positive by mutual consent and agreement without faith or certainty, and who are the more positive in proportion as they recede from Catholic truth and tradition. We, however, who believe in the identity of Catholicism and Christianity, may still appreciate Professor Huxley's definition of positivism, viz.--"Catholicism _minus_ Christianity."[82]

[82] Montalembert ("Disc. de Reception," 1852, Discours iii.
pp. 614, 615, 621, 622) says of the Constituent Assembly
of 1789--"It was the Assembly of 1789 which made the word
revolution the synonyme of methodical destruction, of
permanent war against all order and all authority.... It had
that mania for uniformity which is the parody of unity, and
which Montesquieu called the passion of mediocre minds....
In a word, the Constituent Assembly was wanting not only in
justice, courage, and humanity, but it was also deficient in
good sense. The evil which it created has survived it. It has
made us believe that it is possible to destroy everything
and to reconstruct everything in a day.... God has chastised
it, above all, by the sterility of its work. It had had the
pretence of laying the foundations of liberty for ever, and
it had for its successors the most sanguinary tyrants who
ever dishonoured any nation. Its mission was to re-establish
the finances, the empire of the law, and it has bequeathed
to France bankruptcy, anarchy, and despotism--despotism
without even the repose which they have wrongly taken as the
compensation of servitude. It has done more: it has left
pretexts for every abuse of force, and precedents for any
excess of future anarchy. [Montalembert could hardly have
foreseen the last application of its principles which we
have recently witnessed in Paris by the Commune, which, too,
forsooth, was to have inaugurated a new era for humanity.] But
it (this Constituent Assembly) founded nothing--Nothing! The
ancient society which it reversed had lasted, in spite of its
abuses, a thousand years."

Can any one adduce a more typical representative of the clear, powerful, penetrating intellect of man than Voltaire! Voltaire, moreover, had the aim and ambition ("ecraser l'infame") to obliterate the tradition of the past; yet can there be a better example of the impotence of the intellect in the moral order? Does it not seem startling that, when the human intellect, as in the case of Voltaire, should be able to detect with so much acumen, so much wit, what is wrong, that it should be wholly struck with sterility when it attempts to tell us what is right, to reveal to man any truth in the moral order not traditionally known to them. And if the disciples of Voltaire have occasionally, in spasmodic efforts, attempted this, it has not been in the manner of Voltaire; it has been in the spirit of eclecticism, of reconstruction out of the elements of the past--that is to say (with pardon, if the phrase has been used before), an attempt to create, out of the elements he would have spurned, edifices which he would have derided.

Now, the pretension of the human intellect is quite contrary to this experience. It claims to have progressively elevated mankind out of a state of primitive barbarism, to have indoctrinated them with the ideas of morality which they possess, to have humanised them, and thus affirms the converse of the theory of tradition which it pursues with much unreasoning and implacable animosity.

The _Saturday Review_ (July 24, 1869), in reviewing Mr Gladstone's "Juventus Mundi," says--"Mr Gladstone is doubtless well aware that there was no portion of his Homeric studies which was received with more surprise, or with more unfavourable comment, than his speculations on what he described as the traditive and the inventive elements in the Homeric mythology."[83] In consequence, Mr Gladstone says he has endeavoured to avoid in his more recent work "a certain crudity of expression." The _Saturday Review_, however, says--"That 'the crudity of expression' here referred to seems to have been corrected and modified to some extent by disguising the process of argument by which it was sustained, and by the adoption of a lighter touch and slighter treatment of the subject than in the former book. But the theory itself, we believe, remains the same."

[83] From a purely philosophical point of view, why should these
speculations of Mr Gladstone have been received "with more
surprise and unfavourable comment" than any other "portions of
his Homeric studies?"

I may assume, then, that the passage which I have elsewhere quoted from Mr Gladstone, and laid as the basis of my argument, still has his countenance and support, in spite of the manifest antagonism it has provoked. And this passage, I venture to think, acquires fresh light and an accession of force when placed in juxtaposition with the parallel passages from De Maistre and Dr Newman. These passages will present no difficulties to the believer in the Bible. How far the view is sustainable, with reference to the more recent conclusions in chronology, I shall consider in another chapter; but, assuming that it is not chronologically disproved, there is no intrinsic impossibility which will debar belief.

The general probability of tradition being thus avouched,[84] I proceed to examine certain statements that have been made as to its necessary variability, and as to the uncertainty and indefiniteness of its utterances.

[84] In one way, nothing is so uncertain as tradition, and,
moreover, tradition is rarely positive and direct, but, on the
contrary, prone to concrete into strange, fragmentary, and
distorted shapes. As an instance, we may take the tradition
which Genesis attests,--When Abraham's hand had been stayed by
the angel from the sacrifice of Isaac, ... "He called the name
of that place 'The Lord seeth.' Whereupon, even to this day it
is said, '_In the mountain the Lord will see_.'"--_Gen._ xxii.
14.

In illustration of the mode and manner of tradition, is the
anecdote of Mr Hookham Frere, who states, that when the
Maltese talk without reserve upon religious subjects, they
say, "Everybody knows that Adam was the first man, but we
alone know that he possessed fishing-boats;" which Bunsen says
"Can be nothing but a Phoenician reminiscence."--"Egypt,"
iv. 215, the reminiscence of the legend of the Fisherman.
Compare the Fisherman and his wife in Grimm's "Popular Stories
from Oral Tradition."

In the first place, as to its variability, it is true that tested by the experience which we possess of the persistency and exactness of family and local traditions, tradition in the broader sense which I have indicated may appear to be of little value. I have elsewhere attended a closer argument on this point in reply to Sir John Lubbock (ch. xii.), but I may also make what appears to me, as regards this matter, a sufficiently important distinction.

Family tradition is so confused, because at each remove in each generation, it is necessarily crossed through marriage with the traditions of another family. These may be either rival or irreconcileable. But this remark will apply with much less force, it will only secondarily and accidentally apply at all to the common traditions, the inheritance of all families starting from a common origin. If these traditions acquired some dross through the intermarriage of families, they will, on the other hand, through the very action of intermarriages, have been more frequently compared, more vividly, therefore, kept in remembrance, and more recognisable in their distortion, because the distortion is more likely to have been in the way of super-addition of what was thought congruous and supplemental. And this seems to me to meet Mr Max Müller's objection in the _Contemporary Review_ for April 1870. "Comparative philology," he says, "has taught again and again, that when we find _exactly_ the same name in Greek and Sanscrit, we may be certain that it cannot be the same word;" for we here see reason why and how these traditions have been specially protected against the natural action and law which it is the peculiar province of philology to trace.

I say this more especially with reference to the etymology in Bryant's and other kindred works, which it is now the fashion to set aside with much _hauteur_; and I assert it without impugning in any way the results of modern philological inquiry, extending, of course, over a much wider field than the writers of the last century could embrace. But I do contend, that when the discussion has reference to the common progenitors of the human race, or the incidents of primitive life--for instance, the names of the ark, and what I may call its accessories, the dove and the rainbow[85]--a certain probability of identity may be presumed in such sort that it may chance that the probabilities of tradition must be held to override the conjectures, and in some cases even the conclusions of philology.[86]

[85] _Vide_ "Bryant's Mythology," ii.

[86] After the exposition of his own theory, Mr Grote says--"It
is in this point of view that the myths are important for
any one who would correctly appreciate the general tone of
Grecian thought and feeling, for they were the _universal
mental stock_ of the Hellenic world, _common to men and
women, rich and poor_, ignorant and instructed, they _were in
every one's memory and in every one's mouth_, while science
and history were confined to comparatively few. We know from
Thucydides how erroneously and carelessly the Athenian public
of his day retained the history of Pisistratus, only one
century past; but the adventures of the gods and heroes, the
numberless explanatory legends attached to visible objects
and _periodical ceremonies_, were the theme of _general
talk_, and every man unacquainted with them would have
found himself partially excluded from the sympathies of his
neighbours."--_Hist. Greece_, i. p. 608; comp. _infra_, ch.
xi.

I incline, moreover, to the belief that the fidelity and persistency of local tradition is greater than is generally supposed. Sir H. Maine[87] says--"The truth is, that the stable part of our mental, moral, and physical constitution is the largest part of it, and the resistance it opposes to change is such that, though the variations of human society in a portion of the world are plain enough, they are neither so rapid nor so extensive that their amount of character and general direction cannot be ascertained." This establishes a presumption, at any rate, in favour of tradition, although I admit that the quotation from Sir H. Maine does not go further than point to a tradition of usages; but I contend that a tradition of usage would enable us, after the manner of Boulanger,[88] to disclose "L'antiquite devoilée par ses usages," and to establish the main points and basis of the history of the human race, _e.g._ the Fall, the Deluge, the Dispersion, the early knowledge and civilisation of mankind, the primitive monotheism, the confusion of tongues, the family system, marriages, the institution of property, the tradition of a common morality,[89] and of the law of nations.

[87] "Ancient Law," p. 117.

[88] "Pour trouver le veritable objet de ces dernières solemnités,
dont les motifs sont compliqués, nous nous attachons à
analyser leur cérémoniel et à chercher l'esprit de leurs
usages; et cet esprit achève de nous faire reconnaître
l'objet que nous n'avions d'abord qu'entrevu ou soupçonné,
quelquefois même il nous développe encore la nature des
motifs étrangers et mythologiques, et ces motifs se trouvent
pour la plûpart n'être que des traditions du _même fait_
qui ont été ou corrompués par le temps, ou travesties par
des allégories."--Boulanger, _"L'Antiquite devoilée par ses
Usages"_, i. 31.

[89] _Vide_ other lines of tradition indicated in B. iii., C. iii.,
of De Maistre, "Du Pape."

This inquiry might no doubt form a department either of scriptural exegesis, universal history, or of ethnological research; but, in point of fact, its scope is too large practically to fall within such limits; whereas, if it were recognised as a separate branch of study, it would, I venture to think, in the progress of its investigation, bring all these different branches of inquiry into harmony and completeness. And I further contend, that the conclusions thus attained are as well-deserving of consideration as the conclusions of science from the implements of the drift, or as the evidence of "some bones, from the pliocene beds of St Prest, which appear to show the marks of knives;"[90] which are adduced in evidence of a Palæolithic age. So that, when on one side it is said that science (meaning the science of geology or philology, &c.) has proved this or that fact apparently contrary to the scriptural narrative, it can, on the other hand, be asserted that the facts, or the inferences from them, are incompatible with the testimony of the science of tradition. The defenders of Scripture will thus secure foothold on the ground of science, which, when properly entrenched, will stand good against the most formidable recognizances or assaults of the enemy.

[90] Sir J. Lubbock, Intro. to Nillson's "Stone Age," xii.

I cannot help thinking that some such thought lurks in the following passage of Cardinal Wiseman's Second Lecture on "Science and Revealed Religion" (5th Edition, p. 73)--

"Here again I cannot but regret our inability to comprehend in
one glance the bearings and connections of different sciences;
for, _if_ it appears that ages must have been required to bring
languages to the state wherein we first find them, other researches
would show us that these ages never existed; and we should thus be
driven to discover some shaping power, some ever-ruling influence,
which could do at once what nature would take centuries to effect;
and the Book of Genesis hath alone solved this problem."

No doubt a greater general acquaintance and power to grasp--or better still, an intuitive glance--with which to comprehend "the bearings and connections of different sciences," would tend to circumscribe the aberrations of any particular science; but the special intervention which appears to me destined to bring the various sciences into harmony, will be the elevation of the particular department of history or archæology which has to do with the traditions of the human race as to its origin into a separate and recognised branch of inquiry; and I am satisfied that if any portion of that intellect, which is cunning in the reconstruction of the mastodon from its vertebral bone, had been directed to the great lines of human tradition, that enough of the "reliquiæ" and vestiges of the past remain to establish their conformity with that "which alone has solved this problem--the Book of Genesis;" and which, apart from the consideration of its inspiration, will ever remain the most venerable and best attested of human records.[91]

[91] _E.g._, Mr Grote says, in his Introduction, that through the
combination and illustration of scanty facts, "the general
picture of the Grecian world may now be conceived with a
degree of fidelity which, considering our imperfect materials,
it is curious to contemplate."

The Duke of Argyll ("Primeval Man," p. 24) says--"Within
certain limits it is not open to dispute that the early
condition of mankind is accessible to research. Contemporary
history reaches back a certain way. Existing monuments afford
their evidence for a considerable distance farther. _Tradition
has its own province still more remote_; and latterly geology
and archæology have met upon common ground--ground in which
man and the mammoth have been found together."

It is much too readily assumed that traditions must be worthless where no records are kept. Gibbon,[92] I think, was the first who took this position. To this I reply, that although records are valuable for the attestation, they are not guarantees for the fidelity of tradition.[93] I do not assert that the tradition is more trustworthy than the record; but that, when mankind trust mainly to tradition, the faculties by which it is sustained will be more strongly developed, and the adaptation of society for its transmission more exactly conformed. In other words, tradition in ancient times seemed to flow as from a fountain-head, and the world was everywhere grooved for its reception. We may take in evidence the strange resemblances in mythological tradition in various parts of the world on the one hand, and on the other the oral tradition of the Homeric verses; the frequent concourse of citizens, and at recurring festivals of the surrounding populations, to listen to their recital. And not only was there oral tradition in verse, but all public events were recorded in the attestations of the market-place. When a treaty was ratified it was commonly before some temple, or in some place of public resort, and its terms were committed to memory by some hundred witnesses; and in like manner was the recollection of other public events and memorable facts preserved.[94] (_Vide_ Pastoret's "Hist. de la Législation," i. 71; also, account of "Annales Maximi" in Dyer's "Rome," xvii.)

[92] Gibbon ("Decline and Fall," i. 353) says, "But all this
well-laboured system of German antiquities is annihilated
by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any doubt,
and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply.
The Germans, in the days of Tacitus, were unacquainted with
the use of letters, and the use of letters is the principal
circumstance which distinguishes a civilised people from a
herd of savages, incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without
that artificial help, the human memory ever dissipates or
corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge." Compare with
Coleridge, _infra_, p. 122; Ozanam, _infra_, ch. xiii.

[93] Eusebius ("Ecclesiastical Hist.," ch. xxxvi.) says, speaking
of St Ignatius--"He exhorted them to adhere firmly to the
tradition of the apostles; which, for the sake of greater
security, he deemed it necessary to attest by committing it
to writing." I do not remember to have seen this quoted in
testimony and proof of ecclesiastical tradition.

[94] Goguet ("Origin of Laws," i. 29) says--"The _first laws_
of all nations were composed in verse, and sung. Apollo,
according to a very ancient tradition, was one of the first
legislators. The same tradition says that he published his
laws to the sound of his lyre; that is to say, that he had
set them to music. We have certain proof that the first
laws of Greece were a kind of song. The laws of the ancient
inhabitants of Spain were verses, which they sung. Tuiston was
regarded by the Germans as their first lawgiver. They said he
put his laws into verses and songs. This ancient custom was
long kept up by several nations."

E. Warburton ("Conquest of Canada," i. 214) says--"The want
of any written or hieroglyphic records of the past among the
Northern Indians was to some extent supplied by the accurate
memories of their old men; they were able to repeat speeches
of four or five hours' duration, and delivered many years
before, without error, or even hesitation; and to hand them
down from generation to generation with equal accuracy.... On
great and solemn occasions belts of wampum were used as aids
to recollection ... when a treaty or compact was negotiated."

Yet, although during long periods oral transmission was for mankind the main channel of tradition, it must not necessarily be concluded that writing was unknown, and was not employed for monumental and other purposes. What strikes one most forcibly in contemplating these ages, is the contrast between their intellectual knowledge and their mechanical and material contrivances for its application. During these centuries in which the 30,000 hexameters of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" were transmitted in memory, by repetition, at public festivals, oral tradition was doubtless employed, because during this period "paper, parchment, or even the smoothed hides, as adapted for the purposes of writing, were unknown."[95] This, whilst it certainly is in evidence of the paucity of their available resources, at the same time establishes the retentive strength of their memory,[96] and their intellectual familiarity with great truths.

[95] _Vide_ H. N. Coleridge ("Greek Classic Poets," p. 38-42), in
speaking of the "Dionysiacs, the Thebaids, the Epigoniads,
Naupactica, genealogies, and the other works of that sort,"
p. 44, he adds--"Just as in the Indian and Persian epics, in
the Northern Eddas, in the poem of the 'Cid,' in the early
chronicles of every nation with which we are acquainted, one
story follows another story in the order of mere history; and
the skill and fire of the poet are shown, not in the artifice
of grouping a hundred figures into one picture, but in raising
admiration by the separate beauty of each successive picture.
_They tell the tale as the tale had been told to them, and
leave out nothing._"

[96] According to the account which the Chinese themselves give of
their annals, the works of Confucius were proscribed, after
his death, by the Emperor Chi-Hoangti, and all the copies,
including the Chu-King, were recovered from the dictation of
an old man who had retained them in memory.

"The great moralist of the East" himself, Confucius,
asserted--"that he only wrought on materials already
existing." _Vide_ Klaproth ap., Cardinal Wiseman, "Science and
Rev. Religion," ii. p. 49.

In the article in the _Cornhill Magazine_, Nov. 1871,
containing the valuable collection of Dravidian (South Indian)
folk-songs, it is said, p. 577, that "they are handed down
from generation to generation, entirely vivâ voce, and from
the minstrels have passed into public use."

And this seems to me the sufficient reply to Sir Charles Lyell's somewhat captious objection, that if the intellectual knowledge of the primitive age was so great, we ought now to be digging up steam engines instead of flint implements.

Every age has its own peculiar superiority, as hath each individual mind--_non omnia possumus omnes_--and it is as reasonable to object to an age of philosophic thought, or of intuitive perception, that it was not rich in the wealth of material civilisation, as it would be to object to Plato or Shakspeare, that they did not acquire dominion over mankind; or to Alexander, that he did not excel Aristotle; or to Sir C. Lyell, supposing geology to be certain, that he did not anticipate Darwin, supposing Darwinism to be true. And if it should be more precisely objected that, if in those ages there was the knowledge of writing for monumental purposes, we ought at least to find monuments,[97] I say that the _onus probandi_ lies with the objector to prove the invention or introduction of writing in the interval between the age of Homer and the age of Pericles, as against us who believe in its primeval transmission; or to show that its introduction was more probable at this latter period than at the former.[98]

[97] The Duke of Argyll ("Primeval Man," p. 30) says--"Knowledge,
for example, or ignorance of the use of metals are, as we
shall see, characteristics on which great stress is laid"
(by the advocates of the "savage theory"). "Now, as regards
this point, as Whately truly says, the narrative of Genesis
distinctly states that this kind of knowledge did not belong
to mankind at first.... It is assumed in the savage theory
that the presence or absence of this knowledge stands in close
and natural connection with the presence or absence of other
and higher kinds of knowledge, of which an acquaintance with
metals is but a symbol and a type. Within certain limits this
is true."

[98] Presuming total ignorance of writing--its invention at _any_
period seems to me much more marvellous than the discovery
of printing after the invention of writing. For the rest we
have seen that writing was known at an early period to the
Chaldæans and Egyptians, and probably to the Chinese and
Japanese, and to the Medians (ch. xii.) Plutarch tells us
that a law of Theseus, written on a column of stone, remained
even to the time of Demosthenes.

Schlegel says[99]--

"I have laid it down as an invariable maxim to follow historical
tradition, and to hold fast by that clue, even when many things
in the testimony and declarations of tradition appear strange and
almost inexplicable; or, at least, enigmatical; for so soon as,
in the investigations of ancient history, we let slip that thread
of Ariadne, we can find no outlet from the labyrinth of fanciful
theories and the chaos of clashing opinion."

[99] Phil. Hist.

I propose to give a few instances of tradition, casually selected, which appear to me to be in illustration of this dictum of Schlegel's.

Take, in illustration, the question whether mankind commenced with the state of monogamy. Not that there is any obscurity on this point in the Book of Genesis. It is indeed sometimes loosely said that we find instances of polygamy in patriarchal times; but, as our Lord said, it was not so in the beginning; and the Book of Genesis exhibits mankind as commencing with a single pair, and subsequently as re-propagated through a group of families, all represented to us at their commencement as monogamous. But if this highest testimony is discarded, and men gravely discuss whether or not they commenced with a state of promiscuity, the argument from tradition will go for as much as the argument from the analogy of circumstances and conditions as inferred from the existing state of savages, since this state, from our point of view, must have been the result of degeneracy.[100]

[100] Burke ("Regicide Peace,") says--"The practice of divorce,
though in some countries permitted, has been discouraged in
all. In the East polygamy and divorce are in discredit, and
the manners correct the laws."

I must, moreover, contend that the practice of monogamy, in any one case, must weigh for very much more than the practice of polygamy in ten parallel instances; because the natural degeneracy and proclivity of man in his fallen state is in this direction.

And also, polygamy is much more naturally regarded as the departure from monogamy, than the latter as the restraint of, or advance out of, a state of promiscuity.

It may further, I think, be maintained that monogamy--in the way of separation with a single woman by reason of strong love or preference--would be the more probable escape from the state of promiscuity than through the intermediary and progressive stage of polygamy.[101]

[101] This was written before the appearance of Sir J. Lubbock's
chapter on "Marriage," in his "Origin of Civilization," to
which reference is made at pp. 51, 52.

Now, I need scarcely say, that the opponents of monogamy can show no instance of an advance out of the state of promiscuity either to monogamy or polygamy. But they can point to certain communities in ancient and modern times in a state of polygamy.

Either, then, they must have degenerated into this state from the primitive monogamous family system, or they must have arrived at the stage in growth and progress out of a state of promiscuity.

Does tradition give any clue out of this labyrinth? To simplify the question, I will consent to appeal to the identical tradition to which the advocates of an original promiscuity direct our attention.

Mr J. F. M'Lennan, who, in his "Primitive Marriage," 1865 (_vide supra_), apparently describes mankind as originally in a state of promiscuity, subsequently limited by customs of tribal exogamy and endogamy, in a recent article in the _Fortnightly Review_ (Oct. 1869), "Totems and Totemism," sees further evidence of his theory in the following traditions from Sanchoniathon:--

"Few traditions respecting the primitive condition of mankind are
more remarkable, and perhaps none are more ancient, than those that
have been preserved by Sanchoniatho; or rather, we should say,
that are to be found in the fragments ascribed to that writer by
Eusebius. They present us with an outline of the earlier stages
of human progress in religious speculation, which is shown _by
the results of modern inquiry to be wonderfully correct_. They
tell us for instance that '_the first men consecrated the plants
shooting out of the earth, and judged them gods_, and worshipped
them upon whom they themselves lived, and all their posterity,
and all before them, and to these they made their meat and drink
offerings.'[102] They further tell us that the first men believed
the heavenly bodies to be animals, only differently shaped and
circumstanced from any on the earth. 'There were certain animals
which had no sense, out of which were begotten intelligent animals
... and they were formed alike in the shape of an egg. Thus shone
out Môt [the luminous vault of heaven?], the sun and the moon,
and the less and the greater stars.' _Next they relate, in an
account of the successive generations of men_, that _in the first
generation the way was found out of taking food from trees_;
that, in the second, men, having suffered from droughts, began to
worship the sun--the Lord of heaven; that in the third, Light,
Fire, and Flame [conceived as persons], were begotten; that in the
fourth giants appeared; while in the fifth, 'men were named from
their mothers' because of the uncertainty of male parentage, this
generation being distinguished also by the introduction of 'pillar'
worship. It was not till the twelfth generation that the gods
appeared that figure most in the old mythologies, such as Kronos,
Dagon, Zeus, Belus, Apollo, and Typhon; and then the queen of
them all was the _Bull_-headed Astarte. The sum of the statements
is, that men first worshipped plants; next the heavenly bodies,
supposed to be animals; then 'pillars;' ... and, last of all, the
anthropomorphic gods. Not the least remarkable statement is, that
in primitive times there was kinship through mothers only, owing to
the uncertainty of fatherhood."[103]

[102] A tradition of the constellations, a proof from tradition that
they were so named in the ante-diluvian period.

[103] Sanchoniatho's "Phoenician History," by the Right Rev. R.
Cumberland. London, 1720, pp. 2, 3, 23, _et seq._ Eusebius,
Præpar. Evangel. lib. i. cap. 10.

The fragments of Sanchoniathon here referred to are found at earlier date than Eusebius, having been copiously extracted by Philo (_vide_ Bunsen's "Egypt").

Sanchoniathon was to Phoenicia what Berosus was to Assyria; that is to say, the earliest post-diluvian compilers of history when tradition was becoming obscure. Let us scrutinise his testimony. We are here told "that the first men _consecrated the plants_ shooting out of the earth, and _judged them gods_."... "Next they relate, in an account of the successive generations of men, that in the first generation _the way was found out of taking food from trees_." Here, I submit, that we have plainly and unmistakably a tradition of that first commencement of evil, the first man and woman plucking the apple from the tree, thinking they would become as gods (Gen. iii. 4, 5), ... "and the serpent said ... for God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof ... and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

Then follows the succession of ages (_vide infra_, ch. xiii.), of which there is a curious parallel tradition in Hesiod and Apollodorus, and partial correspondences in the traditions of India, China, and Mexico (_infra_, ch. xiii.).[104]

[104] _Vide_ Grote, i.

It will be noted, however, that whilst running into the tradition of Hesiod on the one side (in Hesiod and in the Chinese tradition there is trace of a double tradition, ante and post-diluvian), Sanchoniathon still more closely runs in with the narrative of Genesis on the other, thus connecting the links of the chain of tradition.[105]

[105] This chapter was written before I became acquainted with Mr
Palmer's "Chronicles of Egypt" (_vide_ ch. vi.) If the
reader will refer to chap. i., he will there find a learned
and exhaustive exposition of the ages of Sanchoniathon,
identifying them with Scripture on the one side, and Egyptian
tradition on the other.

In the succession of ages we have in outline the history of mankind in the ante-diluvian period--the Fall, _supra_--followed in the succeeding age by a great _drought_--[compare this tradition with the following passage in Fran. Lenormant's "Histoire Ancienne," i. p. 5, 2d ed., Paris 1868--"and when geology shows us the first ante-diluvian men who came into our part of the world, living in the midst of ice, under conditions of climate analogous to those under which the Esquimaux live at the present day ... one is naturally brought to the recollection of _that ancient tradition of the Persians_, fully conformable to the information which the Bible supplies on the subject of the fall of man, ... which ranks among the first of the chastisements which followed the fall, along with death and other calamities, the advent of an _intense and permanent cold_ which man could scarcely endure, and which rendered the earth almost uninhabitable."[106]] It is to this period, and the short period immediately following the Deluge (_vide_ ch. ii. p. 21, and _infra_, pp. 136, 137), that I am inclined to trace the notions of a primitive barbarism--compare, for instance, the facts which Goguet, in his "Origin of Laws," i. p. 72, adduces in proof of his progress from barbarism, with the above tradition of the Persians recorded by Lenormant.

[106] Is not this the meaning of the cxlvii. psalm, in the
expression, "ante faciem frigoris ejus quis sustinebit"?
Does not the psalm recount to the Jewish people, in rapid
allusions, all that God had done for them, in contrast to the
chastisements that had befallen other nations; and if it is
objected that there is no allusion to the Deluge, unless in
its indirect and beneficial influences, in the words, "flavit
spiritus ejus et fluent aquæ," I reply that to the survivors,
the Deluge, regarded largely, and in its permanent effects,
was no calamity, but the commencement of a new and more
favoured era.