Chapter VII: The Tradition of the Human Race (2)

Goguet says--"The Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians, Greeks, and several other nations (_vide_ his references, p. 72), acknowledged that their ancestors were once without the use of fire. The Chinese confess the same of their progenitors.... Pomponius, Mela, Pliny, Plutarch, and other ancient authors speak of nations, who, at the time they wrote, knew not the use of fire, or had only just learned it. Facts of the same kind are attested by several modern relations." Let this latter statement be compared with _infra_, pp. 136, 137 .

In the third age we are told--"Light, Fire, and Flame (conceived as persons) were begotten," which looks like a tradition of Vulcan, Tubalcain, &c. (_vide_ ch. xii. _infra_); and "in the fourth, giants appeared;" while in the fifth, the corruption of mankind is indicated, as is declared in Genesis vi. 4: "Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men and brought forth children," &c., ver. 12, "and when God had seen that the earth was corrupted (for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth), ver. 13, He said to Noe," &c. "It was not till the twelfth generation that the gods appeared that figured most in the old mythologies," says Mr M'Lennan, quoting Sanchoniathon, or what is believed to be his testimony. I trust that this fragment of tradition may be remembered in connection with what I have written in chapters viii., ix., x. [107]

[107] Compare ch. xiii. The successive ages of Hesiod, more
especially the lines describing the iron age, parallel to the
tradition, _supra_, "that in the fifth age _men were named
from their mothers_."

"No fathers in their sons their features trace,
The sons reflect _no more_ their father's face;
The host with kindness greets his guest no more,
And friends and brethren love not as of yore."
--HESIOD.

President Goguet ("Origin of Laws," i. 21,) had noticed
the ancient allusions to "kinship through mothers," and
his statement that "women belonged to the man who seized
them first.... The children who sprang from this irregular
intercourse scarce ever knew who were their fathers. They knew
only their mothers, for which reason they always bore their
name." For this statement he also quotes Sanchoniathon, ap.
Eus. p. 34, as his principal authority. But Sanchoniathon's
statement, as we have seen, refers to the ante-diluvian
period, in which it is borne out by Genesis vi. 4.

There is one fact adduced by Goguet (i. 43), viz. that the
_Assyrians_ had an analogous ceremony which must be decisive
for us, though not, perhaps, for Mr M'Lennan, that the custom
of seizure was ante-diluvian, since the commencement of the
Assyrian monarchy in the times immediately following the
flood, is one of the best established foundations of history.
_Vide_ Genesis and Rawlinson.

"This race of _many languaged_ man." To any one who rightly
grasps the bearing of the argument, the appositeness of
this quotation will, I think, be rather strengthened than
diminished by the evidence that the lines of Hesiod plainly
refer to post-diluvian times (_vide_ ch. xiii.)

"The sum of the statements" then, so regarded, is to confirm the tradition of the human race as recorded in Genesis, that they sprang from three brothers and their three wives, forming three monogamous pairs who accompanied their father Noah into the ark, with his wife; and who again were more remotely descended from a single pair.

If, then, in the two most ancient traditions of which we have any record, we find concordance on some points and divergence on others, the circumstance of identity at all is so much more startling than the occurrence of discrepancy, that it will fairly be taken to warrant the presumption of a common origin; and this conformity will also be naturally claimed in support of our narrative as against the other on the points of disagreement, which will then be set down to the corruption of that which is deemed the most ancient and authentic. For those, therefore, who believe the Bible to be the revealed Word of God, and even for those who regard it as the most ancient record, the coincidences with Sanchoniathon will afford a striking testimony; whereas the coincidence of the fifth age of Sanchoniathon with Genesis (chap. vi. 1, 2, 4) and the tradition of Hesiod, must be an embarrassment to those who seek in this tradition evidence that what was characteristic of the fifth age, was true of the preceding and pristine ages.

To take a second instance, more exactly in illustration of the quotation from F. Schlegel, _supra_, p. 124, there is no such barrier to tradition (regarded retrospectively) as the notion, if we accept it, which crept over many nations, that they were "autochthones." Like the sand-drifts known to geologists as dunes, such notions, if they had been received absolutely, would have involved all tradition in a general extinction. But as the dunes, when minutely measured and submitted to calculation, have afforded the best evidence in favour of what may be called the diluvian chronology, so will this notion that men sprang out of the soil in which they dwelt, when analysed, contribute fresh evidence to the truth and persistence of tradition. But first of all, will any one start with the theory--that any nation that had this notion about itself--the Greeks, for instance, were really autochthones? There is, then, simply a confusion of ideas, a difficulty which has to be unravelled; but seeing that the Greeks notoriously believed themselves to be autochthones, it becomes an obstruction in the main channel of tradition, and it is especially incumbent upon us to consider the facts.

In the "Supplicants" of Æschylus--and I am not aware that the notion crops up at earlier date--Pelasgus is introduced as saying--

"Pelasgus bids you, sovereign of the land,
My sire, Palæcthon, of _high ancestry,
Original_ with this _earth_; from me, their king,
The people take their name, and boast themselves
Pelasgians."
--v. 275.

Here the high descent, and the origin from the soil, the ancestry referred to in the same breath with the allusion to his sire, "original with this earth," strikes one as incongruous. And the incongruity appears still greater when we recollect that Pelasgus is the person whom all historical evidence proves to have been the first settler in the country; it being also borne in mind that the term "autochthones," whether in a primary or a secondary sense, is always applied to the supposed aboriginals of the country, and therefore excludes the hypothesis of any more primitive colonisation.[108]

[108] The Phoenician cosmogony seems to me to clinch the argument.
There (_vide_ Bunsen, Egypt, iv. 234), "_The son of Eliun_ is
called by Philo, Epigeios or _autokhthon_, 'the earth-born,'
primeval inhabitant. By the latter of these expressions we
have no doubt that Adam-Tadmon ('the Kadmos of the Greeks,'
p. 195), the first man, the man of God, is implied" ("Eliun,
_i.e._ Helyun, God the Most High," p. 232).

There is an analogy in their confused tradition of the
creation. "Eudemus says, according to the Phoenician
mythology, which _was invented by Môkhos_, the first principle
was æther and air; from these two beginnings sprang Ulômos
(the eternal), the rational (conscious) God" (Bunsen, iv.
179). Bunsen, (178) adds, "as regards Môkhos the thing is
clear enough; the old materialistic philosopher is matter,
and that in the sense of primeval slime." [Whence it has been
suggested that we derive our word Muck, Môkh, or Môkhos.]
This beginning Bunsen considers (p. 179) "a philosophising
amplification of the simply sublime words of Genesis: 'The
earth was without form, and void, and darkness was over the
face of the waters.'" Here we see the human reason hampered
by the tradition that confused matter or chaos was somehow
at the commencement, and with the conflicting tradition and
conclusion of the intellect that it was, and must have been,
created by a power superior to matter ("In the beginning God
created heaven and earth"), emancipating itself, so far as to
identify the Creator with the æther and air, as nearer the
conception of a pure Spirit, and personifying matter, and so
shunting it aside as the "inventor of the mythology."

But if we regard it as a corruption of the tradition that man was created out of the earth ("for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," Genesis iii. 19), does not this solve all difficulties? The extension of the knowledge that they were created out of the earth, to the notion that they were created out of this or that particular clay, is not violent. Is it not this same Æschylus[109] who has the allusion "to the earth drinking the blood of the two rival brothers, the one slain by the other." It will be seen at p. 175, that the Mexicans believed that the first race of men were created "out of the earth," and "the third out of a tree," a reminiscence of the creation, and of the fall, the intermediate event being probably the creation of Eve. In like manner, the Red Indians have a tradition that they were created out of the _red clay_ by the Great Spirit; and to go to another part of the world, the supposed aboriginal tribes of China were called Miautze, or "soil children."[110]

[109] _Vide_ De Maistre (ch. xii.)

[110] Max Müller, "Chips," &c., ii. 274. The Titans were also said
to be "earth-born." Bryant (iii. 445) says Berosus gives the
following tradition of the Creation. Belus after deification
being confounded with the Creator, as we have seen Prometheus,
id. 104--"Belus, the deity above mentioned, cut off his own
head, upon which the other gods mixed the blood as it gushed
out _with the earth_, and _from thence_ men _were formed. On
this_ account it is that they are rational and partake of
divine knowledge. _This_ Belus, whom men called _Dis, divided
the darkness_ and separated the heavens from the earth," &c.

This testimony must be connected with the phrase so startling in the seventh ode of the fourth book of Horace, "_pulvis_ et umbra sumus," and with the text in Genesis iii. 19, "for dust thou art."[111] It may possibly be said that this is merely matter of every day's experience. But it is precisely at this point that we must ask those who dispute tradition to discard tradition. Do bodies--so far as the exterior senses tell us--return to dust, or to other forms of life? If it is true that we return to dust--Scripture apart--it is tradition and not experience which attests it, and yet so common is the belief, that it might readily pass as the result of common observation.

[111] Compare Cicero, De Legibus, i. 8: "Est igitur homini _cum deo
similitudo_;" and with Gen. ii. 26, 27: "and God created man
in his own likeness."

So general a tradition that man was created, and created out of the ground,[112] is so completely in accordance with the text of Genesis, that one can hardly see what more can be demanded; yet Catlin says[113]--"Though there is not a tribe in America but what has _some_ theory of man's _creation_, there is not one amongst them all that bears the _slightest resemblance_ to the Mosaic account." Catlin instances the traditions of the Mandans, Choctaws, and the Sioux--_1st_, The Mandans (who have the ceremony commemorative of _the Deluge_ referred to, ch. xi.), believe that they were created "under the ground." _2d_, The Choctaws assert that they "were created crawfish, living alternately under the ground and above it as they chose; and, creeping out at their little holes in the earth to get the warmth of the sun one sunny day, a portion of the tribe was driven away and could not return; they built the Choctaw village, and the remainder of the tribe are still living under the ground." The Iroquois, however, believe that they "came out of the ground," which is identical with the Greek notion of their being "autochthones" (_vide_ Colden, ii. 103), where one of their chiefs speaks thus--"For we must tell you that long before one hundred years our ancestors _came out of this very ground_.... You _came out of the ground_ in a country that lies beyond the seas." Now, even if we consent to detach the Iroquois tradition, there is still in both the Mandan and Choctaw tradition, a common idea of their having come from "under the ground," which seems to me the tradition that they were created out of the ground at one remove. To this it would seem the Choctaws have super-added their recollection of some incident of their tribe, possibly that they were an offshoot of the Esquimaux, or were at one period in their latitude and lived their life, which would be in accordance with the theory of their migrations from Asia by Behring's Straits. 3_d_, About the Sioux, the third instance of contrariety adduced by Catlin, it seems to me that there is no room for argument, the Sioux having the tradition referred to above, that the Great Spirit _told_ them that "The red stone was their flesh." To these three instances Mr Catlin adds--"Other tribes were created under the water, and at least _one half of the_ tribes in America represent that man was created _under the ground_ or in the rocky caverns of the mountains. Why this diversity of theories of the Creation if these people brought their traditions of the Deluge from the land of inspiration?"[114]

[112] "The Chinese cosmogony speaks as follows of the creation of
man--'God took some yellow earth, and He made man _en deux
sexes_.'" This is the true origin of the human race. A Hebrew
tradition says that it was of the red earth, which is the
same idea. The Hebrew word "Adam" expresses this idea. This
correspondence as to the manner in which the body of the
first man was formed, between two people who have never had
relations, is very remarkable. Indian and African cosmogonies
relate that the name of the first man was 'Adimo,' that of
his wife 'Hava,' and that they were the last work of the
Creator."--Gainet, _La Bible sans la Bible_, i. p. 74. I must
note, too, the identity of the American Indian (_supra_) and
the Hebrew tradition, which is curious, as it might naturally
be supposed that the tradition of the Red Indian took its
_colour_ from his own complexion.

Max Müller ("Lect. on the Science of Language," 1st series,
p. 367) says of "man"--"The Latin word _homo_, the French
_l'homme_, ... is _derived from the same root_, which we
have in _humus_, soil, _humilis_, humble. _Homo_, therefore,
would express the idea _of being made out of the dust
of the earth_." Bunsen also ("Phil. Univ. Hist." i. 78)
says--"The common word for man in all German dialects is
'manna,' containing the same root as Sanscrit 'manusha' and
'manueshya.' The Latin 'homo' is intimately connected with
'humus' and [Greek: chamai] and means _earth-born_; [Greek:
anthrôpôn chamaigeneôn], says Pindar. But what is [Greek:
anthrôpos]?"

[113] "Last Rambles," p. 324.

[114] The following tradition of the Tartar tribes seems to supply a
link. In their tradition of the Deluge (_vide_ Gainet, i. 209)
it is said, "that those who saved themselves from the Deluge
shut themselves up with their provisions in the crevices of
mountains, and that after the scourge had passed they came out
of their caverns."

And compare, again, with the tradition of Kronos (Noah, _vide_
Bryant's "Mythology," iii. 503)--"He is said to have had
_three_ sons (Sanch. ap. Euseb. P. E., lib. i. c. 10, 37), and
in a _time of danger_ he formed a _large cavern in the ocean_,
and in this he shut himself up, together _with these sons_,
and thus escaped the danger."--_Porph. de Nymphar. Antro._, p.
109.

Bryant ("Mythology," iii. 405) says--"I have shown that Gaia,
in its original sense, signified a sacred cavern, a hollow in
the earth, which, from its gloom, was looked upon as an emblem
of the ark. Hence Gaia, like Hasta Rhoia Cybele, is often
represented as the mother of mankind." The following is very
important with reference to my argument above:--The Scholiast
upon Euripides says--"[Greek: Meta ton kataklysmon en oresin
oikountôn tôn Argeiôn prôtos autous synôkisen Inachos]. When
the Argivi or Arkites, _after the Deluge_, lived _dispersed on
the mountains_, Inachus first brought them together and formed
them into communities."--Comp. _infra_, p. 157, 158, 193,
332.

The instances adduced of myths connecting man with the monkey
are, as a rule, traditions of degeneracy, _i.e._ of men turned
into monkeys (_vide_ Tylor's "Primitive Culture," i. 340),
and to which I would add the rabbinical tradition of men
turned into monkeys at the Tower of Babel (De Quincey, Works,
xiii. 235), and the classical epic of the Ceropes, "founded
on the transformation of a set of jugglers into monkeys."
But if compared with the above tradition, I think that the
only two instances (Tylor, i. 341) which seem to bear out the
opposite theory will wear a different aspect. I quote from
Tylor as above--"Wild tribes of the Malay peninsula, looked
down upon as lower animals by the more warlike and civilised
Malays, have among them traditions of their own descent from
_a pair_ of the "unka-putch" or _white_ monkeys, who reared
their young ones _and sent them into the plains_, and there
they perfected so well that they and their descendants became
men, but those _who returned to the mountains_ still remained
apes. The Buddhist legend relates the origin of the flat-nosed
uncouth tribes of Tibet, offspring of _two miraculous apes_,
transformed to _people_ the snow-kingdom. Taught to till the
ground, when they had grown corn and eaten it, their tails
and hair gradually disappeared, they began to speak, became
men, and clothed themselves with leaves. The population grew
closer, the land was more and more cultivated, and at last a
prince of the race of Sakya, driven from his home in India,
_united their isolated tribes_ into a single kingdom."--Comp.
Cecrops, &c., p. 332, _infra_.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[121]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The proof which follows is more clinching still--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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