Chapter I.
Dualism.
Origin of Deism-Evolution from the far to the near-Illustrations from witchcraft-The
primitive Pantheism-The
dawn of Dualism.
A
college in the State of Ohio has adopted for its
motto the words 'Orient thyself.' This
significant admonition to Western youth represents one
condition of attaining truth in the science of
mythology. Through
neglect of it the glowing personifications and metaphors of the East have too generally migrated to the West only to find it a Medusa turning them to stone. Our
prosaic literalism changes their ideals to idols. The time has come when we must learn rather to see ourselves in them: out of an age and civilisation where we live in
habitual recognition of
natural forces we may
transport ourselves to a
period and
region where no
sophisticated eye looks upon
nature. The sun is a
chariot drawn by shining steeds and driven by a
refulgent deity; the stars
ascend and move by
arbitrary power or
command; the tree is the bower of a
spirit; the fountain leaps from the
urn of a naiad. In such gay costumes did the laws of
nature hold [2]their
carnival until Science struck the hour for unmasking. The costumes and masks have with us become materials for studying the history of the
human mind, but to know them we must
translate our senses back into that
phase of our own early
existence, so far as is
consistent with carrying our
culture with us.
Without conceding too much to Solar
mythology, it may be pronounced tolerably clear that the earliest
emotion of
worship was born out of the
wonder with which man looked up to the heavens above him. The splendours of the morning and evening; the
azure vault, painted with frescoes of cloud or blackened by the storm; the night, crowned with constellations: these awakened
imagination,
inspired awe, kindled
admiration, and at
length adoration, in the being who had reached intervals in which his eye was lifted above the
earth. Amid the
rapture of Vedic hymns to these sublimities we meet
sharp questionings whether there be any such gods as the priests say, and
suspicion is sometimes cast on sacrifices. The forms that peopled the
celestial spaces may have been those of ancestors, kings, and great men, but
anterior to all forms was the
poetic enthusiasm which built heavenly mansions for them; and the
crude cosmogonies of
primitive science were
probably caught up by this
spirit, and
consecrated as slowly as
scientific generalisations now are.
Our
modern ideas of
evolution might suggest the
reverse of this-that
human worship began with things low and gradually ascended to high objects; that from
rude ages, in which
adoration was directed to
stock and stone, tree and
reptile, the
human mind climbed by degrees to the
contemplation and
reverence of
celestial grandeurs. But the
accord of this view with our ideas of
evolution is
apparent only. The real
progress seems here to have been from the far to the near, from the great to the small. It [3]is, indeed,
probably inexact to speak of the
worship of
stock and stone, weed and wort,
insect and
reptile, as
primitive. There are many indications that such things were by no race
considered intrinsically sacred, nor were they really worshipped until the
origin of their
sanctity was
lost; and even now, ages after their
oracular or symbolical
character has been forgotten, the superstitions that have survived in
connection with such
insignificant objects point to an
original association with the phenomena of the heavens. No religions could, at first
glance, seem wider apart than the
worship of the
serpent and that of the
glorious sun; yet many
ancient temples are covered with symbols combining sun and snake, and no form is more
familiar in Egypt than the
solar serpent standing
erect upon its tail, with rays around its head.
Nor is this high
relationship of the adored
reptile found only in regions where it
might have been raised up by ethnical combinations as the
mere survival of a
savage symbol. William Craft, an African who resided for some time in the
kingdom of Dahomey, informed me of the following
incident which he had witnessed there. The
sacred serpents are kept in a grand house, which they sometimes leave to crawl in their neighbouring grounds. One day a negro from some
distant region encountered one of these animals and killed it. The people learning that one of their gods had been slain, seized the
stranger, and having surrounded him with a circle of brushwood, set it on fire. The poor
wretch broke
through the circle of fire and ran, pursued by the
crowd, who struck him with heavy sticks. Smarting from the flames and blows, he rushed into a river; but no sooner had he entered there than the
pursuit ceased, and he was told that, having gone
through fire and water, he was purified, and
might emerge with safety. Thus, even in that
distant and
savage [4]
region,
serpent-
worship was associated with fire-
worship and river-
worship, which have a wide
representation in both Aryan and Semitic
symbolism. To this day the
orthodox Israelites set beside their dead, before
burial, the lighted candle and a
basin of pure water. These have been associated in rabbinical
mythology with the angels Michael (
genius of Water) and Gabriel (
genius of Fire); but they
refer both to the
phenomenal glories and the purifying effects of the two elements as reverenced by the Africans in one
direction and the Parsees in another.
Not less
significant are the facts which were attested at the witch-trials. It was shown that for their pretended divinations they used plants-as
rue and vervain-well known in the
ancient Northern religions, and often recognised as examples of tree-
worship; but it also appeared that around the
cauldron a
mock zodiacal circle was drawn, and that every
herb employed was
alleged to have derived its
potency from having been gathered at a
certain hour of the night or day, a
particular quarter of the moon, or from some spot where sun or moon did or did not
shine upon it. Ancient planet-
worship is, indeed, still reflected in the
habit of
village herbalists, who
gather their simples at
certain phases of the moon, or at
certain of those
holy periods of the year which
conform more or less to the pre-christian festivals.
These are a few out of many indications that the small and
senseless things which have become almost or quite fetishes were by no means such at first, but were mystically connected with the heavenly elements and splendours, like the animal forms in the
zodiac. In one of the earliest hymns of the Rig-Veda it is said-'This
earth belongs to Varuna (???????) the king, and the wide sky: he is contained also in this
drop of water.' As the sky was seen reflected in the shining curve of a dew-
drop, [5]even so in the
shape or colour of a
leaf or flower, the
transformation of a
chrysalis, or the
burial and
resurrection of a scarabæus' egg, some sign could be detected making it answer in place of the
typical image which could not yet be painted or carved.
The necessities of
expression would, of course,
operate to
invest the
primitive conceptions and interpretations of
celestial phenomena with those pictorial images drawn from
earthly objects of which the early languages are
chiefly composed. In many cases that are met in the most
ancient hymns, the designations of
exalted objects are so little
descriptive of them, that we may
refer them to a
period anterior to the
formation of that
refined and
complex symbolism by which
primitive religions have acquired a
representation in
definite characters. The Vedic comparisons of the
various colours of the
dawn to horses, or the rain-clouds to cows, denotes a much less
mature development of
thought than the fine
observation implied in the
connection of the forked
lightning with the forked
serpent-tongue and forked mistletoe, or symbolisation of the
universe in the
concentric folds of an onion. It is the
presence of these more
mystical and
complex ideas in religions which
indicate a
progress of the
human mind from the large and
obvious to the more
delicate and
occult, and the growth of the higher
vision which can see small things in their large relationships. Although the
exaltation in the Vedas of Varuna as king of heaven, and as contained also in a
drop of water, is in one
verse, we may well recognise an
immense distance in time between the two ideas there embodied. The first represents that
primitive pantheism which is the
counterpart of
ignorance. An unclassified outward
universe is the
reflection of a
mind without form and
void: it is while all within is as yet undiscriminating
wonder that the
religious vesture of
nature will be this
undefined pantheism. The fruit of the tree of the
knowledge [6]of good and
evil has not yet been tasted. In some of the earlier hymns of the Rig-Veda, the Maruts, the storm-deities, are praised along with Indra, the sun; Yama, king of Death, is equally adored with the
goddess of Dawn. 'No real
foe of yours is known in heaven, nor in
earth.' 'The storms are thy allies.' Such is the high
optimism of sentences found even in
sacred books which elsewhere mask the
dawn of the Dualism which
ultimately superseded the
harmony of the elemental Powers. 'I
create light and I
create darkness, I
create good and I
create evil.' 'Look unto Yezdan, who causeth the
shadow to fall.' But it is easy to see what must be the
result when this happy family of sun-god and storm-god and fire-god, and their
innumerable co-ordinate divinities, shall be divided by
discord. When each shall have become associated with some
earthly object or
fact, he or she will appear as friend or
foe, and their
connection with the sources of
human pleasure and pain will be reflected in collisions and wars in the heavens. The
rebel clouds will be transformed to Titans and Dragons. The adored Maruts will be no longer storm-heroes with unsheathed swords of
lightning, marching as the
retinue of Indra, but fire-breathing monsters-Vritras and Ahis,-and the morning and evening shadows from
faithful watch-dogs become the
treacherous hell-hounds, like Orthros and Cerberus. The
vehement antagonisms between animals and men and of tribe against tribe, will be expressed in the
conception of struggles among gods, who will
thus be classified as good or
evil deities.