Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/127

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Primitive Lapp and Slav Myths Compared.
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almost unknown among them. Their religion consisted of a high order of spiritualism (the latitude and proximity of the magnetic pole rendering their nervous systems peculiarly sensitive) and absolute freedom in the indulgence of the amorous passions, love and happiness were the sole objects aimed at in their state of organization; war was unknown ; the illusion of the death and burial of the sun in the Arctic winter night, and its subsequent resurrection in spring was the basis of their religion.

From geometrical considerations, the round-headed type of human beings must be the highest, because a spherical skull, other things being equal, contains the greatest amount of brains. The present predominance of the Aryans (i.e., elliptical skull-folk) is due to their aptitude for motion consequent upon their well developed cerebellums. How deeply seated is this instinct in us is shewn in every department of our science, the last word of which is motion in a medium. When we have resolved even thought itself into the motion or electrical discharges of its molecules, we assume we have penetrated as far as human intellect can go; it does not occur to us to proceed in the opposite direction, and endeavour to express cosmical energy in terms of thought. But when all the problems of mechanical locomotion have been solved, there will be no further use for our physical and mental restlessness, with its nomad instinct; and our science of motion and locomotion having been learned and adopted by the round-headed Turanian races, ours may be destined to die out or become absorbed in theirs, our rôle on earth being accomplished. The age of peace, impossible to our combative type of humanity, may then perhaps dawn, as well as that of freedom for the emotions, and therefore of relative happiness. Once again things will be as they were in that long past golden age of the Arctic world, when, just as the moon was a pledge and earnest in the long Arctic winter night of the reappearance of the sun, so the orgies and beanfeasts of that long jovial winter midnight were the pledge and earnest of the resurrection of ove and its perpetual enjoyment after death:

The moon and its broken reflection,
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.