ery. Sir George Cox, its able advocate, fastens upon the admission that some one particular method is not available for all the phenomena, and asks, Why not adopt for the Greek system, for the Aryan systems at large, perhaps for a still wider range, "a clear and simple explanation," namely, the solar theory?[1] The plain answer to the question is, that this must not be done, because, if it is done, we do not follow the facts, nor are led by them; but, to use the remarkable phrase of Æschylus,[2] we ride them down, we trample them under foot. Mankind has long been too familiar with a race of practitioners, whom courtesy forbids to name, and whose single medicine is alike available to deal with every one of the thousand figures of disease. There are surely many sources to which the old religions are referable. We have solar worship, earth worship, astronomic worship, the worship of animals, the worship of evil powers, the worship of abstractions, the worship of the dead, the foul and polluting worship of bodily organs, so widespread in the world, and especially in the East; last, but not least, I will name terminal worship, the remarkable and most important scheme which grew up, perhaps first on the Nile, in connection with the stones used for marking boundaries, which finds its principal representative in the god Hermes, and which is very largely traced and exhibited in the first volume of the work of M. Dulaure[3] on ancient religions.
But none of these circumstances discredit or impair the proof that in the Book, of which Genesis is the opening section, there is conveyed special knowledge to meet the special need everywhere so palpable in the state and history of our race. Far indeed am I from asserting that this precious gift, or that any process known to me, disposes of all the problems, either insoluble or unsolved, by which we arc surrounded; of
"the burden and the mystery
Of all this unintelligible world."
But I own my surprise not only at the fact, but at the manner in which in this day, writers, whose name is Legion, unimpeached in character and abounding in talent, not only put away from them, cast into shadow or into the very gulf of negation itself, the conception of a Deity, an acting and a ruling Deity. Of this belief, which has satisfied the doubts, and wiped away the tears, and found guidance for the footsteps of so many a weary wanderer on earth, which among the best and greatest of our race has been so cherished by those who had it, and so longed and sought for by those who had it not, we might suppose that if at length we had discovered that it was in the light of truth untenable, that the accumulated testimony of man was worthless, and that his wisdom was but folly, yet at least the decencies of mourning would be vouchsafed to this irreparable loss. Instead of this, it is with a joy and exultation that might almost recall the frantic orgies of the Commune, that this, at least at first sight, terrific and overwhelming calamity is accepted, and recorded as a gain. One recent, and, in many ways, respected writer—a woman long wont to unship creed as sailors discharge excess of cargo in a storm, and passing at length into formal atheism—rejoices to find herself on the open, free, and "breezy common of humanity." Another, also woman, and dealing only with the workings and manifestations of God, finds[4] in the theory of a physical evolution as recently developed by Mr. Darwin, and received with extensive favor, both an emancipation from error and a novelty in kind. She rejoices to think that now at last Darwin "shows life as an harmonious whole, and makes the future stride possible by the past advance." Evolution, that is physical evolution, which alone is in view, may be true (like the solar theory), may be delightful and wonderful, in its right place; but are we really to understand that varieties of animals brought about through domestication, the wasting of organs (for instance, the tails of men) by disuse, that natural selection and the survival of the fittest, all in the physical order, exhibit to us the great arcanum of creation, the sum and center of life, so that mind and spirit are dethroned from their old supremacy, and no longer sovereign by right, but
- ↑ "Mythology of Aryan Nations," 1, 18.
- ↑ καθιππάζεσθαι: a remarkable word, as applied to moral subjects, found in the "Eumenides" only.
- ↑ "Histoire abrégée de différens Cultes." Seconde édition. Paris, 1825.
- ↑ I do not quote names, but I refer to a very recent article In one of our monthly periodicals.
