Others call themselves Children of the Gods.[1] Some nations trace back their descent to a time of utter barbarism, whence the Gods recalled them; others start from a golden age, as the primitive condition of men.[2] The latter opinion prevailed with the Hebrews, from whom the Christians have derived it. According to them, the primitive state was one of the highest felicity, from which men fell; the primitive worship, therefore, must have been the normal Religion of mankind.[3]
This question then presents itself, From what point did the human race set out; from civilization and the true worship of one God, or from cannibalism and the deification of Nature? Has the human race fallen or risen? The question is purely historical, and to be answered by historical witnesses. But in the presence, and still more in the absence, of such witnesses, the à priori doctrines of the man's philosophy affect his decision. Reasoning with no facts is easy, as all motion in vacuo. The analogy of the geological formation of the earth; its gradual preparation, so to say, for the reception of plants and animals, the ruder first, and then the more complex and beautiful, till at last she opens her bosom to man,—this, in connection with many similar analogies, would tend to show that a similar order was to be expected in the affairs of men; development from the lower to the higher, and not the reverse.[4] In strict accordance with this analogy, some have taught that Man was created in the lowest stage of savage life; his Religion the rudest worship of nature;
- ↑ Diodorus Siculus says, somewhere, all ancient nations claim to be the most ancient.
- ↑ See the heathen view of this in Hesiod, Opera et Dies; Lucretius, V. 923, et seq.; Virgil, Georg. I. 125, et seq., Ecl. IV.; Ovid, Met. I. 89, et seg.; Plato, Polit. p. 271, et seq. See Heyne, Opusc. Vol. III. p. 24, et seq.; Hesiod's Theog. 521–579. See other parallels in Bauer's Mythologie des A. T. &c , Vol. I. p.85, et seq. See also the curious speculations of Eichhorn (Urgeschichte ed. Gabler.), Büttmann (Mythologus), and Hartmann (über des Pentateuch). Compare Rosenmüller, Alterthumskunde, Vol. I. Part i. p. 180, et seq., and the striking passage in Kleuker’s Zendavesta, Vol. II. p. 211, 227, et seq.; III. p. 85. See Rhode’s remarks upon the passages, ubi sup., p. 388, et seg. See Bauer, Dicta Classica, § 52.
- ↑ See the opinions of Zoroaster on this point collected by Bretschneider, Darstellung der Dogmatik, &c., der Apoc. Schriften, Vol. I. § 52, p. 286, et seq.
- ↑ See Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, Lond., 1844, 1st ed. p. 277, et seq., for some curious remarks.
