CHAPTER VI.

THE MYTH OF CIVILISATION AND THE FIRST SHAPING OF HEBREW RELIGION.

§ 1. In close connexion with that stage of development of the myth-producing faculty which is inaugurated by the beginnings of agricultural life, is found a natural consequence of the solar myth among agriculturists—the Myth of Civilisation.

We have seen that the advance in civilisation from the nomad life to the agricultural stage is accompanied by that inversion of the direction of the myth which puts the Sun in the foreground and allows a tone favourable to him to prevail in it, whereas at the nomad stage it was the night-sky and the phenomena of nature connected with it. that engrossed the sympathy of the formers of myths. Now here we again encounter a remarkable phenomenon. No intricate psychological foundation or historical demonstration is required to prove that our own stage of civilisation-and not ours alone-is intellectually qualified to compare itself either with a lower stage through which it has long since passed, or with a higher which is now only beginning to be aimed at by our best spirits, so as to estimate its value from the point of view given us by our social system. For let two different stages of civilisation, social systems or conditions be brought before any man's observation so that he notes their essential difference, and the perception of this difference will awaken an impulse to measure them off against one another and form a judgment on the perfection of the one and the insufficiency of the other. And

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not only does the man who has reached the higher stage feel himself impelled to compare his new condition with that of those who remain behind on the less perfect stage already passed by him; but also those who stand on the lower stage, but are acquainted with the altered mode of life of others, contemplate the advanced stage and set off its value against that of the stage on which they still stand. Thus we have seen above that huntsmen and fishermen have their ideas about agricultural life. Still he who has reached the higher stage will be more generally impelled to such meditations than those who still stand on the lower. When the question has arisen in his mind, it must finally culminate in the enquiry, What was the origin or who was the author of the great advance which procures for him such advantages over one who stands lower? It is true, the agriculturist is not always conscious that his stage of civilisation is the result of an advance at all; for in many nations there exists no consciousness that any less perfect stage preceded that of the agriculturist. But this consciousness is not a necessary condition of the raising of the question; the mere observation of the difference between the two stages of civilisation suffices to prompt it. And it will come more and more into the foreground when the gradual progress within the limits of the agricultural stage has advanced so far as to develop the social consequences of the new state in all their fulness. Social order and laws are non-existent for the nomad, who has not yet formed for himself any permanent social system. At his stage they are not merely superfluous, but even in a certain sense inconceivable. The wranglings, the objects of which are chiefly wells and pastures, are settled and composed, not by laws and rights established once for all, but by strength of arm, or between disputants of peaceful disposition by separation: And their arose strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle. And Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee,

between me and thee, between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen; for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou goest to the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou goest to the right hand, then I will go to the left' (Gen. XIII. 7-9).1 And on occasion of a dispute about a well, Abimelech said to Isaac: Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we. And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there' (Gen. XXVI. 16, 17). Arts, manufactures and other occupations are inconceivable at this stage; for the wants of the nomad are so limited that the conditions of his existence are satisfied by his tents, herds, and pasture-ground.

The answer which the agriculturist gives to the question about the origin of the arts and manufactures, of social order and law, all of them products of agricultural life, is what we call the Myth of Civilisation. This Myth of Civilisation, which we encounter among the most various nations, refers the authorship of the advanced and refined state of civilisation to the Solar figures of the myth, which, to the prejudice of the figures of the dark sky, are brought into the foreground by the human mind on its advance to agriculture. It is therefore a spontaneous act of the human mind that is made the cause of a series of phenomena, of which it is itself really the result.

The Greek and Roman mythology abounds with data verifying the Solar character of the stories of the origin of civilisation and morals. Arts and manufactures are constantly brought into connexion with mythical names which are recognised by comparative philologists as designations of the Sun. Not only the musician but the

An interesting Arabic parallel to this occurs in Yaķût, III. 496. Thaķif and al-Nacha', who with their herds were migrating together, determine to separate: 'So one said to the other: Assuredly this land can never support both me and thee. If thou goest to the west, then I will go to the east; and if I go to the west, then do thou go to the east. Then said Thakîf, Well, I will choose the west. Then said al-Nacha', Then I go to the east.' Ibid., p. 498, occurs an equally curious arrangement between two nomad tribes.

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smith of Olympus are Solar figures; so also the first navigator and founder of cities. The right understanding of Mythology was long hindered by the so-called Euhemeristic system, which assumed that the gods of mythology, and especially of the Greek and Roman mythology (for scarcely any others were sufficiently known to be considered), were only great benefactors of humanity, who after their death were rewarded by divine honours; and this system has been maintained till the present day. The Myth of Civilisation consequently had to be fitted into the frame of this convenient system. It was said that posterity had from mere Gratitude raised the inventor of the arts to the throne of deity. Petrarch says, 'We know that the founders of some arts after their death were rewarded by divine honours, rather from grateful than from pious feelings. . . Thus Apollo was made a god through his lyre, Apollo and Aesculapius through medicine, Saturn, Liber and Ceres through agriculture, Vulcan through his smithy." This mode of regarding the subject was not only upheld from Euhemerus down to Petrarch, but exerted its influence on the interpretation of the ancient stories even to our own times.

1

However, the consideration of the store of legends of humanity in general, as far as they are brought under our ken, collected and analysed according to their historical and psychological truths, teaches us that the founder of all the order and morality which result from the more civilised agricultural life is, in the language of the old stories, the Sun. The so-called Myths of Civilisation are always put into connexion with the Sun, or with some of the copious synonyms which mythology gives to the Sun.

1 De vita solit. I. 10. Inventores artium quarundam post mortem divinitatis honore cultos audivimus, grate quidem potius quam pie. Nulla enim est pietas hominis qua Deus offenditur, sed erga memoriam de humano genere bene meritorum inconsulta gratitudo mortalium, humanis honoribus non contenta, usque ad sacrilegas processit ineptias. Hinc Apollinem cithara, hinc eundem ipsum atque Aesculapium medicina, Saturnum, Liberumque et Cererem agricultura, Vulcanum fabrica deos fecit.

These myths must exist in every nation which has won its upward way from nomadism to agriculture, or from tribal life to society. As soon as the agriculturist began to use the ploughshare, he could not but observe the difference between his life and that of the nomad, who fixed his tent-plugs in the earth at a different place from day to day, moving from pasture to pasture, whilst he himself had the control of permanent dwellings, protected by definite unalterable laws, and lived a life of regularity, yet full of enjoyment and variety, strongly contrasting with the Bedawî's monotonous independence. Then, when the source of this difference was sought, all the advance was attributed to the Sun, as the author and encourager of agriculture and inventor of the more refined arts and enjoyments of life. Moreover, the connexion which the Myth of Civilisation establishes between the Founder of cities and the Wolf, as e.g. between Romulus and a shewolf who suckled him, has lately been explained by Prof. Sepp through the signification given to the wolf in the solar myth-with perfect justice, though perhaps going rather too far in the elaboration of details. Like Apollo, Osiris also is γεωργίας εὑρετὴς, Μουσῶν μαθητής, 'Inventor of agriculture and teacher of the arts;'2 and in this point the myths of nations quite distinct in race agree. A few examples taken from sources wide apart will make this clear.

One of the Solar heroes of the Persian myth of civilisation is Jemshîd, whose character can scarcely be doubtful to the mythologist, after the consentaneous characteristics with which the epic poet Firdôsî and the historian Mirchond fill up the description of his life.3 His very name indicates clearly enough a solar signification; and

1 Ausland, 1875, p. 219 et seq.

2 Sir G. Wilkinson on Herodotus, II. 79, note 5.

Even Herder compared together these two sources of information on the story of Jemshid, in the Appendix to vol. I. of his writings on Philosophy and History.