CURIOSITIES OF SUPERSTITION. 353 



the oldest traditions of the Eastern Aryans. Should it be a sort of 

 inverted anthropomorphism a typical form of ancestor-worship f Dr. 

 Mivart is perhaps right that there were Darwinians before Charles 

 Darwin, who was merely the first systematic exponent of a very ancient 

 doctrine, for the dogma of metempsychosis itself is possibly nothing 

 but a dimly expressed anticipation of the evolution theory. 



" Poor creatures, so humble and so sublime," says Lucretius (" De 

 JVatura Rerum" published 45 b. a), "you must now recognize that 

 you are but the first of earthly animals. Your extraction is very base, 

 you have sprung from very low, but by a slow series of efforts you 

 have raised yourself above your inferior, brethren. I know your ori- 

 gin, but I can not see the goal to which you are tending ; yet persevere 

 and work on." 



And Buddha : 



" High above Indra's you may raise your lot, 

 And sink it lower than the worm or gnat ; 

 The end of many myriad lives is this, 

 The end of myriads that." 



And is it so illogical to believe in the possibility of a metamorphic 

 retrogression, as well as progression ? Have not the most godlike 

 nations of antiquity "sunk their lot" very nearly to and in some 

 respects decidedly below the level of our simian relatives ? 



Zoomorphism, as Carl Vogt calls the doctrine of metempsychosis, 

 was taught on the banks of the Ganges before Abraham's father sold 

 his stock-farm at Ur, in Chaldea, and there is no stranger fact in the 

 natural history of religion than the ubiquity of this most ancient and 

 most persistent form of supernaturalism. Its dogmas have tinctured 

 the creed of every nation, and often revive in the most unexpected 

 way. It is the basis of the eighteen Puranas of the Egyptian myths, 

 and the traditions of the elder Edda. The strangely suggestive tales 

 of the metamorphoses were probably borrowed from the religion of 

 prehistoric Italy. The nations of Northern Europe had similar super- 

 stitions which still survive the exodus of the Druids. The Christian 

 propagandists could persuade the Saxons and Celts to transfer their 

 devotion from Walhalla to Calvary, but they could not shake their 

 faith in were-wolves, kelpies, and amphibious Melusinas. 



"That the creed of Mohammed," says Lecky, " should have preserved 

 its pure monotheism and its freedom from all idolatrous tendencies . . . 

 is a fact which we can only very imperfectly explain." But even the 

 Koran did not eradicate the zoomorphic superstitions of the Southern 

 Semites. Professor Brehm relates that his Bedouin guide implored 

 him in the name of the All-merciful not to fire upon a troop of spotted 

 jackals (Canis pictus), as these animals embodied the souls of potent 

 wizards who would cruelly revenge the death of a companion. After 

 the death of Caliph Walid " El Caffer," the infidel, as the dervishes 

 vol. xxn. 23 



