THE EARLY HIS TOBY OF FIRE. i 7 



THE EAKLY HISTORY OF FIRE. 1 



Br Professor N. JOLY, 



OF THE FACULTY OF SCIENCES, TOULOUSE. 



FIRE, the common source of heat, of light, and of life, and the 

 active principle of a multitude of industries, and of metallurgi- 

 cal industry in particular, is unquestionably one of the greatest con- 

 quests achieved by man over Nature. 



The discovery of fire was more than a benefit ; it was, in fact, a 

 giant stride on the road to civilization. With fire arose sociability, 

 the family, the sacred joys of the domestic hearth, all industries, all 

 arts, together with the wonders they have produced, and still pro- 

 duce from day to day. Hence w'e can readily understand how it is 

 that fire has ever been and still is, among many nations, the object of 

 a special worship (priests of Baal, Ghebers, Hindoo Brahmans, Roman 

 vestals, priestesses of the sun in Peru, etc.) ; and that it has often fig- 

 ured in the relioious or funereal rites of nations most remote from one 

 another, both in time and space, as the Chaldees, Hebrews, Greeks, 

 Romans, Peruvians, Mexicans, etc. But how and when was this great 

 discovery made, in the absence of which we can hardly conceive of 

 the possibility of human arts or even of human existence ? Did man, 

 as we are told in the myths of India and Greece, steal fire from heav- 

 en ; or did he, as other legends affirm, take advantage of spontaneous 

 forest-fires, arising from the violent rubbing together of dry branches 

 under the action of the wind ; or, finally, was man so ingenious, even 

 from the beginning, as to devise one of those simple and practical 

 contrivances by means of which certain savage and half-civilized 

 tribes in our own time obtain the fire they need for their daily uses ? 



However far back we may trace man's history, we find him always 

 in possession of fire. The story of Prometheus getting fire from 

 Olympus is nothing but the Vedic myth which tells of the god Agni, 

 or heavenly fire (Latin, ignis), as squatting in a hiding-place whence 

 he is compelled by Matarichvan to come forth in order to be com- 

 municated to Manu, the first man, or to Bhrigu (the shining one), the 

 father of the sacerdotal family of the same name. 



The very name of Prometheus is of purely Vedic origin, and calls 

 to mind the process employed by the ancient Brahmans in getting the 

 sacred fire. For this they used a spindle called rnatha or pramatha, 

 the prefix pra adding the idea of taking by force to the signification of 

 the root matha ; this latter is from the verb mathndmi, or manthdmi 

 " to bring out by friction." Prometheus, therefore, is the one who dis- 

 covered fire, brings it forth from is hiding-place, steals it and gives it 



1 Translated from the French by J. Fitzgerald, A. M. 

 vol. x. 2 



