DAWN OF CREATION AND OF WORSHIP. 



867 



a great mass of evidence, which, as far as I 

 have seen, there has been no serious en- 

 deavor, if indeed any endeavor, to repel. 

 Dr. Keville observes that my views have 

 been subjected to "very profound criti- 

 cism " by Sir G. Cox in his learned work on 

 Aryan mythology (p. 41). That is indeed 

 a very able criticism ; but it is addressed 

 entirely to the statements of my earliest 

 Ilomeric work.* Now, apart from the ques- 

 tion whether those statements have been 

 rightly understood (which I can not admit), 

 that which he attacks is beyond and out- 

 side of the proposition which I have given 

 above. Sir G. Cox has not attempted to 

 decide the question whether there was a 

 primitive revelation, or whether it may be 

 traced in Homer. And I may say that I am 

 myself so little satisfied with the precise 

 form in which my general conclusions were 

 originally clothed that I have not reprinted 

 and shall not reprint the work, which has 

 become very rare, only appearing now and 

 then in some catalogue, and at a high price. 

 When there are representatives living and 

 awake, why disturb the ashes of the dead ? 

 In later works, reaching from 1865 to 

 18Y5, f I have confessed to the modification 

 of my results, and have stated the case in 

 terms which appear to me, using the com- 

 mon phrase, to be those yielded by the 

 legitimate study of comparative religion. 

 But why should those, who think it a sound 

 method of comparative religion to match 

 together the Yedas, the Norse legends, and 

 the Egyptian remains, think it to be no 

 process of comparative religion to bring 

 together, not vaguely and loosely, but in 

 searching detail, certain traditions of the 

 Book of Genesis and those recorded in the 

 Homeric poems, and to argue that their 

 resemblances may afford proof of a common 

 origin, without any anticipatory assumption 

 as to what that origin may be ? 



It will hardly excite surprise, after what 

 has now been written, when I say I am 

 unable to accept as mine any one of the 

 propositions which Dr. Reville (pp. 41, 42) 



♦ "Studies on Homer and the Ilomeric Arc," 8 

 vols. Oxford, ISoS. 



t" Address to the University of Kdinburph" 

 (Murray, 1S65) ; "Juventus Mundi " (Macmillan, 

 186S) ; " Primer of Homer (Macmillan, 1S7S) ; espe- 

 cially see Preface to "Juventus Mundi," p. 1. 



affiliates to me. (1) I do not hold that there 

 was a " systematic " or willful corruption of 

 a primitive religion. (2) I do not hold that 

 all the mythologies are due to any such 

 corruption systematic or otherwise. (3) I 

 do not hold that no part of them sprang 

 out of the deification of natural facts. (4) 

 I do not hold that the ideas conveyed in the 

 Book of Genesis, or in any Hebrew tradi- 

 tion, were developed in the form of dogma, 

 as is said by Sir G. Cox,* or in " six great 

 doctrines " as is conceived by Dr. Reville ; 

 and (5) I am so far from ever having held 

 that there was a " primitive orthodoxy " 

 revealed to the first men (p. 43) that I have 

 carefully from the first referred not to de- 

 veloped doctrine, but to rudimentary indi- 

 cations of what are now developed and 

 established truths. So that, although Dr. 

 Reville asks me for proof, I decline to sup- 

 ply proofs of what I disbelieve. What I 

 have supplied proofs of is the appearance 

 in the Poems of a number of traits, incon- 

 gruous in various degrees with their im- 

 mediate environment, but having such 

 marked and characteristic resemblances to 

 the Hebrew tradition as to require of us, 

 in the character of rational inquirers, the 

 admission of a common oi-igin, just as the 

 markings, which we sometimes notice upon 

 the coats of horses and donkeys, are held 

 to require the admission of their relation- 

 ship to the zebra. 



It thus appears that Dr. Reville has dis- 

 charged his pistol in the air, for my Homeric 

 propositions involve no assumption as to a 

 revelation contained in the Book of Genesis, 

 while he has not ex professo contested my 

 statements of an historical relationship be- 

 tween some traditions of that book and 

 those of the Homeric poems. But I will 

 now briefly examine (1) the manner in which 

 Dr. Reville handles the Book of Genesis, 

 and (2) the manner in which he undertakes, 

 by way of specimen, to construe the my- 

 thology of Homer, and enlist it, by compari- 

 son, in the support of his system of inter- 

 pretation. And first with the first-named 

 of these two subjects. 



Entering a protest against assigning to 

 the Book " a dictatorial authority," that is, 

 I presume, against its containing a Divine 



* " Aryan Mythology," vol. i, p. 15. 



