THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



ery. Sir George Cox, its able advocate, 

 fastens upon the admission that some one 

 particuhir method is not available for all 

 the phenomena, and asks, Why not adopt 

 for the Greek system, for the Aryan sys- 

 tems at lartre, perhaps for a still wider 

 range, "a clear and simple explanation," 

 namely, the solar theory ? * The plain 

 answer to the question is, that this must 

 not be done, because, if it is done, we do 

 not follow the facts, nor are led by them ; 

 but, to use the remarkable phrase of ^-Eschy- 

 lus,f we ride them down, we trample them 

 under foot. Mankind has long been too 

 familiar with a race of practitioners, whom 

 courtesy forbids to name, and whose single 

 medicine is alike available to deal with 

 every one of the thousand figures of disease. 

 There are surely many sources to which the 

 old religions are referable. We have solar 

 worship, earth worship, astronomic wor- 

 ship, the worship of animals, the worship 

 of evil powers, the worship of abstractions, 

 the worship of the dead, the foul and pol- 

 luting worship of bodily organs, so wide- 

 spread in the world, and especially in the 

 East ; last, but not least, I will name termi- 

 nal worship, the remarkable and most im- 

 portant scheme which grew up, perhaps 

 first on the Nile, in connection with the 

 stones used for marking boundaries, which 

 finds its principal representative in the god 

 Hermes, and which is very largely traced 

 and exhibited in the first volume of the 

 work of M. Dulaure \ on ancient religions. 



But none of these circumstances dis- 

 credit or impair the proof that in the Book, 

 of which Genesis is the opening section, 

 there is conveyed special knowledge to meet 

 the special need everywhere so palpable in 

 the state and history of our race. Far in- 

 deed am I from asserting that this precious 

 gift, or that any process known to me, dis- 

 poses of all the problems, either insoluble 

 or unsolved, by which we are surrounded ; of 



" thfi hurden .ind the mystery 

 Of all this unintellit'ible world." 



But I own my surprise not only at the fact, 

 but at the manner in which in this day, 



* " Mythology of Aryan Nations," 1, 18. 



t Ka.6i.Trna(e<T9(ii : a remarkable word, as applied 

 to moral subjects, found in the '• Kuinonidos "' only. 



J"ni»tolro abres6e do differcns Cultes." So- 

 conde 6dltion. Paris, 1825. 



writers, whose name is Legion, unimpeached 

 in character and abounding in talent, not 

 only put away from them, cast into shadow 

 or into the very gulf of negation itself, 

 the conception of a Deity, an acting and a 

 ruling Deity. Of this belief, which has sat- 

 isfied the doubts, and wiped away the tears, 

 and found guidance for the footsteps of so 

 many a weary wanderer on earth, which 

 among the best and greatest of our race has 

 been so^cherished by those who had it, and so 

 longed and sought for by those who had it 

 not, we might suppose that if at length we 

 had discovered that it was in the light of 

 truth untenable, that the accumulated testi- 

 mony of man was worthless, and that his 

 wisdom was but folly, yet at least the de- 

 cencies of mourning would be vouchsafed 

 to this irreparable loss. Instead of this, it 

 is with a joy and exultation that might al- 

 most recall the frantic orgies of the Com- 

 mune, that this, at least at first sight, terrific 

 and overwhelming calamity is accepted, and 

 recorded as a gain. One recent, and, in 

 many ways, respected writer — a woman long 

 wont to unship creed as sailors discharge 

 excess of cargo in a storm, and passing at 

 length into formal atheism — rejoices to find 

 herself on the open, free, and " breezy com- 

 mon of humanity." Another, also woman, 

 and dealing only with the workings and 

 manifestations of God, finds * in the theory 

 of a physical evolution as recently developed 

 by Mr. Darwin, and received with extensive 

 favor, both an emancipation from error and 

 a novelty in kind. She rejoices to think 

 that now at last Darwin " shows life as an 

 harmonious whole, and makes the future 

 stride possible by the past advance." Evo- 

 lution, that is physical evolution, which 

 alone is in view, may be true (like the solar 

 theory), may be delightful and wonderful, 

 in its right place ; but are we really to un- 

 derstand that varieties of animals brought 

 about through domestication, the wasting of 

 organs (for instance, the tails of men) by 

 disuse, that natural selection and the sur- 

 vival of the fittest, all in the physical order, 

 exhibit to us the great arcamim of creation, 

 the sum and center of life, so that mind and 

 spirit are dethroned from their old suprem- 

 acy, and no longer sovereign by right, but 



* I do not quote names, but I refer to a very re- 

 cent article In one of our monthly periodicals. 



