PRIMITIVE MAN. 889 



record in Genesis — the shadow that clings to the sub- 

 stance and is inseparable from it, the likeness that 

 represents it visibly to the eyes of men, and of the 

 animals that man rules over. Primeval man could 

 " hear in the evening breeze the voice of God, walking 

 to and fro in the garden.^' What mere animal ever 

 had or could attain to such an experience ? 



But if we turn from the Edenic picture of man in 

 harmony with Heaven — '^ owning a father, when he 

 owned a God '' — to man as the slave of superstition ; 

 even in this terrible darkness of mistaken faith, of 

 which it may be said, 



" Fear makes her devils, and weak faith her gods, 

 Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust. 

 Whose attributes are rage, revenge, or lust," 



we see the ruins, at least, of that sublime love of 

 God. The animal clings to its young with a natural 

 affection, as great as that of a human mother for her 

 child, but what animal ever thought of throwing its 

 progeny into the Ganges, or into the fires of Mo- 

 loch^s altar, for the saving of its soul, or to obtain the 

 favour or avoid the wrath of God ? No less in the 

 vagaries of fetichism, ritualism, and idolatry, and in 

 the horrors of asceticism and human sacrifice, than in 

 the Edenic communion with and hearing of God, or 

 in the joy of Christian love, do we see, in however 

 ruined or degraded condition, the higher spiritual 

 nature of man. 



This point leads to another distinction which, when 

 properly viewed, widens the gap between man and 



