EVOLUTION OF THE PROFESSIONS. 319 



scattered through this personal literature an impersonal lit 

 erature slowly emerged : the whole group of these products 

 having as their deepest root the eulogies of the priest-poet. 



Prompted as were the medicine-men of savages and the 

 priests of early civilized peoples to increase their influence, 

 they were ever stimulated to acquire knowledge of natural 

 actions and the properties of things; and, being in alleged 

 communication with supernatural beings, they were sup 

 posed to acquire such knowledge from them. Hence, by 

 implication, the priest became the primitive man of science; 

 and, led by his special experiences to speculate about the 

 causes of things, thus entered the sphere of philosophy : both 

 his science and his philosophy being pursued in the service 

 of his religion. 



Not only his higher culture but his alleged intercourse 

 with the gods, whose mouthpiece he was, made him the au 

 thority in cases of dispute ; and being also, as historian, the 

 authority concerning past transactions and traditional 

 usages, or laws, he acquired in both capacities the character 

 of judge. Moreover, when the growth of legal administra 

 tion brought the advocate, he, though usually of lay origin, 

 was sometimes clerical. 



Distinguished in early stages as the learned man of the 

 tribe or society, and especially distinguished as the possessor 

 of that knowledge which was thought of most value knowl 

 edge of unseen things the priest of necessity became the 

 first teacher. Transmitting traditional statements concern 

 ing ghosts and gods, at first to neophytes of his class only 

 but afterwards to the cultured classes, he presently, beyond 

 instruction in supernatural things, gave instruction in nat 

 ural things; and having been the first secular teacher has 

 retained a large share in secular teaching even down to our 

 own days. 



As making a sacrifice was the original priestly act, and 

 as the building of an altar for the sacrifice was by implica 

 tion a priestly act, it results that the making of a shelter 



