103 THE LAPSE OF TIME. 



at by society. And in like manner, among nations, 

 a new rival excites the fears and encounters the ridicule 

 of the established clique. Claims to antiquity, therefore,, 

 were as advantageous to possess as they were easy to 

 forge. Those that have been mentioned, being un- 

 attested by any corroborative facts, and, where they 

 are not obviously false, being unsusceptible of proof, 

 are worthless in themselves. One thing they tend to 

 show, namely, that all remembrance of the real origin 

 of mankind, and of the date of that origin, had been 

 absolutely lost to those ancient peoples. From over the 

 sea, from beyond the mountains, from the bright east 

 or the frozen north, they might know that their fore- 

 fathers had made pilgrimage in distant ages or they 

 might know of no time, however far back, when the seat 

 of their habitation had not been occupied by their own 

 progenitors. In either case their ignorance of primeval 

 history is as absolute as it is conspicuous. One pre- 

 vailing tradition, it is true, is current alike in sacred 

 and profane literature, of a far-off golden time, an age 

 of simplicity, when man conversed with the beasts of 

 the field, when the earth brought forth her fruits 

 spontaneously, with her bosom as yet unvexed by the 

 ploughshare, ere the knowledge or the discrimination 

 of good and evil had come into the world the record, 

 in one word, as all these details tend to prove, of a time 

 before man had become a moral being; a dim myste- 

 rious recollection, almost like a dream, of a time before 

 the animal nature had been decisively exalted into 

 humanity. 



