352 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[JoxE 15, 1883. 



nubeculns the farthest part of either of these ^'lobe-shapfd 

 aggregations lannot be farther from us than the nearest part 

 in greater degree than as ton to nine. Within these 

 narrow limits of distance are many orders of stars (from 

 tJie seventh magnitude to the lowest discernible with very 

 powerful telescopes) and all orders of nebulie. It is 

 certain, therefore (and, " which is else," it is obvious), that 

 tliese nebuhc are not, as the common theory asserts of all 

 nebuhe, many hundreds of times more remote than the 

 discrete stars. To use Sir John ITerschel's own words, " It 

 must be taken as a demonstrated fact that stars of the 

 seventh or eighth magnitudes and irresolvable nebuhe may 

 co-exist -within limits of distance not differing in proportion 

 more than as nine to ten." 



The nebuL-e, then, arc certainly, for the most part, and 

 most probably without exception, portions of the grand 

 galaxy of which our sun is a member. They are among 

 the features which indicate its variety and complexity of 

 structure. They are also features which must be taken 

 into account in any theory which is intended to give an 

 account of its origin and development. 



THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH. 



IX. 



By Edward Clodd. 



I HOPE that no reader of these papers will gather from 

 the closing words in my last chapter that there is a 

 desire to covertly intrude religious questions into them. 

 My agreement with the clear definition of the aim and 

 limitation of the contributions to Knowledge, which the 

 editor gave in its earlier numbers, when certain corre- 

 spondents show eagerness to impart the odium theologicum, 

 would in itself be sufficing check. And if that would not, 

 the editor's eagle eye would soon detect the cloven foot. 



At the same time, the scientific character of Knowledge 

 requires that whatever is matter of historical explanation 

 should have place in its columns. For the term science 

 includes much more than was conceded before the " Origin 

 of Species " was published. Not twenty years ago, Mr. 

 Froude was at some pains in endeavouring to refute 

 Mr. Buckle's theory that a science of man is possible 

 because the origin of his ideas and the sources of 

 his actions, both individually and socially, are trace- 

 able to physical causes. Incomplete as was Mr. 

 Buckle's theory, and obscured as it now is under 

 the greater light of the doctrine of descent with modi- 

 fication, he was on the right track. For if man is a 

 part of nature, then there is a science of him not only 

 attainable, but demanded ; a science of him intellectually, 

 emotionally, spiritually, as well as physically. His rela- 

 tion, materially, to every kind of life on the earth; struc- 

 turally, to the higher forms, is established ; the natural 

 history of him is demonstrated. But this is physical only, 

 and for us the larger question is psychical. Here most of 

 us are yet in the empirical stage, and here we must remain 

 till the sequences of mental phenomena are recognised to 

 be as determinable as those of material phenomena. But 

 that time seems afar oflf, because people are frightened 

 when the application of the same method of investigation 

 to psychology as to pliysiology is urged. They say that 

 this savours of materialism, whereas it commits us to 

 nothing to which the idealist cannot assent. Thus much 

 must suffice to Justify what has yet to be said. 



These papers would not Ije worth the reader's attention 

 if they were solely concerned with bringing together illus- 



trations of myths from semi-savage races. Their other, 

 and indeed their primary, concern is with the origin and 

 growth of man's effiort to understand the nature and weaning 

 of things around him, and of his own acts and feelings. In 

 this lies primitive philosophy, theology, and science, the 

 beginnings of all knowledge that has been and that ever 

 will be, and in the unbroken sequence of which we find 

 the explanation of the existence of beliefs amongst 

 us which are discredited whenever examined. It is 

 the persistence of these which has made it increasingly 

 difficult, as these papers proceed, to deal with the primitive 

 myth apart from its later and more serious forms. Myth 

 was the product of man's emotion and imagination, acted 

 upon by his surroundings, and it carries the traces of its 

 origin in its more developed forms, as the ancestral history 

 of the higher organisms is embodied in their embryos. 

 Man wondered before he reasoned. Awe and fear are 

 quick to express themselves in rudimentary worship ;. 

 hence the myth was at the outset a theology, and the gra- 

 dations from personifying to deifying are too faint to be 

 traced. Thus Ijlended, the one as inevitable outcome of the 

 other, they cannot well be treated separately, as if the 

 myth was earth-born and the theology heaven-sent. And to- 

 treat them as one is to invade no province of religion, 

 which is quite other than speculation about gods. The 

 awe and reverence which the fathomless mystery of the 

 universe awakens, which steal within us unbidden as the 

 morning light, and unbroken on the prism of analysis ; the 

 conviction, deepening as we peer, that there is a Power 

 beyond humanity, and upon which humanity depends ; the 

 feeling that life is in harmony with the Divine order when 

 it moves in disinterested service of our kind — these 

 theology can neither create nor destroy, neither verify nor 

 disprove. They can be bound within no formula that man 

 or church has invented, but undefined — 



" Are yet the fountain life of all oar day, 

 Ai'e yet a master light of all our seeing." 



If thus far my readers are with me as to the unrelatioD 

 between religion and formulated theology, and if these 

 papers have shown with any clearness the emergence of the 

 latter from primitive speculations about the gods and their 

 doings, their sympathetic interest may be reckoned on in 

 what has now to follow concerning the survival of some old 

 weather-myths in beliefs that have had profound and dire- 

 ful influence upon human conduct and fate. 



All the Aryan nations have among their legends, often 

 exalted into epic themes, the story of a battle between a 

 hero and a monster. In each ease the hero conquers, and 

 releases treasure."!, or in some way renders succour to man, 

 through his victory. In Hindu myth this battle is fought 

 between Indra and Vritra. 



Indra, one of the Vedic gods, comes, according to Pro- 

 fessor Max Miiller, from the same root as the Sanskrit 

 indu, drop, sap, but the etymology is doubtful. What ia 

 not doubtful is that he is the god of the liright sky, and, 

 although like the other gods invoked in the hymns of the 

 Rig- Veda, a departmental or tribal deity, a sort of primtis 

 inter jtares, of whose many titles, Vritrahan, or " Vritra- 

 slayer," is the pre-eminent one. The benefits showered by 

 him upon mortals caused the attribution of moral qualities 

 to him, and he was adored as " lord of the virtues," while 

 the juice of the sacred soma plant was offered in his 

 honour, for which reason he is also called Somapii, or " soma- 

 drinker." It is his struggle with Vritra which is a constant 

 theme of the Vedic hymns, the burden of which remind us 

 of the praises oflered in the Psalms to Yahweh as a man of 

 war, as mighty in battle. " The gods do not reach thee, 

 nor men, thou overcomest all creatures in strength. . . . 

 Thou, thuuderer, hast shattered with thy bolt the broad 



