Jan. 9, I6c5] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



37 



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THE ORIGIN OF MYTU. 



[1553] — Mr. Edward Clodd, in yonr valuable paper, reviews 

 Custom and Myth in a way which so entirely coincides with my 

 ideas on these interesting subjects, that I c.mnot Iielp offering a 

 short remark thereon. To the believer in the theory of evolutiou 

 of mind as well as body, it must be clear that, given the same 

 surroundings or conditions of development, the results must be 

 identical; hence, men emerging from apedom into brute -men, 

 formed their first ideas all over the world, on divine higher matters 

 from things which seemed higher and beyond their r^ach, viz., sun, 

 moon, and stars. The traces of this universal worship of heavenly 

 objects as the highest conception at a certain time of a deity, run 

 throHgh almost all religions. Yolney, quoting from Porphyry, 

 says : — " The majority of the philosophers imagine there never to 

 have been any oihcr world than the one we see, and acknowledge 

 no other gods of all those recognised by the Egyptians, than such 

 as are commonly called planets, signs of the Zodiac, and constella- 

 tions, whose aspects, that is, rising and setting, are supposed to 

 influence the fortune of men, &c. 



"All these philosophers believe that the acts of our will and the 

 motion of our bodies depend upon those of the stars to which they 

 are subjected, and they refer everything to the law of physical 

 necessity, which they call destiny, or fatum, supposing a chain of 

 causes and effects which binds — by I know not what connection — all 

 beings together from the merest atom to the supreme power and 

 primary influence of the gods ; so that, whether in their temples 

 or in their idols, the only subject of worship is the power of 

 destiny." 



It appears to me, from this view of phenomena have sprung all 

 ideas of an almighty Providence, &c. ; it is, in fact, a personifi- 

 cation of this idea. If there is a Providence, there can be nothing 

 accidental. I always smile at the logic of such verdicts — (1) 

 death by accident ; (2) death from natural causes — when Christians 

 ought to say by Providence. If there is an almighty will, there 

 cannot be a free will ! There remains a mechanical force, a chain 

 of necessity, a fate, evolving mind and body. F. W. H. 



CROMLECHS. 



[1556] — "The cromlechs are, without doubt, the burying-place^ 

 of the chiefs of these early tribes," Mr. Harrison, in Knowledge> 

 page 483. It is certainly the general opinion that this is so ; but 

 not by any means the universal one. Miss C. Maclagan, F.S.A.S., 

 published in 1876 a work arguing that all Megalithic remains are 

 strictly architectural, i.e., were built to live in ; and others have 

 taken the same side. A diligent study of the numerous ones in 

 this neighbourhood conuinced me before I had read anything that 

 This is the right view. 



1. They were built by men unacquainted with any cutting 

 process. No stone of them bears any trace of a tool. Is it con- 

 ceivable that such very early men would go to such immense labour 

 for the dead ? 



2. If they did, where are their own houses ? Without bricks, 

 cut stone, or timber, they could not build better ones than the 

 Megalithic structures which remain. 



3. I know a chamber composed of four great stones about five 

 feet high j the roof is an immense sea-worn slab. Between it and 

 the tops of the walls is a course of masonry very tightly built 

 without mortar, whose sole effect is to raise the roof so far as to 



allow of ordinary men standing upright. Why all this trouble, if 

 tho dead only were to bo accommodated ? 



The belief that they arc built for tombs arises from the fact that 

 tombs they certainly have been, as is proved by tho regular inter- 

 luents that have been made in them. But this is no proof. In 

 Champagne a wholo range of rock-cut chambers was found, all full 

 of skeletons. In this case, however, it is certain that tho dead 

 wore not tho first tenants. Tho rock is soft; all tho thresholds 

 were worn by the ])assage of countless feet. Did tho dead go in 

 and out thus ? Again, pegs had been left in the roek. Were 

 these for the dead to hang up their gravo-clulhes while they larked 

 about till eoek-crow ? 



Tho better creed seems to bo that, when caves grew scarce, 

 primitive man took a lesson from tho birds and bees, and built liini 

 " man's-nests." When men became able to build belter (and loss 

 durable) dwollings, which allowed them lire-places and windows, 

 what was to become of the old, indestructible tumuli? To stow 

 away tho dear departed in them was an obvious idea. Later, they 

 became sacred spots ; the 7ncgara of Greece, into which animals 

 wore let down on high-days, were very probably these mound- 

 dwellings, of which cromlechs, menheis, and dolmens are but single 

 denuded vertebra,'. 



Tho entrance to the mound is very generally to tho oast, because 

 the inhabitants had then the first note of day. It is a hole, half up 

 tho mound, between two blocks, which are always of white 

 quartz, if attainable. Whys' Probably tho hole was blocked by 

 a bush. A denizen returning in the twilight (perliaps hard pressed 

 by a wild beast) would be guided to tho haven of safety by tho 

 glimmer of tho white stouo ; up with the dead bush, and lo ! the 

 chase has disajipeared into tho earth. 



In a previous sentence Mr. Harrison suggests that the hill-camps 

 near Pwlheli were " i)Ossibly erected by the ancient Gaelic inhabi- 

 tants during tho troublous times in tho fifth and sixth centuries, 

 which followed the departure of the Romans." Now, this is like 

 saying "by the mice .... departure of the cat." The Piets and 

 Scots harried the northern Britons; but who could have troubled 

 the western ? The English had never got so far. I should say those 

 hill-camps arc more likely at least ;i,000 years old. 



Hallvaeds. 



P.S. — Apart from the main subject, it may bo interesting to record 

 a stone near here which tells something of the far past. For the 

 last few millennia it has been doing duty as door-post of a tumulus. 

 On its face are no less than seven parallel lines of erosion by 

 water, and one line at right angles. These lines could not have 

 been made by the sea, the stone remaining on the beach, before the 

 mound- builders chose it for their put-pose. I conclude that it was 

 embedded in a small ice-floe at tho close of a cold period. The 

 sea must have been very calm, — nioro so th,an this land-locked bay 

 is now; as it would be, indeed, if nearly filled with drift-ice. The 

 ice must have been disappearing year by year. Each water-line 

 shows the winter-level of tho fioe ; then the summer comes, the 

 Iloe partly melts, and tho stone is each succeeding winter deeper 

 in the water, and a new line is cut by the calm winter ripple. 

 Finally the floe topples over, and in the last winter of its existence 

 tho stone floats at right angles to its first position. Tho floe 

 grounds, and the stone is left above low-water-mark. Presumably, 

 the ice has vanished from the sea ; and it is after — one cannot 

 guess how long after — this change of climate that men came and 

 carried this and other stones a hundred yards up-hill to build a 

 shelter with. 



It is curious to note that man's first efforts as builder have 

 proved the most durable and serviceable after all. Nobody could 

 live in the Pyramids, and these tumuli are ages older than they, 

 yet are still as habitable as the cut-stone houses of Bashan. In 

 Auvergne the shepherds live much in tho dolmens. I knew many 

 for which an officer at Aldcrshot or the Curragh would be only too 

 thankful, and so durable are they that their removal would not be 

 paid by the value of the land for cultivation. I should liko to build 

 a house on one of these mounds — tho megalithic chambers would 

 make capital cellarage. 



I have sought over miles of rocks on tho coast without finding 

 one bearing the peculiar water-marks mentioned above ; erosian of 

 stationary rock always leaves tho base receding beneath an over- 

 hanging brow ; the ancient sea-be,aoh at Turbridge Wells (tho High 

 Rocks) is an f>dmirable inst.ance. It is easy to see why. The lower 

 parts are hammered by both flow aud ebb, while tho higher parts 

 are reached only about high water. 



Pornic, Loire Inferieure, France, Doc. 17, 1881-. 



WHAT IS AN INVENTION? 

 [1557] — I never could quite understand or appreciate rightly the 

 especial value of novelty in an invention. Supposing the invention 

 beneficial, I do not see why I should not value it, irrespective of the 



