Jan. 29, 1880] 



NA TURE 



313 



of Philosophy. — There are two grand 



stages of philosophy — the mythologic and the scientific. In the 



henorrena are explained by analogies derived from 



subjective hurain experience-; in the latter, phenomena are 



explained :is orderly succes-ions of events. 



In sublicoe egotism man first interprets the cosmos ns an 

 extension of himself; he clas-ifies the phenomena of the outer 

 world by their analo r ies with subjective phenomena ; his 

 mea-ure of distance is his own pace, his measure of time his own 

 sleep, for he siys, " It is a thousand paces to the great rock," 

 or, " It is a ih msand sleeps to the -rreat feast:" Noises are 

 voice- powers are hands, movements are made afoot. By 

 examination discovering in himself will and design, 

 and by inductive rea-011 discovering will and de-ign in his 

 fellow-men and in animals, he extends ihe induction to all the 

 id there discovers in all things will and design. All 

 phenomena are supposed to be the acts of some one, and that 

 some one having will and purpose. 



In mythol igic lulo-ophy, the phenomena of the outer physical 

 world are supposed to be the acts of living, willing, designing 

 personages. The simple are compared with and explained by 

 the complex. In scientific philosophy, phenomena are supposed 

 to be children of antecedent phenomena, and so far as science 

 goes with its explanation, they are thus interpreted. Man with 

 the subjective phenomena gathered about him is studied from an 

 objective point of view, and the phenomena of .subjective life 

 are relegated to the categories establish! d in the classification of 

 the phenomena of the outer world ; thu- the complex is studied 

 by resolving it int > its simple constituents. Some examples of 

 the philosophic methods belonging to widely separated grades of 

 culture may serve to make my statements clearer. 



Wtnd. — The Ute philosopher discerns that men and animals 

 breathe. He recognises vaguely the phenomena of the wind 

 and discovers its resemblance to breath, and explains the winds 

 by relegating them to the class of breathings. 



lie declares that fiere is a monster heast in the north that 

 breathes the .1 inter winds, and another in the south, and another 

 in the east, anil another in the west. The facts relating to 

 winds are hut partially discerned ; the philosopher has not yet 

 discovered that there is an earth surrounding atmosphere. lie 

 fails also in making the proper discriminati >ns. 



His relegation of the winds to the class of breathings is 

 analogic, but not homologic. The basis of his philosophy is 

 personality, and hence he has four wind god-. 



The philosopher of the ancient Northland discovered that he 

 could cool his brow with a fan, or kindle a flame, or sweep 

 away ihe du-t with the wafted air. The winds also cooled his 

 brow, the winds also swept away the dust, and kindled ihe fire 

 into a great conflagration, and when ihe wind blew he said, 

 "Somebody is fanning the waters of the fiord," or "Somebody 

 is fanning the evergreen forests," and he relegated the winds 10 

 the cla-s of fannings, and he said, "The god Hraesvelger, 

 clothed with eagle plumes, is spreading his wings fur flight, and 

 the wind ri-e trom under them." 



'Ihe early Greek philosopher discovered that air may be 

 impiis ned in vessels or move in the ventilation of caves, and he 

 recognised wind as something more than breath, something more 

 than fanmn /, something that can be gathered up and scattered 

 nd so when the winds blew he aid, "The sacks have 

 been untied," or, "The cave- have been opened." 



The phi vilisation ha- discovered that breath, the 



fan wafted breeze, the air confined 111 ve-sels, the air moving in 

 ventilation, that tbe>e are all parts of (be great body of air which 

 surround- the earth, all in motion, -wung by the revolving earth, 

 heated at the tr ; ic , cooled at the poles, and thus turned into 

 counter currents and again deflected by a thousand ideographic 

 , SO that the winds sweep across valleys, eddy among 

 mountain crags, or waft the spray from the crested billows of the 

 sea, all in obedience to cosmic laws. 



The facts discerned are many, the discriminations made are 

 nice, and the das ifications based on true homologies, and we 

 have the science of meteorology, which exhibits an orderly 

 successi in of events even ill the fickle wind-. 



Sun mi./ Moon. — Ihe Ute pbilo-opher declares the sun to be 

 a living per onage, and explains his pas-age across the heavens 

 along an appointed way by giving an account of a fierce personal 

 conflict between Ta-vi, the sun-god, and Ta-wats, one of the 

 supreme gods of his mythology. 



In that long ago, the time to which all mythology refers, the 

 sun roauud the earth at will. When he came too near with his 



fierce heat the pc pie were scorched, and when he hid away in 

 hi- c:ve for a long time, too idle to come forth, the night was 

 long and the earth cold. Once upon a time Ta-wats, the hare- 

 god, was sitting wi'h his family by the camp fire in the solemn 

 woods anxiously waiting for the return of Tavi, the wayward 

 sun-god. Wearied with long watching the bare-god fell asleep, 

 and the sun-god came so near that he scorched the naked shoulder 

 of Ta-wats. Foreseeing the vengeance which would be thus 

 provoked, he fled back to his cave beneath the earth. Ta-wats 

 awoke in great anger, and speedily determined to go and fight the 

 sun-i'od. 



After a long journey of many adventures the hare-god came 

 to the brink of the earth, and there watched long and patiently, 

 till at lasi the sun god coming out, he shot an arrow at his face, 

 but the fierce heat consumed the arrow ere it had finished its 

 intended course ; then another arrow was sped, but that al.-o was 

 consumed, and another, and still another, till only one remained 

 in hi- quiver, but this was the magical arrow that had never 

 failed its mark. Ta-wats, holding it in his hand, lifted the barb 

 to his eye, and baptised it in a divine tear; then the arrow 

 wa- sped and struck tbe sun-god full in the face, and the sun was 

 shivered into a thousand fragments, which fell to the earth, 

 causing a general confl gration. 



Then Ta-wats, the hare god, fled before the destruction lie 

 bad wrought, and as he fled, the burning earth consumed his 

 feet, consumed his legs, consumed hi- body, consumed his hands 

 and his arms; all were consumed but the head alone, which 

 bowbd aero s valleys and over mountains, fleeing destruction 

 from the burning earth, until at last, swollen with heat, the eyes 

 of the god burst and the tears gushed forth in a flood, which 

 spread over th: earth and extinguished the lire. 



The sun-god was now ci nquered, and he appeared before a 

 council of the gods to await senence. In that long council was 

 established the days and the nights, the seasons and the years, 

 with the length thereof, and the sun was condemned to travel 

 acro-s the firmamant by the same trail day after day till the end 

 of lime. 



In the same philosophy we learn that in that ancient time a 

 council of the gods was held to consider the propriety of making 

 a moon, and at last the task wa- given to Whip-poor-will, a god 

 of the night, and a frog yielded himself a willing sacrifice for 

 this purpose, and the Whip-poor-will, by incantations and other 

 masfical means, transformed the fri g into the new moon. 



The tru'h of this origin of the moon is made evident to our 

 very senses, for do we not see the frog riding the moon at night? 

 And the moon is cold, because the frog from which it was made 

 was c lid. 



The philosopher of Oraibi tells us that, when the people 

 a-cende.l by means of the magical tree which constituted the 

 ladder from the lower world to this, they found the firmament — 

 the ceiling of this world low down upon the earth — the floor of 

 this world. Machito, one of their gods, rai-ed the firmament 

 on his shoulders to where it is now seen. Still the world was 

 dark, as there was no sun, no moon, and no stars. So the 

 people murmured because of the ■ arkne-s and the cold. Machito 

 said, " Briiif me seven maidens," and they brought him seven 

 maidens- and he said, " Bring me seven baskets of cotton bolls," 

 and they brought him seven bas ets of cotton bolls ; a.:il he 

 taught the seven maidens to weave a magical fabric from the 

 cotton, and when they had finished it he held it aloft, and the 

 breeze carried it away toward the firmament, and in the twinkling 

 of an eye it was tran-formed into a beautiful full-orbed moon, 

 and the same breeze caught the remnants of flocculent cotton 

 which the maidens had scattered during their work, and carried 

 th- m aloft, and they were transformed into bright stars. But 

 still it was cold, and the people murmured again, and Machito 

 sai.l, "Bring me seven buffalo robes," and they brought him 

 seven buffalo robes, and from the densely matted hair of the 

 robe- he wove another wonderful fabric, which the storm carried 

 away into the sky, and it was transformed into the full-orbed 

 sun. 



Then Machito appointed times and seasons and ways for the 

 heavenly bodies, and the gods of the firmament have obeyed 

 the injunctions of Machito from the day of their creation to the 

 present. 



The Norse philosopher tells us that Night and Day each has a 

 horse and a tar, and they drive successively one after the other 

 around the world in twenty-four hours. Night rides first with 

 her steed, named Dew-hair, an 1 j morning as he ends his 

 course he bedews the earth with foam from his bit. 1 



