SCIENCE. 



331 



ship, that it has been the inexhaustible theme of curious 

 explanations. Why a Snake or why a Dung-beetle should 

 have been taken to represent the Divine Being, and why 

 in the holiest recess of some glorious temple we find en- 

 shrined as the object of adoration the image or the coffin 

 of some beast, or bird, or reptile, is a question on which 

 much learned ingenuity has been spent. It has been 

 suggested, for example, that a conquering race, bringing 

 with it a higher and a purer faith, suffered itself to adopt 

 or to embody in its system the lower symbolism of a local 

 worship. But this explanation only removes the diffi- 

 culty — if it be one — a step further back. Why did such 

 sufferance arise? why was such an adoption possible? 

 It was possible simply because there is an universal 

 tendency in the human mind to developments in the 

 wrong direction, and especially in its spiritual conceptions 

 to become more and more gross and carnal. 



Nor is it difficult to follow some, at least, of the steps 

 of consequence — that is to say, the associations of thought 

 — by which worship may become degraded when once any 

 serious error has been admitted. Animal worship, for 

 example, may possibly have begun with very high and 

 very profound conceptions. We are accustomed to regard 

 it as a very grotesque and degraded worship, and so no 

 doubt it was in its results. But if we once allow ourselves 

 to identify the Divine Power in Nature with any of its 

 operations, if we seek for the visible presence of the 

 Creator in any one of His creations, I do not know that 

 we could choose any in which that presence seems so im- 

 manent as in the wonderful instincts of the lower animals. 

 In a previous chapter we have seen what knowledge and 

 what foreknowledge there is involved in some of these. 

 We have seen how it often seems like direct inspiration 

 that creatures without the gift of reason should be able 

 to do more than the highest human reason could enable 

 us to do — how wonderful it is, for example, that their pre- 

 vision and provision for the nurture and development of 

 their young should cover the whole cycle of operations 

 in the second work of creation which is involved in the 

 metamorphoses of insects — all this, when we come to 

 think of it, may well seem like the direct working of the 

 Godhead. We have seen in a former chapter that men of 

 the highest genius in philosophical speculation, like Des- 

 cartes, and men of the highest skill in the popular exposi- 

 tion of scientific ideas, like Professor Huxley, have been 

 led by these marvels of instinct to represent the lower 

 animals as automata or machines. The whole force and 

 meaning of this analogy lies in the conception that the 

 work done by animals is like the work done by the me- 

 chanical contrivances of men. We look always upon such 

 work as done not by the machine but by the contriving: 

 mind which is outside the machine, and from whom its 

 adjustments are derived. Fundamentally, however little 

 it may be confessed or acknowledged, this is the same 

 conception which, in a less scientific age, would take an- 

 other form. What is seen in the action of an automaton 

 is not the mechanism but the result. That result is the 

 work of mind, which seems as if it were indwelling in 

 the machine. In like manner, what is seen in animals 

 is the wonderful things they do ; and what is not seen, 

 and is indeed wholly incomprehensible, is the ma- 

 chinery by which they are made to do it. Moreover, 

 it is a machinery having this essential distinction from 

 all human machines, that it is endowed with life, which 

 in itself also is the greatest mystery of all. It is, there- 

 fore, no superficial observation of animals, but, on the 

 contrary, a deep pondering on the wonders of their 

 economy, which may have first suggested them to reli- 

 gious men as at once the type and the abode of that 

 Agency which is supreme in Nature. I do not affirm as 

 an historical fact that this was really the origin of ani- 

 mal worship, because that origin is not historically 

 known, and, like the origin of Religion itself, it must be 

 more or less a matter of speculation. Some animals 

 may have become objects of worship from having origin- 



ally been the subjects of sacrifice. The victim may have 

 been so associated with the god to whom it was devoted 

 as to become his accepted symbol. The Ox and the 

 Bull may well have been consecrated through this pro- 

 cess of substitution. But no such explanation can be 

 given in respect to many animals which have been wor- 

 shipped as divine. Perhaps no further explanation need be 

 sought than that which would be equally required to ac- 

 count for the choice of particular plants, or particular 

 birds and fishes, as the badges of particular tribes and 

 families of men. Such badges were almost universal in 

 early times, and many of them are still perpetuated in 

 armorial bearings. The selection of particular animals 

 in connection with worship would be determined in dif- 

 ferent localities by a great variety of conditions. Cir- 

 cumstances purely accidental might determine it. The 

 occurrence, for example, in some particular region of 

 any animal with habits which are at once curious and 

 conspicuous, would sufficiently account for the choice of 

 it as the symbol of whatever idea these habits might 

 most readily suggest or symbolize. It is remarkable, 

 accordingly, that in some cases, at least, we can see the 

 probable causes which have led to the choice of certain 

 creatures. The Egyptian beetle, the Scarabseus, for ex- 

 ample, represents one of those forms of insect life in 

 which the marvels of instinct are at once very conspicu- 

 ous and very curious. The characteristic habit of the 

 Scarabaeus beetle is one which involves all that mystery 

 of prevision for the development of the species which is 

 common among insects, coupled with a patient and la- 

 borious perseverance in the work required, which does 

 not seem directly associated with any mere appetite or 

 with any immediate source of pleasure. The instinct by 

 which this beetle chooses the material which is the proper 

 nidus for its egg, the skill with which it works that ma- 

 terial into a form suitable for the purpose, and the in- 

 dustry with which it then rolls it along the ground till a 

 suitable position is attained — all these are a striking 

 combination of the wonders of animal instinct, and con- 

 spicuous indication of the Spirit of wisdom and of knowl- 

 edge which may well be conceived to be present in their 

 work. 



But although it is in this way easy to imagine how 

 some forms of animal-worship may have had their origin 

 in the first perception of what is really wonderful, and in 

 the first admiration of what is really admirable, it is also 

 very easy to see how, when once established, it would 

 tend to rapid degradation. Wonder and reverence are 

 not the only emotions which impel to worship. Fear, 

 and even horror, especially when accompanied with any 

 mystery in the objects of alarm, are emotions suggest- 

 ing, perhaps, more than any, that low kind of worship 

 which consists essentially in the idea of deprecation. 

 Some hideous and destructive animals, such as the cro- 

 codile, may have become sacred objects neither on 

 account of anything admirable in their instincts, nor on 

 account of their destructiveness ; but, on the contrary, 

 because of being identified with an agency which is 

 beneficent. To those who live in Egypt the Nile is the 

 perennial source of every blessing necessary to lile. An 

 animal so characteristic of that great river may well have 

 been chosen simply as the symbol of all that it was, and 

 of all that it gave to men. There is no mystery, there- 

 fore, in the crocodile being held sacred in the worship of 

 the God of Inundation. But there are other animals 

 which have been widely invested with a sacred charac- 

 ter, in respect to which no such explanation can be given. 

 The worship of serpents has been attributed to concep- 

 tions of a very abstract character — with the circle, for 

 example, into which they coil themselves, considered as 

 an emblem of Eternity. But this is a conception far too 

 transcendental and far-fetched to account either for the ori- 

 gin of this worship or for its wide extension in the world. 

 Serpents are not the only natural objects which present 

 circular forms. Nor is this attitude of their repose, 



