682 
Analyses of Boohs. 
[November, 
especially in the earlier chapters, we may here, however, direcft 
attention. Concerning the commonly accepted meaning of the 
word Paradise the author says : — “ This comes of looking for 
the old lost Paradise in the shape of a Hebrew garden. Pardez , 
the Armenian paradise, the Persian pardis , the modern Arabic 
firdaus, applied to park or garden, is too late an application for 
an interpretation of the beginnings. Human gardens were not 
inclosed or cultivated when the Paratesh was formed.” 
Speaking of the Airyana-vaejo of the Avesta, Mr. Massey 
writes : — “ This was at one time considered by the ‘ best authori- 
ties ’ to have been the starting-point of successive and most 
ancient migrations of the much overlauded Aryan race. But 
mythology and its naming preceded geography.” 
Concerning the origin of mankind the author says — “ The 
creation of man or of men in the primordial mythes has no re- 
lation whatever to human beings, but to the earliest representa- 
tions of celestial phenomena. It is so common a mode of 
expression that anthropologists even speak of the ‘ first man ’ as 
if he were a reality. We are frequently informed that such an 
one was the ‘ Adam,’ the ‘ first man ’ of this or the other people, 
as if that explained anything. There is no more a first man in 
mythology, as a human being, than there is a primal individual 
parent known to Evolution. There never was a first man. 
That is, there never was a time when there was not a whole 
species of the animal at whatsoever stage of development, and 
the earliest myth-makers did not pretend to know anything about 
a first man, as a human being.” 
In summing up the most important teachings of this chapter 
Mr. Massey says — “ Speaking generally the creations are stellar, 
lunar, and solar ; the series corresponds to that of the heavenly 
bodies which in the Avesta, for instance, is invariably given in 
the order of stars, moon, and sun, where we should say sun, 
moon, and stars. That which was latest with the earlier men 
becomes first with the later, and thus we have been grounded in 
non-evolution as a mode of education ; consequently much of 
our current explanation of the backward past in history, religion, 
mythology, and theology, is akin to that which accounted for the 
fossils found on mountain-tops, by supposing that pilgrims in 
passing from land to land had dropped their cockle-shells.” 
We regret that lack of space forbids us to give the author’s 
appreciation of Buddhism, which in'these days of “ Occultism” 
will not be received with unmixed approval. 
We cannot conclude this brief notice without bespeaking for 
the “ Natural Genesis ” the careful attention of anthropologists. 
Like ourselves they will probably feel unable to accept all the 
author’s conclusions, but, again like ourselves, they will feel that 
he has at least been working in the right direction. 
