166 
This is why this little monkey resembles man, the sign that 
he is of another race of men who were only mannikins 
wrought in wood, p. 199 (this seems a very plausible explana- 
tion if we study the monkeys and their emotions !) 
Afterwards * follows the creation of the first parents, 
four in number, of the human race. They had neither father 
nor mother, but “it was truly a prodigy, a true enchantment 
f of the Creator and Former/ and these rendered thanks for 
their existence and formation. Soon, however, their amount 
of wisdom displeased the above Creator and Former, and 
they took counsel thus. It is not good that which they say. 
Their nature will be no longer that of simple creatures ; but 
they will be so many gods.” Then a cloud was blown over 
their eyes and their view was limited. Their wisdom was 
diminished. However (in compensation perhaps) they received 
spouses during their sleep, “ and immediately their hearts 
were filled with gladness because of their wives.” 
The celebrated Commander Maury has remarked (in 
reference to the Deluge) that we find, in America, traditions 
incomparably nearer to those of the Bible and of the Chaldean 
religion than amongst any people of the Old World ; and that 
these could not be derived from the Buddhists or from India or 
Japan. Lenormant t quotes this opinion with approbation. 
It would lead me away from my present subject to explain 
this difficult, but, I think, not insoluble enigma. I learn 
from a friend in Nova Scotia that Miller, in his Life among 
the Madocs , records their tradition, tracing the origin of the 
red men to a fallen daughter of the Great Spirit; showing 
their conviction that man was, in some way, of a nobler origin 
than the brutes. Her earthly companion was punished by 
being compelled to walk on four legs, instead of two. To 
this day the grizzly bear is never slain by the red men, who 
recognise him as a sort of kinsman. 
That we are by our constitution in part of the earth, earthy, 
and partly of superior origin, has been the belief of man in all 
ages ; and our modern philosophy, instead of raising us to 
higher levels of thought, sinks beneath the average common - 
sense of uncultivated man. Philosophers profess to derive our 
origin from the brute creation, and thus libel our betters, for it 
cannot be denied that they fulfil the end of their creation ; that 
their lives are unstained by reproach attending the breach of 
commandments of their Creator. Without regret for the 
past, enjoying without stint the present, and having no dread 
* See Lenormant, La Magie, p. 199. 
t Les Origines , p. 456. 
