(ii.) THE STRUGGLE FOR GOOD.

How can peoples professing relatively adImmorality of the myths. vanced views as to the nature and functions of the deity-the Hindoos and Greeks, for example— accept accounts of their gods as absurd and gross as the stories of their respective mythologies are? And, moreover, how could peoples whose morals were so relatively pure as those of the Germans attribute vices and even crimes to their gods at which they would have blushed themselves? The views developed in the preceding Lectures have already put us in a position to give a partial answer to the question. Such facts as the destruction of the twilight by the sun, the removal of the clouds by the wind, the apparent union of the heaven with the atmosphere, the earth, the clouds, or the dawnhave no immoral character in themselves, even when respectively called parricide, theft, or adultery; but they quite change their character when the beings to whom they are attributed are no longer looked upon as heavenly bodies and as natural objects (whether personified or not), but are regarded as heroes, of a human or a quasi-human physiognomy, living in a society similar to that of man.

This explanation presented itself to the minds of the ancients. Thus in the sixth century before our era, Theagenes of Rhegium taught that the wars of the gods signified the conflict of the elements. Socrates explained that if Orithyia was carried away by Boreas, it simply meant that she had been hurled from the rocks by the north wind. And, in like manner, a Hindu commen

tator, Kumarila, explains the scandalous chronicle of the Vedic gods as follows: "It is fabled that Prajapati, the Lord of Creation, did violence to his daughter. But what does it mean? Prajapati, the Lord of Creation, is a name of the sun. . . . . His daughter Ushas is the dawn. And when it is said that he was in love with her, this only means that, at sunrise, the sun runs after the dawn, the dawn being at the same time called the daughter of the sun, because she rises when he approaches. In the same manner, if it is said that Indra was the seducer of Ahalya, this does not imply that the god Indra committed such a crime; but Indra means the sun, and Ahalya . . . . the night; and, as the night is seduced and ruined by the sun of the morning, therefore is Indra called the paramour of Ahalya."1

Numbers of myths, however, and especially mythic episodes, do not lend themselves so easily to this treatment as simple metaphors. When interpretations from nature have done what they can towards explaining mythology, we still have a residuum which represents the free play of popular fancy. Why has imagination here, too, allowed itself so free a course in directions which reason and morals, as we understand them, would have prohibited? The anthropological school explains this anomaly by throwing back the formation of the myths to an epoch at which their authors were still at the intellectual and moral level of the savages of to-day. Mr. Andrew Lang has contributed much to the illustration of this theory by comparing the classical mythologies

1 See Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, London, 1859, PP. 529 sq.

with the traditions of uncivilized peoples in both hemispheres. We cannot insist too often on the point that the god of the savage is simply an idealized chief or sorcerer. Why should he not comport himself as the worshipper supposes a chief or sorcerer endowed with increased faculties would do? But if this theory accounts for the absurdity and the crudity which make the more cultivated nations blush for their mythology, it does not explain why the authors of the myths have ascribed acts to their deities which they themselves would regard as blameworthy or degrading. The only possible explanation is, that at first morals had no influence whatever on the conception formed of the gods. Ethics and religion were absolutely independent of each other. Original inde- I am not now to discuss ethical origins. pendence of Whatever theory we profess in this matter, morals and one fact is certain, namely, that even amongst the most primitive peoples the right of the strongest is limited by certain obligations that custom has consecrated, and the violation of which at any rate involves public disfavour, and arouses in the mind of the victim. a sense of injustice. Indeed, were this not so, no society at all could exist beyond the limits of the family, in which possibly parental authority might suffice to maintain the social ties. No doubt peoples differ much in their definitions of good and evil, but they all admit the distinction itself, and declare that we must do good and shun evil.

religion.

You will observe that this has nothing to do with the belief in superhuman beings, whose support, if not the 1 See, especially, his Myth, Ritual and Religion, London, 1887, 2 vols.

N

result of pure caprice, is proportioned to the generosity with which they are treated or the skill with which they are served.

Even groups which have already reached the first stage of polytheism, such as the ancient Mexicans, the Polynesians, or the Shintoists of Japan, show no trace as yet of a connection between religion and morals. We must not be misled by the prayers in which the worshipper implores pardon for his sins, and prays, often in very exalted terms, that the stain may be taken from him. "From a distance," says a Japanese prayer, "I reverently worship with awe before Ameno Mi-hashira and Kunino Mihashira (the god and goddess of wind), . . . . I say with awe, Deign to bless me by correcting the unwilling faults which, heard and seen by you, I have committed.' Yet the very author who translates this prayer adds that Shintoism does not bear so much as a trace of an ethical code.

991

In the ancient Chaldean civilization it hardly seems that men's moral conduct influenced their relations with the gods in any way, and yet their religious literature contains hymns which M. Lenormant rightly describes as penitential psalms. "Oh Lord," cries the worshipper of Bel or Istar, "my sins are many, my transgressions are great! . The sin that I sinned I knew not. The transgression I committed I knew not.

The

Lord in the wrath of his heart has regarded me; God in the fierceness of his heart has revealed himself to me. O Lord, destroy not thy servant! When cast

1 Isabella Bird, Shintôism, in Religious Systems of the World, London, 1890, pp. 93, 98.

into the water of the ocean, take his hand. The sins I have sinned, turn to a blessing. The transgressions I have committed, may the wind carry away. Strip off my manifold wickednesses as a garment." But as soon as we look below the surface, we see that these despairing cries of a conscience a prey to the agonies of remorse, refer to faults committed, not against men, but against the gods, by ritual omissions or legal impurities sometimes contracted by the worshipper even without his knowledge.

First entry of religion into social relations.

Nevertheless, religion must have exercised a favourable influence on the consolidation of social relations from the first. To begin with, it developed the spirit of subordination, prevented the scattering of the tribe, and formed a link between successive generations; and in the next place, it favoured the sacrifice of a direct and immediate satisfaction to a greater but more distant and indirect good.

The oath.

The transition from the purely interested intervention of the superhuman beings in the affairs of men to the exercise of their moral or judicial functions, may perhaps be found in their anxiety to make the oath respected. In general, the spirits are indifferent enough to the lies which their worshippers tell one another; but the latter, in order to inspire confidence in their promises, often have occasion to close the possibility of breaking their word with impunity against themselves. This object may be secured by giving a pledge, or more simply by calling upon the gods, and especially the most powerful or the most dreaded of them, as witnesses to

1 Sayce, Hibbert Lectures for 1887, pp. 350, 351.