_NOAH AND THE GOLDEN AGE._
Taking as the basis of this theory that the law of nations forms part
of a tradition, that the stream of this tradition has never ceased to
flow, and that the diffusion of its waters has ever been the source and
condition of fecundity; and further, that this tradition in its main
current has run in the channels which Dr Newman (_infra_, p. 338)
has indicated--for although there are other reservoirs, they have
become stagnant, and exist like the fresh-water lake, the Bahr-i-Nedjig
(_vide_ Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," i. 18), whose waters are
"fresh and sweet" so long as they communicate with the Euphrates, but
when they are cut off become "unpalatable," so that those "who dwell in
the vicinity are no longer able to drink of it"--taking these various
facts as the basis, we come inevitably to the question--Whence this
tradition arose, and upon what authority and sanction it rests?
In answer to this I do not hesitate to affirm that presumptively it
goes back to the commencement of human history, and more demonstrably
to that commencement--which for historical and practical purposes is
sufficient--the era of Noah.
I propose now to inquire how near this theory can be brought to the
facts.
A fairer opportunity could hardly have been afforded for ascertaining
the force and fulness of primitive tradition than the discovery of
the American continent; yet this opportunity was totally disregarded
by the Spanish conquerors,[266]--rough men, and for the most part
the offscourings of Spain,--and its evidences were but sparsely and
negligently collected by the explorers of a different character who
followed at a later date.
[266] The works of Garcilasso de la Vega, Valera, P. de Cieza, and
De Sahagun must be excepted. As an instance of the neglect
which we have reason to regret, the former gives an account
of one only (the Raymi) of the four annual festivals of the
Peruvians.--Hakluyt Soc. ed. ii. 155. He gives the name,
however, of another--namely, the _Si_tua.
Something, however, of primitive tradition has been thus preserved
(_vide_ Help's "Spanish Conquest of America," i. 278, 286, 290;
Prescott, "Mexico," i. 54). Indeed, the approximation to the biblical
narrative is so close that the suspicion would be quite reasonable that
missionaries of whom we have no record had found their way to these
people before the continent became known to us; or that the people
themselves were of Jewish descent; or that they had left the Asiatic
mainland subsequently to the preaching of St Thomas the apostle. Manco
Capac (_vide infra_), according to this conjecture, may have been one
of these missionaries; or it may even be that in the venerable image
which the description calls up we see in vision the apostle himself.
When, however, the description is compared with the traditions I have
collated of a patriarchal character--still more remote and venerable,
"Him of mazy counsel--Saturn" (Hesiod), I shall ask the reader to
decide whether the more improbable conjecture, measured according to
time and distance, has not the greater weight of evidence.
I proceed to place in juxtaposition a recapitulation of the classical
and oriental traditions, and the quotations from Helps above referred
to.
"One peculiar circumstance, as Humboldt remarks,
is very much to be noted in the ancient records
and traditions of the Indian nations. In no less
than three remarkable instances has superior
civilisation been attributed to the sudden
presence amongst them of persons differing from
themselves in appearance and descent."
[As to the argument to be derived from colour
and appearance, _vide supra_, p. 79.]
"Bochica, a white man with a beard, appeared
to the Mozca Indians in the plains of Bogota,
_taught them how to build and to sow_, formed
them _into communities_, gave an outlet _to the
waters of the great lake_ [compare _supra_,
p. 70, Chronology], and having settled the
government, civil and ecclesiastical, retired
into a monastic state of penitence for two
thousand years.[267]
[267] Probably a tradition of the penitence of
Adam.
"In like manner Manco Capac, accompanied by
his sister Mama Ocllo, descended amongst the
Peruvians, gave them _a code of admirable laws_,
reduced them into communities, and then ascended
to his father the Sun."[268] (A confusion with
the tradition of Enoch, parallel to the like
confusion in the person of Xisuthrus,[269]
unmistakably identified with Noah in the
Babylonian tradition.)
[268] Here, the admixture of sun-worship, as
identifying the mythology at any rate
with the Hamitic and "Cuthite," directly
militates in favour of my view against
the conjecture that Manco Capac was a
missionary.
[269] _Vide_ also the like confused tradition
of Nimrod (Assyria) and Menes (Egypt),
Bunsen, p. 192.
"Amongst the Mexicans there suddenly appeared
Quetzalcohuatl, the green-feathered (_i.e._
elegant) snake" (compare with Chaldæan fish-god,
p. 199), "a white and bearded man of broad
brow, dressed in strange dress, a _legislator_
who recommended severe penances, lacerating his
own body with the prickles of the agave and
the thorns of the cactus, but who dissuaded
his followers from human sacrifices. While he
remained in Anahuana it was a Saturnian reign;
but this _great legislator_, after moving on
to the plains of Cholulas, and governing the
Cholulans with wisdom, passed away to a distant
country" [if this looks more like the movement
among them of some apostolic missionary, it is
also in keeping with the journey of Bacchus,
"travelling through all nations," &c.], "and was
never heard of more." It is said briefly of him,
that "he _ordained sacrifices_ of flowers and
fruit, and stopped his ears, when he was spoken
to of war."[270] Such a saint is needed in all
times, even in the present advanced state of
civilisation in the old world."[271]--_Help's
"Spanish Conquest of America,"_ i. 286.
[270] If an identity has been established
between Quetzalcohuatl and Manco Capac
(_vide_ Prescott "Conquest of Peru," i.
9), it will appear that this legislator,
who shut his ears when he was spoken to of
war, did nevertheless leave them admirable
maxims (compare with Indian (Aryan)
maxims, p. 400) and laws of war, _e.g._
Prescott, "Peru," p. 69. Compare extract
from Davies--_vide supra_, preface.
"The Peruvian soldier was forbidden to
commit any _trespass on the property_ of
the inhabitants whose territory lay in
the line of march. From the moment _war
was proclaimed_," &c., "in every stage
of the war he was open to _propositions
for peace_, and although he sought to
reduce his enemies by carrying off their
harvests and destressing them by famine,
the Peruvian monarch allowed his troops to
commit no unnecessary outrage on person
or property." It is not to the point that
these rules were not always observed.
[271] Compare _supra_, p. 201, note to Manou
(Bacchus).
I have shown (p. 211) that Calmet (and other
authorities of the same date might be adduced)
identifies Saturn with Noah. Among other proofs
he points to the tradition of Saturn devouring
his children (with the exception of three), as a
distorted tradition of the destruction of mankind
according to the prediction of Noah, upon the
canon of interpretation, "that men are said often
to do what they do not prevent, or even what they
predict." I have also shown that this conjecture
receives attestation from a fragment of
Sanchoniathon's (Phoenician),important whether
regarded as a more ancient parallel tradition, or
as the same tradition nearer the fountain-head.
Without recapitulating the other points of
resemblance (_vide_ ch. x.), let us compare
what is said of Saturn with what is said of
Bochica, Manco Capac, &c.
"Under Saturn," says Plutarch, "was the golden
age." "Saturn is represented with a scythe, as
the _inventor of_ agriculture." Virgil (Æn. viii.
315) describes Saturn as bringing the dispersed
people from the mountains and _giving them laws_.
I have also drawn attention to the _Saturnalia_
as connecting _Bacchus_ with _Saturn_. Now Cicero
tells us that one Bacchus was king of _Asia_, and
author of _laws called Subazian_; and Bacchus
is also said to _have travelled_ through _all
nations doing good_, in all places, and teaching
many things profitable to the life of man.
Noah has also been identified with Janus, and
under Janus as under Saturn was the golden age;
and it is, moreover, said (_vide_ p. 218),
"that in the time of Janus all families were
full of religion and holiness." He is said
to have been _the first that built temples_
and _instituted sacred rites_, and was
therefore always mentioned at the beginning of
sacrifices. [This, in common with what is said
of Quetzalcohuatl is again possibly a combined
tradition of Enoch and Noah.]
Let both these traditions be compared with Berosus' account of Hoa, or
the fish-god (_vide_ Rawlinson, "Anct. Mon." i. p. 155, and _supra_, p.
238).
"He is said to have transmitted to mankind the knowledge of grammar
and mathematics, and of all arts (or of any kind of art), and of
the _polity of cities_, the _construction_ and _dedication of
temples_, the _introduction of laws_, to have taught them geometry,
and _to have shown them by example_, the _mode of sowing the seed_
and gathering the _fruits of the earth_; and along with them to
have tradated _all the secrets which tend to harmonise life_. And
no one else in that time was found so experienced as he."[272]
[272] Compare with Gen. vi. 18, viii. 15, "And God spoke to Noe,
saying"; also vi. 13, ix. 8; and Gen. viii. 20--"And Noe built
an altar unto the Lord, and taking of all cattle"; and ix.
20--"And Noe, a husbandman, began to till the ground, and
planted a vineyard." Also Ecclesiasticus xliv. 1, 3, 4, 19,
"The covenants of the world were made with him." Compare also
with the "Oracula Sybillina," _supra_, p. 237.
In the traditions, however, which connect Noah with the Saturnian
reign,[273] it appears to me that threefold confusion has to be
disentangled.
[273] It may be well here to recall to recollection the well-known
lines of Virgil--
"Ultima Cumæi venit jam carminis ætas:
Magnus ab integro seclorum nascitur ordo,
Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna
Jam nova progenies coelo dimittitur alto."
_Eclogues_ IV.
I. There is a tradition of a golden and of a silver age frequently
transfused.
II. When thus transfused there is often along with the tradition of a
golden or silver age trace of a subordinate and incongruous tradition
of a state of nature as a state of barbarism--both at the early
commencement of things.
III. There is a double tradition of the succession of ages, the one
ante-, the other post-diluvian.
* * * * *
I. The tradition of the golden age is primarily the tradition of
Paradise, to which succeeded in gradation of degeneracy a silver,
brass, and iron age. Of this line of tradition we have seen distinct
trace in Sanchoniathon (_supra_, p. 127).
But there is also, as we have just seen, a tradition of another golden
age connected with Saturn, Janus, &c., and of this perhaps we have the
most direct testimony in the Chinese tradition.
"The Chinese traditions," says Professor Rawlinson (Bampton
Lectures, ii., quoting "Horæ Mos." iv. 147) "are said to be less
clear and decisive (than the Babylonian). They speak of a 'first
heaven' and age of innocence when 'the whole creation enjoyed a
state of happiness; when everything was beautiful, everything was
good; all things were perfect in their kind. Whereunto succeeded
a _second heaven, introduced by a great convulsion_, in which the
pillars of heaven were broken, the earth shook to its foundations,
the heavens sank lower towards the north, the sun, moon, and
stars changed their motions, the earth fell to pieces, and _the
waters enclosed within its bosom burst forth with violence and
overflowed_,'" &c.
Here, then, is a tradition of a second heaven, or a Saturnian reign,
following a convulsion which will perhaps be conceded to be a tradition
of the _universal_ Deluge (_vide_ p. 223), and which links the
tradition of the Saturnian reign with the patriarch Noah?[274]
[274] Boulanger ("L'Antiquité Devoilée," i. 10), recognises,
although it perplexes him, the tradition which places the
gold and silver age after the Deluge--"à la suite de cet
évenement, les traditions de l'age d'or, et du regne des Dieux
paroissent encore plus bizarres;" also _id._ iii. 338; also
308. Also 328, "Ce n'est donc point un état politique qu'il
faut chercher dans l'age d'or, ce fut un état tout religieux.
Chaque famille pénétrée des jugemens d'en haut, vecut quelque
temps sous la conduite des pères qui rassembloient leurs
enfans." It is thus that Seneca depicts the golden age. _Vide_
p. 231.
I ask now to be allowed to look at the same tradition from a different
point of view.
I have elsewhere shown (p. 27) that according to the operation of
natural causes everything in the primitive ages would have led to
dispersion, but however probable or even certain these conjectures may
be, we know as a fact that they did not operate (Gen. xi. 1, 3, 8) for
some three hundred years or more, probably until after the death of
Noah. Does not this look as if mankind were kept together for a period,
in order that they might become settled in their ideas and confirmed
in their maxims, under the influence and direction of the second
father of mankind, whose direct communications with the Most High had
been manifest, and whose authority necessarily commanded universal
respect--"Him of mazy counsel, Saturn?" (Hesiod, "Theog.")[275]
[275] It might be a sufficient answer to say that they did not
operate because a miraculous intervention ordained it
otherwise; but if we seek the explanation in natural causes
they will be found such as will exactly confirm the theory.
The causes which lead to dispersion are the necessities of
the pastoral life. If there, then, was no dispersion, the
conclusion is that during the three or four centuries after
the Deluge mankind were mainly engaged in husbandry--"and
Noe, a husbandman, _began_ to till the ground." But husbandry
is the first and essential condition of civilisation. We
have seen that Mr Mill, Mr Hepworth Dixon, &c., believe
that mankind _slowly_ arrived at this stage through the
intermediate stages of shepherd and hunter. On the contrary
it would appear that they _started_ in this career. Again,
given the conditions which Genesis describes--families living
in patriarchal subjection to a chief who had the knowledge
of husbandry--cultivation would be the natural consequence;
for the one and only hindrance to cultivation, supposing
the knowledge, is insecurity. "Most critical of all are the
causes which conduce to agriculture, agriculture at once
the most fruitful and the most dangerous expedients for
life. He who tills the soil exposes his valuable stores to
the malice or enmity of the whole world. Any marauder,"
&c. ("Miscell." by Francis W. Newman, 1869). But as the
conditions described in Genesis exclude the probability of
such interruption--agriculture would have been the preferable
resource of life--and so it would have continued until
circumstances led to the extension of the pastoral mode. So
far, then, as we are brought to regard the different modes
of life as progressive or successive (I believe that even at
this early stage they were contemporaneous), the order of
the succession according to the theory now in vogue must be
reversed; and we must regard mankind as first a community of
husbandmen, gradually extending themselves as shepherds, to
be finally still more dispersed in some of their branches as
hunters.
If this theory appears far-fetched and fanciful, let it be recollected,
on the other hand, that there has long subsisted a tradition among
mankind of a code of nature as connected with a state of nature, which
has to be accounted for (_vide_ chap. ii.)
And when we consider how the impulsion which a nation receives at the
commencement of its history continues--how much, for instance, at the
distance of a thousand years we resemble our Saxon ancestors of the
eighth century, and even our ancestors of the German forest in identity
of character, sentiment, and institution--we must not make the lapse
of centuries an impassable barrier to a belief in the traditions of
mankind in the early periods of history.
Let us also, in regarding the golden or silver age, glance beyond it
to that iron age which ultimately followed it, in which the world,
becoming crowded and also corrupted, many families and tribes collected
together for warfare, and in which one nation swallowed another until
all came to be absorbed, at least on the Asiatic continent, into one or
two great empires, which again contended for supreme dominion. An age
of universal war, of many sorrows, of great perturbations, but one in
which the process of dispersion was stayed, and mankind settled down
within certain definite lines of demarcation, which in great part have
continued to this day.
No wonder, then, that men turned to each other in these dark days,
and talked with regret of the simple agricultural and pastoral age
which had passed, and which came variously to be called, in their
recollection, the second heaven, the Arcadian era, the Saturnia
regna,[276] the golden age. Neither is it surprising that the idea
of a state of nature misconceived as to the facts, and of a law of
nature dimly remembered and distorted by human perversity, has so often
obtained among mankind in modern times and also in antiquity. This is a
point which I shall discuss with reference to the historical evidence
in another chapter.
[276] "And truly there is a sap in nations as well as in trees,
a vigorous inward power, ever tending upwards, drawing its
freshest energies from the simplest institutions, and the
purest virtues and the healthiest moral action.... And if of
nations we may so speak, what shall we say of the entire human
race, when all its energies were, in a manner, pent up in its
early and few progenitors; when the children of Noah, removed
but a few generations from the recollections and lessons of
Eden, and possessing the accumulated wisdom of long-lived
patriarchs, were marvellously fitted to receive those strange
and novel impressions, which a world, just burst forth in all
its newness, was calculated to make?"--Card. Wiseman, "Science
and Revealed Religion," Lect. ii.
It is to this period that I am inclined to refer the belief
in an age of high chivalry and virtue, with subsequent
degeneracy, widely diffused in the legends of King Arthur. I
will surrender my opinion whenever the historical information
respecting that monarch shall have been more exactly
determined.
* * * * *
II. The conception of the state of nature (chap. ii.) as a basis of
theory and belief arose in the main out of the speculations of lawyers
and philosophers; yet it is curious that we frequently come upon a
concurrent yet always subordinate tradition of equality associated
with the tradition of a golden age which, if the age of Noah, we
know _aliunde_ to have been a state of hierarchical subordination
to a patriarchal chief; and, along with a reminiscence of a time of
peaceful prosperity at the commencement of things, the tradition of the
primitive age as one of great barbarism and privation, man living on
acorns, &c.
That these testimonies of tradition are incongruous and confused,
I am bound to admit; but then, looked at from the point of view of
tradition, they seem to me to have their explanation. If this happens
to be deemed somewhat fanciful, I contend that the test in all these
cases must be--(1.) Does the key fit the lock? (2.) Is there any other
key producible?[277] I venture, then, to suggest (p. 211) that the
notion of the primitive equality may be traced through the Bacchanalian
traditions; and the tradition of a primitive age of great privation I
believe to be the recollection of that brief but probably sharp period
of suffering during which mankind clung to the mountains in distrust
of the Divine injunction and promise, until brought into the plains by
Noah.[278] (_Vide_ p. 137.)
[277] "The evidence, therefore, of the meaning of this part of
the Homeric system is like that which is obtained, when,
upon applying a new key to some lock that we have been
unable to open, we find it fits the wards and puts back the
bolt."--Gladstone, "Homer and the Homeric Age," ii. 30.
[278] Plato's testimony to this tradition is remarkable (Plato
de Legibus, lib. i.) Boulanger extracts the passage with
reference to the golden age (iii. 296). (_Vide_ also Grote's
Plato, iii. 337.) Plato says--"That it is a tradition that
there was formerly a great destruction of mankind caused
by inundations and other general calamities [are not these
calamities those to which Horace alludes, I. Ode iii.,
"Semotique prius tarda necessitas
Lethi corripuit gradum,"
from which only a few escaped?] those who were spared led a
pastoral life _on the mountains_. We may suppose," he adds,
"that these men possessed the knowledge of some useful arts,
of some usages to which they had previously conformed." Plato
indeed goes on to tell how this knowledge must have been
lost, and one reason he gives is, "mankind remained _many_
centuries on the _summits_ of the highest mountains--fear
and remembrance of the past did not permit them to _descend
into the plains_." Strabo (_apud_ Boulanger, iii. 301) also
discusses this question. He says that mankind descended into
the plains at different periods according to their courage
and sociability (lib. xiii.) Varro (De re Rustica, lib. xiii.
cap. i.) says they were a long time before they descended."
Now, in these passages from Plato, Strabo, and Varro, there
is distinct testimony to the fact of mankind remaining on the
mountains after the Deluge, and their subsequent inferences
are drawn from the fact that they supposed them to have
remained there a long time. Is not this merely that they have
recorded one tradition to the exclusion of another--viz., that
mankind were brought into the plains by Saturn, in accordance
with the indications in Genesis ix. 20, "and Noe, a husbandman
began to till the ground." Compare _supra_, p. 137, and
p. 212; Bryant, "Mythology," iii. p. 22, following [St]
Epiphanius, says the descendants of Noah remained 659 years in
the vicinity of Ararat--_i.e._ five generations.
Moreover, the characteristics of this subsequent period, when mankind
were living together in groups of families under the mild sway of the
patriarch, when "all families were good" (p. 218), and when
... "With abundant goods midst quiet lands,
All willing shared the gatherings of their hands."
was just that semi-state of nature which it only required the
Bacchanalian tradition on the one side to transform into the fiction of
the state of savage and absolute equality, or the touch of poetry to
convert into the golden reminiscence on the other.
In this way, in the person of the patriarch Noah, the fiction of a
state of nature was brought into contact with the tradition of a law of
nature and a law of nations, regarded as the law of mankind "when men
were nearest the gods."
* * * * *
III. I have already noticed (p. 127) the double tradition of the
succession of ages, the tradition from the fragment of Sanchoniathon,
upon which Mr M'Lennan relies, being ante-, that of Hesiod partly ante-
and partly post-diluvian. The following lines of Hesiod, for instance,
bearing allusion to the confusion of tongues and the shortening of
life, being plainly post-diluvian:--
"When Gods alike and mortals rose to birth,
The immortals formed a _golden race_ on earth
Of _many-languaged men_; they lived of old,
When Saturn reigned in Heaven; an age of gold.
"The Sire of Heaven and earth created then
A race the third, of _many-languaged men_,
Unlike the silver they; of brazen mould,
Strong with the ashen spear, and fierce and bold."[279]
[279] With reference to the stone age, _vide_ p. 288.
And again, of the iron race which followed them, he says--
"Jove on this race of many-languaged men
Speeds the swift ruin which but slow began;
For scarcely spring they to the light of day
E'er age untimely strews their temples grey."
I must here, too, point out how curiously the testimonies of tradition
and science coincide.[280] _Both_ are agreed as to the transition
from a brass (bronze) to an iron age; but in one it is referred to
as evidence of degeneracy--in the other, the transition is adduced
in proof of progress. But the fact is established by the evidence
of tradition, as certainly as by the conclusions of science, and is
referred to accordingly by Sir John Lubbock ("Pre-historic Times," p.
6).
[280] Concerning the evident tradition of the dispersion in Hesiod,
"Theog." v. 836, _vide_ Bryant's "Mythology," iii. 51, _et
seq._
The lines of Lucretius are certainly remarkable--
"Arma antiqua, manus ungues dentesque fuerunt,
Et lapides, et item sylvarum fragmina rami
Posterius ferri vis est, ærisque reperta,
Sed prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus.
Quo facilis magis est natura et copia major
Ære solum terræ tractabunt, æreque belli
Miscebant fluctus."--_De Rerum Natura_, lib. 5.
But here I cannot help thinking the tradition has reference rather to
the use than to the knowledge of metals. We have seen, for instance,
that the cultivation of the ground commenced with Noah--the fact
being attested both by Scripture and tradition. Now, in the above
passage, although the primitive weapons are referred to, as of stones,
yet it is said "æreque solum terræ tractabunt," an averment which
no doubt has reference to the brazen age; yet nothing forbids the
construction, which on other grounds seems the more natural that the
land was from the first so cultivated,[281] and that in strictness the
commencement of the brazen age was identical with the commencement of
cultivation, although in the mind of the poet it had reference to the
introduction of bronze weapons and implements of war. Moreover, the
_sylvarum fragmina rami_ may point to the period immediately preceding
cultivation, when the human race clung to the mountains. The testimony
of Scripture to the point seems plain. Not only does the construction
of the ark appear to imply the use of metals, but the reference to
Tubalcain, "who was a hammerer and artificer in every work of brass and
iron" (Gen. iv. 22), seems to put the antediluvian knowledge of metals
beyond question.
[281] This appears to me to be borne out by the Sanscrit root "_ar_,
to plough," being seemingly cognate with "æs, _ær_is," and
with the produce corn = "_aris_ta," aroum, aratrum, Greek
[Greek: arsmêa], &c.
Sanscrit, "ar, to plough," _vide_ note 1 in Brace's
"Ethnology." _Vide_ also Max Müller, "Science of Language,"
_id._ _Vide_ also Max Müller, "Chips," ii. p. 45.
"The name of the plough (in Egypt) was [Greek: ZHbix],
_ploughed land_, appears to _have been_ [Greek: art], a
word still traced in the Arabic 'hart,' which has the same
import; and the Greek [Greek: arêtron] and Roman _aratrum_
appears to indicate, like the [Greek: aroura], an Egyptian
origin."--_Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, i. 45.
If "ar," as in "[Greek: aristos]," should be proposed as the
primitive root, it must be after rejection of the evidence of
secondary derivation; but does not our common parlance still
run to the comparison of virtues with metals, "good as gold,"
"hard as iron," "true as steel." Why then at a later period
should not brass have become the expression for _best_ in the
brazen or warlike age, when courage was the virtue principally
regarded? If this is accepted, "[Greek: Arês]," or Mars, so
far from being the root, would be a tertiary derivation--the
embodiment and deification of what was regarded as best in the
brazen age. Gladstone ("Homer," ii. p. 225), shows that Mars
was a deity of late invention, and not one of the traditionary
deities. Rawlinson, _vide supra_, p. 164, identifying Ares
with Nimrod.
Bunsen ("Egypt," iii. 466), says in a note, "Arya" in Indian
means lord. Its original meaning was equivalent to "upper
noble." The popular name "Arja" is derived from it, and means
"descended from a noble." I will only add that "Ari" in
Egyptian means "honourable" (in Nofruari). But "ar" might mean
to plough; for the Aryans were originally and essentially an
agricultural, and therefore a peasant race. Agriculture at the
time we are contemplating would have been the most honourable
employment (_supra_, p. 329), it would not have been "an
agricultural and therefore peasant" employment till insecurity
brought about the state of dependence and vassalage. The
Aryans would have been noble as being of the Japhetic race.
In the first commencement after the Deluge, unless miraculously
supplied, there would have been no grain or bread food until time had
been allowed for its production. During this interval acorns, &c., may
have been the only food. Perhaps it was so ordained to incite to the
new permission to eat flesh meat. On the other hand, I ask, in those
ages when men were supposed to live exclusively on acorns, was not
flesh meat eaten,--were there no hunters? Had man no control over the
domestic animals?
That in a peaceful period, and the intercommunication of families
previous to the dispersion implies a state of peace (ch. xiii.), in a
period in which, if we follow the other traditions, "all families were
good," and were under the rule of an old man, "who held his hands to
his ears when they spoke to him of war," it is not surprising to learn
either that they had no weapons, or that they were of the simplest
description. It is characteristic of an age which piques itself upon
the perfection of its artillery, and whose greatest triumphs and
inventions have been in the science of destruction, to look back upon
a totally different age which happened only to have stone weapons, as
necessarily an age of barbarism. But from our point of view it must be
regarded not as an age of barbarism, but of prosperity,--not as a state
of equality, but of the subordination of the members of the family to
each chief, and of families relatively to each other; an age of much
mental vigour and spiritual intuition, and, so far from being a period
of misery, it left reminiscences of happiness such as lingered long in
the memory of mankind.