el tributo que se dava, porque ellos no poseian otra cosa.'
_Prescott's Peru_, vol. i. p. 57. Compare _M'Culloh's
Researches_, p. 359. In Mexico the state of things was just the
same: 'Le petit peuple, qui ne possédait point de biens-fonds, et
qui ne faisait point de commerce, payait sa part des taxes en
travaux de différents genres; c'était par lui que les terres de
la couronne étaient cultivées, les ouvrages publics exécutés, et
les diverses maisons appartenantes à l'empereur construites ou
entretenues.' _Larenaudière's Mexique_, p. 39.
[209] Mr. Prescott notices this with surprise, though, under the
circumstances, it was in truth perfectly natural. He says (_Hist.
of Peru_, vol. i. p. 159), 'Under this extraordinary polity, a
people, advanced in many of the social refinements, well skilled
in manufactures and agriculture, were unacquainted, as we have
seen, with money. They had nothing that deserved to be called
property. They could follow no craft, could engage in no labour,
no amusement, but such as was specially provided by law. They
could not change their residence or their dress without a licence
from the government. They could not even exercise the freedom
which is conceded to the most abject in other countries--that of
selecting their own wives.'
[210] The Mexicans being, as Prichard says (_Physical History_, vol. v.
p. 467), of a more cruel disposition than the Peruvians; but our
information is too limited to enable us to determine whether this
was mainly owing to physical causes or to social ones. Herder
preferred the Peruvian civilization: 'der gebildetste Staat
dieses Welttheils, Peru.' _Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit_,
vol. i. p. 33.
[211] See in _Humboldt's Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. i. p. 101, a striking
summary of the state of the Mexican people at the time of the
Spanish Conquest: see also _History of America_, book vii., in
_Robertson's Works_, p. 907.
[212] _Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico_, vol. i. p. 34.
Compare a similar remark on the invasion of Egypt in _Bunsen's
Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 414.
The further this examination is carried, the more striking becomes the
similarity between those civilizations which flourished anterior to what
may be called the European epoch of the human mind. The division of a
nation into castes would be impossible in the great European countries;
but it existed from a remote antiquity in Egypt, in India, and
apparently in Persia.[213] The very same institution was rigidly
enforced in Peru;[214] and what proves how consonant it was to that
stage of society, is, that in Mexico, where castes were not established
by law, it was nevertheless a recognised custom that the son should
follow the occupation of his father.[215] This was the political symptom
of that stationary and conservative spirit, which, as we shall hereafter
see, has marked every country in which the upper classes have
monopolized power. The religious symptom of the same spirit was
displayed in that inordinate reverence for antiquity, and in that hatred
of change, which the greatest of all the writers on America has well
pointed out as an analogy between the natives of Mexico and those of
Hindostan.[216] To this may be added, that those who have studied the
history of the ancient Egyptians, have observed among that people a
similar tendency. Wilkinson, who is well known to have paid great
attention to their monuments, says that they were more unwilling than
any other nation to alter their religious worship;[217] and Herodotus,
who travelled in their country two thousand three hundred years ago,
assures us that, while they preserved old customs, they never acquired
new ones.[218] In another point of view, the similarity between these
distant countries is equally interesting, since it evidently arises from
the causes already noticed as common to both. In Mexico and Peru, the
lower classes being at the disposal of the upper, there followed that
frivolous waste of labour which we have observed in Egypt, and evidence
of which may also be seen in the remains of those temples and palaces
which are still found in several parts of Asia. Both Mexicans and
Peruvians erected immense buildings, which were as useless as those of
Egypt, and which no country could produce, unless the labour of the
people were ill-paid and ill directed.[219] The cost of these monuments
of vanity is unknown; but it must have been enormous; since the
Americans, being ignorant of the use of iron,[220] were unable to employ
a resource by which, in the construction of large works, labour is
greatly abridged. Some particulars, however, have been preserved, from
which an idea may be formed on this subject. To take, for instance, the
palaces of their kings: we find that in Peru, the erection of the royal
residence occupied, during fifty years, 20,000 men;[221] while that of
Mexico cost the labour of no less than 200,000: striking facts, which,
if all other testimonies had perished, would enable us to appreciate the
condition of countries in which, for such insignificant purposes, such
vast power was expended.[222]
[213] That there were castes in Persia is stated by Firdousi; and his
assertion, putting aside its general probability, ought to
outweigh the silence of the Greek historians, who, for the most
part, knew little of any country except their own. According to
Malcolm, the existence of caste in the time of Jemsheed, is
confirmed by some 'Mahomedan authors;' but he does not say who
they were. _Malcolm's History of Persia_, vol. i. pp. 505, 506.
Several attempts have been made, but very unsuccessfully, to
ascertain the period in which castes were first instituted.
Compare _Asiatic Researches_, vol. vi. p. 251; Heeren's _African
Nations_, vol. ii. p. 121; _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 410;
_Rammohun Roy on the Veds_, p. 269.
[214] _Prescott's History of Peru_, vol. i. pp. 143, 156.
[215] _Prescott's History of Mexico_, vol. i. p. 124.
[216] 'Les Américains, comme les habitans de l'Indoustan, et comme tous
les peuples qui ont gémi long-temps sous le despotisme civil et
religieux, tiennent avec une opiniâtreté extraordinaire à leurs
habitudes, à leurs m[oe]urs, à leurs opinions.... Au Mexique,
comme dans l'Indoustan, il n'étoit pas permis aux fidèles de
changer la moindre chose aux figures des idoles. Tout ce qui
appartenoit au rite des Aztèques et des Hindous étoit assujéti à
des lois immuables.' _Humboldt_, _Nouv. Espagne_, vol. i. pp. 95,
97. Turgot (_[OE]uvres_, vol. ii. pp. 226, 313, 314) has some
admirable remarks on this fixity of opinion natural to certain
states of society. See also _Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte_, vol.
iii. pp. 34, 35; and for other illustrations of this unpliancy of
thought, and adherence to old customs, which many writers suppose
to be an eastern peculiarity but which is far more widely spread,
and is, as Humboldt clearly saw, the result of an unequal
distribution of power, compare _Turner's Embassy to Tibet_, p.
41; _Forbes's Oriental Memoirs_, vol. i. pp. 15, 164, vol. ii. p.
236; _Mill's History of India_, vol. ii. p. 214; _Elphinstone's
History of India_, p. 48; _Otter's Life of Clarke_, vol. ii. p.
109; _Transac. of Asiatic Society_, vol. ii. p. 64; _Journal of
Asiat. Society_, vol. viii. p. 116.
[217] 'How scrupulous the Egyptians were, above all people, in
permitting the introduction of new customs in matters relating to
the gods.' _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. iii. p. 262.
Compare p. 275. Thus, too, M. Bunsen notices the 'tenacity with
which the Egyptians adhered to old manners and customs.'
_Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 64. See also some remarks on the
difference between this spirit and the love of novelty among the
Greeks, in _Ritter's History of Ancient Philosophy_, vol. iv. pp.
625, 626.
[218] _Herodot._ book ii. chap. 79: [Greek: patriosi de chreômenoi
nomoisi allon oudena epikteôntai]: and see the note in _Baehr_,
vol. i. p. 660: '[Greek: nomous] priores interpretes explicarunt
_cantilenas_, _hymnos_; Schweighæuserus rectius intellexit
_instituta ac mores_.' In the same way, in Timæus, Plato
represents an Egyptian priest saying to Solon, [Greek: Hellênes
aei paides este, gerôn de Hellên ouk estin]. And when Solon asked
what he meant, [Greek: Neoi este], was the reply, [Greek: tas
psychas pantes; oudemian gar en autais echete di archaian akoên
palaian doxan oude mathêma chronps polion ouden]. Chap. v. in
_Platonis Opera_, vol. vii. p. 242, edit. Bekker, Lond. 1826.
[219] The Mexicans appear to have been even more wantonly prodigal than
the Peruvians. See, respecting their immense pyramids, one of
which, Cholula had a base 'twice as broad as the largest Egyptian
pyramid,' _M'Culloh's Researches_, pp. 252-256; _Bullock's
Mexico_, pp. 111-115, 414; _Humboldt's Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. i.
pp. 240, 241.
[220] _Prescott's History of Mexico_, vol. i. p. 117, vol. iii.
p. 341; and _Prescott's History of Peru_, vol. i. p. 145. See
also _Haüy_, _Traité de Minéralogie_, Paris, 1801, vol. iv. p.
372.
[221] _Prescott's History of Peru_, vol. i. p. 18.
[222] Mr. Prescott (_History of Mexico_, vol. i. p. 153) says, 'We are
not informed of the time occupied in building this palace; but
200,000 workmen, it is said, were employed on it. However this
may be, it is certain that the Tezcucan monarchs, like those of
Asia and ancient Egypt, had the control of immense masses of men,
and would sometimes turn the whole population of a conquered
city, including the women, into the public works. The most
gigantic monuments of architecture which the world has witnessed
would never have been reared by the hands of freemen.' The
Mexican historian, Ixtlilxochitl, gives a curious account of one
of the royal palaces. See his _Histoire de Chichiméques_,
translated by Ternaux-Compans, Paris, 1840, vol. i. pp. 257-262,
chap. xxxvii.
The preceding evidence, collected from sources of unquestioned
credibility, proves the force of those great physical laws, which, in
the most flourishing countries out of Europe, encouraged the
accumulation of wealth, but prevented its dispersion; and thus secured
to the upper classes a monopoly of one of the most important elements of
social and political power. The result was, that in all those
civilizations the great body of the people derived no benefit from the
national improvements; hence, the basis of the progress being very
narrow, the progress itself was very insecure.[223] When, therefore,
unfavourable circumstances arose from without, it was but natural that
the whole system should fall to the ground. In such countries, society,
being divided against itself, was unable to stand. And there can be no
doubt that long before the crisis of their actual destruction, these
one-sided and irregular civilizations had begun to decay; so that their
own degeneracy aided the progress of foreign invaders, and secured the
overthrow of those ancient kingdoms, which, under a sounder system,
might have been easily saved.
[223] This may be illustrated by a good remark of M. Matter, to the
effect that when the Egyptians had once lost their race of kings,
it was found impossible for the nation to reconstruct itself.
_Matter_, _Histoire de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie_, vol. i. p. 68; a
striking passage. In Persia, again, when the feeling of loyalty
decayed, so also did the feeling of national power. _Malcolm's
History of Persia_, vol. ii. p. 130. The history of the most
civilized parts of Europe presents a picture exactly the reverse
of this.
Thus far as to the way in which the great civilizations exterior to
Europe have been affected by the peculiarities of their food, climate,
and soil. It now remains for me to examine the effect of those other
physical agents to which I have given the collective name of Aspects of
Nature, and which will be found suggestive of some very wide and
comprehensive inquiries into the influence exercised by the external
world in predisposing men to certain habits of thought, and thus giving
a particular tone to religion, arts, literature, and, in a word, to all
the principal manifestations of the human mind. To ascertain how this is
brought about, forms a necessary supplement to the investigations just
concluded. For, as we have seen that climate, food, and soil mainly
concern the accumulation and distribution of wealth, so also shall we
see that the Aspects of Nature concern the accumulation and distribution
of thought. In the first case, we have to do with the material interests
of Man; in the other case with his intellectual interests. The former I
have analyzed as far as I am able, and perhaps as far as the existing
state of knowledge will allow.[224] But the other, namely, the relation
between the Aspects of Nature and the mind of Man, involves speculations
of such magnitude, and requires such a mass of materials drawn from
every quarter, that I feel very apprehensive as to the result; and I
need hardly say, that I make no pretensions to anything approaching an
exhaustive analysis, nor can I hope to do more than generalize a few of
the laws of that complicated, but as yet unexplored, process by which
the external world has affected the human mind, has warped its natural
movements, and too often checked its natural progress.
[224] I mean in regard to the physical and economical generalizations.
As to the literature of the subject, I am conscious of many
deficiencies, particularly in respect to the Mexican and Peruvian
histories.
The Aspects of Nature, when considered from this point of view, are
divisible into two classes: the first class being those which are most
likely to excite the imagination; and the other class being those which
address themselves to the understanding commonly so called, that is, to
the mere logical operations of the intellect. For although it is true
that, in a complete and well-balanced mind, the imagination and the
understanding each play their respective parts, and are auxiliary to
each other, it is also true that, in a majority of instances, the
understanding is too weak to curb the imagination and restrain its
dangerous licence. The tendency of advancing civilization is to remedy
this disproportion, and invest the reasoning powers with that authority,
which, in an early stage of Society, the imagination exclusively
possesses. Whether or not there is ground for fearing that the reaction
will eventually proceed too far, and that the reasoning faculties will
in their turn tyrannize over the imaginative ones, is a question of the
deepest interest; but, in the present condition of our knowledge, it is
probably an insoluble one. At all events, it is certain that nothing
like such a state has yet been seen; since, even in this age, when the
imagination is more under control than in any preceding one, it has far
too much power; as might be easily proved, not only from the
superstitions which in every country still prevail among the vulgar, but
also from that poetic reverence for antiquity, which, though it has been
long diminishing, still hampers the independence, blinds the judgment,
and circumscribes the originality of the educated classes.
Now, so far as natural phenomena are concerned, it is evident, that
whatever inspires feelings of terror, or of great wonder, and whatever
excites in the mind an idea of the vague and uncontrollable, has a
special tendency to inflame the imagination, and bring under its
dominion the slower and more deliberate operations of the understanding.
In such cases, Man, contrasting himself with the force and majesty of
Nature, becomes painfully conscious of his own insignificance. A sense
of inferiority steals over him. From every quarter innumerable obstacles
hem him in, and limit his individual will. His mind, appalled by the
indefined and indefinable, hardly cares to scrutinize the details of
which such imposing grandeur consists.[225] On the other hand, where
the works of Nature are small and feeble, Man regains confidence; he
seems more able to rely on his own power; he can, as it were, pass
through and exercise authority in every direction. And as the phenomena
are more accessible, it becomes easier for him to experiment on them, or
to observe them with minuteness; an inquisitive and analytic spirit is
encouraged, and he is tempted to generalize the appearances of Nature,
and refer them to the laws by which they are governed.
[225] The sensation of fear, even when there is no danger, becomes
strong enough to destroy the pleasure that would otherwise be
felt. See, for instance, a description of the great mountain
boundary of Hindostan, in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. xi. p. 469:
'It is necessary for a person to place himself in our situation
before he can form a just conception of the scene. The depth of
the valley below, the progressive elevation of the intermediate
hills, and the majestic splendour of the cloud-capped Himalaya,
formed so grand a picture, that the mind was impressed with a
sensation of dread rather than of pleasure.' Compare vol. xiv. p.
116, Calcutta, 1822. In the Tyrol, it has been observed, that the
grandeur of the mountain scenery imbues the minds of the natives
with fear, and has caused the invention of many superstitious
legends. _Alison's Europe_, vol. ix. pp. 79, 80.
Looking in this way at the human mind as affected by the Aspects of
Nature, it is surely a remarkable fact, that all the great early
civilizations were situated within and immediately adjoining the
tropics, where those aspects are most sublime, most terrible, and where
Nature is, in every respect, most dangerous to Man. Indeed, generally,
in Asia, Africa, and America, the external world is more formidable than
in Europe. This holds good not only of the fixed and permanent
phenomena, such as mountains, and other great natural barriers, but also
of occasional phenomena, such as earthquakes, tempests, hurricanes,
pestilences; all of which are in those regions very frequent and very
disastrous. These constant and serious dangers produce effects analogous
to those caused by the sublimity of Nature, in so far, that in both
cases there is a tendency to increase the activity of the imagination.
For the peculiar province of the imagination being to deal with the
unknown, every event which is unexplained, as well as important, is a
direct stimulus to our imaginative faculties. In the tropics, events of
this kind are more numerous than elsewhere; it therefore follows that in
the tropics the imagination is most likely to triumph. A few
illustrations of the working of this principle will place it in a
clearer light, and will prepare the reader for the arguments based upon
it.
Of those physical events which increase the insecurity of Man,
earthquakes are certainly among the most striking, in regard to the loss
of life which they cause, as also in regard to their sudden and
unexpected occurrence. There is reason to believe that they are always
preceded by atmospheric changes which strike immediately at the nervous
system, and thus have a direct physical tendency to impair the
intellectual powers.[226] However this may be, there can be no doubt as
to the effect they produce in encouraging particular associations and
habits of thought. The terror which they inspire excites the imagination
even to a painful extent, and, overbalancing the judgment, predisposes
men to superstitious fancies. And what is highly curious, is, that
repetition, so far from blunting such feelings, strengthens them. In
Peru, where earthquakes appear to be more common than in any other
country,[227] every succeeding visitation increases the general dismay;
so that, in some cases, the fear becomes almost insupportable.[228] The
mind is thus constantly thrown into a timid and anxious state: and men
witnessing the most serious dangers, which they can neither avoid nor
understand, become impressed with a conviction of their own inability,
and of the poverty of their own resources.[229] In exactly the same
proportion, the imagination is aroused, and a belief in supernatural
interference actively encouraged. Human power failing, superhuman power
is called in; the mysterious and the invisible are believed to be
present; and there grow up among the people those feelings of awe and of
helplessness, on which all superstition is based, and without which no
superstition can exist.[230]
[226] 'Une augmentation d'électricité s'y manifeste aussi presque
toujours, et ils sont généralement annoncés par le mugissement
des bestiaux, par l'inquiétude des animaux domestiques, et dans
les hommes par cette sorte de malaise qui, en Europe, précède les
orages dans les personnes nerveuses.' _Cuvier_, _Prog. des
Sciences_, vol. i. p. 265. See also, on this 'Vorgefühl,' the
observation of Von Hoff, in Mr. Mallet's valuable essay on
earthquakes (_Brit. Assoc. for_ 1850, p. 68); and the
'foreboding' in _Tschudi's Peru_, p. 165; and a letter in
_Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. iv. p.
504. The probable connexion between earthquakes and electricity
is noticed in _Bakewell's Geology_, p. 434.
[227] 'Peru is more subject perhaps than any other country to the
tremendous visitation of earthquakes.' _M'Culloch's Geog. Dict._
1849. vol. ii. p. 499. Dr. Tschudi (_Travels in Peru_, p. 162)
says of Lima, 'at an average forty-five shocks may be counted on
in the year.' See also on the Peruvian earthquakes, pp. 43, 75,
87, 90.
[228] A curious instance of association of ideas conquering the
deadening effect of habit. Dr. Tschudi (_Peru_, p. 170),
describing the panic, says, 'no familiarity with the phenomenon
can blunt this feeling.' Beale (_South-Sea Whaling Voyage_, Lond.
1839, p. 205) writes, 'it is said at Peru, that the oftener the
natives of the place feel those vibrations of the earth, instead
of becoming habituated to them, as persons do who are constantly
exposed to other dangers, they become more filled with dismay
every time the shock is repeated, so that aged people often find
the terror a slight shock will produce almost insupportable.'
Compare _Darwin's Journal_, pp. 422, 423. So, too, in regard to
Mexican earthquakes, Mr. Ward observes, that 'the natives are
both more sensible than strangers of the smaller shocks, and more
alarmed by them.' _Ward's Mexico_, vol. ii. p. 55. On the
physiological effects of the fear caused by earthquakes, see the
remarkable statement by Osiander in _Burdach's Physiologie comme
Science d'Observation_, vol. ii. pp. 223, 224. That the fear
should be not deadened by familiarity, but increased by it, would
hardly be expected by speculative reasoners unacquainted with the
evidence; and we find, in fact, that the Pyrrhonists asserted
that [Greek: hoi goun seisma par' hois synechôs apotelountai, ou
thaumazontai; oud' ho hêlios, hoti kath' hêmeran horatai.] _Diog.
Laert. de Vitis Philos._ lib. ix. segm. 87, vol. i. p. 591.
[229] Mr. Stephens, who gives a striking description of ancearthquake
in Central America, emphatically says, 'I never felt myself so
feeble a thing before.' _Stephens's Central America_, vol. i. p.
383. See also the account of the effects produced on the mind by
an earthquake, in _Transac. of Soc. of Bombay_, vol. iii. p. 98,
and the note at p. 105.
[230] The effect of earthquakes in encouraging superstition, is noticed
in Lyell's admirable work, _Principles of Geology_, p. 492.
Compare a myth on the origin of earthquakes in _Beausobre_,
_Histoire Critique de Manichée_, vol. i. p. 243.
Further illustration of this may be found even in Europe, where such
phenomena are, comparatively speaking, extremely rare. Earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions are more frequent and more destructive in Italy, and
in the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula, than in any other of the great
countries; and it is precisely there that superstition is most rife,
and the superstitious classes most powerful. Those were the countries
where the clergy first established their authority, where the worst
corruptions of Christianity took place, and where superstition has
during the longest period retained the firmest hold. To this may be
added another circumstance, indicative of the connexion between these
physical phenomena and the predominance of the imagination. Speaking
generally, the fine arts are addressed more to the imagination; the
sciences to the intellect.[231] Now it is remarkable, that all the
greatest painters, and nearly all the greatest sculptors, modern Europe
has possessed, have been produced by the Italian and Spanish peninsulas.
In regard to science, Italy has no doubt had several men of conspicuous
ability; but their numbers are out of all proportion small when compared
with her artists and poets. As to Spain and Portugal, the literature of
those two countries is eminently poetic, and from their schools have
proceeded some of the greatest painters the world has ever seen. On the
other hand, the purely reasoning faculties have been neglected, and the
whole Peninsula, from the earliest period to the present time, does not
supply to the history of the natural sciences a single name of the
highest merit; not one man whose works form an epoch in the progress of
European knowledge.[232]
[231] The greatest men in science, and in fact all very great men, have
no doubt been remarkable for the powers of their imagination. But
in art the imagination plays a far more conspicuous part than in
science; and this is what I mean to express by the proposition in
the text. Sir David Brewster, indeed, thinks that Newton was
deficient in imagination: 'the weakness of his imaginative
powers.' _Brewster's Life of Newton_, 1855, vol. ii. p. 133. It
is impossible to discuss so large a question in a note; but to my
apprehension, no poet, except Dante and Shakespeare, ever had an
imagination more soaring and more audacious than that possessed
by Sir Isaac Newton.
[232] The remarks made by Mr. Ticknor on the absence of science in
Spain, might be extended even further than he has done. See
_Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature_, vol. iii. pp. 222,
223. He says, p. 237, that in 1771, the University of Salamanca
being urged to teach the physical sciences, replied, 'Newton
teaches nothing that would make a good logician or metaphysician,
and Gassendi and Descartes do not agree so well with revealed
truth as Aristotle does.'
The manner in which the Aspects of Nature, when they are very
threatening, stimulate the imagination,[233] and by encouraging
superstition discourage knowledge, may be made still more apparent by
one or two additional facts. Among an ignorant people, there is a direct
tendency to ascribe all serious dangers to supernatural intervention;
and a strong religious sentiment being thus aroused,[234] it constantly
happens, not only that the danger is submitted to, but that it is
actually worshipped. This is the case with some of the Hindus in the
forest of Malabar;[235] and many similar instances will occur to whoever
has studied the condition of barbarous tribes.[236] Indeed, so far is
this carried, that in some countries the inhabitants, from feelings of
reverential fear, refuse to destroy wild-beasts and noxious reptiles;
the mischief these animals inflict being the cause of the impunity they
enjoy.[237]
[233] In _Asiatic Researches_, vol. vi. pp. 35, 36, there is a good
instance of an earthquake giving rise to a theological fiction.
See also vol. i. pp. 154-157; and compare _Coleman's Mythology of
the Hindus_, p. 17.
[234] See for example, _Asiatic Researches_, vol. iv. pp. 56, 57, vol.
vii. p. 94; and the effect produced by a volcano, in _Journal of
Geograph. Society_, vol. v. p. 388. See also vol. xx. p. 8, and a
practical recognition of the principle by Sextus Empiricus, in
_Tennemann's Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. i. p. 292. Compare
the use the clergy made of a volcanic eruption in Iceland
(_Wheaton's History of the Northmen_, p. 42); and see further
_Raffles' History of Java_, vol. i. pp. 29, 274, and _Tschudi's
Peru_, pp. 64, 167, 171.
[235] The Hindus in the Iruari forests, says Mr. Edye, 'worship and
respect everything from which they apprehend danger.' _Edye on the
Coast of Malabar_, in _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. ii.
p. 337.
[236] Dr. Prichard (_Physical History_, vol. iv. p. 501) says 'The tiger
is worshipped by the Hajin tribe in the vicinity of the Garrows
or Garrudus.' Compare _Transactions of Asiatic Society_, vol. iii.
p. 66. Among the Garrows themselves, this feeling is so strong,
that 'the tiger's nose strung round a woman's neck is considered
as a great preservative in childbirth.' _Coleman's Mythology of
the Hindus_, p. 321. The Seiks have a curious superstition
respecting wounds inflicted by tigers (_Burne's Bokhara_, 1834,
vol. iii. p. 140); and the Malasir believe that these animals are
sent as a punishment for irreligion. _Buchanan's Journey through
the Mysore_, vol. ii. p. 385.
[237] The inhabitants of Sumatra are, for superstitious reasons, most
unwilling to destroy tigers, though they commit frightful
ravages. _Marsden's History of Sumatra_, pp. 149, 254. The
Russian account of the Kamtschatkans says, 'besides the
above-mentioned gods, they pay a religious regard to several
animals from which they apprehend danger.' _Grieve's History of
Kamtschatka_, p. 205. Bruce mentions that in Abyssinia, hyænas
are considered 'enchanters' and the inhabitants 'will not touch
the skin of a hyæna till it has been prayed over and exorcised by
a priest.' _Murray's Life of Bruce_, p. 472. Allied to this, is
the respect paid to bears (_Erman's Siberia_, vol. i. p. 492,
vol. ii. pp. 42, 43); also the extensively-diffused worship of
the serpent, whose wily movements are well calculated to inspire
fear, and therefore rouse the religious feelings. The danger
apprehended from noxious reptiles is connected with the Dews of
the Zendavesta. See _Matter's Histoire du Gnosticisme_, vol. i.
p. 380, Paris, 1828.
It is in this way, that the old tropical civilizations had to struggle
with innumerable difficulties unknown to the temperate zone, where
European civilization has long flourished. The devastations of animals
hostile to man, the ravages of hurricanes, tempests, earthquakes,[238]
and similar perils, constantly pressed upon them, and affected the tone
of their national character. For the mere loss of life was the smallest
part of the inconvenience. The real mischief was, that there were
engendered in the mind, associations which made the imagination
predominate over the understanding; which infused into the people a
spirit of reverence instead of a spirit of inquiry; and which encouraged
a disposition to neglect the investigation of natural causes, and
ascribe events to the operation of supernatural ones.
[238] To give one instance of the extent to which these operate, it may
be mentioned, that in 1815 an earthquake and volcanic eruption
broke forth in Sumbawa, which shook the ground 'through an area
of 1,000 miles in circumference,' and the detonations of which
were heard at a distance of 970 geographical miles. _Somerville's
Connexion of the Physical Sciences_, p. 283; _Hitchcock's
Religion of Geology_, p. 190; _Low's Sarawak_, p. 10; _Bakewell's
Geology_, p. 438.
Everything we know of those countries proves how active this tendency
must have been. With extremely few exceptions, health is more
precarious, and disease more common, in tropical climates than in
temperate ones. Now, it has been often observed, and indeed is very
obvious, that the fear of death makes men more prone to seek
supernatural aid than they would otherwise be. So complete is our
ignorance respecting another life, that it is no wonder if even the
stoutest heart should quail at the sudden approach of that dark and
untried future. On this subject the reason is perfectly silent; the
imagination, therefore, is uncontrolled. The operation of natural causes
being brought to an end, supernatural causes are supposed to begin.
Hence it is, that whatever increases in any country the amount of
dangerous disease, has an immediate tendency to strengthen superstition,
and aggrandize the imagination at the expense of the understanding. This
principle is so universal, that, in every part of the world, the vulgar
ascribe to the intervention of the Deity those diseases which are
peculiarly fatal, and especially those which have a sudden and
mysterious appearance. In Europe it used to be believed that every
pestilence was a manifestation of the divine anger;[239] and this
opinion, though it has long been dying away, is by no means extinct,
even in the most civilized countries.[240] Superstition of this kind
will of course be strongest, either where medical knowledge is most
backward, or where disease is most abundant. In countries where both
these conditions are fulfilled, the superstition is supreme; and even
where only one of the conditions exists, the tendency is so
irresistible, that, I believe, there are no barbarous people who do not
ascribe to their good or evil deities, not only extraordinary diseases,
but even many of the ordinary ones to which they are liable.[241]
[239] In the sixteenth century, 'Les différentes sectes s'accordèrent
néanmoins à regarder les maladies graves et dangereuses comme un
effet immédiat de la puissance divine; idée que Fernel contribua
encore à répandre davantage. On trouve dans Paré plusieurs
passages de la Bible, cités pour prouver que la colère de Dieu
est la seule cause de la peste, qu'elle suffit pour provoquer ce
fléau, et que sans elle les causes éloignées ne sauraient agir.'
_Sprengel_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. iii. p. 112. The same
learned writer says of the Middle Ages (vol. ii. p. 372),
'D'après l'esprit généralement répandu dans ces siècles de
barbarie, on croyait la lèpre envoyée d'une manière immédiate par
Dieu.' See also pp. 145, 346, 431. Bishop Heber says that the
Hindus deprive lepers of caste and of the right of possessing
property, because they are objects of 'Heaven's wrath.' _Heber's
Journey through India_, vol. ii. p. 330. On the Jewish opinion,
see _Le Clerc_, _Bibliothèque Universelle_, vol. iv. p. 402,
Amsterdam, 1702. And as to the early Christians, see _Maury_,
_Légendes Pieuses_, p. 68, Paris, 1843: though M. Maury ascribes
to 'les idées orientales reçues par le christianisme,' what is
due to the operation of a much wider principle.
[240] Under the influence of the inductive philosophy, the theological
theory of disease was seriously weakened before the middle of the
seventeenth century; and by the middle, or at all events the
latter half, of the eighteenth century, it had lost all its
partisans among scientific men. At present it still lingers on
among the vulgar; and traces of it may be found in the writings
of the clergy, and in the works of other persons little
acquainted with physical knowledge. When the cholera broke out in
England, attempts were made to revive the old notion; but the
spirit of the age was too strong for such efforts to succeed; and
it may be safely predicted that men will never return to their
former opinions, unless they first return to their former
ignorance. As a specimen of the ideas which the cholera tended to
excite, and of their antagonism to all scientific investigation,
I may refer to a letter written in 1832 by Mrs. Grant, a woman of
some accomplishments, and not devoid of influence
(_Correspondence of Mrs. Grant_, London, 1844, vol. iii. pp. 216,
217), where she states that 'it appears to me great presumption
to indulge so much as people do in speculation and conjecture
about a disease so evidently a peculiar infliction, and different
from all other modes of suffering hitherto known.' This desire to
limit human speculation is precisely the feeling which long
retained Europe in darkness; since it effectually prevented those
free inquiries to which we are indebted for all the real
knowledge we possess. The doubts of Boyle upon this subject
supply a curious instance of the transitory state through which
the mind was passing in the seventeenth century, and by which the
way was prepared for the great liberating movement of the next
age. Boyle, after stating both sides of the question, namely, the
theological and the scientific, adds, 'and it is the less likely
that these sweeping and contagious maladies should be always sent
for the punishment of impious men, because I remember to have
read in good authors, that as some plagues destroyed both men and
beasts, so some other did peculiarly destroy brute animals of
very little consideration or use to men, as cats,' &c.
'Upon these and the like reasons, I have sometimes suspected that
in the controversy about the origin of the plague, namely,
whether it be natural or supernatural, neither of the contending
parties is altogether in the right; since it is very possible
that some pestilences may not break forth without an
extraordinary, though perhaps not immediate, interposition of
Almighty God, provoked by the sins of men; and yet other plagues
may be produced by a tragical concourse of merely natural
causes.' _Discourse on the Air_, in _Boyle's Works_, vol. iv. pp.
288, 289. '_Neither of the contending parties is altogether in
the right!_'--an instructive passage towards understanding the
compromising spirit of the seventeenth century; standing midway,
as it did, between the credulity of the sixteenth, and the
scepticism of the eighteenth.
[241] To the historian of the human mind, the whole question is so full
of interest, that I shall refer in this note to all the evidence
I have been able to collect: and whoever will compare the
following passages may satisfy himself that there is in every
part of the world an intimate relation between ignorance
respecting the nature and proper treatment of a disease, and the
belief that such disease is caused by supernatural power, and is
to be cured by it. _Burton's Sindh_, p. 146, London, 1851;
_Ellis's Polynesian Researches_, vol. i. p. 395, vol. iii. pp.
36, 41, vol. iv. pp. 293, 334, 375; _Cullen's Works_, Edinb.
1827, vol. ii. pp. 414, 434; _Esquirol_, _Maladies Mentales_,
vol. i. pp. 274, 482; _Cabanis_, _Rapports du Physique et du
Moral_, p. 277; _Volney_, _Voyage en Syrie_, vol. i. p. 426;
_Turner's Embassy to Tibet_, p. 104; _Syme's Embassy to Ava_,
vol. ii. p. 211; _Ellis's Tour through Hawaii_, pp. 282, 283,
332, 333; _Renouard_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. i. p. 398;
_Broussais_, _Examen des Doctrines Médicales_, vol. i. pp. 261,
262; _Grote's History of Greece_, vol. i. p. 485 (compare p. 251,
and vol. vi. p. 213); _Grieve's History of Kamtschatka_, p. 217;
_Journal of Statist. Soc._ vol. x. p. 10; _Buchanan's North
American Indians_, pp. 256, 257; _Halkett's North American
Indians_, pp. 36, 37, 388, 393, 394; _Catlin's North American
Indians_, vol. i. pp. 35-41; _Briggs on the Aboriginal Tribes of
India_, in _Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1850_, p. 172;
_Transactions of Soc. of Bombay_, vol. ii. p. 30; _Percival's
Ceylon_, p. 201; _Buchanan's Journey through the Mysore_, vol.
ii. pp. 27, 152, 286, 528, vol. iii. pp. 23, 188, 253 (so, too,
M. Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, _Anomalies de l'Organization_, vol.
iii. p. 380, says that when we were quite ignorant of the cause
of monstrous births, the phenomenon was ascribed to the
Deity,--'de là aussi l'intervention supposée de la divinité;' and
for an exact verification of this, compare _Burdach_, _Traité de
Physiologie_, vol. ii. p. 247, with _Journal of Geog. Soc._ vol.
xvi. p. 113); _Ellis's History of Madagascar_, vol. i. pp. 224,
225; _Prichard's Physical History_, vol. i. p. 207, vol. v. p.
492; _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. iii. p. 230, vol. iv. p.
158; _Asiatic Researches_, vol. iii. pp. 29, 156, vol. iv. pp.
56, 58, 74, vol. xvi. pp. 215, 280; _Neander's History of the
Church_, vol. iii. p. 119; _Crawfurd's History of the Indian
Archipelago_, vol. i. p. 328; _Low's Sarawak_, pp. 174, 261;
_Cook's Voyages_, vol. i. p. 229; _Mariner's Tonga Islands_, vol.
i. pp. 194, 350-360, 374, 438, vol. ii. pp. 172, 230; _Huc's
Travels in Tartary and Thibet_, vol. i. pp. 74-77; _Richardson's
Travels in the Sahara_, vol. i. p. 27; _M'Culloh's Researches_,
p. 105; _Journal of Geog. Soc._ vol. i. p. 41, vol. iv. p. 260,
vol. xiv. p. 37. And in regard to Europe, compare _Spence_,
_Origin of the Laws of Europe_, p. 322; _Turner's Hist. of
England_, vol. iii. p. 443; _Phillips on Scrofula_, p. 255;
_Otter's Life of Clarke_, vol. i. pp. 265, 266, which may be
illustrated by the 'sacred' disease of Cambyses, no doubt
epilepsy; see _Herodot._ lib. iii. chap. xxxiv. vol. ii. p. 63.
Here, then, we have another specimen of the unfavourable influence,
which, in the old civilizations, external phenomena exercised over the
human mind. For those parts of Asia where the highest refinement was
reached, are, from various physical causes, much more unhealthy than
the most civilized parts of Europe.[242] This fact alone must have
produced a considerable effect on the national character,[243] and the
more so, as it was aided by those other circumstances which I have
pointed out, all tending in the same direction. To this may be added,
that the great plagues by which Europe has at different periods been
scourged, have, for the most part, proceeded from the East, which is
their natural birthplace, and where they are most fatal. Indeed, of
those cruel diseases now existing in Europe, scarcely one is indigenous;
and the worst of them were imported from tropical countries in and after
the first century of the Christian era.[244]
[242] Heat, moisture, and consequent rapid decomposition of vegetable
matter, are certainly among the causes of this; and to them may
perhaps be added the electrical state of the atmosphere in the
tropics. Compare _Holland's Medical Notes_, p. 477; _M'William's
Medical Expedition to the Niger_, pp. 157, 185; _Simon's
Pathology_, p. 269; _Forry's Climate and its Endemic Influences_,
p. 158. M. Lepelletier says, rather vaguely (_Physiologie
Médicale_, vol. iv. p. 527), that the temperate zones are
'favorables à l'exercice complet et régulier des phénomènes
vitaux.'
[243] And must have strengthened the power of the clergy; for, as
Charlevoix says with great frankness, 'pestilences are the
harvests of the ministers of God.' _Southey's History of Brazil_,
vol. ii. p. 254.
[244] For evidence of the extra-European origin of European diseases,
some of which, such as the small-pox, have passed from epidemics
into endemics, compare _Encyclop. of the Medical Sciences_, 4to,
1847, p. 728; _Transactions of Asiatic Society_, vol. ii. pp. 54,
55; _Michaelis on the Laws of Moses_, vol. iii. p. 313;
_Sprengel_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. ii. pp. 33, 195;
_Wallace's Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind_, pp. 81, 82;
_Huetiana_, Amst. 1723, pp. 132-135; _Sanders on the Small Pox_,
Edinb. 1813, pp. 3-4; _Wilks's Hist. of the South of India_, vol.
iii. pp. 16-21; _Clot-Bey de la Peste_, Paris, 1840, p. 227.
Summing up these facts, it may be stated, that in the civilizations
exterior to Europe, all nature conspired to increase the authority of
the imaginative faculties, and weaken the authority of the reasoning
ones. With the materials now existing, it would be possible to follow
this vast law to its remotest consequences, and show how in Europe it is
opposed by another law diametrically opposite, and by virtue of which
the tendency of natural phenomena is, on the whole, to limit the
imagination, and embolden the understanding: thus inspiring Man with
confidence in his own resources, and facilitating the increase of his
knowledge, by encouraging that bold, inquisitive, and scientific spirit,
which is constantly advancing, and on which all future progress must
depend.
It is not to be supposed that I can trace in detail the way in which,
owing to these peculiarities, the civilization of Europe has diverged
from all others that preceded it. To do this, would require a learning
and a reach of thought to which hardly any single man ought to pretend;
since it is one thing to have a perception of a large and general truth,
and it is another thing to follow out that truth in all its
ramifications, and prove it by such evidence as will satisfy ordinary
readers. Those, indeed, who are accustomed to speculations of this
character, and are able to discern in the history of man something more
than a mere relation of events, will at once understand that in these
complicated subjects, the wider any generalization is, the greater will
be the chance of apparent exceptions; and that when the theory covers a
very large space, the exceptions may be innumerable, and yet the theory
remain perfectly accurate. The two fundamental propositions which I
hope to have demonstrated, are, 1st, That there are certain natural
phenomena which act on the human mind by exciting the imagination; and
2dly, That those phenomena are much more numerous out of Europe than in
it. If these two propositions are admitted, it inevitably follows, that
in those countries where the imagination has received the stimulus, some
specific effects must have been produced; unless, indeed, the effects
have been neutralized by other causes. Whether or not there have been
antagonistic causes, is immaterial to the truth of the theory, which is
based on the two propositions just stated. In a scientific point of
view, therefore, the generalization is complete; and it would perhaps be
prudent to leave it as it now stands, rather than attempt to confirm it
by further illustrations, since all particular facts are liable to be
erroneously stated, and are sure to be contradicted by those who dislike
the conclusions they corroborate. But in order to familiarize the reader
with the principles I have put forward, it does seem advisable that a
few instances should be given of their actual working: and I will,
therefore, briefly notice the effects they have produced in the three
great divisions of Literature, Religion, and Art. In each of these
departments, I will endeavour to indicate how the leading features have
been affected by the Aspects of Nature; and with a view of simplifying
the inquiry, I will take the two most conspicuous instances on each
side, and compare the manifestations of the intellect of Greece with
those of the intellect of India: these being the two countries
respecting which the materials are most ample, and in which the physical
contrasts are most striking.
If, then, we look at the ancient literature of India, even during its
best period, we shall find the most remarkable evidence of the
uncontrolled ascendency of the imagination. In the first place, we have
the striking fact that scarcely any attention has been paid to prose
composition; all the best writers having devoted themselves to poetry,
as being most congenial to the national habits of thought. Their works
on grammar, on law, on history, on medicine, on mathematics, on
geography, and on metaphysics, are nearly all poems, and are put
together according to a regular system of versification.[245] The
consequence is, that while prose writing is utterly despised, the art of
poetry has been cultivated so assiduously, that the Sanscrit can boast
of metres more numerous and more complicated than have ever been
possessed by any of the European languages.[246]
[245] 'So verwandelt das geistige Leben des Hindu sich in wahre Poesie,
und das bezeichnende Merkmal seiner ganzen Bildung ist:
Herrschaft der Einbildungskraft über den Verstand; im geraden
Gegensatz mit der Bildung des Europäers, deren allgemeiner
Charakter in der Herrschaft des Verstandes über die
Einbildungskraft besteht. Es wird dadurch begreiflich, dass die
Literatur der Hindus nur eine poetische ist; dass sie überreich
an Dichterwerken, aber arm am wissenschaftlichen Schriften sind;
dass ihre heiligen Schriften, ihre Gesetze und Sagen poetisch,
und grösstentheils in Versen geschrieben sind; ja dass Lehrbücher
der Grammatik, der Heilkunde, der Mathematik und Erdbeschreibung
in Versen verfasst sind.' _Rhode_, _Religiöse Bildung der
Hindus_, vol. ii. p. 626. Thus, too, we are told respecting one of
their most celebrated metaphysical systems, that 'the best text
of the Sanchya is a short treatise in verse.' _Colebrooke on the
Philosophy of the Hindus_, in _Transactions of Asiatic Society_,
vol. i. p. 23. And in another place the same high authority says
(_Asiatic Researches_, vol. x. p. 439), 'the metrical treatises
on law and other sciences are almost entirely composed in this
easy verse.' M. Klaproth, in an analysis of a Sanscrit history of
Cashmere, says, 'comme presque toutes les compositions hindoues,
il est écrit en vers.' _Journal Asiatique_, I. série, vol. vii.
p. 8, Paris, 1825. See also, in vol. vi. pp. 175, 176, the
remarks of M. Burnouf: 'Les philosophes indiens, comme s'ils ne
pouvaient échapper aux influences poétiques de leur climat,
traitent les questions de la métaphysique le plus abstraite par
similitudes et métaphores.' Compare vol. vi. p. 4, 'le génie
indien si poétique et si religieux;' and see _Cousin_, _Hist. de
la Philosophie_, II. série, vol. i. p. 27.
[246] Mr. Yates says of the Hindus, that no other people have ever
'presented an equal variety of poetic compositions. The various
metres of Greece and Rome have filled Europe with astonishment;
but what are these, compared with the extensive range of Sanscrit
metres under its three classes of poetical writing?' _Yates on
Sanscrit Alliteration_, in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. xx. p. 159,
Calcutta, 1836. See also on the Sanscrit metres, p. 321, and an
Essay by Colebrooke, vol. x. pp. 389-474. On the metrical system
of the Vedas, see Mr. Wilson's note in the _Rig Veda Sanhita_,
vol. ii. p. 135.
This peculiarity in the form of Indian literature is accompanied by a
corresponding peculiarity in its spirit. For it is no exaggeration to
say, that in that literature every thing is calculated to set the reason
of man at open defiance. An imagination, luxuriant even to disease, runs
riot on every occasion. This is particularly seen in those productions
which are most eminently national, such as the Ramayana, the Mahabharat,
and the Puranas in general. But we also find it even in their
geographical and chronological systems, which of all others might be
supposed least liable to imaginative flights. A few examples of the
statements put forward in the most authoritative books, will supply the
means of instituting a comparison with the totally opposite condition of
the European intellect, and will give the reader some idea of the extent
to which credulity can proceed, even among a civilized people.[247]
[247] In Europe, as we shall see in the sixth chapter of this volume;
the credulity was at one time extraordinary; but the age was then
barbarous, and barbarism is always credulous. On the other hand,
the examples gathered from Indian literature will be taken from
the works of a lettered people, written in a language extremely
rich, and so highly polished, that some competent judges have
declared it equal, if not superior, to the Greek.
Of all the various ways in which the imagination has distorted truth,
there is none that has worked so much harm as an exaggerated respect for
past ages. This reverence for antiquity is repugnant to every maxim of
reason, and is merely the indulgence of a poetic sentiment in favour of
the remote and unknown. It is, therefore, natural that, in periods when
the intellect was comparatively speaking inert, this sentiment should
have been far stronger than it now is; and there can be little doubt
that it will continue to grow weaker, and that in the same proportion
the feeling of progress will gain ground; so that veneration for the
past will be succeeded by hope for the future. But formerly the
veneration was supreme, and innumerable traces of it may be found in the
literature and popular creed of every country. It is this, for instance,
which inspired the poets with their notion of a golden age, in which
the world was filled with peace, in which evil passions were stilled,
and crimes were unknown. It is this, again, which gave to theologians
their idea of the primitive virtue and simplicity of man, and of his
subsequent fall from that high estate. And it is this same principle
which diffused a belief that in the olden times, men were not only more
virtuous and happy, but also physically superior in the structure of
their bodies; and that by this means they attained to a larger stature,
and lived to a greater age, than is possible for us, their feeble and
degenerate descendants.
Opinions of this kind, being adopted by the imagination in spite of the
understanding, it follows that the strength of such opinions becomes, in
any country, one of the standards by which we may estimate the
predominance of the imaginative faculties. Applying this test to the
literature of India, we shall find a striking confirmation of the
conclusions already drawn. The marvellous feats of antiquity with which
the Sanscrit books abound, are so long and so complicated, that it would
occupy too much space to give even an outline of them; but there is one
class of these singular fictions which is well worth attention, and
admits of being briefly stated. I allude to the extraordinary age which
man was supposed to have attained in former times. A belief in the
longevity of the human race, at an early period of the world, was the
natural product of those feelings which ascribed to the ancients an
universal superiority over the moderns; and this we see exemplified in
some of the Christian, and in many of the Hebrew writings. But the
statements in these works are tame and insignificant when compared with
what is preserved in the literature of India. On this, as on every
subject, the imagination of the Hindus distanced all competition. Thus,
among an immense number of similar facts, we find it recorded that in
ancient times the duration of the life of common men was 80,000
years,[248] and that holy men lived to be upwards of 100,000.[249] Some
died a little sooner, others a little later; but in the most flourishing
period of antiquity, if we take all classes together, 100,000 years was
the average.[250] Of one king, whose name was Yudhishthir, it is
casually mentioned that he reigned 27,000 years;[251] while another,
called Alarka, reigned 66,000.[252] They were cut off in their prime,
since there are several instances of the early poets living to be about
half-a-million.[253] But the most remarkable case is that of a very
shining character in Indian history, who united in his single person the
functions of a king and a saint. This eminent man lived in a pure and
virtuous age, and his days were, indeed, long in the land; since, when
he was made king, he was two million years old: he then reigned
6,300,000 years; having done which, he resigned his empire, and lingered
on for 100,000 years more.[254]
[248] 'The limit of life was vol. xvi. p. 456, Calcutta, 1828. 80,000
years.' _Asiatic Researches_. This was likewise the estimate of
the Tibetan divines, according to whom men formerly 'parvenaient
à l'âge de 80,000 ans.' _Journal Asiatique_, I. série, vol. iii.
p. 199, Paris, 1823.
[249] 'Den Hindu macht dieser Widerspruch nicht verlegen, da er seine
Heiligen 100,000 Jahre und länger leben lässt.' _Rhode_, _Relig.
Bildung der Hindus_, vol. i. p. 175.
[250] In the _Dabistan_, vol. ii. p. 47, it is stated of the earliest
inhabitants of the world, that 'the duration of human life in
this age extended to one hundred thousand common years.'
[251] Wilford (_Asiatic Researches_, vol. v. p. 242) says, 'When the
Puranics speak of the kings of ancient times, they are equally
extravagant. According to them, King Yudhishthir reigned
seven-and-twenty thousand years.'
[252] 'For sixty thousand and sixty hundred years no other youthful
monarch except Alarka reigned over the earth.' _Vishnu Purana_,
p. 408.
[253] And sometimes more. In the Essay on Indian Chronology in _Works of
Sir W. Jones_, vol. i. p. 325, we hear of 'a conversation between
Valmic and Vyasa, ... two bards whose ages were separated by a
period of 864,000 years.' This passage is also in _Asiatic
Researches_, vol. ii. p. 399.
[254] 'He was the first king, first anchoret, and first saint; and is
therefore entitled Prathama-Raja, Prathama Bhicshacara, Prathama
Jina, and Prathama Tirthancara. At the time of his inauguration
as king, his age was 2,000,000 years. He reigned 6,300,000 years,
and then resigned his empire to his sons: and having employed
100,000 years in passing through the several stages of austerity
and sanctity, departed from this world on the summit of a
mountain named Ashtapada.' _Asiatic Researches_, vol. ix. p. 305.
The same boundless reverence for antiquity made the Hindus refer every
thing important to the most distant periods; and they frequently assign
a date which is absolutely bewildering.[255] Their great collection of
laws, called the _Institutes of Menu_, is certainly less than 3,000
years old; but the Indian chronologists, so far from being satisfied
with this, ascribe to them an age that the sober European mind finds a
difficulty even in conceiving. According to the best native authorities,
these Institutes were revealed to man about two thousand million years
before the present era.[256]
[255] 'Speculationen über Zahlen sind dem Inder so geläufig, dass selbst
die Sprache einen Ausdruck hat für eine Unität mit 63 Nullen,
nämlich Asanke, eben weil die Berechnung der Weltperioden diese
enorme Grössen nothwendig machte, denn jene einfachen 12,000
Jahre schienen einem Volke, welches so gerne die höchstmögliche
Potenz auf seine Gottheit übertragen mögte, viel zu geringe zu
seyn.' _Bohlen_, _das alte Indien_, vol. ii. p. 298.
[256] _Elphinstone's History of India_, p. 136, 'a period exceeding
4,320,000 multiplied by six times seventy-one.'
All this is but a part of that love of the remote, that straining after
the infinite, and that indifference to the present, which characterizes
every branch of the Indian intellect. Not only in literature, but also
in religion and in art, this tendency is supreme. To subjugate the
understanding, and exalt the imagination, is the universal principle. In
the dogmas of their theology, in the character of their gods, and even
in the forms of their temples, we see how the sublime and threatening
aspects of the external world have filled the mind of the people with
those images of the grand and the terrible, which they strive to
reproduce in a visible form, and to which they owe the leading
peculiarities of their national culture.
Our view of this vast process may be made clearer by comparing it with
the opposite condition of Greece. In Greece, we see a country altogether
the reverse of India. The works of nature, which in India are of
startling magnitude, are in Greece far smaller, feebler, and in every
way less threatening to man. In the great centre of Asiatic
civilization, the energies of the human race are confined, and as it
were intimidated, by the surrounding phenomena. Besides the dangers
incidental to tropical climates, there are those noble mountains, which
seem to touch the sky, and from whose sides are discharged mighty
rivers, which no art can divert from their course, and which no bridge
has ever been able to span. There, too, are impassable forests, whole
countries lined with interminable jungle, and beyond them, again, dreary
and boundless deserts; all teaching Man his own feebleness, and his
inability to cope with natural forces. Without, and on either side,
there are great seas, ravaged by tempests far more destructive than any
known in Europe, and of such sudden violence, that it is impossible to
guard against their effects. And, as if in those regions every thing
combined to cramp the activity of Man, the whole line of coast, from the
mouth of the Ganges to the extreme south of the peninsula, does not
contain a single safe and capacious harbour, not one port that affords a
refuge, which is perhaps more necessary there than in any other part of
the world.[257]
[257] Symes (_Embassy to Ava_, vol. iii. p. 278) says: 'From the mouth
of the Ganges to Cape Comorin, the whole range of our continental
territory, there is not a single harbour capable of affording
shelter to a vessel of 500 tons burden.' Indeed, according to
Percival, there is with the exception of Bombay, no harbour,
'either on the Coromandel or Malabar coasts, in which ships can
moor in safety at all seasons of the year.' _Percival's Account
of Ceylon_, pp. 2, 15, 66.
But in Greece, the aspects of nature are so entirely different, that the
very conditions of existence are changed. Greece, like India, forms a
peninsula; but while in the Asiatic country every thing is great and
terrible, in the European country every thing is small and feeble. The
whole of Greece occupies a space somewhat less than the kingdom of
Portugal,[258] that is about a fortieth part of what is now called
Hindustan.[259] Situated in the most accessible part of a narrow sea, it
had easy contact on the east with Asia Minor, on the west with Italy, on
the south with Egypt. Dangers of all kinds were far less numerous than
in the tropical civilizations. The climate was more healthy;[260]
earthquakes were less frequent; hurricanes were less disastrous;
wild-beasts and noxious animals less abundant. In regard to the other
great features, the same law prevails. The highest mountains in Greece
are less than one-third of the Himalaya, so that nowhere do they reach
the limit of perpetual snow.[261] As to rivers, not only is there
nothing approaching those imposing volumes which are poured down from
the mountains of Asia, but nature is so singularly sluggish, that
neither in Northern nor in Southern Greece do we find any thing beyond a
few streams, which are easily forded, and which, indeed, in the summer
season, are frequently dried up.[262]
[258] 'Altogether its area is somewhat less than that of Portugal.'
_Grote's History of Greece_, vol. ii. p. 302; and the same remark
in _Thirlwall's History of Greece_, vol. i. p. 2, and in
_Heeren's Ancient Greece_, 1845, p. 16. M. Heeren says, 'But even
if we add all the islands, its square contents are a third less
than those of Portugal.'
[259] The area of Hindostan being, according to Mr. M'Culloch (_Geog.
Dict._ 1849, vol. i. p. 993), 'between 1,200,000 and 1,300,000
square miles.'
[260] In the best days of Greece, those alarming epidemics, by which the
country was subsequently ravaged, were comparatively little
known: see _Thirlwall's History of Greece_, vol. iii. p. 134,
vol. viii. p. 471. This may be owing to large cosmical causes, or
to the simple fact, that the different forms of pestilence had
not yet been imported from the East by actual contact. On the
vague accounts we possess of the earlier plagues, see _Clot-Bey
de la Peste_, Paris, 1840. pp. 21, 46, 184. The relation even of
Thucydides is more satisfactory to scholars than to pathologists.
[261] 'Mount Guino, the highest point in Greece, and near its northern
boundary, is 8,239 feet high.... No mountain in Greece reaches
the limit of perpetual snow.' _M'Culloch's Geog. Dict._ 1849,
vol. i. p. 924. Compare the table of mountains in Baker's Memoir
on North Greece, in _Journal of Geographical Society_, vol. vii.
p. 94, with _Bakewell's Geology_, pp. 621, 622.
[262] 'Greece has no navigable river.' _M'Culloch's Geog. Dict._ vol. i.
p. 924. 'Most of the rivers of Greece are torrents in early
spring, and dry before the end of the summer.' _Grote's History
of Greece_, vol. ii. p. 286.
These striking differences in the material phenomena of the two
countries gave rise to corresponding differences in their mental
associations. For as all ideas must arise partly from what are called
spontaneous operations in the mind, and partly from what is suggested to
the mind by the external world, it was natural that so great an
alteration in one of the causes should produce an alteration in the
effects. The tendency of the surrounding phenomena was in India to
inspire fear; in Greece to give confidence. In India Man was
intimidated; in Greece he was encouraged. In India obstacles of every
sort were so numerous, so alarming, and apparently so inexplicable, that
the difficulties of life could only be solved by constantly appealing to
the direct agency of supernatural causes. Those causes being beyond the
province of the understanding, the resources of the imagination were
incessantly occupied in studying them; the imagination itself was
overworked, its activity became dangerous, it encroached on the
understanding, and the equilibrium of the whole was destroyed. In Greece
opposite circumstances were followed by opposite results. In Greece
Nature was less dangerous, less intrusive, and less mysterious than in
India. In Greece, therefore, the human mind was less appalled, and less
superstitious; natural causes began to be studied; physical science
first became possible; and Man, gradually waking to a sense of his own
power, sought to investigate events with a boldness not to be expected
in those other countries, where the pressure of Nature troubled his
independence, and suggested ideas with which knowledge is incompatible.
The effect of these habits of thought on the national religion must be
very obvious to whoever has compared the popular creed of India with
that of Greece. The mythology of India, like that of every tropical
country, is based upon terror, and upon terror, too, of the most
extravagant kind. Evidence of the universality of this feeling abounds
in the sacred books of the Hindus, in their traditions, and even in the
very form and appearance of their gods. And so deeply is all this
impressed on the mind, that the most popular deities are invariably
those with whom images of fear are most intimately associated. Thus, for
example, the worship of Siva is more general than any other; and as to
its antiquity, there is reason to believe that it was borrowed by the
Brahmins from the original Indians.[263] At all events, it is very
ancient, and very popular; and Siva himself forms, with Brahma and
Vishnu, the celebrated Hindu Triad. We need not, therefore, be surprised
that with this god are connected images of terror, such as nothing but a
tropical imagination could conceive. Siva is represented to the Indian
mind as a hideous being, encircled by a girdle of snakes, with a human
skull in his hand, and wearing a necklace composed of human bones. He
has three eyes; the ferocity of his temper is marked by his being
clothed in a tiger's skin; he is represented as wandering about like a
madman, and over his left shoulder the deadly cobra di capella rears its
head. This monstrous creation of an awe-struck fancy has a wife Doorga,
called sometimes Kali, and sometimes by other names.[264] She has a body
of dark blue; while the palms of her hands are red, to indicate her
insatiate appetite for blood. She has four arms, with one of which she
carries the skull of a giant; her tongue protrudes, and hangs lollingly
from her mouth; round her waist are the hands of her victims; and her
neck is adorned with human heads strung together in a ghastly row.[265]
[263] See Stevenson on _The Anti-Brahmanical Religion of the Hindus_, in
_Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. viii. pp. 331, 332, 336, 338.
Mr. Wilson (_Journal_, vol. iii. p. 204) says, 'The prevailing
form of the Hindu religion in the south of the peninsula was, at
the commencement of the Christian era, and some time before it
most probably, that of Siva.' See also vol. v. p. 85, where it is
stated that Siva 'is the only Hindu god to whom honour is done at
Ellora.' Compare _Transac. of Soc. of Bombay_, vol. iii. p. 521;
_Heeren's Asiatic Nations_, 1846, vol. ii. pp. 62, 66. On the
philosophical relations between the followers of Siva and those
of Vishnu, see _Ritter's Hist. of Ancient Philosophy_, vol. iv.
pp. 334, 335; and the noticeable fact (_Buchanan's Mysore_, vol.
ii. p. 410), that even the Naimar caste, whose 'proper deity' is
Vishnu, 'wear on their foreheads the mark of Siva.' As to the
worship of Siva in the time of Alexander the Great, see
_Thirlwall's History of Greece_, vol. vii. p. 36; and for further
evidence of its extent, _Bohlen_, _das alte Indien_, vol. i. pp.
29, 147, 206, and _Transac. of Asiatic Society_, vol. ii. pp. 50,
294.
[264] So it is generally stated by the Hindu theologians; but, according
to Rammohun Roy, Siva had two wives. See _Rammohun Roy on the
Veds_, p. 90.
[265] On these attributes and representations of Siva and Doorga, see
_Rhode_, _Religiöse Bildung der Hindus_, vol. ii. p. 241;
_Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus_, pp. 63, 92; _Bohlen_, _das
alte Indien_, vol. i. p. 207; _Ward's Religion of the Hindoos_,
vol. i. pp. xxxvii. 27, 145; _Transac. of Society of Bombay_,
vol. i. pp. 215, 221. Compare the curious account of an image
supposed to represent Mahadeo, in _Journal Asiatique_, I. série,
vol. i. p. 354, Paris, 1822.
If we now turn to Greece, we find, even in the infancy of its religion,
not the faintest trace of any thing approaching to this. For, in Greece,
the causes of fear being less abundant, the expression of terror was
less common. The Greeks, therefore, were by no means disposed to
incorporate into their religion those feelings of dread natural to the
Hindus. The tendency of Asiatic civilization was to widen the distance
between men and their deities; the tendency of Greek civilization was to
diminish it. Thus it is, that in Hindostan all the gods had something
monstrous about them; as Vishnu with four hands, Brahma with five heads,
and the like.[266] But the gods of Greece were always represented in
forms entirely human.[267] In that country, no artist would have gained
attention, if he had presumed to portray them in any other shape. He
might make them stronger than men, he might make them more beautiful;
but still they must be men. The analogy between God and Man, which
excited the religious feelings of the Greeks, would have been fatal to
those of the Hindus.
[266] _Ward on the Religion of the Hindoos_, vol. i. p. 35; _Transac. of
Society of Bombay_, vol. i. p. 223. Compare the gloss in the
_Dabistan_, vol. ii. p. 202.
[267] 'The Greek gods were formed like men, with greatly increased
powers and faculties, and acted as men would do if so
circumstanced, but with a dignity and energy suited to their
nearer approach to perfection. The Hindu gods, on the other hand,
though endued with human passions, have always something
monstrous in their appearance, and wild and capricious in their
conduct. They are of various colours, red, yellow, and blue; some
have twelve heads, and most have four hands. They are often
enraged without a cause, and reconciled without a motive.'
_Elphinstone's History of India_, pp. 96, 97. See also _Erskine
on the Temple of Elephanta_, in _Transac. of Society of Bombay_,
vol. i. p. 246; and the _Dabistan_, vol. i. p. cxi.
This difference between the artistic expressions of the two religions
was accompanied by an exactly similar difference between their
theological traditions. In the Indian books, the imagination is
exhausted in relating the feats of the gods; and the more obviously
impossible any achievement is, the greater the pleasure with which it
was ascribed to them. But the Greek gods had not only human forms, but
also human attributes, human pursuits, and human tastes.[268] The men of
Asia, to whom every object of nature was a source of awe, acquired such
habits of reverence, that they never dared to assimilate their own
actions with the actions of their deities. The men of Europe, encouraged
by the safety and inertness of the material world, did not fear to
strike a parallel, from which they would have shrunk had they lived amid
the dangers of a tropical country. It is thus that the Greek divinities
are so different from those of the Hindus, that in comparing them we
seem to pass from one creation into another. The Greeks generalized
their observations upon the human mind, and then applied them to the
gods.[269] The coldness of women was figured in Diana; their beauty and
sensuality in Venus; their pride in Juno; their accomplishments in
Minerva. To the ordinary avocations of the gods the same principle was
applied. Neptune was a sailor; Vulcan was a smith; Apollo was sometimes
a fiddler, sometimes a poet, sometimes a keeper of oxen. As to Cupid, he
was a wanton boy, who played with his bow and arrows; Jupiter was an
amorous and good-natured king; while Mercury was indifferently
represented either as a trustworthy messenger, or else as a common and
notorious thief.
[268] 'In the material polytheism of other leading ancient nations, the
Egyptians, for example, the incarnation of the Deity was chiefly,
or exclusively, confined to animals, monsters, or other fanciful
emblems.... In Greece, on the other hand, it was an almost
necessary result of the spirit and grace with which the deities
were embodied in human forms, that they should also be burdened
with human interests and passions. Heaven, like earth, had its
courts and palaces, its trades and professions, its marriages,
intrigues, divorces.' _Mure's History of the Literature of
Ancient Greece_, vol. i. pp. 471, 472. So, too, Tennemann
(_Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. iii. p. 419): 'Diese Götter
haben Menschengestalt.... Haben die Götter aber nicht nur
menschliche Gestalt, sondern auch einen menschlichen Körper, so
sind sie als Menschen auch denselben Unvollkommenheiten,
Krankheiten und dem Tode unterworfen; dieses streitet mit dem
Begriffe,' _i.e._ of Epicurus. Compare _Grote's History of
Greece_, vol. i. p. 596: 'The mythical age was peopled with a
mingled aggregate of gods, heroes, and men, so confounded
together, that it was often impossible to distinguish to which
class any individual name belonged.' See also the complaint of
Xenophanes, in _Müller's Hist. of Lit. of Greece_, London, 1856,
p. 251.
[269] The same remark applies to beauty of form, which they first aimed
at in the statues of men, and then brought to bear upon the
statues of the gods. This is well put in Mr. Grote's important
work, _History of Greece_, vol. iv. pp. 133, 134, edit. 1847.
Precisely the same tendency to approximate human forces towards
superhuman ones, is displayed in another peculiarity of the Greek
religion. I mean, that in Greece we for the first time meet with
hero-worship, that is, the deification of mortals. According to the
principles already laid down, this could not be expected in a tropical
civilization, where the Aspects of Nature filled Man with a constant
sense of his own incapacity. It is, therefore, natural that it should
form no part of the ancient Indian religion;[270] neither was it known
to the Egyptians,[271] nor to the Persians,[272] nor, so far as I am
aware, to the Arabians.[273] But in Greece, Man being less humbled,
and, as it were, less eclipsed, by the external world, thought more of
his own powers, and human nature did not fall into that discredit in
which it elsewhere sank. The consequence was, that the deification of
mortals was a recognized part of the national religion at a very early
period in the history of Greece;[274] and this has been found so natural
to Europeans, that the same custom was afterwards renewed with eminent
success by the Romish Church. Other circumstances, of a very different
character, are gradually eradicating this form of idolatry; but its
existence is worth observing, as one of the innumerable illustrations of
the way in which European civilization has diverged from all those that
preceded it.[275]
[270] 'But the worship of deified heroes is no part of that system.'
_Colebrooke on the Vedas_, in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. viii.
p. 495.
[271] _Mackay's Religious Development_, vol. ii. p. 53, Lond. 1850.
Compare _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. iv. pp. 148, 318;
and _Matter_, _Histoire de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie_, vol. i. p. 2;
the 'culte des grands hommes,' which afterwards arose in
Alexandria (_Matter_, vol. i. p. 54), must have been owing to
Greek influence.
[272] There are no indications of it in the Zendavesta; and Herodotus
says, that the Persians were unlike the Greeks, in so far as they
disbelieved in a god having a human form; book i. chap. cxxxi.
vol. i. p. 308: [Greek: ouk anthrôpophyeas enomisan tous theous,
kataper hoi Hellênes einai].
[273] I am not acquainted with any evidence connecting this worship with
the old Arabian religion; and it was certainly most alien to the
spirit of Mohammedanism.
[274] _Mure's History of the Literature of Greece_, vol. i. pp. 28, 500,
vol. ii. p. 402: very good remarks on a subject handled
unsatisfactorily by Coleridge; _Literary Remains_, vol. i. p.
185. Thirlwall (_History of Greece_, vol. i. p. 207) admits that
'the views and feelings out of which it (the worship of heroes)
arose, seem to be clearly discernible in the Homeric poems.'
Compare _Cudworth's Intellectual System_, vol. ii. pp. 226, 372.
In the Cratylus, chap. xxxiii., Socrates is represented as
asking, [Greek: Ouk oistha hoti hêmitheoi oi hêrôes]; _Platonis
Opera_, vol. iv. p. 227, edit. Bekker, Lond. 1826. And in the
next century, Alexander obtained for his friend, Hephæstion, the
right of being 'worshipped as a hero' _Grote's History of
Greece_, vol. xii. p. 339.
[275] The adoration of the dead, and particularly the adoration of
martyrs, was one great point of opposition between the orthodox
church and the Manichæans (_Beausobre_, _Histoire Critique de
Manichée_, vol. i. p. 316, vol. ii. pp. 651, 669); and it is easy
to understand how abhorrent such a practice must have been to the
Persian heretics.
It is thus, that in Greece every thing tended to exalt the dignity of
man, while in India every thing tended to depress it.[276] To sum up the
whole, it may be said that the Greeks had more respect for human
powers; the Hindus for superhuman. The first dealt more with the known
and available; the other with the unknown and mysterious.[277] And by a
parity of reasoning, the imagination, which the Hindus, being oppressed
by the pomp and majesty of nature, never sought to control, lost its
supremacy in the little peninsula of ancient Greece. In Greece, for the
first time in the history of the world, the imagination was, in some
degree, tempered and confined by the understanding. Not that its
strength was impaired, or its vitality diminished. It was broken-in and
tamed; its exuberance was checked, its follies were chastised. But that
its energy remained, we have ample proof in those productions of the
Greek mind which have survived to our own time. The gain, therefore, was
complete; since the inquiring and sceptical faculties of the human
understanding were cultivated, without destroying the reverential and
poetic instincts of the imagination. Whether or not the balance was
accurately adjusted, is another question; but it is certain that the
adjustment was more nearly arrived at in Greece than in any previous
civilization.[278] There can, I think, be little doubt that,
notwithstanding what was effected, too much authority was left to the
imaginative faculties, and that the purely reasoning ones did not
receive, and never have received, sufficient attention. Still, this does
not affect the great fact, that the Greek literature is the first in
which this deficiency was somewhat remedied, and in which there was a
deliberate and systematic attempt to test all opinions by their
consonance with human reason, and thus vindicate the right of Man to
judge for himself on matters which are of supreme and incalculable
importance.
[276] M. Cousin, in his eloquent and ingenious work (_Histoire de la
Philosophie_, 3e série, vol. i. pp. 183, 187), has some judicious
observations on what he calls 'l'époque de l'infini' of the East,
contrasted with that 'du fini,' which began in Europe. But as to
the physical causes of this, he only admits the grandeur of
nature, overlooking those natural elements of mystery and of
danger by which religious sentiments were constantly excited.
[277] A learned orientalist says, that no people have made such efforts
as the Hindus 'to solve, exhaust, comprehend, what is insolvable,
inexhaustible, incomprehensible.' _Troyer's Preliminary Discourse
on the Dabistan_, vol. i. p. cviii.
[278] This is noticed by Tennemann, who, however, has not attempted to
ascertain the cause: 'Die Einbildungskraft des Griechen war
schöpferisch, sie schuf in seinem Innern neue Ideenwelten; aber
er wurde doch nie verleitet, die idealische Welt mit der
wirklichen zu verwechseln, weil sie immer mit einem richtigen
Verstande und gesunder Beurtheilungskraft verbunden war.'
_Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. i. p. 8; and vol. vi. p. 490,
he says, 'Bei allen diesen Mängeln und Fehlern sind doch die
Griechen die einzige Nation der alten Welt, welche Sinn für
Wissenschaft hatte, und zu diesem Behufe forschte. Sie haben doch
die Bahn gebrochen, und den Weg zur Wissenschaft geebnet.' To the
same effect, _Sprengel_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. i. p.
215. And on this difference between the Eastern and the European
mind, see _Matter_, _Histoire du Gnosticisme_, vol. i. pp. 18,
233, 234. So, too, Kant (_Logik_, in _Kant's Werke_, vol. i. p.
350), 'Unter allen Völkern haben also die Griechen erst
angefangen zu philosophiren. Denn sie haben zuerst versucht,
nicht an dem Leitfaden der Bilder die Vernunfterkenntnisse zu
cultiviren, sondern _in abstracto_; statt dass die anderen Völker
sich die Begriffe immer nur durch Bilder _in concreto_
verständlich zu machen suchten.'
I have selected India and Greece as the two terms of the preceding
comparison, because our information respecting those countries is most
extensive, and has been most carefully arranged. But every thing we know
of the other tropical civilizations confirms the views I have advocated
respecting the effects produced by the Aspects of Nature. In Central
America extensive excavations have been made; and what has been brought
to light proves that the national religion was, like that of India, a
system of complete and unmitigated terror.[279] Neither there nor in
Mexico, nor in Peru, nor in Egypt, did the people desire to represent
their deities in human forms, or ascribe to them human attributes. Even
their temples are huge buildings, often constructed with great skill,
but showing an evident wish to impress the mind with fear, and offering
a striking contrast to the lighter and smaller structures which the
Greeks employed for religious purposes. Thus, even in the style of
architecture do we see the same principle at work; the dangers of the
tropical civilization being more suggestive of the infinite, while the
safety of the European civilization was more suggestive of the finite.
To follow out the consequences of this great antagonism, it would be
necessary to indicate how the infinite, the imaginative, the synthetic,
and the deductive, are all connected; and are opposed, on the other
hand, by the finite, the sceptical, the analytic, and the inductive. A
complete illustration of this would carry me beyond the plan of this
Introduction and would perhaps exceed the resources of my own knowledge;
and I must now leave to the candour of the reader what I am conscious is
but an imperfect sketch, but what may, nevertheless, suggest to him
materials for future thought, and, if I might indulge the hope, may open
to historians a new field, by reminding them that every where the hand
of Nature is upon us, and that the history of the human mind can only be
understood by connecting with it the history and the aspects of the
material universe.
[279] Thus, of one of the idols at Copan, 'The intention of the sculptor
seems to have been to excite terror.' _Stephens's Central
America_, vol. i. p. 152; at p. 159, 'The form of sculpture most
generally used was a death's head.' At Mayapan (vol. iii. p.
133), 'representations of human figures or animals with hideous
features and expressions, in producing which the skill of the
artist seems to have been expended;' and again, p. 412,
'unnatural and grotesque faces.'
* * * * *
NOTE 36 to p. 61.
As these views have a social and economical importance quite independent
of their physiological value, I will endeavour, in this note, to fortify
them still further, by showing that the connexion between carbonized
food and the respiratory functions may be illustrated by a wider survey
of the animal kingdom.
The gland most universal among the different classes of animals is the
liver;(a) and its principal business is to relieve the system of its
superfluous carbon, which it accomplishes by secreting bile, a highly
carbonized fluid.(b) Now, the connexion between this process and the
respiratory functions is highly curious. For, if we take a general view
of animal life, we shall find that the liver and lungs are nearly always
compensatory; that is to say, when one organ is small and inert, the
other is large and active. Thus, reptiles have feeble lungs, but a
considerable liver;(c) and thus, too, in fishes, which have no lungs, in
the ordinary sense of the word, the size of the liver is often
enormous.(d) On the other hand, insects have a very large and
complicated system of air tubes; but their liver is minute, and its
functions are habitually sluggish.(e) If, instead of comparing the
different classes of animals, we compare the different stages through
which the same animal passes, we shall find further confirmation of this
wide and striking principle. For the law holds good even before birth;
since in the unborn infant the lungs have scarcely any activity, but
there is an immense liver, which is full of energy and pours out bile in
profusion.(f) And so invariable is this relation, that in man the liver
is the first organ which is formed: it is preponderant during the whole
period of f[oe]tal life; but it rapidly diminishes when, after birth,
the lungs come into play, and a new scheme of compensation is
established in the system.(g)
[a] 'The most constant gland in the animal kingdom is the liver.'
_Grant's Comp. Anat._ p. 576. See also _Béclard_, _Anat. Gén._ p.
18, and _Burdach_, _Traité de Physiol._ vol. ix. p. 580. Burdach
says, 'Il existe dans presque tout le règne animal;' and the latest
researches have detected the rudiments of a liver even in the
Entozoa and Rotifera. _Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom_, 1855, p. 183,
and _Owen's Invertebrata_, 1855, p. 104.
[b] Until the analysis made by Demarçay in 1837, hardly any thing was
known of the composition of bile; but this accomplished chemist
ascertained that its essential constituent is choleate of soda, and
that the choleic acid contains nearly sixty-three per cent. of
carbon. Compare _Thomson's Animal Chemistry_, pp. 59, 60, 412, 602,
with _Simon's Chemistry_, vol. ii. pp. 17-21.
[c] 'The size of the liver and the quantity of the bile are not
proportionate to the quantity of the food and frequency of eating;
but inversely to the size and perfection of the lungs.... The
liver is proportionately larger in reptiles, which have lungs with
large cells incapable of rapidly decarbonizing the blood.' _Good's
Study of Medicine_, 1829, vol. i. pp. 32, 33. See _Cuvier_, _Règne
Animal_, vol. ii. p. 2, on 'la petitesse des vaisseaux pulmonaires'
of reptiles.
[d] _Carus's Comparative Anatomy_, vol. ii. p. 230; _Grant's Comp.
Anat._ pp. 385, 596; _Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom_, p. 646.
[e] Indeed it has been supposed by M. Gaëde that the 'vaisseaux
biliares' of some insects were not 'sécréteurs;' but this opinion
appears to be erroneous. See Latreille, in _Cuvier_, _Règne
Animal_, vol. iv. pp. 297, 298.
[f] 'La prédominance du foie avant la naissance' is noticed by Bichat
(_Anatomie Générale_, vol. ii. p. 272), and by many other
physiologists; but Dr. Elliotson appears to have been one of the
first to understand a fact, the explanation of which we might
vainly seek for in the earlier writers. 'The hypothesis, that one
great use of the liver was, like that of the lungs, to remove
carbon from the system, with this difference, that the alteration
of the capacity of the air caused a reception of caloric into the
blood, in the case of the lungs, while the hepatic excretion takes
place without introduction of caloric, was, I recollect, a great
favourite with me when a student.... The Heidelberg professors
have adduced many arguments to the same effect. In the f[oe]tus,
for whose temperature the mother's heat must be sufficient, the
lungs perform no function; but the liver is of great size, and bile
is secreted abundantly, so that the meconium accumulates
considerably during the latter months of pregnancy.' _Elliotson's
Human Physiology_, 1840, p. 102. In _Lepelletier's Physiologie
Médicale_, vol. i. p. 466, vol. ii. pp. 14, 546, 550, all this is
sadly confused.
[g] 'The liver is the first-formed organ in the embryo. It is
developed from the alimentary canal, and at about the third week
fills the whole abdomen, and is one-half the weight of the entire
embryo.... At birth it is of very large size, and occupies the
whole upper part of the abdomen.... The liver diminishes rapidly
after birth, probably from obliteration of the umbilical vein.'
_Wilson's Human Anatomy_, 1851, p. 638. Compare _Burdach's
Physiologie_, vol. iv. p. 447, where it is said of the liver in
childhood, 'Cet organe croît avec lenteur, surtout comparativement
aux poumons; le rapport de ceux-ci au foie étant à peu près de 1:3
avant la respiration, il était de 1:1.86 après l'établissement de
cette dernière fonction.' See also p. 91, and vol. iii. p. 483; and
on the predominance of the liver in f[oe]tal life, see the remarks
of Serres (_Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_, _Anomalies de l'Organisation_,
vol. ii. p. 11), whose generalization is perhaps a little
premature.
These facts, interesting to the philosophic physiologist, are of great
moment in reference to the doctrines advocated in this chapter. Inasmuch
as the liver and lungs are compensatory in the history of their
organization, it is highly probable that they are also compensatory in
the functions they perform; and that what is left undone by one will
have to be accomplished by the other. The liver, therefore, fulfilling
the duty, as chemistry teaches us, of decarbonizing the system by
secreting a carbonized fluid, we should expect, even in the absence of
any further evidence, that the lungs would be likewise decarbonizing; in
other words, we should expect that if, from any cause, we are surcharged
with carbon, our lungs must assist in remedying the evil. This brings
us, by another road, to the conclusion that highly carbonized food has a
tendency to tax the lungs; so that the connexion between a carbonized
diet and the respiratory functions, instead of being, as some assert, a
crude hypothesis, is an eminently scientific theory, and is corroborated
not only by chemistry, but by the general scheme of the animal kingdom,
and even by the observation of embryological phenomena. The views of
Liebig, and of his followers, are indeed supported by so many analogies,
and harmonize so well with other parts of our knowledge, that nothing
but a perverse hatred of generalization, or an incapacity for dealing
with large speculative truths, can explain the hostility directed
against conclusions which have been gradually forcing themselves upon us
since Lavoisier, seventy years ago, attempted to explain the respiratory
functions by subjecting them to the laws of chemical combination.
In this, and previous notes (see in particular notes 30, 31, 35), I have
considered the connexion between food respiration, and animal heat, at a
length which will appear tedious to readers uninterested in
physiological pursuits; but the investigation has become necessary, on
account of the difficulties raised by experimenters, who, not having
studied the subject comprehensively, object to certain parts of it. To
mention what, from the ability and reputation of the author, is a
conspicuous instance of this, Sir Benjamin Brodie has recently published
a volume (_Physiological Researches_, 1851) containing some ingeniously
contrived experiments on dogs and rabbits, to prove that heat is
generated rather by the nervous system than by the respiratory organs.
Without following this eminent surgeon into all its details, I may be
permitted to observe, 1st, That, as a mere matter of history, no great
physiological truth has ever yet been discovered, nor has any great
physiological fallacy been destroyed, by such limited experiments on a
single class of animals; and this is partly because in physiology a
crucial instance is impracticable, owing to the fact that we deal with
resisting and living bodies, and partly because every experiment
produces an abnormal condition, and thus lets in fresh causes, the
operation of which is incalculable; unless, as often happens in the
inorganic world, we can control the whole phenomenon. 2nd, That the
other department of the organic world, namely, the vegetable kingdom,
has, so far as we are aware, no nervous system, but nevertheless
possesses heat; and we moreover know that the heat is a product of
oxygen and carbon (see note 32 to chapter ii.). 3d, That the evidence of
travellers respecting the different sorts of food, and the different
quantities of food, used in hot countries and in cold ones, is
explicable by the respiratory and chemical theories of the origin of
animal heat, but is inexplicable by the theory of the nervous origin of
heat.