CHAPTER VII

THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD

The reader has probably been wondering all this time when I should

return to the many questions which remained unanswered at the end of

Chapter II., and with only a few of which I have been able to deal in

the intervening four chapters. It is my intention to deal with them

now, and straightway to begin by offering a solution of the problem of

the identity of the gods and the sons of god.

The question in a nutshell is really this: Who was Uranus? To which

race of mankind did he belong? When did he live? And what has become

of the great race of beings of which he was probably only a degenerate

offshoot?

Was he of the same race as the God of the Semites--the Jehovah of

the Old Testament? And if, as I believe, he was so, was the race

sufficiently large and widely distributed to have representatives both

in Asia and Central Europe?

These questions are interesting enough, and if we accept Herbert

Spencer’s profound explanation of the origin of all gods, they must

be answered; but first of all, by way of shedding some light upon the

whole of the general question, it might be as well to discover when, or

approximately when, all this happened.

When did Prometheus defy Zeus?

It is a very strange and illuminating fact that although some Greeks,

who were contemporaries of Herodotus, were actually foolish enough to

imagine that they were only ten or twelve generations removed from the

gods,--a calculation which would have placed the original mingling of

the superior with the inferior race in the seventh or eighth century

+B.C.+,--Æschylus appears to have had but few illusions regarding the

vast antiquity of the Age of Zeus and Prometheus. O. Peschel informs us

that in the lost finale of his trilogy, Æschylus made Prometheus say

that he had languished 30,000 years in chains.[208]

Thus, in the opinion of one of the most enlightened artists among the

ancient Greeks, the crime of Prometheus must have occurred 30,000

_plus_ an unknown number of years +B.C.+--The figure looks ridiculous.

In the popular mind, 30,000 years and more +B.C.+ represents a time

when man was still a denizen of the trees, and not yet quite free from

his caudal appendage.

But truth to tell it is amazing how extraordinarily near to the

probable facts Æschylus actually was. How did he guess? Or was there

perhaps a tradition in his time that the events described in the myth

of Prometheus must have occurred many tens of thousands of years before

the historical period? Whatever the source of his knowledge may have

been, we shall see that his calculation was singularly wise.

One of the greatest authorities on the subject of the original

discovery of fire, and other cognate anthropological problems,

is a certain Belgian scientist of the name of A. Rutot. Other

anthropologists have incidentally discussed the question of the

discovery of fire and the approximate date when it is supposed to have

occurred; Rutot, however, is not only an eminent anthropologist, but

he has also given special attention to the question of fire.

Now it is his opinion that the use of fire was certainly familiar to

man in Europe at the dawn of the Quaternary Era.[209]

The Quaternary Era is subdivided as follows:--[210]

{ Later Iron Age lasted 300 +B.C.+ to +A.D.+ 100.

{ Early Iron Age, 1000 +B.C.+

_Recent Period_ { Bronze Age, 2500 +B.C.+

{ Copper Age, 3000 +B.C.+

{ Neolithic Age lasted 15,000 to 25,000 years.

_Pleistocene_ Paleolithic Age lasted 500,000 to 1,500,000 years.

Professor Arthur Keith’s[211] estimate of these periods does not differ

materially from those given above. According to him the table should

read as follows:--

{ Metallic Age, 4000 years back.

_Recent Period_ { Neolithic 25,000 years back.

{ Late Paleolithic Age, 150,000 years back.

_Pleistocene_ { Early Paleolithic Age, 200,000 to 400,000 years

{ back.

{ Eolithic from 100,000 to 150,000 years back.

Thus he would suggest as a minimum for the duration of the Pleistocene

Period 450,000 years, and as a maximum 700,000 years; but he thinks it

right to state that a much higher figure is given by most authorities.

We have seen that H. v. Buttel-Reepen gives 500,000 to 1,500,000 years

for this period.

If we take Professor Keith’s maximum figures, therefore, and suppose

the Pleistocene Period to have lasted 700,000 years, we shall not be

so very far removed from H. v. Buttel-Reepen’s estimate. Now adding to

this about 30,000 years for the recent period--that is to say, for the

Neolithic and Metallic Ages together--we arrive at a total of 730,000

years for the whole of the Quaternary Period, at the dawn of which

Rutot tells us fire was first used.[212]

But the use of fire, as I have already pointed out, although it

constituted a big event in the history of mankind, is not the same

thing as the production of fire. Obviously, if natural agencies are

depended upon for the use of fire, it cannot be said to constitute an

habitual practice among men, because natural conflagrations, volcanic

eruptions, etc., are not of daily occurrence. None of the more

complicated adaptations of human life to the use of fire, which would

appear to require careful trial and experiment, could therefore be

expected to have developed while man merely depended upon chance for a

flame. If we are to reckon the date from which a real civilisation of

fire began, we must therefore endeavour to establish the time when man

was first able to _produce_ fire.

Now since pottery is precisely one of those human adaptations of fire,

which we would imagine required a period of evolution, during which

careful trials and experiments could be prosecuted with a constant

supply of flame, the temptation would be to reckon the first discovery

of the means of fire-production from the date of the first introduction

of ceramics, or possibly a few centuries earlier. This, however, I

am not prepared to do, because I refuse to believe that all men, all

the world over, are always Promethean,--that is to say, _ever ready

to push to its ultimate development, regardless of consequences,

every fresh discovery that they make_. Even in recent times we have

the example of the Chinese, for instance, who never developed their

discoveries of steam and gunpowder. It would not therefore be safe--not

to mention scientific--to suppose that the discovery of fire-production

was followed, even after a lapse of a few centuries, by the art of

ceramics, among all races. It could only have been followed in this

way by the art of ceramics, among a people animated by the Promethean

spirit.

Buttel-Reepen places the first appearance of ceramics in the Neolithic

Period. We are justified in supposing, therefore, that, given a race

animated by the Promethean spirit, who produced pottery say a quarter

of the way through the Neolithic Period, or about 18,000 years +B.C.+,

the discovery of fire-production may have occurred among that race,

say, in the year 19,500 +B.C.+

A. H. Keane definitely states that it is his belief that the means of

fire-production were first discovered within the Neolithic culture.[213]

Since, however, according to an eminent authority fire was used 500,000

to 600,000 years before that time, it seems difficult to believe that

it took 600 millenniums for man to find the means of fire-production.

Personally, after a careful study of the various authorities of

England, France and Germany, I am inclined to believe that the means

of fire-production were discovered long before the close of the

Paleolithic Age--an assertion with which I think the late Mr. Piette

and many more anthropologists would agree; _but that the discovery

probably never reached a type of man animated by the Promethean spirit

until early in the Neolithic Period_; hence the relatively late

appearance of pottery.

When I use the expression “a type of man animated by the Promethean

spirit,” I should like to remind the reader that I mean a people

rather like the Americans, the modern Germans and ourselves, who,

with the minds of boy-scouts, enjoy speed for speed’s sake, revel in

mechanical contrivances of all kinds, retain until a very late age

a keen interest in any device that complicates existence, and whose

chief concern and joy in life is to press every possible discovery,

chemical or mechanical, to its furthest possible development, without a

thought of the consequences,--that is to say, regardless of the misery,

ill-health, ugliness or degeneration that they may be creating. It is

a type that has no art of life, that cannot construct in life; it can

construct only bridges, towers, engines, canals, material things and

romances. In life it is only destructive and anarchical, loathing order

as much as a school-boy does, and ignoring culture. Like the boy-scout,

it does not understand women and is usually mastered by them. It is

sentimental, very stupid, except in regard to mechanical and chemical

questions, and always absolutely certain that the pursuits wherein it

finds its pleasure are the only pursuits worth anything. The men of

this type make good policemen, the women good charwomen; in fact, these

two characters will probably survive as striking examples of the type

long after all the engineers and the chemists have been forgotten.

There is another type, however; though, unfortunately for mankind,

its influence seems to make itself felt but very slightly in modern

Western civilisation. It is a type of more benevolent, more wise and

more adult thought. It is a type that produces men who develop beyond

the boy-scout stage in taste and interests. It is a hypermetropic type,

that has the capacity of looking ahead, and measuring the consequences

of trifling mechanical innovations against the greater object, which is

the happiness of mankind. It has little interest in complicating life

for complexity’s sake. Where human life does not seem to be promised

any desirable advantage by a new mechanical toy, it discards that toy.

It refuses to sacrifice one healthy child to the most magnificent

mechanical invention that has ever been devised. It has no respect

for the engineer or the chemist. It regards them as unscrupulous

schoolboys who must be kept in check, and who have the class of mind

which never grows up and delights until the end of its days in tying

a tin kettle to a cat’s tail. It regards the civilisation created by

the engineer and the chemist, as precisely humanity with a heavy iron

boiler tied to its ankles. It sees no object in existence unless life

is beautiful, healthy, vigorous and joyful. It values simplicity more

than anything,--in fact, it is the identification mark of all those who

belong to this type that they can flourish and develop their highest

faculties in simple surroundings and with the gratification of simple

tastes. It practises an art of life, which as a rule it sets higher

than artistic production; but once the art of life is mastered it

turns its attention to the productive arts, and then creates the most

beautiful masterpieces. It always gives birth to men who ultimately

save their fellows from the absurd and hopeless muddles and miseries

created by the boy-scout mind of the Promethean type, and these men

have frequently been deified in the history of humanity. It understands

women, and while mastering them makes them happier and keeps them

healthier than the Promethean type does. For want of a better term,

this type might be called the Dionysian, since their radical hostility

to the Promethean type and the Promethean type’s bottomless loathing of

them is so well depicted in the ancient Greek myth.

Now it seems to me only a matter of caution to reckon with the

possibility that these types may have existed side by side long ages

before the historical period, more particularly as we have in Greek

legend, which records the life and people of prehistoric times, three

men, Zeus, Prometheus and Dionysus, who are sufficiently accurately

described in the fables for us to be able to classify each without the

slightest hesitation, in one or the other class.

Prometheus is obviously the prototype, the archetype, the beau-ideal

of the Prometheans, while Zeus and Dionysus are clearly leading

representatives of the other race, the Dionysians. Thus it is

probable that all demons, devils, and loathed creatures--that is to

say, all creatures who have brought misery upon men--are extremes of

the Promethean type; while all gods, saviours, good prophets, great

legislators, sons of God, guardian angels, patron saints, etc., are of

the Dionysian type, the men-gods whom I have described with sufficient

detail elsewhere.[214]

If, then, Zeus belonged to the type of Dionysians, we not only

understand that he may have had good reason for withholding fire

from mortals (the inferior people) except on certain conditions, but

we are also assured by the evidence of the myth itself, that he and

his people--the gods, the superior beings--did possess the means of

fire-production at the time of the confluence of the two peoples.

But the myth tells us more. It leads us very strongly to suspect that

while the superior beings, to which Zeus had bred true, possessed

the means of fire-production, they had not apparently pushed its

application to life even so far as to produce pottery. It tells us even

more than this: seeing that the evils of the fire-civilisation came

upon the ancestors of the Greeks only after the crime of Prometheus, it

may be presumed that these evils had been avoided theretofore by the

kith and kin of Zeus. That is to say, they had possessed fire, but had

not developed its application to human life, because they appear to

have foreseen the consequences of such a developed application. Also,

on the evidence of the myth alone, we gather that they were infinitely

wise,--much wiser than the hybrid people that ultimately created the

Promethean civilisation,--so wise, indeed, that they were deified by

the inferior race.

We have to look, therefore, for a people which inhabited Europe

and Asia early in the Neolithic era, who possessed the means of

fire-production, but did not exploit these means to an unlimited

extent; who were infinitely wise; who were, however, no longer at their

zenith, seeing that they voluntarily mingled with an inferior people;

who were artistic and who led simple lives corresponding more or less

to the outline given of the Dionysians above.

Owing to the fact that they apparently did not produce pottery

(according to the myth) and yet knew the means of fire-production, and

in view of the belief that the art of ceramics first appeared early in

the Neolithic era, we must place these people, not only early in the

Neolithic era, but, seeing that they were degenerate at the time we

encounter them as gods, we must place their zenith somewhere in the

Paleolithic Age.

Now, was there any people, infinitely wise and unusually tall,[215]

which reached its zenith in the Paleolithic Age, which was simple,

artistic, degenerate in early Neolithic times; which did not produce

pottery despite the knowledge of fire-production; and which became

absorbed by other peoples early in the Neolithic era? Was there such a

people, numerous enough to extend over Europe and Asia and to supply

a representative who became the god of the Jews, representatives who

became the gods of the Greeks, and still more representatives who

became the gods of the Persians and the Indians?

Certainly there was such a people, and their description by modern

anthropologists corresponds exactly with the characteristics detailed

above.

This race was the Cro-Magnon race, than which probably there has never

been any greater on earth. It was a tall, long-headed and infinitely

wise race, _the cranial capacity of some of its members being greater

than the cranial capacity of any European examined during the

historical period_;--it was a highly artistic race; it reached its

zenith in Paleolithic times, at the end of the Pleistocene Period,

declined during early Neolithic times, when it became absorbed by the

Aryans, or a round-headed race, and disappeared. It spread all over

southern Europe and western Asia.

There is, as far as I can judge, no reason whatsoever why the remote

ancestors of the Greeks should not have encountered certain branches of

this race shortly before its complete absorption into other stocks. And

since this complete absorption occurred during the early millenniums

of the Neolithic Period, I think we are entitled in the light of other

evidence, mythological and anthropological, to regard it at least as

highly probable that the Cro-Magnons were the “gods” of all Western and

Near Eastern civilisations.

The negative evidence which we have not yet considered is in itself

sufficiently cogent. It can be marshalled as follows:--

(_a_) There was no race at that period, and never has been since,

anything like the Cro-Magnon race for wisdom, simplicity, size and

Dionysian virtues.[216]

(_b_) The Cro-Magnon race is known to have disappeared through

absorption. If they did not mingle with the remote ancestors of

existing races, with whom could they have mingled?[217]

(_c_) The Aryan race is known to have gone through the later Stone Age

in Europe, probably in Central Europe. If it did not encounter the

Cro-Magnon race, how did it avoid them? It is believed to have spread

north, south, east and west during the Neolithic Period, and branches

of it even reached the shores of Britain during the later Stone

Age.[218] If certain branches of it avoided the Cro-Magnon race, all

certainly could not have been so unfortunate.

On Herbert Spencer’s hypothesis alone we are justified, owing to the

myth of Uranus and Ge, in concluding that the Greek branch of the Aryan

family must at one time have encountered a people very much superior to

themselves. We know of such a people having existed in Europe towards

the end of the Paleolithic and the beginning of the Neolithic Period.

We also know from the myth that the Greek Aryans mingled with this

superior people, and that the likelihood of one or the other becoming

completely absorbed after the mingling is demonstrated by other

similar crosses with which we are familiar. Blends of two races tend

to disappear and there is reversion to one of the two primitive

types.[219] This is particularly so when there is a pronounced

difference between the types.

Furthermore we know that this happened in the later Stone, or Neolithic

Age. The fire-myth of the Greeks is also connected with the story

of their mingling with the superior people, and follows close upon

this event. Tradition associates the principal agent in this affair,

Prometheus, with the introduction of pottery,--another event belonging

to the early millenniums of the Neolithic Age.

Anthropologists tell us, moreover, that the long-headed Cro-Magnons

were absorbed towards the beginning of the Neolithic Age by a

round-headed race. Now the Aryans were a round-headed or brachycephalic

race. It does not seem unlikely, therefore, that Uranus was a

Cro-Magnon, and that he and his people first encountered the remote

ancestors of the Greeks about 10,000 to 15,000[220] years before

the metallic period, or about 20,000 years before Æschylus. When,

therefore, Æschylus makes Prometheus say that he has lingered 30,000

years in chains, he shows that he was at least aware of the vast

antiquity of the myth. If it was a guess, it was a singularly shrewd

one. If a tradition, mysteriously illuminating.

I have no doubt that a similar process of reasoning, applied to the

first and second verses of the sixth chapter of Genesis would lead us

to the conclusion that the God of the Jews and the Christians was also

a Cro-Magnon; but I am not concerned with this aspect of the question,

nor have I the time or the space to discuss it. I can only allude to it

_en passant_, as a suggestion which I think worth making, and leave it

to others to follow it up if they think fit.

My next business will be to reveal who were the people constituting the

Cro-Magnons.

It may seem to the reader a little odd, and even perhaps incredible,

that there should have existed in Europe in late Paleolithic and

early Neolithic times a race which was so infinitely superior to the

highest-bred modern European as to justify me in claiming that no

greater race has ever appeared on earth, to our knowledge, either

before or since.

A glance at the tables I have given above reveals the fact that if such

a race really existed, it must have reached its zenith, on the lowest

estimate, about 30,000 years ago, and according to maximum figures, at

least double that length of time before our era.

Now Darwinism is so popular, and the belief that a few millenniums work

radical evolutionary changes is so universal, that the tendency has

been, even among scientists, to suppose that the further one recedes by

tens of thousands of years from the present age, the more brutal, more

bestial and more simian our ancestors must be found to have been.

The modern European is so arrogant, and so deeply convinced of his

immense superiority over the men of the past, even the recent past,

that he is innocently incredulous if you tell him that he is probably

very much inferior to a people that existed 50,000 years ago. I say he

is innocently incredulous. I mean by that, that he is not even aware of

being overweening or unjustifiably vain, when he protests scoffingly at

the thought of such a possibility. He does not even require Darwin to

help him in refuting you. He _knows_ it must be impossible.

This stupid conceit which characterises everybody at the present

day, except perhaps the Chinese,[221] is not altogether the fault

of the modern man. He is so much dazzled by the complications of a

purely Promethean civilisation, that he has come to believe that such

complications alone are inseparable from a state of high civilisation.

In fact his newspapers, his books, even his nurses, tell him so daily.

He is convinced that the Cro-Magnons did not have electric trams or

tinned beef, and therefore concludes that they cannot have been better

than himself. He is right in his conviction regarding the trams and the

tinned beef; he is wrong in the conclusion he draws from it.

By way of an introduction to our subject, it may be interesting to

quote the following significant passage from S. Laing. He is not

discussing the men of the Quaternary era (which includes the Cro-Magnon

race), but, if you please, the men of an era even earlier than

that--men who must have lived at least 500,000 years ago; and what does

he say?

“In accepting, however, the evidence of Tertiary man, we must accept

with it conclusions which are much opposed to preconceived opinion. In

the two best authenticated instances in which skulls have been found

in presumably Tertiary strata, those of Castelnedolo and Calaveras,

it is distinctly stated that they present no unusual appearance, and

do not go nearly as far in a pithecoid direction as the Quartenary

skulls of Neanderthal or Spy, or as those of many existing races. The

Nampa image [found in Idaho] also appears to show the existence of

considerable artistic skill at a period which, if not Tertiary, must

be of immense antiquity. How can this be reconciled with the theory

of evolution and the descent of man from some animal ancestor common

to him and to the other quadrumana? Up to a certain point,--viz., the

Quaternary period,--the evidence of progression seems fairly clear....

But if we accept the only two specimens known of the type of Tertiary

man, the skulls of Castelnedolo and Calaveras, which are supported by

such extremely strong evidence, it would seem that as we recede in

time, instead of getting nearer to the missing link we get further from

it.”[222]

Since Laing wrote this passage a good deal has been discovered and

written about prehistoric man which certainly makes one reject at

once the idea that there has been progressive evolution, at least for

the last 50,000 years; for, in view of the Quaternary Cro-Magnons, we

cannot truthfully record anything but retrogression during that period.

I do not, however, think that these discoveries need necessarily make

one reject the Darwinian hypothesis altogether. All they do is to make

one set the antiquity of Homo Sapiens further back in the history of

the world.

Even if we accept Klaatsch’s view that the Gorilla, the Orang, and the

Chimpanzee do not represent collateral branches of a remote ancestral

human stock, but degenerate descendants of man,--a view for which there

is a good deal to be said,[223]--this does not necessarily refute

Darwin, but merely shows, that while some of the original stock of men

have degenerated into apes, others have developed into the superior

species known as the modern jazz-dancers.

It does not do, however, to face this question armed, not only with

a belief in Darwin, but also with the idea that the evolution of man

from an anthropoid ancestor has occurred within the last 100,000 years,

otherwise it is impossible to account for the race of people to whom

Laing refers, in the Tertiary era 500,000 years ago, and still more

impossible to explain the existence of a race _superior to the present

European_, which existed from 30,000 to 60,000 years ago.

For the discovery of the Cro-Magnons was a revelation to

anthropologists, and for a long while nobody would believe that they

could possibly belong to such a remote age. Referring to the remains

of this race found in caves in France and elsewhere, Professor Keith

writes as follows:--

“In strength, in stature, in physique, as well as in size of brain,

the Cro-Magnon race represents one of the most stalwart human races

ever evolved. The discovery of such a race at so early a date ... is in

direct opposition to all we anticipated.”[224]

And further: “The Cro-Magnon race was discovered at a period when,

under Darwin’s influence, anthropologists expected to find man becoming

more primitive in mind and body as his history was traced into the

past. The discovery at Cro-Magnon showed that the evolution of human

types was not an orderly one, for, in size of brain, and in stature,

the race which flourished in the south of Europe at the close of the

Glacial Period was one of the finest the world has ever seen.”[225]

I remind the reader that these are the words of an eminent authority

who is speaking about a race that existed according to the lowest

estimate 30,000 years ago.

Now, to start with the brain of these people--what was the capacity of

their cranium?

Professor Keith tells us it was much greater than that of modern man.

Their average cranial capacity was 1,660 c.c., or 180 c.c. above the

modern average.[226] Their exceptional men had skulls with a cranial

capacity, according to Verneau, the eminent French anthropologist, of

1,800 to 2,000 c.c.--that is to say, higher than that of even the most

eminent modern European scholar, statesman, scientist or poet.

To give the reader some idea of what this means, I give below a

table prepared by Dr. H. Charlton Bastian on the cranial capacity in

different human races:[227]

----------+----------+---------------+--------+------------+----------

Capacity. | Modern |Twelfth-Century|Negroes.|Australians.| Ancient

|Parisians.| Parisians. | | |Egyptians.

----------+----------+---------------+--------+------------+----------

1,200 to | 0·0 | 0·0 | 7·4 | 45·0 | 0·0

1,300 c.c.| | | | |

| | | | |

1,300 to | 10·4 | 7·5 | 35·2 | 25·0 | 12·1

1,400 c.c.| | | | |

| | | | |

1,400 to | 14·3 | 37·3 | 33·4 | 20·0 | 42·5

1,500 c.c.| | | | |

| | | | |

1,500 to | 46·7 | 29·8 | 14·7 | 10·0 | 36·4

1,600 c.c.| | | | |

| | | | |

1,600 to | 16·9 | 20·9 | 9·3 | 0·0 | 9·0

1,700 c.c.| | | | |

| | | | |

1,700 to | 6·5 | 4·5 | 0·0 | 0·0 | 0·0

1,800 c.c.| | | | |

| | | | |

1,800 to | 5·2 | 0·0 | 0·0 | 0·0 | 0·0

1,900 c.c.| | | | |

----------+----------+---------------+--------+------------+----------

Thus we see that the highest percentage among modern Parisians, who may

be considered quite the most cultivated among present-day Europeans,

occurs in crania with a capacity from 1,500 to 1,600 c.c., which is

from 60 c.c. to 160 c.c. lower than the average Cro-Magnon skull; while

the capacity found by Verneau in the skulls of the highest Cro-Magnons

tops all records.[228]

Naturally these facts, by being, as Professor Keith says, “in direct

opposition to all we anticipated,” provoked a good deal of opposition

from all those whose theories were not in accordance with them; but,

owing to the difficulty of disproving the alleged remote antiquity of

the Cro-Magnon race, the method of attack was altered from one of dates

to that of questioning the necessary relation between a large cranial

capacity and superior brain power.

Thus Dr. W. J. Sollas, in discussing the high average cranial capacity

of the Mousterians (1,600 c.c.), _a much more ancient people than the

Cro-Magnons_, who preceded these probably by several tens of thousands

of years,[229] while admitting that “in this respect the Mousterian

race was far superior to the Australian, and even, it would appear,

to the European whose average capacity is not above 1,550 c.c.,”[230]

proceeds to point out that “the result of numerous investigations

carried out during the last quarter of a century is to show that,

within certain limits, no discoverable relation exists between the

magnitude of the brain--or even its gross anatomy--and intellectual

power.”[231]

This eminent authority, however, makes the following admission on the

next page: “Whatever other significance the size of the brain may

possess--or lack--it is, in any case, a morphological character of

great importance, and a difference of 400 c.c., or, say, 25 per cent.

in average capacity, such as distinguishes the Australian from the

Mousterian, cannot be disregarded. Judged from the cranial capacity

alone, the surviving Australian evidently stands on a much lower plane

than the extinct Mousterian.”[232]

This admission, however, does not go very far, and in view of the

opinion of other authorities, one is inclined to question, with all due

respect, whether Dr. Sollas has not allowed himself to be influenced

by the Darwinian prejudice against believing that any race superior to

ourselves could have existed so many thousands of years ago.

Referring to the relation of large cranial capacity to brain power, Dr.

Charlton Bastian writes as follows:--

“Should it be asked whether the proportion of megalocephalous brains

among highly cultured and intelligent people is likely to be greater

than among uncultured and non-intelligent people, the answer to this

question may be unmistakably in the affirmative--and this, as Le

Bon has pointed out in regard to ‘cranial capacities,’ is the real

direction in which we ought to look for evidence of class or racial

superiority.”[233]

Dr. Charlton Bastian, moreover, adds: “Apart from the existence of

actual morbid change, the large size of an organ such as the Brain

gives, perhaps, a more than average warrant that its inner development

will be adequately carried out, and that the organ will be highly

endowed with its own proper kind of vitality. If, however, it does

not fall short in either of these respects, an increased size of Brain

ought to be a distinct advantage to its owner; and, should the general

and special conditions of life be at all propitious, would be likely to

favour the development of great mental power or the acquisition of much

learning.”[234]

Professor Keith is, however, an authority precisely on the human skull.

He has made a life study of the question, and his deeply interesting

works, _The Antiquity of Man_ and _Ancient Types of Man_, deal almost

exclusively with the problems enunciated in their titles, from the

standpoint of skulls. Now this is what he says on this very question of

the Cro-Magnon crania:--

“The brain capacity is much greater--roughly 1,660 c.c., being 180 c.c.

above the modern average. We have to remember that a certain amount--a

small amount--of that is due simply to a big body; a big body needs

a bigger brain for its animal administration. We have come across,

in these heads, a puzzling and unexpected fact; we are naturally

astonished to find that men who have preceded us so long ago--men of a

former geological epoch--should so far outstrip their successors to-day

who regard themselves as the ‘survival of the fittest,’ and believe the

fittest to be the race with the biggest brains. We cannot quarrel with

the facts, but how to explain them? The conclusion to be drawn is,

not that brain mass, on the average, is to be rejected as an index of

brain power, but that there are other virtues or characters which go

to ensure success [Promethean success, for instance] of a human race

in the struggle of life,--other than brain power. A philosopher may be

miserable or die childless, when a brainless savage or an industrious

labouring man may be happy and have a large family.”[235]

This is excellent. The doctrine of success is one of such widespread

acceptance to-day, and it is so difficult to convince the average

man--particularly if he be a Promethean--that success does not

necessarily imply high, noble or even desirable qualities or

qualifications, that practically the whole world retires every night to

bed believing that success whether by racial survival or in individual

life must be a sign of superiority, and _desirable_ superiority.

Now, as Spencer pointed out long ago, so many loathsome parasites, such

as the microbe of tuberculosis and all bacteria, the tape-worm, all

intestinal worms, and in fact all parasites, are examples of successful

adaptation, that success alone cannot possibly be a criterion of

desirability. And this modern belief in success is one of the most

vulgar errors of the Age.[236]

The fact, then, that the Cro-Magnons have not survived in the struggle

for existence, despite their superior brain power, and probably all the

nobility, high moral qualities, and immense capacity, that accompanied

it, may be, as Professor Keith so ably points out, because other

virtues and characters may go to ensure success in the struggle of life.

A man, for instance, may be too noble to succeed nowadays, too

un-Promethean, too reluctant to plunge into the market-place or the

forge, and wrest material prosperity from those of his fellows whom

he finds there. And thus, although individual material failure in

the eyes of the modern world is not _always_ a proof of superiority,

it frequently may be such a proof, as the lives of so many great men

convincingly demonstrate.

Likewise in a race: with the Bushmen of Africa, it was their nobility,

their superiority _vis-à-vis_ the foreign invader, which led to their

extermination, not their inferiority.[237] The same holds good of many

people either subjugated or exterminated directly by ourselves.[238]

Taking all these matters into consideration, and particularly in view

of the weighty words of Professor Keith, I think I have been justified

in assuming, as I have all through these chapters, that the great

race which I had in mind, and with which I proposed to identify the

gods of ancient Greece--the Cro-Magnon race, of mighty stature, of

huge brain, which lead us “naturally to expect signs of a high mental

development,”[239] were greater than any race that has ever appeared on

earth before or since.

Their artistic works, facsimile reproductions of which I have

inspected, are in many respects superior to those of the Egyptians, and

in my opinion certainly superior to those of the Greeks of the Hellenic

Age. Dr. Salomon Reinach has expressed the view that two at least of

the examples of their sculpture which he examined “are superior to all

the artistic productions of the Ægean and Babylonia.”[240] Speaking

of their culture Marett says: “The third and last main stage of the

Paleolithic epoch developed by degrees into a golden age of art.”[241]

Robert Munro on the same subject writes as follows: “But what is still

more remarkable, under the circumstances, they developed a wonderful

taste for art, and left behind them a collection of sculptures and

engravings which, for spirit and artistic effect, would not disgrace

our modern Landseers.”[242]

The late M. Piette, the renowned French anthropologist already

mentioned, published a wonderful volume[243] containing coloured plates

representing some of their more striking artistic productions, and this

book is probably the most interesting in the whole literature of art.

It is a volume full of wonders, but such is the prejudice created by

the belief that the evolutionary process is necessarily progressive,

that I can sympathise with any reader who, on examining the plates it

contains, refuses to believe, except on the highest authority, that

these productions are the work of a race that belonged to a former

geological epoch.[244]

M. Piette explains the prevalence of pregnant women among their

figurines on the grounds that, as the Cro-Magnons probably left their

children and pregnant women at home with the sedentary members of the

tribe (the artists, the artisans and the scribes) when they roved the

country, the artists naturally took for their adult models women in a

condition which, for some reason or other, has been eschewed by the

æsthetic sense of the present geological period.[245]

He has, however, another and better suggestion to make. He says that

the prevalence of pregnant women among their subjects may have resulted

from a nobler motive,--that is to say, from a sort of religious

sentiment awakened in them by the mysteries of motherhood.[246]

Personally I am inclined to reject both these explanations. They are

conceived too obviously through the optics of this age. I acknowledge

M. Piette’s extremely sympathetic treatment of the whole subject, and

we are immensely indebted to him for the pains to which he went in

preparing this collection for us; but I feel there is a deeper meaning

still to these wonderful representations of women with child.

We must remember that we are speaking of a people who lived in a

pre-Promethean Age, when all the ills and woes of which Hesiod speaks

had not yet come upon mankind. Is it not possible, therefore, that the

whole of their attitude towards pregnancy--even towards the aspect of

a pregnant woman--was entirely different from our own? Since beauty is

only a convention arising from certain fundamental values,[247] is it

not more probable that, among a people into whose lives very little

sickness and ugliness had as yet entered, the promise of life, bigness

with a guarantee of the multiplication of life, was the most beautiful

thing of all?

The virgin ideal, which has been prevalent now for thousands of years

in the art as well as the morality of the recent geological period, is

at least a negative ideal. It permeates Greek as well as Christian art.

Even when they depicted Hera, the Greeks frequently made her appear as

a virgin, while the sanctity of the virgin ideal in the Christian era

is well known.

Now although I am prepared to admit that a good deal of this

idealisation of virginity may have arisen out of the deep unconscious

and ineradicable dislike of their fathers which is felt by most men who

have been very much attached to their mothers, I cannot help suspecting

also that, where the virgin figure is held up for general admiration,

there is also a good deal of unconscious pessimism abroad. We know

the deeply pessimistic strain of the ancient Greeks; we also know the

pessimism of Modernity, which Schopenhauer converted into a system.

We are aware, too, of the causes of a good deal of this pessimism:

ill-adaptedness, ill-health, nervous irascibility, etc.

Now to the conscious pessimist, to the man who knows this vale of tears

simply as a station of the cross, the spectacle of pregnancy must be a

cause of positive sadness if not horror.

Again, from the women’s point of view, pregnancy in countries of the

Western civilised world has become so very far removed from any idea

of beauty, pleasure, easy and joyful functioning and desire, that

they cannot possibly regard the condition as one exciting æsthetic

enjoyment.[248] An æsthetic emotion is often provoked by witnessing

the ease and mastery with which an animal body overcomes a physical

difficulty; but where are the signs of ease or mastery in the fatigue

party from Harley Street which is usually summoned to the modern

woman’s child-bed?

In these figurines and drawings of pregnant women, therefore, I am

inclined to read something more significant than that which M. Piette

offers in explanation of them. I am inclined to see a deep love and

enthusiasm in regard to life, a fundamental and ready acceptance of all

that life, and the multiplication of life, means, because it is known

to be so thoroughly worth while. There is a question-mark against life

now. We feel it; we know it. Even the Greeks knew it and felt it,--how

much more, therefore, must we, the children of an age a thousand times

less attractive in every way than theirs!

Pregnancy now may mean, in fact it frequently does mean, not only pain

and sorrow, but the production of a child who is but a faint memento

of life (we thank God if he is not a cretin, a cripple, a consumptive

or a lunatic), a pale shadow of vitality, in whose very eyes we read

the question-mark which we ourselves have already applied to all modern

existence. How could pregnancy be beautiful?

Let us be careful, therefore, before we read anything more than a frank

and whole-hearted approval of life into these Cro-Magnon figurines

of women with child. To them, no doubt, pregnancy was a gloriously

beautiful thing; all its associations, preliminary, gestatory and

post-gestatory, were also probably the source of infinite delight,

pride and joy, and the traditional story about the Golden Age which

preceded the Promethean Age, and which has been so heartily laughed at

since, receives its strongest confirmation precisely from these little

statuettes of pregnant women found in prehistoric caves in the south of

France.

But I have wandered from my subject.

We have seen how many authorities have borne witness to the very high

artistic powers of this Cro-Magnon race which Dr. Sollas designates

by the name of “the giants of Mentone,”[249] and v. Buttel-Reepen

calls the “dominant people” in Europe “at the close of the Glacial

Period.”[250] We have seen that they were exceptionally tall, and have

therefore found useful confirmation of the suggestion made in Chapter

II. (explanation of Subdivision I. of the myth of Prometheus) that the

superior race were probably a people of remarkably fine stature. It

has also, I think, been satisfactorily shown, on the grounds of their

vast cranial development alone, apart from their art, that they were

not only far superior to any other people that existed at the time,

but that they were also actually superior to any people, including

ourselves, who have appeared since.

What sort of life did they lead?

Their lives appear to have been extremely simple: hunting, feasting,

art and love. They are believed to have been a very hospitable people

of mild and gentle habits,[251] who developed a degree of skill in

surgery which was positively amazing.[252] They are also said to

have invented the halter and to have begun the domestication of the

horse.[253] They were the contemporaries in Europe of the Mammoth, the

rhinoceros, the cave bear, the hyena, the saiga, the moorcock, the

wood-hen, the reindeer, and many of the present type of fauna.

As they held their own magnificently against the more formidable of

these animals, and at the same time were too sportsmanlike to use the

bow and arrow,[254] _which treacherously hits the foe or the quarry

from a distance and from a place of safety_, we may conclude that they

were superior to modern men not only, as we have seen, in brains and

artistic ability, but also in bravery, chivalry and nobility of nature.

M. Piette, who has made a special study of their remains, has claimed

that they had invented the art of writing, and that the existence of

a script among them is a well-established fact. Personally I am quite

prepared to accept M. Piette’s evidence for this. A. J. Evans, however,

is apparently so deeply obsessed by the idea that it requires what he

calls the “heirloom of the ages”[255] for anything as cultivated as a

form of writing to be evolved, that he seems doubtful about M. Piette’s

discoveries.

He says in regard to M. Piette’s documentary evidence: “In the face of

this and similar examples, are we to conclude with the late M. Piette

that there was a regular alphabetic script during the Pleistocene

Period which in turn had been preceded by a hieroglyphic system?...

The artistic achievements of the men of the Reindeer Period attained

such a high level that even such a conclusion could hardly excite

surprise.... That they had sufficient intellectual capacity to evolve

a system of writing can hardly be doubted.”[256] But on the whole

Evans leaves you questioning very much whether M. Piette really can be

believed.[257]

Evans continues: “Whatever the intellectual capacity of these archaic

people, they did not possess that heirloom of the ages, the accumulated

experience of the later races of mankind. Art, indeed, seems to have

come to them by nature, and they had other germs of civilisation....

Yet many of the most simple acquirements of primitive culture were

unknown to them. They knew neither the potter’s nor the weaver’s nor

the husbandman’s craft.”[258]

Here we have it again,--this unaccountable prepossession in favour of

futile complications! Because they had no pottery, etc.!

But has it ever occurred to investigators like Evans that one does not

necessarily _want_ pottery? Has it never dawned upon him that one’s

reasons for not having discovered the ghastly gramophone, for instance,

may have been that one frankly neither wanted it, liked it, nor could

tolerate it for one instant?

Supposing now that I, who loathe the gramophone and the motor-car as

much as Auguste Rodin loathed both, happened to become the founder of a

civilisation ultimately examined and commented upon by men like A. J.

Evans. This is what we should read in their report upon it:--

“The Ludovicious civilisation shows a degree of ineptitude in regard

to the production of those simple mechanical contrivances for making

a home and the countryside pleasant and lively, which is quite out of

keeping with the capacity shown in other directions, etc.”

It would never occur to such people even to suspect that because

gramophones and motor-cars happened to be absent from the kind of

civilisation I would found, I might possibly be believed to dislike

gramophones and motor-cars, or to have no use for them.

In view of the vastly superior brain-power of these Cro-Magnons, I do

not accept Evans’s modern and Promethean suggestion that “many of the

most simple acquirements of primitive culture were unknown to them.” It

is a piece of typical modern prejudice.

It reminds one of a passage in the works of another eminent Promethean,

Sir Charles Lyell, which for inanity is sufficiently characteristic of

the nineteenth century to render that period utterly ridiculous for

ever.

Sir Charles, writing with the view of discrediting the notion that

any primitive races could have been at all superior to ourselves,

says: “But had the original stock of mankind been really endowed with

such superior intellectual powers, and with inspired knowledge, and

possessed the same improvable [!] nature as their posterity, the point

of advancement [!] which they would have reached ere this would have

been immeasurably higher.”[259]

Then speaking of the finds in old caves, he adds: “Instead of the

rudest pottery or flint tools, so irregular in form as to cause the

unpractised eye to doubt whether they afford unmistakable evidence

of design, we should now be finding sculptured forms [they have

been found] surpassing in beauty the masterpieces of Phidias and

Praxiteles; lines of buried railway or electric telegraphs [!!], from

which the best engineers of our day might gain invaluable hints;

astronomical instruments and microscopes of more advanced construction

than any known in Europe ... machines, perhaps, for navigating

the air or exploring the depths of the ocean, or for calculating

arithmetical problems beyond the wants or even the conception of living

mathematicians.”[260]

There we have it again! Unless you can show railway lines and telegraph

wires, unless, in fact, you have all the ridiculous complications of

the Promethean brain, which makes the modern world such a fatuous

failure, you have not got, you cannot have, you cannot even pretend to

have, superior brain-power or civilisation!

Poor old Lyell! I know he is dead, and that in his time he did a good

deal of honest work. But really, that passage!--Could Promethean

stupidity be more hopeless? It is this sort of thing that makes one

fear that if stupidity had been a disease, none of us could ever have

survived the nineteenth century.

Seeing that the Cro-Magnon race must have possessed the means of

fire-production, even if they did not actually discover them,[261]

I see no reason why, in the light of what we know of their immense

superiority, we are not permitted to assume, as we can on the analogy

of the Chinese attitude towards the use of steam and gunpowder, that

if the Cro-Magnons did not possess pottery, the bow, and all the many

evidences of a more Promethean and therefore meaner civilisation, it

was because they deliberately eschewed these things, disliked them,

felt no need for them.

Is it not conceivable that with their huge brain power, they might have

foreseen all the ills and woes, which as Greek myth and the evidence

of the modern world is with us to prove, cannot help arising from a

Promethean civilisation? Is it not probable that even if they tried to

produce pottery or other fire-wrought baubles, they would have had the

good sense quickly to drop the experiment, and rigorously to forbid its

repetition?

Civilisation is not only of one kind. Civilisation does not only mean

having steam-engines, telegraph wires, factories, women members of

Parliament, packed hospitals, lunatic asylums, homes for incurables,

margarine and false teeth. There are other kinds, thank goodness! Is

it not possible that they were rigidly developing another, simpler and

better kind?

That is why I suggest, in Chapter II., in my explanation of Subdivision

II. of the Prometheus myth, that Zeus, who was probably a typical

Cro-Magnon, may have imposed certain restrictions upon the inferior

people, when he allowed them the use of fire; and it was only when

there was trouble over the observance of these restrictions, that he

withdrew fire from them. The reader will remember that I also point out

that the inferior people, being ignorant of the great wisdom of Zeus’s

restrictions and conditions regarding the use of fire, imprudently

allowed Prometheus to act as their champion, with the disastrous

results that we now know.

Should the reader think that this is a little far-fetched, let me

remind him that we have other instances in folk-lore, history and

the reports of travellers in savage countries, of restrictions being

imposed in regard to the use of fire, although these probably cannot

compare with the drastic rules laid down by Zeus.

Thus Tylor reports an account given by the Rev. Geo. Turner about the

introduction of fire among the inhabitants of Bowditch Island.

According to these people the origin of fire is traced to Mafiuke, “but

unlike the Mafiuke of the mythology of some other islands, this was an

old blind lady. Talangi went down to her in her lower regions, and

asked her to give him some of her fire. She obstinately refused until

he threatened to kill her, and then she yielded. With the fire he made

her say what fish were to be cooked with it, and what were still to be

eaten raw.”[262]

This is a remarkable instance of a myth accounting for certain

restrictions being imposed in regard to the cooking of particular

foods, and lends considerable colour to my whole argument.

In the same volume Tylor mentions that neither the Fuegians nor the

Bushmen seemed to know how to boil food “when they first came into

the view of Europe.”[263] But here again, in the light of all we know

regarding the Bushmen’s wonderful intelligence, is it not much more

likely that the practice of boiling (which as we have seen is the most

pernicious kind of cooking) had been forbidden ages before, and that

tradition had perpetuated the prohibition, than that they did not

_know_ how to boil?

It is a curious coincidence that they should have happened just not to

_know_ of the most dangerous method of cooking.

In our own time, of course, we have only to think of the very light

restriction of the Curfew, which was probably only a lingering vestige

of a much more elaborate set of rules relating to the use of fire.

It is obvious that the prevalence of the fire-stealing myths all over

the world is best accounted for by the assumption that all races of

mankind not having developed with equal speed, the juxtaposition

of two peoples, one possessing the means of fire-production and

the other not, must have occurred sufficiently often to make the

coveting and even the stealing of fire by the inferior race an almost

universal tradition; but it is also equally probable that in cases

where the superior race, as with the remote ancestors of the Greeks,

were encountered on friendly terms,[264]--and the mingling of the two

shows that the relationship was probably friendly,--the superior race

in handing on its discoveries would endeavour, by imposing certain

restrictions, to save the inferior race from the consequences which

they (the superior race) knew must follow from an unlimited use of fire.

This evidently happened at some period in the remote history of the

inhabitants of Bowditch Island, and it also happened in the history of

the remote ancestors of the Greeks.

I have now come to the end of the principal part of my argument.

It was not absolutely necessary for the support of my thesis for me to

attempt to identify the superior race with which, on the Spencerian

hypothesis regarding the origin of gods, the remote ancestors of the

Greeks must at some time in their history, have come into contact.

Nevertheless, seeing that there was an immensely superior race in

Europe at the dawn of the Neolithic era, that this race vanished by

absorption early in Neolithic times, and that the remote ancestors

of the Aryan race are supposed to have been of very great antiquity,

and to have existed in the Stone Age before they separated; seeing,

moreover, that the Cro-Magnons were a dolichocephalic race and that

the Aryans were a brachycephalic race and that, as Professor Keith

points out, the round-headed races of Europe absorbed the long-headed

races in early Neolithic times,[265] I see no reason why, in the

light which all these facts throw on the mythology of Greece and the

historical truths that doubtless lie concealed in it, we should not

be prepared to conclude that Uranus was a Cro-Magnon chief, that his

people mingled with the remote ancestors of the Greeks, and that the

result of the cross was twofold, or threefold,--that is to say, that it

led to a race of men some of which bred true to the original superior

stock (I suggest that Zeus was one of these), some of which were a

complete blend, and therefore very tall and mighty men (I suggest that

Prometheus and the Titans were among these), and some of which bred

true to the inferior race (we naturally hear nothing very extraordinary

about these).

If this cross really occurred, and the Cro-Magnons actually did mingle

with a round-headed and inferior race, we might suppose that the

period following the cross would probably show a marked decline in art

and culture generally. This, as a matter of fact, is precisely what

we find. Although it was of course a great advantage to the remote

ancestors of the Greeks to mingle their blood with so great a race as

the Cro-Magnons,[266] and although this admixture of Cro-Magnon blood

probably accounts for a good deal of what was great in the ancient

Greeks, the cross must have proved a distinct loss to the Cro-Magnon

race itself and therefore to the world.

H. v. Buttel-Reepen, writing of the Age which followed the absorption

of the Cro-Magnons, says: “But strange to relate, the artistic

productions which characterised the end of the Pleistocene, the

carvings and the wall-pictures, are altogether missing. The artistic

culture seems to have vanished from Europe with the retreat of the

ice, and the few drawings which were executed in Neolithic times,

in the Bronze Age, and even in the Iron Age, are utterly crude and

unskilful.”[267]

Then he proceeds to add: “This is a mystery which has not yet been

satisfactorily dispelled.”[268]

I think that in view of all I have said there is no mystery in the

matter at all. I do not see what else could have been expected.

However, we shall see what v. Buttel-Reepen has to say when he has

become acquainted with my argument.

In the light of recent research among savage peoples, we have seen that

it is not at all unlikely that the remote ancestors of the Greeks,

confronted by a race so infinitely superior to themselves, immediately

proceeded to deify these Cro-Magnon people, and now that we have

realised who and what they were, can we wonder that they did so? There

is surely less difficulty in believing that the Cro-Magnons were called

gods by a people so uncultivated as the ancient Aryans, than that the

Spaniards of the sixteenth century should have been regarded as gods by

the highly civilised Mexicans.[269]

Finally, if you ask when and where we can encounter any trace of

the descendants of these wonderful Paleolithic people, who reached

their zenith in late Pleistocene times, who declined during the early

centuries of the Neolithic Age, and who were ultimately absorbed by

the round-headed and inferior races of Europe, I cannot do better than

reply with the profoundly interesting words of Professor Keith, and

with these remarks I will conclude this chapter:

“Although there is no race in Europe to-day that can be regarded as

representative of this Paleolithic people, yet in Germany, Switzerland,

France, and Britain, individuals of this type are not rare. They are

the tall men of commanding mien.”[270]

FOOTNOTES:

[208] _Op. cit._, p. 142.

[209] See _Sur la Connaissance du Feu aux Époques préhistoriques_,

in which the author concludes (p. 93): “En résumé, pour le moment,

l’utilisation certaine du feu remonte jusqu’à l’industrie reutélienne,

contemporaine de l’aurore des temps quaternaires.”

[210] These figures are based upon those given by H. v. Buttel-Reepen

in _Man and His Forerunners_ (translated by A. G. Thacker, 1913), p. 10.

[211] See _Ancient Types of Man_ (Introduction).

[212] Rutot’s conclusion rather coincides with Buttel-Reepen’s, who

maintains that the first use of fire occurred in the first interglacial

phase of the Pleistocene Period.

[213] See _Man, Past and Present_ (1899), p. 110. I am not inclined

to accept this estimate against any of the other authorities; but the

latter, unfortunately, do not commit themselves to any such definite

statement on the subject.

[214] See my _Nietzsche and Art_ (Constable and Co.), Lecture ii., p.

63.

[215] We know they must have been tall, because, as shown in Chapter

II., the result of their cross with the inferior race, when it was a

complete blend, was the race of Titans.

[216] The reader will, of course, have realised that it is not

incumbent upon me for the purposes of my thesis to prove that this

Cro-Magnon race was superior to ourselves. All I require to do is to

show that they were superior to the remote ancestors of the ancient

Greeks. If, then, I repeat that they _were_ superior to ourselves, I do

so, not to assist my argument, but to state a fact which is of great

interest and the truth of which I shall endeavour to prove.

[217] See Isaac Taylor, _The Origin of the Aryans_, p. 129: “In no

part of Europe has it been proved that there was any interruption

of continuity between the ages of stone and metal, and there is no

evidence whatever to show that the present inhabitants of Europe are

not descended from the people of the Neolithic Age, whose civilisation

was of a very rudimentary character.”

[218] Taylor, _op. cit._, p. 129. See also p. 133: “That the Aryans

before the linguistic separation were still in the Stone Age may be

inferred from the fact that no Aryan etymology has been found for the

word ‘metal.’... There is no common word in Aryan speech to denote the

art of the smith, and many of the words relating to his trade refer

primarily to stone.”

[219] See Taylor, _op. cit._, pp. 197-198: “Mixed races are not so

common as is sometimes supposed.... It is alleged that in the case

of conquest, when two races are diverse, or when the environment

favours one race more than the other, it is found that the offspring

are infertile, or that there is a tendency to revert to one of the

parent types.”... See also p. 203: “When two distinct races are in

contact they may, under certain circumstances, mix their blood, but the

tendency, as a rule, is to revert to the character of that race which

is either superior in numbers, prepotent in physical energy, or which

conforms best to the environment.”

[220] If the reader will refer to the tables given above, he will see

that it may have been very much more or very much less than 10,000 to

15,000.

[221] See O. Peschel, _op. cit._, p. 145, where the author describes

how obsessed the modern Chinese are by the belief that their remote

ancestors were wiser and greater than themselves.

[222] _Human Origins_ (London, 1893), p. 387.

[223] See Buttel-Reepen, _op. cit._, p. 73.

[224] _Ancient Types of Man_ (London, 1911), p. 26.

[225] _Ancient Types of Man_ (London, 1911), p. 66.

[226] _The Antiquity of Man_ (London, 1915), p. 55. Sollas, _op. cit._,

p. 158, gives 1,550 c.c. as a fair average for modern Europeans.

[227] _The Brain as an Organ of Mind_ (London, 1880), p. 353.

[228] Kant’s cranium only had a capacity of 1,715 c.c.

[229] They are believed to have lived during the third Interglacial

phase in Europe, while the Cro-Magnons lived in the fourth. See

Buttel-Reepen, _op. cit._, p. 26.

[230] _Op. cit._, p. 158.

[231] _Op. cit._, p. 160.

[232] _Op. cit._, p. 161.

[233] _Op. cit._, pp. 371-372.

[234] _Op. cit._, pp. 372-373. See also _Mind and Body_ by Alexander

Bain, M.D., pp. 20-21: “The concomitance of size of nervous system with

mental power, throughout the animal series, is sufficiently admitted

for the purpose of our general argument.” The general argument in

question being: “When extensive statistics are taken, the conclusion

is established that great mental superiority is accompanied with

a more than average size of brain....” And further: “There would

be no exaggeration in saying that while size of brain increases in

arithmetical proportion, intellectual range increases in geometrical

proportion.”

[235] _The Antiquity of Man_, p. 55.

[236] Ten years ago, in my _Nietzsche: His Life and Works_, I wrote (p.

72): “Given a degenerate, mean, and base environment and the fittest

to survive therein will be the man who is best adapted to degeneracy,

meanness, and baseness, therefore the worst kind of man. Given a

community of parasites, and it may be the flattest, the slimiest, and

the softest, will be the fittest to survive.” See also my _Who is to

be Master of the World?_ pp. 91-93, and Herbert Spencer, _Collected

Essays_, vol. i., p. 397, and Huxley’s Romanes Lecture, _Evolution and

Ethics_ (ed., 1903, p. 32).

[237] See Sollas, _op. cit._, pp. 300-301: “They loved their country

and showed an unfailing devotion to their chiefs; they possessed all

the noblest of the primitive virtues, and, not least, unflinching

bravery and unquenchable love of freedom. It was this last which

came to be accounted to them as their greatest crime. They found it

impossible to become slaves to strange masters in their own land.

Equally impossible was it for a hunting race to maintain its existence

in proximity to an encroaching agricultural people of European blood.

A terrible war of extermination was waged against them by the Boers.

The stories that are told of this war are shocking to our humanity;

and we cannot refuse a tribute to these brave people, who in almost

every instance preferred death to surrender.” Dr. Sollas adds a note to

the effect that the Cape Government regarded the extermination of the

Bushmen for a long time as a matter of State policy.

[238] See _The Downfall of Zululand_, by the daughter of Bishop

Colenso; also read the horrible accounts of early English settlers

in New Zealand. The superiority of the European race is by no means

demonstrated by the submission of the Zulus and the Maoris.

[239] Keith, _Ancient Types of Man_, p. 69.

[240] Sollas, _op. cit._, pp. 262-263.

[241] See _Anthropology_, p. 47.

[242] _Prehistoric Problems_, p. 48.

[243] _L’Art pendant l’Âge du Renne_ (Paris, 1907).

[244] See, for instance, the wonderful bas-relief of a neighing horse,

the swans and the horse heads (p. 72); the beautiful statuettes of

reindeer carved in mammoth tusks (Plates III. and IV.); the horse in

mammoth tusk (Plate VI.); the exquisite fragment of a fat woman (not

pregnant) carved in ivory (Plate LXXI.); and the statuette in ivory

(pregnant woman, Plate LXXIII.); the fine engraving of chamois on

reindeer antler (Plate LXXXIII.); and the sphinx-like creature (Plate

LII.). The pregnant woman on Plate XXVII. (Fig. 5) is also interesting;

while there are various halters of reindeer antler, and mammoths, all

of which show wonderful accuracy of representation with the simplest

possible means of expression.

[245] _Op. cit._, p. 21.

[246] _Op. cit._, p. 21: “Mais il est possible aussi que ce soit par un

plus noble motif, sous l’influence d’une sorte de sentiment religieux,

éveillé en eux par les mystères de la maternité.”

[247] See my _Nietzsche and Art_, Lecture II., Part ii., Section 6, for

an explanation of this.

[248] Not only pregnancy, of course, but the whole of its associations,

preliminary, gestatory and post-gestatory, are quickly becoming a

subject of loathing with most women in Protestant and Puritanical

countries.

[249] _Op. cit._, p. 372.

[250] _Op. cit._, p. 63.

[251] See Piette, _op. cit._, p. 24: “L’hospitalité paraît avoir été

pratiquée par ces populations de mœurs douces.”

[252] They were apparently masters of the extremely difficult operation

of trepanning, which they probably performed in cases of accidents.

That their trepanning was successful is proved by the number of skulls

that have been found, the bones of which bear evidence of having been

trepanned and having healed up. See Professor Keith, _The Antiquity of

Man_, p. 21; also Robert Munro, _Prehistoric Problems_, pp. 203-205.

[253] Piette, _op. cit._, p. 17.

[254] In _Prehistoric Problems_, p. 95, Robert Munro says: “There

is no evidence to show that the bow was known to the Paleolithic

people.” Personally, in view of their huge brain development, I am

disinclined to believe that they had not discovered the bow. I am much

more prepared to suppose that though they had discovered most modern

baubles, such as pottery, etc., cowardly weapons, like the bow and all

those that followed from it (firearms, guns, etc.), were discarded by

them owing to the nobility of their instincts. A man must not only

be a coward, but also a mean coward, to use the bow and the firearm.

All recent races, therefore, are meaner and more cowardly than the

Cro-Magnon race.

[255] See _Anthropology and the Classics_, p. 18.

[256] _Anthropology and the Classics_, pp. 16-17; article “The European

Diffusion of Pictography and its Bearings on the Origin of Script.”

[257] See Ed. Piette, _Les Écritures de l’Âge Glyptique_ (Paris,

1905), p. 5: “Il est donc parfaitement établi par huit inscriptions

ou fragments d’inscription qu’aux temps pléistocènes, dès la première

époque de l’âge glyptique, il y avait dans le pays de Gaule, au

voisinage des Pyrénées, des populations ayant une écriture symbolique

formée de caractères pictographiques....” (p. 9). “En résumé il y a

eu deux écritures successivement en usage à l’âge du renne, l’une

hiéroglyphique à l’époque papalienne, l’autre cursive à l’époque

gourdanienne.... Quoi qu’il en soit, les écritures pléistocènes sont

les plus anciennes qui soient connues de nous.”

[258] _Op. cit._, p. 18.

[259] _The Antiquity of Man_ (London, 1873), p. 422.

[260] _Ibid._, p. 423.

[261] If they did not, then their remote ancestors, the Mousterians

who, as we have seen, also had a larger average brain than modern

man, were probably the discoverers of the means of fire-production in

Europe. O. Peschel, _op. cit._, p. 142, is of the condescending opinion

that the exceptional men of to-day show no more intelligence than men

of the Glacial Period (I maintain that in view of their smaller cranial

development exceptional modern men must show less). Nevertheless,

his is a striking admission: “In sharpness of understanding the men

of the Ice Age who discovered fire were not behind a Copernicus, a

Kepler, a Champollion, or a Faraday, and we arrive at the conclusion

that the highest degree of brain power which a few exceptional men,

here and there, have shown in modern times, is not beyond that shown

by great men of classical or biblical antiquity, and the latter not

beyond that of men of the Ice Age.” Seeing, however, that it is _le

premier pas qui coûte_, Professor Keith’s conclusion is much more fair.

He says (_Ancient Types of Man_, p. 112): “We of a later generation,

with a fertility of mechanical invention, can little understand the

great brain which was necessary to make the first steps towards human

civilisation.”

[262] _Researches into the Early History of Mankind_, p. 231. There are

other details regarding the conditions imposed by Mafiuke in respect to

the use of fire; but they do not relate to cooking.

[263] _Op. cit._, p. 263.

[264] We have seen how gentle and mild were the habits of the

Cro-Magnons, and instances are not lacking in history of superior

races having mingled with and civilised inferior races without any

preliminary bloodshed. See my account of the peaceful invasions of the

Incas of Peru in my _Defence of Aristocracy_, chap. i.

[265] “Long-headed races abounded in France, in Germany, in

Switzerland, and in Bohemia, in early Neolithic times. Now the case is

quite different, the round-headed type prevails in these countries....

As the Neolithic Period came to an end, he becomes more and more the

predominating type. Since the close of the Glacial Period he has

succeeded in ousting his long-headed brother from the larger and richer

countries of Europe.... We see now that the round-heads hold the

continent of Europe and Asia from France and Germany in the West to

Japan in the East, and from the shores of the White Sea to those of the

Mediterranean.” See _Ancient Types of Man_, pp. 76-77.

[266] After all, the immense superiority of the Greeks over other

branches of the Aryan family at a very early period in the historical

age needs some accounting for, and has never been satisfactorily

explained. Is it not possible that the elements of Cro-Magnon blood

that they must have had in them do satisfactorily explain this

superiority? Is it not even logical to suppose that since they have

surpassed for all time all other branches of the original family

in culture, art and thought, that therefore something unusual must

have occurred in their history which did not occur in the history

of the other branches? For it is not necessary to suppose that the

other branches of the Aryan family, particularly those that went

into the southern regions of France and Italy, did not encounter the

Cro-Magnons. They may simply have fought them, overwhelmed them by

numbers, and exterminated them.

[267] _Op. cit._, p. 88. See also Professor Keith, _The Antiquity of

Man_, p. 59.

[268] _Ibid._

[269] As I have already hinted, I should not be in the least surprised

if further investigation led to the identification of the God of the

Jews and Christians, as a Cro-Magnon chief. We know the race extended

into Syria and Asia. But this is outside my subject. It does, however,

throw some light on Gen. vi. 1-4.

[270] _Ancient Types of Man_, pp. 72-73.

CHAPTER VIII

PANDORA AND EVE

The reader will remember that in Chapter II. I said I was leaving the

explanation, or interpretation, of Subdivision IV. of the Prometheus

myth to another chapter of this book. I now propose to deal with this

before proceeding to record my conclusions.

Subdivision IV. consisted of Pandora’s part in the severe punishment

which Zeus is said to have administered to mankind, or mortals, for

their complicity in the theft of fire perpetrated by their champion

Prometheus; and it contains the story of Pandora’s connection with

Epimetheus, and her lifting of the lid from the vessel in which the

foresight of Prometheus had concealed all the evils that might torment

mortals on earth. With the removal of the lid from the vessel, diseases

and suffering of every kind issued forth to harass humanity.

In the Garden of Eden parallel to this myth, which, as I have pointed

out, is one of the alternative Semitic accounts of the origin of evil,

it is Eve who, after having been tempted by the devil, in the form of a

serpent, brings God’s wrath upon mankind by herself eating, and giving

“also unto her husband with her” to eat of the fruit of the Tree of

Knowledge of Good and Evil.

In both myths a woman is thus intimately associated with the events

which lead to the close of a Golden Age, and to the advent of the era

of trouble, disease and suffering that followed. In both myths it is

a woman specially sent by the Deity; and in one case--in the Semitic

myth--as there is no account of any other woman, Eve, Héva, or more

properly _Khamwaãh_, is not only a particular woman, she is Woman in

general.

What are we to conclude from this prehistoric,--nay, primeval

association of woman with evil, or with the cause of evil?

To begin with, we must banish from our minds all idea of the modern

and wholly gratuitous connection between woman and evil as the result

of the shame or guilt supposed to attach to sex; because this shame

or guilt in regard to sex is entirely the creation of later, or at

least recent stupidity. Sexual intercourse is only associated with

shame and guilt when life has become so hopelessly muddled owing to

the prevalence and power of the Promethean type, that the relation of

the sexes really has, in a sufficient number of cases to establish a

tradition, developed a loathsome and unsavoury side.

It would be quite wrong, however, to ascribe to primeval man

stupidities of which only recent man has been guilty.

We may feel perfectly satisfied, therefore, that this association of

woman with evil, originally had nothing whatever to do with the act

of procreation, or with any notion or function connected with the

genitalia.

Has it perhaps this meaning: that the best men are sometimes diverted

from their highest and most important pursuits by the lure of beautiful

women,--that the love of the sexes has therefore a hindering or

retarding influence upon the achievements of the highest men, and

that women, particularly the more highly captivating among them, like

Pandora, are connected with evil in this manner?

This also will hardly do, because the best men never are and never

have been diverted from their highest pursuits by any woman, however

attractive. The Mark Antonys of this world are by no means the highest

men. The best men are the long-headed men, resembling the Cro-Magnons,

and these, as I have already pointed out, are Dionysians. They master

women; women do not master or even influence them. Consequently it is

impossible to associate women with evil owing to the deleterious power

they exercise over the careers of the best men. They have no power,

either good or evil, over the best men in any case.

Here, however, it is possible that we have a clue which may lead us in

the proper direction.

Women, as I say, have no power over the best men. The best men may use

them, may protect and cherish them, may and do even understand them

very much better than their brothers; but they never yield to them

either body or soul. They do not believe in giving women chivalry so

much as giving them children.

But women are covetous of petty power even over men. Being directed

chiefly in their actions, by vanity, the lust of petty power to no

purpose save self-gratification is one of their principal passions;

it overshadows all the others; it controls their lives. Their very

motherhood, with all its alleged “noble” virtues, is simply the

gratification of their petty love of power; but in this sphere, since

it subserves the self-preservative interests of the race, it is, when

held in proper check, quite a useful race characteristic.[271]

Hence, women are not consciously very much attracted to the best men,

and never have been. They see in the best men no chance of exercising

petty power, and since they have no senses capable of apprehending the

greatness of the best men, the latter have literally no lure for them.

Napoleon was never heartily loved by any woman. Josephine never loved

him, and Marie Thérèse left him in the hour of his greatest sorrow for

a little cock-sparrow-hearted Austrian officer. The only women who

ever love great men are perhaps their mothers; but this again requires

explanation.

In other words, as I have always maintained in the teeth of the most

inflexible opposition, even on the part of my male friends, the

characteristic which is chiefly female, which in fact is as essentially

female as the soprano, mezzo, and contralto voices, and which, though

frequently encountered in modern men, is not typical of the male sex,

is lack of taste. Woman has bad taste, or no taste whatever.

The mother’s instinct, which is the lust of petty power, thus

frequently turns with greater affection and attachment to the crippled

than to the well-constituted child, to the invalid than to the healthy

offspring, to the creature that is in some way physiologically botched,

than to the perfect specimen. Why?--Obviously because the imperfect

child will always be more helpless, and helplessness makes the

strongest appeal to the lust for petty power.

That is why the Romans wisely left it to the father to decide which of

his children should survive and which should be suppressed; because

they knew that women having no taste and being guided only by what most

gratified their lust of petty power, could not be trusted to make such

a decision wisely.

Who has not heard mothers exclaim, time and again, that it was

while their offspring were babies that they liked them best? This

predilection for helpless, speechless, dribbling and babbling infants,

sounds inexplicable and unaccountable from any standpoint which has

taste for its basis. For older children are obviously more beautiful,

more elegantly proportioned, more intelligible, more interesting. We

must remember, however, that these qualities constitute appeals to

taste, with which woman constitutionally has no concern whatsoever. Her

one repeated unconscious question is always: What best gratifies my

vanity and my lust of petty power? And the reply to that question in

respect to the family is, obviously, the helpless infant. The helpless

infant therefore is her choice.[272]

Now this fundamental lack of taste in women, which can be observed

every day, in every detail of her life,--she has not even succeeded

in being the creator of her own fashions in clothes, this is all done

by men,--is not dangerous provided women remain under proper control.

It only becomes a social menace when she either ceases from being

controlled, or is actually in a position to make her influence felt

outside the home.[273]

Seeing that she becomes associated with a decent man only by accident;

for as a rule when a woman is married to a decent man you may be

certain that it is he who married her, and not _vice versâ_; the

chances of her being properly controlled, even in her own home, in an

age like the present, which is full to overflowing with Promethean men,

are unfortunately very remote indeed.

And that is why, when the world is ruled chiefly by Promethean men,

as it is at present--men who neither understand woman nor are able to

master her[274]--the badness of women’s taste, or their lack of taste,

becomes a genuine and universal peril.

The chief and worst consequences, however, of woman’s lack of taste is

that she will always tend to consort with the most undesirable kind of

man, and thus rapidly reduces the value of human stock.

She tends to consort with the most undesirable kind of man for two

reasons:--

(_a_) As already stated, her lack of taste.

(_b_) Her lust of petty power, which tends to make her prefer (quite

erroneously, even from the standpoint of her own happiness) the

Promethean type of man before the Dionysian, because she can master the

former and because he is the best worshipper.

When once she becomes entirely dependent upon the Dionysian man, or

becomes adapted to the form of society he develops, she realises that

he makes her happier, healthier and more contented than the Promethean;

but to her conscious discrimination the promise of happiness with the

Promethean man, who, as we have seen, cannot master, and does not even

understand her, seems to be more immediate and more certain.[275]

Woman, however, has not got a brain very much superior to the

boy-scout. The boy-scout man, the Promethean, therefore likes the

things that she likes:--speed, classification, pretty and useless

baubles, petty complications of life that attract notice; all those

things which minister to vanity, such as badges of honour, uniforms,

parade in general, exciting music, pleasure for pleasure’s sake,

etc., etc. Like the Promethean man, woman too has long believed in

“Progress.” She really believes, as does the boy-scout mind, that

because we have motor-cars and margarine--not to speak of underground

tubes and tuberculosis--we must be greater and better than the

Cro-Magnons. And this belief confirms her faith in the Promethean type.

In Eve and Pandora, therefore, we have the first fatal instances of

woman’s tastelessness. Eve becomes an easy prey to the Devil; Pandora

goes over to the Titans. I have already identified Satan, or the

Devil, with the Archetype of Promethean men; while we also know that

Epimetheus and Prometheus, with both of whom Pandora became associated,

belonged to the most unhappy results of the cross between the

Cro-Magnons and the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. But Adam,

too, was of the Promethean type. He allowed himself to be influenced by

a woman. And see how deeply the Cro-Magnon, the Dionysian,--that is to

say, the man whom I believe to have been the original of the god of

the Jews and Christians,[276]--despised him for it!

“Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,”[277]--that

constitutes the burden of the Christian god’s rebuke to Adam: he

hearkened unto the voice of his wife!

And all the Promethean men, ever since the days when the gods walked

the earth, have always hearkened unto the voice of their wives.

“Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,” says the

indignant and wise old Cro-Magnon, “and hast eaten of the tree, of

which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the

ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy

life.”

This most excellent remonstrance is probably the earliest known record

of the profound disdain which the Dionysian type has always felt for

the Promethean.

In both cases, then, in the case of Eve as well as in that of Pandora,

we find the first woman, or prehistoric woman, or woman in general,

exhibiting atrociously bad taste, and associating with the Promethean

type. And these two myths are probably among the most ancient and most

important in the world.

This is significant enough, particularly as the consequences of the

association proved so fatal to mankind. Is it possible, then, that this

is the lesson the myths conceal? Is it possible that it is in woman’s

total lack of taste that her connection with evil really resides, and

that this lack of taste is demonstrated in each myth by her readiness

to associate with the most undesirable kind of man and to influence him?

Personally, I have no hesitation in expressing my firm conviction that

both these questions may be confidently answered in the affirmative.

Women’s total lack of taste is the greatest danger to mankind. It is

the greatest evil of all; because it is a continuous pull downwards

which wears out by steady attrition, by slow and persistent corruption,

without either rest or respite.

It cannot be repeated too often, however, that it is dangerous only

when Promethean men are in the majority,--that is to say, in the heart

of a Promethean civilisation. When and where Dionysian men prevail,

it is not felt, because women have no power to express their taste

deleteriously under the rule of Dionysian men.

At the present day, therefore, when Promethean men constitute the

vast majority of our populations all over the world, woman’s lack of

taste is a genuine menace not only to our general health, but even to

our chances of survival. There is at present no counter-check to meet

and overcome it, no neutraliser or antidote. Added to the bewildering

muddle already created by Promethean men, it constitutes one more among

the many forces which are steadily making for degeneration, chaos and

decay. Nor is the gravity of the situation alleviated by the fact that

women are now not only in an immense majority, but also that their

conceit, which has been so much fortified by their encountering only

boy-scout or Promethean men--with whom they can truthfully claim to be

equal--renders them too impudent to be accessible to teaching or to be

patient under control.

It was too readily overlooked, when women claimed to be the equals

of men, that the horror of the situation did not lie in the nature

of the claim, but in its undeniable validity. At the present day,

men have reached such a low stage in their gradual decline, the line

of demarcation between male and female _occupations_ is so faint, so

indistinguishable in parts, and consequently the line of demarcation

between male and female _capacity_ is so much blurred, that there is

unfortunately no reply to this claim on woman’s part. They _are_ the

equals of modern men. Instead, however, of this being a subject of

rejoicing, it ought, even in these degenerate days, to be a cause of

lamentation also among the women themselves. Because, as in the days

preceding the advent of Dionysus, they are the greatest sufferers from

all this degeneration of men.

Thus again, even in this sphere, the conflict is seen to be between

Dionysus and Prometheus,--the artist[278] who can master his female

and the engineer whose female masters him; and unless the Dionysians

realise the gravity of the situation very speedily, and brace

themselves for a stupendous effort, there will be an end not only to

all higher hopes, but also to all higher possibilities.

In any case a revival of the attitude towards women which is outlined

in this chapter is not likely to occur in America or England, for in

no country of the world have Prometheans multiplied more abundantly,

and entrenched themselves more securely, than they have in England and

her old Transatlantic colony; in no country in the world are Dionysian

men less plentiful than they are in these two English-speaking

countries; in no country of the world have women been more grossly,

more ludicrously misunderstood than they have in these two homes of

the Puritan and Nonconformist; and, consequently, in no country in the

world have women more power than they have in the United States and

England.

The saddest and most depressing aspect of the whole question, however,

is this, that women, having no taste--no antennæ, no organ of tasteful

apprehension--are so blind to their own best interests, and so

besotted by their increasing command of those things which stimulate

their vanity, that they prefer to listen, to follow, and to applaud a

henpecked Promethean like John Stuart Mill, than pocket their vanity

and remember their place when they are told that it is their inveterate

bad taste, their complete and utter lack of any organ of taste, which

is the hidden meaning of the myths of Pandora and Eve.

But women are not to blame. They can do little in helping to bring

about the reforms which must come if degeneration and chaos are to be

arrested. They are, as we have seen, by nature dependent for their good

and evil upon the type of man with whom they have to deal. The only

hope, as ever, is a multiplication of Dionysian men and methods, and

the control and subordination of the Promethean type.

To suppose, for instance, that the matter could be settled by teaching

women to mate only with the Dionysian man, is utterly mistaken. No

reform can come of teaching women anything.

FOOTNOTES:

[271] The fundamental mistake of certain modern philosophers is to

suppose that the altruistic sentiments of mankind arose out of the

maternal instincts. A more gross misunderstanding of the maternal

instinct could, of course, not be conceived.

[272] Woman’s preference for lap-dogs is explained in the same way.

Larger dogs are independent; they run hither and thither, and try, at

least, to master their own destiny. Lap-dogs, on the other hand, can

be fondled; they can be held, clasped, pressed, squeezed, entirely and

thoroughly mastered (physically only, for no woman has ever been known

to make a dog obey), and they can be easily lifted from the floor.

[273] It is also a menace inside the home, of course; but there it is

at least limited in extent.

[274] The extent to which women’s views of life--or the tasteless views

of life--prevail to-day, owing to female influence over Promethean men,

is shown by the increase of disease and ugliness, the growing care of

the physiologically botched, etc.

[275] The reader may think, in view of all I have said, that it is hard

to account for the attitude of the women over the cult of Dionysus. In

this case, however, the benefits derived from acclaiming and following

a Dionysian man were immediately obvious and tangible. They may even

have constituted a promise from Dionysus himself. In any case, the

objection is not serious, since the women did not actually select

Dionysus from among other men. He came among them as a teacher, a

saviour, whose doctrine proved their salvation.

[276] I do not mean that Zeus and the god of the Jews and Christians

were one and the same person. I mean only that they probably belonged

to the same race.

[277] Gen. iii. 17.