Man's descent from the gods
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Title: Man's descent from the gods

or, The complete case against Prohibition

Author: Anthony M. Ludovici

Release date: September 14, 2026 [eBook #79572]

Language: English

Original publication: London: William Heinemann, 1921

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79572

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAN'S DESCENT FROM THE GODS ***

MAN’S DESCENT FROM THE GODS

MAN’S DESCENT FROM

THE GODS

OR, THE COMPLETE CASE AGAINST

PROHIBITION

BY

ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI

AUTHOR OF

“A DEFENCE OF ARISTOCRACY,” ETC.

1921

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN. 1921.

TO

MR. AND MRS. EDMOND HUNT

WITH THE

AUTHOR’S AFFECTIONATE REGARD

PREFACE

This book has a strange history. The last event in the chain which brought it into existence was a debate on the question of Total Prohibition held at the Sesame Club in London on November 3rd, 1919, to which I was invited by the Committee in order to oppose the Bishop of Willesden, who was to advocate Total Prohibition for these islands. I mention this most recent event first, because it was on the occasion of this debate that various thoughts and conjectures relating to problems apparently as far apart as Greek mythology and modern diet, with which my imagination had been occupied for some considerable time, first crystallised into the theory which I have thought worthy of the serious treatment given to it in this essay.

Among the other events connected with this book, I may mention: (1) The last great war and the enforced leisure, with its opportunities for meditation, which it frequently provided in the firing-line and out of it to a field-gunner like myself; (2) the writing of my Defence of Aristocracy in the years 1912, 1913, 1914, and the attention which I was compelled to pay, in the preparation of this book, to such questions as the drink and food of the people of England from the seventeenth century onwards; (3) the perusal of a friend’s book in MS. on Dietetics, which first awakened my curiosity about accessory food factors; (4) the publication by the Medical Research Committee of their Report on the Present State of our Knowledge concerning Accessory Food Factors; and finally (5) the first account I received, as a child, of the myth of Prometheus.

The ancient Greek story of the Fire-stealer had always fascinated me. I did not, like Byron, ever make it the subject of a youthful literary essay, but it was not the less prominent in my thoughts on that account. Certain features connected with it always puzzled me, and as I grew older I became less and less satisfied with the various learned explanations of the myth and its principal figure, with which I became acquainted. The mystery surrounding it seemed to increase rather than to disperse beneath these scholarly dissertations, until latterly I even sympathised with the late Mr. Andrew Lang in his reluctance to accept the most learned, the most ingenious, and certainly the most daring of all these explanations,—the exceedingly erudite and exhaustive work of Dr. Kuhn.

It struck me then, and it strikes me still, that in any case Dr. Kuhn’s interpretation must be rejected at all costs, even at the risk of doing violence to etymology, though this last extreme measure I do not believe to be in the least necessary, seeing that it fails to elucidate some of the most vital and therefore most interesting features of the myth. For many years, moreover, and despite repeated failures, I have been unable to repress a strong feeling that it must be possible to discover an explanation of the Fire-stealer legend, which would not only give a logical place to every important element in the myth, but also perhaps shed a little valuable light on the early history of mankind. A child can see that the stealing of fire from the gods must have been not only a vital, but perhaps the most vital event in the early history of the human race. But what always puzzles a child,—at least what always used to puzzle me was, (1) that it should have been necessary to steal fire from the gods; and (2) that the gods should have been apparently so immoderately angry once the theft had been committed.

I need hardly say that learned mythologians and classical scholars[1] have heretofore offered no satisfactory explanation on these two points. Nay, worse, it scarcely ever seems to have occurred to them that these matters might require a certain amount of elucidation, even if we took the whole myth, as most of them do, simply as a harmless, partly unintelligible, though certainly entertaining fairy-tale. But it is not altogether surprising that learned and scholarly commentators on the myth should be guilty of this omission. A certain emotional prepossession, such as that which Byron, Shelley, Goethe, and lesser men have evinced towards Prometheus as a heroic figure, is a serious obstacle in the way which leads to the truth in this matter; and this prepossession has, I believe, been shared almost universally by modern European scholars and those among us who have been their students.

I must confess that from the very beginning I have never been influenced by any such prepossession in favour of Prometheus,—in fact, to speak quite frankly, I have never felt altogether satisfied concerning his reputed great virtues;—perhaps that is sufficient to account for my setting out now to offer a more thorough and I believe more satisfactory interpretation of the old Greek myth than has been presented hitherto. It will be seen, moreover, that, as most fairly intelligent children would anticipate, a thorough and searching interpretation of this myth does indeed shed a tremendous amount of light upon man’s beginnings, and on many other problematic questions which, at a first glance, appear to have no connection with Prometheus whatsoever; but that which even the most intelligent child could scarcely have foreseen is, that the fire myth of the ancient Greeks is intimately connected with the question of diet and drink, and that these two departments of modern, as of ancient life, can scarcely be studied apart from the life-history of the crafty Titan. It is this unexpected connection, among other matters, that I propose to investigate in the following pages.

Briefly stated, the thesis I propose to elaborate, and if possible to substantiate, is as follows:—

The myth of the Titan Prometheus and of his theft of fire from the gods represents a traditional record of an actual event in the history of the ancestors of the ancient Greeks. Assuming on Spencerian grounds that the gods of the ancient Greeks were human beings of flesh and blood belonging to a race very much superior to the ancestors of all European peoples, I suggest that Prometheus’s theft of the secret of fire-production from these so-called gods proved a great calamity to the people to whom he handed this secret (the inferior race with which the god-like race had mingled). The internal evidence of the myth itself points to its having been a calamity, and I see no reason for doubting this evidence, but rather every reason for believing it to be true. The only question which remains imperfectly decided by the myth is the precise nature of the calamity. Prometheus, far from being a great benefactor of mankind, as modern thought, owing to a deliberate misunderstanding, supposes him to have been, was therefore, as the myth reveals him, a creature who outraged both gods and men. Not until Dionysus appeared with his medicines, and particularly his dispensary of fermented liquors, were the appalling evils resulting from Prometheus’s theft of fire-production mitigated and neutralised. The chemical changes that take place in the cooking of food, as also the physiological effects of these changes, are adduced to show how deleterious are the results of the application of fire to natural products used as human food; and in the chapters dealing with Dionysus I show how these deleterious results have been checked, and may still continue to be checked, by the use of fermented liquors. Prometheus versus Dionysus is thus the theme of the book—Prometheus, with his unhealthy civilisation, being the evil genius, and Dionysus, with his healthy dietaries, his mead, his wines and his ales, being the Saviour of mankind. The conclusion of my thesis is, therefore, that if men propose to abolish Dionysus, they can do so with safety only on the understanding that they return to the conditions of a pre-Promethean civilisation—an impossible alternative!

My thanks are due to the Controller of His Majesty’s Stationery Office for kindly granting me permission to reproduce certain extracts from the Medical Research Committee’s Report on Accessory Food Factors, and also to the firm of William Heinemann for allowing me to quote from the Loeb Classical Library. All translations of classical authors in this work, unless otherwise stated, have been taken from this excellent series.

A. M. L.

FOLKESTONE.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I would exclude Professor J. S. Blackie from this generalisation.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PAGE

PREFACE
vii

INTRODUCTION: ON MYTHS IN GENERAL, AND ON THE PROMETHEUS MYTH IN PARTICULAR

1

I.

PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO

25

II.

PROMETHEUS THE MAN

42

III.

FIRE AND FOOD—PART I.

64

IV.

FIRE AND FOOD—PART II.

85

V.

DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD

117

VI.

DIONYSUS THE MAN

139

VII.

THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD

172

VIII.

PANDORA AND EVE

212

IX.

REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING

223

INDEX

248

MAN’S DESCENT FROM THE GODS

INTRODUCTION

When, according to Greek myth, the Titan Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind, it will be remembered that Zeus is reported to have been so much enraged that he condemned this apparent benefactor of humanity to the savage penalty of being chained to a rock in Scythia while his liver was devoured by an eagle. Furthermore, in order to make his sufferings more lasting than they would normally have been, the devoured portions of his liver were miraculously restored every night.

In the Preface I mentioned two points in connection with this myth,—the necessity of stealing fire, and the apparently immoderate anger the theft provoked on the part of Zeus, which I declared received no satisfactory explanation at the hands of modern or even of ancient scholars. Why is this? Anyone uninfluenced by a study of the various theories mythologians have advanced on the whole subject might well be excused if they attached at least as much importance to the apparently immoderate anger of Zeus over the theft as they did to the theft itself. The proper explanation of the anger, it might be thought, would provide a clue to the reason why the fire had to be stolen, and why it was originally withheld.[2] And yet the matter, far from being explained, is frequently not even mentioned. In the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, for instance, which is ostensibly a purveyor of information to everybody, the late Mr. Andrew Lang makes no reference under “Prometheus” to the possible reasons actuating Zeus in his seemingly extravagant indignation over this culture-hero’s deed, and impelling the ruler of the heavens to inflict upon his refractory subject so cruel and savage a punishment. When the Christian is told that the “old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan” was “cast out of heaven” and that “his angels were cast out with him,”[3] he imagines that the punishment more or less fits the crime, because Satan “deceiveth the whole world”; nor does the Christian question the Almighty’s justice even when he learns that “the angels which kept not their first estate ... he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”[4] But Prometheus apparently conferred a benefit upon mankind. He gave them a very much coveted power, the power of converting energy into fire.[5] Was this a deed that could be justly rewarded with punishment at all, not to mention the excruciating punishment inflicted upon Prometheus?

It is difficult to understand the general silence that prevails in the various textbooks over a matter which I believe to be quite as important as the fire-stealing itself, and it is still more difficult to realise how the very men who profess to interpret the myth can leave this interesting part out, without at least some apology, some confession of their perplexity, mystification, or ignorance. One would be prepared to forgive almost anything in regard to all this shelving of the question of Zeus’s anger, except the implication which it appears deliberately to make that Zeus’s anger is not material to an understanding of the myth.

I have in my Preface already suggested one reason which would account for this attitude on the part of scholars. I shall now proceed to offer three more reasons.

I suggest secondly as a reason for the deliberate silence on the subject of Zeus’s anger in this instance, that the modern mind is wont to approach antiquity in general too superciliously. It deigns ponderously and with an elaborate exhibition of graciousness to peer into the “childlike” mind of its remote ancestors; but it is too deeply conscious all the while of the magnanimity it is displaying to be in a fit state to learn anything from its enquiry. You can almost see the smile of superiority beaming through the stilted prose peculiar to the customary textbook on mythology. It is not merely a smile of superiority, it is one of incredulous contempt, as if to say: “I am about to deal with children’s fairy-tales; I am going to condescend to treat them seriously;—don’t laugh! don’t be alarmed!—It is only in order to show you how innocent, how charming, but how empty they are!”

Now I suggest that it is this immense modern conceit, this ungovernable latter-day insolence in regard to the ancient world, which is the greatest obstacle in the way of any real advance in culture; because it is those standing in the gateway of culture, and guarding, as it were, its holy of holies, who are without exception the most guilty of this failing. It is an attitude of mind which takes for granted the very idea which I am hoping I shall do most to discredit in this essay: the idea that we certainly ought to be, that in any case we must be,—in fact, that we are superior to the ancients. It is part and parcel of a belief as foolish as it is inveterate in the modern European, particularly the Protestant Englishman and his spinster aunts, sisters and cousins, that children are innocent, that at all events childhood is the age of innocence, whatever individual children may be, and therefore that the childhood of mankind must be the age of irresponsible fairy-tales, with which wiser and less innocent generations may be permitted to deal at least cavalierly. That is to say, if anything in antiquity appears to be a little too “puerile” or “repulsive,” it can be ignored. If any aspects of the mind of primitive man strike us as obscure, obscene, or unchildlike, we are allowed by the rules of the game to leave such aspects out. As the whole is more or less jejune why attach particular value to a part? Thus the mass of apparently irrelevant details that cling to the old myths—some of which are distinctly disturbing to our sense of propriety—may be conveniently set aside as immaterial. This is certainly most convenient. But should we dare to behave in this way with anyone except a child? Thus the alleged virgin-birth of many great figures of antiquity strikes the average mythologian as a gratuitous and fantastic invention of the “childlike” mind, and he does not trouble to enquire into it further. The Puritanical bias of the Christian investigator explains this recurrent feature of certain myths on the ground that sexual intercourse being rightly regarded by the innocent childlike mind as impure, the idea of virgin-birth arose to circumvent the difficulty. But whether it be an atheistic or a Christian interpreter who confronts this alleged virgin-birth of certain notable types of the past, you may be quite certain that he will miss the real, the true, the human interpretation of it,—and why? Because the real, the true, the human interpretation of it would be thought incompatible with his fatuous preconceived notion of the “innocence of childhood,” and therefore incompatible with his stubborn certainty about the innocence of “childlike” mankind.

The same remarks apply to the alleged occurrence of cannibalism and incest among the early Greek gods, and to almost every detail, unpleasant or obscene, traditionally reported of them.

Observe Professor Gilbert Murray, for instance, in his acrobatic antics, stalking loftily across the unsavoury swamp of the Uranus-Cronus myth. What could be more edifying? Here is a professor mounted on stilts in order to avoid the mire, and professing nevertheless to have sufficiently examined its substance to be able to tell us all about it![6]

“Cronus arose and conquered him [Uranus],” says Professor Gilbert Murray complacently; and then he proceeds: “the exact meaning of the mutilation I leave aside.”[7]

This is typical. The exact meaning of the mutilation may be discomfiting, it may be indelicate, it may even be unfit for the ears of lady-students; but it is impossible to understand the myth unless you understand the meaning of the mutilation. It is nonsense to pretend to interpret these ancient legends if you are bent on selecting only the pleasant, the savoury and the immediately comprehensible aspects of them. Any young lady can do that. I am not going to offer readers of this book any explanation of the virgin-birth myth, or of the Uranus-Cronus myth—they are not my present concern—though what I believe to be the correct explanation of these myths is to hand.[8] I merely mention them in order to show briefly that what I allege is not imaginary, and that too much conscious superiority is indeed displayed by the qualified investigator of the mind of antiquity, who repeatedly shows himself over-ready to exercise his own discretion in judging what is important and what is unimportant in the creations of the “childhood” of man’s mind.

Only an attitude of conscious or unconscious contempt towards the primitive mind could possibly account for such liberties being taken. If it invariably led to the truth, one would not quarrel with it; but I am convinced that more useful, more satisfactory, and certainly more reasonable interpretations are to be found by the diametrically opposite attitude—the attitude of reverence, in which an endeavour is at least made properly to account for every detail in the legend, because every detail is taken seriously.

I suggest thirdly as a reason for the resolute silence on the part of mythologians respecting the apparently immoderate anger of Zeus in the Prometheus myth, a curious prejudice which may be regarded as distinctly modern: I refer to the doubt that most peoples, since the invention of the printing-press and the general spread of shortness of memory in which it has resulted, have been wont to cast on the reliability and accuracy of traditions that are dependent upon memory alone for their survival. Indeed, this prejudice is almost as remarkable as the conscious shortness of memory to which it owes its existence.

After a contemplation of himself and his fellows, modern man certainly cannot fail to recognise one extraordinarily pronounced feature which unites him and them in one common category. Indeed, if a Brotherhood of civilised man may be believed to exist at all, it is surely this feature which constitutes its most powerful bond, and chiefly distinguishes civilised man from the horse, the elephant, the savage, and the man of the past. I refer, of course, to bad memory. This is surely one of the most unmistakable signs of “progress”; for wherever “progress” appears it is accompanied by this characteristic. Modern conditions might even be said to have reared a new and hitherto unknown type of man: Homo sapiens sine memoria. His politicians, his entertainers, his exploiters, his most flourishing criminals—aye, even his traitors—frequently depend for the success of their careers upon this very failing in him. His huge and flatulent press reckons and speculates upon it; for how, indeed, could the average modern European read his morning, midday and evening papers if he possessed anything remotely resembling a memory? In fact, the whole of modern life is organised on the assumption that the memory of civilised man will not survive a few hours, not to mention a few days. Hence the sudden vogue of a system like that of Pelman, which undertakes to extend this period beyond its normal limits.

This would be all very well, and I, too, would gladly join in the general applause over such an important achievement of progress, were it not that modern man is so much inclined to take himself as the norm, as the pattern, that he strongly suspects of charlatanism or of bluff anyone who appears to have a memory that is capable of retaining impressions not only for months, but for years.

As for a memory which can last throughout several generations, for hundreds and hundreds of years, and still be accurate and historically reliable at the end of that long spell of time, civilised man simply scoffs at such a possibility; and rightly too, as far as he is concerned. Where his scoffing arrogance leads him astray, however, is at the point when he approaches the problems of ancient memory, and of the beliefs and legends which owe their survival to this more vigorous brand of the function in which he is so deplorably deficient. Then, with the same impudence with which, as we have seen, he condescends to enquire into the spiritual creations of mankind’s so-called “childhood,” he becomes pompously and obdurately incredulous. He knows nothing of the robust powers of retention that men possessed before they could print, and is even more ignorant of the inextinguishable memory that was theirs before they could even write.

Speaking of the customs of the Druids not to commit their sacred verses to writing, Julius Cæsar says: “And they do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing, although in almost all other matters, and in their public and private accounts, they make use of Greek letters. I believe that they have adopted this practice for two reasons—that they do not wish the rule to become common property, nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing and so neglect the cultivation of the memory.” And then Cæsar adds: “And, in fact, it does usually happen that the assistance of writing tends to relax the diligence of the student and the action of the memory.”[9]

Thus, according to Cæsar, who was as a rule a careful and accurate observer of his fellows, the ancient Druids not only knew the devastating effects of writing upon the memory, but also actually guarded against them.

Delitsch, Dillmann and Lenormant all believed that a basis of historical truth underlay the various traditional flood legends handed down for thousands of years by most ancient peoples; the anthropologist, A. H. Keane, has also pointed out how accurate was the “vague tradition” concerning the succession of the ages,—Copper, Bronze and Iron,—which survived amongst the ancients[10] down to historical times;[11] while Tylor has given innumerable amazing proofs of the general reliability of unwritten tradition among people not yet able to record their history except upon the tablets of memory,[12] and has also shown what a number of ethnographical truths lie concealed in old proverbs, folk-lore and songs.[13]

Two of the instances given by Tylor appear so extraordinary to the modern mind that I feel they must be reproduced here, even at the risk of postponing the discussion of the main theme, seeing that they are extremely helpful in supporting the point of view I am advancing.

“It is related by Mr. Whitmore the missionary,” says Tylor,[14] “that in the island of Rotuma [South Sea Islands], there was a very old tree under which, according to tradition, the stone seat of a famous chief had been buried; this was lately blown down, and sure enough, there was the stone seat under its roots, which must have been out of sight for centuries.”

And here is another instance of an historical fact having been handed down accurately without the assistance of written record, for hundreds of years:—

“In the Ellice group [South Sea Islands],” says Tylor,[15] “the natives declared that their ancestors came from a valley in the distant island of Samoa generations before, and they preserved an old worm-eaten staff, pieced to hold it together, which in their assemblies the orator held in his hand as the sign of having the right to speak; this staff was lately taken to Samoa, and proved to be made of wood that grew there, while the people of the valley in question had a tradition of a great party going out to sea exploring, who never came back.”

Now if savages of the South Sea Islands, who are presumably of a race inferior to that of the ancestors of European peoples, can be capable of such stupendous feats of accurate memory, what are we to expect of the ancient ancestors of the Indian, Persian and Greek peoples themselves?[16] Even among the civilised people of antiquity who had long possessed the art of writing, however, the survival of a remarkably vigorous memory in certain noted individuals helps us to form some idea of what their original endowment must have been before writing had begun to effect its deleterious results.

We are told, for instance, that Cyneas, who was sent by King Pyrrhus on an embassy to the Romans, learnt so perfectly in the course of one day the names of all those persons whom he had seen that on the following day he could name all the members of the Senate, and all the Romans who had assembled round them. It is also said that King Cyrus was able to name all the soldiers of his army, and L. Scipio all the citizens of Rome. Mithridates, the King of two-and-twenty nations, held courts in as many languages, and could converse with each nation in its own tongue without using an interpreter. Themistocles is said actually to have been oppressed by the strength and tenacity of his memory; and in the course of a year he learnt to speak Persic with perfect accuracy. Crassus, while governor of Asia, learnt the five Greek dialects so completely that he was able to give judgments in each. Hortensius, the Roman orator, is reported to have been able to deliver a whole oration in the words in which he had originally conceived it, without committing it to writing, and to go through all the arguments of an opponent in their proper order. It is alleged that he once attended a whole day at a public sale, and at the end of it recited in regular order the names of all the buyers, the articles sold, and their prices, with perfect exactitude. Finally, Seneca, in his youth, is believed to have been able to pronounce two thousand given words in their proper order, and having got a verse from each of his school-fellows, he repeated more than two hundred of them correctly. And many other instances could be given.

Whatever the truth may be regarding the feats of memory of which these individual ancients were capable, it seems fair to assume that the further one recedes from the age of printing, and the nearer one gets to the age when even writing was either an exceptional craft (like sculpture to-day), or else totally unknown, the more vigorous and more reliable is likely to be the memory of the people one encounters; for, seeing that so much of very great interest to men, no matter how small their social community, depends upon antecedent events, it may be regarded as most highly probable, even if we had not other good grounds for believing it, that where the power of recording these events, except in memory, does not exist, memory will be proportionately developed. If the reader doubts the alleged interest of antecedent events in the lives of every fresh generation of men in a people not possessed of the power of writing, let him for a moment think of the number of privileges and prerogatives that are secured by bygone happenings alone,—rights of property, rights of rank, titular rights, etc., all holders of which must be prepared, if need be, to produce some historical foundation for their claims, and while being most anxious to supply the necessary proofs, would only have memorised tradition to fall back upon in establishing their positions. To argue that such men would not be driven by the most powerful incentives to develop their memories, and to make them inordinately retentive and accurate, is deliberately to discount the extreme importance which may reasonably be attached to the issues depending upon tradition in such circumstances. It has been shown by a well-known anthropologist,—his name does not occur to me while I write,[17]—that the territorial claims of the ancient inhabitants of New Zealand, together with all the genealogical trees connected with them, were faithfully recorded by the memory of the people alone, and that when any dispute arose, it was settled by reference to these memorised traditions and family pedigrees. There was no other authority.

Bearing these considerations in mind, there can be little doubt that not only are we, a people that has long been in possession of the power of writing and printing, incapable except with great difficulty of imagining the full depth and force of the incentives which led ancient peoples to cultivate their memories, but we are also unfavourably constituted for grasping the power of the memories thus cultivated. It is in view of this that I think it right to insist upon an attitude of greater respect and more generous confidence in approaching the myths of antiquity, particularly those that have their first written record very early in the history of a people. It is unscientific for modern man to apply his own inadequate standards of a dwarfed memory, and probably of a shrunken intellect to boot, to the solution of the problems presented by these myths. He ought to assume from the start, not that myths and traditional legends are wild and irresponsible creations, or fantastic poetic flights, of an infantile human mind, comparable to the grotesque fancies of our babies of to-day (although the infantile mind, even of the modern child, does not create nearly such wild and fantastic notions as the modern adult fondly imagines); but that they most probably are records of actual occurrences, slightly coloured, it may be, by repeated reiteration, but substantially true, and having their basis in the feats or experiences of some notorious ancestor, or some extremely gifted stranger who greatly impressed the remote forebears of the race or people responsible for the myth.[18]

Such an attitude, I repeat, is only fair; because it discounts the degeneration that has occurred both in our own memories, and, I believe, our own intellects as well; and, what is even more important, forces us to regard every detail of the particular myth or legend with reverence, and therefore with an honest effort at understanding; instead of leaving us free, as at present, to reject and select as we please, and conveniently to leave out of account, as mythologians are wont to do, an essential portion of a fable, simply because it appears to be irrelevant to a sun, dawn, wind, or lightning interpretation, or because it is an awkward subject to discuss.

And this brings me to the fourth reason accounting for the determined silence on the part of mythologians respecting the apparently immoderate anger of Zeus in the Prometheus myth. I refer to the well-meaning kindness of endowing the mind of “childlike” man with a nice, clean, poetical and middle-class drawing-room tendency towards the personification and deification of natural phenomena. I agree with Herbert Spencer—who I think has satisfactorily disposed of this comforting school of mythology, and has shown the general unreliability of their conclusions—that the weight of the evidence is all on the side of ancestor-worship as the origin of myths, and not of the personification and deification of the wind, the sky, the sun, the moon and the dawn.

Consider the practice of cannibalism, for instance, mentioned in the very early Greek myths in connection with the first gods. Now imagine yourself possessed of a strange reluctance to believe anything so horrible as cannibalism of the ancestors of the noble Hellenes, and you will find distinct comfort from the thought that all these stories arose from the deification of the sun and the dawn. Let us suppose it possible to interpret the occurrence of cannibalism as follows:—The sun (deified) rises in the heavens to find the moon or the earth (both deified) surrounded by all her children (the stars deified). The stars disappear,—that is, they are eaten up by the sun;—but the moon sinks down behind the horizon to find a fresh brood of children with which to fight and defeat the sun on the following evening. Clearly this explanation, while satisfying your scruples against imputing so vile a practice as cannibalism to the remote ancestors of the noble Greeks, acquires quite unexpected plausibility from the fact that the very names occurring in the myth to be interpreted belong to the heavenly bodies or natural phenomena.

Now if cannibalism were an impossibility; if it had never been heard of; if it were totally unknown except among modern civilised peoples (who may be regarded as indirect cannibals, seeing that so long as undeserved deaths by starvation occur in modern civilised countries, the bodies of the industrious poor may rightly be said to have been absorbed by the rich), we should find ourselves compelled to adopt some such fanciful and pretty story as the one outlined above, to account for its occurrence among the ancient gods of the Greeks. But seeing that cannibalism still occurs among certain savage races, that on occasion the Eskimos of the present day are “driven to this terrible resort,”[19] and that in any case there are reasons for believing not only that it is more frequently practised because of the great palatableness of human flesh than because of religious motives, but also that human flesh should be the physiologically best food for men;[20] it is surely not difficult to believe that the remote ancestors of the Greeks indulged in this form of diet. Unless, therefore, you happen to be averse from imputing so grave a malpractice to the remote ancestors of your noble Hellenes, it seems more reasonable to attempt first of all an interpretation of the myth as a statement of fact, than as a poetical fancy as far-fetched as the one outlined above.

The school which favours the theory of the deification and personification of natural phenomena is ably and learnedly represented by Professor Max Müller, and, stated in his own terms, its attitude is as follows:—

“Most of the Greek, the Roman, the Indian, and all other heathen gods are nothing but poetical names, which were gradually allowed to assume a divine personality never contemplated by their original inventors. Eos was a name of the dawn before she became a goddess, the wife of Tithonus, or the dying day.... Zeus originally meant the bright heaven, in Sanscrit Dyaus; and many of the stories told of him as the supreme god, had a meaning only as told originally of the bright heaven, whose rays, like golden rain, descended on the lap of the earth, the Danaë of old, kept by her father in the dark prison of winter. No one doubts that Luna, for “losna,” originally “louxna,” was simply a name of the moon; but so was likewise Lucina. Hekate, too, was an old name of the moon, the feminine Hekatos and Hekatebolos, the far-darting sun; and Pyrrha, the Eve of the Greeks, was nothing but a name of the red earth, and in particular of Thessaly.”[21]

And again: “I look upon the sunrise and sunset, on the daily return of day and night, on the battle between light and darkness, on the whole solar drama in all its details, that is acted every day, every month, every year, in heaven and in earth, as the principal subject of early mythology. I consider that the very idea of divine powers sprang from the wonderment with which the forefathers of the Aryan family stared at the bright (deva) powers that came and went no one knew whence or whither, that never failed, never faded, never died, and were called immortal,—i.e., unfading,—as compared with the feeble and decaying race of man. I consider the regular recurrence of phenomena an almost indispensable condition of their being raised, through the charms of mythological phraseology, to the rank of immortals, and I give a proportionately small space to meteorological phenomena, such as clouds, thunder and lightning, which, although causing for a time a violent commotion in nature and in the heart of man, would not be ranked together with the immortal beings, but would rather be classed either as their subjects or their enemies.”[22]

Thus most mythological accounts of the divine powers are, according to Professor Max Müller, either solar myths or dawn myths; but while the monotony of this form of interpretation is frankly admitted by the learned Professor himself,[23] this, it strikes me, would constitute no fatal objection to the method, if a more human, more natural, and more universally applicable myth-genesis were not already to hand.

Other mythologians, such as Professors Kuhn and Schwartz, proceed very much in the same way; but instead of laying the bulk of the burden of origin on the sun and the dawn, they enlist the assistance of meteorological phenomena.

Against this attitude towards ancient myths, Herbert Spencer, whom I follow in these pages, devotes several chapters of his Principles of Sociology; and with his customary lucidity and masterly command of facts, satisfactorily, I believe, disposes of it.[24]

He feels a certain difficulty, shared, I confess, by myself, in believing that men could thus personalise “transitory appearances as unlike humanity as can be conceived,” and regards the points of resemblance between certain performances of the heavenly bodies and those of certain legendary human beings as a projection into nature of personal, i.e., ancestral doings, through the coincidence in names.

Thus, a certain ancestor, or distinguished neighbour, or strange visitor, or conqueror,[25] let us suppose, of a race of hunters, receives at birth, or later, the name of “Sun.” There is no reason why he should not receive such a name. We speak even to-day of “sunny countenances,” “cloudy looks,” etc. A child born when the sun was high in the heavens, might easily for want of a better name be called “Sun.” In later life he shows remarkable powers either of speed, accuracy of aim, inventiveness, virile procreativeness, strength, wisdom, or what not, so that he quickly becomes an important member of the race, vividly remembered both by the men and the women. At his death he is wildly lamented. It is sought to reincarnate his spirit by offering his dead remains freshly shed blood, either of animal or human victims. He becomes the subject of magnificats, the object of sacrifices, the highest appeal in cases of racial traditional authority for certain observances, modes of action, manner of dress. In time, through a confusion of the two names, his qualities are transferred to the sun, and the sun’s qualities to him. But it is his personal peculiarities that stamp the myth concerning him with its indelible identity, and it is human powers that are glorified in his memory.

It is impossible here to reproduce even in a condensed form the elaborate arguments which Spencer advances against the mythologians of the Max Müller school, and in support of the origin of myths outlined above; I can but recommend the reader, who questions the wisdom of my adoption of the Spencerian theory of interpretation, to consult his treatise on the subject, which I have mentioned only to indicate and justify the lines upon which I myself propose to discuss the myth of Prometheus.

Assuming, as I believe with good reason, that all religions, all deities, and all kinds of worship, have arisen from the glorification of certain ancestors and their achievements (including their most unpleasant deeds), Herbert Spencer comes much nearer than the Max Müller class of theologian to a respectful attitude towards the traditional myths of antiquity, while at the same time, he clears away most of the glaring perplexities which otherwise have to remain unravelled, if we trace the origin of the myths to deified natural phenomena. For instance, according to the Spencerian mode of interpretation it is not improbable that Cronus did mutilate Uranus in the manner related in the myth; but how can the son of the sky be understood as mutilating the sky in this manner? Also, according to the Spencerian theory, and according to the latest anthropological research, it is not improbable that the ancestors of the Greeks did pass through a stage of cannibalism and incest; but how can we reasonably or even unreasonably evolve incest out of the observed relationship of heavenly bodies?

Max Müller, holding, as he did, the sun-myth and dawn-myth theory, was naturally compelled, in order to explain all these unsavoury details about the gods, to speak of the “disease” that overtakes all religious ideas,[26] and also felt it necessary to apologise for the deities of Homer and their peculiar practices. He writes: “The gods of Homer, though, in their mythological aspect, represented as weak, easily deceived, and led astray by the lowest passions, are nevertheless, in the more reverent language of religion, endowed with nearly all the qualities which we claim for a divine and perfect Being.”[27] Thereupon he proceeds to quote from the Odyssey to substantiate his view.

But this apology from Max Müller is in itself the best acknowledgment that his interpretation cannot satisfactorily place all the facts; for there is no such need for apologies or for emphasising the “disease that overtakes religious ideas,” if one knows one is dealing with the recorded actions of human beings quite well able to behave not only unsavourily, but even inhumanly in certain circumstances.

After showing that the religion of the Fijians was the outcome of the glorification of certain exceptional individuals who had existed from time to time among them, Herbert Spencer proceeds:—

“Beyond all doubt the Fijian pantheon has arisen by that apotheosis of men which was still going on when travellers went among them: and if we say that by the Greeks, who also apotheosised men, a pantheon was generated in like manner, the interpretation is consistent. We are forbidden to suppose this, however. These Greek gods, with their human structures, dispositions, acts, histories, resulted from the personalisation of natural objects and powers. So that, marvellous to relate, identical conceptions have been produced by diametrically opposite processes.”[28]

Whereupon Spencer concludes: “And so the universality of anthropomorphism has the sufficient cause that divine man as conceived, had everywhere for antecedent a powerful man as perceived.[29]... There is no exception then. Using the phrase ancestor-worship in its broadest sense as comprehending all worship of the dead, be they of the same blood or not, we conclude that ancestor-worship is the root of every religion.”[30]

The satisfactory nature of this position becomes at once apparent, whether we contemplate the Greek theogony, the Christian theogony, or the theogony of the Hindus. Such attributes as Jealousy (ascribed to the Christian god), Lechery (ascribed to the Greek gods), Vanity and Pride (ascribed to the Hindu gods, though not exclusively to them), become comprehensible when it is remembered that these gods are glorifications of once existing ancestors of the race; they are incomprehensible nonsense when applied to omniscient and almighty gods derived from the deification of the forces of nature. In addition, therefore, to the purely human misdemeanours, such as rape, incest, emasculation, etc., which are best explained by the Spencerian theory, the moral attributes of the gods are more easily derived from human than from natural origins. The Spencerian position, moreover, as I have already hinted above, leads to a more respectful attitude towards the incidental details of each particular myth, than does the other theory; for instead of these theories constituting minor characteristics and vagaries, more or less negligible, of irresponsible clouds, storms and stars; according to the Spencerian method, they represent the traditional record of the actual idiosyncrasies and performances of particular individuals who once belonged to the race in which the myth was found. Mythology, in this way, acquires a much deeper meaning, and a much more general interest. It almost becomes Anthropology;—indeed, if we make allowances for the inevitable distortion which must result from constant repetition, even admitting a phenomenally accurate memory in the narrators (for we must allow for the artistic element of over-emphasis), it is anthropology pure and simple.

It is in the attitude of mind derived from these considerations,—that is to say, (1) with a feeling far from favourable for Prometheus, (2) with a spirit of uncustomary respect for the traditional myths of antiquity, (3) with a consciousness of the immense vigour and general accuracy of ancient man’s memory and intellect, and (4) with a firm belief that the origin of ancient mythology is to be found in the worship of the dead, and that therefore all mythology is largely concealed anthropology,—that I now propose to approach the legend of Prometheus.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] That is to say, it might further elucidate the reason already adduced by Hesiod to explain this. See Works and Days, 50.

[3] See Rev. xii. 9.

[4] See Jude 6.

[5] Shelley was conscious of the comparison that could be drawn between Satan and Prometheus. See his Preface to the Prometheus Unbound: “The only imaginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus is Satan, and Prometheus is in my judgment a more poetical character than Satan, because in addition to courage and majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandisement.” It will be seen that this view of Shelley’s is as shallow as that of the scholars.

[6] It should be remembered that Socrates, the inveterate moralist and Puritan, was also shocked by the details of the Cronus myth, and could not believe that a god Cronus mutilated his father Uranus. Socrates seems evidently to have set the tone in this matter as in many others in modern Europe. See Plato, Euthyphron.

[7] Anthropology of the Classics, p. 84.

[8] The reader is, however, recommended for his own amusement to glance at the “alleged” interpretation of this myth offered by Sir James Frazer, or the gentleman who shares with him the responsibility for the article Saturn (Saturnus) in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It must be admitted that Mr. Andrew Lang’s interpretation, which is hinted at by Sir James Frazer, or his colleague, is not satisfactory either. It omits to explain the mutilation, and Mr. Andrew Lang does not conceal the fact that he regards this part of the myth as too abominable to be referred to except with hasty perfunctoriness. See Custom and Myth, particularly p. 59. However, Mr. Andrew Lang does us a great service in showing us in his chapter on the Cronus myth the hopeless disagreement between such scholars as Max Müller, Kuhn, Brown, Preller, Hartung, etc. regarding the etymology of the word Cronus, and therefore regarding the etymological source of the myth. See pp. 57–63.

[9] De Bello Gallico, vi., 14.

[10] Man Past and Present, pp. 16, 17.

[11] See for instance Hesiod, Works and Days, 110–178.

[12] Primitive Culture, vol. i., chap. iii.

[13] Ibid., pp. 83–85, and also Anthropology, p. 375.

[14] Anthropology, p. 374.

[15] Anthropology, p. 374. For some further remarkable instances of an accurate memory of events that happened centuries before in the history of a race, see W. Ridgway, M.A., The Early Age of Greece (London, 1901), pp. 127–151. Prof. Ridgway mentions one case in which an accurate record of an event was kept by tradition for 800 years.

[16] See C. O. Müller’s Introduction to a Scientific System of Mythology, chap. ii., for some interesting instances of remote historical facts being retained in Greek myths. For historical fact unwittingly concealed in Homer, see Appendix I. in the above.

[17] Quatrefages, I believe.

[18] Can anyone really suppose that it is only by chance, only by a trick of fancy such as may occur in the elaboration of a fairy-tale that the Muses who “celebrate in song first of all the reverend race of the gods from the beginning, those whom Earth and wide Heaven begot, and the gods sprung of these, givers of good things.... And again ... chant the race of men and strong giants ... [and] sing the laws of all and the goodly ways of the immortals,”—can anyone really suppose, I say, that it is merely by chance that the Muses are said to have been the daughters of Mnemosyne (Memory)? See Hesiod, Theogony, 43–67.

[19] Sollas, Ancient Hunters, p. 146.

[20] Sollas, ibid., p. 145: “It is asserted on the evidence of some recent experiments that human flesh should be the physiologically best food for men.”

[21] See Lectures on the Science of Language, vol. i., pp. 12, 13.

[22] Max Müller, op. cit., vol. ii., pp. 565–566.

[23] Max Müller, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 548.

[24] See particularly Principles of Sociology, 3rd ed., vol. i., pp. 363–384.

[25] It is important to notice here that Herbert Spencer advances many cogent arguments and produces much convincing evidence to show that, in cases where the difference between the distinguished neighbour or neighbours, strange visitor or visitors, conqueror or conquerors of a given race, and that race, is sufficiently great to make the former appear very much more exalted than the latter, the superior are immediately deified, or regarded as gods by the inferior race. See Principles of Sociology, 3rd ed., vol. i., pp. 396–398:—“The immigrant member of a superior race,” says Spencer, “becomes a god among an inferior race.... It is said by Bushmen, ‘Those white men are children of God; they know everything.’ The East African exclaims: ‘Truly ye are gods,’ and Europeans are thus spoken of in the Congo.... When Thompson and Moffat wished to see a religious ceremony peculiar to the Bechuana women, the women said: ‘These are gods, let them walk in....’ When the Spaniards went to Mexico the Mexicans exclaimed that their god Quetzalcoatl had come back with his companions.” There is a good deal more evidence on these pages which I omit. “With such evidence before us,” says Herbert Spencer (p. 400), “what shall we think about the ‘gods and men’ who figure in the legends of higher races?... We shall conclude that these ‘gods and men’ were simply conquering and conquered races: all mythological interpretations notwithstanding.” I must remind the reader here that all conquest is not “bloody” conquest. For instance, it is said that the Incas of Peru conquered without the sword. This is also said of the Chinese invasion of the territory now called the Middle Kingdom.

[26] Op. cit., vol. ii., p. 455.

[27] Op. cit., vol. ii., p. 459.

[28] Op. cit., vol. i., p. 403.

[29] Op. cit., p. 409.

[30] Op. cit., p. 411.

CHAPTER I

PROMETHEUS, THE MYTHICAL HERO

The story of the Titan Prometheus and his doings are perhaps too familiar to be repeated here. As, however, a detailed discussion of the myth connected with his name is to constitute the burden of this essay, I must at the risk of wearying the reader, repeat it in this chapter, at least in outline. For this purpose I shall give the commonly accepted account of the myth, following more or less closely the oldest version which is to be found in Hesiod, and for the 5th division of the myth, drawing upon Æschylus. I shall classify the myth into five divisions in order to facilitate future reference.

1. Genealogy and General Family Relations.—By the marriage of Uranus, the god of the sky, with Ge, mother earth, there were procreated among others, Cronus, the father of Zeus, the ultimate head of the Greek Pantheon, and Iapetus, the father of Prometheus. Thus Prometheus is the grandson of Uranus and the first cousin of Zeus. (These questions of relationship will prove more important subsequently.) Prometheus is, moreover, the brother of Atlas, Menœtius and Epimetheus. His name signifies “Forethought,” and he was traditionally believed to have surpassed mankind in cunning and fraud. He is variously reported to have had as wife either Pandora, Hesione, Axiothea, or Asia. He probably married all four. The fact that his brother Epimetheus had previously married Pandora would have presented no obstacle to his also doing so, particularly in his time.

2. Life and Works.—Once in the reign of Zeus, when gods and men were disputing with one another at Mecone, Prometheus, with the object of deceiving Zeus, cut up a bull and divided it into two parts; he wrapped up the best parts and the intestines in the skin, and at the top he placed the stomach, one of the worst parts; while the second heap consisted of the bones covered with fat. When Zeus pointed out to him how badly he had made the division, Prometheus desired him to choose, but Zeus, in his anger, and seeing through the stratagem of Prometheus, chose the heap of bones covered with the fat. The father of the gods then avenged himself by withholding fire from the mortals.

3. Life and Works continued.—It was then that Prometheus stole fire from the gods in a hollow tube. But it was traditional among the Greeks to regard Prometheus as something more than the god who had stolen fire and given it to man. He was to them the original founder of their civilisation. It was he who had taught them architecture, astronomy, mathematics, the art of writing, the treatment of domestic animals, navigation, medicine, the art of prophesy, working in metals, and all the other arts.

These additional achievements of his, while apparently of no importance to the fire-myth, or sun-myth, or lightning-myth, interpretation of his life, are essential to the interpretation I propose to offer, and that is why I must give them a prominent place here. Völcker actually regards them as the fundamental feature of the whole myth.[31]

Perhaps the best account of this aspect of the myth is placed in the mouth of Prometheus himself in the Prometheus Bound of Æschylus, where the hero is made to speak as follows:—

“... The miseries of men

I will recount to you, how, mere babes before

With reason I endowed them and with mind; ...

Who, firstly seeing, knew not what they saw,

And hearing, did not hear; confusedly passed

Their life-days, lingeringly, like shapes in dreams,

Without an aim; and neither sunward homes,

Brick-woven, nor skill of carpentry, they knew;

But lived, like small ants shaken with a breath,

In sunless caves a burrowing, buried life: ...

More is behind, more wonderful to hear:

Skill and resource, contrived by me for men.

This first and foremost: did a man fall sick,

Deliverance was there none, or ’twixt the teeth,

Or smeared, or drunken; but for very lack

Of healing drugs they wasted, till that I

Showed them to mix each virtuous remedy,

Wherewith they shield them now from all disease....

And ’neath the earth beside

The hidden treasure for the use of man,

Of brass and iron, silver and precious gold,

What one can boast he found ere I could find?

No one, I wis, who would not idly babble.

Nay, take the whole truth briefly, in a word,

All skill that mortals have, Prometheus gave.”[32]

4. The Anger of Zeus, Part I.—In order to punish men (apparently for having been the receivers of Prometheus’s theft) Zeus bade Hephæstos to mould a virgin, Pandora, of earth, whom Athena adorned with all the charms calculated to entice mortals. Prometheus had cautioned his brother Epimetheus (whose name, by-the-by means Afterthought) against accepting any gift from Zeus, but Epimetheus, heeding not his advice, accepted Pandora. Pandora then lifted the lid of the vessel in which the foresight of Prometheus had concealed all the evils which might torment mortals in life, and diseases and suffering of every kind now issued forth, deceitful Hope alone remaining behind.

5. The Anger of Zeus, Part II.—Prometheus himself was chained to a rock in Scythia, in the presence of Might and Force (Cratos and Bia), two ministers of Zeus; whereupon, for refusing to reveal a certain secret to Zeus, he was hurled with the rock into Tartarus. After a long lapse of time, Prometheus returned to the upper world to endure a fresh course of suffering; for he was now fastened to Mount Caucasus, and tormented by an eagle every day devouring his liver which was restored in the night. The fact that Prometheus is ultimately released from this excruciating torment by Heracles, who, with the consent of Zeus, kills the eagle, though it will concern us ultimately, is at present only mentioned as forming an end to the story.

Now here we have a most complicated story, purporting to explain one of the greatest, if not the greatest of man’s discoveries. Obviously it has a deep historical interest, and if in the main true, ought to shed a considerable amount of light on the remotest past of humanity. It is a story full of curious detail, repeated by Hesiod, particularly in regard to the meeting of gods and men at Mecone, with an obvious effort to be faithful to traditional hearsay, and yet to produce what appears to be a connected and logical narrative. This was no doubt difficult. Tradition handed down numerous apparently unconnected particulars about the figure of the hero; we must suppose that the connecting stories were either forgotten, as being less vital, or were not repeated to Hesiod; but he certainly appears to jump from one portion to another of the fable as if he were more intent on fidelity to tradition than on proving either that he understood the whole myth, or that he heard it as a consecutive and logical account.

The difficulty of explaining this myth purely as a sun-myth consists chiefly in accounting for these apparently unconnected details which Hesiod faithfully records without comment: the meeting at Mecone, the gift of Pandora, the concealing of fire, then the stealing of it. The details of the Mecone assembly, the chaining of Prometheus to a certain spot where an eagle consumed his liver,—the more these features are examined, the more intricate does the problem appear. Besides, there are certain moral attributes, such as cunning and craft, ascribed to the hero, which are so human and so persistently repeated, that they appear to cling to Prometheus, as essential characteristics identifying him, quite apart from the rôle he plays. In fact his whole figure seems to live independently of the myth, and to disengage itself from it, in a manner hard to reconcile with the belief that he was created from a natural phenomenon to explain a certain earthly phenomenon. Other events of his life, which it did not seem necessary to enter into for the purposes of this treatise, show him to be a turncoat and a traitor. In the Theogony, even before his tricks are disclosed, Hesiod refers to him as a matter of course as “clever Prometheus, full of various wiles,”[33] and Zeus would scarcely have been reported to say to him at Mecone, after the performance of what in the narrative is the first act of deception, “So, sir, you have not forgotten your cunning arts,”[34] if a previous history of fraud and artfulness had not been known against him.

It is difficult to understand, moreover, how the sun-myth mode of interpretation can find as satisfactory a place for the Pandora incident and the box of evils, as the Spencerian interpretation can; and, seeing in any case that the discovery of fire by primitive man is obviously an anthropological question of primary importance, and that whenever the event occurred it must have created such a complete revolution in human life as to stamp itself indelibly upon the memory of primitive man, we are almost compelled, apart from the reasons already adduced in the Introduction, at least to attempt an interpretation, or rather a substantiation of the truthful elements of the myth on anthropological lines.[35]

If we regard Prometheus merely as a deified sunbeam or stroke of lightning, we can obviously dispense with more than three-quarters of the hero’s life story as a negligible but pretty fairy-tale. If, on the other hand, we regard Prometheus as a remote ancestor of the ancient Greeks, who lived in their memories because of his stupendous deed, then every detail about him is pertinent, even his relationship of first-cousin to Zeus.

E. E. Sikes and Wynne Willson, in their introduction to the Prometheus of Æschylus, express the view that “the myth of the Fire Stealer, like the myth concerning Uranus and Cronus, and many other puerile or repulsive stories, belongs to the very oldest stratum of Greek mythology.”[36] They must be forgiven the epithets “puerile” and “repulsive,” because apart from the fact that we have grown used to this sort of fatuous deprecation of important anthropological data by accredited classical scholars, the information they give is useful. It is, however, only what might have been expected. As will be seen later on, the discovery of the means for producing fire must have taken place thousands of years before Hesiod wrote his Works and Days; it is not at all surprising, therefore, to find that the Prometheus myth belongs to the “very oldest stratum of Greek mythology.” Dr. Völcker adds to this information by asserting that all understanding of the true meaning of the myth was forgotten from the time of Homer and Hesiod onwards.[37] Thus we are to assume that this extraordinary story was accepted on trust, without understanding, by the whole of the Greek people, from about the eighth century B.C. This fact, if it be a fact, throws an interesting light upon the religious humility of the ancient Hellenes.

Before attempting on Spencerian and anthropological lines a reconstruction of what probably happened to give rise to the Prometheus tradition, it will be necessary to dwell on certain aspects of it, which, with the exception of Professor J. S. Blackie, seem to have escaped the modern mythologian.

Next the actual discovery, or rather theft, of fire, the most striking feature of the myth, is that Prometheus, after behaving seemingly like a self-sacrificing hero and conferring an apparently inestimable and lasting benefit upon mankind, suffers for this act of incalculable friendliness to the human race countless centuries of the most excruciating torture that the imagination can conceive. Why is this? Has anyone offered a satisfactory explanation?—Nobody; not even Professor Blackie himself.

Professor Blackie exclaims: “Chained to a rock in wintry Scythia for a crime that appears no crime!”[38]—Just so!

He then proceeds to tell us that so deeply have some people been impressed by the heroism of Prometheus that they have compared him to Christ.[39] I can well understand it. If people will persist in taking just those portions of an ancient myth that strike them as most pleasant and romantic, and ignore the rest, it is not surprising that such misconceptions should arise. The wonder would be for any truth to be discovered by such methods. But I maintain that if the whole myth is approached reverently and modestly—I mean by “modestly,” free from the habitual stupid arrogance of the modern mind—not only will the serious truth underlying it most certainly come to light, but also the absurdity of these extravagant and odious comparisons For, strange as it may seem, the scholars are no worse in this respect than the poets, who though usually successful in arriving at the truth by a sudden flash of divine insight, in regard to the figure of Prometheus have shown themselves exceptionally obtuse. Let us refer to the best of them.

Byron, we are told, was a worshipper of Prometheus as a boy! He writes in one of his letters: “The Prometheus, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or anything that I have written.”[40] In his poem Prometheus, he makes his hero exclaim:—

“My Godlike crime was to be kind,

To render with thy precepts less

The sum of human wretchedness.”[41]

He conceives Prometheus to have been a martyr wantonly tortured by a godhead that cannot kill him, but

“Which for its pleasure doth create[42]

The things it may annihilate.”

It is Byron in his worst vein, Byron showing no penetration, but only full-throated, almost lachrymose sentimentality. It shows not even the beginnings of an understanding of the myth. Shelley takes the same schoolboy view of the Greek Titan. In fact, if we can think of Byron and Shelley as referring to Prometheus in the same language, we can imagine their both calling him “a good sportsman” in the accepted schoolboy sense. Goethe is indeed a little more profound; but while he emphasises what he believes to be the atheistic trait in Prometheus, he also entirely leaves out of account the Greek view both of Prometheus and Zeus. Thus Goethe makes Prometheus address his distinguished cousin as follows:—

“I know nothing more pitiablea

Under the sun than ye gods!a

Ye feed your majestya

Most miserablya

By means of sacrificesa

And votive prayers;

Ye would e’en starve,

If children and beggars

Were not trusting fools....

I honour thee, and why?...

Here sit I, shaping mena

After my image;

A race resembling me.

To suffer, to weep,

To enjoy, to be glad,

And thee to scorn,

As I!”[43]

This is all very well, and it sounds magnificent and virile enough; as I have already pointed out above, it is a little more profound than Byron’s or Shelley’s view; but Goethe, like his fellow-bards, fails utterly to grasp the Greek attitude towards the Promethean character. So to imagine for one moment that either Goethe, Byron or Shelley,[44] show in their conception of Prometheus even the remotest resemblance to the ancient Hellenic view of the myth would be utterly and hopelessly wrong. It may be argued that Æschylus himself is answerable for these misconceptions, and that in his Prometheus Bound he rather gives the impression of a blameless hero, indignant in his innocence at his chastisement by the arch-oppressor Zeus. But, as Professor Blackie pertinently observes: “If, according [to this view], Prometheus appears as the most oppressed of martyrs, and Zeus as the most unjust of tyrants, the question arises how an Athenian audience, proverbially remarkable for δεισιδαιμονία at a solemn religious festival on the public stage, could tolerate such a representation?”[45]

This question is remarkably to the point. But somehow it never seems to have occurred either to the majority of the scholars or the best of the poets. It is so much to the point, indeed, that it starts out as the one bright ray of light from all the mass of dull and learned dissertations on this subject.

Of course, if Zeus had meant no more to the Greeks than he means to our modern scholars and poets, we can well conceive of the ancient Hellenes enjoying, as much as our present day Hellenists seem to enjoy, a drama in which Prometheus appears as an ill-used hero and martyr, defying, despite his agony, the cruel, despotic, but almighty villain Zeus. But unfortunately for our modern Hellenists, the truth is exactly the reverse of this. The Greeks loved and revered Zeus very much more than they loved and revered Prometheus,—very much more indeed, as a community, than modern society loves and admires the putative father of Christ. Does not Hesiod speak of Zeus as “the most excellent among the gods,”[46] as the “wise Zeus,”[47] as the “father” who “distributed fairly to the immortals their portions and declared their privileges,”[48] etc., etc.? Max Müller has been careful to collect a good deal of evidence showing the attitude of profound reverence and love with which the ancient Greek confronted his supreme deity, Zeus;[49] and Sikes and Wynne Willson assure us that “although Prometheus had due honour in myth, he won little recognition in cult.”[50] If then Æschylus’s Prometheus Bound had meant to the ancient Athenians all that it means to some cultivated modern Europeans, we cannot conceive of the former having tolerated it for one instant.

We must therefore conclude that the punishment of Prometheus, cruel as it was, appeared just and well-deserved to the ancient Greek mind.—And why?

In the first place, because of the infinite trust the ancient Greek had in the wisdom and justice of Zeus.

Secondly, because from Hesiod he had learnt of the career of crime imputed to Prometheus, in which Zeus figures not only as an outraged god, but also as a benevolent power who ultimately pardons the deceiver (which is more than the Christian god ever does for the mutinous angel he cast into eternal fire).[51]

And thirdly, because while in the Prometheus Bound of Æschylus we have only one section of a trilogy—one section which admittedly gives only one point of view and that very forcibly—the Greeks not only knew but must frequently have witnessed the whole. How do we know what the other parts of the trilogy contained, what balance they struck between the two principal figures of the myth—Zeus and Prometheus—and how much they modified the impression made by the Prometheus Bound? Is it not possible that if we possessed the whole, on the showing of Æschylus alone, quite apart from Hesiod’s story, we should regard the relationship of Zeus to Prometheus very differently?

Thus Professor Blackie, with exceptional and laudable insight, concludes: “The general impression of the tyrannical character of Jove is the mere offspring of modern partial conceptions, formed in the total disregard both of Hesiod and of the Trilogy.”[52]

This settles the question so satisfactorily that it appears as if there were little to add. How about Völcker’s observation, however, that the true meaning of the myth had been forgotten? In this true meaning, if we can find it, it is possible that we may discover yet another justification for the meek acquiescence of the ancient Greek in the conduct of Zeus. For, although we are told that the Greeks, from Homer and Hesiod onwards, did not know the true meaning of the myth, the indignation of Zeus may have appeared so amply justified in the light of the true meaning, at the time when it was known, that this very justification, full and complete as it was, may have come down as an essential part of the myth itself with the force of a blind and yet powerful higher sanction for the anger of Zeus, and placed the rectitude of this anger by tradition beyond question.

If this were so, and I believe there are very cogent reasons indeed for believing it, there would be yet a fourth explanation of the ancient Greek’s cheerful and reverential acceptance of the part Zeus played in the myth; though this fourth explanation might well be included under the first reason, which I give as being the infinite trust of the ancient Greek in the wisdom and justice of Zeus, which in any case was also a matter of pure tradition.

Summing up, then, we have seen that there is no warrant whatsoever for assuming either that Prometheus suffered an injustice, or that Zeus acted in any way calculated to forfeit either the love or the reverence with which the ancient Greeks regarded him. To suppose this, as hundreds of scholars and many poets have done, is to be guilty not only of a misunderstanding of the deep religious character of the Greeks, but also of a deliberate neglect of certain documents, some of which appear in the case, others of which existed in the past, but as to the nature of whose contents we can now only make a shrewd guess. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the character of the Greeks, this guess points in a direction very different from that in which Goethe, Byron, Shelley, and the majority of scholars about them, have persisted in looking.

Finally, seeing that according to no less an authority than Völcker, the true meaning of the myth appears to have been forgotten by the Greeks from Homer and Hesiod onwards, I suggest that in its true meaning perhaps lies the greatest justification of Zeus, and that this greatest justification came down without details (merely as a traditional higher sanction for his conduct) with the myth itself, and constituted part of the essential atmosphere surrounding it, or an essential part of the spirit animating it.

It is this “forgotten” reason with which I am chiefly concerned in this essay. But in this matter I shall tread what I believe to be absolutely virgin soil; I shall wander utterly alone, I shall leave even that enlightened scholar Professor Blackie far behind me. Only Völcker and C. O. Müller will accompany me part of my way, and then, wishing them also good-bye, I shall, with my new discovery, run the gauntlet of the critics, and of those men who no wiser than your Drs. Petiscus and your Shelleys could not even see so far as correctly to master the actual documents in the case.

Before I take my journey alone I must, however, first clear the ground still further, by replying to what I have described in my Preface as “the most learned, the most ingenious, and certainly the most daring of all the explanations” hitherto offered about the Prometheus myth—the work of Dr. Kuhn. I say that, at all costs, this explanation must be rejected, because it deliberately discards parts of the story. If there is anything in all I have maintained in my Introduction, surely this would be as good a reason as any. But I believe there are speedier methods than mere analysis, point by point, of all Dr. Kuhn’s arguments, of ridding ourselves of his erudite sophistry. And for this speedier method of slaughter I am indebted to Mr. Andrew Lang, whose weapons I shall now proceed to borrow if only for the sake of brevity.

Briefly Dr. Kuhn’s thesis is more or less as follows:—

The Greeks were wrong in deriving Prometheus from προμηθής, provident, and connecting it with such other words as προμηθοῦμαι, προμήθεια. Prometheus is really a Greek form of pramantha (Skt.), the fire-stick of the Hindus, with which they kindle fire by means of friction. Pramantha, however, is also suggestive of robbing. The robbery of fire was called pramātha, pramathyu-s is he who loves boring or robbery, a borer or robber. From the latter word, according to the peculiarities of Greek phonology, is formed Προμηθεύ-ς, Prometheus.[53] Thus Prometheus is simply a fire-god. It is impossible to reproduce the elaborate arguments, etymological and mythological, advanced in support of this theory. Suffice it to say that it alleges that the Greeks, having forgotten the meaning of words, allowed the compound pramathnāmi to acquire the meaning of robbing, hence the idea that Matariçvan robbed fire from the gods, and the Greeks are supposed to have derived their fire-stealer myth from this Indian source.

Now it seems to me there is one fatal objection to this interpretation, and Mr. Andrew Lang raises it. He points out that the Thlinkuts, Ahts, Andaman Islanders, Australians, Maoris, South Sea Islanders, Cahroes and others all believe that fire was originally stolen, and then he proceeds: “Is it credible that, in all their languages, the name of the fire-stick should have caused a confusion of thought which ultimately led to the belief that fire was obtained originally by larceny? If such a coincidence appears incredible, we may doubt whether the belief that is common to Greeks and Cahroes and Ahts was produced in Greek minds by an etymological confusion, in Australia, America and so forth by some other cause.”[54]

I really think that, quite apart from the origin of the notion of fire-stealing as further explained by Mr. Andrew Lang, this objection, as it stands, is fatal to Dr. Kuhn’s theory, particularly as, according to Mr. Andrew Lang’s showing elsewhere, “contradictions [as between high authorities] are, unfortunately, rather the rule than the exception in the etymological interpretation of myths.”[55]

When one bears in mind that scholars no less eminent than Kuhn, Max Müller, Preller, Brown, etc., entirely disagree in regard to the etymology of the name Cronus, and consequently in regard to the meaning of the myth, one feels inclined, with Herbert Spencer, to refrain from relying too confidently upon this method of interpretation.[56]

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Die Mythologie des Japetischen Geschlechts oder der Sündenfall der Menschen nach Griechischen Mythen (Giessen, 1824), p. 32: “Diese Eigenschaft des Prometheus, dass er Künstler und Entwilderer ist, macht den Grundzug und die Grundlage des Mythus, und in allen Wendungen der Sage tritt dieser Zug wieder hervor.”

[32] Translation by Robert Whitelaw, Oxford, 1907, 456–519.

[33] 510–511.

[34] 559–560.

[35] For the emphatic view of distinguished anthropologists on the extreme importance of the discovery of fire to primitive man, see W. J. Sollas, Ancient Hunters, pp. 97–98; O. Peschel, Völkerkunde, V. Aufl., 1875, p. 144; while Robert Munro in Prehistoric Problems (London, 1897), p. 102, writes: “The art of fire-making had a greater influence on human civilisation than the modern discovery of electricity.”

[36] The Prometheus Vinctus of Æschylus (London, 1898), p. xv.

[37] Op. cit., p. 41.

[38] Classical Museum, vol. v., No. I., p. 2.

[39] Ibid., p. 9.

[40] Letters, 1900, iv., p. 174, October 12th, 1817.

[41] Third stanza.

[42] Second stanza.

[43] The translation is from E. A. Bowring’s English rendering of Goethe’s poems (London, 1880), pp. 181–182; but I have taken a slight liberty with the Bowring version, as in the lines marked thusa, I do not think Bowring’s words give a good impression of the original.

[44] Shelley so far misunderstood the Greek conception of the myth as to speak of Zeus as the “successful and perfidious” adversary of Prometheus! Such “interpretation,” if it may be so called, reflects little credit upon the insight of the man who is responsible for it. See his Preface to Prometheus Unbound.

[45] Classical Museum, vol. v. (i.), p. 15.

[46] See Theogony, 48–49.

[47] Ibid., 56.

[48] Ibid., 73–74. See also Homer, Od. xiv. 83, and Il. ix. 49. See also the reverent manner in which Euthyphron is made to refer to Zeus when addressing Socrates. And this was probably typical of the cultivated Greek of the period. “For all men believe,” says Euthyphron, “that Zeus is the best and most just of the gods,” Plato, Euthyphron.

[49] Op. cit., chap. x.

[50] Op. cit., p. xix.

[51] See Classical Museum, vol. v. (i.), p. 34.

[52] Op. cit., p. 40. The italics in the quotation are my own, A. M. L. F. G. Welcker also faces the problem of Zeus and Prometheus, and admits that it presents a great difficulty. His discussion on the subject, however, is not nearly as useful as Professor Blackie’s. See Die Aeschylische Trilogie “Prometheus,” pp. 90–111.

[53] See Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., article “Prometheus.”

[54] Encyclopædia Britannica, article “Prometheus.”

[55] Custom and Myth, p. 57.

[56] Roscher also refutes Kuhn’s theory of the fire-stick origin of the Promethean myth. But he proceeds somewhat differently. See Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, pp. 3033–3034.

CHAPTER II

PROMETHEUS THE MAN

I shall now attempt on Spencerian and anthropological lines, an interpretation of the Fire-Stealer myth of the Greeks, and shall accordingly assume that, not only Prometheus himself, but also Zeus, and the other gods of Olympus, were ancestors of the ancient Greeks—powerful ancestors—who became perpetuated in the memory of their descendants, owing to the brilliance of their deeds, the great wisdom of their rule, and the beauty of their bodies and their lives.

By way of experiment I shall proceed in my interpretation, as if all the details of the myth were material to the understanding of its secret, and on the assumption that, although all the truth is not contained in the traditional account of the myth, all the traditional account of the myth is true. It will be interesting to see whether, on this plan, I arrive at an explanation of the mystery, at once more intelligible, more probable, and more consonant with recognised anthropological data, than by the method which believes from the start that the whole body of the story is a poetic, pleasant, but empty fairy-tale. I think the experiment worth trying.

1.[57] Believing it to be true that great neighbours, visitors, or strange conquerors, of a race, are deified just as readily, and (owing to their more marked differentiating characters) frequently more speedily than actual ancestors, however much distinguished, of the same blood, I express it as my belief that the gods of the Greeks, like the gods of the Indians and Persians, and the gods of some western Asiatic peoples, were derived rather from deified strangers than from ancestors of the same blood. My principal reason for holding this belief is the tradition contained in the early myths themselves. Thus Earth—i.e., the people of the earth, the creatures known and familiar—are the men and women who are regarded as every-day occurrences to the race perpetuating the myth. They are the given quantity. The god, or the “sons of the gods,” that mingle with the daughters of the earth, are the new arrivals, the new stock possessed of unaccustomed brilliance, wisdom and beauty, who are deified either immediately or subsequently, by virtue of these qualities.

Thus the alleged crossing of the gods with the earth (or the women of the earth), records an actual cross which took place between an inferior race (in this case the remote ancestors of most modern European peoples), and a race so very much superior as to appear divine to the inferior race. Thus in Greek mythology, Uranus, first ruler of the world, marries Ge, the Earth.[58] In Indian mythology, Dyaus (Heaven) marries Prithivi (the Earth). In Semitic mythology, “the sons of god saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.”[59]

Now, as I have been to some pains to show elsewhere, before a superior race condescends to effect any union with an inferior race, the former must have suffered some degeneration.[60] The natural attitude of a healthy superior race towards an inferior race, however healthy and attractive in its own way, is one of aloofness and contempt. Broadmindedness manifested in interracial or inter-class unions, as in every other department of life, may be said always to constitute degeneration. It is the broadmindedness of the present day in all matters (and I say this in the teeth—in the false teeth—of a huge majority of modern men and women) that is its most convincing symptom of degeneration.

Despite the fact, therefore, that they were regarded as gods, the strangers who appeared in the midst of the remote ancestors of most European peoples, and of some western Asiatics, although vastly superior to these races, had already suffered probably many hundreds of years of degeneration. They were probably unusually tall, led a simple, tasteful and healthy life, and were too gentlemanly in their instincts, too cultured in their marrow, to abandon the freedom and beauty of a life of hunting, for the more sordid occupations of agriculture and manual industry. But of this anon.

Why do I suggest with so far only the myth to guide me that they were probably tall?—Because the cross between them and the inferior race produced men very much bigger than the people of the inferior race itself. I do not wish to be suspected of assuming for the purposes of my interpretation that the Titans were necessarily giants, or the giants;—though even if I did so I should be sinning in excellent company. Some have even called the myth of the Titans a parallel myth to the myth of the giants. In Greek myth itself, however, we hear that Atlas was supposed to have been condemned by Zeus to support the Heavens on his shoulders;—this tradition points to his having been an exceptional monster of a man,[61]—while Heracles, who was also the result of the same cross, was notoriously a man of inordinate size and strength. Now Atlas was the brother of Prometheus. Heracles was the son of Prometheus’s first cousin; so I do not think it is even stretching the internal evidence of the myth, to assume that the Titans were a mighty race of people. I therefore conclude that the superior race was a tall race. Some, of course, of the offspring of the cross bred true, either to the one stock or to the other. Zeus was probably one of these true-bred offspring of the cross, who resembled in every particular the superior, immigrant race. Prometheus, on the other hand, first cousin to Zeus and brother to Atlas—and referred to by many as the mighty Titan—was probably a perfect blend of the two races, and therefore very much bigger than the men either of the superior or the inferior race. This frequently happens. Darwin has shown sufficiently convincingly how often crossing adds to the size of offspring.[62] But the feature of tallness would be likely to be exaggerated in the cross, if the parents on one side were unusually tall. As therefore the immigrant race was a superior race in this case, I take it that the unusual tallness was on their side, and this would explain the might and probably the size of such men as Atlas, Heracles and Prometheus.

The Bible tells us that after the sons of god had taken the daughters of men as wives: “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of god came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”[63]

Dr. Skinner’s comment on this important verse is strangely in keeping with what I am now contending. He says: “The idea undoubtedly is that this race [the giants] arose at that time in consequence of the union of the divine ‘spirit’ with human ‘flesh.’”[64] I would add: not the idea is, but the fact was.

Dr. Tuch’s view agrees with Dr. Skinner’s, but Dr. Tuch would have it that the word “giants” in the text should be understood as “extraordinary” men, or “big” men (Ausserordentlichen, Grossen).[65] I can see no objection to this, provided that “extraordinary” size is implicit. Luther translates “Ne Phe Lim” by “tyrants,” but I can nowhere find the slightest justification for this exceptional translation. Our own Revised Version has “or giants” in the margin, by the side of the “Ne Phe Lim.” It rather makes me suspect that Luther was simply endeavouring to circumvent what appeared to him to be a prickly problem; for, to the Christian, I should imagine that this mention of the “sons of god” appearing so early in the Old Testament, and followed by “giants,” must present a somewhat grave difficulty. However, that is not my present business. The text in any case affords me another and probably independent example of an occurrence similar to that which we find at the opening of Greek mythology.

It is curious, moreover, that in the ancient north, according to legend, there was a great mingling of the people after the immigration of Odin, and the giants took to themselves wives from Mannliezen; but some married their daughters there.[66]

However, I only mention these allied myths in order to assist the understanding of the principal myth with which we are concerned; just as, if anyone did not possess any information about Englishmen, and only had the record of the savages Englishmen had visited or conquered to assist him in visualising them, he would naturally endeavour to compare as many of these savage records as possible. As I believe that the race which, in the present union of races with which we are concerned, was fairly widespread, I think it not at all unlikely that these various accounts of their cross with the “Earth” and the “daughters of men,” relate to similar but not identically the same experiences. In the case of the Aryan family, for instance, it is possible that the various accounts all refer to one original cross. This, however, is by no means certain.

But to return to the subject of our enquiry. Having considered the probable physical characters that resulted from the union of “gods” and “men,” what are we to suppose were the moral characters that were the outcome of the blend?

Now we know very definite things about the moral effects of racial crosses. We know that whereas fertility and size are increased, character is destroyed. This matter I have gone into with sufficient detail elsewhere, to spare myself the pains of a further statement of the arguments here.[67] Thus Eurasians and Mulattoes and cross-bred Europeans and Chinese are proverbial for their unreliability, shiftiness and even dishonesty. Where the blend is perfect, obviously both moral characters are destroyed; both inherited moral attributes tend to neutralise each other, and leave but a residuum of somewhat savage primary instincts behind, denuded of their usual overlay of social and æsthetic inhibitions.

Thus in the race of giants we should expect to find, owing to their not having bred true to either race, moral imperfections of the worst order. We should expect to find the Titans unreliable, crafty, deceitful, “full of wiles,” and even inclined to treachery. It is not out of keeping, therefore, that Prometheus should appear as a creature of no moral character in the myth. On the other hand, his first cousin Zeus—who, owing to the fact that he must have impressed the memories of his contemporaries most by his wisdom and brilliance, was made the head of all the gods—I believe to have bred true to the superior race.

The Titans, I claim, had a bad character. For a confirmation of this, look at the parallel myths!

Immediately after the appearance of the “giants” in Genesis, “God saw that the wickedness of man was great on earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”[68]

Yes, but Noah had had nothing to do with the crossing of the “sons of god” and the “daughters of men.” His immaculate pedigree is given in full in the preceding chapter.

Likewise in another stray fragment of a similar myth in India, it is Hajagriva, one of the giants, who by stealing the sacred books of the Vedas, brings on the Flood.[69]

From the fact that they were the result of a cross between widely divergent races, it seems correct to infer that, wherever they represented a complete blend (different from either race) they would show a certain looseness of principle and general moral depravity; but seeing that the myths actually tell us definitely, as in the case of Prometheus[70] and Hajagriva, that this was so, and in the case of the Old Testament giants, certainly implies that it must have been so, we have a curious coincidence between a biological truth and an oral tradition, which goes a long way towards helping us to suppose that this tradition found its source in a singularly accurate memory.

Very well then, we can now return to the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks, and try to picture what had actually happened to them.

I have already suggested that the superior race with which they had come in contact had suffered degeneration, probably for many centuries. I gave as my reason for this that they were broadminded enough to see beauty and attractiveness in the females of another obviously inferior race. But there is another reason also reported in the myth. Their advent into Greek life reveals the fact that their degeneration had just recently culminated in a period of anarchy. For two generations the throne had been contested by both King and Crown Prince—by father and son—probably owing to the incestuous desires of the two sons for their respective mothers, on the one hand,[71] and owing to the lack of ruler ability, humanity and wisdom in the dethroned kings on the other.

With the arrival of Zeus, however, everything gets into order again, feuds quiet down, the throne is stabilised, and nobody appears to dispute his right to sovereignty. Now, while this is another reason for supposing him to have bred true to the noblest elements of the very superior stock from which he hailed on his male ancestors’ side, it also affords some support for the belief that an actual mingling of races had recently occurred. For clearly if a mingling of races had taken place, fresh territory had most probably been acquired by the dominating race. This would mean immensely increased responsibilities, and a greatly magnified demand for determination, rigour and wise rulership on the part of the governing sovereign. As history shows us, however, long after the existence of Zeus, such exalted demands have frequently stimulated corresponding high qualities in the distinguished individuals who have happened to co-exist with them, and to occupy a position in which they could effectively display their great gifts,—the case of Frederick the Great of Prussia is typical, as is also that of Napoleon. In fact, very often it is precisely the apparent hopelessness of the situation which impels those who are witnesses of its recovery to perpetuate and glorify the memory of him who was responsible for the improved state of affairs.

Whereas there was every incentive for Zeus to act with determination, rigour, and the highest political skill, therefore, we cannot help assuming, ex hypothesi, and in accordance with the internal evidence of the myth itself, that he succeeded in meeting the very difficult demands of the moment—in the first place, because he must have so consolidated his position as to remain in the memories of his contemporaries the greatest of the superior people of his time, and secondly, because the superior people themselves of his period appear to have remained loyal to him, and to have acquiesced in his rule. Until Heracles, Zeus’s own son, pleads on behalf of Prometheus, there was evidently no concerted action on the part of any group in Zeus’s entourage to release Prometheus from the great Chief’s judgment, cruel as it was. And even when his release takes place, Heracles, Prometheus’s first cousin once removed, effects it only after having received the sanction of Zeus for so doing.

How foolish Shelley’s words, “successful and perfidious adversary” as applied to Zeus, already appear in the light of this reasoning. We shall see how still more utterly ridiculous they seem later on.

Now among the entourage of Zeus, there can be little doubt, from the renown he enjoys for acumen in the myth, that Prometheus was probably the most powerful intellectually; or rather the most unscrupulous, while being at the same time generously endowed with brains. He was not necessarily more richly endowed in this respect than the rest of the minor gods, and he was certainly very much less gifted than Zeus himself, but we can safely assume that he was highly intelligent and also unscrupulous. This, however, only made his gifts the more formidable to Zeus. Now the fact that, according to the myth, he was traditionally believed to have surpassed mankind in cunning and fraud (“mankind” meaning here, of course, the inferior race), shows him, from the first, to have been curiously associated with the inferior race. We suspect, as we continue the story, that he was even playing for popularity among them; but we are anticipating. Let us anticipate to this extent, however, that seeing how subsequent events confirm our suspicions regarding his aspiration to lead the inferior people in a revolt against Zeus, we may now, with the help of a little insight into psychology and humanity, set it down as only natural and probable that Prometheus was enormously jealous of his brilliant first cousin. Their close relationship made them equally ambitious for the highest honours. It could only have been the overwhelming superiority of Zeus that established him in the eyes of all as the proper claimant. But we can well imagine that Prometheus would not have taken the same view—particularly as he esteemed himself no fool. Besides, is it not recorded in the myth, that Prometheus had already twice changed his mind about Zeus, that he had fought against him and then rallied to his side? That there were elements of hostility towards Zeus in the heart of Prometheus we therefore know without going beyond the actual wording of the myth. We may consequently safely assume that he bore to Zeus the rankling, bitter jealousy that all gifted mediocrity feels towards genius. He loathed him and most probably cherished the deliberate intention of turning the circumstance of the recent mingling of the two peoples to account by leading a popular party of the inferior race against his first cousin. As subsequent European history was to show, first cousins are certainly not averse from similar hostile tactics towards each other, and as the evidence in the other divisions of the myth confirm our present suspicions, and the development of the story reveals the bottomless hatred existing between these two, I think it reasonable—nay imperative—at this stage in the analysis, to regard their relationship at the beginning of the reign of Zeus more or less as I have outlined it above.

So much for the examination of Division I.

2. We now come to Division II. (Life and Works), the precise interpretation of which will not be as easy as that of the previous division, in the first place because we have so very few details about the religious practices and ceremonies of the superior people themselves, with which I believe it possible to identify the race that supplied the deities of the ancient Greeks; and secondly, because we cannot be certain that even had religious practices existed among them, more or less similar to those we are familiar with in very early Greece and Egypt—the sacrifice of human beings, animals, etc., to the gods—we don’t at present know who the gods of this superior race were, or whether they were ever transmitted as deities to the inferior race. This makes the interpretation of Division II. very difficult, if we take the meeting at Mecone to have been a religious assembly, and I may therefore appear to the reader to assume very much more than is actually warranted either by the text of the myth, or by my own reasoning. In my interpretation of Division I., at least, I kept strictly to the myth, never once departed from rigid Spencerian principles, and always endeavoured to observe those well-known rules of human conduct and human commerce, which an enlightened psychology would hold to be inevitable if not eternal. In this Division, however, I may, as I say, in the opinion of the reader, surmise more than the traditional story justifies.

I need hardly say that my opinion in that case will differ from the reader’s, and on the following grounds:—

(a) My reasoning will follow out the reasoning of Division I.

(b) The explanation I offer of the meeting at Mecone does not really affect my main thesis, because the actual meaning of the assembly is less important than what, according to the myth, actually took place at it.

(c) Unless we know on what terms fire was granted by Zeus, we cannot understand all his reasons for withholding it; but once more the reasons are not so important as the act itself, unmistakably reported in the myth.

(d) Whatever may be said for or against my explanation, it is obvious that more people were punished after the Mecone meeting than Prometheus himself, otherwise the withholding of fire would not be said to have been “from the mortals.” (Again Prometheus is connected with the inferior race.)

(e) No explanation as satisfactory as my own has hitherto been offered.

We are told that on a certain occasion the gods and men contended together at Mecone, that at this meeting a certain offering or tribute was prepared for Zeus, and Prometheus was responsible for the subdivision of this offering or tribute, out of the body of a huge bull or ox. We are not told what the nature of this conference was. I cannot help feeling, however, seeing that the word ἐκρίνοντο is used, and that the idea of contending or disputing is therefore meant, it could hardly have been a religious function for which they were assembled.[72] Otherwise why does this word ἐκρίνοντο seem to hang unexplained amid the other details given about the meeting? That it should have come down by oral tradition seems to point to the fact that this conference, where the gods and men contended, was not convened for a religious ceremony. And apart from the subdivision of the ox, why should we conclude that it was a religious meeting, particularly as we know nothing of the religion of the superior race which represented the gods on this occasion? We do not even know whether they had a religion at all.

Bearing in mind all that had recently occurred—the mingling of the two races, and the falling of the inferior race under the rulership of Zeus, it is not surprising, however, that a general meeting between the superior race and the inferior, or the representatives of each, should have been convened. This was only to be expected. It had certainly happened before—perhaps often before; because certain conventions, certain interpretations of the law had obviously to be agreed upon between the two races. There is even evidence in Hesiod’s account of the myth that there had been such meetings before, otherwise it would have been impossible for Zeus to “withhold fire” as the result of what took place at the meeting of which we have the account. Surely at a previous meeting, fire, or access to fire, had been granted by Zeus on certain terms.

It is impossible to conjecture what precisely was being settled at the time when Zeus was deluded by Prometheus. It may have been a matter of tribute; it most probably was tribute due to Zeus and his government in return for various benefits and privileges—one of which was very likely the privilege of being ruled over by a man as wise as Zeus must undoubtedly have been, and another of which was evidently the right to fetch fire from sacred or public fires kindled and kept alive by Zeus’s own people. There are innumerable very cogent reasons for supposing that this right to fetch fire by means of a firebrand or a fennel-stalk, from the superior race, which was at that time alone in possession of the secret of kindling it, must have been subject to various rules and conditions wisely laid down by Zeus and his counsellors. (This point will be elaborated later on.)

Now it seems plain from the narrative, that the attitude of Prometheus was certainly not conciliatory on this occasion. In fact it is definitely stated that he attempted to deceive Zeus over the partition of the tribute. Seeing, however, that Zeus’s retaliation for this attempted swindle fell not only on the head of Prometheus, but, as we are told, on the heads of “mortal men,” it does not require much ingenuity to conclude that Prometheus was at this meeting championing somebody else’s cause. For we have seen that “mortal men” or “men” in the myth were the inferior race. So here we have further confirmation of our suspicion that he was associating himself with these, and what is more actually striving for popularity among them, by advocating their rights, or supposed rights, against the better judgment of Zeus. I suggest that being anxious to head a movement of the lower people against Zeus, he was at this meeting endeavouring to enlist their support and affection by trying to rid them of the yoke of the onerous claims or regulations imposed by Zeus. He may even have been contemplating a revolution to rid them of Zeus altogether. As I think it most probable that fire was granted by Zeus to the inferior race only on certain very wise terms, Prometheus may also have been trying to get the apparent harshness of these terms modified. Surely, however, this much at least is certain: if Prometheus had been attempting to deceive Zeus only on his own account, for his own advantage, the punishment would have been so devised as to chastise no one but himself.

To an inferior people, ignorant of all that the superior race in this instance must have known about fire (and I am convinced myself, that this superior race knew more about fire than we do, as we shall see), any restrictions or conditions imposed upon their privilege of fetching fire would naturally after a time appear intolerable—in fact, the less comprehensible the restrictions were to them, the more intolerable would such conditions seem.

The fact that fire is withheld as a result of the attempted deception rather points to the supposition that one of the most important subjects debated at this meeting of the “gods” and “men” was probably the question of the supply of fire. Prometheus, however, playing the part of demagogue, had possibly promised the inferior race to extract from Zeus certain substantial concessions, either by open contract or fraud. The lower race, therefore, must have watched Prometheus’s progress with the keenest interest at this meeting; they must even have shown their sympathy with the Titan quite openly, otherwise Zeus could hardly have included them in his general condemnation.

Now either Prometheus was himself aware of the immense wisdom of the restrictions imposed by Zeus regarding the fire-supply, and yet professed not to know it so as to appear an innocent champion of the groaning inferior race, and thus gain popularity (in which case he was utterly abandoned and despicable); or else—and this is unlikely—he was himself genuinely ignorant of the meaning of Zeus’s restrictions, and being jealous of him, thought the occasion a good one for furthering his cause with the lower people. In the latter case he was simply a vulgar demagogue devoid of scruple.

3. We now arrive at Division III., which is the kernel of the whole myth, though only a preliminary step in my general thesis.

Outwitted by Zeus at Mecone, and finding himself even less popular than before with the lower people, because by identifying himself with them he had made their position worse than it had been previously—a situation most probably envisaged by Zeus when he designed the punishment—Prometheus now makes his highest bid for popularity among the ignorant and inferior race. Thwarted and desperate, he resolves to reinstate himself in their favour by any means, at all costs. He is related to the gods. He could not therefore have been ignorant of their secrets, although he was not possessed of the wisdom of Zeus. Among the secrets at present held by the gods was that of kindling fire. What did he do?—He divulged this secret of fire-making, fire-kindling, to the inferior race—blurted it out—nay, actually demonstrated it to them, and probably stole the implements for so doing from one of the superior people’s fire-kindlers. In a trice the harm was done; for the feat is so simple, that once it is demonstrated, it is possessed for ever by those who have witnessed it.[73] And thus the inferior race got to know the secret of fire-kindling for all time; they were free from the onerous restrictions imposed by Zeus under the old fire-supply contract!

It is possible that the superior race produced fire very much as the present Brahmins of India and the Indians of America still produce it to this day for sacred and religious purposes—that is to say, by friction, either by means of the fire-drill, or by rubbing two dry sticks together until they throw out sparks and ignite some dry grass or fluffy substance held in close proximity to them.

It was probably this mechanical device, or possibly the fire-drill—that is, a vertical piece of wood revolved rapidly to and fro by means of the string of a bow, and pressed against another piece of wood, into which it bores and creates heat[74]—which Prometheus was responsible for having introduced among the lower people.

Being, as I have said, either ignorant or unscrupulous, he did not impart, with the power of producing fire, the essential conditions under which it could be safely used, and the consequence was that the results were disastrous—so disastrous indeed that whatever the punishment was which Zeus imposed on Prometheus for his act of diabolical brutality to the unfortunate inferior race, this race itself and its descendants suffered so terribly from the consequences of the Titan’s act, that no possible, human punishment seemed in their tortured imaginations sufficiently excruciating for the expiation of his crime, and they who were ostensibly the “beneficiaries” of his deed, were only satisfied when they could picture him suffering torture beyond the power of man to impose—the torture described in the myth.

This torture is impossible. It is the first introduction of a supernatural element in the tradition. Neither Spencer’s theory nor any other can explain it—for how can the human liver be consumed by day and restored by night? But in the imaginations of an outraged and suffering people any agony that was not miraculously diabolical, any agony that was possible, would have been insufficient, inadequate. To satisfy their loathing of the great malefactor they must think of him as undergoing pains so terrific that supernatural agencies must be enlisted; and thus the measure of miraculous horror in the punishment of Prometheus becomes the criterion of the suffering for which he was responsible.

This, I think, is the only way of accounting for the sudden magic turn that the myth here takes. For Zeus would probably have apprehended Prometheus after his crime—this would have been possible and feasible; he would also have punished him with the utmost severity. He might even have left him, as he deserved, to die chained to a rock while a vulture or an eagle devoured his liver. But the torture would have lasted only a few hours—if that, and Prometheus would have died. This would have been too easy a death, even for the faithful oral tradition of a people gifted with a wonderful memory to transmit.—Hence the introduction of the magic element: the restoration of the liver by night, for centuries, for thousands of years! And seeing that it was the people whom Prometheus is supposed to have benefited who were responsible for the oral tradition, I think it safe to conclude at present, on the evidence of the myth alone, that his supposed benefit must have caused them unspeakable suffering.

5. And this brings me to Division V. of the myth (I am leaving out Division IV. for a separate chapter), which I shall now examine from Zeus’s point of view, having anticipated the point of view of his subjects in the analysis given above. I have said that Zeus was immensely wise. I hope to identify his stock with an immensely wise race later on; but for the moment the facts of the case convince us sufficiently of what he must have been. He is the chief of a superior race, to whose memory the Greeks remained faithful down to historical times. The impression he originally made upon them, therefore, must have been immense. Now in view of the fact that his wisdom remained traditionally the greatest thing of the kind that the ancestors of the Greeks had ever encountered, while the wisdom of Prometheus was not merely eclipsed by it, but stamped oral tradition only with a memory of cunning, fraud, and the desire (expressed in the supernatural punishment) of the people that he might linger in inexpressible agony, it is inconceivable to me that Zeus should not have had very serious grounds for withholding fire from Prometheus and his followers, or the people he championed, after what had occurred at Mecone. To suppose that he had not proper and even very serious grounds would, on the showing of the myth alone, imply that in stealing fire Prometheus showed greater wisdom than Zeus, and that he rightly overcame the restrictions imposed by Zeus in regard to fire. But in that case how can we explain:

(1) That Prometheus was nowhere worshipped in Greece.[75]

(2) That the conception of his punishment in the imagination of the people responsible for oral tradition grew to the supernatural dimensions of eternal agony?

Assuming, as I believe quite rightly therefore, from the internal evidence of the myth alone that Zeus had grave, wise and beneficent reasons for withholding fire from the inferior race after Mecone, he must have been aware of the dangers to which a people would be exposed if they obtained fire, not only in spite of his express will to the contrary, but also free from the conditions he had previously imposed. Apparently, however, although he was able to secure the person of Prometheus and punish him drastically, he was unable to arrest the trouble the Titan had originated. The most he could do was to attempt to mitigate the severity of its consequences. The grief and anger that Zeus must have felt over Prometheus’s blackguardly betrayal can therefore scarcely be estimated. In any case the wiser and more beneficent his rule was, the greater must this anger and grief have been; for he would have realised in an instant how much suffering the disaster was certain to bring about, and how deeply his subjects would learn to regret their easy and unquestioning acceptance of Prometheus’s blandishments.

But even his anger, great as it must certainly have been, doubtless suffered exaggeration also in the imaginations of his people. Conceiving him, as Greek religion proves they did, as a beneficent deity who meant well by them, they must have over-emphasised his anger, just as they over-emphasised the suffering of Prometheus—hence, I believe, that suggestion of a higher sanction to Zeus’s behaviour in the myth, which was faithfully transmitted by tradition, long after the true meaning of the myth had been forgotten.

We know from the history of other peoples on what occasions their “God” is inordinately angry. It is almost always on occasions when they too have reasons for being indignant with the source of their deity’s wrath. We have but to think of the seven plagues of Egypt that smote the Egyptians, to understand this psychological process, and to realise why magic is invoked to sate the revengeful appetite of such anger. Bearing such cases in mind, all becomes clear in regard to the anger of Zeus, despite the fact that, in this case, it most probably had a very real existence as well.

The ultimate forgiveness of Prometheus by Zeus, as well as all those matters which in this interpretation I may have appeared to take rather for granted than as proven, I shall discuss in the sequel. I would only at this stage call the reader’s attention to the fact that while a reasoning based upon the myth alone has provided me with the greater part of my interpretation, it remains rather to confirm by means of anthropology and other sciences the conclusion reached above, than to supply by means of other studies fresh hints as to the significance of the myth.

FOOTNOTES:

[57] These numbers will correspond to my arbitrary subdivisions of the myth given at the beginning of the previous chapter.

[58] It is characteristic, however, of Greek mythology, which is by far the most lucid and most reliable of all, that even the gods of the sky were originally born of earth. This shows exceptional insight.

[59] Gen. vi. 2.

[60] See my Defence of Aristocracy, chap. vii.

[61] Homer, too, seems to have the idea of a giant when he mentions Atlas. See Odyssey, i. 52.

[62] See The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii., pp. 74–158.

[63] Gen. vi. 4.

[64] A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh, 1910), p. 146.

[65] See Kommentar über die Genesis (Halle, 1838), p. 159.

[66] See the Hervarasaga.

[67] See my Defence of Aristocracy, pp. 298–323, etc.

[68] Gen. vi. 58.

[69] See Fried. Tuch, op. cit., p. 154. Tuch is of opinion that the giants mentioned in the mythology of India are comparable to the giants of the sixth chapter of Genesis.

[70] It should also be noted that Atlas and Menœtius, brothers of Prometheus, are both reported in the myth to have come to a bad end, whilst Epimetheus is represented as almost half-witted.

[71] Hence the famous “mutilation”; but I cannot enter into this matter here. It is alien to the myth with which I am primarily concerned.

[72] See Hesiod, Theogony, 535, 536.

[73] That is the reason why Zeus could not recall the gift once taken. Dr. Petiscus actually remarks that Zeus could not recall the gift; but, of course, gives no reason. See his Olympos (trans. by K. A. Raleigh, London, 1892), p. 177.

[74] Personally, I doubt whether it could have been this method, because there is no reason for supposing that the superior race had even invented a bow, though it is always possible, of course, that while they used it for fire-making, they eschewed it as a weapon.

[75] See C. O. Müller, op. cit., p. 60; also E. E. Sikes and St. J. B. Wynne Willson, op. cit., p. xix, which has already been mentioned.

CHAPTER III

FIRE AND FOOD

PART I.

I think that the reader will perhaps agree with me that the experiment tried in the last chapter has proved worth while. By approaching the myth of Prometheus with sufficient reverence to regard at least its main features as true, I believe we have arrived at very much more useful results than if we had adopted the time-honoured plan of doubting the whole story from the start, and then had proceeded to interpret its more pleasant and “innocent” incidents on the lines laid down by a false and utterly unfounded conception of the child mind, and the “poetic” pretensions of the nineteenth century. At all events we may consider ourselves on safer ground in departing from nineteenth-century principles than in abiding by them—whatever our ultimate goal may be; because if ever there was an epoch which deserved to be thoroughly denounced, even at the risk of reviling, rejecting, and cursing our fathers and grandfathers, our uncles and great-uncles, it is surely the Nineteenth Century, the true Dark Age of History, the genuine ugly duckling among the centuries, the Alexandrian Age of Stupidity.

Not only did those most sacred institutions of man, Property, Leisure, and Power, become utterly discredited in the nineteenth century, owing to the abuse to which they were subjected by the wretches who held them, but Thought itself—the most fastidious among human gifts—actually stooped so low as to include a Tennyson, a Carlyle, and a John Stuart Mill among its aspirants to laurels, and to brand with the fraudulent signature of “progress” every kind of blackguardism and abuse which the mechanical minds of the worst and most successful Englishmen, Germans and Frenchmen were able to contrive.

This being so it is almost a necessity, not to say an honour, to depart in every possible way from the methods, the beliefs and the practices of the nineteenth century, and if Euhemerism seemed ludicrous to our fathers and grandfathers, that is all the more reason why we should treat it seriously here.

The conclusions we have arrived at by our method are the following:—

1. That at some time or other in the dim past, the remote ancestors of the Greeks encountered a people so very much superior to themselves that they deified this strange race though they mingled with them.

2. That two factions—the ruling faction and the subject faction—among their ancestors, were led by two men, who though they may have borne different names from those that have come down to us by tradition, were probably related to each other very much as the myth describes.

3. That the man whom tradition calls Zeus was a wise and superior person, bearing a close resemblance to his superior forebears, and that the other, whom tradition calls Prometheus, was a depraved, foolish and ambitious man, with just that amount of gutter smartness which the nineteenth century regarded and crowned as superiority.

4. That Zeus wished to impose certain wise restrictions upon the common and ignorant people (the inferior of the two races) under his rule—particularly in regard to the use of fire—and that these restrictions probably appeared onerous to them.

5. That Prometheus, championing the cause of the inferior people, attempted by means of a ruse to circumvent the power of Zeus to impose the aforementioned restrictions, but failed.

6. That finally Prometheus gave the secret of producing fire to the inferior people, unconditionally, and that this gift far from proving a benefit, turned out to be a calamity, the appalling nature of which can still be read from the internal evidence of the myth itself.

It will now be my concern to discover what historical or anthropological confirmation can be found for the above contentions. Or, seeing that these conclusions themselves must be regarded as but clumsy gropings into the pitch darkness of prehistoric mankind, I shall be content if the records of neolithic and palæolithic man offer no insuperable objections to the interpretation of the Prometheus legend on these euhemeristic lines.

As our principal objective in this enquiry is to investigate the act of giving the secret of fire-production to a people who, owing to the lack of previous experience, must be supposed to have been ignorant of its legitimate use, and to determine in what respect the myth is correct in regarding this act as a most terrible calamity, we shall perforce have to concentrate upon the question of fire and its relation to the civilisation and daily life of human beings.

Now the first prejudice to be abandoned on the threshold of this enquiry is the foolish nineteenth-century belief that all discoveries, all new appliances and contrivances, which issue from the unscrupulous Promethean mind of the Chemist or the Engineer, necessarily constitute an improvement, a degree of “Progress,” an advance in the assumed upward march of mankind.

The amazing fact is that, despite the obvious crudeness of this belief, and the total absence of any foundation for it, the majority not only held it,[76] but still hold it. It is one of the many nineteenth-century absurdities that have been transferred bodily to this century.

For, despite its appalling cruelties and all its inhuman exploitation of the economically inferior, the nineteenth century was a very Christian century. In many respects it was perhaps the most Christian century that has ever existed. The resolute optimism with which it accepted every innovation, every new complication of life, as a sign of progress, was therefore religious optimism—the most stubborn and ineradicable of its kind.

With the masses groaning under an exploitation more cruel than has ever been seen in the world before; with the oppressors of these masses growing every day more vulgar, more luxurious, more dishonest, more pleasure-loving and more convinced that they were the chosen of God; with distrust increasing so rapidly on either side that, at the end of the century a war to the death was secretly declared by each side against its opponent; with ill-health, degeneration, insanity, and the multiplication of undesirables increasing by leaps and bounds (by “undesirables” are meant people who had been made undesirable by the system); with the character and the mind of the masses being deliberately deteriorated by besotting labours;—that typical Christian, Browning, was still able to lisp: “God’s in His Heaven, all’s right with the world.” All’s right with the world! when Browning and his class, a small minority in the land, were the only people who were “all right.” If it were not possible to suspect our bard of the grossest latter-day religiosity, we should be compelled to charge him with indifference more refined than any of which human beings have been capable before.[77]

A few voices, those of Ruskin and Matthew Arnold (and of Cobbett and Byron at the beginning of the century), were raised in protest against the deafening cheers of the nineteenth-century Christian optimists, over all the fast accumulating complexities of life; but they were of no avail. The ruling minority were “all right,” consequently the Christian God must be supposed to be behind the forces of “progress.”[78]

Now, is it possible that the Greeks were wiser than ourselves? Is it possible that they did not accept so unquestioningly the alleged benefits of their civilisation? Is it possible that with a deeper humanity even the happiest among them were unable to believe that their “Zeus” could possibly be behind a system that made the majority miserable; and preferred to regard him as actively hostile to the founder or founders of their culture? It is certainly possible, if not probable; but is the fact demonstrated? Can we believe that, as conditions became worse for them, as the result of a civilisation based upon the unlimited use of fire, they grew more and more convinced that their good god “Zeus” must be opposed to the arrangement? Far from believing that all was “right” with their world because their Zeus happened to be in “His Heaven” did they imagine him even as tolerating the creators and founders of their civilisation?[79]

Truth to tell the Greeks would most probably have been more staggered by the heartlessness of the modern age in supposing that its good god was on the side of its complex and pointless civilisation, than by any other aspect of life at the present day. They would have inspected our sweated industries, our coal-mines, our tube railway attendants, our stokers on large liners, our besotted factory hands, our steelworkers whose lives are seriously curtailed by their work, our drain inspectors—in fact, all those who really bear the brunt of modern “Progress,” and when they heard that the orthodox belief was that a good god was behind it all, would have cried “Blasphemy!”[80]

Believing, as most fairly sane people do, that the god they love means well by them, the Greeks could not conceive of their Zeus being on the side of the creators of even their own civilisation and its miseries. On the contrary, they conceived him as being so actively hostile to both as to keep the chief originator of all their culture in eternal and most humiliating agony.

This is at least an interesting reminder that although in many respects we are the direct outcome of Greek errors, they, our predecessors in stupidity, were a little bit wiser than ourselves in one material respect.

Commenting on the consequences of Prometheus’s gift of fire to men, Hesiod says:—

“For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sickness, which brings the Fates upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly.... Of themselves diseases came upon men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently.”[81]

Describing the last age, moreover, or the Iron Age of mankind, with which he happened to be fatally contemporaneous, Hesiod says:—

“For now in truth is the iron race, neither will they ever cease by day, nor at all by night, from toil and wretchedness, corrupt as they are.”[82]

The reader will not be surprised to hear that these passages have from time to time caused some consternation in the minds of those moderns who take for granted the desirability of all innovations. It has even been suggested that the first passage, at least, must be an interpolation;[83] while Clericus, among others, has pointed to the inveterate human weakness of regarding past ages as superior to any present age, and has thus tried to account for Hesiod’s gloom by charging him with romantic illusions about the times that had preceded him. Romanticism is, however, in any case, the very last charge that could justly be brought against our shepherd poet, and Völcker vigorously defends the passages in question against the suspicion of having been interpolated.[84]

But Völcker goes further, and in my opinion his analysis of Hesiod’s pessimism is perhaps the most penetrating that has been attempted hitherto. He very reasonably calls attention to the fact that, in all cases where life’s activities are extended or multiplied, there is a corresponding increase in life’s needs, and that this condition in its turn leads to a softening and an enervation of man as man. Complexity supersedes simplicity, morals become corrupted, and ostentation and display, luxury and debauchery quickly follow.[85] Hence the odious comparison with a former and simpler age!

Now although I do not believe that this analysis goes quite deep enough, it is excellent. It does at least attempt to discover a little of the “forgotten” meaning in the Prometheus myth, and to explain the odium tradition appears to have heaped on a supposed benefactor to mankind.

C. O. Müller is also helpful. He says:—

“Now anyone who perceived that all human industry depends on the possession of fire, but who was, at the same time, often faint and weary with the curse of labour, and who, moreover, dreamt, like all antiquity, of a lost paradise, a golden age of rest and peace, must have readily ascribed the gift of fire to the hero of skilful industry, and easily imagined, too, the indignation it excited in the gods who punished the restless and presumptuous strivings of man with the loss of pristine happiness, and even laid in bonds and fetters his daring intellect, which is ever apt to soar beyond its boundaries.”[86]

In both Völcker and Müller, but particularly in the former, we are therefore led to suspect that all was not well with mankind after the stealing of fire; and that is why Völcker deliberately compares the Greek myth of Prometheus with the Semitic story of the fall of man. In each case a golden age, a paradisaical existence, preceded the anger of the gods; in both cases woman plays an important part in bringing the mischief upon man, and in both stories there appears to be a fear on the part of the gods that man may seize the secret of eternal life unless he is severely chastised.

In Genesis, after the stealing of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, we read: “And the Lord God said, Behold the man [Adam] is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat and live for ever, therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.”[87]

While Hesiod says: “For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life.”[88]

Nietzsche[89] and Byron[90] are among the more famous of the poet thinkers who have also seen the similarity between the two myths.

I think, however, that I have drawn a more interesting parallel in comparing certain aspects of the Prometheus myth with the circumstances which, in the Old Testament, precede the flood, and since both the story of Adam and Eve and the account of the events immediately preceding the flood are, according to such eminent scholars as Schrader, Dillmann, Wellhausen and Schultz, to be regarded simply as alternative solutions of the same problem—the origin of evil,[91] I think, in selecting the account from Genesis vi. 1–4, I have seized upon a legend more historically possible than that of the Garden of Eden.

Be all this as it may, Völcker and Müller evidently appear to agree in this, that the stealing of fire, with all its consequences, was by no means an unmixed blessing to those for whom it was stolen. And, indeed, we have only to think a moment in order to realise how stupendous the innovation was.

With the means to produce fire, pottery became possible, the working of metals was made easy, more time was obtained for industries tending to complicate life, because less time was occupied for meals,[92] and finally the nomad life, which must to some extent have followed the seasons, could be changed for a life that was not only more stable, but actually stationary. As the rigours of winter, even close to the coldest zone, could now be faced and endured, life could be continued during the cold months in the same locality where the spring and summer had been enjoyed. The pastoral life, agriculture and industry followed as a matter of course, and in their train, commerce.

These are certainly changes sufficiently far-reaching to justify Völcker in assuming that innumerable ills must have attended those who originally attempted to adapt their lives to them, and to explain the powerful hostility to Prometheus that is still to be read from the internal evidence of the myth. Even illness and disease are not hard to trace to the changes arising from the abandonment of the nomadic in favour of the stationary mode of existence. A moment’s reflection suffices to show how inevitably such consequences would come about. To take the most obvious first, it is clear that a nomadic people can leave a place, or a district, they have befouled. A stationary people, however, have to remain in the midst of their befoulment. While still new to the life, therefore, they must have suffered a good deal as the result of unhygienic surroundings, and bitter experience alone could have taught them the urgent need of even the most elementary sanitation. Again, as Völcker points out, agriculture and the pastoral life lead to a softening and a debilitation of the body (as compared with a life of hunting, for instance). But a change such as this is not effected without serious results. Mysterious ailments, particularly of the alimentary canal, must have begun to appear; women must have found that the stationary life modified the former ease and regularity of their functions (child-birth in particular) and violent deaths and probably manias and madnesses may have been the result.

Apart from the further, and I believe most important, consequences which I shall now proceed to consider, surely those I have just outlined must have proved sufficiently alarming to stamp themselves indelibly on the memories of those who suffered from them. It will be urged, perhaps, that none of these consequences could have been immediate, that they would have been a matter of gradual growth, passing in their development over innumerable generations, so that the ultimate sufferers would have consisted of people totally unacquainted with the conditions prevailing previous to the introduction of fire.

This objection is a very sound one. But those who wish to make it may be reminded of two considerations:—

1. That tradition would, in any case, account for the keeping of the memory of former times green in the minds of later generations.

2. That since primitive medicine and surgery (including, of course, midwifery) and primitive drugs, must also have been handed down by oral tradition, their sudden collapse in the presence of the novel and obscure complications and difficulties would surely in itself have sufficed to indicate a development in a bad direction, as compared with former times, though these might never have been known by the actual sufferers themselves.

But I must leave it to the reader to imagine the further obvious and manifold evil consequences that may strike him as having arisen from the unlimited use of fire. Unfortunately I cannot join him in these interesting speculations, for I must now confine myself only to those evil results of Prometheus’s theft which constitute an essential step in the discussion of my main theme.

I can sympathise with any reader who, though he may not wish to advance the objection dealt with above, yet experiences some difficulty in admitting that the evil results already referred to should have been directly connected by the ancient Greeks with the discovery of fire production. I feel also that while these evil results might have been ascribed by the ancient Greek to the conditions of an elaborate civilisation, their immediate connection with fire is not so obvious as to be able to account for the very definite association of Prometheus’s theft with a calamity which we find unmistakably revealed by the myth. And here, I think, Völcker’s reasoning breaks down, as of course does also Müller’s rather far-fetched image of an old Greek in the act of deliberately fancying the connection between civilisation and fire. It seems to me that in order to account for so positive an association between Prometheus’s theft and a calamity compatible with such a tremendous outbreak of wrath on the part of Zeus, a closer connection must be found between fire and disaster than that which is traced through an intermediate phenomenon as complex and as multifarious as civilisation. For a complicated civilisation may be traced to knowledge, as in the case of the Garden of Eden myth, or to the desire for immortality, as in the myth of Osiris and his sister Isis; it does not necessarily occur to one immediately that it must be due to the unlimited use of fire.

I think, therefore, that in order to account for so emphatic a connection between fire and disaster more immediate results of the unlimited use of fire must be sought.[93]

I have said that Prometheus was nowhere worshipped in Greece; there was, however, a sort of altar[94] consecrated to him at Athens by the ancient guild of potters (κεραμεῖς) as patron of their craft. It is said to have been located in the sanctuary of Athena and Hephæstus, between the Academy and the Colonus Hippius.[95]

Now this is a definite proof of the connection by the ancient Greeks of the three ideas—Prometheus, Fire, Pottery—and constitutes the most convincing evidence we have of a certain aspect of civilisation being traced directly by tradition to fire. It is interesting, moreover, from this point of view, that it forms the one connecting link I most require in order to take the next step, which is the association of fire and food; for it is this association which I claim to be the most important feature of the forgotten meaning of the myth.

I propose to substantiate this view by calling attention to the effects, some of them as tragic and disastrous as they are mysterious, which result from the cooking of food.

It is only quite recently, within the last decade, that certain facts have become known about food, in regard to which man’s ignorance hitherto is as inexplicable as his escape from the full consequences of that ignorance has been miraculous. Looking back, as we can now, upon the thousands of years of error that have culminated in the present Age, we are, to our astonishment, compelled to acknowledge that it can have been only by the chance efficacy of rule-of-thumb wisdom, that the races of the northern temperate zone have been able to survive at all (if those who originally used fire illegitimately in northern regions actually did escape, which is very doubtful), and that before the rule-of-thumb wisdom established something approaching sanity in the kitchens of primeval man, the most appalling suffering and probably madness must have raged—not to mention the agonies of mystification in the presence of a curse which, owing to the standard of knowledge of the time, could not have been traced to food. It was therefore most probably only the juxtaposition in time of the unlimited use of fire and the terrible physical scourges and apparent “plagues” which followed upon it, that caused the ancient Greeks to associate the two. I do not mean to suggest here that because, in the light of recent research, their treatment of their food appears to have been the cause of the chief of the great disasters that followed on the unlimited use of fire, that the ancestors of the ancient Greeks were therefore aware of this. Disaster and the unlimited use of fire were simply connected distinctly as apparent cause and effect, because they followed upon each other closely in the order of time.

It is not generally known, even to-day, how much harm is done to food by exposing it to heat. As I shall show later on, apparent “plagues” have been caused even as recently as during the last great war, by the ignorance which prevails in regard to this question, and the very people who are likely to feel most sceptical about the suggested appalling consequences of such ignorance are themselves most probably half-witted, foul of breath, debilitated, and even disfigured, precisely owing to this very ignorance.

It must have occurred to many, however, that man is the only animal that eats most of his food in a cooked condition, and that, therefore, the procedure is by no means dictated by nature. It must also have been observed by some, that such articles of diet as oysters, apples, milk, lettuce, are so different to the palate when cooked, that they are scarcely recognisable. Is this alteration merely an illusion, and is the palate possibly mistaken in noticing so great a difference? Or have some essential properties, constituting the identity of these articles of diet, actually been changed or lost in the process of cooking? And if these articles of diet have not escaped unscathed from the fire, why should we suppose that others enjoy an exceptional immunity? Maybe that some very valuable properties of the food have been lost—properties without which life cannot be maintained at a healthy or even a happy standard—or cannot be maintained at all. Is this possible?

It is not merely possible, it is abundantly proved. It is now demonstrated beyond doubt that not only characteristics of mere identity, such as colour, shape and smell, are altered in the cooking process, but also that properties of the extremest value to the consuming animal—properties, too, that are strangely susceptible to heat—are partially or wholly destroyed by fire, so that unless by some accident (an accident which happens frequently enough to be regarded as a rule, where the diet is extremely varied, as in the case of the modern European) compensation is obtained through other articles of food, life either cannot continue, or else disease quickly sets in. And since the diseases of faulty diet are as obscure as they are terrible, they are usually the last to be traced to their proper cause. Even in the case of the modern European, however, who can frequently obtain compensating diet without knowing that he is doing so, the evil effects of an injudicious treatment of food give rise to all manner of vague disorders which greatly impair his enjoyment of life.

For some considerable time in modern Europe, doubts have been entertained and expressed about the advisability of cooking certain foods. The Holy Catholic Church, in its incomparable wisdom respecting all the material side of human life, was probably the first institution to point to the necessity of a partially raw food diet at specified moments in the year; and, with all the pomp and mystery of a religious rite, to encourage its adherents to adopt such a diet at certain stated periods. As late as the sixteenth century, for instance, the Italians are said to have observed the rules of their faith so strictly that, during the forty days of Lent, they went without any cooked food on three days in the week, and lived on fruit and vegetables.[96] The beneficial results of this periodical abstinence from cooked food were doubtless ascribed to the circumstance that religious obedience is providentially rewarded; but whatever may have been the suspected cause of the good effects in the minds of the ignorant faithful, the problem could certainly not have been obscure to those responsible for the discipline.

In later years, of course, with the decline of faith, and the advent of Protestantism, the Catholic Church, which is the storehouse of mediæval and ancient wisdom in all important matters connected with human life, began to exercise less sway, and therefore found itself constrained, even in the countries that were not lost to it, to relax the rigour of its control; while in Protestant countries, the reformers, not satisfied with renouncing the Pope, unfortunately for posterity were foolish enough to divorce themselves for all time from those very religious observances and exercises for which their new revolutionary programme offered them no adequate substitute. Indeed, the observance of fasts, and the practice of differentiating between certain foodstuffs, was regarded by the majority of the ignorant reformers as “pure superstition” and “idolatry.”

Problems of human importance, however, are not to be set aside with impunity in this cavalier fashion. Hostile as you may be to the Catholic Church, this does not render you immune from the consequences of your own stupidity, and Catholic solutions of certain problems are either to be accepted, or fresh solutions supplied in their place. But no such obligation was ever recognised by the reformers and their followers. No such obligation has even been felt by any Protestant people until quite recently. And even now it is not humanity or brotherly piety that is directing the methods of the modern dietetic movement, but sheer panic in the face of all the appalling consequences of centuries of neglect.

Thus it will surprise no one to find that the science of dietetics is essentially the creation of Protestant countries and that England, Germany and America, while producing the worst cooks, both male and female, from Alfred the Great downwards, are the peoples who have contributed most towards this new department of knowledge. Run your eye down a list of the names of men prominently connected with dietetics, and you will find that the natives of Protestant countries far outnumber those of any other part of the world. This is not a curious coincidence, but just exactly what one would expect. When muddle, suffering and grave physical degeneration arise through neglect of the Art of Life, it is the scientist who is called upon to advise, and to advise quickly nowadays. In all States with a purely mechanical and Promethean civilisation, complicated by the absurdity of Protestantism and its monster offspring Puritanism, it is the poor, clumsy, heavy-footed scientist who has to take the place of the artist, of the man who knows. Unfortunately, however, the scientist’s ways are so devious, so uncertain, and he takes such an amazingly long time to arrive at even approximately correct results, that humanity almost perishes on his doorstep before he rushes out from his laboratory, grizzled by age, with a phial in his hand containing the necessary restorative.

The science of dietetics, in spite of the urgency with which its results have been needed for scores of years in England, is a young science, a recent science. All its most important conclusions are scarcely a decade old!

FOOTNOTES:

[76] There can be no doubt that the majority of those who, like Byron, Shelley and the scholars, start examining the Prometheus myth with a prepossession in favour of the Titan, are influenced by this nineteenth-century assumption.

[77] Lovers of Browning may object that it is unfair to hold him responsible for an expression of opinion which he was careful to place in the mouth of a thoroughly irresponsible person. This objection would be valid if the general spirit of his writings did not lead one to believe that, on the whole, Browning would have been prepared heartily to endorse Pippa’s optimism. Browning, however, was not so bad as Tennyson in this respect. See, for instance, the very foolish lines composing the 59th to the 62nd couplets of Locksley Hall. See also the conclusion of The Princess. In fact, Tennyson’s works abound in optimistic sentiments about the nineteenth century and its “progress.”

[78] It is always a matter of wonder to me that the nineteenth century was not sufficient to make the whole of the working-classes of this country atheists for all time. I suppose that the sixth and seventh verses of the twelfth chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews did good service in preventing this. Nevertheless, it is gratifying to see that more and more of the proletariat are growing indifferent to Christianity every day. An intelligent alternative would have been for the working-classes to disbelieve, as the Greeks did, that their god could have anything to do with their civilisation, or to believe that he was actively opposed to it. In this way they might reasonably have remained believers as the Greeks did, while abhorring their civilisation.

[79] In this respect it is interesting to note that there are windows in Westminster Abbey dedicated to the civil engineers, Stephenson, Locke, Brunel, and Trevithick. There is also a statue to James Watt, and the graves of Telford, the builder of the Menai Bridge, and of Robert Stephenson (the same as the above), the designer of the tubular bridge across the Menai Straits, are in the nave. There are also statues to Francis Horner! and Richard Cobden! Cromwell, thanks to the efforts of Charles II., is only honoured outside the Abbey. St. Paul’s holds the remains of two engineers, John Rennie, the designer of Waterloo Bridge, London Bridge, Southwark Bridge, and Plymouth Breakwater, and Robert Mylne, designer of Blackfriars Bridge, the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, etc. These men were characteristic of the type responsible for our modern civilisation, and the fact that they receive due honour in the two leading temples of the Christian god in England, shows, I think, at least that the Established Church and the governing classes of England are, or were, satisfied that their god approved of modern civilisation.

[80] For an illuminating but exceedingly depressing account of the ill-health brought about by modern employments alone, not to mention modern conditions, reference should be made to Dr. Thomas Oliver’s Diseases of Occupation (Methuen and Co., 1908). Thus we read (p. 37) that in the latter part of the nineteenth century there were 105 cases of phosphorus necrosis of the jaw caused in match factories by the handling of industrial phosphorus, 20 per cent. of which ended fatally. And this industry is by no means an important one. In 1907 the match industry employed only 4,000 people. I imagine that even these figures for phosphorus necrosis in England must be slightly underestimated, or else the period which they cover must be very small, as we find (p. 39) that between the years 1866 and 1875, 126 cases of phosphorus necrosis occurred in Vienna. Again, in the French match works near Paris, in 1894, 32 cases of phosphorus poisoning were reported; in 1895, 125; in 1896, 223, or one-third of the effective force of the factory. In 1896 the French State paid out 400,000 francs in compensation for this evil. In the bridge-building branch of engineering the death-rate is heavy from “compressed air illness.” At the St. Louis Bridge, on the Mississippi, 600 men were employed in sinking the foundations; 119 suffered from caisson disease, 14 of whom died. At the Brooklyn Bridge 110 cases were reported, 3 of which died (p. 94). Chemical workers appear to withstand the bad conditions of their work until thirty-five years of age, but after this the death-rate rises so much that by the time they have reached the age of forty-five to fifty-five the death-rate is double that of men who follow an outdoor occupation (pp. 123–124). During the ten years ending 1899, 263 workpeople were killed in explosive factories alone, and 1,064 injured (p. 132). During the year 1906, 632 cases of lead-poisoning occurred in various works connected with the working of lead (p. 149). In 1902 the figure was 629. The death-rate among diamond-cutters through lead-poisoning is also very heavy. Still-births and abortion are very high among women who work in lead. The statistics on p. 232 about the steel-workers are appalling. See also figures given for deaths due to occupations involving the breathing of dust (p. 247). The deaths from phthisis among pottery-workers and cutlers are three times those occurring from the same cause among agriculturalists. The file-makers’ death-rate from phthisis is almost four times that of the agriculturalist from the same cause. The death-rate among miners from all causes, including phthisis, is, of course, exceedingly high—from accident alone in 1907 it was 1,216. The deaths among workers with rock drills are much higher, particularly among the gold-miners in Africa. They scarcely last five years (see pp. 284, 285). It is impossible to enter into all the particulars of death and disease due to modern occupations; I can but recommend the reader to study Dr. Oliver’s able treatise on the subject.

[81] Works and Days, 90–93, 102–104.

[82] Ibid., 177–178.

[83] Goettling thinks that the second passage is also an interpolation.

[84] Op. cit., pp. 11–14.

[85] Op. cit., p. 23. “Mit der fortgeschrittenen Ausbildung des Lebens aber, mit Erweiterung der Lebensbedürfnisse kommt Verweichlichung und Erschlaffung, Mannigfaltigkeit für die Einfachheit, Verderbniss der Sitten, Aufwand und Pracht, Üppigkeit und Ausschweifung.”

[86] Op. cit., p. 62. It is interesting to see how Müller, towards the end of the passage quoted, cannot help implying that it is the gods’ jealousy of man’s intellect that brings down the curse on mankind, and not the hero of civilisation himself by his innovations. This shows how even an enlightened scholar, hot as he is upon the scent, is blinded by the nineteenth-century prepossession in favour of modern civilisation.

[87] Gen. iii. 22 and 23.

[88] Works and Days, 44 et seq.

[89] See The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 77–78: “Indeed, it is not impossible that this myth [Prometheus] has the same significance for the Aryan race that the myth of the fall of man has for the Semitic, and that there is a relationship between the two like that of brother and sister.”

[90] Don Juan, Canto I., cxxvii.

[91] Dr. Skinner is of opinion that there is little plausibility in the view that the story of Adam and Eve and the account of the events immediately preceding the flood are solutions of the same problem. He is, however, careful to add: “It would be equally rash to affirm that it [the story in Gen. vi. 1–4] presupposes such an account [the story of Adam and Eve]” (op. cit., p. 141).

[92] Owing, of course, to the fact that complete mastication is more easily shirked when food is cooked.

[93] It would appear as if the negroes had also suffered some terrible disaster in connection with their early use of fire; for, according to a negro tradition, their beatific state was ended by Til (God) sending them fire in his anger for some crime they had committed. The fire destroyed all except one named Musikdegen. See Rev. S. Baring-Gould, Legends of the Old Testament Characters, p. 36.

[94] C. O. Müller seems to doubt that it really was an altar, op. cit., p. 60.

[95] See F. G. Welcker, Die Aeschylische Trilogie, “Prometheus,” pp. 120–121.

[96] Dr. med., H. Moeser (Frankfurter Zeitgemässe Broschüren), Bd. xxvi., 1907, Das Kirchliche Fasten und Abstinenzgebot in gesundheitlicher Beleuchtung, p. 164.

CHAPTER IV

FIRE AND FOOD

PART II.

There is a big school in England to-day, headed by certain medical men of ability and renown, who became aware many years ago of the deleterious effects of cooking certain foods.

I cannot enter now into an analysis of all their views. I shall, however, select from among their ranks the man whom I believe to be at once the most able, the most courageous, and the most independent of them all,—I refer to the eminent specialist who until lately was Senior Physician to the Glasgow Hospital for Women, and is now Superintendent of Cancer Research, Battersea Hospital, Robert Bell, M.D., F.R.F.P.S., etc.

Although Dr. Bell’s investigations appear to have led him to observe particularly the relationship of diet to the etiology of cancer in the human body, I do not think that this need necessarily prevent us from attempting a general application of his principles to our daily life; more especially as he reiterates again and again the great importance of keeping the body healthy, and not merely safeguarding it against positive disease.

Dr. Bell recognises a great vitalising agent in human life[97] which he calls nuclein. He points out that “the most powerful antiseptic in the pharmacopœia will not prevent bacteria establishing themselves in a wound, and it is only the independent action of the vital energy of the cellular tissue which prevents infection and promotes healing.... Now this healthy vitality can only be assured by supplying the cellular tissues freely with pabulum, derived from vital elements contained in the products of the vegetable kingdom, to which may be added, milk, eggs and cheese.”[98]

He warns us that “the animal organism is in constant conflict with disease, which, however ... is impotent ... so long as the cells which make up the human microcosm are fortified and nourished by vivifying material.”[99]

Dr. Bell then proceeds: “Chemically it [the vitalising agent] is nuclein, and is identical with that substance which is contained in every fruit, vegetable, seed and nut in their ripe condition, and therefore are adapted for the food of man. Cook these, however, and this vital and vivifying constituent ... is nullified.”[100]

Elsewhere Dr. Bell refers to “the vital principle of ripe vegetables and fruits”[101] and “a vital quality in vegetables and fruit which is destroyed by heat.”[102] We shall see that the existence of this “vital principle” or “vital quality” is abundantly demonstrated by the most recent research.

I am unfortunately unable in the small compass of this work to deal adequately with Dr. Bell’s able treatment of this subject; I can but recommend the reader to refer to his original treatises; and by way of summing up his case I cannot do better than quote verbatim a few convenient digests of his views which I have been able to find in his most recent works.

While making certain suggestions about diet, the learned Doctor writes as follows:—

“It is essential that the food should, to a large extent, consist of uncooked fruits, nuts and vegetables, and that butcher meat be completely abstained from. I do not insist that no cooked vegetables or fruit be partaken of, but these should never predominate, as it is essential that the vital principle and unaltered condition of the chlorophyl be retained in their natural state, and that the vegetable salts contained in all vegetable matter remain as Nature has provided them. Therefore vegetables should never be boiled but cooked by steam, and should never be overcooked. Cooking has the effect of reducing, not only the nutritive value of these articles, but renders them more indigestible, and induces the habit of neglecting complete mastication, which is a most important factor in the process of digestion. Moreover, the living principle, and the natural salts of fruits and vegetables, are indispensable to the healthy vigour of the cells of our body, and, without which it is impossible for them to retain or regain their physiological activity. Milk, eggs, either switched up with milk or in milk puddings, or very lightly cooked, also cheese, are excellent adjuncts, but never to the exclusion in any way of salads, fruit and nuts. Even unfired bread is to be preferred.”[103]

I do not quite follow Dr. Bell in his sweeping condemnation of butcher meat; I incline more to the moderate view of the Catholic Church, that butcher meat should be avoided only at frequent intervals, and sometimes for long periods at a stretch; but I entirely agree with his strictures against cooking (some of which we shall see confirmed in a somewhat startling manner in what follows), and I also believe that his contention that most diseases, cancer and rheumatism particularly, are nutriment diseases, whose best prophylactic is a sane diet, is true and has been demonstrated beyond doubt.[104]

A few more very helpful passages from Dr. Bell’s books will assist in emphasising this question of the cooking of food.

In Health at its Best versus Cancer, Dr. Bell says: “We will ascertain, if we consider the subject carefully, that the nutritive properties of vegetables and fruits are materially modified in the process of cooking. Not only is their value as an article of diet reduced, but their digestibility also. Besides these, in no small degree, their nourishing constituents are removed, and what is of equal moment, their therapeutic[105] activity is thereby diminished.

“Let us consider what effect boiling produces upon vegetables or any other of the various articles included in our dietary.

“Does the albumen present remain in its natural condition with its latent vital energy still unimpaired?—Certainly not; its essential characteristics are entirely destroyed, its composition altered and its nutritive value reduced pro rata. Then it must be conceded the therapeutic and also the sustaining value of the vegetable or fruit is seriously reduced by the removal of the soluble salts which are carried away in solution during the process of cooking.”[106]

Here Dr. Bell proceeds to describe a simple experiment by means of which his contention is demonstrated.[107]

“Does it not follow, then,” Dr. Bell continues, “that cooking not only diminishes the food value of vegetables and fruit, but also destroys those qualities which are evidently essential as factors in the maintenance of healthy cell metabolism? I am certain it does.”[108]

Dr. Bell then argues that the same effect is produced on meat by cooking,[109] and concludes by pointing out that the only articles of food which do not appear to be deteriorated by cooking are eggs and milk, and those which contain a large amount of farinaceous material, such as the cereals, potatoes, etc.[110]

In dealing with the whole of this subject it should, moreover, be borne in mind that while there can be no question about the positive and recognised dangerous diseases which are induced by dietetic errors, there are also a host of obscure, unclassified and frequently undiagnosable disorders and indispositions resulting from the mistakes which we make with our food, which though they may not be fatal, lower vitality, produce an atonic condition in which, as I have shown elsewhere, sexual potency in particular is very much reduced, if not suspended, and generally lessen the capacity for enjoying life.[111]

It seems to me these results of dietetic errors are almost worse than the former, because, being obscure, they are not traced to any particular cause and cling to the sufferer until he is mercifully released from an existence he has ceased to regard as a pleasure.

When it is remembered that the determination of a type as also that of individual characteristics, is now believed to be dependent largely upon the secretion of certain internal glands of the human body, the importance of the chemical constitution of our diet in regard to health and immunity from disease would not appear to require much demonstration; and yet so powerful has been the influence of a creed that despises the body and its needs, and unduly exalts the soul, that the tendency has been, particularly in countries defiled and blighted by Puritanism, to regard the whole question of food as a painful subject, as something gross and material, to pay too much attention to which is tantamount to pagan worldliness.

I have shown elsewhere[112] the havoc the Puritans made of the Englishman’s food and drink in the seventeenth century; but this is only one of the many heavy prices we have had to pay for our negative creed in this country. A still more insidious and yet less apparent consequence, is the prejudice which now seems to reign everywhere in modern European communities in regard to enjoying the pleasures of the body. And among these pleasures, of course, eating and drinking come in for their share of censure. What the healthy palate approves of and enjoys, you would have thought, would be likely to prove beneficial to the body; and this instinctive critic of our means of nourishment, far from being flouted, ought to have been the first authority to receive not only respect but also obedience. This fact notwithstanding, it is only too true that, in many wide circles to-day, it is believed that provided that a meal is filling—that is to say, provided that it gives a feeling of repletion—it is regarded as sufficient and adequate. To demand any more is to be stared at with grieved astonishment by bilious and pious eyes, blurred and dulled by years of indigestion, constipation, and every other modern means of mortifying the flesh.

This may appear to many readers an exaggeration. Maybe it is a little exaggerated in regard to the present world. But unfortunately the present world is the outcome of the nineteenth century. And even if it wished to live more rationally and in a less pious fashion now, it has neither the means, the traditions, nor the health to do so. Throughout the nineteenth century my remarks would have applied, and it was during this century, particularly, that the greatest errors were made in regard to our drink and our feeding generally—errors for which we are only now beginning to realise the enormous price we have paid.

But cooking an article of food once is bad enough—although in my opinion in the case of certain foods not wholly to be deprecated or avoided[113]—there is, however, absolutely nothing to be said for the habit, almost universal in Europe and all countries like Europe to-day, of cooking foodstuffs twice and sometimes three times. This process simply reduces the whole product, whatever it may be—meat, vegetable or cereal—to so much waste matter, frequently poisonous, and always injurious; and yet so deeply rooted is the belief that food only requires to be filling, and so great is the ignorance which Protestantism particularly of the Puritan breed, has cultivated in regard to all questions of the body, that millions of the working and poorer middle classes of Europe are now allowed to perpetrate this dietetic crime, year in, year out, and no one says them nay.

I shall now attempt to show how, in the light of the most recent research, and in regard only to certain highly important but relatively very minute constituents of our food, cooking may not only be bad, but at times positively fatal. But I should like to remind the reader, before I start, that while all that follows does not in any way affect the general arguments of Dr. Bell, which in the main I believe to be acceptable, it affords an extraordinary confirmation of the importance he attaches to that element in meat, vegetables and fruit, which he calls roughly “the vital principle.”

It is not generally known that the body requires not only nourishment in bulk, that is to say, ounce for ounce compensation for solid substances and liquids expended and otherwise lost every twenty-four hours, but that it also needs to absorb certain imponderables, consisting of minute but vastly important constituents of plants or animal matter, which make the nourishment it absorbs profitable and useful. The importance of these constituents is enhanced by the fact that the animal body is apparently incapable of synthesising them itself, and therefore depends entirely upon an external source for its supply.

The absence of these minute but important constituents from diet may, according to their nature, either arrest growth or expose the human subject from which they are absent to disease and death. It is now no longer a matter of conjecture, but of positive proof, that while a man or an animal may be feeding on a diet which appears exactly to compensate for losses in bodily constituents, that man or animal may actually have ceased growing, may be gradually dying, or may be threatened with the most foul diseases if these imponderabilia are absent from its diet.

In the words of the distinguished Committee responsible for the Report on the Present State of Knowledge concerning Accessory Food Factors (Vitamines):[114] “For many years past it has been customary to estimate the nutritive requirements of the animal organism in terms of what have been for long regarded as the four fundamental food units, namely protein, carbohydrate, fat, and inorganic material, and to underestimate, if not entirely neglect, the possible significance of other less clearly defined dietary constituents.”[115]

Thus it was customary to measure the amount of food required by a human being or an animal in calories; and if there appeared to be a sufficiency of calories in a diet, it was deemed adequate not only for keeping the body alive, but also for keeping it healthy and vigorous.

We were solemnly assured, for instance, by the glib scientist, that since margarine was equivalent in calories to butter, therefore, since things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, margarine must equal butter. Our stomachs, our palates, our digestions, in fact a whole chorus of our tissues, protested against this bland scientific falsehood. But the authority of Science is such nowadays that a poor human stomach stands but a small chance against it.

It is gratifying to be able to record the fact, however, that in the end the stomach proved right—that between the common margarine, made from vegetable oil, and butter there is a difference, and a difference so great that whereas a man can survive on a diet in which his fat consists of butter, he could not survive, and a child could not even grow, on a diet in which the fat constituent consisted of vegetable margarine.

The difference between margarine, as generally sold to-day, and butter is that in the latter a certain very essential property is present, which is absent from the former. That essential property C. Funk has called “Vitamine.”

To quote again the report above mentioned, the Committee writes: “What can be said precisely at present is that if minute amounts of certain constituents are removed from natural foods, such foods wholly fail to support nutrition, and grave symptoms of disease may supervene.”[116]

These vitamines, or essential accessory food factors, are of two kinds:—

- 1. Growth-promoting.

- 2. Disease-preventing.

But even the vitamines of the first group may also be regarded, in a sense, as prophylactic, seeing that their absence from food not only arrests growth, but also exposes the body to bacterial infection of every kind. Thus, to the shortage of animal fats during the winter of 1918–1919, was undoubtedly due the rigorous influenza epidemic which carried away such large numbers of people in Europe. While, as I shall show later, the absence of one class of vitamines of this group may directly cause one or two specific diseases.

The diseases known to be caused by the absence of the disease-preventing vitamines from diet are scurvy, beri-beri and rickets in infants.

Group one, or the growth-promoting vitamines, have been termed by Collum and Davis: “Fat-soluble A,” and “Water-soluble B.”[117]

“Practically all investigators in this field of research,” says the Committee I am quoting, “have now admitted their belief in the indispensability of the two accessory factors, ‘fat-soluble A’ and ‘water-soluble B’ for growth and nutrition of the animal organism.”[118] When Fat-soluble A is absent from a diet, this deficiency leads to—

(a) Gradual cessation of growth.

(b) The breaking down of resistance to bacterial infections of all kinds, particularly those affecting the lungs.

(c) Rickets in infants.

(d) A general lack of tone, debility, depression, skin troubles, conjunctivitis.

When water-soluble B is absent from a diet, this deficiency leads to—

(a) Immediate cessation of growth.

(b) Rapid decline, which may terminate fatally.

(c) Beri-beri.

(d) A general lack of tone, debility, nervous trouble, depression.

As will be seen from (d) in each list—and this fact is most important—a number of vague disorders, none of them amounting actually to a dangerous disease, though sufficiently debilitating to reduce vitality, spirit and sexual potency, may arise from an insufficiency of either vitamine from the diet, this insufficiency not amounting to a dangerous deficiency.

Fat-soluble A is in all probability synthesised by the plant,[119] and is found in green leaves and the embryos of seeds. It was first detected in butter and egg-yolk, which are still believed to be the richest sources of it.[120] It is also present in oils and fats derived from the animal kingdom, such as cod-liver oil, shark-liver oil, beef fat, the fat of kidneys, heart muscle and liver tissues, herring oil, cod oil, salmon oil and whale oil.[121]

Water-soluble B is widespread. It has been detected in almost all the natural foods. Its principal sources proved to be the seeds of plants and eggs of birds. But since the largest deposit of it lies in the embryo, or germ, and the bran of grain, the same symptoms may be induced in the human being by a diet of grain deprived, through milling, of the embryo and the bran, as through a total absence of water-soluble B from the diet.[122]

It is plentiful in rice germ, wheat germ (hence the value of whole-meal bread), linseed, yeast, egg-yolk, and ox-liver. It is less plentiful in wheat bran, fresh peas, fresh carrots, dried carrots, meat muscle, milk and potatoes.[123]

We now come to the anti-scorbutic vitamine, which, from the point of view of this treatise, I believe to be very much more important than any of the others.

Scurvy in itself is such a distressing disease, so alarming, revolting and complex in its symptoms, that it has been for thousands of years[124] the nightmare of the mariner, the explorer and all those who, for some reason or other, may have been compelled to live on a restricted diet either totally lacking the anti-scorbutic vitamine or else insufficiently supplied with it.

It is a disease attended by increasing weakness, gastro-intestinal disturbances of all kinds, great pallor, inflammation and necrosis of the gums, until they project as a soft or mushy and friable tissue, bleeding at the slightest touch. There is pain during mastication, and the saliva, usually increased in quantity and mixed with blood, may dribble from the mouth. The tongue is coated and the breath is horribly fœtid. Hæmorrhage, chiefly in the legs, near the ankle, usually occurs after the changes in the gums have begun, both legs being involved. Extensive ulcers sometimes occur at the spot where the hæmorrhage has taken place. Bleeding from the mucous membranes constitutes one of the frequent and more serious manifestations of the disease. There is also swelling of the joints, the knee and ankle joints being most frequently involved. The bowels are constipated and may be obstinately so. Circulatory disturbance and disorders of the respiratory system are prone to develop in proportion to the degree of anæmia present.

Death may occur from gradually increasing weakness and inanition, from the development of large serous effusions, œdema of the lungs, or pneumonia. A rapid end may be brought about by hæmorrhage.[125]

Now these symptoms are sufficiently distressing and nauseating to account for any amount of horror and alarm on the part of those who have either suffered from the disease in a mild form, particularly as deep depression is a further characteristic symptom of it, or who have witnessed others dying of it. I maintain, however—and I think authoritative medicine will support me in this—that there are a hundred weaker forms of the disease which, though not recognised as mild manifestations of it, could nevertheless be cured or removed by the very same treatment as that which cures scurvy. And I cannot insist too emphatically on this point, because not only does it affect the argument in this book, but it also affords, I believe, an interesting explanation of a great many modern disorders which are as vague as they are distressing, and as incurable by ordinary doctor’s drugs as they are susceptible to immediate modification by the time-honoured scurvy treatment.

Let me give a few instances. A friend of mine, who had reasons for relying on my judgment in matters of hygiene and diet, came to me one day with serious inflammation of the conjunctivæ, and asked me what he should do for it. The eyeballs were also a little inflamed, and there was a slight beginning of suppuration. I told him to eat at least four oranges a day for a week, and to drink still lemonade. In three days the inflammation round the eyelids had completely gone.

On another occasion a dentist whom I had consulted about some trouble with an inflamed gum told me that I had much better have the tooth removed around which the gum was inflamed, and he hinted darkly at pyorrhœa. Not wishing to lose a good tooth, I disregarded his advice, and treated myself as for a mild scorbutus. I ate plenty of uncooked vegetables, and consumed about four oranges a day. At the end of the week my gums no longer troubled me.

I am firmly convinced that whereas thousands of people to-day are having all their teeth removed owing to pyorrhœa, this disfiguring and painful operation could be avoided if they treated themselves as for scurvy, and at the same time removed from a low to a high altitude.[126]

The anti-scorbutic vitamine is plentiful in some of our most common food-stuffs, provided that it be not destroyed. Scurvy may be arrested and cured by raw cabbage leaves and the raw juice of swedes.[127] These are the most potent of anti-scorbutics among vegetables. Raw carrot-juice and raw beetroot juice are comparatively feeble, while the potato (after half an hour’s boiling) would appear to occupy a mean position.[128] Among the fresh fruits the orange and lemon easily take the first place. Dried vegetables and fruits are practically useless. Milk and meat come last in the order of merit, and have to be consumed in enormous quantities in order to afford protection from scurvy.[129]

Foodstuffs offering no protection from scurvy are:—Eggs, cereals, malt (dried and kilned), preserved lime juice, autolysed yeast extract, pickled cabbage.

I shall not deal with the numerous ways in which purely modern methods of preparing food succeed in killing both the vitamines of group (1) and those of group (2) in the products constituting our daily diet. Because since these methods cannot be supposed to have been used by the ancestors of the ancient Greeks, they do not concern us here.[130] I shall therefore only discuss the action of heat upon these vitamines, leaving the question of prolonged or short-period exposure to the sequel.

Mrs. Rink, discussing the liability of vitamines to partial or total destruction under the influence of heat, says that this may occur in one of the two following ways:—

“(a) Prolonged exposure to dry heat (be it sunshine or an artificially raised temperature), sufficiently high to remove the moisture from a food.

“(b) Prolonged exposure to moist heat.”

Summing up, she says:—

“A prolonged exposure to heat is always prejudicial to the existence of accessory factors.

“The boiling and stewing of food is calculated to impoverish and eventually to destroy them. Roasting, baking and grilling resulting in the production of underdone meat are naturally preferable methods in this connection. Even the steaming of vegetables—an admirable means of preparation from every other point of view—does not guarantee the preservation of vitamines intact.”[131]

Turning now to the Committee’s Report, we find the following particular details about the effect of heat upon certain foods:—

Fat-soluble A, the chief vehicles of which, as we have seen, are butter, egg-yolk and animal fats and oils, has been shown to be gradually destroyed when the butter is exposed to heat.[132] This is also true of fat-soluble A in milk, cabbages and potatoes—five such common articles of food that they might be regarded as forming the bulk of the staple diet of England.

Thus, in regard to fat-soluble A, we have arrived at a very definite result. Seeing that a deficiency of this vitamine in a diet removes the protection from bacterial infection of all kinds, arrests growth, and, in children, leads to rickets, the evil effects of cooking, on the foods containing this vitamine, cannot be too strongly emphasised. Nor should it be forgotten that in cases where the deficiency is not marked enough to produce disease, a general lack of tone, debility, depression and skin trouble (conjunctivitis particularly) will be sure to result when the compensation obtained from other foodstuffs is insufficient completely to correct the deleterious effects of cooking on the products which are the chief vehicles of this vitamine.

Water-soluble B, or the anti-beri-beri and anti-neuritic factor, is more hardy, and can survive heat very much longer than fat-soluble A. It has, however, been found that one to two hours’ exposure to 120° C. destroyed this vitamine in unmilled rice, Katjang-idjo beans, and buffalo meat. Other experiments have shown that beef heated to 110° C. for thirty minutes also loses its anti-neuritic properties, and that, generally speaking, while the destruction of this vitamine takes place very slowly at 100° C., it is very much more rapid in the neighbourhood of 120° C.[133]

Now bearing in mind that a deficiency of water-soluble B in a diet leads to a cessation of growth, to decline, to beri-beri, and in mild cases to a general lack of tone, debility, nervous trouble and depression, we are again confronted by an example of the grave danger which the body incurs when certain foods are cooked, or cooked too much.

In regard to the anti-scorbutic factor, the evidence is overwhelming, and seeing that, in its milder forms, when it is unrecognised as scurvy, scorbutus has a number of manifestations which are as disagreeable as they are mystifying, there is in all probability, owing to the prevalence of erroneous methods of cooking all over Europe, very much more “mild” or “undiagnosed” scurvy about than anyone, least of all the average medical man, can possibly suspect.

In the words of the learned Report prepared by the Committee whose conclusions and statistics I have already quoted so extensively in this chapter: “With regard to exposure to high temperatures, the anti-scorbutic factor is also much more sensitive than the anti-beri factor, or the fat-soluble A factor.”[134]

And further: “Seeing that the anti-scorbutic factor is sensitive to high temperatures, it is clear that the value of fresh vegetables and fruit must of necessity be greatly impaired by cooking. When there is scarcity of fresh food, either by actual deficiency or by difficulty in transport or distribution, it is well to realise that raw fruit and salads have a value, weight for weight, far exceeding that of cooked fruit or cooked vegetables, and that a smaller ration will suffice to afford protection from scurvy.... The bulk of the population in this country takes its anti-scorbutic food in the cooked condition, and this being so, the methods adopted for cooking become of great importance.”[135]

The anti-scorbutic property in milk is reduced 50 per cent. by cooking; that of cabbages is reduced 66⅔ per cent. It is probably the great quantity of potatoes that are regularly consumed by the average working family that alone compensates for the loss of the anti-scorbutic vitamine in the potato through cooking, but unfortunately experiments with raw potatoes have not been made to prove this.

The Committee’s Report gives two interesting examples of recent outbreaks of scurvy, which were due entirely to the process of cooking:—

“Scurvy broke out in a camp in Scotland in the spring of 1917, and eighty-two men were affected. At the time potatoes were scarce, but the ration contained a fair proportion of fresh meat, and 2 ounces of swedes were available daily.” (As we have already seen on p. 100, swedes are among the most potent anti-scorbutic vegetables we possess, and ought, if cooked in the proper manner, to have afforded ample protection.) “The cause of the outbreak was investigated by Professor L. Hill, who discovered that the meat was always served as a stew, the vegetables were added, and the whole cooked for about five hours. This circumstance was considered by Professor Hill to be sufficient explanation of the outbreak.”[136]

Another outbreak occurred in a Kaffir labour battalion in France between May and July, 1918, in which there were 142 cases of pronounced scurvy. “In this case there was a ration of fresh vegetables equal to 8 ounces daily, these were cooked with the meat and boiled for a period of at least three hours. In the opinion of the medical officer by whom the circumstances of the outbreak were thoroughly investigated this fact was an important contributory cause.”[137]

In an outbreak of very mild and subacute infantile scurvy which occurred at the Hebrew Infant Asylum, New York, it was found that the malady was confined to infants who had been fed for several months upon a diet of cow’s milk previously heated to 63° C. for thirty minutes. Though this diet had been found safe if accompanied by a little orange juice, the discontinuance of this ration of orange juice “as a result of the pronouncement of the American Medical Milk Commission, (1912) that for the purposes of infant feeding heated milk might be considered the equivalent of raw milk,” led in the course of two to four months to the outbreak in question.[138]

For future reference, it is highly interesting also to note the following fact: that[139] “if fresh vegetables or fruit are scarce or absent, an anti-scorbutic food can be prepared by moistening any available seeds (wheat, barley, rye, peas, beans, lentils), and allowing them to germinate.... The seeds should then be soaked in water for twenty-four hours, and kept moist with access of air for one to three days, by which time they will have sprouted. This sprouted material possesses an anti-scorbutic value equal to that of many fresh vegetables.”[140]

With reference to this most important fact, it is furthermore desirable in view of what is to follow for the reader to bear in mind this additional valuable information: that the Kaffir beer, “leting” or “joala,” is “the product of rapid fermentation of partly germinated millet and is consumed quickly after preparation. The Kaffirs are in the habit of taking large quantities when living in their own kraals in South Africa, and it is believed to be a valuable anti-scorbutic.... Outbreaks of scurvy have been reported by Dyke among companies of Kaffir labourers in France, where this ‘joala’ was replaced by a second type of beer, ‘mahew,’ a fermented drink also made from millet and maize, but in the preparation of which the grain is not previously germinated.”[141]

Meat when it is fresh, not when it is frozen, also possesses anti-scorbutic properties, but apparently great heat or great cold destroys the essential vitamine. Very large quantities of it, however, have to be eaten in order to afford protection; hence the enormous amount of meat consumed by people who rely chiefly on meat for their immunity from scurvy in its acute or sub-acute form. It is also best eaten raw for this purpose. This is probably why the Eskimo, who suffer from such a dearth of anti-scorbutic vegetables, are not only heavy meat-eaters but also raw-meat eaters.[142]

The qualities of raw meat, however, are still appreciated by so-called “civilised” Europeans, and this kind of food is now recommended by some medical men, both for rachitic infants and nursing mothers.

Now to sum up the foregoing, we have seen that (1) in addition to the old and recognised chemical constituents of our daily food, there are in the products we eat certain ingredients known as accessory food factors or vitamines, which not only complete the value of the remaining compound of which the food consists, and render it profitable and useful to the body, but also constitute indispensable elements for keeping the body healthy, immune and vigorous.

2. These accessory food factors or vitamines are of two kinds: growth-promoting and disease-preventing, and a deficiency of them in our diet quickly leads to stunted growth or disease.

3. As might have been anticipated, they are found chiefly in those primary products which nature has intended as a whole food for living creatures: egg-yolk, milk and its by-products, grain, vegetables, including grass (on which sheep and cows and all grazing animals keep thoroughly fit) and, of course, such secondary natural products as honey, which serve as whole-foods.

4. The anti-scorbutic vitamine occurs most plentifully in fresh fruit and vegetables; but it may also be made to occur abundantly in seeds, if these are partly germinated—hence the great anti-scorbutic value of all beers prepared from the partly germinated grain of millet, barley, etc.

5. The effects resulting from an acute deficiency are as alarming as they must have seemed mysterious to those who could not possibly have traced them to their proper cause. We have only to think of stunted growth, wasting and decline, neuritic troubles such as beri-beri, loss of immunity against bacterial infection, and, worst of all, the loathsome disease scurvy—all ending in premature death.

6. The effects resulting from subacute deficiency are quite as distressing as the former, because though they may not prove fatal, they are less marked and less pronounced, and therefore less easy to deal with and to diagnose, and surpassing the former in the vagueness and mystery that surrounds them. We have only to think of conjunctivitis, leading frequently to blindness, general debility, depression, indigestion, constipation, sleeplessness, neuritis, rheumatism, all the unrecognised and milder forms of scurvy (from which it is certain millions of the modern world now suffer without the smallest notion of the true nature of their indisposition), loss of sexual potency and consequently of high spirits and good-cheer,[143] in fact a general poisoning of the body which turns all the good things of life to naught, and blights the brilliance of the sunniest day.

7. The exposure of certain foodstuffs to heat in the process of cooking has, we have been assured on the high authority of Dr. Bell, such deleterious effects that he believes rheumatism, cancer, and a host of other ills to which the flesh of man is heir, are in a great measure due to this method of food preparation. We have also seen in confirmation of Dr. Bell’s beliefs, that some vitamines are certainly destroyed by exposure to heat, and that the anti-scorbutic are the most susceptible to this form of deterioration and extirpation.

8. It has been pointed out that the only reason why modern Europeans do not suffer more acutely (that they all suffer subacutely is fairly certain) from their wholesale destruction of vitamines, either through cooking, or through the various commercial processes by which eggs, meat-extracts, malt-extracts, meats and oils are prepared, is that, owing to the great variety of food they consume, they accidentally compensate in one direction for losses incurred in another.

9. If a people restricted to a limited number of foodstuffs, as soldiers are in camps, for instance, cook food in such a way as to destroy the essential vitamines in their diet, epidemics, as we have seen, quickly break out and men die like flies. Thus, where accidental compensation in the form of a great variety of foodstuffs is prevented by the circumstances incidental to the life of any particular community, the cooking of certain products may and will prove fatal to all those endeavouring to maintain themselves on a restricted diet. If there is partial compensation, the consequences, though not fatal, may be both distressing and alarming.

I think I have now said enough on this question to be able to return to my main thesis, and to begin to apply the conclusions at which I have arrived to my interpretation of the Prometheus myth.

If we pause to ask ourselves how it is that we modern Europeans are able to frame our dietaries upon such an enormous variety of foodstuffs, and to light, as it were, by accident upon a regimen that allows for compensation in one direction, while grave deficiencies occur in another, we must remember that modern commerce and the world trade has placed the whole storehouse of the globe at the disposal of our markets; our meals reach us not merely from all the corners of our own lands, but literally from all points of the compass. Not a day goes by, particularly in England, without the product of some foreign land, some British colony, some dependence, being offered to us at our tables. The fact is now such a commonplace, that it has ceased to be regarded as strange, much less as marvellous.

If, then, with all this variety, we are nevertheless unable to maintain ourselves in health, owing to the gross errors of our own taste and culinary methods—for thousands upon thousands are suffering to-day purely from dietetic mistakes—how much more grave must the situation be among a people who have not our variety to draw upon. The moment the great war reduced us to the condition of such a people, we realised, by being deprived of our accidental compensations, how precarious our living had been before. As I have already pointed out, the serious influenza epidemics that swept Europe during the latter years of the war were largely due to deficiencies in the diet of her people (fats, for instance), which deprived them of their normal resistance against bacterial infection.

We know, however, that all primitive peoples are, by virtue of their simple civilisations, foredoomed to a very restricted number of foodstuffs. The balance of health and disease is therefore susceptible to more rapid, more immediate disequilibration, owing to the circumstance that it may be destroyed by a famine in one particular product alone.[144]

But a condition equivalent to a famine may be artificially brought about, as we have seen, if the essential accessory factors in a food are persistently killed or destroyed by exposure to heat. And the effects of such destruction would be felt the more rapidly, the less extensive was the variety of foodstuffs from which a people were able to draw.

It is not difficult to conjecture the constituents composing the bill of fare of the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. We can frame it upon the dietaries of most primitive hunting peoples. That it was composed largely of meat is most probable—meat eaten grilled, roasted, or baked, when good-fortune provided a natural fire,[145] and eaten raw at other times. To this may have been added various grasses, seeds, berries, roots and fruits, when they were available, and wild honey when it was found. It is possible that the milk of wild cattle was also obtained long before pastoral conditions were actually established, and that the milk of mares was drunk before the horse had been thoroughly domesticated.

These primitive people were certainly nomadic. Having exhausted any particular area of game or other food, they would wander into other parts of the land. They would also plan their wanderings according to the seasons, and venture further north in the summer than they would dare to go in the winter.

If, however, through some mishap—hostility on the part of another people, floods, or a spell of ill-luck in hunting—foodstuffs ran short, while actual famine might still be warded off, deficiency diseases must have been of frequent occurrence and sometimes devastating. Forced to take up winter-quarters in an area further north than was the custom, the usual supply of fruit, berries, grasses, seeds, might fall short, and disaster would quickly follow.

For centuries, if not millenniums, habit must have confirmed what appetite and taste first created, in the dietaries of these primitive peoples, so that they sought their compensating or “protective foodstuffs,” not from a knowledge of their virtues, but from a blind rule of thumb which tradition all but sanctified.

Imagine now the sudden possession by such a people of a power so far-reaching in its effects, so subversive of their whole order of life, and so infinite in its possible applications, as the means to produce fire at will.

Everything which had not been realised when chance “natural” fires had been used, could now be tried and introduced into a new order of life. We have seen that the name of Prometheus was associated in the minds of the ancient Greeks with the manufacture of pottery. It may be assumed, therefore, that among a people refusing to recognise any limits to the use of fire, thanks to the Promethean spirit which animated them, pottery was one of the first things to be produced once the means for kindling a fire at will had become a common possession.

With pottery, however, the easiest form of cooking comes into being—the cooking you can leave for hours to itself, while you go about other business, the cooking that in a sense may be called automatic and self-performing—I mean boiling, simmering, stewing and braising.

Incidentally, as we have seen, this is the worst kind of cooking, the most deleterious to the food, and the most harmful, therefore, to the body; but the tremendous ease with which it is effected, the simplicity of an operation consisting merely of setting a variety of products in a pan with water, and leaving it to the action of heat, has, I am afraid, made it the classical method of cooking ever since the Promethean crime.

All the time we were in the line on the Somme, for instance, scarcely a day passed that the food, at least of the men, was not stewed;[146] but then, as the officers and men of my battery will be able to remember, our casualties from boils and scabies (a sort of dermatitis revealing at the very least a low state of resistance to bacterial infection—if not subacute scurvy itself) were pretty heavy throughout the latter months of 1916. Nor could this be ascribed to dirt alone, as one of the smartest and cleanest N.C.O.’s of the left section—now alas! dead—suffered from it most severely.

The temptation to stew, when other means of cooking are rendered difficult owing to the rough-and-ready apparatus which is available in the field, shows that it is, of all methods, the easiest. It is the line of least resistance in the culinary art.

I have, however, quoted sufficiently from the Expert Committee’s Report to show how dangerous it is, and how, even during the last war, forces not actually in the line developed scurvy after a long spell of stewed food, even though this food contained ample protection in its unstewed state against the malady.

But, as we have seen, although scurvy in its acute and subacute and frequently unrecognised forms may be the worst, the most alarming and nauseating of the deficiency diseases, it is by no means the only one. Other vitamines besides the anti-scorbutic are destroyed by exposure to heat, and other diseases are the outcome of such destruction.

When, therefore, it is remembered that the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks were a primitive people, that the range of their foodstuffs was restricted, and that such chance compensation as we achieve to-day was certainly impracticable with them; when, moreover, we bear in mind that with the discovery of the means of fire-production not only did pottery become a possibility, but with it also the worst, the easiest, the most deleterious and utterly destructive form of cookery,[147] it requires no fantastic flights of fancy to picture the results, some immediate and others more remote, of the introduction of fire-production among them.

Epidemics of the cruellest and most devastating kind probably raged for generations, without anyone being able to point to any cause save perhaps Jove’s anger. Crippledom, stunted growth, tooth-trouble, eye-trouble,[148] pronounced and acute scurvy, beri-beri, pellagra, indigestion, skin disease, rickets in children,—verily, in fact, a Pandora’s casket of evils must have fallen upon these ignorant, early users of fire, particularly as the Promethean spirit would have drawn no limits to its use.

When we add to this, that the possibility of kindling fire probably induced whole tribes to face the colder months in regions which they would formerly have deserted, and that, therefore, to the natural restrictions of their usual regimen must have been coupled the common restrictions imposed by the cold of winter; when we also recollect that these people, far from connecting their troubles and illnesses with the actual use of fire, were taught by tradition merely to ascribe them to Jove’s wrath over the stealing of fire—just as the Syrian to-day ascribes his eye-trouble to Allah’s particular attentiveness to him—it is difficult to conceive of the state of utter desperation and horror to which they must have been driven. Mothers bewailing the loss of their children—or what was worse in those days, the deformity and botchedness of their children—men and girls taken away in the prime of life, sexual potency radically impaired and causing more consternation among the women than the men,[149] mouths becoming unsavoury, unpleasant to look upon; eyes losing their lustre and their keenness of vision. But it is impossible to describe the picture of such misery—much less to overdraw it. And to all those who doubt that such appalling calamities are remembered for thousands of years, to all those who question the historical truth behind this mythical association of fire and frenzied suffering, I can but recommend as a pastime for a week or so the task of imagining the effect upon the primitive mind of man, of such a sudden avalanche of ills and woes. We who, to-day, are so used to illness, botchedness and ugliness, that we scarcely know ourselves as Europeans and civilised men unless we have at least one cripple, one cretin, one lunatic, one neurasthenic or one consumptive in our family; we who are so accustomed to the fœtid atmosphere of the sick-chamber, that we no longer regard our own or anybody else’s physical shortcomings with shame or disgust, and who are forced to imagine some post-mortem methods of compensation for the tragic suffering that is now quite a normal occurrence with us—we, of modern progressive Europe, can form, it is true, but a shadowy conception of the horror with which primitive man must have regarded such a shower of physical calamities as fell upon him after the first indiscriminate application of fire to food; but those of us who still have a clean breath left, those who still are healthy and robust enough to feel a frank dislike and contempt for the invalid, the “sufferer,” and the half-witted, and who regard the cripple, the cretin, the misshapen and the physiologically bungled and botched with undisguised loathing, will know what I mean, and will realise that Hesiod was an accurate though unconscious historian when voicing the tradition of centuries, he declared:—

“Of themselves diseases came upon men continually by day and by night bringing mischief to mortals silently.... For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sicknesses which bring the Fates upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar with her hands and scattered all these, and her thoughts caused sorrow and mischief to men.”[150]

He who has not the flair to scent history behind this, he who is too modern, too Promethean, to believe that a scientific development that is accompanied by a decrease of vitality and health, may be an outrage on humanity, can scarcely picture the anguish which must have existed to give rise to such a tradition as this. It explains the miraculous torture to which posterity condemned the “benefactor” of mankind; it accounts for the belief in the supposed wrath of Zeus over the stealing of fire, and, above all, it reveals the relationship between the ancient Greeks’ infinite trust in their supreme deity, while at the same time they felt the gravest doubts about the civilisation which had developed in spite of his most wise and benevolent ordinances.

FOOTNOTES:

[97] It is interesting to note that Dr. Bell’s views were formed long before the last and most valuable contribution to this subject was even thought of, and it must be a source of great satisfaction to him to find that the doctrines he has advocated so persistently all through a busy life should at last be recognised and confirmed by the highest authorities of the day on Dietetics.

[98] Dietetics and Hygienics versus Disease, p. 6.

[99] Ibid., p. 7.

[100] Ibid., p. 8.

[101] Cancer: Its Causes and Treatment (George Bell and Sons), p. 193.

[102] Health at its Best versus Cancer (Fisher Unwin), p. 274.

[103] See The Futility of Operations in Cancer with Proofs, p. 8. See also Cancer: Its Cause and Treatment, chap. xxvii.

[104] Dr. Bell, writing in 1916, estimates that the death-rate from cancer in this country has increased 200 per cent. since 1868. See The Futility of Operations, etc., p. 3. In Health at its Best versus Cancer, p. 254, he says: “What we are pleased to term civilisation has a good deal to answer for, and certainly cancer is an evil which is attributable to a very considerable extent to flagrant errors of diet for which civilisation is directly responsible.”

[105] In this case the italics are mine.—A. M. L.

[106] p. 265.

[107] p. 266.

[108] p. 267.

[109] p. 269.

[110] p. 272. As we shall see, Dr. Bell is not quite right here; but in the main he has ably anticipated the results of the most recent research.

[111] For interesting and authoritative confirmation of some of Dr. Bell’s views see Dr. Hutchinson’s famous work, Food and the Principles of Dietetics (Edward Arnold, 1906), chap. xxii. The learned doctor says (pp. 390–391): “It is an error to suppose that cooking increases the digestibility of food.... The digestibility of animal food is diminished rather than increased by cooking.... The fats of food are not so much affected by heat as the proteids and carbohydrates.... The effect of heat on the proteids of the food is to coagulate them.” For losses resulting from cooking see pp. 398–399. Comparing the time taken in digesting raw and cooked meat respectively Dr. Hutchinson writes (p. 66): “It has been found by experiments on men that 3½ oz. of beef disappears completely from the stomach in the following times, depending on the method by which it has been cooked: Raw ... 2 hours; half-boiled ... 2½ hours; wholly boiled ... 3 hours; half-roasted ... 3½ hours; wholly roasted ... 4 hours.” Discussing the cooking of vegetables Dr. Hutchinson writes (p. 248): “The effect of cooking upon green vegetables is still further to reduce their already poor stock of nutrients. They gain water and lose part of their carbohydrates and proteid, most of their mineral matter, and nearly the whole of their non-albuminoid nitrogenous constituents.”

[112] See my Defence of Aristocracy, chap. v.

[113] Provided, of course, in regard to meat in particular, that a time-limit is rigorously imposed.

[114] Published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office, November, 1919.

[115] p. 5.

[116] p. 1.

[117] p. 12.

[118] p. 13.

[119] p. 19.

[120] p. 21.

[121] For a complete list of foods in which fat-soluble A is present, and for the proportion in which it is present, I refer the reader to pp. 22–23 of the Committee’s Report.

[122] p. 31.

[123] p. 35.

[124] Hippocrates and others among the ancients described it, though they had not the faintest suspicion of its true cause. Even as late as 1896 it is stated in Twentieth Century Practice, vol. vii., p. 492: “The essential cause of scorbutus is still a matter of doubt.”

[125] These details concerning scurvy have all been taken (sometimes verbatim) from vol. vii. of Twentieth Century Practice, pp. 491–505.

[126] Dr. Robert Bell mentions somewhere that at one time when he was suffering from gum-boils, a friend told him to try eating several oranges a day, and that this treatment quickly and entirely cured him.

[127] Committee’s Report, p. 44. Raw dandelion leaves, sorrel, carrot and cranberries are apparently also potent anti-scorbutics.

[128] Ibid.

[129] p. 45.

[130] Anyone, however, wishing to discover further evidence in support of “progress” will find some cheering facts in regard to this aspect of the question.

[131] What we Ought to Know about Food: Chapter “Vitamines.” I have only seen this book in manuscript, so that I cannot give page references. It is the book mentioned in the Preface.—A. M. L.

[132] p. 23. The experiments dealt only with butter, but it is unlikely that egg-yolk and the animal oils would enjoy a special immunity that butter does not share.

[133] Committee’s Report, p. 34.

[134] p. 45.

[135] p. 64.

[136] pp. 65–66.

[137] p. 66.

[138] p. 79.

[139] p. 100: the italics are mine.—A. M. L.

[140] p. 100. See also p. 41.

[141] p. 61.

[142] See Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., article “Eskimo”: “The Eskimo are enormous meat-eaters; two will easily dispose of a seal at a sitting; and in Greenland, for instance, each individual has for his daily consumption, on an average, 2½ lbs. of flesh with blubber, and 1 lb. of fish.... 10 lbs. of flesh in addition to other food is not uncommonly consumed in a day in time of plenty.” See also J. Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 149: “Some few northern tribes, the Eskimo, the Cukchi, eat ... reindeer’s flesh and fish quite raw.” See also Nansen, Eskimo Life, pp. 89–92: “They can consume at a sitting astonishing quantities of meat, blubber, fish, etc.... Meat and fish are eaten sometimes raw.... The blubber of seals and whales is generally eaten raw.... The Greenlander is also very fond of raw sealskin with the blubber.” See also Vilhjalmur Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo, pp. 170, 278, etc.

[143] I showed the dependence of high spirits and good cheer upon the vigour of the sexual powers in my Defence of Aristocracy, chap. v., pp. 175–183.

[144] Even in such relatively highly civilised countries as Ireland and Norway, scurvy followed a failure of the potato crop in the former country in 1847, and in the latter in 1904.

[145] See Deniker, op. cit., p. 149: “The preservation of fire produced by natural forces (conflagration, lightning, volcanoes, etc.) must have preceded the production of fire.”

[146] I am speaking of C Battery, 79th Brigade, R.F.A.

[147] Some anthropologists will object, perhaps, that long before pottery existed, the process known as “stone-cooking” or “stone boiling” was probably practised by all primitive peoples. This is possibly true, but to such objectors I reply, that they know as well as I do the tediousness of stone boiling and stone cooking, and that, therefore, the very difficulty of the process itself would remove the chief advantage which stewing possesses over other methods of cooking, which is ease; and thus leave no inducement to primitive man to practise it.

[148] The eye-trouble in the near East is still very noticeable. When I was in Greece, Palestine, and Egypt in 1910, it struck me that it was almost universal, and I have often wondered since whether it might not be largely a deficiency disease.

[149] Elsewhere, I have shown how, at another and much later epoch in history, it was the women who raised the greatest outcry against the sex-destroying drugs which became prevalent in England after the Puritan Rebellion. See my Defence of Aristocracy, chap. v.

[150] Works and Days, 90 et seq.

CHAPTER V

DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD

The last chapter ended on a note of tragedy and despair. This one opens with glad tidings and the promise of great joy. Hesiod tells us that after the Promethean crime and all its consequences to man, only Hope remained, and that Hope, too, was the gift of Zeus the Almighty Benefactor.

But Hope was not the only mitigation of their suffering which Zeus reserved to primeval men. And here we light again upon a new interpretation of another section of the Prometheus myth which hitherto has been passed over without comment by the majority of scholars.

It will be remembered that at the end of my own subdivisions of the myth, I referred to the tradition that Zeus ultimately relented and forgave Prometheus—in fact, that he sent one of his own sons, Heracles, to release him from the torment of the eagle.

What is the psychological explanation of this? How do a people, responsible through generations for an oral tradition in which a supposed enemy of the race is subjected to infinite and miraculous torture, come to suppose that their god has relented? How do they arrive at the conclusion that the Arch-criminal can be forgiven by the deity whom they trust as their benefactor and protector?

It seems to me that the answer is a simple one. They can do so only when the evils to which this Arch-criminal gave rise appear to have been overcome, modified, corrected, or neutralised. I suggest that, as the ills and woes directly associated with the possession of fire-production came to be relieved, the anger of the protecting deity was conceived as dying down, as vanishing, so that it was possible for his protégés to imagine that the severity of his punishment of Prometheus must have a term. Hence the relenting of Zeus, and the merciful mission of his son Heracles.

But how did the ills and woes come to be relieved?—I mean, of course, the worst ills and woes that befell mankind after the unlimited use of fire: disease, premature death, decline in sexual potency, etc., etc., not the ills to which C. O. Müller and Völcker allude—these could scarcely have been relieved once a Promethean civilisation had been established; but then, as I have shown, they were neither as alarming nor as insufferable as the other ills.

I suggest that the ills and woes gradually abated from the moment when Zeus gave his only begotten son by Semele, the god Dionysus, as a Saviour to mankind.

From that time everything began to mend in the lives of the archaic Greeks. From that time life became once more possible on earth; sexual potency, the source of one of the greatest joys, was restored; disease was overcome, and the disfigurement of faulty and arrested growth passed away.

This is a bold interpretation of the great myth of Dionysus. Is it possible that an analysis of the myth itself, and of the mysteries attending the cult, will confirm its general validity? This remains to be seen. In any case it covers most of the facts, includes most of the mysteries, and in lucidity and plausibility leaves the other attempted interpretations leagues behind.

We must now turn to the myth of Dionysus itself and deal with it piecemeal as we dealt with the myth of Prometheus. But to begin with, who was Dionysus?

His name tells us who he was. He was the son of Zeus. He is the only god who is definitely connected with Zeus by name. In fact, so close is the connection between father and son in this case, that like the Christian god and the Saviour, they are frequently identified one with another—a kind of one in two, two in one, identity, which found expression in the earliest products of Greek art.[151] This is only a further proof, if one were needed, of the perfect trust the ancient Greeks had in their supreme deity, as a benefactor and bestower of happiness, health and vigour.

1. According to common tradition, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, and was born at Thebes. Hera, the sister and wife of Zeus, having grown jealous of Semele, owing to her attraction for Zeus, visited her in the disguise of a friend, an old hag, or Semele’s own nurse, and prevailed upon her to request Zeus to appear to her in the same glory and majesty in which he was accustomed to approach his own wife Hera. To press her point Hera suggested that Zeus was a false lover to Semele, and that this would be a means of testing his devotion.

2. Semele fell into the trap laid for her, and begged her lover Zeus to appear before her as he appeared before his real wife—a very human and comprehensible desire, which Hera showed some penetration in suggesting. When all entreaties to desist from this request were fruitless, Zeus is said to have ended by complying, and he appeared to her in thunder and lightning.

3. Semele was apparently terrified and overpowered by the sight, and being seized by the fire, she gave premature birth to a male child.[152] Zeus, however, saved the child from the flames; he was sewed up in the god’s thigh, and thus came to maturity.

4. Many stories are told about his education. It was entrusted to various nymphs. Mystis, for instance, instructed him in the mysteries; Macris, the daughter of Aristæus, is said to have received him from the hands of Hermes and fed him with honey. When Dionysus had grown up, Hera, still suffering from jealousy, threw him into a state of madness, in which he wandered about through many countries. He is supposed to have travelled through Egypt, Syria and Asia, preaching the Gospel of the Vine wherever he went, in spite of occasional opposition of the bitterest kind—and instructing those he met in its cultivation and care.

5. Another important legend about him is to the effect that both as Sabazius (Dionysus Sabazius) and as Zagreus, he was torn to pieces by the Titans, who, in some accounts, are alleged to have been incited to the deed by Hera. He is said to have been restored and cured by Rhea or Demeter.

6. After he had made his divine nature known to all the world, he led his mother out of Hades, called her Thyone, and rose with her to Olympus.

Now though this is a very ancient myth,[153] we know that Dionysus was adopted into the Hellenic pantheon very much later than the myth of Prometheus. This, however, is only what we should have expected. The salvation cannot precede the fall. Dionysus as the Saviour, or Releaser of mankind, must appear at a time subsequent to man’s tribulation as a result of his unlimited use of fire. Thus we find Dionysus called variously:—

- Charidotes, or the Joy-giver.

- Eleuthereus, or the Bestower of Freedom.

- Hygiates, or the Healer.

- Lampter, or the Light.

- Liknites, or the Purifier.

- Luaios, or the Deliverer from Care.

- Lysios, or the Releaser,[154] and

- Soter, or the Saviour.

Truth to tell, the number of his epithets and the legends concerning him would lead even the uninitiated to suspect that he is either the embodiment of a variety of deities, all probably older than himself, but connected with the same functions as those with which he is connected; or else—and this is the belief to which I incline—that although he represents a very old cult and worship, and a very old fact as well (the fact of a remedy having been found for the ills resulting from the unlimited use of fire), his name was probably changed through the ages, just as that of Prometheus and Zeus may have been changed, although denoting the same original ancestor; and the cult connected with his name may have been influenced from time to time by Egyptian as well as by Indian and Persian legends connected with parallel deities. That different Greek tribes called him by different names, and held fast to slightly different versions of the myth, would also be sufficient to account for the numerous appellations, virtues and adventures connected with the notion of his majesty and divinity.

The root-idea underlying all his virtues, however, was that he reigned as the divinity and the protector of the fructifying moisture of nature—the guardian deity of the productive, invigorating, overflowing and intoxicating powers of life. In modern language, which is more colourless and less figurative, he might aptly be surnamed, in memory of Dr. Robert Bell, the protector of “nuclein,” or in memory of Funck, the dispenser and custodian of “vitamines.”

I do not mean this as a joke. I firmly believe that, as far as modern scientific jargon has any meaning at all, these epithets borrowed from the modern science of dietetics reveal precisely what he signified to the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. They worshipped him as a bestower of mysterious strength and health, as a healer, as a θεὸς σωτήρ against raging disease.[155] The fact that the frantic orgies connected with his worship appear to have been introduced somewhat late, is no argument against the antiquity of this god, as a deified ancestor who discovered the panacea against most of the ills and woes resulting from the unlimited use of fire.

It is contended, for instance, that he is not known to Homer as the discoverer of wine; also, that the fanatical service of Dionysus, although to some extent known to Homer, finds in him only a passing mention. But if we are going to argue in this way from instances of omission in works which in any case are alleged by some to be a compilation of fragments, then, as I believe Mr. Robert Brown has pointed out,[156] there is scarcely a myth or legend of Greek antiquity that would survive the test.

His worship is said to have been introduced from Thrace. This also is not surprising. Other myths and legends, besides that of Dionysus came along this northeastern route. The myth of Prometheus itself probably came viâ Thrace from the region of the Caucasus, nor is it unlikely that the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks followed this same route.

What I feel certain about is this, that after generations, maybe centuries, of intense suffering, following upon the unlimited use of fire, a great man, born of a simple Greek maiden, appeared among the Greeks, who, realising with a poet’s instinct, and not by means of a scientist’s tedious, endless and elaborate studies, that all his people needed was a corrective against debility, a cure for the maladies which a deficiency of the vital juices of nature had created in them, taught his fellows the virtues of the foodstuffs which their bodies lacked; taught them the regenerating quality of the fermented semi-germinated seed, whether of barley, oats, millet, or what not; taught them the tonic and invigorating properties of the fermented fruit of the vine and the ivy, and, above all, instructed them in the life-giving principle of honey, fermented and unfermented.[157]

That the insignificant though real father of this great man was ultimately buried in oblivion is not an insuperable objection; such total eclipses of fathers is not an uncommon occurrence in the history of geniuses. Who hears of the father of Confucius, or of Muhammed, or of the real father of Jesus Christ? Once his greatness was established, his father could have been none other than Zeus himself; because how could so great a benefactor fail to be the offspring of the greatest benefactor of all? Posterity, therefore, pre-dated his birth, made him the son of Zeus, and ultimately deified him too. But that this process of deification was gradual and not immediate, as in the case of the clash of a superior with an inferior race, is shown by the fact that we can trace his promotion from the rank of one of the minor deities to one of the greatest of all. Indeed, this gradual promotion may account for the fact that in the Homeric poems Dionysus does not appear as one of the great divinities at all.

Let us now return to the myth and discuss it in subdivisions.

1 and 2.[158] As the reader will have observed, I take Dionysus to be a divinity of the kind resulting from ancestor worship, and not, like Zeus, as a divinity resulting from the deification of a member or members of a superior race. It is obvious that as he came very much later than Prometheus, he must have appeared long after all trace of the original superior and inferior races had disappeared, and when one had entirely absorbed the other. He was not, therefore, like Zeus, a member of the superior race. He received post-mortem honours, and was raised to the rank of the highest gods only centuries after his death. In his case, therefore, there was a subsequent deification of his parentage also. Thus, as I point out, his real father was probably entirely forgotten, and when his pedigree had to be prepared, as he was already too great to be conceived as having had a mortal father, paternity was traced to Zeus. Likewise, Semele. She was, as I suggest, probably a simple Greek maiden, just as the Virgin Mary was a simple Jewish maiden. It was only subsequently that her pedigree was adjusted to include the ancient family of Inachus of Argos, and Poseidon himself, on the one side, and on the other, through Harmonia, the old divinities of Samothrace, as her forebears.

The story of Hera’s jealousy of Semele may have had some foundation in fact, although Hera could not have been the woman concerned. But seeing that most women are jealous of one another, either for one possession or another, the fact is really not important. It is far more likely that here we have a piece of fiction intercalated in the story of Dionysus’s life in order to account for what follows.

3. This, as the reader will probably have divined already, is by far the most important and most interesting subdivision of the fable. Here, as in the case of the punishment of Prometheus, we encounter the miraculous, and, as I have pointed out before, in such cases it is impossible to apply the Spencerian, the euhemeristic, or the anthropological method of interpretation. In the face of the miraculous, psychology is the only science that can come to our assistance. Let us therefore look into this story a little more closely. We have seen that Hera could not have been the woman concerned, because she only becomes a party to the domestic scandal owing to the deification of Dionysus. But on the same principle Zeus could not have been the lover concerned, because he was only made the father of Dionysus owing to the stupendous greatness to which the latter attained during his lifetime. Hera and Zeus, therefore, both fall out of our story. But if Zeus falls out of the story, the facts about the premature birth, the burning of Semele, and the saving of Dionysus from fire, have no satisfactory explanation.

Is it possible, then, that in addition to Zeus serving as the putative father of Dionysus, he served another important purpose in the myth—that is to say, his personality provided the necessary stage-properties for accounting for an awkward though vital part of it, for which no explanation could be found by those who, in the remote prehistoric period of Greece, were responsible for the oral tradition by which the whole story was transmitted to us?

Altogether the story is not satisfactory, and bears the stamp of having been twisted into its present shape, or forced to account for what was otherwise an incomprehensible though genuine fragment of the myth. For if Zeus by appearing before Semele in all his glory consumes her, why should he not consume Hera in the same way?

It is clear that some fact must here have required explanation and that a rather clumsy story has been invented to explain it. Of course, once Zeus is introduced as the father everything becomes possible; nevertheless, there is the suspicion that his consuming glory is required by the stage-manager to overcome a difficulty which is certainly not either the premature birth of Dionysus or the death of Semele. For both could have been achieved by more simple and less miraculous means. Neither is the premature birth of Dionysus essential to his life-story. As far as his subsequent career is concerned it might never have occurred, except, perhaps, that it lent him distinction in the eyes of the ancient world, as a person who had been “twice born.” Semele’s death is also gratuitous. The life-story of the hero appears to have been in no way affected by it. We are reduced then to one fact—a fact for which all this domestic upheaval appears to have been contrived as a clumsy explanation by a generation of men who, though possessed of the leading features of the myth, were too remote from the time in which Dionysus lived to be able to account satisfactorily for them.

And what is this one fact?—Clearly it is this: that Dionysus was saved from fire. In some mysterious way, for which it is now difficult to account, the fable was amazingly and profoundly true in this respect. Dionysus, surnamed Hyes, or the Lord of fertilising moisture, the custodian and resuscitator of that precious principle in nature, which fire and its unlimited use had killed for the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks, comes down through tradition as himself having had a miraculous escape from fire. The connection, as we are now able to see, is so true and so undeniable, and the confusion of the person of the deity with the good or the bounties he dispenses is so common in oral traditions,[159] that there can be no mistake regarding the meaning here.

Dr. Kuhn, in his famous work on the Prometheus myth, is one of the few scholars who sees an inevitable connection between the theft of fire and the vivifying and invigorating drinks associated with the name of Dionysus and Soma, although I must admit that he sees this connection more on etymological than on anthropological grounds.[160]

However, here is the connection described plainly enough in the myth itself—the fact that I had anticipated it by setting forth my reasons for regarding Dionysus as the Saviour of the Greeks, after the worst consequences of the unlimited use of fire had fallen upon them, merely adds weight to the further evidence I shall proceed to adduce in the sequel in support of my thesis.

The marvellous feature of this fable, however, is the manner in which this essential fact about Dionysus has been preserved, apparently by means of a most clumsy and transparent fiction.

(4) This section of the myth depends upon such a multitude of different and frequently conflicting stories that it is difficult to interpret it plainly. It all depends upon which stories or story you care to concentrate.

On anthropological grounds I incline to the account given in the twenty-sixth Homeric Hymn, because it is consonant with the principal elements in the subsequent career of the great man. If a great medicine chief, such as Dionysus probably was, is to be well versed in the mysteries of nature’s most secret workings, he cannot study these better than in forests and wooded glades. Here he has the life of the birds, vegetation in its most luxuriant form, the small fauna of the undergrowth, and above all honey. These he can study; using himself as an experimental animal, he can learn the secret of proper dieting and acquire the knowledge of plants and trees. The fact that one of his most important epithets is Dendrites, Lord of the Trees, the fact, too, that he is said to have been taught by Silenus, son of Pan, how to control the wild beasts of the forest; as also his epithet Brisaios (a name applied to Dionysus as the discoverer of honey),[161] all point not only to his having grown up among the trees of the forest, but also to his having been well versed in plant, tree and animal life.[162] For as I have already suggested, I think, it was only the wild honey, the honey to be found in tree-hives, that the remote ancestors of the Greeks were able to obtain.

The account in the twenty-sixth Homeric Hymn is as follows:—

“I begin to sing of ivy-crowned Dionysus, the loud-crying god, splendid son of Zeus and glorious Semele. The rich-haired nymphs received him in their bosoms from the lord his father, and fostered him and nurtured him carefully in the dells of Nysa, where by the will of his father he grew up in a sweet-smelling cave, being reckoned among the immortals. But when the goddesses had brought him up, a god oft hymned, then began he to wander continually through the woody coombes, thickly wreathed with ivy and laurel.”

Sabazius is also said to have been reared by a nymph Nysa. I take it that these nymphs are wood-nymphs or dryads. Nonnus, however, deliberately says they were water-nymphs; but he is scarcely to be relied upon. Pherecydes of Athens, on the other hand, calls them the Dodonean nymphs,[163] and seeing that the oak-forest of Dodona is famous, it is probable that wood-nymphs are meant. In any case the probability is that Dionysus was an inhabitant of the woods throughout his childhood and youth, for the reasons I have already stated. There may even be truth in that part of the legend which implies that his mother died at his birth, and he may have been abandoned in the woods by his mother’s relatives on that account. This was not an unusual procedure among primitive peoples, when a child was born whom nobody wanted, particularly if the child had no proper father.

Whether Hera’s alleged continued hostility to him, owing to Semele’s relationship to Zeus, is worth troubling about, now that Hera has been dropped out of the fable, is very doubtful. I mean by this, that I doubt whether there is any more in the legend of his having been stricken mad by Hera, than an attempt on the part of oral tradition to account for those rumours of madness which have been, I suppose, in all ages, and will continue to be, associated with the early innovating feats of a creative genius. Hera’s fictitious relationship to Semele happens to offer a good setting for the explanation of these rumours of early madness; hence, probably, they were accounted for in this way.

His wanderings through many countries—Egypt, Syria and Asia—may be a true piece of history preserved by the myth, or it may simply be an early attempt at explaining the parallel rites and observances of a Dionysian nature, known to have been found in those parts of the ancient world. That the cult of Dionysus spread from Greece is proved; but its Egyptian and Indian counterparts can scarcely be regarded as importations from Greece. Hosts of scholars, Creuzer among them, have maintained the reverse. In my opinion the similarities are too superficial to have any claim to identity based upon them. There was probably inter-influence between all three—the Shiva of India, the Osiris of Egypt, and the Bacchus of Greece—which in historical times made them seem wondrously alike; but in its origin each had unique features that distinguished it. A study of the Shiva of India and the Osiris of Egypt is sufficient, I think, to establish the truth of this contention.

The various legends relating to the opposition the doctrine of Dionysus received while it was being spread are most probably founded on fact. We have ample evidence even in modern times of the difficulty with which a new doctrine makes any headway, and, as a rule, the bitterness of the opposition is in equal ratio to the soundness of the innovating creed. The accounts contained in various versions of the myth, of the extreme hostility Dionysus encountered while attempting to spread his credo abroad, are, therefore, probably based upon actual historical truths, and only help to lend colour to the general plausibility of the whole fable.

(5) We now come to subdivision five of the myth, which from my point of view is almost as important as subdivision three. It brings into prominence another link between the myth of Prometheus and that of Dionysus. It will be remembered that Prometheus was a Titan; that, as I have tried to show, his crime proved a disaster to mankind, and that benevolent Zeus was conceived by his worshippers as being so deeply outraged by their suffering and the cause of it that he subjected the arch-criminal Prometheus to a supernatural form of torture. Zeus, therefore, stands for the sound principle in Greek life, for the beneficent power meaning well by man; Prometheus stands for the reverse, for the malign power—the power that descends to any shift, however base, in order to satisfy the blind Promethean ambition, which is a fool’s notion of “Progress.” Zeus and Prometheus, therefore, are properly opposed in the fable. But we have seen that Dionysus also means well by mankind. We have seen that he also is a Saviour, a bestower of bounties, a beneficent deity. We have also seen that he is at times identified with Zeus himself. We should expect, therefore, that as the representative of the good principle, like Zeus he would be opposed to the Titans, and they to him. But is not this precisely what this important subsection of the myth reveals? When Dionysus is said to be destroyed, it is the Titans who are alleged to have destroyed him. When Hera is depicted as casting about her for some ally with whom to pursue her feud against her hated rival Semele and her seed, she is described as appealing to none other than the Titans. The hostility of these to Dionysus, and vice versâ, is taken for granted, it is accepted without further explanation, as if it were inherent in the nature of the two sides.

Once again, therefore, we encounter this Promethean spirit, as the wrecker of mankind’s happiness on earth. In the first myth, it manifested itself as a blind will to complication or to “Progress,” and led to the poisoning of the human race. In the present Dionysian myth, with which a wonderful corrective is introduced, neutralising the evil effects of the first Promethean crime, another crime is perpetrated: the Saviour of man, who has come to release humanity from the torments resulting from the first Promethean “progressive” enterprise, is torn into pieces by the Titans.

It is significant, too, that those who are alleged to have restored Dionysus to life again, are two goddesses notoriously friendly to man—Rhea, the mother, and probably lover of Zeus the All-benevolent, and Demeter the great, bountiful goddess of corn.

Evidently the two myths contained from their very inception this common factor, the hostility of the race of Titans to any power beneficent to man; and oral tradition handed down the evidences of this hostility without further explanation, because it was probably too well known in early times to need any comment.

(6) From my point of view, except that it places on record the ultimate apotheosis, or canonisation, of Dionysus and his mother Semele, this part of the myth is not of very great interest. If the date of its first appearance could be approximately determined, we should have some indication of the time when the great medicine man Dionysus was first deified; but otherwise, as the reader will perceive at once, it neither assists me nor does it add very much to the general interest of the myth. It again introduces the miraculous or supernatural element to which, this time, we shall not go to the pains of applying any psychological analysis.

Having disposed as briefly as possible of the outlines of the myth, there now remain two tasks, as important as that just performed, before I can leave Dionysus and round off my thesis. I must deal with the general aspect of Dionysus as a deity, and with the cult connected with his name.

I have spoken of Dionysus as the Saviour of mankind, and shown that he was actually known in this aspect to the ancestors of the ancient Greeks. I have also hinted at the reason why he was regarded as their Saviour. But as this last point will receive elaboration later on, I will not pause to deal further with it at present. Suffice it to say that he discovered for them an art of life, including several important additions to their diet, such as mead, the juice of the ivy-berry, the fermented juice of the grape, and of partly germinated barley and other grain,[164] with which it became possible for them to face the future with more courage, spirit, and vigour, and to develop what was undoubtedly a high civilisation, upon beginnings which, thanks to Prometheus, were certainly unfavourable. He may also have taught them how to ferment meat, mare’s milk, and the milk of cows. These new additions to their diet corrected the poisoning and the deficiency from which they were suffering owing to the exposure of these foods to fire,—hence he was known as Hygiates, the great healer, and Luaios, the releaser from ills and woes.

Owing to the fact that the juice of the grape when fermented yields by far the most striking, most potent, and at the same time most abundant product of all the natural sources which he tapped, it became, as I have already said, the typical attribute of his divinity, and so much overshadowed the other attributes that, particularly to the later Christian world, he became known chiefly as the god of wine. Of course there was another reason for the emphasis which, for the last two thousand years, men have thought fit to lay upon this single aspect of his godhead. The Christian religion is radically puritanical in tone. It differs from the Pagan cosmogony principally in the attitude it has always adopted towards sex. Sex is sinful. Carnal knowledge is a necessary evil. It is tolerated only because there appears to be no means of circumventing it; but it is nevertheless deeply regretted by the true Christian, and in his heart of hearts he regards it as the one blot on the otherwise superb design of the universe.

Now to the Pagan, such an attitude towards sex was inconceivable. He was, therefore, never obsessed by the purely bibulous aspect of his great god Dionysus. He retained, until the end, the wider view of the god, which I am attempting to make clear in this chapter, and by the cult which he developed around Dionysus, he revealed the full meaning which he ascribed to that god’s powers. Wine was, therefore, but one among many ideas connected with the ancient Greek’s concept of the myth and the cult associated with his name; hence, although the epithets relating to this aspect of the divinity are the most numerous,[165] their number is not a very trustworthy index to the relative importance of the attribute they stand for.

Among the most striking we find:—

- Botryokosmos: The Grape-decked.

- Choöpotes: The Deep-Drinker.

- Komastes: The Reveller.

- Lenaios: The Lord of the Wine Press.

- Methydotes: The Wine-giver.

- Oinops: The Wine-flushed, and

- Theoinos: The Wine-god.

The list of phallic epithets, or names relating to sexual potency, are also numerous. Here are some of the more striking:—

- Aigobolos: The Goat-smiter.

- Choiropsalas: The Sow-seeker.

- Ephaptor: The Caresser.

- Eukarpos: The Fruitful.

- Gunaimanes: The Erotic.

- Hymenios: The God of Marriage.

- Karpios: The Fruitful.

- Pantodynastes: The All-powerful.

- Phales: The God Phallus.

- Phlias: The Flowing One.

- Polyparthenos: The Maiden-loving.

- Priapos: The Power of Reproduction.

- Taurogenes: The Bull-sprung.

- Thyrsomanes: The Thyrsos-maddening.

- Thyrsotinaktes: The Thyrsos-shaker.

What do all these epithets mean? Why is so much importance ascribed to Dionysus on the sexual side? Why was an erect phallus carried in the processions of the Dionysian festivals? Why was there a phallus, frequently carved out of fig-wood, carried in the baskets filled with fruit, which were borne by the virgins known as Canephoria, who formed part of the procession in the Dionysia?

“How monstrous!” cries the modern investigator, male and female. “How unnecessarily gross!”—“If these horrible things had to be carried, why select precisely a virgin to perform the office?—Surely some male member of the working-classes of the period, a respectable married man preferably, would have been willing, for a sum that did not require to be princely, to bear these unmentionable objects in the procession! And need they have been exposed among the fruit? Might they not have been carried concealed in a hand-bag?”

So questions the modern mind, the cultivated mind of modern Europe, the stupid mind of Western civilisation.

But to ask these questions is to misunderstand the whole meaning of the Dionysian cult. Once this cult is understood, it is immediately clear to the meanest modern intelligence, that if a respectable married man of the working classes had been hired to bear this particular emblem in the Dionysia, the whole rite would have become an absurdity, an empty parade, a piece of modern buffoonery after the style of our celebrated pageants,—that is to say, merely a pretext for an idle class to get pleasantly busy, without incurring the stigma of doing hard productive toil.

The fact that maidens carried these emblems, that the emblems themselves were carved out of the wood of the fig-tree, in order to convey the idea of fertility and reproduction, has never been satisfactorily explained. In fact very little about the whole of the great Dionysian myth has been satisfactorily explained. It is, of course, on its sexual side, one of those “unpleasant” aspects of Greek mythology which are slurred over as quickly as possible,—particularly, I suppose, since there have been lady undergraduates at the Universities. Nevertheless, you would have thought that a few venerable old men between themselves, and unbeknown to their families, might have endeavoured to arrive at the correct explanation.

I will deal with some of the attempts that have been made to explain it, and at the same time submit my own explanation in the next chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[151] Pausanias, viii., 31–32. Speaking of the precincts sacred to Demeter and Persephone at Megalopolis, he says: “And inside the precincts is the temple of Friendly Zeus, the statue is like Dionysus and is by the Argive Polyclitus. The god has buskins on, and a cup in one hand, and in the other a thyrsus, and an eagle perched on the thyrsus. This last is the only thing which does not harmonise with the legendary Dionysus.” Translation by A. R. Shilleto, M.A. (Bohn’s Classical Library).

[152] Some accounts say he was a six months’ child, others that he was a seven-months’ child. The latter account is probably correct.

[153] Creuzer shows, I think, satisfactorily that a mysterious and secret cult of Bacchus reached back into the remote prehistoric age of Greece. See his Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Völker, vol. iii., p. 142, where he concludes his argument with the following words: “Immer bleibt der unumstössliche Satz stehen. Der älteste Geschichtschreiber Herodotus, ein Forscher, der seinen geraden, hellen Blick, wie seine grosse Einsicht allenthalben beurkundet, der in der Streitfrage über das Alter der Orphischen Gedichte selbst als Zweifler erscheint, dieser selbige Geschichtschreiber weiss sehr Vieles von Lehren, von Geheimlehren, von Bacchischen Lehren zu sagen, die weit in die Griechische Vorzeit zurückgehen.” See also p. 168, note.

[154] Pausanias mentions a temple at Thebes consecrated to Dionysus as the Releaser or Deliverer (Bœotia, xvi., 4).

[155] At his oracle at Amphlicleia, in Phocis, Dionysus cured diseases and is called ἰατρός or ὑγιατής.

[156] See his Great Dionysiak Myth, vol. ii.

[157] Wine only became the symbol of all these elixirs because it happened to be the most potent drink. See Mr. Robert Brown’s remarks on this, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 104: “But the Theoinos, or god of a mystic drink of immortality, is an almost world-wide concept; and wine signifies not merely grape-wine, but barley wine the juice of the Haoma or Soma plant, or any other intoxicating or exciting drink which by an artificial stimulus carries man for a time beyond himself, and so seemed a type of immortality or conscious strength delivered from weakness and languor.”

[158] The figures correspond to my arbitrary subdivision of the myth above.

[159] The Soma of the Sanscrit Vedas is at once the drink and the god himself. The Haoma of the Persians is also a divinity and a nectar. Ceres was sometimes called “bread” and “corn,” while Bacchus sometimes signifies wine.

[160] See his Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertrankes (Berlin, 1859), p. 257, where he concludes: “Den ursprung des himmlischen feuers sahen wir zweitens aber vielfältig in verbindung mit den vorstellungen von einem himmlischen trank auftreten, als dessen älteste bezeichnung wohl amrta und ambrosia aufzufassen sind.” It is interesting here to note that a certain great mythologian of world-wide renown, whose name I am unable to mention, when asked recently whether he saw any connection between the myth of Prometheus and that of Dionysus, replied that he saw absolutely none!

[161] Dr. W. H. Roscher, in a deeply interesting little pamphlet entitled, Nektar und Ambrosia (Leipzig, 1883), says that it is possible that Dionysus should be regarded originally not as the god of wine but of mead. See p. 10: “Möglicherweise ist Dionysos ursprünglich als Gott nicht des Weines, sondern des Methes aufzufassen.”

[162] We have seen that he is supposed to have been fed on honey by the daughter of Aristæus. Now, like Aristæus, he is regarded as the patron-saint of bees. Aristæus was, of course, also alleged to have taught men to hunt and keep bees, and is said to have been initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus in Thrace.

[163] See Creuzer, op. cit., vol. iii., pp. 102–103.

[164] Barley and wheat were placed on the altar of the god in the time of Pausanias.

[165] See L. R. Farnell, D.Litt., M.A., F.A.S., The Cults of the Greek States, vol. v., p. 120.

CHAPTER VI

DIONYSUS THE MAN

It is a pity that I cannot allow myself enough room to deal with these mythological questions more fully. I have been obliged to give but the merest outline both of the Promethean and the Dionysian myth. I can only hope that the details I am able to give will prove sufficient to enable the reader, not only to learn something about the myths themselves, which other books on the subject do not tell him, but also to follow the reasoning which I have based upon the bold outlines given.

In the Dionysian myth, I am faced with a peculiar difficulty, because so little of the scholarly explanation and interpretation of it appears to be of the slightest use.

If all the stuffy archæologists of the year 14,017, having found the remains of a machine-gun of the year 1917, insisted upon explaining it as an instrument for rapidly sowing a field with broad beans, because they refused to believe that the people of Europe in 1917, who were said to be so highly cultivated, could possibly have used such a disgusting instrument for warfare even against savages, much less against one another, it would be rather uphill work for one single individual, who was not an official archæologist, to prove that the instrument really was used for the purpose of killing young men, and that, moreover, in a certain war which occurred about the years 1914–1918, millions of healthy, brave and charming men were actually killed in this manner. Such allegations against our ancestors, particularly when they are supposed to have been civilised and Christians, moreover, are so very unpleasant! And since all thought and the formation of ideas is becoming more and more hedonistic every day,—that is to say, propositions and beliefs are no longer accepted on their merits but according to whether they evoke pleasant or unpleasant fancies in the minds of the majority[166]—we must assume that if “Progress” continues at its present rate, the only test of the validity or truth of a proposition in the year 14,017 will be whether the average old spinster or old washer-woman considers it a comforting thought or not. If she does not, it will be regarded as untrue.

I feel in regard to my interpretation both of the Promethean and of the Dionysian myth, that I am somewhat in the position of the non-official archæologist above mentioned, and that since the explanations I offer are not as “pleasant” as those usually presented to the lay public, they will run a considerable risk of being regarded by this same public as not quite as “true” as the customary ones.

But I am inured to this attitude and I shall not allow it to deter me from proceeding with the interpretation of the Dionysian myth and cult on the lines I have laid down.

In the first place, however, I must warn the uninitiated reader against the danger of believing that the bare outline I have given of the Dionysian myth is anything more than a rough, deliberate, though pretty thorough, simplification of the vast complex of legends and fables with which the name of Dionysus is identified. So intricately involved with one another are these various aspects of the myth, that it would be impossible in the small compass of this book to deal with them adequately. I was therefore compelled to treat the question on simple and broad lines, leaving it to those who are interested to investigate the matter further in the mass of literature, whether German, French, English or classical, which has grown up around the subject.

All I could do was to select the essential features; they are sufficient for my purpose; and I have satisfied myself from my study of the authorities, that had I embarked upon my undertaking with the determination to present the myth with very much greater elaboration, I should have served no more useful purpose than to increase the bulk of the present volume.

To return to Dionysus, the great medicine man, we have seen that he is called the Healer. But he is also called the Doctor (ἰατρός), and not only because he discovered the most potent and most pleasant nostrum (Wine), but also because he taught men, as Plutarch says, to hold ivy in high esteem.[167] We have also seen above that he was the great patron of the bees and taught men the therapeutic use of honey.[168] Thus we are to conceive of him primarily as a wizard in that art of life by which precisely the richest sources of vitality which nature possesses are tapped and turned to valuable account. We must disabuse our minds entirely of the impression that his connection with wine, the principal one in the popular mind for centuries, was anything more than one of the many attributes of his manifold character.

He came some time after the world had grown impossible as the result of the Promethean crime—just as Noah, after the parallel disasters that overcame his people, once the sons of god had mingled with the daughters of men, himself regards it as one of his first post-diluvian duties to plant the vine.[169] But Dionysus’s range of remedies covered almost everything that may properly be regarded as a source of vigour and a means of curing or resisting disease. Personally, I am not inclined to exclude even fermented milk from among the contents of his vast natural medicine chest, though the oldest of all these I believe to have been honey, fresh fruit and raw meat.

It is possible that barley wine, millet wine, fermented milk, and even grape wine, may have been added to his supremely wise initial discoveries by himself later in his own lifetime, or by other men after he had died, and that possibly these later discoveries, if they were later discoveries, became through tradition incorporated in his original teaching, so that even the names of later medicine men became absorbed in his own and identified with it; but what is of supreme importance in understanding him and his cult is, that he it was who, in a moment of extreme distress handed suffering mankind a number of first-class protective beverages and foods, which not only corrected the mistakes of their early Promethean civilisation, but also gave them a new vigour, a new spirit, and a new intensity of sexual potency, unknown except to their pre-Promethean ancestors.

I say honey was probably one of the first of these, because the use of mead was so universally distributed among all the peoples of primeval Europe, that it must have a very hoary antiquity.[170] Now it is interesting to note that the association of honey with the idea of medicine is also of very great antiquity. W. H. Roscher tells us that from the earliest times honey was thought to have properties which both secured good health and lengthened life, and that it was used in the curing of innumerable diseases.

I am not a believer in etymological methods of demonstration, but I quote the following as interesting in this connection. “The very Avestic word for wine shows that it was a drink sweet as honey. This Avestic word is madho, which corresponds to the Sanscrit madhu, Latin mel, and French miel. The root of the word shows its medicinal virtue. It comes from an old Aryan root, mad or madh = Latin mederi, meaning to make a remedy, from which comes our English word medicine.”[171]

Even in ancient India the drink Soma must probably have been introduced later than mead, as we find the former sometimes called madhu in the texts.[172]

The ancients were well aware of the old association of mead and honey generally with therapeutic powers of a high order. Aristotle, speaking of honey and wine, etc., says: “To know how to apply them for the purposes of health, and to whom, and at what time, is as difficult as to be a physician.”[173] Pliny, too, writes as follows: “As to honey itself, it is of so peculiar a nature that it prevents putrefaction from supervening, by reason of its sweetness solely.... It is employed with the greatest success for affections of the throat and tonsils, for quinsy, all ailments of the mouth, as also in fever when the tongue is parched. Decoctions of it are used also for peripneumony and pleurisy, for wounds inflicted by serpents, and for the poison of fungi. In paralysis it is prescribed in honied wine, though the liquor also has its own peculiar virtues.”[174]

And further: “[Hydromel] which is made of skimmed honey is an extremely wholesome beverage for invalids who take nothing but a light diet ... it reinvigorates the body, is soothing to the mouth and to the stomach, and by its refreshing properties allays feverish heats. I find it stated too by some authors that to relax the bowels it should be taken cold, and it is particularly well-suited to persons of a chilly temperament, or of weak and pusillanimous constitution, such as the Greeks, for instance, call ‘mycropsychi.’”[175]

Pliny has other passages in which he refers to the value of honied wine as a “stimulant for failing appetite,” as a “laxative,” and gives the example of Pollio Romilius who lived to a great age, over a hundred years, on honied wine and bread alone.[176]

Diogenes Laertius speaks of Pythagoras as being content with honeycomb and bread,[177] while in the Geoponica we read that honey makes men long-lived, and that a diet of bread and honey alone preserves all the senses perfect. “Democritus being indeed asked how men might become healthy and long-lived, said: ‘If they supplied the external parts of the body with oil and the internal parts with honey.’”[178]

Hosts of other passages could be quoted.

According to Spencer’s explanation of sacrifices, which in his opinion were merely offerings to the great ancestor, either to feed his spirit or to propitiate him, we would expect sacrifices of honey to have been made to the gods of Greece by their worshippers, because since we are told that honey was the food of the gods (we are informed that Zeus was brought up on it) we should naturally expect it to be given to them in sacrifice. And this is indeed what took place. Death offerings in Greece frequently consisted of honey. Pluto, Hecate and the Furies all received honey sacrifices. In fact honey is probably meant by nectar and ambrosia. It was the oldest medicine of infallible effect, the first panacea, the food that secured a long life, and therefore the food of immortals.

It is a pity that more experiments have not been made with honey by modern authorities on dietetics; because as I have already pointed out, since it constitutes a satisfactory whole food for a certain section of the animal kingdom, it is safe to conclude that it contains all the necessary vitamines. It is probably on this account that it was found so useful by the ancients for every sort of ailment and bodily affection.

I mention raw meat as one of the earliest products to be included among Dionysus’s list of therapeutic and natural foods. I shall at present only refer to a few of my reasons for doing this. In the first place, I would remind the reader of what I have already said concerning the medicinal value of raw meat; I would also recall the custom, even among such people as the Eskimo of the present day, of making raw meat an essential portion of their diet, bearing in mind that the Eskimo have a singularly restricted range of foodstuffs to draw upon and therefore that they have to be careful to absorb a sufficient quantity of “protective” food; and lastly I would refer to two of Dionysus’s most perplexing epithets: Omestes and Omophagos, both of which mean raw-flesh-eating.

How can we account for these epithets unless we suppose that he must have set the example of eating raw meat himself, or taught it as part of his wonderful therapeutic doctrine? It is in keeping with everything we have said about him and everything we know about him. It is consistent with his general doctrine of health and vigour, and we must bear in mind that he lived at a time probably near enough to the pre-Promethean era to enable him to know that men must have lived on raw meat in the Golden Age.

As far as raw meat was concerned, therefore, it did not necessarily constitute a very original portion of his doctrine. Arguing from his knowledge of the Golden Age, which tradition told him had preceded the Promethean era, he may simply have concluded that, at least experimentally, a return to one of the staple articles of diet of that age might be a good thing; and in the event the experiment proved successful. It must, however, have constituted an important part of his dietetic doctrine, otherwise he would scarcely have been called, among other things, Omestes and Omophagos.[179]

His insistence upon the virtues of fresh fruit would also be the natural outcome of his upbringing and his knowledge of plant and tree life. It is said that his title Dendrites was given him because the notion of his being the cultivator and protector of the vine was extended to that of his being the protector of trees in general. I should be inclined to reverse this order and to say that the tending of the vine was only one of his functions as Dendrites. However, the point is not important. The fact to note is that fresh fruit must be included among the earliest of the products associated with his therapeutic doctrine. He was probably a great eater of fresh fruit himself, and his followers became so likewise.

The transition from the idea of mead, or fermented honey, to other fermented drinks, was doubtless an easy one, and even if Dionysus was not the inventor of them all, it is easy to see how readily he would have been credited with their discovery once his towering personality had been stamped on the minds of the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks through his great reputation as a therapeutist and therefore thaumaturgist. The two ideals, as the life of Christ shows, are closely associated in the mind of antiquity, and very rightly too.

Now the therapeutic value of the wines brewed from the grape, barley or any other seed, have been known for centuries by science and for thousands of years by unscientific man.[180] Their tonic value has been recognised by medical men of all epochs, while their virtues as laxatives, aids to digestion (particularly needed when cooked food is partaken of plentifully) and stimulants both of the body and the mind, are proverbial.

All the virtues of the fruit or the grain, intensified by fermentation, and, in the case of partially germinated grain, actually created by the process of preparation,[181] are absorbed in the resulting beverage, and protect not only against disease, but also add to the joys of life, enhance bodily vigour, neutralise the bad effects of injudicious cooking upon the digestive organs, strengthen the sexual powers, and lighten the heart generally.

I think there can be no doubt that the great decline in the resistance offered to disease which has been noticeable in Europe in the last three hundred years, and has made careful sanitation, antiseptic washes, and disinfectants of all kinds such an essential part of the life of modern man that without them he could scarcely be expected to survive, is largely due to a proportionate decline (a) in the quality of our fermented liquors, and (b) in the amount of fermented liquor that is consumed by the mass of the people.[182] For as we have seen in the case of King Jamshed, the enormous advantage of fermented liquors is this,—not only do they offer the precious protective qualities of the fruit and the grain in an intensified form, but they make it possible for man to derive benefit from these precious qualities in all seasons and climes, that is to say, independently of the locality he happens to be in or of the time of year at which he feels he requires a restorative.

This is the great virtue of the cordials Dionysus introduced: they made it possible for man to resist deficiency diseases, in spite of a diet that offers no compensations for the cause of the trouble, and they also enabled him to do this at all times of the year and in any clime.

It has been argued again and again by authorities whose degrees and honours literally fill their title-pages, that alcohol is not good for the human body. I do not accept this view. There may be truth in the view that large amounts of alcohol are bad; but that alcohol taken moderately is bad, I do not believe. I would refer the reader to the Lancet of March 30th, 1907, where a large number of doctors repudiate the allegation that the medical profession are opposed to the use of alcohol. I would also refer the reader to Professor Attwater’s[183] investigation into the liquor problem which was conducted with a Committee of fifty, and finally to Dr. C. Mercier’s “Inaugural Address on Drunkenness and the Physiological Effect of Alcohol,” delivered before the Midland Medical Association in November, 1912.

In all these papers the reader will find considerable doubt cast upon the glib assertion repeated so irresponsibly everywhere to-day that alcohol is of no value to the human body, or that it is directly pernicious.

It would be a simple matter, if one could spare the time over such futilities, to show that the harmless gramophone, the innocuous piano, and the apparently innocent cinema, were also harmful when indulged in to excess; but what purpose would the demonstration of such a truism serve?

I am, however, not deeply concerned with this campaign against alcohol. I think it stupid, puritanical and misanthropic; but it affects neither the credo of Dionysus nor my present argument. Its most pernicious and dangerous aspect is that it would fain throw a net wide enough to include the credo, the wondrous therapeutic doctrine, of Dionysus, and thus bring other things besides alcohol to nought.

For what did Dionysus stand for? In addition to the other products I have already mentioned he stood for wine, ale, cider, mead, perry and ivy-juice. But how much of this hated alcohol is there in the modern representatives of these liquors?

- In champagne and burgundy: 10 to 13 per cent.

- In claret: 8 to 12 per cent.

- In cider and perry: 5 to 9 per cent.

- In strong ale: 5 to 9 per cent.

- In light ale: 2 to 5 per cent.

(The figures for mead and ivy-juice, I have, for obvious reasons, been unable to obtain.)

From this list the reader will be able to judge of the dishonesty of those who, under the cover of an attack on alcohol, would like, if they could, to rope in those precious liquors with which Dionysus may be said to have saved mankind under a Promethean civilisation.

Even the strong liquors, such as gin and rum, only have 40 per cent. of alcohol in them. But I am not speaking of these. I am speaking of the great known wines and of the precious liquors brewed from barley, apples and pears. No one has yet advanced a sound scientific case against these. How could they?—seeing that there is not a civilisation on earth that has achieved greatness that was not built up on one or more of these? But, as I say, under the dishonest cover of an attack on alcohol, against the abuse of which several scientists of repute have admittedly advanced cogent arguments, it has unfortunately become customary of late to assail these precious beverages as well. Ignorance could not be exploited with more diabolical ruthlessness.

The dictionary contains no epithet sufficiently insulting with which to dub the maniacs who endeavour to confuse so vital an issue as this in a manner so transparently unfair.

When it is known that the growth of alcoholism in France was coincident with the phylloxera crisis which so seriously reduced the consumption of the natural wines in that country; when, too, we bear in mind that the evils of drunkenness in England are the direct results of the poisoning and vitiating of the once pure old ale that can, without romantic fulsomeness, really be said to have made England what she was at her zenith in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; when I say I am prepared to prove the proposition that two of the fairest civilisations the world has ever seen,—that of England in the centuries of Elizabeth and Charles I.[184] and that of Egypt at the dawn of history,—were the creation of ale-drinking communities, how can anyone who really values his reputation for fair-play—not to mention historical accuracy—still maintain that wine and ale are legitimately included in a campaign against alcohol?

It seems a waste of time to repeat all the arguments I have already brought forward elsewhere to show how great was the value of the old ale of England, and how unscrupulously its precious virtues were one by one destroyed, as the result of the reforms introduced by the Puritans in the seventeenth century.[185] I have shown how very much its qualities were impaired, in the first place by adulteration with hops, later on by the introduction of inferior substitutes both for hops and malt, until finally it became the poisonous, health-destroying swill which we now call our beer,[186] and upon which we have allowed our working-classes—the true backbone of England—to besot themselves for over one hundred years.

I have shown how the Kings of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries strove to keep this national drink pure and to supply it plentifully to the masses of the nation,[187] and what universal protest there was when, owing to the rise of the commercial and profiteering spirit after the triumph of those enemies of man, the vile Puritans of the seventeenth century, this precious national beverage was turned into a draught of poison.

Our forefathers regarded ale with as much solicitude as bread; they were equally valued as necessaries of life,[188] and their proper distribution was the constant concern of English legislators.

There was no temperance agitation against the use of old ale in England, any more than there was a temperance agitation in ancient Greece against the use of the fermented drinks sacred to the name of Dionysus,[189] for the use of both was attended neither by ugliness nor ill-health. When the Puritans created a temperance movement it was, as I have shown, for very different reasons from those which animate the temperance movements of our own day.

But what is so strangely unfair and so transparently corrupt in the whole of the modern temperance movement is that it never concerns itself with the purification of our national drinks, or of wine or of any fermented liquor. It is as if those behind the temperance crusade were glad to see the gradual deterioration of intoxicating liquors into poisons in order that their case might appear the more plausible.

A truly patriotic temperance movement in this country would agitate for a return to the pure ale of old England, and in France it would concentrate upon the rigorous prosecution of all adulterers of wine; for, to inveigh against intoxication, or the evils of beer and wine-drinking, when the beer and wine available are admittedly adulterated,[190] is obviously to take advantage of an accidental feature not inherent in the products themselves, to deprive mankind of the advantage of those products in their pure condition for all time.

Commercialism comes on the scene, unscrupulously deteriorates our national drinks and turns them into harmful, or at least neutral drinks for its own base ends; and then, if you please, has the impudence to declare (as it has done in America) that for commercial and industrial purposes the proletariat are more serviceable material if they are deprived of these beverages.

Of course, this is admitted. But then who is responsible for the supply of these deleterious or valueless drinks to the proletariat in the first place?[191]

I wonder whether there is a single workman either in England or America who has ever drunk a draught of ale such as Queen Elizabeth and her ladies-in-waiting used to drink at every meal!—I know there is not one,—not one! But it should be remembered that the old ale of the Plantagenet and Tudor periods kept men in a state more exuberant, more spirited, more lusty, than mere everyday health; it kept them above all unusually potent sexually. This was what the Puritans were clever enough to detect; and it was, I feel sure, by no means an accident that one of the chief adulterants of ale tolerated by the Puritans consisted of hops, from which lupulin—one of the most potent anaphrodisiacs—is extracted.

It is impossible to believe that the great fermented drinks of antiquity could have been anything but a precious boon and a godsend to men, otherwise we are forced to regard as cynics and misanthropists the races who deified the supposed original creators of them.

Read how the ancient Indian speaks of his Soma, remember how the ancient Greek refers to his god Dionysus as the Saviour, the Healer, and the Liberator; study the history of mead in Scandinavia, in Persia and in Asia Minor; follow the civilisation of China up to the time when it ceased to be a wine-drinking country, and compare its subsequent with its former condition;[192] read of the Mexicans, the Peruvians, the great Babylonians[193] and Egyptians and even the artistic Bushmen of Africa, now alas! almost extinct;—everywhere, among all peoples, you will find civilisation, art, culture, only where the health and spirit-giving beverages of nature’s fermented fruit and grain have made such achievements possible; for, as I shall show later, it is not only in Greek mythology that Prometheus and Dionysus are opposed—this conflict permeates every aspect of life ancient and modern, and it is not merely coincidence that the most Promethean of modern countries, America, should have been the first to suppress the cult of Dionysus among its people.

On those who wish to argue that the great civilisations of the world would have been possible without the fermented liquor, which is an inseparable part of the diet of the people who were responsible for them, it is surely incumbent to prove that a form of beverage so distinctive and possessing such marked therapeutic value, was adopted universally without any regard whatsoever to the utilitarian ends served by its adoption. They must be prepared to show that the consensus of opinion among thinking mankind of all ages points to the conclusion that, although this form of beverage met no social or cultural need, its universality is due to some perversity, some superfluous and non-utilitarian appetite, which did not require to be gratified in order to produce the results with which we are confronted in all ancient and comparatively recent civilisations.

To argue merely on the evidence drawn from modern conditions is vicious; in the first place, because beverages prepared from pure natural products (fermented) are no longer accessible, except perhaps to those who can afford to buy some of the good Continental wines;[194] and, secondly, because the standard of health expected from the average man and woman of antiquity and regarded as an essential factor of happiness in the past, is no longer recognised or upheld among Western peoples as the first necessity of a life worth living.

Another and very important aspect of this question to which one would like to see the Temperance agitators give some prominence, is that of the substitutes which modern conditions offer to those who are deprived of sound and invigorating fermented liquors.

Read the books that have been written against alcohol. Where do you find a single author who is honest enough to lay stress on the dark side of his intended reforms? Where do you find an author who is sufficiently in earnest about the welfare of his fellow-creatures to point to the disastrous results of drinking tea and coffee—not to mention any more harmful drugs? For every sound line that has been written against alcohol, I am prepared to point to two that have been written against these two pernicious beverages. As early as the beginning of the last century, William Cobbett, in his Cottage Economy, called attention to the evils arising from the increasing consumption of tea and coffee in England, and deplored, as all friends of humanity must, the corresponding decline in the production and consumption of good English ale.

In my Defence of Aristocracy I devote a considerable portion of a chapter to this question of the pernicious substitutes to which the masses of a nation are driven when their most wholesome beverages are taken from them; and for the authorities whom I there adduce in support of my arguments I beg the reader to refer to the work mentioned.[195]

When we recollect that tea, besides being in no respect a food, is also, owing to its two principal chemical constituents—tannin and caffein—directly harmful both to the digestion and to the nervous system; when, moreover, we bear in mind that over 255,000,000 pounds of tea are consumed per annum in the United Kingdom, and that it has been calculated that the poor in London spend at least one-eighth of their income in buying this drug, it behoves us to regard with considerable caution any movement which, while it makes no reference to this aspect of “Temperance,” seeks under the cover of a scientific attack on alcohol to proscribe good wines and beers from the homes of a great people.[196]

To sum up this all too brief outline of some of the leading features of Dionysus’s therapeutic doctrine, we have seen that the wine of the grape possesses the following virtues in a pre-eminent degree:—

1. It is a good tonic.

2. It is a valuable stimulant, both of the mind and body.

3. It is an excellent aid to digestion and assimilation particularly in cases of constipation and dyspepsia caused by culinary errors.

4. It is a natural aphrodisiac.

5. It allows of the benefits derived from fruit being enjoyed at any time, in any clime, and therefore does not restrict the consumer to any locality or season.

6. And, above all, since the process of fermentation is believed to be, in itself, productive of vitamines, it constitutes a good compensation in cases when a diet is in any respect deficient, either through the exposure of a vital food to heat, or because the necessary vitamine-vehicles are not available.

Ale also possesses all these qualities,[197] and in addition, a strong anti-scorbutic and nourishing virtue, owing to the fact that it is prepared from partly germinated grain, and, moreover, contains the most valuable form of sugar which is known as maltose.

Modern beer, of course, possesses none of these qualities.

It is unnecessary for me to continue the list, and to refer to mead, cider, perry, millet-ale, etc., all of which truly formed part of the Dionysian doctrine. I have said enough about the other beverages already, I hope, to convince the reader at least of this, that when the ancient Indian or Greek glorified his god Soma, or his god Dionysus, it was for genuine and lasting benefits,[198] the evidence of which he saw in himself and all his fellows, and that there can be no mystery, no childish or empty phantasy about the worship of such a divinity, least of all when the evidence of the myth connected with his name definitely points to the nature of the bounties he dispensed.

Again, however, I feel I must lay stress upon an important aspect of this question which, particularly nowadays, is likely to be overlooked unless it is constantly reiterated. I refer, not to the cure of actual deficiency diseases, for which the Dionysian doctrine was responsible, though that was wonderful enough, but to the general alleviating and invigorating effect upon the body as a whole which results from correcting such slight though deeply depressing and debilitating disorders as indigestion, constipation and the like. One of the first functions to suffer in the case of faulty nutrition or in the event of blood-poisoning, however slight, owing to a bad diet, is the function connected with the joys of sex. And, when we think of how numerous and how intense these joys can be, both in the spiritual and the physical sphere, if the body is in a condition of exuberant health; when we recollect, moreover, how many of the manly virtues and the womanly interests centre around these functions, it is difficult to lay too much emphasis on their importance, or to exaggerate the literally delirious enthusiasm which must have possessed a people who, suddenly bereft of the perfect exercise of these functions, found themselves after a long spell restored to their pristine state of happiness by Dionysus, and assured by his teaching against a relapse into their former misery.

For, again, in regarding precisely these joys of sex, we must be careful not to contemplate them either through the glasses of this Age, or through the glasses of our own deteriorated vitality. We must try to imagine what sex and its joys must have meant to primitive beings, beings still unimpaired enough, despite their crude Promethean culture, to tower far above us in all matters of the body and its functions. Humiliating as it may seem, we must remember that we are below par in every respect, and that our standards are completely valueless except for measuring varying degrees of ill-health.

Well then, if we bear all these things in mind, and in addition ponder for a moment the extreme importance that healthy women must attach to healthy sexual potency in men, if we reflect for a moment how much the happiness of a robust, healthy woman’s life depends upon tenderness, love and caresses from the male, and ultimately upon the bearing and rearing of children,[199] we will at once perceive how severely sound women are affected when men’s sexual potency is impaired. At least men can get about other business; but what is woman—particularly primitive woman—to do?

The period following upon the Promethean crime must have been one of appalling tribulation for the women members of that primeval stock which constituted the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. With their men grown cold, unresponsive to their charms, and in some cases perhaps quite impotent, what could they do? What had become of the beauty of their lives, the joy of their lives, the meaning of their lives? Everything of value for them had at one stroke of the wand been turned to dross and to emptiness. Life was a husk at which their vigorous teeth gnawed in vain endeavour to discover the sweet kernel. They thirsted to be taken, to be overcome, to be ravished. Instead they probably had to woo, to cajole and to persuade. They were outraged in their deepest instincts, by the inability to perform a function that was the very essence of their being; they languished with but the spectacle of their gradually vanishing youth and beauty to distract them. The racial memories of a better age filled their fancy, so that they were thrilled by the pictures their imaginations depicted; but these pictures became realities to them only in their dreams, and but helped to heap up the enormity of the contrast which actual life presented.

Then, suddenly, a great teacher appeared from the woods, who took pity on their lot. He saw with the eyes of a superior being the root of the trouble, the cause of their men’s perennial lassitude and self-control; and with his deep knowledge of nature and her secrets acquired in the forest glades he had just left behind him, he set out to remedy the evil that he recognised, and to put an end to the suffering that offended his vision on all sides. He preached his doctrine swiftly and with authority, for there was no time to lose. He taught the women the magic virtue of herbs, of fruits, of raw meat, and above all of honey and of mead. They listened, for he was young and handsome; and they obeyed, for they were desperate. Quickly the new teaching was learned, the kitchens hummed with unwonted business, the din of shattered pottery rent the air as superfluous stewpans were flung for ever on the dust heap, and the forest rang with the voices of eager wives and virgins, trying to recall precisely what it was that the handsome young man from the woods had recommended.

Fingers and arms were repeatedly stung by the infuriated bees, legs and feet got caught and entangled in the pricking brambles, hair fell down and became woven with leaves and branches, night came on and some were lost, while others pursued their search with firebrands and bonfires. What did it matter now—what did anything matter? Zeus had promised only Hope:—this man, this wonderful, handsome, young man from the woods had promised something tangible, something almost forgotten, something immensely precious,—could they be blamed for behaving like furies?

That night the first of the Dionysia was celebrated: dishevelled women, frantic with the promise of joy and already delighting over fulfilling a portion of their creed, made their supper of raw meat in the heart of the woods, while they searched and searched for the precious ingredients of the coming elixirs. Mad and wild women, forgetting both decency and humanity, rushing and darting hither and thither, like untamed animals, filling their baskets in the fury of delirium, and eager but for one great moment—the moment of the experiment when they would test the truth of the wood-wizard’s words—sang, shouted and danced in a transport of joy.

Imagine then their redoubled enthusiasm when they found that he had not deceived them! Picture the intensity of their ecstasy and gratitude when they saw that he was a true prophet!

Can it be wondered at that Dionysus was the exception among the Greek gods, and that he was served only by women? Is there any mystery now in the “mysteries”? Does the reader understand why the virgins, and not the hall-porters of the period, bore the phallus among the fruit in their baskets at the Dionysia? And is not even the fury of the rite explained, as also the fact that it was held in the darkness of night? Are not these mad dishevelled women which we see depicted by Greek art as taking part in the festival of Dionysus just what we should expect? Drunk with enthusiasm, mad with gratitude, wild with eagerness, even down to the eating of raw meat which was one of the essential features of the festivals—all is now surely clear enough. Omestes, Omophagos: the reader remembers these epithets! Can he doubt now that this ceremony of eating raw meat at the Dionysia was intended to recall that essential portion of the great teacher’s creed?

It was Dionysus against Prometheus, Life against Death, the erect obelisk against impotence, sickness and disease. And Dionysus triumphed! No wonder the women were so grateful; no wonder they were so wild; but they were better and healthier women, they were also more wicked and more sinful, more positive and more hearty women, and, on that account, more desirable women than the women of to-day.

It is generally known that at the festivals of Dionysus, which were called Bacchanalia, Dionysia, or Orgies, the god was served by priestesses called Bacchantes, Lenæ, Mænades, Thyiades, Mimallones, Clodones or Bassaræ. These women are usually represented almost naked, decked with garlands of ivy or vine-branches, a thyrsus, hair in frightful disarray, and wildly dancing and running. They utter strange cries, rage with mad enthusiasm, clash different musical instruments together, and hold swords or serpents (both phallic symbols) in their hands. In the processions they wore tamed serpents in their hair, while the Canephoria, as I have already mentioned, were virgins who carried baskets of fruit with a phallus, usually carved out of fig-tree wood, lying among the fruit. One of the most important rites at these festivals was the sacrifice of an animal sacred to Dionysus, and its carcass was usually torn frantically to bits by the Mænades and eaten raw.

This celebration of the Dionysian mysteries presents a number of problems which are hardly dealt with satisfactorily by the mythologians whether of antiquity or of the present day.

In the first place, why should Dionysus be an exception among the gods of Greece, and, contrary to custom, be served by priestesses instead of attendants of his own sex? F. A. Voigt is one of the few who raises this problem; but he does not attempt to solve it. He simply says that it is characteristic of all the oldest practices of the cult.[200]

Secondly, why should these women attendants be such furies? Why should they behave like raving madwomen? Voigt says: “The tearing of the sacrificial animal by the Mænads appears to be genuinely orgiastic, like the outcome of wild and Heaven-ordained madness.”[201]

What is the explanation of this? Nor should the actual eating of the torn fragments raw be regarded as an unimportant part of the ceremony, simply because in plastic representations of this aspect of their cult the Mænads only appear with pieces of the mutilated beasts in their hands; for, as Voigt points out: “The fact that the eating of these raw fragments is not depicted, is simply owing to the æsthetic difficulty, or impossibility, of representing this plastically, and does not point to the relative unimportance of the omophagic feature of the celebrations.”[202]

Modern mythology offers no satisfactory replies to these questions.

It attempts to explain the orgies by suggesting that they were an act of sympathising with life and of recapitulating life in nature, its movements and contrast, the joy and sorrow of life on earth. Or, again, it suggests that they constituted a periodic debauch to symbolise the fact that man is master on earth and is able to do everything he likes, and consequently that he can without scruple commit every act which law and order at ordinary times forbid.

Neither of these suggested explanations is worth a moment’s consideration, because they do not even account for the exclusively female attendants, let alone their characteristic demeanour.

Modern mythologians suggest that the tearing of the sacrificial animal to pieces symbolises the tearing of Zagreus (Dionysus) to pieces by the Titans.[203] But surely, if that were so, the Mænades would scarcely have celebrated this tragic occurrence, so disastrous to the world, by eating the raw flesh of their god and eating it with such fury! This obviously will not do.

It is also suggested that the annihilation of the sacrificial animal (or man originally[204]) symbolised the destruction of earth’s vegetation by winter. But then, as Voigt very reasonably points out, if that were so why was the youth of the animal or man always insisted upon? If the young animal or boy symbolised the earth’s vegetation, it must have been the vegetation of spring, not of winter. But this was not the idea.[205]

Again, the rural Dionysia, it has been suggested by modern mythologians, are no doubt to be compared to similar festivals which were traditional in France and in Germany, and are probably counterparts of them.[206] In France, for instance, on the Dimanche des Brandons, which is the first Sunday in Lent, the peasantry used to run through the fields, gardens and vineyards with lighted fire-brands “to call them to fertility and to rid them of weeds”; while bonfires were lighted in the market-place, and around these the people would dance. In Germany and the Tyrol the peasants also used on certain specified occasions to march in procession through the fields, clanging cymbals and ringing bells, in order to “awaken the corn.”

But I see not the faintest trace of resemblance between these rural festivals in France and Germany and the Dionysia. In the first place, if the Dionysia are counterparts of these, why do women play the chief rôle in the Greek festival? Have not men also good reason to awaken the corn? And, furthermore, where is the all-pervading worship of the phallus which is inseparable even from the rural Dionysia?

These rural Dionysia, it has been said by certain other great authorities, were simply bucolic celebrations of the wine harvest. But as Mommsen points out, and I thoroughly agree with him, they were nothing of the sort. Read what occurred at the festivals, note when they were held, remember what was drunk at them, and it becomes plain that they had nothing in common with the celebration of a wine-harvest.[207]

Meanwhile, of course, a satisfactory answer to the most perplexing features of the Dionysia has not been found, and is not offered by modern or even ancient mythologians.

If, however, we regard the whole of the Dionysian mysteries as a traditional celebration of a stupendous event, an immense triumph—the victory of a suffering, debilitated and gradually disappearing race over the causes of all their misery;—if we regard them as ceremonies symbolic of the mad joy and gratitude which must have been felt when Dionysus first conquered Prometheus, then, it seems to me, everything becomes plain.

It is the women who suffer most from the asperities of a Promethean civilisation, just as it is the women who are suffering most to-day. It is the women, the very essence of whose nature is tortured and outraged when, owing to a Promethean civilisation, their men cease from being men, cease from being male, prehensile, virile, violent and even seductive.

If, then, we can postulate, as we very well may, a creature more innocent in her desires, more unsophisticated in her appetites, less tolerant of male self-control and less enamoured of it, than modern woman; if we can picture a creature frank and passionate enough to show mad enthusiasm when the deepest roots of her nature, from being poisoned to death, are suddenly liberated, nurtured and brought back to healthy life, and we are also able to imagine her wild gratitude to him who effected this salvation,—then what mystery does there remain in these Dionysian mysteries, what difficulty, what problem?

As I have already said, even Dionysus’s most perplexing epithets, Omestes and Omophagus, become once more quite clear, after having had their true meaning concealed for millenniums; and he, the great god himself, emerges from the investigation, not as the patron of pointless lust, debauchery, drunkenness and licence, but as the Liberator, the Healer, the Great Doctor, the Saviour of mankind, who released the human race, and particularly the women, from the appalling consequences of the Promethean crime, and whose name will therefore rightly be associated for ever by grateful humanity with the magic cordials for which his great genius was primarily accountable.

This was the first Renaissance, the first re-birth of health, beauty, vigour and joyful life; and by the side of the stupendous artist who was responsible for it, men like Donatello, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, appear as mere gnomes, pygmies, dwarfs or children.

The Promethean civilisation was a failure,—it was worse, it was a racking torment. Dionysus alone made it bearable; he alone overcame it, and so corrected or neutralised its evils as to make life not only possible under it, but also joyful, vigorous, spirited, glorious, and thrilling into the bargain. You cannot logically attack Dionysus, therefore, and all he stood for, without also insisting upon going back to pre-Promethean days; for those were the only days that could dispense with his teaching, his therapeutics, his magic cordials—in fact, his whole doctrine of salvation. To deprive us in post-Promethean days of the benefits Dionysus confers, is thus tantamount to the Promethean crime itself,—it is even more heinous than the Promethean crime; because now we know, and the people of those days did not know. Now we realise what all this means; we are aware of the very doubtful blessings that hail from any Promethean quarter, and wherever we hear the cries “Abolish Dionysus!” or “Down with his creed!” we cannot refrain from thinking that we are once more in the presence of the most savage enemies of mankind. The antithesis is radical. Prometheus versus Dionysus. It is, as we have seen, a very old conflict. If you insist upon having a Promethean civilisation, you are in mercy bound to have Dionysus and all that his doctrine means.

FOOTNOTES:

[166] As an instance of this, how many people, I should like to know, have ever tried to divorce from the idea of Heaven and an after-life the pleasant and comforting thoughts which cluster round it, and then proceeded to question honestly and searchingly whether it can possibly be true. Are not the pleasant associations of the thought responsible for three-quarters of the bias in its favour? Let the reader by way of experiment tell his circle of friends a truth either about humanity or about the world which is distinctly unpleasant. He will find that more than half the incredulity he encounters, particularly among smug sentimental women, will not be based upon an impartial examination of his evidence for the unpleasant truth, but upon the unpleasantness of the truth itself. If he would like a truth to experiment with, I recommend him to tell his middle-aged spinster-friends some of the truths discovered by psycho-analysis.

[167] See Creuzer, op. cit., vol. iii., p. 92.

[168] According to a legend which was probably of primeval antiquity, although it is only handed down by Ovid, Dionysus was supposed to have discovered the use of honey as a food in Thrace. See Ovid Fast, iii., 735 et seq.

[169] See Gen. x. 20: “And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard.”

[170] See W. H. Roscher, op. cit.: “Ein berauschender Honigtrank spielte bei den Griechen vor Einführung des Weinbaues eine grosse Rolle.” Article, “Nektar und Ambrosia.” See also Roscher’s remarks in the pamphlet on Nectar and Ambrosia already quoted, in which on p. 26 he says: “Ein solches berauschendes Honiggetränk nennt man bekanntlich Meth, und es ist nicht zu bezweifeln, dass dieser, wie bei andern Völkern, so auch bei den Griechen der Urzeit, welche noch keine Weinkultur kannte, die Rolle des Weines spielte.”

[171] See Wine among the Ancient Persians, by Jivanji Jamshedji, (Bombay, 1888), p. 4.

[172] See Kuhn, op. cit., p. 131.

[173] Nic. Ethics, V. ix. 16. Translated by R. W. Browne, M.A. (Bohn).

[174] Natural History, Book XXII., chap. 50 (24). Translated by J. Bostock and H. T. Riley (Bohn).

[175] Natural History, Book XXII., chap. 51.

[176] Op. cit., chap. 53.

[177] Life of Pythagoras, xviii.

[178] Op. cit., xv., 7. Translated by Rev. T. Owen. According to Athenæus, the Pythagoreans were saved from blindness and other eye troubles owing to their diet of bread and honey.

[179] Just as Völcker has pointed out that the true meaning of the Prometheus myth was forgotten from the time of Homer and Hesiod onward, I feel convinced that the true meaning of more than three-quarters of the Dionysian myth was forgotten long before historic times. I do not believe that Dionysus as the raw-meat-eating deity has ever been satisfactorily explained, even by ancient writers, and all kinds of far-fetched interpretations have been advanced, most of which strike too wide of the mark to be worth considering.

[180] There is a curious old legend told of the Persian King Jamshed, the fourth monarch of the Peshdadyan Dynasty (the Yima Khshæta of the Avesta, and the Yama of the Vedas), which curiously confirms this old association not only of wine with medicine, but of the first connection of fermentation with therapeutics. It relates how King Jamshed was so very fond of grapes which grew only in summer, that he once ordered a large quantity to be deposited in a jar for his use in winter when they were very rare. On sending for the jar after some time, he found the juice of the grapes fermenting, and, thinking it was turning into a poisonous liquid, he ordered the jar to be marked “Poison,” and placed it in an out-of-the-way corner of the royal storeroom so as to be beyond the reach of anybody. A maid-servant of the royal household knowing of this, and feeling very much dejected owing to a distressing indisposition, resolved to commit suicide by taking some of this “poison.” She stealthily repaired to the royal store-room at night, and took a generous helping of the contents of the “poison” jar. But to her surprise instead of its killing her, she found herself on the following morning so much better that she renewed the treatment until she was completely cured. Thereupon she communicated the matter to the King, who was greatly pleased with the discovery. It is said that in memory of this event wine is sometimes called Zeher-i-khoosh, i.e., “pleasant poison” in Persia, even to the present day. See Jivanji Jamshedji, op. cit., p. 2.

[181] There are reasons for believing that the process of fermentation in itself is also responsible for the production of vitamines.

[182] It is interesting to note in this connection that the Great Plague of 1665 in England occurred one generation after the Puritans had begun to play havoc with the people’s great protective beverage Ale.

[183] An excellent summary of the report of this investigation is to be found in A. L. Simon’s In Vino Veritas (London, 1913).

[184] One of the first occasions on which ale was mentioned in the laws of England, was during the reign of King Ini of Wessex.

[185] See my Defence of Aristocracy, chap. v.

[186] Mrs. Rink has pointed out to me that besides the reasons given in my Defence of Aristocracy for the deterioration in the quality of old English ale—the great wholesomeness of which she also demonstrates—it should not be forgotten that the commercial spirit which led to the introduction of hops into ale brought about the necessity of cooking the wort, a process which satisfactorily destroys the valuable set of accessory factors which the malt contains. Thus the resulting beer is made practically valueless, as the Official Committee’s Report on vitamines frankly admits. See p. 61.

[187] It was even given with success to infants and children. John Locke, the famous philosopher, actually recommends it to be given to children. See his Some Thoughts Concerning Education (ed., 1693), p. 16.

[188] See W. T. Marchant, In Praise of Ale, p. 52.

[189] See Lewis Richard Farnell, D.Litt., M.A., F.A.S., The Cults of Greece, vol. v., p. 122: “Nor did wine-worship clash at all with the best morality or the hygienic doctrines of the people or the people’s teachers, for drunkenness was never a serious social evil for Hellas, nor did the philosophers preach against intemperance as a national danger; nor again were the modern appliances known whereby wine has become a thing vile and corrupt.”

[190] The wines not universally so, but the beer almost universally so. Even Smollett, however, in his time, complained of the adulteration of wines in England.

[191] The reason why a national movement for the purification of intoxicating liquors could never succeed in countries like England, France and America under present-day values, is obviously because it would by its very nature be tantamount to an anti-commercial or anti-profiteering agitation. And since the governing classes of these countries have for many generations consisted largely of the chiefs of commerce and industry, such a movement would never be allowed to effect any useful reforms.

[192] According to the Rev. Justus Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, vol. ii., p. 30, the Chinese do not now make wine from the juice of the grape. See also Professor H. A. Giles, China and the Chinese (New York, 1902), p. 136: “Grape wine was used down to the fifteenth century, if not later.” Now the cultivation of the poppy for the manufacture of opium began in China in the seventeenth century. See Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition, vol. vi., p. 177.

[193] See André L. Simon’s interesting work Wine and Spirits (Duckworth, 1919), p. xi: “Quite recently the laws of Khammarubi, King of Babylon about 2250 B.C., have been discovered and deciphered, and have aroused a great deal of interest. This sovereign appears to have been the great legislator of his dynasty; his laws contain the most precise regulations concerning the sale of wine, and show us the poor retailer of wine to have been harassed by a very severe legislation even in those times. Fines were not in vogue, but loss of a limb or of life was the penalty incurred by the seller of wine who gave bad quality or short measure or allowed riotous conduct on his premises.” See also pp. xiii and xiv.

[194] The old ales of ancient Egypt and of pre-Puritanical England were, however, in one respect healthier beverages than wine, owing to their powerful anti-scorbutic properties.

[195] See particularly pp. 218–225.

[196] It is hardly necessary to add that tea and coffee do, of course, contain no vitamines either of the disease-preventing or growth-promoting kind. In view of this, and of the enormous popularity they have enjoyed since the decline in quality of English malted liquors, we must not conclude that the appalling statistics of ill-health recently published by the Ministry of National Service are to be ascribed entirely to industrial and urban conditions. In fact the report actually calls attention to this point, and shows that ill-health is also very great in rural districts. Seeing, however, that rural districts consume just as much tea and coffee as urban and industrial centres, this is only what we should expect.

[197] For a fuller discussion regarding the therapeutic value of ale, see my chapter on the subject in my Defence of Aristocracy.

[198] Even Daru, the later Persian word for wine, which is now commonly used in Gujerati, also has the etymological meaning of medicine. See Jivanji Jamshedgi, op. cit., p. 4.

[199] In pondering these questions the reader should bear in mind that all the bony, emaciated, intellectual women, with pyorrhœa, indigestion, constipation and deep learning, who truthfully assure him that they care neither for men nor children, are not to be considered physiologically sound enough to be in a position to express a trustworthy opinion on this matter. It is merely equivalent to a dyspeptic assuring us that an excellent dinner is a matter of utter indifference to him.

[200] See his article “Dionysus” in W. H. Roscher’s Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, p. 1035: “Charakteristisch ist, dass dem Bakchos orgiastisch von Weibern gedient wird, von den Βάκχαι, Μαινάδες, Θυιάδες, Λῆναι abweichend von der sonst üblichen Bedienung der Gottheit durch Personen gleichen Geschlechtes.”

[201] Ibid., p. 1038: “Echt orgiastisch, als das Werk eines wilden, vom Gotte verhängten Wahnsinnes, erscheint die Zerfleischung von Opfertieren durch die Mänaden.”

[202] Op. cit., p. 1038.

[203] In this respect they do not seem to have advanced much upon J. F. Gail, who, writing in 1821, said: “La distribution des viandes crues aux omophagies devait être la commémoration de la mort de Bacchus.” See Recherches sur la Nature du Culte de Bacchus en Grèce, p. 176.

[204] Themistocles, the celebrated Greek general, is said to have sacrificed three boys to Dionysus even in his time. See Creuzer, op. cit., p. 354.

[205] Op. cit., p. 1040.

[206] Even Voigt subscribed to this view, op. cit., p. 1040.

[207] See August Mommsen Heortologie (Leipzig, 1864), p. 329. See also p. 327: “Die Feier der ländlichen Dionysien hatte wenig Aehnlichkeit mit einem Weinlesefest.... Bei der Weinernte löschen die Arbeiter ihren Durst mit Trauben oder daraus abgeflossenem (süssem) Most, der sie nicht berauscht. Für die ländlichen Dionysien aber ist das wesentliche Erforderniss ... Wein.”

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]

Recent Period

⎧

⎪

⎨

⎪

⎩

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

Early Iron Age, 1000 B.C.

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:—

Recent Period

⎧

⎨

⎩

Metallic Age, 4000 years back.

Neolithic 25,000 years back.

Pleistocene

⎧

⎨

⎩

Late Paleolithic Age, 150,000 years back.

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 Parisians. | Twelfth-Century Parisians. | Negroes. | Australians. | Ancient Egyptians.
1,200 to 1,300 c.c. | 0·0 | 0·0 | 7·4 | 45·0 | 0·0
1,300 to 1,400 c.c. | 10·4 | 7·5 | 35·2 | 25·0 | 12·1
1,400 to 1,500 c.c. | 14·3 | 37·3 | 33·4 | 20·0 | 42·5
1,500 to 1,600 c.c. | 46·7 | 29·8 | 14·7 | 10·0 | 36·4
1,600 to 1,700 c.c. | 16·9 | 20·9 | 9·3 | 0·0 | 9·0
1,700 to 1,800 c.c. | 6·5 | 4·5 | 0·0 | 0·0 | 0·0
1,800 to 1,900 c.c. | 5·2 | 0·0 | 0·0 | 0·0 | 0·0

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.

[278] The word artist here should be accepted with caution. It means a very definite thing, carefully defined in the pages of my Defence of Aristocracy. It does not mean every tinpot dauber or musician who claims the title; for many of these are simply neurotic Prometheans who haven’t the energy to enter Armstrong, Whitworth or Vickers’ workshops.

CHAPTER IX

REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING

If now the reader will reflect calmly and dispassionately upon the arguments and facts that I have advanced in the preceding chapters, while he may find some food for thought and meditation, he cannot possibly be cheered or comforted by the conclusions to which these mental exercises will lead him. For if my facts are beyond question right, and my arguments are valid, then it seems to me that his main conclusion cannot help being very much as follows:—

That man’s zenith on earth, far from having been reached in the Recent Period, either in historic or prehistoric and Neolithic times, was attained during another geological epoch,—i.e., towards the close of the Pleistocene, in Paleolithic times.

Thus, the curve of man’s development, instead of beginning in the Pleistocene, as was for some time supposed, and rising steadily until it reached its zenith in the present age, or in our Age, must be imagined as taking its rise somewhere in Pliocene or Miocene times, a million or so years ago, reaching its maximum height in the late Pleistocene,—having dropped the races which degenerated into the higher apes on its way,—from 30,000 to 60,000 years ago, and then descending again fairly rapidly towards this or the modern Age.

This would mean that at the present moment we are simply an undulation in a rapid avalanche making speedily towards complete and utter degeneration,[279] and that our knowledge of lofty things, great things, precious and valuable things,—nay, our very belief that such things can be,—is but a faint memory. It would mean that our religions are but traditional records of a greatness and a power that was once man’s, and of which, in his decline, he deified the possessors. It would also mean that the persistent idea of a personal god, or of personal gods, which has always been instinctive in men of the latest geological epoch, is the correct, true and original idea of godship or divinity, and that the modern vaporous substitutes known as the “Absolute,” the “All Pervading,” the “First Cause” (whatever this may mean) or the “All,” etc., etc., are simply signs of the enormous distance which, increasing every year, separates us from our former greatness. To attempt to replace the idea of a personal god by these vaporous makeshifts, however, is to cut the last link joining us to what was once our highest achievement.

Now although other men, among them the greatest thinker and poet of the nineteenth century, Friedrich Nietzsche, have expressed the suspicion that we were in the midst of a decline; except for a highly cultivated aristocrat of French extraction named Joseph de Maistre, of the eighteenth century, no one appears to have been convinced that all savage races of the present day were the degenerate descendants of some higher stock which existed in the past. Joseph de Maistre may be wrong as to this, in a general way, but the fact that he perceived the possibility that man’s greatest Age had passed by, is certainly immensely to his credit, as is also his belief that degeneration from the original higher stock was the outcome of a transgression or perversity. He calls it “Une prévarication quelconque.”[280]

He implies with the subtle insight of a seer, rather than with the laboured demonstration of a scientific investigator, that if man is degraded, ignorant and exposed to evil, it cannot be by accident, but through perversity; hence his incessant scientific activity may be a devious striving to return to his original lofty state, of which he has only a faint glimmering of a recollection.[281] Like Nietzsche, de Maistre was therefore of the opinion that the whole of modern mankind is but a disease.[282]

All our histories, all our works of science, almost all our philosophies, however, have hitherto taken the opposite view,—the view that the history of mankind consists of a series of steps, leaps and bounds, which, with certain intervals of stability or even slight retrogression, have at last brought us to the glory of the present Alexandrian Age of Science, Art, Culture, Beauty, Health and Prosperity.

There is no positive evidence for this,—on the contrary, as I have shown, all the evidence points the other way; but since things change and follow each other with time, and time does not stand still, every one, rejecting the idea of desirable stability, believes that one of two things must be taking place, either progression or retrogression. Now as the latter alternative is flattering neither to mankind in general, nor to the particular class of men—the Prometheans—who are chiefly responsible for the sort of civilisation we now possess, the former alternative has been so repeatedly endorsed by modern spirits, that it has come to be regarded almost as axiomatic.

The mistake arises out of the conception that there is only one kind of civilisation—the Promethean kind—and that all past Ages, since the Promethean crime, have been so many imperfect attempts at realising it in all its fulness, and, therefore, that all past Ages, though they are in the same line of descent with the modern Age, were not so highly civilised as the present Age.

I hope the error put in this way may become clear to the reader, as it is important that this point should be completely grasped. The error is so general, and at the same time receives so much authoritative support, that it becomes every year more difficult to expose.

I will endeavour to make it even more plain. We will imagine humanity through the Ages, simply dressing and undressing, and while so engaged, periodically changing the colour, material, shape and beauty of its garments. This, humanity has actually done, so the simile is perhaps as happy a one as could be chosen.

Now I maintain that the error of the modern scientist, philosopher and historian lies in supposing that the trousers worn by modern man, because they appear later in point of time than the hose of the sixteenth century, or the breeches of the eighteenth century, are necessarily a development of both, and therefore a higher phase of both, in which the virtues of the hose and the breeches happily coalesce, as it were, in one final and glorious manifestation of their combined individualities,—in short, that the hose of the sixteenth and the breeches of the eighteenth centuries were merely blind and clumsy attempts at realising the trousers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Against this I suggest that the hose of the sixteenth and the breeches of the eighteenth centuries have so little in common with the trousers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that any one of the three might easily have preceded the other in order of time, provided that the excessively bad taste of the nineteenth century could be imagined to have existed before it actually did exist. The former are the outcome and creation of a concept of comfort, beauty and utility, so fundamentally opposed to modern ideas that they belong to a totally different culture and civilisation, of which the present civilisation, so far from being a development, seems rather to be a flat contradiction or refutation.

To suppose that everything grows by steady and gradual steps out of everything else, is to assume a continuity which by implication is understood to advance from the imperfect to the more perfect. It does not sufficiently allow for the frequently complete arrest, or even reversal of a movement or tendency, or for the initiation of entirely fresh and unprecedented principles owing to the sudden appearance or predominance of a new type of mind. Thus to the historian there is only one kind of social order and arrangement, and that he calls “Civilisation,” and the latest form of it is always the logical and improved offspring of its preceding forms.

I hope the error is now quite plain.

It is revealed with singular ingenuousness by Tylor in the following passage:—

“It is a mere matter of chronicle that modern civilisation is a development of mediæval civilisation, which again is a development from civilisation of the order presented in Greece, Assyria, Egypt. Thus the higher [note the word ‘higher’] being clearly traced back to what may be called the middle culture, the question which remains is, whether this middle culture may be traced back to lower cultures, that is to say savagery.”[283]

After all I have said the reader will see immediately that to trace the development of modern civilisation, viâ mediæval civilisation, back to the civilisation of Greece, Assyria and Egypt, is about as sensible as to trace the development of the swallow’s nest back through the rabbit-warren to the ant-hill. And yet this gross error is being perpetrated with the utmost gravity and pedantry every day, every hour.[284]

One would not complain if the error ended there; for, after all, it would only constitute one stupidity the more in an age coruscating with stupidities. But the danger lies in the inference drawn from the argument. The average reader, after having taken in the passage by Tylor just quoted is tempted to infer that since A developed out of B, and B developed out of C, D and E; therefore A is an advance on C, D and E.

I suggest that A is not of the same nature as C, D and E, and has nothing whatsoever in common with them. In fact A has only the imperfect historical records of C, D and E, and far from being a development of them, it may even be a contradiction of them, a reversal of them, an unconscious parody of them, or a whole cultural league or two behind them.

It is true that the late Dr. Creighton, Bishop of London, frankly admits that the progressive idea in history is an assumption; but why he believes this assumption to be compulsory, I cannot think.[285]

The fact that in most myths the beginning of a decline is distinctly recorded; the fact, moreover, that this inception of a downward movement is connected in two of the most important myths of European peoples with a type of man which I call “Promethean” owing to the name given to the chief actor in the Greek aspect of the Degeneration Drama, points to this exceedingly interesting speculation: that survival values are possibly of two kinds, and not of one kind, and that civilisations differ from one another and follow one another in motley array, according to the type of man who happens to prevail at their inception, and subject to the kind of survival values observed by the generations of men responsible for them.

This suggestion could long ago have been read from Herbert Spencer, Darwin, or Nietzsche, or from any of the more enlightened philosophers or evolutionists. The fact that it has not been read from the works of these men shows the degree of blindness with which we are heading towards our ignominious fate.

Let me explain what I mean when I say that survival values are of two kinds.

In order to survive, a race must not commit suicide and it must procreate. It must also tend and succour the young, and its male members must not take advantage of their superior strength in order to exterminate the females.

Consequently we arrive at these four fundamental values of survival:—

- 1. Suicide is bad.

- 2. Procreation is good.

- 3. Succour and care of young is good.

- 4. The extermination of females is bad.

If any one of these survival values be persistently disobeyed by any race, it obviously cannot survive. These are not the only survival values, but they are among the most vital.

Now what is immediately noticeable about these values?

Surely the feature that chiefly characterises them is that survival alone is their object,—not a particular kind of life, but simply life is the goal. That is why they may be accurately described as merely vital survival values.

All values, then, which aim at a survival of life alone, and not of a particular kind of life, we may for convenience’ sake call “vital-survival-values.”

But there is obviously another kind of survival value. In order to survive, alone, it may be necessary to sacrifice something desirable, something noble, something beautiful. A desirable feature, or a noble feature, or even a beautiful feature, may, without making survival impossible, render it at least more difficult of achievement. It may therefore be easier, in the course of ages, for a race to abandon a desirable, a noble, or a beautiful feature, in order to simplify the problem of survival. And if there are no severe values forbidding such abandonment of desirable characteristics, these characteristics, owing to the temptation to follow the line of least resistance, run a considerable risk of being dropped on the way.

Thus as Spencer points out: “Superiority, whether in size, strength, activity, or sagacity, is, other things equal, at the cost of diminished fertility; and where the life led by a species does not demand these higher attributes, the species profits by decrease of them, and accompanying increase of fertility ... very often that which, humanly speaking, is inferiority, causes the survival.”[286]

This profoundly interesting passage brings out clearly what I am trying to show. Survival may mean abandoning, for convenience’ sake, some form of superiority.[287] That is why, in Chapter VII., I showed, in opposition to the vulgar assumption of modernity, that success was not by any means always a sign of superiority. It is only in an age when ignorance and tastelessness coincide in forming opinion, that success, which may necessitate the abandonment of a desirable quality, is always identified with superiority.

So we come to the conclusion that there is another kind of survival value to be considered. In other words, the question which each race of men, and each man individually, has to answer is not merely: what must I do to survive? but also, what must I do if I wish to survive in a particular—a desirable—fashion?

There are æsthetic-survival-values, then, besides vital-survival-values. If a race wish to survive as an example of quality, it must not abandon certain æsthetic or spiritual attributes it possesses, in order to make survival more easy, otherwise it declines in rank, in preciousness, in worth.

In order to survive as beautiful, intelligent and well-constituted men, a race must not indulge in occupations, practices or pursuits that maim, deform or disfigure the contours of their bodies or of their faces; they must not set themselves, generation after generation, labours and problems which are beneath their standard of intelligence and character; they must not indulge in unhealthy work or pursuits.

Consequently we arrive at these three further fundamental values of survival:—

1. Deforming, maiming or disfiguring work is bad.

2. Mental and other occupations of a standard commensurate with the general level of intelligence and character, and not beneath it, are good.

3. Unhealthy occupations, practices or pursuits, are bad.

These are not the only survival values relating to the preservation of possessions other than life itself, but they are among the more important.

If any one of these survival values be persistently disobeyed, though the race may find survival easier, it will decline either in beauty, intelligence, character, or health. If all these survival values be persistently disobeyed, degeneration will rapidly supervene.

All values, then, which aim, not at a survival of life alone, but at a survival of a certain kind of life, we may for convenience’ sake call “æsthetic-survival-values,” to distinguish them from mere “vital-survival-values.”

When, therefore, life has multiplied on earth to such a great extent, that we may reckon in certain areas, as in England, Germany and Belgium for instance, that there has been an increase of several hundreds per cent. in the population within a century, and that concurrently with this increase there has been a marked decline in beauty, health, character and intelligence, we are justified in suspecting that vital-survival-values have been obeyed and observed to the exclusion of æsthetic-survival-values.

If, now, we enquire what influences have been active in bringing about this exclusive observance of vital-survival-values, and we confine our attention to Western Europe, and all tracts of country like Western Europe, we are forced to the conclusion that the immense increase in population which, beginning 250 years ago, reached its highest point of speed during the last century, has occurred under the influence of a certain very definite attitude towards life.

As I have shown elsewhere,[288] the changes ushered in by the Reformation, and subsequently by the Puritan Rebellion in England, were changes deliberately and consciously pursued by a perfectly definite class of men,—a class of men, chiefly commercial and industrial, who, with the new notion of accumulating profit, as opposed to the former idea of procuring a competence or simple livelihood, exploited every kind of national resource, even their fellow-countrymen, for their own base ends. The object was to heap up ever and ever greater hoards of material gain, either in actual cash, in solid possession, or land; and in the general stampede to achieve this end, a stampede by no means over yet, no one, not even the Established Church,[289] moved a finger to protect the masses who were the victims of it.

I showed also that a curious coincidence of interests occurred between these commercial and industrial innovators and the Puritans, owing to the fact that each in his own way was inclined to ignore the claims of the body. The Puritan and the commercial and industrial innovator were, moreover, frequently one and the same person.

The Puritan with his conviction that the things of body belonged to the Devil, was prone to discount the importance of food, drink, good spirits, beauty and bodily contentment. Frequently he was actively hostile both to beauty and bodily charm because both constituted a lure to life, to the joys of life, and particularly to the joys of sex. The commercial and industrial innovator, on the other hand, with his ruthless determination to exploit for the purposes of gain and “Progress” every means of production available, including his fellow-creatures, could scarcely respect the importance of health, good food, good spirits, beauty and bodily well-being, among the men, women and children he used in his production, without severely complicating and retarding the machinery by which he obtained his yield of profits. High spirits and exuberant health were even directly opposed to his schemes, for how could he expect human beings possessed of high spirits and exuberant health to submit to office or factory life?

In addition, the inventing engineer, whose one thought was to supply the eager manufacturer with ever more efficient and more rapid methods of making a good turnover, never so much as gave a thought to the moral, physical or æsthetic consequences of the innovations he unscrupulously foisted upon the world. And what was worse, there was nobody in a high place to call this smart accessory of Progress to his senses, nobody who thought of doing so, nobody who deemed it was necessary to do so.

Thus was formed that infernal trinity which, with its eyes concentrated greedily upon output and returns, disregarded absolutely the claims of humanity, and did not even know of the existence of æsthetic-survival-values.[290]

What took place in England and later in the whole of Western Europe, after the close of the seventeenth century, however, was only an acute and rapid development of what had been growing and spreading slowly but surely all over the Western World ever since the original Promethean crime. For it is characteristic of Prometheus and all Prometheans, that they pursue their so-called “Progress” without any regard to æsthetic-survival-values. Their only check, their only deterrent,—verily the only brake on their cruel, thoughtless wheel, which always rolls downhill to degeneration and death, is the number of Dionysians there are to oppose them.[291]

All essentially Promethean civilisations, even when their severity is mitigated by the presence of strong Dionysian elements, have this tendency, then, that they ignore æsthetic-survival-values altogether. We have seen what this led to in the Greeks of the prehistoric era, and how faithfully the disasters which supervened are recorded in the myths.

We know what it has led to in England, and all countries like England, and how dearly we are paying now, and shall have to pay in the future, for the deterioration of the bodies, the characters, the health and the brains of the proletariat, as the result of the besotting and devitalising duties to which an ultra-Promethean civilisation has condemned them.

On September 12th, 1918, Mr. Lloyd George spoke as follows at Manchester: “We have a Ministry of National Service and carefully compiled statistics of the health of the people between the ages of eighteen and forty-two. Now that is the age of fitness, the age of strength. You have three grades, I., II., and III., and all I can tell you is that the results of these examinations are startling, and I do not mind using the word appalling. I hardly dare tell you the results. The number of Grade II. and Grade III. men throughout the country is prodigious.”[292]

Since that speech was delivered, the Ministry of National Service have published a report giving details of the physical examination of men of military age by National Service Medical Boards. Of about 2,500,000 men of military age examined between November, 1917, and October, 1918, only 36 per cent. could be regarded as up to the normal standard of health and strength for their age, and more than 10 per cent. were judged as totally and permanently unfit for any form of military service. “This,” as the Daily News expressed it, “means that only one man in three was found to be normally healthy, and that one man in ten was a physical wreck.”[293]

This is bad enough, particularly as everybody has known for at least fifty years that if we continued in early nineteenth-century errors little else could be expected. But what really does take one’s breath away is to find the compilers of this report referring to the conclusions which are to be drawn from their depressing statements as “the nature and extent of the ravages upon the health and physique of our manhood which the progress [!] of civilisation during the nineteenth century has brought in its train.” No better evidence could be found for the misuse of that unfortunate word Progress.

The customary retort to this kind of argument is usually: “Oh, but you want to set the clock back. You cannot set the clock back!”

This remark, usually uttered with the most solemn conviction by the modern man, who regards you, while he pronounces it, with a look of such complete triumph that it is impossible to credit him even with sane doubts as to its wisdom, is, of course, only another sign of the progressive stupidity which is noticeable on all sides.

Let us analyse this remark:—

To begin with, it is based entirely upon an unfounded assumption. To argue that because a man alleges that Prometheanism is wrong, he therefore wishes to “set the clock back,” is to assume that a Promethean civilisation is the only civilisation. This, as we know, however, and as we have seen, is not true. To assume that a Promethean civilisation is the only civilisation, is equivalent to maintaining, as I have shown, that æsthetic-survival-values are not practicable; therefore, that degeneration is a fatality, an ineluctable destiny, something that we cannot avert or arrest. But Dionysians stoutly deny that degeneration is inevitable. They regard the very claim that degeneration is inevitable only as one of the many lame apologies advanced by the Promethean after he has thoroughly degraded the world.

Secondly, the remark is based upon ignorance of what has been achieved in the past. To argue that because a man alleges that Prometheanism is wrong, he therefore wishes to set the clock back, is to assume that Prometheanism has set the clock forward,—that is to say, that there has been something more than mere change, complication and degradation, since Prometheanism became supreme, that there has actually been “Progress” or “advancement.”

Advancement in what? Advancement towards what? Is humanity happier, healthier, more pleasing to look at? Is intelligence greater: has character become more admirable? These are the very directions in which marked degradation is to be observed. I have shown that the wave of man’s “advancement” reached its zenith when the gods walked on earth. How can the Promethean claim to have set the clock forward? The very claim that Prometheanism is wrong,—and that it is wrong is being discovered in the greatest variety of ways by almost everybody to-day,—may indeed amount to setting the clock forward (if the phrase has any meaning at all, which I doubt). Forward to what?—Forward to an era when Prometheanism will be controlled, subordinated, subjugated, managed.

Thirdly, for some reason dishonestly withheld by him who makes it, this remark implies that “back,” “setting the clock back,” is necessarily something prohibited or impracticable. There is a deceitful innuendo in the remark, the result of the false analogy between a set of wheels constituting a piece of clockwork and a civilisation (the two, as a matter of fact, have nothing except their initial letter and the letter L in common)—which leads the unfortunate debater, to whom it is said, to believe, if he be unwary, that seeing that setting the clock back is an absolutely futile thing to do, therefore a civilisation cannot be saved, or changed, by the revival or reimposition of some principle or attitude to life which belongs to the past. The falseness of the analogy is obvious at once when put in this light; but, as I have said, the solemn modern sage who makes the remark, “You cannot set the clock back,” pronounces it with such bland and truculent conviction, that, unless he be on his guard, his opponent is reduced to reluctant and rancorous silence.

Thus, it is plain that this remark does credit neither to him who makes it, nor to him who allows it to confound him. And yet such is the low level of intellectual development of our day, that there is scarcely one man in a thousand in modern Europe who will not make use of this remark in opposing a bitter, pitiless and offensive controversialist like myself; and not one in five thousand who will not expect me to be utterly defeated by it.

It is the suggestion that a backward movement is necessarily a useless movement, however, which is the error involved in this remark. Setting the clock back is known to be useless unless it be done in the case of a clock that is fast. But all “going back” is not useless. For instance, an invalid may get back to the health which he enjoyed in former years. A hypochondriac may go back to the cheerfulness which was his in adolescence. An insolvent firm may go back to the prosperity which was its pride in a previous generation. In short, man can reculer pour mieux sauter.

If a diversity of human types be admitted as a fact,—and it seems difficult to deny that there is such a diversity,—then, according to the conditions favouring either one type or another, a generation may be either prosperous, healthy and wise, or indigent, unhealthy and stupid. Going back, therefore, to the habits, outlook and virtues of a former generation, does not necessarily constitute a retrograde step: it may constitute a distinct advance.

When, therefore, I deny the validity of the objection contained in the popular but foolish phrase, “You cannot set the clock back,” I merely wish to emphasise the importance of enquiring what kind of man, what type of man, is responsible for our present civilisation, and whether there is not a better civilisation to which we might return, if the supremacy of a different type could be encouraged and cultivated. And it must not be supposed that this other type would necessarily be hostile to science or to discovery; it would, however, promote science and discovery in a different way, with at least a careful observance of æsthetic-survival-values, for instance; and would never consent, as the Prometheans have repeatedly done, to the sacrifice of humanity to “Progress.”[294]

The necessity of enquiring earnestly into the type which is predominant to-day, however, has become all the more pressing in view of certain recent developments in Western civilisation, which lead one strongly to suspect that a certain old enemy of man, feeling his power more secure than it has ever been before, has now determined upon an extreme venture.

From the very nature of his latest move, apart from the other signs of his identity, we suspect the Prometheans to be behind this new movement; for it is radically anti-Dionysian both in its intention and its measures.

In plain English, the Prohibition campaign, both in America and this country, is simply an attempt to fling us back into the grey misery of a Promethean civilisation, without either the solace or the therapeutic safeguards of the doctrine of Dionysus.

It is a further proof, if any were needed, of the undeviating consistency with which a type pursues its object, undeterred by considerations or thoughts alien to the class of mind with which it is endowed; and it behoves all those who recognise the danger of the movement, not only to fight it wholeheartedly, but also to set in question the whole nature of the supremacy which has led to its partial success.

If I understand aright what has taken place in America, it is this: an inhuman calculation has been undertaken by the heads of industry and commerce there,—for there are no other “heads” in the United States. Sitting in solemn conclave, with their attention concentrated, as described above, only upon output and turnover, and upon the best means of increasing both, the human factor in their infernal processes of production has been treated only as a cog in a machine, as a necessary evil with which one has to reckon only on the basis of profit and loss. No æsthetic-survival-values ever for one instant troubled the mind of an American. Even after reading this chapter, he would not understand what the term meant.—And then a curious phenomenon was discovered. It amounted to this: that those human machines who were not vitiated by poisonous modern “commercial” beers, or alcoholic beverages, worked best. At least this was alleged; and, in view of the potency of the poisons which profiteers, American and otherwise, do sell as intoxicating liquor, it is not surprising. This momentous discovery would, you might have thought, have led to a rigorous enquiry into the reason why modern “commercial” beers and alcoholic beverages are poisonous, or at best neither invigorating nor inspiriting. At least it might have led to an attempt to defeat the evil at its root, which is the corruption and inhuman profiteering on the part of the producers of the people’s drinks.

Not a bit of it! This is indeed how men would have behaved who had the welfare of humanity at heart, who knew the many benefits, both spiritual and physical, which good ale and good wine could confer; and who were conscientiously endeavouring to observe and apply æsthetic-survival-values in their own country.

But these magnates of industry,—hence the tragic futility of a business government,—are never concerned with humanity. Nothing and no one ever defiled by Prometheanism, ever is concerned with humanity. They were concerned with a very different object, an object very remote indeed from æsthetic-survival-values: it was the result known as business and industrial efficiency. No matter whether character, soul, spirit, beauty or health were ultimately undermined by the besotting labours which this greater efficiency was expected to speed up,—what have character, soul, spirit, beauty or health to do with output and return? The object was not that humanity should be made more dignified, more noble, more beautiful, more worthy of its great past; but that the majority of the workmen should have their last vestige of remaining health and sanity preserved from the poisonous concoctions of these magnates’ unscrupulous counterparts in the liquor trade; because blood-poisoning would constitute an extra obstacle in the road to efficiency.

Hence the Prohibition Laws.

What was the alternative?

Reform the liquor trade, so that the liquor absorbed by the mass of the people might recover those invigorating, health-promoting, health-protecting and inspiriting qualities that it once possessed?

Certainly not! This would be worse than the status quo ante; this, above all things, must be avoided!

Why?

Because people who are spirited, healthy, bright, vigorous, and bold, and confident with that inner contentment and inner warmth, created ever since the Promethean crime only by good, wholesome, fermented liquor,—such people are not abject, they are difficult to dragoon, to enslave, and above all to abuse. Such people do not tolerate for long the jading and besotting high speed of an efficient modern factory; they too strongly resemble the old peasantry of England, the redoubtable bowmen of England, who were the terror of the Continent—the men who stood and conquered when they were but one to fifteen at Poictiers and one to five at Agincourt. Such men must be led, they will not be driven. They must be mastered by an appeal to their imaginations and their understanding; they cannot be mustered by the shriek of a siren.

No, this would be worse than the status quo ante; this above all things must be avoided!

The fact that this heartless and anti-Dionysian conclusion should have been reached in the United States of America can surprise no one. What are the United States of America? Apart from the worthier elements which constitute quite a small minority, I mean the non-Puritanical colonists of Elizabeth’s and the early Stuarts’ reigns,—the backbone of the population consists of the descendants of renegade Puritans of the seventeenth century (who fled their country for their country’s good) reinforced by the slave-drivers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and mixed with the blood of all the people of Europe and Asia. What is their principal achievement? Is it Art?—Letters?—Philosophy?—Learning?

No, it is Machinery! Puritanism, slave-driving and machinery,—the three characteristic features of all late Promethean civilisations.

Verily this can be no morbid hallucination, no empty spook, this alleged hostility of the Promethean type to mortals. I have traced it now from prehistoric times, through the bedimmed and faded records of the Greek myths, down to our own seventeenth, eighteenth and particularly nineteenth centuries. The records of other civilisations, like those of the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Babylonians, the Incas of Peru, are accessible now, and the balance struck in all these cultures, between the Promethean and the Dionysian types, can be seen and learnt by all who wish to do so. It will be observed that others have succeeded where we have most signally failed, in checking, controlling, correcting and averting the worst consequences of the Promethean type’s thoughtless clamour for complexity without discipline, for “Progress” without order or desirability, and for mere change without any genuine and lasting advantage; and while it may be impossible and even inexpedient to imitate these other civilisations in their results and actual fruits, it is always possible at least to emulate them in their spirit and their aims, and to begin at once by suspecting the plausible and still dazzling claims of our triumphant Prometheans.

For Prometheanism is implacable because it is unconscious; it is persistent, because it repeats itself not as a policy but as a type; it is pitiless, because it believes that it is the highest manifestation of the human species on earth in all ages, and that its predominance cannot therefore fail to be the design of the Almighty; finally, it is elusive, because it is too innocent in its devilry, too well-meaning in its dangerous stupidity, and too theatrical in its result, ever to have the whole front of its millions of victims actively opposed to it.

If the situation were hopeless, however, I should have served but a very doubtful purpose in writing this essay. The history that I have related contains at least two instances of the defeat of the Prometheans’ most nefarious schemes by two mighty figures who have come down to us under the names of Zeus and Dionysus. As I have said, from time to time, at certain turning-points in human history, when things have become not only too intolerable to continue, but actually too impossible to last, it is the Dionysians who have hitherto produced men who were called upon to set right the diabolical muddles to which the Prometheans and their vices have always given rise. It may be confidently expected, therefore, that the Dionysians will not fail us when the great turning-point reappears again: but that this turning-point does not seem as if it could be very far off, though signs of a coming Saviour are not immediately discernible, are facts that even the most optimistic Promethean himself could not very well venture to deny.

“It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the germ of his highest hope.

“His soil is still rich enough for that purpose. But that soil will one day be too poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow thereon.”

Thus Spake Zarathustra.

FOOTNOTES:

[279] My friend Dr. G. T. Wrench, in a profound treatise entitled The Mastery of Life, thus aptly called our present condition one of “Gadarene Progress.”

[280] Speaking of Rousseau, whom he rightly loathed and despised, and whom he calls “the most dangerous sophist of his century,” de Maistre says: “Il a constamment pris le sauvage pour l’homme primitif, tandis qu’il n’est et ne peut être que le descendant d’un homme détaché du grand arbre de la civilisation par une prévarication quelconque, mais d’un genre qui ne peut plus être répété, autant qu’il m’est permis d’en juger; car je doute qu’il se forme de nouveaux sauvages.” Les Soirées de St. Petersbourg (Brussels, 1838), vol. i., p. 57.

[281] Op. cit., p. 60: “Si donc l’homme est sujet à l’ignorance et au mal, ce ne peut être qu’en vertu d’une dégradation accidentelle qui ne saurait être que la suite d’un crime. Ce besoin, cette faim de la science, qui agite l’homme, n’est que la tendance naturelle de son être qui le porte vers son état primitif, et l’avertit de ce qu’il est.”

[282] Op. cit., p. 61: “L’homme entier n’est qu’une maladie.”

[283] Primitive Culture, vol. i., p. 32.

[284] The only common feature I can see in all the civilisations mentioned is the varying ease with which the Promethean type is able to express itself in each of them. Certainly, in that respect the last, or what Tylor calls the “higher” phase, shows the Promethean influence at its maximum.

[285] See Cambridge Modern History, vol. i., p. 4: “We are bound to assume, as the scientific hypothesis on which history is to be written, a progress in human affairs. This progress must inevitably be towards some end; and we find it difficult to escape from the temptation, while we keep that end in view, of treating certain events as landmarks on the road. A mode of historical presentation thus comes into fashion based upon an inspiring assumption.”

[286] Collected Essays, vol. i., p. 379. Twelve years ago, in my Who is to be Master of the World? p. 91, I called attention to this most important passage in Herbert Spencer’s works. It is the most illuminating paragraph ever penned by an evolutionist.

[287] In order to survive, all commercial and industrial communities in England, Germany and America, for instance, had to abandon the ideal of nobility and frequently even the actual practice of honesty.

[288] See my Defence of Aristocracy.

[289] Until the Salvation Army gave the lead, the clergy of the Church of England, who come from the possessing classes and are hand in glove with them, looked on unmoved while the grossest crimes were being committed against the men, women and children of the working masses. It was not a Church movement, as one might have expected, but an aristocrat who first agitated for the protection and care of women and children in factories.

[290] The blind advocate of this unholy trinity, and one whose books are a blot on English literature, because in this case stupidity is criminal, was the pompous and enthusiastic nineteenth-century writer, Samuel Smiles, who with resolute vulgarity wrote the Magnificats of the Engineers. He was a doctor and a railway director, he was also editor-in-chief of the Leeds Times; but whatever else he may have been, he was certainly one of the most incurable old sentimentalists the nineteenth century ever produced, and that is placing him high in the hierarchy of nonsense.

[291] One of the chief factors in assisting the Promethean type to attain to supremacy in Europe during the last 2,000 years has been, of course, the ascendancy of Christian values. Provided a man, woman or child has faith, and earnestly strives to have a pure soul, Christianity takes no notices of their bodies. Neither does Christianity present any check to the marriage and multiplication of undesirable people. In fact, it resembles Prometheanism in this, that it takes no cognisance of æsthetic-survival-values. Christianity (not of the Protestant brand), however, does allow of certain Dionysian principles. It was the Church, for instance, that throughout the Middle Ages spread the culture of the vine, and the drinking of wine, all over heathen Europe. The gardens around monasteries produced the first vineyards in a very large number of localities.

[292] See The Times, September 13th, 1918.

[293] See the Daily News, February 28th, 1920, from whose report on the Government publication most of these facts and figures have been taken.

[294] This is obviously what de Maistre means in the following passage. He also is not an anti-scientist, but he believes in a “different” science: “Écoutez la sage antiquité,” he says, “sur le compte des premiers hommes: elle vous dira que ce furent des hommes merveilleux, et que des êtres d’un ordre supérieur daignaient les favoriser des plus précieuses communications. Sur ce point il n’y a pas de dissonance; les initiés, les philosophes, les poëtes, l’histoire, la fable, l’Asie et l’Europe n’ont qu’une voix. Un tel accord de la raison, de la révélation, et de toutes les traditions humaines, forme une démonstration que la bouche seule peut contredire. Non seulement donc les hommes ont commencé par la science, mais par une science différente de la nôtre, et supérieure à la nôtre; parce qu’elle commençait plus haut,” op. cit., p. 68. When one remembers that this was written over a hundred years ago, the sentiment prompting it appears all the more admirable. Les Soirées de St. Petersbourg, though conceived in 1806, was published only a few days after de Maistre’s death in 1821.

INDEX

- Adam: a Promethean, 218;

- because he hearkened to the voice of his wife, 219

- Æschylus: his Prometheus Bound, 27;

- regarded as responsible for portraying Prometheus as a blameless hero, 35;

- the fallacy of this view, 35, 36;

- only one play of his trilogy survives, 37;

- knew of the vast antiquity of the gods, 173, 184

- Alcohol: not bad for the human body, 150;

- percentage of, in modern drinks, 151

- Ale: its value in old England and ancient Egypt, 152;

- thought as necessary as bread by our forefathers, 153;

- kept our ancestors healthy and sexually potent, 155;

- a powerful anti-scorbutic, 157;
- valuable properties of, 160
- America: the home of the worst cooks, 84;
- abounds in Prometheans, 221;

- abandoned nobility and honesty in order to survive, 231 n.;

- leaders of, interested only in output and turnover, 242;

- and never concerned with humanity, 243;

- the land of Puritanism, slave-driving and machinery, 245

- Ancestor worship: the root of religion, 23

- Aristotle: on honey and wine, 144

- Arnold, Matthew: protested against nineteenth century optimism, 68

- Artist: superseded by the clumsy scientist in Protestant countries, 84

- Aryans: mixed with the Cro-Magnons, 183, 184, 209;

- their antiquity, 183, 208;

- a brachycephalic race, 182, 184;

- the possible reason for the superiority of the Greek branch of, 210 n.

- Atlas: the brother of Prometheus, 25, 45;
- the supporter of the heavens, 45;
- came to a bad end, 49
- Bacchantes: description of, 165

- Belgium: marked decline in health and beauty with increase of population, 233

- Bell, Dr. Robert: on relationship of diet to cancer, 85;

- on killing the vital element in food by cooking, 86;

- his insistence on uncooked food, 87

- Blackie, J. S.: unable to explain seeming injustice to Prometheus, 32;

- his insight, 37

- Brain: large size of, in Cro-Magnon race, 181, 189, 190, 191, 192;

- a large, a sign of superiority, 191, 192

- Broadmindedness: means degeneracy if it leads to cross-breeding, 49

- Browning: his class the only one that flourished in the nineteenth century, 68

- Bushmen: did not boil food, 207
- Butter: rich in vitamines, 94
- Byron: worshipped Prometheus as a boy, 33;
- his schoolboy conception of Prometheus, 33;

- failed to grasp Greek view of Prometheus, 34;

- protested against nineteenth century optimism, 68;

- on the fall of man, 74
- Cæsar, Julius: account of the Druids, 9
- Cancer: increase of, 88 n.;
- due to cooking food, 108

- Cannibalism: wrongly interpreted as a sun myth, 16;

- practised by modern Eskimos, 17;

- practised on account of human flesh being the best food for men, 17

- Carlyle: stupidly honoured by the nineteenth century, 65

- Catholic Church: her wisdom regarding food, 82;

- the storehouse of mediæval and ancient wisdom, 83;

- her moderate view regarding butcher meat, 88;

- had certain Dionysian principles and spread culture of vine, 236 n.

- Children: their alleged innocence the foolish belief of English Protestants and old maids, 4

- Chinese: wine drinkers till the fifteenth century, 156;

- their refusal to adopt new discoveries, 176;

- believe their ancestors were better than themselves, 186 n.

- Christ: compared with Prometheus, 32

- Christian: does not question his god’s justice in punishing the fallen angels, 2;

- his difficulty in explaining the “sons of god” and “giants,” 46;

- the nineteenth-century optimists, 68

- Christianity: growing indifference of proletariat to, 68;

- radically Puritanical, 135, 136;

- resembles Prometheanism in ignoring æsthetic-survival-values, 236 n.

- Church of England: her indifference to the degradation of the masses, 234

- Civilisation: responsible for cancer, 88 n.;

- fortunately does not necessarily mean mechanical devices, disease and female suffrage and suffering, 206;

- the Promethean, erroneously supposed to be the only kind, 226;

- does not necessarily develop from lower to higher, 228;

- varies according to the type of man producing it, 229

- Clock: “setting it back,” a fallacious argument, 238–241

- Cobbett: protested against nineteenth-century optimism, 68

- Coffee: a harmful drug, 158;

- contains no vitamines, 159 n.

- Cooking: a process not dictated by Nature, 81;

- Dr. Bell on, 86–89;

- Dr. Hutchinson on, 90 n.;

- harmfulness of process when repeated often on same product, 92;

- may be fatal, 93;

- effect of, on vitamines, 101 et seq.;

- the easiest form of, and its relation to pottery, 112;

- on the Somme, 112;
- stewing the easiest form of, 113;
- stone-cooking, 113 n.;
- restrictions imposed in regard to, 206–208

- Cro-Magnons: probably the race from which the gods of Western and Near Eastern religions sprang, 181, 182;

- mixed with the Aryans, 183, 184;

- god of the Jews and Christians probably a Cro-Magnon, 185, 219;

- infinitely superior to modern man, 185;

- the discovery of, a revelation to anthropologists, 188;

- the superior brain of, 189, 190, 192;

- probably exterminated owing to their superiority, 194;

- the superiority of their art, 195, 196;

- pregnant women frequent in their art, 196;

- their simple life of hunting, feasting, art and love, 200;

- their chivalrous and noble nature, 201;

- their invention of writing, 201;

- their deliberate refusal to adopt futile complications, 202, 203, 205;

- exterminated by overwhelming numbers, 210;
- deified by ancestors of the Greeks, 211
- Cronus: mutilates Uranus, 5
- Cross-breeding: effects of, 45;
- destroys character, 47;
- depravity resulting from, 49

- Darwin: on the effects of cross-breeding, 45

- Deification: instances of, 19 n.;
- of conquerors, 42
- Demeter: restores Dionysus to life, 134
- Devil: see Satan

- Dietetics: the necessary creation of Protestantism, 83

- Dionysia: the first celebration of the, 164;

- some unsatisfactory explanations of, 166, 167, 168;

- a new explanation of, 169, 170

- Dionysian type: description of, 178, 179;

- all gods, saviours, angels, etc., belong to the, 179;

- masters women, 214;

- and makes them happy, 217;

- the only check against Promethean vulgarity, 236;

- stoutly denies inevitability of degeneration, 238;

- can alone save mankind from Promethean muddle, 247

- Dionysus: the Saviour, 118, 170;
- his ancestry, 119;
- his miraculous birth, 120;
- torn in pieces by the Titans, 120;
- came later than Prometheus, 121;
- his epithets, 121, 136, 137;
- the god of “vitamines,” 122;
- his worship introduced from Thrace, 123;
- taught the use of fermented liquor, 124;
- why he was called the son of Zeus, 124;

- a divinity resulting from ancestor worship, 125;

- saved from fire, 126, 128;
- the “twice born,” 127;
- Lord of Trees, 129;
- the discoverer of honey, 129;
- nursed by nymphs, 130;
- fed on honey, 130 n.;
- his travels, 131;
- opposition to his doctrine, 132;
- a beneficent deity, 133;
- hostile to the Titans, 133;
- and torn in pieces by them, 133;
- restored to life by Rhea and Demeter, 134;
- the Saviour and healer, 135;
- the doctor, 141;
- taught use of honey, 142;

- his remedies, honey, fruit and raw meat, 142;

- eater of raw meat, 146, 147;

- served only by women and the reason why, 164;

- necessary in a Promethean civilisation, 171;

- the enemies of, the most savage enemies of mankind, 171

- Diseases: of occupation, 70 n.
- Dodona: oak-forest at, 130
- Druids: their cultivation of memory, 9

- Drunkenness: due to adulteration of liquor, 152;

- never a serious evil in old England and Greece, 153, 154

- Engineers: honoured in Westminster Abbey, 69;

- have no regard for the moral and æsthetic consequences of their unscrupulous innovations, 235;

- the blind advocate of, 235 n.
- England: the home of the worst cooks, 84;
- abounds in Prometheans, 221;

- to survive had to abandon nobility and honesty, 231 n.;

- marked decline in health and beauty with increase of population, 233;

- the old peasantry of, formidable because they drank wholesome ale, 244

- Epimetheus: the brother of Prometheus, 25;
- marries Pandora, 28;
- almost half-witted, 49
- Eskimos: their cannibalism, 17;
- eaters of raw meat, 106
- Eve: eats of the Tree of Knowledge, 212;

- the first fatal instance of woman’s tastelessness, 218

- Fermented liquor: its high value as food, 149, 156;

- essential to high civilisations, 157;
- the valuable properties of, 159
- Fire: stolen by Prometheus, 1 et passim;
- withheld by Zeus, 55;
- fetched in fennel stalk, 56;
- granted by Zeus on wise terms, 57;
- produced by friction, 59;
- not an unmixed blessing, 75;
- introduced agriculture and industry, 76;
- ills resulting from, 76–80;
- destroys food value, 88, 89;
- destroys vitamines, 100;
- date of discovery of, 173–177;
- restricted use among savages, 205;

- often coveted and stolen by inferior races, 208

- Food: harmed by fire, 80–82;

- ignorance regarding, 81;

- the wisdom of the Catholic Church regarding, 82;

- better uncooked, 87–90;

- the poisonousness of twice-cooked, 92

- Frazer, Sir James: interpretation of the mutilations, 6 n.

- Frederick the Great: restorer of order, 50

- Germany: the home of the worst cooks, 84;

- had to abandon nobility and honesty in order to survive, 231 n.;

- marked decline in health and beauty with increase of population, 233

- Giants: mentioned in the Bible, 46;

- their depravity, 48

- God: the sons of, marry the daughters of men, 43

- Gods: deified conquerors, 43;
- were cultured strangers, 44;
- probably tall, 44;
- belief in personal, correct, 224

- Goethe: his atheistic view of Prometheus, 33, 34;

- failed to grasp Greek attitude to Prometheus, 34

- Golden Age: longing for, 73;

- preceded the fall of man, 74

- Gorilla: and his kind possibly the degenerate descendants of men, 187

- Greeks: their remote ancestors probably cannibals, 17;

- and guilty of incest, 22;

- regarded Prometheus as the founder of civilisation, 26;

- accepted Prometheus myth humbly without understanding, 31;

- their love of Zeus, 35, 36;

- did not worship Prometheus, 36;

- and regarded his punishment as deserved, 36;

- trusted Zeus, 38;

- deified superior race, 65;

- did not regard Zeus as responsible for their civilisation, 69;

- would have been staggered at belief that a good god was responsible for modern civilisation, 70;

- our predecessors in stupidity but wiser than ourselves, 71;

- their pessimism, 198, 199;

- their remote ancestors mingled with Cro-Magnons; hence their superiority, 210

- Health: appalling state of national, 237

- Heaven: believed in because it is pleasant, 140 n.

- Hellenes: see Greeks
- Hera: her jealousy of Semele, 125, 126
- Heracles: releases Prometheus, 51, 117, 118
- Hesiod: his fidelity to tradition, 29;
- his veneration of Zeus, 36;
- on the decline of men, 72;
- on the Iron Age, 72;
- his pessimism, 73

- Honey: use of, discovered and taught by Dionysus, 142;

- used as a medicine by antiquity, 143, 144, 145;

- the food of the gods, 145

- Human flesh: the best food for men, 171

- Human sacrifice: in time of Themistocles, 167 n.

- Influenza: a deficiency disease, 110
- Iron Age: Hesiod on, 72
- Jehovah: probably a Cro-Magnon, 211 n.

- Kuhn: his interpretation of the Prometheus myth, 39, 40;

- Andrew Lang’s objection to his theory, 40

- Lang, Andrew: does not attempt to explain Zeus’s anger against Prometheus, 2;

- regards the mutilations as too abominable to explain, 6 n.;

- shows hopeless disagreement of scholars, 6 n.;

- his objection to Kuhn’s theory, 40

- Lloyd George: on appalling state of national health, 237

- Luther: translates giants as tyrants, 46

- Lyell, Sir Charles: an eminent Promethean, 203;

- his admiration of ridiculous complications, 204

- Madness: usually ascribed to creative genius, 131

- Maistre, Joseph de: his belief that modern man is a disease, 225;

- his belief in the superior science of antiquity, 241

- Man: fall of, 74;

- his “Gadarene Progress” to degeneration, 224

- Margarine: deficient in vitamines, 94

- Max Müller: his false interpretations of myths, 17, 18;

- regards unsavoury myths as the disease overtaking religious ideas, 22

- Mecone: the meeting at, 26, 29, 30, 54;
- the meeting at, probably not religious, 53;
- the dispute at, 55
- Memory: modern disbelief in, 7;

- bad, the feature distinguishing modern man from animals and the ancients, 8;

- bad, one of the unmistakable signs of progress, 8;

- robust, of the ancients, 9;
- impaired by writing, 9;
- historical facts preserved by, 10;
- instances of long, 11, 12;

- stronger the further we recede from the age of print, 12

- Menœtius: the brother of Prometheus, 25;

- came to a bad end, 49

- Mill, John Stuart: stupidly honoured by the nineteenth century, 65;

- a henpecked Promethean, 122

- Mousterians: the remote ancestors of the Cro-Magnons, 205

- Murray, Gilbert: leaves the mutilation in the Uranus-Cronus myth aside, 5, 6

- Muses: the daughters of Memory, 15 n.

- Mutilation: in the Uranus-Cronus myth, 5;

- its interpretation essential to understanding the myth, 6;

- Sir James Frazer’s interpretation of, 6 n.;

- reason of, 50

- Myths: anything obscure or obscene in them conveniently ignored by modernity, 4;

- should be approached reverently, 7;

- probably records of actual occurrences, 14;

- not to be interpreted as personifications of natural phenomena, 15

- Napoleon: restorer of order, 50;
- never heartily loved by any woman, 215
- Nietzsche: on the fall of man, 74;
- his belief that man is in a decline, 224

- Nineteenth Century: the Alexandrian Age of Stupidity, 64;

- its abuse of everything noble, 64;

- enough to make working-classes atheists, 65;

- honourable to depart from beliefs of, 65;

- regarded gutter-smartness as superiority, 65;

- misery during, 67;

- its foolish belief that everything new is an improvement, 67;

- its resolute optimism Christian optimism, 67;

- its gross errors of diet, 92;

- produced incurable old sentimentalists, 235 n.

- Noah: his immaculate pedigree, 48;

- planted the vine, 142

- Nomadic life: ended by discovery of fire, 76;

- illness due to abandonment of, 76

- Nymphs: nursed Dionysus, 130

- Odin: mingling of races after his immigration, 47

- Pandora: wife of Prometheus and Epimetheus, 25;

- creation of, 28;

- her casket of evils, 114;

- the first fatal instance of woman’s tastelessness, 218

- Pelmanism: reason for sudden vogue of, 8

- Pessimism: due to ill-health, 198

- Phallus: carried by virgins in the Dionysia, 137;

- the meaning of, in the Dionysia, 161–165

- Plague: the great, probably due to Puritan’s interference with ale, 149 n.

- Poets: their obtuseness with regard to Prometheus, 33

- Pottery: introduced by fire, 75, 79;

- its relation to the easiest and most pernicious form of cooking, 112;

- date of invention of, 176

- Pregnancy: depicted in Cro-Magnon art, 196;

- reason of Cro-Magnon admiration of, 197, 199;

- the whole of its associations loathsome to modernity, 198

- Progress: bad memory one of the signs of, 8;

- every kind of blackguardism regarded as, 65;

- the belief in, one of the many nineteenth-century absurdities, 67;

- not necessarily to something better, 227;

- produces ill-health, 238

- Prohibition: a Promethean conspiracy against man, 242;

- designed to keep modern slaves below par, 244

- Promethean Type: description of its boy-scout mind, 177, 178;

- all devils and demons belong to the, 179;
- judges by success, 193;
- the best worshippers of women, 217;
- hearken to the voice of their wives, 219;

- never regards æsthetic-survival-values, 236;

- sacrifices humanity to “Progress,” 241;

- never concerned with humanity, 243;

- strong in the innocence of its dangerous stupidity, 246

- Prometheus: steals fire, 1, 36 et passim;
- supposed to benefit mankind, 2;
- Shelley’s shallow view of, 2 n.;
- his genealogy, 25;
- deceives Zeus, 26, 56, 66;
- the founder of civilisation, 26;
- his punishment, 28;

- impossible to interpret him as a phenomenon of nature, 30;

- belongs to the oldest stratum of Greek mythology, 31;

- compared with Christ, 32;

- not worshipped by the Greeks, 36, 62;

- who regarded his punishment as deserved, 36;

- a perfect blend of two races, 45;
- Zeus’s most powerful rival, 51;
- jealous of Zeus, 52;
- a revolutionary and demagogue, 57, 58;
- divulges secret of fire-kindling, 58;

- his torture demanded by his victims, 60, 62;

- his supernatural punishment, 60, 61;
- a depraved and foolish man, 65;
- his theft of fire a calamity to man, 66;

- comparison with Semitic story of fall of man, 74;

- altar dedicated to him by Athenian potters, 79;

- his invention of pottery, 112;
- released by Heracles, 117;
- the reason of his release, 118;
- a malignant power, 133;
- the antiquity of his crime, 173;
- a half-bred Cro-Magnon, 209

- Protestantism: its foolish abolition of fasts and feasts, 83;

- dietetics the necessary creation of, 83;

- breeds loathing of pregnancy, 198 n.

- Protestants: their foolish belief that children are innocent, 4

- Puritanism: despises the body and censures the pleasures connected with it, 91;

- ignorance regarding food, 92

- Puritans: their adulteration of ale, 152;

- an unscrupulous commercial and industrial class hostile to the body and sex, 234, 235

- Raw meat: medicinal value of, 146;

- eaten at the Dionysia, 164

- Religions: traditional records of man’s past greatness, 224

- Rhea: restores Dionysus to life, 134

- Romans: allowed father to decide which children should survive, 215

- Ruskin: protested against nineteenth-century optimism, 68

- Satan: punished for a crime, 2;
- Shelley’s shallow view of, 2 n.;
- the Archetype of Promethean men, 218

- Scholars: their stupid superciliousness towards antiquity, 3;

- their foolish belief that we are superior to the ancients, 4;

- their hopeless disagreement, 6 n.

- Scientist: the substitution of the clumsy, for the artist, 84

- Scurvy: due to absence of vitamines, 97;
- symptoms of, 98;
- mild forms of, 99;
- the cure for, 100;
- undiagnosed, very prevalent, 103, 108;
- recent outbreaks of, 104, 105;
- due to potato famine, 110

- Semele: the mother of Dionysus, 118, 119, 120;

- a simple Greek maiden afterwards regarded as half divine, 125

- Sex: joys of, dependent on good health, 161;

- associated with guilt only in stupid Promethean age, 213

- Sexual potency: reduced by mistakes in diet, 90;

- impaired by lack of vitamines, 96, 108;
- restoration of, 118;
- secured by drinking good ale, 155

- Shelley: his shallow view of Satan and Prometheus, 2 n.;

- his schoolboy view of Prometheus, 33;

- failed to grasp Greek view of Prometheus, 34;

- his foolish conception of Zeus, 51

- Silenus: taught Dionysus, 129

- Smiles, Samuel: with resolute vulgarity wrote the Magnificat of the Engineers, 235 n.

- Socrates: as an inveterate old moralist and Puritan has set the tone of much in modern Europe, 5 n.

- Spencer, Herbert: regarded ancestor-worship as origin of myths, 15;

- his masterly interpretation of myths, 19;

- regarded ancestor-worship as the root of religion, 23;

- on parasites, etc., being examples of successful adaptation, 193

- Stew: the worst form of cooking, 112, 113

- Success: vulgar modern belief in, 193;

- erroneously identified with superiority, 232

- Survival values: vital: enumeration of some, 230;

- may mean abandoning some form of superiority, 231;

- æsthetic: enumeration of some, 232;

- disregarded by Christianity and by Prometheans, 236;

- incomprehensible to Americans, 243
- Tea: a harmful drug, 158;
- contains no vitamines, 159

- Temperance: true, should aim at producing pure drink, 154

- Tennyson: stupidly honoured by the nineteenth century, 65

- Titans: their descent, 44;
- a mighty race, 45;
- tear Dionysus to pieces, 120, 133;
- hostile to Dionysus, 133;
- hostile to man, 134;
- half-bred Cro-Magnons, 209

- Trepanning: performed by the Cro-Magnons, 200 n.

- Tylor: instances of truth of old traditions, 10, 11

- Uranus: mutilated by Cronus, 5;
- probably a Cro-Magnon, 184, 201
- Vineyards: round monasteries, 236 n.

- Virgin-birth: the interpretation given by the Puritanical bias of the Christian investigator, 5

- Virginity: a negative ideal, 197;

- admiration of, due to modern pessimism, 198

- Virgins: carried the phallus in the Dionysia, 137

- Vitamines: the imponderable elements in food, 93, 95;

- diseases due to absence of, 96;
- the anti-scorbutic, 97;
- killed by modern cooking, 100, 101;
- Dionysus the god of, 122

- Westminster Abbey: honours many votaries of Prometheus, 69

- Wine: Persian legend of origin of, 148 n.;

- see also Fermented liquor

- Woman: deteriorated through abandoning nomadic life, 76;

- her outcry against sex-destroying drugs, 115 n.;

- her dependence upon sex gratification, 162;

- her misery after the Promethean crime, 162, 163;

- saved by Dionysus, 163, 164, 170;

- suffers most from a Promethean civilisation, 169;

- intimately associated with end of Golden Age, 212;

- primevally associated with evil, 213;

- best men never diverted from highest pursuits by, 214;

- requires not chivalry but children, 214;

- guided by the petty love of power, 214, 217;

- not consciously attracted by the best men, 215;

- has bad taste or no taste, 215, 216, 217;

- cannot be controlled by Prometheans, 217;

- prefers Prometheans because they are the best worshippers, 217;

- her boy-scout mind, 218;

- her connection with evil resides in her total lack of taste, 219;

- this the greatest danger to mankind, 220;

- the horror of her claim of equality with man lies in its truth, 221;

- most powerful in America and England, 222;

- her only hope lies in the multiplication of the Dionysian type and the subordination of the Promethean, 222

- Zeus: enraged with Prometheus, 1;

- his anger as important as the fire-stealing itself, 3;

- his punishment of Prometheus, 28;
- loved by the Greeks, 35, 36;
- and trusted by them, 38;
- bred true to his godlike descent, 45, 48;
- restores order after anarchy, 50;
- Prometheus his most powerful rival, 51;
- withholds fire, 55;
- grants fire on wise terms, 57;
- outwits Prometheus at Mecone, 58;
- immensely wise, 61;
- his grief at the fire-stealing, 62, 63;
- a wise and superior man, 65;
- wisely restricted use of fire, 66;

- not regarded by the Greeks as responsible for their civilisation, 69;

- the reason of his wrath at the theft of fire, 116;

- the sound principle in Greek life, 132;

- a half-bred Cro-Magnon, 209

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER

Transcriber’s Notes

For printer’s errors and other inconsistencies in punctuation, spelling, etc., only the changes listed below were made.

Footnotes were reindexed and moved to the end of each chapter.

References in the index were not verified for accurate page numbers.

On page 10 in footnote 12 “vol” was corrected to “vol.”.

On page 17 through page 18 the extended quotation that begins with “Most of the Greek, the Roman, the Indian, and all” has many unmarked interpolations, explaining the odd use of quotation marks. These were left as printed.

On page 19 in footnote 23 “vol” was corrected to “vol.”.

On page 25 “Menoetius” was standardized to “Menœtius”.

On page 26 “strategem” was corrected to “stratagem”.

On page 27 in footnote 31 “Eigenshaft” was corrected to “Eigenschaft”.

On page 27 in footnote 31 “mythus” was corrected to “Mythus”.

On page 27 in footnote 31 the phrase “dass er Künstler und Entwilderer ist” in the original referenced work includes two more words, making “dass er Künstler und Entwilderer der Menschen ist”. The absence of “der Menschen” could be a semantic choice or a space-saving choice, so that text was left as printed.

On page 31 “Sykes” was corrected to “Sikes”, matching other mentions of the author.

On page 73 in footnote 85 “Uppigkeit” was corrected to “Üppigkeit”.

On page 98 “began” was corrected to “begun” in “after the changes in the gums have begun”.

On page 105 “jaola” was corrected to “joala” in “Kaffir labourers in France, where this ‘joala’”.

On page 109 “deficiences” was corrected to “deficiencies” in “while grave deficiencies occur”.

On page 119 in footnote 151 a missing opening parenthesis was added in “(Bohn’s Classical Library)”.

On page 128 in footnote 160 “sehen” was corrected to “sahen” to match the source.

On page 128 in footnote 160 “vielfällig” was corrected to “vielfältig”, matching the source.

Either the author or the printer—when numbering parts of an argument or other portion of text—employed two distinct styles. The first is “(1)” while the second is “1.”. These were left unchanged. For examples of inconsistent use, compare page 129 to page 126 and page 107 to page 106.

On page 143 in footnote 170 “Necktar” was corrected to “Nektar”, matching the source.

On page 143 in footnote 170 the first German quote may be found around page 281 in Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie.

On page 143 in footnote 170 “nict” was corrected to “nicht”, matching the source.

On page 144 in footnote 171 a missing opening parenthesis was added in “(Bombay, 1888)”.

On page 145 in footnote 175 “chap” was corrected to “chap.”.

On page 164 “enthusiam” was corrected to “enthusiasm” in “Imagine then their redoubled enthusiasm”.

On page 166 in footnote 200 “Aüsfuhrliches Lexicon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie” was corrected to “Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie” to match the earlier reference on page 41 in footnote 56 (likewise matching the given work’s name).

On page 166 in footnote 200 “Βάχηαι” was corrected to “Βάκχαι”, matching the source.

On page 166 in footnote 200 “Θνιάδες” was corrected to “Θυιάδες”, matching the source.

On page 166 in footnote 200 “Λήναι” was corrected to “Λῆναι”, matching the source.

On page 166 in footnote 200 “Bediennung” was corrected to “Bedienung”, matching the source.

On page 166 in footnote 200 “Geschlechts” was corrected to “Geschlechtes” to match the source.

On page 166 in footnote 201 a missing comma was added after “wilden” to match the source.

On page 167 in footnote 203 “destruction” was corrected to “distribution” to match the source.

On page 169 in footnote 207 is missing the word “naturgemäss” after the word “Durst” in the quote.

On page 169 in footnote 207 “abgeflossenen” was corrected to “abgeflossenem”, matching the source.

On page 183 in footnote 218 “p.” was corrected to “p.” in “p. 133”.

On page 191 “Carlton” was corrected to “Charlton” in “Dr. Charlton Bastian, moreover, adds:”.

On page 200 in footnote 251 “parait” was corrected to “paraît”, matching the source.

On page 201 in footnote 254 “In” was corrected to “In” in “In Prehistoric Problems”.

On page 202 in footnote 257 “d’inscriptions” was corrected to “d’inscription” to match the source.

On page 202 in footnote 257 “Pyrénèes” was corrected to “Pyrénées”, matching the source.

On page 225 in footnote 280 “peut-être” was corrected to “peut être”, matching the source.

On page 225 in footnote 280 “detaché” was corrected to “détaché”, matching the source.

On page 225 in footnote 280 “repété” was corrected to “répété”, matching the source.

On page 225 in footnote 281 “peut-être” was corrected to “peut être”, matching the source.

On page 225 in footnote 281 the comma at the end of “qui agite l’homme” was added to match the source.

On page 241 in footnote 294 “supérieure” was corrected to “supérieur” in “et que des êtres d’un ordre supérieur”, matching the source.

On page 241 in footnote 294 “n’a” was corrected to “n’y a” in “Sur ce point il n’y a” to match the source.

On page 241 in footnote 294 “dissonnance” was corrected to “dissonance” in “Sur ce point il n’y a pas de dissonance”, matching the source.

On page 241 in footnote 294 “L’Asie” was corrected to “l’Asie”, matching the source.

On page 241 in footnote 294 a comma at the end of “et supérieure à la nôtre” was corrected to a semi-colon to match the source.

On page 248 “Blackie, J. B.” was corrected to “Blackie, J. S.” to match Professor John Stuart Blackie’s initials in the text.

On page 250 “Westminter” was corrected to “Westminster” in “honoured in Westminster Abbey”.

On page 250 “n” was corrected to “n.” in “to survive had to abandon nobility and honesty, 231 n.;”.

On page 250 an extra semi-colon was removed from the end of “eaters of raw meat, 106”.

On page 250 a colon was corrected to a semi-colon at the end of the entry “Fire: stolen by Prometheus, 1 et passim;”.

On page 252 “tastlessness” was corrected to “tastelessness” in “the first fatal instance of woman’s tastelessness”.

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Table of Contents

MAN’S DESCENT FROM THE GODS

PREFACE

FOOTNOTES:

CONTENTS

MAN’S DESCENT FROM THE GODS

INTRODUCTION

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER I PROMETHEUS, THE MYTHICAL HERO

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER II PROMETHEUS THE MAN

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER III FIRE AND FOOD Part I.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IV FIRE AND FOOD Part II.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER V DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VI DIONYSUS THE MAN

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VII THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIII PANDORA AND EVE

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IX REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING

FOOTNOTES:

INDEX

Transcriber’s Notes

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