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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

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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.

 [Illustration: 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
_con_ceived, had everywhere for antecedent a powerful man as
_per_ceived.[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 pitiable^a
    Under the sun than ye gods!^a
    Ye feed your majesty^a
      Most miserably^a
    By means of sacrifices^a
    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 men^a
    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 thus^a, 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]

                  { Later Iron Age lasted 300 +B.C.+ to +A.D.+ 100.
                  { Early Iron Age, 1000 +B.C.+
  _Recent Period_ { Bronze Age, 2500 +B.C.+
                  { Copper Age, 3000 +B.C.+
                  { Neolithic Age lasted 15,000 to 25,000 years.

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

Professor Arthur Keith’s[211] estimate of these periods does not differ
materially from those given above. According to him the table should
read as follows:--

                  { Metallic Age, 4000 years back.
  _Recent Period_ { Neolithic 25,000 years back.

                  { Late Paleolithic Age, 150,000 years back.
  _Pleistocene_   { Early Paleolithic Age, 200,000 to 400,000 years
                  {   back.
                  { Eolithic from 100,000 to 150,000 years back.

Thus he would suggest as a minimum for the duration of the Pleistocene
Period 450,000 years, and as a maximum 700,000 years; but he thinks it
right to state that a much higher figure is given by most authorities.
We have seen that H. v. Buttel-Reepen gives 500,000 to 1,500,000 years
for this period.

If we take Professor Keith’s maximum figures, therefore, and suppose
the Pleistocene Period to have lasted 700,000 years, we shall not be
so very far removed from H. v. Buttel-Reepen’s estimate. Now adding to
this about 30,000 years for the recent period--that is to say, for the
Neolithic and Metallic Ages together--we arrive at a total of 730,000
years for the whole of the Quaternary Period, at the dawn of which
Rutot tells us fire was first used.[212]

But the use of fire, as I have already pointed out, although it
constituted a big event in the history of mankind, is not the same
thing as the production of fire. Obviously, if natural agencies are
depended upon for the use of fire, it cannot be said to constitute an
habitual practice among men, because natural conflagrations, volcanic
eruptions, etc., are not of daily occurrence. None of the more
complicated adaptations of human life to the use of fire, which would
appear to require careful trial and experiment, could therefore be
expected to have developed while man merely depended upon chance for a
flame. If we are to reckon the date from which a real civilisation of
fire began, we must therefore endeavour to establish the time when man
was first able to _produce_ fire.

Now since pottery is precisely one of those human adaptations of fire,
which we would imagine required a period of evolution, during which
careful trials and experiments could be prosecuted with a constant
supply of flame, the temptation would be to reckon the first discovery
of the means of fire-production from the date of the first introduction
of ceramics, or possibly a few centuries earlier. This, however, I
am not prepared to do, because I refuse to believe that all men, all
the world over, are always Promethean,--that is to say, _ever ready
to push to its ultimate development, regardless of consequences,
every fresh discovery that they make_. Even in recent times we have
the example of the Chinese, for instance, who never developed their
discoveries of steam and gunpowder. It would not therefore be safe--not
to mention scientific--to suppose that the discovery of fire-production
was followed, even after a lapse of a few centuries, by the art of
ceramics, among all races. It could only have been followed in this
way by the art of ceramics, among a people animated by the Promethean
spirit.

Buttel-Reepen places the first appearance of ceramics in the Neolithic
Period. We are justified in supposing, therefore, that, given a race
animated by the Promethean spirit, who produced pottery say a quarter
of the way through the Neolithic Period, or about 18,000 years +B.C.+,
the discovery of fire-production may have occurred among that race,
say, in the year 19,500 +B.C.+

A. H. Keane definitely states that it is his belief that the means of
fire-production were first discovered within the Neolithic culture.[213]

Since, however, according to an eminent authority fire was used 500,000
to 600,000 years before that time, it seems difficult to believe that
it took 600 millenniums for man to find the means of fire-production.

Personally, after a careful study of the various authorities of
England, France and Germany, I am inclined to believe that the means
of fire-production were discovered long before the close of the
Paleolithic Age--an assertion with which I think the late Mr. Piette
and many more anthropologists would agree; _but that the discovery
probably never reached a type of man animated by the Promethean spirit
until early in the Neolithic Period_; hence the relatively late
appearance of pottery.

When I use the expression “a type of man animated by the Promethean
spirit,” I should like to remind the reader that I mean a people
rather like the Americans, the modern Germans and ourselves, who,
with the minds of boy-scouts, enjoy speed for speed’s sake, revel in
mechanical contrivances of all kinds, retain until a very late age
a keen interest in any device that complicates existence, and whose
chief concern and joy in life is to press every possible discovery,
chemical or mechanical, to its furthest possible development, without a
thought of the consequences,--that is to say, regardless of the misery,
ill-health, ugliness or degeneration that they may be creating. It is
a type that has no art of life, that cannot construct in life; it can
construct only bridges, towers, engines, canals, material things and
romances. In life it is only destructive and anarchical, loathing order
as much as a school-boy does, and ignoring culture. Like the boy-scout,
it does not understand women and is usually mastered by them. It is
sentimental, very stupid, except in regard to mechanical and chemical
questions, and always absolutely certain that the pursuits wherein it
finds its pleasure are the only pursuits worth anything. The men of
this type make good policemen, the women good charwomen; in fact, these
two characters will probably survive as striking examples of the type
long after all the engineers and the chemists have been forgotten.

There is another type, however; though, unfortunately for mankind,
its influence seems to make itself felt but very slightly in modern
Western civilisation. It is a type of more benevolent, more wise and
more adult thought. It is a type that produces men who develop beyond
the boy-scout stage in taste and interests. It is a hypermetropic type,
that has the capacity of looking ahead, and measuring the consequences
of trifling mechanical innovations against the greater object, which is
the happiness of mankind. It has little interest in complicating life
for complexity’s sake. Where human life does not seem to be promised
any desirable advantage by a new mechanical toy, it discards that toy.
It refuses to sacrifice one healthy child to the most magnificent
mechanical invention that has ever been devised. It has no respect
for the engineer or the chemist. It regards them as unscrupulous
schoolboys who must be kept in check, and who have the class of mind
which never grows up and delights until the end of its days in tying
a tin kettle to a cat’s tail. It regards the civilisation created by
the engineer and the chemist, as precisely humanity with a heavy iron
boiler tied to its ankles. It sees no object in existence unless life
is beautiful, healthy, vigorous and joyful. It values simplicity more
than anything,--in fact, it is the identification mark of all those who
belong to this type that they can flourish and develop their highest
faculties in simple surroundings and with the gratification of simple
tastes. It practises an art of life, which as a rule it sets higher
than artistic production; but once the art of life is mastered it
turns its attention to the productive arts, and then creates the most
beautiful masterpieces. It always gives birth to men who ultimately
save their fellows from the absurd and hopeless muddles and miseries
created by the boy-scout mind of the Promethean type, and these men
have frequently been deified in the history of humanity. It understands
women, and while mastering them makes them happier and keeps them
healthier than the Promethean type does. For want of a better term,
this type might be called the Dionysian, since their radical hostility
to the Promethean type and the Promethean type’s bottomless loathing of
them is so well depicted in the ancient Greek myth.

Now it seems to me only a matter of caution to reckon with the
possibility that these types may have existed side by side long ages
before the historical period, more particularly as we have in Greek
legend, which records the life and people of prehistoric times, three
men, Zeus, Prometheus and Dionysus, who are sufficiently accurately
described in the fables for us to be able to classify each without the
slightest hesitation, in one or the other class.

Prometheus is obviously the prototype, the archetype, the beau-ideal
of the Prometheans, while Zeus and Dionysus are clearly leading
representatives of the other race, the Dionysians. Thus it is
probable that all demons, devils, and loathed creatures--that is to
say, all creatures who have brought misery upon men--are extremes of
the Promethean type; while all gods, saviours, good prophets, great
legislators, sons of God, guardian angels, patron saints, etc., are of
the Dionysian type, the men-gods whom I have described with sufficient
detail elsewhere.[214]

If, then, Zeus belonged to the type of Dionysians, we not only
understand that he may have had good reason for withholding fire
from mortals (the inferior people) except on certain conditions, but
we are also assured by the evidence of the myth itself, that he and
his people--the gods, the superior beings--did possess the means of
fire-production at the time of the confluence of the two peoples.

But the myth tells us more. It leads us very strongly to suspect that
while the superior beings, to which Zeus had bred true, possessed
the means of fire-production, they had not apparently pushed its
application to life even so far as to produce pottery. It tells us even
more than this: seeing that the evils of the fire-civilisation came
upon the ancestors of the Greeks only after the crime of Prometheus, it
may be presumed that these evils had been avoided theretofore by the
kith and kin of Zeus. That is to say, they had possessed fire, but had
not developed its application to human life, because they appear to
have foreseen the consequences of such a developed application. Also,
on the evidence of the myth alone, we gather that they were infinitely
wise,--much wiser than the hybrid people that ultimately created the
Promethean civilisation,--so wise, indeed, that they were deified by
the inferior race.

We have to look, therefore, for a people which inhabited Europe
and Asia early in the Neolithic era, who possessed the means of
fire-production, but did not exploit these means to an unlimited
extent; who were infinitely wise; who were, however, no longer at their
zenith, seeing that they voluntarily mingled with an inferior people;
who were artistic and who led simple lives corresponding more or less
to the outline given of the Dionysians above.

Owing to the fact that they apparently did not produce pottery
(according to the myth) and yet knew the means of fire-production, and
in view of the belief that the art of ceramics first appeared early in
the Neolithic era, we must place these people, not only early in the
Neolithic era, but, seeing that they were degenerate at the time we
encounter them as gods, we must place their zenith somewhere in the
Paleolithic Age.

Now, was there any people, infinitely wise and unusually tall,[215]
which reached its zenith in the Paleolithic Age, which was simple,
artistic, degenerate in early Neolithic times; which did not produce
pottery despite the knowledge of fire-production; and which became
absorbed by other peoples early in the Neolithic era? Was there such a
people, numerous enough to extend over Europe and Asia and to supply
a representative who became the god of the Jews, representatives who
became the gods of the Greeks, and still more representatives who
became the gods of the Persians and the Indians?

Certainly there was such a people, and their description by modern
anthropologists corresponds exactly with the characteristics detailed
above.

This race was the Cro-Magnon race, than which probably there has never
been any greater on earth. It was a tall, long-headed and infinitely
wise race, _the cranial capacity of some of its members being greater
than the cranial capacity of any European examined during the
historical period_;--it was a highly artistic race; it reached its
zenith in Paleolithic times, at the end of the Pleistocene Period,
declined during early Neolithic times, when it became absorbed by the
Aryans, or a round-headed race, and disappeared. It spread all over
southern Europe and western Asia.

There is, as far as I can judge, no reason whatsoever why the remote
ancestors of the Greeks should not have encountered certain branches of
this race shortly before its complete absorption into other stocks. And
since this complete absorption occurred during the early millenniums
of the Neolithic Period, I think we are entitled in the light of other
evidence, mythological and anthropological, to regard it at least as
highly probable that the Cro-Magnons were the “gods” of all Western and
Near Eastern civilisations.

The negative evidence which we have not yet considered is in itself
sufficiently cogent. It can be marshalled as follows:--

(_a_) There was no race at that period, and never has been since,
anything like the Cro-Magnon race for wisdom, simplicity, size and
Dionysian virtues.[216]

(_b_) The Cro-Magnon race is known to have disappeared through
absorption. If they did not mingle with the remote ancestors of
existing races, with whom could they have mingled?[217]

(_c_) The Aryan race is known to have gone through the later Stone Age
in Europe, probably in Central Europe. If it did not encounter the
Cro-Magnon race, how did it avoid them? It is believed to have spread
north, south, east and west during the Neolithic Period, and branches
of it even reached the shores of Britain during the later Stone
Age.[218] If certain branches of it avoided the Cro-Magnon race, all
certainly could not have been so unfortunate.

On Herbert Spencer’s hypothesis alone we are justified, owing to the
myth of Uranus and Ge, in concluding that the Greek branch of the Aryan
family must at one time have encountered a people very much superior to
themselves. We know of such a people having existed in Europe towards
the end of the Paleolithic and the beginning of the Neolithic Period.

We also know from the myth that the Greek Aryans mingled with this
superior people, and that the likelihood of one or the other becoming
completely absorbed after the mingling is demonstrated by other
similar crosses with which we are familiar. Blends of two races tend
to disappear and there is reversion to one of the two primitive
types.[219] This is particularly so when there is a pronounced
difference between the types.

Furthermore we know that this happened in the later Stone, or Neolithic
Age. The fire-myth of the Greeks is also connected with the story
of their mingling with the superior people, and follows close upon
this event. Tradition associates the principal agent in this affair,
Prometheus, with the introduction of pottery,--another event belonging
to the early millenniums of the Neolithic Age.

Anthropologists tell us, moreover, that the long-headed Cro-Magnons
were absorbed towards the beginning of the Neolithic Age by a
round-headed race. Now the Aryans were a round-headed or brachycephalic
race. It does not seem unlikely, therefore, that Uranus was a
Cro-Magnon, and that he and his people first encountered the remote
ancestors of the Greeks about 10,000 to 15,000[220] years before
the metallic period, or about 20,000 years before Æschylus. When,
therefore, Æschylus makes Prometheus say that he has lingered 30,000
years in chains, he shows that he was at least aware of the vast
antiquity of the myth. If it was a guess, it was a singularly shrewd
one. If a tradition, mysteriously illuminating.

I have no doubt that a similar process of reasoning, applied to the
first and second verses of the sixth chapter of Genesis would lead us
to the conclusion that the God of the Jews and the Christians was also
a Cro-Magnon; but I am not concerned with this aspect of the question,
nor have I the time or the space to discuss it. I can only allude to it
_en passant_, as a suggestion which I think worth making, and leave it
to others to follow it up if they think fit.

My next business will be to reveal who were the people constituting the
Cro-Magnons.

It may seem to the reader a little odd, and even perhaps incredible,
that there should have existed in Europe in late Paleolithic and
early Neolithic times a race which was so infinitely superior to the
highest-bred modern European as to justify me in claiming that no
greater race has ever appeared on earth, to our knowledge, either
before or since.

A glance at the tables I have given above reveals the fact that if such
a race really existed, it must have reached its zenith, on the lowest
estimate, about 30,000 years ago, and according to maximum figures, at
least double that length of time before our era.

Now Darwinism is so popular, and the belief that a few millenniums work
radical evolutionary changes is so universal, that the tendency has
been, even among scientists, to suppose that the further one recedes by
tens of thousands of years from the present age, the more brutal, more
bestial and more simian our ancestors must be found to have been.

The modern European is so arrogant, and so deeply convinced of his
immense superiority over the men of the past, even the recent past,
that he is innocently incredulous if you tell him that he is probably
very much inferior to a people that existed 50,000 years ago. I say he
is innocently incredulous. I mean by that, that he is not even aware of
being overweening or unjustifiably vain, when he protests scoffingly at
the thought of such a possibility. He does not even require Darwin to
help him in refuting you. He _knows_ it must be impossible.

This stupid conceit which characterises everybody at the present
day, except perhaps the Chinese,[221] is not altogether the fault
of the modern man. He is so much dazzled by the complications of a
purely Promethean civilisation, that he has come to believe that such
complications alone are inseparable from a state of high civilisation.
In fact his newspapers, his books, even his nurses, tell him so daily.
He is convinced that the Cro-Magnons did not have electric trams or
tinned beef, and therefore concludes that they cannot have been better
than himself. He is right in his conviction regarding the trams and the
tinned beef; he is wrong in the conclusion he draws from it.

By way of an introduction to our subject, it may be interesting to
quote the following significant passage from S. Laing. He is not
discussing the men of the Quaternary era (which includes the Cro-Magnon
race), but, if you please, the men of an era even earlier than
that--men who must have lived at least 500,000 years ago; and what does
he say?

“In accepting, however, the evidence of Tertiary man, we must accept
with it conclusions which are much opposed to preconceived opinion. In
the two best authenticated instances in which skulls have been found
in presumably Tertiary strata, those of Castelnedolo and Calaveras,
it is distinctly stated that they present no unusual appearance, and
do not go nearly as far in a pithecoid direction as the Quartenary
skulls of Neanderthal or Spy, or as those of many existing races. The
Nampa image [found in Idaho] also appears to show the existence of
considerable artistic skill at a period which, if not Tertiary, must
be of immense antiquity. How can this be reconciled with the theory
of evolution and the descent of man from some animal ancestor common
to him and to the other quadrumana? Up to a certain point,--viz., the
Quaternary period,--the evidence of progression seems fairly clear....
But if we accept the only two specimens known of the type of Tertiary
man, the skulls of Castelnedolo and Calaveras, which are supported by
such extremely strong evidence, it would seem that as we recede in
time, instead of getting nearer to the missing link we get further from
it.”[222]

Since Laing wrote this passage a good deal has been discovered and
written about prehistoric man which certainly makes one reject at
once the idea that there has been progressive evolution, at least for
the last 50,000 years; for, in view of the Quaternary Cro-Magnons, we
cannot truthfully record anything but retrogression during that period.
I do not, however, think that these discoveries need necessarily make
one reject the Darwinian hypothesis altogether. All they do is to make
one set the antiquity of Homo Sapiens further back in the history of
the world.

Even if we accept Klaatsch’s view that the Gorilla, the Orang, and the
Chimpanzee do not represent collateral branches of a remote ancestral
human stock, but degenerate descendants of man,--a view for which there
is a good deal to be said,[223]--this does not necessarily refute
Darwin, but merely shows, that while some of the original stock of men
have degenerated into apes, others have developed into the superior
species known as the modern jazz-dancers.

It does not do, however, to face this question armed, not only with
a belief in Darwin, but also with the idea that the evolution of man
from an anthropoid ancestor has occurred within the last 100,000 years,
otherwise it is impossible to account for the race of people to whom
Laing refers, in the Tertiary era 500,000 years ago, and still more
impossible to explain the existence of a race _superior to the present
European_, which existed from 30,000 to 60,000 years ago.

For the discovery of the Cro-Magnons was a revelation to
anthropologists, and for a long while nobody would believe that they
could possibly belong to such a remote age. Referring to the remains
of this race found in caves in France and elsewhere, Professor Keith
writes as follows:--

“In strength, in stature, in physique, as well as in size of brain,
the Cro-Magnon race represents one of the most stalwart human races
ever evolved. The discovery of such a race at so early a date ... is in
direct opposition to all we anticipated.”[224]

And further: “The Cro-Magnon race was discovered at a period when,
under Darwin’s influence, anthropologists expected to find man becoming
more primitive in mind and body as his history was traced into the
past. The discovery at Cro-Magnon showed that the evolution of human
types was not an orderly one, for, in size of brain, and in stature,
the race which flourished in the south of Europe at the close of the
Glacial Period was one of the finest the world has ever seen.”[225]

I remind the reader that these are the words of an eminent authority
who is speaking about a race that existed according to the lowest
estimate 30,000 years ago.

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

Professor Keith tells us it was much greater than that of modern man.
Their average cranial capacity was 1,660 c.c., or 180 c.c. above the
modern average.[226] Their exceptional men had skulls with a cranial
capacity, according to Verneau, the eminent French anthropologist, of
1,800 to 2,000 c.c.--that is to say, higher than that of even the most
eminent modern European scholar, statesman, scientist or poet.

To give the reader some idea of what this means, I give below a
table prepared by Dr. H. Charlton Bastian on the cranial capacity in
different human races:[227]

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

Thus we see that the highest percentage among modern Parisians, who may
be considered quite the most cultivated among present-day Europeans,
occurs in crania with a capacity from 1,500 to 1,600 c.c., which is
from 60 c.c. to 160 c.c. lower than the average Cro-Magnon skull; while
the capacity found by Verneau in the skulls of the highest Cro-Magnons
tops all records.[228]

Naturally these facts, by being, as Professor Keith says, “in direct
opposition to all we anticipated,” provoked a good deal of opposition
from all those whose theories were not in accordance with them; but,
owing to the difficulty of disproving the alleged remote antiquity of
the Cro-Magnon race, the method of attack was altered from one of dates
to that of questioning the necessary relation between a large cranial
capacity and superior brain power.

Thus Dr. W. J. Sollas, in discussing the high average cranial capacity
of the Mousterians (1,600 c.c.), _a much more ancient people than the
Cro-Magnons_, who preceded these probably by several tens of thousands
of years,[229] while admitting that “in this respect the Mousterian
race was far superior to the Australian, and even, it would appear,
to the European whose average capacity is not above 1,550 c.c.,”[230]
proceeds to point out that “the result of numerous investigations
carried out during the last quarter of a century is to show that,
within certain limits, no discoverable relation exists between the
magnitude of the brain--or even its gross anatomy--and intellectual
power.”[231]

This eminent authority, however, makes the following admission on the
next page: “Whatever other significance the size of the brain may
possess--or lack--it is, in any case, a morphological character of
great importance, and a difference of 400 c.c., or, say, 25 per cent.
in average capacity, such as distinguishes the Australian from the
Mousterian, cannot be disregarded. Judged from the cranial capacity
alone, the surviving Australian evidently stands on a much lower plane
than the extinct Mousterian.”[232]

This admission, however, does not go very far, and in view of the
opinion of other authorities, one is inclined to question, with all due
respect, whether Dr. Sollas has not allowed himself to be influenced
by the Darwinian prejudice against believing that any race superior to
ourselves could have existed so many thousands of years ago.

Referring to the relation of large cranial capacity to brain power, Dr.
Charlton Bastian writes as follows:--

“Should it be asked whether the proportion of megalocephalous brains
among highly cultured and intelligent people is likely to be greater
than among uncultured and non-intelligent people, the answer to this
question may be unmistakably in the affirmative--and this, as Le
Bon has pointed out in regard to ‘cranial capacities,’ is the real
direction in which we ought to look for evidence of class or racial
superiority.”[233]

Dr. Charlton Bastian, moreover, adds: “Apart from the existence of
actual morbid change, the large size of an organ such as the Brain
gives, perhaps, a more than average warrant that its inner development
will be adequately carried out, and that the organ will be highly
endowed with its own proper kind of vitality. If, however, it does
not fall short in either of these respects, an increased size of Brain
ought to be a distinct advantage to its owner; and, should the general
and special conditions of life be at all propitious, would be likely to
favour the development of great mental power or the acquisition of much
learning.”[234]

Professor Keith is, however, an authority precisely on the human skull.
He has made a life study of the question, and his deeply interesting
works, _The Antiquity of Man_ and _Ancient Types of Man_, deal almost
exclusively with the problems enunciated in their titles, from the
standpoint of skulls. Now this is what he says on this very question of
the Cro-Magnon crania:--

“The brain capacity is much greater--roughly 1,660 c.c., being 180 c.c.
above the modern average. We have to remember that a certain amount--a
small amount--of that is due simply to a big body; a big body needs
a bigger brain for its animal administration. We have come across,
in these heads, a puzzling and unexpected fact; we are naturally
astonished to find that men who have preceded us so long ago--men of a
former geological epoch--should so far outstrip their successors to-day
who regard themselves as the ‘survival of the fittest,’ and believe the
fittest to be the race with the biggest brains. We cannot quarrel with
the facts, but how to explain them? The conclusion to be drawn is,
not that brain mass, on the average, is to be rejected as an index of
brain power, but that there are other virtues or characters which go
to ensure success [Promethean success, for instance] of a human race
in the struggle of life,--other than brain power. A philosopher may be
miserable or die childless, when a brainless savage or an industrious
labouring man may be happy and have a large family.”[235]

This is excellent. The doctrine of success is one of such widespread
acceptance to-day, and it is so difficult to convince the average
man--particularly if he be a Promethean--that success does not
necessarily imply high, noble or even desirable qualities or
qualifications, that practically the whole world retires every night to
bed believing that success whether by racial survival or in individual
life must be a sign of superiority, and _desirable_ superiority.

Now, as Spencer pointed out long ago, so many loathsome parasites, such
as the microbe of tuberculosis and all bacteria, the tape-worm, all
intestinal worms, and in fact all parasites, are examples of successful
adaptation, that success alone cannot possibly be a criterion of
desirability. And this modern belief in success is one of the most
vulgar errors of the Age.[236]

The fact, then, that the Cro-Magnons have not survived in the struggle
for existence, despite their superior brain power, and probably all the
nobility, high moral qualities, and immense capacity, that accompanied
it, may be, as Professor Keith so ably points out, because other
virtues and characters may go to ensure success in the struggle of life.

A man, for instance, may be too noble to succeed nowadays, too
un-Promethean, too reluctant to plunge into the market-place or the
forge, and wrest material prosperity from those of his fellows whom
he finds there. And thus, although individual material failure in
the eyes of the modern world is not _always_ a proof of superiority,
it frequently may be such a proof, as the lives of so many great men
convincingly demonstrate.

Likewise in a race: with the Bushmen of Africa, it was their nobility,
their superiority _vis-à-vis_ the foreign invader, which led to their
extermination, not their inferiority.[237] The same holds good of many
people either subjugated or exterminated directly by ourselves.[238]

Taking all these matters into consideration, and particularly in view
of the weighty words of Professor Keith, I think I have been justified
in assuming, as I have all through these chapters, that the great
race which I had in mind, and with which I proposed to identify the
gods of ancient Greece--the Cro-Magnon race, of mighty stature, of
huge brain, which lead us “naturally to expect signs of a high mental
development,”[239] were greater than any race that has ever appeared on
earth before or since.

Their artistic works, facsimile reproductions of which I have
inspected, are in many respects superior to those of the Egyptians, and
in my opinion certainly superior to those of the Greeks of the Hellenic
Age. Dr. Salomon Reinach has expressed the view that two at least of
the examples of their sculpture which he examined “are superior to all
the artistic productions of the Ægean and Babylonia.”[240] Speaking
of their culture Marett says: “The third and last main stage of the
Paleolithic epoch developed by degrees into a golden age of art.”[241]
Robert Munro on the same subject writes as follows: “But what is still
more remarkable, under the circumstances, they developed a wonderful
taste for art, and left behind them a collection of sculptures and
engravings which, for spirit and artistic effect, would not disgrace
our modern Landseers.”[242]

The late M. Piette, the renowned French anthropologist already
mentioned, published a wonderful volume[243] containing coloured plates
representing some of their more striking artistic productions, and this
book is probably the most interesting in the whole literature of art.

It is a volume full of wonders, but such is the prejudice created by
the belief that the evolutionary process is necessarily progressive,
that I can sympathise with any reader who, on examining the plates it
contains, refuses to believe, except on the highest authority, that
these productions are the work of a race that belonged to a former
geological epoch.[244]

M. Piette explains the prevalence of pregnant women among their
figurines on the grounds that, as the Cro-Magnons probably left their
children and pregnant women at home with the sedentary members of the
tribe (the artists, the artisans and the scribes) when they roved the
country, the artists naturally took for their adult models women in a
condition which, for some reason or other, has been eschewed by the
æsthetic sense of the present geological period.[245]

He has, however, another and better suggestion to make. He says that
the prevalence of pregnant women among their subjects may have resulted
from a nobler motive,--that is to say, from a sort of religious
sentiment awakened in them by the mysteries of motherhood.[246]

Personally I am inclined to reject both these explanations. They are
conceived too obviously through the optics of this age. I acknowledge
M. Piette’s extremely sympathetic treatment of the whole subject, and
we are immensely indebted to him for the pains to which he went in
preparing this collection for us; but I feel there is a deeper meaning
still to these wonderful representations of women with child.

We must remember that we are speaking of a people who lived in a
pre-Promethean Age, when all the ills and woes of which Hesiod speaks
had not yet come upon mankind. Is it not possible, therefore, that the
whole of their attitude towards pregnancy--even towards the aspect of
a pregnant woman--was entirely different from our own? Since beauty is
only a convention arising from certain fundamental values,[247] is it
not more probable that, among a people into whose lives very little
sickness and ugliness had as yet entered, the promise of life, bigness
with a guarantee of the multiplication of life, was the most beautiful
thing of all?

The virgin ideal, which has been prevalent now for thousands of years
in the art as well as the morality of the recent geological period, is
at least a negative ideal. It permeates Greek as well as Christian art.
Even when they depicted Hera, the Greeks frequently made her appear as
a virgin, while the sanctity of the virgin ideal in the Christian era
is well known.

Now although I am prepared to admit that a good deal of this
idealisation of virginity may have arisen out of the deep unconscious
and ineradicable dislike of their fathers which is felt by most men who
have been very much attached to their mothers, I cannot help suspecting
also that, where the virgin figure is held up for general admiration,
there is also a good deal of unconscious pessimism abroad. We know
the deeply pessimistic strain of the ancient Greeks; we also know the
pessimism of Modernity, which Schopenhauer converted into a system.
We are aware, too, of the causes of a good deal of this pessimism:
ill-adaptedness, ill-health, nervous irascibility, etc.

Now to the conscious pessimist, to the man who knows this vale of tears
simply as a station of the cross, the spectacle of pregnancy must be a
cause of positive sadness if not horror.

Again, from the women’s point of view, pregnancy in countries of the
Western civilised world has become so very far removed from any idea
of beauty, pleasure, easy and joyful functioning and desire, that
they cannot possibly regard the condition as one exciting æsthetic
enjoyment.[248] An æsthetic emotion is often provoked by witnessing
the ease and mastery with which an animal body overcomes a physical
difficulty; but where are the signs of ease or mastery in the fatigue
party from Harley Street which is usually summoned to the modern
woman’s child-bed?

In these figurines and drawings of pregnant women, therefore, I am
inclined to read something more significant than that which M. Piette
offers in explanation of them. I am inclined to see a deep love and
enthusiasm in regard to life, a fundamental and ready acceptance of all
that life, and the multiplication of life, means, because it is known
to be so thoroughly worth while. There is a question-mark against life
now. We feel it; we know it. Even the Greeks knew it and felt it,--how
much more, therefore, must we, the children of an age a thousand times
less attractive in every way than theirs!

Pregnancy now may mean, in fact it frequently does mean, not only pain
and sorrow, but the production of a child who is but a faint memento
of life (we thank God if he is not a cretin, a cripple, a consumptive
or a lunatic), a pale shadow of vitality, in whose very eyes we read
the question-mark which we ourselves have already applied to all modern
existence. How could pregnancy be beautiful?

Let us be careful, therefore, before we read anything more than a frank
and whole-hearted approval of life into these Cro-Magnon figurines
of women with child. To them, no doubt, pregnancy was a gloriously
beautiful thing; all its associations, preliminary, gestatory and
post-gestatory, were also probably the source of infinite delight,
pride and joy, and the traditional story about the Golden Age which
preceded the Promethean Age, and which has been so heartily laughed at
since, receives its strongest confirmation precisely from these little
statuettes of pregnant women found in prehistoric caves in the south of
France.

But I have wandered from my subject.

We have seen how many authorities have borne witness to the very high
artistic powers of this Cro-Magnon race which Dr. Sollas designates
by the name of “the giants of Mentone,”[249] and v. Buttel-Reepen
calls the “dominant people” in Europe “at the close of the Glacial
Period.”[250] We have seen that they were exceptionally tall, and have
therefore found useful confirmation of the suggestion made in Chapter
II. (explanation of Subdivision I. of the myth of Prometheus) that the
superior race were probably a people of remarkably fine stature. It
has also, I think, been satisfactorily shown, on the grounds of their
vast cranial development alone, apart from their art, that they were
not only far superior to any other people that existed at the time,
but that they were also actually superior to any people, including
ourselves, who have appeared since.

What sort of life did they lead?

Their lives appear to have been extremely simple: hunting, feasting,
art and love. They are believed to have been a very hospitable people
of mild and gentle habits,[251] who developed a degree of skill in
surgery which was positively amazing.[252] They are also said to
have invented the halter and to have begun the domestication of the
horse.[253] They were the contemporaries in Europe of the Mammoth, the
rhinoceros, the cave bear, the hyena, the saiga, the moorcock, the
wood-hen, the reindeer, and many of the present type of fauna.

As they held their own magnificently against the more formidable of
these animals, and at the same time were too sportsmanlike to use the
bow and arrow,[254] _which treacherously hits the foe or the quarry
from a distance and from a place of safety_, we may conclude that they
were superior to modern men not only, as we have seen, in brains and
artistic ability, but also in bravery, chivalry and nobility of nature.
M. Piette, who has made a special study of their remains, has claimed
that they had invented the art of writing, and that the existence of
a script among them is a well-established fact. Personally I am quite
prepared to accept M. Piette’s evidence for this. A. J. Evans, however,
is apparently so deeply obsessed by the idea that it requires what he
calls the “heirloom of the ages”[255] for anything as cultivated as a
form of writing to be evolved, that he seems doubtful about M. Piette’s
discoveries.

He says in regard to M. Piette’s documentary evidence: “In the face of
this and similar examples, are we to conclude with the late M. Piette
that there was a regular alphabetic script during the Pleistocene
Period which in turn had been preceded by a hieroglyphic system?...
The artistic achievements of the men of the Reindeer Period attained
such a high level that even such a conclusion could hardly excite
surprise.... That they had sufficient intellectual capacity to evolve
a system of writing can hardly be doubted.”[256] But on the whole
Evans leaves you questioning very much whether M. Piette really can be
believed.[257]

Evans continues: “Whatever the intellectual capacity of these archaic
people, they did not possess that heirloom of the ages, the accumulated
experience of the later races of mankind. Art, indeed, seems to have
come to them by nature, and they had other germs of civilisation....
Yet many of the most simple acquirements of primitive culture were
unknown to them. They knew neither the potter’s nor the weaver’s nor
the husbandman’s craft.”[258]

Here we have it again,--this unaccountable prepossession in favour of
futile complications! Because they had no pottery, etc.!

But has it ever occurred to investigators like Evans that one does not
necessarily _want_ pottery? Has it never dawned upon him that one’s
reasons for not having discovered the ghastly gramophone, for instance,
may have been that one frankly neither wanted it, liked it, nor could
tolerate it for one instant?

Supposing now that I, who loathe the gramophone and the motor-car as
much as Auguste Rodin loathed both, happened to become the founder of a
civilisation ultimately examined and commented upon by men like A. J.
Evans. This is what we should read in their report upon it:--

“The Ludovicious civilisation shows a degree of ineptitude in regard
to the production of those simple mechanical contrivances for making
a home and the countryside pleasant and lively, which is quite out of
keeping with the capacity shown in other directions, etc.”

It would never occur to such people even to suspect that because
gramophones and motor-cars happened to be absent from the kind of
civilisation I would found, I might possibly be believed to dislike
gramophones and motor-cars, or to have no use for them.

In view of the vastly superior brain-power of these Cro-Magnons, I do
not accept Evans’s modern and Promethean suggestion that “many of the
most simple acquirements of primitive culture were unknown to them.” It
is a piece of typical modern prejudice.

It reminds one of a passage in the works of another eminent Promethean,
Sir Charles Lyell, which for inanity is sufficiently characteristic of
the nineteenth century to render that period utterly ridiculous for
ever.

Sir Charles, writing with the view of discrediting the notion that
any primitive races could have been at all superior to ourselves,
says: “But had the original stock of mankind been really endowed with
such superior intellectual powers, and with inspired knowledge, and
possessed the same improvable [!] nature as their posterity, the point
of advancement [!] which they would have reached ere this would have
been immeasurably higher.”[259]

Then speaking of the finds in old caves, he adds: “Instead of the
rudest pottery or flint tools, so irregular in form as to cause the
unpractised eye to doubt whether they afford unmistakable evidence
of design, we should now be finding sculptured forms [they have
been found] surpassing in beauty the masterpieces of Phidias and
Praxiteles; lines of buried railway or electric telegraphs [!!], from
which the best engineers of our day might gain invaluable hints;
astronomical instruments and microscopes of more advanced construction
than any known in Europe ... machines, perhaps, for navigating
the air or exploring the depths of the ocean, or for calculating
arithmetical problems beyond the wants or even the conception of living
mathematicians.”[260]

There we have it again! Unless you can show railway lines and telegraph
wires, unless, in fact, you have all the ridiculous complications of
the Promethean brain, which makes the modern world such a fatuous
failure, you have not got, you cannot have, you cannot even pretend to
have, superior brain-power or civilisation!

Poor old Lyell! I know he is dead, and that in his time he did a good
deal of honest work. But really, that passage!--Could Promethean
stupidity be more hopeless? It is this sort of thing that makes one
fear that if stupidity had been a disease, none of us could ever have
survived the nineteenth century.

Seeing that the Cro-Magnon race must have possessed the means of
fire-production, even if they did not actually discover them,[261]
I see no reason why, in the light of what we know of their immense
superiority, we are not permitted to assume, as we can on the analogy
of the Chinese attitude towards the use of steam and gunpowder, that
if the Cro-Magnons did not possess pottery, the bow, and all the many
evidences of a more Promethean and therefore meaner civilisation, it
was because they deliberately eschewed these things, disliked them,
felt no need for them.

Is it not conceivable that with their huge brain power, they might have
foreseen all the ills and woes, which as Greek myth and the evidence
of the modern world is with us to prove, cannot help arising from a
Promethean civilisation? Is it not probable that even if they tried to
produce pottery or other fire-wrought baubles, they would have had the
good sense quickly to drop the experiment, and rigorously to forbid its
repetition?

Civilisation is not only of one kind. Civilisation does not only mean
having steam-engines, telegraph wires, factories, women members of
Parliament, packed hospitals, lunatic asylums, homes for incurables,
margarine and false teeth. There are other kinds, thank goodness! Is
it not possible that they were rigidly developing another, simpler and
better kind?

That is why I suggest, in Chapter II., in my explanation of Subdivision
II. of the Prometheus myth, that Zeus, who was probably a typical
Cro-Magnon, may have imposed certain restrictions upon the inferior
people, when he allowed them the use of fire; and it was only when
there was trouble over the observance of these restrictions, that he
withdrew fire from them. The reader will remember that I also point out
that the inferior people, being ignorant of the great wisdom of Zeus’s
restrictions and conditions regarding the use of fire, imprudently
allowed Prometheus to act as their champion, with the disastrous
results that we now know.

Should the reader think that this is a little far-fetched, let me
remind him that we have other instances in folk-lore, history and
the reports of travellers in savage countries, of restrictions being
imposed in regard to the use of fire, although these probably cannot
compare with the drastic rules laid down by Zeus.

Thus Tylor reports an account given by the Rev. Geo. Turner about the
introduction of fire among the inhabitants of Bowditch Island.

According to these people the origin of fire is traced to Mafiuke, “but
unlike the Mafiuke of the mythology of some other islands, this was an
old blind lady. Talangi went down to her in her lower regions, and
asked her to give him some of her fire. She obstinately refused until
he threatened to kill her, and then she yielded. With the fire he made
her say what fish were to be cooked with it, and what were still to be
eaten raw.”[262]

This is a remarkable instance of a myth accounting for certain
restrictions being imposed in regard to the cooking of particular
foods, and lends considerable colour to my whole argument.

In the same volume Tylor mentions that neither the Fuegians nor the
Bushmen seemed to know how to boil food “when they first came into
the view of Europe.”[263] But here again, in the light of all we know
regarding the Bushmen’s wonderful intelligence, is it not much more
likely that the practice of boiling (which as we have seen is the most
pernicious kind of cooking) had been forbidden ages before, and that
tradition had perpetuated the prohibition, than that they did not
_know_ how to boil?

It is a curious coincidence that they should have happened just not to
_know_ of the most dangerous method of cooking.

In our own time, of course, we have only to think of the very light
restriction of the Curfew, which was probably only a lingering vestige
of a much more elaborate set of rules relating to the use of fire.

It is obvious that the prevalence of the fire-stealing myths all over
the world is best accounted for by the assumption that all races of
mankind not having developed with equal speed, the juxtaposition
of two peoples, one possessing the means of fire-production and
the other not, must have occurred sufficiently often to make the
coveting and even the stealing of fire by the inferior race an almost
universal tradition; but it is also equally probable that in cases
where the superior race, as with the remote ancestors of the Greeks,
were encountered on friendly terms,[264]--and the mingling of the two
shows that the relationship was probably friendly,--the superior race
in handing on its discoveries would endeavour, by imposing certain
restrictions, to save the inferior race from the consequences which
they (the superior race) knew must follow from an unlimited use of fire.

This evidently happened at some period in the remote history of the
inhabitants of Bowditch Island, and it also happened in the history of
the remote ancestors of the Greeks.

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

It was not absolutely necessary for the support of my thesis for me to
attempt to identify the superior race with which, on the Spencerian
hypothesis regarding the origin of gods, the remote ancestors of the
Greeks must at some time in their history, have come into contact.
Nevertheless, seeing that there was an immensely superior race in
Europe at the dawn of the Neolithic era, that this race vanished by
absorption early in Neolithic times, and that the remote ancestors
of the Aryan race are supposed to have been of very great antiquity,
and to have existed in the Stone Age before they separated; seeing,
moreover, that the Cro-Magnons were a dolichocephalic race and that
the Aryans were a brachycephalic race and that, as Professor Keith
points out, the round-headed races of Europe absorbed the long-headed
races in early Neolithic times,[265] I see no reason why, in the
light which all these facts throw on the mythology of Greece and the
historical truths that doubtless lie concealed in it, we should not
be prepared to conclude that Uranus was a Cro-Magnon chief, that his
people mingled with the remote ancestors of the Greeks, and that the
result of the cross was twofold, or threefold,--that is to say, that it
led to a race of men some of which bred true to the original superior
stock (I suggest that Zeus was one of these), some of which were a
complete blend, and therefore very tall and mighty men (I suggest that
Prometheus and the Titans were among these), and some of which bred
true to the inferior race (we naturally hear nothing very extraordinary
about these).

If this cross really occurred, and the Cro-Magnons actually did mingle
with a round-headed and inferior race, we might suppose that the
period following the cross would probably show a marked decline in art
and culture generally. This, as a matter of fact, is precisely what
we find. Although it was of course a great advantage to the remote
ancestors of the Greeks to mingle their blood with so great a race as
the Cro-Magnons,[266] and although this admixture of Cro-Magnon blood
probably accounts for a good deal of what was great in the ancient
Greeks, the cross must have proved a distinct loss to the Cro-Magnon
race itself and therefore to the world.

H. v. Buttel-Reepen, writing of the Age which followed the absorption
of the Cro-Magnons, says: “But strange to relate, the artistic
productions which characterised the end of the Pleistocene, the
carvings and the wall-pictures, are altogether missing. The artistic
culture seems to have vanished from Europe with the retreat of the
ice, and the few drawings which were executed in Neolithic times,
in the Bronze Age, and even in the Iron Age, are utterly crude and
unskilful.”[267]

Then he proceeds to add: “This is a mystery which has not yet been
satisfactorily dispelled.”[268]

I think that in view of all I have said there is no mystery in the
matter at all. I do not see what else could have been expected.
However, we shall see what v. Buttel-Reepen has to say when he has
become acquainted with my argument.

In the light of recent research among savage peoples, we have seen that
it is not at all unlikely that the remote ancestors of the Greeks,
confronted by a race so infinitely superior to themselves, immediately
proceeded to deify these Cro-Magnon people, and now that we have
realised who and what they were, can we wonder that they did so? There
is surely less difficulty in believing that the Cro-Magnons were called
gods by a people so uncultivated as the ancient Aryans, than that the
Spaniards of the sixteenth century should have been regarded as gods by
the highly civilised Mexicans.[269]

Finally, if you ask when and where we can encounter any trace of
the descendants of these wonderful Paleolithic people, who reached
their zenith in late Pleistocene times, who declined during the early
centuries of the Neolithic Age, and who were ultimately absorbed by
the round-headed and inferior races of Europe, I cannot do better than
reply with the profoundly interesting words of Professor Keith, and
with these remarks I will conclude this chapter:

“Although there is no race in Europe to-day that can be regarded as
representative of this Paleolithic people, yet in Germany, Switzerland,
France, and Britain, individuals of this type are not rare. They are
the tall men of commanding mien.”[270]


FOOTNOTES:

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

[209] See _Sur la Connaissance du Feu aux Époques préhistoriques_,
in which the author concludes (p. 93): “En résumé, pour le moment,
l’utilisation certaine du feu remonte jusqu’à l’industrie reutélienne,
contemporaine de l’aurore des temps quaternaires.”

[210] These figures are based upon those given by H. v. Buttel-Reepen
in _Man and His Forerunners_ (translated by A. G. Thacker, 1913), p. 10.

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

[212] Rutot’s conclusion rather coincides with Buttel-Reepen’s, who
maintains that the first use of fire occurred in the first interglacial
phase of the Pleistocene Period.

[213] See _Man, Past and Present_ (1899), p. 110. I am not inclined
to accept this estimate against any of the other authorities; but the
latter, unfortunately, do not commit themselves to any such definite
statement on the subject.

[214] See my _Nietzsche and Art_ (Constable and Co.), Lecture ii., p.
63.

[215] We know they must have been tall, because, as shown in Chapter
II., the result of their cross with the inferior race, when it was a
complete blend, was the race of Titans.

[216] The reader will, of course, have realised that it is not
incumbent upon me for the purposes of my thesis to prove that this
Cro-Magnon race was superior to ourselves. All I require to do is to
show that they were superior to the remote ancestors of the ancient
Greeks. If, then, I repeat that they _were_ superior to ourselves, I do
so, not to assist my argument, but to state a fact which is of great
interest and the truth of which I shall endeavour to prove.

[217] See Isaac Taylor, _The Origin of the Aryans_, p. 129: “In no
part of Europe has it been proved that there was any interruption
of continuity between the ages of stone and metal, and there is no
evidence whatever to show that the present inhabitants of Europe are
not descended from the people of the Neolithic Age, whose civilisation
was of a very rudimentary character.”

[218] Taylor, _op. cit._, p. 129. See also p. 133: “That the Aryans
before the linguistic separation were still in the Stone Age may be
inferred from the fact that no Aryan etymology has been found for the
word ‘metal.’... There is no common word in Aryan speech to denote the
art of the smith, and many of the words relating to his trade refer
primarily to stone.”

[219] See Taylor, _op. cit._, pp. 197-198: “Mixed races are not so
common as is sometimes supposed.... It is alleged that in the case
of conquest, when two races are diverse, or when the environment
favours one race more than the other, it is found that the offspring
are infertile, or that there is a tendency to revert to one of the
parent types.”... See also p. 203: “When two distinct races are in
contact they may, under certain circumstances, mix their blood, but the
tendency, as a rule, is to revert to the character of that race which
is either superior in numbers, prepotent in physical energy, or which
conforms best to the environment.”

[220] If the reader will refer to the tables given above, he will see
that it may have been very much more or very much less than 10,000 to
15,000.

[221] See O. Peschel, _op. cit._, p. 145, where the author describes
how obsessed the modern Chinese are by the belief that their remote
ancestors were wiser and greater than themselves.

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

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

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

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

[226] _The Antiquity of Man_ (London, 1915), p. 55. Sollas, _op. cit._,
p. 158, gives 1,550 c.c. as a fair average for modern Europeans.

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

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

[229] They are believed to have lived during the third Interglacial
phase in Europe, while the Cro-Magnons lived in the fourth. See
Buttel-Reepen, _op. cit._, p. 26.

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

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

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

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

[234] _Op. cit._, pp. 372-373. See also _Mind and Body_ by Alexander
Bain, M.D., pp. 20-21: “The concomitance of size of nervous system with
mental power, throughout the animal series, is sufficiently admitted
for the purpose of our general argument.” The general argument in
question being: “When extensive statistics are taken, the conclusion
is established that great mental superiority is accompanied with
a more than average size of brain....” And further: “There would
be no exaggeration in saying that while size of brain increases in
arithmetical proportion, intellectual range increases in geometrical
proportion.”

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

[236] Ten years ago, in my _Nietzsche: His Life and Works_, I wrote (p.
72): “Given a degenerate, mean, and base environment and the fittest
to survive therein will be the man who is best adapted to degeneracy,
meanness, and baseness, therefore the worst kind of man. Given a
community of parasites, and it may be the flattest, the slimiest, and
the softest, will be the fittest to survive.” See also my _Who is to
be Master of the World?_ pp. 91-93, and Herbert Spencer, _Collected
Essays_, vol. i., p. 397, and Huxley’s Romanes Lecture, _Evolution and
Ethics_ (ed., 1903, p. 32).

[237] See Sollas, _op. cit._, pp. 300-301: “They loved their country
and showed an unfailing devotion to their chiefs; they possessed all
the noblest of the primitive virtues, and, not least, unflinching
bravery and unquenchable love of freedom. It was this last which
came to be accounted to them as their greatest crime. They found it
impossible to become slaves to strange masters in their own land.
Equally impossible was it for a hunting race to maintain its existence
in proximity to an encroaching agricultural people of European blood.
A terrible war of extermination was waged against them by the Boers.
The stories that are told of this war are shocking to our humanity;
and we cannot refuse a tribute to these brave people, who in almost
every instance preferred death to surrender.” Dr. Sollas adds a note to
the effect that the Cape Government regarded the extermination of the
Bushmen for a long time as a matter of State policy.

[238] See _The Downfall of Zululand_, by the daughter of Bishop
Colenso; also read the horrible accounts of early English settlers
in New Zealand. The superiority of the European race is by no means
demonstrated by the submission of the Zulus and the Maoris.

[239] Keith, _Ancient Types of Man_, p. 69.

[240] Sollas, _op. cit._, pp. 262-263.

[241] See _Anthropology_, p. 47.

[242] _Prehistoric Problems_, p. 48.

[243] _L’Art pendant l’Âge du Renne_ (Paris, 1907).

[244] See, for instance, the wonderful bas-relief of a neighing horse,
the swans and the horse heads (p. 72); the beautiful statuettes of
reindeer carved in mammoth tusks (Plates III. and IV.); the horse in
mammoth tusk (Plate VI.); the exquisite fragment of a fat woman (not
pregnant) carved in ivory (Plate LXXI.); and the statuette in ivory
(pregnant woman, Plate LXXIII.); the fine engraving of chamois on
reindeer antler (Plate LXXXIII.); and the sphinx-like creature (Plate
LII.). The pregnant woman on Plate XXVII. (Fig. 5) is also interesting;
while there are various halters of reindeer antler, and mammoths, all
of which show wonderful accuracy of representation with the simplest
possible means of expression.

[245] _Op. cit._, p. 21.

[246] _Op. cit._, p. 21: “Mais il est possible aussi que ce soit par un
plus noble motif, sous l’influence d’une sorte de sentiment religieux,
éveillé en eux par les mystères de la maternité.”

[247] See my _Nietzsche and Art_, Lecture II., Part ii., Section 6, for
an explanation of this.

[248] Not only pregnancy, of course, but the whole of its associations,
preliminary, gestatory and post-gestatory, are quickly becoming a
subject of loathing with most women in Protestant and Puritanical
countries.

[249] _Op. cit._, p. 372.

[250] _Op. cit._, p. 63.

[251] See Piette, _op. cit._, p. 24: “L’hospitalité paraît avoir été
pratiquée par ces populations de mœurs douces.”

[252] They were apparently masters of the extremely difficult operation
of trepanning, which they probably performed in cases of accidents.
That their trepanning was successful is proved by the number of skulls
that have been found, the bones of which bear evidence of having been
trepanned and having healed up. See Professor Keith, _The Antiquity of
Man_, p. 21; also Robert Munro, _Prehistoric Problems_, pp. 203-205.

[253] Piette, _op. cit._, p. 17.

[254] In _Prehistoric Problems_, p. 95, Robert Munro says: “There
is no evidence to show that the bow was known to the Paleolithic
people.” Personally, in view of their huge brain development, I am
disinclined to believe that they had not discovered the bow. I am much
more prepared to suppose that though they had discovered most modern
baubles, such as pottery, etc., cowardly weapons, like the bow and all
those that followed from it (firearms, guns, etc.), were discarded by
them owing to the nobility of their instincts. A man must not only
be a coward, but also a mean coward, to use the bow and the firearm.
All recent races, therefore, are meaner and more cowardly than the
Cro-Magnon race.

[255] See _Anthropology and the Classics_, p. 18.

[256] _Anthropology and the Classics_, pp. 16-17; article “The European
Diffusion of Pictography and its Bearings on the Origin of Script.”

[257] See Ed. Piette, _Les Écritures de l’Âge Glyptique_ (Paris,
1905), p. 5: “Il est donc parfaitement établi par huit inscriptions
ou fragments d’inscription qu’aux temps pléistocènes, dès la première
époque de l’âge glyptique, il y avait dans le pays de Gaule, au
voisinage des Pyrénées, des populations ayant une écriture symbolique
formée de caractères pictographiques....” (p. 9). “En résumé il y a
eu deux écritures successivement en usage à l’âge du renne, l’une
hiéroglyphique à l’époque papalienne, l’autre cursive à l’époque
gourdanienne.... Quoi qu’il en soit, les écritures pléistocènes sont
les plus anciennes qui soient connues de nous.”

[258] _Op. cit._, p. 18.

[259] _The Antiquity of Man_ (London, 1873), p. 422.

[260] _Ibid._, p. 423.

[261] If they did not, then their remote ancestors, the Mousterians
who, as we have seen, also had a larger average brain than modern
man, were probably the discoverers of the means of fire-production in
Europe. O. Peschel, _op. cit._, p. 142, is of the condescending opinion
that the exceptional men of to-day show no more intelligence than men
of the Glacial Period (I maintain that in view of their smaller cranial
development exceptional modern men must show less). Nevertheless,
his is a striking admission: “In sharpness of understanding the men
of the Ice Age who discovered fire were not behind a Copernicus, a
Kepler, a Champollion, or a Faraday, and we arrive at the conclusion
that the highest degree of brain power which a few exceptional men,
here and there, have shown in modern times, is not beyond that shown
by great men of classical or biblical antiquity, and the latter not
beyond that of men of the Ice Age.” Seeing, however, that it is _le
premier pas qui coûte_, Professor Keith’s conclusion is much more fair.
He says (_Ancient Types of Man_, p. 112): “We of a later generation,
with a fertility of mechanical invention, can little understand the
great brain which was necessary to make the first steps towards human
civilisation.”

[262] _Researches into the Early History of Mankind_, p. 231. There are
other details regarding the conditions imposed by Mafiuke in respect to
the use of fire; but they do not relate to cooking.

[263] _Op. cit._, p. 263.

[264] We have seen how gentle and mild were the habits of the
Cro-Magnons, and instances are not lacking in history of superior
races having mingled with and civilised inferior races without any
preliminary bloodshed. See my account of the peaceful invasions of the
Incas of Peru in my _Defence of Aristocracy_, chap. i.

[265] “Long-headed races abounded in France, in Germany, in
Switzerland, and in Bohemia, in early Neolithic times. Now the case is
quite different, the round-headed type prevails in these countries....
As the Neolithic Period came to an end, he becomes more and more the
predominating type. Since the close of the Glacial Period he has
succeeded in ousting his long-headed brother from the larger and richer
countries of Europe.... We see now that the round-heads hold the
continent of Europe and Asia from France and Germany in the West to
Japan in the East, and from the shores of the White Sea to those of the
Mediterranean.” See _Ancient Types of Man_, pp. 76-77.

[266] After all, the immense superiority of the Greeks over other
branches of the Aryan family at a very early period in the historical
age needs some accounting for, and has never been satisfactorily
explained. Is it not possible that the elements of Cro-Magnon blood
that they must have had in them do satisfactorily explain this
superiority? Is it not even logical to suppose that since they have
surpassed for all time all other branches of the original family
in culture, art and thought, that therefore something unusual must
have occurred in their history which did not occur in the history
of the other branches? For it is not necessary to suppose that the
other branches of the Aryan family, particularly those that went
into the southern regions of France and Italy, did not encounter the
Cro-Magnons. They may simply have fought them, overwhelmed them by
numbers, and exterminated them.

[267] _Op. cit._, p. 88. See also Professor Keith, _The Antiquity of
Man_, p. 59.

[268] _Ibid._

[269] As I have already hinted, I should not be in the least surprised
if further investigation led to the identification of the God of the
Jews and Christians, as a Cro-Magnon chief. We know the race extended
into Syria and Asia. But this is outside my subject. It does, however,
throw some light on Gen. vi. 1-4.

[270] _Ancient Types of Man_, pp. 72-73.




CHAPTER VIII

PANDORA AND EVE


The reader will remember that in Chapter II. I said I was leaving the
explanation, or interpretation, of Subdivision IV. of the Prometheus
myth to another chapter of this book. I now propose to deal with this
before proceeding to record my conclusions.

Subdivision IV. consisted of Pandora’s part in the severe punishment
which Zeus is said to have administered to mankind, or mortals, for
their complicity in the theft of fire perpetrated by their champion
Prometheus; and it contains the story of Pandora’s connection with
Epimetheus, and her lifting of the lid from the vessel in which the
foresight of Prometheus had concealed all the evils that might torment
mortals on earth. With the removal of the lid from the vessel, diseases
and suffering of every kind issued forth to harass humanity.

In the Garden of Eden parallel to this myth, which, as I have pointed
out, is one of the alternative Semitic accounts of the origin of evil,
it is Eve who, after having been tempted by the devil, in the form of a
serpent, brings God’s wrath upon mankind by herself eating, and giving
“also unto her husband with her” to eat of the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil.

In both myths a woman is thus intimately associated with the events
which lead to the close of a Golden Age, and to the advent of the era
of trouble, disease and suffering that followed. In both myths it is
a woman specially sent by the Deity; and in one case--in the Semitic
myth--as there is no account of any other woman, Eve, Héva, or more
properly _Khamwaãh_, is not only a particular woman, she is Woman in
general.

What are we to conclude from this prehistoric,--nay, primeval
association of woman with evil, or with the cause of evil?

To begin with, we must banish from our minds all idea of the modern
and wholly gratuitous connection between woman and evil as the result
of the shame or guilt supposed to attach to sex; because this shame
or guilt in regard to sex is entirely the creation of later, or at
least recent stupidity. Sexual intercourse is only associated with
shame and guilt when life has become so hopelessly muddled owing to
the prevalence and power of the Promethean type, that the relation of
the sexes really has, in a sufficient number of cases to establish a
tradition, developed a loathsome and unsavoury side.

It would be quite wrong, however, to ascribe to primeval man
stupidities of which only recent man has been guilty.

We may feel perfectly satisfied, therefore, that this association of
woman with evil, originally had nothing whatever to do with the act
of procreation, or with any notion or function connected with the
genitalia.

Has it perhaps this meaning: that the best men are sometimes diverted
from their highest and most important pursuits by the lure of beautiful
women,--that the love of the sexes has therefore a hindering or
retarding influence upon the achievements of the highest men, and
that women, particularly the more highly captivating among them, like
Pandora, are connected with evil in this manner?

This also will hardly do, because the best men never are and never
have been diverted from their highest pursuits by any woman, however
attractive. The Mark Antonys of this world are by no means the highest
men. The best men are the long-headed men, resembling the Cro-Magnons,
and these, as I have already pointed out, are Dionysians. They master
women; women do not master or even influence them. Consequently it is
impossible to associate women with evil owing to the deleterious power
they exercise over the careers of the best men. They have no power,
either good or evil, over the best men in any case.

Here, however, it is possible that we have a clue which may lead us in
the proper direction.

Women, as I say, have no power over the best men. The best men may use
them, may protect and cherish them, may and do even understand them
very much better than their brothers; but they never yield to them
either body or soul. They do not believe in giving women chivalry so
much as giving them children.

But women are covetous of petty power even over men. Being directed
chiefly in their actions, by vanity, the lust of petty power to no
purpose save self-gratification is one of their principal passions;
it overshadows all the others; it controls their lives. Their very
motherhood, with all its alleged “noble” virtues, is simply the
gratification of their petty love of power; but in this sphere, since
it subserves the self-preservative interests of the race, it is, when
held in proper check, quite a useful race characteristic.[271]

Hence, women are not consciously very much attracted to the best men,
and never have been. They see in the best men no chance of exercising
petty power, and since they have no senses capable of apprehending the
greatness of the best men, the latter have literally no lure for them.
Napoleon was never heartily loved by any woman. Josephine never loved
him, and Marie Thérèse left him in the hour of his greatest sorrow for
a little cock-sparrow-hearted Austrian officer. The only women who
ever love great men are perhaps their mothers; but this again requires
explanation.

In other words, as I have always maintained in the teeth of the most
inflexible opposition, even on the part of my male friends, the
characteristic which is chiefly female, which in fact is as essentially
female as the soprano, mezzo, and contralto voices, and which, though
frequently encountered in modern men, is not typical of the male sex,
is lack of taste. Woman has bad taste, or no taste whatever.

The mother’s instinct, which is the lust of petty power, thus
frequently turns with greater affection and attachment to the crippled
than to the well-constituted child, to the invalid than to the healthy
offspring, to the creature that is in some way physiologically botched,
than to the perfect specimen. Why?--Obviously because the imperfect
child will always be more helpless, and helplessness makes the
strongest appeal to the lust for petty power.

That is why the Romans wisely left it to the father to decide which of
his children should survive and which should be suppressed; because
they knew that women having no taste and being guided only by what most
gratified their lust of petty power, could not be trusted to make such
a decision wisely.

Who has not heard mothers exclaim, time and again, that it was
while their offspring were babies that they liked them best? This
predilection for helpless, speechless, dribbling and babbling infants,
sounds inexplicable and unaccountable from any standpoint which has
taste for its basis. For older children are obviously more beautiful,
more elegantly proportioned, more intelligible, more interesting. We
must remember, however, that these qualities constitute appeals to
taste, with which woman constitutionally has no concern whatsoever. Her
one repeated unconscious question is always: What best gratifies my
vanity and my lust of petty power? And the reply to that question in
respect to the family is, obviously, the helpless infant. The helpless
infant therefore is her choice.[272]

Now this fundamental lack of taste in women, which can be observed
every day, in every detail of her life,--she has not even succeeded
in being the creator of her own fashions in clothes, this is all done
by men,--is not dangerous provided women remain under proper control.
It only becomes a social menace when she either ceases from being
controlled, or is actually in a position to make her influence felt
outside the home.[273]

Seeing that she becomes associated with a decent man only by accident;
for as a rule when a woman is married to a decent man you may be
certain that it is he who married her, and not _vice versâ_; the
chances of her being properly controlled, even in her own home, in an
age like the present, which is full to overflowing with Promethean men,
are unfortunately very remote indeed.

And that is why, when the world is ruled chiefly by Promethean men,
as it is at present--men who neither understand woman nor are able to
master her[274]--the badness of women’s taste, or their lack of taste,
becomes a genuine and universal peril.

The chief and worst consequences, however, of woman’s lack of taste is
that she will always tend to consort with the most undesirable kind of
man, and thus rapidly reduces the value of human stock.

She tends to consort with the most undesirable kind of man for two
reasons:--

(_a_) As already stated, her lack of taste.

(_b_) Her lust of petty power, which tends to make her prefer (quite
erroneously, even from the standpoint of her own happiness) the
Promethean type of man before the Dionysian, because she can master the
former and because he is the best worshipper.

When once she becomes entirely dependent upon the Dionysian man, or
becomes adapted to the form of society he develops, she realises that
he makes her happier, healthier and more contented than the Promethean;
but to her conscious discrimination the promise of happiness with the
Promethean man, who, as we have seen, cannot master, and does not even
understand her, seems to be more immediate and more certain.[275]

Woman, however, has not got a brain very much superior to the
boy-scout. The boy-scout man, the Promethean, therefore likes the
things that she likes:--speed, classification, pretty and useless
baubles, petty complications of life that attract notice; all those
things which minister to vanity, such as badges of honour, uniforms,
parade in general, exciting music, pleasure for pleasure’s sake,
etc., etc. Like the Promethean man, woman too has long believed in
“Progress.” She really believes, as does the boy-scout mind, that
because we have motor-cars and margarine--not to speak of underground
tubes and tuberculosis--we must be greater and better than the
Cro-Magnons. And this belief confirms her faith in the Promethean type.

In Eve and Pandora, therefore, we have the first fatal instances of
woman’s tastelessness. Eve becomes an easy prey to the Devil; Pandora
goes over to the Titans. I have already identified Satan, or the
Devil, with the Archetype of Promethean men; while we also know that
Epimetheus and Prometheus, with both of whom Pandora became associated,
belonged to the most unhappy results of the cross between the
Cro-Magnons and the remote ancestors of the ancient Greeks. But Adam,
too, was of the Promethean type. He allowed himself to be influenced by
a woman. And see how deeply the Cro-Magnon, the Dionysian,--that is to
say, the man whom I believe to have been the original of the god of
the Jews and Christians,[276]--despised him for it!

“Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,”[277]--that
constitutes the burden of the Christian god’s rebuke to Adam: he
hearkened unto the voice of his wife!

And all the Promethean men, ever since the days when the gods walked
the earth, have always hearkened unto the voice of their wives.

“Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,” says the
indignant and wise old Cro-Magnon, “and hast eaten of the tree, of
which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the
ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life.”

This most excellent remonstrance is probably the earliest known record
of the profound disdain which the Dionysian type has always felt for
the Promethean.

In both cases, then, in the case of Eve as well as in that of Pandora,
we find the first woman, or prehistoric woman, or woman in general,
exhibiting atrociously bad taste, and associating with the Promethean
type. And these two myths are probably among the most ancient and most
important in the world.

This is significant enough, particularly as the consequences of the
association proved so fatal to mankind. Is it possible, then, that this
is the lesson the myths conceal? Is it possible that it is in woman’s
total lack of taste that her connection with evil really resides, and
that this lack of taste is demonstrated in each myth by her readiness
to associate with the most undesirable kind of man and to influence him?

Personally, I have no hesitation in expressing my firm conviction that
both these questions may be confidently answered in the affirmative.
Women’s total lack of taste is the greatest danger to mankind. It is
the greatest evil of all; because it is a continuous pull downwards
which wears out by steady attrition, by slow and persistent corruption,
without either rest or respite.

It cannot be repeated too often, however, that it is dangerous only
when Promethean men are in the majority,--that is to say, in the heart
of a Promethean civilisation. When and where Dionysian men prevail,
it is not felt, because women have no power to express their taste
deleteriously under the rule of Dionysian men.

At the present day, therefore, when Promethean men constitute the
vast majority of our populations all over the world, woman’s lack of
taste is a genuine menace not only to our general health, but even to
our chances of survival. There is at present no counter-check to meet
and overcome it, no neutraliser or antidote. Added to the bewildering
muddle already created by Promethean men, it constitutes one more among
the many forces which are steadily making for degeneration, chaos and
decay. Nor is the gravity of the situation alleviated by the fact that
women are now not only in an immense majority, but also that their
conceit, which has been so much fortified by their encountering only
boy-scout or Promethean men--with whom they can truthfully claim to be
equal--renders them too impudent to be accessible to teaching or to be
patient under control.

It was too readily overlooked, when women claimed to be the equals
of men, that the horror of the situation did not lie in the nature
of the claim, but in its undeniable validity. At the present day,
men have reached such a low stage in their gradual decline, the line
of demarcation between male and female _occupations_ is so faint, so
indistinguishable in parts, and consequently the line of demarcation
between male and female _capacity_ is so much blurred, that there is
unfortunately no reply to this claim on woman’s part. They _are_ the
equals of modern men. Instead, however, of this being a subject of
rejoicing, it ought, even in these degenerate days, to be a cause of
lamentation also among the women themselves. Because, as in the days
preceding the advent of Dionysus, they are the greatest sufferers from
all this degeneration of men.

Thus again, even in this sphere, the conflict is seen to be between
Dionysus and Prometheus,--the artist[278] who can master his female
and the engineer whose female masters him; and unless the Dionysians
realise the gravity of the situation very speedily, and brace
themselves for a stupendous effort, there will be an end not only to
all higher hopes, but also to all higher possibilities.

In any case a revival of the attitude towards women which is outlined
in this chapter is not likely to occur in America or England, for in
no country of the world have Prometheans multiplied more abundantly,
and entrenched themselves more securely, than they have in England and
her old Transatlantic colony; in no country in the world are Dionysian
men less plentiful than they are in these two English-speaking
countries; in no country of the world have women been more grossly,
more ludicrously misunderstood than they have in these two homes of
the Puritan and Nonconformist; and, consequently, in no country in the
world have women more power than they have in the United States and
England.

The saddest and most depressing aspect of the whole question, however,
is this, that women, having no taste--no antennæ, no organ of tasteful
apprehension--are so blind to their own best interests, and so
besotted by their increasing command of those things which stimulate
their vanity, that they prefer to listen, to follow, and to applaud a
henpecked Promethean like John Stuart Mill, than pocket their vanity
and remember their place when they are told that it is their inveterate
bad taste, their complete and utter lack of any organ of taste, which
is the hidden meaning of the myths of Pandora and Eve.

But women are not to blame. They can do little in helping to bring
about the reforms which must come if degeneration and chaos are to be
arrested. They are, as we have seen, by nature dependent for their good
and evil upon the type of man with whom they have to deal. The only
hope, as ever, is a multiplication of Dionysian men and methods, and
the control and subordination of the Promethean type.

To suppose, for instance, that the matter could be settled by teaching
women to mate only with the Dionysian man, is utterly mistaken. No
reform can come of teaching women anything.


FOOTNOTES:

[271] The fundamental mistake of certain modern philosophers is to
suppose that the altruistic sentiments of mankind arose out of the
maternal instincts. A more gross misunderstanding of the maternal
instinct could, of course, not be conceived.

[272] Woman’s preference for lap-dogs is explained in the same way.
Larger dogs are independent; they run hither and thither, and try, at
least, to master their own destiny. Lap-dogs, on the other hand, can
be fondled; they can be held, clasped, pressed, squeezed, entirely and
thoroughly mastered (physically only, for no woman has ever been known
to make a dog obey), and they can be easily lifted from the floor.

[273] It is also a menace inside the home, of course; but there it is
at least limited in extent.

[274] The extent to which women’s views of life--or the tasteless views
of life--prevail to-day, owing to female influence over Promethean men,
is shown by the increase of disease and ugliness, the growing care of
the physiologically botched, etc.

[275] The reader may think, in view of all I have said, that it is hard
to account for the attitude of the women over the cult of Dionysus. In
this case, however, the benefits derived from acclaiming and following
a Dionysian man were immediately obvious and tangible. They may even
have constituted a promise from Dionysus himself. In any case, the
objection is not serious, since the women did not actually select
Dionysus from among other men. He came among them as a teacher, a
saviour, whose doctrine proved their salvation.

[276] I do not mean that Zeus and the god of the Jews and Christians
were one and the same person. I mean only that they probably belonged
to the same race.

[277] Gen. iii. 17.

[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.

_Italics_, +Small Caps+, and +ALL SMALL CAPS+ were converted as so.

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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