912. In ancient Babylonia and Assyria an elaborate system of interpretation of ordinary occurrences prevailed—the movements and appearances of various species of birds, of bulls, of dogs of all colors are noted, with minute interpretations.[1609] The Greeks recognized omens in the acts of various animals, especially in the flight and cries of birds; so important were these last that the words for 'bird' came to be employed for 'omens from birds' and even simply for 'omens';[1610] Aristophanes, laughing at the Athenians, declares that they called every mantic sign 'bird'.[1611] Skepticism, however, appears in Hector's passionate rejection of the signs of birds and his declaration that the best omen is to fight for one's country.[1612] A similar mantic prominence of birds appears in ancient Rome where the terms for the observation of birds (auspicium, augurium) came to signify 'omens' in general. The preeminence thus accorded to birds was due perhaps to the fact that they move in a region above the earth, the larger species ([Greek: oionos]) seeking the sky near the abode of the gods, as well as to the frequency and variety of their actions.[1613] The feeling of direct contact with the deity appears in the significance attached to the movements of a sacrificial animal: if it approached the altar willingly, this, showing accord with the deity, was a good omen, and unwillingness was a bad omen.[1614] Among the later Romans the entrance of a strange black dog into a house, the falling of a snake through the opening in the roof, the crowing of a hen were unfavorable signs which prevented the immediate undertaking of any new affair;[1615] these were all unusual and therefore uncanny occurrences. Some of the animals that furnish omens are totems, and in such cases the totemic significance coalesces with that of the omen; the animal that appears to the young Sioux candidate as his manitu has both characters—it is the sign of divine acceptance and the embodiment of the divine patron.[1616]

913. Prodigies connected with the birth of children are numerous. The complete or incomplete character of the infant's body, various marks and colors, and the number produced at a birth have been carefully noted by many peoples. The birth of twins seems to have been more commonly regarded in savage and half-civilized communities either as a presage of misfortune (as being unusual and mysterious) or as a sign of conjugal unfaithfulness (as indicating two fathers, one of whom might be a god). Interpretations of births are given in Babylonian records.[1617] Everywhere monstrous births, misshapen forms, and abnormal colors in the bodies of men and beasts have been regarded as indications of divine displeasure.

914. That the stars early attracted the attention of man is shown by the fact that constellations are recognized in some lower tribes—for example, in the New Hebrides Islands, among the Todas, the Masai, the Nandi, and elsewhere.[1618] Since all heavenly bodies were regarded originally as divine, and later as controlled by divine beings, sometimes also as the abodes of the dead or as the souls of the dead, it was natural that astral movements should be looked on as giving signs of the will of the gods. Astronomy appears to have been pursued in the first instance not from interest in the natural laws governing the movements of sun, moon, and stars, but from belief in their divinatory significance. How far this study was carried on all over the ancient world we have no means of knowing; but, as far as the records go, it was the Babylonians that first reduced astral divination to the form of a science,[1619] and it is probable that from them it spread over Western Asia and India, and perhaps into Europe. Babylonian and Assyrian documents contain many accurate statements of the appearances of heavenly bodies; and in the third or second century B.C., as we learn from the Book of Daniel, the term 'Chaldean' was synonymous with 'magician.' While astronomy was pursued by the Egyptians with great success, whereby they made a notable construction of the calendar, they seem not to have cultivated astrology, though they associated certain stars with certain gods and with lucky or unlucky days.[1620]

915. Of all divinatory methods astrology has played the greatest role in human history, and is still believed in and studied by not a few persons. It derived its prominence originally, no doubt, from the splendor and mystery of the sidereal heavens; the identification (by the Babylonians) of certain planets with certain deities gave it more definite shape. It was necessarily a learned pursuit, and, falling naturally into the hands of priestly bodies, was developed by them in accordance with the needs of the situation. Rules of interpretation were established that became more and more specific. In the early period of astrology it was concerning matters of public interest that information was sought—crops, wars, and the fortunes of the king as the head of the nation.[1621] At a later time, but before the beginning of our era, in accordance with the growth of ethical individualism, the stars were interrogated for the destinies of private individuals;[1622] the aspect of the heavens at the moment of birth, the horoscope, announced the fate of the nascent man.[1623]

In the hands of the Chaldeans astrology remained exclusively or largely a science of omens. An advance toward a higher conception, however, was made by their identification of certain planets with certain gods,[1624] whereby the regularity and certainty of movement of the astral world were carried over to the world of divine Powers. When, in the centuries just preceding and following the beginning of our era, Chaldean astrology was adopted by the Greeks and Romans, it was organized by them in accordance with their philosophy, and it entered into alliance with all the higher religious tendencies of the period. In the unchangeableness of stellar movements the Stoics saw a principle substantially identical with their doctrine of fate. Along various lines (in Judaism and Christianity, and in the mysteries of Mithra and Isis) men were moving toward the conception of a single supreme ruler of the world, and astrology fell into line with this movement. The starry universe was held to be the controller of human life, worthy of worship, and able to call forth emotion. Thus astrology became a religion[1625]—it was adopted by learned and unlearned, its ethical and spiritual quality being determined by the character and thought of the various groups that professed it. For some centuries it was a religious power in the world; as a religious system it gave way gradually to more definite constructions, but it survived as a science long after it had ceased to be believed in as a life-giving faith.

The persistence of faith in it as a science is an additional illustration of men's demand for visible signs of the intervention of the deity in human affairs;[1626] as often as certain supposed embodiments of the supernatural are discarded, others are taken up. The earlier philosophical views of the relation of the heavenly bodies to human life are now generally abandoned, and such belief in this relation as now exists has no scientific basis, but is founded on vague desire.

In savage and in civilized times eclipses, comets, the appearance of a new star, and earthquakes have been regarded as indications of the attitude of the deity—sometimes favorable, sometimes unfavorable.

916. The words and actions of men and their normal peculiarities of bodily form have furnished comparatively few divinatory signs, the reason being, probably, that in early times animals and other nonhuman things arrested the attention of observers more forcibly, while in later times such acts and forms were more readily explained from natural conditions and laws. The palpitation of the eye, which seems sometimes to uneducated man to be produced by an external force, has been taken as a presage of misfortune. A burning sensation in the ear is still believed by some persons to be a sign that one is being talked about; in early stages of culture the sensation was regarded as a warning sent by the guardian spirit or some other superhuman being. Sneezing was once looked on as a happy omen: when Telemachus gave a resounding sneeze Penelope interpreted it as a sign that news of his father was at hand.[1627] An act performed without ulterior purpose may be taken to symbolize some sort of fortune. When the Calif Omar sent an embassy to the Persian King Yezdegird summoning him to embrace Islam, the angry king commanded that a clod of earth should be brought and that the ambassadors should bear it out of the city, which they accordingly did; and this act was taken both by Arabs and by Persians as a presage of Moslem victory—the invaders had a portion of Persian soil.[1628] An element of magic, however, may have entered into this conviction; the bit of soil was supposed, perhaps, to carry with it the whole land. A chance word has often been seized on as an indication of the future, or a proper name taken as a presage.

917. The belief in the sacredness or divinity of the human body has led to the search for divinatory signs in its parts. But it is only the hand that has been extensively employed in this way. The hand has offered itself as most available for divination, partly, perhaps, because of the variety and importance of its functions, partly because of the variety of lines it shows and the ease with which it may be examined. Chiromancy, or palmistry, has been developed into a science and has maintained itself to the present day; but it has largely lost its divinatory significance and has become a study of character, which is supposed to be indicated by the lines of the hand. In its divinatory role it has often been connected with astrology.

918. The preceding examples deal with occurrences that present themselves without human initiation. In certain cases the materials for divination are arranged by men themselves. In such methods there is always an appeal to the deity, a demand that a god shall intervene and indicate his will under the conditions prepared by men, the assumption being that the god has prepared the event or thing in question, and that, when properly approached, he will be disposed to give his worshipers the assistance desired. The casting of lots and similar random procedures have been common methods of divination the world over. The African Kafir diviner detects criminals by the fall of small objects used as dice. The Ashanti discover future events by the figures formed when palm wine is thrown on the ground, and from the nature of the numbers, whether even or odd, when one lets fall a handful of nuts. In a dispute the Yoruban priest holds in his hand a number of grass stalks, one of which is bent, and the person who draws the bent stalk is adjudged to be in fault.[1629] The Hebrews had the official use of objects called "urim and thummim" (terms whose meaning is unknown to us), which were probably small cubes, to each of which was somehow attached an answer "yes" or "no," or the name of a person. Thus, when David inquired whether he was to attack the Philistines, the answer seems to have been "yes."[1630] When it was a question who had violated the taboo announced by Saul, the urim and thummim first decided that it was not the people but the royal family; and then, as between Saul and Jonathan, that it was the latter who was guilty.[1631] According to the Book of Ezekiel the Chaldean King Nebuchadrezzar drew lots by arrows to determine what road he should take in a campaign.[1632] The old Arabs employed a species of divination by arrows, which, when thrown down, by their position indicated the will of the gods; and in the division of the flesh of a beast slaughtered by a clan or group, the portions to be assigned to various persons were determined by the drawing of arrows.[1633] Divination by lot was also largely employed by the Greeks and the Romans.[1634] The method called "sortes vergilianae" is still in vogue; it was and is a custom among pious persons, Christian or Moslem, to learn the course that they are to take in an emergency by opening a Bible or a copy of the Koran at random and accepting the first words on which the eye falls as an indication of the divine will, the deity being supposed to direct the eye.[1635]

919. One of the commonest and most important methods of divination in antiquity was the examination of the entrails of animals (haruspication). Of this system there are a few examples among savage peoples,[1636] but it has attained special significance only among the great civilized nations and especially among the Babylonians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks and Romans. The slaughtered animal was generally held to be itself sacred or divine, and, as it was offered to the deity, it was a natural belief that the god would indicate his will by the character of the inward parts, which were supposed to be particularly connected with the life of the animal. Of these animal parts the liver was regarded as the most important. The liver was for the Babylonians the special seat of thought, whether from its position or its size or from some other consideration we have no means of knowing. The explanation of the form and appearance of the liver became itself a separate science, and this science was developed with extraordinary minuteness by the Babylonians. The whole structure of the liver, together with the gall, bladder, and the ducts, was analyzed, and to every part, every line, and every difference of appearance a separate significance was assigned. Thus hepatoscopy, demanding long training and influencing political action (and, doubtless, calling for ingenuity and tact in interpretations), assumed great importance in Babylonia and Assyria; and it was hardly less important among the Etruscans, the Greeks, and the Romans.[1637] It is held by some scholars that Babylonia was the original home of the developed science, whence it passed into Greece and Italy.[1638] It may be recognized in Babylonia in the third millennium B.C., and there is no improbability in the supposition that Babylonian influence was felt in Asia Minor and Eastern Europe; but, in view of the number of possibly independent centers of culture in this region in ancient times and the paucity of data, the question may be left open.

920. Other parts of the animal bodies also were employed in divination. Tylor[1639] mentions the examination of the bones of the porcupine among North American Indians, the color giving indications as to the success of hunting expeditions. The shoulder blade, when put into the fire, showed by splits in it various kinds of fortune. The heart was of less significance in ancient thought than the liver, it being of less size, and its function in the circulation of the blood not being known. The brain also did not come, until a comparatively late period, to be regarded as the seat of the intellect.[1640]

921. From these external signs we may now pass to consider divinatory facts derived from men's inward experience.

Dreams. The importance attached all over the world to dreams as presages is a familiar fact. It would appear that among savage peoples a dream is regarded as representing an historical fact, the actual perception of an occurrence or a situation. It is believed that the mysterious inward thing, the soul, endowed with peculiar power, is capable, during sleep, of leaving the body and wandering to and fro;[1641] why, then, in its journeys, should it not be able to see the plans of friends and enemies, and in general to observe the course of events? We do not know the nature of savage logic in dealing with these visions of the night, but some such line of reasoning as this, it seems probable, is in their minds. The soul, they hold, is an entity, possessing intellectual powers like those of the ordinary living man—it sees certain things, and its knowledge becomes the possession of the man when he awakes. Thus the soul in dreams is a watchman, on the lookout for what may help or harm the man. Perhaps there is, even in low tribes, a vague feeling that it has extraordinary powers of perception; whether such a feeling, if it exists, is connected with a belief that, during sleep, the soul is freed from the limitations of the everyday corporeal man we are not able with our present data to say.[1642] Savages often follow the suggestions made in dreams[1643] (particularly when they are vivid) and are confirmed in their faith by occasional fulfillments of predictions; the mind, working during sleep on the observations made by day, may sometimes fall on situations that afterwards really appear, and a few such realizations are sufficient to establish a rule or creed.

922. This naive conception of dreams as products of the soul's perception of realities survives to a greater or less extent among higher tribes and nations, but finally gives way, when some sort of theistic construction is reached, to the view that they are sent immediately by deities. An approach to this view appears in North America when, for example, a Pawnee Indian sees in a dream some being who gives him important information, though in the folk-tales nothing is said of the source of the dream.[1644] A step in advance appears in the belief of the Ashanti, according to which the existence of a tutelary family deity is indicated in a dream;[1645] it is, however, not clear whether or not they hold that the tutelary deity has himself suggested the dream. In the higher religions a dream is often sent by a patron deity as a prediction or for guidance in a coming emergency. Doubtless it was only in the case of specially distinct dreams and such as related to important matters that attention was paid to them—the deity intervened only in affairs that called for his special direction. Examples are numerous in the history of the great nations of antiquity. The Egyptian King Merneptah in a time of great danger had a dream in which the god Ptah appeared to him and bade him banish fear;[1646] and the Hebrew Yahweh is represented as having sent dreams to a king of Egypt (probably in the interests of the Hebrews) to warn him of a coming famine.[1647] The Assyrian Ashurbanipal was favored with special communications from Ishtar, and the god Ashur in a dream ordered Gyges, King of Lydia, to submit to the Assyrian king.[1648] In some documents of the Pentateuch Yahweh regularly announces his will in dreams to both Hebrews and non-Hebrews;[1649] and a Hebrew writer of a later time (the third or second century B.C.) represents the God of Israel as giving Nebuchadrezzar an outline of the history of the rise and fall of the kingdoms of Western Asia and Greece.[1650] A god might employ a dream for a less worthy purpose: Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon to mislead him and thus direct the issue of the war.[1651] So important for life did the Greeks conceive the dream to be that, as it would seem, they personified it.[1652]

Incubation. Divine direction by dreams was not always left to chance. The custom arose of sleeping near a shrine (engkoimesis, incubation) where, doubtless, after appropriate ritual preparation the god was expected to signify his will in a dream (his generally friendly feeling was assumed and the dream would be of the nature of an answer to prayer). This was one of the means employed by Saul when he desired to learn what would be the issue of the impending battle with the Philistines.[1653] In Greece, and later in Italy, the most famous shrine of incubation was that of Asklepios (Aesculapius), which was widely resorted to and came to exert a good moral influence.[1654] The renown of the shrine was doubtless increased by the fact that Asklepios was a god of healing.[1655]

923. As a dream was often obscure the services of a trained interpreter became necessary in order that the dream might be effective. The interpreters were magicians, priests, or sages[1656]—men in intimate association with deities and acquainted with their modes and vehicles of revelation;[1657] dreams thus became equivalent to oracular responses. An interpreter would become famous in proportion to the number of fulfillments of his interpretations, and his god would share in the glory of his renown.[1658] Of the particular conditions through which certain men and certain shrines attained special fame we have few details.

Oneiromancy, in unorganized form, was studied in very early periods of religious life. It shared in the general advance of thought, and in the course of time a traditional science of the explanation of dreams arose. There were records of experiences, particularly of notable fulfillments, and it became possible to make lists of dreams with interpretations;[1659] these were written down and passed on from generation to generation, increasing in volume as they went. Such manuals have played no inconsiderable part in the life of the people.[1660]

924. Ordeals. Divination has played an important part in civil life as a means of determining the guilt or innocence of an accused person. From very early times ordeals of various sorts have been devised for securing a judicial opinion when ordinary means of investigation have failed. One of the simplest methods is to require an accused person to swear that he is innocent, the belief being that the god will avenge false swearing with immediate and visible punishment.[1661] This method is employed by the Ashanti:[1662] the accused is required to drink a certain decoction; if he is made sick by it this is proof of his innocence;[1663] and if there be a question between two men, and one after drinking is made sick, the other is regarded as guilty, and executed. On the Lower Congo the accused swallows a pill made of a bark said to be poisonous; if he soon vomits it he is declared innocent, if not, he is adjudged guilty.[1664] A similar procedure was employed in Samoa:[1665] standing in the presence of representatives of the village god, the suspected person laying his hand on the object wishes that if he is guilty he may speedily die. Among the Hill people of Ceylon also this custom exists. Ordeals in Loango are described by Purchas.[1666]

925. Among the ancient nations the earliest example of an ordeal occurs in the code of Hammurabi (about 2000 B.C.). Here the accused is thrown into the sacred water, and if not drowned is declared innocent; he is protected by the deity.[1667] The same principle appears in the old Hebrew ordeal: when a woman was accused of unfaithfulness to her husband the accused was made to drink sacred water; if she was innocent no bad consequences followed; if she was guilty she died.[1668] In India, where various tests by fire, water, and food have been and are employed, the decision is sometimes as in the Hebrew procedure; sometimes (when the accused is thrown into the water) the principle (found elsewhere abundantly) is recognized that it is the innocent person that suffers and the guilty that is uninjured.[1669] The ordeal as a civil process continued in Europe until the Middle Ages. In the submersion in water of a woman suspected of being a witch the principle of decision was the same as is now practiced in Ashantiland and India—if the woman was drowned it was a sign that she was innocent, but if she rose unharmed from the water she was adjudged guilty and was put to death.[1670]

926. The imprecation is similar to the ordeal. A man invokes the curse of the deity on his enemy, and it is supposed that such curse will bring its punishment.[1671] A curse was regarded as an objective thing, which reached its object quite independently of guilt or innocence.[1672] In Morocco a conditional curse is pronounced and is supposed to become effective if the wrong complained of is not righted.[1673] These ordeals and imprecations were sometimes effective in fixing guilt; the dread of incurring the wrath of the deity sometimes forced a guilty person to confess, or his dread of the punishment produced signs of guilt. On the other hand, it is probable that just as often innocent persons were convicted and punished through such tests.

With all such systems of signs may be compared the Chinese quasi-science called Fung-Shui ('Wind and Water'), which determines proper sites for graves and for temples and other buildings by observations of the influences of the sky (moisture, warmth, wind, thunder), of waters and hills, and of the earth, and by the study of various magical combinations. Thus, it is held, it is possible in important undertakings to obtain the favor and support of the good Powers of the world. The site of a grave, affecting the future of the dead, is of especial significance, and the Fung-Shui interpreters, regularly trained men, levy what contributions they please from surviving relatives, sometimes purposely prolonging their investigations at a ruinous cost to the family of the deceased.[1674] The system sprang from the Chinese conception of heaven and earth as the controlling Powers of the world; but, neglecting the higher side of this conception, it has sunk into a fraudulent trade.[1675]

927. Oracles. As men went to the tents or palaces of chiefs or kings for guidance in ordinary matters, so they went to the dwelling places of superhuman Powers for direction in matters that were beyond human ken. Such appeal to divine or quasi-divine beings began early in religious history. In Borneo and the islands of Torres Straits the abodes of skulls are places from which responses are obtained;[1676] speaking heads are found there and elsewhere. The Sunthals of West Bengal have the ghost of a specially revered ancestor as a dispenser of superhuman knowledge.[1677] When local gods arose every local shrine, it is probable, contained an oracle.[1678] The shrines of the great gods naturally acquired special prominence, their oracles were consulted by kings and other leaders on affairs of importance, and thus came to exert a great influence on the course of events.[1679] The stars also, though they had no earthly habitations, were consulted through their interpreters. Such astrological oracles, as used by men like Posidonius, the teacher of Cicero, might be morally inspiring; but when, at a later time, the consultation of heavenly bodies fell into the hands of wandering "Chaldeans" (who might be of any nation) it became a system of charlatanry, and thus morally debasing.[1680]

The greater nations of antiquity differed considerably among themselves in regard to the part played in their lives by oracles. In general, the organization of oracular shrines grew in proportion to the rise of manlike gods—deities whose relation to men was socially intimate. In Egypt such shrines were not of prime importance;[1681] the functions of the gods were mainly governmental—the most human of them, Osiris, became an ethical judge rather than a personal friend. The pre-Mohammedan Arabs did not create great gods, and their resort to local divinities was commonly in order to ask whether or not a proposed course of action was desirable; the answer was "yes" or "no."[1682] The famous warrior and poet, Imru'l-Kais, desiring to go to war to avenge his father's death, received at a shrine three times a negative answer, whereupon, hurling abusive epithets at the god, he exclaimed, "If it were your father, you would not say 'no.'" Such independence was probably rare; most men would have accepted the divine decision. The answer of the Hebrew oracle was, as among the Arabs, "yes" or "no" (by urim and thummim)—the gods were remote, and the oracle, whose minister was a priest, gradually yielded to the prophet, the human interpreter of the deity.[1683] The Philistines appear to have had well-organized oracles; when King Ahaziah was sick he sent to inquire of Baalzebub, god of Ekron, whether or not he should recover.[1684] Many Babylonian and Assyrian deities gave oracular responses;[1685] it is not known whether the shrines were resorted to by the people at large, and their importance was probably diminished by the great role played by the priestly interpretation of omens, whereby the will of the gods was held to be clearly revealed. The Romans under the republic were practically independent of oracles at shrines: in household affairs they had a family god for every department and every situation, and for State matters they found the Sibylline oracles sufficient.[1686] Later, with the widening of the horizon of religion, the resort to Greek and other oracular shrines became general—a departure from the old Roman constitution.[1687] The greatest development of oracular service took place in Greece. The Greek gods, with their anthropomorphically emotional characters, entered intimately and sympathetically into human life, communal and individual. The great shrines of Zeus at Dodona and Apollo at Delphi were centers of Hellenistic religious life, and there were others of less importance.[1688] Zeus, as head of the pantheon, naturally took a distinguished place as patron of oracles; and Apollo's relation to music and inspiration may account in part for the preeminence of his oracular shrine. In many cases, however, the grounds of the choice of a particular deity as oracle-giver escape us.

The human demand for divine guidance long maintained the influence of oracles everywhere, and it is not improbable that in general they furthered what was good religiously and socially. They were bonds of union between communities, and their authoritative role would naturally force on them a certain sense of responsibility. As to the character of the mouthpieces of the gods and the material on which they based their answers to questions we have not the means of forming a definite opinion. There can be little doubt that the official persons were sometimes sincere in the belief that they were inspired—such is the testimony of observers for both savage and civilized communities—and many modern instances bear out this view. On the other hand, there is reason to suppose that pretense and fraud often crept into the administration of the oracles. When the questions were known beforehand the responses may have been based on information that came from various quarters and on insight into the particular situation about which the inquiry was made. When the questions were not known beforehand we are in the dark as to the source of the answers. Sometimes, doubtless, they were happy or unhappy guesses; sometimes they were enigmatical or ambiguous in form, so that they could be made to agree with the events that actually occurred. In most cases the authorities would know how to explain the issue in such a way as to maintain the credit of the oracle. The best-known and the most impressive of the utterers of oracles is the priestess of Apollo at Delphi, the Pythia. She occupied a commanding position in the Hellenic world (and beyond it), such as was enjoyed by few persons of the time.[1689] She was invested with special sanctity as the dispenser of divine guidance to the Western world (to nations and individuals). It was required of her that she be morally and ceremonially pure, and she had to undergo a special preparation for the delivery of her message. The manner of her revelation did not differ from that of similar officials in noncivilized communities—she spoke in a condition of ecstasy; she is the best representative of the intimate union of the diviner and a great god, a union that tended to give dignity and wisdom as well as authority to the oracular utterance.[1690] She was, thus, in the best position for exerting a good influence on the world of her time. How far the oracles of Apollo and other deities furthered the best interests of religion it may be difficult to say—the data for an exact answer are lacking. Socially they were useful in maintaining a certain unity among peoples, and they may sometimes have upheld justice and given judicious advice, but they were always exposed to the temptation of fraud.

Necromancy. While in ancient times the dead were everywhere placated by gifts and were sometimes worshiped, the consultation of them for guidance seems to have been relatively infrequent. The attitude of existing lower tribes toward ghosts varies in different places,[1691] but the predominant feeling seems to be fear; these tribes have not accomplished that social union between themselves and the departed without which, as it appears, the living do not feel free to apply to the latter for information concerning things past, present, and future.[1692] Savage and half-civilized peoples depend for such information on divination by means of common phenomena (omens) and on the offices of magicians and soothsayers, and references in published reports to necromantic usages among them are rare and vague. But among civilized peoples also application to the dead is not as frequent as might be expected; there is still fear of ghosts, and the part assigned in early times to spirits in the administration of human life has been given over to gods—family divinities and the great oracular deities supply the information that men need. There are few signs of dependence on necromancy in China, India, Persia, and Rome. The Babylonian mythical hero Gilgamesh procures (through the aid of an Underworld god) an interview with his dead friend Eabani in order to learn the nature of the life below;[1693] this story points, perhaps, to necromantic usages, but in the extant literature there are no details of such usages. Application to the dead is certified for the old Hebrews not only by the story of Saul's consultation of Samuel (which, though a folk-story, may be taken to prove a popular custom) but by a prophetic passage condemning the practice.[1694] Teraphim were employed, probably, for divination, but there is no proof that they were connected with necromancy.[1695] After the sixth century B.C. we hear nothing of consultation of the dead by the pre-Christian Jews. Among the Greeks also such consultation seems not to have enjoyed a high degree of favor. There were oracles of the dead (of heroes and others), but these were inferior in importance to the oracles of the great gods[1696] and gradually ceased to be resorted to. Where the practice of incubation existed, answers to inquiries were sometimes, doubtless, held to come from the dead, but more commonly it was a god that supplied the desired information.

The stages in the history of necromantic practice follow the lines of growth of psychical and theistic beliefs. There was first the era of spirits when men were doubtful of the friendliness of ghosts, and held it safer in general to trust to soothsayers for guidance in life. Then, when the gods took distinct shape, they largely displaced ghosts as dispensers of knowledge of the future, and these latter, standing outside of and in rivalry with the circle of State deities, could be approached only in secret—necromancy became illicit and its influence was crippled. And when, finally, in the earlier centuries of our era, the old gods disappeared, the rise of monotheistic belief was accompanied by a transformation of the conception of the future of the soul; it was to be no longer the inert earthly thing of the old theories but instinct with a high life that fitted it to be the companion of divine beings and the sharer of their knowledge and their ideals.[1697] This conception led to the belief in the possibility of a nonmagical friendly intercourse with the departed, who, it was assumed, would be willing to impart their knowledge to their brethren on earth. Saints have thus been appealed to, and it has been attempted in recent times to enter into communication with departed kin and other friends.

928. The office of diviner, though it has always been an influential one, has followed in its development the general course of social organization, becoming more and more specialized and defined. In the simplest religions the positions of magician and diviner are frequently united in one person. In Greenland the Angekok, acting as the interpreter or mouthpiece of a supernatural being from whom men learn how they may be fortunate, foretells the condition of the weather and the fortunes of fishing.[1698] A similar combination of the offices is found among the Ainu, and apparently among the Cakchiquels, among whom the divining function is said to have related particularly to war.[1699]

929. There was, however, as is remarked above, a tendency to invest the priest with the function of divination. The Arabian kahin was a soothsayer, the Hebrew kohen was a priest.[1700] The Yorubans have a special god of divination whose priest is the soothsayer of the community. In Ashantiland priests and priestesses, who are exceedingly influential and powerful, owe a great deal of their importance to their ability to explain signs and omens, especially to discover guilt and to foretell events.[1701] In the elaborate divinatory ceremonies of the Ahoms of Southeastern Asia, the conductors, who are highly considered in the community, are priests; these people are partly Hinduized, but probably retain much of their ancient religious forms.[1702] A noteworthy specialization of functions is found among the Todas of Southern India, who distinguish the diviner from the magician, the prophet, and the dairyman. The diviner is inspired by a god, gives his utterances in an ecstatic state, and for the most part limits himself to the explanation of the origin of misfortunes.[1703] It would be a matter of interest to trace, if it were possible, a history of this specialization, but the early fortunes of the Toda religion are without records and can only be surmised. In ancient Gaul the diviner, it is said, was distinguished from the priest and the prophet.[1704] Where divination is the duty of the priestly body, there is sometimes a differentiation within this body, some persons devoting themselves specifically to soothsaying; so among the Babylonians, where this function was most important.[1705]

930. Among the old Hebrews the soothsaying function is connected not only with priests but also with prophets.[1706] The priest was the official diviner, employing the urim and thummim. Prophets and dreamers are mentioned together as persons of the same class and as sometimes employing their arts for purposes contrary to the national religion; various classes of diviners are mentioned as existing among the Israelites in the seventh century B.C., but the distinctions between them are not given.[1707] From a statement in Isaiah ii, 6, it may perhaps be inferred that some form of divination was imported into Israel in the eighth century or earlier from the more developed Philistines and from the countries east of the Jordan;[1708] and the passage just referred to in Deuteronomy probably reveals Assyrian influence. While the Egyptian documents have much to say of magic, they give little information with regard to the existence of a class of diviners; but it appears, according to a Hebrew writer,[1709] that the art of divination might belong to any prominent person—Joseph is represented as divining from a cup.

931. The greatest development of the office of the diviner in ancient times was found among the Greeks and Romans.[1710] The Greek word mantis appears to have been a general term for any person, male or female, who had the power of perceiving the will of the gods. The early distinction between the mantis and the prophetes is not clear. Plato, indeed, distinguishes sharply between the two terms:[1711] the mantis, he says, while in an ecstatic state cannot understand his own utterances, and it is, therefore, the custom to appoint a prophetes who shall interpret for him; some persons, he adds, give the name mantis to this interpreter, but he is only a prophetes. We find, however, that the terms are frequently used interchangeably; thus the Pythia is called both mantis and prophetis. Whatever may have been the original sense of these terms, the office of diviner in Greece was in the main separate from that of priest. It is found attached to families and was hereditary. It was recognized by the State from an early time and became more and more influential. According to Xenophon Socrates believed in and approved divination.[1712] Plato held that it was a gift of the gods, and that official persons so gifted were to be held in high esteem.

932. In Rome, in accordance with the genius of the nation, soothsaying was at a comparatively early period organized and taken in charge by the State. There were colleges of augurs,[1713] standing in various relations to political and social life, having their heads (chief augurs)—thus in their organization similar to the priesthood, but standing quite apart from this. The same sort of organization was established in the Etruscan office of haruspex[1714] when this was introduced into Rome. The members of these colleges were at first Etruscans and, as such, looked down on; but gradually Roman youth of good family and education were trained for the duty, and in the time of the Emperor Claudius the social difference between augurs and haruspices seems to have been almost eliminated.[1715]

933. Sibyls. In the old Graeco-Roman world inspired women played a great role.[1716] The belief in such personages goes back to the old conception of the possession of human beings by a supernatural being, which, as we have seen, was common in early forms of religion. This idea assumed various shapes in Greece, and in the course of time the inspired women were connected with various deities. In the Dionysus cult the orgiastic rites (in which women took a chief part) seem to have grown up from old agricultural ceremonies in which the spirit or god of vegetation was invoked to give his aid. Such ceremonies naturally coalesced here as elsewhere with the license of popular festivities. The legends connected with the Dionysus cult introduced savage features into the rites, as, for example, in the story of Pentheus.[1717] But whatever may have been the case in Thrace, whence the cult came to Greece, it was not so in historical times in Greece, where the celebrations were controlled by the State. These exhibit then only the natural frenzy of excited crowds without the element of divination.

934. The development of the role of women as representatives of deities is illustrated by the character of the priestesses of oracular shrines.[1718] These, like the Dionysiac devotees, are seized and possessed by the god, and speak in a state of frenzy. But their frenzy is controlled by civilized conditions. It exists only as a preparation for divination; it is the movement of the god in them laboring to express himself, and his expression is couched in intelligible human language. The priestess is a part of an organized and humanized cult and, as such, represents to a certain extent the ideas of a civilized society. The Dionysiac woman yields to an excess of animal excitement, without thought for society; the priestess feels herself responsible to society. A similar progress in civilized feeling appears among the old Hebrews; the incoherency of the earlier prophets[1719] gives way to the thoughtful discourses of the ethical leaders.[1720] The manner and the expression of revelation always conform to existing social usages.

935. Of a still different character is the figure of the Sibyl, created by the Greeks and adopted by the Romans.[1721] She, too, is possessed by a god and sometimes, at least, raves in ecstasy; but she does not officiate at a shrine and is not controlled by any official body. She dwells in a cave or a grotto, has her life in the open air, and gives her answers on the leaves of the forest. She represents the divine voices that are heard by early men everywhere in the world; in the myth, when she displeases Apollo she is condemned to fade finally, after a long life, into a voice.[1722] She is not, like the Pythia, an actual human being—she is never seen except in legends and myths. She is a creature of Greek imagination, the embodiment of all the divine suggestions that come to man from the mysterious sounds around him.

936. The historical origin of the fully developed figure of the Sibyl is obscure.[1723] In the literature she appears first in the sixth century B.C. along with the Pythia, but she was then thought of as well established and ancient. She is not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod, but their silence is not proof positive that the conception of the character did not exist in their time; they may have had no occasion to mention her, or the figure may have been so vague and unimportant as not to call for special mention. For such a figure it is natural to assume a long development, the beginnings of which are, of course, enveloped in obscurity. However this may be, the Sibyl appears to have received full form under the religious impulse of post-Homeric times, under conditions the details of which are not known to us.

937. In the scant notices of the figure that have been preserved the indications are that there was originally only one Sibyl—she was the mythical embodiment of divine revelation, as the muse was the embodiment of intellectual inspiration. At a later time many sibyls came into being; Varro reckons ten and other authors give other numbers. Apparently a process of local differentiation went on; when the idea of the revealer was once established and the historical beginnings of the figure were unknown, many a place would be ambitious to have so noble a figure domiciled in its midst. One line of tradition referred the original Sibyl to the Ionian Erythrae, and when the Sibylline Books were burned in the year 83 B.C., it was to Erythrae that the Romans sent to make a new collection of oracles. Whatever the original home of the figure, one of the most famous of the Sibyls was she of Cumae.[1724] She was regarded as being very old, and she was probably a permanent diviner of that place. It was from Cumae, according to the legend, that the Sibylline Books came to Rome. The story of how they were first offered to King Tarquinius Priscus, who refused to pay the price, how three of them were destroyed and then three more, and how finally the required price was paid for the remaining three, points to a belief that the material of the oracles had once been larger than that which came to Rome. There is also the assertion that the utterances of the Sibyl were at that time recorded in books. This fact suggests that oracular responses had long been known at Cumae, and that some persons, of whose character and functions we know nothing, had from time to time written them down, so that a handbook of divination had come into existence.

938. In whatever manner the oracles were first brought to Rome it is certain that they were accepted by the Romans in all good faith, and they came to play a very important part in the conduct of public affairs. They were placed in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus under the charge of two men (duumviri), and later a college was established for their guardianship. They were used in Rome especially for guidance in national calamities: when the existence of the city was threatened by the victorious career of Hannibal, it was the Sibyl who prescribed the importation of the worship of the Phrygian Great Mother. It is certain that the books were manipulated by political and religious leaders for their own purposes, old dicta being recast and new ones inserted as occasion required;[1725] but probably this procedure was unknown to the people—it does not appear that it affected their faith. Even Augustine speaks of the theurgi as daemones, and cites a passage from the Erythraean Sibyl as a prediction of Christ.[1726]

939. To the poetical books which have come down to us under the name of Jewish Sibylline Oracles no value attaches for the history of the Sibyl except so far as they are an indication of the hold that the conception kept on men's minds.[1727] They are a product of the passion for apocalyptic writing that prevailed among the Jews and Christians in Palestine and Alexandria, from the second century B.C. into the third century of our era. The fame of the Graeco-Roman Sibyl was widespread, and to the Jews and Christians of that time it seemed proper that she should be made to predict the history of Judaism and Christianity; possibly it was believed that such a prophetess must have spoken of this history. Naturally the Jewish Sibyl has a Biblical genealogy—she is the daughter of Noah.

940. Her utterances, given in heavy Greek hexameters, have been preserved for us in a great mass of ill-arranged fragments, with many repetitions, indicating them as the work of various authors. What we have is clearly only a part of what was produced, but the nature of the whole body of pseudo-predictions is easily understood from the material that has been preserved. They follow the history down to the author's time, giving it sometimes an enigmatical form, and the future is described in vague phrases that embody the guesses or hopes of the writer. It seems certain that all of the existent material of these oracles is from Jewish and Christian hands. Even when Greek mythical stories are introduced, as in the euhemeristic description of the origin of the Greek dynasties of gods in the third book, the whole is conceived under the forms of Jewish or Christian thought. The Sibyllines are quoted by Josephus and by many Christian writers from Justin Martyr to Augustine and Jerome and later. They give a picture of certain Jewish and Christian ideas of the period and of the opinions held concerning certain political events, but otherwise have no historical value. An illustration of the fact that the belief in them as real inspired prediction continued to a late time is found in the hymn Dies Irae, in which the Sibyl is cited along with David as a prophet of the last judgment. The whole history of the figure is a remarkable illustration of the power of a written record, held to be a divine revelation, to impress men's minds and control their beliefs and actions.

941. While divination has played a great part in the religious history of the world, it has rarely brought about important political or religious results.[1728] The exceptions are the great Greek oracles of Dodona and Delphi and the Roman Sibylline Books; to these last, as is observed above, the Roman people owed the introduction of some important religious cults. But for ordinary procedures priests and other officiators everywhere were disposed to give favorable responses, especially to the questions of prominent men; and military and other political enterprises were usually in such form that they could not conveniently be modified in accordance with unfavorable omens—the omen had to be favorable. There were exceptions, but this was the general rule. The science of divination, however, did good service in fostering the observation of natural phenomena, and especially in the development of astronomy and anatomy. In connection with these observations it called into being bodies of men—corporations that in process of time became centers of general culture.

942. On the ethical side it may be doubted whether divination has been an advantage to society. It has produced much deceit, unconscious and conscious. Whether diviners believed or did not believe in their science, the result was bad. If they did not believe, they fostered a system of deceit. Whether there was real belief or not, the practice of divination encouraged false methods and turned men's minds away from immediate appeals to the deity, and in general from a spiritual conception of religion. On the other hand, it helped to maintain the external apparatus of religion, which for ancient life was an important thing. Like all great institutions its effects have been partly good, partly bad. It belongs to a lower stage of human thought and tends to disappear gradually before enlightenment.



CHAPTER IX

THE HIGHER THEISTIC DEVELOPMENT

943. The preceding survey of early religious customs and institutions discloses a recognizable unity in diversity. Everywhere we find the same classes of sacred objects and the same methods of approaching them. Whether the supernatural Powers are conceived of as animals or as plants or as what we call inanimate things, or, in more advanced thought, as ghosts or spirits or gods, they are held to be factors in human life, are regarded with awe, are dreaded and avoided, or are welcomed as helpers, and in any case are propitiated by gifts and other marks of respect. The potency inherent in things is the object of observation, its laws are studied, and it is used for purposes of life. The diversities in the form of ceremonies, in the conception of the characters of the Powers, and in the general tone and coloring of worship arise from economic and cultural differences, and are as numerous as the tribes of men; the unity of cults is a result of the psychological unity of the human race—the religious needs of men in all stages of culture are the same; there is nothing in the highest religious systems that is not found in germ in the lowest.

944. The earliest expression of religious feeling, as is pointed out above,[1729] is in the form of ceremonies. But ceremonies tend to group themselves round the persons of divine beings. Gods, as the controllers of human fortunes here and hereafter, naturally become the centers of religious thought. Their characters and functions reflect the ideals of their worshipers, and all ritualistic and other usages and all doctrines concerning the relations between gods and men and, in general, all ideas concerning the physical and moral constitution of the world attach themselves perforce to the divine embodiments of these ideals. Thus, in one sense, the history of the gods is the history of religion. From the earliest times up to the present the efforts of men have been directed toward defining the divine Powers that have been supposed to stand behind all phenomena. The problem of harmonizing diverse divine activities has always been a serious one, and its solution has been sought in various ways. Gods have been locally limited, every one to his own human tribe, district, or nation; or, when they dwell together and their spheres of influence are larger, they have been given free scope of action, and the resulting contradictions in human affairs have been accepted as a part of the mysterious nature of things; or order has been sought in simplification—headship has been ascribed to some one deity, and the relation between him and the subordinate divinities has been somehow explained or has been left unexplained. The process of simplification has gone steadily on with the result that the great religious systems of the world fall into groups distinguished from one another by their conceptions of the divine government of the world, whether as pluralistic or as unitary. The development of these different conceptions may be traced here in outline, though the absence of exact data and the variety and complexity of the formative influences (economic, philosophical, political, and other) necessarily make it difficult or impossible to account satisfactorily for all details. The groups to be considered are polytheism, dualism, and monotheism, to which may be added brief mention of systems that do not recognize a personal divine ruler of the world.

POLYTHEISM

945. The first stage in the final theistic history of the world up to the present day, polytheism, appears in all the great civilized nations. The great polytheistic systems have much in common: for example, protection of civil order and morality by a god; prominence of the god of a ruling tribe or family or of a great city; disposition to embody certain general facts, as war, love, learning, in divine figures; tendency to make some god universal. On the other hand, they differ among themselves in certain regards: in the degree of specialization and differentiation of divine functions, and in the stress that they lay on the various departments of human life. Their agreements and disagreements seem to be in some cases independent of racial relations and climatic conditions; their roots lie so far back in history that we have no means of tracing their genesis and development.

946. The Egyptian and the Semitic peoples were parts of the same original stock,[1730] and their systems of social and political organization were substantially identical—the government in its developed form was monarchical, but tribal and other locally isolated forms of organization maintained themselves to a certain extent—and their literary and artistic outputs do not differ materially. We might, then, expect their religions to be in the main identical. In fact they agree in having a relative meagerness of theistic differentiation, but in some important points they are far apart. The Semites were indifferent to the future life, the Egyptians constructed it elaborately (in this point taking precedence among the ancients); the Semites were averse to divinizing human beings, for the Egyptians kings were divine. In this last point Egypt resembles China, but in other respects is at a world-wide remove from it. Other peoples thought of their gods as having relations with beasts; the Egyptians alone, among civilized nations, worshiped the living animal.[1731] Some Greek writers regarded Egypt as the religious mother of Greece, but Hellenic cults show little resemblance to Egyptian.

947. The Hebrews had the general Semitic theistic and cultic scheme, but in their capacity (in their higher development) to content themselves with one deity, and in their elaboration of ritualistic forms and institutions, were more closely akin to the Aryan Persians than to any Semitic community, and borrowed freely from them. The resemblance between the two cults, however, was confined to these two points; in other respects they were very different.

948. The linguistic identity of the Indo-European peoples does not carry with it theologic identity. The theistic scheme of India is more nearly allied, in the disposition to grant equality of significance to all gods, to the Egyptian and Semitic than to the Persian and the Greek, yet the tone and color of the Hindu deities do not resemble the tone and color of the Egyptian and Babylonian divinities.

Even between Greece and Rome the religious differences are great. Greece stands alone in its artistic creation of divine forms. Rome rather resembles the Hebrews in its sobriety of theistic creations, and particularly is like the Chinese in the purpose to make religion subservient to the interests of the family and the State; Roman religion, like Chinese, might be described as a body of public and private ceremonies to which gods were attached.[1732] The Roman gods, however, are much more definite figures than the Chinese; the latter are either unimportant folk-gods or powers of nature.

949. The contrast between Mexico, with its considerable number of departmental gods, some of them savage, and Peru, whose quasi-monotheistic system is relatively mild, is striking. But the origin of these two peoples (who perhaps are made up of different sets of tribes) is involved in obscurity, and it is uncertain whether or not we should expect a greater resemblance between their cults.

950. The differentiation in the theistic scheme of the Teutons, especially the Scandinavians, is noteworthy. Several of their deities, particularly Wodan (Odin), Thor, and Loki, are well-developed persons, and these and some others do not differ materially in character from the earlier corresponding Hindu and Greek gods. A comparison between the Teutonic figures and the Celtic and Slavic would be pertinent if we knew more of the character of these last; but the information about them is slight.[1733]

951. The extent of the anthropomorphization of gods in any system may be measured by the richness and refinement of its mythology. When the gods live apart from men, being conceived of mainly as transcendent Powers, or when they are not fully developed men, there is little room for the play of social emotions and for the creation of biographies of individual deities. It is the humanized god that has emotional life, and it is in this mythical life that the religious feeling of the worshiper is expressed with greatest fullness of detail.

952. The development of mythology through all its gradations of fullness and fineness can be traced in the religious systems of the world.[1734] Where there is no recognizable worship there is, of course, no mythology. This is the case in Australia, in Pygmy lands, in Tierra del Fuego, in parts of New Guinea, and perhaps elsewhere.[1735] Scarcely above these are parts of Central and Southern Africa, the countries of the Bantu, the Hottentots, and the Bushmen.[1736] A feeble mythological invention appears among the Zulus, whose conception of gods is indistinct;[1737] and the Masai and the Nandi, who are somewhat farther advanced in the construction of deities, show mythopoeic imagination in a single case only (the famous myth of the embrace of the earth and the sky), and this is perhaps borrowed.[1738] Along with these we may place the Todas whose theogonic conceptions appear to have been cramped by their buffalo cult, and their mythical material is small and vague.[1739]

953. A somewhat higher stage of mythopoeic development is represented by peoples of Oceania and North America. The myths are still prevailingly cosmologic and sociologic, but the beginning of biographical sketches of supernatural Powers is visible. The Melanesian Qat and the Polynesian Maui are on the border line between culture-heroes and gods, but they are real persons, and their adventures, while they describe origins, are also descriptions of character. Hawaii and Borneo have departmental gods and a body of stories about them.[1740] Certain tribes of Redmen have not only divine genealogical systems but also narratives resembling the Melanesian in character, the line between myth proper and folk-lore being often hard to trace.[1741] The stories fall into more or less well-defined groups, and of the Coyote and, less definitely, of certain other personages biographies might be written.

954. The half-civilized peoples of Madagascar, West Africa (Dahomi, Ashanti, Yoruba), the Malay Peninsula, and Southern India (Khonds) have more coherent figures and stories of divine personages.[1742] Here something like living human beings appear, though there is crudeness in the portraiture, and the interest is chiefly in the history of origins. The Malayan and Khond figures are especially noteworthy, but are not free from the suspicion of influence from higher religions.

955. True literary mythology is found only in civilized peoples, and among these a gradation is recognizable. We have first the stage of culture represented by the Japanese, the Finns, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians, with fairly well-developed gods, who have emotions and histories. In this group Japan takes the lowest place;[1743] it is chiefly in the figures regarded as deified men that definiteness of character and human warmth are found. Japanese theogony was depressed by the interest of the people in family and State organization; the gods, though civilized, are vague personalities. The Finnish literary mythical material, given in the Kalevala, has a highly humanized coloring and is worked up into a coherent story; the social system revealed in the myths is superior in many regards to that of the Redmen, but the theistic scheme is crude.[1744] The few Mexican myths that have come down to us (probably only the remains out of a large mass) show reflection and portray human experiences.[1745] Both in Mexico and in Peru the Spanish conquest appears to have destroyed no little material that, if preserved, would have illustrated the mythical constructions of these lands. In Peru, further, it may be that the monotheistic tinge of the State religion had the effect of banishing subordinate deities and the stories connected with them. For whatever reason little is known of its mythical material, but the little that is known shows a certain degree of refinement. South America, excluding Peru, has no mythical constructions of interest.[1746]

956. Of the great religions the Chinese may be passed by in the present sketch; its form leaves no place for mythology; its virtual monotheism excludes lesser supernatural figures as actors in the drama of human life.[1747]

957. The Persian cosmogonic myths are merely statements of great facts without biographical features. In the hands of late writers they shaded into legendary accounts of the origin of the kingdom, and the whole was colored by the developed Mazdaism. We thus have theological constructions rather than true myths.[1748] The few mythical stories that have survived play an insignificant part in the religious system—a sort of result that is to be expected whenever a substantially definite monotheistic conception has been reached.

958. Egypt produced a couple of myths of great interest.[1749] The story of Ra's anger with men, and his act of wholesale destruction, belongs in the group of myths (in which flood stories and others are included) the motif of which is antagonism between gods and men. The conception of such antagonism seems to go back to the early opinion that all misfortunes were caused by supernatural beings; in civilized times some great calamity would be singled out as a special result of divine anger, and imagination would construct a history of the event, why the god was angry, and how he was appeased. What particular occurrence this Egyptian story refers to is unknown.

The Osiris myth has better literary form and more cultic significance.[1750] The slaying of Osiris by Set, Isis's search for the body of her husband, and the role of the young Horus as avenger of his father make a coherent history. Osiris had the singular fortune of being the most widely popular god in Egypt, the hero of a romantic episode, and the ethical judge of men in the Underworld. The motif of the myth is the cosmic struggle between life and death; the actors are made real persons, and the story is instinct with human interest. No great cultic association like the Eleusinian mysteries was created in connection with it, but the echo of the conception appears in the great role later assigned to Isis.

959. All Semitic myths of which we have records are cosmogonic or sociologic or, in some late forms, theological constructions. It is Babylonia that has furnished the greater part of the material, perhaps all of it.[1751] The stories preserved give little or no portraiture of divine persons—it is always cosmic phenomena that are described, and gods and heroes are introduced simply as actors. The purpose in the two cosmogonic poems—to explain the reduction of the world to order and the existing constitution of earth and sky—is one that is found everywhere in ancient systems of thought. The Gilgamesh epic, a collection of popular usages and tales without definite unity, is contaminated with legend; Gilgamesh is now a god, now a national hero; at the end, however, there is a bit of speculation concerning the future state of men. Ishtar's descent to the Underworld is a pure nature myth; Ishtar and the goddess of the Underworld are real persons, yet merely attachments to the fact. The seizure of the tablets of fate from Bel by the storm-god Zu represents some natural phenomenon (perhaps the reign of winter), possibly, also, a transference of headship from one deity to another. The story of Adapa is in part an explanation of how men came to lose immortality. There is, thus, in these myths a fairly full history of the origin of the large facts of human life, with little interest in the personalities of the divine actors.

Hebrew mythical material is in general identical with Babylonian; its Old Testament form has been more or less revised by late monotheistic editors. The two cosmogonies in Genesis, the flood story, and the dragon of chaos (a late figure in the Old Testament[1752]) are merely descriptions of cosmic or local facts. The dispersion at Babel (not now found in Babylonian records, but paralleled elsewhere) deals with a sociological fact of great interest for the Hebrews, marking them off, as it did, from all other peoples.[1753] The heroes of the early time[1754] belong to folk-lore, probably a mixture of myth and legend. The explanation of various human experiences in the Eden story[1755] appears to be of Hebrew origination; it is, however, rather a late theological theory than a myth. The Syrian and Palestinian Tammuz (Adonis) myth is identical in general form with the Babylonian myth of Tammuz and Ishtar.[1756]

960. The Indo-European mythical material shows an advance over the Egyptian and Semitic in distinctness and fullness of life corresponding to the distincter individuality of the Indo-European divine personages. These are not mere powers in the world, more or less identified with natural forces and phenomena, nor a collection of deities substantially identical in character and functions; they have grown into persons, differing, indeed, in the degree of individualization, but all pronounced personalities.

961. Hindu myths, though less numerous and less highly elaborated than the Greek, still reflect fairly well the characters of certain divinities, especially Indra, Agni, the Acvins, the Maruts, and some others.[1757] Indra, particularly, is portrayed in detail, so that he is as distinct a person as Ares or Mars. Krishna and other figures in the epics live human lives with all human virtues and vices.

962. The full literary form of the myth is found only in Greece. As Zeus, Apollo, Athene, Aphrodite, and others are well-defined personalities, each with certain intellectual and moral characteristics and with a unity of development, so the stories about them recount adventures and acts that form biographical unities; and, as these stories are of diverse nature, some reflecting barbarous periods, others marked by refinement, they exhibit, when brought together and arranged in order of moral or intellectual excellence or according to their geographical or ethnical origin, not only the history of the gods, but also the development of Greek religious feeling. Being the embodiment of human experiences, they lend themselves readily to processes of allegorizing and spiritualizing.[1758]

963. Roman gods, homely figures, occupied with agriculture and affairs of State, have no adventures and no biographies. The practical Roman mind was concerned with the domestic functions of divine beings, and the Roman genius was not of a sort to conceive gods as individuals leading lives filled with human passions. Myths do not figure in the Roman religious scheme except as they are borrowed from Greece or from some other land.

964. Teutonic mythology is largely cosmogonic or cosmologic, not without shrewd portraitures and attractive episodes, but never reaching the point of artistic roundness and grace.[1759] The adventures of Odin, Thor, Loki, and other divine persons reflect for the most part the daring and savagery of the viking age, though there are kindly features and an occasional touch of humor.[1760] Loki in some stories is a genuine villain, and the death of Balder is a real tragedy. The great cosmogonic and eschatological myths are conceived in grandiose style. The struggle between gods and giants is in its basis the widespread nature myth of the conflict of seasons. The overthrow of the old divine government (the Twilight of the Gods) and the rise of a new order appear to have a Christian coloring, but the belief that the world is to be destroyed may be old Teutonic.[1761]

The history of theistic movements in civilized peoples shows that the effectiveness of a polytheistic system as a framework of religious life is in proportion to the extent of its anthropomorphization of deities, that is, it is in proportion to their humanization that gods enter into intimate association with human experiences. On the other hand, it is true that the tendency toward a unitary conception of the divine government of the world is in inverse proportion to such humanization; the more definitely aloof from men the gods have stood (as among the Hebrews and the Persians), the easier it has been for the people to attach themselves to a single deity as all-sufficient. The Romans form no exception to this general rule, for though, while they did not create great anthropomorphic deities, there was yet no native Roman movement toward monolatry, the place of such deities in worship was taken by a multitude of minor divine patrons who presided over all the details of private and public life and satisfied the demand for divine guidance.

While polytheism has assumed various forms, differing from one another in elaboration of deities and in general cultural character, it has had, as a system, a distinctly marked place in human experience.

965. General role of polytheism. Polytheism has played a great role in the religious history of the world. Representing in general a thoughtful protest against the earlier shapeless mass of spirits, it expressed more definitely the belief in the intellectual and moral divine control of all things. It flourished at a time when there was no general demand in human thought for cooeperation in supernatural Powers. The sense of variety in the world was predominant, corresponding to the absence of cooeperation among the tribes and nations of the world; the apparently isolated character of natural phenomena and the independence of the nations, each of the others, seemed to men to demand a number of separate divine agencies. These were all made to accord with the external and internal condition of their worshipers and met the demands of life in that they represented redemption, salvation, and, in general, all blessings. They were not offensive ethically to the people for the reason that they embodied the ethical conceptions and usages of their time. Thus they furnished the framework for religious feeling—they secured the union of divine and human in life, brought the divine, indeed, into most intimate contact with the human, and so supplied the material for the expression of pious feeling. When the gods were represented by idols, these tended to become merely the symbols and reminders of their divine originals. The elastic character of this theistic system permitted the widest variety of cults, with the possibility of bringing any new social tendency or idea into immediate connection with a divine patron, so that human life became religious with a degree of intelligence and intensity that has perhaps not existed under any other system.

966. The great civilizations of the ancient world arose and were developed under polytheism—many noble human characters and customs and institutions were created under the dominance of this system in Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere—that is to say, human instincts and aspirations developed freely under a theistic organization that satisfied in general the intellectual and moral needs of the time. The different polytheistic cults of the world differed considerably in intellectual and moral value. These differences pertain to the diversity of characteristics among the nations of the world and are to be studied in connection with the histories of the various peoples. Here it is sufficient to note the general position which polytheism has occupied in the whole religious development of the world.[1762]

967. At a relatively early time, however, dissatisfaction arose with the discordances of the polytheistic conception. It raised many problems and failed to account for many phenomena, and efforts were made to systematize and simplify the conceptions of the divine government of the world. These efforts took the shape of dualism, monotheism, pantheism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and later tended to regard the supernatural in the world as Ultimate Force or as Moral Ideal. These tendencies may be examined in the order just given.

DUALISM

968. In all the religious systems so far considered the existence of human suffering is assumed. The sole object of religious practices, in all cults except the highest, has been to secure extrahuman or superhuman aid and comfort in the ills of life. There has been the conviction, for the most part implicit, that man is not in harmony with his surroundings. We have now to consider those systems of religious thought in which the existence of this disharmony is more or less distinctly announced and the effort is made to discover its source.

The conception of two sets of Powers in the world, one helpful and the other harmful, is suggested by human experience and by the larger observation of natural phenomena, and it is found all over the world, among low communities as well as high, perhaps in all tribes of men.[1763] Possibly there are some low groups, such as the Fuegians and the African Pygmies in which the conception does not exist; but as the religious ideas of these low groups are yet imperfectly understood, we cannot say what their position on this point is. In general, for the lower tribes the world is peopled by spirits, which are the ghosts of the departed or the embodiment of natural forces, and the feeling has been that these are sometimes friendly, sometimes unfriendly.[1764] In some cases the hurtful spirits stand in contrast with a god who may be a strict ruler and somewhat indifferent to men, but not hostile; in other cases there is a simple division of spirits into two classes, the friendly and the unfriendly,[1765] and in the higher forms of savage life there may be two such classes of deities.[1766] The double feeling of man respecting the attitude of ghosts toward living human beings is referred to above.[1767]

969. In certain higher forms of savage and half-civilized life we find the conception of a definite contrast between the two sets of Powers. The Hottentots are said to believe in two opposed supernatural beings, the struggle between them ending to the advantage of the one who is beneficent toward men.[1768] The Masai have two powerful beings, one accounted good, the other bad; the difference between them is not ethical, but represents only the relation of their acts to man's well-being.[1769] The Malays have a very elaborate system of good and evil spirits, but the system is colored by foreign influences.[1770] For the Ainu snakes are an embodiment of merely physical evil, and other Powers are the dispensers of physical well-being.[1771] The Arab jinn represent the unwholesome and antagonistic conditions of nature, stand opposed to the gods, and are without ethical motives.[1772] Even the Andamanese, one of the lowest of human communities, have a division of Powers into one who is friendly and two who are unfriendly.[1773] In all these cases we have to recognize simply the expression of the perception of two sets of physical agencies in the world. It is easy to exaggerate the nature of these contrasts and to represent certain low tribes as possessing general divine embodiments of good and evil.

970. Such a conception has been attributed to the American Redmen,[1774] but on insufficient grounds. The most careful recent investigations of the religious ideas of the Creeks, the Lenape, the Pawnees, and the Californian Shasta (four typical communities) fail to discover anything that can be called a real dualistic conception.[1775] Dorsey mentions a Pawnee myth of the introduction of death into the world by a member of the heavenly council of gods who felt himself slighted; but this isolated story does not prove the existence of a general dualistic scheme—the act in question has parallels in savage systems that recognize various unfriendly Powers.[1776] The reports we have of two definite morally antagonistic deities in Redmen tribes resolve themselves on examination into misconceptions or exaggerations on the part of the reporters; or, so far as the antagonism really exists, it is due to Christian influence. The Iroquois dualistic system as described by Chief Cusic (in 1825)—two brothers, Good Mind and Bad Mind, the former the creator of all things good, the latter the creator of all things bad—appears in the version of Brebeuf (in 1636) as a simple nature myth, the two deities in question being somewhat more definite forms of the friendly and unfriendly spirits met with in all lower communities.[1777] In like manner Winslow's two opposed Powers of the New England Algonkins turn out not to be morally antagonistic to each other, in fact, according to Brinton, not antagonistic at all.[1778] These facts warn us to treat with caution the vague statements of early travelers respecting dualistic views supposed to be held by tribes in North America and South America.[1779]

971. In West Africa the Ashanti embody the sources of physical misfortune in several deities, who are malignant but do not stand in opposition to the friendly gods. A preliminary step to the conception of a god of misfortunes is the assignment of a sort of headship to one of a mass of unfriendly or hurtful spirits—such a crude organization is natural in a community in which there is a fairly developed form of social organization, and the head spirit easily grows into a god. A simple headship over hurtful spirits appears to be found in the Ainu system, though this latter is in general not well developed.[1780]

972. A definite antagonism of good and bad Powers is found in the religion of the non-Aryan Khonds of Orissa: the earth-goddess Tari, the creature but the opponent of the sun-god Bella Pennu, introduced sin and death into the world and contested (and, according to one native account, still contests) with her creator the control of life. This explanation of the origin of death is a higher form of stories that occur abundantly in savage lore, with the important difference that in these death comes by accident, but here by malicious purpose. It is not clear whether or not the characters of Tari and Bella Pennu are conceived of ethically. The weapons (comets, winds, mountains) employed by the two deities indicate that the basis of the representation is a nature myth. Advanced eschatological thought appears in the opinion, held by some natives, that the good god was victorious in the contest.[1781]

973. In the great ancient religions, with the exception of Zoroastrianism, no dualistic scheme appears. An Egyptian god may be angry, as, for example, Ra, who in a fit of resentment causes men to be slain but soon repents; and Set, the enemy of Osiris, a nature god, seemed at one time to be on the way to become an embodiment of evil, but the Egyptian cult rejected this idea and Set gradually disappeared.[1782] The Babylonian cosmogonic myth, in which Tiamat is the enemy of the gods of order, has no cultic significance; the great mass of demonic beings was not organized into a kingdom of evil, and the Underworld deities, nature gods, while subject to ordinary human passions, are not hostile to the gods of heaven and earth. The Hebrews adopted the Babylonian cosmogonic myth,[1783] but it became a mere literary attachment to the conception of the supreme god Yahweh, and was otherwise ineffective.

974. The same thing is true of certain cosmogonic myths of the Greeks, such as the war of the Titans against Zeus and similar episodes. Ate and the Erinyes are embodiments of man's own evil nature or represent the punishment that overtakes guilt, but they do not represent a formal opposition to goodness nor are they organized into a definite body.[1784] The Roman Furies are practically identical in function with the Erinyes. In the old Teutonic religion the only figure who approaches essential badness is Loki; but he, though at times malignant and treacherous (as a human chieftain might be), remains a recognized member of the assembly of gods. As a nature god he may represent the elements of darkness and unhappiness in life, just as the various evil spirits in the world do, but he never approaches the position of an independent creator of evil.[1785] The Celtic deities Llew and Dylan are said to stand over against each other and to represent good and bad tendencies and elements of life; but they are not very distinct and are probably nothing more than somewhat developed local deities.[1786] In the Chinese and Japanese cults there is no indication of a conflict; evil spirits there are in abundance, but no cosmic antagonism.

975. In India the cosmogonic myths are to be interpreted in the same way as those mentioned above. Soma and Indra, as slayers of the demon Vritya, represent order as against disorder, but Vritya never had cultic significance; he appears only as a bodily demonstration of the power of the great gods. The asuras are not essentially different from the harmful spirits of savages, though it is true that they come into conflict with the friendly gods. Rahu, who causes eclipses by swallowing the sun, is only a nature deity of great might. In the Mahabharata there are powerful demons, and the Civaite cult includes the worship of dread beings, but such worship only reflects the fear of the unfriendly elements of physical nature.[1787] Nor do we find in the persons of Durga, Kali, and the Yakshas, unpleasantly savage as these are, a conception of evil as an organized force directed against the good gods; they are rather the embodiment of evil human dispositions. The underground demons are punishers of sin, but not themselves morally evil. There is, it is true, in the Hindu religious scheme the general antithesis of light and darkness, which are connected with right and wrong—an antithesis that appears abundantly in other religious systems;[1788] but the powers of darkness are not organized against the powers of light, and there is no complete dualism, though we have here, perhaps, the starting-point for such a conception.

976. While thus a vague sense of duality has existed all over the world, and in certain cases, as it seems, there were vague attempts at organization, it is only in Zoroastrianism that the decisive step has been taken. We have to recognize in this system a distinct movement towards a unitary conception of the world; but the sense of difference in human experiences was so great in the mind of the creators of the system that they were led to a unification in two divisions.[1789] The origin of the movement lies far back at a time when there were no records of thought and social movements, and it is impossible now to say definitely what were the original elements of the cult. We may surmise that there was an Indo-Iranian conception of a general contrast between light and darkness, and that this was the starting-point or the basis of the developed Iranian theological system. The old Indic and the old Iranian religions seem to have been independent developments from a common original mass of material; but we do not know what determined the differences in the two developments. The constructions were the work, doubtless, of successions of reformers, but the details of these long-continued efforts have not come down to us.[1790] The essential point is that the evil mass in the world was conceived of as a unity by the Iranians and assigned a head, Angro Mainyu. This name does not occur in the Achaemenian inscriptions, but it is mentioned in the Gathas and by Aristotle,[1791] so that it appears to belong to an early stratum of the Iranian religion. The present state of the world is regarded as the result of a constant series of antagonisms between the two creators, Spenta Mainyu (Ahura Mazda) and Angro Mainyu, these being attended each by a circle of helpers. A polytheistic interpretation of the helpers is avoided by making them abstractions (though with a tendency toward personification), the representatives of various features or elements in the government of the world or in the experiences of men.[1792]

977. A strictly dualistic system recognizes only two Powers in the world. The Avestan religion, however, admits other deities besides Ahura Mazda and Angro Mainyu; Mitra, Anahita, and others are objects of worship. The ancient national faiths, that is, were not content with a simple division of things between two divine beings. An approach to such a view was made by Judaism, which, partly under Persian influence, produced the figure of the Satan, a quasi-independent being hostile to the Supreme Deity.[1793] Christianity, adopting this conception from Judaism, elaborated it into the person of the Devil, the veritable head of a kingdom of evil, called in the New Testament "the god of this age."[1794] Though doomed to final defeat, as Ahriman in the Avesta is doomed, the Devil in the orthodox Christian system is practically omnipresent and is powerful enough to defeat the plans of God in many cases. In modern enlightened Christian feeling, however, he has become little more than a name. Though he is credited in theory with suggesting evil and alluring men to sin, this dogma has small force in the better minds against the strong conviction of individual freedom and responsibility. Current Christianity, in its highest forms, is theoretically, but not really, dualistic. The Satan is taken more seriously by Islam, which has adopted the conception from Christianity and Judaism.[1795] For the ordinary Moslem he belongs in the category of evil spirits and is as real as one of the jinn; he may be cursed and stoned and driven away,[1796] but he does not affect the Moslem belief in the oneness of God.