The Ram.

[224]Frobenius, "The Voice of Africa," vol. ii., p. 467inter alia.[225]Op. cit., p. 468.[226]J. F. Campbell, "The Celtic Dragon Myth," with the "Geste of Fraoch and the Dragon," translated with Introduction by George Henderson, Edinburgh, 1911, p. 136.[227]For example the red deer occupies the place usually taken by the goddess's lions upon a Cretan gem (Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," Fig. 32, p. 56): on the bronze plate from Heddemheim (A. B. Cook, "Zeus," vol. i., pl. xxxiv., and p. 620) Isis is represented standing on a hind: Artemis, anotheravatarof the same Great Mother, was intimately associated with deer.[228]J. de Morgan, article on "Koudourrous,"Mem. Del. en Perse, t. 7, 1905. Figures on p. 143 and p. 148: see also an earlier article on the same subject in tome i. of the same series.[229]A. B. Cook, "Zeus," vol. i., p. 674.

[224]Frobenius, "The Voice of Africa," vol. ii., p. 467inter alia.

[225]Op. cit., p. 468.

[226]J. F. Campbell, "The Celtic Dragon Myth," with the "Geste of Fraoch and the Dragon," translated with Introduction by George Henderson, Edinburgh, 1911, p. 136.

[227]For example the red deer occupies the place usually taken by the goddess's lions upon a Cretan gem (Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," Fig. 32, p. 56): on the bronze plate from Heddemheim (A. B. Cook, "Zeus," vol. i., pl. xxxiv., and p. 620) Isis is represented standing on a hind: Artemis, anotheravatarof the same Great Mother, was intimately associated with deer.

[228]J. de Morgan, article on "Koudourrous,"Mem. Del. en Perse, t. 7, 1905. Figures on p. 143 and p. 148: see also an earlier article on the same subject in tome i. of the same series.

[229]A. B. Cook, "Zeus," vol. i., p. 674.

The close association of the ram with the thunder-god is probably related with the fact that the sun-god Amon in Egypt was represented by the ram with a distinctive spiral horn. This spiral became a distinctive feature of the god of thunder throughout the Hellenic and Phœnician worlds and in those parts of Africa which were affected by their influence or directly by Egypt.

An account of the widespread influence of the ram-headed god of thunder in the Soudan and West Africa has been given by Frobenius.[230]

But the ram also became associated with Agni, the Indian fire-god, and the spiral as a head-appendage became the symbol of thunder throughout China and Japan, and from Asia spread to America where such deities as Tlaloc still retain this distinctive token of their origin from the Old World.

In Europe this association of the ram and its spiral horn played an even more obtrusive part.

The octopus as a surrogate of the Great Mother was primarily responsible for the development of the life-giving attributes of the spiral motif. But the close connexion of the Great Mother with the dragon and the thunder-weapon prepared the way for the special association of the spiral with thunder, which was confirmed when the ram with its spiral horn became the God of Thunder.

[230]Op. cit., vol. i., pp. 212-27.

The relationship of the pig to the dragon is on the whole analogous to that of the cow and the stag, for it can play either a beneficent or a malevolent part. But the nature of the special circumstances which gave the pig a peculiar notoriety as an unclean animal are so intimately associated with the "Birth of Aphrodite" that I shall defer the discussion of them for my lecture on the history of the goddess.

Throughout the greater part of the area which tradition has peopled with dragons, iron is regarded as peculiarly lethal to the monsters. This seems to be due to the part played by the "smiths" who forged iron weapons with which Horus overcame Set and his followers,[231]or in the earlier versions of the legend the metal weapons by means of which the people of Upper Egypt secured their historic victory over the Lower Egyptians. But the association of meteoric iron with the thunderbolt, the traditional weapon for destroying dragons, gave added force to the ancient legend and made it peculiarly apt as an incident in the story.

But though the dragon is afraid of iron, he likes precious gems andk'ung-ts'ing("The Stone of Darkness") and is fond of roasted swallows.

The partiality of dragons for swallows was due to the transmission of a very ancient story of the Great Mother, who in the form of Isis was identified with the swallow. In China, so ravenous is the monster for this delicacy, that anyone who has eaten of swallows should avoid crossing the water, lest the dragon whose home is in the deep should devour the traveller to secure the dainty morsel of swallow. But those who pray for rain use swallows to attract the beneficent deity. Even in England swallows flying low are believed to be omens of coming rain—a tale which is about as reliable as the Chinese variant of the same ancient legend.

"The beautiful gems remind us of the Indian dragons; the pearls of the sea were, of course, in India as well as China and Japan, considered to be in the special possession of the dragon-shaped sea-gods" (de Visser, p. 69). The cultural drift from West to East along the southern coast of India was effected mainly by sailors who were searching for pearls. Sharks constituted the special dangers the divers had to incur in exploiting pearl-beds to obtain the precious "giver of life". But at the time these great enterprises were first undertaken in the Indian Ocean the people dwelling in the neighbourhood of the chief pearl-beds regarded the sea as the great source of all life-giving virtues and the god who exercised these powers was incarnated in a fish. The sharks therefore had to be brought into harmony with this scheme, andthey were rationalized as the guardians of the storehouse of life-giving pearls at the bottom of the sea.

I do not propose to discuss at present the diffusion to the East of the beliefs concerning the shark and the modifications which they underwent in the course of these migrations in Melanesia and elsewhere; but in my lecture upon "the Birth of Aphrodite" I shall have occasion to refer to its spread to the West and explain how the shark's rôle was transferred to the dog-fish in the Mediterranean. The dog-fish then assumed a terrestrial form and became simply the dog who plays such a strange part in the magical ceremony of digging up the mandrake.

At present we are concerned merely with the shark as the guardian of the stores of pearls at the bottom of the sea. He became identified with the Nâga and the dragon, and the store of pearls became a vast treasure-house which it became one of the chief functions of the dragon to guard. This episode in the wonder-beast's varied career has a place in most of the legends ranging from Western Europe to Farthest Asia. Sometimes the dragon carries a pearl under his tongue or in his chin as a reserve of life-giving substance.

Mr. Donald Mackenzie has called attention[232]to the remarkable influence upon the development of the Dragon Myth of the familiar Egyptian representation of the child Horus with a finger touching his lips. On some pretence or other, many of the European dragon-slaying heroes, such as Sigurd and the Highland Finn, place their fingers in their mouths. This action is usually rationalized by the statement that the hero burnt his fingers while cooking the slain monster.

[231]Budge, "Gods of the Egyptians," vol. i., p. 476.[232]"Egyptian Myth and Legend," pp. 340et seq.

[231]Budge, "Gods of the Egyptians," vol. i., p. 476.

[232]"Egyptian Myth and Legend," pp. 340et seq.

So far in this discussion I have been dealing mainly with the problems of the dragon's evolution, the attainment of his or her distinctive anatomical features and physiological attributes. But during this process of development a moral and ethical aspect of the dragon's character was also emerging.

Now that we have realized the fact of the dragon's homology with the moon-god it is important to remember that one of the primary functions of this deity, which later became specialized in the Egyptiangod Thoth, was the measuring of time and the keeping of records. The moon, in fact, was the controller of accuracy, of truth, and order, and therefore the enemy of falsehood and chaos. The identification of the moon with Osiris, who from a dead king eventually developed into a king of the dead, conferred upon the great Father of Waters the power to exact from men respect for truth and order. For even if at first these ideas were only vaguely adumbrated and not expressed in set phrases, it must have been an incentive to good discipline when men remembered that the record-keeper and the guardian of law and order was also the deity upon whose tender mercies they would have to rely in the life after death. Set, the enemy of Osiris, who is the real prototype of the evil dragon, was the antithesis of the god of justice: he was the father of falsehood and the symbol of chaos. He was the prototype of Satan, as Osiris was the first definite representative of the Deity of which any record has been preserved.

The history of the evil dragon is not merely the evolution of the devil, but it also affords the explanation of his traditional peculiarities, his bird-like features, his horns, his red colour, his wings and cloven hoofs, and his tail. They are all of them the dragon's distinctive features; and from time to time in the history of past ages we catch glimpses of the reality of these identifications. In one of the earliest woodcuts (Fig. 17) found in a printed book Satan is depicted as a monk with the bird's feet of the dragon. A most interesting intermediate phase is seen in a Chinese water-colour in the John Rylands Library, in which the thunder-dragon is represented in a form almost exactly reproducing that of the devil of European tradition (Fig. 16).

Fig. 16.—The God Of Thunder (From a Chinese drawing (? 17th Century) in the John Rylands Library)Fig. 16.—The God Of Thunder(From a Chinese drawing (? 17th Century) in the John Rylands Library)

Fig. 16.—The God Of Thunder(From a Chinese drawing (? 17th Century) in the John Rylands Library)

Fig. 16.—The God Of Thunder

(From a Chinese drawing (? 17th Century) in the John Rylands Library)

Fig. 17.—From Joannes de Turrecremata's "Meditationes seu Contemplationes". Romæ: Ulrich Hau. 1467Fig. 17.—From Joannes de Turrecremata's "Meditationes seu Contemplationes". Romæ: Ulrich Hau. 1467

Fig. 17.—From Joannes de Turrecremata's "Meditationes seu Contemplationes". Romæ: Ulrich Hau. 1467

Early in the Christian era, when ancient beliefs in Egypt became disguised under a thin veneer of Christianity, the story of the conflict between Horus and Set was converted into a conflict between Christ and Satan. M. Clermont-Ganneau has described an interesting bas-relief in the Louvre in which a hawk-headed St. George, clad in Roman military uniform and mounted on a horse, is slaying a dragon which is represented by Set's crocodile.[233]But the Biblical references to Satan leave no doubt as to his identity with the dragon, who isspecifically mentioned in the Book of Revelations as "the old serpent which is the Devil and Satan" (xx. 2).

The devil Set was symbolic of disorder and darkness, while the god Osiris was the maintainer of order and the giver of light. Although the moon-god, in the form of Osiris, Thoth and other deities, thus came to acquire the moral attributes of a just judge, who regulated the movements of the celestial bodies, controlled the waters upon the earth, and was responsible for the maintenance of order in the Universe, the ethical aspect of his functions was in large measure disguised by the material importance of his duties. In Babylonia similar views were held with respect to the beneficent water-god Ea, who was the giver of civilization, order and justice, and Sin, the moon-god, who "had attained a high position in the Babylonian pantheon," as "the guide of the stars and the planets, the overseer of the world at night". "From that conception a god of high moral character soon developed." "He is an extremely beneficent deity, he is a king, he is the ruler of men, he produces order and stability, like Shamash and like the Indian Varuṇa and Mitra, but besides that, he is also a judge, he loosens the bonds of the imprisoned, like Varuṇa. His light, like that of Varuṇa, is the symbol of righteousness.... Like the Indian Varuṇa and the Iranian Mazdâh, he is a god of wisdom."

When these Egyptian and Babylonian ideas were borrowed by the Aryans, and the Iranian Mazdâh and the Indian Varuṇa assumed the rôle of the beneficent deity of the former more ancient civilizations, the material aspect of the functions of the moon-god became less obtrusive; and there gradually emerged the conception, to which Zarathushtra first gave concrete expression, of the beneficent god Ahura Mazdâh as "an omniscient protector of morality and creator of marvellous power and knowledge". "He is the most-knowing one, and the most-seeing one. No one can deceive him. He watches with radiant eyes everything that is done in open or in secret." "Although he has a strong personality he has no anthropomorphic features." He has shed the material aspects which loomed so large in his Egyptian, Babylonian and earlier Aryan prototypes, and a more ethereal conception of a God of the highest ethical qualities has emerged.

The whole of this process of transformation has been described with deep insight and lucid exposition by Professor Cumont, from whose important and convincing memoir I have quoted so freely in the foregoing paragraphs.[234]

The creation of a beneficent Deity of such moral grandeur inevitably emphasized the baseness and the malevolence of the "Power of Evil". No longer are the gods merely glorified human beings who can work good or evil as they will; but there is now an all-powerful God controlling the morals of the universe, and in opposition to Him "the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan".

[233]"Horus et St. George d'après un bas-relief inedit du Louvre,"Revue Archéologique, Nouvelle Série, t. xxxii., 1876, p. 196, pl. xviii. It is right to explain that M. Clermont-Ganneau's interpretation of this relief has not been accepted by all scholars.[234]Albert J. Carnoy, "The Moral Deities of Iran and India and their Origins,"The American Journal of Theology, vol. xxi., No. 1, Jan. 1917, p. 58.

[234]Albert J. Carnoy, "The Moral Deities of Iran and India and their Origins,"The American Journal of Theology, vol. xxi., No. 1, Jan. 1917, p. 58.

It may seem ungallant to discuss the birth of Aphrodite as part of the story of the evolution of the dragon. But the other chapters of this book, in which frequent references have been made to the early history of the Great Mother, have revealed how vital a part she played in the development of the dragon. The earliest real dragon was Tiamat, one of the forms assumed by the Great Mother; and an even earlier prototype was the lioness (Sekhet) manifestation of Hathor.

Thus it becomes necessary to enquire more fully (than has been done in the other chapters) into the circumstances of the Great Mother's birth and development, and to investigate certain aspects of her ontogeny to which only scant attention has been paid in the preceding pages.

Several reasons have led me to select Aphrodite from the vast legion of Great Mothers for special consideration. In spite of her high specialization in certain directions the Greek goddess of love retains in greater measure than any of her sisters some of the most primitive associations of her original parent. Like vestigial structures in biology, these traits afford invaluable evidence, not only of Aphrodite's own ancestry and early history, but also of that of the whole family of goddesses of which she is only a specialized type. For Aphrodite's connexion with shells is a survival of the circumstances which called into existence the first Great Mother and made her not only the Creator of mankind and the universe, but also the parent of all deities, as she was historically the first to be created by human inventiveness. In this lecture I propose to deal with the more general aspects of the evolution of all these daughters of the Great Mother:but I have used Aphrodite's name in the title because her shell-associations can be demonstrated more clearly and definitely than those of any of her sisters.

In the past a vast array of learning has been brought to bear upon the problems of Aphrodite's origin; but this effort has, for the most part, been characterized by a narrowness of vision and a lack of adequate appreciation of the more vital factors in her embryological history. In the search for the deep human motives that found specific expression in the great goddess of love, too little attention has been paid to primitive man's psychology, and his persistent striving for an elixir of life to avert the risk of death, to renew youth and secure a continuance of existence after death. On the other hand, the possibility of obtaining any real explanation has been dashed aside by most scholars, who have been content simply to juggle with certain stereotyped catchphrases and baseless assumptions, simply because the traditions of classical scholarship have made these devices the pawns in a rather aimless game.

It is unnecessary to cite specific illustrations in support of this statement. Reference to any of the standard works on classical archæology, such as Roscher's "Lexikon," will testify to the truth of my accusation. In her "Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion" Miss Jane Harrison devotes a chapter (VI) to "The Making of a Goddess," and discusses "The Birth of Aphrodite". But she strictly observes the traditions of the classical method; and assumes that the meaning of the myth of Aphrodite's birth from the sea—the germs of which are at least fifty centuries old—can be decided by the omission of any representation of the sea in the decoration of a pot made in the fifth centuryb.c.!

But apart from this general criticism, the lack of resourcefulness and open mindedness, certain more specific factors have deflected classical scholars from the true path. In the search for the ancestry of Aphrodite, they have concentrated their attention too exclusively upon the Mediterranean area and Western Asia, and so ignored the most ancient of the historic Great Mothers, the African Hathor, with whom (as Sir Arthur Evans[236]clearly demonstrated more than fifteen years ago) the Cypriote goddess has much closer affinities than withany of her Asiatic sisters. Yet no scholar, either on the Greek or Egyptian side, has seriously attempted to follow up this clue and really investigate the nature of the connexions between Aphrodite and Hathor, and the history of the development of their respective specializations of functions.[237]

But some explanation must be given for my temerity in venturing to invade the intensively cultivated domains of Aphrodite "with a mind undebauched by classical learning". I have already explained how the study of Libations and Dragons brought me face to face with the problems of the Great Mother's attributes. At that stage of the enquiry two circumstances directed my attention specifically to Aphrodite. Mr. Wilfrid Jackson was collecting the data relating to the cultural uses of shells, which he has since incorporated in a book.[238]As the results of his search accumulated, the fact soon emerged thatthe original Great Mother was nothing more than a cowry-shell used as a life-giving amulet; and that Aphrodite's shell-associations were a survival of the earliest phase in the Great Mother's history. At this psychological moment Dr. Rendel Harris[239]claimed that Aphrodite was a personification of the mandrake. But the magical attributes of the mandrake, which he claimed to have been responsible for converting the amulet into a goddess, were identical with those which Jackson's investigations had previously led me to regard as the reasons for deriving Aphrodite from the cowry. The mandrake was clearly a surrogate of the shell or vice versa.[240]The problem to be solved was to decide which amulet was responsible for suggesting the process of life-giving. The goddess Aphrodite was closely related to Cyprus; the mandrake was a magical plant there; and the cowry is so intimately associated with the island as to be calledCypræa. So far as is known, however, the shell-amulet is vastly more ancient than the magical reputation of the plant. Moreover, we know why the cowry was regarded as feminine and accredited with life-giving attributes. There are no such reasons for assigning life-giving powers or the female sex to the mandrake. The claim that its magical properties are due to the fancied resemblance of its root to a human being is wholly untenable.[241]The roots of many plants are at least as manlike; and, even if this character was the exclusive property of the mandrake, how does it help to explain the remarkable repetory of quite arbitrary and fantastic properties and the female sex assigned to the plant? Sir James Frazer's claim[242]that "such beliefs and practices illustrate the primitive tendency to personify nature" is a gratuitous and quite irrelevant assumption, which offers no explanation whatsoever of the specific and arbitrary nature of the form assumed by the personification. But when we investigate the historical development of the peculiarattributes of the cowry-shell, and appreciate why and how they were acquired, any doubt as to the source from which the mandrake obtained its "magic" is removed; and with it the fallacy of Sir James Frazer's wholly unwarranted claims is also exposed.

If we ignore Sir James Frazer's naïve speculations we can make use of the compilations of evidence which he makes with such remarkable assiduity. But it is more profitable to turn to the study of the remarkable lectures which Dr. Rendel Harris has been delivering in this room[243]during the last few years. Our genial friend has been cultivating his garden on the slopes of Olympus,[244]and has been plucking the rich fruits of his ripe scholarship and nimble wit. At the same time, with rougher implements and cruder methods, I have been burrowing in the depths of the earth, trying to recover information concerning the habits and thoughts of mankind many centuries before Dionysus and Apollo, and Artemis and Aphrodite, were dreamt of.

In the course of these subterranean gropings no one was more surprised than I was to discover that I was getting entangled in the roots of the same plants whose golden fruit Dr. Rendel Harris was gathering from his Olympian heights. But the contrast in our respective points of view was perhaps responsible for the different appearance the growths assumed.

To drop the metaphor, while he was searching for the origins of the deities a few centuries before the Christian era began, I was finding their more or less larval forms flourishing more than twenty centuries before the commencement of his story. For the gods and goddesses of his narrative were only the thinly disguised representatives of much more ancient deities decked out in the sumptuous habiliments of Greek culture.

In his lecture on Aphrodite, Dr. Rendel Harris claimed that the goddess was a personification of the mandrake; and I think he made out a good prima facie case in support of his thesis. But other scholars have set forth equally valid reasons for associating Aphrodite with the argonaut, the octopus, the purpura, and a variety of other shells, both univalves and bivalves.[245]

The goddess has also been regarded as a personification of water,the ocean, or its foam.[246]Then again she is closely linked with pigs, cows, lions, deer, goats, rams, dolphins, and a host of other creatures, not forgetting the dove, the swallow, the partridge, the sparling, the goose, and the swan.[247]

The mandrake theory does not explain, or give adequate recognition to, any of these facts. Nor does Dr. Rendel Harris suggest why it is so dangerous an operation to dig up the mandrake which he identifies with the goddess, or why it is essential to secure the assistance of a dog[248]in the process. The explanation of this fantastic fable gives an important clue to Aphrodite's antecedents.

[235]An elaboration of a lecture delivered at the John Rylands Library, on 14 November, 1917.[236]"Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 52. Compare also A. E. W. Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," Vol. I, p. 435.[237]With a strange disregard of Sir Arthur Evans's "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," Mr. H. R. Hall makes the following remarks in his "Ægean Archæology" (p. 150): "The origin of the goddess Aphrodite has long been taken for granted. It has been regarded as a settled fact that she was Semitic, and came to Greece from Phœnicia or Cyprus. But the new discoveries have thrown this, like other received ideas, into the melting-pot, for the Minoans undoubtedly worshipped an Aphrodite. We see her, naked and with her doves, on gold plaques from one of the Mycenæan shaft-graves (Schuchhardt,Schliemann, Figs. 180, 181), which must be as old as the First Late Minoan period (c.1600-1500b.c.), and—not rising from the foam, but sailing over it—in a boat, naked, on the lost gold ring from Mochlos. It is evident now that she was not only a Canaanitish-Syrian goddess, but was common to all the people of the Levant. She is Aphrodite-Paphia in Cyprus, Ashtaroth-Astarte in Canaan, Atargatis in Syria, Derketo in Philistria, Hathor in Egypt; what the Minoans called her we do not know, unless she was Britomartis. She must take her place by the side of Rhea-Diktynna in the Minoan pantheon."It is not without interest to note that on the Mochlos ring the goddess is sailing in a papyrus float of Egyptian type, like the moon-goddess in her crescent moon.The association of this early representative of Aphrodite with doves is of special interest in view of Highnard's attempt ("Le Mythe de Venus,"Annales du Musée Guimet, T. 1, 1880, p. 23) to derive the name of "la déesse à la colombe" from the Chaldean and Phœnicianphritorphrutmeaning "a dove".Mr. Hall might have extended his list of homologues to Mesopotamia, Iran, and India, to Europe and Further Asia, to America, and, in fact, every part of the world that harbours goddesses.[238]"Shells as Evidence of the Migration of Early Culture."[239]"The Ascent of Olympus."[240]A striking confirmation of the fact that the mandrake is really a surrogate of the cowry is afforded by the practice in modern Greece of using the mandrake carried in a leather bag in the same way (and for the same magical purpose as a love philtre) as the Baganda of East Africa use the cowry (in a leather bag) at the present time.[241]Old Gerade was frank enough to admit that he "never could perceive shape of man or woman" (quoted by Rendel Harris,op. cit., p. 110).[242]"Jacob and the Mandrakes,"Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. VIII, p. 22.[243]The John Rylands Library.[244]"The Ascent of Olympus."[245]See the memoirs by Tümpel, Jahn, Houssay, and Jackson, to which reference is made elsewhere in these pages.[246]The well-known circumstantial story told in Hesiod's theogony.[247]See the article "Aphrodite" in Roscher's "Lexikon".[248]Sir James Frazer's claim that the incident of the ass in a late Jewish story of Jacob and the mandrakes (op. cit., p. 20) "helps us to understand the function of the dog," is quite unsupported. The learned guardian of the Golden Bough does not explainhowit helps us to understand.

[235]An elaboration of a lecture delivered at the John Rylands Library, on 14 November, 1917.

[236]"Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 52. Compare also A. E. W. Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," Vol. I, p. 435.

[237]With a strange disregard of Sir Arthur Evans's "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," Mr. H. R. Hall makes the following remarks in his "Ægean Archæology" (p. 150): "The origin of the goddess Aphrodite has long been taken for granted. It has been regarded as a settled fact that she was Semitic, and came to Greece from Phœnicia or Cyprus. But the new discoveries have thrown this, like other received ideas, into the melting-pot, for the Minoans undoubtedly worshipped an Aphrodite. We see her, naked and with her doves, on gold plaques from one of the Mycenæan shaft-graves (Schuchhardt,Schliemann, Figs. 180, 181), which must be as old as the First Late Minoan period (c.1600-1500b.c.), and—not rising from the foam, but sailing over it—in a boat, naked, on the lost gold ring from Mochlos. It is evident now that she was not only a Canaanitish-Syrian goddess, but was common to all the people of the Levant. She is Aphrodite-Paphia in Cyprus, Ashtaroth-Astarte in Canaan, Atargatis in Syria, Derketo in Philistria, Hathor in Egypt; what the Minoans called her we do not know, unless she was Britomartis. She must take her place by the side of Rhea-Diktynna in the Minoan pantheon."It is not without interest to note that on the Mochlos ring the goddess is sailing in a papyrus float of Egyptian type, like the moon-goddess in her crescent moon.The association of this early representative of Aphrodite with doves is of special interest in view of Highnard's attempt ("Le Mythe de Venus,"Annales du Musée Guimet, T. 1, 1880, p. 23) to derive the name of "la déesse à la colombe" from the Chaldean and Phœnicianphritorphrutmeaning "a dove".Mr. Hall might have extended his list of homologues to Mesopotamia, Iran, and India, to Europe and Further Asia, to America, and, in fact, every part of the world that harbours goddesses.

It is not without interest to note that on the Mochlos ring the goddess is sailing in a papyrus float of Egyptian type, like the moon-goddess in her crescent moon.

The association of this early representative of Aphrodite with doves is of special interest in view of Highnard's attempt ("Le Mythe de Venus,"Annales du Musée Guimet, T. 1, 1880, p. 23) to derive the name of "la déesse à la colombe" from the Chaldean and Phœnicianphritorphrutmeaning "a dove".

Mr. Hall might have extended his list of homologues to Mesopotamia, Iran, and India, to Europe and Further Asia, to America, and, in fact, every part of the world that harbours goddesses.

[238]"Shells as Evidence of the Migration of Early Culture."

[239]"The Ascent of Olympus."

[240]A striking confirmation of the fact that the mandrake is really a surrogate of the cowry is afforded by the practice in modern Greece of using the mandrake carried in a leather bag in the same way (and for the same magical purpose as a love philtre) as the Baganda of East Africa use the cowry (in a leather bag) at the present time.

[241]Old Gerade was frank enough to admit that he "never could perceive shape of man or woman" (quoted by Rendel Harris,op. cit., p. 110).

[242]"Jacob and the Mandrakes,"Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. VIII, p. 22.

[243]The John Rylands Library.

[244]"The Ascent of Olympus."

[245]See the memoirs by Tümpel, Jahn, Houssay, and Jackson, to which reference is made elsewhere in these pages.

[246]The well-known circumstantial story told in Hesiod's theogony.

[247]See the article "Aphrodite" in Roscher's "Lexikon".

[248]Sir James Frazer's claim that the incident of the ass in a late Jewish story of Jacob and the mandrakes (op. cit., p. 20) "helps us to understand the function of the dog," is quite unsupported. The learned guardian of the Golden Bough does not explainhowit helps us to understand.

In delving into the remotely distant history of our species we cannot fail to be impressed with the persistence with which, throughout the whole of his career, man (of the speciessapiens) has been seeking[249]for an elixir of life, to give added "vitality" to the dead (whose existence was not consciously regarded as ended), to prolong the days of active life to the living, to restore youth, and to protect his own life from all assaults, not merely of time, but also of circumstance. In other words, the elixir he sought was something that would bring "good luck" in all the events of his life and its continuation. Most of the amulets, even of modern times, the lucky trinkets, the averters of the "Evil Eye," the practices and devices for securing good luck in love and sport, in curing bodily ills or mental distress, in attaining material prosperity, or a continuation of existence after death, are survivals of this ancient and persistent striving after those objects which our earliest forefathers called collectively the "givers of life".

From statements in the earliest literature[250]that has come down to us from antiquity, no less than from the views that still prevail amongthe relatively more primitive peoples of the present day, it is clear that originally man did not consciously formulate a belief in immortality.

It was rather the result of a defect of thinking, or as the modern psychologist would express it, an instinctive repression of the unpleasant idea that death would come to him personally, that primitive man refused to contemplate or to entertain the possibility of life coming to an end. So intense was his instinctive love of life and dread of such physical damage as would destroy his body that man unconsciously avoided thinking of the chance of his own death: hence his belief in the continuance of life cannot be regarded as the outcome of an active process of constructive thought.

This may seem altogether paradoxical and incredible.

How, it may be asked, can man be said to repress the idea of death, if he instinctively refused to admit its possibility? How did he escape the inevitable process of applying to himself the analogy he might have been supposed to make from other men's experience and recognize that he must die?

Man appreciated the fact that he could kill an animal or another man by inflicting certain physical injuries on him. But at first he seems to have believed that if he could avoid such direct assaults upon himself, his life would flow on unchecked. When death does occur and the onlookers recognize the reality, it is still the practice among certain relatively primitive people to search for the man who has inflicted death on his fellow.

It would, of course, be absurd to pretend that any people could fail to recognize the reality of death in the great majority of cases. The mere fact of burial is an indication of this. But the point of difference between the views of these early men and ourselves, was the tacit assumption on the part of the former, that in spite of the obvious changes in his body (which made inhumation or some other procedure necessary) the deceased was still continuing an existence not unlike that which he enjoyed previously, only somewhat duller, less eventful and more precarious. He still needed food and drink, as he did before, and all the paraphernalia of his mortal life, but he was dependent upon his relatives for the maintenance of his existence.

Such views were difficult of acceptance by a thoughtful people, once they appreciated the fact of the disintegration of the corpse in the grave; and in course of time it was regarded as essential for continuedexistence that the body should be preserved. The idea developed, that so long as the body of the deceased was preserved and there were restored to it all the elements of vitality which it had lost at death, the continuance of existence was theoretically possible and worthy of acceptance as an article of faith.

Let us consider for a moment what were considered to be elements of vitality by the earliest members of our species.[251]

From the remotest times man seems to have been aware of the fact that he could kill animals or his fellow men by means of certain physical injuries. He associated these results with the effusion of blood. The loss of blood could cause unconsciousness and death. Blood, therefore, must be the vehicle of consciousness and life, the material whose escape from the body could bring life to an end.[252]

The first pictures painted by man, with which we are at present acquainted, are found upon the walls and roofs of certain caves in Southern France and Spain. They were the work of the earliest known representatives of our own species,Homo sapiens, in the phase of culture now distinguished by the name "Aurignacian".

The animals man was in the habit of hunting for food are depicted.[253]In some of them arrows are shown implanted in the animal's flank near the region of the heart; and in others the heart itself is represented.

This implies that at this distant time in the history of our species, it was already realized how vital a spot in the animal's anatomy the heart was. But even long before man began to speculate about the functions of the heart, he must have learned to associate the loss of blood on the part of man or animals with death, and to regard the pouring out of blood as the escape of its vitality. Many factors must have contributed to the new advance in physiology which made the heart the centre or the chief habitation of vitality, volition, feeling, and knowledge.

Not merely the empirical fact, acquired by experience in hunting, of the peculiarly vulnerable nature of the heart, but perhaps also the knowledge that the heart contained life-giving blood, helped indeveloping the ideas about its functions as the bestower of life and consciousness.

The palpitation of the heart after severe exertion or under the influence of intense emotion would impress the early physiologist with the relationship of the heart to the feelings, and afford confirmation of his earlier ideas of its functions.

But whatever the explanation, it is known from the folk-lore of even the most unsophisticated peoples that the heart was originally regarded as the seat of life, feeling, volition, and knowledge, and that the blood was the life-stream. The Aurignacian pictures in the caves of Western Europe suggest that these beliefs were extremely ancient.

The evidence at our disposal seems to indicate that not only were such ideas of physiology current in Aurignacian times, but also certain cultural applications of them had been inaugurated even then. The remarkable method of blood-letting by chopping off part of a finger seems to have been practised even in Aurignacian times.[254]

If it is legitimate to attempt to guess at the meaning these early people attached to so singular a procedure, we may be guided by the ideas associated with this act in outlying corners of the world at the present time. On these grounds we may surmise that the motive underlying this, and other later methods of blood-letting, such as circumcision, piercing the ears, lips, and tongue, gashing the limbs and body, et cetera, was the offering of the life-giving fluid.

Once it was recognized that the state of unconsciousness or death was due to the loss of blood it was a not illogical or irrational procedure to imagine that offerings of blood might restore consciousness and life to the dead.[255]If the blood was seriously believed to be the vehicle of feeling and knowledge, the exchange of blood or the offering of blood to the community was a reasonable method for initiating anyone into the wider knowledge of and sympathy with his fellow-men.

Blood-letting, therefore, played a part in a great variety of ceremonies, of burial and of initiation, and also those of a therapeutic[256]and, later, of a religious significance.

But from Aurignacian times onwards, it seems to have been admitted that substitutes for blood might be endowed with a similar potency.

The extensive use of red ochre or other red materials for packing around the bodies of the dead was presumably inspired by the idea that materials simulating blood-stained earth, were endowed with the same life-giving properties as actual blood poured out upon the ground in similar vitalizing ceremonies.

As the shedding of blood produced unconsciousness, the offering of blood or red ochre was, therefore, a logical and practical means of restoring consciousness and reinforcing the element of vitality which was diminished or lost in the corpse.

The common statement that primitive man was a fantastically irrational child is based upon a fallacy. He was probably as well endowed mentally as his modern successors; and was as logical and rational as they are; but many of his premises were wrong, and he hadn't the necessary body of accumulated wisdom to help him to correct his false assumptions.

If primitive man regarded the dead as still existing, but with a reduced vitality, it was a not irrational procedure on the part of the people of the Reindeer Epoch in Europe to pack the dead in red ochre (which they regarded as a surrogate of the life-giving fluid) to make good the lack of vitality in the corpse.

If blood was the vehicle of consciousness and knowledge, the exchange of blood was clearly a logical procedure for establishing communion of thought and feeling and so enabling an initiate to assimilate the traditions of his people.

If red carnelian was a surrogate of blood the wearing of bracelets or necklaces of this life-giving material was a proper means of warding off danger to life and of securing good luck.

If red paint or the colour red brought these magical results, it was clearly justifiable to resort to its use.

All these procedures are logical. It is only the premises that were erroneous.

The persistence of such customs in Ancient Egypt makes it possible for us to obtain literary evidence to support the inferences drawn from archæological data of a more remote age. For instance, the red jasper amulet sometimes called the "girdle-tie of Isis," was supposed to represent the blood of the goddess and was applied to the mummy "to stimulate the functions of his blood";[257]or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it was intended to add to the vital substance which was so obviously lacking in the corpse.

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