“The Mandans believed that the earth rests on four tortoises. They say that “each tortoise rained ten days, making forty days in all, and the waters covered the earth” (vide “O-kea-pa,” [p. 39], infra, [ch. xi.]) Does not this tradition of the tortoise decide the Oriental origin of the North American Mandans?
Falconer’s “Palæontological Mem.,” 1868, i. 297, ii. 377–573, &c., “As the pterodactyle more than realised the most extravagant idea of the winged dragon, so does this huge tortoise come up to the lofty conceptions of Hindoo mythology; and could we but recall the monsters to life, it were not difficult to imagine an elephant supported on its back”(i. 27).
The New Zealanders have a curious tradition of their ancestors having encountered a gigantic saurian species of reptile, which must have been before they arrived in New Zealand. Vide Shortland’s “Traditions of the New Zealanders,” p. 73.
[117] I have elsewhere (vide [ch. iv.], et seq., [x.], [xi.]) traced the tradition of the Deluge, of the chronology of the world, &c., &c.
[118] Devil-worship is based upon the hypothesis that the evil spirit exists, and is the influence from which man has most to dread. Prudence suggests that it is wise to propitiate evil when it is powerful; and if “the existence of God is not assumed,” or the conception of God not yet developed, it is hard to see how the conclusion can be impugned; and (vide next page) Mr Baring Gould endorses Grimm’s opinion that man’s first “idea of God is the idea of a devil.”
[119] The most favourable review of Mr B. Gould’s work which I have seen says:—“In tracing the origin and development of religious belief, the object of Mr Baring Gould is to establish the foundation of Christian doctrine on the nature, the intuitions, and the reason of man, rather than upon traditionary dogmas, historical documents, or written inspirations. He is of opinion that the elements of true religion are to be found in a revelation naturally impressed upon the soul of man, and that the investigation of man’s moral nature will be found to disclose the surest proofs of his religious wants and destination. The author holds that if theological doctrines can be inculcated by demonstrative evidence of their harmony with man’s intellectual and moral constitution, they will be received with more perfect acquiescence and conviction than when appeals are made simply to man’s veneration for antiquity and authority.” I think I am, at any rate, right in taking Mr B. G.’s as the view most directly opposed to tradition, and it is from this point of view that I am brought into collision with him.
[120] Vide, however, Dr Newman’s “Grammar of Assent,” p. 386, et seq.
“The lively Grecian, in a land of hills,
Rivers, and fertile plains, and sounding shores,