[946] Even windmills were unknown until they were introduced into Europe by the Saracens in the twelfth century.
[947] It appears that of late years a dearth of candidates for orders in every religious denomination of Christendom has been experienced, but this may be due merely to the usual poverty of the career. The Church should fall to principle not to poverty. And here we may catch a glimpse of the process by which the various Protestant sects may ultimately die out naturally: that young men of high character, ambitious of honourable distinction, will avoid a profession which entails an attitude of disingenuous reserve towards those whom they are deputed to instruct. On the other hand it may be foreseen that the Romish and Orthodox churches, upholding as they do a gross superstition and instituting the members of their priesthood almost from childhood, will retain their power over the masses for a much longer period, until at last they have to face suppression by force. Those who at the present time are engaged in impressing a belief in obsolete mythologies on the community should realize that they are doing an evil service to their generation instead of exerting themselves for the liberation and elevation of thought. However brilliant their temporary position, they deserve, much more than the oblivious patriot, to go down
To the vile dust from whence they sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.
[948] Grotius has made a large collection of those passages in classical and other ancient writers, which seem to support the creation-myth of Genesis; De Veritate Relig. Christ., i, 16. For the Chaldaean or Babylonian variations, and some earlier associations of Adam, see King’s Seven Tablets of Creation, Lond., 1903. It appears that the protoplast in the original account was created by Marduk, the tutelary deity of Babylonia, out of his own blood, a circumstance which the “priestly” redactor of Genesis has suppressed, together with many other interesting details; cf. Radau, Creation Story of Genesis i, Chicago, 1903. Margoliouth’s attempt to show that Abraham’s Jehovah was the male moon-god of Ur is interesting; Contemporary Review, 1896.
[949] In this country the subject of comparative mythology and the origin of theistic notions has been exhaustively treated by Herbert Spencer, Andrew Lang, J. G. Frazer, and others. Nevertheless, it cannot be determined whether the fear of ghosts or the innate bent of the human mind to speculate as to casuality is the germ of religious systems. Their development has, no doubt, always been much indebted to the ascendancy to be gained as the reward of successful imposture in such matters.
[950] Avowed atheists were rare among the Greeks, as there was always some personal risk in ventilating opinions which clashed with the popular superstitions. Some, however, incurred the odium of holding such views. Of these the most noteworthy was Diagoras, who is said to have impiously chopped up his image of Hercules to boil his turnips; Athenagoras, Apol., 4. The jaunty impiety of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse (c. 400 B.C.), was celebrated in antiquity. After pillaging the temple of the Locrian Proserpine, he sailed back home and, finding the wind favourable, remarked to his companions, “See what a fine passage the gods are granting to us sacrilegious reprobates.” He seized the golden cloak from the shoulders of Jupiter Olympus, observing that it was “too heavy for summer and too cold for winter, whereas a woollen one would suit him well for all seasons.” Noticing a gold beard on Æsculapius at Epidaurus, he removed it, saying, that it was “improper for him to wear it, since his father, Apollo, was always represented beardless.” Whenever in the temples he met with statues proffering, as it were, jewels and plate with their projecting hands, he took possession of the valuables, asserting that it “would be folly not to accept the good things offered by the gods.” The pious were aghast at the example of such a man enjoying a long and prosperous reign and transmitting the throne to his son; Cicero, De Nat. Deor., iii, 34; Lactantius, Div. Instit., ii, 4, etc. With a view to such instances, Plutarch wrote a treatise to prove that “the mills of God grind slow, but very sure.” Euhemerus and Palaephatus transformed mythology into history by a rationalizing process, assigning the origin to popular exaggeration of common occurrences.
[951] A system of verbal trickery originated with the Eleatics, of which Zeno (c. 400 B.C.) was the chief exponent. Their catches were generally ingenious; that disproving the reality of motion is best known—“If a thing moves, it must do so in the place in which it is, or in a place in which it is not; but it cannot move in the place in which it is, and it certainly does not move in a place in which it is not; therefore there is no motion at all;” Diogenes Laert., Pyrrho, 99, etc. See Plato’s Euthydemus for a sample of ridiculous word-chopping.
[952] There were six principal sects which achieved a sort of permanency and retained their vitality for several centuries. They may be characterized briefly: Academics (Plato), sceptical and respectable; Peripathetics (Aristotle), inquisitive and progressive; Stoics (Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus), ethical and intense; Cynics (Antisthenes, Diogenes), squalid, morose, and sententious; Epicureans, tranquil enjoyment and indifference; Cyreneans (Aristippus), pure hedonism with discretion. In general the Epicureans are wrongly associated with the last conception.
[953] Aristotle (c. 350 B.C.) was the first to perceive the importance of collecting facts and disposing them into their proper groups. Thus zoology, botany, anatomy, physiology, mineralogy, astronomy, meteorology, etc., began to take form in his hands, each being relegated to a separate compartment for consideration as a concordant whole and to receive future additions.