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FIENDS, GHOSTS, AND SPRITES.

INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF BELIEF IN THE SUPERNATURAL.

BY JOHN NETTEN RADCLIFFE.

LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1854.

PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS, LONDON GAZETTE OFFICE, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

FIENDS, GHOSTS, AND SPRITES.

A belief in the supernatural has existed in all ages and among all nations.

To trace the origin of this belief, the causes of the various modifications it has undergone, and the phases it has assumed, is, perhaps, one of the most interesting researches to which the mind can be given,--interesting, inasmuch as we find pervading every part of it the effects of those passions and affections which are most powerful and permanent in our nature.

So general is the belief in a supreme and over-ruling Power, possessing attributes altogether different from and superior to human powers, and bending these and the forces of nature to its will, that the thought has been entertained by many that it is inborn in man. Such a doctrine is, however, refuted by an acquaintance with the inlets and modes of obtaining knowledge; by the fact that reason is necessary to its discovery; and by its uselessness. "There are neither innate ideas nor innate propositions; but there is an innate power of understanding that shows itself in primitive notions, which, when put into speech, are expressed in propositions, which propositions, decomposed, produce, under the influence of abstraction and analysis, distinct ideas."

Others have asserted and maintained that man derives his knowledge of the existence of Deity, and, consequently, of the supernatural, from the exercise of reason upon himself and his own powers by self-reflection. If he reflects upon the wonderful power of liberty and free-will which he possesses, on his relation to surrounding beings and things, and particularly on his imperfect, limited, and finite powers, it is argued that the antithetical proposition of infinite must of necessity be admitted. "I cannot have the idea of the finite and of imperfection without having that of perfection and of infinite. These two ideas are logically correlative." Or if man extends his reasoning powers to the study or the contemplation "of the beauty, the order, the intelligence, the wisdom, and the perfection displayed throughout the universe; and as there must of necessity be in the cause what is witnessed in the effect, you reason from nature to its author, and from the existence of the perfection of the one you conclude the existence and perfection of the other."

But many theologists maintain that the knowledge of a Deity, and of the existence of supernatural beings, is derived solely from revelation; and stern and prolonged have been the struggles in this country between the upholders of the rival tenets.

That no idea of a Deity, such as that which the Christian entertains, is to be found among the vague and undefined notions of supernatural power which are contained in the mythologies of pagan nations; that even the conceptions of Plato are to be summed up in the phrase "the unknown God;" and that the perfect idea of the Godhead is to be derived solely from Scripture, can be satisfactorily shown. But the conclusion sought to be established from this, that all our ideas of the supernatural are derived from this source, does not necessarily follow.

The postulate that man can derive a knowledge of the supernatural from the exercise of his mental powers alone, cannot either be affirmed or denied, but it is not improbable.

Perhaps the nearest approach to correctness which we are as yet capable of on this subject is as follows:--

After the creation of man, God revealed himself. The perfect knowledge of the Deity thus obtained, was perpetuated by a fragment of the human race, notwithstanding the baneful effects of the fall; and at the epoch of the deluge, the solitary family which escaped that mighty cataclysm, formed a centre from which anew the attributes and powers of the Godhead were made known in all their truth and purity. But again sin prevailed, and with the exception of one race, who alone treasured the true knowledge of the Deity, mankind lost by degrees the pure faith of their fathers; and as they receded from the light, the idea of the Godhead became obscured, and in the progress of time well nigh lost, and the vague and imperfect ideas of a supernatural Power derived from tradition, prompted to a terror and awe of some invisible yet mighty influence, unknown and inexplicable, but which was manifested to man in the more striking objects and the incomprehensible phenomena of nature, which were regarded and worshipped as the seats of this unknown Power, forming the substratum of those wonderful systems of mythology which have characterised successive eras and races.

"Once," writes Plato, referring to the earlier traditions of the Greeks, "one God governed the universe; but a great and extraordinary change taking place in the nature of men and things, infinitely for the worse , the command then devolved on Jupiter, with many inferior deities to preside over different departments under him."

To state the influence which each of the elements indicated above--tradition and reason--have had in the development of mythology, is doubtless impossible.

Thus man concluded that he was surrounded by a world of supernatural beings, of different powers, attributes, and passions. The sun and moon, the planets and stars, were conceived to be the abodes of spiritual existences; and the effects caused by those orbs which more immediately influence our earth, were considered as the indications of the powers of their respective deities. So also the air, its clouds and currents; the ocean, with its mighty progeny of lakes and rivers; and the earth, its hills, dales, and organic forms, were peopled with incorporeal beings. Every object of beauty shadowed forth the operations of a beneficent Spirit; while devastating storms, barren places and deserts, and the convulsions of nature, betokened the malignancy of daemons or fiends. According as a country's surface is harsh, rugged, barren, and storm-tossed, or clothed with lovely verdure and basking in the rays of a fervid sun, so do we find the principal characters of its mythology; stern, gigantic, and fierce gods or daemons, or spirits more kind towards man, and full of beauty and grace. The passions and affections of man, for the same reasons, were considered to be under the sway of supernatural beings; in short, every operation of nature in the organic or inorganic, in the mental or physical worlds, was deemed an indication of the existence of a supernatural Being which ruled and governed it.

These powers in the progress of time were personified and represented as possessed of passions and propensities similar to those of man; for the same finite and imperfect reason which had concluded that they dwelt in the phenomena they were supposed to explain, also deemed, being unable to conceive any higher type of existence than was seen in man himself, that they differed simply in degree of power, and were alike subject to those appetites and passions which characterised humanity.

This source of belief in spiritual existences is found dominant in the systems of mythology of all nations; and as it arises from causes which are inherant in man, it can easily be understood why there is so great a similarity in the primary mythological conceptions of different races.

The mythologies of ancient Greece and Rome furnish a very perfect illustration of the influence which this cause has exercised in the development of the belief in supernatural beings, and no better method of illustration can be adopted, than a sketch of the physical signification of the principal deities, and classes of deities, of those countries.

The primitive religion of the Greeks and Romans would appear to have consisted in the worship of the heavenly bodies :--the Titans are nearly all personifications of the celestial orbs. Subsequently, their mythology assumed a more physical character, and the offspring of Cronos , or the personifications of the firmament, atmosphere, sea, &c., formed the leading deities of the more developed system of religion, and the reign of Jupiter commenced.

In this system, the god Jupiter is symbolical of the upper regions of the atmosphere . Euripides writes:--

"The vast, expanded, boundless sky behold, See it with soft embrace the earth enfold; This own the chief of deities above, And this acknowledge by the name of Jove."

At a later period this god was conceived to represent the soul of the world, diffused alike through animate and inanimate nature; or, as Virgil poetically describes it in the AEneid--:

"The heaven and earth's compacted frame, And flowing waters, and the starry flame, And both the radiant lights, one common soul Inspires and feeds, and animates the whole. This active mind infused through all the space, Unites and mingles with the mighty mass. Hence man and beasts the breath of life obtain, And birds of air, and monsters of the main."

This brief sketch will serve to show the leading principle entering into the formation of the Grecian and Roman mythology--a mythology containing more than 30,000 gods; and it will illustrate how every hidden power of nature as well in the organic as the inorganic world; and how every equally inexplicable operation of the human mind was referred, for an explanation, to the influence of a supernatural power, which in the progress of time was personified, worshipped, and pourtrayed in such a form as best set forth the effects it was conceived to produce.

This source of the belief in the supernatural, as we have already stated, will be found to have prevailed among all nations; hence their primary mythological conceptions are one and the same, modified by the difference of climate, habits, &c.

The celebrated line which it is enjoined should be repeated without intermission, and which is the most holy passage in the Vedas, reads literally, "Let us meditate on the adorable light of Savitri ; may it guide our intellects." This, it is asserted, is addressed to the sun as the symbol of a divine and all-powerful being, and it is regarded as a proof of the monotheism of the Vedas. This explanation is, however, considered by some to be far from satisfactory, and to offer greater difficulties than the text ever can when taken in a natural light.

The creed of Buddha contains similar traces of elemental worship. The five Buddhas and the five Bodhisattwas would appear to be personifications of the principal natural elements and phenomena.

The Iranite worships light, fire, and water, as emblems of Ormuzd, in whom these elements are united; he does not worship the elementary spirits attached to them.

In China, the state religion--the religious system of Confucius--embodies the following objects of worship, arranged in three classes:--

We could not well close this sketch without allusion to the Shaman religion, which is diffused throughout the principal nations of Asiatic Russia, a great part of the Tartars, the Eins, Samoiedes, Ostiaks, Mandshurs, Burats, and Tungsees; and it is even professed among the Coriaks and Techuks, and people of the eastern islands. This system of religion is essentially founded upon the observation of natural phenomena: it teaches that the gods arose from the general mass of matter and spirit; and while inculcating the existence of a spiritual world, it instils the belief in the self-existence of matter.

These remarks will sufficiently show the important influence which the observation of natural phenomena has had in the development of the belief in the Supernatural of most nations; and it will fully indicate the primary reason of the correspondence of their principal mythological conceptions. A consideration of the different habits, degree of civilization, locality, &c., will also indicate the principal reason of the various modifications which the same mythological conception is found to present among different nations.

There was one Jupiter for Europe, and another for Africa; and the varied forms under which this god was worshipped, derived from the locality, habits, and other peculiarities of his worshippers, were very numerous. At Athens, the great Jupiter was the Olympian; at Rome, the Capitoline. There was the mild and the thundering Jupiter, the Jupiter Nicephorus, Opitulus, Fulminator, &c., all differing in some subordinate characters.

Ammon, of Egypt; Belus, of the Babylonians; Ibis, of the Phoenicians; Allah, of the Arabians; Beel, Baal, Beelphagor, Beelzebub, Beelzemer, &c., all possess the attributes of Jupiter, and are the same with that god.

The Buddha of India; Fohi, of the Chinese; Odin, or Woden, of the Scandinavians; and Gwydion, of the Ancient Britons, correspond with Mercury.

Vishnu, Brahma, Siva, and Krishna, the latter both of the Irish and Sanscrit, correspond with Apollo; whilst Arun, of the Irish and Hindoo superstitions, corresponds with the Aurora of the Greeks.

It is peculiarly interesting to mark in the writings of classic authors the earlier traces of a correct explanation of the causes operating in the changes observed in nature, and their influence in modifying the mythological ideas of the period. Socrates penetrated so far in the interpretation of certain physical phenomena as to discover that they might be explained without having recourse to the idea of supernatural agency. This is most interestingly shown in Aristophanes' comedy of "The Clouds" . In this comedy, written for the purpose of throwing ridicule and contempt on the sophistical philosophy of Socrates, Strepsiades, an aged and ignorant man, is represented as suffering from the excesses and expenses of his son Phidippides. He conceives the idea of studying logic, in order, by mere subtle reasoning, to overcome and cheat his creditors. He enrols himself as a pupil of Socrates, and in Act I, Scene 2, the following scene occurs:--

In a subsequent part of the comedy Strepsiades is represented as speaking of this idea of a whirlwind as a deified being, thus admirably showing the tendency of man to consider that which he could not comprehend as the result of supernatural agency, and to personify it.

It would seem, also, that Socrates himself was subject to the influence of this feeling; for a passage in Act V, Scene 1, has led to the conclusion "that in the school of Socrates was placed an earthen image . This, probably, was done by the philosopher as a sort of compensation for having expelled Jupiter from his mythological system."

Persaeus, a disciple of Zeno, "says, that they who have made discoveries advantageous to the life of man, should be esteemed as gods; and the very things, he says, which are healthful and beneficial, should have divine appellations; so that he thinks it not sufficient to call them the discoverers of gods, but that they themselves should be deemed divine."

The author of the "Book of Wisdom" in the Apocrypha, details other causes which tended to the same result. He writes, :--

Most systems of mythology contain examples of deities which have been derived from this source.

The Chinese, at the present day, deify and adore their deceased emperors, as well as the spirits of eminent statesmen, scholars, martyrs to virtue, &c.

It has occasionally happened that some great sage, on his apotheosis, had attributed to him that which he had simply expounded during life, and thus became the personification of the religious ideas he had entertained. Buddha, who lived, as nearly as can be ascertained, about 1000 years before Christ, attempted to reform Brahminical India. After death he was deified by his converts, and became the embodiment of the principles he had advocated when on earth; and his name, with various modifications, was applied to the system of cosmogony and religion which he had advocated. The Grand Lamas of Thibet are regarded as incarnations of Buddha, and as such are adored by the Thibetians and the various tribes of Tartars who roam over the vast district which extends from the banks of the Volga to Corea, in the Sea of Japan.

After the persecution which terminated in the expulsion of the followers of Buddha from Hindostan, the Hindoos, not content with their celestial gods or heroes, extended their adoration to various living individuals, particularly to the Brahmins and priests. Daughters under eight years of age are worshipped by them as forms of the goddess Bhavani ; and at certain seasons of the year the Brahmin is worshipped by his wife, and the wives of Brahmins by other men.

Some writers have thought that all the gods of the ancients consisted of deified men. This is, however, an error; for the deification of men was an act second in order to the worship of natural objects and phenomena. The chronological position of this element of mythology has, among other reasons, led Bonomi to arrive at some interesting conclusions on the respective ages of the palaces of Nineveh.

On the walls of the palace at Khorsabad are found sculptured the winged and human-headed bulls, emblems of wisdom or the sun, the four-winged figures, typical of Ibis or Cronos, eagle-headed divinities, and other figures, which are conceived to be symbolical of constellations, and of astronomical phenomena. From these nobler and simpler ideas of Divinity it is inferred, that when this palace was built the worship of the Assyrians was comparatively pure. But on the walls of Nimroud, in addition to the symbolical representations found at Khorsabad, there are also indications of an increased number of divinities, from the presence of deified men; hence a reason for the belief in the degeneracy of the system of religion at the period when this palace was built, and consequently its more recent date.

This element has undoubtedly had an important influence in the formation of the various myths, but it refers rather to an advanced stage in mythology, and to that period of development when a nation has made some progress in arts and literature.

If we contemplate a race in the earlier phases of its existence, or one degraded in the scale of being, we find that its ideas of the supernatural are confined to the deification and worship of the simplest and most striking of the objects and phenomena of nature: as it has increased in civilization and learning, those deities have been represented in symbolical forms; and as civilization and the cultivation of the mind advances, and the knowledge of surrounding nature has become increased, so have the number of deities been multiplied by the deification of the less evident powers of nature, of kings, and of distinguished men, and then also allegory has come into play. Every variation in the character of a nation, and every era, has impressed more or less distinct marks on its mythology; and mythology, as we receive it now, is the sum of all those changes which have been impressed upon it from its earliest formation.

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