The Naturalistic Theory of Apophis-The Serpent of Time-Epic of CHAPTER VI. THE SERPENT IN INDIA. The Kankato na-' PAGE 340 348 CHAPTER VII. THE BASILISK. The Serpent's gem-The Basilisk's eye-Basiliscus mitratus-House- 361 CHAPTER VIII. THE DRAGON'S EYE. The Eye of Evil-Turner's Dragons-Cloud-phantoms-Paradise and CHAPTER IX. THE COMВАТ. The pre-Munchausenite world-The Colonial Dragon-lo's journey 372 384 Demi-gods-Alcestis-Herakles-The Ghilghit Fiend-Incarnate de- PAGE 394 CHAPTER XI. THE DRAGON'S BREATH. Medusa-Phenomena of recurrence-The Brood of Echidna and their 406 CHAPTER XII. FATE. Doré's 'Love and Fate'-Moira and Moira-The 'Fates' of Æschylus 420 19. Dives and Lazarus (Russian, seventeenth century) 20. The Knight and Death 21. Greek Caricature of the Gods 27. Anglo-Saxon Dragons (Cædmon MS., tenth century) 28. From the Fresco at Arezzo 29. From Albert Durer's 'Passion' 30. Chimæra 31. Bellerophon and Chimera (Corinthian) 32. From the Temptation of St. Anthony Origin of Deism-Evolution from the far to the near-Illustrations from witchcraft - The primitive Pantheism - The dawn of Dualism. A COLLEGE in the State of Ohio has adopted for its VOL. I. A CELESTIAL PHENOMENA. their carnival until Science struck the hour for unmasking. The costumes and masks have with us become materials for studying the history of the human mind, but to know them we must translate our senses back into that phase of our own early existence, so far as is consistent with carrying our culture with us. 1 Without conceding too much to Solar mythology, it may be pronounced tolerably clear that the earliest emotion of worship was born out of the wonder with which man looked up to the heavens above him. The splendours of the morning and evening; the azure vault, painted with frescoes of cloud or blackened by the storm; the night, crowned with constellations: these awakened imagination, inspired awe, kindled admiration, and at length adoration, in the being who had reached intervals in which his eye was lifted above the earth. Amid the rapture of Vedic hymns to these sublimities we meet sharp questionings whether there be any such gods as the priests say, and suspicion is sometimes cast on sacrifices. The forms that peopled the celestial spaces may have been those of ancestors, kings, and great men, but anterior to all forms was the poetic enthusiasm which built heavenly mansions for them; and the crude cosmogonies of primitive science were probably caught up by this spirit, and consecrated as slowly as scientific generalisations now are. Our modern ideas of evolution might suggest the reverse of this-that human worship began with things low and gradually ascended to high objects; that from rude ages, in which adoration was directed to stock and stone, tree and reptile, the human mind climbed by degrees to the contemplation and reverence of celestial grandeurs. But the accord of this view with our ideas of evolution is apparent only. The real progress seems here to have been from the far to the near, from the great to the small. It |