THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE FIVE GEEAT SKEPTICAL DEAMAS OP HISTORY ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS. THE FIVE GREAT SKEPTICAL DRAMAS HISTORY BY THE LATE JOHN OWEN AUTHOR OF " SKEPTICS OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE," " SKEPTICS OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE," ETC., ETC. LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1896 frt PREFACE. A LIFE-LABOUB expended on thinkers of a special type, com- bined with a survey of all Literature from the standpoint of the same thought, might not unreasonably be expected to make discoveries and induce results of a peculiar kind. Without anticipating any a priori harmony or providential relation, so to speak, between the labour and its outcome, the philosophical thinker may feel no small gratification at observing how much greater and richer and how much more important his scheme of thought is than he had anticipated. Contemplating, for example, the history of skeptical free-thinkers as a department of philo- sophy in which less labour had been spent than it seemed to deserve, the author of the following pages was struck with the remarkable fact that just as the greatest thinkers have been of a skeptical kind, so all the dramas that have most impressed themselves on the minds of men have been dramas whose subjects and characters have pertained to skeptical free- thought. In a word, all the greatest dramas and dramatic plots in all ages of the world have been of this class. Thus the greatest of Greek plays, the master-work of the greatest of Greek dramatists, is without doubt the " Prometheus Bound " of Aeschylus ; the'noblest of Bible-books, that is, with a dramatic plot and character, is unquestionably the Book of Job ; the greatest play of England's, and of the world's, great dramatist has been the "Hamlet" of Shakespeare; and the noblest drama of the most famous of modern poets has been the " Faust " of Goethe ; while the problem of the " Faust " has again been considered by Calderon from a more strictly Roman Catholic point of view in the most striking of all his dramas " El Magico Prodigioso ". No dramas have attracted so much attention each in its special environment of time and circum- stance as these five. None have been taken as manifesting so adequately the intellectual and spiritual idiosyncrasy of their 13^2116 vi Preface. writers none have enjoyed so great a popularity as represent- ing the character of the writer, as well as that of his nation, as each of these great plays has done. Now a brief reflection may serve to suggest that these dramas, starting from the same standpoint, and resembling each other's plot and evolution so closely, must needs possess matter of exceeding interest for all thinkers and schools of thought. First, they prove that the problems and difficulties with which men have coped through all time are essentially the same : Prometheus in opposition to the Olympian Deities ; the Patriarch Job in antagonism to the Hebrew Jahve ; Faust and the Wonder- Working Magician contending with the Deity of the modern world and with the laws by which he endeavours to rule it all are vindicators of the self-same issue protagonists in the self-same battle. They occupy the same standpoint of inherent justice, and of automatic mental inde- pendence, of self-determining reason and conscience ; they com- mence from the self-same starting-point ; they employ largely the same arguments ; they arrive mostly at the same con- clusions. In a word, the contest is the same humanity set in array against the dread powers of the universe, which has engaged the attention of the noblest minds whose specula- tions are recorded in human history ; a contest contemporaneous with the growth of reason, instinct with its life and attributes, and bound to endure as long as reason and humanity are destined to last in other words, to the eternity of man and whatever is eternal and divine in his speculation and aspiration. A word of exception may perchance be thought needful for Hamlet as one of the five skeptical thinkers. In harmony with a nationality which, starting from that of its author and nation, is far more practical than speculative, his doubt is largely concerned with action. He recognises the compulsion in the laws of the universe and in human enactments. His hesitation and fear to act are based on the difficulties inherent Preface. vii in the circumstances of his own life-problem. In point of fact, he combines speculation with practical doubt, but it is in the direction of action that he finds his actual conclusions. His final justice is mainly accidental ; he decides the practical issues of his life by a sort of ethical fluke. If in the issue he kills himself, it is no more than the logical issue of his doubting course of life. The problem he aims to solve is doubt in action this far more than doubt in speculation but even here the reasons he appealed to are not unlike those of speculative doubters, and so far much of his reasoning illustrates, and is illustrated by, the arguments of other skeptical free-thinkers. " To be or not to be," to think or not to think, to act or not to act, are only cleverer phases of human problems, all of them beset with, if not identical at least with, similar difficulties, and demanding, not perhaps the same, but analogous methods of consideration and resolution. Separated by centuries of time, by long ages of linguistic advance or retardation, by infinite degrees of human culture and civilisation, by continents and oceans of terrestrial space, man is found in every condition of existence propounding the same problems, coping with the same or analogous difficulties. The world drama in which he is engaged is always alike in plot, and his role is ever the same in aim and character. Nor is its outcome dissimilar. From the whole history of the past, from the world dramas in which the noblest characters have essayed to choose and play their parts, we have the importance, the divine sacredness, of freedom of thought and independence of conscience. The heroes of human thought and action resemble each other in this : they stand firm in the conviction of a mysterious superior justice that rules the universe ; they are persuaded of the truth as being both infinite and eternal, that, with all his difficulties, man finds in reason and conscience the weapons best adapted for establishing his rightful claims and position in a universe of which reason and conscience constitute the supreme law and rule. THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF AESCHYLUS MOTTOES. Ildi/ra dfols dvedrjKav "Ofj.rjp6s $' 'Hcr/oSo's re ocrcra. Trap' dvdpmTroicriv ovei'Sea KOI iffoyos e'crri'i/. e/j.icrria epya K\f7TT(ii> .oifvfiv re KOI d\\ovs airarevfiv. XENOPHANES. Das gemeine Menschenschicksal, an welchem wir Alle zu tragen haben, muss denjenigen am, schwersten aufliegen, deren Geisteskrdfte sich fruher und breiter entuickeln. Wir mogen unter dem Schutz von Eltern und Verwandten empor- kommen ... so ist doch immer das Final dass der Mensch auf sich zuriickgewiesen wird, und es scheint, es habe sogar die Gottheit sich so zu dem Menschen gestellt das sie dessen Ehrfurcht, Zutrauen und Liebe nicht immer, wenigstens nicht gerade im dringenden Augenblick, erwiedern kann." GOETHE, Wahrheit u. Dichtung, Book xv. Know ye not me The Titan ? He who made his agony The barrier to your else all-conquering foe. SHELLEY, Prometheus Unbound, Act i. Ich dich ehren ? Wofiir ? Hast du die Schmerzen gelindert Je des Beladenen ? Hast du die Thrdnen gestillet Je des Geangsteten ? Hat nicht mich zum Manne geschmiedet Die allmachtige Zeit Und das eurige Schicksal Meine Herrn und deine. GOETHE, Prometheus. IN the investigation of mythological subjects no inquiry is more difficult than that which relates to their age and their origin. Other things being equal, the measure of antiquity possessed by any myth may be accepted as a presumption that its subject matter is a generally accepted belief, or else denotes a widely re- ceived experience on the part of humanity. For the very fact of our knowledge of its antiquity postulates not only the ex- istence but the overt perhaps repeated expression of such a belief during a very long period, and in myths as in other matters we must acknowledge the operation of some such law as that called " The survival of the fittest ". Another mark of a gene- rally received myth consists in its variants. The same rudi- mentary conceptions are found to underlie an almost inex- haustible variety of forms. Thus most of the great myths e.g., the solar myth are found in the traditions of all those races which have attained sufficient culture and continuous ex- istence to possess any traditions at all. A myth in fact may be likened to a musical theme evolved and expressed by the earliest races of the world, which their descendants have surrounded with variations and accompaniments which, while serving to elaborate, disguise more or less its original features Or it might be termed the cosmopolitan alphabet the primary rudiments of the religious thought of humanity, for beneath the surface of all the great world-faiths may be discovered a substratum of mythology. But perhaps the most striking evi- dence that a myth embodies a widely accepted truth or belief is found in its ready assimilation and expression by varying, per- haps even discordant, modes of thought. Like a useful metal it is made to subserve an almost infinite variety of purposes, being taken up, reconstructed and employed by many different departments of human intellectual energy. For a myth is not, as once was supposed, a consolidated uniform tradition a petri- 4 Five Great Skeptical Dramas. fied deposit of human faith or experience possessing always the same definite outlines and homogeneousness of substance. Nothing indeed could be more contrary to truth. A myth is a kind of molluscous versatile product of human experience and imagination. It is therefore a plastic material, capable of being moulded by any environment within which it is received. Starting into life as a crude, fanciful expression of some fre- quently recurring natural phenomenon, it may assume a number of subsequent Protean forms. Thus it may be held to express an historical event, a fact of natural history, a generalisation of social experience, a characteristic of some ethical law or a quality of the speculative intellect. This mobility does not of course mean that the belief expressed by the myth is necessarily true. It implies only that it has long formed a part of the intellectual or imaginative currency of mankind, and that it has thereby be- come invested with authority and human interest. We observe precisely the same mobility of form in other matters of profound concernment or interest for large sections of humanity, quite irrespectively of any truth they may be supposed to possess. Thus in the dogmas of any historical religion and in the fables themselves mythical in their origin which form such a large portion of the early oral tradition of all ancient races, we re- cognise a similar susceptibility to new forms, the readiness to assume under varying circumstances diverse modes of presenta- tion. Still less does it mean that the significance of a myth will be the same in all its stages of evolution. On the contrary, the variety of its forms will be some, albeit not infallible, testimony to a corresponding divergency in its meaning. The myth, for ex- ample, which in a primaeval condition of any people has only a concrete physical significance, may with the intellectual progress of such a people attain to higher interpretations, and may become the chosen exponent of historical, scientific, or even metaphysical and spiritual truth. An obvious corollary from this premiss is that the significance of a myth, taking it as a whole, must needs be of a diversified character, even if, as is sometimes the case, the formal variation between its different stages be not very great or dis- tinctive. Now the myth of Prometheus exemplifies all the qualities I have just enumerated. Firstly, it is one of the most ancient in The Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus. 5 the whole compass of Greek mythology ; secondly, it is a prin- cipal member of a large class of similar myths ; and, thirdly, it has entered into various provinces of Hellenic thought, and has thereby assumed a corresponding divergency of forms and meanings. 1. The antiquity of the Prometheus myth is shown, firstly, by the prominent position which it occupies in the authoritative depository of old Greek belief the works of Hesiod. Here we find not only that the myth is already an accepted part of ancient Hellenic faith, but that it has assumed a peculiarly elaborated form, that it has become encrusted with accretions from other myths more or less related with itself. Nor is this all ; we find on close examination that it goes back to a time anterior to the first settlement of the Pelasgi and other primitive Aryan tribes in Greece, nay, according to some writers to a period prior to the great Aryan migration from Central Asia. In its main outlines we undoubtedly find traces of the myth in the ancient literature of all the chief Indo-Germanic races. Its especial connection with India is marked by the Sanscrit derivation of the word Prometheus, for this, following the vicissitudes of the myth itself, is not derived, as the Hellenes thought, from Greek roots signifying " foresight," but from the Sanscrit term pramantha or pramaihyus, employed to designate the primitive Indian instru- ment for kindling fire. 1 Of still greater importance is the con- nection of the myth with Semitic legends. Its marked affinity, for example, with the Hebrew narrative of the creation has long been acknowledged by commentators of every school of thought, and is indeed too obvious to be denied. Some have attempted to account for this similarity by supposing that the myth formed part of the common tradition of the Indo-Germanic and Semitic races at a prehistoric period before they were divided, while others, with perhaps more probability, explain it by supposing that the early Pelasgian settlers in Greece may have learned the tradition from the Phoenicians. 2 In either case the origin of the myth may be said to transcend the limits of human history. In- cidentally, too, this remote antiquity seems confirmed by its . Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feuers, etc., p. 18, and passim. 2 This is the view of Petersen. See his article on Greek Mythology in Ersch and Gruber, EncykL, sec. i., vol. Ixxxii., p. 96. 6 Five Great Skeptical Dramas. direct reference to the creation of man. This is true, no matter whether the myth be regarded as having a physical and natural or a metaphysical and moral origin, for in the first case one form of the legend makes Prometheus the creator of the first man, whom he made of clay and animated with celestial fire stolen for the purpose, while in the second he bestows on men the divine gift of reason or intelligence by the same agency of stolen fire the latter being a secondary stage in human evolution, which all ancient records represent as following closely on the creation of man. 2. But the myth of Prometheus is only one form of a some- what large group of myths. Indeed it is a noteworthy fact in mythology that all the more significant and comprehensive myths are found in groups of greater or less extent, thus attest- ing, as we might indeed have anticipated, the action of a number of minds upon a phenomenon or truth-presentation pos- sessing the same general features for all alike. We have a re- markable fact of the same kind in the linguistic syntheses which are so frequently alike in languages of varying races and of dif- ferent degrees of culture. Thus the Prometheus myth is a member of what might be termed the Titanic or anti-celestial class in Greek mythology. All of these, whatever their differ- ence of local origin, particular elaboration, etc., possess similar characteristics. This will readily be seen by a brief enumeration of the chief of them. We have, for example, the myths of Atlas the brother of Prometheus and the leader of the Titans against Zeus. He was defeated and condemned to the eternal labour of bearing the heaven on his head and hands. 1 He was also gifted with especial knowledge, for, according to Homer, he knew all the depths of the ocean. The myth of Tituos is of a similar kind. Instigated by Here he made an attack on Artemis or Leto (wife of Zeus), for which the indignant sovereign of gods and 1 Assuming that some of these anti-celestial, skeptical or knowledge myths may have had a metaphysical origin, the task of Atlas and the difficulty he found in discharging it may be compared with the remark- able words of Ecclesiastes, iii., 11; or with poetic utterances, such as Wordsworth's : " The heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world ". The Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus. 7 men punished him by first killing him with his thunderbolt (" lightning-blasted in his strength," Aeschylus calls it) and then casting him into Tartaros, where his gigantic frame covered no less than nine acres of ground. Here, too, his body (for being immortal he could not die) was for ever mangled by two vultures or snakes which continually devoured it. Tuphoeus or Tuphon is the name of another monster of the same species, whose wisdom is crudely symbolised by his possession of a hundred heads. He wished to acquire, we are told, the sovereignty over gods and men, but was subdued after a fearful struggle by the thunderbolt of Zeus. Another version of the myth represents him contending with all the immortals. However, he was defeated, and, as a punishment, was buried in Tartaros under Mount Etna. Men- oitios is the name of another Titan who for similar insurrection against the Olympian divinities was slain by Zeus, and was doomed to expiate his crime in Tartaros. Of a slightly different kind are the myths of Tantalos and Sisuphos. The former is said to have been the son of Zeus, and was King of Lydia, or Argos or Corinth, according to different versions of the story. He divulged the secrets which Zeus his father had imparted to him. For this he was punished by being placed in a lake, but so as to render it impossible to drink when he was thirsty the water always receding when he stooped forward to quench his thirst. Branches laden with fruit also hung over his head, but when he stretched out his hands to clutch them they withdrew all the while a huge stone being suspended above him, for ever threaten- ing to crush him. Sisuphos, whose name is said to be a mock- ing reduplication of Sophos,was another subtle king who betrayed the designs of the gods. His punishment consisted in perpetually rolling up a hill a huge block of marble, which as perpetually rolled down again. The myth of Phaethon, though different in some points from those mentioned, yet possesses a few striking resemblances. He was the son of Helios, who attempted am- bitiously to drive the chariot of his father, but proving unequal to the task was slain by Zeus. Now, without laying undue stress on these legends, or magnifying their mutual affinities, we cannot but be struck with their general resemblance to each other, and especially in those particulars in which they share the outlines of the Prometheus myth. All are legends of semi-divine 8 Five Great Skeptical Dramas. beings, who undertake some enterprise against the gods, either by way of asserting their own independence of thought and volition, or in order to benefit humanity ; most of them sharing directly the imputation of a forbidden communication of celestial gifts to terrestrial beings. All assume that the sovereignty of the gods may possibly be tyrannical and unjust, and hence may justify insurrection ; all tacitly appeal therefore to inherent justice, right, goodness, as entities prior in worth and existence even to the gods. All are, however, defeated by superior prowess. All, excepting Phaethon,are punished by some form of persistently agonising endurance a constantly overcome but ever recurring evil. Lastly, most of them cherish, notwithstanding their sub- jugation by superior power, an indomitable audacity and de- fiance of that power. Like Milton's Satan they proudly boast A mind not to be changed by place or time. 1 Though confined by Zeus in the " vasty deeps " of Tartaros, they find reason for exultation in their fall. Their language in Mil- tonic phrase is : Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence : Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition though in hell. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. Nor are these Titanomachies confined to Hellenic mythology. In every main branch of the Indo-Germanic and Semitic races we meet with myths of a similar kind. Among the Hebrews, 1 Both the resemblances and contrasts between the Prometheus of Aeschylus and the Satan of Milton have been thus happily set forth by Miss Barrett in her translation of the former drama: "The Satan of Milton and the Prometheus of Aeschylus stand upon ground as unequal as do the sublime of sin and the sublime of virtue. Satan suffered from his ambition, Prometheus from his humanity : Satan for himself ; Pro- metheus for mankind : Satan dared peril which he had not weighed ; Prometheus devoted himself to sorrows which he had foreknown. 'Better to rule in hell,' said Satan; 'better to serve this rock,' said Prometheus. But in his hell Satan yearned to associate with man, while Prometheus preferred a solitary agony ; nay, he even permitted his zeal and tenderness for the peace of others to abstract him from that agony's intenseness.'' See on the same point Welcker, Griesch. Gotterkhre, ii., 277, and compare Prof. Blackie in Classical Museum, vi., p. 8. The Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus. 9 for example, we have the rebellion of the proud archangel, who with ambitious aim Against the throne and monarchy of God Raised impious war in heaven, together with the cognate myth of the " sons of God " and their gigantic issue, whose opposition to the Supreme Being and de- pravation of humanity brought about the Noachian deluge. This myth we shall meet again in the Book of Job. In the dualism of Zoroastrianism, the anti-celestial combats of the Devas in the Rig-Veda, the similar warfare of the Giants of the Scan- dinavian Edda, we have myths of a like kind, 1 all of them being probably descendants of rudimentary ideas of the primitive Aryans. What these root-thoughts of celestial commotions were it is not always easy to affirm positively. As a matter of high probability and in harmony with the conclusions of recent com- parative mythologists, we may assume that all primitive myths have their origin in the action of childish mythopoeic fancy as to natural phenomena. But this assumption by no means implies a consensus of opinion among mythologists as to the origin of the Prometheus and Titanic myths. Thus some writers affirm that Prometheus did not at first signify the lightning or celestial fire as in later forms of the myth, but rather the mist and the clouds. This is shown by his parentage. He is the son of lapetos (air) and Klumene (water). His name is derived or derivable from roots which signify to mount upwards like the mist, 2 whence we have his character : The eagle- winged pride Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts. His brothers the sons of lapetos all seem to be related to aerial phenomena. And as regards the minuter elaboration of the myth, the resting of mists on the mountain sides, their daily dispersion by the wind, and their complete dissipation by the sun of the spring time, are uncouthly symbolised by the eagle's daily meal on the mangled liver of Prometheus Bound, the growth of the liver during every night and the final deliverance of the Titan by Herakles (the sun). No doubt the conception of a commotion or disturbance among celestial beings the root- 1 Compare Petersen, loc. cit., p. 123. 2 Petersen, loc. tit., p. 84. io Five Great Skeptical Dramas. thought of the Titanomachy is explicable on this theory of the aqueous origin of the Prometheus myth; for mists, clouds especially of portentous form and blackness, violent rain accom- panied by hurricanes of wind, might easily suggest to men in primitive ages a warfare among higher powers. But I confess I myself incline to the older hypothesis which connects Pro- metheus with the various phenomena generated by light, fire, the sun, the stars, etc. Thus he is closely related to the eldest of the three dynasties of Greek Olympian mythology. Through lapetos he is descended from Ouranos, the starry heavens, and belongs to that early prehistoric period when Sabeism or star- worship was a widely extended if not prevailing cult among the primitive Aryans. In conjunction with his brother Titans Prometheus seems to me a diversiform mythopoeic rendering into the language of a crude childish fancy of such celestial pheno- mena as comets, aerolites or shootings stars, lightning flashes, thunderbolts and star showers, as well as terrene manifestations of a similar kind, such as volcanic eruptions. With these, too, must be included such probable origins of terrestrial fire as the kindling of a tree by a lightning flash, or the primitive method of producing fire by rubbing together two pieces of dry wood, etc. On this hypothesis we can easily understand the celestial commotions which gave birth to the Titanomachies of early races and religions. Among the Chaldeans or the primitive Aryan star-worshippers, for example, what ideas would be evoked by a thunderstorm, or a solar or lunar eclipse, as readily as a terrific quarrel among celestial potentates; or witnessing lightning flashes, thunderbolts or aerolites falling with a loud explosion from the sky, what notion would be so spontaneously generated as the defeat and downward propulsion of some rebellious spirit who had lifted himself up against the powers of heaven ? while the still more striking phenomenon of star showers or the simultaneous fall of many aerolites would infallibly suggest as a picturesque idealisation of mythopoeic fancy the overthrow and hurling into Tartaros of a numerous cohort of such rebellious spirits. Or, once more, the prevailing Greek fancy, which allocated to the defeated Titans and other insurrectionary spirits a place under volcanic mountains, as well as their perpetual defiance, of the powers which placed them there, would be the Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus. 1 1 natural efflorescence of childish fancy evoked by a volcanic eruption with its usual accompaniments. But although the Prometheus in common with other Titanic myths had at first only a physical or astronomical significance, I am far from thinking that this was their sole creative cause. I believe that the Titanomachies, like most of the chief Hellenic myths, had what may be termed moral, social, or metaphysical promptings as well. Indeed there is in my opinion a one-sided tendency in the present day to eliminate the metaphysical factor from ancient myths, which operates with especial unfairness on the mythologies of such introspective races as the Hindus and Hellenes. Because this and similar non-physical elements were exaggerated by myth interpreters of bygone times, we are not thereby warranted in totally ignoring them. Probably the oldest myths of all Indo-Germanic races are permeated by ideas other than those suggested by physical phenomena ideas and generalisations that owe their birth to observation of man as a social being, to a keen insight into the working of the human reason and the human conscience in a stage of comparative culture. The power of introspection and abstraction pertaining to the original Aryan peoples is abundantly attested by the construction of the Sanscrit and the languages descended from it. An analysis of grammatical forms and word derivations, either of the Sanscrit, or of the Greek at its earliest emergence in history, reveals a profundity of metaphysical penetration, an elaboration of notional or ideal love, that must have been the product of some centuries of introspective exercise and evolu- tion. We might therefore anticipate that the earliest myths current, those for example among the Greeks, would have interwoven into them metaphysical notions, ethical ideas, general- isations from human history, etc. Not that this stage was the earliest in human thought-evolution. Natural phenomena constituted undoubtedly the first raw material on which the mythopceic fancy of primitive races exercised itself; but the metaphysical stage succeeded long before the mythopceic faculty had exhausted itself and subjective ideas and impressions ceased to embody themselves in a fanciful objective form. We have an illustration of the three chief stages in mythological develop- ment in the oldest Olympian dynasties of Greek mythology. 12 Five Great Skeptical Dramas. The first or physical stage is marked by the period when Ouranos and Ge the starry heavens and the fertile earth were con- ceived as the ruling divinities of Olympus. In this stage all the powers of Nature were represented from a purely physical or sensible point of view. But this was succeeded by a meta- physical stage, in which the human faculties were equal to the formation and combination of abstractions, when, for example, Time (Chronos) was regarded not only as a distinct entity, but as the supreme producer of all things, and when his queen, Rhea, was similarly excogitated from the successional aspects, which even now form all that we know of time. Without sharing the opinion of Sokrates that those who constructed from their ex- perience such an abstraction as Rhea must have had some idea of the flux of Herakleitos, we must allow that the effort involved no inconsiderable amount of metaphysical proficiency ; and yet this was clearly allied with the exercise of the mythopoeic faculty. The next stage may be termed anthropomorphic, in which the ruling powers of Nature, albeit their physical characteristics are not overlooked, are more and more invested with the attributes seen to pertain to man, and when Chronos is succeeded by Zeus, and the Olympian Court assumes the likeness of a disorderly human family. These stages of myth-evolution need not here be investigated further. To return to the object for which they were adduced, we probably have in the Prometheus myth, as in most others, metaphysical and moral as well as physical causes. Thus, if the commotions and mutual animosities of heavenly powers embodied in the Titanomachies were first suggested by physical phenomena such as thunderstorms, star showers, etc., this rudimentary conception was in all likelihood confirmed and matured by observation of the conduct of men in societies and social communities. The dissidence among celestial potentates first inferred from Nature was attested by experience of the mutual collision of human wills, dispositions and inclinations. It seemed impossible for reflective men, even in primitive times, to conceive a number of beings like the Olympian deities, each endued with intelligence, power and volition to an extreme degree, without a gradual inference of antagonism and perhaps final separation. This is one root-thought of the polytheism which is the primary form of all the known religions of the The Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus. 13 world, and from which, as John Stuart Mill pointed out, the common forms of Christianity are by no means exempt. Whether the primitive Aryans, who first excogitated the rudimentary ideas from which celestial strife in all its varied forms has been evolved, based their moral presumption of such a theory on observation of the enmities, wars, etc., among earthly potentates it is impossible to say ; but it is easy to see that they could have had no difficulty in assimilating natural phenomena of a striking kind to the ordinary manifestations of human volition. For at that time, we must remember, every natural appearance was regarded from a personal and anthropomorphic standpoint. The thunderstorm, the rain shower, were not then considered the inevitable results of law, still less as the purposeless effects of chance or accident. They were instinct with will, conscious effort, deliberate intention. There was little difference in this respect between the supreme rule of a physical dynasty like that of Ouranos, and a metaphysical or immaterial one like that of Chronos. Each of those universal sovereigns was invested with volition and purposeful energies, just as much as were the actions of a primitive Aryan chief or king, and there was no conscious distinction between the volitional manifestations of the heavenly, and those of the earthly, potentate. Hence, when the early Aryans, with their prepossession that all the heavenly bodies were deities endowed with power and volition, saw the wondrous phenomenon of a star shower, no idea could have seemed so natural and reasonable as that they were witnessing the ter- mination of some heavenly battle, an internecine strife of angels, giants, or Titans, in which the dissentient wills and powers of the star gods were arrayed against each other, and the hurling of the defeated rebels into Tartaros. An early Aryan poet might have imagined the stationary stars driving their insurrec- tionary and fugitive brethren before them, just as in Flaxman's or Core's illustrations of Paradise Lost the celestial archangels are driving Satan and his hellish legions out of heaven at the point of the sword. 3. But while we affirm with moral certitude that the Pro- metheus myth had a two-fold origin, one physical and natural, the other metaphysical and symbolical, these two sources by no means exhaust all the different embodiments and interprets- 14 Five Great Skeptical Dramas. tions the myth has received in ancient or modern times. Or putting the matter in another form, these sources are divisible into a number of subordinate classes. Thus we have the six following expositions of the myths : 1. Aqueous, in which Prometheus represents the clouds or mist. 2. Fiery Celestial, in which he represents the stars, light- ning, eclipses, etc. 3. Fiery Terrestrial, in which he embodies either the de- structive aspects of fire, as for example in vol- canoes, or its useful and enlightening phases. 4. Medical or Scientific. 5. Historical. 6. Rational, Moral, and Metaphysical. I. The primary germ of the Prometheus myth its rudiment- ary conception divested of all accretion is strife among rival powers, the initiatory idea in all probability not including the beneficence or maleficence of those powers in relation to man, though their human aspect soon emerges in the history of early myths. Now the mere statement of such a myth-germ proves its capacity for assuming a considerable diversity of forms. Strife, rivalry, and dissonance, or phenomena that lend them- selves to such an interpretation, are observable in many aspects of Nature, not only among its violent commotions, but among its more peaceful and ordinary phases. To the mythopoeic fancy there is a rivalry and perpetual conflict between cloud-forms and the breezes that scatter or for a time annihilate them. A still more marked antagonism seems revealed by the thunder- bolt or lightning flash that cleaves the forest tree, rives asunder gigantic rocks, or sets human habitations on fire. A rivalry of another kind is that which exists between opposing principles or elements in Nature, for example, between heat and cold, between fire and water, etc. The harshness of natural dissonance assumes however a more violent form when man and his interests are regarded as a primary if not exclusive concernment of Nature, and when every agency that affects prejudicially his welfare is considered as a personal foe. Nor is this all ; for turning from Nature to humanity we find strife and rivalry the normal products of men in every stage of social life the collision of The Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus. 1 5 divergent and opposing volitions being a necessary factor in all human progress. 1 Strife is lastly the undeniable condition of the individual man regarded as a reasoning being, when once he has attained a stage of retrospection and introspection. We thus see how natural, nay, how inevitable, it was that the germ of the Prometheus should assume under varied conditions of develop- ment the manifold forms contained in the foregoing classifica- tion, and we are also able to appreciate the truth too often over- looked by mythologists that the same myth, originating among different races and at different times, may possess diverse sources and designations while sharing the same general outline of formal conception, as the Aeschylean Prometheus significantly says of his mother 7ro\\(av ovo^drwv /j,op(f>r) fiia, " one form with many names ". I. Prometheus the Mist or Cloud. Although the preponderating and general source of the Pro- metheus myth in all its forms seems to connect it with fire, light, etc., yet in fairness we must allow that there are some arguments for its alleged affinity with mist and cloud phenomena. First it represents the more ordinary phenomena of Nature upon which rather than upon its rarer, more striking aspects the earliest mythopoeic fancy seems in the first instance to have exercised itself. Secondly, it is capable of being supported by the deriva- tion of the name Prometheus, while in other languages, Semitic and Indo-Germanic, we find an analogous affinity between clouds and mists and the names and titles of great personages. Thirdly, it possesses certain acknowledged Titanic attributes ; for mists and clouds are earth-born, gigantic, unshapely, terror- causing, 2 while mists climbing the mountain side might well 1 The classical scholar need hardly be reminded of the function of the beneficent or progressive "Epis in the works of Hesiod. Compare, for example, Opera et Dies, i., 24 ; dya6t) 8'*Epis rj8( PpoTow. 2 The personification and mythification of cloud and mist-shapes i8 a large subject which cannot be here discussed. We may however ob- serve, as bearing on this interpretation of the Prometheus myth : 1. The facility with which the forms of clouds lend themselves to mythopoeic fancy. 2. The rivalry of cloud-myth personages to celestial beings. 3. The gift of foresight, frequently attributed to them, as for example in the case of the Cymric Cyoeraeth or hag of the mist, the Irish Banshee, 1 6 Five Great Skeptical Dramas. claim the character of aspiring, ambitious, heaven-storming, etc. Fourthly, for the last reason it must be credited with a consider- able share of mythopceic suggestiveness, for we can readily imagine how the ascent of a mist as it were from earth to heaven and its development into a firm overhanging pall of clouds might be fancy-shaped into the bold effort of an earth-born monster to assault the citadel of heaven, and extinguish the light of the sun or of the moon and stars. More than one ancient myth is based on this phenomenon ; indeed, we are assured by compara- tive mythologists that it is a frequently occurring form of myth- making lore. A remarkable illustration of the mode of evolution pertaining to this myth is afforded us by Elihu's speech in the Book of Job (xxxvi., 26): as describing the feelings evoked among early races by the observation of mists and clouds "rising to thunder" as West of England people phrase it it seems deserving of quotation : Behold, God is so great that he is not known, The number of his years cannot be counted ; For he draweth up the water-drops Which pour themselves in rain as his mist. Wherefore the light clouds spread themselves ; They descend in drops on many people. Can any understand the spreadings of the clouds Or the noise of his pavilion 1 Behold he spreadeth his light upon it And covereth the roots of the sea. For by these he judgeth the people And giveth them food in abundance. His hands he clotheth with lightning, And sendeth it against his foes. His thunder announceth him, So do the kine his mounting upward. Ay, at this my heart trembles, And leaps up from its place. etc. On the general subject a writer in Notes and Queries (ser. i., vol. i., p. 295) well remarks: "Any one who has witnessed the gathering and downward rolling of a genuine mountain fog must fully appreciate the spirit in which men first peopled the cloud with such supernatural beings as those above described ; or with those which dimly yet constantly per- vade the much-admired Legend of Montrose ". Of course the ascending mist would be more symbolical of a Titanic personage contending against the gods than that which rolls down the mountain. The Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus. 1 7 Hear, hear ye the noise of his voice, The roar that proceedeth from his mouth. He disperses it under the whole heaven, And his lightning to the bounds of the earth. In this passage we have the consecutive appearances of mist and cloud formation narrated in a manner equally graphic and poetical. The first stage is the condensation of atmospheric moisture in filmy drops. Then follows their aggregation in light vapoury clouds. Rising from the ground and gradually increasing in size, they appear to take the form of a gigantic monster animated with life and motion. This apparition, now mythicised into an earth-born giant, begins slowly to creep up the mountain side. Its progress upwards is watched with alarm by the cattle, for they presage a thunderstorm. 1 Up- ward ascends the mist-Titan still increasing in immensity and power. Presently he spreads himself like an immense sail or carpet over the sky, covering the whole expanse of heaven, quenching the light of the sun, and hiding the roots of the cloud- sea the water above the firmament as the poet, with a bold metaphor, terms the long shafts of light streaming downwards between two clouds. And now begins the contest between the giant and the celestial powers. The deity prepares for the fight. His coming is announced, while the mist-giant is creeping up the mountain side, by the faint rumbling of distant thunder. He arms himself with the lightning which he hurls against his foe. The noise of the battle is heard throughout the world, and the lightning flashes are seen from one side of heaven to the other. For a time the fight seems to wage with varying fortune ; but at last victory declares itself on the side of the celestials, and the cloud-giants are dispersed. The storm is over, and once more the sun shines forth in all its brilliancy. Occasionally the struggle here depicted assumes a somewhat different form. It is a contest between cloud-forms and winds, the latter being regarded in this case as the emissaries of the celestials, and employed by them to perform the same militant service as the thunder and 1 Compare Virgil, Georgics, i., 374-6 : "... ilium surgentem vallibus imis Ae'riae fugere grues, aut bucula coelum Suspicions patulis captavit naribus auras ". 2 1 8 Five Great Skeptical Dramas. the lightning flash. This plan of the myth is also alluded to in the same portion of the Book of Job : When men see not the sun, Because its light is hidden behind the clouds, Then passeth the wind, and the sky is pure ; From the North comes the gold ray of light To reveal the glory of God. But there is another aspect of this interpretation of the Pro- metheus myth deserving notice. In most Hellenic versions of the myth the Titan is represented as conveying the sacred celestial fire for the behoof of mortals in the hollow of a fennel rod. Now it is remarkable that the Greeks called the long pillars of light which are occasionally seen shooting down- wards between two clouds by the name of staves (pdfiSot), just as they are now called in some parts of England " sun-posts ". Their purpose according to the folk-lore of most European countries is to draw or suck up water, and they are accounted an infallible prognostic of rain. With this function agrees our derivation of the name Prometheus, which some writers trace to the roots ^77, prjO, prjT, related to the Greek //,<&>, and which imply movement in an upward direction. On this theory the descending light-shafts would symbolise at one and the same time the descent of Prometheus with the stolen light and the ascent of the ambitious Titan to take by storm the abode of the celestial deities. It is clear that this modification of clouds and mist by the rays of the sun struck forcibly early observers of meteorological phenomena, while not less remarkable is the general concurrence of opinion as to the function of these pillars of light. In Germany and England at the present day, as I have just stated, they are said to draw water, and we have the same idea in ancient times. The Scandinavian Edda, for example, represents the god Loki (light : a deity whose affinity to the Hellenic Prometheus, as we shall see farther on, is very marked) as drinking water in this way ; x and the Hebrew poet in Elihu's speech above quoted seems to allude to the same function. 1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, i., p. 221. The Prometheus Vine (us of Aeschylus. 1 9 II. Prometheus conceived as Fire (celestial). I have already alluded to the stars and other heavenly bodies as presenting phenomena which, subjected to the vivid fancy and plastic energy of myth-makers, would readily take the form of a myth resembling that of Prometheus. Indeed the con- nection of Prometheus with fire or some of its properties is a feature so distinctly impressed on all the older and more widely diffused forms of the myth that we must, I think, accept it as the factor in its original formation. Sabeism or star worship was, we are aware, a prevailing form of religion among the Semitic and Indo-Germanic races of prehistoric times. Abun- dant traces of it exist in the Old Testament as well as in the early records of most branches of the Aryan race. Now the first impressions that would naturally be produced on early star- gazers by a contemplation of the heavens would be : 1. A con- viction that the stars, like the clouds, etc., were living beings. 2. That they were related to each other as superior and inferior in a kind of celestial hierarchy, beginning with the sun and moon and descending to the smallest visible star. 1 When the imaginations of these early astronomers had become still further matured, and when the conditions of social life were sufficiently advanced to suggest the symbolism, nothing could be more natural than to take the two great luminaries as celestial re- presentatives of an earthly king and queen; or, in the agricultural stage of society, of the Patriarch or tribal chief and his wife. The principal stars, estimating them in the order of size or light- giving powers, would be the heavenly types of those persons who on account of kin or for other reasons stood next in order to the king or chief. This conception of the starry heavens as a kind of celestial Olympus probably preceded the cognate but sub- sequent idea of the stars being the spirits or habitations of mighty heroes or potentates, who were awarded a place among the constellations for services rendered to the gods. At any rate the connection of the stars with princes, chiefs, giants, etc., is very distinctly marked in the mythologies both of Semitic J The general order of priority among star-worshippers seems to have been : 1. The moon. 2. The stars, and especially the planets. 3. The sun. Compare Schultze's Fetischismus, p. 237. 2O Five Great Skeptical Dramas. and Aryan races. When this stage of star personification was once reached, nothing would be easier than the imaginary evolu- tion of such a myth as that of Prometheus. Turning however to the more particular sources of that myth, we find Prometheus in its very earliest stage of formation connected with the planet Venus. He is the morning star, the dawn bringer (eocr-<6/3o6po?) being the common Hellenic designation of the Titan and his mission. Epimetheus his twin brother is the same planet seen as the evening star (their actual identity being not at first recognised). It would seem that in primitive times when Sabeism was a widely preva- lent form of cult among the common ancestors both of Semites and Aryans, the morning and evening stars stood highest among all stellar phenomena, as those which impressed themselves most forcibly upon men's attention. 1 Nor is this surprising. Few celestial appearances are more striking than the majestic rising of Venus from the earth, or, as the Greeks would mostly witness it, from the sea, during the pre-solar half of her orbit ; preceding by an hour or two the great luminary of day, and heralding the " rosy-fingered " or " crocus-mantled " dawn. This is the phenomenon described by Homer : ?>> ii j. / >\ fvr r)o(r(popos fieri (pocos fpea>v CTTI yaiav SvTf p.era KpoKOTTfTrXos vntlp aXa tuBvarat 'Hcor. 2 And the same subject has exercised the imaginations and pencils of poets from his time to ours. But hardly less striking is the appearance of Venus soon after sunset in the post-solar half of her orbit. It was impossible even in the earliest ages to avoid connecting these phenomena and assimilating the morning and evening stars as at least correlated and co-equal orbs ; the peculi- arity of appearance shared by both (the white shimmering light of Venus serving to differentiate her completely from all the other planets), their mode of rising, the altitude they attained, and their close relation to the sun, were common characteristics 1 Schultze, Fetischismus, p. 237. Compare Hesiod, Theogony, p. 381 : " TOVS Se /xeY' dcrrepd rinrfv '~E(O(r(p6pov 'Hpiyevtia aovpa re Xa/i7TTo'a)j/ra, Tar' ovpavos eTai ". Iliad, xxiii., line 226. The Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus. 2 1 that would soon have impressed themselves on early observers. 1 Hence we have them described by the Hellenes as twin and inti- mate brothers, while in the Scandinavian Edda they figure as the two eyes of the giant Thiapi which Odin places in the heavens as stars. 2 But their identity as the same star in different posi- tions was a discovery made at a very early period. Whewell indeed says that " he can hardly conceive men noticing the stars for a year or two without coming to this conclusion ". 3 The dis- covery is attributed by Apollodoros to Pythagoras, 4 who probably derived it with other stellar lore from Oriental sources it was certainly made at a very early date. But before this discovery, when Phosphoros and Hesperos were as yet regarded as two stars or stellarised persons for the ani- mated or personified idea of heavenly bodies must never be left out of consideration when discussing mythological astronomy we have the development of that beautiful symbolism which forms the outline of the myth as it afterwards became popu- larised in Greece through the works of Hesiod and Aeschylus. To the early night-watchers who first directed their gaze to Phosphoros, the most remarkable features in its rising were its own brilliancy and the consequent suppression of other stars in the eastern part of the sky, excepting those that were of the first magnitude. This phenomenon, interpreted by the lively imagi- nation of Orientals, would not unnaturally assume the form of a Titanic attempt to take possession of the heavens, i.e., the celestial vault or expanse which is signified by the word Zeus. That the attempt was frustrated was seen when the dawn in- creased and Phosphoros with his giant brethren 6 began to pale their ineffectual fire, 1 Thus Cicero speaks of " Stella Veneris quae Lucifer dicitur cum antegreditur Solem, cum subsequitur autem Hesperus ". De Nat. Deor., lib. ii. Compare also Donne, Of the Progress of the Soul : " Venus retards her not, to enquire how shee Can being one star Hesper and Vesper bee ". Poems, ed. Grosart, vol. i., p. 138. 2 Grimm, D. M., 686. * History of Inductive Sci., i., 109. 4 nepl f S> v , Book ii. But Phavorinus ascribes the discovery to Par- menides. Most modern astronomers, however, prefer Pythagoras. Com- pare Whewell, op. cit., p. 109 ; Flammarion, Les Terres du Ciel, p. 175. 5 Compare Job, xxxviii., 7, "When the morning stars sang together 22 Five Great Skeptical Dramas. and were soon entirely extinguished. In the Sanscrit, one name for Venus, Daitya Guru, is said to mean the Queen of the Titans, while in the Hebrew mythology Lucifer is a Latinised form of the name for the chief of the insurrectionary angels. A cognate and still more remarkable idea is that of the ancient Mexicans, who held Venus to be superior to the Sun. 1 More significant still was the moral symbolism that in pro- cess of time came to be attached to Prometheus and Epimetheus as the impersonations of the morning and evening stars. The former was the bright harbinger or herald of the day. He is therefore the emblematical representation of forethought, fore- sight, anticipation and hope. He symbolises providence, prudence, insight, and therefore skill, energy and progress. He directs men's gaze to the future of light and joyousness, and bids them turn their back on the dark, irretrievable past. On the other hand Epimetheus, the evening star, possesses with opposite posi- tion a corresponding symbolical meaning. The sun has departed, taking with him that light which was the physical and mental sustenance of the thoughtful Greek. The darkness of night is approaching. Hesperos recalls the light that has disappeared. Its outlook is directed, not to the dark vista of the future, but to the brightness of the past. It is hence the star of after- thought, of reflection, of memory, of retrospection, and, by a con- nection of thought easily traceable, of irrresolution, hopelessness and despair. In short, Prometheus brings light with its attendant blessings to mortals, and especially for this is the consummation of his gifts he bestows upon them hope. In his own words : Bvrjrovs y en-avera fjif) Trpo8fpKcr6ai popov. rv(p\as fv avrols (\7ri8as Karw/acra. 2 Man's doom from mortal foresight I kept hid, I caused to dwell within them sightless hopes. and all the Sons of God shouted for joy;" and Virgil's "Titaniaque astra," dZneid, vi., 725. The same idea also occurs in Isaiah, xiii., 10, where the word D^7^D3, the plural of the name rendered in our version Orion, signifies "gigantes coeli," i.e., majora coeli sidera. See Gesenius, ad. voc. 1 Compare Schultze, Fetischismus, p. 249. 2 Aeschylus, Prom., 256, 258. The contradiction implied in these lines, both to the express function of Prometheus as the bestower of The Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus. 23 Epimetheus on the contrary introduces darkness and error, and while in conjunction with Pandora he is the means of bringing many ills on mortals, he adds to these ill offices this greatest evil of all, that he or rather Pandora prevents hope from blessing humanity. fjiovvri 8' avTodt 'EATTtr eV dppijKrowt 86fj.oi(riv evdov fptfj.ve Tridov VTTO ^fiXfcriv, ovde dvpaf We hence see how Phosphoros and Hesperos became typical to prehistoric races of foresight and aftersight, of hopefulness and hopelessness. Nor is this symbolism of morning and evening phenomena an isolated or uncommon feature of mythology ; for we find kindred ideas in the myth traditions of most ancient races. Thus, to take another instance, in German mythology 2 the reason given for the redness of the dawn is that it denotes its uncertainty as to whether it will accomplish its daily course and the full evolution of light where the prospective, hopeful nature of Prometheus emerges very distinctly ; the redness of evening twilight being accounted for by its standing over hell, i.e., the abode of darkness, where again the fearful, helpless nature of Epimetheus seems clearly indicated. With these main outlines of stellar symbolism so far as regards our subject of Prometheus kept in view, we cannot have much difficulty in filling them up. Pandora, the Zeus-given wife of Epimetheus, with her jar of ills, may perhaps be taken in one sense to represent the night foresight on humanity and to the blind condition of men prior to his beneficent agency, has been often remarked ; but it may be doubted whether it is so great as is supposed. At least it is conceivable that the foresight he extinguished was the dread anticipation, the animal terror, of death, which would be a result of a low stage of civilisation ; while the " sightless hopes " he substituted for these alarms may be taken as the far outlook into the hidden future, which is frequently an accom- paniment of high imaginative culture. The idea of immortality' regarding it only as a product of advanced culture, may be taken as an illustration of the rv