been a foster-mother, as she was to Romulus and Remus. The tiger and wolf are Totems in America, as are several others on the list above-given. It is altogether out of the question, however, to attempt to deal here with such a list. Enough has been said to prove that the most savage animal may be accepted by a tribe of men as a Totem, and be thereafter developed into a great and benign god.1 We must also dispose of the worship of plants in a summary manner. This matters the less that the worship of a considerable variety of them is established in Mr. Fergusson's recent publication on "Tree and Serpent Worship."2 Among these we have the Peartree, Oak, Asclepias—a creeping shrub―(the Soma, a great Indian god), the Pipal, the Fig-tree, the Bela, the Tulsi plant, the Tamarisk, and the Elapatia and Talok trees. To this list we may add the Olive, Laurel, Lotus, Palm, Pomegranate and Poppy. A

(1) We may here, in a foot-note, dispose of a few facts which, indeed, are those that, now four years ago, suggested this inquiry, though the writer has been unable to work upon it till recently. The fact of Serpent and Bull tribes being known to exist, and to have existed, seemed to offer an explanation of the myth of Cadmus, at Thebes, and of the cow that led him thither. On the same suggestion it occurred that there might have been a Snake-tribe in Rhodes. Phorbas obtained the supremacy by freeing the island of snakes. The myth of the Ants and Ægina next strengthened the suggestion of the presence of tribes with Totems. The ants in the island were miraculously turned into men-the μúpμeg into the Myrmidons-Ants, that is, quite on the level of the Australian opossums. Then occurred the Calydonian boar hunt-there is something like it in the Celtic tales, and in the Highlands, we have no doubt, inquiry will yet establish the Totem stage. It seemed incredible that the slaughter of a boar should have employed the whole chivalry of Greece—an army of warriors-and that the feat should ever after rank among the proudest exploits of the nation. The question rose, Was there a Boar-tribe? The Oracle enjoined Adrastus to give his daughters in marriage, one to a boar, and the other to a lion. This was complied with by their marrying Tydæus and Polynices respectively! Tydæus came from Calydon, and was son of Eneus, king of the country. He was therefore possibly a boar, if the question above put was to be answered in the affirmative. Was Polynices, then, a lion, and was there a Lion-tribe? As he was the son of Edipus, from the land of the sphinx, it seemed not improbable, on the Totem view, that he might be a lion. And so the matter appeared worthy of investigation. The facts here stated will, we think, be felt to add force to those in the text. Most of them were first noted by the writer in this Review in 1866, as challenging such an inquiry as the present.

Since this note was in type the writer's attention has been called to "The Antiquities of Heraldry," by Mr. W. S. Ellis, which has recently been issued, and which propounds a view which, at first sight, seems to resemble that in these papers insisted on. Some of the points made, and not a few of the facts founded on, in the chapter devoted to the Heraldry of Mythology are the same as those here given. His view of the order, and even of the nature of the evolution, will be seen, however, on a close inspection, to differ essentially from that of the present writer. Had Mr. Ellis more fully studied the Totem he might have anticipated what is here being said.

(2) Mr. Fergusson's book is, in our opinion, apt to mislead in several respects. 1. The reader gets the impression from it that the worship of the serpent is an exceptional phenomenon; i.e., that it has been singular among animals in being worshipped. 2. It gives the impression that there is a special connection between the serpent and tree. 3. Its title gives the impression that trees only were worshipped, whereas its contents prove the worship as well of small shrubs and plants. All this notwithstanding, it is a valuable book, and one of the most beautiful ever issued.

spiritual ideal of a tree we have in Yggdrasil. Some of these became great gods, and got a place in the religion of the LifePowers. In one or two cases the legends that give us the earliest accounts of plant worship give us also a primitive mother for the tribe having the worship and the suggestion of kinship through the mother only having existed in the tribe. Thus in the legend of Athens, which introduces the Olive, as we have it from Varro (Apud August. de Civi. Dei, xviii. 9), we learn that "a double wonder" having appeared springing out of the earth—namely, the Olivetree and Water-the Oracle declared the Olive to signify Athene, and the Water Poseidon, and that the citizens must choose from which of the two they would name their town. Men and women voted together, and the latter carried the honour for Athene by a majority. Poseidon was thereon enraged, and to appease him women were deprived, among other privileges, of that of having their children named after them. So that anciently, the story bears, children in Athens took their names from their mothers, as they do among the Australians and American Indians. The case of the Ioxidæ again gives us the suggestion of female supremacy in a legend which also informs us that "they reverenced as holy, and worshipped," a certain marsh plant, which no doubt was their Totem.1

With these few observations on plant worship we must pass on to our argument. We shall consider first the explanations that have been offered of divine honours being paid to such beasts as the serpent and lion, and to trees, &c.; and after showing that they are unsatisfactory, we shall proceed to consider the weight of the evidence direct and indirect that goes to show the soundness of our own hypothesis.

1. The Emblem Hypothesis.—Suppose we knew that all men were, as Bryant believed, derived from one family since 2348 B.C.—the date of the Deluge-that writer's Arkite system would still be worth nothing, either as an explanation of animal worship, or as evidence of the Deluge having occurred. He does not pretend to include nearly all the animals or plants that have been worshipped in his list of Arkite emblems; and, accordingly, to give a reasonable colour to his hypothesis that there had been any Arkite emblems at all that had degenerated into gods, he ought to have excluded the possibility of those he includes having become gods through the operation of such causes as led to the worship of the others. Such causes, whatever they were, being admitted to have been in operation, will explain all the cases; and before an hypothesis of special causes in some cases can be entertained, the operation of the general causes as regards (1) Plutarch, Theseus, chap. iv.

them must be shown either to be insufficient or to be excluded. This, however, Bryant has not attempted, or even thought of attempting, to show; and, therefore, even could we make the necessary supposition as to the history of human tribes, we must still conclude that this learned and, in a confused sort of way, ingenious man has succeeded in nothing-not even in setting up a respectable hypothesis. It is simply impossible, however, with our modern information-the history of several nations having been carried beyond the point of time assigned to Noah and his family—to make such a supposition as Bryant requires to set out with. Moreover his system demands not one, but a series of hypothesis, to support it, and they are all bad. 1. There is the hypothesis that the animals had been emblems. This is bad, as we have shown. 2. There is the hypothesis that the emblems degenerated into gods. This is not supported by one instance adduced of such degeneration having, historically, taken place, or even by a fair analysis of the probable steps through which it could have happened. 3. There is the hypothesis that through the idolatry of some one animal of a species thus induced, a religious regard came to be extended to the species. This is subject to the same remark as we have made on the preceding hypothesis. The far-fetching processes by which even a poor appearance of a case has been made for the emblems as at all probable, we need not remark upon. At the same time, as we have amply acknowledged, we have profited much by Bryant's researches at one point. It was necessary in his scheme, as in ours, that it should be shown that the Totems as we say; the animal emblems, as he says-were precedent to the gods of the mythologies.

Another emblem hypothesis represents each animal as, in some way not now to be understood, typical of the nature of some one or other of the gods. This again is a fanciful explanation surrounded by the same sort of difficulties. How came men to think of taking animals and plants to represent their gods? We can understand the selection. only when we conceive their gods as spiritual ideals of animals or plants. Besides, the hypothesis assumes the deities as existing before the animal gods, and this is contrary to the evidence. And why should the selection of an animal to be the type of a god render its species sacred? We do not religiously regard the pigeon, though the dove is one of our most mysterious symbols. We can understand, on the other hand, how it decayed into a symbol, knowing it to have been a god that had grown obsolete. The fish is a Christian symbol; but we have not a religious regard for fishes. When the fish-god was a power, however, his worshippers religiously regarded the finny tribe. They would not eat them. It has been true of these as of most symbols; facts come first, and symbols are facts in decadence. There is yet another form of the emblem hypothesis. It is that

mentioned in a passage cited from Mr. Layard, and which, almost in a sentence, that author states and abandons. This is the hypothesis that the compounds of various animal and human forms "were intended to convey the union of the greatest intellectual and physical powers." This altogether fails to touch the fact of the real worship of living animals. Moreover, as an explanation of the compounds it is untenable. It simply won't hold of the Naga compounds. They are not intended to convey anything of the sort. Will it hold of the dog compounds? As to the bull, lion, and eagle compounds, we saw Mr. Layard's opinion to be that it will not hold; the evidence showing the creatures to have a place, and to be subordinated to one another in the celestial hierarchy. The fact is, though we now make use of lions, sphinxes, and so on, to convey such ideas as he refers to, we demonstrate in doing so only the poverty of the modern imagination and the feebleness of our art instincts; inasmuch as being incapable of inventions, we mimick old forms derived from the religious faiths of long past and misunderstood generations.

While no cases are producible in support of the emblem hypothesis of animals regarded as emblems merely, or illustrating their transition from being emblems to being themselves objects of adoration, we are not without cases to show that the animal-gods were prolongations of the Totems. We have such a case, for example, in Peru. The Peruvians, according to Acosta, worshipped the sun, moon, planets, and stars; fountains and rivers; rocks, great stones, hills, and mountains; land (Tellus) and sea (Poseidon)-all these objects being regarded as persons. They worshipped Thunder, believing him to be a man in the heavens with a sling and mace! Of lesser objects on earth, he tells us, they worshipped fruits and roots, some small stones, and the metals; while among the animals they worshipped he makes special mention of the bear, lion, tiger, and snake. Now we are able from this author to see what were the speculations of a people in the stage in which, having animals as gods on earth, they also worshipped stars in heaven. Of his account of star-worship in Peru, we cite the following version from Lord Herbert of Chedbury :-"They particularly adored that constellation which we call Cabrillas, or the goat, and they Colca; and commanded that such offerings should be made to some stars, and such to others, those being particularly worshipped according as every one's necessity required. The Opisons adored the star Urchuchilly, feigning it to be a Ram of divers colours, who only took care of the preservation of cattel; and it is thought to be the same which the astrologers call Lyra. Besides these two, they worshipped two others that are near them, and say that one of them is a Sheep and the other a Lamb. There are some who adore another star that ruled over the Serpents

and Adders, from which they promised safety to themselves; others who worshipped the star called the Tiger, who they believed to preside over tigers, lions, and bears. They were of opinion that there was not any beast or bird upon the earth WHOSE SHAPE OR IMAGE DID NOT SHINE IN THE HEAVENS, by whose influence its similitude was generated on the earth, and its species increased."1 Thus we see that the beings in the stars were believed to have the animal forms, and to be powers in the celestial hierarchy.

This case proves (1) a connection, such as we have been endeavouring to trace, to have existed between the worship of animals and the nomenclature of the heavens; (2) that the celestial beings were conceived to be in the shape of the animals, and to have special relations to their breed on earth; and (3) while it indicates the persistence of tribal preferences for particular stars as animal gods, it shows the process to have been in operation by which, on the consolidation of the political system, the divine functions are distributed among the tribal, or rather we should say gentile, gods of a group.2

Now of two things one. Either the Peruvians, as some maintain, independently achieved the civilisation they had, starting from the Totem stage in which their neighbours remained, or their civilisation, including the religious doctrines, were derived by them from some one or other of those nations we call the ancient. On the former view, of course, the animal gods are the prolongations of the Totems; on the latter we have in the case of the Peruvians a reflection of the religious system of some one or other of the ancient nations. So that on the least favourable of the alternatives we have the fact, that in some one at least of the ancient nations that worshipped animals and they all did the animals were not emblems, but the exact images of the gods. What was true in one case, the presumption is, was true in all. That is to say, there are not only no facts to support the emblem hypothesis in any of its forms, but the presumption derivable from the facts we have is against that hypothesis.

2. Mr. Fergusson's Explanations.-So much for the emblem hypothesis. There is no other that we know of except in the special case of the serpent and tree, in regard to which views have been put forward by Mr. Fergusson. Tree worship he conceives to have sprung from a perception of the beauty and utility of trees. "With all their poetry and all their usefulness," he says, "we can hardly feel as

(1) Acosta, "Histoire Naturelle," Paris, 1600, pp. 214, 217 (lib. v. chaps. 4 and 5): Herbert's "Religion of the Gentiles," 1705, p. 86.

(2) We have seen in numerous cases the disposition of the tribesmen to identify their Totem with the sun. It is highly probable that the identification of the Totems with particular stars conceived as the sun's inferiors is, like the distribution of functions, a late phenomenon, posterior, that is to say, to the settled co-ordination of the tribes in the political system.