tonished that the primitive races of mankind should have considered trees as the choicest gifts of the gods to men, and should have believed that their spirits still delighted to dwell among their branches, or spoke oracles through the rustling of their leaves." Of this it suffices to say, it does not at all meet the case of the shrubs, creepers, marsh-plants, and weeds, that have been worshipped, and is obviously not the key to the mysteries of plant worship. His account of the origin of serpent worship is, if possible, even more unsatisfactory. He ascribes it to the terror with which the serpent inspired men; to the perception of his remarkable nature, the ease and swiftness of his motions, and his powers of quickly dealing death by sudden spring or mysterious deadly poison. To this the objection is that the serpent religion is not a religion of fear but of love. The serpent, like the tiger and bull, is a benign god. He is a protector, teacher, and father. How came a religion beginning in terror to be transformed into a religion of love? The terror hypothesis will, we submit, not meet the case, even of the serpent. And no such hypothesis, it is obvious, can be extended to cover the run of cases to explain the worship, say, of the dog, the dove, or the bee.

The hypothesis we put forward starts from a basis of ascertained facts. It is not an hypothesis explanatory of the origin of Totemism be it remembered, but an hypothesis explanatory of the animal and plant worship of the ancient nations. It is quite intelligible that animal worship growing from the religious regard for the Totem or Kobong the friend and protector-should, irrespective of the nature of the animal, be a religion of love. What we say is our hypothesis explains the facts. It admits an endless variety of plants and animals to the pantheon as tribal gods; it explains why the tribes should be named from the animal or plant, and why the tribesmen should even, as we saw in some cases they did, esteem themselves as of the species of the Totem-god. It explains why in Egypt, Greece, India, and elsewhere, there should be a number of such gods, by showing that there should be as many as there were stocks, counting themselves distinct, in the population; and it also explains why in one place one animal should be pre-eminent and in another subordinate, the gods following the fortunes of the tribes. It explains, moreover, on rational principles, for the first time, the strange relations represented by the concurring legends of many lands as having existed between various animals and the anthropomorphic gods; it throws a new light on the materials employed in the so-called science of heraldry, showing whence they were drawn; and, lastly, it enables us to see sense and a simple meaning in many legends, and in some historical narratives, that appeared to be simple nonsense till looked at in the light of this hypothesis. Since it is so simple and

so comprehensive, and has a basis of facts for its foundation in existing Totem-races; since we have seen reason to believe that the mental condition of these races and the beliefs they entertain have been at some time the mental condition and beliefs of all the advanced races; and since the only assumption we make is that all races have been progressive, which in other matters they undoubtedly have been, it seems impossible to resist the conclusion that our hypothesis is a sound one-that the ancient nations came through the Totem stage.

Some facts which make for our hypothesis cannot be too much insisted on. We have found in numerous cases what seems good evidence that from the earliest times animals were worshipped by tribes of men who were named after them, and believed to be of their breed. We have seen in several cases the oldest anthropomorphic gods having titles derived from the animals, or believed to be of their breed, or to have been fostered by them; and the conclusion seems to be forced upon us that these gods were preceded by the animals as Totems, if not as gods, and that the latter bore to them the same kind of relation that we know in India the serpent had to Buddha, and bears to Vishnu. On the rise of Buddhism among the Nagas, serpent worship was for a time repressed or subordinated; but the serpents were too strong. They re-asserted themselves, and the old serpent faith revived with a human figure in the Olympus! The heavenly Naga is even now the shield and protector of Vishnu.

The early history of Vishnu strikingly illustrates our views. In the Rig-Veda he is a representation of the sun, with powers derived from Indra, is not as yet among the Adityas, and, so far from being the Lord of the Creation, is not even a god of the first rank. He and Brahma, indeed, as Müller observes, properly belong to a secondary, post-Vedic, formation of the gods.1 In the Brahmanic period we see him strongly impressing the popular imagination, and the germs of those legends appearing that reached their full development in the Epics and Puranas, and through which he attained a first rank, nay, even became the supreme god, as he appears in the Râmâyana. These legends relate to his incarnations, of which the first was in a fish, the second in a tortoise, the third in a boar, and the fourth in a man-lion. The fish legend, among other details comprised in the form it finally

(1) Vishnu and Brahma may have been tribal gods for any length of time. The meaning of Müller's statement must be that they were of low rank in the group of tribes that comprised the chief contributories to the Veda. Probably they rose into importance, like other gods, with the tribes that possessed them. In what follows we have a hint of coalitions of tribes, which would explain their advancement. The history of Vishnu is ably traced in Muir's "Sanskrit Texts," vol. iv., and in Chamb. Encyc., 8. v. Vishnu.

assumed, represents the fish as instructing Manu in all wisdom. The legend wanting this detail is in the Mahâbhârata; and there the fish is Brahma: and we have its original in the White Yajurveda, where the fish represents no god in particular, and the legend is introduced merely to explain certain sacrificial ceremonies. The legend of the tortoise-incarnation of Vishnu, again, is post-Vedic, while the idea of the Lord of the Creation becoming a tortoise is Vedic. It occurs in the Yajur-veda. In the Ramâyâna and Linga-Purana it is Brahma, not Vishnu, who, as Creator of the Universe, becomes a boar. This belief first appears in the Black Yajur-veda, and there it is the Lord of Creation who is the boar, and not either Vishnu or Brahma. The original legend of the incarnation, moreover, represents it as cosmical; it is emblematical according to a later conception; while a third form of the legend has Vishnu for some time incarnate in the boar. During the avatâra the gods, their very existence being threatened by an enemy, implored the aid of Vishnu, who "at that period was the mysterious or primitive boar." He slew the invader, which was but one of his many exploits in this character. As a man-lion he was of fearful aspect and size; as a boar he was gigantic; as a tortoise he was gigantic; as a fish he filled the ocean.1 In his fifth and subsequent avatâras he was incarnate in men-gods, such as Krishna and Buddha, whose histories have been traced, the intention of the incarnations being obvious, namely, to effect a compromise with other religions, and if possible draw their adherents within the fold of Brahmanism-a policy that altogether has been highly successful. Was this the policy of the earlier incarnations? We at once recognise the fish and man-lion as Totem gods, and can see how the policy that dictated an avatâra in Buddha, and is now suggesting an avatâra in Christ, to reconcile Brahmanism and Christianity, should have dictated an incarnation in the fish and man-lion. What, then, of the tortoise and the boar? We say they were Totem-gods, and their avatâras dictated by the same policy. Of the tortoise in mythology, except in this case, the present writer is almost ignorant; 2 but he is a Totem in America, and figures, as does the turtle, on coins of Ægina of ancient date, ranging from 700 B.c. to 450 or 400 B.C., and was presumably a Totem-god. Of the boar there is no doubt. He is worshipped now in China, and was worshipped among the Celts; is a Totem, and figures on the coins of many cities, and the crests of many noble families with whose genealogies legends connect him.3 Since

(1) Will any one venture to suggest that Vishnu, a man-god who had an avatar as a tortoise, has degenerated into a Totem of the Delawares ?

(2) The Greeks had a few tortoise names and one nymph, Chelone, who was turned into a tortoise for not attending the nuptials of Jupiter and Juno.

(3) For pig-worship in China, see "American Expedition to Japan." New York, 1856. P. 161. Of the sacred pigs, in sacred styes at Canton, the writers say :-"It

the Vedic legends show the fish, tortoise, and boar to have been earlier than Vishnu; to have had to do with the creation with which he only lately came to be connected; and since we have the key to the fictions by which each of them was at the later time made out to have been Vishnu, and so robbed of its primitive character by him ;' we cannot doubt but that we possess in this case so many illustrations of the manner in which Zeus, Poseidon, Demêter, Athene, and others of the Egyptian and Greek gods superseded the Totem-gods of the earlier time, derived names from them, and came to be worshipped under their forms. The hypothesis that similar occurrences had taken place among Horse, Bull, Ram, and Goat tribes will explain the peculiar relations which we have seen existed between these gods and these animals respectively, and we know of no other hypothesis on which they can be, at least so well, explained. That Dionysus or Poseidon, for instance, should be ravpoyevýs is a fact presenting no difficulty on our hypothesis any more than that either of them should have been figured as a bull or with a bull's head. To what other hypothesis will the fact not be a stumbling-block? Since these and all the other gods of their class were false gods that were gradually developed by the religious imagination, the fancy of poetical persons and the interested imposture that is everywhere promotive of novelties in religion; since the whole of the facts we have been surveying demonstrate a progress in religious speculation from savage fetichism; and since among the lowest races of men we find no such gods figuring as Zeus and his companions, we seem already, at this stage of the argument, to be justified in arriving at the conclusion that the ancient nations came through the Totem stage, and that Totemism was the foundation of their mythologies. J. F. M'LENNAN.

was something of a curiosity, though somewhat saddening in the reflections it occasioned to behold the sanctified pork and the reverence with which it is worshipped." For Celtic pig-worship, see "Transactions of the Ossianic Society," vol. v. p. 62. 1860. The Celtic legends of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland are pervaded by "the primitive, mysterious boar," and the Irish scholars connect him with the sacred swine of the ancient Celts who, they suppose, had a "porcine worship which was analogous to, if not identical with, the existing worship of Vishnu in his avatar as a boar." Their boar, they may rely on it, was much more ancient than Vishnu, and worshipped over a wider He occurs on coins of various cities of Gallia, Hispania, and Britannia; of Capua in Campania; Arpi in Apulia; Pæstum in Lucania; Erna in Sicilia; Ætolia in genere; of ancient Athens; of Methymna in Lesbos; Clazomene in Ionia; Chios in Ionia, and on several other classical coins all of date B.C., besides being figured on many ancient sculptured stones. [The writer is unable to verify the reference to the Transactions of the Ossianic Society. He got it in Campbell's Celtic Tales.]

area.

(1) An instructive fact is that in Fiji two gods, who will naturally hereafter turn into men-gods, lay claim to the Hawk.

THE LAND QUESTION.

PART III. THE SEVERANCE OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE FROM THE LAND.

I HAVE now to trace the process by which a nation of feudal landtenants, such as I described in my last article, has been converted into a nation whose land is owned and occupied by a few landowners and farmers, and the mass of whose people have been severed from the land. The process was a double one, and so the history divides itself into two. I have to trace (1) how each class of feudal landtenants emerged gradually into the commercial ownership of their holdings, and (2) how, as they did so, the gradual severance of the people from the land took place.

The commercial element is undoubtedly that which has broken up the old feudal order of things in England. Hence it may be well at the outset to realise to some extent its magnitude and relative growth, as compared with the agricultural or feudal element. And these may, perhaps, be most vividly impressed upon the mind by a glance at the growth of the English population, and by a dissection of its numbers into the agricultural and the non-agricultural classes. I have already, in my last article, so thoroughly (as I hope) established the rough estimate I made of the population of England at the Conquest, and before and after the Black Death, that this necessary starting-point may now be fairly taken for granted. We do not again stand upon solid ground as to the population of England till the eighteenth century; but its growth may probably be estimated as follows, the figures between brackets being those which are merely conjectural :

These figures, rough as they are, may at least give us a wholesome view of the growing power in English history of that commercial element which has for centuries been battling with the feudal element, and which is now getting even the land into its grasp. Between the Domesday Survey and the present time the agricultural population has increased about fourfold, the non-agricultural population