The Journal of Philology, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Journal of Philology, Vol. 1There is a mystery about the Unseen that takes equally strong hold of the cultivated and the untutored mind: but in the former it is subjected to reason and faith in all-controlling Provi dence, in the latter it degenerates into pure unreasoning dread. Even children who have never been wantonly frightened are apt to fear the dark. There is but too much reason to believe, that the earliest notions of worship in the human race were dictated by fear rather than by love. If we follow the analogy of our own times, we can hardly doubt that the grovelling races who in very remote ages lived in caves and made ¿int or bone implements, had no exalted ideas of a beneficent Creator. To worship and obey are higher efforts than to fear and to bribe. Hence the propitiation of malignant powers rather than the adoration of a Supreme Good seems to have formed the basis of the early religions of the world. It is certain that even element-worship, although, coming as it did from the Persians and Medians, both highly gifted families, it had some grand conceptions, had also its dark side, and dealt largely with the powers supposed to reside under the earth'. A right understanding of this subject is by no means unimportant to the correct appreciation of the mind of the Greek and Roman poets. It is a very extensive subject, but I hope to give such a sketch of it in brief as will be useful to those who have not directed their attention specially to it.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.