Henry Buckley - History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3

‘In the material polytheism of other leading ancient nations, the Egyptians, for example, the incarnation of the Deity was chiefly, or exclusively, confined to animals, monsters, or other fanciful emblems… In Greece, on the other hand, it was an almost necessary result of the spirit and grace with which the deities were embodied in human forms, that they should also be burdened with human interests and passions. Heaven, like earth, had its courts and palaces, its trades and professions, its marriages, intrigues, divorces.’ Mure's History of the Literature of Ancient Greece , vol. i. pp. 471, 472. So, too, Tennemann ( Geschichte der Philosophie , vol. iii. p. 419): ‘Diese Götter haben Menschengestalt… Haben die Götter aber nicht nur menschliche Gestalt, sondern auch einen menschlichen Körper, so sind sie als Menschen auch denselben Unvollkommenheiten, Krankheiten und dem Tode unterworfen; dieses streitet mit dem Begriffe,’ i. e. of Epicurus. Compare Grote's History of Greece , vol. i. p. 596: ‘The mythical age was peopled with a mingled aggregate of gods, heroes, and men, so confounded together, that it was often impossible to distinguish to which class any individual name belonged.’ See also the complaint of Xenophanes, in Müller's Hist. of Lit. of Greece , London, 1856, p. 251.

The same remark applies to beauty of form, which they first aimed at in the statues of men, and then brought to bear upon the statues of the gods. This is well put in Mr. Grote's important work, History of Greece , vol. iv. pp. 133, 134, edit. 1847.

‘But the worship of deified heroes is no part of that system.’ Colebrooke on the Vedas , in Asiatic Researches , vol. viii. p. 495.

Mackay's Religious Development , vol. ii. p. 53, Lond. 1850. Compare Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians , vol. iv. pp. 148, 318; and Matter , Histoire de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie , vol. i. p. 2; the ‘culte des grands hommes,’ which afterwards arose in Alexandria ( Matter , vol. i. p. 54), must have been owing to Greek influence.

There are no indications of it in the Zendavesta; and Herodotus says, that the Persians were unlike the Greeks, in so far as they disbelieved in a god having a human form; book i. chap. cxxxi. vol. i. p. 308: οὐκ ἀνθρωποφυέας ἐνόμισαν τοὺς θεοὺς, κατάπερ Ἔλληνες εῖναι.

I am not acquainted with any evidence connecting this worship with the old Arabian religion; and it was certainly most alien to the spirit of Mohammedanism.

Mure's History of the Literature of Greece , vol. i. pp. 28, 500, vol. ii. p. 402: very good remarks on a subject handled unsatisfactorily by Coleridge; Literary Remains , vol. i. p. 185. Thirlwall ( History of Greece , vol. i. p. 207) admits that ‘the views and feelings out of which it (the worship of heroes) arose, seem to be clearly discernible in the Homeric poems.’ Compare Cudworth's Intellectual System , vol. ii. pp. 226, 372. In the Cratylus, chap. xxxiii., Socrates is represented as asking, Οὐκ οἶσθα ὅτι ἡμίθεοι ἥρωες; Platonis Opera , vol. iv. p. 227, edit. Bekker, Lond. 1826. And in the next century, Alexander obtained for his friend, Hephæstion, the right of being ‘worshipped as a hero’ Grote's History of Greece , vol. xii. p. 339.

The adoration of the dead, and particularly the adoration of martyrs, was one great point of opposition between the orthodox church and the Manichæans ( Beausobre , Histoire Critique de Manichée , vol. i. p. 316, vol. ii. pp. 651, 669); and it is easy to understand how abhorrent such a practice must have been to the Persian heretics.

M. Cousin, in his eloquent and ingenious work ( Histoire de la Philosophie , 3e série, vol. i. pp. 183, 187), has some judicious observations on what he calls ‘l'époque de l'infini’ of the East, contrasted with that ‘du fini,’ which began in Europe. But as to the physical causes of this, he only admits the grandeur of nature, overlooking those natural elements of mystery and of danger by which religious sentiments were constantly excited.

A learned orientalist says, that no people have made such efforts as the Hindus ‘to solve, exhaust, comprehend, what is insolvable, inexhaustible, incomprehensible.’ Troyer's Preliminary Discourse on the Dabistan , vol. i. p. cviii.

This is noticed by Tennemann, who, however, has not attempted to ascertain the cause: ‘Die Einbildungskraft des Griechen war schöpferisch, sie schuf in seinem Innern neue Ideenwelten; aber er wurde doch nie verleitet, die idealische Welt mit der wirklichen zu verwechseln, weil sie immer mit einem richtigen Verstande und gesunder Beurtheilungskraft verbunden war.’ Geschichte der Philosophie , vol. i. p. 8; and vol. vi. p. 490, he says, ‘Bei allen diesen Mängeln und Fehlern sind doch die Griechen die einzige Nation der alten Welt, welche Sinn für Wissenschaft hatte, und zu diesem Behufe forschte. Sie haben doch die Bahn gebrochen, und den Weg zur Wissenschaft geebnet.’ To the same effect, Sprengel , Histoire de la Médecine , vol. i. p. 215. And on this difference between the Eastern and the European mind, see Matter , Histoire du Gnosticisme , vol. i. pp. 18, 233, 234. So, too, Kant ( Logik , in Kant's Werke , vol. i. p. 350), ‘Unter allen Völkern haben also die Griechen erst angefangen zu philosophiren. Denn sie haben zuerst versucht, nicht an dem Leitfaden der Bilder die Vernunfterkenntnisse zu cultiviren, sondern in abstracto ; statt dass die anderen Völker sich die Begriffe immer nur durch Bilder in concreto verständlich zu machen suchten.’

Thus, of one of the idols at Copan, ‘The intention of the sculptor seems to have been to excite terror.’ Stephens's Central America , vol. i. p. 152; at p. 159, ‘The form of sculpture most generally used was a death's head.’ At Mayapan (vol. iii. p. 133), ‘representations of human figures or animals with hideous features and expressions, in producing which the skill of the artist seems to have been expended;’ and again, p. 412, ‘unnatural and grotesque faces.’

The most constant gland in the animal kingdom is the liver.’ Grant's Comp. Anat. p. 576. See also Béclard , Anat. Gén. p. 18, and Burdach , Traité de Physiol. vol. ix. p. 580. Burdach says, ‘Il existe dans presque tout le règne animal;’ and the latest researches have detected the rudiments of a liver even in the Entozoa and Rotifera. Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom , 1855, p. 183, and Owen's Invertebrata , 1855, p. 104.

Until the analysis made by Demarçay in 1837, hardly any thing was known of the composition of bile; but this accomplished chemist ascertained that its essential constituent is choleate of soda, and that the choleic acid contains nearly sixty-three per cent. of carbon. Compare Thomson's Animal Chemistry , pp. 59, 60, 412, 602, with Simon's Chemistry , vol. ii. pp. 17–21.

‘The size of the liver and the quantity of the bile are not proportionate to the quantity of the food and frequency of eating; but inversely to the size and perfection of the lungs… The liver is proportionately larger in reptiles, which have lungs with large cells incapable of rapidly decarbonizing the blood.’ Good's Study of Medicine , 1829, vol. i. pp. 32, 33. See Cuvier , Règne Animal , vol. ii. p. 2, on ‘la petitesse des vaisseaux pulmonaires’ of reptiles.