Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/222

210 the Advancement of Science. He says: "I am compelled to use the word race vaguely for any considerable group of men who resemble each other in certain common characters transmitted from generation to generation." Some satisfactory solution of the problem may be made in the future, but for the present the most useful direction of the work of anthropologists is not in attempts to establish racial divisions, but in the determination of the several planes of culture with recognition of specific environments.

A rabbinical legend tells that Lot was the first to argue the existence of one god ruling the universe, from the irregular phenomena observed on land and sea and among the heavenly bodies. "If these had power of their own," he said, "they would have had regular motions, but as they had no regularity they were subservient to the occasional exercise of a higher will." In times of greater scientific knowledge these supposed irregular motions are found to be in accordance with laws considered to be permanent, if not immutable, and the recognition of such tremendous laws gives a higher conception of their maker. The notion that such laws are or can be suspended or violated suggests irresolution and caprice, shocks human reason, and clouds the glory of divinity.

The doctrine attributed to Lot is instructive, because the conception of nature implied in it permeated all the early philosophy. We now define a miracle specifically as a deviation from the laws of nature. But to those for whom nature had no laws, the prime definition as "the wonderful" was alone correct. A supernatural being could do anything whatever in accordance with his arbitrary will, and was expected to act in that manner. Men who were inspired or empowered by the supernatural were also expected, indeed were required, to work wonders. It would hardly be a paradox to assert that only the supernatural was natural, and that only the irregular was regular.

That both the Indians and the Israelites were in this stage of philosophy has been conclusively shown. It is also evident that the principle of ancientism was potent in their religion.

Ancientism, which still has surviving influence, declares the old thought, that of the ancient men, to be always the best. This is false, unless the theory is true that all knowledge comes from revelation, which was given only to the ancient men, who therefore had it in its pure condition. To cling to the old merely because it is old is bad; in fact, is the crudest superstition. Some advocates of the old reject all new thoughts, but the more intelligent of its praisers seek to force a reconciliation between the old thought and the new. What they now believe must be right. What they are not accustomed to is shocking, and therefore wrong. So the old, which was always right, must be distorted so