sign Aquarius and the rainy month of the year. It would almost be strange if the half-civilised and primitive tribes of mankind, who manufactured mythical stories out of almost every power and influence of Nature, had not invented some legend corresponding with the rainy season which is so marked a feature in many parts of the world. This appears to me to be a rational and probable conjecture, and the idea of a punishment of mankind would so naturally connect itself with the destructive influence of rains and floods, that the moral element found in many versions of the story would not present any insuperable difficulty.

The Tower of Babel is not so universal a legend as those we have been considering, and therefore has not been included in the diagram. But the "Tower of Tongues" was one of the most ancient Chaldean stories, and one of the national traditions of the Armenians.*

THE EARLY LITERARY HISTORY OF RELIGION.

(1) The earliest literary period of Religion, Law, and mythology begins when each nation begins to weave its religious, historical, and other traditions, fables, and legends into a connected form, which often takes the shape of a great national epic, this being at first preserved in the memories of the people or their minstrels, and not for some time reduced to writing. It is important here to observe that though it is true that there can be no literature in the exact meaning of the word, which does not consist of written works, yet for the purpose of our survey we must extend that meaning. For instance, in India a literature does not necessarily consist of written works, for nearly the whole of the enormous sacred literature of Hinduism has been for centuries preserved in * Lenormant, Ancient History of the East, i., 22.

the memories of the Brahmans, who devote many years to the committal of it to memory. Each Brahman is a living library. We have instances of this National Epic period in the Homeric and Hesiodic poems (940–800 b.c.), which, though not reduced into writing until a comparatively late period in the history of the Greeks, crystallised and fixed the national religious belief for many a hundred years. The national epic of Chaldea (circ. B.C. 2000) must also be referred to this period.

(2) The next step in the literary history of Religion is the rise of the great literary religions of the world, of which there are but eight, or if we reckon the Egyptian and Babylonian, ten. The smallness of this number seems less surprising when Max Müller informs us that the greater number of languages spoken at the present day possess no literature.*

The relationship of the great religions to each other is shown in the accompanying diagram. [The literary religions are those strongly underlined.] It will be seen that the primitive Aryan faith has produced one great original literary religion, Brahmanism, of which the reform, Buddhism, has been banished from its Indian home and overspread Asia. So the primitive Semitic faith has produced one great original literary religion, Judaism, of which the reform, Christianity, has been banished from its birthplace and has overspread Europe. The other great Semitic reforming religion, Mahometanism, has spread greatly in Africa, Persia, the Turkish empire, and India, and is even now making greater progress than Christianity in many parts of the world. It is interesting to notice that all the great reforming religions we have mentioned are missionary religions, while their parent faiths were not so.

The earliest Aryan reforming religion is that of the great Bactrian lawgiver, Zoroaster, and as he is supposed to have lived in the twelfth century B.C., it is much the earliest reforming religion with which we are acquainted. Zoroaster abolished idolatry and the demon-worship into which the religion of his countrymen had degenerated, and proclaimed the one living God, Asura or Ahura, to be known as Ahuramazda, the Creator of the Universe. The moral code is comprised in six words, "good thoughts, good words, good deeds," and these again are summed up in one word, Asha, righteousness. That by which Zoroastrianism is usually known, its prominent dualism, is a later teaching than the pure and noble monotheism of the Founder; but it is this dualism which makes the ancient faith most interesting to Christians, for Zoroastrianism had, through its offspring, Manichaeism, a great and deteriorating influence on Christianity, especially giving a great development to the doctrine of a hierarchy of evil spirits or angels, and to the personification of the supposed powers of evil.

We have but few literary records of primitive Turanian faith, but the ancient books of one country, China, were collected by the great reformer Confucius, and almost at the same time another Chinese reformer, Lao-tse, founded a system which has also lasted to the present day, side by side with Confucianism and the imported Buddhism, in that strangest of lands. In Japan the ancient Sintoo faith still continues to be the religion of the Court, which has also a language and a literature peculiar to itself and to men of rank and learning. We can hardly call Confucianism a religion, for it has no reference to a future life or to a belief in a divine being or spirits. Probably the secret of its great success was that it laid before the people an ideal of life, to which all might attain. In this it resembles two other great reforming religions, Buddhism and Christianity, which may