Chapter I

, I attempted to explain how originally science and religion were not differentiated. Both were the outcome of man's attempt to peer into the meaning of natural phenomena, and to extract from such knowledge practical measures for circumventing fate. His ever-insistent aim was to combat danger to life.

Religion was differentiated from science when the measures for controlling fate became invested with the assurance of supernatural help, for which the growth of a knowledge of natural phenomena made it impossible for the mere scientist to be the sponsor. It became a question of faith rather than knowledge; and man's instinctive struggle against the risk of extinction impelled him to cling to this larger hope of salvation, and to embellish it with an ethical and moral significance which at first was lacking in the eternal search for the elixir of life.

If religion can be regarded as archaic science enriched with the belief in supernatural control, the myth can be regarded as effete religion which has been superseded by the growth of a loftier ethical purpose. The myth is to religion what alchemy is to chemistry or astrology is to astronomy. Like these sciences, religion retains much of the material of the cruder phase of thought that is displayed in myth, alchemy, and astrology, but it has been refined and elaborated. The dross has been to a large extent eliminated, and the pure metal has been moulded into a more beautiful and attractive form. In searching for the elixir of life, the makers of religion have discovered the philosopher's stone, and with its aid have transmuted the base materials of myth into the gold of religion.

If we seek for the deep motives which have prompted men in all ages so persistently to search for the elixir of life, for some means of averting the dangers to which their existence is exposed, it will be found in the instinct of self-preservation, which is the fundamental factor in the behaviour of all living beings, the means of preservation of the life which is their distinctive attribute and the very essence of their being.

The dragon was originally a concrete expression of the divine powers of life-giving; but with the development of a higher conception of religious ideals it became relegated to a baser role, and eventually became the symbol of the powers of evil.

[447: Sethe, "Zur altaegyptische Sage von Sonnenaugen das im Fremde war," _Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde AEgyptens_, V, p. 23. [Transcriber's note: the title of the paper has been misprinted. It should read "...vom Sonnenauge, das..."]]

[448: See especially the claims put forward by Brinton, which have been accepted by Spinden, Joyce, and many other recent writers.]

[449: Possibly also the Cerastes. At a relatively late period other snakes were adopted as surrogates of the cobra and Cerastes.]

[450: See Oldham, "Sun and Serpent," p. 51 _inter alia_.]

[451: Blackman, however, has recently advanced this claim in reference to Egypt (_op. cit._, _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archaeology_, 1918, p. 57), as Breasted and others have done before.]

[452: S. Langdon, "A Seal of Nidaba, the Goddess of Vegetation," _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology_, Vol. XXXVI, 1914, p. 281.]

[453: L. W. King, "Babylonian Religion," p. 58.]

[Transcriber's note: Numerous obvious printing errors have been corrected. However, inconsistent hyphenation in the original has been retained.]

End of Project Gutenberg's The Evolution of the Dragon, by G. Elliot Smith