Some first steps in human progress / by Frederick Starr.

  • Frederick Starr
Date:
[1901]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Some first steps in human progress / by Frederick Starr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/288 page 23
    plague. How shall we explain the making of the need fire among civilized and Christian people at this late day ? A friend who was in Japan at the time of the dreadful earth- quake, a few years since, tells us that just before the earth- quake he had occasion to go out over the public highroad. He noticed all along the way the condition of neglect prevailing among the little shrines and idols by the roadside. A few days passed ; the earthquake came ; my friend again passed that way. But what a change ! The shrines were neatly repaired ; the idols set up and carefully repainted and freshly gilded. What does this mean ? Why simply this, that, in these later days, the old religious views of the Japanese are gradually fading away. With the coming of western ideas, the native religions are neglected. But deep down in the Japanese heart there lurks a vague, uneasy feeling lest the neglected gods may rise in vengeance. The earthquake comes. Hastily the dues to the neglected gods are performed and danger is allayed. It is probable that at one time in Europe fire was commonly made by means of friction of wood. When the practice fell out of ever>'-day use it was preserved in religious ceremonies in a way similar to that which we have observed among the Sacs and Foxes. Gradually it came to be considered a thing pleasing to the gods in itself that fire should be made in this way. When the European pagans became Christians it was as natural for them in times of trouble to practice the old cere- monial in order to propitiate the old gods,* in time of misfor- tune, as it was for the Japanese to paint up their shrines and gild their images after the earthquake. In time this, which at first was simply a performance intended to make peace with the neglected gods, came to be considered a charm against evil generally. And in this form it remains as the need fire in Europe at the present time. The uses to which man puts fire after he has learned its use
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