Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.Inman, Thomas
Religion
Ancient Faiths And Modern: A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Central and Western Asia, Europe, and Elsewhere, Before the Christian Era. Showing Their Relations to Religious Customs as They Now Exist.
Inman, Thomas
Religions
A comparatively small amount of observation proves to us that amongst
the highest classes of animal life, the wing is the counterpart of the
arm or of the fore-leg. In the creature called the "flying squirrel,"
there is no pinion as there is in the "condor,"--there is simply an
unusual development of skin which unites the fore and hind limbs much in
the same way as the web unites together the toes of the goose or duck.
In the bat, which, though a mammal, is allied, as regards its power of
flight, to the birds, we find that the fore-leg is developed so as to
make a bony frame on which a thin skin may be stretched, which is still
farther strengthened by being attached to the hind leg. In the ordinary
bird, the skin which we see in the bat and flying squirrel is replaced
by feathers, which are longer, broader, and lighter than a fold of skin.
The ordinary method, therefore, in which angelic beings are depicted
does not associate them with the highest classes of animal life.
Our modern artists are much more skilful in depicting Satan than in
pourtraying Raphael, Gabriel, or Michael.
Our last remarks would be comparatively unimportant, were it not that
the close observation which the moderns have given, to every thing
connected with natural history, has shown us that there is a harmony
throughout creation. No animals have noses on their backs, nor eyes in
their hind legs. No insect--so far as I can remember--has a thick neck;
nor has any mammal or bird a thin one, like the wasp, bee, or fly. As we
imagine that it is proper to extend our knowledge rather by the lights
which we have already attained, than by silly or hap-hazard guessing, so
we think that it is better to investigate the subject of angelic forms
by comparative anatomy, than by the dreams of divines, who probably have
never studied any other subject than the best means of gaining influence
over their fellow-mortals. We assert that there is not in all the
creation, known to man, any creature with arms and legs--or their
equivalents, legs and wings, or fore-legs and hind legs--which has, in
addition, wings upon arms, legs, head, or back. In such a combination
there is something monstrous. I confess that I could, if satisfactory
evidence were given, credit the occurrence of a devil with a tail--of a
centaur with a horse's body and a human head--but I could not possibly
believe that Satan went about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he could
devour in the dress of a bull with bat-like wings, as well as horns and
hoofs; or that an angel of God approaches us in a form nearer to the
scarabseus of Egypt than to the human form divine. Yet when we say that
a pictorial angel approaches nearer to a beetle that revels in
filth, than to an etherial essence which ought to be very close upon
perfection, we are still far from precision. Ladybirds, cockchafers, and
others of the class allied to the scarabseus that was almost deified
in Egypt, have six legs, two wings, and two wing cases--ten means of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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