[185] "All nations have given the honour of the discovery of agriculture to their _first_ sovereigns. The Egyptians said that Osiris (_vide supra_, p. 204) made men desist from eating each other, by teaching them to cultivate the earth. The Chinese annals relate that Gin-Hoang, one of the first kings of that country, invented agriculture, and by that means collected men into society, who before had wandered in the fields and woods like brute beasts." (Goguet, "Origin of Laws.") I need not remind the reader that Goguet's learned work is not written from our point of view. Compare _infra_, p. 240. [186] _Vide_, chap. xiii. Golden age, Mexican tradition. His name was also invoked first in religious ceremonies, "because, as presiding over armies," &c., through him only could prayers reach the immortal gods. Is not this a reminiscence of the communications of the Almighty to man through Noah? IV. _Ogyges and Deucalion._--I might pass over these traditions of Noah, since, having reference only to the fact of the Deluge and the personality of Noah, they will not furnish matter for the special purpose of this inquiry; but on these grounds the investigation may be justified, and moreover seems necessary, for the completion of this chapter, and to indicate the independent source and derivation of the classical tradition. It appears to me manifest that the deluges of Ogyges and Deucalion were neither locally historical nor partial deluges, but merely the reminiscences of the universal Deluge. Of the universal Deluge, whether we call it the Mosaic Deluge or not, there is evidence and tradition in all parts of the world; though in every instance it is localised in its details and its history of the survivors.[187] [187] Although the greater number of these traditions have been localised, yet in almost every case we shall find embodied in them some one incident or other of the universal Deluge, as recorded by Moses. Kalisch ("Hist. and Crit. Commentary on the Old Testament") says:--"It is unnecessary to observe that there is scarcely a single feature in the biblical account which is not discovered in one or several of the heathen traditions; and the coincidences are not limited to desultory details, they extend to the whole outlines, and the very tenor and spirit of the narrative; ... and it is certain that none of these accounts are derived from the pages of the Bible--they are independent of each other.... There must indisputably have been a common basis, a universal source, and this source is the general tradition of primitive generations."