The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History. Hubert Howe Bancroft

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СКАЧАТЬ hundred days' journey east and west, and exactly half as much north and south; that it is inclosed by mountains, on which the sky rests; that one on the north side, huger than the others, by intercepting the rays of the sun, produces night; and that the plane of the earth is not set exactly horizontally, but with a little inclination from the north: hence the Euphrates, Tigris, and other rivers, running southward, are rapid; but the Nile, having to run up-hill, has necessarily a very slow current.' Draper's Conflict between Religion and Science, p. 65.

2

In answer to the question: 'What was God doing before he made the heaven and the earth? for, if at any particular moment he began to employ himself, that means time, not eternity. In eternity nothing happens – the whole is present.' St Augustine caustically remarks: 'I will not answer this question by saying that he was preparing hell for pryers into his mysteries.'

3

The teachings of the Church were beyond controversy, the decisions of the Church were final; and not only in religion but in legislation and in science 'the pervading principle was a blind unhesitating credulity.' See Buckle's Civilization, vol. i., p. 307. The Bishop of Darien once quoted Plato in the presence of Las Casas. "Plato," Las Casas replied, "was a Gentile, and is now burning in hell, and we are only to make use of his doctrine as far as it is consistent with our holy Faith and Christian customs." Helps' Life of Las Casas, p. 120.

4

As an example of the intolerance displayed by these early writers, and of the bitterness with which they attacked those few thinkers who dared to theorize without letting theological dogmas stand in their way, I translate the following passage from García, who is one of the most comprehensive writers upon the origin of the Americans: 'We would like not even to remember the unworthy opinions of certain veritable blasphemers, more barbarous than the Indians, which do not even deserve the name of opinions, but rather of follies: namely, that, perhaps, the first Indians might have been generated from the earth, or from its putrefaction, aided by the sun's heat, as (Avicena allowing this production to be easy in men) Andres Cisalpino attempted to make credible, giving them less perfection than Empedocles, who said that men had been born like the wild amaranth, if we believe Marcus Varron… Of the formation of man, though of straw and mud, the people of Yucatan, had light; which nonsense is not inferior to the attempts of those who made men by means of chemistry, or magic (described by Solorcano) giving it to be understood that there may be others besides the descendants of Adam, contrary to the teachings of scripture: for which reason Taurelo feels indignant against Cisalpino, whose attempt would be reprehensible even as a paradox. Not less scandalous was the error of the ignorant Paracelso, according to Reusnero and Kirchero, who left to posterity an account of the creation of two Adams, one in Asia, and another in the West Indies; an inexcusable folly in one who had (though corruptly) information of the Catholic doctrine. Not less erroneous is the opinion of Isaac de La Peyrere, who placed people on the earth before Adam was created, from whom, he said, descended the heathen; from Adam, the Hebrews; which folly was punished with eternal contempt by Felipe Priorio, Juan Bautista Morino, Juan Hilperto, and others, Danhavero giving it the finishing stroke by an epitaph, as Dicterico relates: although some of the parties named state that La Peyrere became repentant and acknowledged his error, and did penance, which the Orientals, from whom he took that absurdity, have not done. These, and others of the same nature, may not be held as opinions, but as evidences of blindness published by men of doubtful faith, wise, in their own esteem, and deceivers of the world, who, with lies and fraud, oppose the divine word, as St Clemens Alexandrinus says, closing their ears to truth, and blindfolding themselves with their vices, for whom contempt is the best reward.' Orígen de los Ind., p. 248. García spent nine years in Peru, devoting himself to the study of three points: the history of the natives before the arrival of the Spaniards, the origin of the natives, and the question as to whether the apostles preached the gospel in America. On his return to Spain, he concluded to write only upon the second topic, leaving the others for a future time.

5

Descent of Man, vol. ii., p. 368.

6

The value of proof by analogy has been questioned by many eminent authors. Humboldt writes: 'On n'est pas en droit de supposer des communications partout où l'on trouve, chez des peuples à demi barbares, le culte du soleil, ou l'usage de sacrifier des victimes humaines.' Vues, tom. i., p. 257. 'The instances of customs, merely arbitrary, common to the inhabitants of both hemispheres, are, indeed, so few and so equivocal, that no theory concerning the population of the New World ought to be founded upon them.' As regards religious rites, 'the human mind, even where its operations appear most wild and capricious, holds a course so regular, that in every age and country the dominion of particular passions will be attended with similar effects.' Robertson's Hist. Amer., vol. i., p. 269. Warden remarks that nations known to be distinct, to have had no intercourse, breed similar customs – these, therefore, grow from physical and moral causes. Recherches, p. 205. 'In attempting to trace relations between them and the rest of mankind, we cannot expect to discover proofs of their derivation from any particular tribe or nation of the Old Continent.' Prichard's Nat. Hist. Man, vol. ii., p. 494. 'To tell an inquirer who wishes to deduce one population from another that certain distant tribes agree with the one under discussion in certain points of resemblance, is as irrelevant as to tell a lawyer in search of the next of kin to a client deceased, that though you know of no relations, you can find a man who is the very picture of him in person – a fact good enough in itself, but not to the purpose.' Latham's Man and his Migrations, pp. 74-5.

7

Certainly many of the writers must have been either fools or demented, if we judge them by their work and arguments.

8

Garcia, Origen de los Ind., pp. 7-12.

9

When De Gama established the globular form of the earth by his voyage round the Cape of Good Hope, in 1497-8, 'the political consequences that at once ensued placed the Papal Government in a position of great embarrassment. Its traditions and policy forbade it to admit any other than the flat figure of the earth, as revealed in the Scriptures.' In 1520 Magellan discovered the strait which now bears his name, and 'henceforth the theological doctrine of the flatness of the earth was irretrievably overthrown.' Draper's Conflict, pp. 163-5. St Augustin affirmed that the world beyond the tropic of cancer was uninhabited. 'Ea vero veterum sententia, perspicua atque inuicta, vt ipsis videbatur, ratione nitebatur. Nam vt quæque regio ad meridiem propius accedit, ita solis ardoribus magis expositam animaduerterant, idque adeo verum est, vt in eadem Italiæ prouincia Apuliam Liguria, & in nostra Hispania Bæticam Cantabria vsque adeo feruentiorem nota re liceat, vt per gradus vixdum octo grande frigoris & æstus discrimen sit.' Acosta, De Natura Novi Orbis, fol. 27. 'Lactantius Firmianus, and St. Austin, who strangely jear'd at as ridiculous, and not thinking fit for a Serious Answer the Foolish Opinion of Antipodes, or another Habitable World beyond the Equator: At which, Lactantius Drolling, says, what, Forsooth, here is a fine Opinion broach'd indeed; an Antipodes! heigh-day! People whose Feet tread with ours, and walk Foot to Foot with us; their Heads downwards, and yet drop not into the Sky! There, yes, very likely, the Trees loaden with Fruit grow downwards, and it Rains, Hails, and Snows upwards; the Roofs and Spires of Cities, tops of Mountains, point at the Sky beneath them, and the Rivers revers'd topsi-turvy, ready to flow into the Air out of their Channels.' Ogilby's America, pp. 6-7. The ancients believed a large portion of the globe to be uninhabitable by reason of excessive heat, which must have greatly deterred discovery.

10

Touching the question whether the Americans and the people of the old world are of common origin, see: Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., pp. 1-31; Tylor's Anahuac, p. 104; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. iv., pp. 14-24; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., pp. 1-31; Ramirez, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. iv., p. 54; M'Culloh's Researches on Amer., pp. 175-8; Mayer's Mex. as it Was, p. 260; Domenech's Deserts, vol. i., pp. 66-80; Prescott's Mex., vol. iii., СКАЧАТЬ