Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

ONE of the most philosophical statements from Max Müller is to this effect: "Whatever we know of early religion, we always see that it presupposes vast periods of an earlier development." This is exhibited in the history of all peoples that have progressed in civilization, though we may have to travel far back on the track of history to notice transformations of thought or belief. When the late Dr. Birch told us that a pyramid, several hundreds of years older than the Great Pyramid, contained the name of Osiris, we knew that at least the Osirian part of Egyptian mythology was honoured some six or seven thousand years ago What the earlier development of religion there was, or how the conception of a dying and risen Osiris arose, at so remote a period, may well excite our wonder.

Professor Jebb writes--"There was a time when they (early man) began to speak of the natural powers as persons, and yet had not forgotten that they were really natural, powers, and that the persons' names were merely signs? Yet this goes on the assumption that religion--or rather dogmas thereof--sprang from reflections upon natural phenomena. In this way, the French author of Sirius satisfied himself, particularly on philological grounds, that the idea, of God sprang from an association with thunder and the barking of a dog.

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