CHRONOLOGY OF TYSILIO. ? Within one or two years. * Fixed points. 379 Maximus married daughter of Caradoc of Cornwall. *379-383 Period of three emperors. *383 Maximus and Cynan to Gaul; killed Gratian. 387 Maximus drove Valentinian from Rome. *388 Maximus killed. Gratian Municeps reigned. *410 Romans finally retire. 411? Constantine from Brittany, till 423? 425 Vortigern accedes. *467 Arthur acceded. Deaths of Uther, Octa, and Ossa. *493 Arthur dies. Constantine, his nephew, succeeds. *495 Constantine killed. Cynan succeeds. *496 Cynan killed. Gwrthefyr succeeds. *500 Gwrthefyr dies. Maelgwn succeeds. 530? Caredic succeeds. *534 Gormund the Vandal overruns Britain. 540?-590? British lost the crown. *597 Augustine arrived. *607 Slaughter of the Monks (607, A.S.C.). 608? Cadvan succeeds. *623 Cadvan dies. Cadwallon succeeds, born 586. *626-655 Reign of Penda, born 576. *633 Battle of Heathfield, Edwin slain by Cadwallon. *642 Oswald slain by Cadwallon. 643 Cadwallon holds his court in London. *664 Great pestilence (A.S.C.). 664-675 Pestilence and famine, 11 years. *665 Cadwallon dies. Cadwallader succeeds. *671 Death of birds, by pestilence (A.S.C.). *676 Cadwallader goes to Rome. 677-705 Ivor fights the Saxons, 28 years. *681 Cadwallader dies in Rome. *681 Famine owing to three years' drought (Bede iv. 13). COSMIC LAW IN ANCIENT THOUGHT By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS FELLOW OF THE ACADEMY Read November 7, 1917. WHEN Some fifty years ago the late Sir Edward Tylor published his epoch-making book entitled Primitive Culture, the study of the history of religious belief was still in its infancy. The author defines culture in his opening sentence. It is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. The work, therefore, was not intended to be a work on religion. But the conditions of the problem set were too strong for the author. Every one of the subjects included in his definition was in fact, in the earliest period of which we have any evidence, so inextricably interwoven with religion, that his work becomes practically a work on religion; and more than half of it is devoted to an exposition of the theory of Animism. This, as is well known, is merely another name for the soul-theory. But it was a great advance to replace the ambiguous expression 'soul' by a new scientific word which could be used in a definite sense, and from which an adjectival form-Animistic-could be easily formed. It is only too possible for us, who no longer use the word soul exclusively in its original meaning, to misunderstand the ancient view, and to put back into it such modern conceptions as emotion, vitality, personality, and many others. The oldest form of the hypothesis was frankly concrete and materialistic. It was the presence within the body of a double-shadowy no doubt, and subtle, and impalpable— but still a physical double of the physical body. And at the death of the body this double-this homunculus or mannikin or howsoever otherwise it can be called-continued to live, and to carry on an existence of its own. We do not know how the theory arose. Speculation has suggested that it may have arisen from dreams. That is not impossible. There is evidence to show that some of our own children, and some modern savages, look upon dreams as realities; that is to say, that what they experience in dreams seems to them as real as what they experience in the waking state. So it may have happened that, long long ago, a man after a hard-fought victory, and a rude feast-perhaps on the body of his foe-had a sort of nightmare dream; he fought the fight over again in the familiar glades, and awoke in terror at an impending blow, only to find that all was over, and he was safe at home. Then it may have seemed clear enough to him that his foe had been alive again; that there was a something, he knew not what, but just the very image of his foe, which had survived his death, and carried on an existence of its own. He did not perhaps reason much about it, and certainly would not have stayed to consider whether this horrible double was eternal or not. But he was much too frightened to forget it. And the dread reality-as he thought it-will have afforded to him a perfectly clear explanation of many other mysterious things. When he awoke in the morning, after hunting all night in his dreams, and learnt from his companions that his body had been there all the time, it was of course his 'soul' that had been away. This is all plausible enough. But all that we know is that this soul-theory, with its numerous applications, appears in full vigour in all our earliest documents. These applications differ of course at different times and places. Among the most important are the following. Death and trance and deep, dreamless, sleep were explained' by the permanent or temporary absence of the 'soul'. If, and when, the 'soul' returned, motion began again, and life. Animals had therefore souls within them. And even things had souls if these were uncanny, or seemed to have life and motion. Thus the awe-inspiring phenomena of nature were instinctively regarded as the result of spirit action. Rivers, plants, and stars, the earth and air and heavens, became full of souls, of gods, each of them in fashion as a man, and with the passions of a man. The matter was perfectly clear and simple. To doubt it were perverse, or wicked. Now on this one or two observations are necessary. In the first place, there is no evidence that this was consciously held to be a theory, or an hypothesis. It was regarded simply as a fact, a fact of universal application, that whatever had life and motion had also within it a detachable 'soul' in shape like a man. We may quite rightly call this an hypothesis, and object that it is wanting in points essential to a sound scientific hypothesis. But these early Animists themselves regarded it apparently as a general law of nature, that is, as what, I venture to submit, we might call an instance of cosmic law.1 1 The only detailed description of the soul as yet found in ancient literatures is the one collected from passages in the Upanisads (say seventh century B.C.) by the present writer-Theory of Soul in the Upanishads, J.R.A.S., 1899. |