The Creation of God - Jacob Hartmann (readict TXT) 📗
- Author: Jacob Hartmann
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Arts and sciences they had none. Their simple domestic arrangements were as primitive as they were. Their furniture consisted of little or nothing. Cooking utensils they needed none. There was no occasion to cook; nature’s food was ample. This they collected, selected, and fed upon.
Clothing they had no use for, in the warm climate they lived in. They were clad in nature’s garb, male and female alike. Innocence and virtue was well understood among them. They were moral in their way, committed no wrong—there was no occasion for it. There was plenty for everyone. The larders of nature were free, open, and plentiful. Therefore all were satisfied and happy.
Wealth or property they had. All they surveyed was theirs. What belonged to one belonged to the other. Mine and thine was unknown. The more civilized qualifications of property right developed many centuries later.
Commerce they knew nothing of. There was no need for that, since furniture, utensils, implements of agriculture, weapons, clothing of any kind, they had no use for.
They had no laws—nor law-makers, nor justices, nor judges, nor any officials known in later times.
And what is more, they had no God, or idol, or myth, or symbol, or worship, or prayer or religion, or soul, or spirit. Nor did they know anything about what we indicate by the epithets physical or metaphysical, neither theological nor psychological, neither gnostic nor agnostic.
They did not know of any of those things. These were evolved and invented later, as the necessities and exigencies arose, as their wants increased, and circumstances changed from internal to external conditions.
Consequently, their language was limited. They made use of a limited number of words, or produced articulate sound enough to express just what they wanted, and no more. They may have had two or three hundred different words or sounds in use. We have men to-day among us that have not many more words at command, and their ideas generally correspond in number and quality to their stock of words.
The stock of words and the stock of ideas always depend upon the amount of experience and the amount of exercise the five senses have had; together with the urgencies and difficulties they have had to contend with. The power of observation is developed in accordance as the opportunities arise.
Each particular special sense develops its own faculties, from the practice, use, and experience of that sense, the role it is called upon to play as necessities arise. And as each object is perceived or observed by the special sense, it is recorded, a picture of the same is retained in the great nervous storehouse for future reference. The retention and recognition of the same goes to the formation of memory. As the stock of objects increases, words or sounds designating the same also increase in number, and the material for the formation of ideas is also largely increased.
Ideas can be formed only about such things as we know, or rather such things as any one special sense has been impressed with, has perceived and recognized. Those things or beings by which any one sense has not been impressed, the mind neither has perceived nor is able to recognize. Everyone, whether barbarian or civilized, is perfectly familiar with those things or beings that immediately surround him—that is, all those things and beings which the senses have already been impressed with, perceived and recognized. Sounds, or words, have been invented to designate all such; and these are known; the picture representing any one object is retained, stored away in the great nervous storehouse, the brain—are remembered. The oftener a thing is perceived, the more familiar it becomes and the more easily recognized, the firmer it becomes fixed and the more easily it is recollected.
Thus primitive man, with his few wants, and these wants amply supplied by nature, had or invented names for all of them. These formed the earliest collection of names of objects—their appearance, their actions, their habits, etc. All these qualities were associated, identified, and presented by words, in due time, without the presence of the objects. That is to say, the simplest ideas were in this manner formed, and the ideas so formed corresponded with the number of words, and the number of words corresponded with the number of impressions received by the senses.
Each sense presents its share—one sense more, another less. A person may have received a large number of impressions on the organ of vision—a painter, for instance—and may have stored away a wealth of artistic knowledge, yet the sense of hearing may be exceedingly poor in the number of impressions received. Such an individual would be rich in artistic ideas but comparatively poor in musical ideas. So it is with all the special senses.
Each sense receives impressions on its own account. It has its own special nervous center, and these special centers again are closely connected with the great mass of brain matter. Collectively they have for their function, to receive impressions, retain them, store them away, recollect them, and reproduce them by articulate sound, or to recognize them.
In this process then we have the formation of idea, memory, thought; recollection is the endeavor to call back, or form a figure of, an object once already perceived—felt by the senses.
We will here sketch the military career of Moses.
We omit the early incidents of the life of Moses—his childhood, his growth, his education—and begin with his active life.
“And the occasion he laid hold of was this: The Ethiopians, who are next neighbors to the Egyptians, made an inroad into their country, which they seized upon, and carried off the effects of the Egyptians, who in their rage, fought against them, and revenged the affronts they had received from them; but being overcome in battle some of them were slain, and the rest ran away in a shameful manner, and by that means saved themselves, whereupon the Ethiopians followed after them in the pursuit, and thinking that it would be an act of cowardice if they did not subdue all Egypt, they went on to subdue the rest with greater vehemence; and when they had tasted the sweets of the country, they never left off the prosecution of the war; and as the nearest parts had not courage enough at first to fight with them, they proceeded as far as Memphis, and the sea itself, while not one of the cities was able to oppose them. The Egyptians, under this sad oppression, betook themselves to their oracles and prophecies” (Josephus, Ch. X).
Moses thereupon was appointed general of the Egyptian army against the Ethiopians, and conquered them in the following manner:
“But Moses prevented the enemies, and took and led his army, before those enemies were apprised of his attacking them; for he did not march by the river, but by land, where he gave a wonderful demonstration of his sagacity; for when the ground was difficult to be passed over, because of the multitude of serpents, which it produces in vast numbers, and indeed is singular in some of these productions, which other countries do not breed, … When he had therefore proceeded thus on his journey he came upon the Ethiopians before they expected him; and joining battle with them, he beat them, and deprived them of the hopes they had of success against the Egyptians, and went on in overturning their cities, and indeed made great slaughter of these Ethiopians. Now when the Egyptian army had once tasted of this prosperous success by the means of Moses, they did not slacken their diligence, insomuch that the Ethiopians were in danger of being reduced to slavery, and all sorts of destruction. And at length they retired to Saba, which was the royal city of Ethiopia, which Cambyses afterwards named Meroe, after the name of his own sister. This place was to be besieged with very great difficulty, since it was both compassed by the Nile quite round, and the other rivers Astapus and Astaboms made it a very difficult thing for such as attempted to pass over them; for the city was situate in a retired place, and was inhabited after the manner of an island, being encompassed by a strong wall, and having the rivers to guard them from their enemies, and having great ramparts between the wall and the rivers, insomuch, that when the waters come with the greatest violence, it can never be drowned; which ramparts make it next to impossible for even such as are gotten over the rivers to take the city. However, while Moses was uneasy at the army’s lying idle (for the enemies durst not come to battle), an accident happened: Tharbis was the daughter of the king of the Ethiopians; she happened to see Moses as he led his army near the walls, and fought with good courage, and admiring the subtlety of his undertakings, she believed him to be the author of the Egyptians’ success, when they had before despaired of recovering their liberty, and to be the occasion of the great danger the Ethiopians were in, when they had before boasted of their great achievements, she fell deeply in love with him; and upon the prevalency of that passion, sent to him the most faithful of all her servants to discourse with him upon their marriage. He thereupon accepted the offer on condition she would procure the delivering up of the city; and gave her the assurance of an oath to take her to be his wife, and that when he had once taken possession of the city, he would not break his oath to her. No sooner was the agreement made, but it took effect immediately; and when Moses had cut off the Ethiopians, he gave thanks to God, and consummated his marriage, and led the Egyptians back to their own land” (Josephus, Chap. V.)
These are simple facts, wherein God plays no part. It is a human transaction, a conflict of forces; the strongest and most skillful wins. And when the last place of refuge, the fortress, is besieged, and the Ethiopians are thoroughly beaten, the place seeming impregnable, the army discouraged, a woman, the king’s daughter, betrays it, and Moses is victorious. Thermutis, his mother by adoption, raised him and educated him after the manner of princes. He was a great favorite. Her influence gave him not only her protection, advice, and information, but other great advantages such as no other being could obtain, she being constantly at court and a sister to the king.
It was no small glory, as well as experience, he reaped. That conquest made him the first man in the land. That jealousies, antagonism and hatred were engendered against him by his rivals, that conspiracies were formed, may readily be imagined, and that finally his life was threatened. Finding it rather dangerous to remain in the country, since he was being closely watched, and all the roads were guarded, and being no doubt fully informed of the plot, Moses fled. “He took flight through the deserts, where his enemies could not suspect he would travel; though he was destitute of food, he went on, and despised that difficulty courageously” (Jos.).
Moses was born in 1571 B.C., and was
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