452

SUMMARY.

sea, without supposing any subsequent inter-course by colonies or navigation.

It appears, then, that no nations were so geo-graphically remote, or so religiously discordant,but that one—and only one '—superstitiouscharacteristic was common to all: that the mostcivilized and the most barbarous bowed downwith the same devotion to the same engrossing-deity ; and that this deity either was, or wasrepresented by, the same sacred serpent.

It appears also that in most, if not all, thecivilized countries where this serpent was wor-shipped, some fable or tradition which involvedhis history, directly or indirectly, alluded to thefall of man in Paradise, in which the serpentwas concerned.

1 It is but justice to the reader to state that Mr. Faberobjects to this exclusiveness which I have attributed to theuniversality of serpent-worship :—“It formed part of a regularsystem,” he observes, “ which system, was universal; but ser-pent-worship was not universal as opposed to hero-worshipand Sabianism.” My assertion was founded upon the argu-ment, that in some parts of Africa , and in Sarmatia, wherethe living serpent was the supreme deity, there are no tracesof any daemon-worship or Sabianism. Whereas in everycountry where the sun was an object of idolatry, the seepentwas also venerated as divine.