te it into activity. It will be seen, therefore, that the
important point towards the solution of this whole puzzling question is
the discussion, of theory (2)--and to this theory, as illustrated by the
world-wide myth of the Golden Age, I will now turn.

IX. MYTH OF THE GOLDEN AGE

The tradition of a "Golden Age" is widespread over the world, and it is
not necessary to go at any length into the story of the Garden of Eden
and the other legends which in almost every country illustrate this
tradition. Without indulging in sentiment on the subject we may hold it
not unlikely that the tradition is justified by the remembrance, among
the people of every race, of a pre-civilization period of comparative
harmony and happiness when two things, which to-day we perceive to be
the prolific causes of discord and misery, were absent or only weakly
developed--namely, PROPERTY and SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. (1)

(1) For a fuller working out of this, see Civilisation: its Cause
and Cure, by E. Carpenter, ch. i.

During the first century B.C. there was a great spread of Messianic
Ideas over the Roman world, and Virgil's 4th Eclogue, commonly called
the Messianic Eclogue, reflects very clearly this state of the public
mind. The expected babe in the poem was to be the son of Octavian
(Augustus) the first Roman emperor, and a messianic halo surrounded it
in Virgil's verse. Unfortunately it turned out to be a GIRL! However
there is little doubt that Virgil did--in that very sad age of the
world, an age of "misery and massacre," and in common with thousands
of others--look for the coming of a great 'redeemer.' It was only a few
years earlier--about B.C. 70--that the great revolt of the shamefully
maltreated Roman slaves occurred, and that in revenge six thousand
prisoners from Spartacus' army were nailed on crosses all the way from
Rome to Capua (150 miles). But long before this Hesiod had recorded a
past Golden Age when life had been gracious in communal fraternity and
joyful in peace, when human beings and animals spoke the same language,
when death had followed on sleep, without old age or disease, and after
death men had moved as good daimones or genii over the lands. Pindar,
three hundred years after Hesiod, had confirmed the existence of the
Islands of the Blest, where the good led a blameless, tearless, life.
Plato the same, (1) with further references to the fabled island of
Atlantis; the Egyptians believed in a former golden a