zzling
beyond all hope those who seek to find it. So vast is the wealth of
material which opens on the scholar who seeks to investigate this common
origin of mythologies, and with them the possible early identity of
races and of languages, that he is almost certain to soon bury himself
in a hypothesis and become lost in some blind alley of the great
labyrinth.

Certain points appear to have once existed in common to nations on every
part of the earth previous to authentic history, and in these America
had probably more or less her share, as appears from certain monuments
and relics of her early races. They are as follows:--

1. A worship of nature, based on the inscrutable mystery of generation
with birth and death. As these two extremes caused each other, they were
continually _identified_ in the religious myth or symbol employed to
represent either.

2. This great principle of action, developing itself into birth and
death, was regarded as being symbolized in every natural object, and
corresponding with these there were created myths, or 'stories,' setting
forth the principal mystery of nature in a thousand poetic forms.

3. The formula according to which all myths were shaped was that of
transition, or _the passing through_. The germ, in the mother or in the
plant, which after its sleep reappeared in life, was also recognized in
Spring, or Adonis, coming to light and warmth after the long death of
winter in the womb of the earth. The ark, which floats on the waters,
bearing within it the regenerator, signified the same; so did the cup or
horn into which the wine of life was poured and from which it was drunk;
so too did nuts, or any object capable of representing latent existence.
The passing into a cavern through a door between pillars or rocky
passes, or even the wearing of rings, all intimated the same
mystery--the going into and the coming forth into renewed life.

4. But the great active principle which lay at the foundation of the
mystery of birth and death, or of action, was set forth by the
serpent--the type of good and evil, of life and destruction--the first
intelligence. It is the constant recurrence of this symbol among the
early monuments of America, as of the Old World, which proves most
conclusively the existence at one time of a common religion, or
'cultus.' It was probably meant to signify water from its wavy curves,
and the snake-like course of rivers, as inundation seems to have been,
accordi