in our situation before he can form a just conception of the scene. The depth of the valley below, the progressive elevation of the intermediate hills, and the majestic splendour of the cloud-capped Himalaya, formed so grand a picture, that the mind was impressed with a sensation of dread rather than of pleasure.’ Compare vol. xiv. p. 116, Calcutta, 1822. In the Tyrol, it has been observed, that the grandeur of the mountain scenery imbues the minds of the natives with fear, and has caused the invention of many superstitious legends.
Alison's Europe, vol. ix. pp. 79, 80.
226
‘Une augmentation d'électricité s'y manifeste aussi presque toujours, et ils sont généralement annoncés par le mugissement des bestiaux, par l'inquiétude des animaux domestiques, et dans les hommes par cette sorte de malaise qui, en Europe, précède les orages dans les personnes nerveuses.’ Cuvier, Prog. des Sciences, vol. i. p. 265. See also, on this ‘Vorgefühl,’ the observation of Von Hoff, in Mr. Mallet's valuable essay on earthquakes (Brit. Assoc. for 1850, p. 68); and the ‘foreboding’ in Tschudi's Peru, p. 165; and a letter in Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv. p. 504. The probable connexion between earthquakes and electricity is noticed in Bakewell's Geology, p. 434.
227
‘Peru is more subject perhaps than any other country to the tremendous visitation of earthquakes.’ M'Culloch's Geog. Dict. 1849. vol. ii. p. 499. Dr. Tschudi (Travels in Peru, p. 162) says of Lima, ‘at an average forty-five shocks may be counted on in the year.’ See also on the Peruvian earthquakes, pp. 43, 75, 87, 90.
228
A curious instance of association of ideas conquering the deadening effect of habit. Dr. Tschudi (Peru, p. 170), describing the panic, says, ‘no familiarity with the phenomenon can blunt this feeling.’ Beale (South-Sea Whaling Voyage, Lond. 1839, p. 205) writes, ‘it is said at Peru, that the oftener the natives of the place feel those vibrations of the earth, instead of becoming habituated to them, as persons do who are constantly exposed to other dangers, they become more filled with dismay every time the shock is repeated, so that aged people often find the terror a slight shock will produce almost insupportable.’ Compare Darwin's Journal, pp. 422, 423. So, too, in regard to Mexican earthquakes, Mr. Ward observes, that ‘the natives are both more sensible than strangers of the smaller shocks, and more alarmed by them.’ Ward's Mexico, vol. ii. p. 55. On the physiological effects of the fear caused by earthquakes, see the remarkable statement by Osiander in Burdach's Physiologie comme Science d'Observation, vol. ii. pp. 223, 224. That the fear should be not deadened by familiarity, but increased by it, would hardly be expected by speculative reasoners unacquainted with the evidence; and we find, in fact, that the Pyrrhonists asserted that οὁ γοῦν σεισμὰ παρ᾽ οὗς συνεχῶς ἀποτελοῦνται, οὐ θαυμάζοντο⋅ οὐδ᾽ ὁ ἥλιος, ὅτι καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ὁράαι. Diog. Laert. de Vitis Philos. lib. ix. segm. 87, vol. i. p. 591.
229
Mr. Stephens, who gives a striking description of an earthquake in Central America, emphatically says, ‘I never felt myself so feeble a thing before.’ Stephens's Central America, vol. i. p. 383. See also the account of the effects produced on the mind by an earthquake, in Transac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. iii. p. 98, and the note at p. 105.
230
The effect of earthquakes in encouraging superstition, is noticed in Lyell's admirable work, Principles of Geology, p. 492. Compare a myth on the origin of earthquakes in Beausobre, Histoire Critique de Manichée, vol. i. p. 243.
231
The greatest men in science, and in fact all very great men, have no doubt been remarkable for the powers of their imagination. But in art the imagination plays a far more conspicuous part than in science; and this is what I mean to express by the proposition in the text. Sir David Brewster, indeed, thinks that Newton was deficient in imagination: ‘the weakness of his imaginative powers.’ Brewster's Life of Newton, 1855, vol. ii. p. 133. It is impossible to discuss so large a question in a note; but to my apprehension, no poet, except Dante and Shakespeare, ever had an imagination more soaring and more audacious than that possessed by Sir Isaac Newton.
232
The remarks made by Mr. Ticknor on the absence of science in Spain, might be extended even further than he has done. See Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, vol. iii. pp. 222, 223. He says, p. 237, that in 1771, the University of Salamanca being urged to teach the physical sciences, replied, ‘Newton teaches nothing that would make a good logician or metaphysician, and Gassendi and Descartes do not agree so well with revealed truth as Aristotle does.’
233
In Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. pp. 35, 36, there is a good instance of an earthquake giving rise to a theological fiction. See also vol. i. pp. 154–157; and compare Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, p. 17.
234
See for example, Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. pp. 56, 57, vol. vii. p. 94; and the effect produced by a volcano, in Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. v. p. 388. See also vol. xx. p. 8, and a practical recognition of the principle by Sextus Empiricus, in Tennemann's Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. i. p. 292. Compare the use the clergy made of a volcanic eruption in Iceland (Wheaton's History of the Northmen, p. 42); and see further Raffles' History of Java, vol. i. pp. 29, 274, and Tschudi's Peru, pp. 64, 167, 171.
235
The Hindus in the Iruari forests, says Mr. Edye, ‘worship and respect everything from which they apprehend danger.’ Edye on the Coast of Malabar, in Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. ii. p. 337.
236
Dr. Prichard (Physical History, vol. iv. p. 501) says ‘The tiger is worshipped by the Hajin tribe in the vicinity of the Garrows or Garrudus.’ Compare Transactions of Asiatic Society, vol. iii. p. 66. Among the Garrows themselves, this feeling is so strong, that ‘the tiger's nose strung round a woman's neck is considered as a great preservative in childbirth.’ Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, p. 321. The Seiks have a curious superstition respecting wounds inflicted by tigers (Burne's Bokhara, 1834, vol. iii. p. 140); and the Malasir believe that these animals are sent as a punishment for irreligion. Buchanan's Journey through the Mysore, vol. ii. p. 385.
237
The inhabitants of Sumatra are, for superstitious reasons, most unwilling to destroy tigers, though they commit frightful ravages. Marsden's History of Sumatra, pp. 149, 254. The Russian account of the Kamtschatkans says, ‘besides the above-mentioned gods, they pay a religious regard to several animals from which they apprehend danger.’Grieve's History of Kamtschatka, p. 205. Bruce mentions that in Abyssinia, hyænas are considered ‘enchanters’ and the inhabitants ‘will not touch the skin of a hyæna till it has been prayed over and exorcised by a priest.’ Murray's Life of Bruce, p. 472. Allied to this, is the respect paid to bears (Erman's Siberia, vol. i. p. 492, vol. ii. pp. 42, 43); also the extensively-diffused worship of the serpent, whose wily movements are well calculated to inspire fear, and therefore rouse the religious feelings. The danger apprehended from noxious reptiles is connected with the Dews of the Zendavesta. See Matter's Histoire du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 380, Paris, 1828.
238
To give one instance of the extent to which these operate, it may be mentioned, that in 1815 an earthquake and volcanic eruption broke forth in Sumbawa, which shook the ground ‘through an area of 1,000 miles in circumference,’ and the detonations of which were heard at a distance of 970 geographical miles. Somerville's Connexion of the Physical Sciences, p. 283; Hitchcock's Religion of Geology, p. 190; Low's Sarawak, p. 10; Bakewell's Geology,
