THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

his elaborate work on Egyptian symbols as compared with those of the
Hebrews. To those who cannot consult the original work in French, I can
safely recommend the excellent translation by my esteemed friend, Bro.
John W. Simons, of New York, and which will be found in the thirtieth
volume of the "Universal Masonic Library."
[101] "The most early defection to Idolatry," says Bryant, "consisted
in
the adoration of the sun and the worship of demons, styled
Baalim."--_Analysts of Anc. Mythol._ vol. iii. p. 431.
[102] The remarks of Mr. Duncan on this subject are well worth perusal.
"Light has always formed one of the primary objects of heathen
adoration.
The glorious spectacle of animated nature would lose all its interest
if
man were deprived of vision, and light extinguished; for that which is
unseen and unknown becomes, for all practical purposes, as valueless as
if
it were non-existent. Light is a source of positive happiness; without
it,
man could barely exist; and since all religious opinion is based on the
ideas of pleasure and pain, and the corresponding sensations of hope
and
fear, it is not to be wondered if the heathen reverenced light.
Darkness,
on the contrary, by replunging nature, as it were, into a state of
nothingness, and depriving man of the pleasurable emotions conveyed
through the organ of sight, was ever held in abhorrence, as a source of
misery and fear. The two opposite conditions in which man thus found
himself placed, occasioned by the enjoyment or the banishment of light,
induced him to imagine the existence of two antagonist principles in
nature, to whose dominion he was alternately subject. Light multiplied
his
enjoyments, and darkness diminished them. The former, accordingly,
became
his friend, and the latter his enemy. The words 'light' and 'good,' and
'darkness' and 'evil,' conveyed similar ideas, and became, in sacred
language, synonymous terms. But as good and evil were not supposed to
flow
from one and the same source, no more than light and darkness were
supposed to have a common origin, two distinct and independent
principles
were established, totally different in their nature, of opposite
characters, pursuing a conflicting line of action, and creating
antagonistic effects. Such was the origin of this famous dogma,
recognized
by all the heathens, and incorporated with all the sacred fables,
cosmogonies, and mysteries of antiquity."--_The Religions of Profane
Antiquity_, p. 186.
[103] See the "Bhagvat Geeta," one of the religious books of
Brahminism. A
writer in Blackwood, in an article on the "Castes and Creeds of India,"
vol. lxxxi. p. 316, thus accounts for the adoration of light by the
early
nations of the world: "Can we wonder at the worship of light by those