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

that Europe and Africa (which, in respect to Asia, may be called
western
countries) were wild and savage long after arts and politeness of
manners
were in great perfection in China and the Indies." The Talmudists make
the
same allusions to the superiority of the east. Thus, Rabbi Bechai says,
"Adam was created with his face towards the east that he might behold
the
light and the rising sun, whence the east was to him the anterior part
of
the world."
[144] Strauss makes a division of myths into historical, philosophical,
and poetical.--_Leben Jesu._--His poetical myth agrees with my first
division, his philosophical with my second, and his historical with my
third. But I object to the word _poetical_, as a distinctive term,
because
all myths have their foundation in the poetic idea.
[145] Ulmann, for instance, distinguishes between a myth and a legend-the
former containing, to a great degree, fiction combined with history,
and
the latter having but a few faint echoes of mythical history.
[146] In his "Prolegomena zu einer wissenshaftlichen Mythologie," cap.
iv.
This valuable work was translated in 1844, by Mr. John Leitch.
[147] Historical Landmarks, i. 53.
[148] See an article, by the author, on "The Unwritten Landmarks of
Freemasonry," in the first volume of the Masonic Miscellany, in which
this
subject is treated at considerable length.
[149] As a matter of some interest to the curious reader, I insert the
legend as published in the Gentleman's Magazine of June, 1815, from, it
is
said, a parchment roll supposed to have been written early in the
seventeenth century, and which, if so, was in all probability copied
from
one of an older date:--
"Moreover, when Abraham and Sara his wife went into Egipt, there he
taught
the Seaven Scyences to the Egiptians; and he had a worthy Scoller that
height Ewclyde, and he learned right well, and was a master of all the
vij
Sciences liberall. And in his dayes it befell that the lord and the
estates of the realme had soe many sonns that they had gotten some by
their wifes and some by other ladyes of the realme; for that land is a
hott land and a plentious of generacion. And they had not competent
livehode to find with their children; wherefor they made much care. And
then the King of the land made a great counsell and a parliament, to
witt,