[217-2]
Neither Jews nor Aztecs, nor indeed any American nation, appear to have
supposed, with some of the old philosophers, that the present was an
exact repetition of previous cycles,[218-1] but rather that each was an
improvement on the preceding, a step in endless progress. Nor did either
connect these beliefs with astronomical reveries of a great year,
defined by the return of the heavenly bodies to one relative position in
the heavens. The latter seems characteristic of the realism of Europe,
the former of the idealism of the Orient; both inconsistent with the
meagre astronomy and more scanty metaphysics of the red race.
The expectation of the end of the world is a natural complement to the
belief in periodical destructions of our globe. As at certain times past
the equipoise of nature was lost, and the elements breaking the chain of
laws that bound them ran riot over the universe, involving all life in
one mad havoc and desolation, so in the future we have to expect that
day of doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but overwhelm the
continents with their mountainous billows, or the fire, now chafing in
volcanic craters and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests and
grassy meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of flame, and
melting the very elements with fervid heat.
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