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THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

The  early  Christians  for  a  long  time  expected  the  “  pandestruction ­
  ”  and  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom.  But  as  the
suffer,  the  wicked  triumph,  the  world  is  full  of  strife  :  whence  does  this
arise  if  God  is  good  and  just?  The  question  is  profoundly  treated  in  the
splendid  poem  of  Job,  as  M.  Renan  has  so  well  pointed  out.  The  nev^-ending
  controversy  between  optimism  and  pessimism  was  taken  up  by
Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  with  reference  to  the  famous  poem  on  the  earthquake ­
  at  Lisbon.  The  belief  that  the  world,  fundamentally  bad,  must
perish  in  flames,  in  order  to  make  way  for  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,
is  found  in  all  the  old  religions.  In  Mazdeism  the  successive  cycles  of  the
development  of  humanity  on  earth  end  in  a  general  conflagration,  followed
by  a  universal  renewal.  In  the  Wolospa  of  the  Eddas  the  palingenesis  is
conceived  almost  exactly  as  in  our  Gospels:—
{Signs  of  the  Doom.)
‘  ‘  The  sun  shall  grow  black.
The  earth  shall  sink  into  the  sea.
The  bright  stars  shall  vanish  from  the  heavens.
Smoke  and  fire  shall  gush  forth.
The  terrible  flame  shall  play  against  the  very  sky.”
(  The  Sibyl  of  the  world  to  come.)
“  I  can  see  earth  rise  a  second  time,  fresh  and  green  out  of  the  sea.
The  waters  are  falling,  the  erne  hovering  over  them.
The  bird  that  hunts  the  fish  in  the  mountain  streams.
The  fields  unsown  shall  yield  their  fruit  ;
All  ills  shall  be  healed  at  the  coming  of  Balder.
The  Anses  shall  meet  on  the  Field  of  Ith,
And  do  judgments  under  the  mighty  Tree  of  the  world.
[I  have  taken  this  translation  of  the  Sibyl’s  prophecy  from  the  reconstructed
version  of  the  Wolospa  in  the  admirable  work  of  Messrs.  Vigfusson  and
Powell  {Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale,  vol.  ii.  625).  These  learned  editors
think  that  the  lines,  “Then  there  shall  come  One  yet  mightier.  Though  1
dare  not  name  him,”  evidently  alluding  to  the  coming  of  Christ,  belong  to
a  separate  poem,  the  shorter  Wolospa,  which  they  have  also  pieced  togeth^.
—  TV.]  In  the  splendid  lines  of  Virgil’s  fourth  Eclogue  are  to  be  found  the
echo  of  the  aspirations  after  a  new  world  met  with  in  all  antiquity  and
especially  in  the  Sibylline  songs  :—
“  Magnus  ab  integro  sæclorum  nascitur  ordo.
Jam  nova  progenies  cselo  demittitur  alto.
.  .  .  ae  toto  surget  gens  aurea  mundo.
.  .  .  omnis  feret  omnia  tellus.”
Virgil  depicts  the  regeneration  of  Nature  ;  the  Edda  and  the  Gospel  dwell
rather  on  social  regeneration  and  the  triumph  of  Justice.  Courier  has  also
his  palingenesis  with  its  anti-lions,  its  anti-whales,  and  its  ocean  of  lemonade ­
  •  but  we  may  prefer  the  Wolospa  and  the  Gospel.  Pierre  Leroux,  >0
his  book  IJHumanité,  ii.  6,  has  well  pointed  out  how  the  ideas  of  paljdgenesis,
  common  to  all  antiquity,  are  connected  with  astrology  and  with
certain  theories  about  cosmical  periods.