"For these fables are our own thoughts carried out. What keeps these wild tales in circulation for thousands of years? What but the wild fact to which they suggest some approximation of theory! Nor is the fact quite solitary, for in varieties of our own species where organisation seems to predominate over the genius of man, in Kalmuck or Malay or Flathead Indian, we are sometimes pained by the same feeling; and sometimes, too, the sharp-witted prosperous white man awakens it. In a mixed assembly we have chanced to see not only a glance at Abdiel so grand and keen, but also in other faces the features of the mink, of the bull, of the rat, and the barn-door fowl."[27]
The great Chinese Epic "A Journey to Heaven," depicts the gradual evolution of the beast into man and the transformation of character from unpromising materials into saints worthy of heaven. The monkey's ambition, the pig's love of ease and the horse's one talent of bearing burdens are all made to play their part in working out the salvation of man. One of the chief characters in the story is Sun Wu King, who personates the irrepressible human mind, an inventive genius full of resource who begins with monkey inquisitiveness to discover the reasons of things and presently develops into a man of science and an inventor.
The pig impersonates man's lower nature and demons represent the untamed passions of man. One demon having once been a clever, handsome man, became extremely ugly with a snout like a pig and long flapping ears. He tells his story thus: "Since I was born I have been stupid and loved ease night and day. I received the pill of nine Transformations and studied all the arts by which man could be united to the powers above and below, till at last I was able to fly with a light but strong body and was a guest in the celestial Court." Thence he was thrown out for misdemeanours and made to take the shape of a pig, but gradually he was weaned to better things and lost his animal propensities.
[21] Ruskin, "Frondes Agrestes," 1899, pp. 146-9.
[22] Moore, T. H., "The Universal Kinship," 1906, pp. 233-4.
[23] Mulford, Prentice, "The Gift of the Spirit," 1904. "Re-embodiment Universal in Nature," pp. 170-1.