It is uncertain at what period the use of the pastoral staff was introduced; but the evidence tends to show that it was about the 5th century, in Gaul or Spain.
There can be no doubt that Eabani, who symbolizes primeval man, was a figure originally entirely independent of Gilgamesh, but his story was incorporated into the epic by that natural process to be observed in the national epics of other peoples, which tends to connect the favourite hero with all kinds of tales that for one reason or the other become embedded in the popular mind.
But it tends to minimize the importance of the distinction of that which is prior to individual experience and that which results therefrom.
Under French rule, which has modified the old usages in many respects, local government of the Annamese type tends to supplant this feudal system.
Protestants have condemned these formulae as so much magic, and in this modern science tends to agree with them; but to orthodox Protestants at least Catholics have a perfect right to reply that, in taking this line, they are but repeating the accusation brought by the Pharisees against Christ, viz.