Before doing this, however, I wish you to note that there are
indications of a dual tendency on the part of the human mind which has
not been manifested in the development of these two theories alone, but
which has had illustrations in other directions and in other times.

In the early traditions of Greece and Rome you find two tendencies on
the part of the mind of man. There was, first, an old-time tradition
which placed the Golden Age of humanity away back in the past. The
people dreamed of a time when Saturn, the father of gods and men, lived
on the earth, and governed directly his children and his people. In
that happy time there was no disease, no pain, no poverty. There were
no class distinctions. There were no wars. The evil of the world was
unknown. That was the Golden Age which a certain set of thinkers then
placed far back in the past. They told how that age was succeeded by a
bronze age, a poorer condition of affairs, how the gods left the earth,
and ill contentions and evils of every kind began to afflict the world.
This was succeeded by the age of brass, that by the age of iron; and so
the poor old world was supposed to be getting worse and worse, lower
and lower, from one epoch of time to another.

But also among these same people there were another set of traditions,
illustrated sufficiently for our purpose by the story of Prometheus.
According to this the first age of humanity was its worst and poorest
and lowest age. The people lived in abject poverty and misery. They
were even neglected on the part of the gods, who did not seem to care
for them, but treated them with contempt. Prometheus is represented as
pitying their evil estate, caring more for them than the gods did; and
so he steals the celestial fire, and comes down to the world and
presents it to men, and so helps them to begin civilization, a period
of prosperity and progress. For this he is punished by the gods.