Chapter XI: Introduction (7)

But if the different religions of Paganism must be classed according to their _outward rites_ and _outward objects of worship_, the diversity of sacrifices would constitute a far better and more important standard of classification. We are taught that a difference in the mode of sacrifice was the principal cause of the dispute between the first two hostile brothers among men. Although, if we were to judge from first impressions and according to human feelings, no sacrifice is so filial, so simple, so appropriate, as that of the first fruits of the earth in returning Spring, (such for instance as the flower-offering of the pious Brahmins, or a similar oblation of thanksgiving among the ancient Persians and other nations); still on account of their deeper import and typical character, the pre-eminence has ever been allotted to animal-sacrifices; and these among the most civilized nations of Pagan antiquity have ever held the foremost place. Of this kind is the great sacrifice of the horse[57] in India, where in ancient times the bull was offered in sacrifice, till the destruction of the latter animal was severely prohibited, and came to be considered as a grievous crime. But there was ever a symbolical meaning attached to this sort of sacrifice,[58] and the victim selected as it was out of the purest and noblest species of domestic animals that surround man (such as the bull, the horse or the lamb), was looked upon only as the representative of another, and the emblem of a far higher victim.

It is an error to consider ancient Paganism as nothing more than mere poetry or agreeable fiction. The rites of the ancient Polytheism had very distinct and practical objects in view; and were intended either to _propitiate_ the malignant powers of darkness, or to obtain by their agency preternatural power, or on the other hand, to conciliate the favour and appease the anger of the Deity. And for this object the Heathens shrunk from no expedient--deemed no price--no victim too costly, as the existence of human sacrifices, and especially the sacrifice of children may serve to convince us; and I cannot conclude this first part of the ancient history of the world, without bestowing a more particular examination on this extreme aberration of Paganism, which passed by inheritance from the remoter ages to the second, more civilized, and, (in many respects) milder era of history. The species of human sacrifice most widely diffused among all the Phoenician nations was that in which the idol Moloch, heated from below, grasped in his glowing arms the infant victim. Even in the Punic city, Carthage, this cruel custom long prevailed, and was for a long time secretly practised under the Roman domination. These sacrifices existed among the Greeks and Romans, no less than among the Indians and Egyptians; and the Chinese, so far at least as my acquaintance with their authentic records extends, are the only people among whom I do not recollect meeting with any mention of this kind of sacrifice. But in the civilized states of Greece and Rome, this ancient custom was in later and milder times gradually abolished, or silently supplanted by some equivalent.

Besides the sacrifice of children, there was another species which was customary and particularly striking, and in one respect even more worthy the historian's attention--I mean the sacrifice of pure youths. I may here again enforce the maxim which I have before laid down--namely, that error is the most appalling when it is connected in its origin, or mixed up in its principle, with some confused notion--some profound, though obscure, feeling of the truth. Bearing this in mind, we shall find that the enigmatic lamentation of Lamech[59] over his mysterious slaying of a stripling, occurring in the Mosaic account of the Cainites, would seem to indicate that human sacrifices, and especially this particular kind, had their origin among the race of Cain, deeply imbued even at that early period with anti-christian errors; and that an unhappy delusion--a confused anticipation of a real necessity and of a future reality, contributed to the institution of these sacrifices. Of that great mystery of truth, which the holy Patriarch of the Hebrews, with a prophetic intuition, had discerned in the sacrifice of his well-beloved son commanded him by God, but through the divine mercy not consummated--of this great mystery, we say, a diabolic imitation may have led to the human sacrifices by the early Heathens. But these sacrifices were more widely diffused, even in the Druidical North, and they continued down to a much later period than is commonly supposed, or at present asserted. Thus, for instance, the anti-christian Emperor Julian sought to revive them, in order to promote the infernal purposes of his dark magical rites. We are so habituated to look on the divinities and beautiful fables of ancient Greece, as the fairy creations of poetry, that we are painfully surprised when we unexpectedly stumble on some historical fact, which discloses the true spirit and internal essence of polytheism--the fact, for instance, that Themistocles himself, the deliverer of Greece, offered up three youths in sacrifice.

The profound abyss of error, in which the most civilized nations of ancient Heathenism had sunk and were lost, becomes the more apparent, the more closely it is investigated and the more fully it is understood. And on this account, we should learn to see how necessary and salutary was that slow progression--that gradual preparation for a brighter futurity, wherein, as I above stated, consisted the peculiar destination and spiritual career of the Hebrew people. It is only from this its peculiar destination for the Future, the Hebrew people presents so high an interest to historical philosophy, and holds the lofty place assigned to it in the first period of human civilization. The later destinies of the Jewish nation, and the particular events and characters in their later annals, are subjects of the highest moment in a history of religion; for they can be rightly understood and fully appreciated only by their practical application, and profound symbolical reference to the circumstances of Christianity. But it is only the political constitution of the Jewish state in the earliest period of its history--a constitution which was so peculiar and unique in itself, so entirely without a parallel--that can be the appropriate subject of consideration in this general review of history; because this constitution was connected with the prophetic calling of the Hebrew people, and even bore a prophetic character itself. This constitution has been called a theocracy, and so it was in the right and old signification of that word, by which was meant a government under the special and immediate providence of God. But in the now ordinary acceptation of the term, which implies a sacerdotal empire or dominion, the Jewish state was at no time and by no means a theocracy. Moses was no more a priest than a king; and after him all those men of Desire, as they were called from the first circumstances of their institution, or men of the desert, because after a preparation in the solitude of the desert, they led and conducted the people in a literal or figurative sense, through the wilderness--all these men appointed by God, and without any other title or insignia but the staff, which as pilgrims they brought out of the desert, governed and directed the people under the immediate providence of God. If on a certain occasion one of the prophets girded on the sword and led out an army--this was only a transient instance; and the prophets in general were nothing more than the men of God, and the divinely appointed conductors of the people. When the wish in which the Hebrews had so long indulged of having a king, like the heathen nations, was at last gratified; a wish which in the higher views of Holy Writ, was regarded as the culpable illusion of a carnal sense;--the last of the prophets formed a party, and constituted in a very peculiar and singular manner, a species of political Opposition, which was acknowledged to be, and was in fact, perfectly legitimate and just. And when some of them, like Elias for instance, had received from God the supreme and immediate power over life and death, as the distinct badge of dominion; we cannot wonder that men should have followed them, the people have been at their bidding, and kings themselves, even though they followed not always their counsels, have hearkened at least to their warning voice. If those who are so fond of playing the part of oppositionists in every country, could only once rise superior to vulgar forms and formulas, and not every where seek for the echo of their modern opinions, an attentive study of the character of Elias would hold up to their admiring view an oppositionist, who in energy of conduct, and in burning zeal for the cause of truth and justice, or in other words, of God, could not be perhaps easily equalled by any historical personage whether of ancient republics, or of modern monarchies.

After the Jewish state had become a kingdom of no very great dimensions, it shared the destiny of most of the petty states in those regions; and was first a province of the Assyro-Babylonian empire, then became subject to the Persian monarchs, and afterwards to the Greek kings of Syria and Egypt, till with these it was finally swallowed up in the vast empire of all-conquering Rome.

In that restoration of the Jewish state which the Maccabees accomplished in the last period of the Greek domination over Judea, the High-Priest acquired a concurrent political power; a power which he even still retained under the oppressive protectorate of the Romans, though his functions, which were those of a legislator and supreme judge, were confined to the internal government of the state. But this does not constitute a really sacerdotal dominion, and the term theocracy is as little applicable to such an order of things, as to the Greek Patriarchate in the Turkish empire. However, the holy city of Jerusalem, along with Solomon's old, mighty and symbolical temple (whose deep import and proper signification the Jews themselves at a later period no longer understood), still continued to be the main centre of the old national existence and ancient recollections of the Hebrews, as well as of their future hopes and prophetic promises. Even after the fearful destruction of Jerusalem, this emblematic idea of the holy city still lived in the recollection of mankind, and a long time afterwards was, in Christian Europe, an animating incentive to the warlike nations of the Middle Age.

In conclusion, we must add some observations, referring not so much to the Jewish people and their history, as to their most ancient historical books, and to those general views of mankind which they contain, so far as such views relate to the general history of the primitive ages, and are connected with the philosophy of history. In the same way as it is neither necessary nor practicable to regard the Hebrew tongue as the general root or primal source of all the languages spoken on the earth, because it was the organ of divine revelation; so the Mosaic genealogy of nations can with as little propriety be made the basis of a general history of the world; as has in earlier times been so often attempted, but never accomplished without much violence to the text. Although it would be difficult to find in the primitive records of the other Asiatic nations an historical survey of all the nations on the globe, at once so clear, luminous, and instructive; yet the Mosaic revelation had a far different object in view than to furnish a school-compendium of historical learning. This historical genealogy, which in its way cannot be too highly esteemed, was evidently destined by Moses more immediately for his own people, and his own Book of the law; and in his account of the origin of nations, the sacred historian proceeded on views and principles very different from ours. For instance, with us it is the affinity of languages, which forms the chief clue in the arrangement and classification of the different races of mankind; and, according to this principle, we rank the Hebrews with the Phoenicians, and regard them as kindred nations. But in the Mosaic history these two nations, separated by mutual hostility, stand at the widest distance one from the other; for in manners, religion, and feelings, they were diametrically opposed.

In this investigation, indeed, historical circumstances may often occur--such as the popular commotions and intermixture of nations happening at all periods of the world--by which the question of the origin and affinity of different races undergoes considerable modifications, and the whole subject is rendered unsusceptible of a systematic division and arrangement. It often happens that one race adopts the language of another, without on that account losing its national identity, or being totally confounded with the other; for, on the contrary, its moral or intellectual character bears the clear traces of its original descent; so that here, at least, language alone will decide nothing. Often a less numerous tribe will stamp its own native moral and intellectual character on a whole people. In general the descent of nations can be clearly traced and demonstrated in those cases only, where the race has been kept up pure, and all marriage and connection with other nations been strictly prevented. But such has been the case among certain nations only; and even in those countries, where it was the law, it was not in every instance rigidly observed, nor constantly maintained; as is exemplified in the frequent intermarriages of the Hebrews with the Phoenicians, severely prohibited as such intermarriages were. The ancient law-givers attached, indeed, a very high importance to lineage, as is proved by all those restrictive laws on marriage, which were destined to preserve the purity of descent; but they set a far higher value on the patrimonial inheritance of ancient customs, institutions, doctrines, and intellectual qualities, as constituting the true essence of national character, and determining the rank which one race should hold above another. By Moses, in particular, this intellectual character of the different races--their feelings--modes of thinking--the whole spirit which animated them, in a word--the chain of sacred tradition, and its transmission and preservation among the different nations--all these are regarded of primary importance, and they alone furnish us with a clue to the discovery of his views.

The great middle country in Western Asia, where the true Eden, the original abode of the first man, and great progenitor of mankind, was situated, forms the central point in the general historical survey of Moses. The wide-spread race of Japhet comprehends the Caucasian nations in the North, and all its contiguous regions, and also those in the central Asia;--nations which were sound, vigorous, comparatively speaking, less corrupt, and by no means entirely barbarous: but which were debarred from that near and immediate participation in the sacred Traditions of primitive revelation, enjoyed by the peoples of the Semitic race in that midland country, whose distinctive character and high pre-eminence, according to Moses, consisted in this very participation. To the South, the race of Cham includes the degenerate, corrupt, and ungodly Egypt (a country which in its native language bore the name of Chemi), and beyond this, all the African tribes devoted to the dark rites of magic. How entirely subjective in itself--how exclusively adapted to his own people, and his own national object, is the genealogy of nations by Moses, may be proved among other things by the fact that, while many great nations in remoter lands, or in the distant Eastern Asia, cannot in this historical survey be traced without difficulty to their proper place, or forced therein without violence to the text, twelve or thirteen generations are given of the kindred Arabian branch, or of the hostile Phoenician race. If regarded in this simple point of view, the Mosaic genealogy of all the nations throughout the inhabited globe will be found very clear, and, though the names of some particular races remain matter of doubt, this summary is in general perfectly intelligible, and throws a broad light on the history of mankind.

END OF LECTURE VI.

LECTURE VII.

General considerations upon the nature of man, regarded in an
historical point of view, and on the two-fold view of history.--Of
the ancient Pagan Mysteries.--Of the universal Empire of Persia.

Instead of the Mosaic genealogy of nations, commented on in a hundred different ways, and interpreted according to the received views of each individual--a genealogy which was considered as the necessary basis of every universal history, and which by the most false and arbitrary methods was violently strained into an adaptation to all the data of history, evidently contrary to the real views and mighty object of its inspired author;--instead of this genealogy, we say, the sacred records of divine truth furnish us with a far more profound principle--a principle highly simple and comprehensive, and which is perfectly applicable to the philosophy of history. This is that principle laid down in that revelation, at the commencement of all history, as the one wherein consists the peculiar nature--the true essence--and the final destiny of man--I mean his likeness to his Creator. Now it is this principle which forms the ground-work of our whole plan--and now that we have reached the conclusion of the first period of history, and are about to pass to the second, it may be proper to examine more minutely the nature of this principle, and to give an accurate definition of it.

According to the different notions entertained of man's nature, there are but two opposite views of history--two mighty and conflicting parties in the department of historical science. It is quite unnecessary to observe that we include not, in either class, such writers as, confining themselves to a bare detail of facts, indulge not in any general historical views, or even such as, vacillating in their opinions, have no clear, definite, and consistent views on the subject. According to one party, man is merely an animal, ennobled and gradually disciplined into reason, and finally exalted into genius; and therefore the history of human civilization is but the history of a gradual, progressive, and endless improvement. This theory may in a certain sense be termed the liberalism of historical philosophy; and no one perhaps has developed it with such clearness and mathematical rigour, as a very celebrated French writer, entirely possessed with this idea, and who indeed became in his time a martyr to these principles.[60]

In the contests of opinion, which embrace the general relations of society, it is far less those dogmas in which each individual seeks light, aid, strength and repose for his feelings and his conscience, his inward struggles and his final hopes--than the single article of faith respecting man, and what constitutes his essential being, his internal nature, and his higher destiny, which determines the Christian or unchristian view--the religion or irreligion of history, if I may be allowed the expression. This principle of the endless perfectibility of man has something in it very accordant with reason; and if this perfectibility be considered as a mere possible disposition of the human mind, there is doubtless much truth in the theory, but it must be borne in mind that the _corruptibility_ of man is quite as great as his perfectibility.

But when this system is applied to the general course of history, it is destitute of any real beginning; for this vague notion of an animal capable of infinite improvement is not a beginning of any series of terms; and in philosophy, as in life and history, there is no true and solid beginning for any thing out of God. And this principle is equally destitute of any right end; for a mere interminable progress is not a fixed term nor positive object. But history presents a mass of stubborn facts, which agree not always with this abstract law of an infinitely progressive perfection, and, on the contrary, the annals not only of particular nations, but of whole periods of the world, would prove that the natural march of humanity lay rather in a circuitous course. This disagreeable fact is utterly inexplicable according to the rationalist system of history--or if it be susceptible of explanation, it certainly is not reconcileable with the liberal view. As often as from the path of endless perfectibility, thus mathematically traced out for them, man and mankind swerve in eccentric deviations; or even should their course, like that of the planets of our heaven at stated periods, be in appearance once retrogressive; the historical enquirer, who starts from this principle, is immediately disconcerted by such a course of events so contrary to his theory; and, in his blind indignation in which he involves alike the present and future, as well as the past, and by the false light of the passionate spirit of time, he pronounces on these a judgment most iniquitous, or at best extremely partial, certainly at least most repugnant to the dictates of truth.

But man is not merely a nobler animal, fashioned by degrees to reason or dignified into genius. His peculiar and distinctive excellence--his real essence--his true nature and destiny consist in his likeness to God; and from this principle proceeds a view of history totally different from that we have just described; for, according to it, man's history must be the history of the restoration of the likeness to God, or of the progress towards that restoration. That this sublime origin of man being once supposed--the divine image has been much altered, impaired, and defaced in the inmost recesses of the human breast, both of man in particular and of mankind in general, is a truth we may learn, independently of the positive doctrine of religion; for clearly is it vouched and confirmed by the testimony of our own feelings, our own experience of life, and a general survey of the world. No man who well knows that the image of God has been stamped on the human soul,--an image, whose old, half-obliterated characters are still to be found on all the pages of primitive history, and whose impress, not utterly effaced, every reflecting mind may discover in its own interior--can ever forego the hope, that, much as that divine image may seem, or may in fact be, impaired, its restoration is still possible. The man who knows from human life, and from his own experience, how great and arduous is this work--how many obstacles oppose its accomplishment, and how easily, even after a partial success, what already appeared won, may be again lost;--the man understanding this, will not be at a loss to comprehend any pause or retrogression, real or apparent, in the march of mankind; he will judge the fact with more equity, and consequently more accuracy; and will, in every case, confide in the guidance of that superior Providence, clearly visible in this regeneration of the world. If, in opposition to the Rationalist theory of man's endless perfectibility, we were to designate the opposite system of history founded on man's inborn likeness to his Maker, as the _legitimacy_ of historical philosophy; this title would not be incorrect, since all divine and human laws and rights, as they are found in history, depend in their first basis on the supposition of the high dignity and divine destination of man. Hence this view of history is the only one which restores to man the full rights and peculiar prerogatives of his being. Even to all other truths it restores their full force and rights; and it alone can do so without detriment to its own principle; for, as this is the simple truth, it is therefore complete and comprehensive. It must even acknowledge that man, beside his higher dignity and divine destiny, is and remains in his outward existence a physical creature--and though he be such not in an exclusive, but only secondary and subordinate sense, still, in respect to his external being and external development, he may be subject to certain natural laws in history. In the same way it may admit that man endowed with freedom, even when he rejects the religious principle, is still a being gifted with reason; a being that consequently on this foundation incessantly works, builds and improves, in good as in evil, essentially, interminably,--we might almost say, fearfully progressive. This legitimate philosophy of history, which proceeds from the high, divine point of view, should be, as far as the limited capacity of man will permit, a recognition and a just appreciation of the truth, and thereby become a science of history--that is to say, of all which under Providence has occurred to the human race. Thus it must by no means adopt a view of life and of the world, transcending the true right and the right truth--it must avoid deviating into _ultraism_--though this term of the present day involves in the expression of a true idea, some inaccuracy and misconception. On the contrary, this religious view of history and of life, precisely because it is such, can never in its historical judgments sanction a spirit of harsh, precipitate, unqualified censure. For as the Mosaic doctrine of the divine image stamped on the human soul, forms the real and distinctively Christian theory of man, and consequently of his history; so this evidently implies that, among all the laws of human conduct, emanating from this Christian theory, and from Christianity itself, the law of love is the first and the greatest:--a law which must retain its full force and efficacy not only in life, but in science also. Yet love or charity is by no means incompatible with firmness of principle--the vacillations of judgment proceed only from indifference to, or the utter absence of, all principle--the tomb of love, as well as of truth.

This divine image implanted in the human breast is not an isolated thought--a transient flash of light, like the kindling spark of Prometheus: nor is it a mere Platonic resemblance to the Deity--an ideal speculation of the human mind, soaring beyond the range of vulgar conception. But, as this likeness to God forms the fundamental principle of human existence, it is interwoven with the internal structure of human consciousness; and the triple nature of the soul is intimately connected with the principle of the divine resemblance. In its state of discord, the human consciousness, in its external operations, pursues four opposite paths of direction towards reason (vernunft), or imagination (fantasie), or understanding (verstand), or will (wille), so long as these faculties remain disunited. But, when consciousness is restored to its primitive harmony, the internal life of man is three-fold in mind, soul, and sense; and to expound and demonstrate this truth, was the purport and object of the Philosophy of Life, which I treated of in a former course of lectures. And this triple nature of spiritual life, which, among all creatures, characterizes man alone, is most closely allied with the triple energy and personality of the one Divine Being, and constitutes, as far as the immeasurable distance between the creature and Creator will permit, the wonderful analogy between weak, mutable man, and the infinite Spirit of eternal Love. But the original harmony of human consciousness--the triple nature of spiritual life, can be restored in individual man by the following means only:--the soul, previously distracted, can regain its unity, or become again whole, only by a divine illumination;--when this light--the first ray of hope--is humbly received and imbibed by the soul. Enlightened by this first incipient ray, the mind, the living mind, no longer now a cold, dead, abstract understanding, is enabled to embrace with faith the pure word of truth (which is one with love), and to comprehend this word aright, and, by this word, to comprehend the world and its ownself:--while the understanding, in its former isolated and abstract state, was both internally and externally distracted and divided between the phantasmata of nature and the endless sophisms of contentious dialectic. When thus the strong hand of all-guiding love, hath loosed the Gordian knot which bound the human consciousness in inextricable folds;--the third fundamental faculty in man--the sense for divine things--is then awakened and excited. This is now no longer a mere passive feeling for divine things--a will undetermined, or incapable of good: but it becomes an energy acting on life--an energy which is itself life and deed.

But the progressive march of social man which constitutes the subject of universal history, or, as we term it, the formation and growth of humanity, are regulated by principles somewhat different from those which determine the internal life of individual man. Here the different stages of development cannot be classed according to the three fundamental faculties of consciousness in individual man; but the principle of development must be sought for in the divine impulse, as the same is attested by history, and which, in every stage of social progress, has been to mankind the source of a new life; though here again from the very nature of things, three marked degrees of social advancement occur. Corresponding to the divine image implanted in the breast of individual man--the main subject of all history--the Word of divine truth originally communicated to man, and which the sacred traditions of all nations attest in so many and such various ways, forms the leading clue of historical investigation and judgment, during the first stage of the progress of society. But in the second stage of social development, which most be fixed in that full noon-day period of refinement, when victorious Power shines forth so conspicuously in the ascendancy obtained by nations, to whom universal pre-eminence was accorded--the right notion of this power, or the question how far it were just and godly, or pernicious in its application--whether it were inimical to God, or at least of a mixed nature--must constitute the true standard of historical investigation. In the third or last stage, however, of this progress, which occurs in the modern period of the world, the pure truths of Christianity, as they influence science and life itself, can alone furnish the right clue of historical enquiry, and can alone afford any indication as to the ulterior advances of society in future ages. Thus then the _Word_, the _Power_, and the _Light_, form the three-fold divine principle, or the moral classification of historical philosophy--a classification which is founded on historical experience and historical reality.

The existence of a primitive revelation--the establishment of Christianity, which was the principle and power of a new moral life in society--and the pre-eminence of modern Europe in civilization, in which she outshines all other portions of the globe, and even in many respects most periods of antiquity, are three historical data--three mighty facts in civilization, which evince the successive stages of human progress and improvement. And it is our task to appreciate in their full extent each of those different degrees of social advancement, and to comprehend and explain them aright in their relative bearings to the whole. That the Christian nations and states of Europe have received, along with the light of Divine truth, a high intellectual, moral and political illumination, no one will deny; and it is equally evident that this vital principle of modern society is still involved in the crisis of its development--a crisis which will form the principal subject of historical enquiry in the latter part of this work.

It is equally undeniable that, in the second period of the world, to which I now pass, each of those nations that attained to universal empire at that epoch, displayed a high intellectual or moral energy. This energy was visible in that strong, deep sense of nature, which characterized the old ancestral faith and pure manners of the ancient Persians, and in that high martial enthusiasm, and fervent patriotism, which it so easily inspired. The power of inventive genius in the sciences, and in the fine arts, none can deny to the Greeks; none can dispute their pre-eminence in these; as, on the other hand, the Romans were equally unrivalled in vigour of character, and in that moral energy of will, which they exhibited in all their contests with other states. Here now the question to be asked is, whether that high intellectual and moral energy accorded to those nations, thus gifted with universal dominion, were always well employed: whether that power, exalted as it was, were truly divine, or what were the earthly and pernicious elements intermixed with it;--whether this power, great and wonderful as it was in its way, were in itself adequate to the moral and intellectual regeneration of degraded humanity; or whether a power of another, far purer and higher nature were requisite to this end. I should think I had amply solved the problem involved in the history of that first period of the world, which I have here brought to a close, if, in this brief historical sketch, I have succeeded in proving the existence of an original revelation to mankind--the primitive word of divine truth--whereof we find the clearest indications and scattered traces in the sacred traditions of all the primitive nations--traces which, when viewed apart, appear like the broken remnants, the mysterious, and, as it were, hieroglyphic characters--of a mighty edifice that has been destroyed. I should think, too, I had fully accomplished my task, if I have succeeded in proving that, however much amid the growing degeneracy of mankind, this primal word of revelation may have been falsified by the admixture of various errors, however much it may have been overlaid or obscured by numberless and manifold fictions, inextricably confused, and disfigured almost beyond the power of recognition; still a profound enquiry will discover in heathenism many luminous vestiges of primitive truth.

For the old Heathenism (and we must add this remark as the result of our enquiries), the old Heathenism had a foundation in truth, and, thoroughly examined and rightly understood, would serve for a confirmation of the same; for the profound researches of recent times on ancient mythology, and its historical sources, though conducted with the most opposite views, lead us more and more to this great end and result of all the knowledge of antiquity, or at least very near it. Were it possible, or could we succeed in separating the pure intuition into nature and the simple symbols of nature, that constituted the basis of all Heathenism, from the alloy of error, and the incumbrances of fiction; those first hieroglyphic traits of the instinctive science of the first men would not be repugnant to truth and to a true knowledge of nature, but would offer on the contrary, an instructive image of a freer, purer, more comprehensive, and more finished philosophy of life. For, if man, who is the highest and most central object of nature on the earth, had not possessed in the beginning an instinctive science and immediate insight into nature, he could never have attained to this knowledge by the resources of art, and by all the aids of instruments and machinery, or have acquired thereby a true understanding of nature, her internal life, and her hidden powers. The symbolical error which has produced mythology, and which has again emanated from mythology--I mean the identification of the symbol with the object itself, of which, as the latter was something higher and more mysterious, the former originally was, and should have been, nothing more than the mere explanatory emblem--the symbolical error is comparatively the most excusable; and, for a being constituted like man, whose soul is divided between figurative fancy and discursive reason, is almost natural, and has grown into a psychological habit, and a second nature. This error would never have arisen, if the confusion of the high and of the low, of the principal and of the inferior, of God and of Nature, and the inversion of the due order of each, had not, in a partial degree at least, previously taken place. The fundamental error of Paganism lay in the sensual idolatry of nature, by which that inversion of things, and with them of all moral doctrines, took place; although this destructive error of materialism is to be found not only in the heathen religion, but in the atomical philosophy and other false systems of science. Besides that sensual deification of nature, which was the predominant principle in the mythology and popular religion of the ancients, there was another and capital error--magic, which was a dark and abusive application--an illicit perversion of the high powers of nature, when these were really understood, and the mind, penetrating through her sensible and external veil, had caught her true spirit and internal life. This loftier, and, on that account, more dangerous error was not so prevalent in the popular and poetical religion of antiquity, but was chiefly to be found in the secret associations of the Pagan Mysteries.--Although these Mysteries which, in Greece, as well as in Egypt, exerted such a mighty influence on public opinion, on science, and on the whole system of thinking, nay on life itself, disclosed far graver and profounder doctrines than the vulgar mythology of the poets, on all the great questions relative to the human soul, its capacity and original dignity, as well as to the hidden powers of Nature and the whole invisible world; still we must not imagine that the influence of these Mysteries was always salutary, or that their internal constitution and ruling spirit were in their ultimate tendency always entitled to commendation. We may, in my opinion, ascribe to the Egyptians much science, especially in physics, more perhaps than the Greeks in general, and the Pythagoreans in particular, had, as far as we yet know, learned and borrowed from them; but we must not imagine this Egyptian science to have been exempt from a gross alloy of error, and the various abuses of magic. When once the sacred standard and clue of truth are lost, when the due order of things and of doctrines is once inverted, then the mind of man often associates the sublime, the mysterious, and the wonderful, with the mean, the perverse, and the wicked. Amid all those false and whimsical images of Gods, the mere symbols of Nature, but at least very equivocal emblems and hieroglyphs, the temple-sleep of the Egyptians might easily nourish illusions of error and visions of darkness; especially where a magical spirit prevailed, that is to say, an illicit purpose in the application of the high powers of nature--and a will instigated to evil by the arts of the demon. And in all science the matter of greatest moment, and that which determines its value, is its relation to the higher and divine truth; that is to say, whether this science be well employed, or whether, on the contrary, it be converted to a corrupt and destructive use; whether the due order and subordination of inferior Nature, and of every thing earthly, towards God and the things of God, which are the principal, be rightly observed and maintained. But this fundamental truth being once supposed, all science, even that which penetrates the deepest into Nature and her most hidden springs of life, can conduce only to the greater glory of the mighty author of Nature. All these natural secrets, and their true explanations, are to be found in various passages, notices, and allusions in the Old Testament, especially in the books of Moses; they are, indeed, to be found there, like so many golden grains of science in full weight, but, scattered and dispersed, they serve at once to adorn and point out the path that leads to an object, ever regarded as the most important in Holy Writ--namely, the revealing to man the wonderful ways of divine Providence in the conduct of the human race--the holy ark of the covenant of divine mysteries and promises, if I may be allowed such an expression. Here every thing is subordinate to religion, every thing ministers to this higher object--and this is the distinctive mark and stamp of truth, even in the investigations of Nature, and of its revealed or hidden mysteries.

How a slight deviation from truth may suffice to give birth in time to a mighty and progressive error, is strongly exemplified in the fundamental doctrine of the ancient religion of Persia--a doctrine which was at first nothing more than a simple veneration of Nature, its pure elements and its primary energies--the sacred fire, and above all, light--the air, not the lower atmospheric air, but the purer and higher air of heaven--the breath that animates and pervades the breath of mortal life. In India, too, this doctrine must have been very prevalent in the primitive ages; for many and very ancient passages of the Vedas refer to these elements, while on the other hand, the names of the later Hindoo divinities appear to have been entirely unknown at that period. This pure and simple veneration of nature is perhaps the most ancient, and was by far the most generally prevalent in the primitive and Patriarchal world. In its original conception, it was by no means a deification of Nature, or a denial of the sovereignty of God--it was only at a later period that the symbol, as it so often happens, was confounded with the thing itself, and usurped the place of that higher Object which it was destined originally to represent. And how can we doubt that these pure elements and primitive essences of created Nature would offer to the first men, who were still in a close communication with the Deity, not indeed a likeness or resemblance (for in man alone is that to be found), nor a mere fanciful image, or a poetical figure, but a natural and true symbol of divine power;--how can we doubt this, I say, when we see that, in so many passages of Holy Writ (not to say in every part), the pure light or sacred fire is employed as an image of the all-pervading and all-consuming power and omnipotence of God? Not to speak again of those passages of scripture, which describe the animating breath and inspiration of God as the first source of life, and speak of the gentle breath, the light whisper of the breeze that announced to the prophet the immediate presence of his God, before whom he fell prostrate, and mantled himself in awe and reverence; and this surely cannot be understood as a poetical and figurative expression! Undoubtedly the scriptures often oppose to that natural emblem or veil of divine power, in the pure elements, an evil, subterraneous and destructive fire--the false light of the fiends of error--the poisonous breath of moral contagion. And how could it be otherwise? Nature in its origin was nought else than a beautiful image--a pure emanation--a wonderful creation--a sport of omnipotent love; so, when it was severed from its divine original, internally displaced, and turned against its Maker, it became vitiated in its substance, and fraught with evil. This alienation of Nature from God, this inversion of the right order in the relations between God and Nature, was the peculiar, essential and fundamental error of ancient Paganism, its false Mysteries, and the abusive application of the higher powers of Nature in magical rites. On the other hand, we ought to regard every similar inversion of things and of ideas, every similar derangement in the divine system, though established on the basis of Christianity, and by Christian philosophers--we ought, I say, to regard every such attempt as being in its essential nature and principle a heathen enterprise--the foundation of a scientific Paganism, although no altars be erected to Apollo, and no Mysteries be celebrated in honour of Isis.[61]

The pure symbolism of Nature, and the whole circle of the primitive symbolical ideas of the Egyptians, several of the Greek writers attempted to gather out of the mass of idolatrous tenets, natural emblems, and hieroglyphic signs of speech; but their researches do not correspond to the importance of the subject itself, nor to the present demands of science. It is well worthy of remark that the hieroglyphics, as far as they have yet been deciphered, do not indicate in their formation that variety of epochs observable in the Chinese system of writing; but on the contrary they seem to be all of a single cast, and offer the same circle of ideas and the same style of emblems. And as images of Gods are to be found in a diminutive form among the other hieroglyphic signs, we may conclude from this circumstance, that all the hieroglyphics must have had a simultaneous origin, and have remained subsequently unchanged; and that their origin must have occurred at a time when the Egyptian idolatry had already been wrought into a perfect system.

In the primitive ages, during the first thirty-three centuries of the world, according to the ordinary computation, the various nations into which mankind were divided, followed in their development a separate and secluded course; and two mighty nations, the Indians and the Chinese, have remained to this day in this isolated and totally sequestered state. The peculiar character which distinguishes the second from the first epoch of the world is that, along with the first mighty conquests, there existed a much closer connection, a mutual influence, an active commerce, and various intercourse among many nations, nay, among all the nations of the then civilized world. From this period, when the intercourse among nations becomes more intimate, History acquires greater clearness, precision, and critical exactness; and this is only six, or at most seven centuries before the Christian era. The first Persian conquerors advanced with rapid strides towards the objects of their ambition; for after the founder of the Persian empire--Cyrus, had made himself master of the whole central region of Western Asia, as well as of the Lesser Asia, his successes were soon followed up by the conquest of Egypt by the arms of Cambyses; and a little subsequent to this, by the great expedition of Xerxes into Greece, whose valiant defenders, however, ruined his hopes of conquest. Egypt, which in its intellectual character, civilization, and political institutions, had a much stronger analogy and affinity with those two great primitive states--India and China, shut out from the rest of the world, was engaged in political relations with the nations of Western Asia, and those inhabiting the shores of the Mediterranean, such as the Persians, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks; and hence a short sketch of its political history, down to the period of the Persian conquest, as far at least as is necessary for the elucidation of general history, will not be here inappropriate or misplaced.

The long list of names of kings, belonging to more than twenty dynasties of the ancient Pharaohs, furnishes indeed matter of little interest or importance to the philosophic enquirer in his researches on universal history. It is, however, worthy of remark that many and vast expeditions appear to have been undertaken in the early ages of Egypt; though, while mention is made of such conquests, nothing is said of the permanent possession of the conquered countries. Sesostris, who, in the lifetime of his father, Amenophis, had seized the whole coast of Arabia, next vanquished, for the first time, Lybia and Ethiopia, afterwards extended his conquests to Bactriana, subdued the Scythian nations in the Caucasian countries, in Colchis, and as far as the Don, and even took possession of Thrace. The descent of the Colchians from the Egyptians, or the existence of an Egyptian colony in Colchis, was regarded by the ancients as an historical fact. The yet more ancient King Osymandas is said to have undertaken an expedition, attended by an immense army, to reconquer Bactriana that had revolted against the Egyptian sway; and the triumphant arms of Osiris stretched on one hand as far as the Ganges, and on the other as far as the sources of the Danube. Here a question arises:--did the Egyptians possess heroic poems similar to the Ramayana and Mahabarata of the Indians, and were these marvellous narratives extracted from these poems? Or had all these narratives a signification purely mythic, as we may easily conjecture to be the case in the expedition of Osiris? In those historical ages which are better known to us, Egypt was certainly never a conquering power--at least its conquests were never of a solid and permanent nature; though even in those times Egypt made some transient conquests, or at least expeditions; and, guilty of great political encroachments on other states and nations, was often doomed to experience from these a vigorous resistance to her attempts. A part of Libya, the coast of Arabia contiguous to the Red Sea, and the Arabia Petraea, acknowledged for a long time the sceptre of the Pharaohs, (and this fact indeed, the various monuments covered over with hieroglyphics, which are found in those countries, would seem to corroborate): Ethiopia, too, or at least a considerable portion of that region, was for a long period in the possession of the Egyptian kings. The construction of the many ancient and vast edifices and monuments which are crowded together in the province of Thebais must, to all appearance, have required a greater number of hands than the Proper Egypt (a country by no means of considerable extent) could have furnished of itself. As Ethiopia had been conquered by the Egyptians, so the Ethiopians in their turn invaded Egypt, and founded there a royal dynasty. The second of these Ethiopian kings, Tirhaka, sought to stretch his conquests as far as Libya and the Northern coast of Africa, and must have penetrated as far as the columns of Hercules, or the modern straits of Gibraltar. On the other hand, there is historical evidence that even the Carthaginians, at the time when the family of Mago had the ascendancy in their state, conquered and took possession of the Egyptian city of Thebes. The king of Egypt, who is known in the historical books of the Hebrews by the name of Shishak, and who made the transient conquest of Jerusalem, is called Sheshonk or Sesonchis in the ancient inscriptions of the Pharaohs.