and the Persians. A less usual supposition is, that it was in the main, and in its more essential features an imperfectly understood reproduction of the primitive revelation. The amiable Dr. Henry More, one of the ablest metaphysicians of the 17th century, adopted the idea under this extreme form. In our own time Mr. Gladstone, though not extending his views to the philosophical systems, strenuously defends the connection of descent between the Mythology of Greece and the earliest inspired teaching.

The first consideration which embarrasses the inquiry is that of the relations, which subsisted between Greek Philosophy and the Mythological creed of the Greek people. These relations are to us necessarily very indefinite and indistinct. Indeed it must be admitted that the direct information which we possess from ancient sources, regarding the exact faith of the uninstructed and ordinary classes of pagan society is not by any means so decisive and complete, as to enable us to form clear and adequate ideas on the belief they actually professed. The only authors from whose works very valuable information can be derived are, Sanconiathon, Hesiod, Ovid in the Fasti, Plutarch in his treatise on Isis and Osiris, and Diodorus the Sicilian. But such information as is obtainable from the writers mentioned is in some instances but fragmentary, and in others so intermingled with palpable and absurd fables, which could never have formed portions of the national faith, as to afford only slender aid in any inquiry into the popular creed of Paganism. We learn from these sources, as well as from the general testimony of their literature, that Polytheism, in its ordinary crude form of belief in a multitude of beings endowed with certain divine qualities, was the essential form of the national worship. Yet such information does not at all decide for us, what it would be most essential to know, whether Polytheism was akin to, and commingled with Pantheism. The instance of the Hindoo Mythology shows how Polytheism and Pantheism may co-exist and be amalgamated, without either belief interfering with, or being found irreconcileable with the other. The essential character of Brahminism is confessedly Pantheistic, yet the gods whom the Hindoo devotees worship with such elaborate and ceremonious devotion, number 330,000,000.

Pantheism, which exacts belief in the Unity of the

Being, the changes of whose essence constitute the varied forms and vicissitudes of existence, which mark the course of the world's history, does not require entire disbelief in the reality of those forms which compose the outer universe. The supreme deity of the Indian religion first evolved himself in the production of Brahma, Vishnu, and Iswara; the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer; later were created the seven Rishi, or Patriarchs, and subsequently, as traced in the complex fables of the Brahmans, the varied hierarchies of their gods were produced. The dogma of the phenomenal nature of the finite, which is usually associated with Pantheism, whilst it attributes to limited beings only a dependent and fluctuating existence, does not neutralize for the time a belief in their reality; nor as it would seem, from the Hindoo Mythology, does it preclude them from a share in those sublime endowments which entitle them to rank as gods. The success which was achieved by the Pantheistic Philosophy of the Ionian and Eleatic Schools in Greece, and the influence which was exercised by them over the public mind, does not, it must be allowed, furnish conclusive evidence as to the existence of similar religious tendencies amongst the people; just as the wide diffusion of Pantheistic notion amongst the student class in Germany does not afford any proof that the same views are popular with the entire people. Nevertheless, the remarks which have been made are sufficient to weaken any objection which may be alleged against the Oriental derivation of the Greek Philosophy from the inference, that, had Oriental religious ideas been imported into Greece, both through the medium of migration, and the efforts of individual philosophers, we should look for evidences of this twofold influence in the religious impressions of the entire nation. Such impressions may have very possibly existed throughout the historic period, and may have received their first development at a far earlier date. We cannot wonder that some of the philosophers, and of the tragic poets, incurred the anger of the people, when they seriously impugned the existence of even their subordinate deities; but it must be confessed to be extremely difficult to understand how the pungent ridicule with which Aristophanes satirizes their vices and weaknesses, was not merely tolerated, but even sanctioned, if the people had been impressed

with that exclusive faith in their divinity which pure Polytheism would imply.

When we read of the laughable disappointment of the greedy Hercules in the "Frogs," or the wholesale sarcasms dealt out against the entire Theogony in the "Birds," and again meet with the vindication of Olympus in the "Clouds," we are reminded of the analogous anomalies of Hindoo Mythology, and the ludicrous narratives of Vishnu, deceived by King Bulee, of Yumoos' undignified treatment of his own mother, and of the stories of Shivoo and Kohinec.*

In both cases we feel disposed to explain the heterogeneous and contradictory character of the religious system, by supposing that in its earliest phase the vast family of gods was regarded by the popular faith as the transient manifestation of the Supreme Being, but that in the course of subsequent history the mystical element acquired a preponderance in Hindooism, which the circumstances of their condition necessarily exacting a more practical and less ideal character of mind, contributed rather to repress, and ultimately to extinguish in the Grecian creed.

The arguments which can be deemed sufficient to prove the common origin of two philosophical or religious systems must be of a rigorous and decisive kind. No additional force is given to the proofs that the Etrurians and Greeks were of common descent, by the exact similarity of the idea they respectively entertained of an after state, one which chiefly rested on the gloom and exile of Tartarus, and hardly at all dwelt upon the cheerful doctrine of an elysium. There may exist countless points of resemblance between two systems, and yet all be easily explained by supposing that the national minds at corresponding periods of development had been subjected to kindred influences, and had thus adopted similar modifications of the suggestions of their common consciousness. In addition to the argument that would be furnished by evidence of ethnological affinities, and frequent intercourse between two nations, a specific resemblance between their

* See Ward's account of the Religion of the Hindoos, and Colebrooke's Papers on India.

Similar accounts are contained in the Abbé Dubois' account of Hindoo Customs and Belief.

tenets, often carried out into the more minute and exact details, would constitute the highest proof which is attainable, that such religious convictions as refreshed their minds had been received from a common fountain. Such correspondence as we should look for would be in the fundamental problems of their philosophy, in the aspect under which they regarded those vital questions which it is the office of every philosophy to solve, and to which diverse systems have given such dissentient responses.

The primary inquiries which have principally engaged both ancient and modern speculation relate 1st, to the origin of the universe, 2nd, the conditions and nature of certain knowledge, and 3rd, the nature and destiny of the human soul.

The Vedas distinctly define "that in the Deity the whole world is absorbed; from Him it issues; He is entwined and interwoven with all creation ;" all that exists is God; whatever we smell, or taste, or see, or hear, or feel, is the Supreme Being ;" and again," He is not comprehensible by vision, or by any other of the organs of sense; nor can He be conceived by means of devotion or virtuous practices. His existence had no cause. He is the smallest of the small, and the greatest of the great; and yet is in fact neither small nor great. In accordance with the belief that every visible thing is some portion of the Supreme Being, and in some indefinable sense identical with His transcendental essence, the Vedas allow, and even prescribe that the multitude of believers, whose gross nature renders them unfit to adore the incomprehensible Brahm, should worship some subordinate being, whose relations to the Deity entitle it, according to their notion, to the worship due to the divine nature.

Possessing from the earliest period such sublime conceptions of the Supreme Deity, and impressed with such a deep sense of His awful being, it is not surprising that they should have eagerly embraced the belief that between Him and them had been interposed an almost endless Hierarchy of Being, through whose ministrations they might ultimately attain to union with Him.

When the ignorance and wickedness of men had increased, the pure conception earliest possessed became naturally much corrupted, and it is not difficult to conceive how, after the mind had become habituated to associate the idea of present and actual Deity with the objects

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to which it had at first only conceded a vicarious worship, it would insensibly accord to them direct and explicit adoration, and thus in the words of "Wisdom," ignem, aut spiritum, aut citatum aërem, aut gyrum stellarum, aut nimiam aquam, aut solem et lunam, rectores orbis terrarum deos putaverunt." It would, however, at the same time not have quite forgotten the conceptions which it had so strangely altered and degraded, and it would have found it difficult to get rid of at least some vague and indeterminate idea of a supreme and transcendental being. The personal distinctness which constituted the worth and beauty of the primitive idea of the Godhead faded away into a dreamy conception, which was confused by attributing its highest properties to the outer universe, or by allowing it again to condense into a fixed belief in an eternal and all-controlling fate, retaining the attribute of power, but deprived of the qualities of freedom and personal agency, which were bestowed upon the fictitious gods that superstition had created.

A still lower stage may, however, be reached, in which even this last idea of some one Infinite Quality presiding over the universe is lost, and leaves behind only the belief in the limited power of the various mythological beings, each restricted within its own province, but all possessing in common that attribute of which they had once been esteemed but the imperfect symbols.

In the earliest mythology we should thus be prepared to look for the simple and lofty conception of Deity becoming gradually clouded, and the subordinate machinery of inferior gods beginning to shut out the view of the Supreme Being. The subsequent form assumed by each national system of idolatry will be chiefly regulated by the special influences acting upon each several people. The nation whose lot is cast, through the necessity of migration, in lands conquered with difficulty, and needing for their defence warlike and energetic habits, is little likely to cling to the mystical and ideal element, but rather to give prominence to the subordinate forms of power, and thus to lapse into a form of Polytheism, in which the Pantheistic element is comparatively small and insignificant. On the other hand, in those climes where the absence of such incentives to exertion as we have mentioned, and

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