SECTION II. Messiahism, the Osiris-myth, and Jesus. 1. The Method of Verifying the Hypothesis of the Origin 2. The Principle on which our Method Proceeds of .. 3. The Classes of Facts from which the Explanation is Deduced PAGE. 378 382 384 385 8. Higher Morality also of Classic Literature of Greece and Rome 12. Prevalence of Popular Belief in Incarnation.. 398 400 13. II. 3. Social Activities. Cessation of War and Religious Activity 401 15. Special Influence of Solar Mythology, and especially of Osirianism 406 17. Summary of Historical Theory of Origin of Christianity . 410 413 415 SECTION III. The Osirian Character of Christianism. §1. The Place of Egypt and of Osirianism in the History of Civiliza- 2. The Probabilities of the Natural or Supernatural Origin of the Doc- 3. The Probabilities of the Natural or Supernatural Origin of the Doc- 4. The Probabilities of the Natural or Supernatural Origin of the Doc- 5. The Probabilities of the Natural or Supernatural Origin of the Doc 6. The Probabilities of the Natural or Supernatural Origin of the Doc- 421 423 trine of the Atonement 424 7. The Probabilities of the Natural or Supernatural Origin of the Doc- trine of Hell .. 426 8. The Probabilities of the Natural or Supernatural Origin of the Doc 9. The Moral Progress, yet Intellectual Stationariness of Christianity EPILOGUE. The Tombs of Egyptians, the Homes of Christians, INTRODUCTION. ON THE ROCK OF MALTA. Errata 12, note 1, (et compose) read ce composé 103, 1, homoloid read homaloid 301, §4, heaven-smiling read heaven-smiting 359, § 1, read, an hypothesis, some of the proofs of which I would now briefly set forth,-but as a verification, not of this hypothesis merely, but of that general theory into which it is enlarged by connecting it with the deduction from our Ultimate Law of History of a moral transformation &c. 418, § 1. Eighth century B.C. read A.D. B INTRODUCTION. 1. ON the Rock of Malta-a rock over which have swept all the successive civilisations of the continental shores of Asia, Africa, and Europe, and where these have all, on receding, left recording vestiges I was chiefly occupied, during our three weeks' sojourn, with what it may, in this Introduction, be desirable to give a brief account of, as subsequently developed-considerations, namely, on the New Philosophy of History, with a view to the discovery of what is still needed for its completion-an Ultimate Law of History. And a place more suggestive of general historical reflection could hardly be named than Malta, the classical Meλír, or Melita. For not only is it generally remarkable as having been overswept by all the successive civilisations of the Mediterranean, but it is more especially remarkable as having been, from the earliest period of West-Eastern history, a meeting-place of those two great races of Semites and of Aryans 3 1 See Vassallo, Monumenti Antichi nel Gruppo di Malta; and the popular, descriptive, and historical works of Badger, Tallack, Porter, &c. 2 The neighbouring island of Gozo was by some identified with the Homeric Ogygia (Odyss. i., v. and xii.), the island of Calypso. See Strabo, i. 44, vii. 299. The chief centre, however, of primitive communication between Semites, Aryans, and Egyptians should seem to have been Cyprus, with its rival Phoenician and Hellenic ruling races. Thence came, particu 3 who have woven between them the wonderful, changeful web of that Western Civilisation the most potent and progressive of all. First, in Homeric times, Semites in a Phoenician colony; then Aryans, in Greek conquerors or colonists; then again Semites, in Carthaginian colonists or conquerors; once again Aryans, in Roman conquerors, and their Greek successors of the Byzantine Empire; yet again Semites, in Arabian conquerors; yet once again Aryans, in Norman conquerors, and various European sovereigns, till it was given over by Charles V. of Germany to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem; and, rescued by the British from the French Revolutionists, the conquerors of the Knights, a Semitic-speaking population finally rests contented, because free, under the imperial sway of the most composite, and perhaps, on the whole, the greatest of the Aryan races-the Britannic, or Anglo-Celtic. In con larly, the Greek ideals of Herakles and Aphrodité (Herodot. 1. 105). And, for a knowledge of the manner in which Semitic and Egyptian worship and art generally influenced the primitive development of the Greek mind, we have now invaluable material in the immense archæological collection formed by General di Cesnola. See Newton and Colvin, Antiquities of Cyprus. 1 Compare Renan, De la Part des Peuples sémitiques, pp. 9, 10. And see below, B. I. ch. v. 2 Diod. v. 12. 3 A bilingual inscription shows Greek and Punic to have been-as now, Italian and Arabic, in its Maltese dialect-prevalent at the same period. Boeckh, Corpus Inscr. Gr. 5752-5754. 4 See Schlienz, The Maltese Language. * The term Anglo-Saxon is accurately applied to but a single early period of English history in contradistinction to Anglo-Danish and Anglo-Norman, (see Pearson, History of England in the Early and Middle Ages, vol. i.), and, as applied to the modern British people and Britannic race, is a gross misnomer. Even the English are now rather Anglo-Celts than 'Anglo-Saxons;' and still more certainly is AngloCeltic a more accurate term than 'Anglo-Saxon,' not only for that British nationality which includes the Scots, the Irish, and the Welsh, |