EDINBURGH:

PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS;

AND W. S. ORR, AMEN CORNER, LONDON.

1851.

Nou Publishing in Weekly Numbers, at 1}d. each; in Monthly Parts, at 7d.;

and in Volumes every Two Months, in Fancy Boards, Price 1s. 6d.

CHAMBERS'S

PAPERS FOR THE PEOPLE.

P F Ꭲ

This series is mainly addressed to that numerous class whose minds have been educated by
the improved schooling, and the popular lectures and publications, of the last twenty years,
and who may now be presumed to crave a higher kind of Literature than can be obtained
through the existing cheap periodicals. The Papers embrace History, Archæology, Bio-
graphy, Science, the Industrial and Fine Arts, the leading topics in Social Economy;
together with Criticism, Fiction, Personal Narrative, and other branches of Elegant
Literature-each number containing a distinct subject.

Already issued

VOLUME I.

No.

No.

36. The Education Movement.

1. The Bonaparte Family.

37. Antarctic Explorations.

2. The Sepulchres of Etruria.

38. The Queen of Spades - A Tale.

3. Valerie Duclos-Some Leaves from the 39. Jewish Life in Central Europe.

Journal of a French Physician.

40. William Wordsworth.

4. Education of the Citizen.

5. The Myth.

VOLUME VI.

6. The Sunken Rock-A Tale.

7. Popular Cultivation of Music.

41. The Microscope and its Marvels.

8. Ebenezer Elliott.

42. Pre-Columbian Discovery of America.

43. Hermann-A Tale.

VOLUME II.

44. Public Libraries.

45. Australia and Van Diemen 's Land.

9. The Sanitary Movement.

46. The Lone Star - A Tale.

10. Washington and his Cotemporaries.

11. Edmund Atherton-A Tale.

47. Religion of the Greeks.

12. Memorabilia of the Seventeenth Century.

48. Heyne - A Biography.

13. Ruined Cities of Central America.

14. The Ivory Mine-A Tale.

VOLUME VII.

15. Secret Societies of Modern Europe.

49. Water Supply of Towns.

16. Francis Jeffrey.

50. Ancient Scandinavia.

51. The Lost Letter-The Somnambule.

VOLUME III.

52. Life in an Indiaman.

17. Arctic Explorations.

53. The Law of Storms.

18. Social Utopias.

54. Santillian's Choice- A Tale.

19. The Speculator-A Tale.

55. The Isthmus of Panama.

20. Carthage and the Carthaginians.

56. Daniel de Foe.

21. Recent Discoveries in Astronomy.

22. The White Swallow-A Tale.

VOLUME VIII.

23. Mechanics' Institutions.

57. Ocean Routes.

24. Thomas Campbell.

58. Cromwell and his Contemporaries.

59. Life at Græfenberg.

VOLUME IV.

60. Life at Græfenberg - concluded.

25. The Bourbon Family.

61. The Black Gondola- A Venetian Tale.

26. California.

62. Ancient Philosophic Sects.

27. The Black Pocket-Book-A Tale.

63. The Wonders of Human Folly.

28. Fenelon.

64. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

29. Every-Day Life of the Greeks.

30. Lady Marjory St Just - An Auto-

VOLUME IX.

biography.

65. Recent Decorative Art.

31. Science of the Sunbeam.

66. Alchemy and the Alchemists.

32. Sir Robert Peel.

67. The Lost Laird - A Tale of '45.

68. German Poets and Poetry.

VOLUME V.

69. The Deserts of Africa.
33. Secret Societies of the Middle Ages.

70. Sigismund Temple - A Tale.
34. Rajah Brooke and Borneo.

71. Electric Communications.
35. The Last of the Ruthvens.

72. Fichte - A Biography.

PART XIX.

73. Ancient Rites and Mysteries.

75. Harriette; or The Rash Reply.
74. Siberia and the Russian Penal Settle- 76. Childhood of Experimental Philosophy,

ments.

*** Title and Contents to Vols. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII, VIII and IX, may be had of

the Booksellers, Price One Halfpenny each.

THE
HE various mythological creeds of the ancient world, different as

they were in the forms and ceremonies pertaining to each, may all be traced to a common origin in the constitution of the human mind. Natural religion is the manifestation of the sentiments of wonder and veneration, and the powerful manner in which these organs were acted upon in the early ages of the world led, in a manner perfectly natural and easily understood, to the formation of the mythologies which arose on the shores of the Ganges and the Nile, in the sunny vales of Greece, and among the snowy ridges of the Dofrefeld. The mind of man, in these ages, must be regarded as the mind of a child—infantile, undeveloped, untrained, and finding food for its wonder in everything of which it took cognisance, and objects for its veneration in everything which it could not comprehend. The wonders of the starry heavens, the continual succession of day and night, the phenomena of the revolving seasons, eclipses of the sun and moon; all made the same impression upon men's minds in those early ages as they do now upon the ductile and unformed mind of a child. To the first dwellers upon the earth all these things were as novel and as wondrous as they are to the child of two years old who beholds them for the first time, and they were as little able to understand them. Before they could do so in a correct and philosophical manner, mankind had to pass through the same phases of varying belief as the mind of the individual does in its progressive development from infancy to mature age. Those objects which most excited their wonder they soon came to regard

No. 73. VOL. X.