kind the most simple and intelligible revelation of God.* Now that very poetry in the heathen religion, was in fact the thing which stood in the way of a reformation in the manner attempted by the Platonists. For when these men either pointed out or inserted, in the fables of that religion, a fine moral sense, still their teaching appeared to the people, on this very account, as nothing else than beautiful poetry. The people were too dull or too indolent to search out the moral' kernel. This is also placed in a truly striking light by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. He says:64 "I know, indeed, that many excuse the immoral fables of the Greeks, on the ground of their being allegorical. But though I know this as well as any man, I am nevertheless very cautious respecting them, and hold rather with the Roman mythology; as I consider the good arising from the Grecian fables to be very small, and not capable of benefiting many, and indeed only those who have investigated the cause for which they were invented. But there are only a few who have become masters of this philosophy. On the other hand, the great and unphilosophic mass are accustomed to receive these narratives rather in their worst sense, and to learn one of these two things; either to despise the gods as beings who wallow in the grossest licentiousness, or not to restrain themselves even from what is most abominable and abandoned, when they see that the gods also do the same."

Thus it appeared then, in fact, that the efforts of those Platonists by no means reached to the multitude of the lower classes, who were abandoned to themselves. These remained, afterwards as before, given up to their obscure and erroneous ideas and wretched external ceremonies. But these exertions must nevertheless appear great and important to us-partly in themselves, as proceeding from holy minds, inflamed with desires for the divine,† and partly in respect to Christianity, which

*As Plutarch lived amid the spread and persecution of Christianity, till near the middle of the second century, it is hardly credible that such a scholar should remain wholly unacquainted with revelation, especially as he resided in Greece and Rome, and travelled extensively. TRANS.

64 Dion. Hal. Antiq. Rom. II. 69.

+ I prefer to give, as nearly as possible, a verbatim translation of such passages as may excite particular curiosity in regard to the views of the learned and pious author, on interesting topics. To

so abundantly satisfies all those wants felt by the Platonists, and particularly by Plutarch; inasmuch as it not only placed before the moral capacities of man a sublime object of attainment, through the doctrine of a holy God and a holy kingdom, into which all the redeemed and purified shall be received; but also bestowed on fallen man, through the atoning death of the divine Redeemer and the vital powers which emanate from him, the ability to enter into that heavenly economy and to participate in that happy life. Here too, it was not merely the лεлαidεvμεvоi, the educated, who should share in the promised glory; but every member of the human race obtained the same right to the royal priesthood of the redeemed, to the same participation in the heavenly inheritance. For the greater or less degree of science and knowledge was no longer to be the measure of dignity for man, as was the customary error of even the best heathen, even of a Plato. Corporeal penance too, (to which every corporeal frame is not adapted,) was not to ensure the enjoyment of this dignity; but the childlike reception in faith of the word of the cross, the following of the despised Jesus, amid scorn, reproach, and reviling, in self-denial, humility, and love.

APPENDIX TO PART I. p. 89.

On the primitive condition of Man.

That a higher condition of the human race preceded its more degenerate state, is a truth which has been acknowledged in all ages by the more profound. As the child becomes a man only among men, so the man becomes a man only by living in human society. Hence we must admit, either the eternal existence of human society, in which one man has ever been formed by another ad infinitum, or else a particular period, when God himself introduced man as ready formed for society into his present relations of life. Now as the Scriptures inform us, that the first human pair fell from a holy life in God into an unholy life in

express things in the most abstract and comprehensive manner, the Germans employ the adjective used as a noun much more frequently than we do. It is manifest from such passages as the above, that the author had a more favourable view of the extent of real piety among the heathen, than is commonly entertained, and more than the Bible and history appear to warrant. TRANS.

selfishness; so we must believe that man, thus fallen from his primitive purity, has yet brought with him, from that happy period into his sunken state, great capacities and powers. Were this not so, even the most important phenomena of primitive history would be inexplicable. Whence was that deep knowledge in Astronomy, in Geometry, in Natural Philosophy, in Architecture, which we find in ancient India, Chaldea, Egypt, and China? Whence, especially, that lively interest in divine things and solemn reverence of them? Whence comes it, if the first generations were savages and semi-brutes, that among them government, morals, science, art, all were founded on religion, and reverence for God was the centre of their whole intellectual life? Heeren says respecting the influence of religion on politics:1 "It clearly appears from the history of politics, that religion maintains a higher political importance, the further we trace back history.""What other sanction of law can there be among rude nations, where there is no conviction of the importance of obeying the law, but in religion, through which the law is regarded as the command of the gods ?"-And a distinguished natural philosopher thus speaks of the value and employment of natural philosophy in the primitive world :2 "A hasty glance teaches, that astronomy and the study of nature were not means for the attainment of an end, but a sacred occupation. Hence kings acted as high priests and astronomers, Osiris in Egypt, and Hoangti in China five thousand years before Christ,* with his minister Yuchi, who ascertained the polar star and discovered the sphere."

Thus the historian testifies to the founding of politics on religion in ancient times; and the natural philosopher, to the connection of astronomy and physics with the same; but that religion itself rests on immediate revelation, is asserted among others by Herder :3 "The footsteps of religion, various as may be its costume, are found even among the poorest and rudest nations. Whence came it to these nations? Did every wretched wanderer, in some way, discover his system of worship as a kind 1 Heeren's Ideen über Politik und Verkehr der Völker der alten Welt, Gött. 1805. B. I. p. 18. p. 22.

2 Schuberth, Nachtseite der Natur, Dresd. 1818. p. 54. *According to the extravagant chronology of the Chinese. TRANS. 3 Herder, Ideen zur Geschichte der Philosophie der Menscheit, B. II. p. 288.

of natural theology? These miserable men discover nothing; they follow in all things the tradition of their fathers. Tradition is the mother of their language, as of their religion."-Hence the historian places at the head of all history, an original and higher state of cultivation in man, proceeding from God. Johannes von Müller expresses himself thus on this point: “There is something very remarkable in the fact, that the most ancient nations, though entirely uncultivated in other things, had perfectly correct views and knowledge of God, of the world, of immortality, and even of the motions of the stars; while the arts which pertain to the conveniences of life, are much younger. Does it not seem, as though the breath of Divinity dwelling in us, our spirit, had acquired through the immediate teaching of a higher being, and for a long time retained, certain indispensable ideas and habits, to which it could not easily have attained of itself? Whatever, on the other hand, pertains to the employment of material capacities, was left for the exercise of our own mental powers."-Later investigations and discoveries have shown, that also in these arts of life the most ancient people were greatly distinguished. With this intimation of Müller, F. Schlegel 5 should be compared, who strikingly shows the necessity of admitting an original teaching of the human race by the spirit of God. And especially are the words of the distinguished antiquary, Ouvarof, to be noted: "The natural state of man is neither the savage state, nor a state of corruptness; but a simple and better state, approaching nearer the divinity; the savage and the corrupted man* are equally removed from it."

This

But we need not stop with these later investigators. The universal tradition of the ancient world, spoke of a higher illumination of man at the commencement of this earthly course. is declared, first of all, by the general tradition of nations of a golden age of the world, of Paradise. Moreover also Plato follows this opinion, where Socrates in Philebus says: "All that originated in art, originated in the following manner. There was once, as it seems to me, a gift of the gods, brought down to men 4 Joh. v. Müller, Weltgeschichte. Th. I. p. 4.

5 Fr. Schlegel, Ueber die Weisheit der Indier, P. 89 seq. p. 105. 6 Ouvarof, Essais sur les Mystères d'Eleusis. Paris. 1816. p. 10.

from the gods by a certain Prometheus, at the same time with the light. Now the ancients, who were better than we, and who stood nearest to the gods, have handed down to us, that, etc." Plato also gives a hint to the same effect in the mythus, that once in the primeval period, Saturn himself became the herdsman of the herd of men. And thus Aristotle says: "The tradition has been handed down in the form of fable from the ancients to later posterity, that the above-named are gods, and that Deity encircles all nature;-and that while, according to the various powers of men, every art and philosophy has been often discovered and again lost, these dogmas, as if remnants of their wisdom, have been transplanted to the present time."-In the same sense, the heathen Caecilius also says: "I give credit to ancestors, who, in a yet uncultivated age at the beginning of the world, were counted worthy to have the gods as friends or kings.

If now there are sufficient grounds to assume, that a state of higher mental cultivation and higher knowledge remained to man on his departure from his primitive spiritual and holy life in God, so we must also presuppose that, in such a state, man had a more correct knowledge also of the divine Being. And so the Scriptures represent it to us, which depict the lapse into idolatry as the consequence of a progressive corruption after the fall. We are, besides, led to this supposition by the fact, that all traditions of a moral import, ever tended more and more to a physical interpretation, the further they were handed down among posterity. We have confirmed this in the text (p. 91) by some examples. These may be increased from many sources. Thus, for instance, the religion of Buddha-which, according to the most credible witnesses, emanated from Brahmaism at a later period, though it is found existing along with it in very high antiquity appears to be only a more consistent and more physically apprehended form of Brahmaism. 10-Thus too we find in the Chinese Shuking, the most ancient book of religion, as also in the philosophy In-kia, derived from it and founded on it, the doctrine. of a supreme being as father of all things; but its followers,

8 Aristotelis Metaphys. XI. 18.

9 Minutii Octav. VI. 1.

10 Compare especially the treatise of Mahony: The doctrines of Boodha from the books of the Sengalees. Asiatic Researches. T. VII. p. 32. and Buchanan on the religion and literature of Burmah. Asiat. Res. T. VI. p. 136.