JTHE CAREER 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GOD-IDEA IN HISTORY 
 
 BY HUDSON TUTTLE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ARCANA OF NATURE," "ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY 
 OF MAN," ETC. 
 
 Dwelling in the light that no man can approach unto. . . . Canst thou, 
 by searching, find out God? . . . Touching the Almighty, we cannot find 
 him out. BIBLE. 
 
 Nothing of him that doth fade, 
 But doth suffer a sea-change 
 Into something rich and strange. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ADAMS & CO. 
 No. 25 BROMFIELD ST.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
 
 ADAMS & CO., 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 MANKIND, having wearily traversed the 
 marsh-lands of metaphysical and theological 
 speculation, are gaining the firm shore of 
 positive science. 
 
 The sun of a new era is dawning on the 
 mental horizon of the world. 
 
 Before its beams can fully penetrate our 
 being, we must discard the old, and turn, 
 self-reliant, to the new. 
 
 I have written this volume because I think 
 it is demanded. 
 
 HUDSON TUTTLE.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION >:.:;* 7 
 
 I. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE HINDOOS . . . .23 
 
 II. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE EGYPTIANS, CHALDEANS, 
 AND PERSIANS 37 
 
 III. 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE JEWS 53 
 
 IV. 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ARABIANS .... 63 
 
 V. 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS . . 70 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL AND 
 EARLY CHRISTIANITY 109
 
 6 Contents. 
 
 VII. 
 
 PACK 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE LATER PHILOSOPHERS . 131 
 
 VIII. 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE BIBLE . . . . . .145 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE BORDER-RELIGIONS, CHI- 
 NESE, DRUIDS, SCANDINAVIANS, AND AZTECS . .151 
 
 X. 
 
 . CONCLUSION ULTIMATE OF THE GOD-IDEA . . 181
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ^ I^HE first great religious idea is the idea of 
 JL God. Samuel Longfellow. 
 
 Every miracle, if it existed, would lead to the 
 conviction that the creation is not deserving the 
 respect which all pay to it ; and the mystics would 
 necessarily be obliged to deduce from the imperfec- 
 tions of the created world the imperfections of the 
 Creator. Cotta. 
 
 Miracles are great horrors in the domain of sci- 
 ence, when not blind faith, but conviction derived 
 from knowledge, is of any value. Jouvenal ob- 
 serves, " There is neither chance nor miracle : 
 there exists but phenomena governed by laws." 
 Giebel. 
 
 No force can originate from nothing. Liebig. 
 An absolute nothing is not cogitable. Ozolbe. 
 
 Matter is uncreatable, as it is indestructible. 
 Vogt.
 
 8 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 God is a blank sheet, upon which nothing is found 
 but what you have yourself written. Luther. 
 
 Man depicts himself in his gods. Schiller. 
 Matter and its laws are eternal. Arcana. 
 
 " What and where is God ? " is a question which has 
 been reiterated by the sage and the savage, the wise 
 and the foolish, from immemorial time. It was one 
 of the first great problems presented* for solution, 
 and is now the first to which childhood requires an 
 answer. Who can fathom its depths ? Which of 
 the countless attempted solutions is the true ? Are 
 any correct ? 
 
 This is a vast subject, and leads at once to forbid- 
 den fields. The traveler is constantly in danger of 
 being decried as sacrilegious, as though the gods 
 in their high estate can be harmed by the efforts of 
 puny mortal. If they can, theirs is the fault, not the 
 mortal's whom they have created. The discussion 
 of the God-idea, to the scientist, is the same as that 
 of any principle. A rock, a tree, an insect, are as 
 sacred as God, being a part of him, or portions of 
 his work. It is time the sickly sentimentality of 
 holy places and sacred things should yield to the 
 new and sterling conceptions of the divinity of man, 
 and the Godhood of nature. 
 
 My endeavor is to treat the gods of the nations 
 and ages with equal respect and equal scrutiny. 
 Therein lies the danger. It is unobjectionable thus
 
 Impartiality of View. 9 
 
 to speak of all others except our own. The theolo- 
 gies of other peoples are mythologies and subjects 
 of ridicule. Ours is the only true theology ; and to 
 speak of God in the same breath with Jupiter, 
 Brahma, or Vishnu, is profanation. But our true 
 theology^ is., a ridiculous myth to the Hindoo, the 
 Persian, or Buddhist. There are as many theologies 
 as there are peoples ; and the devotees of each are 
 equally devoted, equally exclusive, and certain that 
 they have the only sacred system in the world. 
 
 All rest on the same basis, and stand or fall 
 together. A greater devotion and earnestness can- 
 not be claimed for one than another. Those sys- 
 tems which we regard as the most false, paradox- 
 ical as it may appear, awaken the greatest intensity 
 of zeal. The worshiper of Brahma will suffer death 
 with equal fortitude as the Christian martyr. Death 
 has been preferred by every heathen nation to be- 
 stowing worship on a foreign god. 
 
 Callisthenes vehemently opposed paying divine 
 honors to Alexander, because such adoration would 
 confound human and divine worship, which had been 
 preserved by his nation inviolable. The Greeks, 
 when sent on embassies to the kings of Persia, 
 regarded it as mean and base to prostrate themselves 
 before the throne, as such homage was allowable 
 only to the gods.* Isocrates reproached the Per- 
 sians for doing it themselves, because they thereby 
 prostituted the homage of the gods to men ; and 
 not even by violence could Xerxes compel Sperchius 
 
 * Plutarch.
 
 io Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 and Bulls to pay him honors, because it was against 
 the laws of their country to bestow such honors.* 
 Such was the reverence for the gods at Athens, that 
 they executed Timagoras for paying honors to man. 
 The idea of a supernatural cause, a divine being^ 
 omnipotently swaying the religious feelings, and 
 thereby the destiny of the world, has been considered 
 universal. More careful and unprejudiced observa- 
 tion has brought forward many examples to the con- 
 trary. On the universality of this belief is based a 
 proof of the existence of God. The critical study of 
 the present has destroyed this oft-repeated evidence, f 
 The tribes of the lake districts of Central Africa 
 " admit neither God, angels, nor devil." \ 
 
 The Tasmanians have no word for a Creator. 
 The South-American Indians of Grau Chaco have 
 no religious or idolatrous belief or worship whatever, 
 neither do they possess any idea of God or of a supe- 
 rior being. They make no distinction between right 
 and wrong, and have therefore neither fear nor hope 
 of any present or future punishment or reward, nor 
 any mysterious terror of some supernatural power 
 whom they might seek to assuage by sacrifices or 
 superstitious rites." || 
 
 * Herodotus. 
 
 f " Prehistoric Times." Lubbock, p. 467. 
 
 t Burton. Trans. Ette. Soc., N. S., vol. L, p. 323. 
 
 Rev. T. Dove, Tasmanian Journal. 
 
 I " Voice of Pity," vol. ix., p. 220. 
 
 NOTE. I am indebted to Lubbock for guiding me to many of the 
 quoted authorities.
 
 Savage Views of God. 1 1 
 
 The Caffres have no form of religion or worship. 
 They think everything makes itself; and the only 
 idea they seem to possess on the subject is a vague 
 notion of an evil spirit. * 
 
 The Brazilian Indians entertain a similar idea, f 
 
 The Lepchas of Northern India have no religion, \ 
 nor have the Khasias. The religious ideas of the 
 Indians of Oregon are exceedingly low. Attempts 
 were made to translate the word " God," but in no dia- 
 lect in that vast territory could missionaries and 
 skillful interpreters find an equivalent word. Their 
 highest God was a wolf, an ideal hybrid of animal 
 and divinity. The Kalashes Indians believe God to 
 be a raven. 
 
 Of the Tusks, a Mongolian tribe dwelling in 
 Northwestern Asia, it is said, " Whether they have 
 any conception of a divine providence, of a governor 
 of the world, could not be ascertained, nor a trace 
 found whether they worship a benevolent spirit, or 
 demons." |j The Indian population of Rio de Janeiro 
 have no desire for religion. The aborigines receive 
 baptism without understanding its meaning. ^[ The 
 Australian has no idea of a Creator,** nor have the 
 Bechuanas, the most intelligent tribes of the interior 
 
 * Burchell, " Travels in South Africa," vol. ii., p. 249. 
 
 f Spix and Martius. Bates and Walace. 
 
 | Hooker. 
 
 " London Athenaeum," July, 1849. 
 
 |( Lieut. Hooper. 
 
 IT Burmeister. 
 
 ** Australian und Seine. Colonien, 1849.
 
 1 2 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 of Africa. Moffat, the indefatigable missionary, could 
 not awaken the least idea of a divine being in the 
 South African. * Of the Bechuanas he says, " They 
 have no word in their language properly denoting 
 God. They have no idea of an infinite being. I have 
 often wished to find something by which I could lay 
 hold on the minds of the natives, an altar of the 
 unknown God, the faith of their ancestors, the im- 
 mortality of the soul, or any religious associations ; 
 but nothing of this kind ever floated in their minds. 
 They looked on the sun with the eye of an ox. To 
 tell the greatest of them that there was a creator, 
 the governor of the heavens and earth, of the fall of 
 man and the redemption of the world, the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead, and immortality beyond the grave, 
 was to tell them what appeared more extravagant, 
 fabulous, and ludicrous, than their own vain stories 
 about lions, jackals, and hyenas. To tell them that 
 these (referring of course to the different elements 
 of our creed) were articles of our faith, would extort 
 an interjection of superlative surprise, as if it were 
 too preposterous for the most foolish to believe." 
 And Opperman says of the Kaffirs, " They have not 
 the least notion of a supreme being, their chief being 
 their God." f 
 
 The Hottentots believe in a good spirit, and at the 
 full moon worship with dancing. The Kariens of 
 India do not believe in God, but only in the influence 
 of two evil genii ; \ nor do some of the Sumatrian 
 
 * Moffat, " South Africa." 
 
 t Quo. in Staft und Stoft. Buchner. 
 
 tlbid.
 
 Savage Views of God. 13 
 
 tribes. The God of the Negroes of Oucareyanua is 
 their chief, to whom they sacrifice animals and hu- 
 man beings. The God of the Fiji is a being with- 
 out any feeling except hunger. He dwells with his 
 companion in a cave, eats, drinks, and answers the 
 questions of the priests. 
 
 The reports of travelers are generally prejudiced 
 on the religious side, and they take for granted ideas 
 of God exist. Their not finding such ideas strength- 
 ens their testimony. 
 
 Those savage tribes said to have a God are far from 
 possessing the Christian's idea. There is nothing 
 infinite, eternal, connected with it. When a savage 
 worships a snake, a stone, or bunch of rags, for a God, 
 can it be supposed that he has any clear ideas of the 
 God of the universe ? 
 
 The Damaras are said by travelers to have a God 
 whom they call Omakura ; but the ideas they enter- 
 tain of him are such as children might form, and 
 have no similarity to the Infinite whom we recognize. 
 His attributes vary with each tribe ; each having its 
 own Omakura, to whom it ascribes all its supersti- 
 tions, habits, and peculiarities. The worship of Om- 
 akura consists of many puerile observances and sac- 
 rifices. Animals, when sacrificed, are speared to 
 death, while those used for food are suffocated. They 
 keep a sacred fire burning before the chiefs tent, 
 and every possible care is taken to prevent its being 
 extinguished. Should this calamity occur, the whole 
 tribe are assembled, and, after large expiatory sacri- 
 fices, the fire is again lighted by friction.
 
 14 Career of -the God-Idea in History. 
 
 When a new tribe is thrown off, they carry with 
 them a portion of fire from the old altar. The duties 
 of a vestal devolve on the daughter of the emigrant* 
 
 There are disbelievers in the existence of a God 
 in the midst of the highest European civilization ; 
 and the recent census shows that six million people 
 in England alone never enter a church, and know 
 not to what religious sect they belong. These men 
 are sincere, and many of them are among the great 
 thinkers of the age. They deny, in opposition to 
 the intense force of education and public opinion. 
 Even those who believe find it impossible to state 
 and prove their belief in clear and unmistakable lan- 
 guage. 
 
 The first great religious idea is that of God. From 
 it arise all the grand systems of worship in the world, 
 and around it cluster the hopes and aspirations of 
 mankind. There are races who have not any defi- 
 nite conception of God. There are others who have 
 advanced to Fetichism ; and thence onward all grades 
 of progress are discoverable to the most orthodox 
 creed of the present. 
 
 There is a religious element in man's nature, the 
 product of his unanswerable aspirations, subject to 
 the same growth and progress as his other faculties. 
 The savage looks out on nature as an animate being. 
 To him it has life and intelligence. He at once per- 
 sonifies that intelligence. The air, the water, the 
 earth, become something more than simply air, water, 
 
 *Lake Ngami, pp. 219, 20.
 
 Personification of Forces of Nature. 15 
 
 earth : they are possessed of a spirit. Man sponta- 
 neously assigns reasons for the effects he observes ; 
 and this reference to spiritual moving agencies satis- 
 fies the savage as perfectly as the doctrine of a final 
 cause did the superficial philosophers of twenty-five 
 years ago. 
 
 The multitude of spiritual beings were subordi- 
 nated to the control of superior intelligences in the 
 desire to unitize the powers or forces of creation. 
 
 Submissiveness, humility, grow out of contact 
 with nature. The matter-of-fact scientist does not 
 escape this feeling when witnessing the grand phe- 
 nomena of storm or ocean. The savage is a child ; 
 and, like a child, he falls prostrate in fear. He 
 debases himself Before the invisible spirits who 
 shout in the wild winds, or growl in the thunders. 
 He believes everything to be governed by the arbi- 
 trary will of these beings ; and, if they are interested 
 in mortal welfare, they will heed his prayers. That 
 they are, he does not doubt. His first conception of 
 the object of creation is that it was designed for the 
 especial benefit of man. Everything that conflicts 
 with his pleasure or purposes is evil. Entirely, ex- 
 clusively designed for man. In the sequel it will be 
 seen how diametrically erroneous this idea proves to 
 be. 
 
 Out of it grows the priesthood, men who by 
 superior holiness can intercede with better grace, 
 and more hope for success, than ordinary mortals, 
 soiled and begrimed with contact with the world. 
 
 All races have acknowledged this necessity ; and
 
 1 6 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 we see the germ of the priestly order in the medicine- 
 man of the rude American Indian, and the rain- 
 maker of the still ruder Central African. It is a 
 wonderful history which traces from that beginning 
 the progress of the order to the colossal proportions 
 it assumed in India, in Egypt, or, at one time, in 
 Catholic Europe. The priest is blameless. He did 
 not create the organization of the human mind. 
 
 The worship of idols grows out of nearly the same 
 faculties as create the desire for priestly orders. 
 The savage mind cannot imagine existence without 
 personality. His" deities must be men and women. 
 These deities being his friends, he desires, as a token, 
 a representation of them. Between the image and 
 the person represented, they always imagine a secret 
 bond. Many believe, that, by making a representa- 
 tion of their enemy, they can inflict any violence they 
 please by simply attacking the image. To this day 
 the custom lingers, though thoughtlessly regarded, 
 in the popular method of expressing disapprobation 
 by burning or hanging in effigy. 
 
 The childish mind cannot worship a blank ab- 
 straction : it makes an image of the being, worships 
 that, feeling assured, that, by this secret connection, 
 whatever devotion is expressed for it will be felt by 
 the being represented. 
 
 Voltaire truly remarks,* that no nation ever took 
 the name of idolaters. It was always bestowed as 
 a term of reproach. When the Roman and Cartha- 
 ginian captains made a treaty, they called the gods 
 
 * Phit. Die, vol. ii., p. 27.
 
 Origin of Idolatry. 1 7 
 
 to witness. " It is in their presence," said they, " that 
 we declare peace ; " yet no image of these gods was 
 present. They never supposed for a moment that 
 the image constituted the divinity. 
 
 Dio Chrysostom makes Phidias answer, when 
 called to account for making a statue of Jupiter 
 Olympus, " Mankind do not love to worship God at 
 a distance, but to come near and feel him, and with 
 assurance to sacrifice to and become like him : chil- 
 dren newly weaned from their parent, who put out 
 their hands towards them in their dreams as if they 
 were still there, so do men, out of the sense of God's 
 goodness, and their relation to him, love to have him 
 represented as present with them, and so to converse 
 with him. Thence have come all the representations 
 of God among the barbarous nations, in mountains, 
 trees, and stones." 
 
 M. Tyrius observes in regard to statues and their 
 worship : * 
 
 " A divine nature has no need of statues or altars ; 
 but human nature, being very imbecile, and far dis- 
 tant from divinity, devised these symbols, in which 
 it inserted the names and the renown of the gods. 
 Those, therefore, whose memory is robust, and who 
 are able, by directly extending their soul to heaven, 
 to meet with Divinity, have perhaps no need of 
 statues. This race is, however, rare among men ; but 
 few of whom are not in want of this kind of assist- 
 ance. 
 
 * Quoted in "The Zendavesta and Solar Religions," by M. 
 E. Lazarus, M. D.
 
 1 8 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 " For Divinity indeed, the father and fabricator of 
 all things, is more ancient than the sun and the 
 heavens, more excellent than time and eternity ; is a 
 legislator without law, ineffable by voice, or invisible 
 by the eyes. Not being able to comprehend his 
 essence, we apply for assistance to words and names, 
 to animals and figures of gold and ivory and silver, to 
 plants and rivers, to the summits of- mountains and 
 to streams of water ; desiring indeed to understand 
 his nature, but, through imbecility, calling him by 
 the names of such things as appear to us to be beau- 
 tiful. And, in thus acting, we are affected in the 
 same manner as lovers who are delighted with sur- 
 veying the images of the objects of their love, and 
 with recollecting the lyre, the dart, and the seal of 
 these ; the circus in which they all ran ; and every- 
 thing, in short, which excites the memory of the 
 beloved object. 
 
 "What then remains for me to investigate and 
 determine respecting statues ? Only to admit the 
 subsistence of Deity. If the art of Phidias excites 
 the Greeks to the recollection of Divinity ; honor to 
 animals, the Egyptians ; a river, others ; and fire, 
 others, I do not condemn the dissonance : let them 
 only know, let them only love, let them only be 
 mindful of the object they adore." 
 
 Maximus of Tyre, who flourished under the An- 
 tonines, thus wrote of God : 
 
 " When men are questioned concerning the nature 
 of the Divinity, their answers are all different : yet, 
 notwithstanding all this prodigious variety of opin-
 
 Origin of Idolatry. 19 
 
 ions, you will find one and the same feeling through- 
 out the earth ; viz., that there is but one God, the 
 Father of all." 
 
 The Emperor Julien made this remark on reli- 
 giously venerating statues : " Statues and altars, and 
 the preservation of the unextinguished fire, and, in 
 short, all such particulars, have been established by 
 our fathers as symbols of the worship of the gods ; 
 not that we should believe that these symbols are 
 gods, but that through these we should worship ..the 
 gods." - 
 
 Said a Brahman to M. Bernier : 
 
 " We do not believe these statues to be Brahma or 
 Brahm, but only their images and representations ; 
 and we only give them that honor on account of the 
 beings they represent. They are in our temples 
 because it is necessary, in order to pray well, to have 
 something before our eyes that may fix the mind ; 
 and, when we pray, it is not the statue we pray to, but 
 the thing represented by it" Sallust makes the admi- 
 rable remark that " the honors which we pay to the 
 gods are performed for the sake of our own advan- 
 tage : and, since the providence of the gods is every- 
 where extended, a certain habitude and fitness is all 
 that is requisite in order to receive these benefi- 
 cent communications ; but all habitude is produced 
 through imitation and similitude. Hence temples 
 imitate the heavens, and altars the earth ; statues 
 resemble life ; prayers imitate that which is intellec- 
 tual ; but characters, superior ineffable powers ; herbs 
 and stones resemble matter ; and animals which are
 
 2O Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 sacrificed, the inactional life of our souls : but, from 
 all these things, nothing happens to the gods beyond 
 what they already possess ; for what occasion can 
 be made to a divine nature ? but a conjunction be- 
 tween our soul and God is produced." 
 
 The Catholic worship of saints shows this inherent 
 tendency of the human soul to recognize gradations 
 of spiritual beings, and local tutelar deities ; and, in 
 grossness of conception, it exceeds the monstrosities 
 of any heathen religion. 
 
 The progress of the God-idea, commencing, as we 
 have seen, in utter ignorance and inconception, passes 
 through certain stages of growth. If the histories of 
 various peoples are examined, it will be found that this 
 idea, beginning at the same point, runs an almost 
 parallel course. The illustrations of this truth are 
 fully detailed hereafter. The savage is a believer in 
 Fetichism. He beholds in nature the manifestation 
 of innumerable spiritual beings, unseen, irresponsi- 
 ble, and powerful, which he regards with feelings of 
 unmitigated fear. Knowing nothing of law, he places 
 the gods in its place, and thus renders events mere 
 arbitrary acts, dependent on their changing wills. 
 
 This is not^antheism, which makes nature the 
 external garb of an omnipotent being. It differs as 
 much from that as present science differs from the 
 charlatanism of the alchemists. It is not Polythe- 
 ism, which is more unitary in its grasp. From it 
 Polytheism arises by growth, by the subordination of 
 the inferior spirits to superior beings, grading them 
 into successive orders, reaching from the highest
 
 Rise of Pantheism. 2 1 
 
 gods down to man. Out of Polytheism sprang Dual- 
 ism, a belief in a good and an evil deity. From 
 Dualism springs monotheism, in regular sequence, 
 a sublime generalization, unitizing creation, material 
 and spiritual, under the control of one omnipotent, 
 self-existent being. 
 
 Last, in this extended series of advances, arises 
 what may be called scientific Pantheism, which re- 
 gards nature as one divine whole, controlled by fixed 
 and absolute laws inherent in the constitution of 
 matter, and which are the only expressions of divine 
 will man can ever recognize ; a Pantheism which 
 bestows itself on the external manifestations of law, 
 
 f~~r 
 
 well knowing that in that manner only can it learn 
 anything of the divine nature, and confessing its 
 incapacity, as finite, of ever understanding the infi- 
 nite. _The extension of this phase of thought is re- 
 served for the closing chapter. 
 
 To fill up from the history of the world, the outline 
 thus hastily sketched, is the purpose of the succeed- 
 ing chapters. The antique religion of Hindostan, as 
 the mother of a line of offspring still vigorous, claims 
 our first attention. Egypt, her direct descendant, 
 and Greece and Rome, follow each other. Outside 
 of this direct line are many barbarous races, inter- 
 esting, though not directly connected with the grand 
 tide of progress which rolls in one continuous stream 
 from ancient Hindostan to the present time. I do 
 not propose to treat of religious forms, creeds, and 
 ceremonies, except as they illustrate the ideas re- 
 ceived of God. To separate the forms of worship
 
 22 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 from their object has been a task most difficult in 
 execution. Perhaps I have admitted such illustra- 
 tions, in places, to an extent which mars the symmetry 
 of the work, but no further than seemed necessary 
 for a complete understanding of the worshiper as 
 well as worshiped.
 
 I. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE HINDOOS. 
 
 FOR God goes forth, and spreads throughout the whole, 
 
 Heaven, earth, and sea, the universal soul ; 
 
 Each at its birth from him all beings share, 
 
 Both man and brutes, the breath of vital air ; 
 
 To him return, and, loosed from earthly chain, 
 
 Fly whence they sprang, and rest in God again ; 
 
 Spurn at the grave, and, fearless of decay, 
 
 Dwell in high heaven, and star the ethereal way. VIRGIL. 
 
 To frame an adequate conception of Deity, and set this forth in words, is 
 not only above human capability, but impossible in the nature of things. 
 The abyss of God is not to be fathomed save by him who is All-in-all. 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 IF the high antiquity claimed by the Hindoos 
 is considered as fabulous, still they must be 
 regarded as among the oldest of peoples. The 
 sacred Sanskrit alone would prove them to be 
 among the first of civilized races. Not, however, 
 to discuss this point, we will consult their sacred 
 books, which they believe to be as old as the crea- 
 tion of the world.* The Vedas they hold in great- 
 est reverence. The book is not allowed to come in 
 
 * William Jones thinks the Vedas were not written before 
 the flood ; but that they are the oldest specimen of Sanskrit, 
 and date about a hundred years before the birth of Moses. 
 The learned Heeren says their date is entirely obscure. His- 
 torical Researches.
 
 24 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 contact with any animal substance, nor to be read 
 in the presence of a wicked man. Brahmans alone 
 are allowed to read and interpret them. If a soudra 
 impiously should open their divine pages, or even 
 hear a passage read, the code of Menu ordains that 
 heated wax, oil, and tin shall be poured into his 
 ears. Inherent sacredness and supernatural pow- 
 ers are ascribed to every word, and it is sacrilege to 
 make the least alteration. Such is their regard for 
 a book bearing the seal of the inspiration from high 
 Heaven. Of God, it teaches one Supreme Being, 
 who is one with nature, or thorough Pantheism. 
 He is manifested in the grand phenomena of the 
 external world, the phenomena of which are invoked 
 as separate deities. Sun, moon, fire, air, water, and 
 other elements and forces of nature, each have sepa- 
 rate deities subordinate to the " One Immutable," and 
 who are manifestations of his being. The devout 
 worshiper comes in unison with him by contempla- 
 tion, and subjugation of the bodily senses. In the 
 words of the Vedas, 
 
 " Any place where the mind of man can be undis- 
 turbed is suitable for the worship of the Supreme 
 Being." 
 
 " The vulgar look for gods in water ; the ignorant 
 think they reside in wood, brick, and stones ; men 
 of more extended knowledge seek them in, celestial 
 orbs ; but wise men worship the universal soul. 
 
 " There is one living and true God : everlasting, 
 without parts or passions ; of infinite power, wis- 
 dom, and goodness ; the maker and preserver of all 
 things."
 
 God-Idea of the Hindoos. 25 
 
 " What and how the Supreme Being is, cannot be 
 ascertained. We can only describe him by his ef- 
 fects and works ; in like manner as we, not know- 
 ing the real nature of the sun, explain him to be the 
 cause of the succession of days and epochs." 
 
 " That Spirit, who is distinct from Matter, and not 
 contained in Matter, is not various. He is ONE, 
 and he is beyond description ; whose glory is so 
 great there can be no image of hint; 
 
 " He is the incomprehensible Spirit who illumin- 
 ates all, and delights all ; from whom all proceed, by 
 whom they live after they are born, and to whom all 
 must return. Nothing but the Supreme Being should 
 be adored by a wise man." 
 
 " He overspreads all creatures. He is merely 
 spirit without the form either of a minute body or 
 an extended one, which is liable to impression or 
 organization. He is ruler of the intellect, self-exist- 
 ent, pure, perfect, omniscient, omnipresent. He has 
 from all eternity been assigning to all creatures their 
 respective purposes. No vision can approach him, 
 no language describe him ; no intellectual power can 
 comprehend him." 
 
 "As the web proceeds from the spider, and is 
 absorbed again by her ; or vegetables proceed from the 
 earth ; as hair and nails grow from animate beings, 
 so is the universe evolved from the one eternal and 
 supreme Soul." 
 
 " Without hand or foot, he runs swiftly, and grasps 
 firmly ; without eyes, he sees all. He knows what- 
 ever can be known, but there is none that know
 
 26 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 him. The wise call him the great, supreme, pervad- 
 ing Spirit." 
 
 Under whatever form it may be presented, the 
 mind wearies of the contemplation of the Infinite. 
 It is like gazing off on a boundless sea, where noth- 
 ing but interminable and shoreless waves fasten the 
 attention. The overwrought faculties are palsied by 
 the strain. Only in the contemplations of philoso- 
 phers was the Eternal One Brahm sought or ques- 
 tioned. He represents the ultimate of Hindoo spec- 
 ulation. 
 
 Brahma, who is one degree lower, has many points 
 of attachment for the mind. He was a direct off- 
 spring of the Eternal, who, after creating the waters 
 by a thought, placed an egg in them, which, after 
 remaining millions of years inactive, until by the 
 energy of his own thoughts, Brahma burst its envel- 
 ope, and sprang forth, a divine mate, famed in all 
 worlds as the forefather of spirits. Sharing the 
 essence of the divine mind, he is far removed above 
 mortals, and not until a lower circle of divinities is 
 reached do we find qualities which awake the tender 
 sympathies of the heart. Brahm and Brahma are 
 cold abstractions of the intellect : Vishnu and Siva 
 are personations of human passions, and are hence 
 beloved and feared. Brahma, although the priestly 
 caste receive from him their name, has no temples 
 erected to his honor, no festivals, no especial sect. 
 
 Vishnu and Siva, the gods of good and evil, form, 
 with Brahma, the Hindoo trinity. Both are repre- 
 sented as having been incarnated many times. The
 
 God-Idea of the Hindoos. 27 
 
 former is the favorite deity ; the latter has many wor- 
 shipers. He is the destroyer, the source of evil and 
 misery, and is throned among the inaccessible crags 
 of the terrible Himalaya. The idea his name calls forth 
 is emblematized by giving his statue five faces, or one 
 with three eyes ; with serpents suspended in his ears 
 like jewels. His companion, Doorga, is the chief 
 among the female deities in the Hindoo Pantheon. 
 She is the Minerva of Greece, but more warlike and 
 powerful. Her altars, unlike those of other gods, 
 stream with blood ; and human sacrifice in ancient 
 times was resorted to. 
 
 By the interposition of this trinity, -the perplex- 
 ing problem, how evil came into the world, was per- 
 fectly solved. If the supreme Brahm is infinitely 
 good and powerful, how can evil exist ? Siva is the 
 god of evil; and Vishnu is not only mediator between 
 the Supreme and man, but between the two and 
 the Evil One. As in all other religious systems, man 
 forms the centre around which gods and the creation 
 of gods revolve ; but his destiny, as taught in the 
 Vedas, is not consoling to our manner of thought. 
 As God is everything, the human spirit must be a 
 part of his essence ; and the most desirable termina- 
 tion of this state of fever pains and anxieties is final 
 absorption into him. This will be the result, if the 
 body is perfectly subdued. The flesh is base and 
 evil ; and, the more it is made to suffer, the more the 
 spirit approaches the one pure Source. This idea of 
 the sinfulness of the body was taken up by Chris- 
 tianity, and carried to its extreme length in monastic
 
 28 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 seclusion, hermitage, flagellation, and self-inflicted 
 tortures too horrid to mention. It is still seen in 
 penance, fasting, and prayer, and the general tone of 
 the most liberal religions, which teach that happiness 
 is gained, not through pleasure, but pain, by bearing 
 a heavy and grievous cross. 
 
 Buddha was an incarnation of Vishnu, and thus 
 the Buddhists are attached to the original religion. 
 They are the most important sect that has appeared 
 in India. They worship spiritual intelligences, de- 
 scended on earth in the form of saints, the greatest 
 of whom is Buddha Sakia Mouni, from whom they de- 
 rive their name. He is thought by scholars to have 
 been a great reformer, who, seeing the tyranny and 
 evil of the law of castes as taught by the Vedas, strove 
 to abolish those various distinctions. The date of 
 his birth is fixed differently by various nations. In 
 Cashmere, they say his appearance dates two hun- 
 dred years later than Chrisnu, whose advent is placed 
 back five thousand years. The Moguls say he was 
 born two thousand one hundred and thirty-four years 
 before the Christian era, and the Chinese fix it at one 
 thousand and twenty-nine years. 
 
 The gigantic temples of great antiquity show that 
 this belief in remote times possessed a strong hold 
 on the people of India. The statues of Buddha, 
 found in such edifices, represent him in an attitude of 
 profound meditation, with knotted hair after the 
 manner of hermits. He was born of a virgin named 
 Maia : miracles announced his birth, and his life is 
 involved in a maze of fable. The flights of imagina-
 
 God-Idea of the Hindoos. 29 
 
 tion are indulged to picture the wonderful advent. 
 The joyful tidings were announced in the animal 
 world ; and the birds of the Himalaya winged their 
 way to the Palace of Kapila, and there rested, singing 
 on the terraces, arches, and galleries. The sands 
 were covered with the lotus ; the delicious stores 
 in the houses, however much used, remained undi- 
 minished ; musical instruments gave forth music by 
 unseen fingers ; and gods and hermits hastened from 
 all parts of the horison to await on Buddha. He 
 descends, accompanied by hundreds of millions of 
 divinities. The three thousand regions of the world 
 are illuminated with an immense splendor, eclipsing 
 that of the gods ; fear and suffering are banished ; 
 every being is content, and has none but affection- 
 ate thoughts. Hundreds of millions of gods bear up 
 the car of Buddha. At the moment of his mortal 
 birth, all the flowers open their cups ; young trees 
 spring from the soil ; scented waters flow in all direc- 
 tions ; young lions run to the palace from the moun- 
 tain, unharmed and harmless ; five hundred young 
 elephants, white as snow, come, and with their trunks 
 touch the feet of the king, the father of Buddha ; the 
 sons of the gods, adorned with girdles, appear in the 
 apartment of the women, coming and going from 
 either side ; the wives of the nagas, exposing half 
 of their bodies, show themselves waving in the air ; 
 ten thousand daughters of the gods, with fans of the 
 peacock's tail in their hands, are seen against the 
 blue of the sky ; ten thousand full urns appear, mak- 
 ing the circuit of the great city of Kapila ; a hundred
 
 30 Career of the God-Idea in History,. 
 
 thousand daughters of the gods, with shells, drums, 
 and tambourines about their necks, stand motionless ; 
 all the winds hold their breath ; all the rivers and 
 brooks stop their flow ; sun, moon, and stars cease to 
 move ; a light of a hundred thousand colors, causing 
 happiness in body and soul, is diffused abroad ; fire 
 does not burn ; from the galleries, palace, terraces, 
 gateways, arches, are suspended pearls and precious 
 stones ; the crows, vultures, wolves, jackals, cease 
 their cries ; none but sweet and soothing sounds are 
 heard ; all the gods of the woods of Salas, thrusting 
 their bodies half-way out from the foliage, show them- 
 selves bending motionless ; parasols, great and small, 
 are displayed in the air on every side. The queen, 
 meantime, walks in the garden of Loumbini ; a tree 
 bends, and salutes her ; the queen seizes a branch, 
 and, looking graciously towards heaven, Buddha is- 
 sues from her right side without wounding her ; a 
 white lotus pierces the sod, to receive him ; a par- 
 asol descends from heaven to cover him ; a river of 
 cold and a river of hot water flow to him for a 
 bath.* 
 
 Such is the language of the sacred records of this 
 incarnation of divinity. To us it may appear puerile ; 
 but in humility let it be remembered a vast empire 
 for immemorial time have bowed in implicit faith to 
 his shrine, and, holding his earth-life as an ideal, 
 make their best endeavors to actualize his devoted 
 disinterestedness in themselves. 
 
 * Lalitavistara, translated^ by M. Edward Foucaux, quoted 
 by Renan, " Rel. Hist. Criticism."
 
 God-Idea of the Hindoos. 3 1 
 
 The fancies of uncultured youth have reveled in 
 the field ; but there is bread-corn there, else it never 
 would have satisfied, for so many generations, count- 
 less swarms of people. It may not afford spiritual 
 nourishment for us ; but, for its recipients, nothing 
 can be better. 
 
 How this incarnation was effected, and for what 
 reason, is thus recorded : 
 
 " It was at the close of the Dwapar Yug, that he 
 who is omnipotent, and everlastingly to be contem- 
 plated, the Supreme Being, the Eternal One, the 
 Divinity worthy to be adored, appeared in this ocean 
 of natural beings with a portion of his divine nature." 
 
 Filled with compassion for the sufferings of man- 
 kind, he took on himself the mortal garb, and sought 
 to lead them into better paths. He took on himself 
 infinite sufferings, that theirs might thereby be mit- 
 igated. As whatever suffering one endures may be 
 placed to the account of those he wishes, Buddha 
 took terrible punishments on himself. So great 
 was his sympathy, that he descended even into hell 
 to teach the sufferers there. 
 
 The Brahmans accuse him of atheism ; but he 
 really taught their own doctrines of creation. Out 
 of the original source of being, called by Buddhists 
 the void, Brahma and the inferior creation were 
 evolved ; and, after an immense interval of revolving 
 ages, all things in the universe, even Brahma him- 
 self, will be absorbed into the infinite void. At the 
 age of seventy-nine years, Buddha Sakia's whole 
 nature attained such complete absorption in the Di-
 
 32 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 vine Being, that he ascended to celestial regions 
 without the usual process of dying. 
 
 " The Buddhists believe in one absolute existence, 
 including both God and nature. When they speak 
 of Providence, they mean an intelligence inherent in 
 nature by which her movements are regulated. To 
 avoid attaching any idea of form or limit to the ori- 
 ginal Source of Being, the Buddhist calls him by a 
 name signifying the void or space. They are, how- 
 ever, divided on this subtile question into several 
 schools. Some call this absolute existence the Su- 
 preme Will, the Superior Intelligence. They suppose 
 that he has alternate periods of activity and repose. 
 When active, he creates, not from any will to do so, 
 but from inherent laws of development. Thus ema- 
 nate successive worlds, all changeable, illusory, unreal, 
 destined finally to return again to the void. Spirit- 
 ual existences are evolved in descending gradations 
 down to man. Human beings may become so 
 plunged in error and ignorance, as finally to lose all 
 power of perceiving what is good and true. From this 
 low condition they can never be raised without the 
 aid of superior intellegences. The Supreme cannot 
 descend to their relief, for he is incapable of motion 
 or change ; but his first emanations, a high order of 
 spiritual existences, change themselves with this 
 mission of salvation. They descend to the inferior 
 worlds, even down to the lowest hells, to give 
 wretched creatures an example of virtue, explain the 
 cause of their misery, and teach them how to attain 
 supreme happiness."
 
 God-Idea of the Hindoos. 33 
 
 Their cosmology is evolution from void, and a 
 resolution back again to void after a cycle of ages. 
 Their ideas of nature are entirely anthromorphitic. 
 The perfection of a world depends on the moral 
 character of its inhabitants. In proportion as the 
 beings of a world are saved, and ascend to superior 
 worlds, that world disappears. Thus, after infinite 
 ages, all return to the Supreme Essence, to re-appear 
 in new successive emanations. All these ascending 
 and descending movements have their source in laws 
 of inherent necessity. 
 
 Buddha has already been four times incarnated in 
 the present world. His worshipers call him " The 
 Saviour," and anxiously await his coming to restore 
 the world to order and happiness. 
 
 India, as well as Europe, has its school of Ration- 
 alists. They deny the authority of the Vedas ; reject 
 the doctrine that God is everywhere in nature ; main- 
 taining, that, though nature is an emanation from 
 God, she is entirely independent and distinct, con- 
 taining within herself the laws and principles which 
 regulate her phenomena. 
 
 The body and spirit represent, finitely, such a 
 dualism as God and nature represent infinitely ; and 
 by withdrawing the senses from the external world, 
 without help from the Vedas, a superior life of holi- 
 ness can be attained, a union with the Supreme Soul 
 be formed, and revelation of his will be obtained. 
 
 The ultra school deny the existence of one 
 Supreme, holding that there are many. All, how- 
 ever, believe in the existence of a multitude of infe- 
 
 3
 
 34 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 rior deities, but represent them as very inferior to 
 human saints who have united themselves with the 
 Supreme by a life of contemplation and virtue. 
 
 In the extreme East, as well as the farthest West, 
 among the oldest as well as the newest people, mind 
 has been subject to the same law of growth, and 
 passed through a similar cycle of change. The 
 Hindoo stands before us with the concentrated 
 beliefs of innumerable ages. Those remote times 
 are the scaffoldings by which he has arrived at his 
 present faith. They are impenetrable ; and we look 
 upon the result as a whole, and ask, How avoid 
 admitting its divine claims ? In this study, as in 
 all others, analogy furnishes important clews. As 
 the oak and the' acorn are connected by the series of 
 trees of all stages of growth, from the germinating 
 sprout to the giant tree, so the perfected doctrines 
 are connected with the grossest superstitions by the 
 intervention of savage races. Take any savage peo- 
 ple, at random, and find what they believe ; and you 
 have the belief of all other races at their stage of 
 growth. 
 
 The Hindoo theology began in the aspirations of 
 the savage, and terminates in the extreme of Ration- 
 alism. Its various stages of growth are plainly 
 marked. It has followed a groove similar to that 
 pursued in its progress by the Western mind. 
 
 The mark of divine thought is manifested in its 
 creeds ; but it is the divine and ever-advancing 
 thought of man. We believe this, because it is a 
 foreign system we are discussing. The Hindoo be-
 
 God-Idea of the Hindoos. 35 
 
 lieves the same of our theology : can we examine the 
 latter with the same calm, unprejudiced spirit ? 
 
 But how was evolved this intricate maze of wor- 
 ship ? Very simply and inevitably, from the begin- 
 ning. Old as is Hindoo civilization, it had a com- 
 mencement ; and the ancestor of the believer in 
 Brahm was a wild savage, believing in no god, but 
 only terrified by fear at the irresistible power of the 
 elements. This was his course of thought, the 
 same for all races : He gave to everything a con- 
 scious existence. Rocks, trees, mountains, lakes ; 
 the winds, the waves ; whatever excited attention by 
 beauty, loveliness, or deformity, were endowed 
 with intelligence. The child repeats this phase of 
 thought. 
 
 The next step is the individualization of this intel- 
 ligence. A host of invisible beings supply the mov- 
 ing power to the visible world. Man ever regards 
 nature as created for his especial use ; hence what- 
 ever conflicts with his interests is evil, and whatever 
 administers to his wants is good. Both these condi- 
 tions exist in nature. There is good and evil : there 
 must be good and bad invisible beings. There is a 
 dualism in nature : there are two sources of power. 
 By generalizing, there is a good and an evil deity. 
 It is a long, long road, and one beset with pain, 
 before the necessity of one supreme control is recog- 
 nized. The advance is, however, made ; and Brahm, 
 the Eternal One, unchanged amid all changes, 
 serene amid obscurity, calm in the storm of the 
 world, is grandly seen as the parental source of all 
 being.
 
 36 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 The steps in this magnificent ascent are clearly 
 and deeply cut : the personification of invisible 
 power ; the dualism personified by Brahma and Siva, 
 with the mediation of Vishnu ; the incarnation of the 
 good principle ; and, lastly, the unitizing of all phe- 
 nomena in the eternal, immutable Brahm, the pri- 
 mal source and termination, are way-marks of this 
 progress. 
 
 It is usual to begin to reason from the other side ; 
 to commence with Brahm, and end with the lowest 
 emanations of spirits : but nothing can be more 
 opposed to the reality. To be able to grasp the idea 
 of the Omnipotent One, necessitates ages of culture. 
 It is the great idea to which all others are secondary. 
 To suppose it to be first is like inferring that a child 
 can comprehend a problem in the calculus before it 
 can perform an operation in addition. There is 
 growth, not from the great to the small, but from the 
 small to the great. The Hindoos began with the 
 forces of nature, and from the constitution of their 
 own minds, by the slow growth of their mental 
 powers, wrought out a theological system suited to 
 their needs, just as they did their systems of science, 
 art, and government. All bear the impress of the 
 same master, and that impress is entirely human.
 
 II. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE EGYPTIANS, CHALDEANS, 
 AND PERSIANS. 
 
 THE first form of religious belief is nothing else but a horror of the unknown. 
 
 . . . No natural religion appears to have been able to develop, from a 
 
 germ within itself, anything whatever of real advantage to civilization. 
 
 WAITZ, " ANTHROPOLOGIE." 
 The universe is an harmonious whole, the soul of which is God. Numbers, 
 
 figures, the stars, all nature indeed, are in unison with the mysteries of 
 
 religion. KEPLER. 
 
 r I "'HE geographical position of Egypt made it im- 
 J- possible for its people to escape the influence 
 of foreign religions. It was the gateway between 
 Asia and Africa, and a vortex of nations. For ages 
 it was a grand battle-ground, where contending races 
 fought for supremacy. The original substratum on 
 which was imposed the shepherd races is indetermi- 
 nate in the night of countless centuries which gath- 
 ers over the dim myths of history. 
 
 The matured theology of Egypt resembled, in 
 many essential points, that of India, of which it un- 
 doubtedly was a branch. The paternal tree did not 
 remain stationary, neither did the scion ; but, al- 
 though both changed, the common characteristics 
 were preserved. Both countries had a powerful 
 hereditary priesthood, who held exclusive possession
 
 38 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 of the sacred books, and all the learning extant in 
 their time ; and were the judges, physicians, and as- 
 tronomers. In both countries, society was divided 
 into castes, the sacerdotal being the highest. The 
 priests were allowed in both to marry, and neither 
 tolerated female priests. Both held their rivers to 
 be sacred ; that there was a reservoir of water above 
 the firmament ; that there was a fifth element above 
 our atmosphere called ether ; that the castes were 
 successive emanations from one universal soul ; and 
 that transmigration was the destiny of the soul. 
 
 Their architecture was similar, copying the gloomy 
 cavern, and taking the firmly based pyramid as a 
 model. Their sacrifices were similar, and their as- 
 tronomical systems nearly the same. 
 
 The Hindoos exerted a great influence on Egyp- 
 tian religion, as is thus seen. 
 
 Egypt was originally governed by the gods, the 
 last of whom was Osiris and his son Horus ; but, by 
 gentle gradations, it descends from this sublime 
 height to mortal kings. 
 
 Osiris was the representative of the active and 
 passive powers of nature. He was the fructifying 
 power of the universe. The sun was his sacred em- 
 blem, as was the Hindoo sign of reproduction, and a 
 serpent emblematic of immortality. He was the 
 " oldest son of Time, and courser of the day." 
 
 While incarnated, he fulfilled a glorious mission, in- 
 structing men how to cultivate and prepare the corn 
 and the grape, and other secret arts of agriculture ; 
 after which, through the regions of the dead, he as-
 
 Good and Evil. 39 
 
 cended to higher life, first overcoming the evil princi- 
 ple. Henceforth he became judge of the dead, and 
 ruler over the souls of good men. He was thus made 
 the dispenser of immortal life. As the only deity who 
 had become incarnated, he was more reverenced than 
 all the eight higher gods. It was irreverent to utter 
 his name. Herodotus speaks of him as " one whose 
 name I am not at liberty to disclose." 
 
 Ra represented the visible sun, and was wor- 
 shiped with splendid ceremonials at Heliopolis. 
 
 Troth, representing the moon, presided over learn- 
 ing, and was the mediator between gods and men. 
 
 The perplexing problem of the origin of good and 
 evil was solved by the Egyptians by supposing Ty- 
 pho, the God of Destruction, to be the twin brother 
 of Osiris, the Creator. He was the god of darkness 
 and eclipse ; the source of drought, disease, deluge, 
 conflagration, and every malign influence affecting 
 the happiness of man. He ruled the terrible, destruc- 
 tive energies of the sea, the storm, the whirlwind. 
 He was sculptured as a frightful monster, or sym- 
 bolized by the ravaging hippopotamus. 
 
 The most exalted goddess was Neith, who reigned 
 inseparably with Amon in the sphere of ether. She 
 was the mother of the gods, and the feminine origin 
 of all things. Her especial province was wisdom, 
 philosophy, military tactics, and morals. Her tem- 
 ples at Sais exceeded in colossal grandeur any before 
 seen, and her power was written on their walls in 
 characters deciphered by Champollion : 
 
 " I am all that has been, all that is, and all that
 
 4O Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 will be. No mortal has ever raised the veil that 
 conceals me. My offspring is the sun." 
 
 Isis was universally worshiped, and held in pecu- 
 liar reverence. She was the universal passive prin- 
 ciple of generation, as Osiris was the active. She 
 was the recipient or mold of the life imparted. She 
 was the origin of the form of all good, as Osiris was 
 the soul. She was Nature, the prolific mother 
 containing the germs of all life ; hence her symbol 
 was an egg. Both she and Osiris were represented 
 as bearing the Egyptian cross, emblem of life. The 
 most beautiful representation pictures her nursing 
 the infant Horus, son of Osiris. This is the holy 
 family of Egypt, which the artists loved to depict. 
 She is always by the side of that god in Amenti, 
 when he presides as judge of the dead. She reigned 
 with him on earth ; and, when she died, her soul was 
 transferred to Sirius. As that star is accidentally 
 connected by its risings with the inundations of the 
 Nile, it was taken as the cause of that event, and 
 received divine honors. 
 
 The forces of nature were distributed among the 
 innumerable host of inferior deities and spirits. The 
 stars were animated with souls who took a deep 
 interest in human affairs. Nilus presided over the 
 Nile ; Canopus, over the waters ; Khan and the god- 
 dess Ranno, over gardens and vineyards ; Anouke, 
 over purity and household ties ; and every month, 
 corresponding to the signs of the zodiac, had its at- 
 tendant and ruling spirit. To every human being 
 was awarded an attending spirit ; and, in a descend-
 
 Belief in Immortality. 41 
 
 ing scale, air, earth, water, stones, plants, and ani- 
 mals, all had their attending genii, good or bad 
 according to their qualities in reference to man. 
 
 The masculine and feminine elements were a 
 dualism of forces universally diffused. The presid- 
 ing deities of every place formed a trinity. At 
 Thebes, it was Amun, the creative wisdom ; Neith, 
 the spiritual mother ; and a third, supposed to repre- 
 sent the universe. At Philae, it was Osiris, the 
 generating cause ; I sis, the receptive mold ; and 
 Horus, the result. 
 
 The future of man, in his relation to the gods, was 
 similar to that taught by the Brahmans. After many 
 transmigrations, completed in three thousand years, 
 the soul would be absorbed into the Eternal Soul, 
 and enter the original body it had left. Hence the 
 care bestowed in embalming the dead, and the rev- 
 erence in which their bodies were held. 
 
 The belief in immortality is closely allied with 
 that of a supreme being, and is of very ancient date. 
 
 On a monument dating ages before Abraham is 
 this epitaph : " May thy soul attain to the Creator of 
 all mankind ! " The two beliefs growing out of the 
 same faculties of the mind go hand in hand. 
 
 Of the animal worship for which Egyptian my- 
 thology has become famous, little need be said. The 
 bull Apis was an object of veneration, and had tem- 
 ples erected to him. The cat, alligator, and other 
 animals, were also venerated in certain localities. 
 Such worship awakens our mirth, as it called forth 
 the satire of the Greeks and Romans, who might
 
 42 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 better have directed their shafts against the absurdi- 
 ties of their own beliefs. Our own mythology is 
 not exempt from ridicule. All dogmas and beliefs 
 grow out of the necessities of their times, are un- 
 questioningly received, and satisfy an ardent want. 
 We cannot sympathise with the worshipers of Apis ; 
 but they were honest believers, and acted accord- 
 ing to their highest knowledge. 
 
 The sacred books of Hermes were as holy to the 
 Egyptians as the Bible is to the most devout mod- 
 ern Christian. The Pantheistic idea of the univer- 
 sality of God made them abhor the shedding of 
 blood ; and, from the symbolical representation of 
 spiritual ideas by animal forms, their worship became 
 degraded to idolizing the brutes themselves. 
 
 The Egyptian mythology clearly indicates its der- 
 ivation from grossest Fetichism by the hold that be- 
 lief retained, even during the most splendid epoch 
 of their civilization, and the tendency of the masses 
 towards that simple form of expression of faith. 
 
 In the light of her glory as the seat of learning, 
 Egypt could boast of all grades of worship, from the 
 ignorant rustic, bowing in abject devotion before a 
 a leek or garlic, to the adoration of the sage for an 
 abstract idea. The gulf dividing these extremes was 
 greater even than at present. 
 
 CHALDEA. 
 
 It is interesting to learn the beliefs of these old 
 races, almost concealed and lost in the night of
 
 Chaldea. 43 
 
 time ; for, by this means, we find that what we call 
 new is only one of the countless forms of the old, 
 which, like water, takes the form of the containing 
 vessel. The world is ever a new world to the child, 
 or the new race. We cannot, therefore, comprehend 
 the new, unless we learn the past ; for it is the prod- 
 uct of a germ deeply buried in the past, and its roots 
 strike down through the interminable superimposed 
 strata of past civilizations. By understanding the 
 beliefs of contemporary peoples, we comprehend the 
 doctrines of the Jews ; and, as the latter are the basis 
 of Christianity, the subject is to us of vital interest. 
 
 The Chaldeans were of the Semitic stock, and 
 were impressed with the grand idea of Monotheism 
 in common with their race. The vast plains and des- 
 erts which formed their home, by the sameness of the 
 scenes nature presented, re-acted on the minds of 
 this singular people. With awe we exhume the grand 
 sculptured cities of their creation, whose age ante- 
 dates the chronology of history, and idly conjecture 
 of the builders. 
 
 What little is known of them can be briefly stated. 
 They believed in one supreme being, from whom, by 
 successive emanations, a multitude of subordinate 
 deities were evolved. The human soul was a portion 
 of this supreme, and originally had wings, which 
 must be reproduced before it can return to its source. 
 This idea came from received notions of a better 
 past, lost by the spirit coming to earth, connected 
 with a childish longing for the swift wings of a bird, 
 which seemed most desirable, and, if gained, would
 
 44 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 enable the spirit to wing its way through the ether 
 to its original happy home. The world was created 
 in six successive periods. Whenever all the planets 
 meet in the sign of Capricorn, the whole earth is 
 overwhelmed by a deluge of water ; and, whenever 
 they all meet in Cancer, it is consumed by fire. In 
 this statement is discernible the rude outline of what 
 was afterwards worked into the Jewish cosmogony, 
 the six days of creation, the deluge, and final destruc- 
 tion by fire. 
 
 A shepherd race, wandering over the deserts, 
 above which spreads an almost cloudless sky, through 
 which the stars glow with uninterrupted splendor, 
 they early observed the stars, and at length came to 
 regard them as disembodied spirits, and to worship 
 them. 
 
 What object in the entire range of startling phe- 
 nomena presented by nature is as astonishing as the 
 rising of the sun ? The breaking light wakes all 
 nature from slumber, and infuses life and joy. It is 
 the fountain of life, from which flows all activity, and 
 seems the most worthy object of worship in creation. 
 The orb of night is second only in position, and is 
 closely followed by the planets wandering through 
 the sky, yet ever returning. All of these commanded 
 and received adoration. The highest deity was Baal, 
 prince of the heavenly luminaries. The Egyptian 
 emblem of a winged circle, or Sun, was his symbol, 
 and on his altar animals and probably human beings 
 were sacrificed. 
 
 The magnificent temple erected by Semiramis
 
 Persia. 45 
 
 contained three golden statues, one of Baal; one 
 supposed to be the Goddess of Nature ; and one 
 the goddess representing the planet Venus, who 
 presided over generation. 
 
 The Goddess of Nature, the recipient and pre- 
 server of the life principle of the world, sat in a 
 golden chair, with two lions by her side, and two 
 huge serpents at her feet. The forehead of the other 
 goddess was surmounted by a star : in her right hand 
 she held a serpent ; in her left, a sceptre adorned with 
 gems. By such symbols did the souls of the old 
 Chaldeans strive to embody their inchoate and inex- 
 pressible conceptions of the Divine. 
 
 . PERSIA. 
 
 History furnishes many examples where one man, 
 emerging from obscurity, has suddenly elevated his 
 people to the broad platform of the world's activities. 
 Among these great minds, that shine athwart the 
 ages like beacons from some Eddystone light, few 
 were as Celebrated in antiquity, yet so little known 
 in the present, as Zoroaster, the saviour of the Per- 
 sians. His doctrines slaked the thirst of many 
 ancient philosophers, created schisms in the ranks of 
 early Christianity, and present, in many respects, 
 unsolved problems to the learned. 
 
 The period fixed for his advent varies by thousands 
 of years, some authors stating it at five thousand 
 years before the Trojan war, or six thousand before
 
 46 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 the Christian era;* while others maintain that he 
 flourished only fifteen hundred years before that 
 epoch, f The solution of this contradiction is found 
 by some scholars, by supposing that there were two 
 personages of that name, one very ancient, and an- 
 other who must have lived before the commencement 
 of the Median Empire, or at least eight centuries 
 before Christ. \ 
 
 The advent of this God-man- is enshrined by a halo 
 of myths. His mother was alarmed in dreams that 
 evil spirits sought to destroy the unborn babe, but 
 was assured by a good spirit, who said to her, " Fear 
 nothing. Osmuzd will protect this infant. He has 
 sent him as a prophet to the people. The world is 
 waiting for him." 
 
 In early life he retired to a solitary mountain to 
 attain holiness. One day fire descended from heaven 
 on this mountain, and the King of Persia approached 
 to worship, when Zoroaster came down out of the 
 flame, bringing with him a book of laws, revealed by 
 Ormuzd himself. This book is the Zendavesta, or 
 living word. It is believed to be a part of the pri- 
 meval word by which creation was produced, and 
 that every syllable possesses inherent virtue. If the 
 priests fail to perform the ritual, or recite the pre- 
 scribed prayers, it is supposed the order of the 
 universe will be disturbed, and all things fall into 
 confusion. 
 
 Of his death, it is said that he invoked the spirit of 
 
 * Aristotle, Pliny, Plato. f Plutarch. J Heeren.
 
 Advent of Zoroaster. 47 
 
 the constellation Orion, and ascended on a thunder- 
 bolt. 
 
 This belief existed long before the advent of 
 Moses, and it is easy .to discern the parts which 
 were taken to build the fables of the Pentateuch. 
 
 Zoroaster looked through the confusion of phenom- 
 ena, and sought to find the unitizing power in one 
 supreme essence, invisible, incomprehensible, named 
 Zeruane Akerene, or Unlimited Time, Eternity. 
 From him sprang Primeval Light, which gave birth 
 to Ormuzd, the King of Light. He is the "All-See- 
 ing," the "Just Judge," the " Sovereign Intelligence." 
 He pronounced the primeval word, and his own 
 abode of light sprang into existence. He then cre- 
 ted six resplendent spirits or holy ones, of whom he 
 was the seventh, or highest. The deities of Benev- 
 olence and Wisdom stand by his throne, and bear 
 to him the prayers of inferior spirits and of men. 
 He then created twenty-eight inferior spirits to pre- 
 side over the sun, moon, and stars ; and, while they 
 protect mankind from evil influences, they serve as 
 messengers between them and the superior spirits. 
 The third order of spirits are more numerous, and 
 are personifications of the idea of Ormuzd before 
 the creation of the world. Hence they are the 
 archetypes of everything which exists, the vivifying 
 principle of nature. Every mortal as well as spirit, 
 even Ormuzd himself, has one of these attending 
 spirits. 
 
 Khor, the sun, was called the eye of Ormuzd, and 
 was an object of universal adoration. The universe
 
 48 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 was thus intrusted to a chain of spiritual beings, 
 ascending from man to Ormuzd. Minerals, plants, 
 insects, earth, water, air, fire, the months, and the 
 days of the month, all had presiding spirits. 
 
 The spirits of the stars were benevolent guardians 
 of man and infirm creatures, and were endowed with 
 intelligence superior to the spirits of the earth. 
 They foreknew the events of the future, and saw 
 whatever was occurring or going to occur in the 
 universe. The destinies of men were intimately 
 connected with their motions ; and the Persians held 
 them in such affectionate reverence, that, whenever 
 they looked at them, they devoutly kissed their 
 hand. 
 
 To account for good and evil mingled in nature, 
 and avoid the seeming inconsistency of referring 
 both to one source, was the great problem, or rather 
 mystery, of the ancient world. In reality, it is no 
 problem at all ; but to a people who have not ad- 
 vanced to the understanding that nature is controlled 
 by unchangeable laws, that evil and good are alike 
 results of law, and have only relative relation as 
 affecting man, they appear in absolute antagonism. 
 
 The Egyptians solved the mystery by supposing 
 the Destructive and Beneficent Principles were twin 
 brothers. The Persians satisfied themselves by say- 
 ing Ormuzd, the King of Light, was the first ema- 
 nation from the Eternal One ; and Arimanes, the 
 Prince of Darkness, was the second. Arimanes 
 becoming jealous, the Eternal One condemned him 
 for three thousand years to the dark realm of shad- 

 
 Creation of the Devs. 49 
 
 ows, during which time Ormuzd created the firma- 
 ment with its orbs of light. When the period of his 
 punishment expired, Arimanes approached the light, 
 and its dazzling beauty renewed his jealousy. He 
 set himself at counteracting the works of the Benefi- 
 cent. He created seven archdevs, and attached them 
 to the planets, to paralyze the works of the good 
 spirits, and substitute evil. He then created twenty- 
 eight devs, to spread all species of disease and 
 distress ; after which he made a multitude of genii, 
 that every object might have an evil as well as good 
 spirit. 
 
 Ormuzd saw the disastrous results, and, in his 
 beneficent thought, sought to arrest the increase of 
 evil by the creation of an egg containing kindly 
 spirits : but Arimanes created another, containing 
 evil spirits ; and then, to make the confusion com- 
 plete and irreparable, he broke the two together. 
 
 " The cosmogony of the Zend is nearly the same 
 as that revealed to the writers of the Bible at an 
 indefinitely later period. 
 
 " Ormuzd created the material world in six succes- 
 sive periods. He first spread out the firmament with 
 its orbs of light ; second, he created the water ; third, 
 the earth ; fourth, trees ; fifth, animals ; sixth, man. 
 When all was finished, he devoted a seventh period 
 to festivities with the good spirits. Arimanes as- 
 sisted in the creation of the earth and water. Or- 
 muzd, by his will, created a bull, the symbol of all 
 life upon the earth. Arimanes slew him ; but drops 
 of his blood, falling on the ground, afterwards pro-
 
 50 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 duced various plants and animals. When the ele- 
 mentary particles of his body had been purified in 
 the light of the sun forty years, they became the 
 germ of the Ribas tree, consisting of two closely 
 entwined stems. Into these Ormuzd infused the 
 truth of life ; and they became the first man and 
 woman, named Meshia and Meshiane." 
 
 This pair were created in perfect purity ; but were 
 seduced by the evil spirits, and discord and death 
 were introduced into the world. 
 
 The duration of time is fixed by the Eternal One 
 at twelve thousand years. During the later times, 
 Arimanes, notwithstanding the activity of the good 
 spirits, will gain the ascendency ; and the pure in 
 heart have nothing to fear, for the Eternal has de- 
 creed the ultimate triumph of good. At the end of 
 time, a star with a tail will strike the earth, and set 
 it on fire. The fierce heat will cause the metals to 
 run down the mountains, and flow in rivers. All men 
 are compelled to pass through these. The good will 
 experience only pleasure, but the bad will suffer 
 indescribable anguish. All however, even the incor- 
 rigible Arimanes, come out purified, and join in a 
 universal chorus of praise to the eternal source of all 
 blessings. 
 
 On that day the Holy One judges the world, each 
 one according to his works ; after which the new earth 
 will be a source of indescribable beauty, and inno- 
 cence and happiness everywhere prevail. 
 
 Fire, as the ethereal emblem of the orbs of the 
 sky, and especially of the sun, was worshiped with
 
 Persian Sacrifices. 51 
 
 peculiar reverence. It was considered the most 
 purifying of all things. No dead bodies were allowed 
 to be burned ; and to cast dirt into the sacred fire, or 
 to blow it with the breath, was punished with death. 
 The identical fire received by Zoroaster from Or- 
 muzd was said to be preserved, and was sustained by 
 aromatic oils and wood, and was carried in front of 
 the army by the priests when they went out to bat- 
 tle. 
 
 The Persians sacrificed vegetables, fruits, and flow- 
 ers. Human beings were buried alive as an offering 
 to a subterranean deity. To Mithras, the Mediator, 
 they sacrificed beautiful white horses. In early times, 
 worship was always performed in the open air, it be- 
 ing considered irreverent to confine the Deity within 
 walls ; but in after times temples were erected, and 
 numerous oratories, where the sacred fire was kept 
 burning for the people to go in and pray. 
 
 In these Persian and Chaldean myths, we discern 
 the source of what may be called the substratum of 
 Christian beliefs. It is usual for divines to escape 
 this conclusion by reversing the table, and supposing 
 the laws were the original, and every other belief in 
 the world to be derived from them. This is very 
 convenient when a certain infallible creed is to be 
 sustained, but it is neither the philosophical nor true 
 method. Chronology gives the Zoroasterian doc- 
 trines the precedence ; and, if the Jewish agree with 
 them, it proves their derivation. It would be strange 
 indeed, if a neighboring people, brought in contact 
 by the arts of peace, and for centuries amalgamated
 
 52 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 by the influence of conquest, scattered, as the Bible 
 says, over the whole Persian Empire, should not ab- 
 sorb some, at least, of the ideas of their conquerors. 
 An examination of their beliefs will show the subject 
 in clearer light, and strengthen the conclusion of the 
 human source of the Hebrew myths.
 
 III. 
 
 THE GOD- IDE A OF THE JEWS. 
 
 THE words translated " God," " Devil," etc., in the various dialects of sav- 
 ages, simply mean the manifestations of the unseen world, and have no 
 relation to personal being. 
 
 Two things are necessary to render religion possible, namely, a religious 
 faculty in man ; and God out of man, as an object of that religious fac- 
 ulty. THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 IT is assumed by popular theology, and advocated 
 by noted critics, and generally received, that the 
 Jewish nation was selected by the Almighty to car- 
 ry down to later ages the knowledge of the one true 
 God. The entire Semitic race is thought to be mon- 
 otheistic, and to have enacted an important part in 
 the history of the world by introducing this other- 
 wise foreign element. 
 
 Paley, Milman, and Renan, speak glowingly of the 
 pure monotheism of the Jew, contrasted with the 
 polytheism of surrounding nations. Only the dust 
 which gathers over theological glasses could so ob- 
 scure men's minds, otherwise clear, to the truth. 
 
 The Jews at the beginning were not monotheists, 
 nor did they ever obtain the conceptions of divinity 
 revealed by the philosophers of Greece. Their his- 
 tory reveals the fact, traced in that of all nations, of
 
 54 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 a gradual progress from fetichism to a grand concep- 
 tion of one Almighty Power. 
 
 The individual first sets up a god, which becomes 
 a god of his family ; and, when the family enlarges 
 into a tribe or nation, the family penates becomes 
 the national deity, and from thence ascends to the 
 position of the God of the universe. 
 
 It is expressly said that the father and grandfather 
 of Abraham worshiped other gods ; and Abraham 
 himself was doubtless taught the planetary worship 
 of the Chaldeans, and accustomed to pay devotion to 
 images. In the entire course of Abrahamic history, 
 his God is represented as acting so meanly and des- 
 picably, that it is difficult to avoid concluding that he 
 is anything more than the reflection of the mind of 
 his devotee. God sits at the door of Abraham's 
 tent ; partakes of a repast ; is angry because Sarah 
 laughs ; and, after discussing the case of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, says he is going down there, to prove the 
 reports that have reached him. 
 
 The expression " Jehovah Elohim, the God of 
 gods," indicates the Jewish beliefs in other gods. 
 When Jacob stole Laban's gods, the latter pursued 
 him. Then Jacob made a condition on which he select- 
 ed Jehovah for his God : he made him a confidant 
 in his trickery, and wrestles and extorts by main force 
 a blessing. 
 
 Out of a host of deities, Abraham selects one, and 
 promises obedience to that one. When his tribe mul- 
 tiplies, his individual god becomes a national deity. 
 In the hands of Moses, educated in the sacred Egyp-
 
 Abrahamic Legends. 55 
 
 tian mysteries, this god improves in character, and 
 the national worship becomes more monotheistic. 
 But all Moses claimed for his God was superiority. 
 " Who is like unto thee, Jehovah, among the gods ? " 
 He writes in the commandments, " Thou shalt have 
 no other gods beside (or before) me." Joshua does 
 not represent the desertion of Jehovah as atheism, 
 but simply as ingratitude. 
 
 With all the energy displayed by their intrepid 
 leader, they, however, constantly relapsed into idol- 
 atry. 
 
 With the advance of culture, the same difference 
 between the God of the educated and ignorant man, 
 as seen in Greece, occurs. One is an intangible 
 spirit, the other an enlarged man. 
 
 Of the ideas of the rude patriarchs concerning 
 Deity, little is known. Abraham seems to have 
 obtained a glimpse of the eternal power of creation, 
 and to have believed that all the deities of surround- 
 ing peoples were only subordinate beings. By pay- 
 ing devotion directly to the Supreme, and thus be- 
 coming his chosen people, they at once became 
 exalted above all other nations. Wise and sagacious 
 as Abraham is said to have been, he still retained 
 the traditions of his education. He held to the popu- 
 lar belief in the sacredness of groves, and planted one 
 "at Beersheba." Wherever he sojourned, he erected 
 an altar, and sacrificed to the Lord. He even was 
 imbued with the notion, universal among the ancients, 
 that human sacrifice was acceptable to the gods, and 
 so nearly consummated that of his son Isaac.
 
 56 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 The sale of Joseph by his brethern first brought 
 the nomadic Jews in historic contact with Egypt, 
 then the bright focus of all the world. During a 
 residence of four hundred years, they must have ac- 
 quired many of the names, customs, and myths of 
 that people. Joseph married a daughter of a priest 
 of On, and was skilled in magic. When he died, his 
 body was embalmed. Moses is said to have been 
 " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." As 
 the adopted son of the king, he was allowed free 
 access to the sacred knowledge of the priests, and 
 was initiated into the Great Mysteries, where he 
 learned the most secret doctrines of the Sacerdotal 
 Order. From the fitful glances of fragmentary his- 
 tory, we learn that those mysteries taught the exis- 
 tence of one Invisible, all-powerful God, whose 
 attributes were symbolized by the numerous deities 
 worshiped by different nations. This ALL Moses 
 adopted as his particular guardian and friend. In 
 this he was sanctioned by the long series of patriar- 
 chal teachings. But, exalted as was this conception, 
 the ritual he prescribed bore a strong resemblance 
 to its Egyptian model. He called his God " Jehovah," 
 a word containing the past, present, and future tenses 
 of the Hebrew word " to be," signifying " I was, am, 
 and will be." This strikingly resembles an inscription 
 on a very ancient Egyptian temple, "I am what- 
 ever is, was, and will be." The names of Egyptian 
 deities were never expressed in the popular language, 
 and in the sacred dialect were not pronounced as 
 written. The same reverence for the name of their
 
 The Tabernacle and Ark. 57 
 
 deity is felt by the Hindoo. The Jews followed the 
 example of their Egyptian masters in their rever- 
 ence for the name "J enova h/' expressing it by a short 
 mark which they read " Lord." The priestly judges 
 of Egypt always wore a breastplate ornamented with 
 jewels ; and this breastplate, set with the Urim and 
 Thmmim, was retained by Moses. 
 
 The tabernacle was a copy of the Egyptian temple, 
 with its tank of water, its holy of holies, veiled from 
 vulgar gaze. In the innermost sanctuary of the 
 temple was a chest, or shrine, on which was placed 
 a sacred image, overshadowed by creatures with 
 wings, transposed into Hebrew mythology as cheru- 
 bim. Scholars have arrived at the conclusion, after 
 much discussion, that these cherubim were similar 
 to the winged bulls so common in Chaldean and 
 Egyptian sculptures. 
 
 The ark had rings, through which poles were 
 slipped, that it might be carried on the shoulders of 
 priests. The Egyptian priests are represented in 
 the sculptures as carrying shrines in the same 
 manner. 
 
 The anointing of kings and priests with sacred 
 oil was an Egyptian custom, as was the lineal descent 
 of the high-priesthood, the setting-apart of lands, the 
 wearing of pure white linen at certain sacrifices, and 
 the festival to welcome the new moon. Their offer- 
 ings to their gods were precisely like those prescribed 
 by Moses. They believed that burnt offerings were 
 a grateful savor to the gods. The scape-goat, and 
 purification by the ashes of a red heifer, were pecu-
 
 58 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 liar Egyptian observances imitated by Moses. From 
 time immemorial, traveling parties in Hindostan 
 carry with them a pole with the image of a serpent 
 wreathed around it. The Egyptians connected the 
 serpent with the healing art. The emblem of the 
 Greek god of medicine was a serpent wreathed 
 around a staff. Moses made a serpent of brass, and 
 placed it on a pole ; " and it came to pass, that, if 
 a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the 
 serpent of brass he lived." 
 
 The Egyptians abhored swine, and considered 
 them unclean above all food : if a priest touched one 
 accidentally, he went through the ceremonies of puri- 
 fication. Moses commanded the Israelites not to 
 eat nor touch the flesh or carcass, and prescribes 
 ceremonies of purification should this be done. 
 
 Circumcision was a peculiar Egyptian rite, and at 
 the time of Moses was considered by them to be of 
 more importance than by the Hebrews. 
 
 The destruction of Egyptian records severs Hebrew 
 theology from that of the Nile ; but these fragments 
 show how intimately they were interwoven. Moses 
 made a great step in advance. He erected a priestly 
 caste. His whole nation became a holy people. The 
 sacred mysteries of religion were freely divulged to 
 all, at least the concealed portion was reduced to a 
 minimum, and the invisible God was worshiped 
 without the intervention of images. This God dwelt 
 in the midst of the people, sustaining, overwatching, 
 rewarding, and punishing them. The prevalent idea 
 of masculine and feminine deities he discarded, and,
 
 Chaldean Gods. 59 
 
 with it, the impurities of popular mythology. But 
 we must speak gratifiedly of the purity of his ideas 
 of God. If removed from the passion of love, he was 
 not from those of hate, jealousy, and revenge. He 
 is changeable, and can be conciliated. His charac- 
 ter is that of the Jew, intensified. As the gods of 
 Greece were embodiments of the ardent imagination 
 of the Greeks, Jehovah assimilated the iron complex- 
 ion of the Hebrew. He commands them to smite 
 surrounding nations, and spare not ; to kill the men, 
 and take the women for themselves ; and enjoy the 
 " vineyards they had not planted, and harvests they 
 had not saved." 
 
 The patriarchs were on most familiar terms with 
 God. They often saw him and talked with him. He 
 wrote the Ten Commandments on a tablet of. stone, 
 and enters into the minutest details of rules and ob- 
 servances, even to the fringe on the priest's garments ; 
 yet they constantly reverted to idolatry, or the wor- 
 ship of other gods. 
 
 Aaron erected an altar to a golden calf, which they 
 worshiped, in imitation of the Egyptian Apis ; and in 
 the next generation, after making the most binding 
 compact with Jehovah, they fell into the worship of 
 the Chaldean gods of the sun and moon. Restored 
 by Gideon, the true worship was again deserted at 
 his death for Baal-Berith. 
 
 When the Hebrews dwelt in tents, a tent served 
 for their God : but, when the king built a house for 
 himself, it occurred to him that his God ought not 
 to dwell less honorably ; and this idea, broached by
 
 60 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 David, was fully carried out by Solomon in the tem- 
 ple that Sacred Writ has made famous. The idea 
 was similar to that of the surrounding nations, all of 
 whom had temples, many far surpassing in size and 
 splendor that of Solomon. It was not in accordance 
 with Jewish policy to multiply their temples. The 
 one God must have one temple, to which the nations 
 must come, around which it must gather, and far 
 from which it could not expand. Their God was 
 wholly exclusive. The Mosaic religion was for a 
 tribe, a small nation circumscribed in its territory. 
 In their most depressed state, the Jews asserted their 
 lofty and exclusive claims as the only chosen people 
 of God. They sought not to convert, but to repel. 
 Adopted by a single family on the plains of Chaldea, 
 when that family became as the sands of the sea- 
 shore, he still maintained his supreme place. 
 
 In what may be called the vulgar rendering of the 
 great cardinal principles, the Hebrews were as lost, 
 and conjectured as childishly, as any of their despised 
 neighbors. They adopted the prevailing idea of 
 subordinate spirits, employed by God as mediums 
 of communication with man. Their most ancient 
 name for God, " Elohim," means " more than one ; " 
 and God is represented by a plural pronoun in the 
 Bible, as, " Let us make man after our image ; " 
 " Man is become as one of us." 
 
 The Hindoo sacred books describe the grand, 
 beautiful " spirits of singing stars," who rejoice 
 together when a good deed is accomplished. Their 
 counter part is found in Job, who says, " When the
 
 The Cabala. 61 
 
 foundations of the earth were fastened, and the 
 corner-stone thereof was laid, the [spirits of the] 
 morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
 shouted for joy." 
 
 The captivity in Babylon exerted a marked influ- 
 ence on the Jews. Previously they believed in the 
 existence of evil spirits, but not until then did they 
 form a conception of a great rebellious spirit in oppo- 
 sition to God. They then transplanted the Persian 
 Arimanes into their mythology. Daniel considered 
 Michael the protecting spirit of the Jews ; thereby 
 showing, that, like all the surrounding nations, he 
 believed each people had a guardian spirit. Tobit 
 borrows the Persian Amshaspands, and alludes to 
 their office when he causes Raphael to say, " I am one 
 of the seven holy angels which present the prayers 
 of the saints, and go in and out before the holy one." 
 
 The Cabala embodies the traditions which through 
 the passing ages attached themselves to the Mosaic 
 writings, and may be called the mythological part of 
 Hebrew theology. According to it, God was pure 
 uncreated light, existing by necessity of his nature, 
 filling all space, and having inherent life and motion. 
 He was the infinite, of whose ideas beings were rep- 
 resentatives, and in whom they always existed. 
 Wisdom was the feminine infinite ; and from the two 
 sprang the first Adam, the " express image of God." 
 From the latter was evolved ten spirits and four 
 worlds, the lowest of which is the earth. Planets 
 and stars are animated by spirits, who were inter- 
 ested in the affairs of men, could communicate with
 
 62 Career of the God-Idea in History 
 
 them, and prophesy. One of the most conspicuous 
 of them was Netraton the Mediator, who recorded 
 the good deeds of men. There were lower orders of 
 spirits, the evil ones, whose chief was Belial. They 
 constantly sought to destroy the labor of the good. 
 God was thus removed by the interposition of spirit- 
 ual agencies from matter, and man became the end 
 and care of creative energy. 
 
 So great was the veneration of the Jews for their 
 sacred writings, that they did not allow the book of 
 the law to be written on parchment made from the 
 skin of any unclean- animal, or prepared by any one 
 but an Israelite. When copied, not a word must be 
 written from memory, and every word must be pro- 
 nounced before written. Before they wrote the name 
 of Deity, they always washed the pen. Before they 
 touched the book, they washed their hands, and not 
 then unless it was first covered. 
 
 The value of the Jewish belief is estimated in a 
 masterly manner by De Wette. They never reached 
 a high degree of culture, not even as high as sur- 
 rounding nations. Their literature was entirely in 
 the hands of the priests, and essentially theocratico- 
 mythological. They set out with the idea that God 
 miraculously interposed in the affairs of men, and 
 thus unitized all their writings by this theocratic o- 
 religious pragmatism. 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord," makes the Old Testament 
 a history of God. Its miracles have their origin in 
 ignorance, and in the distance of time between the 
 events and their narrative.
 
 IV 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ARABIANS. 
 
 WILL our line reach to the bottom of God ? There is nothing on earth or 
 in heaven to which we can compare him : of course we can have no im- 
 age of him in the mind. THEODORE PARKER. 
 
 THE Arabians are a branch of the Semitic stock ; 
 and, as theology partakes decidedly of the char- 
 acters of race, their conceptions of Deity resemble 
 those of their near relatives, the Jews. 
 
 Previous to Mohammed, they were worshipers of 
 the stars, angels, and their images ; which they hon- 
 ored as inferior deities, and mediators between man 
 and the supreme God. They acknowledged one 
 Creator and Lord of the Universe, Allah Taala, the 
 Most High God, to whom all other deities were sub- 
 ordinate. These inferiors were called Dahat, the 
 goddesses ; and the Greeks, according to their usual 
 custom of resolving the religions of all countries into 
 their own, stated that the Arabs worshiped but two 
 deities, Orotalt and Alilat, names synonymous with 
 Bacchus and Urania.* 
 
 The veneration of the Arabs for the stars natu- 
 rally gave rise to the pre-eminence of the latter di- 
 vinity. The prayers they usually addressed to the 
 
 * Koran. Sale. Pre. Discourse.
 
 64 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 Supreme ran thus : " I dedicate myself to thy ser- 
 vice, O God ! Thou hast no companion, except thy 
 companion of whom, thou art absolute master, and 
 of whatever is his." When they sacrificed, however, 
 they divided their offerings between the supreme and 
 the inferior deities, the Koran upbraiding them for 
 giving the most and best to the latter. This is com- 
 mon to all mankind, for the Infinite Creator is too far 
 removed from humanity to awaken more than a cold 
 and vague appreciation. They erected seven temples 
 to the seven planets, each tribe having some special 
 deities. Several of these were typified by large rude 
 stones. Some believed neither in creation past, nor 
 resurrection to come. They referred the origin 
 of things to nature, and their dissolution to age. 
 Others received both ; among whom were those who 
 had their camel tied to their sepulchre, and allowed 
 to perish, that they might not be obliged to go on 
 foot. Some believed in metempsychosis ; and, from 
 the blood of the brain of the dead, a bird was found 
 called Hamah, which once in a hundred years visited 
 the sepulchre ; though others say that the bird is 
 animated by the soul of the person unjustly slain, 
 and constantly cries, " Give me to drink," meaning the 
 murderer's blood, until his death is avenged, when 
 it flies away. 
 
 The stars shining through the clear atmosphere of 
 the desert, by their corresponding appearance with 
 certain expected events, naturally evoked devotion. 
 The Arabs were early acquainted with the magi, and 
 were not loath to receive portions of their religion.
 
 God-Idea of Arabia. 65 
 
 The Hamyarites were devoted to the sun, and had a 
 temple at Aden, where the enthusiasm of the devo- 
 tee could be kindled by seeing from the rocky pre- 
 cipice the glorious luminary rising like an orb of fire 
 from the bosom of the Indian Ocean.* The moon, 
 the dog-star, the planets, all were held by certain 
 tribes as special deities, and their religious festivities 
 were fixed by terms of the equinox and solstice. 
 
 The stars were dispensers of the weather, and in- 
 habited by angelic beings intermediate between man 
 and the supreme God. Hence the divine honors to 
 propitiate their favor. 
 
 Of these siderial divinities, the Koran mentions 
 three who were worshiped under female names, Al 
 Lattah, Al Uzzah, and Manah. The great tribes of 
 Arabia were divided in the worship of these. Manah 
 was represented by a rough block of stone, of a black 
 color, fixed on a golden pedestal. The Koran spe- 
 cifies five other deities, Wadd, worshiped under the 
 human figure by the tribe of Kelb ; Sawah, a female 
 deity adored by the tribe of Hamadan ; Yauk, bear- 
 ing resemblance to a horse ; Masr, that of an eagle ; 
 and Yaghuth, a popular deity of Yemen, that of a 
 lion. Hobal was a famous deity whose statue was 
 brought from Belka in Syria. It was the image of a 
 man cut from red agate, and placed on the top of the 
 Kaaba near those of Abraham and Ishmael. Having 
 by accident lost the hand which held the divining 
 arrows, the lost member was supplied by one of gold. 
 He was surrounded by three hundred and sixty infe- 
 
 * Hist. Arabia. Harper & Brothers. Vol. i., p. 19. 
 5
 
 66 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 rior deities, and thus the devout of Mecca were en- 
 abled to worship a new divinity every day in the 
 year. 
 
 The Hanifites worshiped a lump of dough for a 
 god, and only ate it in cases of extreme famine. 
 Like the Greeks and Romans, the Arabians had 
 household gods who received their last adieux when 
 they went abroad, and their first salutation when 
 they returned, after whom they named their chil- 
 dren, and gloried in being counted servants and vo- 
 taries.* On the altar of these gods victims were 
 sacrificed, and some were stained with human 
 gore, f 
 
 From this gross fetichism the Arabians were ele- 
 vated by the teachings of their great prophet. The 
 book he left them has served them for a sacred and 
 infallible oracle. 
 
 The Koran was neither written consecutively, nor 
 did it slowly mature from a vague and indeterminate 
 text : it is rather a complication of Mohammed preach- 
 ing, bearing the impress of his daily thoughts and 
 necessities. The daily recitations were written down 
 by his disciples on skins, the shoulder-blades of sheep, 
 or polished stones ; or preserved in their memory 
 by his principal followers, who were called bearers of 
 the Koran. Not till the Caliphate of Abou Bekr 
 were these fragments joined together. There can 
 be no dispute that the compilation was made in good 
 faith, and with strict honesty of purpose. No 
 attempt at reconciliation was made. The longest 
 
 * Sale. Pre. Dis. Selden de Diis Syriis. \ Porphyry.
 
 The Prophet Mohammed. 67 
 
 chapters were placed first, and the shortest at the 
 end. 
 
 A second revisal was made under the Caliphate of 
 Othman. Some changes in spelling were made ; the 
 text fixed according to the dialect of Mecca ; and 
 then, to prevent farther discussion, all the other cop- 
 ies were collected and burned. The book is thus 
 presented as a record of the sayings of the prophet, 
 and by its glaring contradictions conclusively proves 
 that it has not met with any important change. 
 
 Mohammed is a subject of history. His advent was 
 so recent that his origin has not been lost in myths. 
 The Arab is free from paying divine honors to man, 
 and hence delights in the human side of his proph- 
 et's character. Nothing is concealed. His infirmi- 
 ties and humiliations are unflinchingly recorded. He 
 begins life as a commission merchant. Could the 
 mythic personages of the past be brought under the 
 same blaze of historic light, how rapidly would with- 
 er the grand fables by which they are enshrined ! Of 
 his morality, the severe rules of a European must 
 not be applied to a child of the desert. He was up- 
 right, just, and honest, par excellence, according to the 
 Arabian standard. Whatever may be the opinion 
 of his character and mission, it cannot be disputed 
 that his religious system is a great advance on that 
 of ancient times. It was such an advance as Christi- 
 anity made on paganism, and equally great. It was 
 made in the only direction the Arabians were capa- 
 ble of going. 
 
 The Koran breathes the loftiest conceptions of the
 
 68 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 supreme Deity. God brings forth the living out of 
 the dead, and the dead out of the living. All things 
 in heaven and on earth are subject to him. He 
 justly challenges the most exalted comparison. He 
 is the Mighty and the Wise.* He sends the winds, 
 and raises the clouds, and spreads them over the 
 heavens as pleases him. " It is God who created 
 you in weakness, and after weakness has given you 
 strength ; and after strength he will reduce you to 
 weakness and gray hairs : he createth that which he 
 pleaseth, and he is the wise and the powerful, f He 
 is a witness over all things, and knows whatsoever 
 occurs in heaven or earth. He forms the unseen 
 party to the most private discourse. " He is the 
 first and the last ; the manifest and the hidden. It 
 is he who created the heavens and the earth in six 
 
 days, and then ascended to his throne He is 
 
 with you wherever you be He is the kingdom 
 
 of the heavens and the earth, and unto God shall all 
 things return. He causeth the night to succeed the 
 day, and he causeth the day to succeed the night ; 
 and he knows the innermost part of men's hearts.":}: 
 He knoweth the past and the future. His goodness 
 is boundless, and his wrath terrible. His mercy is 
 unlimited. His words, laws, and sentences, unutter- 
 able. He is the only giver of victory. 
 
 " God is one God : he begetteth not, neither is he 
 begotten ; and there is not any one like unto him." 
 
 * Koran, p. 334. % Ib. p. 438. 
 
 f Sale's Koran, p. 332. Koran, chap. 112.
 
 The God of the Arab. 69 
 
 Such was the sublime utterance of the great 
 prophet, the speech of a wonderful people, who gave 
 voice to the wild solitude of the desert, and saw, in 
 the monotony of surrounding nature, the reflection of 
 the ONE God.
 
 V. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. 
 
 DIEU est plus quo la totale existence, il est eu meme temps 1'absolu. II 
 est 1'ordre oil les math^matiques, la m&aphysique, la logique sont 
 vraies : il est le lieu de l'idal, le principe vivant du bien, du beau, et 
 du vrai. Envisag6 de la sorte, Dieu est pleinement et sans reserve ; il 
 est et&iiel et immuable, sans progres ni devenir. RENAN. 
 
 You shall come to the knowledge of God when you show yourself worthy 
 of it. POTHINUS, Bishop of Lyons. 
 
 GAY, imaginative, plastic, the Grecians seized the 
 mythologies of surrounding races, and, out of 
 all, wove a pattern, fascinatingly beautiful, and full 
 of golden threads. Their ceremonies and rites were 
 thus an aggregation of fragments. 
 
 They had no sacred books, though Minos received 
 his laws direct from Jupiter. Their early poets fur- 
 nished a substitute. Homer and Hesiod fixed their 
 theology. The dreams of poets and the embellish- 
 ments of fancy became sound orthodoxy. Hesiod 
 has beautifully expressed the aspirations of the hu- 
 man heart for happiness ; and, not finding it in the 
 present, looked to the remote past, to the Garden of 
 Eden, for the golden age. Then men lived like gods ; 
 and there were neither passions, vices, vexation, nor 
 toil. Then all were happy in companionship with 
 divine beings. The earth was beautiful, and spon-
 
 The Brazen Age. 71 
 
 taneously yielded an abundant harvest. Man was 
 afflicted with none of the infirmities of age ; and, 
 when called to a higher sphere, he simply slumbered. 
 
 Then followed the silver age, when men's lives 
 were shortened because of their neglect of the gods, 
 and injustice towards each other. 
 
 Then came the brazen of turbulence and insin- 
 cerity. The present is the iron age, still more de- 
 generate, the Cali Yug of the Hindoo, when the life 
 of man is shortened to a span, and all manner of 
 crimes, violence, fraud, and disease, everywhere 
 abound. Homer assigns similar attributes to the 
 gods as Hesiod. They are actuated by human de- 
 sires, passions, and motives, and are admirable far 
 more for superior power than moral excellence. In 
 their system, a direct supernatural agency guides 
 and controls all things, from the greatest to the 
 smallest. 
 
 Every thought of the poet and philosopher was 
 received by inspiration : even to laugh was to become 
 subject to the influence of a god. Between gods and 
 men there was a living intercourse. They often vis- 
 ited cities disguised as travelers. Gods from other 
 countries were constantly being adopted into the 
 Greek Pantheon. All their deities bear traces of a 
 foreign origin, and the stories told of them are the 
 mixed legends of various nations. They adopted the 
 seven planetary spirits of the Egyptians and Hindoos, 
 Apollo the sun, Diana the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, 
 Mars, Mercury, and Venus, and consecrated suc- 
 cessive days to them. The seventh day was sacred
 
 72 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 to Saturn from time immemorial : Hesiod and Homer 
 call it the holy day. 
 
 Zeus, or Jupiter, was differently represented' at 
 different periods. As the supreme god, his aspect 
 varies with the foreign elements introduced. He- 
 siod and Homer describe him as the supreme creator 
 of heaven, earth, and sea ; the father of the gods and 
 men ; omnipotent to all except the unchanging de- 
 crees of the Fates. He never appears on the stage 
 of human affairs, being so exalted that there must 
 be a mediator between him and man. The transpo- 
 sition of Indra from the Hindoo to the Greek Pan- 
 theon is indicated by the conception of Jupiter as 
 the son of Ether, armed with a thunderbolt, sur- 
 rounded by the moon and stars. He is in this con- 
 ception married to his sister Juno, who represents 
 the air, and had Iris, the rainbow, for an attendant. 
 
 Minerva was goddess of wisdom, presiding over 
 the sciences, arts, poetry, and philosophy. 
 
 Bacchus was god of wine and the vintage. 
 
 Ceres was the goddess of the harvest ; Mercury, 
 of orators and thieves ; Pan, of generation ; Venus, 
 goddess of beauty and pleasure ; Cupid, god of love. 
 
 Apollo was the central figure in Grecian mythology, 
 and was adored as the god of light, eloquence, medi- 
 cine, and prophecy. 
 
 The theology of Greece and Rome was a vast accu- 
 mulation, which it is tedious to explore, and foreign 
 to our purpose. It is replete with vague strivings 
 and wandering flights of the imagination, like the 
 crude conjecturings of children ; the essence of the
 
 Doctrines of Orpheus. 73 
 
 poetry of Nature. To those antique men, Nature 
 was a living, thinking, acting being, and they were 
 children prattling at her breast. We can amuse 
 ourselves by unraveling the web of fable, but let us 
 not treat lightly what to them was purest truth. 
 
 The popular theology was only the external garb. 
 The philosophers passed through it, and sought the 
 deep, underlying principles of nature. 
 
 To them we turn for the solution of the grand 
 problem of creation. Perhaps they make a final 
 and conclusive statement; perhaps only what, at best, 
 are personal opinions. 
 
 The earliest of the Grecian teachers was Orpheus, 
 who flourished about 1200 B. C. He taught that 
 there was one invisible God, who contained within 
 himself the germ of all things, and was alternately 
 active and passive. In his active state, successive 
 grades of beings emanated from him by inherent 
 necessity, all of whom in different degrees partook 
 of his divine nature, and ultimately returned to 
 him. 
 
 The universe would be destroyed by fire, and re- 
 newed. " The empyrean, the deep tartarus, the 
 earth, the ocean, the immortal gods and goddesses, 
 all that is, all that has been, and all that will be, was 
 originally contained in the fruitful bosom of Zeus. 
 He is the first and the last, the beginning and the 
 end. All beings derive their origin from him. There 
 is only one power, one only Lord, one universal 
 king." 
 
 Thales taught about 636 B. C. He is justly con-
 
 74 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 sidered as the father of Greek speculation. Only 
 fragments of his doctrines remain, but enough to 
 show that from them was woven the variegated and 
 splendid web of Hellenic philosophy. 
 
 He said, " The principle of all things is water." 
 This proposition will undoubtedly bring a smile by 
 its apparent absurdity, but it probably possessed a 
 deep meaning to him. He strove to find the primary 
 substance, the one principle from which all things 
 are evolved. He saw with his penetrating glance 
 that existences are but modes, and that these modes 
 undergo constant transformations. Beneath all this 
 fluctuating external, he sought an unchanging in- 
 ternal power. Water is the most universal ele- 
 ment. It fills the earth, seems generated in the at- 
 mosphere, and life itself appears to be the direct 
 product of moisture and warmth. Hence he, mis- 
 guided by appearance, maintained that water was 
 the beginning of all things. Cicero has no right to 
 interpret this proposition by supposing Thales " held 
 water to be the beginning of things, but that God 
 was the mind which created things out of water." 
 Such an interpretation is the growth of later times. 
 Aristotle * expressly denies that the early physicists 
 made any distinction between matter and its moving 
 cause, and adds that Anaxagoras was the first who 
 arrived at the idea of a formative intelligence. Thales 
 could not have had any idea of such creative power. 
 He believed in the gods and generation of the gods ; 
 but they, like all things else, had their origin in 
 * Metaph. i. 3.
 
 Speculations of Anaximenes. 75 
 
 water. Beyond that powerful element he saw noth- 
 ing. By it he sought to unitize the diverse phenom- 
 ena of nature. 
 
 ANAX i MENES followed and developed tbp doctrines 
 of his master, Thales.* He pursued the same meth- 
 od, but arrived at different results. To him, water 
 was not the most significant element. He felt with- 
 in him something, he knew not what or wherefore, 
 but which was ever present. This he called his life, 
 and life he believed to be air. There was also, with- 
 out, an invisible but ever-present air. The air with- 
 in him was individualized life ; but was it not a part 
 of that without ? Then was not this external air the 
 universal life ? was it not the beginning of things ? 
 He met confirmations of his ideas. The earth like 
 a broad leaf rested upon it. All things were pro- 
 duced from it, and all were resolved back into it. 
 When we breathe, we inhale a portion of this univer- 
 sal life. The universe became, to this philosopher, 
 a living, breathing structure. It was an advance on 
 the teachings of Thales, and even scientists of to-day 
 repeat and prove its proposition. From air all things 
 are created, and back to air all things are resolved. f 
 Air answers a better purpose as a universal element 
 than water. To Anaxagoras and his followers, it 
 stood for God ; though any idea of such an intelli- 
 gence they had not conceived. Air was their high- 
 est ideal. 
 
 DIOGENES, of Apollonia, flourished about 460 B. C. 
 
 * Ritter. f Liebig. Chemical Lectures. Dumas.
 
 76 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 He followed the preceding, but extended his spec- 
 ulations. He was deeply impressed with the analogy 
 between the soul, or life, and the air ; and he pushed 
 this to its limits. What constitutes air, the creative 
 origin of all things ? Its life. It has a soul higher 
 than itself, and must consequently be prior in point 
 of time : it must be the primordial element sought. 
 The universe is a living creation, self, evolved by 
 its own vitality. 
 
 Thus obscurely is expressed the first dim concep- 
 tion of a creative cause. Air as life did not neces- 
 sarily possess intelligence. Diogenes endowed it 
 with thought. "It knows much," he said ; "for, with- 
 out reason, it would be impossible for all to be 
 arranged duly and proportionally ; and whatever 
 objects we consider will be found to be arranged and 
 ordered in the best and most beautiful manner." As 
 order can only originate in intelligence, there must 
 be a soul. This was a great advance ; but how child- 
 ish the application he made of it ! As air gives us 
 life by respiration, worlds and the universe must 
 respire. The attraction of moisture to the sun, or 
 iron to the magnet, was a kind of respiration. Man's 
 superiority over brutes is caused by his erect posture, 
 enabling him to breath a purer air than animals 
 whose heads are near the ground. 
 
 Thus step by step did these oldest of philosophers 
 painfully tread the misty uncertainty, and approach 
 the conception of a universal soul. It was reached 
 by means of a mistaken notion that the breath was 
 the producer of life, and hence was, itself, living ; a
 
 Speculations of Anaximander. 77 
 
 notion growing out of superficial observation, and a 
 childish appreciation of nature.* 
 
 ANAXIMANDER, of Miletus, taught that " the Infi- 
 nite is the source of all things." What he meant by 
 the term " infinite," we cannot determine ; and even 
 the ancients themselves were equally in the dark. 
 We can readily see how he arrived at such a conclu- 
 sion if we place ourselves in his position. He was a 
 mathematician, and as such delighted in the purely 
 abstract. Water, he argued, could not be the all ; for 
 it was a thing, and a thing cannot be all things. 
 Only the unlimited ALL could supply the conditions. 
 The production of individual things resulted from 
 the motion of the Infinite. 
 
 This Infinite is one, yet all. Within it is com- 
 prised the multiplicity of elements, which need only 
 separation to appear as distinct phenomena. The 
 decomposition of the Infinite is creation ; and this is 
 the result of motion. " He regarded the Infinite as 
 a being in a constant state of incipiency, which, 
 however, is nothing but a constant secutive and con- 
 cretion of immutable elements ; so that we might 
 well say the parts of the whole are ever changing, 
 while the whole is unchangeable." 
 
 Lewes remarks, " The idea of elevating an abstrac- 
 tion into a being the origin of all things is base- 
 less enough. It is as if we were to say, there are 
 numbers one, two, three, four, twenty, eighty, one 
 
 * Ritter. This idea of the air being endowed with life is ex- 
 pressed in the Bible : "And God breathed in his nostrHs, and 
 he became a living soul."
 
 78 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 hundred ; but there is also number in the abstract, 
 of which these individual numbers are but concrete 
 realization : without number there will be no num- 
 bers. Yet so difficult is it for the human mind to 
 divest itself of its own abstractions, and to consider 
 them as no more than as abstractions, that this error 
 lies at the root of the majority of philosophical sys- 
 tems." * In modern times the doctrine of this phi- 
 losopher has been revived by Hegel, who has only 
 changed the words by which it is expressed. 
 
 Anaximander's conception was not ideal. His 
 " All Things " was purely physical. It was the de- 
 scription of a fact, rather than the statement of a 
 principle. His creation had existence, but -not infi- 
 nite intelligence. He advanced a step, but the latter 
 idea was to him unknown. 
 
 PYTHAGORAS flourished about 500 B. C.f He is 
 classed with the founders of mathematics. His sci- 
 entific skill has been grossly exaggerated, as has 
 been every portion of his life. He was called a 
 worker of miracles, a teacher having more than hu- 
 man wisdom ; and his birth was referred to a miracu- 
 lous interposition of the gods. These fables show in 
 what high estimation he was held by his contempo- 
 raries. 
 
 He taught in secret, and, like Christ, never wrote. 
 His method was purely deductive, and deigned only 
 to consider the most refined abstractions ; and hence 
 his school has been styled the mathematical. The 
 
 * Biog. Hist. Phil. 
 
 f A very uncertain date. See Anthon's Class. Diet, p. 1 153.
 
 Speculations of Anaximander. 79 
 
 greatest mathematicians and astronomers of anti- 
 quity were among his followers. With our present 
 clear and positive knowledge of things, it is difficult 
 to understand the doctrines of these early sages, who 
 thought intently, but seeking to unravel the myste- 
 rious web of creation by an evolution from their own 
 minds, rather than by observing facts, were entirely 
 befogged. They were children only, and were con- 
 tent with the same reasoning which contents a child. 
 Pythagoras taught that numbers were the principle 
 of things." * 
 
 Anaximander saw beyond this, that numbers were 
 not final. In attributes and position, they are con- 
 stantly changing. They are variable, while the eter- 
 nal cause cannot vary. Pythagoras saw the neces- 
 sity of such an unvarying existence, and called it 
 number. An individual may change its position and 
 attributes, but its numerical existence cannot be de- 
 stroyed. It can never be less than one. Resolved 
 into the minutest particles, each particle is one. Nu- 
 merical existence, hence, is the only invariable exist- 
 ence, and all things are but the copies of numbers. 
 Analogies cannot be carried farther than this in re- 
 lation to finite things, nor to the Infinite. The Infi- 
 nite, therefore, must be one. One is the absolute 
 number. It exists in and for itself. All others are 
 but numerical relations of one. As one contains all 
 other numbers, it contains the element of the whole 
 world. One must be the beginning of all things ; for, 
 with whatever we commence, we must start with 
 
 one. 
 
 * Aristotle, Metaph., i. 6.
 
 8o Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 It will be seen that the whole system rests on a 
 verbal quibble ; but it was a quibble too profound for 
 detection by the greatest of the Greeks. Unac- 
 quainted with any other language, they fell into the 
 natural mistake of making distinctions of words cor- 
 respond to distinctions of things, and then reasoning 
 from the words instead of the things. 
 
 What Anaximander calls the Infinite, Pythagoras 
 calls the One. Neither recognized mind as an attri- 
 bute of the Infinite. The latter has been supposed 
 to have taught that there was a " soul of the world," 
 but no solid ground exists for such an opinion. This 
 is an idea of much later date. His doctrine of the 
 soul refutes it. He regarded mind as a phenom- 
 enon. It is a self-moving monad, which in the planet 
 or the brute loses its intelligence. If such concep- 
 tions were held of finite mind, there could have been 
 no idea of infinite intelligence. The interpretation 
 given by Cicero, that Pythagoras conceived God to 
 be the all-prevading soul of nature, of which human 
 souls were portions, is refuted by Aristotle. * The 
 Pythagorean God was the number one, the infinite 
 measure of all other numbers. 
 
 XENOPHANES, contemplating the blue arch above 
 him, inclosing the world, unchangeable and eternal, 
 pronounced the wonderful sentence, " The Infinite is 
 a sphere." There was no anthropomorphism in his 
 system. He was pantheistic. The universe was 
 self-moving, self-existing. 
 
 PARMENIDES taught that there was but one being. 
 * Metaph., b. L, chap. 5.
 
 Speculations of Heraclitus. 81 
 
 Non-being was impossible. Hence the one is all 
 existence, neither born nor dying. 
 
 Zeno was born about 500 B. C., and was one of 
 the most celebrated sages of antiquity. He was the 
 inventor of that logic renowned as dialectics, so ably 
 handled by Socrates and Plato. His doctrines may 
 be thus briefly stated : * " There is but one being 
 existing necessarily indivisible and infinite. To sup- 
 pose that the one is divisible, is to suppose it finite. 
 If divisible, it must be infinitely divisible. But sup- 
 pose two things to exist, then there must necessarily 
 be an interval between these two ; something sepa- 
 rating and limiting them. What is that something ? 
 It is some other thing. But then, if not the same 
 thing, it must be also separated and limited ; and so 
 on ad infinitum. Thus only one thing can exist as 
 the substratum for all manifold appearances." 
 
 Heraclitus declared the Infinite One to be fire. 
 To him it was the type of spontaneous force and 
 motion. He says, " The world was made neither 
 by the gods nor man ; and it was and is and ever 
 shall be an ever-living fire, in due measure self-en- 
 kindling, and in due measure self-extinguished." 
 This is only a modification of the previous systems. 
 The water of Thales, and air of Anaximenes, is the 
 fire of Heraclitus. Fire ever springing into flames, 
 and passing into smoke and ashes, is a beautiful and 
 striking emblem of the ebb and flow of being ; the 
 restless changing flux of things which never are, but 
 always becoming. This flux and reflux, he finely ex- 
 
 * Lewes. 
 6
 
 82 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 presses in his symbol of a river : " No one has ever 
 been twice on the same stream, for different waters 
 are constantly flowing down : it dissipates its waters 
 and gathers them again, it approaches and recedes, 
 it overflows and falls." " All is motion : there is no 
 rest or quietude. As all life is change, and change 
 is strife, the strife between opposite tendencies is the 
 parent of all things." He was the first to teach the 
 inherent vitality of nature ; that, while matter and its 
 forms underwent endless .mutations, supreme har- 
 mony ruled over all, and the Infinite Being remained 
 changeless and undisturbed. 
 
 ANAXAGORAS made some remarkable speculations 
 on the origin of things, and anticipated by glimpses, 
 as it were, many of the generalizations of modern 
 science. He held, that, so far from the all being the 
 one, it was the many. In the beginning the many 
 were unmixed. What was to change their condition, 
 and from their isolation evolve a harmonious state ? 
 That power he declares to be intelligence, the mov- 
 ing force of the universe. He rejected fate, and de- 
 clared chance to be the cause unrecognized by hu- 
 man reasoning. In a passage preserved by Simpli- 
 cius, he says, " Intelligence is infinite and auto- 
 cratic : it is mixed' up with nothing, but exists alone 
 in and for itself. Were it otherwise, were it mixed 
 up with anything, it would partake of the nature of 
 all things ; for in all these is a part of all, and so 
 that which is mixed with intelligence would prevent 
 it from exercising power over all things." We here 
 catch a glimpse of the modern idea of Deity acting
 
 Speculations of Empedocles. 83 
 
 through fixed and undeviating laws on matter, but 
 not mixing otherwise with the matter acted on. 
 
 Again he says, "Intelligence is of all things the 
 subtlest and purest, and has entire knowledge of 
 all. Everything which has a soul, whether great 
 or small, is governed by intelligence. Intelligence 
 knows all things separated ; and the things that 
 were, and those which now are, and those which will 
 be, all are arranged by intelligence." In this pas- 
 sage, he anticipates, by hundreds of years, the ideas 
 of his age. The infinite intelligence not only knows, 
 but acts. There is only one intelligence, there can 
 be but one ; but of substances there must be many. 
 It must, however, be borne in mind that this intelli- 
 gence bore no resemblance to human intelligence. 
 It was an abstract term, and might with equal pro- 
 priety have been called number, or the one. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES, born at-Agrigentum /j/j/j B. C, re- 
 sembled Pythagoras in the manner in which fable 
 has surrounded his name. To him are ascribed the 
 same august demeanor and power over the laws of 
 nature. He proclaimed himself a god, and was so 
 received by the citizens of a city at the time the rival 
 in arts and, intelligence of Syracuse. He was trans- 
 lated, amid a flood of great effulgence, during a 
 sacred festival. Like all the sages of antiquity, he 
 traveled in the East, and there learned the potent 
 secrets of medicine, magic, and the wonderful art of 
 prophecy. 
 
 Each generation of philosophers made some 
 advance on their predecessors, and Empedocles took
 
 84 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 long strides ahead. Of the divine nature, the infi- 
 nite All, he reasoned in the same manner we reason 
 to-day. He maintained that like could only be 
 known to like. By each element we learn the 
 qualities of itself: as of fire, through fire ; of strife 
 and love, through strife and love. Hence the divine 
 can only be known through divine reason. That the 
 divine is recognized by man, is proof that the divine 
 exists. Knowledge and existence mutually imply 
 each other. * He declared God to be destitute of 
 all organs. 
 
 " He is wholly and perfectly mind ineffable, holy, 
 With rapid and swift glancing thought pervading the whole 
 world." 
 
 Of the creation, he beautifully said, 
 
 " Fools, 
 
 Who think aught can begin to be which formerly was not 
 Or that aught that is can perish and utterly decay. 
 Another truth I now unfold. No natural birth 
 Is there of mortal things, nor death destructive final : 
 Nothing is there but a mingling, and then a separation of the 
 
 mingled, 
 Which are called a birth and death by ignorant mortals." 
 
 This creation, by mingling, presupposed certain 
 primary elements, which were the material mingled. 
 These elements were four in number, earth, air, fire, 
 and water. Out of these, all things were created. 
 The formative power was love. Of course there 
 must be an antagonist to produce separation. This 
 * Lewes.
 
 Speculations of Democrites. 85 
 
 was hate. Harmony was the perfect state ; discord 
 the imperfect. Love was the creative, hate the de- 
 structive, principle. 
 
 " All the members of God war together, one after 
 the other." 
 
 His idea of God, of the One, was that of a " sphere 
 in the bosom of harmony, fixed, in calm rest, gladly 
 rejoicing." This sphere of love exists above and 
 around the world. Hate has power over only the 
 smaller portion of existence, only over those parts 
 which become disconnected from the whole. 
 
 DEMOCRITES, equally famous as the preceding, 
 uttered some remarkable generalizations on creation. 
 He rejected the preceding theories, and declared 
 atoms, invisible, intangible, and indivisible, to be 
 the primary elements ; thus anticipating, by a dream, 
 one of the highest scientific conceptions of the pres- 
 ent. The formation of things he attributed to des- 
 tiny, but it is doubtful if he assigned intelligence to 
 that destiny. The attempts to prove that he believed 
 in an intelligence somewhat similar to the Anaxago- 
 rian doctrine are not satisfactory ; and it is probable 
 that the idea of a formative intelligence, held by all 
 these early philosophers, has been over-drawn, and 
 received an anthropomorphitic tinge from translators 
 and commentators. 
 
 We may smile at the boldness with which they 
 rushed to the explanation of nature's profoundest 
 secrets, but we cannot doubt their sincerity. They 
 possessed few facts, and they did not use those they 
 possessed. They trusted to intuition. The Greek
 
 86 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 mind, like that of a child, was deductive rather than 
 inductive. It struck at first at primary principles. 
 Not content with the life long-toil of the accumula- 
 . tion of facts, it made a direct dash at the underlying 
 principles. As from generation to generation we 
 observe its progress, it never throws off this incubus, 
 but is filtered by its scorn of the primary instru- 
 ments of thought, facts. The Greeks are diligent 
 inquirers, and merit the praise which has been be- 
 stowed upon them ; but, the moment they philoso- 
 phized, they cast facts aside. The daring strides they 
 made widened the bounds of human thought, and, by 
 the constant mental warfare they created, make these 
 sages, scattered along a thousand years, shine in a 
 splendid galaxy across the millenniums since they 
 passed away. From the obscure wordings of their 
 doctrines, we may be wide of their meaning in our 
 translations. Of this much we are certain : the 
 early sages scorned the idea of a god with human 
 qualities. They probably had no conception of such 
 a being. The idea of an infinite and all-pervading 
 cause existed in their minds. Like the child, they 
 asked "Why?" "How?" "Wherefore?" They 
 found no answer to the indefinable thoughts which 
 existed inarticulate in their minds. The water of 
 Thales, air of Anaximenes, the number of Pythago- 
 ras, meant more than the words express. They stand 
 for a great, unutterable thought. They stand for a 
 struggle of a great soul endeavoring to express its 
 half-formed, dimly seen ideas. Let us not smile, nor 
 judge them, unless we first pass the gulf which di-
 
 Socrates. 87 
 
 vides the clear and precise thought of the present 
 from the half-articulate efforts of olden time. 
 
 We now approach SOCRATES, the most renowned 
 philosopher of Greece. His ideas of Deity, as ex- 
 pressed by Xenophon,* were as follows : 
 
 " I will now relate the manner in which I once 
 heard Socrates discoursing with Aristodemus, sur- 
 named the Little, concerning the Deity ; for observ- 
 ing that he neither prayed nor sacrificed to the gods, 
 but, on the contrary, ridiculed and laughed at those 
 who did, he said to him, 
 
 " ' Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man whom 
 you admire on account of his merit ? ' Aristodemus 
 having answered, ' Many,' ' Name some of them, I 
 pray you.' ' I admire,' said Aristodemus, ' Homer for 
 his Epic poetry, Melanippides for his dithyrambics, 
 Sophocles for tragedy, Polycetus for statuary, and 
 Zeuxis for painting.' 
 
 " ' But which seems to you most worthy of admira- 
 tion, Aristodemus, the artist who forms images 
 void of motion and intelligence, or one who hath the 
 skill to produce animals that are endued not only with 
 activity, but understanding ? ' ' The latter, there 
 can be no doubt,' replied Aristodemus ; 'provided the 
 production was not the effect of chance, but of wis- 
 dom and contrivance.' ' But since there are many 
 things, some of which we can easily see the use of, 
 . while we cannot say of others to what purpose they 
 were produced, which of these, Aristodemus, do 
 you suppose the work of wisdom ? ' 'It should seem 
 
 * Memorabilia, i. 4, as rendered by Lewes.
 
 88 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 the most reasonable to affirm it of those whose fitness 
 and utility are so evidently apparent/ 
 
 " ' But it is evidently apparent that He who at the 
 beginning made man endued him with senses be- 
 cause they were good for him ; eyes, wherewith to 
 behold whatever was visible ; and ears, to hear what- 
 ever was to be heard ; for say, Aristodemus, to what 
 purpose should odors be prepared if the sense of 
 smelling had been denied ? or why the distinctions 
 of bitter and sweet, of savory and unsavory, unless a 
 palate had been likewise given, conveniently placed, 
 to arbitrate between them, and declare the difference ? 
 Is not that Providence, Aristodemus, in a most emi- 
 nent manner conspicuous, which, because the eye of 
 man is so delicate in its contexture, hath therefore 
 prepared eyelids like doors, whereby to secure it, 
 which extend of themselves whenever it is needful, 
 and again close when sleep approaches ? Are not 
 these eyelids provided, as it were, with a fence on the 
 edge of them, to keep off the wind, and guard the 
 eye ? Even the eyebrow itself is not without its 
 office, but, as a pent-house, is prepared to turn off the 
 sweat, which, falling from the forehead, might enter 
 and annoy that no less tender than astonishing part 
 of us. Is it not to be admired that the ears should 
 take in sounds of every sort, and yet are not too 
 much filled by them ; that the fore-teeth of the 
 animal should be formed in such a manner as is evi- 
 dently best suited for the cutting of its food, as those 
 on the side for grinding it to pieces ; that the 
 mouth, through which this food is conveyed, should
 
 Socrates. 89 
 
 be placed so near the nose and eyes as to prevent 
 the passing unnoticed whatever is unfit for nourish- 
 ment ; while Nature, on the contrary, hath set at a 
 distance, and concealed from the senses, all that might 
 disgust or any way offend them ? And canst thou 
 still doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of 
 parts like this should be the work of chance, or of 
 wisdom and contrivance ? ' 'I have no longer any 
 doubt,' replied Aristodemus ; ' and, indeed, the more 
 I consider it, the more evident it appears to me that 
 man must be the masterpiece of some great artificer ; 
 carrying along with it infinite marks of the love and 
 favor of Him who hath thus formed it.' 
 
 "'And what thinkest thou, Aristodemus, of that de- 
 sire in the individual which leads to the continuance 
 of the species ; of that tenderness and affection in 
 the female towards her young, so necessary for its 
 preservation ; of that unrequited love of life, and 
 dread of dissolution, which take such strong posses- 
 sion of us from the moment we begin to be ? ' 'I 
 think of them,' answered Aristodemus, ' as so many 
 regular operations of the same great arid wise Artist 
 deliberately determining to preserve what he hath 
 made.' 
 
 " ' But farther (unless thou desirest to ask me ques- 
 tions), seeing, Aristodemus, thou thyself art con- 
 scious of reason and intelligence, supposest thou 
 there is no intelligence elsewhere ? Thou knowest 
 thy body to be a small part of that wide extended 
 earth which thou everywhere beholdest : the mois- 
 ture contained in it, thou also knowest to be a small
 
 90 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 portion of that mighty mass of waters, whereof seas 
 themselves are but a part, while the rest of the ele- 
 ments contribute out of their abundance to thy for- 
 mation. It is the soul then, alone, that intellectual 
 part of us, which is come to thee by some lucky 
 chance, from I know not where. If so, there is in- 
 deed no intelligence elsewhere ; and we must be 
 forced to confess, that this stupendous universe, with 
 all the various bodies contained therein, equally 
 amazing, whether we consider their magnitude or 
 number, whatever their use, whatever their order, 
 all have been produced, not by intelligence, but by 
 chance.' 'It is with difficulty that I can suppose 
 otherwise,' returned Aristodemus: 'for I behold none 
 of those gods whom you speak of as making and 
 governing all things ; whereas I see the artists when 
 at their work here among us.' ' Neither yet seest 
 thou thy soul, Aristodemus ; which, however, most 
 assuredly governs thy body : although it may well 
 seem, by thy manner of talking, that it is chance, 
 and not reason, which governs thee.' 
 
 '"I do not despise the gods,' said Aristodemus : 
 'on the contrary, I conceive so highly of their 
 excellence, as to suppose they stand in no need 
 either of me or of my services.' ' Thou mistakest 
 the matter, Aristodemus: the greater magnificence 
 they have shown in their care of thee, so much 
 the more honor and service thou owest them.' 
 ' Be assured, ' said Aristodemus, ' if I once could 
 be persuaded the gods take care of man, I should 
 want no monitor to remind me of my duty.' ' And
 
 The Divine in Man. 91 
 
 canst them doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care 
 of man ? Hath not the glorious privilege of walking 
 upright been alone bestowed on him, whereby he 
 may with the better advantage survey what is around 
 him, contemplate with more ease those splendid ob- 
 jects which are above, and avoid the numerous ills 
 and inconveniences which would otherwise befall 
 him ? Other animals indeed they have provided 
 with feet, by which they may remove from one place 
 to another ; but to man they have also given hands, 
 with which he can form many things for his use, and 
 make himself happier than creatures of any other 
 kind. A tongue hath been bestowed on every other 
 animal ; but what animal, except man, hath the 
 power of forming words with it, whereby to explain 
 his thoughts, and make them intelligible to others ? 
 
 " ' But it is not with respect to the body alone that 
 the gods have shown themselves thus bountiful to 
 man. Their most excellent gift is that soul they 
 have infused into him, which so far surpasses what 
 is elsewhere to be found ; for by what animal, except 
 man, is even the existence of those gods discovered, 
 who have produced, and still uphold in such regular 
 order, this beautiful and stupendous frame of the 
 universe ? What other species of creature is to be 
 found that can serve, that can adore them ? What 
 other animal is able, like man, to provide against the 
 assaults of heat and cold, of thirst and hunger ; that 
 can lay up remedies for the time and of sickness, and 
 improve the strength nature has given by a well- 
 proportioned exercise ; that can receive, like him,
 
 92 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 information or instruction, or so happily keep in 
 memory what he hath seen and heard and learned ? 
 These things being so, who seeth not that man is, as 
 it were, a God in the midst of this visible creation ? 
 So far doth he surpass, whether in the endowments 
 of soul or body, all animals whatsoever that have 
 been produced therein : for, if the body of the ox had 
 been joined to the mind of man, the acuteness of the 
 latter would have stood him in small stead, while un- 
 able to execute the well-designed plan ; nor would 
 the human form have been of more use to the brute, 
 so long as it remained destitute of understanding. 
 But in thee, Aristodemus, hath been joined to a won- 
 derful soul a body no less wonderful ; and sayest 
 thou, after this, the gods take no thought for me ? 
 What wouldst thou then more to convince thee of 
 their care ? ' " 
 
 He seems to have entertained the mechanical 
 theory of nature, which Paley taught with such suc- 
 cess, but now becoming obsolete. Such a being at 
 once becomes a personality, a man. It can only be 
 grasped by the mind after the loss of its infinite 
 qualities. 
 
 EUCLID maintained that there was but one unut- 
 terable being, to be known by reason only. This 
 being was not simply The One, nor simply intelli- 
 gence : it was The Good. This being received various 
 names : sometimes Wisdom, sometimes God, at oth- 
 ers Reason. This one Good is the only thing which 
 exists. All else is phenomenal and transitory. 
 
 The doctrines of PLATO, the ardent disciple of
 
 Speculations of Plato. 93 
 
 Socrates, have peculiar interest ; as they have been 
 recently revived, and are considered by many as the 
 most profound ever enunciated. They also exerted 
 a great influence on infantile Christianity. Lewes 
 presents the following masterly summary of his doc- 
 trines : 
 
 " In the same way as Plato sought to detect the one 
 amidst the multiplicity of material phenomena, and, 
 having detected it, declared it to be the real essence 
 of matter, so also did he seek to detect the one 
 amidst the multiplicity of ideas, and, having detected 
 it, declared it to be God. What ideas were to phe- 
 nomena, God was to ideas, the last result of gener- 
 alization. God was thus the One Being, comprising 
 within himself all other beings ; the > xJ Tto'kl.d ; the 
 cause of all things, celestial and terrestrial. God 
 was the supreme idea. Whatever view we take of 
 the Platonic cosmology, whether God created 
 ideas, or whether he only fashioned unformed matter 
 after the model of ideas, we are equally led to the 
 conviction, that God represented the supreme idea 
 of all existence ; the great intelligence, source of all 
 other intelligences ; the sun whose light illumined 
 creation. God is perfect, ever the same, without en- 
 vy, wishing nothing but good ; for, although a clear 
 knowledge of God is impossible to mortals, an approx- 
 imation to that knowledge is possible. We cannot 
 know what he is : we can only know what he is like. 
 He must be good, because self-sufficing ; and the 
 world is good, because he made it. Why did he 
 make it ? God made the world because he was free
 
 94 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 from envy, and wished that all things should resem- 
 ble him as much as possible : he therefore persuaded 
 necessity to become stable, harmonious, and fash- 
 ioned according to excellence. Yes, " persuaded " is 
 Plato's word, for there were two eternal principles, 
 intelligence and necessity ; and from the mixture of 
 these the world was made. But intelligence per- 
 suaded necessity to be fashioned according to excel- 
 lence. He arranged chaos into beauty ; but as 
 there is nothing beautiful but intelligence, and as 
 there is no intelligence without a soul, he placed a 
 soul into the body of the world, and made the world 
 an animal. 
 
 " Plato's proof of the world being an animal is too 
 curious a specimen of his analogical reasoning to be 
 passed over. There is warmth in the human being : 
 there is warmth also in the world. The human be- 
 ing is composed of various elements, and is there- 
 fore called a body ; the world is also composed 
 of various elements, and is therefore a body : and, 
 as our bodies have souls, the body of the world 
 must have a soul ; and that soul stands in the same 
 relation to our souls as the warmth of the world 
 stands to our warmth. Having thus demonstrated 
 the world to be an animal, it was but .natural he 
 should conceive that animal as resembling its Crea- 
 tor, and human beings as resembling the universal 
 animal, TO nav coov. " As soon as the world, that image 
 of the eternal gods, as soon as that vast animal be- 
 gan to move, live, and think, God looked upon his 
 work, and was glad.
 
 Platonic Sol' ,tion of Problem of Evil. 95 
 
 " But, although God in his goodness would have 
 made nothing evil, he could not prevent the exist- 
 ence of it. Various disputes have been warmly 
 carried on by scholars, respecting the nature of this 
 evil which Plato was forced to admit. Some have 
 conceived it nothing less than the Manichaean doc- 
 trine. Thus much we may say : The notion of an an- 
 tagonist principle is inseparable from every religious 
 formula : as God can only be good, and as evil does 
 certainly exist, it must exist independently of him ; 
 it must be eternal. Plato cut the matter very short 
 by his logical principle, that, since there was a 
 good, there must necessarily be the contrary of good ; 
 namely, evil. If evil exists, how does it exist, and 
 where? It cannot find place in the celestial region of 
 ideas. It must therefore necessarily dwell in the ter- 
 restrial region of phenomena : its home is the world 
 it is banished from heaven. And is not this logical ? 
 What is the world of phenomena but an imperfect 
 copy of the world of ideas ? and how can the imper- 
 fect be the purely good ? When ideas are " realized," 
 as the pantheists would say ; when ideas, pure, im- 
 mutable essences, are clothed in material forms, or 
 when matter is fashioned after the model of those 
 ideas, what can result but imperfections ? The 
 ideas are not in this world : they are only in a state 
 of becoming, OVTVXJ ovxa, not ^vo^sva. Phenomena are 
 in their very nature imperfect : they are perpetually 
 striving to exist as realities. In their constitution 
 there is something of the divine : an image of the
 
 96 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 Idea, and some participation in it ; but more of the 
 primeval chaos. 
 
 " Those, therefore, who say that Plato thought 
 that ' Evil was inherent in matter/ though express- 
 ing themselves loosely, express themselves, on the 
 whole, correctly. Matter was the great necessity 
 which intelligence fashioned. Because it was neces- 
 sity, and unintelligent, it was evil ; for intelligence 
 alone can be good. 
 
 " Now, as this world of phenomena is the region 
 where evil dwells, we must use our utmost endeav- 
 ors to escape from it. And how escape ? By sui- 
 cide ? No : by leading the life of the gods. And 
 every Platonist knows that the life of the gods con- 
 sists in the eternal contemplation of truth, of ideas. 
 Thus, as on every side, are we forced to encounter 
 dialectics as the sole salvation of man. 
 
 " From the above explanation of evil, it will be 
 seen that there is no contradiction in Plato's saying, 
 that the quantity of evil in this life exceeded that 
 of the good : it exceeds it in the proportion that 
 phenomena exceed noumena, that matter exceeds 
 ideas. 
 
 " But, although evil be a necessary part of the 
 world, it is in constant struggle with good. What 
 is this but the struggle of becoming ? And man is 
 endowed with free will and intelligence : he may 
 therefore choose between good and evil. And ac- 
 cording to his choice will his future life be regulated. 
 Metempsychosis was a doctrine Plato borrowed from 
 Pythagoras ; and in that doctrine he could find argu-
 
 Ideas of the Stoics. 97 
 
 ments for the enforcement of a sage and virtuous 
 life, which no other afforded at that epoch." 
 
 The stoics said there two elements in nature. 
 The first was primordial matter, out of which every- 
 thing is formed. The second is the active creative 
 principle, reason, destiny, God. The divine reason 
 acting on nature bestows the laws which govern it. 
 God is the reason of the world. From this date 
 they deduced their system of ethics. If the divine 
 reason bestows the laws which govern matter, to live 
 in conformity to reason must be the practical moral 
 law ; and there is but one formula for morals,, and that 
 is, " Live harmoniously with nature." A better con- 
 clusion, no matter from what data derived, cannot be 
 attained. In the conflicting atmosphere of wordy 
 dispute and rash speculation, it gleams like a living 
 thought torn from the present. 
 
 Thus far we have spoken only of the ideas of the 
 sages, men of thought, who possessed all the know- 
 ledge and culture of their times. There is another 
 and more common view known as the mythology of 
 Greece and Rome : the system known to the common 
 people, and worked into form by the poets. The 
 philosophers regarded the great truths of religion as 
 too sacred to be given to the common people. They 
 shrouded them with mystery. The myths they 
 encouraged they did not themselves entertain. Just 
 as at present there is a religious system, with creeds 
 and dogmas and myths for the mass of the people, 
 while the best thinkers of the age are above them, 
 tolerating them only from policy and expediency. 
 7
 
 98 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 The cultivated nations of antiquity founded their 
 religion on mystery. Where and how the "Mys- 
 teries " were founded has created much discussion. 
 Their origin is lost in the night of time. They were 
 supported by the Egyptians, and perfected by the 
 Greeks, growing, little by little, under the guidance 
 of a priesthood, who, by dealing with things pertain- 
 ing to the divine, came to be regarded as personally 
 divine, and nearer the gods than other men. The 
 priests were educated in all that was known in science 
 and art. This knowledge, enveloped in a sacred dia- 
 lect, and exciting reverence by its unintelligibility, 
 was marshaled to work miracles before the terri- 
 fied initiates. Electricity, fulminating compounds, 
 hydrostatical pressure, and secret mechanical con- 
 trivances, were commanded by their exhaustless 
 wealth. Such charms and attractions were thrown 
 around the system, so vividly were the secrets of 
 life and death presented to the votary, that Cicero 
 says, " Men came from the most distant shores to be 
 initiated at Eleusis ; " and Sophocles remarks, " True 
 life is to be found only among the initiates : all other 
 places are full of evil." 
 
 The Mysteries was the great church of the ancient 
 world, in which concentrated all its spiritual ideas, 
 around which clustered all its hopes, and from which 
 Christianity drew the major part of its doctrines. 
 The efforts of Julian to stay the tide of Christian 
 reform, and restore the old doctrines ; the numerous 
 protests furnished by history, show how deeply 
 rooted were the Mysteries in the hearts of the people.
 
 The Sacred Mysteries. 99 
 
 What were these Mysteries ? From their secret 
 character little can be gathered of their most esoteric 
 parts ; but, from the allusions made by different 
 classic authors, a faint idea can be gathered of their 
 surpassing beauties and awful terrors. As celebrated 
 at Eleusis, by their singular magnificence and impos- 
 ing grandeur, they far eclipsed all others of the world, 
 and ancient writers take delight in exalting, and with 
 false learning gathering clouds around them. 
 
 These Mysteries were established about fourteen 
 centuries before Christ ; and such was their hold on 
 the popular mind, that for eighteen hundred years 
 they were celebrated, and were only abolished by the 
 severity of the bigoted Theodosius the Great. He 
 would not have the old faith linger otherwise than in 
 the Church. During all that period, the Mysteries 
 were held in superstitious reverence. If any one 
 revealed the secrets intrusted at initiation, the ven- 
 geance of the gods fell on his head, and it was 
 deemed unsafe to dwell in the same house with such 
 a wretch, whom, if the gods spared, was ignominiously 
 put to death. The stigma of non-observance was far 
 greater than that attending the infidelity at present. 
 It was a weighty charge brought against Socrates, 
 that he neglected the worship of the gods. 
 
 Every five years, all Athens assembled at Eleusis, 
 in Attica, to celebrate those solemnities. The vast 
 concourse gathered on the plains, around a splendid 
 temple erected over a cavern, in which, at an earlier 
 day, the rites were first held. This cave was exca- 
 vated into a labyrinth of passages, in which th
 
 ioo Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 novitiate could be led through darkness, until bewil- 
 dered and overcome with terror and fatigue. This 
 temple was of the purest Doric architecture, its end- 
 less colonnades chiseled from snowy marble, without 
 spot or stain. It stood on a swell of ground, and 
 could be seen, rising in crystal beauty, by all the 
 mighty multitude. Over its front was a colossal 
 head of Jupiter, calm, beneficent, all-powerful. On 
 either side a statue of Ceres smiled on the passing 
 worshiper. 
 
 All the effect produced by grandeur of architec- 
 ture, or beauty of form, was lavishly bestowed. Per- 
 sons of both sexes, and without regard to age, were 
 initiated. They had first to enter the lesser mysteries 
 of Agrae on a previous year ; then, at the expiration 
 of which, subject themselves to a rigid system of 
 purification. For nine days they bathed and fasted, 
 keeping themselves uncontaminated by the world. 
 Then they presented themselves before the temple 
 of the greater mystery. Athens has assembled-; old 
 men and young, husband and wife, and prattling 
 babe. Athens has betaken herself to the field for a 
 time, to indulge in free communion with nature and 
 the divine spirits whom she believes govern the 
 world. Those who await initiation the indoctrin- 
 ization into their subtile wisdom have crowns of 
 flowers, and offer sacrifices and prayers. Under 
 their feet they wear the skin of some animal offered 
 to Jupiter. Then they offered a sow to Ceres, in 
 thankfulness for the influence for good she exerts. 
 
 They were then prepared to enter the presence of
 
 The Sacred Mysteries. 101 
 
 the gods, having overcome the sins of the body. 
 Night settles over the mountains of the most beau- 
 tiful spot on earth. They silently repose, overlooked 
 by the brilliant stars. A multitude of fires glimmer 
 over the plain, but the people have gone to the tem- 
 ple. They are assisting the uninitiated in their first 
 lessons. With crowns of myrtle, these were led into 
 the temple. At the door was a fount of holy water, 
 in which they washed. Above this, in a recess, sat 
 a priest. With a calm, low, but terrible voice, he 
 asked the candidates, one by one, the following ques- 
 tions, all of which they must answer in the affirma- 
 tive, or be at once expelled : " Have you passed the 
 mystery of the Agrae ? Are you pure and spotless 
 from the world ? Are you free from crime ? " Then, 
 in an impressive tone, he chanted, " He who enters 
 must be pure, or the gods will destroy him. He 
 who passes this portal goes into a shadow, from 
 which only the just return. O weak, thoughtless, 
 and improvident mortal, daring to penetrate the 
 realm of the gods, aspire to truth and perfection, and 
 strive to discard the flesh and the world." 
 
 Then they were led onward, in front of a lofty 
 tribunal, when the mysteries, or laws, were read to 
 them. These were written on two stones cemented 
 together. Then they were led before another tribu- 
 nal, more lofty and imposing than the other. Above 
 it was a zone, on which was painted the twelve signs 
 of the zodiac : on its front was a blazing sun, on 
 either side of which was a winged globe. The in- 
 tense light beneath revealed the priest seated in an
 
 IO2 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 ivory chair, his dark mantle embroidered with gold, 
 and a silver crown on his temples. All else was 
 blackness and profoundest gloom. The awe-struck 
 initiates could see nothing but the form of the priest 
 glittering in the terrible darkness. As they paused 
 before him, he asked them a series of questions 
 referring to the conduct of their lives. When they 
 were answered, he waved them onward into the pro- 
 found gloom. 
 
 As they advanced, a terrific blast extinguished 
 their dim torches ; the darkness became stifling ; 
 the trembling worshiper was blinded with lightning, 
 that seemed to hiss through the void. The crash of 
 thunders deafened their ears ; the earth swayed and 
 quaked under their feet, and from its bowels came 
 the most frightful bowlings and meanings, as of 
 myriads of lost souls writhing in the agony of 
 scorching flames. Out of the darkness leaped spec- 
 tres of gigantic and awful outline. Sometimes these 
 shades threatened to destroy the pale and trembling 
 worshiper : at others, they mockingly laughed and 
 derided, and the vaulted rocks echoed their demoniac 
 merriment. Then others would spring up, like a 
 body of flame, and as instantly disappear. Then a 
 thousand would arise out of the blackness, and with 
 a sound of a whirlwind rush towards the intruders. 
 As they came near, they vanished, and the place was 
 left in night, and from afar came the most dismal and 
 terrifying wails. 
 
 Such were the sufferings of those who were un- 
 true to the Mysteries, by revealing the secrets there
 
 The Sacred Mysteries. 103 
 
 revealed, of those who were unjust and evil on earth, 
 and who disregarded the rights of their fellow-men. 
 No one, not even the stoutest-hearted soldier, 
 imbued with superstition as they were, could endure 
 the terrible ordeal. They sank, stupefied, on the 
 marble floor, and stared vacantly at the horrid forms 
 of men, the flying dragons and scorpions, the huge 
 and ravenous beasts and birds of prey, which winged 
 hissingly above them. Their hair stood upright, the 
 cold perspiration beaded on their rigid foreheads. 
 Their guide assumed the form of a demon ; and they 
 arose, and mechanically followed through long and 
 winding passages and labyrinthine mazes. Hoarse 
 voices shouted and shrieked behind them, to seize 
 and destroy the outcasts, to drag them with vul- 
 ture-beaks into the abysm of fire. The hissing of 
 their breath was close upon them ; the swift sound 
 of myriads smote the ear ; their very touch could be 
 felt by the initiate, too frightened to escape. Then 
 in an instant light broke in a glittering flood of silver 
 over the scene. They stood in a magnificent hall, 
 lighted from an azure dome above, by a light like the 
 sun's. Marble pillars supported it on every side, be- 
 tween which, in various attitudes, the gods and god- 
 desses were chiseled from Parian. Surges of most 
 exquisite melody filled the place, and thrilled the 
 soul with its perfection. With unspeakable joy they 
 beheld a being clothed in white, with silver embroi- 
 dery, descending from a throne, and, taking each by 
 the hand, pronounce the words, " It is finished." * 
 * Apaleius.
 
 IO4 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 Out of the blackness and turmoil ; out of the in- 
 sane madness, the death-grappling of this life ; out of 
 its seething trials, and groans of anguish, its night 
 of sorrow and pain, comes the light, the bright 
 day of joy, the beautiful day of peace and ever- 
 enduring happiness. In ourselves we are nothing. 
 The gods are all in all. Rely on their guidance,, and 
 reject the sham of this life. Such was the lesson 
 burned into the heart ; branded indelibly into the 
 fibres of the soul. 
 
 All that was awful, terrific, amazing, dreadful, was 
 presented ; and after it the sinking soul was lifted 
 to heaven, on the wings of all that please and de- 
 light. 
 
 What were the words read from the tablets of 
 stone, for which these mysteries were an introduc- 
 tion and a safeguard ? So profoundly was the 
 knowledge of them concealed, that historians have 
 never obtained a syllable. They were, probably, the 
 rules for moral conduct, similar to those which Moses 
 gave the Israelites, principles which man early 
 learns, and which naturally arrange themselves into 
 a moral code. 
 
 The Mysteries were celebrated for nine days, dur- 
 ing which all distinctions of rank and wealth were 
 abolished. Lycurgus passed a law that any woman 
 who should attend in a chariot should be fined six 
 thousand drachmas. These nine days were filled 
 with interesting and curious episodes. The meet- 
 ing on the first day was that of a social gathering. 
 Afterwards they bathed in the sea, to purify them-
 
 The Sacred Mysteries. 105 
 
 selves ; offered a sacrifice to the gods, and a small 
 quantity of barley to Ceres, the goddess of the har- 
 vest. Every ceremony had a meaning to the enthu- 
 siastic worshipers. The processions following the 
 basket of Ceres, of women carrying the various 
 products of the earth, the pausing on the bridge 
 Cephissus to deride the passer-by, the games where- 
 in the reward for the victor was a measure of barley, 
 possessed meanings, which, however dim to us, were 
 significant to their votaries. 
 
 They have been charged with immorality by big- 
 oted sectaries who wished thereby to prove the ne- 
 cessity of revelation ; but the concurrent voice of 
 antiquity confirms their pure morality. Men like 
 Plato, Sophocles, Lycurgus, and Cicero, eulogize 
 their influence. Minor branches may have de- 
 scended to vile practices ; but it was always said 
 of the great Mysteries, that they purified the heart, 
 inspired and calmed the mind, and, with an exalted 
 morality, taught the hopes of sublime realities of a 
 higher life. * 
 
 Such was the religion Christianity supplanted, not 
 Judaism. From it was drawn the primary doctrines 
 of the Orthodox faith, such as the trinity, the incar- 
 nation, the resurrection of the dead, the atonement, 
 hell, heaven, purgatory, and the judgment-day. 
 
 Such was the magnificent esoteric system of the 
 ancients. It was only open to the aristocrats of in- 
 tellect. The commonality received another form 
 more consistent with their mental conceptions 
 
 * Cicero. De. Leg., lib. ii. cap. xiv.
 
 io6 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 With them Jupiter ruled the vaults of air, Neptune 
 the ocean, and Pluto the dark and shadowy under- 
 world. From the Thunderer on high Olympus, down 
 the interminable distance to man, there was a succes- 
 sion of deities, possessing all grades of intelligence 
 and power. Some writers argue that these myths 
 were inventions of priests, and others that they are 
 symbolic : both explanations are unnecessary, for 
 they are spontaneous creations of a buoyant fancy, 
 brought in its youth and immaturity in contact with 
 the startling phenomena of nature. Poetry ruled. 
 Rocks, rivers, streams, woods, trees, fountains, all 
 were personified. The child afraid of the dark per- 
 sonifies night, and fear of the dark forest peoples the 
 wood with dryads. 
 
 The " Mysteries " are of a much later growth. 
 There can be no priests until the accumulation of a 
 rude mythology renders their mediation necessary. 
 
 Jupiter was regarded by the people as the central 
 power, gathering around him the other deities in a 
 family of the gods. He assigns their provinces, and 
 controls their power. Their combined efforts do not 
 change his purpose, and even when he rebukes them 
 the serenity of his soul is undisturbed. His might 
 is irresistible, and his wisdom unsearchable. He 
 holds the golden balance in which is poised the des- 
 tiny of nations and men. The eternal order of 
 events and earthly kings receive their power from 
 him. But, omnipotent and infinite as he is repre- 
 sented, he has his human side, and is subject to all 
 the passions.
 
 The Family of the Gods. 107 
 
 Though secure from dissolution, and exceedingly 
 beautiful and strong, and warmed with a purer blood, 
 his celestial power is sensible to pleasure and pain. 
 In common with all the inferior gods, he needs the 
 refreshment of ambrosial food, and the savor of sac- 
 rifices is grateful to him. He loves, hates, is jealous, 
 wavers in his purposes, is overreached by artifice, 
 blinded by desire, and, by resentment, hurried into 
 disreputable violence. * 
 
 He is nothing more than a Greek intensified and 
 given the largest ideal power. 
 
 As the gods are in every respect human, the an- 
 cients believed that to gain their favor required the 
 same manners as to approach a powerful mortal, 
 homage and tribute ; or, in the language of reli- 
 gion, worship and sacrifice. The gods were re- 
 galed with the fragrance from the altar ; and, the 
 more sumptuous the offering, the better were they 
 pleased. If the god was thought angry, the offering 
 was unusually large. If exceedingly wroth, nothing 
 less than a human life would serve the purpose. 
 With the Greeks, the immolation of human victims 
 was early discarded for milder forms ; but there can 
 be no doubt but their altars were once stained with 
 human gore, as were those of all the surrounding 
 nations. 
 
 Jupiter, the supreme, becomes the father of the 
 inferior gods and goddesses. Minerva sprang from 
 his head ; Themis bore him the Seasons and Fates ; 
 the ocean-nymph Eurynome bore him the Graces ; 
 
 * Thirwall.
 
 1 08 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 Ceres, by him, became mother of Proserpine ; Mne- 
 mosyne, of the Muses ; Latona, of Apollo and Diana ; 
 and his last wife, Juno, bore him Mars, Hebe, and 
 Slithgia. Homer says that Venus was the daugh- 
 ter of Jupiter and Dione. Mortal women also bore 
 him a numerous progeny, and his purposes were 
 often effected by disguise and deceit. 
 
 The application of this to the supreme God may 
 seem sacrilegious ; but we must remember, and pass 
 judgment with proper reservation, that Jehovah the 
 Supreme God is represented in the Bible with human 
 passions and frailties. He ate " veal " with Abra- 
 ham ; " wrestled " with Jacob ; talked familiarly with 
 Moses on the most common topics ; smelt a " sweet 
 savor " from the burning sacrifice ; " repented " 
 making man ; was cruel, wrathful, jealous, and re- 
 vengeful. 
 
 We have in this chapter condensed the progress 
 of opinions in relation to God of nearly a thousand 
 years. From the simple conception of water as the 
 Infinite, to the Eternal Infinite Intelligence of Socra- 
 tes, is a gulf spurned by the most gigantic labors of 
 the human mind. We shall now see how these lines 
 of advance converge, and re-appear through the 
 Alexandrian school in Christianity.
 
 VI. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA" OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL 
 AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY 
 
 THOSE who adore me devoutly are in me, and I in them. Crishna is at 
 all times present everywhere ; just as fire, though concealed in wood. 
 BHAGAVAT GEETA. 
 
 To know that God is, and that ALL is God, this is the substance of the 
 Vedas. VEDAS. 
 
 EVERY violet blooms of God ; each lily is fragrant with the presence of 
 Deity. The awful scenes of storm and lightning and thunder seem but 
 the eternal sounds of the great concert, wherewith God speaks to man. 
 
 PARKER. 
 
 I HAD foolishly hoped that I should soon behold the Deity. 
 
 JUSTIN MARTYR. 
 
 r I "*HE Alexandrian school of Dialectics stood be- 
 J- tween the philosophers and the Christian 
 world. In its teachings we discover the dawn of 
 those abstruse speculations which early engaged the 
 church fathers in never-ending discussion. 
 
 PHILO was the first of the Neo-Platonists. A Jew 
 by birth, he mingled, in a strange mysticism, Greek 
 philosophy and Oriental imagination. He dis- 
 trusted the truth of sensuous knowledge, and denied 
 the value of reason as a criterion of truth. He be- 
 lieved in a higher faculty in man, which he called 
 faith. 
 
 He taught that God is ineffable and incomprehen-
 
 1 10 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 sible. We may learn his existence, but not his na- 
 ture. The simple knowledge that he exists, in it- 
 self, is the knowledge of his being one, perfect, 
 immutable, and without attribute. But this is not a 
 knowledge of the elements of his perfection. This 
 finite eye cannot penetrate. We can only believe. 
 If we cannot learn this, we can his essence. We 
 learn this in the Logos, or word. The word forms a 
 strange feature in the mystical system, and was in- 
 serted in the Bible. God being wholly inapproach- 
 able, there must be something intermediate between 
 him and man, and this is supplied by the word. 
 According to Philo, the word is God's thought. This 
 thought is twofold. The thought embracing all 
 ideas, and the realized thought : thought became the 
 world. In this statement, the trinity of Plotinus is 
 foreshadowed : first, God the Father ; second, God 
 the Son, or the word ; and, third, the World. He 
 agreed with the Cabalists, that there was a mother 
 of the universe, whom he called Sophia, or wisdom. 
 Ideas or types, according to which the Logos formed 
 the world, originated from the two. The Logos he 
 calls " the Son of God," " the express image of God." 
 No created being resembled the Supreme Father. 
 Man was created in the image of the Logos. Such 
 were the vague dreams of one who lived near the 
 eventful dawn of the present era. Plotinus, who per- 
 haps represents the school better than any other of 
 its adherents, held, with Plato, that there could be but 
 one science of universals. Individual things were but 
 phenomena swiftly passing away ; had no real exist-
 
 Speculations of Plotinus. 1 1 1 
 
 ence, and were hence unworthy of the attention of 
 the philosopher. Ideas were the only universals. 
 The ideal world is the perfect expression of the 
 mode of God's existence. The sensible world is un- 
 real to us through our senses. Of the ideal we gain 
 glimpses through the reminiscence which the sensi- 
 ble world awakens ; but how are we to take the last 
 step ? how are we to understand the Deity ? 
 
 As we are finite beings, to comprehend the Infi- 
 nite, we must become infinite ourselves. It cannot 
 be through reason ; which necessarily is finite, and 
 embraces only finite objects. It must be through 
 some higher and altogether impersonal faculty which 
 identifies with its object. * 
 
 The only possible ground for knowledge is the 
 identity of subject and object, or, in other words, of 
 the thought with the thing thought of. Knowledge 
 and being are identical. 
 
 " If," says Plotinus, " knowledge is the same as 
 the thing known, the finite, as finite, can never know 
 the Infinite, because it cannot be the Infinite. To 
 attempt, therefore, to know the Infinite by reason is 
 futile : it can only be known in immediate presence. 
 The faculty by which the mind divests itself of its 
 personality is ecstasy. In this ecstasy the soul be- 
 comes freed from its material prison, separated from 
 individual consciousness, and becomes absorbed in 
 the infinite intelligence from which it emanated. In 
 this ecstasy it contemplates real existence : it iden- 
 tifies itself with that which it contemplates." 
 
 * Plotinus, En. v. lib. 5, c. 10.
 
 112 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 This speculation, while it savors of Platonism, in- 
 dicates its Oriental origin. Thus the Alexandrians 
 answered the world-old question, " How do we know 
 God?" 
 
 That man has a knowledge of God, is proof that 
 there is some method of obtaining such knowledge. 
 Reason is inadequate because finite. It must be 
 obtained through ecstasy, in which the soul lost its 
 conscious individuality, and came in contact with, 
 and was absorbed by, the infinite intelligence. To 
 understand the Infinite, man must for the moment 
 become the Infinite. 
 
 Absurd as this conslusion appears, it is not as ab- 
 surd as the opposite, which degrades the Infinite, 
 instead of exalting the finite. It is not as absurd as 
 the anthropomorphic, which is universally entertained 
 by Christendom. 
 
 The Alexandrian school, in their speculations on 
 the nature of the Infinite, furnished material for the 
 church dogma of the holy trinity ; the basis, as 
 M. Saisset remarks, of all Christian metaphysics. 
 Almost all the important heresies have grown out of 
 it, and therefore it is of deep interest to determine 
 its parentage. It is maintained by one party, that 
 the church received it from the Alexandrians ; and, 
 by another, that the latter received it from Christi- 
 anity. The first party are certainly in the right, for 
 the doctrine is traceable through preceding centuries 
 of thought, and in that school is more completely 
 developed. 
 
 The doctrine of the trinity may be stated thus :
 
 Speculations of the Alexandrians. 113 
 
 God is three, and at the same time is one. His 
 nature contains within itself three distinct sub- 
 stances, that is, persons, which make one being. 
 The first is not being, nor the one being, but sim- 
 ply unity. The second is intelligence; which is iden- 
 tical with being. The third is universal soul, cause 
 of all activity and life. * These strange and seem- 
 ingly conflicting conceptions are obtained by an in- 
 genious method of reasoning. Man looks abroad 
 over the realm of nature, and sees change every- 
 where. This change is not fortuitous, as the most 
 cursory investigation shows, but proceeds to fixed 
 ends and purposes. He asks for the cause, and the 
 most apparent is life. The world is alive with a life 
 similar in kind to his own. Proceeding farther in 
 the investigation, and inquiring into the origin of 
 life, he finds that it is motion. But this motion does 
 not work by chance. It is directed, and directed 
 intelligently. Here, then, is the cause he has been 
 seeking : it is intelligent motion. What is this but 
 the wonderful power residing in man himself? 
 What is it but a soul ? Is it not a fragment like in 
 kind, different only in degree, from the universal 
 and eternal soul of the world ? And what is this 
 universal and eternal soul, but God ? This is the 
 first person of the Alexandrian trinity. 
 
 But men who were bred in the schools of Plato 
 
 and Aristotle could not rest here. Trained to 
 
 wrestle with the most abstract thoughts, they soon 
 
 discovered that the term # intelligent activity " was 
 
 * Biog. His. Philosophy, Lewes, p. 321.
 
 H4 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 capable of farther reduction. There are two distinct 
 ideas expressed. Intelligence is referable to the 
 mind of some intelligent being. Motion is the di- 
 vine soul ; intelligence, the divine mind. It is pure 
 thought abstracted from all thinking. It does not 
 reason, for to reason is to acquire knowledge. It 
 sees the consequence simultaneously with the prem- 
 ises. It is eternal existence embracing all ideas. 
 Here, seemingly, is the ultimate of abstraction, pure 
 thought abstracted from thinking, and pure being 
 abstracted from existence ; but the Alexandrian Di- 
 alecticians saw a still higher form. God, as exist- 
 ence and thought, is God as conceived by human 
 reason ; only a hint of the pure unity, its highest 
 ideal. Its type is human reason. An examination 
 of thought reveals that to think is to distinguish 
 our existence from some other existence. But noth- 
 ing can be external with God. In him there can be 
 no distinction, determination, nor relation. Hence, 
 he must be superior to thought, or being ; must be 
 a unity, which is not existence nor intelligence. 
 Unity is omnipresent, and the bond which unites all 
 complex things, the absolute universal one. It is 
 the highest perfection and supreme good. 
 
 Plotinus saw that God was not defined by this 
 effort of logic. What he really is cannot be known. 
 It is folly to strive to comprehend him. What is 
 this unity ? It is " absolute' negation ; " it is the ul- 
 timate of logic ; what Hegel would call the " abso- 
 lute nothing," the immanent negative. There only 
 can the mind rest ; for, when it predicates anything
 
 Why God Creates. 115 
 
 of the point at which it stops, it is forced to admit 
 something beyond. Its course is roughly drawn by 
 the fable of the world resting on the back of an ele- 
 phant, that stands on the back of a tortoise, that 
 reposed on nothing. At the absolute negation only, 
 can such logic find repose. 
 
 Plotinus had discovered the necessity of unity as 
 the basis of existence. If the unity had ever re- 
 mained alone, the many could not have been created. 
 The many implies the one, as the one implies the 
 many. Each principle engenders that which follows 
 a power ineffable, and exercised from generation to 
 generation, till its utmost limits are attained. 
 
 The Christians were satisfied by saying, God 
 created the universe by the simple effort of his will ; 
 for with omnipotence all things are possible, and 
 one effort is no greater than another. The Alex- 
 andrians said that the world was a manifestation of 
 God. It is distinct from, yet a part of, God. 
 
 A ready answer was found for the question, " Why 
 should God create ? " Aristotle says, " A God who 
 does not think is unworthy of respect. If intelligent, 
 he must be active. A force, to be such, must engen- 
 der something." The creation, therefore, springs from 
 the very nature of God. He is of necessity a cre- 
 ator. He is like a sun, constantly throwing off rays, 
 without diminution of substance. All change, the 
 ceaseless flux and reflux of things, is perishable, and 
 has no absolute truth or duration. To die is to live. 
 It is to throw off the individuality with its pitiable 
 limitations of space and time, and be absorbed into
 
 1 1 6 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 the bosom of the Infinite One. In the momentary 
 thrills of ecstasy the soul is thus for the time ab- 
 sorbed, and feels the exquisite rapture of the immor- 
 tal being, and becomes conscious of the divine light 
 struggling to break through the fetters of flesh, and 
 free itself. Imbued with such conceptions, the dy- 
 ing Plotinus exclaims, ." I am struggling to liberate 
 the divinity within me." 
 
 The slow development of these convictions in re- 
 gard to God, and man's position and relations, is ob- 
 servable through long centuries of painful thought. 
 All the great minds, from Heraclites to Plotinus, 
 were oppressed by a sense of their own littleness, 
 and the fruitlessness of the attempt to arrive at ab- 
 solute truth. They felt a contempt for themselves, 
 and hence the popularity of the stoics and cynics. 
 This life is nothing, the future is the all. . But we 
 love life too well to destroy it. We are too mysteri- 
 ously connected with the web of the world to cast it 
 from us ; but we can become moral suicides, and 
 hence asceticism. If man cannot command courage 
 to leave the world, he can withdraw himself from its 
 influence. He can become a stylite, or a hermit. 
 
 Greek philosophy expired with the Alexandrian 
 school. Beginning with Thales, it stretches over 
 the long centuries in a complete circle of endeavor. 
 However successful in other fields, in the solution of 
 the nature of God, it made scarcely any advance. 
 Mistaking the path of true investigation, its colossal 
 genii wandered over an arid desert, boundless, awful, 
 enchanting, but destitute of life or beauty. Thales
 
 Failure of the Greek Sages. 117 
 
 at the threshold saw as clearly as they who came 
 seven centuries after him. They failed in solving 
 this problem : but the human mind was cultivated by 
 their efforts, as an athlete is strengthened for useful 
 labor by the exertions of the gymnasium ; and the 
 soil was prepared for the true method. 
 
 They elevated ethics to the rank of a science, and 
 extended the exceedingly narrow views of morality 
 entertained by the Greeks, and prepared the way for 
 the reception of those more perfect and complete 
 conceptions of individual responsibilities and social 
 relations known as Christianity. 
 
 From the portico of the philosopher these ques- 
 tions passed to the early Christians, who, in the ar- 
 dent fervor of a new belief, sought their solution by 
 ecstasy more than by reason. 
 
 Plato, unable to solve the problem how from a di- 
 vine unity the diversity of creation could arise, ana- 
 lized this unity into three parts, the cause, the rea- 
 son or Logos, and the soul or spirit of the universe. 
 These metaphysical abstractions in his ardent imagi- 
 nation were clothed with personality, and consid- 
 ered as three gods, united with each other by mys- 
 terious and ineffable generation. The Logos was 
 the Son of the eternal Father and Creator, and 
 Governor of the world. This doctrine was received 
 and exemplified by the Alexandrian school, where 
 the Mosaic doctrines met Grecian philosophy on 
 equal grounds. The belief was a simple abstraction 
 until the incarnation of the Logos in the person of 
 Christ demonstrated its truth to the astonished Pa-
 
 1 1 8 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 gans. The theology of Plato, anticipating by three 
 hundred years that of Christ, naturally excited the 
 curiosity of the early Christians, and by them was 
 eagerly studied. 
 
 The mysterious triad, or trinity, was vehemently 
 agitated in the schools of Alexandria. With intense 
 curiosity they sought the solution, but with results 
 disproportioned to the labor expended. The great 
 Athanasius confesses that in the vast undertaking 
 he is lost, and that the more he thinks the less he 
 understands. When the human mind measures it- 
 self with the Infinite, it comprehends how inade- 
 quate are its powers. 
 
 Yet it was the boast of Tertullian that a Christian 
 mechanic understood this subject better than a Gre- 
 cian sage ; and it may be truly said, that, when the 
 subject is so 'great, there is slight difference between 
 what the wise or the foolish know. The salvation 
 of the soul depended on the reception of this doc- 
 trine ; and the more ignorant a person was, the more 
 unthinkingly was the doctrine received. 
 
 The trinity was the only escape of the early 
 fathers who claimed the divinity of Christ. This 
 was early made ; as the Christians of Bithynia, only 
 fourscore years after the death of Christ, declared 
 before the tribunal of Pliny that they received Christ 
 as a god, and worshiped him as such. They could 
 not believe that the Great Eternal One had become 
 incarnated. They held the worship of a created be- 
 ing in horror, but the Platonic trinity completely 
 met the difficulty. It was gratifying to contemplate
 
 Three Aspects of the Trinity. 1 1 9 
 
 the Supreme as undisturbed, while the Logos be- 
 came incarnated and a mediator between God and 
 man. 
 
 The disputants at first confined themselves more 
 to the distinctions than the quality of the persons of 
 the Godhead ; but they afterwards exhausted the 
 latter subject as well. They next investigated the 
 eternity of the Logos, and the wild flames of ecclesi- 
 astical discord were awakened. The learned, pure, 
 and blameless Arius preached the unity of God, and 
 was condemned as a heretic, a sentence confirmed 
 by the Council of Nice. 
 
 When this subject is investigated, it is found to 
 receive three distinct forms in the human mind, and 
 is presented by Gibbon in the following masterly 
 manner : * 
 
 " I. According to the first hypothesis, which was 
 maintained by Arius and his disciples, the Logos was 
 a dependent and spontaneous production, created 
 from nothing by the will of the Father. The Son, 
 by whom all things were made, had been begotten 
 before all worlds, and the longest of the astronomi- 
 cal periods could be compared only as a fleeting mo- 
 ment to the extent of his duration ; yet this dura- 
 tion was was not infinite, and there had been a time 
 which preceded the ineffable generation of the Logos. 
 On this only-begotten Son the Almighty Father had 
 transfused his ample spirit, and impressed the efful- 
 gence of his glory. Visible image of invisible per- 
 fection, he saw, at an immeasurable distance beneath 
 
 * Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
 
 1 20 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 his feet, the thrones of the brightest archangels : yet 
 he shone only with a reflected light ; and like the 
 sons of the Roman emperors, who were invested 
 with the titles of Caesar or Augustus, he governed 
 the universe in obedience to the will of his Father 
 and Monarch. 
 
 " II. In the second hypothesis, the Logos pos- 
 sessed all the inherent, incommunicable perfections, 
 which religion and philosophy appropriate to the 
 Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds or 
 substances, three co-equal and co-eternal beings, 
 composed the Divine Essence ; and it would not 
 have implied contradiction, that any of them should 
 not have existed, or that they should ever cease to 
 exist. The advocates of a system which seemed to 
 establish three independent deities attempted to 
 preserve the unity of the first cause, so conspicuous 
 in the design and order of the world, by the perpet- 
 ual- concord of their administration and the essen- 
 tial agreement of their will. A faint resemblance 
 of this unity of action may be discovered in the so- 
 cieties of men, and even of animals. The causes 
 which disturb their harmony proceed only from the 
 imperfection and inequality of their faculties : but 
 the omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom 
 and goodness cannot fail of choosing the same 
 means for the accomplishment of the same ends. 
 
 "III. Three Beings, who, by the self-derived ne- 
 cessity of their existence, possess all the divine at- 
 tributes in the most perfect degree ; who are eternal 
 in duration, infinite in space, and intimately present
 
 Attempts to Escape. 121 
 
 to each other, and to the whole universe, irresisti- 
 bly force themselves on the astonished mind, as one 
 and the same Being, who, in the economy of grace, 
 as well in that of nature, may manifest himself under 
 different forms, and be considered under different 
 aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial trin- 
 ity is refined into a trinity of names and abstract 
 modifications, that subsist only in the mind which 
 conceives them. The Logos is no longer a person, 
 but an attribute ; and it is only in a figurative sense 
 that the epithet of Son can be applied to the eternal 
 reason which was with God from the beginning, and 
 by which, not by whom, all things were made. The 
 incarnation of the Logos is reduced to a mere inspi- 
 ration of the divine wisdom, which filled the soul, 
 and directed all the actions, of the man Jesus. Thus, 
 after revolving round the theological cycle, we are 
 surprised to find that the Sabellian ends where the 
 Ebionite had begun ; and that the incomprehensible 
 mystery, which excites our adoration, eludes our in- 
 quiry." 
 
 As drowning men grasp at straws, these early dis- 
 putants seized the most fanciful resemblances to 
 support their conflicting claims. Augustine consid- 
 ered the creation of the world in six days as a proof 
 of the trinity, because " six days is twice three." 
 
 Ambrose argued that " Jesus appeared to be the 
 son of a carpenter to signify that Christ the Son 
 was the maker of all things. The Arians quoted the 
 early fathers to prove that there was a time when the 
 Son did not exist : but this idea was decided to be
 
 122 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 heresy. Then arose the question, if Christ was co- 
 eternal with God, how came he to say, " Of that hour 
 knoweth no man ; no, not even the Son, but only the 
 Father." This difficulty was removed by the Coun- 
 cil of Chalcedon, which decided that Christ pos- 
 sessed two perfectly harmonizing natures, the divine 
 and the human. As God, he knew everything ; but, 
 as a man, many things were concealed from him. 
 
 The ancient unbelievers in the divinity of Christ 
 continually asked why the prophets and apostles, 
 or Christ himself, had not spoken definitely on the 
 trinity ; and why he only made the most vague allu- 
 sions to it. Some of the fathers replied, it was on 
 account of the material tendency of the Jews ; and 
 others, that it was necessary to keep the Devil igno- 
 rant of the fact 
 
 Athanasius says, " that the apostles were ignorant 
 of his being God ; " and Chrysostom thought it ab- 
 solutely necessary for them to have been ignorant. 
 All the fathers agree that for this design it was ne- 
 cessary for Mary to have a nominal husband. 
 
 They seized the Egyptian mystical numbers as 
 proof. The number three, the Deity in his com- 
 pleteness. One of the most ancient symbols in 
 Egypt and Hindostan, of the Infinite, was a triangle 
 with an eye in the centre. The Hindoos represent 
 their three great gods by an image with three faces. 
 The Cabalists expressed the idea of Plato in Hebrew 
 style by Jehovah, the wisdom of Jehovah, and the 
 habitation of Jehovah. In all countries, philosophers
 
 Speculations of Origen. 123 
 
 and mystics have yielded ascent to the idea that God 
 was one in three. 
 
 The Arians, followers of the great and exemplary 
 Arius, believed, either without reserve or according 
 to the Scriptures, that the Son differed from all other 
 creatures, and was similar only to the Father. But 
 he denied that he was of the same or similar sub- 
 stance. The dispute between the Athanasians and 
 Arians was not an unity or trinity, so much as the 
 word " substance," and other verbal distinctions. But 
 these were sufficient cause for endless dispute, and 
 the life of Athanasius was consumed in his opposition 
 to the madness of Arius and the promulgation of a 
 doctrine eventually to triumph. 
 
 Origen acknowledged a personal God, within 
 whose consciousness all things that exist are em- 
 braced ; who created by the exercise of his will. 
 The Logos was to the Father what reason is in 
 man. He was the concentration of the glory of 
 God, reflected from thence to the world of spirit ; 
 the agent employed in creating the world ; the 
 truth, the wisdom. The Holy Spirit was the divine 
 energy of Deity : with the Son it was as much exalt- 
 ed above all other spiritual existences as the Father 
 was above them. He considered Christ a perfect 
 man with a rational soul, a sensitive soul, and a body 
 like other men. The Logos united himself with 
 Christ's rational soul. By this means the Logos 
 came into communication with the sensuous nature, 
 and Christ received divine power. The Holy Spirit 
 descended on Christ at his baptism.
 
 124 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 The minds of the early converts were prepared 
 by their Pagan beliefs to receive the doctrine of the 
 incarnation of Christ. They believed that the 
 spirits of sages and heroes watched over the welfare 
 of their favorite people, and hence their deification. 
 That these spirits could return and become incar- 
 nated was also universally received. 
 
 The incarnation was not of doubtful solution, but 
 its manner in this particular instance became as dif- 
 ficult of solution as the trinity itself. The Ebion- 
 ites were deeply imbued with the material ideas 
 of the Jews in regard to a temporal Messiah. They 
 could not invest the son of a carpenter with divin- 
 ity. If, as some supposed, he was an offspring of a 
 virgin and the Holy Ghost, then, with faculties en- 
 larged by the Father to meet every requirement, he 
 was super-mortal. But those who had conversed 
 with Christ as with a friend, had seen him mature 
 from infancy, could not free themselves from the 
 prejudice of their senses, which declared him like 
 other men. 
 
 When the doctrine of his divinity was transplanted 
 from the sterile soil of Syria to Rome, where men 
 had not come in direct contact with Christ or his 
 apostles, it met a ready acceptance. The philoso- 
 phers of that age were accustomed to contemplate 
 a long succession, an infinite chain, of angels or dei- 
 ties, as emanations from the eternal. The incarna- 
 tion of a god was not out of the supposed order. 
 They were prepared to receive the doctrine of a new 
 and recent advent of the Logos. They were too
 
 Repugnance to Matter. 125 
 
 deeply impressed with the inherent corruption of 
 matter to suppose the pure spirit could come in di- 
 rect contact with it. They sacrificed the humanity 
 of Christ to his divinity. While his blood was still 
 recent on Calvary, the Dqcetes, a numerous and 
 learned sect of Asiatics, broached the system which 
 afterwards became famous under the various names 
 of the Gnostic sects. They summarily denied all 
 those parts of the gospel relating to the birth and 
 youth of Christ, claiming that he first appeared on 
 the banks of the Jordan in perfect manhood, but in 
 appearance only. He was an illusion created by the 
 hand of the Omnipotent. The rage of the Jews was 
 wasted on a phantom. Their Jehovah became trans- 
 formed by the Gnostics into a rebellious and igno- 
 rant spirit ; and the son of God came to overthrow 
 his power. The Armenians still retain this belief, 
 holding that the manhood only of Christ existed 
 without creation of a divine substance. 
 
 The religious feelings of the East connected moral 
 with spiritual ideas, and regarded spirit as essentially 
 pure and divine, while matter was inherently corrupt 
 and evil. Christianity first came in conflict with 
 Orientalism at Ephesus, which, working insidiously 
 into its structure, threatened to entirely subvert its 
 design. 
 
 Of these opponents, Cerinthus, placed on the con- 
 fines of the Jewish and Gentile worlds, the first who 
 admitted the tenets of Christianity, strove to recon- 
 cile Gnosticism with the Ebionite faith, or Chris- 
 tianity with Oriental mysticism. Christ he believed
 
 126 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 to be of a higher order than those secondary and 
 subordinate beings who presided over the older 
 world. 
 
 The Father could not be contaminated by contact 
 with matter necessitated to a mortal birth and death. 
 The visible Christ was flesh and blood. He consid- 
 ered him the son of Joseph and Mary ; human, but 
 the last of his race, to restore the worship of the 
 true and Supreme Deity at his baptism in the Jordan. 
 
 The Christ, the first of the eons, the son of God 
 himself, descended, in the form of a dove, to inhabit 
 his mind, and direct his actions for the allotted space 
 of his ministry. The Christ left the solitary Jesus 
 alone to suffer the agony of the cross. The taunts 
 called forth by this ingratitude were variously met. 
 It was said, Jesus, being human, deserved to suffer ; 
 that he would be fully repaid, and that he was ren- 
 dered insensible to pain. 
 
 The body and the spirit furnish a type of that 
 more imposing union by a divine power with a body. 
 There is nothing contradictory in the doctrine of in- 
 carnation, but the consequences of its admission 
 were dangerous to opposers of Arianism. It did not 
 accord with their sublime theology to acknowledge 
 that God himself was manifested in the flesh, matur- 
 ing in foetal growth through manhood, scourged, 
 crucified, felt the mortal agony, and expired. Apol- 
 lonius met the issue fairly, and admitted in full its 
 broadest consequences. He uttered the memorable 
 words, still heard in theological warfare, "One in- 
 carnate nature of Christ."
 
 Speculations of Gnosticism. 127 
 
 But his heresies, and those of the Ebionites and 
 Docetes, were proscribed ; and the double nature, as 
 taught by Cerinthus, was modified and received, 
 fashioned as it is at the present day, the substan- 
 tial, indissoluble^ union of a perfect God with a per- 
 fect man. 
 
 In the second century, these doctrines, under the 
 name of Gnosticism, had matured, and divided the 
 believers in Christianity, and its dogmas have never 
 lost the tinge it gave them. Its tenets were sublime 
 and imposing. The primal Deity remained aloof in 
 inapproachable majesty. He was the unspeakable, 
 the infinite. The fullness of the godhead, the Ple- 
 roma, expanded in ever-enlarging circles until it em- 
 braced the universe. From this Pleroma sprang all 
 spiritual beings, and back to it they would all return. 
 By their entanglement with vile and degrading mat- 
 ter, evil existed, and all outward existence had become 
 degraded. To restore them again unsullied to the 
 bosom of the Deity, freed from the stain of matter, 
 was the mission of Christ. Pushing these fancies to 
 their consequences, they were compelled to reject 
 the Jewish Jehovah, who could not be the father, 
 but must be some inferior God. He was left undis- 
 turbed to the Jew. To them, Christ revealed a De- 
 ity hitherto unknown in a world the creation of an 
 inferior being. The whole school of Gnostics were 
 perplexed at the human nature of Christ. They 
 seized on the distinctiveness of his divine and hu- 
 man natures. Even the virginity of his mother pol- 
 luted him, and the union was offensive to them.
 
 128 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 They escaped by suffering : the divine came down 
 on the man Jesus at his baptism, and ascended after 
 his death. The Christ whom men saw was but a 
 phantom. 
 
 Influenced by the spirit of Gnosticism, Celsus, 
 supposed to have been an Epicurean philosopher, 
 living towards the close of the second century, urged 
 many cogent reasons against the Christian's ideas of 
 divinity. The pictures they drew of God's vengeance 
 were, to him, very offensive ; for the philosophers de- 
 lighted to represent the Supreme as incapable of mor- 
 tal passions. Nor could he be reconciled with the 
 idea that the Logos could have been born of woman. 
 He also objected to the pure anthropomorphic idea 
 of creation entertained by the Church : " It is not 
 for man, more than for lions and eagles, that every- 
 thing was created. It was in order that the world, 
 as the work of God, might present a perfect whole. 
 God provides only for the whole ; and that his prov- 
 idence never deserts. This world never becomes 
 worse. God does not return to it after a long inter- 
 val. He is as little angry with man as with apes 
 and flies. The universe has been provided, once for 
 all, with all the powers necessary for its preservation, 
 and for developing itself after the same laws. God 
 has not, like a human architect, so executed his 
 work that at some future period it would need to be 
 repaired." 
 
 He placed the Supreme Being above the world 
 and all created things, and regarded the worship of 
 different gods as only the varying expression of the
 
 Origin of the Holy Ghost. 129 
 
 same worship. " The unity of the Supreme Be- 
 ing remains, even if it be admitted that each na- 
 tion has its gods, whom it must worship in a 
 certain manner, according to its peculiar charac- 
 ter; and the worship of all these different dei- 
 ties is reflected back to the Supreme God, who 
 has appointed them, as it were, his delegates 
 and representatives. Those who argue that men 
 ought not to serve many masters, impute human 
 weakness to God. He is not jealous of the adora- 
 tion paid to subordinate deities. His nature is su- 
 perior to degradation and insult. Reason itself 
 might justify the belief in the inferior deities, the 
 objects of established worship. For, since the Su- 
 preme Being can only produce that which is immor- 
 tal and imperishable, the existence of mortal beings 
 cannot be explained unless we distinguish from him 
 those inferior deities, and suppose them to be the 
 creators of mortal beings and of perishable things." 
 
 Some difficulty was encountered in the evolution 
 of the Holy Ghost ; and, with the difficulty, its seem- 
 ing importance grew in tenfold ratio. Did it origi- 
 nate with the Father or Son ? This was a vexed 
 question with the early converts. It could not come 
 from the Father ; for in that case the Logos and 
 Spirit would be brothers, and it was affirmed that the 
 Logos was the only-begotten. But to have it pro- 
 ceed from the Son would make God its grandfather. 
 Nevertheless a sect was established on the last hy- 
 pothesis. 
 
 Ambrose thus decides the query satisfactorily to 
 
 9
 
 1 30 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 himself: "The holy individual trinity never does 
 anything separately. The Father, the Son, and the 
 Spirit created the body of Christ. The Father, be- 
 cause it is said, " God sent his Son made of a wo- 
 man ; the Son, because it is said, " Wisdom has 
 builded her house ; " the Spirit, because " Mary was 
 with child by a Spirit." That the spirit was a per- 
 sonality, was considered fully proved by its taking 
 on the form of a dove at the baptism of Christ. 
 
 Endless theological discussions occurred and end- 
 ed in still more completely befogging the disputants, 
 who wandered over the trackless desert in an ever- 
 returning circle. 
 
 The 'cradle of churchianity was rocked by these 
 childish disputations, which were simply a war of 
 words, enlivened by the phantom of ideas. 
 
 After centuries of angry combat, not always con- 
 fined to words, and the repeated resolutions of coun- 
 cils, the Platonic trinity became the Orthodox 
 creed : as might have been predicted from the first ; 
 for, granting the premises, it was the only logical 
 solution of the incomprehensible problem.
 
 VII. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE LATER PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 There is one God. MOHAMMED. 
 God is Love. JESUS. 
 
 The great Positive Mind of the universe, Father God and Mother Na- 
 ture. A. J. DAVIS. 
 
 FROM the great struggle between Athanasius 
 and Arius, the ascendency of the former, and 
 triumph of the mysterious doctrine of the trinity, to 
 the present, little advance has been made in the 
 development of the god-idea. As established by the 
 early Catholic councils, it has descended unchanged. 
 The history of its career would be a barren and 
 tedious repetition of unintelligible formulas and un- 
 meaning distinctions. Whenever a belief becomes 
 a creed, and that creed sacred and infallible, there 
 is an end to progress. During this bleak interval 
 outside of the Church, a few thinkers have endeav- 
 ored to gain the truth, but they have generally 
 made the attempt entirely independent of estab- 
 lished beliefs. 
 
 Previous to the revival of learning in Europe, or 
 for the space of the whole millennium, the question 
 was discussed theologically, and the chatter of a 
 flock of jays would be as interesting and quite as 
 intelligible.
 
 132 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 With the revival of learning, really great and 
 earnest thinkers, though treating it in a metaphysical 
 manner, explored its profound depths, and exhausted 
 an amount of labor and research that in any other 
 field would have been richly rewarded. 
 
 Giardino Bruno taught a pure Pantheism, and no- 
 bly met the flames prepared by an enraged priest- 
 hood, who sought to blot out his truths with his life's 
 blood. 
 
 God to him was the infinite intelligence, the cause 
 of causes, the principle of all life and mind ; the great 
 activity, whose action we name the universe. But 
 God did not create the universe : he informed it with 
 life, with being. He is the universe ; but only as 
 the cause is the effect, sustaining it, causing \\., but 
 not limited by it. He is self-existing, yet so essen- 
 tially active as incessantly to manifest himself as a 
 cause. Between the Supreme Being, and the infe- 
 rior beings dependent upon him, there is this dis- 
 tinction : He is absolutely simple, without parts ; 
 he is one whole, identical and universal : whereas 
 the others are mere individual parts, distinct from 
 the great whole. Above and beyond the visible 
 universe there is an infinite invisible, an immova- 
 ble, unalterable identity, which rules over all diver- 
 sity. This being of beings, this unity of unities, is 
 God : " Deus est monadum monas, nempe entium en- 
 titas" 
 
 ^ Bruno says, that, although it is impossible to 
 conceive nature separated from God, we can con- 
 ceive God separated from nature. The Infinite Be-
 
 Speculations of Bruno. 133 
 
 ing is the essential centre and substance of the uni- \ 
 verse, but he is above the -essence and substance of 
 all things : he is superessentialis, supersubstantialis. / 
 Thus we cannot conceive a thought independent of 
 a mind, but we can conceive a mind apart from any 
 one thought. The universe is a thought of God's\v 
 mind: nay, more, it is the infinite activity of his J^ 
 mind. To suppose the world finite is to limit his 
 power. " Wherefore should we imagine that the di- 
 vine activity (la divina efficacia) is idle ? Wherefore 
 should we say that the divine goodness, which can 
 communicate itself ad infinitum, and infinitely dif- 
 fuse itself, is willing to restrict itself? Why should 
 his infinite capacity be frustrated, defrauded of its 
 possibility to create infinite worlds ? And why 
 should we deface the excellence of the divine image, 
 which should rather reflect itself in an infinite mir- 
 ror, as his nature is infinite and immense ? " * 
 
 Descartes' demonstration of the existence of God 
 has become famous. It is thus presented in the form 
 of a syllogism. 
 
 All that we clearly and distinctly conceive as con- 
 tained in anything is true of that thing, f 
 
 Now we conceive clearly and distinctly, that the~\ . 
 existence of God is contained in the idea we have \ ' 
 of him. Ergo, God exists. 
 
 This may satisfy a metaphysician, but it has no 
 positive element of certainty. Spinoza arose from 
 the study of Descartes, and, looking at nature, asked 
 
 * Del' Infinite, opp. Ital. ii. 24. f Lewes.
 
 1 34 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 what meant the ever-flowing tide of change. It was 
 all phenomenal, depending on external change or 
 the state of the perceiving mind. Under the phe- 
 nomena, must be a noumenon. The reality of all ex- 
 istence is substance ; not gross materiality, but the 
 substance which stands under all things. What this 
 substance is of itself, we can never know, because 
 to know it would be to bring it under forms and 
 conditions of the mind, and thus make it a phenom- 
 ena. 
 
 SPINOZA, while admitting an intelligence acting 
 in and forming a part of matter, supposed that it 
 was neither thought nor extent exclusively of each 
 other, although both were its necessary attributes. 
 Descartes, in common with most philosophers, as- 
 sumed a duality, God, and a world created by God. 
 Spinoza affirmed that extension and thought were 
 only attributes of matter, and by subtile sympathies 
 reduced the duality to a unity, an infinite one. 
 
 God is the absolute substance. From him arises 
 all existence. He is the fountain from which flows 
 the endless successions of living forms. The uni- 
 verse is a simple manifestation. The finite reposes 
 on the bosom of the Infinite. There is but one re- 
 ality, and that is God. 
 
 Lewes thus laconically presents the Spinozian 
 speculations on God. 
 
 There is but one infinite substance, and that is 
 God. Whatever is, is in God ; and, without him, 
 nothing can be conceived. He is the universal be- 
 ing, of which all things are the manifestations. He
 
 Speculations of Spinoza. 135 
 
 is the sole substance : everything else is a mode ; yet, 
 without substance, mode cannot exist. God, viewed 
 under the attributes of infinite substance, is the nat- 
 ura naturans : viewed as a manifestation, as the 
 modes under which his attributes appear, he is the 
 natura naturata. He is the cause of all things ; and 
 that immanently, but not transiently. He has two 
 infinite attributes, extension and thought. Exten- 
 sion is visible thought, and thought is invisible ex- 
 tension : they are the objective and subjective of 
 which God is the identity. Every thing is a mode 
 of God's attribute of extension ; every thought, wish, 
 or feeling, a mode of his attribute of thought. That 
 extension and thought are not substances, as Des- 
 cartes maintained, is obvious from this : that they 
 are not conceived per se, but per aliud. Something 
 is extended : what is ? Not the extension itself, but 
 something prior to it ; viz., substance. Substance is 
 uncreated, but creates by the internal necessity of 
 its nature. There may be many existing thingsf-x, 
 but only one existence ; many forms, but only one 
 substance. God is the idea immanens, the one and 
 all. 
 
 Spinoza has been charged with atheism by those 
 who misunderstood his obscure sentences, and he 
 was compelled to suffer persecutions for ideas which 
 would have met a better fate had they been clearly 
 expressed. His profession of faith reads like that of 
 Fenelon, rather than of the cold atheistical philoso- 
 pher : 
 
 " If I also concluded that the idea of God, com-
 
 136 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 prised in that of the infinity of the universe, released 
 one from obedience, love, and worship, I should make 
 a still more pernicious use of my reason ; for it is 
 evident to me that the laws which I have received, 
 not by the relation or intervention of other men, but 
 immediately from him, are those which the light of 
 nature points out to me as the true guides of a ra- 
 tional conduct. If I failed in obedience in this par- 
 ticular, I should sin, not only against the principle 
 of my being, and the society of any kind, but also 
 against myself, in depriving myself of the most solid 
 advantage of my existence." 
 
 " With regard to the love of God, so, I conceive, 
 is this idea from tending to weaken it, that it is more 
 calculated to increase it, since, through it, I know 
 that God is intimate with my being ; that he gives 
 me existence and my every property : but he gives 
 them liberally, without reproach, without interest, 
 without subjecting me to anything but my own na- 
 ture. It banishes fear, weariness, distrust, and all 
 the effects of a vulgar and interested love. It in- 
 forms me, that this is a good which I cannot lose, 
 and which I possess the more fully as I know and 
 love it." 
 
 It may be placed with the singular freaks of hu- 
 man judgment, that, with this refined idea of every- 
 thing being an extension of God, Spinoza rejected 
 the doctrine of final causes. Perhaps on this ac- 
 count he received the designation of an atheist. 
 
 Schelling thought the whole value of science was 
 in its speculations, meaning by that term the con-
 
 Schelling and Fichte. 137 
 
 templation of God as he exists. Reason, inasmuch 
 as it affirms God, cannot affirm anything else, and 
 annihilates itself at the same time as an individual 
 existence as anything out of God. Thought is not 
 any thought, and being is not any being ; for every- 
 thing belongs to God or the all. If nothing exists\ 
 out of God, then must the knowledge of God be only 
 the infinite knowledge which God has of himself in , 
 the eternal self-affirmation. God is not the highest, 
 but the only one. He is not to be viewed as the 
 summit or the end ; but as the centre, as the all 
 in all. Consequently there is no such thing as be- 
 ing lifted up to the knowledge of God ; but the 
 knowledge is immediate recognition. * 
 
 Fichte rejected design. He rejected the world as 
 the objective existence of the Ego ; and in that man- 
 ner we are, ourselves, creators of it. Design being 
 applicable to finite things is wholly inapplicable to 
 the infinite. 
 
 " God," says Fichte, " must be believed in, not in- 
 ferred. Faith is the ground of all conviction, scien- 
 tific or moral. Why do you believe in the existence 
 of the world ? It is nothing more than the incarna- 
 tion of that which you carry within you, yet you 
 believe in it. In the same way God exists in your 
 consciousness, and you believe in him. He is the 
 moral order of the world : as such, we can know him, 
 and only be as such. For, if we attempt to attribute 
 to him intelligence or personality, we at once neces- 
 sarily fall into anthropomorphism. God is infinite ; 
 
 * Jahrbucher der Medicin. Quoted by Lewes.
 
 T 38 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 therefore beyond the reach of our science, which 
 can only embrace the finite, but not beyond our 
 faith." 
 
 We realize God by doing our duty. True religion 
 is the realization of the universal reason. If we had 
 perfect liberty, we should be one. If we had the 
 same conditions, we should be one in thought, there 
 would be but one will, and perfect harmony. * This 
 grand result should be the aim of mankind. 
 
 Hegel, in his " Philosophy of Religion," applies his 
 method to the solution of the problem of the nature 
 of God. He accepts the trinity, with his interpre- 
 tation. God the Father is the eternal idea, or un- 
 conditioned abstraction ; God the Son, engendered by 
 the father, is a conditioned reality ; " God the Holy 
 Ghost is the identity of the two, the negation of the 
 negation and perfect totality of existence." God the 
 Father existed before the world, and created it. He 
 created it because it is the essence of his being to 
 create. He creates not by an act, but an eternal 
 moment : he is forever creating. It is through crea- 
 tion that the abstraction passes into activity. It is 
 the realization of God. 
 
 Voltaire affirmed that the knowledge of a God was 
 not impressed upon us by the hand of nature, else 
 we should all have the same idea. This knowledge 
 does not come like our perceptions of light, or the 
 earth, which we receive as soon as our understand- 
 ings are awakened ; nor is it a philosophical idea, 
 
 * Sittenlehre. Gerichtliche Verautwortung ss chriften ge- 
 gen die Auklage des Atheismus.
 
 Voltaire on a Final Cause. 139 
 
 for men believe in a God before they become phi- 
 losophers. 
 
 The idea is derived from that natural logic which 
 is met with among the rudest of mankind. 
 
 Our idea of divinity is wholly inadequate ; and, as 
 we pass from conjecture to conjecture, we find few 
 certainties. " There is something : therefore there 
 is something eternal, for nothing is produced from 
 nothing. Here is a certain truth on which the mind 
 reposes. Every work which shows us means and an 
 end announces a workman : then this universe, com- 
 posed of springs, of means, each of which has its 
 end, discerns a most mighty, a most intelligent work- 
 man. Here is a probability approaching- the great- 
 est certainty." 
 
 While Voltaire was thus easily satisfied with the 
 reasoning fully developed by Paley, that of a final 
 cause, he could not believe this being capable of cre- 
 ating matter, and quoted the Grecian philosophers 
 to sustain his position. But here arose an unfortu- 
 nate dilemma. If God and matter existed independ- 
 ently, there are two necessary beings ; and, if there 
 are two, there may be thirty. With this strange 
 inference, he acknowledges, with Cicero, his own 
 ignorance, and the vanity of the discussion. 
 
 He could not understand how Spinoza could re- 
 ject final causes. " If this infinite universal being 
 thinks, must he not have design ? If he has design, 
 must he not have a will ? Spinoza says, We are 
 modes of that absolute, necessary, infinite being. I 
 say to Spinoza, We will, and have designs, we who
 
 1 40 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 are but modes ; therefore this infinite, necessary, 
 absolute being cannot be deprived of them ; there- 
 fore he has will, design, power." * 
 
 Doubter as he was, he could not, as he declares, 
 deny that the eye was made to see, the stomach to 
 digest, etc. " For my part, I see in nature, as in 
 the arts, only final causes ; and I believe that an ap- 
 ple-tree is made to bear apples, as I believe that a 
 watch is made to tell the hour." f 
 
 Voltaire was unquestionably a great thinker, but 
 he could not escape the ideas of his age. Had he 
 known the wonderful developments of science made 
 within the last fifty years, he might perhaps have 
 had his implicit faith in the similarity of appearance 
 shaken. There is not the remotest analogy between 
 the apple-tree and a watch, between the design man- 
 ifested in one and that of the other. Growth by 
 natural laws and artificial construction have nothing 
 in common, and their similarity is only superficial. 
 
 A careful investigation of all Voltaire has said 
 about God would lead us to conclude, that, after all, 
 he refined God to "truth itself;" but the anecdote 
 with which he illustrates his position leaves us un- 
 decided, whether to believe him to have been a 
 theist, or an .atheist whose theism was only as- 
 sumed. 
 
 " I had just built a closet at the end of my garden 
 when I heard a mole arguing thus with an ant : 
 " Here is a fine fabric," said the mole : " it must 
 have been a very powerful mole that performed this 
 
 *Phil. Die. ii. 381. fib.
 
 Failure of Voltaire. 141 
 
 work." " You jest," returned the ant : " the archi- 
 tect of this edifice is an ant of mighty genius." 
 
 With this seemingly close appreciation of the sit- 
 uation, Voltaire consented to become like the ant 
 or mole, and, when gazing over creation, see only the 
 work of a final cause, and insult with satire, which 
 came from the meanness of a narrow soul, those who 
 did not receive it. 
 
 Swedenborg, notwithstanding his illumination, ac- 
 cepted the trinity in its grossest form. " The trinity, 
 then, is in and from Jesus Christ, the new name of 
 our God. The Father is his divine love ; the Son is 
 his divine wisdom, that is to say, the divinely 
 human form in which he is self-adapted to his 
 creatures, or a personal God ; the Holy Spirit is the 
 influence which he communicates to churches. This 
 trinity is imaged in the soul, body, and operation of 
 every man. The Father is inaccessible to us out of 
 Christ, even as our own souls are not to be reached 
 by others except through our bodies." The Father 
 entered the world by real means, by the gates of 
 generation, and became incarnate through the Vir- 
 gin Mary. Every human soul experiences the same 
 changes, and the end is the same, the passions are 
 subdued by the trials of this life, and the pure divin- 
 ity arises into the next life. 
 
 The idea of God is thus expressed in the articles 
 of faith of the New Church : " That Jehovah God is 
 the creator and preserver of heaven and earth, is 
 love itself, and wisdom itself, a God itself, and truth 
 itself: that he is one both in essence and in person ;
 
 142 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 in whom, nevertheless, is the divine trinity of Father ; 
 Son, and Holy Spirit, which are the essential divin- 
 ity, the divine humanity, and the divine proceeding, 
 answering to the soul, the body, and the operative 
 energy, in man ; and that the Lord and Saviour Je- 
 sus Christ is that God." 
 
 " Man, it is clear, must think of God as a man ; 
 must think from his own experience towards divine 
 virtues ; from his own deeds towards God's deeds, 
 which are creation. The must in this case is a ne- 
 cessity of our being ; which is the same thing as to 
 say, that it is God's ordinance, and the true method. 
 It is therefore a verity substantial as our souls ; nay, 
 consubstantial with their Maker. No idealism then 
 here intervenes ; but we touch the solidity of eternal 
 truth, and in our minds and bodies we have an at- 
 testation and vision of the Creator. But, if God be 
 the infinite man, the universe which proceeds from 
 him must represent man in an image, and all the 
 creatures must likewise so represent. Mineral, vege- 
 table, and animal forms, nay, atmospheres, planets, 
 and suns, are then nothing less than so many means 
 and tendencies to man, on different stages of the 
 transit ; and finite man resumes them all, proclaims 
 visibly their end, and may connect them with their 
 fountain. It is throughout a system of correspond- 
 ences, all depending upon the activity of a personal 
 God, as the substance of the latter depends upon the 
 intervention of God in history, as Jesus Christ. Re- 
 move from the centre of the system the position that 
 God is a man, and he becomes necessarily unintelli-
 
 Speculations of Swedenborg. . 143 
 
 gible to mankind. He has made them think of him 
 otherwise than he is. They communicate with him by 
 no religion ; but the beginning of their knowledge is 
 darkness, its object a mere notion, and their love falls 
 into a void, there is, in short, no correspondence be- 
 tween the Creator and any creature. Maintain, how- 
 ever, that master position ; and humanity is the way 
 to the divine humanity, the high road of the living 
 truth. 
 
 " The path by which God passes through heaven 
 into nature is laid down in distinct degrees, and ' the 
 doctrine of degrees' furnishes a principal interest 
 with Swedenborg in these elucidations. Degrees 
 are the separate steps of forms or substances, the 
 measured walk of the creative forces. Thus the will 
 in one degree is the understanding in the next, and 
 the body in the third ; the animal in the highest is 
 the vegetable in the second, and the mineral in the 
 lowest ; and all these are one, like soul and body, 
 and are united, and each uses the lower, by the han- 
 dles of its harmony with inferior utilities, just as a 
 man is united with, and makes use of, the various 
 instruments which extend the powers of his mind 
 and arms through nature. The world, therefore, is 
 full of interval and freedom ; and in the movements 
 of each creature, whereby it lays hold of whatever 
 supports it, the whole becomes actively one, and 
 marches forward in the realms of use, where it meets 
 the omnipotent again." 
 
 Thus traversing the gulf of almost two millenni- 
 ums, bridged as it were by the great thinkers, we
 
 1 44 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 find, that, after bestowing their best thoughts on the 
 subject, they have arrived at no satisfactory results ; 
 not even satisfied themselves. 
 
 The doctrines which the Church is supposed to 
 receive with unquestioning faith were once in the 
 most unsettled state ; and not by reason, but by the 
 arbitrary decrees of councils and synods, often meet- 
 ing with drawn swords, were their inspired character 
 determined.
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 WHITHER shall I go from thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy pres- 
 ence ? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed 
 in hell, behold thou art there. 
 
 Through God we shall do valiantly : for he it is that shall tread down our 
 enemies. PSALMS. 
 
 For in him we live, move, and have our being. PAUL. 
 
 THE necessity for a divine revelation is supposed 
 to exist on account of the fallen and corrupt 
 condition of mankind. * If this revelation super- 
 sedes reason and nature, and flows from an infalli- 
 ble source, it must present a perfect view of the di- 
 vine Being. If we examine it critically, in the same 
 unprejudiced manner that we do any other book, we 
 shall find that such is not the fact. It bears the un- 
 mistakable evidence of human origin. If God gave 
 a revelation to Moses, and another to Paul, he would 
 represent himself the same in both. The Bible 
 should be a unit throughout, although its inspired 
 writers were scattered over a thousand years. We 
 find, sad fact, the very reverse. It is a book com- 
 posed of many fragments ; and each of these con- 
 tains, not the absolute view of God, but the writer's 
 
 * Diet, of Bible, by Rev. John Brown. Edinburgh. 293.
 
 1 46 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 ideas of God. Man changes ; the ages come and go, 
 bringing new ideas : but God is eternal. The rude 
 Israelites in the wilderness, and the disciples, thought 
 far differently from each other. They wrote differ- 
 ently. Hence the Bible is contradictory ; and, if we 
 ask it to give us the character and attributes of God, 
 it gives him the most diverse and conflicting attri- 
 butes. If called on to decide the unity or trinity of 
 the Godhead, it yields many texts for both, though 
 more strongly favoring the latter. He is repre- 
 sented as satisfied with his works, and as dissatis- 
 fied ; * as dwelling in temples, and as not : f as dwell- 
 ing in light, and in darkness : $ as seen and heard, 
 and as impossible to be seen or heard : as being 
 weary, and resting ; and as never requiring rest : || as 
 being omnipresent and all-knowing, and as limited in 
 presence and knowledge : ^[ as being all-powerful, and 
 the reverse:** as changeable, and unchangeable : |f 
 as just and impartial, and unjust and partial : \\ as 
 the author of evil, and as not the author : as war- 
 like, and as peaceful : || j| as cruel, unmerciful, destruc- 
 
 * Compare Gen. i. 31, with Gen. vi. 6. 
 
 f Comp. 2 Chr. vii. 12, with Acts vii. 48. 
 
 i Comp. i Tim. vi. 16, with I Kings viii. 12. 
 
 Comp. Ex. xxxiii. u, with John i. 18. 
 
 || Comp. Ex. xxxi. 17, with Is. xl. 28. 
 
 IT Comp. Prov. xv. 3, Job xxxiv. 22, with Gen. xviii. 20, 21, 
 Gen. Hi. 8. 
 
 ** Comp. Matt. xix. 26, with Judges i. 19. 
 ft Comp. Gen. vi. 6, with Sam. i. 17. 
 
 %% Comp. Deut. xxxii. 4, with Sam. ix. 25, and Matt. xiii. 12. 
 Comp. Is. xlv. 7, with i Cor. xiv. 33. 
 UK Comp. Ex. xv. 3, with Rom. xv. 33.
 
 God of the Bible. 147 
 
 tive, and ferocious ; and as kind, merciful, and good : * 
 as being vindictively angry and unforgiving, and 
 as merciful, f 
 
 With true heathen relish, he is described as de- 
 lighting in burnt-offerings, sacrifices, and the observ- 
 ance of holy days ; and .again, when a sudden gleam 
 of spirituality pierces the darkness, as disapproving 
 all of these : $ as accepting human sacrifice, and for- 
 bidding it : he is also described as tempting man, 
 as lying and deceiving ; and again as neither lying 
 nor deceiving. || The unity and plurality of gods are 
 both indorsed by the Bible. ^[ The Creator, repre- 
 sented as the author of all things, is an eternal spir- 
 it, infinite, omnipresent, ** almighty, perfectly good, 
 merciful sincere, faithful ; who upholds and governs 
 all things, good or bad. It shows us that this Crea- 
 tor subsists, of his own simple and undivided essence, 
 in three distinct persons, the Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost ; " the same in substance, and equal in all 
 divine power and glory." 
 
 The Father is the true God, that from eternity be- 
 gat his only son, ff consulted with and fore-ordained 
 
 * Comp. Jer. xiii. 14, with Sam. v. II. 
 f Comp. Jer. xvii. 4, with Ps. ciii. 8. 
 
 i Comp. Ex. xxix. 36, Lev. xxiii. 27, i. 9, with Jer. vi. 20, 
 Ps. v. 13, 14, Is. i. 13. 
 
 Comp. 2 Sam. xxi. 8, 9, 14, Judg. xi. 30-39, with Deut. 
 xii. 30, 31. 
 
 || Comp. Gen. xxii. I, I Kings xxii. 23, with Heb. vi. 18, James 
 i. 13. 
 
 T[ Deut. vi. 4, Gen. i. 26, i John v. 7. 
 ** Job xi. 7. 
 ft Ps. ii. 7-
 
 148 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 him before the foundation of the world. He sent 
 him into the world,* supported him through his 
 earthly struggle, speaking in and working through 
 him, f gave him up to death, and raised him from 
 the dead, and crowned and gave him all power in 
 heaven. 
 
 The Son is equal to the Father as a person, \ but 
 one in essence. He is called God, the only god, 
 the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; and all the di- 
 vine attributes of omnipotence, omnipresence, and 
 unchangeableness, are ascribed to him. 
 
 Though, as son, he is equal to the Father, through 
 his human nature, as mediator, he is inferior. In 
 that state, he undertakes to pay our debts, and ful- 
 fills the obligation. He is the husband, shepherd, 
 friend, and physician, the all-in-all, to his people. 
 
 Christ is God and man, united so as to enable him 
 to be a true mediator between the infinite and finite. 
 
 The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and 
 Son. || He is omnisicent, omnipresent, and al- 
 mighty, ^f He is recognized, not as an energy, but 
 as a person, reproving, executing, and being grieved. 
 
 Such is the trinity as recorded in the Bible, and 
 received by all Orthodox Christians. Its mystery 
 they do not attempt to solve ; but receive it with a 
 blind, uncriticising faith. 
 
 * Luke i. 35. 
 f John v. 19-22. 
 % Zech. xiii. 7. 
 
 .Matt. xviii. 20, xxviii. 20, Phil. iii. 21, Heb. xiii. 8. 
 || John xv. 26. 
 H i Cor. ii. 10, 11, Eph. ii. 17, 18, Luke i. 35.
 
 God of the Bible. 149 
 
 But the Unitarians claim the Bible furnishes ab- 
 solute proof that God is one. Christ is the son of 
 God, and the Holy Ghost is the power and divine in- 
 fluence of God. They hold that the early fathers for 
 the first three centuries were on their side, and that 
 the Bible has received its trinitarian cast from con- 
 tact with pagan philosophy. 
 
 Justin Martyr, the most distinguished and the 
 earliest writer next to the apostles, says, " We wor- 
 ship God the maker of the universe, offering up to 
 him prayers and thanks. But assigning to Jesus, 
 who came to teach us these things, and for this end 
 was born, the ' second place ' after God, we not with- 
 out reason honor him." 
 
 From the beginning to the present, the discussion 
 of the unity and trinity of the Godhead has more or 
 less disturbed the quiet of the church ; and there is 
 now a gradual movement, through Unitarianism, to- 
 wards a more reasonable, not to say understandable, 
 view of Divinity. 
 
 The God-idea of the Bible would not be complete 
 were the Devil omitted. That personage fills a 
 most important position, by solving the problem of 
 the existence of evil. The scheme would be im- 
 perfect without him. The belief in his existence is 
 passing away, but his name cannot be blotted from 
 the pages of Scripture. It remains as a remnant of 
 the influence of Persia and Assyria on the Hebrew 
 mind. The Bible recognizes the duality in nature, 
 the good and the evil deities ; and Lucifer, fallen as 
 he is, is believed by the Orthodox and Catholic
 
 1 50 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 world to be the stronger, if the number of souls he 
 leads be a sign of power. 
 
 The Biblical idea of God is anthropomorphic. By 
 placing Christ as a mediator, it is intensely so. The 
 Jewish idea recorded in the Old Testament is dis- 
 gustingly tainted with this belief. 
 
 God, through human nature, sacrificed for man, is 
 the same in Crishna and in Christ. The human 
 mind, weary with contemplation of infinity, seeks the 
 divine man, and deifies ideal human nature. 
 
 We again have come to the same result. The 
 study of the Bible brings us to the same point we 
 reached in our investigation of the doctrines flowing 
 from the Shaster and Zendavesta. 
 
 Human nature returns to itself. The God at last 
 is only a man. Afar off, he looked huge and un- 
 real ; near, and he dwarfs to human size.
 
 IX. 
 
 THE GOD-IDEA OF THE BORDER-RELIGIONS, CHI- 
 NESE, DRUIDS, SCANDINAVIANS, AND AZTECS. 
 
 GOD resides in the heart of all creatures. MAHABHARATA. 
 
 Talk, talk much as you please ; but who, what made and governs those 
 unnumbered worlds that pasture in the illimitable fields of heaven ? 
 NAPOLEON. 
 
 r I A HERE are great religions which have sprung 
 -1- up, and swayed the destinies of millions, seem- 
 ingly isolated, and having no historical connection 
 or relation to our own. In all of them, however, we 
 can trace the same human elements, the same strug- 
 gle for knowledge, and in their successes and fail- 
 ures learn the unity of human intellect and circum- 
 stances in all ages and races. 
 
 The numbers who embrace a religion prove noth- 
 ing. A million men are as liable to receive a false 
 idea as one : the only necessity is, that that idea be 
 on their plane of understanding. If numbers prove 
 anything, the Christian religion is false : for it has 
 never been received except by a moiety of mankind ; 
 while Buddhism and Moslemism have been received 
 by hundreds of millions, undisputed from generation 
 to generation. 
 
 The almost innumerable population of China hold
 
 152 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 to crude and erroneous notions, and vigilantly 
 defend them against every innovation, refusing 
 even to examine any other system ; but their rever- 
 ence for them, because taught twenty-five hundred 
 years ago by Confucius, proves as little as the obe- 
 dience of the urchin proves the truthfulness of the 
 command he obeys. As a rule applying to the past, 
 the more followers a system has, the greater proba- 
 bility that it is false ; and another equally applicable 
 is, that, the older an idea is, the greater the probabil- 
 ity that it is false. 
 
 These startling propositions are proved by an ex- 
 amination of some of the outlying religions of the 
 pagan world. The most notable of these forms of 
 belief are the Druidic, Scandinavian, Chinese, and 
 Aztec. 
 
 Though it is very easy to decide the religious 
 forms and ceremonies of a people, to seize on their 
 peculiar ideas, for the moment taking their place, 
 and receiving thoughts as fashioned by their train, is 
 a most difficult achievement. The civilized man 
 judges all opinions and policies, found among the di- 
 verse race of the globe, by his own standard ; a 
 method most unjust and objectionable. 
 
 Every race of people have ethical systems, grow- 
 ing out of their own wants and desires ; good for them, 
 though possibly bad for others. The Chinese un- 
 doubtedly would form as unfavorable an opinion of 
 our religious system as we do of theirs. Of their 
 system the most that can be said is that it is nega- 
 tive. The active impassioned religious sentiment
 
 God-Idea of the Chinese. 153 
 
 of the West is unknown to the celestials. The cere- 
 monial is nine-tenths of their religion. They fur- 
 nish almost the only example of a people who have 
 never offered human sacrifice ; nor have they ever 
 personified or deified any of the vices or passions, 
 like the ancient Greeks and Romans. Their mythol- 
 ogy is far from those tales of loves and hates of the 
 gods by which the latter brought their deities down to 
 the sphere of humanity. 
 
 Because of this deficiency, no hierarchy has ever 
 been able to rise to the power and influence of a 
 caste, as in India, although Budhists and Rationalists 
 have been patronized and admitted into imperial 
 confidence.* There is a state religion which from 
 remote antiquity has undergone little change ; which 
 consists, not of dogmas and doctrines to be learned 
 and believed, but in rites and ceremonies, f The ob- 
 jects of state worship are chiefly things, although 
 persons are sometimes included. There are three 
 grades of sacrifice, the great, medium, and inferior. 
 The great sacrifices are applied to four objects only, 
 the heavens or sky, the earth, the great temple of 
 ancestors, and the gods of the land and grain, the 
 special patrons of each dynasty. The medium are 
 offered to the sun, moon, the names of emperors, 
 Confucius, the gods of heaven and earth, and the 
 passing year. The inferior are offered to the an- 
 cient patron of the healing art, innumerable spirits 
 of eminent departed men, the elements, rivers, moun- 
 tains, etc. 
 
 * The Middle Kingdom. Williams. f Dr. Morrison.
 
 154 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 The emperor performs the ceremonial worship of 
 the four superior objects, as Pontifex Maximus, as- 
 sisted by members of the imperial clan and the 
 board of rites. The hierophants are required to pre- 
 pare themselves for the occasion by fasting ; ablution ; 
 change of garments ; separation from their wives, all 
 pleasurable scenes, and the dead : " for sickness and 
 death defile ; while banqueting dissipates the mind, 
 and unfits it for holding communication with the 
 gods." The sacrifices consist of calves, bullocks, 
 sheep, pigs, and the offerings of silks. The flesh- 
 offering is usually cooked before being placed on the 
 altar. Severe penalties are annexed to any infor- 
 mality or neglect, and still heavier to the common 
 people should they state their wants to the four su- 
 perior objects of imperial adoration. The vulgar 
 may worship as they please ; but, if they join in the 
 worship of the son of heaven, death is their punish- 
 ment. 
 
 This worship is supposed to be the concrete ex- 
 pression of the early worship of the universe. By 
 the adoration of the heavens, the earth, and terres- 
 trial gods, they sought to include and propitiate all 
 superior powers. The original idea of a supreme in- 
 telligence, or Shangti, seems to have been lost. 
 
 The state religion of China is only a mere pageant : 
 all its members, however, are learned men, disciples 
 of Confucius, or the Ju kian. These have no tem- 
 ples, priests, or creed, in the common acceptation of 
 the term ; and hence worship at the Buddhist shrines, 
 with the Rationalists, or even with the Romanists,
 
 Speculations of Chu Hi. 155 
 
 without losing connection with their countrymen. 
 The influence of Confucius was momentous on the 
 intellectual development of his countrymen ; but he 
 was not a religious teacher in any sense of the word. 
 Although he believed himself commissioned to re- 
 store a better state, he never taught the duty of man 
 to any higher power than the head of a family or 
 state. He said he did not comprehend the myste- 
 rious ways of the gods, and that the duty of man lay 
 in fulfilling his obligations to his relations and soci- 
 ety rather than worshiping unknown spirits. " Not 
 knowing even life, how can we know death ? " 
 When dying, his disciples asked to whom they should 
 sacrifice : he nobly answered, " I have already wor- 
 shiped," giving utterance to the grand truth that a 
 well-ordered life is the best offering man can render 
 the Infinite. 
 
 The great metaphysician of China is Chu Hi, only 
 surpassed by Confucius in influence. This philoso- 
 pher, perhaps partially acquainted with the specula- 
 tions of India, resolved the obscure references to 
 Shangti, in the Shu King, into pure materialism ; 
 making nature the first principle, which, by operat- 
 ing on itself, evolves the dual powers Yin and Yang. 
 The method of this celestial metaphysician can be 
 best seen by a quotation, in which his system is ex- 
 pressed. It is an interesting fact, that, adopting a 
 similar method as the Western sages, he wanders 
 for a time in the same fog of uncertainties, and draws 
 his conclusions in the same positive manner. Many
 
 156 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 of his propositions would not discredit the finest in- 
 tellects of the West. 
 
 " Under the whole heaven there is no primary 
 matter (li) without the immaterial principle (kt), and 
 no immaterial principle apart from the primary mat- 
 ter. Subsequent to the existence of the immaterial 
 principle is produced primary matter, which is dedu- 
 cible from the axiom that the one male and the one 
 female principle of nature may be denominated tau 
 or logos (the active principle from which all things 
 emanate) : thus nature is spontaneously possessed 
 of benevolence and righteousness (which are inclu- 
 ded in the idea of tau) 
 
 " First of all existed tien li (the celestial principle 
 or soul of the universe), and then came primary mat- 
 ter: primary matter accumulated constituted chih 
 (body, substance, or the accidents and qualities of 
 matter), and nature was arranged. 
 
 " Should any ask whether the immaterial principle 
 or primary matter existed first, I should say that the 
 immaterial principle, on assuming a figure, ascended ; 
 and primary matter, on assuming form, descended. 
 When we come to speak of assuming form, and as- 
 cending or descending, how can we divest ourselves 
 of the idea of priority and subsequence ? When the 
 immaterial principle does not assume a form, pri- 
 mary matter then becomes coarse, and forms a sedi- 
 ment. 
 
 " Originally, however, no priority or subsequence 
 can be predicated of the immaterial principle ; and 
 yet, if you insist on carrying out the reasoning to the
 
 Speculations of Chu Hi. 157 
 
 question of their origin, then you must say that the 
 immaterial principle has the priority. But it is not a 
 separate and distinct thing: it is just contained in 
 the centre of the primary matter, so that, were there 
 no primary matter, then this immaterial principle 
 would have no place of attachment. Primary mat- 
 ter consists, in fact, of the four elements of metal, 
 wood, water, and fire ; while the immaterial principle 
 is no other than the four cardinal virtues of benevo- 
 lence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. . . . 
 
 " Should any one ask for an explanation of the 
 assertion that the immaterial has first existence, and 
 after that comes primary matter, I say, it is not ne- 
 cessary to speak thus : but, when we know that they 
 are combined, is it that the immaterial principle 
 holds the precedence, and the primary matter the 
 subsequence ? or is that the immaterial principle is 
 subsequent to the primary matter ? We cannot thus 
 carry our reasoning : but, should we endeavor to form 
 some idea of it, then we may suppose that the pri- 
 mary matter relies on the immaterial principle to 
 come into action ; and, wherever the primary matter 
 is coagulated, there the immaterial principle is pres- 
 ent. For the primary matter can concrete and co- 
 agulate, act and do ; but the immaterial principle has 
 neither will nor wish, plan nor operation ; but only 
 where the primary matter is collected and coagulated 
 then the immaterial principle is in the midst of it. 
 Just as in nature, men and things, grass and trees, 
 birds and beasts, in their propagation invariably re- 
 quire seed, and certainly cannot without seed, from
 
 1 58 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 nothingness, produce anything. All this, then, is the 
 primary matter ; but the immaterial principle is mere- 
 ly a pure, empty, wide-stretched void, without form 
 or footstep, and incapable of action or creation : but 
 the primary matter can ferment and coagulate, col- 
 lect and produce things. . . . 
 
 " Should any one ask, with regard to those ex- 
 pressions, ' The Supreme Ruler confers the due me- 
 dium on the people, and when Heaven is about to 
 send down a great trust upon men, out of regard to 
 the people it sets up princes over them ;' and 
 ' Heaven, in producing things treats them according 
 to their attainments, on those who do good, it 
 sends down a hundred blessings, and, on those who 
 do evil, a hundred calamities ; ' and, ' When Heaven 
 is about to send down some uncommon calamity 
 upon a generation, it first produces some uncom- 
 mon genius to determine it,' do these and such 
 like expressions imply that above the azure sky 
 there is a Lord and Ruler who acts thus ? or is 
 it still true that Heaven has no mind, and men only 
 carry out their reasonings in this style ? I reply, 
 these three things are but one idea : it is that the 
 immaterial principle of order is thus. The primary 
 matter in its evolutions hitherto, after one season of 
 fullness, has experienced one of decay ; and, after a 
 period of decline, it again flourishes, just as if 
 things were going on in a circle. There never was 
 a decay without a revival. 
 
 " The great extreme (tai ki/i) is merely the imma- 
 terial principle. It is not an independent separate
 
 The Great Extreme. 159 
 
 existence ; it is found in the male and female prin- 
 ciples of nature, in the five elements, in all things : 
 it is merely an immaterial principle, and, because of 
 its extending to the extreme limit, is therefore called 
 the great extreme. If it were not for it, heaven and 
 earth would not have been set afloat. . . . From 
 the time when the great extreme came into opera- 
 tion, all things were produced by transformation. 
 This one doctrine includes the whole : it was not be- 
 cause this was first in existence, and then that ; but 
 altogether there is only one great origin, which from 
 the substance extends to the use, and from the sub- 
 tle reaches to that which is manifest. Should one 
 ask, ' Because all things partake of it, is the great 
 extreme split up and divided ? ' I should reply, that 
 originally there is only one great extreme (anima 
 mundi} of which all things partake, so that each one 
 is provided with a great extreme : just as the moon 
 in the heavens is only one, and yet is dispersed over 
 the hills and lakes, being seen from every place in 
 succession ; still you cannot say that the moon is 
 divided. 
 
 " The great extreme has neither residence nor 
 form nor place which you can assign to it. If you 
 speak of it before its development, then previous to 
 that emanation it was perfect stillness : motion and 
 rest, with the male and female principles of nature, 
 are only the embodiment and descent of this princi- 
 ple. Motion is the motion of the great extreme, and 
 rest is its rest ; but these same motion and rest are 
 not to be considered the great extreme itself. ...
 
 1 60 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 Should any one ask, ' What is the great extreme ? ' I 
 should say, it is simply the principle of extreme 
 goodness and extreme perfection. Every'man has 
 a great extreme, everything has one ; that which 
 Lao-tse called the great extreme is the exemplified 
 virtue of everything that is extremely good and per- 
 fect in heaven and earth, men and things. 
 
 " The great extreme is simply the extreme point, 
 beyond which one cannot go ; that which is most 
 elevated, most mysterious, most subtle, and most di- 
 vine, beyond which there is no passing. Lienki was 
 afraid lest people should think that the great ex- 
 treme possessed form, and therefore called it the 
 boundless extreme, a principle centred in nothing, 
 and having an infinite extent. ... It is the imma- 
 terial principle of the two powers, the four forms, 
 and the eight changes of nature : we cannot say that 
 it does not exist, and yet no form <or corporeity can 
 be ascribed to it. From this point are produced the 
 one male and the one female principles of nature 
 which are called the dual powers : the four forms 
 and eight changes also proceed from this, all ac- 
 cording to a certain natural order, irrespective of 
 human strength in its arrangement. But from the 
 time of Confucius no one has been able to get hold 
 of this idea." * 
 
 He might well add, no one ever will be able to 
 seize this idea. The Chinese metaphysicians have 
 followed after him, rolling this stone of Sisyphus in 
 a constant, unvarying circle, with all the eagerness, 
 
 * Chinese Repository, vol. xiii., pages 552, 609, et seq.
 
 The Gods and Spirits. 161 
 
 subtlety, untiring zeal, and want of success, that has 
 marked their fellows in Europe. 
 
 With regard to the gods and spirits, Chu Hi " af- 
 firmed that sufficient knowledge was not possessed 
 to say positively that they existed, and he saw no dif- 
 ficulty in omitting the subject altogether. His sys- 
 tem is also entirely silent respecting the immortal- 
 ity of the soul, as well as future rewards and punish- 
 ments. Virtue is rewarded, and vice punished, in the 
 individual, or in his posterity, on earth ; but of a 
 separate state of existence he or his disciples do not 
 speak." 
 
 These sublimated speculations are not for the 
 common people. They worship whatever promises 
 relief or assistance ; and the scholar of the classics 
 joins them in their devotions, whatever they may be. 
 There is a titular divinity of each city, who has a 
 temple, and receives special worship. There are fif- 
 teen hundred and sixty temples dedicated to Con- 
 fucius alone, on whose altars sixty thousand animals 
 are annually offered. 
 
 The literati laugh at the ceremonies, yet join in 
 and lead them. The people have not advanced be- 
 yond the stage of culture which accepts miracles. 
 They believe in " rain-making " with the vehemence 
 of the African. When the gods do not answer their 
 prayers and sacrifices, they even proceed to castigate 
 their carved images. 
 
 In one respect the teachings of the classics are 
 remarkable. It is a prime tenet that human na- 
 ture is originally virtuous, and is corrupted entirely
 
 1 62 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 by bad precept and example. This, early instilled 
 by official authority into the mind of the child, neces- 
 sarily exerts a great and decided influence on his 
 character. The vengeance of the gods or future 
 punishment is not spoken of, only the well-being 
 of the individual and the good of society in this 
 world. 
 
 The Rationalists adopt the teachings of Lao-tse, 
 who was -born B. C. 604, or fifty-four years before 
 Confucius. Imagination has surrounded him with 
 the miracles and myths which invariably cluster 
 around a great name. A remarkable parallel exists 
 between his doctrines, those of Zoroaster, the Es- 
 senes, and the Gnostics. They are not unlike those 
 of Zeno. 
 
 " Both recommend retirement and contemplation 
 as the most effectual means of purifying the spirit- 
 ual part of our nature, annihilating the material pas- 
 sions, and finally returning to the bosom of the su- 
 preme reason. He says, ' All material visible forms 
 are only emanations of Tau or Reason : this formed 
 all beings. Before their emanation, the universe 
 was only an indistinct confused mass, a chaos of all 
 the elements in a state of a germ or subtle essence.' 
 In another section, he says, 'All the visible parts of 
 the universe, all beings composing it, the heavens 
 and all the stellar systems, all have been formed of 
 the first elementary matter": before the birth of 
 heaven and earth, there existed only an immense si- 
 lence in illimitable space, an immeasurable void in 
 endless silence. Reason alone circulated in this in-
 
 Ideas of the Druids. 163 
 
 finite void and silence.' In one of his sections, 
 Lao-tse says, ' Reason has produced one, one pro- 
 duced two, two produced three, and three made all 
 things. All beings repose on the feminine principle ; 
 and they embrace and envelop the male principle, 
 a fecundating breath keeps up their harmony.' He 
 teaches the emanation and return of all good beings 
 into the bosom of reason, and their eternal existence 
 therein ; but, if not good, the miseries of successive 
 births and their accompanying sorrows await them." * 
 The most popular sect are the Buddhists. Their 
 doctrines are in harmony with those of Confucius. 
 Buddhism does not hold out the incentive of immor- 
 tality, nor the favor of the gods in that state. It is 
 not opposed to the classics. Hence its priests grad- 
 ually became the high priests of popular supersti- 
 tion, and have since maintained their position. 
 China is full of temples, in most of which Buddhist 
 priests are found, without reference to the God to 
 whom the temple is erected. 
 
 THE DRUIDS. 
 
 Scattered over Europe are circles of rude blocks 
 of stone of immense size, of which Stonehenge is 
 an example. They are rough as when broken from 
 the quarry. The people who placed them there 
 were scarcely above savages, for they made no pre- 
 tense to hew the blocks into shape. The beholder 
 is impressed with the simple idea of unuttered 
 * Middle Kingdom. Williams.
 
 1 64 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 vastness and indefinable striving which the builders 
 strove to express. Who were they ? What was the 
 object of these circles ? History is silent, and tra- 
 dition faintly answers. By placing fragmentary 
 notices together, culled from Roman authors, an 
 outline can be gathered of the religion of the peo- 
 ple who were spread over the vast territory stretch- 
 ing from the northern confines of the Roman empire 
 to the North Sea, and from the Atlantic to the in- 
 definite boundary of Asia. In the West, this people 
 were called Celts, and their religion was the famed 
 and mysterious worship of the Druids. 
 
 Little is known of its tenets, nothing of its origin ; 
 and perhaps nothing more can ever be added to our 
 scanty knowledge. With its stern worshipers the 
 knowledge of the system has perished. The migra- 
 tions of these people can be traced, by affinities of 
 language and customs, to the high table-lands of 
 Asia. * The worship of fire, of the stars, and the 
 sun, the abhorrence of images, are so many indices 
 of their origin. 
 
 The dogmas of the Druids were known only to the 
 priests, never being committed to writing. Tacitus 
 says that the ancient Germans believed in the exist- 
 ence of one Supreme Being, to whom all things were 
 obedient. Every portion of the universe was ani- 
 mated by this divinity ; and hence they worshiped 
 sun, moon, stars, earth, and water. In the dark re- 
 cesses of their primeval forests they kept the sacred 
 fire perpetually burning ; and, at religious festivals, 
 immense fires revealed their savage forms. 
 
 * See " Origin and Antiquity of Man," by the author.
 
 Ideas of the Druids. 165 
 
 " They suppose Hertha, or Mother Earth, to inter- 
 fere in the affairs of men, and visit different nations. 
 In an island in the ocean stands a sacred and invio- 
 lable grove, in which is a consecrated chariot cov- 
 ered with a veil, which the priest alone is permitted 
 to touch. He perceives when the goddess enters 
 this secret recess ; and with profound veneration he 
 attends the vehicle, which is drawn by yoked cows. 
 At this season all is joy. Every place which the 
 goddess deigns to visit is a scene of festivity. No 
 wars are undertaken : every hostile weapon is laid 
 aside. Then only are peace and repose known, then 
 only are they loved. After a time the same priest 
 re-conducts the goddess to her temple, satisfied with 
 mortal intercourse. The chariot and its covering, 
 and, if we may believe it, the goddess herself, then 
 undergo ablution in a secret lake. This office is 
 performed by slaves, whom the lake instantly swal- 
 lows up. Hence proceeds a mysterious horror and 
 holy ignorance of what that can be, which is beheld 
 only by those who are about to perish." * 
 
 The Teutons worshiped a deity called Tuisco, 
 from whom they derived their name. From his 
 marriage with Hertha, the earth, mankind were pro- 
 duced. An image of a woman with a child in her 
 arms was consecrated in their forests, and was held 
 particularly sacred. They had festivals in honor of 
 the sun, and greeted the new moon with torchlight 
 processions. They held the Rhine in great venera- 
 tion, and cast offerings into its waves. 
 
 No priesthood were ever held in greater venera- 
 
 * Tacitus.
 
 1 66 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 tion or fear than the Druids. They were prophets, 
 lawgivers, and executors of the law. They excom- 
 municated those who opposed them ; and thenceforth 
 the victim became an outlaw, and his most inti- 
 mate friends did not dare walk with him for fear of 
 sharing the curse resting on him. Whole cities and 
 nations were thus excommunicated, a fate dreaded 
 as the worst of public calamities. 
 
 Woman held a high place in the Druidical system. 
 Tacitus says that some Germans " suppose a divine 
 and prophetic quality resident in their women, and 
 are careful neither to disregard their admonitions, 
 nor neglect their answers." They were called to the 
 national councils, and often fought with equal brav- 
 ery in battle. The part they performed in the na- 
 tional worship was most important. The highest 
 order of priestesses were vowed to perpetual celib- 
 acy, and dwelt in sacred places. It was the univer- 
 sal faith that all events happened according to unal- 
 terable destiny, known only to the gods, and re- 
 vealed to prophets. As spirits had such intimate 
 relations with men, trial by ordeal was considered 
 most proper, as the good spirit would protect the in- 
 nocent. Convulsions of nature, as earthquakes, vol- 
 canoes, and tempests, were caused by the death of 
 some great man. 
 
 They believed, that, when the blood of man had 
 been shed, nothing but the blood of man could sat- 
 isfy the offended deities. If a man was in danger, or 
 prostrate with sickness, it was supposed that it was 
 the result of sin, and the sin could be atoned for only
 
 Ideas of the Druids. 167 
 
 by the blood of another man. Sometimes, to avert 
 national disaster, whole hecatombs of victims were 
 sacrificed to the offended gods. A huge image of a 
 man was made of basket-work ; which was then filled 
 with men, women, and children, generally prisoners, 
 but sometimes their own kindred, and the whole con- 
 signed to the flames. The cruelty of such sacrifices 
 was lessened by the belief that the victims became 
 pure, and raised to an equality with the superior na- 
 tures of the gods. 
 
 The Druids did not tolerate images. Their rites 
 were performed in the darkest groves and caverns, 
 where it was supposed powerful spirits loved to re- 
 sort. Savage man showed his child-like nature by 
 peopling the dark with goblins. They erected cir- 
 cles of rough stones, like that of Stonehenge ; and, 
 within the inclosures thus formed, altars smoked 
 with oblations of fruits, grain, flowers, and flesh of 
 slaughtered animals ; and, more terrible, from them 
 the wail of human anguish ascended to appease the 
 wrath of offended gods. 
 
 Such was the dark and appalling religion which 
 held Northern Europe in abject bondage to the will 
 of a crafty priesthood for numberless centuries until 
 subdued by the Roman power, and the superior 
 light of Christianity penetrated the minds of the 
 barbarians. Their supreme God was like the He- 
 brew Jehovah, fierce, sullen, wrathful; and his 
 children were compelled to appease him by abject 
 homage and dreadful sacrifices.
 
 1 68 Career of ike God-Idea in History. 
 
 SCANDINAVIA. 
 
 The religious ideas of Scandinavia, before the ad- 
 vent of Thor, are not well understood ; as that people 
 were reluctant to unveil their sacred mysteries be- 
 fore strangers. * They revered a supreme God, the 
 author and ruler of the universe, possessing infinite 
 power, knowledge, and justice. It was unlawful to 
 represent him by images, or any corporeal shape, 
 or to worship him in any inclosure or temple. His 
 only shrine was the dark forest or consecrated grove. 
 
 Between this infinite being and man existed a de- 
 scending series of divinities, emanating from the 
 former, whose office was to rule over the elements, 
 control the operations of nature, or act as' messen- 
 gers in executing the sentences of the infinite. 
 These were propitiated by sacrifice, and their favor 
 was the reward in the future life. 
 
 This primitive mythology gradually changed its 
 character by the introduction of new and foreign 
 gods, the heroic Odin taking the place of principal 
 deity. It prevailed seven or eight hundred years, 
 when it gave way before Christianity. It is pre- 
 served in the " Elder Edda," a compilation of the 
 spiritual thoughts, beliefs, and emotions of the Nor- 
 thern race. They strove to solve the mysteries of 
 creation with equal ardor and results as the philos- 
 ophers of Greece. They erected a stupendous cos- 
 mogony and theogony, fierce and awful as the deso- 
 late mountains and crags of their native country. 
 * Tacitus. Germ.
 
 Ideas of Scandinavia. 169 
 
 In the beginning, chaos reigned over the universe. 
 There was neither heaven nor earth, only the bot- 
 tomless abyss of Ginnungagap, and the two regions 
 of Nifelheim and Muspelheim. The first contained 
 the well Hvergelmer, whence flowed twelve poison- 
 ous streams which generated ice, snow, wind, and 
 rain : the latter was the abode of fire, ruled by Sur- 
 tur. 
 
 From the union of heat and moisture issued 
 drops from which sprang the giant Ymer, with his 
 brethren, the Rimthursar, the evil ones. They were 
 nourished by the cow Andhumbla ; and she was sup- 
 ported by licking the rocks, covered with salt and 
 hoar-frost. 
 
 "In those days a creature was born, endowed 
 with beauty, agility, and power. His son was Borr, 
 who married a giantess, and was father to Odin, 
 Vile, and Ve. The Earth was his daughter and his 
 wife ; the mother of his first-born, Asa-Thor the in- 
 vincible." 
 
 " The descendants of Borr slew Ymer, whose 
 blood caused a deluge that drowned all the Rimthur- 
 sar except Bergelmer, from whom the rest of the 
 giants were sprung. Of Ymer's body the gods made 
 the world ; his flesh composed the mold ; his bones, 
 the rocks ; his hair, the trees and herbs ; his sweat, 
 the ocean, in the midst of which was fixed the earth ; 
 and his skull, the heavens, which they divided into 
 four quarters, placing the dwarfs East, West, South, 
 and North, at each corner, to sustain it. Of his 
 brain they formed the heavy clouds, and of his eye-
 
 1 70 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 brows they erected Midgard, the middle mansion, or 
 abode of men. 
 
 " The new erection, as yet, was without propor- 
 tion, and enveloped in darkness. The sun and moon 
 were ignorant of their powers, and the other lumi- 
 naries knew not the stations they were to occupy. 
 At length Odin, the god of light, with his brothers, 
 who sat in council, collected the sparks from Mus- 
 pelheim that flew about in Ginnungapap, and plant- 
 ed them as stars in the firmament. They also fixed 
 the names and appointed the order of the seasons. 
 Natt (the Night) wedded one of the A sen, a race 
 fair and divine ; and their son Dag (Day) was beau- 
 tiful like his father. With two steeds they travel 
 successively round the world in twenty-four hours : 
 the horse of Night is Rimfaxi (Frost-mane), the foam 
 of whose bit causes the dew ; the car of Day is drawn 
 by Skinfaxi (Shining-mane), whose radiant mane il- 
 lumines the sky. A cool air, placed under their 
 skins, gives freshness to the morning. The sun and 
 moon are guided in their course by the two children 
 of Mundifor. 
 
 " On the extreme shore of the ocean was Utgard, 
 also Jotunheim, where dwelt Nor and the giants, 
 against whom a wall or strong fortress was built to 
 separate them from Asgard, the habitation of the 
 gods. There, under the root of the tree of the 
 world, lived the dwarfs and elves ; and there is the 
 home of Sleep, who rises every night to seal the eye- 
 lids of mankind. At the north sat the giant Hras- 
 velg, devouring the dead : his shape was that of an
 
 Ideas of Scandinavia. 171 
 
 eagle ; and, when he moved his wings, it caused the 
 winds and the desolating tempests to blow. There 
 were nine heavens and nine earths, in the lowest of 
 which resided Hell, the goddess of the nether world. 
 
 " As yet the human species had no existence ; 
 when Odin, intent upon beautifying the universe, 
 created a man and woman, Ask and Embla, from two 
 pieces of wood (ash and elm), thrown by the waves 
 upon the beach. These were the first pair ; and the 
 three Asen endowed them with life, comeliness, and 
 intellect. 
 
 " The gods themselves inhabited Asgard, which 
 may be considered as the Scandinavian Olympus. 
 It contained a number of cities and halls, the 
 largest and most splendid of which was named Glad- 
 heim, or the mansion of joy, wherein were twelve 
 seats for the primary deities, besides the throne oc- 
 cupied by All-fader, the universal father. Another 
 edifice erected for the goddesses was Vingolf, the 
 abode of love and friendship. In Alfheim dwelt the 
 luminous elves or fairies, a distinct race from the 
 black genii that live under the earth. The celestial 
 capital was overspread with the famous ash Ygdra- 
 sil, the tallest and most beautiful of all trees, whose 
 branches covered the whole earth, and towered 
 above the heavens. To preserve it evergreen, it 
 was watered by the Nornor, the fates or destinies 
 that distribute to man the various events of his life, 
 good or bad. It had three roots. One reached to 
 Nifelheim, where Nidhogg, a monstrous serpent, lay 
 and gnawed it in the well Hvergelmer, the source
 
 172 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 of the infernal rivers. Another extended to the abode 
 of the Rimthursar ; and under it was the well Mimer, 
 the fountain of wisdom, where Odin left his eye in 
 pledge for a cup of its inspiring waters. The third 
 stretched to the Asen, and the human world. ^Be- 
 neath was the holy spring of Urd, where two swans 
 were nursed, the progenitors of all birds of that spe- 
 cies, and where the gods sat in judgment, passing 
 to it every day on horseback, over the sacred bridge 
 Bafrost (the rainbow), on which the giants dared 
 not tread. In a hall under it lived three virgins of 
 the Nornor, who dispense the ages of men." 
 
 Odin is the chief deity of Asgard. He is the 
 father of all, the creator and governor of the uni- 
 verse. Frizza, the Earth, is his daughter and wife ; 
 the graceful Balder, his second son. 
 
 There were a host of deities of minor repute, of 
 the ocean, war, archery, peace ; goddesses of love, 
 the toilet, prudence, of medicine, etc. There were 
 also Valkyries, whose office was to pour out mead 
 for the braves in Valhalla, passing it in cups made 
 from the skulls of enemies. Then the departed he- 
 roes engaged in feasting, or hewing each other to 
 pieces in combat, to become renewed at the hour 
 of repast. 
 
 The Scandinavian cosmogony saw in the remote 
 past a Garden of Eden, and the story of its loss is 
 the poetry of imagination. It also has a conclusion 
 to the present order of nature, a grand finale. Of 
 that time the Vala sings,
 
 Ideas of the Aztecs. 173 
 
 " The sun all black shall be, 
 The earth sink in the sea, 
 And every starry ray 
 From heaven fade away ; 
 While vapors hot shall fill 
 The air round Ygdrasil, 
 And, flaming as they rise, 
 Play towering to the skies." 
 
 Out of ruin shall arise a new and inconceivably 
 more beautiful earth ; and then man shall live accord- 
 ing to his deeds, eternally happy or miserable. 
 Of the fate of the sinful, the Edda draws the follow- 
 ing terrible picture : 
 
 " There is an abode remote from the sun, the gates 
 of which face the north. Poison rains through a 
 thousand openings : it is constructed with the car- 
 casses of scorpions and serpents, their heads turned 
 inward. From this dismal abyss smoke ascends in 
 dense columns. There the wicked float in streams 
 of venom, black as pitch, and cold as ice ; or have 
 their bodies perpetually gnawed and tortured by a 
 wolf. The respective destinies of the good and the 
 bad are to endure forever, as they are ordained by 
 the decrees of the powerful Being who governs all, 
 and who comes forth from his lofty throne to render 
 divine justice." 
 
 THE AZTECS. 
 
 A strange civilization grew up in the southwest- 
 ern section of North America: it was infantile, 
 anomalous, and unique, and contained the elements
 
 1 74 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 of self-defeat. When discovered by the Spaniards, 
 it was already on the decline ; and, by the ferocious 
 bigotry of those invaders, it was utterly extinguished. 
 In vain we look for its parallel in the surrounding 
 Indian tribes. Instead, we find analogies on the 
 opposite regions of the globe. The worshipers of 
 fire on the plains of Persia, the dreamy Hindoos of 
 the Ganges, appear to have contributed to the wor- 
 ship of the semi-civilized Aztec. 
 
 Mythology has been defined as the poetry of reli- 
 gion. It may be better defined as the essence of 
 external conditions. It is dependent on geography. 
 Savage man, pushing his way out of savagedom, must 
 have his rude conceptions modified by the surround- 
 ing nature from which they spring. The Goth of 
 the dark forests of Germany, quaffing mead from the 
 skulls of vanquished enemies, must originate an en- 
 tirely different mythology than the delicate Indian of 
 the tropics, whose life is listlessly spent under the 
 shade of the banana. * The Atzecs had as thor- 
 ough and burdensome a ceremonial as ever darkened 
 the historic pages of any people. It was the con- 
 crete expression of their own fierce and unrelenting 
 character. 
 
 They recognized the existence of a supreme Crea- 
 tor and Lord of the universe. They addressed him 
 in their prayers as " the God by whom we live ; " 
 "Omnipresent, that knoweth all thoughts, and 
 giveth all gifts ; " " without whom man is nothing ; " 
 " invisible, incorporeal, one God, of perfection and 
 
 * Prescott. Con. of Mexico.
 
 Ideas of the Aztecs. 175 
 
 purity ;" "under whose wings we find repose and a 
 sure defense." * 
 
 Such expressions seem to convey a not inade- 
 quate view of the Creator : but the Aztec had no idea 
 of unity ; of a being, all-pervading, whose simple 
 volition was action, and who needed no inferior min- 
 isters to execute his purposes ; and they filled the im- 
 passable gulf between the infinite and man with a 
 host of inferior deities, who presided over the ele- 
 ments and the occupations of men. Such is the un- 
 varying escape of the savage from the oppressive 
 contemplation of the infinite. There were thirteen 
 principal deities, and more than two hundred inferior, 
 each having special days of festival, f 
 
 The chief deity was the terrible, sanguinary mon- 
 ster, Huitzilopotchli, the god of war. His temples 
 were the most august, and hecatombs of captives 
 shed their bipod on his altars in every city of the 
 empire. Terrible as he is represented, he was born 
 of a virgin, entering the world armed like Minerva. \ 
 
 Quetzalcoalt presents a more pleasing character. 
 He is undoubtedly one of those personages who de- 
 vote themselves to the improvement of their race, 
 and are deified by the rude gratitude of their coun- 
 trymen. He instructed his people in the use of 
 
 * Prescott. Con. of Mexico. ,. 
 
 f Tahagun. His. de Nueva Espana. 
 
 % Like Christ, the chief deity of the people beyond the 
 Ganges, of China, Thibet, and the Mars of the Aztecs, were 
 born of virgins. See Milman, His. Christianity ; Clavigero, 
 Stor. del Messico ; Barrow.
 
 1 76 Ctireer of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 metals, in agriculture, and civil polity. During his 
 stay, the earth was fruitful beyond expression, with- 
 out the pains of culture. The cotton grew colored 
 with exquisite dyes ; an ear of corn was as large as 
 a man could carry ; the air was perfumed, and full of 
 melody. This was the golden age, which is found 
 in the myths of all races. 
 
 Compelled to abandon the country by the wrath 
 of the principal gods, he stopped at Cholula, where 
 a magnificent temple was erected to him, the inter- 
 esting ruins of which are still to be seen. Then he 
 stepped into his wizard skiff formed of serpent skins, 
 and departed over the Mexican gulf, to the fabled 
 land of Tlapallan, first telling his people that he and 
 his descendants would return. This superstition, 
 which saw in the advent of the Spaniards its fulfill- 
 ment, was a potent cause of national extinction. 
 
 From these deities there was a regular gradation 
 down to the household gods. 
 
 The priestly order was numerous. It is esti- 
 mated that five thousand were connected with the 
 principal temples of the empire. They possessed all 
 the scanty knowledge of their time, and employed it 
 in strengthening the superstition which gave them 
 power. " The priests were each devoted to the ser- 
 vice of some particular deity, and were provided with 
 apartments in the temples. In these monastic resi- 
 dences they lived in all the stern severity of conven- 
 tual discipline. Thrice during the day, and once at 
 night, they were called to prayers. They were fre- 
 quent in their ablutions and vigils, and mortified the
 
 Aztec Temples. 177 
 
 flesh by fasting and cruel penance, drawing blood 
 from their bodies by flagellation, or by piercing them 
 with thorns of the aloe. * 
 
 The Aztec temples were called teocallis or " Houses 
 of God." They were very numerous ; and some 
 were of grand proportions, on which all the efforts of 
 crude art expended itself. They were pyramids of 
 earth, incased with brick or stone, some of them 
 more than a hundred feet square at their base, 
 and more than that in height. On the broad top of 
 these pyramids were lofty towers containing images 
 of the presiding deities, in front of which stood the 
 terrible sacrificial stone, and two lofty altars, on 
 which blazed the inextinguishable sacred fire. 
 
 The religious ceremonies were most august and 
 impressive. The long lines of priests slowly wind- 
 ing up the sides of the pyramids, and the procession 
 of votaries crowned with garlands bearing their offer- 
 ings of fruits, gums, and choicest grains, presented 
 a beautiful and thrilling spectacle. Often, however, 
 leading that procession, were human victims ; and the 
 kettle-drum, from the summit of the temple, called 
 the breathless people to witness their immolation. 
 
 Such sacrifices were required by Tezcatlipoca, 
 who ranked next to the Supreme Being ; who was 
 called the " Soul of the world," and was said to have 
 been its creator. " He was depicted as a handsome 
 man, endowed with perpetual youth. A year before 
 the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished for his 
 personal beauty, and without a blemish on his body, 
 
 * Prescott.
 
 1 78 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 was selected to represent this deity. Certain tutors 
 took charge of him, and instructed him how to per- 
 form his new part with becoming dignity and grace. 
 He was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with 
 incense, and with a profusion of sweet flowers. 
 When he went abroad, he was attended by a train 
 of royal pages ; and, as he halted in the street to play 
 some favorite melody, the crowd prostrated them- 
 selves before him, and did him homage as the repre- 
 sentative of their good deity. In this way he led a 
 life of luxury till within a month of his sacrifice. 
 Four beautiful girls, bearing the names of the prin- 
 cipal goddesses, were then selected to share the hon- 
 ors of his bed ; and with them he continued to live 
 in idle dalliance, feasted at the banquets of the prin- 
 cipal nobles, who paid him divine honors of a divin- 
 ity. At length the fatal day arrived. The term of 
 his short-lived glories was 'at an end. He was 
 stripped of his gaudy apparel, and bade adieu to the 
 fair partners of his revelries. One of the royal 
 barges transported him across the lake to a temple 
 which rose on its margin about a league from the 
 city. Hither the inhabitants of the capital flocked, 
 to witness the consummation of the ceremony. As 
 the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyra- 
 mid, the unhappy victim threw away his gay chap- 
 lets of flowers, and broke in pieces the musical in- 
 struments with which he had solaced the hours of 
 captivity. On the summit he was received by six 
 priests, whose long and matted locks flowed disor- 
 derly over their sable robes, covered with hiero-
 
 Aztec Sacrifices. 179 
 
 glyphic scrolls of mystic import. They led him to the 
 sacrificial stone, a huge block of jasper, with its up- 
 per surface somewhat convex. On this the prisoner 
 was stretched. Five priests secured his head and 
 his limbs ; while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, 
 emblematic of his bloody office, dexterously opened 
 the breast of the wretched victim with a sharp razor 
 of itztli, a volcanic substance, hard as flint, and, 
 inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpi- 
 tating heart. The minister of death, first holding 
 this up towards the sun, an object of worship 
 throughout Anahuac, cast it at the feet of the deity 
 to whom the temple was devoted, while the multi- 
 tudes below prostrated themselves in humble adora- 
 tion. The tragic story of the prisoner was expound- 
 ed by the priests as the type of human destiny, 
 which, brilliant in its commencement, too often 
 closes in sorrow and disaster. * 
 
 After the sacrifice, the body was delivered to the 
 warrior who captured him in battle, who served it 
 up at a feast as the concluding act in this awful re- 
 ligious drama. 
 
 Women as well as men were sometimes sacrificed. 
 In seasons of drought, Thaloe, the god of rain, de- 
 manded the offering of children ; and infants were 
 offered, the priests reading, in the tears evoked by 
 the sight of their innocence, an augury that their 
 petition would be answered. 
 
 The most polished nations of antiquity sacrificed 
 human victims, but none to the terrible extent of 
 
 * Prescott.
 
 1 80 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 the Aztecs. Some authors estimate the number of 
 victims annually sacrificed throughout the empire at 
 twenty thousand, and others state it as high as fifty 
 thousand. At the dedication of the great temple of 
 Huitzilopotchli, the victims, who had been preserved 
 for years, were drawn from all parts, and ranged in 
 files forming a procession nearly two miles in length. 
 Seventy thousand captives are said to have been im- 
 molated on the shrine of the dreadful god. 
 
 The main object of war was to secure victims for 
 their sacrifices ; for, in case they were not thus ob- 
 tained, they must be supplied from the people. By 
 such diabolical rites, the gloom of superstition spread 
 over all the people, from the throne of the king to the 
 hearth of the peasant ; and, having impregnated them 
 with the blindest fanaticism, the priest placed his 
 iron heel on their necks, and held them in abject 
 bondage.
 
 X. 
 
 CONCLUSION ULTIMATE OF THE GOD-IDEA. 
 
 THEY who deny the popular conception of God are called Atheists. The 
 best and greatest men have been branded with this blasting name, 
 Thales, Aristotle, Xenophanes, both the Zenos, Cicero, Seneca, Abe- 
 lard, Gallileo, Kepler, Descartes, Leibnitz, Wolf, Locke, Cudworth, 
 Clark, Jacob Boehme, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Priestley, 
 Von Holback, Helvetius, Diderot, and D'Alembert, have been so stig- 
 matized. The early Christians and all the most .distinguished religious 
 philosophers have borne the name. 
 
 BENEATH all the ceaseless changes and unrest of nature, there is that 
 which never changes. ARCANA. 
 
 IT is impossible even for God to escape Fate. HERODOTUS. 
 
 IT is a singular fact, that the first great problem 
 which engaged the human mind was one that 
 by its profundity was impossible for a finite mind to 
 grasp. This problem was the nature of God. In 
 this it indicates its kinship to the infinite and ever- 
 lasting. It asks, with the first breath of its being, 
 what, where, and who is God, feeling that an answer 
 is imperatively necessary, and yet from the very con- 
 stitution of things it cannot receive a reply. 
 
 The child follows the savage, and, while yet un- 
 able to comprehend the construction of its toys, 
 lisps the half-articulated query, "Who and where is 
 God?"
 
 1 82 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 Around this question aggregate the various reli- 
 gious systems of the world. Its attempted answers 
 form the basis of all sacred literature and ethical 
 systems. The dreamy Hindoo, retired from the 
 world in the deepest jungle or remotest cavern, 
 transcribing the vagaries of ecstasy from generation 
 to generation, fashioned the Shaster. Mohammed 
 gathered the traditions of the monotheistic Arab in 
 the Koran ; another Semitic people our own Holy 
 Book ; and, in the same wonderful region of Asia, 
 originated the Zend, holy to the fire-worshipers. If 
 we look carefully into these books, we shall find that 
 the answer has been an echo of the writer's ideas as 
 these were molded by the aspect of surrounding 
 nature. The Semitic race, from whom the two 
 great systems of Judaism and Islamism are derived, 
 were monotheistic by force of the country they in- 
 habited. The terrible solitudes of the deserts of the 
 East, the sameness, the oneness so to speak, re- 
 acted on the wild men who roamed over them. 
 
 After surveying the ideas entertained of God by 
 all races of men, from the remotest time to the pres- 
 ent, we find, that, amid conflicting claims and pre- 
 tended revelations, there is no certainty, nothing ab- 
 solute. We have exhausted the sacred traditions 
 of mankind, and have met only vague conjecture. 
 Where, then, shall we seek for the solution ? We 
 must turn to nature, and await her reply. 
 
 Man is placed in the midst of an endless plain, 
 boundless and inexpressible. All his thoughts, ideas, 
 and desires, are in harmony with the conditions which
 
 Reason the Umpire. 183 
 
 environ him. Whether he gaze on the summit of the 
 blue, cloud-capped mountain, the hurrying cataract 
 which bounds over its rocky side, the smooth, tran- 
 quil river, or the ocean lashed to fury by the commo- 
 tions of the atmosphere ; whether he with the mi- 
 croscope survey the world of invisible beings which 
 dwell in a single drop of stagnant water, in the blood 
 or the juices of the muscles, or with heaven-directed 
 telescope survey the realms of immensity, worlds 
 and worlds tumultuous piled, yet harmonious, and 
 obeying one general law by which they are preserved 
 from general ruin ; whether he gaze down the dim 
 vista of the past, and behold the endless mutations 
 matter has undergone, the forms which have arose 
 from those lower and less developed ; or forward in- 
 to the misty future, and feel a longing and undefined 
 desire to know and feel the changes future ages will 
 produce, his mind is ever alive to the impressions 
 of surrounding nature. 
 
 It has been said that we know nothing of causa- 
 tion, that the effect is all we have knowledge of, and 
 that it is rank infidelity to try to reveal the hidden 
 ways of the Almighty. No more so than to see the 
 effect. All evidence we have of any object is the 
 impression which that object produces on our senses, 
 and all the evidence which we possess of the ex- 
 istence of causation, is the effect which ideas pro- 
 duce upon our reason and understanding, Hence 
 we have as much right to infer from one as the other, 
 and to trace to their final cause the effects .and 
 causes of nature. To us we have no higher law than
 
 1 84 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 reason : we possess no other guide ; and, if that fail, 
 we have no support. It is the Divine power, which 
 is the only safeguard in investigation, and, unpervert- 
 ed, will be a true and faithful guide. 
 
 At the outset, we learn that we never can ascer- 
 tain who, what, and where is God. All that is left^ 
 us is to learn what he is not. It is the ordained 
 task of the learning of the present to overthrow the 
 religious dogmas of the past by showing their incon- 
 sistencies and imperfections, and at the same time 
 crush our egotism by teaching us how very limited 
 are our powers when we attempt to grasp the uni- 
 versal and infinite principles which underlie and sup- 
 port creation. 
 
 This age is the incarnation of utilitarianism. It 
 can understand nor appreciate, only as it perceives 
 the use and end. Out of its mechanical view of 
 nature has arisen a school of philosophy of which no 
 other age could have dreamed. The doctrines of 
 Paley have extended wherever an Anglo-Saxon 
 dwells. He gave scientific cast to the doctrines of 
 final cause, the ignoble theory of design in nature. 
 
 The doctrine of special design leads necessarily to 
 the individualization, the personality of a deity, su- 
 perior and outside of nature ; existing prior to and 
 creating the external world. For, if there is design, 
 there must be a designer, and that designer must 
 have power to put his designs in execution. If so, 
 then he is but an extension of a reasoning being ; 
 an enlargement of man. He is a man with unlimi- 
 ted power.
 
 A Personal God. 185 
 
 There are two arguments, each conclusive, against 
 the existence of such a being : 
 
 First : An individuality is necessarily circum- 
 scribed, for its limitation makes it such. If circum- 
 scribed, it is not infinite, but finite ; and a finite be- 
 ing cannot control infinite power or possess infinite 
 intelligence. 
 
 Second : Something cannot originate from noth- 
 ing. If such a being exists, he must be an entity, 
 which presupposes the incarnation of matter, how- 
 ever refined, and his creation and existence become 
 a far more perplexing problem than the creation of 
 the universe itself. For it is an axiom that it is 
 easier to create the lesser than the greater ; and how 
 much more rational to suppose the self-existence of 
 matter, than of a being capable of evoking matter 
 from nonentity by a thought ! 
 
 Such are the arguments against the existence of a 
 personal God. They are not applicable, however, to 
 the supposition of jra all-pervading essence, in which 
 some philosophers believe, not outside of matter, but 
 rather its spirit, its life, and vital force. I shall reach 
 this position after following out another course of 
 thought. 
 
 According to the doctrine of final cause, we are to 
 stop our investigations when we reach the use of a 
 thing, and thence refer it to the divine artificer. 
 The eye is made to see, the ear to hear, the tongue 
 to speak, the limbs to walk, and so on through the 
 endless catalogue. This gross philosophy can see
 
 1 86 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 nothing higher than mechanical use ; and a machine, 
 as a watch, is its constant illustration. 
 
 The nautilus, with its nicely divided and adjusted 
 air-chambered cell, its oars, its sails, its rudder, very 
 beautiful, and nicely adapted to the conditions in 
 which it is placed, are conclusive proof, it is affirmed, 
 of design in structure. The carnivora are especially 
 designed to keep the herbivora within bounds. 
 They were created for that object, and no other. 
 Volumes might be filled with such instances which 
 are trumpted forth as conclusive evidence of design. 
 
 The animals of the north have a thick covering of 
 fur ; while those at the equator are generally des- 
 titute, or only clothed with hair. Is this from de- 
 sign, or the direct effect of climate ? The answer 
 is given when the fur or wool clad animal, transferred 
 to the equator, in a few generations loses its fur or 
 wool, and becomes covered with hairs. Is the deer 
 given long legs to enable it to be fleet, or is it fleet 
 because it has long legs ? Let us not place the ef- 
 fect for the cause. How many abortive attempts does 
 nature make to every success ? When conditions 
 are wrong, there is failure, inevitably. Darwin has 
 traced the wondrous lines of animal progress, and 
 shown how only by repeated and innumerable fail- 
 ures the present equilibrium, which is called design, 
 has been reached. * There is no accident. 
 
 " There reigns everywhere, in consequence of the 
 immutability of nature's laws, a certain necessity 
 which admits of no exception." f 
 
 * Origin of Species. \ Bucimer.
 
 The Doctrine of Design. 187 
 
 The paleontological history of the earth proves be- 
 yond question that organic life is as delicate to the 
 varying external conditions as the needle to the 
 electric current. This vast series of extinct and liv- 
 ing forms " presents itself before us," says De Jou- 
 vencel, " not as the execution of a natural plan, but 
 as an historical result, continually modified by a 
 multitude of causes, which have acted consecutively, 
 and in which every accident, every irregularity, rep- 
 resents the action of a cause. The plan in the 
 sense in which the expression is employed does 
 not exist. The forces act necessarily blindly, and 
 from their concurrence beings take their origin. To 
 believe that nature follows a serial plan is a grave 
 error. The series is a resultant, and not an idea of 
 nature : it is nature itself." As Kant remarks, " It 
 is reflecting reason which brought design into the 
 world, and which admires a wonder created by itself." 
 
 We should infer a priori, from these premises, that, 
 as the equilibrium of forces cannot be at once gained, 
 nature would present strange freaks and anomalies. 
 Thus there are poisonous reptiles, insects, and plants ; 
 parasites which seem created for no other purpose 
 but giving pain to other animals ; locusts darken- 
 ing the air, and leaving famine in their flight ; the 
 entozoa, as the tape-worm, existing only to multiply, 
 and thereby cause suffering to higher animals, do 
 not speak well for an intelligent designer. Such in- 
 stances have always been difficult points for theology, 
 and it has assumed that the sin committed by man 
 brought this antagonism into being : geology, how-
 
 1 88 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 ever, proves that it existed ages before man came in- 
 . to existence. It has attempted to account in the 
 same manner for disease. Science teaches that dis- 
 ease is as old as organic life. The younger or 
 more primitive in other words, the more savage a 
 people are, the more subject are they to disgusting 
 and destructive diseases, as is proved by the history 
 of all rude peoples. In proportion as they become 
 civilized, life is lengthened. 
 
 Is there design in monstrosities ; in the birth of 
 beings which from organization cannot exist as indi- 
 viduals ? To account for such, the ancients referred 
 them to the wrath of the gods. Births without 
 limbs, or with two heads, or entirely destitute of a 
 brain, are not uncommon. Of the latter, Prof. Lotze 
 remarks, " If the fcetus is without a brain, it would 
 be but judicious, in a force having a free choice, to 
 suspend its action, that such a miserable and pur- 
 poseless creature may exist for a time, appears to 
 us strikingly to prove that the final result always 
 depends upon the disposition of purely mechanical 
 definite forces, which, once set in motion, proceed 
 straight on, according to the law of inertia, until they 
 meet with an obstruction." 
 
 The healing power or vital force of nature is a 
 myth. When proper conditions exist, the wound 
 heals ; but, otherwise, inflammation, suppuration, or 
 mortification, take place with equal facility. It-is said 
 that nature has antidotes for every disease. Medi- 
 cal science has long ago discarded this specific ac- 
 tion of remedies ; and, even had it not, how despica-
 
 Design in Creation. 189 
 
 ble that design which creates an evil in order to 
 bestow an antidote, when it would have been bettert 
 to have created neither ! 
 
 A trivial accident may change the whole process 
 of nature ; as the healthy foetus may by one unto- 
 ward act of the mother become a hideous monster. 
 Can the idea of an active conscious power be recon- 
 cilable with such results ? Nothing is gained by 
 saying such an omnipotent consciousness presup- 
 poses the perfect understanding of all possible con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Is the earth created for man ? A very poor cre- 
 ation if so. With what labor and suffering he sub- 
 dues a litle spot sufficient for a dwelling! Many of 
 the finest adaptations are the work of his intelligence : 
 as the horse, to Arabia ; the camel, to the deserts of 
 Africa ; the olive, to Italy ; the grape, to the Rhine ; 
 the apple, pear, peach, grape, cereals, and grasses, ox, 
 horse, and sheep, to the vast American continent. 
 
 Man employs the minerals, metals, and stone 
 found in the earth's crust for purposes of comfort 
 and convenience, and it is said a beautiful design is 
 shown in the manner they are distributed through 
 the earth's crust. The coal and iron fields of the 
 great West are often quoted. But what shall we 
 think of the vast iron beds of Pilot Knob and Iron 
 Mountain, far away from the coal absolutely neces- 
 sary to make that ore, the richest and best in the 
 world, of any benefit ? The theologian may specu- 
 late : but the philosopher, as he reviews the field, can 
 see only the action of forces moving forward to their
 
 190 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 determinate results ; and man wrenches from them 
 the assistance he may require, or, as often happens, 
 is crushed by their unchangeable movements. 
 
 The theory of final cause, placing God as a direct 
 actor, creating the universe as a mechanic, and al- 
 ways at work, directly superintending, is the most 
 easy method of accounting for the phenomena of the 
 world. 
 
 It is an easy philosophy. It makes great preten- 
 sions to wisdom and learning, but requires little 
 thought on the part of its votaries : it burdens them 
 not with reflection, never leaves them on their own 
 responsibility ; but permits them, slipshod, to reason 
 as far as they can, and leave the rest to God. It is 
 an easy philosophy/bestowing quiet and the comfort 
 of indolence. On the other hand, that system which 
 ignores final cause and design throws the student 
 on his own resources, and bids him sink or swim. 
 If he dive a thousand fathoms into the sea of truth, 
 the light of the pearls he finds there always reveals 
 another thousand to be explored, with a deep sea- 
 floor strown with gems of greater lustre. Ever a 
 great truth beyond underlies and absorbs all present 
 knowledge ; and, so far from being able to fall back 
 into the lap of a final cause, he becomes more and 
 more assured, every step he advances, that, although 
 he live a million ages, ever will unknown causes 
 arise in the dim beyond, embracing all his previous 
 knowledge. 
 
 One doctrine is the fostering, jnother of egotism 
 and self-sufficiency ; the other, of humility and a
 
 Intelligence in Nature. 191 
 
 sense of the feebleness of human efforts to fathom 
 the unknown. If we cast aside the doctrine of final- 
 ity and design, how can we account rationally for 
 the phenomena of nature which so admirably coun- 
 terfeit these ? It is true, then, when we superficially 
 view the external world, we are strongly impressed 
 with this adaptation : means are employed for cer- 
 tain ends ; causes run given courses to their effects ; 
 and there is an order which seems to presuppose an 
 Omnipotent Being behind the curtain of the exter- 
 nal world, who, like an all-seeing monarch, sends 
 out mandates from the fountain of an omnipotent 
 will. Such, I say, is the appearance. We see that 
 which, in a remarkable manner, counterfeits the in- 
 telligence of man. To our finite comprehension it 
 takes the form of an infinitely extended intelligence 
 supported by infinite power. We look out into na- 
 ture as into a mirror, and we see ourselves reflected 
 there. The intelligence we see is our own intelli- 
 gence, slightly magnified ; and the will power our 
 own, enlarged. It is a personality : we cannot 
 dodge that. Say what we will, talk of an imper- 
 sonal essence, an omnipotent principle, as we will, 
 yet the bald fact stares us in the face. We cannot 
 conceive of an existence without personality, or an 
 essence without being. Still worse is the dilemma 
 when the supposed faculty of the human mind, ven- 
 eration for Deity, is brought forward as proving the 
 existence of such an essence. For, say these theo- 
 rists, man is a reverential being. He has veneration 
 for a superior being ; which desire presupposes its
 
 192 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 answer, the existence of a being to worship. But 
 how worship a principle ? How reverence an imper- 
 sonal essence ? How feel grateful or loving towards 
 an attribute ? It is impossible. As soon as these 
 feelings arise, the attribute becomes incarnated : 
 we are worshiping a personality. What is this be- 
 ing ? Our own ideas incarnated. In proof, is Jeho- 
 vah more than an unlimited Jew, the most cruel, 
 bloodthirsty, and criminal race the sun ever shone 
 upon ? Is Brahma more than the ideal of the 
 cringing, servile Hindoo? Is Ormuzd more than 
 the reflection of the highly imaginary and heated 
 fancy of the Persian ? Is Christ more than the 
 enlargment of refined morality as exhibited in de- 
 veloped man ? Is any man's god much greater 
 than himself? Does he possess power or faculties 
 which he cannot suppose himself capable of pos- 
 sessing ? These are pertinent questions, which 
 never have been, never can be, met ; and their an- 
 swer unravels all the mysteries of the theologies of 
 the world. While man has thought to worship God, 
 he has worshiped, instead, the reflected image of 
 himself. 
 
 Jehovah is a tyrannical Jew ; Jove, a brave and 
 amorous Greek ; Ormuzd, a Persian ; Brahma, a 
 cruel, domineering Hindoo, in power ; Christ, the 
 highest ideal of any race to which he is introduced. 
 
 As each individual, who sees the rainbow, sees a 
 different bow, because his standpoint is different, so 
 no-two individuals believe in the same God, because 
 each sees his own image.
 
 Eternity of Matter. 193 
 
 Back of all mechanical schemes of creation, back 
 of the gross theories of use, of contrivance, which 
 smell strongly of burnt oil, the smoke of the shop 
 and the foundry, are principles which overflow and 
 obliterate all other conceptions. To these let us 
 now turn, not with bared head and unsandaled feet, 
 but clad with the mantle of a reasoning philosophy, 
 which teaches that no domain is sacred ; that a 
 milkman's yard, and the courts of heaven, are equally 
 holy. 
 
 Matter is eternal. We need not pause to prove 
 this axiom on which all strictly scientific reasoning 
 rests. As a self-evident truth it stands forth, chal- 
 lenging refutation. We are at least as well justified 
 in asserting this, as are those who suppose its crea- 
 tion in asserting the self-existence of a being capable 
 of creating it. Call this doctrine a wild, unsupported 
 assertion : it is a justifiable one. It is not an as- 
 sertion, however. Axioms are based on experience. 
 All reasoning rests there ; all science, all philosophy. 
 Experience shows that matter cannot either be cre- 
 ated or destroyed by any agent now existing, and 
 the constitution of matter shows that it is impossible 
 for any such agency to exist. 
 
 Now arises the pertinent question, " What is mat- 
 ter ? " Can the ultimate molecule, of which matter 
 by some philosophers is' supposed to be composed, 
 be disrobed of its properties, and stand out alone ? 
 We cannot conceive of such an existence. With- 
 out gravity, it could have no weight, no attractions, 
 no repulsions ; could not enter any organization
 
 194 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 whatever, either in mineral, vegetable, or animal. 
 Without extension and impenetrability, the world 
 might be crowded into a nutshell, and then have no 
 consistency. Heated, indeed, must be the imagina- 
 tion which can fancy the existence of a world formed 
 of such materials. Rob matter of these attributes, 
 and nothing is left. 
 
 Still worse, if the German theory be received, that 
 what we call an atom is a pulsating centre or math- 
 ematical point, from which attributes are emanated ; 
 for then, if we rob the centre of its pulsations, noth- 
 ing remains. 
 
 These attributes are co-eternal and co-existent with 
 matter. What are these attributes ? In all inves- 
 tigations, we must start somewhere. There must 
 be a definite beginning : and without questioning 
 the origin of matter, what it is, and the birth of 
 its attributes, thus involving ourselves in an unlimi- 
 ted maze of conjecture, for which there can be not a 
 shadow of positive proof, we start from premises that 
 we can prove ; and when others come after, and ex- 
 tend the horizon of thought, perhaps beyond these 
 attributes may lie others, and others beyond them, 
 and a personal God beyond all ; but, until then, we 
 must wait. 
 
 Perhaps, as has been suggested, they are the will 
 of Deity. Granted. They may be ; but in the absence 
 of all proof, of all knowledge whatever, it is better 
 to let the matter rest until the conjecture at least 
 has a shade of evidence in its support. 
 
 We are now rapidly approaching the unfolding of
 
 Primary Condition of Matter. 195 
 
 the principles which underlie the design and adap- 
 tation observed in nature. We began far down, 
 and came upward, carefully grounding our argument 
 on the firm basis of the eternity of matter and the 
 co-eternity of its attributes, by which term we mean 
 its properties. 
 
 Matter, when first brought to view by the far-see- 
 ing inverted telescope, which retrospects the million 
 eons of past duration, was a gaseous chaos. It may 
 have been heated, it may not have been ; a ques- 
 tion which cannot be determined. This much we 
 know : there was a time, which we call the begin- 
 ning, when the universe existed as a gaseous ocean. 
 From such a vast object of contemplation let us turn 
 to the consideration of our solar system, which is 
 quite sufficient to satisfy the .grasp of human 
 thought. It is a chaotic ocean of vapor floating in 
 space. It has not yet been acted on by any exter- 
 nal force. It is so far removed that no external body 
 can act on it. Watch what occurs. Left alone to 
 obey the dictation of its attributes, gravity rounds 
 the mass ; for, there being more matter towards the 
 centre than in the opposite direction^ each particle 
 is drawn inward, and, as an equilibrium must be es- 
 tablished, the ocean is rounded. Each particle takes 
 a straight line for the centre, but it is infinitely im- 
 probable that a perfect equilibrium should be at once 
 established. If there are more particles on one side 
 than the other, instead of going directly to the cen- 
 tre, the particles will take a spiral line to that point, 
 the whole mass will rotate on its axis, which rotation
 
 1 96 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 will increase until the attraction of the external par- 
 ticles will be overcome, and a succession of rings be 
 thrown off. These rings will consolidate into worlds, 
 having relatively the density, size, and distance of 
 the planets from our sun. A similar process will 
 eliminate the moons by the rotation of their nacent 
 planets. 
 
 Is there design here ? It is matter obeying the 
 dictates of its attributes, driven onward by the stern 
 necessity of their decrees, and these are issued with 
 all the regularity and certainty of mathematics : in 
 fact, mathematics is based on them, and its most 
 sublime feat is the exposition of their laws and 
 method of action. 
 
 If the solar system was created by design, and 
 with special reference to the sentient and intellectual 
 beings which inhabit it, a few queries arise, each one 
 of which must be answered straightforward, without 
 reference to mystery. Why were not the large planets 
 placed near the sun, instead of so far off that its rays 
 can be of little service to them ? If the moons are 
 to give light to their planets, why were they not cre- 
 ated larger ? and why, as in cases of Saturn and Ju- 
 piter, the smaller next to the planets, and the largest 
 so far removed as to be of little or no service as 
 luminaries ? So of the stars, if to give light is their 
 object. Would it not have been better to have 
 given Saturn one sun to revolve around him, than 
 six moons, the combined rays of which give not 
 much more light than the earth's satellite? It is 
 supposed to be so hot on Mercury, that living be-
 
 There is no Chance. 197 
 
 ings cannot exist there ; and hence its creation is a 
 failure, it subserves no possible use. Comets, too, 
 are out of place in a system made by an all-wise 
 design : they are egregious blunders, every one of 
 them ; reflecting on the character of the being who 
 made them, if made by design. 
 
 How stale and unprofitable the doctrine which 
 provokes such questions ! With a loathing sickness 
 I turn from it to the beautiful domain of nature, 
 where worlds and systems are eliminated by the 
 mandates of inherent attributes, with all the precis- 
 ion and certainty of mathematics. Each world ex- 
 ists, has its size, form, position, fixed by inexorable 
 decree. Nothing is fortuitous. There is no chance. 
 Like a great self-adjusting wheel, creation moves on- 
 ward without a discord. The equilibrium is dis- 
 turbed. Planets, like vast pendulums, swing to and 
 fro as the grand chronometer beats the march of 
 ages ; but the regulating forces ever bring them, after 
 centuries perhaps, to their true place. The star- 
 continents of space roll onward in their orbits. The 
 force which rounds the dew-drop rolls out the great 
 world, and cannot be gainsaid. 
 
 For a moment, suppose an omnipotent being out- 
 side of nature should will the earth to become 
 square : it would roll onward, the spheroid gravity 
 has shaped it. Such a being would be useless in 
 the structure of nature, which demands no power at 
 the crank to turn her ponderous machinery ; for hers 
 is a perpetual motion, with power within itself ade- 
 quate for all ends.
 
 1 98 Career of the God- Idea in History. 
 
 If special design fails to answer why six moons 
 and three rings were given Saturn, while only four 
 were given Uranus, twice as far removed from the 
 sun ; why one was given the earth, and none to 
 Mars, twice as far from the sun ; or what freak of 
 fancy gave Saturn his rings, and refused rings to all 
 the other planets, the theory of creation by law, 
 backed by power flowing from attributes, does ac- 
 count for these phenomena and all others. 
 
 Equally faulty is it when it attempts to account 
 for the origin and development of life. Let us pre- 
 sent the facts as they are revealed in the rocky tab- 
 lets of earth. The huge volume of geological and 
 palaeontological history, miles in thickness, can be 
 condensed into a few pages. 
 
 From the vapor ocean of the beginning, the earth 
 was born. It was an intensely heated sphere of gas. 
 Eons of ages swept by. It emanated its heat ; be- 
 came liquid lava. A solid crust formed over the mass. 
 Water condensed. Life came. What form of life 
 peopled the black thermal seas, which swept past 
 the rugged peaks that frowned through the sooty at- 
 mosphere of those primordial ages ? Was it fish, 
 reptilian, or mammalian ? Nay, the lowest of all, 
 lower than mammal, lower than reptile, lower than 
 fish, lower than mollusc, than the vegetating sponge, 
 a line of jelly floating in the waves. 
 
 From that simple beginning life arose : higher and 
 higher beings peopled the globe. Fishes came, rep- 
 tiles came, mammals came ; and, last and highest, 
 man stepped forth on this planet, claiming it as his.
 
 Design in Nature. 199 
 
 A rude being was he then, in his natal days, clothed 
 in the garments nature gives the beasts of the wood 
 and field. Such, O theologian ! are the facts : how 
 meet them with your argument of special design ? 
 If God is an infinite, all-wise, good, and benevolent 
 being ; if he had, as you assert, perfect control over 
 matter, why did he not at once evoke a perfect 
 world into existence, instead of the rude model of the 
 design ? and why permit it to toil for a millennium of 
 ages through pain and misery to its present attain- 
 ments ? This is not a cavil : it is logic. A perfect 
 being, with omnipotence, cannot create other than 
 a perfect world. The question is a home thrust 
 at your cherished dogmas. Again, why permit it 
 to remain as imperfect as it is when one mandate 
 would give us paradise ? 
 
 Has man fallen ? Are we depraved ? Were 
 things once perfect ? You will find that these 
 mythological fables and Indian legends cannot save 
 you. 
 
 It must be admitted that creation by law, and the 
 existence of a personal God, are at open war ; and, 
 if one be received, the other must be denied, for if 
 God cannot work except through prescribed chan- 
 nels, marked out by the laws of matter, of what use 
 is he in the economy of the universe ? And equally 
 of what use if the other side be adopted ? We 
 have other questions to ask, and volumes might be 
 filled with them. Why is it, although many crea- 
 tions have been swept from the earth, and over a 
 million species now exist, one plan runs through
 
 2OO Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 them all ? Why do all pattern after a given arche- 
 type ? The theory of creation by law makes the an- 
 swers plain and clear ; that of design, the reverse. 
 
 Man sets out for an aquatic animal. He has the 
 gill openings and circulating system of fishes, yet 
 he is born fitted for terrestrial life. What is the ob- 
 ject of metamorphosis throughout the countless ranks 
 of living beings ? Is it not because they have a com- 
 mon origin, and that the realm of life is a unit ? 
 
 We have asked our last question. We leave the 
 special pleaders the field, and turn to the considera- 
 tion of the origin of what has been mistaken for in- 
 telligence and design. What is the intelligence seen 
 in nature ? Is it of the same kind as that manifested 
 by an intelligent being? An intelligent being is 
 one capable of employing means, adapting cause to 
 effect ; of willing, manufacturing, creating. Can and 
 does the intelligence seen in nature thus act ? If 
 so, we must of necessity presuppose an intelligent 
 being residing in or above matter ; a conclusion 
 which has already been disproved. How then shall 
 this intelligence be defined ? It is the harmony pro- 
 duced by the equilibrium of alfthe caused and effects 
 in the universe. Worlds are round because origi- 
 nally fluid, arid a fluid mass suspended in space can 
 assume no other form. The poles and equator were 
 established by the spheroidicity given by the rota- 
 tion of a fluid mass, not because an intelligence 
 acted, but because by no other means could har- 
 mony result ; and, until harmony reigned, action and 
 re-action must go on.
 
 Design in Nature. 201 
 
 If there were but one road from one city to an- 
 other, and that narrowly hedged on either side by 
 impassible barriers, it would argue no great degree 
 of intelligence, even in an idiot, to go softly over it. 
 Such is the road matter travels, propelled by causes 
 to given effects. It is not intelligence : it is neces- 
 sity of organization. 
 
 The rain falls. It is refreshing to plant and ani- 
 mal. The world rejoices in the shower. Is intelli- 
 gence concerned in the taking-up the waters of the 
 sea and lake, and drenching the thirsty continents ? 
 Let us see. The air by its gaseous constitution is 
 capable of absorbing moisture. The warmer it is, the 
 more moisture it is capable of containing. When- 
 ever its temperature is lowered, it gives out the 
 moisture absorbed at a higher temperature. Con- 
 sequently, whenever a cold and warm current of air 
 meet, rain is produced ; or, if the cold current 
 chances to be cold enough, hail or snow. The same 
 cause which gives the delightful spring shower, to 
 refresh the violets, piles the avalanche on the Alpine 
 heights, and sends the devastating hail to destroy 
 the harvest. 
 
 Is there design in a hail-storm sweeping the earth 
 with the besom of destruction ? Is there design in 
 the terrific whirlwind overthrowing the labor of cen- 
 turies ? Is design seen in the crash of the earth- 
 quake, drinking up continents, and shutting its mut- 
 tering jaws over populous cities ? Is an all-wise in- 
 telligence concerned in these effects ? How fero- 
 cious must that intelligence be ! how unmindful of
 
 202 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 the happiness of man ! Such phenomena are side 
 issues from the great principles which underlie the 
 foundation of nature. They are consequences of a 
 disturbed equilibrium which the elements strive to 
 maintain. 
 
 O man ! O philosopher ! when will you recognize 
 this fact, and not charge a Deity with such outpour- 
 ings of wrath ? 
 
 Astonishing is a living being ; mysterious in 
 structure. How explain its existence otherwise than 
 by supposing a direct miracle a creation by special 
 fiat of an almighty being ? Perhaps it cannot be 
 explained, for a living being epitomizes the universe ; 
 and as little, comparatively, is known of the laws of 
 life, it is premature to hazard even conjecture on the 
 mysteries of organization. This we know, that a 
 living being represents, is the centralization of, all 
 causes and conditions which have operated on it 
 and its progenitors, since the dawn of life, in the 
 ocean of the beginning. We have a long series of 
 conditions to investigate, and our investigation ends 
 in pronouncing life the result of conditions brought 
 about by and through this long series of organic types. 
 The living being man, for instance began its 
 individualization with the dawn of life on this planet, 
 and has only attained its present degree by progress 
 through centuries as countless as the sand-grains on 
 the ocean's shore. All this series is swept away. 
 We can superficially see only the perfected struct- 
 ure. Hence the obscurity, the mystery, which in- 
 volves the living being. Rest assured, there is no
 
 Design in Nature. 203 
 
 more necessity for a special creation, or of design, 
 here than elswhere. Living beings are not designed 
 for the conditions in which they are placed, but 
 these conditions compel conformity. Conform, or 
 perish, is their mandate. 
 
 The fishes in the Mammoth Cave are said to be 
 destitute of eyes. They are not deprived of those 
 organs because they would be useless in the absence 
 of light ; but because, in the absence of light, their 
 eyes remain undeveloped. Man does not possess 
 lungs to breathe air ; but, because there is air to be 
 breathed, he has lungs. Throughout this whole se- 
 ries the effect has been placed for the cause, and vice 
 versa. We have not a brain to reason and reflect, 
 but we reason and reflect because we have a brain. 
 We might enumerate an endless catalogue of such 
 instances ; but the idea is sufficiently illustrated. 
 
 All this reasoning can be overthrown by suppos- 
 ing the existence of an impersonal intelligence. It 
 has been attempted to prove the impossibility of the 
 existence of such an essence, but perhaps not satis- 
 factorily. 
 
 Suppose such an essence exists : where is it ? 
 what is it ? It immediately becomes confounded 
 with what we have called the attributes of matter. 
 From these it cannot be separated ; and, as such, its 
 existence is admitted. Why, then, not acknowledge it 
 under that name ? Because we will not admit a term 
 which not only conveys a false impression, but leads 
 to grossest error. We demand scientific accuracy, 
 and we can only have it by calling things by their
 
 2O4 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 right names. An attribute is not an essence. It is 
 devoid of intelligence, which is not manifested until 
 the end is reached. The effect, though flowing from 
 unintelligent causes, we call an intelligent effect. 
 
 Now comes the metaphysician armed cap-a-pie 
 with words to demolish us in the unfortunate dilem- 
 ma to which at last we have reduced ourselves. He 
 asks, " Can a stream rise higher than its source ? " 
 Granted. " Can intelligence flow from unintelligent 
 causes ? " No. My good sir, refer to our pre- 
 vious reasoning, and you will find that we deny the 
 identity between the intelligence manifested in man, 
 and that observed in nature. They are wholly unlike, 
 and only counterfeit each other in appearance. You 
 are thus unfortunate, and your questions wholly im- 
 pertinent. 
 
 We plow our fields with design to sow. Nature 
 regulates our harvests. The intelligence which sows 
 the wheat, and that which causes it to grow, cannot 
 be compared. It has been strongly argued that the 
 compensation seen in nature bore strong testimony 
 in favor of a designer. Accidents seem to be pro- 
 vided for : disturbances and perturbations in plane- 
 tary masses, and in living beings, are balanced by 
 other disturbing forces as by prophetic foresight, so 
 that harmony results from antagonism. If this sub- 
 ject is carefully studied, however, compensation will 
 be found arrayed against, instead of favoring, a final 
 cause. 
 
 We are early impressed with the beautiful com- 
 pensations presented in nature ; for we learn it before
 
 Design in Nature. 205 
 
 our alphabet, and it dawns on the mature mind of 
 manhood in eternal beauty. 
 
 The child eagerly reads in his philosophy how 
 the blow of a hammer moves the earth ; and, when 
 a stone falls to the ground, the whole mass of the 
 planet rushes forward to meet it. Still more ex- 
 alted are his conceptions when told that every 
 thought, however concealed and locked in the 
 depths of his brain he may keep it, pulsates on the 
 remotest star which twinkles on the mantle of night 
 So delicate do we early learn the grand spheres are 
 strung and attuned. Night, the friend of darkness 
 and of rest, is compensated by a moon to shed a 
 new splendor, to beget a second day ; and, in the 
 sombre mantle darkness casts over the heavens, 
 myriad suns spring out, the existence of which we 
 never otherwise would have dreamed of. Beauties 
 spring from rankest deformity. Ever are we assured 
 that death, with all its horrid ghastliness, will give 
 birth to transcendent forms. So is the world adjust- 
 ed. The daddock, an unseemly pile moldering back 
 to earth, was once a mighty forest tree, with arms 
 an hundred feet high, and a green coronal of boughs 
 among which for centuries the zephyrs sang pleas- 
 ant songs, and the birds built their mossy nests, 
 and callow broods murmured love, or warbled from 
 swelling throats delightful harmony. It molders to 
 dust. It dies to be resurrected. Again shall that 
 foul dust course through the veins of life ; and, high 
 above the trees which now look down on its ruins,
 
 206 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 it shall again hear the song of the murmuring winds, 
 the chirping wren, and full-throated thrush. 
 
 Such is the perpetual round. The flower blooms 
 beautiful to-day. Nature labors a whole year on a 
 rose or lily, or velvety tulip, to see her frail work 
 perish in the hour. The green leaf is for the whole 
 summer, those of the evergreens for the year ; but 
 the more exquisite flower absorbs so much of beauty 
 it perishes in the day which gives its birth. We 
 love nature, because it teaches us these divine com- 
 pensations. How beautiful the forget-me-not on 
 the sunny bank ; and the jonquil, orchis, and crocus 
 blooming on the edge of snow-drifts cast from the 
 lap of winter to perish in the generous breath of 
 April ! They early greet the sun when he steps over 
 to our hemisphere. They are wanderers from that 
 northern clime where spring, summer, and autumn 
 are crowded in the space of two months by the re- 
 morseless frost-king, who ever there breathes a bit- 
 ing breath. They awake at the first touch of Sum- 
 mer's jeweled fingers, bloom, mature, and die in a 
 day, and the lichen-clad earth is again ready for its 
 snow-shroud. Few animals live in that arctic clime. 
 The reindeer crops the moss by the light of the 
 northern fire which replaces the glories of the sun ; 
 the polar bear, clad in thickest robes, wanders over 
 the floes ; the whales, the seal, and other marine 
 mammalia, are protected against concussions from 
 moving ice, and the intensely cold water, by a thick 
 coat of blubber, the best non-conductor of heat, the 
 best possible for their defense ; and man remains
 
 Design in Nature. 207 
 
 there, dwarfed intellectually to the level of the ani- 
 mals, the skins of which he uses for protection, and 
 burrows in the ground to escape the rigors of intol- 
 erable cold. 
 
 Here many queries arise ! Are the Northern fires 
 designed to replace the sun so long absent ? Are 
 the thick robes of the bear, and its white color, the 
 thick blubber vesture of the whale, footmarks of an 
 intelligent design ? Is it true the aurora never visits 
 tropical regions because it is not wanted there, and 
 the poles because wanted ? or is such the constitution 
 of things ? The cold air of the poles fosters electric 
 pulsations, while the hot tropical air dissipates them. 
 The phenomenon has no direct relation to man, but 
 man is related to it. We shall arrive at the solution 
 of the other questions by another process of thought. 
 
 The plant is rooted to the soil. It cannot pursue 
 and capture its food. It must take what is brought 
 in direct contact with its rootlets, or perish. In ac- 
 cordance with this organization, its food is the min- 
 eral matter in which its roots are imbedded. Water 
 is the universal solvent which not only dissolves its 
 food, presents it to the rootlets for absorption, but 
 serves as the basis of its sap or circulating fluid. 
 The air, next to the water, brings it food in great 
 abundance. Here is a rose-bush bending with its 
 delicate burden of beauty, making the air redolent 
 with perfume. It cannot move from its position. 
 See how all nature, sympathizing with it, runs ea- 
 gerly on its errands. The winds drink great 
 draughts of water from the ocean, and bear it
 
 208 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 across the continents, showering the thirsty soil, 
 washing the dust from its delicate petals, drowning 
 or washing away destroying insects. The red light- 
 nings rushing through the air, convert the unas- 
 similable nitrogen into precious food ; and the de- 
 scending drops take it up, and bring it to the plant. 
 When the foundling is washed, slaked, and revived, 
 the winds clothe themselves with the remnant vapor, 
 and spread out the folds of their cloud mantles to 
 screen it from the scorching sun, which otherwise 
 would devour too greedily the food they have sup- 
 plied. It is the same with the roughest weed, which 
 with nature is as much of a darling as the gorgeous 
 cactus or imperial. The clouds do not bend under 
 their weight of rain especially for the rose or violet. 
 They love the rag-weed and dock and nightshade as 
 well, and all are equally thankful to the shower 
 which nourishes and protects them. The grass, how- 
 ever humble its office may seem, carpeting the lea 
 with emerald tapestry, is equally cared for. Here 
 the great animal kingdom holds on to life : for, 
 without the grass, the herbivorous mammalia could 
 scarcely flourish ; and they support the carnivora. 
 Here is a splendid compensation. Perfect harmony 
 exists in perpetual warfare ; carried on between plants 
 and herbivora on one hand, and carnivora on the oth- 
 er. The mineral kingdom forms the substratum into 
 which plants send their roots, and drink directly their 
 aliment. They subject ftie elements to a refined, 
 sympathetic chemistry : new combinations grow out 
 of their labors. The animal, with its strong teeth,
 
 The Equilibrium of Nature. 209 
 
 can now grind down the vegetable fibre, and extract 
 those substances which build up its organization. 
 The flesh-eaters cannot digest such food, however, 
 more than the plant-eaters can the mineral. The 
 mineral must pass through the plant and the plant- 
 eater before they can enter the structure of the flesh- 
 eater. 
 
 See how the equilibrium is maintained. If not for 
 the carnivora, the herbivora would over-stock the 
 earth, eat up all the plants, and perish amid a des- 
 ert. Now, however, the flesh-eaters, plant-eaters, 
 and plants are exactly balanced ; and never, except 
 locally, is the balance between them disturbed. 
 Whenever it is, how soon it is regained, and that, 
 too, by the very disturbing causes themselves ! 
 
 Successive seasons of fertility people the vast pam- 
 pas of South America with herds of cattle. The 
 stragglers cut off by beasts of prey are of no account. 
 The plains are stocked to their utmost capacity in 
 seasons of greatest luxuriance. Then comes the 
 season of parching drought. The grass withers, is 
 blown to dust ; the soil cracks in yawning seams ; 
 the air is like the breath of a furnace ; the streams 
 and springs fail. The reptiles, when such danger 
 presses, have a singular way of avoiding it, bestowed 
 by the torpidity of their general circulation, and con- 
 sequent sluggishness of their vital powers. They 
 go to sleep, and do not awake until the danger is 
 past. The herbivora cannot wrap themselves up in 
 a coat of mud, and become oblivious. They flee, 
 therefore, to less parched districts. But, save them- 
 N
 
 2io Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 selves as best they can, they are decimated again and 
 again ; and when the winds again consent to bear 
 them burdens of rain, and the fresh grass clothes the 
 pampas with a splendid emerald carpet, few return 
 of the sleek herds that swarmed like bees the flow- 
 ery lea. The equilibrium is restored on one side, to 
 be destroyed on the other. The spring recoils, 
 the pendulum swings as far on the other slide. Veg- 
 etation, its enemies destroyed, grows rankly ; and the 
 prairie, cropped like a shaven lawn, surges like a 
 billowy sea. The grass decays, still further stimula- 
 ting the excess, and the excrements of the herds in- 
 crease the enormous growth. Now comes the fire, 
 devouring the excess, and drives away the plant food 
 into the air, which bears it to less favored realms, 
 where the kind rains wash it down into the scanty 
 soil. The animals increase on the tender shoots 
 which spring from the black and smoking desert ; 
 and, after a time, the pendulum swings again on the 
 other side, and the process is repeated. 
 
 As in the realm of life, so in that of worlds. Per- 
 turbations occur, planets swerve from their orbits ; 
 but the same force which draws them out of place 
 compels their return. What if the moon takes a 
 spiral line around the earth, full of loops and turn- 
 ings : she always gets to the appointed place at the 
 appointed time, and never comes nearer or goes fur- 
 ther than her prescribed limits. 
 
 The planets were so named because such truants 
 and wanderers. Now, however, it is ascertained 
 that if they were mounted on cars running on iron
 
 Compensation of the Cosmos. 2 1 1 
 
 railways, with the ablest conductors, guided by per- 
 fect chronometers, they would not make their jour- 
 neys more surely, nor arrive in better time. Attrac- 
 tion, which wafts them onward, keeps tally of every 
 revolution, and compels punctuality. 
 
 Once we were frightened by the ideas of astrono- 
 mers, who taught, that as a traveler, when traversing 
 a forest, sees the trees closing together behind him 
 while they recede before him, the stars in one 
 quarter of the heavens are closing together, while in 
 the opposite they are receding ; showing that our 
 solar system, like a lock of down upheld by an invis- 
 ible breath, is rushing, a thousand times faster than 
 a cannon-ball, into the unknown regions of space. 
 How awfully sublime the idea ! how little, how in- 
 significant, how lost, we seem ! Relief came : the 
 sublimity, however, remained. Our system is not 
 shooting off on a tangent, straight towards the 
 thickest cluster of stars, to be wrecked on the rock- 
 bound coast of some unknown world-continent ; but 
 it swings round a great central body, which chains it 
 with ponderous cable, and sets it in motion, in har- 
 mony with all the star-dust of the firmament, like 
 toys to dance in the beams of its adamantine mag- 
 netism. We are not leaving our position forever, 
 but eventually will swing round again. A million 
 eons of ages may intervene, but we shall return. 
 
 Comets frighten, but they are never wrecked. Rev- 
 olution after revolution their light substance obeys, 
 as truly as the most ponderous planets. Whether 
 coursing on the wings of lightning around the fiery
 
 212 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 cape of the system, melted down and evaporated to 
 unimaginable tenuity, or going out until their frozen 
 orbs advance but a single foot in a second, it is ever 
 the same. 
 
 Now we ask what is the meaning of these phenom- 
 ena. Is a divine, omnipotent planner at the head ? 
 and does his essence pervade them all ? Perhaps : 
 we know not. This we do know, that the compen- 
 sation and design we observe do not prove the exist- 
 ence of intelligence. We have endeavored to settle 
 this point. The essence may exist too deeply seated 
 for finite comprehension ; but, in the absence of all 
 knowledge, we cannot receive this theory. The true 
 philosopher must await the proof, patiently, expec- 
 tantly, and, when it does come, be ready to receive, 
 hospitably entertain, and promulgate it to the world. 
 Something underlies all these specialties ; and that 
 something we have asserted, and attempted to prove, 
 to be the attributes of matter, those properties on 
 which its existence depends, which make it matter. 
 A finality it is impossible to reach ; yet at least a 
 rational system of investigation may be marked out, 
 a better system of theo-philosophy presented. The 
 law by which this equilibrium is established and 
 maintained is clearly defined as being constitutional 
 and inherent in the universe, and on this basis all 
 investigation should be conducted. If we philoso- 
 phize, here our theories rest : if we study specialties, 
 here" we find a foundation capable of supporting all 
 nature, and showing unity amid her infinite diver- 
 sity.
 
 Summary of Statements. 213 
 
 We have endeavored to make plain the theory 
 here advanced ; and, if understood, the distinction 
 becomes apparent. 
 
 There is, nor can be, no design in structure. If 
 so, an all-wise and benevolent being would have 
 made the earth a paradise, and man a perfect being ; 
 in short, instituted the millennium of which man- 
 kind have dreamed. If he created the world as it is, 
 so much of it waste of water or desert, ice-bound or 
 sun-burned, so ill adapted to the prime object of its 
 creation for the residence of man, proves that he is 
 limited by the capabilities of matter. If so, and the 
 dilemma cannot be dodged, so far from being an infi- 
 nite being, he is finite and circumscribed by his own 
 creation. The maker is a slave to his machine. Sta- 
 tioning himself at the crank to start it, he is chained 
 there to run an everlasting round. 
 
 Grant the other branch of this doctrine. God and 
 matter are co-eternal, this reasoning applies. The 
 Deity is circumscribed by laws which he cannot 
 transcend. His will avails nothing, for the same 
 effects are produced whether he wills them or not. 
 He wills a world to be round, or a plant to bloom : 
 both occur ; but the inherent properties of matter, 
 that which makes its matter round the world whether 
 willed to or not, and the forces of life, create the 
 bloom of the flower. His will, thus considered, is 
 extraneous and superfluous. In all historic instances, 
 God is the shadow of the reverencing mind, which 
 mistakes the object of veneration. Teaching us 
 to love the good and true, and personifying these
 
 214 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 in a God, it prostrates itself before its own crea- 
 JaojL These theories and wild conjecturings, origi- 
 nating with savage man, have floated down the 
 ages ; and what was once the endeavors of children 
 to account for the unknown has been received by 
 children of a larger growth as divine records of di- 
 vine events. 
 
 The battle so long waged on metaphysical ground, 
 between truth and error, is transferred now to the 
 fields of positive science. Mankind are learning 
 rapidly the wholesome lesson that positive knowl- 
 edge is the only true knowledge, the only means 
 of correctly reading the book of nature. 
 
 Science has no special pleadings to make. She 
 sets up no claims to infallibility. She states only 
 what can be demonstrated, and draws a clear line be- 
 tween the known and the unknown. The vast, inde- 
 fined dream-land of conjecture she studies as phe- 
 nomena oimind, rather than as realities. 
 
 Theologians, or mythologians, as you please, have 
 worked at their self-imposed tasks from immemorial 
 time. They have, by the religious wars and perse- 
 cutions they have excited, originated more misery, 
 crime, and degradation, than all other causes com- 
 bined. We have painfully traced their troubled 
 course through races and ages ; and what result 
 have they achieved ? Forever have they gone the 
 same weary round, working the treadmill, and idly 
 thought, because they moved, they were advancing. 
 
 They are not to be blamed, but pitied. They as- 
 sumed false data ; and, the more they reasoned, the
 
 The Divine Man. 215 
 
 more erroneous they became. They did not per- 
 ceive this ; but each generation plodded after the 
 preceding, and at length came to rereiv^ nnti.gyi.ty 
 as a proof of the divine origin of the creeds. 
 
 We have reviewed the sacred beliefs of all races, 
 and nowhere have we found the footstep of an Infi- 
 nite Being. All are stamped with the unmistakable 
 evidence of human origin. A Christian can readily 
 detect that in the sacred books of the Hindoo, and 
 the Hindoo can quite as readily detect the same in 
 the sacred books of the Christian. Everywhere we 
 have found God the ideal of what man should be ; 
 that being the highest conception it is possible for 
 man to attain. 
 
 This is right. The ideal, perfect man should re- 
 ceive the homage of his fellows. This lesson we are 
 now applying, the divinity of man. 
 
 All we know is phenomena, and their laws. The 
 laws are modes of action growing out of the con- 
 stitution of matter itself. By the limitation of our 
 minds we cannot know anything beyond that point. 
 
 In that misty land of clouds and conjecture, the 
 theologian and metaphysician have an ample field to 
 wander, and perhaps they may bring forth some- 
 thing which the present methods of science cannot 
 obtain, but the experience of the past does not hold 
 out the inducements of a very ardent hope. They 
 can no more pass words for thought, however intri- 
 cately interwoven. The age has outgrown them and 
 their methods. What we know, what we can prove, 
 is its inexorable demand. Beyond matter and its
 
 2 1 6 Career of the God-Idea in History. 
 
 laws may stand an Infinite Supreme ; but in the 
 absolute impossibility of our understanding him, in 
 the total absence of any revelation except nature to 
 us from him, we can learn nothing by reasoning on 
 his attributes, and must rest content. 
 
 How idle, how preposterously puerile, to wrangle 
 over creeds representing God a unity or trinity ! 
 What insanity involved in such disputes ! The uni- 
 verse will move onward, and we shall fulfill our des- 
 tinies, however unknown be the divine total, or how- 
 ever far removed beyond the grandest generalization 
 of the human mind.
 
 (PREPARING.) 
 
 THE CAREER 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Christ-Idea in History. 
 
 A COMPANION VOLUME TO 
 
 The Career of the God-Idea. 
 
 BY HUDSON TUTTLE. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Introductory. 
 
 II. Career of the Christ-Idea in Hindostan and among 
 other Races. 
 
 III. Prophecies of the Advent of Jesus. 
 
 IV. Conception and Genealogy. 
 V. Birth of Jesus. 
 
 VI. John the Baptist. His relations to Jesus. 
 
 VII. The Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 VIII. Miracles. 
 
 IX. Sending forth of the Apostles. 
 
 X. The Fatal Journey. 
 
 XI. Burial and Resurrection. 
 
 XII. The Descent into Hell. 
 
 XIII. The Gospels. 
 
 XIV. Resume of the Life and Character of Jesus. 
 XV. Causes of the Extension of Christianity. 
 
 XVI. The Ultimate of the Christ-Idea.
 
 IN PRESS. 
 
 Arcana of Spiritualism. 
 
 A MANUAL OF 
 
 SPIRITUAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 BY HUDSON TUTTLE. 
 
 When Alps dissolve, and worlds shall fade away, 
 When suns go out, and stars no longer blaze, 
 
 I scarcely shall have reached my primal day. 
 I, only I, can claim to be the real ; 
 I am the type of Nature her Ideal. 
 
 SPIRIT. 
 
 The Soul is immortal. PYTHAGORAS. 
 
 IN PREPARATION. 
 
 Career of Religious Ideas 
 
 Their Ultimate : The Religion of Science. 
 
 BY HUDSON TUTTLE. 
 
 Historians of that which is, we cannot fail, except when we cease to 
 relate the truth. ETIENNE GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE. 
 
 How beautiful this light ; it seems to beckon earth to heaven. ALEX- 
 ANDER HUMBOLIJT. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 i. Introduction. 2. What is Religion ? 3. Dawn of Reli- 
 gious Ideas. 4. Historical Review : Fetichism. 5. Historical 
 Review: Polytheism. 6. Historical Review: Monotheism. 
 7. Value of the Old and New Testaments as Authority. 8. In- 
 fluence of Sacred Books on Man's Moral Progress. 9. Prog- 
 ress of Morality dependent on Intellectual Growth. 10. First 
 great theological Problem: The Origin of Evil. 11. Second 
 great theological Problem: The Nature of God. 12. Third 
 great theological Problem: The Future State. 13. Man's Fall, 
 and the Christian Scheme for his Redemption. 14. Man's 
 Position : Free-will, Free-agency, Fate, Necessity, and Re- 
 sponsibility. 15. Man's Duties and Relations to God, his 
 Fellows, and Himself. 16. The Ultimate. 
 
 ADAMS & CO., PUBLISHERS, BOSTON.
 
 r,c 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
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