firmation of this theory, we are assured that in the dialect of Argos Io signifies moon, and . . . that Io has the same signification in Coptic."

We could hardly have a more apposite illustration. Are we to adopt the Euhemeristic version of the Persians, or the mythologistic version of the orientalists? Unless the latter are at fault, we have here the sure marks of an original nature-myth, the "irrational element" in which is explained by the influence of language on thought. If so, it helps to bear out Mr. Max Müller's doctrine that, many of the legends of gods and heroes may be rendered intelligible if only we can discover the original meaning of their proper names.1 This opinion coincides with that of Lassen, so learned in the ancient Indian languages. Having stated that Deva is derived from div, to shine; he adds, "We see here that with the Indo-Germanic race the notion of divine beings formed itself out of that of light."2 The lighting, warning, and fructifying powers of the sun, the beaming of the distant stars, the lightning flashing through the storm-these, he believes, were the natural objects of man's worship, and the proof of it is to be found in what is left to us of early speech.

The passing allusion made by Keightley to the fetichistic origin of myth, leads us to infer that he did not regard it with favour. He points to the principle of analogy as lying at the base of nature-worship. Man himself was the type of animation. External nature was alive just as he was alive-i.e., as his body was alive. His body lived and moved by virtue of his soul. So "when the sea rose in mountains and lashed the shore or tossed the bark, the commotion was referred to a god of the sea," &c. But presently Keightley adds: "When we shall in future speak of gods of the sea, the sun, the moon, we would not be understood to mean personifications of these objects. In truth, a personification of the sea or sun is not a very 1 Cf. Nineteenth Century.

2 Indische Altertums Kunde, Zweiter Band, p. 756.

2.

intelligible expression. We mean by these gods deities presiding over and directing them, but totally distinct. from them," &c. This at first sight seems to fit in with Mr. Spencer's theory, that the gods were ready-made, disembodied men. If we read on, we shall find this was not what Keightley meant. He carefully enumerates the various sources and occasions of the production of myths, dividing them under the two heads of things and names. 1. A "peculiar fondness" "for symbol, myth, and allegory-i.e., the tendency to make fictions.' The pride of family and the flattery of poets, which would seek to cast lustre on the origin of some noble house by placing a deity at the head of its pedigree, or to veil the transgression of one of its daughters by feigning that a god had penetrated the recesses of her chamber, or met her in the wood or at the fountain. Legends of this kind are to be placed among the latest. Indeed, we very much doubt if this be a real original source of myths, and we place it here only because it has generally been so regarded." This directly probes the question of ancestor-worship as a source of myth, and rejects the epic element as an original factor. 3. "A great number of legends in all countries are indebted for their origin to the extreme desire which men have to assign a cause for the various phenomena of the natural world. The Scandinavian mythology is full of instances, and the subsequent pages will present them in abundance," &c. 4. "The desire to account for the phenomena of the moral world has also led to the invention of legends. Thus the laws of Menû explain the difference of castes in India by saying that the Brahmins, that is, the priests, were produced from the mouth of Brahmah; the warriors from his arms," &c. 5. "Casual resemblance of sound in words, and foreign, obsolete, or ambiguous terms, were another abundant source of legends. In Greek, λáúas is a stone, and Maòs a people; hence the legend of Deucalion and 1 Ubi supra, p. 6.

Pyrrha restoring the human race by flinging stones behind. them," &c. 6. "Metaphorical language understood literally may have given occasion to many legends," &c. The Hebrews termed one who is to die, a son of death. The Arabs call mist, daughter of the sea; springs, daughters of the earth. The Greeks called the showers, children of the clouds.

Grote, who devotes the greater part of a volume to legendary Greece, thus recapitulates his opinions :"The myths were originally produced in an age which had no records, no philosophy, no criticism, no canon of belief, and scarcely any tincture either of astronomy or geography -but which, on the other hand, was full of religious faith, distinguished for quick and susceptible imagination, seeing personal agents where we look only for objects and connecting laws; an age, moreover, eager for new narrative, accepting with the unconscious impressibility of children (the question of truth or falsehood being never formally raised) all which ran in harmony with its pre-existing feelings, and penetrable by inspired prophets and poets in the same proportion that it was indifferent to positive evidence," &c.1

Are Bunsen and the mythologists right; or are the evolutionists right? Was polytheism based on monotheism; or is the idea of one God the natural product of better brains and better knowledge? Up to this point evidence and argument have gone to show that religion has its origin in our common nature. By à priori reasoning we are led to assume that, a being endowed with our senses and our faculties would probably create a multiplicity of gods in his own image, after his own likeness. By direct observation we find that savages actually do so. We should further argue, even without proof, that increased knowledge would, in accordance with his mental furniture, guide man so to class phenomena as gradually to reduce the number of their kinds and causes, and finally 1 Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 370.

VOL. I.

G

to resolve the many into the one. This assumption, too, is verified by what we know of Greek philosophy; nor is it altogether unsupported by the Chinese, Egyptian, Vaidic, and other ancient forms of religion. "Thales, Pythagoras, and Xenophanes," says Grote, "were the first who attempted to disenthral the philosophic intellect from allpersonifying religious faith, and to constitute a method of interpreting nature distinct from the spontaneous inspirations of untaught minds. It is in them that we first find the idea of Person tacitly set aside or limited, and an impersonal nature conceived as the object of study."1 Besides these, there were Anaximenes, Diogenes of Apollonia, Anaximander, and other Ionic philosophers, who (about the same era, six or seven centuries B.C.) began to look upon the outer world in a new light. Each of them vaguely conceived the notion of a permanent beneath the transient, of one element or principle in which all others merged. Some of them believed this one to be a material element-e.g., water or air; others a mathematical principle-as the number one. Some again tried to grasp the idea by aid of mere abstract terms, and made existence the soul, as it were, of all things-the eternal one of which the many was but the visible aspect. Xenophanes may perhaps have got something beyond this, for "the state of his mind is graphically painted in that one phrase of Aristotle's: 'Casting his eyes upwards at the immensity of heaven, he declared that the one is God.' " 2

Of the still older philosophies and cosmogonies and religions, how does the case stand? Did Thales or Pythagoras invent their conceptions of the One? Did the henotheism of Xenophanes originate in Greece? Apparently not. Of Thales, Grote writes: "Extensive travels in Egypt and Asia are ascribed to him, and as a general fact these travels are doubtless true, since no other means of acquiring

1 Hist. of Greece, part i. ch. xvi.

2 Lewes's Hist. of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 44.

knowledge were then open." ." Of the Pythagorean doctrine Lewes says: "Every dogma in it has been traced to some prior philosophy. Not a vestige will remain to be called the property of the teacher himself, if we restore to the Jews, Indians, Chaldeans, Phoenicians, nay, even Thracians, those various portions which he is declared to have borrowed from them." To none of these nations, nor to the Chinese, are we to look for the scientific methods of observation which lead to the higher philosophic system of the Greeks. But even the ancient races here referred to as the probable teachers or forerunners of the Greek thinkers, had, as far back as any vestige of their language carries us, an established cultus or system of worship based upon a theory of the universe, which, to say the least of it, assigned the greatest share in creation to some one supreme being or power. Whether at its lowest or at its highest level-whether pantheism, henotheism, or monotheism, the conception of cosmological unity was the outcome of a distinctly intellectual movement; it was the result of an effort to satisfy an intellectual want. In short, it was a gradual growth from within; not an immediate communication from a supernatural power without.

In China there are two separate forms of religion besides Fo-ism or Chinese Buddhism. The oldest of all is probably that adopted and remodelled by Confucius. In the last letter, reference was made to the Shoo-King, in which the supreme intelligence of Heaven is spoken of. Hardwick elsewhere states that "allusion is made as many as eight-and-thirty times to some great Power or Being called Shang-te. The name itself imports 'August' or 'Sovereign Ruler.' As there depicted, he possesses a high measure of intelligence, and exercises some measure of moral government; he punishes the evil, he rewards the good." Citing various eminent modern authorities for the estimate, the same writer alludes to Tschu-hi as "the approved expositor" of Chinese metaphysics and theology. "According to the views propounded by him, and in part at least