The Ruins; Or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature

Produced by Donald Lainson

THE RUINS,

OR, MEDITATION ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES:

AND

THE LAW OF NATURE,

by C. F. VOLNEY,

COMTE ET PAIR DE FRANCE. COMMANDEUR DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR, MEMBRE DE

L'ACADEMIE FRANCAISE, ET DE PLUSIEURS AUTRES SOCIETES SAVANTES.

DEPUTY TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF 1789, AND AUTHOR OF "TRAVELS IN EGYPT

AND SYRIA," "NEW RESEARCHES ON ANCIENT HISTORY," ETC.

TO WHICH IS ADDED

VOLNEY'S ANSWER TO DR. PRIESTLY, A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE BY COUNT DARU,

AND THE ZODIACAL SIGNS AND CONSTELLATIONS BY THE EDITOR.

I will cherish in remembrance the love of man, I will employ myself on

the means of effecting good for him, and build my own happiness on the

promotion of his.--Volney.

NEW YORK, TWENTIETH CENTURY PUB. CO., 4 WARREN ST. 1890.

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.

Having recently purchased a set of stereotyped plates of Volney's Ruins,

with a view of reprinting the same, I found, on examination, that they

were considerably worn by the many editions that had been printed

from them and that they greatly needed both repairs and corrections. A

careful estimate showed that the amount necessary for this purpose would

go far towards reproducing this standard work in modern type and in an

improved form. After due reflection this course was at length decided

upon, and all the more readily, as by discarding the old plates and

resetting the entire work, the publisher was enabled to greatly enhance

its value, by inserting the translator's preface as it appeared in the

original edition, and also to restore many notes and other valuable

material which had been carelessly omitted in the American reprint.

An example of an important omission of this kind may be found on the

fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth pages of this volume, which may

be appropriately referred to, in this connection. It is there stated, in

describing the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia, and the ruins of Thebes,

her opulent metropolis, that "There a people, now forgotten, discovered,

while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences.

A race of men, now rejected from society for their sable skin and

frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil

and religious systems which still govern the universe."

A voluminous note, in which standard authorities are cited, seems to

prove that this statement is substantially correct, and that we are in

reality indebted to the ancient Ethiopians, to the fervid imagination of

the persecuted and despised negro, for the various religious systems

now so highly revered by the different branches of both the Semitic

and Aryan races. This fact, which is so frequently referred to in Mr.

Volney's writings, may perhaps solve the question as to the origin of

all religions, and may even suggest a solution to the secret so long

concealed beneath the flat nose, thick lips, and negro features of the

Egyptian Sphinx. It may also confirm the statement of Dioderus, that

"the Ethiopians conceive themselves as the inventors of divine worship,

of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and of every other

religious practice."

That an imaginative and superstitious race of black men should have

invented and founded, in the dim obscurity of past ages, a system

of religious belief that still enthralls the minds and clouds the

intellects of the leading representatives of modern theology,--that

still clings to the thoughts, and tinges with its potential influence

the literature and faith of the civilized and cultured nations of Europe

and America, is indeed a strange illustration of the mad caprice of

destiny, of the insignificant and apparently trivial causes that oft

produce the most grave and momentous results.

The translation here given closely follows that published in Paris by

Levrault, Quai Malaquais, in 1802, which was under the direction and

careful supervision of the talented author; and whatever notes Count

Volney then thought necessary to insert in his work, are here carefully

reproduced without abridgment or modification.

The portrait, maps and illustrations are from a French edition of

Volney's complete works, published by Bossange Freres at No. 12 Rue de

Seine, Paris, in 1821,--one year after the death of Mr. Volney. It is a

presentation copy "on the part of Madame, the Countess de Volney, and

of the nephew of the author," and it may therefore be taken for

granted that Mr. Volney's portrait, as here given, is correct, and was

satisfactory to his family.

An explanation of the figures and diagrams shown on the map of the

Astrological Heaven of the Ancients has been added in the appendix by

the publisher.

PETER ECKLER.

New York, January 3, 1890.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

OF THE ENGLISH EDITION PUBLISHED IN PARIS.

To offer the public a new translation of Volney's Ruins may require some

apology in the view of those who are acquainted with the work only in

the English version which already exists, and which has had a general

circulation. But those who are conversant with the book in the author's

own language, and have taken pains to compare it with that version,

must have been struck with the errors with which the English performance

abounds. They must have regretted the loss of many original beauties,

some of which go far in composing the essential merits of the work.

The energy and dignity of the author's manner, the unaffected elevation

of his style, the conciseness, perspicuity and simplicity of his

diction, are everywhere suited to his subject, which is solemn, novel,

luminous, affecting,--a subject perhaps the most universally interesting

to the human race that has ever been presented to their contemplation.

It takes the most liberal and comprehensive view of the social state

of man, develops the sources of his errors in the most perspicuous and

convincing manner, overturns his prejudices with the greatest delicacy

and moderation, sets the wrongs he has suffered, and the rights he ought

to cherish, in the clearest point of view, and lays before him the true

foundation of morals--his only means of happiness.

As the work has already become a classical one, even in English, and as

it must become and continue to be so regarded in all languages in which

it shall be faithfully rendered, we wish it to suffer as little as

possible from a change of country;--that as much of the spirit of the

original be transfused and preserved as is consistent with the nature of

translation.

How far we have succeeded in performing this service for the English

reader we must not pretend to determine. We believe, however, that

we have made an improved translation, and this without claiming any

particular merit on our part, since we have had advantages which our

predecessor had not. We have been aided by his labors; and, what is of

still more importance, our work has been done under the inspection of

the author, whose critical knowledge of both languages has given us

a great facility in avoiding such errors as might arise from hurry or

mistake.

Paris, November 1, 1802.

PREFACE OF THE LONDON EDITION.*

* Published by T. Allman, 42 Holborn Hill, London, 1851.

The plan of this publication was formed nearly ten years ago; and

allusions to it may be seen in the preface to Travels in Syria and

Egypt, as well as at the end of that work, (published in 1787). The

performance was in some forwardness when the events of 1788 in France

interrupted it. Persuaded that a development of the theory of political

truth could not sufficiently acquit a citizen of his debt to society,

the author wished to add practice; and that particularly at a time when

a single arm was of consequence in the defence of the general cause.

The same desire of public benefit which induced him to suspend his work,

has since engaged him to resume it, and though it may not possess the

same merit as if it had appeared under the circumstances that gave rise

to it, yet he imagines that at a time when new passions are bursting

forth,--passions that must communicate their activity to the religious

opinions of men,--it is of importance to disseminate such moral truths

as are calculated to operate as a curb and restraint. It is with this

view he has endeavored to give to these truths, hitherto treated as

abstract, a form likely to gain them a reception.

It was found impossible not to shock the violent prejudices of some

readers; but the work, so far from being the fruit of a disorderly

and perturbed spirit, has been dictated by a sincere love of order and

humanity.

After reading this performance it will be asked, how it was possible in

1784 to have had an idea of what did not take place till the year

1790? The solution is simple. In the original plan the legislator was

a fictitious and hypothetical being: in the present, the author has

substituted an existing legislator; and the reality has only made the

subject additionally interesting.

PREFACE OF THE AMERICAN EDITION.*

* The copy from which this preface is reprinted was

published in Boston by Charles Gaylord, in 1833. It was

given to the writer, when a mere lad, by a lady--almost a

stranger--who was traveling through the little hamlet on the

banks of the Hudson where he then resided. This lady

assured me that the book was of great value, containing

noble and sublime truths; and the only condition she

attached to the gift was, that I should read it carefully

and endeavor to understand its meaning. This I willingly

promised and faithfully performed; and all who have "climbed

the heights," and escaped from the thraldom of superstitious

faith, will concede the inestimable value of such a gift--

rich with the peace and consolation that the truth imparts.

--Pub.

If books were to be judged of by their volume, the following would have

but little value; if appraised by their contents, it will perhaps be

reckoned among the most instructive.

In general, nothing is more important than a good elementary book; but,

also, nothing is more difficult to compose and even to read: and why?

Because, as every thing in it should be analysis and definition, all

should be expressed with truth and precision. If truth and precision are

wanting, the object has not been attained; if they exist, its very force

renders it abstract.

The first of these defects has been hitherto evident in all books of

morality. We find in them only a chaos of incoherent maxims, precepts

without causes, and actions without a motive. The pedants of the human

race have treated it like a little child: they have prescribed to it

good behavior by frightening it with spirits and hobgoblins. Now that

the growth of the human race is rapid, it is time to speak reason to it;

it is time to prove to men that the springs of their improvement are to

be found in their very organization, in the interest of their passions,

and in all that composes their existence. It is time to demonstrate that

morality is a physical and geometrical science, subject to the rules

and calculations of the other mathematical sciences: and such is the

advantage of the system expounded in this book, that the basis of

morality being laid in it on the very nature of things, it is both

constant and immutable; whereas, in all other theological systems,

morality being built upon arbritary opinions, not demonstrable and often

absurd, it changes, decays, expires with them, and leaves men in an

absolute depravation. It is true that because our system is founded

on facts and not on reveries, it will with much greater difficulty

be extended and adopted: but it will derive strength from this very

struggle, and sooner or later the eternal religion of Nature must

overturn the transient religions of the human mind.

This book was published for the first time in 1793, under the title of

The French Citizen's Catechism. It was at first intended for a national

work, but as it may be equally well entitled the Catechism of men of

sense and honor, it is to be hoped that it will become a book common

to all Europe. It is possible that its brevity may prevent it from

attaining the object of a popular classical work, but the author will be

satisfied if he has at least the merit of pointing out the way to make a

better.

ADVERTISEMENT OF THE AMERICAN EDITION.

VOLNEY'S RUINS;

OR MEDITATION ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES.

The superior merits of this work are too well known to require

commendation; but as it is not generally known that there are in

circulation three English translations of it, varying materially in

regard to faithfulness and elegance of diction, the publisher of the

present edition inserts the following extracts for the information of

purchasers and readers:

PARIS TRANSLATION,

First published in this Country by Dixon and Sickels.

INVOCATION.

Hail, solitary ruins! holy sepulchres, and silent walls! you I invoke;

to you I address my prayer. While your aspect averts, with secret

terror, the vulgar regard, it excites in my heart the charm of delicious

sentiments--sublime contemplations. What useful lessons! what affecting

and profound reflections you suggest to him who knows how to consult

you. When the whole earth, in chains and silence, bowed the neck before

its tyrants, you had already proclaimed the truths which they abhor,

and confounding the dust of the king with that of the meanest slave,

had announced to man the sacred dogma of Equality! Within your pale, in

solitary adoration of Liberty, I saw her Genius arise from the mansions

of the dead; not such as she is painted by the impassioned multitude,

armed with fire and sword, but under the august aspect of justice,

poising in her hand the sacred balance, wherein are weighed the actions

of men at the gates of eternity.

O Tombs! what virtues are yours! you appal the tyrant's heart, and

poison with secret alarm his impious joys; he flies, with coward step,

your incorruptible aspect, and erects afar his throne of insolence.

LONDON TRANSLATION.

INVOCATION.

Solitary ruins, sacred tombs, ye mouldering and silent walls, all hail!

To you I address my invocation. While the vulgar shrink from your aspect

with secret terror, my heart finds in the contemplation a thousand

delicious sentiments, a thousand admirable recollections. Pregnant, I

may truly call you, with useful lessons, with pathetic and irresistible

advice to the man who knows how to consult you. A while ago the whole

world bowed the neck in silence before the tyrants that oppressed it;

and yet in that hopeless moment you already proclaimed the truths that

tyrants hold in abhorrence: mixing the dust of the proudest kings with

that of the meanest slaves, you called upon us to contemplate this

example of Equality. From your caverns, whither the musing and anxious

love of Liberty led me, I saw escape its venerable shade, and with

unexpected felicity, direct its flight and marshal my steps the way to

renovated France.

Tombs! what virtues and potency do you exhibit! Tyrants tremble at your

aspect--you poison with secret alarm their impious pleasures--they turn

from you with impatience, and, coward like, endeavor to forget you amid

the sumptuousness of their palaces.

PHILADELPHIA TRANSLATION.

INVOCATION.

Hail, ye solitary ruins, ye sacred tombs, and silent walls! 'Tis your

auspicious aid that I invoke; 'tis to you my soul, wrapt in meditation,

pours forth its prayers! What though the profane and vulgar mind shrinks

with dismay from your august and awe-inspiring aspect; to me you unfold

the sublimest charms of contemplation and sentiment, and offer to my

senses the luxury of a thousand delicious and enchanting thoughts!

How sumptuous the feast to a being that has a taste to relish, and an

understanding to consult you! What rich and noble admonitions;

what exquisite and pathetic lessons do you read to a heart that is

susceptible of exalted feelings! When oppressed humanity bent in timid

silence throughout the globe beneath the galling yoke of slavery, it was

you that proclaimed aloud the birthright of those truths which tyrants

tremble at while they detect, and which, by sinking the loftiest head of

the proudest potentate, with all his boasted pageantry, to the level

of mortality with his meanest slave, confirmed and ratified by your

unerring testimony the sacred and immortal doctrine of Equality.

Musing within the precincts of your inviting scenes of philosophic

solitude, whither the insatiate love of true-born Liberty had led me, I

beheld her Genius ascending, not in the spurious character and habit of

a blood-thirsty Fury, armed with daggers and instruments of murder, and

followed by a frantic and intoxicated multitude, but under the placid

and chaste aspect of Justice, holding with a pure and unsullied hand the

sacred scales in which the actions of mortals are weighed on the brink

of eternity.

The first translation was made and published in London soon after the

appearance of the work in French, and, by a late edition, is still

adopted without alteration. Mr. Volney, when in this country in 1797,

expressed his disapprobation of this translation, alleging that the

translator must have been overawed by the government or clergy from

rendering his ideas faithfully; and, accordingly, an English gentleman,

then in Philadelphia, volunteered to correct this edition. But by his

endeavors to give the true and full meaning of the author with great

precision, he has so overloaded his composition with an exuberance

of words, as in a great measure to dissipate the simple elegance and

sublimity of the original. Mr. Volney, when he became better acquainted

with the English language, perceived this defect; and with the aid of

our countryman, Joel Barlow, made and published in Paris a new, correct,

and elegant translation, of which the present edition is a faithful and

correct copy.

CONTENTS

Publisher's Preface

Translator's Preface

Preface of London Edition

Preface of the American Edition

Advertisement of the American Edition

The Life of Volney

A List of Volney's Works

Invocation

Chap.

I. The Journey

II. The Reverie

III. The Apparition

IV. The Exposition

V. Condition of Man in the Universe

VI. The Primitive State of Man

VII. Principles of Society

VIII. Sources of the Evils of Societies

IX. Origin of Governments and Laws

X. General Causes of the Prosperity of Ancient States

XI. General Causes of the Revolutions and Ruin of Ancient States

XII. Lessons of Times Past repeated on the Present

XIII. Will the Human Race Improve

XIV. The Great Obstacle to Improvement

XV. The New Age

XVI. A Free and Legislative People

XVII. Universal Basis of all Right and all Law

XVIII. Consternation and Conspiracy of Tyrants

XIX. General Assembly of the Nations

XX. The Search of Truth

XXI. Problem of Religious Contradictions

XXII. Origin and Filiation of Religious Ideas

I. Origin of the Idea of God: Worship of the Elements

and of the Physical Powers of Nature

II. Second System. Worship of the Stars, or Sabeism

III. Third System. Worship of Symbols, or Idolatry

IV. Fourth System. Worship of two Principles, or Dualism

V. Moral and Mystical Worship, or System of a Future State

VI. Sixth System. The Animated World, or Worship of the

Universe under diverse Emblems

VII. Seventh System. Worship of the Soul of the World, that

is to say, the Element of Fire, Vital Principle

of the Universe

VIII. Eighth System. The World Machine: Worship of the Demi-

Ourgos, or Grand Artificer

IX. Religion of Moses, or Worship of the Soul of the World

(You-piter)

X. Religion of Zoroaster

XI. Budsoism, or Religion of the Samaneans

XII. Brahmism, or Indian System

XIII. Christianity, or the Allegorical Worship of the Sun

under the cabalistic names of Chrish-en or Christ

and Yesus or Jesus

XXIII. All Religions have the same Object

XXIV. Solution of the Problem of Contradictions

THE LAW OF NATURE.

Chap.

I. Of the Law of Nature

II. Characters of the Law of Nature

III. Principles of the Law of Nature relating to Man

IV. Basis of Morality: of Good, of Evil, of Sin, of Crime,

of Vice, and of Virtue

V. Of Individual Virtues

VI. On Temperance

VII. On Continence

VIII. On Courage and Activity

IX. On Cleanliness

X. On Domestic Virtues

XI. The Social Virtues; Justice

XII. Development of the Social Virtues

Volney's Answer to Dr. Priestly.

Appendix: The Zodiacal Signs and Constellations

LIFE OF VOLNEY.

By Count Daru.

Constantine Francis Chassebeuf De Volney was born in 1757 at Craon, in

that intermediate condition of life, which is of all the happiest, since

it is deprived only of fortune's too dangerous favors, and can aspire to

the social and intellectual advantages reserved for a laudable ambition.

From his earliest youth, he devoted himself to the search after truth,

without being disheartened by the serious studies which alone can

initiate us into her secrets. After having become acquainted with the

ancient languages, the natural sciences and history, and being admitted

into the society of the most eminent literary characters, he submitted,

at the age of twenty, to an illustrious academy, the solution of one of

the most difficult problems that the history of antiquity has left open

for discussion. This attempt received no encouragement from the learned

men who were appointed his judges; and the author's only appeal from

their sentence was to his courage and his efforts.

Soon after, a small inheritance having fallen to his lot, the difficulty

was how to spend it (these are his own words.) He resolved to employ

it in acquiring, by a long voyage, a new fund of information, and

determined to visit Egypt and Syria. But these countries could not be

explored to advantage without a knowledge of the language. Our young

traveller was not to be discouraged by this difficulty. Instead of

learning Arabic in Europe, he withdrew to a convent of Copts, until he

had made himself master of an idiom that is spoken by so many nations

of the East. This resolution showed one of those undaunted spirits that

remain unshaken amid the trials of life.

Although, like other travellers, he might have amused us with an account

of his hardships and the perils surmounted by his courage, he overcame

the temptation of interrupting his narrative by personal adventures. He

disdained the beaten track. He does not tell us the road he took, the

accidents he met with, or the impressions he received. He carefully

avoids appearing upon the stage; he is an inhabitant of the country,

who has long and well observed it, and who describes its physical,

political, and moral state. The allusion would be entire if an old

Arab could be supposed to possess all the erudition, all the European

philosophy, which are found united and in their maturity in a traveller

of twenty-five.

But though a master in all those artifices by which a narration is

rendered interesting, the young man is not to be discerned in the pomp

of labored descriptions. Although possessed of a lively and brilliant

imagination, he is never found unwarily explaining by conjectural

systems the physical or moral phenomena he describes. In his

observations he unites prudence with science. With these two guides he

judges with circumspection, and sometimes confesses himself unable to

account for the effects he has made known to us.

Thus his account has all the qualities that persuade--accuracy

and candor. And when, ten years later, a vast military enterprise

transported forty thousand travellers to the classic ground, which he

had trod unattended, unarmed and unprotected, they all recognized a sure

guide and an enlightened observer in the writer who had, as it seemed,

only preceded them to remove or point out a part of the difficulties of

the way.

The unanimous testimony of all parties proved the accuracy of his

account and the justness of his observations; and his Travels in Egypt

and Syria were, by universal suffrage, recommended to the gratitude and

the confidence of the public.

Before the work had undergone this trial it had obtained in the learned

world such a rapid and general success, that it found its way into

Russia. The empress, then (in 1787) upon the throne, sent the author

a medal, which he received with respect, as a mark of esteem for his

talents, and with gratitude, as a proof of the approbation given to his

principles. But when the empress declared against France, Volney sent

back the honorable present, saying: "If I obtained it from her esteem, I

can only preserve her esteem by returning it."

The revolution of 1789, which had drawn upon France the menaces of

Catharine, had opened to Volney a political career. As deputy in the

assembly of the states-general, the first words he uttered there were

in favor of the publicity of their deliberations. He also supported

the organization of the national guards, and that of the communes and

departments.

At the period when the question of the sale of the domain lands was

agitated (in 1790), he published an essay in which he lays down the

following principles: "The force of a State is in proportion to

its population; population is in proportion to plenty; plenty is in

proportion to tillage; and tillage, to personal and immediate interest,

that is to the spirit of property. Whence it follows, that the nearer

the cultivator approaches the passive condition of a mercenary, the less

industry and activity are to be expected from him; and, on the other

hand, the nearer he is to the condition of a free and entire proprietor,

the more extension he gives to his own forces, to the produce of his

lands, and the general prosperity of the State."

The author draws this conclusion, that a State is so much the more

powerful as it includes a greater number of proprietors,--that is, a

greater division of property.

Conducted into Corsica by that spirit of observation which belongs only

to men whose information is varied and extensive, he perceived at the

first glance all that could be done for the improvement of agriculture

in that country: but he knew that, for a people firmly attached to

ancient customs, there can exist no other demonstration or means of

persuasion than example. He purchased a considerable estate, and made

experiments on those kinds of tillage that he hoped to naturalize

in that climate. The sugar-cane, cotton, indigo and coffee soon

demonstrated the success of his efforts. This success drew upon him the

notice of the government. He was appointed director of agriculture and

commerce in that island, where, through ignorance, all new methods are

introduced with such difficulty.

It is impossible to calculate all the good that might have resulted from

this peaceable magistracy; and we know that neither instruction, zeal,

nor a persevering courage was wanting to him who had undertaken it.

Of this he had given convincing proofs. It was in obedience to another

sentiment, no less respectable, that he voluntarily interrupted the

course of his labors. When his fellow citizens of Angers appointed him

their deputy in the constituent assembly, he resigned the employment he

held under government, upon the principle that no man can represent

the nation and be dependent for a salary upon those by whom it is

administered.

Through respect for the independence of his legislative functions,

he had ceased to occupy the place he possessed in Corsica before his

election, but he had not ceased to be a benefactor of that country. He

returned thither after the session of the constituent assembly. Invited

into that island by the principal inhabitants, who were anxious to put

into practice his lessons, he spent there a part of the years 1792 and

1793.

On his return he published a work entitled: An Account of the Present

State of Corsica. This was an act of courage; for it was not a physical

description, but a political review of the condition of a population

divided into several factions and distracted by violent animosities.

Volney unreservedly revealed the abuses, solicited the interest of

France in favor of the Corsicans, without flattering them, and boldly

denounced their defects and vices; so that the philosopher obtained the

only recompense he could expect from his sincerity--he was accused by

the Corsicans of heresy.

To prove that he had not merited this reproach, he published soon after

a short treatise entitled: The Law of Nature, or Physical Principles of

Morality.

He was soon exposed to a much more dangerous charge, and this, it must

be confessed, he did merit. This philosopher, this worthy citizen, who

in our first National assembly had seconded with his wishes and his

talents the establishment of an order of things which he considered

favorable to the happiness of his country, was accused of not being

sincerely attached to that liberty for which he had contended; that is

to say, of being averse to anarchy. An imprisonment of ten months, which

only ended after the 9th of Thermidor, was a new trial reserved for his

courage.

The moment at which he recovered his liberty, was when the horror

inspired by criminal excesses had recalled men to those noble sentiments

which fortunately are one of the first necessaries of civilized life.

They sought for consolations in study and literature after so many

misfortunes, and organized a plan of public instruction.

It was in the first place necessary to insure the aptitude of those to

whom education should be confided; but as the systems were various, the

best methods and a unity of doctrine were to be determined. It was not

enough to interrogate the masters, they were to be formed, new ones were

to be created, and for that purpose a school was opened in 1794, wherein

the celebrity of the professors promised new instruction even to the

best informed. This was not, as was objected, beginning the edifice at

the roof, but creating architects, who were to superintend all the arts

requisite for constructing the building.

The more difficult their functions were, the greater care was to be

taken in the choice of the professors; but France, though then accused

of being plunged in barbarism, possessed men of transcendent talents,

already enjoying the esteem of all Europe, and we may be bold to say,

that by their labors, our literary glory had likewise extended its

conquests. Their names were proclaimed by the public voice, and Volney's

was associated with those of the men most illustrious in science and in

literature.*

* Lagrange, Laplace, Berthollet, Garat, Bernardin de Saint-

Pierre, Daubenton, Hauy, Volney, Sicard, Monge, Thouin, La

Harpe, Buache Mentelle.

This institution, however, did not answer the expectations that had been

formed of it, because the two thousand students that assembled from all

parts of France were not equally prepared to receive these transcendent

lessons, and because it had not been sufficiently ascertained how far

the theory of education should be kept distinct from education itself.

Volney's Lectures on History, which were attended by an immense

concourse of auditors, became one of his chief claims to literary glory.

When forced to interrupt them, by the suppression of the Normal school,

he might have reasonably expected to enjoy in his retirement that

consideration which his recent functions had added to his name. But,

disgusted with the scenes he had witnessed in his native land, he felt

that passion revive within him which, in his youth, had led him to visit

Africa and Asia. America, civilized within a century, and free only

within a few years, fixed his attention. There every thing was new,--the

inhabitants, the constitution, the earth itself. These were objects

worthy of his observation. When embarking for this voyage, however, he

felt emotions very different from those which formerly accompanied him

into Turkey. Then in the prime of life, he joyfully bid adieu to a

land where peace and plenty reigned, to travel amongst barbarians;

now, mature in years, but dismayed at the spectacle and experience of

injustice and persecution, it was with diffidence, as we learn from

himself, that he went to implore from a free people an asylum for a

sincere friend of that liberty that had been so profaned.

Our traveller had gone to seek for repose beyond the seas. He there

found himself exposed to aggression from a celebrated philosopher, Dr.

Priestley. Although the subject of this discussion was confined to the

investigation of some speculative opinions, published by the French

writer in his work entitled The Ruins, the naturalist in this attack

employed a degree of violence which added nothing to the force of his

arguments, and an acrimony of expression not to be expected from a

philosopher. M. Volney, though accused of Hottentotism and ignorance,

preserved in his defence, all the advantages that the scurrility of

his adversary gave over him. He replied in English, and Priestley's

countrymen could only recognize the Frenchman in the refinement and

politeness of his answer.

Whilst M. Volney was travelling in America, there had been formed in

France a literary body which, under the name of Institute, had attained

in a very few years a distinguished rank amongst the learned societies

of Europe. The name of the illustrious traveller was inscribed in it

at its formation, and he acquired new rights to the academical

honors conferred on him during his absence, by the publication of his

observations On the Climate and Soil of the United States.

These rights were further augmented by the historical and physiological

labors of the Academician. An examination and justification of The

Chronology of Herodotus, with numerous and profound researches on The

History of the most Ancient Nations, occupied for a long time him who

had observed their monuments and traces in the countries they inhabited.

The trial he had made of the utility of the Oriental languages inspired

him with an ardent desire to propagate the knowledge of them; and to be

propagated, he felt how necessary it was to render it less difficult.

In this view he conceived the project of applying to the study of the

idioms of Asia, a part of the grammatical notions we possess concerning

the languages of Europe. It only appertains to those conversant with

their relations of dissimilitude or conformity to appreciate the

possibility of realizing this system. The author has, however, already

received the most flattering encouragement and the most unequivocal

appreciation, by the inscription of his name amongst the members of

the learned and illustrious society founded by English commerce in the

Indian peninsula.

M. Volney developed his system in three works,* which prove that this

idea of uniting nations separated by immense distances and such various

idioms, had never ceased to occupy him for twenty-five years. Lest those

essays, of the utility of which he was persuaded, should be interrupted

by his death, with the clay-cold hand that corrected his last work, he

drew up a will which institutes a premium for the prosecution of his

labors. Thus he prolonged, beyond the term of a life entirely devoted to

letters, the glorious services he had rendered to them.

* On the Simplification of Oriental Languages, 1795. The

European Alphabet Applied to the Languages of Asia, 1819.

Hebrew Simplified, 1820.

This is not the place, nor does it belong to me to appreciate the merit

of the writings which render Volney's name illustrious. His name had

been inscribed in the list of the Senate, and afterwards of the House

of Peers. The philosopher who had travelled in the four quarters of

the world, and observed their social state, had other titles to his

admission into this body, than his literary glory. His public life, his

conduct in the constituent assembly, his independent principles, the

nobleness of his sentiments, the wisdom and fixity of his opinions, had

gained him the esteem of those who can be depended upon, and with whom

it is so agreeable to discuss political interests.

Although no man had a better right to have an opinion, no one was more

tolerant for the opinions of others. In State assemblies as well as

in Academical meetings, the man whose counsels were so wise, voted

according to his conscience, which nothing could bias; but the

philosopher forgot his superiority to hear, to oppose with moderation,

and sometimes to doubt. The extent and variety of his information,

the force of his reason, the austerity of his manners, and the noble

simplicity of his character, had procured him illustrious friends in

both hemispheres; and now that this erudition is extinct in the tomb,*

we may be allowed at least to predict that he was one of the very few

whose memory shall never die.

* He died in Paris on the 20th of April, 1820.

A list of the Works Published by Count Volney.

TRAVELS IN EGYPT AND SYRIA during the years 1783, 1784, and 1785: 2

vols. 8vo.--1787.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE TWELVE CENTURIES that preceded the entrance of Xerxes

into Greece.

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE TURKISH WAR, in 1788.

THE RUINS, or Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires--1791.

ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT STATE OF CORSICA--1793.

THE LAW OF NATURE, or Physical Principles of Morality--1793.

ON THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES--1795.

A LETTER TO DR. PRIESTLEY--1797.

LECTURES ON HISTORY, delivered at the Normal School in the year 3--1800.

ON THE CLIMATE AND SOIL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, to which is

added an account of Florida, of the French colony of Scioto, of some

Canadian Colonies, and of the Savages--1803.

REPORT MADE TO THE CELTIC ACADEMY ON THE RUSSIAN WORK OF PROFESSOR

PALLAS, entitled "A Comparative Vocabulary of all the Languages in the

World."

THE CHRONOLOGY OF HERODOTUS conformable with his Text--1808 and 1809.

NEW RESEARCHES ON ANCIENT HISTORY, 3 vols. 8vo.--1814

THE EUROPEAN ALPHABET Applied to the Languages of Asia--1819.

A HISTORY OF SAMUEL--1819.

HEBREW SIMPLIFIED--1820.

INVOCATION.

Hail solitary ruins, holy sepulchres and silent walls! you I invoke; to

you I address my prayer. While your aspect averts, with secret terror,

the vulgar regard, it excites in my heart the charm of delicious

sentiments--sublime contemplations. What useful lessons, what affecting

and profound reflections you suggest to him who knows how to consult

you! When the whole earth, in chains and silence bowed the neck before

its tyrants, you had already proclaimed the truths which they abhor;

and confounding the dust of the king with that of the meanest slave,

had announced to man the sacred dogma of Equality. Within your pale, in

solitary adoration of Liberty, I saw her Genius arise from the mansions

of the dead; not such as she is painted by the impassioned multitude,

armed with fire and sword, but under the august aspect of Justice,

poising in her hand the sacred balance wherein are weighed the actions

of men at the gates of eternity!

O Tombs! what virtues are yours! You appal the tyrant's heart, and

poison with secret alarm his impious joys. He flies, with coward step,

your incorruptible aspect, and erects afar his throne of insolence.*

You punish the powerful oppressor; you wrest from avarice and extortion

their ill-gotten gold, and you avenge the feeble whom they have

despoiled; you compensate the miseries of the poor by the anxieties of

the rich; you console the wretched, by opening to him a last asylum from

distress; and you give to the soul that just equipoise of strength and

sensibility which constitutes wisdom--the true science of life. Aware

that all must return to you, the wise man loadeth not himself with the

burdens of grandeur and of useless wealth: he restrains his desires

within the limits of justice; yet, knowing that he must run his destined

course of life, he fills with employment all its hours, and enjoys the

comforts that fortune has allotted him. You thus impose on the impetuous

sallies of cupidity a salutary rein! you calm the feverish ardor

of enjoyments which disturb the senses; you free the soul from the

fatiguing conflict of the passions; elevate it above the paltry

interests which torment the crowd; and surveying, from your commanding

position, the expanse of ages and nations, the mind is only accessible

to the great affections--to the solid ideas of virtue and of glory.

* The cathedral of St. Denis is the tomb of the kings of

France; and it was because the towers of that edifice are

seen from the Castle of St. Germain, that Louis XIV. quitted

that admirable residence, and established a new one in the

savage forests of Versailles.

(This note, like many others, has been omitted from the

American editions. It seems pertinent to the subject, and

is explanatory of the text.--Pub.)

Ah! when the dream of life is over, what will then avail all its

agitations, if not one trace of utility remains behind?

O Ruins! to your school I will return! I will seek again the calm of

your solitudes; and there, far from the afflicting spectacle of the

passions, I will cherish in remembrance the love of man, I will

employ myself on the means of effecting good for him, and build my own

happiness on the promotion of his.

THE RUINS OF EMPIRES.

CHAPTER I.

THE JOURNEY.

In the eleventh year of the reign of Abd-ul-Hamid, son of Ahmid, emperor

of the Turks; when the Nogais-Tartars were driven from the Crimea, and a

Mussulman prince of the blood of Gengis-Kahn became the vassal and

guard of a Christian woman and queen,* I was travelling in the Ottoman

dominions, and through those provinces which were anciently the kingdoms

of Egypt and Syria.

* In the eleventh year of Abd-ul-Hamid, that is 1784 of the

Christian era, and 1198 of the Hegira. The emigration of

the Tartars took place in March, immediately on the

manifesto of the empress, declaring the Crimea to be

incorporated with Russia. The Mussulman prince of the blood

of Gengis-khan was Chahin-Guerai. Gengis-Khan was borne and

served by the kings whom he conquered: Chahin, on the

contrary, after selling his country for a pension of eighty

thousand roubles, accepted the commission of captain of

guards to Catherine II. He afterwards returned home, and

according to custom was strangled by the Turks.

My whole attention bent on whatever concerns the happiness of man in

a social state, I visited cities, and studied the manners of their

inhabitants; entered palaces, and observed the conduct of those who

govern; wandered over fields, and examined the condition of those

who cultivated them: and nowhere perceiving aught but robbery and

devastation, tyranny and wretchedness, my heart was oppressed with

sorrow and indignation.

I saw daily on my road fields abandoned, villages deserted, and cities

in ruin. Often I met with ancient monuments, wrecks of temples, palaces

and fortresses, columns, aqueducts and tombs. This spectacle led me to

meditate on times past, and filled my mind with contemplations the most

serious and profound.

Arrived at the city of Hems, on the border of the Orontes, and being

in the neighborhood of Palmyra of the desert, I resolved to visit its

celebrated ruins. After three days journeying through arid deserts,

having traversed the Valley of Caves and Sepulchres, on issuing into

the plain, I was suddenly struck with a scene of the most stupendous

ruins--a countless multitude of superb columns, stretching in avenues

beyond the reach of sight. Among them were magnificent edifices, some

entire, others in ruins; the earth every where strewed with fragments

of cornices, capitals, shafts, entablatures, pilasters, all of

white marble, and of the most exquisite workmanship. After a walk of

three-quarters of an hour along these ruins, I entered the enclosure of

a vast edifice, formerly a temple dedicated to the Sun; and accepting

the hospitality of some poor Arabian peasants, who had built their

hovels on the area of the temple, I determined to devote some days to

contemplate at leisure the beauty of these stupendous ruins.

Daily I visited the monuments which covered the plain; and one evening,

absorbed in reflection, I had advanced to the Valley of Sepulchres. I

ascended the heights which surround it from whence the eye commands the

whole group of ruins and the immensity of the desert. The sun had sunk

below the horizon: a red border of light still marked his track behind

the distant mountains of Syria; the full-orbed moon was rising in the

east, on a blue ground, over the plains of the Euphrates; the sky was

clear, the air calm and serene; the dying lamp of day still softened the

horrors of approaching darkness; the refreshing night breezes attempered

the sultry emanations from the heated earth; the herdsmen had given

their camels to repose, the eye perceived no motion on the dusky and

uniform plain; profound silence rested on the desert; the howlings only

of the jackal,* and the solemn notes of the bird of night, were heard

at distant intervals. Darkness now increased, and through the dusk could

only be discerned the pale phantasms of columns and walls. The solitude

of the place, the tranquillity of the hour, the majesty of the scene,

impressed on my mind a religious pensiveness. The aspect of a great city

deserted, the memory of times past, compared with its present state, all

elevated my mind to high contemplations. I sat on the shaft of a column,

my elbow reposing on my knee, and head reclining on my hand, my eyes

fixed, sometimes on the desert, sometimes on the ruins, and fell into a

profound reverie.

* An animal resembling a dog and a fox. It preys on other

small animals, and upon the bodies of the dead on the field

of battle. It is the Canis aureus of Linnaeus.

CHAPTER II.

THE REVERIE.

Here, said I, once flourished an opulent city; here was the seat of a

powerful empire. Yes! these places now so wild and desolate, were once

animated by a living multitude; a busy crowd thronged in these streets,

now so solitary. Within these walls, where now reigns the silence

of death, the noise of the arts, and the shouts of joy and festivity

incessantly resounded; these piles of marble were regular palaces; these

fallen columns adorned the majesty of temples; these ruined galleries

surrounded public places. Here assembled a numerous people for the

sacred duties of their religion, and the anxious cares of their

subsistence; here industry, parent of enjoyments, collected the riches

of all climes, and the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious

thread of Serica;* the soft tissues of Cassimere for the sumptuous

tapestry of Lydia; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes

of Arabia; the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule.

* The precious thread of Serica.--That is, the silk

originally derived from the mountainous country where the

great wall terminates, and which appears to have been the

cradle of the Chinese empire. The tissues of Cassimere.--

The shawls which Ezekiel seems to have described under the

appellation of Choud-choud. The gold of Ophir.--This

country, which was one of the twelve Arab cantons, and which

has so much and so unsuccessfully been sought for by the

antiquarians, has left, however, some trace of itself in

Ofor, in the province of Oman, upon the Persian Gulf,

neighboring on one side to the Sabeans, who are celebrated

by Strabo for their abundance of gold, and on the other to

Aula or Hevila, where the pearl fishery was carried on. See

the 27th chapter of Ezekiel, which gives a very curious and

extensive picture of the commerce of Asia at that period.

And now behold what remains of this powerful city: a miserable skeleton!

What of its vast domination: a doubtful and obscure remembrance! To

the noisy concourse which thronged under these porticoes, succeeds the

solitude of death. The silence of the grave is substituted for the busy

hum of public places; the affluence of a commercial city is changed into

wretched poverty; the palaces of kings have become a den of wild beasts;

flocks repose in the area of temples, and savage reptiles inhabit the

sanctuary of the gods. Ah! how has so much glory been eclipsed? how

have so many labors been annihilated? Do thus perish then the works of

men--thus vanish empires and nations?

And the history of former times revived in my mind; I remembered those

ancient ages when many illustrious nations inhabited these countries; I

figured to myself the Assyrian on the banks of the Tygris, the Chaldean

on the banks of the Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the Indus to

the Mediterranean. I enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of

Jerusalem and Samaria, the warlike states of the Philistines, and

the commercial republics of Phoenicia. This Syria, said I, now so

depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded

with towns, villages, and hamlets.* In all parts were seen cultivated

fields, frequented roads, and crowded habitations. Ah! whither have

flown those ages of life and abundance?--whither vanished those

brilliant creations of human industry? Where are those ramparts of

Nineveh, those walls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis, those

temples of Balbec and of Jerusalem? Where are those fleets of Tyre,

those dock-yards of Arad, those work-shops of Sidon, and that multitude

of sailors, of pilots, of merchants, and of soldiers? Where those

husbandmen, harvests, flocks, and all the creation of living beings

in which the face of the earth rejoiced? Alas! I have passed over this

desolate land! I have visited the palaces, once the scene of so much

splendor, and I beheld nothing but solitude and desolation. I sought the

ancient inhabitants and their works, and found nothing but a trace, like

the foot-prints of a traveller over the sand. The temples are fallen,

the palaces overthrown, the ports filled up, the cities destroyed; and

the earth, stripped of inhabitants, has become a place of sepulchres.

Great God! whence proceed such fatal revolutions? What causes have so

changed the fortunes of these countries? Wherefore are so many cities

destroyed? Why has not this ancient population been reproduced and

perpetuated?

* According to Josephus and Strabo, there were in Syria

twelve millions of souls, and the traces that remain of

culture and habitation confirm the calculation.

Thus absorbed in meditation, a crowd of new reflections continually

poured in upon my mind. Every thing, continued I, bewilders my judgment,

and fills my heart with trouble and uncertainty. When these countries

enjoyed what constitutes the glory and happiness of man, they were

inhabited by infidel nations: It was the Phoenician, offering human

sacrifices to Moloch, who gathered into his stores the riches of all

climates; it was the Chaldean, prostrate before his serpent-god,*

who subjugated opulent cities, laid waste the palaces of kings, and

despoiled the temples of the gods; it was the Persian, worshipper of

fire, who received the tribute of a hundred nations; they were the

inhabitants of this very city, adorers of the sun and stars, who erected

so many monuments of prosperity and luxury. Numerous herds, fertile

fields, abundant harvests--whatsoever should be the reward of piety--was

in the hands of these idolaters. And now, when a people of saints and

believers occupy these fields, all is become sterility and solitude.

The earth, under these holy hands, produces only thorns and briers. Man

soweth in anguish, and reapeth tears and cares. War, famine, pestilence,

assail him by turns. And yet, are not these the children of the

prophets? The Mussulman, Christian, Jew, are they not the elect children

of God, loaded with favors and miracles? Why, then, do these privileged

races no longer enjoy the same advantages? Why are these fields,

sanctified by the blood of martyrs, deprived of their ancient fertility?

Why have those blessings been banished hence, and transferred for so

many ages to other nations and different climes?

* The dragon Bell.

At these words, revolving in my mind the vicissitudes which have

transmitted the sceptre of the world to people so different in religion

and manners from those in ancient Asia to the most recent of Europe,

this name of a natal land revived in me the sentiment of my country; and

turning my eyes towards France, I began to reflect on the situation in

which I had left her.*

* In the year 1782, at the close of the American war.

I recalled her fields so richly cultivated, her roads so admirably

constructed, her cities inhabited by a countless people, her fleets

spread over every sea, her ports filled with the produce of both the

Indies: and then comparing the activity of her commerce, the extent of

her navigation, the magnificence of her buildings, the arts and industry

of her inhabitants, with what Egypt and Syria had once possessed, I was

gratified to find in modern Europe the departed splendor of Asia; but

the charm of my reverie was soon dissolved by a last term of comparison.

Reflecting that such had once been the activity of the places I was

then contemplating, who knows, said I, but such may one day be the

abandonment of our countries? Who knows if on the banks of the Seine,

the Thames, the Zuyder-Zee, where now, in the tumult of so many

enjoyments, the heart and the eye suffice not for the multitude of

sensations,--who knows if some traveller, like myself, shall not one day

sit on their silent ruins, and weep in solitude over the ashes of their

inhabitants, and the memory of their former greatness.

At these words, my eyes filled with tears: and covering my head with the

fold of my mantle, I sank into gloomy meditations on all human affairs.

Ah! hapless man, said I in my grief, a blind fatality sports with thy

destiny!* A fatal necessity rules with the hand of chance the lot of

mortals! But no: it is the justice of heaven fulfilling its decrees!--a

God of mystery exercising his incomprehensible judgments! Doubtless

he has pronounced a secret anathema against this land: blasting with

maledictions the present, for the sins of past generations. Oh! who

shall dare to fathom the depths of the Omnipotent?

* Fatality is the universal and rooted prejudice of the

East. "It was written," is there the answer to every thing.

Hence result an unconcern and apathy, the most powerful

impediments to instruction and civilization.

And sunk in profound melancholy, I remained motionless.

CHAPTER III.

THE APPARITION.

While thus absorbed, a sound struck my ear, like the agitation of a

flowing robe, or that of slow footsteps on dry and rustling grass.

Startled, I opened my mantle, and looking about with fear and trembling,

suddenly, on my left, by the glimmering light of the moon, through

the columns and ruins of a neighboring temple, I thought I saw an

apparition, pale, clothed in large and flowing robes, such as spectres

are painted rising from their tombs. I shuddered: and while agitated and

hesitating whether to fly or to advance toward the object, a distinct

voice, in solemn tones, pronounced these words:

How long will man importune heaven with unjust complaint? How long, with

vain clamors, will he accuse Fate as the author of his calamities? Will

he forever shut his eyes to the light, and his heart to the admonitions

of truth and reason? The light of truth meets him everywhere; yet he

sees it not! The voice of reason strikes his ear; and he hears it

not! Unjust man! if for a moment thou canst suspend the delusion which

fascinates thy senses, if thy heart can comprehend the language of

reason, interrogate these ruins! Read the lessons which they present to

thee! And you, evidences of twenty centuries, holy temples! venerable

tombs! walls once so glorious, appear in the cause of nature herself!

Approach the tribunal of sound reason, and bear testimony against unjust

accusations! Come and confound the declamations of a false wisdom or

hypocritical piety, and avenge the heavens and the earth of man who

calumniates them both!

What is that blind fatality, which without order and without law,

sports with the destiny of mortals? What is that unjust necessity, which

confounds the effect of actions, whether of wisdom or of folly? In what

consist the anathemas of heaven over this land? Where is that divine

malediction which perpetuates the abandonment of these fields? Say,

monuments of past ages! have the heavens changed their laws and the

earth its motion? Are the fires of the sun extinct in the regions of

space? Do the seas no longer emit their vapors? Are the rains and the

dews suspended in the air? Do the mountains withhold their springs? Are

the streams dried up? And do the plants no longer bear fruit and seed?

Answer, generation of falsehood and iniquity, hath God deranged the

primitive and settled order of things which he himself assigned to

nature? Hath heaven denied to earth, and earth to its inhabitants,

the blessings they formerly dispensed? If nothing hath changed in the

creation, if the same means now exist which before existed, why then are

not the present what former generations were? Ah! it is falsely that you

accuse fate and heaven! it is unjustly that you accuse God as the cause

of your evils! Say, perverse and hypocritical race! if these places are

desolate, if these powerful cities are reduced to solitude, is it God

who has caused their ruin? Is it his hand which has overthrown these

walls, destroyed these temples, mutilated these columns, or is it the

hand of man? Is it the arm of God which has carried the sword into your

cities, and fire into your fields, which has slaughtered the people,

burned the harvests, rooted up trees, and ravaged the pastures, or is

it the hand of man? And when, after the destruction of crops, famine

has ensued, is it the vengeance of God which has produced it, or the

mad fury of mortals? When, sinking under famine, the people have fed

on impure aliments, if pestilence ensues, is it the wrath of God which

sends it, or the folly of man? When war, famine and pestilence, have

swept away the inhabitants, if the earth remains a desert, is it God

who has depopulated it? Is it his rapacity which robs the husbandman,

ravages the fruitful fields, and wastes the earth, or is it the rapacity

of those who govern? Is it his pride which excites murderous wars,

or the pride of kings and their ministers? Is it the venality of his

decisions which overthrows the fortunes of families, or the corruption

of the organs of the law? Are they his passions which, under a thousand

forms, torment individuals and nations, or are they the passions of man?

And if, in the anguish of their miseries, they see not the remedies,

is it the ignorance of God which is to blame, or their ignorance? Cease

then, mortals, to accuse the decrees of Fate, or the judgments of the

Divinity! If God is good, will he be the author of your misery? If he is

just, will he be the accomplice of your crimes? No, the caprice of which

man complains is not the caprice of fate; the darkness that misleads his

reason is not the darkness of God; the source of his calamities is

not in the distant heavens, it is beside him on the earth; it is not

concealed in the bosom of the divinity; it dwells within himself, he

bears it in his own heart.

Thou murmurest and sayest: What! have an infidel people then enjoyed the

blessings of heaven and earth? Are the holy people of God less fortunate

than the races of impiety? Deluded man! where then is the contradiction

which offends thee? Where is the inconsistency which thou imputest to

the justice of heaven? Take into thine own hands the balance of rewards

and punishments, of causes and effects. Say: when these infidels

observed the laws of the heavens and the earth, when they regulated

well-planned labors by the order of the seasons and the course of

the stars, should the Almighty have disturbed the equilibrium of the

universe to defeat their prudence? When their hands cultivated these

fields with toil and care, should he have diverted the course of the

rains, suspended the refreshing dews, and planted crops of thorns?

When, to render these arid fields productive, their industry constructed

aqueducts, dug canals, and led the distant waters across the desert,

should he have dried up their sources in the mountains? Should he have

blasted the harvests which art had nourished, wasted the plains which

peace had peopled, overthrown cities which labor had created, or

disturbed the order established by the wisdom of man? And what is that

infidelity which founded empires by its prudence, defended them by

its valor, and strengthened them by its justice--which built powerful

cities, formed capacious ports, drained pestilential marshes, covered

the ocean with ships, the earth with inhabitants; and, like the

creative spirit, spread life and motion throughout the world? If such

be infidelity, what then is the true faith? Doth sanctity consist in

destruction? The God who peoples the air with birds, the earth with

animals, the waters with fishes--the God who animates all nature--is he

then a God of ruins and tombs? Demands he devastation for homage, and

conflagration for sacrifice? Requires he groans for hymns, murderers for

votaries, a ravaged and desolate earth for his temple? Behold then, holy

and believing people, what are your works! behold the fruits of your

piety! You have massacred the people, burned their cities, destroyed

cultivation, reduced the earth to a solitude; and you ask the reward

of your works! Miracles then must be performed! The people whom you

extirpated must be recalled to life, the walls rebuilt which you have

overthrown, the harvests reproduced which you have destroyed, the waters

regathered which you have dispersed; the laws, in fine, of heaven and

earth reversed; those laws, established by God himself, in demonstration

of his magnificence and wisdom; those eternal laws, anterior to all

codes, to all the prophets those immutable laws, which neither the

passions nor the ignorance of man can pervert. But that passion which

mistaketh, that ignorance which observeth neither causes nor effects,

hath said in its folly: "All things flow from chance; a blind fatality

poureth out good and evil upon the earth; success is not to the prudent,

nor felicity to the wise;" or, assuming the language of hypocrisy, she

hath said, "all things are from God; he taketh pleasure in deceiving

wisdom and confounding reason." And Ignorance, applauding herself in her

malice, hath said, "thus will I place myself on a par with that science

which confounds me--thus will I excel that prudence which fatigues and

torments me." And Avarice hath added: "I will oppress the weak, and

devour the fruits of his labors; and I will say, it is fate which hath

so ordained." But I! I swear by the laws of heaven and earth, and by the

law which is written in the heart of man, that the hypocrite shall be

deceived in his cunning--the oppressor in his rapacity! The sun shall

change his course, before folly shall prevail over wisdom and knowledge,

or ignorance surpass prudence, in the noble and sublime art of procuring

to man his true enjoyments, and of building his happiness on an enduring

foundation.

CHAPTER IV.

THE EXPOSITION

Thus spoke the Phantom. Confused with this discourse, and my heart

agitated with different reflections, I remained long in silence. At

length, taking courage, I thus addressed him: Oh, Genius of tombs and

ruins! Thy presence, thy severity, hath disordered my senses; but the

justice of thy discourse restoreth confidence to my soul. Pardon my

ignorance. Alas, if man is blind, shall his misfortune be also his

crime? I may have mistaken the voice of reason; but never, knowingly,

have I rejected its authority. Ah! if thou readest my heart, thou

knowest with what enthusiasm it seeketh truth. Is it not in its pursuit

that thou seest me in this sequestered spot? Alas! I have wandered over

the earth, I have visited cities and countries; and seeing everywhere

misery and desolation, a sense of the evils which afflict my fellow men

hath deeply oppressed my soul. I have said, with a sigh: is man then

born but for sorrow and anguish? And I have meditated upon human misery

that I might discover a remedy. I have said, I will separate myself from

the corruption of society; I will retire far from palaces where the mind

is depraved by satiety and from the hovel where it is debased by misery.

I will go into the desert and dwell among ruins; I will interrogate

ancient monuments on the wisdom of past ages; I will invoke from the

bosom of the tombs the spirit which once in Asia gave splendor to

states, and glory to nations; I will ask of the ashes of legislators,

by what secret causes do empires rise and fall; from what sources spring

the Prosperity and misfortunes of nations, on what principles can the

Peace of Society, and the happiness of man be established?

I ceased, and with submissive look awaited the answer of the Genius.

Peace and happiness, said he, attend those who practice justice! Since

thy heart, O mortal, with sincerity seeketh truth; since thine eyes can

still recognize her through the mist of prejudice, thy prayer shall not

be in vain. I will unfold to thy view that truth thou invokest; I will

teach thy reason that knowledge thou seekest; I will reveal to thee the

science of ages and the wisdom of the tombs.

Then approaching and laying his hand on my head, he said:

Rise, mortal, and extricate thy senses from the dust in which thou

movest.

Suddenly a celestial flame seemed to dissolve the bands which held us to

the earth; and, like a light vapor, borne on the wings of the Genius,

I felt myself wafted to the regions above. Thence, from the aerial

heights, looking down upon the earth, I perceived a scene altogether

new. Under my feet, floating in the void, a globe like that of the moon,

but smaller and less luminous, presented to me one of its phases; and

that phase* had the aspect of a disk varigated with large spots, some

white and nebulous, others brown, green or gray, and while I strained my

sight to distinguish what they were, the Genius exclaimed:

* See Plate representing half the terrestrial globe,

opposite page 10.

Disciple of Truth, knowest thou that object?

O Genius, answered I, if I did not see the moon in another quarter of

the heavens, I should have supposed that to be her globe. It has

the appearance of that planet seen through the telescope during the

obscuration of an eclipse. These varigated spots might be mistaken for

seas and continents.

They are seas and continents, said he, and those of the very hemisphere

which you inhabit.

What! said I, is that the earth--the habitation of man?

Yes, replied he, that brown space which occupies irregularly a great

portion of the disk, and envelops it almost on every side, is what you

call the great ocean, which advancing from the south pole towards the

equator, forms first the great gulf of India and Africa, then extends

eastward across the Malay islands to the confines of Tartary, while

towards the west it encircles the continents of Africa and of Europe,

even to the north of Asia.

That square peninsula under our feet is the arid country of the Arabs;

the great continent on its left, almost as naked in its interior, with

a little verdure only towards its borders, is the parched soil inhabited

by black-men.* To the north, beyond a long, narrow and irregular sea,**

are the countries of Europe, rich in meadows and cultivated fields. On

its right, from the Caspian Sea, extend the snowy and naked plains of

Tartary. Returning in this direction that white space is the vast and

barren desert of Cobi, which separates China from the rest of the world.

You see that empire in the furrowed plain which obliquely rounds itself

off from our sight. On yonder coasts, those ragged tongues of land

and scattered points are the peninsulas and islands of the Malays, the

wretched possessors of the spices and perfumes. That triangle which

advances so far into the sea, is the too famous peninsula of India.***

You see the winding course of the Ganges, the rough mountains of Thibet,

the lovely valley of Cachemere, the briny deserts of Persia, the banks

of the Euphrates and Tygris, the deep bed of the Jordan and the canals

of the solitary Nile.

* Africa.

** The Mediterranean.

*** Of what real good has been the commerce of India to the

mass of the people? On the contrary, how great the evil

occasioned by the superstition of this country having been

added the general superstition!

O Genius, said I, interrupting him, the sight of a mortal reaches not

to objects at such a distance. He touched my eyes, and immediately they

became piercing as those of an eagle; nevertheless the rivers still

appeared like waving lines, the mountains winding furrows, and the

cities little compartments like the squares of a chess-board.

And the Genius proceeded to enumerate and point out the objects to

me: Those piles of ruins, said he, which you see in that narrow valley

watered by the Nile, are the remains of opulent cities, the pride of the

ancient kingdom of Ethiopia.* Behold the wrecks of her metropolis, of

Thebes with her hundred palaces,** the parent of cities, and monument of

the caprice of destiny. There a people, now forgotten, discovered, while

others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A

race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled

hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and

religious systems which still govern the universe. Lower down, those

dusky points are the pyramids whose masses have astonished you. Beyond

that, the coast, hemmed in between the sea and a narrow ridge of

mountains, was the habitation of the Phoenicians. These were the famous

cities of Tyre, of Sidon, of Ascalon, of Gaza, and of Berytus. That

thread of water with no outlet, is the river Jordan; and those naked

rocks were once the theatre of events that have resounded throughout

the world. Behold that desert of Horeb, and that Mount Sinai; where,

by means beyond vulgar reach, a genius, profound and bold, established

institutions which have weighed on the whole human race. On that dry

shore which borders it, you perceive no longer any trace of splendor;

yet there was an emporium of riches. There were those famous Ports of

Idumea, whence the fleets of Phoenicia and Judea, coasting the Arabian

peninsula, went into the Persian gulf, to seek there the pearls of

Hevila, the gold of Saba and of Ophir. Yes, there on that coast of Oman

and of Barhain was the seat of that commerce of luxuries, which, by its

movements and revolutions, fixed the destinies of ancient nations.***

Thither came the spices and precious stones of Ceylon, the shawls of

Cassimere, the diamonds of Golconda, the amber of Maldivia, the musk of

Thibet, the aloes of Cochin, the apes and peacocks of the continent of

India, the incense of Hadramaut, the myrrh, the silver, the gold dust

and ivory of Africa; thence passing, sometimes by the Red Sea on the

vessels of Egypt and Syria, these luxuries nourished successively the

wealth of Thebes, of Sidon, of Memphis and of Jerusalem; sometimes,

ascending the Tygris and Euphrates, they awakened the activity of the

Assyrians, Medes, Chaldeans, and Persians; and that wealth, according

to the use or abuse of it, raised or reversed by turns their domination.

Hence sprung the magnificence of Persepolis, whose columns you

still perceive; of Ecbatana, whose sevenfold wall is destroyed; of

Babylon,**** now leveled with the earth; of Nineveh, of which scarce

the name remains; of Thapsacus, of Anatho, of Gerra, and of desolated

Palmyra. O names for ever glorious! fields of renown! countries of

never-dying memory! what sublime lessons doth your aspect offer! what

profound truths are written on the surface of your soil! remembrances of

times past, return into my mind! places, witnesses of the life of man in

so many different ages, retrace for me the revolutions of his fortune!

say, what were their springs and secret causes! say, from what sources

he derived success and disgrace! unveil to himself the causes of his

evils! correct him by the spectacle of his errors! teach him the wisdom

which belongeth to him, and let the experience of past ages become a

means of instruction, and a germ of happiness to present and future

generations.

* In the new Encyclopedia 3rd vol. Antiquities is published

a memoir, respecting the chronology of the twelve ages

anterior to the passing of Xerxes into Greece, in which I

conceive myself to have proved that upper Egypt formerly

composed a distinct kingdom known to the Hebrews by the name

of Kous and to which the appellation of Ethiopia was

specially given. This kingdom preserved its independence to

the time of Psammeticus; at which period, being united to

the Lower Egypt, it lost its name of Ethiopia, which

thenceforth was bestowed upon the nations of Nubia and upon

the different tribes of blacks, including Thebes, their

metropolis.

** The idea of a city with a hundred gates, in the common

acceptation of the word, is so absurd, that I am astonished

the equivoque has not before been felt.

It has ever been the custom of the East to call palaces and

houses of the great by the name of gates, because the

principal luxury of these buildings consists in the singular

gate leading from the street into the court, at the farthest

extremity of which the palace is situated. It is under the

vestibule of this gate that conversation is held with

passengers, and a sort of audience and hospitality given.

All this was doubtless known to Homer; but poets make no

commentaries, and readers love the marvellous.

This city of Thebes, now Lougsor, reduced to the condition

of a miserable village, has left astonishing monuments of

its magnificence. Particulars of this may be seen in the

plates of Norden, in Pocock, and in the recent travels of

Bruce. These monuments give credibility to all that Homer

has related of its splendor, and lead us to infer its

political power and external commerce.

Its geographical position was favorable to this twofold

object. For, on one side, the valley of the Nile, singularly

fertile, must have early occasioned a numerous population;

and, on the other, the Red Sea, giving communication with

Arabia and India, and the Nile with Abyssinia and the

Mediterranean, Thebes was thus naturally allied to the

richest countries on the globe; an alliance that procured it

an activity so much the greater, as Lower Egypt, at first a

swamp, was nearly, if not totally, uninhabited. But when at

length this country had been drained by the canals and dikes

which Sesostris constructed, population was introduced

there, and wars arose which proved fatal to the power of

Thebes. Commerce then took another route, and descended to

the point of the Red Sea, to the canals of Sesostris (see

Strabo), and wealth and activity were transferred to

Memphis. This is manifestly what Diodorus means when he

tells us (lib. i. sect. 2), that as soon as Memphis was

established and made a wholesome and delicious abode, kings

abandoned Thebes to fix themselves there. Thus Thebes

continued to decline, and Memphis to flourish, till the time

of Alexander, who, building Alexandria on the border of the

sea, caused Memphis to fall in its turn; so that prosperity

and power seem to have descended historically step by step

along the Nile; whence it results, both physically and

historically, that the existence of Thebes was prior to that

of the other cities. The testimony of writers is very

positive in this respect. "The Thebans," says Diodorus,

"consider themselves as the most ancient people of the

earth, and assert, that with them originated philosophy and

the science of the stars. Their situation, it is true, is

infinitely favorable to astronomical observation, and they

have a more accurate division of time into mouths and years

than other nations" etc.

What Diodorus says of the Thebans, every author, and himself

elsewhere, repeat of the Ethiopians, which tends more firmly

to establish the identity of this place of which I have

spoken. "The Ethiopians conceive themselves," says he, lib.

iii., "to be of greater antiquity than any other nation: and

it is probable that, born under the sun's path, its warmth

may have ripened them earlier than other men. They suppose

themselves also to be the inventors of divine worship, of

festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and every

other religious practice. They affirm that the Egyptians

are one of their colonies, and that the Delta, which was

formerly sea, became land by the conglomeration of the earth

of the higher country which was washed down by the Nile.

They have, like the Egyptians, two species of letters,

hieroglyphics, and the alphabet; but among the Egyptians the

first was known only to the priests, and by them transmitted

from father to son, whereas both species were common among

the Ethiopians."

"The Ethiopians," says Lucian, page 985, "were the first who

invented the science of the stars, and gave names to the

planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive

of the qualities which they conceived them to possess; and

it was from them that this art passed, still in an imperfect

state, to the Egyptians."

It would be easy to multiply citations upon this subject;

from all which it follows, that we have the strongest

reasons to believe that the country neighboring to the

tropic was the cradle of the sciences, and of consequence

that the first learned nation was a nation of Blacks; for it

is incontrovertible, that, by the term Ethiopians, the

ancients meant to represent a people of black complexion,

thick lips, and woolly hair. I am therefore inclined to

believe, that the inhabitants of Lower Egypt were originally

a foreign colony imported from Syria and Arabia, a medley of

different tribes of savages, originally shepherds and

fishermen, who, by degrees formed themselves into a nation,

and who, by nature and descent, were enemies of the Thebans,

by whom they were no doubt despised and treated as

barbarians.

I have suggested the same ideas in my Travels into Syria,

founded upon the black complexion of the Sphinx. I have

since ascertained that the antique images of Thebias have

the same characteristic; and Mr. Bruce has offered a

multitude of analogous facts; but this traveller, of whom I

heard some mention at Cairo, has so interwoven these facts

with certain systematic opinions, that we should have

recourse to his narratives with caution.

It is singular that Africa, situated so near us, should be

the least known country on the earth. The English are at

this moment making explorations, the success of which ought

to excite our emulation.

*** Ailah (Eloth), and Atsiom-Gaber (Hesien-Geber.) The

name of the first of these towns still subsists in its

ruins, at the point of the gulf of the Red Sea, and in the

route which the pilgrims take to Mecca. Hesion has at

present no trace, any more than Quolzoum and Faran: it was,

however, the harbor for the fleets of Solomon. The vessels

of this prince conducted by the Tyrians, sailed along the

coast of Arabia to Ophir, in the Persian Gulf, thus opening

a communication with the merchants of India and Ceylon.

That this navigation was entirely of Tyrian invention,

appears both from the pilots and shipbuilders employed by

the Jews, and the names that were given to the trading

islands, viz. Tyrus and Aradus, now Barhain. The voyage was

performed in two different modes, either in canoes of osier

and rushes, covered on the outside with skins done over with

pitch: (these vessels were unable to quit the Red Sea, or so

much as to leave the shore.) The second mode of carrying on

the trade was by means of vessels with decks of the size of

our river boats, which were able to pass the strait and to

weather the dangers of time ocean; but for this purpose it

was necessary to bring the wood from Mount Libanus and

Cilicia, where it is very fine and in great abundance. This

wood was first conveyed in floats from Tarsus to Phoenicia,

for which reason the vessels were called ships of Tarsus;

from whence it has been ridiculously inferred, that they

went round the promontory of Africa as far as Tortosa in

Spain. From Phoenicia it was transported on the backs of

camels to the Red Sea, which practice still continues,

because the shores of this sea are absolutely unprovided

with wood even for fuel. These vessels spent a complete

year in their voyage, that is, sailed one year, sojourned

another, and did not return till the third. This

tediousness was owing first to their cruising from port to

port, as they do at present; secondly, to their being

detained by the Monsoon currents; and thirdly, because,

according to the calculations of Pliny and Strabo, it was

the ordinary practice among the ancients to spend three

years in a voyage of twelve hundred leagues. Such a

commerce must have been very expensive, particularly as they

were obliged to carry with them their provisions, and even

fresh water. For this reason Solomon made himself master of

Palmyra, which was at that time inhabited, and was already

the magazine and high road of merchants by the way of the

Euphrates. This conquest brought Solomon much nearer to the

country of gold and pearls. This alternative of a route

either by the Red Sea or by the river Euphrates was to the

ancients, what in later times has been the alternative in a

voyage to the Indies, either by crossing the isthmus of Suez

or doubling the cape of Good Hope. It appears that till the

time of Moses, this trade was carried on across the desert

of Syria and Thebais; that afterwards it fell into the hands

of the Phoenicians, who fixed its site upon the Red Sea; and

that it was mutual jealousy that induced the kings of

Nineveh and Babylon to undertake the destruction of Tyre and

Jerusalem. I insist the more upon these facts, because I

have never seen any thing reasonable upon the subject.

**** It appears that Babylon occupied on the eastern banks

of the Euphrates a space of ground six leagues in length.

Throughout this space bricks are found by means of which

daily additions are made to the town of Helle. Upon many of

these are characters written with a nail similar to those of

Persepolis. I am indebted for these facts to M. de

Beauchamp, grand vicar of Babylon, a traveller equally

distinguished for his knowledge of astronomy and for his

veracity.

CHAPTER V.

CONDITION OF MAN IN THE UNIVERSE.

The Genius, after some moments of silence, resumed in these words:

I have told thee already, O friend of truth! that man vainly ascribes

his misfortunes to obscure and imaginary agents; in vain he seeks as the

source of his evils mysterious and remote causes. In the general order

of the universe his condition is, doubtless, subject to inconveniences,

and his existence governed by superior powers; but those powers are

neither the decrees of a blind fatality, nor the caprices of whimsical

and fantastic beings. Like the world of which he forms a part, man is

governed by natural laws, regular in their course, uniform in their

effects, immutable in their essence; and those laws,--the common source

of good and evil,--are not written among the distant stars, nor hidden

in codes of mystery; inherent in the nature of terrestrial beings,

interwoven with their existence, at all times and in all places,

they are present to man; they act upon his senses, they warn his

understanding, and give to every action its reward or punishment. Let

man then know these laws! let him comprehend the nature of the elements

which surround him, and also his own nature, and he will know the

regulators of his destiny; he will know the causes of his evils and the

remedies he should apply.

When the hidden power which animates the universe, formed the globe

which man inhabits, he implanted in the beings composing it, essential

properties which became the law of their individual motion, the bond of

their reciprocal relations, the cause of the harmony of the whole; he

thereby established a regular order of causes and effects, of principles

and consequences, which, under an appearance of chance, governs the

universe, and maintains the equilibrium of the world. Thus, he gave to

fire, motion and activity; to air, elasticity; weight and density to

matter; he made air lighter than water, metal heavier than earth, wood

less cohesive than steel; he decreed flame to ascend, stones to fall,

plants to vegetate; to man, who was to be exposed to the action of so

many different beings, and still to preserve his frail life, he gave

the faculty of sensation. By this faculty all action hurtful to his

existence gives him a feeling of pain and evil, and all which is

salutary, of pleasure and happiness. By these sensations, man, sometimes

averted from that which wounds his senses, sometimes allured towards

that which soothes them, has been obliged to cherish and preserve his

own life; thus, self-love, the desire of happiness, aversion to

pain, become the essential and primary laws imposed on man by nature

herself--the laws which the directing power, whatever it be, has

established for his government--and which laws, like those of motion in

the physical world, are the simple and fruitful principle of whatever

happens in the moral world.

Such, then, is the condition of man: on one side, exposed to the action

of the elements which surround him, he is subject to many inevitable

evils; and if, in this decree, nature has been severe, on the other

hand, just and even indulgent she has not only tempered the evils with

equivalent good, she has also enabled him to increase the good and

alleviate the evil. She seems to say:

"Feeble work of my hands, I owe thee nothing, and I give thee life; the

world wherein I placed thee was not made for thee, yet I give thee the

use of it; thou wilt find in it a mixture of good and evil; it is for

thee to distinguish them; for thee to guide thy footsteps in a path

containing thorns as well as roses. Be the arbiter of thine own fate; I

put thy destiny into thine own hands!"

Yes, man is made the architect of his own destiny; he, himself, hath

been the cause of the successes or reverses of his own fortune; and if,

on a review of all the pains with which he has tormented his own

life, he finds reason to weep over his own weakness or imprudence

yet, considering the beginnings from which he sat out, and the height

attained, he has, perhaps, still reason to presume on his strength, and

to pride himself on his genius.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PRIMITIVE STATE OF MAN.

Formed naked in body and in mind, man at first found himself thrown, as

it were by chance, on a rough and savage land: an orphan, abandoned by

the unknown power which had produced him, he saw not by his side beings

descended from heaven to warn him of those wants which arise only from

his senses, nor to instruct him in those duties which spring only

from his wants. Like to other animals, without experience of the past,

without foresight of the future, he wandered in the bosom of the forest,

guided only and governed by the affections of his nature. By the pain of

hunger, he was led to seek food and provide for his subsistence; by the

inclemency of the air, he was urged to cover his body, and he made him

clothes; by the attraction of a powerful pleasure, he approached a being

like himself, and he perpetuated his kind.

Thus the impressions which he received from every object, awakening his

faculties, developed by degrees his understanding, and began to instruct

his profound ignorance: his wants excited industry, dangers formed his

courage; he learned to distinguish useful from noxious plants, to

combat the elements, to seize his prey, to defend his life; and thus he

alleviated its miseries.

Thus self-love, aversion to pain, the desire of happiness, were the

simple and powerful excitements which drew man from the savage and

barbarous condition in which nature had placed him. And now, when his

life is replete with enjoyments, when he may count each day by the

comforts it brings, he may applaud himself and say:

"It is I who have produced the comforts which surround me; it is I who

am the author of my own happiness; a safe dwelling, convenient clothing,

abundant and wholesome nourishment, smiling fields, fertile hills,

populous empires, all is my work; without me this earth, given up

to disorder, would have been but a filthy fen, a wild wood, a dreary

desert."

Yes, creative man, receive my homage! Thou hast measured the span of the

heavens, calculated the volume of the stars, arrested the lightning in

its clouds, subdued seas and storms, subjected all the elements. Ah! how

are so many sublime energies allied to so many errors?

CHAPTER VII.

PRINCIPLES OF SOCIETY.

Wandering in the woods and on the banks of rivers in pursuit of game and

fish, the first men, beset with dangers, assailed by enemies, tormented

by hunger, by reptiles, by ravenous beasts, felt their own individual

weakness; and, urged by a common need of safety, and a reciprocal

sentiment of like evils, they united their resources and their strength;

and when one incurred a danger, many aided and succored him; when

one wanted subsistence, another shared his food with him. Thus men

associated to secure their existence, to augment their powers, to

protect their enjoyments; and self-love thus became the principle of

society.

Instructed afterwards by the experience of various and repeated

accidents, by the fatigues of a wandering life, by the distress of

frequent scarcity, men reasoned with themselves and said:

"Why consume our days in seeking scattered fruits from a parsimonious

soil? why exhaust ourselves in pursuing prey which eludes us in the

woods or waters? why not collect under our hands the animals that

nourish us? why not apply our cares in multiplying and preserving them?

We will feed on their increase, be clothed in their skins, and live

exempt from the fatigues of the day and solicitude for the morrow."

And men, aiding one another, seized the nimble goat, the timid sheep;

they tamed the patient camel, the fierce bull, the impetuous horse; and,

applauding their own industry, they sat down in the joy of their souls,

and began to taste repose and comfort: and self-love, the principle of

all reasoning, became the incitement to every art, and every enjoyment.

When, therefore, men could pass long days in leisure, and in

communication of their thoughts, they began to contemplate the earth,

the heavens, and their own existence as objects of curiosity and

reflection; they remarked the course of the seasons, the action of

the elements, the properties of fruits and plants; and applied their

thoughts to the multiplication of their enjoyments. And in some

countries, having observed that certain seeds contained a wholesome

nourishment in a small volume, convenient for transportation and

preservation, they imitated the process of nature; they confided to the

earth rice, barley, and corn, which multiplied to the full measure

of their hope; and having found the means of obtaining within a small

compass and without removal, plentiful subsistence and durable stores,

they established themselves in fixed habitations; they built houses,

villages, and towns; formed societies and nations; and self-love

produced all the developments of genius and of power.

Thus by the aid of his own faculties, man has raised himself to the

astonishing height of his present fortune. Too happy if, observing

scrupulously the law of his being, he had faithfully fulfilled its

only and true object! But, by a fatal imprudence, sometimes mistaking,

sometimes transgressing its limits, he has launched forth into a

labyrinth of errors and misfortunes; and self-love, sometimes unruly,

sometimes blind, became a principle fruitful in calamities.

CHAPTER VIII.

SOURCES OF THE EVILS OF SOCIETY.

In truth, scarcely were the faculties of men developed, when, inveigled

by objects which gratify the senses, they gave themselves up to

unbridled desires. The sweet sensations which nature had attached to

their real wants, to endear to them their existence, no longer satisfied

them. Not content with the abundance offered by the earth or produced

by industry, they wished to accumulate enjoyments and coveted those

possessed by their fellow men. The strong man rose up against the

feeble, to take from him the fruit of his labor; the feeble invoked

another feeble one to repel the violence. Two strong ones then said:

"Why fatigue ourselves to produce enjoyments which we may find in the

hands of the weak? Let us join and despoil them; they shall labor for

us, and we will enjoy without labor."

And the strong associating for oppression and the weak for resistance,

men mutually afflicted each other; and a general and fatal discord

spread over the earth, in which the passions, assuming a thousand new

forms, have generated a continued chain of misfortunes.

Thus the same self-love which, moderate and prudent, was a principle of

happiness and perfection, becoming blind and disordered, was transformed

into a corrupting poison; and cupidity, offspring and companion of

ignorance, became the cause of all the evils that have desolated the

earth.

Yes, ignorance and cupidity! these are the twin sources of all the

torments of man! Biased by these into false ideas of happiness, he has

mistaken or broken the laws of nature in his own relation with external

objects; and injuring his own existence, has violated individual

morality; shutting through these his heart to compassion, and his mind

to justice, he has injured and afflicted his equal, and violated social

morality. From ignorance and cupidity, man has armed against man, family

against family, tribe against tribe; and the earth is become a theatre

of blood, of discord, and of rapine. By ignorance and cupidity, a secret

war, fermenting in the bosom of every state, has separated citizen from

citizen; and the same society has divided itself into oppressors and

oppressed, into masters and slaves; by these, the heads of a nation,

sometimes insolent and audacious, have forged its chains within its

own bowels; and mercenary avarice has founded political despotism.

Sometimes, hypocritical and cunning, they have called from heaven a

lying power, and a sacrilegious yoke; and credulous cupidity has founded

religious despotism. By these have been perverted the ideas of good and

evil, just and unjust, vice and virtue; and nations have wandered in a

labyrinth of errors and calamities.

The cupidity of man and his ignorance,--these are the evil genii

which have wasted the earth! These are the decrees of fate which have

overthrown empires! These are the celestial anathemas which have smitten

these walls once so glorious, and converted the splendor of a populous

city into a solitude of mourning and of ruins! But as in the bosom of

man have sprung all the evils which have afflicted his life, there he

also is to seek and to find their remedies.

CHAPTER IX.

ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENT AND LAWS.

In fact, it soon happened that men, fatigued with the evils they

reciprocally inflicted, began to sigh for peace; and reflecting on their

misfortunes and the causes of them, they said:

"We are mutually injuring each other by our passions; and, aiming to

grasp every thing, we hold nothing. What one seizes to-day, another

takes to-morrow, and our cupidity reacts upon ourselves. Let us

establish judges, who shall arbitrate our rights, and settle our

differences! When the strong shall rise against the weak, the judge

shall restrain him, and dispose of our force to suppress violence;

and the life and property of each shall be under the guarantee and

protection of all; and all shall enjoy the good things of nature."

Conventions were thus formed in society, sometimes express, sometimes

tacit, which became the rule for the action of individuals, the measure

of their rights, the law of their reciprocal relations; and persons were

appointed to superintend their observance, to whom the people confided

the balance to weigh rights, and the sword to punish transgressions.

Thus was established among individuals a happy equilibrium of force and

action, which constituted the common security. The name of equity and of

justice was recognized and revered over the earth; every one, assured

of enjoying in peace, the fruits of his toil, pursued with energy the

objects of his attention; and industry, excited and maintained by the

reality or the hope of enjoyment, developed, all the riches of art

and of nature. The fields were covered with harvests, the valleys with

flocks, the hills with fruits, the sea with vessels, and man became

happy and powerful on the earth. Thus did his own wisdom repair the

disorder which his imprudence had occasioned; and that wisdom was only

the effect of his own organization. He respected the enjoyments of

others in order to secure his own; and cupidity found its corrective in

the enlightened love of self.

Thus the love of self, the moving principle of every individual, becomes

the necessary foundation of every association; and on the observance

of that law of our nature has depended the fate of nations. Have the

factitious and conventional laws tended to that object and accomplished

that aim? Every one, urged by a powerful instinct, has displayed all

the faculties of his being; and the sum of individual felicities has

constituted the general felicity. Have these laws, on the contrary,

restrained the effort of man toward his own happiness? His heart,

deprived of its exciting principle, has languished in inactivity, and

from the oppression of individuals has resulted the weakness of the

state.

As self-love, impetuous and improvident, is ever urging man against

his equal, and consequently tends to dissolve society, the art of

legislation and the merit of administrators consists in attempering

the conflict of individual cupidities, in maintaining an equilibrium of

powers, and securing to every one his happiness, in order that, in the

shock of society against society, all the members may have a common

interest in the preservation and defence of the public welfare.

The internal splendor and prosperity of empires then, have had for

their efficient cause the equity of their laws and government; and their

respective external powers have been in proportion to the number of

persons interested, and their degree of interest in the public welfare.

On the other hand, the multiplication of men, by complicating their

relations, having rendered the precise limitation of their rights

difficult, the perpetual play of the passions having produced incidents

not foreseen--their conventions having been vicious, inadequate, or

nugatory--in fine, the authors of the laws having sometimes mistaken,

sometimes disguised their objects; and their ministers, instead of

restraining the cupidity of others, having given themselves up to

their own; all these causes have introduced disorder and trouble into

societies; and the viciousness of laws and the injustice of governments,

flowing from cupidity and ignorance, have become the causes of the

misfortunes of nations, and the subversion of states.

CHAPTER X.

GENERAL CAUSES OF THE PROSPERITY OF ANCIENT STATES.

Such, O man who seekest wisdom, such have been the causes of revolution

in the ancient states of which thou contemplatest the ruins! To whatever

spot I direct my view, to whatever period my thoughts recur, the same

principles of growth or destruction, of rise or fall, present themselves

to my mind. Wherever a people is powerful, or an empire prosperous,

there the conventional laws are conformable with the laws of nature--the

government there procures for its citizens a free use of their

faculties, equal security for their persons and property. If, on the

contrary, an empire goes to ruin, or dissolves, it is because its laws

have been vicious, or imperfect, or trodden under foot by a corrupt

government. If the laws and government, at first wise and just, become

afterwards depraved, it is because the alternation of good and evil is

inherent to the heart of man, to a change in his propensities, to his

progress in knowledge, to a combination of circumstances and events; as

is proved by the history of the species.

In the infancy of nations, when men yet lived in the forest, subject to

the same wants, endowed with the same faculties, all were nearly equal

in strength; and that equality was a circumstance highly advantageous

in the composition of society: as every individual, thus feeling himself

sufficiently independent of every other, no one was the slave, none

thought of being the master of another. Man, then a novice, knew neither

servitude nor tyranny; furnished with resources sufficient for his

existence, he thought not of borrowing from others; owning nothing,

requiring nothing, he judged the rights of others by his own, and formed

ideas of justice sufficiently exact. Ignorant, moreover, in the art

of enjoyments, unable to produce more than his necessaries, possessing

nothing superfluous, cupidity remained dormant; or if excited, man,

attacked in his real wants, resisted it with energy, and the foresight

of such resistance ensured a happy balance.

Thus original equality, in default of compact, maintained freedom of

person, security of property, good manners, and order. Every one

labored by himself and for himself; and the mind of man, being occupied,

wandered not to culpable desires. He had few enjoyments, but his wants

were satisfied; and as indulgent nature had made them less than his

resources, the labor of his hands soon produced abundance--abundance,

population; the arts unfolded, culture extended, and the earth, covered

with numerous inhabitants, was divided into different dominions.

The relations of man becoming complicated, the internal order of

societies became more difficult to maintain. Time and industry having

generated riches, cupidity became more active; and because equality,

practicable among individuals, could not subsist among families, the

natural equilibrium was broken; it became necessary to supply it by a

factitious equilibrium; to set up chiefs, to establish laws; and in

the primitive inexperience, it necessarily happened that these

laws, occasioned by cupidity, assumed its character. But different

circumstances concurred to correct the disorder, and oblige governments

to be just.

States, in fact, being weak at first, and having foreign enemies to

fear, the chiefs found it their interest not to oppress their subjects;

for, by lessening the confidence of the citizens in their government,

they would diminish their means of resistance--they would facilitate

foreign invasion, and by exercising arbitrary power, have endangered

their very existence.

In the interior, the firmness of the people repelled tyranny; men had

contracted too long habits of independence; they had too few wants, and

too much consciousness of their own strength.

States being of a moderate size, it was difficult to divide their

citizens so as to make use of some for the oppression of others. Their

communications were too easy, their interest too clear and simple:

besides, every one being a proprietor and cultivator, no one needed to

sell himself, and the despot could find no mercenaries.

If, then, dissensions arose, they were between family and family,

faction and faction, and they interested a great number. The troubles,

indeed, were warmer; but fears from abroad pacified discord at home. If

the oppression of a party prevailed, the earth being still unoccupied,

and man, still in a state of simplicity, finding every where the same

advantages, the oppressed party emigrated, and carried elsewhere their

independence.

The ancient states then enjoyed within themselves numerous means of

prosperity and power. Every one finding his own well-being in the

constitution of his country, took a lively interest in its preservation.

If a stranger attacked it, having to defend his own field, his own

house, he carried into combat all the passions of a personal quarrel;

and, devoted to his own interests, he was devoted to his country.

As every action useful to the public attracted its esteem and gratitude,

every one became eager to be useful; and self-love multiplied talents

and civic virtues.

Every citizen contributing equally by his talents and person, armies

and funds were inexhaustible, and nations displayed formidable masses of

power.

The earth being free, and its possession secure and easy, every one

was a proprietor; and the division of property preserved morals, and

rendered luxury impossible.

Every one cultivating for himself, culture was more active, produce more

abundant; and individual riches became public wealth.

The abundance of produce rendering subsistence easy, population was

rapid and numerous, and states attained quickly the term of their

plenitude.

Productions increasing beyond consumption, the necessity of commerce

arose; and exchanges took place between people and people; which

augmented their activity and reciprocal advantages.

In fine, certain countries, at certain times, uniting the advantages

of good government with a position on the route of the most active

circulation, they became emporiums of flourishing commerce and seats of

powerful domination. And on the shores of the Nile and Mediterranean, of

the Tygris and Euphrates, the accumulated riches of India and of Europe

raised in successive splendor a hundred different cities.

The people, growing rich, applied their superfluity to works of common

and public use; and this was in every state, the epoch of those works

whose grandeur astonishes the mind; of those wells of Tyre, of those

dykes of the Euphrates, of those subterranean conduits of Media,* of

those fortresses of the desert, of those aqueducts of Palmyra, of those

temples, of those porticoes. And such labors might be immense, without

oppressing the nations; because they were the effect of an equal and

common contribution of the force of individuals animated and free.

* See respecting these monuments my Travels into Syria, vol.

ii. p. 214.

From the town or village of Samouat the course of the Euphrates is

accompanied with a double bank, which descends as far as its junction

with the Tygris, and from thence to the sea, being a length of about a

hundred leagues, French measure. The height of these artificial banks

is not uniform, but increases as you advance from the sea; it may be

estimated at from twelve to fifteen feet. But for them, the inundation

of the river would bury the country around, which is flat, to an extent

of twenty or twenty-five leagues and even notwithstanding these banks,

there has been in modern times an overflow, which has covered the whole

triangle formed by the junction of this river to the Tygris, being

a space of country of one hundred and thirty square leagues. By the

stagnation of these waters an epidemical disease of the most fatal

nature was occasioned. It follows from hence, 1. That all the flat

country bordering upon these rivers, was originally a marsh; 2. That

this marsh could not have been inhabited previously to the construction

of the banks in question; 3. That these banks could not have been the

work but of a population prior as to date; and the elevation of Babylon,

therefore, must have been posterior to that of Nineveh, as I think

I have chronologically demonstrated in the memoir above cited. See

Encyclopedia, vol. xiii, of Antiquities.

The modern Aderbidjan, which was a part of Medea, the mountains of

Koulderstan, and those of Diarbekr, abound with subterranean canals, by

means of which the ancient inhabitants conveyed water to their parched

soil in order to fertilize it. It was regarded as a meritorious act

and a religious duty prescribed by Zoroaster, who, instead of preaching

celibacy, mortifications, and other pretended virtues of the monkish

sort, repeats continually in the passages that are preserved respecting

him in the Sad-der and the Zend-avesta:

"That the action most pleasing to God is to plough and cultivate the

earth, to water it with running streams, to multiply vegetation and

living beings, to have numerous flocks, young and fruitful virgins, a

multitude of children," etc., etc.

Among the aqueducts of Palmyra it appears certain, that, besides those

which conducted water from the neighboring hills, there was one which

brought it even from the mountains of Syria. It is to be traced a long

way into the Desert where it escapes our search by going under ground.

Thus ancient states prospered, because their social institutions

conformed to the true laws of nature; and because men, enjoying liberty

and security for their persons and their property, might display all the

extent of their faculties,--all the energies of their self-love.

CHAPTER XI.

GENERAL CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTIONS AND RUIN OF ANCIENT STATES.

Cupidity had nevertheless excited among men a constant and universal

conflict, which incessantly prompting individuals and societies to

reciprocal invasions, occasioned successive revolutions, and returning

agitations.

And first, in the savage and barbarous state of the first men, this

audacious and fierce cupidity produced rapine, violence, and murder, and

retarded for a long time the progress of civilization.

When afterwards societies began to be formed, the effect of bad habits,

communicated to laws and governments, corrupted their institutions and

objects, and established arbitrary and factitious rights, which depraved

the ideas of justice, and the morality of the people.

Thus one man being stronger than another, their inequality--an accident

of nature--was taken for her law;* and the strong being able to take

the life of the weak, and yet sparing him, arrogated over his person an

abusive right of property; and the slavery of individuals prepared the

way for the slavery of nations.

*Almost all the ancient philosophers and politicians have laid it down

as a principle that men are born unequal, that nature his created some

to be free, and others to be slaves. Expressions of this kind are to be

found in Aristotle, and even in Plato, called the divine, doubtless in

the same sense as the mythological reveries which he promulgated. With

all the people of antiquity, the Gauls, the Romans, the Athenians,

the right of the strongest was the right of nations; and from the same

principle are derived all the political disorders and public national

crimes that at present exist.

Because the head of a family could be absolute in his house, he made his

own affections and desires the rule of his conduct; he gave or resumed

his goods without equality, without justice; and paternal despotism laid

the foundation of despotism in government.*

* Upon this single expression it would be easy to write a

long and important chapter. We might prove in it, beyond

contradiction, that all the abuses of national governments,

have sprung from those of domestic government, from that

government called patriarchal, which superficial minds have

extolled without having analyzed it. Numberless facts

demonstrate, that with every infant people, in every savage

and barbarous state, the father, the chief of the family, is

a despot, and a cruel and insolent despot. The wife is his

slave, the children his servants. This king sleeps or

smokes his pipe, while his wife and daughters perform all

the drudgery of the house, and even that of tillage and

cultivation, as far as occupations of this nature are

practised in such societies; and no sooner have the boys

acquired strength then they are allowed to beat the females

and make them serve and wait upon them as they do upon their

fathers. Similar to this is the state of our own

uncivilized peasants. In proportion as civilization

spreads, the manners become milder, and the condition of the

women improves, till, by a contrary excess, they arrive at

dominion, and then a nation becomes effeminate and corrupt.

It is remarkable that parental authority is great in

proportion as the government is despotic. China, India, and

Turkey are striking examples of this. One would suppose that

tyrants gave themselves accomplices and interested subaltern

despots to maintain their authority. In opposition to this

the Romans will be cited, but it remains to be proved that

the Romans were men truly free and their quick passage from

their republican despotism to their abject servility under

the emperors, gives room at least for considerable doubt as

to that freedom.

In societies formed on such foundations, when time and labor had

developed riches, cupidity restrained by the laws, became more artful,

but not less active. Under the mask of union and civil peace, it

fomented in the bosom of every state an intestine war, in which the

citizens, divided into contending corps of orders, classes, families,

unremittingly struggled to appropriate to themselves, under the name

of supreme power, the ability to plunder every thing, and render every

thing subservient to the dictates of their passions; and this spirit of

encroachment, disguised under all possible forms, but always the same in

its object and motives, has never ceased to torment the nations.

Sometimes, opposing itself to all social compact, or breaking that

which already existed, it committed the inhabitants of a country to the

tumultuous shock of all their discords; and states thus dissolved, and

reduced to the condition of anarchy, were tormented by the passions of

all their members.

Sometimes a nation, jealous of its liberty, having appointed agents to

administer its government, these agents appropriated the powers of which

they had only the guardianship: they employed the public treasures in

corrupting elections, gaining partisans, in dividing the people among

themselves. By these means, from being temporary they became perpetual;

from elective, hereditary; and the state, agitated by the intrigues of

the ambitious, by largesses from the rich and factious, by the venality

of the poor and idle, by the influence of orators, by the boldness of

the wicked, and the weakness of the virtuous, was convulsed with all the

inconveniences of democracy.

The chiefs of some countries, equal in strength and mutually fearing

each other, formed impious pacts, nefarious associations; and,

apportioning among themselves all power, rank, and honor, unjustly

arrogated privileges and immunities; erected themselves into separate

orders and distinct classes; reduced the people to their control; and,

under the name of aristocracy, the state was tormented by the passions

of the wealthy and the great.

Sacred impostors, in other countries, tending by other means to the

same object, abused the credulity of the ignorant. In the gloom of their

temples, behind the curtain of the altar, they made their gods act and

speak; gave forth oracles, worked miracles, ordered sacrifices, levied

offerings, prescribed endowments; and, under the names of theocracy and

of religion, the state became tormented by the passions of the priests.

Sometimes a nation, weary of its dissensions or of its tyrants, to

lessen the sources of evil, submitted to a single master; but if it

limited his powers, his sole aim was to enlarge them; if it left them

indefinite, he abused the trust confided to him; and, under the name of

monarchy, the state was tormented by the passions of kings and princes.

Then the factions, availing themselves of the general discontent,

flattered the people with the hope of a better master; dealt out gifts

and promises, deposed the despot to take his place; and their contests

for the succession, or its partition, tormented the state with the

disorders and devastations of civil war.

In fine, among these rivals, one more adroit, or more fortunate, gained

the ascendency, and concentrated all power within himself. By a strange

phenomenon, a single individual mastered millions of his equals, against

their will and without their consent; and the art of tyranny sprung also

from cupidity.

In fact, observing the spirit of egotism which incessantly divides

mankind, the ambitious man fomented it with dexterity, flattered the

vanity of one, excited the jealousy of another, favored the avarice of

this, inflamed the resentment of that, and irritated the passions of

all; then, placing in opposition their interests and prejudices, he

sowed divisions and hatreds, promised to the poor the spoils of the

rich, to the rich the subjection of the poor; threatened one man by

another, this class by that; and insulating all by distrust, created his

strength out of their weakness, and imposed the yoke of opinion,

which they mutually riveted on each other. With the army he levied

contributions, and with contributions he disposed of the army: dealing

out wealth and office on these principles, he enchained a whole people

in indissoluble bonds, and they languished under the slow consumption of

despotism.

Thus the same principle, varying its action under every possible form,

was forever attenuating the consistence of states, and an eternal circle

of vicissitudes flowed from an eternal circle of passions.

And this spirit of egotism and usurpation produced two effects equally

operative and fatal: the one a division and subdivision of societies

into their smallest fractions, inducing a debility which facilitated

their dissolution; the other, a preserving tendency to concentrate power

in a single hand,* which, engulfing successively societies and states,

was fatal to their peace and social existence.

* It is remarkable that this has in all instances been the

constant progress of societies; beginning with a state of

anarchy or democracy, that is, with a great division of

power they have passed to aristocracy, and from aristocracy

to monarchy. Does it not hence follow that those who

constitute states under the democratic form, destine them to

undergo all the intervening troubles between that and

monarchy; but it should at the same time be proved that

social experience is already exhausted for the human race,

and that this spontaneous movement is not solely the effect

of ignorance.

Thus, as in a state, a party absorbed the nation, a family the party,

and an individual the family; so a movement of absorption took place

between state and state, and exhibited on a larger scale in the

political order, all the particular evils of the civil order. Thus a

state having subdued a state, held it in subjection in the form of a

province; and two provinces being joined together formed a kingdom; two

kingdoms being united by conquest, gave birth to empires of gigantic

size; and in this conglomeration, the internal strength of states,

instead of increasing, diminished; and the condition of the people,

instead of ameliorating, became daily more abject and wretched, for

causes derived from the nature of things.

Because, in proportion as states increased in extent, their

administration becoming more difficult and complicated, greater energies

of power were necessary to move such masses; and there was no longer any

proportion between the duties of sovereigns and their ability to perform

their duties:

Because despots, feeling their weakness, feared whatever might develop

the strength of nations, and studied only how to enfeeble them:

Because nations, divided by the prejudices of ignorance and hatred,

seconded the wickedness of their governments; and availing themselves

reciprocally of subordinate agents, aggravated their mutual slavery:

Because, the balance between states being destroyed, the strong more

easily oppressed the weak.

Finally, because in proportion as states were concentrated, the people,

despoiled of their laws, of their usages, and of the government of

their choice, lost that spirit of personal identification with their

government, which had caused their energy.

And despots, considering empires as their private domains and the people

as their property, gave themselves up to depredations, and to all the

licentiousness of the most arbitrary authority.

And all the strength and wealth of nations were diverted to private

expense and personal caprice; and kings, fatigued with gratification,

abandoned themselves to all the extravagancies of factitious and

depraved taste.* They must have gardens mounted on arcades, rivers

raised over mountains, fertile fields converted into haunts for wild

beasts; lakes scooped in dry lands, rocks erected in lakes, palaces

built of marble and porphyry, furniture of gold and diamonds. Under

the cloak of religion, their pride founded temples, endowed indolent

priests, built, for vain skeletons, extravagant tombs, mausoleums and

pyramids;** millions of hands were employed in sterile labors; and the

luxury of princes, imitated by their parasites, and transmitted

from grade to grade to the lowest ranks, became a general source of

corruption and impoverishment.

* It is equally worthy of remark, that the conduct and

manners of princes and kings of every country and every age,

are found to be precisely the same at similar periods,

whether of the formation or dissolution of empires. History

every where presents the same pictures of luxury and folly;

of parks, gardens, lakes, rocks, palaces, furniture, excess

of the table, wine, women, concluding with brutality.

The absurd rock in the garden of Versailles has alone cost

three millions. I have sometimes calculated what might have

been done with the expense of the three pyramids of Gizah,

and I have found that it would easily have constructed from

the Red Sea to Alexandria, a canal one hundred and fifty

feet wide and thirty deep, completely covered in with cut

stones and a parapet, together with a fortified and

commercial town, consisting of four hundred houses,

furnished with cisterns. What a difference in point of

utility between such a canal and these pyramids!

** The learned Dupuis could not be persuaded that the

pyramids were tombs; but besides the positive testimony of

historians, read what Diodorus says of the religious and

superstitious importance every Egyptian attached to building

his dwelling eternal, b. 1.

During twenty years, says Herodotus, a hundred thousand men

labored every day to build the pyramid of the Egyptian

Cheops. Supposing only three hundred days a year, on

account of the sabbath, there will be 30 millions of days'

work in a year, and 600 millions in twenty years; at 15 sous

a day, this makes 450 millions of francs lost, without any

further benefit. With this sum, if the king had shut the

isthmus of Suez by a strong wall, like that of China, the

destinies of Egypt might have been entirely changed.

Foreign invasions would have been prevented, and the Arabs

of the desert would neither have conquered nor harassed that

country. Sterile labors! how many millions lost in putting

one stone upon another, under the forms of temples and

churches! Alchymists convert stones into gold; but

architects change gold into stone. Woe to the kings (as

well as subjects) who trust their purse to these two classes

of empirics!

And in the insatiable thirst of enjoyment, the ordinary revenues no

longer sufficing, they were augmented; the cultivator, seeing his

labors increase without compensation, lost all courage; the merchant,

despoiled, was disgusted with industry; the multitude, condemned to

perpetual poverty, restrained their labor to simple necessaries; and all

productive industry vanished.

The surcharge of taxes rendering lands a burdensome possession, the poor

proprietor abandoned his field, or sold it to the powerful; and fortune

became concentrated in a few hands. All the laws and institutions

favoring this accumulation, the nation became divided into a group

of wealthy drones, and a multitude of mercenary poor; the people were

degraded with indigence, the great with satiety, and the number of those

interested in the preservation of the state decreasing, its strength and

existence became proportionally precarious.

On the other hand, emulation finding no object, science no

encouragement, the mind sunk into profound ignorance.

The administration being secret and mysterious, there existed no means

of reform or amelioration. The chiefs governing by force or fraud,

the people viewed them as a faction of public enemies; and all harmony

ceased between the governors and governed.

And these vices having enervated the states of the wealthy part of Asia,

the vagrant and indigent people of the adjacent deserts and mountains

coveted the enjoyments of the fertile plains; and, urged by a cupidity

common to all, attacked the polished empires, and overturned the thrones

of their despots. These revolutions were rapid and easy; because the

policy of tyrants had enfeebled the subjects, razed the fortresses,

destroyed the warriors; and because the oppressed subjects remained

without personal interest, and the mercenary soldiers without courage.

And hordes of barbarians having reduced entire nations to slavery, the

empires, formed of conquerors and conquered, united in their bosom two

classes essentially opposite and hostile. All the principles of society

were dissolved: there was no longer any common interest, no longer any

public spirit; and there arose a distinction of casts and races, which

reduced to a regular system the maintenance of disorder; and he who was

born of this or that blood, was born a slave or a tyrant--property or

proprietor.

The oppressors being less numerous than the oppressed it was necessary

to perfect the science of oppression, in order to support this false

equilibrium. The art of governing became the art of subjecting the

many to the few. To enforce an obedience so contrary to instinct, the

severest punishments were established, and the cruelty of the laws

rendered manners atrocious. The distinction of persons establishing in

the state two codes, two orders of criminal justice, two sets of laws,

the people, placed between the propensities of the heart and the oath

uttered from the mouth, had two consciences in contradiction with

each other; and the ideas of justice and injustice had no longer any

foundation in the understanding.

Under such a system, the people fell into dejection and despair; and the

accidents of nature were added to the other evils which assailed them.

Prostrated by so many calamities, they attributed their causes to

superior and hidden powers; and, because they had tyrants on earth, they

fancied others in heaven; and superstition aggravated the misfortunes of

nations.

Fatal doctrines and gloomy and misanthropic systems of religion arose,

which painted their gods, like their despots, wicked and envious. To

appease them, man offered up the sacrifice of all his enjoyments. He

environed himself in privations, and reversed the order of nature.

Conceiving his pleasures to be crimes, his sufferings expiations, he

endeavored to love pain, and to abjure the love of self. He persecuted

his senses, hated his life; and a self-denying and anti-social morality

plunged nations into the apathy of death.

But provident nature having endowed the heart of man with hope

inexhaustible, when his desires of happiness were baffled on this earth,

he pursued it into another world. By a sweet illusion he created for

himself another country--an asylum where, far from tyrants, he should

recover the rights of nature, and thence resulted new disorders. Smitten

with an imaginary world, man despised that of nature. For chimerical

hopes, he neglected realities. His life began to appear a troublesome

journey--a painful dream; his body a prison, the obstacle to his

felicity; and the earth, a place of exile and of pilgrimage, not worthy

of culture. Then a holy indolence spread over the political world;

the fields were deserted, empires depopulated, monuments neglected and

deserts multiplied; ignorance, superstition and fanaticism, combining

their operations, overwhelmed the earth with devastation and ruin.

Thus agitated by their own passions, men, whether collectively or

individually taken, always greedy and improvident, passing from slavery

to tyranny, from pride to baseness, from presumption to despondency,

have made themselves the perpetual instruments of their own misfortunes.

These, then, are the principles, simple and natural, which regulated

the destiny of ancient states. By this regular and connected series of

causes and effects, they rose or fell, in proportion as the physical

laws of the human heart were respected or violated; and in the course

of their successive changes, a hundred different nations, a hundred

different empires, by turns humbled, elevated, conquered, overthrown,

have repeated for the earth their instructive lessons. Yet these lessons

were lost for the generations which have followed! The disorders in

times past have reappeared in the present age! The chiefs of the nations

have continued to walk in the paths of falsehood and tyranny!--the

people to wander in the darkness of superstition and ignorance!

Since then, continued the Genius, with renewed energy, since the

experience of past ages is lost for the living--since the errors of

progenitors have not instructed their descendants, the ancient examples

are about to reappear; the earth will see renewed the tremendous scenes

it has forgotten. New revolutions will agitate nations and empires;

powerful thrones will again be overturned, and terrible catastrophes

will again teach mankind that the laws of nature and the precepts of

wisdom and truth cannot be infringed with impunity.

CHAPTER XII.

LESSONS OF TIMES PAST REPEATED ON THE PRESENT.

Thus spoke the Genius. Struck with the justice and coherence of his

discourse, assailed with a crowd of ideas, repugnant to my habits yet

convincing to my reason, I remained absorbed in profound silence. At

length, while with serious and pensive mien, I kept my eyes fixed on

Asia, suddenly in the north, on the shores of the Black sea, and in the

fields of the Crimea, clouds of smoke and flame attracted my attention.

They appeared to rise at the same time from all parts of the peninsula;

and passing by the isthmus into the continent, they ran, as if driven

by a westerly wind, along the oozy lake of Azof, and disappeared in the

grassy plains of Couban; and following more attentively the course of

these clouds, I observed that they were preceded or followed by swarms

of moving creatures, which, like ants or grasshoppers disturbed by the

foot of a passenger, agitated themselves with vivacity. Sometimes these

swarms appeared to advance and rush against each other; and numbers,

after the concussion, remained motionless. While disquieted at this

spectacle, I strained my sight to distinguish the objects.

Do you see, said the Genius, those flames which spread over the earth,

and do you comprehend their causes and effects?

Oh! Genius, I answered, I see those columns of flame and smoke, and

something like insects, accompanying them; but, when I can scarcely

discern the great masses of cities and monuments, how should I discover,

such little creatures? I can just perceive that these insects mimic

battle, for they advance, retreat, attack and pursue.

It is no mimicry, said the Genius, these are real battles.

And what, said I, are those mad animalculae, which destroy each other?

Beings of a day! will they not perish soon enough?

Then the Genius, touching my sight and hearing, again directed my eyes

towards the same object. Look, said he, and listen!

Ah! wretches, cried I, oppressed with grief, these columns of flame!

these insects! oh! Genius, they are men. These are the ravages of

war! These torrents of flame rise from towns and villages! I see the

squadrons who kindle them, and who, sword in hand overrun the country:

they drive before them crowds of old men, women, and children, fugitive

and desolate: I perceive other horsemen, who with shouldered lances,

accompany and guide them. I even recognize them to be Tartars by their

led horses,* their kalpacks, and tufts of hair: and, doubtless, they who

pursue, in triangular hats and green uniforms, are Muscovites. Ah! I now

comprehend, a war is kindled between the empire of the Czars and that of

the Sultans.

* A Tartar horseman has always two horses, of which he leads

one in hand. The Kalpeck is a bonnet made of the skin of a

sheep or other animal. The part of the head covered by this

bonnet is shaved, with the exception of a tuft, about the

size of a crown piece, and which is suffered to grow to the

length of seven or eight inches, precisely where our priests

place their tonsure. It is by this tuft of hair, worn by

the majority of Mussulmen, that the angel of the tomb is to

take the elect and carry them into paradise.

Not yet, replied the Genius; this is only a preliminary. These Tartars

have been, and might still he troublesome neighbors. The Muscovites are

driving them off, finding their country would be a convenient extension

of their own limits; and as a prelude to another revolution, the throne

of the Guerais is destroyed.

And in fact, I saw the Russian standards floating over the Crimea: and

soon after their flag waving on the Euxine.

Meanwhile, at the cry of the flying Tartars, the Mussulman empire was

in commotion. They are driving off our brethren, cried the children

of Mahomet: the people of the prophet are outraged! infidels occupy a

consecrated land and profane the temples of Islamism.* Let us arm; let

us rush to combat, to avenge the glory of God and our own cause.

* It is not in the power of the Sultan to cede to a foreign

power a province inhabited by true believers. The people,

instigated by the lawyers, would not fail to revolt. This

is one reason which has led those who know the Turks, to

regard as chimerical the ceding of Candia, Cyprus, and

Egypt, projected by certain European potentates.

And a general movement of war took place in both empires. In every part

armed men assembled. Provisions, stores, and all the murderous apparatus

of battle were displayed. The temples of both nations, besieged by an

immense multitude, presented a spectacle which fixed all my attention.

On one side, the Mussulmen gathered before their mosques, washed

their hands and feet, pared their nails, and combed their beards; then

spreading carpets upon the ground, and turning towards the south,

with their arms sometimes crossed and sometimes extended, they made

genuflexions and prostrations, and recollecting the disasters of the

late war, they exclaimed:

God of mercy and clemency! hast thou then abandoned thy faithful people?

Thou who hast promised to thy Prophet dominion over nations, and stamped

his religion by so many triumphs, dost thou deliver thy true believers

to the swords of infidels?

And the Imans and the Santons said to the people:

It is in chastisement of your sins. You eat pork; you drink wine; you

touch unclean things. God hath punished you. Do penance therefore;

purify; repeat the profession of faith;* fast from the rising to the

setting sun; give the tenth of your goods to the mosques; go to Mecca;

and God will render you victorious.

* There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet.

And the people, recovering courage, uttered loud cries:

There is but one God, said they transported with fury, and Mahomet is

his prophet! Accursed be he who believeth not!

God of goodness, grant us to exterminate these Christians; it is for

thy glory we fight, and our death is a martyrdom for thy name. And then,

offering victims, they prepared for battle.

On the other side, the Russians, kneeling, said:

We render thanks to God, and celebrate his power. He hath strengthened

our arm to humble his enemies. Hear our prayers, thou God of mercy! To

please thee, we will pass three days without eating either meat or eggs.

Grant us to extirpate these impious Mahometans, and to overturn their

empire. To thee we will consecrate the tenth of our spoil; to thee we

will raise new temples.

And the priests filled the churches with clouds of smoke, and said to

the people:

We pray for you, God accepteth our incense, and blesseth your arms.

Continue to fast and to fight; confess to us your secret sins; give

your wealth to the church; we will absolve you from your crimes, and you

shall die in a state of grace.

And they sprinkled water upon the people, dealt out to them, as amulets

and charms, small relics of the dead, and the people breathed war and

combat.

Struck with this contrast of the same passions, and grieving for their

fatal consequences, I was considering the difficulty with which the

common judge could yield to prayers so contradictory; when the Genius,

glowing with anger, spoke with vehemence:

What accents of madness strike my ear? What blind and perverse delirium

disorders the spirits of the nations? Sacrilegious prayers rise not from

the earth! and you, oh Heavens, reject their homicidal vows and impious

thanksgivings! Deluded mortals! is it thus you revere the Divinity?

Say then; how should he, whom you style your common father, receive the

homage of his children murdering one another? Ye victors! with what eye

should he view your hands reeking in the blood he hath created? And,

what do you expect, oh vanquished, from useless groans? Hath God

the heart of a mortal, with passions ever changing? Is he, like you,

agitated with vengeance or compassion, with wrath or repentance? What

base conception of the most sublime of beings! According to them, it

would seem, that God whimsical and capricious, is angered or appeased as

a man: that he loves and hates alternately; that he punishes or favors;

that, weak or wicked, he broods over his hatred; that, contradictory

or perfidious, he lays snares to entrap; that he punishes the evils he

permits; that he foresees but hinders not crimes; that, like a corrupt

judge, he is bribed by offerings; like an ignorant despot, he makes

laws and revokes them; that, like a savage tyrant, he grants or resumes

favors without reason, and can only be appeased by servility. Ah! now

I know the lying spirit of man! Contemplating the picture which he hath

drawn of the Divinity: No, said I, it is not God who hath made man after

the image of God; but man hath made God after the image of man; he hath

given him his own mind, clothed him with his own propensities;

ascribed to him his own judgments. And when in this medley he finds

the contradiction of his own principles, with hypocritical humility,

he imputes weakness to his reason, and names the absurdities of his own

mind the mysteries of God.

He hath said, God is immutable, yet he offers prayers to change him;

he hath pronounced him incomprehensible, yet he interprets him without

ceasing.

Imposters have arisen on the earth who have called themselves the

confidants of God; and, erecting themselves into teachers of the people,

have opened the ways of falsehood and iniquity; they have ascribed merit

to practices indifferent or ridiculous; they have supposed a virtue,

in certain postures, in pronouncing certain words, articulating certain

names; they have transformed into a crime the eating of certain meats,

the drinking of certain liquors, on one day rather than another. The

Jew would rather die than labor on the sabbath; the Persian would endure

suffocation, before he would blow the fire with his breath; the Indian

places supreme perfection in besmearing himself with cow-dung, and

pronouncing mysteriously the word Aum;* the Mussulman believes he has

expiated everything in washing his head and arms; and disputes, sword

in hand, whether the ablution should commence at the elbow, or finger

ends;** the Christian would think himself damned, if he ate flesh

instead of milk or butter. Oh sublime doctrines! Doctrines truly from

heaven! Oh perfect morals, and worthy of martyrdom or the apostolate!

I will cross the seas to teach these admirable laws to the savage

people--to distant nations; I will say unto them:

* This word is, in the religion of the Hindoos, a sacred

emblem of the Divinity. It is only to be pronounced in

secret, without being heard by any one. It is formed of

three letters, of which the first, a, signifies the

principal of all, the creator, Brama; the second, u, the

conservator, Vichenou; and the last, m, the destroyer, who

puts an end to all, Chiven. It is pronounced like the

monosyllable om, and expresses the unity of those three

Gods. The idea is precisely that of the Alpha and Omega

mentioned in the New Testament.

** This is one of the grand points of schism between the

partisans of Omar and those of Ali. Suppose two Mahometans

to meet on a journey, and to accost each other with

brotherly affection: the hour of prayer arrives; one begins

his ablution at his fingers, the other at the elbow, and

instantly they are mortal enemies. O sublime importance of

religious opinions! O profound philosophy of the authors of

them!

Children of nature, how long will you walk in the paths of ignorance?

how long will you mistake the true principles of morality and religion?

Come and learn its lessons from nations truly pious and learned, in

civilized countries. They will inform you how, to gratify God, you must

in certain months of the year, languish the whole day with hunger and

thirst; how you may shed your neighbor's blood, and purify yourself from

it by professions of faith and methodical ablutions; how you may steal

his property and be absolved on sharing it with certain persons, who

devote themselves to its consumption.

Sovereign and invisible power of the universe! mysterious mover of

nature! universal soul of beings! thou who art unknown, yet revered by

mortals under so many names! being incomprehensible and infinite! God,

who in the immensity of the heavens directest the movement of worlds,

and peoplest the abyss of space with millions of suns! say what do these

human insects, which my sight no longer discerns on the earth, appear in

thy eyes? To thee, who art guiding stars in their orbits, what are

those wormlings writhing themselves in the dust? Of what import to thy

immensity, their distinctions of parties and sects? And of what concern

the subtleties with which their folly torments itself?

And you, credulous men, show me the effect of your practices! In so many

centuries, during which you have been following or altering them, what

changes have your prescriptions wrought in the laws of nature? Is the

sun brighter? Is the course of the seasons varied? Is the earth more

fruitful, or its inhabitants more happy? If God be good, can your

penances please him? If infinite, can your homage add to his glory? If

his decrees have been formed on foresight of every circumstance, can

your prayers change them? Answer, O inconsistent mortals!

Ye conquerors of the earth, who pretend you serve God! doth he need your

aid? If he wishes to punish, hath he not earthquakes, volcanoes, and

thunder? And cannot a merciful God correct without extermination?

Ye Mussulmans, if God chastiseth you for violating the five precepts,

how hath he raised up the Franks who ridicule them? If he governeth

the earth by the Koran, by what did he govern it before the days of the

prophet, when it was covered with so many nations who drank wine, ate

pork, and went not to Mecca, whom he nevertheless permitted to raise

powerful empires? How did he judge the Sabeans of Nineveh and of

Babylon; the Persian, worshipper of fire; the Greek and Roman idolators;

the ancient kingdoms of the Nile; and your own ancestors, the Arabians

and Tartars? How doth he yet judge so many nations who deny, or know

not your worship--the numerous castes of Indians, the vast empire of

the Chinese, the sable race of Africa, the islanders of the ocean, the

tribes of America?

Presumptuous and ignorant men, who arrogate the earth to yourselves! if

God were to gather all the generations past and present, what would be,

in their ocean, the sects calling themselves universal, of Christians

and Mussulmans? What would be the judgments of his equal and common

justice over the real universality of mankind? Therein it is that your

knowledge loseth itself in incoherent systems; it is there that truth

shines with evidence; and there are manifested the powerful and simple

laws of nature and reason--laws of a common and general mover--of a God

impartial and just, who sheds rain on a country without asking who is

its prophet; who causeth his sun to shine alike on all the races of

men, on the white as on the black, on the Jew, on the Mussulman, the

Christian, and the Idolater; who reareth the harvest wherever cultivated

with diligence; who multiplieth every nation where industry and order

prevaileth; who prospereth every empire where justice is practised,

where the powerful are restrained, and the poor protected by the laws;

where the weak live in safety, and all enjoy the rights given by nature

and a compact formed in justice.

These are the principles by which people are judged! this the true

religion which regulates the destiny of empires, and which, O Ottomans,

hath governed yours! Interrogate your ancestors, ask of them by what

means they rose to greatness; when few, poor and idolaters, they came

from the deserts of Tartary and encamped in these fertile countries; ask

if it was by Islamism, till then unknown to them, that they conquered

the Greeks and the Arabs, or was it by their courage, their prudence,

moderation, spirit of union--the true powers of the social state? Then

the Sultan himself dispensed justice, and maintained discipline. The

prevaricating judge, the extortionate governor, were punished, and the

multitude lived at ease. The cultivator was protected from the rapine

of the janissary, and the fields prospered; the highways were safe, and

commerce caused abundance. You were a band of plunderers, but just among

yourselves. You subdued nations, but did not oppress them. Harassed by

their own princes, they preferred being your tributaries. What matters

it, said the Christian, whether my ruler breaks or adores images, if

he renders justice to me? God will judge his doctrines in the heavens

above.

You were sober and hardy; your enemies timid and enervated; you

were expert in battle, your enemies unskillful; your leaders were

experienced, your soldiers warlike and disciplined. Booty excited ardor,

bravery was rewarded, cowardice and insubordination punished, and all

the springs of the human heart were in action. Thus you vanquished

a hundred nations, and of a mass of conquered kingdoms compounded an

immense empire.

But other customs have succeeded; and in the reverses attending them,

the laws of nature have still exerted their force. After devouring your

enemies, your cupidity, still insatiable, has reacted on itself, and,

concentrated in your own bowels, has consumed you.

Having become rich, you have quarrelled for partition and enjoyment, and

disorder hath arisen in every class of society.

The Sultan, intoxicated with grandeur, has mistaken the object of his

functions; and all the vices of arbitrary power have been developed.

Meeting no obstacle to his appetites, he has become a depraved being;

weak and arrogant, he has kept the people at a distance; and their

voice has no longer instructed and guided him. Ignorant, yet flattered,

neglecting all instruction, all study, he has fallen into imbecility;

unfit for business, he has thrown its burdens on hirelings, and they

have deceived him. To satisfy their own passions, they have stimulated

and nourished his; they have multiplied his wants, and his enormous

luxury has consumed everything. The frugal table, plain clothing, simple

dwelling of his ancestors no longer sufficed. To supply his pomp, earth

and sea have been exhausted. The rarest furs have been brought from the

poles; the most costly tissues from the equator. He has devoured at

a meal the tribute of a city, and in a day that of a province. He has

surrounded himself with an army of women, eunuchs, and satellites. They

have instilled into him that the virtue of kings is to be liberal, and

the munificence and treasures of the people have been delivered into

the hands of flatterers. In imitation of their master, his servants

must also have splendid houses, the most exquisite furniture; carpets

embroidered at great cost, vases of gold and silver for the lowest uses,

and all the riches of the empire have been swallowed up in the Serai.

To supply this inordinate luxury, the slaves and women have sold their

influence, and venality has introduced a general depravation. The favor

of the sovereign has been sold to his vizier, and the vizier has sold

the empire. The law has been sold to the cadi, and the cadi has made

sale of justice. The altar has been sold to the priest, and the priest

has sold the kingdom of heaven. And gold obtaining everything, they

have sacrificed everything to obtain gold. For gold, friend has betrayed

friend, the child his parent, the servant his master, the wife her

honor, the merchant his conscience; and good faith, morals, concord, and

strength were banished from the state.

The pacha, who had purchased the government of his province, farmed

it out to others, who exercised every extortion. He sold in turn the

collection of the taxes, the command of the troops, the administration

of the villages; and as every employ has been transient, rapine, spread

from rank to rank, has been greedy and implacable. The revenue officer

has fleeced the merchant, and commerce was annihilated; the aga has

plundered the husbandman, and culture has degenerated. The laborer,

deprived of his stock, has been unable to sow; the tax was augmented,

and he could not pay it; the bastinado has been threatened, and he

has borrowed. Money, from want of security, being locked up from

circulation, interest was therefore enormous, and the usury of the rich

has aggravated the misery of the laborer.

When excessive droughts and accidents of seasons have blasted the

harvest, the government has admitted no delay, no indulgence for the

tax; and distress bearing hard on the village, a part of its inhabitants

have taken refuge in the cities; and their burdens falling on those who

remained, has completed their ruin, and depopulated the country.

If driven to extremity by tyranny and outrage, the villages have

revolted, the pacha rejoices. He wages war on them, assails their homes,

pillages their property, carries off their stock; and when the fields

have become a desert, he exclaims:

"What care I? I leave these fields to-morrow."

The earth wanting laborers, the rain of heaven and overflowing of

torrents have stagnated in marshes; and their putrid exhalations in a

warm climate, have caused epidemics, plagues, and maladies of all sorts,

whence have flowed additional suffering, penury, and ruin.

Oh! who can enumerate all the calamities of tyrannical government?

Sometimes the pachas declare war against each other, and for their

personal quarrels the provinces of the same state are laid waste.

Sometimes, fearing their masters, they attempt independence, and draw

on their subjects the chastisement of their revolt. Sometimes dreading

their subjects, they invite and subsidize strangers, and to insure their

fidelity set no bounds to their depredations. Here they persecute the

rich and despoil them under false pretences; there they suborn false

witnesses, and impose penalties for suppositious offences; everywhere

they excite the hatred of parties, encourage informations to

obtain amercements, extort property, seize persons; and when their

short-sighted avarice has accumulated into one mass all the riches of

a country, the government, by an execrable perfidy, under pretence of

avenging its oppressed people, takes to itself all their spoils, as if

they were the culprits, and uselessly sheds the blood of its agents for

a crime of which it is the accomplice.

Oh wretches, monarchs or ministers, who sport with the lives and

fortunes of the people! Is it you who gave breath to man, that you dare

take it from him? Do you give growth to the plants of the earth, that

you may waste them? Do you toil to furrow the field? Do you endure the

ardor of the sun, and the torment of thirst, to reap the harvest or

thrash the grain? Do you, like the shepherd, watch through the dews of

the night? Do you traverse deserts, like the merchant? Ah! on beholding

the pride and cruelty of the powerful, I have been transported with

indignation, and have said in my wrath, will there never then arise on

the earth men who will avenge the people and punish tyrants? A handful

of brigands devour the multitude, and the multitude submits to be

devoured! Oh! degenerate people! Know you not your rights? All authority

is from you, all power is yours. Unlawfully do kings command you on the

authority of God and of their lance--Soldiers be still; if God supports

the Sultan he needs not your aid; if his sword suffices, he needs not

yours; let us see what he can do alone. The soldiers grounded their

arms; and behold these masters of the world, feeble as the meanest of

their subjects! People! know that those who govern are your chiefs, not

your masters; your agents, not your owners; that they have no authority

over you, but by you, and for you; that your wealth is yours and they

accountable for it; that, kings or subjects, God has made all men equal,

and no mortal has the right to oppress his fellow-creatures.

But this nation and its chiefs have mistaken these holy truths. They

must abide then the consequences of their blindness. The decree is past;

the day approaches when this colossus of power shall be crushed and

crumbled under its own mass. Yes, I swear it, by the ruins of so many

empires destroyed. The empire of the Crescent shall follow the fate

of the despotism it has copied. A nation of strangers shall drive the

Sultan from his metropolis. The throne of Orkhan shall be overturned.

The last shoot of his trunk shall be broken off; and the horde of

Oguzians,* deprived of their chief, shall disperse like that of the

Nagois. In this dissolution, the people of the empire, loosened from the

yoke which united them, shall resume their ancient distinctions, and a

general anarchy shall follow, as happened in the empire of the Sophis;**

until there shall arise among the Arabians, Armenians, or Greeks,

legislators who may compose new states.

* Before the Turks took the name of their chief, Othman I.,

they bore that of Oguzians; and it was under this

appellation that they were driven out of Tartary by Gengis,

and came from the borders of Giboun to settle themselves in

Anatolia.

** In Persia, after the death of Thamas-Koulikan, each

province had its chief, and for forty years these chiefs

were in a constant state of war. In this view the Turks do

not say without reason: "Ten years of a tyrant are less

destructive than a single night of anarchy."

Oh! if there were on earth men profound and bold! what elements for

grandeur and glory! But the hour of destiny has already come; the cry of

war strikes my ear; and the catastrophe begins. In vain the Sultan leads

forth his armies; his ignorant warriors are beaten and dispersed. In

vain he calls his subjects; their hearts are ice. Is it not written? say

they, what matters who is our master? We cannot lose by the change.

In vain the true believers invoke heaven and the prophet. The prophet is

dead; and heaven without pity answers:

Cease to invoke me. You have caused your own misfortunes; cure them

yourselves. Nature has established laws; your part is to obey them.

Observe, reason, and profit by experience. It is the folly of man which

ruins him; let his wisdom save him. The people are ignorant; let them

gain instruction. Their chiefs are wicked; let them correct and amend;

for such is Nature's decree. Since the evils of society spring from

cupidity and ignorance, men will never cease to be persecuted, till they

become enlightened and wise; till they practise justice, founded on a

knowledge of their relations and of the laws of their organization.*

* A singular moral phenomenon made its appearance in Europe

in the year 1788. A great nation, jealous of its liberty,

contracted a fondness for a nation the enemy of liberty; a

nation friendly to the arts, for a nation that detests them;

a mild and tolerant nation, for a persecuting and fanatic

one; a social and gay nation, for a nation whose

characteristics are gloom and misanthropy; in a word, the

French were smitten with a passion for the Turks: they were

desirous of engaging in a war for them, and that at a time

when revolution in their own country was just at its

commencement. A man, who perceived the true nature of the

situation, wrote a book to dissuade them from the war: it

was immediately pretended that he was paid by the

government, which in reality wished the war, and which was

upon the point of shutting him up in a state prison. Another

man wrote to recommend the war: he was applauded, and his

word taken for the science, the politeness, and importance

of the Turks. It is true that he believed in his own

thesis, for he has found among them people who cast a

nativity, and alchymists who ruined his fortune; as he found

Martinists at Paris, who enabled him to sup with Sesostris,

and Magnetizers who concluded with destroying his existence.

Notwithstanding this, the Turks were beaten by the Russians,

and the man who then predicted the fall of their empire,

persists in the prediction. The result of this fall will be

a complete change of the political system, as far as it

relates to the coast of the Mediterranean. If, however, the

French become important in proportion as they become free,

and if they make use of the advantage they will obtain,

their progress may easily prove of the most honorable sort;

inasmuch as, by the wise decrees of fate, the true interest

of mankind evermore accords with their true morality.

CHAPTER XIII.

WILL THE HUMAN RACE IMPROVE?

At these words, oppressed with the painful sentiment with which their

severity overwhelmed me: Woe to the nations! cried I, melting in tears;

woe to myself! Ah! now it is that I despair of the happiness of man!

Since his miseries proceed from his heart; since the remedy is in his

own power, woe for ever to his existence! Who, indeed will ever be

able to restrain the lust of wealth in the strong and powerful? Who can

enlighten the ignorance of the weak? Who can teach the multitude to know

their rights, and force their chiefs to perform their duties? Thus the

race of man is always doomed to suffer! Thus the individual will not

cease to oppress the individual, a nation to attack a nation; and days

of prosperity, of glory, for these regions, shall never return. Alas!

conquerors will come; they will drive out the oppressors, and fix

themselves in their place; but, inheriting their power, they will

inherit their rapacity; and the earth will have changed tyrants, without

changing the tyranny.

Then, turning to the Genius, I exclaimed:

O Genius, despair hath settled on my soul. Knowing the nature of

man, the perversity of those who govern, and the debasement of the

governed--this knowledge hath disgusted me with life; and since there

is no choice but to be the accomplice or the victim of oppression, what

remains to the man of virtue but to mingle his ashes with those of the

tomb?

The Genius then gave me a look of severity, mingled with compassion; and

after a few moments of silence, he replied:

Virtue, then, consists in dying! The wicked man is indefatigable in

consummating his crime, and the just is discouraged from doing good at

the first obstacle he encounters! But such is the human heart. A

little success intoxicates man with confidence; a reverse overturns and

confounds him. Always given up to the sensation of the moment, he seldom

judges things from their nature, but from the impulse of his passion.

Mortal, who despairest of the human race, on what profound combination

of facts hast thou established thy conclusion? Hast thou scrutinized the

organization of sentient beings, to determine with precision whether the

instinctive force which moves them on to happiness is essentially weaker

than that which repels them from it? or, embracing in one glance the

history of the species, and judging the future by the past, hast thou

shown that all improvement is impossible? Say! hath human society, since

its origin, made no progress toward knowledge and a better state? Are

men still in their forests, destitute of everything, ignorant, stupid

and ferocious? Are all the nations still in that age when nothing was

seen upon the globe but brutal robbers and brutal slaves? If at any

time, in any place, individuals have ameliorated, why shall not the

whole mass ameliorate? If partial societies have made improvements, what

shall hinder the improvement of society in general? And if the first

obstacles are overcome, why should the others be insurmountable?

Art thou disposed to think that the human race degenerates? Guard

against the illusion and paradoxes of the misanthrope. Man, discontented

with the present, imagines for the past a perfection which never

existed, and which only serves to cover his chagrin. He praises the dead

out of hatred to the living, and beats the children with the bones of

their ancestors.

To prove this pretended retrograde progress from perfection we must

contradict the testimony of reason and of fact; and if the facts of

history are in any measure uncertain, we must contradict the living

fact of the organization of man; we must prove that he is born with

the enlightened use of his senses; that, without experience, he can

distinguish aliment from poison; that the child is wiser than the old

man; that the blind walks with more safety than the clear-sighted; that

the civilized man is more miserable than the savage; and, indeed, that

there is no ascending scale in experience and instruction.

Believe, young man, the testimony of monuments, and the voice of the

tombs. Some countries have doubtless fallen from what they were at

certain epochs; but if we weigh the wisdom and happiness of their

inhabitants, even in those times, we shall find more of splendor than of

reality in their glory; we shall find, in the most celebrated of ancient

states, enormous vices and cruel abuses, the true causes of their

decay; we shall find in general that the principles of government

were atrocious; that insolent robberies, barbarous wars and implacable

hatreds were raging from nation to nation;* that natural right was

unknown; that morality was perverted by senseless fanaticism and

deplorable superstition; that a dream, a vision, an oracle, were

constantly the causes of vast commotions. Perhaps the nations are not

yet entirely cured of all these evils; but their intensity at least is

diminished, and the experience of the past has not been wholly lost. For

the last three centuries, especially, knowledge has increased and been

extended; civilization, favored by happy circumstances, has made a

sensible progress; inconveniences and abuses have even turned to its

advantage; for if states have been too much extended by conquest,

the people, by uniting under the same yoke, have lost the spirit of

estrangement and division which made them all enemies one to the other.

If the powers of government have been more concentrated, there has been

more system and harmony in their exercise. If wars have become more

extensive in the mass, they are less bloody in detail. If men have gone

to battle with less personality, less energy, their struggles have been

less sanguinary and less ferocious; they have been less free, but less

turbulent; more effeminate, but more pacific. Despotism itself has

rendered them some service; for if governments have been more absolute,

they have been more quiet and less tempestuous. If thrones have become

a property and hereditary, they have excited less dissensions, and the

people have suffered fewer convulsions; finally, if the despots, jealous

and mysterious, have interdicted all knowledge of their administration,

all concurrence in the management of public affairs, the passions

of men, drawn aside from politics, have fixed upon the arts, and the

sciences of nature; and the sphere of ideas in every direction has been

enlarged; man, devoted to abstract studies, has better understood his

place in the system of nature, and his relations in society; principles

have been better discussed, final causes better explained, knowledge

more extended, individuals better instructed, manners more social, and

life more happy. The species at large, especially in certain countries,

has gained considerably; and this amelioration cannot but increase in

future, because its two principal obstacles, those even which, till

then, had rendered it slow and sometimes retrograde,--the difficulty of

transmitting ideas and of communicating them rapidly,--have been at last

removed.

* Read the history of the wars of Rome and Carthage, of

Sparta and Messina, of Athens and Syracuse, of the Hebrews

and the Phoenicians: yet these are the nations of which

antiquity boasts as being most polished!

Indeed, among the ancients, each canton, each city, being isolated

from all others by the difference of its language, the consequence was

favorable to ignorance and anarchy. There was no communication of ideas,

no participation of discoveries, no harmony of interests or of wills, no

unity of action or design; besides, the only means of transmitting and

of propagating ideas being that of speech, fugitive and limited,

and that of writing, tedious of execution, expensive and scarce, the

consequence was a hindrance of present instruction, loss of experience

from one generation to another, instability, retrogression of knowledge,

and a perpetuity of confusion and childhood.

But in the modern world, especially in Europe, great nations having

allied themselves in language, and established vast communities of

opinions, the minds of men are assimilated, and their affections

extended; there is a sympathy of opinion and a unity of action; then

that gift of heavenly Genius, the holy art of printing, having furnished

the means of communicating in an instant the same idea to millions of

men, and of fixing it in a durable manner, beyond the power of tyrants

to arrest or annihilate, there arose a mass of progressive instruction,

an expanding atmosphere of science, which assures to future ages a solid

amelioration. This amelioration is a necessary effect of the laws of

nature; for, by the law of sensibility, man as invincibly tends to

render himself happy as the flame to mount, the stone to descend, or the

water to find its level. His obstacle is his ignorance, which misleads

him in the means, and deceives him in causes and effects. He will

enlighten himself by experience; he will become right by dint of errors;

he will grow wise and good because it is his interest so to be.

Ideas being communicated through the nation, whole classes will gain

instruction; science will become a vulgar possession, and all men will

know what are the principles of individual happiness and of public

prosperity. They will know the relations they bear to society, their

duties and their rights; they will learn to guard against the illusions

of the lust of gain; they will perceive that the science of morals is

a physical science, composed, indeed, of elements complicated in their

operation, but simple and invariable in their nature, since they

are only the elements of the organization of man. They will see the

propriety of being moderate and just, because in that is found the

advantage and security of each; they will perceive that the wish to

enjoy at the expense of another is a false calculation of ignorance,

because it gives rise to reprisal, hatred, and vengeance, and that

dishonesty is the never-failing offspring of folly.

Individuals will feel that private happiness is allied to public good:

The weak, that instead of dividing their interests, they ought to unite

them, because equality constitutes their force:

The rich, that the measure of enjoyment is bounded by the constitution

of the organs, and that lassitude follows satiety:

The poor, that the employment of time, and the peace of the heart,

compose the highest happiness of man. And public opinion, reaching kings

on their thrones, will force them to confine themselves to the limits of

regular authority.

Even chance itself, serving the cause of nations, will sometimes give

them feeble chiefs, who, through weakness, will suffer them to become

free; and sometimes enlightened chiefs, who, from a principle of virtue,

will free them.

And when nations, free and enlightened, shall become like great

individuals, the whole species will have the same facilities as

particular portions now have; the communication of knowledge will extend

from one to another, and thus reach the whole. By the law of imitation,

the example of one people will be followed by others, who will adopt its

spirit and its laws. Even despots, perceiving that they can no longer

maintain their authority without justice and beneficence, will soften

their sway from necessity, from rivalship; and civilization will become

universal.

There will be established among the several nations an equilibrium of

force, which, restraining them all within the bounds of the respect due

to their reciprocal rights, shall put an end to the barbarous practice

of war, and submit their disputes to civil arbitration.* The human race

will become one great society, one individual family, governed by the

same spirit, by common laws, and enjoying all the happiness of which

their nature is susceptible.

* What is a people? An individual of the society at large.

What a war? A duel between two individual people. In what

manner ought a society to act when two of its members fight?

Interfere and reconcile, or repress them. In the days of

the Abbe de Saint Pierre this was treated as a dream, but

happily for the human race it begins to be realized.

Doubtless this great work will be long accomplishing; because the

same movement must be given to an immense body; the same leaven must

assimilate an enormous mass of heterogeneous parts. But this movement

shall be effected; its presages are already to be seen. Already the

great society, assuming in its course the same characters as partial

societies have done, is evidently tending to a like result. At first

disconnected in all its parts, it saw its members for a long time

without cohesion; and this general solitude of nations formed its

first age of anarchy and childhood; divided afterwards by chance into

irregular sections, called states and kingdoms, it has experienced

the fatal effects of an extreme inequality of wealth and rank; and the

aristocracy of great empires has formed its second age; then, these

lordly states disputing for preeminence, have exhibited the period of

the shock of factions.

At present the contending parties, wearied with discord, feel the want

of laws, and sigh for the age of order and of peace. Let but a virtuous

chief arise! a just, a powerful people appear! and the earth will raise

them to supreme power. The world is waiting for a legislative people; it

wishes and demands it; and my heart attends the cry.

Then turning towards the west: Yes, continued he, a hollow sound already

strikes my ear; a cry of liberty, proceeding from far distant shores,

resounds on the ancient continent. At this cry, a secret murmur against

oppression is raised in a powerful nation; a salutary inquietude alarms

her respecting her situation; she enquires what she is, and what she

ought to be; while, surprised at her own weakness, she interrogates her

rights, her resources, and what has been the conduct of her chiefs.

Yet another day--a little more reflection--and an immense agitation will

begin; a new-born age will open! an age of astonishment to vulgar minds,

of terror to tyrants, of freedom to a great nation, and of hope to the

human race!

CHAPTER XIV.

THE GREAT OBSTACLE TO IMPROVEMENT.

The Genius ceased. But preoccupied with melancholy thoughts, my mind

resisted persuasion; fearing, however, to shock him by my resistance, I

remained silent. After a while, turning to me with a look which pierced

my soul, he said:

Thou art silent, and thy heart is agitated with thoughts which it dares

not utter.

At last, troubled and terrified, I replied:

O Genius, pardon my weakness. Doubtless thy mouth can utter nothing but

truth; but thy celestial intelligence can seize its rays, where my gross

faculties can discern nothing but clouds. I confess it; conviction has

not penetrated my soul, and I feared that my doubts might offend thee.

And what is doubt, replied he, that it should be a crime? Can man

feel otherwise than as he is affected? If a truth be palpable, and

of importance in practice, let us pity him that misconceives it.

His punishment will arise from his blindness. If it be uncertain or

equivocal, how is he to find in it what it has not? To believe without

evidence or proof, is an act of ignorance and folly. The credulous

man loses himself in a labyrinth of contradictions; the man of sense

examines and discusses, that he may be consistent in his opinions. The

honest man will bear contradiction; because it gives rise to evidence.

Violence is the argument of falsehood; and to impose a creed by

authority is the act and indication of a tyrant.

O Genius, said I, encouraged by these words, since my reason is free, I

strive in vain to entertain the flattering hope with which you endeavor

to console me. The sensible and virtuous soul is easily caught with

dreams of happiness; but a cruel reality constantly awakens it to

suffering and wretchedness. The more I meditate on the nature of man,

the more I examine the present state of societies, the less possible it

appears to realize a world of wisdom and felicity. I cast my eye over

the whole of our hemisphere; I perceive in no place the germ, nor do

I foresee the instinctive energy of a happy revolution. All Asia lies

buried in profound darkness. The Chinese, governed by an insolent

despotism,* by strokes of the bamboo and the cast of lots, restrained

by an immutable code of gestures, and by the radical vices of an

ill-constructed language,** appear to be in their abortive civilization

nothing but a race of automatons. The Indian, borne down by prejudices,

and enchained in the sacred fetters of his castes, vegetates in an

incurable apathy. The Tartar, wandering or fixed, always ignorant and

ferocious, lives in the savageness of his ancestors. The Arab, endowed

with a happy genius, loses its force and the fruits of his virtue in

the anarchy of his tribes and the jealousy of his families. The African,

degraded from the rank of man, seems irrevocably doomed to servitude.

In the North I see nothing but vilified serfs, herds of men with which

landlords stock their estates. Ignorance, tyranny, and wretchedness

have everywhere stupified the nations; and vicious habits, depraving

the natural senses, have destroyed the very instinct of happiness and of

truth.

* The emperor of China calls himself the son of heaven; that

is, of God: for in the opinion of the Chinese, the material

of heaven, the arbiter of fatality, is the Deity himself.

"The emperor only shows himself once in ten months, lest the

people, accustomed to see him, might lose their respect; for

he holds it as a maxim that power can only be supported by

force, that the people have no idea of justice, and are not

to be governed but by coercion." Narrative of two Mahometan

travellers in 851 and 877, translated by the Abbe Renaudot

in 1718.

Notwithstanding what is asserted by the missionaries, this

situation has undergone no change. The bamboo still reigns

in China, and the son of heaven bastinades, for the most

trivial fault, the Mandarin, who in his turn bastinades the

people. The Jesuits may tell us that this is the best

governed country in the world, and its inhabitants the

happiest of men: but a single letter from Amyot has

convinced me that China is a truly Turkish government, and

the account of Sonnerat confirms it. See Vol. II. of Voyage

aux Indes, in 4to.

** As long as the Chinese shall in writing make use of their

present characters, they can be expected to make no progress

in civilization. The necessary introductory step must be

the giving them an alphabet like our own, or of substituting

in the room of their language that of the Tartars. The

improvement made in the latter by M. de Lengles, is

calculated to introduce this change. See the Mantchou

alphabet, the production of a mind truly learned in the

formation of language.

In some parts of Europe, indeed, reason has begun to dawn, but even

there, do nations partake of the knowledge of individuals? Are the

talents and genius of governors turned to the benefit of the people? And

those nations which call themselves polished, are they not the same that

for the last three centuries have filled the earth with their injustice?

Are they not those who, under the pretext of commerce, have desolated

India, depopulated a new continent, and, at present, subject Africa

to the most barbarous slavery? Can liberty be born from the bosom

of despots? and shall justice be rendered by the hands of piracy and

avarice? O Genius, I have seen the civilized countries; and the mockery

of their wisdom has vanished before my sight. I saw wealth accumulated

in the hands of a few, and the multitude poor and destitute. I have seen

all rights, all powers concentered in certain classes, and the mass of

the people passive and dependent. I have seen families of princes, but

no families of the nation. I have seen government interests, but

no public interests or spirit. I have seen that all the science of

government was to oppress prudently; and the refined servitude of

polished nations appeared to me only the more irremediable.

One obstacle above all has profoundly struck my mind. On looking over

the world, I have seen it divided into twenty different systems of

religion. Every nation has received, or formed, opposite opinions; and

every one ascribing to itself the exclusive possession of the truth,

must believe the other to be wrong. Now if, as must be the fact in this

discordance of opinion, the greater part are in error, and are honest in

it, then it follows that our mind embraces falsehood as it does truth;

and if so, how is it to be enlightened? When prejudice has once seized

the mind, how is it to be dissipated? How shall we remove the bandage

from our eyes, when the first article in every creed, the first dogma in

all religion, is the absolute proscription of doubt, the interdiction of

examination, and the rejection of our own judgment? How is truth to make

herself known?--If she resorts to arguments and proofs, the timid man

stifles the voice of his own conscience; if she invokes the authority

of celestial powers, he opposes it with another authority of the same

origin, with which he is preoccupied; and he treats all innovation as

blasphemy. Thus man in his blindness, has riveted his own chains,

and surrendered himself forever, without defence, to the sport of his

ignorance and his passions.

To dissolve such fatal chains, a miraculous concurrence of happy

events would be necessary. A whole nation, cured of the delirium of

superstition, must be inaccessible to the impulse of fanaticism. Freed

from the yoke of false doctrine, a whole people must impose upon itself

that of true morality and reason. This people should be courageous and

prudent, wise and docile. Each individual, knowing his rights, should

not transgress them. The poor should know how to resist seduction,

and the rich the allurements of avarice. There should be found leaders

disinterested and just, and their tyrants should be seized with a spirit

of madness and folly. This people, recovering its rights, should

feel its inability to exercise them in person, and should name its

representatives. Creator of its magistrates, it should know at once to

respect them and to judge them. In the sudden reform of a whole nation,

accustomed to live by abuses, each individual displaced should bear with

patience his privations, and submit to a change of habits. This nation

should have the courage to conquer its liberty; the power to defend it,

the wisdom to establish it, and the generosity to extend it to others.

And can we ever expect the union of so many circumstances? But suppose

that chance in its infinite combinations should produce them, shall I

see those fortunate days. Will not my ashes long ere then be mouldering

in the tomb?

Here, sunk in sorrow, my oppressed heart no longer found utterance. The

Genius answered not, but I heard him whisper to himself:

Let us revive the hope of this man; for if he who loves his fellow

creatures be suffered to despair, what will become of nations? The past

is perhaps too discouraging; I must anticipate futurity, and disclose to

the eye of virtue the astonishing age that is ready to begin; that, on

viewing the object she desires, she may be animated with new ardor, and

redouble her efforts to attain it.

CHAPTER XV.

THE NEW AGE.

Scarcely had he finished these words, when a great tumult arose in the

west; and turning to that quarter, I perceived, at the extremity of

the Mediterranean, in one of the nations of Europe, a prodigious

movement--such as when a violent sedition arises in a vast city--a

numberless people, rushing in all directions, pour through the streets

and fluctuate like waves in the public places. My ear, struck with the

cries which resounded to the heavens, distinguished these words:

What is this new prodigy? What cruel and mysterious scourge is this? We

are a numerous people and we want hands! We have an excellent soil, and

we are in want of subsistence? We are active and laborious, and we live

in indigence! We pay enormous tributes, and we are told they are not

sufficient! We are at peace without, and our persons and property are

not safe within. Who, then, is the secret enemy that devours us?

Some voices from the midst of the multitude replied:

Raise a discriminating standard; and let all those who maintain and

nourish mankind by useful labors gather round it; and you will discover

the enemy that preys upon you.

The standard being raised, this nation divided itself at once into

two bodies of unequal magnitude and contrasted appearance. The one,

innumerable, and almost total, exhibited in the poverty of its clothing,

in its emaciated appearance and sun-burnt faces, the marks of misery and

labor; the other, a little group, an insignificant faction, presented in

its rich attire embroidered with gold and silver, and in its sleek and

ruddy faces, the signs of leisure and abundance.

Considering these men more attentively, I found that the great body was

composed of farmers, artificers, merchants, all professions useful

to society; and that the little group was made up of priests of every

order, of financiers, of nobles, of men in livery, of commanders of

armies; in a word, of the civil, military, and religious agents of

government.

These two bodies being assembled face to face, and regarding each other

with astonishment, I saw indignation and rage arising in one side, and

a sort of panic in the other. And the large body said to the little one:

Why are you separated from us? Are you not of our number?

No, replied the group; you are the people; we are a privileged class,

who have our laws, customs, and rights, peculiar to ourselves.

PEOPLE.--And what labor do you perform in our society?

PRIVILEGED CLASS.--None; we are not made to work.

PEOPLE.--How, then, have you acquired these riches?

PRIVILEGED CLASS.--By taking the pains to govern you.

PEOPLE.--What! is this what you call governing? We toil and you enjoy!

we produce and you dissipate! Wealth proceeds from us, and you absorb

it. Privileged men! class who are not the people; form a nation apart,

and govern yourselves.*

* This dialogue between the people and the indolent classes,

is applicable to every society; it contains the seeds of all

the political vices and disorders that prevail, and which

may thus be defined: Men who do nothing, and who devour the

substance of others; and men who arrogate to themselves

particular rights and exclusive privileges of wealth and

indolence. Compare the Mamlouks of Egypt, the nobility of

Europe, the Nairs of India, the Emirs of Arabia, the

patricians of Rome, the Christian clergy, the Imans, the

Bramins, the Bonzes, the Lamas, etc., etc., and you will

find in all the same characteristic feature:--Men living in

idleness at the expense of those who labor.

Then the little group, deliberating on this new state of things, some of

the most honorable among them said: We must join the people and partake

of their labors and burdens, for they are men like us, and our riches

come from them; but others arrogantly exclaimed: It would be a shame, an

infamy, for us to mingle with the crowd; they are born to serve us.

Are we not men of another race--the noble and pure descendants of the

conquerors of this empire? This multitude must be reminded of our rights

and its own origin.

THE NOBLES.--People! know you not that our ancestors conquered this

land, and that your race was spared only on condition of serving us?

This is our social compact! this the government constituted by custom

and prescribed by time.

PEOPLE.--O conquerors, pure of blood! show us your genealogies! we

shall then see if what in an individual is robbery and plunder, can be

virtuous in a nation.

And forthwith, voices were heard in every quarter calling out the nobles

by their names; and relating their origin and parentage, they told how

the grandfather, great-grandfather, or even father, born traders and

mechanics, after acquiring wealth in every way, had purchased their

nobility for money: so that but very few families were really of the

original stock. See, said these voices, see these purse-proud commoners

who deny their parents! see these plebian recruits who look upon

themselves as illustrious veterans! and peals of laughter were heard.

And the civil governors said: these people are mild, and naturally

servile; speak to them of the king and of the law, and they will return

to their duty. People! the king wills, the sovereign ordains!

PEOPLE.--The king can will nothing but the good of the people; the

sovereign can only ordain according to law.

CIVIL GOVERNORS.--The law commands you to be submissive.

PEOPLE.--The law is the general will; and we will a new order of things.

CIVIL GOVERNORS.--You are then a rebel people.

PEOPLE.--A nation cannot revolt; tyrants only are rebels.

CIVIL GOVERNORS.--The king is on our side; he commands you to submit.

PEOPLE.--Kings are inseparable from their nations. Our king cannot be

with you; you possess only his phantom.

And the military governors came forward. The people are timorous, said

they; we must threaten them; they will submit only to force. Soldiers,

chastise this insolent multitude.

PEOPLE.--Soldiers, you are of our blood! Will you strike your brothers,

your relatives? If the people perish who will nourish the army?

And the soldiers, grounding their arms, said to the chiefs:

We are likewise the people; show us the enemy!

Then the ecclesiastical governors said: There is but one resource left.

The people are superstitious; we must frighten them with the names of

God and religion.

Our dear brethren! our children! God has ordained us to govern you.

PEOPLE.--Show us your credentials from God!

PRIESTS.--You must have faith; reason leads astray.

PEOPLE.--Do you govern without reason?

PRIESTS.--God commands peace! Religion prescribes obedience.

PEOPLE.--Peace supposes justice. Obedience implies conviction of a duty.

PRIESTS.--Suffering is the business of this world.

PEOPLE.--Show us the example.

PRIESTS.--Would you live without gods or kings?

PEOPLE.--We would live without oppressors.

PRIESTS.--You must have mediators, intercessors.

PEOPLE.--Mediators with God and with the king! courtiers and priests,

your services are too expensive: we will henceforth manage our own

affairs.

And the little group said: We are lost! the multitude are enlightened.

And the people answered: You are safe; since we are enlightened we will

commit no violence; we only claim our rights. We feel resentments, but

we will forget them. We were slaves, we might command; but we only wish

to be free, and liberty is but justice.

CHAPTER XVI.

A FREE AND LEGISLATIVE PEOPLE.

Considering that all public power was now suspended, and that the

habitual restraint of the people had suddenly ceased, I shuddered with

the apprehension that they would fall into the dissolution of anarchy.

But, taking their affairs into immediate deliberation, they said:

It is not enough that we have freed ourselves from tyrants and

parasites; we must prevent their return. We are men, and experience

has abundantly taught us that every man is fond of power, and wishes

to enjoy it at the expense of others. It is necessary, then, to guard

against a propensity which is the source of discord; we must establish

certain rules of duty and of right. But the knowledge of our rights,

and the estimation of our duties, are so abstract and difficult as to

require all the time and all the faculties of a man. Occupied in our

own affairs, we have not leisure for these studies; nor can we

exercise these functions in our own persons. Let us choose, then, among

ourselves, such persons as are capable of this employment. To them we

will delegate our powers to institute our government and laws. They

shall be the representatives of our wills and of our interests. And in

order to attain the fairest representation possible of our wills and our

interests, let it be numerous, and composed of men resembling ourselves.

Having made the election of a numerous body of delegates, the people

thus addressed them:

We have hitherto lived in a society formed by chance, without fixed

agreements, without free conventions, without a stipulation of rights,

without reciprocal engagements,--and a multitude of disorders and evils

have arisen from this precarious state. We are now determined on forming

a regular compact; and we have chosen you to adjust the articles.

Examine, then, with care what ought to be its basis and its conditions;

consider what is the end and the principles of every association;

recognize the rights which every member brings, the powers which he

delegates, and those which he reserves to himself. Point out to us the

rules of conduct--the basis of just and equitable laws. Prepare for us a

new system of government; for we realize that the one which has

hitherto guided us is corrupt. Our fathers have wandered in the paths

of ignorance, and habit has taught us to follow in their footsteps.

Everything has been done by fraud, violence, and delusion; and the true

laws of morality and reason are still obscure. Clear up, then, their

chaos; trace out their connection; publish their code, and we will adopt

it.

And the people raised a large throne, in the form of a pyramid, and

seating on it the men they had chosen, said to them:

We raise you to-day above us, that you may better discover the whole of

our relations, and be above the reach of our passions. But remember that

you are our fellow-citizens; that the power we confer on you is our own;

that we deposit it with you, but not as a property or a heritage; that

you must be the first to obey the laws you make; that to-morrow you

redescend among us, and that you will have acquired no other right but

that of our esteem and gratitude. And consider what a tribute of glory

the world, which reveres so many apostles of error, will bestow on the

first assembly of rational men, who shall have declared the unchangeable

principles of justice, and consecrated, in the face of tyrants, the

rights of nations.

CHAPTER XVII.

UNIVERSAL BASIS OF ALL RIGHT AND ALL LAW.

The men chosen by the people to investigate the true principles of

morals and of reason then proceeded in the sacred object of their

mission; and, after a long examination, having discovered a fundamental

and universal principle, a legislator arose and said to the people:

Here is the primordial basis, the physical origin of all justice and of

all right.

Whatever be the active power, the moving cause, that governs the

universe, since it has given to all men the same organs, the same

sensations, and the same wants, it has thereby declared that it has

given to all the same right to the use of its treasures, and that all

men are equal in the order of nature.

And, since this power has given to each man the necessary means of

preserving his own existence, it is evident that it has constituted them

all independent one of another; that it has created them free; that no

one is subject to another; that each one is absolute proprietor of his

own person.

Equality and liberty are, therefore, two essential attributes of man,

two laws of the Divinity, constitutional and unchangeable, like the

physical properties of matter.

Now, every individual being absolute master of his own person, it

follows that a full and free consent is a condition indispensable to all

contracts and all engagements.

Again, since each individual is equal to another, it follows that the

balance of what is received and of what is given, should be strictly in

equilibrium; so that the idea of justice, of equity, necessarily imports

that of equality.*

* The etymology of the words themselves trace out to us this

connection: equilibrium, equalitas, equitas, are all of one

family, and the physical idea of equality, in the scales of

a balance, is the source and type of all the rest.

Equality and liberty are therefore the physical and unalterable basis

of every union of men in society, and of course the necessary and

generating principle of every law and of every system of regular

government.*

* In the Declaration of Rights, there is an inversion of

ideas in the first article, liberty being placed before

equality, from which it in reality springs. This defect is

not to be wondered at; the science of the rights of man is a

new science: it was invented yesterday by the Americans,

to-day the French are perfecting it, but there yet remains a

great deal to be done. In the ideas that constitute it

there is a genealogical order which, from us basis, physical

equality, to the minutest and most remote branches of

government, ought to proceed in an uninterrupted series of

inferences.

A disregard of this basis has introduced in your nation, and in every

other, those disorders which have finally roused you. It is by returning

to this rule that you may reform them, and reorganize a happy order of

society.

But observe, this reorganization will occasion a violent shock in

your habits, your fortunes, and your prejudices. Vicious contracts and

abusive claims must be dissolved, unjust distinctions and ill founded

property renounced; you must indeed recur for a moment to a state of

nature. Consider whether you can consent to so many sacrifices.

Then, reflecting on the cupidity inherent in the heart of man, I thought

that this people would renounce all ideas of amelioration.

But, in a moment, a great number of men, advancing toward the pyramid,

made a solemn abjuration of all their distinctions and all their riches.

Establish for us, said they, the laws of equality and liberty; we will

possess nothing in future but on the title of justice.

Equality, liberty, justice,--these shall be our code, and shall be

written on our standards.

And the people immediately raised a great standard, inscribed with

these three words, in three different colors. They displayed it over the

pyramid of the legislators, and for the first time the flag of universal

justice floated on the face of the earth.

And the people raised before the pyramid a new altar, on which they

placed a golden balance, a sword, and a book with this inscription:

TO EQUAL LAW, WHICH JUDGES AND PROTECTS.

And having surrounded the pyramid and the altar with a vast

amphitheatre, all the people took their seats to hear the publication

of the law. And millions of men, raising at once their hands to heaven,

took the solemn oath to live equal, free, and just; to respect their

reciprocal properties and rights; to obey the law and its regularly

chosen representatives.

A spectacle so impressive and sublime, so replete with generous

emotions, moved me to tears; and addressing myself to the Genius, I

exclaimed: Let me now live, for in future I have everything to hope.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CONSTERNATION AND CONSPIRACY OF TYRANTS.

But scarcely had the solemn voice of liberty and equality resounded

through the earth, when a movement of confusion, of astonishment, arose

in different nations. On the one hand, the people, warmed with desire,

but wavering between hope and fear, between the sentiment of right and

the habit of obedience, began to be in motion. The kings, on the other

hand, suddenly awakened from the sleep of indolence and despotism, were

alarmed for the safety of their thrones; while, on all sides, those

clans of civil and religious tyrants, who deceive kings and oppress the

people, were seized with rage and consternation; and, concerting their

perfidious plans, they said: Woe to us, if this fatal cry of liberty

comes to the ears of the multitude! Woe to us, if this pernicious spirit

of justice be propagated!

And, pointing to the floating banner, they continued:

Consider what a swarm of evils are included in these three words! If all

men are equal, where is our exclusive right to honors and to power? If

all men are to be free, what becomes of our slaves, our vassals, our

property? If all are equal in the civil state, where is our prerogative

of birth, of inheritance? and what becomes of nobility? If they are

all equal in the sight of God, what need of mediators?--where is the

priesthood? Let us hasten, then, to destroy a germ so prolific, and so

contagious. We must employ all our cunning against this innovation. We

must frighten the kings, that they may join us in the cause. We

must divide the people by national jealousies, and occupy them with

commotions, wars, and conquests. They must be alarmed at the power

of this free nation. Let us form a league against the common enemy,

demolish that sacrilegious standard, overturn that throne of rebellion,

and stifle in its birth the flame of revolution.

And, indeed, the civil and religious tyrants of nations formed a general

combination; and, multiplying their followers by force and seduction,

they marched in hostile array against the free nation; and, surrounding

the altar and the pyramid of natural law, they demanded with loud cries:

What is this new and heretical doctrine? what this impious altar, this

sacrilegious worship? True believers and loyal subjects! can you suppose

that truth has been first discovered to-day, and that hitherto you have

been walking in error? that those men, more fortunate than you, have the

sole privilege of wisdom? And you, rebel and misguided nation, perceive

you not that your new leaders are misleading you? that they destroy the

principles of your faith, and overturn the religion of your ancestors?

Ah, tremble! lest the wrath of heaven should kindle against you; and

hasten by speedy repentance to retrieve your error.

But, inaccessible to seduction as well as to fear, the free nation kept

silence, and rising universally in arms, assumed an imposing attitude.

And the legislator said to the chiefs of nations:

If while we walked with a bandage on our eyes the light guided our

steps, why, since we are no longer blindfold, should it fly from our

search? If guides, who teach mankind to see for themselves, mislead and

deceive them, what can be expected from those who profess to keep them

in darkness?

But hark, ye leaders of nations! If you possess the truth, show it to

us, and we will receive it with gratitude, for we seek it with ardor,

and have a great interest in finding it. We are men, and liable to be

deceived; but you are also men, and equally fallible. Aid us then in

this labyrinth, where the human race has wandered for so many ages; help

us to dissipate the illusion of so many prejudices and vicious habits.

Amid the shock of so many opinions which dispute for our acceptance,

assist us in discovering the proper and distinctive character of truth.

Let us this day terminate the long combat with error. Let us establish

between it and truth a solemn contest, to which we will invite the

opinions of men of all nations. Let us convoke a general assembly of the

nations. Let them be judges in their own cause; and in the debate of all

systems, let no champion, no argument, be wanting, either on the side

of prejudice or of reason; and let the sentiment of a general and common

mass of evidence give birth to a universal concord of opinions and of

hearts.

CHAPTER XIX.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE NATIONS.

Thus spoke the legislator; and the multitude, seized with those emotions

which a reasonable proposition always inspires, expressed its applause;

while the tyrants, left without support, were overwhelmed with

confusion.

A scene of a new and astonishing nature then opened to my view. All that

the earth contains of people and of nations; men of every race and of

every region, converging from their various climates, seemed to assemble

in one allotted place; where, forming an immense congress, distinguished

in groups by the vast variety of their dresses, features, and

complexion, the numberless multitude presented a most unusual and

affecting sight.

On one side I saw the European, with his short close coat, pointed

triangular hat, smooth chin, and powdered hair; on the other side the

Asiatic, with a flowing robe, long beard, shaved head, and round turban.

Here stood the nations of Africa, with their ebony skins, their woolly

hair, their body girt with white and blue tissues of bark, adorned with

bracelets and necklaces of coral, shells, and glass; there the tribes

of the north, enveloped in their leathern bags; the Laplander, with his

pointed bonnet and his snow-shoes; the Samoyede, with his feverish body

and strong odor; the Tongouse, with his horned cap, and carrying his

idols pendant from his neck; the Yakoute, with his freckled face; the

Kalmuc, with his flat nose and little retorted eyes. Farther distant

were the Chinese, attired in silk, with their hair hanging in tresses;

the Japanese, of mingled race; the Malays, with wide-spreading ears,

rings in their noses, and palm-leaf hats of vast circumference;* and the

tattooed races of the isles of the southern ocean and of the continent

of the antipodes.** The view of so many varieties of the same species,

of so many extravagant inventions of the same understanding, and of so

many modifications of the same organization, affected me with a thousand

feelings and a thousand thoughts.*** I contemplated with astonishment

this gradation of color, which, passing from a bright carnation to a

light brown, a deeper brown, dusky, bronze, olive, leaden, copper, ends

in the black of ebony and of jet. And finding the Cassimerian, with his

rosy cheek, next to the sun-burnt Hindoo, and the Georgian by the side

of the Tartar, I reflected on the effects of climate hot or cold, of

soil high or low, marshy or dry, open or shaded. I compared the dwarf of

the pole with the giant of the temperate zones, the slender body of

the Arab with the ample chest of the Hollander; the squat figure of

the Samoyede with the elegant form of the Greek and the Sclavonian; the

greasy black wool of the Negro with the bright silken locks of the Dane;

the broad face of the Kalmuc, his little angular eyes and flattened

nose, with the oval prominent visage, large blue eyes, and aquiline nose

of the Circassian and Abazan. I contrasted the brilliant calicoes of the

Indian, the well-wrought stuffs of the European, the rich furs of the

Siberian, with the tissues of bark, of osiers, leaves and feathers of

savage nations; and the blue figures of serpents, flowers, and

stars, with which they painted their bodies. Sometimes the variegated

appearance of this multitude reminded me of the enamelled meadows of the

Nile and the Euphrates, when, after rains or inundations, millions of

flowers are rising on every side. Sometimes their murmurs and their

motions called to mind the numberless swarms of locusts which, issuing

from the desert, cover in the spring the plains of Hauran.

* This species of the palm-tree is called Latanier. Its

leaf, similar to a fan-mount, grows upon a stalk issuing

directly from the earth. A specimen may be seen in the

botanic garden.

** The country of the Papons of New Guinea.

*** A hall of costumes in one of the galleries of the Louvre

would, in every point of view, be an interesting

establishment. It would furnish an admirable treat to the

curiosity of a great number of persons, excellent models to

the artist, and useful subjects of meditation to the

physician, the philosopher and the legislator.

Picture to yourself a collection of the various faces and

figures of every country and nation, exhibiting accurately,

color, features and form; what a field for investigation and

enquiry as to the influence of climate, customs, food, etc.

It might truly be called the science of man! Buffon has

attempted a chapter of this nature, but it only serves to

exhibit more strikingly our actual ignorance. Such a

collection is said to have been begun at St. Petersburg, but

it is also said at the same time to be as imperfect as the

vocabulary of the three hundred languages. The enterprise

would be worthy of the French nation.

At the sight of so many rational beings, considering on the one hand the

immensity of thoughts and sensations assembled in this place, and on the

other hand, reflecting on the opposition of so many opinions, and the

shock of so many passions of men so capricious, I struggled between

astonishment, admiration, and secret dread--when the legislator

commanded silence, and attracted all my attention.

Inhabitants of earth! a free and powerful nation addresses you with

words of justice and peace, and she offers you the sure pledges of her

intentions in her own conviction and experience. Long afflicted with the

same evils as yourselves, we sought for their source, and found them

all derived from violence and injustice, erected into law by the

inexperience of past ages, and maintained by the prejudices of the

present. Then abolishing our artificial and arbitrary institutions,

and recurring to the origin of all right and reason, we have found

that there existed in the very order of nature and in the physical

constitution of man, eternal and immutable laws, which only waited his

observance to render him happy.

O men! cast your eyes on the heavens that give you light, and on the

earth that gives you bread! Since they offer the same bounties to you

all--since from the power that gives them motion you have all received

the same life, the same organs, have you not likewise all received the

same right to enjoy its benefits? Has it not hereby declared you all

equal and free? What mortal shall dare refuse to his fellow that which

nature gives him?

O nations! let us banish all tyranny and all discord; let us form but

one society, one great family; and, since human nature has but one

constitution, let there exist in future but one law, that of nature--but

one code, that of reason--but one throne, that of justice--but one

altar, that of union.

He ceased; and an immense acclamation resounded to the skies. Ten

thousand benedictions announced the transports of the multitude; and

they made the earth re-echo JUSTICE, EQUALITY and UNION.

But different emotions soon succeeded; soon the doctors and the chiefs

of nations exciting a spirit of dispute, there was heard a sullen

murmur, which growing louder, and spreading from group to group, became

a vast disorder; and each nation setting up exclusive pretensions,

claimed a preference for its own code and opinion.

You are in error, said the parties, pointing one to the other. We alone

are in possession of reason and truth. We alone have the true law,

the real rule of right and justice, the only means of happiness and

perfection. All other men are either blind or rebellious.

And great agitation prevailed.

Then the legislator, after enforcing silence, loudly exclaimed:

What, O people! is this passionate emotion? Whither will this quarrel

conduct you? What can you expect from this dissension? The earth has

been for ages a field of disputation, and you have shed torrents of

blood in your controversies. What have you gained by so many battles

and tears? When the strong has subjected the weak to his opinion, has he

thereby aided the cause of truth?

O nations! take counsel of your own wisdom. When among yourselves

disputes arise between families and individuals, how do you reconcile

them? Do you not give them arbitrators?

Yes, cried the whole multitude.

Do so then to the authors of your present dissensions. Order those who

call themselves your instructors, and who force their creeds upon

you, to discuss before you their reasons. Since they appeal to your

interests, inform yourselves how they support them.

And you, chiefs and governors of the people! before dragging the masses

into the quarrels resulting from your diverse opinions, let the reasons

for and against your views be given. Let us establish one solemn

controversy, one public scrutiny of truth--not before the tribunal of a

corruptible individual, or of a prejudiced party, but in the grand forum

of mankind--guarded by all their information and all their interests.

Let the natural sense of the whole human race be our arbiter and judge.

CHAPTER XX.

THE SEARCH OF TRUTH.

The people expressed their applause, and the legislator continued: To

proceed with order, and avoid all confusion, let a spacious semicircle

be left vacant in front of the altar of peace and union; let each system

of religion, and each particular sect, erect its proper distinctive

standard on the line of this semicircle; let its chiefs and doctors

place themselves around the standard, and their followers form a column

behind them.

The semicircle being traced, and the order published, there instantly

rose an innumerable multitude of standards, of all colors and of every

form, like what we see in a great commercial port, when, on a day of

rejoicing, a thousand different flags and streamers are floating from a

forest of masts.

At the sight of this prodigious diversity, I turned towards the Genius

and said:

I thought that the earth was divided only into eight or ten systems of

faith, and I then despaired of a reconciliation; I now behold thousands

of different sects, and how can I hope for concord?

But these, replied the Genius, are not all; and yet they will be

intolerant!

Then, as the groups advanced to take their stations, he pointed out to

me their distinctive marks, and thus began to explain their characters:

That first group, said he, with a green banner bearing a crescent, a

bandage, and a sabre, are the followers of the Arabian prophet. To say

there is a God, without knowing what he is; to believe the words of a

man, without understanding his language; to go into the desert to pray

to God, who is everywhere; to wash the hands with water, and not abstain

from blood; to fast all day, and eat all night; to give alms of their

own goods, and to plunder those of others; such are the means of

perfection instituted by Mahomet--such are the symbols of his followers;

and whoever does not bear them is a reprobate, stricken with anathema,

and devoted to the sword.

A God of clemency, the author of life, has instituted these laws of

oppression and murder: he made them for all the world, but has revealed

them only to one man; he established them from all eternity, though he

made them known but yesterday. These laws are abundantly sufficient

for all purposes, and yet a volume is added to them. This volume was

to diffuse light, to exhibit evidence, to lead men to perfection and

happiness; and yet every page was so full of obscurities, ambiguities,

and contradictions, that commentaries and explanations became necessary,

even in the life-time of its apostle. Its interpreters, differing in

opinion, divided into opposite and hostile sects. One maintains that Ali

is the true successor; the other contends for Omar and Aboubekre. This

denies the eternity of the Koran; that the necessity of ablutions and

prayers. The Carmite forbids pilgrimages, and allows the use of wine;

the Hakemite preaches the transmigration of souls. Thus they make up

the number of seventy-two sects, whose banners are before you.* In this

contestation, every one attributing the evidence of truth exclusively to

himself, and taxing all others with heresy and rebellion, turns against

them its sanguinary zeal. And their religion, which celebrates a mild

and merciful God, the common father of all men,--changed to a torch of

discord, a signal for war and murder, has not ceased for twelve hundred

years to deluge the earth in blood, and to ravage and desolate the

ancient hemisphere from centre to circumference.**

* The Mussulmen enumerate in common seventy-two sects, but I

read, while I resided among them, a work which gave an

account of more than eighty,--all equally wise and

important.

** Read the history of Islamism by its own writers, and you

will be convinced that one of the principal causes of the

wars which have desolated Asia and Africa, since the days of

Mahomet, has been the apostolical fanaticism of its

doctrine. Caesar has been supposed to have destroyed three

millions of men: it would be interesting to make a similar

calculation respecting every founder of a religious system.

Those men, distinguished by their enormous white turbans, their broad

sleeves, and their long rosaries, are the Imans, the Mollas, and the

Muftis; and near them are the Dervishes with pointed bonnets, and the

Santons with dishevelled hair. Behold with what vehemence they recite

their professions of faith! They are now beginning a dispute about

the greater and lesser impurities--about the matter and the manner of

ablutions,--about the attributes of God and his perfections--about the

Chaitan, and the good and wicked angels,--about death, the resurrection,

the interrogatory in the tomb, the judgment, the passage of the narrow

bridge not broader than a hair, the balance of works, the pains of hell,

and the joys of paradise.

Next to these, that second more numerous group, with white banners

intersected with crosses, are the followers of Jesus. Acknowledging the

same God with the Mussulmans, founding their belief on the same books,

admitting, like them, a first man who lost the human race by eating an

apple, they hold them, however, in a holy abhorrence; and, out of pure

piety, they call each other impious blasphemers.

The great point of their dissension consists in this, that after

admitting a God one and indivisible the Christian divides him into three

persons, each of which he believes to be a complete and entire God,

without ceasing to constitute an identical whole, by the indivisibility

of the three. And he adds, that this being, who fills the universe,

has reduced himself to the body of a man; and has assumed material,

perishable, and limited organs, without ceasing to be immaterial,

infinite, and eternal. The Mussulman who does not comprehend these

mysteries, rejects them as follies, and the visions of a distempered

brain; though he conceives perfectly well the eternity of the Koran, and

the mission of the prophet: hence their implacable hatreds.

Again, the Christians, divided among themselves on many points, have

formed parties not less violent than the Mussulmans; and their quarrels

are so much the more obstinate, as the objects of them are inaccessible

to the senses and incapable of demonstration: their opinions, therefore,

have no other basis but the will and caprice of the parties. Thus,

while they agree that God is a being incomprehensible and unknown, they

dispute, nevertheless, about his essence, his mode of acting, and his

attributes. While they agree that his pretended transformation into man

is an enigma above the human understanding, they dispute on the junction

or distinction of his two wills and his two natures, on his change

of substance, on the real or fictitious presence, on the mode of

incarnation, etc.

Hence those innumerable sects, of which two or three hundred have

already perished, and three or four hundred others, which still subsist,

display those numberless banners which here distract your sight.

The first in order, surrounded by a group in varied and fantastic

dress, that confused mixture of violet, red, white, black and speckled

garments--with heads shaved, or with tonsures, or with short hair--with

red hats, square bonnets, pointed mitres, or long beards, is the

standard of the Roman pontiff, who, uniting the civil government to

the priesthood, has erected the supremacy of his city into a point of

religion, and made of his pride an article of faith.

On his right you see the Greek pontiff, who, proud of the rivalship of

his metropolis, sets up equal pretensions, and supports them against the

Western church by the priority of that of the East. On the left are the

standards of two recent chiefs,* who, shaking off a yoke that had become

tyrannical, have raised altar against altar in their reform, and wrested

half of Europe from the pope. Behind these are the subaltern sects,

subdivided from the principal divisions, the Nestorians, the Eutycheans,

the Jacobites, the Iconoclasts, the Anabaptists, the Presbyterians,

the Wicliffites, the Osiandrians, the Manicheans, the Pietists, the

Adamites, the Contemplatives, the Quakers, the Weepers, and a hundred

others,** all of distinct parties, persecuting when strong, tolerant

when weak, hating each other in the name of a God of peace, forming each

an exclusive heaven in a religion of universal charity, dooming each

other to pains without end in a future state, and realizing in this

world the imaginary hell of the other.

* Luther and Calvin.

** Consult upon this subject Dictionnaire des Herseies par

l'Abbe Pluquet, in two volumes 8vo.: a work admirably

calculated to inspire the mind with philosophy, in the sense

that the Lacedemonians taught the children temperance by

showing to them the drunken Helots.

After this group, observing a lonely standard of the color of hyacinth,

round which were assembled men clad in all the different dresses of

Europe and Asia:

At least, said I, to the Genius, we shall find unanimity here.

Yes, said he, at first sight and by a momentary accident. Dost thou not

know that system of worship?

Then, perceiving in Hebrew letters the monogram of the name of God, and

the palms which the Rabbins held in their hands:

True, said I, these are the children of Moses, dispersed even to this

day, abhorring every nation, and abhorred and persecuted by all.

Yes, he replied, and for this reason, that, having neither the time nor

liberty to dispute, they have the appearance of unanimity. But no sooner

will they come together, compare their principles, and reason on

their opinions, than they will separate as formerly, at least into two

principal sects;* one of which, taking advantage of the silence of their

legislator, and adhering to the literal sense of his books, will deny

everything that is not clearly expressed therein; and on this principle

will reject as profane inventions, the immortality of the soul, its

transmigration to places of pain or pleasure, its resurrection, the

final judgment, the good and bad angels, the revolt of the evil Genius,

and all the poetical belief of a world to come. And this highly-favored

people, whose perfection consists in a slight mutilation of their

persons,--this atom of a people, which forms but a small wave in the

ocean of mankind, and which insists that God has made nothing but for

them, will by its schism reduce to one-half, its present trifling weight

in the scale of the universe.

* The Sadducees and Pharisees.

He then showed me a neighboring group, composed of men dressed in white

robes, wearing a veil over their mouths, and ranged around a banner of

the color of the morning sky, on which was painted a globe cleft in two

hemispheres, black and white: The same thing will happen, said he, to

these children of Zoroaster,* the obscure remnant of a people once so

powerful. At present, persecuted like the Jews, and dispersed among

all nations, they receive without discussion the precepts of the

representative of their prophet. But as soon as the Mobed and the

Destours** shall assemble, they will renew the controversy about the

good and the bad principle; on the combats of Ormuzd, God of light, and

Ahrimanes, God of darkness; on the direct and allegorical sense; on

the good and evil Genii; on the worship of fire and the elements; on

impurities and ablutions; on the resurrection of the soul and body, or

only of the soul;*** on the renovation of the present world, and on that

which is to take its place. And the Parses will divide into sects, so

much the more numerous, as their families will have contracted, during

their dispersion, the manners and opinions of different nations.

* They are the Parses, better known by the opprobrious name

of Gaures or Guebres, another word for infidels. They are

in Asia what the Jews are in Europe. The name of their pope

or high priest is Mobed.

** That is to say, their priests. See, respecting the rites

of this religion, Henry Lord Hyde, and the Zendavesta.

Their costume is a robe with a belt of four knots, and a

veil over their mouth for fear of polluting the fire with

their breath.

*** The Zoroastrians are divided between two opinions; one

party believing that both soul and body will rise, the other

that it will be the soul only. The Christians and

Mahometans have embraced the most solid of the two.

Next to these, remark those banners of an azure ground, painted with

monstrous figures of human bodies, double, triple, and quadruple, with

heads of lions, boars, and elephants, and tails of fishes and tortoises;

these are the ensigns of the sects of India, who find their gods in

various animals, and the souls of their fathers in reptiles and insects.

These men support hospitals for hawks, serpents, and rats, and they

abhor their fellow creatures! They purify themselves with the dung and

urine of cows, and think themselves defiled by the touch of a man! They

wear a net over the mouth, lest, in a fly, they should swallow a soul

in a state of penance,* and they can see a Pariah** perish with hunger!

They acknowledge the same gods, but they separate into hostile bands.

* According to the system of the Metempsychosis, a soul, to

undergo purification, passes into the body of some insect or

animal. It is of importance not to disturb this penance, as

the work must in that case begin afresh.

** This is the name of a cast or tribe reputed unclean,

because they eat of what has enjoyed life.

The first standard, retired from the rest, bearing a figure with four

heads, is that of Brama, who, though the creator of the universe, is

without temples or followers; but, reduced to serve as a pedestal to the

Lingam,* he contents himself with a little water which the Bramin throws

every morning on his shoulder, reciting meanwhile an idle canticle in

his praise.

* See Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes, vol. 1.

The second, bearing a kite with a scarlet body and a white head, is that

of Vichenou, who, though preserver of the world, has passed part of his

life in wicked actions. You sometimes see him under the hideous form

of a boar or a lion, tearing human entrails, or under that of a horse,*

shortly to come armed with a sword to destroy the human race, blot out

the stars, annihilate the planets, shake the earth, and force the great

serpent to vomit a fire which shall consume the spheres.

* These are the incarnations of Vichenou, or metamorphoses

of the sun. He is to come at the end of the world, that is,

at the expiration of the great period, in the form of a

horse, like the four horses of the Apocalypse.

The third is that of Chiven, God of destruction and desolation, who has,

however, for his emblem the symbol of generation. He is the most wicked

of the three, and he has the most followers. These men, proud of his

character, express in their devotions to him their contempt for

the other gods,* his equals and brothers; and, in imitation of his

inconsistencies, while they profess great modesty and chastity, they

publicly crown with flowers, and sprinkle with milk and honey, the

obscene image of the Lingam.

* When a sectary of Chiven hears the name of Vichenou

pronounced, he stops his ears, runs, and purifies himself.

In the rear of these, approach the smaller standards of a multitude of

gods--male, female, and hermaphrodite. These are friends and relations

of the principal gods, who have passed their lives in wars among

themselves, and their followers imitate them. These gods have need of

nothing, and they are constantly receiving presents; they are omnipotent

and omnipresent, and a priest, by muttering a few words, shuts them up

in an idol or a pitcher, to sell their favors for his own benefit.

Beyond these, that cloud of standards, which, on a yellow ground, common

to them all, bear various emblems, are those of the same god, who reins

under different names in the nations of the East. The Chinese adores him

in Fot,* the Japanese in Budso, the Ceylonese in Bedhou, the people of

Laos in Chekia, of Pegu in Phta, of Siam in Sommona-Kodom, of Thibet

in Budd and in La. Agreeing in some points of his history, they all

celebrate his life of penitence, his mortifications, his fastings, his

functions of mediator and expiator, the enmity between him and another

god, his adversary, their battles, and his ascendency. But as they

disagree on the means of pleasing him, they dispute about rites and

ceremonies, and about the dogmas of interior doctrine and of public

doctrine. That Japanese Bonze, with a yellow robe and naked head,

preaches the eternity of souls, and their successive transmigrations

into various bodies; near him, the Sintoist denies that souls can exist

separate from the senses,** and maintains that they are only the effect

of the organs to which they belong, and with which they must perish, as

the sound of the flute perishes with the flute. Near him, the Siamese,

with his eyebrows shaved, and a talipat screen*** in his hand,

recommends alms, offerings, and expiations, at the same time that he

preaches blind necessity and inexorable fate. The Chinese vo-chung

sacrifices to the souls of his ancestors; and next him, the follower of

Confucius interrogates his destiny in the cast of dice and the movement

of the stars.**** That child, surrounded by a swarm of priests in yellow

robes and hats, is the Grand Lama, in whom the god of Thibet has just

become incarnate.*5 But a rival has arisen who partakes this benefit

with him; and the Kalmouc on the banks of the Baikal, has a God similar

to the inhabitant of Lasa. And they agree, also, in one important

point--that god can inhabit only a human body. They both laugh at

the stupidity of the Indian who pays homage to cow-dung, though they

themselves consecrate the excrements of their high-priest.*6

* The original name of this god is Baits, which in Hebrew

signifies an egg. The Arabs pronounce it Baidh, giving to

the dh an emphatic sound which makes it approach to dz.

Kempfer, an acurate traveler, writes it Budso, which must be

pronounced Boudso, whence is derived the name of Budsoist

and of Bonze, applied to the priests. Clement of

Alexandria, in his Stromata, writes it Bedou, as it is

pronounced also by the Chingulais; and Saint Jerome, Boudda

and Boutta. At Thibet they call it Budd; and hence the name

of the country called Boud-tan and Ti-budd: it was in this

province that this system of religion was first inculcated

in Upper Asia; La is a corruption of Allah, the name of God

in the Syriac language, from which many of the eastern

dialects appear to be derived. The Chinese having neither b

nor d, have supplied their place by f and t, and have

therefore said Fout.

** See in Kempfer the doctrine of the Sintoists, which is a

mixture of that of Epicurus and of the Stoics.

*** It is a leaf of the Latanier species of the palm-tree.

Hence the bonzes of Siam take the appellation of Talapoin.

The use of this screen is an exclusive privilege.

**** The sectaries of Confucius are no less addicted to

astrology than the bonzes. It is indeed the malady of every

eastern nation.

*5 The Delai-La-Ma, or immense high priest of La, is the

same person whom we find mentioned in our old books of

travels, by the name of Prester John, from a corruption of

the Persian word Djehan, which signifies the world, to which

has been prefixed the French word prestre or pretre, priest.

Thus the priest world, and the god world are in the Persian

idiom the same.

*6 In a recent expedition the English have found certain

idols of the Lamas filled in the inside with sacred pastils

from the close stool of the high priest. Mr. Hastings, and

Colonel Pollier, who is now at Lausanne, are living

witnesses of this fact, and undoubtedly worthy of credit.

It will be very extraordinary to observe, that this

disgusting ceremony is connected with a profound

philosophical system, to wit, that of the metempsychosis,

admitted by the Lamas. When the Tartars swallow, the sacred

relics, which they are accustomed to do, they imitate the

laws of the universe, the parts of which are incessantly

absorbed and pass into the substance of each other. It is

upon the model of the serpent who devours his tail, and this

serpent is Budd and the world.

After these, a crowd of other banners, which no man could number, came

forward into sight; and the genius exclaimed:

I should never finish the detail of all the systems of faith which

divide these nations. Here the hordes of Tartars adore, in the forms

of beasts, birds, and insects, the good and evil Genii; who, under a

principal, but indolent god, govern the universe. In their idolatry

they call to mind the ancient paganism of the West. You observe the

fantastical dress of the Chamans; who, under a robe of leather, hung

round with bells and rattles, idols of iron, claws of birds, skins of

snakes and heads of owls, invoke, with frantic cries and factitious

convulsions, the dead to deceive the living. There, the black tribes of

Africa exhibit the same opinions in the worship of their fetiches. See

the inhabitant of Juida worship god in a great snake, which, unluckily,

the swine delight to eat.* The Teleutean attires his god in a coat of

several colors, like a Russian soldier.** The Kamchadale, observing that

everything goes wrong in his frozen country, considers god as an old

ill-natured man, smoking his pipe and hunting foxes and martins in his

sledge.***

* It frequently happens that the swine devour the very

species of serpents the negroes adore, which is a source of

great desolation in the country. President de Brosses has

given us, in his History of the Fetiche, a curious

collection of absurdities of this nature.

** The Teleuteans, a Tartar nation, paint God as wearing a

vesture of all colors, particularly red and green; and as

these constitute the uniform of the Russian dragoons, they

compare him to this description of soldiers. The Egyptians

also dress the God World in a garment of every color.

Eusebius Proep. Evang. p 115. The Teleuteans call God Bou,

which is only an alteration of Boudd, the God Egg and World.

*** Consult upon this subject a work entitled, Description

des Peuples, soumis a la Russie, and it will be found that

the picture is not overcharged.

But you may still behold a hundred savage nations who have none of the

ideas of civilized people respecting God, the soul, another world, and a

future life; who have formed no system of worship; and who nevertheless

enjoy the rich gifts of nature in the irreligion in which she has

created them.

CHAPTER XXI.

PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS CONTRADICTIONS.

The various groups having taken their places, an unbounded silence

succeeded to the murmurs of the multitude; and the legislator said:

Chiefs and doctors of mankind! You remark how the nations, living apart,

have hitherto followed different paths, each believing its own to be

that of truth. If, however, truth is one, and opinions are various, it

is evident that some are in error. If, then, such vast numbers of us

are in the wrong, who shall dare to say, "I am in the right?" Begin,

therefore, by being indulgent in your dissensions. Let us all seek truth

as if no one possessed it. The opinions which to this day have governed

the world, originating from chance, propagated in obscurity, admitted

without discussion, accredited by a love of novelty and imitation, have

usurped their empire in a clandestine manner. It is time, if they are

well founded, to give a solemn stamp to their certainty, and legitimize

their existence. Let us summon them this day to a general scrutiny, let

each propound his creed, let the whole assembly be the judge, and let

that alone be acknowledged as true which is so for the whole human race.

Then, by order of position, the representative of the first standard on

the left was allowed to speak:

"You are not permitted to doubt," said their chief, "that our doctrine

is the only true and infallible one. FIRST, it is revealed by God

himself--"

"So is ours," cried all the other standards, "and you are not permitted

to doubt it."

"But at least," said the legislator, "you must prove it, for we cannot

believe what we do not know."

"Our doctrine is proved," replied the first standard, "by numerous

facts, by a multitude of miracles, by resurrections of the dead, by

rivers dried up, by mountains removed--"

"And we also have numberless miracles," cried all the others, and each

began to recount the most incredible things.

"THEIR miracles," said the first standard, "are imaginary, or the

fictions of the evil spirit, who has deluded them."

"They are yours," said the others, "that are imaginary;" and each group,

speaking of itself, cried out:

"None but ours are true, all the others are false."

The legislator then asked: "Have you living witnesses of the facts?"

"No," replied they all; "the facts are ancient, the witnesses are dead,

but their writings remain."

"Be it so," replied the legislator; "but if they contradict each other,

who shall reconcile them?"

"Just judge!" cried one of the standards, "the proof that our witnesses

have seen the truth is, that they died to confirm it; and our faith is

sealed by the blood of martyrs."

"And ours too," said the other standards; "we have thousands of martyrs

who have died in the most excruciating torments, without ever denying

the truth."

Then the Christians of every sect, the Mussulmans, the Indians, the

Japanese, recited endless legends of confessors, martyrs, penitents,

etc.

And one of these parties, having denied the martyrology of the others:

"Well," said they, "we will then die ourselves to prove the truth of our

belief."

And instantly a crowd of men, of every religion and of every sect,

presented themselves to suffer the torments of death. Many even began

to tear their arms, and to beat their heads and breasts, without

discovering any symptom of pain.

But the legislator, preventing them--"O men!" said he, "hear my words

with patience. If you die to prove that two and two make four, will your

death add any thing to this truth?"

"No!" answered all.

"And if you die to prove that they make five, will that make them five?"

Again they all answered, "No."

"What, then, is your persuasion to prove, if it changes not the

existence of things? Truth is one--your persuasions are various; many of

you, therefore, are in error. Now, if man, as is evident, can persuade

himself of error, what is the persuasion of man to prove?

"If error has its martyrs, what is the sure criterion of truth?

"If the evil spirit works miracles, what is the distinctive character of

God?

"Besides, why resort forever to incomplete and insufficient miracles?

Instead of changing the course of nature, why not rather change

opinions? Why murder and terrify men, instead of instructing and

correcting them?

"O credulous, but opinionated mortals! none of us know what was done

yesterday, what is doing to-day even under our eyes; and we swear to

what was done two thousand years ago!

"Oh, the weakness and yet the pride of men! The laws of nature

are unchangeable and profound--our minds are full of illusion and

frivolity--and yet we would comprehend every thing--determine every

thing! Forgetting that it is easier for the whole human race to be in

error, than to change the nature of the smallest atom."

"Well, then," said one of the doctors, "let us lay aside the evidence

of fact, since it is uncertain; let us come to argument--to the proofs

inherent in the doctrine."

Then came forward, with a look of confidence, an Iman of the law of

Mahomet; and, having advanced into the circle, turned towards Mecca, and

recited with great fervor his confession of faith. "Praise be to God,"

said he, with a solemn and imposing voice, "the light shines with full

evidence, and the truth has no need of examination." Then, showing the

Koran, he exclaimed: "Here is the light of truth in its proper essence.

There is no doubt in this book. It conducts with safety him who walks

in darkness, and who receives without discussion the divine word which

descended on the prophet, to save the simple and confound the wise.

God has established Mahomet his minister on earth; he has given him the

world, that he may subdue with the sword whoever shall refuse to receive

his law. Infidels dispute, and will not believe; their obduracy comes

from God, who has hardened their hearts to deliver them to dreadful

punishments."*

* This passage contains the sense and nearly the very words

of the first chapter of the Koran; and the reader will

observe in general, that, in the pictures that follow, the

writer has endeavored to give as accurately as possible the

letter and spirit of the opinions of each party.

At these words a violent murmur arose on all sides, and silenced the

speaker. "Who is this man," cried all the groups, "who thus insults

us without a cause? What right has he to impose his creed on us as

conqueror and tyrant? Has not God endowed us, as well as him, with eyes,

understanding, and reason? And have we not an equal right to use them,

in choosing what to believe and what to reject? If he attacks us, shall

we not defend ourselves? If he likes to believe without examination,

must we therefore not examine before we believe?

"And what is this luminous doctrine that fears the light? What is

this apostle of a God of clemency, who preaches nothing but murder and

carnage? What is this God of justice, who punishes blindness which

he himself has made? If violence and persecution are the arguments of

truth, are gentleness and charity the signs of falsehood?"

A man then advancing from a neighboring group, said to the Iman:

"Admitting that Mahomet is the apostle of the best doctrine,--the

prophet of the true religion,--have the goodness at least to tell

us whether, in the practice of his doctrine, we are to follow his

son-in-law Ali, or his vicars Omar and Aboubekre?"*

* These are the two grand parties into which the Mussulmans

are divided. The Turks have embraced the second, the

Persians the first.

At the sound of these names a terrible schism arose among the Mussulmans

themselves. The partisans of Ali and those of Omar, calling out heretics

and blasphemers, loaded each other with execrations. The quarrel became

so violent that neighboring groups were obliged to interfere, to prevent

their coming to blows. At length, tranquillity being somewhat restored,

the legislator said to the Imans:

"See the consequences of your principles! If you yourselves were to

carry them into practice, you would destroy each other to the last man.

Is it not the first law of God that man should live?"

Then, addressing himself to the other groups, he continued:

"Doubtless this intolerant and exclusive spirit shocks every idea of

justice, and overturns the whole foundation of morals and society; but

before we totally reject this code of doctrine, is it not proper to hear

some of its dogmas? Let us not pronounce on the forms, without having

some knowledge of the substance."

The groups having consented, the Iman began to expound how God, having

sent to the nations lost in idolatry twenty-four thousand prophets, had

finally sent the last, the seal and perfection of all, Mahomet; on whom

be the salvation of peace: how, to prevent the divine word from being

any longer perverted by infidels, the supreme goodness had itself

written the pages of the Koran. Then, explaining the particular dogmas

of Islamism, the Iman unfolded how the Koran, partaking of the divine

nature, was uncreated and eternal, like its author: how it had been sent

leaf by leaf, in twenty-four thousand nocturnal apparitions of the angel

Gabriel: how the angel announced himself by a gentle knocking, which

threw the prophet into a cold sweat: how in the vision of one night

he had travelled over ninety heavens, riding on the beast Borack, half

horse and half woman: how, endowed with the gift of miracles, he walked

in the sunshine without a shadow, turned dry trees to green, filled

wells and cisterns with water, and split in two the body of the moon:

how, by divine command, Mahomet had propagated, sword in hand, the

religion the most worthy of God by its sublimity, and the most proper

for men by the simplicity of its practice; since it consisted in only

eight or ten points:--To profess the unity of God; to acknowledge

Mahomet as his only prophet; to pray five times a day; to fast one month

in the year; to go to Mecca once in our life; to pay the tenth of all

we possess; to drink no wine; to eat no pork; and to make war upon

the infidels.* He taught that by these means every Mussulman becoming

himself an apostle and martyr, should enjoy in this world many

blessings; and at his death, his soul, weighed in the balance of works,

and absolved by the two black angels, should pass the infernal pit on

the bridge as narrow as a hair and as sharp as the edge of a sword, and

should finally be received to a region of delight, which is watered with

rivers of milk and honey, and embalmed in all the perfumes of India

and Arabia; and where the celestial Houris--virgins always chaste--are

eternally crowning with repeated favors the elect of God, who preserve

an eternal youth.

* Whatever the advocates for the philosophy and civilization

of the Turks may assert, to make war upon infidels is

considered by them as an obligatory precept and an act of

religion. See Reland de Relig. Mahom.

At these words an involuntary smile was seen on all their lips; and the

various groups, reasoning on these articles of faith, exclaimed with one

voice:

"Is it possible that reasonable beings can admit such reveries? Would

you not think it a chapter from The Thousand and One Nights?"

A Samoyede advanced into the circle: "The paradise of Mahomet," said

he, "appears to me very good; but one of the means of gaining it is

embarrassing: for if we must neither eat nor drink between the rising

and setting sun, as he has ordered, how are we to practise that fast in

my country, where the sun continues above the horizon six months without

setting?"

"That is impossible," cried all the Mussulman doctors, to support the

teaching of the prophet; but a hundred nations having attested the fact,

the infallibility of Mahomet could not but receive a severe shock.

"It is singular," said an European, "that God should be constantly

revealing what takes place in heaven, without ever instructing us what

is doing on the earth."

"For my part," said an American, "I find a great difficulty in the

pilgrimage. For suppose twenty-five years to a generation, and only a

hundred millions of males on the globe,--each being obliged to go to

Mecca once in his life,--there must be four millions a year on the

journey; and as it would be impracticable for them to return the same

year, the numbers would be doubled--that is, eight millions: where

would you find provisions, lodgings, water, vessels, for this universal

procession? Here must be miracles indeed!"

"The proof," said a catholic doctor, "that the religion of Mahomet is

not revealed, is that the greater part of the ideas which serve for its

basis existed a long time before, and that it is only a confused mixture

of truths disfigured and taken from our holy religion and from that

of the Jews; which an ambitious man has made to serve his projects of

domination, and his worldly views. Look through his book; you will see

nothing there but the histories of the Bible and the Gospel travestied

into absurd fables--into a tissue of vague and contradictory

declamations, and ridiculous or dangerous precepts.

"Analyze the spirit of these precepts, and the conduct of their apostle;

you will find there an artful and audacious character, which, to obtain

its end, works ably it is true, on the passions of the people it had

to govern. It is speaking to simple men, and it entertains them with

miracles; they are ignorant and jealous, and it flatters their vanity

by despising science; they are poor and rapacious, and it excites their

cupidity by the hope of pillage; having nothing at first to give them on

earth, it tells them of treasures in heaven; it teaches them to desire

death as a supreme good; it threatens cowards with hell; it rewards the

brave with paradise; it sustains the weak with the opinion of fatality;

in short, it produces the attachment it wants by all the allurements of

sense, and all the power of the passions.

"How different is the character of our religion! and how completely does

its empire, founded on the counteraction of the natural temper, and the

mortification of all our passions, prove its divine origin! How forcibly

does its mild and compassionate morality, its affections altogether

spiritual, attest its emanation from God! Many of its doctrines, it is

true, soar above the reach of the understanding, and impose on reason

a respectful silence; but this more fully demonstrates its revelation,

since the human mind could never have imagined such mysteries."

Then, holding the Bible in one hand and the four Gospels in the other,

the doctor began to relate that, in the beginning, God, after passing an

eternity in idleness, took the resolution, without any known cause, of

making the world out of nothing; that having created the whole universe

in six days, he found himself fatigued on the seventh; that having

placed the first human pair in a garden of delights, to make them

completely happy, he forbade their tasting a particular fruit which he

placed within their reach; that these first parents, having yielded

to the temptation, all their race (which were not yet born) had been

condemned to bear the penalty of a fault which they had not committed;

that, after having left the human race to damn themselves for four or

five thousand years, this God of mercy ordered a well beloved son, whom

he had engendered without a mother, and who was as old as himself, to go

and be put to death on the earth; and this for the salvation of

mankind; of whom much the greater portion, nevertheless, have ever since

continued in the way of perdition; that to remedy this new difficulty,

this same God, born of a virgin, having died and risen from the dead,

assumes a new existence every day, and in the form of a piece of bread,

multiplies himself by millions at the voice of one of the basest of

men. Then, passing on to the doctrine of the sacraments, he was going to

treat at large on the power of absolution and reprobation, of the means

of purging all sins by a little water and a few words, when, uttering

the words indulgence, power of the pope, sufficient grace, and

efficacious grace, he was interrupted by a thousand cries.

"It is a horrible abuse," cried the Lutherans, "to pretend to remit sins

for money."

"The notion of the real presence," cried the Calvinists, "is contrary to

the text of the Gospel."

"The pope has no right to decide anything of himself," cried the

Jansenists; and thirty other sects rising up, and accusing each other

of heresies and errors, it was no longer possible to hear anything

distinctly.

Silence being at last restored, the Mussulmans observed to the

legislator:

"Since you have rejected our doctrine as containing things incredible,

can you admit that of the Christians? Is not theirs still more contrary

to common sense and justice? A God, immaterial and infinite, to become

a man! to have a son as old as himself! This god-man to become bread,

to be eaten and digested! Have we any thing equal to that? Have the

Christians an exclusive right of setting up a blind faith? And will you

grant them privileges of belief to our detriment?"

Some savage tribes then advanced: "What!" said they, "because a man

and woman ate an apple six thousand years ago, all the human race

are damned? And you call God just? What tyrant ever rendered children

responsible for the faults of their fathers? What man can answer for the

actions of another? Does not this overturn every idea of justice and of

reason?"

Others exclaimed: "Where are the proofs, the witnesses of these

pretended facts? Can we receive them without examining the evidence? The

least action in a court of justice requires two witnesses; and we are

ordered to believe all this on mere tradition and hearsay!"

A Jewish Rabbin then addressing the assembly, said: "As to the

fundamental facts, we are sureties; but with regard to their form and

their application, the case is different, and the Christians are here

condemned by their own arguments. For they cannot deny that we are the

original source from which they are derived--the primitive stock on

which they are grafted; and hence the reasoning is very short: Either

our law is from God, and then theirs is a heresy, since it differs from

ours, or our law is not from God, and then theirs falls at the same

time."

"But you must make this distinction," replied the Christian: "Your law

is from God as typical and preparative, but not as final and absolute:

you are the image of which we are the substance."

"We know," replied the Rabbin, "that such are your pretensions; but they

are absolutely gratuitous and false. Your system turns altogether on

mystical meanings, visionary and allegorical interpretations.* With

violent distortions on the letter of our books, you substitute the most

chimerical ideas for the true ones, and find in them whatever pleases

you; as a roving imagination will find figures in the clouds. Thus

you have made a spiritual Messiah of that which, in the spirit of our

prophets, is only a temporal king. You have made a redemption of the

human race out of the simple re-establishment of our nation. Your

conception of the Virgin is founded on a single phrase, of which you

have changed the meaning. Thus you make from our Scriptures whatever

your fancy dictates; you even find there your trinity; though there is

not a word that has the most distant allusion to such a thing; and it is

an invention of profane writers, admitted into your system with a host

of other opinions, of every religion and of every sect, during the

anarchy of the first three centuries of your era."

* When we read the Fathers of the church, and see upon what

arguments they have built the edifice of religion, we are

inexpressibly astonished with their credulity or their

knavery: but allegory was the rage of that period; the

Pagans employed it to explain the actions of their gods, and

the Christians acted in the same spirit when they employed

it after their fashion.

At these words, the Christian doctors, crying sacrilege and blasphemy,

sprang forward in a transport of fury to fall upon the Jew; and a troop

of monks, in motley dresses of black and white, advanced with a standard

on which were painted pincers, gridirons, lighted fagots, and the words

Justice, Charity, Mercy.* "It is necessary," said they, "to make an

example of these impious wretches, and burn them for the glory of God."

They began even to prepare the pile, when a Mussulman answered in a

strain of irony:

"This, then, is that religion of peace, that meek and beneficent system

which you so much extol! This is that evangelical charity which combats

infidelity with persuasive mildness, and repays injuries with patience!

Ye hypocrites! It is thus that you deceive mankind--thus that you

propagate your accursed errors! When you were weak, you preached

liberty, toleration, peace; when you are strong, you practise

persecution and violence--"

* This description answers exactly to the banner of the

Inquisition of Spanish Jacobins.

And he was going to begin the history of the wars and slaughters of

Christianity, when the legislator, demanding silence, suspended this

scene of discord.

The monks, affecting a tone of meekness and humility, exclaimed: "It is

not ourselves that we would avenge; it is the cause of God; it is the

glory of God that we defend."

"And what right have you, more than we," said the Imans, "to constitute

yourselves the representatives of God? Have you privileges that we have

not? Are you not men like us?"

"To defend God," said another group, "to pretend to avenge him, is to

insult his wisdom and his power. Does he not know, better than men, what

befits his dignity?"

"Yes," replied the monks, "but his ways are secret."

"And it remains for you to prove," said the Rabbins, "that you have the

exclusive privilege of understanding them."

Then, proud of finding supporters to their cause, the Jews thought that

the books of Moses were going to be triumphant, when the Mobed (high

priest) of the Parses obtained leave to speak.

"We have heard," said he, "the account of the Jews and Christians of the

origin of the world; and, though greatly mutilated, we find in it some

facts which we admit. But we deny that they are to be attributed to the

legislator of the Hebrews. It was not he who made known to men these

sublime truths, these celestial events. It was not to him that God

revealed them, but to our holy prophet Zoroaster: and the proof of this

is in the very books that they refer to. Examine with attention the

laws, the ceremonies, the precepts established by Moses in those

books; you will not find the slightest indication, either expressed or

understood, of what constitutes the basis of the Jewish and Christian

theology. You nowhere find the least trace of the immortality of the

soul, or of a future life, or of heaven, or of hell, or of the revolt of

the principal angel, author of the evils of the human race. These ideas

were not known to Moses, and the reason is very obvious: it was not

till four centuries afterwards that Zoroaster first evangelized them in

Asia.*

* See the Chronology of the Twelve Ages, in which I conceive

myself to have clearly proved that Moses lived about 1,400

years before Jesus Christ, and Zoroaster about a thousand.

"Thus," continued the Mobed, turning to the Rabbins, "it was not till

after that epoch, that is to say, in the time of your first kings, that

these ideas began to appear in your writers; and then their appearance

was obscure and gradual, according to the progress of the political

relations between your ancestors and ours. It was especially when,

having been conquered by the kings of Nineveh and Babylon and

transported to the banks of the Tygris and the Euphrates, where they

resided for three successive generations, that they imbibed manners and

opinions which had been rejected as contrary to their law. When our

king Cyrus had delivered them from slavery, their heart was won to us

by gratitude; they became our disciples and imitators; and they admitted

our dogmas in the revision of their books;* for your Genesis, in

particular, was never the work of Moses, but a compilation drawn up

after the return from the Babylonian captivity, in which are inserted

the Chaldean opinions of the origin of the world.

* In the first periods of the Christian church, not only the

most learned of those who have since been denominated

heretics, but many of the orthodox conceived Moses to have

written neither the law nor the Pentateuch, but that the

work was a compilation made by the elders of the people and

the Seventy, who, after the death of Moses, collected his

scattered ordinances, and mixed with them things that were

extraneous; similar to what happened as to the Koran of

Mahomet. See Les Clementines, Homel. 2. sect. 51. and

Homel. 3. sect. 42.

Modern critics, more enlightened or more attentive than the

ancients, have found in Genesis in particular, marks of its

having been composed on the return from the captivity; but

the principal proofs have escaped them. These I mean to

exhibit in an analysis of the book of Genesis, in which I

shall demonstrate that the tenth chapter, among others,

which treats of the pretended generations of the man called

Noah, is a real geographical picture of the world, as it was

known to the Hebrews at the epoch of the captivity, which

was bounded by Greece or Hellas at the West, mount Caucasus

at the North, Persia at the East, and Arabia and Upper Egypt

at the South. All the pretended personages from Adam to

Abraham, or his father Terah, are mythological beings,

stars, constellations, countries. Adam is Bootes: Noah is

Osiris: Xisuthrus Janus, Saturn; that is to say Capricorn,

or the celestial Genius that opened the year. The

Alexandrian Chronicle says expressly, page 85, that Nimrod

was supposed by the Persians to be their first king, as

having invented the art of hunting, and that he was

translated into heaven, where he appears under the name of

Orion.

"At first the pure followers of the law, opposing to the emigrants the

letter of the text and the absolute silence of the prophet, endeavored

to repel these innovations; but they ultimately prevailed, and our

doctrine, modified by your ideas, gave rise to a new sect.

"You expected a king to restore your political independence; we

announced a God to regenerate and save mankind. From this combination of

ideas, your Essenians laid the foundation of Christianity: and whatever

your pretensions may be, Jews, Christians, Mussulmans, you are, in your

system of spiritual beings, only the blundering followers of Zoroaster."

The Mobed, then passing on to the details of his religion, quoting from

the Zadder and the Zendavesta, recounted, in the same order as they are

found in the book of Genesis, the creation of the world in six gahans,*

the formation of a first man and a first woman, in a divine place, under

the reign of perfect good; the introduction of evil into the world by

the great snake, emblem of Ahrimanes; the revolt and battles of the

Genius of evil and darkness against Ormuzd, God of good and of light;

the division of the angels into white and black, or good and bad; their

hierarchal orders, cherubim, seraphim, thrones, dominions, etc.; the end

of the world at the close of six thousand years; the coming of the

lamb, the regenerator of nature; the new world; the future life, and the

regions of happiness and misery; the passage of souls over the bridge

of the bottomless pit; the celebration of the mysteries of Mithras;

the unleavened bread which the initiated eat; the baptism of new-born

children; the unction of the dead; the confession of sins; and, in

a word, he recited so many things analagous to those of the three

preceding religions, that his discourse seemed like a commentary or a

continuation of the Koran or the Apocalypse.**

* Or periods, or in six gahan-bars, that is six periods of

time. These periods are what Zoroaster calls the thousands

of God or of light, meaning the six summer months. In the

first, say the Persians, God created (arranged in order) the

heavens; in the second the waters; in the third the earth;

in the fourth trees; in the fifth animals; and in the sixth

man; corresponding with the account in Genesis. For

particulars see Hyde, ch. 9, and Henry Lord, ch. 2, on the

religion of the ancient Persians. It is remarkable that the

same tradition is found in the sacred books of the

Etrurians, which relate that the fabricator of all things

had comprised the duration of his work in a period of twelve

thousand years, which period was distributed to the twelve

houses of the sun. In the first thousand, God made heaven

and earth; in the second the firmament; in the third the sea

and the waters; in the fourth the sun, moon and stars; in

the fifth the souls of animals, birds, and reptiles; in the

sixth man. See Suidas, at the word Tyrrhena; which shows

first the identity of their theological and astrological

opinions; and, secondly, the identity, or rather confusion

of ideas, between absolute and systematical creation; that

is, the periods assigned for renewing the face of nature,

which were at first the period of the year, and afterwards

periods of 60, of 600, of 25,000, of 36,000 and of 432,000

years.

** The modern Parses and the ancient Mithriacs, who are the

same sect, observe all the Christian sacraments, even the

laying on of hands in confirmation. The priest of Mithra,

says Tertullian, (de Proescriptione, ch. 40) promises

absolution from sin on confession and baptism; and, if I

rightly remember, Mithra marks his soldiers in the forehead,

with the chrism called in the Egyptian Kouphi; he celebrates

the sacrifice of bread, which is the resurrection, and

presents the crown to his followers, menacing them at the

same time with the sword, etc.

In these mysteries they tried the courage of the initiated

with a thousand terrors, presenting fire to his face, a

sword to his breast, etc.; they also offered him a crown,

which he refused, saying, God is my crown: and this crown is

to be seen in the celestial sphere by the side of Bootes.

The personages in these mysteries were distinguished by the

names of the animal constellations. The ceremony of mass is

nothing more than an imitation of these mysteries and those

of Eleusis. The benediction, the Lord be with you, is a

literal translation of the formula of admission chou-k, am,

p-ka. See Beausob. Hist. Du Manicheisme, vol. ii.

But the Jewish, Christian, and Mahometan doctors, crying out against

this recital, and treating the Parses as idolaters and worshippers of

fire, charged them with falsehood, interpolations, falsification of

facts; and there arose a violent dispute as to the dates of the

events, their order and succession, the origin of the doctrines, their

transmission from nation to nation, the authenticity of the books on

which they are founded, the epoch of their composition, the character

of their compilers, and the validity of their testimony. And the various

parties, pointing out reciprocally to each other, the contradictions,

improbabilities, and forgeries, accused one another of having

established their belief on popular rumors, vague traditions, and absurd

fables, invented without discernment, and admitted without examination

by unknown, partial, or ignorant writers, at uncertain or unknown

epochs.

A great murmur now arose from under the standards of the various Indian

sects; and the Bramins, protesting against the pretensions of the Jews

and the Parses, said:

"What are these new and almost unheard of nations, who arrogantly set

themselves up as the sources of the human race, and the depositaries of

its archives? To hear their calculations of five or six thousand years,

it would seem that the world was of yesterday; whereas our monuments

prove a duration of many thousands of centuries. And for what reason are

their books to be preferred to ours? Are then the Vedes, the Chastres,

and the Pourans inferior to the Bibles, the Zendavestas, and the

Zadders?* And is not the testimony of our fathers and our gods as

valid as that of the fathers and the gods of the West? Ah! if it were

permitted to reveal our mysteries to profane men! if a sacred veil did

not justly conceal them from every eye!"

These are the sacred volumes of the Hindoos; they are sometimes written

Vedams, Pouranams, Chastrans, because the Hindoos, like the Persians,

are accustomed to give a nasal sound to the terminations of their words,

which we represent by the affixes on and an, and the Portuguese by the

affixes om and am. Many of these books have been translated, thanks

to the liberal spirit of Mr. Hastings, who has founded at Calcutta a

literary society, and a printing press. At the same time, however,

that we express our gratitude to this society, we must be permitted to

complain of its exclusive spirit; the number of copies printed of each

book being such as it is impossible to purchase them even in England;

they are wholly in the hands of the East India proprietors. Scarcely

even is the Asiatic Miscellany known in Europe; and a man must be very

learned in oriental antiquity before he so much as hears of the Jones's,

the Wilkins's, and the Halhed's, etc. As to the sacred books of the

Hindoos, all that are yet in our hands are the Bhagvat Geeta, the

Ezour-Vedam, the Bagavadam, and certain fragments of the Chastres

printed at the end of the Bhagvat Geeta. These books are in Indostan

what the Old and New Testament are in Christendom, the Koran in Turkey,

the Zadder and the Zendavesta among the Parses, etc. When I have taken

an extensive survey of their contents, I have sometimes asked myself,

what would be the loss to the human race if a new Omar condemned them

to the flames; and, unable to discover any mischief that would ensue, I

call the imaginary chest that contains them, the box of Pandora.

The Bramins stopping short at these words: "How can we admit your

doctrine," said the legislator, "if you will not make it known? And how

did its first authors propagate it, when, being alone possessed of it,

their own people were to them profane? Did heaven reveal it to be kept a

secret?"*

* The Vedas or Vedams are the sacred volumes of the Hindoos,

as the Bibles with us. They are three in number; the Rick

Veda, the Yadjour Veda, and the Sama Veda; they are so

scarce in India, that the English could with great

difficulty find an original one, of which a copy is

deposited in the British Museum; they who reckon four Vedas,

include among them the Attar Veda, concerning ceremonies,

but which is lost. There are besides commentaries named

Upanishada, one of which was published by Anquetil du Peron,

and entitled Oupnekhat, a curious work. The date of these

books is more than twenty-five centuries prior to our era;

their contents prove that all the reveries of the Greek

metaphysicians come from India and Egypt. Since the year

1788, the learned men of England are working in India a mine

of literature totally unknown in Europe, and which proves

that the civilization of India ascends to a very remote

antiquity. After the Vedas come the Chastras amounting to

six. They treat of theology and the Sciences. Afterwards

eighteen Pouranas, treating of Mythology and History. See

the Bahgouet-guita, the Baga Vadam, and the Ezour-Vedam,

etc.

But the Bramins persisting in their silence: "Let them have the honor of

the secret," said a European: "Their doctrine is now divulged; we have

their books, and I can give you the substance of them."

Then beginning with an abstract of the four Vedes, the eighteen Pourans,

and the five or six Chastres, he recounted how a being, infinite,

eternal, immaterial and round, after having passed an eternity in

self-contemplation, and determining at last to manifest himself,

separated the male and female faculties which were in him, and performed

an act of generation, of which the Lingam remains an emblem; how that

first act gave birth to three divine powers, Brama, Bichen or Vichenou,

and Chib or Chiven;* whose functions were--the first to create, the

second to preserve, and the third to destroy, or change the form of

the universe. Then, detailing the history of their operations and

adventures, he explained how Brama, proud of having created the world

and the eight bobouns, or spheres of probation, thought himself superior

to Chib, his equal; how his pride brought on a battle between them, in

which these celestial globes were crushed like a basket of eggs; how

Brama, vanquished in this conflict, was reduced to serve as a pedestal

to Chib, metamorphosed into a Lingam; how Vichenou, the god mediator,

has taken at different times to preserve the world, nine mortal forms

of animals; how first, in shape of a fish, he saved from the universal

deluge a family who repeopled the earth; how afterwards, in the form of

a tortoise,** he drew from the sea of milk the mountain Mandreguiri

(the pole); then, becoming a boar, he tore the belly of the giant

Ereuniachessen, who was drowning the earth in the abyss of Djole, from

whence he drew it out with his tusks; how, becoming incarnate in a black

shepherd, and under the name of Christ-en, he delivered the world of the

enormous serpent Calengem, and then crushed his head, after having been

wounded by him in the heel.

* These names are differently pronounced according to the

different dialects; thus they say Birmah, Bremma, Brouma.

Bichen has been turned into Vichen by the easy exchange of a

B for a V, and into Vichenou by means of a grammatical

affix. In the same manner Chib, which is synonymous with

Satan, and signifies adversary, is frequently written Chiba

and Chiv-en; he is called also Rouder and Routr-en, that is,

the destroyer.

** This is the constellation testudo, or the lyre, which was

at first a tortoise, on account of its slow motion round the

Pole; then a lyre, because it is the shell of this reptile

on which the strings of the lyre are mounted. See an

excellent memoir of M. Dupuis sur l'Origine des

Constellations.

Then, passing on to the history of the secondary Genii, he related how

the Eternal, to display his own glory, created various orders of angels,

whose business it was to sing his praises and to direct the universe;

how a part of these angels revolted under the guidance of an ambitious

chief, who strove to usurp the power of God, and to govern all; how God

plunged them into a world of darkness, there to undergo the punishment

for their crimes; how at last, touched with compassion, he consented to

release them, to receive them into favor, after they should undergo a

long series of probations; how, after creating for this purpose fifteen

orbits or regions of planets, and peopling them with bodies, he ordered

these rebel angels to undergo in them eighty-seven transmigrations; he

then explained how souls, thus purified, returned to the first source,

to the ocean of life and animation from which they had proceeded; and

since all living creatures contain portions of this universal soul,

he taught how criminal it was to deprive them of it. He was finally

proceeding to explain the rites and ceremonies, when, speaking of

offerings and libations of milk and butter made to gods of copper and

wood, and then of purifications by the dung and urine of cows,

there arose a universal murmur, mixed with peals of laughter, which

interrupted the orator.

Each of the different groups began to reason on that religion: "They are

idolators," said the Mussulmans; "and should be exterminated." "They are

deranged in their intellect," said the followers of Confucius; "we

must try to cure them." "What ridiculous gods," said others, "are these

puppets, besmeared with grease and smoke! Are gods to be washed

like dirty children, from whom you must brush away the flies, which,

attracted by honey, are fouling them with their excrements!"

But a Bramin exclaimed with indignation: "These are profound

mysteries,--emblems of truth, which you are not worthy to hear."

"And in what respect are you more worthy than we?" exclaimed a Lama of

Tibet. "Is it because you pretend to have issued from the head of Brama,

and the rest of the human race from the less noble parts of his body?

But to support the pride of your distinctions of origin and castes,

prove to us in the first place that you are different from other men;

establish, in the next place, as historical facts, the allegories

which you relate; show us, indeed, that you are the authors of all this

doctrine; for we will demonstrate, if necessary, that you have only

stolen and disfigured it; that you are only the imitators of the ancient

paganism of the West; to which, by an ill assorted mixture, you have

allied the pure and spiritual doctrine of our gods--a doctrine totally

detached from the senses, and entirely unknown on earth till Beddou

taught it to the nations."*

* All the ancient opinions of the Egyptian and Grecian

theologians are to be found in India, and they appear to

have been introduced, by means of the commerce of Arabia and

the vicinity of Persia, time immemorial.

A number of groups having asked what was this doctrine, and who was this

god, of whom the greater part had never heard the name, the Lama resumed

and said:

"In the beginning, a sole-existent and self-existent God, having passed

an eternity in the contemplation of his own being, resolved to manifest

his perfections out of himself, and created the matter of the world.

The four elements being produced, but still in a state of confusion, he

breathed on the face of the waters, which swelled like an immense bubble

in form of an egg, which unfolding, became the vault or orb of heaven,

enclosing the world.* Having made the earth, and the bodies of animals,

this God, essence of motion, imparted to them a part of his own being

to animate them; for this reason, the soul of everything that breathes

being a portion of the universal soul, no one of them can perish; they

only change their form and mould in passing successively into different

bodies. Of all these forms, the one most pleasing to God is that of

man, as most resembling his own perfections. When a man, by an absolute

disengagement from his senses, is wholly absorbed in self-contemplation,

he then discovers the divinity, and becomes himself God. Of all the

incarnations of this kind that God has hitherto taken, the greatest

and most solemn was that in which he appeared thirty centuries ago in

Kachemire, under the name of Fot or Beddou, to preach the doctrines of

self-denial and self-annihilation."

* This cosmogony of the Lamas, the Bonzes, and even the

Bramins, as Henry Lord asserts, is literally that of the

ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians, says Porphyry, call Kneph,

intelligence, or efficient cause of the universe. They

relate that this God vomited an egg, from which was produced

another God named Phtha or Vulcan, (igneous principle or the

sun) and they add, that this egg is the world. Euseb.

Proep. Evang. p. 115.

They represent, says the same author in another place, the

God Kneph, or efficient cause, under the form of a man in

deep blue (the color of the sky) having in his hand a

sceptre, a belt round his body, and a small bonnet royal of

light feathers on his head, to denote how very subtile and

fugacious the idea of that being is. Upon which I shall

observe that Kneph in Hebrew signifies a wing, a feather,

and that this color of sky-blue is to be found in the

majority of the Indian Gods, and is, under the name of

Narayan, one of their most distinguishing epithets.

Then, pursuing the history of Fot, the Lama continued:

"He was born from the right flank of a virgin of royal blood, who did

not cease to be a virgin for having become a mother; that the king of

the country, uneasy at his birth, wished to destroy him, and for this

purpose ordered a massacre of all the males born at that period, that

being saved by shepherds, Beddou lived in the desert till the age of

thirty years, at which time he began his mission to enlighten men and

cast out devils; that he performed a multitude of the most astonishing

miracles; that he spent his life in fasting and severe penitence, and at

his death, bequeathed to his disciples a book containing his doctrines."

And the Lama began to read:

"He that leaveth his father and mother to follow me," says Fot, "becomes

a perfect Samanean (a heavenly man).

"He that practices my precepts to the fourth degree of perfection,

acquires the faculty of flying in the air, of moving heaven and earth,

of prolonging or shortening his life (rising from the dead).

"The Samanean despises riches, and uses only what is strictly necessary;

he mortifies his body, silences his passions, desires nothing, forms no

attachments, meditates my doctrines without ceasing, endures injuries

with patience, and bears no malice to his neighbor.

"Heaven and earth shall perish," says Fot: "despise therefore your

bodies, which are composed of the four perishable elements, and think

only of your immortal soul.

"Listen not to the flesh: fear and sorrow spring from the passions:

stifle the passions and you destroy fear and sorrow.

"Whoever dies without having embraced my religion," says Fot, "returns

among men, until he embraces it."

The Lama was going on with his reading, when the Christians interrupted

him, crying out that this was their own religion adulterated--that Fot

was no other than Jesus himself disfigured, and that the Lamas were the

Nestorians and the Manicheans disguised and bastardized.*

* This is asserted by our missionaries, and among others by

Georgi in his unfinished work of the Thibetan alphabet: but

if it can be proved that the Manicheans were but

plagiarists, and the ignorant echo of a doctrine that

existed fifteen hundred years before them, what becomes of

the declarations of Georgi? See upon this subject, Beausob.

Hist. du Manicheisme.

But the Lama, supported by the Chamans, Bonzes, Gonnis, Talapoins of

Siam, of Ceylon, of Japan, and of China, proved to the Christians, even

from their own authors, that the doctrine of the Samaneans was known

through the East more than a thousand years before the Christian era;

that their name was cited before the time of Alexander, and that Boutta,

or Beddou, was known before Jesus.*

* The eastern writers in general agree in placing the birth

of Beddou 1027 years before Jesus Christ, which makes him

the contemporary of Zoroaster, with whom, in my opinion,

they confound him. It is certain that his doctrine

notoriously existed at that epoch; it is found entire in

that of Orpheus, Pythagoras, and the Indian gymnosophists.

But the gymnosophists are cited at the time of Alexander as

an ancient sect already divided into Brachmans and

Samaneans. See Bardesanes en Saint Jerome, Epitre a Jovien.

Pythagoras lived in the ninth century before Jesus Christ;

See chronology of the twelve ages; and Orpheus is of still

greater antiquity. If, as is the case, the doctrine of

Pythagoras and that of Orpheus are of Egyptian origin, that

of Beddou goes back to the common source; and in reality the

Egyptian priests recite, that Hermes as he was dying said:

"I have hitherto lived an exile from my country, to which I

now return. Weep not for me, I ascend to the celestial

abode where each of you will follow in his turn: there God

is: this life is only death."--Chalcidius in Thinaeum.

Such was the profession of faith of the Samaneans, the

sectaries of Orpheus, and the Pythagoreans. Farther, Hermes

is no other than Beddou himself; for among the Indians,

Chinese, Lamas, etc., the planet Mercury and the

corresponding day of the week (Wednesday) bear the name of

Beddou, and this accounts for his being placed in the rank

of mythological beings, and discovers the illusion of his

pretended existence as a man; since it is evident that

Mercury was not a human being, but the Genius or Decan, who,

placed at the summer solstice, opened the Egyptian year;

hence his attributes taken from the constellation Syrius,

and his name of Anubis, as well as that of Esculapius,

having the figure of a man and the head of a dog: hence his

serpent, which is the Hydra, emblem of the Nile (Hydor,

humidity); and from this serpent he seems to have derived

his name of Hermes, as Remes (with a schin) in the oriental

languages, signifies serpent. Now Beddou and Hermes being

the same names, it is manifest of what antiquity is the

system ascribed to the former. As to the name of Samanean,

it is precisely that of Chaman, still preserved in Tartary,

China, and India. The interpretation given to it is, man of

the woods, a hermit mortifying the flesh, such being the

characteristic of this sect; but its literal meaning is,

celestial (Samaoui) and explains the system of those who are

called by it.--The system is the same as that of the

sectaries of Orpheus, of the Essenians, of the ancient

Anchorets of Persia, and the whole eastern country. See

Porphyry, de Abstin. Animal.

These celestial and penitent men carried in India their

insanity to such an extreme as to wish not to touch the

earth, and they accordingly lived in cages suspended from

the trees, where the people, whose admiration was not less

absurd, brought them provisions. During the night there

were frequent robberies, rapes and murders, and it was at

length discovered that they were committed by those men,

who, descending from their cages, thus indemnified

themselves for their restraint during the day. The Bramins,

their rivals, embraced the opportunity of exterminating

them; and from that time their name in India has been

synonymous with hypocrite. See Hist. de la Chine, in 5

vols. quarto, at the note page 30; Hist. de Huns, 2 vols.

and preface to the Ezour-Vedam.

Then, retorting the pretensions of the Christians against themselves:

"Prove to us," said the Lama, "that you are not Samaneans degenerated,

and that the man you make the author of your sect is not Fot himself

disguised. Prove to us by historical facts that he even existed at the

epoch you pretend; for, it being destitute of authentic testimony,* we

absolutely deny it; and we maintain that your very gospels are only the

books of some Mithriacs of Persia, and the Essenians of Syria, who were

a branch of reformed Samaneans."**

* There are absolutely no other monuments of the existence

of Jesus Christ as a human being, than a passage in Josephus

(Antiq. Jud. lib. 18, c.3,) a single phrase in Tacitus

(Annal. lib. 15, c. 44), and the Gospels. But the passage

in Josephus is unanimously acknowledged to be apocryphal,

and to have been interpolated towards the close of the third

century, (See Trad. de joseph, par M. Gillet); and that of

Tacitus in so vague and so evidently taken from the

deposition of the Christians before the tribunals, that it

may be ranked in the class of evangelical records. It

remains to enquire of what authority are these records.

"All the world knows," says Faustus, who, though a

Manichean, was one of the most learned men of the third

century, "All the world knows that the gospels were neither

written by Jesus Christ, nor his apostles, but by certain

unknown persons, who rightly judging that they should not

obtain belief respecting things which they had not seen,

placed at the head of their recitals the names of

contemporary apostles." See Beausob. vol. i. and Hist. des

Apologistes de la Relig. Chret. par Burigni, a sagacious

writer, who has demonstrated the absolute uncertainty of

those foundations of the Christian religion; so that the

existence of Jesus is no better proved than that of Osiris

and Hercules, or that of Fot or Beddou, with whom, says M.

de Guignes, the Chinese continually confound him, for they

never call Jesus by any other name than Fot. Hist. de Huns.

** That is to say, from the pious romances formed out of the

sacred legends of the mysteries of Mithra, Ceres, Isis,

etc., from whence are equally derived the books of the

Hindoos and the Bonzes. Our missionaries have long remarked

a striking resemblance between those books and the gospels.

M. Wilkins expressly mentions it in a note in the Bhagvat

Geeta. All agree that Krisna, Fot, and Jesus have the same

characteristic features: but religious prejudice has stood

in the way of drawing from this circumstance the proper and

natural inference. To time and reason must it be left to

display the truth.

At these words, the Christians set up a general cry, and a new dispute

was about to begin; when a number of Chinese Chamans, and Talapoins of

Siam, came forward and said that they would settle the whole

controversy. And one of them speaking for the whole exclaimed: "It is

time to put an end to these frivolous contests by drawing aside the veil

from the interior doctrine that Fot himself revealed to his disciples on

his death bed.*

* The Budsoists have two doctrines, the one public and

ostensible, the other interior and secret, precisely like

the Egyptian priests. It may be asked, why this distinction?

It is, that as the public doctrine recommends offerings,

expiations, endowments, etc., the priests find their profit

in preaching it to the people; whereas the other, teaching

the vanity of worldly things, and attended with no lucre, it

is thought proper to make it known only to adepts. Can the

teachers and followers of this religion be better classed

than under the heads of knavery and credulity?

"All these theological opinions," continued he, "are but chimeras. All

the stories of the nature of the gods, of their actions and their lives,

are but allegories and mythological emblems, under which are enveloped

ingenious ideas of morals, and the knowledge of the operations of nature

in the action of the elements and the movement of the planets.

"The truth is, that all is reduced to nothing--that all is illusion,

appearance, dream; that the moral metempsychosis is only the figurative

sense of the physical metempsychosis, or the successive movement of

the elements of bodies which perish not, but which, having composed one

body, pass when that is dissolved, into other mediums and form other

combinations. The soul is but the vital principle which results from

the properties of matter, and from the action of the elements in those

bodies where they create a spontaneous movement. To suppose that this

product of the play of the organs, born with them, matured with them,

and which sleeps with them, can subsist when they cease, is the romance

of a wandering imagination, perhaps agreeable enough, but really

chimerical.

"God itself is nothing more than the moving principle, the occult force

inherent in all beings--the sum of their laws and properties--the

animating principle; in a word, the soul of the universe; which on

account of the infinite variety of its connections and its operations,

sometimes simple, sometimes multiple, sometimes active, sometimes

passive, has always presented to the human mind an unsolvable enigma.

All that man can comprehend with certainty is, that matter does not

perish; that it possesses essentially those properties by which the

world is held together like a living and organized being; that the

knowledge of these laws with respect to man is what constitutes wisdom;

that virtue and merit consist in their observance; and evil, sin, and

vice, in the ignorance and violation of them; that happiness and misery

result from these by the same necessity which makes heavy bodies descend

and light ones rise, and by a fatality of causes and effects, whose

chain extends from the smallest atom to the greatest of the heavenly

bodies."*

* These are the very expressions of La Loubre, in his

description of the kingdom of Siam and the theology of the

Bronzes. Their dogmas, compared with those of the ancient

philosophers of Greece and Italy, give a complete

representation of the whole system of the Stoics and

Epicureans, mixed with astrological superstitious, and some

traits of Pythagorism.

At these words, a crowd of theologians of every sect cried out that this

doctrine was materialism, and that those who profess it were impious

atheists, enemies to God and man, who must be exterminated. "Very well,"

replied the Chamans, "suppose we are in error, which is not impossible,

since the first attribute of the human mind is to be subject to

illusion; but what right have you to take away from men like yourselves,

the life which Heaven has given them? If Heaven holds us guilty and in

abhorrence, why does it impart to us the same blessings as to you? And

if it treats us with forbearance, what authority have you to be less

indulgent? Pious men! who speak of God with so much certainty and

confidence, be so good as to tell us what it is; give us to comprehend

what those abstract and metaphysical beings are, which you call God and

soul, substance without matter, existence without body, life without

organs or sensation. If you know those beings by your senses or their

reflections, render them in like manner perceptible to us; or if you

speak of them on testimony and tradition, show us a uniform account, and

give a determinate basis to our creed."

There now arose among the theologians a great controversy respecting God

and his nature, his manner of acting, and of manifesting himself; on the

nature of the soul and its union with the body; whether it exists before

the organs, or only after they are formed; on the future life, and the

other world. And every sect, every school, every individual, differing

on all these points, and each assigning plausible reasons, and

respectable though opposite authorities for his opinion, they fell into

an inextricable labyrinth of contradictions.

Then the legislator, having commanded silence and recalled the dispute

to its true object, said: "Chiefs and instructors of nations; you came

together in search of truth. At first, every one of you, thinking he

possessed it, demanded of the others an implicit faith; but perceiving

the contrariety of your opinions, you found it necessary to submit them

to a common rule of evidence, and to bring them to one general term of

comparison; and you agreed that each should exhibit the proofs of his

doctrine. You began by alleging facts; but each religion and every sect,

being equally furnished with miracles and martyrs, each producing an

equal number of witnesses, and offering to support them by a voluntary

death, the balance on this first point, by right of parity, remained

equal.

"You then passed to the trial of reasoning; but the same arguments

applying equally to contrary positions--the same assertions, equally

gratuitous, being advanced and repelled with equal force, and all having

an equal right to refuse his assent, nothing was demonstrated. What

is more, the confrontation of your systems has brought up more and

extraordinary difficulties; for amid the apparent or adventitious

diversities, you have discovered a fundamental resemblance, a common

groundwork; and each of you pretending to be the inventor, and first

depositary, have taxed each other with adulterations and plagiarisms;

and thence arises a difficult question concerning the transmission of

religious ideas from people to people.

"Finally, to complete your embarrassment: when you endeavored to explain

your doctrines to each other, they appeared confused and foreign, even

to their adherents; they were founded on ideas inaccessible to your

senses; you consequently had no means of judging of them, and you

confessed yourselves in this respect to be only the echoes of your

fathers. Hence follows this other question: how came they to the

knowledge of your fathers, who themselves had no other means than you to

conceive them? So that, on the one hand, the succession of these ideas

being unknown, and on the other, their origin and existence being

a mystery, all the edifice of your religious opinions becomes a

complicated problem of metaphysics and history.

"Since, however, these opinions, extraordinary as they may be, must have

had some origin; since even the most abstract and fantastical ideas

have some physical model, it may be useful to recur to this origin, and

discover this model--in a word, to find out from what source the human

understanding has drawn these ideas, at present so obscure, of God,

of the soul, of all immaterial beings, which make the basis of so many

systems; to unfold the filiation which they have followed, and the

alterations which they have undergone in their transmissions and

ramifications. If, then, there are any persons present who have made a

study of these objects, let them come forward, and endeavor, in the face

of nations, to dissipate the obscurity in which their opinions have so

long remained."

CHAPTER XXII.

ORIGIN AND FILIATION OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS.

At these words, a new group, formed in an instant by men from various

standards, but not distinguished by any, came forward into the circle;

and one of them spoke in the name of the whole:

"Delegates, friends of evidence and virtue! It is not surprising that

the subject in question should be enveloped in so many clouds, since,

besides its inherent difficulties, thought itself has always been

encumbered with superadded obstacles peculiar to this study, where all

free enquiry and discussion have been interdicted by the intolerance of

every system. But now that our views are permitted to expand, we will

expose to open day, and submit to the judgment of nations, that which

unprejudiced minds, after long researches, have found to be the most

reasonable; and we do this, not with the pretension of imposing a new

creed, but with the hope of provoking new lights, and obtaining better

information.

"Doctors and instructors of nations! You know what thick darkness covers

the nature, the origin, the history of the dogmas which you teach.

Imposed by authority, inculcated by education, and maintained by

example, they pass from age to age, and strengthen their empire from

habit and inattention. But if man, enlightened by reflection and

experience, brings to mature examination the prejudices of his

childhood, he soon discovers a multitude of incongruities and

contradictions which awaken his sagacity and excite his reasoning

powers.

"At first, remarking the diversity and opposition of the creeds which

divide the nations, he takes courage to question the infallibility

which each of them claims, and arming himself with their reciprocal

pretensions, he conceives that his senses and his reason, derived

immediately from God, are a law not less holy, a guide not less sure,

than the mediate and contradictory codes of the prophets.

"If he then examines the texture of these codes themselves, he observes

that their laws, pretended to be divine, that is, immutable and eternal,

have arisen from circumstances of times, places, and persons; that

they have issued one from the other, in a kind of genealogical order,

borrowing from each other reciprocally a common and similar fund of

ideas, which every lawgiver modifies according to his fancy.

"If he ascends to the source of these ideas, he finds it involved in

the night of time, in the infancy of nations, even to the origin of the

world, to which they claim alliance; and there, placed in the darkness

of chaos, in the empire of fables and traditions, they present

themselves, accompanied with a state of things so full of prodigies,

that it seems to forbid all access to the judgment: but this state

itself excites a first effort of reason, which resolves the difficulty;

for if the prodigies, found in the theological systems, have really

existed--if, for instance, the metamorphoses, the apparitions, the

conversations with one or many gods, recorded in the books of the

Indians, the Hebrews, the Parses, are historical events, he must agree

that nature in those times was totally different from what it is at

present; that the present race of men are quite another species from

those who then existed; and, therefore, he ought not to trouble his head

about them.

"If, on the contrary, these miraculous events have really not existed

in the physical order of things, then he readily conceives that they are

creatures of the human intellect; and this faculty being still capable

of the most fantastical combinations, explains at once the phenomenon

of these monsters in history. It only remains, then, to find how and

wherefore they have been formed in the imagination. Now, if we examine

with care the subjects of these intellectual creations, analyze the

ideas which they combine and associate, and carefully weigh all the

circumstances which they allege, we shall find that this first obscure

and incredible state of things is explained by the laws of nature.

We find that these stories of a fabulous kind have a figurative sense

different from the apparent one; that these events, pretended to be

marvellous, are simple and physical facts, which, being misconceived or

misrepresented, have been disfigured by accidental causes dependent

on the human mind, by the confusion of signs employed to represent

the ideas, the want of precision in words, permanence in language,

and perfection in writing; we find that these gods, for instance, who

display such singular characters in every system, are only the physical

agents of nature, the elements, the winds, the stars, and the meteors,

which have been personified by the necessary mechanism of language

and of the human understanding; that their lives, their manners, their

actions, are only their mechanical operations and connections; and that

all their pretended history is only the description of these phenomena,

formed by the first naturalists who observed them, and misconceived by

the vulgar who did not understand them, or by succeeding generations who

forgot them. In a word, all the theological dogmas on the origin of the

world, the nature of God, the revelation of his laws, the manifestation

of his person, are known to be only the recital of astronomical facts,

only figurative and emblematical accounts of the motion of the heavenly

bodies. We are convinced that the very idea of a God, that idea at

present so obscure, is, in its first origin, nothing but that of the

physical powers of the universe, considered sometimes as a plurality by

reason of their agencies and phenomena, sometimes as one simple and only

being by reason of the universality of the machine and the connection of

its parts; so that the being called God has been sometimes the wind,

the fire, the water, all the elements; sometimes the sun, the stars, the

planets, and their influence; sometimes the matter of the visible

world, the totality of the universe; sometimes abstract and metaphysical

qualities, such as space, duration, motion, intelligence; and we

everywhere see this conclusion, that the idea of God has not been a

miraculous revelation of invisible beings, but a natural offspring of

the human intellect--an operation of the mind, whose progress it has

followed and whose revolutions it has undergone, in all the progress

that has been made in the knowledge of the physical world and its

agents.

"It is then in vain that nations attribute their religion to heavenly

inspirations; it is in vain that their dogmas pretend to a primeval

state of supernatural events: the original barbarity of the human race,

attested by their own monuments,* belies these assertions at once.

But there is one constant and indubitable fact which refutes beyond

contradiction all these doubtful accounts of past ages. From this

position, that man acquires and receives no ideas but through the medium

of his senses,** it follows with certainty that every notion which

claims to itself any other origin than that of sensation and experience,

is the erroneous supposition of a posterior reasoning: now, it is

sufficient to cast an eye upon the sacred systems of the origin of the

world, and of the actions of the gods, to discover in every idea, in

every word, the anticipation of an order of things which could not exist

till a long time after. Reason, strengthened by these contradictions,

rejecting everything that is not in the order of nature, and admitting

no historical facts but those founded on probabilities, lays open its

own system, and pronounces itself with assurance.

* It is the unanimous testimony of history, and even of

legends, that the first human beings were every where

savages, and that it was to civilize them, and teach them to

make bread, that the Gods manifested themselves.

** The rock on which all the ancients have split, and which

has occasioned all their errors, has been their supposing

the idea of God to be innate and co-eternal with the soul;

and hence all the reveries developed in Plato and Jamblicus.

See the Timoeus, the Phedon, and De Mysteriis Egyptiorum,

sect. I, c. 3.

"Before one nation had received from another nation dogmas already

invented; before one generation had inherited ideas acquired by a

preceding generation, none of these complicated systems could have

existed in the world. The first men, being children of nature, anterior

to all events, ignorant of all science, were born without any idea of

the dogmas arising from scholastic disputes; of rites founded on

the practice of arts not then known; of precepts framed after the

development of passions; or of laws which suppose a language, a state

of society not then in being; or of God, whose attributes all refer to

physical objects, and his actions to a despotic state of government; or

of the soul, or of any of those metaphysical beings, which we are told

are not the objects of sense, and for which, however, there can be

no other means of access to the understanding. To arrive at so many

results, the necessary circle of preceding facts must have been

observed; slow experience and repeated trials must have taught the

rude man the use of his organs; the accumulated knowledge of successive

generations must have invented and improved the means of living; and

the mind, freed from the cares of the first wants of nature, must have

raised itself to the complicated art of comparing ideas, of digesting

arguments, and seizing abstract similitudes."

I. Origin of the idea of God: Worship of the elements and of the

physical powers of nature.

"It was not till after having overcome these obstacles, and gone through

a long career in the night of history, that man, reflecting on his

condition, began to perceive that he was subjected to forces superior

to his own, and independent of his will. The sun enlightened and warmed

him, the fire burned him, the thunder terrified him, the wind beat upon

him, the water overwhelmed him. All beings acted upon him powerfully and

irresistibly. He sustained this action for a long time, like a machine,

without enquiring the cause; but the moment he began his enquiries,

he fell into astonishment; and, passing from the surprise of his first

reflections to the reverie of curiosity, he began a chain of reasoning.

"First, considering the action of the elements on him, he conceived an

idea of weakness and subjection on his part, and of power and domination

on theirs; and this idea of power was the primitive and fundamental type

of every idea of God.

"Secondly, the action of these natural existences excited in him

sensations of pleasure or pain, of good or evil; and by a natural effect

of his organization, he conceived for them love or aversion; he desired

or dreaded their presence; and fear or hope gave rise to the first idea

of religion.

"Then, judging everything by comparison, and remarking in these beings a

spontaneous movement like his own, he supposed this movement directed

by a will,--an intelligence of the nature of his own; and hence, by

induction, he formed a new reasoning. Having experienced that certain

practices towards his fellow creatures had the effect to modify their

affections and direct their conduct to his advantage, he resorted to

the same practices towards these powerful beings of the universe. He

reasoned thus with himself: When my fellow creature, stronger than I, is

disposed to do me injury, I abase myself before him, and my prayer has

the art to calm him. I will pray to these powerful beings who strike me.

I will supplicate the intelligences of the winds, of the stars, of the

waters, and they will hear me. I will conjure them to avert the evil

and give me the good that is at their disposal; I will move them by my

tears, I will soften them by offerings, and I shall be happy.

"Thus simple man, in the infancy of his reason, spoke to the sun and to

the moon; he animated with his own understanding and passions the great

agents of nature; he thought by vain sounds, and vain actions, to change

their inflexible laws. Fatal error! He prayed the stone to ascend,

the water to mount above its level, the mountains to remove, and

substituting a fantastical world for the real one, he peopled it with

imaginary beings, to the terror of his mind and the torment of his race.

"In this manner the ideas of God and religion have sprung, like all

others, from physical objects; they were produced in the mind of man

from his sensations, from his wants, from the circumstances of his life,

and the progressive state of his knowledge.

"Now, as the ideas of God had their first models in physical agents, it

followed that God was at first varied and manifold, like the form under

which he appeared to act. Every being was a Power, a Genius; and the

first men conceived the universe filled with innumerable gods.

"Again the ideas of God have been created by the affections of the human

heart; they became necessarily divided into two classes, according to

the sensations of pleasure or pain, love or hatred, which they inspired.

"The forces of nature, the gods and genii, were divided into beneficent

and malignant, good and evil powers; and hence the universality of these

two characters in all the systems of religion.

"These ideas, analogous to the condition of their inventors, were for a

long time confused and ill-digested. Savage men, wandering in the woods,

beset with wants and destitute of resources, had not the leisure to

combine principles and draw conclusions; affected with more evils than

they found pleasures, their most habitual sentiment was that of fear,

their theology terror; their worship was confined to a few salutations

and offerings to beings whom they conceived as greedy and ferocious as

themselves. In their state of equality and independence, no man offered

himself as mediator between men and gods as insubordinate and poor as

himself. No one having superfluities to give, there existed no parasite

by the name of priest, no tribute by the name of victim, no empire by

the name of altar. Their dogmas and their morals were the same thing, it

was only self-preservation; and religion, that arbitrary idea, without

influence on the mutual relations of men, was a vain homage rendered to

the visible powers of nature.

"Such was the necessary and original idea of God."

And the orator, addressing himself to the savage nations, continued:

"We appeal to you, men who have received no foreign and factitious

ideas; tell us, have you ever gone beyond what I have described? And

you, learned doctors, we call you to witness; is not this the unanimous

testimony of all ancient monuments?*

* It clearly results, says Plutarch, from the verses of

Orpheus and the sacred books of the Egyptians and Phrygians,

that the ancient theology, not only of the Greeks, but of

all nations, was nothing more than a system of physics, a

picture of the operations of nature, wrapped up in

mysterious allegories and enigmatical symbols, in a manner

that the ignorant multitude attended rather to their

apparent than to their hidden meaning, and even in what they

understood of the latter, supposed there to be something

more deep than what they perceived. Fragment of a work of

Plutarch now lost, quoted by Eusebius, Proepar. Evang. lib.

3, ch. 1, p. 83.

The majority of philosophers, says Porphyry, and among

others Haeremon (who lived in Egypt in the first age of

Christianity), imagine there never to have been any other

world than the one we see, and acknowledged no other Gods of

all those recognized by the Egyptians, than such as are

commonly called planets, signs of the Zodiac, and

constellations; whose aspects, that is, rising and setting,

are supposed to influence the fortunes of men; to which they

add their divisions of the signs into decans and dispensers

of time, whom they style lords of the ascendant, whose

names, virtues in relieving distempers, rising, setting, and

presages of future events, are the subjects of almanacs (for

be it observed, that the Egyptian priests had almanacs the

exact counterpart of Matthew Lansberg's); for when the

priests affirmed that the sun was the architect of the

universe, Chaeremon presently concludes that all their

narratives respecting Isis and Osiris, together with their

other sacred fables, referred in part to the planets, the

phases of the moon, and the revolution of the sun, and in

part to the stars of the daily and nightly hemispheres and

the river Nile; in a word, in all cases to physical and

natural existences and never to such as might be immaterial

and incorporeal. . . .

All these philosophers believe that the acts of our will and

the motion of our bodies depend on those of the stars to

which they are subjected, and they refer every thing to the

laws of physical necessity, which they call destiny or

Fatum, supposing a chain of causes and effects which binds,

by I know not what connection, all beings together, from the

meanest atom to the supremest power and primary influence of

the Gods; so that, whether in their temples or in their

idols, the only subject of worship is the power of destiny.

Porphyr. Epist. ad Janebonem.

II. Second system: Worship of the Stars, or Sabeism.

"But those same monuments present us likewise a system more methodical

and more complicated--that of the worship of all the stars; adored

sometimes in their proper forms, sometimes under figurative emblems

and symbols; and this worship was the effect of the knowledge men had

acquired in physics, and was derived immediately from the first causes

of the social state; that is, from the necessities and arts of the first

degree, which are among the elements of society.

"Indeed, as soon as men began to unite in society, it became necessary

for them to multiply the means of subsistence, and consequently to

attend to agriculture: agriculture, to be carried on with success,

requires the observation and knowledge of the heavens. It was necessary

to know the periodical return of the same operations of nature, and the

same phenomena in the skies; indeed to go so far as to ascertain the

duration and succession of the seasons and the months of the year. It

was indispensable to know, in the first place, the course of the sun,

who, in his zodiacal revolution, shows himself the supreme agent of

the whole creation; then, of the moon, who, by her phases and periods,

regulates and distributes time; then, of the stars, and even of the

planets, which by their appearance and disappearance on the horizon and

nocturnal hemisphere, marked the minutest divisions. Finally, it was

necessary to form a whole system of astronomy,* or a calendar; and from

these works there naturally followed a new manner of considering these

predominant and governing powers. Having observed that the productions

of the earth had a regular and constant relation with the heavenly

bodies; that the rise, growth, and decline of each plant kept pace with

the appearance, elevation, and declination of the same star or the same

group of stars; in short, that the languor or activity of vegetation

seemed to depend on celestial influences, men drew from thence an idea

of action, of power, in those beings, superior to earthly bodies; and

the stars, dispensing plenty or scarcity, became powers, genii,** gods,

authors of good and evil.

* It continues to be repeated every day, on the indirect

authority of the book of Genesis, that astronomy was the

invention of the children of Noah. It has been gravely

said, that while wandering shepherds in the plains of

Shinar, they employed their leisure in composing a planetary

system: as if shepherds had occasion to know more than the

polar star; and if necessity was not the sole motive of

every invention! If the ancient shepherds were so studious

and sagacious, how does it happen that the modern ones are

so stupid, ignorant, and inattentive? And it is a fact that

the Arabs of the desert know not so many as six

constellations, and understand not a word of astronomy.

** It appears that by the word genius, the ancients denoted

a quality, a generative power; for the following words,

which are all of one family, convey this meaning: generare,

genos, genesis, genus, gens.

"As the state of society had already introduced a regular hierarchy

of ranks, employments and conditions, men, continuing to reason by

comparison, carried their new notions into their theology, and formed a

complicated system of divinities by gradation of rank, in which the sun,

as first god,* was a military chief or a political king: the moon was

his wife and queen; the planets were servants, bearers of commands,

messengers; and the multitude of stars were a nation, an army of heroes,

genii, whose office was to govern the world under the orders of their

chiefs. All the individuals had names, functions, attributes, drawn from

their relations and influences; and even sexes, from the gender of their

appellations.**

* The Sabeans, ancient and modern, says Maimonides,

acknowledge a principal God, the maker and inhabitant of

heaven; but on account of his great distance they conceive

him to be inaccessible; and in imitation of the conduct of

people towards their kings, they employ as mediators with

him, the planets and their angels, whom they call princes

and potentates, and whom they suppose to reside in those

luminous bodies as in palaces or tabernacles, etc. More-

Nebuchim.

** According as the gender of the object was in the language

of the nation masculine or feminine, the Divinity who bore

its name was male or female. Thus the Cappadocians called

the moon God, and the sun Goddess: a circumstance which

gives to the same beings a perpetual variety in ancient

mythology.

"And as the social state had introduced certain usages and ceremonies,

religion, keeping pace with the social state, adopted similar ones;

these ceremonies, at first simple and private, became public and

solemn; the offerings became rich and more numerous, and the rites more

methodical; they assigned certain places for the assemblies, and began

to have chapels and temples; they instituted officers to administer

them, and these became priests and pontiffs: they established liturgies,

and sanctified certain days, and religion became a civil act, a

political tie.

"But in this arrangement, religion did not change its first principles;

the idea of God was always that of physical beings, operating good or

evil, that is, impressing sensations of pleasure or pain: the dogma was

the knowledge of their laws, or their manner of acting; virtue and sin,

the observance or infraction of these laws; and morality, in its native

simplicity, was the judicious practice of whatever contributes to the

preservation of existence, the well-being of one's self and his fellow

creatures.*

* We may add, says Plutarch, that these Egyptian priests

always regarded the preservation of health as a point of the

first importance, and as indispensably necessary to the

practice of piety and the service of the gods. See his

account of Isis and Osiris, towards the end.

"Should it be asked at what epoch this system took its birth, we shall

answer on the testimony of the monuments of astronomy itself; that

its principles appear with certainty to have been established about

seventeen thousand years ago,* and if it be asked to what people it is

to be attributed, we shall answer that the same monuments, supported

by unanimous traditions, attribute it to the first tribes of Egypt; and

when reason finds in that country all the circumstances which could lead

to such a system; when it finds there a zone of sky, bordering on the

tropic, equally free from the rains of the equator and the fogs of

the North;** when it finds there a central point of the sphere of the

ancients, a salubrious climate, a great, but manageable river, a soil

fertile without art or labor, inundated without morbid exhalations, and

placed between two seas which communicate with the richest countries, it

conceives that the inhabitant of the Nile, addicted to agriculture

from the nature of his soil, to geometry from the annual necessity of

measuring his lands, to commerce from the facility of communications,

to astronomy from the state of his sky, always open to observation, must

have been the first to pass from the savage to the social state; and

consequently to attain the physical and moral sciences necessary to

civilized life.

* The historical orator follows here the opinion of M.

Dupuis, who, in his learned memoirs concerning the Origin of

the Constellations and Origin of all Worship, has assigned

many plausible reasons to prove that Libra was formerly the

sign of the vernal, and Aries of the autumnal equinox; that

is, that since the origin of the actual astronomical system,

the precession of the equinoxes has carried forward by seven

signs the primitive order of the zodiac. Now estimating the

precession at about seventy years and a half to a degree,

that is, 2,115 years to each sign; and observing that Aries

was in its fifteenth degree, 1,447 years before Christ, it

follows that the first degree of Libra could not have

coincided with the vernal equinox more lately than 15,194

years before Christ; now, if you add 1790 years since

Christ, it appears that 16,984 years have elapsed since the

origin of the Zodiac. The vernal equinox coincided with the

first degree of Aries, 2,504 years before Christ, and with

the first degree of Taurus 4,619 years before Christ. Now

it is to be observed, that the worship of the Bull is the

principal article in the theological creed of the Egyptians,

Persians, Japanese, etc.; from whence it clearly follows,

that some general revolution took place among these nations

at that time. The chronology of five or six thousand years

in Genesis is little agreeable to this hypothesis; but as

the book of Genesis cannot claim to be considered as a

history farther back than Abraham, we are at liberty to make

what arrangements we please in the eternity that preceded.

See on this subject the analysis of Genesis, in the first

volume of New Researches on Ancient History; see also Origin

of Constellatians, by Dupuis, 1781; the Origin of Worship,

in 3 vols. 1794, and the Chronological Zodiac, 1806.

** M. Balli, in placing the first astronomers at

Selingenakoy, near the Bailkal paid no attention to this

twofold circumstance: it equally argues against their being

placed at Axoum on account of the rains, and the Zimb fly of

which Mr. Bruce speaks.

"It was, then, on the borders of the upper Nile, among a black race of

men, that was organized the complicated system of the worship of the

stars, considered in relation to the productions of the earth and the

labors of agriculture; and this first worship, characterized by their

adoration under their own forms and natural attributes, was a simple

proceeding of the human mind. But in a short time, the multiplicity of

the objects of their relations, and their reciprocal influence, having

complicated the ideas, and the signs that represented them, there

followed a confusion as singular in its cause as pernicious in its

effects."

III. Third system. Worship of Symbols, or Idolatry.

"As soon as this agricultural people began to observe the stars with

attention, they found it necessary to individualize or group them; and

to assign to each a proper name, in order to understand each other in

their designation. A great difficulty must have presented itself in

this business: First, the heavenly bodies, similar in form, offered

no distinguishing characteristics by which to denominate them; and,

secondly, the language in its infancy and poverty, had no expressions

for so many new and metaphysical ideas. Necessity, the usual stimulus

of genius, surmounted everything. Having remarked that in the annual

revolution, the renewal and periodical appearance of terrestrial

productions were constantly associated with the rising and setting

of certain stars, and to their position as relative to the sun, the

fundamental term of all comparison, the mind by a natural operation

connected in thought these terrestrial and celestial objects, which were

connected in fact; and applying to them a common sign, it gave to the

stars, and their groups, the names of the terrestrial objects to which

they answered.*

* "The ancients," says Maimonides, "directing all their

attention to agriculture, gave names to the stars derived

from their occupation during the year." More Neb. pars 3.

"Thus the Ethopian of Thebes named stars of inundation, or Aquarius,

those stars under which the Nile began to overflow;* stars of the ox or

the bull, those under which they began to plow; stars of the lion, those

under which that animal, driven from the desert by thirst, appeared on

the banks of the Nile; stars of the sheaf, or of the harvest virgin,

those of the reaping season; stars of the lamb, stars of the two kids,

those under which these precious animals were brought forth: and thus

was resolved the first part of the difficulty.

* This must have been June.

"Moreover, man having remarked in the beings which surrounded him

certain qualities distinctive and proper to each species, and having

thence derived a name by which to designate them, he found in the same

source an ingenious mode of generalizing his ideas; and transferring

the name already invented to every thing which bore any resemblance or

analogy, he enriched his language with a perpetual round of metaphors.

"Thus the same Ethiopian having observed that the return of the

inundation always corresponded with the rising of a beautiful star

which appeared towards the source of the Nile, and seemed to warn the

husbandman against the coming waters, he compared this action to that

of the animal who, by his barking, gives notice of danger, and he called

this star the dog, the barker (Sirius). In the same manner he named the

stars of the crab, those where the sun, having arrived at the tropic,

retreated by a slow retrograde motion like the crab or cancer. He

named stars of the wild goat, or Capricorn, those where the sun, having

reached the highest point in his annuary tract, rests at the summit

of the horary gnomon, and imitates the goat, who delights to climb the

summit of the rocks. He named stars of the balance, or libra, those

where the days and nights, being equal, seemed in equilibrium, like that

instrument; and stars of the scorpion, those where certain periodical

winds bring vapors, burning like the venom of the scorpion. In the same

manner he called by the name of rings and serpents the figured traces of

the orbits of the stars and the planets, and such was the general mode

of naming all the stars and even the planets, taken by groups or as

individuals, according to their relations with husbandry and terrestrial

objects, and according to the analogies which each nation found between

them and the objects of its particular soil and climate.*

* The ancients had verbs from the substantives crab, goat,

tortoise, as the French have at present the verbs serpenter,

coquetter. The history of all languages is nearly the same.

"From this it appeared that abject and terrestrial beings became

associated with the superior and powerful inhabitants of heaven; and

this association became stronger every day by the mechanism of language

and the constitution of the human mind. Men would say by a natural

metaphor: The bull spreads over the earth the germs of fecundity (in

spring) he restores vegetation and plenty: the lamb (or ram) delivers

the skies from the maleficent powers of winter; he saves the world from

the serpent (emblem of the humid season) and restores the empire of

goodness (summer, joyful season): the scorpion pours out his poison

on the earth, and scatters diseases and death. The same of all similar

effects.

"This language, understood by every one, was attended at first with no

inconvenience; but in the course of time, when the calendar had been

regulated, the people, who had no longer any need of observing the

heavens, lost sight of the original meaning of these expressions; and

the allegories remaining in common use became a fatal stumbling block to

the understanding and to reason. Habituated to associate to the symbols

the ideas of their archetypes, the mind at last confounded them: then

the same animals, whom fancy had transported to the skies, returned

again to the earth; but being thus returned, clothed in the livery of

the stars, they claimed the stellary attributes, and imposed on their

own authors. Then it was that the people, believing that they saw their

gods among them, could pray to them with more convenience: they demanded

from the ram of their flock the influences which might be expected from

the heavenly ram; they prayed the scorpion not to pour out his venom

upon nature; they revered the crab of the sea, the scarabeus of the

mud, the fish of the river; and by a series of corrupt but inseparable

analogies, they lost themselves in a labyrinth of well connected

absurdities.

"Such was the origin of that ancient whimsical worship of the animals;

such is the train of ideas by which the character of the divinity became

common to the vilest of brutes, and by which was formed that theological

system, extremely comprehensive, complicated, and learned, which,

rising on the borders of the Nile, propagated from country to country by

commerce, war, and conquest, overspread the whole of the ancient world;

and which, modified by time, circumstances and prejudices, is still seen

entire among a hundred nations, and remains as the essential and secret

basis of the theology of those even who despise and reject it."

Some murmurs at these words being heard from various groups: "Yes!"

continued the orator, "hence arose, for instance, among you, nations of

Africa, the adoration of your fetiches, plants, animals, pebbles, pieces

of wood, before which your ancestors would not have had the folly to

bow, if they had not seen in them talismans endowed with the virtue of

the stars.*

* The ancient astrologers, says the most learned of the Jews

(Maimonides), having sacredly assigned to each planet a

color, an animal, a tree, a metal, a fruit, a plant, formed

from them all a figure or representation of the star, taking

care to select for the purpose a proper moment, a fortunate

day, such as the conjunction of the star, or some other

favorable aspect. They conceived that by their magic

ceremonies they could introduce into those figures or idols

the influences of the superior beings after which they were

modeled. These were the idols that the Chaldean-Sabeans

adored; and in the performance of their worship they were

obliged to be dressed in the proper color. The astrologers,

by their practices, thus introduced idolatry, desirous of

being regarded as the dispensers of the favors of heaven;

and as agriculture was the sole employment of the ancients,

they succeeded in persuading them that the rain and other

blessings of the seasons were at their disposal. Thus the

whole art of agriculture was exercised by rules of

astrology, and the priests made talismans or charms which

were to drive away locusts, flies, etc. See Maimonides,

More Nebuchim, pars 3, c. 29.

The priests of Egypt, Persia, India, etc., pretended to bind

the Gods to their idols, and to make them come from heaven

at their pleasure. They threatened the sun and moon, if

they were disobedient, to reveal the secret mysteries, to

shake the skies, etc., etc. Euseb. Proecep. Evang. p. 198,

and Jamblicus de Mysteriis Aegypt.

"Here, ye nations of Tartary, is the origin of your marmosets, and of

all that train of animals with which your chamans ornament their magical

robes. This is the origin of those figures of birds and of snakes which

savage nations imprint upon their skins with sacred and mysterious

ceremonies.

"Ye inhabitants of India! in vain you cover yourselves with the veil

of mystery: the hawk of your god Vichenou is but one of the thousand

emblems of the sun in Egypt; and your incarnations of a god in the fish,

the boar, the lion, the tortoise, and all his monstrous adventures, are

only the metamorphoses of the sun, who, passing through the signs of the

twelve animals (or the zodiac), was supposed to assume their figures,

and perform their astronomical functions.*

* These are the very words of Jamblicus de Symbolis

Aegyptiorum, c. 2, sect. 7. The sun was the grand Proteus,

the universal metamorphist.

"People of Japan, your bull, which breaks the mundane egg, is only the

bull of the zodiac, which in former times opened the seasons, the age

of creation, the vernal equinox. It is the same bull Apis which Egypt

adored, and which your ancestors, Jewish Rabbins, worshipped in the

golden calf. This is still your bull, followers of Zoroaster, which,

sacrificed in the symbolic mysteries of Mithra, poured out his blood

which fertilized the earth. And ye Christians, your bull of the

Apocalypse, with his wings, symbol of the air, has no other origin; and

your lamb of God, sacrificed, like the bull of Mithra, for the salvation

of the world, is only the same sun, in the sign of the celestial ram,

which, in a later age, opening the equinox in his turn, was supposed to

deliver the world from evil, that is to say, from the constellation of

the serpent, from that great snake, the parent of winter, the emblem of

the Ahrimanes, or Satan of the Persians, your school masters. Yes, in

vain does your imprudent zeal consign idolaters to the torments of the

Tartarus which they invented; the whole basis of your system is only

the worship of the sun, with whose attributes you have decorated your

principal personage. It is the sun which, under the name of Horus,

was born, like your God, at the winter solstice, in the arms of the

celestial virgin, and who passed a childhood of obscurity, indigence,

and want, answering to the season of cold and frost. It is he that,

under the name of Osiris, persecuted by Typhon and by the tyrants of the

air, was put to death, shut up in a dark tomb, emblem of the hemisphere

of winter, and afterwards, ascending from the inferior zone towards the

zenith of heaven, arose again from the dead triumphant over the giants

and the angels of destruction.

"Ye priests! who murmur at this relation, you wear his emblems all over

your bodies; your tonsure is the disk of the sun; your stole is his

zodiac;* your rosaries are symbols of the stars and planets. Ye pontiffs

and prelates! your mitre, your crozier, your mantle are those of Osiris;

and that cross whose mystery you extol without comprehending it, is the

cross of Serapis, traced by the hands of Egyptian priests on the plan

of the figurative world; which, passing through the equinoxes and the

tropics, became the emblem of the future life and of the resurrection,

because it touched the gates of ivory and of horn, through which the

soul passed to heaven."

* "The Arabs," says Herodotus, "shave their heads in a

circle and about the temples, in imitation of Bacchus (that

is the sun), who shaves himself is this manner." Jeremiah

speaks also of this custom. The tuft of hair which the

Mahometans preserve, is taken also from the sun, who was

painted by the Egyptians at the winter solstice, as having

but a single hair upon his head. . . .

The robes of the goddess of Syria and of Diana of Ephesus,

from whence are borrowed the dress of the priests; have the

twelve animals of the zodiac painted on them. . . .

Rosaries are found upon all the Indian idols, constructed

more than four thousand years ago, and their use in the East

has been universal from time immemorial. . . .

The crozier is precisely the staff of Bootes or Osiris.

(See plate.)

All the Lamas wear the mitre or cap in the shape of a cone,

which was an emblem of the sun.

At these words, the doctors of all the groups began to look at each

other with astonishment; but no one breaking silence, the orator

proceeded:

"Three principal causes concur to produce this confusion of ideas:

First, the figurative expressions under which an infant language was

obliged to describe the relations of objects; expressions which, passing

afterwards from a limited to a general sense, and from a physical to a

moral one, caused, by their ambiguities and synonymes, a great number of

mistakes.

"Thus, it being first said that the sun had surmounted, or finished,

twelve animals, it was thought afterwards that he had killed them,

fought them, conquered them; and of this was composed the historical

life of Hercules.*

* See the memoir of Dupuis on the Origin of the

Constellations, before cited.

"It being said that he regulated the periods of rural labor, the seed

time and the harvest, that he distributed the seasons and occupations,

ran through the climates and ruled the earth, etc., he was taken for a

legislative king, a conquering warrior; and they framed from this the

history of Osiris, of Bacchus, and others of that description.

"Having said that a planet entered into a sign, they made of this

conjunction a marriage, an adultery, an incest.* Having said that the

planet was hid or buried, when it came back to light, and ascended to

its exaltation, they said that it had died, risen again, was carried

into heaven, etc.

* These are the very words of Plutarch in his account of

Isis and Osiris. The Hebrews say, in speaking of the

generations of the Patriarchs, et ingressus est in eam.

From this continual equivoke of ancient language, proceeds

every mistake.

"A second cause of confusion was the material figures themselves,

by which men first painted thoughts; and which, under the name of

hieroglyphics, or sacred characters, were the first invention of the

mind. Thus, to give warning of the inundation, and of the necessity of

guarding against it, they painted a boat, the ship Argo; to express the

wind, they painted the wing of a bird; to designate the season, or the

month, they painted the bird of passage, the insect, or the animal which

made its appearance at that period; to describe the winter, they painted

a hog or a serpent, which delight in humid places, and the combination

of these figures carried the known sense of words and phrases.* But as

this sense could not be fixed with precision, as the number of these

figures and their combinations became excessive, and overburdened

the memory, the immediate consequence was confusion and false

interpretations. Genius afterwards having invented the more simple

art of applying signs to sounds, of which the number is limited, and

painting words, instead of thoughts, alphabetical writing thus threw

into disuetude hieroglyphical painting; and its signification, falling

daily into oblivion, gave rise to a multitude of illusions, ambiguities,

and errors.

* The reader will doubtless see with pleasure some examples

of ancient hieroglyphics.

"The Egyptians (says Hor-appolo) represent eternity by the

figures of the sun and moon. They designate the world by

the blue serpent with yellow scales (stars, it is the

Chinese Dragon). If they were desirous of expressing the

year, they drew a picture of Isis, who is also in their

language called Sothis, or dog-star, one of the first

constellations, by the rising of which the year commences;

its inscription at Sais was, It is I that rise in the

constellation of the Dog.

"They also represent the year by a palm tree, and the month

by one of its branches, because it is the nature of this

tree to produce a branch every month. They farther

represent it by the fourth part of an acre of land." The

whole acre divided into four denotes the bissextile period

of four years. The abbreviation of this figure of a field

in four divisions, is manifestly the letter ha or het, the

seventh in the Samaritan alphabet; and in general all the

letters of the alphabet are merely astronomical

hieroglyphics; and it is for this reason that the mode of

writing is from right to left, like the march of the stars.

--"They denote a prophet by the image of a dog, because the

dog star (Anoubis) by its rising gives notice of the

inundation. Noubi, in Hebrew signifies prophet--They

represent inundation by a lion, because it takes place under

that sign: and hence, says Plutarch, the custom of placing

at the gates of temples figures of lions with water issuing

from their mouths.--They express the idea of God and destiny

by a star. They also represent God, says Porphyry, by a

black stone, because his nature is dark and obscure. All

white things express the celestial and luminous Gods: all

circular ones the world, the moon, the sun, the orbits; all

semicircular ones, as bows and crescents are descriptive of

the moon. Fire and the Gods of Olympus they represent by

pyramids and obelisks (the name of the sun, Baal, is found

in this latter word): the sun by a cone (the mitre of

Osiris): the earth, by a cylinder (which revolves): the

generative power of the air by the phalus, and that of the

earth by a triangle, emblem of the female organ. Euseb.

Proecep. Evang. p. 98.

"Clay, says Jamblicus de Symbolis, sect. 7, c. 2. denotes

matter, the generative and nutrimental power, every thing

which receives the warmth and fermentation of life."

"A man sitting upon the Lotos or Nenuphar, represents the

moving spirit (the sun) which, in like manner as that plant

lives in the water without any communication with clay,

exists equally distinct from matter, swimming in empty

space, resting on itself: it is round also in all its parts,

like the leaves, the flowers, and the fruit of the Lotos.

(Brama has the eyes of the Lotos, says Chasler Nesdirsen, to

denote his intelligence: his eye swims over every thing,

like the flower of the Lotos on the waters.) A man at the

helm of a ship, adds Jamblicus, is descriptive of the sun

which governs all. And Porphyry tells us that the sun is

also represented by a man in a ship resting upon an

amphibious crocodile (emblem of air and water).

"At Elephantine they worshipped the figure of a man in a

sitting posture, painted blue, having the head of a ram, and

the horns of a goat which encompassed a disk; all which

represented the sun and moon's conjunction at the sign of

the ram; the blue color denoting the power of the moon, at

the period of junction, to raise water into the clouds.

Euseb. Proecep. Evang. p. 116.

"The hawk is an emblem of the sun and of light, on account

of his rapid flight and his soaring into the highest regions

of the air where light abounds.

A fish is the emblem of aversion, and the Hippopotamus of

violence, because it is said to kill its father and to

ravish its mother. Hence, says Plutarch, the emblematical

inscription of the temple of Sais, where we see painted on

the vestibule, 1. A child, 2. An old man, 3. A hawk, 4. A

fish, 5. A hippopotamus: which signify, 1. Entrance, into

life, 2. Departure, 3. God, 4. Hates, 5. Injustice. See

Isis and Osiris.

"The Egyptians, adds he, represent the world by a Scarabeus,

because this insect pushes, in a direction contrary to that

in which it proceeds, a ball containing its eggs, just as

the heaven of the fixed stars causes the revolution of the

sun, (the yolk of an egg) in an opposite direction to its

own.

"They represent the world also by the number five, being

that of the elements, which, says Diodorus, are earth,

water, air, fire, and ether, or spiritus. The Indians have

the same number of elements, and according to Macrobius's

mystics, they are the supreme God, or primum mobile, the

intelligence, or mens, born of him, the soul of the world

which proceeds from him, the celestial spheres, and all

things terrestrial. Hence, adds Plutarch, the analogy

between the Greek pente, five, and pan all.

"The ass," says he again, "is the emblem of Typhon, because

like that animal he is of a reddish color. Now Typhon

signifies whatever is of a mirey or clayey nature; (and in

Hebrew I find the three words clay, red, and ass to be

formed from the same root hamr). Jamblicus has farther told

us that clay was the emblem of matter and he elsewhere adds,

that all evil and corruption proceeded from matter; which

compared with the phrase of Macrobius, all is perishable,

liable to change in the celestial sphere, gives us the

theory, first physical, then moral, of the system of good

and evil of the ancients."

"Finally, a third cause of confusion was the civil organization

of ancient states. When the people began to apply themselves to

agriculture, the formation of a rural calendar, requiring a continued

series of astronomical observations, it became necessary to appoint

certain individuals charged with the functions of watching the

appearance and disappearance of certain stars, to foretell the return of

the inundation, of certain winds, of the rainy season, the proper time

to sow every kind of grain. These men, on account of their service,

were exempt from common labor, and the society provided for their

maintenance. With this provision, and wholly employed in their

observations, they soon became acquainted with the great phenomena

of nature, and even learned to penetrate the secret of many of her

operations. They discovered the movement of the stars and planets, the

coincidence of their phases and returns with the productions of

the earth and the action of vegetation; the medicinal and nutritive

properties of plants and fruits; the action of the elements, and

their reciprocal affinities. Now, as there was no other method of

communicating the knowledge of these discoveries but the laborious one

of oral instruction, they transmitted it only to their relations and

friends, it followed therefore that all science and instruction were

confined to a few families, who, arrogating it to themselves as an

exclusive privilege, assumed a professional distinction, a corporation

spirit, fatal to the public welfare. This continued succession of the

same researches and the same labors, hastened, it is true, the progress

of knowledge; but by the mystery which accompanied it, the people were

daily plunged in deeper shades, and became more superstitious and

more enslaved. Seeing their fellow mortals produce certain phenomena,

announce, as at pleasure, eclipses and comets, heal diseases, and handle

venomous serpents, they thought them in alliance with celestial powers;

and, to obtain the blessings and avert the evils which they expected

from above, they took them for mediators and interpreters; and thus

became established in the bosom of every state sacrilegious corporations

of hypocritical and deceitful men, who centered all powers in

themselves; and the priests, being at once astronomers, theologians,

naturalists, physicians, magicians, interpreters of the gods, oracles of

men, and rivals of kings, or their accomplices, established, under the

name of religion, an empire of mystery and a monopoly of instruction,

which to this day have ruined every nation. . . ."

Here the priests of all the groups interrupted the orator, and with loud

cries accused him of impiety, irreligion, blasphemy; and endeavored to

cut short his discourse; but the legislator observing that this was only

an exposition of historical facts, which, if false or forged, would be

easily refuted; that hitherto the declaration of every opinion had been

free, and without this it would be impossible to discover the truth, the

orator proceeded:

"Now, from all these causes, and from the continual associations of

ill-assorted ideas, arose a mass of disorders in theology, in morals,

and in traditions; first, because the animals represented the stars,

the characters of the animals, their appetites, their sympathies,

their aversions, passed over to the gods, and were supposed to be their

actions; thus, the god Ichneumon made war against the god Crocodile;

the god Wolf liked to eat the god Sheep; the god Ibis devoured the

god Serpent; and the deity became a strange, capricious, and ferocious

being, whose idea deranged the judgment of man, and corrupted his morals

and his reason.

"Again, because in the spirit of their worship every family, every

nation, took for its special patron a star or a constellation, the

affections or antipathies of the symbolic animal were transferred to its

sectaries; and the partisans of the god Dog were enemies to those of the

god Wolf;* those who adored the god Ox had an abhorrence to those who

ate him; and religion became the source of hatred and hostility,--the

senseless cause of frenzy and superstition.

* These are properly the words of Plutarch, who relates that

those various worships were given by a king of Egypt to the

different towns to disunite and enslave them, and these

kings had been taken from the cast of priests. See Isis and

Osiris.

"Besides, the names of those animal-stars having, for this same reason

of patronage, been conferred on countries, nations, mountains, and

rivers, these objects were taken for gods, and hence followed a mixture

of geographical, historical, and mythological beings, which confounded

all traditions.

"Finally, by the analogy of actions which were ascribed to them, the

god-stars, having been taken for men, for heroes, for kings, kings

and heroes took in their turn the actions of gods for models, and by

imitation became warriors, conquerors, proud, lascivious, indolent,

sanguinary; and religion consecrated the crimes of despots, and

perverted the principles of government."

IV. Fourth system. Worship of two Principles, or Dualism.

"In the mean time, the astronomical priests, enjoying peace and

abundance in their temples, made every day new progress in the sciences,

and the system of the world unfolding gradually to their view, they

raised successively various hypotheses as to its agents and effects,

which became so many theological systems.

"The voyages of the maritime nations and the caravans of the nomads of

Asia and Africa, having given them a knowledge of the earth from the

Fortunate Islands to Serica, and from the Baltic to the sources of the

Nile, the comparison of the phenomena of the various zones taught them

the rotundity of the earth, and gave birth to a new theory. Having

remarked that all the operations of nature during the annual period

were reducible to two principal ones, that of producing and that of

destroying; that on the greater part of the globe these two operations

were performed in the intervals of the two equinoxes; that is to

say, during the six months of summer every thing was procreating and

multiplying, and that during winter everything languished and almost

died; they supposed in Nature two contrary powers, which were in

a continual state of contention and exertion; and considering the

celestial sphere in this view, they divided the images which

they figured upon it into two halves or hemispheres; so that the

constellations which were on the summer heaven formed a direct and

superior empire; and those which were on the winter heaven composed an

antipode and inferior empire. Therefore, as the constellations of summer

accompanied the season of long, warm, and unclouded days, and that

of fruits and harvests, they were considered as the powers of light,

fecundity, and creation; and, by a transition from a physical to a moral

sense, they became genii, angels of science, of beneficence, of purity

and virtue. And as the constellations of winter were connected with long

nights and polar fogs, they were the genii of darkness, of destruction,

of death; and by transition, angels of ignorance, of wickedness, of sin

and vice. By this arrangement the heaven was divided into two domains,

two factions; and the analogy of human ideas already opened a vast field

to the errors of imagination; but the mistake and the illusion were

determined, if not occasioned by a particular circumstance. (Observe

plate Astrological Heaven of the Ancients.)

"In the projection of the celestial sphere, as traced by the

astronomical priests,* the zodiac and the constellations, disposed in

circular order, presented their halves in diametrical opposition; the

hemisphere of winter, antipode of that of summer, was adverse, contrary,

opposed to it. By a continual metaphor, these words acquired a moral

sense; and the adverse genii, or angels, became revolted enemies.**

From that moment all the astronomical history of the constellations was

changed into a political history; the heavens became a human state,

where things happened as on the earth. Now, as the earthly states, the

greater part despotic, had already their monarchs, and as the sun was

apparently the monarch of the skies, the summer hemisphere (empire of

light) and its constellations (a nation of white angels) had for king

an enlightened God, a creator intelligent and good. And as every rebel

faction must have its chief, the heaven of winter, the subterranean

empire of darkness and woe, and its stars, a nation of black angels,

giants and demons, had for their chief a malignant genius, whose

character was applied by different people to the constellation which

to them was the most remarkable. In Egypt it was at first the Scorpion,

first zodiacal sign after Libra, and for a long time chief of the winter

signs ; then it was the Bear, or the polar Ass, called Typhon, that is

to say, deluge,** on account of the rains which deluge the earth during

the dominion of that star. At a later period,*** in Persia,**** it was

the Serpent, who, under the name of Abrimanes, formed the basis of the

system of Zoroaster; and it is the same, O Christians and Jews! that

has become your serpent of Eve (the celestial virgin,) and that of the

cross; in both cases it is the emblem of Satan, the enemy and great

adversary of the Ancient of Days, sung by Daniel.

* The ancient priests had three kinds of spheres, which it

may be useful to make known to the reader.

"We read in Eusebius," says Porphyry, "that Zoroaster was

the first who, having fixed upon a cavern pleasantly

situated in the mountains adjacent to Persia, formed the

idea of consecrating it to Mithra (the sun) creator and

father of all things: that is to say, having made in this

cavern several geometrical divisions, representing the

seasons and the elements, he imitated on a small scale the

order and disposition of the universe by Mithra. After

Zoroaster, it became a custom to consecrate caverns for the

celebration of mysteries: so that in like manner as temples

were dedicated to the Gods, rural altars to heroes and

terrestrial deities, etc., subterranean abodes to infernal

deities, so caverns and grottoes were consecrated to the

world, to the universe, and to the nymphs: and from hence

Pythagoras and Plato borrowed the idea of calling the earth

a cavern, a cave, de Antro Nympharum.

Such was the first projection of the sphere in relief;

though the Persians give the honor of the invention to

Zoroaster, it is doubtless due to the Egyptians; for we may

suppose from this projection being the most simple that it

was the most ancient; the caverns of Thebes, full of similar

pictures, tend to strengthen this opinion.

The following was the second projection: "The prophets or

hierophants," says Bishop Synnesius, "who had been initiated

in the mysteries, do not permit the common workmen to form

idols or images of the Gods; but they descend themselves

into the sacred caves, where they have concealed coffers

containing certain spheres upon which they construct those

images secretly and without the knowledge of the people, who

despise simple and natural things and wish for prodigies and

fables." (Syn. in Calvit.) That is, the ancient priests

had armillary spheres like ours; and this passage, which so

well agrees with that of Chaeremon, gives us the key to all

their theological astrology.

Lastly, they had flat models of the nature of Plate V. with

the difference that they were of a very complicated nature,

having every fictitious division of decan and subdecan, with

the hieroglyphic signs of their influence. Kircher has

given us a copy of one of them in his Egyptian Oedipus, and

Gybelin a figured fragment in his book of the calendar

(under the name of the Egyptian Zodiac). The ancient

Egyptians, says the astrologer Julius Firmicus, (Astron.

lib. ii. and lib. iv., c. 16), divide each sign of the

Zodiac into three sections; and each section was under the

direction of an imaginary being whom they called decan or

chief of ten; so that there were three decans a month, and

thirty-six a year. Now these decans, who were also called

Gods (Theoi), regulated the destinies of mankind--and they

were placed particularly in certain stars. They afterwards

imagined in every ten three other Gods, whom they called

arbiters; so that there were nine for every month, and these

were farther divided into an infinite number of powers. The

Persians and Indians made their spheres on similar plans;

and if a picture thereof were to be drawn from the

description given by Scaliger at the end of Manilius, we

should find in it a complete explanation of their

hieroglyphics, for every article forms one.

** If it was for this reason the Persians always wrote the

name of Ahrimanes inverted thus: ['Ahrimanes' upside down

and backwards].

*** Typhon, pronounced Touphon by the Greeks, is precisely

the touphan of the Arabs, which signifies deluge; and these

deluges in mythology are nothing more than winter and the

rains, or the overflowing of the Nile: as their pretended

fires which are to destroy the world, are simply the summer

season. And it is for this reason that Aristotle (De

Meteor, lib. I. c. xiv), says, that the winter of the great

cyclic year is a deluge; and its summer a conflagration.

"The Egyptians," says Porphyry, "employ every year a

talisman in remembrance of the world: at the summer solstice

they mark their houses, flocks and trees with red, supposing

that on that day the whole world had been set on fire. It

was also at the same period that they celebrated the pyrric

or fire dance." And this illustrates the origin of

purification by fire and by water; for having denominated

the tropic of Cancer the gate of heaven, and the genial heat

of celestial fire, and that of Capricorn the gate of deluge

or of water, it was imagined that the spirit or souls who

passed through these gates in their way to and from heaven,

were roasted or bathed: hence the baptism of Mithra; and the

passage through flames, observed throughout the East long

before Moses.

**** That is when the ram became the equinoctial sign, or

rather when the alteration of the skies showed that it was

no longer the bull.

"In Syria, it was the hog or wild boar, enemy of Adonis; because in that

country the functions of the Northern Bear were performed by the animal

whose inclination for mire and dirt was emblematic of winter. And this

is the reason, followers of Moses and Mahomet! that you hold him in

horror, in imitation of the priests of Memphis and Balbec, who detested

him as the murderer of their God, the sun. This likewise, O Indians!

is the type of your Chib-en; and it has been likewise the Pluto of your

brethren, the Romans and Greeks; in like manner, your Brama, God the

creator, is only the Persian Ormuzd, and the Egyptian Osiris, whose

very name expresses creative power, producer of forms. And these gods

received a worship analogous to their attributes, real or imaginary;

which worship was divided into two branches, according to their

characters. The good god receives a worship of love and joy, from which

are derived all religious acts of gaiety, such as festivals, dances,

banquets, offerings of flowers, milk, honey, perfumes; in a word,

everything grateful to the senses and to the soul.* The evil god, on

the contrary, received a worship of fear and pain; whence originated

all religious acts of the gloomy sort,** tears, desolations, mournings,

self-denials, bloody offerings, and cruel sacrifices.

* All the ancient festivals respecting the return and

exaltation of the sun were of this description: hence the

hilaria of the Roman calendar at the period of the passage,

Pascha, of the vernal equinox. The dances were imitations

of the march of the planets. Those of the Dervises still

represent it to this day.

** "Sacrifices of blood," says Porphyry, "were only offered

to Demons and evil Genii to avert their wrath. Demons are

fond of blood, humidity, stench." Apud. Euseb. Proep. Ev.,

p. 173.

"The Egyptians," says Plutarch, "only offer bloody victims

to Typhon. They sacrifice to him a red ox, and the animal

immolated is held in execration and loaded with all the sins

of the people." The goat of Moses. See Isis and Osiris.

Strabo says, speaking of Moses, and the Jews, "Circumcision

and the prohibition of certain kinds of meat sprung from

superstition." And I observe, respecting the ceremony of

circumcision, that its object was to take from the symbol of

Osiris, (Phallus) the pretended obstacle to fecundity: an

obstacle which bore the seal of Typhon, "whose nature," says

Plutarch, "is made up of all that hinders, opposes, causes

obstruction."

"Hence arose that distinction of terrestrial beings into pure and

impure, sacred and abominable, according as their species were of the

number of the constellations of one of these two gods, and made part

of his domain; and this produced, on the one hand, the superstitions

concerning pollutions and purifications; and, on the other, the

pretended efficacious virtues of amulets and talismans.

"You conceive now," continued the orator, addressing himself to the

Persians, the Indians, the Jews, the Christians, the Mussulmans, "you

conceive the origin of those ideas of battles and rebellions, which

equally abound in all your mythologies. You see what is meant by white

and black angels, your cherubim and seraphim, with heads of eagles, of

lions, or of bulls; your deus, devils, demons, with horns of goats and

tails of serpents; your thrones and dominions, ranged in seven orders or

gradations, like the seven spheres of the planets; all beings acting the

same parts, and endowed with the same attributes in your Vedas, Bibles,

and Zend-avestas, whether they have for chiefs Ormuzd or Brama, Typhon

or Chiven, Michael or Satan;--whether they appear under the form

of giants with a hundred arms and feet of serpents, or that of gods

metamorphosed into lions, storks, bulls or cats, as they are in the

sacred fables of the Greeks and Egyptians. You perceive the successive

filiation of these ideas, and how, in proportion to their remoteness

from their source, and as the minds of men became refined, their gross

forms have been polished, and rendered less disgusting.

"But in the same manner as you have seen the system of two opposite

principles or gods arise from that of symbols, interwoven into its

texture, your attention shall now be called to a new system which has

grown out of this, and to which this has served in its turn as the basis

and support.

V. Moral and Mystical Worship, or System of a Future State.

"Indeed, when the vulgar heard speak of a new heaven and another world,

they soon gave a body to these fictions; they erected therein a real

theatre of action, and their notions of astronomy and geography served

to strengthen, if not to originate, this illusion.

"On the one hand, the Phoenician navigators who passed the pillars of

Hercules, to fetch the tin of Thule and the amber of the Baltic,

related that at the extremity of the world, the end of the ocean (the

Mediterranean), where the sun sets for the countries of Asia, were the

Fortunate Islands, the abode of eternal spring; and beyond were the

hyperborean regions, placed under the earth (relatively to the tropics)

where reigned an eternal night.* From these stories, misunderstood, and

no doubt confusedly related, the imagination of the people composed the

Elysian fields,** regions of delight, placed in a world below, having

their heaven, their sun, and their stars; and Tartarus, a place of

darkness, humidity, mire, and frost. Now, as man, inquisitive of that

which he knows not, and desirous of protracting his existence, had

already interrogated himself concerning what was to become of him after

his death, as he had early reasoned on the principle of life which

animates his body, and which leaves it without deforming it, and as he

had imagined airy substances, phantoms, and shades, he fondly believed

that he should continue, in the subterranean world, that life which

it was too painful for him to lose; and these lower regions seemed

commodious for the reception of the beloved objects which he could not

willingly resign.

* Nights of six months duration.

** Aliz, in the Phoenician or Hebrew language signifies

dancing and joyous.

"On the other hand, the astrological and geological priests told

such stories and made such descriptions of their heavens, as accorded

perfectly well with these fictions. Having, in their metaphorical

language, called the equinoxes and solstices the gates of heaven, the

entrance of the seasons, they explained these terrestrial phenomena by

saying, that through the gate of horn (first the bull, afterwards the

ram) and through the gate of Cancer, descended the vivifying fires which

give life to vegetation in the spring, and the aqueous spirits which

bring, at the solstice, the inundation of the Nile; that through the

gate of ivory (Libra, formerly Sagittarius, or the bowman) and that

of Capricorn, or the urn, the emanations or influences of the heavens

returned to their source, and reascended to their origin; and the Milky

Way, which passed through the gates of the solstices, seemed to be

placed there to serve them as a road or vehicle.* Besides, in their

atlas, the celestial scene presented a river (the Nile, designated by

the windings of the hydra), a boat, (the ship Argo) and the dog Sirius,

both relative to this river, whose inundation they foretold. These

circumstances, added to the preceding, and still further explaining

them, increased their probability, and to arrive at Tartarus or Elysium,

souls were obliged to cross the rivers Styx and Acheron in the boat of

the ferryman Charon, and to pass through the gates of horn or ivory,

guarded by the dog Cerberus. Finally, these inventions were applied to a

civil use, and thence received a further consistency.

*See Macrob. Som. Scrip. c. 12.

"Having remarked that in their burning climate the putrefaction of dead

bodies was a cause of pestilential diseases, the Egyptians, in many of

their towns, had adopted the practice of burying their dead beyond the

limits of the inhabited country, in the desert of the West. To go there,

it was necessary to pass the channels of the river, and consequently

to be received into a boat, and pay something to the ferryman, without

which the body, deprived of sepulture, must have been the prey of wild

beasts. This custom suggested to the civil and religious legislators the

means of a powerful influence on manners; and, addressing uncultivated

and ferocious men with the motives of filial piety and a reverence for

the dead, they established, as a necessary condition, their undergoing

a previous trial, which should decide whether the deceased merited to

be admitted to the rank of the family in the black city. Such an idea

accorded too well with all the others, not to be incorporated with them:

the people soon adopted it; and hell had its Minos and its Rhadamanthus,

with the wand, the bench, the ushers, and the urn, as in the earthly and

civil state. It was then that God became a moral and political being,

a lawgiver to men, and so much the more to be dreaded, as this supreme

legislator, this final judge, was inaccessible and invisible. Then it

was that this fabulous and mythological world, composed of such odd

materials and disjointed parts, became a place of punishments and of

rewards, where divine justice was supposed to correct what was vicious

and erroneous in the judgment of men. This spiritual and mystical

system acquired the more credit, as it took possession of man by all his

natural inclinations. The oppressed found in it the hope of indemnity,

and the consolation of future vengeance; the oppressor, expecting by

rich offerings to purchase his impunity, formed out of the errors of the

vulgar an additional weapon of oppression; the chiefs of nations, the

kings and priests, found in this a new instrument of domination by the

privilege which they reserved to themselves of distributing the favors

and punishments of the great judge, according to the merit or demerit

of actions, which they took care to characterize as best suited their

system.

"This, then, is the manner in which an invisible and imaginary world

has been introduced into the real and visible one; this is the origin of

those regions of pleasure and pain, of which you Persians have made your

regenerated earth, your city of resurrection, placed under the equator,

with this singular attribute, that in it the blessed cast no shade.* Of

these materials, Jews and Christians, disciples of the Persians, have

you formed your New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, your paradise, your

heaven, copied in all its parts from the astrological heaven of Hermes:

and your hell, ye Mussulmans, your bottomless pit, surmounted by a

bridge, your balance for weighing souls and good works, your last

judgment by the angels Monkir and Nekir, are likewise modeled from the

mysterious ceremonies of the cave of Mithras** and your heaven differs

not in the least from that of Osiris, of Ormuzd, and of Brama.

* There is on this subject a passage in Plutarch, so

interesting and explanatory of the whole of this system,

that we shall cite it entire. Having observed that the

theory of good and evil had at all times occupied the

attention of philosophers and theologians, he adds: "Many

suppose there to be two gods of opposite inclinations, one

delighting in good, the other in evil; the first of these is

called particularly by the name of God, the second by that

of Genius or Demon. Zoroaster has denominated them Oromaze

and Ahrimanes, and has said that of whatever falls under the

cognizance of our senses, light is the best representation

of the one, and darkness and ignorance of the other. He

adds, that Mithra is an intermediate being, and it is for

this reason the Persians call Mithra the mediator or

intermediator. Each of these Gods has distinct plants and

animals consecrated to him: for example, dogs, birds and

hedge-hogs belong to the good Genius, and all aquatic

animals to the evil one.

"The Persians also say, that Oromaze was born or formed out

of the purest light; Ahrimanes, on the contrary, out of the

thickest darkness: that Oromaze made six gods as good as

himself, and Ahrimanes opposed to them six wicked ones: that

Oromaze afterwards multiplied himself threefold (Hermes

trismegistus) and removed to a distance as remote from the

sun as the sun is remote from the earth that he there formed

stars, and, among others, Sirius, which he placed in the

heavens as a guard and sentinel. He made also twenty-four

other Gods, which he inclosed in an egg; but Ahrimanes

created an equal number on his part, who broke the egg, and

from that moment good and evil were mixed (in the universe).

But Ahrimanes is one day to be conquered, and the earth to

be made equal and smooth, that all men may live happy.

"Theopompus adds, from the books of the Magi, that one of

these Gods reigns in turn every three thousand years during

which the other is kept in subjection; that they afterwards

contend with equal weapons during a similar portion of time,

but that in the end the evil Genius will fall (never to rise

again). Then men will become happy, and their bodies cast

no shade. The God who mediates all these things reclines at

present in repose, waiting till he shall be pleased to

execute them." See Isis and Osiris.

There is an apparent allegory through the whole of this

passage. The egg is the fixed sphere, the world: the six

Gods of Oromaze are the six signs of summer, those of

Ahrimanes the six signs of winter. The forty-eight other

Gods are the forty-eight constellations of the ancient

sphere, divided equally between Ahrimanes and Oronmze. The

office of Sirius, as guard and sentinel, tells us that the

origin of these ideas was Egyptian: finally, the expression

that the earth is to become equal and smooth, and that the

bodies of happy beings are to cast no shade, proves that the

equator was considered as their true paradise.

** In the caves which priests every where constructed, they

celebrated mysteries which consisted (says Origen against

Celsus) in imitating the motion of the stars, the planets

and the heavens. The initiated took the name of

constellations, and assumed the figures of animals. One was

a lion, another a raven, and a third a ram. Hence the use

of masks in the first representation of the drama. See Ant.

Devoile, vol. iii., p. 244. "In the mysteries of Ceres the

chief in the procession called himself the creator; the

bearer of the torch was denominated the sun; the person

nearest to the altar, the moon; the herald or deacon,

Mercury. In Egypt there was a festival in which the men and

women represented the year, the age, the seasons, the

different parts of the day, and they walked in precession

after Bacchus. Athen. lib. v., ch. 7. In the cave of

Mithra was a ladder with seven steps, representing the seven

spheres of the planets, by means of which souls ascended and

descended. This is precisely the ladder in Jacob's vision,

which shows that at that epoch a the whole system was

formed. There is in the French king's library a superb

volume of pictures of the Indian Gods, in which the ladder

is represented with the souls of men mounting it."

VI. Sixth System. The Animated World, or Worship of the Universe under

diverse Emblems.

"While the nations were wandering in the dark labyrinth of mythology and

fables, the physical priests, pursuing their studies and enquiries into

the order and disposition of the universe, came to new conclusions, and

formed new systems concerning powers and first causes.

"Long confined to simple appearances, they saw nothing in the movement

of the stars but an unknown play of luminous bodies rolling round the

earth, which they believed the central point of all the spheres; but as

soon as they discovered the rotundity of our planet, the consequences

of this first fact led them to new considerations; and from induction to

induction they rose to the highest conceptions in astronomy and physics.

"Indeed, after having conceived this luminous idea, that the terrestrial

globe is a little circle inscribed in the greater circle of the heavens,

the theory of concentric circles came naturally into their hypothesis,

to determine the unknown circle of the terrestrial globe by certain

known portions of the celestial circle; and the measurement of one

or more degrees of the meridian gave with precision the whole

circumference. Then, taking for a compass the known diameter of

the earth, some fortunate genius applied it with a bold hand to the

boundless orbits of the heavens; and man, the inhabitant of a grain of

sand, embracing the infinite distances of the stars, launches into the

immensity of space and the eternity of time: there he is presented with

a new order of the universe of which the atom-globe which he inhabited

appeared no longer to be the centre; this important post was reserved to

the enormous mass of the sun; and that body became the flaming pivot of

eight surrounding spheres, whose movements were henceforth subjected to

precise calculations.

"It was indeed a great effort for the human mind to have undertaken to

determine the disposition and order of the great engines of nature; but

not content with this first effort, it still endeavored to develop the

mechanism, and discover the origin and the instinctive principle. Hence,

engaged in the abstract and metaphysical nature of motion and its

first cause, of the inherent or incidental properties of matter, its

successive forms and its extension, that is to say, of time and space

unbounded, the physical theologians lost themselves in a chaos of

subtile reasoning and scholastic controversy.*

* Consult the Ancient Astronomy of M. Bailly, and you will

find our assertions respecting the knowledge of the priests

amply proved.

"In the first place, the action of the sun on terrestrial bodies,

teaching them to regard his substance as a pure and elementary fire,

they made it the focus and reservoir of an ocean of igneous and luminous

fluid, which, under the name of ether, filled the universe and nourished

all beings. Afterwards, having discovered, by a physical and attentive

analysis, this same fire, or another perfectly resembling it, in the

composition of all bodies, and having perceived it to be the essential

agent of that spontaneous movement which is called life in animals and

vegetation in plants, they conceived the mechanism and harmony of the

universe, as of a homogeneous whole, of one identical body, whose parts,

though distant, had nevertheless an intimate relation;* and the world

was a living being, animated by the organic circulation of an igneous

and even electrical fluid,** which, by a term of comparison borrowed

first from men and animals, had the sun for a heart and a focus.***

* These are the very words of Jamblicus. De Myst. Egypt.

** The more I consider what the ancients understood by ether

and spirit, and what the Indians call akache, the stronger

do I find the analogy between it and the electrial fluid. A

luminous fluid, principle of warmth and motion, pervading

the universe, forming the matter of the stars, having small

round particles, which insinuate themselves into bodies, and

fill them by dilating itself, be their extent what it will.

What can more strongly resemble electricity?

*** Natural philosophers, says Macrobius, call the sun the

heart of the world. Som. Scrip. c. 20. The Egyptians, says

Plutarch, call the East the face, the North the right side,

and the South the left side of the world, because there the

heart is placed. They continually compare the universe to a

man; and hence the celebrated microcosm of the Alchymists.

We observe, by the bye, that the Alchymists, Cabalists,

Free-masons, Magnetisers, Martinists, and every other such

sort of visionaries, are but the mistaken disciples of this

ancient school: we say mistaken, because, in spite of their

pretensions, the thread of the occult science is broken.

"From this time the physical theologians seem to have divided into

several classes; one class, grounding itself on these principles

resulting from observation; that nothing can be annihilated in the

world; that the elements are indestructible; that they change their

combinations but not their nature; that the life and death of beings are

but the different modifications of the same atoms; that matter itself

possesses properties which give rise to all its modes of existence; that

the world is eternal,* or unlimited in space and duration; said that the

whole universe was God; and, according to them, God was a being, effect

and cause, agent and patient, moving principle and thing moved, having

for laws the invariable properties that constitute fatality; and this

class conveyed their idea by the emblem of Pan (the great whole); or of

Jupiter, with a forehead of stars, body of planets, and feet of animals;

or of the Orphic Egg,** whose yolk, suspended in the center of a liquid,

surrounded by a vault, represented the globe of the sun, swimming in

ether in the midst of the vault of heaven;*** sometimes by a great

round serpent, representing the heavens where they placed the moving

principle, and for that reason of an azure color, studded with spots

of gold, (the stars) devouring his tail--that is, folding and unfolding

himself eternally, like the revolutions of the spheres; sometimes by

that of a man, having his feet joined together and tied, to signify

immutable existence, wrapped in a cloak of all colors, like the face

of nature, and bearing on his head a sphere of gold,**** emblem of the

sphere of the stars; or by that of another man, sometimes seated on the

flower of the lotos borne on the abyss of waters, sometimes lying on a

pile of twelve cushions, denoting the twelve celestial signs. And here,

Indians, Japanese, Siamese, Tibetans, and Chinese, is the theology,

which, founded by the Egyptians and transmitted to you, is preserved in

the pictures which you compose of Brama, of Beddou, of Somona-Kodom of

Omito. This, ye Jews and Christians, is likewise the opinion of which

you have preserved a part in your God moving on the face of the waters,

by an allusion to the wind*5 which, at the beginning of the world, that

is, the departure of the sun from the sign of Cancer, announced the

inundation of the Nile, and seemed to prepare the creation."

* See the Pythagorean, Ocellus Lacunus.

** Vide Oedip. Aegypt. Tome II., page 205.

*** This comparison of the sun with the yolk of an egg

refers: 1. To its round and yellow figure; 2. To its central

situation; 3. To the germ or principle of life contained in

the yolk. May not the oval form of the egg allude to the

elipsis of the orbs? I am inclined to this opinion. The

word Orphic offers a farther observation. Macrobius says

(Som. Scrip. c. 14. and c. 20), that the sun is the brain of

the universe, and that it is from analogy that the skull of

a human being is round, like the planet, the seat of

intelligence. Now the word Oerph signifies in Hebrew the

brain and its seat (cervix): Orpheus, then, is the same as

Bedou or Baits; and the Bonzes are those very Orphics which

Plutarch represents as quacks, who ate no meat, vended

talismans and little stones, and deceived individuals, and

even governments themselves. See a learned memoir of Freret

sur les Orphiques, Acad. des Inscrp. vol. 25, in quarto.

**** See Porphyry in Eusebus. Proep. Evang., lib. 3, p. 115.

*5 The Northern or Etesian wind, which commences regularly

at the solstice, with the inundation.

VII. Seventh System. Worship of the SOUL of the WORLD, that is to say,

the Element of Fire, vital Principle of the Universe.

"But others, disgusted at the idea of a being at once effect and cause,

agent and patient, and uniting contrary natures in the same nature,

distinguished the moving principle from the thing moved; and premising

that matter in itself was inert they pretended that its properties were

communicated to it by a distinct agent, of which itself was only the

cover or the case. This agent was called by some the igneous principle,

known to be the author of all motion; by others it was supposed to be

the fluid called ether, which was thought more active and subtile;

and, as in animals the vital and moving principle was called a soul, a

spirit, and as they reasoned constantly by comparisons, especially

those drawn from human beings, they gave to the moving principle of the

universe the name of soul, intelligence, spirit; and God was the vital

spirit, which extended through all beings and animated the vast body of

the world. And this class conveyed their idea sometimes by Youpiter,*

essence of motion and animation, principle of existence, or rather

existence itself; sometimes by Vulcan or Phtha, elementary principle of

fire; or by the altar of Vesta, placed in the center of her temple like

the sun in the heavens; sometimes by Kneph, a human figure, dressed in

dark blue, having in one hand a sceptre and a girdle (the zodiac), with

a cap of feathers to express the fugacity of thought, and producing from

his mouth the great egg.

* This is the true pronunciation of the Jupiter of the

Latins. . . . Existence itself. This is the signification

of the word You.

"Now, as a consequence of this system, every being containing in itself

a portion of the igneous and etherial fluid, common and universal mover,

and this fluid soul of the world being God, it followed that the

souls of all beings were portions of God himself partaking of all

his attributes, that is, being a substance indivisible, simple, and

immortal; and hence the whole system of the immortality of the soul,

which at first was eternity.*

* In the system of the first spiritualists, the soul was not

created with, or at the same time as the body, in order to

be inserted in it: its existence was supposed to be anterior

and from all eternity. Such, in a few words, is the

doctrine of Macrobius on this head. Som. Seip. passim.

"There exists a luminous, igneous, subtile fluid, which

under the name of ether and spiritus, fills the universe.

It is the essential principle and agent of motion and life,

it is the Deity. When an earthly body is to be animated, a

small round particle of this fluid gravitates through the

milky way towards the lunar sphere; where, when it arrives,

it unites with a grosser air, and becomes fit to associate

with matter: it then enters and entirely fills the body,

animates it, suffers, grows, increases, and diminishes with

it; lastly, when the body dies, and its gross elements

dissolve, this incorruptible particle takes its leave of it,

and returns to the grand ocean of ether, if not retained by

its union with the lunar air: it is this air or gas, which,

retaining the shape of the body, becomes a phantom or ghost,

the perfect representation of the deceased. The Greeks

called this phantom the image or idol of the soul; the

Pythagoreans, its chariot, its frame; and the Rabbinical

school, its vessel, or boat. When a man had conducted

himself well in this world, his whole soul, that is its

chariot and ether, ascended to the moon, where a separation

took place: the chariot lived in the lunar Elysium, and the

ether returned to the fixed sphere, that is, to God: for the

fixed heaven, says Macrobius, was by many called by the name

of God (c. 14). If a man had not lived virtuously, the soul

remained on earth to undergo purification, and was to wander

to and fro, like the ghosts of Homer, to whom this doctrine

must have been known, since he wrote after the time of

Pherecydes and Pythagoras, who were its promulgators in

Greece. Herodotus upon this occasion says, that the whole

romance of the soul and its transmigrations was invented by

the Egyptians, and propagated in Greece by men, who

pretended to be its authors. I know their names, adds he,

but shall not mention them (lib. 2). Cicero, however, has

positively informed us, that it was Pherecydes, master of

Pythagoras. Tuscul. lib. 1, sect. 16. Now admitting that

this system was at that period a novelty, it accounts for

Solomon's treating it as a fable, who lived 130 years before

Pherecydes. 'Who knoweth,' said he, 'the spirit of a man

that it goeth upwards? I said in my heart concerning the

estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them and

that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For

that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; even

one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the

other; yea they have all one breath, so that a man hath no

pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity.'" Eccles. c.

iii: v. 18.

And such had been the opinion of Moses, as a translator of

Herodotus (M. Archer of the Academy of Inscriptions) justly

observes in note 389 of the second book; where he says also

that the immortality of the soul was not introduced among

the Hebrews till their intercourse with the Assyrians. In

other respects, the whole Pythagorean system, properly

analysed, appears to be merely a system of physics badly

understood.

"Hence, also its transmigrations, known by the name of metempsychosis,

that is, the passage of the vital principle from one body to another; an

idea which arose from the real transmigration of the material elements.

And behold, ye Indians, ye Boudhists, ye Christians, ye Mussulmans!

whence are derived all your opinions on the spirituality of the soul;

behold what was the source of the dreams of Pythagoras and Plato, your

masters, who were themselves but the echoes of another, the last sect of

visionary philosophers, which we will proceed to examine.

VIII. Eighth system. The WORLD-MACHINE: Worship of the Demi-Ourgos, or

Grand Artificer.

"Hitherto the theologians, employing themselves in examining the

fine and subtile substances of ether or the generating fire, had not,

however, ceased to treat of beings palpable and perceptible to the

senses; and theology continued to be the theory of physical powers,

placed sometimes exclusively in the stars, and sometimes disseminated

through the universe; but at this period, certain superficial minds,

losing the chain of ideas which had directed them in their profound

studies, or ignorant of the facts on which they were founded, distorted

all the conclusions that flowed from them by the introduction of a

strange and novel chimera. They pretended that this universe, these

heavens, these stars, this sun, differed in no respect from an ordinary

machine; and applying to this first hypothesis a comparison drawn from

the works of art, they raised an edifice of the most whimsical sophisms.

A machine, said they, does not make itself; it has had an anterior

workman; its very existence proves it. The world is a machine; therefore

it had an artificer.*

* All the arguments of the spiritualists are founded on

this. See Macrobius, at the end of the second book, and

Plato, with the comments of Marcilius Ficinus.

"Here, then, is the Demi-Ourgos or grand artificer, constituted God

autocratical and supreme. In vain the ancient philosophy objected to

this by saying that the artificer himself must have had parents and

progenitors; and that they only added another step to the ladder by

taking eternity from the world, and giving it to its supposed author.

The innovators, not content with this first paradox, passed on to

a second; and, applying to their artificer the theory of the human

understanding, they pretended that the Demi-Ourgos had framed his

machine on a plan already existing in his understanding. Now, as their

masters, the naturalists, had placed in the regions of the fixed stars

the great primum mobile, under the name of intelligence and reason, so

their mimics, the spiritualists, seizing this idea, applied it to their

Demi-Ourgos, and making it a substance distinct and self-existent, they

called it mens or logos (reason or word). And, as they likewise admitted

the existence of the soul of the world, or solar principle, they found

themselves obliged to compose three grades of divine beings, which were:

first, the Demi-Ourgos, or working god; secondly, the logos, word

or reason; thirdly, the spirit or soul (of the world).* And here,

Christians! is the romance on which you have founded your trinity; here

is the system which, born a heretic in the temples of Egypt, transported

a pagan into the schools of Greece and Italy, is now found to be

good, catholic, and orthodox, by the conversion of its partisans, the

disciples of Pythagoras and Plato, to Christianity.

* These are the real types of the Christian Trinity.

"It is thus that God, after having been, First, The visible and various

action of the meteors and the elements;

"Secondly, The combined powers of the stars, considered in their

relations to terrestrial beings;

Thirdly, These terrestrial beings themselves, by confounding the symbols

with their archetypes;

Fourthly, The double power of nature in its two principal operations of

producing and destroying;

"Fifthly, The animated world, with distinction of agent and patient, of

effect and cause;

"Sixthly, The solar principle, or the element of fire considered as the

only mover;

"Has thus become, finally, in the last resort, a chimerical and abstract

being, a scholastic subtilty, of substance without form, a body without

a figure, a very delirium of the mind, beyond the power of reason to

comprehend. But vainly does it seek in this last transformation to elude

the senses; the seal of its origin is imprinted upon it too deep to be

effaced; and its attributes, all borrowed from the physical attributes

of the universe, such as immensity, eternity, indivisibility,

incomprehensibility; or on the moral affections of man, such as

goodness, justice, majesty; its names* even, all derived from the

physical beings which were its types, and especially from the sun, from

the planets, and from the world, constantly bring to mind, in spite of

its corrupters, indelible marks of its real nature.

* In our last analysis we found all the names of the Deity

to be derived from some material object in which it was

supposed to reside. We have given a considerable number of

instances; let us add one more relative to our word God.

This is known to be the Deus of the Latins, and the Theos of

the Greeks. Now by the confession of Plato (in Cratylo), of

Macrobius (Saturn, lib. 1, c. 24,) and of Plutarch (Isis and

Osiris) its root is thein, which signifies to wander, like

planein, that is to say, it is synonymous with planets;

because, add our authors, both the ancient Greeks and

Barbarians particularly worshipped the planets. I know that

such enquiries into etymologies have been much decried: but

if, as is the case, words are the representative signs of

ideas, the genealogy of the one becomes that of the other,

and a good etymological dictionary would be the most perfect

history of the human understanding. It would only be

necessary in this enquiry to observe certain precautions,

which have hitherto been neglected, and particularly to make

an exact comparison of the value of the letters of the

different alphabets. But, to continue our subject, we shall

add, that in the Phoenician language, the word thah (with

ain) signifies also to wander, and appears to be the

derivation of thein. If we suppose Deus to be derived from

the Greek Zeus, a proper name of You-piter, having zaw, I

live, for its root, its sense will be precisely that of you,

and will mean soul of the world, igneous principle. (See

note p. 143). Div-us, which only signifies Genius, God of

the second order, appears to me to come from the oriental

word div substituted for dib, wolf and chacal, one of the

emblems of the sun. At Thebes, says Macrobius, the sun was

painted under the form of a wolf or chacal, for there are no

wolves in Egypt. The reason of this emblem, doubtless, is

that the chacal, like the cock announces by its cries the

sun's rising; and this reason is confirmed by the analogy of

the words lykos, wolf, and lyke, light of the morning,

whence comes lux.

Dius, which is to be understood also of the sun, must be

derived from dih, a hawk. "The Egyptians," says Porphyry

(Euseb. Proecep. Evang. p. 92,) "represent the sun under the

emblem of a hawk, because this bird soars to the highest

regions of air where light abounds." And in reality we

continually see at Cairo large flights of these birds,

hovering in the air, from whence they descend not but to

stun us with their shrieks, which are like the monosyllable

dih: and here, as in the preceding example, we find an

analogy between the word dies, day, light, and dius, god,

sun.

"Such is the chain of ideas which the human mind had already run

through at an epoch previous to the records of history; and since their

continuity proves that they were the produce of the same series of

studies and labors, we have every reason to place their origin in Egypt,

the cradle of their first elements. This progress there may have been

rapid; because the physical priests had no other food, in the retirement

of the temples, but the enigma of the universe, always present to their

minds; and because in the political districts into which that country

was for a long time divided, every state had its college of priests,

who, being by turns auxiliaries or rivals, hastened by their disputes

the progress of science and discovery.*

* One of the proofs that all these systems were invented in

Egypt, is that this is the only country where we see a

complete body of doctrine formed from the remotest

antiquity.

Clemens Alexandrinus has transmitted to us (Stromat. lib.

6,) a curious detail of the forty-two volumes which were

borne in the procession of Isis. "The priest," says he, "or

chanter, carries one of the symbolic instruments of music,

and two of the books of Mercury; one containing hymns of the

gods, the other the list of kings. Next to him the

horoscope (the regulator of time,) carries a palm and a

dial, symbols of astrology; he must know by heart the four

books of Mercury which treat of astrology: the first on the

order of the planets, the second on the risings of the sun

and moon, and the two last on the rising and aspect of the

stars. Then comes the sacred author, with feathers on his

head (like Kneph) and a book in his hand, together with ink,

and a reed to write with, (as is still the practice among

the Arabs). He must be versed in hieroglyphics, must

understand the description of the universe, the course of

the sun, moon, stars, and planets, be acquainted with the

division of Egypt into thirty-six nomes, with the course of

the Nile, with instruments, measures, sacred ornaments, and

sacred places. Next comes the stole bearer, who carries the

cubit of justice, or measure of the Nile, and a cup for the

libations; he bears also in the procession ten volumes on

the subject of sacrifices, hymns, prayers, offerings,

ceremonies, festivals. Lastly arrives the prophet, bearing

in his bosom a pitcher, so as to be exposed to view; he is

followed by persons carrying bread (as at the marriage of

Cana.) This prophet, as president of the mysteries, learns

ten other sacred volumes, which treat of the laws, the gods,

and the discipline of the priests. Now there are in all

forty-two volumes, thirty-six of which are studied and got

by heart by these personages, and the remaining six are set

apart to be consulted by the pastophores; they treat of

medicine, the construction of the human body (anatomy),

diseases, remedies, instruments, etc., etc."

We leave the reader to deduce all the consequences of an

Encyclopedia. It is ascribed to Mercury; but Jamblicus

tells us that each book, composed by priests, was dedicated

to that god, who, on account of his title of genius or decan

opening the zodiac, presided over every enterprise. He is

the Janus of the Romans, and the Guianesa of the Indians,

and it is remarkable that Yanus and Guianes are homonymous.

In short it appears that these books are the source of all

that has been transmitted to us by the Greeks and Latins in

every science, even in alchymy, necromancy, etc. What is

most to be regretted in their loss is that part which

related to the principles of medicine and diet, in which the

Egyptians appear to have made a considerable progress, and

to have delivered many useful observations.

"There happened early on the borders of the Nile, what has since been

repeated in every country; as soon as a new system was formed

its novelty excited quarrels and schisms; then, gaining credit by

persecution itself, sometimes it effaced antecedent ideas, sometimes it

modified and incorporated them; then, by the intervention of political

revolutions, the aggregation of states and the mixture of nations

confused all opinions; and the filiation of ideas being lost, theology

fell into a chaos, and became a mere logogriph of old traditions no

longer understood. Religion, having strayed from its object was now

nothing more than a political engine to conduct the credulous vulgar;

and it was used for this purpose, sometimes by men credulous themselves

and dupes of their own visions, and sometimes by bold and energetic

spirits in pursuit of great objects of ambition.

IX. Religion of Moses, or Worship of the Soul of the World (You-piter).

"Such was the legislator of the Hebrews; who, wishing to separate his

nation from all others, and to form a distinct and solitary empire,

conceived the design of establishing its basis on religious prejudices,

and of raising around it a sacred rampart of opinions and of rites. But

in vain did he prescribe the worship of the symbols which prevailed in

lower Egypt and in Phoenicia;* for his god was nevertheless an Egyptian

god, invented by those priests of whom Moses had been the disciple; and

Yahouh,** betrayed by its very name, essence (of beings), and by its

symbol, the burning bush, is only the soul of the world, the

moving principle which the Greeks soon after adopted under the same

denomination in their you-piter, regenerating being, and under that of

Ei, existence,*** which the Thebans consecrated by the name of Kneph,

which Sais worshipped under the emblem of Isis veiled, with this

inscription: I am al that has been, all that is, and all that is to

come, and no mortal has raised my veil; which Pythagoras honored under

the name of Vesta, and which the stoic philosophy defined precisely by

calling it the principle of fire. In vain did Moses wish to blot from

his religion every thing which had relation to the stars; many traits

call them to mind in spite of all he has done. The seven planetary

luminaries of the great candlestick; the twelve stones, or signs in the

Urim of the high priests; the feast of the two equinoxes, (entrances and

gates of the two hemispheres); the ceremony of the lamb, (the celestial

ram then in his fifteenth degree); lastly, the name even of Osiris

preserved in his song,**** and the ark, or coffer, an imitation of the

tomb in which that God was laid, all remain as so many witnesses of the

filiation of his ideas, and of their extraction from the common source.

* "At a certain period," says Plutarch (de Iside) "all the

Egyptians have their animal gods painted. The Thebans are

the only people who do not employ painters, because they

worship a god whose form comes not under the senses, and

cannot be represented." And this is the god whom Moses,

educated at Heliopolis, adopted; but the idea was not of his

invention.

** Such is the true pronunciation of the Jehovah of the

moderns, who violate, in this respect, every rule of

criticism; since it is evident that the ancients,

particularly the eastern Syrians and Phoenicians, were

acquainted neither with the J nor the P which are of Tartar

origin. The subsisting usage of the Arabs, which we have

re-established here, is confirmed by Diodorus, who calls the

god of Moses Iaw, (lib. 1), and Iaw and Yahouh are

manifestly the same word: the identity continues in that of

You-piter; but in order to render it more complete, we shall

demonstrate the signification to be the same.

In Hebrew, that is to say, in one of the dialects of the

common language of lower Asia, Yahouh is the participle of

the verb hih, to exist, to be, and signifies existing: in

other words, the principle of life, the mover or even motion

(the universal soul of beings). Now what is Jupiter? Let

us hear the Greeks and Latins explain their theology. "The

Egyptians," says Diodorus, after Manatho, priest of Memphis,

"in giving names to the five elements, called spirit, or

ether, You-piter, on account of the true meaning of that

word: for spirit is the source of life, author of the vital

principle in animals; and for this reason they considered

him as the father, the generator of beings." For the same

reason Homer says, father, and king of men and gods. (Diod.

lib. 1, sect 1).

"Theologians," says Macrobius, "consider You-piter as the

soul of the world." Hence the words of Virgil: " Muses let

us begin with You-piter; the world is full of You-piter."

(Somn. Scrip., ch. 17). And in the Saturnalia, he says,

"Jupiter is the sun himself." It was this also which made

Virgil say, "The spirit nourishes the life (of beings), and

the soul diffused through the vast members (of the

universe), agitates the whole mass, and forms but one

immense body."

"Ioupiter," says the ancient verses of the Orphic sect,

which originated in Egypt; verses collected by Onomacritus

in the days of Pisistratus, "Ioupiter, represented with the

thunder in his hand, is the beginning, origin, end, and

middle of all things: a single and universal power, he

governs every thing; heaven, earth, fire, water, the

elements, day, and night. These are what constitute his

immense body: his eyes are the sun and moon: he is space and

eternity: in fine," adds Porphyry. "Jupiter is the world,

the universe, that which constitutes the essence and life of

all beings. Now," continues the same author, "as

philosophers differed in opinion respecting the nature and

constituent parts of this god, and as they could invent no

figure that should represent all his attributes, they

painted him in the form of a man. He is in a sitting

posture, in allusion to his immutable essence; the upper

part of his body is uncovered, because it is in the upper

regions of the universe (the stars) that he most

conspicuously displays himself. He is covered from the

waist downwards, because respecting terrestrial things he is

more secret and concealed. He holds a scepter in his left

hand, because on the left side is the heart, and the heart

is the seat of the understanding, which, (in human beings)

regulates every action." Euseb. Proeper. Evang., p 100.

The following passage of the geographer and philosopher,

Strabo, removes every doubt as to the identity of the ideas

of Moses and those of the heathen theologians.

"Moses, who was one of the Egyptian priests, taught his

followers that it was an egregious error to represent the

Deity under the form of animals, as the Egyptians did, or in

the shape of man, as was the practice of the Greeks and

Africans. That alone is the Deity, said he, which

constitutes heaven, earth, and every living thing; that

which we call the world, the sum of all things, nature; and

no reasonable person will think of representing such a being

by the image of any one of the objects around us. It is for

this reason, that, rejecting every species of images or

idols, Moses wished the Deity to be worshipped without

emblems, and according to his proper nature; and he

accordingly ordered a temple worthy of him to be erected,

etc. Geograph. lib. 16, p. 1104, edition of 1707.

The theology of Moses has, then, differed in no respect from

that of his followers, that is to say, from that of the

Stoics and Epicureans, who consider the Deity as the soul of

the world. This philosophy appears to have taken birth, or

to have been disseminated when Abraham came into Egypt (200

years before Moses), since he quitted his system of idols

for that of the god Yahouh; so that we may place its

promulgation about the seventeenth or eighteenth century

before Christ; which corresponds with what we have said

before.

As to the history of Moses, Diodorus properly represents it

when he says, lib. 34 and 40, "That the Jews were driven out

of Egypt at a time of dearth, when the country was full of

foreigners, and that Moses, a man of extraordinary prudence

seized this opportunity of establishing his religion in the

mountains of Judea." It will seem paradoxical to assert,

that the 600,000 armed men whom he conducted thither ought

to be reduced to 6,000; but I can confirm the assertion by

so many proofs drawn from the books themselves, that it will

be necessary to correct an error which appears to have

arisen from the mistake of the transcribers.

*** This was the monosyllable written on the gates of the

temple of Delphos. Plutarch has made it the subject of a

dissertation.

**** These are the literal expressions of the book of

Deuteronomy, chap. XXXII. "The works of Tsour are perfect."

Now Tsour has been translated by the word creator; its

proper signification is to give forms, and this is one of

the definitions of Osiris in Plutarch.

X. Religion of Zoroaster.

"Such also was Zoroaster; who, five centuries after Moses, and in the

time of David, revived and moralized among the Medes and Bactrians, the

whole Egyptian system of Osiris and Typhon, under the names Ormuzd and

Ahrimanes; who called the reign of summer, virtue and good; the reign of

winter, sin and evil; the renewal of nature in spring, creation of the

world; the conjunction of the spheres at secular periods, resurrection;

and the Tartarus and Elysium of the astrologers and geographers were

named future life, hell and paradise. In a word, he did nothing but

consecrate the existing dreams of the mystical system.

XI. Budsoism, or Religion of the Samaneans.

"Such again are the propagators of the dismal doctrine of the Samaneans;

who, on the basis of the Metempsychosis, have erected the misanthropic

system of self-denial, and of privations; who, laying it down as a

principle that the body is only a prison where the soul lives in an

impure confinement, that life is only a dream, an illusion, and the

world only a passage to another country, to a life without end, placed

virtue and perfection in absolute immobility, in the destruction of all

sentiment, in the abnegation of physical organs, in the annihilation of

all our being; whence resulted fasts, penances, macerations, solitude,

contemplations, and all the practices of the deplorable delirium of the

Anchorites.

XII. Brahmism, or Indian System.

"And such, too, were the founders of the Indian System; who, refining

after Zoroaster on the two principles of creation and destruction,

introduced an intermediary principle, that of preservation, and on

their trinity in unity, of Brama, Chiven, and Vichenou, accumulated the

allegories of their ancient traditions, and the alembicated subtilities

of their metaphysics.

"These are the materials which existed in a scattered state for

many centuries in Asia; when a fortuitous concourse of events and

circumstances, on the borders of the Euphrates and the Mediterranean,

served to form them into new combinations.

XIII. Christianity, or the Allegorical Worship of the Sun, under the

cabalistical names of Chrish-en, or Christ, and Ye-sus or Jesus.

"In constituting a separate nation, Moses strove in vain to defend it

against the invasion of foreign ideas. An invisible inclination, founded

on the affinity of their origin, had constantly brought back the Hebrews

towards the worship of the neighboring nations; and the commercial and

political relations which necessarily existed between them, strengthened

this propensity from day to day. As long as the constitution of the

state remained entire, the coercive force of the government and the laws

opposed these innovations, and retarded their progress; nevertheless

the high places were full of idols; and the god Sun had his chariot and

horses painted in the palaces of the kings, and even in the temples of

Yahouh; but when the conquests of the sultans of Nineveh and Babylon had

dissolved the bands of civil power, the people, left to themselves and

solicited by their conquerors, restrained no longer their inclination

for profane opinions, and they were publicly established in Judea.

First, the Assyrian colonies, which came and occupied the lands of the

tribes, filled the kingdom of Samaria with dogmas of the Magi, which

very soon penetrated into the kingdom of Judea. Afterwards, Jerusalem

being subjugated, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Arabs, entering this

defenceless country, introduced their opinions; and the religion of

Moses was doubly mutilated. Besides the priests and great men, being

transported to Babylon and educated in the sciences of the Chaldeans,

imbibed, during a residence of seventy years, the whole of their

theology; and from that moment the dogmas of the hostile Genius (Satan),

the archangel Michael,* the ancient of days (Ormuzd), the rebel

angels, the battles in heaven, the immortality of the soul, and the

resurrection, all unknown to Moses, or rejected by his total silence

respecting them, were introduced and naturalized among the Jews.

* "The names of the angels and of the months, such as

Gabriel, Michael, Yar, Nisan, etc., came from Babylon with

the Jews:" says expressly the Talmud of Jerusalem. See

Beousob. Hist. du Manich. Vol. II, p. 624, where he proves

that the saints of the Almanac are an imitation of the 365

angels of the Persians; and Jamblicus in his Egyptian

Mysteries, sect. 2, c. 3, speaks of angels, archangels,

seraphims, etc., like a true Christian.

"The emigrants returned to their country with these ideas; and their

innovation at first excited disputes between their partisans the

Pharisees, and their opponents the Saducees, who maintained the ancient

national worship; but the former, aided by the propensities of the

people and their habits already contracted, and supported by the

Persians, their deliverers and masters, gained the ascendant over the

latter; and the Sons of Moses consecrated the theology of Zoroaster.*

* "The whole philosophy of the gymnosophists," says Diogenes

Laertius on the authority of an ancient writer, "is derived

from that of the Magi, and many assert that of the Jews to

have the same origin." Lib. 1. c. 9. Megasthenes, an

historian of repute in the days of Seleucus Nicanor, and who

wrote particularly upon India, speaking of the philosophy of

the ancients respecting natural things, puts the Brachmans

and the Jews precisely on the same footing.

"A fortuitous analogy between two leading ideas was highly favorable

to this coalition, and became the basis of a last system, not less

surprising in the fortune it has had in the world, than in the causes of

its formation.

"After the Assyrians had destroyed the kingdom of Samaria, some

judicious men foresaw the same destiny for Jerusalem, which they did not

fail to predict and publish; and their predictions had the particular

turn of being terminated by prayers for a re-establishment and

regeneration, uttered in the form of prophecies. The Hierophants,

in their enthusiasm, had painted a king as a deliverer, who was to

re-establish the nation in its ancient glory; the Hebrews were to become

once more a powerful, a conquering nation, and Jerusalem the capital of

an empire extended over the whole earth.

"Events having realized the first part of these predictions, the ruin of

Jerusalem, the people adhered to the second with a firmness of belief in

proportion to their misfortunes; and the afflicted Jews expected, with

the impatience of want and desire, this victorious king and deliverer,

who was to come and save the nation of Moses, and restore the empire of

David.

"On the other hand, the sacred and mythological traditions of preceding

times had spread through all Asia a dogma perfectly analogous. The cry

there was a great mediator, a final judge, a future saviour, a king,

god, conqueror and legislator, who was to restore the golden age upon

earth,* to deliver it from the dominion of evil, and restore men to the

empire of good, peace, and happiness. The people seized and cherished

these ideas with so much the more avidity, as they found in them a

consolation under that deplorable state of suffering into which they

had been plunged by the devastations of successive conquests, and the

barbarous despotism of their governments. This conformity between the

oracles of different nations, and those of the prophets, excited the

attention of the Jews; and doubtless the prophets had the art to compose

their descriptions after the style and genius of the sacred books

employed in the Pagan mysteries. There was therefore a general

expectation in Judea of a great ambassador, a final Saviour; when a

singular circumstance determined the epoch of his coming.

* This is the reason of the application of the many Pagan

oracles to Jesus, and particularly the fourth eclogue of

Virgil, and the Sybilline verses so celebrated among the

ancients.

"It is found in the sacred books of the Persians and Chaldeans, that the

world, composed of a total revolution of twelve thousand, was divided

into two partial revolutions; one of which, the age and reign of good,

terminated in six thousand; the other, the age and reign of evil, was to

terminate in six thousand more.

"By these records, the first authors had understood the annual

revolution of the great celestial orb called the world, (a revolution

composed of twelve months or signs, divided each into a thousand parts),

and the two systematic periods, of winter and summer, composed each of

six thousand. These expressions, wholly equivocal and badly explained,

having received an absolute and moral, instead of a physical and

astrological sense, it happened that the annual world was taken for the

secular world, the thousand of the zodiacal divisions, for a thousand of

years; and supposing, from the state of things, that they lived in

the age of evil, they inferred that it would end with the six thousand

pretended years.*

* We have already seen this tradition current among the

Tuscans; it was disseminated through most nations, and shows

us what we ought to think of all the pretended creations and

terminations of the world, which are merely the beginnings

and endings of astronomical periods invented by astrologers.

That of the year or solar revolution, being the most simple

and perceptible, served as a model to the rest, and its

comparison gave rise to the most whimsical ideas. Of this

description is the idea of the four ages of the world among

the Indians. Originally these four ages were merely the

four seasons; and as each season was under the supposed

influence of a planet, it bore the name of the metal

appropriated to that planet; thus spring was the age of the

sun, or of gold; summer the age of the moon, or of silver;

autumn the age of Venus, or of brass; and winter the age of

Mars, or of iron. Afterwards when astronomers invented the

great year of 25 and 36 thousand common years, which had for

its object the bringing back all the stars to one point of

departure and a general conjunction, the ambiguity of the

terms introduced a similar ambiguity of ideas; and the

myriads of celestial signs and periods of duration which

were thus measured were easily converted into so many

revolutions of the sun. Thus the different periods of

creation which have been so great a source of difficulty and

misapprehension to curious enquirers, were in reality

nothing more than hypothetical calculations of astronomical

periods. In the same manner the creation of the world has

been attributed to different seasons of the year, just as

these different seasons have served for the fictitious

period of these conjunctions; and of consequence has been

adopted by different nations for the commencement of an

ordinary year. Among the Egyptians this period fell upon

the summer solstice, which was the commencement of their

year; and the departure of the spheres, according to their

conjectures, fell in like manner upon the period when the

sun enters cancer. Among the Persians the year commenced at

first in the spring, or when the sun enters Aries; and from

thence the first Christians were led to suppose that God

created the world in the spring: this opinion is also

favored by the book of Genesis; and it is farther

remarkable, that the world is not there said to be created

by the God of Moses (Yahouh), but by the Elohim or gods in

the plural, that is by the angels or genii, for so the word

constantly means in the Hebrew books. If we farther observe

that the root of the word Elohim signifies strong or

powerful, and that the Egyptians called their decans strong

and powerful leaders, attributing to them the creation of

the world, we shall presently perceive that the book of

Genesis affirms neither more nor less than that the world

was created by the decans, by those very genii whom,

according to Sanchoniathon, Mercury excited against Saturn,

and who were called Elohim. It may be farther asked why the

plural substantive Elohim is made to agree with the singular

verb bara (the Elohim creates). The reason is that after the

Babylonish captivity the unity of the Supreme Being was the

prevailing opinion of the Jews; it was therefore thought

proper to introduce a pious solecism in language, which it

is evident had no existence before Moses; thus in the names

of the children of Jacob many of them are compounded of a

plural verb, to which Elohim is the nominative case

understood, as Raouben (Reuben), they have looked upon me,

and Samaonni (Simeon), they have granted me my prayer; to

wit, the Elohim. The reason of this etymology is to be

found in the religious creeds of the wives of Jacob, whose

gods were the taraphim of Laban, that is, the angels of the

Persians, and Egyptian decans.

"Now, according to calculations admitted by the Jews, they began to

reckon near six thousand years since the supposed creation of the

world.* This coincidence caused a fermentation in the public mind.

Nothing was thought of but the approaching end. They consulted the

hierophants and the mystical books, which differed as to the term; the

great mediator, the final judge, was expected and desired, to put an

end to so many calamities. This being was so much spoken of, that some

person finally was said to have seen him; and a first rumor of this sort

was sufficient to establish a general certainty. Popular report became

an established fact: the imaginary being was realized; and all the

circumstances of mythological tradition, being assembled around this

phantom, produced a regular history, of which it was no longer permitted

to doubt.

* According to the computation of the Seventy, the period

elapsed consisted of about 5,600 years, and this computation

was principally followed. It is well known how much, in the

first ages of the church, this opinion of the end of the

world agitated the minds of men. In the sequel, the general

councils encouraged by finding that the general

conflagration did not come, pronounced the expectation that

prevailed heretical, and its believers were called

Millenarians; a circumstance curious enough, since it is

evident from the history of the gospels that Jesus Christ

was a Millenarian, and of consequence a heretic.

"These mythological traditions recounted that, in the beginning, a woman

and a man had by their fall introduced sin and misery into the world.

(Consult plate of the Astrological Heaven of the Ancients.)

"By this was denoted the astronomical fact, that the celestial virgin

and the herdsman (Bootes), by setting heliacally at the autumnal

equinox, delivered the world to the wintry constellations, and seemed,

on falling below the horizon, to introduce into the world the genius of

evil, Ahrimanes, represented by the constellation of the Serpent.*

* "The Persians," says Chardin, "call the constellation of

the serpent Ophiucus, serpent of Eve: and this serpent

Ophiucas or Ophioneus plays a similar part in the theology

of the Phoenicians," for Pherecydes, their disciple and the

master of Pythagoras, said "that Ophioneus Serpentinus had

been chief of the rebels against Jupiter." See Mars. Ficin.

Apol. Socrat. p. m. 797, col. 2. I shall add that ephah

(with ain) signifies in Hebrew, serpent.

These traditions related that the woman had decoyed and seduced the

man.*

* In a physical sense to seduce, seducere, means only to

attract, to draw after us.

"And in fact, the virgin, setting first, seems to draw the herdsman

after her.

"That the woman tempted him by offering him fruit fair to the sight and

good to eat, which gave the knowledge of good and evil.

"And in fact, the Virgin holds in her hand a branch of fruit, which she

seems to offer to the Herdsman; and the branch, emblem of autumn, placed

in the picture of Mithra* between winter and summer, seems to open the

door and give knowledge, the key of good and evil.

* See this picture in Hyde, page 111, edition of 1760.

That this couple had been driven from the celestial garden, and that a

cherub with a flaming sword had been placed at the gate to guard it.

"And in fact, when the virgin and the herdsman fall beneath the horizon,

Perseus rises on the other side;* and this Genius, with a sword in

his hand, seems to drive them from the summer heaven, the garden and

dominion of fruits and flowers.

* Rather the head of Medusa; that head of a woman once so

beautiful, which Perseus cut off and which beholds in his

hand, is only that of the virgin, whose head sinks below the

horizon at the very moment that Perseus rises; and the

serpents which surround it are Orphiucus and the Polar

Dragon, who then occupy the zenith. This shows us in what

manner the ancients composed all their figures and fables.

They took such constellations as they found at the same time

on the circle of the horizon, and collecting the different

parts, they formed groups which served them as an almanac in

hieroglyphic characters. Such is the secret of all their

pictures, and the solution of all their mythological

monsters. The virgin is also Andromeda, delivered by

Perseus from the whale that pursues her (pro-sequitor).

That of this virgin should be born, spring up, an offspring, a child,

who should bruise the head of the serpent, and deliver the world from

sin.

"This denotes the son, which, at the moment of the winter solstice,

precisely when the Persian Magi drew the horoscope of the new year,

was placed on the bosom of the Virgin, rising heliacally in the eastern

horizon; on this account he was figured in their astrological pictures

under the form of a child suckled by a chaste virgin,* and became

afterwards, at the vernal equinox, the ram, or the lamb, triumphant over

the constellation of the Serpent, which disappeared from the skies.

* Such was the picture of the Persian sphere, cited by Aben

Ezra in the Coelam Poeticum of Blaeu, p. 71. "The picture

of the first decan of the Virgin," says that writer.

"represents a beautiful virgin with flowing hair; sitting in

a chair, with two ears of corn in her hand, and suckling an

infant, called Jesus by some nations, and Christ in Greek."

In the library of the king of France is a manuscript in

Arabic, marked 1165, in which is a picture of the twelve

signs; and that of the Virgin represents a young woman with

an infant by her side: the whole scene indeed of the birth

of Jesus is to be found in the adjacent part of the heavens.

The stable is the constellation of the charioteer and the

goat, formerly Capricorn: a constellation called proesepe

Jovis Heniochi, stable of Iou; and the word Iou is found in

the name Iou-seph (Joseph). At no great distance is the ass

of Typhon (the great she-bear), and the ox or bull, the

ancient attendants of the manger. Peter the porter, is

Janus with his keys and bald forehead: the twelve apostles

are the genii of the twelve months, etc. This Virgin has

acted very different parts in the various systems of

mythology: she has been the Isis of the Egyptians, who said

of her in one of their inscriptions cited by Julian, the

fruit I have brought forth is the sun. The majority of

traits drawn by Plutarch apply to her, in the same manner as

those of Osiris apply to Bootes: also the seven principal

stars of the she-bear, called David's chariot, were called

the chariot of Osiris (See Kirker); and the crown that is

situated behind, formed of ivy, was called Chen-Osiris, the

tree of Osiris. The Virgin has likewise been Ceres, whose

mysteries were the same with those of Isis and Mithra; she

has been the Diana of the Ephesians; the great goddess of

Syria, Cybele, drawn by lions; Minerva, the mother of

Bacchus; Astraea, a chaste virgin taken up into heaven at

the end of a golden age; Themis at whose feet is the balance

that was put in her hands; the Sybil of Virgil, who descends

into hell, or sinks below the hemisphere with a branch in

her hand, etc.

That, in his infancy, this restorer of divine and celestial nature would

live abased, humble, obscure and indigent.

"And this, because the winter sun is abased below the horizon; and that

this first period of his four ages or seasons, is a time of obscurity,

scarcity, fasting, and want.

"That, being put to death by the wicked, he had risen gloriously; that

he had reascended from hell to heaven, where he would reign forever

"This is a sketch of the life of the sun; who, finishing his career at

the winter solstice, when Typhon and the rebel angels gain the dominion,

seems to be put to death by them; but who soon after is born again, and

rises* into the vault of heaven, where he reigns.

* Resurgere, to rise a second time, cannot signify to return

to life, but in a metaphorical sense; but we see continually

mistakes of this kind result from the ambiguous meaning of

the words made use of in ancient tradition.

"Finally, these traditions went so far as to mention even his

astrological and mythological names, and inform us that he was called

sometimes Chris, that is to say, preserver,* and from that, ye Indians,

you have made your god Chrish-en or Chrish-na; and, ye Greek and Western

Christians, your Chris-tos, son of Mary, is the same; sometimes he is

called Yes, by the union of three letters, which by their numerical

value form the number 608, one of the solar periods.** And this,

Europeans, is the name which, with the Latin termination, is become your

Yes-us or Jesus, the ancient and cabalistic name attributed to young

Bacchus, the clandestine son (nocturnal) of the Virgin Minerva, who, in

the history of his whole life, and even of his death, brings to mind the

history of the god of the Christians, that is, of the star of day, of

which they are each of them the emblems."

* The Greeks used to express by X, or Spanish iota, the

aspirated ha of the Orientals, who said haris. In Hebrew

heres signifies the sun, but in Arabic the meaning of the

radical word is, to guard, to preserve, and of haris,

guardian, preserver. It is the proper epithet of Vichenou,

which demonstrates at once the identity of the Indian and

Christian Trinities, and their common origin. It is

manifestly but one system, which divided into two branches,

one extending to the east, and the other to the west,

assumed two different forms: Its principal trunk is the

Pythagorean system of the soul of the world, or Iou-piter.

The epithet piter, or father, having been applied to the

demi-ourgos of Plato, gave rise to an ambiguity which caused

an enquiry to be made respecting the son of this father. In

the opinion of the philosophers the son was understanding,

Nous and Logos, from which the Latins made their Verbum.

And thus we clearly perceive the origin of the eternal

father and of the Verbum his son, proceeding from him (Mens

Ex Deo nata, says Macrobius): the oenima or spiritus mundi,

was the Holy Ghost; and it is for this reason that Manes,

Pasilides, Valentinius, and other pretended heretics of the

first ages, who traced things to their source, said, that

God the Father was the supreme inaccessible light (that of

the heaven, the primum mobile, or the aplanes); the Son the

secondary light resident in the sun, and the Holy Ghost the

atmosphere of the earth (See Beausob. vol. II, p. 586):

hence, among the Syrians, the representation of the Holy

Ghost by a dove, the bird of Venus Urania, that is of the

air. The Syrians (says Nigidius de Germaico) assert that a

dove sat for a certain number of days on the egg of a fish,

and that from this incubation Venus was born: Sextus

Empiricus also observes (Inst. Pyrrh. lib. 3, c. 23) that

the Syrians abstain from eating doves; which intimates to us

a period commencing in the sign Pisces, in the winter

solstice. We may farther observe, that if Chris comes from

Harisch by a chin, it will signify artificer, an epithet

belonging to the sun. These variations, which must have

embarrassed the ancients, prove it to be the real type of

Jesus, as had been already remarked in the time of

Tertullian. "Many, says this writer, suppose with greater

probability that the sun is our God, and they refer us to

the religion of the Persians." Apologet. c. 16.

** See a curious ode to the sun, by Martianus Capella,

translated by Gebelin.

Here a great murmur having arisen among all the Christian groups, the

Lamas, the Mussulmans and the Indians called them to order, and the

orator went on to finish his discourse:

"You know at present," said he, "how the rest of this system was

composed in the chaos and anarchy of the three first centuries; what a

multitude of singular opinions divided the minds of men, and armed them

with an enthusiasm and a reciprocal obstinacy; because, being equally

founded on ancient tradition, they were equally sacred. You know how the

government, after three centuries, having embraced one of these sects,

made it the orthodox, that is to say, the pre-dominant religion, to the

exclusion of the rest; which, being less in number, became heretics; you

know how and by what means of violence and seduction this religion was

propagated, extended, divided, and enfeebled; how, six hundred years

after the Christian innovation, another system was formed from it and

from that of the Jews; and how Mahomet found the means of composing a

political and theological empire at the expense of those of Moses and

the vicars of Jesus.

"Now, if you take a review of the whole history of the spirit of all

religion, you will see that in its origin it has had no other author

than the sensations and wants of man; that the idea of God has had no