either in the first instance or subsequently. What is intended is, that Man was originally endowed with such mental faculties as enabled him, through their exercise, to acquire knowledge on all matters of which his senses could take cognizance, to avail himself of that knowledge for his own purposes, and to communicate the same to others. As the new-born babe instinctively seeks the mother's breast and as instinctively draws the milk from it, so newly created and inexperienced Man instinctively set himself to observe, to know, and to utilize the material world. The vast intellects of the first members of the human race enabled them to make most rapid strides in the acquirement of knowledge of every kind, and in its application to the uses, the comforts, the enjoyments, and the luxuries of life. There were, indeed, 'giants in

the earth in those days.'

But, however high the intellectual, as likewise the physical, condition of Man may have been when he left the hands of his Creator, he possessed within him, in common with all the works of creation as far as they are known to us, the germs of decay. Speaking of the 'religions' of mankind,—and the same argument applies to every thing human,-the Duke of Argyll says:'Among the causes which have determined their form and character in different nations, we must reckon the moral corruption of human nature. I am not speaking of this corruption in a dogmatic and theological sense; I speak of it as an unquestionable fact, whatever be the history of its origin. By the corruption of human nature, I mean the undeniable fact that Man has a constant tendency to abuse his powers; to do what, according to his own standard of right and wrong, he knows he ought not to do; to be unjust and cruel towards others, and to fall into horrible and degrading superstitions. Human corruption, in this sense, is as much a fact in the natural history of Man as that he is a biped without feathers'*.

Entirely in the same sense, though with a more special application, the learned and pious Dr. Döllinger says:-' When once a dark cloud stole over Man's original consciousness of the Divi

* Primeval Man,' p. 108.

nity, and, in consequence of his own guilt, an estrangement of the creature from the one living God took place, Man, as under the overpowering sway of sense and sensual lust, proportionally weakened therefore in his moral freedom, was unable any longer to conceive of the Divinity as a pure, spiritual, supernatural, and infinite Being, distinct from the world, and exalted above it. And then it followed inevitably that, with his intellectual horizon bounded and confined within the limits of nature, he should seek to satisfy the inborn necessity of an acknowledgment and reverence of the Divinity by the deification of material nature; for, even in its obscuration, the idea of the Deity, no longer recognized, indeed, but still felt and perceived, continued powerful; and, in conjunction with it, the truth struck home that the Divinity manifested itself in nature as ever present and in operation. And now nature unfolded herself to Man's sense as a boundless demesne, wherein was contained an unfathomable plenitude of powers incommensurable and incalculable, and of energies not to be overcome. Everywhere, even where men, past their first impressions of sense, had already penetrated deeper into their own inner life, she encountered them as an inscrutable mystery. At the same time, however, a sympathy for naturalism, easily elevated into a passion, developed itself among them, a feeling in common with it and after it,-which led, again, to a sacrifice of themselves, all the more readily made, to natural powers and natural impulses. And thus Man, deeper and deeper in the spells of his enchantress, and drawn downwards by their weight, had his moral consciousness overcome in proportion, and gave the fuller rein to impulses which were merely physical' *.

It is unnecessary to follow the eloquent divine in his powerful sketch of how the heathen deification of Nature led to an inexhaustible variety of divinities and forms of worship, according to the geographical division of zones and countries, and to the difference of the impressions which the phenomena and powers of nature produced on races more or less susceptible and excitable; and also as the imagination of man, selecting out of the The Gentile and the Jew,' tr. Darnell, i. 64, 65.

kingdom of nature that which most strongly impressed itself, fashioned it into a concrete divinity;' whereby, as time ran on, and as the natural impulse to create divinities acted on the various races of man, 'the Divine assumed in their minds thousands of fantastic and fortuitous images and forms.'

In making these references to the writings of the gifted Bavarian Professor, it is proper to add that much more has been adopted from them in subsequent portions of the present work. This was done, however, long before the occurrence of the stirring events in which that eminent theologian occupies so prominent a position, and which, if there is an esoteric doctrine contained within his remarkable productions, as they may see who can read between the lines,—will eventually occasion a far greater revolution within Christendom than did the Reformation of his countryman Luther.

Some striking illustrations of the views here entertained are furnished by the career of the European settlers in North America and their descendants, and, indeed, by that of all colonists in new countries. Though individually they may have acquired but little scientific or practical knowledge before leaving the mother country, they are nevertheless the offspring of a civilized people; and, with the example of their ancestors before them, they have set to work to provide for their own wants and then to minister to those of others, through the development of the faculties innate in them as members of the parent society. The growth of such a people, rich in genius and in resources, and possessed of an imagination more vivid because of the absence of regular cultivation, taking up every thing in its turn and frequently out of its turn, cannot but be most rapid; and the result is seen, not only in their scientific and artistic works, but in the invention and manufacture of numerous articles for domestic and social use, similar in general character to those of the Old World, but often widely different in form and in the mode of application, as instanced in the notions' brought to the markets of Europe from the United States. The same intellectual powers, finding such unbounded scope for their exercise, are led to the

conception of the most fantastic novelties, the performance of the most audacious experiments, the expression of the most eccentric opinions, the promulgation of the most extravagant doctrines; as is evidenced in the religious and socialistic sects-Shakers, Mormons, Spiritualists, Free Lovers, and others, whose names are legion-which, developed from and mixed up with their originals after a marvellous fashion far beyond the experience of any other modern nation, pervade and agitate society.

These giants of the New World enjoy, in their vast and still, in great part, unoccupied continent, ample space wherein to stretch themselves physically, and free scope for their exuberant mental energy; in which respect they have an incalculable advantage over their more stunted kinsmen in the Old World. The latter, cooped up within narrow and unexpansive limits, living in a tainted atmosphere, both physical and moral, and bound around by traditions and conventionalities, add to the other vices generated among masses of population, the greatest of all the curses of an artificial and (as it is called) highly civilized society, namely cant and hypocrisy. The former, daring, energetic, unscrupulous, and unrestrained by forms, bear well in mind the words of the Preacher," Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;" and in acting up to this precept they care but little for what may be said or thought of the way in which they do so.

Philo tells us that the sect of Essenes lived principally in villages, and avoided the towns, being sensible that as disease is generated by corruption, so is an indelible stain made upon the soul of man by the contagion of society. And the effects of this contagion are witnessed in the collapse and fall of great empires and institutions, both in ancient and in modern times. France, though not at all singular in the fulfilment of her destiny, affords the readiest example of how a rich and powerful nation, when raised to the summit of intellectual greatness and of scientific and artistic knowledge, may be subjected to an instantaneous check, the first step towards its fall, when it is not sustained by commensurate moral and religious sentiments and conduct.

From the time of their first Revolution, the French seem to have been actuated by the persuasion that the outward forms of religion and morality may serve for children and women and ignorant country boors, but that inward faith and purity are unworthy of men in the full growth of their intellect and reason. In the pride of that intellect they learned (to use the pointed language of Burke) to hate God with all their heart, and with all their mind, and with all their soul, and with all their strength. But hatred cannot long endure without the opportunity of manifesting itself on the object of aversion: it soon degenerates into contempt and indifference; and the belief in one called God' -'un nommé Dieu,' to repeat the expression used by the Communist Rigault in a pass to a Romish clergyman desirous of visiting a sick man-has come to be ridiculed as an absurdity, or else pitied or apologized for as the infirmity of a weak mind.

These remarks have not been occasioned by the calamitous results of the recent conflict between France and Germany: they are the results of the observation of many years, matured by the reflection of what was said in a Report made to the Emperor Napoleon by Baron Stoffel, Military Attaché to the French Embassy at Berlin, as long ago as August the 2nd, 1869, nearly a twelvemonth before the war broke out, and at a time when the French Empire and its Monarch occupied, and were generally regarded as entitled to hold, the highest rank among 'civilized' nations and their rulers. Yet that well-informed and far-seeing Frenchman did not scruple to expose to his Sovereign the true condition of his countrymen as a nation.

After referring briefly to the healthy moral and social state of Germany, he exclaimed:- What a melancholy contrast does France offer in all this! Having sneered at every thing, she has lost the faculty of respecting any thing. Virtue, family life, patriotism, honour, religion, are represented to a frivolous generation as fitting subjects of ridicule. The theatres have become schools of shamelessness and obscenity. Drop by drop poison is instilled into the very core of an ignorant and enervated society, which has neither the insight nor the energy left to amend its