island, and to have dwelt upon a sacred mountain left dry by the retiring flood.*

It has been often remarked, that the Theogonies and Cosmogonies of the heathens were the same. In addition to those naturally constituting a part of the work, I have given the most remarkable of the Hermetic, Orphic, and Pythagorean accounts; which will be found, with the celebrated collection from Damascius, under a separate head. By comparing these with the Cosmogonies of Sanchoniatho, Berossus, and the rest, we may, without much difficulty, arrive at the following conclusion: that the Ether and Chaos, or, in the language of the Philosophers, Mind and Matter, were the two primeval, eternal, and independent principles of the universe; the one regarded as a vivifying and intellectual principle, the other as a watery Chaos, boundless, and without form: both which continued for a time without motion, and in darkness. By a mystic union of the two was formed the great Hermaphroditic deity, the One, the universal World; of which the Chaotic matter presently became the body, and the Etherial Intellectual principle the soul. As soon as the union had commenced, from the Ether sprung forth the triad, Phanes or Eros, a triple divinity, the most prominent character of which was Light. He was the same with the Soul of the World, and the Intelligible *See Faber, Pag. Id. † p. 283, and following.

triad so largely insisted upon by the Platonists. The gross chaotic elements of Earth and Water were formed into the terraqueous globe, while the disposing Ether, in the character of Phanes, under some three of the conditions of Light, Air, Heat, Fire, Ether, Flame, or Spirit, composed a physical trinity concentred in the Sun, the soul and ruler of the world. Or, according to the more refined speculations, it consisted of a trinity of mental powers, in which the Understanding, Reason or Intellect, the Soul, Passions, Feelings or Affections, Power, Counsel or Will, are variously combined. Viewed, therefore, either under a physical or metaphysical aspect, it is still a triad subordinate to, and emanating from the more ancient Intellectual Ether, and into which each person of the triad is again resolvable.*

With respect to the Physical triad, by comparing the heathen accounts with similar passages in the Scriptures, though not decisive, yet so preponderating does the evidence appear to me upon this point, that if the school of Hutchinson had not failed to establish their very elegant hypothesis, as to the fact that the Fire, Light, and Spirit or Air, were only three different conditions of one and the same etherial fluid, appearing as Fire at the orb of the Sun, as Light pro

See the Inquiry at the end.

ceeding from it, and as Spirit returning to it, I should not have hesitated to subscribe to the opinion that such was the original trinity of the Gentiles; a triad, nevertheless, subordinate to a monad, which existed in the form of Ether previously to its assuming such conditions.

The Metaphysical speculations of the ancients upon this subject can only be derived by analogical reasoning from contemplation of the microcosm of man. To point out the close analogy preserved in this particular between the Metaphysical and Physical system before explained I would observe, that Man is a being compounded of an Intellectual, and of a Material substance, both of which were conceived by the ancients to have pre-existed, before they became united in the compound individual animal, the Man. When thus united, they appear to have conceived a triad of intellectual powers, the Intellect, the Affections Feelings or Emotions, and the Will or Power of action. But for further illustration of these matters, and for such proof as can be produced, I must refer to the disquisition at the end.

Upon this subject, therefore, I cannot agree with Mr. Faber in supposing that the trinitarian speculations of the Heathens originated in the coincidence of Adam and Noah being each the father of three sons; for of the three distinct analogical systems the Metaphysical, of the

Mind with its Faculties, and Matter,-the Physical, of the Ether with its conditions, and the Chaos,—and the Human, of the Patriarch with his three sons, and the universal mother the Ark or Earth, the last analogy is not only the most imperfect, but according to all historical accounts, Demonolatry was introduced subsequently to the worship of nature and the elements.

From the widely dispersed traditions upon the subject, it is manifest that the circumstances of the creation and the deluge were well known to all mankind previously to the dispersion. And the writings of Moses give to the chosen people, not so much a new revelation as a correct, authenticated and inspired account of circumstances, which had then become partially obscured by time and abused by superstition. The formless watery Chaos and the Etherial substance of the heavens, enfolding and passing over its surface as a mighty wind, are the first principles both of the sacred and profane cosmogonies; but they are reclaimed by Moses as the materials, created by the immediate agency of an Almighty power. The subsequent process of formation so completely corresponds in both systems, that if they were not borrowed the one from the other, (a position which cannot be maintained,) they must each have been ultimately derived from the common source of revelation. Similar considerations upon the traditions of a Trinity, so universal

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among the nations, and an examination of what that Trinity was composed, forces upon me the conviction, that the trinitarian doctrine, as it is now believed, was one of the original and fundamental tenets of the Patriarchal religion; that the analogy between the Microcosm, as pointed out, and the then current accounts of the creation, became the stumbling block, which set mankind to refine upon the truth; that hence they fell into the errors of attributing eternity to matter, of placing a Monad above the Trinity, with the Pantheistic opinion that the Deity was no other than the universe itself. The doctrine of the succession of worlds, the Metempsychosis, and Demonolatry would follow naturally enough by an extension of their system from the particular circumstances of the creation to those attendant upon the deluge. By the pride of false philosophy they forsook the truth of revelation, and sunk into materialism, into the worship of the elements, of man and beasts, and into idolatry with all its attendant abominations. 'When they knew God, they glorified him not as God; neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore, God