of the importance of obeying the law, but in religion, through which the law is regarded as the command of the gods?"-And a distinguished natural philosopher thus speaks of the value and employment of natural philosophy in the primitive world:* " A hasty glance teaches, that astronomy and the study of nature were not means for the attainment of an end, but a sacred occupation. Hence kings acted as high priests and astronomers, Osiris in Egypt, and Hoangti in China, five thousand years before Christ,† with his minister Yuchi, who ascertained the polar star and discovered the sphere." Thus the historian testifies to the founding of politics on religion in ancient times; and the natural philosopher, to the connection of astronomy and physics with the same; but that religion itself rests on immediate revelation, is asserted among others by Herder:‡ “The footsteps of religion, various as may be its costume, are found even among the poorest and rudest nations. Whence came it to these nations? Did every wretched wanderer, in some way, discover his system of worship as a kind of natural theology? These miserable men discover nothing; they follow in all things the tradition of their fathers. Tradition is the mother of their language, as of their religion."-Hence the historian places at the head of all history, an original and higher state of cultivation in man, proceeding from God. Johannes von Müller expresses himself thus on this point: § "There is something very remarkable in the fact, that the most ancient nations, though entirely uncultivated in other things, had perfectly correct views and knowledge of God, of the world, of immortality, and even of the motions of the stars; while the arts which pertain to the conveniences of life are much younger. Does it Schuberth, Nachtseite der Natur, Dresd. 1818, p. 54. † According to the extravagant chronology of the Chinese.TRANS. Herder, Ideen zur Geschichte der Philosophie der Menscheit, B. II. p. 288. § Joh. v. Müller, Weltgeschichte, Th. I. p. 4. not seem, as though the breath of Divinity dwelling in us, our spirit had acquired through the immediate teaching of a higher being, and for a long time retained certain indispensable ideas and habits, to which it could not easily have attained of itself? Whatever, on the other hand, pertains to the employment of material capacities, was left for the exercise of our own mental powers."-Later investigations and discoveries have shown, that also in these arts of life the most ancient people were greatly distinguished. With this intimation of Müller, F. Schlegel should be compared, who strikingly shows the necessity of admitting an original teaching of the human race by the Spirit of God. And especially are the words of the distinguished antiquary, Ouvarof, to be noted: † "The natural state of man is neither the savage state, nor a state of corruptness; but a simple and better state, approaching nearer the divinity; the savage and the corrupted man ‡ are equally removed from it." * But we need not stop with these later investigators. The universal tradition of the ancient world, spoke of a higher illumination of man at the commencement of this earthly course. This is declared, first of all, by the general tradition of nations of a golden age of the world, of Paradise. Moreover, also Plato follows this opinion, where Socrates in Philebus, says :§ "All that originated in art, originated in the following manner. There was once, as it seems to me, a gift of the gods, brought down to men from the gods by a certain Prometheus, at the same time with the light. Now the ancients, who were better than we, and who stood nearest to the gods, have handed down to us, that," &c. Plato also gives a hint to the same effect in the mythus, that once in the primeval period, Saturn himself became the herdsman of the herd of men. And thus Aristotle says: || "The * Fr. Schlegel, Ueber die Weisheit der Indier, p. 89. seq. p. 105. † Ouvarof, Essais sur les Mystères d'Eleusis. Paris. 1816, p. 10. l'Homme corrompu. Platonis Philebus, p. 142. ed. Bekker. Aristotelis Metaphys. XI. 18. tradition has been handed down in the form of fable from the ancients to later posterity, that the abovenamed are gods, and that Deity encircles all nature ; and that while, according to the various powers of men, every art and philosophy has been often discovered and again lost, these dogmas, as if remnants of their wisdom, have been transplanted to the present time."-In the same sense, the heathen Caecilius also says: * "I give credit to ancestors, who, in a yet uncultivated age at the beginning of the world, were counted worthy to have the gods as friends or kings." If now there are sufficient grounds to assume, that a state of higher mental cultivation and higher knowledge remained to man on his departure from his primitive spiritual and holy life in God, so we must also presuppose that, in such a state, man had a more correct knowledge also of the Divine Being. And so the Scriptures represent it to us, which depict the lapse into idolatry as the consequence of a progressive corruption after the fall. We are, besides, led to this supposition by the fact, that all traditions of a moral import, ever tended more and more to a physical interpretation, the further they were handed down among posterity. We have confirmed this in the text (p. 16) by some examples. These may be increased from many sources. Thus, for instance, the religion of Buddha-which, according to the most credible witnesses, emanated from Brahmaism at a later period, though it is found existing along with it in very high antiquity-appears to be only a more consistent and more physically apprehended form of Brahmaism.f-Thus too we find in the Chinese Shuking, the most ancient book of religion, as also in the philosophy In-kia, derived from it and founded on it, the doctrine of a supreme being as father of all things; but its followers, the In-kia, also call the same being Hoang † Compare especially the treatise of Mahony: The doctrines of Boodha from the books of the Sengalees. Asiatic Researches, T. VII. p. 32, and Buchanan on the religion and literature of Burmah. Asiat. Res. T. VI. p. 136. tien, or lofty heavens, and thus glide over into something more physical.* The Shuking has also the doctrine of tutelar genii. The Yking, on the contrary, is wholly in the strain of metaphysical pantheism. Hence Johannes von Müller strikingly says: "Man entered into the world with few, but pure and satisfying, ideas; and I think I see these inborn ideas shining forth here and there. But, made for labour, he lost himself in subtile speculation; of which the oldest fruit is the Yking."Especially does the truth in question appear to be established by Parseeism. Servan-Akerene, or illimitable time, which here stands above Ormuzd and Ahriman, is only a pantheistic primeval being, like the Chronos of the Greeks. How came this being now at the head of all things? Certainly only in later times, for the purpose of giving a substratum to those two persons. It therefore proceeded only from the speculation of after times, striving for unity. Many sects of the Persians have never received it.§ * The Chinese now use the word Tien to denote the supreme Being. A long and severe dispute was carried on at Rome in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whether the Jesuit missionaries, always so ready to be content with barely baptizing the idolatry of a heathen people, should be allowed in continuing to call Jehovah by so ambiguous a term, and one so fitted to cherish heathen views. The Pope finally decided in their favour, on condition of their annexing to it the word Tchu. This removed the ambiguity; for Tien Tchu means Lord of the heavens. Mosheim, vol. V. p. 27. and vol. VI. p. 3, first American edition. -TRANS. See † Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions. T. XXXVIII. p. 272 sq. Johannes v. Müller's Werke, B. XVI. p. 41. § See Hyde de Relig. veterum Persarum. Isfraini, De diversis Sectis, Cod. MS. Arab. bibl. reg. Berol. |