compared with the Greeks themselves, than their Anubis with the Grecian Jupiter. The rude principles of geometry, astronomy, and the mathematics, existed among them, but were afterwards improved by the ingenuity of the Greeks; for we find it was Eudoxus who first explained the motions of the heavenly bodies, by the application of mathematical science, and that Thales was the first whose astronomical knowledge enabled him to predict an eclipse.*

It may be farther remarked, that if there were any good reason to believe that what are called the doctrines of natural religion could

* Brucker, Hist. ant. Phil. "If Pythagoras sacrificed a hecatomb upon finding out the 47th proposition of Euclid, and Thales an ox on having discovered how to inscribe a rectangled triangle in a circle, after having studied mathematics in Egypt, the parent of geometry; what opinion does it give us of the knowledge of their masters in that science! Thales having shown them how to measure the heights of their pyramids by their shadow, is a proof of their little progress in trigonometry." Wood on the Genius and Writings of Homer. This writer will not allow that Egypt could have furnished even Homer's mythology.

VOL. I.

T

have been learnt by Moses in Egypt, which is not the case; there are other decided objections against attributing his theology to any such origin. Had he borrowed his doctrine from those priests, would he not have imitated the priests in withholding the purer belief from the vulgar? What right have we to conclude that he who had seen the pretended mysteries concealed by hieroglyphics, and reserved with the most scrupulous care from the general eye, would suddenly and at once seize on the propriety of declaring them to the people at large? Why should we imagine, that he who had witnessed only the general practice of idolatry, and left this the universal worship of his supposed instructress Egypt, would immediately proscribe it under pain of death in his own nation? Had Moses received his ideas from the education given him by the priests, it is far more probable, that he would have imbibed and acted upon the same notions, as to the expediency of keeping the people in utter ignorance, than that he should have struck out a plan diametrically opposite to the whole prac

tice, not of his instructors only, but of all the ancient philosophers, who agreed in little else than in the necessity of perpetuating the vulgar superstitions.

In addition to these considerations, if Moses derived his theology from Egypt, and thought himself at liberty to alter it according to his own views of utility, it is impossible to explain his having omitted to sanction his law by inculcating the belief of the soul's immortality.* Though the precise tenets of the Egyptians upon this subject have not been transmitted to us, it seems very evident that they taught the existence of the soul after the dissolution of the body, though veiling it, probably, under the fable of a metempsychosis. Now, this doctrine is equally useful to the philosophic theist, and to the practical statesman; useful to the theist, as removing the only plausible

* Warburton, Div. Leg. iv. s. 6.

+ I qualify the assertion, though commonly believed, because some have questioned Herodotus's account, who is express on the subject. Euterpe, s. 123. Vide Cudworth, i. 313.

objection against the moral government of God in the world; and to the statesman, as holding out a stronger terror to the wicked, than any punishment he is able to threaten; and affording an universal incitement to virtue, which it is totally out of his power to reward. This advantage was well understood by the ancients, as was formerly observed; and Zaleucus and Plato both inculcated the belief, the one in his real, the other in his imaginary republic. But whatever may have been the opinion of the Hebrews upon this point, derived from the history of their ancestors, it is impossible to deny that the sanctions of the Mosaic law are altogether temporal. This circumstance has been even alleged as a charge to discredit his legislation.* It is indeed one of the many

* Since Bolingbroke, who first touched this string, the omission of the doctrine of a future state from the Jewish law has been "seen with surprise" by every sceptical essayist. I am well aware that the knowledge of a resurrection and future state was familiar to the patriarchs; which is proved by the translation of Enoch, the faith of Abraham, the vision of Jacob, &c. beyond fair controversy. This has been often shown, but no where more clearly than by Sir H. Moncreiff

POPULAR BELIEF OF THE ISRAELITES. 277

facts which can only be explained by acknowledging that he really acted under a divine commission, promulgating a temporary law for a peculiar purpose to a single nation. But if it is believed, that Moses had sufficient skill to frame the admirable system which he delivered to his people, out of the mixture of idolatry and mystery with which Egypt abounded, it is incredible that he should not have united with it, as the firmest support of his precepts and laws, their opinions, alike useful and popular, of the immortality of the soul.

II. It only remains to suppose that Moses received that doctrine which the Egyptians were unable to teach him, and which he cannot possibly be thought to have derived from the powers of his own mind, from the religious sentiments and traditions which prevailed among

Wellwood, in his recent volume on the evidence of the Jewish and Christian revelation, Discourse 2d; in which that able writer adduces the various passages of the Old Testament which bear upon this point, and shows the corroboration they receive from allusions in the New.