existence of one God, as the Creator of heaven and earth? On the same authority as that on which an astronomer of the present day lays down as the foundation of his system, the sublimest discoveries of Newton, without insisting on the demonstrations of truths which the world has generally acknowledged. So the truth which Moses declared, it was unnecessary, it would have been impertinent to prove, when it was already recognised by the whole Hebrew nation; among whom the memory of the creation had been preserved by indubitable records, handed down to them with the history of their ancestors, and the power of the Creator had been proved to the evidence of their senses by recent interpositions.

I entirely agree with Hume*, that “nothing could disturb the natural progress of

* Nat. Hist. of Rel. p. 1. There is no exception to this remark in the history of Greece or Italy, India or America. Mr. Hume had thought much of mankind as a philosopher, Dr. Robertson as an historian; and in this they perfectly agree. "When the intellectual faculties are just beginning to unfold, and their feeble exertions are directed towards a few objects of primary ne

thought which rises gradually from inferior to superior, and, by abstracting from what is imperfect, slowly forms an idea of perfection nothing could disturb this natural progress of thought, but some obvious and

cessity and use, it is preposterous to expect that men should be capable of tracing any relation between effects and their causes; or to suppose that they should rise from the contemplation of the former to the discovery of the latter, and form just conceptions of one Supreme Being, as the Creator and Governor of the universe." Robertson's India, 303. It is curious to observe, how Hume contrives to escape from the argument in favour of the authenticity of the Hebrew Scriptures, which arises as regularly from his course of reasoning as if he had written his Natural History of Religion to prove it. "It is matter of fact incontestable, that about 1700 years ago, all mankind were polytheists. The doubtful and sceptical principles of a few philosophers, or the theism, and that too not entirely pure, of one or two nations, form no objection worth regarding." That mind must have been strangely constituted, upon which neither the partial exception (the force of which he has insidiously weakened by an interpolation) in the most ancient times, nor the universal change introduced 1700 years ago, could make any impression.

The remark itself is much in the spirit of Julian, who sarelessly asks, ποῖον ἔθνος ἐστὶ, πρὸς τῶν Θεῶν, ἔξω τῶ, Ου προσκυνήσεις Θεᾶις ἑτέροις, καὶ τῶ, Μνήσθητι τῶν σαββάτων, ὁ μὴ τὰς ἄλλας οἴεται χρῆναι φυλάττειν ἐντολὰς; These very laws, which are peculiar to the Jews, are the object of the argument which the Emperor attempts to escape from.

invincible argument which might immediately lead the mind into the pure principle of theism, and make it overleap at one bound the vast interval which is interposed between the human and the divine nature.” That argument was found by the Israelites in their account of the creation, faithfully transmitted by their own ancestors from age to age; was found in the repeated interference of divine power, manifested to their nation; and had been lately confirmed beyond the possibility of doubt, by their miraculous deliverance from Egyptian slavery. On no other principle than the general acknowledgment of his proposition, can we account for the authoritative positiveness with which Moses published it to his people and on no other principle than its truth, can we explain the superiority of his simple statement over the elaborate arguments of philosophers, to whom the evidence on which he rested, was of course unknown.

Reasoning, which concerns religious truths, from the opposite interests which some find in receiving, and others in rejecting them, is sometimes blindly embraced,

and frequently as blindly refused. Let us attempt to compare the case which has been now made out, with some other fact which presents less to biass our impartiality. It is possible to suppose, that, by some extraordinary revolution throughout the civilized world, the discoveries familiar to the present generation might be lost, and science reduced to the low state in which it lay three centuries ago. Suppose also, that, in the process of ages, the progressive improvement of the human mind should revive anew the discoveries of Newton, so that they should again be generally acknowledged, and comprised among the elements of astronomy. If then, in some rude country, which had been little known or examined, the curiosity of travellers should find an astronomical treatise with this simple proposition for its basis, that our earth and the other planets revolve round the sun, which, as the centre of the system, supports the whole: it would naturally and at once be concluded, that this people either now possessed, or had formerly arrived at the proofs of that truth, the recent discovery of which among themselves had surprised the age, and immortalized its author.

Neither is the case here supposed, altogether imaginary. A similar deduction has been actually inferred from the antiquity of the Indian astronomy. From the accuracy of the tables of Trivalore, philosophers and historians have not hesitated to pronounce that a nation which we had been accustomed to consider as overspread with barbarous ignorance, must have been acquainted with geometrical science, and even with the higher branches of the mathematics, at a time when the astronomy of all the rest of the world extended no farther than actual observation.

If, therefore, we find acknowledged among the Hebrews, an uncivilized people, at an early age, a sublime truth which philosophers in after-times much more imperfectly, and with far less effect, promulgated as the gradual result of long analysis; what can we reasonably suppose, but that there existed among them that undeniable evidence, either historical, or addressed to the senses, or both, which first anticipated argument, and afterwards superseded its necessity?

Asiat. Researches, vol. vi. and viii. Ed. Review, vol. x.