105 
original of a nation. No two subjects can be more closely inter- 
woven. 
I consider the Druidic religion to have been truly patriarchal, 
antecedently to its pollution by the Sabian heresies, divination, hu- 
man sacrifices, and popular superstitions. The Magian, or fire- 
worship doctrine, opposed to Sabianism, or image-worship, was 
restored to its primitive purity by Zoroaster, and by his disciples 
transmitted to the west. The western fire-worshippers, like their 
prototypes, the Gaurs or Guebres of the east, believed in one 
supreme, omnipotent, eternal, and self-existing being ; in the im- 
mortality of the soul; and in future rewards and punishments. 
Though called fire-worshippers, they were not really so. They re- 
verenced fire: they did not worship it. In their views, it was 
impious to represent the divine essence by images or statues, or 
to circumscribe the Lord of the Universe within the limits of a 
temple; and hence their worship in the open air. In the east, a 
reformation was, indeed, introduced, which ordered covered tem- 
ples, to save the sacred fire from being destroyed by rain and tem- 
pests. I am persuaded, that a similar precaution was used in 
Ireland ; and that our Round Towers, if not themselves covered 
fire temples, were, at least, constructed, more or less, on the model 
of our minarets of paganism. One of them is, to this day, called 
Teampal na Greine, “ the temple of the sun.” They must be very 
ancient ; they are mentioned frequently in our earliest annals ; and 
Cambrensis, in the twelfth century, relates, that, on a clear day, 
in smooth water, the fisherman could observe one of them, which 
stood deep in lake Neagh.* Tower is, in Irish, as in Syriac, éur, 
the root of the Greek and Latin terms for these edifices. Ptolemy 
Q 2 
* Topgr. Hib. 
