re of the Assyrian Monarchy. 313 
was ascribed. Accordingly we find this idea 
running through all the mythologies which I 
enumerated above ; every where the different 
sex of the divinities, and their sexual unions, 
form the basis of that system of symbolical 
language in which the operations of nature 
are described. But the deities thus created 
by the rude philosophy and sensual imagina- 
tions of men, would speedily be identified 
with those elements of nature which bear the 
most conspicuous part in the production of 
things. Thus we find the earth, (*°) the 
great supply of the materials for the growth 
of animal and vegetable bodies, most exten- 
sively personified and worshipped as the great 
mother; the sun, whose vivifying rays call 
forth her productive energies, as the univer- 
sal father; (**) the refined fiery ether as the 
father ; the inferior atmosphere, damp but 
fertilizing, as the mother ; (*”) fire as the ac- 
_ tive, water as the passive principle in the pro- 
duction of all things.(*?) Again, we not 
only find two different elements represented 
as of opposite sexes, but a male and a female 
assigned to thesame element.(**+) It wasin 
pursuance of the same idea, that the em- 
blems of the active and passive principle, the 
linga and yoni of the Hindoos, the gaara; and 
__ xis of the Greeks, first received those honours, 
VOL. III. RI 
