.NATURAL THEOLOGY. 197 



the oi TrpocrBtv rjpuv of whom Plato speaks, as recog- 

 nising a supreme IVous /cat Qpovrjcns governing through- 

 out the universe. The same belief, as is well known, 

 has been handed down, under more vague or distorted 

 forms, from the remote antiquity of all the great Ori- 

 ental races. The Egyptians, though like other astro- 

 laters locating their Supreme Power in the sun, yet 

 held that this embodiment was assumed by his own 

 volition. Among the savage races over the earth the 

 same conception exists of a Supreme Being, however 

 rudely material the expression given to it. 



We might expect all this to be so. Apart from all 

 revelation, the general conception of a Deity/however 

 modified in details, springs from sources common to 

 every race of men in every age, viz., the need, as it 

 may well be termed, of conceiving some Intelligence 

 and Power distinct from and above our own ; and the 

 proofs from design or adaptation throughout the world 

 that to this Intelligent Power belongs the work of crea- 

 tion and the maintenance of things made. If these 

 conceptions are ever annulled it must be by the arti- 

 fices of metaphysical language, and not by any realities 

 of thought. 



Without dwelling on Warburton's opinion (a very 

 doubtful one), that the greater Elusinian Mysteries 

 taught expressly the unity of God, or quoting from 

 Cudworth's vast body of authorities on the subject, it 

 is enough to say generally of the great Greek and 

 Latin writers that they rarely use other than the sin- 

 gular number when speaking explicitly of the existence 

 and attributes of Divine Power. Polytheism is cast 



