198 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



aside in such cases almost without comment or re- 

 morse. In notes I have made of the more striking 

 passages bearing on this point I find few exceptions to 

 the remark. Aristotle's expression of unity is espe- 

 cially simple and distinct Els Se a>v, TroXuoWjuos ecrn ; 

 and as far as I recollect he hardly ever speaks of the 

 heathen deities by name. Seneca, whose power of 

 deep thought has been somewhat hidden under affecta- 

 tions of his style, expresses the same idea. Even where 

 the plural is used in such discussions the tendency is 

 often to a singular meaning, or the two forms are in- 

 differently mixed, as in the 4 Timseus ' of Plato, who 

 makes his Zeus almost synonymous with cause or 

 mind. 1 The dramatists and poets, for obvious reasons 

 of art, speak more as polytheists, yet we read in Pindar 

 of the mysterious rig, supreme in the government of 

 the world ; and ^Eschylus shadows forth the conception 

 of a higher being than the Zeus who chained Prome- 

 theus to the rock. The Homeric Zeus has itself formed 

 the theme of a learned work in Germany. 2 But, as 

 regards the polytheism of the ancients, it must ever be 

 kept in mind that it comes to us mainly through the 

 medium of poetry, which filled up and coloured the 

 wandering traditions of different races of men, giving 

 them an embodiment which the philosophy even of 

 that time refused to recognise. 



Karely, if ever, do we find the sentiment of real 



1 I fear it must be said that the most learned commentaries on Plato 

 (and no heathen author has been so sedulously scrutinised for his mean- 

 ings) have failed to decipher his entire opinions on this subject. Take 

 yassages in the Nfytoi in proof of the difficulty. 



2 That of Dr. Matter. 



