FROM NATURE. 857 



were acquired from beholding everywhere the 

 creating and life-giving power of the sun,* or of 

 that all pervading fire which animates the infi- 

 nite multitude of suns. For it is manifest that 

 all our ideas, whether of matter or spirit, are 

 prototyped in the visible and tangible operations 

 of the universe, that they were originally de- 

 rived through the senses, as demonstrated by 

 Locke, and by the simple method of tracing all 

 words to their primitive signification, that there 

 is no foundation in either nature or revelation, 

 for the doctrine of Kant and other metaphy- 

 sicians, that our ideas of the Divinity, infinite 



* It is difficult to comprehend what Aristotle meant by saying, 

 that the Prime Mover of nature is itself immovable, without 

 supposing that he had a glimmering notion of the doctrine which 

 was taught Pythagoras by GEnuphis, an Egyptian Priest of On, 

 that the sun is the fixed centre of light, heat, and motion, to 

 the planetary system, as we are informed by Plutarch. (Placita 

 Philosophorum, lib. iii. c. 2.) His account of the Trinity was 

 also derived from Pythagoras, who received it from the east. 

 For we are informed by the Rev. Mr. Maurice, in his Indian 

 Antiquities, that the doctrine of a Trinity prevailed throughout 

 the whole of Asia, north Africa, and the greater part of Europe, 

 long before the civilization of Greece. We also learn from Sir 

 William Jones, that among the ancient Hindoos, a trinity of 

 powers was supposed to reside in the sun, or solar fire, whose 

 creating, preserving, and destroying agency was represented 

 under the names of Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva, mythological 

 personations of the sun. In accordance with this doctrine, 

 Aristotle observes, in the beginning of his work on Heaven, that 

 all things are bounded by three, since the beginning, middle, and 

 end, contain the all, and the number of the Triad which, he 

 adds, as a law of nature, we use in the worship of the Gods. 



