157 
no nation so savage as not to know that there is a God, though they may not 
know what worship they ought to offer him.” 
Page 145 gives us a quotation from Grote’s History, telling of the effect of 
the visit of Pythagoras to Sicily. We may allow that beneficial results 
followed his visit. When, however, we read that “ no less than 2,000 persons 
were converted at his first preaching,” we submit that Pythagoras had not 
the good news whose preaching is followed by conversion ; and that, using 
the word conversion in its ordinary religious sense, there were no conversions 
under Pythagoras. Cicero knew more of the Old Philosophers, of the Pan- 
theist Pythagoras, and of his labours in Sicily than Grote, and he confessed 
that “not even in a single instance did philosophy reform either the 
philosophers or their disciples.” 
The best of them mourned over virtue and shame alike departed, and their 
cry was that of Ajax in Homer, “ Give us light, 0 Jove.” Plato, perhaps 
the best of them, said, “We have fallen into this miserable plight, from which 
we know not how to extricate ourselves, unless God send us a teacher.” 
God has done a great deal to keep this earth from total darkness and pol- 
lution, by raising up, in different places, great moralists, philosophers, poets, 
and legislators to teach mankind. But, as the late Dr. Duncan said, “ the best 
pagan philosophy was only God’s scavengery to keep his prison-house some- 
what clean till He would come who was to proclaim liberty to the captives.” 
THE AUTHOR’S REPLY. 
To the foregoing the Author of the Paper replies : — 
With respect to Dr. Fisher’s criticisms, I wish to make the following 
remarks : — 
1. I am not surprised at the objection raised with respect to the Zulus. It 
is what any one who does not know them would naturally think. Yet both 
my statements are strictly and literally true. They have no God, and they 
have no worship, but they have a tradition that Unkulunkulu, the Great Great 
One, appointed death ; and some of the tribes have a further tradition that he 
first made men out of reeds, or maize-stalks. The full tradition concerning 
the appointment of death is as follows : — Whenever any word is received 
from Unkulunkulu it cannot be changed. He sent the Chameleon to say to 
men that they must live and not die. Afterwards he sent the Salamander to 
tell men that they must die. The Chameleon, as usual, loitered on his way, 
and at best moved but slowly, so that the Salamander, who always runs, got 
to the end of his journey first, and delivered his message long before the 
Chameleon arrived ; and, having had word already that they must die, his 
word was of no avail. But of Unkulunkulu the Zulus now know nothing 
not even his existence. He is not in their thoughts. The tribes which live 
in the Zulu country know nothing higher than the spirit of Tshaka. 
