154 
then I meet it by a quotation from Aristotle, Plato’s greatest 
Si, who refutes^ in language which absolute y errand 
overwhelms this objection of our 19th cen y IP desired 
Had Aristotle been gifted with a spirit ° f , Aubbock he 
to rebut the ethnological philosophy of S r0 mnletely 
could not possibly have written words which moie compl t ly 
tear into shreds his entire theory and programme of ancient 
religious beliefs. Aristotle says . 
It has been Wed down to us from very, amwnt ^ ^ 
other animals* 
on Two things come out from this language which I think 
the general persuasion of the civilized Greeks. £ either 
all the observations of this higher conception of Deity, either 
bv anthropomorphous or animal idolatry, had been simp y a 
KS pSiS,. Monotheism. Thu. Ans.otle u™ |tt- 
theory of Sir John Lubbock bottom upwards ; and, instead ot 
™2g man in remote t*«s a blind and d.grfrf 
lived in a state of atheistic unconcern, and then by degre 
crawled into the light through Petichism Totemum, &c he 
looked upon remote antiquity as handing down the superior 
light, and P upon later generations as obscuring and dwgnig. 
34. I know not whether it is necessary for me to j"or g 
If it were I might easily double or treble the length ol this 
paper, which has already grown sufficiency h ong. I l ; 
you into ancient Scandinavia, of whose inhabitants^MaLet, in 
his work on the Northern nations of Europe, says . 
The most ancient mythology taught the being of a S^-me God 
of the universe, to whom all things were 
the old Icelandic literature, Author of everything that exists, the Jite , 
Being that never changeth. 
I might take you to ancient Mexico, of which Prescott writes 
The Aztecs recognized the existence of one Supreme Creator, 
of the universe; addressing him as “the f ’ se "Igs we 
thoughts, and giveth all gifts, invisible, incorporeal, und 
find sure repose and defence. 
* Aristotle, Met., lib. xiv., cap. 8. 
