THE PROGRESS OF THE MIND OF MAN. 
351 
They represented them by letters in the order 
of their distances. 
Moon Mercury. Venus. Sun. 
A E HI 
Mars. Jupiter. Saturn. 
o r 
Saturn, the slowest of the planets, was 
taken as the symbol, and made the god of 
time, and, like time, Saturn destroyed his off- 
spring ; he took the wings of time and his name, 
Chronos. 
Jupiter, the most remarkable of the pla- 
nets for his splendour, supplanted his father 
Saturn, occupied the throne of the universe, 
and became the king of gods. 
Mars, of the colour of blood, and placed 
nearer to the sun, they imagined to be endued 
with the attributes of a warrior, and called 
the god of battle. 
Venus, whose clear bright light is some- 
times to be seen even through the daylight, at 
one time precedes the sunrise, and at another 
follows the twilight, alternately pursuing and 
pursued by the sun. They believed her to 
produce the fertilizing dews of the morning 
and the evening ; named her the goddess of 
fecundity, of beauty, and adored her under 
the names of Astarte, Astaroth, &c. 
Mercury, the swiftest moving of the planets, 
was taken as the symbol of speed and light- 
ness ; he became the god of motion ; and, being 
even seen in the immediate neighbourhood of 
the sun, was designated the messenger of 
Olympus. 
The Sun was adored as the author of light, 
order, and fecundity ; and the Moon, as des- 
tined to imbibe this influen^ from the Sun, 
in their conjunction, and transmit it to the 
earth. All the nations of antiquity erected 
altars to the Sun. In Egj'pt he was wor- 
shipped as Osiris, in Phenicia as Adonis, in 
Lydia as Athys, &c. 
A multitude of divines were thus frequently 
worshipped in the same being; a fact not to be 
wondered at, since the attributes which each 
nation assigned to their common object of 
worship, would necessarily partake in the 
errors of their knowledge of it, and the pre- 
judices which they had attached to it. And 
thus, until it pleased God to make a direct 
revelation of his will to mankind, the history 
of the development of the religious principle 
among them, was little other than a history 
of the wanderings and uncertainties of the 
human understanding, which, placed in a 
world it could not comprehend, sought, 
nevertheless, with unwearied solicitude, to 
develop the secret of it, which, a spectator of 
the mysterious and visible prodigy of the uni- 
verse imagined causes for it, supposed objects, 
and raised up systems ; which, finding one 
defective, destroyed it to raise another not 
less faulty on its ruins ; which, abhorred the 
errors that it renounced, misunderstood those 
which it embraced ; repulsed the very truth 
for which it sought ; conjured up chimeras 
of invisible agents, and dreaming on, with- 
out discretion and without happiness, was at 
length utterly bewildered in a labyrinth of 
illusions. 
How great is the contrast 1 Since the age 
in which the heathen mythology had its ori- 
gin, the religion of mankind has fixed itself 
upon the sure foundation of a revelation from 
God, and the human understanding has ac- 
quired for itself the master-secret of the uni- 
verse. The wanderings of the stars on the 
firmament of the heavens are at length un- 
derstood. The question, 
Sponte sua juss®ne vagenter et errent ? 
no longer perplexes us. We find throughout 
the whole of what appeared to our ancestors 
the capricious motions of powerful but isola- 
ted beings, evidences of one impulse, one will, 
one design, one Almighty power, originating, 
sustaining, and controlling the whole. These 
beings then, to whom, calling them their 
gods, it was natural that they should attri- 
Wte a separate, independent, and capricious 
existence, subject to the indecision, the error, 
and the feebleness of humanity, appear to us 
but as the creatures of one sovereign intelli- 
gence, bound down in as passive obedience to 
that intelligence, as the stone that falls from 
the hand, or the apple that falls from the 
tree ; v/ith no other thought, or will, or 
power, than that of any particle of duct 
blown about by the Summer’s wind. Thus 
the whole of the sublime and gorgeous page- 
antry of the heathen mythology vanishes 
like the baseless fabric of a dream. 
We know that this magnificent phantom 
retained its shadowy control over the intellect 
of man, in an age of great literary refinement, 
of profound knowledge in the philosophy 
of morals, and of high civilization ; and had 
no revelation interposed, there could be no- 
thing found in the mei-e literature, ethics, and 
civilization of our day, as distinguished from 
the literature, ethics, and civilization of theirs, 
to overthrow it ; thus we might still, in res- 
pect to these, be what we are, and yet the 
worshippers of a host of gods : but combine 
with these the science of our times, and the 
supposition becomes impossible ; a single ray 
penetrating the mystery of the universe is 
sufficient to dispel the illusion of Polytheism, 
and instruct us in the knowledge of the one 
only and true God. 
How prodigious has been the progress 
which the universal mind of man has since 
made, how wonderful the vantage ground on 
which we stand, when we look forth upon 
nature ; the human intellect now walks to and 
fro in creation, as with the strength of a giant, 
the growth of whose stature has been through 
ages, and who but yet approaches the noon- 
tide of his vigour. 
The first question which suggests itself to 
a mind curious to understand the phenomena 
of the heavens, is probably this — are the sun, 
moon, planets, and stars, really as they 
seem to be, at the same distance from us, 
and almost within our reach ? or are they, as 
we are told, some of them infinitely more 
remote from us than others ; and the near-~ 
