MYTHOLOGY. 
48S 
riles another car, whofemild and confoling light invites 
fufceptible hearts to meditation. It is conducted by a 
goddefs. She is coming in (Hence to receive the tender 
homage of Endymion. That arch which (bines with fuch 
rich colours, and extends from one fide of the horizon 
to the other, is formed by the luminous footfteps of Iris, 
who is bearing the commands of Juno to the earth. De¬ 
lightful breezes and horrid tempefts are caufed by genii 
now (porting in the air, now ftruggling with each other, 
to produce a commotion in the waves. At the foot of 
yonder eminence is a grotto, the afylurn of coolnefs and of 
peace. There a beneficent nymph pours forth, from her 
inexhaufiible urn, the ftream that fertilizes the adjacent 
plain ; there file liftens to the vows of the youthful beauty, 
who comes to contemplate her charms in the fleeting 
waters. If we enter that gloomy wood, it is neither the 
filence nor the folitude that occupies the mind : we are in 
the haunts of the Dryads and the Sylvans ; and the fecret 
awe we feel is the effect of the divine majefty. 
To whatever fide we turn our Heps, we are in the pre¬ 
fence of the gods ; we dil'cover them within us and with¬ 
out ; they have divided the empire of our fouls, and di¬ 
rect our inclinations. Some prefide over war and the arts 
of peace ; others infpire the love of wifdom or of plea- 
fure; all of them cherilh jultice and protedl virtue. 
Thirty thoufand divinities, difperfed around us, conti¬ 
nually watch over our thoughts and actions. When we 
a&juftly, heaven prolongs our days, and increales our 
happinels ; but puniflies us when we do evil. On the 
commiflion of crimes, Nemefis and the black Furies ifl'ue, 
with horrid roarings, from the depths of hell; and, glid¬ 
ing into the heart of the guilty mortal, torment him day 
and night with piercing and funereal Ihrieks. Thele 
fhrieks are remorfe of confidence. If the wicked man, 
before his death, neglefts to appeafe the avenging powers 
by holy ceremonies, the Furies, adhering to his foul as to 
their prey, drag it into the gulfs of Tartarus. For the 
Greeks univerially believed the immortality of the foul. 
The following was their doftrine, derived from the Egyp¬ 
tians, concerning that eflence of which we know fo little : 
The Jpiritualfoul, that is, the mind or intellectual faculty, 
is enveloped in a Jenfitive Jbul, which is only a luminous 
and fubtle fpecies of matter, the faithful image of the 
body, on which it is moulded, and whole relemblance 
and dimenfions it for ever continues to retain. Thefe 
two fouls are ftriftly united during life, but are feparated 
by death; and, wliilft the fpiritual foul afcends to heaven, 
the other takes its flight, under the conduit of Mercury, 
to the extremities of the earth, where are the infernal re¬ 
gions, the throne of Pluto, and the tribunal of Minos. 
Abandoned by the whole world, and with nothing on 
which to rely for l'upport but its good aitions, the (oul 
appears before this dread tribunal, hears its fentence, 
and is admitted into the Elyfian Fields or plunged into 
Tartarus. 
The Greeks, who had founded the happinefs of their 
gods only on fenfual enjoyments, were unable to imagine 
any other delights for the Elyfian Fields, hut a delicious 
temperature and a profound yet uniform tranquillity : 
feeble advantages, which did not prevent virtuous fouls 
from fighing for the light of the day, and regretting their 
paifions and their pleafures. Tartarus is the abode of 
lamentation and defpair c the guilty are there configned 
to dreadful torments; their entrails are gnawed by cruel 
vultures; they are whirled round upon the axles of burn¬ 
ing wheels. There Tantalus every moment expires with 
hunger and with third; in the midit of arefrefliing ftream, 
and beneath trees laden with fruit: there the daughters 
of Danaus are condemned to fill a veflel from which the 
water is continually efcaping; and Sifyphus to fix a rock 
on the fiummit of a mountain •. he toils to roll it up, and 
it immediately falls back of itfelf, when he is on the 
point of accompliihing his tafk. Infupportable wants, 
ever aggravated by the prefence of the objects fitted to 
gratify them, labour perpetually the fame, and for ever 
i 
unfutcefsful. What puniflitnents ! The imagination that 
invented them had exhaufted the utmoft refinements of 
cruelty to provide chaftifements for guilt; wbilft it oftered 
no other recompence to virtue but an imperfedl felicity, 
and that too poifoned^ by regret. Was it believed more 
falutary to guide men by the fear of punifliment than by 
the allurements of pleafure? or rather, was it eafier to 
multiply the images of mifery than thofe of happinefs ? 
This rude fyftem of religion taught a fmall number of 
dogmas eflential to the tranquillity of fociety. The ex- 
iltence of the gods, the immortality of the foul, rewards- 
for virtue, puniftiments for vice. It preferibed ceremo¬ 
nies which might contribute to maintain thefe truths, in 
its feftivals and myfteries; it prefented civil government 
with powerful means whereby to profit by the ignorance 
and credulity of the people, in its oracles, and the arts of 
augury and divination; it left every man, in fine, at li¬ 
berty to adopt fuch ancient traditions as he thoughtpro- 
per, and continually to load with new inventions the 
hiftory and genealogy of the gods; fo that the imagina¬ 
tion, free to create facts, and to vary by prodigies thofe 
which were already known, never cealed to embellifti its 
details by the marvellous : that ornament fo frigid in 
the eye of reafon, but fo full of charms for youthful 
minds and infant notions. The narrative of the traveller 
to his admiring hofts, of the father of a family to his lif- 
tening children, of the bard admitted to the entertain¬ 
ments of princes, were wrought up in the intrigue, and 
conduced to the cataftrophe, by the intervention of the 
gods; and the fyftem of religion infenlibly became a fyf¬ 
tem of poetry and fiftion. At the fame time, the erro¬ 
neous ideas, which prevailed refpefting natural philofo- 
phy, enriched languages with a multitude of images. 
The habit of confounding motion with life, and life with, 
fentiment; the facility of connefting certain relations 
fubfifting between objefts, made men, in converfation, at¬ 
tribute to the mod infenfible beings a foul, or properties 
wholly foreign to their nature. The fword was laid to 
tlrirfl after the blood of the enemy ; the dart to fly, impa¬ 
tient to deftroy. Wings were aferibed to every thing that 
cleaves the air; to lightning, to the winds, to arrows, to 
the found of the voice. Aurora had rofy fingers; the 
Sun, golden trefl'es; and Thetis, jilver feet. Such meta¬ 
phors were admired, efpecially for their novelty; and the 
language of Greece, like that of all nations in their in¬ 
fancy, became poetical. Anacharjis in Greece. 
The foundation of all religion is a belief in the exift- 
ence of Cupernatural beings with power to affett our hap¬ 
pinefs ; and the popular religion is this fentiment, exhibit¬ 
ing itfelf in outward afts, iu fupplications, thankfgivings, 
and lacrifices: but, where the human mind has received, 
any improvement, there is formed, diftinct from this fitn- 
ple fpecies of religion, one-of a more elevated charafter, 
the exclufive pofieftion of the prieft, of the philofopher, 
or of him who has been initiated into che myfteries. 
Thefe fpecies ufually remain diltindt, but feparated by. 
the broadeft line where an hereditary cafte of priefts has 
exifted. They cannot, however, be wholly without re¬ 
ciprocal influence even in this cafe : but they will retain 
their feparate charafter the more pertinacioufty, in pro¬ 
portion as the exiftence of this wall of feparatiou prevents 
the prieft and the people from coaiefcing. Among the 
Greeks, no (acerdotal cafte exifted, nor even a facerdotai. 
order, very diftindly marked : but together with their 
popular religion they had alfo a fecret cloftrine of the 
myfteries; and we mutt obferve the peculiar qualities of 
each before we can form a general eftimate of the eft'e&s 
of their religion. 
Our inveftigations refpedfting the divinities.of the Eaft 
always carry us back to this principle, that their primary 
import was the rep refen tation of the objefts and powers 
of nature. They may have been in the firft inftance the 
material parts of the univerfe, the fun, moon, and ftars, 
the earth, and the lea; or perfonifications of natural- 
powers, as a creating, a preferving, a deftroying, prin¬ 
ciple i 
