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of this order has attained and surpassed the elevation of the noblest productions of antiquity, while it has opened new provinces of art, and declined in no other respect than in social influence. To all who judge by a higher criterion than the effect produced it must be evident that, in spite of unfavourable circumstances, the æsthetic, like all the other faculties of Man, are under a condition of continuous development. When a stable and homogeneous, and at the same time progressive state of society shall have become established under the positive philosophy, the fine arts will flourish more than they ever did under polytheism, finding new scope and new prerogatives under the new intellectual régime. Then will be seen the advantage of the educational discipline of Man's irrepressible æsthetic faculties which is now going on; and then will be evident to all eyes that radical affinity which, under the laws of the human organization, unites the perception of the beautiful with the relish for truth, on the one hand, and the love of goodness on the other.

The influence of polytheism on the industrial aptitudes of the human race will appear hereafter, when we have Polytheistic to consider which of the three forms of polytheism Industry. best regulates that province. I need only say here that polytheism provides a great extension and more direct application of the influence by which fetichism first excited and sustained human activity in its conquest of external nature. By withdrawing divinities from their former inseparable connection with particular bodies, polytheism rendered lawful such modifications of matter as would have been profane before; while it imparted a belief in supernatural aid in all enterprises whatever, in a more special and familiar way than we can now conceive. At the same time, it instituted a priesthood, to interpret among conflicting claims and appearances: and the multiplicity of gods supplied a valuable special resource to neutralize, by their mutual rivalry, the anti-industrial disposition which we have seen to belong to the religious spirit. Without such a resource, wisely applied by sacerdotal authority, it is evident that the dogma of fatalism, inseparable from polytheism, must have put a stop to the expansion of human activity. There is no disputing the special fitness of polytheism to encourage the development of Man's industrial activity, till, by the progress of the study of nature, it begins to assume its rational character, under the corresponding influence of the positive spirit, which must give it a wiser and bolder direction as it enters upon its great new field.

We must remember that in those early days war was the chief occupation of man, and that we should entirely misjudge ancient industry if we left out of view the arts of military life. Those arts must have been the most important of all, while they were the easiest to improve. Man's first utensils have always been arms, to employ against beasts or his rivals. His skill and sagacity were

engaged through many centuries, in instituting and improving military apparatus, offensive or defensive; and such efforts, besides fulfilling their immediate purpose, aided the progress of subsequent industry, to which it afforded many happy suggestions. In this connection, we must always regard the social state of antiquity as inverse to our own, in which war has become a merely accessory affair. In antiquity, as now among savages, the greatest efforts of human industry related to war; in regard to which it accomplished prodigies, especially in the management of sieges. Among us. though the vast improvements in mechanical and chemical arts have introduced important military changes, the system of military implements is far less advanced, in comparison with our resources as a whole, than it was, under the same comparison, among the Greeks and Romans. Thus, we cannot form a judgment of the influence of polytheism upon the industrial development of the human race unless we give its due place to the military branch of the arts of life.

Social attri

The social aptitude of polytheism remains to be considered, under its two points of view, the political and the butes of Poly- moral,-the first of which was necessarily preponderant; and the second of which shows more than any other aspect the radical imperfection of this phase of the theological philosophy.

theism.

The polytheistic priesthood was the first social corporation which could obtain sufficient leisure and dignity to devote itself to the study of science, art, and industry, which polytheism encouraged, and to which ambition urged the priesthood, no less than their vocation called them. The political consequences of such an establishment, in influencing the economy of ancient society, are what we must next ascertain. In its earliest age, the human race always discloses the germs of the chief political

Polity. powers, temporal and practical, spiritual and theo

retical. Of the first class, military qualities, strength and courage first, prudence and cunning afterwards, are the immediate basis of active authority, even if it be temporary. Of the second class is the wisdom of the aged, which performs the office of transmitting the experience and the traditions of the tribe, and which soon acquires a consultative power, even among populations whose means of subsistence are so precarious and insufficient as to require the mournful sacrifice of decrepit relatives. With this natural authority is connected another elementary influence, that of women,-which has always been an important domestic auxiliary, bringing sentiment to the aid of reason, to modify the direct exercise of material supremacy. These rudiments of all succeeding establishments of authority would not have passed beyond their incipient stage, if polytheism had not attached them to the double institution of regular worship and a distinct priesthood, which

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afford the only means of admitting anything like a social organization among scattered families. This is the chief political destination of the theological philosophy; and it is in this, its second stage, that we see how its social prerogative results from the rise of common opinions on subjects the most interesting to Man, and of a speculative class which must be the organ of those opinions. It is in this way, and not so much from fears or hopes of a future life, that religious doctrines have been efficacious in a social sense. The political influence of religious doctrine has never been great its operation is essentially moral; though even under this aspect, we are too apt to confound with it the repressive or guiding power inherent in the existence of any system of common opinions. Moreover, it is unquestionable that the religious doctrine acquired social importance only at a late period of polytheism; and it was under monotheism that that importance reached its height; as we shall presently see. It is true, there has been no age in which Man did not yield to the natural desire and supposition of his own. eternal existence, past and future; a tendency which it is perfectly easy to explain; but this natural belief exists long before it admits of any social or even moral application,-first, because theological theories are very slowly extended to human and social phenomena; and again, because, when this is effected, and the guidance of human affairs has become the chief function of the gods, it is on the present, and not on a future life that the strongest emotions of hope and fear are concentred. The poems of Homer show how new were the moral theories of polytheism relating to future reward and punishment, by the eagerness of the wisest minds to propagate a belief so useful, and so little known among the most advanced peoples: and the books of Moses show that, even in a state of premature monotheism, the rude Hebrew nation, not yet susceptible of the idea of eternal justice, feared only the direct and temporal wrath of its formidable deity.

Worship.

In the social phase presented by polytheism, after the establishment of common opinions, and a speculative class as their organ, the nature of the worship was well adapted to the mind of the time, consisting of numerous and varied festivals, favourable to the advancement of the fine arts, and supplying a sufficient ground for assemblages of a population of some extent, connected by a common language. The festivals of Greece preserved their high social importance, as a bond and reconciliation of conflicting nations, till absorbed by the power of Rome. If no power but that of the theological philosophy could organize even the games of the ancients, it is not surprising that all natural authorities should repair for sanction to this source, which alone could give any extension and durability to their social influence; and hence the theocratic character which invests all modes of primitive government.

Passing from the passive establishment of a social organization to Civilization its active existence, the first consideration is that by War. life was then military by necessity, not only from the conformity of war with the propensities of the age, but from its being the only means of rendering the political organism durable and progressive. It had a higher and more general function in extending human associations, and devoting the most numerous classes to an industrial life. When we speak of the civilizing qualities of modern war, we commit the great mistake of estimating absolutely what can be only relative, and supposing that to be true of our own time which was true only of a totally different age: but if restricted to the social state of the ancients, or to that of any population at the same stage of progress, it is emphatically true that war was a means of civilization. By the annexation of secondary populations to a preponderant one, human society was enlarged in the only way then possible; while the dominion of the conquering nation could not be established or maintained but by the repression of the military activity of each annexed population; and thus was peace preserved among the subordinates, and opportunity was afforded for their induction into an industrial mode of life. Such is the process by which human societies were disciplined, extended, reconstituted, and led on to their subsequent mode of existence. There cannot be a happier instance of the power of intellectual and moral superiority than this, which shows us how propensities which, in every other carnivorous being, lead only to the brutal development of the destructive instincts, become the natural means of civilization. We need no further proof of the aptitude of polytheism to sustain and direct the rise of military activity. We, who make a broad division between the spiritual and the temporal, are apt to say that the ancients had no religious wars but if this is in any sense true, it is because all their wars had more or less of a religious character; their gods being then national deities, mingling their conflicts with those of their peoples, and sharing their triumphs and reverses. There was something of this in the fierce wars of fetichism, though the family character of the divinities precluded them from any considerable political efficacy; but the gods of polytheism had precisely that degree of generality which allowed them to call entire peoples to their standards, while they were national enough to stimulate the growth of the warrior spirit. In a system which admitted of an almost indefinite addition of new gods, the only possible proselytism was in subjecting the gods of the vanquished to those of the victor; but it certainly always existed, under that characteristic form, in ancient wars, in which it must have largely contributed to excite mutual ardour, even among combatants who practised an analogous worship, but each of whom yet had their national god familiarly incorporated with the whole of their special history. The social operation of polytheism was, while

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stimulating the spirit of conquest, to incorporate subject nations with the victorious one, permitting each to preserve its own faith and worship, on condition of acknowledging the superiority of the victorious deities; a procedure which, under that régime, required no subversion of any religious economy. Under this military aspect, polytheism is superior, not only to fetichism, but even to monotheism. Monotheism is adapted to the more pacific existence of more advanced societies, and does not urge to war, in their case, but rather discourages it while, with regard to less advanced nations, it does not, because it cannot, seek the annexation of other faiths, but is instigated by its own exclusive character to annihilate or degrade conquered idolaters, unless they redeem themselves by immediate conversion. The Jews, the Mohammedans, and others who passed over prematurely into an abortive monotheism before they were socially prepared for the change, are remarkable instances of this. It is unquestionable that these are the qualities which specially adapt polytheism to direct the military development of ancient society.

Sacerdotal

sanctions.

Among the accessory resources of the polytheistic system, we may note the quality by which it secured the establishment and maintenance of a strict military discipline, whose prescriptions were easily placed under the guardianship of a suitable divine protection, by means of oracles, augury, etc., always applicable under a regular system of supernatural communication, organized by polytheism, and repressed by monotheism. We must bear in mind the spontaneous sincerity which regulated the use of those means which we are too apt to regard as jugglery, for want of carrying ourselves back to an intellectual condition in which theological conceptions were blended with all human acts, and the simplest movements of human reason were adorned by a religious consecration. If ancient history offers some rare instances of deliberately false oracles having been published for political purposes, it never fails to exhibit also the small success of such miserable expedients, through the radical connection of minds, which must prevent some from firmly believing what others have forged. There is, again, the power of apotheosis, much underrated by us: a power peculiar to this second religious period, and which tended to foster in the highest degree, among superior minds, every kind of active enthusiasm, and especially military fervour. The immortal beatification proposed by monotheism was a poor substitute, because apotheosis under polytheism gratified the universal idea of unlimited life, and added to it the special privilege of promising to vigorous spirits the eternal activity of those instincts of pride and ambition which were the great charm of life in their eyes. When we judge of this resource by the degradation it exhibited in the decrepitude of polytheism, when it was applied to the worst rulers, and had become a sort of mortuary formality, we lose all conception of its power in