The lowest stage* of this conception is Fetishism,
or Shamanism. The crude perception of the Fetish
worshipper recognizes in external things the hostile
only, that which puts obstacles to his existence, or to
the gratification of his wants. Here, all is exclu-
sively personal; the man still refers, child-like, every
thing to himself : whatever is agreeable and useful he
tacitly accepts as a matter of course, but what is an-
tagonistic and hostile excites his attention. He seeks
to propitiate the adversary by sacrifices, and thus to
interest him in his well-being ; or, he tries to overcome
him by means of exorcisms, contortions, dances, etc.
In order to provide himself with a visible sign of this
hostile power, the Shaman selects the first obstacle he en-
counters, a stone, a block of wood, or the like. So soon
however as an insuperable difficulty again arises, he
acknowledges the first symbol to be ineffectual, deposes
it, and selects another. Throughout Central Africa
and in Upper Asia, this is the grade of intelligence that
exists at the present day amongst an enormous, an
untold population.
But so soon as man has begun to observe nature
external to himself, so soon as his mind has learned to
* The Religious-Philosophy of the Jews. By Dr. S. Hirsch.
Leipsic, 1842.
c*
26 LECTURE II.
look beyond the present, and to embrace a longer period
of time, he becomes cognizant, not only of a destructive,
but also of a beneficent influence. He beholds division
in this outward nature life and death, growth and
decay antagonisms, therefore, in perpetual conflict.
Thence it follows, that the world and life are no longer
to him an unknown entity, but a mystery of which he
seeks the solution. This is the second stage at which
the peoples of "Asia, as also Egypt, have remained.
And where was the explanation sought of the mystery
of these two warring powers? First, in the external
forms of nature. Men saw that beneficent and hostile
influences alternately prevail, that the operations of na-
ture begin, cease, and return, according to fixed laws ;
and that consequently, self-preservation is possible
through this order alone, since according to these
laws, at fixed periods, these hostile influences are in-
variably suspended. Thus order or measure appears
as the controller of the destructive powers, bringing
them into balance with the beneficent influences,
therefore, as divine. This is the religion of Fohi, pro-
fessed by the Chinese and Japanese. They acknow-
ledge a trinomial godhead Sanzai ; the first, Zai is the
firmament and stars, the fructifier ; the second, the earth,
with fire, air, water, the fructified; the third is humanity,
which subsists by reason of the order in these two, and
has its personification in the Emperor, as the head of
this order. Every thing must contribute to the pre-
servation of order and of a due balance of power ; man,
therefore, 'forms the third of these co-operating powers.
But as this order illustrates only the outward form
or expression of nature, but riot the inner essence, the
more developed mind must conceive the beneficent and
ANTIQUITY AND MOSAISM. 27
hostile influences to be separate antagonistic powers,
which are of necessity adjusted by a third and higher
agency. This view accordingly followed, at first in a
concrete form. Light was believed by the Persians to be
the concrete essence of life, increase, and good ; darkness,
that of death, annihilation, and evil : two equi-potent,
ever-warring powers, Ormuzt and Ahriman. As in
consequence of their equality there could be no other
result from their conflict than their reciprocal destruc-
tion, a third power was sought, superior to them
Zeruane-Akrene, or unknown destiny, who, with in-
conceivable absoluteness, keeps both at war and suffers
neither to achieve the victory. It is the duty of man
to promote the kingdom of Ormuzt, by the reproduc-
tion of life, planting, sowing, etc., and also by external
purity ; as after the lapse of a certain period of time,
the light will yet conquer.
Among intellectual nations, this concrete view would
naturally give place to an abstract one. The Indians
conceived this world of mutability, of alternating birth
and death, that in itself bears no solution of its purpose,
to be a subordinate state a Here, beyond which there
is a Hereafter, the real positive world, to which the
world visible is but the evil antithesis. Above mutable
existence,* they place existence absolute.f This they
imagine as an infinite unoccupied space an indefinite
yonder Brahm. Man> can attain to this state of
blessedness, on the condition of a complete renunciation
of the life natural. To effect this, he must mortify
and extinguish his natural appetites, and reduce his
wants to the utmost ; he must dwell alone and motion-
less in profound obliviousness of all other matter of
* >a$ eienbe. t >
28 LECTURE II.
thought, lost in the contemplation of the sacred word,
Aoum. But how did the visible Here, come out of
this immaterial Infinite ? The Hereafter, the Indian
knows not. He says, merely, that in Brahm there
arose a thought to create a world in contrast to itself,
and this thought evolved itself into three ruling powers :
Brahma, the creator ; Siva, the destroyer ; Vishnu,
symbolized by water the preserver.
The means by which the material universe could evolve
itself out of a nonentity remains, notwithstanding the
above theorem, a riddle unsolved. Amongst the Egyp-
tians, the inscrutability of this question was a chief
article of faith. This inscrutable original being, they
called Neitha : she is that which was, is, and is to come;
but to no mortal has it been granted to raise her mystic
veil. Neitha, therefore, is the inscrutable primal essence,
from whom, they averred, successive trinities emanated ;
and from the last of these, viz., Osiris, Isis, and Horus,
the visible world received being. This Neitha, or primal
essence, has impressed her image on the emanated
world, upon every speciality thereof, but more parti-
cularly on the animal kingdom. The animals represent
individual features of the Deity ; therefore they, such
as cats, crocodiles, ibexes, etc., are worthy of human
worship.
To all the above-named religions, which conceive an-
tagonism in nature under the form of a dual god-
head, resolving itself into a third and higher power,
Sabeanism offered a marked difference. It prevailed
throughout Asia Minor, from Assyria to Phoenicia and
Arabia. According to its system, existence rested, not
in the above-mentioned antagonisms, but in the union
and amalgamation of the naturally antagonistic elements.
ANTIQUITY AND MOSAISM. 29
Heat and cold, drought and moisture, separately, would
be destructive ; their combination only produces life.
All is therefore necessary ; and the necessity of nature
is the highest, the dominant principle in the universe.
This necessity of nature is shown forth most manifestly
in the stars, especially in the seven planets known to
antiquity the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter,
Venus, and Saturn which are severally inhabited by
the dominant forces of nature. It is the duty of man
to resign himself entirely to this necessity. The highest
expression of that resignation is offering human sacri-
fices to Moloch, the Sun, the greatest of the gods.
Though all these religions emanated, as we have seen,
from one profound thought, sublimating the mysteries
of being into the certainty of divine agency, yet in
attempting to unravel nature in her separate forms, they
lowered that first thought, and gave fancy free play.
Man in the infancy of civilization, does not distinguish
between things animate and inanimate, but ascribes life
to every natural object. His wonder is especially ex-
cited by such as are lifeless in themselves, yet present
the appearance of activity. To these he is ever prone
to attribute an extraordinary, supernatural, or even
divine power. Therefore the primary difficulty was,
how man, under the action of these conflicting influ-
ences on himself, should first arrive at the idea of a
divinity, to whom the thought of creation should be
ascribed. This accomplished, he could give free scope
to his imagination, in making to himself, in conformity
with his observations, gods and spirits out of natural and
human objects. Thus in every misfortune the Shaman
sees the interference of evil spirits. The Chinese sets
Genii, whose duty is the preservation of order, over
30 LECTURE II.
every individual, over every province and state, over
every mountain and river. He worships these Genii,
in the most hideously shaped idols ; but deposes them
when any thing disturbs this law of general order, i. e.,
when any mischance occurs to himself. The Indian
theory teaches, that out of three supreme powers,
there emanated eight subordinate divinities, among
whom are Suria, the sun, and Indra, the ruler of
the air. Under the dominion of Indra there are
thirty-three good spirits, who are opposed by Jacksha
and Rackshasa, the spirits of evil. But every thing
in nature is finally an emanation from God. The
Ganges and the Himalaya are actually God, as the ape
and cow are actual prototypes of the' Deity. Again, the
Persian places under Ormuzt, the pure spirits of life,
the Fervers, six Amshaspands, and innumerable Izeds,
ever present, ever active, ever honoured agencies, in-
dwelling all things. In the realm of Sabeanism, every
tribe, every city, had its own particular star, which it
worshipped as its god, its Baal. All these religions
have a uniform characteristic. The basis on which their
whole system rests, is to ascribe divinity to that which
lies especially under the notice of their votaries, in
India, to the Ganges ; in Egypt, to the Nile ; to light,
in the bright gorgeous land of Persia ; in Asia Minor,
where heat and drought are often injurious, to combi-
nation, etc.
If we turn from the peoples of the East, to those of
the West, we observe a distinctly new phase, the third
grade in our classification. Whereas the former deified
nature, on account of her ever-varying action on man,
the peoples of the West, Greeks, Romans, and Ger-
mans, deify, within the realm of nature, humanity itself.
ANTIQUITY AND MOSATSM. 31
They identify nature and humanity. The sensations
which external influences produce in man, they trans-
fer to nature herself. The effects experienced by
the Eastern, are received by him as the natural
action of these phenomena; the Greek, on the con-
trary, attributes to them the will to produce this
effect, the will being consequent upon a feeling per-
taining to them. The Oriental regarded only the
permanent qualities of things ; the Greeks, their tem-
porary influences ; for example, the same sea which
to-day brings the mariner into the desired haven, may
to-morrow dash him lifeless on desert shores : the same
sun which this year brings forth nature's richest gifts,
may, in the next, scorch up the ground into a barren
pestilential waste. A changing will must therefore
dwell in the things of nature ; and this will must spring
from sentiments similar to those in the breast of man :
from passions such as love, hatred, revenge, or forgive-
ness. From this view, two several consequences are
found to result : first, every natural object has a god in
itself, and this divinity is swayed by human passions;
secondly, every human passion has its own god. There
is a god of heaven Jove who now loves, now rages.
Love itself has a god, nay different gods, according to
the various kinds of love. There is a god of peace,
and a god of war; and every god lives sometimes in
peace, sometimes at war. Hence, not the world, but the
gods first came into existence. Fancy then exercised un-
limited sway in the realm of natural and psychological
discovery. The line of demarcation between the gods
and men, must, according to the Grecian system, neces-
sarily and wholly disappear ; and thus we find all men
around whose brows the halo of antiquity rests, trans-
32 LECTURE II.
lated to the sphere of the gods. The Roman and north-
ern mythologies have similar tendencies, and only vary
in accordance with their respective national idiosyn-
crasies. The practical and egotistical Roman aimed, by
means of his gods and their worship, chiefly at the
useful, the German, at personal bravery.
In order to complete the portraiture of the religious
spiritual life of the ancients, it is necessary to glance at
their philosophy, which is however the especial product
of the Grecian mind alone. A modern writer says,
' An unfounded and prejudiced notion it is, to maintain
that the philosophers of paganism had truth in their
lives, although the religions of paganism were false.
To prove the necessity of revelation, recourse is often
had to the assertion, that by means of philosophy, indi-
viduals and the philosophic schools only arrived at a
knowledge of truth, but that through revelation the
whole world is brought near to God/ And this state-
ment is in the main true ; for the philosophy of the
ancients has had no vocation save this ; first, to over-
throw the religious systems of antiquity, and afterwards
its own. Philosophy began as did religion, by trying to
discover the cause of all causes, the first principle of
creation. Whilst the Ionic school conceived a particular
element to be that first principle, the Pythagorean, num-
ber and harmony, and the Eleatic school taught that
matter had no substantial existence and that truth
dwelt in the 'abstract' alone; whilst II eraclit as made
destiny, Empedocles again the eternal but ever-changing
combination of the elements, to be the principle of crea-
tion, they had successively idealised and abnegated
Fetishism, and the religions of China, India, Persia and
Sabeanism. Anaxagoras was the first to distinguish
ANTIQUITY AND MOSAISM. 33
between the 'visible' and 'invisible,' matter and spirit,
and to declare the spirit to be that which sets matter
in motion. The Visible is at first a 'chaos' combined
of infinitely minute equal particles, which the Invisible
the Novs, intelligence, sets in motion, and from their
alternate dispersion and combination, the natural world
rose into existence. This idea was evidently also that
of the Egyptian religion. Both refer to an inscrutable
and therefore vague 'first principle.' This theoiy
was fatal to the religion of Greece, for if intelli-
gence was the supreme principle in the universe, the
claim of the Grecian gods to divine powers was
nullified, since it and the creations of the unbridled
imagination could not co-exist. As this 'intelligence'
of Anaxagoras was still indeterminate and vague, the
Sophists transformed it into a purely subjective prin-
ciple. Nothing exists save that which is perceptible
by the intellect. In opposition to this idea, Socrates
contended that if nothing was, then intelligence or
mind was not, man himself was not, and consequently
man can know nothing; whereas the Sophists, in
holding that that only of which they had knowledge
could have being, presumed they knew everything.
Socrates, therefore, had recourse to the Life Universal,
of which he took the following external view. The
world is conformable to a fixed purpose and design, be-
cause in it all things harmonize, and the individual is
constantly being absorbed by the general. Therefore,
in the subordination of the individual to the general,
consists virtue. Plato carried this theory further.
He recognized the Universal only to be an abstract
idea ; it reached its ultimatum in the aggregate union
of all specialities, unity in multiplicity. The idea,
D
34 LECTURE II.
however, had a pre-existence, and the creation and
application of every thing perceptible to the senses
was in accordance with the conception. Man brings
ideas forth out of himself; he has previously beheld
them in a former state of being ; and as every idea
also presupposes its opposite, the result of the whole
is unity in multiplicity. Aristotle takes an exactly
opposite course. The Universal he asserts, is not a
positive reality, but real only in reference to particular
or special things ; the general is only a possibility ;
the design dwelling in every speciality is what must
be sought after. Aristotle, therefore, pursues speci-
alities as the only actual existencies, without tracing
them back to the Universal, to God who in his system
is a possibility and no more. He regards nature as
an assemblage of isolated facts. But in this system was
involved the disorganization of the philosophy, as well
as of the religion, of the Greeks. In the latter the
gods appear as so many specific divinities, unaccom-
panied by the conception of one Omnipotent Being;
in the former are contained some isolated truths, but
no one generalizing, all pervading, absolute truth. The
later schools effectually carried on in the heart of the
Roman Empire, the work of self-dismemberment, till all
the comfortlessness of the Pagan religion as a phi-
losophy became manifest and universally acknowledged,
inducing as its final result, popular and philosophical
scepticism.
Such, my hearers, is the completed picture of the
whole religious mental life of Antiquity, as also of
that part of mankind which at the present day, yet
lingers in this stage of development. Imperfect as
this sketch may be, it is sufficient to indicate to you
ANTIQUITY AND MOSAISM. 35
the basis, the purport, and the result of the whole. The
basis is egotism; for all these systems sprang only from
the relation of external nature to man ; the purport is
the contradiction involved in existence and non-existence,
entity and non-entity, life and death, production and
decay, and in their continuous alternation the union of
which it is impossible to conceive, the result is despair,
misery, for the consciousness of man cannot extract
the truth, and exhausts itself in the attempt. What
is God in man's sight ? Either a voluntarily accepted
necessity, whose being is inexplicable, or a voluntarily
assumed third existence, by whose omnipotent decree
the antagonism of two other divinities is upheld ; or
an unmeaning empty ' Yonder/ whence the transit to
this world, the ' Here/ is incomprehensible ; or the
ingenuous confession of the Inscrutable it is, but we
know not what it is. Creations of the fancy fill up the
gaps. How real and how general were the misery and
despair reigning in the consciousness of man, in the
later periods of the Roman empire, history clearly
shows; and of this subject we purpose at a fitting
moment to resume the consideration.
With these things Mosaism came into contact. From
its earliest growth to its latest stage, it remained in
distinct contrast, as a mental system, to antiquity, until
that antiquity had entirely exhausted its own vitality,
and had proved, even to self-conviction, its inability to
discover truth. ' Certain truths it had indeed been able
to bring to the test of human consciousness ; yet these
were but of secondary value, since they had not been
resolvable into one absolute truth.
What then is the essential point of difference be-
tween the religions and philosophcmes of Antiquity,
36 LECTURE II.
and Mosaism ? The former had proceeded from man,
from the apparently antagonistic relation of outward
nature to man. In the presence of the mystery, the
antagonism of life and death, being and non-being,
which he could not solve, man assumed them to be
divine. But Mosaism went forth from God. The
former said ( The world is, therefore is there a God';
but the latter declared, ' God is, therefore the world
exists.'
Starting from this one proposition, all becomes clear
to our view. Antiquity saw mankind and the world,
and sought as their originator a Deity. Mosaism
found God, or rather possesses Him, and proceeding
from God, conies to the world and mankind. The
Deity of the religious and philosophic systems of an-
tiquity, could not possibly be aught save the personifi-
cation of their own view of nature : therefore the
antagonism visible in its external phenomena, they
ascribed to the cause of that phenomena. In Mosaism
this antagonism did not exist, for no such principle of
division could spring from the Divine Unity. While
the mind of Paganism could not advance beyond
the idea of production and dissolution, being and non-
being to the mental perception of Mosaism, the con-
ception and existence of God presented no difficulty;
it realized God Himself, and the resolution of all exist-
ence in Him. The human idea repeatedly relapsed into,
and clothed itself in Polytheism, while Mosaism in its
recognition of the unity of God as the basis of its
faith, ensured its own everlasting endurance.
But laying aside antithesis, let us consider the indi-
vidual purport of Mosaism. What I have just ad-
vanced is confirmed by the first words of Scripture.
ANTIQUITY AND MOSAISM. 37
" In the beginning God created the Heaven and the
Earth." God was, and created the world. God is, and
the world is the consequence of His being ; it has in
Him its existence. It receives from Him its origin.
God suffered it to be at first Tohu Vabohu, chaos, and
then He developed in order and time the grand pheno-
mena of nature ; first its universal phenomenon, light ;
then the special elemental phenomena, expansion, water,
earth ; then the specific terrestrial phenomena of the
vegetable and animal kingdoms, etc. ; and lastly, the
highest and most perfect speciality, Man. The great
doctrines of Mosaism are therefore :
1. God is absolute Being.
2. The Universe is His work, in that He operates
the continual transformation of the general into the
special.
3. God is beyond and superior to, or rather above,
the Universe. God and nature are not identical ; the
latter is only His world, a combination of specialities,
and not God, who is absolute.
4. God as absolute essence is Unity.
5. The world is a Unity; in it everything harmo-
nizes, all is necessary, all is good.
In the above established dogma, all the questions of
antiquity are either precluded or answered. As the
world is contemplated, not from the standard of man's
egotism, but from the Universality of the Divine
Author, the question as to salutary and pernicious in-
fluences can no longer be entertained. For these are
relative terms, indicative of the egotistical standard of
judgment erected by man, according to which the infinite
consequences of the designs of a Divine Providence are
made referable to man, his desires, and their gratification.
38 LECTURE II.
(That which in itself is good, may be hurtful to me :
the wind which purifies the atmosphere of an entire pro-
vince, may be to me an agent of destruction) . Even in
production and dissolution there dwells no antagonism ;
since both are resolvable into general existence. They
occur in a speciality only, that is but a link severed
from, and then re-united to, the great chain of the
Universe. In accordance with the spirit of Mosaism,
we find that the same word expresses both the world
L
and eternity D /l^-* Neither can the question how the
world, the ' Here', proceeded from the world 'Beyond',
again arise, for the world is not out of God, but by means
of God, whose appointment it is, that the general being
shall ever develop itself into special existences.
Thus Mosaism teaches that God is an absolute Being
nTlK "I&^N JTntf, consequently one and alone ; above
^
the world; Creator of the world; the unity of all
specialities. God cannot therefore be a speciality,
therefore is He incorporeal, and therefore He cannot
be represented either in one of His works, or by a
" likeness" the work of man's hands. For the same
reason, because God is no speciality, is He holy, i.e., in
Him all special properties resolve into one Universality,
therefore also is He perfect. As God is absolute Being,
He is of no time ; He is eternal : a speciality only is
born and dies. In like manner, He is unlimited in His
being and power, Omnipresent and Omnipotent CH&^).
Thus by means of a comprehensive and intelligible
agnition of the Divinity, Mosaism dismissed the vacant
Yonder of the Indian, the Inscrutable of the Egyptian,
the Necessity of the Sabean, the inexplicable Destiny
of the Persian, and all the phases of philosophy to
* 1 Mos. 2133.
ANTIQUITY AND MOSAISM. 39
\\liich these correspond; and became, thereby, the
most inflexible opponent of the corrupt refuge of these
religions, Polytheism and Idolatry. Whatever truths
had been discovered by these religions and philosphemes,