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doubtless in connection; and it was these schools which prevented polytheism from producing all its natural sensualizing effects. The mysteries and the mythical hymns and paeans shaped themselves gradually into epic poetry and history on the one hand, and into the ethical tragedy and philosophy on the other. Under their protection, and that of a youthful liberty, secretly controlled by a species of internal theocracy, the scien ces, and the sterner kinds of the fine arts, viz. architecture and statuary, grew up together, followed, indeed, by painting; but an austerely idealized painting, which did not degenerate into mere copies of the sense, till the process for which Greece existed had been completed."

1. The Greeks alone brought forth Philosophy in the proper sense of the term. In the primary sense, philosophy had for its aim and proper subject the ra neoì dozov, de originibus rerum, as far as man proposes to discover the same in and by the pure reason alone. This was the offspring of Greece, elsewhere adopted only. The predisposition appears in their earliest poetry.

2. The first object, or subject-matter of Greek philosophizing, was in some measure philosophy itself. Great minds turned inward on the fact of the diversity between man and beast; a superiority of kind, in addition to that of degree; the latter, i. e. difference in degree, comprehending the more enlarged sphere and the manifold application of faculties common to man and animals; even this being, in a great measure, a transfusing from the former, namely, from the superiority in kind. In the Greek of Heraclitus, the senior and almost the contemporary of Aeschylus, we see already the dawn of approaching manhood. The substance is philosophy, the form only is poetry. The Prometheus is a philosopheme.

3. The generation of the vous, or pure reason in man. It was superadded or infused, a supra, to mark that it could not have grown out of the other faculties of man, his life, sense, understanding. The vous, or fire, was stolen, to mark its diversity, its difference in kind from the faculties which are common to man with the nobler animals. It was stolen from heaven, to mark its superiority in kind, as well as its essential diversity. It was a spark, to mark that it was not subject to any modifying reaction from that on which it immediately acts, that it suffers no change, and receives no accession from the inferior. It is

bestowed by a god, and by a god of the race before the dynasty of Jove, intended to mark the transcendency of the vous.

4. The Greeks agreed with the cosmogonies of the East in deriving all sensible forms from the Inextinguishable. Here, the peculiar, the philosophic genius of Greece began its throb. Here it individualized itself in contradistinction from the Hebrew archology, on one side, and from the Phoenician on the other. The Phoenician confounded the Indistinguishable with the Absolute. Their cosmogony was their theogony and vice versa. Hence followed their theurgic rites, magic, worship of the plastic forces, chemical and vital. The Hebrews imperatively assert an unbeginning, creative One, who neither became the world; nor is the world eternally; nor made the world out of himself by emanation or evolution; but who willed it, and it The Greek philosopheme, preserved for us in the Aeschylian Prometheus, stands midway between both, yet is distinct in kind from either. With the Hebrew, it assumes an indeterminate Elohim, antecedent to the matter of the world, supersensuous and divine. But on the other hand, it coincides with the Phoenician, in considering this antecedent ground of corporeal matter, not so properly the cause of the latter, as the occasion, and the still continuing substance. The corporeal was considered to be coessential with the antecedent of its corporeity. In the Hebrew scheme there is an immutable, unbeginning Creator, antecedent to night or chaos as the including germ of the light and darkness, the chaos itself, and the material world; in the Phoenician scheme there was a self-organizing chaos, and the omniform nature as the result; in the Greek, was the chaos, the heavens and the earth, and a sort of οἱ χρόνοι υπερχρόνιοι, which answers to the antecedent darkness of the Mosaic system, but to which was attributed a self-polarizing power, a natura deorum, to which a vague plurality adhered; or if any unity was imagined, it was not personal, not a unity of excellence, but simply an expression of the negative, that which was to pass, but which had not yet passed, into distinct form.

5. The ground-work of the Aeschylian mythus is laid in the definition of Idea and Law, as correlatives that mutually interpret each the other; an idea with the adequate power of realizing itself, being a law, and a law considered abstractedly from, or in the absence of, the power of manifesting itself in its appropriate product, being an idea. Whether this be the true phi

losophy, is not the question. The school of Aristotle would, of course, deny, the Platonic affirm it; for in this consists the difference of the two schools. Both acknowledge ideas as distinct from the mere generalizations from objects of sense; both would define an idea as an ens rationale, to which there can be no adequate correspondent in sensible experience. But according to Aristotle, ideas are regulative only, and exist only as functions of the mind; according to Plato, they are constitutive, also, and one in essence with the power and life of nature, and this was the philosophy of the mythic poets, who like Aeschylus, adopted the secret doctrines of the mysteries as the not always safely disguised antidote to the debasing influences of the religion of the State. Jove is the mens agitans molem, and, at the same time, the molem corpoream ponens et constituens. So far the Greek philosopheme does not differ essentially from the cosmotheism, or the identification of God with the universe, in which consisted the first apostacy of mankind after the flood, when they combined to raise a temple to the heavens, and which is still the favored religion of the Chinese. Prometheus represents in a general sense, a fellow-tribesman both of the dii majores, with Jove at their head, and of the Titans or dii pacati. He represents Idea, and in this sense, the friend and counsellor of Jove; also the divine humanity, the humane god, who retained unseen, or stole a portion of the living spirit of law, which remained with the celestial gods.

6. The vous is bound to a rock, the immoveable firmness of which is indissolubly connected with its barrenness, its non-productivity.

7. Solitary. The kindred deities come to him, some to soothe, to condole; others to give weak yet friendly counsels of submission; others to tempt and insult. The most prominent of the latter is Hermes, the impersonation of Interest.

8. Finally, against all obstacles, a son of Jove himself, but a descendant from Io, the mundane religion, an Alcides Liberator will arise, and, the vous, or divine principle in man, will be the Prometheus delivered.

ARTICLE VIII.

MISCELLANEOUS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

UNITED STATE S.

No important biblical work has appeared from the American press, during the last quarter. The first No. of Prof. Bush's commentary on the Psalms has been very favorably noticed in all parts of the country. We trust that a liberal patronage will be afforded to the undertaking. The second number is not yet issued.—Rev. Albert Barnes's Notes on the Gospels have had an extraordinary sale, not far from 12,000 copies having been disposed of. His Notes on the first fourteen chapters of the Acts, and on the Epistle to the Romans have appeared.-Rev. Dr. Hodge, professor of biblical literature in the Princeton Theological Seminary, has published proposals for a new commentary on the Romans.-The fifth edition of Prof. Stuart's Hebrew Grammar is nearly through the press. It is gratifying to observe an increasing demand for this grammar, as well as for other elementary works in the same language. The new theological seminaries in the southern and western states are opening new sources for the sale of books in sacred philology. This is one of the advantages of theological institutions. A principal reason for the little spirit with which sacred literature has been cultivated in England is the want of public theological seminaries. Proposals have been issued at Cambridge for publishing by subscription, "Academical Lectures on the Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities." by the Rev. John G. Palfrey, professor of biblical literature in Harvard University. Vol. I. to embrace the four last books of the Pentateuch. Vol. II. Genesis and the early prophets. Vol. III. later historical books and later prophets. Vol. IV. the remaining canonical and apocryphal writings. The price of the four volumes is to be ten dollars.-The following work has been announced at Cincinnati: "Hebrew Grammar and Chrestomathy, or a plain Introduction to the Hebrew language, and to the reading of the Old Testament, by C. E. Stowe, professor of biblical literature in Cincinnati Lane Seminary." It will be comprised in a 12mo. volume of 250 or 300 pages. Its object is to give, according to the writer's own way and mode of teaching, a concise and simple statement of the fundamental principles of the Hebrew language, unembarrassed by rabbinic pedantry or needless technical phraseology.

Alden Bradford, formerly secretary of the State of Massachusetts, has just published in one volume, octavo, a history of Massachusetts from 1620 to 1820, closing with the separation of Maine

and the revision of the Constitution. From the familiar acquaintance of Mr. Bradford with public documents, and with the leading public men, for the last thirty years, we have no doubt he has prepared an authentic and valuable history of the State. The labors of Hutchinson, Prince, the Historical Society, and of the writers of several town histories have accumulated abundant materials for the historian. A philosophical and Christian view of the affairs of Massachusetts is yet a desideratum. We do not understand the reason why church history is so much excluded from notice. The history of Massachusetts, at least for one hundred and fifty years after its settlement, is the history, in an eminent degree, of Christianity. A man, who does not understand the motives, and cannot warmly sympathize with the spirit of the puritans, is not qualified to write our annals. We do not here refer to the excesses of religious zeal, to the persecutions suffered by Mrs. Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and the Quakers, but to the vital piety of the settlers, and to the influence which that piety has exerted on Massachusetts, up to the present time. In these remarks, we do not refer particularly to Bradford's history, but to the general fact. Mr. Bancroft in his history of the United States has shown a remarkable degree of candor and judgment in estimating the character and labors of the pilgrims. He has also the especial merit of having resorted to a wide range of original documents and sources of information. His history, if the remaining volumes correspond to the one already before the public, will be read with interest and profit. It is popular and graphic rather than profound and philosophical. The style is too ambitious, and too highly ornamented for a history. The man, who shall bring out a good history of the United States, must take his time. Nine years are not sufficient. The histories of various States of the Union, so far as we have had opportunity to read them, are rather materials for the future writer, than first rate productions themselves. Hutchinson's Massachusetts is at the head of the list. Dr. Trumbull's history of Connecticut is trustworthy, though the style is rugged.

Mr. Jared Sparks is bringing out a complete edition of the works of Dr. Franklin in the same style with the Washington papers. The last volume will contain a newly written memoir of the philosopher. We trust the biographer will not fail to furnish us with the materials for forming the right conceptions of Dr. Franklin's religious opinions.

The number of literary and miscellaneous journals published in the United States at the present time is about 50. About 14 of them are published quarterly and most of the remainder monthly. Two are in the French language, and seven are republications. The North American Review, we suppose, has the greatest circulation. The medical journals are eight. A law journal is published in each

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