ON

THE GODS OF GREECE, ITALY, AND

INDIA,

WRITTEN IN 1784, AND SINCE REVISED,

BY

THE PRESIDENT.

We cannot justly conclude, by arguments preceding the proof of facts, that one idolatrous people must have borrowed their deities, rites, and tenets from another; fince Gods of all shapes and dimenfions may be framed by the boundless powers of imagination, or by the frauds and follies of men, in countries never connected; but, when features of refemblance, too ftrong to have been accidental, are obfervable in different systems of polytheism, without fancy or prejudice to colour them and improve the likeness, we can scarce help believing, that fome connection has immemorially subsisted between the feveral nations, who have adopted them: it is my design in this effay, to point out such a resemblance between the popular worship of the old Greeks and Italians and that of the Hindus; nor can there be room to doubt of a great fimi

larity between their strange religions and that of Egypt, China, Perfia, Phrygia, Phoenice, Syria; to which, perhaps, we may fafely add some of the fouthern kingdoms and even iflands of America; while the Gothick fyftem, which prevailed in the northern regions of Europe, was not merely fimilar to those of Greece and Italy, but almoft the fame in another drefs with an embroidery of images apparently Afiatick. From all this, if it be fatisfactorily proved, we may infer a general union or affinity between the most distinguished inhabitants of the primitive world, at the time when they deviated, as they did too early deviate, from the rational adoration of the only true God.

There feem to have been four principal fources of all mythology. I. Historical, or natural, truth has been perverted into fable by ignorance, imagination, flattery, or ftupidity; as a king of Crete, whofe tomb had been discovered in that ifland, was conceived to have been the God of Olympus, and MINOS, a legislator of that country, to have been his fon, and to hold a fupreme appellate jurifdiction over departed fouls; hence too probably flowed the tale of CADMUS, as BOCHART learnedly traces it; hence beacons or volcanos became one-eyed giants and monsters vomiting flames; and two rocks, from their appearance to mariners in certain pofitions, were

fuppofed to crush all veffels attempting to pafs between them; of which idle fictions many other inftances might be collected from the Odyfey and the various Argonautick poems. The lefs we fay of Julian stars, deifications of princes or warriours, altars raised, with those of APOLLO, to the basest of men, and divine titles beftowed on fuch wretches as CAJUS OCTAVIANUS, the lefs we shall expofe the infamy of grave fenators and fine poets, or the brutal folly of the low multitude: but we may be assured, that the mad apotheofis of truly great men, or of little men falfely called great, has been the origin of grofs idolatrous errors in every part of the pagan world. II. The next fource of them appears to have been a wild admiration of the heavenly bodies, and, after a time, the fyftems and calculations of Aftronomers: hence came a confiderable portion of Egyptian and Grecian fable; the Sabian worship in Arabia; the Persian types and emblems of Mihr or the fun, and the far extended adoration of the elements and the powers of nature; and hence perhaps, all the artificial Chronology of the Chinese and Indians, with the invention of demigods and heroes to fill the vacant niches in their extravagant and imaginary periods. III. Numberlefs divinities have been created folely by the magick of poetry; whofe effential bufinefs it is, to personify

the most abftract notions, and to place a nymph or a genius in every grove and almost in every flower hence Hygieia and Jaso, health and remedy, are the poetical daughters of ESCULAPIUS, who was either a distinguished physician, or medical skill perfonified; and hence Chloris, or verdure, is married to the Zephyr. IV. The metaphors and allegories of moralifts and metaphysicians have been also very fertile in Deities; of which a thousand examples might be adduced from PLATO, CICERO, and the inventive commentators on HOMER in their pedigrees of the Gods, and their fabulous leffons of morality: the richest and nobleft stream from this abundant fountain is the charming philosophical tale of PSYCHE, or the Progress of the Soul; than which, to my tafte, a more beautiful, fublime, and well fupported allegory was never produced by the wisdom and ingenuity of man. alfo the Indian MA'YA', or, as the word is explained by fome Hindu fcholars, "the firft in

Hence

clination of the Godhead to diverfify himself (fuch is their phrase) by creating worlds," is feigned to be the mother of univerfal nature, and of all the inferiour Gods; as a Cashmirian informed me, when I asked him, why CA'MA, or Love, was reprefented as her fon; but the ́word MA'ya', or delufion, has a more fubtile and recondite fenfe in the Védánta philofophy,

where it fignifies the fyftem of perceptions, whether of fecondary or of primary qualities, which the Deity was believed by EPICHARMUS, PLATo, and many truly pious men, to raise by his omnipresent spirit in the minds of his creatures, but which had not, in their opinion, any exiftence independent of mind.

In drawing a parallel between the Gods of the Indian and European heathens, from whatever fource they were derived, I shall remember, that nothing is lefs favourable to enquiries after truth than a fyftematical spirit, and fhall call to mind the saying of a Hindu writer," that who"ever obftinately adheres to any set of opinions,

may bring himself to believe that the freshest "fandal-wood is a flame of fire:" this will effectually prevent me from insisting, that such a God of India was the JUPITER of Greece; fuch, the APOLLO; fuch, the MERCURY: in fact, fince all the caufes of polytheism contributed largely to the affemblage of Grecian divinities (though BACON reduces them all to refined allegories, and NEWTON to a poetical difguife of true hiftory), we find many JOVES, many APOLLOS, many MERCURIES, with diftinct attributes and capacities; nor fhall I prefume to fuggeft more, than that, in one capacity or another, there exifts a ftriking fimilitude between the chief objects of worship in ancient Greece or Italy and in the