wards in Galilee, a brief period of splendid though limited success, and then many centuries of battling creeds and bitter dogmas, religious persecutions, pious legends and vain idolatries; the sky filled with myriads of semi-deities, the hollow creations of a sickly imagination; the teacher deified, his teaching forgotten; and at last, the lowest depth, a return in the very monasteries of his religion to [what he himself calls] "the low, pagan, and unworthy extremes' of sensuality on the one hand, and self-torture on the other." (From "The First Sermon of Buddha," with notes, by Rhys Davids.)

The circumstances of the Brahmanic re-action which drove Buddhism from India with the exception of Kashmir and Nepâl on the borders of Tibet, and Ceylon,are well known, and need not be repeated here.

CHAPTER IV.

MOSHAI, THE THIRD GREAT TEACHER.

ORIGINS OF THE PRIN

CIPAL RACES AND RELIGIONS. - SOME OF THE SOURCES OF HEBREW RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS. ARYAN AND SEMITIC MIGRATIONS.

IN discussing the third of the four great systems of religious thought and practice, I use the name Moshai (M'sheh or Moses) as representative of the Hebrew system, as that of Manu was used as representative of the system of the Vedanta. The amount of information, properly to be considered historical, that we possess in relation to Moshai, is small; that the general direction of the current of Hebrew religious thought was much influenced by such. an early leader, a man of great intellectual force, cannot be doubted. A few leading features of his career, also, may be regarded as established.

In order to a competent understanding of the meaning. and value of the Hebrews' contributions to the development of religion among men, it is necessary to take a cursory survey of their origin, of that of the parent race from which they sprung, and of the general early history of the races by which they were surrounded, and which influenced, and even originated, their religious ideas. For the purposes of such an inquiry, the leading sources of our knowledge at the present day are the laborious and profound researches which have been made of late years into the correlation and descent of the languages of Europe and Asia, and the successful decipherment of the numerous ancient inscriptions and papyri which have been recently discovered in Egypt, Assyria, Chaldæa, etc.

By the light of these investigations we have been enabled to attain new and more intelligible readings of the timehonored authorities, chief among which are such works as the Avesta, the Pentateuch, and the fragments of the early historians Berosus, Sanchoniathon and Manetho. These venerable writings form the second great source of light upon early history, and a third is furnished by the investigations of the new science of Comparative Mythology.

A general comparison of the ancient authorities, (monumental records, early historians, and race-traditions,) -and of the labors of the many modern masters in the sciences of history, comparative philology and mythology, leaves no room for doubt that the four great races of the Old World, the Turanian, Cossaan or Cushite, Semitic, and Aryan, all originated in or near the central table-land of the greatest continent, Asia.

Ethnological and linguistic researches have made it virtually certain, that these several races flowed over the continents by secular migrations from a common centre; that centre being the great median plateau or watershed, walled to the north by the Altai and to the south by the Himalaya, from which the great rivers flow northward, eastward, and southward, through Siberia, China, and India, to the Arctic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Among these races, the several tribes and peoples grouped as "Turanian," are, generally, of the Mongol or Tartar type; their well-known facial peculiarities being the broad face, straight hair, high cheek-bones, and small, oblique and narrow eyes. From a similarity in these respects and in some points of language, the inference has been drawn with considerable probability, that the American races were of Turanian origin. The uniform tradition of the Toltecs, Aztecs, and "Red Indians," of their early immigration from the North and West, tends to confirm the supposition that they came from Kamtchatka by crossing the Behring-straits. If this be admitted, the wanderings of the Turanians, (within the historical epoch the most

migratory of savage or barbarous peoples), — must have commenced at the earliest period of those of the four great races, from the immense length of time required to overrun the Americas from the North-West. In the contrary direction, the Turanians reached the extreme North and North-West of Europe,' where they remain as Finns and Laplanders. They remain as well, however, in the steppes of Tartary, contiguous to the cradle of their origin, and where, at this day no less than at the period of the wars of Iran and Turan, they continue to be a thorn in the sides of the Aryans and Semites. The vast empires of China and Japan testify to their great capacity for civilization, and parts even of the widely scattered Polynesia, were peopled by them.

The very existence of the Asiatic Cushites or Ethiopians has been combated by Bunsen. The later discoveries and researches of Sir H. Rawlinson, Dr. Smith, and other savants, have however, confirmed the statements of Herodotus and other early historians, including the writer of Genesis; and it is now generally admitted, that this race, originating on the slopes of the Hindu Koosh, spread itself, first, over the ancient Cossæa or Kissia, the modern Khus-istan, then over Babylonia and the north shore of the Arabian sea as far as the borders of India, then, by way of Northern Arabia, entered Egypt, and occupied Barbary, Nubia and Abyssinia, in which latter countries the race is still found. The migration of the Cushites must have preceded those of the Aryans and Semites, (even that of the Egyptian Aryans,) as the Berbers and Abyssinians were permanently divided from the Babylonian and early Arabian Cushites, at so early a date, by the intrusion, from the South, of the Egyptians, now admitted to be an Aryan people.2

The origin of the Iberians or Basques, in the South-West of Europe, is also supposed by learned authors to be Turanian.

2 A considerable and constantly increasing number of verbal roots, discovered in the remarkably simple and primitive language of the Egyptians, shows unmistakable identity with Aryan roots. The indications from this source are confirmed by the Aryan type of Egyptian skulls and of their most ancient statues.

Of all the various migrations of the Aryans,' that of the Egyptians was probably the earliest. Its date cannot be fixed later than B.C. 4500, and was, more likely, as early as B.C. 5000, as no less than three semi-fabulous dynasties are recorded as preceding the first historical king, Mena: (about B.C. 4000, or, if Brugsch be credited, B.C. 4400).

Most writers have supposed the Egyptians to enter their land by way of the isthmus of Suez. To me it seems more probable that they came by Southern Arabia, the Gulf of Aden, and Punt or Ajan. The traditional march of the "gods" or their first dynasty, was from this "holy land" of Punt, and their first commercial intercourse was with the same country. Nor can the necessity of a flotilla for crossing the straits of Bab-el-mandeb be an objection, if we remember the inscriptions recording the existence of an Egyptian fleet of four distinct classes of vessels as early as B.C. 3500. Having pushed up the narrow Nile Valley to the Mediterranean and established themselves in Lower Egypt, a country defended on three sides by seas and deserts, their civilization would naturally begin to develop that gradual southward extension which is indicated by the monuments.

Less ancient than the Egyptian movement, but at a period still vastly remote, and of which no trace remains save in the subtle analogies of language, was the separation of the several European tribes of Aryans from their

Ârya, (ărya, a ploughman,) is usually derived from Sskr. ar (arare) to plough, from the agricultural pursuits of this people. They were however, more emphatically herdsmen. May not the derivation be an inverted one, and ar (to plough) be from the race-name, as being a right or Aryan occupation? In this view both words might be derived from ar-g, to reach, extend, tower aloft, and the race-name might mean the "high, lofty, superior people," the "right people," (recht, Ger. from rag-en,) or merely, "the highlanders." Compare hor, har, "mountain," (Heb.,) hir, ra-ma, "mountain," (Eg.,) and the Lat. particles al, ar, alt, "high," as in ala, ara, alt-us, altare, (altar in the s. of "high-place"). "Appμv, manly, apeiwv, better, etc., compare with arya, noble.

2 The "gods," or first Egyptians, were believed to have arrived by water and in boats, (representations of which were carried in all processions,) from the "holy land" of Punt or Ajan. To this rich country of their early wandering, went, as was natural, also their first trade-expedition.