It may be observed, before dismissing this subject, that the primitive idea of the reciprocal principles was greatly refined upon by the ancient philosophers, who, in a modified form, introduced it into their metaphysical speculations. We have an illustration in the Yin and the Yang of the Chinese, which is male and female, light and darkness, activity and inertia, advance and recession, heat and cold, height and depth, truth and falsehood,-in short, whatever may be regarded as reciprocal in nature or philosophy. So, too, the Oriental Celestial Triads had their celestial, terrestrial, and metaphysical counterparts thus: lar subordinate attributes, which have afforded such abundant materials for the elegant fictions both of poetry and art.”—Payne Knight, “Inquiry into the Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology," Lec. 229. * Thus Siva, under one of his aspects, is represented in the Bhagavat Geeta, as proclaiming, "I am the beginning and the end: I am insatiate death, and I am the resurrection; I am the seed of all things in nature, there is nothing without me ; I am the witness, the comforter; generation and dissolution; those who worship all the other gods worship me." As destruction in the material world is but change or production in another form, and was so held by almost all the heathen philosophers, we find that the peculiar emblems of SIVA are the Trident, the symbol of Destruction, and the Lingham, or Phallus, of Regeneration.”—(Cory's Myth. Inq. p. 19.) Among the poetical refinements of Grecian Mythology, we find what may be termed the counterpart of the Hindu Triad, under a feminine form, and limited in its powers to the human race. The Fates were three in number, and were usually looked upon as personifications of that overruling power which governs the world, and controls events. CLOTHO, Who holds the distaff. From whom commences. Creation. LACHESIS, ATROPHOS, Destruction. NOTES TO CHAPTER II. (B.) Prichard, in his "Analysis of the Orphic Fables," has amply illustrated the doctrine of the reciprocal principles as entertained by the Greeks and Romans; and his list of authorities is so complete that we cannot do better than to quote that portion of his essay which relates directly to the points indicated in the text. He says : : "All individual beings were represented as proceeding from the essence of the universal deity by a mystical generation, which is described under various types. Sometimes Jupiter is feigned to be both male and female, and is said to produce all things from himself. Ζεὺς πρῶτος γένετο, Ζεὺς ὕστατος αρχικέραυνος Ζεὺς κεφαλὴ, Ζεὺς μέσσα, Διὸς δ' ἐκ πάντα τετύκται· "Jupiter is the first, Jupiter the last, the ruler of thunder; Jupiter is the head and the middle; all things are produced of Jove. "Hence the epithet, so often given to Jupiter, of ȧposvoðnλús or masculo-feminine. The doctrine distinguished by this epithet is represented, by Damascius, as the fundamental principle of the Orphic philosophy. "But the most prevalent representation was that which divided the physical agencies of the universe into male and female.* The more * Vossius has observed that this idea holds a principal place in the mythology of the ancients. He says, "In natura attendentes vim activam et passivam, eam et marem et fœminam dixere; marem illud, quod vim in alia exserit; fœminam, quæ vim alienam recipit, et quasi fœcundatur."-Vossius de Origine et Progressu Idololatria, lib. i. powerful movements of the elements, storms and winds, thunder and lightning, meteors, the genial showers which descend from the etherial regions on the bosom of the Earth, the rays of the sun, and the supposed influences of the stars, were the energetic or masculine powers of nature, and were regarded as the agencies of the male deity; while the prolific Earth herself, the region of sublunary and passive elements, was the universal goddess, the consort of the celestial Jove. This is the celebrated fiction of the mystic marriage of heaven and earth, which forms the foundation of all the pagan cosmogonies and poetical rhapsodies on the origin of gods and men. It is given by Virgil in its most obvious physical sense; and it is observed by St. Augustin, that this representation is not borrowed from the fictions of poetry, but from the philosophy of the antients. 66 Vere tument terræ, et genitalia semina poscunt: Magnus alit, magno commistus corpore, fœtus.—(Georgic. lib. ii. ver. 324.) In writing these verses, we may conjecture that Virgil had in his memory the following lines of Euripides, which express the same idea in very similar terms: ἐρᾶ δ' ὁ σεμνὸς Οὐρανὸς, πληρούμενος ὄμβρου πεσεῖν εἰς Γαίαν, ̓Αφροδίτης ὕπου "Or the follewing verses of Lucretius : Postremo pereunt imbres, ubi eos PATER ÆTHER In gremium MATRIS TERRAI præcipitavit.* "This physical allegory is expressed by some of the philosophical writers in a more formal manner. "Ut à summis causis exordiamur," says Proclus, "Cœlum et Terram quasi marem et fœminam respicere licet. Est enim Coeli motus qui ex diurnâ revolutione vires seminales edit, unde Terra quæ emanant recipit. Hæc feracem reddunt, et efficit ut fructus et animalia omnigena ex se producat." The same author observes, that this supposed relation was termed, in the mystical language, "yάuos," and that the Athenian laws ordained accordingly, that newly married persons should sacrifice first to the Heaven and Earth, and that in the mysteries of Eleusis these elements were invoked * De Rerum Natura, lib. i. ver. 251. See also Dr. Musgrave's Dissertation on the Grecian Mythology, p. 20. and addressed by names, which characterized them as father and mother of all generated beings: these mystic names were vids for the Heaven, and Toxua for the Earth.-(Procl. in Timæum, lib. v. 66 p. 291.) "Varro has given a similar account of the ancient mythology in general. Principes Dei, Coelum et Terra. Hi dei iidem qui in Ægypto Serapis et Isis; qui sunt Taautes et Astarte apud Phoenicas; et iidem principes in Latio, Saturnus et Ops."-(Varro de Ling. Lat., lib. iv.) "Apollodorus (Apollodorus in initio,) and Plutarch (Plutarch. de Placitis Philosoph. lib. i. cap. 6,) deliver the same testimony. The latter of these writers remarks, that men, from observing the harmonious phænomena of the heavens, as well as the generation of plants and animals upon the earth, came to regard the Heaven as the Father of all, and the Earth as the Mother τούτων δὲ ὁ μὲν Οὐρανὸς, πατὴρ, διὰ τὸ τὰς τῶν ὑδάτων ἐκχύσεις σπερμάτων ἔχειν τάξιν, ἡ δὲ Γῆ μήτηρ, διὰ το δέχεσθαι ταῦτα καὶ τίκτειν.” Macrobius attributes this representation to the philosophers of the Platonic school. Some writers," he observes, "have divided the world into two regions, of which one is active, the other passive nature. The first they term active, because, being immutable itself, it brings into operation those causes which necessarily excite changes in the other; the latter is called passive, because it undergoes variations in its state. The immutable region of the world extends from the sphere termed Aplanes to the orbit of the Moon; the mutable department, from the lunar orbit to the earth."-(Macrobii Somnium Scipionis, lib. i. cap. 11.) This fiction was derived by the Platonists from their predecessors, the Pythagoreans. It is found indeed in a still more explicit form, in the works of Ocellus Lucanus, the Pythagorean. 66 In the Samothracian mysteries, which seem to have been the most anciently established ceremonies of this kind in Europe, we are informed by Varro, that the Heaven and Earth were worshipped as a male and female divinity, and as the parents of all things. A well known part of the ceremonies, performed in these and other mystic solemnities, were the rites of the phallus and kteis ;* and Diodorus assures us that the physical theory above described was the subject typified by these emblems. "The same idea occurs frequently in the Greek poets. Euripides, who has embodied in his poems many curious pieces of the mystical * The same symbol was used in the festivals of Ceres and Proserpine in Sicily, as we learn from Athenæus, lib. xxv. allegory of the ancients, has set it forth emphatically in the following lines.—(Fragment. Chrysippi apud Macrob. Sat. lib. i.) Γαῖα μεγίστη, καὶ διὸς Αἰθὴρ, μήτηρ πάντων νενόμισται. O spacious Earth! and thou, celestial Air, That roam the forest; justly thence proclaimed "The Sun being the most striking of the celestial elements, the male power was adored as residing and manifesting its most energetic influence in the solar orb. In those representations connected with the idolatry of the Syrians, which, as we shall see hereafter, was nearly allied to the fables of Egypt, we find the worship of the Sun involved in the figurative theology which we have already traced. Macrobius gives us the following account of the notions entertained by the Syrians or Assyrians, concerning the power of the solar deity. They give,' he observes, 'the name of Adad, which signifies One, to the god on whom they bestow the highest adoration. They worship him as the most powerful divinity, but join with him a goddess named Adargatis; and to these two deities, which are in fact the Sun and Moon, they ascribe supreme dominion over all nature. The attributes of this double divinity are not described in so many words; but, in symbols which are used to denote that power that distributes itself through all the species of beings that exist. These symbols are emblematic of the Sun; for the image of Adad is distinguished by rays inclining downwards, which indicate that the influence of the heaven descends by the solar rays upon the earth; the image of Adargatis has the rays turned upwards, to show that all the progeny of the earth is called into being by the influence of emanations from above.' "Thus in the Orphic verses the title of Zeus, or Jupiter, which we have seen appropriated to the universal deity in these poems, is applied, |