mal, which is first a caterpillar and afterwards a butterfly, is much more analogous to the progress of the xn, and the refurrection of the dead, than to "the furvival and liberty of the rational foul, or vous, after its feparation from the body;" and if the fable be derived from Egypt, and likewife of very remote antiquity, the word ux may, in the allegorical story under confideration, have been originally employed in that fenfe;-a fense indeed which will fuit this author's purpose much better than that which he feems inclined to adopt, on the authority of Mr. Spence. We hear tily agree with him, however, that in the following general outline of an interpretation of this ancient allegory, there is fomething very ftriking in the general coincidence of all the principal circumftances, with the facts delivered to us on the higheft poffible authority; but we appeal to his own candour to fay, if the coincidence would not appear ftill inore ftriking, by fubflituting man or mankind for the human Soul.

"The human foul, formed originally of exquifite purity and beauty, is placed in a state of refined happiness, of which, however, jome of the principal caufes are concealed. Amidst the enjoyments offered to her, one prohibition only is interpofed. It required, as the condition on which the continuance of her happiness depends, that She shall not attempt to gain forbidden knowledge concerning the author of her blisful ftate. Contrary to her own better judgment, he is over-perfuaded by wicked and malicious fuggeftion, and actually acquires the knowledge she was so strictly ordered not to feek. Her curiofity and difobedience are fatal. She is driven from her state of happiness, and fent to wander over the earth, amidst innumerable difficulties and trials. Yet conftantly, whenever he is in danger of finking under the severity of her fituation, fome fupernatural interpofition prevents her from defpairing, and kindly enables her to perform that which naturally was beyond her power. Even in the first moment of condemnation her judge, we are told, showed marnifeft tokens of an affection to which every other confideration was Jubordinate. And finally, when she is depreffed even to Hell by the difficulties which affail her, divine love (for fo, with Mr. Bryant, I am inclined to interpret Cupid) interpofes for her relief, and not only refcues her from the horrors of that dreadful place, but, uniting

mundi, in which it was to be re-abforbed at the diffolution of the body. This most antichriftian doctrine was, with fome modifications, not, we think, improvements, revived many years ago by Abraham Tucker, Efq. in his Light of Nature pursued. See our 31ft vol. p. 502, &c. Rev.

* i. e. Some divine revelation.

1911.

BRIT. CRIT, VOL. XXXVII. FEB. 1911.

her with himself, plates her for ever in a fate of tranfcendent exaltation, and of perfect bliss.

"Such is the extraordinary allegory, which, that I have not in any refpect mifreprefented, may be feen by recurrence to Apuleius, Fulgentius, or Banier. Now, if it be true, as I be. lieve has been conjectured, that the mystic fables and hieroglyphics of the Egyptians concealed, as beneath a veil, thofe im. portant truths, which at firft were known univerfully to men, but which in other places, except where preferved by divine in. terpofition, were loft, corrupted, or forgotten: if this, 1 fay, be true if it be even probable; why may not we confider this fable of Cupid and Pfyche as a fiugle and very curious inftance of the perfect prefervation of one of thofe religious allegories? The Greeks, it is well known, even by their own confeffion, borrowed from Egypt all their mythology; but, if this interpretation be admitted, we can hardly expect to difcover, among all their thefts, another of any comparable importance." P. 103, &c.

All this is ingenious. The interpretation of the fable is natural, and the reafoning employed in its fapport is probable; but we infiit, that the interpretation would be more natural, and the reafoning more probable, if man or mankind were fubftituted for the human foul, and the perfonal pronouns adapted to the fubftitution. The Scriptures of truth, that higheft of all poffible authority, to which Mr. N. fo properly refers, never promife to mankind the immortality of the foul in a ftate of feparation from the body; nor indeed mention fuch an immortality but incidentally. To the state, which was forfeited by the attempt of our first parents "to gain forbidden knowledge," we are to be reflored, not by the furvival and liberty of the foul, after its feparation from the body;" but by THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD; that is, of the body and foul; and of fo little confideration was the feparate immortality of the foul with the infpired writers of the New Teftament, that St. Paul fays exprefsly *,

"If the dead be not raifed, then is not Chrift raised; and if Christ be not raifed, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your fins. Then they alfo who are fallen afleep in Chrift are perished. ἀπώλοντο, are loft.”

To this it will be objected, that no allufion could be made, in the allegorical tale of Cupid and Pfyche, to the refurrec tion of the dead; because the ancient Greeks had no notion of fuch a refurrection, which, when it was preached to them by St. Paul, their philofophers. thought even impoffible,

The objection would be unanswerable could the origin of the tale be traced no farther back than to Greece. But if it was imported, as Mr. N. fuppofes, into Greece from Egypt; and if it was there one of thofe important truths concealed under a veil, which were at first known to all men, but afterwards loft, except where preferved by divine revelation; the refurrection of the dead, and not the feparate immortality of the foul, must be the truth veiled under the refcue of Pfyche from the horrors of hell; for the refurrection of the dead is only the deliverance from the death incurred by the fall, which is promifed to mankind by Divine revelation. Tux indeed, as we have feen, is very feldom, if ever, employed to denote that foul, to which immortality is afcribed, either by ancient or by modern phiInfophy; but in the Scriptures of the New Teftament, and in the Greek tranflation of the Old, which, for the import of a word denoting an Egyptian or Eaftern nation, are pers haps better authority than even the claffical writers of Athens, it is employed to denote animal life; an animal that lives by breathing; the human body, even when dead; the human animal foul, as diftinguished both from man's body, and from that Tua, or fpirit, which was breathed into him imme diately by God; and a human perfon*. If this meaning of the word be admitted in the fable of Cupid and Pfyche, Mr. Nares's interpretation of that fable will be completely fatisfactory; and we fhall have, under the veil of a mythological tale, an accurate, though allegorical, defcription of the fall of man, and of his gradual reftoration to immorta lity and happiness, to be completed at the refurrection of the dead.

To establish this point was an object worthy of the talents and character of our learned friend; and the remarks which tend to establish it will be read with equal intereft at all periods; but why did he debafe remarks fo valuable, by intermixing with them obfervations on Veftris and others, who made the moft confpicuous figure in the modern ballet of 1788? When the tract was first publifhed this might be proper, or perhaps neceffary; but we cannot fee the pro priety of it now; and probably, or we may rather fay certainly, he would have agreed with us, had it been fuggested in time, that it would have been better if those particular paffages had be omitted.

After the re.narks on Cupid and Pfyche, follow, in this collection, ten periodical Effays in the manner of the Spec

See Parkhurft's Lexicon for examples.
M 2

taters,

tators, which were intended as the beginning of a weekly publication, that proceeded no further. Why it proceeded no further, it is needlefs to inquire. We can only fay, that the -Effays before us need not fhrink from a comparison with many of their own class; and that the author's powers of eloquence and reafoning seem to have improved as he proceeded in his work. The eighth Effay has peculiar merit.

The next tract in the collection is entitled Man's beft Right, a folemn Appeal in the name of Religion. It is with regret that the prefent writer muft dwell no longer on this valuable Effay than barely to announce its existence. It was reviewed in our first Volume, and although he had then no connection whatever with the British Critic, there are reafons, obvious perhaps to all our readers, for not reviewing i twice in that work, any thing compofed by the author of the Effays before us. We fhall therefore only fay, that Max's beft Right is a tract which will bear to be read often.

The fecond volume of thefe Effays opens with a very ufeful tract, entitled, Principles of Government deduced from Reafon, fupported by English Experience, and oppofed to French Errors. It was originally published in oppofition to the principles of Paine, and other democratical writers, who la boured too fuccefsfully to excite difaffection in the British empire, on the breaking out of the French Revolution; and it is with great propriety republifhed at a period when at-tempts are making to revive that fpirit, which the vigorous adminiftration of Mr. Pitt feemed to have extinguifhed..

The author enters on his tafk by obferving after Plato, to whom he refers in the margin, that it is univerfally right that Wifdom and Goodness thould govern, and Folly and Wickedness obey; because the end of human government being the .general good of men in fociety, it is only from the government of wisdom and goodness that fuch general good can be expected. But government is not merely defirable to man as a good; it is abfolutely neceflary to him as a preventative

of evil.

"The neceffity for government arifes from the imperfections of men, and in exact proportion to them. Were all men (perfectly) wife and good, they might all with perfect fafety be left to govern and conduct themfelves. Other animals being go. verned by inflint, which is in fact the wifdom of God impreffed upon them, require no further government. But man, being guided by imperfect reafon and by will, both of them liable to great perverfion and depravity, requires external government to counteract the natural operation of his follies and his vices.

"Anarchy,

"Anarchy, or the total want of government, is therefore the greatest evil that can attend collective bodies of men, as it includes whatever evils may arife from the want of wisdom, and the perverfion of will; from the operation of folly and wicked. nefs entirely unrestrained. A bad government is, in general, only a partial evil. No government can be imagined fo com.. pletely bad as not to do fome good; and whatever good it does, is fo much fubtracted from the univerfal mifery of anarchy," Vol. II. p. 4.

In a note at the bottom of the page the author fays, that he calls the mifery of anarchy univerfal, becaufe all the ftrong would in that ftate opprefs the weak: and, because ftrictly speaking, to opprefs is as miferable as to be oppreffed. This is indeed true, but it is not the whole truth, The weak would by cunning, if not by ftrength, make fome refiftance: and the ftrong would not always agree with one another. The confequence would be univerfal maffacre; and the race would foon either become extinct, or be feparated into folitary individuals, who, in a very fhort time, would lose the arts of life and even the ufe of language, and roam through the woods a mutum et turpe pecus, like the Ourang Outang, or Simia Troglodytes.

"Government, being thus neceffary to man, is justly esteemed facred. For the infinite goodness of God cannot but defire the general good of man, and confequently the ufe of those means by which it is produced. Thus has government the fanction of Heaven; and thus we fully understand why it is, that in the genuine revelation of his will, the Almighty has declared himself the general guarantee and guardian of every human government. His words are--Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's fake*; which, though they have been perverted to fupport the doctrine of paffive yielding to oppreffion, have no fuch meaning, but enforce only the general doctrine of obedience they declare, that to obey, and to fupport the eftablished order of fociety, is not a civil duty only, but a religious obligation." P. 6.

From thefe principles the author infers, that

;

"Government being to mankind fo indifpenfably neceffary, and being, for the fame reafons, extremely difficult to eftabiith (fince the very fame human infirmities, which create that neceffity, excite alfo a fpirit of refiftance), to endeavour to dif falve it is the highest crime in the fight of God and man that can be committed against society,"

* Pet, ii. 13.