heathen Christians of those days than there were gods in the mythology of their whole-heathen ancestors five centuries before. Why is this? Simply because it springs from a polytheistic tendency robbed of its responsibility by the prevalence of the monotheistic idea; able to run riot because no great consequence could follow from its rioting. For the very same reason there were probably more gods and demi-gods among the Hellenes than among the Aryans, when the latter were really in a polytheistic stage.

Of course the idea of the one god gathers strength and consistency as time goes on. Of course too the progress towards monotheism varies with different peoples. So far as regards the second stage of growth, the change from polytheism to monotheism, we have occupied ourselves exclusively with the nations of the Aryan stock; and we are justified in doing so while researches into the comparative philology and comparative mythology of the Semitic languages remain but partial and inexact. But many able scholars are now at work in this field, and a future time may be trusted to unfold the secrets of religion as they revealed themselves to the Semites. Up to the point which our knowledge has at present attained, there is nothing which reverses the natural order of religious development. Without denying the evidences towards an early monotheistic tendency in the Semitic mind, nothing controverts the theory that a nature-worshipping stage has been passed through. We see traces of it even among the most monotheistic people of ancient time, the Israelites. Their god Jehovah or Yahweh has, we discover, many of the attributes of a nature-god. He is the 'Lord of Hosts,' i.e. the stars; he is spoken of so frequently as riding upon the clouds, and being like a devouring flame, that we cannot refuse to recognise him as closely connected with the phenomena of storms and thunder, and also of fire. He sitteth between the cherubim, that is, the clouds; and we remember how he appeared to Moses in the burning bush.30 This points out Yahweh as originally a nature-divinity, as much so as Dyâus; but his name, if it has been rightly interpreted, is of a more abstract character than that of the Aryan god. In the eighth century B.C. the name was already regarded as a derivative of the verb to be, under the sense of 'He who is,' the Eternal. We may perhaps give to the etymology a less abstract and metaphysical interpretation by translating it rather, 'He who causes to be,' He who causes,'' He who creates.' Yet this idea is abstract enough, and if we admit the etymology of the word and its antiquity to extend to Moses (circ. 1300 B.C.), the fact must excite our astonishment.31 Surprise, too, must be caused by the abstract character of

30 Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, vol. i, chap. i., where the author shows the origin of the cherubim.

31 Many authorities are inclined to place the first appearance of the Græco-Italic races (Greeks and Latins) in Europe as early as about 2000 B.C. We have seen that even at this time these may have had an abstract name for a 'god.'

other Semitic names for God-El and Esh-Shadai, the powerful one,' Adon and Bil Lord-if these should eventually be substantiated,32 though in a less degree, because the nations who used them are so much older than are the Israelites. All that in the present state of our knowledge we are compelled to admit is what we should admit very readily, namely, that spiritual progress is not measured by material cultivation. It would rather seem that the nomadic tribes of Western Asia have been, from some cause inscrutable to us, in a state peculiarly favourable to the attainment of religious maturity. There seems not the slightest reason to doubt that their growth towards it has, like the growth of other faculties, been marked by definite and distinguishable stages of progress.

After it has passed through these three epochs, ending as we saw with the abstract word 'god,' the growth of the Religious Idea exhibits less defined periods of change. Not that its future history is from this point less important that its past development: quite the contrary. As the real history of a people begins when they have left the shifting conditions of mere tribal existence, and developed some-thing like fixed institutions and a national life, so does the true history of Religion begin from the time when the monotheistic idea has been reached, when the theos, the God, has been conceived, and His personality abstracted from the exhibitions of phenomenal nature.

6

At this point, however, the inquiry which we placed before ourselves comes to an end; for here we leave the pre-historic and enter the historical phases of religious evolution. Our intentions confined themselves, not to giving a complete account of religious growth, or to answering the question What is religion?' but only to affording such assistance towards the solution of these problems as might be given by an inquiry into some early phases of this growth conducted altogether without assumptions. As at the outset I deprecated the notion that the result of these inquiries would put us in a position to answer the vital question, Is religion true? on the ground, first, of the incompleteness of these inquiries, and secondly, of the prejudice which such an answer would excite, I have no intention of departing from the rule then laid down. But, from the same desire of allaying prejudice, it is necessary to notice a common theory which, by one of the strange freaks which sometimes mark the workings of the human mind, has received the countenance of both parties to religious controversy. The theory is, that the truth

Up to the present time writers, acting upon the common assumption of the eternality of all religions intuitions, i.e. that all religions are the degraded forms of a higher original revelation, have rarely set themselves to trace the etymologies of the names of the Semitic gods backwards to primitive and physical roots. It is nothing to tell us, as Rawlinson does, that this or that Babylonish, &c., god's name means lord or powerful. Of course it would do this after it meant a god, if not before. But was this the original meaning?

of the religious idea-in other words, the existence of God-is taken away if the belief in God's existence can be proved a slow development of the human mind; and though this notion has obtained a wide acceptance, it gives way before a moment's thought. We find that the proposition is tantamount to the assertion that that cannot be true which was unknown to the first parents of our race; that those only are eternal truths which are common to us of today and to our remotest progenitors. By the same theory ten times ten things did not make up a hundred, in days when no member of the human race was capable of counting up to the latter numeral. Is it not obvious that eternal truths are not dependent for their acceptance upon the time during which they have been known? Nay, is it not obvious to those who hold any theory of human development that no eternal truths could have been known to the progenitors of mankind; because eternal truths are always concerned with abstract ideas, and of no abstract ideas was primitive man possessed?

It would appear then, so far as we have as yet gone, that Religion is of a character not unanalogous with Music; that is to say, it is a taste--an instinct or intuition-not the result of a theory or of a logical process, as Mr. Herbert Spencer defines it. As an instinct or intuition it may be-like the taste for music-possessed in a greater or less degree by all, but by some much more strongly than by others; and our previous inquiries have shown that it may exist―nay, in the earlier ages of the world has existed-unrecognised, just as before the birth of harmony men may have felt unconsciously the music of forests or of streams. And again, to carry the analogy further, just as this music is the music of single sounds produced by harmonious vibrations, not the music of harmonised sounds; so the earliest effort of the religion-making faculty is the perception of an idea at the back of an individual sensation; the eventual result of the same faculty is to harmonise these scattered intuitions or instincts into a personality at the back of the phenomenal world.

And if this indicates truly the nature of Religion, some not unimportant conclusions follow. The proverb de gustibus at once condemns disputes upon the matter, and partly explains the violence of religious persecutions, as it is generally found that people resent a difference in taste more than a difference of opinion. Again, intellectual effort, though it may encourage, cannot inculcate a taste. The study of thorough-bass cannot impart an ear for or a love for music: nor is an incorrect theory of harmony fatal to the possession of these qualities. People, therefore, are probably wrong in supposing that an incorrect theory of religion-what is called a creed-is fatal to the possession of the religious sense.

C. F. KEARY.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE REVIVAL OF
GREEK INDEPENDENCE.

SOME papers recently laid on the table of the House of Commons relate to transactions concerning Greece of a somewhat distant date, but closely connected with the interests of that country in its present and prospective state.

It so happened that I was called upon to take an active part in the negotiations which led to the revival of Hellenic independence, nor have I ever ceased to give my earnest attention to the conduct of the Government established at Athens, and the condition of the people submitted constitutionally to its rule. These circumstances concur to flatter me with the hope of rendering some little service to the cause of inquiry by putting into a convenient shape such recollections as I retain of the occurrences in question. In aid of a memory subject to the usual infirmities, I shall have recourse to the surer testimony of correspondence, quotations from which will occasionally find a place in the following pages.

It was not till after my return from America in the autumn of 1823 that I had anything to do with the affairs of Greece. Even then I had first to go through a series of conferences, having for their object the friendly settlement of all our outstanding differences with the United States. This interesting but fruitless negotiation occupied several months of the following year, and its failure, though much to be regretted, had the consolation of not being attributable to the British Government or its representatives.

The appointment in view was an embassy at the Sultan's court, and consequently an immediate connection with the conflict. still raging between the Porte and its Hellenic subjects. Hence it was that I had to visit St. Petersburg before I went to my further destination at Stamboul. The basis of a mediation between the contending parties, to one at least of whom a friendly proposal of that kind was thought likely to prove agreeable, had to be laid down at the former capital, and happy should I have been to share in the accomplishment of so laudable a plan. Mr. Canning was at that time Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and he directed me to draw up a statement of the various points which would probably have to

be considered in discussing the range and character of the intended offer. The memorandum, which I wrote in consequence, is too long for insertion here, but parts of it, and those the very first, may be introduced with some degree of advantage. They follow word for word:

It is presumed that the British Government would hail the complete independence of Greece, if effected by the Greeks themselves, as the best solution of the difficulties connected with the present conflict between that country and the Porte; but sentiments of humanity, and the natural sympathy between a people in the possession of liberty and a people struggling to obtain it, must not be allowed to operate to the exclusion of all other considerations. Some views of British policy may perhaps combine with the best feelings of human nature to induce Great Britain to stand forward without reserve in support of the independence of Greece, but there is no denying that to place herself in such an attitude she must act in contradiction to that pacific and comprehensive system of policy which she has adopted for the most beneficial purposes, at the risk of being involved in war without the support of her principal allies, and on very questionable grounds of justice.

The opinions of the leading powers of Europe have been given in favour of an arrangement which, though it holds out important advantages to Greece, would nevertheless have the effect of replacing that country under the sovereignty of the Porte. It is not to be expected that the Sultan would give up so large a portion of his empire without an appeal to arms, especially at the requisition of a single power. The right of Great Britain to make such a requisition under the present circumstances would find but little countenance either in the principles of the law of nations, or in any specific obligations contracted by Turkey.

It is therefore evident that in the conferences at Petersburg there can be no question of the complete independence of Greece, but only of its pacification on terms consistent on one side with the sovereignty of the Porte, and calculated on the other to secure the Greeks in essential points from the violence and misgovernment of their former possessors. If the Sultan cannot be required to relinquish the entire sovereignty of Greece, neither can the Greeks be required to return to their former position under his sway.

Considering the dreadful extremities to which the war in Greece has been carried, and the very great uncertainty of its final issue, the Allied Powers cannot fail to serve both the contending parties by engaging them to sacrifice a part of their respective pretensions for the restoration of peace. But if the same motives which preclude Great Britain and the Allies from insisting on the independence of Greece restrain them also from going to war in support of the plan which they are preparing to urge on the acceptance of the Porte, it is but fair that they should abstain from employing any degree of coercion to bring the Greeks into their

measures.

The Greeks may act unwisely in preferring a precarious independence, accompanied with war in its worst shape, to any arrangement which the Allied Powers are likely to effect in their behalf, but it would surely be the height of injustice and cruelty to deny them the right of judging for themselves in a case of such vital importance. It thus appears that in attempting the pacification of Greece the Allies are bound to stop short of war.

But it would be a fatal mistake to suppose, while determining not to go the length of hostilities, that any plea of pacification at all acceptable to the Greeks can be pressed with success upon the Porte by other means than those of a virtual compulsion.

The Turks, in shutting their eyes to the most obvious considerations of policy