it drives its principle to the utmost extremity. This is what is revealed by the history of religions among the different peoples of the Aryan family. Even in the Rigveda, which is tolerably near the original source, we see a good number of new personifications appear, which are borrowed not only from nature, but from the moral world; and these imaginary Beings, multiplied infinitely at a later period, fill the heaven and earth of India. We know well with what exuberance the Polytheisms of classical antiquity have developed themselves in this direction, and those of the north of Europe yield little to them in this respect. So great, however, is the power which the principle of unity exercises over the human spirit, that the idea of a Supreme Being, always more or less veiled, is never entirely lost, and sometimes discloses itself, as by irradiations, from the bosom of the clouds which envelop it.

"The Vedic hymns present us, in illustration of this truth, with some facts of great interest. Polytheism develops itself then as a grand poesy of nature, but without any rigid system, as a religion which as yet has no theology. The spheres of action of the particular divinities are often confounded, and encroach upon each other. Each of the gods becomes in his turn the Supreme God to the person who invokes him, as if he were, in a certain point of view, his representative; and when they were invoked collectively under the name of Viçve Dêvâs-this plural, as Max Müller observes ('Ancient Sanskrit Liter,' p. 532), may be taken sometimes in the sense of a 'pluralis majestatis,' like the 'Elohim' of Scripture. There is here, without doubt, a reminiscence of the One Being, the conception of whom had become obscured in the multiplicity of His manifestations.

"The traces of Monotheism which we have just signalized in the Vedic hymns, are perhaps the reminiscences of this most ancient religion; but the ideas which tend to Pantheism, whether in the myths or in the meditations of the inspired poets, are the fruit of a new direction peculiar to the genius of India, and which has always afterwards increasingly prevailed. To return to pure Monotheism, the secondary gods must have been wholly rejected, and they were the gods which had become the most popular. By preserving them, whilst seeking to subordinate them to a Supreme God, or to a trinity of superior gods, they were led necessarily to Pantheism by this need of somehow recovering the principle of unity.

"The tribes of Europe have carried with them a Polytheism which is somewhat developed, but which still doubtless preserved a principle of Monotheism. This is what, as we have seen, the ancient general names of the Divinity, which have been main

tained throughout the ages, indicate. The common fund of religious beliefs has developed itself in different directions, in order to form so many national Polytheisms; but whether the idea of a One God has been preserved here and there, or there have been partial returns to that idea, it is certain that it has reappeared almost everywhere, although under forms more or less. imperfect.

"The Greek Polytheism, as it is exhibited in Homer, is the most complete expression of a religion of nature, without any notion of a Being placed beyond and above the real world, in which the gods move as well as men. The principle of unity, represented by the supremacy of Jupiter, comes itself within the sphere of the world, and the Zeus Tarp was at first like the Dyâus pitar. of the Veda, only a personification of heaven. At the furthest, a vague presentiment of a power superior to the gods might be seen in the idea of destiny, to which the gods, like mortals, are subject. Nevertheless the Greek mind, so progressive in its nature, did not long remain subject to this Polytheism, purely anthropomorphic, which it soon abandoned to popular beliefs, in order to liberate itself in a twofold way, that of the Mysteries with their esoteric doctrines, and that of philosophy. We know too little of the history and the doctrines of the Mysteries, in order to attain a clear notion of them; but it is certain that in the great Mysteries, and especially in the Epoptic, a very elevated doctrine was revealed to the initiated upon the destiny of man, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of One God. It is less certain, however, that this Deism had been able to redeem itself entirely from the Naturalism which rules elsewhere throughout the whole of antiquity. With regard to philosophy, we know how it has passed by the successive phasesof Pantheism and Scepticism, to end in Plato and Aristotle in a Monotheism the most exalted that it has been given to the human reason to reach by its own strength. However, this was no longer a doctrine of religion, and the Greek Polytheism never reached further than to the vague idea of that unknown God, whom St. Paul went to make known to the Athenians, and whom it is verily strange to discover again among the Mexicans. "The religion of the Germans, as we find it in its most developed form among the Scandinavians, was likewise only a worship of nature, personified in its great phenomena. At once more simple and more profound than that of classical antiquity, it had preserved better some traits of the primitive Aryan beliefs; but the notion of a God, superior to the world, does not reveal itself equally, save in a very obscure manner. The names of the universal father Alfadhir, and of the god of gods Haptagudh, which are given to Odhinn, do not lift him above the rank

assigned to the Greek Zeus, that of master of the world, but making part of the world. Odhinn, in fact, like the other gods, succumbs at the end of the times' in the great catastrophe of 'Muspell,' which the Voluspa predicts, and which envelops all beings. It is only at the end of this vast drama of the destruction of the world that we see a mysterious Being appear as the renovator of all things, who is named only The Mighty One from on high, who governs all, and who comes to re-establish universal order by a new creation, a belief which recalls singularly that of the Indians, upon the successive destructions and renovations of the universe.

"If the secret doctrines of the Druids of Gaul were better known to us, it is probable that they would offer us, like the mysteries of Greece, a system superior to the vulgar Polytheism; for the little which we know testifies to a certain elevation of ideas. It is impossible, however, to affirm as to the existence of a principle of Monotheism. The traditional debris of these doctrines which appear to have been preserved even to the end of the middle ages, as an esoteric faith among the bards of the district of St. Gall, have been too imperfectly studied as yet to allow us to discriminate in them the influence of Christianity. But there is here a curious field for research.

"Among the Slaves the ancient Polytheism has taken the form of a dualism distinctly pronounced, and which resembles, in some respects, the reformed religion of Zoroaster.

"So to conclude, primitive Monotheism of a character more or less vague, passing gradually into a Polytheism, which was simple as yet; such seems to have been the religion of the ancient Aryans. From the time of the dispersion, the religious phases follow several distinct directions. The Polytheism of the Oriental Aryans divides itself so as to return to Monotheism among the Persians, and to develop into Pantheism among the Indians. In Europe, the Polytheisms develop in different directions, preserving here and there some obscure notion of one only God, but only escaping from their fundamental principle among the Greeks, in their mysteries and philosophy, until the moment when they all disappear in the bosom of Christianity. What is the significance of this grand movement in that providential order which presides over the destinies of humanity? To this question we shall return in our final résumé.

In the final résumé, M. Pictet thus concludes :-" The picture which we have just sketched of the ancient civilization of the Aryans, presents nothing in itself which indicates a remarkable development in any direction. It gives us the idea of a people happily endowed in all respects with an open intelligence, a lively imagination, generous instincts, simple and gentle manners,

but not distinguished by any of those gorgeous achievements which make the nearly contemporaneous races of Assyria and Egypt illustrious. It seems difficult, at first sight, to discover in these modest beginnings the indications of those grand destinies to which the descendants of this primitive people were called. Nevertheless, a more attentive examination leads us to discern them clearly."

We are far from allowing that the influence of race is allpowerful upon the development of nations; but, without doubt, we must concede to it a great influence. This involves, to our minds, no idea of fatalism. We believe indeed in an almost organic development of each of the branches of the human family, but we connect it with a providential plan, the complete view of which, doubtless, is still veiled from us, but glimpses of which are seen, and which will shine with growing clearness of evidence as humanity advances. Though less constant in their effects than the laws of nature, the laws of the moral world are no less always acting, and it is by their means that God governs it through human liberty, in a sense, whilst leaving it its full activity. Thus each race has its part and its destiny, which it accomplishes according to the providential plans, and yet all the individuals which compose it act freely in their own sphere. It is almost in this case (making every reservation), as with those forces that act in all ways upon the terrestrial globe, without causing any hindrance to its movement in its own orbit.

To comprehend the rôle assigned to each race in the drama of the world-to show how they have acquitted themselves or are acquitting themselves in it, this would be the task of a philosophy of history, which should be able to disengage the permanent laws from the infinite multitude of facts. This philosophy does not yet exist, but it is in course of formation, and it will form itself according as we shall learn better the history of humanity in the whole. Up to the present time it has been considered too much under a partial light, by attaching it, in the manner of Bossuet, to one only centre which could not be the true one. This point of view does not assuredly lack grandeur, or relative truth, but it has become insufficient, since vaster horizons have been opened to our view. We are no longer able, with any appearance of justice, to put on our side all the light, and on the other all the darkness-as if all men had not been the children of one heavenly Father. Without doubt the Hebrews, faithful guardians of pure Monotheism, have had a magnificent part in the providential plan; but we may ask ourselves, Where would the world be if they had remained alone at the head of humanity? The truth is, that whilst they preserved religiously the principle of truth, from which a higher light must one day spring, provi

dence had already reserved for another race of men the part of continual development.

This race was the Aryans, endowed from the beginning with those very qualities which the Hebrews lacked, in order to become the civilizers of the world; and nowhere does the evidence of a providential plan shine more clearly than in the parallelism of these two currents, in their juxtaposition, of which one must receive and absorb the other. The contrast between the two races is as trenchant as it can be. To the Hebrews belongs the authority which preserves, to the Aryans the liberty which develops. To the one the intolerance which concentrates and isolates, to the other the receptivity which extends and assimilates; to the first, energy directed towards a single aim; to the last, incessant activity carried in all directions; on the one side a solitary compact nationality, on the other an immense extension of the race divided into a crowd of different peoples-the two sides forming exactly what was needful, in order to accomplish the providential designs. To see in this arrangement a simple play of chance, is to shut the eye wilfully against the light.

Hence, whilst the Hebrews preserved the treasure of truth committed to their care unaltered, the Aryans, already scattered afar, developed everywhere the activity proper to their race, forming new nationalities, founding empires and republics, developing industry and the sciences, causing admirable creations of poetry, sculpture and architecture to rise from their Polytheism, whilst they sought to deliver themselves from its errors by philosophy, advancing and receding by turns, but in the end always advancing; for it is the prerogative peculiar to the principle of liberty to wander, in order to arrive at the good, and to conquer truth by encountering error. This prodigious movement of the Aryan people is not the same everywhere. Sometimes arrested, sometimes turned from its natural course, it does not always produce the same fruits. But where does it concentrate itself with the most power? Precisely there, where, having arrived at its limit without having attained the goal, it has become ready to receive the new light which comes to enlighten the world; a light sprung from the bosom of Judaism, and which Judaism rejects from its obstinate attachment to a Monotheism which was too exclusive. This religion of Christianity, destined to remain the light of the world;-it is the Greek genius which receives it; it is the Roman power which propagates it far and wide; it is the Germanic energy which gives it a new force; it is the entire race of the European Aryans, which, under its beneficent influence and through a thousand conflicts, has risen by degrees to our modern civilization. It is they also who to