Southern Italy and her islands, proofs of a degradation not much
inferior. What I contend for is the civilisation of the first
patriarchal races who peopled the East, and who passed into Europe from
Armenia, in which paradise is supposed to have been placed. The early
civilisation of this race could only have been in consequence of their
powers and instincts having been of a higher character than those of
savages. They appear to have been small families--a state not at all
fitted for the discovery of arts by the exercise of the mind; and they
professed the most sublime form of religion, the worship of one Supreme
Intelligence--a truth which, after a thousand years of civilisation, was
with difficulty attained by the most powerful efforts of reasoning by the
Greek sages. It appears to me, that in the history of the Jews, nothing
can be more in conformity to our ideas of just analogy than this series
of events. Our first parents were created with everything necessary for
their wants and their happiness; they had only one duty to perform, by
their obedience to prove their love and devotion to their Creator. In
this they failed, and death--or the fear of death--became a curse upon
their race; but the father of mankind repented, and his instinctive or
intellectual powers given by revelation were transmitted to his offspring
more or less modified by their reason, which they had gained as the fruit
of their disobedience. One branch of his offspring, however, in whom
faith shone forth above reason, retained their peculiar powers and
institutions and preserved the worship of Jehovah pure, whilst many of
the races sprung from their brethren became idolatrous, and the clear
light of heaven was lost through the mist of the senses; and that Being,
worshipped by the Israelites only as a mysterious word, was forgotten by
many of the nations who lived in the neighbouring countries, and men,
beasts, the parts of the visible universe, and even stocks and stones,
were set up as objects of adoration. The difficulty which the divine
legislators of the Jewish people had to preserve the purity of their