Rationalists of the German school have laboured to throw discredit on
the literal interpretation of the narratives, both of the Old and the
New Testaments; representing them as MYTHS, i.e., fables allegorically
describing some physical or moral phænomena—philosophical
principles—systems, &c.—under the figure of actions performed by
certain ideal personages; these allegories having been, afterwards,
through the mistake of the vulgar, believed as history. Thus, the real
historical existence of such a person as the supposed founder of the
Christian religion, and the acts attributed to him, are denied in the
literal sense, and the whole of the evangelical history is explained
on the "mythical" theory.

Now it is a remarkable circumstance in reference to the point at
present before us, that an eminent authoress of this century has
distinctly declared that Napoleon Buonaparte was NOT A MAN, but a
SYSTEM.

[24] Germaniæ vocabulum recens et nuper additum; quoniam qui primi
Rhenum transgressi Gallos expulerint, ac nunc Tungri, tunc Germani
vocati sint: ita nationis nomen in nomen gentis evaluisse paullatim,
ut omnes, primum a victore ob metum, mox a seipsis invento nomine,
Germani vocarentur.—_Tacitus, de Mor. Germ._

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POSTSCRIPT TO THE THIRD EDITION.