miscebunt'.
(sect. 4.) Ed. ]

[Footnote 3: From a common-place book of Mr. C.'s, communicated by Mr.
J. M. Gutch. Ed.]




LECTURE XI. [1]


ASIATIC AND GREEK MYTHOLOGIES--ROBINSON CRUSOE--USE OF WORKS OF
IMAGINATION IN EDUCATION.

A confounding of God with Nature, and an incapacity of finding unity in
the manifold and infinity in the individual,--these are the origin of
polytheism. The most perfect instance of this kind of theism is that of
early Greece; other nations seem to have either transcended, or come
short of, the old Hellenic standard,--a mythology in itself
fundamentally allegorical, and typical of the powers and functions of
nature, but subsequently mixed up with a deification of great men and
hero-worship,--so that finally the original idea became inextricably
combined with the form and attributes of some legendary individual. In
Asia, probably from the greater unity of the government and the still
surviving influence of patriarchal tradition, the idea of the unity of
God, in a distorted reflection of the Mosaic scheme, was much more
generally preserved; and accordingly all other super or ultra-human
beings could only be represented as ministers of, or rebels against, his
will. The Asiatic genii and fairies are, therefore, always endowed with