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becomes the influence of religion in state affairs. On the present occasion, I use the term religion, to express the barbarous reverence which uncivilized nations have always paid, by certain rites and customs, to imaginary deities; under whatever form they may have been represented or conceived to exist. . . . . To convert such a religion into a bond of political union, it is only necessary that it should possess, in each nation or tribe, a national character, as is generally the case; since, as is proved by a multitude of examples, every nation is easily led to adopt certain gods as its peculiar and tutelary deities. Such an idea, of a tutelary deity the common protector of the whole nation, -is obviously an invisible bond of interest and alliance. From being an invisible bond of union, it is calculated to become a visible one also, and in this respect is especially influential. As soon as the worship of their deities became connected with some particular spot, and took place in some national temple or sanctuary, with public festivals at which all the nation, and only that nation, assisted,-so soon was there established among them a principle of unity, independent of external circumstances, and allied to the innermost feelings of man.. this manner, the temple of the Tyrian Hercules became the centre of the Phoenician League; that of Jupiter Latialis, of the Latin Confederacy; and thus it was that the Grecian States, discordant in their forms of government, and disunited by frequent wars, yet, felt themselves to be members of one community, when assembled to celebrate the festival of the Olympian Jupiter.' Vol. I. pp. xv-xviii.

In

In the same manner, the Kaaba of Mecca has been the centre of the Moslem States; and to nothing but the bond of religion, does the temporal power of the Head of the Mohammedan world owe its conservation. The firmaun of the Ottoman Sultan is not merely a command, but a spell: it is not only an imperial order, but a bull ecclesiastical. The temple of St. Peter at Rome has been the Kaaba of the Romish world. But the false religions have, in this as in other respects, been the deformed copies of the true. The nationality of the Jews was essentially maintained by their temple, the bond of their political union, the centre of their religious polity, the true metropolis of the world. But if a national religion is a bond of internal union, it is also liable to become a source of international hostility and hatred. The nationality which was thus fostered, displayed itself in a more intense hatred of other nations, the worshippers of other gods. In such cases, a difference of religion inflamed, but did not originate the mutual jealousy and hostility; and what have been called religious wars, whether in ancient or in modern times, might be shewn to have sprung from national hatred. Thus, the worshippers of the Crocodile and those of the Serpent, who might have agreed together in the same city, became inveterate enemies, when Ombos and Tentyra were peopled by rival and probably jealous communities. In many instances, the gods were hated for the sake of those who worshipped them, rather than the worshippers

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for the sake of the gods. This was probably the case with regard to the great religious war between the Brahminical and the Buddhic tribes of India, which issued in the extermination or expulsion of the latter: it was a war of clans or of nations, and religion was but one element of the nationality which fostered it. In the same manner, the bitter animosity between the Greek and the Latin, which has subsisted for centuries, cannot with any reasonableness be ascribed to the trivial differences in their rites and polity. It is the result of national antipathy.

Thus, all false religions must at once be a source of internal unity, and an occasion of foreign war and discord; and, excepting the Jewish, all national religions must be false. The truth of Christianity is staked upon its universality; and it aims at nothing short of at once destroying and superseding that nationality which isolates while it unites, and corrupts society, while amalgamating it. When we say that all national religions must be false, we mean, of course, all religions which professedly consist in rites and worship peculiar to a particular nation, and tending to infuse into it a spirit of nationality; which cannot possibly apply to the Christian religion except as paganized by Romish corruptions. That which was designed, and is destined, to be the religion of all nations, can alone be a bond of international amity and universal peace.

But to return to our Author. It is true, he remarks, that rcligion (that is, as already defined, the barbarous reverence paid by uncivilized nations to imaginary deities) can afford no such bond of union to a variety of nations of different origin and carious creeds.

In as far, indeed, as the religion of the conquering nation superseded those of the conquered, it exercised of course a considerable, but not a universal influence; but its principal efficacy, in such cases, consisted in its introducing legislation, which opposed, as it were, some bounds to the overwhelming violence of military despots, and limited what it could not control. Legislation, to be effectual, and to insure respect, demands the sanction of a higher authority. Among nations which have already attained a certain degree of intellectual cultivation and political constitution, the laws, it is true, will of themselves command respect, because men have had time to be convinced that obedience is a duty; but such sentiments were not to be looked for among rude and uneducated tribes, who were not disposed to venerate the laws, except so far as they were sanctioned by religion. For this reason, in the earliest ages of antiquity, civil institutions, not less than those which were of a character strictly religious, bore the impress of Religion; and even in the present day, we see an example of it in the case of all those nations which own the authority of the Koran. Among the Greeks and Romans also, the enactments of Lycurgus and Numa were sanctioned by the authority of the popular religion. Such a state of things naturally caused the establishment of a

sacerdotal race, as a distinct order, or even caste, (the customs of the East differing in this respect from those of Greece and Rome,) which necessarily attained the highest influence in political questions; an influence which, although occasionally abused, was not without its good effects in limiting the omnipotence of the monarch. Religion also prescribed certain ceremonies which all were equally bound to observe; and the duty of observing them, and the forms they imposed, placed some salutary limits to the power of the sovereign.'

Vol. I. pp. xviii, xix.

'Ainsi les erreurs mêmes ont leur utilité quelquefois; mais 'c'est ordinairement pour remedier à d'autres erreurs; et la verité vaut mieux absolument’*. This profound remark of Leibnitz admits of extensive application; and it holds good, in particular, of those practical errors and fallacies which have imbodied themselves in the institutions of society. Errors in religion and government have sometimes proved useful as counterpoisons to the diseases of society,-as temporary remedies for greater evils,-when truth was not to be had. Thus, a heathen priesthood may have operated as a check upon a heathen despot; and a false religion may have originated a beneficial legislation. In the same way, amid the prevalence of feudal ignorance and ferocity, the monasteries of Europe were the only asylum of learning, the barriers of civilization; and there was a period when the liberties of Italy were identified with the cause of the Church, The struggle for ascendancy between the military and the sacerdotal castes, which, under the various modifications, is seen agitating society at all periods and in all countries, may be regarded as essentially a struggle between the principles of liberty and despotism. So long as the priesthood have been subject, they have been the protectors of those beneath, and, as the only class of free men under a military despotism, the mediators between the despot and the vassal. When the military power has been subject to the hierocrasy, then, indeed, as in Egypt and in India, the worst species of despotism is the result; that which combines oppression with falsehood, working by means of an atrocious legislation and a debasing superstition. The worst abominations of Polytheism have been the artful invention of a sovereign or dominant priesthood. To prevent this unnatural and fatal combination, the Mosaic law forbade the union of the sacerdotal and regal office in the same tribe: nor does Christianity less absolutely interdict that unnatural combination of the spiritual and secular functions, which has been one of the main sources of the corruption of religion. Thus, while we cannot read history intelligently, without perceiving that many things in themselves

* Leibnitz. Theodicée, Pref. p. 298.

evil, have, under existing circumstances, proved of limited and temporary use, as the best expedients for counteracting greater evils; we may also see, that those remedial evils, if we may so term them, have a constant tendency to swell into excess, so as to become in turn, as soon as they touch the point of ascendancy, greater in magnitude and more disastrous in operation. It is thus with every false principle of social union,-national prejudice, superstition, feudalism, priestcraft; although human society, in its corrupt state, has been chiefly kept from total dissolution by the alternate and reciprocal operation of these miserable expedients. But la verité vaut mieux absolument-Truth exhibits ' a more excellent way.'

As the origin of all civil society is to be traced to the formation of cities, so, the formation of cities may in most cases be ascribed to the parent of civilization, commerce. As the commerce of antiquity was carried on principally by land, the personal safety of the merchant and the interests of trade required the adoption of the system of caravans, with fixed lines of route and places of rendezvous. These places of repose and defence, Professor Heeren suggests, would become entrepôts of commerce, and not unfrequently the sites of temples and sanctuaries, under the protection of which the merchant prosecuted his trade, and to which the pilgrim resorted. Superstition has seldom exerted so useful an influence, as when, the patroness of commerce, she has interposed to screen the trader from the robber, the merchant from the warrior, though sometimes also the offender and the impostor from the magistrate. This mode of communication between distant regions, which always creates a considerable intermediate trade, had the effect of creating emporia of commerce along the whole line of route, which, being frequented by the numbers attracted by the love of gain, gradually grew up into flourishing cities, and following the usual progress of refinement, increased in wealth and civilization,-in luxury and commerce. Thus, all the great cities of antiquity are found in the caravan routes leading from the remote regions of the Seres and Indi to the shores of the Mediterranean. The routes were not primarily determined by the cities, but the cities sprang up in the geographical route; and when the stream of commerce was diverted from its original channel by war, or by the discovery of a better route, the towns which it had created, declined, and often sank into utter decay. Some trade, indeed, was, from the earliest times of which we have any historic record, carried on by sea; but it was almost entirely a coasting navigation, subordinate to the land traffic, and, from its tediousness and uncertainty, employed only from necessity, or confined, at most, to narrow seas. The commerce of the ancients forms one of the most interesting subjects of historical inquiry; for all that was admirable in their polity and institutions may be

shewn to have grown out of it. War and conquest, the favourite topics of the bard, which comprise the romance of history, have in all ages been the great barbarizers of the species. The epochs of the Macedonian and Roman empires, Professor Heeren remarks, are far from being the most important or the most instructive, in respect to even the polity of the ancients.

The variety which distinguished the Ancient forms of government, was necessarily overwhelmed by an universal dominion; and Commerce herself was apt to be fettered with the same bondage in which every other civil relation was confined. We must ascend to a more distant age, if we would contemplate the constitutions of the Ancients in all their diversity, and their commerce in its most tranquil and flourishing condition. The period immediately preceding the establishment, and during the continuance of the Persian monarchy, appears to offer to the historian the most satisfactory survey and the richest field of inquiry. By examining this epoch, we shall be enabled to estimate correctly the commerce of Alexandria of a later date, and the questions arising out of the political systems of the Romans and Macedonians. In like manner, by ascending to the age referred to, we behold, as it were, every thing in its proper place, before the success of one nation had deprived the rest of their independence. Every commercial state then occupied the rank and position in the general system, for which it appeared to be designed by its peculiar advantages. The shores of the Mediterranean were inhabited in every direction by industrious and seafaring nations. Carthage had occupied the greater part of the coast of Africa, and, by opening her ports for the importation of foreign produce, had already begun to monopolize the commerce of the interior. Cyrene was the immediate neighbour of Carthage, and had become her rival, by her possessions along the eastern portion of the same coast. Over against these cities, the Grecian colonies of Sicily and Italy had grown, by the cultivation of their fruitful territories, to a degree of opulence and prosperity which, in the end, proved fatal to them. Their narrow limits could with difficulty produce as much oil and wine as was absorbed by the neighbouring country of Gaul, and the boundless continent of Africa; which were either altogether barren of these productions, or afforded them sparingly and with difficulty. Italy was then principally in the hands of the Etrusci, a nation who, in spite of the jealous rivalry of Carthage, maintained themselves in the Mediterranean: while the Romans, pent up as yet within the limits of Latium, were content to carry on a peaceful traffic, and conclude a treaty of commerce with their future enemies, the Carthaginians. The internal commerce of Gaul was in the hands of Massilia, the most peaceful and prosperous of all the Grecian states.; while, on the coast of Spain, Gades and other independent Phoenician colonies, were mistresses of fleets which even braved the waves of the Atlantic.

The States of Greece, more particularly Athens and Corinth, with their Ionian dependencies, had secured to themselves the commerce of the Ægean and the Black Sea; and even Egypt, exclusive as it was