theistic scheme (for it is a part of a pantheism) of making the earth the creator of all, will require much more refinement of mind than the doctrine of attributing the creation to the sun. The first is an actual refinement run into corruption, similar to Bishop Berkley’s doctrine,—refinement, indeed, carried to a vicious excess, carried to such an excess as to return to barbarism; similar, for instance, to what took place in the latter ages of Greece and Rome in the fine arts, when the beautiful Ionic and Corinthian orders of architecture were deserted for the Composite.
We may venture, I think, to presume that adoration must first have arisen either from fear or admiration; in fact, from feeling. As an object of feeling, the sun instantly offers himself. The effect arising from the daily experience of his beneficence, does not seem to be of such a nature as to wear away by use, as is the case with most feelings of this kind. He obtrudes himself on our notice in every way. But what is there in the earth on which we tread, and which is nothing without the sun, which should induce the half-civilized man to suppose it an active agent—to suppose that it created itself? He would instantly see that it was, in itself, to all appearance תהו tëu, ובהו ubëu,[1] an inert, dead, unprolific mass. And it must, I think, have required an exertion of metaphysical subtlety, infinitely greater than my trinity must have required, to arrive at a pantheism so completely removed from the common apprehension of the human understanding. In my oriental theory, every thing is natural and seductive; in the other, every thing is unnatural and repulsive.
My learned friend who advocates this degrading scheme of Pantheism against my sublime and intellectual theory, acknowledges what cannot be denied, that the doctrines held in these two passages of Numenius and Plato, are directly at variance with their philosophy as laid down in all their other works. Under these circumstances, I think I may safely dismiss them without further observation, as passages misunderstood, or contrivances to conceal their real opinions.
6. Of equal or nearly equal date, and almost equally disseminated throughout the world with the doctrine of the Trinity, was that of the Hermaphroditic or Androgynous character of the Deity. Man could not help observing and meditating upon the difference of the sexes. He was conscious that he himself was the highest in rank of all creatures of which he had any knowledge, and he very properly and very naturally, as far as was in his power, made God after the being of highest rank known to him, after himself; thus it might be said, that in his own image, in idea, made he his God. But of what sex was this God? To make him neuter, supposing man to have become grammarian enough to have invented a neuter gender, was to degrade him to the rank of a stone. To make him female was evidently more analogous to the general productive and prolific characters of the author of the visible creation. To make him masculine, was still more analogous to man’s own person, and to his superiority over the female, the weaker vessel; but still this was attended with many objections. From a consideration of all these circumstances, an union of the two was adopted, and he was represented as being Androgynous.
Notwithstanding what I have said in my last paragraph respecting the degradation of making God of the neuter gender, I am of opinion that had a neuter gender been known it would have been applied to the Deity, and for that reason would have been accounted, of the three genders, the most honourable. For this, among other reasons, if I find any very ancient language which has not a neuter gender, I shall be disposed to consider it to be probably among the very oldest of the languages of the world. This observation will be of importance hereafter.
7. Of all the different attributes of the Creator, or faculties conferred by him on his creature, there is no one so striking or so interesting to a reflecting person as that of the generative power.
- ↑ Gen. chap. i.
