bodies, which is, I think, a Brahmin work, they are allowed to be used for sacrifice. In the third book, or the book of the Generations, or Re-generations[1] of the race of man, the Adam, they are first allowed to be eaten as food.
How long a time would elapse before man would arrive at the point I here contemplate—the knowledge of the doctrines which I have described—must evidently depend, in a great measure, upon the degree of perfection in which he was turned out from the hand of his Creator. On this point we are and we must remain in ignorance. I argue upon the supposition that man was created with only sufficient information for his comfortable existence, and, therefore, I must be considered to use merely a conditional argument. If any person think it more probable that man was turned out of his Creator’s hand in a state of perfection, I have no objection to this; but my reasoning does not apply to him. If he will condescend to reason with me, he must conditionally admit my premises.
13. It is not to be supposed, that I imagine these profound philosophical results respecting the Trinity, &c., to have been arrived at by the half civilized or infant man all at once—in a day, a week, or a year. No, indeed! many generations, perhaps thousands of years may have elapsed before he arrived at this point; and I think the discovery of several of them in every part of the world, new as well as old, justifies the inference that they were the doctrines of a race, in a high state of civilization, either immediately succeeding or before the flood, which has so evidently left its traces everywhere around us. Before these profound results were arrived at, innumerable attempts must have been made to discover the origin of things. Probably every kind of absurdity imaginable may have been indulged in. All this we may readily suppose, but of its truth we cannot arrive at absolute certainty. At the same time, for any thing we know to the contrary, man may have been created in such a state as easily to have arrived at these conclusions. It is scarcely possible for us at this day to be able to appreciate the advantages which the first races of mankind would possess, in not having their minds poisoned, and their understandings darkened, and enervated by the prejudices of education. Every part of modern education seems to be contrived for the purpose of enfeebling the mind of man. The nurse begins with hobgoblins and ghosts, which are followed up by the priests with devils and the eternal torments of hell. How few are the men who can entirely free themselves from these and similar delusions in endless variety instilled into the infant mind!
A learned philosopher has said, “It is surprising that so few should have perceived how destructive of intellect, the prevailing classical system of education is; or rather that so few should have had courage to avow their conviction respecting classical absurdity and idolatry. Except Bacon and Hobbes, I know not that any authors of high rank have ventured to question the importance or utility of the learning which has so long stunned the world with the noise of its pretensions; but sure it does not require the solid learning or philosophic sagacity of a Bacon or a Hobbes to perceive the ignorance, nonsense, folly, and dwarfifying tendency of the kind of learning which has been so much boasted of by brainless pedants.”
All the doctrines which I have stated above, are well known to have been those of the most ancient nations; the theory of the origin of those doctrines is my own. But I beg leave to observe, that whether the theory of their origin be thought probable or not, the fact of the existence of the doctrines will be proved beyond dispute in a great variety of ways; and it is on the fact of their existence that the argument of this work is founded. The truth or falsity of the theory of their origin will not affect the argument. But of such persons as shall dispute the mode
- ↑ These are the names which the books give to themselves.
