itary and exclusive, it preserves the form, ritual, and creed of barbarous times in the midst of civilization; separates Morality from Religion, life from belief, good sense from theology; demands horrible sacrifices of the body, or the soul; and, like the angry God in the old Pelasgic fable, chains for eternal damnation the bold free spirit which, learning the riddle of the world, brings down the fire of Heaven to bless poor mortal men. It were useless to quote examples of the influence of the priesthood. It has been the burthen of Fate upon the human race. Each age has its Levites; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. In many nations their story is a tale of blood; the tragedy of Sin and Woe.[1]
II. In the polytheistic period, war is a normal state and
almost constant. Religion then unites men of the same
tribe and nation; but severs one people from another.
The Gods are hostile; Jehovah and Baal cannot agree.
Their worshippers must bite and devour one another. It
is high treason for a citizen to communicate the form of
the national Religion to a foreigner; Jehovah is a jealous
God. Strangers are sacrificed in Tauris and Egypt, and
the captives in war put to death at the command of the
Priest. But war at that period had also a civilizing
influence. It was to the ancient world what Trade is to
modern times: another form of the same selfishness. It
was the chief method of extending a nation's influence.
The remnant of the conquered nation was added to the
victorious empire; became its slaves or tributaries, and at
last shared its civilization, adding the sum of its own
excellence to the moral treasury of its master. Conquered
Greece gave Arts and Philosophy to Rome; the exiled
Jews brought back from Babylon the great doctrine of
eternal life. The Goths conquered Rome, but Roman
Christianity subdued the Goths. Religion, allied with the
fiercest animal passions, demanded war; this led to science.
It was soon seen that one head which thinks is worth a
- ↑ See the one-sided view of Constant, which pervades his entire work on Religion. See his Essay on the “Progressive Development of Religious Ideas,” in Ripley's Philosophical Miscellanies, Vol. II. p. 292, et seq. Virgil, in his description of the Elysian flelds, assigns the first place to Legislators, the magnanimous Heroes who civilized mankind; the next to Patriots, and the third to Priests. Æn. VI. 661, et seq.
