This same mythology held out, also, that harmony influenced not only the natural and intellectual world, but natural and moral evil,-the passions and sorrows of mankind; as Proclus speaks in his fine Hymn to the Sun*, and again, in his Hymn to the Musest. Still more beautiful was that fabulous device of Cupid and Psyche, by which this union was shadowed forth: for though it was a prototype of the marriage rites in its first sense, yet, agreeably to the double, or, as Lord Bacon § calls it, the germinant, sense, in these matters, it seems to have been designed, also, to unfold by a more recondite sense, all that is agreeable and lovely, all that is intellectual and sublime, by a mystical, divine union in the soul of man. These same ideas seem to have been held forth by the ancient Egyptians in their hieroglyphics; as where seven letters included within two fingers signify the Muses; and the cynocephalus, letters or literature;-the cynocephalus being a sort of mixed animal, with the head of a * Σειρης δ' υμετέρης βασιλευς θεοπειθεος οιμης * Υμνομεν μερόπων αναγώγιον, υμνεσμεν φως, $ Bacon's Advancement of Learning. dog and body of an ape;-and this animal was, therefore, sacred to Mercury, as partaker of all literature *. Priestcraft has pervaded all nations, and truth has been sacrificed on its altars: truth, therefore, is only to be gathered amid darkness and twilight views, as the vulgar see ghosts. Yet, after all, the ancient mythology preserved some vestiges of the ancient philosophy, and something of divinity was contained behind the veil of hieroglyphics. The ancients knew something more than many of the moderns would have us believe †, though the latter have pursued more closely, and expounded more liberally, what the former apprehended with less certainty, and therefore unfolded with more reserve. These positions may be somewhat illustrated by a few observations. Mind is the source and the seat of knowledge, as the sun is of light; and all the discoveries of science reflect back pleasure on the mind; all the congregated rays. mingling, as it were, and sympathizing with each other and our common natures, in the same manner, as the planets, which revolve round the sun, and administer to his glory; or, as the whole heavens and earth are cheered by * Γράμματα επτα, εν δύοις δακτύλοις περιεχομενα, Μεσων σημαινει. Horapollinis Hieroglyphica, lib. ii. sect. 29. Ετι δε και το ζωον επι Ερμη ενεμηθη, τω παντων μετεχοντι γραμματων. Horap. Hierog. lib. i. + See Recherches sur l'Origine des Découvertes attribuées aux Modernes. the light of the moon, according to those inimitable lines of Homer, so finely paraphrased by Pope : As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her silver light, Pope's Homer. But, to be somewhat more particular: Who knows not in what recondite and various learning mathematics was formerly, and still is, engaged? Geometry, geography, and astronomy, music, and various other branches of lite rature, were, by the ancients, comprehended under the general term mathematics; and, indeed, they so extended the signification, as to include astrology and the magic arts. Mathematics, also, is still by eminence, the learning, the true basis, and in some cases, the very essence, * Ως δ' ότ' εν ερανω αέρα φαεινήν αμφι σελήνην of the four branches of philosophy,-optics, hydrostatics, mechanics, and astronomy: and by considering the extent of one of these, astronomy, we shall see how close the link is by which they are all united. Virgil has some fine lines, in the second book of his Georgics, in praise of astronomy: Ye sacred Muses, with whose beauty fired, Dryden. It is, indeed, true, that Virgil expresses a desire, in some following lines, to know the repose of a country life, though he may not be able to penetrate the depths of philosophy. But from various allusions in other parts * Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musæ, Unde tremor terris; qua vi maria alta tumescant Georgic. lib. ii. 475. of the Georgics, it is clear, that he made his knowledge of astronomy answer the purposes of husbandry. So that his astronomical effusions are not made from the mere feelings of a poet, who sometimes claims romantic relations, and expresses himself often enthusiastically on common topics, but from the clear observations and deliberate affections of an agriculturist. Husbandry required for its pursuits the regularity of system, and the certainty of established laws. These were found only in the heavenly bodies, which distinctly marked out the times and seasons of the year: the ancients, therefore, noticed well these appearances; and the operations of the field obeyed the appearances of the heavens. Hence it was that the Egyptians expressed the time in which the sun was passing through Leo by a lion; because, while the sun was passing through Leo, the inundations of the Nile were double; and amid their prayers to the sun, they used the sign of a lion *, as the Catholics would have used that of a cross. History requires the aid of chronology; and chronology that of astronomy, geography, and history: astronomy taught navigation: each, under the immediate guidance, or from the sure effects, of astronomy, has arrived at the most beneficial discoveries; and while, in its turn, astronomy is indebted to optics, hydraulics, and mechanics, all are finally supported on the base of mathematical demonstration. Chemistry, a science so much indebted to the moderns, Horapollinis Hieroglyphica. |