BOOK VI.

CHAPTER I.

Air and Exercise.

"If all the capacities of all ages should unite and transmit their labours, no great progress would be made in learning by anticipations; because the radical errors, and those which occur in the first process of the mind, are not cured by subsequent means and remedies. An instauration must be made from the very foundation, if we do not wish to revolve for ever in a circle, making only some slight and contemptible progress." BACON.

αηρ,

FROM the earliest periods of history the ancients confounded air with heat, which they regarded as the great spirit of the universe. For example, the Greek word ano, and the Latin aura, were evidently derived from 8 aur,* which, in the Hebrew, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Chaldean languages, signified light, fire, and spirit. In the Treatise of Hippocrates on Air, he maintains

The "auræ particula Divina" of Cicero, Adrian, and other Roman philosophers, was certainly not gross air, but what Pope very beautifully terms "vital spark of heavenly flame,”— which was called aura, because it is obtained from the air by breathing. The Latin word spiritus also means air or breath, and inspiro to breathe in air, from which the vital spirit is derived. Hence the origin of our English words spirit and inspiration.

πνευμα,

that an exceedingly subtil and refined spirit, which he terms anp and veνua, pervades universal space, guides the sun, moon, and stars in their courses, causes winter and summer, gives life to men and all other animals. (ερ Quowv. V. vi.) He also declares expressly, in his Treatise on First Principles, that what the ancients called alep, and the Greeks 0ɛguov, or heat, is spirit; θερμον επι το πνευμα. (περι Αρχων. i. vii.) He further maintains, that in this universal spirit resides motion κίνησις, life ψυχή, knowledge νέος, prudence poóvnois, growth, dimunition, change, &c. -that a strong but invisible fire silently produces all the operations of the living body, in accordance with invariable laws. (TEOI Alairns, B. 1. sect. xi.) And it is worthy of special notice, that the Latin word anima, meaning life, soul, and spirit, is only a slight modification of the Greek word avεμoc, which literally signifies wind, or the air in motion. But that it did not denote the

* With Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus, and Anaxagoras, he also maintained that animal heat is derived from the atmosphere by respiration; and that it is supplied to the fœtus in utero by respiration of the mother. This rational view of the subject was rejected by Aristotle, who asserts that the office of respiration is to diminish the innate heat of the soul in the heart. And although Galen partly adopted this absurd hypothesis, he concludes that the principal object of respiration is to preserve the innate heat by which we live and feel; while he represents the lungs as a vital lamp, and blood as the oil by which it is kept burning. (De Utilitate Respirationis, lib. i.)

atmosphere alone, is evident from the manner in which it is employed by Cicero, Virgil, Seneca, and many other Roman authors, who represent it as the anima Mundi, or soul of universal nature. Moreover, that the Greek word uxn did not signify air alone, but the universal spirit which "lives through all life," is equally obvious from the fact, that it is called 4uxn 78 Kooμs by many of the most profound philosophers of Greece, who maintained that the soul of man is a finite portion of the omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and self active spirit, which gives motion, life, and intelligence to organized beings. (Brucker, Hist. Crit. vol. i. 467-75, 1077).

In accordance with these views of antiquity, it is remarkable, that every word in the Old or New Testament employed to represent the Supreme Creator, or any spiritual essence, was derived from the manifest agency of the sun, or of light, heat, and air. For example, we have already seen that Al, El, Eli, Eloi, Elohim, and Elion, are all modifications of the Hebrew word

, which signifies the Creator of heaven and earth, the material sun, and the universal spiritual fluid that pervades all things. Parkhurst also observes, what no one can deny, that the Greek word Exwï, as employed in Mark, c. xv. v. 34, is only a modification of the Hebrew 8, 8, and -that the old Greek verb w, to be, and the word wv, being, were derived from the Hebrew

ω,

word, or from the noun 77, which has been variously written by different authors, Iao, Iei, Yeye, Yehovah, and lastly Jehovah, signifying the primitive essence of all existence or being.* But as the letter o was originally employed instead of w, which was added to the Greek alphabet at a later period, it is evident that wv is in reality the same word as On, which, among the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and other oriental nations, signified the sun. Hence it was, that many of the Greek philosophers employed the words To v and To Ev, to represent the primitive source of all existence. And it is remarkable that the words and Ev are used in the first chapter of the Apocalypse, v. 8, to represent the Supreme Jehovah,—Ο ων, και 8 ερχόμενος,— He who was, and who is, and who is to come."

ην, και

Nor can there be a rational doubt, that the earliest impressions of mankind in regard to the existence and attributes of the Great First Cause,

* Parkhurst further states, that the Hebrew word n Ruah, signifying the spirit of God that was breathed into man when first created, also means air or breath. He moreover observes, that it has precisely the same meaning as the Greek word vɛʊμɑ, as in John c. iv. v. 24, where it is said that " God is a Spirit." But he maintains that TvEvμa denotes also an incorporeal substance, distinct from the animal soul termed ʊxn, which man hath in common with the brutes; because he is represented as consisting of soul, body, and spirit, as in Thess. ch. v. v. 23, and Hebrews, ch. iv. v. 12. Yet he admits that both πνευμα and x" mean breath, the air in motion, animal life, the human soul, and spirit. (See Greek Lexicon, under these words).

were acquired from beholding everywhere the creating and life-giving power of the sun,* or of that all pervading fire which animates the infinite multitude of suns. For it is manifest that all our ideas, whether of matter or spirit, are prototyped in the visible and tangible operations of the universe,—that they were originally derived through the senses, as demonstrated by Locke, and by the simple method of tracing all words to their primitive signification,-that there is no foundation in either nature or revelation, for the doctrine of Kant and other metaphysicians, that our ideas of the Divinity, infinite

* It is difficult to comprehend what Aristotle meant by saying, that the Prime Mover of nature is itself immovable, without supposing that he had a glimmering notion of the doctrine which was taught Pythagoras by Enuphis, an Egyptian Priest of On, -that the sun is the fixed centre of light, heat, and motion, to the planetary system, as we are informed by Plutarch. (Placita Philosophorum, lib. iii. c. 2.) His account of the Trinity was also derived from Pythagoras, who received it from the east. For we are informed by the Rev. Mr. Maurice, in his Indian Antiquities, that the doctrine of a Trinity prevailed throughout the whole of Asia, north Africa, and the greater part of Europe, long before the civilization of Greece. We also learn from Sir William Jones, that among the ancient Hindoos, a trinity of powers was supposed to reside in the sun, or solar fire, whose creating, preserving, and destroying agency was represented under the names of Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva,-mythological personations of the sun. In accordance with this doctrine, Aristotle observes, in the beginning of his work on Heaven, that all things are bounded by three, since the beginning, middle, and end, contain the all, and the number of the Triad-which, he adds, as a law of nature, we use in the worship of the Gods.