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Untitled Article
in communicating instruction ot ^ in adjusting the practical institutions of society—as soon as ever it impedes the progress of the human reason in accommodating itself to altered times and circumstances , it becomes a real opiate of the intellect , both for
communities , and sects , and individuals . Asia , that vast continent , the fruitful mother of all the illumination that has spread over the habitable globe , has tasted too freely of this sweet poison , and administered it to others . Whote kingdoms and extensive sects slumber in its bosom , fes- 'St . John is fabled to slumber in his grave : he breathes softly ; but now , for near two thousand years * the sleep of death has been upon him , and he tarries in gentle
repose till the Awakener comes * . ' As we bend our course farther westward , the history of mankind assumes a different aspect . The elements of civilization , that still continued to be drawn from the fertile sources of the East , were brought into new forms and actuated by a new spirit ,
on reaching the coasts and islands of Greece . This striking ehange was owing probably , in part , to the scattered and insular distribution of the Grecian people , their devotion to the peril and ( enterprise of a sea-faring life , their division into many independent and hostile tribes , and the free spirit that was necessarily engen--dered amid scenes of such continual stirring and strife . Amidst these excitements , the Grecian muse arose , and cherished , with her free and popular songs , the heroic virtues of the race * The poems of Homer were amongst the most powerful of the instruments of Grecian civilization . Whatever passed into the hands of this wonderful people was moulded at once into the forms of beauty , and became instinct with the spirit of poetry . The massive
and disproportioned architecture of Egypt they spiritualized into symmetry and grace ; and , with them , the hideous objects of Oriental worship grew into the breathing shapes of gods and heroes , which embodied the ideal of humanity . Their religion harmonized with their character , and with the aspect of their land ; it was bright , festal , and gay ; conversant with forms of beauty and sounds of joy , intermingled with the dance , the feast *
and the song . And their poetry : it was not the cold elaboration of the closet , entombed in the sepulchral silence of a written book ; it lived in action , in the eye of men ; it spoke in the tones of the living voice ; it was the glad utterance of the national soul . The absence of these original accompaniments , which gave meaning and expression to their eloquence and poetry , by investing them with something of a religious character , and their calling into exercise a multitude of subtile and undefinable emotions , renders it impossible for us at the p resent day to enter fully into their spirit , or to comprehend flic astonishing effects which they often produced . Mere
* Book XII ., cb . vL , pp . 118 , lif t
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ff 4 The Philosophy of the History' of Mankind .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1832, page 174, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1808/page/30/
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