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    tendom , as he viewed it , had induced him to relinquish . Essentially an aristocrat in all his feelings , political and philosophical , he kept himself aloof from the crowd—Odi profanum vulgus et arceo was his motto ; he had no sympathy with ordinary humanity , and could not understand the wants which urge those who live amid the genial and stirring influences of domestic life , the

    parent , the partner , and the child , to seek consolation and peace in the hopes and assurances of Christianity . Awed by the mere title of philosophy , he could not penetrate to that deeper philosophy ,

    which sees alike in the dreams of the enthusiastic , and the speculations of the wise , the deep yearnings of a common nature for the spiritual truth and beatitude which religion only can afford . From a mind so constituted , a just and impartial delineation of the character of a sect , which in the first instance had nothing to distinguish it but the purity of its morals , and the spirituality of its principles and hopes , could not be expected . His traits *

    though they may be individually copied from fact , are deprived of the general character and effect of truth by the sarcasm and insinuation that are blended with them . Had Niebuhr ' s plan

    extended beyond the boundary of the republic , and his life been sufficiently prolonged to enable him to execute it , we should have looked for a better spirit in him . Our hope is , some one may yet arise to give us , without any party bias , a faithful picture of what the world actually was in those first ages of Christianity , and to render equal justice to the last struggles of Heathenism , the triumphs and progress of Christianity , and the intermediate alternations of Gnosticism .

    V . The radical error of the Gnostics was , that they saw in Christianity a key to the solution of every moral and metaphysical difficulty , that they systematized too soon , and endeavoured to blend their religion and their philosophy , what they had been taught , and what they assumed , into a whole . They did not perceive , that the progress to truth must be slow and gradual , and

    that Christianity stands always in the same relation to science at every step of its progress , sanctifying the motions and affections

    of the heart , but not solving the metaphysical difficulties of the understanding . A better philosophy has been now introduced ; but the same problems which exercised the ingenuity , and drew forth the arbitrary suppositions of the Gnostics , still remain unsolved . Men ' s opinions on the most important subjects are as yet

    warring and unfixed ; and not only the opinions of different individuals , but even those of the same individual , if pushed into their consequences , would often be found inconsistent with each other . The universe is a whole , one , consistent and harmonious ; and truth is the reflection of the universe in the human mind . The

    more therefore we gain of truth , and the further we pursue it , the more unity and consistency we shall discover in the whole body of our opinions , and the greater number of relations and affini-

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    Spirit of Gnosticism . 609

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  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1833, page 609, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2622/page/25/