consists in a knowledge of those powers by which all the motions essential to life are produced. "Psychology," observes a writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica, "consists in the knowledge of the intellectual part of man in particular; concerning which the most profound, the most subtile, and most abstract researches have been made that human reason is capable of; and concerning the substance of which, in spite of all these efforts, it is yet extremely difficult to support any positive opinion with conclusive or probable arguments." The fifth branch of metaphysics is, according to the same writer, involved in still greater confusion. "By the term pneumatology metaphysicians mean the knowledge of all spirits, angels, &c. It is easy to conceive what infinite art is necessary to give an account of that of which nothing positive can ever be known in the present state of human existence. But the metaphysician of this school readily offers to shew us what is the idea of a spirit, and the effective existence of a spirit; what are its general qualities and properties; that there are rational spirits, and that these rational spirits have qualities which are founded in the moral attributes of God;"* along with a variety of other matters, which must ever remain inscrutable to the loftiest intellect. Now, it appears to me that these six divisions of the science are not only superfluous, but also well adapted to lead the mind into a chaos of uncertainty. Nature is simple in her operations, and the student of nature ought not to perplex his memory with a variety of words and divisions which are comparatively useless. The only classes of phenomena with which we can become acquainted are either of a corporeal or mental description. Of the former we know but little; of the latter we know less. We cannot tell what an immaterial spirit is; we cannot prove that such beings exist. That branch of metaphysics, therefore, which relates to spirits, angels, &c., should be abolished, because such things are inscrutable to the human under *Encyc. Brit., vol. xiv., Art. Metaphys. standing. But because metaphysical science has been abused in past times, the smatterer in philosophy sighs for its destruction. But this is absolutely impossible. There is now and ever will be metaphysicians. We cannot inquire into the connection subsisting between us and the external world, nor ask ourselves whether we are subject to the same laws which govern it, or to laws altogether different-in short, we cannot reason about morality, the passions, or the operations of the intellect, without plunging headlong into metaphysical philosophy. DISHONEST CONDUCT OF THE TRANSLATORS OF THE BIBLE. Behold how ecclesiastics manufacture evidence! In In the original scriptures, God is called by a variety of names, after the same as those applied to the heathen deities by the ancients. Our translators, to screen this fact as much as possible, have adopted a very disingenuous artifice, which they have borrowed from the Jews; who, in rendering Hebrew into Greek, render the word ', Ieue, and other names by which God is called in the Bible, by the word Kvpios, Kurios, or Lord, one that has authority-a sovereign. this," observes Higgins, "the Jews were justified by the commandment, which forbids the use of the name Ieue. But not so the Christians, who do not admit the true and evident meaning adopted by the Jews, Thou shalt not take the name of , Ieue, thy God, in vain." And, therefore, they have no right, when pretending to give a translation, to call God by any other name than that in the original, whether it be Adonis, or Ie, or Ieue, or any other. This the reader will immediately see is of the first importance in obtaining a correct understanding of the book. The fact of the names of God being disguised in all the translations, tends to prove that no dependence can be placed on any of them. The fact shews very clearly the temper or state of mind with which the translators have undertaken their task. God is called by several names. How is the reader of a translation to discover this, if he find them all rendered by one name? He is evidently deceived. It is no justification of a translator, to say it is of little consequence. Little or great, he has no right to exercise any discretion of this kind. When he finds God called Adonai, he has no business to call him Jehovah or Elohim. "The fact that Abraham worshipped several gods, who were, in reality, the same as those of the Persians, namely the creator, preserver, and the destroyer, has long been asserted, and the assertion has been very unpalatable both to Jews and many Christians; and to obviate or disguise what they could not account for, they have had recourse, in numerous instances, to the mistranslation of the original, as will presently be shewn. "The following texts will clearly prove this assertion. The Rev. Dr. Shuckford pointed out the fact long ago, so that this is nothing new." "In the second book of Genesis, the creation is described not to have been made by Aleim, or the Aleim, but by a god of a double name, 'n min', Ieue Aleim, which the priests have translated Lord God. By using the word lord, their object evidently is to conceal from their readers several difficulties which arise afterward respecting the names of God and this word, and which shew clearly that the books of the Pentateuch are the writings of different persons." "Dr. Shuckford has observed, that in Genesis xii. 7, 8, Abraham did not call upon the name of the Lord, as we improperly translate it; but invoked God in the name of the lord (i. e. Ieue) whom he worshipped, and who appeared to him; and that this was the same God to whom Jacob prayed, when he vowed that the Lord should be his God.* Again Shuckford says, Shuckford, b. vii., p p. 130, 131. that in Genesis xxvi. 25, Isaac invoked God, as Abraham did, in the name of this lord, ', Ieue, or Jehovah. On this he observes, 'It is very evident that Abraham and his descendants worshipped not only the true and living God, but they invoked him in the name of the Lord, and they worshipped the Lord in whose name they invoked, so that two persons were the object of this worship, God and this Lord: and the scripture has distinguished these two persons from one another by this circumstance, that God no man hath seen at any time, or can see; but the Lord whom Abraham and his descendants worshipped, was the person who appeared to them.'* "In the above I need scarely remind my readers that the name Ieue, or Jehovah, must be inserted in the place of the Lord."† Now, if translators thus disguise and pervert facts, what dependence can be placed in them by the unlearned? But it is no wonder that they should translate the name of the twofold deity Lord God. If it had been properly rendered, it might have led individuals to inquire whether there was not an identity between the Biblical Mythos and the Persian, and thus the cheat might have been discovered. Ecclesiastics are always politic. DISINGENUOUS CONDUCT OF SIR WILLIAM JONES. "ABOUT the beginning of the French revolution, the celebrated philosopher Baillie published his History of Ancient Astronomy, in which he endeavoured to prove that the first race of men after the flood had been * Shuckford, b. xi., p. 378, Ed. 3, also p. 400. situated on the east of the Caspian sea, and thence had extended towards the south. This he defended with so much talent, that it raised an outcry from the bigots in all quarters, who spared no exertion to run down and misrepresent what they could not refute; and to this end, some men, who ought to have been above such unworthy proceedings, lent themselves. "The following is a passage of Sir William Jones', quoted with approbation by the Rev. Mr. Maurice. Speaking of the doctrine of M. Baillie, Sir William Jones says, 'Great learning and great acuteness, together with the charms of a most engaging style, were indeed necessary to render even tolerable a system which places an earthly paradise, the gardens of Hesperus, the islands of the Macares, the groves of Elysium, if not of Eden, the heaven of Indra, the Peristan, or fairy land, of the Persian poets, with its city of diamonds, and its country of Shadcam, (so named from pleasure and love,) not in any climate which the common sense of mankind considers as the seat of delights, but beyond, the mouth of the Oby, in the frozen sea, in a region equalled only by that where the wild imagination of Dante led him to fix the worst of criminals in a state of punishment after death, and which he could not, he says, even think of without shivering.' I have scarcely ever met with a more wilful misrepresentation than this. Most uncandidly Sir William Jones conceals from his readers, that M. Baillie spoke of a time previous to the flood, and founded his doctrine upon a supposition that, before that event, in consequence of the axis of the earth being placed in a different direction from that in which it now is, and other causes, the climate of the polar regions must have been mild and temperate."-Higgins, Celtic Druids, c. ii., s. ix., p. 45. The above extract may serve to shew to what degrading shifts a theologian will stoop for the advancement of his cause. The quotations which Sir William Jones makes from Baillie's works, attest that he was acquainted with the hypothesis which that celebrated but unfortunate philosopher proposed and defended. His partizans, the clergy, cannot therefore plead ignorance as |