Arkism.

they are now advanced , succeed in throwing light on the early history of our race . But while this is his professed- object , he walks about his platform like some modern rhetoricians , and somelimes talks rather grandiloquently ancl confusedly .

Yet every now and then he returns to the front of his platform , and gives utterance to a true and suggestive thought . In his second lecture , on the " Genius of the Physical Sciences , Ancient and Modern , " we meet with several specimens of

mere lecture formularies , and also with some of the results of long thinking and wide reading . But even thus early in the book we encounter dubious and singular etymological propositions . For instance , " Star " does not come from a

Sanscrit root signifying to stand , and so through the Latin stare , but from tor , the word for mountain ; thus tor , s'tor , star . Old astrology shines to-night in our stars .

In his third and fourth lectures Mr . Lesley treats respectively of the antiquity , the dignity , and the unity of the human race . In his sixth Hectare he expatiates on the social life of the ancients ; in the seventh , on the origin of language ;

in his eighth , on the origin of taste , and especially the development of architecture . His theory of the origin of letters—a curious one , and more curious than credible—appears in his ninth lecture . Here we have not only the invention of

'the alphabet , but a singular medley on " the nature of those spiritual fancies which became . concrete in the mythological traditions of the world . " The religious instinct is not so religiously treated as some would wish in the tenth lecture ,

which exhibits very little ceremony in explaining ceremonial worships . The eleventh lecture expounds the author ' s great secret , and to this we shall more particularly refer . Mr . Lesley ' s silver key to unlock half the closed doors of past

mythologies , —his wand to disenchant half the magical forms of the worships of to-day , —is to be found in lecture eleven , and the last .

Three long mornings have we devoted to the study ef the great mystery of this book , the wonderful discovery , the riddle of CEpidus . Ifc is Mr . Lesley ' s last , best , and brighesfc announcement . While we have read and reflected , we frequently

remembered some obsolete fancies of Jacob Bryant and other antique myfchologists , long since buried ; and we have seen some of our own youthful imaginings rise up in a cloud-like resurrection before us . Twenty years ago Mr . Lesley perused

"Harcourfc on the Deluge , " which "' perusal opened before him " a new series of combinations ol thefacts of history and science . " Quite twenty years ago we also perused the same book . The difference between ourselves and Mr . Lesley is , that

we have . grown out of it , and he , root-like , has grown into it . As to Jacob Bryant , we would now much moi-e readily believe in Jacob the Jew than Jacob the mythologist . Mr . Lesley , however , has surpassed all our

imaginings of the past ; another great , dark , universal Arkite Mystery renews our youth by its eagle-like penetration' and its eagle-like wingsoaring . How shall we convey to our readers a brief explanation of this mystery in the words of

its propounder ? Here is the only short sentence we can find : — "It is as certain , in my opinion , that respect for the simplest forms of Arkite symbolism , an uuEesfchefcic , unmetaphysical , unmathematical , confused , dreamy , inconsistent veneration for whatever suggested to the eye the ideas of the

ship , the mountain , ancl the flood—constituted the principal part of the early religion of the race— -as it is certain that trilobites and brachiopods monopolized the Silurian world . " We have only to admit Arkism , and all will be as clear as things

should be . At present , indeed , we are rather badly placed ; for just as " everything at the opening of the intellectual history of man was cabalistic , and most things remain cabilistic , in a mythologic sense , to the present day—nine-tenths

of the people of the earth are still living in the practice of cabilistic formulas ; ancl nine-tenths of fche religion of the remaining tenth is actually and demonstrably cabala . " Possibly ; but is not the Arkite symbolism cabala ? Yes ; " the Chancellor

of England sits gravely on the awkward Woolsack , without knowing that wool is the cabalistic symbol of water , and that he is Lord High Baron because , like the bards and barons of Druid times , his place is at the summit of the Bar , or holy mountain . " Comfort here for the Bar , and

comfort also for the bald ; for " the same scorn of the tonsure is expressed to-day which prompted the boys fco cry to Elisha , " Go up , thou baldpate : " with the same ignorance that the circles of hair around the naked skull is the symbol of the Arkite

water around the naked mountain top ; and thei'efore the French word for hair is chevaux—cap-ilia is the cabalistic sign of iniation into the priest hood . " This wonderful Arkism explains the whole , good