RITES themselves were established in imitation of thofe of Ifis and Ofiris. But fince by Ofiris was symbolized the SOLAR SPHERE, and, by his affectionate confort Ifis, the LUNAR ORB, illumined by his ray, or, as fome mythologists explain it, the TERRESTRIAL GLOBE, made. fruitful by his generative warmth, we must look for the origin of this fplendid devotion to that primæval country where the host of heaven and the elements of nature were first venerated; and whence the Sabian superstition darted throughout the world that beam of transcendent, but delufive, brightness which dazzled the eyes of the infatuated human race, and induced them to mistake and adore the grand receptacle of light for the Source of Light himself! Before this work shall be concluded, the ample retrospect, which my subject will compel me to take of the Chaldaic theology and sciences, will have a direct tendency to establish the truth of the hypothefis, which makes Chaldæa the original fource of the Sabian error, and the central region in which it most vigorously flourished. For, upon what other hypothefis fhall we account for the universal and immemorial prevalence of this fuperftition in every region of the earth? how fhall we explain fo fingular a phænome

non

non as that the pyramidal temple, fymbolical of the folar ray, fhould rife with almost as bold an elevation in Mexico as in Egypt? and that the Peruvians fhould adore the fun with as much ardour as anciently did the Magi of Perfia and the Brahmins of India?

SECTION

1

SECTION V.

The Doctrines of the Brahmins and early Greeks compared in a more particular Investigation of the myfterious Theological Rites, anciently celebrated in the Caverns of Salfette and Elephanta; proving, from the Similarity of their Conftruction, in Respect to the greater and lefs Divifions, and the long winding gloomy Receffes, equally belonging to thofe Caverns, the myftic Cell of Egypt, and the Temple of Eleufis in Greece, that the MYSTERIES fo celebrated over all the ancient World, but particularly in Greece, were first performed in India, because the older Empire. The Metempsychofis, the leading Doctrine in all the ancient Myfteries, branched out into two distinct Kinds: the moral Metempsychosis and the fidereal Metempfychofis. Both Kinds extenfively exa

mined.

THE

HE GENIUS OF ANTIQUITY delighted in MYSTERY. Dark and fecret as were the fubterraneous vaults and woody receffes,