IV. The Atharvana contains incantations for the destruction of

enemies ; and is not much reverenced by the Hindoos on that account.
The real age of the Vedas is supposed to be much less than that assigned by the Brahmans ; and it probably does not extend beyond two centuries b.c. It is singular that throughout these Scriptures there is a decided allusion to the fall of man, who, although emanating from, and a part of the Deity, had lost his primœval purity; to recover which a great and universal sacrifice was required. It is impossible not to perceive in these, and in all the earliest traditions of all nations, that the primœval faith of man was the belief in one God : and that Polytheism arose out of the vices and backsliding of the human race ; and it is satisfactory to trace in the Cosmogony of so ancient a faith ; and in its account of the fall of man ; and the consequent ne- cessity of a propitiatory sacrifice ; a confirmation, if any were required, of the truths of our own sacred volume. — Ed.
o 2
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think that this stanza is a modern paraphrase of some text of the ancient sacred books."*
This explains why these terms do not exactly cor- respond with those of the magic oracles ; and may be applied in a less explicit manner to the secret of attract- ing lightning from the clouds. The paragraph might have been written at a period when this process had been forgotten and lost sight of; and, consequently, the pro- per sense of the sacred text also forgotten.
Elsewhere the following passage of the Oupnek- hat, " to know fire, the sun, the moon, and light- ning, is three-fourths of the science of God,"f proves that the sacred science did not neglect to study the nature of thunder ; and by the possession of this knowledge the priests might indicate the means of averting it. Finally, this opinion is also strengthened by an historical fact. In the time of Ktesias, India was acquainted with the use of conductors of lightning. According to this historian,^ iron placed at the bottom of a fountain of liquid gold (that is to say a sheet of gold), and made in the form of a sword, with the point upwards, possessed, as soon as it was fixed in the ground, the property of averting storms, hail, and lightning. Ktesias, who had seen the experiment tried twice, before the eyes of the King of Persia, attributed to the iron alone this quality which belonged to its form and position. Perhaps they used in preference iron, naturally alloyed with a little gold, as being less susceptible of rusting ; for the same
* Recherches Asiatiques, tome i. p. 375.
t Oupnek' -hat . Brahmen xr.
X Ktesias in Indie, ap. Photium. Bibl. Cod. lxxii.
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motive that leads the moderns to gild the points of lightning conductors. Whatever might be the intention, the principal fact remains ; and it is not useless to re- mark that, from that time, the ancients began to perceive the intimate connection between the electric state of the atmosphere and the production not only of lightning, but also of hail and other meteors.
If the question, so often resolved, be renewed : namely, why no vestiges of a knowledge so ancient can be disco- vered since the time of Tullus Hostilius, more than four- and-twenty centuries ago ? We reply, that it was so little diffused, that it was only by chance, and in an imperfect manner, that it was discovered even by Tullus Hostilius, when perusing the Memoirs left by Numa. Would not the dangers attached to the least error in repeating the processes in these memoirs, — dangers so often proved by fatal experience, — have been sufficient to cause the worship of Jupiter Elicius, and Jupiter Ca- taibates, to fall into disuse through fear ?
The destruction of the Persian empire by the Greeks, anterior to the nearly general massacre of the magii, after the death of Smerdis, might cause this important gap in the Occult Sciences known to the disciples of Zoroaster. In India, which has been so often the prey of the con- queror, analogous causes might exercise an influence as destructive. In all countries, indeed, over what subject more than this would the veil of religious mystery have been thrown, and greater obstacles placed in the way of ignorance, so as ultimately to plunge it into oblivion.
Other questions arise, more important and more diffi- cult. We may ask, whether electricity, whatever were the recources whcih it afforded would be
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sufficient to explain the brilliant apparent miracle of the Zoroastrian initiation ? Does it sufficiently explain what Ovid describes so accurately in the worship of Jupiter Elicius by Numa, namely, the art of making the lightning, and the noise of thunder seen and heard in a clear sky ?# Does it explain the terrible power of hurling lightning upon an enemy, such as attri- buted to Porsenna, f and which two Etruscan magi- cians pretended to possess in the time of Attila ? Cer- tainly not : — at least it is not within the limits of our knowledge, a limit which has, probably, not been sur- passed by the ancients. To supply any deficiency, may we not suppose that, by a happy chance, the Thauma- turgists, profiting by the explosion of a luminous meteor, attributed it to the influence of their art, and led enthu- siasm to look upon it as a miracle, although it was only a natural effect? May we not, for example, recollect how, according to an historian, when a miraculous rain quenched the thirst of the soldiers of Marcus- Aurelius, the Emperor, at the same time, drew down, by the influence of his prayers, lightning on the warlike machines of his enemy, j We may also transport the apparent miracles of one country into another ; and discover at the present day,
* Ovid. Fast. lib. in. vers. 367—370.
t Porsenna was a King of Etruria, in whose tent, when the Etrurian army lay before the gates of Rome, Mutius Scsevola put his hand into the fire, and allowed it to be burnt, without any expression of suffering, in order to convince Porsenna that it was in vain to make head against a people who could display such for- titude and daring. Porsenna was supposed to possess many ma- gical secrets. — Ed.
% " Fulmen de cœlo, precibus suis, contra hostium machina- mentum extorsit," Julius Capitolinus in Marc-Aurel.
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in a place consecrated through all ages to religion, a secret equivalent to the miracle of Numa. Naptha, when dis- solved in atmospheric air, produces the same results as a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen. Near Baku* is a well, the water of which is saturated with naptha ; if a mantle be extended, and held above the water for some minutes, and then some lighted straw thrown into it, there is suddenly heard, says the traveller whose words I quote, " a
* The town of Baku is the capital of a territory of the same name, situated on the southern extremity of the peninsula of Abesheron, on the west side of the Caspian sea. The soil of the whole territory is saturated with Naptha ; and the peninsula con- tains many volcanoes. Not far from Baku, a spring of white oil gushes from the cleft of a rock at the base of a hill ; it is pure naptha, and readily burns in the surface of water. The inhabitants of these districts sink a hollow cane, or tube of paper, about two inches into the ground, and by blowing upon a burning coal, held near the orifice of the tube, the gas lights, but the flame does not consume the paper, nor the cane. There are many wells of the same substance ; and these as well as the burning places, or Atesch-gah, as they are called, were generally shrines of grace ; and many thousands of pilgrims, and fire-worshippers, resorted there to purify them- selves. Notwithstanding the degradation of the Parsees when the Mahommedan religion was established in Persia, a few, as stated in the text, still find their way to the Atesch-gah of Baku ; and spend, five, seven, or even ten years on the spot, worshipping the sacred fire ; and performing prayer and penitential exercises. This sanc- tuary which is surrounded by four low walls, is a space about twenty feet square, and contains twenty cells, in which the priests and Ghuebres reside ; and from each corner of the quadrangle arises a chimney, abcut twenty-five feet high, out of which a bright flame, three or four feet in height, continually issues. The penances to which these deluded creatures subject themselves are so severe, that scarcely one individual out of ten who visit the shrine, ultimately survives them. — Ed.
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thundering noise, like that of a line of artillery, accompa- nied by a brilliant flame."* Restore to the Atesch-gah its ancient majesty ; and for its little number of penitents and pilgrims, who still awakens religious associations, substitute a college of priests, clever in turning to the glory of their divinity phenomena, the causes of which are carefully concealed from the eyes of the profane, and, under the clearest skies, at their command fire and peals of thunder would issue from the wells of Baku. Let us admit that substances, which are abundant in certain countries, might have been transported by the Thauma- turgists into those countries where the action of them, being quite unknown, would appear miraculous. The Tiber might have seen, in the age when Numa invoked Jupiter Elicius, the same wonder which at the present day, is famous on the banks of the Caspian.f The cere- monies, indeed, of the same magic worship, might be enhanced by the effects of a composition of naptha; and by those of the lightning conductors and electricity elicited by the artifice of the Thaumaturgist, always careful to make the treasures of his science impenetrable, and thence more respected.
* Journey of George Keppel from India to England by Bassora, etc. ; and Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 2e série, tome v. page 349.
t Native Naptha is, in the present day, exported to almost every part of Europe, from the neighbourhood of the Caspian. It is a limpid, nearly colourless, volatile liquid, with a strong, pecu- liar odour. It is much lighter than water, having a specific gravity of 0.753 ; consequently it swims on that fluid, for it does not mix with it. Naptha is very inflammable, and burns with a white flame, which evolves much smoke. It is a compound of carbon and hydrogen. — Ed.
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But, in spite of the principle we have hitherto followed, it is with regret we admit that it affords only a partial or local explanation, applicable to some isolated facts. We prefer general facts, such as were for so long a period concealed within the bosom of the temple. In recalling to remembrance the brilliant or destructive influence of the different inflammable compositions, the existence of which is indicated by these facts, we shall measure the extent of the resources in the power of the possessors of the sacred science, calculated to enable them to rival the fires of heaven, by the apparent miracles of terrestrial fire.
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