CHAP. II. WAS NOT AN THE EVIDENCE THAT MOSES ENTHUSIAST OR A DUPE, THE history of the world has afforded numerous instances of persons, who have devoutly believed themselves to be under the immediate guidance of a superior power, and who have proceeded to act under that impression. Yet we scruple not to reject their pretences; and we feel not ourselves, in the least degree, compelled to abide by their declarations. The reason, why we act in such a manner, is; because, after a due inquiry into the matter, we are fully convinced that these persons had no call whatsoever from heaven. We are satisfied, either that they were merely under the influence of a heated imagination, or that they had imposed upon themselves by some ill-understood or delusive appearance. Hence, as we evidently find them to be wretched enthusiasts, either in consequence of the reflex operation of a lamentably VOL. I. distorted intellect, or by reason of the deplorable self-deception of palpable ignorance; we reject their testimony, without at all trembling at their angry denunciations against the unbelieving. Such being the case, the question immediately and involuntarily presents itself to us, whether Moses, from some cause or other, ought not to be deemed a religious enthusiast; and whether, as fanaticism is proverbially infectious, his followers ought not to be viewed under the same aspect. For the due solution of this question, we must shew, that Moses, when he asserted his divine legation, was not deceived into a belief that he was supernaturally commissioned, either by mere enthusiasm, or by imagining certain physical appearances to be miracles which were not so in reality. And it may be useful to be useful to prove additionally, by way of completing the main argument, that, even if such had been the character of the leader, he could not, by the line of conduct which he adopted, have imparted it to his followers. I. To judge, how far it is probable that Moses was a mere enthusiast, by which I mean a person labouring under the reflex influence of a heated imagination, it will be necessary to take a review of his early education and habits and apparent temper of mind, previous to his claiming the office of a heaven-sent prophet and legislator. 1. Moses, while an infant, had been discovered by the daughter of the king of Egypt, exposed to perish upon the waters of the Nile. The princess, moved to compassion by his helpless situation, preserved him, and had him educated as her own son. Egypt, both at that period and long afterwards, was celebrated over the whole world for its science and literature. Perhaps it is not so easy, at this distance of time, to determine, in what the wisdom of Egypt consisted: but, as the Greeks seem to have borrowed the most of their philosophy from that nation, as there was a very early connection. between Egypt and Hindostan, as the wisdom of the children of the east is proverbially united with the wisdom of Egypt, as the wisdom of Solomon is said to have excelled them both, and as that wisdom is described to be partly moral and partly physical; it is probable, that the wisdom of Egypt exercised itself, sometimes in refined and abstract speculations on the nature of a first cause, sometimes in the important inquiries of political economy, sometimes on the duties taught by the apophthegm or apologue of moral philosophy; and sometimes in exploring the varied wonders of physiology. With this supposition, at least, such accounts as. have come down to us of the sacred books of Thoth will be found exactly to tally for, out of the forty two volumes ascribed to that ancient personage who is made coeval with the deluge and the Cabiri, thirty six are said to have comprehended the whole circle of Egyptian philosophy, moral and natural and theological; while the remaining six 11 Kings iv, 29-34. peculiarly treated of medicine and anatomy.' With it likewise agrees the account, which Clemens gives us from Philo, of the manner in which Moses received his education. He learned, we are told, arithmetic, geometry, rhythm, harmony, medicine, music, philosophy as taught by the hicroglyphics, astronomy, and that whole circle of sciences in which the kings of Egypt were wont to be instituted. His masters were the Greeks, the Chaldeans, and the Egyptians; a notion, which probably originated from the circumstance, of the royal Shepherds having emigrated from Babylonia into Egypt, and of their having afterwards, when they were expelled from that country, largely colonized Greece. But, whatever might be the nature of this far-famed wisdom, we are informed, that Moses was learned in the whole of it.' Now the effects of a profound knowledge of philosophy are very seldom either enthusiasm or superstition. Such knowledge indeed, which the kings and priests of Egypt were accustomed with jealous care to confine to themselves and to withold from the vulgar, might, in an age when science was not universal but was chiefly locked up in the adyta of the temples, admirably qualify a man to make dupes of others: but it would have no tendency to make the possessor himself an enthusiast; though, for the purposes of deception, Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. vi. p. 633, 634. Euseb. Præp. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. i. P. 343. 3 Acts vii. 22. he might affect to view his own experiments in the light of miraculous interpositions of heaven. But we are at present concerned only with shewing, that Moses was not an enthusiast: and certainly the education, which he received, was not very likely to produce a character of that description. 2. The Hebrew legislator moreover was brought up in all the luxury and refinement of a splendid court. But such a mode of education is obviously very far from being favourable to enthusiasm. A fanatical turn of mind is most frequently gendered in solitude and retirement; where the soul, for want of external occupation, has leisure to look inward, and is thus led to prey upon itself. We rarely find the enthusiastic humour prevalent amongst those, who enter largely into mixed society and this, from the peculiar circumstances under which Moses was placed, must necessarily have been his ordinary habit. At all events, whatever tincture of enthusiasm he might receive from his familiar converse with the priests and philosophers and statesmen of Egypt, it would be wholly favourable, not adverse, to that extraordinary system of theology; which had in it so much to interest the curiosity, and which held out such temptations to apostasy as the Israelites through a long series of years were perpetually unable to resist. Yet the enthusiasm of Moses, if enthusiasm it was, took a directly opposite flight. He contemned the religion, which had been made familiar to him from his infancy he inclined to the theism of his |