The Religions of Profane Antiquity, founded on Astronomical Principles, by
JONATHAN DUNCAN, B.A. Tbis book is based upon the views of KIRCHER, DUPUIS, and BEAUSOURE, who held that the Pagan mythology was an astronomical allegory ; the deities being represented by different heavenly bodies, according to their respective influences upon the earth. The- theory is developed with much ingenuity, supported by considerable learning, and oc- casionally by strong fragmentary evidence.. That these refined and philosophical symbols were ever comprehended by the vulgar5 is of course not pretended: it is admitted that in consequence of changes in the calendar, and the affects,ot ttansportation from one .country to another, they were often misapprehended, or not fully understood by the Greeks and Romans; and it may be fairly ques- tioned whether the Egyptians, who are deemed the inventors of it, bad not often design attributed to them by the ingenious specula- tors of later ages, when accident or circumstances alone prompted them. Adopting too implicitly the astro-theology, would often lead one into error, and substitute, in classical mythology, a series of abstractions for its embodied fables. A knowledge of it, how- ever, is necessary to the scholar ; the ingenious consistency of it will be attractive to the curious ; and they nowhere can acquire it so readily, so briefly, and so easily, as in Mr. DUNCAN'S Religions of Profane Antiquity.
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