But surely there is nothing improbable in the supposition, that in the poems of Homer such vestiges may be found. Every recorded form of society bears some traces of those by which it has been preceded: and in that highly primitive form, which Homer has been the instrument of embalming for all posterity, the law of general reason obliges us to search for elements and vestiges belonging to one more primitive still. And, if we are to inquire in the Iliad and the Odyssey for what belongs to antecedent manners and ideas, on what ground can it be pronounced improbable, that no part of these earlier traditions should be old enough to carry upon them the mark of belonging to the religion, which the Book of Genesis represents as brought by our first parents from Paradise, and as delivered by them to their immediate descendants in general? The Hebrew Chronology, considered in connection with the probable date of Homer, would even render it difficult or irrational to proceed upon any other supposition: nor if, as by the Septuagint or otherwise, a larger period is allowed for the growth of our race, will the state of this case be materially altered. For the facts must remain, that the form of society exhibited by Homer was itself in many points essentially patriarchal, that it contains, in matter not religious, such, for instance, as the episode of the Cyclops, clear traces of a yet earlier condition yet more significant of a relation to that name, and that there is no broadly marked period of human experience, or form of manners, which we can place between the great trunk of human history in Holy Scripture, and this famed Homeric branch, which of all literary treasures appears to be its eldest born. Standing next to the patriarchal histories of Holy Scripture, why should it not bear, how can it not bear, traces of the religion under which the patriarchs lived? The immense longevity of the early generations of mankind was eminently favourable to the preservation of pristine traditions. Each individual, instead of being as now a witness of, or an agent in, one or two transmissions from father to son, would observe or share in ten times as many. According to the Hebrew Chronology, Lamech the father of Noah was of mature age before Adam died: and Abraham was of mature age before Noah died. Original or early witnesses, remaining so long as standards of appeal, would evidently check the rapidity of the darkening and destroying process. Let us suppose that man now lived but twenty years, instead of fourscore. Would not this greatly quicken the waste of ancient traditions? And is not the converse also true? ~_Sufficiently proved from Holy Scripture._~