It was the practice of the Egyptian priestly caste and of other exclusive institutions to reserve their better ideas (of a more satisfactory sort, at all events, than the system of theology that was promulgated to the mass of the community), into which only privileged persons were initiated. This esoteric method, which under the name of the _mysteries_ has exercised the learned ingenuity of modern writers--who have, for the most part, vainly laboured to penetrate the obscurity enveloping the most remarkable institution of the Hellenic theology--was accompanied with the strictest vows and circumstances of silence and secrecy. As for the priestly order, it was their evident policy to maintain the superstitious ignorance of the people and to overawe their minds, while in regard to the philosophic sects, it was perhaps to shield themselves from the priestly or popular suspicion that they shrouded their scepticism in this dark and convenient disguise. The parabolic or esoteric method was, perhaps, almost a necessity of the earlier ages. It is to be lamented that it should be still in favour in this safer age, and that the old exclusiveness of the _mysteries_ is in esteem with many modern authorities, who seem to hold that to unveil the spotless Truth to the multitude is “to cast pearls before swine.” It was probably from the philosophic motive that the founder of the new society instituted his grades of catechumens and probationary course, as well as vows of the strictest secrecy. The exact nature of all his interior instruction is necessarily very much matter of conjecture, inasmuch as, whether he committed his system to writing or not, nothing from his own hand has come down to us. However this may be, it is evident that the general spirit and characteristic of his teaching was self-denial or self-control, founded upon the great principles of justice and temperance; and that communism and asceticism were the principal aim of his sociology. He was the founder of communism in the West--his communistic ideas, however, being of an aristocratic and exclusive rather than of a democratic and cosmopolitan kind. “He first taught,” says Diogenes, “that the property of friends was to be held in common--that friendship is equality--and his disciples laid down their money and goods at his feet, and had all things common.”