All this must be taken in a strict historical sense, for the moral interpretation we abandon to others. The pre-eminence of the Sethites, chosen by God, and entirely devoted to his service, must be received as an undoubted historical fact, to which we find many pointed allusions even in the traditions of the other Asiatic nations. Nay the hostility between the Sethites and Cainites, and the mutual relations of these two races, form the chief clue to the history of the primitive world, and even of many particular nations of antiquity. That, after the violent but transient interruption occasioned by the deluge, the remembrance of many things might revive, and the same or a similar hostility between the two races; which had existed in the ante-diluvian world, might be a second time displayed, is a matter which it is unnecessary to examine any further. Equally needless would it be to shew that, in the increasing degeneracy of man, every thing was soon more and more disfigured and deranged, and finally became for the most part undistinguishable, till it was afterwards a problem for the historical enquirer to reduce to the simple elements of their origin the greatest, most extraordinary and most remarkable phenomena which still remained, or were remembered, of the primitive ages. If I think it not impossible that the Indian constitution of castes, and its most important branch, the Brahminical class--that is to say, the moral and general conception of this ancient institution, may be connected with the scriptural history and the sacred tradition respecting the race of Seth; I must observe that to this hypothesis an objection can no more be taken from the present character and moral condition of the Brahmins, than we can estimate the high gifts, the great men and the mighty Prophets, that the Almighty once accorded to the Jewish nation, or such noble natures as those of Moses and Elias, by the present fallen state of that dispersed people. These remarks may suffice to give an idea of the most important feature in Indian society. Before I attempt to examine the second great characteristic of this people,--the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, a principle which, if it has not produced, has at least given the peculiar bent to their whole philosophy; I wish to take a general view of Polytheism, particularly as our notions of it, chiefly derived from the Greeks, are by no means perfectly applicable to the primitive nations of Asia.