To wind up the matter, steadily and unequivocally I do deny that the Round Towers of Ireland were fire receptacles. I go further, and deny that any of those eastern round edifices which travellers speak of, were ever intended for fire receptacles: that they were all pagan structures--and temples too--consecrated to the most _solemn_ and _engrossing_ objects of _human pursuit_, however erroneously that pursuit may have been directed, I unhesitatingly affirm. What then, I shall be asked, was their design? To this I beg leave to offer a circumlocutory answer. Squeamishness may be shocked, and invidiousness receive a pretext, but, the spirit being pure, the well-regulated mind will always say, “Cur nescire, pudens pravé, quam discere malo?”[94] Then be it known that the _Round Towers_ of _Ireland_ were temples constructed by the early Indian colonists of the country, in honour of that _fructifying_ principle of nature, emanating, as was supposed, from the sun, under the denomination of Sol, Phœbus, Apollo, Abad or Budh, etc. etc.; and from the moon, under the epithet of Luna, Diana, Juno, Astarte, Venus, Babia or Butsee, etc. etc. Astronomy was inseparably interwoven with this planetary religion; while the religion itself was characterised by enforcing almost as strict a regard to the body after death, as the body was expected to pay to a Supreme Essence before its mortal dissolution. Under this double sense then of _funereal_ or posthumous regard, as well as active and living devotion, must I be understood to have used the expression, when previously declaring that our _Sabian rotundities_ were erected with the twofold view of religious _culture_ and the _practice_ of that _science_ with which it was so amalgamated.