dissolution_?"--_From Père Lacordaire's "Conferences." Conf. 9 and 10._ (Tran. H. Langdon; Richardson, 1852.) I should also wish M. Auguste Nicolas' "Etudes Philosophiques sur le Christianisme"--particularly lib. I. chap. v., "Necessite d'une revelation Primitive;" and lib. II. chap. iv., "Traditions universelles"--to be read in connection with the following chapter. I did not become acquainted with M. Nicolas until after the chapter was concluded. I have, however, fulfilled my obligations in the above extract from L'Abbe Lacordaire, which lies more _au fond_ of my view than the chapters referred to in M. Nicolas. I also wish to direct attention to a remarkable article in the _Home and Foreign Review_, Jan. 1864, entitled "Classical Myths in relation to the Antiquity of Man," signed F. A. P. Tradition, in the sense in which we have just seen it used by Lacordaire, in what we may call its widest signification, is not limited to oral tradition, but may be termed the connection of evidence which establishes the unity of the human race; and, with this evidence, establishes the identity and continuity of its belief, laws, institutions, customs, and manners (Manners, _vide_ Goguet's "Origin of Laws," i. 327-329). The more closely the tradition is investigated, the more thoroughly will it be found to attest a common origin, and the more fully will its conformity with the scriptural narrative be made apparent. Now, although in all ages there have been men of great intellect who have held to tradition, it may be stated as one of those truths, _qui saute aux yeux_, and which will not be gainsaid, that the human intellect has been throughout opposed to tradition, has been its most constant adversary, equally when it was the tradition of a corrupt polytheism, as when it was the tradition of uncontested truth; and so active has been this antagonism, that the marvel is that anything of primitive tradition should have remained. Hence arose the divergence between religion and philosophy--a divergence which, as it seems to me, is inexplicable from the point of view of those who believe that, in the centuries which preceded the coming of our Lord,[78] religion simply was not, had ceased to be; unless we suppose that a tradition of the antagonism had survived, which would still partially disclose how it came about that when religion had ceased to be (_pro argumento_), or had become corrupt, philosophy, which then (_ex hypothesi_) alone soared above the intellect of the crowd, did not, and could not become a religion to them, _infra_, pp. 142, 145, 146.