Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/90

Rh “every clove of garlic is a God,” as in Fetichism, each man is his own priest; but when a troop of Fetiches are condensed into a single God, and he is invisible, all cannot have equal access to him, for he is not infinite, but partial; chooses his own place and time. Some mediator, therefore, must stand between the God and common men. This was the function of the priest. Perhaps his office became hereditary at a very early period, for as we trace backward the progress of mankind the law of inheritance has a wider range. The priesthood, separated from the actual cares of war, and of providing for material wants—the two sole departments of human activity in a barbarous age—have leisure to study the will of the Gods. Hence arises a learned class, who gradually foster the higher concerns of mankind. The effort to learn the will of the Gods, leads to the study of Nature, and therefore to Science. The attempt to please them by images, ceremonies, and the like, leads to architecture, statues, music, poetry, and hymns—to the elegant arts. The priesthood fostered all these. It took different forms to suit the genius of different nations; established castes and founded the most odious despotism in Egypt and the East, and perhaps the North, but in Greece left public opinion comparatively free. In the one, change of opinion was violent and caused commotion, as the fabled Giant buried under Ætna shakes the island when he turns; in the other it was natural, easy as for Endymion to turn the other cheek to the Moon. Taken in the whole, it has been a heavy rider on the neck of the nations. Its virtue has been, in a rude age to promote Science, Art, Patriotism, Piety to the Gods, and, in a certain fashion, Love to men. But its vice has been to grasp at the throat of mankind, control their thoughts and govern their life, aspiring to be the Will of the World. When it has been free, as in the philosophic age in Greece, its influence has been deep, silent, and unseen; blessed and beautiful. But when it is hered-