and how incomparable the prospects it opens out
to the mind! It admits that man, almost as soon as created, fell from
his state of original purity and Edenic bliss. In virtue of the law of
heredity everywhere imprinted on Nature, it was the fault committed by
the first ancestors of humanity in the exercise of their moral freedom
which condemned their descendants to punishment, and by bequeathing to
them an original taint predisposed them to sin. But this predisposition
to sin does not condemn man fatally to its committal; he may escape from
it by the exercise of his free will; and in the same way he may by
personal effort raise himself gradually out of the state of material
decline and misery to which the fault of his ancestors has brought him
down. The pagan conception of the four ages unrolls before us a picture
of constant degeneration, whereas the whole order of Biblical history
from its starting-point in the earliest chapters of Genesis affords the
spectacle of the progressive rise of humanity from the period of its
original fall. On one hand, its course is conceived of as a continual
descent; on the other, as a continual ascent. The Old Testament, which
we must here embrace in one general view, occupies itself but little
indeed with this ever-ascending course as regards the development of
material civilization, of which, however, it cursorily points out the
principal stages with a good deal of exactness. It rather traces for us
the picture of moral progress, and of the more and more definite
development of religious truth, the apprehension of which goes on ever
gaining in spirituality, purity, and breadth amongst the chosen people,
by a series of steps marked by the calling of Abraham, the promulgation
of the Mosaic Law, and, lastly, by the mission of the prophets, who in
their turn announce the last and supreme progress. This is to result
from the coming of the Messiah, and the consequences of this last
providential fact will go on continually developing themselves, and
tending towards a perfection, the term of which lies in the Infinite.
This notion of a rise after the fall, the fruit of man's free effort
assisted by divine grace and working within the limit of his powers
towards the accomplishment of the providential plan, is shown to us by
the Old Testament as existing only in one people, the people of Israel;
but the Christian spirit has extended the view to the universal history
of mankind, and thus has arise