As the whole knot of the system under consideration is embodied in this origin of fresh water, I must allude to another form of the mythos. Пore-da-wv, the Latin Neptune (although not originally the same god), represented not only the sea as a vast magazine, whence the essences constituent of organized life might be extracted, but also of the living water itself; and of him in the latter character, the horse was the peculiar emblem. Indeed aquus and aqua were, mythologically speaking, convertible terms. Of this we have a convincing proof in the following fact. In the first Georgic we have an address to Neptune in the following words :

Tuque o cui prima fremuentem

Fudit equum magno tellus percussa tridenti.

On which Servius remarks:-" The most ancient manuscripts have fudit aquam. In the Cornelian (one of high authority) equum. In the authentic, that is, Virgil's original manuscript, it was aquam originally, but changed to equum by Virgil's own hand."

We know that in general mythology, the account of the contest between Neptune and Athena, as to which should give a name to Athens, teaches that he produced a horse and she an olive-tree. But a more recondite version changes the horse into a 0xλacoa. Pausanias says, "There is in this Acropolis a shrine, said to be that of the earth-born egex0eus, in which are both the olive-tree and the aλacoa, which, according to the Athenian tradition, Пoσedy and Minerva produced as evidences of their right to the country.'

Nor was this confined to Athens. Pausanias, speaking of the temple of Пorεiday iTTIOs in Adria, writes :-"There is an ancient tradition that a wave of the baλaroa appeared in this temple. The Athenians tell the same story of the Kupa in the Ακροπολις.”

The Thessalians, on the contrary, pointed out, as we are told by Servius, a very high mountain, on which this equus or aqua was first seen.

I have many things to say on this subject which at present

I prudently pass over, but may state, that the pilgrimages of ancient Greece were made to the highest point of the rocks, whence living waters descended, as these were especially the distillers of the precions zupa.

But the priests were not only pontifices, mound-guardians, but also potifices, water-makers; and they could imitate, on favourable occasions, the operations of nature. Here is the account given by Pausanias of a scene on the heights of Lycosura, a lofty peak in Arcadia, surrounded by the most striking locations of ancient mythology :

"Of all the woλes which the earth brought to light, both on the continent and in the islands, Lycosura is the oldest, and this the sun first saw. When the fields were parched with want of rain, the priest of the Lycean Jove (the Potifex of the day) went up in solemn procession to the highest point of the hill, where was the fountain Ayvw, the pure spring. The surface of the fountain he stirred with the branch of an oak; soon a vapour (aτμos) arose, which, soon assuming a nebulous appearance (¡μx^ŋ), gradually condensed into clouds and descended into refreshing showers on the Arcadian fields."

The next step described by Virgil is the introduction of land animals into our globe:

Rara per ignotos errent animalia montes.

There are three things here indicated by Virgil. First, the existence of the mountains, to which he had not before alluded. Secondly, the animals were but few, rara. Thirdly, that they were the first that traversed them, as they were before unknown.

I might here enter upon the inquiry, whether there are any traces among the older philosophy and mythoi concerning the doctrine of the existence of a race of animals not now known on earth; but the induction would lead me into a tedious path which it is not necessary for me now to tread. I may, however, say, that I think that there are the strongest proofs to induce me to conclude that there was such knowledge or supposed knowledge.

The last scene in the progressive creation testifies to the late appearance of man on earth, which Virgil typifies by the recreation of mankind by Deucalion and Pyrrha, after a general destruction of the race.

ON THE ARISTOTELIAN EXPRESSION,

“ ΜΕΤΑ ΤΑ ΦΥΣΙΚΑ.”

IT has long ago been remarked, that more people talk of Aristotle than ever read him; and, unhappily for their own fair fame, many have accused him of faults from which he was entirely free, and have condemned him in terms which remain. lasting monuments of their utter ignorance of his philosophy, and of the recklessness with which they ascribed opinions and doctrines to this mighty mind which are nowhere to be found in his writings.

The splendid edition of his works, now going on under the auspices of the University of Berlin and the able and efficient superintendence of Bekker and Brandis, proves that a revulsion has taken place in the minds of the philosophers of Germany at least, and that they have taken means, by the publication of the valuable Greek Scholia on his works, to enable us to separate the dross accumulated among the cobwebs of the Latin schools from the pure produce of the Athenian mine. That the mental revolution by which the system of the schoolmen was utterly overthrown, had been rendered necessary by the tyranny which, under the name of Aristotle, they had imposed upon the human mind, cannot be denied. But it would have been as rational in the religious reformers to impute to the original writers of the New Testament, all the mummeries and follies with which the monks of Egypt and Syria, and the barbarian priesthood of Rome, had overlaid and disfigured the primitive truth, as it was for the reformers of philosophy to

ascribe to Aristotle the doctrines which were vended in his

name.

But, although the great founder of the peripatetic school was thrown overboard along with the false expounders of his philosophy, yet the emanations of his mind had so wrought themselves into the whole system of mental philosophy, that it was impossible to escape his influence. Hence it came, that its whole terminology is deeply impressed with the stamp of the Aristotelian mint, and that we must have recourse to him, if we wish to trace back to their source many of those words which are at present as "familiar in our mouths as household terms, and to which, nevertheless, every individual among us ascribes, if not a different, at least an uncertain meaning. Among these the word Metaphysics holds a prominent place; and to its etymology, and the light thence to be derived, I propose briefly to call the attention of the Society.

It is well known to most of the members that this name is supposed in general to be derived from the place occupied by Aristotle's treatise on the subject which afterwards bore this name, and which treatise closed one cycle of his published works, being immediately preceded by certain treatises on Physics hence, that its position, μeтa тa quoina (after his physical essay) gave first its name to the treatise itself, secondly, to the subject of which it treated. As I have every reason to believe that the name was not the result of this chance position, but that it is strictly scientific in its origin, I shall, without further preface, enter upon the proof.

Knowledge, regarded as knowledge alone, and not in connection with the practical duties of man, or with the instrumental and imitative arts, is beautifully arranged by the Greek philosophers under the following three heads :—1st, Ta φυσικα ; 2nd, τα μαθηματα ; 3rd, τα μετα τα φυσικα ; and, in order to see what is comprehended under each division, I shall produce some notices from Aristotle and his scholiasts.

At the commencement of his second book, Περι Φυσικής Angoares, best translated Lectures Preparatory to the Study