Note 160 — XXVII.

"The allegorical interpretation of the myths has been, by several learned investigators, especially by Creuzer, connected with the hypothesis of an ancient and highly instructed body of priests, having their origin either in Egypt or in the East, and communicating to the rude and barbarous Greeks religious, physical, and historical knowledge, under the veil of symbols."—GROTE, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. ch. xvi. p. 579.—And the Chevalier Ramsay corroborates this theory: "Vestiges of the most sublime truths are to be found in the sages of all nations, times, and religions, both sacred and profane, and these vestiges are emanations of the antediluvian and noevian tradition, more or less disguised and adulterated."—Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion unfolded in a Geometrical Order, vol. 1, p. iv.