textfiles/etext/NONFICTION/hume-natural-730.txt

                  THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION

                                  

                                  

                             David Hume

                                  

                                1757

                                  

                               5/1/95

                                  

                                  
Copyright 1995, James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu). See end note for
details on copyright and editing conventions. This is a working
draft; please report errors.[1]

Editor's Note: Hume's <Natural History of Religion> first appeared
in 1757 in a collection of essays titled <Four Dissertations>. The
work may be topically divided into three parts. The first part
(sections 1 and 4) argues that polytheism, and not monotheism, was
the original religion of primitive humans. Monotheism was only a
later development. The second part (sections 2-3, 5-8) establishes
the psychological principles which give rise to religious belief.
His thesis is that natural instincts such as fear are the true cause
of popular religious belief, and not rational argument. The third
part of this work (sections 9-15) compares various aspects of
polytheism with monotheism showing that one is no more superior than
the other. Both contain points of absurdity. From this he concludes
that we should suspend belief on the entire subject. The <Natural
History of Religion> was published seven additional times during
Hume's life, each edition incorporating minor variations. The
posthumous 1777 edition is followed here, which includes Hume's
final alterations. Hume's bibliographical references to Greek and
Latin classics have been expanded and clarified without brackets.
Bibliographical references have not been expanded for those
seventeenth and eighteenth-century works which have no modern
editions. For more detailed introductory comments and annotations to
this text, see <The Natural History of Religion>, (New York:
MacMillan, 1992).

                              * * * *

                  THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                  

                            INTRODUCTION

                                  

     As every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost
importance, there are two questions in particular, which challenge
our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and
that concerning its origin in human nature. Happily, the first
question, which is the most important, admits of the most obvious,
at least, the clearest solution. The whole frame of nature bespeaks
an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious
reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary
principles of genuine Theism and Religion. But the other question,
concerning the origin of religion in human nature, is exposed to
some more difficulty. The belief of invisible, intelligent power has
been very generally diffused over the human race, in all places and
in all ages; but it has neither perhaps been so universal as to
admit of no exception, nor has it been, in any degree, uniform in
the ideas, which it has suggested. Some nations have been
discovered, who entertained no sentiments of Religion, if travellers
and historians may be credited; and no two nations, and scarce any
two men, have ever agreed precisely in the same sentiments. It would
appear, therefore, that this preconception springs not from an
original instinct or primary impression of nature, such as gives
rise to self-love, affection between the sexes, love of progeny,
gratitude, resentment; since every instinct of this kind has been
found absolutely universal in all nations and ages, and has always a
precise determinate object, which it inflexibly pursues. The first
religious principles must be secondary; such as may easily be
perverted by various accidents and causes, and whose operation too,
in some cases, may, by an extraordinary concurrence of
circumstances, be altogether prevented. What those principles are,
which give rise to the original belief, and what those accidents and
causes are, which direct its operation, is the subject of our
present enquiry.

   S/ECT\. I. <That Polytheism was the primary Religion of Men>.

                                  

     It appears to me, that, if we consider the improvement of human
society, from rude beginnings to a state of greater perfection,
polytheism or idolatry was, and necessarily must have been, the
first and most ancient religion of mankind. This opinion I shall
endeavour to confirm by the following arguments.

     It is a matter of fact incontestable, that about 1700 years ago
all mankind were polytheists. The doubtful and sceptical principles
of a few philosophers, or the theism, and that too not entirely
pure, of one or two nations, form no objection worth regarding.
Behold then the clear testimony of history. The farther we mount up
into antiquity, the more do we find mankind plunged into polytheism.
No marks, no symptoms of any more perfect religion. The most ancient
records of human race still present us with that system as the
popular and established creed. The north, the south, the east, the
west, give their unanimous testimony to the same fact. What can be
opposed to so full an evidence?

     As far as writing or history reaches, mankind, in ancient
times, appear universally to have been polytheists. Shall we assert,
that, in more ancient times, before the knowledge of letters, or the
discovery of any art or science, men entertained the principles of
pure theism? That is, while they were ignorant and barbarous, they
discovered truth: But fell into error, as soon as they acquired
learning and politeness.

     But in this assertion you not only contradict all appearance of
probability, but also our present experience concerning the
principles and opinions of barbarous nations. The savage tribes of
A/MERICA\, A/FRICA\, and A/SIA\ are all idolaters. Not a single
exception to this rule. Insomuch, that, were a traveller to
transport himself into any unknown region; if he found inhabitants
cultivated with arts and science, though even upon that supposition
there are odds against their being theists, yet could he not safely,
till farther inquiry, pronounce any thing on that head: But if he
found them ignorant and barbarous, he might beforehand declare them
idolaters; and there scarcely is a possibility of his being
mistaken.

     It seems certain, that, according to the natural progress of
human thought, the ignorant multitude must first entertain some
groveling and familiar notion of superior powers, before they
stretch their conception to that perfect Being, who bestowed order
on the whole frame of nature. We may as reasonably imagine, that men
inhabited palaces before huts and cottages, or studied geometry
before agriculture; as assert that the Deity appeared to them a pure
spirit, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, before he was
apprehended to be a powerful, though limited being, with human
passions and appetites, limbs and organs. The mind rises gradually,
from inferior to superior: By abstracting from what is imperfect, it
forms an idea of perfection: And slowly distinguishing the nobler
parts of its own frame from the grosser, it learns to transfer only
the former, much elevated and refined, to its divinity. Nothing
could disturb this natural progress of thought, but some obvious and
invincible argument, which might immediately lead the mind into the
pure principles of theism, and make it overleap, at one bound, the
vast interval which is interposed between the human and the divine
nature. But though I allow, that the order and frame of the
universe, when accurately examined, affords such an argument; yet I
can never think, that this consideration could have an influence on
mankind, when they formed their first rude notions of religion.

     The causes of such objects, as are quite familiar to us, never
strike our attention or curiosity; and however extraordinary or
surprising these objects in themselves, they are passed over, by the
raw and ignorant multitude, without much examination or enquiry.
A/DAM\, rising at once, in paradise, and in the full perfection of
his faculties, would naturally, as represented by M/ILTON\, be
astonished at the glorious appearances of nature, the heavens, the
air, the earth, his own organs and members; and would be led to ask,
whence this wonderful scene arose. But a barbarous, necessitous
animal (such as a man is on the first origin of society), pressed by
such numerous wants and passions, has no leisure to admire the
regular face of nature, or make enquiries concerning the cause of
those objects, to which from his infancy he has been gradually
accustomed. On the contrary, the more regular and uniform, that is,
the more perfect nature appears, the more is he familiarized to it,
and the less inclined to scrutinize and examine it. A monstrous
birth excites his curiosity, and is deemed a prodigy. It alarms him
from its novelty; and immediately sets him a trembling, and
sacrificing, and praying. But an animal, compleat in all its limbs
and organs, is to him an ordinary spectacle, and produces no
religious opinion or affection. Ask him, whence that animal arose;
he will tell you, from the copulation of its parents. And these,
whence? From the copulation of theirs. A few removes satisfy his
curiosity, and set the objects at such a distance, that he entirely
loses sight of them. Imagine not, that he will so much as start the
question, whence the first animal; much less, whence the whole
system or united fabric of the universe arose. Or, if you start such
a question to him, expect not, that he will employ his mind with any
anxiety about a subject, so remote, so uninteresting, and which so
much exceeds the bounds of his capacity.

     But farther, if men were at first led into the belief of one
Supreme Being, by reasoning from the frame of nature, they could
never possibly leave that belief, in order to embrace polytheism;
but the same principles of reason, which at first produced and
diffused over mankind, so magnificent an opinion, must be able, with
greater facility, to preserve it. The first invention and proof of
any doctrine is much more difficult than the supporting and
retaining of it.

     There is a great difference between historical facts and
speculative opinions; nor is the knowledge of the one propagated in
the same manner with that of the other. An historical fact, while it
passes by oral tradition from eye-witnesses and contemporaries, is
disguised in every successive narration, and may at last retain but
very small, if any, resemblance of the original truth, on which it
was founded. The frail memories of men, their love of exaggeration,
their supine carelessness; these principles, if not corrected by
books and writing, soon pervert the account of historical events;
where argument or reasoning has little or no place, nor can ever
recal the truth, which has once escaped those narrations. It is thus
the fables of H/ERCULES\, T/HESEUS\, B/ACCHUS\ are supposed to have
been originally founded in true history, corrupted by tradition. But
with regard to speculative opinions, the case is far otherwise. If
these opinions be founded on arguments so clear and obvious as to
carry conviction with the generality of mankind, the same arguments,
which at first diffused the opinions, will still preserve them in
their original purity. If the arguments be more abstruse, and more
remote from vulgar apprehension, the opinions will always be
confined to a few persons; and as soon as men leave the
contemplation of the arguments, the opinions will immediately be
lost and be buried in oblivion. Whichever side of this dilemma we
take, it must appear impossible, that theism could, from reasoning,
have been the primary religion of human race, and have afterwards,
by its corruption, given birth to polytheism and to all the various
superstitions of the heathen world. Reason, when obvious, prevents
these corruptions: When abstruse, it keeps the principles entirely
from the knowledge of the vulgar, who are alone liable to corrupt
any principle or opinion.

                S/ECT\. II. <Origin of Polytheism>.

                                  

     If we would, therefore, indulge our curiosity, in enquiring
concerning the origin of religion, we must turn our thoughts towards
polytheism, the primitive religion of uninstructed mankind.

     Were men led into the apprehension of invisible, intelligent
power by a contemplation of the works of nature, they could never
possibly entertain any conception but of one single being, who
bestowed existence and order on this vast machine, and adjusted all
its parts, according to one regular plan or connected system. For
though, to persons of a certain turn of mind, it may not appear
altogether absurd, that several independent beings, endowed with
superior wisdom, might conspire in the contrivance and execution of
one regular plan; yet is this a merely arbitrary supposition, which,
even if allowed possible, must be confessed neither to be supported
by probability nor necessity. All things in the universe are
evidently of a piece. Every thing is adjusted to every thing. One
design prevails throughout the whole. And this uniformity leads the
mind to acknowledge one author; because the conception of different
authors, without any distinction of attributes or operations, serves
only to give perplexity to the imagination, without bestowing any
satisfaction on the understanding. The statue of L/AOCOON\, as we
learn from P/LINY\, was the work of three artists: But it is
certain, that, were we not told so, we should never have imagined,
that a groupe of figures, cut from one stone, and united in one
plan, was not the work and contrivance of one statuary. To ascribe
any single effect to the combination of several causes, is not
surely a natural and obvious supposition.

     On the other hand, if, leaving the works of nature, we trace
the footsteps of invisible power in the various and contrary events
of human life, we are necessarily led into polytheism and to the
acknowledgment of several limited and imperfect deities. Storms and
tempests ruin what is nourished by the sun. The sun destroys what is
fostered by the moisture of dews and rains. War may be favourable to
a nation, whom the inclemency of the seasons afflicts with famine.
Sickness and pestilence may depopulate a kingdom, amidst the most
profuse plenty. The same nation is not, at the same time, equally
successful by sea and by land. And a nation, which now triumphs over
its enemies, may anon submit to their more prosperous arms. In
short, the conduct of events, or what we call the plan of a
particular providence, is so full of variety and uncertainty, that,
if we suppose it immediately ordered by any intelligent beings, we
must acknowledge a contrariety in their designs and intentions, a
constant combat of opposite powers, and a repentance or change of
intention in the same power, from impotence or levity. Each nation
has its tutelar deity. Each element is subjected to its invisible
power or agent. The province of each god is separate from that of
another. Nor are the operations of the same god always certain and
invariable. To-day he protects: To-morrow he abandons us. Prayers
and sacrifices, rites and ceremonies, well or ill performed, are the
sources of his favour or enmity, and produce all the good or ill
fortune, which are to be found amongst mankind.

     We may conclude, therefore, that, in all nations, which have
embraced polytheism, the first ideas of religion arose not from a
contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard
to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears, which
actuate the human mind. Accordingly, we find, that all idolaters,
having separated the provinces of their deities, have recourse to
that invisible agent, to whose authority they are immediately
subjected, and whose province it is to superintend that course of
actions, in which they are, at any time, engaged. J/UNO\ is invoked
at marriages; L/UCINA\ at births. N/EPTUNE\ receives the prayers of
seamen; and M/ARS\ of warriors. The husbandman cultivates his field
under the protection of C/ERES\; and the merchant acknowledges the
authority of M/ERCURY\. Each natural event is supposed to be
governed by some intelligent agent; and nothing prosperous or
adverse can happen in life, which may not be the subject of peculiar
prayers or thanksgivings.[2]

     It must necessarily, indeed, be allowed, that, in order to
carry men's attention beyond the present course of things, or lead
them into any inference concerning invisible intelligent power, they
must be actuated by some passion, which prompts their thought and
reflection; some motive, which urges their first enquiry. But what
passion shall we here have recourse to, for explaining an effect of
such mighty consequence? Not speculative curiosity surely, or the
pure love of truth. That motive is too refined for such gross
apprehensions; and would lead men into enquiries concerning the
frame of nature, a subject too large and comprehensive for their
narrow capacities. No passions, therefore, can be supposed to work
upon such barbarians, but the ordinary affections of human life; the
anxious concern for happiness, the dread of future misery, the
terror of death, the thirst of revenge, the appetite for food and
other necessaries. Agitated by hopes and fears of this nature,
especially the latter, men scrutinize, with a trembling curiosity,
the course of future causes, and examine the various and contrary
events of human life. And in this disordered scene, with eyes still
more disordered and astonished, they see the first obscure traces of
divinity.

             S/ECT\. III. <The same subject continued>.

                                  

     We are placed in this world, as in a great theatre, where the
true springs and causes of every event are entirely concealed from
us; nor have we either sufficient wisdom to foresee, or power to
prevent those ills, with which we are continually threatened. We
hang in perpetual suspence between life and death, health and
sickness, plenty and want; which are distributed amongst the human
species by secret and unknown causes, whose operation is oft
unexpected, and always unaccountable. These <unknown causes>, then,
become the constant object of our hope and fear; and while the
passions are kept in perpetual alarm by an anxious expectation of
the events, the imagination is equally employed in forming ideas of
those powers, on which we have so entire a dependance. Could men
anatomize nature, according to the most probable, at least the most
intelligible philosophy, they would find, that these causes are
nothing but the particular fabric and structure of the minute parts
of their own bodies and of external objects; and that, by a regular
and constant machinery, all the events are produced, about which
they are so much concerned. But this philosophy exceeds the
comprehension of the ignorant multitude, who can only conceive the
<unknown causes> in a general and confused manner; though their
imagination, perpetually employed on the same subject, must labour
to form some particular and distinct idea of them. The more they
consider these causes themselves, and the uncertainty of their
operation, the less satisfaction do they meet with in their
researches; and, however unwilling, they must at last have abandoned
so arduous an attempt, were it not for a propensity in human nature,
which leads into a system, that gives them some satisfaction.

     There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all
beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those
qualities, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which
they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon,
armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected
by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good- will to every
thing, that hurts or pleases us. Hence the frequency and beauty of
the <prosopopoeia> in poetry; where trees, mountains and streams are
personified, and the inanimate parts of nature acquire sentiment and
passion. And though these poetical figures and expressions gain not
on the belief, they may serve, at least, to prove a certain tendency
in the imagination, without which they could neither be beautiful
nor natural. Nor is a river-god or hamadryad always taken for a mere
poetical or imaginary personage; but may sometimes enter into the
real creed of the ignorant vulgar; while each grove or field is
represented as possessed of a particular <genius> or invisible
power, which inhabits and protects it. Nay, philosophers cannot
entirely exempt themselves from this natural frailty; but have oft
ascribed to inanimate matter the horror of a <vacuum>, sympathies,
antipathies, and other affections of human nature. The absurdity is
not less, while we cast our eyes upwards; and transferring, as is
too usual, human passions and infirmities to the deity, represent
him as jealous and revengeful, capricious and partial, and, in
short, a wicked and foolish man, in every respect but his superior
power and authority. No wonder, then, that mankind, being placed in
such an absolute ignorance of causes, and being at the same time so
anxious concerning their future fortune, should immediately
acknowledge a dependence on invisible powers, possessed of sentiment
and intelligence. The <unknown causes>, which continually employ
their thought, appearing always in the same aspect, are all
apprehended to be of the same kind or species. Nor is it long before
we ascribe to them thought and reason and passion, and sometimes
even the limbs and figures of men, in order to bring them nearer to
a resemblance with ourselves.

     In proportion as any man's course of life is governed by
accident, we always find, that he encreases in superstition; as may
particularly be observed of gamesters and sailors, who, though, of
all mankind, the least capable of serious reflection, abound most in
frivolous and superstitious apprehensions. The gods, says
C/ORIOLANUS\ in D/IONYSIUS\,[3] have an influence in every affair;
but above all, in war; where the event is so uncertain. All human
life, especially before the institution of order and good
government, being subject to fortuitous accidents; it is natural,
that superstition should prevail every where in barbarous ages, and
put men on the most earnest enquiry concerning those invisible
powers, who dispose of their happiness or misery. Ignorant of
astronomy and the anatomy of plants and animals, and too little
curious to observe the admirable adjustment of final causes; they
remain still unacquainted with a first and supreme creator, and with
that infinitely perfect spirit, who alone, by his almighty will,
bestowed order on the whole frame of nature. Such a magnificent idea
is too big for their narrow conceptions, which can neither observe
the beauty of the work, nor comprehend the grandeur of its author.
They suppose their deities, however potent and invisible, to be
nothing but a species of human creatures, perhaps raised from among
mankind, and retaining all human passions and appetites, together
with corporeal limbs and organs. Such limited beings, though masters
of human fate, being, each of them, incapable of extending his
influence every where, must be vastly multiplied, in order to answer
that variety of events, which happen over the whole face of nature.
Thus every place is stored with a crowd of local deities; and thus
polytheism has prevailed, and still prevails, among the greatest
part of uninstructed mankind.[4]

     Any of the human affections may lead us into the notion of
invisible, intelligent power; hope as well as fear, gratitude as
well as affliction: But if we examine our own hearts, or observe
what passes around us, we shall find, that men are much oftener
thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable
passions. Prosperity is easily received as our due, and few
questions are asked concerning its cause or author. It begets
cheerfulness and activity and alacrity and a lively enjoyment of
every social and sensual pleasure: And during this state of mind,
men have little leisure or inclination to think of the unknown
invisible regions. On the other hand, every disastrous accident
alarms us, and sets us on enquiries concerning the principles whence
it arose: Apprehensions spring up with regard to futurity: And the
mind, sunk into diffidence, terror, and melancholy, has recourse to
every method of appeasing those secret intelligent powers, on whom
our fortune is supposed entirely to depend.

     No topic is more usual with all popular divines than to display
the advantages of affliction, in bringing men to a due sense of
religion; by subduing their confidence and sensuality, which, in
times of prosperity, make them forgetful of a divine providence. Nor
is this topic confined merely to modern religions. The ancients have
also employed it. <Fortune has never liberally, without envy>, says
a G/REEK\ historian,[5] <bestowed an unmixed happiness on mankind;
but with all her gifts has ever conjoined some disastrous
circumstance, in order to chastize men into a reverence for the
gods, whom, in a continued course of prosperity, they are apt to
neglect and forget>.

     What age or period of life is the most addicted to
superstition? The weakest and most timid. What sex? The same answer
must be given. <The leaders and examples of every kind of
superstition>, says S/TRABO\,[6] <are the women. These excite the
men to devotion and supplications, and the observance of religious
days. It is rare to meet with one that lives apart from the females,
and yet is addicted to such practices. And nothing can, for this
reason, be more improbable, than the account given of an order of
men among the> G/ETES\, <who practised celibacy, and were
notwithstanding the most religious fanatics>. A method of reasoning,
which would lead us to entertain a bad idea of the devotion of
monks; did we not know by an experience, not so common, perhaps, in
S/TRABO'S\ days, that one may practise celibacy, and profess
chastity; and yet maintain the closest connexions and most entire
sympathy with that timorous and pious sex.

 S/ECT\. IV. <Deities not considered as creators or formers of the

                              world>.

                                  

     The only point of theology, in which we shall find a consent of
mankind almost universal, is, that there is invisible, intelligent
power in the world: But whether this power be supreme or
subordinate, whether confined to one being; or distributed among
several, what attributes, qualities, connexions, or principles of
action ought to be ascribed to those beings, concerning all these
points, there is the widest difference in the popular systems of
theology. Our ancestors in E/UROPE\, before the revival of letters,
believed, as we do at present, that there was one supreme God, the
author of nature, whose power, though in itself uncontroulable, was
yet often exerted by the interposition of his angels and subordinate
ministers, who executed his sacred purposes. But they also believed,
that all nature was full of other invisible powers; fairies,
goblins, elves, sprights; beings, stronger and mightier than men,
but much inferior to the celestial natures, who surround the throne
of God. Now, suppose, that any one, in those ages, had denied the
existence of God and of his angels; would not his impiety justly
have deserved the appellation of atheism, even though he had still
allowed, by some odd capricious reasoning, that the popular stories
of elves and fairies were just and well-grounded? The difference, on
the one hand, between such a person and a genuine theist is
infinitely greater than that, on the other, between him and one that
absolutely excludes all invisible intelligent power. And it is a
fallacy, merely from the casual resemblance of names, without any
conformity of meaning, to rank such opposite opinions under the same
denomination.

     To any one, who considers justly of the matter, it will appear,
that the gods of all polytheists are no better than the elves or
fairies of our ancestors, and merit as little any pious worship or
veneration. These pretended religionists are really a kind of
superstitious atheists, and acknowledge no being, that corresponds
to our idea of a deity. No first principle of mind or thought: No
supreme government and administration: No divine contrivance or
intention in the fabric of the world.

     The C/HINESE\, when[7] their prayers are not answered, beat
their idols. The deities of the L/APLANDERS\ are any large stone
which they meet with of an extraordinary shape.[8] The E/GYPTIAN\
mythologists, in order to account for animal worship, said, that the
gods, pursued by the violence of earth-born men, who were their
enemies, had formerly been obliged to disguise themselves under the
semblance of beasts.[9] The C/AUNII\, a nation in the Lesser A/SIA\,
resolving to admit no strange gods among them, regularly, at certain
seasons, assembled themselves compleatly armed, beat the air with
their lances, and proceeded in that manner to their frontiers; in
order, as they said, to expel the foreign deities.[10] <Not even the
immortal gods>, said some G/ERMAN\ nations to C/AESAR\, <are a match
for the> S/UEVIS\.[11]

     Many ills, says D/IONE\ in H/OMER\ to V/ENUS\ wounded by
D/IOMEDE\, many ills, my daughter, have the gods inflicted on men:
And many ills, in return, have men inflicted on the gods.[12] We
need but open any classic author to meet with these gross
representations of the deities; and L/ONGINUS\[13] with reason
observes, that such ideas of the divine nature, if literally taken,
contain a true atheism.

     Some writers[14] have been surprized, that the impieties of
A/RISTOPHANES\ should have been tolerated, nay publicly acted and
applauded by the A/THENIANS\; a people so superstitious and so
jealous of the public religion, that, at that very time, they put
S/OCRATES\ to death for his imagined incredulity. But these writers
do not consider, that the ludicrous, familiar images, under which
the gods are represented by that comic poet, instead of appearing
impious, were the genuine lights in which the ancients conceived
their divinities. What conduct can be more criminal or mean, than
that of J/UPITER\ in the A/MPHITRION\? Yet that play, which
represented his gallante exploits, was supposed so agreeable to him,
that it was always acted in ROME by public authority, when the state
was threatened with pestilence, famine, or any general calamity.[15]
The R/OMANS\ supposed, that, like all old letchers, he would be
highly pleased with the recital of his former feats of prowess and
vigour, and that no topic was so proper, upon which to flatter his
vanity.

     The L/ACEDEMONIANS\, says X/ENOPHON\,[16] always, during war,
put up their petitions very early in the morning, in order to be
beforehand with their enemies, and, by being the first solicitors,
pre-engage the gods in their favour. We may gather from
S/ENECA\,[17] that it was usual, for the votaries in the temples, to
make interest with the beadle or sexton, that they might have a seat
near the image of the deity, in order to be the best heard in their
prayers and applications to him. The T/YRIANS\, when besieged by
A/LEXANDER\, threw chains on the statue of H/ERCULES\, to prevent
that deity from deserting to the enemy.[18] A/UGUSTUS\, having twice
lost his fleet by storms, forbad N/EPTUNE\ to be carried in
procession along with the other gods; and fancied, that he had
sufficiently revenged himself by that expedient.[19] After
G/ERMANICUS'S\ death, the people were so enraged at their gods, that
they stoned them in their temples; and openly renounced all
allegiance to them.[20]

     To ascribe the origin and fabric of the universe to these
imperfect beings never enters into the imagination of any polytheist
or idolater. H/ESIOD\, whose writings, with those of H/OMER\,
contained the canonical system of the heathens;[21] H/ESIOD\, I say,
supposes gods and men to have sprung equally from the unknown powers
of nature.[22] And throughout the whole theogony of that author,
P/ANDORA\ is the only instance of creation or a voluntary
production; and she too was formed by the gods merely from despight
to P/ROMETHEUS\, who had furnished men with stolen fire from the
celestial regions.[23] The ancient mythologists, indeed, seem
throughout to have rather embraced the idea of generation than that
of creation or formation; and to have thence accounted for the
origin of this universe.

     O/VID\, who lived in a learned age, and had been instructed by
philosophers in the principles of a divine creation or formation of
the world; finding, that such an idea would not agree with the
popular mythology, which he delivers, leaves it, in a manner, loose
and detached from his system. <Quisquis fuit ille Deorum?>[24]
Whichever of the gods it was, says he, that dissipated the chaos,
and introduced order into the universe. It could neither be
S/ATURN\, he knew, nor J/UPITER\, nor N/EPTUNE\, nor any of the
received deities of paganism. His theological system had taught him
nothing upon that head; and he leaves the matter equally
undetermined.

     D/IODORUS\ S/ICULUS\,[25] beginning his work with an
enumeration of the most reasonable opinions concerning the origin of
the world, makes no mention of a deity or intelligent mind; though
it is evident from his history, that he was much more prone to
superstition than to irreligion. And in another passage,[26] talking
of the I/CHTHYOPHAGI\, a nation in I/NDIA\, he says, that, there
being so great difficulty in accounting for their descent, we must
conclude them to be <aborigines>, without any beginning of their
generation, propagating their race from all eternity; as some of the
physiologers, in treating of the origin of nature, have justly
observed. "But in such subjects as these," adds the historian,
"which exceed all human capacity, it may well happen, that those,
who discourse the most, know the least; reaching a specious
appearance of truth in their reasonings, while extremely wide of the
real truth and matter of fact."

     A strange sentiment in our eyes, to be embraced by a professed
and zealous religionist![27] But it was merely by accident, that the
question concerning the origin of the world did ever in ancient
times enter into religious systems, or was treated of by theologers.
The philosophers alone made profession of delivering systems of this
kind; and it was pretty late too before these bethought themselves
of having recourse to a mind or supreme intelligence, as the first
cause of all. So far was it from being esteemed profane in those
days to account for the origin of things without a deity, that
T/HALES\, A/NAXIMENES\, H/ERACLITUS\, and others, who embraced that
system of cosmogony, past unquestioned; while A/NAXAGORAS\, the
first undoubted theist among the philosophers, was perhaps the first
that ever was accused of atheism.[28]

     We are told by S/EXTUS\ E/MPIRICUS\,[29] that E/PICURUS\, when
a boy, reading with his preceptor these verses of H/ESIOD\,

     Eldest of beings, <chaos> first arose;

     Next <earth>, wide-stretch'd, the <seat> of all:
the young scholar first betrayed his inquisitive genius, by asking,
<And chaos whence?> But was told by his preceptor, that he must have
recourse to the philosophers for a solution of such questions. And
from this hint E/PICURUS\ left philology and all other studies, in
order to betake himself to that science, whence alone he expected
satisfaction with regard to these sublime subjects.

     The common people were never likely to push their researches so
far, or derive from reasoning their systems of religion; when
philologers and mythologists, we see, scarcely ever discovered so
much penetration. And even the philosophers, who discoursed of such
topics, readily assented to the grossest theory, and admitted the
joint origin of gods and men from night and chaos; from fire, water,
air, or whatever they established to be the ruling element.

     Nor was it only on their first origin, that the gods were
supposed dependent on the powers of nature. Throughout the whole
period of their existence they were subjected to the dominion of
fate or destiny. <Think of the force of necessity>, says A/GRIPPA\
to the R/OMAN\ people, <that force, to which even the gods must
submit>.[30] And the Younger P/LINY\,[31] agreeably to this way of
thinking, tells us, that amidst the darkness, horror, and confusion,
which ensued upon the first eruption of V/ESUVIUS\, several
concluded, that all nature was going to wrack, and that gods and men
were perishing in one common ruin.

     It is great complaisance, indeed, if we dignify with the name
of religion such an imperfect system of theology, and put it on a
level with later systems, which are founded on principles more just
and more sublime. For my part, I can scarcely allow the principles
even of M/ARCUS\ A/URELIUS\, P/LUTARCH\, and some other <Stoics> and
<Academics>, though much more refined than the pagan superstition,
to be worthy of the honourable appellation of theism. For if the
mythology of the heathens resemble the ancient E/UROPEAN\ system of
spiritual beings, excluding God and angels, and leaving only fairies
and sprights; the creed of these philosophers may justly be said to
exclude a deity, and to leave only angels and fairies.

 S/ECT\. V. <Various Forms of Polytheism: Allegory, Hero-Worship>.

                                  

     But it is chiefly our present business to consider the gross
polytheism of the vulgar, and to trace all its various appearances,
in the principles of human nature, whence they are derived.

     Whoever learns by argument, the existence of invisible
intelligent power, must reason from the admirable contrivance of
natural objects, and must suppose the world to be the workmanship of
that divine being, the original cause of all things. But the vulgar
polytheist, so far from admitting that idea, deifies every part of
the universe, and conceives all the conspicuous productions of
nature, to be themselves so many real divinities. The sun, moon, and
stars, are all gods according to his system: Fountains are inhabited
by nymphs, and trees by hamadryads: Even monkies, dogs, cats, and
other animals often become sacred in his eyes, and strike him with a
religious veneration. And thus, however strong men's propensity to
believe invisible, intelligent power in nature, their propensity is
equally strong to rest their attention on sensible, visible objects;
and in order to reconcile these opposite inclinations, they are led
to unite the invisible power with some visible object.

     The distribution also of distinct provinces to the several
deities is apt to cause some allegory, both physical and moral, to
enter into the vulgar systems of polytheism. The god of war will
naturally be represented as furious, cruel, and impetuous: The god
of poetry as elegant, polite, and amiable: The god of merchandise,
especially in early times, as thievish and deceitful. The
allegories, supposed in H/OMER\ and other mythologists, I allow,
have often been so strained, that men of sense are apt entirely to
reject them, and to consider them as the production merely of the
fancy and conceit of critics and commentators. But that allegory
really has place in the heathen mythology is undeniable even on the
least reflection. C/UPID\ the son of V/ENUS\; the Muses the
daughters of Memory; P/ROMETHEUS\, the wise brother, and
E/PIMETHEUS\ the foolish; H/YGIEIA\ or the goddess of health
descended from AE/SCULAPIUS\ or the god of physic: Who sees not, in
these, and in many other instances, the plain traces of allegory?
When a god is supposed to preside over any passion, event, or system
of actions, it is almost unavoidable to give him a genealogy,
attributes, and adventures, suitable to his supposed powers and
influence; and to carry on that similitude and comparison, which is
naturally so agreeable to the mind of man.

     Allegories, indeed, entirely perfect, we ought not to expect as
the productions of ignorance and superstition; there being no work
of genius that requires a nicer hand, or has been more rarely
executed with success. That <Fear> and <Terror> are the sons of
M/ARS\ is just; but why by V/ENUS\?[32] That <Harmony> is the
daughter of V/ENUS\ is regular; but why by M/ARS\?[33] That <Sleep>
is the brother of <Death> is suitable; but why describe him as
enamoured of one of the Graces?[34] And since the ancient
mythologists fall into mistakes so gross and palpable, we have no
reason surely to expect such refined and long-spun allegories, as
some have endeavoured to deduce from their fictions.

     L/UCRETIUS\ was plainly seduced by the strong appearance of
allegory, which is observable in the pagan fictions. He first
addresses himself to V/ENUS\ as to that generating power, which
animates, renews, and beautifies the universe: But is soon betrayed
by the mythology into incoherencies, while he prays to that
allegorical personage to appease the furies of her lover M/ARS\; An
idea not drawn from allegory, but from the popular religion, and
which L/UCRETIUS\, as an E/PICUREAN\, could not consistently admit
of.

     The deities of the vulgar are so little superior to human
creatures, that, where men are affected with strong sentiments of
veneration or gratitude for any hero or public benefactor, nothing
can be more natural than to convert him into a god, and fill the
heavens, after this manner, with continual recruits from among
mankind. Most of the divinities of the ancient world are supposed to
have once been men, and to have been beholden for their <apotheosis>
to the admiration and affection of the people. The real history of
their adventures, corrupted by tradition, and elevated by the
marvellous, become a plentiful source of fable; especially in
passing through the hands of poets, allegorists, and priests, who
successively improved upon the wonder and astonishment of the
ignorant multitude.

     Painters too and sculptors came in for their share of profit in
the sacred mysteries; and furnishing men with sensible
representations of their divinities, whom they cloathed in human
figures, gave great encrease to the public devotion, and determined
its object. It was probably for want of these arts in rude and
barbarous ages, that men deified plants, animals, and even brute,
unorganized matter; and rather than be without a sensible object of
worship, affixed divinity to such ungainly forms. Could any statuary
of S/YRIA\, in early times, have formed a just figure of A/POLLO\,
the conic stone, H/ELIOGABALUS\, had never become the object of such
profound adoration, and been received as a representation of the
solar deity.[35]

     S/TILPO\ was banished by the council of A/REOPAGUS\, for
affirming that the M/INERVA\ in the citadel was no divinity; but the
workmanship of P/HIDIAS\, the sculptor.[36] What degree of reason
must we expect in the religious belief of the vulgar in other
nations; when A/THENIANS\ and A/REOPAGITES\ could entertain such
gross conceptions?

     These then are the general principles of polytheism, founded in
human nature, and little or nothing dependent on caprice and
accident. As the <causes>, which bestow happiness or misery, are, in
general, very little known and very uncertain, our anxious concern
endeavours to attain a determinate idea of them; and finds no better
expedient than to represent them as intelligent voluntary agents,
like ourselves; only somewhat superior in power and wisdom. The
limited influence of these agents, and their great proximity to
human weakness, introduce the various distribution and division of
their authority; and thereby give rise to allegory. The same
principles naturally deify mortals, superior in power, courage, or
understanding, and produce hero- worship; together with fabulous
history and mythological tradition, in all its wild and
unaccountable forms. And as an invisible spiritual intelligence is
an object too refined for vulgar apprehension, men naturally affix
it to some sensible representation; such as either the more
conspicuous parts of nature, or the statues, images, and pictures,
which a more refined age forms of its divinities.

     Almost all idolaters, of whatever age or country, concur in
these general principles and conceptions; and even the particular
characters and provinces, which they assign to their deities, are
not extremely different.[37] The G/REEK\ and R/OMAN\ travellers and
conquerors, without much difficulty, found their own deities every
where; and said, This is M/ERCURY\, that V/ENUS\; this M/ARS\, that
N/EPTUNE\; by whatever title the strange gods might be denominated.
The goddess H/ERTHA\ of our S/AXON\ ancestors seems to be no other,
according to T/ACITUS\,[38] than the <Mater Tellus> of the R/OMANS\;
and his conjecture was evidently just.

          S/ECT\. VI. <Origin of Theism from Polytheism>.

                                  

     The doctrine of one supreme deity, the author of nature, is
very ancient, has spread itself over great and populous nations, and
among them has been embraced by all ranks and conditions of men: But
whoever thinks that it has owed its success to the prevalent force
of those invincible reasons, on which it is undoubtedly founded,
would show himself little acquainted with the ignorance and
stupidity of the people, and their incurable prejudices in favour of
their particular superstitions. Even at this day, and in E/UROPE\,
ask any of the vulgar, why he believes in an omnipotent creator of
the world; he will never mention the beauty of final causes, of
which he is wholly ignorant: He will not hold out his hand, and bid
you contemplate the suppleness and variety of joints in his fingers,
their bending all one way, the counterpoise which they receive from
the thumb, the softness and fleshy parts of the inside of his hand,
with all the other circumstances, which render that member fit for
the use, to which it was destined. To these he has been long
accustomed; and he beholds them with listlessness and unconcern. He
will tell you of the sudden and unexpected death of such a one: The
fall and bruise of such another: The excessive drought of this
season: The cold and rains of another. These he ascribes to the
immediate operation of providence: And such events, as, with good
reasoners, are the chief difficulties in admitting a supreme
intelligence, are with him the sole arguments for it.

     Many theists, even the most zealous and refined, have denied a
<particular> providence, and have asserted, that the Sovereign mind
or first principle of all things, having fixed general laws, by
which nature is governed, gives free and uninterrupted course to
these laws, and disturbs not, at every turn, the settled order of
events by particular volitions. From the beautiful connexion, say
they, and rigid observance of established rules, we draw the chief
argument for theism; and from the same principles are enabled to
answer the principal objections against it. But so little is this
understood by the generality of mankind, that, wherever they observe
any one to ascribe all events to natural causes, and to remove the
particular interposition of a deity, they are apt to suspect him of
the grossest infidelity. <A little philosophy>, says lord B/ACON\,
<makes men atheists: A great deal reconciles them to religion>. For
men, being taught, by superstitious prejudices, to lay the stress on
a wrong place; when that fails them, and they discover, by a little
reflection, that the course of nature is regular and uniform, their
whole faith totters, and falls to ruin. But being taught, by more
reflection, that this very regularity and uniformity is the
strongest proof of design and of a supreme intelligence, they return
to that belief, which they had deserted; and they are now able to
establish it on a firmer and more durable foundation.

     Convulsions in nature, disorders, prodigies, miracles, though
the most opposite to the plan of a wise superintendent, impress
mankind with the strongest sentiments of religion; the causes of
events seeming then the most unknown and unaccountable. Madness,
fury, rage, and an inflamed imagination, though they sink men
nearest to the level of beasts, are, for a like reason, often
supposed to be the only dispositions, in which we can have any
immediate communication with the Deity.

     We may conclude, therefore, upon the whole, that, since the
vulgar, in nations, which have embraced the doctrine of theism,
still build it upon irrational and superstitious principles, they
are never led into that opinion by any process of argument, but by a
certain train of thinking, more suitable to their genius and
capacity.

     It may readily happen, in an idolatrous nation, that though men
admit the existence of several limited deities, yet is there some
one God, whom, in a particular manner, they make the object of their
worship and adoration. They may either suppose, that, in the
distribution of power and territory among the gods, their nation was
subjected to the jurisdiction of that particular deity; or reducing
heavenly objects to the model of things below, they may represent
one god as the prince or supreme magistrate of the rest, who, though
of the same nature, rules them with an authority, like that which an
earthly sovereign exercises over his subjects and vassals. Whether
this god, therefore, be considered as their peculiar patron, or as
the general sovereign of heaven, his votaries will endeavour, by
every art, to insinuate themselves into his favour; and supposing
him to be pleased, like themselves, with praise and flattery, there
is no eulogy or exaggeration, which will be spared in their
addresses to him. In proportion as men's fears or distresses become
more urgent, they still invent new strains of adulation; and even he
who outdoes his predecessor in swelling up the titles of his
divinity, is sure to be outdone by his successor in newer and more
pompous epithets of praise. Thus they proceed; till at last they
arrive at infinity itself, beyond which there is no farther
progress: And it is well, if, in striving to get farther, and to
represent a magnificent simplicity, they run not into inexplicable
mystery, and destroy the intelligent nature of their deity, on which
alone any rational worship or adoration can be founded. While they
confine themselves to the notion of a perfect being, the creator of
the world, they coincide, by chance, with the principles of reason
and true philosophy; though they are guided to that notion, not by
reason, of which they are in a great measure incapable, but by the
adulation and fears of the most vulgar superstition.

     We often find, amongst barbarous nations, and even sometimes
amongst civilized, that, when every strain of flattery has been
exhausted towards arbitrary princes, when every human quality has
been applauded to the utmost; their servile courtiers represent
them, at last, as real divinities, and point them out to the people
as objects of adoration. How much more natural, therefore, is it,
that a limited deity, who at first is supposed only the immediate
author of the particular goods and ills in life, should in the end
be represented as sovereign maker and modifier of the universe?

     Even where this notion of a supreme deity is already
established; though it ought naturally to lessen every other
worship, and abase every object of reverence, yet if a nation has
entertained the opinion of a subordinate tutelar divinity, saint, or
angel; their addresses to that being gradually rise upon them, and
encroach on the adoration due to their supreme deity. The Virgin
<Mary>, ere checked by the reformation, had proceeded, from being
merely a good woman, to usurp many attributes of the Almighty: God
and St. N/ICHOLAS\ go hand in hand, in all the prayers and petitions
of the M/USCOVITES\.

     Thus the deity, who, from love, converted himself into a bull,
in order to carry off E/UROPA\; and who, from ambition, dethroned
his father, S/ATURN\, became the O/PTIMUS\ M/AXIMUS\ of the
heathens. Thus the deity, whom the vulgar Jews conceived only as the
God of <Abraham>, <Isaac>, and <Jacob>, became their <Jehovah> and
Creator of the world.[39]

     The J/ACOBINS\, who denied the immaculate conception, have ever
been very unhappy in their doctrine, even though political reasons
have kept the R/OMISH\ church from condemning it. The C/ORDELIERS\
have run away with all the popularity. But in the fifteenth century,
as we learn from B/OULAINVILLIERS\,[40] an I/TALIAN\ <Cordelier>
maintained, that, during the three days, when C/HRIST\ was interred,
the hypostatic union was dissolved, and that his human nature was
not a proper object of adoration, during that period. Without the
art of divination, one might foretel, that so gross and impious a
blasphemy would not fail to be anathematized by the people. It was
the occasion of great insults on the part of the J/ACOBINS\; who now
got some recompence for their misfortunes in the war about the
immaculate conception.

     Rather than relinquish this propensity to adulation,
religionists, in all ages, have involved themselves in the greatest
absurdities and contradictions.

     H/OMER\, in one passage, calls O/CEANUS\ and T/ETHYS\ the
original parents of all things, conformably to the established
mythology and tradition of the G/REEKS\: Yet, in other passages, he
could not forbear complimenting J/UPITER\, the reigning deity, with
that magnificent appellation; and accordingly denominates him the
father of gods and men. He forgets, that every temple, every street
was full of the ancestors, uncles, brothers, and sisters of this
J/UPITER\; who was in reality nothing but an upstart parricide and
usurper. A like contradiction is observable in H/ESIOD\; and is so
much the less excusable, as his professed intention was to deliver a
true genealogy of the gods.

     Were there a religion (and we may suspect Mahometanism of this
inconsistence) which sometimes painted the Deity in the most sublime
colours, as the creator of heaven and earth; sometimes degraded him
so far to a level with human creatures as to represent him wrestling
with a man, walking in the cool of the evening, showing his back
parts, and descending from heaven to inform himself of what passes
on earth;[41] while at the same time it ascribed to him suitable
infirmities, passions, and partialities, of the moral kind: That
religion, after it was extinct, would also be cited as an instance
of those contradictions, which arise from the gross, vulgar, natural
conceptions of mankind, opposed to their continual propensity,
towards flattery and exaggeration. Nothing indeed would prove more
strongly the divine origin of any religion, than to find (and
happily this is the case with Christianity) that it is free from a
contradiction, so incident to human nature.

           S/ECT\. VII. <Confirmation of this Doctrine>.

                                  

     It appears certain, that, though the original notions of the
vulgar represent the Divinity as a limited being, and consider him
only as the particular cause of health or sickness; plenty or want;
prosperity or adversity; yet when more magnificent ideas are urged
upon them, they esteem it dangerous to refuse their assent. Will you
say, that your deity is finite and bounded in his perfections; may
be overcome by a greater force; is subject to human passions, pains,
and infirmities; has a beginning, and may have an end? This they
dare not affirm; but thinking it safest to comply with the higher
encomiums, they endeavour, by an affected ravishment and devotion,
to ingratiate themselves with him. As a confirmation of this, we may
observe, that the assent of the vulgar is, in this case, merely
verbal, and that they are incapable of conceiving those sublime
qualities, which they seemingly attribute to the Deity. Their real
idea of him, notwithstanding their pompous language, is still as
poor and frivolous as ever.

     That original intelligence, say the M/AGIANS\, who is the first
principle of all things, discovers himself <immediately> to the mind
and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the
visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams
over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory,
which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the
displeasure of this divine being, you must be careful never to set
your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any
water upon it, even though it were consuming a whole city.[42] Who
can express the perfections of the Almighty? say the Mahometans.
Even the noblest of his works, if compared to him, are but dust and
rubbish. How much more must human conception fall short of his
infinite perfections? His smile and favour renders men for ever
happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut
off from them, while infants, a little bit of skin, about half the
breadth of a farthing. Take two bits of cloth,[43] say the <Roman
catholics>, about an inch or an inch and a half square, join them by
the corners with two strings or pieces of tape about sixteen inches
long, throw this over your head, and make one of the bits of cloth
lie upon your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them
next your skin: There is not a better secret for recommending
yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to
eternity.

     The G/ETES\, commonly called immortal, from their steady belief
of the soul's immortality, were genuine theists and unitarians. They
affirmed Z/AMOLXIS\,[44] their deity, to be the only true god; and
asserted the worship of all other nations to be addressed to mere
fictions and chimeras. But were their religious principles any more
refined, on account of these magnificent pretensions? Every fifth
year they sacrificed a human victim, whom they sent as a messenger
to their deity, in order to inform him of their wants and
necessities. And when it thundered, they were so provoked, that, in
order to return the defiance, they let fly arrows at him, and
declined not the combat as unequal. Such at least is the account,
which H/ERODOTUS\ gives of the theism of the immortal G/ETES\.[45]

     S/ECT\. VIII. <Flux and reflux of polytheism and theism>.

                                  

     It is remarkable, that the principles of religion have a kind
of flux and reflux in the human mind, and that men have a natural
tendency to rise from idolatry to theism, and to sink again from
theism into idolatry. The vulgar, that is, indeed, all mankind, a
few excepted, being ignorant and uninstructed, never elevate their
contemplation to the heavens, or penetrate by their disquisitions
into the secret structure of vegetable or animal bodies; so far as
to discover a supreme mind or original providence, which bestowed
order on every part of nature. They consider these admirable works
in a more confined and selfish view; and finding their own happiness
and misery to depend on the secret influence and unforeseen
concurrence of external objects, they regard; with perpetual
attention, the <unknown causes>, which govern all these natural
events, and distribute pleasure and pain, good and ill, by their
powerful, but silent, operation. The unknown causes are still
appealed to on every emergence; and in this general appearance or
confused image, are the perpetual objects of human hopes and fears,
wishes and apprehensions. By degrees, the active imagination of men,
uneasy in this abstract conception of objects, about which it is
incessantly employed, begins to render them more particular, and to
clothe them in shapes more suitable to its natural comprehension. It
represents them to be sensible, intelligent beings, like mankind;
actuated by love and hatred, and flexible by gifts and entreaties,
by prayers and sacrifices. Hence the origin of religion: And hence
the origin of idolatry or polytheism.

     But the same anxious concern for happiness, which begets the
idea of these invisible, intelligent powers, allows not mankind to
remain long in the first simple conception of them; as powerful, but
limited beings; masters of human fate, but slaves to destiny and the
course of nature. Men's exaggerated praises and compliments still
swell their idea upon them; and elevating their deities to the
utmost bounds of perfection, at last beget the attributes of unity
and infinity, simplicity and spirituality. Such refined ideas, being
somewhat disproportioned to vulgar comprehension, remain not long in
their original purity; but require to be supported by the notion of
inferior mediators or subordinate agents, which interpose between
mankind and their supreme deity. These demi-gods or middle beings,
partaking more of human nature, and being more familiar to us,
become the chief objects of devotion, and gradually recal that
idolatry, which had been formerly banished by the ardent prayers and
panegyrics of timorous and indigent mortals. But as these idolatrous
religions fall every day into grosser and more vulgar conceptions,
they at last destroy themselves, and, by the vile representations,
which they form of their deities, make the tide turn again towards
theism. But so great is the propensity, in this alternate revolution
of human sentiments, to return back to idolatry, that the utmost
precaution is not able effectually to prevent it. And of this, some
theists, particularly the J/EWS\ and M/AHOMETANS\, have been
sensible; as appears by their banishing all the arts of statuary and
painting, and not allowing the representations, even of human
figures, to be taken by marble or colours; lest the common infirmity
of mankind should thence produce idolatry. The feeble apprehensions
of men cannot be satisfied with conceiving their deity as a pure
spirit and perfect intelligence; and yet their natural terrors keep
them from imputing to him the least shadow of limitation and
imperfection. They fluctuate between these opposite sentiments. The
same infirmity still drags them downwards, from an omnipotent and
spiritual deity, to a limited and corporeal one, and from a
corporeal and limited deity to a statue or visible representation.
The same endeavour at elevation still pushes them upwards, from the
statue or material image to the invisible power; and from the
invisible power to an infinitely perfect deity, the creator and
sovereign of the universe.

      S/ECT\. IX. <Comparison of these Religions, with regard

                                  

                  to Persecution and Toleration.>

                                  

     Polytheism or idolatrous worship, being founded entirely in
vulgar traditions, is liable to this great inconvenience, that any
practice or opinion, however barbarous or corrupted, may be
authorized by it; and full scope is given, for knavery to impose on
credulity, till morals and humanity be expelled from[46] the
religious systems of mankind. At the same time, idolatry is attended
with this evident advantage, that, by limiting the powers and
functions of its deities, it naturally admits the gods of other
sects and nations to a share of divinity, and renders all the
various deities, as well as rites, ceremonies, or traditions,
compatible with each other.[47] Theism is opposite both in its
advantages and disadvantages. As that system supposes one sole
deity, the perfection of reason and goodness, it should, if justly
prosecuted, banish every thing frivolous, unreasonable, or inhuman
from religious worship, and set before men the most illustrious
example, as well as the most commanding motives, of justice and
benevolence. These mighty advantages are not indeed over-balanced
(for that is not possible), but somewhat diminished, by
inconveniencies, which arise from the vices and prejudices of
mankind. While one sole object of devotion is acknowledged, the
worship of other deities is regarded as absurd and impious. Nay,
this unity of object seems naturally to require the unity of faith
and ceremonies, and furnishes designing men with a pretence for
representing their adversaries as profane, and the objects of divine
as well as human vengeance. For as each sect is positive that its
own faith and worship are entirely acceptable to the deity, and as
no one can conceive, that the same being should be pleased with
different and opposite rites and principles; the several sects fall
naturally into animosity, and mutually discharge on each other that
sacred zeal and rancour, the most furious and implacable of all
human passions.

     The tolerating spirit of idolaters, both in ancient and modern
times, is very obvious to any one, who is the least conversant in
the writings of historians or travellers. When the oracle of
D/ELPHI\ was asked, what rites or worship was most acceptable to the
gods? Those which are legally established in each city, replied the
oracle.[48] Even priests, in those ages, could, it seems, allow
salvation to those of a different communion. The R/OMANS\ commonly
adopted the gods of the conquered people; and never disputed the
attributes of those local and national deities, in whose territories
they resided. The religious wars and persecutions of the E/GYPTIAN\
idolaters are indeed an exception to this rule; but are accounted
for by ancient authors from reasons singular and remarkable.
Different species of animals were the deities of the different sects
among the E/GYPTIANS\; and the deities being in continual war,
engaged their votaries in the same contention. The worshippers of
dogs could not long remain in peace with the adorers of cats or
wolves.[49] But where that reason took not place, the E/GYPTIAN\
superstition was not so incompatible as is commonly imagined; since
we learn from H/ERODOTUS\,[50] that very large contributions were
given by A/MASIS\ towards rebuilding the temple of D/ELPHI\.

     The intolerance of almost all religions, which have maintained
the unity of God, is as remarkable as the contrary principle of
polytheists. The implacable narrow spirit of the J/EWS\ is well
known. M/AHOMETANISM\ set out with still more bloody principles; and
even to this day, deals out damnation, though not fire and faggot,
to all other sects. And if, among C/HRISTIANS\, the E/NGLISH\ and
D/UTCH\ have embraced the principles of toleration, this singularity
has proceeded from the steady resolution of the civil magistrate, in
opposition to the continued efforts of priests and bigots.

     The disciples of Z/OROASTER\ shut the doors of heaven against
all but the M/AGIANS\.[51] Nothing could more obstruct the progress
of the P/ERSIAN\ conquests, than the furious zeal of that nation
against the temples and images of the G/REEKS\. And after the
overthrow of that empire we find A/LEXANDER\, as a polytheist,
immediately re-establishing the worship of the B/ABYLONIANS\, which
their former princes, as monotheists, had carefully abolished.[52]
Even the blind and devoted attachment of that conqueror to the
G/REEK\ superstition hindered not but he himself sacrificed
according to the B/ABYLONISH\ rites and ceremonies.[53]

     So sociable is polytheism, that the utmost fierceness and
antipathy, which it meets with in an opposite religion, is scarcely
able to disgust it, and keep it at a distance. A/UGUSTUS\ praised
extremely the reserve of his grandson, C/AIUS\ C/AESAR\, when this
latter prince, passing by J/ERUSALEM\, deigned not to sacrifice
according to the J/EWISH\ law. But for what reason did A/UGUSTUS\ so
much approve of this conduct? Only, because that religion was by the
P/AGANS\ esteemed ignoble and barbarous.[54]

     I may venture to affirm, that few corruptions of idolatry and
polytheism are more pernicious to society than this corruption of
theism,[55] when carried to the utmost height. The human sacrifices
of the C/ARTHAGINIANS\, M/EXICANS\, and many barbarous nations,[56]
scarcely exceed the inquisition and persecutions of R/OME\ and
M/ADRID\. For besides, that the effusion of blood may not be so
great in the former case as in the latter; besides this, I say, the
human victims, being chosen by lot, or by some exterior signs,
affect not, in so considerable a degree, the rest of the society.
Whereas virtue, knowledge, love of liberty, are the qualities, which
call down the fatal vengeance of inquisitors; and when expelled,
leave the society in the most shameful ignorance, corruption, and
bondage. The illegal murder of one man by a tyrant is more
pernicious than the death of a thousand by pestilence, famine, or
any undistinguishing calamity.

     In the temple of D/IANA\ at A/RICIA\ near R/OME\, whoever
murdered the present priest, was legally entitled to be installed
his successor.[57] A very singular institution! For, however
barbarous and bloody the common superstitions often are to the
laity, they usually turn to the advantage of the holy order.

         S/ECT\. X. <With regard to courage or abasement>.

                                  

     From the comparison of theism and idolatry, we may form some
other observations, which will also confirm the vulgar observation,
that the corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.

     Where the deity is represented as infinitely superior to
mankind, this belief, though altogether just, is apt, when joined
with superstitious terror, to sink the human mind into the lowest
submission and abasement, and to represent the monkish virtues of
mortification, penance, humility, and passive suffering, as the only
qualities which are acceptable to him. But where the gods are
conceived to be only a little superior to mankind, and to have been,
many of them, advanced from that inferior rank, we are more at our
ease in our addresses to them, and may even, without profaneness,
aspire sometimes to a rivalship and emulation of them. Hence
activity, spirit, courage, magnanimity, love of liberty, and all the
virtues which aggrandize a people.

     The heroes in paganism correspond exactly to the saints in
popery and holy dervises in M/AHOMETANISM\. The place of H/ERCULES\,
T/HESEUS\, H/ECTOR\, R/OMULUS\, is now supplied by D/OMINIC\,
F/RANCIS\, A/NTHONY\, and B/ENEDICT\. Instead of the destruction of
monsters, the subduing of tyrants, the defence of our native
country; whippings and fastings, cowardice and humility, abject
submission and slavish obedience, are become the means of obtaining
celestial honours among mankind.

     One great incitement to the pious A/LEXANDER\ in his warlike
expeditions was his rivalship of H/ERCULES\ and B/ACCHUS\, whom he
justly pretended to have excelled.[58] B/RASIDAS\, that generous and
noble S/PARTAN\, after falling in battle, had heroic honours paid
him by the inhabitants of A/MPHIPOLIS\, whose defence he had
embraced.[59] And in general, all founders of states and colonies
among the G/REEKS\ were raised to this inferior rank of divinity, by
those who reaped the benefit of their labours.

     This gave rise to the observation of M/ACHIAVEL\, that the
doctrines of the C/HRISTIAN\ religion (meaning the catholic; for he
knew no other) which recommend only passive courage and suffering,
had subdued the spirit of mankind, and had fitted them for slavery
and subjection. An observation, which would certainly be just, were
there not many other circumstances in human society which controul
the genius and character of a religion.

     B/RASIDAS\ seized a mouse, and being bit by it, let it go.
<There is nothing so contemptible>, said he, <but what may be safe,
if it has but courage to defend itself>.[60] B/ELLARMINE\ patiently
and humbly allowed the fleas and other odious vermin to prey upon
him. <We shall have heaven>, said he, <to reward us for our
sufferings: But these poor creatures have nothing but the enjoyment
of the present life>.[61] Such difference is there between the
maxims of a G/REEK\ hero and a C/ATHOLIC\ saint.

         S/ECT\. XI. <With regard to reason or absurdity>.

                                  

     Here is another observation to the same purpose, and a new
proof that the corruption of the best things begets the worst. If we
examine, without prejudice, the ancient heathen mythology, as
contained in the poets, we shall not discover in it any such
monstrous absurdity, as we may at first be apt to apprehend. Where
is the difficulty in conceiving, that the same powers or principles,
whatever they were, which formed this visible world, men and
animals, produced also a species of intelligent creatures, of more
refined substance and greater authority than the rest? That these
creatures may be capricious, revengeful, passionate, voluptuous, is
easily conceived; nor is any circumstance more apt, among ourselves,
to engender such vices, than the licence of absolute authority. And
in short, the whole mythological system is so natural, that, in the
vast variety of planets and worlds, contained in this universe, it
seems more than probable, that, somewhere or other, it is really
carried into execution.

     The chief objection to it with regard to this planet, is, that
it is not ascertained by any just reason or authority. The ancient
tradition, insisted on by heathen priests and theologers, is but a
weak foundation; and transmitted also such a number of contradictory
reports, supported, all of them, by equal authority, that it became
absolutely impossible to fix a preference amongst them. A few
volumes, therefore, must contain all the polemical writings of pagan
priests: And their whole theology must consist more of traditional
stories and superstitious practices than of philosophical argument
and controversy.

     But where theism forms the fundamental principle of any popular
religion, that tenet is so conformable to sound reason, that
philosophy is apt to incorporate itself with such a system of
theology. And if the other dogmas of that system be contained in a
sacred book, such as the Alcoran, or be determined by any visible
authority, like that of the R/OMAN\ pontiff, speculative reasoners
naturally carry on their assent, and embrace a theory, which has
been instilled into them by their earliest education, and which also
possesses some degree of consistence and uniformity. But as these
appearances are sure, all of them, to prove deceitful, philosophy
will soon find herself very unequally yoked with her new associate;
and instead of regulating each principle, as they advance together,
she is at every turn perverted to serve the purposes of
superstition. For besides the unavoidable incoherences, which must
be reconciled and adjusted; one may safely affirm, that all popular
theology, especially the scholastic, has a kind of appetite for
absurdity and contradiction. If that theology went not beyond reason
and common sense, her doctrines would appear too easy and familiar.
Amazement must of necessity be raised: Mystery affected: Darkness
and obscurity sought after: And a foundation of merit afforded to
the devout votaries, who desire an opportunity of subduing their
rebellious reason, by the belief of the most unintelligible
sophisms.

     Ecclesiastical history sufficiently confirms these reflections.
When a controversy is started, some people always pretend with
certainty to foretell the issue. Whichever opinion, say they, is
most contrary to plain sense is sure to prevail; even where the
general interest of the system requires not that decision. Though
the reproach of heresy may, for some time, be bandied about among
the disputants, it always rests at last on the side of reason. Any
one, it is pretended, that has but learning enough of this kind to
know the definition of A/RIAN\, P/ELAGIAN\, E/RASTIAN\, S/OCINIAN\,
S/ABELLIAN\, E/UTYCHIAN\, N/ESTORIAN\, M/ONOTHELITE\, etc. not to
mention P/ROTESTANT\, whose fate is yet uncertain, will be convinced
of the truth of this observation. It is thus a system becomes more
absurd in the end, merely from its being reasonable and
philosophical in the beginning.

     To oppose the torrent of scholastic religion by such feeble
maxims as these, that <it is impossible for the same thing, to be
and not to be>, that <the whole is greater than a part, that two and
three make five>; is pretending to stop the ocean with a bull-rush.
Will you set up profane reason against sacred mystery? No punishment
is great enough for your impiety. And the same fires, which were
kindled for heretics, will serve also for the destruction of
philosophers.

         S/ECT\. XII. <With regard to Doubt or Conviction>.

                                  

     We meet every day with people so sceptical with regard to
history, that they assert it impossible for any nation ever to
believe such absurd principles as those of G/REEK\ and E/GYPTIAN\
paganism; and at the same time so dogmatical with regard to
religion, that they think the same absurdities are to be found in no
other communion. C/AMBYSES\ entertained like prejudices; and very
impiously ridiculed, and even wounded, APIS, the great god of the
E/GYPTIANS\, who appeared to his profane senses nothing but a large
spotted bull. But H/ERODOTUS\ judiciously ascribes this sally of
passion to a real madness or disorder of the brain: Otherwise, says
the historian, he never would have openly affronted any established
worship. For on that head, continues he, every nation are best
satisfied with their own, and think they have the advantage over
every other nation.

     It must be allowed, that the R/OMAN\ Catholics are a very
learned sect; and that no one communion, but that of the church of
E/NGLAND\, can dispute their being the most learned of all the
Christian churches: Yet A/VERROES\, the famous A/RABIAN\, who, no
doubt, had heard of the E/GYPTIAN\ superstitions, declares, that, of
all religions, the most absurd and nonsensical is that, whose
votaries eat, after having created, their deity.

     I believe, indeed, that there is no tenet in all paganism,
which would give so fair a scope to ridicule as this of the <real
presence>: For it is so absurd, that it eludes the force of all
argument. There are even some pleasant stories of that kind, which,
though somewhat profane, are commonly told by the Catholics
themselves. One day, a priest, it is said, gave inadvertently,
instead of the sacrament, a counter, which had by accident fallen
among the holy wafers. The communicant waited patiently for some
time, expecting it would dissolve on his tongue: But finding that it
still remained entire, he took it off. <I wish>, cried he to the
priest, <you have not committed some mistake: I wish you have not
given me God the Father: He is so hard and tough there is no
swallowing him>.

     A famous general, at that time in the M/USCOVITE\ service,
having come to P/ARIS\ for the recovery of his wounds, brought along
with him a young T/URK\, whom he had taken prisoner. Some of the
doctors of the S/ORBONNE\ (who are altogether as positive as the
dervises of C/ONSTANTINOPLE\) thinking it a pity, that the poor
T/URK\ should be damned for want of instruction, solicited
M/USTAPHA\ very hard to turn Christian, and promised him, for his
encouragement, plenty of good wine in this world, and paradise in
the next. These allurements were too powerful to be resisted; and
therefore, having been well instructed and catechized, he at last
agreed to receive the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper.
The priest, however, to make every thing sure and solid, still
continued his instructions; and began the next day with the usual
question, <How many Gods are there? None at all>, replies
B/ENEDICT\; for that was his new name. <How! None at all>! cries the
priest. <To be sure>, said the honest proselyte. <You have told me
all along that there is but one God: And yesterday I eat him>.

     Such are the doctrines of our brethren the Catholics. But to
these doctrines we are so accustomed, that we never wonder at them:
Though in a future age, it will probably become difficult to
persuade some nations, that any human, two-legged creature could
ever embrace such principles. And it is a thousand to one, but these
nations themselves shall have something full as absurd in their own
creed, to which they will give a most implicit and most religious
assent.

     I lodged once at P/ARIS\ in the same <hotel> with an ambassador
from T/UNIS\, who, having passed some years at L/ONDON\, was
returning home that way. One day I observed his M/OORISH\ excellency
diverting himself under the porch, with surveying the splendid
equipages that drove along; when there chanced to pass that way some
<Capucin> friars, who had never seen a T/URK\; as he, on his part,
though accustomed to the E/UROPEAN\ dresses, had never seen the
grotesque figure of a <Capucin>: And there is no expressing the
mutual admiration, with which they inspired each other. Had the
chaplain of the embassy entered into a dispute with these
F/RANCISCANS\, their reciprocal surprize had been of the same
nature. Thus all mankind stand staring at one another; and there is
no beating it into their heads, that the turban of the A/FRICAN\ is
not just as good or as bad a fashion as the cowl of the E/UROPEAN\.
<He is a very honest man>, said the prince of S/ALLEE\, speaking of
de R/UYTER\, <It is a pity he were a Christian>.

     How can you worship leeks and onions? we shall suppose a
S/ORBONNIST\ to say to a priest of S/AIS\. If we worship them,
replies the latter; at least, we do not, at the same time, eat them.
But what strange objects of adoration are cats and monkies? says the
learned doctor. They are at least as good as the relics or rotten
bones of martyrs, answers his no less learned antagonist. Are you
not mad, insists the Catholic, to cut one another's throat about the
preference of a cabbage or a cucumber? Yes, says the pagan; I allow
it, if you will confess, that those are still madder, who fight
about the preference among volumes of sophistry, ten thousand of
which are not equal in value to one cabbage or cucumber.[62]

     Every by-stander will easily judge (but unfortunately the by-
standers are few) that, if nothing were requisite to establish any
popular system, but exposing the absurdities of other systems, every
votary of every superstition could give a sufficient reason for his
blind and bigotted attachment to the principles in which he has been
educated. But without so extensive a knowledge, on which to ground
this assurance (and perhaps, better without it), there is not
wanting a sufficient stock of religious zeal and faith among
mankind. D/IODORUS\ S/ICULUS\[63] gives a remarkable instance to
this purpose, of which he was himself an eye-witness. While E/GYPT\
lay under the greatest terror of the R/OMAN\ name, a legionary
soldier having inadvertently been guilty of the sacrilegious impiety
of killing a cat, the whole people rose upon him with the utmost
fury; and all the efforts of the prince were not able to save him.
The senate and people of R/OME\, I am persuaded, would not, then,
have been so delicate with regard to their national deities. They
very frankly, a little after that time, voted A/UGUSTUS\ a place in
the celestial mansions; and would have dethroned every god in
heaven, for his sake, had he seemed to desire it. <Presens divus
habebitur> A/UGUSTUS\, says H/ORACE\. That is a very important
point: And in other nations and other ages, the same circumstance
has not been deemed altogether indifferent.[64]

     Notwithstanding the sanctity of our holy religion, says
T/ULLY\,[65] no crime is more common with us than sacrilege: But was
it ever heard of, that an E/GYPTIAN\ violated the temple of a cat,
an ibis, or a crocodile? There is no torture, an E/GYPTIAN\ would
not undergo, says the same author in another place,[66] rather than
injure an ibis, an aspic, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile. Thus it is
strictly true, what D/RYDEN\ observes,

     "Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be,

     "Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree,

     "In his defence his servants are as bold,

     "As if he had been born of beaten gold."

                                  

                    A/BSALOM\ and A/CHITOPHEL\.

     Nay, the baser the materials are, of which the divinity is
composed, the greater devotion is he likely to excite in the breasts
of his deluded votaries. They exult in their shame, and make a merit
with their deity, in braving, for his sake, all the ridicule and
contumely of his enemies. Ten thousand Crusaders inlist themselves
under the holy banners; and even openly triumph in those parts of
their religion, which their adversaries regard as the most
reproachful.

     There occurs, I own, a difficulty in the E/GYPTIAN\ system of
theology; as indeed, few systems of that kind are entirely free from
difficulties. It is evident, from their method of propagation, that
a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and
if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in
twenty more, not only be easier in E/GYPT\ to find a god than a man,
which P/ETRONIUS\ says was the case in some parts of I/TALY\; but
the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves
neither priests nor votaries remaining. It is probable, therefore,
that this wise nation, the most celebrated in antiquity for prudence
and sound policy, foreseeing such dangerous consequences, reserved
all their worship for the full-grown divinities, and used the
freedom to drown the holy spawn or little sucking gods, without any
scruple or remorse. And thus the practice of warping the tenets of
religion, in order to serve temporal interests, is not, by any
means, to be regarded as an invention of these later ages.

     The learned, philosophical V/ARRO\, discoursing of religion,
pretends not to deliver any thing beyond probabilities and
appearances: Such was his good sense and moderation! But the
passionate, the zealous A/UGUSTIN\, insults the noble R/OMAN\ on his
scepticism and reserve, and professes the most thorough belief and
assurance.[67] A heathen poet, however, contemporary with the saint,
absurdly esteems the religious system of the latter so false, that
even the credulity of children, he says, could not engage them to
believe it.[68]

     Is it strange, when mistakes are so common, to find every one
positive and dogmatical? And that the zeal often rises in proportion
to the error? <Moverunt>, says S/PARTIAN\, <et ea tempestate, Judaei
bellum quod vetabantur mutilare genitalia>.[69]

     If ever there was a nation or a time, in which the public
religion lost all authority over mankind, we might expect, that
infidelity in ROME, during the C/ICERONIAN\ age, would openly have
erected its throne, and that C/ICERO\ himself, in every speech and
action, would have been its most declared abettor. But it appears,
that, whatever sceptical liberties that great man might take, in his
writings or in philosophical conversation; he yet avoided, in the
common conduct of life, the imputation of deism and profaneness.
Even in his own family, and to his wife T/ERENTIA\, whom he highly
trusted, he was willing to appear a devout religionist; and there
remains a letter, addressed to her, in which he seriously desires
her to offer sacrifice to A/POLLO\ and AE/SCULAPIUS\, in gratitude
for the recovery of his health.[70]

     P/OMPEY'S\ devotion was much more sincere: In all his conduct,
during the civil wars, he paid a great regard to auguries, dreams,
and prophesies.[71] A/UGUSTUS\ was tainted with superstition of
every kind. As it is reported of M/ILTON\, that his poetical genius
never flowed with ease and abundance in the spring; so A/UGUSTUS\
observed, that his own genius for dreaming never was so perfect
during that season, nor was so much to be relied on, as during the
rest of the year. That great and able emperor was also extremely
uneasy, when he happened to change his shoes, and put the right foot
shoe on the left foot.[72] In short it cannot be doubted, but the
votaries of the established superstition of antiquity were as
numerous in every state, as those of the modern religion are at
present. Its influence was as universal; though it was not so great.
As many people gave their assent to it; though that assent was not
seemingly so strong, precise, and affirmative.

     We may observe, that, notwithstanding the dogmatical, imperious
style of all superstition, the conviction of the religionist, in all
ages, is more affected than real, and scarcely ever approaches, in
any degree, to that solid belief and persuasion, which governs us in
the common affairs of life. Men dare not avow, even to their own
hearts, the doubts which they entertain on such subjects: They make
a merit of implicit faith; and disguise to themselves their real
infidelity, by the strongest asseverations and most positive
bigotry. But nature is too hard for all their endeavours, and
suffers not the obscure, glimmering light, afforded in those shadowy
regions, to equal the strong impressions, made by common sense and
by experience. The usual course of men's conduct belies their words,
and shows, that their assent in these matters is some unaccountable
operation of the mind between disbelief and conviction, but
approaching much nearer to the former than to the latter.

     Since, therefore, the mind of man appears of so loose and
unsteady a texture, that, even at present, when so many persons find
an interest in continually employing on it the chissel and the
hammer, yet are they not able to engrave theological tenets with any
lasting impression; how much more must this have been the case in
ancient times, when the retainers to the holy function were so much
fewer in comparison? No wonder, that the appearances were then very
inconsistent, and that men, on some occasions, might seem determined
infidels, and enemies to the established religion, without being so
in reality; or at least, without knowing their own minds in that
particular.

     Another cause, which rendered the ancient religions much looser
than the modern, is, that the former were <traditional> and the
latter are <scriptural>; and the tradition in the former was
complex, contradictory, and, on many occasions, doubtful; so that it
could not possibly be reduced to any standard and canon, or afford
any determinate articles of faith. The stories of the gods were
numberless like the popish legends; and though every one, almost,
believed a part of these stories, yet no one could believe or know
the whole: While, at the same time, all must have acknowledged, that
no one part stood on a better foundation than the rest. The
traditions of different cities and nations were also, on many
occasions, directly opposite; and no reason could be assigned for
preferring one to the other. And as there was an infinite number of
stories, with regard to which tradition was nowise positive; the
gradation was insensible, from the most fundamental articles of
faith, to those loose and precarious fictions. The pagan religion,
therefore, seemed to vanish like a cloud, whenever one approached to
it, and examined it piecemeal. It could never be ascertained by any
fixed dogmas and principles. And though this did not convert the
generality of mankind from so absurd a faith; for when will the
people be reasonable? yet it made them faulter and hesitate more in
maintaining their principles, and was even apt to produce, in
certain dispositions of mind, some practices and opinions, which had
the appearance of determined infidelity.

     To which we may add, that the fables of the pagan religion
were, of themselves, light, easy, and familiar; without devils, or
seas of brimstone, or any object that could much terrify the
imagination. Who could forbear smiling, when he thought of the loves
of M/ARS\ and V/ENUS\, or the amorous frolics of J/UPITER\ and
P/AN\? In this respect, it was a true poetical religion; if it had
not rather too much levity for the graver kinds of poetry. We find
that it has been adopted by modern bards; nor have these talked with
greater freedom and irreverence of the gods, whom they regarded as
fictions, than the ancients did of the real objects of their
devotion.

     The inference is by no means just, that, because a system of
religion has made no deep impression on the minds of a people, it
must therefore have been positively rejected by all men of common
sense, and that opposite principles, in spite of the prejudices of
education, were generally established by argument and reasoning. I
know not, but a contrary inference may be more probable. The less
importunate and assuming any species of superstition appears, the
less will it provoke men's spleen and indignation, or engage them
into enquiries concerning its foundation and origin. This in the
mean time is obvious, that the empire of all religious faith over
the understanding is wavering and uncertain, subject to every
variety of humour, and dependent on the present incidents, which
strike the imagination. The difference is only in the degrees. An
ancient will place a stroke of impiety and one of superstition
alternately, throughout a whole discourse;[73] A modern often thinks
in the same way, though he may be more guarded in his expression.

     L/UCIAN\ tells us expressly,[74] that whoever believed not the
most ridiculous fables of paganism was deemed by the people profane
and impious. To what purpose, indeed, would that agreeable author
have employed the whole force of his wit and satire against the
national religion, had not that religion been generally believed by
his countrymen and contemporaries?

     L/IVY\[75] acknowledges as frankly, as any divine would at
present, the common incredulity of his age; but then he condemns it
as severely. And who can imagine, that a national superstition,
which could delude so ingenious a man, would not also impose on the
generality of the people?

     The S/TOICS\ bestowed many magnificent and even impious
epithets on their sage; that he alone was rich, free, a king, and
equal to the immortal gods. They forgot to add, that he was not
inferior in prudence and understanding to an old woman. For surely
nothing can be more pitiful than the sentiments, which that sect
entertained with regard to religious matters; while they seriously
agree with the common augurs, that, when a raven croaks from the
left, it is a good omen; but a bad one, when a rook makes a noise
from the same quarter. P/ANAETIUS\ was the only S/TOIC\, among the
G/REEKS\, who so much as doubted with regard to auguries and
divinations.[76] M/ARCUS\ A/NTONINUS\[77] tells us, that he himself
had received many admonitions from the gods in his sleep. It is
true, E/PICTETUS\[78] forbids us to regard the language of rooks and
ravens; but it is not, that they do not speak truth: It is only,
because they can foretel nothing but the breaking of our neck or the
forfeiture of our estate; which are circumstances, says he, that
nowise concern us. Thus the S/TOICS\ join a philosophical enthusiasm
to a religious superstition. The force of their mind, being all
turned to the side of morals, unbent itself in that of religion.[79]

     P/LATO\[80] introduces S/OCRATES\ affirming, that the
accusation of impiety raised against him was owing entirely to his
rejecting such fables, as those of S/ATURN'S\ castrating his father
U/RANUS\, and J/UPITER'S\ dethroning S/ATURN\: Yet in a subsequent
dialogue,[81] S/OCRATES\ confesses, that the doctrine of the
mortality of the soul was the received opinion of the people. Is
there here any contradiction? Yes, surely: But the contradiction is
not in P/LATO\; it is in the people, whose religious principles in
general are always composed of the most discordant parts; especially
in an age, when superstition sate so easy and light upon them.[82]

     The same C/ICERO\, who affected, in his own family, to appear a
devout religionist, makes no scruple, in a public court of
judicature, of treating the doctrine of a future state as a
ridiculous fable, to which no body could give any attention.[83]
S/ALLUST\[84] represents C/AESAR\ as speaking the same language in
the open senate.[85]

     But that all these freedoms implied not a total and universal
infidelity and scepticism amongst the people, is too apparent to be
denied. Though some parts of the national religion hung loose upon
the minds of men, other parts adhered more closely to them: And it
was the chief business of the sceptical philosophers to show, that
there was no more foundation for one than for the other. This is the
artifice of C/OTTA\ in the dialogues concerning the <nature of the
gods>. He refutes the whole system of mythology by leading the
orthodox gradually, from the more momentous stories, which were
believed, to the more frivolous, which every one ridiculed: From the
gods to the goddesses; from the goddesses to the nymphs; from the
nymphs to the fawns and satyrs. His master, C/ARNEADES\, had
employed the same method of reasoning.[86]

     Upon the whole, the greatest and most observable differences
between a <traditional, mythological> religion, and a <systematical,
scholastic> one, are two: The former is often more reasonable, as
consisting only of a multitude of stories, which, however
groundless, imply no express absurdity and demonstrative
contradiction; and sits also so easy and light on men's mind, that,
though it may be as universally received, it happily makes no such
deep impression on the affections and understanding.

     S/ECT\. XIII. <Impious conceptions of the divine nature in

                                  

                 popular religions of both kinds>.

                                  

     The primary religion of mankind arises chiefly from an anxious
fear of future events; and what ideas will naturally be entertained
of invisible, unknown powers, while men lie under dismal
apprehensions of any kind, may easily be conceived. Every image of
vengeance, severity, cruelty, and malice must occur, and must
augment the ghastliness and horror, which oppresses the amazed
religionist. A panic having once seized the mind, the active fancy
still farther multiplies the objects of terror; while that profound
darkness, or, what is worse, that glimmering light, with which we
are environed, represents the spectres of divinity under the most
dreadful appearances imaginable. And no idea of perverse wickedness
can be framed, which those terrified devotees do not readily,
without scruple, apply to their deity.

     This appears the natural state of religion, when surveyed in
one light. But if we consider, on the other hand, that spirit of
praise and eulogy, which necessarily has place in all religions, and
which is the consequence of these very terrors, we must expect a
quite contrary system of theology to prevail. Every virtue, every
excellence, must be ascribed to the divinity, and no exaggeration
will be deemed sufficient to reach those perfections, with which he
is endowed. Whatever strains of panegyric can be invented, are
immediately embrace, without consulting any arguments or phaenomena:
It is esteemed a sufficient confirmation of them, that they give us
more magnificent ideas of the divine objects of our worship and
adoration.

     Here therefore is a kind of contradiction between the different
principles of human nature, which enter into religion. Our natural
terrors present the notion of a devilish and malicious deity: Our
propensity to adulation leads us to acknowledge an excellent and
divine. And the influence of these opposite principles are various,
according to the different situation of the human understanding.

     In very barbarous and ignorant nations, such as the A/FRICANS\
and I/NDIANS\, nay even the J/APONESE\, who can form no extensive
ideas of power and knowledge, worship may be paid to a being, whom
they confess to be wicked and detestable; though they may be
cautious, perhaps, of pronouncing this judgment of him in public, or
in his temple, where he may be supposed to hear their reproaches.

     Such rude, imperfect ideas of the Divinity adhere long to all
idolaters; and it may safely be affirmed, that the G/REEKS\
themselves never got entirely rid of them. It is remarked by
X/ENOPHON\,[87] in praise of S/OCRATES\, that this philosopher
assented not to the vulgar opinion, which supposed the gods to know
some things, and be ignorant of others: He maintained, that they
knew every thing; what was done, said, or even thought. But as this
was a strain of philosophy[88] much above the conception of his
countrymen, we need not be surprised, if very frankly, in their
books and conversation, they blamed the deities, whom they
worshipped in their temples. It is observable, that H/ERODOTUS\ in
particular scruples not, in many passages, to ascribe <envy> to the
gods; a sentiment, of all others, the most suitable to a mean and
devilish nature. The pagan hymns, however, sung in public worship,
contained nothing but epithets of praise; even while the actions
ascribed to the gods were the most barbarous and detestable. When
T/IMOTHEUS\, the poet, recited a hymn to D/IANA\, in which he
enumerated, with the greatest eulogies, all the actions and
attributes of that cruel, capricious goddess: <May your daughter>,
said one present, <become such as the deity whom you celebrate>.[89]

     But as men farther exalt their idea of their divinity; it is
their notion of his power and knowledge only, not of his goodness,
which is improved. On the contrary, in proportion to the supposed
extent of his science and authority, their terrors naturally
augment; while they believe, that no secrecy can conceal them from
his scrutiny, and that even the inmost recesses of their breast lie
open before him. They must then be careful not to form expressly any
sentiment of blame and disapprobation. All must be applause,
ravishment, extacy. And while their gloomy apprehensions make them
ascribe to him measures of conduct, which, in human creatures, would
be highly blamed, they must still affect to praise and admire that
conduct in the object of their devotional addresses. Thus it may
safely be affirmed, that popular religions are really, in the
conception of their more vulgar votaries, a species of daemonism;
and the higher the deity is exalted in power and knowledge, the
lower of course is he depressed in goodness and benevolence;
whatever epithets of praise may be bestowed on him by his amazed
adorers. Among idolaters, the words may be false, and belie the
secret opinion: But among more exalted religionists, the opinion
itself contracts a kind of falsehood, and belies the inward
sentiment. The heart secretly defects such measures of cruel and
implacable vengeance; but the judgment dares not but pronounce them
perfect and adorable. And the additional misery of this inward
struggle aggravates all the other terrors, by which these unhappy
victims to superstition are for ever haunted.

     L/UCIAN\[90] observes that a young man, who reads the history
of the gods in H/OMER\ or H/ESIOD\, and finds their factions, wars,
injustice, incest, adultery, and other immoralities so highly
celebrated, is much surprised afterwards, when he comes into the
world, to observe that punishments are by law inflicted on the same
actions, which he had been taught to ascribe to superior beings. The
contradiction is still perhaps stronger between the representations
given us by some later religions and our natural ideas of
generosity, lenity, impartiality, and justice; and in proportion to
the multiplied terrors of these religions, the barbarous conceptions
of the divinity are multiplied upon us.[91] Nothing can preserve
untainted the genuine principles of morals in our judgment of human
conduct, but the absolute necessity of these principles to the
existence of society. If common conception can indulge princes in a
system of ethics, somewhat different from that which should regulate
private persons; how much more those superior beings, whose
attributes, views, and nature are so totally unknown to us? <Sunt
superis sua jura>.[92] The gods have maxims of justice peculiar to
themselves.

                                  

                                  

   S/ECT\. XIV. <Bad influence of popular religions on morality>.

                                  

     Here I cannot forbear observing a fact, which may be worth the
attention of such as make human nature the object of their enquiry.
It is certain, that, in every religion, however sublime the verbal
definition which it gives of its divinity, many of the votaries,
perhaps the greatest number, will still seek the divine favour, not
by virtue and good morals, which alone can be acceptable to a
perfect being, but either by frivolous observances, by intemperate
zeal, by rapturous extasies, or by the belief of mysterious and
absurd opinions. The least part of the <Sadder>, as well as of the
<Pentateuch>, consists in precepts of morality; and we may also be
assured, that that part was always the least observed and regarded.
When the old ROMANS were attacked with a pestilence, they never
ascribed their sufferings to their vices, or dreamed of repentance
and amendment. They never thought, that they were the general
robbers of the world, whose ambition and avarice made desolate the
earth, and reduced opulent nations to want and beggary. They only
created a dictator,[93] in order to drive a nail into a door; and by
that means, they thought that they had sufficiently appeased their
incensed deity.

     In AE/GINA\, one faction forming a conspiracy, barbarously and
treacherously assassinated seven hundred of their fellow- citizens;
and carried their fury so far, that, one miserable fugitive having
fled to the temple, they cut off his hands, by which he clung to the
gates, and carrying him out of holy ground, immediately murdered
him. <By this impiety>, says H/ERODOTUS\,[94] (not by the other many
cruel assassinations) <they offended the gods, and contracted an
inexpiable guilt>.

     Nay, if we should suppose, what never happens, that a popular
religion were found, in which it was expressly declared, that
nothing but morality could gain the divine favour; if an order of
priests were instituted to inculcate this opinion, in daily sermons,
and with all the arts of persuasion; yet so inveterate are the
people's prejudices, that, for want of some other superstition, they
would make the very attendance on these sermons the essentials of
religion, rather than place them in virtue and good morals. The
sublime prologue of Z/ALEUCUS'S\ laws[95] inspired not the
L/OCRIANS\, so far as we can learn, with any sounder notions of the
measures of acceptance with the deity, than were familiar to the
other G/REEKS\.

     This observation, then, holds universally: But still one may be
at some loss to account for it. It is sufficient to observe, that
the people, every where, degrade their deities into a similitude
with themselves, and consider them merely as a species of human
creatures, somewhat more potent and intelligent. This will not
remove the difficulty. For there is no man so stupid, as that,
judging by his natural reason, he would not esteem virtue and
honesty the most valuable qualities, which any person could possess.
Why not ascribe the same sentiment to his deity? Why not make all
religion, or the chief part of it, to consist in these attainments?

     Nor is it satisfactory to say, that the practice of morality is
more difficult than that of superstition; and is therefore rejected.
For, not to mention the excessive pennances of the <Brachmans> and
<Talapoins>; it is certain, that the <Rhamadan> of the T/URKS\,
during which the poor wretches, for many days, often in the hottest
months of the year, and in some of the hottest climates of the
world, remain without eating or drinking from the rising to the
setting sun; this <Rhamadan>, I say, must be more severe than the
practice of any moral duty, even to the most vicious and depraved of
mankind. The four lents of the M/USCOVITES\, and the austerities of
some <Roman Catholics>, appear more disagreeable than meekness and
benevolence. In short, all virtue, when men are reconciled to it by
ever so little practice, is agreeable: All superstition is for ever
odious and burthensome.

     Perhaps, the following account may be received as a true
solution of the difficulty. The duties, which a man performs as a
friend or parent, seem merely owing to his benefactor or children;
nor can he be wanting to these duties, without breaking through all
the ties of nature and morality. A strong inclination may prompt him
to the performance: A sentiment of order and moral obligation joins
its force to these natural ties: And the whole man, if truly
virtuous, is drawn to his duty, without any effort or endeavour.
Even with regard to the virtues, which are more austere, and more
founded on reflection, such as public spirit, filial duty,
temperance, or integrity; the moral obligation, in our apprehension,
removes all pretension to religious merit; and the virtuous conduct
is deemed no more than what we owe to society and to ourselves. In
all this, a superstitious man finds nothing, which he has properly
performed for the sake of this deity, or which can peculiarly
recommend him to the divine favour and protection. He considers not,
that the most genuine method of serving the divinity is by promoting
the happiness of his creatures. He still looks out for some more
immediate service of the supreme Being, in order to allay those
terrors, with which he is haunted. And any practice, recommended to
him, which either serves to no purpose in life, or offers the
strongest violence to his natural inclinations; that practice he
will the more readily embrace, on account of those very
circumstances, which should make him absolutely reject it. It seems
the more purely religious, because it proceeds from no mixture of
any other motive or consideration. And if, for its sake, he
sacrifices much of his ease and quiet, his claim of merit appear
still to rise upon him, in proportion to the zeal and devotion which
he discovers. In restoring a loan, or paying a debt, his divinity is
nowise beholden to him; because these acts of justice are what he
was bound to perform, and what many would have performed, were there
no god in the universe. But if he fast a day, or give himself a
sound whipping; this has a direct reference, in his opinion, to the
service of God. No other motive could engage him to such
austerities. By these distinguished marks of devotion, he has now
acquired the divine favour; and may expect, in recompence,
protection and safety in this world, and eternal happiness in the
next.

     Hence the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances,
compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion: Hence, it is
justly regarded as unsafe to draw any certain inference in favour of
a man's morals from the fervour or strictness of his religious
exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere. Nay, it has
been observed, that enormities of the blackest dye have been rather
apt to produce superstitious terrors, and encrease the religious
passion. B/OMILCAR\, having formed a conspiracy for assassinating at
once the whole senate of C/ARTHAGE\, and invading the liberties of
his country, lost the opportunity, from a continual regard to omens
and prophecies. <Those who undertake the most criminal and most
dangerous enterprizes are commonly the most superstitious>; as an
ancient historian[96] remarks on this occasion. Their devotion and
spiritual faith rise with their fears. C/ATILINE\ was not contented
with the established deities, and received rites of the national
religion: His anxious terrors made him seek new inventions of this
kind;[97] which he never probably had dreamed of, had he remained a
good citizen, and obedient to the laws of his country.

     To which we may add, that, after the commission of crimes,
there arise remorses and secret horrors, which give no rest to the
mind, but make it have recourse to religious rites and ceremonies,
as expiations of its offences. Whatever weakens or disorders the
internal frame promotes the interests of superstition: And nothing
is more destructive to them than a manly, steady virtue, which
either preserves us from disastrous, melancholy accidents, or
teaches us to bear them. During such calm sunshine of the mind,
these spectres of false divinity never make their appearance. On the
other hand, while we abandon ourselves to the natural undisciplined
suggestions of our timid and anxious hearts, every kind of barbarity
is ascribed to the supreme Being, from the terrors with which we are
agitated; and every kind of caprice, from the methods which we
embrace in order to appease him. <Barbarity, caprice>; these
qualities, however nominally disguised, we may universally observe,
form the ruling character of the deity in popular religions. Even
priests, instead of correcting these depraved ideas of mankind, have
often been found ready to foster and encourage them. The more
tremendous the divinity is represented, the more tame and submissive
do men become to his ministers: And the more unaccountable the
measures of acceptance required by him, the more necessary does it
become to abandon our natural reason, and yield to their ghostly
guidance and direction. Thus it may be allowed, that the artifices
of men aggravate our natural infirmities and follies of this kind,
but never originally beget them. Their root strikes deeper into the
mind, and springs from the essential and universal properties of
human nature.

                  S/ECT\. XV. <General Corollary>.

                                  

     Though the stupidity of men, barbarous and uninstructed, be so
great, that they may not see a sovereign author in the more obvious
works of nature, to which they are so much familiarized; yet it
scarcely seems possible, that any one of good understanding should
reject that idea, when once it is suggested to him. A purpose, an
intention, a design is evident in every thing; and when our
comprehension is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of
this visible system, we must adopt, with the strongest conviction,
the idea of some intelligent cause or author. The uniform maxims
too, which prevail throughout the whole frame of the universe,
naturally, if not necessarily, lead us to conceive this intelligence
as single and undivided, where the prejudices of education oppose
not so reasonable a theory. Even the contrarieties of nature, by
discovering themselves every where, become proofs of some consistent
plan, and establish one single purpose or intention, however in
explicable and incomprehensible.

     Good and ill are universally intermingled and confounded;
happiness and misery, wisdom and folly, virtue and vice. Nothing is
pure and entirely of a piece. All advantages are attended with
disadvantage. An universal compensation prevails in all conditions
of being and existence. And it is not possible for us, by our most
chimerical wishes, to form the idea of a station or situation
altogether desirable. The draughts of life, according to the poet's
fiction, are always mixed from the vessels on each hand of JUPITER:
Or if any cup be presented altogether pure, it is drawn only, as the
same poet tells us, from the left-handed vessel.

     The more exquisite any good is, of which a small specimen is
afforded us, the sharper is the evil, allied to it; and few
exceptions are found to this uniform law of nature. The most
sprightly wit borders on madness; the highest effusions of joy
produce the deepest melancholy; the most ravishing pleasures are
attended with the most cruel lassitude and disgust; the most
flattering hopes make way for the severest disappointments. And, in
general, no course of life has such safety (for happiness is not to
be dreamed of) as the temperate and moderate, which maintains, as
far as possible, a mediocrity, and a kind of insensibility, in every
thing.

     As the good, the great, the sublime, the ravishing are found
eminently in the genuine principles of theism; it may be expected,
from the analogy of nature, that the base, the absurd, the mean, the
terrifying will be equally discovered in religious fictions and
chimeras.

     The universal propensity to believe in invisible, intelligent
power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general
attendant of human nature, may be considered as a kind of mark or
stamp, which the divine workman has set upon his work; and nothing
surely can more dignify mankind, than to be thus selected from all
other parts of the creation, and to bear the image or impression of
the universal Creator. But consult this image, as it appears in the
popular religions of the world. How is the deity disfigured in our
representations of him! What caprice, absurdity, and immorality are
attributed to him! How much is he degraded even below the character,
which we should naturally, in common life, ascribe to a man of sense
and virtue!

     What a noble privilege is it of human reason to attain the
knowledge of the supreme Being; and, from the visible works of
nature, be enabled to infer so sublime a principle as its supreme
Creator? But turn the reverse of the medal. Survey most nations and
most ages. Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact,
prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they
are any thing but sick men's dreams: Or perhaps will regard them
more as the playsome whimsies of monkies in human shape, than the
serious, positive, dogmatical asseverations of a being, who
dignifies himself with the name of rational.

     Hear the verbal protestations of all men: Nothing so certain as
their religious tenets. Examine their lives: You will scarcely think
that they repose the smallest confidence in them.

     The greatest and truest zeal gives us no security against
hypocrisy: The most open impiety is attended with a secret dread and
compunction.

     No theological absurdities so glaring that they have not,
sometimes, been embraced by men of the greatest and most cultivated
understanding. No religious precepts so rigorous that they have not
been adopted by the most voluptuous and most abandoned of men.

     <Ignorance is the mother of Devotion>: A maxim that is
proverbial, and confirmed by general experience. Look out for a
people, entirely destitute of religion: If you find, them at all, be
assured, that they are but few degrees removed from brutes.

     What so pure as some of the morals, included in some
theological system? What so corrupt as some of the practices, to
which these systems give rise?

     The comfortable views, exhibited by the belief or futurity, are
ravishing and delightful. But how quickly vanish on the appearance
of its terrors, which keep a more firm and durable possession of the
human mind?

     The whole is a riddle, an aenigma, an inexplicable mystery.
Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of
our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the
frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of
opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld;
did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of
superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves,
during their fury and contention, happily make our escape, into the
calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

                               NOTES

                                  

     [1][COPYRIGHT: (c) 1995, James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu), all
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citation: <The Writings of David Hume>, ed. James Fieser (Internet
Release, 1995).

     EDITORIAL CONVENTIONS: letters between slashes (e.g., H/UME\)
designate small capitalization. Letters within angled brackets
(e.g., <Hume>) designate italics. Note references are contained
within square brackets (e.g., [1]). Original pagination is contained
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     [2]"F/RAGILIS\ et laboriosa mortalitas in partes ista digessit,
infirmitatis suae memor, ut portionibus quisquis coleret, quo maxime
indigeret." ['Frail, toiling mortality, remembering its own
weakness, has divided such deities into groups, so as to worship in
sections, each the deity he is most in need of.'] Pliny, <Natural
History>, Bk. II, Ch. 5, Sect. 15. So early as H/ESIOD'S\ time there
were 30,000 deities. <Works and Days>, Bk. I, Line 250. But the task
to be performed by these seems still too great for their number. The
provinces of the deities were so subdivided, that there was even a
God of <Sneezing>. See A/RISTOTLE\, <Problems>, Bk. 33, Ch. 7 and 9.
The province of copulation, suitably to the importance and dignity
of it, was divided among several deities.

     [3]<Roman Antiquities>, Bk. VIII, Ch. 2, Sect. 2.

     [4]The following lines of E/URIPIDES\ are so much to the
present purpose, that I cannot forbear quoting them:
[Greek Quote]

     H/UCUBA\, Lines 956 ff.
"There is nothing secure in the world; no glory, no prosperity. The
gods toss all life into confusion; mix every thing with its reverse;
that all of us, from our ignorance and uncertainty, may pay them the
more worship and reverence."

     [5]Diodorus Siculus, <Library of History>, Bk. III, Ch. 47,
Sect. 1.

     [6]<Geography>, Bk. VII, Ch. 4.

     [7]Pere* le Comte, <Memoires and Observations... made in a late
Journey Through the Empire of China>.

     [8]Jean-Francois Regnard, <Voiage* de Lapponie>.

     [9]Diodorus Siculus, <Library of History>, Bk. I, Ch. 86, Sect.
3. Lucian, "On Sacrifices," Sect. 14. Ovid alludes to the same
tradition, <Metamorphoses>, Bk. V, Line 321 ff. So also Manilius,
<Astronomica>, Bk. IV, Lines 580 and 800.

     [10]Herodotus, <History>, Bk. I, Ch. 172.

     [11]Caesar, <Gallic War>, Bk. IV, Sect. 7.

     [12]Homer, <Illiad>, Bk. V, Line 382.

     [13]<On the Sublime>, Ch. IX, Sect. 7.

     [14]Pere Brumoy, <Theatre* des Grecs>, Bernard de Fontenelle,
<Histoire des Oracles>.

     [15]Arnobius, <Seven Books Against the Heathen>, Bk. VII, Ch.
33.

     [16]<Constitution of the Lacedaemonians>, Ch. 13, Sect. 2-5.

     [17]<Moral Letters>, letter 41.

     [18]Quintus Curtius Rufus, <History of Alexander>, Bk. IV, Ch.
3, Sect. 22. Diodorus Siculus, <Library of History>, Bk. XVII, Ch.
41, Sect. 8.

     [19]Suetonius, <Lives of the Caesars>, Bk. II, "The Deified
Augustus," Ch. 5.

     [20]Suetonius, <Lives of the Caesars>, Bk. IV, "Gaius
Caligula," Ch. 5.

     [21]Herodotus, <History>, Bk. II, Ch. 53. Lucian, "Zeus
Catechized," Sect. 1; "On Funerals," Sect. 2.

     [22][Greek quote]
['How from one seed spring gods and mortal men.'] Hesiod, <Works and
Days>, Line 108.

     [23]Hesiod, <Theogony>, Line 570.

     [24]<Metamorphoses>, Bk. I, Line 32.

     [25]<Library of History>, Bk. I, Ch. 6-7.

     [26]Ibid., Bk. III, Ch. 20.

     [27]The same author, who can thus account for the origin of the
world without a Deity, esteems it impious to explain from physical
causes, the common accidents of life, earthquakes, inundations, and
tempests: and devoutly ascribes these to the anger of J/UPITER\ or
N/EPTUNE\. A plain proof, whence he derived his ideas of religion.
Diodorus Siculus, <Library of History>, Bk. XV, Ch. 48.

     [28]It will be easy to give a reason, why T/HALES\,
A/NAXIMANDER\, and those early philosophers, who really were
atheists, might be very orthodox in the pagan creed; and why
A/NAXAGORAS\ and S/OCRATES\, though real theists, must naturally, in
ancient times, be esteemed impious. The blind, unguided powers of
nature, if they could produce men, might also produce such beings as
J/UPITER\ and N/EPTUNE\, who being the most powerful, intelligent
existences in the world, would be proper objects of worship. But
where a supreme intelligence, the first cause of all, is admitted,
these capricious beings, if they exist at all, must appear very
subordinate and dependent, and consequently be excluded from the
rank of deities. P/LATO\ (<Laws>, Bk. X, 886) assigns this reason
for the imputation thrown on A/NAXAGORAS\, namely his denying the
divinity of the stars, planets, and other created objects.

     [29]<Against the Physicists>, Bk. II, Sect. 18-19.

     [30]Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <Roman Antiquities>, Bk. VI,
Ch. 54.

     [31]Pliny, <Letters>, Bk. VI, Letter 20, Sect. 14-15.

     [32]Hesiod, <Theogony>, Line 933 ff.

     [33]Ibid. Plutarch, <Lives>, "Pelopidas," Ch. 19.

     [34]Homer, <Illiad>, Bk. XIV, Line 264 ff.

     [35]Herodian, <History of the Empire>, Bk. V, Ch. 3, Sect. 3-5.
J/UPITER\ A/MMON\ is represented by C/URTIUS\ as a deity of the same
kind (<History of Alexander>, Bk. IV, Ch. 7, Sect. 23). The
A/RABIANS\ and P/ERSINUNTIANS\ adored also shapeless unformed stones
as their deity (Arnobius, <Seven Books Against the Heathen>, Bk.
VI., Ch. 11). So much did their folly exceed that of the
E/GYPTIANS\.

     [36]Diogenes Laertius, <Lives of Eminent Philosophers>, Bk. II,
Ch. 11, "Stilpo," Sect. 116.

     [37]See C/AESAR\ of the religion of the G/AULS\, <The Gallic
War>, Bk. VI, Sect. 17.

     [38]<Germany>, Ch. 40.

     [39][This sentence is as it originally appeared in Hume's <Five
Dissertations> which was printed but never distributed because of
political pressures. For prudential reasons Hume rephrased this
sentence which, in the first three distributed editions, reads,
"Thus, notwithstanding the sublime ideas suggested by <Moses> and
the inspired writers, many vulgar <Jews> seem still to have
conceived the supreme Being as a mere topical deity or national
protector." In the six succeeding editions of the Natural History
the sentence appears again changed: "Thus, the God of A/BRAHAM\,
I/SAAC\, and J/ACOB\, became the supreme deity of J/EHOVAH\ of the
J/EWS\."]

     [40]Compte Henri de Boulainvilliers, <Abrege* Chronologique de
l'histore de France>, 499.

     [41][The preceding portion of this sentence (beginning with
"sometimes degraded...") is as it originally appeared in <Five
Dissertations>. All nine distributed editions of the <Natural
History> read in its place, "sometimes degraded him nearly to a
level with human creatures in his powers and faculties."]

     [42]Thomas Hyde, <Historia religionis veterum Persarum.>

     [43]Called the Scapulaire.

     [44]Herodotus, <History>, Bk. IV, Ch. 95, 96.

     [45]Ibid., Ch. 94.

     [46][The word "from" appears here in the first seven editions
of the <Natural History>.]

     [47]V/ERRIUS\ F/LACCUS\, cited by P/LINY\ (<Natural History>,
Bk. XXVIII, Ch. 4, Sect. 18-19), affirmed, that it was usual for the
R/OMANS\, before they laid siege to any town, to invocate the
tutelar deity of the place, and by promising him greater honours
than those he at present enjoyed, bribe him to betray his old
friends and votaries. The name of the tutelar deity of ROME was for
this reason kept a most religious mystery; lest the enemies of the
republic should be able, in the same manner, to draw him over to
their service. For without the name, they thought, nothing of that
kind could be practised. P/LINY\ says, that the common form of
invocation was preserved to his time in the ritual of the pontifs.
And M/ACROBIUS\ has transmitted a copy of it from the secret things
of S/AMMONICUS\ S/ERENUS\.

     [48]Xenophon, <Memorabilia>, Bk. I, Ch. 3, Sect. 1.

     [49]Plutarch, <Moralia>, Bk. V, "Isis and Osiris," Ch. 72.

     [50]Herodotus, <History>, Bk. II, Ch. 180.

     [51]Thomas Hyde, <Historia religionis veterum Persarum.>

     [52]Arrian, <Anabasis of Alexander>, Bk. III, Ch. 16, Sect. 3-
9, and Bk. VII, Ch. 17.

     [53]Ibid., Bk. III, Ch. 16, Sect. 5.

     [54]Suetonius, <Lives of the Caesars>, Bk. II, "The Deified
Augustus," Ch. 93.

     [55]Corruptio optimi pessima.

     [56]M/OST\ nations have fallen into this guilt of human
sacrifices; though, perhaps, that impious superstition has never
prevailed very much in any civilized nation, unless we except the
C/ARTHAGINIANS\. For the T/YRIANS\ soon abolished it. A sacrifice is
conceived as a present; and any present is delivered to their deity
by destroying it and rendering it useless to men; by burning what is
solid, pouring out the liquid, and killing the animate. For want of
a better way of doing him service, we do ourselves an injury; and
fancy that we thereby express, at least, the heartiness of our good-
will and adoration. Thus our mercenary devotion deceives ourselves,
and imagines it deceives the deity.

     [57]Strabo, <Geography>, Bk. V, Ch. 3, Sect. 12; Suetonius,
<Lives of the Caesars>, Bk. IV, "Gaius Caligula," Ch. 35, Sect. 3.

     [58]Arrian, <Anabasis of Alexander>, Bk. IV, Ch. 28, Sect. 4;
Bk. V, Ch. 26, Sect. 5.

     [59]Thucydides, <Peloponnesian War>, Bk. V, Ch. 11.

     [60]Plutarch, <Moralia>, Bk. III, "Sayings of Kings and
Commanders," Brasidas, Sect. 190b.

     [61]Pierre Bayle, <Dictionary Historical and Critical>,
(London: 1734-41), article on Bellarmine.

     [62]It is strange that the E/GYPTIAN\ religion, though so
absurd, should yet have borne so great a resemblance to the
J/EWISH\, that ancient writers even of the greatest genius were not
able to observe any difference between them. For it is remarkable
that both T/ACITUS\, and S/UETONIUS\, when they mention that decree
of the senate, under T/IBERIUS\, by which the E/GYPTIAN\ and
J/EWISH\ proselytes were banished from R/OME\, expressly treat these
religions as the same; and it appears, that even the decree itself
was founded on that supposition. "Actum et de sacris AE/GYPTIIS\,
J/UDAICISQUE\ pellendis; factumque patrum consultum, ut quatuor
millia libertini generis <ea superstitione> infecta, quis idonea
aetas, in insulam Sardiniam veherentur, coercendis illic
latrociniis; et si ob gravitatem coeli interissent, <vile damnum>:
Ceteri cederent I/TALIA\, nisi certam ante diem profanos ritus
exuissent." ['Another debate dealt with the proscription of the
Egyptian and Jewish rites, and a senatorial edict directed that four
thousand descendants of enfranchised slaves, tainted with that
superstition and suitable in point of age, were to be shipped to
Sardinia and there employed in suppressing brigandage: if they
succumbed to the pestilential climate, it was a cheap loss. The rest
had orders to leave Italy, unless they had renounced their impious
ceremonial by a given date.'] Tacitus, <Annals>, Bk. II, Ch. 85.
"Externas caeremonias, AE/GYPTIOS\, J/UDAICOSQUE\ ritus compescuit;
coactus qui <superstitione ea> tenebantur, religiosas vestes cum
instrumento omni comburere, etc." ['He abolished foreign cults,
especially the Egyptian and the Jewish rites, compelling all who
were addicted to such superstitions to burn their religious
vestments and all their paraphernalia.'] Suetonius, <Lives of the
Caesars>, Bk. III, "Tiberius," Ch. 36. These wise heathens,
observing something in the general air, and genius, and spirit of
the two religions to be the same, esteemed the differences of their
dogmas too frivolous to deserve any attention.

     [63]Diodorus Siculus, <Library of History>, Bk. I, Ch. 83,
Sect. 8-9.

     [64]When L/OUIS\ the XIVth took on himself the protection of
the Jesuits' College of C/LERMONT\, the society ordered the king's
arms to be put up over the gate, and took down the cross, in order
to make way for it: Which gave occasion to the following epigram:

     Sustulit hinc Christi, posuitque insignia Regis:

     Impia gens, alium nescit habere Deum.

     [65]<On the Nature of the Gods>, Bk. I, Ch. 29, Sect. 82.

     [66]Cicero, <Tusculan Disputations>, Bk. V, Ch. 27, Sect. 78.

     [67]Augustine, <City of God>, Bk. VII, Ch. 17.

     [68]Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, <A Voyage Home to Gaul>, Bk.
I, Lines 387-398.

     [69]Aelius Spartianus, "Life of Hadrian," Bk. XIV, Sect. 2.

     [70]Cicero, <Letters to his Friends>, Bk. XIV, Letter 7, Sect.
1.

     [71]Cicero, "On Divination," Bk. II, Ch. 24.

     [72]Suetonius, <Lives of the Caesars>, Bk. II, "The Deified
Augustus," Ch. 90-92. Pliny, <Natural History>, Bk. II, Ch. 5, Sect.
24-25.

     [73]Witness this remarkable passage of TACITUS: "Praeter
multiplices rerum humanarum casus, coelo terraque prodigia, et
fulminum monitus et futurorum praesagia, laeta, tristia, ambigua,
manifesta. Nec enim unquam atrocioribus populi Romani cladibus,
magique justis Judiciis approbatum est, non esse curae Diis
securitatem nostram, esse ultionem." <History>, Bk. I, Ch. 3.
A/UGUSTUS'S\ quarrel with N/EPTUNE\ is an instance of the same kind.
Had not the emperor believed N/EPTUNE\ to be a real being, and to
have dominion over the sea, where had been the foundation of his
anger? And if he believed it, what madness to provoke still farther
that deity? The same observation may be made upon Q/UINTILIAN'S\
exclamation, on account of the death of his children. <Institutio
Oratoria>, Bk. VI, Preface, Sect. 10.

     [74]"The Lover of Lies," Sect. 3.

     [75]<From the Founding of the City>, Bk. X, Ch. 40.

     [76]Cicero, "On Divination," Bk. I, Ch. 3, 7.

     [77]Marcus Aurelius Antonius, <Meditations>, Bk. I, Ch. 17,
Sect. 8.

     [78]<Enchiridion>, Sect. 18.

     [79]The Stoics, I own, were not quite orthodox in the
established religion; but one may see, from these instances, that
they went a great way: And the people undoubtedly went every length.

     [80]Plato, <Euthyphro>, 5d-6b.

     [81]Plato, <Phaedo>, 80d-e.

     [82]X/ENOPHON'S\ conduct, as related by himself, is, at once,
an incontestable proof of the general credulity of mankind in those
ages, and the incoherencies, in all ages, of men's opinions in
religious matters. That great captain and philosopher, the disciple
of S/OCRATES\, and one who has delivered some of the most refined
sentiments with regard to a deity, gave all the following marks of
vulgar, pagan superstition. By S/OCRATES'S\ advice, he consulted the
oracle of D/ELPHI\, before he would engage in the expedition of
C/YRUS\ (<Anabasis>, Bk. III, Ch. I, Sect. 5). Sees a dream the
night after the generals were seized; which he pays great regard to,
but thinks ambiguous (ibid., Sect. 11-14). He and the whole army
regard sneezing as a very lucky omen (ibid., Ch. 2, Sect. 9). Has
another dream, when he comes to the river C/ENTRITES\, which his
fellow-general, C/HIROSOPHUS\, also pays great regard to (ibid., Bk.
IV, Ch. 3, Sect. 9). The G/REEKS\, suffering from a cold north wind,
sacrifice to it; and the historian observes, that it immediately
abated (ibid., Ch. 5, Sect. 3, 4). X/ENOPHON\ consults the
sacrifices in secret, before he would form any resolution with
himself about settling a colony (ibid., Bk. V, Ch. 6, Sect. 17). He
was himself a very skilful augur (ibid., Sect. 29). Is determined by
the victims to refuse the sole command of the army which was offered
him (ibid., Bk. VI, Ch. 1, Sect. 22-24). C/LEANDER\, the S/PARTAN\,
though very desirous of it, refuses it for the same reason (ibid.,
Ch. 6, Sect. 36). X/ENOPHON\ mentions an old dream with the
interpretation given him, when he first joined C/YRUS\ (ibid., Ch.
1, Sect. 22-23). Mentions also the place of H/ERCULES'S\ descent
into hell as believing it, and says the marks of it are still
remaining (ibid., Ch. 2, Sect. 2). Had almost starved the army,
rather than lead them to the field against the auspices (ibid., Ch.
4, Sect. 12-23). His friend, E/UCLIDES\, the augur, would not
believe that he had brought no money from the expedition; till he
(E/UCLIDES\) sacrificed, and then he saw the matter clearly in the
Exta (ibid., Bk. 7, Ch. 8, Sect. 1-3). The same philosopher,
proposing a project of mines for the encrease of the A/THENIAN\
revenues, advises them first to consult the oracle ("Ways and
Means," Ch. 6, Sect. 2). That all this devotion was not a farce, in
order to serve a political purpose, appears both from the facts
themselves, and from the genius of that age, when little or nothing
could be gained by hypocrisy. Besides, X/ENOPHON\, as appears from
his Memorabilia, was a kind of heretic in those times, which no
political devotee ever is. It is for the same reason, I maintain,
that N/EWTON\, L/OCKE\, C/LARKE\, etc. being <Arians> or
<Socinians>, were very sincere in the creed they professed: And I
always oppose this argument to some libertines, who will needs have
it, that it was impossible but that these philosophers must have
been hypocrites.

     [83]Cicero, "In Defense of Cluentius," Ch. 61, Sect. 171.

     [84]<The War with Catiline>, Ch. 51, Sect. 16-20.

     [85]C/ICERO\ (<Tusculan Disputations>, Bk. I, Ch. 5-6) and
S/ENECA\ (Letter 24), as also Juvenal (Satire 2, Line 149 ff.),
maintain that there is no boy or old woman so ridiculous as to
believe the poets in their accounts of a future state. Why then does
L/UCRETIUS\ so highly exalt his master for freeing us from these
terrors? Perhaps the generality of mankind were then in the
disposition of C/EPHALUS\ in P/LATO\ (<Republic>, Bk. I, 330d-e) who
while he was young and healthful could ridicule these stories; but
as soon as he became old and infirm, began to entertain
apprehensions of their truth. This we may observe not to be unusual
even at present.

     [86]Sextus Empiricus, <Against the Physicists>, Bk. I, Sect.
182-90.

     [87]Xenophon, <Memorabilia>, Bk. I, Ch. 1, Sect. 19.

     [88]It was considered among the ancients, as a very
extraordinary, philosophical paradox, that the presence of the gods
was not confined to the heavens, but were extended every where; as
we learn from L/UCIAN\ ("Hirmotimus," Sect. 81).

     [89]Plutarch, <Moralia>, Bk. II, "Superstition," Ch. 10, 170a-
b.

     [90]Lucian, "Menippus," Sect. 3.

     [91]B/ACCHUS\, a divine being, is represented by the heathen
mythology as the inventor of dancing and the theatre. Plays were
anciently even a part of public worship on the most solemn
occasions, and often employed in times of pestilence, to appease the
offended deities. But they have been zealously proscribed by the
godly in later ages; and the playhouse, according to a learned
divine, is the porch of hell.

     But in order to show more evidently, that it is possible for a
religion to represent the divinity in still a more immoral and
unamiable light than he was pictured by the ancients, we shall cite
a long passage from an author of taste and imagination, who was
surely no enemy to Christianity. It is the Chevalier R/AMSAY\, a
writer, who had so laudable an inclination to be orthodox, that his
reason never found any difficulty, even in the doctrines which free-
thinkers scruple the most, the trinity, incarnation, and
satisfaction: His humanity alone, of which he seems to have had a
great stock, rebelled against the doctrines of eternal reprobation
and predestination. He expresses himself thus: "What strange ideas,"
says he,

     would an Indian or a Chinese philosopher have of our holy

     religion, if they judged by the schemes given of it by our

     modern freethinkers, and pharisaical doctors of all sects?

     According to the odious and too <vulgar> system of these

     incredulous scoffers and credulous scribblers, "The God of the

     Jews is a most cruel, unjust, partial, and fantastical being.

     He created, about 6000 years ago, a man and a woman, and placed

     them in a fine garden of A/SIA\, of which there are no remains.

     This garden was furnished with all sorts of trees, fountains,

     and flowers. He allowed them the use of all the fruits of this

     beautiful garden, except one, that was planted in the midst

     thereof, and that had in it a secret virtue of preserving them

     in continual health and vigour of body and mind, of exalting

     their natural powers and making them wise. The devil entered

     into the body of a serpent, and solicited the first woman to

     eat of this forbidden fruit; she engaged her husband to do the

     same. To punish this slight curiosity and natural desire of

     life and knowledge, God not only threw our first parents out of

     paradise, but he condemned all their posterity to temporal

     misery, and the greatest part of them to eternal pains, though

     the souls of these innocent children have no more relation to

     that of A/DAM\ than to those of N/ERO\ and M/AHOMET\; since,

     according to the scholastic drivellers, fabulists, and

     mythologists, all souls are created pure, and infused

     immediately into mortal bodies, so soon as the foetus is

     formed. To accomplish the barbarous, partial decree of

     predestination and reprobation, God abandoned all nations to

     darkness, idolatry, and superstition, without any saving

     knowledge or salutary graces; unless it was one particular

     nation, whom he chose as his peculiar people. This chosen

     nation was, however, the most stupid, ungrateful, rebellious

     and persidious of all nations. After God had thus kept the far

     greater part of all the human species, during near 4000 years,

     in a reprobate state, he changed all of a sudden, and took a

     fancy for other nations beside the J/EWS\. Then he sent his

     only begotten Son to the world, under a human form, to appease

     his wrath, satisfy his vindictive justice, and die for the

     pardon of sin. Very few nations, however, have heard of this

     gospel; and all the rest, though left in invincible ignorance,

     are damned without exception, or any possibility of remission.

     The greatest part of those who have heard of it, have changed

     only some speculative notions about God, and some external

     forms in worship: For, in other respects, the bulk of

     Christians have continued as corrupt as the rest of mankind in

     their morals; yea, so much the more perverse and criminal, that

     their lights were greater. Unless it be a very small select

     number, all other Christians, like the pagans, will be for ever

     damned; the great sacrifice offered up for them will become

     void and of no effect; God will take delight for ever, in their

     torments and blasphemies; and though he can, by one <fiat>

     change their hearts, yet they will remain for ever unconverted

     and unconvertible, because he will be for ever unappeasable and

     irreconcileable. It is true, that all this makes God odious, a

     hater of souls, rather than a lover of them; a cruel,

     vindictive tyrant, an impotent or a wrathful daemon, rather

     than an all-powerful, beneficent father of spirits: Yet all

     this is a mystery. He has secret reasons for his conduct, that

     are impenetrable; and though he appears unjust and barbarous,

     yet we must believe the contrary, because what is injustice,

     crime, cruelty, and the blackest malice in us, is in him

     justice, mercy, and sovereign goodness." Thus the incredulous

     free-thinkers, the judaizing Christians, and the fatalistic

     doctors have disfigured and dishonoured the sublime mysteries

     of our holy faith; thus they have confounded the nature of good

     and evil; transformed the most monstrous passions into divine

     attributes, and surpassed the pagans in blasphemy, by ascribing

     to the eternal nature, as perfections, what makes the most

     horrid crimes amongst men. The grosser pagans contented

     themselves with divinizing lust, incest, and adultery; but the

     predestinarian doctors have divinized cruelty, wrath, fury,

     vengeance, and all the blackest vices.
See the Chevalier R/AMSAY'S\ <Philosophical principles of natural
and revealed religion>, Part II, p. 401.

     The same author asserts, in other places, that the <Arminian>
and <Molinist> schemes serve very little to mend the matter: And
having thus thrown himself out of all received sects of
Christianity, he is obliged to advance a system of his own, which is
a kind of <Origenism>, and supposes the pre-existence of the souls
both of men and beasts, and the eternal salvation and conversion of
all men, beasts, and devils. But this notion, being quite peculiar
to himself, we need not treat of. I thought the opinions of this
ingenious author very curious; but I pretend not to warrant the
justness of them.

     [92]Ovid, <Metamorphoses>, Bk. IX, Line 500.

     [93]Called Dictator clavis figendae causa. Livy, <From the
Founding of the City>, Bk. VII, Ch. 3, Sect. 3.

     [94]Herodotus, <History>, Bk. VI, Ch. 91.

     [95]To be found in Diodorus Siculus, <Library of History>, Bk.
XII, Ch. 20-21.

     [96]Diodorus Siculus, <Library of History>, Bk. XX, Ch. 43.

     [97]Cicero, "First Speech Against Catiline;" Sallust, <The War
with Catiline>, Ch. 22.