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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file. When quoting from this text, please use the following
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., ) designate italics. Note references are contained
within square brackets (e.g., [1]). Original pagination is contained
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Bracketed comments within the end notes are the editor's. This is a
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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 . See A/RISTOTLE\, , 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], 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, , Bk. I, Ch. 172.

     [11]Caesar, , Bk. IV, Sect. 7.

     [12]Homer, , 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, , Bk. II, Ch. 53. Lucian, "Zeus