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