commentators. polite, and amiable: The god of merchandise, especially in early times, as thievish and deceitful. The allegories, supposed in HOMER and other mythologists, I allow, have been often fo ftrained, that men of fense are apt entirely to reject them, and to confider them as the production merely of the fancy and conceit of critics and But that allegory really has place in the heathen mythology is undeniable even on the least reflection. CUPID the fon of VENUS; the Mufes the daughters of Memory; PROMETHEUS, the wife brother, and EPIMETHEUS the foolish; HYGIEIA or the goodefs of health defcended from ESCULAPIUS or the god of phyfic: Who fees not, in these, and in many other inftances, the plain traces of allegory? When a god is supposed to prefide over any paffion, event, or system of actions, it is almost unavoidable to give him a genealogy, attributes, and adventures, fuitable to his fuppofed powers and influence; and to carry on that fimilitude and comparison, which is naturally fo 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 fuccefs. That Fear and Terror are the fons of MARS is juft; but why by VENUS*? That Harmony is the daughter of VENUS is regular; but why by MARS+? That Sleep is the brother of Death is fuitable; but why defcribe him as enamoured of one of the Graces ? And fince the ancient mythologists fall into mistakes so gross and palpable, we have no reason furely to expect fuch refined and long * HESIOD, Theog. 1.935. Id. ibid. & PLUT. in vita PELOP. ILIAD. xiv. 267? fpun fpun allegories, as fome have endeavoured to deduce from their fictions. LUCRETIUS was plainly feduced by the ftrong appearance of allegory, which is obfervable in the pagan fic tions. He firft addreffes himself to VENUS as to that generating power, which animates, renews and beautifies the universe: But is foon betrayed by the mythology into incoherencies, while he prays to that allegorical perfonage to appease the furies of her lover MARS: An idea not drawn from allegory, but from the popular religion, and which LUCRETIUS, as an EPICUrean, could not confiftently admit of. The deities of the vulgar are fo little fuperior to human creatures, that, where men are affected with strong fentiments 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. Moft of the divinities of the ancient world are supposed to have once been men, and to have been beholden for their apotheofis to the admiration and affection of the people. The real hiftory of their adventures, corrupted by tradition, and elevated by the marvellous, became a plentiful fource of fable; especially in paffing through the hands of poets, allegorists, and priests, who fucceffively improved upon the wonder and astonishment of the ignorant multitude. Painters too and sculptors came in for their share of profit in the facred myfteries; and furnishing men with fenfible representations of their divinities, whom they cloathed in human figures, gave great encreafe 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 ganized matter; and rather than be without a sensible object of worship, affixed divinity to fuch ungainly forms. Could any ftatuary of SYRIA, in early times, have formed a juft figure of APOLLO, the conic ftone, HELIOGABALUS, had never become the object of fuch profound adoration, and been received as a representation of the folar deity *. STILPO was banifhed by the council of AREOPAGUS, for affirming that the MINERVA in the citadel was no divinity; but the workmanship of PHIDIAS, the sculp→ tort. What degree of reason must we expect in the religious belief of the vulgar in other nations; when ATHENIANS and AREOPAGITES could entertain fuch 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 mifery, 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 reprefent them as intelligent, voluntary agents, like ourselves; only fomewhat fuperior in power and wisdom. The limited influence of thefe agents, and their great proximity to human weakness, introduce the various diftribution and divifion of their authority; and thereby give rise to allegory. The fame principles naturally deify mortals, fuperior in power, courage, or understanding, and produce hero-worship; together with fabulous hiftory and mythological tradition, * HERODIAN. lib. v. JUPITER AMMON is represented by CURTIUS as a deity of the fame kind, lib. iv. cap. 7. The ARABIANS and PERSI= NUNTIANS adored also shapeless unformed stones as their deity. ARNOB, lib. vi. So much did their folly exceed that of the EGYPTIANS. DIOD. LAERT, lib. ii. in all its wild and unaccountable forms. And as an invifible fpiritual intelligence is an object too refined for vulgar apprehenfion, men naturally affix it to some senfible reprefentation; fuch as either the more confpicuous parts of nature, or the ftatues, 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 affign to their deities, are not extremely different *. The GREEK and ROMAN travellers and conquerors, without much difficulty, found their own deities every where; and faid, This is MERCURY, that VENUS; this MARS, that NEPTUNE; by whatever title the ftrange gods might be denomiated. The goddess HERTHA of our SAXON ancestors feems to be no other, according to TACITUS †, than the Mater Tellus of the ROMANS; and his conjecture was evidently just. SECT. VI. Origin of Theifm from Polytheifm. The doctrine of one fupreme 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 fuccefs to the prevalent force of those invincible reasons, on which it is undoubtedly founded, would fhow himself little acquainted with the ignorance and stupidity of the people, and their incurable prejudices in favour of their particular fuperftitions. Even at this day, and in EUROPE, afk any of the vulgar, why he believes in an omnipotent creator of the world; he will See CESAR of the religion of the GAULS, De bello Gallico, lib. xi. never mention the beauty of final caufes, of which he is wholly ignorant: He will not hold out his hand, and bid you contemplate the fuppleness and variety of joints in his fingers, their bending all one way, the counterpoise which they receive from the thumb, the foftness and fleshy parts of the infide of his hand, with all the other circumftances, which render that member fit for the use, to which it was destined. To thefe he has been long accustomed; and he beholds them with liftleffness and unconcern. He will tell you of the fudden and unexpected death of fuch a one: The fall and bruise of such another: The exceffive drought of this feafon: The cold and rains of another. Thefe he afcribes to the immediate operation of providence: And fuch events, as, with good reafoners, are the chief difficulties in admitting a fupreme intelligence, are with him the fole arguments for it. Many theists, even the most zealous and refined, have denied a particular providence, and have afferted, that the Sovereign mind or first principle of all things, having fixed general laws, by which nature is governed, gives free and uninterrupted courfe to thefe laws, and difturbs not, at every turn, the fettled order of events by particular volitions. From the beautiful connexion, fay they, and rigid obfervance of established rules, we draw the chief argument for theifm; and from the fame principles. are enabled to answer the principal objections against it. But fo little is this understood by the generality of man◄ kind, that, wherever they obferve any one to ascribe all events to natural causes, and to remove the particular interpofition of a deity, they are apt to fufpect him of the groffeft infidelity. A little philofophy, fays lord BACON, makes men atheists: A great deal reconciles them to religion. For men, being taught, by fuperftitious prejudices, to VOL. II. Ff lay |