David Hume TheNaturalHistoryOfReligion

7/29/2019 David Hume TheNaturalHistoryOfReligion

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T H EN A T U R A L H I S T O R Y

OF

RELIGION.BY

D A V I D H U M E .

Witb an Introduction bp JObn Ill. Robertson.


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C O N T E N T S .__c

PAGE.Editors Introduction , . I I . I ITEE NA- HISTOBYF RELIQION .. * . ..Introduction .. .. .. * . .. .. 1Section i. That Polytheism was the Primary Religion of

Men .. .. . I .. ..ii. Origin of Polytheism . .. ..iii. The mme Subject considered .. ..iv. Deities not considered aa Creatorsor Formers of

the World .. .. .. ..Y. V ~ ~ ~ O U Sorms of Polytheism : Allegory, Hero-Worahip ., e . .. ..vi. O r i g i n of TheismromPolytheism . ..vii. Confirmationof this Doctrine .. ..

viii. Flux and Reflux of Polytheism and Theism .ix. Comparison of these Religions with regard to

Persecution and Toleration . a .x. With Regard to CourageorAbasement ..xi. With regard to Reason or Absurdity *.xii. With regard to Doubt orConviction.. e .xiii. Impious Conceptiona of the Divine Nature inxiv. Bad Influence of Populaz Religionson Moralityxv. Generalorollary .. .. .. ..

Popular Religions of both kinds 8 . ..

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I N T R O D U C T I O N .

IN the only cheap edition of Humes I Emays andTreatises now inheBritishmarket, the e w y s on I Miracles and A Particular Providence and a FutureState have been omitted, while the Natural ECistory.-aEReligion has been extensively mutilated, at least thir-teen separate passages, some of themengthy, beingsuppressed in the interests of the popular religion. Thisedition, now or lately published by Measrs. Ward, Lodqand Tyler, was &st issued by Messrs. A. Murray aad Son;and its mutilated character is the more scandalous, seeingtha t the title-page bears the statement : A careful re-print of the two vols. octavo edition . If there ever wasa two-volume edition of a sim ilarly c u r t a i l e d End, it is.e.ta;nly not generally known ; and the effect ofpublishers announoement is simply to deceive the r e a d i qpublic, who are led to suppose tha t the book offered emcorresponds to the various complete wo-volnme editionsof the latter part of last century and the earlier part dthis. The facts that for about fdty years there w e w nofmsh issaes of the Essays , widely sold w they hadbeen in Hwnes o w n day and the next generation, antha t the only recent edition at a moderate prim is thuspiously fraudulent, &re sign&a& of t he nature d au


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vi INTRODUCTION.social and intellectual history since theFrench Revolu-tion.A cheap and completeedition of Hum e will doubtlessere long be forthcoming. Meantime, there being alreadyseparate issues of the essay on ( ( Eracles , it has seemeddesirable to similarly .rep rin t he(Natural History ofReligion , one of Hurnes most important treatises ; themore so as so many readers havebeen led to supposethey had perused the whole of it in the mutilated editionabovementioned. It does not save the credit of t hepious publisher that his excisions fa il to make the treatiseinnocuous to his fa it h ; andmany readers may havefound the pruned version very suf2icient for its purpose.To every independent student, however, the mutilationof a text in the interests of orthodoxy is an intolerablepresumption ; and for such students the present issue isintended. Thanks to the careful edition of Hurnes worksby M essrs. Green and Grose, which has been followed inthis matter, it gives th e many classical references in ful.,and according to the stand ard texts.

(The N atural History of Religion was published byH um e at the beginning of 1757, after his reputation hadbeen established by his earlier ( ssays and the first twovolumes of his I History of England . I t is the one ofhis works which most explicitly asserts his Deism ; but onamount of its rationalistic treatment of concrete religionin general, which only nominally spared Christianity, itwas th at which first brought upon him much theologicalc&um in England.Thepugnacious Warburton saw a

1 The l ast edited, with an introduction, by MI-.. N.Wheeler.Freethought Publishing Company.


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INTRODUOTION. viicopybefore publication, an d wrote to Millar, whowasHumes publisher as well as his own, urg ing ts sup-pression. (Sir , he characteristically begins, supposeyou would be glad to know wha t sort of book it is whichsou are to publish with Humea name and yours to it. ...He is establishing Atheism ; and in one single line of along essay professes to believe C hristianity. . . .You haveoften told me of th is mans moral virtues. H e may havemany, for augh t I know; but let me observe to you thereaxe vices of the mind as well as of the aody ; and I thinka wickeder mind, and more obstinately bent on publicmischief, I never knew. The ( stablishing Atheism was perhaps ruer in a way th an he Christian criticsupposed; houghnoth ing could be more distinct th anHumes preliminary and repeated profession of Theism,and nothing more unscrupulous than Warburtons state-ment.

The publisher being undeterred, other steps were teken.Of the reception of ( The Natural History of Religion I ,Hume says in (My Own Life : ( t s b t entry waara ther obscure, except only tha t Dr. Hurd wrote a pam-phlet against it, with a l l the illiberalpetulance, arrogance,an d scurrility, which distinguish the W arb urto nian school.This pamphlet gaveme some consolation for the otherwiseindifferent reception ofmy performance. On this Hurd,with theological accuracy, writes : He was much hurt,and no wonder, by so lively an attack upon h i m and couldnot help confessing it in what he c& his O w n Life .The pamphlet waa really in the main the work of War-burton, m we learn from Hurd, who, m M e m . Qreenand UroseB ed.of k m d e W o r b iii,61.warbur&nBu n ubliehed Papem, p. 809, oited inh


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oiii INTRODUCITOX?.and Orose o k e , ( tells th e narrative of th e piona fraudwith grea t simplicity . W arburton had written certaincharacteristic observations on the margins of his copy ofHnm e, which H urd thou ght worth printing; and the lionhanded the copyover o his jackal, who, after slightlymanipulating the material, published it anonymously asRemarks on Mr. D a d Humes Essay on The NaturalHistory of Religion : Addressed to the Rev. Dr. War-burton . Hurd thought the ( hin disguise sufficed totake-in everybody, Hume included;butHume actuallywrote to his publisher soon after he issue : ( ( I ampositively assured that Dr. W arburton wrote th at letterto himself, which you sent me ; and indeed the stylediscovers him su5 cien tly. H e indicated a readiness todisauss the pr inc ipa l topics of my philosophy withWarburton ; but hought heRemarks not worthanswering;as hey certainly were not. Warburton, ofoourse, was incapable of efficient controversy with H um eon philosophical questions ; and indeed it would be im-possible to point to any Englishman of th at period whowaB properly quaued for such a task. Butler had died in1752 ; and, in he words of Bucklesnote-book, (inecclesiastical literature he mostprominent names wereW arburton, he bully, andH urd, he sneak ; whichtwain had, in the fashion above-noted, sought as wa8their wont to labor together in a joint work to do a littlegood , as W arburton phrased it. The ( emarks onHumes work published in the following yea r by S. T.

were mom courteous than Warburtons,but even lessoogent . Burkms Life, ii 36.


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~ O D U O T I O N . ixTo a rationalist reader to - day Humes (Natural

History is not more remarkable for its lucid analysisand downright criticism of the popular anthropomorphicreligion of all ages, than for its singula; adoption of asystem which is only anthropomorphic with a difference.It is, in effect, a demonstration, on the lines of a nowestablished anthropological heory, that all religion hadits rise in the attempts of primevalman to explainnatural phmnomena by personifiedcauses. Hum e here,apparentlywithout seeking to resthis assumption onany distinct theoretical basis, adopted the view of thoseancientswho, though in th e dark as to cosmic history,held alike on traditionaland on common-sense groundsthat mankind had risen from a state of savagery.Cudworth, writing a hundred years before, broughtimmense learning to the work of showing that all thenon-Christian religions exhibited a degeneration rom themonotheistic tr u th originally revealed to men b y hecre ato r; he attempt bein g motived, of course, by thebelief in creation and revelation with which Cudworth setout. Hum e, despite his avowedDeism, must have givenup th e ordinary doctrine of th e creation of man, whatevertheory he may have held as to the creation of th e world.He offers, however, no hypothesis as to th e actual originof human life ; and his notion of the rise of religion wouldwem thus to rest on ad unfixed conception of human be-ginnings, of which we cannot now even guess the details.It is now pre tty clear that Butlers main fulcrum with t hethinkers of his day was the inveterate assumption thatthere m ust have been a t somepoint of time a poeitivecreation of men and animals. This ha bitu al belief, aa it

. .


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X INTRODUCTION.in th e case of Hume. He, however, could never have beenconvinced by such an argument as Butlers, which, restingthe ruth of an admittedly perplexing religion on theperplexity of the theistic system of nature, went as f a r toproveMohammedanism as to prove Christianity. To sayas does Professor Huxley , th at L th e solid sense of Butlerleft he Deism of theFreethinkers not a leg to standupon , is l ike arguing that if Darwinism could not befully proved, Genesis must needs be true. Hum e arguedless rashly. W hat he appears to have done was to leavehis conception of cosmic history in the vague, figuringmen to himself as indeed somehow created, but firstemerging in trustworthy history as b m b a ro u ~ , ecssei-tous animals ),who framed religious systems conformableto their poor capacities.From this point, Humes argum ent is a process of acutededuction ; that is to say, he sees that ignorant savageem u d have been polytheists, and goes on to show how, evenafter monotheism has beenbroached, igno rant minds-( he vulgar, a.~he phrase then ran-will always reducethe spiritual ) notion to an anthropomorphic form, andmonotheism to polytheism. Mr. eslie Stephen has some-wh at strangely argued,a as against Buckle, that Humesargument is not deductive inasmuch as it asserts at t heoutset ; he observed fact that monotheism is a recentgrowth . But in point of fact Hume assumes the in-evitableness of primeval polytheism, and goes on to makehis historic statement, loosely enough, as part of the proof.The historic proposition ia indeed so inaccurate a8 to implythat Hume at this particular point was temporising, eince

1 Hnme, p. 164.2 Pwtnight& B-, Yay, 1880, p. 693.


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INTBODUOTION. xih e must have known th e facts were not as he said. It isa matter of fact incontestable , he writes in the eecondparagraph of his first section, that about 1,700 years agoall mankind were polytheists. The doubtful and scepticalprinciples of a few philosophers, or the theism, and that, toowt entirely pure, of one or two nations, form no objectionworth regarding. Now, all ha t can be said as t o the( ( impurity of the monotheism of the ages B.C. applies toth e alleged monotheism of Christianity itself, a s Humelaterrathe r broadly hints ; and the about 1,700 yeamago is thus a blind. The esotericmonotheismeven ofthe Egyptian priesthood,not to speak of the Jewish,waa theoretically & pure r than the quasi-monotheism oforthodox Christianity, which made its Deitys tri-person-ality muchmore bvious th an he unthinkable unitypredicated of the Three. Humesproposition as o th esupreme antiquity of polytheism, of course, remained true ;bu t his own argument went to show tha t the beginning ofa widespread and popular but pure monotheism mightmuch more reasonablybe placed at th e ate of Mohammed,andstill morecorrectly be assigned to some unknownperiod in th e future. Hume knewverywell tha t in hisown country the Deists were not greatly more numerousth an th e philosophic monotheists of Periclan Greece andAncient E g y p t; a nd ha t he reigning faith waa poly-theistic even in Protestant countries, while in th e Catholicit waa ( dolatrous as well.

Idolaters wm he word in the earlier editiom, and waa pm-h b l used withoutegard to ita precise meaning. But Hnmereedeoted tha t t he Pereians, and later the Jews, contemned dlidols and later substituted the more BMmwte tam. A mu,* ut idole.t,f)muree, be an idolatar and a monothehb, or a poly&&&


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xi INTE1ODUCTION.Indeed, the drift of the trea tise is only too cleurly, fo r

orthodox readers, in the direction of showing that Chris-tianity exemplifies all the laws of religious degenerationseen a t work in thefa ith s of the past. Hum e did notwrite his book merely to show how men constructedfoolish creeds in antiquity. T he headings of the thirteenthand fourteenth sections originally referred to (most popu-lar religions ; bu t n ate r editions the (most wagdeleted, leaving no exception in favor of contemporaryfaith. The passage at he end of section vi which ob-serves that it is ( appily the case with Christianity t ob e free from contradiction in it s presentm ent of Deity, isone of Gibbonian irony, the innuendo being a good dealmore trenchant than the disclaimer ; and several passagesexplicitly satirise Christian dogma. Thu s in the eleventhsection the proposition that all popular theology,es-pecially th e scholastic, has a kind of appetite for absurdityand contradiction , is pointed by a sketch of the courseof Christian dogma :

$ cclesiastical history sufEciently co&rns these reflections.When a controversy is started, some people pretend alway5with certainty toforetell the issue.Whicheveropinion, saythey, is most contrary t o plain sense, is sure to prevail, evenwhere the general nterest of the system requiresnot thatdecision. Though the reproach of heresy may, for some time,be bandied about among the disputants, it always rests at laston the side ofreason. Anyone, it is pretended, that has butlearning enough of this kind t o know the definition of Arian,Pelagian, Erastian, Socinian, S a b e h , Eutychian, Nedorian,Monothelite, etc., not t o mention Protestant, whose fate is yetuno&&, wi l l be oonvinced of the truth of this obeervation,It is thue a system becomes more & b m d in the end, merelyfrom ita being reasonable asd philosophical in the beginning.

f TO ppose the torrent of sohol&eticreligion by such feeble


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maxims as these-that it s impossible for the mme to be sadnot to be , that he whole is greater than E part ,that * t w oand three make five -is pretending to stop the ocean with abull-rush. Will you set up profaneeason gainst 8 ~dmystery ? No punishment is great enough for your impiety.And the same ft.es which were kindled for heretics wservealso for the destructionof philosophers.It is not clear why Professor Huxley should speak of th;apassage as showing q ui te unusual acerbity : t is exactlyi n th e ironical tone in which Hum0 speaks of the absurdities.of paganism, a tone much more humorous han bitter. H ballusion to the prevailing religion as L L superstition , inthe well-known passage describing his cheerful attitudetowards death, expresses th e same emper,always withgood humor.

I f then, Humes parade of sarcasticespect t oChristianity was certainly ironical, is there any room forsurmise that he was glosing his real sentiments in thematter of Deism 7 After f u l l reflection the answer mustbe given in a qualified fErmative. The case is wellsummed up by Prefessor H u d e y :

(Hume appears to have sincerely accepted the two funda-mental conclusionsof the argument from design: m y , hat 8Deity exists ; and, secondly, th at he posaesses attributes moreor essallied to those of human ntelligence. But a t thi sembryonic stage of theology, Humes progress is arrested ; andafter a wwey of thedevelopment of dogma, his general.corollary is that The whole is a riddle, an anigp.l, mn inex-plicablemystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment,appear the only result of our most accurate s m h y concerningthis subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and suchthe irresistible contagion of opinion, that even thi e deliberstedanbt couldcarcely be upheld, did we not o u r

Hume I , p. 142.


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d pposirq: one species of superstition to another, set them8 qmrrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and con-Cntion, appilymake ur scape into the calm,houghobscure, regions of philosophy.Thus it may fairly be presumed that Hume expresses hiso w n sentiments in the words of the speech with which Philoconcludes the Dialogues [Le.,Humes Dialogues concerningNatural Religion 3 : If the whole of natural theology, as some people seem tomaintain, resolves tself into one imple, hough omewhatambiguous, at least undehed proposition, That the cause OT

c a u s e s of order i n the aniuerseprobably hear some remote analogyt o human intelligence: If thispropositionbenotcapable ofextension, variation, or more particular explication; if it affordsno inference that affects human life or can be the source of anysction or forbearance; and if the analogy, imperfect as it is,oan be carried no further than to the human intelligence, andcannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to+he other qualities of the mind: if this really be the case, whatcan the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man domore than give tt plain, philosophical assent to the proposition,as often as it occurs, and believe that the arguments on whichit is establishedexceed the objectionswhich ieagainst i t ?Some astonishment, indeed,will naturally arise from the great-ness of the object ; some melancholy from its obscurity ; someoontempt of human reason, th at it can give no solution moreaatisfactory with regard to so extraordinary and magnificentgnestion. But believeme,Cleanthes, the most natural senti-ment which a well-disposed mindwfeel on this occasion, is Blonging desire and expectation that Heaven wouldbe pleslsedto dissipate, or a t least alleviate, this profound ignorance, byaffording somemore particular evelation to mankind, andmaking discoveries of the nature, attributes and operations oft h e divine object of our faith.Buch being t h e sum total of Humes conclusions, it cannotbe eaid thst his theological burden is a heavy one. Bnt if wetarn rom the NaturalHistory of Religion to the Treatise,t h e Inquiry , and the D i d o p e e the story of what


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IZ9TRODUCTIOTT. x 0happened t o the ass laden with salt, who took t o the water,irresistibly snggesta itself. H u e s theism, mch as i t is, dis-solves away in the dialectic river, until nothing is left but theverbal sack in which it mas contained.Thisview is borne out by the general conduct of theargument in the Ii Dialogues. Ther.e is there put into themouth of Philo, the sceptic, the decisive argument thatany hypothesis of an deal world such as Berkeleys,only raises a new problem of causation, since every con-ceived set of phamomena raise th e question of cause justas much as any set which they are put forward to explain ;andhe orthodoxrDeistic disputant, Cleanthes, ismade only t o reply in vacuous rhetoric, which no compe-tent reader can ever have taken as a logical answer.

( et us remember , says Philo, ( ( the story of the Indianphilosopherand his elephant. . . . . If thematerialworldrests upon a similar deal world, this idealworldmust restupon some other, and so on withoutend. It were better,therefore,never to look beyond thepresentmaterialworld.B y supposing i t to contain t h e principle of its order withila itself,w e really aesert t to be God; and the sooner we arrive at thatDivine Being, so much the better. When you go one step beyondthe mundane sydm, you only excite an inquisitive humorwhich it is impossible ever t o satisfy.To whichCleanthes returns a str ing of windy common-places, firet surrendering altogether the doctrine of a fistcause, then asserting, in a variety of phrases, th a t th ewhole chorus of na ture raises one hymn to thepraises of itsCreator ; and winding up : You ask me what is thecaum of this cause? I know not : I care not ; thatconcerns not me. I have found a Deity, and here I topmy nquiry. Let those go fu rther who ar e wieer or moreennterpfi&ag.* Hume assuredIy did not fancy this


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XVi INTRODUCTION.amounted to a victory for the idealist. But it is hardlyless difEicult tosuppose, on th e other hand, tha t he didnot see that the argum ent of Phi10 was as destructive ofthe doctrine of a personal God as of that of an idealworld . The propositionbovetalicised in Philoespeech is he thesis of Pantheism, betvreenwhich andAtheism the difference is one of words only. The Atheistsays he knows nothing of the (cause of th e universe,and therefore has nothing to say about Deity except th athe perceives the idea to be a human invention : the Pan-theist asserts that the cause is within th e universe-anunadventurous truism enough, when we agree that ( n i -verse means everything a n d then proceedso labelthe universe God ),without pretending to know any-thing of the nature of the mystery he has named. ( hesooner we arrive a t th at Divine Being, so much the better. A n d , oneseems tohearHume comment, s o t t o voce,( ( D o not you wish you may get there ? H e has, oncefor all, destroyed his own proposition of an (intelligentauthor ; since ( uthor and universe are defined to beone. If it be sought toseparate them oncemore, thecheckmateoCleanthes again comes into play : the.predication of a ( ause outside the universe is onall ou rs. with the theory of anideal world , andsimply prompts th e questions, (1) What caused that out-side cause ? (2) And what caused that cause, after an 4eternity of non-causation, to cause the universe ? TheTheist has no escape from Athanasian self-contradiction ;and it is impossible to doubt that Hum e saw the collapseof t h e c u e w heche wrote, in the as t section of theNatural History : Even the contrarieties of nature,by discovering hemselveseverywhere, become proofs of


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some consistent plan , and establish one single purpose orintention, however nexplicable and incompehmibt ?. Thatis to say, the plan is clearly single and consistent, thoughit is unintelligible. Bnd as agains t th e professedlycon-fident Theism of th e Natural H istory, we have in theDialogues the unanswereddictum of Philo : (There isno view of human life or of the condition of mankind,fromwhich, without th e greatest violence,wecan nferthe moral attributes, or learn that idnite benevolence,conjoined with infinite power an d infinite wisdom, whichwe must discover by th e eyes of faith alone . Thu s whenH u e makes all his disputants agree that the dispute isnot about the BeiHg but the Nature of Deity, the formerbeing ( elf-evident , he is bu t driving back th e Theisticreasoner on the guns of Pan the ism = Atheism ; for hedemonstrates in due course t h at he rtature cannot beknown. And Being of which we do not know the N atu reis simply Existence, which is what the Atheist predicatesof th e Universe.

The circumstances of th e publication of the Dialoguesconcerning Natural Religion go f a r to prove that, onthe one hand, they represent the matured opinions ofE u m e on religious matters, and that, on the other hand,he knew hi0 argumenta wentconsiderablybeyond theposition taken up in the Natu ra l History of Religion .H e had written th e Dialogues years before the publicationof the N atu ra l History, and kept them b y him for therest of his life, retouching them with so much care aa tomake them the most finished of all his compositions. Itap pe ars to have beenmore out of consideration for the-. P. 443.


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feelings of his friends than for his own sake th at he didnot issue the book in his life-time; but, says hi5biographer, ( fter having good-naturedly abstained, f o rnearly thirty years, from the publication of a work whichmight give pain and umbrage to his dearest friends : atth e close of lifs, a n d , when th e lapse of timesince itWRB written mighthave been upposed to render himindifferent to its fate,-because there ppeared somedanger of it s final suppression, he took decided and well-pondered steps to avert from it this fate. Such was th echaracter of the man The (danger was tha t thecautious an d deistic Smith, whom Hum ehadappointedhis literary executor with injunctions to publish the (Dia- clogues , wouldevade the task. Humes friend Elliott( as opposed o th e ublication of this work. Blair pleadedstrongly fo r its suppression ; and Smith, who had madeup his mind th at he wouldnot edit the work,seems to.have desired that the testamentary injunction laid on himmight beevoked. In May 1776, Hume sent him,conformably to has desire , an (o stensible etter leaving it to Smithsdiscretion as executor o delay orabandon the publication of the (Dialogues , enclosingthis in a private le tte r in which he deprecated Smithsfears and said : I f I live a few years longer, I shallpublish them myself . Had this arrangement subsisted,.the book might never have been published at all, Smith Iwriting later to Strahan that it had been his intention to.carefully preserve he MS., and leave it at his deathto Humes family. But by a codicil to his will in Augustof th e same year, Hu m e eft hie MSS. to Strahaa, his.friend and publisher, desiring th at th e Dialogues should

Bnrtons Life , ii, 491.


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m O D U m o N . xixbe published within two yeam of his death, but provid-ing that if this were not done th e property should returnto Humes nephew David, whose dutyn publishingthem, as the last request of his uncle, m ust be approvedof by all the world , Strahan in turn , advised by Sm ithto consult some prudent friend about what you ought todo , declined the responsibility ; and the book did notappearuntil in 1779 the nephew fulfilled his uncleBwish. I t is plain th at the work was felt all-round to besomething more than a deistic treatise, and Humes owndelay in issuing it shows that he thought it went fur therkhan any of his other writings. Indeed in a letter to hisfriend Elliott in 1751, while professing to l make Clean-thfm the hero of the dialogue he observes th at he wouldbe glad of anyth ing that will L istrengthen that side of theargument , and that lany propensity you imagine I haveto th e other side crept in upon me against my will ;going on to tell how in early youth he had begun uneasilyto doubt the soundness of the common opinion, andvirtually to hint that theism at times seems to him a caseof .&ding li our own figures in th e clouds, our faces in themoon, ourpassions and sentiments even innanimatematter .a Elliott of course could not g ive the help asked;and thehero of th e dialogue is a heroic failure.Hume never rebutted his own a,nti-theistic arguments.In the opinion of Professor Huxley, l One can but sus-pect tha t , . . . his shadowy and inconsistent theism wa8t he expression of his desire to rest in a state of mindf i c h distinctly excluded negation, while it included aaW e as possible of &mation, respecting aproblem

1 Burtons $ ife, ii . , 496.9 Id. . 333. See also &leys (Hume *I, p. 1 4 f .


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xx INTRODUCTION.which hefelt obe hopelessly mpossible . Here heterm s distinctly excluded negation , and ( ( aa little aspossible of af6rmation, Beem to me ill-chosen ; but theProfessor appears to be looking in the right direction foran explanation.

Must we say, then,, th at when H um e in the N atu ralHistory professes an unhesita ting conventional Theismhe was simply dissembling for the sake of his comfort?That would perhaps be a toopositive statement of *hecase ; but it seems as if a few qualifications would reduceit to accuracy. The absolute dissimulation may be said tolie in th e use of th e ordinary Deistic phrases of I intelli-gent author, design, and so for th, w hich m ere irrecon-cilable alike with HumeB Pantheistic logic in the Dialoguesand with the scepticism of th e nquiry Concerning theHumanUnderstanding ; and what wemay urmise to ,have taken place in his mind is the argument that sincethere s something mysterious in he universe, since wecannot but assume a Noumenon for the Phsnomena, thereis no harm in pu tting the principle into the phraseologyof the most rational of the current popular opinions. I t isve ry much as if Mr. Spencer whould call the U nknowableby the name God, by way of getting on pleasantly withMr.Martineau and Mr. Voysey ; only M i . Spencer hasnot Humes reason to apprehend odium for proclaimingPantheis tic or Atheistic principles; and the Theists to-day,&B apart f rom the Trinitarians, have no conaiderableprestige. In Humes day, in Edinburgh, it was badenough to be a Deist;: th e clergy would have crushed himfor that if they could ; and only the goodwill earned byhie personal charm of character enabled him to securesuch a post as hat of t h e keeper of the AdvocateB Library


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in despite of the efforts of the bigots. H ad he professeddownright Atheism, no personal amiability could haveavailed to save him from almost general ostracism ; heaverage Deist being commonly found to be only a fewdegrees less bigoted than the average Christian, when itcomes to the handling of professedAtheists.MiltonsArianism never made him diffident on that score. Whenall is said, however, the fact remains tha t undergravemenace of hardship Hume temporised on religious ques-t ions. Not only did he, as we have seen, adopt in theNatural History the tone of a Deism which wasnot his,but in his History of England he inserted for a time afootnote on the ( se and ( buse of religion, the onlyeffect of which is to suggest an attitude tow ards super-natu ralist tenets which he did not re d ly hold.And, a~+is well known, he actually prescribed for others a policyof concession to th e superstitions of t he time, agreeingwith P d e y i n recommending holy orders to a young manwho had doubts about the Churchs doctrines. As to this,again, we have to remember tha t in his middle age he hadbecome a commonplace Tory, that is, a Tory by tempera-ment ; and that his political bias would of necessity affecthie relations to outspoken rationalism in other directions.I n fine, he was for his time, intellect apart, a kindly anda conscientious man,beingregardedby the houghtfuland ra tio nd Adam Bmith as ( I approaching as nearly tothe idea of a perfectly wise and vil.tuous man, s perhapstho nature of hum an frailty wi l l permit ; and he hadprobably a gre at deal more moral courage tha n certainunclassiiied critics who to-day accuse him of moralcowardice. But he was certainly not one of the heroesof truth, or of the mar- of progress. Ee was a @eat ~


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xxii INTRODUCTION.writer; but th e sterner joys of his vocation were not forhim.

Thi s said, it remains to do justice to the incomparableinsight an d lucidity of his philosophical performance. Thisis not th e place to review his system m a whole; bu t nocharacterization of Hum e can be ju st which does not takenote of th e masterliness of his grasp of the fundamentdproblems of philosophy, and th e singular skill of his ex-position of every subject on which he laid his hand. Inthe estimation of a critic of a different school, he is th efirst master of philosophical English ; and it is matter ofhistory that his performance is the turn ing point of allmodernmetaphysics. The treatise whichollows is astudy rath er n psychology th an n metaphysics, beingindeed one of the firstsuccesses of positivephilosophy,properly so called, and in effect the foundation of the .modernscientific study of religion, havinghad a largesh ar e n priming the French rationalistic work of theRevolutionary period. It has not yet been supmseded,because some of it s most acute and important suggestionshave not yet beensystematically applied, a6 they muatone day be, in regard to any one cam of religious history.AB they stand they are incomplete; a nd one could wiahthat Hum e had se t himself to work out in th e conoreteth e -evolution, for instance, of Judaism and Chr ist iahty.AB a great sociologist has well poiuted out, the mostluminoua exposition of general orabstract t ru th s i d u e n mthe mass of meu much less th an a n inductive or concreteargument to the same end ; and Humes actual iduenw,m u t i n g by simple numbem, h as been small in pmp&ion


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INTltODTFCTION. xxi i ik , his intellectual eminence. H e has made fa r fewer

- rationalists thanPaine. And i t would have eenwell worth his while to show in detail how far the temperof oriental adulation went t o magnify the tribal Y ahu intoa deity fur the r transformable into the, so to speak, pan-theised Spirit of a creed evolred from an older and widerculture.

As i t is, however, we have in the ( atural History ofBeligion I a concise and serviceable account of the origin,growth, and survival of religious notions,which will gofu rth er to eloar up a beginners ideas of the nature of pastand present religion that any other studJ of similar leng thand purpose. Th at deities are he merepersonificationsof unknown causes ; that untrained minds theologise fromparticulars and not from generals, and ignore incon-sistencies from sheer mental impotence ; that ignorance isalways tending t o turn abstract notions of Deity intoconcrete, t o give its God ta own characteristics, and toresort to ignoble propitiations ; th a t religious history is aprocess of 0uxand refluxbetween the refined and thecrude conceptions, ignorance now degradinga doctrine,. and reason again revolting from the follies of ignorancean d seeking to purify its ideas-all this is set forth byHume with the puissant ease which marks his reflectivewritin g n general. The ostensible drift of the treatise,aa we aaw, is to make out that whereas ignorant peoplecannot rightly conceive the power interpenetrating ani d k i t e universe, more cultured people may ; but that is athesis which for any thoughtfulreader aervea torefute .itself. He, at least, who in these days cansuppose thatthe scanty knowledge possible to th e wisest of mankindwiseme to bridge thegulf between finity and infinitude,


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X X i V INTRODUOTIOR.is already p a t all misleading. It is a drawback, again,that the temporising spirit has withheld a plain applica-tion of the argument to the beliefs actually current inEurope.Buthere again the treatise accomplishes morethan it says, the reader having but to apply to the faith ofhis neighbors the propositions of Hume as to the (im-pious conceptions of the divine nature and the ((badinfluence on morality of the (popular religions . I nfine, a (Natural Historyof Religion, to be worthy of thename, .as this is, must be capableof application to the lastreligion as well as to the first. There is thus secured thegain of a comprehensive and philosophic view.


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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.


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2 THE SATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.not from an original instinct or primary impression ofnature, such as gives rise toself-love,affectionbetweenth e sexes, ove of progeny, gratitude, resentment; sinceevery nstinct of this kind has been found absolutelyuniversal in al l nations and ages, and has always a precisedeterminate object, which it inflexibly pursues. The f irstreligious principles must be secondary ; such as may easilybe perverted by various accidents and causes, and whoseoperation too, in somecases, may by an extraordinaryconcurrence of circumstances be altogether prevented.W h a t those principles are, which g k e r i s e to the originalbelief, and what those accidents and causes are, whichdirect it s operation, is th e subject of our present enquiry.

SECTION.-mat Polytheism was the primary ReligioR sZen.

It appears to me, th at if we consider the improvementof human society, frons rude beginnings to a state ofgrea te r perfection, polytheism or idolatry mas, and neces-sarily must have been, the first an d most ancient religionof mankind. This opinion I shall endeavor to confirm bythe following arguments.It is a matter of fact incontestable, that about 1,700

years ago all mankind were polytheists. The doubtful andsceptical principles of a few philosophers, or the theism,and tha t too not entirely pure, of one or two nations, formno objection worth regarding. Behold th en he cleartestimony of history. m e farther we mount up ntoantiquity, the more do we fb d mankind plunged intopolytheism. No marks, no symptoms of an y more perfectreligion. The most ancient records of the human race s t i l l


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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 8present us with that system as the popular and establishedcreed. Thenorth,he outh, the east,he west, givetheir unanimous testimony to he same fact. W hat canbe opposed to so full an evidence?As far as writing or history reaches, mankind, in ancienttimes, appear universally to have been polytheists. Shallwe assert, th at in more ancient times, before the know-ledge of letters,or th e discovery of any art orscience,men entertained the principles of pure the ism ? Th at is,while they were ignorant and barbarous, they discoveredtru th ; bu t fell into error, as soon as they acquired learn-and politeness.But inhis assertion you not only contradict allappearance of probability, but aleo our present experi-ence concerning the principles and opinions of barbarousnations. The savage tribes of America, Africa, and &ia,a r e all idolaters. Not a ingle exception to his rule.Insomuch that , were a traveller to transport himself intoany unknown region ; if he found inhabitants cultivatedwith arts and sciences, though even upon tha t suppositionthere are odds against their being theists, yet could he not,safely,till farther inquiry, pronounce any thing on t ha thead : but if he found them ignorant and barbarous, hemight beforehand declare them idolaters ; and thereacarcely is a possibility of his being mistaken.

I t seems certain that, according to the natural progressof humanhought, the ignorantmultitude must firstenterta in some grovelling and familiar notion of superiorpowers, before they stretch their conception t o that perfectBeing who bestowed order on the whole ha m e of nature.We may as resonably imagine th at men inhabited palacesbefore hutsand cottages, or studied geometry before


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4 THB NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIOIOX.agrhlture ; as assert that the Deity appeared to them apure spirit, omniscient,mnipotent, an d omnipresent,before he was apprehended tobe a powerful, thoughlimited being, with human passions.and appetites, limbsand organs. The mind rises gradually, from inferior tosuperior : by abstracting from what is imperfect, it formsan idea of perfection : and slowly distinguishing the .nobler parts of its own frame from the grosser, it learnsto transfer only the former, much elevated and refined, toit s divinity. Nothing could disturb this na tural progressof thought, but someobvious and invincible argument,which might immediately lead the mind into thepureprinc,iples of theism, an d make it overleap, a t one bound,the vast interval which is interposed between th e hum anan d the divine nature. But though I allow tha t th e o rd erand ram e of th e universe,whenaccuratelyexamined,affords such an argum ent ; yet I can never think that this.consideration could have a n id u e n c e on mankind, whenthey formed their first rude notions of religion.

The causes of such objects as are qu ite familiar to us,never strike our attention or curiosity ; and however.extraordinary or surprising these objects in themselves,they a re passed over, by th e raw and ignorant multitude,without muchexaminationor enquiry. Adam, rising a tonce in Paradise, an d in theul perfection of his faculties,would naturally, as represented b y Milton, be astonishedat the glorious appearances of nature, th e heavens, the air,th e earth, his o m organs and members ; and would be.led to ask, whence this wonderful cenearose. But abarbarous, necessitoui anim al (such as man is on the firstorigin of society),pressed by such numerous vants andpassions, has no leisure to admire the regular face of.


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6 THE NATURAL XISTORY OF RELIGION.

speculative opinions ; nor is he knowledge of the onepropagated i n th e same manner with th a t of th e other.An historical fact, while it passes by oral tradition fromeye-witnesses and contemporaries, is disguised in everysuccessive narration, and may at last retain but verysmall, if any, resemblance of the original truth on whichit was founded. The fra il memories of men, their love ofexaggeration, thei r supine carelessness ; hese principles,if notcorrected by books and writing, soon pervert theaccount of historical eventi, where argument or reasoninghas little or no place, nor can ever recal the tru th whichhas once escaped those narrations. It is thus the fables ofHercules,Theseus,Bacchus, are supposed to have beenoriginally founded in tru e history, corrupted by tradition.But with regard to speculativeopinions, th e case is farotherwise. If these opinions be founded in arguments soclear and obvious as to carry conviction with thegeneralityof mankind, the same arguments mhich at first diffusedthe opinions will still preserve them in their originalpurity. Lf th e arguments be more abstruse, and moreremote from vulgar apprehension, th e opinions will alwaysbe c o n h e d t o a few persons ; and as soon as men leavethe contemplation of the arguments, the opinions willimmediately be lost and be buried in oblivion. Which-ever side of th is dilemm a we take, it must appear impos-sible that theismcould, rom easoning, have been th eprimary religion of' human race, and have afterwards, byits aorruption, given birth to polytheism and to all thevarious superstitions of the heathen world. Reason, whenobvious,prevents these corruptions: when abstruse, it keepsthe principles entirely from the knowledge of the vulgar,who are alone liable to corrupt any prinoiple or opinion.


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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 7

SECTION1.-Origin o Polytheisnt.If we would, therefore, indulge our curiosity, in enquir-

i n g concerning the origin of religion, we must tu rn OUTthoughts towards polytheiem, th e primitive eligion ofuninstructed mankind.

Were men led into the apprehension of invisible,intelligent power, by a contemplation of the works ofnature, they could never 2ossibly ente rtain any conceptionbut of one single being, who bestowed existence and orderon this vast machine, and adjusted all its parts, accordingto one regular plan or connected system. For though, topersons of a certain turn of mind, it may not appear alto-gether absurd that several independent beings, endowedwith superior wisdom, might conspire in the contrivancean d execution of one regular plan: yet is this a merelyarbitrary supposition,which, ven if allowedpossible,must be confessed neither to be supported by probabilitynor necessity. All things in the universe a re evidently of

piece. Everything is adjustedo everything. Onedesign prevails throughout th e whole. And th is uniform-ity leads the mind to acknowledgeone author; becaussth e conception of different authors, without any distinctionof attributes o r operations, serves only to give perplexityto th e imagination, without bestowing any satisfaction onth e understanding. Thestatue of Laocoon,aswe learnfrom Pliny, was the work of three artists : but it is cer-tain ha t, werewe not told so, weshouldnever haveimagined that a group of figures, cut from one stone, and,united in one plan, was not the work and contrivance ofone statuary. To ascribe any single effect to the combin-


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8 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.

ation of several causes, is not surely a na tura l an d obvioussupposition.On he other hand, if, leaving th e works of nature, we

trace the footsteps of invisible power in the various andcontrary events of hum an life, we are necessarily led intopolytheism, and to th e acknowledgment of several limitedan d imperfectdeities. Storms and tempests ru in what isnourished by the sun. The sun destroys what is fosteredby the moisture of dews and rains. W a r may be favor-able o a nation whom the inclemency of the seasonsa$licts with famine. Sickness and pestilencemay de-populate a kingdom, amidst the mostprofuseplenty.Th e same nation is not, at the same time, equally success-ful by sea and land. And a nation which now trium phsover it s enemies, may anon submit to the ir more prosper-ous arms. In short, the conduct of events, or what wecall the plan of a particular providence, is so full ofvariety and uncertainty, th at, if we suppose it immediatelyordered by any intelligent beings, we must acknowledge acontrariety in their designs and intentions, a constantcombat of opposite powers, an d a repentance or change ofintention in he samepower, rom mpotence or levity.Each nation ha s its tu tel ar deity. Each element is sub-to itsinvis ible power or agent. Th e province of each godis separate from tha t of another. Nor are th e operationsof the same godalways certain and invariable. To-dayhe protects : to-morrow he abandons us. Pray ers andsa m ihe s, rite s nd ceremonies, well r ill performed, are thesources of his favor or enmity, and produce a ll th e goodor ill for tune which are to be found amongst mankind.

W e may conclude, therefore, that in all nations whichhave embraced polytheism, the rst ideas of religion. ,


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THE NATURAL EIBTORY OP RELIGION. 9arose, not from a contemplation of th e works of nature,but from a concern with egard o he events of life,and from the incessanthopes and ears which actuateth e human mind. Accordingly we find that all idolatera,having separated the provinces of their deities, haverecowse t o that invisible agent to whose authority theyare immediately subjected, and whoseprovince it is t osuperintend th a t course of actions in which they a re a tany time engaged. Juno is invoked a t marriages ; Lucinaat births. Neptune receives th e prayers of seamen ; andMars of warriors. The husbandman cultivates his fieldunder th e protection of Ceres ; and the merchant acknow-ledges the authority of Mercury. Each na tural event issupposed to be governed by some intelligent agent; andno th ing prosperous or adverse canappen in life, which maynot be thesubject of peculiar prayers or thanksgivings.

It must necessarily, ndeed, be allowed, th a t in ordert o carry mens attention beyond th e present c a m e ofthings, or lead them into any inferenceconcerning in-visible intelligent power, they must be actuated by somepassion which prompts their thought and reflection ; somemotive which urges their &st inquiry. But what passionsh all we here have recourse to, for explaining a n effect ofauch mighty consequence ? Not speculativeuriositysurely, or the pure love of truth.That motive ie too

Fragilis et laborioss morttllitasin partes ista digessit, infirmi-tatis sue. memor, ut portionibu quisquis coleret, quo maxime in-digeret (PIin. lib. ii.cap. 7 . So earlyas Hesiods t i m e there were30,000 deities (Works and Days, lib. i. ver. 250 . But the task tobe performed by these seems still too great for t eir number. Theprovinces of the deities were 80 subdivided, that there waa even BGod of Bteezijzg w e Aristotles Problems, sec. 33, cap. 7 . Theprovince of copulrttion, Euitable to the importanoe and dignity of it,WBB divided among several deities.


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10 THE NATURAL HISTORY O F RELIGION.refined fo r such gross apprehensions, and would lead menin to inquiries concerning th e frame of nature ; a subjecttoo large and comprehensive for their narrow capacities.No passions, therefore, can be supposed to work uponsuch barbarians, bu t th e ordinary affections of hum an life ;the anxiousconcern for happiness, the dread of futuremisery, the terror of dea th, th e hirs t of revenge, th eappetite for food and other necessaries. Agitated by hopesand fears of this nature, especially th e la tte r, men scrutin-ise, with a trem bling curiosity, th e course of future causes,and examine the various and contrary events of humanlife. And in this disorderedacene, with eyes still moredisordered and astonished, they see the first obscure tracesof divinity.

SECTIONK -T h e same sudject continued.W e are placed in this world, as in a great theatre, where

the true springsand causes of everyevent are entirelyunknown to us; nor have we either s a c i e n t wisdom toforesee, or power to prevent, those ills with which we arecontinually threatened. W e hang n perpetual suspensebetween life and dea th, hea lth and sickness, plenty andwant, which are distributed amongst th e human speciesby secret and unknown causes,whoseoperation is oftunexpected, and always naccountable.These unknozcncauses, then, become th e constant object of our hope andfear; and while th e passions are ke pt in perpetual alarmby an anxious expectation of th e events, th e imaginationis equdy employed in forming ideas of those powers onwhich we have so entire a dependence. Could men anato-

I mise nature, according t o the most probable, at least t h e


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THE NATuItAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 11most intelligible philosophy, they wouldfind th a t thesecauses ar e nothing bu t th e particular fabric and structureof th e minute pa rts of their own bodies and of externalobjects; and th at , by a regular and constant machinery,alI th e events are produced about which the y are so muchconcerned. But his philosophyexceeds th e comprehen-sion of the ignorant multitude, who can only conceive th etclzknowlz causes in a general and confused manner, thoughtheir imagination, perpetually employed on the samesubject, must labor to form some particular and distinctidea of them. The more they consider these causes them-selves, and the uncertainty of their operation, the lesssatisfaction do they meet with in their research ; and,however unwilling, they must at last hare abandoned somduous a n attempt, were it not for a propensity in hum annature, which leads into a system that gives them somesatisfaction.

There is an universal endencyamongst mankind toconceive a ll beings like themselves, and o ransfer toevery object those qualities w ith which they are familiarlyacquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious.W e find human faces inhe moon, armies inheclouds; andby a na tura l propensity, if not correctedby experience and reflection, scribemalice and goodwill to everything tha t ur ts or pleases us. Henceth e frequency and beau ty of th e prosopopaka in poetry,where trees, mountains, and streams are personified, andth e inanimate parts of na ture acquire sentiment and passion.And hough these poetical figures and expressions gainnot on the belief, they may serve, at least, to prove acertain tendency in th e imagination, without which theywuld neither be beautiful nor natural. Nor is a river-


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12 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIffION.god or hamadryad always taken for a mere poetical orimaginary persomge ; bu t may sometimes enter into thereal creed of the ignorant vulgar ; whileeachgrove orfield is represented as possessed of a particular geniw orinvisible power,which inhab its or protects it.Nay,philosophers cannot entirely exempt themselves from thisnatural frailty ; but have oft ascribed to inanimate matterthe horror of a cacuum, sympathies, antipathies, and otheraffections of humannature.The absurdity is not less,while we cast our eyes upwards ; and transferring, as istoo usual, human passions and infirmities to the deity,represent him as jealous and revengeful, capricious andpartial, and, in short, a wicked and foolish man, in everyrespect bu t his superior power and authority. No wonder,then, hat mankind,being placed insuch an absoluteignorance of causes, and being atho sameime BO *anxious concerning the ir futu re fortunes, should immedi-ately acknowledge a dependence on invisible powerspossessed of sentiment and intelligence. Th e u n h o mcauae8, which continually employ their though t, nppearingalways in the same aspect, are all apprehended to be ofth e same kind or species. Nor is it long before weascribe to them thought, and reason, and passion, andsometimes even th e limbs and figures of men, in order tobr ing them nearer to a resemblance with ourselves.

In proportion as any mans course of life is governed byaccident, we always find th a t he increases in superstition,as may pa rticularly be observed of gamesters mmd sailors,who, though of all mankind th e least capable of seriousconsideration, abound most in frivolous and superstitiousapprehensions. The Gods, says Coriolanus in Dionysius,l

1 Lib. viii. 33.


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TEE NATURAL HISTORY OF PELIGION. 13have an influence in everyaffair, but above all in war,where th e event is BO uncertain. All human life, especidybefore th e institution of order and good government, beingsubject t o fortuitous accidents, it is na tura l that supersti-tion should prevail everywhere in barbarous ages, and putmen on th e most earnest inqu iry concerning those invisiblepowers who disposeof their happiness o r misery. Ignorantof astronomy and the anatomy of plants and animals, andtoo little curious to observe the admirable adjustment offinalcauses, they remain still unacquainted with a firstand supreme creator, and with that infinitely perfect spiri twhoalone byhisalmighty will bestoFed order on t hewhole frame of nature. Such a magnificent idea is too bigfor their narrow conceptions,whichcan neither observethe beauty of the work, nor comprehend the grandeurof it s author. They suppose thei r deities, however potentand invisible, to be nothing but a species of humancreatures, perhaps raised f rom among mankind, andretaining all human passions and appetites, together withcorporeal limbs and organs. Such limited beings, thoughmasters of human fate, being each of them incapableof extending his influenceeverywhere,must be vastlymultiplied, in order to answer that variety of eventswhich happen over the wholeace of nature. Thusevery place is stored with a crowd of local deities ; andthus polytheism has prevailed, and still prevails, among th egreatest pa& of uninstructed mankind.'

Any of the hum an affections may lead us into the notion1 T h e following ines of Euripides are so much to the presentp'upcs3, that I caanot forbear quoting them :

O ~ KWLV o& murb O W e i 8 o t l aO h $ K ~ X ?rpdacrov.rap i n p & k v Katcijs.


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14 THE XATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.of invisible, intelligent power, hope as well as fear, grati-tu de as well as affliction; bu t if we examine our ownhearts, or observe what passes around us, we shall findthat men are much oftener thrown on the ir knees by themelancholy th an by th e agreeable passions. Prosperityis easily received as our due, and few questions ar e askedconcerning its cause or author. I t begets cheerfulnessand activity and alacrity and a lively enjoyment of everysocial and sensual pleasure ; and during this stateof mindmen have little leisure or inclination to hin k of theunknownnvisibleegions. On the otherhand, everydisastrousaccident alarms us, andsets us on enquiriesconcerning the principles whence it arose ; apprehensionsspring up with regard to futu rity ; and the mind, sunkinto diffidence, terror,and melancholy, ha s recourse toevery method of appeasing those sacred intelligent powers ,on whom our fortune is supposed entirely to depend.No topic is more usual w ith aU popular divines than todisplay the advantages of afaiction in bringing men to adue sense of religion, by subduing their confidence andsensuality, which in times of prosperity make them forget-ful of a divineprovidence. Nor is this topic c o n h e dmerely to modernreligions. The ancients have also em-ployed it. F ortun e ha s never liberally, without envy,says a Greek historian, bestowed an unmixed happiness

C d p o v u ~ ot dcool T ~ A L V C Kal xpouo,T a p a y p b m~Bivrcs,6shyvwcrly24,Owpcv a;To . HECWA,56.The Gods toss all life into confusion ;mix everything with ts reverse ;There is nothing secure in the world ; no glory,no proaperib.that dl of UB, rom our ignorance and uncertainty,may pay them *the more worehip and reverence.

1Did Sio., lib. iii.47.


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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 15on mankind ; but with all her gifts has everconjoinedsomedisastrouscircumstance, in order to chastisemeninto a reverence for t he Gods, whom, in a continued courseof prosperity, they are apt toneglect and forget.Whatage or period of life s he mostaddicted tosuperstition ? The weakest and most imid. W l a t sex ?The same answer must be given. The leaders andexamples of every kind of superstition , says Strabo,l( re the women. These excite th e men to devotion andsupplications, an d the observance of religious days. It israre 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 he accountgiven of an order of men amongst th e Getes, who prac-tised celibacy, and were notwithstanding the most reli-gious fanatics. A method of reasoning whichwouldlead us to entertain a bad idea of th e devotion of monks ;did we not know, by a n experience not so common, perhaps,in Strabos days, that one may practice elibacy, andprofess chastity, and yet maintain th e closest connexions,and most entire sympathy, with th a t timorous .and pioussex.

SECTIONT.-Deities not considered as Creators or Formersof the Torld.

The only point of theology in whichwe shall h dconsent of mankind lmost universd, is that there is in-visible, intelligent power in the world ; but whether thispower be supreme or subordinate; whether confined to one

1 Lib. vi. 297.


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16 THE NATUIUL HISTORY OF RELIGION.being or distributed am ong evera l;what ttributes,qualities, connexions, or principles of action ought to beascribed to those beings-concerning all these points thereis the widest difference in the popular systems of theology.Ourancestors in Europe, before the revival of letters,believed, as we do at present, that there was one supremeGod, the author of nature, whose power, though in itselfuncontrollable, was yet often exerted by the interpositionof his angels and subordinate ministers, who executed hissacred purposes. Bu t they also believed that all na tu rewasfu l l of other invisible powers-fairies, goblins, elves,sprights, beings stronger andmightier than men, butmuch inferior t o the celestial natures who surround thethrone of God. Now, suppose that anyone in those ageshad denied the existence of God and his angels, wouldnot his impiety ustlyhave deserved the appellation of ,Atheism, even tho ugh he had still allowed, by some oddcapricious reasoning, th a t the popular stories of elves andfairies were jus t and well-grounded?The difference, onth e one hand, between such a person and a genuine Theist,is infinitely greater than tha t, on the other, between himan d one that absolutely excludes al l invisible intelligentpower.And it is a fallacy, merelyrom the casualresemblance of names, w ithout any conformity of mean-ing, to rank such opposite pinions under the samedenomination.To anJone mho considers justly of the matter, it willappear hat he Gods of all polytheists are no bettertha n he elvesor fai ries of our ancestors, and meritas little any pious worship or veneration. These pre-tended religionists are realIy a kind of superstitioueAtheists, and acknowledge no being that corresponds


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THE NATURAL HISTORT OF RELIGION. 17to our idea of a deity. No first principle of mind orthought : No supremegovernment and administration :No divine contrivance or intention in hefabr ic of th eworld.The Chinese,when their prayers are not answered,beat the ir idols. The deities of the Laplanders are anylarge stone which they meetwith of an extraordinary

The Eg yp tian mythologists, in order to accountfor animal worship, said th at th e Gods, pursued by theviolence of earthborn men, who were their enemies, hadformerly been obliged to disguise themselves under thesemblance of b e a ~ t s . ~ he Caunii, a nation in the LesserAsia, esolving to adm it no strange Gods among hem,regularly, at certain seasons,assembled hemselves com-pletely armed, beat the air with he ir lances, an d pro-ceeded in that manner to their frontiers, in order, m theysaid, to expel the foreign d e i t i e ~ . ~Not even the imm ortalGods , said some German nations to O~esar, re a matchfor the Suevi .5

Many i ua says Dione in Homer to Venus woundedby Diomede,many i l ls my daughter, have the Godsinflicted on men, and many ills ineturn,ave men Iinflicted on the We need but open any classicauthor to meet with these gross representations of thedeities;and L o n g i n ~ s , ~ith reason,observes that suchideas of the divine nature, if literally taken, contain atrue Atheism.

n.

P&ree Compte. 1asgnSrd, Voyage de Laponie .3 Did. Sic., lib. i. 86. Lucian de SaoriGoiis, 14. Ovid alludesto them e radition, Metam., lib. v. 1. 321. So also Maniliurr, lib. iv. 800.Herodot., lib. i. 172.5 Dm. Comment. de bello GFallioo, lib. iv. 7.6 Lib. v. 582. 7 map.ix.


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18 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.Somewriters' havebeen surprised, that the impieties

of Aristophanes should have been tolerated, nay publiclyacted andapplaudedby the Athenians ; a people sosuperstitious and so jealous of the public religion, thatat ha t very ime heyput Socrates to death for hisimagined incredulity. But these writers consider not thatthe ludicrous, familiar images, under which the Gods arerepresented by that comic poet, instead of appearing im-pious,were the genuineights in which the ancientsconceived their divinities. W hat conduct an be morecriminal or mean, tha n ha t of Ju pit er i n Amphitrion?Yet that play, which represented his gallant exploits,was supposed so agreeable to h im that it was alwaysacted in Rome by public authority, when thetatewas threatenedwith pestilence, famine, or anygeneralcalamity.2 The Romans supposed, that ,ikell cld Iletchers, he would be highly pleased with the rehearsalof his form er eats of prowess and vigor, and hat notopic was so proper, upon which to flatter his vanity.

The Lacedemonians, says Xenophon ,3 lwaysduringwar put. up the ir petitions very early in the morning, inorder to be beforehand with their enemies, and, by beingth e first solicitors, pre-engaged the Gods in the ir avor. W emay gather from Seneca4 th at it was usual for the votariesin the temple to make interes t with the beadle or sextonthat they might have a seat near the image of the deity,in order to be the best heard in the ir prayers and applica-%ions o hi m The Tyrians, when besieged by Alexander,threw chains on the statue of Hercules to prevent that

1 Pkre Bnunoy, "h&tre des eo8 and Fontenelle, ''Histoireb o b . , lib. vii. 607E. 3 De Laced. Rep. 13. E@, xli.am O r d m * .


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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELTGIOR. 19de ity from deserting to he enemy? Augustus, havingtwice lost his fleet by storms, forbad Neptune to be carriedin procession along with the other Gods, and fancied thathe ha d sufficientlyrevengedhimself by that expedient.3After Germanicus's dea th th e people were so enraged atthe ir Gods that they stoned them in th ei r temples, andopenly renounced all allegiance to them.3

To ascribe th e origin and fabric of th e universe to theseimperfect beings never enters into th e imagination of anyPolytheist or idolater. Hesiod, whose writings, with those;of Homer, contained th e canonical system of th e heathens4"Hesiod, I say, supposes Gods and men to have sprungequally from the unknown powers of n a t ~ r e . ~ ndthroughout the whole theogony of tha t author Pandora isthe only instance of creation or a voluntary production ;and she, too,was formed by the Gods merely fromdespite to Prometheus, who had furnished men withstolen &e from th e celestial regions.6 The ancient mytho-logists, indeed, seem throughout to have rath er embracedthe idea of generation than that of creation o r formation,an d o have thence accounted for the origin of thisuniverse.Ovid,who ived in a learned age, andhad been in-structed by philosophers in he principles of a divine.creationor formation of th e world ; finding tha t such.an idea would notagreewith the popular mythologywhich he delivers, eaves it, in a manner, loose and de-

' Quint. Curtiua, l i b . iy. cap. iii. Diod. Sic., lib.d.Suet. in Vita dug., CEP. xvi.Id. inVita Gal CE .v.Herodot., lib. 'k. f,uchn, Jz4pitw Co@&tua, ds Imtec, Gat rm,45.


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20 THE NATURAX HIBTORY OF RELIQION.t a c h d f r o m his system. zcispzcis fwit iZZe Dswm ?Whichever of the Gods it was, says he, that dissipated th echaos, and introduced order into he universe, it couldneitherbeSaturn, he knew, nor Jupiter, nor Neptune,norany of the received deities of pagan ism. His theo-log ha l system had taug ht him nothing upon tha t head ;and he leaves the matter equally undetermined.

Diodorus Sculus,2beginning his work with an enume-ration of the most reasonable opinionsconcerning theorigin of the world, makes no mention of a deity orintelligent mind ; though it is evident from his history,that he had a much greater proneness to superstition thanto irreligion. And in another passage,s talking of theIchthyophages, a nation in India, he say8 that, there bein gso great difficulty in accounting for their descent, we mustconclude them to be a$orig$nes,withoutanybeginning of their generation, propa&ting their raoe from all eternity ;ae Borne of the physiologem, in treating of the origin ofnature,have justly observed. B u t in suchsubjects asthese, adds th e historian, which exceed all hum an capa-city, it maywell happen , that those who discourse th0most, b o w the least ; eaching a specious appearance oftru th in their easonings, wh ile extremely wide of the realtruth and matter of fact.A strange sentiment in our eyes, to be embraced by aprofessed and zealous religionist But it was merely by

d

1 Metamorph. lib. i. 1. 32. 2 Lib. i. 6, e t 8eq. Id. iii. 20.wi thout a Deity, esteems it impioue to ex lain, from physical oawes,4 The 8-e author, who can thos 8ooounifor the o r i g i n of t he wo&the oommon aocidente of life, earthqtu&.q, inundations, and au-pe ; snd devoutly asaribeg hese to h e anger of Jupiter OT Neptaae.A plain proof when- he derived hie ideas of religion. &a lib. xv.0.48, p. 364. Ex edit. Ilhodomrmni.


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accident tha t the question concerning the origin of the- world did ever in ancient times enternto religioueY systems, or was trea ted of by theologers. The philosophers

alone made profession of delivering systems of this kind ;and it was pretty late too before these bethough t them-selves of having recourse to a mind or suprem e intelli-gence, as the first cause of all. So far was it from beingesteemed profane in those days to account for the origin ofthingsithout a deity, th at Thales, Anaximenes,Heraclitus, ndothers, who embraced th at system ofcosmogony, passed unquestioned ; while A naxagoras, the&st undoubted theist amongthe philosophers, was perhaps the first that ever was accused of Atheism.

W e are told by Sextus Empiricus tha t Epicurus, whena boy, reading withhis preceptor these verses of Hesiod-

Eldest of beings, chaos f i s t &rose;Next earth, wide-stretohd, the eeat of all-

the young scholar &st betrayed his inquisitive genius byasking, And chaoswhence ? But was told by his pre- .ceptor, tha t he must have r e c o m e to the philosophers for asolution of such questions. And from this hint Ep icurus

1 It will be easy to give a r e m n why Thales, Anaximander,asd those early philosophers, who really were Atheists,might be veryorthodox in t h e pagan meed ; and why Anmagoras and Soambe,though eal theists, must naturally, in aneient tmes, be e s t m e dimpious. The blind, un dedwere of nature, i f they could pm-dum men, might also p r x ; s u c ~eing8 aa JupiCar and Neptnne,would be proper objects of worship. But where a supreme intdi-who, beiig the most powerfd, intelligent existences in the world,gam, the first c w of all, is admitted, these oaprioions beinga, ifthey exist at all, must aypear very subordinateand dependent, andaonseqnently be excluded from the rank of deities. Plab (dekg.,lib. X.) assigns this rewon for the imputationthrown onAnaxegovia : ie denying &e divinity of the Btare planets, and otheroxdBobjede.

* - AdvezsneMaklib, ix.


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22 THE NATURA& HISTORY OF RELIQION.left philology and all other studies, in order to betakehimself o th at science,whence alone he expec ted satis-faction with regard to these sub lime ubjects.The common people werenever likely to push theirresearches so far, or derive from reaaoning the ir system sof religion ;. w h en philologers and mythologists, we see,scarcely ever discovered 80 much penetration, And eventhe philosophers,whodiscoursed of such topics, readilyassented to th e grossest theory, andadmitted the joint.o r i g i n of Gods and men from night and chaos ; r o m h e ,water, air, or whatever they established to be the rulingelement.Nor was it only on their &st origin that the Gods weresupposed dependent onthe powers of nature. Throughoutth e whole period of their existence they were subjected tothe dominion of fate or destiny. (Thin k of the force of ,necessity, says Agrippa to the Roman people; ((thatforce, to whicheven the Gods must submit. And th eYounger Pliny,*agreeably to this way of reasoning, tellsus tha t, amidst the darkness, horror, and confusion whichensued upon th e first eruption of Vesuvius, several con-cluded tha t all natu re was going to wreck, an d that Godsand men were perishing in one common ruin.It is great complaisance, indeed, if we dignify with thename of religion such an imperfect system of theology,

md put t on a level with latter systems, which a refomided on principles more ju st an d more sublime, F o rmy part, I can scarcely allow the principles even of MarcusAmlius, Plutarch, an d some other Stoics and Academics,though much more r e h e d than the Pag an uperstition, tobe worthy of the honourable denonrination of theism. For


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THE NATURALISTORY OF RELIGION. 23if- the mythology of thehea then resemble th e ancientEuropean system of spiritual beings, excluding God andangels, and leaving only fairies and sprites ; th e creed ofthese philosophers may jus tly be said to exclude a deity,and to leave only angels and fairies.

SEGTION.- Various Forms of Polytheism : Allegory,Eiro Rorsh+.

But i t ishiefly our present business to considerhe grosspolytheism of the vulgar, an d to trace al l ts variousappearances in the principles of human nature, whencethe y are derived.Whoever learns, by argument, theexistence of invisibleintelligent power, must reason from th e adm irable contri-vance of na tural objects, an d must suppose the world to bethe workmanship of that Divine Being, the original cam eof all things. Bu t hevulgar polytheist, 80 f a r fromadm itting that idea, d e s e s every part of the universe, andconceives all the conspicuous productions of natu re to bethemselves so many real divinities. The sun,moon, andstars are all Gods according to his system : fountains areinhabited by nymphs, and trees by hamadryads : evenmonkeys, dogs, cats, and other animals often becomesacred in his eyes, and strike him witha religious venera-tion. Andhus, however strong mens propensity tobelieve invisible, intelligent power in nature, the ir pm-pensity is equally strong to rest theirttention on sensible,visible object8 ; and, in order to reconcile these oppositeinclinations, they are led to un ite the invisible power wikheome visible object.


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..

24 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.deities is ap t 't o cause some allegory, both physical andmoral, to enter into hevulgar systems of polytheism.I h e God of war will naturally be represented as furious,cruel, and impetuous; th e God of poetry as elegant, polite,and amiable ; the God of merchandise, especially in earlytimes, as thievish and.deceitfu1. The allegories supposedin Homer and other mythologists, I allow,have beenoften so strained that men of sense areap t entirely toreject them, and to consider them as th e roduction merelyof the fancy and conceit of critics andcom mentators. B utthat allegory really has place in the heathen mythology sundeniable even on the least reflexion., Cupid the son ofVenus, the Muses the daugh ters of Memory, Prometheusthe wise brother, Epimetheus the foolish ; Hygieia, ort h e Goddess of health, descended from Zscu lapius, or th eClod of physic : who sees not in these, and in manyother instances, the pla in races of allegory ? When a Godis supposed to preside over any paasion, event, or systemof actions, it is almost unavoidable to give him a genealogy,attributes, and adventures, suitable to his supposed powersand influence, and to carry on that similitude and com-parison which ie naturally so agreeable to the mind ofman.Allegories, indeed, entirely perfect, we ought not toexpect aa the products of ignorance and superstition; therebeing no work of gen ius that req&es a nicer hand , or ha sbeen more raxely executed with succesa. That Pew and.Tw are the sons of Mare is just, but why by Venus P1ThatHarmony is the daughter of Venus is regular, butwhy by Ham Y2 That S l e q is the brother of Dm issuitable, bu t why describe him as enamored of the

1Bdod Theog. 1. 936. * Id. ibid. end Plnt. in vita PeIop, 19.


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THE NATIEUL HISTORY OF BgLIQIOB* 25h o e s And since the ancient mythologists fall ntomistakes so gross and obvious, we have no reason surelyto expect such r e k e d and long-spun allegories, aa somehave endeavored t o deduce from their fictions.

Lucretius was plainly seduced by the stron g appearanceof allegory which is observable in th e p ag m fictions. Hefirst addresses himself to Venus as to thatgeneratingpower which animates, renews, and beautifies th e universe ;but is soon betrayed by the mythology into incoherencies,while he prays to that allegorical personage to appeasethe furies of her loverMars-an idea not drawn fromallegory, but f rom th e popular religion, and whichLucretius, as an Epicurean, could not consistently adm itof.The deities of the vulgar are so little superior to humancreatures that , where men are affected with strong senti-ments of veneration or gratitude for any hero or publicbenefactor, noth ing can be more na tural than to converthim into a God, and 6.U the heavens, after this manner,with continual recruits from amongst mankind. Most ofthe divinities of the ancient world are supposed to haveonce been men and to havebeenbeholden f o r theirapotheosis to th e admiration and affection of the people.The real history of the ir adventures, corrupted by trad i-tion, and elevated by the marveUous, became a plentifulsource of fable, especially in passing through the handsofpoets, allegorists, and priests, who euccessivelg improvedupon the wonder and astonishment of the ignorant multi-.tude.Painters too, and sculptors, came in for their share ofprofit in the saored mysteries, a s d furnishingmen with


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26 T H E N A l T J U L HISTORY OF RELIGION.seneible representations of their divinities, whom theyclothed in human figures, gav e great ncrease to the publicdevotion, and determined its object. It was probab ly forwant of these arts in rude and barba rous ages that mendeified plants, animals, and even brute , unorganised matterand rather than be without a sensible object of worship,affixed divinity to suchngainly forms. Could anystatuary of Syria, in early times, have formed a ju st figureof Apollo, the conic stone, Heliogabalus, had neverbecome the object of such profound adoration, and beenreceived a s a representation of the solar deity.'

Stilpo was banishedby the council of Areopagus foraf6rming tha t the Minerva in the citadel was no divinity,bu t he workmanship of Ph idias he sculptor.a W h atdegree of reason must we expect in th e religious belief ofthe vu lgar in other nations, when A thenians and Areopa-gites could enterta in such gross conceptions ?These, then, are the ge ne ra l principles of polytheism,founded in hum an nature, and little or nothing dependenton caprice and accident. As the c a w e a which estowhappiness or misery are, in general, very little known ndvery uncortain, our anxious concern endeavors to attain adeterminate idea of them, and finds no better expedienttha n to represent them as intelligen t, volun tary agents,like ourselves; only somewhat superior in power andwisdom. The limited influence of these agents, an d the irgreat proximity to human weakness, introduce t he variousdis tribu tion and division of the ir au thority ; and thereby

1 Herodian, lib. v. 3,lO. Jupiter h o n s repmeentadby cartiusaa a deiQ of the eame kind, lib. iv., oa . 7 . The Arabians and Pessinnn-ti ul sadored also shapelea8 d o m e g e t o n e s as their deity. h o blib. vi. 498 A. Somuoh did their folly exceed thatof the Bgyptians.8 Diog. Leert., lib. ii.116.


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TEtE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. , 27give rise to allegory. The same principles naturally deifymortals, superior in power, courage, or understanding,and produce hero-worship, together with fabulous historyand mythological tradition, in al l its wild andunaccountable forma. And aa an invisible spiritualintelligence i a a n object too efined for vulgar appre-hension, men naturally affix it to some sensible represen-tation; such asei ther he more onspicuous pa rts ofnature, or the statues, images, and pictures which a morerefined age form s of its divinities.

Almost a ll idolaters, of whatever age or country, ooncurin these general principles and conceptions ; and even th eparticu lar characters and provinces which they assign t otheir deities are not extrem ely different.' The Greek andRom an travellers and conquerors, without much & f h l t y ,found their o w n deities everywhere ; and said, '( his isMercury, that Venus, this Mars, th at Neptune,'' by what-ever title the stran ge Gods might be denominated. Thegoddess Hertha, of our Saxon ancestors, seems to be noother, according to T ac itq 2 th an th e illater ZeZZm of t heRomans; and his conjecture was evidently jus t.

~ E C T I O NVI.-Origin of Theism from PolythiwnTh e doctrine of one supreme deity, the auth orof nature,is very anaient, has spread itself ove r grea t and populousnations, and among hem has been embraced by all ranks

and conditions of persons. But whoever think s tha t it hasowed its sucoesa to th e prevalent force of those invincible


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28 THE N A 5 A L HISTORY OF RELIGION.reasons, on which it is undoubtedly founded, would showhimself little acquainted with the ignorance and stupidityof the people, and their inourable prejudices in favor oftheirparticularsuperstitions.Even a t thisday, and nEurope,askany of thevulgar why he believes i n anOmnipotent Creator of the world : he will never mention thebeauty of final causes, of which he is wholly ignorant : h ewil l not hold out his hand, and bid you contemplate t h esuppleness andvariety o f joints inhis fingers, the irbending all one way, the counterpoise which they receivefrom th e thumb, the softness and fleshy parts of the insideof hishand,with all the other circumstances whichrender that m ember fit for the use to which it was destined.To these he has been long accustomed, and he beholdsthemwith listlessness and unconcern. H e wilI tell you .of the suddenand unexpected death of such a one;the fall and bruise of such anothe r; the excessive droughtof this season; the cold and rains of another. These h eascribes to th e immediate opera tion of Providence. Andsuch events as, with good reasoners, are the chiefdifEcultiee in admitting a Supreme Intelligence, are w ithhim the sole arguments for it.

Many theists, even th e most zealous and refined, havedenied a particular providence, and have asserted that theSovereign mind or f i s t principle of all things, having fixedgeneral laws, by which na ture is governed, gives free andunin terrup ted course tohese laws, anddisturbs not, at .every turn the settledorder of events byparticularvolitions. f i o m the beautifulcomexion, say they, andrigid observance of established rules, we draw th e chief

pents for thekm ; and horn t he same principles are


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T U ATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION* 29


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30 T H E NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.theymake th e object of their worship an d adoration.Th ey may either suppose that, n hedistribution ofpower and erritoryam ong he Gods, theirnation wassubjected to the jurisdiction of that particular deity; or,reducing heavenly objects to th e model of things below,they m igh t represent one God as th e prince o r suprememagistrate of the rest, who, though of the same nature,rules them with an autho rity like that which an earthlysovereign exercisesver his sub jectsnd vassals.Whetherhis God, there fore, e considered asheirpeculiar patron, or as thegeneral sovereign of heaven,his votaries will endeavor by very art to insinuatethemselves info his favor ; and supposinghim to bepleased, like themselves, with praise and flattery, there isno eulogy or exaggeration which will bespared in their .addresses to him. I n proportion as mens fears ordistresses become more urgen t, theystill invent new strainsof adulation ; and even he who outdoes his predecessors inswelling up the titles of his divinity, is sure to be outdoneby his successors in newer and more pompous ep ithe ts ofpraise. Th us heyproceed; till a t last heyarrive ati n h i t y itself, beyond which there is no farther progress.And it is well if, in striving to get farther, and to rep re-sent a magnificent simplicity, the y run not into inexpli-cable mystery, and destroy the intelligent nature of theirdeity, on which alone any rational wo rship or adorationcan be founded . Whi le hey c o h e themselves to thenotion of a perfect being, the creator of the world, theycoincide, by chance, with the principles of reason and t r u ephilosophy; though they axe guided to th at notion, not byremon, of which they m e in a gre at meaaure incapable, butby t he adulation and fern of th e most vulgar s u p e r s t i t i o ~ ~


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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION. 31W e often h d , amongstbarbarous nations, and even

sometimes am ongst civilized, th a t whenevery strain offlattery has been exhausted owards arb itra ry princes,whenevery humanqualityhasbeenapplauded to theutmost, their servile courtiers represent them at last aarea l divinities, and point them out to th e people as objectsof adoration. How muchmore na tura l, therefore, is itthat a limited deity, who is at fist, supposed only theimm ediate author of the particular goods and ills in life,shou ld in the end be represented as sovereign maker andmodifier of the universe?

Even where this notion of a supreme deity is already.established, though it oughtnaturally to lesseneveryother worship, and abase every object of reverence, yet ifa nation has entertained the opinion of a subordinatetutelar divinity, saint, or angel, their addresses to thatbeinggradually rise upon them,and encroach on theadoration due to their supreme deity. The Virgin Mary,ere checked by theReformation, hadproceeded from beingmerely a goodwoman, to usurp many attributes of theAlmighty. God and St. Nicholas go hand in hand in allth e prayers and petitions of th e Muscovites.

Thus the deity who, from love, converted himself into abull, n order to carry off Europa, and who rom ambitiondethroned his father,aturn , became the Op timusMaximus of the heathens. Thus th e God of Abraham,Isaac, and Jacob,became th e supreme deity or Jehovah ofth e Jews.

Th e Jacobins, who denied th e imm aculate conception,have ever beenveryunhappy in their doctrine,eventhough p l i t i c d reasons havekept he Romish churchfrom condem ning it. The Cordeliem have run away With


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52 THE NATDRAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.all the popularity.But in *th e fifteenthcentury,as welearn fromBoulainvilliers, an Ita lia nCordelier m aintainedthat dur ing the three days when Christ was interred, thehypostatic union wae dissolved, and thathis human naturewas not a proper object of adoration during th a t period.W ithout the art of divination , one might foretell th at sogross and impious a blasphemy would not fail to beanathematized by the people. It was the occasion of@;reat insults on the part of the Jacobins, who now gotsome recompense or their misfortunes n thewar about theimm acula te conception.

Rathe r han relinquish hispropensity o adulation,religionists in all ages have involved themselves in thegreatest absurdities and contradictions.Hom er, in one passage, calls Oceanus and Tethys theoriginal parents of all things, conformably to the estab-lished mythology and traditions of the Greeks. Yet, inother passages, he could notorbear complimentingJu pite r, the reigning deity, with th at magnificent appel-lat ion; and accordingly denominates him thefather ofGods and men. H e forgets tha t every temple, every street,was ful l of the ancestors, uncles, brothers, and sisters ofthis Jup iter, who was, in reality, nothing b ut an upstartparricide and usurper. A l

David Hume TheNaturalHistoryOfReligion

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