without hesitation ascribed to a fuperior being. But as it occurs not to a savage, nor to any person who is not a philofopher, that the many various events exceeding human power and seemingly unconnected, may all proceed from the fame cause; they are readily afcribed to different beings. Pliny afcribes Polytheism to the confcioufness men have of their imbecillity: " Our powers are confined within narrow bounds: we do not readily con"ceive powers in the Deity much more "extenfive: and we fupply by number "what is wanting in power." Polytheism, thus founded, is the first stage in the progrefs of theology; for it is embraced by the rudest favages, who have neither capacity nor inclination to pierce deeper into the nature of things. This ftage is distinguishable from others, by a belief that all fuperior beings are malevolent. Man, by nature weak and helpless, is prone to fear, dreading * Plurality of heads or of hands in one idol, is fometimes made to fupply plurality of different idols. Hence among favages the grotesque figure of fome of their idols. every new object and every unusual event. Savages, having no protection against ftorms, tempefts, nor other external accidents, and having no pleasures but in gratifying hunger, thirft, and animal love; have much to fear, and little to hope. In that di confolate condition, they attribute the bulk of their diftreffes to invifible beings, who in their opinion must be malevolent. This feems to have been the opinion of the Greeks in the days of Solon; as appears in a converfation between him and Crofus King of Lydia, mentioned by Herodotus in the first book of his history. "Crofus, faid Solon, you ask me about human affairs; and I answer as one who thinks, that all the gods are envious and difturbers of mankind." The negroes on the coaft of Guinea, dread their deities as tyrants and oppreffors: having no conception of a good deity, they attribute the few bleffings they receive, to the foil, to the rivers, to the trees, and to the plants. The Lithuanians continued Pagans down to the fourteenth century; and worshipped in gloomy woods, where their deities were held to refide. Their worship probably was prompted by fear, VOL. IV. which E e which is allied to gloominefs. The people of Kamfkatka acknowledge to this day many malevolent deities, having little or no notion of a good deity. They believe the air, the water, the mountains, and the woods, to be inhabited by malevolent fpirits, whom they fear and worfhip. The favages of Guiana afcribe to the devil even their most common difeafes; nor do they ever think of another remedy, but to apply to a forcerer to drive him away. Such negroes as believe in the devil, paint his images white. Befide the Efquimaux, there are many tribes in the extenfive country of Labrador, who believe the Deity to be malevolent, and worfhip him out of fear. When they eat, they throw a piece of flesh into the fire as an offering to him; and when they go to fea in a canoe, they throw fomething on the fhore to render him propitious. Sometimes, in a capricious fit, they go out with guns and hatchets to kill him; and on their return boaft that they have done fo. Conviction of fuperior beings, who, like men, are of a mixed nature, fometimes doing good, fometimes mifchief, conftitutes the fecond stage. This came to to be the system of theology in Greece. The introduction of writing among the Greeks while they were little better than favages, produced a compound of character and manners, that has not a parallel in any other nation. They were acute in science, skilful in fine arts, extremely deficient in morals, grofs beyond conception in theology, and fuperftitious to a degree of folly; a strange jumble of exquifite fense and abfurd nonfenfe. They held their gods to resemble men in their external figure, and to be corporeal. In the 21ft book of the Iliad, Minerva with a huge ftone beats Mars to the ground, whose monftrous body covered feven broad acres. As corporeal beings, they were fuppofed to require the nourishment of meat, drink, and fleep. Homer mentions more than once the inviting of gods to a feaft and Paufanias reports, that in the temple of Bacchus at Athens, there were figures of clay, reprefenting a feast given by Amphyction to Bacchus and other deities. The inhabitants of the island Java are not fo grofs in their conceptions, as to think that the gods eat the offerings prefented to them; but it is their opinion, E e 2 that that a deity brings his mouth near the offering, fucks out all its favour, and leaves it tastelefs like water The Grécian gods, as defcribed by Homer, drefs, bathe, and anoint, like mortals. Venus, after being detected by her husband in the em→ braces of Mars, retires to Paphos, Where to the pow'r an hundred altars rife, blooms. Juno's dress is moft poetically deferibed, Iliad, book 14. It was alfo univerfally believed, that the gods were fond of women, and had many children by them, The ancient Germans thought more fenfibly, that the gods were too high to refemble men in any degree, or to be confined within the walls of a temple. The Greeks feem to have thought, that the gods did not much exceed themselves in * All Greek writers, and those in their neighbourhood, form the world out of a chaos. They had no fuch exalted notion of a deity as to believe, that he could make the world out of nothing. knowledge, |