NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.
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uncertain, subject to all varieties of humour, and dependent on the present incidents, which strike the imagination. The difference is only in the degrees. An antient will place a stroke of impiety and one of superstition alternately, thro' a whole discourse[1]: A modern often thinks in the same way, tho' he may be more guarded in his expressions.
Lucian tells us expressly[2], that whoever believed not the most ridiculous fables of paganism was esteemed by the people profane and impious. To what purpose, indeed, would that agreeable author have employed the whole force of his wit and satyr against the national religion, had not that religion been generally believed by his countrymen and contemporaries?
- ↑ Witness this remarkable passage of Tacitus: Præter multiplices rerum humanarum casus, cœlo terraque prodigia, & fulminum monitus, & futurorum præsagia, læta, tristia, ambigua, manifesta. Nec enim umquam atrocioribus populi Romani cladibus, magisque justis judiciis approbatum est, non esse curæ Diis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem, Hist. lib. i. Augustus's quarrel with Neptune is an instance of the same kind. Had not the emperor believed Neptune to be a real being, and to have dominion over the sea; where had been the foundation of his anger? And if he believed it, what madness to provoke still farther that deity? The same observation may be made upon Quintilian's exclamations, on account of the death of his children, lib. vi. Præf.
- ↑ Philopseudes.
Livy
