_Of Mythology, and Theology_.
The elements of nature were, as we have shewn, the first divinities
of man; he has generally commenced with adoring material beings; each
individual, as we have already said, as may be still seen in savage
nations, made to himself a particular god, of some physical object,
which he supposed to be the cause of those events, in which he was
himself interested; he never wandered to seek out of visible nature,
the source either of what happened to himself, or of those phenomena to
which he was a witness. As he every where saw only material effects, he
attributed them to causes of the same genus; incapable in his infancy
of those profound reveries, of those subtle speculations, which are
the fruit of time, the result of leisure, he did not imagine any cause
distinguished from the objects that met his sight, nor of any essence
totally different from every thing he beheld.
The observation of nature was the first study of those who had leisure
to meditate: they could not avoid being struck with the phenomena of the
visible world. The rising and setting of the sun, the periodical return
of the seasons, the variations of the atmosphere, the fertility and
sterility of the earth, the advantages of irrigation, the damage caused
by floods, the useful effects of fire, the terrible consequences
of conflagration, were proper and suitable objects to occupy their
thoughts. It was natural for them to believe that those beings they saw
move of themselves, acted by their own peculiar energies; according as
their influence over the inhabitants of the earth was either favorable
or otherwise, they concluded them to have either the power to injure
them, or the disposition to confer benefits. Those who first acquired
the knowledge of gaining an ascendancy over man, then savage, wandering,
unpolished, or dispersed in woods, with but little attachment to the
soil, of which he had not yet learned to reap the advantage, were always
more practised observers--individuals more instructed in the ways of
nature, than the people, or rather the scattered hordes, whom they found
ignorant and destitute of experience: their superior knowledge placed
them in a capacity to render these services--to discover to them useful
inventions, which attracted the confidence of the unhappy beings to
whom they came to offer an assisting hand; savages who were naked,
half famished, exposed to the injuries of the weather, obnoxious to the
attacks of ferocious beasts, dispersed in caverns, scattered in forests,
occupied with hunting, painfully labouring to procure themselves a very
precarious subsistence, had not sufficient leisure to make discoveries
calculated to facilitate their labour, or to render it less incessant.
These discoveries are generally the fruit of society: isolated beings,
detached families, hardly ever make any discoveries--scarcely ever think
of making any. The savage is a being who lives in a perpetual state of
infancy, who never reaches maturity unless some one comes to draw him
out of his misery. At first repulsive, unsociable, intractable, he by
degrees familiarizes himself with those who render him service; once
gained by their kindness, he readily lends them his confidence; in the
end he goes the length of sacrificing to them his liberty.
It was commonly from the bosom of civilized nations that have issued
those personages who have carried sociability, agriculture, art, laws,
gods, superstition, forms of worship, to those families or hordes as yet
scattered; who united them either to the body of some other nations,
or formed them into new nations, of which they themselves became the
leaders, sometimes the king, frequently the high priest, and often their
god. These softened their manners--gathered them together--taught
them to reap the advantages of their own powers--to render each other
reciprocal assistance--to satisfy their wants with greater facility. In
thus rendering their existence more comfortable, thus augmenting
their happiness, they attracted their love; obtained their veneration,
acquired the right of prescribing opinions to them, made them adopt
such as they had either invented themselves, or else drawn up in the
civilized countries from whence they came. History points out to us the
most famous legislators as men, who, enriched with useful knowledge they
had gleaned in the bosom of polished nations, carried to savages without
industry, needing assistance, those arts, of which, until then, these
rude people were ignorant: such were the Bacchus's, the Orpheus's, the
Triptolemus's, the Numa's, the Zamolixis's; in short, all those who
first gave to nations their gods--their worship--the rudiments of
agriculture, of science, of superstition, of jurisprudence, of religion,
&c.
It will perhaps be enquired, If those nations which at the present day
we see assembled, were all originally dispersed? We reply, that this
dispersion may have been produced at various times, by those terrible
revolutions, of which it has before been remarked our globe has more
than once been the theatre; in times so remote, that history has not
been able to transmit us the detail. Perhaps the approach of more than
one comet may have produced on our earth several universal ravages,
which have at each time annihilated the greater portion of the human
species.
These hypotheses will unquestionably appear bold to those who have not
sufficiently meditated on nature, but to the philosophic enquirer they
are by no means inconsistent. There may not only have been one general
deluge, but even a great number since the existence of our planet; this
globe itself may have been a new production in nature; it may not always
have occupied the place it does at present. Whatever idea may be adopted
on this subject, if it is very certain that, independent of those
exterior causes, which are competent to totally change its face, as the
impulse of a comet may do, this globe contains within itself, a cause
adequate to alter it entirely, since, besides the diurnal and sensible
motion of the earth, it has one extremely slow, almost imperceptible, by
which every thing must eventually be changed in it: this is the motion
from whence depends the _precession_ of the _equinoctial points_,
observed by _Hipparchus_ and other mathematicians, now well understood
by astronomers; by this motion, the earth must at the end of several
thousand years change totally: this motion will at length cause
the ocean to occupy that space which at present forms the lands or
continents. From this it will be obvious that our globe, as well as all
the beings in nature, has a continual disposition to change. This motion
was known to the ancients, and was what gave rise to what they called
their great year, which the Egyptians fixed at thirty-six thousand five
hundred and twenty-five years: the Sabines at thirty-six thousand four
hundred and twenty-five, whilst others have extended it to one hundred
thousand, some even to seven hundred and fifty-three thousand years.
Again, to those general revolutions which our planet has at different
times experienced, way he added those that have been partial, such as
inundations of the sea, earthquakes, subterraneous conflagrations, which
have sometimes had the effect of dispersing particular nations, and
to make them forget all those sciences with which they were, before
acquainted. It is also probable that the first volcanic fires, having
had no previous vent, were more central, and greater in quantity, before
they burst the crust of earth; as the sea washed the whole, it must
have rapidly sunk down into every opening, where, falling on the boiling
lava, it was instantly expanded into steam, producing irresistible
explosion: whence it is reasonable to conclude, that the primaeval
earthquakes wore more widely extended, and of much greater force, than
those which occur in our days. Other vapours may be produced by intense
heat, possessing a much greater elasticity, from substances that
evaporate, such as mercury, diamonds, &c.; the expansive force of these
vapours would be much greater than the steam of water, even at red hot
heat consequently they, way have had sufficient energy to raise islands,
continents, or even to have detached the moon from the earth; if the
moon, as has been supposed by some philosophers, was thrown out of the
great cavity which now contains the South Sea; the immense quantity of
water flowing in from the original ocean, and which then covered the
earth, would much contribute to leave the continents and islands, which
might be raised at the same time, above the surface of the water. In
later days we have accounts of huge stones falling, from the firmament,
which may have been thrown by explosion from some distant earthquake,
without having been impelled with a force sufficient to cause them to
circulate round the earth, and thus produce numerous small moons or
satellites.
Those who were able to escape from the ruin of the world, filled
with consternation, plunged in misery, were but little conditioned to
preserve to their posterity a knowledge, effaced by those misfortunes,
of which they had been both the victims and the witnesses: overwhelmed
with dismay, trembling with fear, they were not able to hand down the
history of their frightful adventures, except by obscure traditions;
much less to transmit to us the opinions, the systems, the arts, the
sciences, anterior to these petrifying revolutions of our sphere. There
have been perhaps men upon the earth from all eternity; but at different
periods they may have been nearly annihilated, together with their
monuments, their sciences, and their arts; those who outlived these
periodical revolutions, each time formed a new race of men, who by dint
of time, labour, and experience, have by degrees withdrawn from
oblivion the inventions of the primitive races. It is, perhaps, to these
periodical revolutions of the human species, that is to be ascribed the
profound ignorance in which we see man yet plunged, upon those objects
that are the most interesting to him. This is, perhaps, the true source
of the imperfection of his knowledge--of the vices of his political
institutions--of the defect in his religion--of the growth of
superstition, over which terror has always presided; here, in all
probability, is the cause of that puerile inexperience, of those jejune
prejudices, which almost every where keep man in a state of infancy, and
which render him so little capable of either listening to reason or
of consulting truth. To judge by the slowness of his progress, by
the feebleness of his advance, in a number of respects, we should be
inclined to say, the human race has either just quitted its cradle, or
that he was never destined to attain the age of virility--to corroborate
his reason.
However it may be with these conjectures, whether the human race may
always have existed upon the earth, whether it may have been a recent
production of nature, whether the larger animals we now behold were
originally derived from the smallest microscopic ones, who have
increased in bulk with the progression of time, or whether, as the
Egyptian philosophers thought, mankind were originally hermaphrodites,
who like the _aphis_ produced the sexual distinction after some
generations, which was also the opinion of Plato, and seems to have
been that of Moses, who was educated amongst these Egyptians, as may be
gathered from the 27th and 28th verses of the first chapter of GENESIS:
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them--And GOD blessed them, and GOD
said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and
subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth:" it
is not therefore presuming too much to suppose, as the Egyptians were
a nation very fond of explaining their opinions by hieroglyphics,
that that part which describes Eve as taken out of Adam's rib, was an
hieroglyphic emblem: showing that mankind was in the primitive state of
both sexes, united, who was afterwards divided into males and females.
However, I say, this may be, it is extremely easy to recur to the origin
of many existing nations: we shall find them always in the savage state;
that is, to say, dispersed; composed of families detached from each
other; of wandering, hordes; these were collected together, approximated
at the voice of some missionary or legislator, from whom they
received great benefits, who gave them gods, opinions, and laws. These
personages, of whom the people newly congregated readily acknowledged
the superiority, fixed the national gods, leaving to each individual,
those which he had formed to himself, according to his own peculiar
ideas, or else substituting others brought from those regions, from
whence they themselves had emigrated.
The better to imprint their lessons on the minds of their new subjects,
these men became the guides, the priests, the sovereigns, the masters
of these infant societies; they formed discourses by which they spoke to
the imagination of their willing auditors. POETRY seem best adapted to
strike the mind of these rude people, to engrave on their memory those
ideas with which they were willing to imbue them: its images, its
fictions, its numbers, its rhyme its harmony, all conspired to please
their fancy, to render permanent the impressions it made: thus, the
entire of nature, as well as all its parts, was personified, by its
beautiful allegories: at its soothing voice, trees, stones, rocks,
earth, air, fire, water, by imagination took intelligence, held
conversation with man, and with themselves; the elements were deified by
its songs, every thing was figuratively detailed in harmonious lays.
The sky, which according to the then philosophy, was an arched concave,
spreading over the earth, which was supposed to be a level plain; (for
the doctrine of _antipodes_ is of rather modern date) was itself made
a god; was considered a more suitable residence, as making a greater
distinction for these imaginary deities than the earth on which man
himself resided. Thus the firmament was filled with deities.
Time, under the name of Saturn, was pictured as the son of heaven;
or Coelus by earth, called Terra, or Thea; he was represented as
an inexorable divinity--naturally artful, who devoured his own
children--who revenged the anger of his mother upon his father; for
which purpose she armed him with a scythe, formed of metals drawn from
her own bowels, with which he struck Coelus, in the act of uniting
himself to Thea, and so mutilated him, that he was ever after
incapacitated to increase the number of his children: he was said to
have divided the throne with Janus king of Italy, his reign seems to
have been so mild, so beneficent, that it was called the _golden
age_; human victims were sacrificed on his altars, until abolished by
Hercules, who substituted small images of clay. Festivals in honor of
this god, called Saturnalia, were instituted long antecedent to the
foundation of Rome they were celebrated about the middle of December,
either on the 16th, 17th, or 18th; they lasted in latter times
several days, originally but one. Universal liberty prevailed at the
celebration, slaves were permitted to ridicule their masters--to speak
freely on every subject--no criminals were executed--war never declared;
the priests made their human offerings with their heads uncovered; a
circumstance peculiar to the Saturnalia, not adopted at other festivals.
The igneous matter, the etherial electric fluid, that invisible fire
which vivifies nature, that penetrates all beings, that fertilizes the
earth, which is the great principle of motion, the source of heat, was
deified under the name of Jupiter: his combination with every being in
nature was expressed by his metamorphoses--by the frequent adulteries
imputed to him. He was armed with thunder, to indicate he produced
meteors, to typify the electric fluid that is called lightning. He
married the winds, which were designated under the name of Juno,
therefore called the Goddess of the Winds, their nuptials were
celebrated with great solemnity; all the gods, the entire brute
creation, the whole of mankind attended, except one young woman named
Chelone, who laughed at the ceremonies, for which impiety she was
changed by Mercury into a tortoise, and condemned to perpetual silence.
He was the most powerful of all the gods, and considered as the king and
father both of gods and men: his worship was very extended, performed
with greater solemnity, than that of any other god. Upon his altars
smoked goats, sheep, and white bulls, in which he is said to have
particularly delighted; the oak was rendered sacred to him, because
he taught mankind to live upon acorns; he had many oracles where his
precepts were delivered, the most celebrated of these were at Dodona and
Ammon in Lybia; he was supposed to be invisible to the inhabitants of
the earth; the Lacedemonians erected his statue with four heads, thereby
indicating, that he listened readily to the solicitations of every
quarter of the earth. Minerva is represented as having no mother, but to
have come completely armed from his brains, when his head was opened by
Vulcan; by which it is meant to infer that wisdom is the result of
this ethereal fluid. Thus, following the same fictions, the sun, that
beneficent star which has such a marked influence over the earth, became
an Osiris, a Belus, a Mithras, an Adonis, an Apollo. Nature, rendered
sorrowful by his periodical absence, was an Isis, an Astarte, a Venus,
a Cybele. Astarte had a magnificent temple at Hieropolis served by three
hundred priests, who were always employed in offering sacrifices. The
priests of Cybele, called Corybantes, also Galli, were not admitted to
their sacred functions without previous mutilation. In the celebration
of their festivals these priests used all kinds of indecent expressions,
beat drums, cymbals, and behaved just like madmen: his worship extended
all over Phrygia, and was established in Greece under the name of
_Eleusinian mysteries_. In short, every thing was personified: the sea
was under the empire of Neptune; fire was adored by the Egyptians under
the name of Serapis; by the Persians, under that of Ormus or Oromaze;
and by the Romans, under that of Vesta and Vulcan.
Such was the origin of mythology: it may be said to be the daughter of
natural philosophy, embellished by poetry; only destined to describe
nature and its parts. If antiquity is consulted, it will be perceived
without much trouble, that these famous sages, those legislators, those
priests, those conquerors, who were the instructors of infant nations,
themselves adored active nature, or the great whole considered
relatively to its different operations or qualities; that this was what
they caused the ignorant savages whom they had gathered together to
adore. It was the great whole they deified; it was its various parts
which they made their inferior gods; it was from the necessity of her
laws they made fate. The Greeks called it Nature, a divinity who had
a thousand names. Varro says, "I believe that God is the soul of the
universe, and that the universe is God." Cicero says "that in the
mysteries of Samothracia, of Lemnos, of Eleusis, it was nature much more
than the gods, they explained to the initiated." Pliny says, "we must
believe that the world, or that which is contained under the vast
extent of the heavens, is the Divinity; even eternal, infinite, without
beginning or end." It was these different modes of considering nature
that gave birth to Polytheism, to idolatry. Allegory masqued its mode
of action: it was at length parts of this great whole, that idolatry
represented by statues and symbols.
To complete the proofs of what has been said; to shew distinctly that it
was the great whole, the universe, the nature of things, which was the
real object of the worship of Pagan antiquity, hardly any thing can be
more decisive than the beginning of the hymn of Orpheus addressed to the
god Pan.
"O Pan! I invoke thee, O powerful god! O universal nature! the heavens,
the sea, the earth, who nourish all, and the eternal fire, because these
are thy members, O all powerful Pan," &c. Nothing can be more suitable
to confirm these ideas, than the ingenious explanation which is given
of the fable of Pan, as well as of the figure under which he is
represented. It is said, "Pan, according to the signification of his
name, is the emblem by which the ancients have designated the great
assemblage of things or beings: he represents the universe; and, in the
mind of the wisest philosophers of antiquity, he passed for the greatest
and most ancient of the gods. The features under which he is delineated
form the portrait of nature, and of the savage state in which she was
found in the beginning. The spotted skin of the leopard, which
serves him for a mantle, imagined the heavens filled with stars and
constellations. His person was compounded of parts, some of which were
suitable to a reasonable animal, that is to say, to man; and others to
the animal destitute of reason, such as the goat. It is thus," says
he, "that the universe is composed of an intelligence that governs the
whole, and of the prolific, fruitful elements of fire, water, earth,
air. Pan, loved to drink and to follow the nymphs; this announces the
occasion nature has for humidity in all her productions, and that this
god, like nature, is strongly inclined to propagation. According to the
Egyptians, and the most ancient Grecian philosophers, Pan had neither
father nor mother; he came out of Demogorgon at the same moment with
the Destinies, his fatal sisters; a fine method of expressing that the
universe was the work of an unknown power, and that it was formed after
the invariable relations, the eternal laws of necessity; but his most
significant symbol, that most suitable to express the harmony of the
universe, is his mysterious pipe, composed of seven unequal tubes, but
calculated to produce the nicest, the most perfect concord. The orbs
which compose the seven planets of our solar system, are of different
diameters; being bodies of unequal mass, they describe their revolutions
round the sun in various periods; nevertheless it is from the order of
their motion that results the harmony of the spheres," &c.
Here then is the great macrocosm, the mighty whole, the assemblage of
things adored and deified by the philosophers of antiquity; whilst the
uninformed stopped at the emblem under which this nature was depicted;
at the symbols under which its various parts, its numerous functions
were personified; his narrow mind, his barbarous ignorance, never
permitted him to mount higher; they alone were deemed worthy of being,
initiated into the mysteries, who knew the realities masqued under these
emblems. Indeed, it is not to be doubted for an instant, that the wisest
among the Pagans adored nature; which ethnic theology designated under
a great variety of nomenclature, under an immense number of different
emblems. Apuleius, although a decided Platonist, accustomed to the
mysterious, unintelligible notions of his master, calls "Nature the
parent of all; the mother of the elements, the first offspring of the
world;" again, "the mother of the stars, the parent of the seasons, and
the governess of the whole world."--She was worshipped by many under the
appellation of the _mother of the gods_. Indeed, the first institutors
of nations, and their immediate successors in authority, only spoke to
the people by fables, allegories, enigmas, of which they reserved
to themselves the right of giving an explanation: this, in fact,
constituted the mysteries of the various worship paid to the Pagan
divinities. This mysterious tone they considered necessary, whether it
was to mask their own ignorance, or whether it was to preserve their
power over the uninformed, who for the most part only respect that which
is above their comprehension. Their explications were generally dictated
either by interest, or by a delirious imagination, frequently by
imposture; thus from age to age, they did no more than render nature and
its parts, which they had originally depicted, more unknown, until they
completely lost sight of the primitive ideas; these were replaced by a
multitude of fictitious personages, under whose features this nature had
primarily been represented to them. The people, either unaccustomed to
think, or deeply steeped in ignorance, adored these personages, without
penetrating into the true sense of the emblematical fables recounted to
them. These ideal beings, with material figures, in whom they believed
there resided a mysterious virtue, a divine power, were the objects of
their worship, the source of their fears, the fountain of their
hopes. The wonderful, the incredible actions ascribed to these fancied
divinities, were an inexhaustible fund of admiration, which gave
perpetual play to the fancy; which delighted not only the people of
those days, but even the children of latter ages. Thus were transmitted
from age to age, those marvellous accounts, which, although necessary to
the existence of the power usurped by the ministers of these gods, did,
in fact, nothing more than confirm the blindness of the ignorant: these
never supposed that it was nature, its various operations, its numerous
component parts--that it was the passions of man and his diverse
faculties that lay buried under an heap of allegories; they did not
perceive that the passions and faculties of human nature were used as
emblems, because man was ignorant of the true cause of the phenomena
he beheld. As strong passions seemed to hurry man along, in despite
of himself, they either attributed these passions to a god, or deified
them; frequently they did both: it was thus love became a deity; that
eloquence, poetry, industry, were transformed into gods, under the names
of Hermes, Mercury, Apollo; the stings of conscience were called the
Furies: the people, bowed down in stupid ignorance, had no eyes but
for these emblematical persons, under which nature was masked: they
attributed to their influence the good, to their displeasure the evil,
which they experienced: they entered into every kind of folly, into
the most delirious acts of madness, to render them propitious to their
views; thus, for want of being acquainted with the reality of things,
their worship frequently degenerated into the most cruel extravagance,
into the most ridiculous folly.
Thus it is obvious, that every thing proves nature and its various
parts to have every where been the first divinities of man.
Natural philosophers studied these deities, either superficially or
profoundly,--explained some of their properties, detailed some of their
modes of action. Poets painted them to the imagination of mortals,
either in the most fascinating colours, or under the most
hideous deformities; embodied them--furnished them with reasoning
faculties--recounted their exploits--recorded their will. The statuary
executed sometimes with the most enrapturing art, the ideas of the
poets,--gave substance to their shadows--form to their airy nothings.
The priest decorated these united works with a thousand marvellous
qualities--with the most terrible passions--with the most inconceivable
attributes; gave them, "a local habitation and a name." The people
adored them; prostrated themselves before these gods, who were neither
susceptible of love or hatred, goodness, or malice; they became
persecuting, malevolent, cruel, unjust, in order to render themselves
acceptable to powers generally described to them under the most odious
features.
By dint of reasoning upon these emblems, by meditating upon nature,
thus decorated, or rather disfigured, subsequent speculators no longer
recollected the source from whence their predecessors had drawn their
gods, nor the fantastic ornaments with which they had embellished
them. Natural philosophers and poets were transformed by leisure into
metaphysicians and theologians; tired with contemplating what they could
have understood, they believed they had made an important discovery
by subtilly distinguishing nature from herself--from her own peculiar
energies--from her faculty of action. By degrees they made an
incomprehensible being of this energy, which as before they personified,
this they called the mover of nature, divided it into two, one congenial
to man's happiness, the other inimical to his welfare; these they
deified in the same manner as they had before done nature with her
various parts. These abstract, metaphysical beings, became the
sole object of their thoughts; were the subject of their continual
contemplation; they looked upon them as realities of the highest
importance: thus nature quite disappeared; she was despoiled of her
rights; she was considered as nothing more than an unwieldy mass,
destitute of power; devoid of energy, as an heap of ignoble matter
purely passive: who, incapable of acting by herself, was not competent
to any of the operations they beheld, without the direct, the immediate
agency of the moving powers they had associated with her: which they had
made the fulcrum necessary to the action of the lever. They either did
not or would not perceive, that the _great Cause of causes, ens entium,
Parent of parents_, had, in unravelling chaotic matter, with a wisdom
for which man can never be sufficiently grateful, with a sagacity
which he can never sufficiently admire, foreseen every thing that could
contribute not only to his own individual happiness, but also to that of
all the beings in nature; that he had given this nature immutable laws,
according to which she is for ever regulated; after which she is obliged
invariably to act; that he has described for her an eternal course, from
which it is not permitted her to deviate, even for an instant; that she
is therefore, rendered competent to the production of every phenomena,
not only that he beholds, but of an infinity that he has never yet
contemplated; that she needs not any exterior energy for this purpose,
having received her powers from a hand far superior to any the feeble
weak imagination of man is able to form; that when this nature appears
to afflict him, it is only from the contraction of his own views, from
the narrowness of his own ideas, that he judges; that, in fact, what he
considers the evils of nature, are the greatest possible benefits he
can receive, if he was but in a condition to be acquainted with previous
causes, with subsequent effects. That the evils resulting to him from
his own vices, have equally their remedies in this nature, which it
is his duty to study; which if he does he will find, that the same
omnipotent goodness, who gave her irrefragable laws, also planted in her
bosom, balsams for all his maladies, whether physical or moral: but that
it is not given him to know what this great, this universal cause
is, for purposes of which he ought not to dispute the wisdom, when he
contemplates the mighty wonders that surround him.
Thus man ever preferred an unknown power, to that of which he was
enabled to have some knowledge, if he had only deigned to consult
his experience; but he presently ceases to respect that which he
understands; to estimate those objects which are familiar to him: he
figures to himself something marvellous in every thing he does not
comprehend; his mind, above all, labours to seize upon that which
appears to escape his consideration; in default of experience, he no
longer consults any thing, but his imagination, which feeds him
with chimeras. In consequence, those speculators who have subtilly
distinguished nature from her own powers, have successively laboured
to clothe the powers thus separated with, a thousand incomprehensible
qualities: as they did not see this power, which is only a mode, they
made it a spirit--an intelligence--an incorporeal being; that is to say,
of a substance totally different from every thing of which we have a
knowledge. They never perceived that all their inventions, that all the
words which they imagined, only served to mask their real ignorance;
that all their pretended science was limited to saying, in what manner
nature acted, by a thousand subterfuges which they themselves found
it impossible to comprehend. Man always deceives himself for want of
studying nature; he leads himself astray, every time he is disposed to
go out of it; he is always quickly necessitated to return; he is even
in error when he substitutes words which he does not himself understand,
for things which he would much better comprehend if he was willing to
look at them without prejudice.
Can a theologian ingenuously believe himself more enlightened, for
having substituted the vague words spirit, incorporeal substance, &c. to
the more intelligible terms nature, matter, mobility, necessity? However
this may be, these obscure words once imagined, it was necessary to
attach ideas to them; in doing this, he has not been able to draw them
from any other source than the beings of this despised nature, which are
ever the only beings of which he is enabled to have any knowledge. Man,
consequently, drew them up in himself; his own soul served for the model
of the universal soul, of which indeed according to some it only formed
a portion; his own mind was the standard of the mind that regulated
nature; his own passions, his own desires, were the prototypes of those
by which he actuated this being; his own intelligence was that from
which he formed that of the mover of nature; that which was suitable
to himself, he called the order of nature; this pretended order was the
scale by which he measured the wisdom of this being; in short, those
qualities which he calls perfections in himself, were the archetypes
in miniature, of the perfections of the being, he thus gratuitously
supposed to be the agent, who operated the phenomena of nature. It
was thus, that in despite of all their efforts, the theologians
were, perhaps always will be, true Anthropomorphites. A sect of this
denomination appeared in 359, in Egypt, they held the doctrine that
their god had a bodily shape. Indeed it is very difficult, if not
impossible to prevent man from making himself the sole model of his
divinity. Montaigne says "man is not able to be other than he is, nor
imagine but after his capacity; let him take what pains he may, he will
never have a knowledge of any soul but his own." Xenophanes said, "if
the ox or the elephant understood either sculpture or painting, they
would not fail to represent the divinity under their own peculiar figure
that in this, they would have as much reason as Polyclitus or Phidias,
who gave him the human form." It was said to a very celebrated man that
"God made man after his own image;" "man has returned the compliment,"
replied the philosopher. Indeed, man generally sees in his God, nothing
but a man. Let him subtilize as he will, let him extend his own powers
as he may, let him swell his own perfections to the utmost, he will have
done nothing more than make a gigantic, exaggerated man, whom he will
render illusory by dint of heaping together incompatible qualities. He
will never see in such a god, but a being of the human species, in whom
he will strive to aggrandize the proportions, until he has formed a
being totally inconceivable. It is according to these dispositions that
he attributes intelligence, wisdom, goodness, justice, science, power,
to his divinity, because he is himself intelligent; because he has the
idea of wisdom in some beings of his own species; because he loves to
find in them ideas favourable to himself: because he esteems those
who display equity; because he has a knowledge, which he holds more
extensive in some individuals than himself; in short, because he enjoys
certain faculties which depend on his own organization. He presently
extends or exaggerates all these qualities in forming his god; the sight
of the phenomena of nature, which he feels he is himself incapable
of either producing or imitating, obliges him to make this difference
between the being he pourtrays and himself; but he knows not at what
point to stop; he fears lest he should deceive himself, if he should see
any limits to the qualities he assigns, the word infinite, therefore, is
the abstract, the vague term which he uses to characterize them. He says
that his power is infinite, which signifies that when he beholds those
stupendous effects which nature produces, he has no conception at what
point his power can rest; that his goodness, his wisdom, his knowledge
are infinite: this announces that he is ignorant how far these
perfections ma be carried in a being whose power so much surpasses
his own; that he is of infinite duration, because he is not capable
of conceiving he could have had a beginning or can ever cease to be;
because of this he considers a defect in those transitory beings of
whom he beholds the dissolution, whom he sees are subjected to death. He
presumes the cause of those effects to which he is a witness, of those
striking phenomena that assail his sight, is immutable, permanent, not
subjected to change, like all the evanescent beings whom he knows are
submitted to dissolution, to destruction, to change of form. This mover
of nature being always invisible to man, his mode of action being,
impenetrable, he believes that, like his soul or the concealed principle
which animates his own body, which he calls spiritual, a spirit, is the
moving power of the universe; in consequence he makes a spirit the
soul, the life, the principle of motion in nature. Thus when by dint of
subtilizing, he has arrived at believing the principle by which his body
is moved is a spiritual, immaterial substance, he makes the spirit of
the universe immaterial in like manner: he makes it immense, although
without extent; immoveable, although capable of moving nature:
immutable, although he supposes him to be the author of all the changes,
operated in the universe.
The idea of the unity of God, which cost Socrates his life, because the
Athenians considered those Atheists who believed but in one, was the
tardy fruit of human meditation. Plato himself did not dare to
break entirely the doctrine of _Polytheism_; he preserved Venus, an
all-powerful Jupiter, and a Pallas, who was the goddess of the country.
The sight of those opposite, frequently contradictory effects, which man
saw take place in the world, had a tendency to persuade him there must
be a number of distinct powers or causes independent of each other. He
was unable to conceive that the various phenomena he beheld, sprung from
a single, from an unique cause; he therefore admitted many causes or
gods, acting upon different principles; some of which he considered
friendly, others as inimical to his race. Such is the origin of that
doctrine, so ancient, so universal, which supposed two principles in
nature, or two powers of opposite interests, who were perpetually at war
with each other; by the assistance of which he explained, that constant
mixture of good and evil, that blending of prosperity with misfortune,
in a word, those eternal vicissitudes to which in this world the human
being, is subjected. This is the source of those combats which all
antiquity has supposed to exist between good and wicked gods, between an
Osiris and a Typhoeus; between an Orosmadis and an Arimanis; between a
Jupiter and the Titanes; in these rencounters man for his own peculiar
interest always gave the palm of victory to the beneficent deity; this,
according to all the traditions handed down, ever remained in possession
of the field of battle; it was so far right, as it is evidently for the
benefit of mankind that the good should prevail over the wicked.
When, however, man acknowledged only one God, he generally supposed the
different departments of nature were confided to powers subordinate to
his supreme orders, under whom the sovereign of the gods discharged
his care in the administration of the world. These subaltern gods were
prodigiously multiplied; each man, each town, each country, had
their local, their tutelary gods; every event, whether fortunate or
unfortunate, had a divine cause; was the consequence of a sovereign
decree; each natural effect, every operation of nature, each passion,
depended upon a divinity, which a theological imagination, disposed
to see gods every where, mistaking nature, either embellished or
disfigured. Poetry tuned its harmonious lays, on these occasions,
exaggerated the details, animated its pictures; credulous ignorance
received the portraits with eagerness--heard the doctrines with
submission.
Such is the origin of Polytheism: indeed the Greek word _Theos_, [Greek
letters], is derived from _Theaomai_, [Greek letters], which implies
to contemplate, or take a view of secret or hidden things. Such are the
foundations, such the titles of the hierarchy, which man established
between himself and his gods, because he generally believed he was
incapable of the exalted privilege of immediately addressing himself
to the incomprehensible Being whom he had acknowledged for the only
sovereign of nature, without even having any distinct idea on the
subject: such is the true genealogy of those inferior gods whom the
uninformed place as, a proportional means between themselves and the
first of all other causes. In consequence, among the Greeks and the
Romans, we see the deities divided into two classes, the one were called
great gods, because the whole world were nearly in accord in deifying
the most striking parts of nature, such as the sun, fire; the sea, time,
&c. these formed a kind of aristocratic order, who were distinguished
from the minor gods, or from the multitude of ethnic divinities, who
were entirely local; that is to say, were reverenced only in particular
countries, or by individuals; as in Rome, where every citizen had
his familiar spirit, called lares; and household god, called penates.
Nevertheless, the first rank of these Pagan divinities, like the latter,
were submitted to Fate, that is, to destiny, which obviously is nothing
more than nature acting by immutable, rigorous, necessary laws; this
destiny was looked upon as the god of gods; it is evident, that this
was nothing more than necessity personified; that therefore it was a
weakness in the heathens to fatigue with their sacrifices, to solicit
with their prayers, those divinities whom they themselves believed were
submitted to the decrees of an inexorable destiny, of which it was never
possible for them to alter the mandates. _But man_, generally, _ceases
to reason, whenever his theological notions are either brought into
question, or are the subject of his inquiry_.
What has been already said, serves to show the common source of that
multitude of intermediate powers, subordinate to the gods, but superior
to man, with which he filled the universe: they were venerated under
the names of nymphs, demi-gods, angels, daemons, good and evil genii,
spirits, heroes, saints, &c. Among the Romans they were called _Dei
medioxumi_, intermediate angels; they were looked upon as intercessors,
as mediators, as powers whom it was necessary to reverence, in order
either to obtain their favour, appease their anger, or divert their
malignant intentions; these constitute different classes of intermediate
divinities, who became either the foundation of their hopes, the object
of their fears, the means of consolation, or the source of dread to
those very mortals who only invented them when they found it
impossible to form to themselves distinct, perspicuous ideas of the
incomprehensible Being who governed the world in chief; or when they
despaired of being able to hold communication with him directly.
Meditation and reflection diminished the number of those deities
which composed the ethnic polytheism: some who gave the subject more
consideration than others, reduced the whole to one all-powerful
Jupiter; but still they painted this being in the most hideous
colours, gave him the most revolting features, because they were still
obstinately bent on making man, his action and his passions, the model:
this folly led them into continual perplexities, because it heaped
together contradictory, incompatible, extravagant qualities; it was
quite natural it should do so: the limited views, the superficial
knowledge, the irregular desires of frail, feeble mortals, were but
little calculated to typify the mind of the real Divinity; of that great
_Cause of causes_, that _Parent of parents_, from whom every thing must
have emanated. Although they persuaded themselves it was sinning to give
him rivals, yet they described him as a jealous monarch who could not
bear a division of empire; thus taking the vanity of earthly princes for
their emblem, as if it was possible such a being could have a competitor
like a terrestrial monarch. Not having contemplated the immutable laws
with which he has invested nature, to which every thing it contains is
subjected, which are the result of the most perfect wisdom, they were
puzzled to account for the contrariety of those effects which their
weak minds led them to suppose as evils; seeing that sometimes those who
fulfilled in the most faithful manner their duties in this life, were
involved in the same ruin with the boldest, the most inconsiderate
violaters: thus in making him the immediate agent, instead of the first
author, the executive instead of the formative power, they caused him
to appear capricious, as unreasonably vindictive against his creatures,
when they ought to have known that his wisdom was unlimited, his
kindness without bounds, when he infused into nature that power which
produces these apparently contradictory effects; which, although they
seem injurious to man's interests, are, if he was but capacitated
to judge fairly, the most beneficial advantages that he can possibly
derive. Thus they made the Divinity appear improvident, by continually
employing him to destroy the work of his own hands: they, in fact, taxed
him with impotence, by the perpetual non-performance of those projects
of which their own imbecillity, their own erring judgment, had vainly
supposed him to be the contriver.
To solve these difficulties, man created enemies to the Divinity, who
although subordinate to the supreme God, were nevertheless competent
to disturb his empire, to frustrate his views. Can any thing be worse
conceived, can any thing be more truly derogatory to the great _Parent
of parents_, than thus to make him resemble a king, who is surrounded
with adversaries, willing to dispute with him his diadem? Such, however,
is the origin of the _Fable of the Titanes_, or of the _rebellious
angels_, whose presumption caused them to be plunged into the abyss
of misery--who were changed into _demons_, or into evil genii: these
according to their mythology, had no other functions, than to render
abortive the projects of the Divinity; to seduce, to raise to rebellion,
those who were his subjects. Miserable invention, feeble subterfuge,
for the vices of mankind, although decorated with all the beauty of
language. Can then sublimity of versification, the harmony of numbers,
reconcile man to the idea that the puny offspring of natural causes is
adequate for a single instant to dispute the commands, to thwart the
desires, to render nugatory the decrees of a Being whose wisdom is of
the most polished perfection; whose goodness is boundless; whose power
must be more capacious than the human mind can possibly conceive?
In consequence of this _Fable of the Titanes_, the monarch of nature was
represented as perpetually in a scuffle with the enemies he had himself
created; as unwilling totally to subdue those with whom these fabulists
have described him as dividing his authority--partaking his supreme
power. This again was borrowed from the conduct of earthly monarchs,
who, when they find a potent enemy, make a treaty with him; but this was
quite unnecessary for the great _Cause of causes_; and only shows that
man is utterly incapable of forming any other ideas than those which he
derives from the situation of those of his own race, or of the beings
by whom he is surrounded. According to this fable the subjects of the
universal Monarch were never properly submitted to his authority; like
an earthly king, he was in a continual state of hostility, and punished
those who had the misfortune to enter into the conspiracies of the
enemies of his glory: seeing that human legislators put forth laws,
issued decrees, they established similar institutions for the Divinity;
established oracles; his ministers pretended, through these mysterious
mediums, to convey to the people his heavenly mandates, to unveil his
concealed intentions: the ignorant multitude received these without
examination, they did not perceive that it was man, and not the
Divinity, who thus spoke to them; they did not feel that it must be
impossible for weak creatures to act contrary to the will of God.
The _Fable of the Titanes, or rebellious angels_, is extremely ancient;
very generally diffused over the world; it serves for the foundation
of the theology of the Brachmins of Hindostan: according to these, all
living bodies are animated by _fallen angels_, who under these forms
expiate their rebellion. These contradictory notions were the basis of
nearly all the superstitions of the world; by these means they imagined
they accounted for the origin of evil--demonstrated the cause why the
human species experience misery. In short, the conduct of the most
arbitrary tyrants of the earth was but too frequently brought forth, too
often acted upon, in forming the character of the Divinity, held forth
to the worship of man: their imperfect jurisprudence was the source from
whence they drew that which they ascribed to their god. Pagan theology
was remarkable for displaying in the character of their divinities the
most dissolute vices; for making them vindictive; for causing them to
punish with extreme rigour those, crimes which the oracles predicted; to
doom to the most lasting torments those who sinned without knowing their
transgression; to hurl vengeance on those who were ignorant of their
obscure will, delivered in language which set comprehension at defiance;
unless it was by the priest who both made and fulminated it. It was upon
these unreasonable notions, that the theologians founded the worship
which man ought to render to the Divinity. Do not then let us be at all
surprised if the superstitious man was in a state of continual alarm:
if he experienced trances--if his mind was ever in the most tormenting
dread; the idea of his gods recalled to him unceasingly, that of a
pitiless tyrant who sported with the miseries of his subjects; who,
without being conscious of their own wrong, might at each moment incur
his displeasure: he could not avoid feeling that although they had
formed the universe entirely for man, yet justice did not regulate the
actions of these powerful beings, or rather those of the priests; but he
also believed that their elevated rank placed them infinitely above the
human species, that therefore they might afflict him at their pleasure.
It is then for want of considering good and evil as equally necessary;
it is for want of attributing them to their true causes, that man has
created to himself fictitious powers, malicious divinities, respecting
whom it is found so difficult to undeceive him. Nevertheless, in
contemplating nature, he would have been able to have perceived, that
_physical evil_ is a necessary consequence of the peculiar properties of
some beings; he would have acknowledged that plague, contagion,
disease, are due to physical causes under particular circumstances;
to combinations, which, although extremely natural, are fatal to his
species; he would have sought--in the bosom of nature herself the
remedies suitable to diminish these evils, or to have caused the
cessation of those effects under which he suffered: he would have
seen in like manner that _moral evil_ was the necessary consequence
of defective institutions; that it was not to the Divinity, but to the
injustice of his fellows he ought to ascribe those wars, that
poverty, those famines, those reverses of fortune, those multitudinous
calamities, those vices, those crimes, under which he so frequently
groans. Thus to rid himself of these evils he would not have uselessly
extended his trembling hands towards shadows incapable of relieving him;
towards beings who were not the authors of his sorrows; he would have
sought remedies for these misfortunes in a more rational
administration of justice--in more equitable laws--in more I reasonable
institutions--in a greater degree of benevolence towards his fellow
man--in a more punctual performance of his own duties.
As these gods were generally depicted to man as implacable to his
frailties as they denounced nothing but the most dreadful punishments
against those who involuntarily offended, it is not at all surprising
that the sentiment of fear prevailed over that of love: the gloomy
ideas presented to his mind were calculated to make him tremble, without
making him better; an attention to this truth will serve to explain the
foundation of that fantastical, irrational, frequently cruel worship,
which was paid to these divinities; he often committed the most cruel
extravagancies against his own person, the most hideous crimes against
the person of others, under the idea that in so doing, he disarmed the
anger, appeased the justice, recalled the clemency, deserved the mercy
of his gods.
In general, the superstitious systems of man, his human and other
sacrifices, his prayers, his ceremonies, his customs; have had only for
their object either to divert the fury of his gods, whom he believed he
had offended; to render them propitious to his own selfish views; or
to excite in them that good disposition towards himself, which his own
perverse mode of thinking made him imagine they bestowed exclusively on
others: on the other hand, the efforts, the subtilties of theology, have
seldom had any other end, than to reconcile in the divinities it has
pourtrayed, those discordant ideas which its own dogmas has raised in
the minds of mortals. From what has preceded, it may fairly be concluded
that ethnic theology undermined itself by its own inconsistencies;
that the art of composing chimeras may therefore with great justice be
defined to be that of combining those qualities which are impossible to
be reconciled with each other.