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as fuch: the divine honours were paid to a deity, as refiding in these animals. The fun is to man a familiar object: being frequently obfcured by clouds, and totally eclipsed during night, a favage naturally conceives it to be a great fire, fometimes flaming bright, fometimes obfcured, and fometimes extinguished. Whence then fun-worship, once univerfal among favages? Plainly from the fame cause it is not properly the fun that is worshipped, but a deity who is fuppofed to dwell in that luminary.

Taking it then for granted, that our conviction of fuperior powers has been long univerfal, the important question is, From what cause it proceeds. A conviction fo univerfal and fo permanent, cannot proceed from chance; but must have a cause operating conftantly and invariably upon all men in all ages. Philofophers, who believe the world to be eternal and felf-exiftent, and imagine it to be the only deity tho' without intelligence, endeavour to account for our conviction of fuperior powers, from the terror that thunder and other elementary convulfions raife in favages; and thence conclude that

fuch belief is no evidence of a deity. Thus

Lucretius,

Præterea, cui non animus formidine divum Contrahitur? cui non conripunt membra pavore, Fulminis horribili cum plaga torrida tellus Contremit, et magnum percurrunt murmura cœlum * (a)?

And Petronius Arbiter,

Primus in orbe deos fecit timor: ardua cœlo Fulmina quum caderent difcuffaque moenia flammis,

Atque ictus flagraret Athos t.

It will readily be yielded to these gentlemen, that favages, grofsly ignorant of causes and effects, are apt to take fright at every unusual appearance, and to think that fome malignant being is the cause.

* What man can boast that firm undaunted foul, That hears, unmov'd, when thunder fhakes the pole;

Nor fhrinks with fear of an offended pow'r, When lightnings flafh, and ftorms and tempefts roar?

+ When dread convulfions rock'd the lab'ring earth, And livid clouds firft gave the thunder birth, Inftinctive fear within the human breaft

The firft ideas of a God imprefs'd.

(a) Lib. 5.

VOL. IV.

B b

And

And if they mean only, that the first perception of deity among favages is occafioned by fear, I heartily subscribe to their opinion. But if they mean, that fuch perceptions proceed from fear folely, without having any other caufe, I wish to be informed from what fource is derived the belief we have of benevolent deities. Fear cannot be the fource: and it will be seen anon, that tho' malevolent deities were first recognised among favages, yet that in the progress of fociety, the existence of benevolent deities was univerfally believed. The fact is certain; and therefore fear is not the fole caufe of our believing the existence of fuperior beings.

It is befide to me evident, that the belief even of malevolent deities, once univerfal among all the tribes of men, cannot be accounted for from fear folely. 1 observe, first, That there are many men, to whom an eclipfe, an earthquake, and even thunder, are unknown: Egypt in particular, tho' the country of superstition, is little or not at all acquainted with the two latter; and in Peru, tho' its government was a theocracy, thunder is not known. Nor do fuch appearances strike

terror

terror into every one who is acquainted with them. The univerfality of the belief, must then have fome cause more univerfal than fear. I obferve next, That if the belief were founded folely on fear, it would die away gradually as men improve in the knowledge of caufes and effects instruct a favage, that thunder, an eclipfe, an earthquake, proceed from natural causes, and are not threatenings of an incensed deity; his fear of malevolent beings will vanish; and with it his belief in them, if founded folely on fear. Yet the direct contrary is true: in proportion as the human understanding ripens, our conviction of fuperior powers, or of a Deity, turns more and more firm and authoritative; which will be made evident in the chapter immediately following.

Philofophers of more enlarged views and of deeper penetration, may be inclined to think, that the operations of nature and the government of this world, which loudly proclaim a Deity, may be fufficient to account for the univerfal belief of fuperior powers. And to give due weight to the argument, I fhall relate a converfation between a Greenlander and a Danish mif

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fionary, mentioned by Crantz in his hiftory of Greenland. "It is true," fays the Greenlander, " we were ignorant "Heathens, and knew little of a God, till you came. But you muft not ima

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gine, that no Greenlander thinks about "these things. A kajak (a), with all its tackle and implements, cannot exist but by the labour of man; and one who "does not understand it, would spoil it. "But the meaneft bird requires more skill "than the best kajak; and no man can "make a bird. There is ftill more skill "required to make a man: by whom "then was he made? He proceeded from "his parents, and they from their parents. "But fome must have been the first parents: whence did they proceed? Common report fays, that they grew out of the "earth: if fo, why do not men still grow 66 out of the earth? And from whence

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came the earth itself, the fun, the moon, "the ftars? Certainly there must be some being who made all these things, a being more wife than the wifeft man." The reafoning here from effects to their caufes, is ftated with great precifion; and (a) A Greenland boat.

were

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