jSS STUDIES OF NATURE. 



that thefe very atheiftical Nations, on certain days, 

 prefent homage to the Moon ; or that they retire 

 into the woods, to perform certain ceremonies, 

 the knowledge of which they carefully conceal 

 from flrangers. 



Father Gob'ien, among others, in his Hiftory of 

 the Mariannes Iflands, after having affirmed, that 

 their inhabitants had no knowledge of any Deity, 

 and difcovered not the flighted idea of Religion, 

 tells us immediately after, that they practife in- 

 vocation of the dead, to whom they give the ap- 

 pellation of anitis, whofe fkulls they preferve in 

 their houfes, and to which they afcribe the power 

 of controlling the elements, of changing the fea- 

 fons, and of restoring health : that they are per- 

 fuaded of the immortality of the foul, and ac- 

 knowledge a Paradife and a Hell. Such opinions 

 clearly demonftrate that they have ideas of Deity. 



. All Nations have the fentiment of the exiftence 

 of God i not that they all raife themfelves to Him, 

 after the manner of a Newton and a Socrates, in 

 contemplation of the general harmony of his 

 Works, but by dwelling on thofe of his benefits 

 which intereft them the raoft. The Indian of 

 Peru worfhips the Sun ; he of Bengal, the Ganges, 

 which fertilizes his plains; the black Iolof, the 

 Ocean, which cools his mores : the Samoïède of 



the 



