[ as ] 



and limited chiefs * as yet obtain any confiderable fliare of 

 refpeifl or reverence ; until, at length, — the power of thefe chief- 

 tains gradually increafing by the natural effcdls of continued 

 command, by fuccefsful wars, and a confequent acceffion of 

 fuch fubjeds as, from having been conquered by them, would 

 be more immediately their vaflals, prompt to obey every arbi- 

 trary order, efpecially againfh thofe new fellow-fubjedls who 

 had helped to vanquifh them, — they would become real, inde- 

 pendent and abfolute monarch s ; and then, but not until then, 

 would begin to be confidered by thofe over whom they ruled 

 as fomething more than human, and of a fpecies far fuperior to 

 themfelves ; from which ftate of fociety would naturally arife 

 the worfhip of man, and confequently of the human figure. 



There is yet another confideration which might perhaps co- 

 operate to incline men, in their early ftate, to prefer even the 

 worfhip of animals to that of each other. However fuperior 

 the faculties of man, though uncultivated and wholly negledled, 

 may be to thofe of the brute creation, fuch endowments, being 

 rendered habitual to us by pofTeflion and ufe, would be in a 

 far lefs degree objecfts of our admiration than thofe inferior 

 powers, which nature, through the means of inftindt, has 

 allotted to brutes. It is only by refledion and philofophic 

 enquiry that we come to appreciate our own fuperiority, and, 



to 



* That at the time of the Cege of Troy the regal power, both among the Greeks and Trojans, 

 wa« extremely limited, has been fully proved by the ingenious Monfieur de Goguet, Origine 

 des Lx>ix, Seconde Partie, Article vii. — and in many other pans of his excellent work. 



