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of that people, extremely addided, as we well know, to emblem 

 and fymbolical reprcfentation, than, as is commonly thought, 

 in the prepofterous and uniqvountable defire of multiplying 

 their gods under the mofl humiliating and degrading forms ; 

 which conjedure, if it fhould be allowed any weight, will, in 

 fome meafure, free us from the difficulty under which we 

 labour of being compelled to fuppofe that the mofl; enlightened 

 nation of all antiquity was alfo the moft abfurdly fuperftitious. 

 The concealment of truth under appofite emblems was a favou- 

 rite and fafliionable wifdom of the remote ages, and from a 

 marked fuperiority in this fcience Egypt had perhaps princi- 

 pally obtained the univerfal charafter of wife, fo that poffibly 

 the very practice, which appears to us the refult of folly, may 

 in effedt have been derived fi-om what, in thofe times, was 

 denominated fuperior wifdom. 



At what precife period the human form began to be wor- 

 fbipped is no where, that I know of, afcertained ; but I can- 

 not avoid thinking that this fpecies of idol, though of high 

 antiquity, is of later date than animal reprefentatlons*. Many 

 Egyptian deities, it is true, have come down to us in the 



human 



* Idolatry appears indeed to have adopted the human figure by degrees, fince in very early 

 times, and among fome of the earlieft nations, we find idols compounded of man and animal. 

 Thus Dagon, a fupreme goddefs among the Philiftines, is fuppofed to have been formed like 

 our idea of mermaids, half woman, half fifii. The Egyptian Sphinx is alfo of this kind, 

 woman and lion. But the moil whimfical compofition is that of the Canopus, woman and jug. 



