u 



or in modern language, Use principle of attraction, though he 

 docs not assign to it the regular arrangement of the sub- 

 stances contained in the chaotic mass, as Ovid does, who 

 must have considered it as a principle impressed on the 

 chaotic ingredients by a Deity. Hesiod ascribes this 

 arrangement to no Deity, which shews he adopted the 

 Phenician tradition, for neither does Sanchioniatho but very 

 obscurely. 



Hence we see how much mistaken Herodotus was when he 

 tells us that the Greeks for a long time prayed to Gods, of 

 whose names, duration, nature, and functions they were 

 perfectly ignorant ; that is to say, of whom they knew 

 nothing, and of whom they could consequently form no notion 

 •or idea. Lib. 2. | 52 and 53. This is too absurd to be 

 credited, for how could they pray to they knew not what ?* 

 Accordingly he rests this on the authority of two old 

 women, the priestesses of the oracle of Dodona, who at the 

 same time informed him that this oracle was established by 

 the order of a black pigeon that flew to Dodona, from 

 Thebes in Egypt, § 55. Tales of this sort have discredited 

 Herodotus to such a degree, that Strabo, Lib. IL p. 774, 

 declared, he was as undeserving of credit as Hesiod or Homer 



in 



'*It is true St. Paul, Acts xvii. 23, reproaches the Athenians for worshipping an 

 unknown God ; but the Athenians were ignorant only of the functions of that 

 God, but not of his nature, for they supposed their,Gods to haveaformand nature 

 similar to the human. Herod. Lib. l.§ 131. 



