26 On Popular Illufions. 



behold and protect them, after death, thougli 

 heightened in their powers, and changed in their 

 mode of exiftence. In certain ftates of man, re^e6t 

 and adoration are fimultaneous ; the Egyptians 

 worfhipped different animals and vegetables; the 

 Athenians confidered the pofts before their houfes 

 as gods*; the Romans deified their military fland- 

 ardsf, and ereded a temple for their reception at 

 cveiy permanent ftation(A). Shakelpeare touches this 

 difpofition finely, when Caliban worlhips the per- 

 Ibn who firft gives him a draught of wine j 



I'll fhew thee ev'ry fertile inch o' the ifle. 

 And I mil kifs thy foot : I pri'thee be my god. 



It is remarkable, that the propenfity to afcribe 

 tlie powers of animated to inanimate beings, is the 

 foundation of poetry; and what betrays men, in 

 one ftage of fociety, to the loweft abfurdity, be- 

 comes, in another, the fource of their mod elegant 

 pleafure. 



An attention to dreams and omens is one of the 

 firft afts of fuperftition, and evidendy derived from 

 the affociations already mendoned. Not only the 

 civil magiftrates and military commanders, but 

 philolbphers, in the brighteft periods of Greece and 

 Rome, were enflaved by this obfervance. Pytha- 

 goras and Plato, fays Cicero J, to increafe the cer- 

 tainty of dreams, direft certain forms and diet pre- 



* Plutarch in Alcibiad. f Montfaucon L' Ant. Expl. 



:rkm. IV. X De Divinat, lib. IX. 



paratory 



