Cliap. V!I. A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 171 



public and private affairs, there was nothing impious or abfurd, nor 

 any ground to fufpecl fraud or impofture. 



The only other thing I {hall mention, concerning the Egyptian 

 religion, is what is peculiar to it, and not to be found 1 believe in the 

 religion of any other nation, antient or modern ; I mean their fa- 

 ered animals^ that is animals confecrated to certain divinities, main- 

 tained when alive with great care and attention and at confuJerable 

 expence, and when dead buried with much pomp and ceremony in 

 facred ground. This is thought by many to be fuch an abfurd im- 

 piety, as to difgrace both the religion and the fenfe of the nation. 

 But Plutarch has informed us *, that thefe animals were confecrated 

 as fymbols or emblems of the attributes of the divinity ; and he 

 fays, what 1 think is very ttue, that any thing of the animal life, or 

 even of the vegetable, is a much better type of divinity than mere 

 Inanimate matter, fuch as ftatues of marble or brafs, by which the 

 Greeks ufed to reprefent their Gods. But I think, and fo does Plu- 

 tarch, that it is moft abfurd to fuppofe that the wife men of Egypt, 

 or even the fenfible among the vulgar, believed that thefe animals 

 were real divinities. If that had been the cafe, our Bible would not 

 have told us that Mofes was inftrudled in all the ivifdom of the Egyp~ 

 tians. By the means of thefe animals, the Egyptians may be faid to 

 have lived more with their Gods, than any other nation that we 

 hear of, having, before their eyes, fymbols of their divinities, not 

 only in animals, which they could fee but rarely, fuch as that facred 

 bird the Ibis, who deftroyed ferpents, and was therefore thought a 

 very fit emblem of divinity, but common animals, fuch as dogs, and 

 cats. 



And thus, I think, is proved the truth of what Herodotus fays, 



that the Egyptians were the moft religious of all people. And if it 



be true, as I think it certainly is, that the people muft be governed 



Y 2 not 



• Dc Ifide et Oilride. 



