374 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



of black woolly haired men, which arc to be feen in the countries 

 that I have mentioned, which muft, I think, be memorials of Egyp- 

 tians, who taught them religion, as well as arts and fciences*. And 

 though religion, as pradifed in Egypt, may not have gone to any 

 other country, except thofe that I have mentioned, yet I am per- 

 luaded, that the idea of Gods, and fuperior powers, v/as propagated 

 to other countries in the fame manner as their language was : For, 

 though language did not go to other countries as it v.-as fpokcn in 

 Egypt, yet thofe other countries got from Egypt the idea of forming 

 articulate founds, and fo made a language of their own, with a mix- 

 ture, no doubt, of fome words which they may have heard fpoken 

 by the Egyptians, or by people who had learned to fpeak from the 

 Egyptians; and, in the fame manner, other nations may have form- 

 ed a religion different from the Egyptian, though in imitation of 

 it. 



One general obfervatlon to be made, upon the religion of thofe 

 very antient times, is, that it always fuppofes a plurality of Gods ; 

 for, when religion was hrft eftablilhed among men, they were not 

 fo far advanced in the ufe and exercife of intelled, as to have the 

 idea of one fupreme God, who governed this univerfe, and of 

 whom all thofe other beings, whom they called Gods, were only 

 the minifters. 



, As men formed their firft ideas of Gods from the ftudy and know- 

 ledge of themielves, they would, as was natural, make them after 

 their own image. And, accordingly, they gave them, as I have faid, 

 not only minds, but bodies, and confequently organs of fenfe, by 

 which they faw and heard, and had other perceptions of fenfe. And 

 they muft have fuppofed, too, that their minds were fuch as their 

 own, in this refpe£l:, that their favours were to be gained by all the 



marks 

 * Sec tills enlarged upon in p. 307 of this volume. 



