SYSTEM OF INSECTS. 4-13 



In no country was this effect more lamentably striking 

 than in Egypt, whose gods were all selected from the 

 animal and vegetable kingdoms. 



" Who knows not to what monstrous gods, my friend, 

 The mad inhabitants of Egypt bend ? 

 The snake-devouring ibis these inshrine, 

 Those think the crocodile alone divine ; 

 Others where Thebes' vast ruins strew the ground, 

 And shatter'd Memnon yields a magic sound, 

 Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape, 

 And bow before the image of an ape ! 

 Thousands regard the hound with holy fear, 

 Not one Diana: and 'tis dangerous here 

 To violate an onion, or to stain 

 The sanctity of leeks with tooth profane. 

 O holy nations, in whose gardens grow 

 Such deities ! " Juv. 



This species of idolatry doubtless originally resulted 

 from their having been taught that things in nature were 

 symbols of things above nature, and of the attributes and 

 glory of the Godhead. In process of time, while the 

 corruption remained, the knowledge which had been 

 thus abused was lost or dimly seen. The Egyptian 

 priesthood perhaps retained some remains of it; but by 

 them it was made an esoteric doctrine, not to be com- 

 municated to the profane vulgar, who were suffered to 

 regard the various objects of their superstitious vene- 

 ration, not as symbols, but as possessed of an inherent 

 divinity : and probably the mysteries of Isis in Egypt, 

 and of Ceres at Eleusis, were instituted, that this esoteric 

 doctrine, which was to be kept secret and sacred from 

 the common people, might not be lost. 



But this kind of analogy is of a higher order than that 

 of which I am here principally to speak, that, namely, 



