NATURAL THEOLOGY. 199 



veneration addressed to the deities of the ancient 

 mythology, though such feeling is often expressed to- 

 wards the one Supreme Being. The ancient moralists, 

 including those of the Stoic school, when they bring 

 human virtue into connexion with the Divine Power, 

 almost always do so under the conception of unity. 

 The writings of Plutarch, of Epictetus and Marcus 

 Aurelius may be quoted in proof of this. 



In all forms of polytheism, indeed, it seems probable 

 that the earliest view of the nature and attributes of 

 the Deity was the simplest. This might well be ex- 

 pected, seeing that the tendency of growing but still 

 imperfect civilisation must ever be to aggregate new 

 objects of veneration, of fear, love, or desire to those 

 of older date. Polytheism, especially where keeping 

 its hold on more civilised peoples, strangely brings be- 

 fore us these incongruous vagaries of human folly 

 witness the Eomans, who ended by bestowing divine 

 honours upon even the most profligate of their em- 

 perors. 



Various passages, however, in Seneca and Pliny 

 show well the different nature of the questions which 

 the wiser men of that age propounded to themselves, 

 and their close affinity to the problems which have ever 

 since perplexed and agitated human thought. The 

 pantheism of these passages is essentially the same as 

 that of Spinoza and the more recent German writers, 

 through language, ever ready with its disguises, may 

 lend a different aspect to the doctrine. 



While touching thus far on the opinions of the 

 ancient philosophers, it is impossible not to feel that the 



