8 UNIVERSAL ERUDITION. 



VII. We fhould take due care, therefore; 

 not to pufh our hiiloric faith fo far as to believe 

 all the prodigies, all the fables and extrava- 

 gancies that are related by profane hiftory, and 

 efpecially that of the ancients. It would cer- 

 tainly be ridiculous to doubt that there have 

 been fuch princes as Cyrus, Alexander, and 

 Caefar, and that they were great conquerors : 

 but it would be flill far more abfurd to give 

 credit to all the marvellous (lories that have been 

 related by hiftorians : it would be madnefs to 

 believe that Romulus and Remus were fuckled 

 by a wolf j that Numa Pompilius held an inter- 

 courfe with the nymph Egeria ; that the head of 

 Ancus Martins burned -in the Capitol ; that 

 Curtius threw himfelf into a gulph ; or that 

 the gods fpoke by the means of oracles. Is it 

 not ridiculous enough to fee, in the eighteenth 

 century of Chriftianity, a learned, elaborate and 

 very ferious difTertation, to prove that the oracles 

 did not ceafe to fpcak at the coming of Jefus 

 Chrift ; when it is evident to every man of any 

 knowledge, that there never was any fuch be- 

 ings as Jupiter or Apollo, and confequently 

 that they never did ipeak ? Such fubje&s as 

 thefe ought to be ranked with the ftories of 

 giants, or the Tale of a Tub ; and, whenever we 

 meet in profane hiftory with like accounts of 

 prodigies and miracles, hiftoric faith, or rather 

 human credulity, fhould ceafe, and the fenfible 

 part of mankind mould reafon thus : either the 

 gods were to blame fo to difpoie the order of 



nature. 



