INTRODUCTION. 



the disposers or placers. It is singular, and 

 worthy of particular notice, that the Pelas- 

 gians, according to Herodotus, gave no other 

 names to their deities than that of gods, 1 so 

 calling them because they were the placers* of 

 all things in the world, and had the universal 

 distribution of them. 3 We see here that the 

 Grecian gods which, as has been proved in 

 another place, 4 were subsequent to the origi- 

 nal chaotic state of the heavens and the earth 

 when the one was without light, and the other 

 without form and void were really synony- 

 mous with those ruling physical powers which 

 God employed as his instruments first in the 

 formation of the heavenly bodies, and next in 

 that of their organized appariture, whether ve- 

 get^ble or animal ; and lastly, in maintaining 

 those motions or revolutions in the bodies just 

 named, which he had produced, and other 

 physical phenomena which were necessary for 

 the welfare of the whole system and its several 

 parts. These powers, whatever name we call 

 them by, 5 form the disposers or placers, the 



1 Scot. 



3 



CITTO TU TOLOVTU, on 



ra TTCLVTO. Trprj-yfJLaTa KO.I Traaae vo/zag ei\pv. Euterp. c. 52. 

 4 See Appendix, Note 1. 5 See above, p. xxxix. 



