BOOK II. V. 19-22 



of the other gods, and also of the stars that I have 

 mentioned above, originated from the services of 

 men : at all events who would not admit that it is 

 the interpretation of men's charaeters that prompts 

 them to call each other Jupiter or Mercury or other 

 names, and that originates the nomenclature of 

 heaven? That that supreme being, whate'er it be, 

 pays heed to man's affairs is a ridiculous notion. 

 Can we believe that it would not be defiled by so 

 gloomy and so multifarious a duty ? Can we doubt 

 it? It is scarcely pertinent to determine which is 

 more profitable for the human race, when some men 

 pay no regard to the gods at all and the regard paid 

 by others is of a shameful nature : they serve as the 

 lackeys of foreign ritual, and they carry gods on their 

 fingers " ; also they pass sentence of punishment 

 upon the monsters they worship, and devise elaborate 

 viands for them; they subject themselves to awful 

 tyrannies, so as to find no repose even in sleep ; they do 

 not decide on marriage or having a family *" or indeed 

 any thing else except by the command of sacrifices ; 

 others cheat in the very Capitol and swear false 

 oaths by Jupiter who wields the thunder-bolts — and 

 these indeed make a profit out of their crimes, 

 whereas the others are penaUzed by their reUgious 

 observances. 



Nevertheless mortahty has rendered our guesses Dei^eatum 

 about God even more obscure by inventing for itself "^ "^ ""*' 

 a deity intermediate between these two conceptions. 

 Everywhere in the whole world at every hour by all 

 men's voices Fortune alone is invoked and named, 

 alone accused, alone impeached, alone pondered, alone 

 applauded, alone rebuked and visited with reproaches ; 

 deemed volatile and indeed by most men blind as well, 

 wayward, inconstant, uncertain, fickle in her favours 



183 



