186 HUME vin 



gent power, they must be actuated by some passion which 

 prompts their thought and reflection, some motive which 

 urges their first enquiry. But what passion shall we have 

 recourse to, for explaining an effect of such mighty conse- 

 quence ? Not speculative curiosity merely, or the pure love 

 of truth. That motive is too refined for such gross appre- 

 hensions, and would lead men into enquiries concerning 

 the frame of nature, a subject too large and comprehensive 

 for their narrow capacities. No passions, therefore, can be 

 supposed to work on such barbarians, but the ordinary 

 affections of human life ; the anxious concern for happiness, 

 the dread of future misery, the terror of death, the thirst 

 of revenge, the appetite for food and other necessaries. 

 Agitated by hopes and fears of this nature, especially the 

 latter, men scrutinize with a trembling curiosity, the course 

 of future causes, and examine the various and contrary 

 events of human life. And in this disordered scene, with 

 eyes still more disordered and astonished, they see the first 

 obscure traces of divinity." (IV. pp. 443-4.) 



The shape assumed by these first traces of 

 divinity is that of the shadows of men's own 

 minds, projected out of themselves by their 

 imaginations: 



"There is an universal tendency among mankind to con- 

 ceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every 

 object those qualities with which they are familiarly ac- 

 quainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. . . . 

 The unknown causes which continually employ their thought, 

 appearing always in the same aspect, are all apprehended 

 to be of the same kind or species. Nor is it long before we 

 ascribe to them thought, and reason, and passion, and some- 

 times even the limbs and figures of men in order to bring 

 them nearer to a resemblance with ourselves." (IV. pp. 

 446-7.) 



