184 HUME 



VIII 



body of natural facts to be investigated scientific- 

 ally, and the result of Hume's inquiries is 

 embodied in the remarkable essay on the 

 "Natural History of Religion." Hume antici- 

 pated the results of modern investigation in 

 declaring fetishism and polytheism to be the 

 form in which savage and ignorant men naturally 

 clothe their ideas of the unknown influences 

 which govern their destiny; and they are poly- 

 theists rather than monotheists because, 



"... The first ideas of religion arose, not from a contem- 

 plation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard 

 to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears 

 which actuate the human mind. ... in order to carry men's 

 attention beyond the present course of things, or lead them 

 into any inference concerning invisible intelligent 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 consequence ? Not speculative curiosity 

 merely, or the pure love of truth. That motive is too refined 

 for such gross apprehensions, and would lead men into enquiries 

 concerning the frame of nature, a subject too large and compre- 

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

 be supposed to work on such barbarians, but the ordinary affec- 

 tions of human life ; the anxious concern for happiness, the 

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

 venge, the appetite for food and other necessaries. Agitated by 

 hopes and fears of this nature, especially the latter, men scru- 

 tinize, 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. 4434.) 



