258 11ASISADKA N ADVKNTrni: VIL 



standards, it appears to me that directorates are 

 proved, by familiar experience, to conduct the 

 1 nicest and the most complicated concerns unite 

 as well as solitary despots. I have never been al>le 

 to see why the hypothesis of a divine svndieaie 

 should be found guilty of innate absurdity. Those 

 Assyrians, in particular, who held Assur to he the 

 one supreme and creative deity, to whom all tin- 

 other supernal powers were subordinate, might 

 fairly ask that the essential difference between 

 their system and that which obtains among t In- 

 great majority of their modern theological critics 

 should be demonstrated. In my apprehension, it 

 is not the quantity, but the quality, of the persons. 

 among whom the attributes of divinity an- distri 

 buted, which is the serious matter. If the divi 

 might is associated with no higher ethical at 

 butes than those which obtain among onlin 

 men ; if the divine intelligence is supposed to 

 so imperfect that it cannot foresee the consequen 

 of its own contrivances ; if the supernal powe 

 ran become furiously angry with the creatures 

 their omnipotence and, in their senseless w i . 1 1 

 destroy the innocent along with the guilty; or 

 thev can show themselves to be as easily plaea 

 by presents and gross flattery as any oriental 

 occidental despot; if, in short, they are onl 

 stronger than mortal men and no better, as it mu 

 be admitted Hasisadra's deities proved then is. 1\ 

 to be then, surely, it is time for us to lool 



