PREFACE. IX 



visible amongst ourselves, and these from a wrong and 

 sometimes cherished bias in us, which were only an 

 inability to penetrate more deeply in themselves. 



To Pliny's especial honour be it mentioned (and 

 instances of the merit will be frequently referred to in 

 the notes), wherever a rational explanation of natural 

 appearances can be given, he uniformly prefers it to 

 the traditionary and the vulgar, however the latter may 

 have been interwoven with the religion of the state, to 

 which, on other occasions, he paid the homage which 

 it required : a practice like this demanded no ordinary 

 courage, when it might easily have provoked the 

 charge of scepticism and profanity ; and his escape 

 from this may not, perhaps, unreasonably be traced to 

 the support he obtained for his remarks from Greek 

 authors, to whom, in points of speculation, the Romans 

 peculiarly deferred. 



By many it was feared, that if what the people 

 were accustomed to worship as deities were shewn to 

 their understandings as only natural influences, they 

 might sink into atheism, and the little restraint winch 

 this worship exercised over their morals have been en- 

 tirely dissipated. The Rationalism of the philosophers 

 thus appeared a formidable evil ; and the prevalence of 

 the notion that certain remarkable natural causes pro- 

 ductive of great good or great evil, according to our 

 limited judgment, were deities themselves, is amply 

 illustrated by the fact, that it was triumphantly asked 

 of the first Christians to shew their God ; and much 

 of the contempt, persecution, and reproach of atheism 

 they incurred, may have had its origin in this seeming 

 incapacity to conform to this demand. 



To modern eyes, Pliny's mode of conducting his 



