2^5 O^ THE RELlCrOxV Al^Ji 



removed by thedoftrine of Godama. His followers 

 are, ftriftly fpeaking, allieifts, as they fuppofe every 

 thing to arife from fate; and their gods are merely 

 men, who by their virtue acquire fupreme happinefs, 

 and by their wifdom become entitled to impofe a law 

 on all living beings. If the BouDOHAof the Rahdns 

 were merely the genius of the planet Mercury, as 

 Paulinus {o violently urges,* why do his followers 

 place his abode or palace in the loweft habitation of^ 

 Nat^ among beings equally liable with mankind to 

 old age, mifery, change, and gravity ? That the Egyp- 

 tian religion was allegorical, I think, the learned fa- 

 ther, with many other writers, have rendered extemely 

 probable; and confequently I think that the dottrine 

 of the Brahmens has in a confiderable meafure the 

 fame fource: but I fee no reafon from thence to fup- 

 fjofe, that BouDDHA, Rama, Kishen, and other gods 

 oi India, may not have exifted as men: for I have al- 

 yeady dated it as probable, when the Brahmens arrived 

 in India, that they adapted their own religious doc- 

 trine to the heroes and fabulous hiftory of the coun- 

 try. Neither do I think it altogether impoflible, that 

 even in Egypt the priefts, who at firft introduced the 

 worftiip of the elements and heavenly bodies, after- 

 wards applied to thefe deities the names of fuch per- 

 fons as were moft celebrated among their country- 

 men, and intermingling the legendary tales concerning 

 thefe perfonages with their own myltical philofophy, 

 produced that abfurd mafs of theology, by which "a 

 great part of mankind have been fo long fubjugated. 



Different learned men have fuppofed Bouddha 

 TO have been the fame with Noah, Moses, or Si- 

 pHOAs, thirty-fifth king of Egypt : but as I have not a; 

 prefent accefs to the works of Huet, Vossius, or 

 TouRMONT, I do not know on what reafons fuch 

 fuppofitions have been formed. Sir W. Jones fup- 

 pofed BouDDHA to have been the fame with Sesac or 



Sesostris, 



• Mus. Bo7^. page 6e>. 



