OF ATHEISM 41 



volumus licet, patres conscripti, nos amemus, tamen nee numero 

 Hispanos, nee robore Gallos^ nee calliditate Poenos, nee artibus 

 Graecos, nee denique hoc ipso hujus gentis et terrae domestico 

 nativoque sensu Italos ipsos et Latinos ; sed pietate, ac religione, 

 atque hac una sapientia, quod Deorum immortalium numine 

 omnia regi gubernarique perspeximus, omnes gentes nationesque 

 super avimus. 



XVII 

 OF SUPERSTITION 



IT were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such 

 an opinion as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, 

 the other is contumely : and certainly superstition is the 

 reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that 

 purpose : ' Surely (saith he) I had rather a great deal men 

 should say there was no such man at all as Plutarch, than 

 that they should say that there was one Plutarch that would 

 eat his children as soon as they were born ' ; as the poets 

 speak of Saturn. And as the contumely is greater towards 

 God, so the danger is greater towards men. Atheism 

 leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, 

 to laws, to reputation ; all which may be guides to an 

 outward moral virtue, though religion were not ; but 

 superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute 

 monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did 

 never perturb states ; for it makes men wary of themselves, 

 as looking no further : and we see the times inclined to 

 atheism (as the time of Augustus Caesar) were civil times. 

 But superstition hath been the confusion of many states, 

 and bringeth in a new primum mobile ', that ravisheth all the 

 spheres of government. The master of superstition is the 

 people ; and in all superstition wise men follow fools ; and 

 arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order. It 

 was gravely said by some of the prelates in the council of 

 Trent, where the doctrine of the schoolmen bare great 

 sway, c that the schoolmen were like astronomers, which 

 did feign eccentrics and epicycles, and such engines of orbs, 



