HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



199 



wife rejected the Mexican word Teotl, becaufe it had been 

 ufed to exprefs the falfe gods whom they worfhipped. 

 But it would have been better to have imitated the ex- 

 ample of St. Paul, who, when he found that in Greece 

 the name Them was ufed to fignify certain falfe deities, 

 more abominable ftill than thofe of the Mexicans, did 

 not compel the Greeks to adopt the El, or Adonai, of 

 the Hebrews, but retained the ufe of the Greek term, 

 making it be underftood from that time, to fignify a fu- 

 preme, eternal, and infinitely perfect Being. However, 

 many difcerning men who have written in the Mexican 

 language, have not fcrupled to make ufe of the name 

 Teotl, in the fame manner as they all make ufe of the 

 Ipalnemoani, of the Tloque Nahnaque, and other names 

 lignificative of the fupreme being, which the Mexicans 

 applied to their invifible God. In one of our DitTerta- 

 tions we ftiall give a lift of the authors who have written 

 in the Mexican language on the Chriftian religion and 

 morality, and alfo a lift of terms, fignifying metaphyfical 

 and moral ideas, in order to expofe the ignorance and 

 weaknefs of an author (d) who has had abfurdity enough 

 to publifti that the Mexicans had no words to count 

 above the number three, or to exprefs any metaphyfical 

 or moral ideas, and that on account of its harfhnefs no 

 Spaniard had ever learned to pronounce it. We could 

 here give the numeral words of this language, by which 

 the Mexicans could count up to forty-eight millions at 

 leaft, and could ftiew how common this language was 

 among the Spaniards, and how well thofe who have 

 written in it have underftood it. 



The 



( d ) The author of the work entitled, Recherches Philofophiques fur Ics 

 Americains. 



