Cliap. 5.] 
ACCOUNT or THE WOELD. 
23 
Can we believe, or rather can there be any doubt, that it is 
not polluted by such a disagreeable and complicated office ? 
It is not easy to determine which opinion would be most 
for the advantage of mankind, since we observe some who 
have no respect for the Gods, and others who carry it to a 
scandalous excess. They are slaves to foreign ceremonies ; 
they carry on their fingers the Gods and the monsters whom 
they worship^; they condemn and they lay great stress on 
certain kinds of food ; they impose on themselves dreadful 
ordinances, not even sleeping quietly- They do not marry 
or adopt children, or indeed do anything else, without the 
sanction of their sacred rites. There are others, on the con- 
trary, who will cheat in the very Capitol, and will forswear 
themselves even by Jupiter Tonans^, and while these thrive 
in their crimes, the others torment themselves with their 
superstitions to no purpose. 
Among these discordant opinions mankind have discovered 
for themselves a kind of intermediate deity, by which our 
scepticism concerning God is still increased. Tor all over 
the world, in all places, and at all times, ^Fortune is the only 
god whom every one invokes ; she alone is spoken of, she 
alone is accused and is supposed to be guilty ; she alone is 
in our thoughts, is praised and blamed, and is loaded with 
reproaches ; wavering as she is, conceived by the generality 
of mankind to be blind, wandering, inconstant, uncertain, 
variable, and often favouring the unworthy. To her are re- 
ferred all our losses and all our gains, and in casting up the 
accounts of mortals she alone balances the two pages of our 
sheet ^. We are so much in the power of chance, that change 
itself is considered as a God, and the existence of God be- 
comes doubtful. 
But there are others who reject this principle and assign 
events to the influence of the stars ^, and to the laws of our 
quam, nec exhibere alteri ; itaque neque ira neque gratia teneri, quod, qusB 
talia essentj imbecilla essent omnia." Cicero, De STat. Deor. i. 45. 
^ The author here alludes to the figures of the Egyptian deities that 
were engraven on rings. 
2 His specific office was to execute vengeance on the impious. 
3 " sola utramque paginam facit." The words utraque pagina gene- 
rally refer to the two sides of the same sheet, but, in this passage, they 
probably mean the contiguous portions of the same surface. 
" astroque suo eventu assignat j " the word astrum appears to be 
