The Question then may return, Could God, according to the idea we have of his attributes, give a less perfect Religion, in order to facilitate the reception of one more perfect? The question may return, I say, but in order to be sent back for its confutation, to the answer already bestowed upon it, in the examination of M.Voltaire's Objections.

NOTE S

ON

BOOK III.

P. 10. [A].

T may not be improper, on this occasion, to

present the Reader with an extract from a Letter of the late President MONTESQUIEU to the Author, who had given him some account of Lord Bolingbroke's Posthumous Works, just then on the point of publication-" J'ay lu quelques ouvrages de "My Lord Bolingbroke-Or, Monsieur, dans cet ouvrage posthume, dont vous me donnes une idée, il me semble qu'il vous prepare une matiere "continuelle de triomphe. Celui qui attaque la Religion revelée n'attaque que la Religion revelée; "mais celui qui attaque la Religion naturelle attaque toutes les Religions du monde. Si l'on enseigne aux hommes qu'ils n'ont pas ce frein ci, ils peuvent penser qu'ils en ont un autre: Mais il est bien

པ

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plus pernicieux de leur enseigner qu'ils n'en ont

pas du tout. Il n'est pas impossible d'attaquer une "Religion revelée, parce qu'elle existe par des faits "particuliers, et que les faits, par leur nature, "peuvent être une matiere de dispute: mais il n'en

est pas de même de la Religion naturelle; elle est "tirée de la nature de l'homme, dont on ne peut

pas disputer, et du sentiment interieur de l'homme, "dont on ne peut pas disputer encore. J'ajoute à "ceci, Quel peut être le motif d'attaquer la Reli

gion revelée en Angleterre? on l'y a tellement. "purgé de tout prejugé destructeur qu'elle n'y peut "faire de mal, et qu'elle y peut faire, au contraire, une infinité de biens. Je sais, qu'un homme en

46

Espagne ou en Portugal que l'on va bruler, ou qui craint d'être brulé, parce qu'il ne croit point "de certains articles dependans ou non de la Re

ligion revelée, a une juste sujet de l'attaquer, parce qu'il peut avoir quelque esperance de pourvoir à sa defence naturelle: Mais il n'en est pas de même en Angleterre, où tout homine qui attaque la Religion revelée l'attaque sans interest, et où cet homme quand il reussiroit, quand même "il auroit raison dans le fond, ne feroit que detruire "une infinité de biens pratiques pour établir une "verité purement speculative. J'ay eté ravi, &c. MONTESQUIEU."

A Paris, ce 26 May, 1754."

P. 10. [B] Strabo's words are-Kai pibes, x ἀπειλὰς, ἢ διὰ λίγων, ἢ διὰ τύπων αώρων, "Fears and threatenings either by words or dreadful forms.” Casaubon, who corrected the last word very justly, has given us no explanation of the allusion in this obscure sentence. I am persuaded, the author had in his mind the dreadful words spoken, and the representations

representations exhibited in the Mysteries, for the very purpose the author here mentions; so aπTEλa's refers to λόγων, and φόβες to τύπων δώρων. The reader, who remembers what has been said in the section of the Mysteries, in the foregoing book, concerning this matter, will be inclined to believe this to be the true explanation.

P. 17. [C] And, without doubt, this was amongst the reasons for his declining, throughout the whole, course of his life, the study and the teaching of physics, or natural philosophy, which had a direct tendency to shake and overturn one half of the national religion, namely the worship of, what were called, the celestial Gods, or Host of Heaven.

P. 18. [D] We have, indeed, been told, that, to his Cock he might have added a Bull; for that the Philosopher was now in a delirium, occasioned by the cicuta, to which, Scribonius Largus attributes, this effect. But I apprehend, the eminent persons who then attended the last moments of the expiring Philosopher (and must have been well apprised of the nature of a draught, whose legal application to criminals of state had made its effects familiar to every one) would have been the first to observe this symptom, if, indeed, the drug had any such property. Whereas they speak of Socrates as perfectly in his senses when he made this request;, and I think They are rather to be relied on who understood

A A 3

understood what related both to the sacrifice and the drug, than They who know so little of either; especially as we find this rite was exactly suitable to the foregoing declaration of CONFORMITY, in his defence before his judges.

P. 21. [E] Duplex enim erat doctrinæ genus apud antiquas gentes, δημώδες και απόῤῥηλον, doctrina vulgaris & doctrina arcana: idque non tantum ob diversitatem materiæ, sed eandem sæpe materiam duplici modo tractabant, populari & philosophica. Archæol. Phil. 1. i. c. 8.-See this matter explained at large by the very learned author of the Critical Inquiry into the Opinions and Practice of the ancient Philosophers, &c. 2d edit. chap. xi. xii. & xiii.

P. 21. [F] "The author of the philosophical દ piece commonly ascribed to Origen, says, That "he sometimes complied with the popular opinion, " and declared that the universe would be one day destroyed. Καὶ Παρμενίδης ἓν μὲν τὸ πᾶν ὑποτίθεται, “ ΑΙΔΙΟΝΤΕ, Σ' αγέννητον, καὶ σφαιροειδὲς ἐδ ̓ αὐτὸς * ΕΚΦΕΥΓΩΝ ΤΗΝ ΤΩΝ πολλῶν ΔΟΞΑΝ, πυρ λέγων καὶ γῆν ΤΑΣ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΝΤΟΣ ΑΡΧΑΣ, την σε μὲν γην, ὡς ὅλην τὸ δὲ πῆς, ὡς αἴτιον, καὶ ποιεν " ΤΟΝ ΚΟΣΜΟΝ ΕΙΠΕ ΦΘΕΙΡΕΣΘΑΙ. It appears too from this passage that he spoke popularly, when he said that the world was made, or had a beginning; and that this doctrine was merely "prad, may be seen too from the following

" words