rican Indian, the Fijian of
to-day, repel the notion that their visible images are real gods, or
that they worship them instead of the unseen God.

[Footnote 141: Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 257, Eng. ed.]

[Footnote 142: Quoted in Cudworth's "Intell. System," vol. ii. p. 258,
Eng. ed.]

And furthermore, that even the invisible divinities which these images
were designed to represent, were each independent, self-existent beings,
and that the stories which are told concerning them by Homer and Hesiod
were received in a literal sense, is equally improbable. The earliest
philosophers knew as well as we know, that the Deity, in order to be
Deity, must be either _perfect_ or nothing--that he must be _one_, not
many--without parts and passions; and they were scandalized and shocked
by the religious fables of the ancient mythology as much as we are.
_Xenophanes_, who lived, as we know, before Pythagoras, accuses Homer
and Hesiod of having ascribed to the gods every thing that is
disgraceful amongst men, as stealing, adultery, and deceit. He remarks
"that men seem to have created their gods, and to have given them their
own mind, and voice, and figure." He himself declares that "God is
_one,_ the greatest amongst gods and men, neither in form nor in thought
like unto men." He calls the battles of the Titans and the Giants, and
the Centaurs, "the inventions of former generations," and he demands
that God shall be praised in holy songs and nobler strains.[143]
Diogenes Laertius relates the following of _Pythagoras_, "that when he
descended to the shades below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a
pillar of brass and gnashing his teeth; and that of Homer, as suspended
on a tree, and surrounded by serpents; as a punishment for the things
they had said of the gods."[144] These poets, who had corrupted
theology, _Plato_ proposes to exclude from his ideal Republic; or if
permitted at all, they must be subjected to a rigid expurgation. "We
shall," says he, "have to repudiate a large part of those fables which
are now in vogue; and, especially, of what I call the greater
fables,--the stories which Hesiod and Homer tell us. In these stories
there is a fault which deserves the gravest condemnation; namely, when
an author gives a _bad representation of gods and heroes_. We must
condemn such a poet, as we should condemn a painter, whose pictures bear
no resemblance to the objects which he tries to imitate. For instance,
the