auty) is rather derived than Venus from
_venustas_.

XXVIII. Do you not see, therefore, how, from the productions of nature
and the useful inventions of men, have arisen fictitious and imaginary
Deities, which have been the foundation of false opinions, pernicious
errors, and wretched superstitions? For we know how the different forms
of the Gods--their ages, apparel, ornaments; their pedigrees,
marriages, relations, and everything belonging to them--are adapted to
human weakness and represented with our passions; with lust, sorrow,
and anger, according to fabulous history: they have had wars and
combats, not only, as Homer relates, when they have interested
themselves in two different armies, but when they have fought battles
in their own defence against the Titans and giants. These stories, of
the greatest weakness and levity, are related and believed with the
most implicit folly.

But, rejecting these fables with contempt, a Deity is diffused in every
part of nature; in earth under the name of Ceres, in the sea under the
name of Neptune, in other parts under other names. Yet whatever they
are, and whatever characters and dispositions they have, and whatever
name custom has given them, we are bound to worship and adore them. The
best, the chastest, the most sacred and pious worship of the Gods is to
reverence them always with a pure, perfect, and unpolluted mind and
voice; for our ancestors, as well as the philosophers, have separated
superstition from religion. They who prayed whole days and sacrificed,
that their children might survive them (_ut superstites essent_), were
called superstitious, which word became afterward more general; but
they who diligently perused, and, as we may say, read or practised over
again, all the duties relating to the worship of the Gods, were called
_religiosi_--religious, from _relegendo_--"reading over again, or
practising;" as _elegantes_, elegant, _ex eligendo_, "from choosing,
making a good choice;" _diligentes_, diligent, _ex diligendo_, "from
attending on what we love;" _intelligentes_, intelligent, from
understanding--for the signification is derived in the same manner.
Thus are the words superstitious and religious understood; the one
being a term of reproach, the other of commendation. I think I have now
sufficiently demonstrated that there are Gods, and what they are.

XXIX. I am now to show that the world is governed by the providence of
the Gods. This is an important poi