is curiously like the
illuminating theory of MM. Hubert and Mauss, in which they define
primitive sacrifice as a medium, a bridge or lightning-conductor,
between the profane and the sacred. 'Essai sur la Nature et la Fonction
du Sacrifice' (_Annee Sociologique_, ii. 1897-8), since republished in
the _Melanges d'Histoire des Religions_, 1909.

[190:1] Cf. Minucius Felix, _Octavius_, p. 96, Ouzel (chap. 11, Boenig).
'Quid quod toti orbi et ipsi mundo cum sideribus suis minantur
incendium, ruinam moliuntur?' The doctrine in their mouths became a very
different thing from the Stoic theory of the periodic re-absorption of
the universe in the Divine Element. Ibid., pp. 322 ff. (34 Boenig).

[192:1] Even Epicurus himself held +kan streblothe ho sophos, einai
auton eudaimona+. Diog. La. x. 118. See above, end of chap. iii.

[196:1] Geffcken in the _Neue Jahrbuecher_, xxi. 162 f.

[197:1] Mullach, _Fragmenta Philosophorum_, iii. 7, from Stob. _Flor._
i. 85.

SALLUSTIUS
'ON THE GODS AND THE WORLD'[200:1]

I. _What the Disciple should be; and concerning Common Conceptions._

Those who wish to hear about the Gods should have been well guided from
childhood, and not habituated to foolish beliefs. They should also be in
disposition good and sensible, that they may properly attend to the
teaching.

They ought also to know the Common Conceptions. Common Conceptions are
those to which all men agree as soon as they are asked; for instance,
that all God is good, free from passion, free from change. For whatever
suffers change does so for the worse or the better: if for the worse, it
is made bad; if for the better, it must have been bad at first.

II. _That God is unchanging, unbegotten, eternal, incorporeal, and not
in space._

Let the disciple be thus. Let the teachings be of the following sort.
The essences of the Gods never came into existence (for that which
always is never comes into existence; and that exists for ever which
possesses primary force and by nature suffers nothing): neither do they
consist of bodies; for even in bodies the powers are incorporeal.
Neither are they contained by space; for that is a property of bodies.
Neither are they separate from the First Cause nor from one another,
just as thoughts are not separate from mind nor acts of knowledge from
the soul.

III. _Concerning myths; that they are divine, and why._

We may well inquire, then, why the ancients forsook these doctr