Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/219

 really her Offspring, who after allying with Superstition, separates himself intirely from the Interest of his Parent, and becomes her most inveterate Enemy and Persecutor. Speculative Dogmas and Principles of Religion, the present Occasions of such furious Dispute, could not possibly be conceiv'd or admitted in the early Ages of the World; when Mankind, being wholly illiterate, form'd an Idea of Religion, more suitable to their weak Apprehension, and compos'd their sacred Tenets chiefly of such Tales and Stories as were the Objects of traditional Belief, more than of Argument or Disputation. After the first Alarm, therefore, was over, which arose from the new Paradoxes and Principles of the Philosophers; they seem, ever after, during the Ages of Antiquity, to have liv'd in great Harmony with the establish'd Superstitions, and to have made a fair Partition of Mankind betwixt them; the former claiming all the Learned and the Wise, and latter possessing all the Vulgar and Illiterate.

seems then, says I, that you leave Politics entirely out of the Question; and never suppose, that a wise Magistrate can justly be jealous of certain Tenets of Philosophy, such as those of Epicurus, which denying a divine Existence, and consequently a Providence and a future State, seem to loosen, in a great Measure,