Page:Four Dissertations - David Hume (1757).djvu/110

 amongst the people, is too apparent to be denied. Tho' some parts of the national religion hung loose upon the minds of men, other parts adhered more closely to them: And it was the great business of the sceptical philosophers to show, that there was no more foundation for one than for the other. This is the artifice of Cotta in the dialogues concerning the nature of the gods. He refutes the whole system of mythology by leading the orthodox, gradually, from the more momentous stories, which were believed, to the more frivolous, which every one ridiculed: From the gods to the goddesses; from the goddesses to the nymphs; from the nymphs to the fawns and satyrs. His master, Carneades, had employed the same method of reasoning.

the whole, the greatest and most observable differences betwixt a traditional, mythological religion, and a systematical, scholastic one, are two: The former is often more reasonable, as consisting only of a multitude of stories, which, however groundless, imply no express absurdity and demonstrative contradic-