Page:Four Dissertations - David Hume (1757).djvu/113

 terrors, we must expect a quite contrary system of theology to prevail. Every virtue, every excellence must be ascribed to the divinity, and no exaggeration be esteemed sufficient to reach those perfections, with which he is endowed. Whatever strains of panegyric can be invented, are immediately embraced, without consulting any arguments or phænomena. And it is esteemed a sufficient confirmation of them, that they give us more magnificent ideas of the divine object of our worship and adoration.

therefore is a kind of contradiction betwixt the different principles of human nature, which enter into religion. Our natural terrors present the notion of a devilish and malicious deity: Our propensity to praise leads us to acknowledge an excellent and divine. And the influence of these opposite principles are various, according to the different situation of the human understanding.

very barbarous and ignorant nations, such as the Africans and Indians, nay even the Japonese, who can form no extensive ideas of power and knowledge, worship may be paid to a being, whom they confess to be wicked and de-