Page:Four Dissertations - David Hume (1757).djvu/116

 ascribe to him measures of conduct, which, in human creatures, would be highly blamed, they must still affect to praise and admire these measures in the object of their devotional addresses. And thus it may safely be affirmed, that many popular religions are really, in the conception of their more vulgar votaries, a species of dæmonism; and the higher the deity is exalted in power and knowledge, the lower of course is he frequently deprest in goodness and benevolence; whatever epithets of praise may be bestowed on him by his amazed adorers. Amongst idolaters, the words may be false, and belie the secret opinion: But amongst more exalted religionists, the opinion itself often contracts a kind of falshood, and belies the inward sentiment. The heart secretly detests such measures of cruel and implacable vengeance; but the judgment dares not but pronounce them perfect and adorable. And the additional misery of this inward struggle aggravates all the other terrors, by which these unhappy victims to superstition are for ever haunted.

observes, that a young man, who reads the history of the gods in Homer or He-