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84 Proprietor could not observe any of the usual Effects, or was improsperous; and thus, whether he imputes it to the Age and Decay of the Fetish, I cannot tell; but he rejects it, and from some lucky Accident to him takes a newer, and consequently a better: Immemorial Custom giving strength to the Persuasion and the Practice.

Nor does this appear that unaccountable and ridiculous Folly some would have it. All material Beings are equally incomprehensible as to their Seed and real Essence; the Existence of a Straw as mysterious as the Existence of the Sun: Quodcunque vides, Deus est. No Man can comprehend how Matter came first into being, nor, which is nigher him, how the Atoms that compose a Stick, Stone, or Metal, are supported and hang together in that Bulk; or what diversifies them, that one should be fusible, another malleable, some both: I say, to consider these, and some other Attributes of Matter in the Essence, it will be impossible to explicate, without putting the Deity to it; and if infant Reason cannot reach above a material God, what I think would first and most naturally occur, would be the Objects about us, as they did us good or hurt, the Fetishes of the Negroes. The original Gods, obvious to the first and darker days of Reason, were in my opinion, Stocks and Stones, Serpents, Calves, Onions, Garlick, &c. Not that these things