Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/57

 Giap. 5.] ACCOrXT OF THE WOELD. 23 Can we believe, or rather can there be any doubt, that it is not polhited by such a disagreeable and complicated office ? It is not easy to determine which opinion would be most for the advantage of mankind, since we observe some who have no respect for the Gods, and others who carry it to a scandalous excess. They are slaves to foreign ceremonies ; they carry on their fingers the Gods and the monsters whom they worship^; they condemn and they lay great stress on certain kinds of food ; they impose on themselves dreadful ordinances, not even sleeping quietly. They do not marry or adopt children, or indeed do anything else, without the sanction of their sacred rites. There are others, on the con- trary, who will cheat in the very Capitol, and will forswear themselves even by Jupiter Tonans^, and while these thrive in their crimes, the others torment themselves with their superstitions to no purpose. Among these discordant opinions mankind have discovered for themselves a kind of intermediate deity, by which our scepticism concerning God is still increased. For all over the world, in all places, and at all times. Fortune is the only god whom every one invokes ; she alone is spoken of, she alone is accused and is supposed to be guilty ; she alone is in our thoughts, is praised and blamed, and is loaded with reproaches ; wavering as she is, conceived by the generality of mankind to be blind, wandering, inconstant, uncertain, variable, and often favouring the unworthy. To her are re- ferred all our losses and all our gains, and in casting up the accounts of mortals she alone balances the two pages of our sheet^. AVe are so much in the power of chance, that change itself is considered as a God, and the existence of God be- comes doubtful. But there are others who reject this principle and assign events to the influence of tlie stars'*, and to the laws of our quam, nee exhibere alteri ; itaque neque ira neque gratia teneri, quod, quae talia essent, imbeciUa essent omnia." Cicero, Dc Nat. Deor. i. 45. ^ The author here alludes to the figures of the Egyptian deities that were engraven on rings. 2 His specific office was to execute vengeance on the impious. 3 " sola utramque paginam facit." The words iifraqne pagina gene- rally refer to the two sides of the same sheet, but, in this passage, they probably mean the contiguous portions of the same surface.
 * " astroque suo eventu assignat j " the word asirum appears to be