Page:The ethics of Hobbes (IA ethicsofhobbes00hobb).pdf/149
nothing that has a name, that has not been esteemed amongst the Gentiles, in one place or another, a god, or devil; or by their poets feigned to be inanimated, inhabited, or possessed by some spirit or other.
The unformed matter of the world, was a god, by the name of Chaos.
The heaven, the ocean, the planets, the fire, the earth, the winds, were so many gods.
Men, women, a bird, a crocodile, a call, a dog, a snake, an onion, a leek, were deified. Besides that, they filled almost all places, with spirits called "demons"; the plains, with Pan and Panises, or Satyrs; the woods, with Fauns, and Nymphs; the sea, with Tritons, and other Nymphs; every river, and fountain, with a ghost of his name, and with Nymphs; every house with its "Lares," or familiars; every man with his "Genius"; hell with ghosts, and spiritual officers, as Charon, Cerberus, and the Furies; and in the night-time, all places with "larvæ," "lemures," ghosts of men deceased, and a whole kingdom of fairies and bugbears. They have also ascribed divinity, and built temples to mere accidents, and qualities; such as are time, night, day, peace, concord, love, contention, virtue, honour, health, rust, fever, and the like; which when they prayed for, or against, they prayed to, as if there were ghosts of those names hanging over their heads, and letting fall, or withholding that good, or evil, for or against which they prayed. They invoked also their own wit, by the name of Muses; their own ignorance, by the name of Fortune; their own lusts by the name of Cupid; their own rage, by the name of Furies; their own privy members, by the name of Priapus; and attributed their pollutions, to Incubi, and Succubæ insomuch as there was nothing, which a poet could introduce as a person in his poem, which they did not make either a "god," or a "devil."
The same authors of the religion of the Gentiles, observ-