2. Let us therefore examine
carefully the real significance of that opinion, and what is the nature
of the allegation; and laying aside all desire for wrangling,3243
| 3243
Or, “all party zeal.” |
by which the
calm view of subjects is wont to be dimmed, and
even
intercepted, let us test, by fairly balancing the considerations on
both sides, whether that which is alleged be true. For it will
assuredly be
proved by an array of convincing arguments, not that we
are
discovered to be more impious, but that they themselves are
convicted of that charge who profess to be worshippers of the deities,
and devotees of an antiquated
superstition. And, in the first
place, we ask this of them in friendly and calm
language: Since
the name of the
Christian religion began to be used on the
earth, what
phenomenon, unseen before,
3244
| 3244
So Meursius,—the ms. reading
is inusitatum, “extraordinary.” |
unheard of before, what event contrary
to the
laws established in the beginning, has the so-called
“
Nature of Things” felt or
suffered? Have these first
elements, from which it is agreed that all things were compacted, been
altered into
elements of an opposite character? Has the fabric of
this machine and mass
of the universe, by which we are all
covered, and in which we are held enclosed, relaxed in any part, or
broken up? Has the revolution of the globe, to which we are
accustomed, departing from the rate of its primal motion, begun either
to move too slowly, or to be hurried onward in
headlong rotation?
Have the
stars begun to rise in the west, and the setting of the
constellations to take place in the east? Has the sun himself,
the
chief of the heavenly bodies, with whose
light all things are
clothed, and by whose
heat all things are vivified, blazed forth with
increased vehemence? has he become less
warm, and has he altered for
the worse into opposite conditions that well-regulated temperature by
which he is wont to act upon the
earth? Has the
moon ceased to
shape herself anew,
and to change into former phases by the constant recurrence of
fresh
ones? Has the cold of
winter, has the
heat of
summer, has the
moderate warmth of spring and
autumn, been modified by reason of the
intermixture of
ill-assorted
seasons? Has the
winter begun to
have long days? has the
night begun to recall the very tardy twilights
of
summer? Have the
winds at all exhausted their
violence?
Is the
sky not collected
3245
| 3245
So Gelenius; ms.,
coartatur, “pressed together.” |
into
clouds by reason of the blasts
having lost their force, and do the
fields when moistened by the
showers not
prosper? Does the
earth refuse to receive the
seed
committed to it, or will not the
trees assume their foliage? Has
the flavour of excellent fruits altered, or has the
vine changed in its
juice? Is foul
blood pressed forth from the olive berries, and is
oil no longer supplied to the
lamp, now extinguished? Have
animals of the
land and of the
sea no sexual desires, and do they not
conceive young? Do they not
guard, according to their own
habits
and their own instinct, the
offspring generated in their wombs?
In fine, do men themselves, whom an active energy with its first
impulses has scattered over habitable
lands, not form marriages with
due rites? Do they not
beget dear
children? do they not attend to
public, to individual, and to
family concerns? Do they not apply
their talents as each one pleases, to varied
occupations, to different
kinds of learning? and do they not
reap the fruit of
diligent
application? Do those to whom it has been so allotted, not
exercise kingly
power or military
authority? Are men not every
day advanced in posts of honour, in offices of
power? Do they not
preside in the discussions of the
law courts? Do they not explain
the code of
law? do they not
expound the principles of equity?
All other things with which the life of man is surrounded, in which it
consists, do not all men in their own tribes practise, according to the
established order of their country’s manners?
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