It seems strange to me, said CLEANTHES, that you, DEMEA, who are so
sincere in the cause of religion, should still maintain the mysterious,
incomprehensible nature of the Deity, and should insist so strenuously
that he has no manner of likeness or resemblance to human creatures. The
Deity, I can readily allow, possesses many powers and attributes of which
we can have no comprehension: But if our ideas, so far as they go, be not
just, and adequate, and correspondent to his real nature, I know not what
there is in this subject worth insisting on. Is the name, without any
meaning, of such mighty importance? Or how do you mystics, who maintain
the absolute incomprehensibility of the Deity, differ from Sceptics or
Atheists, who assert, that the first cause of all is unknown and
unintelligible? Their temerity must be very great, if, after rejecting
the production by a mind, I mean a mind resembling the human, (for I know
of no other,) they pretend to assign, with certainty, any other specific
intelligible cause: And their conscience must be very scrupulous indeed,
if they refuse to call the universal unknown cause a God or Deity; and to
bestow on him as many sublime eulogies and unmeaning epithets as you
shall please to require of them.

Who could imagine, replied DEMEA, that CLEANTHES, the calm philosophical
CLEANTHES, would attempt to refute his antagonists by affixing a nickname
to them; and, like the common bigots and inquisitors of the age, have
recourse to invective and declamation, instead of reasoning? Or does he
not perceive, that these topics are easily retorted, and that
Anthropomorphite is an appellation as invidious, and implies as dangerous
consequences, as the epithet of Mystic, with which he has honoured us? In
reality, CLEANTHES, consider what it is you assert when you represent the