for all, to save the trouble of continual repetitions, understand
Judaism to be commemorated jointly with Christianity; the dark root
together with the golden fruitage; whenever the nature of the case
does not presume a contradistinction of the one to the other.]
Religion, in the eye of a Pagan, had no more relation to morals,
than it had to ship-building or trigonometry. But, then, why was
religion honored amongst Pagans? How did it ever arise? What was
its object? Object! it _had_ no object; if by this you mean
ulterior object. Pagan religion arose in no motive, but in an
impulse. Pagan religion aimed at no distant prize ahead: it fled
from a danger immediately behind. The gods of the Pagans were wicked
natures; but they were natures to be feared, and to be propitiated;
for they were fierce, and they were moody, and (as regarded man
who had no wings) they were powerful. Once accredited as facts,
the Pagan gods could not be regarded as other than terrific facts;
and thus it was, that in terror, blind terror, as against power
in the hands of divine wickedness, arose the ancient religions of
Paganism. Because the gods were wicked, man was religious; because
Olympus was cruel, earth trembled; because the divine beings were
the most lawless of Thugs, the human being became the most abject
of sycophants.

Had the religions of Paganism arisen teleologically; that is, with a
view to certain purposes, to certain final causes ahead; had they
grown out of _forward_-looking views, contemplating, for
instance, the furthering of civilization, or contemplating some
interests in a world beyond the present, there would probably have
arisen, concurrently, a section in all such religions, dedicated
to positive instruction. There would have been a _doctrinal_
part. There might have been interwoven with the ritual or worship,