water? Jupiter got _something_, be assured; and what _was_
it? This it was,--the luxury of inhaling the groans, the fleeting
breath, the palpitations, the agonies, of the dying victim. This
was the dark interest which the wretches of Olympus had in human
invitations to dinner: and it is too certain, upon comparing facts
and dates, that, when left to their own choice, the gods had a
preference for _man_ as the victim. All things concur to show,
that precisely as you ascend above civilization, which continually
increased the limitations upon the gods of Olympus, precisely as
you go back to that gloomy state in which their true propensities
had power to reveal themselves, was man the genuine victim for
_them_, and the dying anguish of man the best 'nidor' that
ascended from earthly banquets to _their_ nostrils. Their
stern eyes smiled darkly upon the throbbings of tortured flesh, as
in Moloch's ears dwelt like music the sound of infants' wailings.
Secondly, as to the birth of a new idea respecting the nature
of God:--It may not have occurred to every reader, but none will
perhaps object to it, when once suggested to his consideration,
that--as is the god of any nation, such will be that nation. God,
however falsely conceived of by man. even though splintered into
fragments by Polytheism, or disfigured by the darkest mythologies,
is still the greatest of all objects offered to human contemplation.
Man, when thrown upon his own delusions, may have raised himself,
or may have adopted from others, the very falsest of ideals, as
the true image and reflection of what he calls god. In his lowest
condition of darkness, terror may be the moulding principle for
spiritual conceptions; power, the engrossing attribute which he
ascribes to his deity; and this power may be hideously capricious,
or associated with vindictive cruelty. It may even happen, that
his standard of what is highest in the divinity should be capable