entirely the doctrine of _Polytheism_; he preserved Venus, an all-
powerful Jupiter, and a Pallas, who was the goddess of the country. The
sight of those opposite, frequently contradictory effects, which man saw
take place in the world, had a tendency to persuade him there must be a
number of distinct powers or causes independent of each other. He was
unable to conceive that the various phenomena he beheld, sprung from a
single, from an unique cause; he therefore admitted many causes or gods,
acting upon different principles; some of which he considered friendly,
others as inimical to his race. Such is the origin of that doctrine, so
ancient, so universal, which supposed two principles in nature, or two
powers of opposite interests, who were perpetually at war with each
other; by the assistance of which he explained, that constant mixture of
good and evil, that blending of prosperity with misfortune, in a word,
those eternal vicissitudes to which in this world the human being, is
subjected. This is the source of those combats which all antiquity has
supposed to exist between good and wicked gods, between an Osiris and a
Typhoeus; between an Orosmadis and an Arimanis; between a Jupiter and
the Titanes; in these rencounters man for his own peculiar interest
always gave the palm of victory to the beneficent deity; this, according
to all the traditions handed down, ever remained in possession of the
field of battle; it was so far right, as it is evidently for the benefit
of mankind that the good should prevail over the wicked.

When, however, man acknowledged only one God, he generally supposed the
different departments of nature were confided to powers subordinate to
his supreme orders, under whom the sovereign of the gods discharged his
care in the administration of the world. These subaltern gods were
prodigiously multiplied; each man, each town, each country, had their
local, their tutelary gods; every event, whether fortunate or
unfortunate, had a divine cause; was the consequence of a sovereign