The Religion of Nature Delineated

very well how to improve any the least hint out of the Ancients, and I fear will want to be diverted. I have also printed a few copies of this Sketch, not with any design to make it public, but merely to save the trouble of transcribing657⁠—being minded, since I have made it, to leave it not only with you, but perhaps also with two or three other friends, or, however, with my Family, as a private monument of one that meant well. Though, as to the disposal and fate of it, much will depend upon your judgment and manner of acceptance.

—William Wollaston.

מכ״אות״ל

“Who is like unto God?” And “Praised be God.”658

Endnotes

1. So, in Plato, Socrates requires of Euthyphro not to teach him ἕν τι ἢ δύο με διδάξαι τῶν πολλῶν ὁσίων, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκεῖνο αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος ᾧ πάντα τὰ ὅσια ὅσιά ἐστιν: “one or two particulars of the multitude of things that are just and right; but to show him the original pattern itself, by which everything that is just and good becomes so.” And again, ταύτην τοίνυν με αὐτὴν δίδαξον τὴν ἰδέαν τίς ποτέ ἐστιν, ἵνα εἰς ἐκείνην ἀποβλέπων καὶ χρώμενος αὐτῇ παραδείγματι, ὃ μὲν ἂν τοιοῦτον ᾖ ὧν ἂν ἢ σὺ ἢ ἄλλος τις πράττῃ φῶ ὅσιον εἶναι, ὃ δ᾽ ἂν μὴ τοιοῦτον, μὴ φῶ: “Show me the original image or picture, that I may see what sort of a thing it is, and when I look upon it, and make use of it as the original pattern, I may be able to affirm that an action performed by you or any other person, if it be of such a sort, is just and good; and, if it be not of such a sort, then I cannot affirm it to be so.”

   (Euthyphro.)

   Posce exemplar honesti: “Enquire after the original pattern of virtue.”

   (Lucan, Pharsalia.)

   ↩

2. Οἶδε τό γ᾽ αἰσχρὸν, χανόνι τοῦ χαλοῦ μαθών: “He knows what vice is, having been taught by the rule of virtue.”

   (Euripides, Fabulae.)

   Adsit Regula, peccatis quæ pœnas irroget æquas, says Horace

   (Satirae 3.)

   Now by the same rule by which punishments are justly proportioned, crimes must be distinguished amongst themselves; and therefore much more, crimes from no-crimes, and crimes from good actions. So that it is at bottom a rule which can do this, that is required. ↩

3. Formula quædam constituenda est: quam si sequemur in comparatione rerum, ab officio nunquam recedemus: “There ought to be some rule established: which if we follow in comparing things with each other, we shall never fall short of our duty.”

   (Cicero, De Officiis.)

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4. Πῶς οἷόν τε ἀτέκμαρτα εἶναι καὶ ἀνεύρετα τὰ ἀναγκαιότατα ἐν ἀνθρώποις; Ἔστιν οὖν [κανών τις]: “How is it possible that those things which are necessary for men [to know or to do] should be such, as they can have no certainty of knowing or finding out? There must then be [some rule].”

   (Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus.)

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5. Ubi virtus, si nihil situm est in ipsis nobis? “Where is virtue then, if there be nothing within our own power?”

   (Cicero, Academica.)

   הוא עמוד התורה והמצוה⁠ ⁠… רשות לכל אדם נתונה אם רצה להטות עצמו לדרך טובה: “There is a power given to every man, if he be but willing to incline himself to the way that is good⁠ ⁠… This is the support of the law and the commandments.”

   (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkot Teshubah, V, 1, 3.)

   הרשות היא הבחירה: “This power is what we call free will.”

   (Isaac Abravanel, Nahalot Abot.)

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6. Lacrymæ pondera vocis habent: “Tears have the force of words.”

   (Ovid, Epistulæ Ex Ponto, III.)

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7. Oculi, supercilia, frons, vultus denique totus, qui sermo qui dam tacitus mentis est, etc.: “The eyes, the eyebrows, and indeed the whole countenance are a kind of tacit speech of the mind, etc.”

   (Cicero, “Against Piso.”)

   Nutu signisque loquuntur: “They [Piramus and Thisbe] speak to each other by nods and signs.”

   (Ovid, Metamorphoses.)

   Est actio quasi sermo corporis: “Every action is a sort of a speech of the body.”

   (Cicero, De Oratore, and often repeated by him.)

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8. איש און מולל ברגליו: “A wicked man speaks by his feet.”

   (Proverbs 6:12⁠–⁠13.)

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9. Τὸν κατὰ τῆς κινήσεως λόγον σιωπῶν περιεπάτησεν: “Without saying anything against the argument about motion, he got up and walked about.”

   (Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism.)

   So Menedemus reproved luxury by eating only olives

   (Diogenes Laërtius, Life of Menedemus.)

   And others are mentioned by Plutarch, who ἄνευ φωνῆς ἃ δεῖ φράζειν, did declare “what they had to say without making use of words.”

   (“De Garrulitate.”)

   ↩

10. Roscius, in Macrobius’s Saturnalia. ↩

11. Where we find φίλοι τε φίλοις καὶ πολῖται πολίταις⁠ ⁠… ἐς χεῖρας ἀλλήλοις ἐλθόντες: “that friends and fellow-citizens fell into each other’s hands.”

    (Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War.)

    ↩

12. Τοὶς οἰκείους ὡς πολεμίους ἠμύνοντο: “They revenged themselves upon their own people, as if they had been their enemies.”

    (Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca historica.)

    ↩

13. Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia. ↩

14. Cicero. (Editor’s note.) ↩

15. Ἀνθρώποισιν οὐκ ἐχρῆν ποτὲ τῶν πραγµάτων τὴν γλῶσσαν ἰσχύειν πλέον: “There never could be any necessity that men’s tongues should be of more force [to declare their intentions] than their actions.”

    (Euripides, Hecuba.)

    Quasi intersit, audiam, an videam: “As if there were any difference whether I hear you,