Nay

all these things are the work of Nature—her modes and motions. There is no need for the gods,” We have lost that part of Tully’s great e ay (On the Nature of the Gods) containing the reply to the great questions, “Is there a Divine Providence governing the world, and does that Providence specially regard man?” The Rev. Dr Franklin (the best translator of this work) says: “Some of the arguments against a Providence are particulars that seem unanswerable.” Lac tanti us says that Tully (Cicero) thought it “improbable that matter, whence all things spring,” should be the work of a Divine Providence; and called it “a substance entirely depending on its own nature and strength”: God being a potter using the material provided for him. This is directly opposed to Stoik teaching, and is enlarged on by Lucretius, and by Cicero in his Akademikal Questions (iv, ch. 88). Why, he asks, is there such needle waste in nature, yet so many barren lands—rain falling into the sea, while the inhabitants of sandy deserts perish? Can man indeed, with all his many infirmities and diseases; seen and unseen miseries; be the work of an all-wise, all-foreseeing, and almighty Creator and Ruler? See how succe ful are sin and crime, and how the virtuous suffer, If the gods do not consider all this they must be capricious, or ignorant, or bad. It is better to think that they are powerle , and have not consulted the good of any: that they did not endow man with reason, or intelligence, to invent either crimes or virtues: for, if the gods had fore-knowledge, they are to blame for all the misery, wrong, and ignorance around us. We thank them when prosperous, but we trust them not, though often praising them because of their power—especially for evil. [All these questionings however troubled Job long before Gon hed What good man would condemn son or grandson for the crime of father or grandfather (to say nothing of a legendary Adam). The gods it is said neglect whole nations: why then not individuals? No doctor gives medicine to the son for the father. It is le blasphemous to say that the All-Father, and All-Mother is Nature, and not a god or gods. Thus spoke thé Roman Akademiks on burning questions which Plato shunned equally with Roman Stoiks. [The distinction of Nature and God was apparently not a mere choice of names, but was intended to rebut the idea of a personal deity, or spirit not inherent in matter, and to a ert the immutability of natural law.—Ep.] Akaians. Akhaioi. The Egyptians knew of Akai-usha (a fair tribe of the north), whom Greeks mention as Aryanised Pelasgi, pre ing from The aly into the Peloponnésos, where they founded Argos—named after their The alian Argos—about 1500 3.c. 95