It is a question which should, in my opinion, be asked by every individual in a rational community, whether it is advisable to continue, as a matter of faith, a doctrine which must be repudiated, as a matter of fact. To this we may join, as a rider, can anyone who puts his credence in a legend because it is old, claim to be superior to those who originally invented the tale, in the darkness of antiquity? When moderns smile at the stories told by the classic Varro, how certain mares in Lusitania were impregnated by the wind on a certain mountain, without any access to a horse, and at the credence given to similar accounts by Virgil, Pliny, and even the Christian bishop Augustine; and by some old Scotch authority how a young woman became a mother through the intervention of the ashes of the dead: and when they pity the benighted Greeks who gave to Hercules, Jupiter for a father; and to Mars, Juno for a mother, without intercourse with her celestial spouse, it behoves them to inquire whether each may not be addressed in the sentence, "Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur"--i.e., change but the name of the believers from Greeks and Romans to modern Christians, and it will be found that Popes, priests, and peoples believe as firmly now in supernatural generation as the most crass pagan of which history treats. Our classical reading tells us abundance of marvellous stories--how Jupiter seduced Danae in the form of a golden shower, and yet had a common son by her, who was not an aureous coin; how Leda received Zeus as a swan, and bore therefrom a couple of eggs; how Europa was tempted by him as a bull, and yet did not bear a calf; and how Callisto, a maiden of Diana, was debauched by the same god under the guise of her mistress, and yet that from two maidens a boy was formed. Of the amours of Apollo with a dozen and a half damsels, and of the very numerous disguises which he assumed, we find abundant details in our classical dictionaries. Mars, though not so frequently adopted by human females as a lover, had many children of whom he was the putative father. Jupiter had Bacchus and Minerva without Juno's aid, and Juno retaliated by bearing Ares without conversation with her consort. We deride these tales, and yet think, that because we laugh at a hundred such we shall be pardoned for believing one. How little we are justified in acting thus a few philosophical considerations will demonstrate.