II. I do not deny, that by turning over history, you will find thousands of victims sacrificed to this idol. What war is undertaken without this specious pretence? What field do we see drenched with human blood, that posterity, over the carcases from whence it flowed, has not fixed the honourable inscription, that those men lost their lives for the good of their country? But if we examine things critically, we shall find the world is much mistaken, in thinking there have been so many, or so refined sacrifices made to this imaginary deity. Let us figure to ourselves a republic, armed for a war, undertaken on the principle of a just defence; and let us also proceed to examine by the light of reason, the impulse which animates men’s hearts to expose their lives in the quarrel. Among the private men, some inlist for the pay and the plunder, others with the hopes of bettering their fortunes, and acquiring military honour and preferment; but the greatest part, from motives of obedience, and fear of the Prince or the General. He who commands the army, is instigated by his interest and his glory. The Prince, or Chief Magistrate, who is at a distance from the danger, acts more for the sake of maintaining his dominion, than for supporting the republic. Now admitting that all these people should find it more for their interest to retire to their houses, than to defend the walls, you would hardly see ten men left on the ramparts. III. Even those feats of prowess of the antients, which are so blazoned and immortalized by fame, as the ultimate exertions of zeal for the public good, were more probably generated by ambition, and the love of glory, than by the love of their country; and I am inclined to think, that if there had not been witnesses present, to have handed down to posterity an account of their exploits, that from a principle of love to his country, neither Curtius would have precipitated himself into the pit, nor Marcus Attilius Regulus have submitted to die a lingering death in an iron cage; nor would the twin brothers, for the sake of extending the boundaries of Carthage, have consented to be buried alive. The incitement of posthumous fame had great influence among the Gentiles; and it might also happen, that some rushed on a violent death, not so much with a view of acquiring posthumous fame, as from the mad vanity of seeing themselves admired and applauded for a few instants of their lives, of which Lucian gives us a striking example, in the death that was submitted to by the philosopher Peregrinus.