It must be confessed, that a sensible reader cannot, without astonishment, see persons among the ancients in the highest repute for wisdom and knowledge; generals who were the least liable to be influenced by popular opinions, and most sensible how necessary it is to take advantage of auspicious moments; the wisest councils of princes perfectly well skilled in the arts of government; the most august assemblies of grave senators; in a word, the most powerful and most learned nations in all ages; to see, I say, all these so unaccountably weak, as to make to depend on these trifling practices and absurd observances, the decision of the greatest affairs, such as the declaring of war, the giving battle, or pursuing a victory, deliberations that were of the utmost importance, and on which the fate and welfare of kingdoms frequently depended. But, at the same time, we must be so just as to own, that their manners, customs, and laws, would not permit men, in these ages, to dispense with the observation of these practices: that education, hereditary tradition transmitted from immemorial time, the universal belief and consent of different nations, the precepts, and even examples of philosophers; that all these, I say, made the practices in question appear venerable in their eyes: and that these ceremonies, how absurd soever they may appear to us, and are really so in themselves, constituted part of the religion and public worship of the ancients. This religion was false, and this worship mistaken; yet the principle of it was laudable, and founded in nature; the stream was corrupted, but the fountain was pure. Man, assisted only by his own light, sees nothing beyond the present moment. Futurity is to him an abyss invisible to the most keen, the most piercing sagacity, and exhibits nothing on which he may with certainty fix his views, or form his resolutions. He is equally feeble and impotent with regard to the execution of his designs. He is sensible, that he is dependent entirely on a Supreme Power, that disposes all events with absolute authority, and which, in spite of his utmost efforts, and of the wisdom of the best concerted schemes, by raising only the smallest obstacles and slightest disappointments, renders it impossible for him to execute his measures.