Note 15 — INTRODUCTION.

Cicero himself says, “If any one doubt, whether there be a God, I cannot comprehend why the same person may not as well doubt, whether there be a sun or not.” [De Naturâ Deorum, 2. 2.]

It is observed by Dr. Turnbull, in his annotations on Heineccius’s System of Universal Law, that Polybius as well as Cicero, and indeed almost all the ancient philosophers, have acknowledged, that a public sense of Religion is necessary to the well-being and support of civil society: and such a sentiment of Religion is inseparable from a reasonable conception of the being and attributes of the Deity. “Society,” says Dr. Turnbull very truly, “can hardly subsist without it: or, at least, it is the most powerful mean for restraining from vice; and for promoting and upholding those virtues by which society subsists, and without which every thing that is great and comely in society must soon perish and go to ruin.”—“With regard to private persons,” continues this learned writer, “he who does not often employ his mind in reviewing the perfections of the Deity, and in consoling and strengthening his mind by the comfortable and mind-exalting reflexions, to which meditation upon the universal providence of an all-perfect mind, naturally, and as it were, necessarily lead, deprives himself of the greatest joy, the noblest exercise and entertainment, the human mind is capable of; and whatever obligations there may to virtue, he cannot be so firm, steady, and unshaken in his adherence to it, as he, who, being persuaded of the truth just mentioned, is daily drawing virtuous strength and comfort from it.” [See the Annotator’s remark on ch. v. b. i. of Heineccius.]