Note 7 — Chapter XII · APPLIED MORAL SCIENCE.

(2) Free criticism of popular belief. Meantime, they did not deny that much in the popular belief would not harmonise with their principles; and that both the customary forms of religious worship, and also the mythical representations of the Gods, were altogether untenable. So little did they conceal their strictures, that it is clear that conviction, and not fear (there being no longer occasion for fear), was the cause of their leaning towards tradition. Zeno spoke with contempt of the erection of sacred edifices; for how can a thing be sacred which is erected by builders and labourers?7 Seneca denies the good of prayer.8 He considers it absurd to entertain fear for the Gods, who are ever-beneficent beings.9 God he would have worshipped, not by sacrifices and ceremonies, but by purity of life; not in temples of stone, but in the shrine of the heart.10 Of images of the Gods, and the devotion paid to them, he speaks with strong disapprobation;11 of the unworthy fables of mythology, with bitter ridicule;12 and he calls the popular Gods, without reserve, creations of superstition, whom the philosopher only invokes because it is the custom so to do.13 Moreover, the Stoic in Cicero, and the elder authorities quoted by him, allow that the popular beliefs and the songs of the poets are full of superstition and foolish legends.14 Chrysippus is expressly said to have declared the distinction of sex among the Gods, and other features in which they resemble men, to be childish fancies;15 Zeno to have denied any real existence to the popular deities, and to have transferred their names to natural objects;16 and Aristo17 is charged with having denied shape and sensation to the Deity.18