The Religion of Nature Delineated William Wollaston (my reading book .TXT) 📖

tremendous name of God to serve for an expletive only; and commonly to rude, passionate, or debauched discourse (λόγων ἀναπλήρωμα ποιούμενοι τὸ ἁγιώτατον καὶ θεῖον ὄνομα: “making use of the most holy name of God, only to fill up the sentence with” —⁠Philo Judaeus, Life of Moses). ↩

Οὐδὲν οὕτως ἡμέτερόν ἐστιν, ὡς ἡμεῖς ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς: “so much our own, as we ourselves are.” (Xenophon, Cyropaedia.) ↩

And therefore the produce of a man’s labor is often still called his “labor.” So יבזו זרים יגיעו: “strangers devour his labor,” and יגיע כפיך תאכל: “thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands;” in Psalms (109:11, 128:2) and other places. … Iliadumque labor vestes: “… Garments which were the labor of the Trojan women.” (Virgil, Aeneid.) ↩

If B works for another man, who pays him for his work, or labor, that alters not the case. He may commute them for money, because they are his. ↩

Tanquam Sparti illi poetarum, sic se invicem jugulant, ut nemo ex omnibus restet: “Like those Spartans mentioned by the Poets, who cut one another’s throats, so that not one of them all remained,” as Lactantius says in another case. (Divine Institutes.) ↩

Ἀνθρωπόμορφον θηρίον: “A wild beast in the shape of a man.” (Philo Judaeus.) ↩

Nec enim æquus judex aliam de suâ, aliam de alienâ causâ, sententiam fert: “A fair judge will not give a different sentence in his own cause, from that which he gives in the cause of another.” (Seneca, De Ira.) ↩

Ἀεὶ ταυτὰ περί γε τῶν ἀυτῶν γίνωσκε: “We must always understand the same things relating to the same things.” (Isocrates, Oratio ad Nicoclem.) ↩

אל תדון חברך עד שתגיע למקומו: “You must not judge your companion, till you have put yourself in his place.” (Mishnah, Abot II, 5.) Eo loco nos constituamus, quo ille est, cui irascimur: “We ought to put ourselves in the place of him we are angry with.” (Seneca, De Ira.) ↩

He was a mere flatterer, who told Cyrus, Βασιλεὺς μὲν ἔμοιγε δοκεῖς σὺ φύσει πεφυκέναι οὐδὲν ἧττον ἢ ὁ ἐν τῷ σμήνει φυόμενος τῶν μελιττῶν ἡγεμών: “You seem to me to be born a king as much by nature, as he who is born in the hive is the king of the bees.” (Xenophon, Cyropaedia.) ↩

Nihil est unum uni tam simile, tam par, quàm omnes inter nosmet ipsos sumus.⁠ ⁠… Quæcunque est hominis definitio, una in omnes valet: “There is no one thing more like or equal to another, than we all are among ourselves.⁠ ⁠… Whatever definition we give of a man, the same will hold good of us all.” (Cicero, De Legibus.) ↩

When the Romans, in Livy, asked the Galls, Quodnam id jus esset, agrum à possessoribus petere, aut minari arma: “Where is the justice of demanding the lands of the owners, or else threatening them with the sword;” they answered, se in armis jus ferre, et omnia fortium virorum esse: “that their swords were their law, and that valiant men had a right to everything.” (History of Rome.) Like barbarians indeed! ↩

Josephus, when he says νόμον γε μὴν ὡρίσθαι, καὶ παρὰ θηρσὶν ἰσχυρότατον, καὶ ἀνθρώποις, εἴκειν τοῖς δυνατωτέροις: “that it is an established law, and it is the strongest amongst both beasts and amongst men, viz.: to submit to them that have the most power,” can only mean that necessity, or perhaps prudence, obliges to do this; not any law in the stricter sense of that word. (The Jewish War.) ↩

Societatis [inter homines] arctissimum vinculum est magis arbitrari esse contra naturam, hominem homini detrahere, sui commodi causa, quàm omnia incommoda subire, etc.: “The strongest bond of society, among men, is to think that it is more contrary to nature for one man to take away that which belongs to another, to advantage himself, than it is to undergo all the inconveniences that can be, etc.” (Cicero, De Officiis.) ↩

All this is supposed to be in a state of nature and the absence of human laws. ↩

For ἐι ὁ ἀδικῶν κακῶς, ὁ ἀντιποιῶν κακῶς οὐδὲν ἧττον ποιεῖ κακῶς, κἂν ἀμύνηται: “if he who does an act of injustice does an ill thing, he that returns the injustice does a thing equally ill, though it be by way of retaliation.” (Maximus Tyrius, Dissertations.) ↩

Nam propriæ telluris herum natura neque illum, Nec me, nec quenquam statuit: “For nature did not make him, nor me, nor anyone else, the owner of any particular piece of land.” (Horace, Satires.) ↩

Τὰς κτήσεις, καὶ τὰς ἰδίας καὶ τὰς κοινὰς, ἢν ἐπινένηται πολὺς χρόνος, κυρίας καὶ πατρῷας ἅπαντες εἶναι νομίζουσιν: “They think that possessions, whether private or public, after they have continued for a long time, are secure, and belong to the family.” (Isocrates, Archidamus.) ↩

To this may be reduced that title to things which Cicero mentions as conferred by some law (lege); and even those which accrue conditione: “by covenant,” or forte: “by lot.” For I suppose the government to have a right of giving them thus. ↩

Which must not give way to the opinions of fitness, etc. The master was in the right, who corrected Cyrus for adjudging the great coat to the great boy, and