Page:Omniana.djvu/349

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OMNIANA.
331

tude is produced through imitation and similitude; and hence temples imitate the heavens, but altars the earth; statues resemble life, and on this account they are similar to animals. Statues therefore, through their habitude or fitness, conjoin the souls of those who pray to them with the Gods themselves.

"Let not the reader, however, (says the Pagan Philosopher of the nineteenth century,) confound this scientific worship of the ancients, with the filthy piety of the Catholics, as Proclus in his hymn to the muses justly calls it"


165. Effect of domestication upon the skin and tendons of animals.

Mr. Barrow says that the skins of wild animals are much preferble for strength and durability to those that have been[1] domesticated. The forced heat in which domestic cattle are kept either when stabled or forced together in great num-

  1. Travels in Africa, vol 1. 133.