nually purified: and without
the assistance of aromatics, the religion of the ancients would have
caused the plague. Even the interior of the temple was decked with
festoons of flowers in order to make the air sweeter.

No cow will be sacrificed in the burning land of the Indian peninsula;
because this animal which furnishes necessary milk is very rare in an
arid country, its flesh is dry, tough, contains very little nourishment,
and the Brahmins would live very badly. On the contrary, the cow will
become sacred, in view of its rarity and utility.

One will only enter barefoot the temple of Jupiter Ammon where the heat
is excessive: one must be well shod to perform one's devotions in
Copenhagen.

It is not so with dogma. People have believed in polytheism in all
climates; and it is as easy for a Crimean Tartar as for an inhabitant of
Mecca to recognize a single God, incommunicable, non-begetting,
non-begotten. It is through its dogma still more than through its rites
that a religion is spread from one climate to another. The dogma of the
unity of God soon passed from Medina to the Caucasus; then the climate
cedes to opinion.

The Arabs said to the Turks: "We had ourselves circumcised in Arabia
without really knowing why; it was an old fashion of the priests of
Egypt to offer to Oshireth or Osiris a little part of what they held
most precious. We had adopted this custom three thousand years before we
became Mohammedans. You will be circumcised like us; like us you will be
obliged to sleep with one of your wives every Friday, and to give each
year two and a half per cent of your income to the poor. We drink only
water and sherbet; all intoxicating liquor is forbidden us; in Arabia it
is pernicious. You will embrace this regime although you love wine
passionately, and although it may even be often necessary for you to go
on the banks of the Phasis and Araxes. Lastly, if you want to go to
Heaven, and be well placed there, you will take the road to Mecca."

The inhabitants of the north of the Caucasus submit to these laws, and
embrace throughout the country a religion which was not made for them.

In Egypt the symbolic worship of animals succeeded the dogmas of Thaut.
The gods of the Romans later shared Egypt with the dogs, the cats and
the crocodiles. To the Roman religion succeeded Christianity; it was
entirely driven out by Mohammedanism, which perhaps will cede its place
to a new religion.

In all these vicissitu