be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a
proof of the general character of the nation. Female courage, however it
may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a faint
and imperfect imitation of the manly valor that distinguishes the age or
country in which it may be found.

The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of savages can
deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their fears, and their
ignorance. They adored the great visible objects and agents of nature,
the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and the Earth; together with those
imaginary deities, who were supposed to preside over the most important
occupations of human life. They were persuaded, that, by some ridiculous
arts of divination, they could discover the will of the superior beings,
and that human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable offering
to their altars. Some applause has been hastily bestowed on the sublime
notion, entertained by that people, of the Deity, whom they neither
confined within the walls of the temple, nor represented by any human
figure; but when we recollect, that the Germans were unskilled in
architecture, and totally unacquainted with the art of sculpture, we
shall readily assign the true reason of a scruple, which arose not so
much from a superiority of reason, as from a want of ingenuity. The
only temples in Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the
reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the imagined
residence of an invisible power, by presenting no distinct object
of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still deeper sense of
religious horror; and the priests, rude and illiterate as they were, had
been taught by experience the use of every artifice that could preserve
and fortify impressions so well suited to their own interest.

The same ignorance, which renders barbarians incapable of conceiving or
embracing the useful restraints of laws, exposes them naked and unarmed
to the blind terrors of superstition. The German priests, improving this
favorable temper of their countrymen, had assumed a jurisdiction even in
temporal concerns, which the magistrate could not venture to exercise;
and the haughty warrior patiently submitted to the lash of correction,
when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but by the immediate
order of the god of war. The defects of civil policy were sometimes
supplied by the interposition of ecclesiastical autho