toe is said to be of
signal service in the cure of certain convulsive distempers, which, by
their suddenness, their violence, and their unaccountable symptoms, have
been ever considered as supernatural. The epilepsy was by the Romans for
that reason called _morbus sacer_; and all other nations have regarded
it in the same light. The Druids also looked upon vervain, and some
other plants, as holy, and probably for a similar reason.

The other objects of the Druid worship were chiefly serpents, in the
animal world, and rude heaps of stone, or great pillars without polish
or sculpture, in the inanimate. The serpent, by his dangerous qualities,
is not ill adapted to inspire terror,--by his annual renewals, to raise
admiration,--by his make, easily susceptible of many figures, to serve
for a variety of symbols,--and by all, to be an object of religious
observance: accordingly, no object of idolatry has been more
universal.[10] And this is so natural, that serpent-veneration seems to
be rising again, even in the bosom of Mahometanism.[11]

The great stones, it has been supposed, were originally monuments of
illustrious men, or the memorials of considerable actions,--or they were
landmarks for deciding the bounds of fixed property. In time the memory
of the persons or facts which these stones were erected to perpetuate
wore away; but the reverence which custom, and probably certain
periodical ceremonies, had preserved for those places was not so soon
obliterated. The monuments themselves then came to be venerated,--and
not the less because the reason for venerating them was no longer known.
The landmark was in those times held sacred on account of its great
uses, and easily passed into an object of worship. Hence the god
Terminus amongst the Romans. This religious observance towards rude
stones is one of the most ancient and universal of all customs. Traces
of it are to be found in almost all, and especially in these Northern
nations; and to this day, in Lapland, where heathenism is not yet
entirely extirpated, their chief divinity, which they call
_Storjunkare,_ is nothing more than a rude stone.[12]

Some writers among the moderns, because the Druids ordinarily made no
use of images in their worship, have given into an opinion that their
religion was founded on the unity of the Godhead. But this is no just
consequence. The spirituality of the idea, admitting their idea to have
been spiritual, does not infer the unity of th