ings thus obscure and unintelligible, not merely to offer their
opinions as conjectures, but boldly to urge and insist upon them:
to do everything but swear, that the sun {161} is a mass of liquid
fire, that the moon is inhabited, that the stars drink water, and
that the sun draws up the moisture from the sea, as with a well-
rope, and distributes his draught over the whole creation? How
little they agree upon any one thing, and what a variety of tenets
they embrace, is but too evident; for first, with regard to the
world, their opinions are totally different; some affirm that it
hath neither beginning nor end; some, whom I cannot but admire,
point out to us the manner of its construction, and the maker of it,
a supreme deity, whom they worship as creator of the universe; but
they have not told us whence he came, nor where he exists; neither,
before the formation of this world, can we have any idea of time or
place.

FRIEND.

These are, indeed, bold and presumptuous diviners.

MENIPPUS.

But what would you say, my dear friend, were you to hear them
disputing, concerning ideal {162} and incorporeal substances, and
talking about finite and infinite? for this is a principal matter of
contention between them; some confining all things within certain
limits, others prescribing none. Some assert that there are many
worlds, {163a} and laugh at those who affirm there is but one;
whilst another, {163b} no man of peace, gravely assures us that war
is the original parent of all things. Need I mention to you their
strange opinions concerning the deities? One says, that number
{163c} is a god; others swear by dogs, {164} geese, and plane-trees.
Some give the rule of everything to one god alone, and take away all
power from the rest, a scarcity of deities which I could not well
brook; others more liberal, increased the number of gods, and gave
to each his separate province and employment, calling one the first,
and allotting to others the second or third rank of divinity. Some
held that gods were incorporeal, and without form; others supposed
them to have bodies. It was by no means universally acknowledged
that the gods took cognisance of human affairs; some there were who
exempted them from all care and solicitude, as we exonerate our old
men from business and trouble; bringing them in like so many mute
attendants on the stage. There are some too, who go beyond all
this, and deny that there are any gods at all, but asse