Lucretius had partly felt these difficulties, when in his third book (verses 890-91) he describes a man trembling at the idea of what will happen to him when he will no longer be the same man:
Nec radicitus e vita se tollit et evit;
Sed facit esse sui quiddam super inscius ipse.
But Lucretius is not the oracle to be addressed, in order to obtain any discoveries of the future.
The celebrated Toland, who wrote his own epitaph, concluded it with these words: "Idem futurus Tolandus nunquam"—"He will never again be the same Toland."
However, it may be presumed that God would have well known how to find and restore him, had such been his good pleasure; and it is to be presumed, also, that the being who necessarily exists, is necessarily good.
IDOL—IDOLATER—IDOLATRY.
SECTION I.
Idol is derived from the Greek word "eidos," figure; "eidolos," the representation of a figure, and "latreuein," to serve, revere, or adore.
It does not appear that there was ever any people on earth who took the name of idolaters. This word is an offence, an insulting term, like that of "gavache," which the Spaniards formerly gave to the French; and that of "maranes," which the French gave to the Spaniards in return. If we had demanded of the senate of the Areopagus of Athens, or at the court of the kings of Persia: "Are you idolaters?" they would scarcely have understood the question. None would have answered: "We adore images and idols." This word, idolater, idolatry, is found neither in Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, nor any other author of the religion of the Gentiles. There was never any edict, any law, which commanded that idols should be adored; that they should be treated as gods and regarded as gods.