the gods ambiguous._
And the same is true with respect to all the rest, as is true with
respect to those things which I have mentioned for the sake of
example. They do not explain them, but rather involve them. They
rush hither and thither, to this side or to that, according as they
are driven by the impulse of erratic opinion; so that even Varro
himself has chosen rather to doubt concerning all things, than to
affirm anything. For, having written the first of the three last
books concerning the certain gods, and having commenced in the second
of these to speak of the uncertain gods, he says: "I ought not to
be censured for having stated in this book the doubtful opinions
concerning the gods. For he who, when he has read them, shall
think that they both ought to be, and can be, conclusively judged
of, will do so himself. For my own part, I can be more easily led
to doubt the things which I have written in the first book, than
to attempt to reduce all the things I shall write in this one to
any orderly system." Thus he makes uncertain not only that book,
concerning the uncertain gods, but also that other concerning the
certain gods. Moreover, in that third book concerning the select
gods, after having exhibited by anticipation as much of the natural
theology as he deemed necessary, and when about to commence to
speak of the vanities and lying insanities of the civil theology,
where he was not only without the guidance of the truth of things,
but was also pressed by the authority of tradition, he says: "I
will write in this book concerning the public gods of the Roman
people, to whom they have dedicated temples, and whom they have
conspicuously distinguished by many adornments; but, as Xenophon of
Colophon writes, I will state what I think, not what I am prepared to
maintain: it is for man to think those things, for God to know them."
It is not, then, an account of things comprehended and most certainly
believed which he promised, when about to write those things which
were instituted by men. He only timidly promises an account of things
which are but the subject of doubtful opinion. Nor, indeed, was it
possible for him to affirm with the same certainty that Janus was the
world, and such like things; or to discover with the same certainty
such things as how Jupiter was the son of Saturn, while Saturn was
made subject to him as king:--he could, I say, neither affirm nor
discover such things with the same certainty with which he knew such
things as that the world existed, that the heavens and earth existed,
the heavens bright with stars, and the earth fertile through seeds;
or with the same perfect conviction with which he believed that this
universal mass of nature is governed and administered by a certain
invisible and mighty force.