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| J. Elwood Print-shop Crowd, London 1790 drawing British Museum |
"Your precaution, says Philo, of seasoning your children's minds with early piety, is certainly very reasonable, and no more than is requisite in this profane and irreligious age. But what I chiefly admire in your plan of education is your method of drawing advantage from the very principles of philosophy and learning, which, by inspiring pride and self-sufficiency, have commonly, in all ages, been found so destructive to the principles of religion. The vulgar, indeed, we may remark, who are unacquainted with science and profound enquiry, observing the endless disputes of the learned, have commonly a thorough contempt for philosophy, and rivet themselves the faster, by that means, in the great points of theology, which have been taught them."
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| James Clark The Hope Venus (Marble statue in Athens Archaeological Museum) 1791 drawing on blue paper British Museum |
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| James Clark The Hope Venus (Marble statue in Athens Archaeological Museum) 1791 drawing on blue paper British Museum |
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| Jean-Baptiste Fay Designs for Chocolate Cups ca. 1780-90 engraving Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
"Suppose, therefore, that an articulate voice were heard in the clouds, much louder and more melodious than any which human art could ever reach: suppose that this voice were extended in the same instant over all nations and spoke to each nation in its own language and dialect: suppose that the words delivered not only contain a just sense and meaning, but convey some instruction altogether worthy of a benevolent being superior to mankind: could you possibly hesitate a moment concerning the cause of this voice?"
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| Francesco Antonio Franzoni Sketch for Fireplace Overmantle ca. 1789 terracotta Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Angelica Kauffmann Virgil reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia 1788 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"Were anyone inclined to revive the ancient pagan theology, which maintained, as we learn from Hesiod, that this globe was governed by 30,000 deities who arose from unknown powers of nature, you would naturally object, Cleanthes, that nothing is gained by this hypothesis and that it is as easy to suppose all men and animals, being more numerous but less perfect, to have sprung immediately from a like origin. Push the same inference a step further and you find a numerous society of deities as explicable as one universal deity who possesses within himself the powers and perfections of the whole society. All these systems then, of scepticism, polytheism, and theism you must allow, on your principles, to be on a like footing, and that no one of them has any advantage over the others. You may thence learn the fallacy of your principles."
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| Francesco Bartolozzi after Guercino Four Putti ca. 1780 engraving Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Benjamin West Pilgrim Mourning his Dead Ass ca. 1773-77 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
"It seems strange to me, said Cleanthes, that you, Demea, who are so sincere in the cause of religion, should still maintain the mysterious, incomprehensible nature of the deity, and should insist so strenuously that he has no manner of likeness or resemblance to human creatures. The deity, I can readily allow, possesses many powers and attributes of which we can have no comprehension. But if our ideas, so far as they go, be not just and adequate and correspondent to his real nature, I know not what there is in this subject worth insisting on. Is the name, without any meaning, of such mighty importance? Or how do you mystics, who maintain the absolute incomprehensibility of the deity, differ from sceptics or atheists, who assert that the first cause of all is unknown and unintelligible? Their temerity must be very great, if, after rejecting the production by a mind – I mean, a mind resembling the human (for I know of no other) – they pretend to assign with certainty any other specific intelligible cause. And their conscience must be very scrupulous indeed if they refuse to call the universal, unknown cause a god or deity, and to bestow on him as many sublime eulogies and unmeaning epithets as you shall please to require of them."
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| Benjamin West Paetus and Arria 1766 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Jean-Honoré Fragonard The Rendezvous ca. 1771-73 oil on canvas Frick Collection, New York |
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| Jean-Baptiste Greuze Philosopher ca. 1765-70 wash drawing Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jean-Baptiste Greuze Melancholy ca. 1765-69 wash drawing Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Filippo Falciatore Three Putti ca. 1750 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Edmé Bouchardon Design for Fountain in Niche ca. 1735 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
"A very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us: and do we thence pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole?"
– quoted passages from Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) by David Hume