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1ïiommes, il lui seroit plutôt possible de recevoir & de pratiquer le culte suprême , que de commencer par se créer une seule idole. Ceux-mêmes qui ont adoré le Soleil , & ceux qui voudroient en annoncer le culte comme le plus naturel , parce que l’objet en est plus rapproché de nous , ne détruisent point le principe que j’expose. Les Peuples qui ont exercé le culte du Soleil , ne sont parvenus à cette idolâtrie , que par une altération d’un culte plus sublime ; & il suffit pour s’en convaincre de confronter leur antiquité avec celles des Peuples qui ont adoré l’Etre invisible. Ces traditions Chinoises annoncent un culte pur & éclairé chez cette Nation , long-temps avant l’établissement du culte du Soleil chez aucune autre Nation de la terre. Quant à ceux qui prétendent justifier cette idolâtrie matérielle , ils ferment les yeux sur la nature de l’homme , ils ne voient pas même qu’un semblable culte ne peut long-temps le satisfaire ; parce que l’homme étant un Etre assis , a besoin de prier , de concourir à Y œuvre qu’il desire opérer , & que le Soleil remplit régulièrement ses fonctions envers nous , fins que nous agirions , & sans qu’il soit nécetfaire que nous lui adreflions des prières j parce que l’homme est destiné par son origine à exercer une £38 ¥ A B L E A tT
2une fonflion sacrée , qui le met en correspondance avec son Principe ; enfin , parce que l’homme , ainsi que tous les Etres ne peut se plaire qu’avec des Etres dans lesquels il reconnoisse sa ressemblance , & que le So eil , touc majestueux qu’il est: , n’a point une véritable similitude avec l’homme. On a vu précédemment la nécessiré que les Vertus supérieures , en se communiquant à l’homme se foient présentées à lui fous une forme analogue à la sienne , comme étant la plus expressive de toutes les formes j & afin que les secours de ces vertus ne fussent pas inutiles pour lui. C est: donc fous de pareilles formes que les 5 âges & leurs Disciples ont dû recevoir les principaux figues , & les re'sultats les plus essentiels de ces actes purs & réguliers qu’ils employoient pour leur propre inftruélion , & pour la propagation de la / * / vente. Les Emules , en transmettant aux différentes Nations , les récits & les faits dont ils vouloient communiquer la connoissance , les auront repréfcntés dans leurs discours par des expressions & des tableaux analogues à ce qui leur avoit été transmis à eux-mêmes ; & les Peuples quf’ils instruisoient voulant conserver la mémoire de tout ce qu’ils entendoient , se sont tracé , peint & taillé des 3v À T Û R É £J
3ces monumens matériels que leurs descendans ont fini par regarder comme la réalité de la choie même que ces monumens étoient destinés à repré* senter , tandis qu’ils n’en étoient que des copies <$c des emblèmes. Voilà pourquoi parmi les anciennes Divinités des Idolâtres matériels 6c ignorans , il en est: plusieurs qui furent honorées fous des figures corporelles humaines , & représentées par des statues. Mais il est: également vrai qu’avec tous ces signes réguliers , & semblables à la forme humaine , les Sages 6c leurs Disciples ont dû recevoir des signes & des formes relatives & similaires à tous les objets de la Nature , parce que les fiecours supérieurs ayant pour but de peindre aux yeux de l’homme , son ancienne grandeur , ils lui tepréfentoient successivement toutes les parties de son domaine. Les Disciples de ces Sages tranfrnirent à leurs Nations cette nouvelle classe de connoissances , comme ils avoient fait de celles qui tenoient essentiellement à la Nature supérieure de l’homme ; & les Peuples en ayant également confondu les signes avec les objets terrestres , il n’est pas étonnant que les différens Peuples de la terre , aient eu tant d’idoles informes & monftrueuiçs , &; qu’ils aient pris pour objet de leur- / ^4<3 Tableau leur culte des Astres , des Animaux , des Plantes £ des; Reptiles , & autres substances de la Nature.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1men, it would be sooner possible for him to receive & to practise the supreme worship than to begin by creating for himself a single idol. Those even who have adored the Sun, & those who would announce its worship as the most natural, because its object is nearer to us, do not destroy the principle which I set forth. The Peoples who have exercised the worship of the Sun came to that idolatry only by an alteration of a more sublime worship; & it suffices to convince oneself of it to confront their antiquity with that of the Peoples who have adored the invisible Being. The Chinese traditions announce a worship pure & enlightened among that Nation, long before the establishment of the worship of the Sun among any other Nation of the earth. As to those who claim to justify this material idolatry, they close their eyes upon the nature of man; they do not even see that such a worship cannot long satisfy him; because man being an active Being has need to pray, to concur in the work he desires to see wrought, & the Sun fulfils regularly its functions toward us without our acting, & without its being necessary that we address prayers to it; because man is destined by his origin to exercise a £38 ¥ A B L E A tT
2sacred function which puts him in correspondence with his Principle; in short, because man, like all Beings, can take pleasure only with Beings in which he recognises his own resemblance, & the Sun, majestic as it is, has no true similitude with man. We have seen previously the necessity that the superior Virtues, in communicating themselves to man, should have presented themselves to him under a form analogous to his own, as being the most expressive of all forms, & so that the succours of those virtues should not be useless to him. It is therefore under such forms that the 5 ages & their Disciples must have received the principal signs, & the most essential results of those acts pure & regular which they employed for their own instruction, & for the propagation of truth. The Emulators, in transmitting to the different Nations the narratives & the facts whose knowledge they wished to communicate, will have represented them in their discourses by expressions & pictures analogous to what had been transmitted to themselves; & the Peoples whom they instructed, wishing to preserve the memory of all that they heard, traced, painted & carved for themselves those 3v À T Û R É £J
3material monuments which their descendants ended by regarding as the reality of the very thing those monuments were destined to represent, whereas they were but copies & emblems of it. This is why among the ancient Divinities of the material 6c ignorant Idolaters there are several which were honoured under human corporeal figures, & represented by statues. But it is equally true that with all these signs regular, & like the human form, the Sages 6c their Disciples must have received signs & forms relative & similar to all the objects of Nature, because the superior succours, having for aim to paint before the eyes of man his ancient greatness, represented to him successively all the parts of his domain. The Disciples of these Sages transmitted to their Nations this new class of knowledge, as they had done with that which held essentially to the superior Nature of man; & the Peoples having equally confounded the signs with terrestrial objects, it is not astonishing that the different Peoples of the earth have had so many idols shapeless & monstrous, & that they have taken for the object of their ^4<3 Tableau worship Stars, Animals, Plants, Reptiles, & other substances of Nature.
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
PROVENANCE OF THE COPY SCANNED. The volume carries the bookplate of Sidney Edward Bouverie-Pusey, printed above the title page and here trimmed out of the reading text along with the scanner debris around it. It is recorded rather than discarded: it says whose copy of the 1782 Tableau naturel this archive is reading from, which is a fact about the artefact even though it is not a fact about the book.