Suppose they should mistake in their conjecture, yet I see what they aim at.

But what is that great and noble work which appears to you to be the effect of a divine mind, and from which you conclude that there are Gods?
"I have," say you, "a certain information of a Deity imprinted in my mind." Of a bearded Jupiter, I suppose, and a helmeted Minerva.
But do you really imagine them to be such?
How much better are the notions of the ignorant vulgar, who not only believe the Deities have members like ours, but that they make use of them; and therefore they assign them a bow and arrows, a spear, a shield, a trident, and lightning; and though they do not behold the actions of the Gods, yet they cannot entertain a thought of a Deity doing nothing.

The Egyptians (so much ridiculed) held no beasts to be sacred, except on account of some advantage which they had received from them.

The ibis, a very large bird, with strong legs and a horny long beak, destroys a great number of serpents.

These birds keep Egypt from pestilential diseases by killing and devouring the flying serpents brought from the deserts of Lybia by the south-west wind, which prevents the mischief that may attend their biting while alive, or any infection when dead.