Yet whatever they are, and whatever characters and dispositions they have, and whatever name custom has given them, we are bound to worship and adore them.

The best, the chastest, the most sacred and pious worship of the Gods is to reverence them always with a pure, perfect, and unpolluted mind and voice; for our ancestors, as well as the philosophers, have separated superstition from religion.

They who prayed whole days and sacrificed, that their children might survive them (_ut superstites essent_), were called superstitious, which word became afterward more general; but they who diligently perused, and, as we may say, read or practised over again, all the duties relating to the worship of the Gods, were called _religiosi_--religious, from _relegendo_--"reading over again, or practising;" as _elegantes_, elegant, _ex eligendo_, "from choosing, making a good choice;" _diligentes_, diligent, _ex diligendo_, "from attending on what we love;" _intelligentes_, intelligent, from understanding--for the signification is derived in the same manner.
Thus are the words superstitious and religious understood; the one being a term of reproach, the other of commendation.

I think I have now sufficiently demonstrated that there are Gods, and what they are.
XXIX.

I am now to show that the world is governed by the providence of the Gods.