[242] Ipsisque in hominibus nulla gens est neque tam immansueta, neque tam fera, quæ non, etiam si ignoret qualem habere deum deceat, tamen habendum sciat (_De Legibus_, Lib. I. § 8).
Quæ est enim gens, aut quod genus hominum, quod non habeat sine doctrinâ anticipationem quandam deorum? (_De Natura Deorum_, Lib. I. § 16).
[243] The reference here is to Wood’s _New England’s Prospect_ (p. 70). In regard to the time when this work was written and published, see Mr. Deane’s preface to the edition in the publications of the Prince Society. Morton makes numerous references to it in the _New Canaan_ (_infra_, *38, 53, 64, 84, 99). The present reference is one of the few unintelligible passages in the book. Wood’s language, to which Morton apparently takes exception, is as follows: “As it is natural to all mortals to worship something, so do these people; but exactly to describe to whom their worship is chiefly bent, is very difficult; they acknowledge especially two, Ketan, who is their good God, to whom they sacrifice after their garners be full with a good crop: upon this God likewise they invocate for fair weather, for rain in time of drought, and for the recovery of their sick; but if they do not hear them, then they verify the old verse, _Flectere si nequeo Superes, Acheronta movebo_, their Pow-wows betaking themselves to their exorcisms and unromantick charms ... by God’s permission, through the Devil’s help, their charms are of force to produce effects of wonderment.” Morton would seem to have wished to depreciate Wood, as an authority on New England, and so, playing upon his name and the title of his book, he implied that he had taken a much more elevated view of the religious development of the Indians than could be justified either by the actual facts, or the judgment of the best informed.
Being unintelligible, the passage, from the word “neither” to the end of the paragraph, is reproduced here in all respects, including punctuation, as it is in the text of the original edition.
[244] There is no expression of this nature to be found anywhere in those writings of Sir William Alexander which have come down to us and are included in the publications of the Prince Society. He may have used the expression quoted in conversation, or in a letter. Winslow, in Mourt, says: “They [the savages] are a people without any religion, or knowledge of any God” (p. 61). This statement he subsequently, however, retracted in his _Good News_ (Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, p. 355), where he says, “therein I erred, though we could then gather no better.”