scholastic disputes; of rites founded on
the practice of arts not then known; of precepts framed after the
development of passions; or of laws which suppose a language, a state
of society not then in being; or of God, whose attributes all refer to
physical objects, and his actions to a despotic state of government; or
of the soul, or of any of those metaphysical beings, which we are told
are not the objects of sense, and for which, however, there can be
no other means of access to the understanding. To arrive at so many
results, the necessary circle of preceding facts must have been
observed; slow experience and repeated trials must have taught the
rude man the use of his organs; the accumulated knowledge of successive
generations must have invented and improved the means of living; and
the mind, freed from the cares of the first wants of nature, must have
raised itself to the complicated art of comparing ideas, of digesting
arguments, and seizing abstract similitudes."

I. Origin of the idea of God: Worship of the elements and of the
physical powers of nature.

"It was not till after having overcome these obstacles, and gone through
a long career in the night of history, that man, reflecting on his
condition, began to perceive that he was subjected to forces superior
to his own, and independent of his will. The sun enlightened and warmed
him, the fire burned him, the thunder terrified him, the wind beat upon
him, the water overwhelmed him. All beings acted upon him powerfully and
irresistibly. He sustained this action for a long time, like a machine,
without enquiring the cause; but the moment he began his enquiries,
he fell into astonishment; and, passing from the surprise of his first
reflections to the reverie of curiosity, he began a chain of reasoning.

"First, considering the action of the elements on him, he conceived an
idea of weakness and subjection on his part, and of power and domination
on theirs; and this idea of power was the primitive and fundamental type
of every idea of God.

"Secondly, the action of these natural existences excited in him
sensations of pleasure or pain, of good or evil; and by a natural effect
of his organization, he conceived for them love or aversion; he desired
or dreaded their presence; and fear or hope gave rise to the first idea
of religion.

"Then, judging everything by comparison, and remarking in these beings a
spontaneous movement like his own, he supposed this mov