ement directed
by a will,--an intelligence of the nature of his own; and hence, by
induction, he formed a new reasoning. Having experienced that certain
practices towards his fellow creatures had the effect to modify their
affections and direct their conduct to his advantage, he resorted to
the same practices towards these powerful beings of the universe. He
reasoned thus with himself: When my fellow creature, stronger than I, is
disposed to do me injury, I abase myself before him, and my prayer has
the art to calm him. I will pray to these powerful beings who strike me.
I will supplicate the intelligences of the winds, of the stars, of the
waters, and they will hear me. I will conjure them to avert the evil
and give me the good that is at their disposal; I will move them by my
tears, I will soften them by offerings, and I shall be happy.

"Thus simple man, in the infancy of his reason, spoke to the sun and to
the moon; he animated with his own understanding and passions the great
agents of nature; he thought by vain sounds, and vain actions, to change
their inflexible laws. Fatal error! He prayed the stone to ascend,
the water to mount above its level, the mountains to remove, and
substituting a fantastical world for the real one, he peopled it with
imaginary beings, to the terror of his mind and the torment of his race.

"In this manner the ideas of God and religion have sprung, like all
others, from physical objects; they were produced in the mind of man
from his sensations, from his wants, from the circumstances of his life,
and the progressive state of his knowledge.

"Now, as the ideas of God had their first models in physical agents, it
followed that God was at first varied and manifold, like the form under
which he appeared to act. Every being was a Power, a Genius; and the
first men conceived the universe filled with innumerable gods.

"Again the ideas of God have been created by the affections of the human
heart; they became necessarily divided into two classes, according to
the sensations of pleasure or pain, love or hatred, which they inspired.

"The forces of nature, the gods and genii, were divided into beneficent
and malignant, good and evil powers; and hence the universality of these
two characters in all the systems of religion.

"These ideas, analogous to the condition of their inventors, were for a
long time confused and ill-digested. Savage men, wandering in the woods,
beset with wants and desti