crable persons, the bane of civil society, with
whom it is criminal to have any kind of commerce.

So general, so uniform, so perpetual a consent of all the nations of the
universe, which neither the prejudice of the passions, the false reasoning
of some philosophers, nor the authority and example of certain princes,
have ever been able to weaken or vary, can proceed only from a first
principle, which forms a part of the nature of man; from an inward
sentiment implanted in his heart by the Author of his being; and from an
original tradition as ancient as the world itself.

Such were the source and origin of the religion of the ancients; truly
worthy of man, had he been capable of persisting in the purity and
simplicity of these first principles: but the errors of the mind, and the
vices of the heart, those sad effects of the corruption of human nature,
have strangely disfigured their original beauty. There are still some
faint rays, some brilliant sparks of light, which a general depravity has
not been able to extinguish utterly; but they are incapable of dispelling
the profound darkness of the gloom which prevails almost universally, and
presents nothing to view but absurdities, follies, extravagancies,
licentiousness, and disorder; in a word, a hideous chaos of frantic
excesses and enormous vices.

Can any thing be more admirable than these principles laid down by
Cicero?(52) That we ought above all things to be convinced that there is a
Supreme Being, who presides over all the events of the world, and disposes
every thing as sovereign lord and arbiter: that it is to him mankind are
indebted for all the good they enjoy: that he penetrates into, and is
conscious of, whatever passes in the most secret recesses of our hearts:
that he treats the just and the impious according to their respective
merits: that the true means of acquiring his favour, and of being pleasing
in his sight, is not by employing of riches and magnificence in the
worship that is paid to him, but by presenting him with a heart pure and
blameless, and by adoring him with an unfeigned and profound veneration.

Sentiments so sublime and religious were the result of the reflections of
some few who employed themselves in the study of the heart of man, and had
recourse to the first principles of his institution, of which they still
retained some valuable relics. But the whole system of their religion, the
tendency of their public feasts and ceremonies, t