ssue of
affairs with sacrificed victims." Very numerous examples of a like
nature might be cited, clearly showing the fact, that only while under
the dominion of fear do men fall a prey to superstition; that all the
portents ever invested with the reverence of misguided religion are mere
phantoms of dejected and fearful minds; and lastly that prophets have
most power among the people, and are most formidable to rulers,
precisely at those times when the state is in most peril. I think this
is sufficiently plain to all, and will therefore say no more on the
subject.

The origin of superstition above given affords us a clear reason for the
fact, that it comes to all men naturally, though some refer its rise to
a dim notion of God, universal to mankind, and also tends to show, that
it is no less inconsistent and variable than other mental hallucinations
and emotional impulses, and further that it can only be maintained by
hope, hatred, anger, and deceit; since it springs, not from reason, but
solely from the more powerful phases of emotion. Furthermore, we may
readily understand how difficult it is to maintain in the same course
men prone to every form of credulity. For, as the mass of mankind
remains always at about the same pitch of misery, it never assents long
to any one remedy, but is always best pleased by a novelty which has yet
proved illusive.

This element of inconsistency has been the cause of many terrible wars
and revolutions; for, as Curtius well says (lib. iv. chap. 10): "The mob
has no ruler more potent than superstition," and is easily led, on the
plea of religion, at one moment to adore its kings as gods, and anon to
execrate and abjure them as humanity's common bane. Immense pains have
therefore been taken to counteract this evil by investing religion,
whether true or false, with such pomp and ceremony, that it may rise
superior to every shock, and be always observed with studious reverence
by the whole people--a system which has been brought to great perfection
by the Turks, for they consider even controversy impious, and so clog
men's minds with dogmatic formulas, that they leave no room for sound
reason, not even enough to doubt with.

But if, in despotic statecraft, the supreme and essential mystery be to
hoodwink the subjects, and to mask the fear, which keeps them down, with
the specious garb of religion, so that men may fight as bravely for
slavery as for safety, and count it not shame but highe