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in order to discover that origin, and what that model is; in short, we must inform ourselves how the understanding came by these ideas of God, the soul, and immaterial beings, that are so abstruse and obscure, and which form the basis of so many religious systems; and we must accordingly labour to trace out their li neal descent, and the periodical alterations they have undergone in their successive progress and ramifications during the lapse of ages. If therefore there can be found in this assembly persons who have made these objects their peculiar study, let them come forward and endeavour, in the face of the world, to dispel the gloom of opinions, by which the intellectual horizon has for so long a period been overcast."

CHAP. XXII.

ORIGIN AND GENEALOGY OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS.

No sooner had the legislators made this proposal, than a new groupe, formed of persons from different standards, but not designated by any of its own, advanced within the circle; one of the members of which thus spoke in behalf of the rest:

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Legislators, friends of evidence and of truth! It is not at all astonishing, that the subject, which we have jointly undertaken to investigate, should be involved in such a cloud of darkness and obscurity, when we reflect, that, exclusive of the difficulties naturally at

tending such a discussion, the mind, fettered and chained down by the oppressive restraints and despotical intolerance of every religious system, has not to this hour been able to give free scope and utterance to its thoughts, or to enjoy the virtuous privilege of liberal enquiry. But, since it has at length recovered its freedom and natural elasticity, and can speak the ingenuous language of its own feelings without fear or reflection, we will, now that our duty beckons us to fulfil the object of your request, publicly submit to your candid and impartial consideration, and to that of the world at large, what a long and laborious course of study has suggested as most rational in the solution of this intricate problem to minds not blinded or warped by the bias of prejudice and we shall do this, not with the pretension of controlling your opinions by imposing our own as a dictatorial creed, but merely with the view of putting the minds of others in motion, who are capable of illuminating the subject by a greater accession of light.

To you, ye religious guides and preceptors of nations, to you it is well known, in what profound obscurity the nature, origin, and history of the doctrines you teach are enveloped. Imposed by force and authority, inculcated by education, and maintained by the influence of example, they have been perpetuated from age to age, while habit and thoughtless inattention have rivetted and given stability to their sway. But, if man, enlightened by experience and reflection, will

only look back and carefully examine into the prejudices of his infancy, he will not fail to discover a multiplicity of revolting incongruities and contradictions, which will awaken his sagacity, and call forth the exertion of his reasoning powers.

"Recurring, in the first place, to the diversity and opposition observable in the articles of faith adopted by different nations, his mind becomes callous to all their rival claims to infallibility, and, arming itself with the inferences deducible from the reciprocal pretensions of the contending antagonists, is impelled, with all the mental force and hardihood of rational conviction, to conclude, that the senses and the understanding emanating directly from God are a law not lese sacred and a guide not less sure than the indirect and contradictory codes of prophets. (r 3.)

"When he comes, in the next place, to push his researches into the structure and contexture of these codes themselves, he finds that the laws which are reputed divine, that is, immutable and eternal, originate from the circumstances of times, of places, and of persons; that they derive one from another in a kind of genealogical order, in as much as they all mutually borrow their fundamental principles from the same relative and common stock of ideas, which the founders of them have modified every one according to his own fancy.

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Again, when he attempts to trace these ideas to their source, he finds that they lose themselves in the night of time, in the infancy of nations, even as far back as the origin of the

world, with which they claim a connection; where, buried in the gloomy darkness of chaos and the fabulous empire of tradition, they present themselves to his notice accompanied with circumstances of so wonderful à complexion, and so strikingly repugnant to the ordinary course of things, that they seem to set human comprehension at defiance. These very circumstances themselves shed, however, a ray of light upon the mind, when it first begins to reason upon them, which tends to elucidate and resolve the difficulty: for, if the wonderful and miraculous events, which we find mentioned in systems of religion, have actually taken place; if, for example, the metamorphoses, the apparitions, and the conversations of one or a plurality of Gods, as recorded in the sacred books of the Hindoos, the Hebrews, and the Parsees, be real historical truths, it follows as a necessary consequence, that nature at that period was perfectly different from the nature we are at present acquainted with; that the people of modern days do not resemble those of the primeval world, and that they have no occasion, therefore, to trouble their heads further about them.

"On the contrary, if these miraculous occurrences have never had any real existence in nature, then we must, of course, regard them in no other point of view, than as the mere creatures or fabrications of the human mind itself: and, in as much as our own experience convinces us, that the mind is still, at this day, capable of producing the most

fantastic combinations, this very fact itself, serves at once to account for the appearance of such monstrous phoenomena in history. The only difficulty then is to ascertain how and for what purpose these antique productions of the imagination were originally formed.Now, if we examine with minute attention the subjects they pourtray, if we analyse the ideas which they combine and associate, and accurately weigh all the circumstances to which they allude, we shall be enabled to come at an explanation of these incredible incidents perfectly conformable to the laws of nature. By this process it will be found, that these recitals, which have so fabulous an aspect, possess a figurative meaning different from their apparent one; that the facts, which are thought to partake so much of the marvellous, are events of a very simple and physical nature, but, by their being either lamely understood or lamely represented, have become disfigured, owing to accidental causes arising from the very nature of the human mind, to the confusion of signs symbolically employed to represent the objects, to the indeterminate meaning of words, and to the defects of oral and the imperfection of written language. It will be found, for instance, that those Gods that have such singular offices assigned them in all these systems, are nothing but the physical powers of nature, the elements, the winds, the stars, and meteors, that have been personified by the necessary mechanism of language and of the understanding;-that their life, their manners, and their actions, are nothing more than

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