§ 3.
This most absurd creed was invented and promulgated by legislators, in order to support their own authority. They established this belief in spirits under the name of religion, hoping that the dread of these invisible powers which the people would entertain, might keep them to their duty. To give the more weight to their dogma, they classified those spirits or demons as good and bad; the one species being intended to stimulate men to the observance of their laws, and the other to act as a check and prevent their breaking them.
To ascertain what these demons really were, it is only necessary to read the works of the Greek poets and historians, and above all, the Theogany of Hesiod, where he dwells at great length on the origin of the gods.