14.
The origin of religious opinions is generally dated from the time, when savage nations were yet in infancy. It was to gross, ignorant, and stupid people, that the founders of religion have in all ages addressed themselves, when they wished to give them their Gods, their mode of worship, their mythology, their marvellous and frightful fables. These chimeras, adopted without examination by parents, are transmitted, with more or less alteration, to their children, who seldom reason any more than their parents.
15.
The object of the first legislators was to govern the people; and the easiest method to effect it was to terrify their minds, and to prevent the exercise of reason. They led them through winding bye-paths, lest they might perceive the designs of their guides; they forced them to fix their eyes in the air, for fear they should look at their feet; they amused them on the way with idle stories; in a word, they treated them as nurses do children, who sing lullabies, to put them to sleep, and scold, to make them quiet.
16.
The existence of a God is the basis of all religion. Few appear to doubt his existence; yet this fundamental article utterly embarrasses every mind that reasons. The first question of every catechism has been, and ever will be, the most difficult to resolve. (In the year 1701, the holy fathers of the oratory of Vendome maintained in a thesis, this proposition—that, according to St. Thomas, the existence of God is not, and cannot be, a subject of faith.)