Any additional notes from other sources are so marked. A. N. [↑]
[2] Moses killed at one time 24,000 men for opposing his law. [↑]
[3] It is written in the [First Book of Kings, ch. 22, v. 6], that Ahab, King of Israel, consulted 400 prophets, and found them entirely false in the success of their predictions. [↑]
CHAPTER II.
Reasons which have caused mankind to Create for themselves an Invisible Being which has been commonly Called God.
I.
Those who ignore physical causes have a natural fear born of doubt. Where there exists a power which to them is dark or unseen, from thence comes a desire to pretend the existence of invisible Beings, that is to say their own phantoms which they invoke in adversity, whom they praise in prosperity, and of whom in the end they make Gods. And as the visions of men go to extremes, must we be astonished if there are created an innumerable quantity of Divinities? It is the same perceptible fear of invisible powers which has been the origin of Religions, that each forms to his fashion. Many individuals to whom it was important that mankind should possess such fancies, have not scrupled to encourage mankind in such beliefs, and they have made it their law until they have prevailed upon the people to blindly obey them by the fear of the future.