wonder, then, that mankind, being placed in such an
absolute ignorance of causes, and being at the same time so anxious
concerning their future fortune, should immediately acknowledge a
dependence on invisible powers, possessed of sentiment and intelligence.
The _unknown causes_ which continually employ their thought, appearing
always in the same aspect, are all apprehended to be of the same kind or
species. Nor is it long before we ascribe to them thought, and reason,
and passion, and sometimes even the limbs and figures of men, in
order to bring them nearer to a resemblance with ourselves.... It is
remarkable, that the principles of religion have a kind of flux and
reflux in the human mind, and that men have a natural tendency to rise
from idolatry to Theism, and to sink again from Theism into idolatry.
The vulgar--that is, indeed, all mankind, a few excepted--being ignorant
and uninstructed, never elevate their contemplation to the heavens, or
penetrate by their disquisitions into the secret structure of vegetable
or animal bodies; so far as, to discover a Supreme Mind or Original
Providence, which bestowed order on every part of nature. They consider
these admirable works in a more confined and selfish view; and finding
their own happiness and misery to, depend on the secret influence, and
unforeseen concurrence of external objects, they regard, with perpetual
attention, the _unknown causes_ which govern all these natural events,
and distribute pleasure and pain, good and ill, by their powerful but
silent operation. The unknown causes are still appealed to on every
emergency; and in this general appearance or confused image, are the
perpetual objects of human hopes and fears, wishes and apprehensions.
By degrees, the active imagination of men, uneasy in this abstract
conception of objects, about which it is incessantly employed, begins to
render them more particular, and to clothe them in shapes more suitable
to its natural comprehension. It represents them to be sensible,
intelligent beings like mankind; actuated by love and hatred, and
flexible by gifts and entreaties, by prayers and sacrifices. Hence the
origin of religion: and hence the origin of idolatry or polytheism."

More has been written by theologians in endeavors to refute the
following passage, than has ever been called forth by the wit of man
before by the same number of words:--

"A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and
una