"In Egypt," says Clement of Alexandria,[1] "the sanctuaries of the
temples are shaded by curtains of golden tissue. But on going
further into the interior in quest of the statue, a priest of grave
aspect, advancing to meet you and chanting a hymn in the Egyptian
tongue, slightly raises a veil to show you the god. And what do you
behold? A crocodile, or some indigenous serpent, or other dangerous
animal, the Egyptian god being a beast sprawling on a purple carpet."

We need not visit Egypt or go so far back in history to encounter
crocodile worship, as this can be readily found in France at the end
of the last century. -- Unfortunately, a hundred years is too long
an interval, too far away, for an imaginative retrospect of the past.
At the present time, standing where we do and regarding the horizon
behind us, we see only forms which the intervening atmosphere
embellishes, shimmering contours which each spectator may interpret in
his own fashion; no distinct, animated figure, but merely a mass of
moving points, forming and dissolving in the midst of picturesque
architecture. I was anxious to take a closer view of these vague
points, and, accordingly, deported myself back to the last half of the
eighteenth century. I have now been living with them for twelve
years, and, like Clement of Alexandria, examined, first, the temple,
and next the god. A passing glance at these is not sufficient; it
was also necessary to understand the theology on which this cult is
founded. This one, explained by a very specious theology, like most
others, is composed of dogmas called the principles of 1789; they were
proclaimed, indeed, at that date, having been previously formulated by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

* The well known sovereignty of the people.