32. Religion, like a family estate, passes, with its incumbrances,
from parents to children. Few men in the world would have a God,
had not pains been taken in infancy to give them one. Each would
receive from his parents and teachers the God whom they received
from theirs; but each, agreeably to his disposition, would arrange,
modify, and paint him in his own manner.


33. The brain of man, especially in infancy, is like soft wax, fit
to receive every impression that is made upon it. Education furnishes
him with almost all his ideas at a time, when he is incapable of
judging for himself. We believe we have received from nature, or
have brought with us at birth, the true or false ideas, which, in
a tender age, had been instilled into our minds; and this persuasion
is one of the greatest sources of errors.


34. Prejudice contributes to cement in us the opinions of those who
have been charged with our instruction. We believe them much more
experienced than ourselves; we suppose they are fully convinced of
the things which they teach us; we have the greatest confidence in them;
by the care they have taken of us in infancy, we judge them incapable
of wishing to deceive us. These are the motives that make us adopt
a thousand errors, without other foundation than the hazardous
authority of those by whom we have been brought up. The prohibition
likewise of reasoning upon what they teach us, by no means lessens
our confidence; but often contributes to increase our respect for
their opinions.