hill, raises his thanks for the favors he receives, solicits a
continuance of that which causes the despair of his neighbour. In this,
each is willing to have a god for himself, and asks according to his
momentary caprices, to his fluctuating wants, that the invariable
essence of things, should be continually changed in his favour.

From this it must be obvious, that man every moment asks a _miracle_ to
be wrought in his support. It is not, therefore, at all surprising that
he displayed such ready credulity, that he adopted with such facility
the relation of the marvellous deeds which were universally announced to
him as the acts of the power, or the effects of the benevolence, of the
various gods which presided over the nations of the earth: these
wonderful tales, which were offered to his acceptance, as the most
indubitable proofs of the empire of these gods over nature, which man
always found deaf to his entreaties, were readily accredited by him; in
the expectation, that if he could gain them over to his interest, this
nature, which he found so sullen, so little disposed to lend herself to
his views, would then be controuled in his own favor.

By a necessary consequence of these ideas, nature was despoiled of all
power; she was contemplated only as a passive instrument, who acted at
the will, under the influence of the numerous, all-powerful agents to
whom the various superstitions had rendered her subordinate. It was thus
for want of contemplating nature under her true point of view, that man
has mistaken her entirely, that he believed her incapable of producing
any thing by herself; that he ascribed the honor of all those
productions, whether advantageous or disadvantageous to the human
species, to fictitious powers, whom he always clothed with his own
peculiar dispositions, only he aggrandized their force. In short, it was
upon the ruins of nature, that man erected the imaginary colossus of