STUDY II. 129 



Let me fuppofe, that a Philofopher, fuch as 

 Newton, were, then, to have treated them with the 

 fpectacle of fome of cur natural Sciences, and to 

 have fhewn them, vvith the microfcope, forefts in 

 mofs, mountains in grains of fand, thoufands of 

 animals in drops of water, and all the wonders of 

 Nature, which, in a downward progrefs to no- 

 thing, multiplies the refources of her intelligence, 

 while the human eye becomes incapable of per- 

 ceiving the boundary : Let me go on to fuppofe, 

 that afterwards, difcovering to them, in the Hea- 

 vens, a progreffion of greatnefs equally infinite, 

 he had (hewn them, in the planets, hardly percep- 

 tible to the naked eye. Worlds much greater 

 than ours, Saturn, three hundred millions of 

 leagues diflant ; in the fixed ftars, infinitely more 

 remote, Suns which, probably, illuminate other 

 Worlds ; in the whitenefs of the Milky Way, 

 ftars, that is Suns, innumerable, fcattered about 

 in the Heavens, as grains of dull on the Earth, 

 without Man's knowing whether all this may not 



Is it poffible, then, that the firft fentiment of Man, in a ftate 

 of nature, could have been that of terror ; and that he muft 

 have believed in the Devil before he believed in God ? O ! no. 

 It is Man who, univerfally, has mifled Man. One of the great 

 benefits for which we are indebted to the Chriftian Religion, has 

 been the deftruftion, in a confiderable part of the World, of 

 thefe inhuman doélrines and facrifices. 



VOL. I. K be 



