OK MATTERS OF BELIEF. 85 



fully in our power, and in fact an eafy operation, 

 and attended by little or no danger, to feparate this 

 evil that has brought about fuch pernicious effects, at 

 If a,ft fo as to bring the latter to fuch a degree of purity, 

 as it is not humanly poffible to bring it to a greater : 

 then, it feems to me as if the queilion, What then is 

 to be done ? can be no longer a queftion to people that 

 have their five fenfes ; and if, on this prefuppolitiori, 

 <the evil ftill is not removed, we at leaft know what we 

 are to think of the underftandings or the good difpo- 

 iitions of the moral doctors and apothecaries who are 

 appointed to heal our moral diforders. 



Let us now proceed to make the application of thefe 

 feemingly incontrovertible practical principles. 



As far as ihiftory allows us to fee into the remotefl 

 times of the children of Adam, we behold religion and 

 -fuperftition every where growing clofely together ; and. 

 the latter, like a luxuriant parafitical plant, twining up 

 the former,, robbing it, by infenfible degrees, of all 

 ♦its fap ; and even, by its baneful influence, communi- 

 cating its own poifonous qualities to the fruits by which 

 it might otherwife have been beneficial to the human race. 



As it is of the utmofr. confequence to us to form an 

 idea of religion, purified from all fuperftition, from 

 all that a difpoiition to fenfuality, fancy, paffions, and 

 prieftcraft # , have mixed with it ; fo, under this term, 

 I can conceive nothing but the belief in an infcrutable 

 prime caufe, by which all things fublift, and are pre- 

 ferved in order according to the invariable laws of the 



* What I mean by the not-liberal arts I hope I have made fuffi- 

 ciently clear in the former part of this difquifition, p. 50 and 51. 



g 3 moft 



