We know not distinctly the origin of most political societies; but as soon as history exhibits men united in a national body, we perceive, at the same time, the establishment of public worship, and the application of religious sentiments, to the maintenance of good order and subordination. Religious sentiments, by the sanction of an oath, bind the people to the magistrates, and the magistrates to their engagements; they inspire a reverential respect for the obligations contracted between sovereigns; and these sentiments, still more authoritative than discipline, attach the soldier to his commander; in short, religious opinions, by their influence on the manners of individuals, have produced an infinite number of illustrious actions and instances of heroical disinterestedness, of which history has transmitted us the remembrance. But as we have seen a philosophy spring up among nations the most enlightened, anxiously employed in depriving religion of all that merited respect, dissertations on times far removed from us, and the various systems that they would endeavour violently to associate with religion, would become an endless source of controversy. It is then, by reasoning alone, by that exercise of the mind, which belongs equally to all countries and all ages, that we can support the cause which we have taken in hand to defend. There is, perhaps, something weak and servile in our wishing to draw assistance from ancient opinions; reason ought not, like vanity, to adorn herself with old parchments, and the display of a genealogical tree; more dignified in her proceeding, and proud of her immortal nature, she ought to derive every thing from herself; she should disregard past times, and be, if I may use the phrase, the contemporary of all ages. It was reserved, particularly for some writers of our age, to attack even the utility of religion; and to seek to substitute, instead of its active influence, the inanimate instruction of a political philosophy. Religion, say they, is a scaffold fallen into ruins, and it is high time to give to morality a more solid support. But what support will that be? we must, in order to discover, and form a just idea of it; distinctly consider the different motives of action on which depend the relations that subsist between men; and it will be necessary to estimate, afterwards, the kind and degree of assistance which we may reasonably expect from a like support.