It is not only prayer which leads us to religion; another communication with the Supreme Being, gratitude, produces the same effect. A man, persuaded of the existence of a sovereign power, and who gladly connects with the divine protection his success and happiness, feels, at the same time, a desire to express his gratitude; and not being able to do any thing for him who bestows all, he seeks to form an idea of the perfections of that Supreme Being, in order to comprehend the system of conduct most conformable to his attributes. At first, what reflections possess our mind, what emotions agitate our souls, when we contemplate the universe? When we respectfully admire that magnificent harmony, which is the incomprehensible result of an innumerable multitude of different powers: struck with this vast whole, where we discover an agreement so perfect, how is it possible for us to avoid considering order as a distinct mark of the wisdom and of the design of Omnipotence? And how is it possible for us not to think, that we render him the most worthy homage, at the time we make use of the free intelligence which he has endowed us with. Then in the composition of a social structure, a work which has been entrusted to us, we shall try to penetrate the ideas of wisdom and order, of which all nature presents such a grand example; then, in establishing the relations which unite men, we shall carefully study the laws of moral order, and we shall find them all founded on the reciprocation of duties, which submit to a regular movement different jarring personal interests. In short, the idea of a God, Creator, Regenerator, and Preserver of the Universe, by invariable laws, and by a train of the same causes and the same effects, seems to call us to the conception of a universal morality, which, in imitation of the unknown springs of the natural world, may be as the necessary tie of this succession of intelligent beings, who always, with the same passions, come to pass and repass on the earth, to seek, or to fly, to assist, or to hurt each other, according to the strength or the weakness of the knot which unites them, and according to the wisdom or inconsistency of the principles which direct their opinions.