Thus, to take an example, the natural horror everywhere felt in regard of marriages contracted between those very near in blood, has been always and with right appealed to as a potent argument against such unions. The induction is so large, that is, the nations who have agreed in entertaining this horror are so many, oftentimes nations disagreeing in almost everything besides; the times during which this instinctive revolt against such unions has been felt, extend through such long ages; that the few exceptions, even where they are of civilized nations, as of the Egyptians who married their sisters, or of the Persians, among whom marriages more dreadful still were permitted, cannot be allowed any weight; and of course still less the exception of any savage tribe, in which all that constitutes the human in humanity has now disappeared. These exceptions can only be regarded as violations of the divine order of man’s life; not as evidences that we have falsely imagined an order where there was none. Here is a true _voice of the people_; and on the grounds laid down above, we have a right to assume this to be a _voice of God_ as well. And so too, with respect to the existence of a First Cause, Creator and Upholder of all things, the universal consent and conviction of all people, the _consensus gentium_, must be considered of itself a mighty evidence in its favour; a testimony which God is pleased to render to Himself through his creatures. This man or that, this generation or the other, might be deceived, but all men and all generations could not; the _vox populi_ makes itself felt as a _vox Dei_. The existence here and there of an atheist no more disturbs our conclusion that it is of the essence of man’s nature to believe in a God, than do such monstrous births as from time to time find place, children with two heads or with no arms, shake our assurance that it is the normal condition of man to have one head and two arms.