On the other hand, the results of _sympathy_ and _antipathy_, the medical _specifics_, and similar effects, which some men fall upon by mere accident, and which they afterwards find confirmed by means of observations and experiments, are genuine _mysteries of nature_, which can be made known to another person, not by the use of his powers of knowledge, but only either by an accident of the same kind, or by communication from the first discoverer. If mysteries of this sort are not confirmed by observation and experiment, the belief in their reality is called _superstition_. _Religion_ is a covenant formed between man and another moral being of a higher genus. It presupposes a natural relation between man and this higher moral being, so that, by the mutual fulfilment of their covenant, they advance the interest of each other. If this natural relation (not being merely arbitrary and conventional) is real, and the mutual obligation of the contracting persons is founded on this relation, then it forms a _true_, but otherwise a _false_, natural religion. If the mutual obligation between man and the higher being or his representatives is drawn up in a formal code, there arises a _positive_ or _revealed religion_. The true religion, natural as well as revealed, which, as already observed, constitutes Judaism, consists in a contract, at first merely understood, but afterwards expressed, between man and the Supreme Being, who revealed Himself to the patriarchs in person (in dreams and prophetic appearances), and made known by them His will, the reward of obeying it and the punishment of disobedience, regarding which a covenant was then with mutual consent concluded. Subsequently, through his representative Moses, He renewed His covenant with the Israelites in Egypt, determining more precisely their mutual obligations; and this was afterwards on both sides formally confirmed on Mount Sinai. To the thoughtful reader I do not need to say, that the representation of a covenant between God and man is to be taken merely _analogically_, and not in its strict sense. The absolutely Perfect Being can reveal Himself merely _as idea to the reason_. What revealed itself to the patriarchs and prophets, suitably to their power of comprehension, in figure, in an anthropomorphic manner, was not the absolutely Perfect Being Himself, but a representative of Him, His sensible image. The covenant, which this Being concludes with man, has not for its end the mutual satisfaction of wants; for the Supreme Being has no wants, and the wants of man are satisfied, not by means of this covenant, but only by observation of those relations between himself and other natural objects, which are founded on the laws of nature. This covenant, therefore, can have its foundation nowhere but in the nature of reason, without reference to any end.