He boldly declares that there is no God as man has created his Creator. Here he is at one with modern thought:—“En général les croyants font le Dieu comme ils sont eux-mêmes,” (says J. J. Rousseau, “Confessions,” I. 6): “les bons le font bon: les méchants le font méchant: les dévots haineux et bilieux, ne voient que l’enfer, parce qu’ils voudraient damner tout le monde; les âmes aimantes et douces n’y croient guère; et l’un des étonnements dont je ne reviens pas est de voir le bon Fénélon en parler dans son Télémaque comme s’il y croyoit tout de bon: mais j’espère qu’il mentoit alors; car enfin quelque véridique qu’on soit, il faut bien mentir quelquefois quand on est évêque.” “Man depicts himself in his gods,” says Schiller. Hence the _Naturgott_, the deity of all ancient peoples, and with which every system began, allowed and approved of actions distinctly immoral, often diabolical. Belief became moralized only when the conscience of the community, and with it of the individual items, began aspiring to its golden age,—Perfection. “Dieu est le superlatif, dont le positif est l’homme,” says Carl Vogt; meaning, that the popular idea of a _numen_ is that of a magnified and non-natural man. He then quotes his authorities. Buddha, whom the Catholic Church converted to Saint Josaphat, refused to recognize Ishwara (the deity), on account of the mystery of the “cruelty of things.” Schopenhauer, Miss Cobbe’s model pessimist, who at the humblest distance represents Buddha in the world of Western thought, found the vision of man’s unhappiness, irrespective of his actions, so overpowering that he concluded the Supreme Will to be malevolent, “heartless, cowardly, and arrogant.” Confucius, the “Throneless king, more powerful than all kings,” denied a personal deity. The Epicurean idea rules the China of the present day. “God is great, but he lives too far off,” say the Turanian Santâls in Aryan India; and this is the general language of man in the Turanian East.