Milton:--

Till old experience doth attain
To something of prophetic strain.

He boldly declares that there is no God as man has created his
Creator. Here he is at one with modern thought:--"En general les
croyants font le Dieu comme ils sont eux-memes," (says J. J.
Rousseau, "Confessions," I. 6): "les bons le font bon: les
mechants le font mechant: les devots haineux et bilieux, ne
voient que l'enfer, parce qu'ils voudraient damner tout le monde;
les ames aimantes et douces n'y croient guere; et l'un des
etonnements dont je ne reviens pas est de voir le bon Fenelon en
parler dans son Telemaque comme s'il y croyoit tout de bon: mais
j'espere qu'il mentoit alors; car enfin quelque veridique qu'on
soit, il faut bien mentir quelquefois quand on est eveque." "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