entirely, as soon as he understands, or believes he understands, the
causes that act; or when he knows how to avoid their effects. But if he
cannot penetrate the causes which disturb him, if he cannot discover the
agents by whom he suffers, if he cannot find to what account to place
the confusion he experiences, his inquietude augments; his fears
redouble; his imagination leads him astray; it exaggerates his evil;
paints in a disorderly manner these unknown objects of his terror;
magnifies their powers; then making an analogy between them and those
terrific objects, with whom he is already acquainted, he suggests to
himself the means he usually takes to mitigate their anger; to
conciliate their kindness; he employs similar measures to soften the
anger, to disarm the power, to avert the effects of the concealed cause
which gives birth to his inquietudes, which fills him with anxiety,
which alarms his fears. It is thus his weakness, aided by ignorance,
renders him superstitious.

There are very few men, even in our own day, who have sufficiently
studied nature, who are fully apprised of physical causes, or with the
effects they must necessarily produce. This ignorance, without doubt,
was much greater in the more remote ages of the world, when the human
mind, yet in its infancy, had not collected that experience, taken that
expansion, made those strides towards improvement, which distinguishes
the present from the past. Savages dispersed, erratic, thinly scattered
up and down, knew the course of nature either very imperfectly or not at
all; society alone perfects human knowledge: it requires not only
multiplied but combined efforts to unravel the secrets of nature. This
granted, all natural causes were mysteries to our wandering ancestors;
the entire of nature was an enigma to them; all its phenomena was
marvellous, every event inspired terror to beings who were destitute of
experience; almost every thing, they saw must have appeared to them