But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, 4 to perplex and dash Maturest counsels.
The unknown ... became for our primitive forefathers a terrible and omnipotent source of boons and calamities visited upon mankind for cryptic and wholly extra-terrestrial reasons, and thus clearly belonging to spheres of existence whereof we know nothing and wherein we have no part.
The head of every family will be what Abraham was, the patriarch, the priest and the unlettered lord of his family, and Reason will be the code of laws to all mankind.