Yet this question is a fair one--If the natural religious
belief has in it no germ of anything better, whence comes the manifest
and undeniable improvement occasionally witnessed--as, for example,
among the Toltecs, the Peruvians, and the Mayas? The reply is, by the
influence of great men, who cultivated within themselves a purer faith,
lived it in their lives, preached it successfully to their fellows, and,
at their death, still survived in the memory of their nation,
unforgotten models of noble qualities.[293-1] Where, in America, is any
record of such men? We are pointed, in answer, to Quetzalcoatl,
Viracocha, Zamna, and their congeners. But these august figures I have
shown to be wholly mythical, creations of the religious fancy, parts and
parcels of the earliest religion itself. The entire theory falls to
nothing, therefore, and we discover a positive side to natural
religions--one that conceals a germ of endless progress, which
vindicates their lofty origin, and proves that He "is not far from every
one of us.
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