Note 17 — Chapter I

It is certain that the religion of Brahma has not the least similarity to the true Christian religion; it is also of such antiquity that it could not have borrowed any thing from it. Both are essentially different from each other: the principal object of the Christian religion is the moral formation and improvement of man, and it is totally spiritual; the doctrine of Brahma renders the first ideas of religion familiar to the senses by images, and allows to its followers a number of things which Christianity forbids. It cannot, however, be denied, that many of the old doctrines and practices generally adopted, particularly in the East, were received into the Catholic religion; such, for example, as the worshipping of images, solemn processions, monachism, the pretended great sanctity and the different degrees of the clergy, external pomp and magnificence, &c. The idea of the Pagan Indians, therefore, mentioned in the text, is extremely natural. F.