If any trace of truth was to be found in Polytheism, it was so mixed with error as to be practically only evil.

As the doctrines of heathen religions were corrupt, so their worship was only a debasing superstition.

Their influence was to make men worse, not better; their tendency was to produce sensuality, cruelty, and universal degradation.

They did not proceed, in any sense, from God; they were not even the work of good men, but rather of deliberate imposition and priestcraft.

A supernatural religion had become necessary in order to counteract the fatal consequences of these debased and debasing superstitions.