XIX. on man governing himself morally well in life, it becomes manifest to him, on the one hand, that his conduct, being conformable to the end for which he was created, must also be agreeable to the will of the Creator. On the other hand, that same internal sense, which prompts him to satisfy the demands of his own conscience, leads him, also, to elevate his mind towards God; and he feels at the bottom of his heart that he would be wanting in the principal element of his happiness if he referred not his every thought to the Author of his existence. This twofold direction of the mind towards God is called Religion, a word derived from the Latin religare, for, as a moral being endowed with intelligence and freedom, man feels always a certain tendency to disengage himself from the physical order of terrestrial things, and to link himself again to the Supreme Cause from whom he emanated.

XX. All the peoples of antiquity exhibited, in their successive developments, the aptitude of the human soul to entertain religion within itself, nay, the necessity in which it finds itself to connect the exercise of moral duties or virtue with the Supreme Source of all morality. In fact, God, in His infinite wisdom and goodness, wills nothing but what is good; and in no better mode could man ever manifest his gratitude to the Author of his existence, than by doing that which is agreeable to His will. Hence it is, that whoever is true to his destination, is said to be true to God; and he who is virtuous is religious. There is, then, in the human soul a natural disposition to religiousness or piety; and the history of all ages testifies that no people ever existed, who, however rude and uncultivated, has not had some presentiment of the relations which bind the rational creature to its Creator. Man is born to religion.[1]

XXI. This need for man to be religious constitutes the basis of faith. As man is said to know that which is proved to him by experience, or by the testimony of the senses, so he is said to believe that which is to him a real want, although it cannot be demonstrated to him either by experience or by the evidence of the senses. Knowledge is based upon objective, and belief upon subjective proofs.

The existence of God, the providence with which He governs the world, the immortality of the soul, the excellence of virtue, the just expectation of a final triumph of good, and of an improvement and future perfection of the human condition, are truths which have their foundations in man himself, that is, in the nature of his soul; they originate in him, even without the concurrence of reflection, almost from an innate feeling of the heart, which impels him to admit them; they are founded on subjective proofs, and man believes them as necessities of his own nature. These religious truths are therefore called natural, and their disciples are said to profess a natural religion.