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First Section.

On the Original Religion of Nations.

The existence of a God was the original religion of nations

The knowledge of the existence of a single and supreme being The "Supreme Being" (German: höchstes Wesen) is a typical Enlightenment-era term for God, emphasizing a rational, universal creator accessible through reason rather than just revelation. has been so firmly planted in the hearts of all the nations of the earth—however rough and wild they may be—that no change of times, which has otherwise destroyed so many other opinions, has been able to suppress it entirely. In other matters, every nation had its own particular opinion, but this doctrine was the center point where all united with one another; for this doctrine was the judgment or the utterance of nature itself.

The nature of this doctrine for the philosopher

This doctrine necessarily had to become dominant because it was of such a nature that it withstood the examinations of the strictest philosopher,