When a set of artful men pretended, through the medium of oracles, to hold intercourse with the Deity, as familiarly as they now march up the back-stairs in European courts, the world was completely under the government of superstition.
Paine describes how ancient governments were founded on superstition and the manipulation of religious belief by "artful men."
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They form a common policy throughout Europe, detached and separate from the interest of Nations: and while they appear to quarrel, they agree to plunder.
They had a cause at stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery.
The man who is in the receipt of a million a year is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest, in the event, it should reach to himself.