This is so, largely, even in the case of the individual; it must therefore be infinitely more so in large bodies or nations; since every crowd is moved by principles that are the least common multiple of the principles of the units which compose it.

Of course this is universally recognized now; but it was not always so.

There was a time, particularly at this period of which I am now speaking, when men attempted to treat Religion as if it were one department of life, instead of being the whole foundation of every and all life.

To treat it so is, of course, to proclaim oneself as fundamentally irreligious--and, indeed, very ignorant and uneducated.
"To resume, however: "Religion at this period was at a very strange crisis.

That it could possibly be treated in the way I have mentioned shows how very deeply irreligion had spread.