And how much more encouraging to the atchievements of science and improvement, is this, than the desponding view that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that what has been, must ever be, and that to secure Ourselves where we are, we must tread with awfull reverence in the footsteps of Our fathers. This doctrine is the genuine fruit of the alliance between church and State, the tenants of which, finding themselves but too well in their present position, oppose all advances which might unmask their usurpations, and monopolies of honors, wealth and power, and fear every change, as endangering the comforts they now hold.
They liken the indigenous people's veneration for their forefathers to the alliance of church and state, in which many apparent truths would be ignored for the sake of maintaining the status quo's of power and knowledge.