enforced by the priests, who say the prince has _encroached upon the
authority of the church_; and the people respond that _it is better to
obey God than man_. The priests are only devoted to the princes when
the princes are blindly led by the priests. These last preach
arrogantly that the former ought to be exterminated, when they refuse
to obey the church, that is to say, the priests; yet, how terrible
soever may be these maxims, how dangerous soever their practice to the
security of the sovereign and the tranquillity of the state, they are
the immediate consequences drawn from Judaism and Christianity. We
find in the Old Testament that the regicide is applauded; that
treason and rebellion are approved. As soon as it is supposed that God
is offended with the thoughts of men,--as soon as it is supposed that
heretics are displeasing to him,--it is very natural to conclude that
an impious and heretical sovereign, that is to say, one who does not
obey a clerical body that set themselves up as the directors of his
belief, who opposes the sacred views of an infallible church, and who
might occasion the loss and apostasy of a large part of the
nation,--it is natural that the priests should conclude it to be
legitimate for subjects to attack such a prince, alleging their
religion to be the most important thing in the world, and dearer than
life itself. Actuated by such principles, it is impossible that a
Christian zealot should not think he rendered a service to heaven by
punishing its enemy, and a service to his country by disembarrassing
it of a chief who might interpose an obstacle to his eternal
happiness.
The obedience of the clergy is never otherwise than conditional. The
priests submit to a prince, they flatter his power, and they sustain
his authority, provided he submits to their orders, makes no obstacles
to their projects, touches none of their interests, and changes none
of the dogmas upon which the ministers of the church have founded
their own grandeur. In fine, provided a government recognizes, as
divine, clerical privileges that are plainly opposed to popular
rights, and tend to subvert them, the hierarchy will submit to it.
These considerations prove how dangerous are the priesthood, since the
end they purpose by all their projects is dominion over the mind of
mankind, and by subjugating it to enslave their persons, and render
them the creatures of despotism and tyranny. And we shall find, upon
examination, that, with one or two exceptions, the pious have been the
enemies of the progress of science and the development of the human
understanding; for by brutalizing mankind they have invariably striven
to bind them to their yoke. Their avarice, their thirst of power and
wealth, have led them to plunge their fellow-citizens in ignorance, in
misery, and unhappiness. They discourage the cultivation of the earth
by their system of tithes, their extortions, and their secret
projects; they annihilate activity, talents, and industry; their pride
is to reign on the ruin of the rest of their species. The finest
countries in Europe have, when blindly submissive to the priest, been
the worst cultivated, the thinnest peopled, and the most wretched. The
_Inquisition_ in Spain, Italy, and Portugal has only tended to
impoverish those countries, to debase the mind, and render their
subjects the veriest slaves of superstition. And in countries where we
see heaven showering down abundance, the people are poor and famished,
while the priests and monks are opulent and bloated. Their kings are
without power and without glory; their subjects languish in indigence
and wretchedness.
The priests boast of the utility of their office. Independently of
their prayers, from which the world has for so many ages derived
neither instruction nor peace, prosperity nor happiness, their
pretensions to teach the rising generations are often frivolous, and
sometimes arrogant, since we have found others equally well calculated
to the discharge of those functions, who have been good citizens, that
have not drawn from the pockets of their neighbors the tenth of their
earnings. Thus, in what light soever we view them, the pretensions of
the priests are reduced to a nonentity, compared to the disservice
they render the community by their exactions and dissolute lives.
In what consists, in effect, the education that our spiritual guides
have, unhappily for society, assumed the vocation of imparting to
youth? Does it tend to make reasonable, courageous, and virtuous
citizens? No; it is incontestable that it creates ignoble men, whose
entire lives are tormented with imaginary terrors; it creates
superstitious slaves, who only possess monastic virtues, and who, if
they follow faithfully the instructions of their masters, must be
perfectly useless to society; it forms intolerant devotees, ready to
detest all those who do not think like themselves; and it makes
fanatics, who are ready to rebel against any government as soon as
they are persuaded it is rebellious to the church. What do the
priests teach their pupils? They cause them to lose much precious
time in reciting prayers, in mechanically repeating theological
dogmas, of which, even in mature life, they comprehend nothing. They
teach them the dead languages, which, at the best, only serve for
entertainment, being by no means necessary in the present form of
society. They terminate these fine studies by a philosophy which, in
clerical hands, has become a mere play of words, a jargon void of
sense, and which is exactly calculated to fit them for the
unintelligible science called _theology_. But is this theology itself
useful to nations? Are the interminable disputes which arise between
profound metaphysicians of such a character as to be interesting to
the people who do not comprehend them? Are the people of Paris and the
provinces much advanced in heavenly knowledge when the priests dispute
among themselves about what should really be thought of grace?
In regard to the instruction imparted by the clergy, it is indeed
necessary to have faith in order to discover its utility. Their
boasted instruction consists in teaching ineffable mysteries,
marvellous dogmas, narrations and fables perfectly ridiculous, panic
terrors, fanatical and lugubrious predictions, frightful menaces, and
above all, systems so profound that they who announce are not able to
comprehend them. In truth, Madam, in all this I can see nothing
useful. Should nations feel any extraordinary obligations to teachers
who concoct doctrines that must always remain impenetrable for the
whole human race? It must be confessed that our priests, who so
painfully occupy themselves in arranging a pure creed for us, must
signally lose all their labor. At any rate, the people are not much in
the situation to profit by such sublime toils. Very frequently the
pulpit becomes the theatre of discord; the sacred disclaimers launch
injuries at each other, infusing their own passions into the bosoms of
their _Christian_ auditors, kindling their zeal against the enemies of
the church, and becoming themselves the trumpets of party spirit,
fury, and sedition. If these preachers teach morality, it is a kind of
supernatural morality, little adapted to the nature of man. If they
inculcate virtue, it is that theological virtue whose inutility we
have sufficiently shown. If by chance some one among them allows
himself to preach that morality and virtue which is practical, human,
and social, you know, Madam, that he is proscribed by his
confederates, and becomes an object of their acrimonious criticisms
and their deadly hatred. He is also disdained by devotees who are
attached to evangelical virtues that they cannot comprehend, and who
consider nothing as more important than mysterious forms and
ceremonies, in which zealots make morality to consist.
See, then, in what limits are entertained the important services that
the ministers of the Lord have for so many centuries rendered to
nations! They are not worth, in all conscience, the excessive price
which is paid for them. On the contrary, if priests were treated
according to their real merit, if their functions were appreciated at
their just value, it would, perhaps, be found that they did not merit
a larger salary than those empirics who, at the corners of the
streets, vend remedies more dangerous than the evils they promise to
cure.
It is by subjecting the immense revenues, lands, abbeys, and estates,
which clerical bodies have levied upon the credulity of men, to just
and equal taxation, as with other property; it is by rendering the
church and state entirely distinct; it is by stripping the hierarchy
of immunities not possessed by other citizens, and of privileges both
chimerical and injurious; it is by rigorously exacting the same civil
obedience alike from priests and people,--that government can be
rightly administered, that justice can be impartially rendered, and
that the nation, as a whole, can be trained to courage, activity,
industry, intelligence, tranquillity, and patriotism. So long as there
are two powers in a state, they will necessarily be at variance, and
the one which arrogates the favor of the Almighty will have immense
advantages over that which claims no authority above the earth. If
both pretend to emanate from the same source, the people would not
know which to believe; they would range themselves on each side; the
combat would be furious, and the power of the government would be
unable to maintain itself against the many heads of the ecclesiastical
hydra. The magicians of Pharaoh yielded to the Jewish priests, and in
conflicts between the church and state, the immunities of the priests,
"Like Aaron's serpent, swallowed all the rest."
If such is the case, you will inquire, Madam, how can an enlightened
civil power ever make obedient citizens of rebellious priests, who
have so long possessed the confidence of the people, and who can with
impunity render themselves formidable to any government? I reply, that
in spite of the vigilant cares and the redoubled efforts of the
priesthood, the people have begun to be more enlightened; they are
becoming weary of the heavy yoke, which they would not have borne so
long had they not believed it was imposed upon them by the Most High,
and that it was necessary to their happiness. It is impossible for
error to be eternal; it must give way to the power of truth. The
priests, who think, know this well, and the whole ecclesiastical body
continually declaim against all those who wish to enlighten the human
race and unveil the conspiracies of their spiritual guides. They fear
the piercing eyes of philosophy; they fear the reign of reason, which
will never be that of tyranny or anarchy. Governments, then, ought not
to share the fears of the clergy, nor render themselves the executors
of their vengeance; they injure themselves when they sustain the cause
of their turbulent rivals, who have ever been the enemies of civil
polity and perturbers of the public repose. The magistrates of a state
league themselves with their enemies when they form an alliance with
the priesthood, or prevent the people from recognizing their errors.
Governments are more interested than individuals in the destruction of
errors that often lead to confusion, anarchy, and rebellion. If men
had not become gradually enlightened, nations would now, as formerly,
be under the yoke of the Roman pontiff, who could occasion revolution
in their midst, overturn the laws, and subvert the government. But for
the insensible progress of reason, states would now be filled with a
tumultuous crowd of devotees, ready to revolt at the signal of an
unquiet priest or a seditious monk.
You perceive, then, Madam, that men who think, and who teach others to
think, are more useful to governments than those who wish to stifle
reason and to proscribe forever the liberty of thought. You see that
the true friends of a stable government are those who seek most
sedulously to enlighten, educate, and elevate the people. You feel
that by banishing knowledge and persecuting philosophy, government
sacrifices its dearest interests to a seditious clergy, whose ambition
and avarice push them to usurp boundless authority, and whose pride
always makes them indignant at being in subjection to a power which
they contend should be subordinate to themselves.
There is no priest who does not consider himself superior to the
highest ruler of any country. We have often seen the priesthood avow
pretensions of this character. The clergy are always enraged when an
attempt is made to subject them to the secular power. Such an attempt
they regard as profane, and they denounce it as tyranny whenever it is
sought to be enforced. They pretend that in all times the priesthood
has been sacred, that its rights come from God himself, and that no
government can, without sacrilege, or without outraging the Divinity,
touch the property, the privileges, or the immunities which have been
snatched from ignorance and credulity. Whenever the civil authority
would touch the objects considered inviolable and sacred in the hands
of the priests, their clamors cannot be appeased; they make efforts to
excite the people against the government; they denounce all authority
as tyrannical when it has the temerity to think of subjecting them to
the laws, of reforming their abuses, and neutralizing their power to
injure. But they consider authority legitimate when it crushes _their_
enemies, though it appears insupportable as soon as it is reasonable
and favorable to the people.
The priests are essentially the most wicked of men, and the worst
citizens of a state. A miracle would be necessary to render them
otherwise. In all countries they are the _spoiled children_ of
nations. They are proud and haughty, since they pretend it is from God
himself they received their mission and their power. They are
ingrates, since they assume to owe only to God benefits which they
visibly hold from the generosity of governments and the people. They
are audacious, because for many ages they have enjoyed supremacy with
impunity. They are unquiet and turbulent, because they are never
without the desire of playing a great part. They are quarrelsome and
factious, because they are never able to find out a method of enabling
men to understand the pretended truths they teach. They are
suspicious, defiant, and cruel, because they sensibly feel that they
may well dread the discovery of their impostures. They are the
spontaneous enemies of truth, because they justly apprehend it will
annihilate their pretensions. They are implacable in their vengeance,
because it would be dangerous to pardon those who wish to crush their
doctrines, whose weakness they know. They are hypocrites, because most
of them possess too much sense to believe the reveries they retail to
others. They are obstinate in their ideas, because they are inflated
with vanity, and because they could not consistently deviate from a
method of thinking of which they pretend God is the author. We often
see them unbridled and licentious in their manners, because it is
impossible that idleness, effeminacy, and luxury should not corrupt
the heart. We sometimes see them austere and rigid in their conduct in
order to impose on the people and accomplish their ambitious views. If
they are hypocrites and rogues, they are extremely dangerous; and if
they are fanatical in good faith, or imbecile, they are not less to be
feared. In fine, we almost always see them rebellious and seditious,
because an authority derived from God is not disposed to bend to
authority derived from men.
You have here, Madam, a faithful portrait of the members of a powerful
body, in whose favor governments, for a long time, have believed it
their duty to sacrifice the other interests of the state. You here see
the citizens whom prejudice most richly recompenses, whom princes
honor in the eyes of the people, to whom they give their confidence,
whom they regard as the support of their power, and whom they consider
as necessary to the happiness and security of their kingdoms. You can
judge yourself whether the likeness delineated is correct. You are in
a position to discover their intrigues, their underplots, their
conduct, and their discourse, and you will always find that their
constant object is to flatter princes for the purpose of governing
them and keeping nations in slavery.
It is to please citizens so dangerous that sovereigns mingle in
theological questions, take the part of those who succeed in seducing
them, persecute all those who do not submit, proscribe with fury the
friends of reason, and by repressing knowledge injure their own power.
Because the priests, who urge princes to sacrilege when they combat
for them, are indignant against the same princes when they refuse to
destroy the enemies of their own particular clerical body. They
likewise denounce sovereigns as impious if the latter treat
theological disputes with the indifference they merit.
When hereafter, reclaimed from their prejudices, princes wish to
govern for the good of all, let them cease to hear the interested and
often sanguinary councils of these pretended divine men, who,
regarding themselves as the centre of all things, wish to have
sacrificed for this object the happiness, the repose, the riches, and
the honors of the state. Let the sovereign never enter into their
dissensions, let him never persecute for religious opinions, which,
among sectaries, are commonly on both sides equally ridiculous and
destitute of foundation. They would never involve the government if
the sovereign had not the weakness to mingle in them. Let him give
unlimited freedom to the course of thinking, while he directs by just
laws the course of acting on the part of his subjects. Let him permit
every one to dream or speculate as he pleases, provided he conducts
himself otherwise as an honest man and a good citizen. At least let
the prince not oppose the progress of knowledge, which alone is
capable of extricating his people from ignorance, barbarity, and
superstition, which have made victims of so many Christian rulers. Let
him be assured that enlightened and instructed citizens are more
law-abiding, industrious, and peaceable than stupid slaves without
knowledge and without reason, who will always be ready to take all the
passions with which a fanatic wishes to inspire them.
Let the sovereign especially occupy himself with the education of his
subjects, nor leave the clergy unobstructedly to impregnate his
people with mystic notions, foolish reveries, and superstitious
practices, which are only proper for fanatics. Let him at least
counterbalance the inculcation of these follies by teaching a morality
conformable to the good of the state, useful to the happiness of its
members, and social and reasonable. This morality would inform a man
what he owed to himself, to society, to his fellow-citizens, and to
the magistrates who administered the laws. This morality would not
form men who would hate each other for speculative opinions, nor
dangerous enthusiasts, nor devotees blindly submissive to the priests.
It would create a tranquil, intelligent, and industrious community; a
body of inhabitants submissive to reason and obedient to just and
legitimate authority. In a word, from such morality would spring
virtuous men and good citizens, and it would be the surest antidote
against superstition and fanaticism.
In this manner the empire of the clergy would be diminished, and the
sovereign would have a less portentous rival; he would, without
opposition, be assured of all rational and enlightened citizens; the
riches of the clergy would in part reenter society, and be of use in
benefiting the people; institutions now useless would be put to
advantageous uses; a portion of the possessions of the church,
originally destined for the poor, and so long appropriated by
avaricious priests, would come into the hands of the suffering and the
indigent, their legitimate proprietors. Supported by a nation who
were sensible of the advantages he had procured them, the prince would
no longer fear the cries of fanaticism, and they would soon be no
longer heard. The priests, the lazy monks, and turbulent persons
living in forced celibacy, could no longer calculate on the future,
and, aliens in the state which nourished them, they would visibly
diminish. The government, more rich and powerful, would be in a better
situation to diffuse its benefits; and enlightened, virtuous, and
beneficent men would constitute the support, the glory, and the
grandeur of the state.
Such, Madam, are the ends which all governments would propose who
opened their eyes to their own true interests. I flatter myself that
these designs will not appear to you either impossible or chimerical.
Knowledge and science, which begin to be generally diffused, are
already advancing these results; they are giving an impulse to the
march of the human mind, and in time, governments and people, without
tumult or revolution, will be freed from the yoke which has oppressed
them so long.
Do we see any thing useful in the pious endowments of our ancestors?
We find them to consist of institutions invented to continue a lazy,
monastic life; costly temples elevated and enriched by indigent people
to augment the pride of the priests, and to erect altars and palaces.
From the foundation of Christianity the whole object of religion has
been to aggrandize the priesthood on the ruins of nations and
governments. A jealous religion has exclusively seized on the minds of
men, and persuaded them that they live upon earth merely to occupy
themselves with their future happiness in the unknown regions of the
empyrean. It is time that this prestige should cease; it is time that
the human race should occupy itself with its own true interests. The
interests of the people will always be incompatible with those of the
guides who believe they have acquired an imprescriptible right to lead
men astray. The more you examine the Christian religion, the more will
you be convinced that it can be advantageous only to those whose
object it is easily to guide mankind after having plunged them into
darkness. I am, &c.
LETTER X.
Of the Advantages Religion confers on those who profess it.
I dare flatter myself, Madam, that I have clearly demonstrated to you,
that the Christian religion, far from being the support of sovereign
authority, is its greatest enemy; and of having plainly convinced you,
that its ministers are, by the very nature of their functions, the
rivals of kings, and adversaries the most to be feared by all who
value or exercise temporal power. In a word, I think I have persuaded
you, that society might, without damage, dispense with the services
they render, or at least dispense with paying for them so
extravagantly.
Let us now examine the advantages which this religion procures to
individuals, who are most strongly convinced of its pretended truths,
and who conform the most rigidly to its precepts. Let us see if it is
calculated to render its disciples more contented, more happy, and
more virtuous than they would be without the burden of its ministers.