When we wish to examine in a cool, calm way the opinions of men, we are
very much surprised to find that in those which we consider the most
essential, nothing is more rare than to find them using common sense;
that is to say, the portion of judgment sufficient to know the most
simple truths, to reject the most striking absurdities, and to be
shocked by palpable contradictions. We have an example of this in
Theology, a science revered in all times, in all countries, by the
greatest number of mortals; an object considered the most important, the
most useful, and the most indispensable to the happiness of society. If
they would but take the trouble to sound the principles upon which this
pretended science rests itself, they would be compelled to admit that
the principles which were considered incontestable, are but hazardous
suppositions, conceived in ignorance, propagated by enthusiasm or bad
intention, adopted by timid credulity, preserved by habit, which never
reasons, and revered solely because it is not comprehended. Some, says
Montaigne, make the world believe that which they do not themselves
believe; a greater number of others make themselves believe, not
comprehending what it is to believe. In a word, whoever will consult
common sense upon religious opinions, and will carry into this
examination the attention given to objects of ordinary interest, will
easily perceive that these opinions have no solid foundation; that all
religion is but a castle in the air; that Theology is but ignorance of
natural causes reduced to a system; that it is but a long tissue of
chimeras and contradictions; that it presents to all the different
nations of the earth only romances devoid of probability, of which the
hero himself is made up of qualities impossible to reconcile, his name
having the power to excite in all hearts respect and fear, is found to
be but a vague word, which men continually utter, being able to attach
to it only such ideas or qualities as are belied by the facts, or which
evidently contradict each other. The notion of this imaginary being, or
rather the word by which we designate him, would be of no consequence
did it not cause ravages without number upon the earth. Born into the
opinion that this phantom is for them a very interesting reality, men,
instead of wisely concluding from its incomprehensibility that they are
exempt from thinking of it, on the contrary, conclude that they can not
occupy themselves enough about it, that they must meditate upon it
without ceasing, reason without end, and never lose sight of it. The
invincible ignorance in which they are kept in this respect, far from
discouraging them, does but excite their curiosity; instead of putting
them on guard against their imagination, this ignorance makes them
positive, dogmatic, imperious, and causes them to quarrel with all those
who oppose doubts to the reveries which their brains have brought forth.
What perplexity, when we attempt to solve an unsolvable problem! Anxious
meditations upon an object impossible to grasp, and which, however, is
supposed to be very important to him, can but put a man into bad humor,
and produce in his brain dangerous transports. When interest, vanity,
and ambition are joined to such a morose disposition, society
necessarily becomes troubled. This is why so many nations have often
become the theaters of extravagances caused by nonsensical visionists,
who, publishing their shallow speculations for the eternal truth, have
kindled the enthusiasm of princes and of people, and have prepared them
for opinions which they represented as essential to the glory of
divinity and to the happiness of empires. We have seen, a thousand
times, in all parts of our globe, infuriated fanatics slaughtering each
other, lighting the funeral piles, committing without scruple, as a
matter of duty, the greatest crimes. Why? To maintain or to propagate
the impertinent conjectures of enthusiasts, or to sanction the knaveries
of impostors on account of a being who exists only in their imagination,
and who is known only by the ravages, the disputes, and the follies
which he has caused upon the earth.
Originally, savage nations, ferocious, perpetually at war, adored, under
various names, some God conformed to their ideas; that is to say, cruel,
carnivorous, selfish, greedy of blood. We find in all the religions of
the earth a God of armies, a jealous God, an avenging God, an
exterminating God, a God who enjoys carnage and whose worshipers make it
a duty to serve him to his taste. Lambs, bulls, children, men, heretics,
infidels, kings, whole nations, are sacrificed to him. The zealous
servants of this barbarous God go so far as to believe that they are
obliged to offer themselves as a sacrifice to him. Everywhere we see
zealots who, after having sadly meditated upon their terrible God,
imagine that, in order to please him, they must do themselves all the
harm possible, and inflict upon themselves, in his honor, all imaginable
torments. In a word, everywhere the baneful ideas of Divinity, far from
consoling men for misfortunes incident to their existence, have filled
the heart with trouble, and given birth to follies destructive to them.
How could the human mind, filled with frightful phantoms and guided by
men interested in perpetuating its ignorance and its fear, make
progress? Man was compelled to vegetate in his primitive stupidity; he
was preserved only by invisible powers, upon whom his fate was supposed
to depend. Solely occupied with his alarms and his unintelligible
reveries, he was always at the mercy of his priests, who reserved for
themselves the right of thinking for him and of regulating his conduct.
Thus man was, and always remained, a child without experience, a slave
without courage, a loggerhead who feared to reason, and who could never
escape from the labyrinth into which his ancestors had misled him; he
felt compelled to groan under the yoke of his Gods, of whom he knew
nothing except the fabulous accounts of their ministers. These, after
having fettered him by the ties of opinion, have remained his masters or
delivered him up defenseless to the absolute power of tyrants, no less
terrible than the Gods, of whom they were the representatives upon the
earth. Oppressed by the double yoke of spiritual and temporal power, it
was impossible for the people to instruct themselves and to work for
their own welfare. Thus, religion, politics, and morals became
sanctuaries, into which the profane were not permitted to enter. Men had
no other morality than that which their legislators and their priests
claimed as descended from unknown empyrean regions. The human mind,
perplexed by these theological opinions, misunderstood itself, doubted
its own powers, mistrusted experience, feared truth, disdained its
reason, and left it to blindly follow authority. Man was a pure machine
in the hands of his tyrants and his priests, who alone had the right to
regulate his movements. Always treated as a slave, he had at all times
and in all places the vices and dispositions of a slave.
These are the true sources of the corruption of habits, to which
religion never opposes anything but ideal and ineffectual obstacles;
ignorance and servitude have a tendency to make men wicked and unhappy.
Science, reason, liberty, alone can reform them and render them more
happy; but everything conspires to blind them and to confirm them in
their blindness. The priests deceive them, tyrants corrupt them in order
to subjugate them more easily. Tyranny has been, and will always be, the
chief source of the depraved morals and habitual calamities of the
people. These, almost always fascinated by their religious notions or by
metaphysical fictions, instead of looking upon the natural and visible
causes of their miseries, attribute their vices to the imperfections of
their nature, and their misfortunes to the anger of their Gods; they
offer to Heaven vows, sacrifices, and presents, in order to put an end
to their misfortunes, which are really due only to the negligence, the
ignorance, and to the perversity of their guides, to the folly of their
institutions, to their foolish customs, to their false opinions, to
their unreasonable laws, and especially to their want of enlightenment.
Let the mind be filled early with true ideas; let man's reason be
cultivated; let justice govern him; and there will be no need of
opposing to his passions the powerless barrier of the fear of Gods. Men
will be good when they are well taught, well governed, chastised or
censured for the evil, and justly rewarded for the good which they have
done to their fellow-citizens. It is idle to pretend to cure mortals of
their vices if we do not begin by curing them of their prejudices. It is
only by showing them the truth that they can know their best interests
and the real motives which will lead them to happiness. Long enough have
the instructors of the people fixed their eyes on heaven; let them at
last bring them back to the earth. Tired of an incomprehensible
theology, of ridiculous fables, of impenetrable mysteries, of puerile
ceremonies, let the human mind occupy itself with natural things,
intelligible objects, sensible truths, and useful knowledge. Let the
vain chimeras which beset the people be dissipated, and very soon
rational opinions will fill the minds of those who were believed fated
to be always in error. To annihilate religious prejudices, it would be
sufficient to show that what is inconceivable to man can not be of any
use to him. Does it need, then, anything but simple common sense to
perceive that a being most clearly irreconcilable with the notions of
mankind, that a cause continually opposed to the effects attributed to
him; that a being of whom not a word can be said without falling into
contradictions; that a being who, far from explaining the mysteries of
the universe, only renders them more inexplicable; that a being to whom
for so many centuries men addressed themselves so vainly to obtain their
happiness and deliverance from their sufferings; does it need, I say,
more than simple common sense to understand that the idea of such a
being is an idea without model, and that he is himself evidently not a
reasonable being? Does it require more than common sense to feel that
there is at least delirium and frenzy in hating and tormenting each
other for unintelligible opinions of a being of this kind? Finally, does
it not all prove that morality and virtue are totally incompatible with
the idea of a God, whose ministers and interpreters have painted him in
all countries as the most fantastic, the most unjust, and the most cruel
of tyrants, whose pretended wishes are to serve as rules and laws for
the inhabitants of the earth? To discover the true principles of
morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of Gods; they
need but common sense; they have only to look within themselves, to
reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to
consider the object of society and of each of the members who compose
it, and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and
that vice is an injury to beings of their species. Let us teach men to
be just, benevolent, moderate, and sociable, not because their Gods
exact it, but to please men; let us tell them to abstain from vice and
from crime, not because they will be punished in another world, but
because they will suffer in the present world. There are, says
Montesquieu, means to prevent crime, they are sufferings; to change the
manners, these are good examples. Truth is simple, error is complicated,
uncertain in its gait, full of by-ways; the voice of nature is
intelligible, that of falsehood is ambiguous, enigmatical, and
mysterious; the road of truth is straight, that of imposture is oblique
and dark; this truth, always necessary to man, is felt by all just
minds; the lessons of reason are followed by all honest souls; men are
unhappy only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant only because
everything conspires to prevent them from being enlightened, and they
are wicked only because their reason is not sufficiently developed.