In what consists the saint of all religions? It is a man who prays,
fasts, who torments himself, who avoids the world, who, like an owl, is
pleased but in solitude, who abstains from all pleasure, who seems
frightened at every object which turns him a moment from his fanatical
meditations. Is this virtue? Is a being of this stamp of any use to
himself or to others? Would not society be dissolved, and would not men
retrograde into barbarism, if each one should be fool enough to wish to
be a saint?
It is evident that the literal and rigorous practice of the Divine
morality of the Christians would lead nations to ruin. A Christian who
would attain perfection, ought to drive away from his mind all that can
alienate him from heaven--his true country. He sees upon earth but
temptations, snares, and opportunities to go astray; he must fear
science as injurious to faith; he must avoid industry, as it is a means
of obtaining riches, which are fatal to salvation; he must renounce
preferments and honors, as things capable of exciting his pride and
calling his attention away from his soul; in a word, the sublime
morality of Christ, if it were not impracticable, would sever all the
ties of society.
A saint in the world is no more useful than a saint in the desert; the
saint has an unhappy, discontented, and often irritable, turbulent
disposition; his zeal often obliges him, conscientiously, to disturb
society by opinions or dreams which his vanity makes him accept as
inspirations from Heaven. The annals of all religions are filled with
accounts of anxious, intractable, seditious saints, who have
distinguished themselves by ravages that, for the greater glory of God,
they have scattered throughout the universe. If the saints who live in
solitude are useless, those who live in the world are very often
dangerous. The vanity of performing a role, the desire of distinguishing
themselves in the eyes of the stupid vulgar by a strange conduct,
constitute usually the distinctive characteristics of great saints;
pride persuades them that they are extraordinary men, far above human
nature; beings who are more perfect than others; chosen ones, which God
looks upon with more complaisance than the rest of mortals. Humility in
a saint is, is a general rule, but a pride more refined than that of
common men. It must be a very ridiculous vanity which can determine a
man to continually war with his own nature!
CLXIII.--HUMAN NATURE IS NOT DEPRAVED; AND A MORALITY WHICH CONTRADICTS
THIS FACT IS NOT MADE FOR MAN.
A morality which contradicts the nature of man is not made for him. But
you will say that man's nature is depraved. In what consists this
pretended depravity? Is it because he has passions? But are not passions
the very essence of man? Must he not seek, desire, love that which is,
or that which he believes to be, essential to his happiness? Must he not
fear and avoid that which he judges injurious or fatal to him? Excite
his passions by useful objects; let him attach himself to these same
objects, divert him by sensible and known motives from that which can do
him or others harm, and you will make of him a reasonable and virtuous
being. A man without passions would be equally indifferent to vice and
to virtue.
Holy doctors! you constantly tell us that man's nature is perverted; you
tell us that the way of all flesh is corrupt; you tell us that nature
gives us but inordinate inclinations. In this case you accuse your God,
who has not been able or willing to keep this nature in its original
perfection. If this nature became corrupted, why did not this God repair
it? The Christian assures me that human nature is repaired, that the
death of his God has reestablished it in its integrity. How comes it
then, that human nature, notwithstanding the death of a God, is still
depraved? Is it, then, a pure loss that your God died? What becomes of
His omnipotence and His victory over the Devil, if it is true that the
Devil still holds the empire which, according to you, he has always
exercised in the world?
Death, according to Christian theology, is the penalty of sin. This
opinion agrees with that of some savage Negro nations, who imagine that
the death of a man is always the supernatural effect of the wrath of the
Gods. The Christians firmly believe that Christ has delivered them from
sin, while they see that, in their religion as in the others, man is
subject to death. To say that Jesus Christ has delivered us from sin, is
it not claiming that a judge has granted pardon to a guilty man, while
we see him sent to torture?