No one dreams about another life when he is very much absorbed in
objects which he meets on earth. In the eyes of a passionate lover, the
presence of his mistress extinguishes the fires of hell, and her charms
blot out all the pleasures of Paradise. Woman! you leave, you say, your
lover for your God? It is that your lover is no longer the same in your
estimation; or your lover leaves you, and you must fill the void which
is made in your heart. Nothing is more common than to see ambitious,
perverse, corrupt, and immoral men who are religious, and who sometimes
exhibit even zeal in its behalf; if they do not practice religion, they
promise themselves they will practice it some day; they keep it in
reserve as a remedy which, sooner or later, will be necessary to quiet
the conscience for the evil which they intend yet to do. Besides,
devotees and priests being a very numerous, active, and powerful party,
it is not astonishing to see impostors and thieves seek for its support
in order to gain their ends. We will be told, no doubt, that many honest
people are sincerely religious without profit; but is uprightness of
heart always accompanied with intelligence? We are cited to a great
number of learned men, men of genius, who are very religious. This
proves that men of genius can have prejudices, can be pusillanimous, can
have an imagination which seduces them and prevents them from examining
objects coolly. Pascal proves nothing in favor of religion, except that
a man of genius can possess a grain of weakness, and is but a child when
he is weak enough to listen to prejudices. Pascal himself tells us "that
the mind can be strong and narrow, and just as extended as it is weak."
He says more: "We can have our senses all right, and not be equally able
in all things; because there are men who, being right in a certain
sphere of things, lose themselves in others."
CLXVIII.--ABSURDITY OF THE MORALITY AND OF THE RELIGIOUS VIRTUES
ESTABLISHED SOLELY IN THE INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.
What is virtue according to theology? It is, we are told, the conformity
of men's actions with the will of God. But who is God? He is a being
whom no one is able to conceive of, and whom, consequently, each one
modifies in his own way. What is the will of God? It is what men who
have seen God, or whom God has inspired, have told us. Who are those who
have seen God? They are either fanatics, or scoundrels, or ambitious
men, whose word we can not rely upon. To found morality upon a God that
each man represents differently, that each one composes by his own idea,
whom everybody arranges according to his own temperament and his own
interest, is evidently founding morality upon the caprice and upon the
imagination of men; it is basing it upon the whims of a sect, faction,
or party, who, excluding all others, claim to have the advantage of
worshiping the true God.
To establish morality, or the duties of man, upon the Divine will, is
founding it upon the wishes, the reveries, or the interests of those who
make God talk without fear of contradiction. In every religion the
priests alone have the right to decide upon what pleases or displeases
their God; we may rest assured that they will decide upon what pleases
or displeases themselves.
The dogmas, ceremonies, the morality and the virtues which all religions
of the world prescribe, are visibly calculated only to extend the power
or to increase the emoluments of the founders and of the ministers of
these religions; the dogmas are obscure, inconceivable, frightful, and,
thereby, very liable to cause the imagination to wander, and to render
the common man more docile to those who wish to domineer over him; the
ceremonies and practices procure fortune or consideration to the
priests; the religious morals and virtues consist in a submissive faith,
which prevents reasoning; in a devout humility, which assures to the
priests the submission of their slaves; in an ardent zeal, when the
question of religion is agitated; that is to say, when the interest of
these priests is considered, all religious virtues having evidently for
their object the advantage of the priests.
CLXIX.--WHAT DOES THAT CHRISTIAN CHARITY AMOUNT TO, SUCH AS THEOLOGIANS
TEACH AND PRACTICE?
When we reproach the theologians with the sterility of their religious
virtues, they praise, with emphasis, charity, that tender love of our
neighbor which Christianity makes an essential duty for its disciples.
But, alas! what becomes of this pretended charity as soon as we examine
the actions of the Lord's ministers? Ask if you must love your neighbor
if he is impious, heretical, and incredulous, that is to say, if he does
not think as they do? Ask them if you must tolerate opinions contrary to
those which they profess? Ask them if the Lord can show indulgence to
those who are in error? Immediately their charity disappears, and the
dominating clergy will tell you that the prince carries the sword but to
sustain the interests of the Most High; they will tell you that for love
of the neighbor, you must persecute, imprison, exile, or burn him. You
will find tolerance among a few priests who are persecuted themselves,
but who put aside Christian charity as soon as they have the power to
persecute in their turn.
The Christian religion which was originally preached by beggars and by
very wretched men, strongly recommends alms-giving under the name of
charity; the faith of Mohammed equally makes it an indispensable duty.
Nothing, no doubt, is better suited to humanity than to assist the
unfortunate, to clothe the naked, to lend a charitable hand to whoever
needs it. But would it not be more humane and more charitable to foresee
the misery and to prevent the poor from increasing? If religion, instead
of deifying princes, had but taught them to respect the property of
their subjects, to be just, and to exercise but their legitimate rights,
we should not see such a great number of mendicants in their realms. A
greedy, unjust, tyrannical government multiplies misery; the rigor of
taxes produces discouragement, idleness, indigence, which, on their
part, produce robbery, murders, and all kinds of crime. If the
sovereigns had more humanity, charity, and justice, their States would
not be peopled by so many unfortunate ones whose misery becomes
impossible to soothe.
The Christian and Mohammedan States are filled with vast and richly
endowed hospitals, in which we admire the pious charity of the kings and
of the sultans who erected them. Would it not have been more humane to
govern the people well, to procure them ease, to excite and to favor
industry and trade, to permit them to enjoy in safety the fruits of
their labors, than to oppress them under a despotic yoke, to impoverish
them by senseless wars, to reduce them to mendicity in order to gratify
an immoderate luxury, and afterward build sumptuous monuments which can
contain but a very small portion of those whom they have rendered
miserable? Religion, by its virtues, has but given a change to men;
instead of foreseeing evils, it applies but insufficient remedies. The
ministers of Heaven have always known how to benefit themselves by the
calamities of others; public misery became their element; they made
themselves the administrators of the goods of the poor, the distributors
of alms, the depositaries of charities; thereby they extended and
sustained at all times their power over the unfortunates who usually
compose the most numerous, the most anxious, the most seditious part of
society. Thus the greatest evils are made profitable to the ministers
of the Lord.
The Christian priests tell us that the goods which they possess are the
goods of the poor, and pretend by this title that their possessions are
sacred; consequently, the sovereigns and the people press themselves to
accumulate lands, revenues, treasures for them; under pretext of
charity, our spiritual guides have become very opulent, and enjoy, in
the sight of the impoverished nations, goods which were destined but for
the miserable; the latter, far from murmuring about it, applaud a
deceitful generosity which enriches the Church, but which very rarely
alleviates the sufferings of the poor.
According to the principles of Christianity, poverty itself is a virtue,
and it is this virtue which the sovereigns and the priests make their
slaves observe the most. According to these ideas, a great number of
pious Christians have renounced with good-will the perishable riches of
the earth; have distributed their patrimony to the poor, and have
retired into a desert to live a life of voluntary indigence. But very
soon this enthusiasm, this supernatural taste for misery, must surrender
to nature. The successors to these voluntary poor, sold to the religious
people their prayers and their powerful intercession with the Deity;
they became rich and powerful; thus, monks and hermits lived in
idleness, and, under the pretext of charity, devoured insultingly the
substance of the poor. Poverty of spirit was that of which religion made
always the greatest use. The fundamental virtue of all religion, that is
to say, the most useful one to its ministers, is faith. It consists in
an unlimited credulity, which causes men to believe, without
examination, all that which the interpreters of the Deity wish them to
believe. With the aid of this wonderful virtue, the priests became the
arbiters of justice and of injustice; of good and of evil; they found it
easy to commit crimes when crimes became necessary to their interests.
Implicit faith has been the source of the greatest outrages which have
been committed upon the earth.
CLXX.--CONFESSION, THAT GOLDEN MINE FOR THE PRIESTS, HAS DESTROYED THE
TRUE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY.
He who first proclaimed to the nations that, when man had wronged man,
he must ask God's pardon, appease His wrath by presents, and offer Him
sacrifices, obviously subverted the true principles of morality.
According to these ideas, men imagine that they can obtain from the King
of Heaven, as well as from the kings of the earth, permission to be
unjust and wicked, or at least pardon for the evil which they might
commit.
Morality is founded upon the relations, the needs, and the constant
interests of the inhabitants of the earth; the relations which subsist
between men and God are either entirely unknown or imaginary. The
religion associating God with men has visibly weakened or destroyed the
ties which unite men.
Mortals imagine that they can, with impunity, injure each other by
making a suitable reparation to the Almighty Being, who is supposed to
have the right to remit all the injuries done to His creatures. Is there
anything more liable to encourage wickedness and to embolden to crime,
than to persuade men that there exists an invisible being who has the
right to pardon injustice, rapine, perfidy, and all the outrages they
can inflict upon society? Encouraged by these fatal ideas, we see the
most perverse men abandon themselves to the greatest crimes, and expect
to repair them by imploring Divine mercy; their conscience rests in
peace when a priest assures them that Heaven is quieted by sincere
repentance, which is very useless to the world; this priest consoles
them in the name of Deity, if they consent in reparation of their faults
to divide with His ministers the fruits of their plunderings, of their
frauds, and of their wickedness. Morality united to religion, becomes
necessarily subordinate to it. In the mind of a religious person, God
must be preferred to His creatures; "It is better to obey Him than men!"
The interests of the Celestial Monarch must be above those of weak
mortals. But the interests of Heaven are evidently the interests of the
ministers of Heaven; from which it follows evidently, that in all
religions, the priests, under pretext of Heaven's interest's, or of
God's glory, will be able to dispense with the duties of human morals
when they do not agree with the duties which God is entitled to impose.
Besides, He who has the power to pardon crimes, has He not the right to
order them committed?
CLXXI.--THE SUPPOSITION OF THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD IS NOT NECESSARY TO
MORALITY.
We are constantly told that without a God, there can be no moral
obligation; that it is necessary for men and for the sovereigns
themselves to have a lawgiver sufficiently powerful to compel them to be
moral; moral obligation implies a law; but this law arises from the
eternal and necessary relations of things among themselves, which have
nothing in common with the existence of a God. The rules which govern
men's conduct spring from their own nature, which they are supposed to
know, and not from the Divine nature, of which they have no conception;
these rules compel us to render ourselves estimable or contemptible,
amiable or hateful, worthy of reward or of punishments, happy or
unhappy, according to the extent to which we observe them. The law that
compels man not to harm himself, is inherent in the nature of a sensible
being, who, no matter how he came into this world, or what can be his
fate in another, is compelled by his very nature to seek his welfare and
to shun evil, to love pleasure and to fear pain. The law which compels a
man not to harm others and to do good, is inherent in the nature of
sensible beings living in society, who, by their nature, are compelled
to despise those who do them no good, and to detest those who oppose
their happiness. Whether there exists a God or not, whether this God has
spoken or not, men's moral duties will always be the same so long as
they possess their own nature; that is to say, so long as they are
sensible beings. Do men need a God whom they do not know, or an
invisible lawgiver, or a mysterious religion, or chimerical fears in
order to comprehend that all excess tends ultimately to destroy them,
and that in order to preserve themselves they must abstain from it; that
in order to be loved by others, they must do good; that doing evil is a
sure means of incurring their hatred and vengeance? "Before the law
there was no sin." Nothing is more false than this maxim. It is enough
for a man to be what he is, to be a sensible being in order to
distinguish that which pleases or displeases him. It is enough that a
man knows that another man is a sensible being like himself, in order
for him to know what is useful or injurious to him. It is enough that
man needs his fellow-creature, in order that he should fear that he
might produce unfavorable impressions upon him. Thus a sentient and
thinking being needs but to feel and to think, in order to discover that
which is due to him and to others. I feel, and another feels, like
myself; this is the foundation of all morality.
CLXXII.--RELIGION AND ITS SUPERNATURAL MORALITY ARE FATAL TO THE PEOPLE,
AND OPPOSED TO MAN'S NATURE.
We can judge of the merit of a system of morals but by its conformity
with man's nature. According to this comparison, we have a right to
reject it, if we find it detrimental to the welfare of mankind. Whoever
has seriously meditated upon religion and its supernatural morality,
whoever has weighed its advantages and disadvantages, will become
convinced that they are both injurious to the interests of the human
race, or directly opposed to man's nature.
"People, to arms! Your God's cause is at stake! Heaven is outraged!
Faith is in danger! Down upon infidelity, blasphemy, and heresy!"
By the magical power of these valiant words, which the people never
understand, the priests in all ages were the leaders in the revolts of
nations, in dethroning kings, in kindling civil wars, and in imprisoning
men. When we chance to examine the important objects which have excited
the Celestial wrath and produced so many ravages upon the earth, it is
found that the foolish reveries and the strange conjectures of some
theologian who did not understand himself, or, the pretensions of the
clergy, have severed all ties of society and inundated the human race in
its own blood and tears.
CLXXIII.--HOW THE UNION OF RELIGION AND POLITICS IS FATAL TO THE PEOPLE
AND TO THE KINGS.
The sovereigns of this world in associating the Deity in the government
of their realms, in pretending to be His lieutenants and His
representatives upon earth, in admitting that they hold their power from
Him, must necessarily accept His ministers as rivals or as masters. Is
it, then, astonishing that the priests have often made the kings feel
the superiority of the Celestial Monarch? Have they not more than once
made the temporal princes understand that the greatest physical power is
compelled to surrender to the spiritual power of opinion? Nothing is
more difficult than to serve two masters, especially when they do not
agree upon what they demand of their subjects. The union of religion
with politics has necessarily caused a double legislation in the States.
The law of God, interpreted by His priests, is often contrary to the law
of the sovereign or to the interest of the State. When the princes are
firm, and sure of the love of their subjects, God's law is sometimes
obliged to comply with the wise intentions of the temporal sovereign;
but more often the sovereign authority is obliged to retreat before the
Divine authority, that is to say, before the interests of the clergy.
Nothing is more dangerous for a prince, than to meddle with
ecclesiastical affairs (to put his hands into the holy-water pot), that
is to say, to attempt the reform of abuses consecrated by religion. God
is never more angry than when the Divine rights, the privileges, the
possessions, and the immunities of His priests are interfered with.
Metaphysical speculations or the religious opinions of men, never
influence their conduct except when they believe them conformed to their
interests. Nothing proves this truth more forcibly than the conduct of a
great number of princes in regard to the spiritual power, which we see
them very often resist. Should not a sovereign who is persuaded of the
importance and the rights of religion, conscientiously feel himself
obliged to receive with respect the orders of his priests, and consider
them as commandments of the Deity? There was a time when the kings and
the people, more conformable, and convinced of the rights of the
spiritual power, became its slaves, surrendered to it on all occasions,
and were but docile instruments in its hands; this happy time is no
more. By a strange inconsistency, we sometimes see the most religious
monarchs oppose the enterprises of those whom they regard as God's
ministers. A sovereign who is filled with religion or respect for his
God, ought to be constantly prostrate before his priests, and regard
them as his true sovereigns. Is there a power upon the earth which has
the right to measure itself with that of the Most High?