It is asked what motives has an atheist for doing right. He can have the
motive of pleasing himself and his fellow-creatures; of living happily
and tranquilly; of making himself loved and respected by men, whose
existence and whose dispositions are better known than those of a being
impossible to understand. Can he who fears not the Gods, fear anything?
He can fear men, their contempt, their disrespect, and the punishments
which the laws inflict; finally, he can fear himself; he can be afraid
of the remorse that all those experience whose conscience reproaches
them for having deserved the hatred of their fellow-beings. Conscience
is the inward testimony which we render to ourselves for having acted in
such a manner as to deserve the esteem or the censure of those with whom
we associate. This conscience is based upon the knowledge which we have
of men, and of the sentiments which our actions must awaken in them. A
religious person's conscience persuades him that he has pleased or
displeased his God, of whom he has no idea, and whose obscure and
doubtful intentions are explained to him only by suspicious men, who
know no more of the essence of Divinity than he does, and who do not
agree upon what can please or displease God. In a word, the conscience
of a credulous man is guided by men whose own conscience is in error, or
whose interest extinguishes intelligence.
Can an atheist have conscience? What are his motives for abstaining from
secret vices and crimes of which other men are ignorant, and which are
beyond the reach of laws? He can be assured by constant experience that
there is no vice which, in the nature of things, does not bring its own
punishment. If he wishes to preserve himself, he will avoid all those
excesses which can be injurious to his health; he would not desire to
live and linger, thus becoming a burden to himself and others. In regard
to secret crimes, he would avoid them through fear of being ashamed of
himself, from whom he can not hide. If he has reason, he will know the
price of the esteem that an honest man should have for himself. He will
know, besides, that unexpected circumstances can unveil to the eyes of
others the conduct which he feels interested in concealing. The other
world gives no motive for doing well to him who finds no motive for it
here.
CLXXIX.--AN ATHEISTICAL KING WOULD BE PREFERABLE TO ONE WHO IS RELIGIOUS
AND WICKED, AS WE OFTEN SEE THEM.
The speculating atheist, the theist will tell us, may be an honest man,
but his writings will cause atheism in politics. Princes and ministers,
being no longer restrained by the fear of God, will give themselves up
without scruple to the most frightful excesses. But no matter what we
can suppose of the depravity of an atheist on a throne, can it ever be
any greater or more injurious than that of so many conquerors, tyrants,
persecutors, of ambitious and perverse courtiers, who, without being
atheists, but who, being very often religious, do not cease to make
humanity groan under the weight of their crimes? Can an atheistical king
inflict more evil on the world than a Louis XI., a Philip II., a
Richelieu, who have all allied religion with crime? Nothing is rarer
than atheistical princes, and nothing more common than very bad and very
religious tyrants.