From the most remote period theology alone regulated the march of
philosophy. What aid has it lent it? It changed it into an
unintelligible jargon, which only had a tendency to render the clearest
truth uncertain; it converted the art of reasoning into a science of
words; it threw the human mind into the aerial regions of metaphysics,
where it unsuccessfully occupied itself in sounding useless and
dangerous abysses. For physical and simple causes, this philosophy
substituted supernatural causes, or, rather, causes truly occult; it
explained difficult phenomena by agents more inconceivable than these
phenomena; it filled discourse with words void of sense, incapable of
giving the reason of things, better suited to obscure than to enlighten,
and which seem invented but to discourage man, to guard him against the
powers of his own mind, to make him distrust the principles of reason
and evidence, and to surround the truth with an insurmountable barrier.
CCII.---THEOLOGY NEITHER EXPLAINS NOR ENLIGHTENS ANYTHING IN THE WORLD OR
IN NATURE.
If we would believe the adherents of religion, nothing could be
explicable in the world without it; nature would be a continual enigma;
it would be impossible for man to comprehend himself. But, at the
bottom, what does this religion explain to us? The more we examine it,
the more we find that theological notions are fit but to perplex all our
ideas; they change all into mysteries; they explain to us difficult
things by impossible things. Is it, then, explaining things to attribute
them to unknown agencies, to invisible powers, to immaterial causes? Is
it really enlightening the human mind when, in its embarrassment, it is
directed to the "depths of the treasures of Divine Wisdom," upon which
they tell us it is in vain for us to turn our bold regards? Can the
Divine Nature, which we know nothing about, make us understand man's
nature, which we find so difficult to explain?
Ask a Christian philosopher what is the origin of the world. He will
answer that God created the universe. What is God? We do not know
anything about it. What is it to create? We have no idea of it! What is
the cause of pestilences, famines, wars, sterility, inundations,
earthquakes? It is God's wrath. What remedies can prevent these
calamities? Prayers, sacrifices, processions, offerings, ceremonies,
are, we are told, the true means to disarm Celestial fury. But why is
Heaven angry? Because men are wicked. Why are men wicked? Because their
nature is corrupt. What is the cause of this corruption? It is, a
theologian of enlightened Europe will reply, because the first man was
seduced by the first woman to eat of an apple which his God had
forbidden him to touch. Who induced this woman to do such a folly? The
Devil. Who created the Devil? God! Why did God create this Devil
destined to pervert the human race? We know nothing about it; it is a
mystery hidden in the bosom of the Deity.
Does the earth revolve around the sun? Two centuries ago a devout
philosopher would have replied that such a thought was blasphemy,
because such a system could not agree with the Holy Book, which every
Christian reveres as inspired by the Deity Himself. What is the opinion
to-day about it? Notwithstanding Divine Inspiration, the Christian
philosophers finally concluded to rely upon evidence rather than upon
the testimony of their inspired books.
What is the hidden principle of the actions and of the motions of the
human body? It is the soul. What is a soul? It is a spirit. What is a
spirit? It is a substance which has neither form, color, expansion, nor
parts. How can we conceive of such a substance? How can it move a body?
We know nothing about it. Have brutes souls? The Carthusian assures you
that they are machines. But do we not see them act, feel, and think in a
manner which resembles that of men? This is a pure illusion, you say.
But why do you deprive the brutes of souls, which, without understanding
it, you attribute to men? It is that the souls of the brutes would
embarrass our theologians, who, content with the power of frightening
and damning the immortal souls of men, do not take the same interest in
damning those of the brutes. Such are the puerile solutions which
philosophy, always guided by the leading-strings of theology, was
obliged to bring forth to explain the problems of the physical and moral
world.
CCIII.--HOW THEOLOGY HAS FETTERED HUMAN MORALS AND RETARDED THE PROGRESS
OF ENLIGHTENMENT, OF REASON, AND OF TRUTH.
How many subterfuges and mental gymnastics all the ancient and modern
thinkers have employed, in order to avoid falling out with the ministers
of the Gods, who in all ages were the true tyrants of thought! How
Descartes, Malebranche, Leibnitz, and many others have been compelled to
invent hypotheses and evasions in order to reconcile their discoveries
with the reveries and the blunders which religion had rendered sacred!
With what prevarications have not the greatest philosophers guarded
themselves even at the risk of being absurd, inconsistent, and
unintelligible whenever their ideas did not correspond with the
principles of theology! Vigilant priests were always ready to extinguish
systems which could not be made to tally with their interests. Theology
in every age has been the bed of Procrustes upon which this brigand
extended his victims; he cut off the limbs when they were too long, or
stretched them by horses when they were shorter than the bed upon which
he placed them.
What sensible man who has a love for science, and is interested in the
welfare of humanity, can reflect without sorrow and pain upon the loss
of so many profound, laborious, and subtle heads, who, for many
centuries, have foolishly exhausted themselves upon idle fancies that
proved to be injurious to our race? What light could have been thrown
into the minds of many famous thinkers, if, instead of occupying
themselves with a useless theology, and its impertinent disputes, they
had turned their attention upon intelligible and truly important
objects. Half of the efforts that it cost the genius that was able to
forge their religious opinions, half of the expense which their
frivolous worship cost the nations, would have sufficed to enlighten
them perfectly upon morality, politics, philosophy, medicine,
agriculture, etc. Superstition nearly always absorbs the attention, the
admiration, and the treasures of the people; they have a very expensive
religion; but they have for their money, neither light, virtue, nor
happiness.