forming the minds and hearts of young princes, destined to govern nations.
What qualifications have instructors of this stamp! By what interests can
they be animated? Full of prejudices themselves, they will teach their
pupil to regard superstition, as most important and sacred; its chimerical
duties, as most indispensable, intolerance and persecution, as the true
foundation of his future authority. They will endeavour to make him a
party leader, a turbulent fanatic, a tyrant; they will early stifle his
reason, and forewarn him against the use of it; they will prevent truth
from reaching his ears; they will exasperate him against true talents, and
prejudice him in favour of contemptible ones; in short, they will make him
a weak devotee, who will have no idea either of justice or injustice, nor
of true glory, nor of true greatness, and who will be destitute of the
knowledge and virtues necessary to the government of a great nation. Such
is the plan of the education of a child, destined one day to create the
happiness or misery of millions of men!
150.
Priests have ever shewn themselves the friends of despotism, and the
enemies of public liberty: their trade requires abject and submissive
slaves, who have never the audacity to reason. In an absolute government,
who ever gains an ascendancy over the mind of a weak and stupid prince,
becomes master of the state. Instead of conducting the people to
salvation, priests have always conducted them to servitude.
In consideration of the supernatural titles, which religion has forged for
the worst of princes, the latter have commonly united with priests, who,
sure of governing by opinion the sovereign himself, have undertaken to
bind the hands of the people and to hold them under the yoke. But the
tyrant, covered with the shield of religion, in vain flatters himself that
he is secure from every stroke of fate; opinion is a weak rampart against
the despair of the people. Besides, the priest is a friend of the tyrant
only while he finds his account in tyranny; he preaches sedition, and
demolishes the idol he has made, when he finds it no longer sufficiently
conformable to the interest of God, whom he makes to speak at his will,
and who never speaks except according to his interests.
It will no doubt be said, that sovereigns, knowing all the advantages
which religion procures them, are truly interested in supporting it with
all their strength. If religious opinions are useful to tyrants, it is
very evident, that they are useful to those, who govern by the laws of
reason and equity. Is there then any advantage in exercising tyranny? Are
princes truly interested in being tyrants? Does not tyranny deprive them
of true power, of the love of the people, and of all safety? Ought not
every reasonable prince to perceive, that the despot is a madman, and
an enemy to himself? Should not every enlightened prince beware of
flatterers, whose object is to lull him to sleep upon the brink of the
precipice which they form beneath him?
151.
If sacerdotal flatteries succeed in perverting princes and making them
tyrants; tyrants, on their part, necessarily corrupt both the great and
the humble. Under an unjust ruler, void of goodness and virtue, who knows
no law but his caprice, a nation must necessarily be depraved. Will this
ruler wish to have, about his person, honest, enlightened, and virtuous
men? No. He wants none but flatterers, approvers, imitators, slaves, base
and servile souls, who conform themselves to his inclinations. His court
will propagate the contagion of vice among the lower ranks. All will
gradually become corrupted in a state, whose chief is corrupt. It was long
since said, that "Princes seem to command others to do whatever they do
themselves."
Religion, far from being a restraint upon sovereigns, enables them to
indulge without fear or remorse, in acts of licentiousness as injurious to
themselves, as to the nations whom they govern. It is never with impunity,
that men are deceived. Tell a sovereign, that he is a god; he will very
soon believe that he owes nothing to any one. Provided he is feared, he
will care very little about being loved: he will observe neither rules,
nor relations with his subjects, nor duties towards them. Tell this
prince, that he is _accountable for his actions to God alone_, and he will
soon act as if he were accountable to no one.
152.
An enlightened sovereign is he, who knows his true interests; who knows,
that they are connected with the interests of his nation; that a prince
cannot be great, powerful, beloved, or respected, while he commands only
unhappy slaves; that equity, beneficence, and vigilance will give him
more real authority over his people, than the fabulous titles, said to be
derived from heaven. He will see, that Religion is useful only to priests,
that it is useless to society and often troubles it, and that it ought to
be restrained in order to be prevented from doing injury. Finally, he will
perceive, that, to reign with glory, he must have good laws and inculcate
virtue, and not found his power upon impostures and fallacies.
153.
The ministers of religion have taken great care to make of their God, a
formidable, capricious, and fickle tyrant. Such a God was necessary to
their variable interests. A God, who should be just and good, without
mixture of caprice or perversity; a God, who had constantly the qualities
of an honest man, or of a kind sovereign, would by no means suit his
ministers. It is useful to priests, that men should tremble before their
God, in order that they may apply to them to obtain relief from their
fears. "No man is a hero before his valet de chambre." It is not
surprising, that a God, dressed up by his priests so as to be terrible
to others, should rarely impose upon them, or should have but very little
influence upon their conduct. Hence, in every country, their conduct is
very much the same. Under pretext of the glory of their God, they every
where prey upon ignorance, degrade the mind, discourage industry, and sow
discord. Ambition and avarice have at all times been the ruling passions
of the priesthood. The priest every where rises superior to sovereigns and
laws; we see him every where occupied with the interests of his pride,
of his cupidity, and of his despotic, revengeful humour. In the room
of useful and social virtues, he everywhere substitutes expiations,
sacrifices, ceremonies, mysterious practices, in a word, inventions
lucrative to himself and ruinous to others.
The mind is confounded and the reason is amazed upon viewing the
ridiculous customs and pitiful means, which the ministers of the gods have
invented in every country to purify souls, and render heaven favourable.
Here they cut off part of a child's prepuce, to secure for him divine
benevolence; there, they pour water upon his head, to cleanse him of
crimes, which he could not as yet have committed. In one place, they
command him to plunge into a river, whose waters have the power of washing
away all stains; in another, he is forbidden to eat certain food, the use
of which will not fail to excite the celestial wrath; in other countries,
they enjoin upon sinful man to come periodically and confess his faults to
a priest, who is often a greater sinner than himself, etc., etc., etc.
154.
What should we say of a set of empirics, who, resorting every day to a
public place, should extol the goodness of their remedies, and vend them
as infallible, while they themselves were full of the infirmities, which
they pretend to cure? Should we have much confidence in the recipes of
these quacks, though they stun us with crying, "take our remedies, their
effects are infallible; they cure every body; except us." What should we
afterwards think, should those quacks spend their lives in complaining,
that their remedies never produced the desired effect upon the sick,
who take them? In fine, what idea should we form of the stupidity of the
vulgar, who, notwithstanding these confessions, should not cease to pay
dearly for remedies, the inefficacy of which every thing tends to prove?
Priests resemble these alchymists, who boldly tell us, they have the
secret of making gold, while they have scarcely clothes to cover their
nakedness.
The ministers of religion incessantly declaim against the corruption of
the age, and loudly complain of the little effect of their lessons, while
at the same time they assure us, that religion is the _universal remedy_,
the true _panacea_ against the wickedness of mankind. These priests are
very sick themselves, yet men continue to frequent their shops, and to
have faith in their divine antidotes, which, by their own confession,
never effect a cure!
155.
Religion, especially with the moderns, has tried to identify itself with
Morality, the principles of which it has thereby totally obscured. It has
rendered men unsociable by duty, and forced them to be inhuman to everyone
who thought differently from themselves. Theological disputes, equally
unintelligible to each of the enraged parties, have shaken empires, caused
revolutions, been fatal to sovereigns, and desolated all Europe. These
contemptible quarrels have not been extinguished even in rivers of blood.
Since the extinction of paganism, the people have made it a religious
principle to become outrageous, whenever any opinion is advanced which
their priests think contrary to _sound doctrine_. The sectaries of a
religion, which preaches, in appearance, nothing but charity, concord, and
peace, have proved themselves more ferocious than cannibals or savages,
whenever their divines excited them to destroy their brethren. There is
no crime, which men have not committed under the idea of pleasing the
Divinity, or appeasing his wrath.
The idea of a terrible God, whom we paint to ourselves as a despot, must
necessarily render his subjects wicked. Fear makes only slaves, and slaves
are cowardly, base, cruel, and think every thing lawful, in order to
gain the favour or escape the chastisements of the master whom they fear.
Liberty of thinking alone can give men humanity and greatness of soul.
The notion of a tyrant-god tends only to make them abject, morose,
quarrelsome, intolerant slaves.
Every religion, which supposes a God easily provoked, jealous, revengeful,
punctilious about his rights or the etiquette with which he is treated;--a
God little enough to be hurt by the opinions which men can form of him;--a
God unjust enough to require that we have uniform notions of his conduct;
a religion which supposes such a God necessarily becomes restless,
unsociable, and sanguinary; the worshippers of such a God would never
think, that they could, without offence, forbear hating and even
destroying every one, who is pointed out to them, as an adversary of
this God; they would think, that it would be to betray the cause of
their celestial Monarch, to live in friendly intercourse with rebellious
fellow-citizens. If we love what God hates, do we not expose ourselves to
his implacable hatred?
Infamous persecutors, and devout men-haters! Will you never discern the
folly and injustice of your intolerant disposition? Do you not see, that
man is no more master of his religious opinions, his belief or unbelief,
than of the language, which he learns from infancy? To punish a man for
his errors, is it not to punish him for having been educated differently
from you? If I am an unbeliever, is it possible for me to banish from my
mind the reasons that have shaken my faith? If your God gives men leave
to be damned, what have you to meddle with? Are you more prudent and wise,
than this God, whose rights you would avenge?
156.
There is no devotee, who does not, according to his temperament, hate,
despise, or pity the adherents of a sect, different from his own.
The _established_ religion, which is never any other than that of the
sovereign and the armies, always makes its superiority felt in a very
cruel and injurious manner by the weaker sects. As yet there is no true
toleration upon earth; men every where adore a jealous God, of whom each
nation believes itself the friend, to the exclusion of all others.
Every sect boasts of adoring alone the true God, the universal God, the
Sovereign of all nature. But when we come to examine this Monarch of the
world, we find that every society, sect, party, or religious cabal, makes
of this powerful God only a pitiful sovereign, whose care and goodness
extend only to a small number of his subjects, who pretend that they
alone have the happiness to enjoy his favours, and that he is not at all
concerned about the others.
The founders of religions, and the priests who support them, evidently
proposed to separate the nations, whom they taught, from the other
nations; they wished to separate their own flock by distinguishing marks;
they gave their followers gods, who were hostile to the other gods; they
taught them modes of worship, dogmas and ceremonies apart; and above
all, they persuaded them, that the religion of others was impious and
abominable. By this unworthy artifice, the ambitious knaves established,
their usurpation over the minds of their followers, rendered them
unsociable, and made them regard with an evil eye all persons who had not
the same mode of worship and the same ideas as they had. Thus it is, that
Religion has shut up the heart and for ever banished from it the affection
that man ought to have for his fellow-creature. Sociability, indulgence,
humanity, those first virtues of all morality, are totally incompatible
with religious prejudices.
157.
Every national religion is calculated to make man vain, unsociable, and
wicked; the first step towards humanity is to permit every one peaceably
to embrace the mode of worship and opinions, which he judges to be right.
But this conduct cannot be pleasing to the ministers of religion, who wish
to have the right of tyrannizing over men even in their thoughts.
Blind and bigoted princes! You hate and persecute heretics, and order them
to execution, because you are told, that these wretches displease God. But
do you not say, that your God is full of goodness? How then can you expect
to please him by acts of barbarity, which he must necessarily disapprove?
Besides, who has informed you, that their opinions displease your God?
Your priests? But, who assures you, that your priests are not themselves
deceived or wish to deceive you? The same priests? Princes! It is
then upon the hazardous word of your priests, that you commit the most
atrocious crimes, under the idea of pleasing the Divinity!
158.
Pascal says, "that man never does evil so fully and cheerfully, as when he
acts from a false principle of conscience." Nothing is more dangerous than
a religion, which lets loose the ferocity of the multitude, and justifies
their blackest crimes. They will set no bounds to their wickedness, when
they think it authorized by their God, whose interests, they are told, can
make every action legitimate. Is religion in danger?--the most civilized
people immediately becomes true savages, and think nothing forbidden. The
more cruel they are, the more agreeable they suppose they are to their
God, whose cause they imagine cannot be supported with too much warmth.
All religions have authorized innumerable crimes. The Jews, intoxicated
with the promises of their God, arrogated the rights of exterminating
whole nations. Relying on the oracles of their God, the Romans conquered
and ravaged the world. The Arabians, encouraged by their divine prophet,
carried fire and sword among the Christians and the idolaters. The
CHRISTIANS, under pretext of extending their holy religion, have often
deluged both hemispheres in blood.
In all events favourable to their own interest, which they always call
_the cause of God_, priests show us the _finger of God_. According to
these principles, the devout have the happiness to see the _finger of
God_ in revolts, revolutions, massacres, regicides, crimes, prostitutions,
horrors; and, if these things contribute ever so little to the triumph
of religion, we are told, that "God uses all sorts of means to attain his
ends." Is any thing more capable of effacing every idea of morality from
the minds of men, than to inform them, that their God, so powerful and
perfect, is often forced to make use of criminal actions in order to
accomplish his designs?
159.
No sooner do we complain of the extravagancies and evils, which Religion
has so often caused upon the earth, than we are reminded, that these
excesses are not owing to Religion; but "that they are the sad effects of
the passions of men." But I would ask, what has let loose these passions?
It is evidently Religion; it is zeal, that renders men inhuman, and serves
to conceal the greatest atrocities. Do not these disorders then prove,
that religion, far from restraining the passions of men, only covers them
with a veil, which sanctifies them, and that nothing would be more useful,
than to tear away this sacred veil of which men often make such a terrible
use? What horrors would be banished from society, if the wicked were
deprived of so plausible a pretext for disturbing it!
Instead of being angels of peace among men, priests have been demons of
discord. They have pretended to receive from heaven the right of being
quarrelsome, turbulent, and rebellious. Do not the ministers of the
Lord think themselves aggrieved, and pretend that the divine Majesty is
offended, whenever sovereigns have the temerity to prevent them from
doing evil? Priests are like the spiteful woman who cried _fire! murder!
assassination!_ while her husband held her hands to prevent her from
striking him.
160.
Notwithstanding the bloody tragedies, which Religion often acts, it is
insisted, that, without Religion, there can be no Morality. If we judge
theological opinions by their effects, we may confidently assert, that all
Morality is perfectly incompatible with men's religious opinions.
"Imitate God," exclaim the pious. But, what would be our Morality, should
we imitate this God! and what God ought we to imitate? The God of the
Deist? But even this God cannot serve us as a very constant model of
goodness. If he is the author of all things, he is the author both of good
and evil. If he is the author of order, he is also the author of disorder,
which could not take place without his permission. If he produces, he
destroys; if he gives life, he takes it away; if he grants abundance,
riches, prosperity, and peace, he permits or sends scarcity, poverty,
calamities, and wars. How then can we receive as a model of permanent
beneficence, the God of Deism or natural religion, whose favourable
dispositions are every instant contradicted by all the effects we behold?
Morality must have a basis less tottering than the example of a God, whose
conduct varies, and who cannot be called good, unless we obstinately shut
our eyes against the evil which he causes or permits in this world.
Shall we imitate the _beneficent, mighty Jupiter_ of heathen antiquity? To
imitate such a god, is to admit as a model, a rebellious son, who ravishes
the throne from his father. It is to imitate a debauchee, an adulterer,
one guilty of incest and of base passions, at whose conduct every
reasonable mortal would blush. What would have been the condition of men
under paganism, had they imagined, like Plato, that virtue consisted in
imitating the gods!
Must we imitate the God of the Jews! Shall we find in _Jehovah_ a model
for our conduct? This is a truly savage god, made for a stupid, cruel,
and immoral people; he is always furious, breathes nothing but vengeance,
commands carnage, theft, and unsociability. The conduct of this god cannot
serve as a model to that of an honest man, and can be imitated only by a
chief of robbers.
Shall we then imitate the _Jesus_ of the Christians? Does this God, who
died to appease the implacable fury of his father, furnish us an example
which men ought to follow? Alas! we shall see in him only a God, or
rather a fanatic, a misanthrope, who, himself plunged in wretchedness and
preaching to wretches, will advise them to be poor, to combat with and
stifle nature, to hate pleasure, seek grief, and detest themselves. He
will tell them to leave father, mother, relations, friends, etc., to
follow him. "Fine morality!" you say. It is, undoubtedly, admirable: it
must be divine, for it is impracticable to men. But is not such sublime
morality calculated to render virtue odious? According to the so much
boasted morality of the _man_-God of the Christians, a disciple of his in
this world must be like _Tantalus_, tormented with a burning thirst, which
he is not allowed to quench. Does not such morality give us a wonderful
idea of the author of nature? If, as we are assured, he has created all
things for his creatures, by what strange whim does he forbid them the
use of the goods he has created for them? Is pleasure then, which man
continually desires, only a snare, which God has maliciously laid to
surprise his weakness?
161.
The followers of Christ would have us regard, as a miracle, the
establishment of their Religion, which is totally repugnant to nature,
opposite to all the propensities of the heart, and inimical to sensual
pleasures. But the austerity of a doctrine renders it the more marvellous
in the eyes of the vulgar. The same disposition, which respects
inconceivable mysteries as divine and supernatural, admires, as divine and
supernatural, a Morality, that is impracticable, and beyond the powers of
man.
To admire a system of Morality, and to put it in practice, are two very
different things. All Christians admire and extol the Morality of the
gospel; which they do not practise.
The whole world is more or less infected with a Religious morality,
founded upon the opinion, that to please the Divinity, it is absolutely
necessary to render ourselves unhappy upon earth. In all parts of our
globe, we see penitents, fakirs, and fanatics, who seem to have profoundly
studied the means of tormenting themselves, in honour of a being whose
goodness all agree in celebrating. Religion, by its essence, is an enemy
to the joy and happiness of men. "Blessed are the poor, blessed are
they, who weep; blessed are they, who suffer; misery to those, who are
in abundance and joy." Such are the rare discoveries, announced by
Christianity!
162.
What is a Saint in every religion? A man, who prays, and fasts, who
torments himself, and shuns the world; who like an owl, delights only
in solitude, abstains from all pleasure, and seems frightened of every
object, which may divert him from his fanatical meditations. Is this
virtue? Is a being of this type, kind to himself, or useful to others?
Would not society be dissolved, and man return to a savage state, if every
one were fool enough to be a Saint?
It is evident, that the literal and rigorous practice of the divine
Morality of the Christians would prove the infallible ruin of nations. A
Christian, aiming at perfection, ought to free his mind from whatever can
divert it from heaven, his true country. Upon earth, he sees nothing but
temptations, snares, and rocks of perdition. He must fear science, as
hurtful to faith; he must avoid industry, as a means of obtaining riches,
too fatal to salvation; he must renounce offices and honours, as capable
of exciting his pride, and calling off his attention from the care of
his soul. In a word, the sublime Morality of Christ, were it practicable,
would break all the bonds of society.
A Saint in society is as useless, as a Saint in the desert; his humour is
morose, discontented, and often turbulent; his zeal sometimes obliges him
in conscience to trouble society by opinions or dreams, which his vanity
makes him consider as inspirations from on high. The annals of every
religion are full of restless Saints, intractable Saints, and seditious
Saints, who have become famous by the ravages, with which, _for the
greater glory of God_, they have desolated the universe. If Saints, who
live in retirement, are useless, those who live in the world, are often
very dangerous.
The vanity of acting, the desire of appearing illustrious and peculiar in
conduct, commonly constitute the distinguishing character of Saints. Pride
persuades them, that they are extraordinary men far above human nature,
beings much more perfect than others, favourites whom God regards with
much more complaisance than the rest of mortals. Humility, in a Saint,
is commonly only a more refined pride than that of the generality of men.
Nothing but the most ridiculous vanity can induce man to wage continual
war against his own nature.
163.