_The Origin of Man's Ideas upon the Divinity._
If man possessed the courage, if he had the requisite industry to recur
to the source of those opinions which are most deeply engraven on his
brain; if he rendered to himself a faithful account of the reasons which
make him hold these opinions as sacred; if he coolly examined the basis
of his hopes, the foundation of his fears, he would find that it very
frequently happens, those objects, or those ideas which move him most
powerfully, either have no real existence, or are words devoid of
meaning, which terror has conjured up to explain some sudden disaster;
that they are often phantoms engendered by a disordered imagination,
modified by ignorance; the effect of an ardent mind distracted by
contending passions, which prevent him from either reasoning justly, or
consulting experience in his judgment; that this mind often labours with
a precipitancy that throws his intellectual faculties into confusion;
that bewilders his ideas; that consequently he gives a substance and a
form to chimeras, to airy nothings, which he afterwards idolizes from
sloth, reverences from prejudice.
A sensible being placed in a nature where every part is in motion, has
various feelings, in consequence of either the agreeable or disagreeable
effects which he is obliged to experience from this continued action and
re-action; in consequence he either finds himself happy or miserable;
according to the quality of the sensations excited in him, he will love
or fear, seek after or fly from, the real or supposed causes of such
marked effects operated on his machine. But if he is ignorant of nature,
if he is destitute of experience, he will frequently deceive himself as
to these causes; for want of either capability or inclination to recur
back to them, he will neither have a true knowledge of their energy, nor
a clear idea of their mode of acting: thus until reiterated experience
shall have formed his ideas, until the mirror of truth shall have shewn
him the judgment he ought to make, he will be involved in trouble, a
prey to incertitude, a victim to credulity.
Man is a being who brings with him nothing into the world save an
aptitude to feeling in a manner more or less lively according to his
individual organization: he has no innate knowledge of any of the causes
that act upon him: by degrees his faculty of feeling discovers to him
their various qualities; he learns to judge of them; time familiarizes
him with their properties; he attaches ideas to them, according to
the manner in which they have affected him; these ideas are correct or
otherwise, in a ratio to the soundness of his organic structure:
his judgment is faulty or not, as these organs are either well or
ill-constituted; in proportion as they are competent to afford him sure
and reiterated experience.
The first moments of man are marked by his wants; that is to say, the
first impulse he receives is to conserve his existence; this he would
not be able to maintain without the concurrence of many analogous
causes: these wants in a sensible being, manifest themselves by a
general languor, a sinking, a confusion in his machine, which gives him
the consciousness of a painful sensation: this derangement subsists, is
even augmented, until the cause suitable to remove it re-establishes
the harmony so necessary to the existence of the human frame. Want,
therefore, is the first evil man experiences; nevertheless it is
requisite to the maintenance of his existence. Was it not for this
derangement of his body, which obliges him to furnish its remedy, he
would not be warned of the necessity of preserving the existence he has
received. Without wants man would be an insensible machine, similar to
a vegetable; like that he would be incapable of preserving himself;
he would not be competent to using the means required to conserve his
being. To his wants are to be ascribed his passions; his desires;
the exercise of his corporeal functions; the play of his intellectual
faculties: they are his wants that oblige him to think; that determine
his will, that induce him to act; it is to satisfy them or rather to
put an end to the painful sensations excited by their presence, that
according to his capacity, to the natural sensibility of his soul,
to the energies which are peculiar to himself, he gives play to his
faculties, exerts the activity of his bodily strength, or displays the
extensive powers of his mind. His wants being perpetual, he is obliged
to labour without relaxation, to procure objects competent to satisfy
them. In a word, it is owing to his multiplied wants that man's energy
is kept in a state of continual activity: as soon as he ceases to
have wants, he falls into inaction--becomes listless--declines into
apathy--sinks into a languor that is incommodious to his feelings or
prejudicial to his existence: this lethargic state of weariness lasts
until new wants, by giving him fresh activity, rouse his dormant
faculties--throw off his stupor--re-animate his vigour, and destroy the
sluggishness to which he had become a prey.
From hence it will be obvious that evil is necessary to man; without it
he would neither be in a condition to know that which injures him; to
avoid its presence; or to seek his own welfare: without this stimulus,
he would differ in nothing from insensible, unorganized beings: if those
evanescent evils which he calls _wants_, did not oblige him to call
forth his faculties, to set his energies in motion, to cull experience,
to compare objects, to discriminate them, to separate those which have
the capabilities to injure him, from those which possess the means
to benefit him, he would be insensible to happiness--inadequate to
enjoyment. In short, _without evil man would be ignorant of good_; he
would be continually exposed to perish like the leaf on a tree. He would
resemble an infant, who, destitute of experience, runs the risque of
meeting his destruction at every step he takes, unguarded by his nurse.
What the nurse is to the child, experience is to the adult; when either
are wanting, these children of different lustres generally go astray:
frequently encounter disaster. Without evil he would be unable to judge
of any thing; he would have no preference; his will would be without
volition, he would be destitute of passions; desire would find no place
in his heart; he would not revolt at the most disgusting objects; he
would not strive to put them away; he would neither have stimuli
to love, nor motives to fear any thing; he would be an insensible
automaton; he would no longer be a man.
If no evil had existed in this world, man would never have dreamt of
those numerous divinities, to whom he has rendered such various modes
of worship. If nature had permitted him easily to satisfy all his
regenerating wants, if she had given him none but agreeable sensations,
his days would have uninterruptedly rolled on in one perpetual
uniformity; he would never have discovered his own nakedness; he would
never have had motives to search after the unknown causes of things--to
meditate in pain. Therefore man, always contented, would only have
occupied himself with satisfying his wants; with enjoying the present,
with feeling the influence of objects, that would unceasingly warn him
of his existence in a mode that he must necessarily approve; nothing
would alarm his heart; every thing would be analogous to his existence:
he would neither know fear, experience distrust, nor have inquietude
for the future: these feelings can only be the consequence of some
troublesome sensation, which must have anteriorly affected him, or which
by disturbing the harmony of his machine, has interrupted the course of
his happiness; which has shewn him he is naked.
Independent of those wants which in man renew themselves every instant;
which he frequently finds it impossible to satisfy; every individual
experiences a multiplicity of evils--he suffers from the inclemency
of the seasons--he pines in penury--he is infected with plague--he
is scourged by war--he is the victim of famine--he is afflicted with
disease--he is the sport of a thousand accidents, &c. This is the reason
why all men are fearful; why the whole human race are diffident. The
knowledge he has of pain alarms him upon all unknown causes, that is to
say, upon all those of which he has not yet experienced the effect; this
experience made with precipitation, or if it be preferred, by instinct,
places him on his guard against all those objects from the operation of
which he is ignorant what consequences may result to himself.
His inquietude is in proportion; his fears keep pace with the extent of
the disorder which these objects produce in him; they are measured by
their rarity, that is to say, by the inexperience he has of them; by the
natural sensibility of the soul; and by the ardour of his imagination.
The wore ignorant man is, the less experience he has, the more he is
susceptible of fear; solitude, the obscurity of a forest, silence, and
the darkness of night, desolate ruins, the roaring of the wind, sudden,
confused noises, are objects of terror to all who are unaccustomed to
these things. The uninformed man is a child whom every thing astonishes;
who trembles at every thing he encounters: his alarms disappear, his
fears diminish, his mind becomes calm, in proportion as experience
familiarizes him, more or less, with natural effects; his fears cease
entirely, as soon as he understands, or believes he understands, the
causes that act; or when he knows how to avoid their effects. But if he
cannot penetrate the causes which disturb him, if he cannot discover the
agents by whom he suffers, if he cannot find to what account to place
the confusion he experiences, his inquietude augments; his fears
redouble; his imagination leads him astray; it exaggerates his evil;
paints in a disorderly manner these unknown objects of his terror;
magnifies their powers; then making an analogy between them and those
terrific objects, with whom he is already acquainted, he suggests
to himself the means he usually takes to mitigate their anger; to
conciliate their kindness; he employs similar measures to soften the
anger, to disarm the power, to avert the effects of the concealed cause
which gives birth to his inquietudes, which fills him with anxiety,
which alarms his fears. It is thus his weakness, aided by ignorance,
renders him superstitious.
There are very few men, even in our own day, who have sufficiently
studied nature, who are fully apprised of physical causes, or with the
effects they must necessarily produce. This ignorance, without doubt,
was much greater in the more remote ages of the world, when the human
mind, yet in its infancy, had not collected that experience, taken that
expansion, made those strides towards improvement, which distinguishes
the present from the past. Savages dispersed, erratic, thinly scattered
up and down, knew the course of nature either very imperfectly or not
at all; society alone perfects human knowledge: it requires not only
multiplied but combined efforts to unravel the secrets of nature. This
granted, all natural causes were mysteries to our wandering ancestors;
the entire of nature was an enigma to them; all its phenomena was
marvellous, every event inspired terror to beings who were destitute
of experience; almost every thing, they saw must have appeared to them
strange, unusual, contrary to their idea of the order of things.
It cannot then furnish matter for surprise, if we behold men in the
present day trembling at the sight of those objects which have formerly
filled their fathers with dismay. _Eclipse, comets, meteors_, were, in
ancient days, subjects of alarm to all the people of the earth: these
effects, so natural in the eyes of the sound philosopher, who has by
degrees fathomed their true causes, have yet the right, possess the
power, to alarm the most numerous, to excite the fears of the least
instructed part of modern nations. The people of the present day, as
well as their ignorant ancestors, find something marvellous, believe
there is a supernatural agency in all those objects to which their eyes
are unaccustomed; they consider all those unknown causes as wonderful,
that act with a force of which their mind has no idea it is possible
the known agents are capable. The ignorant see wonders _prodigies,
miracles_, in all those striking effects of which they are unable to
render themselves a satisfactory account; all the causes which produce
them they think _supernatural_; this, however, really implies nothing
more than that they are not familiar to them, or that they have not
hitherto witnessed natural agents, whose energy was equal to the
production of effects so rare, so astonishing, as those with which their
sight has been appalled.
Besides the ordinary phenomena to which nations were witnesses without
being competent to unravel the causes, they have in times very remote
from ours, experienced calamities, whether general or local, which
filled them with the most cruel inquietude; which plunged them into an
abyss of consternation. The traditions of all people, the annals of all
nations, recal, even at this day, melancholy events, physical disasters,
dreadful catastrophes, which had the effect of spreading universal
terror among our forefathers, But when history should be silent on these
stupendous revolutions, would not our own reflection on what passes
under our eyes be sufficient to convince us, that all parts of our globe
have been, and following the course of things, will necessarily be
again violently agitated, overturned, changed, overflowed, in a state of
conflagration? Vast continents have been inundated, seas breaking their
limits have usurped the dominion of the earth; at length retiring,
these waters have left striking, proofs of their presence, by the marine
vestiges of shells, skeletons of sea fish, &c. which the attentive
observer meets with at every step, in the bowels of those fertile
countries we now inhabit--subterraneous fires have opened to themselves
the most frightful volcanoes, whose craters frequently issue destruction
on every side. In short, the elements unloosed, have at various times,
disputed among themselves the empire of our globe; this exhibits
evidence of the fact, by those vast heaps of wreck, those stupendous
ruins spread over its surface. What, then, must have been the fears of
mankind, who in those countries believed he beheld the entire of nature
armed against his peace, menacing with destruction his very abode? What
must have been the inquietude of a people taken thus unprovided, who
fancied they saw nature cruelly labouring to their annihilation? Who
beheld a world ready to be dashed into atoms; who witnessed the earth
suddenly rent asunder; whose yawning chasm was the grave of large
cities, whole provinces, entire nations? What ideas must mortals, thus
overwhelmed with terror, form to themselves of the irresistible cause
that could produce such extended effects? Without doubt they did not
attribute these wide spreading calamities to nature; neither did they
conceive they were mere physical causes; they could not suspect she was
the author, the accomplice of the confusion she herself experienced;
they did not see that these tremendous revolutions, these overpowering
disorders, were the necessary result of her immutable laws; that they
contributed to the general order by which she subsists; that, in point
of fact, there was nothing more surprising in the inundation of large
portions of the earth, in the swallowing up an entire nation, in a
volcanic conflagration spreading destruction over whole provinces, than
there is in a stone falling to the earth, or the death of a fly; that
each equally has its spring in the necessity of things.
It was under these astounding circumstances, that nations, bathed in
the most bitter tears, perplexed with the most frightful visions,
electrified with terror, not believing there existed on this mundane
ball, causes sufficiently powerful to operate the gigantic phenomena
that filled their minds with dismay, carried their streaming eyes
towards heaven, where their tremulous fears led them to suppose these
unknown agents, whose unprovoked enmity destroyed, their earthly
felicity, could alone reside.
It was in the lap of ignorance, in the season of alarm, in the bosom of
calamity, that mankind ever formed his first notions of the _Divinity_.
From hence it is obvious that his ideas on this subject are to be
suspected, that his notions are in a great measure false, that they are
always afflicting. Indeed, upon whatever part of our sphere we cast
our eyes, whether it be upon the frozen climates of the north, upon the
parching regions of the south, or under the more temperate zones, we
every where behold the people when assailed by misfortunes, have either
made to themselves national gods, or else have adopted those which have
been given them by their conquerors; before these beings, either
of their own creation or adoption, they have tremblingly prostrated
themselves in the hour of calamity, soliciting relief; have ignorantly
attributed to blocks of stone, or to men like themselves, those natural
effects which were above their comprehension; the inhabitants of many
nations, not contented with the national gods, made each to himself
one or more gods, which he supposed presided exclusively over his own
household, from whom he supposed he derived his own peculiar happiness,
to whom he attributed all his domestic misfortunes. The idea of these
powerful agents, these supposed distributors of good and evil, was
always associated with that of terror; their name was never pronounced
without recalling to man's wind either his own particular calamities or
those of his fathers. In many places man trembles at this day, because
his progenitors have trembled for thousands of years past. The thought
of his gods always awakened in man the most afflicting ideas. If he
recurred to the source of his actual fears, to the commencement of those
melancholy impressions that stamp themselves in his mind when their
name is announced, he would find it in the conflagrations, in the
revolutions, in those extended disasters, that have at various times
destroyed large portions of the human race; that overwhelmed with dismay
those miserable beings who escaped the destruction of the earth; these
in transmitting to posterity, the tradition of such afflicting events,
have also transmitted to him their fears; have delivered down to their
successors, those gloomy ideas which their bewildered imaginations,
coupled with their barbarous ignorance of natural causes, had formed to
them of the anger of their irritated gods, to which their alarm falsely
attributed these sweeping disasters.
If the gods of nations had their birth in the bosom of alarm, it was
again in that of despair that each individual formed the unknown power
that he made exclusively for himself. Ignorant of physical causes,
unpractised in their mode of action, unaccustomed to their effects,
whenever he experienced any serious misfortune, whenever he was
afflicted with any grievous sensation, he was at a loss how to account
for it; he therefore attributed it to his household gods, to whom he
made an immediate supplication for assistance, or rather for forbearance
of further affliction: this disposition in man has been finely
pourtrayed by Aesop in his fable of "the Waggoner and Hercules." The
motion which in despight of himself was excited in his machine, his
diseases, his troubles, his passions, his inquietude, the painful
alterations his frame underwent, without his being able to fathom the
true causes; at length death, of which the aspect in so formidable to a
being strongly attached to existence, were effects he looked upon either
as supernatural, or else he conceived they were repugnant to his actual
nature; he attributed them to some mighty cause, which maugre all his
efforts, disposed of him at each, moment. Thus palsied with alarm,
benumbed with terror, he pensively meditated upon his sorrows; agitated
with fear, he sought for means to avert the calamities that threatened
him with destruction; his imagination, thus rendered desperate by
his endurance of evils which he found inevitable, formed to him
those phantoms which he called gods; before whom he trembled from a
consciousness of his own weakness; thus disposed, he endeavoured by
prostration, by sacrifices, by prayers, to disarm the anger of these
imaginary beings to which his trepidation had given birth; whom he
ignorantly imagined to be the cause of his misery, whom his fancy
painted to him as endowed with the power of alleviating his sufferings:
it was thus in the extremity of his grief, in the exacerbation of his
mind, weighed down with misfortune, that unhappy man fashioned
those chimeras which filled him with the most gloomy ideas, which he
transmitted to his posterity, as the surest means of avoiding the evils
to which he had been himself subjected.
Man never judges of those objects of which he is ignorant, but through
the medium of those which come within his knowledge: thus man, taking
himself for the model, ascribed will, intelligence, design, projects,
passions; in a word, qualities analogous to his own, to all those
unknown causes of which he experienced the action. As soon as a visible
or supposed cause affects him in an agreeable manner, or in a mode
favourable to his existence, he concludes it to be good, to be well
intentioned towards him: on the contrary, he judges all those to be bad
in their nature, evilly disposed, to have the intention of injuring him,
which cause him any painful sensations. He attributes views, plans,
a system of conduct like his own, to every thing which to his limited
ideas appears of itself to produce connected effects; to act with
regularity; to constantly operate in the same manner; that uniformly
produces the same sensations in his own person. According to these
notions, which he always borrows from himself, from his own peculiar
mode of action, he either loves or fears those objects which have
affected him; he in consequence approaches them with confidence or
timidity; seeks after them or flies from them in proportion as the
feelings they have excited are either pleasant or painful. Having
travelled thus far, he presently addresses them; he invokes their aid;
prays to them for succour; conjures them to cease his afflictions;
to forbear tormenting him; as he finds himself sensible to presents,
pleased with submission, he tries to win them to his interests by
humiliation, by sacrifices; he exercises towards them the hospitality
he himself loves; he gives them an asylum; he builds them a dwelling;
he furnishes them with costly raiment; he makes their altars smoke with
delicious food; he proffers to their acceptance the earliest flowers of
spring; the finest fruits of autumn; the rich grain of summer; in short
he sets before them all those things which he thinks will please them
the most, because he himself places the highest value on them. These
dispositions enable us to account for the formation of tutelary gods,
of lares, of larvae, which every man makes to himself in savage and
unpolished nations. Thus we perceive that weak superstitious mortals,
ignorant of truth, devoid of experience, regard as the arbiters of their
fate, as the dispensers of good and evil, animals, stones, unformed
inanimate substances, which the effort of their heated imaginations
transform into gods, whom they invest with intelligence, whom they
clothe with desires, to whom they give volition.
Another disposition which serves to deceive the savage man, which will
equally deceive those whom reason shall not enlighten on these subjects,
is his attachment to omens; or the fortuitous concurrence of certain
effects, with causes which have not produced them; the co-existence
of these effects with certain causes, which have not the slightest
connection with them, has frequently led astray very intelligent beings;
nations who considered themselves very enlightened; who have either been
disinclined or unable to disentangle the one from the other: thus the
savage attributes bounty or the will to render him service, to any
object whether animate or inanimate, such as a stone of a certain form,
a rock, a mountain, a tree, a serpent, an owl, &c. if every time he
encounters these objects in a certain position, it should so happen that
he is more than ordinarily successful in hunting, that he should take an
unusual quantity of fish, that he should be victorious in war, or that
he should compass any enterprize whatever that he may at that moment
undertake: the same savage will be quite as gratuitous in attaching
malice, wickedness, the determination to injure him, to either the same
object in a different position, or any others in a given posture, which
way have met his eyes on those days when he shall have suffered some
grievous accident, have been very unsuccessful in his undertakings,
unfortunate in the chace, disappointed in his draught of fish: incapable
of reasoning he connects these effects with causes, that reflection
would convince him have nothing in common with each other; that are
entirely due to physical causes, to necessary circumstances, over which
neither himself nor his omens have the least controul: nevertheless he
finds it much easier to attribute them to these imaginary causes; he
therefore _deifies_ them; looks upon them as either his guardian angels,
or else as his most inveterate enemies. Having invested them with
supernatural powers, he becomes anxious to explain to himself their mode
of action; his self-love prevents his seeking elsewhere for the model:
thus he assigns them all those motives that actuate himself; he endows
them with passions; he gives them design--intelligence--will--imagines
they can either injure him or benefit him, as he may render them
propitious or otherwise to his views: he ends with worshipping them;
with paying them divine honours; he appoints them priests; or at least
always consults them before he undertakes any object of moment: such
is their influence, that if they put on the evil position, he will lay
aside the most important undertaking. The savage in this is never more
than an infant, that is angry with the object that displeases him; just
like the dog who gnaws the stone by which he has been wounded, without
recurring to the hand by which it was thrown.
Such is the foundation of man's faith, in either happy or unhappy omens:
devoid of experience, unaccustomed to reason with precision, fearing
to call in the evidence of truth, he looks upon them either as gods
themselves, or else as warnings given him by his other gods, to whom
he attributes the faculties of sagacity and foresight, of which he is
himself miserably deficient. Ignorance, when involved in disaster, when
immersed in trouble, believes a stone, a reptile, a bird, much better
instructed than himself. The slender observation of the ignorant only
serves to render him more superstitious; he sees certain birds announce
by their flight, by their cries, certain changes in the weather, such as
cold, heat, rain, storms; he beholds at certain periods, vapours arise
from the bottom of some particular caverns? there needs nothing further
to impress upon him the belief, that these beings possess the knowledge
of future events; enjoy the gifts of prophecy: he looks upon them as
supernatural agents, employed by his gods: it is thus he becomes the
dupe to his own credulity.
If by degrees the truth flashing occasionally on his mind, experience
and reflection arrive at undeceiving him, with respect to the power,
the intelligence, the virtues actually residing in these objects; he at
least supposes them put in activity by some secret, some hidden cause;
that they are the instruments, employed by some invisible agent, who
is either friendly or inimical to his welfare. To this concealed
agent, therefore, he addresses himself; pays him his vows; emplores
his assistance; deprecates his wrath; seeks to propitiate him to his
interests; is willing to soften his anger; for this purpose he employs
the same means, of which he avails himself, either to appease or gain
over the beings of his own species.
Societies in their origin, seeing themselves frequently afflicted
by nature, supposed either the elements, or the concealed powers who
regulated them, possessed a will, views, wants, desires, similar to
their own. From hence, the sacrifices imagined to nourish them; the
libations poured out to them; the steams, the incense to gratify their
olfactory nerves. Their superstition led them to believe these elements
or their irritated movers were to be appeased like irritated man, by
prayers, by humiliation, by presents. Their imagination was ransacked
to discover the presents that would be most acceptable in their eyes;
to ascertain the oblations that would be most agreeable, the sacrifices
that would most surely propitiate their kindness: as these did not make
known their inclinations, man differed with his fellow on those most
suitable; each followed his own disposition; or rather each offered what
was most estimable in his own eyes; hence arose differences never to be
reconciled the bitterest animosities; the most unconquerable aversions;
the most, destructive jealousies! Thus some brought the fruits of the
earth, others offered sheaves of corn: some strewed flowers over their
fanes; some decorated them with the most costly jewels; some served them
with meats; others sacrificed lambs, heifers, bulls; at length such
was their delirium, such the wildness of their imaginations, that they
stained their altars with human gore, made oblations of young children
immolated virgins, to appease the anger of these supposed deities.
The old men, as having the most experience, were usually charged with
the conduct of these peace-offerings, from whence, the name PRIEST;
[Greek letters], _presbos_, in the Greek meaning an old man. These
accompanied them with ceremonies, instituted rites, used precautions by
consulting omens; adopted formalities, retraced to their fellow citizens
the notions transmitted to them by their forefathers; collected the
observations made by their ancestors; repeated the fables they had
received; added commentaries of their own; subjoined supplications
to the idols at whose shrine they were sacrificing. It is thus
the sacerdotal order was established; thus that public worship was
established; by degrees each community formed a body of tenets to be
observed by the citizens; these were transmitted from race to race;
held sacred out of reverence for their fathers; at length it was deemed
sacrilege to doubt these pandects in any one particular; even the
errors, that had crept into them with time, were beheld with reverential
awe; he that ventured to reason upon them, was looked upon as an enemy
to the commonwealth; as one whose impiety drew down upon them the
vengeance of these adored beings, to which alone imagination had given
birth; not contented with adopting the rituals, with following the
ceremonies invented by themselves, one community waged war against
another, to oblige it to receive their particular creeds; which the old
men who regulated them, declared would infallibly win them the favor of
their tutelary deities: thus very often to conciliate their favor, the
victorious party immolated on the altars of their gods, the bodies of
their unhappy captives; frequently they carried their savage barbarity
the length of exterminating whole nations, who happened to worship gods
different from their own: thus it frequently happened, that the friends
of the serpent, when victorious, covered his altars with the mangled
carcases of the worshippers of the stone, whom the fortune of war had
placed in their hands: such were the unformed, the precarious elements
of which rude nations every where availed themselves to compose
their superstitions: they were always a system of conduct invented by
imagination: conceived in ignorance, organized in misfortune, to render
the unknown powers, to whom they believed nature was submitted, either
favorable to their views, or to, induce them to cease those afflictions,
which natural causes, for the wisest purposes, were continually heaping
upon them; thus some irascible, at the same time placable being, was
always chosen for the basis of the adopted superstition; it was upon
these puerile tenets, upon these absurd notions, that the old men or the
priests rested their doctrines; founded their rights; established their
authority: it was to render these fanciful beings friendly to the race
of man, that they erected, temples, raised altars, loaded them with
wealth; in short, it was from such rude foundations, that arose the
magnificent structure of superstition; under which man trembled for
thousands of years: which governed the condition of society, which
determined the actions of the people, gave the tone to the character,
deluged the earth with blood, for such a long series of ages. But
although these superstitions were originally invented by savages, they
still have the power of regulating the fate of many civilized
nations, who are not less tenacious of their chimeras, than their rude
progenitors. These systems, so ruinous in their principles, have been
variously modified by the human mind, of which it is the essence, to
labour incessantly on unknown objects; it always, commences by attaching
to these, a very first-rate importance, which it afterwards never dares
coolly to examine.
Such was the course of man's imagination, in the successive ideas which
he either formed to himself, or which he received from his fathers, upon
the divinity. The first theology of man was grounded on fear, modelled
by ignorance: either afflicted or benefitted by the elements, he adored
these elements themselves; by a parity of reasoning, if reasoning it can
be called, he extended his reverence to every material, coarse object;
he afterwards rendered his homage to the agents he supposed presiding
over these elements; to powerful genii; to inferior genii; to heroes;
to men endowed with either great or striking qualities. Time, aided by
reflection, with here and there a slight corruscation of truth, induced
him in some places to relinquish his original ideas; he believed
he simplified the thing by lessening the number of his gods, but he
achieved nothing by this towards attaining to the truth; in recurring
from cause to cause man finished by losing sight of every thing; in this
obscurity, in this dark abyss, his mind still laboured, he formed
new chimeras, he made new gods, or rather he formed a very complex
machinery; still, as before, whenever he could not account for any
phenomenon that struck his sight, he was unwilling to ascribe it to
physical causes; and the name of his Divinity, whatever that might
happen to be, was always brought in to supply his own ignorance of
natural causes.
If a faithful account was rendered of man's ideas upon the Divinity, he
would be obliged to acknowledge, that for the most part the word _Gods_
has been used to express the concealed, remote, unknown causes of the
effects he witnessed; that he applies this term when the spring of
natural, the source of known causes ceases to be visible: as soon as he
loses the thread of these causes, or as soon as his mind can no longer
follow the chain, he solves the difficulty, terminates his research, by
ascribing it to his gods; thus giving a vague definition to an unknown
cause, at which either his idleness, or his limited knowledge, obliges
him to stop. When, therefore, he ascribes to his gods the production
of some phenomenon, the novelty or the extent of which strikes him with
wonder, but of which his ignorance precludes him from unravelling the
true cause, or which he believes the natural powers with which he is
acquainted are inadequate to bring forth; does he, in fact, do any thing
more than substitute for the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which
he has been accustomed to listen with reverential awe? Ignorance may be
said to be the inheritance of the generality of men; these attribute to
their gods not only those uncommon effects that burst upon their senses
with an astounding force, but also the most simple events, the causes
of which are the most easy to be known to whoever shall be willing to
meditate upon them. In short, man has always respected those unknown
causes, those surprising effects which his ignorance prevented him from
fathoming.
But does this afford us one single, correct idea of the _Divinity_? Can
it be possible we are acting rationally, thus eternally to make him
the agent of our stupidity, of our sloth, of our want of information on
natural causes? Do we, in fact, pay any kind of adoration to this being,
by thus bringing him forth on every trifling occasion, to solve the
difficulties ignorance throws in our way? Of whatever nature this great
cause of causes may be, it is evident to the slightest reflection that
he has been sedulous to conceal himself from our view; that he has
rendered it impossible for us to have the least acquaintance with
him, except through the medium of nature, which he has unquestionably
rendered competent to every thing: this is the rich banquet spread
before man; he is invited to partake, with a welcome he has no right to
dispute; to enjoy therefore is to obey; to be happy is to render that
worship which must make him most acceptable; _to be happy himself is
to make others happy; to make others happy is to be virtuous; to be
virtuous he must revere truth: to know what truth is, he must examine
with caution, scrutinize with severity, every opinion he adopts:_ this
granted, is it at all consistent with the majesty of the Divinity, is it
not insulting to such a being to clothe him with our wayward passions;
to ascribe to him designs similar to our narrow view of things; to
give him our filthy desires; to suppose he can be guided by our finite
conceptions; to bring him on a level with frail humanity, by investing
him with our qualities, however much we may exaggerate them; to indulge
an opinion that he can either act or think as we do; to imagine he can
in any manner resemble such a feeble play-thing, as is the greatest, the
most distinguished man? No! it is to degrade him in the eye of reason;
to violate every regard for truth; to set moral decency at defiance; to
fall back into the depth of cimmerian darkness. Let man therefore sit
down cheerfully to the feast; let him contentedly partake of what he
finds; but let him not worry the Divinity with his useless prayers, with
his shallow-sighted requests, to solicit at his hands that which, if
granted, would in all probability be the most injurious for himself;
these supplications are, in fact, at once to say, that with our limited
experience, with our slender knowledge, we better understand what is
suitable to our condition, what is convenient to our welfare, than the
mighty _Cause of all causes_ who has left us in the hands of nature:
it is to be presumptuous in the highest degree of presumption; it is
impiously to endeavour to lift up a veil which it is evidently forbidden
man to touch; that even his most strenuous efforts attempt in vain.
It remains, then, to inquire, if man can reasonably flatter himself with
obtaining a perfect knowledge of the power of nature; of the properties
of the beings she contains; of the effects which may result from their
various combinations? Do we know why the magnet attracts iron? Are
we better acquainted with the cause of polar attraction? Are we in a
condition to explain the phenomena of light, electricity, elasticity?
Do we understand the mechanism by which that modification of our brain,
which we tall volition, puts our arm or our legs into motion? Can we
render to ourselves an account of the manner in which our eyes behold
objects, in which our ears receive sounds, in which our mind conceives
ideas? All we know upon these subjects is, that they are so. If then
we are incapable of accounting for the most ordinary phenomena, which
nature daily exhibits to us, by what chain of reasoning do we refuse to
her the power of producing other effects equally incomprehensible to
us? Shall we be more instructed, when every time we behold an effect of
which we are not in a capacity to develope the cause, we may idly say,
this effect is produced by the power, by the will of God? Undoubtedly it
is the great _Cause of causes_ must have produced every thing; but is
it not lessening the true dignity of the Divinity, to introduce him as
interfering in every operation of nature; nay, in every action of so
insignificant a creature as man? As a mere agent executing his own
eternal, immutable laws; when experience, when reflection, when the
evidence of all we contemplate, warrants the idea, that this ineffable
being has rendered nature competent to every effect, by giving her those
irrevocable laws, that eternal, unchangeable system, according to which
all the beings she contains must eternally act? Is it not more worthy
the exalted mind of the GREAT PARENT OF PARENTS, _ens entium_, more
consistent with truth, to suppose that his wisdom in giving these
immutable, these eternal laws to the macrocosm, foresaw every thing that
could possibly be requisite for the happiness of the beings contained in
it; that therefore he left it to the invariable operation of a system,
which never can produce any effect that is not the best possible that
circumstances however viewed will admit: that consequently the natural
activity of the human mind, which is itself the result of this eternal
action, was purposely given to man, that he might endeavour to
fathom, that he might strive to unravel, that he might seek out the
concatenation of these laws, in order to furnish remedies against the
evils produced by ignorance. How many discoveries in the great science
of natural philosophy has mankind progressively made, which the ignorant
prejudices of our forefathers on their first announcement considered
as impious, as displeasing to the Divinity, as heretical profanations,
which could only be expiated by the sacrifice of the enquiring
individuals; to whose labour their posterity owes such an infinity of
gratitude? Even in modern days we have seen a SOCRATES destroyed, a
GALLILEO condemned, whilst multitudes of other benefactors to mankind
have been held in contempt by their uninformed cotemporaries, for those
very researches into nature which the present generation hold in the
highest veneration. _Whenever ignorant priests are permitted to guide
the opinions of nations, science can make but a very slender progress:_
natural discoveries will be always held inimical to the interest of
bigotted superstitious men. It may, to the minds of infatuated mortals,
to the shallow comprehension of prejudiced beings, appear very pious to
reply on every occasion our gods do this, our gods do that; but to the
contemplative philosopher, to the man of reason, to the real adorers of
the great _Cause of causes_, it will never be convincing, that a sound,
a mere word, can attach the reason of things; can have more than a fixed
sense; can suffice to explain problems. The word GOD is for the most
part used to denote the impenetrable cause of those effects which
astonish mankind; which man is not competent to explain. But is not this
wilful idleness? Is it not inconsistent with our nature? Is it not being
truly impious, to sit down with those fine faculties we have received,
and give the answer of a child to every thing we do not understand; or
rather which our own sloth, or our own want of industry has prevented us
from knowing? Ought we not rather to redouble our efforts to penetrate
the cause of those phenomena which strike our mind? Is not this, in
fact, the duty we owe to the great, the universal Parent? When we have
given this answer, what have we said? nothing but what every one knows.
Could the great _Cause of causes_ make the whole, without also making
its part? But does it of necessity follow that he executes every
trifling operation, when he has so noble an agent as his own nature,
whose laws he has rendered unchangeable, whose scale of operations can
never deviate from the eternal routine he has marked out for her and all
the beings she embraces? Whose secrets, if sought out, contain the true
balsam of life--the sovereign remedy for all the diseases of man.
When we shall be ingenuous with ourselves, we shall be obliged to
agree that it was uniformly the ignorance in which our ancestors were
involved, their want of knowledge of natural causes, their unenlightened
ideas on the powers of nature, which gave birth to the gods they
worshipped; that it is, again, the impossibility which the greater
part of mankind find to withdraw, themselves out of this ignorance, the
difficulty they consequently find to form to themselves simple ideas
of the formation of things, the labour that is required to discover the
true sources of those events, which they either admire or fear, that
makes them believe these ideas are necessary to enable them to render an
account of those phenomena, to which their own sluggishness renders them
incompetent to recur. Here, without doubt, is the reason they treat all
those as irrational who do not see the necessity of admitting an unknown
agent, or some secret energy, which for want of being acquainted with
Nature, they have placed out of herself.
The phenomena of nature necessarily breed various sentiments in man:
some he thinks favorable to him, some prejudicial, while the whole
is only what it can be. Some excite his love, his admiration, his
gratitude; others fill him with trouble, cause aversion, drive him to
despair. According to the various sensations he experiences, he either
loves or fears the causes to which he attributes the effects,
which produce in him these different passions: these sentiments
are commensurate with the effects he experiences; his admiration is
enhanced, his fears are augmented, in the same ratio as the phenomena
which strikes his senses are more or less extensive, more or less
irresistible or interesting to him. Man necessarily makes himself the
centre of nature; indeed he can only judge of things, as he is himself
affected by them; he can only love that which he thinks favorable to
his being; he hates, he fears every thing which causes him to suffer:
in short, as we have seen in the former volume, he calls confusion every
thing that deranges the economy of his machine; he believes all is in
order, as soon as he experiences nothing but what is suitable to his
peculiar mode of existence. By a necessary consequence of these ideas,
man firmly believes that the entire of nature was made for him alone;
that it was only himself which she had in view in all her works; or
rather that the powerful cause to which this nature was subordinate, had
only for object man and his convenience, in all the stupendous effects
which are produced in the universe.
If there existed on this earth other thinking beings besides man,
they would fall exactly into similar prejudices with himself; it is
a sentiment founded upon that predilection which each individual
necessarily has for himself; a predilection that will subsist until
reason, aided by experience, in pointing out the truth, shall have
rectified his errors.
Thus, whenever man is contented, whenever every thing is in order with
respect to himself, he either admires or loves the causes to which he
believes he is indebted for his welfare; when he becomes discontented
with his mode of existence, he either fears or hates the cause which
he supposes has produced these afflicting effects. But his welfare
confounds itself with his existence; it ceases to make itself felt when
it has become habitual, when it has been of long continuance; he then
thinks it is inherrent to his essence; he concludes from it that he is
formed to be always happy; he finds it natural that every thing should
concur to the maintenance of his being. It is by no means the same when
he experiences a mode of existence that is displeasing to himself: the
man who suffers is quite astonished at the change which his taken place
in his machine; he judges it to be contrary to the entire of nature,
because it is incommodious to his own particular nature; he, imagines
those events by which he is wounded, to be contrary to the order of
things; he believes that nature is deranged every time she does not
procure for him that mode of feeling which is suitable to his ideas: he
concludes from these suppositions that nature, or rather that the agent
who moves her; is irritated against him.
It is thus that man, almost insensible to good, feels evil in a very
lively manner; the first he believes natural, the other he thinks
opposed to nature. He is either ignorant, or forgets, that he
constitutes part of a whole, formed by the assemblage of substances, of
which some are analogous, others heterogeneous; that the various beings
of which nature is composed, are endowed with a variety of properties,
by virtue of which they act diversely on the bodies who find themselves
within the sphere of their action; that some have an aptitude to
attraction, whilst it is of the essence of others to repel; that even
those bodies that attract at one distance, repel at another; that
the peculiar attractions and repulsions of the particles of bodies
perpetually oppose, invariably counteract the general ones of the masses
of matter: he does not perceive that these beings, as destitute of
goodness, as devoid of malice, act only according to their respective
essences; follow the laws their properties impose upon them; without
being in capacity to act otherwise than they do. It is, therefore, for
want of being acquainted with these things, that he looks upon the great
Author of nature, the great _Cause of causes_, as the immediate cause of
those evils to which he is submitted; that he judges erroneously when he
imagines that the Divinity is exasperated against him.
The fact is, man believes that his welfare is a debt due to him from
nature; that when he suffers evil she does him an injustice; fully
persuaded that this nature was made solely for himself, he cannot
conceive she would make him, who is her lord paramount, suffer, if she
was not moved thereto by a power who is inimical to his happiness;
who has reasons with which he is unacquainted for afflicting, who has
motives which he wishes to discover, for punishing him. From hence it
will be obvious, that evil, much more than good, is the true motive of
those researches which man has made concerning the Divinity--of those
ideas which he has formed to himself--of the conduct he has held towards
him. The admiration of the works of nature, or the acknowledgement of
its goodness, seem never alone to have determined the human species to
recur painfully by thought to the source of these things; familiarized
at once with all those effects which are favourable to his existence, he
does not by any means give himself the same trouble to seek the causes,
that he does to discover those which disquiet him, or by which he is
afflicted. Thus, in reflecting upon the Divinity, it was generally
upon the cause of his evils that man meditated; his meditations were
fruitless, because the evil he experiences, as well as the good he
partakes, are equally necessary effects of natural causes, to which
his mind ought rather to have bent its force, than to have invented
fictitious causes of which he never could form to himself any but
false ideas; seeing that he always borrowed them, from his own peculiar
mariner of existing, acting, and feeling. Obstinately refusing to see
any thing, but himself, he never became acquainted with that universal
nature of which he constitutes such a very feeble part.
The slightest reflection, however, would have been sufficient to
undeceive him on these erroneous ideas. Everything tends to prove that
good and evil are modes of existence that depend upon causes by which a
man is moved; that a sensible being is obliged to experience them. In
a nature composed of a multitude of beings infinitely varied, the
shock occasioned by the collision of discordant matter must necessarily
disturb the order, derange the mode of existence of those beings who
have no analogy with them: these act in every thing they do after
certain laws, which are in themselves immutable; the good or evil,
therefore, which man experiences, are necessary consequences of the
qualities inherent to the beings, within whose sphere of action he is
found. Our birth, which we call a benefit, is an effect as necessary as
our death, which we contemplate as an injustice of fate: it is of the
nature of all analogous beings to unite themselves to form a whole: it
is of the nature of all compound beings to be destroyed, or to dissolve
themselves; some maintain their union for a longer period than others;
some disperse very quickly, as the ephemeron; some endure for ages, as
the planets; every being in dissolving itself gives birth to new beings;
these are destroyed in their turn; to execute the eternal, the immutable
laws of a nature that only exists by the continual changes that all
its parts undergo. Thus nature cannot be accused of malice, since every
thing that takes place in it is necessary--is produced by an invariable
system, to which every other being, as well as herself, is eternally
subjected. The same igneous matter that in man is the principle of
life, frequently becomes the principle of his destruction, either by the
conflagration of a city, the explosion of a volcano, or his mad passion
for war. The aqueous fluid that circulates through his machine, so
essentially necessary to his actual existence, frequently becomes too
abundant, and terminates him by suffocation; is the cause of those
inundations which sometimes swallow up both the earth and its
inhabitants. The air, without which he is not able to respire, is the
cause of those hurricanes, of those tempests, which frequently render
useless the labour of mortals. These elements are obliged to burst their
bonds, when they are combined in a certain manner; their necessary but
fatal consequences are those ravages, those contagions, those famines,
those diseases, those various scourges, against which man, with
streaming eyes and violent emotions, vainly implores the aid of those
powers who are deaf to his cries: his prayers are never granted; but
the same necessity which afflicted him, the same immutable laws which
overwhelmed him with trouble, replaces things in the order he finds
suitable to his species: a relative order of things which was, is, and
always will be the only standard of his judgment.
Man, however, made no such simple reflections: he either did not or
would not perceive that every thing in nature acted by invariable
laws; he continued stedfast in contemplating the good of which he was
partaker, as a favor; in considering the evil he experienced, as a sign
of anger in this nature, which he supposed to be animated by the same
passions as himself or at least that it was governed by secret agents,
who acted after his own manner, who obliged it to execute their will,
that was sometimes favourable, sometimes inimical to the human species.
It was to these supposed agents, with whom in the sunshine of his
prosperity he was but little occupied, that in the bosom of his calamity
he addressed his prayers; he thanked them, however, for their favours,
fearing lest their ingratitude might farther provoke their fury: thus
when assailed by disaster, when afflicted with disease, he invoked them
with fervor: he required them to change in his favor the mode of acting
which was the very essence of beings; he was willing that to make the
slightest evil he experienced cease, that the eternal chain of things
might be broken; and the unerring, undeviating course of nature might he
arrested.
It was upon such ridiculous pretensions, that were founded those
supplications, those fervent prayers, which mortals, almost always
discontented with their fate, never in accord in their respective
desires, addressed to their gods. They were unceasingly upon their knees
before the altars, were ever prostrate before the power of the beings,
whom they judged had the right of commanding nature; who they supposed
to have sufficient energy to divert her course; who they considered to
possess the means to make her subservient to their particular views;
thus each hoped by presents, by humiliation, to induce them to oblige
this nature, to satisfy the discordant desires of their race. The sick
man, expiring in his bed, asks that the humours accumulated in his body
should in an instant lose those properties which renders them injurious
to his existence; that by an act of their puissance, his gods should
renew or recreate the springs of a machine worn out by infirmities. The
cultivator of a low swampy country, makes complaint of the abundance of
rain with which his fields are inundated; whilst the inhabitant of
the hill, raises his thanks for the favors he receives, solicits a
continuance of that which causes the despair of his neighbour. In this,
each is willing to have a god for himself, and asks according to his
momentary caprices, to his fluctuating wants, that the invariable
essence of things, should be continually changed in his favour.
From this it must be obvious, that man every moment asks a _miracle_ to
be wrought in his support. It is not, therefore, at all surprising that
he displayed such ready credulity, that he adopted with such facility
the relation of the marvellous deeds which were universally announced to
him as the acts of the power, or the effects of the benevolence, of
the various gods which presided over the nations of the earth: these
wonderful tales, which were offered to his acceptance, as the most
indubitable proofs of the empire of these gods over nature, which man
always found deaf to his entreaties, were readily accredited by him; in
the expectation, that if he could gain them over to his interest, this
nature, which he found so sullen, so little disposed to lend herself to
his views, would then be controuled in his own favor.
By a necessary consequence of these ideas, nature was despoiled of all
power; she was contemplated only as a passive instrument, who acted at
the will, under the influence of the numerous, all-powerful agents to
whom the various superstitions had rendered her subordinate. It was thus
for want of contemplating nature under her true point of view, that man
has mistaken her entirely, that he believed her incapable of producing
any thing by herself; that he ascribed the honor of all those
productions, whether advantageous or disadvantageous to the human
species, to fictitious powers, whom he always clothed with his own
peculiar dispositions, only he aggrandized their force. In short, it
was upon the ruins of nature, that man erected the imaginary colossus of
superstition, that he reared the _altars of a Jupiter, the temples of an
Apollo_.
If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the
knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them. As soon as man
becomes enlightened, his powers augment, his resources increase in a
ratio with his knowledge; the sciences, the protecting arts, industrious
application, furnish him assistance; experience encourages his progress,
truth procures for him the means of resisting the efforts of many
causes, which cease to alarm him as soon as he obtains a correct
knowledge of them. In a word, his terrors dissipate in proportion as his
mind becomes enlightened, because his trepidation is ever commensurate
with his ignorance, and furnishes this great lesson, that _man,
instructed by truth, ceases to be superstitious_.