_Of Theism.--Of the System of Optimism.--Of final Causes_.
Very few men have either the courage or the industry to examine
opinions, which every one is in agreement to acknowledge; there is
scarcely any one who ventures to doubt their truth, even when no solid
arguments have been adduced in their support. The natural supineness
of man readily receives them without examination upon the authority
of others--communicates them to his successors in the season of their
infancy; thus is transmitted from race to race, notions which once
having obtained the sanction of time, are contemplated as clothed with
a sacred character, although perhaps to an unprejudiced mind, who should
be bent on searching into their foundation, no proofs will appear, that
they ever were verified. It is thus with immateriality: it has passed
current from father to son for many ages, without these having done any
thing more than habitually consign to their brain those obscure ideas
which were at first attached to it, which it is evident, from the
admission even of its advocates, can never be removed, to admit others
of a more enlightened nature. Indeed how can it possibly be, that light
can be thrown upon an incomprehensible subject: each therefore modifies
it after his own manner; each gives it that colouring that most
harmonizes with his own peculiar existence; each contemplates it under
that perspective which is the issue of his own particular vision: this
from the nature of things cannot be the same in every individual: there
must then of necessity be a great contrariety in the opinions resulting.
It is thus also that each man forms to himself a God in particular,
after his own peculiar temperament--according to his own natural
dispositions: the individual circumstances under which he is found, the
warmth of his imagination, the prejudices he has received, the mode in
which he is at different times affected, have all their influence in the
picture he forms. The contented, healthy man, does not see him with the
same eyes as the man who is chagrined and sick; the man with a heated
blood, who has an ardent imagination, or is subject to bile, does not
pourtray him under the same traits as he who enjoys a more peaceable
soul, who has a cooler fancy, who is of a more phlegmatic habit. This is
not all; even the same individual does not view him in the same manner
at different periods of his life: he undergoes all the variations of
his machine--all the revolutions of his temperament--all those continual
vicissitudes which his existence experiences. The idea of the Divinity
is said to be innate; on the contrary, it is perpetually fluctuating in
the mind of each individual; varies every moment in all the beings
of the human species; so much so, that there are not two who admit
precisely the same Deity; there is not a single one, who, under
different circumstances, does not see him variously.
Do not then let us be surprised at the variety of systems adopted by
mankind on this subject; it ought not to astonish us that there is so
little harmony existing among men upon a point of such consequence; it
ought not to appear strange that so much contradiction should prevail
in the various doctrines held forth; that they should have such
little consistency, such slender connection with each other; that the
professors should dispute continually upon the rectitude of the opinions
adopted by each: they must necessarily wrangle upon that which each
contemplates so variously--upon which there is hardly a single mortal
who is constantly in accord with himself.
All men are pretty well agreed upon those objects which they are enabled
to submit to the test of experience; we do not hear any disputes upon
the principles of geometry; those truths that are evident, that are
easily demonstrable, never vary in our mind; we never doubt that
the part is less than the whole; that two and two make four; that
benevolence is an amiable quality; that equity is necessary to man in
society. But we find nothing but perpetual controversy upon all those
systems which have the Divinity for their object; they are full of
incertitude; subject to continual variations: we do not see any harmony
either in the principles of theology, or in the principles of its
graduates. Even the proofs offered of his existence have been the
subject of cavil; they have either been thought too feeble, have been
brought forward against rule, or else have not been taken up with
sufficient zeal to please the various reasoners who advocate the cause;
the corollaries drawn from the premises laid down, are not the same in
any two nations, scarcely in two individuals; the thinkers of all
ages, in all countries, are perpetually in rivalry with each other;
unceasingly quarrel upon all the points of religion; can never agree
either upon their theological hypotheses, or upon the fundamental
truths which should serve for their basis; even the attributes, the
very qualities ascribed, are as warmly contested by some, as they are
zealously defended by others.
These never-ending disputes, these perpetual variations, ought, at
least, to convince the unprejudiced, that the ideas of the Divinity have
neither the generally-admitted evidence, nor the certitude which are
attributed to them; on the contrary, these contrarieties in the opinions
of the theologians, if submitted to the logic of the schools, might be
fatal to the whole of them: according to that mode of reasoning, which
at least has the sanction of our universities, all the probabilities in
the world cannot acquire the force of a demonstration; a truth is
not made evident but when constant experience, reiterated reflection,
exhibits it always under the same point of view; the evidence of a
proposition cannot be admitted unless it carries with it a substantive
demonstration; from the constant relation which is made by well
constituted senses, results that evidence, that certitude, which alone
can produce full conviction: if the major proposition of a syllogism
should be overturned by the minor, the whole falls to the ground.
Cicero, who is no mean authority on such a subject, says expressly, "No
reasoning can render that false, which experience has demonstrated as
evident." Wolff, in his Ontology, says; "That which is repugnant in
itself, cannot possibly be understood; that those things which are in
themselves contradictions, must always be deficient of evidence." St.
Thomas says, "Being, is all that which is not repugnant to existence."
However it may be with these qualities, which the theologians assign to
their immaterial beings, whether they may be irreconcileable, or whether
they are totally incomprehensible, what can result to the human species
in supposing them to have intelligence and views? Can an universal
intelligence, whose care must be equally extended to every thing that
exists, have more direct, more intimate relations with man, who only
forms an insensible portion of the great whole? Can we seriously believe
that it is to make joyful the insects, to gratify the ants of his
garden, that the Monarch of the universe has constructed and embellished
his habitation? Would our feeble eyes, therefore, become stronger--would
our narrow views of things be enlarged--should we be better capacitated
to understand his projects--could we with more certitude divine
his plans, enter into his designs--would our exility of judgment be
competent to measure his wisdom, to follow the eternal order he has
established? Will those effects, which flow from his omnipotence,
emanate from his providence--whether we estimate them as good, or
whether we tax them as evil--whether we consider them beneficial, or
view them as prejudicial--be less the necessary results of his wisdom,
of his justice, of his eternal decrees? In this case can we reasonably
suppose that a Being, so wise, so just, so intelligent, will derange
his system, change his plan, for such weak beings as ourselves? Can we
rationally believe we have the capacity to address worthy prayers, to
make suitable requests, to point out proper modes of conduct to such a
Being? Can we at all flatter ourselves that to please us, to gratify our
discordant wishes, he will alter his immutable laws? Can we imagine
that at our entreaty he will take from the beings who surround us their
essences, their properties, their various modes of action? Have we
any right to expect he will abrogate in our behalf the eternal laws of
nature, that he will disturb her eternal march, arrest her ever-lasting
course, which his wisdom has planned; which his goodness has conferred;
which are, in fact, the admiration of mankind? Can we hope that in our
favour fire will cease to burn, when we approximate it too closely; that
fever shall not consume our habit, when contagion has penetrated our
system; that gout shall not torment us, when an intemperate mode of
life shall have amassed the humours that necessarily result from such
conduct; that an edifice tumbling in ruins shall not crush us by its
fall, when we are within the vortex of its action? Will our vain cries,
our most fervent supplications, prevent a country from being unhappy,
when it shall be devastated by an ambitious conqueror; when it shall
be submitted to the capricious will of unfeeling tyrants, who bend it
beneath the iron rod of their oppression?
If this infinite intelligence gives a free course to those events which
his wisdom has prepared; if nothing happens in this world but after
his impenetrable designs; we ought silently to submit; we have in fact
nothing to ask; we should be madmen to oppose our own weak intellect to
such capacious wisdom; we should offer an insult to his prudence if we
were desirous to regulate them. Man must not flatter himself that he
is wiser than his God; that he is in a capacity to make him change his
will; with having power to determine him to take other means than those
which he has chosen to accomplish his decrees. An intelligent Divinity
can only have taken those measures which embrace complete justice; can
only have availed himself of those means which are best calculated to
arrive at his end; if he was capable of changing them, he could neither
be called wise, immutable, nor provident. If it was to be granted,
that the Divinity did for a single instant suspend those laws which he
himself has given, if he was to change any thing in his plan, it would
be supposing he had not foreseen the motives of this suspension; that he
had not calculated the causes of this change; if he did not make these
motives enter into his plan, it would be saying he had not foreseen
the causes that render them necessary: if he has foreseen them without
making them part of his system, it would be arraigning the perfection of
the whole. Thus in whatever manner these things are contemplated, under
whatever point of view they are examined, it is evident that the
prayers which man addresses to the Divinity, which are sanctioned by the
different modes of worship, always suppose he is supplicating a being
whose wisdom and providence are defective; in fact, that his own is more
appropriate to his situation. To suppose he is capable of change in his
conduct, is to bring his omniscience into question; to vitally attack
his omnipotence; to arraign his goodness; at once to say, that he either
is not willing or not competent to judge what would be most
expedient for man; for whose sole advantage and pleasure they
will, notwithstanding, insist he created the universe: such are the
inconsistent doctrines of theology; such the imbecile efforts of
metaphysics.
It is, however, upon these notions, extravagant as they may appear,
ill directed as they assuredly are, inconclusive as they must
be acknowledged by unprejudiced minds, that are founded all the
superstitions and many of the religions of the earth. It is by no means
an uncommon sight, to see man upon his knees before an all-wise God,
whose conduct he is endeavouring to regulate; whose decrees he wishes to
avert; whose plan he is desirous to reform. These inconsistent objects
he is occupied with gaining, by means equally repugnant to sound sense;
equally injurious to the dignity of the Divinity: adopting his own
sensations as the criterion of the feelings of the Deity; in some places
he tries to win him to his interests by presents; sometimes we behold
even the princes of the earth attempting to direct his views, by
offering him splendid garments, upon which their own fatuity sets an
inordinate value, merely because they have laboured at them themselves;
some strive to disarm his justice by the most splendid pageantry; others
by practices the most revolting to humanity; some think his immutability
will yield to idle ceremonies; others to the most discordant prayers;
it not unfrequently happens that to induce him to change in their favour
his eternal decrees, those who have opposite interests to promote, each
returns him thanks for that which the others consider as the greatest
curse that can befal them. In short, man is almost every where prostrate
before an omnipotent God, who, if we were to judge by the discrepancy of
their requests, never has rendered his creatures such as they ought
to be; who to accomplish his divine views has never taken the proper
measures, who to fulfil his wisdom has continual need of the admonitions
of man, conveyed either in the form of thanks or prayers.
We see, then, that superstition is founded upon manifest contradictions,
which man must always fall into when he mistakes the natural causes of
things--when he shall attribute the good or evil which he experiences to
an intelligent cause, distinguished from nature, of which he will never
be competent to form to himself any certain ideas. Indeed, man will
always be reduced, as we have so frequently repeated, to the necessity
of clothing his gods with his own imbecile qualities: as he is himself
a changeable being, whose intelligence is limited; who, placed in divers
circumstances, appears to be frequently in contradiction with himself;
although he thinks he honours his gods in giving them his own peculiar
qualities, he in fact does nothing more than lend them his own
inconstancy, cover them with his own weakness, invest them with his own
vices. It is thus that in reasoning, he is unable to account for the
necessity of things--that he imagines there is a confusion which his
prayers will have a tendency to remove--that he thinks the evils of
life more than commensurate with the good: he does not perceive that an
undeviating system, by operating upon beings diversely organized, whose
circumstances are different, whose modes of action are at variance, must
of necessity sometimes appear to be inimical to the interests of
the individual, while it embraces the general good of the whole. The
theologian may subtilize, exaggerate, render as unintelligible as he
pleases, the attributes with which he clothes his divinities, he
will never be able to remove the contradictions which arise from the
discordant qualities which he thus heaps together; neither will he be
able to give man any other mode of judging than what arises from the
exercise of his senses, such as they are actually found. He will never
be able to furnish the idea of an immutable being, while he shall
represent this being as capable of being irritated and appeased by the
prayers of mortals. He will never delineate the features of omnipotence
under the portrait of a being who cannot restrain the actions of his
inferiors. He will never hold up a standard of justice, while he shall
mingle it with mercy, however amiable the quality; or while he shall
represent it as punishing those actions, which the perpetrators were
under the necessity of committing. Neither will he be able, under any
circumstances, to make a finite mind comprehend infinity; much less when
he shall represent this infinity as bounded by finity itself.
From this it will be obvious, that immaterial substances, such as are
depicted by the theologians, can only be looked upon as the offspring
of a metaphysical brain, unsupported by any of those proofs which are
usually required to establish the propositions laid down among men;
all the qualities which they ascribe to them, are only those which are
suitable to material substances; all the abstract properties with which
they invest them, are incomprehensible by material beings; the whole
taken together, is one confused mass of contradictions: they have held
forth to man, that it highly imported to his interests to know, to
understand these substances; he has consequently set his intellect
in action to discover some means of compassing an end, said to be so
consequential to his welfare; he has, however, been unable to make any
progress, because no clue could be offered to him of the road he must
pursue; all was mere assertion unsupported by evidence; the whole was
enveloped in complete darkness, into which the least scintillation of
light could never penetrate. Notwithstanding, as soon as man believes
himself greatly interested in knowing a thing, he labors to form to
himself an idea of that, the knowledge of which he thinks so important;
if insuperable obstacles impede his inquiries--if difficulties of a
magnitude to alarm his industry intervene--if with immense labour he
makes but little progress, then the slender success that attends
his research, aided by a slothful disposition, while it wearies
his diligence disposes him to credulity. It was thus, that a crafty
ambitious Arab, subtle and knavish in his manners, insinuating in his
address, profiting by this credulous inclination, made his countrymen
adopt his own fanciful reveries as permanent truths, of which it was not
permitted them for an instant to doubt; following up these opinions with
enthusiasm, he stimulated them on to become conquerors; obliging the
conquered to lend themselves to his system, he gave currency to a creed,
invented solely for the purpose of enslaving mankind, which now spreads
over immense regions inhabited by a numerous population, although like
other systems it does not escape sectarianism, having above seventy
branches. Thus ignorance, despair, sloth, the want of reflecting habits,
place the human race in a state of dependance upon those who build up
systems, while upon the objects which are the foundations, they have
no one settled idea: once adopted, however, whenever these systems are
brought into question, man either reasons in a very strange manner, or
else is the dupe of very deceitful arguments: when they are agitated,
and he finds it impossible to understand what is said concerning them
when his mind cannot embrace the ambiguity of these doctrines, he
imagines those who speak to him are better acquainted with the
objects of their discourse than himself; these seizing the favourable
opportunity, do not let it slip, they reiterate to him with Stentorian
lungs, "That the most certain way is to agree with what they tell him;
to allow himself to be guided by them;" in short, they persuade him to
shut his eyes, that he may with greater perspicuity distinguish the
road he is to travel: once arrived at this influence, they indelibly fix
their lessons; irrevocably chain him to the oar; by holding up to his
view the punishments intended for him by these imaginary beings, in case
he refuses to accredit, in the most liberal manner, their marvellous
inventions; this argument, although it only supposes the thing in
question, serves to close his mouth--to put an end to his research;
alarmed, confused, bewildered, he seems convinced by this victorious
reasoning--attaches to it a sacredness that fills him with awe--blindly
conceives that they have much clearer ideas of the subject than
himself--fears to perceive the palpable contradictions of the doctrines
announced to him, until, perhaps, some being, more subtle than those who
have enslaved him, by labouring the point incessantly, attacking him on
the weak side of his interest, arrives at throwing the absurdity of his
system into light, and finally succeeds by inducing him to adopt that
of another set of speculators. The uninformed man generally believes
his priests have more senses than himself; he takes them for superior
beings; for divine men. He only sees that which these priests inform
him he must contemplate; to every thing else his eyes are completely
hoodwinked; thus the authority of the priests frequently decides,
without appeal, that which is useful perhaps only to the priesthood.
When we shall be disposed to recur to the origin of things, we shall
ever find that it has been man's imagination, guided by his ignorance,
under the influence of fear, which gave birth to his gods; that
enthusiasm or imposture have generally either embellished or disfigured
them; that credulity readily adopted the fabulous accounts which
interested duplicity promulgated respecting them; that these
dispositions, sanctioned by time, became habitual. Tyrants finding their
advantage in sustaining them, have usually established their power upon
the blindness of mankind, and the superstitious fears with which it is
always accompanied. Thus, under whatever point of view it is considered,
it will always be found that _error cannot be useful to the human
species._
Nevertheless, the happy enthusiast, when his soul is sensible of its
enjoyments, when his softened imagination has occasion to paint to
itself a seducing object, to which he can render thanks for the kindness
he experiences, will ask, "Wherefore deprive me of a being that I see
under the character of a sovereign, filled with wisdom, abounding in
goodness? What comfort do I not find in figuring to myself a powerful,
intelligent, indulgent monarch, of whom I am the favorite; who
continually occupies himself with my welfare--unceasingly watches over
my safety--who perpetually administers to my wants--who always consents
that under him I shall command the whole of nature? I believe I behold
him constantly showering his benefits on man; I see his Providence
labouring for his advantage without relaxation; he covers the earth
with verdure to delight him; he loads the trees with delicious fruits
to gratify his palate; he fills the forests with animals suitable to his
nourishment; he suspends over his head planets with innumerable stars,
to enlighten him by day, to guide his erring steps by night; he extends
around him the azure firmament to gladden his sight; he decorates the
meadows with flowers to please his fancy; he causes crystal fountains to
flow with limpid streams to slake his thirst; he makes rivulets meander
through his lands to fructify the earth; he washes his residence with
noble rivers, that yield him fish in abundance. Ah! suffer me to thank
thee, Author of so many benefits: do not deprive me of my charming
sensations. I shall not find my illusions so sweet, so consolatory in a
severe destiny--in a rigid necessity--in a blind inanimate matter--in a
nature destitute of intelligence, devoid of feeling."
"Wherefore," will say the unfortunate, from whom his destiny has
rigorously withheld those benefits which have been lavished on so many
others; "wherefore ravish from me an error that is dear to me? Wherefore
annihilate to me a being, whose consoling idea dries up the source of my
tears--who serves to calm my sorrows? Wherefore deprive me of an object
which I represent to myself as a compassionate, tender father; who
reproves me in this world, but into whose arms I throw myself with
confidence, when the whole of nature appears to have abandoned me?
Supposing it no more than a chimera, the unhappy have occasion for it,
to guarantee them against frightful despair: is it not cruel, is it not
inhuman, to be desirous of plunging them into a vacuum, by seeking to
undeceive them? Is it not an useful error, preferable to those truths
which deprive the mind of every consolation, which do not hold forth any
relief from its sorrows?"
Thus will equally reason the Negro, the Mussulman, the Brachman, and
others. We shall reply to these enthusiasts, no! truth can never render
you unhappy; it is this which really consoles us; it is a concealed
treasure, much superior to all the superstitions ever invented by fear;
it can cheer the heart; give it courage to support the burthens of
life; make us smile under adversity; elevate the soul; render it
active; furnishes it with means to resist the attacks of fate; to combat
misfortunes with success. This will shew clearly that the good and evil
of life are distributed with an equal hand, without respect to man's
peculiar comforts; that all beings are equally regarded in the universe;
that every thing is submitted to necessary laws; that man has no right
whatever to think himself a being peculiarly favoured--who is exempted
from the common operations of the eternal routine; that it is folly to
think he is the only being considered--one for whose enjoyment alone
every thing is produced; an attention to facts will suffice to put an
end to this delusion, however pleasant may be the indulgence of such
a notion; the most superficial glance of the eye will be sufficient
to undeceive us in the idea, that he is the _final cause_ of the
creation--the constant object of the labours of nature, or of its
Author. Let us seriously ask him, if he does not witness good constantly
blended with evil? If he does not equally partake of them with the other
beings in nature? To be obstinately bent to see only the evil, is as
irrational as to be willing only to notice the good. Providence seems to
be just as much occupied for one class of beings as for another. We see
the calm succeed the storm; sickness give place to health; the blessings
of peace follow the calamities of war; the earth in every country
bring forth roots necessary for the nourishment of man, produce others
suitable to his destruction. Each individual of the human species is
a compound of good and bad qualities; all nations present a varied
spectacle of virtues, growing up beside vices; that which gladdens one
being, plunges another into sadness--no event takes place that does not
give birth to advantages for some, to disadvantages for others. Insects
find a safe retreat in the ruin of the palace, which crushes man in
its fall; man by his death furnishes food for myriads of contemptible
insects; animals are destroyed by thousands that he may increase his
bulk; linger out for a season a feverish existence. We see beings
engaged in perpetual hostility, each living at his neighbour's expence;
the one banquetting upon that which causes the desolation of the other;
some luxuriously growing into flesh upon the misery which wears others
into skeletons--profiting by misfortunes, rioting upon disasters, which
ultimately, reciprocally destroy them. The most deadly poisons spring up
beside the most wholesome fruits the earth equally nourishes the fatal
steel which terminates man's career, and the fruitful corn that prolongs
his existence; the bane and its antidote are near neighbours, repose on
the same bosom, ripen under the same sun, equally court the hand of the
incautious stranger. The rivers which man believes flow for no other
purpose than to irrigate his residence, sometimes swell their waters,
overtop their banks, inundate his fields, overturn his dwelling, and
sweep away the flock and shepherd. The ocean, which he vainly imagines
was only collected together to facilitate his commerce supply him with
fish, and wash his shores; often wrecks his ships, frequently bursts its
boundaries, lays waste his lands, destroys the produce of his industry,
and commits the most frightful ravages. The halcyon, delighted with the
tempest, voluntarily mingles with the storm; rides contentedly upon the
surge; rejoiced by the fearful howlings of the northern blast, plays
with happy buoyancy upon the foaming billows, that have ruthlessly
dashed in pieces the vessel of the unfortunate mariner; who, plunged
into an abyss of misery, with tremulous emotion clings to the wreck;
views with horrific despair, the premature destruction of his indulged
hopes; sighs deeply at the thoughts of home; with aching heart, thinks
of the cherished friends his streaming eyes will never more behold in an
agony of soul dwells upon the faithful affection of an adored wife, who
will never again repose her drooping head upon his manly bosom; grows
wild with the appalling remembrance of beloved children, his wearied
arms will never more encircle with parental fondness; then sinks for
ever, the unhappy victim of circumstances that fill with glee the
fluttering bird, who sees him yield to the overwhelming force of the
infuriate waves. The conqueror displays his military skill, fights a
sanguinary battle, puts his enemy to the rout, lays waste his country,
slaughters thousands of his fellows, plunges whole districts into tears,
fills the land with the moans of the fatherless, the wailings of the
widow, in order that the crows may have a banquet--that ferocious beasts
may gluttonously gorge themselves with human gore--that worms may riot
in luxury.
Thus when there is a question concerning an agent we see act so
variously; whose motives seem sometimes to be advantageous, sometimes
disadvantageous for the human race; at least each individual will judge
after the peculiar mode in which he is himself affected; there will
consequently be no fixed point, no general standard in the opinions
men will form to themselves. Indeed our mode of judging will always
be governed by our manner of seeing, by our way of feeling. This
will depend upon our temperament, which itself springs out of our
organization, and the peculiarity of the circumstances in which we are
placed; these can never be the same for all the beings of our species.
These individual modes of being affected, then, will always furnish the
colours of the portrait which man may paint to himself of the Divinity;
it must therefore be obvious they can never be determinate--can have
no fixity--can never be reduced to any graduated scale; the inductions
which they may draw from them, can never be either constant or uniform;
each will always judge after himself, will never see any thing but
himself or his own peculiar situation in the picture he delineates.
This granted, the man who has a contented, sensible soul, with a lively
imagination, will paint the Divinity under the most charming traits; he
will believe that he sees in the whole of nature nothing but proofs of
benevolence, evidence of goodness, because it will unceasingly cause him
agreeable sensations. In his poetical extacy he will imagine he every
where perceives the impression of a perfect intelligence--of an infinite
wisdom--of a providence tenderly occupied with the welfare of man;
self-love joining itself to these exalted qualities, will put the
finishing hand to his persuasion, that the universe is made solely for
the human race; he will strive in imagination to kiss with transport the
hand from which he believes he receives so many benefits; touched with
his kindness, gratified with the perfume of roses whose thorns he does
not perceive, or which his extatic delirium prevents him from feeling,
he will think he can never sufficiently acknowledge the necessary
effects, which he will look upon as indubitable testimony of the divine
predilection for man. Completely inebriated with these feelings, this
enthusiast will not behold those sorrows, will not notice that confusion
of which the universe is the theatre: or if it so happens, he cannot
prevent himself from being a witness, he will be persuaded that in the
views of an indulgent providence, these calamities are necessary to
conduct man to a higher state of felicity; the reliance which he has in
the Divinity, upon whom he imagines they depend, induces him to believe,
that man only suffers for his good; that this being, who is fruitful in
resources, will know how to make him reap advantage from the evils which
he experiences in this world: his mind thus pre-occupied, from thence
sees nothing that does not elicit his admiration call forth his
gratitude; excite his confidence; even those effects which are the most
natural, the most necessary, appear in his eyes miracles of benevolence;
prodigies of goodness: he shuts his eyes to the disorders which could
bring these amiable qualities into question: the most cruel calamities,
the most afflicting events, the most heart-rending circumstances, cease
to be disorders in his eyes, and do nothing, more than furnish him with
new proofs of the divine perfections; he persuades himself that what
appears defective or imperfect, is only so in appearance; he admires the
wisdom, acknowledges the bounty of the Divinity, even in those effects
which are the most terrible for his race--most suitable to discourage
his species--most fraught with misery for his fellow.
It is, without doubt, to this happy disposition of the human mind,
in some beings of his order, that is to be ascribed the system of
_Optimism_, by which enthusiasts, furnished with a romantic imagination,
seem to have renounced the evidence of their senses: to find that even
for man every thing is good in nature, where the good has constantly its
concomitant evil, and where minds less prejudiced, less poetical, would
judge that every thing is only that which it can be--that the good
and the evil are equally necessary--that they have their source in
the nature of things; moreover, in order to attribute any particular
character to the events that take place, it would be needful to know the
aim of the whole: now the whole cannot have an aim, because if it had a
tendency, an aim, or end, it would no longer be the whole, seeing that
that to which it tended would be a part not included.
It will be asserted by some, that the evils which we behold in this
world are only relative, merely apparent; that they prove nothing
against the good: but does not man almost uniformly judge after his own
mode of feeling; after his manner of co-existing with those causes
by which he is encompassed; which constitute the order of nature with
relation to himself; consequently, he ascribes wisdom and goodness to
all that which affects him pleasantly, disorder to that state of things
by which he is injured. Nevertheless every thing which we witness in
the world conspires to prove to us, that whatever is, is necessary; that
nothing is done by chance; that all the events, good or bad, whether
for us or for beings of a different order, are brought about by causes
acting after certain and determinate laws; that nothing can he
a sufficient warrantry in us to clothe with any one of our human
qualities, either nature or the motive-power which has been given to
her.
With respect to those who pretend that supreme wisdom will know how
to draw the greatest benefits for us, even out of the bosom of those
calamities which it is permitted we shall experience in this world; we
shall ask them, if they are themselves the confidents of the Divinity;
or upon what they found these assertions so flattering to their hopes?
They will, without doubt, tell us they judge by analogy; that from the
actual proofs of goodness and wisdom, they have a just right to conclude
in favour of future bounty. Would it not be a fair reply to ask, If they
reason by analogy, and man has not been rendered completely happy in
this world, what analogy informs them he will be so in another? If,
according to their own shewing, man is sometimes made the victim of evil
in his present existence, in order that he may attain a greater good,
does not analogical reasoning, which they say they adopt, clearly
warrant a deduction, that the same afflictions, for the same purposes,
will be equally proper, equally requisite in the world to come?
Thus this language founds itself upon ruinous hypotheses, which have
for their bases only a prejudiced imagination. It, in fact, signifies
nothing more than that man once persuaded, without any evidence, of his
future happiness, will not believe it possible he can be permitted to be
unhappy: but might it not be inquired what testimony does he find, what
substantive knowledge has he obtained of the peculiar good that results
to the human species from those sterilities, from those famines, from
those contagions, from those sanguinary conflicts, which cause so many
millions of men to perish; which unceasingly depopulate the earth,
and desolate the world we inhabit? Is there any one who has sufficient
compass of comprehension to ascertain the advantages that result from
the evils that besiege us on all sides? Do we not daily witness beings
consecrated to misfortune, from the moment they quitted the womb of the
parent who brought them into existence, until that which re-committed
them to the earth, to sleep in peace with their fathers; who with great
difficulty found time to respire; lived the constant sport of fortune;
overwhelmed with affliction, immersed in grief, enduring the most cruel
reverses? Who is to measure the precise quantity of misery required to
derive a certain portion of good? Who is to say when the measure of evil
will be full which it is necessary to suffer?
The most enthusiastic Optimists, the _Theists_ themselves, the partizans
of _Natural Religion_, as well as the most credulous and superstitious,
are obliged to recur to the system of another life, to remedy the evils
man is decreed to suffer in the present; but have they really any just
foundation to suppose the next world will afford him a happiness
denied him in this? If it is necessary to recur to a doctrine so little
probable as that of a future existence, by what chain of reasoning do
they establish their opinion, that when he shall no longer have organs,
by the aid of which he is at present alone enabled either to enjoy or
to suffer, he shall be able to compensate the evils he has endured; to
enjoy a felicity, to partake of a pleasure this organic structure has
refused him while on his pilgrimage through the land of his fathers.
From this it will be seen, that the proofs of a sovereign intelligence,
or of a magnified human quality drawn from the order, from the harmony,
from the beauty of the universe, are never more than those which are
derived from men who are organized and modified after a certain mode;
or whose cheerful imagination is so constructed as to give birth to
agreeable chimeras which they embellish according to their fancy: these
illusions, however, must be frequently dissipated even in themselves,
whenever their machine becomes deranged; when sorrows assail them, when
misfortune corrodes their mind; the spectacle of nature, which under
certain circumstances has appeared to them so delightful, so seducing,
must then give place to disorder, must yield to confusion. A man
of melancholy temperament, soured by misfortunes, made irritable
by infirmities, cannot view nature and her author under the same
perspective, as the healthy man of a sprightly humour, who is contented
with every thing. Deprived of happiness, the fretful man can only find
disorder, can see nothing but deformity, can find nothing but subjects
to afflict himself with; he only contemplates the universe as the
theatre of malice, as the stage for tyrants to execute their vengeance;
he grows superstitious, he gives way to credulity, and not unfrequently
becomes cruel, in order to serve a master whom he believes he has
offended.
In consequence of these ideas, which have their growth in an unhappy
temperament, which originate in a peevish humour, which are the
offspring of a disturbed imagination, the superstitious are constantly
infected with terror, are the slaves to mistrust, the creatures of
discontent, continually in a state of fearful alarm. Nature cannot have
charms for them; her countless beauties pass by unheeded; they do
not participate in her cheerful scenes; they look upon this world, so
marvellous to the happy man, so good to the contented enthusiast, as a
_valley of tears_, in which a vindictive fate has placed them only to
expiate crimes committed either by themselves or by their fathers; they
consider themselves as sent here for no other purpose than to be the
sharers of calamity; the sport of a capricious fortune; that they are
the children of sorrow, destined to undergo the severest trials, to the
end that they may everlastingly arrive at a new existence, in which they
shall be either happy or miserable, according to their conduct towards
the ministers of a being who holds their destiny in his hands. These
dismal notions have been the source of all the irrational systems
that have ever prevailed; they have given birth to the most revolting
practices, currency to the most absurd customs. History abounds with
details of the most atrocious cruelties, under the imposing name of
public worship; nothing has been considered either too fantastical or
too flagitious by the votaries of superstition. Parents have immolated
their children; lovers have sacrificed the objects of their affection;
friends have destroyed each other: the most bloody disputes have been
fomented; the most interminable animosities have been engendered, to
gratify the whim of implacable priests, who by crafty inventions have
obtained an influence over the people; to please blind zealots, who have
never been able either to give fixity to their ideas, or to define
their own feelings. Idle dreamers nourished with bile, intoxicated
with theologic fury--atrabilarians, whose melancholic humour frequently
disposes them to wickedness--visionaries, whose devious imaginations,
heated with intemperate zeal, generally leads them to the extremes of
fanaticism, working upon ignorance, whose usual bias is credulity,
have incessantly disturbed the harmony of mankind, kindled the
inextinguishable flame of discord, and in an almost uninterrupted
succession, strewed the earth with the mangled carcasses of the
multitudinous victims to mad-brained error, whose only crime has been
their incapacity to dream according to the rules prescribed by these
infuriate maniacs; although these have never been uniform--never
assimilated in any two countries--never borne the same features in
any two ages, nor even had the united concurrence of the persecuting
contemporaries.
It is then in the diversity of temperament, arising from variety of
organization--in the contrariety of passions, springing out of this
miscellany, modified by the most opposite circumstances, that must
be sought the difference we find in the opinions of the theist,
the optimist, the happy enthusiast, the zealot, the devotee, the
superstitious of all denominations; they are all equally irrational--the
dupes of their imagination--the blind children of error. What one
contemplates under a favorable point of view, the other never looks
upon but on the dark side; that which is the object of the most sedulous
research to one set, is that which the others most seek to avoid: each
insists he is right; no one offers the least shadow of substantive proof
of what he asserts; each points out the great importance of his mission,
yet cannot even agree with his colleagues in the embassy, either upon
the nature of their instructions, or the means to be adopted. It is thus
whenever man sets forth a false supposition, all the reasonings he makes
on it are only a long tissue of errors, which entail on him an endless
series of misfortunes; every time he renounces the evidence of
his senses, it is impossible to calculate the bounds at which his
imagination will stop; when he once quits the road of experience, when
he travels out of nature, when he loses sight of his reason, to strike
into the labyrinths of conjecture, it is difficult to ascertain where
his folly will lead him--into what mischievous swamps this _ignis
fatuus_ of the mind may beguile his wandering steps. It is certainly
true, the ideas of the happy enthusiast will be less dangerous to
himself, less baneful to others, than those of the atrabilarious
fanatic, whose temperament may render him both cowardly and cruel;
nevertheless the opinions of the one and of the other will not be less
chimerical; the only difference will be, that of the first will produce
agreeable, cheerful dreams; while that of the second will present
the most appalling visions, terrific spectres, the fruit of a peevish
transport of the brain: there will, however, never be more than a step
between them all; the smallest revolution in the machine, a slight
infirmity, an unforeseen affliction, suffices to change the course
of the humours--to vitiate the temperament--to endanger the
organization--to overturn the whole system of opinions of the happiest.
As soon as the portrait is found disfigured, the beautiful order
of things is overthrown relatively to himself; melancholy grapples
him--pusillanimity benumbs his faculties--by degrees plunges, him into
the rankest depths of gloomy superstition; he then degenerates into all
those irregularities which are the dismal harvest of fanatic ignorance
ploughed with credulity.
Those ideas, which have no archetype but in the imagination of man,
must necessarily take their complexion from his own character; must be
clothed with his own passions; must constantly follow the revolutions of
his machine; be lively or gloomy; favourable or prejudicial; friendly
or inimical; sociable or savage; humane or cruel; according as he whose
brain they inhabit shall himself be disposed; in fact, they can never be
more than the shadow of the substance he himself interposes between the
light and the ground on which they are thrown. A mortal plunged from a
state of happiness into misery, whose health merges into sickness, whose
joy is changed into affliction, cannot in these vicissitudes preserve
the same ideas; these naturally depend every instant upon the
variations, which physical sensations oblige his organs to undergo.
It will not therefore appear strange that these opinions should be
fluctuating, when they depend upon the state of the nervous fluid, upon
the greater or less portion of igneous matter floating in the sanguinary
vessels.
_Theism_, or what is called _Natural Religion_, cannot have certain
principles; those who profess it must necessarily be subject to vary in
their opinions--to fluctuate in their conduct, which flows out of
them. A system founded upon wisdom and intelligence, which can never
contradict itself, when circumstances change will presently be converted
into fanaticism; rapidly degenerate into superstition; such a system,
successively meditated by enthusiasts of very distinct characters,
must of necessity experience vicissitudes, and quickly depart from its
primitive simplicity. The greater part of those philosophers who have
been disposed to substitute theism for superstition, have not felt
that it was formed to corrupt itself--to degenerate. Striking examples,
however, prove this fatal truth. Theism is almost every where corrupted;
it has by degrees given way to those superstitions, to those extravagant
sects, to those prejudicial opinions with which the human species is
degraded. As soon as man consents to acknowledge invisible powers out
of nature, upon which his restless mind will never be able invariably to
fix his ideas--which his imagination alone will be capable of painting
to him; whenever he shall not dare to consult his reason relatively to
those powers, it must necessarily be, that the first false step leads
him astray, that his conduct as well as his opinions becomes in the long
run perfectly absurd.
Those are usually called Theists, who, undeceived upon the greater
number of grosser errors to which the uninformed, the superstitiously
ignorant, tend the most determined support, simply hold the notion of
unknown agents endowed with intelligence, wisdom, power and goodness, in
short, full of infinite perfections, whom they distinguish from nature,
but whom they clothe after their own fashion; to whom they ascribe their
own limited views; whom they make act according to their own absurd
passions. The religion of Abraham appears to have originally been a kind
of theism, imagined to reform the superstition of the Chaldeans; Moses
modified it, and gave it the Judaical form. Socrates was a theist, who
lost his life in his attack on polytheism; his disciple Aristocles, or
Plato, as he was afterwards called from his large shoulders, embellished
the theism of his master, with the mystical colours which he borrowed
from the Egyptian and Chaldean priests, which he modified in his own
poetical brain, and preserved a remnant of polytheism. The disciples
of Plato, such as Proclus, Ammonius, Jamblicus. Plotinus, Longinus,
Porphyrus, and others, dressed it up still more fantastically, added a
great deal of superstitious mummery, blended it with magic, and other
unintelligible doctrines. The first doctors of Christianity were
Platonists, who combined the reformed Judaism with the philosophy taught
in Academia. Mahomet, in combating the polytheism of his country, seems
to have been desirous of restoring the primitive theism of Abraham, and
his son Ishmael; yet this has now seventy-two sects. Thus it will be
obvious, that theism has no fixed point, no standard, no common measure
more than other systems: that it runs from one supposition to another,
to find in what manner evil has crept into the world. Indeed it has been
for this purpose, which perhaps after all will never be satisfactorily
explained, that the doctrine of free-agency was introduced; that the
fable of Prometheus and the box of Pandora was imagined; that the
history of the Titanes was invented; notwithstanding, it must be evident
that these things as well as all the other trappings of superstition,
are not more difficult of comprehension than the immaterial substances
of the theists; the mind who can admit that beings devoid of parts,
destitute of organs, without bulk, can move matter, think like man, have
the moral qualities of human nature, need not hesitate to allow that
ceremonies, certain motions of the body, words, rites, temples, statues,
can equally contain secret virtues; has no occasion to withhold its
faith from the concealed powers of magic, theurgy, enchantments, charms,
talismans, &c.; can shew no good reason why it should not accredit
inspirations, dreams, visions, omens, soothsayers, metamorphoses, and
all the host of occult sciences: when things so contradictory to the
dictates of reason, so completely opposed to good sense are freely
admitted, there can no longer be an thing which ought to possess the
right to make credulity revolt; those who give sanction to the one,
may without much hesitation believe whatever else is offered to their
credence. It would be impossible to mark the precise point at which
imagination ought to arrest itself--the exact boundary that should
circumscribe belief--the true dose of folly that may be permitted them;
or the degree of indulgence that can with safety be extended to
those priests who are in the habit of teaching so variously, so
contradictorily, what man ought to think on the subjects they handle
so advantageously to themselves; who when it becomes a question what
remuneration is due from mankind for their unwearied exertions in
his favour, are, in spite of all their other differences, in the most
perfect union; except perhaps when they come to the division of
the spoil: in this, indeed, the apple of discord sometimes takes a
tremendous roll. Thus it will be clear that there can be no substantive
grounds for separating the theists from the most superstitious; that it
becomes impossible to fix the line of demarcation, which divides them
from the most credulous of men; to shew the land-marks by which they
can be discriminated from those who reason with the least conclusive
persuasion. If the theist refuses to follow up the fanatic in every step
of his cullibility, he is at least more inconsequent than the last, who
having admitted upon hearsay an inconsistent, whimsical doctrine, also
adopts upon report the ridiculous, strange means which it furnishes him.
The first sets forth with an absurd supposition, of which he rejects
the necessary consequences; the other admits both the principle and the
conclusion. There are no degrees in fiction any more than in truth. If
we admit the superstition, we are bound to receive every thing which
its ministers promulgate, as emanating from its principle. None of
the reveries of superstition embrace any thing more incredible than
immateriality; these reveries are only corollaries drawn with more
or less subtilty from unintelligible subjects, by those who have an
interest in supporting the system. The inductions which dreamers have
made, by dint of meditating on impenetrable materials, are nothing
more than ingenious conclusions, which have been drawn with wonderful
accuracy, from unknown premises, that are modestly offered to the
sanction of mankind by enthusiasts, who claim an unconditional assent,
because they assure us no one of the human race is in a capacity either
to see, feel, or comprehend the object of their contemplation. Does not
this somewhat remind us of what Rabelais describes as the employment of
Queen Whim's officers, in his fifth book and twenty-second chapter?
Let us then acknowledge, that the man who is this most credulously
superstitious, reasons in a more conclusive manner, or is at least more
consistent in his credulity, than those, who, after having admitted a
certain position of which they have no one idea, stop short all at once,
and refuse to accredit that system of conduct which is the immediate,
the necessary result of a radical and primitive error. As soon as they
subscribe to a principle fatally opposed to reason, by what right do
they dispute its consequences, however absurd they may be found? We
cannot too often repeat, for the happiness of mankind, that the human
mind, let it torture itself as much as it will, when it quits visible
nature leads itself astray; for want of an intelligent guide it wanders
in tracks that bewilder its powers, and is quickly obliged, to return
into that with which it has at least some, acquaintance. If man mistakes
nature and her energies, it is because he does not sufficiently study
her--because he does not submit to the test of experience the phenomena
he beholds; if he will obstinately deprive her of motion, he can
no longer have any ideas of her. Does, he, however, elucidate his
embarrassments, by submitting her action to the agency of a being of
which he makes himself the model? Does he think he forms a god, when
he assembles into one heterogeneous mass, his own discrepant qualities,
magnified until his optics are no longer competent to recognize them,
and then unites to them certain abstract properties of which he cannot
form to himself any one conception? Does he, in fact, do more than
collect together that which becomes, in consequence of its association,
perfectly unintelligible? Yet, strange as it may appear, when he no
longer understands himself--when his mind, lost in its own fictions,
becomes inadequate to decipher the characters he has thus promiscuously
assembled--when he has huddled together a heap of incomprehensible,
abstract qualities, which he is obliged to acknowledge are the mere
creatures of imagination, not within the reach of human intellect,
he firmly persuades himself he has made a most accurate and beautiful
portrait of the Divinity; he ostentatiously displays his picture,
demands the eulogy of the spectator, and quarrels with all those who do
not agree to adulate his creative powers, by adopting the inconceivable
being he holds forth to their worship; in short, to question the
existence of his extravaganza, rouses his most bitter reproaches;
elicits his everlasting scorn; entails on the incredulous his eternal
hatred.
On the other hand, what could we expect from such a being, as they have
supposed him to be? What could we consistently ask of him? How make
an immaterial being, who has neither organs, space, point, or contact,
understand that modification of matter called voice? Admit that this
is the being who moves nature--who establishes her laws--who gives to
beings their various essences--who endows them with their respective
properties; if every thing that takes place is the fruit of his infinite
providence--the proof of his profound wisdom, to what end shall we
address our prayers to him? Shall we solicit him to acknowledge that
the wisdom and providence with which we have clothed him, are in fact
erroneous, by entreating him to alter in our favour his eternal laws?
Shall we give him to understand our wisdom exceeds his own, by asking,
him for our pleasure to change the properties of bodies--to annihilate
his immutable decrees--to trace back the invariable course of things--to
make beings act in opposition to the essences with which he has thought
it right to invest them? Will he at our intercession prevent a body
ponderous and hard by its nature, such as a stone, for example, from
wounding, in its fall a sensitive being such as the human frame? Again,
should we not, in fact, challenge impossibilities, if the discordant
attributes brought into union by the theologians were correct; would
not immutability oppose itself to omnipotence; mercy to the exercise
of rigid justice; omniscience, to the changes that might be required in
foreseen plans? In physics, in consequence of the general research
after a perpetual motion, science has drawn forth the discovery, that
by amalgamating metals of contrary properties, the contractile powers
of one kind, under given circumstances which cause the dilation of the
other, by their opposite tendencies neutralize the actual effects
of each, taken separately, and thus produce an equality in the
oscillations, that, neither possessed individually.
It will perhaps, be insisted, that the infinite science of the Creator
of all things, is acquainted with resources in the beings he has formed,
which are concealed from imbecile mortals; that consequently without
changing any thing, either in the laws of nature, or in the essence
of things, he is competent to produce effects which surpass the
comprehension of our feeble understanding; that these, effects will in
no wise be contrary to that order which he himself has established in
nature. Granted: but then I reply, _first_, that every thing which is
conformable to the nature of things, can neither be called
supernatural nor miraculous: many things are, unquestionably, above
our comprehension; but then all that is operated in the world is
natural--grows out of those immutable laws by which nature is regulated.
In the _second_ place, it will be requisite to observe, that by the
word miracle an effect is designed, of which, for want of understanding
nature, she is believed incapable. In the _third_ place, it is worthy of
remark, that the theologians, almost universally, insist that by miracle
is meant not an extraordinary effort of nature, but an effect directly
opposite to her laws, which nevertheless they equally challenge to
have been prescribed by the Divinity. Buddaeus says, "a miracle is an
operation by which the laws of nature, upon which depend the order
and the preservation of the universe, are suspended." If, however, the
Deity, in those phenomena that most excite our surprise, does nothing
more than give play to springs unknown to mortals, there is, then,
nothing in nature, which, in this sense, may not be looked upon as a
miracle; because the cause by which a stone falls is as unknown to us,
as that which makes our globe turn on its own axis. Thus, to explain
the phenomena of nature by a miracle, is, in other words, to say we are
ignorant of the actuating causes; to attribute them to the Divinity,
is to agree we do not comprehend the resources of nature: it is
little better than accrediting magic. To attribute to a sovereignly
intelligent, immutable, provident, wise being, those miracles by which
he derogates from his own laws, is at one blow to annihilate all these
qualities: it is an inconsistency that would shame a child. It cannot be
supposed that omnipotence has need of miracles to govern the universe,
nor to convince his creatures, whose minds and hearts must be in his
own hands. The last refuge of the theologian, when driven off all other
ground, is the possibility of every thing he asserts, couched in the
dogma, "that nothing is impossible to the Divinity." He makes this
asseveration with a degree of self-complacency, with an air of triumph,
that would almost persuade one he could not be mistaken; most assuredly,
with those who dip no further than the surface, he carries complete
conviction. But we must take leave to examine a little the nature of
this proposition, and we do apprehend that a very slight degree of
consideration will shew that it is untenable. In the _first_ place, as
we have before observed, the possibility of a thing by no means proves
its absolute existence: a thing may be extremely possible, and yet not
be. _Secondly_, if this was once to become an admitted argument, there
would be, in fact, an end of all morality and religion. The Bishop of
Chester, Doctor John Wilkins, says, "would not such men be generally
accounted out of their wits, who could please themselves by entertaining
actual hopes of any thing, merely upon account of the possibility of
it, or torment themselves with actual fears of all such evils as are
possible? Is there any thing imaginable wore wild and extravagant
amongst those in bedlam than this would be?" _Thirdly_, the
impossibility would reasonably appear to be on the other side, so far
from nothing being impossible, every thing that is erroneous would seem
to be actually so; the Divinity could not possibly either love vice,
cherish crime, be pleased with depravity, or commit wrong; this
decidedly turns the argument against them; they must either admit the
most monstrous of all suppositions, or retire from behind the shield
with which they have imagined they rendered themselves invulnerable.
To those who may be inclined to inquire, whether it would not be better
that all things were operated by a good, wise, intelligent Being, than
by a blind nature, in which not one consoling quality is found; by a
fatal necessity always inexorable to human intreaty? It may be replied,
_first_, that our interest does not decide the reality of things, and
that when this should be even wore advantageous than it is pointed out,
it would prove nothing. _Secondly_, that as we are obliged to admit
some things are operated by nature, it is certainly on the side of
probability that she performs the others; especially as her capabilities
are more substantively proved by every age as it advances. _Thirdly_,
that nature duly studied furnishes every thing necessary to render us
as, happy as our essence admits. When, guided by experience, we shall
consult her, with cultivated reason; she will discover to us our
duties, that is to say, the indispensable means to which her eternal and
necessary laws have attached our preservation, our own happiness,
and that of society. It is decidedly in her bosom that we shall find
wherewith to satisfy our physical wants; whatever is out of nature, can
have no existence relatively to ourselves.
Nature, then, is not a step-mother to us; we do not depend upon an
inexorable destiny. Let us therefore endeavour to become more familiar
with her resources; she will procure us a multitude of benefits when we
shall pay her the attention she deserves: when we shall feel disposed
to consult her, she will supply us with the requisites to alleviate both
our physical and moral evils: she only punishes us with rigour, when,
regardless of her admonitions, we plunge into excesses that disgrace us.
Has the voluptuary any reason to complain of the sharp pains inflicted
by the gout, when experience, if he had but attended to its counsels,
has so often warned him, that the grossness of sensual indulgence must
inevitably amass in his machine those humours which give birth to the
agony he so acutely feels? Has the superstitious bigot any cause
for repining at the misery of his uncertain ideas, when an attentive
examination of that nature, he holds of such small account, would have
convinced him that the idols under whom he trembles, are nothing but
personifications of herself, disguised under some other name? It is
evidently by incertitude, discord, blindness, delirium, she chastises
those who refuse to, acknowledge the justice of her claims.
In the mean time, it cannot be denied, that a pure Theism, or what is
called Natural Religion, may not be preferable to superstition, in the
same manner as reform has banished many of the abuses of those countries
who have embraced it; but there is nothing short of an unlimited and
inviolable liberty of thought, that can permanently assure the repose
of the mind. The opinions of men are only dangerous when they are
restrained, or when it is imagined necessary to make others think as
we ourselves think. No opinions, not even those of superstition itself,
would be dangerous, if the superstitious did not think themselves
obliged to enforce their adoption, or had not the power to persecute
those who refused. It is this prejudice, which, for the benefit
of mankind, it is essential to annihilate; and if the thing be not
achievable, then the next object which philosophy may reasonably propose
to itself, will be to make the depositaries of power feel that
they never ought to permit their subjects to commit evil for either
superstitious or religious opinions. In this case, wars would be almost
unheard of amongst men: instead of beholding the melancholy spectacle of
man cutting the throat of his fellow man, because this cannot see
with his eyes, we shall witness him essentially labouring to his own
happiness by promoting that of his neighbour; cultivating the earth
in peace; quietly bringing forth the productions of nature, instead of
puzzling his brain with theological disputes, which can never be of the
smallest advantage, except to the priests. It must be a self-evident
truth, that an argument by men, upon that which is not accessible to
man, _could only have been invented by knaves, who, like the professors
of legerdemain, were determined to riot luxuriously on the ignorance and
credulity of mankind._