_Examination of the Advantages which result from Man's Notions on
the Divinity.--Of their Influence upon Mortals;--upon Politics;--upon
Science;--upon the Happiness of Nations, and that of Individuals._
The slender foundation of those ideas which men form to themselves of
their gods, must have appeared obvious in what has preceded; the proofs
which have been offered in support of the existence of immaterial
substances, have been examined; the want of harmony that exists in the
opinions upon this subject, which all concur in agreeing to be equally
impossible to be known to the inhabitants of the earth, has been shewn;
the incompatibility of the attributes with which, theology has clothed
incorporeity, has been explained. It has been proved, that the idols
which man sets up for adoration, have usually had their birth, either in
the bosom of misfortune, when ignorance was at a loss to account for the
calamities of the earth upon natural principles, or else have been the
shapeless fruit of melancholy, working upon an alarmed mind, coupled
with enthusiasm and an unbridled imagination. It has been pointed out
how these prejudices, transmitted by tradition from father to son,
grafting themselves upon infant minds, cultivated by education,
nourished by fear, corroborated by habit, have been maintained by
authority; perpetuated by example. In short, every thing must have
distinctly evidenced to us, that the ideas of the gods, so generally
diffused over the earth, has been little more than an universal delusion
of the human race. It remains now to examine if this error has been
useful.
It needs little to prove error can never be advantageous for mankind;
it is ever founded upon his ignorance, which is itself an acknowledged
evil; it springs out of the blindness of his mind to acknowledged
truths, and his want of experience, which it must be admitted are
prejudicial to his interests: the more importance, therefore, he
shall attach to these errors, the more fatal will be the consequences
resulting from their adoption. Bacon, the illustrious sophist, who first
brought philosophy out of the schools, had great reason when he said,
"The worst of all things is deified error." Indeed, the mischiefs
springing from superstition or religious errors, have been, and always
will be, the most terrible in their consequences--the most extensive in
their devastation. The more these errors are respected, the more play
they give to the passions; the more value is attached to them, the
more the mind is disturbed; the more they are insisted upon, the
more irrational they render those, who are seized with the rage for
proselytism; the more they are cherished, the greater influence they
have on the whole conduct of our lives. Indeed, there can he but little
likelihood that he who renounces his reason, in the thing which he
considers as most essential to his happiness, will listen to it on any
other occasion.
The slightest reflection will afford ample proof to this sad truth: in
those fatal notions which man has cherished on this subject, are to be
traced the true sources of all those prejudices, the fountain of all
those sorrows, to which he is the victim. Nevertheless, as we have
elsewhere said, utility ought to be the only standard, the uniform
scale, by which to form a judgment on either the opinions, the
institutions, the systems, or the actions of intelligent beings; it is
according to the measure of happiness which these things procure for us,
that we ought either to cover them with our esteem, or expose them to
our contempt. Whenever they are useless it is our duty to despise them;
as soon as they become pernicious, it is imperative to reject
them; reason imperiously prescribes that our detestation should be
commensurate with the evils which they cause.
Taking these principles for a land-mark, which are founded on our
nature, which must appear incontestible to every reasonable being, with
experience for a beacon, let us coolly examine the effects which these
notions have produced on the earth. We have already, in more than one
part of the work, given a glimpse of the doctrine of that morals, which
having only for object the preservation of man, and his conduct in
society, can have nothing, in common with imaginary systems: it has been
shewn, that the essence of a sensitive, intelligent, rational being,
properly meditated, would discover motives competent to moderate
the fury of his passions--to induce him to resist his vicious
propensities--to make him fly criminal habits--to invite him to render
himself useful to those beings for whom his own necessities have a
continual occasion; thus, to endear himself to his, fellow mortals, to
become respectable in his own esteem. These motives will unquestionably
be admitted to possess more solidity, to embrace greater, potency, to
involve more truth, than those which are borrowed from systems that want
stability; that assume more shapes than there are languages; that are
not tangible to the tact of humanity; that must of necessity present a
different perspective to all who shall view them through the medium of
prejudice. From what has been advanced, it will be felt that education,
which should make man in early life contract good habits, adopt
favorable dispositions, fortified by a respect for public opinion,
invigorated by ideas of decency, strengthened by wholesome laws,
corroborated by the desire of meriting the friendship of others,
stimulated by the fear of losing his own esteem, would be fully adequate
to accustom him to a laudable conduct, amply sufficient to divert
him from even those secret crimes, from which he is obliged to punish
himself by remorse; which costs him the most incessant labour to keep
concealed, by the dread of that shame, which must always follow their
publicity. Experience demonstrates in the clearest manner, that the
success of a first crime disposes him to commit a second; impunity leads
on to the third, this to a lamentable sequel that frequently closes a
wretched career with the most ignominious exhibition; thus the first
delinquency is the commencement of a habit: there is much less distance
from this to the hundredth, than from innocence to criminality: the man,
however, who lends himself to a series of bad actions, under even the
assurance of impunity, is most woefully deceived, because he cannot
avoid castigating himself: moreover, he cannot know at what point of
iniquity he shall stop. It has been shewn, that those punishments which
society, for its own preservation, has the right to inflict on those
who disturb its harmony, are more substantive, more efficacious, more
salutary in their effects, than all the distant torments held forth by
the priests; they intervene a more immediate obstacle to the stubborn
propensities of those obdurate wretches, who, insensible to the charms
of virtue, are deaf to the advantages that spring from its practice,
than can be opposed by the denunciations, held forth in an hereafter
existence, which he is at the same moment taught may be avoided by
repentance, that shall only take place when the ability to commit
further wrong has ceased. In short, one would be led to think it obvious
to the slightest reflection, that politics, founded upon the nature of
man, upon the principles of society, armed with equitable laws, vigilant
over morals, faithful in rewarding virtue, constant in visiting crime,
would be more suitable to clothe ethics with respectability, to throw a
sacred mantle over moral goodness, to lend stability to public virtue,
than any authority that can be derived from contested systems, the
conduct of whose professors frequently disgrace the doctrines they lay
down, which after all seldom do more than restrain those whose mildness
of temperament effectually prevents them from running into excess; those
who, already given to justice, require no coercion. On the other hand,
we have endeavoured to prove that nothing can be more absurd, nothing
actually more dangerous, than attributing human qualities to the
Divinity which cannot but choose to find themselves in a perpetual
contradiction.
Plato has said "that virtue consists in resembling God." But how is man
to resemble a being, who, it is acknowledged, is incomprehensible to
mankind--who cannot be conceived by any of those means, by which he is
alone capable of having perceptions? If this being, who is shewn to man
under such various aspects, who is said to owe nothing to his creatures,
is the author of all the good, as well as all the evil that takes
place, how can he be the model for the conduct of the human race
living together in society? At most he can only follow one side of the
character, because among his fellows, he alone is reputed virtuous who
does not deviate in his conduct from justice; who abstains from evil;
who performs with punctuality those duties he owes to his fellows. If it
be taken up, and insisted he is not the author of the evil, only of
the good, I say very well: that is precisely what I wanted to know;
you thereby acknowledge he is not the author of every thing; we are no
longer at issue; you are inconclusive to your own premises, consequently
ought not to demand an implicit reliance on what you choose to assert.
But, replies the subtle theologian, that is not the affair; you must
seek it in the creed I have set forth--in the religion of which I am a
pillar. Very good: Is it then actually in the system of fanatics, that
man should draw up his ideas of virtue? Is it in the doctrines which
these codes hold forth, that he is to seek for a model? Alas! do they
not pourtray their idols: under the most unwholesome colours; do they
not represent them as following their caprice in every thing, who love
or hate, who choose or reject, who approve or condemn according to their
whim, who delight in carnage, who send discord amongst men, who act
irrationally, who commit wantonness, who sport with their feeble
subjects, who lay continual snares for them, who rigorously interdict
the use of their reason? What, let us seriously ask, would become of
morality, if men proposed to themselves such portraits for models!
It was, however, for the most part, systems of this temper that nations
adopted. At was in consequence of these principles that what has been
called religion in most countries, was far removed from being
favourable to morality; on the contrary, it often shook it to its
foundation--frequently left no vestige of its existence. It divided
man, instead of drawing closer the bonds of union; in the place of
that mutual love, that reciprocity of succour, which ought ever to
distinguish human society, it introduced hatred and persecution; it made
them seize every opportunity to cut each other's throat for speculative
opinions, equally irrational; it engendered the most violent
heart-burnings--the most rancorous animosities--the most sovereign
contempt. The slightest difference in their received opinions rendered
them the most mortal enemies; separated their interests for ever; made
them despise each other; and seek every means to render their existence
miserable. For these theological conjectures, nations become opposed to
nations; the sovereign frequently armed himself against his subjects;
subjects waged war with their sovereign; citizens gave activity to the
most sanguinary hostility against each other; parents detested their
offspring; children plunged the pointed steel, the barbed arrow,
into the bosoms of those who gave them existence; husbands and wives
disunited, became the scourges of each other; relations forgetting the
ties of consanguinity, tore each other to pieces, or else reciprocally
consigned them to oblivion; all the bonds of society were rent asunder;
the social compact was broken up; society committed suicide: whilst in
the midst of this fearful wreck--regardless of the horrid shrieks called
forth by this dreadful confusion--unmindful of the havock going forward
on all sides--each pretended that he conformed to the views of his
idol, detailed to him by his priest--fulminated by the oracles. Far
from making himself any reproach, for the misery he spread abroad, each
lauded his own individual conduct; gloried in the crimes he committed in
support of his sacred cause.
The same spirit of maniacal fury pervaded the rites, the ceremonies,
the customs, which the worship, adopted by superstition, placed so much
above all the social virtues. In one country, tender mothers delivered
up their children to moisten with their innocent blood the altars of
their idols; in another, the people assembled, performed the ceremony
of consolation to their deities, for the outrages they committed against
them, and finished by immolating to their anger human victims; in
another, a frantic enthusiast lacerated his body, condemned himself for
life to the most rigorous tortures, to appease the wrath of his gods.
The Jupiter of the Pagans was a lascivious monster; the Moloch of the
Phenicians was a cannibal; the savage idol of the Mexican requires
thousands of mortals to bleed on his shrine, in order to satisfy his
sanguinary appetite.
Such are the models superstition holds out to the imitation of man; is
it then surprising that the name of these despots became the signal for
mad-brained enthusiasm to exercise its outrageous fury; the standard
under which cowardice wreaked its cruelty; the watchword for the
inhumanity of nations to muster their barbarous strength; a sound which
spreads terror wherever its echo could reach; a continual pretext for
the most barefaced breaches of public decorum; for the most shameless
violation of the moral duties? It was the frightful character men gave
of their gods, that banished kindness from their hearts--virtue from
their conduct--felicity from their habitations--reason from their mind:
almost every where it was some idol, who was disturbed by the mode in
which unhappy mortals thought; this armed them with poignards against
each other; made them stifle the cries of nature; rendered them
barbarous to themselves; atrocious to their fellow creatures: in short,
they became irrational, breathed forth vengeance, outraged humanity,
every time that, instigated by the priest, they were inclined to imitate
the gods of their idolatry, to display their zeal, to render themselves
acceptable in their temples.
It is not, then, in such systems, man ought to seek either for models of
virtue, or rules of conduct suitable to live in society. He needs human
morality, founded upon his own nature; built upon invariable experience;
submitted to reason. The ethics of superstition will always he
prejudicial to the earth; cruel masters cannot be well served, but by
those who resemble them: what then becomes of the great advantages which
have been imagined resulted to man, from the notions which have
been unceasingly infused into him of his gods? We see that almost
all nations acknowledge them; yet, to conform themselves
to their views, they trampled under foot the clearest rights of
nature--the most evident duties of humanity; they appeared to act as
if it was only by madness the most incurable--by folly the most
preposterous--by the most flagitious crimes, committed with an unsparing
hand, that they hoped to draw down upon themselves the favor of
heaven--the blessings of the sovereign intelligence they so much boast
of serving with unabated zeal; with the most devotional fervor; with the
most unlimited obedience. As soon, therefore, as the priests give them
to understand their deities command the commission of crime, or whenever
there is a question of their respective creeds, although they are wrapt
in the most impenetrable obscurity, they make it a duty with themselves
to unbridle their rancour--to give loose to the most furious passions;
they mistake the clearest precepts of morality; they credulously
believe the remission of their own sins will be the reward of their
transgressions against their neighbour. Would it not be better to be
an inhabitant of Soldania in Africa, where never yet form of worship
entered, or the name of God resounded, than thus to pollute the land
with superstitious castigation--with the enmity of priests against each
other?
Indeed, it is not generally in those revered mortals, spread over the
earth to announce the oracles of the gods, that will be found the most
sterling virtues. These men, who think themselves so enlightened, who
call themselves the ministers of heaven, frequently preach nothing but
hatred, discord, and fury in its name: the fear of the gods, far from
having a salutary influence over their own morals, far from submitting
them to a wholesome discipline, frequently do nothing more than increase
their avarice, augment their ambition, inflate their pride, extend their
covetousness, render them obstinately stubborn, and harden their hearts.
We may see them unceasingly occupied in giving birth to the most lasting
animosities, by their unintelligible disputes. We see them hostilely
wrestling with the sovereign power, which they contend is subordinate to
their own. We see them arm the chiefs of nations against the legitimate
magistrates; distribute to the credulous multitude the most mortal
weapons, to massacre each other in the prosecution of those futile
controversies, which sacerdotal vanity clothes with the most interesting
importance. Do these men, who advance the beauty of their theories, who
menace the people with eternal vengeance, avail themselves of their own
marvellous notions to moderate their pride--to abate their vanity--to
lessen their cupidity--to restrain their turbulence--to bring their
vindictive humours under control? Are they, even in those countries
where their empire is established upon pillars of brass, fixed on
adamantine rocks, decorated with the most curious efforts of human
ingenuity--where the sacred mantle of public opinion shields them with
impunity--where credulity, planted in the hot-bed of ignorance, strikes
the roots of their authority into the very centre of the earth; are
they, I would ask, the enemies to debauchery, the foes to intemperance,
the haters of those excesses which they insist a severe God interdicts
to his adorers? On the contrary, are they not seen to be emboldened in
crime; intrepid in iniquity; committing the most shameful atrocities;
giving free scope to their irregularities; indulging their hatred;
glutting their vengeance; exercising the most savage cruelties on the
miserable victims to their cowardly suspicion? In short, it may be
safely advanced, without fear of contradiction, that scarcely any
thing is more frequent, than that those men who announce these terrible
creeds--who make men tremble under their yoke--who are unceasingly
haranguing upon the eternity and dreadful nature of their
punishments--who declare themselves the chosen ministers of their
oracular laws--who make all the duties of morality centre in themselves;
are those whom superstition least contributes to render virtuous; are
men who possess the least milk of human kindness; the fewest feelings
of tenderness; who are the most intolerant to their neighbours; the most
indulgent to themselves; the most unsociable in their habits; the most
licentious in their manners; the most unforgiving in their disposition.
In contemplating their conduct, we should be tempted to accredit, that
they were perfectly undeceived with respect to the idols whom they
serve; that no one was less the dupe to those menaces which they so
solemnly pronounce in their name, than themselves. In the hands of the
priests of almost all countries, their divinities resembled the head of
Medusa, which, without injuring him who shewed it, petrified all others.
The priests are generally the most crafty of men, and many among them
are substantively wicked.
Does the idea of these avenging, these remunerating systems, impose upon
some princes of the earth, who found their titles, who rest their power
upon them; who avail themselves of their terrific power to intimidate
their subjects; to make the people, often rendered unhappy by their
caprice, hold them in reverence? Alas! the theological, the supernatural
ideas, adopted by the pride of some sovereigns, have done nothing more
than corrupt politics--than metamorphose, them into an abject tyranny.
The ministers of these idols, always tyrants themselves, or the
cherishers of despots, are unceasingly crying out to monarchs that
they are the images of the Divinity. Do they not inform the credulous
multitude that heaven is willing they should groan under the most cruel
bondage; writhe under the most multifarious injustice; that to suffer
is their inheritance; that their princes have the indubitable right
to appropriate the goods, dispose of the persons, coerce the liberty;
command the lives of their subjects? Do not some of these chiefs of
nations, thus poisoned in the name of deified idols, imagine that every
indulgence of their wayward humour is freely permitted to them? At once
competitors, representatives, and rivals of the celestial powers, do
they not, in some instances, exercise after their example the most
arbitrary despotism? Do they not, in the intoxication into which
sacerdotal flattery has plunged them, think that like their idols, they
are not accountable to man for their actions, that they owe nothing
to the rest of mortals, that they are bound by no bonds but their own
unruly will, to their miserable subjects?
Then it is evident that it is to theological notions, to the loose
flattery of its ministers, that are to be ascribed the despotism,
the tyrannical injustice, the corruption, the licentiousness of some
princes, and the blindness of those people, to whom in heaven's name
they interdict the love of liberty; who are forbid to labour effectually
to their own happiness; to oppose themselves to violence, however
flagrant; to exercise their natural rights, however conducive to their
welfare. These intoxicated rulers, even while adoring their avenging
gods, in the act of bending others to their worship, do not scruple to
outrage them by their irregularities--by their want of moral virtue.
What morality is this, but that of men who offer themselves as living
images, as animated representatives of the Divinity? Are those monarchs,
then, who are habitually unjust, who wrest without remorse the bread
from the hands of a famished people, to administer to the profligacy of
their insatiable courtiers--to pamper the luxury of the vile instruments
of their enormities, atheists? Are, then, those ambitious conquerors,
who not contented with oppressing their own slaves, carry desolation,
spread misery, deal out death among the subjects of others, atheists?
Do we not witness in some of those potentates who rule over nations by
_divine right_, (a patent of power, which every usurper claims as his
own) ambitious mortals, whose exterminating fury nothing can arrest;
with hearts perfectly insensible to the sorrows of mankind; with minds
without energy; with souls without virtue; who neglect their most
evident duties, with which they do not even deign to become acquainted;
powerful men, who insolently set themselves above the rules of equity;
knaves who make a sport of honesty? Generally speaking, is there
the least sincerity in the alliances which these rulers form among
themselves? Do they ever last longer than for the season of their
convenience? Do we find substantive virtues adorn those who most
abjectly submit themselves to all the follies of superstition? Do they
not tax each other as violators of property--as faithlessly aggrandizing
themselves at the expence of their neighbour; in fact, do we not see
them endeavouring to surprise, anxious to over-reach, ready to injure
each other, without being arrested by the menaces of their creeds, or at
all yielding to the calls of humanity? In general, they are too haughty
to be humane; too inflated with ambition to be virtuous; they make a
code for themselves, which they cannot help violating. Charles the Fifth
used to say, "that being a warrior, it was impossible for him to have
either conscience or religion." His general, the Marquis de Piscaire,
observed, that "nothing was more difficult, than to serve at one and the
same time, the god _Mars_ and _Jesus Christ_." Indeed, nothing can be
more opposed to the true spirit of Christianity than the profession
of arms; notwithstanding the Christian princes have the most numerous
armies, and are in perpetual hostility with each other: perhaps the
clergy themselves do not hold forth the most peaceable examples of the
doctrine they teach; they sometimes wrangle for tithes, dispute
for trifling enjoyments, quarrel for worldly opinion, with as much
determined obstinacy, with as, much settled rancour, with as little
charity, as could possibly inhabit the bosom of the most unenlightened
Pagan, whose ignorance they despise--whose superstition they rank as the
grossest effort of idolatrous debasement. It might almost admit of
doubt whether they would be quite pleased to see the mild maxims of the
Evangelists, the true Christian meekness, rigidly followed--whether they
might not think the complete working of their own system would clash
with their own immediate interests? Is it a demonstrable axiom that
the ministers of the Christian faith do not think soldiers are beings
extremely well calculated to give efficacy to their doctrine--solidity
to their advantages--durability to their claims? Be this as it may,
priests as well as monarchs have occasionally waged war for the most
futile interests; impoverished a people from the anti-christian motives;
wrested from each other with all the venom of furies, the bloody remnant
of the nations they have laid waste; in fact, to judge by their conduct
on certain occasions, it might have been a question if they were not
disputing who should have the credit of making the greater number of
miserable beings upon earth. At length, either wearied with their own
fury, exhausted by their own devouring passions, or compelled by the
stern hand of necessity, they have permitted suffering humanity to take
breath; they have allowed the miseries concomitant on war, to cease for
an instant their devastating havoc; they have made peace in the name of
that God, whose decrees, as attested by themselves, they have been so
wantonly outraging,--still ready, however, to violate their most solemn
pledges, when the smallest interest could offer them a pretext.
Thus it will be obvious, in what manner the idea of the Divinity
operates on the priest, as well as upon those who are called his images;
who insist they have no account to render but to him alone. Among these
representatives of the Divine Majesty, it is with difficulty during
thousands of years we find some few who have equity, sensibility,
virtue, or even the most ordinary talent. History points out some
of these vicegerents of the Deity, who in the exacerbation of their
delirious rage, have insisted upon displacing him, by exalting
themselves into gods; and exacting the most obsequious worship; who have
inflicted the most cruel torments on those who have opposed themselves
to their madness, and refused to acknowledge the Divinity of their
persons. These men, whose licentiousness knew no limits, from the
impunity which attended their actions, notwithstanding they had learned
to despise public opinion, to set decency at defiance, to indulge in the
most shameless vice: in spite of the power they possessed; of the homage
they received; of the terror they inspired: although they had learned
to counterfeit, with great effect, the whole catalogue of human virtues;
found it impossible, even with the addition of their enormous wealth,
wrenched from the necessities of laborious honesty, to counterfeit the
animating blush, which modest merit brings forth, when eulogized by some
happy being whose felicity he has occasioned, by following the great
law of nature--which says, "_love thy neighbour as thyself_." On the
contrary, we see them grow listless with satiety; disgusted with their
own inordinate indulgences; obliged to recur to strange pleasures, to
awaken their benumbed faculties; to run headlong into the most costly
follies, in the fruitless attempt to keep up the activity of their
souls, the spring of which they had for ever relaxed, by the profligacy
of their enjoyment.
History, although it describes a multitude of vicious rulers, whose
irregular propensities were of the most mischievous consequence to the
human race, nevertheless, shews us but few who have been atheists. The
annals of nations, on the contrary, offer to our view great numbers of
superstitious princes, governed by their mistresses, led by unworthy
favorites, leagued with priests, who passed their lives plunged in
luxury; indulging the most effeminate pursuits; following the most
childish pleasures; pleased with ostentatious show; slaves even to the
fashion of the vestments that covered them; but strangers to every manly
virtue; insensible to the sorrows of their subjects; although uniformly
good to their hungry courtiers, invariably kind to those cringing
sycophants who surrounded their persons, and poisoned their ears with
the most fulsome flattery: in short, superstitious persecutors, who,
to render themselves acceptable to their priests, to expiate their
own shameful irregularities, added to all their other vices that of
tyrannizing over the mind, of fettering the conscience, of destroying
their subjects for their opinions, when they were in hostility with
their own received doctrines. Indeed, superstition in princes frequently
allied itself with the most horrid crimes; they have almost all
professed religion, although very few of them have had a just knowledge
of morality--have practiced any useful substantive virtue. Superstitious
notions, on the contrary, often serve to render them more blind, to
augment their evil inclinations; to set them at a greater distance from
moral goodness. They for the most part believe themselves assured of the
favor of heaven; they think they faithfully serve their gods, that the
anger of their divinities is appeased, if for a short season they
shew themselves attached to futile customs--lend themselves to absurd
rites--perform some ridiculous duties, which superstition imposes on
them, with a view to obtain their assistance in the prosecution of its
own plans, very rarely in strict unison with their immediate interest.
Nero, the cruel, sanguinary, matricidal Nero, his hands yet reeking with
the blood of that unfortunate being who had borne him in her womb, who
had, with agonizing pains, given the monster to the world that
plunged the dagger in her heart, was desirous to be initiated into the
_Eleusinian Mysteries_. The odious Constantine himself, found in the
priests, accomplices disposed to expiate his crimes. The infamous
Philip, whose ungovernable ambition caused him to be called the daemon
of the south, whilst he assassinated his wife and son, caused the
throats of the wretched Batavians to be cut for their religious
opinions. It is thus, that the priests of superstition sometimes
persuade sovereigns they can atone for crimes, by committing others of a
more atrocious kind--of an increased magnitude.
It would be fair to conclude, from the conduct of so many princes, who
had so much superstition, but so slender a portion of virtue, that the
notion of their gods, far from being useful to them, only served to
render them wore corrupt--to make them more abominable than they already
were; that the idea of an avenging power, placed in the perspective
of futurity, imposed but little restraint on the turbulence of deified
tyrants, who were sufficiently powerful not to fear the reproaches of
their subjects--who had the insensibility to be deaf to the censure of
their fellows--who were gifted with an obduracy of soul, that prevented
their having compassion for the miseries of mankind, from whom they
fancied themselves so pre-eminently distinguished; which, in fact, they
were, if crime can be allowed for the standard of distinction. Neither
heaven nor earth furnishes a balsam of sufficient efficacy to heal the
inveterate wounds of beings cankered to this degree: for such chronic
diseases, there is "no balm in Gilead:" there is no curb sufficiently
coercive to rein in the passions, to which superstition itself
gives activity; which only makes them more unruly; renders them more
inveterately rash. Whenever men flatter themselves with easily expiating
their sins--when they soothe themselves with the consolitary idea of
appeasing the anger of the gods by a show of earnestness, they then
deliver themselves up, with the most unrestrained freedom, to the bent
of their criminal pursuits. The most dissolute men are frequently in
appearance extremely attached to superstition: it furnishes them with a
means of compensating by ceremonies, that of which they are deficient
in morals: it is much easier for them to adopt a faith, to believe in
a doctrine, to conform themselves to certain rituals, than to renounce
their habits, resist their passions, or relinquish the pursuit of that
pleasure, which results to unprincipled minds from the prosecution of
the most diabolical schemes.
Under chiefs, depraved even by superstition, nations continued
necessarily to be corrupted. The great conformed themselves to the
vices of their masters; the example of these distinguished men, whom the
uninformed erroneously believe to be happy, was followed by the people;
courts thus became the sinks from whence issued the epidemic contagion
of licentious indulgence. The law only held forth pictures of honesty;
the dispensers of jurisprudence were partial, partook of the mania of
the times, were labouring under the general disease; Justice suffered
her balance to rust, occasionally removed her bandage, although she
always wore it in the presence of the poor; genuine ideas of equity
had grown into disuse; distinct notions of right and wrong became
troublesome and unfashionable; education was neglected; it served only
to produce prejudiced beings, grounded in ignorance--devotees, always
ready to injure themselves--fanatics, eager to shew their zeal ever
willing to annoy their unfortunate neighbours. Superstition, sustained
by tyranny, ousted every other feeling, hoodwinked its destined victims,
rendered those tractable whom it had the intention to despoil. Whoever
doubts of these truisms, has only to turn over the pages of history,
he will find myriads of evidence to much more than is here stated.
Machiavel, in his _Political Discourses upon Titus Livius_, labours the
point hard, to shew the utility of superstition to the Roman Republic:
unfortunately, however, the examples he brings forward in its support,
incontestibly prove that none but the senate profited by the infatuation
of the people, who availed itself of their blindness more effectually to
bend them to its yoke.
Thus it was that nations, destitute of equitable laws, deficient in the
administration of justice, submitted to irrational government, continued
in slavery by the monarch, chained up in ignorance by the priest, for
want of enlightened institutions, deprived of reasonable education,
became corrupt, superstitious, and flagitious. The nature of man, the
just interests of society, the real advantage of the sovereign, the true
happiness of the people, once mistaken, were completely lost sight
of; the morality of nature, founded upon the essence of man living
in society, was equally unknown; lay buried under an enormous load
of prejudice, that no common efforts were competent to remove. It was
entirely forgotten that man has wants; that society was formed that he
might, with greater security, facilitate the means of satisfying
them; that government, to be legitimate, ought to have for object, the
happiness--for end, the means of maintaining the indivisibility of the
community; that consequently it ought to give activity to springs, full
play to motives suitable to have a favorable influence over sensible
beings. It was quite overlooked, that virtue faithfully rewarded,
vice as regularly visited, had an elastic force, of which the public
authorities could efficaciously avail themselves, to determine their
citizens to blend their interests; to work out their own felicity, by
labouring to the happiness of the body of which they were members. The
social virtues were unknown, the _amor patriae_ became a chimera. Men
thus associated, thus blinded by their superstitious bias, credulously
believed their own immediate interest consisted in injuring each other;
they were solely occupied with meriting the favor of those men, who
fatally accreditted the doctrine of clerical flatterers, of silver-toned
courtiers, which taught that they wore distinctly interested in injuring
the whole.
This is the mode in which the human heart has become perverted; here
is the genuine source of moral evil; the hot-bed of that epidemical
depravity, the cause of that hereditary corruption, the fountain of
that inveterate delinquency, which pervaded the earth; rendering the
abundance of nature nothing better than a curse; blasting the fairest
prospects of humanity; degrading man below the beast of the forest;
sinking his intellectual faculties in the most savage barbarity;
rendering him the vile instrument of lawless ambition; the wretched tool
by which the fetters of his species were firmly rivetted; obliging him
to moisten his harvest with the bitter tears of the most abject slavery.
For the purpose of remedying so many crying evils, grown insupportable,
recourse was had to new superstitions. Notwithstanding this alone had
produced them, it was still imagined, that the menaces of heaven would
restrain passions which every thing conspired to rouse in all hearts;
fatuity persuaded monarchs that ideal, metaphysical barriers, terrible
fables, distant phantoms, would be competent to curb those inordinate
desires, to rein in that impetuous propensity to crime, that rendered
society incommodious to itself; credulity fancied that invisible powers
would be more efficacious, than those visible motives that evidently
invited mortals to the commission of mischief. Every thing was
understood to be achieved, by occupying man's mind with gloomy chimeras,
with vague, undefinable terrors, with avenging angels; and politics
madly believed that its own interests grew out of the blind submission
of its subjects, to the ministers of these delusive doctrines.
What was the result? Nations had only sacerdotal laws; theological
morality; accommodated to the interests of the hierarchy--suitable to
the views of subtle priests: who substituted reveries for realities,
opinions for reason, rank fallacies for sterling truths; who made
ceremonies supply the place of virtue; a pious blindness supersede the
necessity of an enlightened understanding; undermined the sacredness
of oaths, and placed fanaticism on the altars of sociability. By a
necessary consequence of that confidence which the people were compelled
to give to the ministers of superstition, two distinct authorities
were established in each state, who were substantially at variance, in
continual hostility with each other. The priest fought the sovereign
with the formidable weapon of opinion; it generally proved sufficiently
powerful to shake the most established thrones. Thus, although the
hierarchy was unceasingly admonishing the people to submit themselves
to the divine authority of their sovereigns, because it was derived
immediately from heaven, yet, whenever it so happened that the monarch
did not repay their advocacy, by blindly yielding his own authority to
the supervisance of the priests, these made no scruple of threatening
him with loss of his temporalities; fulminated their anathemas,
interdicted his dominions, and sometimes went the length of absolving
his subjects from allegiance. Superstition, in general, only upholds
despotism, that it may with greater certainty direct its blows against
its enemies; it overthrows it whenever it is found to clash with its
interests. The ministers of invisible powers preach up obedience to
visible powers, only when they find these humbly devoted to themselves.
Thus the sovereign was never at rest, but when abjectly cringing to his
priest, he tractably received his lessons--lent himself to his frantic
zeal--and piously enabled him to carry on the furious occupation of
proselytism. These priests, always restless, full of ambition, burning
with intolerance, frequently excited the sovereign to ravage his own
states--encouraged him to tyranny: when, pursuing this sacerdotal mania,
he feared to have outraged humanity, to have incurred the displeasure
of heaven, he was quickly reconciled to himself, upon promise of
undertaking some distant expedition, for the purpose of bringing some
unfortunate nation within the pale of their own particular creed. When
the two rival powers united themselves, morality gained nothing by the
junction; the people were neither more happy, nor more virtuous; their
morals, their welfare, their liberty, were equally overwhelmed by the
combined powers. Thus, superstitious princes always felt interested in
the maintenance of theological opinions, which were rendered flattering
to their vanity, favorable to their power. Like the grateful perfumes
of Arabia, that are used to cover the ill scent of a deadly poison, the
priest lulled them into security by administering to their sensualities;
these, in return, made common cause with him: fully persuaded that the
superstition which they themselves adopted, must be the most wholesome
for their subjects, most conducive to their interests, those who refused
to receive the boon, thus gratuitously forced upon them, were treated
as enemies, held up to public scorn, and rendered the victims of
punishment. The most superstitious sovereign became, either politically
or through piety, the executioner of one part of his slaves; he was
taught to believe it a sacred duty to tyrannize over the mind--to
overwhelm the refractory--to crush the enemy of his priest, under an
idea that he was therefore hostile to his own authority. In cutting the
throats of these unfortunate sceptics, he imagined he at once discharged
his obligations to heaven, and gave security to his own power. He did,
not perceive, that by immolating victims to his priest, he in fact
strengthened the arm of his most formidable foe--the real enemy to
his authority--the rival of his greatness--the least subjected of his
subjects.
But the prevalence of these false notions, with which both the minds of
the sovereign and the people were prepossessed, it was found that every
thing in society concurred to gratify the avidity, to bolster the pride,
to glut the vengeance of the sacerdotal order: every where, it was to be
observed, that the most turbulent, the most dangerous, the most useless
men, were those who were the most amply rewarded. The strange spectacle
presented itself, of beholding those who were born the bitterest enemies
to sovereign power, cherished by its fostering care--honoured at its
hands: the most rebellious subjects were looked upon as the pillars of
the throne; the corrupters of the people were rendered the exclusive
masters of education; the least laborious of the citizens were richly
rewarded for their idleness--munificently remunerated for the most
futile speculations--held in respect for their fatal discord--gorged
with benefits for their inefficacious prayers: they swept off the fat of
the land for their expiations, so destructive to morals, so calculated
to give permanency to crime. Thus, by a strange fatuity, the viper that
could, and frequently did, inflict the most deadly sting on the bosom of
confiding credulity, was pampered and nourished by the unsuspecting hand
of its destined victim.
For thousands of years, nations as well as sovereigns were emulously
despoiling themselves to enrich the expounders of superstition; to
enable them to wallow in abundance: they loaded them with honors,
decorated them with titles, invested them with privileges, granted them
immunities, for no other purpose than to make them bad citizens, unruly
subjects, mischievous beings, who revenged upon society the advantages
they had received. What was the fruit that kings and people gathered
from their imprudent kindness? What was the harvest these men yielded
to their labour? Did princes really become more powerful; were nations
rendered more happy; did they grow more flourishing; did men become more
rational? No! Unquestionably, the sovereign lost the greater portion
of his authority; he was the slave of his priest; and when he wished to
preserve the remnant that was left, or to recover some part of what
had been wrested from him, he was obliged to be continually wrestling
against the men his own indulgence, his own weakness, had furnished
with means, to set his authority at defiance: the riches of society were
lavished to support the idleness, maintain the splendour, satiate the
luxury of the most useless, the most arrogant, the most dangerous of its
members.
Did the morals of the people improve under the pastoral care of these
guides, who were so liberally rewarded? Alas! the superstitious never
knew them, their fanatic creed had usurped the place of every virtue;
its ministers, satisfied with upholding the doctrines, with preserving
the ceremonies so useful to their own interests, only invented
fictitious crimes--multiplied painful penances--instituted absurd
customs; to the end, that they might turn even the transgressions of
their slaves to their own immediate profit. Every where they exercised
a monopoly of expiatory indulgences; they made a lucrative traffic of
pretended pardons from above; they established a tariff, according to
which crime was no longer contraband, but freely admitted upon paying
the customs. Those subjected to the heaviest impost, were always such as
the hierarchy judged most inimical to its own stability; you might at a
very easy rate obtain permission to attack the dignity of the sovereign,
to undermine the temporal power, but it was enormously dear to be
allowed to touch even the hem of the sacerdotal garments. Thus heresy,
sacrilege, &c. were considered crimes of a much deeper dye, that fixed
an indelible stain on the perpetrator, alarmed the mind of the priestly
order, much more seriously than the most inveterate villainy, the
most determined delinquency, which more immediately involved the true
interests of society. Thence the ideas of the people were completely
overturned, imaginary crimes terrified them, while real crimes had
no effect upon their obdurate hearts. A man, whose opinions were at
variance with the received doctrines, whose abstract systems did not
harmonize with those of his priest, was more loathed than a corrupter of
youth; more abhorred than an assassin; more hated than an oppressor; was
held in greater contempt than a robber; was punished with greater
rigor than the seducer of innocence. The acme of all wickedness, was
to despise that which the priest was desirous should be looked upon as
sacred. The celebrated Gordon says, "the most abominable of heresies,
is to believe there is any other god than the clergy." The civil laws
concurred to aid this confusion of ideas; they inflicted the most
serious penalties, punished in the most atrocious manner those unknown
crimes which imagination had magnified into the most flagitious actions;
heretics, infidels, were brought to the stake, and publicly burnt with
the utmost refinement of cruelty; the brain was tortured to find means
of augmenting the sufferings of the unhappy victims to sacerdotal fury;
whilst calumniators of innocence, adulterers, depredators of every
description, knaves of all kinds, were at a trifling cost absolved from
their past iniquity, and opened a new account of future delinquency.
Under such instructors what could become of youth? The period of
juvenility was shamefully sacrificed to superstition. Man, from his
earliest infancy, was poisoned with unintelligible notions; fed with
mysteries; crammed with fables; drenched with doctrines, in which he was
compelled to acquiesce without being able to comprehend. His brain was
disturbed with phantoms, alarmed with chimeras, rendered frantic by
visions. His genius was cramped with puerile pursuits, mechanical
devotions, sacred trifles. Superstition at length so fascinated
the human mind, made such mere automata of mankind, that the people
consented to address their gods in a dialect they did not themselves
understand: women occupied their whole lives in singing Latin,
without comprehending a word of the language; the people assisted very
punctually, without being competent to explain any part of the
worship, under an idea that it was taken kindly they should thus weary
themselves; that it was sufficient to shew their persons in the sacred
temples, which were beautifully decorated to fascinate their senses.
Thus man wasted his most precious moments in absurd customs; spent his
life in idle ceremonies; his bead was crowded with sophisms, his mind
was loaded with errors; intoxicated with fanaticism, he was the declared
enemy to reason; for ever prepossessed against truth, the energy of
his soul was resisted by shackles too ponderous for its elasticity;
the spring gave way, and he sunk into sloth and wretchedness: from this
humiliating state he could never again soar; he could no longer become
useful either to himself or to his associates: the importance he
attached to his imaginary science, or rather the systematic ignorance
which served for its basis, rendered it impossible for the most fertile
soil to produce any thing but thorns; for the best proportioned tree to
yield any thing but crabs.
Does a superstitious, sacerdotal education, form intrepid citizens,
intelligent fathers of families, kind husbands, just masters, faithful
servants, loyal subjects, pacific associates? No! it either makes
peevish enthusiasts or morose devotees, who are incommodious to
themselves, vexatious to others: men without principle, who quickly
pour the waters of Lethe over the terrors with which they have been
disturbed; who know no moral obligation, who respect no virtue. Thus
superstition, elevated above every thing else, held forth the fanatical
dogma, "Better to obey the gods than men;" in consequence, man believed
he must revolt against his prince, detach himself from his wife, detest
his children, estrange himself from his friends, cut the throats of his
fellow-citizens, every time they questioned the veracity of his faith:
in short, a superstitious education, when it had its effect, only served
to corrupt the juvenile heart--to fascinate youthful winds with its
pageantry--to degrade the human soul--to make man mistake the duties
he owed to himself, his obligations to society, his relations with the
beings by whom he was surrounded.
What advantages might not nations have reaped, if they would have
employed on useful objects, those riches, which ignorance has so
shamefully lavished on the expounders of superstition; which fatuity has
bestowed on the most useless ceremonies? What might not have been the
progress of genius, if it had enjoyed those ample remunerations, granted
during so many ages to those priests who at all times opposed its
elevation? What perfection might not science have attained, what height
might not the arts have reached, if they had had the same succours that
were held forth with a prodigal hand to enthusiasm and futility? Upon
what rocks might not morality have been rested, what solid foundations
might not politics have found, with what majestic grandeur might not
truth have illumined the human horizon, if they had experienced the
same fostering cares, the same animating countenance, the same
public sanction, which accompanied imposture--which was showered
upon fanaticism--which shielded falsehood from the rude attack of
investigation--which gave impunity to its ministers?
It is then obvious, that superstitious, theological notions, have not
produced any of those solid advantages that have been held forth; if may
be doubted whether they were not always, and ever will remain, contrary
to healthy politics, opposed to sound morality; they frequently change
sovereigns into restless, jealous, mischievous, divinities; they
transform their subjects into envious, wicked slaves, who by idle
pageantry, by futile ceremonies, by an exterior acquiescence in
unintelligible opinions, imagine themselves amply compensated for
the evil they commit against each other. Those who have never had
the confidence to examine these sublimated opinions; those who feel
persuaded that their duties spring out of these abstruse doctrines;
those who are actually commanded to live in peace, to cherish each
other, to lend mutual assistance, to abstain from evil, and to do good,
presently lose sight of these sterile speculations, as soon as present
interests, ungovernable passions, inveterate habits, or irresistible
whims, hurry them away. Where are we to look for that equity, that union
of interest, that peace, that concord, which these unsettled notions,
supported by superstition, backed with the full force of authority,
promise to the societies placed under their surveillance? Under the
influence of corrupt courts, of time-serving priests, who, either
impostors or fanatics, are never in harmony with each other, are only
to be discerned vicious men, degraded by ignorance--enslaved by
criminal habits--swayed by transient interests--guided by shameful
pleasures--sunk in a vortex of dissipation; who do not even think of
the Divinity. In despite of his theological ideas, the subtle courtier
continues to weave his dark plots, labours to gratify his ambition,
seeks to satisfy his avidity, to indulge his hatred, to wreak his
vengeance, to give full swing to all the passions inherent to the
perversity of his being: maugre that frightful hell, of which the idea
alone makes her tremble, the woman of intrigue persists in her amours;
continues her harlotry, revels in her adulteries. Notwithstanding their
dissipated conduct, their dissolute manners, their entire want of moral
principle, the greater part of those who swarm in courts, who crowd in
cities, would recoil with horror, if the smallest doubt was exhibited of
the truth of that creed which they outrage every moment, of their
lives. What advantage, then, has resulted to the human race from those
opinions, so universal, at the same time so barren? They seem rarely to
have had any other kind of influence than to serve as a pretext for the
most dangerous passions--as a mantle of security for the most criminal
indulgences. Does not the superstitious despot, who would scruple to
omit the least part of the ceremonies of his persuasion, on quitting
the altars at which he has been sacrificing, on leaving the temple where
they have been delivering the oracles and terrifying crime in the name
of heaven, return to his vices, reiterate his injustice, increase his
political crimes, augment his transgressions against society? Issuing
from the sacred fane, their ears still ringing with the doctrines they
have heard, the minister returns to his vexations, the courtier to
his intrigues, the courtezan to her prostitution, the publican to his
extortions, the merchant to his frauds, the trader to his tricks.
Will it be pretended that those cowardly assassins, those dastardly
robbers, those miserable criminals, whom evil institutions, the
negligence of government, the laxity of morals, continually multiply;
from whom the laws, in many instances too sanguinary, frequently wrest
their existence; will it, I say, be pretended that the malefactors who
regularly furnish the gibbets, who daily crowd the scaffolds, are either
incredulous or atheists? No! Unquestionably, these unfortunate beings,
these wretched outcasts, these children of turpitude, firmly believe in
God; his name has been repeated to them from their infancy; they have
been informed of the punishment destined for sinners: they have been
habituated in early life to tremble at his judgments; nevertheless they
have outraged society; their unruly passions, stronger than their fears,
not having been coerced by visible motives, have not, for much more
cogent reasons, been restrained by those which are invisible: distant,
concealed punishments will never be competent to arrest those excesses
which present and assured torments are incapable of preventing.
In short, does not every day's experience furnish us the lesson,
that men, persuaded that an all-seeing Deity views them, hears them,
encompasses them, do not on that account arrest their progress when
the furor exists, either for gratifying their licentious passions, or
committing the most dishonest actions? The same individual who would
fear the inspection of the meanest of his fellows, whom the presence of
another man would prevent from committing a bad action, from delivering
himself up to some scandalous vice, freely sins, cheerfully lends
himself to crime, when he believes no eyes beholds him but those of his
God. What purpose, then, does the conviction of the omniscience, the
ubiquity, the omnipotence of the Divinity answer, if it imposes
much less on the conduct of the human being, than the idea of being
overlooked by the least of his fellow men? He who would not have the
temerity to commit a crime, even in the presence of a child, will make
no scruple of boldly committing it, when he shall have only his God for
a witness. These facts, which are indubitable, ill serve for a reply to
those who insist that the fear of God is more suitable to restrain the
actions of men, than wholesome laws, with strict discipline. When man
believes he has only his God to dread, he commonly permits nothing to
interrupt his course.
Those persons who do not in the least suspect the power of superstitious
notions, who have the most perfect reliance on their efficacy, very
rarely, however, employ them, when they are desirous to influence the
conduct of those who are subordinate to them; when they are disposed
to re-conduct them to the paths of reason. In the advice which a father
gives to his vicious, criminal son, he rather represents to him the
present temporal inconveniencies to which his conduct exposes him, than
the danger he encounters in offending an avenging God; he points out to
him the natural consequences of his irregularities, his health damaged
by debaucheries; the loss of his reputation by criminal pursuits; the
ruin of his fortune by gambling; the punishments of society, &c. Thus
the DEICOLIST himself, on the most important occasions of life, reckons
more stedfastly upon the force of natural motives, than upon those
supernatural inducements furnished by superstition: the same man, who
vilifies the motives that an atheist can have to do good and abstain
from evil, makes use of them himself on this occasion, because he feels
they are the most substantive he can employ.
Almost all men believe in an avenging and remunerating God; yet nearly
in all countries the number of the wicked bears a larger proportion
than that of the good. If the true cause of this general corruption be
traced, it will be more frequently found in the superstitious notions
inculcated by theology, than in those imaginary sources which the
various superstitions have invented to account for human depravity. Man
is always corrupt wherever he is badly governed; wherever superstition
deifies the sovereign, his government becomes unworthy: this perverted
and assured of impunity, necessarily render his people miserable;
misery, when it exceeds the point of endurance, as necessarily renders
them wicked. When the people are submitted to irrational masters, they
are never guided by reason. If they are blinded by priests, who are
either deceived or impostors, their reason become useless. Tyrants, when
combined with priests, have generally been successful in their efforts
to prevent nations from becoming enlightened--from seeking after
truth--from ameliorating their condition--from perfectioning their
morals; and never has the union smiled upon liberty: the people, unable
to resist the mighty torrent produced by the confluence of two such
rivers, have usually sunk into the most abject slavery. It is only by
enlightening the mass of mankind, by demonstrating truth, that we can
promise to render him better; that we can indulge the hope of making him
happy. It is by causing both sovereigns and subjects to feel their true
relations with each other, that their actual interests will be improved;
that their politics will be perfectioned: it will then be felt and
accredited, that the true art of governing mortals, the sure method of
gaining their affections, is not the art of blinding them, of deceiving
them, or of tyrannizing over them. Let us, then, good humouredly consult
reason, avail ourselves of experience, interrogate nature; we shall,
perhaps, find what is requisite to be done, in order to labour
efficaciously to the happiness of the human race. We shall most
assuredly perceive, that error is the true source of the evils
which embitter our existence; that it is in cheering the hearts, in
dissipating those vain phantoms which alarm the ignorant, in laying the
axe to the root of superstition, that we can peaceably seek after truth;
that it is only in the conflagration of this baneful tree, we can ever
expect to light the torch which shall illumine the road to felicity.
Then let man study nature; observe her immutable laws; let him dive into
his own essence; let him cure himself of his prejudices: these means
will conduct him by a gentle declivity to that virtue, without which he
must feel he can never be permanently happy in the world he inhabits.
If man could once cease to fear, from that moment he would be truly
happy. Superstition is a domestic enemy which he always carries within
himself: those who will seriously occupy themselves with this formidable
phantom, must be content to endure continual agonies, to live in
perpetual inquietude: if they will neglect the objects most worthy
of interesting them, to run after chimeras, they will commonly pass
a melancholy existence, in groaning, in praying, in sacrificing,
in expiating faults, either real or imaginary, which they believe
calculated to offend their priests; frequently in their irrational fury
they will torment themselves, they will make it a duty to inflict on
their own persons the most barbarous punishments: but society will reap
no benefit from these mournful opinions--from the tortures of these
pious irrationals; because their mind, completely absorbed by their
gloomy reveries, their time dissipated in the most absurd ceremonies,
will leave them no opportunity of being really advantageous to the
community of which they are members. The most superstitions men are
commonly misanthropists, quite useless to the world, and very injurious
to themselves: if ever they display energy, it is only to devise means
by which they can increase their own affliction; to discover new methods
to torture their mind; to find out the most efficacious means to deprive
themselves of those objects which their nature renders desirable. It is
common in the world to behold penitents, who are intimately persuaded
that by dint of barbarous inflictions on their own persons, by means
of a lingering suicide, they shall merit the favor of heaven. Madmen of
this species are to be seen every where; superstition has in all ages,
in all places, given birth to the most cruel extravagances, to the most
injurious follies.
If, indeed, these irrational devotees only injure themselves, and
deprive society of that assistance which they owe to it, they without
doubt do less mischief than those turbulent, zealous fanatics, who,
infuriated with their superstitious ideas, believe themselves bound to
disturb the world, to commit actual crimes, to sustain the cause of
what they denominate the true faith. It not unfrequently happens that in
outraging morality, the zealous enthusiast supposes he renders himself
agreeable to his God. He makes perfection consist either in tormenting
himself, or in rending asunder, in favour of his fanatical ideas, the
most sacred ties that connect mortals with each other.
Let us, then, acknowledge, that the notions of superstition, are not
more suitable to procure the welfare, to establish the content, to
confirm the peace of individuals, than they are of the society of which
they are members. If some peaceable, honest, inconclusive enthusiasts,
find either comfort or consolation in them, there are millions who, more
conclusive to their principles, are unhappy during their whole life;
who are perpetually assailed by the most melancholy ideas; to whom their
disordered imagination shews these notions, as every instant involving
them in the most cruel punishments. Under such formidable systems, a
tranquil, sociable devotee, is a man who has not reasoned upon them.
In short, every thing serves to prove, that superstitious opinions have
the strongest influence over men; that they torment them unceasingly,
divide them from their dearest connections, inflame their minds, envenom
their passions, render them miserable without ever restraining their
actions, except when their own temperament proves too feeble to propel
them forward: all this holds forth one great lesson, that _superstition
is incompatible with liberty, and can never furnish good citizens_.