§ 1.
Those who are ignorant of physical causes have a natural fear
[27], proceeding from a restlessness in their minds, as to whether
there exists a Being or an Agency invisible to them, who has the
power to injure them or to do them good. Hence the tendency which
they have to feign unseen causes, which are only the phantoms
of their imagination--whom they deprecate in adversity and thank
in prosperity. They make Gods of them for this purpose; and this
chimerical fear of invisible Powers is the source of those Religions
which every one forms after his own fashion. Those whose interest it
is that the people should rest contentedly fettered by such reveries,
have fostered their spread--have founded laws upon them--and finally
reduced the people by the terrors of futurity to a blind obedience.
§ 2.
The origin of the Gods being discovered, men next imagined that they
resembled themselves, and that they invariably acted with a certain
end in view. Thus they unanimously said and believed, that God only
works for man's behoof; and reciprocally, that man is only created
for God. This prejudice is general even in the present day, and when
we reflect on the influence which it must necessarily have on the
manners and opinions of men we may clearly perceive that from it
have arisen those false ideas which men have formed to themselves,
of good and evil, of merit and demerit, of praise and blame, of
order and confusion, of beauty and deformity, and a thousand other
similar matters.
§ 3.
It must be agreed that all men are in a state of profound ignorance
at their birth, and that their only natural wish is to seek that
which is pleasant and profitable to them.--Hence it follows, 1st,
That they believe it sufficient for them that they are free, and
that they feel within themselves the power of volition and desire,
without troubling themselves as to the causes which effect this
volition and this desire; because they know them not. 2dly, As men
only aim at one object when they prefer it to all others, they sought
to ascertain the final causes of their actions, imagining that after
these were discovered there would be little room for doubt; and as
they found within themselves and without themselves abundant means
of arriving at the end proposed--the eye constructed for vision, the
ear for hearing; a sun above them to give them light and heat; they
concluded that there was nothing in nature which was not made for them
and which they could not enjoy and dispose of; but as they well knew
that they were not the creators of these things, they thought that
they were justified in imagining a Supreme Being, the author of all;
in one word they conceived that everything in existence was the work of
one, or of more Divinities. On the other hand, the nature of the Gods
whom men acknowledged being unknown to them, they believed that they
were susceptible of like passions with themselves; and as the natural
dispositions of men are different, every one rendered to his Divinity
a worship according to his fancy, with the view of drawing down his
blessings, and making universal nature subservient to his own desires.
§ 4.
In this manner prejudice was changed into superstition. It was rooted
in such a way that the most ignorant people believed themselves
capable of explaining the doctrine of final causes, as if they had
an entire knowledge of them.--Thus, instead of proving that Nature
did nothing in vain, they imagined that God and Nature thought after
the manner of men. Experience taught them that an infinite number
of calamities disturbed the pleasures of life--storms, earthquakes,
plagues, hunger, thirst, &c. They attributed all these evils to
divine wrath, and believed that the Deity was irritated against
mankind for their offences; nor could the daily occurring examples
which prove that good and evil happen alike to the just and unjust,
disabuse them of their prejudices. This error prevailed, because they
found it easier to remain in their natural ignorance, than to divest
themselves of notions established for so many ages; and to adopt
something in their stead, having at least the appearance of truth.
§ 5.
This prejudice conducted them straightway to another, which was, that
all the judgments of God were incomprehensible; and that consequently
they were beyond the cognizance of truth, and above the strength of
human reason; a mistake which would have existed at the present day,
if mathematical knowledge, natural philosophy, and other sciences
had not extinguished it.
§ 6.
There is no necessity for a long dissertation to prove that nature
never aims at any definite end, and that all these final causes are
only human fictions. It is sufficient to show that this doctrine
deprives the Deity of all the perfections which have been attributed
to him; and this we will endeavor to do.
If God acts for an end, either for himself or for any other being, he
desires that which he does not possess; and it must be granted from
these premises that, as there was a time when God had no object for
which to act, he wished to have one; that is to say, that he stood in
need of something. But not to overlook anything which may strengthen
the arguments of those who maintain the opposite opinion, suppose,
for a moment, that a stone detached from a battlement fell upon an
individual and killed him; it proves, say our opponents, that this
stone fell for the purpose of killing this person, because it could not
so have happened unless God had wished it. If we reply that it was the
wind which caused its fall at the time when the unfortunate individual
was passing, they demand at once, how it happened that he was passing
exactly at the time when the wind brought down the stone. We answer,
that he was on his way to dine with a friend who had invited him;
they wish to know why his friend had invited him on that day rather
than on any other. They put in this manner an infinitude of absurd
questions to force you to confess that the will of God alone (which
is the refuge of the ignorant) was the real cause of the fall of
this stone. When they examine the structure of the human body, they
fall into ecstacies; but because they are ignorant of the causes of
those effects which appear to them so marvellous, they conclude that
it must be a supernatural effect, when the causes which are known to
us account for it. This is the reason why the man who wishes deeply
to examine the works of creation, and like a true philosopher to
penetrate into their natural causes, irrespective of those prejudices
which ignorance has created, is branded as an infidel, or speedily
clamoured down by the malice of those whom the vulgar acknowledge as
the interpreters of Nature and of the Gods. These mercenary spirits
are well aware that the ignorance which holds the people in wonderment,
is that which gives them bread, and upholds their credit.
§ 7.
Men being thus imbued with the ridiculous opinion that every thing
which they behold is created for themselves, have made it a point
of religion to engross every thing, and to judge of its value by the
profit which it brings. Accordingly they have invented notions which
do them service in explaining the nature of things, and enable them
to judge of good and evil, order and disorder, heat and cold, beauty
and ugliness, &c. which are by no means what they imagine. Because
they are able to frame their ideas in this way, they think that they
are in a position to judge of praise and blame; of good and evil. They
call that good which respects their divine worship, and turns to their
own profit; and that which does neither the one nor the other they
denominate evil; and because the ignorant are incapable of judging,
and have no conception of any thing save through the medium of their
imagination, which they mistake for judgment, they tell us that
nothing can be learned from nature, and forthwith invent a particular
arrangement of the world. In short they think that matters are ill or
well constituted according to the facility or the difficulty which they
have in conceiving of them when presented to them through the medium
of their senses. People are best pleased with what gives least fatigue
to the brain. These individuals have wisely resolved to prefer order
to confusion, as if order were any thing else than a pure fiction of
the imagination. Thus to say that the Deity has made every thing with
order, is to pretend that it is in favour of the human imagination
that he has created the world in a manner the most easy for it to form
a conception of;--or, which is the same thing, that they know with
certainty all the relations and all the designs of whatever exists;
an assertion too absurd to merit any serious refutation.
§ 8.
With respect to their other opinions, they are purely the result of
this same imagination, having no basis in reality, and being only
different modifications of which that faculty is susceptible. Thus,
when the impressions made upon the nervous system through the medium
of the eyes are agreeable, they pronounce that the objects viewed
are beautiful. Smells are good or bad; tastes are sweet or bitter,
things touched are hard or soft, according as the sensation produced
is unpleasant or otherwise--as scents, and tastes, and contact, and
sounds affect the system. Following up these ideas, men have believed
that the Deity is pleased with melody, while others have believed that
all the movements of the celestial bodies were one harmonious concert;
a proof, that these men are persuaded that things are really such as
they conceive them to be, or that the world is entirely ideal.--It
is not to be wondered at therefore, if we scarcely ever meet with
two individuals of the same opinion: indeed some make it their boast
to doubt of every thing; for, although all men have a similar bodily
conformation, and resemble each other in many respects, there are still
as many respects in which they differ. Accordingly it must follow,
that what pleases this party displeases that; and what appears good
to one man appears evil to another.--We must conclude therefore,
that their various opinions must be attributed to their different
organizations and the diversity of their co-existences--that reason
has little connection with them; and in short, that their conceptions
of the material world are the decided results of imagination.
§ 9.
It is therefore evident, that all the reasonings which the generality
of mankind are accustomed to employ when they set themselves to
explain what nature is, are only their own modes of imagining that
which is most uncalculated to make good their own position. They give
names to their ideas, as if they existed in any other quarter than in
their own prejudiced brain; but instead of calling them mere chimeras,
they designate them Beings. There is extremely little difficulty in
refuting the arguments grounded on such opinions.
If it is true, as they advance, that the universe is nothing more
than an emanation from, or simply a necessary consequence to,
the Divine nature, whence spring those imperfections and defaults
which we perceive in it? This objection is easily answered. It is
impossible for men to judge of the perfection or imperfection of any
Being, without a thorough knowledge of his nature and essence [28],
and it is a strange abuse of terms to assert that any thing is more
or less perfect according as it pleases or displeases, or as it is
useful or noxious to human nature. To terminate the argument with
those who demand why God has not created all men good and happy, it
is sufficient to state that every thing is necessarily what it is;
and that, in nature there is no imperfection, since all flows from
the necessity of things.
§ 10.
This being established, if it is asked, "What then is God?" I answer
that the word imports that universal Being "in whom," as St. Paul says,
"we live, and move, and have our being. [29]" This opinion conveys
no unworthy notions of the Divinity, for if all things are in God,
all things must necessarily flow from his essence, and consequently be
of such essence as he himself; for it is impossible to conceive that
beings entirely material should be maintained and comprehended in a
Being who is not so. This opinion is not new. Tertullian, one of the
most learned of the Christian fathers, maintained in his discourse
against Appelles, that whatever is not corporeal is nothing; and in
that against Praxeas that every Existence is a body. He adds, "who
will deny that God is a body, although God is a Spirit [30]?" It is
of importance to observe that this doctrine was not condemned in any
of the four first OEcumenical or General Councils of the Christian
Church. [31]
§ 11.
These ideas are clear and simple, and the only ones which an unbiased
mind can form of God. However, there are few contented with this
simplicity. A gross people accustomed to the gratification of their
senses, have conceived that God resembles the kings of the earth. That
pomp and splendor which surround the latter have dazzled them so much,
that to uproot the idea that God has no resemblance whatever to earthly
sovereigns, would be to deprive them of the hope of meeting celestial
courtiers, and of enjoying in their company, the same pleasures
which they had tasted at regal courts; it would take from them the
only consolation which keeps them from despair amidst the miseries of
this life. They assert that God must be a just and avenging Being who
punishes and recompenses--they represent him as susceptible of every
human passion--they depict him with feet, with hands, with eyes and
with ears, and yet maintain that he is an immaterial Being. They quote
Scripture to prove that man is chief of God's works below, and formed
in his own image; and deny that the copy has the slightest resemblance
to the original. In short, the God of the people in the present day,
as represented by themselves, is subject to more transformations than
the Pagan Jupiter. What is still more strange is this, that the more
these opinions contradict each other and outrage common sense, the more
are they revered by the vulgar, who uphold with bigotry whatever their
prophets have enounced, although these visionaries only held the same
place among the Hebrews, as did the augurs and soothsayers amongst the
pagans. They consult the Bible as if God and Nature had explained it to
them exclusively, although it is only a tissue of fragments gathered
together at various periods, and by different persons, and published
under the censorship of the Rabbis. [32] These, at their pleasure,
decided as to what ought to be approved of, and what, rejected;
according as they found it agreeable or opposed to the law of Moses.
Such is the malice and the folly of mankind. They spend their lives
in quibbles, and persist in reverencing a book which has scarcely
more arrangement than the Alcoran of Mahomet--a book which from its
obscurity nobody understands, and which has only served to foment
divisions. The Jew and Christians love far better to consult this
legerdemain book, than to listen to that which God, that is to say
Nature (inasmuch as it is the origin of all things) has written on
their hearts. All other laws are merely human figments--palpable
illusions set abroad, not by demons or evil spirits, which are the
creations of the fancy, but by the policy of princes, and the craft of
priests. The former have striven in this way to add weight to their
authority; and the latter have been contented to enrich themselves
by the sale of an infinitude of chimerical notions, which they vend
at a dear rate to their ignorant followers.
No other code of laws which has followed that of Moses, except the
Christian, has been based upon that Bible the original of which
could never be discovered, which relates to things supernatural and
impossible, and which speaks of rewards and punishments for actions
good or bad, but wisely postpones them till an after life, lest the
imposture should be detected; for no one has ever returned from the
grave. Thus the people, kept always fluctuating between hope and
fear, are held in bondage by the belief that God has created mankind
for no other purpose than that of rendering them eternally happy or
everlastingly miserable. This is the origin of the vast number of
religions which prevail in the world.