§ 1.
We have explained in another place how the notion of spirits came to
be introduced among men, and proved that they were merely phantoms
which existed only in their disordered imagination.
The first instructors of mankind were not very explicit in their
"lessons to the million" as to the nature of these phantoms, but they
could not help saying what they thought of them. One class, reflecting
that these shadows melted into thin air and had no consistence,
described them as immaterial or incorporeal, having shapes without
matter, but coloured and defined. At the same time however, they denied
that they were corporeal existences, or that they were coloured or
figured; adding that they could clothe themselves with air as with
a garment, when they wished to become visible to the eye of men. A
second class assert that they were animated bodies, but that they were
composed of air, or some still more subtle matter, which they could
thicken at their pleasure, when they chose to make their appearance.
§ 2.
If the two sorts of philosophers were opposed to each other in their
opinion as to those shadows, they agreed as to their name, viz.,
Demons; in which respect they were as those who, when dreaming, believe
that they see the souls of people departed, and that it is their own
soul which they behold when they look into a mirror--or, in short,
those who can believe that the reflections of the stars which they see
in the water are the souls of the stars themselves. Out of this truly
ridiculous belief they wandered into an era no less absurd; believing
that these phantoms possessed unlimited power--an idea sufficiently
devoid of reason, but current among the ignorant, who suppose that
these beings, whom they know not, can exert a fearful influence.
§ 3.
This most absurd creed was invented and promulgated by legislators,
in order to support their own authority. They established this
belief in spirits under the name of religion, hoping that the dread
of these invisible powers which the people would entertain, might
keep them to their duty. To give the more weight to their dogma, they
classified those spirits or demons as good and bad; the one species
being intended to stimulate men to the observance of their laws,
and the other to act as a check and prevent their breaking them.
To ascertain what these demons really were, it is only necessary to
read the works of the Greek poets and historians, and above all, the
Theogany of Hesiod, where he dwells at great length on the origin of
the gods.
§ 4.
The Greeks invented them. From that people they passed by means of
their colonies into Asia, Egypt, and Italy. In this way the Jews,
who were dispersed in Alexandria and elsewhere became acquainted with
them. They made the same happy use of them as other nations did--with
this difference, that, unlike the Greeks, they did not call them
demons, or regard them as good and bad spirits indifferently. They
considered them all as bad with one single exception, to whom they gave
the name of the Spirit, or God; and they termed those men prophets who
said that they were inspired by the good Spirit. Farther, they viewed
as the operations of this divine Spirit whatever they considered as
a great blessing; and on the other hand, they looked upon whatever
they thought to be a great evil, as proceeding from some cacodemon
or evil spirit.
§ 5.
This distinction between good and evil led them to the use of
the appellation demoniacs, which they applied to lunatics, madmen,
furious persons, and epileptics, as also to those who made use of "the
unknown tongues." A man deformed and somewhat deranged, was said to be
possessed of an unclean spirit; and a dumb man by a dumb spirit. These
words, spirit and demon, became so familiar to them that they used
them on every occasion. It follows that the Jews believed with the
Greeks, that these phantoms were neither chimerical nor visionary,
but real and substantial agents.
§ 6.
Hence it is that the Bible is filled with tales of spirits, and demons,
and demoniacs; but in no place of that book is it said how and when
they were created--an omission scarcely pardonable on the part of
Moses, who undertakes to give an account of the creation both of the
heavens and of the earth. Christ who speaks very frequently of angels
and spirits, good and bad, does not inform us whether they are material
or immaterial. This makes it evident that both of them were ignorant
of the fact that the Greeks had instructed their ancestors in this
strange belief. Were the case otherwise, Jesus Christ would be no less
culpable for his silence on the subject, than he is for his refusal
to grant to the majority of the human race, that grace, that faith,
and that piety, which he assures them it is in his power to bestow.
But to return to the subject of Spirits. It is certain these words
Demons, Satan, Devil, are only proper names intended to apply to any
obnoxious individual of our own species; and that, at no period did
any but the most ignorant believe in their existence, either amongst
the Greeks who invented, or the Jews who adopted the terms. After
the latter became infected with such notions, they applied these
words which signify enemy, accuser, and destroyer, at one time to
invisible Powers, and at another, to those which are visible. Thus,
they declared of the Gentiles, that their dwelling was in the kingdom
of Satan; there being none other than themselves (by their own account
of the matter) who dwelt in the kingdom of God.
§ 7.
Jesus Christ being a Jew, and consequently imbued with these opinions,
we need not be surprised when we meet in the gospels and the writing
of his disciples the words Devil, Satan, and Hell, as if they were
anything real or substantive. We have showed before that there can be
nothing more chimerical; but although what was said might suffice to
satisfy rational men, we are not the less necessitated to add a few
words, in an attempt to convince the bigotted.
All Christians agree that God is the source of everything; that
he created all things--that he sustains them, and that without his
support they would drop into annihilation.--From these principles,
it is certain that he created that being whom they call the Devil, or
Satan. Whether he were created good or evil is nothing to the argument;
he is incontestibly the work of the great Head, and if he continue
to exist, all wicked as they represent him to be, it must only be at
the good pleasure of God. Now, how is it possible to conceive that God
would preserve one of his creatures, who not only hates him mortally,
and blasphemes him without end, but who sets himself to seduce the
friends of the Almighty for the sole purpose of mortifying him. How
is it possible, I repeat, that God can permit this Devil to exist,
who turns aside from his worship the favored and the elect, and who
would dethrone him were it in his power?
This is what we wish to say in speaking of God, or rather in
speaking of the Devil and Hell. If God is almighty, and if nothing
can happen without his permission, how comes it that the devil hates
him, blasphemes him, and seduces his worshippers? The Deity either
consents to this or he does not. If he consents to it, the Devil
in blaspheming him is only doing his duty, since he can do nothing
but what God wishes, and consequently it is not the Devil, but God
himself who blasphemes himself,--a fearfully absurd supposition. If
he does not consent to it he cannot be omnipotent, and there must
be two principles, the one of good, and the other of evil--the one
aiming at one thing, and the other at its direct opposite.
To what then leads our reasoning? To this; that neither God,
nor the Devil, nor Paradise, nor Hell, nor the Soul, are such as
religion has represented them to be, and as most reverend divines
have maintained. These latter sell their fables for truths, being
people of bad faith who abuse the credulity of the ignorant by making
them believe whatever they please; as if the vulgar were absolutely
unfitted to hear the truth and could be nourished by nothing but
those absurdities, in which a rational mind can only discover a vast
of nothing, and a waste of folly.
The world has been long infected with these most absurd opinions,
yet in every age men have been found--truth-loving men--who have
striven against the absurdities of their day. This little treatise has
been written from like motives, and in it the lovers of truth will
doubtless meet with some things satisfactory. It is to them that I
appeal, caring little for the opinion of those who substitute their
own prejudices in place of infallible oracles.
Happy the man, who, studying Nature's laws,
Through known effects can trace the secret cause;
His mind possessing in a quiet state,
Fearless of Fortune, and resigned to Fate.
Dryden's Translation of Virgil, Georgics, Book II. l. 700.