You are aware, Madam, that our theological doctors pretend these
revealed books, which I summarily examined in my preceding letter, do
not include a single word that was not inspired by the Spirit of God.
What I have already said to you is sufficient to show that in setting
out with this supposition, the Divinity has formed a work the most
shapeless, imperfect, contradictory, and unintelligible which ever
existed; a work, in a word, of which any man of sense would blush with
shame to be the author. If any prophecy hath verified itself for the
Christians, it is that of Isaiah, which saith, "Hearing ye shall
hear, but shall not understand." But in this case we reply that it was
sufficiently useless to speak not to be comprehended; to reveal _that_
which cannot be comprehended is to reveal _nothing_.
We need not, then, be surprised if the Christians, notwithstanding the
revelation of which they assure us they have been the favorites, have
no precise ideas either of the Divinity, or of his will, or the way in
which his oracles are to be interpreted. The book from which they should
be able to do so serves only to confound the simplest notions, to throw
them into the greatest incertitude, and create eternal disputations. If
it was the project of the Divinity, it would, without doubt, be attended
with perfect success. The teachers of Christianity never agree on the
manner in which they are to understand the truths that God has given
himself the trouble to reveal; all the efforts which they have employed
to this time have not yet been capable of making any thing clear, and
the dogmas which they have successively invented have been insufficient
to justify to the understanding of one man of good sense the conduct of
ah infinitely perfect Being.
Hence, many among them, perceiving the inconveniences which would result
from the reading of the holy books, have carefully kept them out of the
hands of the vulgar and illiterate; for they plainly foresaw that
if they were read by such they would necessarily bring on themselves
reproach, since it would never fail that every honest man of good sense
would discover in those books only a crowd of absurdities. Thus the
oracles of God are not even made for those for whom they are addressed;
it is requisite to be initiated in the mysteries of a priesthood, to
have the privilege of discerning in the holy writings the light which
the Divinity destined to all his dear children. But are the theologians
themselves able to make plain the difficulties which the sacred books
present in every page? By meditating on the mysteries which they
contain, have they given us ideas more plain of the intentions of the
Divinity? No; without doubt they explain one mystery by citing another;
they scatter In this case, why did it not prevent that fall and its
consequences? Was the reason of Adam corrupted even beforehand by
incurring the wrath of his God? Was it depraved before he had done any
thing to deprave it?
To justify this strange conduct of Providence, to clear him from passing
as the author of sin, to save him the ridicule of being 'the cause or
the accomplice of offences which he did against himself, the theologians
have imagined a being subordinate to the divine power. It is the
secondary being they make the author of all the evil which is committed
in the universe. In the impossibility of reconciling the continual
disorders of which the world is the theatre with the purposes of a Deity
replete with goodness, the Creator and Preserver of the universe, who
delights in order, and who seeks only the happiness of his creatures,
they have trumped up a destructive genius, imbued with wickedness, who
conspires to render men miserable, and to overthrow the beneficent views
of the Eternal.. This bad and perverse being they call Satan, the Devil,
the Evil One; and we see him play a great game in all the religions of
the world, the founders of which have found in the impotence of Deity
the sources of both good and evil. By the aid of this imaginary being
they have been enabled to resolve all their difficulties; yet they could
not foresee that this invention, which went to annihilate or abridge the
power of Deity, was a system filled with palpable contradictions,
and that if the Devil were really the author of sin, it be he, in all
justice, who ought to undergo punishment.
If God is the author of all, it is he who created the Devil; if the
Devil is wicked, if he strives to counteract the projects of the
Divinity, it is the Divinity who has allowed the overthrow of his
projects, or who has not had sufficient authority to prevent the Devil
from exercising his power. If God had wished that the Devil should not
have existed, the Devil would not have existed. God could annihilate him
at one word, or, at least, God could change his disposition if injurious
to us, and contrary to the projects of a beneficent Providence. Since,
then, the Devil does exist, and does such marvellous things as are
attributed to him, we are compelled to conclude that the Divinity has
found it good that he should exist and agitate, as he does, all his
works by a perpetual interruption and perversion of his designs.
Thus, Madam, the invention of the Devil does not remedy the evil; on
the contrary, it but entangles the priests more and more. By placing
to Satan's account all the evil which he commits in the world, they
exculpate the Deity, of nothing; all the power with which they have
supposed the Devil invested is taken from that assigned to the Divinity;
and you know very well that according to the notions of the Christian
religion, the Devil has more adherents than God himself; they are
always stirring their fellow-creatures up to revolt against God; without
ceasing, in despite of God, Satan leads them into perdition, except one
man only, who refused to follow him, and who found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. You are not ignorant that the millions that follow the
standard of Beelzebub are to be plunged with him into eternal misery.
But then has Satan himself incurred the disgrace of the All-powerful? By
what forfeit has he merited becoming the eternal object of the anger of
that God who created him? The Christian religion will explain all. It
informs us that the Devil was in his origin an angel; that is to say,
a pure spirit, full of perfections, created by the Divinity to occupy
a distinguishing situation in the celestial court, destined, like the
other ministers of the Eternal, to receive his orders, and to enjoy
perpetual blessedness. But he lost himself through ambition; his pride
blinded him, and he dared to revolt against his Creator; he engaged
other spirits, as pure as himself, in the same senseless enterprise; in
consequence of his rashness, he was hurled headlong out of heaven, his
miserable adherents were involved in his fall, and, having been hardened
by the divine pleasure in their foolish dispositions, they have no other
occupation assigned them in the universe than to tempt mankind, and
endeavor to augment the number of the enemies of God, and the victims of
his wrath.
It is by the assistance of this fable that the Christian doctors
perceive the fall of Adam, prepared by the Almighty himself anterior
to the creation of the world. Was it necessary that the Divinity should
entertain a great desire that man might sin, since he would thereby have
an opportunity of providing the means of making him sinful? In effect,
it was the Devil who, in process of time, covered with the skin of a
serpent, solicited the mother of the human race to disobey God, and
involve her husband in her rebellion. But the difficulty is not removed
by these inventions. If Satan, in the time he was an angel, lived in
innocence, and merited the good will of his Maker, how came God to
suffer him to entertain ideas of pride, ambition, and rebellion? How
came this angel of light so blind as not to see the folly of such an
enterprise? Did he not know that his Creator was all-powerful? Who was
it that tempted Satan? What reason had the Divinity for selecting him to
be the object of his fury, the destroyer of his projects, the enemy of
his power? If pride be a sin, if the idea itself of rebellion is the
greatest of crimes, _sin was, then, anterior to sin_, and Lucifer
offended God, even in his state of purity; for, in fine, a being pure,
innocent, agreeable to his God, who had all the perfections of which a
creature could be susceptible, ought to be exempt from ambition, pride,
and folly. We ought, also, to say as much for our first parent, who,
notwithstanding his wisdom, his innocence, and the knowledge infused
into him by God himself, could not prevent himself from falling into the
temptation of a demon.
Hence, in every shift, the priests invariably make God the author of
sin. It was God who tempted Lucifer before the creation of the world;
Lucifer, in his turn, became the tempter of man and the cause of all
the evil our race suffers. It appears, therefore, that God created both
angels and men to give them an opportunity of sinning.
It is easy to perceive the absurdity of this system, to save which
the theologians have invented another still more absurd, that it might
become the foundation of all their religious revelations, and by means
of which they idly imagine they can fully justify the divine providence.
The system of truth supposes _the free will_ of man--that he is his own
master, capable of doing good or ill, and of directing his own plans. At
the words _free will_, I already perceive, Madam, that you tremble, and
doubtless anticipate a metaphysical dissertation. Rest assured of the
contrary; for I flatter myself that the question will be simplified and
rendered clear, I shall not merely say for you, but for all your sex who
are not resolved to be wilfully blind.
To say that man is a free agent is to detract from the power of the
Supreme Being; it is to pretend that God is not the master of his own
will; it is to advance that a weak creature can, when it pleases him,
revolt against his Creator, derange his projects, disturb the order
which he loves, render his labors useless, afflict him with chagrin,
cause him sorrow, act with effect against him, and arouse his anger
and his passions. Thus, at the first glance, you perceive that this
principle gives rise to a crowd of absurdities. If God is the friend of
order, every thing performed by his creatures would necessarily conduce
to the maintenance of this order, because otherwise the divine will
would fail to have its effect If God has plans, they must of necessity
be always executed; if man can afflict his God, man is the master of
this God's happiness, and the league he has formed with the Devil is
potent enough to thwart the plans of the Divinity. In a word, if man is
free to sin, God is no longer Omnipotent.
In reply, we are told that God, without detriment to his Omnipotence,
might make man a free agent, and that this liberty is a benefit by which
God places man in a situation where he may merit the heavenly bounty;
but, on the other hand, this liberty likewise exposes him to encounter
God's hatred, to offend him, and to be overwhelmed by infinite
sufferings. From this I conclude that this liberty is _not_ a benefit,
and that it evidently is inconsistent with divine goodness. This
goodness would be more real if men had always sufficient resolution to
do what is pleasing to God, conformably to order, and conducive to the
happiness of their fellow-creatures. If men, in virtue of their liberty,
do things contrary to the will of God, God, who is supposed to have the
prescience of foreseeing all, ought to have taken measures to prevent
men from abusing their liberty; if he foresaw they would sin, he ought
to have given them the means of avoiding it; if he could not prevent
them from doing ill, he has consented to the ill they have done; if he
has consented, he should not be offended; if he is offended, or if
he punish them for the evil they have done with his permission, he is
unjust and cruel; if he suffer them to rush on to their destruction, he
is bound afterwards to take them to himself; and he cannot with reason
find fault with them for the abuse of their liberty, in being deceived
or seduced by the objects which he himself had placed in their way to
seduce them, to tempt them, and to determine their wills to do evil.*
* See what Bayle says, Diet. Crit., art. Origene, Rem. E.t
art. Pauliciens, Rem. E., F., M., and torn. iii. of the
Reponses aux Questions d'un Provincial.
What would you say of a father who should give to his children, in the
infancy of age, and when they were without experience, the liberty
of satisfying their disordered appetites, till they should convince
themselves of their evil tendency? Would not such a parent be in the
right to feel uneasy at the abuse which they should make of their
liberty which he had given them? Would it not be accounted malice in
this parent, who should have foreseen what was to happen, not to have
furnished his children with the capacity of directing their own conduct
so as to avoid the evils they might be assailed with? Would it not show
in him the height of madness were he to punish them for the evil which
he had done, and the chagrin which they occasioned him? Would it not be
to himself that we should ascribe the sottishness and wickedness of his
children?
You see, then, the points of view under which this system of men's
free will shows us the Deity. This free will becomes a present the most
dangerous, since it puts man in the condition of doing evil that is
truly frightful. We may thence conclude that this system, far from
justifying God, makes him capable of malice, imprudence, and injustice.
But this is to overturn all our ideas of a being perfectly, nay,
infinitely wise and good, consenting to punish his creatures for sins
which he gave them the power of committing, or, which is the same,
suffering the Devil to inspire them with evil. All the subtilties of
theology have really only a tendency to destroy the very notions itself
inculcates concerning the Divinity. This theology is evidently the tub
of the Danaides.
It is a fact, however, that our theologians have imagined expedients to
support their ruinous suppositions. You have often heard mention made
of _predestination_ and _grace_--terrible words, which constantly
excite disputes among us, for which reason would be forced to blush if
Christians did not make it a duty to renounce reason, and which contests
are attended with consequences very dangerous to society. But let not
this surprise you; these false and obscure principles have even among
the theologians produced dissensions; and their quarrels would be
indifferent if they did not attach more importance to them than they
really deserve.
But to proceed. The system of predestination supposes that God, in his
eternal secrets, has resolved that some men should be elected, and
being thus his favorites, receive special grace. By this grace they are
supposed to be made agreeable to God, and meet for eternal happiness.
But then an infinite number of others are destined to perdition,
and receive not the grace necessary to eternal salvation. These
contradictory and opposite propositions make it pretty evident that the
system is absurd. It makes God, a being infinitely perfect and good, a
partial tyrant, who has created a vast number of human beings to be the
sport of his caprice and the victims of his vengeance. It supposes that
God will punish his creatures for not having received that grace which
he did not deign to give them; it presents this God to us under traits
so revolting that the theologians are forced to avow that the whole is a
profound mystery, into which the human mind cannot penetrate. But if man
is not made to lift his inquisitive eye on this frightful mystery, that
is to say, on this astonishing absurdity, which our teachers have
idly endeavored to square to their views of Deity, or to reconcile the
atrocious injustice of their God with his infinite goodness, by what
right do they wish us to adore this mystery which they would compel us
to believe, and to subscribe to an opinion that saps the divine goodness
to its very foundation?
How do they reason upon a dogma, and quarrel with acrimony about a
system of which even themselves can comprehend nothing?
The more you examine religion, the more occasion you will have to be
convinced that those things which our divines call _mysteries_ are
nothing else but the difficulties with which they are themselves
embarrassed, when they are unable to avoid the absurdities into which
their own false principles necessarily involve them. Nevertheless,
this word is not enough to impose upon us; the reverend doctors do not
themselves understand the things about which they incessantly speak.
They invent words from an inability to explain things, and they give the
name of _mysteries_ to what they comprehend no better than ourselves.
All the religions in the world are founded upon predestination, and all
the pretended revelations among men, as has been already pointed out
to you, inculcate this odious dogma, which makes Providence an unjust
mother-in-law, who shows a blind preference for some of her children to
the prejudice of all the others. They make God a tyrant, who punishes
the inevitable faults to which he has impelled them, or into which
he has allowed them to be seduced. This dogma, which served as the
foundation of Paganism, is now the grand pivot of the Christian
religion, whose God should excite no less hatred than the most
wicked divinities of idolatrous people. With such notions, is it not
astonishing that this God should appear, to those who meditate on his
attributes, an object sufficiently terrible to agitate the imagination,
and to lead some to indulge in dangerous follies?
The dogma of another life serves also to exculpate the Deity from these
apparent injustices or aberrations, with which he might naturally be
accused. It is pretended that it has pleased him to distinguish
his friends on earth, seeing he has amply provided for their future
happiness in an abode prepared for their souls. But, as I believe I have
already hinted, these proofs that God makes some good, and leaves others
wicked, either evince injustice on his part, at least temporary, or they
contradict his omnipotence. If God can do all things, if he is privy to
all the thoughts and actions of men, what need has he of any proofs? If
he has resolved to give them grace necessary to save them, has he not
assured them they will not perish? If he is unjust and cruel, this
God is not immutable, and belies his character; at least for a time he
derogates from the perfections which we should expect to find in him.
What would you think of a king, who, during a particular time, would
discover to his favorites traits the most frightful, in order that they
might incur his disgrace, and who should afterwards insist on their
believing him a very good and amiable man, to obtain his favor again?
Would not such a prince be pronounced wicked, fanciful, and tyrannical?
Nevertheless, this supposed prince might be pardoned by some, if for his
own interest, and the better to assure himself of the attachment of his
friends, he might give them some smiles of his favor. It is not so with
God, who knows all, who can do all, who has nothing to fear from the
dispositions of his creatures. From all these reasonings, we may see
that the Deity, whom the priests have conjured up, plays a great game,
very ridiculous, very unjust, on the supposition that he tries his
servants, and that he allows them to suffer in this world, to prepare
them for another. The theologians have not failed to discover motives
in this conduct of God which they can as readily justify; but these
pretended motives are borrowed from the omnipotence of this being, by
his absolute power over his creatures, to whom he is not obliged to
render an account of his actions; but especially in this theology, which
professes to justify God, do we not see it make him a despot and tyrant
more hateful than any of his creatures? I am, &c.
LETTER V. Of the Immortality of the Soul, and of the Dogma of another
Life
We have now, Madam, come to the examination of the dogma of a future
life, in which it is supposed that the Divinity, after causing men to
pass through the temptations, the trials, and the difficulties of this
life, for the purpose of satisfying himself whether they are worthy
of his love or his hatred, will bestow the recompenses or inflict the
chastisements which they deserved. This dogma, which is one of the
capital points of the Christian religion, is founded on a great many
hypotheses or suppositions, which we have already glanced at, and which
we have shown to be absurd and incompatible with the notions which the
same religion gives us of the Deity. In effect, it supposes us capable
of offending or pleasing the Author of Nature, of influencing his
humor, or exciting his passions; afflicting, tormenting, resisting, and
thwarting the plans of Deity. It supposes, moreover, the free-will
of man--a system which we have seen incompatible with the goodness,
justice, and omnipotence of the Deity. It supposes, further, that God
has occasion of proving his creatures, and making them, if I may so
speak, pass a novitiate to know what they are worth when he shall
square accounts with them. It supposes in God, who has created men for
happiness only, the inability to put, by one grand effort, all men in
the road, whence they may infallibly arrive at permanent felicity. It
supposes that man will survive himself, or that the same being, after
death, will continue to think, to feel, and act as he did in this life.
In a word, it supposes the immortality of the soul--an opinion unknown
to the Jewish lawgiver, who is totally silent on this topic to the
people to whom God had manifested himself; an opinion which even in the
time of Jesus Christ one sect at Jerusalem admitted, while another sect
rejected; an opinion about which the Messiah, who came to instruct them,
deigned to fix the ideas of those who might deceive themselves in this
respect; an opinion which appears to have been engendered in Egypt, or
in India, anterior to the Jewish religion, but which was unknown among
the Hebrews till they took occasion to instruct themselves in the Pagan
philosophy of the Greeks, and doctrines of Plato.
Whatever might be the origin of this doctrine, it was eagerly adopted
by the Christians, who judged it very convenient to their system of
religion, all the parts of which are founded on the marvellous, and
which made it a crime to admit any truths agreeable to reason and common
sense. Thus, without going back to the inventors of this inconceivable
dogma, let us examine dispassionately what this opinion really is; let
us endeavor to penetrate to the principles on which it is supported; let
us adopt it, if we shall find it an idea conformable to reason; let us
reject it, if it shall appear destitute of proof, and at variance with
common sense, even though it had been received as an established truth
in all antiquity, though it may have been adopted by many millions of
mankind.
Those who maintain the opinion of the soul's immortality, regard
it--that is, the soul--as a being distinct from the body, as a
substance, or essence, totally different from the corporeal frame, and
they designate it by the name of _spirit_. If we ask them what a
spirit is, they tell us it is not matter; and if we ask them what they
understand by that which is not matter, which is the only thing of which
we cannot form an idea, they tell us it is a spirit. In general, it
is easy to see that men the most savage, as well as the most subtle
thinkers, make use of the word _spirit_ to designate all the causes of
which they cannot form clear notions; hence the word spirit hath been
used to designate a being of which none can form any idea.
Notwithstanding, the divines pretend that this unknown being, entirely
different from the body, of a substance which has nothing conformable
with itself, is, nevertheless, capable of setting the body in motion;
and this, doubtless, is a mystery very inconceivable. We have noticed
the alliance between this spiritual substance and the material body,
whose functions it regulates. As the divines have supposed that matter
could neither think, nor will, nor perceive, they have believed that
it might conceive much better those operations attributed to a being
of which they had ideas less clear than they can form of matter. In
consequence, they have imagined many gratuitous suppositions to explain
the union of the soul with the body. In fine, in the impossibility of
overcoming the insurmountable barriers which oppose them, the priests
have made man twofold, by supposing that he contains something distinct
from himself; they have cut through all difficulties by saying that this
union is a great mystery, which man cannot understand; and they have
everlasting recourse to the omnipotence of God, to his supreme will,
to the miracles which he has always wrought; and those last are
never-failing, final resources, which the theologians reserve for every
case wherein they can find no other mode of escaping gracefully from the
argument of their adversaries.
You see, then, to what we reduce all the jargon of the metaphysicians,
all the profound reveries which for so many ages have been so
industriously hawked about in defence of the soul of man; an immaterial
substance, of which no living being can form an idea; a spirit, that
is to say, a being totally different from any thing we know. All the
theological verbiage ends here, by telling us, in a round of pompous
terms,--fooleries that impose on the ignorant,--that we do not know what
essence the soul is of; but we call it a spirit because of its nature,
and because we feel ourselves agitated by some unknown agent; we cannot
comprehend the mechanism of the soul; yet can we feel ourselves moved,
as it were, by an effect of the power of God, whose essence is far
removed from ours, and more concealed from us than the human soul
itself. By the aid of this language, from which you cannot possibly
learn any thing, you will be as wise, Madam, as all the theologians in
the world.
If you would desire to form ideas the most precise of yourself, banish
from you the prejudices of a vain theology, which only consists in
repeating words without attaching any new ideas to them, and which are
insufficient to distinguish the soul from the body, which appear
only capable of multiplying beings without reason, of rendering more
incomprehensible and more obscure, notions less distinct than we already
have of ourselves. These notions should be at least the most simple and
the most exact, if we consult our nature, experience, and reason. They
prove that man knows nothing but by his material sensible organs, that
he sees only by his eyes, that he feels by his touch, that he hears by
his ears; and that when either of these organs is actually deranged,
or has been previously wanting, or imperfect, man can have none of the
ideas that organ is capable of furnishing him with,--neither thoughts,
memory, reflection, judgment, desire, nor will. Experience shows us that
corporeal and material beings are alone capable of being moved and acted
upon, and that without those organs we have enumerated the soul thinks
not, feels not, wills not, nor is moved. Every thing shows us that the
soul undergoes always the same vicissitudes as the body; it grows to
maturity, gains strength, becomes weak, and puts on old age, like the
body; in fine, every thing we can understand of it goes to prove that it
perishes with the body. It is indeed folly to pretend that man will feel
when he has no organs appropriate for that sentiment; that he will see
and hear without eyes or ears; that he will have ideas without having
senses to receive impressions from physical objects, or to give rise to
perceptions in his understanding; in fine, that he will enjoy or suffer
when he has no longer either nerves or sensibility.
Thus every thing conspires to prove that the soul is the same thing as
the body, viewed relatively to some of its functions, which are more
obscure than others. Every thing serves to convince us that without
the body the soul is nothing, and that all the operations which are
attributed to the soul cannot be exercised any longer when the body
is destroyed. Our body is a machine, which, so long as we live, is
susceptible of producing the effects which have been designated under
different names, one from another; sentiment is one of these effects,
thought is another, reflection a third. This last passes sometimes by
other names, and our brain appears to be the seat of all our organs;
it is that which is the most susceptible. This organic machine, once
destroyed or deranged, is no longer capable of producing the same
effects, or of exercising the same functions. It is with our body as
it is with a watch which indicates the hours, and which goes not if the
spring or a pinion be broken. Cease, Eugenia, cease to torment yourself
about the fate which shall attend you when death will have separated you
from all that is dear on earth. After the dissolution of this life, the
soul shall cease to exist; those devouring flames with which you have
been threatened by the priests will have no effect upon the soul, which
can neither be susceptible then of pleasures nor pains, of agreeable or
sorrowful ideas, of lively or doleful reflections.
It is only by means of the bodily organs that we feel, think, and are
merry or sad, happy or miserable; this body once reduced to dust, we
will have neither perceptions nor sensations, and, by consequence,
neither memory nor ideas; the dispersed particles will no longer have
the same qualities they possessed when united; nor will they any
longer conspire to produce the same effects. In a word, the body being
destroyed, the soul, which is merely a result of all the parts of the
body in action, will cease to be what it is; it will be reduced to
nothing with the life's breath.
Our teachers pretend to understand the soul well; they profess to be
able to distinguish it from the body; in short, they can do nothing
without it; and therefore, to keep up the farce, they have been
compelled to admit the ridiculous dogma of the Persians, known by the
name of the _resurrection_.
This system supposes that the particles of the body which have been
scattered at death will be collected at the last day, to be replaced
in their primitive condition. But that this strange phenomenon may take
place, it is necessary that the particles of our destroyed bodies,
of which some have been converted into earth, others have passed into
plants, others into animals, some of one species, others of another,
even of our own; it is requisite, I say, that these particles, of which
some have been mixed with the waters of the deep, others have been
carried on the wings of the wind, and which have successively belonged
to many different men, should be reunited to reproduce the individual to
whom they formerly belonged. If you cannot get over this impossibility,
the theologians will explain it to you by saying, very briefly, "Ah! it
is a profound mystery, which we cannot comprehend." They will inform you
that the resurrection is a miracle, a supernatural effect, which is
to result from the divine power. It is thus they overcome all the
difficulties which the good sense of a few opposes to their rhapsodies.
If, perchance, Madam, you do not wish to remain content with these
sublime reasons, against which your good sense will naturally revolt,
the clergy will endeavor to seduce your imagination by vague pictures
of the ineffable delights which will be enjoyed in Paradise by the souls
and bodies of those who have adopted their reveries; they will aver
that you cannot refuse to believe them upon their mere word without
encountering the eternal indignation of a God of pity; and they will
attempt to alarm your fancy by frightful delineations of the cruel
torments which a God of goodness has prepared for the greater number of
his creatures.
But if you consider the thing coolly, you will perceive the futility
of their flattering promises and of their puny threatenings, which are
uttered merely to catch the unwary. You may easily discover that if it
could be true that man shall survive himself, God, in recompensing him,
would only recompense himself for the grace which he had granted; and
when he punished him, he punished him for not receiving the grace which
he had hardened him against receiving. This line of conduct, so cruel
and barbarous, appears equally unworthy of a wise God as it is of a
being perfectly good.
If your mind, proof against the terrors with which the Christian
religion penetrates its sectaries, is capable of contemplating these
frightful circumstances, which it is imagined will accompany the
carefully-invented punishments which God has destined for the victims
of his vengeance, you will find that they are impossible, and totally
incompatible with the ideas which they themselves have put forth of the
Divinity. In a word, you will perceive that the chastisements of another
life are but a crowd of chimeras, invented to disturb human reason, to
subjugate it beneath the feet of imposture, to annihilate forever the
repose of slaves whom the priesthood would inthrall and retain under its
yoke.
In short, Eugenia, the priests would make you believe that these
torments will be horrible,--a thing which accords not with our ideas
of God's goodness; they tell you they will be eternal,--a thing which
accords not with our ideas of the justice of God, who, one would very
naturally suppose, will proportion chastisements to faults, and who, by
consequence, will not punish without end the beings whose actions
are bounded by time. They tell us that the offences against God are
infinite, and, by consequence, that the Divinity, without doing violence
to his justice, may avenge himself as God, that is to say, avenge
himself to infinity. In this case I shall say that this God is not
good; that he is vindictive, a character which always announces fear
and weakness. In fine, I shall say that among the imperfect beings who
compose the human species, there is not, perhaps, a single one who,
without some advantage to himself, without personal fear, in a word,
without folly, would consent to punish everlastingly the wretch who
might have the misfortune to offend him, but who no longer had either
the ability or the inclination to commit another offence. Caligula
found, at least, some little amusement to forsake for a time the cares
of government, and enjoy the spectacle of punishment which he inflicted
on those unfortunate men whom he had an interest in destroying. But what
advantage can it be to God to heap on the damned everlasting torments?
Will this amuse him? Will their frightful punishments correct their
faults? Can these examples of the divine severity be of any service to
those on earth, who witness not their friends in hell? Will it not be
the most astonishing of all the miracles of Deity to make the bodies
of the damned invulnerable, to resist, through the ceaseless ages of
eternity, the frightful torments destined for them?
You see, then, Madam, that the ideas which the priests give us of hell
make of God a being infinitely more insensible, more wicked and cruel
than the most barbarous of men. They add to all this that it will be the
Devil and the apostate angels, that is to say, the enemies of God,
whom he will employ as the ministers of his implacable vengeance. These
wicked spirits, then, will execute the commands which this severe judge
will pronounce against men at the last judgment. For you must know,
Madam, that a God who knows all will at some future time take an account
of what he already knows. So, then, not content with judging men at
death, he will assemble the whole human race with great pomp at the last
or general judgment, in which he will confirm his sentence in the view
of the whole human race, assembled to receive their doom. Thus on the
wreck of the world will he pronounce a definitive judgment, from which
there will be no appeal.
But, in attending this memorable judgment, what will become of the
souls of men, separated from their bodies, which have not yet been
resuscitated? The souls of the just will go directly to enjoy the
blessings of Paradise; but what is to become of the immense crowd of
souls imbued with faults or crimes, and on whom the infallible parsons,
who are so well instructed in what is passing in another world, cannot
speak with certainty as to their fate? According to some of these
wiseacres, God will place the souls of such as are not wholly
displeasing to him in a place of punishment, where, by rigorous
torments, they shall have the merit of expiating the faults with which
they may stand chargeable at death. According to this fine system, so
profitable to our spiritual guides, God has found it the most simple
method to build a fiery furnace for the special purpose of tormenting a
certain proportion of souls who have not been sufficiently purified at
death to enter Paradise, but who, after leaving them some years
united with the body, and giving them time necessary to arrive at that
amendment of life by which they may become partakers of the supreme
felicity of heaven, ordains that they shall expiate their offences in
torment. It is on this ridiculous notion that our priests have bottomed
the doctrine of _purgatory_, which every good Catholic is obliged to
believe for the benefit of the priests, who reserve to themselves, as
is very reasonable, the power of compelling by their prayers a just and
immutable God to relax in his sternness, and liberate the captive souls,
which he had only condemned to undergo this purgation in order that they
might be made meet for the joys of Paradise.
With respect to the Protestants, who are, as every one knows, heretics
and impious, you will observe that they pretend not to those lucrative
views of the Roman doctors. On the contrary, they think that, at the
instant of death, every man is irrevocably judged; that he goes directly
to glory or into a place of punishment, to suffer the award of evil by
the enduring of punishments for which God had eternally prepared both
the sufferer and his torments! Even before the reunion of soul and body
at the final judgment, they fancy that the soul of the wicked (which, on
the principle of all souls being spirits, must be the same in essence as
the soul of the elect,) will, though deprived of those organs by which
it felt, and thought, and acted, be capable of undergoing the agency or
action of a fire! It is true that some Protestant theologians tell us
that the fire of hell is a spiritual fire, and, by consequence, very
different from the material fire vomited out of Vesuvius, and AEtna,
and Hecla. Nor ought we to doubt that these informed doctors of the
Protestant faith know very well what they say, and that they have
as precise and clear ideas of a spiritual fire as they have of the
ineffable joys of Paradise, which may be as spiritual as the punishment
of the damned in hell. Such are, Madam, in a few words, the absurdities,
not less revolting than ridiculous, which the dogmas of a future life
and of the immortality of the soul have engendered in the minds of men.
Such are the phantoms which have been invented and propagated, to seduce
and alarm mortals, to excite their hopes and their fears; such the
illusions that so powerfully operate on weak and feeling beings. But as
melancholy ideas have more effect upon the imagination than those which
are agreeable, the priests have always insisted more forcibly on what
men have to fear on the part of a terrible God than on what they have to
hope from the mercy of a forgiving Deity, full of goodness. Princes the
most wicked are infinitely more respected than those who are famed for
indulgence and humanity. The priests have had the art to throw us into
uncertainty and mistrust by the twofold character which they have given
the Divinity. If they promise us salvation, they tell us that we must
work it out for ourselves, "with fear and trembling." It is thus that
they have contrived to inspire the minds of the most honest men with
dismay and doubt, repeating without ceasing that time only must disclose
who are worthy of the divine love, or who are to be the objects of the
divine wrath. Terror has been and always will be the most certain means
of corrupting and enslaving the mind of man.
They will tell us, doubtless, that the terrors which religion inspires
are salutary terrors; that the dogma of another life is a bridle
sufficiently powerful to prevent the commission of crimes and restrain
men within the path of duty. To undeceive one's self of this maxim, so
often thundered in our ears, and so generally adopted on the authority
of the priests, we have only to open our eyes. Nevertheless, we see some
Christians thoroughly persuaded of another life, who, notwithstanding,
conduct themselves as if they had nothing to fear on the part of a God
of vengeance, nor any thing to hope from a God of mercy. When any of
these are engaged in some great project, at all times they are tempted
by some strong passion or by some bad habit, they shut their eyes on
another life, they see not the enraged judge, they suffer themselves to
sin, and when it is committed, they comfort themselves by saying, that
God is good.
Besides, they console themselves by the same contradictory religion
which shows them also this same God, whom it represents so susceptible
of wrath, as full of mercy, bestowing his grace on all those who are
sensible of their evils and repent In a word, I see none whom the fears
of hell will restrain when passion or interest solicit obedience. The
very priests who make so many efforts to convince us of their dogmas too
often evince more wickedness of conduct than we find in those who have
never heard one word about another life. Those who from infancy have
been taught these terrifying lessons are neither less debauched, nor
less proud, nor less passionate, nor less unjust, nor less avaricious
than others who have lived and died ignorant of Christian purgatory and
Paradise. In fine, the dogma of another life has little or no influence
on them; it annihilates none of their passions; it is a bridle merely
with some few timid souls, who, without its knowledge, would never have
the hardihood to be guilty of any great excesses. This dogma is very
fit to disturb the quiet of some honest, timorous persons, and the
credulous, whose imagination it inflames, without ever staying the
hand of great rogues, without imposing on them more than the decency of
civilization and a specious morality of life, restrained chiefly by the
coercion of public laws.
In short, to sum all up in one thought, I behold a religion gloomy
and formidable to make impressions very lively, very deep, and very
dangerous on a mind such as yours, although it makes but very momentary
impressions on the minds of such as are hardened in crime, or whose
dissipation destroys constantly the effects of its threats. More lively
affected than others by your principles, you have been but too often
and too seriously occupied for your happiness by gloomy and harassing
objects, which have powerfully affected your sensible imagination,
though the same phantoms that have pursued you have been altogether
banished from the mind of those who have had neither your virtues, your
understanding, nor your sensibility.
According to his principles, a Christian must always live in fear; he
can never know with certainty whether he pleases or displeases God;
the least movement of pride or of covetousness, the least desire, will
suffice to merit the divine anger, and lose in one moment the fruits
of years of devotion. It is not surprising that, with these frightful
principles before them, many Christians should endeavor to find in
solitude employment for their lugubrious reflections, where they may
avoid the occasions that solicit them to do wrong, and embrace such
means as are most likely, according to their notions of the likelihood
of the thing, to expiate the faults which they fancy might incur the
eternal vengeance of God.
Thus the dark notions of a future life leave those only in peace who
think slightly upon it; and they are very disconsolate to all those
whose temperament determines them to contemplate it. They are but the
atrocious ideas, however, which the priests study to give us of the
Deity, and by which they have compelled so many worthy people to throw
themselves into the arms of incredulity. If some libertines, incapable
of reasoning, abjure a religion troublesome to their passions, or which
abridges their pleasures, there are very many who have maturely examined
it, that have been disgusted with it, because they could not consent to
live in the fears it engendered, nor to nourish the despair it created.
They have then abjured this religion, fit only to fill the soul with
inquietudes, that they might find in the bosom of reason the repose
which it insures to good sense.
Times of the greatest crimes are always times of the greatest ignorance.
It is in these times, or usually so, that the greatest noise is made
about religion. Men then follow mechanically, and without examination,
the tenets which their priests impose on them, without ever diving
to the bottom of their doctrines. In proportion as mankind become
enlightened, great crimes become more rare, the manners of men are more
polished, the sciences are cultivated, and the religion which they have
coolly and carefully examined loses sensibly its credit. It is thus that
we see so many incredulous people in the bosom of society become more
agreeable and complacent now than formerly, when it depended on the
caprice of a priest to involve them in troubles, and to invite the
people to crimes in the hope of thereby meriting heaven.
Religion is consoling only to those who have no embarrassment about it;
the indefinite and vague recompense which it promises, without giving
ideas of it, is made to deceive those who make no reflections on the
impatient, variable, false, and cruel character which this religion
gives of its God. But how can it make any promises on the part of a God
whom it represents as a tempter, a seducer--who appears, moreover,
to take pleasure in laying the most dangerous snares for his weak
creatures? How can it reckon on the favors of a God full of caprice, who
it alternately informs us is replete with tenderness or with hatred?
By what right does it hold out to us the rewards of a despotic and
tyrannical God, who does or does not choose men for happiness, and who
consults only his own fantasy to destine some of his creatures to bliss
and others to perdition? Nothing, doubtless, but the blindest enthusiasm
could induce mortals to place confidence in such a God as the priests
have feigned; it is to folly alone we must attribute the love some
well-meaning people profess to the God of the parsons; it is matchless
extravagance alone that could prevail on men to reckon on the unknown
rewards which are promised them by this religion, at the same time that
it assures us that God is the author of grace, but that we have no right
to expect any thing from him.
In a word, Madam, the notions of another life, far from consoling, are
fit only to imbitter all the sweets of the present life. After the sad
and gloomy ideas which Christianity, always at variance with itself,
presents us with of its God, it then affirms, that we are much more
likely to incur his terrible chastisements, than possessed of power by
which we may merit ineffable rewards; and it proceeds to inform us, that
God will give grace to whomsoever he pleases, yet it remains with them*
selves whether they escape damnation; and a life the most spotless
cannot warrant them to presume that they are worthy of his favor. In
good truth, would not total annihilation be preferable to such beings,
rather than falling into the hands of a Deity so hard-hearted? Would not
every man of sense prefer the idea of complete annihilation to that of
a future existence, in order to be the sport of the eternal caprice of
a Deity, so cruel as to damn and torment, without end, the unfortunate
beings whom he created so weak, that he might punish them for faults
inseparable from their nature? If God is good, as we are assured,
notwithstanding the cruelties of which the priests suppose him capable,
is it not more consonant to all our ideas of a being perfectly good,
to believe that he did not create them to sport with them in a state
of eternal damnation, which they had not the power of choosing, or of
rejecting and shunning? Has not God treated the beasts of the field more
favorably than he has treated man, since he has exempted them from
sin, and by consequence has not exposed them to suffer an eternal
unhappiness?
The dogma of the immortality of the soul, or of a future life, presents
nothing consoling in the Christian religion. On the contrary, it is
calculated expressly to fill the heart of the Christian, following
out his principles, with bitterness and continual alarm. I appeal to
yourself, Madam, whether these sublime notions have-any thing consoling
in them? Whenever this uncertain idea has presented itself to your
mind, has it not filled you with a cold and secret horror? Has the
consciousness of a life so virtuous and so spotless as yours, secured
you against those fears which are inspired by the idea of a being
jealous, severe, capricious, whose eternal disgrace the least fault is
sure of incurring, and in whose eyes the smallest weakness, or freedom
the most involuntary, is sufficient to cancel years of strict observance
of all the rules of religion?
I know very well what you will advance to support yourself in your
prejudices. The ministers of religion possess the secret of tempering
the alarms which they have the art to excite. They strive to inspire
confidence in those minds which they discover accessible to fear. They
balance, thus, one passion against another. They hold in suspense the
minds of their slaves, in the apprehension that too much confidence
would only render them less pliable, or that despair would force them
to throw off the yoke. To persons terribly frightened about their state
after death, they speak only of the hopes which we may entertain of the
goodness of God. To those who have too much confidence, they preach
up the terrors of the Lord, and the judgments of a severe God. By this
chicanery they contrive to subject or retain under their yoke all those
who are weak enough to be led by the contradictory doctrines of these
blind guides.
They tell you, besides, that the sentiment of the immortality of the
soul is inherent in man; that the soul is consumed by boundless desires,
and that since there is nothing on this earth capable of satisfying it,
these are indubitable proofs that it is destined to subsist eternally.
In a word, that as we naturally desire to exist always, we may naturally
conclude that we shall always exist. But what think you, Madam, of such
reasonings? To what do they lead? Do we desire the continuation of this
existence, because it may be blessed and happy, or because we know not
what may become of us? But we cannot desire a miserable existence, or,
at least, one in which it is more than probable we may be miserable
rather than happy. If, as the Christian religion so often repeats, the
number of the elect is very small, and salvation very difficult, the
number of the reprobate very great, and damnation very easily obtained,
who is he who would desire to exist always with so evident a risk of
being eternally damned? Would it not have been better for us not to have
been born, than to have been compelled against our nature to play a game
so fraught with peril? Does not annihilation itself present to us an
idea preferable to that of an existence which may very easily lead us
to eternal tortures? Suffer me, Madam, to appeal to yourself. If, before
you had come into this world, you had had your choice of being born, or
of not seeing the light of this fair sun, and you could have been made
to comprehend, but for one moment, the hundred thousandth part of the
risks you run to be eternally unhappy, would you not have determined
never to enjoy life?
It is an easy matter, then, to perceive the proofs on which the priests
pretend to found this dogma of the immortality of the soul and 'a future
life. The desire which we might have of it could only be founded on
the hope of enjoying eternal happiness. But does religion give us this
assurance? Yes, say the clergy, if you submit faithfully to the rules
it prescribes. But to conform one's self to these rules, is it not
necessary to have grace from Heaven? And, are we then sure we shall
obtain that grace, or if we do, merit Heaven? Do the priests not repeat
to us, without ceasing, that God is the author of grace, and that he
only gives it to a small number of the elect? Do they not daily tell
us that, except one man, who rendered himself worthy of this eternal
happiness, there are millions going the high road to damnation? This
being admitted, every Christian, who reasons, would be a fool to desire
a future existence which he has so many motives to fear, or to reckon on
a happiness which every thing conspires to show him is as uncertain,
as difficult to be obtained, as it is unequivocally dependent on the
fantasies of a capricious Deity, who sports with the misfortunes of his
creatures.
Under every point of view in which we regard the dogma of the soul's
immortality, we are compelled to consider it as a chimera invented by
men who have realized their wishes, or who have not been able to justify
Providence from the transitory injustices of this world. This dogma was
received with avidity, because it flattered the desires, and especially
the vanity of man, who arrogated to himself a superiority above all the
beings that enjoy existence, and which he would pass by and reduce to
mere clay; who believed himself the favorite of God, without ever taxing
his attention with this other fact--that God makes him every instant
experience vicissitudes, calamities, and trials, as all sentient
natures experience; that God made him, in fine, to undergo death, or
dissolution, which is an invariable law that all that exists must find
verified. This haughty creature, who fancies himself a privileged being,
alone agreeable to his Maker, does not perceive that there are stages
in his life when his existence is more uncertain and much more weak
than that of the other animals, or even of some inanimate things. Man is
unwilling to admit that he possesses not the strength of the lion,
nor the swiftness of the stag, nor the durability of an oak, nor the
solidity of marble or metal. He believes himself the greatest favorite,
the most sublime, the most noble; he believes himself superior to all
other animals because he possesses the faculties of thinking, judging,
and reasoning. But his thoughts only render him more wretched than all
the animals whom he supposes deprived of this faculty, or who, at least,
he believes, do not enjoy it in the same degree with himself. Do not the
faculties of thinking, of remembering, of foresight, too often render
him unhappy by the very idea of the past, the present, and the future?
Do not his passions drive him to excesses unknown to the other animals?
Are his judgments always reasonable and wise? Is reason so largely
developed in the great mass of men that the priests should interdict its
use as dangerous? Are mankind sufficiently advanced in knowledge to be
able to overcome the prejudices and chimeras which render them unhappy
during the greatest part of their lives? In fine, have the beasts some
species of religious impressions, which inspire continual terrors in
their breast, making them look upon some awful event, which imbitters
their softest pleasures, which enjoins them to torment themselves, and
which threatens them with eternal damnation? No!
In truth, Madam, if you weigh in an equitable balance the pretended
advantages of man above the other animals, you will soon see how
evanescent is this fictitious superiority which he has arrogated to
himself. We find that all the productions of nature are submitted to the
same laws; that all beings are only born to die; they produce their like
to destroy themselves; that all sentient beings are compelled to undergo
pleasures and pains; they appear and they disappear; they are and
they cease to be; they evince under one form that they will quit it
to produce another. Such are the continual vicissitudes to which every
thing that exists is evidently subjected, and from which man is
not exempt, any more than the other beings and productions that he
appropriates to his use as _lord of the creation_. Even our globe
itself undergoes change; the seas change their place; the mountains are
gathered in heaps or levelled into plains; every thing that breathes is
destroyed at last, and man alone pretends to an eternal duration.
It is unnecessary to tell me that we degrade man when we compare
him with the beasts, deprived of souls and intelligence; this is no
levelling doctrine, but one which places him exactly where nature places
him, but from which his puerile vanity has unfortunately driven him.
All beings are equals; under various and different forms they act
differently; they are governed in their appetites and passions by laws
which are invariably the same for all of the same species; every thing
which is composed of parts will be dissolved; every thing which has life
must part with it at death; all men are equally compelled to submit to
this fate; they are equal at death, although during life their power,
their talents, and especially their virtues, establish a marked
difference, which, though real, is only momentary. What will they be
after death? They will be exactly what they were ten years before they
were born.
Banish, then, Eugenia, from your mind forever the terrors which death
has hitherto filled you with. It is for the wretched a safe haven
against the misfortunes of this life. If it appears a cruel alternative
to those who enjoy the good things of this world, why do they not
console themselves with the idea of what they do actually enjoy? Let
them call reason to their aid; it will calm the inquietudes of their
imagination, but too greatly alarmed; it will disperse the clouds which
religion spreads over their minds; it will teach them that this death,
so terrible in apprehension, is really nothing, and that it will neither
be accompanied with remembrance of past pleasures nor of sorrow now no
more.
Live, then, happy and tranquil, amiable Eugenia! Preserve carefully an
existence so interesting and so necessary to all those with whom you
live. Allow not your health to be injured, nor trouble your quiet with
melancholy ideas. Without being teased by the prospect of an event which
has no right to disturb your repose, cultivate virtue, which has always
been your favorite, so necessary to your internal peace, and which has
rendered you so dear to all those who have the happiness of being
your friends. Let your rank, your credit, your riches, your talents be
employed to make others happy, to support the oppressed, to succor
the unfortunate, to dry up the tears of those whom you may have
an opportunity of comforting! Let your mind be occupied about such
agreeable and profitable employments as are likely to please you! Call
in the aid of your reason to dissipate the phantoms which alarm you, to
efface the prejudices which you have imbibed in early life! In a word,
comfort yourself, and remember that in practising virtue, as you do,
you cannot become an object of hatred to God, who, if he has reserved
in eternity rigorous punishments for the social virtues, will be the
strangest, the most cruel, and the most insensible of beings!
You demand of me, perhaps, "In destroying the idea of another world,
what is to become of the remorse, those chastisements so useful to
mankind, and so well calculated to restrain them within the bounds of
propriety?" I reply, that remorse will always subsist as long as we
shall be capable of feeling its pangs, even when we cease to fear the
distant and uncertain vengeance of the Divinity. In the commission of
crimes, in allowing one's self to be the sport of passion, in injuring
our species, in refusing to do them good, in stifling pity, every man
whose reason is not totally deranged perceives clearly that he will
render himself odious to others, that he ought to fear their enmity.
He will blush, then, if he thinks he has rendered himself hateful and
detestable in their eyes. He knows the continual need he has of their
esteem and assistance. Experience proves to him that vices the moat
concealed are injurious to himself. He lives in perpetual fear lest some
mishap should unfold his weaknesses and secret faults. It is from all
these ideas that we are to look for regret and remorse, even in those
who do not believe in the chimeras of another world. With regard
to those whose reason is deranged, those who are enervated by their
passions, or perhaps linked to vice by the chains of habit, even with
the prospect of hell open before them, they will neither live less
vicious nor less wicked. An avenging God will never inflict on any
man such a total want of reason as may make him regardless of public
opinion, trample decency under foot, brave the laws, and expose
himself to derision and human chastisements. Every man of sense easily
understands that in this world the esteem and affection of others are
necessary for his happiness, and that life is but a burden to those who
by their vices injure themselves, and render themselves reprehensible in
the eyes of society.
The true means, Madam, of living happy in this world is to do good to
your fellow-creatures; to labor for the happiness of your species is
to have virtue, and with virtue we can peaceably and without remorse
approach the term which nature has fixed equally for all beings--a term
that your youth causes you now to see only at a distance--a term that
you ought not to accelerate by your fears--a term, in fine, that the
cares and desires of all those who know you will seek to put off till?
full of days and contented with the part you have played in the scene
of the world, you shall yourself desire to gently reenter the bosom of
nature.