LETTER XII. Of the small Consequence to be attached to Men's
Speculations, and the Indulgence which should be extended to them
Permit me, Madam, to felicitate you on the happy change which you say
has taken place in your opinions. Convinced by reasons as simple as
obvious, your mind has become sensible of the futility of those notions
which have for a long time agitated it; and the inefficacy of those
pretended succors which religious men boasted they could furnish, is now
apparent to you. You perceive the evident dangers which result from a
system that serves only to render men enemies to individual and general
happiness. I see with pleasure that reason has not lost its authority
over your mind, and that it is sufficient to show you the truth that you
may embrace it. You may congratulate yourself on this, which proves the
solidity of your judgment. For it is glorious to give one's self up to
reason, and to be the votary of common sense. Prejudice so arms mankind
that the world is full of people who slight their judgment; nay, who
resist the most obvious pleas of their understanding. Their eyes, long
shut to the light of truth, are unable to bear its rays; but they can
endure the glimmerings of superstition, which plunges them in still
darker obscurity.
I am not, however, astonished at the embarrassment you have hitherto
felt, nor at your cautious examination of my opinions, which are better
understood the more thoroughly they are examined and compared with
those they oppose. It is impossible to annihilate at once deep-rooted
prejudices. The mind of man appears to waver in a void when those ideas
are attacked on which it has long rested. It finds itself in a new
world, wherein all is unknown. Every system of opinion is but the effect
of habit The mind has as great difficulty to disengage itself from its
custom of thinking, and reflect on new ideas, as the body has to remain
quiescent after it has long been accustomed to exercise. Should you,
for instance, propose to your friend to leave off snuff, as a practice
neither healthful nor agreeable in company, he will not probably listen
to you, or if he should, it will be with extreme pain that he can bring
himself to renounce a habit long familiarized to him.
It is precisely the same with all our prejudices; those of religion have
the most powerful hold of us. From infancy we have been familiarized
with them; habit has made them a sort of want we cannot dispense
with: our mode of thinking is formed, and familiar to us; our mind is
accustomed to engage itself with certain classes of objects; and our
imagination fancies that it wanders in chaos when it is not fed with
those chimeras to which it had been long accustomed. Phantoms the most
horrible are even clear to it; objects the most familiar to it, if
viewed with the calm eye of reason, are disagreeable and revolting.
Religion, or rather its superstitions, in consequence of the marvellous
and bizarre notions it engenders, gives the mind continual exercise; and
its votaries fancy they are doomed to a dangerous inaction when they are
suddenly deprived of the objects on which their imagination exerted
its powers. Yet is this exercise so much the more necessary as the
imagination is by far the most lively faculty of the mind; Hence,
without doubt, it becomes necessary men should replace stale fooleries
by those which are novel. This is, moreover, the true reason why
devotion so often affords consolation in great disgraces, gives
diversion for chagrin, and replaces the strongest passions, when they
have been quenched by excess of pleasure and dissipation. The marvellous
arguments, chimeras multiply as religion furnishes activity and
occupation to the fancy; habit renders them familiar, and even
necessary; terrors themselves even minister food to the imagination; and
religion, the religion of priestcraft, is full of terrors. Active and
unquiet spirits continually require this nourishment; the imagination
requires to be alternately alarmed and consoled; and there are thousands
who cannot accustom themselves to tranquillity and the sobriety of
reason. Many persons also require phantoms to make them religious, and
they find these succors in the dogmas of priestcraft.
These reflections will serve to explain to you the continual variations
to which many persons are subject, especially on the subject of
religion. Sensible, like barometers, you behold them wavering without
ceasing; their imagination floats, and is never fixed; so often as you
find them freely given up to the blackness of superstition, so often
may you behold them the slaves of pernicious prejudices. Whenever they
tremble at the feet of their priests, then are their necks under the
yoke. Even people of spirit and understanding in other affairs are not
altogether exempt from these variations of mental religious temperament;
but their judgment is too frequently the dupe of the imagination. And
others, again, timid and doubting, without spirit, are in perpetual
torment.
What do I say? Man is not, and cannot always be, the same. His frame is
exposed to revolutions and perpetual vicissitudes; the thoughts of his
mind necessarily vary with the different degrees of changes to which his
body is exposed. When the body is languid and fatigued, the mind has not
usually much inclination to vigor and gayety. The debility of the
nerves commonly annihilates the energies of the soul, although it be
so remarkably distinguished from the body; persons of a bilious and
melancholy temperament are rarely the subjects of joy; dissipation
importunes some, gayety fatigues others. Exactly after the same fashion,
there are some who love to nourish sombre ideas, and these religion
supplies them. Devotion affects them like the vapors; superstition is
an inveterate malady, for which there is no cure in medicine. And it is
impossible to keep him free from superstition, whose breast, the slave
of fear, was never sensible of courage; nay, soldiers and sailors, the
bravest of men, have too often been the victims of superstition. It is
education alone that operates in radically curing the human mind of its
errors.
Those who think it sufficient, Madam, to render a reason for the
variations which we so frequently remark in the ideas of men,
acknowledge that there is a secret bent of the minds of religious
persons to prejudices, from which we shall almost in vain endeavor to
rescue their understandings. You perceive, at present, what you ought to
think of those secret transitions which our priests would force on you,
as the inspirations of heaven, as divine solicitations, the effects
of grace; though they are, nevertheless, only the effects of those
vicissitudes to which our constitution is liable, and which affect
the robust, as well as the feeble; the man of health, as well as the
valetudinarian.
If we might form a judgment of the correctness of those notions which
our teachers boast of, in respect to our dissolution at death, we shall
find reason to be satisfied, that there is little or no occasion that
we should have our minds disturbed during our last moments. It is then,
say they, that it is necessary to attend to the condition of man; it is
then that man, undeceived as to the things of this life, acknowledges
his errors. But there is, perhaps, no idea in the whole circle of
theology more unreasonable than this, of which the credulous, in all
ages, have been the dupes. Is it not at the time of a man's dissolution
that he is the least capable of judging of his true interest? His bodily
frame racked, it may be, with pain, his mind is necessarily weakened or
chafed; or if he should be free from excruciating pain, the lassitude
and yielding of nature to the irrevocable decrees of fate at death,
unfit a man for reasoning and judging of the sophisms that are proposed
as panaceas for all his errors. There are, without doubt, as strange
notions as those of religion; but who knows that body and soul sink
alike at death?
It is in the case of health that we can promise ourselves to reason
with justness; it is then that the soul, neither troubled by fear, nor
altered by disease, nor led astray by passion, can judge soundly of what
is beneficial to man. The judgments of the dying can have no weight with
men in good health; and they are the veriest impostors who lend them
belief. The truth can alone be known, when both body and mind are in
good health. No man, without evincing an insensible and ridiculous
presumption, can answer for the ideas he is occupied with, when worn out
with sickness and disease; yet have the inhuman priests the effrontery
to persuade the credulous to take as their examples the words and
actions of men necessarily deranged in intellect by the derangement of
their corporeal frame. In short, since the ideas of men necessarily vary
with the different variations of their bodies, the man who presumes to
reason on his death bed with the man in health, arrogates what ought not
to be conceded.
Do not, then, Madam, be discouraged nor surprised, if you should
sometimes think of ancient prejudices reclaiming the rights they have
for a long time exercised over your reason; attribute, then, these
vacillations to some derangement in your frame--to some disordered
movements of mind, which, for a time, suspend your reason. Think that
there are few people who are constantly the same, and who see with
the same eyes. Our frame being subject to continual variations, it
necessarily follows that our modes of thinking will vary. We think one
custom the result of pusillanimity, when the nerves are relaxed and our
bodies fatigued. We think justly when our body is in health; that is to
say, when all its parts are fulfilling their various functions. There
is one mode of thinking, or one state of mind, which in health we call
uncertainty, and which we rarely experience when our frame is in its
ordinary condition. We do not then reason justly, when our frame is not
in a condition to leave our mind subject to incredulity.
What, then, is to be done, when we would calm our mind, when we wish to
reflect, even for an instant? Let reason be our guide, and we shall
soon arrive at that mode of thinking which shall be advantageous to
ourselves. In effect, Madam, how can a God who is just, good, and
reasonable, be irritated by the manner in which we shall think, seeing
that our thoughts are always involuntary, and that we cannot believe as
we would, but as our convictions increase, or become weakened? Man is
not, then, for one instant, the master of his ideas, which are every
moment excited by objects over which he has no control, and causes
which depend not on his will or exertions. St. Augustine himself bears
testimony to this truth: "There is not," says he, "one man who is at all
times master of that which presents itself to his spirit." Have we
not, then, good reason to conclude, that our thoughts are entirely
indifferent to God, seeing they are excited by objects over which we
have no control, and, by consequence, that they cannot be offensive to
the Deity?
If our teachers pique themselves on their principles, they ought to
carry along with them this truth, that a just God cannot be offended by
the changes which take place in the minds of his creatures. They ought
to know that this God, if he is wise, has no occasion to be troubled
with the ideas that enter the mind of man; that if they do not
comprehend all his perfections, it is because their comprehension is
limited. They ought to recollect, that if God is all-powerful, his
glory and his power cannot be affected by the opinions and ideas of
weak mortals, any more than the notions they form of him can alter his
essential attributes. In fine, if our teachers had not made it a duty
to renounce common sense, and to close with notions that carry in their
consequences the contradictory evidence of their premises, they
would not refuse to avow that God would be the most unjust, the most
unreasonable, the most cruel of tyrants, if he should punish beings whom
he himself created imperfect, and possessed of a deficiency of reason
and common sense.
Let us reflect a little longer, and we shall find that the theologians
have studied to make of the Divinity a ferocious master, unreasonable
and changing, who exacts from his creatures qualities they have not, and
services they cannot perform. The ideas they have formed of this unknown
being are almost always borrowed from those of men of power, who,
jealous of their power and respect from their subjects, pretend that it
is the duty of these last to have for them sentiments of submission,
and punish with rigor those who, by their conduct or their discourse,
announce sentiments not sufficiently respectful to their superiors. Thus
you see, Madam, that God has been fashioned by the clergy on the model
of an uneasy despot, suspicious of his subjects, jealous of the opinions
they may entertain of him, and who, to secure his power, cruelly
chastises those who have not littleness of mind sufficient to flatter
his vanity, nor courage enough to resist his power.
It is evident, that it is on ideas so ridiculous, and so contrary to
those which nature offers us of the Divinity, that the absurd system of
the priests is founded, which they persuade themselves is very sensible
and agreeable to the opinions of mankind; and which is very seriously
insulted, they say, if men think differently; and which will punish with
severity those who abandon themselves to the guidance of reason, the
glory of man. Nothing can be more pernicious to the human kind than this
fatal madness, which deranges all our ideas of a just God--of a God,
good, wise, all-powerful, and whose glory and power neither the devotion
nor rebellion of his creatures can affect. In consequence of these
impertinent suppositions of the priesthood, men have ever been afraid to
form notions agreeable to the mysterious Sovereign of the universe, on
whom they are dependent; their mind is put to the torture to divine his
incomprehensible nature, and, in their fear of displeasing him, they
have assigned to him human attributes, without perceiving that when they
pretend to honor him, they dishonor Deity, and that being compelled to
bestow on him qualities that are incompatible with Deity, they actually
annihilate from their mind the pure representation of Deity, as
witnessed in all nature. It is thus, that in almost all the religions on
the face of the earth, under the pretext of making known the Divinity,
and explaining his views towards mortals, the priests have rendered
him incomprehensible, and have actually promulgated, under the garb of
religion, nothing save absurdities, by which, if we admit them, we shall
destroy those notions which nature gives us of Deity.
When we reflect on the Divinity, do we not see that mankind have
plunged farther and farther into darkness, as they assimilated him to
themselves; that their judgment is always disturbed when they would make
their Deity the object of their meditations; that they cannot reason
justly, because never have any but obscure and absurd ideas; they are
almost always in uncertainty, and never agree with themselves, because
their principles are replete with doubt; that they always tremble,
because they imagine that it is very dangerous to be deceived; that they
dispute without ceasing, because that it is impossible to be convinced
of any thing, when they reason on objects of which they know nothing,
and which the imaginations of men are forced to paint differently;
in fine, that they cruelly torment one another about opinions equally
uninteresting, though they attach to them the greatest importance, and
because the vanity of the one party never allows it to subscribe to the
reveries of the other?
It is thus that the Divinity has become to us a source of evil,
division, and quarrels; it is thus that his name alone inspires terror;
it is thus that religion has become the signal of so many combats, and
has always been the true apple of discord among unquiet mortals, who
always dispute with the greatest heat, on subjects of which they can
never have any true ideas. They make it a duty to think and reason
on his attributes; and they can never arrive at any just conclusions,
because their mind is never in a condition to form true notions of
what strikes their senses. In the impossibility of knowing the Deity
by themselves, they have recourse to the opinion of others, whom they
consider more adroit in theology, and who pretend to an they that
intimate acquaintance with God, being inspired by him, and having
secret intelligence of his purposes with regard to the human kind. Those
privileged men teach nothing to the nations of the earth, except what
their reveries have reduced to a system, without giving them ideas
that are clear and definite. They paint God under characters the most
agreeable to their own interests; they make of him a good monarch for
those who blindly submit to their tenets, but terrible to those who
refuse to blindly follow them.
Thus you perceive, Madam, what those men are who have obviously made of
the Deity an object so bizarre as they announce him, and who, to render
their opinions the more sacred, have pretended that he is grievously
offended when we do not admit implicitly the ideas they promulgate of
God. In the books of Moses God defines himself, _I am that I am_; yet
does this inspired writer detail the history of this God as a tyrant who
tempts men, and who punishes them for being tempted; who exterminated
all the human kind by a deluge, except a few of one family, because one
man had fallen; in a word, who, in all his conduct, behaves as a
despot, whose power dispenses with all the rules of justice, reason, and
goodness.
Have the successors of Moses transmitted to us ideas more clear, more
sensible, more comprehensible of the Divinity? Has the Son of God made
his Father perfectly known to us? Has the church, perpetually boasting
of the light she diffuses among men, become more fixed and certain,
to do away our uncertainty? Alas! in spite of all these supernatural
succors, we know nothing in nature beyond the grave; the ideas which
are communicated to us, the recitals of our infallible teachers, are
calculated only to confound our judgment, and reduce our reason to
silence. They make of God a pure spirit; that is to say, a being who
has nothing in common with matter, and who, nevertheless, has created
matter, which he has produced from his own fiat--his essence or
substance. They have made him the mirror of the universe, and the soul
of the universe. They have made him an infinite being, who fills all
space by his immensity, although the material world occupies some part
in space. They have made him a being all powerful, but whose projects
are incessantly varying, who neither can nor will maintain man in good
order, nor permit the freedom of action necessary for rational beings,
and who is alternately pleased and displeased with the same beings and
their actions. They make him an infinite good Father, but who avenges
himself without measure. They make of him a monarch infinitely just, but
who confounds the innocent with the guilty, who has mingled injustice
and cruelty, in causing his own Son to be put to death to expiate
the crimes of the human kind; though they are incessantly sinning
and repenting for pardon. They make of him a being full of wisdom and
foresight, yet insensible to the folly and shortsightedness of mortals.
They make him a reasonable being who becomes angry at the thoughts of
his creatures, though involuntary, and consequently necessary; thoughts
which he himself puts into their heads; and who condemns them to eternal
punishments if they believe not in reveries that are incompatible with
the divine attributes, or who dare to doubt whether God can possess
qualities that are not capable of being reconciled among themselves.
Is it, then, surprising that so many good people are shocked at the
revolting ideas, so contradictory and so appalling, which hurl mortals
into a state of uncertainty and doubt as to the existence of the Deity,
or even to force them into absolute denial of the same? It is impossible
to admit, in effect, the doctrine of the Deity of priestcraft, in which
we constantly see infinite perfections, allied with imperfections the
most striking; in which, when we reflect but momentarily, we shall find
that it cannot produce but disorder in the imagination, and leaves it
wandering among errors that reduce it to despair, or some impostors,
who, to subjugate mankind, have wished to throw them into embarrassment,
confound their reason, and fill them with terror. Such appear, in
effect, to be the motives of those who have the arrogance to pretend
to a secret knowledge, which they distribute among mankind, though they
have no knowledge even of themselves. They always paint God under the
traits of an inaccessible tyrant, who never shows himself but to his
ministers and favorites, who please to veil him from the eyes of the
vulgar; and who are violently irritated when they find any who oppose
their pretensions, or when they refuse to believe the priests and their
unintelligible farragoes.
If, as I have often said, it be impossible to believe what we cannot
comprehend, or to be intimately convinced of that of which we can form
no distinct and clear ideas, we may thence conclude that, when the
Christians assure us they believe that God has announced himself in
some secret and peculiar way to them that he has not done to other men,
either they are themselves deceived, or they wish to deceive us. Their
faith, or their belief in God, is merely an acceptance of what their
priests have taught them of a Being whose existence they have rendered
more than doubtful to those who would reason and meditate. The Deity
cannot, assuredly, be the being whom the Christians admit on the word of
their theologians. Is there, in good truth, a man in the world who can
form any idea of a spirit? If we ask the priests what a spirit is, they
will tell us that a spirit is an immaterial being who has none of
the passions of which men are the subjects. But what is an immaterial
spirit?
It is a being that has none of the qualities which we can fathom; that
has neither form, nor extension, nor color.
But how can we be assured of the existence of a being who has none of
these qualities? It is by _faith_, say the priests, that we must be
assured of his existence. But what is this _faith?_ It is to adhere,
without examination, to what the priests tell us. But what is it the
priests tell us of God? They tell us of things which we can neither
comprehend nor they reconcile among themselves. The existence, even
of God, has, in their hands, become the most impenetrable mystery in
religion. But do the priests themselves comprehend this ineffable God,
whom they announce to other men? Have they just ideas of him? Are they
themselves sincerely convinced of the existence of a being who unites
incompatible qualities which reciprocally exclude the one or the other?
We cannot admit it; and we are authorized to conclude, that when the
priests profess to believe in God, either they know not what they say,
or they wish to deceive us.
Do not then be surprised, Madam, if you should find that there are, in
fact, people who have ventured to doubt of the existence of the Deity
of the theologians, because, on meditating on the descriptions given of
him, they have discovered them to be incomprehensible, or replete with
contradiction. Do not be astonished if they never listen, in reasoning,
to any arguments that oppose themselves to common sense, and seek, for
the existence of the priests' Deity, other proofs than have yet been
offered mankind. His existence cannot be demonstrated in revelations,
which we discover, on examination, to be the work of imposture;
revelations sap the foundations laid down for belief in a Divinity,
which they would wish to establish.
This existence cannot be founded on the qualities which our priests
have assigned to the Divinity, seeing that, in the association of these
qualities, there only results a God whom we cannot comprehend, and by
consequence of whom we can form no certain ideas. This existence cannot
be founded on the moral qualities which our priests attribute to the
Divinity, seeing these are irreconcilable in the same subject,
who cannot be at once good and evil, just and unjust, merciful and
implacable, wise and the enemy of human reason.
On what, then, ought we to found the existence of God? The priests
themselves tell us that it is on reason, the spectacle of nature, and on
the marvellous order which appears in the universe. Those to whom these
motives for believing in the existence of the Divinity do not appear
convincing, find not, in any of the religions in the world, motives more
persuasive; for all systems of theology, framed for the exercise of the
imagination, plunge us into more uncertainty respecting their evidence,
when they appeal to nature for proofs of what they advance.
What, then, are we to think of the God of the clergy? Can we think that
he exists, without reasoning on that existence? And what shall we
think of those who are ignorant of this God, or have no belief in his
existence; who cannot discover him in the works of nature, either as
good or evil; who behold only order and disorder succeeding alternately?
What idea shall we form of those men who regard matter as eternal, as
actuated on by laws peculiar to itself; as sufficiently powerful to
produce itself under all the forms we behold; as perpetually exerting
itself in nourishing and destroying itself, in combining and dissolving
itself; as incapable of love or of hatred; as deprived of the faculties
of _intelligence_ and _sentiment_ known to belong to beings of our
species, but capable of supporting those beings whose organization has
made them intelligent, sensible, and reasonable?
What shall we say of those Freethinkers who find neither good nor evil,
neither order nor disorder, in the universe; that all things are but
relative to different conditions of beings, of which they have evidence;
and that all that happens in the universe is necessary, and subjected to
destiny? In a word, what shall we think of these men?
Shall we say that they have only a different manner of viewing things,
or that they use different words in expressing themselves? They
call that _Nature_ which others call the _Divinity_; they call that
_Necessity_ which all others call the _Divine decrees_; they call that
the _Energy of Nature_ which others call the _Author of Nature_; they
call that _Destiny_, or _Fate_, which others call _God_, whose laws are
always going forward.
Have, we, then, any right to hate and to exterminate them? No, without
doubt; at least, we cannot admit that we have any reason that those
should perish, who speak only the same language with ourselves, and who
are reciprocally beneficial to us. Nevertheless, it is to this degree of
extravagance that the baneful ideas of religion have carried the
human mind. Harassed, and set on by their priests, men have hated and
assassinated each other, because that in religious matters they agree
not to one creed. Vanity has made some imagine that they are better than
others, more intelligible, although they see that theology is a language
which they neither understand, nor which they themselves could invent.
The very name of Freethinker suffices to irritate them, and to arm the
fury of others, who repeat, without ceasing, the name of God, without
having any precise idea of the Deity. If, by chance, they imagine that
they have any notions of him, they are only confused, contradictory,
incompatible, and senseless notions, which have been inspired in their
infancy by their priests, and those who, as we have seen, have painted
God in all those traits which their imagination furnished, or those
who appear more conformed to their passions and interests than to the
well-being of their fellow-creatures.
The least reflection will, nevertheless, suffice to make any one
perceive, that God, if he is just and good, cannot exist as a being
known to some, but unknown to others. If Freethinkers are men void
of reason, God would be unjust to punish them for being blind and
insensible, or for having too little penetration and understanding to
perceive the force of those natural proofs on which the existence of
the Deity has been founded. A God full of equity cannot punish men for
having been blind or devoid of reason. The Freethinkers, as foolish
as they are supposed, are beings less insensible than those who make
professions of believing in a God full of qualities that destroy one
another; they are less dangerous than the adorers of a changeable Deity,
who, they imagine, is pleased with the extermination of a large
portion of mankind, on account of their opinions. Our speculations are
indifferent to God, whose glory man cannot tarnish--whose power mortals
cannot abridge. They may, however, be advantageous to ourselves; they
may be perfectly indifferent to society, whose happiness they may not
affect; or they may be the reverse of all this. For it is evident that
the opinions of men do not influence the happiness of society.
Hence, Madam, let us leave men to think as they please, provided that
they act in such a manner as promotes the general good of society. The
thoughts of men injure not others; their actions may--their reveries
never. Our ideas, our thoughts, our systems, depend not on us. He who is
fully convinced on one point, is not satisfied on another. All men have
not the same eyes, nor the same brains; all have not the same ideas, the
same education, or the same opinions; they never agree wholly, when
they have the temerity to reason on matters that are enveloped in the
obscurity of imaginative fiction, and which cannot be' subject to the
usual evidence accompanying matters of report, or historic relation.
Men do not long dispute on objects that are cognizable to their senses,
and which they can submit to the test of experience. The number
of self-evident truths on which men agree is very small; and the
fundamentals of morality are among this number. It is obvious to all
men of sense, that beings, united in society, require to be regulated
by justice, that they ought to respect the happiness of each other,
that mutual succor is indispensable; in a word, that they are obliged to
practise virtue, and to be useful to society, for personal happiness.
It is evident to demonstration, that the interest of our preservation
excites us to moderate our desires, and put a bridle on our passions;
to renounce dangerous habits, and to abstain from vices which can only
injure our fortune, and undermine our health. These truths are evident
to every being whose passions have not dominion over his reason; they
are totally independent of theological speculations, which have neither
evidence nor demonstration, and which our mind can never verify;
they have nothing in common with the religious opinions on which
the imagination soars from earth to sky, nor with the fanaticism and
credulity which are so frequently producing among mankind the most
opposite principles to morality and the well-being of society.
They who are of the Freethinkers' opinions are not more dangerous
than they who are of the priests' opinions. In short, Christianity
has produced effects more appalling than heathenism. The speculative
principles of the Freethinkers have done no injury to Society; the
contagious principles of fanaticism and enthusiasm have only served to
spread disorder on the earth. If there are dangerous notions and fatal
speculations in the world, they are those of the devotees, who obey a
religion that divides men, and excites their passions, and who sacrifice
the interests of society, of sovereigns, and their subjects, to their
own ambition, their avarice, their vengeance and fury.
There is no question that the Freethinker has motives to be good, even
though he admit not notions that bridle his passions. It is true that
the Freethinker has no invisible motives, but he has motives, and a
visible restraint, which, if he reflects, cannot fail to regulate his
actions. If he doubts about religion, he does not question the laws of
moral obligation; nor that it is his duty to moderate his passions, to
labor for his happiness and that of others, to avoid hatred, disdain,
and discord as crimes; and that he should shun vices which may injure
his constitution, reputation, and fortune. Thus, relatively to his
morality, the Freethinker has principles more sure than those of
superstition and fanaticism. In fine, if nothing can restrain the
Freethinker, a thousand forces united would not prevent the fanatic from
the commission of crimes, and the violation of duties the most sacred.
Besides, I believe that I have already proved that the morality
of superstition has no certain principles; that it varies with the
interests of the priests, who explain the intentions of the Divinity,
as they find these accordant or discordant to their views and interests;
which, alas! are too often the result of cruel and wicked purposes. On
the contrary, the Freethinker, who has no morality but what he draws
from the nature and character of man, and the constant events which
transpire in society, has a certain morality that is not founded either
on the caprice of circumstances or the prejudices of mankind; a morality
that tells him when he does evil, and blames him for the evil so done,
and that is superior to the morality of the intolerant fanatic and
persecutor.
You thus perceive, Madam, on which side the morality of the Freethinkers
leans, what advantages it possesses over that inculcated on the
superstitious devotee, who knows no other rule than the caprice of
his priest, nor any other morality than what suits the interest of the
clergy, nor any other virtues than such as make him the slave of their
will, and which are too often in opposition to the great interests
of mankind. Thus you perceive, that what is understood by the natural
morality of the Freethinker, is much more constant and more sure than
that of the superstitious, who believe they can render themselves
agreeable to God by the intercession of priests. If the Freethinker is
blind or corrupted, by not knowing his duties which nature prescribes
to him, it is precisely in the same way as the superstitious, whose
invisible motives and sacred guides prevent him not from going
occasionally astray.
These reflections will serve to confirm what I have already said,
to prove that morality has nothing in common with religion; and that
religion is its own enemy, though it pretends to dispense with support
from other sources. True morality is founded on the nature of man; the
morality of religion is founded only on the chimeras of imagination, and
on the caprice of those who speak of the Deity in a language too often
contrary to nature and right reason.
Allow me, then, Madam, to repeat to you, that morality is the only
natural religion for man; the only object worthy his notice on earth;
the only worship which he is required to render to the Deity. It
is uniform, and replete with obvious duties, which rest not on the
dictation of priests, blabbing chitchat they do not understand. If it be
this morality which I have defined, that makes us what we are, ought we
not to labor strenuously for the happiness of our race? If it be this
morality that makes us reasonable; that enables us to distinguish good
from evil, the useful from the hurtful; that makes us sociable, and
enables us to live in society to receive and repay mutual benefits; we
ought at least to respect all those who are its friends. If it be this
morality which sets bounds to our temper, it is that which interdicts
the commission in thought, word, or action, of what would injure
another, or disturb the happiness of society. If it attach us to the
preservation of all that is dear to us, it points out how by a certain
line of conduct we may preserve ourselves; for its laws, clear and of
easy practice, inflict on those who disobey them instant punishment,
fear, and remorse; on the other hand, the observance of its duties is
accompanied with immediate and real advantages, and notwithstanding the
depravity which prevails on earth, vice always finds itself punished,
and virtue is not always deprived of the satisfaction it yields, of the
esteem of men, and the recompense of society; even if men are in other
respects unjust, they will concede to the virtuous the due meed of
praise.
Behold, Madam, to what the dogmas of natural religion reduce us: in
meditating on it, and in practising its duties, we shall be truly
religious, and filled with the spirit of the Divinity; we shall be
admired and respected by men; we shall be in the right way to be loved
by those who rule over us, and respected by those who serve us; we shall
be truly happy in this world, and we shall have nothing to fear in the
next.
These are laws so clear, so demonstrable, and whose infraction is so
evidently punished, whose observance is so surely recompensed, that
they constitute the code of nature of all living beings, sentient
and reasoning; all acknowledge their authority; all find in them the
evidence of Deity, and consider those as sceptics who doubt their
efficacy. The Freethinker does not refuse to acknowledge as fundamental
laws, those which are obviously founded on the God of Nature, and on
the immutable and necessary circumstances of things cognizable to the
faculties of sentient natures. The Indian, the Chinese, the savage,
perceives these self-evident laws, whenever he is not carried headlong
by his passions into crime and error. In fine, these laws, so true, and
so evident, never can appear uncertain, obscure, or false, as are those
superstitious chimeras of the imagination, which knaves have substituted
for the truths of nature and the dicta of common sense; and those
devotees who know no other laws than those of the caprices of their
priests, necessarily obey a morality little calculated to produce
personal or general happiness, but much calculated to lead to
extravagance and inconvenient practices.
Hence, charming Eugenia, you will allow mankind to think as they please,
and judge of them after their actions. Oppose reason to their systems,
when they are pernicious to themselves or others; remove their
prejudices if you can, that they may not become the victims of their
caprices; show them the truth, which may always remove error; banish
from their minds the phantoms which disturb them; advise them not to
meditate on the mysteries of their priests; bid them renounce all those
illusions they have substituted for morality; and advise them to turn
their thoughts on that which conduces to their happiness. Meditate
yourself on your own nature, and the duties which it imposes on you.
Fear those chastisements which follow inattention to this law. Be
ambitious to be approved by your own understanding, and you will rarely
fail to receive the applauses of the human kind, as a good member of
society.
If you wish to meditate, think with the greatest strength of your
mind on your nature. Never abandon the torch of reason; cherish truth
sincerely. When you are in uncertainty, pause, or follow what appears
the most probable, always abandoning opinions that are destitute of
foundation, or evidence of their truth and benefit to society. Then will
you, in good truth, yield to the impulse of your heart when reason
is your guide; then will you consult in the calmness of passion, and
counsel yourself on the advantages of virtue, and the consequences of
its want; and you may flatter yourself that you cannot be displeasing to
a wise God, though you disbelieve absurdities, nor agreeable to a good
God in doing things hurtful to yourself or to others.
Leaving you now to your own reflections, I shall terminate the series of
Letters you have allowed me to address you. Bidding you an affectionate
farewell, I am truly yours.