_Those Ideas which are true, or founded upon Nature, are the only
Remedies for the Evils of Man.--Recapitulation.--Conclusion of the first
Part._
Whenever man ceases to take experience for his guide, he falls into
error. His errors become yet more dangerous, assume a more determined
inveteracy, when they are clothed with the sanction of superstition; it
is then that he hardly ever consents to return into the paths of truth;
he believes himself deeply interested in no longer seeing clearly that
which lies before him; he fancies he has an essential advantage in no
longer understanding himself; he supposes his happiness exacts that he
should shut his eyes to truth. If the majority of moral philosophers
have mistaken the human heart--if they have deceived themselves upon its
diseases--if they have miscalculated the remedies that are suitable--if
the remedies they have administered have been inefficacious or even
dangerous--it is because they have abandoned nature--because they have
resisted experience--because they have not had sufficient steadiness to
consult their reason--because they have renounced the evidence of their
senses--because they have only followed the caprices of an imagination
either dazzled by enthusiasm or disturbed by fear; because they have
preferred the illusions it has held forth to the realities of nature,
_who never deceives_.
It is for want of having felt that an intelligent being cannot for an
instant lose sight of his own peculiar conservation--of his particular
interests, either real or fictitious--of his own welfare, whether
permanent or transitory; in short, of his happiness, either true or
false. It is for want of having considered that desires are natural,
that passions are essential, that both the one and the other are motions
necessary to the soul of man,--that the physicians of the, human mind
have supposed supernatural causes for his wanderings; have only applied
to his evils topical remedies, either useless or dangerous. Indeed,
in desiring him to stifle his desires, to combat his propensities, to
annihilate his passions, they have done no more than give him sterile
precepts, at once vague and impracticable; these vain lessons have
influenced no one; they have at most restrained some few mortals whom a
quiet imagination but feebly solicited to evil; the terrors with which
they have accompanied them have disturbed the tranquillity of those
persons who were moderate by their nature, without ever arresting the
ungovernable temperament of those who were inebriated by their passions,
or hurried along; by the torrent of habit. In short, the promises of
superstition, as well as the menaces it holds forth, have only formed
fanatics, given birth to enthusiasts, who are either dangerous or
useless to society, without ever making man truly virtuous; that is to
say, useful to his fellow creatures.
These, empirics guided by a blind routine have, not seen that man as
long as he exists, is obliged to feel, to desire, to have passions,
to satisfy them in proportion to the energy which his organization has
given him; they have not perceived that education planted these desires
in his heart--that habit rooted them--that his government, frequently
vicious, corroborated their growth--that public opinion stamped them
with its approbation--that--experience render them necessary--that
to tell men thus constituted to destroy their passions, was either to
plunge them into despair or else to order them remedies too revolting
for their temperament. In the actual state of opulent societies, to say
to a man who knows by experience that riches procure every pleasure,
that he must not desire them; that he must not make any efforts to
obtain them; that he ought to detach himself from them: is to persuade
him to render himself miserable. To tell an ambitious man not to desire
grandeur, not to covet power, which every thing conspires to point out
to him as the height of felicity, is to order him to overturn at one
blow the habitual system of his ideas; it is to speak, to a deaf man. To
tell a lover of an impetuous temperament to stifle his passions for the
object that enchants him, is to make him understand, that he ought to
renounce his happiness. To oppose superstition to such substantive, such
puissant interests is to combat realities by chimerical speculations.
Indeed, if things were examined without prepossession, it would be found
that the greater part of the precepts inculcated by superstition, which
fanatical dogmas hold forth, which, supernatural mortals give to man,
are as ridiculous as they are impossible to be put into practice.
To interdict passion to man, is to desire of him not to be a human
creature; to counsel an individual of a violent imagination to moderate
his desires, is to advise him to change his temperament--is to request
his blood to flow more sluggishly. To tell a man to renounce his habits,
is to be willing that a citizen, accustomed to clothe himself, should
consent to walk quite naked; it would avail as much, to desire him
to change the lineament of his face, to destroy his configuration, to
extinguish his imagination, to alter the course of his fluids, as to
command him not to have passions which excite an activity analogous with
his natural energy; or to lay aside those which confirmed habit has made
him contract; which his circumstances, by a long succession of causes
and effects, have converted into wants. Such are, however, the so much
boasted remedies which the greater number of moral philosophers apply to
human depravity. Is it, then surprising they do not produce the desired
effect, or that they only reduce man to a state of despair by the
effervescence that results from the continual conflict which they excite
between the passions of his heart and these fanciful doctrines; between
his vices and his virtues; between his habits and those chimerical fears
with which superstition is at all times ready to overwhelm him? The
vices of society, aided by the objects of which it avails itself to what
the desires of man, the pleasures, the riches, the grandeur which
his government holds forth to him as so many seductive magnets, the
advantage which education, the benefits which example, the interests
which public opinion render dear to him, attract him on one side; whilst
a gloomy morality, founded upon superstitious illusions, vainly solicit
him on the other; thus, superstition plunges him into misery; holds
a violent struggle with his heart, without scarcely ever gaining the
victory; when by accident it does prevail against so many united forces,
it renders him unhappy; it completely destroys the spring of his soul.
Passions are the true counterpoise to passions; then let him not seek
to destroy them; but let him endeavour to direct them; let him balance
those which are prejudicial, by those which are useful to society.
_Reason_, the fruit of experience, is only the art of choosing those
passions to which for his own peculiar happiness he ought to listen.
_Education_ is the true art of disseminating the proper method of
cultivating advantageous passions in the heart of man. _Legislation_ is
the art of restraining dangerous passions; of exciting those which may
be conducive to the public welfare. _Superstition_ is only the miserable
art of planting the unproductive labour--of nourishing in the soul
of man those chimeras, those illusions, those impostures, those
incertitudes from whence spring passions fatal to himself as well as to
others: it is only by bearing up with fortitude against these that he
can securely place himself on the road to happiness. _True religion_
is the art of advocating truth--of renouncing error--of contemplating
reality--of drawing wisdom from experience--of cultivating man's nature
to his own felicity, by teaching him to contribute to that of his
associates; in short it is _reason, education_, and _legislation_,
united to further the great end of human existence, by causing the
passions of man to flow in a current genial to his own happiness.
_Reason_ and _morals_ cannot effect any thing on mankind if they do not
point out to each individual that his true interest is attached to a
conduct that is either useful to others or beneficial to himself; this
conduct to be useful must conciliate for him the benevolence, gain for
him the favor of these beings who are necessary to his happiness: it is
then for the interest of mankind, for the happiness of the human race,
it is for the esteem of himself, for the love of his fellows, for the
advantages which ensue, that education in early life should kindle the
imagination of the citizen; this is the true means of obtaining those
happy results with which habit should familiarize him; which public
opinion should render dear to his heart; for which example ought
continually to rouse his faculties; after which he should be taught to
search with unceasing attention. _Government_ by the aid of recompences,
ought to encourage him to follow this plan; by visiting crime with
punishment it ought to deter those who are willing to interrupt it.
Thus the hope of a true welfare, the fear of real evil, will be passions
suitable to countervail those which by their impetuosity would injure
society; these last will at least become very rare, if instead of
feeding man's mind with unintelligible speculations, in lieu of
vibrating on his ears words void of sense, he is only spoken to of
realities, only shewn those interests which are in unison with truth.
Man is frequently so wicked, only, because he almost always feels
himself interested in being so; let him be more enlightened, more
familiarized with truth, more accustomed to virtue, he will be made more
happy; he will necessarily become better. An equitable government,
a vigilant administration, will presently fill the state with honest
citizens; it will hold forth to them present reasons for benevolence;
real advantages in truth; palpable motives to be virtuous; it will
instruct them in their duties; it will foster them with its cares; it
will allure them by the assurance of their own peculiar happiness; its
promises faithfully fulfilled--its menaces regularly executed,
will unquestionably have much more weight than those of a gloomy
superstition, which never exhibits to their view other than illusory
benefits, fallacious punishments, which the man hardened in wickedness
will doubt every time he finds an interest in questioning them: present
motives will tell more home to his heart than those which are distant
and at best uncertain. The vicious and the wicked are so common upon
the earth, so pertinacious in their evil courses, so attached to their
irregularities, only because there are but few governments that make
man feel the advantage of being just, the pleasure of being honest, the
happiness of being benevolent on the contrary, there is hardly any
place where the most powerful interests do not solicit him to crime, by
favouring the propensities of a vicious organization; by countenancing
those appetencies which nothing has attempted to rectify or lead
towards virtue. A savage, who in his horde knows not the value of money,
certainly would not commit a crime, if when transplanted into civilized
society, he should presently learn to desire it, should make efforts to
obtain it, and if he could without danger finish by stealing it; above
all, if he had not been taught to respect the property of the beings who
environ him. The savages and the child are precisely in the same
state; it is the negligence of society, of those entrusted with their
education, that renders both the one and the other wicked. The son of
a noble, from his infancy learns to desire power, at a riper age he
becomes ambitious; if he has the address to insinuate himself into
favor, he perhaps becomes wicked, because in some societies he has been
taught to know he may be so with impunity when he can command the ear
of his sovereign. It is not therefore nature that makes man wicked, they
are his institutions which determine him to vice. The infant brought up
amongst robbers, can generally become nothing but a malefactor; if he
had been reared with honest people, the chance is he would have been a
virtuous man.
If the source be traced of that profound ignorance in which man is with
respect to his morals, to the motives that can give volition to his
will, it will be found in those false ideas which the greater number of
speculators have formed to themselves, of human nature. The science of
morals has become an enigma which it is impossible to unrevel; because
man has made himself double; has distinguished his soul from his body;
supposed it of a nature different from all known beings, with modes of
action, with properties distinct from all other bodies, because he
has emancipated this soul from physical laws, in order to submit it to
capricious laws emanating from men who have pretended they are derived
from imaginary regions, placed at very remote distances: metaphysicians
seized upon these gratuitous suppositions, and by dint of subtilizing
them, have rendered them completely unintelligible. These moralists have
not perceived that motion is essential to the soul as well as to the
living body; that both the one and the other are never moved but
by material, by physical objects; that the want of each regenerate
themselves unceasingly; that the wants of the soul, as well as those of
the body are purely physical; that the most intimate, the most constant
connection subsists between the soul and the body; or rather they have
been unwilling to allow that they ate only the same thing considered
under different points of view. Obstinate in their supernatural,
unintelligible opinions, they have refused to open their eyes, which
would have convinced them that the body in suffering rendered the soul
miserable; that the soul afflicted undermined the body and brought it to
decay; that both the pleasures and agonies of the mind have an influence
over the body, either plunge it into sloth or give it activity: they
have rather chosen to believe, that the soul draws its thoughts, whether
pleasant or gloomy, from its own peculiar sources, while the fact is,
that it derives its ideas only from material objects that strike on the
physical organs; that it is neither determined to gaiety nor led on to
sorrow, but by the actual state, whether permanent or transitory, in
which the fluids and solids of the body are found. In short, they have
been loath to acknowledge that the soul, purely passive, undergoes
the same changes which the body experiences; is only moved by its
intervention; acts only by its assistance, receives its sensations, its
perceptions, forms its ideas, derives either its happiness or its misery
from physical objects, through the medium of the organs of which the
body is composed; frequently without its own cognizance, often in
despite of itself.
By a consequence of these opinions, connected with marvellous systems,
or systems invented to justify them, they have supposed the human soul
to be a free agent; that is to say, that it has the faculty of moving
itself; that it enjoys the privilege of acting independent of the
impulse received from exterior objects, through the organs of the body;
that regardless of these impulsions it can even resist them, and follow
its own directions by its own energies; that it is not only different in
its nature from all other beings, but has a separate mode of action; in
other words, that it is an insolated point which is, not submitted to
that uninterrupted chain of motion which bodies communicate to each
other in a nature, whose parts are always in action. Smitten with
their sublime notions, these speculators were not aware that in thus
distinguishing the soul from the body and from all known beings, they
rendered it an impossibility to form any true ideas of it, either to
themselves or to others: they were unwilling to perceive the perfect
analogy which is found between the manner of the soul's action and that
by which the body is afflicted; they shut their eyes to the necessary
and continual correspondence which is found between the soul and the
body; they perhaps did not perceive that like the body it is subjected
to the motion of attraction and repulsion; has an aptitude to be
attracted, a disposition to repel, which is ascribable to qualities
inherent in those physical subsistances, which give play to the
organs of the body; that the volition of its will, the activity of its
passions, the continual regeneration of its desires, are never more than
consequences of that activity which is produced in the body by material
objects which are not under its controul; that these objects render
it either happy or miserable, active or languishing, contented or
discontented, in despite of itself,--in defiance of all the efforts it
is capable of making to render it otherwise; they have rather chosen to
seek in the heavens for unknown powers to set it in motion; they have
held forth to man distant, imaginary interests: under the pretext of
procuring for him future happiness, he has been prevented from labouring
to his present felicity, which has been studiously withheld from his
knowledge: his regards have been fixed upon the heavens, that he might
lose sight of the earth: truth has been concealed from him; and it has
been pretended he would be rendered happy by dint of terrors, always at
an immense distance; by means of shadows, with whose substances he
could never come in contact; of chimeras formed by his own bewildered
imagination, which changed nearly as often as the governments to which
he was submitted. In short, hoodwinked by his fears, blinded by his own
credulity, _he was only guided through the flexuous paths of life, by
men blind as himself, where both the one and the other were frequently
lost in the maze_.