SUPERSTITION IN ALL AGES

By Jean Meslier

1732

A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, WHO, AFTER A PASTORAL SERVICE OF THIRTY YEARS AT
ETREPIGNY IN CHAMPAGNE, FRANCE, WHOLLY ABJURED RELIGIOUS DOGMAS, AND LEFT
AS HIS LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT TO HIS PARISHIONERS, AND TO THE WORLD, TO
BE PUBLISHED AFTER HIS DEATH, THE FOLLOWING PAGES, ENTITLED: COMMON SENSE.

Translated from the French original by Miss Anna Knoop

1878

CONTENTS

LIFE OF JEAN MESLIER BY VOLTAIRE.

PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.

COMMON SENSE.

I.  APOLOGUE.

II  WHAT IS THEOLOGY?

III.    

IV  MAN BORN NEITHER RELIGIOUS
NOR DEISTICAL.

V  IT
IS NOT NECESSARY TO BELIEVE IN A GOD

VI  RELIGION IS FOUNDED UPON
CREDULITY.

VII  EVERY
RELIGION IS AN ABSURDITY.

VIII  THE
NOTION OF GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE.

IX  ORIGIN OF SUPERSTITION.

X  ORIGIN OF ALL RELIGION.

XI  IN THE NAME OF RELIGION
CHARLATANS TAKE ADVANTAGE

XII  RELIGION
ENTICES IGNORANCE BY THE AID OF THE MARVELOUS.

XIII  CONTINUATION.

XIV  THERE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN
ANY RELIGION IF . . .

XV  ALL
RELIGION WAS BORN OF THE DESIRE TO DOMINATE.

XVI  THAT WHICH SERVES AS A BASIS
FOR ALL RELIGION IS VERY UNCERTAIN.

XVII  IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE
CONVINCED OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

XVIII  CONTINUATION.

XIX  THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS NOT
PROVED.

XX  TO
SAY THAT GOD IS A SPIRIT, IS TO SPEAK WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING

XXI  SPIRITUALITY IS A CHIMERA.

XXII  ALL WHICH
EXISTS SPRINGS FROM THE BOSOM OF MATTER.

XXIII  WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICAL GOD
OF MODERN THEOLOGY?

XXIV  IT
WOULD BE MORE RATIONAL TO WORSHIP THE SUN THAN A SPIRITUAL GOD.

XXV  A SPIRITUAL GOD IS
INCAPABLE OF WILLING AND OF ACTING.

XXVI  WHAT IS GOD?

XXVII  REMARKABLE CONTRADICTIONS
OF THEOLOGY.

XXVIII  TO
ADORE GOD IS TO ADORE A FICTION.

XXIX  THE INFINITY OF GOD AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF KNOWING
THE DIVINE

XXX  IT
IS NEITHER LESS NOR MORE CRIMINAL TO BELIEVE IN GOD THAN NOT TO

XXXI  THE BELIEF IN GOD IS
NOTHING BUT A MECHANICAL HABITUDE

XXXII  IT IS A PREJUDICE WHICH HAS
BEEN HANDED FROM FATHER TO CHILDREN

XXXIII  ORIGIN OF PREJUDICES.

XXXIV  HOW THEY TAKE ROOT AND
SPREAD.

XXXV  MEN
WOULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED IN THE PRINCIPLES OF MODERN THEOLOGY

XXXVI  THE WONDERS OF NATURE DO
NOT PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

XXXVII  THE WONDERS OF NATURE EXPLAIN THEMSELVES BY
NATURAL CAUSES.

XXXVIII  CONTINUATION.

XXXIX  THE WORLD
HAS NOT BEEN CREATED, AND MATTER MOVES BY ITSELF.

XL  CONTINUATION.

XLI  OTHER PROOFS THAT MOTION IS
IN THE ESSENCE OF MATTER

XLII  THE
EXISTENCE OF MAN DOES NOT PROVE THAT OF GOD.

XLIII  HOWEVER, NEITHER MAN NOR THE
UNIVERSE IS THE EFFECT OF CHANCE.

XLIV  NEITHER DOES THE ORDER OF THE
UNIVERSE PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD

XLV  CONTINUATION.

XLVI  A PURE SPIRIT CAN NOT BE
INTELLIGENT

XLVII  ALL
THE QUALITIES WHICH THEOLOGY GIVES TO ITS GOD ARE CONTRARY

XLVIII  CONTINUATION.

XLIX  IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT
THE HUMAN RACE IS THE OBJECT AND THE END

L  GOD IS NOT MADE FOR MAN, NOR MAN
FOR GOD.

LI  IT
IS NOT TRUE THAT THE OBJECT OF THE FORMATION OF THE . . .

LII  WHAT IS CALLED PROVIDENCE
IS BUT A WORD VOID OF SENSE.

LIII  THIS PRETENDED PROVIDENCE IS LESS OCCUPIED IN
CONSERVING . . .

LIV  NO!
THE WORLD IS NOT GOVERNED BY AN INTELLIGENT BEING.

LV  GOD CAN NOT BE CALLED
IMMUTABLE.

LVI  EVIL
AND GOOD ARE THE NECESSARY EFFECTS OF NATURAL CAUSES

LVII  THE VANITY OF THEOLOGICAL
CONSOLATIONS

LVIII  ANOTHER
IDLE FANCY.

LIX  IN
VAIN DOES THEOLOGY EXERT ITSELF TO ACQUIT GOD OF MAN’S DEFECTS.

LX  WE CAN NOT BELIEVE IN A
DIVINE PROVIDENCE

LXI  CONTINUATION.

LXII  THEOLOGY
MAKES OF ITS GOD A MONSTER OF NONSENSE, OF INJUSTICE

LXIII  ALL RELIGION INSPIRES BUT A
COWARDLY AND INORDINATE FEAR

LXIV  THERE IS IN REALITY NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN . . .

LXV  ACCORDING
TO THE IDEAS WHICH THEOLOGY GIVES OF DIVINITY

LXVI  BY THE INVENTION OF THE DOGMA
OF THE ETERNAL TORMENTS OF HELL

LXVII  THEOLOGY IS BUT A SERIES OF PALPABLE
CONTRADICTIONS.

LXVIII  THE
PRETENDED WORKS OF GOD DO NOT PROVE AT ALL . . .

LXIX  THE PERFECTION OF GOD DOES
NOT SHOW TO ANY MORE ADVANTAGE . . .

LXX  THEOLOGY PREACHES THE
OMNIPOTENCE OF ITS GOD

LXXI  ACCORDING
TO ALL THE RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE EARTH

LXXII  IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT
EVIL DOES NOT COME FROM GOD.

LXXIII  THE FORESIGHT ATTRIBUTED TO GOD

LXXIV  ABSURDITY OF THE THEOLOGICAL
FABLES UPON ORIGINAL SIN

LXXV  THE
DEVIL, LIKE RELIGION, WAS INVENTED TO ENRICH THE PRIESTS.

LXXVI  IF GOD COULD NOT RENDER
HUMAN NATURE SINLESS, HE HAS NO RIGHT . . .

LXXVII  IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT
GOD’S CONDUCT MUST BE A MYSTERY TO MAN

LXXVIII  IT IS ABSURD TO CALL HIM A
GOD OF JUSTICE AND GOODNESS

LXXIX  A GOD WHO PUNISHES THE FAULTS WHICH HE COULD HAVE
PREVENTED

LXXX  FREE
WILL IS AN IDLE FANCY.

LXXXI  WE
SHOULD NOT CONCLUDE FROM THIS THAT SOCIETY HAS NOT THE RIGHT . . .

LXXXII  REFUTATION OF THE
ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF FREE WILL.

LXXXIII  CONTINUATION.

LXXXIV  GOD HIMSELF, IF THERE WAS A
GOD, WOULD NOT BE FREE

LXXXV  EVEN
ACCORDING TO THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES, MAN IS NOT FREE

LXXXVI  ALL EVIL, ALL DISORDER, ALL
SIN, CAN BE ATTRIBUTED BUT TO GOD

LXXXVII  MEN’S PRAYERS TO GOD PROVE
SUFFICIENTLY THAT THEY ARE NOT . . .

LXXXVIII  THE REPARATION OF THE
INIQUITIES AND THE MISERIES OF THIS

LXXXIX  THEOLOGY JUSTIFIES THE EVIL
AND INJUSTICE PERMITTED BY ITS GOD,

XC  REDEMPTION, AND THE CONTINUAL
EXTERMINATIONS ATTRIBUTED TO JEHOVAH

XCI  HOW CAN WE DISCOVER A TENDER,
GENEROUS, AND EQUITABLE FATHER

XCII  THE LIFE OF MORTALS, ALL WHICH TAKES PLACE HERE
BELOW

XCIII  IT
IS NOT TRUE THAT WE OWE ANY GRATITUDE TO WHAT WE CALL . . .

XCIV  TO PRETEND THAT MAN IS THE
BELOVED CHILD OF PROVIDENCE

XCV  COMPARISON BETWEEN MAN AND ANIMALS.

XCVI  THERE ARE NO MORE
DETESTABLE ANIMALS IN THIS WORLD THAN TYRANTS.

XCVII  REFUTATION OF MAN’S
EXCELLENCE.

XCVIII  AN
ORIENTAL LEGEND.

XCIX  IT
IS FOOLISH TO SEE IN THE UNIVERSE ONLY THE BENEFACTIONS OF GOD

C  WHAT IS THE SOUL? WE KNOW
NOTHING ABOUT IT

CI  THE
EXISTENCE OF A SOUL IS AN ABSURD SUPPOSITION

CII  IT IS EVIDENT THAT THE WHOLE
OF MAN DIES.

CIII  INCONTESTABLE
PROOFS AGAINST THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE SOUL.

CIV  THE ABSURDITY OF SUPERNATURAL
CAUSES

CV  IT IS
FALSE THAT MATERIALISM CAN BE DEBASING TO THE HUMAN RACE.

CVI  CONTINUATION.

CVII  THE DOGMA OF ANOTHER LIFE
IS USEFUL BUT FOR THOSE WHO PROFIT BY IT

CVIII  IT IS FALSE THAT THE DOGMA
OF ANOTHER LIFE CAN BE CONSOLING

CIX  ALL RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES ARE IMAGINARY

CX  EVERY RELIGION IS BUT A
SYSTEM IMAGINED FOR THE PURPOSE . . .

CXI  ABSURDITY AND INUTILITY OF THE
MYSTERIES

CXII  CONTINUATION.

CXIII  CONTINUATION.

CXIV  A
UNIVERSAL GOD SHOULD HAVE REVEALED A UNIVERSAL RELIGION.

CXV  THE PROOF THAT RELIGION IS
NOT NECESSARY

CXVI  ALL
RELIGIONS ARE RIDICULED BY THOSE OF OPPOSITE . . .

CXVII  OPINION OF A CELEBRATED
THEOLOGIAN.

CXVIII  THE
DEIST’S GOD IS NO LESS CONTRADICTORY . . .

CXIX  WE DO NOT PROVE AT ALL THE
EXISTENCE OF A GOD BY SAYING . . .

CXX  ALL THE GODS ARE OF A
BARBAROUS ORIGIN; ALL RELIGIONS ARE . . .

CXXI  ALL RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES BEAR
THE SEAL OF STUPIDITY OR BARBARITY.

CXXII  THE MORE ANCIENT AND GENERAL
A RELIGIOUS OPINION IS . . .

CXXIII  SKEPTICISM IN THE MATTER OF RELIGION

CXXIV  REVELATION REFUTED.

CXXV  WHERE, THEN, IS THE PROOF
THAT GOD DID EVER SHOW HIMSELF TO MEN

CXXVI  NOTHING ESTABLISHES THE
TRUTH OF MIRACLES.

CXXVII  IF
GOD HAD SPOKEN, IT WOULD BE STRANGE THAT HE HAD SPOKEN

CXXVIII  OBSCURE AND SUSPICIOUS
ORIGIN OF ORACLES.

CXXIX  ABSURDITY
OF PRETENDED MIRACLES.

CXXX  REFUTATION
OF PASCAL’S MANNER OF REASONING

CXXXI  EVEN ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THEOLOGY ITSELF
. . .

CXXXII  EVEN
THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS, TESTIFIES . . .

CXXXIII  THE FANATICISM OF THE
MARTYRS

CXXXIV  THEOLOGY
MAKES OF ITS GOD AN ENEMY OF COMMON SENSE

CXXXV  FAITH IS IRRECONCILABLE WITH
REASON

CXXXVI  HOW
ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS IS THE SOPHISTRY OF THOSE . . .

CXXXVII  HOW PRETEND THAT MAN OUGHT
TO BELIEVE VERBAL TESTIMONY

CXXXVIII  FAITH TAKES ROOT BUT IN WEAK, IGNORANT, OR
INDOLENT MINDS.

CXXXIX  TO
TEACH THAT THERE EXISTS ONE TRUE RELIGION IS AN ABSURDITY,

CXL  RELIGION IS NOT NECESSARY
TO MORALITY AND TO VIRTUE.

CXLI  RELIGION IS THE WEAKEST RESTRAINT THAT CAN BE
OPPOSED . . .

CXLII  HONOR
IS A MORE SALUTARY AND A STRONGER CHECK THAN RELIGION.

CXLIII  RELIGION IS CERTAINLY
NOT A POWERFUL CHECK UPON THE PASSIONS

CXLIV  ORIGIN OF THE MOST ABSURD,
THE MOST RIDICULOUS, AND . . .

CXLV  RELIGION IS FATAL TO POLITICS; IT FORMS BUT
LICENTIOUS . . .

CXLVI  CHRISTIANITY
EXTENDED ITSELF BUT BY ENCOURAGING DESPOTISM

CXLVII  THE ONLY AIM OF RELIGIOUS
PRINCIPLES IS TO PERPETUATE . . .

CXLVIII  HOW FATAL IT IS TO
PERSUADE KINGS THAT THEY HAVE ONLY GOD . . .

CLXIX  A RELIGIOUS KING IS A
SCOURGE TO HIS KINGDOM.

CL  THE
SHIELD OF RELIGION IS FOR TYRANNY

CLI  RELIGION FAVORS THE ERRORS OF
PRINCES

CLII  WHAT
IS AN ENLIGHTENED SOVEREIGN?

CLIII  THE DOMINANT PASSIONS AND CRIMES OF PRIESTCRAFT.

CLIV  CHARLATANRY
OF THE PRIESTS.

CLV  COUNTLESS
CALAMITIES ARE PRODUCED BY RELIGION

CLVI  EVERY RELIGION IS INTOLERANT,
AND CONSEQUENTLY DESTRUCTIVE OF

CLVII  ABUSE OF A STATE RELIGION.

CLVIII  RELIGION GIVES LICENSE TO
THE FEROCITY OF THE PEOPLE

CLIX  REFUTATION OF THE ARGUMENT, THAT THE EVILS
ATTRIBUTED TO RELIGION

CLX  ALL
MORALITY IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

CLXI  THE MORALS OF THE GOSPEL ARE
IMPRACTICABLE.

CLXII  A
SOCIETY OF SAINTS WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE.

CLXIII  HUMAN NATURE IS NOT
DEPRAVED

CLXIV  OF
JESUS CHRIST, THE PRIEST’S GOD.

CLXV  THE DOGMA OF THE REMISSION OF SINS HAS BEEN INVENTED

CLXVI  THE FEAR
OF GOD IS POWERLESS AGAINST HUMAN PASSIONS.

CLXVII  THE INVENTION OF HELL IS
TOO ABSURD TO PREVENT EVIL.

CLXVIII  ABSURDITY OF THE MORALITY AND OF THE RELIGIOUS
VIRTUES

CLXIX  WHAT
DOES THAT CHRISTIAN CHARITY AMOUNT TO

CLXX  CONFESSION, THAT GOLDEN MINE
FOR THE PRIESTS

CLXXI  THE
SUPPOSITION OF THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD IS NOT NECESSARY

CLXXII  RELIGION AND ITS
SUPERNATURAL MORALITY ARE FATAL TO THE PEOPLE

CLXXIII  HOW THE UNION OF RELIGION
AND POLITICS IS FATAL TO THE PEOPLE

CLXXIV  CREEDS ARE BURDENSOME AND
RUINOUS TO THE MAJORITY OF NATIONS.

CLXXV  RELIGION PARALYZES MORALITY.

CLXXVI  FATAL
CONSEQUENCES OF PIETY.

CLXXVII  THE
SUPPOSITION OF ANOTHER LIFE IS NEITHER CONSOLING TO MAN . . .

CLXXVIII  AN ATHEIST HAS MORE
MOTIVES FOR ACTING UPRIGHTLY

CLXXIX  AN ATHEISTICAL KING WOULD BE PREFERABLE TO ONE WHO
IS RELIGIOUS

CLXXX  THE
MORALITY ACQUIRED BY PHILOSOPHY IS SUFFICIENT TO VIRTUE.

CLXXXI  OPINIONS RARELY
INFLUENCE CONDUCT.

CLXXXII  -REASON
LEADS MEN TO IRRELIGION AND TO ATHEISM

CLXXXIII  FEAR ALONE CREATES
THEISTS AND BIGOTS.

CLXXXIV  CAN
WE, OR SHOULD WE, LOVE OR NOT LOVE GOD?

CLXXXV  THE VARIOUS AND
CONTRADICTORY IDEAS WHICH EXIST EVERYWHERE

CLXXXVI  THE EXISTENCE OF GOD,
WHICH IS THE BASIS OF ALL RELIGION

CLXXXVII  PRIESTS, MORE THAN
UNBELIEVERS, ACT FROM INTEREST.

CLXXXVIII  PRIDE, PRESUMPTION, AND CORRUPTION OF THE HEART

CLXXXIX  PREJUDICES
ARE BUT FOR A TIME, AND NO POWER IS DURABLE

CXC  HOW MUCH POWER AND
CONSIDERATION THE MINISTERS OF THE GODS . . .

CXCI  WHAT A HAPPY AND GREAT
REVOLUTION WOULD TAKE PLACE . . .

CXCII  THE RETRACTION OF AN
UNBELIEVER AT THE HOUR OF DEATH

CXCIII  IT IS NOT TRUE THAT ATHEISM SUNDERS ALL THE TIES
OF SOCIETY.

CXCIV  REFUTATION
OF THE ASSERTION THAT RELIGION IS NECESSARY

CXCV  EVERY RATIONAL SYSTEM IS NOT
MADE FOR THE MULTITUDE.

CXCVI  FUTILITY
AND DANGER OF THEOLOGY. WISE COUNSELS TO PRINCES.

CXCVII  FATAL EFFECTS OF RELIGION
UPON THE PEOPLE AND THE PRINCES.

CXCVIII  CONTINUATION.

CXCIX  HISTORY TEACHES US THAT ALL
RELIGIONS WERE ESTABLISHED . . .

CC  ALL RELIGIONS, ANCIENT AND MODERN, HAVE MUTUALLY
BORROWED . . .

CCI  THEOLOGY
HAS ALWAYS TURNED PHILOSOPHY FROM ITS TRUE COURSE.

CCII  -THEOLOGY NEITHER EXPLAINS
NOR ENLIGHTENS ANYTHING IN THE WORLD

CCIII  HOW THEOLOGY HAS FETTERED
HUMAN MORALS AND RETARDED THE PROGRESS

CCIV  CONTINUATION.

CCV  WE COULD NOT REPEAT TOO
OFTEN HOW EXTRAVAGANT AND FATAL RELIGION

CCVI  RELIGION IS PANDORA’S BOX,
AND THIS FATAL BOX IS OPEN.

ABSTRACT OF THE TESTAMENT OF JOHN MESLIER

I  OF RELIGIONS.

II  OF MIRACLES.

III  SIMILARITY BETWEEN ANCIENT AND
MODERN MIRACLES.

IV  OF
THE FALSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

V  THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. (1) OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT.

VI  THE
HOLY SCRIPTURES. (2) THE NEW TESTAMENT.

VII     ERRORS OF
DOCTRINE AND OF MORALITY.

PUBLISHER’S PREFACE.
PREFATORY NOTE
BY THE TRANSLATOR
PREFACE OF THE
EDITOR OF THE FRENCH EDITION OF 1830.

LIFE OF JEAN MESLIER BY VOLTAIRE.

Jean Meslier, born 1678, in the village of Mazerny, dependency of the
duchy of Rethel, was the son of a serge weaver; brought up in the country,
he nevertheless pursued his studies and succeeded to the priesthood. At
the seminary, where he lived with much regularity, he devoted himself to
the system of Descartes.

Becoming curate of Etrepigny in Champagne and vicar of a little annexed
parish named Bue, he was remarkable for the austerity of his habits.
Devoted in all his duties, every year he gave what remained of his salary
to the poor of his parishes; enthusiastic, and of rigid virtue, he was
very temperate, as much in regard to his appetite as in relation to women.

MM. Voiri and Delavaux, the one curate of Varq, the other curate of
Boulzicourt, were his confessors, and the only ones with whom he
associated.

The curate Meslier was a rigid partisan of justice, and sometimes carried
his zeal a little too far. The lord of his village, M. de Touilly, having
ill-treated some peasants, he refused to pray for him in his service. M.
de Mailly, Archbishop of Rheims, before whom the case was brought,
condemned him. But the Sunday which followed this decision, the abbot
Meslier stood in his pulpit and complained of the sentence of the
cardinal. “This is,” said he, “the general fate of the poor country
priest; the archbishops, who are great lords, scorn them and do not listen
to them. Therefore, let us pray for the lord of this place. We will pray
for Antoine de Touilly, that he may be converted and granted the grace
that he may not wrong the poor and despoil the orphans.” His lordship, who
was present at this mortifying supplication, brought new complaints before
the same archbishop, who ordered the curate Meslier to come to Donchery,
where he ill-treated him with abusive language.

There have been scarcely any other events in his life, nor other benefice,
than that of Etrepigny. He died in the odor of sanctity in the year 1733,
fifty-five years old. It is believed that, disgusted with life, he
expressly refused necessary food, because during his sickness he was not
willing to take anything, not even a glass of wine.

At his death he gave all he possessed, which was inconsiderable, to his
parishioners, and desired to be buried in his garden.

They were greatly surprised to find in his house three manuscripts, each
containing three hundred and sixty-six pages, all written by his hand,
signed and entitled by him, “My Testament.” This work, which the author
addressed to his parishioners and to M. Leroux, advocate and procurator
for the parliament of Meziers, is a simple refutation of all the religious
dogmas, without excepting one. The grand vicar of Rheims retained one of
the three copies; another was sent to Monsieur Chauvelin, guardian of the
State’s seal; the third remained at the clerk’s office of the justiciary
of St. Minehould. The Count de Caylus had one of those three copies in his
possession for some time, and soon afterward more than one hundred were at
Paris, sold at ten Louis-d’or apiece. A dying priest accusing himself of
having professed and taught the Christian religion, made a deeper
impression upon the mind than the “Thoughts of Pascal.”

The curate Meslier had written upon a gray paper which enveloped the copy
destined for his parishioners these remarkable words: “I have seen and
recognized the errors, the abuses, the follies, and the wickedness of men.
I have hated and despised them. I did not dare say it during my life, but
I will say it at least in dying, and after my death; and it is that it may
be known, that I write this present memorial in order that it may serve as
a witness of truth to all those who may see and read it if they choose.”

At the beginning of this work is found this document (a kind of honorable
amend, which in his letter to the Count of d’Argental of May 31, 1762,
Voltaire qualifies as a preface), addressed to his parishioners.

“You know,” said he, “my brethren, my disinterestedness; I do not
sacrifice my belief to any vile interest. If I embraced a profession so
directly opposed to my sentiments, it was not through cupidity. I obeyed
my parents. I would have preferred to enlighten you sooner if I could have
done it safely. You are witnesses to what I assert. I have not disgraced
my ministry by exacting the requitals, which are a part of it.

“I call heaven to witness that I also thoroughly despised those who
laughed at the simplicity of the blind people, those who furnished piously
considerable sums of money to buy prayers. How horrible this monopoly! I
do not blame the disdain which those who grow rich by your sweat and your
pains, show for their mysteries and their superstitions; but I detest
their insatiable cupidity and the signal pleasure such fellows take in
railing at the ignorance of those whom they carefully keep in this state
of blindness. Let them content themselves with laughing at their own ease,
but at least let them not multiply their errors by abusing the blind piety
of those who, by their simplicity, procured them such an easy life. You
render unto me, my brethren, the justice that is due me. The sympathy
which I manifested for your troubles saves me from the least suspicion.
How often have I performed gratuitously the functions of my ministry. How
often also has my heart been grieved at not being able to assist you as
often and as abundantly as I could have wished! Have I not always proved
to you that I took more pleasure in giving than in receiving? I carefully
avoided exhorting you to bigotry, and I spoke to you as rarely as possible
of our unfortunate dogmas. It was necessary that I should acquit myself as
a priest of my ministry, but how often have I not suffered within myself
when I was forced to preach to you those pious lies which I despised in my
heart. What a disdain I had for my ministry, and particularly for that
superstitious Mass, and those ridiculous administrations of sacraments,
especially if I was compelled to perform them with the solemnity which
awakened all your piety and all your good faith. What remorse I had for
exciting your credulity! A thousand times upon the point of bursting forth
publicly, I was going to open your eyes, but a fear superior to my
strength restrained me and forced me to silence until my death.”

The abbot Meslier had written two letters to the curates of his
neighborhood to inform them of his Testament; he told them that he had
consigned to the chancery of St. Minnehould a copy of his manuscript in
366 leaves in octavo; but he feared it would be suppressed, according to
the bad custom established to prevent the poor from being instructed and
knowing the truth.

The curate Meslier, the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the
meteors fatal to the Christian religion, worked his whole life secretly in
order to attack the opinions he believed false. To compose his manuscript
against God, against all religion, against the Bible and the Church, he
had no other assistance than the Bible itself, Moreri Montaigne, and a few
fathers.

While the abbot Meslier naively acknowledged that he did not wish to be
burned till after his death, Thomas Woolston, a doctor of Cambridge,
published and sold publicly at London, in his own house, sixty thousand
copies of his “Discourses” against the miracles of Jesus Christ.

It was a very astonishing thing that two priests should at the same time
write against the Christian religion. The curate Meslier has gone further
yet than Woolston; he dares to treat the transport of our Saviour by the
devil upon the mountain, the wedding of Cana, the bread and the fishes, as
absurd fables, injurious to divinity, which were ignored during three
hundred years by the whole Roman Empire, and finally passed from the lower
class to the palace of the emperors, when policy obliged them to adopt the
follies of the people in order the more easily to subjugate them. The
denunciations of the English priest do not approach those of the Champagne
priest. Woolston is sometimes indulgent, Meslier never. He was a man
profoundly embittered by the crimes he witnessed, for which he holds the
Christian religion responsible. There is no miracle which to him is not an
object of contempt and horror; no prophecy that he does not compare to
those of Nostredamus. He wrote thus against Jesus Christ when in the arms
of death, at a time when the most dissimulating dare not lie, and when the
most intrepid tremble. Struck with the difficulties which he found in
Scripture, he inveighed against it more bitterly than the Acosta and all
the Jews, more than the famous Porphyre, Celse, Iamblique, Julian,
Libanius, and all the partisans of human reason.

There were found among the books of the curate Meslier a printed
manuscript of the Treatise of Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, upon the
existence of God and His attributes, and the reflections of the Jesuit
Tournemine upon Atheism, to which treatise he added marginal notes signed
by his hand.

DECREE

of the NATIONAL CONVENTION upon the proposition to erect a statue to the
curate Jean Meslier, the 27 Brumaire, in the year II. (November 17, 1793).
The National Convention sends to the Committee of Public Instruction the
proposition made by one of its members to erect a statue to Jean Meslier,
curate at Etrepigny, in Champagne, the first priest who had the courage
and the honesty to abjure religious errors.

PRESIDENT AND SECRETARIES.

SIGNED—P. A. Laloy, President; Bazire, Charles Duval, Philippeaux,
Frecine, and Merlin (de Thionville), Secretaries.

Certified according to the original.

MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE OF DECREES AND PROCESS-VERBAL.

SIGNED—Batellier, Echasseriaux, Monnel, Becker, Vernetey, Pérard,
Vinet, Bouillerot, Auger, Cordier, Delecloy, and Cosnard.

PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.

When we wish to examine in a cool, calm way the opinions of men, we are
very much surprised to find that in those which we consider the most
essential, nothing is more rare than to find them using common sense; that
is to say, the portion of judgment sufficient to know the most simple
truths, to reject the most striking absurdities, and to be shocked by
palpable contradictions. We have an example of this in Theology, a science
revered in all times, in all countries, by the greatest number of mortals;
an object considered the most important, the most useful, and the most
indispensable to the happiness of society. If they would but take the
trouble to sound the principles upon which this pretended science rests
itself, they would be compelled to admit that the principles which were
considered incontestable, are but hazardous suppositions, conceived in
ignorance, propagated by enthusiasm or bad intention, adopted by timid
credulity, preserved by habit, which never reasons, and revered solely
because it is not comprehended. Some, says Montaigne, make the world
believe that which they do not themselves believe; a greater number of
others make themselves believe, not comprehending what it is to believe.
In a word, whoever will consult common sense upon religious opinions, and
will carry into this examination the attention given to objects of
ordinary interest, will easily perceive that these opinions have no solid
foundation; that all religion is but a castle in the air; that Theology is
but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system; that it is but a long
tissue of chimeras and contradictions; that it presents to all the
different nations of the earth only romances devoid of probability, of
which the hero himself is made up of qualities impossible to reconcile,
his name having the power to excite in all hearts respect and fear, is
found to be but a vague word, which men continually utter, being able to
attach to it only such ideas or qualities as are belied by the facts, or
which evidently contradict each other. The notion of this imaginary being,
or rather the word by which we designate him, would be of no consequence
did it not cause ravages without number upon the earth. Born into the
opinion that this phantom is for them a very interesting reality, men,
instead of wisely concluding from its incomprehensibility that they are
exempt from thinking of it, on the contrary, conclude that they can not
occupy themselves enough about it, that they must meditate upon it without
ceasing, reason without end, and never lose sight of it. The invincible
ignorance in which they are kept in this respect, far from discouraging
them, does but excite their curiosity; instead of putting them on guard
against their imagination, this ignorance makes them positive, dogmatic,
imperious, and causes them to quarrel with all those who oppose doubts to
the reveries which their brains have brought forth. What perplexity, when
we attempt to solve an unsolvable problem! Anxious meditations upon an
object impossible to grasp, and which, however, is supposed to be very
important to him, can but put a man into bad humor, and produce in his
brain dangerous transports. When interest, vanity, and ambition are joined
to such a morose disposition, society necessarily becomes troubled. This
is why so many nations have often become the theaters of extravagances
caused by nonsensical visionists, who, publishing their shallow
speculations for the eternal truth, have kindled the enthusiasm of princes
and of people, and have prepared them for opinions which they represented
as essential to the glory of divinity and to the happiness of empires. We
have seen, a thousand times, in all parts of our globe, infuriated
fanatics slaughtering each other, lighting the funeral piles, committing
without scruple, as a matter of duty, the greatest crimes. Why? To
maintain or to propagate the impertinent conjectures of enthusiasts, or to
sanction the knaveries of impostors on account of a being who exists only
in their imagination, and who is known only by the ravages, the disputes,
and the follies which he has caused upon the earth.

Originally, savage nations, ferocious, perpetually at war, adored, under
various names, some God conformed to their ideas; that is to say, cruel,
carnivorous, selfish, greedy of blood. We find in all the religions of the
earth a God of armies, a jealous God, an avenging God, an exterminating
God, a God who enjoys carnage and whose worshipers make it a duty to serve
him to his taste. Lambs, bulls, children, men, heretics, infidels, kings,
whole nations, are sacrificed to him. The zealous servants of this
barbarous God go so far as to believe that they are obliged to offer
themselves as a sacrifice to him. Everywhere we see zealots who, after
having sadly meditated upon their terrible God, imagine that, in order to
please him, they must do themselves all the harm possible, and inflict
upon themselves, in his honor, all imaginable torments. In a word,
everywhere the baneful ideas of Divinity, far from consoling men for
misfortunes incident to their existence, have filled the heart with
trouble, and given birth to follies destructive to them. How could the
human mind, filled with frightful phantoms and guided by men interested in
perpetuating its ignorance and its fear, make progress? Man was compelled
to vegetate in his primitive stupidity; he was preserved only by invisible
powers, upon whom his fate was supposed to depend. Solely occupied with
his alarms and his unintelligible reveries, he was always at the mercy of
his priests, who reserved for themselves the right of thinking for him and
of regulating his conduct.

Thus man was, and always remained, a child without experience, a slave
without courage, a loggerhead who feared to reason, and who could never
escape from the labyrinth into which his ancestors had misled him; he felt
compelled to groan under the yoke of his Gods, of whom he knew nothing
except the fabulous accounts of their ministers. These, after having
fettered him by the ties of opinion, have remained his masters or
delivered him up defenseless to the absolute power of tyrants, no less
terrible than the Gods, of whom they were the representatives upon the
earth. Oppressed by the double yoke of spiritual and temporal power, it
was impossible for the people to instruct themselves and to work for their
own welfare. Thus, religion, politics, and morals became sanctuaries, into
which the profane were not permitted to enter. Men had no other morality
than that which their legislators and their priests claimed as descended
from unknown empyrean regions. The human mind, perplexed by these
theological opinions, misunderstood itself, doubted its own powers,
mistrusted experience, feared truth, disdained its reason, and left it to
blindly follow authority. Man was a pure machine in the hands of his
tyrants and his priests, who alone had the right to regulate his
movements. Always treated as a slave, he had at all times and in all
places the vices and dispositions of a slave.

These are the true sources of the corruption of habits, to which religion
never opposes anything but ideal and ineffectual obstacles; ignorance and
servitude have a tendency to make men wicked and unhappy. Science, reason,
liberty, alone can reform them and render them more happy; but everything
conspires to blind them and to confirm them in their blindness. The
priests deceive them, tyrants corrupt them in order to subjugate them more
easily. Tyranny has been, and will always be, the chief source of the
depraved morals and habitual calamities of the people. These, almost
always fascinated by their religious notions or by metaphysical fictions,
instead of looking upon the natural and visible causes of their miseries,
attribute their vices to the imperfections of their nature, and their
misfortunes to the anger of their Gods; they offer to Heaven vows,
sacrifices, and presents, in order to put an end to their misfortunes,
which are really due only to the negligence, the ignorance, and to the
perversity of their guides, to the folly of their institutions, to their
foolish customs, to their false opinions, to their unreasonable laws, and
especially to their want of enlightenment. Let the mind be filled early
with true ideas; let man’s reason be cultivated; let justice govern him;
and there will be no need of opposing to his passions the powerless
barrier of the fear of Gods. Men will be good when they are well taught,
well governed, chastised or censured for the evil, and justly rewarded for
the good which they have done to their fellow-citizens. It is idle to
pretend to cure mortals of their vices if we do not begin by curing them
of their prejudices. It is only by showing them the truth that they can
know their best interests and the real motives which will lead them to
happiness. Long enough have the instructors of the people fixed their eyes
on heaven; let them at last bring them back to the earth. Tired of an
incomprehensible theology, of ridiculous fables, of impenetrable
mysteries, of puerile ceremonies, let the human mind occupy itself with
natural things, intelligible objects, sensible truths, and useful
knowledge. Let the vain chimeras which beset the people be dissipated, and
very soon rational opinions will fill the minds of those who were believed
fated to be always in error. To annihilate religious prejudices, it would
be sufficient to show that what is inconceivable to man can not be of any
use to him. Does it need, then, anything but simple common sense to
perceive that a being most clearly irreconcilable with the notions of
mankind, that a cause continually opposed to the effects attributed to
him; that a being of whom not a word can be said without falling into
contradictions; that a being who, far from explaining the mysteries of the
universe, only renders them more inexplicable; that a being to whom for so
many centuries men addressed themselves so vainly to obtain their
happiness and deliverance from their sufferings; does it need, I say, more
than simple common sense to understand that the idea of such a being is an
idea without model, and that he is himself evidently not a reasonable
being? Does it require more than common sense to feel that there is at
least delirium and frenzy in hating and tormenting each other for
unintelligible opinions of a being of this kind? Finally, does it not all
prove that morality and virtue are totally incompatible with the idea of a
God, whose ministers and interpreters have painted him in all countries as
the most fantastic, the most unjust, and the most cruel of tyrants, whose
pretended wishes are to serve as rules and laws for the inhabitants of the
earth? To discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of
theology, of revelation, or of Gods; they need but common sense; they have
only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to
consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of
each of the members who compose it, and they will easily understand that
virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury to beings of their
species. Let us teach men to be just, benevolent, moderate, and sociable,
not because their Gods exact it, but to please men; let us tell them to
abstain from vice and from crime, not because they will be punished in
another world, but because they will suffer in the present world. There
are, says Montesquieu, means to prevent crime, they are sufferings; to
change the manners, these are good examples. Truth is simple, error is
complicated, uncertain in its gait, full of by-ways; the voice of nature
is intelligible, that of falsehood is ambiguous, enigmatical, and
mysterious; the road of truth is straight, that of imposture is oblique
and dark; this truth, always necessary to man, is felt by all just minds;
the lessons of reason are followed by all honest souls; men are unhappy
only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant only because everything
conspires to prevent them from being enlightened, and they are wicked only
because their reason is not sufficiently developed.

COMMON SENSE.

Detexit quo dolose Vaticinandi furore sacerdotes mysteria, illis spe
ignota, audactur publicant.—PETRON. SATYR.

I.—APOLOGUE.

There is a vast empire governed by a monarch, whose conduct does but
confound the minds of his subjects. He desires to be known, loved,
respected, and obeyed, but he never shows himself; everything tends to
make uncertain the notions which we are able to form about him. The people
subjected to his power have only such ideas of the character and the laws
of their invisible sovereign as his ministers give them; these suit,
however, because they themselves have no idea of their master, for his
ways are impenetrable, and his views and his qualities are totally
incomprehensible; moreover, his ministers disagree among themselves in
regard to the orders which they pretend emanated from the sovereign whose
organs they claim to be; they announce them diversely in each province of
the empire; they discredit and treat each other as impostors and liars;
the decrees and ordinances which they promulgate are obscure; they are
enigmas, made not to be understood or divined by the subjects for whose
instruction they were intended. The laws of the invisible monarch need
interpreters, but those who explain them are always quarreling among
themselves about the true way of understanding them; more than this, they
do not agree among themselves; all which they relate of their hidden
prince is but a tissue of contradictions, scarcely a single word that is
not contradicted at once. He is called supremely good, nevertheless not a
person but complains of his decrees. He is supposed to be infinitely wise,
and in his administration everything seems contrary to reason and good
sense. They boast of his justice, and the best of his subjects are
generally the least favored. We are assured that he sees everything, yet
his presence remedies nothing. It is said that he is the friend of order,
and everything in his universe is in a state of confusion and disorder;
all is created by him, yet events rarely happen according to his projects.
He foresees everything, but his foresight prevents nothing. He is
impatient if any offend him; at the same time he puts every one in the way
of offending him. His knowledge is admired in the perfection of his works,
but his works are full of imperfections, and of little permanence. He is
continually occupied in creating and destroying, then repairing what he
has done, never appearing to be satisfied with his work. In all his
enterprises he seeks but his own glory, but he does not succeed in being
glorified. He works but for the good of his subjects, and most of them
lack the necessities of life. Those whom he seems to favor, are generally
those who are the least satisfied with their fate; we see them all
continually revolting against a master whose greatness they admire, whose
wisdom they extol, whose goodness they worship, and whose justice they
fear, revering orders which they never follow. This empire is the world;
its monarch is God; His ministers are the priests; their subjects are men.

II.—WHAT IS THEOLOGY?

There is a science which has for its object only incomprehensible things.
Unlike all others, it occupies itself but with things unseen. Hobbes calls
it “the kingdom of darkness.” In this land all obey laws opposed to those
which men acknowledge in the world they inhabit. In this marvelous region
light is but darkness, evidence becomes doubtful or false, the impossible
becomes credible, reason is an unfaithful guide, and common sense changed
into delirium. This science is named Theology, and this Theology is a
continual insult to human reason.

III.

By frequent repetition of if, but, and perhaps, we succeed in forming an
imperfect and broken system which perplexes men’s minds to the extent of
making them forget the clearest notions, and to render uncertain the most
palpable truths. By the aid of this systematic nonsense, all nature has
become an inexplicable enigma for man; the visible world has disappeared
to give place to invisible regions; reason is obliged to give place to
imagination, which can lead us only to the land of chimeras which she
herself has invented.

IV.—MAN BORN NEITHER RELIGIOUS NOR DEISTICAL.

All religious principles are founded upon the idea of a God, but it is
impossible for men to have true ideas of a being who does not act upon any
one of their senses. All our ideas are but pictures of objects which
strike us. What can the idea of God represent to us when it is evidently
an idea without an object? Is not such an idea as impossible as an effect
without a cause? An idea without a prototype, is it anything but a
chimera? Some theologians, however, assure us that the idea of God is
innate, or that men have this idea from the time of their birth. Every
principle is a judgment; all judgment is the effect of experience;
experience is not acquired but by the exercise of the senses: from which
it follows that religious principles are drawn from nothing, and are not
innate.

V.—IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BELIEVE IN A GOD, AND THE MOST REASONABLE
THING IS NOT TO THINK OF HIM.

No religious system can be founded otherwise than upon the nature of God
and of men, and upon the relations they bear to each other. But, in order
to judge of the reality of these relations, we must have some idea of the
Divine nature. But everybody tells us that the essence of God is
incomprehensible to man; at the same time they do not hesitate to assign
attributes to this incomprehensible God, and assure us that man can not
dispense with a knowledge of this God so impossible to conceive of. The
most important thing for men is that which is the most impossible for them
to comprehend. If God is incomprehensible to man, it would seem rational
never to think of Him at all; but religion concludes that man is criminal
if he ceases for a moment to revere Him.

VI.—RELIGION IS FOUNDED UPON CREDULITY.

We are told that Divine qualities are not of a nature to be grasped by
limited minds. The natural consequence of this principle ought to be that
the Divine qualities are not made to employ limited minds; but religion
assures us that limited minds should never lose sight of this
inconceivable being, whose qualities can not be grasped by them: from
which we see that religion is the art of occupying limited minds with that
which is impossible for them to comprehend.

VII.—EVERY RELIGION IS AN ABSURDITY.

Religion unites man with God or puts them in communication; but do you say
that God is infinite? If God is infinite, no finite being can have
communication or any relation with Him. Where there are no relations,
there can be no union, no correspondence, no duties. If there are no
duties between man and his God, there exists no religion for man. Thus by
saying that God is infinite, you annihilate, from that moment, all
religion for man, who is a finite being. The idea of infinity is for us in
idea without model, without prototype, without object.

VIII.—THE NOTION OF GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE.

If God is an infinite being, there can be neither in the actual world or
in another any proportion between man and his God; thus the idea of God
will never enter the human mind. In the supposition of a life where men
will be more enlightened than in this one, the infinity of God will always
place such a distance between his idea and the limited mind of man, that
he will not be able to conceive of God any more in a future life than in
the present. Hence, it evidently follows that the idea of God will not be
better suited to man in the other life than in the present. God is not
made for man; it follows also that intelligences superior to man—such
as angels, archangels, seraphims, and saints—can have no more
complete notions of God than has man, who does not understand anything
about Him here below.

IX.—ORIGIN OF SUPERSTITION.

How is it that we have succeeded in persuading reasonable beings that the
thing most impossible to understand was the most essential for them. It is
because they were greatly frightened; it is because when men are kept in
fear they cease to reason; it is because they have been expressly enjoined
to distrust their reason. When the brain is troubled, we believe
everything and examine nothing.

X.—ORIGIN OF ALL RELIGION.

Ignorance and fear are the two pivots of all religion. The uncertainty
attending man’s relation to his God is precisely the motive which attaches
him to his religion. Man is afraid when in darkness—physical or
moral. His fear is habitual to him and becomes a necessity; he would
believe that he lacked something if he had nothing to fear.

XI.—IN THE NAME OF RELIGION CHARLATANS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE
WEAKNESS OF MEN.

He who from his childhood has had a habit of trembling every time he heard
certain words, needs these words, and needs to tremble. In this way he is
more disposed to listen to the one who encourages his fears than to the
one who would dispel his fears. The superstitious man wants to be afraid;
his imagination demands it. It seems that he fears nothing more than
having no object to fear. Men are imaginary patients, whom interested
charlatans take care to encourage in their weakness, in order to have a
market for their remedies. Physicians who order a great number of remedies
are more listened to than those who recommend a good regimen, and who
leave nature to act.

XII.—RELIGION ENTICES IGNORANCE BY THE AID OF THE MARVELOUS.

If religion was clear, it would have fewer attractions for the ignorant.
They need obscurity, mysteries, fables, miracles, incredible things, which
keep their brains perpetually at work. Romances, idle stories, tales of
ghosts and witches, have more charms for the vulgar than true narrations.

XIII.—CONTINUATION.

In the matter of religion, men are but overgrown children. The more absurd
a religion is, and the fuller of marvels, the more power it exerts; the
devotee thinks himself obliged to place no limits to his credulity; the
more inconceivable things are, the more divine they appear to him; the
more incredible they are, the more merit he gives himself for believing
them.

XIV.—THERE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ANY RELIGION IF THERE HAD NEVER
BEEN ANY DARK AND BARBAROUS AGES.

The origin of religious opinions dates, as a general thing, from the time
when savage nations were yet in a state of infancy. It was to coarse,
ignorant, and stupid men that the founders of religion addressed
themselves in all ages, in order to present them with Gods, ceremonies,
histories of fabulous Divinities, marvelous and terrible fables. These
chimeras, adopted without examination by the fathers, have been
transmitted with more or less changes to their polished children, who
often do not reason more than their fathers.

XV.—ALL RELIGION WAS BORN OF THE DESIRE TO DOMINATE.

The first legislators of nations had for their object to dominate, The
easiest means of succeeding was to frighten the people and to prevent them
from reasoning; they led them by tortuous paths in order that they should
not perceive the designs of their guides; they compelled them to look into
the air, for fear they should look to their feet; they amused them upon
the road by stories; in a word, they treated them in the way of nurses,
who employ songs and menaces to put the children to sleep, or to force
them to be quiet.

XVI.—THAT WHICH SERVES AS A BASIS FOR ALL RELIGION IS VERY
UNCERTAIN.

The existence of a God is the basis of all religion. Few people seem to
doubt this existence, but this fundamental principle is precisely the one
which prevents every mind from reasoning. The first question of every
catechism was, and will always be, the most difficult one to answer.

XVII.—IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE CONVINCED OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

Can one honestly say that he is convinced of the existence of a being
whose nature is not known, who remains inaccessible to all our senses, and
of whose qualities we are constantly assured that they are
incomprehensible to us? In order to persuade me that a being exists, or
can exist, he must begin by telling me what this being is; in order to
make me believe the existence or the possibility of such a being, he must
tell me things about him which are not contradictory, and which do not
destroy one another; finally, in order to convince me fully of the
existence of this being, he must tell me things about him which I can
comprehend, and prove to me that it is impossible that the being to whom
he attributes these qualities does not exist.

XVIII.—CONTINUATION.

A thing is impossible when it is composed of two ideas so antagonistic,
that we can not think of them at the same time. Evidence can be relied on
only when confirmed by the constant testimony of our senses, which alone
give birth to ideas, and enable us to judge of their conformity or of
their incompatibility. That which exists necessarily, is that of which the
non-existence would imply contradiction. These principles, universally
recognized, are at fault when the question of the existence of God is
considered; what has been said of Him is either unintelligible or
perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to
every man of common sense.

XIX.—THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS NOT PROVED.

All human intelligences are more or less enlightened and cultivated. By
what fatality is it that the science of God has never been explained? The
most civilized nations and the most profound thinkers are of the same
opinion in regard to the matter as the most barbarous nations and the most
ignorant and rustic people. As we examine the subject more closely, we
will find that the science of divinity by means of reveries and subtleties
has but obscured it more and more. Thus far, all religion has been founded
on what is called in logic, a “begging of the question;” it supposes
freely, and then proves, finally, by the suppositions it has made.

XX.—TO SAY THAT GOD IS A SPIRIT, IS TO SPEAK WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING
AT ALL.

By metaphysics, God is made a pure spirit, but has modern theology
advanced one step further than the theology of the barbarians? They
recognized a grand spirit as master of the world. The barbarians, like all
ignorant men, attribute to spirits all the effects of which their
inexperience prevents them from discovering the true causes. Ask a
barbarian what causes your watch to move, he will answer, “a spirit!” Ask
our philosophers what moves the universe, they will tell you “it is a
spirit.”

XXI.—SPIRITUALITY IS A CHIMERA.

The barbarian, when he speaks of a spirit, attaches at least some sense to
this word; he understands by it an agent similar to the wind, to the
agitated air, to the breath, which produces, invisibly, effects that we
perceive. By subtilizing, the modern theologian becomes as little
intelligible to himself as to others. Ask him what he means by a spirit?
He will answer, that it is an unknown substance, which is perfectly
simple, which has nothing tangible, nothing in common with matter. In good
faith, is there any mortal who can form the least idea of such a
substance? A spirit in the language of modern theology is then but an
absence of ideas. The idea of spirituality is another idea without a
model.

XXII.—ALL WHICH EXISTS SPRINGS FROM THE BOSOM OF MATTER.

Is it not more natural and more intelligible to deduce all which exists,
from the bosom of matter, whose existence is demonstrated by all our
senses, whose effects we feel at every moment, which we see act, move,
communicate, motion, and constantly bring living beings into existence,
than to attribute the formation of things to an unknown force, to a
spiritual being, who can not draw from his ground that which he has not
himself, and who, by the spiritual essence claimed for him, is incapable
of making anything, and of putting anything in motion? Nothing is plainer
than that they would have us believe that an intangible spirit can act
upon matter.

XXIII.—WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICAL GOD OF MODERN THEOLOGY?

The material Jupiter of the ancients could move, build up, destroy, and
propagate beings similar to himself; but the God of modern theology is a
sterile being. According to his supposed nature he can neither occupy any
place, nor move matter, nor produce a visible world, nor propagate either
men or Gods. The metaphysical God is a workman without hands; he is able
but to produce clouds, suspicions, reveries, follies, and quarrels.

XXIV.—IT WOULD BE MORE RATIONAL TO WORSHIP THE SUN THAN A SPIRITUAL
GOD.

Since it was necessary for men to have a God, why did they not have the
sun, the visible God, adored by so many nations? What being had more right
to the homage of mortals than the star of the day, which gives light and
heat; which invigorates all beings; whose presence reanimates and
rejuvenates nature; whose absence seems to plunge her into sadness and
languor? If some being bestowed upon men power, activity, benevolence,
strength, it was no doubt the sun, which should be recognized as the
father of nature, as the soul of the world, as Divinity. At least one
could not without folly dispute his existence, or refuse to recognize his
influence and his benefits.

XXV.—A SPIRITUAL GOD IS INCAPABLE OF WILLING AND OF ACTING.

The theologian tells us that God does not need hands or arms to act, and
that He acts by His will alone. But what is this God who has a will? And
what can be the subject of this divine will? Is it more ridiculous or more
difficult to believe in fairies, in sylphs, in ghosts, in witches, in
were-wolfs, than to believe in the magical or impossible action of the
spirit upon the body? As soon as we admit of such a God, there are no
longer fables or visions which can not be believed. The theologians treat
men like children, who never cavil about the possibilities of the tales
which they listen to.

XXVI.—WHAT IS GOD?

To unsettle the existence of a God, it is only necessary to ask a
theologian to speak of Him; as soon as he utters one word about Him, the
least reflection makes us discover at once that what he says is
incompatible with the essence which he attributes to his God. Therefore,
what is God? It is an abstract word, coined to designate the hidden forces
of nature; or, it is a mathematical point, which has neither length,
breadth, nor thickness. A philosopher [David Hume] has very ingeniously
said in speaking of theologians, that they have found the solution to the
famous problem of Archimedes; a point in the heavens from which they move
the world.

XXVII.—REMARKABLE CONTRADICTIONS OF THEOLOGY.

Religion puts men on their knees before a being without extension, and
who, notwithstanding, is infinite, and fills all space with his immensity;
before an almighty being, who never executes that which he desires; before
a being supremely good, and who causes but displeasure; before a being,
the friend of order, and in whose government everything is in disorder.
After all this, let us conjecture what this God of theology is.

XXVIII.—TO ADORE GOD IS TO ADORE A FICTION.

In order to avoid all embarrassment, they tell us that it is not necessary
to know what God is; that we must adore without knowing; that it is not
permitted us to turn an eye of temerity upon His attributes. But if we
must adore a God without knowing Him, should we not be assured that He
exists? Moreover, how be assured that He exists without having examined
whether it is possible that the diverse qualities claimed for Him, meet in
Him? In truth, to adore God is to adore nothing but fictions of one’s own
brain, or rather, it is to adore nothing.

XXIX.—THE INFINITY OF GOD AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF KNOWING THE
DIVINE ESSENCE, OCCASIONS AND JUSTIFIES ATHEISM.

Without doubt the more to perplex matters, theologians have chosen to say
nothing about what their God is; they tell us what He is not. By negations
and abstractions they imagine themselves composing a real and perfect
being, while there can result from it but a being of human reason. A
spirit has no body; an infinite being is a being which is not finite; a
perfect being is a being which is not imperfect. Can any one form any real
notions of such a multitude of deficiencies or absence of ideas? That
which excludes all idea, can it be anything but nothingness? To pretend
that the divine attributes are beyond the understanding of the human mind
is to render God unfit for men. If we are assured that God is infinite, we
admit that there can be nothing in common between Him and His creatures.
To say that God is infinite, is to destroy Him for men, or at least render
Him useless to them.

God, we are told, created men intelligent, but He did not create them
omniscient: that is to say, capable of knowing all things. We conclude
that He was not able to endow him with intelligence sufficient to
understand the divine essence. In this case it is demonstrated that God
has neither the power nor the wish to be known by men. By what right could
this God become angry with beings whose own essence makes it impossible to
have any idea of the divine essence? God would evidently be the most
unjust and the most unaccountable of tyrants if He should punish an
atheist for not knowing that which his nature made it impossible for him
to know.

XXX.—IT IS NEITHER LESS NOR MORE CRIMINAL TO BELIEVE IN GOD THAN NOT
TO BELIEVE IN HIM.

For the generality of men nothing renders an argument more convincing than
fear. In consequence of this fact, theologians tell us that the safest
side must be taken; that nothing is more criminal than incredulity; that
God will punish without mercy all those who have the temerity to doubt His
existence; that His severity is just; since it is only madness or
perversity which questions the existence of an angry monarch who revenges
himself cruelly upon atheists. If we examine these menaces calmly, we
shall find that they assume always the thing in question. They must
commence by proving to our satisfaction the existence of a God, before
telling us that it is safer to believe, and that it is horrible to doubt
or to deny it. Then they must prove that it is possible for a just God to
punish men cruelly for having been in a state of madness, which prevented
them from believing in the existence of a being whom their enlightened
reason could not comprehend. In a word, they must prove that a God that is
said to be full of equity, could punish beyond measure the invincible and
necessary ignorance of man, caused by his relation to the divine essence.
Is not the theologians’ manner of reasoning very singular? They create
phantoms, they fill them with contradictions, and finally assure us that
the safest way is not to doubt the existence of those phantoms, which they
have themselves invented. By following out this method, there is no
absurdity which it would not be safer to believe than not to believe.

All children are atheists—they have no idea of God; are they, then,
criminal on account of this ignorance? At what age do they begin to be
obliged to believe in God? It is, you say, at the age of reason. At what
time does this age begin? Besides, if the most profound theologians lose
themselves in the divine essence, which they boast of not comprehending,
what ideas can common people have?—women, mechanics, and, in short,
those who compose the mass of the human race?

XXXI.—THE BELIEF IN GOD IS NOTHING BUT A MECHANICAL HABITUDE OF
CHILDHOOD.

Men believe in God only upon the word of those who have no more idea of
Him than they themselves. Our nurses are our first theologians; they talk
to children of God as they talk to them of were-wolfs; they teach them
from the most tender age to join the hands mechanically. Have the nurses
clearer notions of God than the children, whom they compel to pray to Him?

XXXII.—IT IS A PREJUDICE WHICH HAS BEEN HANDED FROM FATHER TO
CHILDREN.

Religion is handed down from fathers to children as the property of a
family with the burdens. Very few people in the world would have a God if
care had not been taken to give them one. Each one receives from his
parents and his instructors the God which they themselves have received
from theirs; only, according to his own temperament, each one arranges,
modifies, and paints Him agreeably to his taste.

XXXIII.—ORIGIN OF PREJUDICES.

The brain of man is, especially in infancy, like a soft wax, ready to
receive all the impressions we wish to make on it; education furnishes
nearly all his opinions, at a period when he is incapable of judging for
himself. We believe that the ideas, true or false, which at a tender age
were forced into our heads, were received from nature at our birth; and
this persuasion is one of the greatest sources of our errors.

XXXIV.—HOW THEY TAKE ROOT AND SPREAD.

Prejudice tends to confirm in us the opinions of those who are charged
with our instruction. We believe them more skillful than we are; we
suppose them thoroughly convinced themselves of the things they teach us.
We have the greatest confidence in them. After the care they have taken of
us when we were unable to assist ourselves, we judge them incapable of
deceiving us. These are the motives which make us adopt a thousand errors
without other foundation than the dangerous word of those who have
educated us; even the being forbidden to reason upon what they tell us,
does not diminish our confidence, but contributes often to increase our
respect for their opinions.

XXXV.—MEN WOULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED IN THE PRINCIPLES OF MODERN
THEOLOGY IF THEY HAD NOT BEEN TAUGHT AT AN AGE WHEN THEY WERE INCAPABLE OF
REASONING.

The instructors of the human race act very prudently in teaching men their
religious principles before they are able to distinguish the true from the
false, or the left hand from the right. It would be as difficult to tame
the spirit of a man forty years old with the extravagant notions which are
given us of Divinity, as to banish these notions from the head of a man
who has imbibed them since his tenderest infancy.

XXXVI.—THE WONDERS OF NATURE DO NOT PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

We are assured that the wonders of nature are sufficient to a belief in
the existence of a God, and to convince us fully of this important truth.
But how many persons are there in this world who have the leisure, the
capacity, the necessary taste, to contemplate nature and to meditate upon
its progress? The majority of men pay no attention to it. A peasant is not
at all moved by the beauty of the sun, which he sees every day. The sailor
is not surprised by the regular movements of the ocean; he will draw from
them no theological inductions. The phenomena of nature do not prove the
existence of a God, except to a few forewarned men, to whom has been shown
in advance the finger of God in all the objects whose mechanism could
embarrass them. The unprejudiced philosopher sees nothing in the wonders
of nature but permanent and invariable law; nothing but the necessary
effects of different combinations of diversified substance.

XXXVII.—THE WONDERS OF NATURE EXPLAIN THEMSELVES BY NATURAL CAUSES.

Is there anything more surprising than the logic of so many profound
doctors, who, instead of acknowledging the little light they have upon
natural agencies, seek outside of nature—that is to say, in
imaginary regions—an agent less understood than this nature, of
which they can at least form some idea? To say that God is the author of
the phenomena that we see, is it not attributing them to an occult cause?
What is God? What is a spirit? They are causes of which we have no idea.
Sages! study nature and her laws; and when you can from them unravel the
action of natural causes, do not go in search of supernatural causes,
which, very far from enlightening your ideas, will but entangle them more
and more and make it impossible for you to understand yourselves.

XXXVIII—CONTINUATION.

Nature, you say, is totally inexplicable without a God; that is to say, in
order to explain what you understand so little, you need a cause which you
do not understand at all. You pretend to make clear that which is obscure,
by magnifying its obscurity. You think you have untied a knot by
multiplying knots. Enthusiastic philosophers, in order to prove to us the
existence of a God, you copy complete treatises on botany; you enter into
minute details of the parts of the human body; you ascend into the air to
contemplate the revolutions of the stars; you return then to earth to
admire the course of the waters; you fly into ecstasies over butterflies,
insects, polyps, organized atoms, in which you think to find the greatness
of your God; all these things will not prove the existence of this God;
they will only prove that you have not the ideas which you should have of
the immense variety of causes and effects that can produce the infinitely
diversified combinations, of which the universe is the assemblage. This
will prove that you ignore nature, that you have no idea of her resources
when you judge her incapable of producing a multitude of forms and beings,
of which your eyes, even by the aid of the microscope, see but the least
part; finally, this will prove, that not being able to know the sensible
and comprehensible agents, you find it easier to have recourse to a word,
by which you designate an agent, of whom it will always be impossible for
you to form any true idea.

XXXIX.—THE WORLD HAS NOT BEEN CREATED, AND MATTER MOVES BY ITSELF.

They tell us gravely that there is no effect without a cause; they repeat
to us very often that the world did not create itself. But the universe is
a cause, not an effect; it is not a work, has not been made, because it
was impossible that it should be made. The world has always been, its
existence is necessary. It is the cause of itself. Nature, whose essence
is visibly acting and producing, in order to fulfill her functions, as we
see she does, needs no invisible motor far more unknown than herself.
Matter moves by its own energy, by the necessary result of its
heterogeneity; the diversity of its movements or of its ways of acting,
constitute only the diversity of substances; we distinguish one being from
another but by the diversity of the impressions or movements which they
communicate to our organs.

XL.—CONTINUATION.

You see that everything in nature is in a state of activity, and you
pretend that nature of itself is dead and without energy! You believe that
all this, acting of itself, has need of a motor! Well! who is this motor?
It is a spirit, that is to say, an absolutely incomprehensible and
contradictory being. Conclude then, I say to you, that matter acts of
itself, and cease to reason about your spiritual motor, which has nothing
that is necessary to put it into motion. Return from your useless
excursions; come down from an imaginary into a real world; take hold of
second causes; leave to theologians their “First Cause,” of which nature
has no need in order to produce all the effects which you see.

XLI.—OTHER PROOFS THAT MOTION IS IN THE ESSENCE OF MATTER, AND THAT
IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO SUPPOSE A SPIRITUAL MOTOR.

It is but by the diversity of impressions or of effects which substances
or bodies make upon us, that we feel them, that we have perceptions and
ideas of them, that we distinguish them one from another, that we assign
to them peculiarities. Moreover, in order to perceive or to feel an
object, this object must act upon our organs; this object can not act upon
us without exciting some motion in us; it can not produce any motion in us
if it is not itself in motion. As soon as I see an object, my eyes must be
struck by it; I can not conceive of light and of vision without a motion
in the luminous, extended, and colored body which communicates itself to
my eye, or which acts upon my retina. As soon as I smell a body, my
olfactory nerve must be irritated or put into motion by the parts exhaled
from an odorous body. As soon as I hear a sound, the tympanum of my ear
must be struck by the air put in motion by a sonorous body, which could
not act if it was not moved of itself. From which it follows, evidently,
that without motion I can neither feel, see, distinguish, compare, nor
judge the body, nor even occupy my thought with any matter whatever. It is
said in the schools, that the essence of a being is that from which flow
all the properties of that being. Now then, it is evident that all the
properties of bodies or of substances of which we have ideas, are due to
the motion which alone informs us of their existence, and gives us the
first conceptions of it. I can not be informed or assured of my own
existence but by the motions which I experience within myself. I am
compelled to conclude that motion is as essential to matter as its
extension, and that it can not be conceived of without it. If one persists
in caviling about the evidences which prove to us that motion is an
essential property of matter, he must at least acknowledge that substances
which seemed dead or deprived of all energy, take motion of themselves as
soon as they are brought within the proper distance to act upon each
other. Pyrophorus, when enclosed in a bottle or deprived of contact with
the air, can not take fire by itself, but it burns as soon as exposed to
the air. Flour and water cause fermentation as soon as they are mixed.
Thus dead substances engender motion of themselves. Matter has then the
power to move itself, and nature, in order to act, does not need a motor
whose essence would hinder its activity.

XLII.—THE EXISTENCE OF MAN DOES NOT PROVE THAT OF GOD.

Whence comes man? What is his origin? Is he the result of the fortuitous
meeting of atoms? Was the first man formed of the dust of the earth? I do
not know! Man appears to me to be a production of nature like all others
she embraces. I should be just as much embarrassed to tell you whence came
the first stones, the first trees, the first elephants, the first ants,
the first acorns, as to explain the origin of the human species.
Recognize, we are told, the hand of God, of an infinitely intelligent and
powerful workman, in a work so wonderful as the human machine. I would
admit without question that the human machine appears to me surprising;
but since man exists in nature, I do not believe it right to say that his
formation is beyond the forces of nature. I will add, that I could
conceive far less of the formation of the human machine, when to explain
it to me they tell me that a pure spirit, who has neither eyes, nor feet,
nor hands, nor head, nor lungs, nor mouth, nor breath, has made man by
taking a little dust and blowing upon it. The savage inhabitants of
Paraguay pretend to be descended from the moon, and appear to us as
simpletons; the theologians of Europe pretend to be descended from a pure
spirit. Is this pretension more sensible?

Man is intelligent, hence it is concluded that he must be the work of an
intelligent being, and not of a nature devoid of intelligence. Although
nothing is more rare than to see man use this intelligence, of which he
appears so proud, I will admit that he is intelligent, that his
necessities develop in him this faculty, that the society of other men
contributes especially to cultivate it. But in the human machine and in
the intelligence with which it is endowed, I see nothing that shows in a
precise manner the infinite intelligence of the workman who has the honor
of making it. I see that this admirable machine is subject to derangement;
that at that time this wonderful intelligence is disordered, and sometimes
totally disappears; from this I conclude that human intelligence depends
upon a certain disposition of the material organs of the body, and that,
because man is an intelligent being, it is not well to conclude that God
must be an intelligent being, any more than because man is material, we
are compelled to conclude that God is material. The intelligence of man no
more proves the intelligence of God than the malice of men proves the
malice of this God, of whom they pretend that man is the work. In whatever
way theology is taken, God will always be a cause contradicted by its
effects, or of whom it is impossible to judge by His works. We shall
always see evil, imperfections, and follies resulting from a cause claimed
to be full of goodness, of perfections, and of wisdom.

XLIII.—HOWEVER, NEITHER MAN NOR THE UNIVERSE IS THE EFFECT OF
CHANCE.

Then you will say that intelligent man and even the universe and all it
encloses, are the effects of chance. No, I answer, the universe is not an
effect; it is the cause of all effects; all the beings it embraces are the
necessary effects of this cause which sometimes shows to us its manner of
acting, out which often hides from us its way. Men may use the word
“chance” to cover their ignorance of the true causes; nevertheless,
although they may ignore them, these causes act, but by certain laws.
There is no effect without a cause.

Nature is a word which we make use of to designate the immense assemblage
of beings, diverse substances, infinite combinations, and all the various
motions which we see. All bodies, whether organized or not organized, are
the necessary results of certain causes, made to produce necessarily the
effects which we see. Nothing in nature can be made by chance; all follow
fixed laws; these laws are but the necessary union of certain effects with
their causes. An atom of matter does not meet another atom by accident or
by hazard; this rencounter is due to permanent laws, which cause each
being to act by necessity as it does, and can not act otherwise under the
same circumstances. To speak about the accidental coming together of
atoms, or to attribute any effects to chance, is to say nothing, if not to
ignore the laws by which bodies act, meet, combine, or separate.

Everything is made by chance for those who do not understand nature, the
properties of beings, and the effects which must necessarily result from
the concurrence of certain causes. It is not chance that has placed the
sun in the center of our planetary system; it is by its very essence, the
substance of which it is composed, that it occupies this place, and from
thence diffuses itself to invigorate the beings who live in these planets.

XLIV.—NEITHER DOES THE ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF
A GOD.

The worshipers of a God find, especially in the order of the universe, an
invincible proof of the existence of an intelligent and wise being who
rules it. But this order is only a result of motions necessarily brought
on by causes or by circumstances which are sometimes favorable and
sometimes injurious to ourselves; we approve the former and find fault
with the latter.

Nature follows constantly the same progress; that is to say, the same
causes produce the same effects, as long as their action is not
interrupted by other causes which occasion the first ones to produce
different effects. When the causes, whose effects we feel, are interrupted
in their action by causes which, although unknown to us, are no less
natural and necessary, we are stupefied, we cry out miracles: and we
attribute them to a cause far less known than all those we see operating
before us. The universe is always in order; there can be no disorder for
it. Our organization alone is suffering if we complain about disorder.
Bodies, causes, beings, which this world embraces, act necessarily in the
manner in which we see them act, whether we approve or disapprove their
action. Earthquakes, volcanoes, inundations, contagions, and famines are
effects as necessary in the order of nature as the fall of heavy bodies,
as the course of rivers, as the periodical movements of the seas, the
blowing of the winds, the abundant rains, and the favorable effects for
which we praise and thank Providence for its blessings.

To be astonished that a certain order reigns in the world, is to be
surprised to see the same causes constantly producing the same effects. To
be shocked at seeing disorder, is to forget that the causes being changed
or disturbed in their action, the effects can no longer be the same. To be
astonished to see order in nature, is to be astonished that anything can
exist; it is to be surprised at one’s own existence. What is order for one
being, is disorder for another. All wicked beings find that everything is
in order when they can with impunity put everything into disorder; they
find, on the contrary, that everything is in disorder when they are
prevented from exercising their wickedness.

XLV.—CONTINUATION.

Supposing God to be the author and the motor of nature, there could be no
disorder relating to Him; all causes which He would have made would
necessarily act according to their properties the essences and the
impulsions that He had endowed them with. If God should change the
ordinary course of things, He would not be immutable. If the order of the
universe—in which we believe we see the most convincing proof of His
existence, of His intelligence, His power, and His goodness—should
be inconsistent, His existence might be doubted; or He might be accused at
least of inconstancy, of inability, of want of foresight, and of wisdom in
the first arrangement of things; we would have a right to accuse Him of
blundering in His choice of agents and instruments. Finally, if the order
of nature proves the power and the intelligence, disorder ought to prove
the weakness, inconstancy, and irrationality of Divinity. You say that God
is everywhere; that He fills all space; that nothing was made without Him;
that matter could not act without Him as its motor. But in this case you
admit that your God is the author of disorder; that it is He who deranges
nature; that He is the Father of confusion; that He is in man; and that He
moves man at the moment when he sins. If God is everywhere, He is in me;
He acts with me; He is deceived when I am deceived; He questions with me
the existence of God; He offends God with me. Oh, theologians! you never
understand yourselves when you speak of God.

XLVI.—A PURE SPIRIT CAN NOT BE INTELLIGENT, AND TO ADORE A DIVINE
INTELLIGENCE IS A CHIMERA.

To be what we call intelligent, we must have ideas, thoughts, will; to
have ideas, thoughts, and will, we must have organs; to have organs, we
must have a body; to act upon bodies, we must have a body; to experience
trouble, we must be capable of suffering; from which it evidently follows
that a pure spirit can not be intelligent, and can not be affected by that
which takes place in the universe.

Divine intelligence, divine ideas, divine views, you say, have nothing in
common with those of men. So much the better! But in this case, how can
men judge of these views—whether good or evil—reason about
these ideas, or admire this intelligence? It would be to judge, to admire,
to adore that of which we can form no idea. To adore the profound views of
divine wisdom, is it not to worship that of which it is impossible for us
to judge? To admire these same views, is it not admiring without knowing
wry? Admiration is always the daughter of ignorance. Men admire and
worship only what they do not understand.

XLVII.—ALL THE QUALITIES WHICH THEOLOGY GIVES TO ITS GOD ARE
CONTRARY TO THE VERY ESSENCE WHICH IT SUPPOSES HIM TO HAVE.

All these qualities which are given to God are not suited to a being who,
by His own essence, is devoid of all similarity to human beings. It is
true, they think to find this similarity by exaggerating the human
qualities with which they have clothed Divinity; they thrust them upon the
infinite, and from that moment cease to understand themselves. What is the
result of this combination of man with God, or of this theanthropy? Its
only result is a chimera, of which nothing can be affirmed without causing
the phantom to vanish which they had taken so much trouble to conjure up.

Dante, in his poem of Paradise, relates that the Divinity appeared to him
under the figure of three circles, which formed an iris, whose bright
colors arose from each other; but having wished to retain its brilliant
light, the poet saw only his own face. In worshiping God, man adores
himself.

XLVIII.—CONTINUATION.

The slightest reflection suffices to prove to us that God can not have any
of the human qualities, virtues, or perfections. Our virtues and our
perfections are the results of our temperament modified. Has God a
temperament like ours? Our good qualities are our habits relative to the
beings in whose society we live. God, according to you, is a solitary
being. God has no one like Him; He does not live in society; He has no
need of any one; He enjoys a happiness which nothing can alter. Admit,
then, upon your own principles, that God can not possess what we call
virtues, and that man can not be virtuous in regard to Him.

XLIX.—IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT THE HUMAN RACE IS THE OBJECT AND THE
END OF CREATION.

Man, charmed with his own merits, imagines that it is but his own kind
that God proposed as the object and the end in the formation of the
universe. Upon what is this so flattering opinion based? It is, we are
told, upon this: that man is the only being endowed with an intelligence
which enables him to know the Divine nature, and to render to it homage
worthy of it. We are assured that God created the world for His own glory,
and that the human race was included in His plan, in order that He might
have somebody to admire and glorify Him in His works. But by these
intentions has not God visibly missed His end?

1. According to you, it would always be impossible for man to know his
God, and he would be kept in the most invincible ignorance of the Divine
essence.

2. A being who has no equals, can not be susceptible of glory. Glory can
result but from the comparison of his own excellence with that of others.

3. If God by Himself is infinitely happy and is sufficient unto Himself,
why does He need the homage of His feeble creatures?

4. In spite of all His works, God is not glorified; on the contrary, all
the religions of the world show Him to us as perpetually offended; their
great object is to reconcile sinful, ungrateful, and rebellious man with
his wrathful God.

L.—GOD IS NOT MADE FOR MAN, NOR MAN FOR GOD.

If God is infinite, He is created still less for man, than man is for the
ants. Would the ants of a garden reason pertinently with reference to the
gardener, if they should attempt to occupy themselves with his intentions,
his desires, and his projects? Would they reason correctly if they
pretended that the park of Versailles was made but for them, and that a
fastidious monarch had had as his only object to lodge them superbly? But
according to theology, man in his relation to God is far beneath what the
lowest insect is to man. Thus by the acknowledgment of theology itself,
theology, which does but occupy itself with the attributes and views of
Divinity, is the most complete of follies.

LI.—IT IS NOT TRUE THAT THE OBJECT OF THE FORMATION OF THE UNIVERSE
WAS TO RENDER MEN HAPPY.

It is pretended, that in forming the universe, God had no object but to
render man happy. But, in a world created expressly for him and governed
by an all-mighty God, is man after all very happy? Are his enjoyments
durable? Are not his pleasures mingled with sufferings? Are there many
people who are contented with their fate? Is not mankind the continual
victim of physical and moral evils? This human machine, which is shown to
us as the masterpiece of the Creator’s industry, has it not a thousand
ways of deranging itself? Would we admire the skill of a mechanic, who
should show us a complicated machine, liable to be out of order at any
moment, and which would after a while destroy itself?

LII.—WHAT IS CALLED PROVIDENCE IS BUT A WORD VOID OF SENSE.

We call Providence the generous care which Divinity shows in providing for
our needs, and in watching over the happiness of its beloved creatures.
But, as soon as we look around, we find that God provides for nothing.
Providence neglects the greatest part of the inhabitants of this world.
Against a very small number of men, who are supposed to be happy, what a
multitude of miserable ones are groaning beneath oppression, and
languishing in misery! Whole nations are compelled to starve in order to
indulge the extravagances of a few morose tyrants, who are no happier than
the slaves whom they oppress! At the same time that our philosophers
energetically parade the bounties of Providence, and exhort us to place
confidence in it, do we not see them cry out at unforeseen catastrophes,
by which Providence plays with the vain projects of men; do we not see
that it overthrows their designs, laughs at their efforts, and that its
profound wisdom pleases itself in misleading mortals? But how can we place
confidence in a malicious Providence which laughs at and sports with
mankind? How can I admire the unknown course of a hidden wisdom whose
manner of acting is inexplicable to me? Judge it by its effects! you will
say; it is by these I do judge it, and I find that these effects are
sometimes useful and sometimes injurious to me.

We think to justify Providence by saying, that in this world there are
more blessings than evil for each individual man. Let us suppose that the
blessings which this Providence makes us enjoy are as one hundred, and
that the evils are as ten per cent.; would it not always result that
against these hundred degrees of goodness, Providence possesses a tenth
degree of malignity?—which is incompatible with the perfection we
suppose it to have.

All the books are filled with the most flattering praises of Providence,
whose attentive care is extolled; it would seem to us, as if in order to
live happy here below, man would have no need of exerting himself.
However, without labor, man could scarcely live a day. In order to live, I
see him obliged to sweat, work, hunt, fish, toil without relaxation;
without these secondary causes, the First Cause (at least in the majority
of countries) could provide for none of his needs. If I examine all parts
of this globe, I see the uncivilized as well as the civilized man in a
perpetual struggle with Providence; he is compelled to ward off the blows
which it sends in the form of hurricanes, tempests, frost, hail,
inundations, sterility, and the divers accidents which so often render all
their labors useless. In a word, I see the human race continually occupied
in protecting itself from the wicked tricks of this Providence, which is
said to be busy with the care of their happiness. A devotee admired Divine
Providence for having wisely made rivers to flow through all the places
where men had built large cities. Is not this man’s way of reasoning as
sensible as that of many learned men who do not cease from telling us of
Final Causes, or who pretend to perceive clearly the benevolent views of
God in the formation of things?

LIII.—THIS PRETENDED PROVIDENCE IS LESS OCCUPIED IN CONSERVING THAN
IN DISTURBING THE WORLD—MORE AN ENEMY THAN A FRIEND OF MAN.

Do we see, then, that Divine Providence manifests itself in a sensible
manner in the conservation of its admirable works, for which we honor it?
If it is Divine Providence which governs the world, we find it as much
occupied in destroying as in creating; in exterminating as in producing.
Does it not at every instant cause thousands of those same men to perish,
to whose preservation and well-being it is supposed to give its continual
attention? Every moment it loses sight of its beloved creatures; sometimes
it tears down their dwellings; sometimes it destroys their harvests,
inundates their fields, devastates by a drought, arms all nature against
man, sets man against man, and finishes by causing him to expire in pain.
Is this what you call preserving a universe? If we attempted to consider
without prejudice the equivocal conduct of Providence relative to mankind
and to all sentient beings, we should find that very far from resembling a
tender and careful mother, it rather resembles those unnatural mothers
who, forgetting the unfortunate fruits of their illicit amours, abandon
their children as soon as they are born; and who, pleased to have
conceived them, expose them without mercy to the caprices of fate.

The Hottentots—wiser in this particular than other nations, who
treat them as barbarians—refuse, it is said, to adore God, because
if He sometimes does good, He as often does harm. Is not this reasoning
more just and more conformed to experience than that of so many men who
persist in seeing in their God but kindness, wisdom, and foresight; and
who refuse to see that the countless evils, of which the world is the
theater, must come from the same Hand which they kiss with transport?

LIV.—NO! THE WORLD IS NOT GOVERNED BY AN INTELLIGENT BEING.

The logic of common sense teaches us that we should judge a cause but by
its effects. A cause can not be reputed as constantly good, except when it
constantly produces good, useful, and agreeable effects. A cause which
produces good at one time, and evil at another, is a cause which is
sometimes good and sometimes bad. But the logic of Theology destroys all
this. According to it, the phenomena of nature, or the effects which we
see in this world, prove to us the existence of an infinitely good Cause,
and this Cause is God. Although this world is full of evils, although
disorder reigns here very often, although men groan every moment under the
fate which oppresses them, we ought to be convinced that these effects are
due to a benevolent and immutable Cause; and many people believe it, or
pretend to believe it!

Everything which takes place in the world proves to us in the clearest way
that it is not governed by an intelligent being. We can judge of the
intelligence of a being but by the means which he employs to accomplish
his proposed design. The aim of God, it is said, is the happiness of our
race; however, the same necessity regulates the fate of all sentient
beings—which are born to suffer much, to enjoy little, and to die.
Man’s cup is full of joy and of bitterness; everywhere good is side by
side with evil; order is replaced by disorder; generation is followed by
destruction. If you tell me that the designs of God are mysteries, and
that His views are impossible to understand, I will answer, that in this
case it is impossible for me to judge whether God is intelligent.

LV.—GOD CAN NOT BE CALLED IMMUTABLE.

You pretend that God is immutable! But what is it that occasions the
continual instability in this world, which you claim as His empire? Is any
state subject to more frequent and cruel revolutions than that of this
unknown monarch? How can we attribute to an immutable God, powerful enough
to give solidity to His works, the government of a world where everything
is in a continual vicissitude? If I think to see a God unchanging in all
the effects advantageous to my kind, what God can I discover in the
continual misfortunes by which my kind is oppressed? You tell me that it
is our sins that force Him to punish us. I will answer that God, according
to yourselves, is not immutable, because the sins of men compel Him to
change His conduct in regard to them. Can a being who is sometimes
irritated, and sometimes appeased, be constantly the same?

LVI.—EVIL AND GOOD ARE THE NECESSARY EFFECTS OF NATURAL CAUSES. WHAT
IS A GOD WHO CAN CHANGE NOTHING?

The universe is but what it can be; all sentient beings enjoy and suffer
here: that is to say, they are moved sometimes in an agreeable, and at
other times in a disagreeable way. These effects are necessary; they
result from causes that act according to their inherent tendencies., These
effects necessarily please or displease me, according to my own nature.
This same nature compels me to avoid, to remove, and to combat the one,
and to seek, to desire, and to procure the other. In a world where
everything is from necessity, a God who remedies nothing, and allows
things to follow their own course, is He anything else but destiny or
necessity personified? It is a deaf God who can effect no change on the
general laws to which He is subjected Himself. What do I care for the
infinite power of a being who can do but a very few things to please me?
Where is the infinite kindness of a being who is indifferent to my
happiness? What good to me is the favor of a being who, able to bestow
upon me infinite good, does not even give me a finite one?

LVII.—THE VANITY OF THEOLOGICAL CONSOLATIONS IN THE TROUBLES OF THIS
LIFE. THE HOPE OF A HEAVEN, OF A FUTURE LIFE, IS BUT IMAGINARY.

When we ask why, under a good God, so many are wretched, we are reminded
that the present world is but a pass-way, designed to conduct man to a
happier sphere; we are assured that our sojourn on the earth, where we
live, is for trial; they silence us by saying that God would not impart to
His creatures either the indifference to the sufferings of others, or the
infinite happiness which He reserved for Himself alone. How can we be
satisfied with these answers?

1. The existence of another life has no other guaranty than the
imagination of men, who, in supposing it, have but manifested their desire
to live again, in order to enter upon a purer and more durable state of
happiness than that which they enjoy at present.

2. How can we conceive of a God who, knowing all things, must know to
their depths the nature of His creatures, and yet must have so many proofs
in order to assure Himself of their proclivities?

3. According to the calculations of our chronologists, the earth which we
inhabit has existed for six or seven thousand years; during this time the
nations have, under different forms, experienced many vicissitudes and
calamities; history shows us that the human race in all ages has been
tormented and devastated by tyrants, conquerors, heroes; by wars,
inundations, famines, epidemics, etc. Is this long catalogue of proofs of
such a nature as to inspire us with great confidence in the hidden views
of the Divinity? Do such constant evils give us an exalted idea of the
future fate which His kindness is preparing for us?

4. If God is as well-disposed as they assure us He is, could He not at
least, without bestowing an infinite happiness upon men, communicate to
them that degree of happiness of which finite beings are susceptible? In
order to be happy, do we need an Infinite or Divine happiness?

5. If God has not been able to render men happier than they are here
below, what will become of the hope of a Paradise, where it is pretended
that the elect or chosen few will rejoice forever in ineffable happiness?
If God could not or would not remove evil from the earth (the only
sojourning place we know of), what reason could we have to presume that He
can or will remove it from another world, of which we know nothing? More
than two thousand years ago, according to Lactance, the wise epicure said:
“Either God wants to prevent evil, and can not, or He can and will not; or
He neither can nor will, or He will and can. If He wants to, without the
power, He is impotent; if He can, and will not, He is guilty of malice
which we can not attribute to Him; if He neither can nor will, He is both
impotent and wicked, and consequently can not be God; if He wishes to and
can, whence then comes evil, or why does He not prevent it?” For more than
two thousand years honest minds have waited for a rational solution of
these difficulties; and our theologians teach us that they will not be
revealed to us until the future life.

LVIII.—ANOTHER IDLE FANCY.

We are told of a pretended scale for human beings; it is supposed that God
has divided His creatures into different classes, each one enjoying the
degree of happiness of which he is susceptible. According to this romantic
arrangement, all beings, from the oyster to the angel, enjoy the happiness
which belongs to them. Experience contradicts this sublime revery. In the
world where we are, we see all sentient beings living and suffering in the
midst of dangers. Man can not step without wounding, tormenting, crushing
a multitude of sentient beings which he finds in his path, while he
himself, at every step, is exposed to a throng of evils seen or unseen,
which may lead to his destruction. Is not the very thought of death
sufficient to mar his greatest enjoyment? During the whole course of his
life he is subject to sufferings; there is not a moment when he feels sure
of preserving his existence, to which he is so strongly attached, and
which he regards as the greatest gift of Divinity.

LIX.—IN VAIN DOES THEOLOGY EXERT ITSELF TO ACQUIT GOD OF MAN’S
DEFECTS. EITHER THIS GOD IS NOT FREE, OR HE IS MORE WICKED THAN GOOD.

The world, it will be said, has all the perfection of which it was
susceptible; by the very reason that the world was not the God who made
it, it was necessary that it should have great qualities and great
defects. But we will answer, that the world necessarily having great
defects, it would have been better suited to the nature of a good God not
to create a world which He could not render completely happy. If God, who
was, according to you, supremely happy before the world was created, had
continued to be supremely happy in the created world, why did He not
remain in peace? Why must man suffer? Why must man exist What is his
existence to God? Nothing or something. If his existence is not useful or
necessary to God, why did He not leave him in nothingness? If man’s
existence is necessary to His glory, He then needed man, He lacked
something before this man existed!

We can forgive an unskillful workman for doing imperfect work, because he
must work, well or ill, or starve; this workman is excusable; but your God
is not. According to you, He is self-sufficient; in this case, why does He
create men? He has, according to you, all that is necessary to render man
happy; why, then, does He not do it? You must conclude that your God has
more malice than goodness, or you must admit that God was compelled to do
what He has done, without being able to do otherwise. However, you assure
us that your God is free; you say also that He is immutable, although
beginning in time and ceasing in time to exercise His power, like all the
inconstant beings of this world. Oh, theologians! you have made vain
efforts to acquit your God of all the defects of man; there is always
visible in this God so perfect, “a tip of the [human] ear.”

LX.—WE CAN NOT BELIEVE IN A DIVINE PROVIDENCE, IN AN INFINITELY GOOD
AND POWERFUL GOD.

Is not God the master of His favors? Has He not the right to dispense His
benefits? Can He not take them back again? His creature has no right to
ask the reason of His conduct; He can dispose at will of the works of His
hands. Absolute sovereign of mortals, He distributes happiness or
unhappiness, according to His pleasure. These are the solutions which
theologians give in order to console us for the evils which God inflicts
upon us. We would tell them that a God who was infinitely good, would not
be the master of His favors, but would be by His own nature obliged to
distribute them among His creatures; we would tell them that a truly
benevolent being would not believe he had the right to abstain from doing
good; we would tell them that a truly generous being does not take back
what he has given, and any man who does it, forfeits gratitude, and has no
right to complain of ingratitude. How can the arbitrary and whimsical
conduct which theologians ascribe to God, be reconciled with the religion
which supposes a compact or mutual agreement between this God and men? If
God owes nothing to His creatures, they, on their part, can not owe
anything to their God. All religion is founded upon the happiness which
men believe they have a right to expect from the Divinity, who is supposed
to tell them: “Love, adore, obey me, and I will render you happy!” Men on
their side say to Him: “Make us happy, be faithful to your promises, and
we will love you, we will adore you, we will obey your laws!” In
neglecting the happiness of His creatures, in distributing His favors and
His graces according to His caprice, and taking back His gifts, does not
God violate the contract which serves as a base for all religion?

Cicero has said with reason that if God does not make Himself agreeable to
man, He can not be his God. [Nisi Deus homini placuerit, Deus non erit.]
Goodness constitutes Divinity; this Goodness can manifest itself to man
only by the advantages he derives from it. As soon as he is unfortunate,
this Goodness disappears and ceases to be Divinity. An infinite Goodness
can be neither partial nor exclusive. If God is infinitely good, He owes
happiness to all His creatures; one unfortunate being alone would be
sufficient to annihilate an unlimited goodness. Under an infinitely good
and powerful God, is it possible to conceive that a single man could
suffer? An animal, a mite, which suffers, furnishes invincible arguments
against Divine Providence and its infinite benefactions.

LXI.—CONTINUATION.

According to theologians, the afflictions and evils of this life are
chastisements which culpable men receive from Divinity. But why are men
culpable? If God is Almighty, does it cost Him any more to say, “Let
everything remain in order!”—”let all my subjects be good, innocent,
fortunate!”—than to say, “Let everything exist?” Was it more
difficult for this God to do His work well than to do it so badly? Was it
any farther from the nonexistence of beings to their wise and happy
existence, than from their non-existence to their insensate and miserable
existence? Religion speaks to us of a hell—that is, of a fearful
place where, notwithstanding His goodness, God reserves eternal torments
for the majority of men. Thus, after having rendered mortals very
miserable in this world, religion teaches them that God can make them much
more wretched in another. They meet our objections by saying, that
otherwise the goodness of God would take the place of His justice. But
goodness which takes the place of the most terrible cruelty, is not
infinite kindness. Besides, a God who, after having been infinitely good,
becomes infinitely wicked, can He be regarded as an immutable being? A God
filled with implacable fury, is He a God in whom we can find a shadow of
charity or goodness?

LXII.—THEOLOGY MAKES OF ITS GOD A MONSTER OF NONSENSE, OF INJUSTICE,
OF MALICE, AND ATROCITY—A BEING ABSOLUTELY HATEFUL.

Divine justice, such as our theologians paint it, is, without doubt, a
quality intended to make us love Divinity. According to the notions of
modern theology, it appears evident that God has created the majority of
men with the view only of punishing them eternally. Would it not have been
more in conformity with kindness, with reason, with equity, to create but
stones or plants, and not sentient beings, than to create men whose
conduct in this world would cause them eternal chastisements in another? A
God so perfidious and wicked as to create a single man and leave him
exposed to the perils of damnation, can not be regarded as a perfect
being, but as a monster of nonsense, injustice, malice, and atrocity. Far
from forming a perfect God, the theologians have made the most imperfect
of beings. According to theological ideas, God resembles a tyrant who,
having deprived the majority of his slaves of their eyesight, would
confine them in a cell where, in order to amuse himself he could observe
incognito their conduct through a trap-door, in order to have occasion to
cruelly punish all those who in walking should hurt each other; but who
would reward splendidly the small number of those to whom the sight was
spared, for having the skill to avoid an encounter with their comrades.
Such are the ideas which the dogma of gratuitous predestination gives of
Divinity!

Although men repeat to us that their God is infinitely good, it is evident
that in the bottom of their hearts they can believe nothing of it. How can
we love anything we do not know? How can we love a being, the idea of whom
is but liable to keep us in anxiety and trouble? How can we love a being
of whom all that is told conspires to render him supremely hateful?

LXIII.—ALL RELIGION INSPIRES BUT A COWARDLY AND INORDINATE FEAR OF
THE DIVINITY.

Many people make a subtle distinction between true religion and
superstition; they tell us that the latter is but a cowardly and
inordinate fear of Divinity, that the truly religious man has confidence
in his God, and loves Him sincerely; while the superstitious man sees in
Him but an enemy, has no confidence in Him, and represents Him as a
suspicious and cruel tyrant, avaricious of His benefactions and prodigal
of His chastisements. But does not all religion in reality give us these
same ideas of God? While we are told that God is infinitely good, is it
not constantly repeated to us that He is very easily offended, that He
bestows His favors but upon a few, that He chastises with fury those to
whom He has not been pleased to grant them?

LXIV.—THERE IS IN REALITY NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE
MOST SOMBRE AND SERVILE SUPERSTITION.

If we take our ideas of God from the nature of the things where we find a
mixture of good and evil, this God, according to the good and evil which
we experience, does naturally appear to us capricious, inconstant,
sometimes good, sometimes wicked, and in this way, instead of exciting our
love, He must produce suspicion, fear, and uncertainty in our hearts.
There is no real difference between natural religion and the most sombre
and servile superstition. If the Theist sees God but on the beautiful
side, the superstitious man looks upon Him from the most hideous side. The
folly of the one is gay of the other is lugubrious; but both are equally
delirious.

LXV.—ACCORDING TO THE IDEAS WHICH THEOLOGY GIVES OF DIVINITY, TO
LOVE GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE.

If I take my ideas of God from theology, God shows Himself to me in such a
light as to repel love. The devotees who tell us that they love their God
sincerely, are either liars or fools who see their God but in profile; it
is impossible to love a being, the thought of whom tends to excite terror,
and whose judgments make us tremble. How can we face without fear, a God
whom we suppose sufficiently barbarous to wish to damn us forever? Let
them not speak to us of a filial or respectful fear mingled with love,
which men should have for their God. A son can not love his father when he
knows he is cruel enough to inflict exquisite torments upon him; in short,
to punish him for the least faults. No man upon earth can have the least
spark of love for a God who holds in reserve eternal, hard, and violent
chastisements for ninety-nine hundredths of His children.

LXVI.—BY THE INVENTION OF THE DOGMA OF THE ETERNAL TORMENTS OF HELL,
THEOLOGIANS HAVE MADE OF THEIR GOD A DETESTABLE BEING, MORE WICKED THAN
THE MOST WICKED OF MEN, A PERVERSE AND CRUEL TYRANT WITHOUT AIM.

The inventors of the dogma of eternal torments in hell, have made of the
God whom they call so good, the most detestable of beings. Cruelty in man
is the last term of corruption. There is no sensitive soul but is moved
and revolts at the recital alone of the torments which the greatest
criminal endures; but cruelty merits the greater indignation when we
consider it gratuitous or without motive. The most sanguinary tyrants,
Caligula, Nero, Domitian, had at least some motive in tormenting their
victims and insulting their sufferings; these motives were, either their
own safety, the fury of revenge, the design to frighten by terrible
examples, or perhaps the vanity to make parade of their power, and the
desire to satisfy a barbarous curiosity. Can a God have any of these
motives? In tormenting the victims of His wrath, He would punish beings
who could not really endanger His immovable power, nor trouble His
felicity, which nothing can change. On the other hand, the sufferings of
the other life would be useless to the living, who can not witness them;
these torments would be useless to the damned, because in hell is no more
conversion, and the hour of mercy is passed; from which it follows, that
God, in the exercise of His eternal vengeance, would have no other aim
than to amuse Himself and insult the weakness of His creatures. I appeal
to the whole human race! Is there in nature a man so cruel as to wish in
cold blood to torment, I do not say his fellow-beings, but any sentient
being whatever, without fee, without profit, without curiosity, without
having anything to fear? Conclude, then, O theologians! that according to
your own principles, your God is infinitely more wicked than the most
wicked of men. You will tell me, perhaps, that infinite offenses deserve
infinite chastisements, and I will tell you that we can not offend a God
whose happiness is infinite. I will tell you further, that offenses of
finite beings can not be infinite; that a God who does not want to be
offended, can not consent to make His creatures’ offenses last for
eternity; I will tell you that a God infinitely good, can not be
infinitely cruel, nor grant His creatures infinite existence solely for
the pleasure of tormenting them forever.

It could have been but the most cruel barbarity, the most notorious
imposition, but the blindest ambition which could have created the dogma
of eternal damnation. If there exists a God who could be offended or
blasphemed, there would not be upon earth any greater blasphemers than
those who dare to say that this God is perverse enough to take pleasure in
dooming His feeble creatures to useless torments for all eternity.

LXVII.—THEOLOGY IS BUT A SERIES OF PALPABLE CONTRADICTIONS.

To pretend that God can be offended with the actions of men, is to
annihilate all the ideas that are given to us of this being. To say that
man can disturb the order of the universe, that he can grasp the lightning
from God’s hand, that he can upset His projects, is to claim that man is
stronger than his God, that he is the arbiter of His will, that it depends
on him to change His goodness into cruelty. Theology does nothing but
destroy with one hand that which it builds with the other. If all religion
is founded upon a God who becomes angry, and who is appeased, all religion
is founded upon a palpable contradiction.

All religions agree in exalting the wisdom and the infinite power of the
Divinity; but as soon as they expose His conduct, we discover but
imprudence, want of foresight, weakness, and folly. God, it is said,
created the world for Himself; and so far He has not succeeded in making
Himself properly respected! God has created men in order to have in His
dominion subjects who would render Him homage; and we continually see men
revolt against Him!

LXVIII.—THE PRETENDED WORKS OF GOD DO NOT PROVE AT ALL WHAT WE CALL
DIVINE PERFECTION.

We are continually told of the Divine perfections; and as soon as we ask
the proofs of them, we are shown the works in which we are assured that
these perfections are written in ineffaceable characters. All these works,
however, are imperfect and perishable; man, who is regarded as the
masterpiece, as the most marvelous work of Divinity, is full of
imperfections which render him disagreeable in the eyes of the Almighty
workman who has formed him; this surprising work becomes often so
revolting and so odious to its Author, that He feels Himself compelled to
cast him into the fire. But if the choicest work of Divinity is imperfect,
by what are we to judge of the Divine perfections? Can a work with which
the author himself is so little satisfied, cause us to admire his skill?
Physical man is subject to a thousand infirmities, to countless evils, to
death; the moral man is full of defects; and yet they exhaust themselves
by telling us that he is the most beautiful work of the most perfect of
beings.

LXIX.—THE PERFECTION OF GOD DOES NOT SHOW TO ANY MORE ADVANTAGE IN
THE PRETENDED CREATION OF ANGELS AND PURE SPIRITS.

It appears that God, in creating more perfect beings than men, did not
succeed any better, or give stronger proofs of His perfection. Do we not
see in many religions that angels and pure spirits revolted against their
Master, and even attempted to expel Him from His throne? God intended the
happiness of angels and of men, and He has never succeeded in rendering
happy either angels or men; pride, malice, sins, the imperfections of His
creatures, have always been opposed to the wishes of the perfect Creator.

LXX.—THEOLOGY PREACHES THE OMNIPOTENCE OF ITS GOD, AND CONTINUALLY
SHOWS HIM IMPOTENT.

All religion is visibly founded upon the principle that “God proposes and
man disposes.” All the theologies of the world show us an unequal combat
between Divinity on the one side, and His creatures on the other. God
never relies on His honor; in spite of His almighty power, He could not
succeed in making the works of His hands as He would like them to be. To
complete the absurdity, there is a religion which pretends that God
Himself died to redeem the human race; and, in spite of His death, men are
not in the least as this God would desire them to be!

LXXI.—ACCORDING TO ALL THE RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE EARTH, GOD WOULD
BE THE MOST CAPRICIOUS AND THE MOST INSENSATE OF BEINGS.

Nothing could be more extravagant than the role which in every country
theology makes Divinity play. If the thing was real, we would be obliged
to see in it the most capricious and the most insane of beings; one would
be obliged to believe that God made the world to be the theater of
dishonoring wars with His creatures; that He created angels, men, demons,
wicked spirits, but as adversaries, against whom He could exercise His
power. He gives them liberty to offend Him, makes them wicked enough to
upset His projects, obstinate enough to never give up: all for the
pleasure of getting angry, and being appeased, of reconciling Himself, and
of repairing the confusion they have made. Had Divinity formed at once His
creatures such as they ought to be in order to please Him, what trouble He
might have spared Himself! or, at least, how much embarrassment He might
have saved to His theologians! According to all the religious systems of
the earth, God seems to be occupied but in doing Himself injury; He does
it as those charlatans do who wound themselves, in order to have occasion
to show the public the value of their ointments. We do not see, however,
that so far Divinity has been able to radically cure itself of the evil
which is caused by men.

LXXII.—IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT EVIL DOES NOT COME FROM GOD.

God is the author of all; still we are assured that evil does not come
from God. Whence, then, does it come? From men? But who has made men? It
is God: then that evil comes from God. If He had not made men as they are,
moral evil or sin would not exist in the world. We must blame God, then,
that man is so perverse. If man has the power to do wrong or to offend
God, we must conclude that God wishes to be offended; that God, who has
created man, resolved that evil should be done by him: without this, man
would be an effect contrary to the cause from which he derives his being.

LXXIII.—THE FORESIGHT ATTRIBUTED TO GOD, WOULD GIVE TO GUILTY MEN
WHOM HE PUNISHES, THE RIGHT TO COMPLAIN OF HIS CRUELTY.

The faculty of foresight, or the ability to know in advance all which is
to happen in the world, is attributed to God. But this foresight can
scarcely belong to His glory, nor spare Him the reproaches which men could
legitimately heap upon Him. If God had the foresight of the future, did He
not foresee the fall of His creatures whom He had destined to happiness?
If He resolved in His decrees to allow this fall, there is no doubt that
He desired it to take place: otherwise it would not have happened. If the
Divine foresight of the sin of His creatures had been necessary or forced,
it might be supposed that God was compelled by His justice to punish the
guilty; but God, enjoying the faculty of foresight and the power to
predestinate everything, would it not depend upon Himself not to impose
upon men these cruel laws? Or, at least, could He not have dispensed with
creating beings whom He might be compelled to punish and to render unhappy
by a subsequent decree? What does it matter whether God destined men to
happiness or to misery by a previous decree, the effect of His foresight,
or by a subsequent decree, the effect of His justice. Does the arrangement
of these decrees change the fate of the miserable? Would they not have the
right to complain of a God who, having the power of leaving them in
oblivion, brought them forth, although He foresaw very well that His
justice would force Him sooner or later to punish them?

LXXIV.—ABSURDITY OF THE THEOLOGICAL FABLES UPON ORIGINAL SIN AND
UPON SATAN.

Man, say you, issuing from the hands of God, was pure, innocent, and good;
but his nature became corrupted in consequence of sin. If man could sin,
when just leaving the hands of God, his nature was then not perfect! Why
did God permit him to sin, and his nature to become corrupt? Why did God
allow him to be seduced, knowing well that he would be too weak to resist
the tempter? Why did God create a Satan, a malicious spirit, a tempter?
Why did not God, who was so desirous of doing good to mankind, why did He
not annihilate, once for all, so many evil genii whose nature rendered
them enemies of our happiness? Or rather, why did God create evil spirits,
whose victories and terrible influences upon the human race He must have
foreseen? Finally, by what fatality, in all the religions of the world,
has the evil principle such a marked advantage over the good principle or
over Divinity?

LXXV.—THE DEVIL, LIKE RELIGION, WAS INVENTED TO ENRICH THE PRIESTS.

We are told a story of the simple-heartedness of an Italian monk, which
does him honor. This good man preaching one day felt obliged to announce
to his auditory that, thanks to Heaven, he had at last discovered a sure
means of rendering all men happy. “The devil,” said he, “tempts men but to
have them as comrades of his misery in hell. Let us address ourselves,
then, to the Pope, who possesses the keys of paradise and of hell; let us
ask him to beseech God, at the head of the whole Church, to reconcile
Himself with the devil; to take him back into His favor; to re-establish
him in His first rank. This can not fail to put an end to his sinister
projects against mankind.” The good monk did not see, perhaps, that the
devil is at least fully as useful as God to the ministers of religion.
These reap too many benefits from their differences to lend themselves
willingly to a reconciliation between the two enemies ties, upon whose
contests their existence and their revenues depend. If men would cease to
be tempted and to sin, the ministry of priests would become useless to
them. Manicheism is evidently the support of all religions; but
unfortunately the devil, being invented to remove all suspicion of malice
from Divinity, proves to us at every moment the powerlessness or the
awkwardness of his celestial Adversary.

LXXVI.—IF GOD COULD NOT RENDER HUMAN NATURE SINLESS, HE HAS NO RIGHT
TO PUNISH MAN.

Man’s nature, it is said, must necessarily become corrupt. God could not
endow him with sinlessness, which is an inalienable portion of Divine
perfection. But if God could not render him sinless, why did He take the
trouble of creating man, whose nature was to become corrupt, and which,
consequently, had to offend God? On the other side, if God Himself was not
able to render human nature sinless, what right had He to punish men for
not being sinless? It is but by the right of might. But the right of the
strongest is violence; and violence is not suited to the most Just of
Beings. God would be supremely unjust if He punished men for not having a
portion of the Divine perfections, or for not being able to be Gods like
Himself.

Could not God have at least endowed men with that sort of perfection of
which their nature is susceptible? If some men are good or render
themselves agreeable to their God, why did not this God bestow the same
favor or give the same dispositions to all beings of our kind? Why does
the number of wicked exceed so greatly the number of good people? Why, for
every friend, does God find ten thousand enemies in a world which depended
upon Him alone to people with honest men? If it is true that God intends
to form in heaven a court of saints, of chosen ones, or of men who have
lived in this world according to His views, would He not have had a court
more numerous, more brilliant, and more honorable to Him, if it were
composed of all the men to whom, in creating them, He could have granted
the degree of goodness necessary to obtain eternal happiness? Finally,
were it not easier not to take man from nothingness than to create him
full of defects, rebellious to his Creator, perpetually exposed to lose
himself by a fatal abuse of his liberty? Instead of creating men, a
perfect God ought to have created only docile and submissive angels. The
angels, it is said, are free; a few among them have sinned; but all of
them have not sinned; all have not abused their liberty by revolting
against their Master. Could not God have created only angels of the good
kind? If God could create angels who have not sinned, could He not create
men sinless, or those who would never abuse their liberty by doing evil.
If the chosen ones are incapable of sinning in heaven, could not God have
made sinless men upon the earth?

LXXVII.—IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT GOD’S CONDUCT MUST BE A MYSTERY TO
MAN, AND THAT HE HAS NO RIGHT TO EXAMINE AND JUDGE IT.

We are told that the enormous distance which separates God from men, makes
God’s conduct necessarily a mystery for us, and that we have no right to
interrogate our Master. Is this statement satisfactory? But according to
you, when my eternal happiness is involved, have I not the right to
examine God’s own conduct? It is but with the hope of happiness that men
submit to the empire of a God. A despot to whom men are subjected but
through fear, a master whom they can not interrogate, a totally
inaccessible sovereign, can not merit the homage of intelligent beings. If
God’s conduct is a mystery to me, it is not made for me. Man can not
adore, admire, respect, or imitate a conduct of which everything is
impossible to conceive, or of which he can not form any but revolting
ideas; unless it is pretended that he should worship all the things of
which he is forced to be ignorant, and then all that he does not
understand becomes admirable.

Priests! you teach us that the designs of God are impenetrable; that His
ways are not our ways; that His thoughts are not our thoughts; that it is
folly to complain of His administration, whose motives and secret ways are
entirely unknown to us; that there is temerity in accusing Him of unjust
judgments, because they are incomprehensible to us. But do you not see
that by speaking in this manner, you destroy with your own hands all your
profound systems which have no design but to explain the ways of Divinity
that you call impenetrable? These judgments, these ways, and these
designs, have you penetrated them? You dare not say so; and, although you
season incessantly, you do not understand them more than we do. If by
chance you know the plan of God, which you tell us to admire, while there
are many people who find it so little worthy of a just, good, intelligent,
and rational being; do not say that this plan is impenetrable. If you are
as ignorant as we, have some indulgence for those who ingenuously confess
that they comprehend nothing of it, or that they see nothing in it Divine.
Cease to persecute for opinions which you do not understand yourselves;
cease to slander each other for dreams and conjectures which are
altogether contradictory; speak to us of intelligible and truly useful
things; and no longer tell us of the impenetrable ways of a God, about
which you do nothing but stammer and contradict yourselves.

In speaking to us incessantly of the immense depths of Divine wisdom, in
forbidding us to fathom these depths by telling us that it is insolence to
call God to the tribunal of our humble reason, in making it a crime to
judge our Master, the theologians only confess the embarrassment in which
they find themselves as soon as they have to render account of the conduct
of a God, which they tell us is marvelous, only because it is totally
impossible for them to understand it themselves.

LXXVIII.—IT IS ABSURD TO CALL HIM A GOD OF JUSTICE AND GOODNESS, WHO
INFLICTS EVIL INDISCRIMINATELY ON THE GOOD AND THE WICKED, UPON THE
INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY; IT IS IDLE TO DEMAND THAT THE UNFORTUNATE SHOULD
CONSOLE THEMSELVES FOR THEIR MISFORTUNES, IN THE VERY ARMS OF THE ONE WHO
ALONE IS THE AUTHOR OF THEM.

Physical evil commonly passes as the punishment of sin. Calamities,
diseases, famines, wars, earthquakes, are the means which God employs to
chastise perverse men. Therefore, they have no difficulty in attributing
these evils to the severity of a just and good God. However, do we not see
these plagues fall indiscriminately upon the good and the wicked, upon the
impious and the pious, upon the innocent and the guilty? How can we be
made to admire, in this proceeding, the justice and the goodness of a
being, the idea of whom appears so consoling to the unfortunate? Doubtless
the brain of these unfortunate ones has been disturbed by their
misfortunes, since they forget that God is the arbiter of things, the sole
dispenser of the events of this world. In this case ought they not to
blame Him for the evils for which they would find consolation in His arms?
Unfortunate father! you console yourself in the bosom of Providence for
the loss of a cherished child or of a wife, who made your happiness! Alas!
do you not see that your God has killed them? Your God has rendered you
miserable; and you want Him to console you for the fearful blows He has
inflicted upon you.

The fantastic and supernatural notions of theology have succeeded so
thoroughly in overcoming the simplest, the clearest, the most natural
ideas of the human spirit, that the pious, incapable of accusing God of
malice, accustom themselves to look upon these sad afflictions as
indubitable proofs of celestial goodness. Are they in affliction, they are
told to believe that God loves them, that God visits them, that God wishes
to try them. Thus it is that religion changes evil into good! Some one has
said profanely, but with reason: “If the good God treats thus those whom
He loves, I beseech Him very earnestly not to think of me.” Men must have
formed very sinister and very cruel ideas of their God whom they call so
good, in order to persuade themselves that the most frightful calamities
and the most painful afflictions are signs of His favor! Would a wicked
Genii or a Devil be more ingenious in tormenting his enemies, than
sometimes is this God of goodness, who is so often occupied with
inflicting His chastisements upon His dearest friends?

LXXIX.—A GOD WHO PUNISHES THE FAULTS WHICH HE COULD HAVE PREVENTED,
IS A FOOL, WHO ADDS INJUSTICE TO FOOLISHNESS.

What would we say or a father who, we are assured, watches without
relaxation over the welfare of his feeble and unforeseeing children, and
who, however, would leave them at liberty to go astray in the midst of
rocks, precipices, and waters; who would prevent them but rarely from
following their disordered appetites; who would permit them to handle,
without precaution, deadly arms, at the risk of wounding themselves
severely? What would we think of this same father, if, instead of blaming
himself for the harm which would have happened to his poor children, he
should punish them for their faults in the most cruel way? We would say,
with reason, that this father is a fool, who joins injustice to
foolishness. A God who punishes the faults which He could have prevented,
is a being who lacks wisdom, goodness, and equity. A God of foresight
would prevent evil, and in this way would be saved the trouble of
punishing it. A good God would not punish weaknesses which He knows to be
inherent in human nature. A just God, if He has made man, would not punish
him for not being strong enough to resist his desires. To punish weakness,
is the most unjust tyranny. Is it not calumniating a just God, to say that
He punishes men for their faults, even in the present life? How would He
punish beings whom He alone could correct, and who, as long as they had
not received grace, can not act otherwise than they do?

According to the principles of theologians themselves, man, in his actual
state of corruption, can do nothing but evil, for without Divine grace he
has not the strength to do good. Moreover, if man’s nature, abandoned to
itself, of destitute of Divine help, inclines him necessarily to evil, or
renders him incapable of doing good, what becomes of his free will?
According to such principles, man can merit neither reward nor punishment;
in rewarding man for the good he does, God would but recompense Himself;
in punishing man for the evil he does, God punishes him for not having
been given the grace, without which it was impossible for him to do
better.

LXXX.—FREE WILL IS AN IDLE FANCY.

Theologians tell and repeat to us that man is free, while all their
teachings conspire to destroy his liberty. Trying to justify Divinity,
they accuse him really of the blackest injustice. They suppose that,
without grace, man is compelled to do evil: and they maintain that God
will punish him for not having been given the grace to do good! With a
little reflection, we will be obliged to see that man in all things acts
by compulsion, and that his free will is a chimera, even according to the
theological system. Does it depend upon man whether or not he shall be
born of such or such parents? Does it depend upon man to accept or not to
accept the opinions of his parents and of his teachers? If I were born of
idolatrous or Mohammedan parents, would it have depended upon me to become
a Christian? However, grave Doctors of Divinity assure us that a just God
will damn without mercy all those to whom He has not given the grace to
know the religion of the Christians.

Man’s birth does not depend upon his choice; he was not asked if he would
or would not come into the world; nature did not consult him upon the
country and the parents that she gave him; the ideas he acquired, his
opinions, his true or false notions are the necessary fruits of the
education which he has received, and of which he has not been the master;
his passions and his desires are the necessary results of the temperament
which nature has given him, and of the ideas with which he has been
inspired; during the whole course of his life, his wishes and his actions
are determined by his surroundings, his habits, his occupations, his
pleasures, his conversations, and by the thoughts which present themselves
involuntarily to him; in short, by a multitude of events and accidents
which are beyond his control. Incapable of foreseeing the future, he knows
neither what he will wish, nor what he will do in the time which must
immediately follow the present. Man passes his life, from the moment of
his birth to that of his death, without having been free one instant. Man,
you say, wishes, deliberates, chooses, determines; hence you conclude that
his actions are free. It is true that man intends, but he is not master of
his will or of his desires. He can desire and wish only what he judges
advantageous for himself; he can not love pain nor detest pleasure. Man,
it will be said, sometimes prefers pain to pleasure; but then, he prefers
a passing pain in the hope of procuring a greater and more durable
pleasure. In this case, the idea of a greater good determines him to
deprive himself of one less desirable.

It is not the lover who gives to his mistress the features by which he is
enchanted; he is not then the master to love or not to love the object of
his tenderness; he is not the master of the imagination or the temperament
which dominates him; from which it follows, evidently, that man is not the
master of the wishes and desires which rise in his soul, independently of
him. But man, say you, can resist his desires; then he is free. Man
resists his desires when the motives which turn him from an object are
stronger than those which draw him toward it; but then, his resistance is
necessary. A man who fears dishonor and punishment more than he loves
money, resists necessarily the desire to take possession of another’s
money. Are we not free when we deliberate?—but has one the power to
know or not to know, to be uncertain or to be assured? Deliberation is the
necessary effect of the uncertainty in which we find ourselves with
reference to the results of our actions. As soon as we believe ourselves
certain of these results, we necessarily decide; and then we act
necessarily according as we shall have judged right or wrong. Our
judgments, true or false, are not free; they are necessarily determined by
ideas which we have received, or which our mind has formed. Man is not
free in his choice; he is evidently compelled to choose what he judges the
most useful or the most agreeable for himself. When he suspends his
choice, he is not more free; he is forced to suspend it till he knows or
believes he knows the qualities of the objects presented to him, or until
he has weighed the consequence of his actions. Man, you will say, decides
every moment on actions which he knows will endanger him; man kills
himself sometimes, then he is free. I deny it! Has man the ability to
reason correctly or incorrectly? Do not his reason and his wisdom depend
either upon opinions that he has formed, or upon his mental constitution?
As neither the one nor the other depends upon his will, they can not in
any wise prove his liberty.

If I make the wager to do or not to do a thing, am I not free? Does it not
depend upon me to do or not to do it? No; I will answer you, the desire to
win the wager will necessarily determine you to do or not to do the thing
in question. “But if I consent to lose the wager?” Then the desire to
prove to me that you are free will have become to you a stronger motive
than the desire to win the wager; and this motive will necessarily have
determined you to do or not to do what was understood between us. But you
will say, “I feel myself free.” It is an illusion which may be compared to
that of the fly in the fable, which, lighting on the shaft of a heavy
wagon, applauded itself as driver of the vehicle which carried it. Man who
believes himself free, is a fly who believes himself the master-motor in
the machine of the universe, while he himself, without his own volition,
is carried on by it. The feeling which makes us believe that we are free
to do or not to do a thing, is but a pure illusion. When we come to the
veritable principle of our actions, we will find that they are nothing but
the necessary results of our wills and of our desires, which are never
within our power. You believe yourselves free because you do as you
choose; but are you really free to will or not to will, to desire or not
to desire? Your wills and your desires, are they not necessarily excited
by objects or by qualities which do not depend upon you at all?

LXXXI.—WE SHOULD NOT CONCLUDE FROM THIS THAT SOCIETY HAS NOT THE
RIGHT TO CHASTISE THE WICKED.

If the actions of men are necessary, if men are not free, what right has
society to punish the wicked who infest it? Is it not very unjust to
chastise beings who could not act otherwise than they did? If the wicked
act from the impulse of their corrupt nature, society in punishing them
acts necessarily on its side from the desire to preserve itself. Certain
objects produce in us the feeling of pain; therefore our nature compels us
to hate them, and incites us to remove them. A tiger pressed by hunger,
attacks the man whom he wishes to devour; but the man is not the master of
his fear of the tiger, and seeks necessarily the means of exterminating
it.

LXXXII.—REFUTATION OF THE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF FREE WILL.

If everything is necessary, if errors, opinions, and ideas of men are
fated, how or why can we pretend to reform them? The errors of men are the
necessary results of their ignorance; their ignorance, their obstinacy,
their credulity, are the necessary results of their inexperience, of their
indifference, of their lack of reflection; the same as congestion of the
brain or lethargy are the natural effects of some diseases. Truth,
experience, reflection, reason, are the proper remedies to cure ignorance,
fanaticism, and follies; the same as bleeding is good to soothe congestion
of the brain. But you will say, why does not truth produce this effect
upon many of the sick heads? There are some diseases which resist all
remedies; it is impossible to cure obstinate patients who refuse to take
the remedies which are given them; the interest of some men and the folly
of others naturally oppose them to the admission of truth. A cause
produces its effect only when it is not interrupted in its action by other
causes which are stronger, or which weaken the action of the first cause
or render it useless. It is entirely impossible to have the best arguments
accepted by men who are strongly interested in error; who are prejudiced
in its favor; who refuse to reflect; but it must necessarily be that truth
undeceives the honest souls who seek it in good faith. Truth is a cause;
it produces necessarily its effect when its impulse is not interrupted by
causes which suspend its effects.

LXXXIII.—CONTINUATION.

To take away from man his free will, is, we are told, to make of him a
pure machine, an automaton without liberty; there would exist in him
neither merit nor virtue What is merit in man?

It is a certain manner of acting which renders him estimable in the eyes
of his fellow beings. What is virtue? It is the disposition that causes us
to do good to others. What can there be contemptible in automatic machines
capable of producing such desirable effects? Marcus Aurelius was a very
useful spring to the vast machine of the Roman Empire. By what right will
a machine despise another machine, whose springs would facilitate its own
play? Good people are springs which assist society in its tendency to
happiness; wicked men are badly-formed springs, which disturb the order,
the progress, and harmony of society. If for its own interests society
loves and rewards the good, she hates, despises, and removes the wicked,
as useless or dangerous motors.

LXXXIV.—GOD HIMSELF, IF THERE WAS A GOD, WOULD NOT BE FREE; HENCE
THE USELESSNESS OF ALL RELIGION.

The world is a necessary agent; all the beings which compose it are united
to each other, and can not do otherwise than they do, so long as they are
moved by the same causes and possessed of the same qualities. If they lose
these qualities, they will act necessarily in a different way. God Himself
(admitting His existence a moment) can not be regarded as a free agent; if
there existed a God, His manner of acting would necessarily be determined
by the qualities inherent in His nature; nothing would be able to alter or
to oppose His wishes. This considered, neither our actions nor our prayers
nor our sacrifices could suspend or change His invariable progress and His
immutable designs, from which we are compelled to conclude that all
religion would be entirely useless.

LXXXV.—EVEN ACCORDING TO THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES, MAN IS NOT FREE ONE
INSTANT.

If theologians were not constantly contradicting each other, they would
know, from their own hypotheses, that man can not be called free for an
instant. Is not man supposed to be in a continual dependence upon God? Is
one free, when one could not have existed or can not live without God, and
when one ceases to exist at the pleasure of His supreme will? If God
created man of nothing, if the preservation of man is a continual
creation, if God can not lose sight of His creature for an instant, if all
that happens to him is a result of the Divine will, if man is nothing of
himself, if all the events which he experiences are the effects of Divine
decrees, if he can not do any good without assistance from above, how can
it be pretended that man enjoys liberty during one moment of his life? If
God did not save him in the moment when he sins, how could man sin? If God
preserves him, God, therefore, forces him to live in order to sin.

LXXXVI.—ALL EVIL, ALL DISORDER, ALL SIN, CAN BE ATTRIBUTED BUT TO
GOD; AND CONSEQUENTLY, HE HAS NO RIGHT TO PUNISH OR REWARD.

Divinity is continually compared to a king, the majority of whose subjects
revolt against Him and it is pretended that He has the right to reward His
faithful subjects, and to punish those who revolt against Him. This
comparison is not just in any of its parts. God presides over a machine,
of which He has made all the springs; these springs act according to the
way in which God has formed them; it is the fault of His inaptitude if
these springs do not contribute to the harmony of the machine in which the
workman desired to place them. God is a creating King, who created all
kinds of subjects for Himself; who formed them according to His pleasure,
and whose wishes can never find any resistance. If God in His empire has
rebellious subjects, it is God who resolved to have rebellious subjects.
If the sins of men disturb the order of the world, it is God who desired
this order to be disturbed. Nobody dares to doubt Divine justice; however,
under the empire of a just God, we find nothing but injustice and
violence. Power decides the fate of nations. Equity seems to be banished
from the earth; a small number of men enjoy with impunity the repose, the
fortunes, the liberty, and the life of all the others. Everything is in
disorder in a world governed by a God of whom it is said that disorder
displeases Him exceedingly.

LXXXVII.—MEN’S PRAYERS TO GOD PROVE SUFFICIENTLY THAT THEY ARE NOT
SATISFIED WITH THE DIVINE ECONOMY.

Although men incessantly admire the wisdom the goodness, the justice, the
beautiful order of Providence, they are, in fact, never contented with it.
The prayers which they continually offer to Heaven, prove to us that they
are not at all satisfied with God’s administration. Praying to God, asking
a favor of Him, is to mistrust His vigilant care; to pray God to avert or
to suppress an evil, is to endeavor to put obstacles in the way of His
justice; to implore the assistance of God in our calamities, means to
appeal to the very author of these calamities in order to represent to Him
our welfare; that He ought to rectify in our favor His plan, which is not
beneficial to our interests. The optimist, or the one who thinks that
everything is good in the world, and who repeats to us incessantly that we
live in the best world possible, if he were consistent, ought never to
pray; still less should he expect another world where men will be happier.
Can there be a better world than the best possible of all worlds? Some of
the theologians have treated the optimists as impious for having claimed
that God could not have made a better world than the one in which we live;
according to these doctors it is limiting the Divine power and insulting
it. But do not theologians see that it is less offensive for God, to
pretend that He did His best in creating the world, than to say that He,
having the power to produce a better one, had the malice to make a very
bad one? If the optimist, by his system, does wrong to the Divine power,
the theologian, who treats him as impious, is himself a reprobate, who
wounds the Divine goodness under pretext of taking interest in God.

LXXXVIII.—THE REPARATION OF THE INIQUITIES AND THE MISERIES OF THIS
WORLD IN ANOTHER WORLD, IS AN IDLE CONJECTURE AND AN ABSURD SUPPOSITION.

When we complain of the evils of which this world is the theater, we are
referred to another world; we are told that there God will repair all the
iniquities and the miseries which He permits for a time here below.
However, if leaving His eternal justice to sleep for a time, God could
consent to evil during the period of the existence of our globe, what
assurance have we that during the existence of another globe, Divine
justice will not likewise sleep during the misfortunes of its inhabitants?
They console us in our troubles by saying, that God is patient, and that
His justice, although often very slow, is not the less certain. But do you
not see, that patience can not be suited to a being just, immutable, and
omnipotent? Can God tolerate injustice for an instant? To temporize with
an evil that one knows of, evinces either uncertainty, weakness, or
collusion; to tolerate evil which one has the power to prevent, is to
consent that evil should be committed.

LXXXIX.—THEOLOGY JUSTIFIES THE EVIL AND INJUSTICE PERMITTED BY ITS
GOD, ONLY BY CONCEDING TO THIS GOD THE RIGHT OF THE STRONGEST, THAT IS TO
SAY, THE VIOLATION OF ALL RIGHTS, OR IN COMMANDING FROM MEN A STUPID
DEVOTION.

I hear a multitude of theologians tell me on all sides, that God is
infinitely just, but that His justice is not that of men! Of what kind, or
of what nature is this Divine justice then? What idea can I form of a
justice which so often resembles human injustice? Is it not confounding
all our ideas of justice and of injustice, to tell us that what is
equitable in God is iniquitous in His creatures? How can we take as a
model a being whose Divine perfections are precisely contrary to human
perfections? God, you say, is the sovereign arbiter of our destinies; His
supreme power, that nothing can limit, authorizes Him to do as He pleases
with His works; a worm, such as man, has not the right to murmur against
Him. This arrogant tone is literally borrowed from the language which the
ministers of tyrants hold, when they silence those who suffer by their
violences; it can not, then, be the language of the ministers of a God of
whose equity they boast. It can not impose upon a being who reasons.
Ministers of a just God! I tell you then, that the greatest power is not
able to confer even upon your God Himself the right to be unjust to the
vilest of His creatures. A despot is not a God. A God who arrogates to
Himself the right to do evil, is a tyrant; a tyrant is not a model for
men. He ought to be an execrable object in their eyes. Is it not strange
that, in order to justify Divinity, they made of Him the most unjust of
beings? As soon as we complain of His conduct, they think to silence us by
claiming that God is the Master; which signifies that God, being the
strongest, He is not subjected to ordinary rules. But the right of the
strongest is the violation of all rights; it can pass as a right but in
the eyes of a savage conqueror, who, in the intoxication of his fury,
imagines he has the right to do as he pleases with the unfortunate ones
whom he has conquered; this barbarous right can appear legitimate only to
slaves, who are blind enough to think that everything is allowed to
tyrants, who are too strong for them to resist.

By a foolish simplicity, or rather by a plain contradiction of terms, do
we not see devotees exclaim, amidst the greatest calamities, that the good
Lord is the Master? Well, illogical reasoners, you believe in good faith
that the good Lord sends you the pestilence; that your good Lord gives
war; that the good Lord is the cause of famine; in a word, that the good
Lord, without ceasing to be good, has the will and the right to do you the
greatest evils you can endure! Cease to call your Lord good when He does
you harm; do not say that He is just; say that He is the strongest, and
that it is impossible for you to avert the blows which His caprice
inflicts upon you. God, you say, punishes us for our highest good; but
what real benefit can result to a nation in being exterminated by
contagion, murdered by wars, corrupted by the examples of perverse
masters, continually pressed by the iron scepter of merciless tyrants,
subjected to the scourge of a bad government, which often for centuries
causes nations to suffer its destructive effects? The eyes of faith must
be strange eyes, if we see by their means any advantage in the most
dreadful miseries and in the most durable evils, in the vices and follies
by which our kind is so cruelly afflicted!

XC.—REDEMPTION, AND THE CONTINUAL EXTERMINATIONS ATTRIBUTED TO
JEHOVAH IN THE BIBLE, ARE SO MANY ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS INVENTIONS WHICH
PRESUPPOSE AN UNJUST AND BARBAROUS GOD.

What strange ideas of the Divine justice must the Christians have who
believe that their God, with the view of reconciling Himself with mankind,
guilty without knowledge of the fault of their parents, sacrificed His own
innocent and sinless Son! What would we say of a king, whose subjects
having revolted against him, in order to appease himself could find no
other expedient than to put to death the heir to his crown, who had taken
no part in the general rebellion? It is, the Christian will say, through
kindness for His subjects, incapable of satisfying themselves of His
Divine justice, that God consented to the cruel death of His Son. But the
kindness of a father to strangers does not give him the right to be unjust
and cruel to his son. All the qualities that theology gives to its God
annul each other. The exercise of one of His perfections is always at the
expense of another.

Has the Jew any more rational ideas than the Christian of Divine justice?
A king, by his pride, kindles the wrath of Heaven. Jehovah sends
pestilence upon His innocent people; seventy thousand subjects are
exterminated to expiate the fault of a monarch that the kindness of God
resolved to spare.

XCI.—HOW CAN WE DISCOVER A TENDER, GENEROUS, AND EQUITABLE FATHER IN
A BEING WHO HAS CREATED HIS CHILDREN BUT TO MAKE THEM UNHAPPY?

In spite of the injustice with which all religions are pleased to blacken
the Divinity, men can not consent to accuse Him of iniquity; they fear
that He, like the tyrants of this world, will be offended by the truth,
and redouble the weight of His malice and tyranny upon them. They listen,
then, to their priests, who tell them that their God is a tender Father;
that this God is an equitable Monarch, whose object in this world is to
assure Himself of the love, obedience, and respect of His subjects; who
gives them the liberty to act, in order to give them occasion to deserve
His favors and to acquire eternal happiness, which He does not owe them in
any way. In what way can we recognize the tenderness of a Father who
created the majority of His children but for the purpose of dragging out a
life of pain, anxiety, and bitterness upon this earth? Is there any more
fatal boon than this pretended liberty which, it is said, men can abuse,
and thereby expose themselves to the risk of eternal misery?

XCII.—THE LIFE OF MORTALS, ALL WHICH TAKES PLACE HERE BELOW,
TESTIFIES AGAINST MAN’S LIBERTY AND AGAINST THE JUSTICE AND GOODNESS OF A
PRETENDED GOD.

In calling mortals into life, what a cruel and dangerous game does the
Divinity force them to play! Thrust into the world without their wish,
provided with a temperament of which they are not the masters, animated by
passions and desires inherent in their nature, exposed to snares which
they have not the skill to avoid, led away by events which they could
neither foresee nor prevent, the unfortunate beings are obliged to follow
a career which conducts them to horrible tortures.

Travelers assert that in some part of Asia reigns a sultan full of
phantasies, and very absolute in his will. By a strange mania this prince
spends his time sitting before a table, on which are placed six dice and a
dice-box. One end of the table is covered with a pile of gold, for the
purpose of exciting the cupidity of the courtiers and of the people by
whom the sultan is surrounded. He, knowing the weak point of his subjects,
speaks to them in this way: “Slaves! I wish you well; my aim is to enrich
you and render you all happy. Do you see these treasures? Well, they are
for you! try to win them; let each one in turn take this box and these
dice; whoever shall have the good luck to raffle six, will be master of
this treasure; but I warn you that he who has not the luck to throw the
required number, will be precipitated forever into an obscure cell, where
my justice exacts that he shall be burned by a slow fire.” Upon this
threat of the monarch, they regarded each other in consternation; no one
willing to take a risk so dangerous. “What!” said the angry sultan, “no
one wants to play? Oh, this does not suit me! My glory demands that you
play. You will raffle then; I wish it; obey without replying!” It is well
to observe that the despot’s dice are prepared in such a way, that upon a
hundred thousand throws there is but one that wins; thus the generous
monarch has the pleasure to see his prison well filled, and his treasures
seldom carried away. Mortals! this Sultan is your God; His treasures are
heaven; His cell is hell; and you hold the dice!

XCIII.—IT IS NOT TRUE THAT WE OWE ANY GRATITUDE TO WHAT WE CALL
PROVIDENCE.

We are constantly told that we owe an infinite gratitude to Providence for
the countless blessings It is pleased to lavish upon us. They boast above
all that our existence is a blessing. But, alas! how many mortals are
really satisfied with their mode of existence? If life has its sweets, how
much of bitterness is mingled with it? Is not one bitter trouble
sufficient to blight all of a sudden the most peaceful and happy life? Is
there a great number of men who, if it depended upon them, would wish to
begin, at the same sacrifice, the painful career into which, without their
consent, destiny has thrown them? You say that existence itself is a great
blessing. But is not this existence continually troubled by griefs, fears,
and often cruel and undeserved maladies. This existence, menaced on so
many sides, can we not be deprived of it at any moment? Who is there,
after having lived for some time, who has not been deprived of a beloved
wife, a beloved child, a consoling friend, whose loss fills his mind
constantly? There are very few mortals who have not been compelled to
drink from the cup of bitterness; there are but few who have not often
wished to die. Finally, it did not depend upon us to exist or not to
exist. Would the bird be under such great obligations to the bird-catcher
for having caught it in his net and for having put it into his cage, in
order to eat it after being amused with it?

XCIV.—TO PRETEND THAT MAN IS THE BELOVED CHILD OF PROVIDENCE, GOD’S
FAVORITE, THE ONLY OBJECT OF HIS LABORS, THE KING OF NATURE, IS FOLLY.

In spite of the infirmities, the troubles, the miseries to which man is
compelled to submit in this world; in spite of the danger which his
alarmed imagination creates in regard to another, he is still foolish
enough to believe himself to be God’s favorite, the only aim of all His
works. He imagines that the entire universe was made for him; he calls
himself arrogantly the king of nature, and ranks himself far above other
animals. Poor mortal! upon what can you establish your high pretensions?
It is, you say, upon your soul, upon your reason, upon your sublime
faculties, which place you in a condition to exercise an absolute
authority over the beings which surround you. But weak sovereign of this
world, art thou sure one instant of the duration of thy reign? The least
atoms of matter which you despise, are they not sufficient to deprive you
of your throne and life? Finally, does not the king of animals terminate
always by becoming food for the worms?

You speak of your soul. But do you know what your soul is? Do you not see
that this soul is but the assemblage of your organs, from which life
results? Would you refuse a soul to other animals who live, who think, who
judge, who compare, who seek pleasure, and avoid pain even as you do, and
who often possess organs which are better than your own? You boast of your
intellectual faculties, but these faculties which render you so proud, do
they make you any happier than other creatures? Do you often make use of
this reason which you glory in, and which religion commands you not to
listen to? Those animals which you disdain because they are weaker or less
cunning than yourself, are they subject to troubles, to mental anxieties,
to a thousand frivolous passions, to a thousand imaginary needs, of which
your heart is continually the prey? Are they, like you, tormented by the
past, alarmed for the future?

Limited solely to the present, what you call their instinct, and what I
call their intelligence, is it not sufficient to preserve and to defend
them and to provide for their needs? This instinct, of which you speak
with disdain, does it not often serve them much better than your wonderful
faculties? Their peaceable ignorance, is it not more advantageous than
these extravagant meditations and these futile investigations which render
you miserable, and for which you are driven to murdering beings of your
own noble kind? Finally, these animals, have they, like mortals, a
troubled imagination which makes them fear not only death, but even
eternal torments? Augustus, having heard that Herod, king of Judea, had
murdered his sons, cried out: “It would be better to be Herod’s pig than
his son!” We can say as much of men; this beloved child of Providence runs
much greater risks than all other animals. After having suffered a great
deal in this world, do we not believe ourselves in danger of suffering for
eternity in another?

XCV.—COMPARISON BETWEEN MAN AND ANIMALS.

What is the exact line of demarcation between man and the other animals
which he calls brutes? In what way does he essentially differ from the
beasts? It is, we are told, by his intelligence, by the faculties of his
mind, by his reason, that man is superior to all the other animals, which
in all they do, act but by physical impulsions, reason taking no part. But
the beasts, having more limited needs than men, do very well without these
intellectual faculties, which would be perfectly useless in their way of
living. Their instinct is sufficient for them, while all the faculties of
man are hardly sufficient to render his existence endurable, and to
satisfy the needs which his imagination, his prejudices, and his
institutions multiply to his torment.

The brute is not affected by the same objects as man; it has neither the
same needs, nor the same desires, nor the same whims; it early reaches
maturity, while nothing is more rare than to see the human being enjoying
all of his faculties, exercising them freely, and making a proper use of
them for his own happiness.

XCVI.—THERE ARE NO MORE DETESTABLE ANIMALS IN THIS WORLD THAN
TYRANTS.

We are assured that the human soul is a simple substance; but if the soul
is such a simple substance, it ought to be the same in all the individuals
of the human race, who all ought to have the same intellectual faculties;
however, this is not the case; men differ as much in qualities of mind as
in the features of the face. There are in the human race, beings as
different from one another as man is from a horse or a dog. What
conformity or resemblance do we find between some men? What an infinite
distance between the genius of a Locke, of a Newton, and that of a
peasant, of a Hottentot, or of a Laplander!

Man differs from other animals but by the difference of his organization,
which causes him to produce effects of which they are not capable. The
variety which we notice in the organs of individuals of the human race,
suffices to explain to us the difference which is often found between them
in regard to the intellectual faculties. More or less of delicacy in these
organs, of heat in the blood, of promptitude in the fluids, more or less
of suppleness or of rigidity in the fibers and the nerves, must
necessarily produce the infinite diversities which are noticeable in the
minds of men. It is by exercise, by habitude, by education, that the human
mind is developed and succeeds in rising above the beings which surround
it; man, without culture and without experience, is a being as devoid of
reason and of industry as the brute. A stupid individual is a man whose
organs are acted upon with difficulty, whose brain is hard to move, whose
blood circulates slowly; a man of mind is he whose organs are supple, who
feels very quickly, whose brain moves promptly; a learned man is one whose
organs and whose brain have been exercised a long while upon objects which
occupy him.

The man without culture, experience, or reason, is he not more despicable
and more abominable than the vilest insects, or the most ferocious beasts?
Is there a more detestable being in nature than a Tiberius, a Nero, a
Caligula? These destroyers of the human race, known by the name of
conquerors, have they better souls than those of bears, lions, and
panthers? Are there more detestable animals in this world than tyrants?

XCVII.—REFUTATION OF MAN’S EXCELLENCE.

Human extravagances soon dispel, in the eyes of reason, the superiority
which man arrogantly claims over other animals. Do we not see many animals
show more gentleness, more reflection and reason than the animal which
calls itself reasonable par excellence? Are there amongst men, who are so
often enslaved and oppressed, societies as well organized as those of
ants, bees, or beavers? Do we ever see ferocious beasts of the same kind
meet upon the plains to devour each other without profit? Do we see among
them religious wars? The cruelty of beasts against other species is caused
by hunger, the need of nourishment; the cruelty of man against man has no
other motive than the vanity of his masters and the folly of his
impertinent prejudices. Theorists who try to make us believe that
everything in the universe was made for man, are very much embarrassed
when we ask them in what way can so many mischievous animals which
continually infest our life here, contribute to the welfare of men. What
known advantage results for God’s friend to be bitten by a viper, stung by
a gnat, devoured by vermin, torn into pieces by a tiger? Would not all
these animals reason as wisely as our theologians, if they should pretend
that man was made for them?

XCVIII.—AN ORIENTAL LEGEND.

At a short distance from Bagdad a dervis, celebrated for his holiness,
passed his days tranquilly in agreeable solitude. The surrounding
inhabitants, in order to have an interest in his prayers, eagerly brought
to him every day provisions and presents. The holy man thanked God
incessantly for the blessings Providence heaped upon him. “O Allah,” said
he, “how ineffable is Thy tenderness toward Thy servants. What have I done
to deserve the benefactions which Thy liberality loads me with! Oh,
Monarch of the skies! oh, Father of nature! what praises could be worthy
to celebrate Thy munificence and Thy paternal cares! O Allah, how great
are Thy gifts to the children of men!” Filled with gratitude, our hermit
made a vow to undertake for the seventh time the pilgrimage to Mecca. The
war, which then existed between the Persians and the Turks, could not make
him defer the execution of his pious enterprise. Full of confidence in
God, he began his journey; under the inviolable safeguard of a respected
garb, he passed through without obstacle the enemies’ detachments; far
from being molested, he receives at every step marks of veneration from
the soldiers of both sides. At last, overcome by fatigue, he finds himself
obliged to seek a shelter from the rays of the burning sun; he finds it
beneath a fresh group of palm-trees, whose roots were watered by a limpid
rivulet. In this solitary place, where the silence was broken only by the
murmuring of the waters and the singing of the birds, the man of God found
not only an enchanting retreat, but also a delicious repast; he had but to
extend the hand to gather dates and other agreeable fruits; the rivulet
can appease his thirst; very soon a green plot invites him to take sweet
repose. As he awakens he performs the holy cleansing; and in a transport
of ecstasy, he exclaimed: “O Allah! HOW GREAT IS THY GOODNESS TO THE
CHILDREN OF MEN!” Well rested, refreshed, full of life and gayety, our
holy man continues on his road; it conducts him for some time through a
delightful country, which offers to his sight but blooming shores and
trees filled with fruit. Softened by this spectacle, he worships
incessantly the rich and liberal hand of Providence, which is everywhere
seen occupied with the welfare of the human race. Going a little farther,
he comes across a few mountains, which were quite hard to ascend; but
having arrived at their summit, a hideous sight suddenly meets his eyes;
his soul is all consternation. He discovers a vast plain entirely
devastated by the sword and fire; he looks at it and finds it covered with
more than a hundred thousand corpses, deplorable remains of a bloody
battle which had taken place a few days previous. Eagles, vultures,
ravens, and wolves were devouring the dead bodies with which the earth was
covered. This sight plunges our pilgrim into a sad reverie. Heaven, by a
special favor, had made him understand the language of beasts. He heard a
wolf, gorged with human flesh, exclaim in his excessive joy: “O Allah! how
great is Thy kindness for the children of wolves! Thy foreseeing wisdom
takes care to send infatuation upon these detestable men who are so
dangerous to us. Through an effect of Thy Providence which watches over
Thy creatures, these, our destroyers, murder each other, and thus furnish
us with sumptuous repasts. O Allah! HOW GREAT IS THY GOODNESS TO THE
CHILDREN OF WOLVES!”

XCIX.—IT IS FOOLISH TO SEE IN THE UNIVERSE ONLY THE BENEFACTIONS OF
HEAVEN, AND TO BELIEVE THAT THIS UNIVERSE WAS MADE BUT FOR MAN.

An exalted imagination sees in the universe but the benefactions of
Heaven; a calm mind finds good and evil in it. I exist, you will say; but
is this existence always a benefit? You will say, look at this sun, which
shines for you; this earth, which is covered with fruits and verdure;
these flowers, which bloom for our sight and smell; these trees, which
bend beneath the weight of fruits; these pure streams, which flow but to
quench your thirst; these seas, which embrace the universe to facilitate
your commerce; these animals, which a foreseeing nature produces for your
use! Yes, I see all these things, and I enjoy them when I can. But in some
climates this beautiful sun is most always obscured from me; in others,
its excessive heat torments me, produces storm, gives rise to dreadful
diseases, dries up the fields; the meadows have no grass, the trees are
fruitless, the harvests are scorched, the springs are dried up; I can
scarcely exist, and I sigh under the cruelty of a nature which you find so
benevolent. If these seas bring me spices, riches, and useless things, do
they not destroy a multitude of mortals who are dupes enough to go after
them?

Man’s vanity persuades him that he is the sole center of the universe; he
creates for himself a world and a God; he thinks himself of sufficient
consequence to derange nature at his will, but he reasons as an atheist
when the question of other animals is involved. Does he not imagine that
the individuals different from his species are automatons unworthy of the
cares of universal Providence, and that the beasts can not be the objects
of its justice and kindness? Mortals consider fortunate or unfortunate
events, health or sickness, life and death, abundance or famine, as
rewards or punishments for the use or misuse of the liberty which they
arrogate to themselves. Do they reason on this principle when animals are
taken into consideration? No; although they see them under a just God
enjoy and suffer, be healthy and sick, live and die, like themselves, it
does not enter their mind to ask what crimes these beasts have committed
in order to cause the displeasure of the Arbiter of nature. Philosophers,
blinded by their theological prejudices, in order to disembarrass
themselves, have gone so far as to pretend that beasts have no feelings!

Will men never renounce their foolish pretensions? Will they not recognize
that nature was not made for them? Will they not see that this nature has
placed on equal footing all the beings which she produced? Will they not
see that all organized beings are equally made to be born and to die, to
enjoy and to suffer? Finally, instead of priding themselves preposterously
on their mental faculties, are they not compelled to admit that they often
render them more unhappy than the beasts, in which we find neither
opinions, prejudices, vanities, nor the weaknesses which decide at every
moment the well-being of men?

C.—WHAT IS THE SOUL? WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT. IF THIS PRETENDED
SOUL WAS OF ANOTHER ESSENCE FROM THAT OF THE BODY, THEIR UNION WOULD BE
IMPOSSIBLE.

The superiority which men arrogate to themselves over other animals, is
principally founded upon the opinion of possessing exclusively an immortal
soul. But as soon as we ask what this soul is, they begin to stammer. It
is an unknown substance; it is a secret force distinguished from their
bodies; it is a spirit of which they can form no idea. Ask them how this
spirit, which they suppose like their God, totally deprived of a physical
substance, could combine itself with their material bodies? They will tell
you that they know nothing about it; that it is a mystery to them; that
this combination is the effect of the Almighty power. These are the clear
ideas which men form of the hidden, or, rather, imaginary substance which
they consider the motor of all their actions! If the soul is a substance
essentially different from the body, and which can have no affinity with
it, their union would be, not a mystery, but a thing impossible. Besides,
this soul, being of an essence different from that of the body, ought to
act necessarily in a different way from it. However, we see that the
movements of the body are felt by this pretended soul, and that these two
substances, so different in essence, always act in harmony. You will tell
us that this harmony is a mystery; and I will tell you that I do not see
my soul, that I know and feel but my body; that it is my body which feels,
which reflects, which judges, which suffers, and which enjoys, and that
all of its faculties are the necessary results of its own mechanism or of
its organization.

CI.—THE EXISTENCE OF A SOUL IS AN ABSURD SUPPOSITION, AND THE
EXISTENCE OF AN IMMORTAL SOUL IS A STILL MORE ABSURD SUPPOSITION.

Although it is impossible for men to have the least idea of the soul, or
of this pretended spirit which animates them, they persuade themselves,
however, that this unknown soul is exempt from death; everything proves to
them that they feel, think, acquire ideas, enjoy or suffer, but by the
means of the senses or of the material organs of the body. Even admitting
the existence of this soul, one can not refuse to recognize that it
depends wholly on the body, and suffers conjointly with it all the
vicissitudes which it experiences itself; and however it is imagined that
it has by its nature nothing analogous with it; it is pretended that it
can act and feel without the assistance of this body; that deprived of
this body and robbed of its senses, this soul will be able to live, to
enjoy, to suffer, be sensitive of enjoyment or of rigorous torments. Upon
such a tissue of conjectural absurdities the wonderful opinion of the
immortality of the soul is built.

If I ask what ground we have for supposing that the soul is immortal: they
reply, it is because man by his nature desires to be immortal, or to live
forever. But I rejoin, if you desire anything very much, is it sufficient
to conclude that this desire will be fulfilled? By what strange logic do
they decide that a thing can not fail to happen because they ardently
desire it to happen? Man’s childish desires of the imagination, are they
the measure of reality? Impious people, you say, deprived of the
flattering hopes of another life, desire to be annihilated. Well, have
they not just as much right to conclude by this desire that they will be
annihilated, as you to conclude that you will exist forever because you
desire it?

CII.—IT IS EVIDENT THAT THE WHOLE OF MAN DIES.

Man dies entirely. Nothing is more evident to him who is not delirious.
The human body, after death, is but a mass, incapable of producing any
movements the union of which constitutes life. We no longer see
circulation, respiration, digestion, speech, or reflection. It is claimed
then that the soul has separated itself from the body. But to say that
this soul, which is unknown, is the principle of life, is saying nothing,
unless that an unknown force is the invisible principle of imperceptible
movements. Nothing is more natural and more simple than to believe that
the dead man lives no more, nothing more absurd than to believe that the
dead man is still living.

We ridicule the simplicity of some nations whose fashion is to bury
provisions with the dead—under the idea that this food might be
useful and necessary to them in another life. Is it more ridiculous or
more absurd to believe that men will eat after death than to imagine that
they will think; that they will have agreeable or disagreeable ideas; that
they will enjoy; that they will suffer; that they will be conscious of
sorrow or joy when the organs which produce sensations or ideas are
dissolved and reduced to dust? To claim that the souls of men will be
happy or unhappy after the death of the body, is to pretend that man will
be able to see without eyes, to hear without ears, to taste without a
palate, to smell without a nose, and to feel without hands and without
skin. Nations who believe themselves very rational, adopt, nevertheless,
such ideas.

CIII.—INCONTESTABLE PROOFS AGAINST THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE SOUL.

The dogma of the immortality of the soul assumes that the soul is a simple
substance, a spirit; but I will always ask, what is a spirit? It is, you
say, a substance deprived of expansion, incorruptible, and which has
nothing in common with matter. But if this is true, how came your soul
into existence? how did it grow? how did it strengthen? how weaken itself,
get out of order, and grow old with your body? In reply to all these
questions, you say that they are mysteries; but if they are mysteries, you
understand nothing about them. If you do not understand anything about
them, how can you positively affirm anything about them? In order to
believe or to affirm anything, it is necessary at least to know what that
consists of which we believe and which we affirm. To believe in the
existence of your immaterial soul, is to say that you are persuaded of the
existence of a thing of which it is impossible for you to form any true
idea; it is to believe in words without attaching any sense to them; to
affirm that the thing is as you claim, is the highest folly or assumption.

CIV.—THE ABSURDITY OF SUPERNATURAL CAUSES, WHICH THEOLOGIANS
CONSTANTLY CALL TO THEIR AID.

Are not theologians strange reasoners? As soon as they can not guess the
natural causes of things, they invent causes, which they call
supernatural; they imagine them spirits, occult causes, inexplicable
agents, or rather words much more obscure than the things which they
attempt to explain. Let us remain in nature when we desire to understand
its phenomena; let us ignore the causes which are too delicate to be
seized by our organs; and let us be assured that by seeking outside of
nature we can never find the solution of nature’s problems. Even upon the
theological hypothesis—that is to say, supposing an Almighty motor
in matter—what right have theologians to refuse their God the power
to endow this matter with thought? Would it be more difficult for Him to
create combinations of matter from which results thought, than spirits
which think? At least, in supposing a substance endowed with thought, we
could form some idea of the object of our thoughts, or of what thinks in
us; while attributing thought to an immaterial being, it is impossible for
us to form the least idea of it.

CV.—IT IS FALSE THAT MATERIALISM CAN BE DEBASING TO THE HUMAN RACE.

Materialism, it is objected, makes of man a mere machine, which is
considered very debasing to the human race. But will the human race be
more honored when it can be said that man acts by the secret impulsions of
a spirit, or a certain something which animates him without his knowing
how? It is easy to perceive that the superiority which is given to mind
over matter, or to the soul over the body, is based upon the ignorance of
the nature of this soul; while we are more familiarized with matter or the
body, which we imagine we know, and of which we believe we have understood
the springs; but the most simple movements of our bodies are, for every
thinking man, enigmas as difficult to divine as thought.

CVI.—CONTINUATION.

The esteem which so many people have for the spiritual substance, appears
to result from the impossibility they find in defining it in an
intelligible way. The contempt which our metaphysicians show for matter,
comes from the fact that “familiarity breeds contempt.” When they tell us
that the soul is more excellent and noble than the body, they tell us
nothing, except that what they know nothing about must be more beautiful
than that of which they have some faint ideas.

CVII.—THE DOGMA OF ANOTHER LIFE IS USEFUL BUT FOR THOSE WHO PROFIT
BY IT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE CREDULOUS PUBLIC.

We are constantly told of the usefulness of the dogma of life hereafter.
It is pretended that even if it should be a fiction, it is advantageous,
because it imposes upon men and leads them to virtue. But is it true that
this dogma renders men wiser and more virtuous? The nations where this
fiction is established, are they remarkable for the morality of their
conduct? Is not the visible world always preferred to the invisible world?
If those who are charged to instruct and to govern men had themselves
enlightenment and virtue, they would govern them far better by realities
than by vain chimeras; but deceitful, ambitious, and corrupt, the
legislators found it everywhere easier to put the nations to sleep by
fables than to teach them truths; than to develop their reason; than to
excite them to virtue by sensible and real motives; than to govern them in
a reasonable way.

Theologians, no doubt, have had reasons for making the soul immaterial.
They needed souls and chimeras to populate the imaginary regions which
they have discovered in the other life. Material souls would have been
subjected, like all bodies, to dissolution. Moreover, if men believe that
everything is to perish with the body, the geographers of the other world
would evidently lose the chance of guiding their souls to this unknown
abode. They would draw no profits from the hopes with which they feast
them, and from the terrors with which they take care to overwhelm them. If
the future is of no real utility to the human race, it is at least of the
greatest advantage to those who take upon themselves the responsibility of
conducting mankind thither.

CVIII.—IT IS FALSE THAT THE DOGMA OF ANOTHER LIFE CAN BE CONSOLING;
AND IF IT WERE, IT WOULD BE NO PROOF THAT THIS ASSERTION IS TRUE.

But, it will be said, is not the dogma of the immortality of the soul
consoling for beings who often find themselves very unhappy here below? If
this should be an illusion, is it not a sweet and agreeable one? Is it not
a benefit for man to believe that he can live again and enjoy, sometime,
the happiness which is refused to him on earth? Thus, poor mortals! you
make your wishes the measure of the truth! Because you desire to live
forever, and to be happier, you conclude from thence that you will live
forever, and that you will be more fortunate in an unknown world than in
the known world, in which you so often suffer! Consent, then, to leave
without regret this world, which causes more trouble than pleasure to the
majority of you. Resign yourselves to the order of destiny, which decrees
that you, like all other beings, should not endure forever. But what will
become of me? you ask! What you were several millions of years ago. You
were then, I do not know what; resign yourselves, then, to become again in
an instant, I do not know what; what you were then; return peaceably to
the universal home from which you came without your knowledge into your
material form, and pass by without murmuring, like all the beings which
surround you!

We are repeatedly told that religious ideas offer infinite consolation to
the unfortunate; it is pretended that the idea of the immortality of the
soul and of a happier life has a tendency to lift up the heart of man and
to sustain him in the midst of the adversities with which he is assailed
in this life. Materialism, on the contrary, is, we are told, an afflicting
system, tending to degrade man, which ranks him among brutes; which
destroys his courage, whose only hope is complete annihilation, tending to
lead him to despair, and inducing him to commit suicide as soon as he
suffers in this world. The grand policy of theologians is to blow hot and
to blow cold, to afflict and to console, to frighten and to reassure.

According to the fictions of theology, the regions of the other life are
happy and unhappy. Nothing more difficult than to render one worthy of the
abode of felicity; nothing easier than to obtain a place in the abode of
torments that Divinity prepares for the unfortunate victims of His eternal
fury. Those who find the idea of another life so flattering and so sweet,
have they then forgotten that this other life, according to them, is to be
accompanied by torments for the majority of mortals? Is not the idea of
total annihilation infinitely preferable to the idea of an eternal
existence accompanied with suffering and gnashing of teeth? The fear of
ceasing to exist, is it more afflicting than the thought of having not
always been? The fear of ceasing to be is but an evil for the imagination,
which alone brought forth the dogma of another life.

You say, O Christian philosophers, that the idea of a happier life is
delightful; we agree; there is no one who would not desire a more
agreeable and a more durable existence than the one we enjoy here below.
But, if Paradise is tempting, you will admit, also, that hell is
frightful. It is very difficult to merit heaven, and very easy to gain
hell. Do you not say that one straight and narrow path leads to the happy
regions, and that a broad road leads to the regions of the unhappy? Do you
not constantly tell us that the number of the chosen ones is very small,
and that of the damned is very large? Do we not need, in order to be
saved, such grace as your God grants to but few? Well! I tell you that
these ideas are by no means consoling; I prefer to be annihilated at once
rather than to burn forever; I will tell you that the fate of beasts
appears to me more desirable than the fate of the damned; I will tell you
that the belief which delivers me from overwhelming fears in this world,
appears to me more desirable than the uncertainty in which I am left
through belief in a God who, master of His favors, gives them but to His
favorites, and who permits all the others to render themselves worthy of
eternal punishments. It can be but blind enthusiasm or folly that can
prefer a system which evidently encourages improbable conjectures,
accompanied by uncertainty and desolating fear.

CIX.—ALL RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES ARE IMAGINARY. INNATE SENSE IS BUT THE
EFFECT OF A ROOTED HABIT. GOD IS AN IDLE FANCY, AND THE QUALITIES WHICH
ARE LAVISHED UPON HIM DESTROY EACH OTHER.

All religious principles are a thing of imagination, in which experience
and reason have nothing to do. We find much difficulty in conquering them,
because imagination, when once occupied in creating chimeras which
astonish or excite it, is incapable of reasoning. He who combats religion
and its phantasies by the arms of reason, is like a man who uses a sword
to kill flies: as soon as the blow is struck, the flies and the fancies
return to the minds from which we thought to have banished them.

As soon as we refuse the proofs which theology pretends to give of the
existence of a God, they oppose to the arguments which destroy them, an
innate conviction, a profound persuasion, an invincible inclination
inherent in every man, which brings to him, in spite of himself, the idea
of an Almighty being which he can not altogether expel from his mind, and
which he is compelled to recognize in spite of the strongest reasons that
we can give him. But if we wish to analyze this innate conviction, upon
which so much weight is placed, we will find that it is but the effect of
a rooted habit, which, making them close their eyes against the most
demonstrative proofs, leads the majority of men, and often the most
enlightened ones, back to the prejudices of childhood. What can this
innate sense or this ill-founded persuasion prove against the evidence
which shows us that what implies contradiction can not exist?

We are told, very gravely, that it is not demonstrated that God does not
exist. However, nothing is better demonstrated, notwithstanding all that
men have told us so far, than that this God is an idle fancy, whose
existence is totally impossible, as nothing is more evident or more
clearly demonstrated than that a being can not combine qualities so
dissimilar, so contradictory, so irreconcilable as those which all the
religions of the earth ascribe to Divinity. The theologian’s God, as well
as the God of the theist, is He not evidently a cause incompatible with
the effects attributed to Him? In whatever light we may look upon it, we
must either invent another God, or conclude that the one which, for so
many centuries, has been revealed to mortals, is at the same time very
good and very wicked, very powerful and very weak, immutable and
changeable, perfectly intelligent and perfectly destitute of reason, of
plan, and of means; the friend of order and permitting disorder; very just
and very unjust; very skillful and very awkward. Finally, are we not
obliged to admit that it is impossible to reconcile the discordant
attributes which are heaped upon a being of whom we can not say a single
word without falling into the most palpable contradictions? Let us attempt
to attribute but a single quality to Divinity, and what is said of it will
be contradicted immediately by the effects we assign to this cause.

CX.—EVERY RELIGION IS BUT A SYSTEM IMAGINED FOR THE PURPOSE OF
RECONCILING CONTRADICTIONS BY THE AID OF MYSTERIES.

Theology could very properly be defined as the science of contradictions.
Every religion is but a system imagined for the purpose of reconciling
irreconcilable ideas. By the aid of habitude and terror, we come to
persist in the greatest absurdities, even when they are the most clearly
exposed. All religions are easy to combat, but very difficult to
eradicate. Reason can do nothing against habit, which becomes, as is said,
a second nature. There are many persons otherwise sensible, who, even
after having examined the ruinous foundations of their belief, return to
it in spite of the most striking arguments.

As soon as we complain of not understanding religion, finding in it at
every step absurdities which are repulsive, seeing in it but
impossibilities, we are told that we are not made to conceive the truths
of the religion which is proposed to us; that wandering reason is but an
unfaithful guide, only capable of conducting us to perdition; and what is
more, we are assured that what is folly in the eyes of man, is wisdom in
the eyes of God, to whom nothing is impossible. Finally, in order to
decide by a single word the most insurmountable difficulties which
theology presents to us on all sides, they simply cry out: “Mysteries!”

CXI.—ABSURDITY AND INUTILITY OF THE MYSTERIES FORGED IN THE SOLE
INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.

What is a mystery? If I examine the thing closely, I discover very soon
that a mystery is nothing but a contradiction, a palpable absurdity, a
notorious impossibility, on which theologians wish to compel men to humbly
close the eyes; in a word, a mystery is whatever our spiritual guides can
not explain to us.

It is advantageous for the ministers of religion that the people should
not comprehend what they are taught. It is impossible for us to examine
what we do not comprehend. Every time that we can not see clearly, we are
obliged to be guided. If religion was comprehensible, priests would not
have so many charges here below.

No religion is without mysteries; mystery is its essence; a religion
destitute of mysteries would be a contradiction of terms. The God which
serves as a foundation to natural religion, to theism or to deism, is
Himself the greatest mystery to a mind wishing to dwell upon Him.

CXII.—CONTINUATION.

All the revealed religions which we see in the world are filled with
mysterious dogmas, unintelligible principles, of incredible miracles, of
astonishing tales which seem imagined but to confound reason. Every
religion announces a concealed God, whose essence is a mystery;
consequently, it is just as difficult to conceive of His conduct as of the
essence of this God Himself. Divinity has never spoken to us but in an
enigmatical and mysterious way in the various religions which have been
founded in the different regions of our globe. It has revealed itself
everywhere but to announce mysteries, that is to say, to warn mortals that
it designs that they should believe in contradictions, in impossibilities,
or in things of which they were incapable of forming any positive idea.

The more mysteries a religion has, the more incredible objects it presents
to the mind, the better fitted it is to please the imagination of men, who
find in it a continual pasturage to feed upon. The more obscure a religion
is, the more it appears divine, that is to say, in conformity to the
nature of an invisible being, of whom we have no idea.

It is the peculiarity of ignorance to prefer the unknown, the concealed,
the fabulous, the wonderful, the incredible, even the terrible, to that
which is clear, simple, and true. Truth does not give to the imagination
such lively play as fiction, which each one may arrange as he pleases. The
vulgar ask nothing better than to listen to fables; priests and
legislators, by inventing religions and forging mysteries from them, have
served them to their taste. In this way they have attracted enthusiasts,
women, and the illiterate generally. Beings of this kind resign easily to
reasons which they are incapable of examining; the love of the simple and
the true is found but in the small number of those whose imagination is
regulated by study and by reflection. The inhabitants of a village are
never more pleased with their pastor than when he mixes a good deal of
Latin in his sermon. Ignorant men always imagine that he who speaks to
them of things which they do not understand, is a very wise and learned
man. This is the true principle of the credulity of nations, and of the
authority of those who pretend to guide them.

CXIII.—CONTINUATION.

To speak to men to announce to them mysteries, is to give and retain, it
is to speak not to be understood. He who talks but by enigmas, either
seeks to amuse himself by the embarrassment which he causes, or finds it
to his advantage not to explain himself too clearly. Every secret betrays
suspicion, weakness, and fear. Princes and their ministers make a mystery
of their projects for fear that their enemies in penetrating them would
cause them to fail. Can a good God amuse Himself by the embarrassment of
His creatures? A God who enjoys a power which nothing in the world can
resist, can He apprehend that His intentions could be thwarted? What
interest would He have in putting upon us enigmas and mysteries? We are
told that man, by the weakness of his nature, is not capable of
comprehending the Divine economy which can be to him but a tissue of
mysteries; that God can not unveil secrets to him which are beyond his
reach. In this case, I reply, that man is not made to trouble himself with
Divine economy, that this economy can not interest him in the least, that
he has no need of mysteries which he can not understand; finally, that a
mysterious religion is not made for him, any more than an eloquent
discourse is made for a flock of sheep.

CXIV.—A UNIVERSAL GOD SHOULD HAVE REVEALED A UNIVERSAL RELIGION.

Divinity has revealed itself in the different parts of our globe in a
manner of such little uniformity, that in matters of religion men look
upon each other with hatred and disdain. The partisans of the different
sects see each other very ridiculous and foolish. The most respected
mysteries in one religion are laughable for another. God, having revealed
Himself to men, ought at least to speak in the same language to all, and
relieve their weak minds of the embarrassment of seeking what can be the
religion which truly emanated from Him, or what is the most agreeable form
of worship in His eyes.

A universal God ought to have revealed a universal religion. By what
fatality are so many different religions found on the earth? Which is the
true one amongst the great number of those of which each one pretends to
be the right one, to the exclusion of all the others? We have every reason
to believe that not one of them enjoys this advantage. The divisions and
the disputes about opinions are indubitable signs of the uncertainty and
of the obscurity of the principles which they profess.

CXV.—THE PROOF THAT RELIGION IS NOT NECESSARY, IS THAT IT IS
UNINTELLIGIBLE.

If religion was necessary to all men, it ought to be intelligible to all
men. If this religion was the most important thing for them, the goodness
of God, it seems, ought to make it for them the clearest, the most
evident, and the best demonstrated of all things. Is it not astonishing to
see that this matter, so essential to the salvation of mortals, is
precisely the one which they understand the least, and about which, during
so many centuries, their doctors have disputed the most? Never have
priests, of even the same sect, come to an agreement among themselves
about the manner of understanding the wishes of a God who has truly
revealed Himself to them. The world which we inhabit can be compared to a
public place, in whose different parts several charlatans are placed, each
one straining himself to attract customers by depreciating the remedies
offered by his competitors. Each stand has its purchasers, who are
persuaded that their empiric alone possesses the good remedies;
notwithstanding the continual use which they make of them, they do not
perceive that they are no better, or that they are just as sick as those
who run after the charlatans of another stand. Devotion is a disease of
the imagination, contracted in infancy; the devotee is a hypochondriac,
who increases his disease by the use of remedies. The wise man takes none
of it; he follows a good regimen and leaves the rest to nature.

CXVI.—ALL RELIGIONS ARE RIDICULED BY THOSE OF OPPOSITE THOUGH
EQUALLY INSANE BELIEF.

Nothing appears more ridiculous in the eyes of a sensible man than for one
denomination to criticize another whose creed is equally foolish. A
Christian thinks that the Koran, the Divine revelation announced by
Mohammed, is but a tissue of impertinent dreams and impostures injurious
to Divinity. The Mohammedan, on his side, treats the Christian as an
idolater and a dog; he sees but absurdities in his religion; he imagines
he has the right to conquer his country and force him, sword in hand, to
accept the faith of his Divine prophet; he believes especially that
nothing is more impious or more unreasonable than to worship a man or to
believe in the Trinity. The Protestant Christian, who without scruple
worships a man, and who believes firmly in the inconceivable mystery of
the Trinity, ridicules the Catholic Christian because the latter believes
in the mystery of the transubstantiation. He treats him as a fool, as
ungodly and idolatrous, because he kneels to worship the bread in which he
believes he sees the God of the universe. All the Christian denominations
agree in considering as folly the incarnation of the God of the Indies,
Vishnu. They contend that the only true incarnation is that of Jesus, Son
of the God of the universe and of the wife of a carpenter. The theist, who
calls himself a votary of natural religion, is satisfied to acknowledge a
God of whom he has no conception; indulges himself in jesting upon other
mysteries taught by all the religions of the world.

CXVII.—OPINION OF A CELEBRATED THEOLOGIAN.

Did not a famous theologian recognize the absurdity of admitting the
existence of a God and arresting His course? “To us,” he said, “who
believe through faith in a true God, an individual substance, there ought
to be no trouble in believing everything else. This first mystery, which
is no small matter of itself, once admitted, our reason can not suffer
violence in admitting all the rest. As for myself, it is no more trouble
to accept a million of things that I do not understand, than to believe
the first one.”

Is there anything more contradictory, more impossible, or more mysterious,
than the creation of matter by an immaterial Being, who Himself immutable,
causes the continual changes that we see in the world? Is there anything
more incompatible with all the ideas of common sense than to believe that
a good, wise, equitable, and powerful Being presides over nature and
directs Himself the movements of a world which is filled with follies,
miseries, crimes, and disorders, which He could have foreseen, and by a
single word could have prevented or made to disappear? Finally, as soon as
we admit a Being so contradictory as the theological God, what right have
we to refuse to accept the most improbable fables, the most astonishing
miracles, the most profound mysteries?

CXVIII.—THE DEIST’S GOD IS NO LESS CONTRADICTORY, NO LESS FANCIFUL,
THAN THE THEOLOGIAN’S GOD.

The theist exclaims, “Be careful not to worship the ferocious and strange
God of theology; mine is much wiser and better; He is the Father of men;
He is the mildest of Sovereigns; it is He who fills the universe with His
benefactions!” But I will tell him, do you not see that everything in this
world contradicts the good qualities which you attribute to your God? In
the numerous family of this mild Father I see but unfortunate ones. Under
the empire of this just Sovereign I see crime victorious and virtue in
distress. Among these benefactions, which you boast of, and which your
enthusiasm alone sees, I see a multitude of evils of all kinds, upon which
you obstinately close your eyes.

Compelled to acknowledge that your good God, in contradiction with
Himself, distributes with the same hand good and evil, you will find
yourself obliged, in order to justify Him, to send me, as the priests
would, to the other life. Invent, then, another God than the one of
theology, because your God is as contradictory as its God is. A good God
who does evil or who permits it to be done, a God full of equity and in an
empire where innocence is so often oppressed; a perfect God who produces
but imperfect and wretched works; such a God and His conduct, are they not
as great mysteries as that of the incarnation? You blush, you say, for
your fellow beings who are persuaded that the God of the universe could
change Himself into a man and die upon a cross in a corner of Asia. You
consider the ineffable mystery of the Trinity very absurd Nothing appears
more ridiculous to you than a God who changes Himself into bread and who
is eaten every day in a thousand different places.

Well! are all these mysteries any more shocking to reason than a God who
punishes and rewards men’s actions? Man, according to your views, is he
free or not? In either case your God, if He has the shadow of justice, can
neither punish him nor reward him. If man is free, it is God who made him
free to act or not to act; it is God, then, who is the primitive cause of
all his actions; in punishing man for his faults, He would punish him for
having done that which He gave him the liberty to do. If man is not free
to act otherwise than he does, would not God be the most unjust of beings
to punish him for the faults which he could not help committing? Many
persons are struck with the detail of absurdities with which all religions
of the world are filled; but they have not the courage to seek for the
source whence these absurdities necessarily sprung. They do not see that a
God full of contradictions, of oddities, of incompatible qualities, either
inflaming or nursing the imagination of men, could create but a long line
of idle fancies.

CXIX.—WE DO NOT PROVE AT ALL THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD BY SAYING THAT
IN ALL AGES EVERY NATION HAS ACKNOWLEDGED SOME KIND OF DIVINITY.

They believe, to silence those who deny the existence of a God, by telling
them that all men, in all ages and in all centuries, have believed in some
kind of a God; that there is no people on the earth who have not believed
in an invisible and powerful being, whom they made the object of their
worship and of their veneration; finally, that there is no nation, no
matter how benighted we may suppose it to be, that is not persuaded of the
existence of some intelligence superior to human nature. But can the
belief of all men change an error into truth? A celebrated philosopher has
said with all reason: “Neither general tradition nor the unanimous consent
of all men could place any injunction upon truth.” [Bayle.] Another wise
man said before him, that “an army of philosophers would not be sufficient
to change the nature of error and to make it truth.” [Averroës]

There was a time when all men believed that the sun revolved around the
earth, while the latter remained motionless in the center of the whole
system of the universe; it is scarcely more than two hundred years since
this error was refuted. There was a time when nobody would believe in the
existence of antipodes, and when they persecuted those who had the courage
to sustain it; to-day no learned man dares to doubt it. All nations of the
world, except some men less credulous than others, still believe in
sorcerers, ghosts, apparitions, spirits; no sensible man imagines himself
obliged to adopt these follies; but the most sensible people feel obliged
to believe in a universal Spirit!

CXX.—ALL THE GODS ARE OF A BARBAROUS ORIGIN; ALL RELIGIONS ARE
ANTIQUE MONUMENTS OF IGNORANCE, SUPERSTITION, AND FEROCITY; AND MODERN
RELIGIONS ARE BUT ANCIENT FOLLIES REVIVED.

All the Gods worshiped by men have a barbarous origin; they were visibly
imagined by stupid nations, or were presented by ambitious and cunning
legislators to simple and benighted people, who had neither the capacity
nor the courage to examine properly the object which, by means of terrors,
they were made to worship. In examining closely the God which we see
adored still in our days by the most civilized nations, we are compelled
to acknowledge that He has evidently barbarous features. To be barbarous
is to recognize no right but force; it is being cruel to excess; it is but
following one’s own caprice; it is a lack of foresight, of prudence, and
reason. Nations, who believe yourselves civilized! do you not perceive
this frightful character of the God to whom you offer your incense? The
pictures which are drawn of Divinity, are they not visibly borrowed from
the implacable, jealous, vindictive, blood-thirsty, capricious,
inconsiderate humor of man, who has not yet cultivated his reason? Oh,
men! you worship but a great savage, whom you consider as a model to
follow, as an amiable master, as a perfect sovereign.

The religious opinions of men in every country are antique and durable
monuments of ignorance credulity, of the terrors and the ferocity of their
ancestors. Every barbarian is a child thirsting for the wonderful, which
he imbibes with pleasure, and who never reasons upon that which he finds
proper to excite his imagination; his ignorance of the ways of nature
makes him attribute to spirits, to enchantments, to magic, all that
appears to him extraordinary; in his eyes his priests are sorcerers, in
whom he supposes an Almighty power; before whom his confused reason
humiliates itself, whose oracles are for him infallible decrees, to
contradict which would be dangerous. In matters of religion the majority
of men have remained in their primitive barbarity. Modern religions are
but follies of old times rejuvenated or presented in some new form. If the
ancient barbarians have worshiped mountains, rivers, serpents, trees,
fetishes of every kind; if the wise Egyptians worshiped crocodiles, rats,
onions, do we not see nations who believe themselves wiser than they,
worship with reverence a bread, into which they imagine that the
enchantments of their priests cause the Divinity to descend? Is not the
God-bread the fetish of many Christian nations, as little rational in this
point as that of the most barbarous nations?

CXXI.—ALL RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES BEAR THE SEAL OF STUPIDITY OR
BARBARITY.

In all times the ferocity, the stupidity, the folly of savage men were
shown in religious customs which were often cruel and extravagant. A
spirit of barbarity has come down to our days; it intrudes itself into the
religions which are followed by the most civilized nations. Do we not
still see human victims offered to Divinity? In order to appease the wrath
of a God whom we suppose as ferocious, as jealous, as vindictive, as a
savage, do not sanguinary laws cause the destruction of those who are
believed to have displeased Him by their way of thinking?

Modern nations, at the instigation of their priests, have even excelled
the atrocious folly of the most barbarous nations; at least do we not find
that it never entered into a savage’s mind to torment for the sake of
opinions, to meddle in thought, to trouble men for the invisible actions
of their brains? When we see polished and wise nations, such as the
English, French, German, etc., notwithstanding all their enlightenment,
continue to kneel before the barbarous God of the Jews, that is to say, of
the most stupid, the most credulous, the most savage, the most unsocial
nation which ever was on the earth; when we see these enlightened nations
divide themselves into sects, tear one another, hate and despise each
other for opinions, equally ridiculous, upon the conduct and the
intentions of this irrational God; when we see intelligent persons occupy
themselves foolishly in meditating on the wishes of this capricious and
foolish God; we are tempted to exclaim, “Oh, men! you are still savages!
Oh, men! you are but children in the matter of religion!”

CXXII.—THE MORE ANCIENT AND GENERAL A RELIGIOUS OPINION IS, THE
GREATER THE REASON FOR SUSPECTING IT.

Whoever has formed true ideas of the ignorance, credulity, negligence, and
sottishness of common people, will always regard their religious opinions
with the greater suspicion for their being generally established. The
majority of men examine nothing; they allow themselves to be blindly led
by custom and authority; their religious opinions are specially those
which they have the least courage and capacity to examine; as they do not
understand anything about them, they are compelled to be silent or put an
end to their reasoning. Ask the common man if he believes in God. He will
be surprised that you could doubt it. Then ask him what he understands by
the word God. You will confuse him; you will perceive at once that he is
incapable of forming any real idea of this word which he so often repeats;
he will tell you that God is God, and you will find that he knows neither
what he thinks of Him, nor the motives which he has for believing in Him.

All nations speak of a God; but do they agree upon this God? No! Well,
difference of opinion does not serve as evidence, but is a sign of
uncertainty and obscurity. Does the same man always agree with himself in
his ideas of God? No! This idea varies with the vicissitudes of his life.
This is another sign of uncertainty. Men always agree with other men and
with themselves upon demonstrated truths, regardless of the position in
which they find themselves; except the insane, all agree that two and two
make four, that the sun shines, that the whole is greater than any one of
its parts, that Justice is a benefaction, that we must be benevolent to
deserve the love of men, that injustice and cruelty are incompatible with
goodness. Do they agree in the same way if they speak of God? All that
they think or say of Him is immediately contradicted by the effects which
they wish to attribute to Him. Tell several artists to paint a chimera,
each of them will form different ideas of it, and will paint it
differently; you will find no resemblance in the features each of them
will have given to a portrait whose model exists nowhere. In painting God,
do any of the theologians of the world represent Him otherwise than as a
great chimera, upon whose features they never agree, each one arranging it
according to his style, which has its origin but in his own brain? There
are no two individuals in the world who have or can have the same ideas of
their God.

CXXIII.—SKEPTICISM IN THE MATTER OF RELIGION, CAN BE THE EFFECT OF
BUT A SUPERFICIAL EXAMINATION OF THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES.

Perhaps it would be more truthful to say, that all men are either skeptics
or atheists, than to pretend that they are firmly convinced of the
existence of a God. How can we be assured of the existence of a being whom
we never have been able to examine, of whom it is impossible to form any
permanent idea, whose different effects upon ourselves prevent us from
forming an invariable judgment, of whom no idea can be uniform in two
different brains? How can we claim to be completely persuaded of the
existence of a being to whom we are constantly obliged to attribute a
conduct opposed co the ideas which we had tried to form of it? Is it
possible firmly to believe what we can not conceive? In believing thus,
are we not adhering to the opinions of others without having one of our
own? The priests regulate the belief of the vulgar; but do not these
priests themselves acknowledge that God is incomprehensible to them? Let
us conclude, then, that the conviction of the existence of a God is not as
general as it is affirmed to be.

To be a skeptic, is to lack the motives necessary to establish a judgment.
In view of the proofs which seem to establish, and of the arguments which
combat the existence of a God, some persons prefer to doubt and to suspend
their judgment; but at the bottom, this uncertainty is the result of an
insufficient examination. Is it, then, possible to doubt evidence?
Sensible people deride, and with reason, an absolute pyrrhonism, and even
consider it impossible. A man who could doubt his own existence, or that
of the sun, would appear very ridiculous, or would be suspected of
reasoning in bad faith. Is it less extravagant to have uncertainties about
the non-existence of an evidently impossible being? Is it more absurd to
doubt of one’s own existence, than to hesitate upon the impossibility of a
being whose qualities destroy each other? Do we find more probabilities
for believing in a spiritual being than for believing in the existence of
a stick without two ends? Is the notion of an infinitely good and powerful
being who permits an infinity of evils, less absurd or less impossible
than that of a square triangle?

Let us conclude, then, that religious skepticism can be but the effect of
a superficial examination of theological principles, which are in a
perpetual contradiction of the clearest and best demonstrated principles!
To doubt is to deliberate upon the judgment which we should pass.
Skepticism is but a state of indecision which results from a superficial
examination of subjects. Is it possible to be skeptical in the matter of
religion when we design to return to its principles, and look closely into
the idea of the God who serves as its foundation? Doubt arises ordinarily
from laziness, weakness, indifference, or incapacity. To doubt, for many
people, is to dread the trouble of examining things to which one attaches
but little interest. Although religion is presented to men as the most
important thing for them in this world as well as in the other, skepticism
and doubt on this subject can be for the mind but a disagreeable state,
and offers but a comfortable cushion. No man who has not the courage to
contemplate without prejudice the God upon whom every religion is founded,
can know what religion to accept; he does not know what to believe and
what not to believe, to accept or to reject, what to hope or fear;
finally, he is incompetent to judge for himself.

Indifference upon religion can not be confounded with skepticism; this
indifference itself is founded upon the assurance or upon the probability
which we find in believing that religion is not made to interest us. The
persuasion which we have that a thing which is presented to us as very
important, is not so, or is but indifferent, supposes a sufficient
examination of the thing, without which it would be impossible to have
this persuasion. Those who call themselves skeptics in regard to the
fundamental points of religion, are generally but idle and lazy men, who
are incapable of examining them.

CXXIV.—REVELATION REFUTED.

In all parts of the world, we are assured that God revealed Himself. What
did He teach men? Does He prove to them evidently that He exists? Does He
tell them where He resides? Does He teach them what He is, or of what His
essence consists? Does He explain to them clearly His intentions and His
plan? What He says of this plan, does it agree with the effects which we
see? No! He informs us only that “He is the One that is,” [I am that I am,
saith the Lord] that He is an invincible God, that His ways are ineffable,
that He becomes furious as soon as one has the temerity to penetrate His
decrees, or to consult reason in order to judge of Him or His works. Does
the revealed conduct of God correspond with the magnificent ideas which
are given to us of His wisdom, goodness, justice, of His omnipotence? Not
at all; in every revelation this conduct shows a partial, capricious
being, at least, good to His favorite people, an enemy to all others. If
He condescends to show Himself to some men, He takes care to keep all the
others in invincible ignorance of His divine intentions. Does not every
special revelation announce an unjust, partial, and malicious God?

Are the revealed wishes of a God capable of striking us by the sublime
reason or the wisdom which they contain? Do they tend to the happiness of
the people to whom Divinity has declared them? Examining the Divine
wishes, I find in them, in all countries, but whimsical ordinances,
ridiculous precepts, ceremonies of which we do not understand the aim,
puerile practices, principles of conduct unworthy of the Monarch of
Nature, offerings, sacrifices, expiations, useful, in fact, to the
ministers of God, but very onerous to the rest of mankind. I find also,
that they often have a tendency to render men unsocial, disdainful,
intolerant, quarrelsome, unjust, inhuman toward all those who have not
received either the same revelations as they, or the same ordinances, or
the same favors from Heaven.

CXXV.—WHERE, THEN, IS THE PROOF THAT GOD DID EVER SHOW HIMSELF TO
MEN OR SPEAK TO THEM?

Are the precepts of morality as announced by Divinity truly Divine, or
superior to those which every rational man could imagine? They are Divine
only because it is impossible for the human mind to see their utility.
Their virtue consists in a total renunciation of human nature, in a
voluntary oblivion of one’s reason, in a holy hatred of self; finally,
these sublime precepts show us perfection in a conduct cruel to ourselves
and perfectly useless to others.

How did God show Himself? Did He Himself promulgate His laws? Did He speak
to men with His own mouth? I am told that God did not show Himself to a
whole nation, but that He employed always the organism of a few favored
persons, who took the care to teach and to explain His intentions to the
unlearned. It was never permitted to the people to go to the sanctuary;
the ministers of the Gods always alone had the right to report to them
what transpired.

CXXVI.—NOTHING ESTABLISHES THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES.

If, in the economy of all Divine revelations, I am unable to recognize
either the wisdom, the goodness, or the equity of a God; if I suspect
deceit, ambition, selfish designs in the great personages who have
interposed between Heaven and us, I am assured that God has confirmed, by
splendid miracles, the mission of those who have spoken for Him. But was
it not much easier to show Himself, and to explain for Himself? On the
other hand, if I have the curiosity to examine these miracles, I find that
they are tales void of probability, related by suspicious people, who had
the greatest interest in making others believe that they were sent from
the Most High.

What witnesses are referred to in order to make us believe incredible
miracles? They call as witnesses stupid people, who have ceased to exist
for thousands of years, and who, even if they could attest the miracles in
question, would be suspected of having been deceived by their own
imagination, and of permitting themselves to be seduced by the illusions
which skillful impostors performed before their eyes. But, you will say,
these miracles are recorded in books which through constant tradition have
been handed down to us. By whom were these books written? Who are the men
who have transmitted and perpetuated them? They are either the same people
who established these religions, or those who have become their adherents
and their assistants. Thus, in the matter of religion, the testimony of
interested parties is irrefragable and can not be contested!

CXXVII.—IF GOD HAD SPOKEN, IT WOULD BE STRANGE THAT HE HAD SPOKEN
DIFFERENTLY TO ALL THE ADHERENTS OF THE DIFFERENT SECTS, WHO DAMN EACH
OTHER, WHO ACCUSE EACH OTHER, WITH REASON, OF SUPERSTITION AND IMPIETY.

God has spoken differently to each nation of the globe which we inhabit.
The Indian does not believe one word of what He said to the Chinaman; the
Mohammedan considers what He has told to the Christian as fables; the Jew
considers the Mohammedan and the Christian as sacrilegious corruptors of
the Holy Law, which his God has given to his fathers. The Christian, proud
of his more modern revelation, equally damns the Indian and the Chinaman,
the Mohammedan, and even the Jew, whose holy books he holds. Who is wrong
or right? Each one exclaims: “It is I!” Every one claims the same proofs;
each one speaks of his miracles, his saints, his prophets, his martyrs.
Sensible men answer, that they are all delirious; that God has not spoken,
if it is true that He is a Spirit who has neither mouth nor tongue; that
the God of the Universe could, without borrowing mortal organism, inspire
His creatures with what He desired them to learn, and that, as they are
all equally ignorant of what they ought to think about God, it is evident
that God did not want to instruct them. The adherents of the different
forms of worship which we see established in this world, accuse each other
of superstition and of ungodliness. The Christians abhor the superstition
of the heathen, of the Chinese, of the Mohammedans. The Roman Catholics
treat the Protestant Christians as impious; the latter incessantly declaim
against Roman superstition. They are all right. To be impious, is to have
unjust opinions about the God who is adored; to be superstitious, is to
have false ideas of Him. In accusing each other of superstition, the
different religionists resemble humpbacks who taunt each other with their
malformation.

CXXVIII.—OBSCURE AND SUSPICIOUS ORIGIN OF ORACLES.

The oracles which the Deity has revealed to the nations through His
different mediums, are they clear? Alas! there are not two men who
understand them alike. Those who explain them to others do not agree among
themselves; in order to make them clear, they have recourse to
interpretations, to commentaries, to allegories, to parables, in which is
found a mystical sense very different from the literal one. Men are needed
everywhere to explain the wishes of God, who could not or would not
explain Himself clearly to those whom He desired to enlighten. God always
prefers to use as mediums men who can be suspected of having been deceived
themselves, or having reasons to deceive others.

CXXIX.—ABSURDITY OF PRETENDED MIRACLES.

The founders of all religions have usually proved their mission by
miracles. But what is a miracle? It is an operation directly opposed to
the laws of nature. But, according to you, who has made these laws? It is
God. Thus your God, who, according to you, has foreseen everything,
counteracts the laws which His wisdom had imposed upon nature! These laws
were then defective, or at least in certain circumstances they were but in
accordance with the views of this same God, for you tell us that He
thought He ought to suspend or counteract them.

An attempt is made to persuade us that men who have been favored by the
Most High have received from Him the power to perform miracles; but in
order to perform a miracle, it is necessary to have the faculty of
creating new causes capable of producing effects opposed to those which
ordinary causes can produce. Can we realize how God can give to men the
inconceivable power of creating causes out of nothing? Can it be believed
that an unchangeable God can communicate to man the power to change or
rectify His plan, a power which, according to His essence, an immutable
being can not have himself? Miracles, far from doing much honor to God,
far from proving the Divinity of religion, destroy evidently the idea
which is given to us of God, of His immutability, of His incommunicable
attributes, and even of His omnipotence. How can a theologian tell us that
a God who embraced at once the whole of His plan, who could make but
perfect laws, who can change nothing in them, should be obliged to employ
miracles to make His projects successful, or grant to His creatures the
faculty of performing prodigies, in order to execute His Divine will? Is
it probable that a God needs the support of men? An Omnipotent Being,
whose wishes are always gratified, a Being who holds in His hands the
hearts and the minds of His creatures, needs but to wish, in order to make
them believe all He desires.

CXXX.—REFUTATION OF PASCAL’S MANNER OF REASONING AS TO HOW WE SHOULD
JUDGE MIRACLES.

What should we say of religions that based their Divinity upon miracles
which they themselves cause to appear suspicious? How can we place any
faith in the miracles related in the Holy Books of the Christians, where
God Himself boasts of hardening hearts, of blinding those whom He wishes
to ruin; where this God permits wicked spirits and magicians to perform as
wonderful miracles as those of His servants; where it is prophesied that
the Anti-Christ will have the power to perform miracles capable of
destroying the faith even of the elect? This granted, how can we know
whether God wants to instruct us or to lay a snare for us? How can we
distinguish whether the wonders which we see, proceed from God or the
Devil? Pascal, in order to disembarrass us, says very gravely, that we
must judge the doctrine by miracles, and the miracles by the doctrine;
that doctrine judges the miracles, and the miracles judge the doctrine. If
there exists a defective and ridiculous circle, it is no doubt in this
fine reasoning of one of the greatest defenders of the Christian religion.
Which of all the religions in the world does not claim to possess the most
admirable doctrine, and which does not bring to its aid a great number of
miracles?

Is a miracle capable of destroying a demonstrated truth? Although a man
should have the secret of curing all diseases, of making the lame to walk,
of raising all the dead of a city, of floating in the air, of arresting
the course of the sun and of the moon, will he be able to convince me by
all this that two and two do not make four; that one makes three and that
three makes but one; that a God who fills the universe with His immensity,
could have transformed Himself into the body of a Jew; that the eternal
can perish like man; that an immutable, foreseeing, and sensible God could
have changed His opinion upon His religion, and reform His own work by a
new revelation?

CXXXI.—EVEN ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THEOLOGY ITSELF, EVERY
NEW REVELATION SHOULD BE REFUTED AS FALSE AND IMPIOUS.

According to the principles of theology itself, whether natural or
revealed, every new revelation ought to be considered false; every change
in a religion which had emanated from the Deity ought to be refuted as
ungodly and blasphemous. Does not every reform suppose that God did not
know how at the start to give His religion the required solidity and
perfection? To say that God in giving a first law accommodated Himself to
the gross ideas of a people whom He wished to enlighten, is to pretend
that God neither could nor would make the people whom He enlightened at
that time, as reasonable as they ought to be to please Him.

Christianity is an impiety, if it is true that Judaism as a religion
really emanated from a Holy, Immutable, Almighty, grid Foreseeing God.
Christ’s religion implies either defects in the law that God Himself gave
by Moses, or impotence or malice in this God who could not, or would not
make the Jews as they ought to be to please Him. All religions, whether
new, or ancient ones reformed, are evidently founded on the weakness, the
inconstancy, the imprudence, and the malice of the Deity.

CXXXII.—EVEN THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS, TESTIFIES AGAINST THE TRUTH
OF MIRACLES AND AGAINST THE DIVINE ORIGIN WHICH CHRISTIANITY CLAIMS.

If history informs me that the first apostles, founders or reformers of
religions, performed great miracles, history teaches me also that these
reforming apostles and their adherents have been usually despised,
persecuted, and put to death as disturbers of the peace of nations. I am
then tempted to believe that they have not performed the miracles
attributed to them. Finally, these miracles should have procured to them a
great number of disciples among those who witnessed them, who ought to
have prevented the performers from being maltreated. My incredulity
increases if I am told that the performers of miracles have been cruelly
tormented or slain. How can we believe that missionaries, protected by a
God, invested with His Divine Power, and enjoying the gift of miracles,
could not perform the simple miracle of escaping from the cruelty of their
persecutors?

Persecutions themselves are considered as a convincing proof in favor of
the religion of those who have suffered them; but a religion which boasts
of having caused the death of many martyrs, and which informs us that its
founders have suffered for its extension unheard-of torments, can not be
the religion of a benevolent, equitable, and Almighty God. A good God
would not permit that men charged with revealing His will should be
misused. An omnipotent God desiring to found a religion, would have
employed simpler and less fatal means for His most faithful servants. To
say that God desired that His religion should be sealed by blood, is to
say that this God is weak, unjust, ungrateful, and sanguinary, and that He
sacrifices unworthily His missionaries to the interests of His ambition.

CXXXIII.—THE FANATICISM OF THE MARTYRS, THE INTERESTED ZEAL OF
MISSIONARIES, PROVE IN NOWISE THE TRUTH OF RELIGION.

To die for a religion does not prove it true or Divine; this proves at
most that we suppose it to be so. An enthusiast in dying proves nothing
but that religious fanaticism is often stronger than the love of life. An
impostor can sometimes die with courage; he makes then, as is said, “a
virtue of necessity.” We are often surprised and affected at the sight of
the generous courage and the disinterested zeal which have led
missionaries to preach their doctrine at the risk even of suffering the
most rigorous torments. We draw from this love, which is exhibited for the
salvation of men, deductions favorable to the religion which they have
proclaimed; but in truth this disinterestedness is only apparent. “Nothing
ventured, nothing gained!” A missionary seeks fortune by the aid of his
doctrine; he knows that if he has the good fortune to retail his
commodity, he will become the absolute master of those who accept him as
their guide; he is sure to become the object of their care, of their
respect, of their veneration; he has every reason to believe that he will
be abundantly provided for. These are the true motives which kindle the
zeal and the charity of so many preachers and missionaries who travel all
over the world.

To die for an opinion, proves no more the truth or the soundness of this
opinion than to die in a battle proves the right of the prince, for whose
benefit so many people are foolish enough to sacrifice themselves. The
courage of a martyr, animated by the idea of Paradise, is not any more
supernatural than the courage of a warrior, inspired with the idea of
glory or held to duty by the fear of disgrace. What difference do we find
between an Iroquois who sings while he is burned by a slow fire, and the
martyr St. Lawrence, who while upon the gridiron insults his tyrant?

The preachers of a new doctrine succumb because they are not the
strongest; the apostles usually practice a perilous business, whose
consequences they can foresee; their courageous death does not prove any
more the truth of their principles or their own sincerity, than the
violent death of an ambitious man or a brigand proves that they had the
right to trouble society, or that they believed themselves authorized to
do it. A missionary’s profession has been always flattering to his
ambition, and has enabled him to subsist at the expense of the common
people; these advantages have been sufficient to make him forget the
dangers which are connected with it.

CXXXIV.—THEOLOGY MAKES OF ITS GOD AN ENEMY OF COMMON SENSE AND OF
ENLIGHTENMENT.

You tell us, O theologians! that “what is folly in the eyes of men, is
wisdom before God, who is pleased to confound the wisdom of the wise.” But
do you not pretend that human wisdom is a gift from Heaven? In telling us
that this wisdom displeases God, is but folly in His eyes, and that He
wishes to confound it, you proclaim that your God is but the friend of
unenlightened people, and that He makes to sensible people a fatal gift,
for which this perfidious Tyrant promises to punish them cruelly some day.
Is it not very strange that we can not be the friend of your God but by
declaring ourselves the enemy of reason and common sense?

CXXXV.—FAITH IS IRRECONCILABLE WITH REASON, AND REASON IS PREFERABLE
TO FAITH.

Faith, according to theologians, is consent without evidence. From this it
follows that religion exacts that we should firmly believe, without
evidence, in propositions which are often improbable or opposed to reason.
But to challenge reason as a judge of faith, is it not acknowledging that
reason can not agree with faith? As the ministers of religion have
determined to banish reason, they must have felt the impossibility of
reconciling reason with faith, which is visibly but a blind submission to
those priests whose authority, in many minds, appears to be of a greater
importance than evidence itself, and preferable to the testimony of the
senses. “Sacrifice your reason; give up experience; distrust the testimony
of your senses; submit without examination to all that is given to you as
coming from Heaven.” This is the usual language of all the priests of the
world; they do not agree upon any point, except in the necessity of never
reasoning when they present principles to us which they claim as the most
important to our happiness.

I will not sacrifice my reason, because this reason alone enables me to
distinguish good from evil, the true from the false. If, as you pretend,
my reason comes from God, I will never believe that a God whom you call so
good, had ever given me reason but as a snare, in order to lead me to
perdition. Priests! in crying down reason, do you not see that you slander
your God, who, as you assure us, has given us this reason?

I will not give up experience, because it is a much better guide than
imagination, or than the authority of the guides whom they wish to give
me. This experience teaches me that enthusiasm and interest can blind and
mislead them, and that the authority of experience ought to have more
weight upon my mind than the suspicious testimony of many men whom I know
to be capable of deceiving themselves, or very much interested in
deceiving others.

I will not distrust my senses. I do not ignore the fact that they can
sometimes lead me into error; but on the other hand, I know that they do
not deceive me always. I know very well that the eye shows the sun much
smaller than it really is; but experience, which is only the repeated
application of the senses, teaches me that objects continually diminish by
reason of their distance; it is by these means that I reach the conclusion
that the sun is much larger than the earth; it is thus that my senses
suffice to rectify the hasty judgments which they induced me to form. In
warning me to doubt the testimony of my senses, you destroy for me the
proofs of all religion. If men can be dupes of their imagination, if their
senses are deceivers, why would you have me believe in the miracles which
made an impression upon the deceiving senses of our ancestors? If my
senses are faithless guides, I learn that I should not have faith even in
the miracles which I might see performed under my own eyes.

CXXXVI.—HOW ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS IS THE SOPHISTRY OF THOSE WHO WISH
TO SUBSTITUTE FAITH FOR REASON.

You tell me continually that the “truths of religion are beyond reason.”
Do you not admit, then, that these truths are not made for reasonable
beings? To pretend that reason can deceive us, is to say that truth can be
false, that usefulness can be injurious. Is reason anything else but the
knowledge of the useful and the true? Besides, as we have but our reason,
which is more or less exercised, and our senses, such as they are, to lead
us in this life, to claim that reason is an unsafe guide, and that our
senses are deceivers, is to tell us that our errors are necessary, that
our ignorance is invincible, and that, without extreme injustice, God can
not punish us for having followed the only guides which He desired to give
us. To pretend that we are obliged to believe in things which are beyond
our reason, is an assertion as ridiculous as to say that God would compel
us to fly without wings. To claim that there are objects on which reason
should not be consulted, is to say that in the most important affairs, we
must consult but imagination, or act by chance.

Our Doctors of Divinity tell us that we ought to sacrifice our reason to
God; but what motives can we have for sacrificing our reason to a being
who gives us but useless gifts, which He does not intend that we should
make use of? What confidence can we place in a God who, according to our
Doctors themselves, is wicked enough to harden hearts, to strike us with
blindness, to place snares in our way, to lead us into temptation?
Finally, how can we place confidence in the ministers of this God, who, in
order to guide us more conveniently, command us to close our eyes?

CXXXVII.—HOW PRETEND THAT MAN OUGHT TO BELIEVE VERBAL TESTIMONY ON
WHAT IS CLAIMED TO BE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR HIM?

Men persuade themselves that religion is the most serious affair in the
world for them, while it is the very thing which they least examine for
themselves. If the question arises in the purchase of land, of a house, of
the investment of money, of a transaction, or of some kind of an
agreement, you will see each one examine everything with care, take the
greatest precautions, weigh all the words of a document, to beware of any
surprise or imposition. It is not the same with religion; each one accepts
it at hazard, and believes it upon verbal testimony, without taking the
trouble to examine it. Two causes seem to concur in sustaining men in the
negligence and the thoughtlessness which they exhibit when the question
comes up of examining their religious opinions. The first one is, the
hopelessness of penetrating the obscurity by which every religion is
surrounded; even in its first principles, it has only a tendency to repel
indolent minds, who see in it but chaos, to penetrate which, they judge
impossible. The second is, that each one is afraid to incommode himself by
the severe precepts which everybody admires in the theory, and which few
persons take the trouble of practicing. Many people preserve their
religion like old family titles which they have never taken the trouble to
examine minutely, but which they place in their archives in case they need
them.

CXXXVIII.—FAITH TAKES ROOT BUT IN WEAK, IGNORANT, OR INDOLENT MINDS.

The disciples of Pythagoras had an implicit faith in their Master’s
doctrine: “HE HAS SAID IT!” was for them the solution of all problems. The
majority of men act with as little reason. A curate, a priest, an ignorant
monk, will become in the matter of religion the master of one’s thoughts.
Faith relieves the weakness of the human mind, for whom application is
commonly a very painful work; it is much easier to rely upon others than
to examine for one’s self; examination being slow and difficult, it is
usually unpleasant to ignorant and stupid minds as well as to very ardent
ones; this is, no doubt, why faith finds so many partisans.

The less enlightenment and reason men possess, the more zeal they exhibit
for their religion. In all the religious factions, women, aroused by their
directors, exhibit very great zeal in opinions of which it is evident they
have not the least idea. In theological quarrels people rush like a
ferocious beast upon all those against whom their priest wishes to excite
them. Profound ignorance, unlimited credulity, a very weak head, an
irritated imagination, these are the materials of which devotees, zealots,
fanatics, and saints are made. How can we make those people understand
reason who allow themselves to be guided without examining anything? The
devotees and common people are, in the hands of their guides, only
automatons which they move at their fancy.

CXXXIX.—TO TEACH THAT THERE EXISTS ONE TRUE RELIGION IS AN
ABSURDITY, AND A CAUSE OF MUCH TROUBLE AMONG THE NATIONS.

Religion is a thing of custom and fashion; we must do as others do. But,
among the many religions in the world, which one ought we to choose? This
examination would be too long and too painful; we must then hold to the
faith of our fathers, to that of our country, or to that of the prince,
who, possessing power, must be the best. Chance alone decides the religion
of a man and of a people. The French would be to-day as good Mussulmen as
they are Christians, if their ancestors had not repulsed the efforts of
the Saracens. If we judge of the intentions of Providence by the events
and the revolutions of this world, we are compelled to believe that it is
quite indifferent about the different religions which exist on earth.
During thousands of years Paganism, Polytheism, and Idolatry have been the
religions of the world; we are assured today, that during this period the
most flourishing nations had not the least idea of the Deity, an idea
which is claimed, however, to be so important to all men. The Christians
pretend that, with the exception of the Jewish people, that is to say, a
handful of unfortunate beings, the whole human race lived in utter
ignorance of its duties toward God, and had but imperfect ideas of Divine
majesty. Christianity, offshoot of Judaism, which was very humble in its
obscure origin, became powerful and cruel under the Christian emperors,
who, driven by a holy zeal, spread it marvelously in their empire by sword
and fire, and founded it upon the ruins of overthrown Paganism. Mohammed
and his successors, aided by Providence, or by their victorious arms,
succeeded in a short time in expelling the Christian religion from a part
of Asia, Africa, and even of Europe itself; the Gospel was compelled to
surrender to the Koran. In all the factions or sects which during a great
number of centuries have lacerated the Christians, “THE REASON OF THE
STRONGEST WAS ALWAYS THE BEST;” the arms and the will of the princes alone
decided upon the most useful doctrine for the salvation of the nations.
Could we not conclude by this, either that the Deity takes but little
interest in the religion of men, or that He declares Himself always in
favor of opinions which best suit the Authorities of the earth, in order
that He can change His systems as soon as they take a notion to change?

A king of Macassar, tired of the idolatry of his fathers, took a notion
one day to leave it. The monarch’s council deliberated for a long time to
know whether they should consult Christian or Mohammedan Doctors. In the
impossibility of finding out which was the better of the two religions, it
was resolved to send at the same time for the missionaries of both, and to
accept the doctrine of those who would have the advantage of arriving
first. They did not doubt that God, who disposes of events, would thus
Himself explain His will. Mohammed’s missionaries having been more
diligent, the king with his people submitted to the law which he had
imposed upon himself; the missionaries of Christ were dismissed by default
of their God, who did not permit them to arrive early enough. God
evidently consents that chance should decide the religion of nations.

Those who govern, always decide the religion of the people. The true
religion is but the religion of the prince; the true God is the God whom
the prince wishes them to worship; the will of the priests who govern the
prince, always becomes the will of God. A jester once said, with reason,
that “the true faith is always the one which has on its side ‘the prince
and the executioner.'”

Emperors and executioners for a long time sustained the Gods of Rome
against the God of the Christians; the latter having won over to their
side the emperors, their soldiers and their executioners succeeded in
suppressing the worship of the Roman Gods. Mohammed’s God succeeded in
expelling the Christian’s God from a large part of the countries which He
formerly occupied. In the eastern part of Asia, there is a large country
which is very flourishing, very productive, thickly populated, and
governed by such wise laws, that the most savage conquerors adopted them
with respect. It is China! With the exception of Christianity, which was
banished as dangerous, they followed their own superstitious ideas; while
the mandarins or magistrates, undeceived long ago about the popular
religion, do not trouble themselves in regard to it, except to watch over
it, that the bonzes or priests do not use this religion to disturb the
peace of the State. However, we do not see that Providence withholds its
benefactions from a nation whose chiefs take so little interest in the
worship which is offered to it. The Chinese enjoy, on the contrary,
blessings and a peace worthy of being envied by many nations which
religion divides, ravages, and often destroys. We can not reasonably
expect to deprive a people of its follies; but we can hope to cure of
their follies those who govern the people; these will then prevent the
follies of the people from becoming dangerous. Superstition is never to be
feared except when it has the support of princes and soldiers; it is only
then that it becomes cruel and sanguinary. Every sovereign who assumes the
protection of a sect or of a religious faction, usually becomes the tyrant
of other sects, and makes himself the must cruel perturbator in his
kingdom.

CXL.—RELIGION IS NOT NECESSARY TO MORALITY AND TO VIRTUE.

We are constantly told, and a good many sensible persons come to believe
it, that religion is necessary to restrain men; that without it there
would be no check upon the people; that morality and virtue are intimately
connected with it: “The fear of the Lord is,” we are told, “the beginning
of wisdom.” The terrors of another life are salutary terrors, and
calculated to subdue men’s passions. To disabuse us in regard to the
utility of religious notions, it is sufficient to open the eyes and to
consider what are the morals of the most religious people. We see haughty
tyrants, oppressive ministers, perfidious courtiers, countless
extortioners, unscrupulous magistrates, impostors, adulterers, libertines,
prostitutes, thieves, and rogues of all kinds, who have never doubted the
existence of a vindictive God, or the punishments of hell, or the joys of
Paradise.

Although very useless for the majority of men, the ministers of religion
have tried to make death appear terrible to the eyes of their votaries. If
the most devoted Christians could be consistent, they would pass their
whole lives in tears, and would finally die in the most terrible alarms.
What is more frightful than death to those unfortunate ones who are
constantly reminded that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of
a living God;” that they should “seek salvation with fear and trembling!”
However, we are assured that the Christian’s death has great consolations,
of which the unbeliever is deprived. The good Christian, we are told, dies
with the firm hope of enjoying eternal happiness, which he has tried to
deserve. But this firm assurance, is it not a punishable presumption in
the eyes of a severe God? The greatest saints, are they not to be in doubt
whether they are worthy of the love or of the hatred of God Priests who
console us with the hope of the joys of Paradise, and close your eyes to
the torments of hell, have you then had the advantage of seeing your names
and ours inscribed in the book of life?

CXLI.—RELIGION IS THE WEAKEST RESTRAINT THAT CAN BE OPPOSED TO THE
PASSIONS.

To oppose to the passions and present interests of men the obscure notions
about a metaphysical God whom no one can conceive of; the incredible
punishments of another life; the pleasures of Heaven, of which we can not
form an idea, is it not combating realities with chimeras? Men have always
but confused ideas of their God; they see Him only in the clouds; they
never think of Him when they wish to do wrong. Whenever ambition, fortune,
or pleasure entices them or leads them away, God, and His menaces, and His
promises weigh nothing in the balance. The things of this life have for
men a degree of certainty, which the most lively faith can never give to
the objects of another life.

Every religion, in its origin, was a restraint invented by legislators who
wished to subjugate the minds of the common people. Like nurses who
frighten children in order to put them to sleep, ambitious men use the
name of the gods to inspire fear in savages; terror seems well suited to
compel them to submit quietly to the yoke which is to be imposed upon
them. Are the ghost stories of childhood fit for mature age? Man in his
maturity no longer believes in them, or if he does, he is troubled but
little by it, and he keeps on his road.

CXLII.—HONOR IS A MORE SALUTARY AND A STRONGER CHECK THAN RELIGION.

There is scarcely a man who does not fear more what he sees than what he
does not see; the judgments of men, of which he experiences the effects,
than the judgments of God, of whom he has but floating ideas. The desire
to please the world, the current of custom, the fear of being ridiculed,
and of “WHAT WILL THEY SAY?” have more power than all religious opinions.
A warrior with the fear of dishonor, does he not hazard his life in
battles every day, even at the risk of incurring eternal damnation?

The most religious persons sometimes show more respect for a servant than
for God. A man that firmly believes that God sees everything, knows
everything, is everywhere, will, when he is alone, commit actions which he
never would do in the presence of the meanest of mortals. Those even who
claim to be the most firmly convinced of the existence of a God, act every
instant as if they did not believe anything about it.

CXLIII.—RELIGION IS CERTAINLY NOT A POWERFUL CHECK UPON THE PASSIONS
OF KINGS, WHO ARE ALMOST ALWAYS CRUEL AND FANTASTIC TYRANTS BY THE EXAMPLE
OF THIS SAME GOD, OF WHOM THEY CLAIM TO BE THE REPRESENTATIVES; THEY USE
RELIGION BUT TO BRUTALIZE THEIR SLAVES SO MUCH THE MORE, TO LULL THEM TO
SLEEP IN THEIR FETTERS, AND TO PREY UPON THEM WITH THE GREATER FACILITY.

“Let us tolerate at least,” we are told, “the idea of a God, which alone
can be a restraint upon the passions of kings.” But, in good faith, can we
admire the marvelous effects which the fear of this God produces generally
upon the mind of the princes who claim to be His images? What idea can we
form of the original, if we judge it by its duplicates? Sovereigns, it is
true, call, themselves the representatives of God, His lieutenants upon
earth. But does the fear of a more powerful master than themselves make
them attend to the welfare of the peoples that Providence has confided to
their care? The idea of an invisible Judge, to whom alone they pretend to
be accountable for their actions, should inspire them with terror! But
does this terror render them more equitable, more humane, less avaricious
of the blood and the goods of their subjects, more moderate in their
pleasures, more attentive to their duties? Finally, does this God, by whom
we are assured that kings reign, prevent them from vexing in a thousand
ways the peoples of whom they ought to be the leaders, the protectors, and
fathers? Let us open our eyes, let us turn our regards upon all the earth,
and we shall see, almost everywhere, men governed by tyrants, who make use
of religion but to brutalize their slaves, whom they oppress by the weight
of their vices, or whom they sacrifice without mercy to their fatal
extravagances. Far from being a restraint to the passions of kings,
religion, by its very principles, gives them a loose rein. It transforms
them into Divinities, whose caprices the nations never dare to resist. At
the same time that it unchains princes and breaks for them the ties of the
social pact, it enchains the minds and the hands of their oppressed
subjects. Is it surprising, then, that the gods of the earth believe that
all is permitted to them, and consider their subjects as vile instruments
of their caprices or of their ambition?

Religion, in every country, has made of the Monarch of Nature a cruel,
fantastic, partial tyrant, whose caprice is the rule. The God-monarch is
but too well imitated by His representatives upon the earth. Everywhere
religion seems invented but to lull to sleep the people in fetters, in
order to furnish their masters the facility of devouring them, or to
render them miserable with impunity.

CXLIV.—ORIGIN OF THE MOST ABSURD, THE MOST RIDICULOUS, AND THE MOST
ODIOUS USURPATION, CALLED THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS. WISE COUNSELS TO
KINGS.

In order to guard themselves against the enterprises of a haughty Pontiff
who desired to reign over kings, and in order to protect their persons
from the attacks of the credulous people excited by their priests, several
princes of Europe pretended to have received their crowns and their rights
from God alone, and that they should account to Him only for their
actions. Civil power in its battles against spiritual power, having at
length gained the advantage, and the priests being compelled to yield,
recognized the Divine right of kings and preached it to the people,
reserving to themselves the right to change opinions and to preach
revolution, every time that the divine rights of kings did not agree with
the divine rights of the clergy. It was always at the expense of the
people that peace was restored between the kings and the priests, but the
latter maintained their pretensions notwithstanding all treaties.

Many tyrants and wicked princes, whose conscience reproaches them for
their negligence or their perversity, far from fearing their God, rather
like to bargain with this invisible Judge, who never refuses anything, or
with His priests, who are accommodating to the masters of the earth rather
than to their subjects. The people, when reduced to despair, consider the
divine rights of their chiefs as an abuse. When men become exasperated,
the divine rights of tyrants are compelled to yield to the natural rights
of their subjects; they have better market with the gods than with men.
Kings are responsible for their actions but to God, the priests but to
themselves; there is reason to believe that both of them have more faith
in the indulgence of Heaven than in that of earth. It is much easier to
escape the judgments of the gods, who can be appeased at little expense,
than the judgments of men whose patience is exhausted. If you take away
from the sovereigns the fear of an invisible power, what restraint will
you oppose to their misconduct? Let them learn how to govern, how to be
just, how to respect the rights of the people, to recognize the
benefactions of the nations from whom they obtain their grandeur and
power; let them learn to fear men, to submit to the laws of equity, that
no one can violate without danger; let these laws restrain equally the
powerful and the weak, the great and the small, the sovereign and the
subjects.

The fear of the Gods, religion, the terrors of another life—these
are the metaphysical and supernatural barriers which are opposed to the
furious passions of princes! Are these barriers sufficient? We leave it to
experience to solve the question! To oppose religion to the wickedness of
tyrants, is to wish that vague speculations should be more powerful than
inclinations which conspire to fortify them in it from day to day.

CXLV.—RELIGION IS FATAL TO POLITICS; IT FORMS BUT LICENTIOUS AND
PERVERSE DESPOTS, AS WELL AS ABJECT AND UNHAPPY SUBJECTS.

We are told constantly of the immense advantages which religion secures to
politics; but if we reflect a moment, we will see without trouble that
religious opinions blind and lead astray equally the rulers and the
people, and never enlighten them either in regard to their true duties or
their real interests. Religion but too often forms licentious, immoral
tyrants, obeyed by slaves who are obliged to conform to their views. From
lack of the knowledge of the true principles of administration, the aim
and the rights of social life, the real interests of men, and the duties
which unite them, the princes are become, in almost every land,
licentious, absolute, and perverse; and their subjects abject unhappy, and
wicked. It was to avoid the trouble of studying these important subjects,
that they felt themselves obliged to have recourse to chimeras, which so
far, instead of being a remedy, have but increased the evils of the human
race and withdrawn their attention from the most interesting things. Does
not the unjust and cruel manner in which so many nations are governed here
below, furnish the most visible proofs, not only of the non-effect
produced by the fear of another life, but of the non-existence of a
Providence interested in the fate of the human race? If there existed a
good God, would we not be forced to admit that He strangely neglects the
majority of men in this life? It would appear that this God created the
nations but to be toys for the passions and follies of His representatives
upon earth.

CXLVI.—CHRISTIANITY EXTENDED ITSELF BUT BY ENCOURAGING DESPOTISM, OF
WHICH IT, LIKE ALL RELIGION, IS THE STRONGEST SUPPORT.

If we read history with some attention, we shall see that Christianity,
fawning at first, insinuated itself among the savage and free nations of
Europe but by showing their chiefs that its principles would favor
despotism and place absolute power in their hands. We see, consequently,
barbarous kings converting themselves with a miraculous promptitude; that
is to say, adopting without examination a system so favorable to their
ambition, and exerting themselves to have it adopted by their subjects. If
the ministers of this religion have since often moderated their servile
principles, it is because the theory has no influence upon the conduct of
the Lord’s ministers, except when it suits their temporal interests.

Christianity boasts of having brought to men a happiness unknown to
preceding centuries. It is true that the Grecians have not known the
Divine right of tyrants or usurpers over their native country. Under the
reign of Paganism it never entered the brain of anybody that Heaven did
not want a nation to defend itself against a ferocious beast which
insolently ravaged it. The Christian religion, devised for the benefit of
tyrants, was established on the principle that the nations should renounce
the legitimate defense of themselves. Thus Christian nations are deprived
of the first law of nature, which decrees that man should resist evil and
disarm all who attempt to destroy him. If the ministers of the Church have
often permitted nations to revolt for Heaven’s cause, they never allowed
them to revolt against real evils or known violences.

It is from Heaven that the chains have come to fetter the minds of
mortals. Why is the Mohammedan everywhere a slave? It is because his
Prophet subdued him in the name of the Deity, just as Moses before him
subjugated the Jews. In all parts of the world we see that priests were
the first law-givers and the first sovereigns of the savages whom they
governed. Religion seems to have been invented but to exalt princes above
their nations, and to deliver the people to their discretion. As soon as
the latter find themselves unhappy here below, they are silenced by
menacing them with God’s wrath; their eyes are fixed on Heaven, in order
to prevent them from perceiving the real causes of their sufferings and
from applying the remedies which nature offers them.

CXLVII.—THE ONLY AIM OF RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES IS TO PERPETUATE THE
TYRANNY OF KINGS AND TO SACRIFICE THE NATIONS TO THEM.

By incessantly repeating to men that the earth is not their true country;
that the present life is but a passage; that they were not made to be
happy in this world; that their sovereigns hold their authority but from
God, and are responsible to Him alone for the misuse of it; that it is
never permitted to them to resist, the priesthood succeeded in
perpetuating the misconduct of the kings and the misfortunes of the
people; the interests of the nations have been cowardly sacrificed to
their chiefs. The more we consider the dogmas and the principles of
religion, the more we shall be convinced that their only aim is to give
advantage to tyrants and priests; not having the least regard for the good
of society. In order to mask the powerlessness of these deaf Gods,
religion has succeeded in making mortals believe that it is always
iniquity which excites the wrath of Heaven. The people blame themselves
for the disasters and the adversities which they endure continually. If
disturbed nature sometimes causes the people to feel its blows, their bad
governments are but too often the immediate and permanent causes from
which spring the continual calamities that they are obliged to endure. Is
it not the ambition of kings and of the great, their negligence, their
vices, their oppression, to which are generally due sterility, mendacity,
wars, contagions, bad morals, and all the multiplied scourges which
desolate the earth?

In continually directing the eyes of men toward Heaven, making them
believe that all their evils are due to Divine wrath, in furnishing them
but inefficient and futile means of lessening their troubles, it would
appear that the only object of the priests is to prevent the nations from
dreaming of the true sources of their miseries, and to perpetuate them.
The ministers of religion act like those indigent mothers, who, in need of
bread, put their hungry children to sleep by songs, or who present them
toys to make them forget the want which torments them.

Blinded from childhood by error, held by the invincible ties of opinion,
crushed by panic terrors, stupefied at the bosom of ignorance, how could
the people understand the true causes of their troubles? They think to
remedy them by invoking the gods. Alas! do they not see that it is it the
name of these gods that they are ordered to present their throat to the
sword of their pitiless tyrants, in whom they would find the most visible
cause of the evils under which they groan, and for which they uselessly
implore the assistance of Heaven? Credulous people! in your adversities
redouble your prayers, your offerings, your sacrifices; besiege your
temples, strangle countless victims, fast in sackcloth and in ashes, drink
your own tears; finally, exhaust yourselves to enrich your gods: you will
do nothing but enrich their priests; the gods of Heaven will not be
propitious to you, except when the gods of the earth will recognize that
they are men like yourselves, and will give to your welfare the care which
is your due.

CXLVIII.—HOW FATAL IT IS TO PERSUADE KINGS THAT THEY HAVE ONLY GOD
TO FEAR IF THEY INJURE THE PEOPLE.

Negligent, ambitious, and perverse princes are the real causes of public
adversities, of useless and unjust wars continually depopulating the
earth, of greedy and despotic governments, destroying the benefactions of
nature for men. The rapacity of the courts discourages agriculture, blots
out industry, causes famine, contagion, misery; Heaven is neither cruel
nor favorable to the wishes of the people; it is their haughty chiefs, who
always have a heart of brass.

It is a notion destructive to wholesome politics and to the morals of
princes, to persuade them that God alone is to be feared by them, when
they injure their subjects or when they neglect to render them happy.
Sovereigns! It is not the Gods, but your people whom you offend when you
do evil. It is to these people, and by retroaction, to yourselves, that
you do harm when you govern unjustly.

Nothing is more common in history than to see religious tyrants; nothing
more rare than to find equitable, vigilant, enlightened princes. A monarch
can be pious, very strict in fulfilling servilely the duties of his
religion, very submissive to his priests, liberal in their behalf, and at
the same time destitute of all the virtues and talents necessary for
governing. Religion for the princes is but an instrument intended to keep
the people more firmly under the yoke. According to the beautiful
principles of religious morality, a tyrant who, during a long reign, will
have done nothing but oppress his subjects, rob them of the fruits of
their labor, sacrifice them without pity to his insatiable ambition; a
conqueror who will have usurped the provinces of others, who will have
slaughtered whole nations, who will have been all his life a real scourge
of the human race, imagines that his conscience can be tranquillized, if,
in order to expiate so many crimes, he will have wept at the feet of a
priest, who will have the cowardly complaisance to console and reassure a
brigand, whom the most frightful despair would punish too little for the
evil which he has done upon earth.

CLXIX.—A RELIGIOUS KING IS A SCOURGE TO HIS KINGDOM.

A sincerely religious sovereign is generally a very dangerous chief for a
State; credulity always indicates a narrow mind; devotion generally
absorbs the attention which the prince ought to give to the ruling of his
people. Docile to the suggestions of his priests, he constantly becomes
the toy of their caprices, the abettor of their quarrels, the instrument
and the accomplice of their follies, to which he attaches the greatest
importance. Among the most fatal gifts which religion has bestowed upon
the world, we must consider above all, these devoted and zealous monarchs,
who, with the idea of working for the salvation of their subjects, have
made it their sacred duty to torment, to persecute, to destroy those whose
conscience made them think otherwise than they do. A religious bigot at
the head of an empire, is one of the greatest scourges which Heaven in its
fury could have sent upon earth. One fanatical or deceitful priest who has
the ear of a credulous and powerful prince, suffices to put a State into
disorder and the universe into combustion.

In almost all countries, priests and devout persons are charged with
forming the mind and the heart of the young princes destined to govern the
nations. What enlightenment can teachers of this stamp give? Filled
themselves with prejudices, they will hold up to their pupil superstition
as the most important and the most sacred thing, its chimerical duties as
the most holy obligations, intolerance, and the spirit of persecution, as
the true foundations of his future authority; they will try to make him a
chief of party, a turbulent fanatic, and a tyrant; they will suppress at
an early period his reason; they will premonish him against it; they will
prevent truth from reaching him; they will prejudice him against true
talents, and prepossess him in favor of despicable talents; finally they
will make of him an imbecile devotee, who will have no idea of justice or
of injustice, of true glory or of true greatness, and who will be devoid
of the intelligence and virtue necessary to the government of a great
kingdom. Here, in brief, is the plan of education for a child destined to
make, one day, the happiness or the misery of several millions of men.

CL.—THE SHIELD OF RELIGION IS FOR TYRANNY, A WEAK RAMPART AGAINST
THE DESPAIR OF THE PEOPLE. A DESPOT IS A MADMAN, WHO INJURES HIMSELF AND
SLEEPS UPON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE.

Priests in all times have shown themselves supporters of despotism, and
the enemies of public liberty. Their profession requires vile and
submissive slaves, who never have the audacity to reason. In an absolute
government, their great object is to secure control of the mind of a weak
and stupid prince, in order to make themselves masters of the people.
Instead of leading the people to salvation, priests have always led them
to servitude.

For the sake of the supernatural titles which religion has forged for the
most wicked princes, the latter have generally united with the priests,
who, sure of governing by controlling the opinion of the sovereign
himself, have charge of tying the hands of the people and of keeping them
under their yoke. But it is vain that the tyrant, protected by the shield
of religion, flatters himself with being sheltered from all the blows of
fate. Opinion is a weak rampart against the despair of the people.
Besides, the priest is the friend of the tyrant only so long as he finds
his profit by the tyranny; he preaches sedition and demolishes the idol
which he has made, when he considers it no longer in conformity with the
interests of Heaven, which he speaks of as he pleases, and which never
speaks but in behalf of his interests. No doubt it will be said, that the
sovereigns, knowing all the advantages which religion procures for them,
are truly interested in upholding it with all their strength. If religious
opinions are useful to tyrants, it is evident that they are useless to
those who govern according to the laws of reason and of equity. Is there
any advantage in exercising tyranny? Does not tyranny deprive princes of
true power, the love of the people, in which is safety? Should not every
rational prince perceive that the despot is but an insane man who injures
himself? Will not every enlightened prince beware of his flatterers, whose
object is to put him to sleep at the edge of the precipice to which they
lead him?

CLI.—RELIGION FAVORS THE ERRORS OF PRINCES, BY DELIVERING THEM FROM
FEAR AND REMORSE.

If the sacerdotal flatteries succeed in perverting princes and changing
them into tyrants, the latter on their side necessarily corrupt the great
men and the people. Under an unjust master, without goodness, without
virtue, who knows no law but his caprice, a nation must become necessarily
depraved. Will this master wish to have honest, enlightened, and virtuous
men near him? No! he needs flatterers in those who approach him,
imitators, slaves, base and servile minds, who give themselves up to his
taste; his court will spread the contagion of vice to the inferior
classes. By degrees all will be necessarily corrupted, in a State whose
chief is corrupt himself. It was said a long time ago that the princes
seem ordained to do all they do themselves. Religion, far from being a
restraint upon the sovereigns, entitles them, without fear and without
remorse, to the errors which are as fatal to themselves as to the nations
which they govern. Men are never deceived with impunity. Tell a prince
that he is a God, and very soon he will believe that he owes nothing to
anybody. As long as he is feared, he will not care much for love; he will
recognize no rights, no relations with his subjects, nor obligations in
their behalf. Tell this prince that he is responsible for his actions to
God alone, and very soon he will act as if he was responsible to nobody.

CLII.—WHAT IS AN ENLIGHTENED SOVEREIGN?

An enlightened sovereign is he who understands his true interests; he
knows they are united to those of his nation; he knows that a prince can
be neither great, nor powerful, nor beloved, nor respected, so long as he
will command but miserable slaves; he knows that equity, benevolence, and
vigilance will give him more real rights over men than fabulous titles
which claim to come from Heaven. He will feel that religion is useful but
to the priests; that it is useless to society, which is often troubled by
it; that it must be limited to prevent it from doing injury; finally, he
will understand that, in order to reign with glory, he must make good
laws, possess virtues, and not base his power on impositions and chimeras.

CLIII.—THE DOMINANT PASSIONS AND CRIMES OF PRIESTCRAFT. WITH THE
ASSISTANCE OF ITS PRETENDED GOD AND OF RELIGION, IT ASSERTS ITS PASSIONS
AND COMMITS ITS CRIMES.

The ministers of religion have taken great care to make of their God a
terrible, capricious, and changeable tyrant; it was necessary for them
that He should be thus in order that He might lend Himself to their
various interests. A God who would be just and good, without a mixture of
caprice and perversity; a God who would constantly have the qualities of
an honest man or of a compliant sovereign, would not suit His ministers.
It is necessary to the priests that we tremble before their God, in order
that we have recourse to them to obtain the means to be quieted. No man is
a hero to his valet de chambre. It is not surprising that a God clothed by
His priests in such a way as to cause others to fear Him, should rarely
impose upon those priests themselves, or exert but little influence upon
their conduct. Consequently we see them behave themselves in a uniform way
in every land; everywhere they devour nations, debase souls, discourage
industry, and sow discord under the pretext of the glory of their God.
Ambition and avarice were at all times the dominating passions of the
priesthood; everywhere the priest places himself above the sovereign and
the laws; everywhere we see him occupied but with the interests of his
pride, his cupidity, his despotic and vindictive mood; everywhere he
substitutes expiations, sacrifices, ceremonies, and mysterious practices;
in a word, inventions lucrative to himself for useful and social virtues.
The mind is confounded and reason interdicted with the view of ridiculous
practices and pitiable means which the ministers of the gods invented in
every country to purify souls and render Heaven favorable to nations.
Here, they practice circumcision upon a child to procure it Divine
benevolence; there, they pour water upon his head to wash away the crimes
which he could not yet have committed; in other places he is told to
plunge himself into a river whose waters have the power to wash away all
his impurities; in other places certain food is forbidden to him, whose
use would not fail to excite celestial indignation; in other countries
they order the sinful man to come periodically for the confession of his
faults to a priest, who is often a greater sinner than he.

CLIV.—CHARLATANRY OF THE PRIESTS.

What would we say of a crowd of quacks, who every day would exhibit in a
public place, selling their remedies and recommending them as infallible,
while we should find them afflicted with the same infirmities which they
pretend to cure? Would we have much confidence in the recipes of these
charlatans, who would bawl out: “Take our remedies, their effects are
infallible—they cure everybody except us?” What would we think to
see these same charlatans pass their lives in complaining that their
remedies never produce any effect upon the patients who take them?
Finally, what idea would we form of the foolishness of the common man who,
in spite of this confession, would continue to pay very high for remedies
which will not be beneficial to him? The priests resemble alchemists, who
boldly assert that they have the secret of making gold, while they
scarcely have clothing enough to cover their nudity.

The ministers of religion incessantly declaim against the corruption of
the age, and complain loudly of the little success of their teachings, at
the same time they assure us that religion is the universal remedy, the
true panacea for all human evils. These priests are sick themselves;
however, men continue to frequent their stands and to have faith in their
Divine antidotes, which, according to their own confession, cure nobody!

CLV.—COUNTLESS CALAMITIES ARE PRODUCED BY RELIGION, WHICH HAS
TAINTED MORALITY AND DISTURBED ALL JUST IDEAS AND ALL SOUND DOCTRINES.

Religion, especially among modern people, in taking possession of
morality, totally obscured its principles; it has rendered men unsocial
from a sense of duty; it has forced them to be inhuman toward all those
who did not think as they did. Theological disputes, equally
unintelligible for the parties already irritated against each other, have
unsettled empires, caused revolutions, ruined sovereigns, devastated the
whole of Europe; these despicable quarrels could not be extinguished even
in rivers of blood. After the extinction of Paganism the people
established a religious principle of going into a frenzy, every time that
an opinion was brought forth which their priests considered contrary to
the holy doctrine. The votaries of a religion which preaches externally
but charity, harmony, and peace, have shown themselves more ferocious than
cannibals or savages every time that their instructors have excited them
to the destruction of their brethren. There is no crime which men have not
committed in the idea of pleasing the Deity or of appeasing His wrath. The
idea of a terrible God who was represented as a despot, must necessarily
have rendered His subjects wicked. Fear makes but slaves, and slaves are
cowardly, low, cruel, and think they have a right to do anything when it
is the question of gaining the good-will or of escaping the punishments of
the master whom they fear. Liberty of thought can alone give to men
humanity and grandeur of soul. The notion of a tyrant God can create but
abject, angry, quarrelsome, intolerant slaves. Every religion which
supposes a God easily irritated, jealous, vindictive, punctilious about
His rights or His title, a God small enough to be offended at opinions
which we have of Him, a God unjust enough to exact uniform ideas in regard
to Him, such a religion becomes necessarily turbulent, unsocial,
sanguinary; the worshipers of such a God never believe they can, without
crime, dispense with hating and even destroying all those whom they
designate as adversaries of this God; they would believe themselves
traitors to the cause of their celestial Monarch, if they should live on
good terms with rebellious fellow-citizens. To love what God hates, would
it not be exposing one’s self to His implacable hatred? Infamous
persecutors, and you, religious cannibals! will you never feel the folly
and injustice of your intolerant disposition? Do you not see that man is
no more the master of his religious opinions, of his credulity or
incredulity, than of the language which he learns in childhood, and which
he can not change? To tell men to think as you do, is it not asking a
foreigner to express his thoughts in your language? To punish a man for
his erroneous opinions, is it not punishing him for having been educated
differently from yourself? If I am incredulous, is it possible for me to
banish from my mind the reasons which have unsettled my faith? If God
allows men the freedom to damn themselves, is it your business? Are you
wiser and more prudent than this God whose rights you wish to avenge?

CLVI.—EVERY RELIGION IS INTOLERANT, AND CONSEQUENTLY DESTRUCTIVE OF
BENEFICENCE.

There is no religious person who, according to his temperament, does not
hate, despise, or pity the adherents of a sect different from his own. The
dominant religion (which is never but that of the sovereign and the
armies) always makes its superiority felt in a very cruel and injurious
manner toward the weaker sects. There does not exist yet upon earth a true
tolerance; everywhere a jealous God is worshiped, and each nation believes
itself His friend to the exclusion of all others.

Every nation boasts itself of worshiping the true God, the universal God,
the Sovereign of Nature; but when we come to examine this Monarch of the
world, we perceive that each organization, each sect, each religious
party, makes of this powerful God but an inferior sovereign, whose cares
and kindness extend themselves but over a small number of His subjects who
pretend to have the exclusive advantage of His favors, and that He does
not trouble Himself about the others.

The founders of religions, and the priests who maintain them, have
intended to separate the nations which they indoctrinated, from other
nations; they desired to separate their own flock by distinctive features;
they gave to their votaries Gods inimical to other Gods as well as the
forms of worship, dogmas, ceremonies, separately; they persuaded them
especially that the religions of others were ungodly and abominable. By
this infamous contrivance, these ambitious impostors took exclusive
possession of the minds of their votaries, rendered them unsocial, and
made them consider as outcasts all those who had not the same ideas and
form of worship as their own. This is the way religion succeeded in
closing the heart, and in banishing from it that affection which man ought
to have for his fellow-being. Sociability, tolerance, humanity, these
first virtues of all morality are totally in compatible with religious
prejudices.

CLVII.—ABUSE OF A STATE RELIGION.

Every national religion has a tendency to make man vain, unsocial, and
wicked; the first step toward humanity is to permit each one to follow
peacefully the worship and the opinions which suit him. But such a conduct
can not please the ministers of religion, who wish to have the right to
tyrannize over even the thoughts of men. Blind and bigoted princes, you
hate, you persecute, you devote heretics to torture, because you are
persuaded that these unfortunate ones displease God. But do you not claim
that your God is full of kindness? How can you hope to please Him by such
barbarous actions which He can not help disapproving of? Besides, who told
you that their opinions displease your God? Your priests told you! But who
guarantees that your priests are not deceived themselves or that they do
not wish to deceive you? It is these same priests! Princes! it is upon the
perilous word of your priests that you commit the most atrocious and the
most unheard-of crimes, with the idea of pleasing the Deity!

CLVIII.—RELIGION GIVES LICENSE TO THE FEROCITY OF THE PEOPLE BY
LEGITIMIZING IT, AND AUTHORIZES CRIME BY TEACHING THAT IT CAN BE USEFUL TO
THE DESIGNS OF GOD.

“Never,” says Pascal, “do we do evil so thoroughly and so willingly as
when we do it through a false principle of conscience.” Nothing is more
dangerous than a religion which licenses the ferocity of the people, and
justifies in their eyes the blackest crimes; it puts no limits to their
wickedness as soon as they believe it authorized by their God, whose
interests, as they are told, can justify all their actions. If there is a
question of religion, immediately the most civilized nations become true
savages, and believe everything is permitted to them. The more cruel they
are, the more agreeable they suppose themselves to be to their God, whose
cause they imagine can not be sustained by too much zeal. All religions of
the world have authorized countless crimes. The Jews, excited by the
promises of their God, arrogated to themselves the right of exterminating
whole nations; the Romans, whose faith was founded upon the oracles of
their Gods, became real brigands, and conquered and ravaged the world; the
Arabians, encouraged by their Divine preceptor, carried the sword and the
flame among Christians and idolaters. The Christians, under pretext of
spreading their holy religion, covered the two hemispheres a hundred times
with blood. In all events favorable to their own interests, which they
always call the cause of God, the priests show us the finger of God.
According to these principles, religious bigots have the luck of seeing
the finger of God in revolts, in revolutions, massacres, regicides,
prostitutions, infamies, and, if these things contribute to the advantage
of religion, we can say, then, that God uses all sorts of means to secure
His ends. Is there anything better calculated to annihilate every idea of
morality in the minds of men, than to make them understand that their God,
who is so powerful and so perfect, is often compelled to use crime to
accomplish His designs?

CLIX.—REFUTATION OF THE ARGUMENT, THAT THE EVILS ATTRIBUTED TO
RELIGION ARE BUT THE SAD EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS OF MEN.

When we complain about the violence and evils which generally religion
causes upon earth, we are answered at once, that these excesses are not
due to religion, but that they are the sad effect of men’s passions. I
would ask, however, what unchained these passions? It is evidently
religion; it is a zeal which renders inhuman, and which serves to cover
the greatest infamy. Do not these disorders prove that religion, instead
of restraining the passions of men, does but cover them with a cloak that
sanctifies them; and that nothing would be more beneficial than to tear
away this sacred cloak of which men make such a bad use? What horrors
would be banished from society, if the wicked were deprived of a pretext
so plausible for disturbing it!

Instead of cherishing peace among men, the priests stirred up hatred and
strife. They pleaded their conscience, and pretended to have received from
Heaven the right to be quarrelsome, turbulent, and rebellious. Do not the
ministers of God consider themselves to be wronged, do they not pretend
that His Divine Majesty is injured every time that the sovereigns have the
temerity to try to prevent them from doing injury? The priests resemble
that irritable woman, who cried out fire! murder! assassins! while her
husband was holding her hands to prevent her from beating him.

CLX.—ALL MORALITY IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Notwithstanding the bloody tragedies which religion has so often caused in
this world, we are constantly told that there can be no morality without
religion. If we judge theological opinions by their effects, we would be
right in assuming that all morality is perfectly incompatible with the
religious opinions of men. “Imitate God,” is constantly repeated to us.
Ah! what morals would we have if we should imitate this God! Which God
should we imitate? Is it the deist’s God? But even this God can not be a
model of goodness for us. If He is the author of all, He is equally the
author of the good and of the bad we see in this world; if He is the
author of order, He is also the author of disorder, which would not exist
without His permission; if He produces, He destroys; if He gives life, He
also causes death; if He grants abundance, riches, prosperity, and peace,
He permits or sends famines, poverty, calamities, and wars. How can you
accept as a model of permanent beneficence the God of theism or of natural
religion, whose favorable intentions are at every moment contradicted by
everything that transpires in the world? Morality needs a firmer basis
than the example of a God whose conduct varies, and whom we can not call
good but by obstinately closing the eyes to the evil which He causes, or
permits to be done in this world.

Shall we imitate the good and great Jupiter of ancient Paganism? To
imitate such a God would be to take as a model a rebellious son, who
wrests his father’s throne from him and then mutilates his body; it is
imitating a debauchee and adulterer, an incestuous, intemperate man, whose
conduct would cause any reasonable mortal to blush. What would have become
of men under the control of Paganism if they had imagined, according to
Plato, that virtue consisted in imitating the gods?

Must we imitate the God of the Jews? Will we find a model for our conduct
in Jehovah? He is truly a savage God, really created for an ignorant,
cruel, and immoral people; He is a God who is constantly enraged,
breathing only vengeance; who is without pity, who commands carnage and
robbery; in a word, He is a God whose conduct can not serve as a model to
an honest man, and who can be imitated but by a chief of brigands.

Shall we imitate, then, the Jesus of the Christians? Can this God, who
died to appease the implacable fury of His Father, serve as an example
which men ought to follow? Alas! we will see in Him but a God, or rather a
fanatic, a misanthrope, who being plunged Himself into misery, and
preaching to the wretched, advises them to be poor, to combat and
extinguish nature, to hate pleasure, to seek sufferings, and to despise
themselves; He tells them to leave father, mother, all the ties of life,
in order to follow Him. What beautiful morality! you will say. It is
admirable, no doubt; it must be Divine, because it is impracticable for
men. But does not this sublime morality tend to render virtue despicable?
According to this boasted morality of the man-God of the Christians, His
disciples in this lower world are, like Tantalus, tormented with burning
thirst, which they are not permitted to quench. Do not such morals give us
a wonderful idea of nature’s Author? If He has, as we are assured, created
everything for the use of His creatures, by what strange caprice does He
forbid the use of the good things which He has created for them? Is the
pleasure which man constantly desires but a snare that God has maliciously
laid in his path to entrap him?

CLXI.—THE MORALS OF THE GOSPEL ARE IMPRACTICABLE.

The votaries of Christ would like to make us regard as a miracle the
establishment of their religion, which is in every respect contrary to
nature, opposed to all the inclinations of the heart, an enemy to physical
pleasures. But the austerity of a doctrine has a tendency to render it
more wonderful to the ignorant. The same reason which makes us respect, as
Divine and supernatural, inconceivable mysteries, causes us to admire, as
Divine and supernatural, a morality impracticable and beyond the power of
man. To admire morals and to practice them, are two very different things.
All the Christians continually admire the morals of the Gospel, but it is
practiced but by a small number of saints; admired by people who
themselves avoid imitating their conduct, under the pretext that they are
lacking either the power or the grace.

The whole universe is infected more or less with a religious morality
which is founded upon the opinion that to please the Deity it is necessary
to render one’s self unhappy upon earth. We see in all parts of our globe
penitents, hermits, fakirs, fanatics, who seem to have studied profoundly
the means of tormenting themselves for the glory of a Being whose goodness
they all agree in celebrating. Religion, by its essence, is the enemy of
joy and of the welfare of men. “Blessed are those who suffer!” Woe to
those who have abundance and joy! These are the rare revelations which
Christianity teaches!

CLXII.—A SOCIETY OF SAINTS WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE.

In what consists the saint of all religions? It is a man who prays, fasts,
who torments himself, who avoids the world, who, like an owl, is pleased
but in solitude, who abstains from all pleasure, who seems frightened at
every object which turns him a moment from his fanatical meditations. Is
this virtue? Is a being of this stamp of any use to himself or to others?
Would not society be dissolved, and would not men retrograde into
barbarism, if each one should be fool enough to wish to be a saint?

It is evident that the literal and rigorous practice of the Divine
morality of the Christians would lead nations to ruin. A Christian who
would attain perfection, ought to drive away from his mind all that can
alienate him from heaven—his true country. He sees upon earth but
temptations, snares, and opportunities to go astray; he must fear science
as injurious to faith; he must avoid industry, as it is a means of
obtaining riches, which are fatal to salvation; he must renounce
preferments and honors, as things capable of exciting his pride and
calling his attention away from his soul; in a word, the sublime morality
of Christ, if it were not impracticable, would sever all the ties of
society.

A saint in the world is no more useful than a saint in the desert; the
saint has an unhappy, discontented, and often irritable, turbulent
disposition; his zeal often obliges him, conscientiously, to disturb
society by opinions or dreams which his vanity makes him accept as
inspirations from Heaven. The annals of all religions are filled with
accounts of anxious, intractable, seditious saints, who have distinguished
themselves by ravages that, for the greater glory of God, they have
scattered throughout the universe. If the saints who live in solitude are
useless, those who live in the world are very often dangerous. The vanity
of performing a role, the desire of distinguishing themselves in the eyes
of the stupid vulgar by a strange conduct, constitute usually the
distinctive characteristics of great saints; pride persuades them that
they are extraordinary men, far above human nature; beings who are more
perfect than others; chosen ones, which God looks upon with more
complaisance than the rest of mortals. Humility in a saint is, is a
general rule, but a pride more refined than that of common men. It must be
a very ridiculous vanity which can determine a man to continually war with
his own nature!

CLXIII.—HUMAN NATURE IS NOT DEPRAVED; AND A MORALITY WHICH
CONTRADICTS THIS FACT IS NOT MADE FOR MAN.

A morality which contradicts the nature of man is not made for him. But
you will say that man’s nature is depraved. In what consists this
pretended depravity? Is it because he has passions? But are not passions
the very essence of man? Must he not seek, desire, love that which is, or
that which he believes to be, essential to his happiness? Must he not fear
and avoid that which he judges injurious or fatal to him? Excite his
passions by useful objects; let him attach himself to these same objects,
divert him by sensible and known motives from that which can do him or
others harm, and you will make of him a reasonable and virtuous being. A
man without passions would be equally indifferent to vice and to virtue.

Holy doctors! you constantly tell us that man’s nature is perverted; you
tell us that the way of all flesh is corrupt; you tell us that nature
gives us but inordinate inclinations. In this case you accuse your God,
who has not been able or willing to keep this nature in its original
perfection. If this nature became corrupted, why did not this God repair
it? The Christian assures me that human nature is repaired, that the death
of his God has reestablished it in its integrity. How comes it then, that
human nature, notwithstanding the death of a God, is still depraved? Is
it, then, a pure loss that your God died? What becomes of His omnipotence
and His victory over the Devil, if it is true that the Devil still holds
the empire which, according to you, he has always exercised in the world?

Death, according to Christian theology, is the penalty of sin. This
opinion agrees with that of some savage Negro nations, who imagine that
the death of a man is always the supernatural effect of the wrath of the
Gods. The Christians firmly believe that Christ has delivered them from
sin, while they see that, in their religion as in the others, man is
subject to death. To say that Jesus Christ has delivered us from sin, is
it not claiming that a judge has granted pardon to a guilty man, while we
see him sent to torture?

CLXIV.—OF JESUS CHRIST, THE PRIEST’S GOD.

If, closing our eyes upon all that transpires in this world, we should
rely upon the votaries of the Christian religion, we would believe that
the coming of our Divine Saviour has produced the most wonderful
revolution and the most complete reform in the morals of nations. The
Messiah, according to Pascal, [See Thoughts of Pascal] ought of Himself
alone to produce a great, select, and holy people; conducting and
nourishing it, and introducing it into the place of repose and sanctity,
rendering it holy to God, making it the temple of God, saving it from the
wrath of God, delivering it from the servitude of sin, giving laws to this
people, engraving these laws upon their hearts, offering Himself to God
for them, crushing the head of the serpent, etc. This great man has
forgotten to show us the people upon whom His Divine Messiah has produced
the miraculous effects of which He speaks with so much emphasis; so far,
it seems, they do not exist upon the earth!

If we examine ever so little the morals of the Christian nations, and
listen to the clamors of their priests, we will be obliged to conclude
that their God, Jesus Christ, preached without fruit, without success;
that His Almighty will still finds in men a resistance, over which this
God either can not or does not wish to triumph. The morality of this
Divine Doctor which His disciples admire so much, and practice so little,
is followed during a whole century but by half a dozen of obscure saints,
fanatical and ignorant monks, who alone will have the glory of shining in
the celestial court; all the remainder of mortals, although redeemed by
the blood of this God, will be the prey of eternal flames.

CLXV.—THE DOGMA OF THE REMISSION OF SINS HAS BEEN INVENTED IN THE
INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.

When a man has a great desire to sin, he thinks very little about his God;
more than this, whatever crimes he may have committed, he always flatters
himself that this God will mitigate the severity of his punishments. No
mortal seriously believes that his conduct can damn him. Although he fears
a terrible God, who often makes him tremble, every time he is strongly
tempted he succumbs and sees but a God of mercy, the idea of whom quiets
him. Does he do evil? He hopes to have the time to correct himself, and
promises earnestly to repent some day.

There are in the religious pharmacy infallible receipts for calming the
conscience; the priests in every country possess sovereign secrets for
disarming the wrath of Heaven. However true it may be that the anger of
Deity is appeased by prayers, by offerings, by sacrifices, by penitential
tears, we have no right to say that religion holds in check the
irregularities of men; they will first sin, and afterward seek the means
to reconcile God. Every religion which expiates, and which promises the
remission of crimes, if it restrains any, it encourages the great number
to commit evil. Notwithstanding His immutability, God is, in all the
religions of this world, a veritable Proteus. His priests show Him now
armed with severity, and then full of clemency and gentleness; now cruel
and pitiless, and then easily reconciled by the repentance and the tears
of the sinners. Consequently, men face the Deity in the manner which
conforms the most to their present interests. An always wrathful God would
repel His worshipers, or cast them into despair. Men need a God who
becomes angry and who can be appeased; if His anger alarms a few timid
souls, His clemency reassures the determined wicked ones who intend to
have recourse sooner or later to the means of reconciling themselves with
Him; if the judgments of God frighten a few faint-hearted devotees who
already by temperament and by habitude are not inclined to evil, the
treasures of Divine mercy reassure the greatest criminals, who have reason
to hope that they will participate in them with the others.

CLXVI.—THE FEAR OF GOD IS POWERLESS AGAINST HUMAN PASSIONS.

The majority of men rarely think of God, or, at least, do not occupy
themselves much with Him. The idea of God has so little stability, it is
so afflicting, that it can not hold the imagination for a long time,
except in some sad and melancholy visionists who do not constitute the
majority of the inhabitants of this world. The common man has no
conception of it; his weak brain becomes perplexed the moment he attempts
to think of Him. The business man thinks of nothing but his affairs; the
courtier of his intrigues; worldly men, women, youth, of their pleasures;
dissipation soon dispels the wearisome notions of religion. The ambitious,
the avaricious, and the debauchee sedulously lay aside speculations too
feeble to counterbalance their diverse passions.

Whom does the idea of God overawe? A few weak men disappointed and
disgusted with this world; some persons whose passions are already
extinguished by age, by infirmities, or by reverses of fortune. Religion
is a restraint but for those whose temperament or circumstances have
already subjected them to reason. The fear of God does not prevent any
from committing sin but those who do not wish to sin very much, or who are
no longer in a condition to sin. To tell men that Divinity punishes crime
in this world, is to claim as a fact that which experience contradicts
constantly The most wicked men are usually the arbiters of the world, and
those whom fortune blesses with its favors. To convince us of the
judgments of God by sending us to the other life, is to make us accept
conjectures in order to destroy facts which we can not dispute.

CLXVII.—THE INVENTION OF HELL IS TOO ABSURD TO PREVENT EVIL.

No one dreams about another life when he is very much absorbed in objects
which he meets on earth. In the eyes of a passionate lover, the presence
of his mistress extinguishes the fires of hell, and her charms blot out
all the pleasures of Paradise. Woman! you leave, you say, your lover for
your God? It is that your lover is no longer the same in your estimation;
or your lover leaves you, and you must fill the void which is made in your
heart. Nothing is more common than to see ambitious, perverse, corrupt,
and immoral men who are religious, and who sometimes exhibit even zeal in
its behalf; if they do not practice religion, they promise themselves they
will practice it some day; they keep it in reserve as a remedy which,
sooner or later, will be necessary to quiet the conscience for the evil
which they intend yet to do. Besides, devotees and priests being a very
numerous, active, and powerful party, it is not astonishing to see
impostors and thieves seek for its support in order to gain their ends. We
will be told, no doubt, that many honest people are sincerely religious
without profit; but is uprightness of heart always accompanied with
intelligence? We are cited to a great number of learned men, men of
genius, who are very religious. This proves that men of genius can have
prejudices, can be pusillanimous, can have an imagination which seduces
them and prevents them from examining objects coolly. Pascal proves
nothing in favor of religion, except that a man of genius can possess a
grain of weakness, and is but a child when he is weak enough to listen to
prejudices. Pascal himself tells us “that the mind can be strong and
narrow, and just as extended as it is weak.” He says more: “We can have
our senses all right, and not be equally able in all things; because there
are men who, being right in a certain sphere of things, lose themselves in
others.”

CLXVIII.—ABSURDITY OF THE MORALITY AND OF THE RELIGIOUS VIRTUES
ESTABLISHED SOLELY IN THE INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.

What is virtue according to theology? It is, we are told, the conformity
of men’s actions with the will of God. But who is God? He is a being whom
no one is able to conceive of, and whom, consequently, each one modifies
in his own way. What is the will of God? It is what men who have seen God,
or whom God has inspired, have told us. Who are those who have seen God?
They are either fanatics, or scoundrels, or ambitious men, whose word we
can not rely upon. To found morality upon a God that each man represents
differently, that each one composes by his own idea, whom everybody
arranges according to his own temperament and his own interest, is
evidently founding morality upon the caprice and upon the imagination of
men; it is basing it upon the whims of a sect, faction, or party, who,
excluding all others, claim to have the advantage of worshiping the true
God.

To establish morality, or the duties of man, upon the Divine will, is
founding it upon the wishes, the reveries, or the interests of those who
make God talk without fear of contradiction. In every religion the priests
alone have the right to decide upon what pleases or displeases their God;
we may rest assured that they will decide upon what pleases or displeases
themselves.

The dogmas, ceremonies, the morality and the virtues which all religions
of the world prescribe, are visibly calculated only to extend the power or
to increase the emoluments of the founders and of the ministers of these
religions; the dogmas are obscure, inconceivable, frightful, and, thereby,
very liable to cause the imagination to wander, and to render the common
man more docile to those who wish to domineer over him; the ceremonies and
practices procure fortune or consideration to the priests; the religious
morals and virtues consist in a submissive faith, which prevents
reasoning; in a devout humility, which assures to the priests the
submission of their slaves; in an ardent zeal, when the question of
religion is agitated; that is to say, when the interest of these priests
is considered, all religious virtues having evidently for their object the
advantage of the priests.

CLXIX.—WHAT DOES THAT CHRISTIAN CHARITY AMOUNT TO, SUCH AS
THEOLOGIANS TEACH AND PRACTICE?

When we reproach the theologians with the sterility of their religious
virtues, they praise, with emphasis, charity, that tender love of our
neighbor which Christianity makes an essential duty for its disciples.
But, alas! what becomes of this pretended charity as soon as we examine
the actions of the Lord’s ministers? Ask if you must love your neighbor if
he is impious, heretical, and incredulous, that is to say, if he does not
think as they do? Ask them if you must tolerate opinions contrary to those
which they profess? Ask them if the Lord can show indulgence to those who
are in error? Immediately their charity disappears, and the dominating
clergy will tell you that the prince carries the sword but to sustain the
interests of the Most High; they will tell you that for love of the
neighbor, you must persecute, imprison, exile, or burn him. You will find
tolerance among a few priests who are persecuted themselves, but who put
aside Christian charity as soon as they have the power to persecute in
their turn.

The Christian religion which was originally preached by beggars and by
very wretched men, strongly recommends alms-giving under the name of
charity; the faith of Mohammed equally makes it an indispensable duty.
Nothing, no doubt, is better suited to humanity than to assist the
unfortunate, to clothe the naked, to lend a charitable hand to whoever
needs it. But would it not be more humane and more charitable to foresee
the misery and to prevent the poor from increasing? If religion, instead
of deifying princes, had but taught them to respect the property of their
subjects, to be just, and to exercise but their legitimate rights, we
should not see such a great number of mendicants in their realms. A
greedy, unjust, tyrannical government multiplies misery; the rigor of
taxes produces discouragement, idleness, indigence, which, on their part,
produce robbery, murders, and all kinds of crime. If the sovereigns had
more humanity, charity, and justice, their States would not be peopled by
so many unfortunate ones whose misery becomes impossible to soothe.

The Christian and Mohammedan States are filled with vast and richly
endowed hospitals, in which we admire the pious charity of the kings and
of the sultans who erected them. Would it not have been more humane to
govern the people well, to procure them ease, to excite and to favor
industry and trade, to permit them to enjoy in safety the fruits of their
labors, than to oppress them under a despotic yoke, to impoverish them by
senseless wars, to reduce them to mendicity in order to gratify an
immoderate luxury, and afterward build sumptuous monuments which can
contain but a very small portion of those whom they have rendered
miserable? Religion, by its virtues, has but given a change to men;
instead of foreseeing evils, it applies but insufficient remedies. The
ministers of Heaven have always known how to benefit themselves by the
calamities of others; public misery became their element; they made
themselves the administrators of the goods of the poor, the distributors
of alms, the depositaries of charities; thereby they extended and
sustained at all times their power over the unfortunates who usually
compose the most numerous, the most anxious, the most seditious part of
society. Thus the greatest evils are made profitable to the ministers of
the Lord.

The Christian priests tell us that the goods which they possess are the
goods of the poor, and pretend by this title that their possessions are
sacred; consequently, the sovereigns and the people press themselves to
accumulate lands, revenues, treasures for them; under pretext of charity,
our spiritual guides have become very opulent, and enjoy, in the sight of
the impoverished nations, goods which were destined but for the miserable;
the latter, far from murmuring about it, applaud a deceitful generosity
which enriches the Church, but which very rarely alleviates the sufferings
of the poor.

According to the principles of Christianity, poverty itself is a virtue,
and it is this virtue which the sovereigns and the priests make their
slaves observe the most. According to these ideas, a great number of pious
Christians have renounced with good-will the perishable riches of the
earth; have distributed their patrimony to the poor, and have retired into
a desert to live a life of voluntary indigence. But very soon this
enthusiasm, this supernatural taste for misery, must surrender to nature.
The successors to these voluntary poor, sold to the religious people their
prayers and their powerful intercession with the Deity; they became rich
and powerful; thus, monks and hermits lived in idleness, and, under the
pretext of charity, devoured insultingly the substance of the poor.
Poverty of spirit was that of which religion made always the greatest use.
The fundamental virtue of all religion, that is to say, the most useful
one to its ministers, is faith. It consists in an unlimited credulity,
which causes men to believe, without examination, all that which the
interpreters of the Deity wish them to believe. With the aid of this
wonderful virtue, the priests became the arbiters of justice and of
injustice; of good and of evil; they found it easy to commit crimes when
crimes became necessary to their interests. Implicit faith has been the
source of the greatest outrages which have been committed upon the earth.

CLXX.—CONFESSION, THAT GOLDEN MINE FOR THE PRIESTS, HAS DESTROYED
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY.

He who first proclaimed to the nations that, when man had wronged man, he
must ask God’s pardon, appease His wrath by presents, and offer Him
sacrifices, obviously subverted the true principles of morality. According
to these ideas, men imagine that they can obtain from the King of Heaven,
as well as from the kings of the earth, permission to be unjust and
wicked, or at least pardon for the evil which they might commit.

Morality is founded upon the relations, the needs, and the constant
interests of the inhabitants of the earth; the relations which subsist
between men and God are either entirely unknown or imaginary. The religion
associating God with men has visibly weakened or destroyed the ties which
unite men.

Mortals imagine that they can, with impunity, injure each other by making
a suitable reparation to the Almighty Being, who is supposed to have the
right to remit all the injuries done to His creatures. Is there anything
more liable to encourage wickedness and to embolden to crime, than to
persuade men that there exists an invisible being who has the right to
pardon injustice, rapine, perfidy, and all the outrages they can inflict
upon society? Encouraged by these fatal ideas, we see the most perverse
men abandon themselves to the greatest crimes, and expect to repair them
by imploring Divine mercy; their conscience rests in peace when a priest
assures them that Heaven is quieted by sincere repentance, which is very
useless to the world; this priest consoles them in the name of Deity, if
they consent in reparation of their faults to divide with His ministers
the fruits of their plunderings, of their frauds, and of their wickedness.
Morality united to religion, becomes necessarily subordinate to it. In the
mind of a religious person, God must be preferred to His creatures; “It is
better to obey Him than men!” The interests of the Celestial Monarch must
be above those of weak mortals. But the interests of Heaven are evidently
the interests of the ministers of Heaven; from which it follows evidently,
that in all religions, the priests, under pretext of Heaven’s interest’s,
or of God’s glory, will be able to dispense with the duties of human
morals when they do not agree with the duties which God is entitled to
impose.

Besides, He who has the power to pardon crimes, has He not the right to
order them committed?

CLXXI.—THE SUPPOSITION OF THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD IS NOT NECESSARY TO
MORALITY.

We are constantly told that without a God, there can be no moral
obligation; that it is necessary for men and for the sovereigns themselves
to have a lawgiver sufficiently powerful to compel them to be moral; moral
obligation implies a law; but this law arises from the eternal and
necessary relations of things among themselves, which have nothing in
common with the existence of a God. The rules which govern men’s conduct
spring from their own nature, which they are supposed to know, and not
from the Divine nature, of which they have no conception; these rules
compel us to render ourselves estimable or contemptible, amiable or
hateful, worthy of reward or of punishments, happy or unhappy, according
to the extent to which we observe them. The law that compels man not to
harm himself, is inherent in the nature of a sensible being, who, no
matter how he came into this world, or what can be his fate in another, is
compelled by his very nature to seek his welfare and to shun evil, to love
pleasure and to fear pain. The law which compels a man not to harm others
and to do good, is inherent in the nature of sensible beings living in
society, who, by their nature, are compelled to despise those who do them
no good, and to detest those who oppose their happiness. Whether there
exists a God or not, whether this God has spoken or not, men’s moral
duties will always be the same so long as they possess their own nature;
that is to say, so long as they are sensible beings. Do men need a God
whom they do not know, or an invisible lawgiver, or a mysterious religion,
or chimerical fears in order to comprehend that all excess tends
ultimately to destroy them, and that in order to preserve themselves they
must abstain from it; that in order to be loved by others, they must do
good; that doing evil is a sure means of incurring their hatred and
vengeance? “Before the law there was no sin.” Nothing is more false than
this maxim. It is enough for a man to be what he is, to be a sensible
being in order to distinguish that which pleases or displeases him. It is
enough that a man knows that another man is a sensible being like himself,
in order for him to know what is useful or injurious to him. It is enough
that man needs his fellow-creature, in order that he should fear that he
might produce unfavorable impressions upon him. Thus a sentient and
thinking being needs but to feel and to think, in order to discover that
which is due to him and to others. I feel, and another feels, like myself;
this is the foundation of all morality.

CLXXII.—RELIGION AND ITS SUPERNATURAL MORALITY ARE FATAL TO THE
PEOPLE, AND OPPOSED TO MAN’S NATURE.

We can judge of the merit of a system of morals but by its conformity with
man’s nature. According to this comparison, we have a right to reject it,
if we find it detrimental to the welfare of mankind. Whoever has seriously
meditated upon religion and its supernatural morality, whoever has weighed
its advantages and disadvantages, will become convinced that they are both
injurious to the interests of the human race, or directly opposed to man’s
nature.

“People, to arms! Your God’s cause is at stake! Heaven is outraged! Faith
is in danger! Down upon infidelity, blasphemy, and heresy!”

By the magical power of these valiant words, which the people never
understand, the priests in all ages were the leaders in the revolts of
nations, in dethroning kings, in kindling civil wars, and in imprisoning
men. When we chance to examine the important objects which have excited
the Celestial wrath and produced so many ravages upon the earth, it is
found that the foolish reveries and the strange conjectures of some
theologian who did not understand himself, or, the pretensions of the
clergy, have severed all ties of society and inundated the human race in
its own blood and tears.

CLXXIII.—HOW THE UNION OF RELIGION AND POLITICS IS FATAL TO THE
PEOPLE AND TO THE KINGS.

The sovereigns of this world in associating the Deity in the government of
their realms, in pretending to be His lieutenants and His representatives
upon earth, in admitting that they hold their power from Him, must
necessarily accept His ministers as rivals or as masters. Is it, then,
astonishing that the priests have often made the kings feel the
superiority of the Celestial Monarch? Have they not more than once made
the temporal princes understand that the greatest physical power is
compelled to surrender to the spiritual power of opinion? Nothing is more
difficult than to serve two masters, especially when they do not agree
upon what they demand of their subjects. The union of religion with
politics has necessarily caused a double legislation in the States. The
law of God, interpreted by His priests, is often contrary to the law of
the sovereign or to the interest of the State. When the princes are firm,
and sure of the love of their subjects, God’s law is sometimes obliged to
comply with the wise intentions of the temporal sovereign; but more often
the sovereign authority is obliged to retreat before the Divine authority,
that is to say, before the interests of the clergy. Nothing is more
dangerous for a prince, than to meddle with ecclesiastical affairs (to put
his hands into the holy-water pot), that is to say, to attempt the reform
of abuses consecrated by religion. God is never more angry than when the
Divine rights, the privileges, the possessions, and the immunities of His
priests are interfered with.

Metaphysical speculations or the religious opinions of men, never
influence their conduct except when they believe them conformed to their
interests. Nothing proves this truth more forcibly than the conduct of a
great number of princes in regard to the spiritual power, which we see
them very often resist. Should not a sovereign who is persuaded of the
importance and the rights of religion, conscientiously feel himself
obliged to receive with respect the orders of his priests, and consider
them as commandments of the Deity? There was a time when the kings and the
people, more conformable, and convinced of the rights of the spiritual
power, became its slaves, surrendered to it on all occasions, and were but
docile instruments in its hands; this happy time is no more. By a strange
inconsistency, we sometimes see the most religious monarchs oppose the
enterprises of those whom they regard as God’s ministers. A sovereign who
is filled with religion or respect for his God, ought to be constantly
prostrate before his priests, and regard them as his true sovereigns. Is
there a power upon the earth which has the right to measure itself with
that of the Most High?

CLXXIV.—CREEDS ARE BURDENSOME AND RUINOUS TO THE MAJORITY OF
NATIONS.

Have the princes who believe themselves interested in propagating the
prejudices of their subjects, reflected well upon the effects which are
produced by privileged demagogues, who have the right to speak when they
choose, and excite in the name of Heaven the passions of many millions of
their subjects? What ravages would not these holy haranguers cause should
they conspire to disturb a State, as they have so often done?

Nothing is more onerous and more ruinous for the greatest part of the
nations than the worship of their Gods! Everywhere their ministers not
only rank as the first order in the State, but also enjoy the greater
portion of society’s benefits, and have the right to levy continual taxes
upon their fellow-citizens. What real advantages do these organs of the
Most High procure for the people in exchange for the immense profits which
they draw from them? Do they give them in exchange for their wealth and
their courtesies anything but mysteries, hypotheses, ceremonies, subtle
questions, interminable quarrels, which very often their States must pay
for with their blood?

CLXXV.—RELIGION PARALYZES MORALITY.

Religion, which claims to be the firmest support of morality, evidently
deprives it of its true motor, to substitute imaginary motors,
inconceivable chimeras, which, being obviously contrary to common sense,
can not be firmly believed by any one. Everybody assures us that he
believes firmly in a God who rewards and punishes; everybody claims to be
persuaded of the existence of a hell and of a Paradise; however, do we see
that these ideas render men better or counterbalance in the minds of the
greatest number of them the slightest interest? Each one assures us that
he is afraid of God’s judgments, although each one gives vent to his
passions when he believes himself sure of escaping the judgments of men.
The fear of invisible powers is rarely as great as the fear of visible
powers. Unknown or distant sufferings make less impression upon people
than the erected gallows, or the example of a hanged man. There is
scarcely any courtier who fears God’s anger more than the displeasure of
his master. A pension, a title, a ribbon, are sufficient to make one
forget the torments of hell and the pleasures of the celestial court. A
woman’s caresses expose him every day to the displeasure of the Most High.
A joke, a banter, a bon-mot, make more impression upon the man of the
world than all the grave notions of his religion. Are we not assured that
a true repentance is sufficient to appease Divinity? However, we do not
see that this true repentance is sincerely expressed; at least, we very
rarely see great thieves, even in the hour of death, restore the goods
which they know they have unjustly acquired. Men persuade themselves, no
doubt, that they will submit to the eternal fire, if they can not
guarantee themselves against it. But as settlements can be made with
Heaven by giving the Church a portion of their fortunes, there are very
few religious thieves who do not die perfectly quieted about the manner in
which they gained their riches in this world.

CLXXVI.—FATAL CONSEQUENCES OF PIETY.

Even by the confession of the most ardent defenders of religion and of its
usefulness, nothing is more rare than sincere conversions; to which we
might add, nothing is more useless to society. Men do not become disgusted
with the world until the world is disgusted with them; a woman gives
herself to God only when the world no longer wants her. Her vanity finds
in religious devotion a role which occupies her and consoles her for the
ruin of her charms. She passes her time in the most trifling practices,
parties, intrigues, invectives, and slander; zeal furnishes her the means
of distinguishing herself and becoming an object of consideration in the
religious circle. If the bigots have the talent to please God and His
priests, they rarely possess that of pleasing society or of rendering
themselves useful to it. Religion for a devotee is a veil which covers and
justifies all his passions, his pride, his bad humor, his anger, his
vengeance, his impatience, his bitterness. Religion arrogates to itself a
tyrannical superiority which banishes from commerce all gentleness,
gaiety, and joy; it gives the right to censure others; to capture and to
exterminate the infidels for the glory of God; it is very common to be
religious and to have none of the virtues or the qualities necessary to
social life.

CLXXVII.—THE SUPPOSITION OF ANOTHER LIFE IS NEITHER CONSOLING TO MAN
NOR NECESSARY TO MORALITY.

We are assured that the dogma of another life is of the greatest
importance to the peace of society; it is imagined that without it men
would have no motives for doing good. Why do we need terrors and fables to
teach any reasonable man how he ought to conduct himself upon earth? Does
not each one of us see that he has the greatest interest in deserving the
approbation, esteem, and kindness of the beings which surround him, and in
avoiding all that can cause the censure, the contempt, and the resentment
of society? No matter how short the duration of a festival, of a
conversation, or of a visit may be, does not each one of us wish to act a
befitting part in it, agreeable to himself and to others? If life is but a
passage, let us try to make it easy; it can not be so if we lack the
regards of those who travel with us.

Religion, which is so sadly occupied with its gloomy reveries, represents
man to us as but a pilgrim upon earth; it concludes that in order to
travel with more safety, he should travel alone; renounce the pleasures
which he meets and deprive himself of the amusements which could console
him for the fatigues and the weariness of the road. A stoical and morose
philosophy sometimes gives us counsels as senseless as religion; but a
more rational philosophy inspires us to strew flowers on life’s pathway;
to dispel melancholy and panic terrors; to link our interests with those
of our traveling companions; to divert ourselves by gaiety and honest
pleasures from the pains and the crosses to which we are so often exposed.
We are made to feel, that in order to travel pleasantly, we should abstain
from that which could become injurious to ourselves, and to avoid with
great care that which could make us odious to our associates.

CLXXVIII.—AN ATHEIST HAS MORE MOTIVES FOR ACTING UPRIGHTLY, MORE
CONSCIENCE, THAN A RELIGIOUS PERSON.

It is asked what motives has an atheist for doing right. He can have the
motive of pleasing himself and his fellow-creatures; of living happily and
tranquilly; of making himself loved and respected by men, whose existence
and whose dispositions are better known than those of a being impossible
to understand. Can he who fears not the Gods, fear anything? He can fear
men, their contempt, their disrespect, and the punishments which the laws
inflict; finally, he can fear himself; he can be afraid of the remorse
that all those experience whose conscience reproaches them for having
deserved the hatred of their fellow-beings. Conscience is the inward
testimony which we render to ourselves for having acted in such a manner
as to deserve the esteem or the censure of those with whom we associate.
This conscience is based upon the knowledge which we have of men, and of
the sentiments which our actions must awaken in them. A religious person’s
conscience persuades him that he has pleased or displeased his God, of
whom he has no idea, and whose obscure and doubtful intentions are
explained to him only by suspicious men, who know no more of the essence
of Divinity than he does, and who do not agree upon what can please or
displease God. In a word, the conscience of a credulous man is guided by
men whose own conscience is in error, or whose interest extinguishes
intelligence.

Can an atheist have conscience? What are his motives for abstaining from
secret vices and crimes of which other men are ignorant, and which are
beyond the reach of laws? He can be assured by constant experience that
there is no vice which, in the nature of things, does not bring its own
punishment. If he wishes to preserve himself, he will avoid all those
excesses which can be injurious to his health; he would not desire to live
and linger, thus becoming a burden to himself and others. In regard to
secret crimes, he would avoid them through fear of being ashamed of
himself, from whom he can not hide. If he has reason, he will know the
price of the esteem that an honest man should have for himself. He will
know, besides, that unexpected circumstances can unveil to the eyes of
others the conduct which he feels interested in concealing. The other
world gives no motive for doing well to him who finds no motive for it
here.

CLXXIX.—AN ATHEISTICAL KING WOULD BE PREFERABLE TO ONE WHO IS
RELIGIOUS AND WICKED, AS WE OFTEN SEE THEM.

The speculating atheist, the theist will tell us, may be an honest man,
but his writings will cause atheism in politics. Princes and ministers,
being no longer restrained by the fear of God, will give themselves up
without scruple to the most frightful excesses. But no matter what we can
suppose of the depravity of an atheist on a throne, can it ever be any
greater or more injurious than that of so many conquerors, tyrants,
persecutors, of ambitious and perverse courtiers, who, without being
atheists, but who, being very often religious, do not cease to make
humanity groan under the weight of their crimes? Can an atheistical king
inflict more evil on the world than a Louis XI., a Philip II., a
Richelieu, who have all allied religion with crime? Nothing is rarer than
atheistical princes, and nothing more common than very bad and very
religious tyrants.

CLXXX.—THE MORALITY ACQUIRED BY PHILOSOPHY IS SUFFICIENT TO VIRTUE.

Any man who reflects can not fail of knowing his duties, of discovering
the relations which subsist between men, of meditating upon his own
nature, of discerning his needs, his inclinations, and his desires, and of
perceiving what he owes to the beings necessary to his own happiness.
These reflections naturally lead to the knowledge of the morality which is
the most essential for society. Every man who loves to retire within
himself in order to study and seek for the principles of things, has no
very dangerous passions; his greatest passion will be to know the truth,
and his greatest ambition to show it to others. Philosophy is beneficial
in cultivating the heart and the mind. In regard to morals, has not he who
reflects and reasons the advantage over him who does not reason?

If ignorance is useful to priests and to the oppressors of humanity, it is
very fatal to society. Man, deprived of intelligence, does not enjoy the
use of his reason; man, deprived of reason and intelligence, is a savage,
who is liable at any moment to be led into crime. Morality, or the science
of moral duties, is acquired but by the study of man and his relations. He
who does not reflect for himself does not know true morals, and can not
walk the road of virtue. The less men reason, the more wicked they are.
The barbarians, the princes, the great, and the dregs of society, are
generally the most wicked because they are those who reason the least. The
religious man never reflects, and avoids reasoning; he fears examination;
he follows authority; and very often an erroneous conscience makes him
consider it a holy duty to commit evil. The incredulous man reasons,
consults experience, and prefers it to prejudice. If he has reasoned
justly, his conscience becomes clear; he finds more real motives for
right-doing than the religious man, who has no motives but his chimeras,
and who never listens to reason. Are not the motives of the incredulous
man strong enough to counterbalance his passions? Is he blind enough not
to recognize the interests which should restrain him? Well! he will be
vicious and wicked; but even then he will be no worse and no better than
many credulous men who, notwithstanding religion and its sublime precepts,
continue to lead a life which this very religion condemns. Is a credulous
murderer less to be feared than a murderer who does not believe anything?
Is a religious tyrant any less a tyrant than an irreligious one?

CLXXXI.—OPINIONS RARELY INFLUENCE CONDUCT.

There is nothing more rare in the world than consistent men. Their
opinions do not influence their conduct, except when they conform to their
temperament, their passions, and to their interests. Religious opinions,
according to daily experience, produce much more evil than good; they are
injurious, because they very often agree with the passions of tyrants,
fanatics, and priests; they produce no effect, because they have not the
power to balance the present interests of the majority of men. Religious
principles are always put aside when they are opposed to ardent desires;
without being incredulous, they act as if they believed nothing. We risk
being deceived when we judge the opinions of men by their conduct or their
conduct by their opinions. A very religious man, notwithstanding the
austere and cruel principles of a bloody religion, will sometimes be, by a
fortunate inconsistency, humane, tolerant, moderate; in this case the
principles of his religion do not agree with the mildness of his
disposition. A libertine, a debauchee, a hypocrite, an adulterer, or a
thief will often show us that he has the clearest ideas of morals. Why do
they not practice them? It is because neither their temperament, their
interests, nor their habits agree with their sublime theories. The rigid
principles of Christian morality, which so many attempt to pass off as
Divine, have but very little influence upon the conduct of those who
preach them to others. Do they not tell us every day to do what they
preach, and not what they practice?

The religious partisans generally designate the incredulous as libertines.
It may be that many incredulous people are immoral; this immorality is due
to their temperament, and not to their opinions. But what has their
conduct to do with these opinions? Can not an immoral man be a good
physician, a good architect, a good geometer, a good logician, a good
metaphysician? With an irreproachable conduct, one can be ignorant upon
many things, and reason very badly. When truth is presented, it matters
not from whom it comes. Let us not judge men by their opinions, or
opinions by men; let us judge men by their conduct; and their opinions by
their conformity with experience, reason, and their usefulness for
mankind.

CLXXXII.—REASON LEADS MEN TO IRRELIGION AND TO ATHEISM, BECAUSE
RELIGION IS ABSURD, AND THE GOD OF THE PRIESTS IS A MALICIOUS AND
FEROCIOUS BEING.

Every man who reasons soon becomes incredulous, because reasoning proves
to him that theology is but a tissue of falsehoods; that religion is
contrary to all principles of common sense; that it gives a false color to
all human knowledge. The rational man becomes incredulous, because he sees
that religion, far from rendering men happier, is the first cause of the
greatest disorders, and of the permanent calamities with which the human
race is afflicted. The man who seeks his well-being and his own
tranquillity, examines his religion and is undeceived, because he finds it
inconvenient and useless to pass his life in trembling at phantoms which
are made but to intimidate silly women or children. If, sometimes,
libertinage, which reasons but little, leads to irreligion, the man who is
regular in his morals can have very legitimate motives for examining his
religion, and for banishing it from his mind. Too weak to intimidate the
wicked, in whom vice has become deeply rooted, religious terrors afflict,
torment, and burden imaginative minds. If souls have courage and
elasticity, they shake off a yoke which they bear unwillingly. If weak or
timorous, they wear the yoke during their whole life, and they grow old,
trembling, or at least they live under burdensome uncertainty.

The priests have made of God such a malicious, ferocious being, so ready
to be vexed, that there are few men in the world who do not wish at the
bottom of their hearts that this God did not exist. We can not live happy
if we are always in fear. You worship a terrible God, O religious people!
Alas! And yet you hate Him; you wish that He was not. Can we avoid wishing
the absence or the destruction of a master, the idea of whom can but
torment the mind? It is the dark colors in which the priests paint the
Deity which revolt men, moving them to hate and reject Him.

CLXXXIII.—FEAR ALONE CREATES THEISTS AND BIGOTS.

If fear has created the Gods, fear still holds their empire in the mind of
mortals; they have been so early accustomed to tremble even at the name of
the Deity, that it has become for them a specter, a goblin, a were-wolf
which torments them, and whose idea deprives them even of the courage to
attempt to reassure themselves. They are afraid that this invisible
specter will strike them if they cease to be afraid. The religious people
fear their God too much to love Him sincerely; they serve Him as slaves,
who can not escape His power, and take the part of flattering their
Master; and who, by continually lying, persuade themselves that they love
Him. They make a virtue of necessity. The love of religious bigots for
their God, and of slaves for their despots, is but a servile and simulated
homage which they render by compulsion, in which the heart has no part.

CLXXXIV.—CAN WE, OR SHOULD WE, LOVE OR NOT LOVE GOD?

The Christian Doctors have made their God so little worthy of love, that
several among them have thought it their duty not to love Him; this is a
blasphemy which makes less sincere doctors tremble. Saint Thomas, having
asserted that we are under obligation to love God as soon as we can use
our reason, the Jesuit Sirmond replied to him that that was very soon; the
Jesuit Vasquez claims that it is sufficient to love God in the hour of
death; Hurtado says that we should love God at all times; Henriquez is
content with loving Him every five years; Sotus, every Sunday. “Upon what
shall we rely?” asks Father Sirmond, who adds: “that Suarez desires that
we should love God sometimes. But at what time? He allows you to judge of
it; he knows nothing about it himself; for he adds: ‘What a learned doctor
does not know, who can know?'” The same Jesuit Sirmond continues, by
saying: “that God does not command us to love Him with human affection,
and does not promise us salvation but on condition of giving Him our
hearts; it is enough to obey Him and to love Him, by fulfilling His
commandments; that this is the only love which we owe Him, and He has not
commanded so much to love Him as not to hate Him.” [See “Apology, Des
Lettres Provinciales,” Tome II.] This doctrine appears heretical, ungodly,
and abominable to the Jansenists, who, by the revolting severity which
they attribute to their God, render Him still less lovable than their
adversaries, the Jesuits. The latter, in order to make converts, represent
God in such a light as to give confidence to the most perverse mortals.
Thus, nothing is less established among the Christians than the important
question, whether we can or should love or not love God. Among their
spiritual guides some pretend that we must love God with all the heart,
notwithstanding all His severity; others, like the Father Daniel, think
that an act of pure love of God is the most heroic act of Christian
virtue, and that human weakness can scarcely reach so high. The Jesuit
Pintereau goes still further; he says: “The deliverance from the grievous
yoke of Divine love is a privilege of the new alliance.”

CLXXXV.—THE VARIOUS AND CONTRADICTORY IDEAS WHICH EXIST EVERYWHERE
UPON GOD AND RELIGION, PROVE THAT THEY ARE BUT IDLE FANCIES.

It is always the character of man which decides upon the character of his
God; each one creates a God for himself, and in his own image. The
cheerful man who indulges in pleasures and dissipation, can not imagine
God to be an austere and rebukeful being; he requires a facile God with
whom he can make an agreement. The severe, sour, bilious man wants a God
like himself; one who inspires fear; and regards as perverse those that
accept only a God who is yielding and easily won over. Heresies, quarrels,
and schisms are necessary. Can men differently organized and modified by
diverse circumstances, agree in regard to an imaginary being which exists
but in their own brains? The cruel and interminable disputes continually
arising among the ministers of the Lord, have not a tendency to attract
the confidence of those who take an impartial view of them. How can we
help our incredulity, when we see principles about which those who teach
them to others, never agree? How can we avoid doubting the existence of a
God, the idea of whom varies in such a remarkable way in the mind of His
ministers? How can we avoid rejecting totally a God who is full of
contradictions? How can we rely upon priests whom we see continually
contending, accusing each other of being infidels and heretics, rending
and persecuting each other without mercy, about the way in which they
understand the pretended truths which they reveal to the world?

CLXXXVI.—THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, WHICH IS THE BASIS OF ALL RELIGION,
HAS NOT YET BEEN DEMONSTRATED.

However, so far, this important truth has not yet been demonstrated, not
only to the incredulous, but in a satisfactory way to theologians
themselves. In all times, we have seen profound thinkers who thought they
had new proofs of the truth most important to men. What have been the
fruits of their meditations and of their arguments? They left the thing at
the same point; they have demonstrated nothing; nearly always they have
excited the clamors of their colleagues, who accuse them of having badly
defended the best of causes.

CLXXXVII.—PRIESTS, MORE THAN UNBELIEVERS, ACT FROM INTEREST.

The apologists of religion repeat to us every day that the passions alone
create unbelievers. “It is,” they say, “pride, and a desire to distinguish
themselves, that make atheists; they seek also to efface the idea of God
from their minds, because they have reason to fear His rigorous
judgments.” Whatever may be the motives which cause men to be irreligious,
the thing in question is whether they have found truth. No man acts
without motives; let us first examine the arguments—we shall examine
the motives afterward—and we shall find that they are more
legitimate, and more sensible, than those of many credulous devotees who
allow themselves to be guided by masters little worthy of men’s
confidence.

You say, O priests of the Lord! that the passions cause unbelievers; you
pretend that they renounce religion through interest, or because it
interferes with their irregular inclinations; you assert that they attack
your Gods because they fear their punishments. Ah! yourselves in defending
this religion and its chimeras, are you, then, really exempt from passions
and interests? Who receive the fees of this religion, on whose behalf the
priests are so zealous? It is the priests. To whom does religion procure
power, credit, honors, wealth? To the priests! In all countries, who make
war upon reason, science, truth, and philosophy and render them odious to
the sovereigns and to the people? Who profit by the ignorance of men and
their vain prejudices? The priests! You are, O priests, rewarded, honored,
and paid for deceiving mortals, and you punish those who undeceive them.
The follies of men procure you blessings, offerings, expiations; the most
useful truths bring to those who announce them, chains, sufferings,
stakes. Let the world judge between us.

CLXXXVIII.—PRIDE, PRESUMPTION, AND CORRUPTION OF THE HEART ARE MORE
OFTEN FOUND AMONG PRIESTS THAN AMONG ATHEISTS AND UNBELIEVERS.

Pride and vanity always were and always will be the inherent vices of the
priesthood. Is there anything that has a tendency to render men haughty
and vain more than the assumption of exercising Heavenly power, of
possessing a sacred character, of being the messengers of the Most High?
Are not these dispositions continually increased by the credulity of the
people, by the deference and the respect of the sovereigns, by the
immunities, the privileges, and the distinctions which the clergy enjoy?
The common man is, in every country, more devoted to his spiritual guides,
whom he considers as Divine men, than to his temporal superiors, whom he
considers as ordinary men. Village priests enjoy more honor than the lord
or the judge. A Christian priest believes himself far above a king or an
emperor. A Spanish grandee having spoken hastily to a monk, the latter
said to him, arrogantly, “Learn to respect a man who has every day your
God in his hands and your queen at his feet.”

Have the priests any right to accuse the unbelievers of pride? Do they
distinguish themselves by a rare modesty or profound humility? Is it not
evident that the desire to domineer over men is the essence of their
profession? If the Lord’s ministers were truly modest, would we see them
so greedy of respect, so easily irritated by contradictions, so prompt and
so cruel in revenging themselves upon those whose opinions offend them?
Does not modest science impress us with the difficulty of unraveling
truth? What other passion than frenzied pride can render men so ferocious,
so vindictive, so devoid of toleration and gentleness? What is more
presumptuous than to arm nations and cause rivers of blood, in order to
establish or to defend futile conjectures?

You say, O Doctors of Divinity! that it is presumption alone which makes
atheists. Teach them, then, what your God is; instruct them about His
essence; speak of Him in an intelligible way; tell of Him reasonable
things, which are not contradictory or impossible! If you are not in the
condition to satisfy them; if, so far, none of you have been able to
demonstrate the existence of a God in a clear and convincing way; if,
according to your own confession, His essence is as much hidden from you
as from the rest of mortals, pardon those who can not admit that which
they can neither understand nor reconcile. Do not accuse of presumption
and vanity those who have the sincerity to confess their ignorance; accuse
not of folly those who find it impossible to believe in contradictions.
You should blush at the thought of exciting the hatred of the people and
the vengeance of the sovereigns against men who do not think as you do
upon a Being of whom you have no idea yourselves. Is there anything more
audacious and more extravagant than to reason about an object which it is
impossible to conceive of?

You tell us it is corruption of the heart which produces atheists; that
they shake off the yoke of the Deity because they fear His terrible
judgments. But why do you paint your God in such black colors? Why does
this powerful God permit that such corrupt hearts should exist? Why should
we not make efforts to break the yoke of a Tyrant who, being able to make
of the hearts of men what He pleases, allows them to become perverted and
hardened; blinds them; refuses them His grace, in order to have the
satisfaction of punishing them eternally for having been hardened,
blinded, and not having received the grace which He refused them? The
theologians and the priests must feel themselves very sure of Heaven’s
grace and of a happy future, in order not to detest a Master so capricious
as the God whom they announce to us. A God who damns eternally must be the
most odious Being that the human mind could imagine.

CLXXXIX.—PREJUDICES ARE BUT FOR A TIME, AND NO POWER IS DURABLE
EXCEPT IT IS BASED UPON TRUTH, REASON, AND EQUITY.

No man on earth is truly interested in sustaining error; sooner or later
it is compelled to surrender to truth. General interest tends to the
enlightenment of mortals; even the passions sometimes contribute to the
breaking of some of the chains of prejudice. Have not the passions of some
sovereigns destroyed, within the past two centuries in some countries of
Europe, the tyrannical power which a haughty Pontiff formerly exercised
over all the princes of his sect? Politics, becoming more enlightened, has
despoiled the clergy of an immense amount of property which credulity had
accumulated in their hands. Should not this memorable example make even
the priests realize that prejudices are but for a time, and that truth
alone is capable of assuring a substantial well-being?

Have not the ministers of the Lord seen that in pampering the sovereigns,
in forging Divine rights for them, and in delivering to them the people,
bound hand and foot, they were making tyrants of them? Have they not
reason to fear that these gigantic idols, whom they have raised to the
skies, will crush them also some day? Do not a thousand examples prove
that they ought to fear that these unchained lions, after having devoured
nations, will in turn devour them?

We will respect the priests when they become citizens. Let them make use,
if they can, of Heaven’s authority to create fear in those princes who
incessantly desolate the earth; let them deprive them of the right of
being unjust; let them recognize that no subject of a State enjoys living
under tyranny; let them make the sovereigns feel that they themselves are
not interested in exercising a power which, rendering them odious, injures
their own safety, their own power, their own grandeur; finally, let the
priests and the undeceived kings recognize that no power is safe that is
not based upon truth, reason, and equity.

CXC.—HOW MUCH POWER AND CONSIDERATION THE MINISTERS OF THE GODS
WOULD HAVE, IF THEY BECAME THE APOSTLES OF REASON AND THE DEFENDERS OF
LIBERTY!

The ministers of the Gods, in warring against human reason, which they
ought to develop, act against their own interest. What would be their
power, their consideration, their empire over the wisest men; what would
be the gratitude of the people toward them if, instead of occupying
themselves with their vain quarrels, they had applied themselves to the
useful sciences; if they had sought the true principles of physics, of
government, and of morals. Who would dare reproach the opulence and credit
of a corporation which, consecrating its leisure and its authority to the
public good, should use the one for studying and meditating, and the other
for enlightening equally the minds of the sovereigns and the subjects?

Priests! lay aside your idle fancies, your unintelligible dogmas, your
despicable quarrels; banish to imaginary regions these phantoms, which
could be of use to you only in the infancy of nations; take the tone of
reason, instead of sounding the tocsin of persecution against your
adversaries; instead of entertaining the people with foolish disputes, of
preaching useless and fanatical virtues, preach to them humane and social
morality; preach to them virtues which are really useful to the world;
become the apostles of reason, the lights of the nations, the defenders of
liberty, reformers of abuses, the friends of truth, and we will bless you,
we will honor you, we will love you, and you will be sure of holding an
eternal empire over the hearts of your fellow-beings.

CXCI.—WHAT A HAPPY AND GREAT REVOLUTION WOULD TAKE PLACE IN THE
UNIVERSE, IF PHILOSOPHY WAS SUBSTITUTED FOR RELIGION!

Philosophers, in all ages, have taken the part that seemed destined for
the ministers of religion. The hatred of the latter for philosophy was
never more than professional jealousy. All men accustomed to think,
instead of seeking to injure each other, should unite their efforts in
combating errors, in seeking truth, and especially in dispelling the
prejudices from which the sovereigns and subjects suffer alike, and whose
upholders themselves finish, sooner or later, by becoming the victims.

In the hands of an enlightened government the priests would become the
most useful of citizens. Could men with rich stipends from the State, and
relieved of the care of providing for their own subsistence, do anything
better than to instruct themselves in order to be able to instruct others?
Would not their minds be better satisfied in discovering truth than in
wandering in the labyrinths of darkness? Would it be any more difficult to
unravel the principles of man’s morals, than the imaginary principles of
Divine and theological morals? Would ordinary men have as much trouble in
understanding the simple notions of their duties, as in charging their
memories with mysteries, unintelligible words, and obscure definitions
which are impossible for them to understand? How much time and trouble is
lost in trying to teach men things which are of no use to them. What
resources for the public benefit, for encouraging the progress of the
sciences and the advancement of knowledge, for the education of youth, are
presented to well-meaning sovereigns through so many monasteries, which,
in a great number of countries devour the people’s substance without an
equivalent. But superstition, jealous of its exclusive empire, seems to
have formed but useless beings. What advantage could not be drawn from a
multitude of cenobites of both sexes whom we see in so many countries, and
who are so well paid to do nothing. Instead of occupying them with sterile
contemplations, with mechanical prayers, with monotonous practices;
instead of burdening them with fasts and austerities, let there be excited
among them a salutary emulation that would inspire them to seek the means
of serving usefully the world, which their fatal vows oblige them to
renounce. Instead of filling the youthful minds of their pupils with
fables, dogmas, and puerilities, why not invite or oblige the priests to
teach them true things, and so make of them citizens useful to their
country? The way in which men are brought up makes them useful but to the
clergy, who blind them, and to the tyrants, who plunder them.

CXCII.—THE RETRACTION OF AN UNBELIEVER AT THE HOUR OF DEATH, PROVES
NOTHING AGAINST INCREDULITY.

The adherents of credulity often accuse the unbelievers of bad faith
because they sometimes waver in their principles, changing opinions during
sickness, and retracting them at the hour of death. When the body is
diseased, the faculty of reasoning is generally disturbed also. The infirm
and decrepit man, in approaching his end, sometimes perceives himself that
reason is leaving him, he feels that prejudice returns. There are diseases
which have a tendency to lessen courage, to make pusillanimous, and to
enfeeble the brain; there are others which, in destroying the body, do not
affect the reason. However, an unbeliever who retracts in sickness, is not
more rare or more extraordinary than a devotionist who permits himself,
while in health, to neglect the duties that his religion prescribes for
him in the most formal manner.

Cleomenes, King of Sparta, having shown little respect for the Gods during
his reign, became superstitious in his last days; with the view of
interesting Heaven in his favor, he called around him a multitude of
sacrificing priests. One of his friends expressing his surprise, Cleomenes
said: “What are you astonished at? I am no longer what I was, and not
being the same, I can not think in the same way.”

The ministers of religion in their daily conduct, often belie the rigorous
principles which they teach to others, so that the unbelievers in their
turn think they have a right to accuse them of bad faith. If some
unbelievers contradict, in sight of death or during sickness, the opinions
which they entertained in health, do not the priests in health belie
opinions of the religion which they hold? Do we see a great multitude of
humble, generous prelates devoid of ambition, enemies of pomp and
grandeur, the friends of poverty? In short, do we see the conduct of many
Christian priests corresponding with the austere morality of Christ, their
God and their model?

CXCIII.—IT IS NOT TRUE THAT ATHEISM SUNDERS ALL THE TIES OF SOCIETY.

Atheism, we are told, breaks all social ties. Without belief in God, what
becomes of the sacredness of the oath? How can we bind an atheist who can
not seriously attest the Deity? But does the oath place us under stronger
obligations to the engagements which we make? Whoever dares to lie, will
he not dare to perjure himself? He who is base enough to violate his word,
or unjust enough to break his promises in contempt of the esteem of men,
will not be more faithful for having taken all the Gods as witnesses to
his oaths. Those who rank themselves above the judgments of men, will soon
put themselves above the judgments of God. Are not princes, of all
mortals, the most prompt in taking oaths, and the most prompt in violating
them?

CXCIV.—REFUTATION OF THE ASSERTION THAT RELIGION IS NECESSARY FOR
THE MASSES.

Religion, they tell us, is necessary for the masses; that though
enlightened persons may not need restraint upon their opinions, it is
necessary at least for the common people, in whom education has not
developed reason. Is it true, then, that religion is a restraint for the
people? Do we see that this religion prevents them from intemperance,
drunkenness, brutality, violence, frauds, and all kinds of excesses?

Could a people who had no idea of the Deity, conduct itself in a more
detestable manner than many believing people in whom we see dissolute
habits, and the vices most unworthy of rational beings? Do we not see the
artisan or the man of the people go from his church and plunge headlong
into his usual excesses, persuading himself all the while that his
periodical homage to God gives him the right to follow without remorse his
vicious practices and habitual inclinations? If the people are gross and
ignorant, is not their stupidity due to the negligence of the princes who
do not attend to the public education, or who oppose the instruction of
their subjects? Finally, is not the irrationality of the people plainly
the work of the priests, who, instead of interesting them in a rational
morality, do nothing but entertain them with fables, phantoms, intrigues,
observances, idle fancies, and false virtues, upon which they claim that
everything depends?

Religion is, for the people, but a vain attendance upon ceremonies, to
which they cling from habit, which amuses their eyes, which enlivens
temporarily their sleepy minds, without influencing the conduct, and
without correcting their morals. By the confession even of the ministers
at the altars, nothing is more rare than the interior and spiritual
religion, which is alone capable of regulating the life of man, and of
triumphing over his inclinations. In good faith, among the most numerous
and the most devotional people, are there many capable of understanding
the principles of their religious system, and who find them of sufficient
strength to stifle their perverse inclinations?

Many people will tell us that it is better to have some kind of a
restraint than none at all. They will pretend that if religion does not
control the great mass, it serves at least to restrain some individuals,
who, without it, would abandon themselves to crime without remorse. No
doubt it is necessary for men to have a restraint; but they do not need an
imaginary one; they need true and visible restraints; they need real
fears, which are much better to restrain them than panic terrors and idle
fancies. Religion frightens but a few pusillanimous minds, whose weakness
of character already renders them little to be dreaded by their
fellow-citizens. An equitable government, severe laws, a sound morality,
will apply equally to everybody; every one would be forced to believe in
it, and would feel the danger of not conforming to it.

CXCV.—EVERY RATIONAL SYSTEM IS NOT MADE FOR THE MULTITUDE.

We may be asked if atheism can suit the multitude? I reply, that every
system which demands discussion is not for the multitude. What use is
there, then, in preaching atheism? It can at least make those who reason,
feel that nothing is more extravagant than to make ourselves uneasy, and
nothing more unjust than to cause anxiety to others on account of
conjectures, destitute of all foundation. As to the common man, who never
reasons, the arguments of an atheist are no better suited to him than a
philosopher’s hypothesis, an astronomer’s observations, a chemist’s
experiments, a geometer’s calculations, a physician’s examinations, an
architect’s designs, or a lawyer’s pleadings, who all labor for the people
without their knowledge.

The metaphysical arguments of theology, and the religious disputes which
have occupied for so long many profound visionists, are they made any more
for the common man than the arguments of an atheist? More than this, the
principles of atheism, founded upon common sense, are they not more
intelligible than those of a theology which we see bristling with
insolvable difficulties, even for the most active minds? The people in
every country have a religion which they do not understand, which they do
not examine, and which they follow but by routine; their priests alone
occupy themselves with the theology which is too sublime for them. If, by
accident, the people should lose this unknown theology, they could console
them selves for the loss of a thing which is not only entirely useless,
but which produces among them very dangerous ebullitions.

It would be very foolish to write for the common man or to attempt to cure
his prejudices all at once. We write but for those who read and reason;
the people read but little, and reason less. Sensible and peaceable people
enlighten themselves; their light spreads itself gradually, and in time
reaches the people. On the other hand, those who deceive men, do they not
often take the trouble themselves of undeceiving them?

CXCVI.—FUTILITY AND DANGER OF THEOLOGY. WISE COUNSELS TO PRINCES.

If theology is a branch of commerce useful to theologians, it has been
demonstrated to be superfluous and injurious to the rest of society. The
interests of men will succeed in opening their eyes sooner or later. The
sovereigns and the people will some day discover the indifference and the
contempt that a futile science deserves which serves but to trouble men
without making them better. They will feel the uselessness of many
expensive practices, which do not at all contribute to public welfare;
they will blush at many pitiful quarrels, which will cease to disturb the
tranquillity of the States as soon as they cease to attach any importance
to them.

Princes! instead of taking part in the senseless contentions of your
priests, instead of espousing foolishly their impertinent quarrels,
instead of striving to bring all your subjects to uniform opinions, occupy
yourselves with their happiness in this world, and do not trouble
yourselves about the fate which awaits them in another. Govern them
justly, give them good laws, respect their liberty and their property,
superintend their education, encourage them in their labors, reward their
talents and their virtues, repress their licentiousness, and do not
trouble yourselves upon what they think about objects useless to them and
to you. Then you will no longer need fictions to make yourselves obeyed;
you will become the only guides of your subjects; their ideas will be
uniform about the feelings of love and respect which will be your due.
Theological fables are useful but to tyrants, who do not understand the
art of ruling over reasonable beings.

CXCVII.—FATAL EFFECTS OF RELIGION UPON THE PEOPLE AND THE PRINCES.

Does it require the efforts of genius to comprehend that what is beyond
man, is not made for men; that what is supernatural, is not made for
natural beings; that impenetrable mysteries are not made for limited
minds? If theologians are foolish enough to dispute about subjects which
they acknowledge to be unintelligible to themselves, should society take a
part in their foolish quarrels? Must human blood flow in order to give
value to the conjectures of a few obstinate visionists? If it is very
difficult to cure the theologians of their mania and the people of their
prejudices, it is at least very easy to prevent the extravagances of the
one and the folly of the other from producing pernicious effects. Let each
one be allowed to think as he chooses, but let him not be allowed to annoy
others for their mode of thinking. If the chiefs of nations were more just
and more sensible, theological opinions would not disturb the public
tranquillity any more than the disputes of philosophers, physicians,
grammarians, and of critics. It is the tyranny of princes which makes
theological quarrels have serious consequences. When kings shall cease to
meddle with theology, theological quarrels will no longer be a thing to
fear.

Those who boast so much upon the importance and usefulness of religion,
ought to show us its beneficial results, and the advantages that the
disputes and abstract speculations of theology can bring to porters, to
artisans, to farmers, to fishmongers, to women, and to so many depraved
servants, with whom the large cities are filled. People of this kind are
all religious, they have implicit faith; their priests believe for them;
they accept a faith unknown to their guides; they listen assiduously to
sermons; they assist regularly in ceremonies; they think it a great crime
to transgress the ordinances to which from childhood they have been taught
to conform. What good to morality results from all this? None whatever;
they have no idea of morality, and you see them indulge in all kinds of
rogueries, frauds, rapine, and excesses which the law does not punish. The
masses, in truth, have no idea of religion; what is called religion, is
but a blind attachment to unknown opinions and mysterious dealings. In
fact, to deprive the people of religion, is depriving them of nothing. If
we should succeed in destroying their prejudices, we would but diminish or
annihilate the dangerous confidence which they have in self-interested
guides, and teach them to beware of those who, under the pretext of
religion, very often lead them into fatal excesses.

CXCVIII.—CONTINUATION.

Under pretext of instructing and enlightening men, religion really holds
them in ignorance, and deprives them even of the desire of understanding
the objects which interest them the most. There exists for the people no
other rule of conduct than that which their priests indicate to them.
Religion takes the place of everything; but being in darkness itself, it
has a greater tendency to misguide mortals, than to guide them in the way
of science and happiness. Philosophy, morality, legislation, and politics
are to them enigmas. Man, blinded by religious prejudices, finds it
impossible to understand his own nature, to cultivate his reason, to make
experiments; he fears truth as soon as it does not agree with his
opinions. Everything tends to render the people devout, but all is opposed
to their being humane, reasonable, and virtuous. Religion seems to have
for its object only to blunt the feeling and to dull the intelligence of
men.

The war which always existed between the priests and the best minds of all
ages, comes from this, that the wise men perceived the fetters which
superstition wished to place upon the human mind, which it fain would keep
in eternal infancy, that it might be occupied with fables, burdened with
terrors, and frightened by phantoms which would prevent it from
progressing. Incapable of perfecting itself, theology opposed
insurmountable barriers to the progress of true knowledge; it seemed to be
occupied but with the care to keep the nations and their chiefs in the
most profound ignorance of their true interests, of their relations, of
their duties, of the real motives which can lead them to prosperity; it
does but obscure morality; renders its principles arbitrary, subjects it
to the caprices of the Gods, or of their ministers; it converts the art of
governing men into a mysterious tyranny which becomes the scourge of
nations; it changes the princes into unjust and licentious despots, and
the people into ignorant slaves, who corrupt themselves in order to obtain
the favor of their masters.

CXCIX.—HISTORY TEACHES US THAT ALL RELIGIONS WERE ESTABLISHED BY THE
AID OF IGNORANCE, AND BY MEN WHO HAD THU EFFRONTERY TO STYLE THEMSELVES
THE ENVOYS OF DIVINITY.

If we take the trouble to follow the history of the human mind, we will
discover that theology took care not to extend its limits. It began by
repeating fables, which it claimed to be sacred truths; it gave birth to
poesy, which filled the people’s imagination with puerile fictions; it
entertained them but with its Gods and their incredible feats; in a word,
religion always treated men like children, whom they put to sleep with
tales that their ministers would like still to pass as incontestable
truths. If the ministers of the Gods sometimes made useful discoveries,
they always took care to hide them in enigmas and to envelope them in
shadows of mystery. The Pythagorases and the Platos, in order to acquire
some futile attainments, were obliged to crawl to the feet of the priests,
to become initiated into their mysteries, to submit to the tests which
they desired to impose upon them; it is at this cost that they were
permitted to draw from the fountain-head their exalted ideas, so seducing
still to all those who admire what is unintelligible. It was among
Egyptian, Indian, Chaldean priests; it was in the schools of these
dreamers, interested by profession in dethroning human reason, that
philosophy was obliged to borrow its first rudiments. Obscure or false in
its principles, mingled with fictions and fables, solely made to seduce
imagination, this philosophy progressed but waveringly, and instead of
enlightening the mind, it blinded it, and turned it away from useful
objects. The theological speculations and mystical reveries of the
ancients have, even in our days, the making of the law in a great part of
the philosophical world. Adopted by modern theology, we can scarcely
deviate from them without heresy; they entertain us with aerial beings,
with spirits, angels, demons, genii, and other phantoms, which are the
object of the meditations of our most profound thinkers, and which serve
as a basis to metaphysics, an abstract and futile science, upon which the
greatest geniuses have vainly exercised themselves for thousands of years.
Thus hypotheses, invented by a few visionists of Memphis and of Babylon,
continue to be the basis of a science revered for the obscurity which
makes it pass as marvelous and Divine. The first legislators of nations
were priests; the first mythologists and poets were priests; the first
philosophers were priests; the first physicians were priests. In their
hands science became a sacred thing, prohibited to the profane; they spoke
only by allegories, emblems, enigmas, and ambiguous oracles—means
well-suited to excite curiosity, to put to work the imagination, and
especially to inspire in the ignorant man a holy respect for those whom he
believed instructed by Heaven, capable of reading the destinies of earth,
and who boldly pretended to be the organs of Divinity.

CC.—ALL RELIGIONS, ANCIENT AND MODERN, HAVE MUTUALLY BORROWED THEIR
ABSTRACT REVERIES AND THEIR RIDICULOUS PRACTICES.

The religions of these ancient priests have disappeared, or, rather, they
have changed their form. Although our modern theologians regard the
ancient priests as impostors, they have taken care to gather up the
scattered fragments of their religious systems, the whole of which does
not exist any longer for us; we will find in our modern religions, not
only the metaphysical dogmas which theology has but dressed in another
form, but we still find remarkable remains of their superstitious
practices, of their theurgy, of their magic, of their enchantments.

Christians are still commanded to regard with respect the monuments of the
legislators, the priests, and the prophets of the Hebrew religion, which,
according to appearances, has borrowed from Egypt the fantastic notions
with which we see it filled. Thus the extravagances invented by frauds or
idolatrous visionists, are still regarded as sacred opinions by the
Christians!

If we but look at history, we see striking resemblances in all religions.
Everywhere on earth we find religious ideas periodically afflicting and
rejoicing the people; everywhere we see rites, practices often abominable,
and formidable mysteries occupying the mind, and becoming objects of
meditation. We see the different superstitions borrowing from each other
their abstract reveries and their ceremonies. Religions are generally
unformed rhapsodies combined by new Doctors of Divinity, who, in composing
them, have used the materials of their predecessors, reserving the right
of adding or subtracting what suits or does not suit their present views.
The religion of Egypt served evidently as a basis for the religion of
Moses, who expunged from it the worship of idols. Moses was but an
Egyptian schismatic, Christianity is but a reformed Judaism. Mohammedanism
is composed of Judaism, of Christianity, and of the ancient religion of
Arabia.

CCI.—THEOLOGY HAS ALWAYS TURNED PHILOSOPHY FROM ITS TRUE COURSE.

From the most remote period theology alone regulated the march of
philosophy. What aid has it lent it? It changed it into an unintelligible
jargon, which only had a tendency to render the clearest truth uncertain;
it converted the art of reasoning into a science of words; it threw the
human mind into the aerial regions of metaphysics, where it unsuccessfully
occupied itself in sounding useless and dangerous abysses. For physical
and simple causes, this philosophy substituted supernatural causes, or,
rather, causes truly occult; it explained difficult phenomena by agents
more inconceivable than these phenomena; it filled discourse with words
void of sense, incapable of giving the reason of things, better suited to
obscure than to enlighten, and which seem invented but to discourage man,
to guard him against the powers of his own mind, to make him distrust the
principles of reason and evidence, and to surround the truth with an
insurmountable barrier.

CCII.—-THEOLOGY NEITHER EXPLAINS NOR ENLIGHTENS ANYTHING IN THE
WORLD OR IN NATURE.

If we would believe the adherents of religion, nothing could be explicable
in the world without it; nature would be a continual enigma; it would be
impossible for man to comprehend himself. But, at the bottom, what does
this religion explain to us? The more we examine it, the more we find that
theological notions are fit but to perplex all our ideas; they change all
into mysteries; they explain to us difficult things by impossible things.
Is it, then, explaining things to attribute them to unknown agencies, to
invisible powers, to immaterial causes? Is it really enlightening the
human mind when, in its embarrassment, it is directed to the “depths of
the treasures of Divine Wisdom,” upon which they tell us it is in vain for
us to turn our bold regards? Can the Divine Nature, which we know nothing
about, make us understand man’s nature, which we find so difficult to
explain?

Ask a Christian philosopher what is the origin of the world. He will
answer that God created the universe. What is God? We do not know anything
about it. What is it to create? We have no idea of it! What is the cause
of pestilences, famines, wars, sterility, inundations, earthquakes? It is
God’s wrath. What remedies can prevent these calamities? Prayers,
sacrifices, processions, offerings, ceremonies, are, we are told, the true
means to disarm Celestial fury. But why is Heaven angry? Because men are
wicked. Why are men wicked? Because their nature is corrupt. What is the
cause of this corruption? It is, a theologian of enlightened Europe will
reply, because the first man was seduced by the first woman to eat of an
apple which his God had forbidden him to touch. Who induced this woman to
do such a folly? The Devil. Who created the Devil? God! Why did God create
this Devil destined to pervert the human race? We know nothing about it;
it is a mystery hidden in the bosom of the Deity.

Does the earth revolve around the sun? Two centuries ago a devout
philosopher would have replied that such a thought was blasphemy, because
such a system could not agree with the Holy Book, which every Christian
reveres as inspired by the Deity Himself. What is the opinion to-day about
it? Notwithstanding Divine Inspiration, the Christian philosophers finally
concluded to rely upon evidence rather than upon the testimony of their
inspired books.

What is the hidden principle of the actions and of the motions of the
human body? It is the soul. What is a soul? It is a spirit. What is a
spirit? It is a substance which has neither form, color, expansion, nor
parts. How can we conceive of such a substance? How can it move a body? We
know nothing about it. Have brutes souls? The Carthusian assures you that
they are machines. But do we not see them act, feel, and think in a manner
which resembles that of men? This is a pure illusion, you say. But why do
you deprive the brutes of souls, which, without understanding it, you
attribute to men? It is that the souls of the brutes would embarrass our
theologians, who, content with the power of frightening and damning the
immortal souls of men, do not take the same interest in damning those of
the brutes. Such are the puerile solutions which philosophy, always guided
by the leading-strings of theology, was obliged to bring forth to explain
the problems of the physical and moral world.

CCIII.—HOW THEOLOGY HAS FETTERED HUMAN MORALS AND RETARDED THE
PROGRESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT, OF REASON, AND OF TRUTH.

How many subterfuges and mental gymnastics all the ancient and modern
thinkers have employed, in order to avoid falling out with the ministers
of the Gods, who in all ages were the true tyrants of thought! How
Descartes, Malebranche, Leibnitz, and many others have been compelled to
invent hypotheses and evasions in order to reconcile their discoveries
with the reveries and the blunders which religion had rendered sacred!
With what prevarications have not the greatest philosophers guarded
themselves even at the risk of being absurd, inconsistent, and
unintelligible whenever their ideas did not correspond with the principles
of theology! Vigilant priests were always ready to extinguish systems
which could not be made to tally with their interests. Theology in every
age has been the bed of Procrustes upon which this brigand extended his
victims; he cut off the limbs when they were too long, or stretched them
by horses when they were shorter than the bed upon which he placed them.

What sensible man who has a love for science, and is interested in the
welfare of humanity, can reflect without sorrow and pain upon the loss of
so many profound, laborious, and subtle heads, who, for many centuries,
have foolishly exhausted themselves upon idle fancies that proved to be
injurious to our race? What light could have been thrown into the minds of
many famous thinkers, if, instead of occupying themselves with a useless
theology, and its impertinent disputes, they had turned their attention
upon intelligible and truly important objects. Half of the efforts that it
cost the genius that was able to forge their religious opinions, half of
the expense which their frivolous worship cost the nations, would have
sufficed to enlighten them perfectly upon morality, politics, philosophy,
medicine, agriculture, etc. Superstition nearly always absorbs the
attention, the admiration, and the treasures of the people; they have a
very expensive religion; but they have for their money, neither light,
virtue, nor happiness.

CCIV.—CONTINUATION.

Some ancient and modern philosophers have had the courage to accept
experience and reason as their guides, and to shake off the chains of
superstition. Lucippe, Democritus, Epicurus, Straton, and some other
Greeks, dared to tear away the thick veil of prejudice, and to deliver
philosophy from theological fetters. But their systems, too simple, too
sensible, and too stripped of wonders for the lovers of fancy, were
obliged to surrender to the fabulous conjectures of Plato, Socrates, and
Zeno. Among the moderns, Hobbes, Spinoza, Bayle, and others have followed
the path of Epicurus, but their doctrine found but few votaries in a world
still too much infatuated with fables to listen to reason.

In all ages one could not, without imminent danger, lay aside the
prejudices which opinion had rendered sacred. No one was permitted to make
discoveries of any kind; all that the most enlightened men could do was to
speak and write with hidden meaning; and often, by a cowardly
complaisance, to shamefully ally falsehood with truth. A few of them had a
double doctrine—one public and the other secret. The key of this
last having been lost, their true sentiments often became unintelligible
and, consequently, useless to us. How could modern philosophers who, being
threatened with the most cruel persecution, were called upon to renounce
reason and to submit to faith—that is to say, to priestly authority—I
say, how could men thus fettered give free flight to their genius, perfect
reason, or hasten human progress? It was but in fear and trembling that
the greatest men obtained glimpses of truth; they rarely had the courage
to announce it; those who dared to do it have generally been punished for
their temerity. Thanks to religion, it was never permitted to think aloud
or to combat the prejudices of which man is everywhere the victim or the
dupe.

CCV.—WE COULD NOT REPEAT TOO OFTEN HOW EXTRAVAGANT AND FATAL
RELIGION IS.

Every man who has the boldness to announce truths to the world, is sure to
receive the hatred of the priests; the latter loudly call upon the powers
that be, for assistance; they need the assistance of kings to sustain
their arguments and their Gods. These clamors show the weakness of their
cause.

“They are in embarrassment when they cry for help.”

It is not permitted to err in the matter of religion; on every other
subject we can be deceived with impunity; we pity those who go astray, and
we have some liking for the persons who discover truths new to us. But as
soon as theology supposes itself concerned, be it in errors or
discoveries, a holy zeal is kindled; the sovereigns exterminate; the
people fly into frenzy; and the nations are all stirred up without knowing
why. Is there anything more afflicting than to see public and individual
welfare depend upon a futile science, which is void of principles, which
has no standing ground but imagination, and which presents to the mind but
words void of sense? What good is a religion which no one understands;
which continually torments those who trouble themselves about it; which is
incapable of rendering men better; and which often gives them the credit
of being unjust and wicked? Is there a more deplorable folly, and one that
ought more to be abated, than that which, far from doing any good to the
human race, does but blind it, cause transports, and render it miserable,
depriving it of truth, which alone can soften the rigor of fate?

CCVI.—RELIGION IS PANDORA’S BOX, AND THIS FATAL BOX IS OPEN.

Religion has in every age kept the human mind in darkness and held it in
ignorance of its true relations, of its real duties and its true
interests. It is but in removing its clouds and phantoms that we may find
the sources of truth, reason, morality, and the actual motives which
inspire virtue. This religion puts us on the wrong track for the causes of
our evils, and the natural remedies which we can apply. Far from curing
them, it can but multiply them and render them more durable.

Let us, then, say, with the celebrated Lord Bolingbroke, in his posthumous
works: “Theology is the Box of Pandora; and if it is impossible to close
it, it is at least useful to give warning that this fatal box is open.”

I believe, my dear friends, that I have given you a sufficient
preventative against all these follies. Your reason will do more than my
discourses, and I sincerely wish that we had only to complain of being
deceived! But human blood has flowed since the time of Constantine for the
establishment of these horrible impositions. The Roman, the Greek, and the
Protestant churches by vain, ambitious, and hypocritical disputes have
ravaged Europe, Asia, and Africa. Add to these men, whom these quarrels
murdered, the multitudes of monks and of nuns, who became sterile by their
profession, and you will perceive that the Christian religion has
destroyed half of the human race.

I conclude with the desire that we may return to Nature, whose declared
enemy the Christian religion is, and which necessarily instructs us to do
unto others as we would wish them to do unto us. Then the universe will be
composed of good citizens, just fathers, obedient children, tender
friends. Nature has given us this Religion, in giving us Reason. May
fanaticism pervert it no more! I die filled with these desires more than
with hope.

ETREPIGNY, March 15, 1732

JOHN MESLIER

ABSTRACT OF THE TESTAMENT OF JOHN MESLIER

By Voltaire;

OR, SENTIMENTS OF THE CURATE OF ETREPIGNY ADDRESSED TO HIS PARISHIONERS.

I.—OF RELIGIONS.

As there is no one religious denomination which does not pretend to be
truly founded upon the authority of God, and entirely exempt from all the
errors and impositions which are found in the others, it is for those who
purpose to establish the truth of the faith of their sect, to show, by
clear and convincing proofs, that it is of Divine origin; as this is
lacking, we must conclude that it is but of human invention, and full of
errors and deceptions; for it is incredible that an Omnipotent and
Infinitely good God would have desired to give laws and ordinances to men,
and not have wished them to bear better authenticated marks of truth, than
those of the numerous impostors. Moreover, there is not one of our
Christ-worshipers, of whatever sect he may be, who can make us see, by
convincing proofs, that his religion is exclusively of Divine origin; and
for want of such proof they have been for many centuries contesting this
subject among themselves, even to persecuting each other by fire and sword
to maintain their opinions; there is, however, not one sect of them all
which could convince and persuade the others by such witnesses of truth;
this certainly would not be, if they had, on one side or the other,
convincing proofs of Divine origin. For, as no one of any religious sect,
enlightened and of good faith, pretends to hold and to favor error and
falsehood; and as, on the contrary, each, on his side, pretends to sustain
truth, the true means of banishing all errors, and of uniting all men in
peace in the same sentiments and in the same form of religion, would be to
produce convincing proofs and testimonies of the truth; and thus show that
such religion is of Divine origin, and not any of the others; then each
one would accept this truth; and no person would dare to question these
testimonies, or sustain the side of error and imposition, lest he should
be, at the same time, confounded by contrary proofs: but, as these proofs
are not found in any religion, it gives to impostors occasion to invent
and boldly sustain all kinds of falsehoods.

Here are still other proofs, which will not be less evident, of the
falsity of human religions, and especially of the falsity of our own.
Every religion which relies upon mysteries as its foundation, and which
takes, as a rule of its doctrine and its morals, a principle of errors,
and which is at the same time a source of trouble and eternal divisions
among men, can not be a true religion, nor a Divine Institution. Now,
human religions, especially the Catholic, establish as the basis of their
doctrine and of their morals, a principle of errors; then, it follows that
these religions can not be true, or of Divine origin. I do not see that we
can deny the first proposition of this argument; it is too clear and too
evident to admit of a doubt. I pass to the proof of the second
proposition, which is, that the Christian religion takes for the rule of
its doctrine and its morals what they call faith, a blind trust, but yet
firm, and secured by some laws or revelations of some Deity. We must
necessarily suppose that it is thus, because it is this belief in some
Deity and in some Divine Revelations, which gives all the credit and all
the authority that it has in the world, and without which we could make no
use of what it prescribes. This is why there is no religion which does not
expressly recommend its votaries to be firm in their faith. [“Estate
fortes in fide!”] This is the reason that all Christians accept as a
maxim, that faith is the commencement and the basis of salvation, that it
is the root of all justice and of all sanctification, as it is expressed
at the Council of Trent.—Sess. 6, Ch. VIII.

Now it is evident that a blind faith in all which is proposed in the name
and authority of God, is a principle of errors and falsehoods. As a proof,
we see that there is no impostor in the matter of religion, who does not
pretend to be clothed with the name and the authority of God, and who does
not claim to be especially inspired and sent by God. Not only is this
faith and blind belief which they accept as a basis of their doctrine, a
principle of errors, etc., but it is also a source of trouble and division
among men for the maintenance of their religion. There is no cruelty which
they do not practice upon each other under this specious pretext.

Now then, it is not credible that an Almighty, All-Kind, and All-Wise God
desired to use such means or such a deceitful way to inform men of His
wishes; for this would be manifestly desiring to lead them into error and
to lay snares in their way, in order to make them accept the side of
falsehood. It is impossible to believe that a God who loved unity and
peace, the welfare and the happiness of men, would ever have established
as the basis of His religion, such a fatal source of trouble and of
eternal divisions among them. Such religions can not be true, neither
could they have been instituted by God. But I see that our
Christ-worshipers will not fail to have recourse to their pretended
motives for credulity, and that they will say, that although their faith
and belief may be blind in one sense, they are nevertheless supported by
such clear and convincing testimonies of truth, that it would be not only
imprudence, but temerity and folly not to surrender one’s self. They
generally reduce these pretended motives to three or four leading
features. The first, they draw from the pretended holiness of their
religion, which condemns vice, and which recommends the practice of
virtue. Its doctrine is so pure, so simple, according to what they say,
that it is evident it could spring but from the sanctity of an infinitely
good and wise God.

The second motive for credulity, they draw from the innocence and the
holiness of life in those who embraced it with love, and defended it by
suffering death and the most cruel torments, rather than forsake it: it
not being credible that such great personages would allow themselves to be
deceived in their belief, that they would renounce all the advantages of
life, and expose themselves to such cruel torments and persecutions, in
order to maintain errors and impositions. Their third motive for
credulity, they draw from the oracles and prophecies which have so long
been rendered in their favor, and which they pretend have been
accomplished in a manner which permits no doubt. Finally, their fourth
motive for credulity, which is the most important of all, is drawn from
the grandeur and the multitude of the miracles performed, in all ages, and
in every place, in favor of their religion.

But it is easy to refute all these useless reasonings and to show the
falsity of all these evidences. For, firstly, the arguments which our
Christ-worshipers draw from their pretended motives for credulity can
serve to establish and confirm falsehood as well as truth; for we see that
there is no religion, no matter how false it may be, which does not
pretend to have a sound and true doctrine, and which, in its way, does not
condemn all vices and recommend the practice of all virtues; there is not
one which has not had firm and zealous defenders who have suffered
persecution in order to maintain their religion; and, finally, there is
none which does not pretend to have wonders and miracles that have been
performed in their favor. The Mohammedans, the Indians, the heathen, as
well as the Christians, claim miracles in their religions. If our
Christ-worshipers make use of their miracles and their prophecies, they
are found no less in the Pagan religions than in theirs. Thus the
advantage we might draw from all these motives for credulity, is found
about the same in all sorts of religions. This being established, as the
history and practice of all religions demonstrate, it evidently follows
that all these pretended motives for credulity, upon which our
Christ-worshipers place so much value, are found equally in all religions;
and, consequently, can not serve as reliable evidences of the truth of
their religion more than of the truth of any other. The result is clear.

Secondly. In order to give an idea of the resemblance of the miracles of
Paganism to those of Christianity, could we not say, for example, that
there would be more reason to believe Philostratus in what he recites of
the life of Apollonius than to believe all the evangelists in what they
say of the miracles of Jesus Christ; because we know, at least that
Philostratus was a man of intelligence, eloquence, and fluency; that he
was the secretary of the Empress Julia, wife of the Emperor Severus, and
that he was requested by this empress to write the life and the wonderful
acts of Apollonius? It is evident that Apollonius rendered himself famous
by great and extraordinary deeds, since an empress was sufficiently
interested in them to desire a history of his life. This is what can not
be said of Jesus Christ, nor of those who have furnished us His biography,
for they were but ignorant men of the common people, poor workmen,
fishermen, who had not even the sense to relate consistently the facts
which they speak of, and which they mutually contradict very often. In
regard to the One whose life and actions they describe, if He had really
performed the miracles attributed to Him, He would have rendered Himself
notable by His beautiful acts; every one would have admired Him, and there
would be statues erected to Him as was done for the Gods; but instead of
that, He was regarded as a man of no consequence, as a fanatic, etc.
Josephus, the historian, after having spoken of the great miracles
performed in favor of his nation and his religion, immediately diminishes
their credibility and renders it suspicious by saying that he leaves to
each one the liberty of believing what he chooses; this evidently shows
that he had not much faith in them. It also gives occasion to the more
judicious to regard the histories which speak of this kind of things as
fabulous narrations. [See Montaigne, and the author of the “Apology for
Great Men.”] All that can be said upon this subject shows us clearly that
pretended miracles can be invented to favor vice and falsehood as well as
justice and truth.

I prove it by the evidence of what even our Christ-worshipers call the
Word of God, and by the evidence of the One they adore; for their books,
which they claim contain the Word of God, and Christ Himself, whom they
adore as a God-made man, show us explicitly that there are not only false
prophets—that is to say, impostors—who claim to be sent by
God, and who speak in His name, but which show as explicitly that these
false prophets can perform such great and prodigious miracles as shall
deceive the very elect. [See Matthew, chapter xxiv., verses 5, 21-27.]
More than this, all these pretended performers of miracles wish us to put
faith only in them, and not in those who belong to an opposite party.

On one occasion one of these pretended prophets, named Sedecias, being
contradicted by another, named Michea, the former struck the latter and
said to him, pleasantly, “By what way did the Spirit of God pass from me
to you?”

But how can these pretended miracles be the evidences of truth? for it is
clear that they were not performed. For it would be necessary to know:
Firstly, If those who are said to be the first authors of these narrations
truly are such. Secondly, If they were honest men, worthy of confidence,
wise and enlightened; and to know if they were not prejudiced in favor of
those of whom they speak so favorably. Thirdly, If they have examined all
the circumstances of the facts which they relate; if they know them well;
and if they make a faithful report of them. Fourthly, If the books or the
ancient histories which relate all these great miracles have not been
falsified and changed in course of time, as many others have been?

If we consult Tacitus and many other celebrated historians, in regard to
Moses and his nation, we shall see that they are considered as a horde of
thieves and bandits. Magic and astrology were in those days the only
fashionable sciences; and as Moses was, it is said, instructed in the
wisdom of the Egyptians, it was not difficult for him to inspire
veneration and attachment for himself in the rustic and ignorant children
of Jacob, and to induce them to accept, in their misery, the discipline he
wished to give them. That is very different from what the Jews and our
Christ-worshipers wish to make us believe. By what certain rule can we
know that we should put faith in these rather than in the others? There is
no sound reason for it. There is as little of certainty and even of
probability in the miracles of the New Testament as in those of the Old.

It will serve no purpose to say that the histories which relate the facts
contained in the Gospels have been regarded as true and sacred; that they
have always been faithfully preserved without any alteration of the truths
which they contain; since this is perhaps the very reason why they should
be the more suspected, having been corrupted by those who drew profit from
them, or who feared that they were not sufficiently favorable to them.

Generally, authors who transcribe this kind of histories, take the right
to enlarge or to retrench all they please, in order to serve their own
interests. This is what even our Christ-worshipers can not deny; for,
without mentioning several other important personages who recognized the
additions, the retrenchments, and the falsifications which have been made
at different times in their Holy Scriptures, their saint Jerome, a famous
philosopher among them, formally said in several passages of his
“Prologues,” that they had been corrupted and falsified; being, even in
his day, in the hands of all kinds of persons, who added and suppressed
whatever they pleased; so, “Thus there were,” said he, “as many different
models as different copies of the Gospels.”

In regard to the books of the Old Testament, Esdras, a priest of the law,
testifies himself to having corrected and completed wholly the pretended
sacred books of his law, which had partly been lost and partly corrupted.
He divided them into twenty-two books, according to the number of the
Hebraic letters, and wrote several other books, whose doctrine was to be
revealed to the learned men alone. If these books have been partly lost
and partly corrupted, as Esdras and St. Jerome testify in so many
passages, there is then no certainty in regard to what they contain; and
as for Esdras saying he had corrected and compiled them by the inspiration
of God Himself there is no certainty of that, since there is no impostor
who would not make the same claim. All the books of the law of Moses and
of the prophets which could be found, were burned in the days of
Antiochus. The Talmud, considered by the Jews as a holy and sacred book,
and which contains all the Divine laws, with the sentences and notable
sayings of the Rabbins, of their interpretation of the Divine and of the
human laws, and a prodigious number of other secrets and mysteries in the
Hebraic language, is considered by the Christians as a book made up of
reveries, fables, impositions, and ungodliness. In the year 1559 they
burned in Rome, according to the command of the inquisitors of the faith,
twelve hundred of these Talmuds, which were found in a library in the city
of Cremona. The Pharisees, a famous sect among the Jews, accepted but the
five books of Moses, and rejected all the prophets. Among the Christians,
Marcion and his votaries rejected the books of Moses and the prophets, and
introduced other fashionable Scriptures. Carpocrates and his followers did
the same, and rejected the whole of the Old Testament, and contended that
Jesus Christ was but a man like all others. The Marcionites repudiated as
bad, the whole of the Old Testament, and rejected the greater part of the
four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul. The Ebionites accepted but the
Gospel of St. Matthew, rejecting the three others, and the Epistles of St.
Paul. The Marcionites published a Gospel under the name of St. Matthias,
in order to confirm their doctrine. The apostles introduced other
Scriptures in order to maintain their errors; and to carry out this, they
made use of certain Acts, which they attributed to St. Andrew and to St.
Thomas.

The Manicheans wrote a gospel of their own style, and rejected the
Scriptures of the prophets and the apostles. The Etzaites sold a certain
book which they claimed to have come from Heaven; they cut up the other
Scriptures according to their fancy. Origen himself, with all his great
mind, corrupted the Scriptures and forged changes in the allegories which
did not suit him, thus corrupting the sense of the prophets and apostles,
and even some of the principal points of doctrine. His books are now
mutilated and falsified; they are but fragments collected by others who
have appeared since. The Ellogians attributed to the heretic Corinthus the
Gospel and the Apocalypse of St. John; this is why they reject them. The
heretics of our last centuries reject as apocryphal several books which
the Roman Catholics consider as true and sacred—such as the books of
Tobias, Judith, Esther, Baruch, the Song of the Three Children in the
Furnace, the History of Susannah, and that of the Idol Bel, the Wisdom of
Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, the first and second book of Maccabees; to which
uncertain and doubtful books we could add several others that have been
attributed to the other apostles; as, for example, the Acts of St. Thomas,
his Circuits, his Gospel, and his Apocalypse; the Gospel of St.
Bartholomew, that of St. Matthias, of St. Jacques, of St. Peter and of the
Apostles, as also the Deeds of St. Peter, his book on Preaching, and that
of his Apocalypse; that of the Judgment, that of the Childhood of the
Saviour, and several others of the same kind, which are all rejected as
apocryphal by the Roman Catholics, even by the Pope Gelasee, and by the S.
S. F. F. of the Romish Communion. That which most confirms that there is
no foundation of truth in regard to the authority given to these books, is
that those who maintain their Divinity are compelled to acknowledge that
they have no certainty as a basis, if their faith did not assure them and
oblige them to believe it. Now, as faith is but a principle of error and
imposture, how can faith, that is to say, a blind belief, render the books
reliable which are themselves the foundation of this blind belief? What a
pity and what insanity! But let us see if these books have of themselves
any feature of truth; as, for example, of erudition, of wisdom, and of
holiness, or some other perfections which are suited only to a God; and if
the miracles which are cited agree with what we ought to think of the
grandeur, goodness, justice, and infinite wisdom of an Omnipotent God.

There is no erudition, no sublime thought, nor any production which
surpasses the ordinary capacities of the human mind. On the contrary, we
shall see on one side fabulous tales similar to that of a woman formed of
a man’s rib; of the pretended terrestrial Paradise; of a serpent which
spoke, which reasoned, and which was more cunning than man; of an ass
which spoke, and reprimanded its master for ill-treating it; of a
universal deluge, and of an ark where animals of all kinds were inclosed;
of the confusion of languages and of the division of the nations, without
speaking of numerous other useless narrations upon low and frivolous
subjects which important authors would scorn to relate. All these
narrations appear to be fables, as much as those invented about the
industry of Prometheus, the box of Pandora, the war of the Giants against
the Gods, and similar others which the poets have invented to amuse the
men of their time.

On the other hand we will see a mixture of laws and ordinances, or
superstitious practices concerning sacrifices, the purifications of the
old law, the senseless distinctions in regard to animals, of which it
supposes some to be pure and others to be impure. These laws are no more
respectable than those of the most idolatrous nations. We shall see but
simple stories, true or false, of several kings, princes, or individuals,
who lived right or wrong, or who performed noble or mean actions, with
other low and frivolous things also related.

From all this, it is evident that no great genius was required, nor Divine
Revelations to produce these things. It would not be creditable to a God.

Finally, we see in these books but the discourses, the conduct, and the
actions of those renowned prophets who proclaimed themselves especially
inspired by God. We will see their way of acting and speaking, their
dreams, their illusions, their reveries; and it will be easy to judge
whether they do not resemble visionaries and fanatics much more than wise
and enlightened persons.

There are, however, in a few of these books, several good teachings and
beautiful maxims of morals, as in the Proverbs attributed to Solomon, in
the book of Wisdom and of Ecclesiastes; but this same Solomon, the wisest
of their writers, is also the most incredulous; he doubts even the
immortality of the soul, and concludes his works by saying that there is
nothing good but to enjoy in peace the fruits of one’s labor, and to live
with those whom we love.

How superior are the authors who are called profane, such as Xenophon,
Plato, Cicero, the Emperor Antoninus, the Emperor Julian, Virgil, etc., to
the books which we are told are inspired of God. I can truly say that the
fables of Aesop, for example, are certainly more ingenious and more
instructive than all these rough and poor parables which are related in
the Gospels.

But what shows us that this kind of books is not of Divine Inspiration,
is, that aside from the low order, coarseness of style, and the lack of
system in the narrations of the different facts, which are very badly
arranged, we do not see that the authors agree; they contradict each other
in several things; they had not even sufficient enlightenment or natural
talents to write a history.

Here are some examples of the contradictions which are found among them.
The Evangelist Matthew claims that Jesus Christ descended from king David
by his son Solomon through Joseph, reputed to be His father; and Luke
claims that He is descended from the same David by his son Nathan through
Joseph.

Matthew says, in speaking of Jesus, that, it being reported in Jerusalem
that a new king of the Jews was born, and that the wise men had come to
adore Him, the king Herod, fearing that this pretended new king would rob
him of his crown some day, caused the murder of all the new-born children
under two years, in all the neighborhood of Bethlehem, where he had been
told that this new king was born; and that Joseph and the mother of Jesus,
having been warned in a dream by an angel, of this wicked intention, took
flight immediately to Egypt, where they stayed until the death of Herod,
which happened many years afterward.

On the contrary, Luke asserts that Joseph and the mother of Jesus lived
peaceably during six weeks in the place where their child Jesus was born;
that He was circumcised according to the law of the Jews, eight days after
His birth; and when the time prescribed by the law for the purification of
His mother had arrived, she and Joseph, her husband, carried Him to
Jerusalem in order to present Him to God in His temple, and to offer at
the same time a sacrifice which was ordained by God’s law; after which
they returned to Galilee, into their town of Nazareth, where their child
Jesus grew every day in grace and in wisdom. Luke goes on to say that His
father and His mother went every year to Jerusalem on the solemn days of
their Easter feast, but makes no mention of their flight into Egypt, nor
of the cruelty of Herod toward the children of the province of Bethlehem.
In regard to the cruelty of Herod, as neither the historians of that time
speak of it, nor Josephus, the historian who wrote the life of this Herod,
and as the other Evangelists do not mention it, it is evident that the
journey of those wise men, guided by a star, this massacre of little
children, and this flight to Egypt, were but absurd falsehoods. For it is
not credible that Josephus, who blamed the vices of this king, could have
been silent on such a dark and detestable action, if what the Evangelist
said had been true.

In regard to the duration of the public life of Jesus Christ, according to
what the first three Evangelists say, there could be scarcely more than
three months from the time of His baptism until His death, supposing He
was thirty years old when He was baptized by John, according to Luke, and
that He was born on the 25th of December. For, from this baptism, which
was in the year 15 of Tiberius Caesar, and in the year when Anne and
Caiaphas were high-priests, to the first Easter following, which was in
the month of March, there was but about three months; according to what
the first three Evangelists say, He was crucified on the eve of the first
Easter following His baptism, and the first time He went to Jerusalem with
His disciples; because all that they say of His baptism, of His travels,
of His miracles, of His preaching, of His death and passion, must have
taken place in the same year of His baptism, for the Evangelists speak of
no other year following, and it appears even by the narration of His acts
that He performed them consecutively immediately after His baptism, and in
a very short time, during which we see but an interval of six days before
his Transfiguration; during these six days we do not see that He did
anything. We see by this that He lived but about three months after His
baptism, from which, if we subtract the forty days and forty nights which
He passed in the desert immediately after His baptism, it would follow
that the length of His public life from His first preaching till His
death, would have lasted but about six weeks; and according to what John
says, it would have lasted at least three years and three months, because
it appears by the Gospel of this apostle, that, during the course of His
public life He might have been three or four times at Jerusalem at the
Easter feast which happened but once a year.

Now if it is true that He had been there three or four times after His
baptism, as John testifies, it is false that He lived but three months
after His baptism, and that He was crucified the first time He went to
Jerusalem.

If it is said that these first three Evangelists really mean but one year,
but that they do not indicate distinctly the others which elapsed since
His baptism; or that John understood that there was but one Easter,
although he speaks of several, and that he only anticipated the time when
he repeatedly tells us that the Easter feast of the Jews was near at hand,
and that Jesus went to Jerusalem, and, consequently, that there is but an
apparent contradiction upon this subject between the Evangelists, I am
willing to accept this; but it is certain that this apparent contradiction
springs from the fact, that they do not explain themselves in all the
circumstances that are noted in the narration which they make. Be that as
it may, there will always be this inference made, that they were not
inspired by God when they wrote their biographies of Christ.

Here is another contradiction in regard to the first thing which Jesus

Christ did immediately after His baptism; for the first three Evangelists
state, that He was transported immediately by the Spirit into the desert,
where He fasted forty days and forty nights, and where He was several
times tempted by the Devil; and, according to what John says, He departed
two days after His baptism to go into Galilee, where He performed His
first miracle by changing water into wine at the wedding of Cana, where He
found Himself three days after His arrival in Galilee, more than thirty
leagues from the place in which He had been.

In regard to the place of His first retreat after His departure from the
desert, Matthew says that He returned to Galilee, and that leaving the
city of Nazareth, He went to live at Capernaum, a maritime city; and Luke
says, that He came at first to Nazareth, and afterward went to Capernaum.

They contradict each other in regard to the time and manner in which the
apostles followed Him; for the first three say that Jesus, passing on the
shore of the Sea of Galilee, saw Simon and Andrew his brother, and that He
saw at a little distance James and his brother John with their father,
Zebedee. John, on the contrary, says that it was Andrew, brother of Simon
Peter, who first followed Jesus with another disciple of John the Baptist,
having seen Him pass before them, when they were with their Master on the
shores of the Jordan.

In regard to the Lord’s Supper, the first three Evangelists note that
Jesus Christ instituted the Sacrament of His body and His blood, in the
form of bread and wine, the same as our Roman Christ-worshipers say; and
John does not mention this mysterious sacrament. John says that after this
supper, Jesus washed His apostles’ feet, and commanded them to do the same
thing to each other, and relates a long discourse which He delivered then.
But the other Evangelists do not speak of the washing of the feet, nor of
the long discourse He gave them then. On the contrary, they testify that
immediately after this supper, He went with His apostles upon the Mount of
Olives, where He gave up His Spirit to sadness, and was in anguish while
His apostles slept, at a short distance. They contradict each other upon
the day on which they say the Lord’s Supper took place; because on one
side, they note that it took place Easter-eve, that is, the evening of the
first day of Azymes, or of the feast of unleavened bread; as it is noted
(1) in Exodus, (2) in Leviticus, and (3) in Numbers; and, on the other
hand, they say that He was crucified the day following the Lord’s Supper,
about midday after the Jews had His trial during the whole night and
morning. Now, according to what they say, the day after this supper took
place, ought not to be Easter-eve. Therefore, if He died on the eve of
Easter, toward midday, it was not on the eve of this feast that this
supper took place. There is consequently a manifest error.

They contradict each other, also, in regard to the women who followed
Jesus from Galilee, for the first three Evangelists say that these women,
and those who knew Him, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary, mother
of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s children, were looking on
at a distance when He was hanged and nailed upon the cross. John says, on
the contrary, that the mother of Jesus and His mother’s sister, and Mary
Magdalene were standing near His cross with John, His apostle. The
contradiction is manifest, for, if these women and this disciple were near
Him, they were not at a distance, as the others say they were.

They contradict each other upon the pretended apparitions which they
relate that Jesus made after His pretended resurrection; for Matthew
speaks of but two apparitions: the one when He appeared to Mary Magdalene
and to another woman, also named Mary, and when He appeared to His eleven
disciples who had returned to Galilee upon the mountain where He had
appointed to meet them. Mark speaks of three apparitions: The first, when
He appeared to Mary Magdalene; the second, when He appeared to His two
disciples, who went to Emmaus; and the third, when He appeared to His
eleven disciples, whom He reproaches for their incredulity. Luke speaks of
but two apparitions the same as Matthew; and John the Evangelist speaks of
four apparitions, and adds to Mark’s three, the one which He made to seven
or eight of His disciples who were fishing upon the shores of the Tiberian
Sea.

They contradict each other, also, in regard to the place of these
apparitions; for Matthew says that it was in Galilee, upon a mountain;
Mark says that it was when they were at table; Luke says that He brought
them out of Jerusalem as far as Bethany, where He left them by rising to
Heaven; and John says that it was in the city of Jerusalem, in a house of
which they had closed the doors, and another time upon the borders of the
Tiberian Sea.

Thus is much contradiction in the report of these pretended apparitions.
They contradict each other in regard to His pretended ascension to heaven;
for Luke and Mark say positively that He went to heaven in presence of the
eleven apostles, but neither Matthew nor John mentions at all this
pretended ascension. More than this, Matthew testifies sufficiently that
He did not ascend to heaven; for he said positively that Jesus Christ
assured His apostles that He would be and remain always with them until
the end of the world. “Go ye,” He said to them, in this pretended
apparition, “and teach all nations, and be assured that I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world.” Luke contradicts himself upon the
subject; for in his Gospel he says that it was in Bethany where He
ascended to heaven in the presence of His apostles, and in his Acts of the
Apostles (supposing him to have been the author) he says that it was upon
the Mount of Olives. He contradicts himself again about this ascension;
for he notes in his Gospel that it was the very day of His resurrection,
or the first night following, that He ascended to heaven; and in the Acts
of the Apostles he says that it was forty days after His resurrection;
this certainly does not correspond. If all the apostles had really seen
their Master gloriously rise to heaven, how could it be possible that
Matthew and John, who would have seen it as well as the others, passed in
silence such a glorious mystery, and which was so advantageous to their
Master, considering that they relate many other circumstances of His life
and of His actions which are much less important than this one? How is it
that Matthew does not mention this ascension? And why does Christ not
explain clearly how He would live with them always, although He left them
visibly to ascend to heaven? It is not easy to comprehend by what secret
He could live with those whom He left.

I pass in silence many other contradictions; what I have said is
sufficient to show that these books are not of Divine Inspiration, nor
even of human wisdom, and, consequently, do not deserve that we should put
any faith in them.

II.—OF MIRACLES.

But by what privilege do these four Gospels, and some other similar books,
pass for Holy and Divine more than several others, which bear no less the
title of Gospels, and which have been published under the name of some
other apostles? If it is said that the reputed Gospels are falsely
attributed to the apostles, we can say the same of the first ones; if we
suppose the first ones to be falsified and changed, we can think the same
of the others. Thus there is no positive proof to make us discern the one
from the other; in spite of the Church, which assumes to deride the
matter, it is not credible.

In regard to the pretended miracles related in the Old Testament, they
could have been performed but to indicate on the part of God an unjust and
odious discrimination between nations and between individuals; purposely
injuring the one in order to especially favor the other. The vocation and
the choice which God made of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in
order to make for Himself of their posterity a people which He would
sanctify and bless above all other peoples of the earth, is a proof of it.
But it will be said God is the absolute master of His favors and of His
benefits; He can grant them to whomsoever He pleases, without any one
having the right to complain or to accuse Him of injustice. This reason is
useless; for God, the Author of nature, the Father of all men, ought to
love them all alike as His own work, and, consequently, He ought to be
equally their protector and their benefactor; giving them life, He ought
to give all that is necessary for the well-being of His creatures.

If all these pretended miracles of the Old and of the New Testament were
true, we could say that God would have had more care in providing for the
least good of men than for their greatest and principal good; that He
would have punished more severely trifling faults in certain persons than
He would have punished great crimes in others; and, finally, that He would
not have desired to show Himself as beneficent in the most pressing needs
as in the least. This is easy enough to show as much by the miracles which
it is pretended that He performed, as by those which He did not perform,
and which He would have performed rather than any other, if it is true
that He performed any at all. For example, it is claimed that God had the
kindness to send an angel to console and to assist a simple maid, while He
left, and still leaves every day, a countless number of innocents to
languish and starve to death; it is claimed that He miraculously preserved
during forty years the clothes and the shoes of a few people, while He
will not watch over the natural preservation of the vast quantities of
goods which are useful and necessary for the subsistence of great nations,
and that are lost every day by different accidents. It is claimed that He
sent to the first beings of the human race, Adam and Eve, a devil, or a
simple serpent, to seduce them, and by this means ruin all men. This is
not credible! It is claimed, that by a special providence, He prevented
the King of Gerais, a Pagan, from committing sin with a strange woman,
although there would be no results to follow; and yet He did not prevent
Adam and Eve from offending Him and falling into the sin of disobedience—a
sin which, according to our Christ-worshipers was to be fatal, and cause
the destruction of the human race. This is not credible!

Let us come to the pretended miracles of the New Testament. They consist,
as is pretended, in this: that Jesus Christ and His apostles cured,
through the Deity, all kinds of diseases and infirmities, giving sight to
the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, making the lame to
walk, curing the paralytics, driving the devils from those who were
possessed, and bringing the dead to life.

We find several of these miracles in the Gospels, but we see a good many
more of them in the books that our Christ-worshipers have written of the
admirable lives of their saints; for in these lives we nearly everywhere
read that these pretended blessed ones cured diseases and infirmities,
expelled the devils wherever they encountered them, solely in the name of
Jesus or by the sign of the cross; that they controlled the elements; that
God favored them so much that He even preserved to them His Divine power
after their death, and that this Divine power could be communicated even
to the least of their clothing, even to their shadows, and even to the
infamous instruments of their death. It is said that the shoe of St.
Honorius raised a dead man on the sixth of January; that the staff of St.
Peter, that of St. James, and that of St. Bernard performed miracles. The
same is said of the cord of St. Francis, of the staff of St. John of God,
and of the girdle of St. Melanie. It is said that St. Gracilien was
divinely instructed as to what he ought to believe and to teach, and that
he, by the influence of his prayer, removed a mountain which prevented him
from building a church; that from the sepulchre of St. Andrew flowed
incessantly a liquor which cured all sorts of diseases; that the soul of
St. Benedict was seen ascending to Heaven clothed with a precious cloak
and surrounded by burning lamps; that St. Dominic said that God never
refused him anything he asked; that St. Francis commanded the swallows,
swans, and other birds to obey him, and that often the fishes, rabbits,
and the hares came and placed themselves on his hands and on his lap; that
St. Paul and St. Pantaleon, having been beheaded, there flowed milk
instead of blood; that the blessed Peter of Luxembourg, in the first two
years after his death (1388 and 1389), performed two thousand four hundred
miracles, among which forty-two dead were brought to life, not including
more than three thousand other miracles which he has performed since; that
the fifty philosophers whom St. Catherine converted, having all been
thrown into a great fire, their whole bodies were afterward found and not
a single hair was scorched; that the body of St. Catherine was carried off
by angels after her death, and buried by them upon Mount Sinai; that the
day of the canonization of St. Antoine de Padua, all the bells of the city
of Lisbon rang of themselves, without any one knowing how it was done;
that this saint being once near the sea-shore, and calling the fishes,
they came to him in a great multitude, and raised their heads out of the
water and listened to him attentively. We should never come to an end if
we had to report all this idle talk; there is no subject, however vain,
frivolous, and even ridiculous, on which the authors of these “LIVES OF
THE SAINTS” do not take pleasure in heaping miracles upon miracles, for
they are skillful in forging absurd falsehoods.

It is certainly not without reason that we consider these things as lies;
for it is easy to see that all these pretended miracles have been invented
but by imitating the fables of the Pagan poets. This is sufficiently
obvious by the resemblance which they bear one to another.

III.—SIMILARITY BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN MIRACLES.

If our Christ-worshipers claim that God endowed their saints with power to
perform the miracles related in their lives, some of the Pagans claim also
that the daughters of Anius, high-priest of Apollo, had really received
from the god Bacchus the power to change all they desired into wheat, into
wine, or into oil, etc.; that Jupiter gave to the nymphs who took care of
his education, a horn of the goat which nursed him in his infancy, with
this virtue, that it could give them an abundance of all they wished for.

If our Christ-worshipers assert that their saints had the power of raising
the dead, and that they had Divine revelations, the Pagans had said before
them that Athalide, son of Mercury, had obtained from his father the gift
of living, dying, and coming to life whenever he wished, and that he had
also the knowledge of all that transpired in this world as well as in the
other; and that Esculapius, son of Apollo, had raised the dead, and, among
others, he brought to life Hyppolites, son of Theseus, by Diana’s request;
and that Hercules, also, raised from the dead Alceste, wife of Admetus,
King of Thessalia, to return her to her husband.

If our Christ-worshipers say that Christ was miraculously born of a
virgin, the Pagans had said before them that Remus and Romulus, the
founders of Rome, were miraculously born of a vestal virgin named Ilia, or
Silvia, or Rhea Silvia; they had already said that Mars, Argus, Vulcan,
and others were born of the goddess Juno without sexual union; and, also,
that Minerva, goddess of the sciences, sprang from Jupiter’s brain, and
that she came out of it, all armed, by means of a blow which this god gave
to his own head.

If our Christ-worshipers claim that their saints made water gush from
rocks, the Pagans pretend also that Minerva made a fountain of oil spring
forth from a rock as a recompense for a temple which had been dedicated to
her.

If our Christ-worshipers boast of having received images from Heaven
miraculously, as, for example, those of Notre-Dame de Loretto, and of
Liesse and several other gifts from Heaven, as the pretended Holy Vial of
Rheims, as the white Chasuble which St. Ildefonse received from the Virgin
Mary, and other similar things: the Pagans boasted before them of having
received a sacred shield as a mark of the preservation of their city of
Rome, and the Trojans boasted before them of having received miraculously
from Heaven their Palladium, or their Idol of Pallas, which came, they
said, to takes its place in the temple which they had erected in honor of
this Goddess.

If our Christ-worshipers pretend that Jesus Christ was seen by His
apostles ascending to Heaven, and that several of their pretended saints
were transported to Heaven by angels, the Roman Pagans had said before
them, that Romulus, their founder, was seen after his death; that
Ganymede, son of Troas, king of Troy, was transported to Heaven by Jupiter
to serve him as cup-bearer that the hair of Berenice, being consecrated to
the temple of Venus, was afterward carried to Heaven; they say the same
thing of Cassiope and Andromedes, and even of the ass of Silenus.

If our Christ-worshipers pretend that several of their saints’ bodies were
miraculously saved from decomposition after death, and that they were
found by Divine Revelations, after having been lost for a long time, the
Pagans say the same of the holy of Orestes, which they pretend to have
found through an oracle, etc.

If our Christ-worshipers say that the seven sleeping brothers slept during
one hundred and seventy-seven years, while they were shut up in a cave,
the Pagans claim that Epimenides, the philosopher, slept during
fifty-seven years in a cave where he fell asleep.

If our Christ-worshipers claim that several of their saints continued to
speak after losing the head, or having the tongue cut out, the Pagans
claim that the head of Gambienus recited a long poem after separation from
his body.

If our Christ-worshipers glorify themselves that their temples and
churches are ornamented with several pictures and rich gifts which show
miraculous cures performed by the intercession of their saints, we also
see, or at least we formerly saw in the temple of Esculapius at Epidaurus,
many paintings of miraculous cures which he had performed.

If our Christ-worshipers claim that several of their saints have been
miraculously preserved in the flames without having received any injury to
their bodies or their clothing, the Pagans claim that the Holy women of
the temple of Diana walked upon burning coals barefooted without burning
or hurting their feet, and that the priests of the Goddess Feronie and of
Hirpicus walked in the same way upon burning coals in the fires which were
made in honor of Apollo.

If the angels built a chapel for St. Clement at the bottom of the sea, the
little house of Baucis and of Philemon was miraculously changed into a
superb temple as a reward of their piety. If several of their saints, as
St. James and St. Maurice, appeared several times in their armies, mounted
and equipped in ancient style, and fought for them, Castor and Pollux
appeared several times in battles and fought for the Romans against their
enemies; if a ram was miraculously found to be offered as a sacrifice in
the place of Isaac, whom his father Abraham was about to sacrifice, the
Goddess Vesta also sent a heifer to be sacrificed in the place of Metella,
daughter of Metellus: the Goddess Diana sent a hind in the place of
Iphigenie when she was at the stake to be sacrificed to her, and by this
means Iphigenie was saved.

If St. Joseph went into Egypt by the warning of an angel, Simonides, the
poet, avoided several great dangers by miraculous warnings which had been
given to him.

If Moses forced a stream of water to flow from a rock by striking it with
his staff, the horse Pegasus did the same: by striking a rock with his
foot a fountain issued.

If St. Vincent Ferrier brought to life a dead man hacked into pieces,
whose body was already half roasted and half broiled, Pelops, son of
Tantalus king of Phrygia, having been torn to pieces by his father to be
sacrificed to the Gods, they gathered all the pieces, joined them, and
brought them to life.

If several crucifixes and other images have miraculously spoken and
answered, the Pagans say that their oracles have spoken and given answers
to those who consulted them, and that the head of Orpheus and that of
Policrates gave oracles after their death.

If God revealed by a voice from Heaven that Jesus Christ was His Son, as
the Evangelists say, Vulcan showed by the apparition of a miraculous
flame, that Coceculus was really his son.

If God has miraculously nourished some of His saints, the Pagan poets
pretend that Triptolemus was miraculously nourished with Divine milk by
Ceres, who gave him also a chariot drawn by two dragons, and that Phineus,
son of Mars, being born after his mother’s death, was nevertheless
miraculously nourished by her milk.

If several saints miraculously tamed the ferocity of the most cruel
beasts, it is said that Orpheus attracted to him, by the sweetness of his
voice and by the harmony of his instruments, lions, bears, and tigers, and
softened the ferocity of their nature; that he attracted rocks and trees,
and that even the rivers stopped their course to listen to his song.

Finally, to abbreviate, because we could report many others, if our
Christ-worshipers pretend that the walls of the city of Jericho fell by
the sound of their trumpets, the Pagans say that the walls of the city of
Thebes were built by the sound of the musical instruments of Amphion; the
stones, as the poets say, arranging themselves to the sweetness of his
harmony; this would be much more miraculous and more admirable than to see
the walls demolished.

There is certainly a great similarity between the Pagan miracles and our
own. As it would be great folly to give credence to these pretended
miracles of Paganism, it is not any the less so to have faith in those of
Christianity, because they all come from the same source of error. It was
for this that the Manicheans and the Arians, who existed at the
commencement of the Christian Era, derided these pretended miracles
performed by the invocation of saints, and blamed those who invoked them
after death and honored their relics.

Let us return at present to the principal end which God proposed to
Himself, in sending His Son into the world to become man; it must have
been, as they say, to redeem the world from sin and to destroy entirely
the works of the pretended Devil, etc. This is what our Christ-worshipers
claim also, that Jesus Christ died for them according to His Father’s
intention, which is plainly stated in all the pretended Holy Books. What!
an Almighty God, who was willing to become a mortal man for the love of
men, and to shed His blood to the last drop, to save them all, would yet
have limited His power to only curing a few diseases and physical
infirmities of a few individuals who were brought to Him; and would not
have employed His Divine goodness in curing the infirmities of the soul!
that is to say, in curing all men of their vices and their depravities,
which are worse than the diseases of their bodies! This is not credible.
What! such a good God would desire to preserve dead corpses from decay and
corruption; and would not keep from the contagion and corruption of vice
and sin the souls of a countless number of persons whom He sought to
redeem at the price of His blood, and to sanctify by His grace! What a
pitiful contradiction!

IV.—OF THE FALSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

Let us proceed to the pretended visions and Divine Revelations, upon which
our Christ-worshipers establish the truth and the certainty of their
religion.

In order to give a just idea of it, I believe it is best to say in
general, that they are such, that if any one should dare now to boast of
similar ones, or wish to make them valued, he would certainly be regarded
as a fool or a fanatic.

Here is what the pretended Visions and Divine Revelations are:

God, as these pretended Holy Books claim, having appeared for the first
time to Abraham, said to him: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
kindred and from thy father’s house, into a land that I will show thee.”
Abraham, having gone there, God, says the Bible, appeared the second time
to him, and said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land,” and there builded
he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. After the death of
Isaac, his son, Jacob going one day to Mesopotamia to look for a wife that
would suit him, having walked all the day, and being tired from the long
distance, desired to rest toward evening; lying upon the ground, with his
head resting upon a few stones, he fell asleep, and during his sleep he
saw a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to Heaven; and
beheld the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the
Lord stood above it, and said: “I am the Lord, God of Abraham thy father,
and the God of Isaac; the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it,
and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou
shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to
the south and in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth
be blessed. And behold, I am with thee and will keep thee in all places
whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land: for I will
not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” And
Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: “Surely the Lord is in this
place, and I knew it not.” And he was afraid, and said: “How dreadful is
this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate
of Heaven.” And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone
that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil
on the top of it, and made at the same time a vow to God, that if he
should return safe and sound, he would give Him a tithe of all he might
possess.

Here is yet another vision. Watching the flocks of his father-in-law,
Laban, who had promised him that all the speckled lambs produced by his
sheep should be his recompense, he dreamed one night that he saw all the
males leap upon the females, and all the lambs they brought forth were
speckled. In this beautiful dream, God appeared to him, and said: “Lift up
now thine eyes and see that the rams which leap upon the cattle are
ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled; for I have seen all that Laban does
unto thee. Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the
land of thy kindred.” As he was returning with his whole family, and with
all he obtained from his father-in-law, he had, says the Bible, a wrestle
with an unknown man during the whole night, until the breaking of the day,
and as this man had not been able to subdue him, He asked him who he was.
Jacob told Him his name; and He said: “Thy name shall be called no more
Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men,
and hast prevailed.”

This is a specimen of the first of these pretended Visions and Divine
Revelations. We can judge of the others by these. Now, what appearance of
Divinity is there in dreams so gross and illusions so vain? As if some
foreigners, Germans, for instance, should come into our France, and, after
seeing all the beautiful provinces of our kingdom, should claim that God
had appeared to them in their country, that He had told them to go into
France, and that He would give to them and to their posterity all the
beautiful lands, domains, and provinces of this kingdom which extend from
the rivers Rhine and Rhone, even to the sea; that He would make an
everlasting alliance with them, that He would multiply their race, that He
would make their posterity as numerous as the stars of Heaven and as the
sands of the sea, etc., who would not laugh at such folly, and consider
these strangers as insane fools!

Now there is no reason to think otherwise of all that has been said by
these pretended Holy Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in regard to
the Divine Revelations which they claim to have had. As to the institution
of bloody sacrifices, the Holy Scriptures attribute it to God. As it would
be too wearisome to go into the disgusting details of this kind of
sacrifices, I refer the reader to Exodus. [See chapters xxv., xxvii.,
xxyiii., and xxix.]

Were not men insane and blind to believe they were honoring God by tearing
into pieces, butchering, and burning His own creatures, under the pretext
of offering them as sacrifices to Him? And even now, how is it that our
Christ-worshipers are so extravagant as to expect to please God the
Father, by offering up to Him the sacrifice of His Divine Son, in
remembrance of His being shamefully nailed to a cross upon which He died?
Certainly this can spring only from an obstinate blindness of mind.

In regard to the detail of the sacrifices of animals, it consists but in
colored clothing, blood, plucks, livers, birds’ crops, kidneys, claws,
skins, in the dung, smoke, cakes, certain measures of oil and wine, the
whole being offered and infected by dirty ceremonies as filthy and
contemptible as the most extravagant performances of magic. What is most
horrible of all this is, that the law of this detestable Jewish people
commanded that even men should be offered up as sacrifices. The
barbarians, whoever they were, who introduced this horrible law, commanded
to put to death any man who had been consecrated to the God of the Jews,
whom they called Adonai: and it is according to this execrable precept
that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, and that Saul wanted to sacrifice
his son.

But here is yet another proof of the falsity of these revelations of which
we have spoken. It is the lack of the fulfillment of the great and
magnificent promises by which they were accompanied, for it is evident
that these promises never have been fulfilled.