THE SYSTEM OF NATURE, VOLUME II,

or,

THE LAWS of the MORAL AND PHYSICAL WORLD.

By Paul Henri Thiery (Baron D’Holbach)

Translated from the Original French of M. De Mirabaud

CONTENTS

DETAILED CONTENTS

MIRABAUD’S SYSTEM OF NATURE

PART II.

CHAP. I.

CHAP. II.

CHAP. III.

CHAP. IV.

CHAP. V.

CHAP. VI.

CHAP. VII.

CHAP. VIII.

CHAP. IX.

CHAP. X.

CHAP. XI.

CHAP. XII.

CHAP. XIII.

CHAP. XIV.

[TRANSLATOR’S APPENDIX]

MIRABAUD’S SYSTEM OF NATURE

Translated from the Original By Samuel Wilkinson

PART II.

ON THE DIVINITY:—PROOFS OF HIS EXISTENCE:—OF HIS ATTRIBUTES:
OF HIS INFLUENCE OVER THE HAPPINESS OF MAN.

CHAP. I.

The Origin of Man’s Ideas upon the Divinity.

If man possessed the courage, if he had the requisite industry to recur to
the source of those opinions which are most deeply engraven on his brain;
if he rendered to himself a faithful account of the reasons which make him
hold these opinions as sacred; if he coolly examined the basis of his
hopes, the foundation of his fears, he would find that it very frequently
happens, those objects, or those ideas which move him most powerfully,
either have no real existence, or are words devoid of meaning, which
terror has conjured up to explain some sudden disaster; that they are
often phantoms engendered by a disordered imagination, modified by
ignorance; the effect of an ardent mind distracted by contending passions,
which prevent him from either reasoning justly, or consulting experience
in his judgment; that this mind often labours with a precipitancy that
throws his intellectual faculties into confusion; that bewilders his
ideas; that consequently he gives a substance and a form to chimeras, to
airy nothings, which he afterwards idolizes from sloth, reverences from
prejudice.

A sensible being placed in a nature where every part is in motion, has
various feelings, in consequence of either the agreeable or disagreeable
effects which he is obliged to experience from this continued action and
re-action; in consequence he either finds himself happy or miserable;
according to the quality of the sensations excited in him, he will love or
fear, seek after or fly from, the real or supposed causes of such marked
effects operated on his machine. But if he is ignorant of nature, if he is
destitute of experience, he will frequently deceive himself as to these
causes; for want of either capability or inclination to recur back to
them, he will neither have a true knowledge of their energy, nor a clear
idea of their mode of acting: thus until reiterated experience shall have
formed his ideas, until the mirror of truth shall have shewn him the
judgment he ought to make, he will be involved in trouble, a prey to
incertitude, a victim to credulity.

Man is a being who brings with him nothing into the world save an aptitude
to feeling in a manner more or less lively according to his individual
organization: he has no innate knowledge of any of the causes that act
upon him: by degrees his faculty of feeling discovers to him their various
qualities; he learns to judge of them; time familiarizes him with their
properties; he attaches ideas to them, according to the manner in which
they have affected him; these ideas are correct or otherwise, in a ratio
to the soundness of his organic structure: his judgment is faulty or not,
as these organs are either well or ill-constituted; in proportion as they
are competent to afford him sure and reiterated experience.

The first moments of man are marked by his wants; that is to say, the
first impulse he receives is to conserve his existence; this he would not
be able to maintain without the concurrence of many analogous causes:
these wants in a sensible being, manifest themselves by a general languor,
a sinking, a confusion in his machine, which gives him the consciousness
of a painful sensation: this derangement subsists, is even augmented,
until the cause suitable to remove it re-establishes the harmony so
necessary to the existence of the human frame. Want, therefore, is the
first evil man experiences; nevertheless it is requisite to the
maintenance of his existence. Was it not for this derangement of his body,
which obliges him to furnish its remedy, he would not be warned of the
necessity of preserving the existence he has received. Without wants man
would be an insensible machine, similar to a vegetable; like that he would
be incapable of preserving himself; he would not be competent to using the
means required to conserve his being. To his wants are to be ascribed his
passions; his desires; the exercise of his corporeal functions; the play
of his intellectual faculties: they are his wants that oblige him to
think; that determine his will, that induce him to act; it is to satisfy
them or rather to put an end to the painful sensations excited by their
presence, that according to his capacity, to the natural sensibility of
his soul, to the energies which are peculiar to himself, he gives play to
his faculties, exerts the activity of his bodily strength, or displays the
extensive powers of his mind. His wants being perpetual, he is obliged to
labour without relaxation, to procure objects competent to satisfy them.
In a word, it is owing to his multiplied wants that man’s energy is kept
in a state of continual activity: as soon as he ceases to have wants, he
falls into inaction—becomes listless—declines into apathy—sinks
into a languor that is incommodious to his feelings or prejudicial to his
existence: this lethargic state of weariness lasts until new wants, by
giving him fresh activity, rouse his dormant faculties—throw off his
stupor—re-animate his vigour, and destroy the sluggishness to which
he had become a prey.

From hence it will be obvious that evil is necessary to man; without it he
would neither be in a condition to know that which injures him; to avoid
its presence; or to seek his own welfare: without this stimulus, he would
differ in nothing from insensible, unorganized beings: if those evanescent
evils which he calls wants, did not oblige him to call forth his
faculties, to set his energies in motion, to cull experience, to compare
objects, to discriminate them, to separate those which have the
capabilities to injure him, from those which possess the means to benefit
him, he would be insensible to happiness—inadequate to enjoyment. In
short, without evil man would be ignorant of good; he would be
continually exposed to perish like the leaf on a tree. He would resemble
an infant, who, destitute of experience, runs the risque of meeting his
destruction at every step he takes, unguarded by his nurse. What the nurse
is to the child, experience is to the adult; when either are wanting,
these children of different lustres generally go astray: frequently
encounter disaster. Without evil he would be unable to judge of any thing;
he would have no preference; his will would be without volition, he would
be destitute of passions; desire would find no place in his heart; he
would not revolt at the most disgusting objects; he would not strive to
put them away; he would neither have stimuli to love, nor motives to fear
any thing; he would be an insensible automaton; he would no longer be a
man.

If no evil had existed in this world, man would never have dreamt of those
numerous divinities, to whom he has rendered such various modes of
worship. If nature had permitted him easily to satisfy all his
regenerating wants, if she had given him none but agreeable sensations,
his days would have uninterruptedly rolled on in one perpetual uniformity;
he would never have discovered his own nakedness; he would never have had
motives to search after the unknown causes of things—to meditate in
pain. Therefore man, always contented, would only have occupied himself
with satisfying his wants; with enjoying the present, with feeling the
influence of objects, that would unceasingly warn him of his existence in
a mode that he must necessarily approve; nothing would alarm his heart;
every thing would be analogous to his existence: he would neither know
fear, experience distrust, nor have inquietude for the future: these
feelings can only be the consequence of some troublesome sensation, which
must have anteriorly affected him, or which by disturbing the harmony of
his machine, has interrupted the course of his happiness; which has shewn
him he is naked.

Independent of those wants which in man renew themselves every instant;
which he frequently finds it impossible to satisfy; every individual
experiences a multiplicity of evils—he suffers from the inclemency
of the seasons—he pines in penury—he is infected with plague—he
is scourged by war—he is the victim of famine—he is afflicted
with disease—he is the sport of a thousand accidents, &c. This
is the reason why all men are fearful; why the whole human race are
diffident. The knowledge he has of pain alarms him upon all unknown
causes, that is to say, upon all those of which he has not yet experienced
the effect; this experience made with precipitation, or if it be
preferred, by instinct, places him on his guard against all those objects
from the operation of which he is ignorant what consequences may result to
himself.

His inquietude is in proportion; his fears keep pace with the extent of
the disorder which these objects produce in him; they are measured by
their rarity, that is to say, by the inexperience he has of them; by the
natural sensibility of the soul; and by the ardour of his imagination. The
wore ignorant man is, the less experience he has, the more he is
susceptible of fear; solitude, the obscurity of a forest, silence, and the
darkness of night, desolate ruins, the roaring of the wind, sudden,
confused noises, are objects of terror to all who are unaccustomed to
these things. The uninformed man is a child whom every thing astonishes;
who trembles at every thing he encounters: his alarms disappear, his fears
diminish, his mind becomes calm, in proportion as experience familiarizes
him, more or less, with natural effects; his fears cease entirely, as soon
as he understands, or believes he understands, the causes that act; or
when he knows how to avoid their effects. But if he cannot penetrate the
causes which disturb him, if he cannot discover the agents by whom he
suffers, if he cannot find to what account to place the confusion he
experiences, his inquietude augments; his fears redouble; his imagination
leads him astray; it exaggerates his evil; paints in a disorderly manner
these unknown objects of his terror; magnifies their powers; then making
an analogy between them and those terrific objects, with whom he is
already acquainted, he suggests to himself the means he usually takes to
mitigate their anger; to conciliate their kindness; he employs similar
measures to soften the anger, to disarm the power, to avert the effects of
the concealed cause which gives birth to his inquietudes, which fills him
with anxiety, which alarms his fears. It is thus his weakness, aided by
ignorance, renders him superstitious.

There are very few men, even in our own day, who have sufficiently studied
nature, who are fully apprised of physical causes, or with the effects
they must necessarily produce. This ignorance, without doubt, was much
greater in the more remote ages of the world, when the human mind, yet in
its infancy, had not collected that experience, taken that expansion, made
those strides towards improvement, which distinguishes the present from
the past. Savages dispersed, erratic, thinly scattered up and down, knew
the course of nature either very imperfectly or not at all; society alone
perfects human knowledge: it requires not only multiplied but combined
efforts to unravel the secrets of nature. This granted, all natural causes
were mysteries to our wandering ancestors; the entire of nature was an
enigma to them; all its phenomena was marvellous, every event inspired
terror to beings who were destitute of experience; almost every thing,
they saw must have appeared to them strange, unusual, contrary to their
idea of the order of things.

It cannot then furnish matter for surprise, if we behold men in the
present day trembling at the sight of those objects which have formerly
filled their fathers with dismay. Eclipse, comets, meteors, were,
in ancient days, subjects of alarm to all the people of the earth: these
effects, so natural in the eyes of the sound philosopher, who has by
degrees fathomed their true causes, have yet the right, possess the power,
to alarm the most numerous, to excite the fears of the least instructed
part of modern nations. The people of the present day, as well as their
ignorant ancestors, find something marvellous, believe there is a
supernatural agency in all those objects to which their eyes are
unaccustomed; they consider all those unknown causes as wonderful, that
act with a force of which their mind has no idea it is possible the known
agents are capable. The ignorant see wonders prodigies, miracles,
in all those striking effects of which they are unable to render
themselves a satisfactory account; all the causes which produce them they
think supernatural; this, however, really implies nothing more than
that they are not familiar to them, or that they have not hitherto
witnessed natural agents, whose energy was equal to the production of
effects so rare, so astonishing, as those with which their sight has been
appalled.

Besides the ordinary phenomena to which nations were witnesses without
being competent to unravel the causes, they have in times very remote from
ours, experienced calamities, whether general or local, which filled them
with the most cruel inquietude; which plunged them into an abyss of
consternation. The traditions of all people, the annals of all nations,
recal, even at this day, melancholy events, physical disasters, dreadful
catastrophes, which had the effect of spreading universal terror among our
forefathers, But when history should be silent on these stupendous
revolutions, would not our own reflection on what passes under our eyes be
sufficient to convince us, that all parts of our globe have been, and
following the course of things, will necessarily be again violently
agitated, overturned, changed, overflowed, in a state of conflagration?
Vast continents have been inundated, seas breaking their limits have
usurped the dominion of the earth; at length retiring, these waters have
left striking, proofs of their presence, by the marine vestiges of shells,
skeletons of sea fish, &c. which the attentive observer meets with at
every step, in the bowels of those fertile countries we now inhabit—subterraneous
fires have opened to themselves the most frightful volcanoes, whose
craters frequently issue destruction on every side. In short, the elements
unloosed, have at various times, disputed among themselves the empire of
our globe; this exhibits evidence of the fact, by those vast heaps of
wreck, those stupendous ruins spread over its surface. What, then, must
have been the fears of mankind, who in those countries believed he beheld
the entire of nature armed against his peace, menacing with destruction
his very abode? What must have been the inquietude of a people taken thus
unprovided, who fancied they saw nature cruelly labouring to their
annihilation? Who beheld a world ready to be dashed into atoms; who
witnessed the earth suddenly rent asunder; whose yawning chasm was the
grave of large cities, whole provinces, entire nations? What ideas must
mortals, thus overwhelmed with terror, form to themselves of the
irresistible cause that could produce such extended effects? Without doubt
they did not attribute these wide spreading calamities to nature; neither
did they conceive they were mere physical causes; they could not suspect
she was the author, the accomplice of the confusion she herself
experienced; they did not see that these tremendous revolutions, these
overpowering disorders, were the necessary result of her immutable laws;
that they contributed to the general order by which she subsists; that, in
point of fact, there was nothing more surprising in the inundation of
large portions of the earth, in the swallowing up an entire nation, in a
volcanic conflagration spreading destruction over whole provinces, than
there is in a stone falling to the earth, or the death of a fly; that each
equally has its spring in the necessity of things.

It was under these astounding circumstances, that nations, bathed in the
most bitter tears, perplexed with the most frightful visions, electrified
with terror, not believing there existed on this mundane ball, causes
sufficiently powerful to operate the gigantic phenomena that filled their
minds with dismay, carried their streaming eyes towards heaven, where
their tremulous fears led them to suppose these unknown agents, whose
unprovoked enmity destroyed, their earthly felicity, could alone reside.

It was in the lap of ignorance, in the season of alarm, in the bosom of
calamity, that mankind ever formed his first notions of the Divinity.
From hence it is obvious that his ideas on this subject are to be
suspected, that his notions are in a great measure false, that they are
always afflicting. Indeed, upon whatever part of our sphere we cast our
eyes, whether it be upon the frozen climates of the north, upon the
parching regions of the south, or under the more temperate zones, we every
where behold the people when assailed by misfortunes, have either made to
themselves national gods, or else have adopted those which have been given
them by their conquerors; before these beings, either of their own
creation or adoption, they have tremblingly prostrated themselves in the
hour of calamity, soliciting relief; have ignorantly attributed to blocks
of stone, or to men like themselves, those natural effects which were
above their comprehension; the inhabitants of many nations, not contented
with the national gods, made each to himself one or more gods, which he
supposed presided exclusively over his own household, from whom he
supposed he derived his own peculiar happiness, to whom he attributed all
his domestic misfortunes. The idea of these powerful agents, these
supposed distributors of good and evil, was always associated with that of
terror; their name was never pronounced without recalling to man’s wind
either his own particular calamities or those of his fathers. In many
places man trembles at this day, because his progenitors have trembled for
thousands of years past. The thought of his gods always awakened in man
the most afflicting ideas. If he recurred to the source of his actual
fears, to the commencement of those melancholy impressions that stamp
themselves in his mind when their name is announced, he would find it in
the conflagrations, in the revolutions, in those extended disasters, that
have at various times destroyed large portions of the human race; that
overwhelmed with dismay those miserable beings who escaped the destruction
of the earth; these in transmitting to posterity, the tradition of such
afflicting events, have also transmitted to him their fears; have
delivered down to their successors, those gloomy ideas which their
bewildered imaginations, coupled with their barbarous ignorance of natural
causes, had formed to them of the anger of their irritated gods, to which
their alarm falsely attributed these sweeping disasters.

If the gods of nations had their birth in the bosom of alarm, it was again
in that of despair that each individual formed the unknown power that he
made exclusively for himself. Ignorant of physical causes, unpractised in
their mode of action, unaccustomed to their effects, whenever he
experienced any serious misfortune, whenever he was afflicted with any
grievous sensation, he was at a loss how to account for it; he therefore
attributed it to his household gods, to whom he made an immediate
supplication for assistance, or rather for forbearance of further
affliction: this disposition in man has been finely pourtrayed by Aesop in
his fable of “the Waggoner and Hercules.” The motion which in despight of
himself was excited in his machine, his diseases, his troubles, his
passions, his inquietude, the painful alterations his frame underwent,
without his being able to fathom the true causes; at length death, of
which the aspect in so formidable to a being strongly attached to
existence, were effects he looked upon either as supernatural, or else he
conceived they were repugnant to his actual nature; he attributed them to
some mighty cause, which maugre all his efforts, disposed of him at each,
moment. Thus palsied with alarm, benumbed with terror, he pensively
meditated upon his sorrows; agitated with fear, he sought for means to
avert the calamities that threatened him with destruction; his
imagination, thus rendered desperate by his endurance of evils which he
found inevitable, formed to him those phantoms which he called gods;
before whom he trembled from a consciousness of his own weakness; thus
disposed, he endeavoured by prostration, by sacrifices, by prayers, to
disarm the anger of these imaginary beings to which his trepidation had
given birth; whom he ignorantly imagined to be the cause of his misery,
whom his fancy painted to him as endowed with the power of alleviating his
sufferings: it was thus in the extremity of his grief, in the exacerbation
of his mind, weighed down with misfortune, that unhappy man fashioned
those chimeras which filled him with the most gloomy ideas, which he
transmitted to his posterity, as the surest means of avoiding the evils to
which he had been himself subjected.

Man never judges of those objects of which he is ignorant, but through the
medium of those which come within his knowledge: thus man, taking himself
for the model, ascribed will, intelligence, design, projects, passions; in
a word, qualities analogous to his own, to all those unknown causes of
which he experienced the action. As soon as a visible or supposed cause
affects him in an agreeable manner, or in a mode favourable to his
existence, he concludes it to be good, to be well intentioned towards him:
on the contrary, he judges all those to be bad in their nature, evilly
disposed, to have the intention of injuring him, which cause him any
painful sensations. He attributes views, plans, a system of conduct like
his own, to every thing which to his limited ideas appears of itself to
produce connected effects; to act with regularity; to constantly operate
in the same manner; that uniformly produces the same sensations in his own
person. According to these notions, which he always borrows from himself,
from his own peculiar mode of action, he either loves or fears those
objects which have affected him; he in consequence approaches them with
confidence or timidity; seeks after them or flies from them in proportion
as the feelings they have excited are either pleasant or painful. Having
travelled thus far, he presently addresses them; he invokes their aid;
prays to them for succour; conjures them to cease his afflictions; to
forbear tormenting him; as he finds himself sensible to presents, pleased
with submission, he tries to win them to his interests by humiliation, by
sacrifices; he exercises towards them the hospitality he himself loves; he
gives them an asylum; he builds them a dwelling; he furnishes them with
costly raiment; he makes their altars smoke with delicious food; he
proffers to their acceptance the earliest flowers of spring; the finest
fruits of autumn; the rich grain of summer; in short he sets before them
all those things which he thinks will please them the most, because he
himself places the highest value on them. These dispositions enable us to
account for the formation of tutelary gods, of lares, of larvae, which
every man makes to himself in savage and unpolished nations. Thus we
perceive that weak superstitious mortals, ignorant of truth, devoid of
experience, regard as the arbiters of their fate, as the dispensers of
good and evil, animals, stones, unformed inanimate substances, which the
effort of their heated imaginations transform into gods, whom they invest
with intelligence, whom they clothe with desires, to whom they give
volition.

Another disposition which serves to deceive the savage man, which will
equally deceive those whom reason shall not enlighten on these subjects,
is his attachment to omens; or the fortuitous concurrence of certain
effects, with causes which have not produced them; the co-existence of
these effects with certain causes, which have not the slightest connection
with them, has frequently led astray very intelligent beings; nations who
considered themselves very enlightened; who have either been disinclined
or unable to disentangle the one from the other: thus the savage
attributes bounty or the will to render him service, to any object whether
animate or inanimate, such as a stone of a certain form, a rock, a
mountain, a tree, a serpent, an owl, &c. if every time he encounters
these objects in a certain position, it should so happen that he is more
than ordinarily successful in hunting, that he should take an unusual
quantity of fish, that he should be victorious in war, or that he should
compass any enterprize whatever that he may at that moment undertake: the
same savage will be quite as gratuitous in attaching malice, wickedness,
the determination to injure him, to either the same object in a different
position, or any others in a given posture, which way have met his eyes on
those days when he shall have suffered some grievous accident, have been
very unsuccessful in his undertakings, unfortunate in the chace,
disappointed in his draught of fish: incapable of reasoning he connects
these effects with causes, that reflection would convince him have nothing
in common with each other; that are entirely due to physical causes, to
necessary circumstances, over which neither himself nor his omens have the
least controul: nevertheless he finds it much easier to attribute them to
these imaginary causes; he therefore deifies them; looks upon them
as either his guardian angels, or else as his most inveterate enemies.
Having invested them with supernatural powers, he becomes anxious to
explain to himself their mode of action; his self-love prevents his
seeking elsewhere for the model: thus he assigns them all those motives
that actuate himself; he endows them with passions; he gives them design—intelligence—will—imagines
they can either injure him or benefit him, as he may render them
propitious or otherwise to his views: he ends with worshipping them; with
paying them divine honours; he appoints them priests; or at least always
consults them before he undertakes any object of moment: such is their
influence, that if they put on the evil position, he will lay aside the
most important undertaking. The savage in this is never more than an
infant, that is angry with the object that displeases him; just like the
dog who gnaws the stone by which he has been wounded, without recurring to
the hand by which it was thrown.

Such is the foundation of man’s faith, in either happy or unhappy omens:
devoid of experience, unaccustomed to reason with precision, fearing to
call in the evidence of truth, he looks upon them either as gods
themselves, or else as warnings given him by his other gods, to whom he
attributes the faculties of sagacity and foresight, of which he is himself
miserably deficient. Ignorance, when involved in disaster, when immersed
in trouble, believes a stone, a reptile, a bird, much better instructed
than himself. The slender observation of the ignorant only serves to
render him more superstitious; he sees certain birds announce by their
flight, by their cries, certain changes in the weather, such as cold,
heat, rain, storms; he beholds at certain periods, vapours arise from the
bottom of some particular caverns? there needs nothing further to impress
upon him the belief, that these beings possess the knowledge of future
events; enjoy the gifts of prophecy: he looks upon them as supernatural
agents, employed by his gods: it is thus he becomes the dupe to his own
credulity.

If by degrees the truth flashing occasionally on his mind, experience and
reflection arrive at undeceiving him, with respect to the power, the
intelligence, the virtues actually residing in these objects; he at least
supposes them put in activity by some secret, some hidden cause; that they
are the instruments, employed by some invisible agent, who is either
friendly or inimical to his welfare. To this concealed agent, therefore,
he addresses himself; pays him his vows; emplores his assistance;
deprecates his wrath; seeks to propitiate him to his interests; is willing
to soften his anger; for this purpose he employs the same means, of which
he avails himself, either to appease or gain over the beings of his own
species.

Societies in their origin, seeing themselves frequently afflicted by
nature, supposed either the elements, or the concealed powers who
regulated them, possessed a will, views, wants, desires, similar to their
own. From hence, the sacrifices imagined to nourish them; the libations
poured out to them; the steams, the incense to gratify their olfactory
nerves. Their superstition led them to believe these elements or their
irritated movers were to be appeased like irritated man, by prayers, by
humiliation, by presents. Their imagination was ransacked to discover the
presents that would be most acceptable in their eyes; to ascertain the
oblations that would be most agreeable, the sacrifices that would most
surely propitiate their kindness: as these did not make known their
inclinations, man differed with his fellow on those most suitable; each
followed his own disposition; or rather each offered what was most
estimable in his own eyes; hence arose differences never to be reconciled
the bitterest animosities; the most unconquerable aversions; the most,
destructive jealousies! Thus some brought the fruits of the earth, others
offered sheaves of corn: some strewed flowers over their fanes; some
decorated them with the most costly jewels; some served them with meats;
others sacrificed lambs, heifers, bulls; at length such was their
delirium, such the wildness of their imaginations, that they stained their
altars with human gore, made oblations of young children immolated
virgins, to appease the anger of these supposed deities.

The old men, as having the most experience, were usually charged with the
conduct of these peace-offerings, from whence, the name PRIEST; [Greek
letters], presbos, in the Greek meaning an old man. These
accompanied them with ceremonies, instituted rites, used precautions by
consulting omens; adopted formalities, retraced to their fellow citizens
the notions transmitted to them by their forefathers; collected the
observations made by their ancestors; repeated the fables they had
received; added commentaries of their own; subjoined supplications to the
idols at whose shrine they were sacrificing. It is thus the sacerdotal
order was established; thus that public worship was established; by
degrees each community formed a body of tenets to be observed by the
citizens; these were transmitted from race to race; held sacred out of
reverence for their fathers; at length it was deemed sacrilege to doubt
these pandects in any one particular; even the errors, that had crept into
them with time, were beheld with reverential awe; he that ventured to
reason upon them, was looked upon as an enemy to the commonwealth; as one
whose impiety drew down upon them the vengeance of these adored beings, to
which alone imagination had given birth; not contented with adopting the
rituals, with following the ceremonies invented by themselves, one
community waged war against another, to oblige it to receive their
particular creeds; which the old men who regulated them, declared would
infallibly win them the favor of their tutelary deities: thus very often
to conciliate their favor, the victorious party immolated on the altars of
their gods, the bodies of their unhappy captives; frequently they carried
their savage barbarity the length of exterminating whole nations, who
happened to worship gods different from their own: thus it frequently
happened, that the friends of the serpent, when victorious, covered his
altars with the mangled carcases of the worshippers of the stone, whom the
fortune of war had placed in their hands: such were the unformed, the
precarious elements of which rude nations every where availed themselves
to compose their superstitions: they were always a system of conduct
invented by imagination: conceived in ignorance, organized in misfortune,
to render the unknown powers, to whom they believed nature was submitted,
either favorable to their views, or to, induce them to cease those
afflictions, which natural causes, for the wisest purposes, were
continually heaping upon them; thus some irascible, at the same time
placable being, was always chosen for the basis of the adopted
superstition; it was upon these puerile tenets, upon these absurd notions,
that the old men or the priests rested their doctrines; founded their
rights; established their authority: it was to render these fanciful
beings friendly to the race of man, that they erected, temples, raised
altars, loaded them with wealth; in short, it was from such rude
foundations, that arose the magnificent structure of superstition; under
which man trembled for thousands of years: which governed the condition of
society, which determined the actions of the people, gave the tone to the
character, deluged the earth with blood, for such a long series of ages.
But although these superstitions were originally invented by savages, they
still have the power of regulating the fate of many civilized nations, who
are not less tenacious of their chimeras, than their rude progenitors.
These systems, so ruinous in their principles, have been variously
modified by the human mind, of which it is the essence, to labour
incessantly on unknown objects; it always, commences by attaching to
these, a very first-rate importance, which it afterwards never dares
coolly to examine.

Such was the course of man’s imagination, in the successive ideas which he
either formed to himself, or which he received from his fathers, upon the
divinity. The first theology of man was grounded on fear, modelled by
ignorance: either afflicted or benefitted by the elements, he adored these
elements themselves; by a parity of reasoning, if reasoning it can be
called, he extended his reverence to every material, coarse object; he
afterwards rendered his homage to the agents he supposed presiding over
these elements; to powerful genii; to inferior genii; to heroes; to men
endowed with either great or striking qualities. Time, aided by
reflection, with here and there a slight corruscation of truth, induced
him in some places to relinquish his original ideas; he believed he
simplified the thing by lessening the number of his gods, but he achieved
nothing by this towards attaining to the truth; in recurring from cause to
cause man finished by losing sight of every thing; in this obscurity, in
this dark abyss, his mind still laboured, he formed new chimeras, he made
new gods, or rather he formed a very complex machinery; still, as before,
whenever he could not account for any phenomenon that struck his sight, he
was unwilling to ascribe it to physical causes; and the name of his
Divinity, whatever that might happen to be, was always brought in to
supply his own ignorance of natural causes.

If a faithful account was rendered of man’s ideas upon the Divinity, he
would be obliged to acknowledge, that for the most part the word Gods
has been used to express the concealed, remote, unknown causes of the
effects he witnessed; that he applies this term when the spring of
natural, the source of known causes ceases to be visible: as soon as he
loses the thread of these causes, or as soon as his mind can no longer
follow the chain, he solves the difficulty, terminates his research, by
ascribing it to his gods; thus giving a vague definition to an unknown
cause, at which either his idleness, or his limited knowledge, obliges him
to stop. When, therefore, he ascribes to his gods the production of some
phenomenon, the novelty or the extent of which strikes him with wonder,
but of which his ignorance precludes him from unravelling the true cause,
or which he believes the natural powers with which he is acquainted are
inadequate to bring forth; does he, in fact, do any thing more than
substitute for the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been
accustomed to listen with reverential awe? Ignorance may be said to be the
inheritance of the generality of men; these attribute to their gods not
only those uncommon effects that burst upon their senses with an
astounding force, but also the most simple events, the causes of which are
the most easy to be known to whoever shall be willing to meditate upon
them. In short, man has always respected those unknown causes, those
surprising effects which his ignorance prevented him from fathoming.

But does this afford us one single, correct idea of the Divinity?
Can it be possible we are acting rationally, thus eternally to make him
the agent of our stupidity, of our sloth, of our want of information on
natural causes? Do we, in fact, pay any kind of adoration to this being,
by thus bringing him forth on every trifling occasion, to solve the
difficulties ignorance throws in our way? Of whatever nature this great
cause of causes may be, it is evident to the slightest reflection that he
has been sedulous to conceal himself from our view; that he has rendered
it impossible for us to have the least acquaintance with him, except
through the medium of nature, which he has unquestionably rendered
competent to every thing: this is the rich banquet spread before man; he
is invited to partake, with a welcome he has no right to dispute; to enjoy
therefore is to obey; to be happy is to render that worship which must
make him most acceptable; to be happy himself is to make others happy;
to make others happy is to be virtuous; to be virtuous he must revere
truth: to know what truth is, he must examine with caution, scrutinize
with severity, every opinion he adopts: this granted, is it at all
consistent with the majesty of the Divinity, is it not insulting to such a
being to clothe him with our wayward passions; to ascribe to him designs
similar to our narrow view of things; to give him our filthy desires; to
suppose he can be guided by our finite conceptions; to bring him on a
level with frail humanity, by investing him with our qualities, however
much we may exaggerate them; to indulge an opinion that he can either act
or think as we do; to imagine he can in any manner resemble such a feeble
play-thing, as is the greatest, the most distinguished man? No! it is to
degrade him in the eye of reason; to violate every regard for truth; to
set moral decency at defiance; to fall back into the depth of cimmerian
darkness. Let man therefore sit down cheerfully to the feast; let him
contentedly partake of what he finds; but let him not worry the Divinity
with his useless prayers, with his shallow-sighted requests, to solicit at
his hands that which, if granted, would in all probability be the most
injurious for himself; these supplications are, in fact, at once to say,
that with our limited experience, with our slender knowledge, we better
understand what is suitable to our condition, what is convenient to our
welfare, than the mighty Cause of all causes who has left us in the
hands of nature: it is to be presumptuous in the highest degree of
presumption; it is impiously to endeavour to lift up a veil which it is
evidently forbidden man to touch; that even his most strenuous efforts
attempt in vain.

It remains, then, to inquire, if man can reasonably flatter himself with
obtaining a perfect knowledge of the power of nature; of the properties of
the beings she contains; of the effects which may result from their
various combinations? Do we know why the magnet attracts iron? Are we
better acquainted with the cause of polar attraction? Are we in a
condition to explain the phenomena of light, electricity, elasticity? Do
we understand the mechanism by which that modification of our brain, which
we tall volition, puts our arm or our legs into motion? Can we render to
ourselves an account of the manner in which our eyes behold objects, in
which our ears receive sounds, in which our mind conceives ideas? All we
know upon these subjects is, that they are so. If then we are incapable of
accounting for the most ordinary phenomena, which nature daily exhibits to
us, by what chain of reasoning do we refuse to her the power of producing
other effects equally incomprehensible to us? Shall we be more instructed,
when every time we behold an effect of which we are not in a capacity to
develope the cause, we may idly say, this effect is produced by the power,
by the will of God? Undoubtedly it is the great Cause of causes
must have produced every thing; but is it not lessening the true dignity
of the Divinity, to introduce him as interfering in every operation of
nature; nay, in every action of so insignificant a creature as man? As a
mere agent executing his own eternal, immutable laws; when experience,
when reflection, when the evidence of all we contemplate, warrants the
idea, that this ineffable being has rendered nature competent to every
effect, by giving her those irrevocable laws, that eternal, unchangeable
system, according to which all the beings she contains must eternally act?
Is it not more worthy the exalted mind of the GREAT PARENT OF PARENTS, ens
entium, more consistent with truth, to suppose that his wisdom in
giving these immutable, these eternal laws to the macrocosm, foresaw every
thing that could possibly be requisite for the happiness of the beings
contained in it; that therefore he left it to the invariable operation of
a system, which never can produce any effect that is not the best possible
that circumstances however viewed will admit: that consequently the
natural activity of the human mind, which is itself the result of this
eternal action, was purposely given to man, that he might endeavour to
fathom, that he might strive to unravel, that he might seek out the
concatenation of these laws, in order to furnish remedies against the
evils produced by ignorance. How many discoveries in the great science of
natural philosophy has mankind progressively made, which the ignorant
prejudices of our forefathers on their first announcement considered as
impious, as displeasing to the Divinity, as heretical profanations, which
could only be expiated by the sacrifice of the enquiring individuals; to
whose labour their posterity owes such an infinity of gratitude? Even in
modern days we have seen a SOCRATES destroyed, a GALLILEO condemned,
whilst multitudes of other benefactors to mankind have been held in
contempt by their uninformed cotemporaries, for those very researches into
nature which the present generation hold in the highest veneration. Whenever
ignorant priests are permitted to guide the opinions of nations, science
can make but a very slender progress: natural discoveries will be
always held inimical to the interest of bigotted superstitious men. It
may, to the minds of infatuated mortals, to the shallow comprehension of
prejudiced beings, appear very pious to reply on every occasion our gods
do this, our gods do that; but to the contemplative philosopher, to the
man of reason, to the real adorers of the great Cause of causes, it
will never be convincing, that a sound, a mere word, can attach the reason
of things; can have more than a fixed sense; can suffice to explain
problems. The word GOD is for the most part used to denote the
impenetrable cause of those effects which astonish mankind; which man is
not competent to explain. But is not this wilful idleness? Is it not
inconsistent with our nature? Is it not being truly impious, to sit down
with those fine faculties we have received, and give the answer of a child
to every thing we do not understand; or rather which our own sloth, or our
own want of industry has prevented us from knowing? Ought we not rather to
redouble our efforts to penetrate the cause of those phenomena which
strike our mind? Is not this, in fact, the duty we owe to the great, the
universal Parent? When we have given this answer, what have we said?
nothing but what every one knows. Could the great Cause of causes
make the whole, without also making its part? But does it of necessity
follow that he executes every trifling operation, when he has so noble an
agent as his own nature, whose laws he has rendered unchangeable, whose
scale of operations can never deviate from the eternal routine he has
marked out for her and all the beings she embraces? Whose secrets, if
sought out, contain the true balsam of life—the sovereign remedy for
all the diseases of man.

When we shall be ingenuous with ourselves, we shall be obliged to agree
that it was uniformly the ignorance in which our ancestors were involved,
their want of knowledge of natural causes, their unenlightened ideas on
the powers of nature, which gave birth to the gods they worshipped; that
it is, again, the impossibility which the greater part of mankind find to
withdraw, themselves out of this ignorance, the difficulty they
consequently find to form to themselves simple ideas of the formation of
things, the labour that is required to discover the true sources of those
events, which they either admire or fear, that makes them believe these
ideas are necessary to enable them to render an account of those
phenomena, to which their own sluggishness renders them incompetent to
recur. Here, without doubt, is the reason they treat all those as
irrational who do not see the necessity of admitting an unknown agent, or
some secret energy, which for want of being acquainted with Nature, they
have placed out of herself.

The phenomena of nature necessarily breed various sentiments in man: some
he thinks favorable to him, some prejudicial, while the whole is only what
it can be. Some excite his love, his admiration, his gratitude; others
fill him with trouble, cause aversion, drive him to despair. According to
the various sensations he experiences, he either loves or fears the causes
to which he attributes the effects, which produce in him these different
passions: these sentiments are commensurate with the effects he
experiences; his admiration is enhanced, his fears are augmented, in the
same ratio as the phenomena which strikes his senses are more or less
extensive, more or less irresistible or interesting to him. Man
necessarily makes himself the centre of nature; indeed he can only judge
of things, as he is himself affected by them; he can only love that which
he thinks favorable to his being; he hates, he fears every thing which
causes him to suffer: in short, as we have seen in the former volume, he
calls confusion every thing that deranges the economy of his machine; he
believes all is in order, as soon as he experiences nothing but what is
suitable to his peculiar mode of existence. By a necessary consequence of
these ideas, man firmly believes that the entire of nature was made for
him alone; that it was only himself which she had in view in all her
works; or rather that the powerful cause to which this nature was
subordinate, had only for object man and his convenience, in all the
stupendous effects which are produced in the universe.

If there existed on this earth other thinking beings besides man, they
would fall exactly into similar prejudices with himself; it is a sentiment
founded upon that predilection which each individual necessarily has for
himself; a predilection that will subsist until reason, aided by
experience, in pointing out the truth, shall have rectified his errors.

Thus, whenever man is contented, whenever every thing is in order with
respect to himself, he either admires or loves the causes to which he
believes he is indebted for his welfare; when he becomes discontented with
his mode of existence, he either fears or hates the cause which he
supposes has produced these afflicting effects. But his welfare confounds
itself with his existence; it ceases to make itself felt when it has
become habitual, when it has been of long continuance; he then thinks it
is inherrent to his essence; he concludes from it that he is formed to be
always happy; he finds it natural that every thing should concur to the
maintenance of his being. It is by no means the same when he experiences a
mode of existence that is displeasing to himself: the man who suffers is
quite astonished at the change which his taken place in his machine; he
judges it to be contrary to the entire of nature, because it is
incommodious to his own particular nature; he, imagines those events by
which he is wounded, to be contrary to the order of things; he believes
that nature is deranged every time she does not procure for him that mode
of feeling which is suitable to his ideas: he concludes from these
suppositions that nature, or rather that the agent who moves her; is
irritated against him.

It is thus that man, almost insensible to good, feels evil in a very
lively manner; the first he believes natural, the other he thinks opposed
to nature. He is either ignorant, or forgets, that he constitutes part of
a whole, formed by the assemblage of substances, of which some are
analogous, others heterogeneous; that the various beings of which nature
is composed, are endowed with a variety of properties, by virtue of which
they act diversely on the bodies who find themselves within the sphere of
their action; that some have an aptitude to attraction, whilst it is of
the essence of others to repel; that even those bodies that attract at one
distance, repel at another; that the peculiar attractions and repulsions
of the particles of bodies perpetually oppose, invariably counteract the
general ones of the masses of matter: he does not perceive that these
beings, as destitute of goodness, as devoid of malice, act only according
to their respective essences; follow the laws their properties impose upon
them; without being in capacity to act otherwise than they do. It is,
therefore, for want of being acquainted with these things, that he looks
upon the great Author of nature, the great Cause of causes, as the
immediate cause of those evils to which he is submitted; that he judges
erroneously when he imagines that the Divinity is exasperated against him.

The fact is, man believes that his welfare is a debt due to him from
nature; that when he suffers evil she does him an injustice; fully
persuaded that this nature was made solely for himself, he cannot conceive
she would make him, who is her lord paramount, suffer, if she was not
moved thereto by a power who is inimical to his happiness; who has reasons
with which he is unacquainted for afflicting, who has motives which he
wishes to discover, for punishing him. From hence it will be obvious, that
evil, much more than good, is the true motive of those researches which
man has made concerning the Divinity—of those ideas which he has
formed to himself—of the conduct he has held towards him. The
admiration of the works of nature, or the acknowledgement of its goodness,
seem never alone to have determined the human species to recur painfully
by thought to the source of these things; familiarized at once with all
those effects which are favourable to his existence, he does not by any
means give himself the same trouble to seek the causes, that he does to
discover those which disquiet him, or by which he is afflicted. Thus, in
reflecting upon the Divinity, it was generally upon the cause of his evils
that man meditated; his meditations were fruitless, because the evil he
experiences, as well as the good he partakes, are equally necessary
effects of natural causes, to which his mind ought rather to have bent its
force, than to have invented fictitious causes of which he never could
form to himself any but false ideas; seeing that he always borrowed them,
from his own peculiar mariner of existing, acting, and feeling.
Obstinately refusing to see any thing, but himself, he never became
acquainted with that universal nature of which he constitutes such a very
feeble part.

The slightest reflection, however, would have been sufficient to undeceive
him on these erroneous ideas. Everything tends to prove that good and evil
are modes of existence that depend upon causes by which a man is moved;
that a sensible being is obliged to experience them. In a nature composed
of a multitude of beings infinitely varied, the shock occasioned by the
collision of discordant matter must necessarily disturb the order, derange
the mode of existence of those beings who have no analogy with them: these
act in every thing they do after certain laws, which are in themselves
immutable; the good or evil, therefore, which man experiences, are
necessary consequences of the qualities inherent to the beings, within
whose sphere of action he is found. Our birth, which we call a benefit, is
an effect as necessary as our death, which we contemplate as an injustice
of fate: it is of the nature of all analogous beings to unite themselves
to form a whole: it is of the nature of all compound beings to be
destroyed, or to dissolve themselves; some maintain their union for a
longer period than others; some disperse very quickly, as the ephemeron;
some endure for ages, as the planets; every being in dissolving itself
gives birth to new beings; these are destroyed in their turn; to execute
the eternal, the immutable laws of a nature that only exists by the
continual changes that all its parts undergo. Thus nature cannot be
accused of malice, since every thing that takes place in it is necessary—is
produced by an invariable system, to which every other being, as well as
herself, is eternally subjected. The same igneous matter that in man is
the principle of life, frequently becomes the principle of his
destruction, either by the conflagration of a city, the explosion of a
volcano, or his mad passion for war. The aqueous fluid that circulates
through his machine, so essentially necessary to his actual existence,
frequently becomes too abundant, and terminates him by suffocation; is the
cause of those inundations which sometimes swallow up both the earth and
its inhabitants. The air, without which he is not able to respire, is the
cause of those hurricanes, of those tempests, which frequently render
useless the labour of mortals. These elements are obliged to burst their
bonds, when they are combined in a certain manner; their necessary but
fatal consequences are those ravages, those contagions, those famines,
those diseases, those various scourges, against which man, with streaming
eyes and violent emotions, vainly implores the aid of those powers who are
deaf to his cries: his prayers are never granted; but the same necessity
which afflicted him, the same immutable laws which overwhelmed him with
trouble, replaces things in the order he finds suitable to his species: a
relative order of things which was, is, and always will be the only
standard of his judgment.

Man, however, made no such simple reflections: he either did not or would
not perceive that every thing in nature acted by invariable laws; he
continued stedfast in contemplating the good of which he was partaker, as
a favor; in considering the evil he experienced, as a sign of anger in
this nature, which he supposed to be animated by the same passions as
himself or at least that it was governed by secret agents, who acted after
his own manner, who obliged it to execute their will, that was sometimes
favourable, sometimes inimical to the human species. It was to these
supposed agents, with whom in the sunshine of his prosperity he was but
little occupied, that in the bosom of his calamity he addressed his
prayers; he thanked them, however, for their favours, fearing lest their
ingratitude might farther provoke their fury: thus when assailed by
disaster, when afflicted with disease, he invoked them with fervor: he
required them to change in his favor the mode of acting which was the very
essence of beings; he was willing that to make the slightest evil he
experienced cease, that the eternal chain of things might be broken; and
the unerring, undeviating course of nature might he arrested.

It was upon such ridiculous pretensions, that were founded those
supplications, those fervent prayers, which mortals, almost always
discontented with their fate, never in accord in their respective desires,
addressed to their gods. They were unceasingly upon their knees before the
altars, were ever prostrate before the power of the beings, whom they
judged had the right of commanding nature; who they supposed to have
sufficient energy to divert her course; who they considered to possess the
means to make her subservient to their particular views; thus each hoped
by presents, by humiliation, to induce them to oblige this nature, to
satisfy the discordant desires of their race. The sick man, expiring in
his bed, asks that the humours accumulated in his body should in an
instant lose those properties which renders them injurious to his
existence; that by an act of their puissance, his gods should renew or
recreate the springs of a machine worn out by infirmities. The cultivator
of a low swampy country, makes complaint of the abundance of rain with
which his fields are inundated; whilst the inhabitant of the hill, raises
his thanks for the favors he receives, solicits a continuance of that
which causes the despair of his neighbour. In this, each is willing to
have a god for himself, and asks according to his momentary caprices, to
his fluctuating wants, that the invariable essence of things, should be
continually changed in his favour.

From this it must be obvious, that man every moment asks a miracle
to be wrought in his support. It is not, therefore, at all surprising that
he displayed such ready credulity, that he adopted with such facility the
relation of the marvellous deeds which were universally announced to him
as the acts of the power, or the effects of the benevolence, of the
various gods which presided over the nations of the earth: these wonderful
tales, which were offered to his acceptance, as the most indubitable
proofs of the empire of these gods over nature, which man always found
deaf to his entreaties, were readily accredited by him; in the
expectation, that if he could gain them over to his interest, this nature,
which he found so sullen, so little disposed to lend herself to his views,
would then be controuled in his own favor.

By a necessary consequence of these ideas, nature was despoiled of all
power; she was contemplated only as a passive instrument, who acted at the
will, under the influence of the numerous, all-powerful agents to whom the
various superstitions had rendered her subordinate. It was thus for want
of contemplating nature under her true point of view, that man has
mistaken her entirely, that he believed her incapable of producing any
thing by herself; that he ascribed the honor of all those productions,
whether advantageous or disadvantageous to the human species, to
fictitious powers, whom he always clothed with his own peculiar
dispositions, only he aggrandized their force. In short, it was upon the
ruins of nature, that man erected the imaginary colossus of superstition,
that he reared the altars of a Jupiter, the temples of an Apollo.

If the ignorance of nature gave birth to such a variety of gods, the
knowledge of this nature is calculated to destroy them. As soon as man
becomes enlightened, his powers augment, his resources increase in a ratio
with his knowledge; the sciences, the protecting arts, industrious
application, furnish him assistance; experience encourages his progress,
truth procures for him the means of resisting the efforts of many causes,
which cease to alarm him as soon as he obtains a correct knowledge of
them. In a word, his terrors dissipate in proportion as his mind becomes
enlightened, because his trepidation is ever commensurate with his
ignorance, and furnishes this great lesson, that man, instructed by
truth, ceases to be superstitious.

CHAP. II.

Of Mythology, and Theology.

The elements of nature were, as we have shewn, the first divinities of
man; he has generally commenced with adoring material beings; each
individual, as we have already said, as may be still seen in savage
nations, made to himself a particular god, of some physical object, which
he supposed to be the cause of those events, in which he was himself
interested; he never wandered to seek out of visible nature, the source
either of what happened to himself, or of those phenomena to which he was
a witness. As he every where saw only material effects, he attributed them
to causes of the same genus; incapable in his infancy of those profound
reveries, of those subtle speculations, which are the fruit of time, the
result of leisure, he did not imagine any cause distinguished from the
objects that met his sight, nor of any essence totally different from
every thing he beheld.

The observation of nature was the first study of those who had leisure to
meditate: they could not avoid being struck with the phenomena of the
visible world. The rising and setting of the sun, the periodical return of
the seasons, the variations of the atmosphere, the fertility and sterility
of the earth, the advantages of irrigation, the damage caused by floods,
the useful effects of fire, the terrible consequences of conflagration,
were proper and suitable objects to occupy their thoughts. It was natural
for them to believe that those beings they saw move of themselves, acted
by their own peculiar energies; according as their influence over the
inhabitants of the earth was either favorable or otherwise, they concluded
them to have either the power to injure them, or the disposition to confer
benefits. Those who first acquired the knowledge of gaining an ascendancy
over man, then savage, wandering, unpolished, or dispersed in woods, with
but little attachment to the soil, of which he had not yet learned to reap
the advantage, were always more practised observers—individuals more
instructed in the ways of nature, than the people, or rather the scattered
hordes, whom they found ignorant and destitute of experience: their
superior knowledge placed them in a capacity to render these services—to
discover to them useful inventions, which attracted the confidence of the
unhappy beings to whom they came to offer an assisting hand; savages who
were naked, half famished, exposed to the injuries of the weather,
obnoxious to the attacks of ferocious beasts, dispersed in caverns,
scattered in forests, occupied with hunting, painfully labouring to
procure themselves a very precarious subsistence, had not sufficient
leisure to make discoveries calculated to facilitate their labour, or to
render it less incessant. These discoveries are generally the fruit of
society: isolated beings, detached families, hardly ever make any
discoveries—scarcely ever think of making any. The savage is a being
who lives in a perpetual state of infancy, who never reaches maturity
unless some one comes to draw him out of his misery. At first repulsive,
unsociable, intractable, he by degrees familiarizes himself with those who
render him service; once gained by their kindness, he readily lends them
his confidence; in the end he goes the length of sacrificing to them his
liberty.

It was commonly from the bosom of civilized nations that have issued those
personages who have carried sociability, agriculture, art, laws, gods,
superstition, forms of worship, to those families or hordes as yet
scattered; who united them either to the body of some other nations, or
formed them into new nations, of which they themselves became the leaders,
sometimes the king, frequently the high priest, and often their god. These
softened their manners—gathered them together—taught them to
reap the advantages of their own powers—to render each other
reciprocal assistance—to satisfy their wants with greater facility.
In thus rendering their existence more comfortable, thus augmenting their
happiness, they attracted their love; obtained their veneration, acquired
the right of prescribing opinions to them, made them adopt such as they
had either invented themselves, or else drawn up in the civilized
countries from whence they came. History points out to us the most famous
legislators as men, who, enriched with useful knowledge they had gleaned
in the bosom of polished nations, carried to savages without industry,
needing assistance, those arts, of which, until then, these rude people
were ignorant: such were the Bacchus’s, the Orpheus’s, the Triptolemus’s,
the Numa’s, the Zamolixis’s; in short, all those who first gave to nations
their gods—their worship—the rudiments of agriculture, of
science, of superstition, of jurisprudence, of religion, &c.

It will perhaps be enquired, If those nations which at the present day we
see assembled, were all originally dispersed? We reply, that this
dispersion may have been produced at various times, by those terrible
revolutions, of which it has before been remarked our globe has more than
once been the theatre; in times so remote, that history has not been able
to transmit us the detail. Perhaps the approach of more than one comet may
have produced on our earth several universal ravages, which have at each
time annihilated the greater portion of the human species.

These hypotheses will unquestionably appear bold to those who have not
sufficiently meditated on nature, but to the philosophic enquirer they are
by no means inconsistent. There may not only have been one general deluge,
but even a great number since the existence of our planet; this globe
itself may have been a new production in nature; it may not always have
occupied the place it does at present. Whatever idea may be adopted on
this subject, if it is very certain that, independent of those exterior
causes, which are competent to totally change its face, as the impulse of
a comet may do, this globe contains within itself, a cause adequate to
alter it entirely, since, besides the diurnal and sensible motion of the
earth, it has one extremely slow, almost imperceptible, by which every
thing must eventually be changed in it: this is the motion from whence
depends the precession of the equinoctial points, observed
by Hipparchus and other mathematicians, now well understood by
astronomers; by this motion, the earth must at the end of several thousand
years change totally: this motion will at length cause the ocean to occupy
that space which at present forms the lands or continents. From this it
will be obvious that our globe, as well as all the beings in nature, has a
continual disposition to change. This motion was known to the ancients,
and was what gave rise to what they called their great year, which the
Egyptians fixed at thirty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-five years:
the Sabines at thirty-six thousand four hundred and twenty-five, whilst
others have extended it to one hundred thousand, some even to seven
hundred and fifty-three thousand years. Again, to those general
revolutions which our planet has at different times experienced, way he
added those that have been partial, such as inundations of the sea,
earthquakes, subterraneous conflagrations, which have sometimes had the
effect of dispersing particular nations, and to make them forget all those
sciences with which they were, before acquainted. It is also probable that
the first volcanic fires, having had no previous vent, were more central,
and greater in quantity, before they burst the crust of earth; as the sea
washed the whole, it must have rapidly sunk down into every opening,
where, falling on the boiling lava, it was instantly expanded into steam,
producing irresistible explosion: whence it is reasonable to conclude,
that the primaeval earthquakes wore more widely extended, and of much
greater force, than those which occur in our days. Other vapours may be
produced by intense heat, possessing a much greater elasticity, from
substances that evaporate, such as mercury, diamonds, &c.; the
expansive force of these vapours would be much greater than the steam of
water, even at red hot heat consequently they, way have had sufficient
energy to raise islands, continents, or even to have detached the moon
from the earth; if the moon, as has been supposed by some philosophers,
was thrown out of the great cavity which now contains the South Sea; the
immense quantity of water flowing in from the original ocean, and which
then covered the earth, would much contribute to leave the continents and
islands, which might be raised at the same time, above the surface of the
water. In later days we have accounts of huge stones falling, from the
firmament, which may have been thrown by explosion from some distant
earthquake, without having been impelled with a force sufficient to cause
them to circulate round the earth, and thus produce numerous small moons
or satellites.

Those who were able to escape from the ruin of the world, filled with
consternation, plunged in misery, were but little conditioned to preserve
to their posterity a knowledge, effaced by those misfortunes, of which
they had been both the victims and the witnesses: overwhelmed with dismay,
trembling with fear, they were not able to hand down the history of their
frightful adventures, except by obscure traditions; much less to transmit
to us the opinions, the systems, the arts, the sciences, anterior to these
petrifying revolutions of our sphere. There have been perhaps men upon the
earth from all eternity; but at different periods they may have been
nearly annihilated, together with their monuments, their sciences, and
their arts; those who outlived these periodical revolutions, each time
formed a new race of men, who by dint of time, labour, and experience,
have by degrees withdrawn from oblivion the inventions of the primitive
races. It is, perhaps, to these periodical revolutions of the human
species, that is to be ascribed the profound ignorance in which we see man
yet plunged, upon those objects that are the most interesting to him. This
is, perhaps, the true source of the imperfection of his knowledge—of
the vices of his political institutions—of the defect in his
religion—of the growth of superstition, over which terror has always
presided; here, in all probability, is the cause of that puerile
inexperience, of those jejune prejudices, which almost every where keep
man in a state of infancy, and which render him so little capable of
either listening to reason or of consulting truth. To judge by the
slowness of his progress, by the feebleness of his advance, in a number of
respects, we should be inclined to say, the human race has either just
quitted its cradle, or that he was never destined to attain the age of
virility—to corroborate his reason.

However it may be with these conjectures, whether the human race may
always have existed upon the earth, whether it may have been a recent
production of nature, whether the larger animals we now behold were
originally derived from the smallest microscopic ones, who have increased
in bulk with the progression of time, or whether, as the Egyptian
philosophers thought, mankind were originally hermaphrodites, who like the
aphis produced the sexual distinction after some generations, which
was also the opinion of Plato, and seems to have been that of Moses, who
was educated amongst these Egyptians, as may be gathered from the 27th and
28th verses of the first chapter of GENESIS: “So God created man in his
own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he
them—And GOD blessed them, and GOD said unto them, be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living
thing that moveth upon the earth:” it is not therefore presuming too much
to suppose, as the Egyptians were a nation very fond of explaining their
opinions by hieroglyphics, that that part which describes Eve as taken out
of Adam’s rib, was an hieroglyphic emblem: showing that mankind was in the
primitive state of both sexes, united, who was afterwards divided into
males and females. However, I say, this may be, it is extremely easy to
recur to the origin of many existing nations: we shall find them always in
the savage state; that is, to say, dispersed; composed of families
detached from each other; of wandering, hordes; these were collected
together, approximated at the voice of some missionary or legislator, from
whom they received great benefits, who gave them gods, opinions, and laws.
These personages, of whom the people newly congregated readily
acknowledged the superiority, fixed the national gods, leaving to each
individual, those which he had formed to himself, according to his own
peculiar ideas, or else substituting others brought from those regions,
from whence they themselves had emigrated.

The better to imprint their lessons on the minds of their new subjects,
these men became the guides, the priests, the sovereigns, the masters of
these infant societies; they formed discourses by which they spoke to the
imagination of their willing auditors. POETRY seem best adapted to strike
the mind of these rude people, to engrave on their memory those ideas with
which they were willing to imbue them: its images, its fictions, its
numbers, its rhyme its harmony, all conspired to please their fancy, to
render permanent the impressions it made: thus, the entire of nature, as
well as all its parts, was personified, by its beautiful allegories: at
its soothing voice, trees, stones, rocks, earth, air, fire, water, by
imagination took intelligence, held conversation with man, and with
themselves; the elements were deified by its songs, every thing was
figuratively detailed in harmonious lays. The sky, which according to the
then philosophy, was an arched concave, spreading over the earth, which
was supposed to be a level plain; (for the doctrine of antipodes is
of rather modern date) was itself made a god; was considered a more
suitable residence, as making a greater distinction for these imaginary
deities than the earth on which man himself resided. Thus the firmament
was filled with deities.

Time, under the name of Saturn, was pictured as the son of heaven; or
Coelus by earth, called Terra, or Thea; he was represented as an
inexorable divinity—naturally artful, who devoured his own children—who
revenged the anger of his mother upon his father; for which purpose she
armed him with a scythe, formed of metals drawn from her own bowels, with
which he struck Coelus, in the act of uniting himself to Thea, and so
mutilated him, that he was ever after incapacitated to increase the number
of his children: he was said to have divided the throne with Janus king of
Italy, his reign seems to have been so mild, so beneficent, that it was
called the golden age; human victims were sacrificed on his altars,
until abolished by Hercules, who substituted small images of clay.
Festivals in honor of this god, called Saturnalia, were instituted long
antecedent to the foundation of Rome they were celebrated about the middle
of December, either on the 16th, 17th, or 18th; they lasted in latter
times several days, originally but one. Universal liberty prevailed at the
celebration, slaves were permitted to ridicule their masters—to
speak freely on every subject—no criminals were executed—war
never declared; the priests made their human offerings with their heads
uncovered; a circumstance peculiar to the Saturnalia, not adopted at other
festivals.

The igneous matter, the etherial electric fluid, that invisible fire which
vivifies nature, that penetrates all beings, that fertilizes the earth,
which is the great principle of motion, the source of heat, was deified
under the name of Jupiter: his combination with every being in nature was
expressed by his metamorphoses—by the frequent adulteries imputed to
him. He was armed with thunder, to indicate he produced meteors, to typify
the electric fluid that is called lightning. He married the winds, which
were designated under the name of Juno, therefore called the Goddess of
the Winds, their nuptials were celebrated with great solemnity; all the
gods, the entire brute creation, the whole of mankind attended, except one
young woman named Chelone, who laughed at the ceremonies, for which
impiety she was changed by Mercury into a tortoise, and condemned to
perpetual silence. He was the most powerful of all the gods, and
considered as the king and father both of gods and men: his worship was
very extended, performed with greater solemnity, than that of any other
god. Upon his altars smoked goats, sheep, and white bulls, in which he is
said to have particularly delighted; the oak was rendered sacred to him,
because he taught mankind to live upon acorns; he had many oracles where
his precepts were delivered, the most celebrated of these were at Dodona
and Ammon in Lybia; he was supposed to be invisible to the inhabitants of
the earth; the Lacedemonians erected his statue with four heads, thereby
indicating, that he listened readily to the solicitations of every quarter
of the earth. Minerva is represented as having no mother, but to have come
completely armed from his brains, when his head was opened by Vulcan; by
which it is meant to infer that wisdom is the result of this ethereal
fluid. Thus, following the same fictions, the sun, that beneficent star
which has such a marked influence over the earth, became an Osiris, a
Belus, a Mithras, an Adonis, an Apollo. Nature, rendered sorrowful by his
periodical absence, was an Isis, an Astarte, a Venus, a Cybele. Astarte
had a magnificent temple at Hieropolis served by three hundred priests,
who were always employed in offering sacrifices. The priests of Cybele,
called Corybantes, also Galli, were not admitted to their sacred functions
without previous mutilation. In the celebration of their festivals these
priests used all kinds of indecent expressions, beat drums, cymbals, and
behaved just like madmen: his worship extended all over Phrygia, and was
established in Greece under the name of Eleusinian mysteries. In
short, every thing was personified: the sea was under the empire of
Neptune; fire was adored by the Egyptians under the name of Serapis; by
the Persians, under that of Ormus or Oromaze; and by the Romans, under
that of Vesta and Vulcan.

Such was the origin of mythology: it may be said to be the daughter of
natural philosophy, embellished by poetry; only destined to describe
nature and its parts. If antiquity is consulted, it will be perceived
without much trouble, that these famous sages, those legislators, those
priests, those conquerors, who were the instructors of infant nations,
themselves adored active nature, or the great whole considered relatively
to its different operations or qualities; that this was what they caused
the ignorant savages whom they had gathered together to adore. It was the
great whole they deified; it was its various parts which they made their
inferior gods; it was from the necessity of her laws they made fate. The
Greeks called it Nature, a divinity who had a thousand names. Varro says,
“I believe that God is the soul of the universe, and that the universe is
God.” Cicero says “that in the mysteries of Samothracia, of Lemnos, of
Eleusis, it was nature much more than the gods, they explained to the
initiated.” Pliny says, “we must believe that the world, or that which is
contained under the vast extent of the heavens, is the Divinity; even
eternal, infinite, without beginning or end.” It was these different modes
of considering nature that gave birth to Polytheism, to idolatry. Allegory
masqued its mode of action: it was at length parts of this great whole,
that idolatry represented by statues and symbols.

To complete the proofs of what has been said; to shew distinctly that it
was the great whole, the universe, the nature of things, which was the
real object of the worship of Pagan antiquity, hardly any thing can be
more decisive than the beginning of the hymn of Orpheus addressed to the
god Pan.

“O Pan! I invoke thee, O powerful god! O universal nature! the heavens,
the sea, the earth, who nourish all, and the eternal fire, because these
are thy members, O all powerful Pan,” &c. Nothing can be more suitable
to confirm these ideas, than the ingenious explanation which is given of
the fable of Pan, as well as of the figure under which he is represented.
It is said, “Pan, according to the signification of his name, is the
emblem by which the ancients have designated the great assemblage of
things or beings: he represents the universe; and, in the mind of the
wisest philosophers of antiquity, he passed for the greatest and most
ancient of the gods. The features under which he is delineated form the
portrait of nature, and of the savage state in which she was found in the
beginning. The spotted skin of the leopard, which serves him for a mantle,
imagined the heavens filled with stars and constellations. His person was
compounded of parts, some of which were suitable to a reasonable animal,
that is to say, to man; and others to the animal destitute of reason, such
as the goat. It is thus,” says he, “that the universe is composed of an
intelligence that governs the whole, and of the prolific, fruitful
elements of fire, water, earth, air. Pan, loved to drink and to follow the
nymphs; this announces the occasion nature has for humidity in all her
productions, and that this god, like nature, is strongly inclined to
propagation. According to the Egyptians, and the most ancient Grecian
philosophers, Pan had neither father nor mother; he came out of Demogorgon
at the same moment with the Destinies, his fatal sisters; a fine method of
expressing that the universe was the work of an unknown power, and that it
was formed after the invariable relations, the eternal laws of necessity;
but his most significant symbol, that most suitable to express the harmony
of the universe, is his mysterious pipe, composed of seven unequal tubes,
but calculated to produce the nicest, the most perfect concord. The orbs
which compose the seven planets of our solar system, are of different
diameters; being bodies of unequal mass, they describe their revolutions
round the sun in various periods; nevertheless it is from the order of
their motion that results the harmony of the spheres,” &c.

Here then is the great macrocosm, the mighty whole, the assemblage of
things adored and deified by the philosophers of antiquity; whilst the
uninformed stopped at the emblem under which this nature was depicted; at
the symbols under which its various parts, its numerous functions were
personified; his narrow mind, his barbarous ignorance, never permitted him
to mount higher; they alone were deemed worthy of being, initiated into
the mysteries, who knew the realities masqued under these emblems. Indeed,
it is not to be doubted for an instant, that the wisest among the Pagans
adored nature; which ethnic theology designated under a great variety of
nomenclature, under an immense number of different emblems. Apuleius,
although a decided Platonist, accustomed to the mysterious, unintelligible
notions of his master, calls “Nature the parent of all; the mother of the
elements, the first offspring of the world;” again, “the mother of the
stars, the parent of the seasons, and the governess of the whole world.”—She
was worshipped by many under the appellation of the mother of the gods.
Indeed, the first institutors of nations, and their immediate successors
in authority, only spoke to the people by fables, allegories, enigmas, of
which they reserved to themselves the right of giving an explanation:
this, in fact, constituted the mysteries of the various worship paid to
the Pagan divinities. This mysterious tone they considered necessary,
whether it was to mask their own ignorance, or whether it was to preserve
their power over the uninformed, who for the most part only respect that
which is above their comprehension. Their explications were generally
dictated either by interest, or by a delirious imagination, frequently by
imposture; thus from age to age, they did no more than render nature and
its parts, which they had originally depicted, more unknown, until they
completely lost sight of the primitive ideas; these were replaced by a
multitude of fictitious personages, under whose features this nature had
primarily been represented to them. The people, either unaccustomed to
think, or deeply steeped in ignorance, adored these personages, without
penetrating into the true sense of the emblematical fables recounted to
them. These ideal beings, with material figures, in whom they believed
there resided a mysterious virtue, a divine power, were the objects of
their worship, the source of their fears, the fountain of their hopes. The
wonderful, the incredible actions ascribed to these fancied divinities,
were an inexhaustible fund of admiration, which gave perpetual play to the
fancy; which delighted not only the people of those days, but even the
children of latter ages. Thus were transmitted from age to age, those
marvellous accounts, which, although necessary to the existence of the
power usurped by the ministers of these gods, did, in fact, nothing more
than confirm the blindness of the ignorant: these never supposed that it
was nature, its various operations, its numerous component parts—that
it was the passions of man and his diverse faculties that lay buried under
an heap of allegories; they did not perceive that the passions and
faculties of human nature were used as emblems, because man was ignorant
of the true cause of the phenomena he beheld. As strong passions seemed to
hurry man along, in despite of himself, they either attributed these
passions to a god, or deified them; frequently they did both: it was thus
love became a deity; that eloquence, poetry, industry, were transformed
into gods, under the names of Hermes, Mercury, Apollo; the stings of
conscience were called the Furies: the people, bowed down in stupid
ignorance, had no eyes but for these emblematical persons, under which
nature was masked: they attributed to their influence the good, to their
displeasure the evil, which they experienced: they entered into every kind
of folly, into the most delirious acts of madness, to render them
propitious to their views; thus, for want of being acquainted with the
reality of things, their worship frequently degenerated into the most
cruel extravagance, into the most ridiculous folly.

Thus it is obvious, that every thing proves nature and its various parts
to have every where been the first divinities of man. Natural philosophers
studied these deities, either superficially or profoundly,—explained
some of their properties, detailed some of their modes of action. Poets
painted them to the imagination of mortals, either in the most fascinating
colours, or under the most hideous deformities; embodied them—furnished
them with reasoning faculties—recounted their exploits—recorded
their will. The statuary executed sometimes with the most enrapturing art,
the ideas of the poets,—gave substance to their shadows—form
to their airy nothings. The priest decorated these united works with a
thousand marvellous qualities—with the most terrible passions—with
the most inconceivable attributes; gave them, “a local habitation and a
name.” The people adored them; prostrated themselves before these gods,
who were neither susceptible of love or hatred, goodness, or malice; they
became persecuting, malevolent, cruel, unjust, in order to render
themselves acceptable to powers generally described to them under the most
odious features.

By dint of reasoning upon these emblems, by meditating upon nature, thus
decorated, or rather disfigured, subsequent speculators no longer
recollected the source from whence their predecessors had drawn their
gods, nor the fantastic ornaments with which they had embellished them.
Natural philosophers and poets were transformed by leisure into
metaphysicians and theologians; tired with contemplating what they could
have understood, they believed they had made an important discovery by
subtilly distinguishing nature from herself—from her own peculiar
energies—from her faculty of action. By degrees they made an
incomprehensible being of this energy, which as before they personified,
this they called the mover of nature, divided it into two, one congenial
to man’s happiness, the other inimical to his welfare; these they deified
in the same manner as they had before done nature with her various parts.
These abstract, metaphysical beings, became the sole object of their
thoughts; were the subject of their continual contemplation; they looked
upon them as realities of the highest importance: thus nature quite
disappeared; she was despoiled of her rights; she was considered as
nothing more than an unwieldy mass, destitute of power; devoid of energy,
as an heap of ignoble matter purely passive: who, incapable of acting by
herself, was not competent to any of the operations they beheld, without
the direct, the immediate agency of the moving powers they had associated
with her: which they had made the fulcrum necessary to the action of the
lever. They either did not or would not perceive, that the great Cause
of causes, ens entium, Parent of parents, had, in unravelling chaotic
matter, with a wisdom for which man can never be sufficiently grateful,
with a sagacity which he can never sufficiently admire, foreseen every
thing that could contribute not only to his own individual happiness, but
also to that of all the beings in nature; that he had given this nature
immutable laws, according to which she is for ever regulated; after which
she is obliged invariably to act; that he has described for her an eternal
course, from which it is not permitted her to deviate, even for an
instant; that she is therefore, rendered competent to the production of
every phenomena, not only that he beholds, but of an infinity that he has
never yet contemplated; that she needs not any exterior energy for this
purpose, having received her powers from a hand far superior to any the
feeble weak imagination of man is able to form; that when this nature
appears to afflict him, it is only from the contraction of his own views,
from the narrowness of his own ideas, that he judges; that, in fact, what
he considers the evils of nature, are the greatest possible benefits he
can receive, if he was but in a condition to be acquainted with previous
causes, with subsequent effects. That the evils resulting to him from his
own vices, have equally their remedies in this nature, which it is his
duty to study; which if he does he will find, that the same omnipotent
goodness, who gave her irrefragable laws, also planted in her bosom,
balsams for all his maladies, whether physical or moral: but that it is
not given him to know what this great, this universal cause is, for
purposes of which he ought not to dispute the wisdom, when he contemplates
the mighty wonders that surround him.

Thus man ever preferred an unknown power, to that of which he was enabled
to have some knowledge, if he had only deigned to consult his experience;
but he presently ceases to respect that which he understands; to estimate
those objects which are familiar to him: he figures to himself something
marvellous in every thing he does not comprehend; his mind, above all,
labours to seize upon that which appears to escape his consideration; in
default of experience, he no longer consults any thing, but his
imagination, which feeds him with chimeras. In consequence, those
speculators who have subtilly distinguished nature from her own powers,
have successively laboured to clothe the powers thus separated with, a
thousand incomprehensible qualities: as they did not see this power, which
is only a mode, they made it a spirit—an intelligence—an
incorporeal being; that is to say, of a substance totally different from
every thing of which we have a knowledge. They never perceived that all
their inventions, that all the words which they imagined, only served to
mask their real ignorance; that all their pretended science was limited to
saying, in what manner nature acted, by a thousand subterfuges which they
themselves found it impossible to comprehend. Man always deceives himself
for want of studying nature; he leads himself astray, every time he is
disposed to go out of it; he is always quickly necessitated to return; he
is even in error when he substitutes words which he does not himself
understand, for things which he would much better comprehend if he was
willing to look at them without prejudice.

Can a theologian ingenuously believe himself more enlightened, for having
substituted the vague words spirit, incorporeal substance, &c. to the
more intelligible terms nature, matter, mobility, necessity? However this
may be, these obscure words once imagined, it was necessary to attach
ideas to them; in doing this, he has not been able to draw them from any
other source than the beings of this despised nature, which are ever the
only beings of which he is enabled to have any knowledge. Man,
consequently, drew them up in himself; his own soul served for the model
of the universal soul, of which indeed according to some it only formed a
portion; his own mind was the standard of the mind that regulated nature;
his own passions, his own desires, were the prototypes of those by which
he actuated this being; his own intelligence was that from which he formed
that of the mover of nature; that which was suitable to himself, he called
the order of nature; this pretended order was the scale by which he
measured the wisdom of this being; in short, those qualities which he
calls perfections in himself, were the archetypes in miniature, of the
perfections of the being, he thus gratuitously supposed to be the agent,
who operated the phenomena of nature. It was thus, that in despite of all
their efforts, the theologians were, perhaps always will be, true
Anthropomorphites. A sect of this denomination appeared in 359, in Egypt,
they held the doctrine that their god had a bodily shape. Indeed it is
very difficult, if not impossible to prevent man from making himself the
sole model of his divinity. Montaigne says “man is not able to be other
than he is, nor imagine but after his capacity; let him take what pains he
may, he will never have a knowledge of any soul but his own.” Xenophanes
said, “if the ox or the elephant understood either sculpture or painting,
they would not fail to represent the divinity under their own peculiar
figure that in this, they would have as much reason as Polyclitus or
Phidias, who gave him the human form.” It was said to a very celebrated
man that “God made man after his own image;” “man has returned the
compliment,” replied the philosopher. Indeed, man generally sees in his
God, nothing but a man. Let him subtilize as he will, let him extend his
own powers as he may, let him swell his own perfections to the utmost, he
will have done nothing more than make a gigantic, exaggerated man, whom he
will render illusory by dint of heaping together incompatible qualities.
He will never see in such a god, but a being of the human species, in whom
he will strive to aggrandize the proportions, until he has formed a being
totally inconceivable. It is according to these dispositions that he
attributes intelligence, wisdom, goodness, justice, science, power, to his
divinity, because he is himself intelligent; because he has the idea of
wisdom in some beings of his own species; because he loves to find in them
ideas favourable to himself: because he esteems those who display equity;
because he has a knowledge, which he holds more extensive in some
individuals than himself; in short, because he enjoys certain faculties
which depend on his own organization. He presently extends or exaggerates
all these qualities in forming his god; the sight of the phenomena of
nature, which he feels he is himself incapable of either producing or
imitating, obliges him to make this difference between the being he
pourtrays and himself; but he knows not at what point to stop; he fears
lest he should deceive himself, if he should see any limits to the
qualities he assigns, the word infinite, therefore, is the abstract, the
vague term which he uses to characterize them. He says that his power is
infinite, which signifies that when he beholds those stupendous effects
which nature produces, he has no conception at what point his power can
rest; that his goodness, his wisdom, his knowledge are infinite: this
announces that he is ignorant how far these perfections ma be carried in a
being whose power so much surpasses his own; that he is of infinite
duration, because he is not capable of conceiving he could have had a
beginning or can ever cease to be; because of this he considers a defect
in those transitory beings of whom he beholds the dissolution, whom he
sees are subjected to death. He presumes the cause of those effects to
which he is a witness, of those striking phenomena that assail his sight,
is immutable, permanent, not subjected to change, like all the evanescent
beings whom he knows are submitted to dissolution, to destruction, to
change of form. This mover of nature being always invisible to man, his
mode of action being, impenetrable, he believes that, like his soul or the
concealed principle which animates his own body, which he calls spiritual,
a spirit, is the moving power of the universe; in consequence he makes a
spirit the soul, the life, the principle of motion in nature. Thus when by
dint of subtilizing, he has arrived at believing the principle by which
his body is moved is a spiritual, immaterial substance, he makes the
spirit of the universe immaterial in like manner: he makes it immense,
although without extent; immoveable, although capable of moving nature:
immutable, although he supposes him to be the author of all the changes,
operated in the universe.

The idea of the unity of God, which cost Socrates his life, because the
Athenians considered those Atheists who believed but in one, was the tardy
fruit of human meditation. Plato himself did not dare to break entirely
the doctrine of Polytheism; he preserved Venus, an all-powerful
Jupiter, and a Pallas, who was the goddess of the country. The sight of
those opposite, frequently contradictory effects, which man saw take place
in the world, had a tendency to persuade him there must be a number of
distinct powers or causes independent of each other. He was unable to
conceive that the various phenomena he beheld, sprung from a single, from
an unique cause; he therefore admitted many causes or gods, acting upon
different principles; some of which he considered friendly, others as
inimical to his race. Such is the origin of that doctrine, so ancient, so
universal, which supposed two principles in nature, or two powers of
opposite interests, who were perpetually at war with each other; by the
assistance of which he explained, that constant mixture of good and evil,
that blending of prosperity with misfortune, in a word, those eternal
vicissitudes to which in this world the human being, is subjected. This is
the source of those combats which all antiquity has supposed to exist
between good and wicked gods, between an Osiris and a Typhoeus; between an
Orosmadis and an Arimanis; between a Jupiter and the Titanes; in these
rencounters man for his own peculiar interest always gave the palm of
victory to the beneficent deity; this, according to all the traditions
handed down, ever remained in possession of the field of battle; it was so
far right, as it is evidently for the benefit of mankind that the good
should prevail over the wicked.

When, however, man acknowledged only one God, he generally supposed the
different departments of nature were confided to powers subordinate to his
supreme orders, under whom the sovereign of the gods discharged his care
in the administration of the world. These subaltern gods were prodigiously
multiplied; each man, each town, each country, had their local, their
tutelary gods; every event, whether fortunate or unfortunate, had a divine
cause; was the consequence of a sovereign decree; each natural effect,
every operation of nature, each passion, depended upon a divinity, which a
theological imagination, disposed to see gods every where, mistaking
nature, either embellished or disfigured. Poetry tuned its harmonious
lays, on these occasions, exaggerated the details, animated its pictures;
credulous ignorance received the portraits with eagerness—heard the
doctrines with submission.

Such is the origin of Polytheism: indeed the Greek word Theos,
[Greek letters], is derived from Theaomai, [Greek letters], which
implies to contemplate, or take a view of secret or hidden things. Such
are the foundations, such the titles of the hierarchy, which man
established between himself and his gods, because he generally believed he
was incapable of the exalted privilege of immediately addressing himself
to the incomprehensible Being whom he had acknowledged for the only
sovereign of nature, without even having any distinct idea on the subject:
such is the true genealogy of those inferior gods whom the uninformed
place as, a proportional means between themselves and the first of all
other causes. In consequence, among the Greeks and the Romans, we see the
deities divided into two classes, the one were called great gods, because
the whole world were nearly in accord in deifying the most striking parts
of nature, such as the sun, fire; the sea, time, &c. these formed a
kind of aristocratic order, who were distinguished from the minor gods, or
from the multitude of ethnic divinities, who were entirely local; that is
to say, were reverenced only in particular countries, or by individuals;
as in Rome, where every citizen had his familiar spirit, called lares; and
household god, called penates. Nevertheless, the first rank of these Pagan
divinities, like the latter, were submitted to Fate, that is, to destiny,
which obviously is nothing more than nature acting by immutable, rigorous,
necessary laws; this destiny was looked upon as the god of gods; it is
evident, that this was nothing more than necessity personified; that
therefore it was a weakness in the heathens to fatigue with their
sacrifices, to solicit with their prayers, those divinities whom they
themselves believed were submitted to the decrees of an inexorable
destiny, of which it was never possible for them to alter the mandates. But
man, generally, ceases to reason, whenever his theological notions
are either brought into question, or are the subject of his inquiry.

What has been already said, serves to show the common source of that
multitude of intermediate powers, subordinate to the gods, but superior to
man, with which he filled the universe: they were venerated under the
names of nymphs, demi-gods, angels, daemons, good and evil genii, spirits,
heroes, saints, &c. Among the Romans they were called Dei medioxumi,
intermediate angels; they were looked upon as intercessors, as mediators,
as powers whom it was necessary to reverence, in order either to obtain
their favour, appease their anger, or divert their malignant intentions;
these constitute different classes of intermediate divinities, who became
either the foundation of their hopes, the object of their fears, the means
of consolation, or the source of dread to those very mortals who only
invented them when they found it impossible to form to themselves
distinct, perspicuous ideas of the incomprehensible Being who governed the
world in chief; or when they despaired of being able to hold communication
with him directly.

Meditation and reflection diminished the number of those deities which
composed the ethnic polytheism: some who gave the subject more
consideration than others, reduced the whole to one all-powerful Jupiter;
but still they painted this being in the most hideous colours, gave him
the most revolting features, because they were still obstinately bent on
making man, his action and his passions, the model: this folly led them
into continual perplexities, because it heaped together contradictory,
incompatible, extravagant qualities; it was quite natural it should do so:
the limited views, the superficial knowledge, the irregular desires of
frail, feeble mortals, were but little calculated to typify the mind of
the real Divinity; of that great Cause of causes, that Parent of
parents, from whom every thing must have emanated. Although they
persuaded themselves it was sinning to give him rivals, yet they described
him as a jealous monarch who could not bear a division of empire; thus
taking the vanity of earthly princes for their emblem, as if it was
possible such a being could have a competitor like a terrestrial monarch.
Not having contemplated the immutable laws with which he has invested
nature, to which every thing it contains is subjected, which are the
result of the most perfect wisdom, they were puzzled to account for the
contrariety of those effects which their weak minds led them to suppose as
evils; seeing that sometimes those who fulfilled in the most faithful
manner their duties in this life, were involved in the same ruin with the
boldest, the most inconsiderate violaters: thus in making him the
immediate agent, instead of the first author, the executive instead of the
formative power, they caused him to appear capricious, as unreasonably
vindictive against his creatures, when they ought to have known that his
wisdom was unlimited, his kindness without bounds, when he infused into
nature that power which produces these apparently contradictory effects;
which, although they seem injurious to man’s interests, are, if he was but
capacitated to judge fairly, the most beneficial advantages that he can
possibly derive. Thus they made the Divinity appear improvident, by
continually employing him to destroy the work of his own hands: they, in
fact, taxed him with impotence, by the perpetual non-performance of those
projects of which their own imbecillity, their own erring judgment, had
vainly supposed him to be the contriver.

To solve these difficulties, man created enemies to the Divinity, who
although subordinate to the supreme God, were nevertheless competent to
disturb his empire, to frustrate his views. Can any thing be worse
conceived, can any thing be more truly derogatory to the great Parent
of parents, than thus to make him resemble a king, who is surrounded
with adversaries, willing to dispute with him his diadem? Such, however,
is the origin of the Fable of the Titanes, or of the rebellious
angels, whose presumption caused them to be plunged into the abyss of
misery—who were changed into demons, or into evil genii:
these according to their mythology, had no other functions, than to render
abortive the projects of the Divinity; to seduce, to raise to rebellion,
those who were his subjects. Miserable invention, feeble subterfuge, for
the vices of mankind, although decorated with all the beauty of language.
Can then sublimity of versification, the harmony of numbers, reconcile man
to the idea that the puny offspring of natural causes is adequate for a
single instant to dispute the commands, to thwart the desires, to render
nugatory the decrees of a Being whose wisdom is of the most polished
perfection; whose goodness is boundless; whose power must be more
capacious than the human mind can possibly conceive?

In consequence of this Fable of the Titanes, the monarch of nature
was represented as perpetually in a scuffle with the enemies he had
himself created; as unwilling totally to subdue those with whom these
fabulists have described him as dividing his authority—partaking his
supreme power. This again was borrowed from the conduct of earthly
monarchs, who, when they find a potent enemy, make a treaty with him; but
this was quite unnecessary for the great Cause of causes; and only
shows that man is utterly incapable of forming any other ideas than those
which he derives from the situation of those of his own race, or of the
beings by whom he is surrounded. According to this fable the subjects of
the universal Monarch were never properly submitted to his authority; like
an earthly king, he was in a continual state of hostility, and punished
those who had the misfortune to enter into the conspiracies of the enemies
of his glory: seeing that human legislators put forth laws, issued
decrees, they established similar institutions for the Divinity;
established oracles; his ministers pretended, through these mysterious
mediums, to convey to the people his heavenly mandates, to unveil his
concealed intentions: the ignorant multitude received these without
examination, they did not perceive that it was man, and not the Divinity,
who thus spoke to them; they did not feel that it must be impossible for
weak creatures to act contrary to the will of God.

The Fable of the Titanes, or rebellious angels, is extremely
ancient; very generally diffused over the world; it serves for the
foundation of the theology of the Brachmins of Hindostan: according to
these, all living bodies are animated by fallen angels, who under
these forms expiate their rebellion. These contradictory notions were the
basis of nearly all the superstitions of the world; by these means they
imagined they accounted for the origin of evil—demonstrated the
cause why the human species experience misery. In short, the conduct of
the most arbitrary tyrants of the earth was but too frequently brought
forth, too often acted upon, in forming the character of the Divinity,
held forth to the worship of man: their imperfect jurisprudence was the
source from whence they drew that which they ascribed to their god. Pagan
theology was remarkable for displaying in the character of their
divinities the most dissolute vices; for making them vindictive; for
causing them to punish with extreme rigour those, crimes which the oracles
predicted; to doom to the most lasting torments those who sinned without
knowing their transgression; to hurl vengeance on those who were ignorant
of their obscure will, delivered in language which set comprehension at
defiance; unless it was by the priest who both made and fulminated it. It
was upon these unreasonable notions, that the theologians founded the
worship which man ought to render to the Divinity. Do not then let us be
at all surprised if the superstitious man was in a state of continual
alarm: if he experienced trances—if his mind was ever in the most
tormenting dread; the idea of his gods recalled to him unceasingly, that
of a pitiless tyrant who sported with the miseries of his subjects; who,
without being conscious of their own wrong, might at each moment incur his
displeasure: he could not avoid feeling that although they had formed the
universe entirely for man, yet justice did not regulate the actions of
these powerful beings, or rather those of the priests; but he also
believed that their elevated rank placed them infinitely above the human
species, that therefore they might afflict him at their pleasure.

It is then for want of considering good and evil as equally necessary; it
is for want of attributing them to their true causes, that man has created
to himself fictitious powers, malicious divinities, respecting whom it is
found so difficult to undeceive him. Nevertheless, in contemplating
nature, he would have been able to have perceived, that physical evil
is a necessary consequence of the peculiar properties of some beings; he
would have acknowledged that plague, contagion, disease, are due to
physical causes under particular circumstances; to combinations, which,
although extremely natural, are fatal to his species; he would have sought—in
the bosom of nature herself the remedies suitable to diminish these evils,
or to have caused the cessation of those effects under which he suffered:
he would have seen in like manner that moral evil was the necessary
consequence of defective institutions; that it was not to the Divinity,
but to the injustice of his fellows he ought to ascribe those wars, that
poverty, those famines, those reverses of fortune, those multitudinous
calamities, those vices, those crimes, under which he so frequently
groans. Thus to rid himself of these evils he would not have uselessly
extended his trembling hands towards shadows incapable of relieving him;
towards beings who were not the authors of his sorrows; he would have
sought remedies for these misfortunes in a more rational administration of
justice—in more equitable laws—in more I reasonable
institutions—in a greater degree of benevolence towards his fellow
man—in a more punctual performance of his own duties.

As these gods were generally depicted to man as implacable to his
frailties as they denounced nothing but the most dreadful punishments
against those who involuntarily offended, it is not at all surprising that
the sentiment of fear prevailed over that of love: the gloomy ideas
presented to his mind were calculated to make him tremble, without making
him better; an attention to this truth will serve to explain the
foundation of that fantastical, irrational, frequently cruel worship,
which was paid to these divinities; he often committed the most cruel
extravagancies against his own person, the most hideous crimes against the
person of others, under the idea that in so doing, he disarmed the anger,
appeased the justice, recalled the clemency, deserved the mercy of his
gods.

In general, the superstitious systems of man, his human and other
sacrifices, his prayers, his ceremonies, his customs; have had only for
their object either to divert the fury of his gods, whom he believed he
had offended; to render them propitious to his own selfish views; or to
excite in them that good disposition towards himself, which his own
perverse mode of thinking made him imagine they bestowed exclusively on
others: on the other hand, the efforts, the subtilties of theology, have
seldom had any other end, than to reconcile in the divinities it has
pourtrayed, those discordant ideas which its own dogmas has raised in the
minds of mortals. From what has preceded, it may fairly be concluded that
ethnic theology undermined itself by its own inconsistencies; that the art
of composing chimeras may therefore with great justice be defined to be
that of combining those qualities which are impossible to be reconciled
with each other.

CHAP. III.

Of the confused and contradictory Ideas of Theology.

Every thing that has been said, proves pretty clearly, that, in despite of
all his efforts, man has never been able to prevent himself from drawing
together from his own peculiar nature, the qualities he has assigned to
the Being who governs the universe. The contradictions necessarily
resulting from the incompatible assemblage of these human qualities, which
cannot become suitable to the same subject, seeing that the existence of
one destroys the existence of the other, have been shewn:—the
theologians themselves have felt the insurmountable difficulties which
their divinities presented to reason: they were so substantive, that as
they felt the impossibility of withdrawing themselves out of the dilemma,
they endeavoured to prevent man from reasoning, by throwing his mind into
confusion—by continually augmenting the perplexity of those ideas,
already so discordant, which they offered him of the gods. By these means
they enveloped them in mystery, covered them with dense clouds, rendered
them inaccessible to mankind: thus they themselves became the
interpreters, the masters of explaining, according either to their fancy
or their interest, the ways of those enigmatical beings they made him
adore. For this purpose they exaggerated them more and more—neither
time nor space, nor the entire of nature could contain their immensity—every
thing became an impenetrable mystery. Although man has originally borrowed
from himself the traits, the colours, the primitive lineaments of which he
composed his gods; although he has made them jealous, powerful, vindictive
monarchs, yet his theology, by force of dreaming, entirely lost sight of
human nature. In order to render his divinities still more different from
their creatures, it assigned them, over and above the usual qualities of
man, properties so marvellous, so uncommon, so far removed from every
thing of which his mind could form a conception, that he lost sight of
them himself. From thence he persuaded himself these qualities were
divine, because he could no longer comprehend them; he believed them
worthy of his gods, because no man could figure to himself any one
distinct idea of them. Thus theology obtained the point of persuading man
he must believe that which he could not conceive; that he must receive
with submission improbable systems; that he must adopt, with pious
deference, conjectures contrary to his reason; that this reason itself was
the most agreeable sacrifice he could make on the altars of his gods, who
were unwilling he should use the gift they had bestowed upon him. In
short, it had made mortals implicitly believe that they were not formed to
comprehend the thing of all others the most important to themselves. Thus
it is evident that superstition founded its basis upon the absurd
principle that man is obliged to accredit firmly that which he is in the
most complete impossibility of comprehending. On the other hand, man
persuaded himself that the gigantic, the truly incomprehensible attributes
which were assigned to these celestial monarchs, placed between them and
their slaves a distance so immense, that these could not be by any means
offended with the comparison; that these distinctions rendered them still
greater; made them more powerful, more marvellous, more inaccessible to
observation. Man always entertains the idea, that what he is not in a
condition to conceive, is much more noble, much wore respectable, than
that which he has the capacity to comprehend. The more a thing is removed
from his reach, the more valuable it always appears.

These prejudices in man for the marvellous, appear to have been the source
that gave birth to those wonderful, unintelligible qualities with which
superstition clothed these divinities. The invincible ignorance of the
human mind, whose fears reduced him to despair, engendered those obscure,
vague notions, with which mythology decorated its gods. He believed he
could never displease them, provided he rendered them incommensurable;
impossible to be compared with any thing, of which he had a knowledge;
either with that which was most sublime, or that which possessed the
greatest magnitude, From hence the multitude of negative attributes with
which ingenious dreamers have successively embellished their phantoms, to
the end that they might more surely form a being distinguished from all
others, or which possessed nothing in common with that which the human
mind had the faculty of being acquainted with: they did not perceive that
after all their endeavours, it was nothing wore than exaggerated human
qualities, which they thus heaped together, with no more skill than a
painter would display who should delineate all the members of the body of
the same size, taking a giant for dimension.

The theological attributes with which metaphysicians decorated these
divinities, were in fact nothing but pure negations of the qualities found
in man, or in those beings of which he has a knowledge; by these
attributes their gods were supposed exempted from every thing which they
considered weakness or imperfection in him, or in the beings by whom he is
surrounded: they called every quality infinite, which has been shewn is
only to affirm, that unlike man, or the beings with whom he is acquainted,
it is not circumscribed by the limits of space; this, however, is what he
can never in any manner comprehend, because he is himself finite. Hobbes
in his Leviathan, says, “whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore
there is no idea, or conception of any thing we call infinite. No man can
have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude, nor conceive infinite
swiftness, infinite time, infinite force, or infinite power. When we say
any thing is infinite, we signify only, that we are not able to conceive
the ends and bound of the thing named, having no conception of the thing,
but of our own inability.” Sherlock says, “the word infinite is only a
negation, which signifies that which has neither end, nor limits, nor
extent, and, consequently, that which has no positive and determinate
nature, and is therefore nothing;” he adds, “that nothing but custom has
caused this word to be adopted, which without that, would appear devoid of
sense, and a contradiction.”

When it is said these gods are eternal, it signifies they have not had,
like man or like every thing that exists, a beginning, and that they will
never have an end: to say they are immutable, is to say, that unlike
himself or every thing which he sees, they are not subject to change: to
say they are immaterial, is to advance, that their substance or essence is
of a nature not conceivable by himself, but which must from that very
circumstance be totally different from every thing of which he has
cognizance.

It is from the confused collection of these negative qualities, that has
resulted the theological gods; those metaphysical wholes of which it is
impossible for man to form to himself any correct idea. In these abstract
beings every thing is infinity,—immensity,— spirituality,—omniscience,—order,—wisdom,—intelligence,—
omnipotence. In combining these vague terms, or these modifications, the
ethnic priests believed they formed something, they extended these
qualities by thought, and they imagined they made gods, whilst they only
composed chimeras. They imagined that these perfections or these qualities
must be suitable to their gods, because they were not suitable to any
thing of which they had a knowledge; they believed that incomprehensible
beings must have inconceivable qualities. These were the materials of
which theology availed itself to compose those inexplicable shadows before
which they commanded the human race to bend the knee.

Nevertheless, experience soon proved that beings so vague, so impossible
to be conceived, so incapable of definition, so far removed from every
thing of which man could have any knowledge, were but little calculated to
fix his restless views; his mind requires to be arrested by qualities
which he is capacitated to ascertain; of which he is in a condition to
form a judgment. Thus after it had subtilized these metaphysical gods,
after it had rendered them so different in idea, from every thing that
acts upon the senses, theology found itself under the necessity of again
assimilating them to man, from whom it had so far removed them: it
therefore again made them human by the moral qualities which it assigned
them; it felt that without this it would not be able to persuade mankind
there could possibly exist any relation between him and such vague,
ethereal, fugitive, incommensurable beings; that it would never be
competent to secure for them his adoration.

It began to perceive that these marvellous gods were only calculated to
exercise the imagination of some few thinkers, whose minds were accustomed
to labour upon chimerical subjects, or to take words for realities; in
short it found, that for the greater number of the material children of
the earth it was necessary to have gods more analogous to themselves, more
sensible, more known to them. In consequence these divinities were
re-clothed with human qualities; theology never felt the incompatibility
of these qualities with beings it had made essentially different from man,
who consequently could neither have his properties, nor be modified like
himself. It did not see that gods who were immaterial, destitute of
corporeal organs, were neither able to think nor to act as material
beings, whose peculiar organizations render them susceptible of the
qualities, the feelings the will, the virtues, that are found in them. The
necessity it felt to assimilate the gods to their worshippers, to make an
affinity between them, made it pass over without consideration these
palpable contradictions—this want of keeping in their portrait: thus
ethnic theology obstinately continued to unite those incompatible
qualities, that discrepancy of character, which the human mind attempted
in vain either to conceive or to reconcile: according to it, pure spirits
were the movers of the material world; immense beings were enabled to
occupy space, without however excluding nature; immutable deities were the
causes of those continual changes operated in the world: omnipotent beings
did not prevent those evils which were displeasing to them; the sources of
order submitted to confusion: in short, the wonderful properties of these
theological beings every moment contradicted themselves.

There is not less discrepancy, less incompatibility, less discordance in
the human perfections, less contradiction in the moral qualities
attributed to them, to the end that man might be enabled to form to
himself some idea of these beings. These were all said to be eminently
possessed by the gods, although they every moment contradicted each other:
by this means they formed a kind of patch-work character, heterogeneous
beings, discrepant phenomena, entirely inconceivable to man, because
nature had never constructed any thing like them, whereby he was enabled
to form a judgment. Man was assured they were eminently good—that it
was visible in all their actions. Now goodness is a known quality,
recognizable in some beings of the human species; this is, above every
other, a property he is desirous to find in all those upon whom he is in a
state of dependence; but he is unable to bestow the title of good on any
among his fellows, except their actions produce on him those effects which
he approves—that he finds in unison with his existence—in
conformity with his own peculiar modes of thinking. It was evident,
according to this reasoning, these ethnic gods did not impress him with
this idea; they were said to be equally the authors of his pleasures, as
of his pains, which were to be either secured or averted by sacrifices:
thus when man suffered by contagion, when he was the victim of shipwreck,
when his country was desolated by war, when he saw whole nations devoured
by rapacious earthquakes, when he was a prey to the keenest sorrows, he at
least was unable to conceive the bounty of those beings. How could he
perceive the beautiful order which they had introduced into the world,
while he groaned under such a multitude of calamities? How was he able to
discern the beneficence of men whom he beheld sporting as it were with his
species? How could he conceive the consistency of those who destroyed that
which he was assured they had taken such pains to establish, solely for
his own peculiar happiness? But had his mind been properly enlightened,
had he been taught to know, that nature, acting by unerring laws, produces
all the phenomena he beholds as a necessary consequence of her primitive
impulse—that like the rest of nature he was himself subjected to the
general operation—that no peculiar exemption had been made in his
behalf—that sacrifices were useless—that the great Parent
of parents, equally mindful of all his creatures, had set in action
with the most consummate wisdom an invariable system, the apparent, casual
evils of which were ever counterbalanced by the resulting good; that
without repining, it was his duty, his interest, to submit; at the same
time to examine with sedulity, to search with earnestness, into the
recesses of this nature for remedies to the sorrows he endured. If he had
been thus instructed, we should never behold him arraigning either the
kindness, the wisdom, or the consistency of the gods; he would neither
have ascribed his sufferings to the malicious interference of inferior
deities, so derogatory to the divine majesty of the Great Cause of
causes, nor would he have taxed with either inconsistency or
unkindness, that nature which cannot act otherwise than she does. Perhaps
of all the ideas that can be infused into the mind of man, none is more
really subversive of his true happiness, none more incompatible with the
reality of things, than that which persuades him he is himself a
privileged being, the king of a nature where every thing is submitted to
laws, the extent of which his finite mind cannot possibly conceive. Even
admitting it should ultimately turn out to be a fact, he has yet no one
positive evidence to justify the assumption; experience, which after all
must always prove the best criterion for his judgment, daily proves, that
in every thing he is subjected, like every other part of nature, to those
invariable decrees from which nothing that he beholds is exempted.

Feeble monarch! of whom a grain of sand, some atoms of bile, some
misplaced humours, destroy at once the existence and the reign: yet thou
pretendest every thing was made for thee! Thou desirest that the entire of
nature should be thy domain, and thou canst not even defend thyself from
the slightest of her shocks! Thou makest to thyself a god for thyself
alone; thou supposest that he unceasingly occupieth himself only for thy
peculiar happiness; thou imaginest every thing was made solely for thy
pleasure; and, following up thy presumptuous ideas, thou hast the audacity
to call nature good or bad as thy weak intellect inclines: thou darest to
think that the kindness exhibited towards thee, in common with other
beings, is contradicted by the evil genii thy fancy has created! Dost thou
not see that those beasts which thou supposest submitted to thine empire,
frequently devour thy fellow-creatures; that fire consumeth them; that the
ocean swalloweth them up; that those elements of which thou sometimes
admirest the order, which sometimes thou accusest of confusion, frequently
sweep them off the face of the earth; dost thou not see that all this is
necessarily what it must be; that thou art not in any manner consulted in
any of this phenomena? Indeed, according to thine own ideas, if thou wast
to examine them with care, dost thou not admit that thy gods are the
universal cause of all; that they maintain the whole by the destruction of
its parts. Are they not then according to thyself, the gods of nature—of
the ocean—of rivers—of mountains—of the earth, in which
they occupiest, so very small a space—of all those other globes that
thou seest roll in the regions of space—of those orbs that revolve
round the sun that enlighteneth thee?—Cease, then, obstinately to
persist in beholding nothing but thy sickly self in nature; do not flatter
thyself that the human race, which reneweth itself, which disappeareth
like the leaves on the trees, can absorb all the care, can ingross all the
tenderness of that universal being, who, according to thyself, properly
understood, ruleth the destiny of all things. Submit thyself in silence to
mandates which thy unavailing prayers; can never change; to a wisdom which
thy imbecility cannot fathom; to the unerring shafts of a fate, which
nothing but thine own vanity, aided by thy perverse ignorance, could ever
question, being the best possible good that can befall thee! which if thou
couldst alter, thou wouldst with thy defective judgment render worse! What
is the human race compared to the earth? What is this earth compared to
the sun? What is our sun compared to those myriads of suns which at
immense distances occupy the regions of space? not for the purpose of
diverting thy weak eyes; not with a view to excite thy stupid admiration,
as thou vainly imaginest; since multitudes of them are placed out of the
range of thy visual organs: but to occupy the place which necessity hath
assigned them. Mortal, feeble and vain! restore thyself to thy proper
sphere; acknowledge every where the effect of necessity; recognize in thy
benefits, behold in thy sorrows, the different modes of action of those
various beings endowed with such a variety of properties, which surround
thee; of which the macrocosm is the assemblage; and do not any longer
suppose that this nature, much less its great cause, can possess such
incompatible qualities as would be the result of human views or of
visionary ideas, which have no existence but in thyself.

As long as theologians shall continue obstinately bent to make man the
model of their gods; as long ask they shall pertinaciously undertake to
explain the nature of these gods, which they will never be able to do, but
after human ideas, although they may associate the most heterogeneous
properties, the most discrepant functions; so long, I say, experience will
contradict at every moment the beneficent views they, attach to their
divinities; it will be in vain that they call them good: man, reasoning
thus, will never be able to find good but in those objects which impel him
in a manner favourable to his actual mode of existence; he always finds
confusion in that which fills him with grievous sensations; he calls evil
every thing that painfully affects him, even cursorily; those beings that
produce in him two modes of feeling, so very opposite to each other, he
will naturally conclude are sometimes favourable, sometimes unfavourable
to him; at least, if he will not allow that they act necessarily,
consequently are neither one nor the other, he will say that a world where
he experiences so much evil cannot be submitted to men who are perfectly
good; on the other hand, he will also assume that a world in which man
receives so many benefits, cannot be governed by those who are without
kindness. Thus he is obliged to admit of two principles equally powerful,
who are in hostility with each other; or rather, he must agree that the
same persons are alternately kind and unkind; this after all is nothing
more than avowing they cannot be otherwise than they are; in this case it
would be useless to sacrifice to them—to make solicitation; seeing
it would be nothing but destiny—the necessity of things
submitted invariable rules.

In order to justify these beings, constructed upon mortal principles, from
injustice, in consequence of the evils the human species experience, the
theologian is reduced to the necessity of calling them punishments
inflicted for the transgressions of man. But then these general calamities
include all men. Some, at least, may be supposed not to have offended.
Thus he involves contradictions he finds it difficult to reconcile; to
effectuate this he makes his anthropomorphites immaterial—incorporeal;
that is, he says they are the negation of every thing of which he has a
knowledge; consequently, beings who can have no relation with corporeal
beings: and this avails him no better, as will be evident by reasoning on
the subject. To offend any one, is to diminish the sum of his happiness;
it is to afflict him, to deprive him of something, to make him experience
a painful sensation. How is it possible man can operate on such beings;
how can the physical actions of a material substance have any influence
over an immaterial substance, devoid of parts, having no point of contact.
How can a corporeal being make an incorporeal being experience
incommodious sensations? On the other hand, justice, according to
the only ideas man can ever form of it, supposes, a permanent disposition
to render to each what is due to him; the theologian will not admit that
the beings he has jumbled together owe any thing to man; he insists that
the benefits they bestow are all the gratuitous effects of their own
goodness; that they have the right to dispose of the work of their hands
according to their own pleasure; to plunge it if they please into the
abyss of misery; in short, that their volition is the only guide of their
conduct. It is easy to see, that according to man’s idea of justice, this
does not even contain the shadow of it; that it is, in fact, the mode of
action adopted by what he calls the most frightful tyrants. How then can
he be induced to call men just who act after this manner? Indeed, while he
sees innocence suffering, virtue in tears, crime triumphant, vice
recompensed, and at the same time, is told the beings whom theology has
invented are the authors, he will never be able to acknowledge them to
have justice. But he will find no such contradictory qualities in
nature, where every thing is the result of immutable laws: he will at once
perceive that these transient evils produce more permanent good; that they
are necessary to the conservation of the whole, or else result from
modifications of matter, which it is competent for him to change, by
altering his own mode of action; a lesson that nature herself teaches him
when he is willing to receive her instructions. But to form gods with
human passions, is to make them appear unjust; to say that such beings
chastise their friends for their own I good, is at once to upset all the
ideas he has either of kindness or unkindness: thus the incompatible human
qualities ascribed to these beings, do in fact destroy their existence. If
it be insisted they have the knowledge and power of man, only that they
are more extended, then it becomes a very natural reply, to say, since
they know every thing, they ought at least to restrain mischief; because
this would be the observation of man upon the action of his fellows;—if
it be urged these qualities are similar to the same qualities possessed by
man, then it may be fairly asked in what do they differ? To this, if any
answer be given, be what it may, it will still be only changing the
language: it will be invariably another method of expressing the same
thing; seeing that man with all his ingenuity, will never be able to
describe properties but after himself or those of the beings by whom he is
surrounded.

Where is the man filled with kindness, endowed with humanity, who does not
desire with all his heart to render his fellow creatures happy? If these
beings, as the theologians assert, really have man’s qualities augmented,
would they not, by the same reasoning, exercise their infinite power to
render them all happy? Nevertheless, in despite of these theologists, we
scarcely find any one who is perfectly satisfied with his condition on
earth: for one mortal that enjoys, we behold a thousand who suffer; for
one rich man who lives in the midst of abundance, there are thousands of
poor who want common necessaries: whole nations groan in indigence, to
satisfy the passions of some avaricious princes, of some few nobles, who
are not thereby rendered more contented—who do not acknowledge
themselves more fortunate on that account. In short, under the dominion of
these beings, the earth is drenched with the tears of the miserable. What
must be the inference from all this? That they are either negligent of, or
incompetent to, his happiness. But the mythologists will tell you coolly,
that the judgments of his gods are impenetrable! How do we understand this
term? Not to be taught—not to be informed—impervious—not
to be pierced: in this case it would be an unreasonable question to
inquire by what authority do you reason upon them? How do you become
acquainted with these impenetrable mysteries? Upon what foundation do you
attribute virtues which you cannot penetrate? What idea do you form to
yourself of a justice that never resembles that of man? Or is it a truth
that you yourself are not a man, but one of those impenetrable beings whom
you say you represent?

To withdraw themselves from this, they will affirm that the justice of
these idols are tempered with mercy, with compassion, with goodness: these
again are human qualities: what, therefore, shall we understand by them?
What idea do we attach to mercy? Is it not a derogation from the severe
rules of an exact, a rigorous justice, which causes a remission of some
part of a merited punishment? Here hinges the great incompatibility, the
incongruity of those qualities, especially when augmented by the word omni;
which shews how little suitable human properties are to the formation of
divinities. In a prince, clemency is either a violation of justice, or the
exemption from a too severe law: nevertheless, man approves of clemency in
a sovereign, when its too great facility does not become prejudicial to
society; he esteems it, because it announces humanity, mildness, a
compassionate, noble soul; qualities he prefers in his governors to
rigour, cruelty, inflexibility: besides, human laws are defective; they
are frequently too severe; they are not competent to foresee all the
circumstances of every case: the punishments they decree are not always
commensurate with the offence: he therefore does not always think them
just: but he feels very well, he understands distinctly, that when the
sovereign extends his mercy, he relaxes from his justice—that if
mercy he merited, the punishment ought not to take place—that then
its exercise is no longer clemency, but justice: thus he feels, that in
his fellow creatures these two qualities cannot exist at the same moment.
How then is he to form his judgment of beings who are represented to
possess both in the extremest degree? Is it not, in fact, announcing these
beings to be men like ourselves, who act with our imperfections on an
enlarged scale?

They then say, well, but in the next world these idols will reward you for
all the evils you suffer in this: this, indeed, is something to look to,
if it could be contemplated alone; unmixed with all they have formerly
asserted: if we could also find that there was an unison of thinking on
this point—if there was a reasonable comprehensible view of it held
forth: but alas! here again human pleasures, human feelings, are the basis
on which these rewards are rested; only they are promised in a way we
cannot comprehend them; houris, or females who are to remain for ever
virgins, notwithstanding the knowledge of man, are so opposed to all human
comprehension, so opposite to all experience, are such mystic assertions,
that the human mind cannot possibly embrace an idea of them: besides this
is only promised by one class of these beings; others affirm it will be
altogether different: in short, the number of modes in which this
hereafter reward is promised to him, obliges man to ask himself one plain
question, Which is the real history of these blissful abodes? At this
question he staggers—he seeks for advice: each assures him that the
other is in error—that his peculiar mode is that which will really
have place; that to believe the other is a crime. How is he to judge now?
Take what course he will, he runs the chance of being wrong; he has no
standard whereby to measure the correctness of these contradictory
assurances; his mind is held suspended; he feels the impossibility of the
whole being right; he knows not that which he ought to elect! Again, they
have positively asserted these beings owe nothing to man: how then is he
to expect in a future life, a more real happiness than he enjoys in the
present? This they parry, by assuring him it is founded upon their
promises, contained in their revealed oracles. Granted: but is he quite
certain these oracles have emanated from themselves? If they are so
different in their detail, may there not be reasonable ground for
suspecting some of them are not authentic? If there is, which are the
spurious, which are the genuine? By what rule is he to guide himself in
the choice; how, with his frail methods of judging, is he to scrutinize
oracles delivered by such powerful beings—to discriminate the true
from the false? The ministers of each will give you an infallible method,
one that, is according to their own asseveration, cannot err; that is, by
an implicit belief in the particular doctrine each promulgates.

Thus will be perceived the multitude of contradictions, the extravagant
hypotheses which these human attributes, with which theology clothes its
divinities, must necessarily produce. Beings embracing at one time so many
discordant qualities will always be undefinable—can only present a
train of ideas calculated to displace each other; they will consequently
ever remain beings of the imagination. These beings, say their ministers,
created the heavens, the earth, the creatures who inhabit it, to manifest
their own peculiar glory; they have neither rivals, nor equals in nature;
nothing which can be compared with them. Glory is, again, a human passion:
it is in man the desire of giving his fellow-creatures an high opinion of
him; this, passion is laudable when it stimulates him to undertake great
projects—when it determines him to perform useful actions—but
it is very frequently a weakness attached to his nature; it is nothing
more than a desire to be distinguished from those beings with whom he
compares himself, without exciting him to one noble, one generous act. It
is easy to perceive that beings who are so much elevated above men, cannot
be actuated by such a defective passion. They say these beings are jealous
of their prerogatives. Jealousy is another human passion, not always of
the most respectable kind: but it is rather difficult to conceive the
existence of jealousy with profound wisdom, unlimited power, and the
perfection of justice. Thus the theologians by dint of heaping quality on
quality, aggrandizing each as is added, seem to have reduced themselves to
the situation of a painter, who spreading all his colours upon his canvas
together, after thus blending them into an unique mass, loses sight of the
whole in the composition.

They will, nevertheless, reply to these difficulties, that goodness,
wisdom, justice, are in these beings qualities so pre-eminent, so
distinct, have so little affinity with these same qualities in man, that
they are totally dissimilar—have not the least relation. Admit this
to be the case, How then can he form to himself any idea of these
perfections, seeing they are totally unlike those with which he is
acquainted? They surely cannot mean to insinuate that they are the reverse
of every thing he understands; because that would, in effect, bring them
to a precise point which would not need any explanation; it is therefore a
matter of certainty this cannot be the case: then if these qualities, when
exercised by the beings they have described, are only human actions so
obscured, so hidden, as not to be recognizable by man, How can weak
mortals pretend to announce them, to have a knowledge of them, to explain
them to others? Does then theology impart to the mind the ineffable boon
of enabling it to conceive that which no man is competent to understand?
Does it procure for its agents the marvellous faculty of having distinct
ideas of beings composed of so many contradictory properties? Does it, in
fact, make the theologian himself one of these incomprehensible beings.

They will impose silence, by saying the oracles have spoken; that through
these mystical means they have made themselves known to mortals. The next
question would naturally be, When, where, or to whom have these oracles
spoken? Where are these oracles? An hundred voices raise themselves in the
same moment; hands of Briaraeus are immediately stretched forth to shew
them in a number of discordant collections, which each maintains, with an
equal degree of vehemence, is the true code—the only doctrine man
ought to believe: he runs them over, finds they scarcely agree in any one
particular; but that in all the heaviest penalties are denounced against
those who doubt the smallest part of any one of them. These beings of
consummate wisdom are made to speak an obscure, irrational language; some
of them, although their goodness is proclaimed, have been cruel and
sanguinary; others, although their justice is held forth, have been
partial, unjust, capricious; some, who are represented as all merciful,
destine to the most hideous punishments the unhappy victims to their
wrath: examine any one of them more closely, he will find that they have
never in any two countries held literally the same language: that although
they are said to have spoken in many places, that they have always spoken
variously: What is the necessary result? The human mind, incapable of
reconciling such manifest contradictions, unable to obtain from their
ministers any corroborative evidence, that is not disputed by the others,
falls into the strangest perplexity; is involved in doubts, entangled in a
labyrinth to which no clue is to be found.

Thus the relations, which are supposed to exist between man and these
theological idols, can only be founded on the moral qualities of these
beings: if these are not known to him, if he cannot in any manner
comprehend them, they cannot by any ingenuity of argument serve him for
models. In order that they may be imitated, it is needful that these
qualities were cognizable by the being who is to imitate them. How can he
imitate that goodness, that justice, that mercy, which does not resemble
either his own, or any thing he can conceive? If these beings partake in
nothing of that which forms man—if the properties they do possess,
although different, are not within the reach of his comprehension—if,
he cannot embrace the most distant idea of them, which the theologian
assures him he cannot, How is it possible he can set about imitating them?
How follow a conduct suitable to please them—to render himself
acceptable in their sight? What can in effect be the motive of that
worship, of that homage, of that obedience, which these beings are said to
exact—which he is informed he should offer at their altars, if he
does not establish it upon their goodness—their veracity—their
justice: in short, upon qualities which he is competent to understand? How
can he have clear, distinct ideas of those qualities, if they are no
longer of the same nature as those which he has learned to reverence in
the beings of his own species?

To this they will reply, because none of them ever admit the least doubt
of the rectitude of their own individual creed, that there can be no
proportion between these idols and mortals, who are the work of their
hands; that it is not permitted to the clay to demand of the potter who
has formed it, “why ye have fashioned me thus;”—but if there can be
no common measure between the workman and his work—if there can be
no analogy between them, because the one is immaterial, the other
corporeal, How do they reciprocally act upon each other? How can the gross
organs of the one, comprehend the subtile quality of the other? Reasoning
in the only way he is capable, and it surely will never be seriously
argued that he is not to reason, will he not perceive that the earthen
vase could only have received the form which it pleased the potter to
give; that if it is formed badly, if it is rendered inadequate to the use
for which it was designed, the vase is not in this instance to be blamed;
the potter certainly has the power to break it; the vase cannot prevent
him; it will neither have motives nor means to soften his anger; it will
be obliged to submit to its destiny; but he will not be able to prevent
his mind from thinking the potter harsh in thus punishing the vase, rather
than by forming it anew, by giving it another figure, render it competent
to the purposes he intended.

According to these notions the relations between man and these theological
beings have no existence, they owe nothing to him, are dispensed from
shewing him either goodness or justice; that man, on the contrary, owes
them every thing: but contradictions appear at every step. If these have
promised by their oracles any thing to man, it is rather difficult for him
to believe, that what is so solemnly promised does not belong to him if he
fulfils the condition of the promise. The difference a theologian may
choose to find in these relations will hardly be convincing to a
reasonable mind. The duties of man towards these beings can, according to
their own shewing, have no other foundation than the happiness he expects
from them: thus the relation has a reciprocity, it is founded upon their
goodness, upon their justice, it demands obedience on his part, a conduct
suitable to the benefits he receives. Thus, in whatever manner the
theological system is viewed, it destroys itself. Will theology never feel
that the more it endeavours to exaggerate the human qualities, the less it
exalts the beings it pictures; the more incomprehensible it renders them,
the more it contributes to swell its own ocean of contradictions; that to
take human passions, mortal faculties at all, is perhaps the worst means
it can pursue to form a perfect being; but that if it must persist in this
method, then the further they remove them from man, the more they debase
him, the more they weaken the relations subsisting between them: that in
thus aggregating human properties, it should carefully abstain from
associating in these pictures those qualities which man finds detestable
in his fellows. Thus, despotism in man is looked upon as an unjust,
unreasonable power; if it introduces such a quality into its portraits, it
cannot rationally suppose them suitable to cultivate the esteem, to
attract the voluntary homage of the human race: if, however, the canvas be
examined, we shall frequently be struck, with perceiving this the leading
feature; we shall equally find a want of keeping through the whole; that
shadows are introduced, where lights ought to prevail; that the colouring
is incongruous—the design without harmony.

The discrepancy of conduct which theology imputes to these idols, is not
less remarkable than the contrariety of qualities it ascribes to them, or
the inconsistency of the passions with which it invests them; sometimes,
according to this, they are the friends to reason, desirous of the
happiness of society; sometimes they are inimical to virtue; interdict the
use of reason; flattered with seeing society disturbed, they sometimes
afflict man without his being able to guess the cause of their
displeasure; sometimes they are favourable to mankind—at others,
indisposed towards the human species: sometimes they are represented as
permitting crimes for the pleasure of punishing them—at others, they
exert all their power to arrest crime in its birth; sometimes they elect a
small number to receive eternal happiness, predestinating the rest to
perpetual misery—to everlasting torments; at others, they throw open
the gates of mercy to all who choose to enter them; sometimes they are
pourtrayed as destroying the universe—at others, as establishing the
most beautiful order in the planet we inhabit; sometimes they are held
forth as countenancing deception—at others, as having the highest
reverence for truth—as holding deceit in abomination. This, again,
is the necessary result of the human faculties, the mortal passions, the
frail qualities of which they compose the beings they hold forth to the
admiration, to the worship, to the homage of the world.

Perhaps the most fatal consequences have arisen from founding the moral
character of these divinities upon that of man. Those who first had the
confidence to tell man that in these matters it was not permitted him to
consult his reason, that the interests of society demanded its sacrifice,
evidently proposed to themselves to make him the sport of their own
wantonness—to make him the blind instrument of their own
unworthiness. It is from this radical error that has sprung all those
extravagances which the various superstitions have introduced upon the
earth: from hence has flowed that sacred fury which has frequently deluged
it with blood: here is the cause of those inhuman persecutions which have
so often desolated nations: in short, all those horrid tragedies which
have been acted on the vast theatre of the world, by command of the
different ministers of the various systems, whose gods they have said
ordained these shocking spectacles.

The theologians themselves have thus been the means, of calumniating the
gods they pretended to serve, under the pretext of exalting their name—of
covering them with glory; in this they may have been said to be true
atheists, since they seem only to have been anxious to destroy the idols
they themselves had raised, by the actions they have attributed to them—which
has debased them in the eye of reason—rendered their existence more
than doubtful to the man of humanity. Indeed, it would require more than
human credulity to accredit the assertion that these beings ever could
order the atrocities committed in their name. Every time they have been
willing to disturb the harmony of mankind—whenever they have been
desirous to render him unsociable, they have cried out that their gods
ordained that he should be so. Thus they render mortals uncertain, make
the ethical system fluctuate by founding it upon changeable, capricious
idols, whom they represent much more frequently cruel and unjust, than
filled with bounty and benevolence.

However it may be, admitting if they will for a moment that their idols
possess all the human virtues in an infinite degree of perfection, we
shall quickly be obliged to acknowledge that they cannot connect them with
those metaphysical, theological, negative attributes, of which we have
already spoken. If these beings are spirits that are immaterial, how can
they be able to act like man, who is a corporeal being? Pure spirits,
according to the only idea man can form of them, having no organs, no
parts, cannot see any thing; can neither hear our prayers, attend to our
solicitations, nor have compassion for our miseries. They cannot be
immutable, if their dispositions can suffer change: they cannot be
infinite, if the totality of nature, without being them, can exist
conjointly with them: they cannot be omnipotent, if they either permit or
do not prevent evil: they cannot be omnipresent, if they are not every
where: they must therefore be in the evil as well as in the good. Thus in
whatever manner they are contemplated, under whatever point of view they
are considered, the human qualities which are assigned to them,
necessarily destroy each other; neither can these same properties in any
possible manner combine themselves with the supernatural attributes given
to them by theology.

With respect to the revealed will of these idols, by means of their
oracles, far from being a proof of their good will, of their
commisseration for man, it would rather seem evidence of their ill-will.
It supposes them capable of leaving mankind for a considerable season
unacquainted with truths highly important to their interests; these
oracles communicated to a small number of chosen men, are indicative of
partiality, of predilections, that are but little compatible with the
common Father of the human race. These oracles were ill imagined, since
they tend to injure the immutability ascribed to these idols, by supposing
that they permitted man to be ignorant at one time of their will, whilst
at another time they were willing he should be instructed on the subject.
Moreover, these oracles frequently predicted offences for which afterwards
severe punishments were inflicted on those who did no more than fulfil
them. This, according to the reasoning of man, would be unjust. The
ambiguous language in which they were delivered, the almost impossibility
of comprehending them, the inexplicable mysteries they contained, seemed
to render them doubtful; at least they are not consistent with the ideas
man is capable of forming of infinite perfection: but the fact clearly is,
they were thus rendered capable of application to the contingency of
events—could be made to suit almost any circumstances: this would
render it not a very improbable conjecture, that these oracles were solely
delivered by the priests themselves. It these were tried by the only test
of which he has any knowledge—HIS REASON, it would naturally occur
to the mind of man, that mystery could never, on any occasion, be used in
the promulgation of substantive decrees meant to operate on the obedience,
to actuate the moral conduct of man: it is quite usual with most
legislators to render their laws as explicit as possible, to adapt them to
the meanest understanding; in short, it would be reckoned want of good
faith in a government, to throw a thick, mysterious veil over the
announcement of that conduct which it wished its citizens to adopt; they
would be apt to think such a procedure was either meant to cover its own
peculiar ignorance, or else to entrap them into a snare; at best, it would
be considered as furnishing a never-failing source of dispute, which a
wise government would endeavour to avoid.

It will thus be obvious, that the ideas which theology has at various
times, under various systems, held forth to man, have for the most part
been confused, discordant, incompatible, and have had a general tendency
to disturb the repose of mankind. The obscure notions, the vague
speculations of these multiplied creeds, would be matter of great
indifference, if man was not taught to hold them as highly important to
his welfare—if he did not draw from them conclusions pernicious to
himself—if he did not learn from these theologians that he must
sharpen his asperity against those who do not contemplate them in the same
point of view with himself: as he perhaps, then, will never have a common
standard, a fixed rule, a regular graduated scale, whereby to form his
judgment on these points—as all efforts of the imagination must
necessarily assume divers shapes, undergo a variety of modifications,
which can never be assimilated to each other, it was little likely that
mankind would at all times be able to understand each other on this
subject; much less that they would be in accord in the opinions they
should adopt. From hence that diversity of superstitions which in all ages
have given rise to the most irrational disputes; which have engendered the
most sanguinary wars; which have caused the most barbarous massacres;
which have divided man from his fellow by the most rancorous animosities,
that will perhaps never be healed; because he has been impelled to
consider the peculiar tenets he adopted, not only as immediately essential
to his individual welfare, but also as intimately connected with the
happiness, closely interwoven with the tranquillity of the nation of which
he was a citizen. That such contrariety of sentiment, such discrepancy of
opinion should exist, is not in the least surprising; it is, in fact, the
natural result of those physical causes to which, as long as he exists, he
is at all times submitted. The man of a heated imagination cannot
accommodate himself to the god of a phlegmatic, tranquil being: the
infirm, bilious, discontented, angry mortal, cannot view him under the
same aspect as he who enjoys a sounder constitution,—as the
individual of a gay turn, who enjoys the blessing of content, who wishes
to live in peace. An equitable, kind, compassionate, tender-hearted man,
will not delineate to himself the same portrait of his god, as the man who
is of an harsh, unjust, inflexible, wicked character. Each individual will
modify his god after his own peculiar manner of existing, after his own
mode of thinking, according to his particular mode of feeling. A wise,
honest, rational man will always figure to himself his god as humane and
just.

Nevertheless, as fear usually presided at the formation of those idols man
set up for the object of his worship; as the ideas of these beings were
generally associated with that of terror as the recollections of
sufferings, which he attributed to them, often made him tremble;
frequently awakened in his mind the most afflicting, reminiscence; as it
sometimes filled him with inquietude, sometimes inflamed his imagination,
sometimes overwhelmed him with dismay, the experience of all ages proves,
that these vague idols became the most important of all considerations—was
the affair which most seriously occupied the human race: that they every
where spread consternation—produced the most frightful ravages, by
the delirious inebriation resulting from the opinions with which they
intoxicated the mind. Indeed, it is extremely difficult to prevent
habitual fear, which of all human passions is the most incommodious, from
becoming a dangerous leaven; which in the long run will sour, exasperate,
and give malignancy to the most moderate temperament.

If a misanthrope, in hatred of his race, had formed the project of
throwing man into the greatest perplexity,—if a tyrant, in the
plenitude of his unruly desire to punish, had sought out the most
efficacious means; could either the one or the other have imagined that
which was so well calculated to gratify their revenge, as thus to occupy
him unceasingly with objects not only unknown to him, but which no two of
them should ever see with precisely the same eyes; which notwithstanding
they should be obliged to contemplate as the centre of all their thoughts—as
the only model of their conduct—as the end of all their actions—as
the subject of all their research—as a thing of more importance to
them than life itself; upon which all their present felicity, all their
future happiness, must necessarily depend? Could the gods themselves, in
their solicitude to punish the impious Prometheus, for having stolen fire
from the sun, have imagined a more certain method of executing their
wishes? Was not Pandora’s box, though stuffed with evils, trifling when
compared with this? That at least left hope, to the unfortunate
Epimetheus; this effectually cut it off.

If man was subjected to an absolute monarch, to a sultan who should keep
himself secluded from his subjects; who followed no rule but his own
desires; who did not feel himself bound by any duty; who could for ever
punish the offences committed against him; whose fury it was easy to
provoke; who was irritated even by the ideas, the thoughts of his
subjects; whose displeasure might be incurred without even their own
knowledge; the name of such a sovereign would assuredly be sufficient to
carry trouble, to spread terror, to diffuse consternation into the very
souls of those who should hear it pronounced; his idea would haunt them
every where—would unceasingly afflict them—would plunge them
into despair. What tortures would not their mind endure to discover this
formidable being, to ascertain the secret of pleasing him! What labour
would not their imagination bestow, to discover what mode of conduct might
be able to disarm his anger! What fears would assail them, lest they might
not have justly hit upon the means of assuaging his wrath! What disputes
would they not enter into upon the nature, the qualities of a ruler,
equally unknown to them all! What a variety of means would not be adopted,
to find favour in his eyes; to avert his chastisement!

Such is the history of the effects superstition has produced upon the
earth. Man has always been panic-struck, because the systems adopted never
enable him to form any correct opinion, any fixed ideas, upon a subject so
material to his happiness; because every thing conspired either to give
his ideas a fallacious turn, or else to keep his mind in the most profound
ignorance; when he was willing to set himself right, when he was sedulous
to examine the path which conducted to his felicity, when he was desirous
of probing opinions so consequential to his peace, involving so much
mystery, yet combining both his hopes and his fears, he was forbidden to
employ the only proper method,—HIS REASON, guided by his experience;
he was assured this would be an offence the most indelible. If he asked,
Wherefore his reason had then been given him, since he was not to use it
in matters of such high behest? he was answered, those were mysteries of
which none but the initiated could be informed; that it sufficed for him
to know, that the reason which he seemed so highly to prize, which he held
in so much esteem, was his most dangerous enemy—his most inveterate,
most determined foe. Where can be the propriety of such an argument? Can
it really be that reason is dangerous? If so, the Turks are justified in
their predilection for madmen: but to proceed, he is told that he must
believe in the gods, not question the mission of their priests; in short,
that he had nothing to do with the laws they imposed, but to obey them:
when he then required that these laws might at least be made
comprehensible to him; that he might be placed in a capacity to understand
them; the old answer was returned, that they were mysteries; he
must not inquire into them. But where is the necessity for mystery in
points of such vast importance? He might, indeed, from time to time
consult these oracles, when he was able to make the sacrifices demanded;
he would then receive precepts for his conduct: these were always,
however, given in such vague, indeterminate terms, that he had scarcely
the chance of acting right. At different times the same oracles delivered
different opinions: thus he had nothing, steady; nothing permanent,
whereby to guide his steps; like a blind man left to himself in the
streets, he was obliged to grope his way at the peril of his existence.
This will serve to shew the urgent necessity there is for truth to throw
its radiant lustre on systems big with so much importance; that are so
calculated to corroborate the animosities, to confirm the bitterness of
soul, between those whom nature intended should always act as brothers.

By the magical charms with which these idols were surrounded, the human
species has remained either as if it was benumbed, in a state of stupid
apathy, or else he has become furious with fanaticism: sometimes,
desponding with fear, man cringed like a slave who bends under the scourge
of an inexorable master, always ready to strike him; he trembled under a
yoke made too ponderous for his strength: he lived in continual dread of a
vengeance he was unceasingly striving to appease, without ever knowing
when he had succeeded: as he was always bathed in tears, continually
enveloped in misery—as he was never permitted to lose sight of his
fears—as he was continually exhorted to nourish his alarm, he could
neither labour for his own happiness nor contribute to that of others;
nothing could exhilirate him; he became the enemy of himself, the
persecutor of his fellow-creatures, because his felicity here below was
interdicted; he passed his time in heaving the most bitter sighs; his
reason being forbidden him, he fell into either a state of infancy or
delirium, which submitted him to authority; he was destined to this
servitude from the hour he quitted his mother’s womb, until that in which
he was returned to his kindred dust; tyrannical opinion bound him fast in
her massive fetters; a prey to the terrors with which he was inspired, he
appeared to have come upon the earth for no other purpose than to dream—with
no other desire than to groan—with no other motives than to sigh;
his only view seemed to be to injure himself; to deprive himself of every
rational pleasure, to embitter his own existence; to disturb the felicity
of others. Thus, abject, slothful, irrational, he frequently became
wicked, under the idea of doing honour to his gods; because they instilled
into his mind that it was his duty to avenge their cause, to sustain their
honour, to propagate their worship.

Mortals were prostrate from race to race, before vain idols to which fear
had given birth in the bosom of ignorance, during the calamities of the
earth; they tremblingly adored phantoms which credulity had placed in the
recesses of their own brain, where they found a sanctuary which time only
served to strengthen; nothing could undeceive them; nothing was competent
to make them feel, it was themselves they adored—that they bent the
knee before their own work—that they terrified themselves with the
extravagant pictures they had themselves delineated; they obstinately
persisted in prostrating themselves, in perplexing themselves, in
trembling; they even made a crime of endeavouring to dissipate their
fears; they mistook the production of their own folly; their conduct
resembled that of children, who having disfigured their own features,
become afraid of themselves when a mirror reflects the extravagance they
have committed. These notions so afflicting for themselves, so grievous to
others, have their epoch from the calamities of man; they will continue,
perhaps augment, until their mind, enlightened by discarded reason,
illumined by truth, shall set in their true colours these various systems;
until reflection guided by experience, shall attach no more importance to
them, than is consistent with the happiness of society; until man,
bursting the chains of superstition—recalling to mind the great end
of his existence—taking a rational view of that which surrounds him,
shall no longer refuse to contemplate nature under her true character;
shall no longer persist in refusing to acknowledge she contains within
herself the cause of that wonderful phenomena which strikes on the dazzled
optics of man: until thoroughly persuaded of the weakness of their claim
to the homage of mankind, he shall make one pious, simultaneous, mighty
effort, and overthrow the altars of Moloch and his priests.

CHAP. IV.

Examination of the Proofs of the Existence of the Divinity, as given by
CLARKE.

The unanimity of man in acknowledging the Divinity, is commonly looked
upon as the strongest proof of his existence. There is not, it is said,
any people on the earth who have not some ideas, whether true or false, of
an all-powerful agent who governs the world. The rudest savages as well as
the most polished nations, are equally obliged to recur by thought to the
first cause of every thing that exists; thus it is affirmed, the cry of
Nature herself ought to convince us of the existence of the Godhead, of
which she has taken pains to engrave the notion in the minds of men: they
therefore conclude, that the idea of God is innate.

Perhaps there is nothing of which man should be more sedulously careful
than permitting a promiscuous assemblage of right with wrong—of
suffering false conclusions to be drawn from true propositions; this will
not improbably be found to be pretty much the case in this instance; the
existence of the great Cause of causes, the Parent of parents,
does not, I think, admit of any doubt in the mind of any one who has
reasoned: but, if this existence did not rest upon better foundations than
the unanimity of man on this subject, I am fearful it would not be placed
upon so solid a rock as those who make this asseveration may imagine: the
fact is, man is not generally agreed upon this point; if he was,
superstition could have no existence; the idea of God cannot be innate,
because, independent of the proofs offered on every side of the almost
impossibility of innate ideas, one simple fact will set such an opinion
for ever at rest, except with those who are obstinately determined not to
be convinced by even their own arguments: if this idea was innate, it must
be every where the same; seeing that that which is antecedent to man’s
being, cannot have experienced the modifications of his existence, which
are posterior. Even if it were waived, that the same idea should be
expected from all mankind, but that only every nation should have their
ideas alike on this subject, experience will not warrant the assertion,
since nothing can be better established than that the idea is not uniform
even in the same town; now this would be an insuperable quality in an
innate idea. It not unfrequently happens, that in the endeavour to prove
too much, that which stood firm before the attempt, is weakened; thus a
bad advocate frequently injures a good cause, although he may not be able
to overturn the rights on which it is rested. It would, therefore,
perhaps, come nearer to the point if it was said, “that the natural
curiosity of mankind have in all ages, and in all nations, led him to seek
after the primary cause of the phenomena he beholds; that owing to the
variations of his climate, to the difference of his organization, the
greater or less calamity he has experienced, the variety of his
intellectual faculties, and the circumstances under which he has been
placed, man has had the most opposite, contradictory, extravagant notions
of the Divinity, but that he has uniformly been in accord in acknowledging
both the existence, and the wisdom of his work—NATURE.”

If disengaged from prejudice, we analyze this proof, we shall see that the
universal consent of man, so diffused over the earth, actually proves
little more than that he has been in all countries exposed to frightful
revolutions, experienced disasters, been sensible to sorrows of which he
has mistaken the physical causes; that those events to which he has been
either the victim or the witness, have called forth his admiration or
excited his fear; that for want of being acquainted with the powers of
nature, for want of understanding her laws, for want of comprehending her
infinite resources, for want of knowing the effects she must necessarily
produce under given circumstances, he has believed these phenomena were
due to some secret agent of which he has had vague ideas—to beings
whom he has supposed conducted themselves after his own manner; who were
operated upon by similar motives with himself.

The consent then of man in acknowledging a variety of gods, proves
nothing, except that in the bosom of ignorance he has either admired the
phenomena of nature, or trembled under their influence; that his
imagination was disturbed by what he beheld or suffered; that he has
sought in vain to relieve his perplexity, upon the unknown cause of the
phenomena he witnessed, which frequently obliged him to quake with terror:
the imagination of the human race has laboured variously upon these
causes, which have almost always been incomprehensible to him; although
every thing confessed his ignorance, his inability to define these causes,
yet he maintained that he was assured of their existence; when pressed, he
spoke of a spirit, (a word to which it was impossible to attach any
determinate idea) which taught nothing but the sloth, which evidenced
nothing but the stupidity of those who pronounced it.

It ought, however, not to excite any surprise that man is incapable of
forming any substantive ideas, save of those things which act, or which
have heretofore acted upon his senses; it is very evident that the only
objects competent to move his organs are material,—that none but
physical beings can furnish him with ideas,—a truth which has been
rendered sufficiently clear in the commencement of this work, not to need
any further proof. It will suffice therefore to say that the idea of God
is not an innate, but an acquired notion; that it is the very nature of
this notion to vary from age to age; to differ in one country from
another; to be viewed variously by individuals. What do I say? It is, in
fact, an idea hardly ever constant in the same mortal. This diversity,
this fluctuation, this change, stamps it with the true character of an
acquired opinion. On the other hand, the strongest proof that can be
adduced that these ideas are founded in error, is, that man by degrees has
arrived at perfectioning all the sciences which have any known objects for
their basis, whilst the science of theology has not advanced; it is almost
every where at the same point; men seem equally undecided on this subject;
those who have most occupied themselves with it, have effected but little;
they seem, indeed, rather to have rendered the primitive ideas man formed
to himself on this head more obscure,—to have involved in greater
mystery all his original opinions.

As soon as it is asked of man, what are the gods before whom he prostrates
himself, forthwith his sentiments are divided. In order that his opinions
should be in accord, it would be requisite that uniform ideas, analogous
sensations, unvaried perceptions, should every where have given birth to
his notions upon this subject: but this would suppose organs perfectly
similar, modified by sensations which have a perfect affinity: this is
what could not happen: because man, essentially different by his
temperament, who is found under circumstances completely dissimilar, must
necessarily have a great diversity of ideas upon objects which each
individual contemplates so variously. Agreed in some general points, each
made himself a god after his own manner; he feared him, he served him,
after his own mode. Thus the god of one man, or of one nation, was hardly
ever that of another man, or of another nation. The god of a savage,
unpolished people, is commonly some material object, upon which the mind
has exercised itself but little; this god appears very ridiculous in the
eyes of a more polished community, whose minds have laboured more
intensely upon the subject. A spiritual god, whose adorers despise the
worship paid by the savage to a coarse, material object, is the subtle
production of the brain of thinkers, who, lolling in the lap of polished
society quite at their leisure, have deeply meditated, have long occupied
themselves with the subject. The theological god, although for the most
part incomprehensible, is the last effort of the human imagination; it is
to the god of the savage, what an inhabitant of the city of Sybaris, where
effiminacy and luxury reigned, where pomp and pageantry had reached their
climax, clothed with a curiously embroidered purple habit of silk, was to
a man either quite naked, or simply covered with the skin of a beast
perhaps newly slain. It is only in civilized societies, that leisure
affords the opportunity of dreaming—that ease procures the facility
of reasoning; in these associations, idle speculators meditate, dispute,
form metaphysics: the faculty of thought is almost void in the savage, who
is occupied either with hunting, with fishing, or with the means of
procuring a very precarious subsistence by dint of almost incessant
labour. The generality of men, however, have not more elevated notions of
the divinity, have not analyzed him more than the savage. A spiritual,
immaterial God, is formed only to occupy the leisure of some subtle men,
who have no occasion to labour for a subsistence. Theology, although a
science so much vaunted, considered so important to the interests of man,
is only useful to those who live at the expense of others; or of those who
arrogate to themselves the privilege of thinking for all those who labour.
This science becomes, in some polished societies, who are not on that
account more enlightened, a branch of commerce extremely advantageous to
its professors; equally unprofitable to the citizens; above all when these
have the folly to take a very decided interest in their unintelligible
system—in their discordant opinions.

What an infinite distance between an unformed stone, an animal, a star, a
statue, and the abstracted Deity, which theology hath clothed with
attributes under which it loses sight of him itself! The savage without
doubt deceives himself in the object to which he addresses his vows; like
a child he is smitten with the first object that strikes his sight—that
operates upon him in a lively manner; like the infant, his fears are
alarmed by that from which he conceives he has either received an injury
or suffered disgrace; still his ideas are fixed by a substantive being, by
an object which he can examine by his senses. The Laplander who adores a
rock,—the negro who prostrates himself before a monstrous serpent,
at least see the objects they adore. The idolater falls upon his knees
before a statue, in which he believes there resides some concealed virtue,
some powerful quality, which he judges may be either useful or prejudicial
to himself; but that subtle reasoner, called a metaphysician, who in
consequence of his unintelligible science, believes he has a right to
laugh at the savage, to deride the Laplander, to scoff at the negro, to
ridicule the idolater, doth not perceive that he is himself prostrate
before a being of his own imagination, of which it is impossible he should
form to himself any correct idea, unless, like the savage, he re-enters
into visible nature, to clothe him with qualities capable of being brought
within the range of his comprehension.

For the most part the notions on the Divinity, which obtain credit even at
the present day, are nothing more than a general terror diversely
acquired, variously modified in the mind of nations, which do not tend to
prove any thing, save that they have received them from their trembling,
ignorant ancestors. These gods have been successively altered, decorated,
subtilized, by those thinkers, those legislators, those priests, who have
meditated deeply upon them; who have prescribed systems of worship to the
uninformed; who have availed themselves of their existing prejudices, to
submit them to their yoke; who have obtained a dominion over their mind,
by seizing on their credulity,—by making them participate in their
errors,—by working on their fears; these dispositions will always be
a necessary consequence of man’s ignorance, when steeped in the sorrows of
his heart.

If it be true, as asserted, that the earth has never witnessed any nation
so unsociable, so savage, to be without some form of religious worship—who
did not adore some god—but little will result from it respecting the
Divinity. The word GOD, will rarely be found to designate more than the
unknown cause of those effects which man has either admired or dreaded.
Thus, this notion so generally diffused, upon which so much stress is
laid; will prove little more than that man in all generations has been
ignorant of natural causes,—that he has been incompetent, from some
cause or other, to account for those phenomena which either excited his
surprise or roused his fears. If at the present day a people cannot be
found destitute of some kind of worship, entirely without superstition,
who do not acknowledge a God, who have not adopted a theology more or less
subtle, it is because the uninformed ancestors of these people have all
endured misfortunes—have been alarmed by terrifying effects, which
they have attributed to unknown causes—have beheld strange sights,
which they have ascribed to powerful agents, whose existence they could
not fathom; the details of which, together with their own bewildered
notions, they have handed down to their posterity who have not given them
any kind of examination.

It will readily be allowed, that the universality of an opinion by no
means proves its truth. Do we not see a great number of ignorant
prejudices, a multitude of barbarous errors, even at the present day,
receive the almost universal sanction of the human race? Are not nearly
all the inhabitants of the earth imbued with the idea of magic—in
the habit of acknowledging occult powers—given to divination—believers
in enchantment—the slaves to omens—supporters of witchcraft—thoroughly
persuaded of the existence of ghosts? If some of the most enlightened
persons are cured of these follies, they still find very zealous partizans
in the greater number of mankind, who accredit them with the firmest
confidence. It would not, however, be concluded by men of sound sense, in
many instances not by the theologian himself, that therefore these
chimeras actually have existence, although sanctioned with the credence of
the multitude. Before Copernicus, there was no one who did not believe
that the earth was stationary, that the sun described his annual
revolution round it. Was, however, this universal consent of man upon a
principle of astronomical science, which endured for so many thousand
years, less an error on that account? Yet to have doubted the truth of
such a generally-diffused opinion, one that had received the sanction of
so many learned men—that was clothed with the sacred vestments of so
many ages of credulity—that had been adopted by Moses, acknowledged
by Solomon, accredited by the Persian magi—that Elijah himself had
not refuted—that had obtained the fiat of the most respectable
universities, the most enlightened legislators, the wisest kings, the most
eloquent ministers; in short, a principle that embraced all the stability
that could be derived from the universal consent of all ranks: to have
doubted, I say, of this, would at one period have been held as the highest
degree of profanation, as the most presumptuous scepticism, as an impious
blasphemy, that would have threatened the very existence of that unhappy
country from whose unfortunate bosom such a venomous, sacrilegious mortal
could have arisen. It is well known what opinion was entertained of
Gallileo for maintaining the existence of the antipodes. Pope Gregory
excommunicated as atheists all those who gave it credit. Thus each man has
his God: But do all these gods exist? In reply it will be said, somewhat
triumphantly, each man hath his ideas of the sun, do all these suns exist?
However narrow may be the pass by which superstition imagines it has thus
guarded its favourite hypothesis, nothing will perhaps be more easy than
the answer: the existence of the sun is a fact verified by the daily use
of the senses; all the world see the sun; no one bath ever said there is
no sun; nearly all mankind have acknowledged it to be both luminous and
hot: however various may be the opinions of man, upon this luminary, no
one has ever yet pretended there was more than one attached to our
planetary system. But we may perhaps be told, there is a wide difference
between that which can be contemplated by the visual organs, which can be
understood by the sense of feeling, and that which does not come under the
cognizance of any part of the organic structure of man. We must confess
theology here has the advantage; that we are unable to follow it through
its devious sinuosities; amidst its meandering labyrinths: but then it is
the advantage of those who see sounds, over those who only hear them; of
those who hear colours, over those who only see them; of the professors of
a science, where every thing is built upon laws inverted from those common
to the globe we inhabit; over those common understandings, who cannot be
sensible to any thing that does not give an impulse to some of their
organs.

If man, therefore, had the courage to throw aside his prejudices, which
every thing conspires to render as durable as himself—if divested of
fear he would examine coolly—if guided by reason he would
dispassionately view the nature of things, the evidence adduced in support
of any given doctrine; he would, at least, be under the necessity to
acknowledge, that the idea of the Divinity is not innate—that it is
not anterior to his existence—that it is the production of time,
acquired by communication with his own species—that, consequently,
there was a period when it did not actually exist in him: he would see
clearly, that he holds it by tradition from those who reared him: that
these themselves received it from their ancestors: that thus tracing it
up, it will be found to have been derived in the last resort, from
ignorant savages, who were our first fathers. The history of the world
will shew that crafty legislators, ambitious tyrants, blood-stained
conquerors, have availed themselves of the ignorance, the fears, the
credulity of his progenitors, to turn to their own profit an idea to which
they rarely attached any other substantive meaning than that of submitting
them to the yoke of their own domination.

Without doubt there have been mortals who have dreamed they have seen the
Divinity. Mahomet, I believe, boasted he had a long conversation with the
Deity, who promulgated to him the system of the Mussulmans. But are there
not thousands, even of the theologians, who will exhaust their breath, and
fatigue their lungs with vociferating this man was a liar; whose object
was to take advantage of the simplicity, to profit by the enthusiasm, to
impose on the credulity of the Arabs; who promulgated for truths, the
crazy reveries of his own distempered imagination? Nevertheless, is it not
a truth, that this doctrine of the crafty Arab, is at this day the creed
of millions, transmitted to them by their ancestors, rendered sacred by
time, read to them in their mosques, adorned with all the ceremonies of
superstitious worship; of which the inhabitants of a vast portion of the
earth do not permit themselves for an instant to doubt the veracity; who,
on the contrary, hold those who do not accredit it as dogs, as infidels,
as beings of an inferior rank, of meaner capacities than themselves?
Indeed that man, even if he were a theologian, would not experience the
most gentle treatment from the infuriated Mahometan, who should to his
face venture to dispute the divine mission of his prophet. Thus the
ancestors of the Turk have transmitted to their posterity, those ideas of
the Divinity which they manifestly received from those who deceived them;
whose impositions, modified from age to age, subtilized by the priests,
clothed with the reverential awe inspired by fear, have by degrees
acquired that solidity, received that corroboration, attained that veteran
stability, which is the natural result of public sanction, backed by
theological parade.

The word God is, perhaps, among the first that vibrate on the ear of man;
it is reiterated to him incessantly; he is taught to lisp it with respect;
to listen to it with fear; to bend the knee when it is reverberated: by
dint of repetition, by listening to the fables of antiquity, by hearing it
pronounced by all ranks and persuasions, he seriously believes all men
bring the idea with them into the world; he thus confounds a mechanical
habit with instinct; whilst it is for want of being able to recal to
himself the first circumstances under which his imagination was awakened
by this name; for want of recollecting all the recitals made to him during
the course of his infancy; for want of accurately defining what was
instilled into him by his education; in short, because his memory does not
furnish him with the succession of causes that have engraven it on his
brain, that he believes this idea is really inherent to his being; innate
in all his species. Iamblicus, indeed, who was a Pythagorean philosopher
not in the highest repute with the learned world, although one of those
visionary priests in some estimation with theologians, (at least if we may
venture to judge by the unlimited draughts they have made on the bank of
his doctrines) who was unquestionably a favourite with the emperor Julian,
says, “that anteriorly to all use of reason, the notion of the gods is
inspired by nature, and that we have even a sort of feeling of the
Divinity, preferable to the knowledge of him.” It is, however, uniformly
by habit, that man admires, that he fears a being, whose name he has
attended to from his earliest infancy. As soon as he hears it uttered, he
without reflection mechanically associates it with those ideas with which
his imagination has been filled by the recitals of others; with those
sensations which he has been instructed to accompany it. Thus, if for a
season man would be ingenuous with himself, he would concede that in the
greater number of his race, the ideas of the gods, and of those attributes
with which they are clothed, have their foundation, take their rise in,
are the fruit of the opinions of his fathers, traditionally infused into
him by education—confirmed by habit—corroborated by example—enforced
by authority. That it very rarely happens he examines these ideas; that
they are for the most part adopted by inexperience, propagated by tuition,
rendered sacred by time, inviolable from respect to his progenitors,
reverenced as forming part of those institutions he has most learned to
value. He thinks he has always had them, because he has had them from his
infancy; he considers them indubitable, because he is never permitted to
question them—because he never has the intrepidity to examine their
basis.

If it had been the destiny of a Brachman, or a Mussulman, to have drawn
his first breath on the shores of Africa, he would adore, with as much
simplicity, with as much fervour, the serpent reverenced by the Negroes,
as he does the God his own metaphysicians have offered to his reverence.
He would be equally indignant if any one should presumptuously dispute the
divinity of this reptile, which he would have learned to venerate from the
moment he quitted the womb of his mother, as the most zealous,
enthusiastic fakir, when the marvellous wonders of his prophet should be
brought into question; or as the most subtile theologian when the inquiry
turned upon the incongruous qualities with which he has decorated his
gods. Nevertheless, if this serpent god of the Negro should be contested,
they could not at least dispute his existence. Simple as may be the mind
of this dark son of nature, uncommon as may be the qualities with which he
has clothed his reptile, he still may be evidenced by all who choose to
exercise their organs of sight; not so with the theologian; he absolutely
questions the existence of every other god but that which he himself has
formed; which is questioned in its turn by his brother metaphysician. They
are by no means disposed to admit the proofs offered by each other.
Descartes, Paschal, and Doctor Samuel Clarke himself, have been accused of
atheism by the theologians of their time. Subsequent reasoners have made
use of their proofs, and even given them as extremely valid. Doctor Bowman
published a work, in which he pretends all the proofs hitherto brought
forward are crazy and fragile: he of course substitutes his own; which in
their turn have been the subject of animadversion. Thus it would appear
these theologians are not more in accord with themselves than they are
with Turks or Pagans. They cannot even agree as to their proofs of
existence: from age to age new champions arise, new evidence is adduced,
the old discarded, or treated with contempt; profound philosophers, subtle
metaphysicians, are continually attacking each other for their ignorance
on a point of the very first importance. Amidst this variety of
discussion, it is very difficult for simple winds, for those who steadily
search after truth, who only wish to understand what they believe, to find
a point upon which they can fix with reliance—a standard round which
they may rally without fear of danger—a common measure that way
serve them for a beacon to avoid the quicksands of delusion—the
sophistry of polemics.

Men of very great genius have successively miscarried in their
demonstrations; have been held to have betrayed their cause by the
weakness of the arguments by which they have supported it; by the manner
in which they have attempted to establish their positions. Thus many of
them, when they believed they had surmounted a difficulty, had the
mortification to find they had only given birth to an hundred others. They
seem, indeed, not to be in a capacity to understand each other, or to
agree among themselves, when they reason upon the nature and qualities of
beings created by such a variety of imaginations, which each contemplates
diversely, upon which the natural self-love of each disputant induces him
to reject with vehement indignation every thing that does not fall in with
his own peculiar mode of thinking—that does not quadrate either with
his superstition or his ignorance, or sometimes with both.

The opponents of Clarke charge him with begging the question in his work
on The Being and Attributes of God. They say he has pretended to
prove this existence a priori, which they deem impossible, seeing
there is nothing anterior to the first of causes; that therefore it can
only be proved a posteriori, that is to say, by its effects. Law,
in his Inquiry into the Ideas of Space, Time, Immensity, &c.
has attacked him very triumphantly, for this manner of proof, which is
stated to be so very repugnant to the school-men. His arguments have been
treated with no more ceremony by Thomas D’Aquinas, John Scott, and others
of the schools. At the present day I believe he is held in more respect—that
his authority outweighs that of all his antagonists together. Be that as
it may, those who have followed him have done nothing more than either
repeat his ideas, or present his evidence under a new form. Tillotson
argues at great length, but it would be rather difficult to understand
which side of the question he adopts on this momentous subject; whether he
is a Necessitarian, or among the opposers of Fatalism. Speaking of man, he
says, “he is liable to many evils and miseries, which he can neither
prevent or redress; he is full of wants, which he cannot supply, and
compassed about with infirmities which he cannot remove, and obnoxious to
dangers which he can never sufficiently provide against: he is apt to
grieve for what he cannot help, and eagerly to desire what he is never
able to obtain.” If the proofs of Clarke, who has drawn them up in twelve
propositions, are examined with attention, I think they may be fairly
shielded from the reproach with which they have been loaded; it does not
appear that he has proved his positions a priori, but a
posteriori, according to rule. It seems clear, however, that he has
mistaken the proof of the existence of the effects, for the proof of the
existence of the cause: but here he seems to have more reason than his
critics, who in their eagerness to prove that Clarke has not conformed to
the rules of the schools, would entirely overlook the best, the surest
foundation whereon to rest the existence of the Great Cause of causes,
that Parent of Parents, whose wisdom shines so manifestly in
nature, of which Clarke’s work may be said to be such a masterly evidence.
We shall follow, step by step, the different propositions in which this
learned divine developes the received opinions upon the Divinity; which,
when applied to nature, will be found to be so accurate, so correct, as to
leave no further room to doubt either the existence or the wisdom of her
great author, thus proved through her own existence. Dr. Clarke sets out
with saying:

“1st. Something has existed from all eternity.”

This proposition is evident—hath no occasion for proofs. Matter has
existed from all eternity, its forms alone are evanescent; matter is the
great engine used by nature to produce all her phenomena, or rather it is
nature herself. We have some idea of matter, sufficient to warrant the
conclusion that this has always existed. First, that which exists,
supposes existence essential to its being. That which cannot, annihilate
itself, exists necessarily; it is impossible to conceive that that which
cannot cease to exist, or that which cannot annihilate itself, could ever
have had a beginning. If matter cannot be annihilated, it could not
commence to be. Thus we say to Dr. Clarke, that it is matter, it is
nature, acting by her own peculiar energy, of which no particle is ever in
an absolute state of rest, which hath always existed. The various material
bodies which this nature contains often change their form, their
combination, their properties, their mode of action: but their principles
or elements are indestructible—have never been able to commence.
What this great scholar actually understands, when he makes the assertion
“that an eternal duration is now actually past,” is not quite so clear;
yet he affirms, “that not to believe it would be a real and express
contradiction.” We may, however, safely admit his argument, “that when
once any proposition is clearly demonstrated to, be true, it ought not to
disturb us that there be perhaps some perplexing difficulties on the other
side, which merely for want of adequate ideas of the manner of the
existence of the things demonstrated, are not easily to be cleared.”

2nd, “There has existed from eternity some one unchangeable and
independent Being.”

We may fairly inquire what is this Being? Is it independent of its own
peculiar essence, or of those properties which constitute it such as it
is? We shall further inquire, if this Being, whatever it may be, can make
the other beings which it produces, or which it moves, act otherwise than
they do, according to the properties which it has given them? And in this
case we shall ask, if this Being, such as it way be supposed to be, does
not act necessarily; if it is not obliged to employ indispensible means to
fulfil its designs, to arrive at the end which it either has, or may be
supposed to have in view? Then we shall say, that nature is obliged to act
after her essence; that every thing which takes place in her is necessary;
but that she is independent of her forms.

A man is said to be independent, when he is determined in his actions only
by the general causes which are accustomed to move him; he is equally said
to be dependent on another, when he cannot act but in consequence of the
determination which this last gives him. A body is dependent on another
body when it owes to it its existence, and its mode of action. A being
existing from eternity cannot owe his existence to any other being; he
cannot then be dependent upon him, except he owes his action to him; but
it is evident that an eternal or self-existent Being contains in his own
nature every thing that is necessary for him to act: then, matter being
eternal, is necessarily independent in the sense we have explained; of
course it hath no occasion for a mover upon which it ought to depend.

This eternal Being is also immutable, if by this attribute be understood
that he cannot change his nature; but if it be intended to infer by it
that he cannot change his mode of action or existence, it is without doubt
deceiving themselves, since even in supposing an immaterial being, they
would be obliged to acknowledge in him different modes of being, different
volitions, different ways of acting; particularly if he was not supposed
totally deprived of action, in which case he would be perfectly useless.
Indeed it follows of course that to change his mode of action he must
necessarily change his manner of being. From hence it will be obvious,
that the theologians, in making their gods immutable, render them
immoveable, consequently they cannot act. An immutable being, could
evidently neither have successive volition, nor produce successive action;
if this being hath created matter, or given birth to the universe, there
must have been a time in which he was willing that this matter, this
universe, should exist; and this time must have been preceded by another
time, in which he was willing that it might not yet exist. If God be the
author of all things, as well as of the motion and of the combinations of
matter, he is unceasingly occupied in producing and destroying; in
consequence, he cannot be called immutable, touching his mode of existing.
The material world always maintains itself by motion, and the continual
change of its parts; the sum of the beings who compose it, or of the
elements which act in it, is invariably the same; in this sense the
immutability of the universe is much more easy of comprehension, much more
demonstrable than that of an other being to whom, they would attribute all
the effects, all the mutations which take place. Nature is not more to be
accused of mutability, on account of the succession of its forms, than the
eternal Being is by the theologians, by the diversity of his decrees. Here
we shall be able to perceive that, supposing the laws by which nature acts
to be immutable, it does not require tiny of these logical distinctions to
account for the changes that take place: the mutation which results, is,
on the contrary, a striking proof of the immutability of the system which
produces them; and completely brings mature under the range of this second
proposition as stated by Dr. Clarke.

3dly, “That unchangeable and independent Being which has existed from
eternity without any eternal cause of its existence, must be
self-existent, that is, necessarily existing.”

This proposition is merely a repetition of the first; we reply to it by
inquiring, Why matter, which is indestructible, should not be
self-existent? It is evident that a being who had no beginning, must be
self-existent; if he had existed by another, he would have commenced to
be; consequently he would not be eternal.

4thly, “What the substance or essence of that Being which is
self-existent, or necessarily existing, is, we have no idea; neither is it
at all possible for us to comprehend it.”

Dr. Clarke would perhaps have spoken more correctly if he had said his
essence is impossible to be known: nevertheless, we shall readily concede
that the essence of matter is incomprehensible, or at least that we
conceive it very feebly by the manner in which we are affected by it; but
without this we should be less able to conceive the Divinity, who would
then be impervious on any side. Thus it must necessarily be concluded,
that it is folly to argue upon it, since it is by matter alone we can have
any knowledge of him; that is to say, by which we can assure ourselves of
his existence,—by which we can at all guess at his qualities. In
short we must conclude, that every thing related of the Divinity, either
proves him material, or else proves the impossibility in which the human
mind will always find itself, of conceiving any being different from
matter; without extent, yet omnipresent; immaterial, yet acting upon
matter; spiritual, yet producing matter; immutable, yet putting every
thing in activity, &c.

Indeed it must be allowed that the incomprehensibility of the Divinity
does not distinguish him from matter; this will not be more easy of
comprehension when we shall associate it with a being much less
comprehensible than itself; we have some slender knowledge of it through
some of its parts. We do not certainly know the essence of any being, if
by that word we are to understand that which constitutes its peculiar
nature. We only know matter by the sensations, the perceptions, the ideas
which it furnishes; it is according to these that we judge it to be either
favorable or unfavourable, following the particular disposition of our
organs. But when a being does not act upon any part of our organic
structure, it does not exist for us; we cannot, without exhibiting folly,
without betraying our ignorance, without falling into obscurity, either
speak of its nature, or assign its qualities; our senses are the only
channel by which we could have formed the slightest idea of it; these not
having received any impulse, we are, in point of fact, unacquainted with
its existence. The incomprehensibility of the Divinity ought to convince
man that it is a point at which he is bound to stop; indeed he is placed
in a state of utter incapacity to proceed: this, however, would not suit
with those speculators who are willing to reason upon him continually, to
shew the depth of their learning,—to persuade the uninformed they
understand that which is incomprehensible to all men; by which they expect
to be able to submit him to their own views. Nevertheless, if the Divinity
be incomprehensible, It would not be straining a point beyond its tension,
to conclude that a priest, or metaphysician, did not comprehend him better
than other men: it is not, perhaps, either the wisest or the surest way to
become acquainted with him, to represent him to ourselves, by the
imagination of a theologian.

5thly, “Though the substance, or essence of the self-existent Being, is
in itself absolutely incomprehensible to us, yet many of the essential
attributes of his nature are strictly demonstrable, as well as his
existence. Thus, in the first place, the self-existent Being must of
necessity be eternal.”

This proposition differs in nothing from the first, except Dr. Clarke does
not here understand that as the self-existent Being had no beginning, he
can have no end. However this may be, we must ever inquire, Why this
should not be matter? We shall further observe, that matter not being
capable of annihilation, exists necessarily, consequently will never cease
to exist; that the human mind has no means of conceiving how matter should
originate from that which is not itself matter: is it not obvious, that
matter is necessary; that there is nothing, except its powers, its
arrangement, its combinations, which are contingent or evanescent? The
general motion is necessary, but the given motion is not so; only during
the season that the particular combinations subsist, of which this motion
is the consequence, or the effect: we may be competent to change the
direction, to either accelerate or retard, to suspend or arrest, a
particular motion, but the general motion can never possibly be
annihilated. Man, in dying, ceases to live; that is to say, he no longer
either walks, thinks, or acts in the mode which is peculiar to human
organization: but the matter which composed his body, the matter which
formed his mind, does not cease to move on that account: it simply becomes
susceptible of another species of motion.

6thly, “The self-existent Being must of necessity be infinite and
omnipresent.”

The word infinite presents only a negative idea—which excludes all
bounds: it is evident that a being who exists necessarily, who is
independent, cannot be limited by any thing which is out of himself; he
must consequently be his own limits; in this sense we may say he is
infinite.

Touching what is said of his omnipresence, it is equally evident that if
there be nothing exterior to this being, either there is no place in which
he must not be present, or that there will be only himself and the vacuum.
This granted, I shall inquire if matter exists; if it does not at least
occupy a portion of space? In this case, matter, or the universe, must
exclude every other being who is not matter, from that place which the
material beings occupy in space. In asking whether the gods of the
theologians be by chance the abstract being which they call the vacuum or
space, they will reply, no! They will further insist, that their gods, who
are not matter, penetrate that which is matter. But it must be obvious,
that to penetrate matter, it is necessary to have some correspondence with
matter, consequently to have extent; now to have extent, is to have one of
the properties of matter. If the Divinity penetrates matter, then he is
material; by a necessary deduction he is inseparable from matter; then if
he is omnipresent, he will be in every thing. This the theologian will not
allow: he will say it is a mystery; by which I shall understand that he is
himself ignorant how to account for his own positions; this will not be
the case with making nature act after immutable laws; she will of
necessity be every where, in my body, in my arm, in every other material
being, because matter composes them all. The Divinity who has given this
invariable system, will without any incongruous reasoning, without any
subterfuge, be also present every where, inasmuch as the laws he has
prescribed will unchangeably act through the whole; this does not seem
inconsistent with reason to suppose.

7th, “The Self-existent Being must of necessity be but one.”

If there he nothing exterior to a being who exists necessarily, it must
follow that he is unique. It will be obvious that this proposition is the
same with the preceding one; at least, if they are not willing to deny the
existence of the material world.

8th, “The self-existent and original Cause of all things, must be an
intelligent being.”

Here Dr. Clarke most unquestionably assigneth a human quality:
intelligence is a faculty appertaining to organized or animated beings, of
which we have no knowledge out of these beings. To have intelligence, it
is necessary to think; to think, it is requisite to have ideas; to have ideas,
supposes senses; when senses exist they are material; when they are
material, they cannot be a pure spirit, in the language of the theologian.

The necessary Being who comprehends, who contains, who produces animated
beings, contains, includes, and produceth intelligence. But has the great
whole a peculiar intelligence, which moveth it, which maketh it act, which
determineth it in the mode that intelligence moves and determines animated
bodies; or rather, is not this intelligence the consequence of immutable
laws, a certain modification resulting from certain combinations of
matter, which exists under one form of these combinations, but is wanting
under another form? This is assuredly what nothing is competent
absolutely, and demonstrably to prove. Man having placed himself in the
first rank in the universe, has been desirous to judge of every thing
after what he saw within himself, because he hath pretended that in order
to be perfect it was necessary to be like himself. Here is the source of
all his erroneous reasoning upon nature—the foundation of his ideas
upon his gods. He has therefore concluded, perhaps not with the most
polished wisdom, that it would be indecorous in himself, injurious to the
Divinity, not to invest him with a quality which is found estimable in man—which
he prizes highly—to which he attaches the idea of perfection—which
he considers as a manifest proof of superiority. He sees his
fellow-creature is offended when he is thought to lack intelligence; he
therefore judges it to be the same with the Divinity. He denies this
quality to nature, because he considers her a mass of ignoble matter,
incapable of self-action; although she contains and produces intelligent
beings. But this is rather a personification of an abstract quality, than
an attribute of the Deity, with whose perfections, with whose mode of
existence, he cannot by any possible means become acquainted according to
the fifth proposition of Dr. Clarke himself. It is in the earth that is
engendered those living animals called worms; yet we do not say the earth
is a living creature. The bread which man eats, the wine that he drinks,
are not themselves thinking substances; yet they nourish, sustain, and
cause those beings to think, who are susceptible of this modification of
their existence. It is likewise in nature, that is formed intelligent,
feeling, thinking beings; yet it cannot be rationally said, that nature
feels, thinks, and is intelligent after the manner of these beings, who
nevertheless spring out of her bosom.

How! cries the metaphysician, the subtilizing philosopher, what! refuse to
the Divinity, those qualities we discover in his creatures? Must, then,
the work be more perfect than the workman? Shall God, who made the eye,
not himself see? Shall God, who formed the ear, not himself hear! This at
a superficial view appears insuperable: but are the questioners, however
triumphantly they may make the inquiry, themselves aware of the length
this would carry them, even if their queries were answered with the most
unqualified affirmative? Have they sufficiently reflected on the tendency
of this mode of reasoning? If this be admitted as a postulatum, are they
prepared to follow it in all its extent? Suppose their argument granted,
what is to be done with all those other qualities upon which man does not
set so high a value? Are they also to be ascribed to the Divinity, because
we do not refuse him qualities possessed by his creatures? By a parity of
reasoning we should attach faculties that would be degrading to the
Divinity. Thus it ever happens with those who travel out of the limits of
their own knowledge; they involve themselves in perpetual contradictions
which they can never reconcile; which only serve to prove that in arguing
upon points, on which universal ignorance prevails, the result is
constantly that all the deductions made from such unsteady principles,
must of necessity be at war with each other, in hostility with themselves.
Thus, although we cannot help feeling the profound wisdom, that must have
dictated the system we see act with such uniformity, with such constancy,
with such astonishing power, we cannot form the most slender idea of the
particular nature of that wisdom; because if we were for an instant to
assimilate it to our own, weak and feeble as it is, we should from that
instant be in a state of contradiction; seeing we could not then avoid
considering the evil we witness, the sorrow we experience, as a
dereliction of this wisdom, which at least proves one great truth, that
we are utterly incapable of forming an idea of the Divinity. But in
contemplating things as our own experience warrants in whatever we do
understand, in considering nature as acting by unchangeable laws, we find
good and evil necessarily existing, without at all involving the wisdom of
the great Cause of causes; who thus has no need to remedy that,
which the further progress of the eternal system will regulate of itself,
or which industry and patient research on our parts will enable us to
discover the means of futurely avoiding.

9th, “The self-existent and original Cause of all things, is not a
necessary agent, but a being endued with liberty and choice.”

Man is called free, when he finds within himself motives that determine
him to action, or when his will meets no obstacle to the performance of
that to which his motives have determined him. The necessary Being of
which question is here made, doth he find no obstacles to the execution of
the projects which are attributed to him? Is he willing, adopting their
own hypothesis, that evil should be committed, or can he not prevent it?
In this latter case he is not free; if his will does meet with obstacles,
if he is willing to permit evil; then he suffers man to restrain his
liberty, by deranging his projects; if he has not these projects, then
they are themselves in error who ascribe them to him. How will the
metaphysicians draw themselves out of this perplexing intricacy?

The further a theologian goes, whilst considering his gods as possessed of
human qualities, as acting by mortal motives, the more he flounders—the
greater the mass of contradiction he heaps together: thus if it be asked
of him, can God reward crime, punish virtue, he will immediately answer,
no! In this answer he will have truth: but then this truth, and the
freedom which is ascribed to him, cannot, according to human ideas, exist
together; because if this being cannot love vice, cannot hate virtue, and
it is evident he cannot, he is in fact not more free than man himself.
Again, God is said to have made a covenant with his creatures; now it is
the very essence of a covenant to restrict choice; and that being must be
considered a necessary agent who is under the necessity of fulfilling any
given act. As it is impossible to suppose the Divinity can act
irrationally, it must be conceded that as he made these laws, he is
himself obliged to follow them: because if he was not, as we must again
suppose he does nothing without a good reason, he would thereby imply,
that the mode of action he adopted would be wiser; which would again
involve a contradiction. The theologians fearing, without doubt, to
restrain the liberty of the Divinity, have supposed it was necessary that
he should not be bound by his own laws, in which they have shewn somewhat
more ignorance of their subject than they imagined.

10th, “The self-existent Being, the supreme Cause of all things, must
of necessity have infinite power.”

As nature is adequate to produce every thing we see—as she contains
the whole united power of the universe, her power has consequently no
limits: the being who conferred this power cannot have less. But if the
ideas of the theologians were adopted, this power would not appear quite
so unlimited; since, according to them, man is a free agent, consequently
has the means of acting contrary to this power, which at once sets a
boundary to it. An equitable monarch is perhaps nothing less than he is a
free agent; when he believes himself bound to act conformably to the laws,
which he has sworn to observe, or which he cannot violate without wounding
his justice. The theologian is a man who may be very fairly estimated
neuter; because he destroys with one hand what he establishes with the
other.

11th, “The Supreme Cause and Author of all things, must of necessity be
infinitely wise.”

As nature produces all things by certain immutable laws, it will require
no great difficulty to allow that she may be infinitely wise: indeed,
whatever side of the argument may be taken, this fact will result as a
necessary consequence. It will hardly admit of a question that all things
are produced by nature: if, therefore, we do not allow her wisdom to be
first rate, it would be an insult to the Divinity, who gave her her
system. If the theologian himself is to take the lead, he also admits that
nature operates under the immediate auspices of his gods; whatever she
does, must then, according to his own shewing, be executed with the most
polished wisdom. But the theologian is not satisfied with going thus far:
he will insist, not only that he knows what these things are, but also
that he knows the end they have in view: this, unfortunately, is the rock
he splits upon. According to his own admission, the ways of God are
impenetrable to man. If we grant his position, what is the result? Why,
that it is at random he speaks. If these ways are impenetrable, by what
means did he acquire his knowledge of them? How did he discover the end
proposed by the Deity? If they are not impenetrable, they then can be
equally known to other men as to himself. The theologian would be puzzled
to shew he has any more privileges in nature than his fellow mortals.
Again, if he has asserted these things to be impenetrable, when they are
not so, he is then in the situation that he has himself placed Mahomet: he
is no longer worthy of being attended to, because he has swerved from
veracity. It certainly is not very consistent with the sublime idea of the
Divinity that he should be clothed with that weak, vain passion of man,
called glory: the being who had the faculty of producing such a system as
it operated in nature, could hardly be supposed to have such a frivolous
passion as we know this to be in our fellows: and as we can never reason
but after what we do know, it would appear nothing can be more
inconsistent than thus continually heaping together our own feeble,
inconsistent views, and then supposing the great Cause of causes
acts by such futile rules.

12th, “The supreme Cause and Author of all things must of necessity be
a being of infinite goodness, justice, and truth, and all other moral
perfections, such as become the supreme governor and judge of the world.”

We must again repeat that these are human qualities drawn from the model
of man himself; they only suppose a being of the human species, who should
be divested of what we call imperfections: this is certainly the highest
point of view in which our finite minds are capable of contemplating the
Divinity: but as this being has neither species nor cause, consequently no
fellow creatures, he must necessarily be of an order so different to man,
that human faculties can in no wise be appropriately assigned to him. The
idea of perfection, as man understands it, is an abstract, metaphysical,
negative idea, of which he has no archetype whereby to form a judgment: he
would call that a perfect being, who, similar to himself, was wanting in
those qualities which he finds prejudicial to him; but such a being would
after all be no wore than a man. It is always relatively to himself, to
his own mode of feeling and of thinking, that a thing is either perfect or
imperfect; it is according to this, that in his eyes a thing is more or
less useful or prejudicial; agreeable or disagreeable. Justice includes
all moral perfections. One of the most prominent features of justice, in
the ideas of man, is the equity of the relations subsisting between
beings, founded upon their mutual wants. According to the theologian, his
gods owe nothing to man. How then does he measure out his ideas of
justice? For a monarch to say he owed nothing to his subjects, would be
considered, even by this theologian himself, as rank injustice; because he
would expect the fulfilment of duties on their part, without exercising
those which devolved upon himself. Duties, according to the only idea man
can form of them, must be reciprocal. It is rather stretching the human
capabilities, to understand the relations between a pure spirit and
material beings—between finity and infinity—between eternal
beings and those which are transitory: thus it is, that metaphysics hold
forth an inconceivable being by the very attributes with which they clothe
him; for either he has these attributes, or he has them not: whether he
has them or has them not, man can only understand them after his own
powers of comprehension. If he does at all understand them, he cannot have
the slightest idea of justice unaccompanied by duties, which are the very
basis, the superstructure, the pillars upon which this virtue rests.
Whether we are to view it as self-love or ignorance in the theologian,
that he thus dresses up his gods after himself, it certainly was not the
happiest effort of his imagination to work by an inverse rule: for,
according to himself, the qualities he describes are all the negation of
what he calls them. Doctor Clarke himself stumbles a little upon these
points; he insists upon free agency, and uses this extraordinary method to
support his argument; he says, “God is, by necessity, a free agent: and he
can no more possibly cease to be so, than he can cease to exist. He must
of necessity, every moment choose to act, or choose to forbear acting;
because two contradictories cannot possibly be true at once. Man also is
by necessity, not in the nature of things, but through God’s appointment,
a free agent. And it is no otherwise in his power to cease to be such,
than by depriving himself of life.” Will Doctor Clarke permit us to put
one simple question: If to be obligated to do a certain given thing, is to
be free, what is it to be coerced? Or if two contradictories cannot be
true at once, by what rule of logic are we to measure the idea of that
freedom which arises out of necessity. Supposing necessity to be what Dr.
Johnson, (using Milton as his authority) says it is, “compulsion,”
“fatality,” would it be considered a man was less restrained in his
actions because he was only compelled to do what was right? The restraint
would undoubtedly he beneficial to him, but it would not therefore render
him more a free agent. If the Divinity cannot love wickedness, cannot hate
goodness, (and surely the theologians themselves will not pretend he can,)
then the power of choice has no existence as far as these two things are
concerned; and this upon Clarke’s own principle, because two
contradictories cannot be true at once. Nothing could, I think, appear a
greater contradiction, than the idea that the Great Cause of causes
could by any possibility love vice: if such a monstrous principle could
for a moment have existence, there would be an end of all the foundations
of religion.

The Doctor is very little happier in reasoning upon immateriality.
He says, by way of illustrating his argument, “that it is possible to
infinite power to create an immaterial cogitative substance, endued with a
power of beginning motion, and with a liberty of will or choice.” Again,
“that immaterial substances are not impossible; or, that a substance
immaterial is not a contradictory notion. Now, whoever asserts that it is
contradictory, must affirm that whatever is not matter is nothing; and
that, to say any thing exists which is not matter, is saying that there
exists something which is nothing, which in other words is plainly this,—that
whatever we have not an idea of, is nothing, and impossible to be.” It
could, I am apt to believe, never have entered into any reasonable mind
that a thing was impossible because he could have no idea of it:—many
things, on the contrary, are possible, of which we have not the most
slender notion: but it does not, I presume, flow consecutively out of this
admission, that therefore every thing is, which is not impossible. Doctor
Clarke then, rather begs the question on this occasion. In the schools it
is never considered requisite to prove a negative; indeed, this is ranked
by logicians amongst those things impossible to be, but it is considered
of the highest importance to soundness of argument, to establish the
affirmative by the most conclusive reasoning. Taking this for granted, we
will apply the doctor’s own reasoning. He says, “Nothing is that of which
every thing, can truly be affirmed. So that the idea of nothing, if I may
so speak, is absolutely the negative of all ideas; the idea, therefore,
either of a finite or infinite nothing is a contradiction in terms.” To
affirm, of a thing with truth, it must be necessary to be acquainted with
that thing. To have ideas, as we have already proved, it is necessary to
have perceptions; to have perceptions, it is requisite to have sensations;
to have sensations, requires organs. An idea cannot be, and not be, at the
same moment: the idea of substance, it will scarcely be denied, is that of
a thing solid, real, according to Dryden; capable of supporting accidents,
according to Watts; something of which we can say that it is, according to
Davies; body, corporeal nature, according to Newton; the idea of
immaterial, according to Hooker, is incorporeal. How then am I to
understand immaterial substance? Is it not, according to these
definitions, that which cannot couple together? If a thing be immaterial,
it cannot be a substance; if a substance, it cannot be immaterial: those I
apprehend will not have many ideas, who do not see this is a complete
negative of all ideas. If, therefore, on the outset, the doctor cannot
find words, by which he can convey the idea of that of which he is so
desirous to prove the existence, by what chain of reasoning does he
flatter himself that he is to be understood? He will endeavour to draw out
of this dilemma, by assuring as there are things which we can neither see
nor touch, but which do not the less exist on that account. Granted: but
from thence we can neither reason upon them, nor assign them qualities; we
must at least either feel them or something like them, before we can have
any idea of them: this, however, would not prove they were not substances,
nor that substances can be immaterial. A thing may with great possibility
exist of which we have no knowledge, and yet be material; but I maintain
until we have a knowledge of it, it exists not for us, any more than
colours exist for a man born blind; the man who has sight knows they do
exist, can describe them to his dark neighbour; from this description the
blind man may form some idea of them by analogy with what he himself
already knows; or, perhaps, having a finer tact than his neighbour, he may
be enabled to distinguish them by their surfaces; it would, therefore, be
bad reasoning in the man born blind, to deny the existence of colours;
because although these colours may have no relation with the senses in the
absence of sight, they have with those who have it in their power to see
and to know them: this blind man, however, would-appear a little
ridiculous if he undertook to define them with all their gradations of
shade; with all their variations under different masses of light. Again,
if those who were competent to discriminate these modifications of matter
called colours, were to define them to this blind man, as those
modifications of matter called sound, would the blind man be able to have
any conception of them? It certainly would not be wise in him to aver,
that such a thing as colorific sound had no existence, was impossible; but
at least he would be very justifiable in saying, they appeared
contradictions, because he had some ideas of sound which did not at all
aid him in forming those of colour; he would not, perhaps, be very
inconclusive if he suspected the competency of his informer to the
definition attempted, from his inability to convey to him in any distinct,
understood terms, his own ideas of colours. The theologian is a blind man,
who would explain to others who are also blind, the shades and colours of
a portrait whose original he has not even stumbled upon in the dark. There
is nothing incongruous in supposing that every thing which has existence
is matter; but it requires the complete inversion of all our ideas, to
conceive that which is immaterial; because, in point of fact, this would
be a quality of which “nothing can with truth be affirmed.”

It is, indeed true, that Plato, who was a great creator of chimeras, says,
“those who admit nothing but what they can see and feel, are stupid
ignorant beings, who refuse to admit the reality of the existence of
invisible things.” With all due deference to such an authority, we may
still venture to ask, is there then no difference, no shade, no gradation,
between an admission of possibilities and the proof of realities. Theology
would then be the only science in which it is permitted to conclude that a
thing is, as soon as it is possible to be. Will the assertion of either
Clarke or Plato stand absolutely in place of all evidence? Would they
themselves permit such to be convincing if used against them? The
theologians evidently hold this Platonic, this dogmatical language; they
have dreamed the dreams of their master; perhaps if they were examined a
little, they would be found nothing more than the result of those obscure
notions, those unintelligible metaphysics, adopted by the Egyptian,
Chaldean, and Assyrian priests, among whom Plato drew up his philosophy.
If, however, philosophy means that which we are led to suppose it does, by
the great John Locke, it is “a system by which natural effects are
explained.” Taken in this sense we shall be under the necessity of
agreeing, that the Platonic doctrines in no wise merit this distinction,
seeing he has only drawn the human mind from the contemplation of visible
nature, to plunge it into the unfathomable depths of invisibility—of
intangibility—of suppositious speculation, where it can find little
other food except chimeras or conjecture. Such a philosophy is rather
fantastical, yet it would seem we are required to subscribe to its
positions without being allowed to compare them with reason, to examine
them through the medium of experience, to try the gold by the action of
fire: thus we have in abundance the terms spirits, incorporeal substances,
invisible powers, supernatural effects, innate ideas, mysterious virtues,
possessed by demons, &c. &c. which render our senses entirely
useless, which put to flight every thing like experience; while we are
gravely told that “nothing is that, of which no thing can truly be
affirmed.” Whoever may be willing to take the trouble of reading the works
of Plato and his disciples, such as Proclus, Iamblicus, Plotinus, and
others, will not fail to find in them almost every doctrine, every
metaphysical subject of the theologian; in fact, the theurgy of many of
the modern superstitions, which for the most part seems to be little more
than a slight variation of that adopted by the ethnic priests. Dreamers
have not had that variety in their follies, that has generally been
imagined. That some of these things should be extensively admitted, by no
means affords proof of their existence. Nothing appears more facile than
to make mankind admit the greatest absurdities, under the imposing name of
mysteries; after having imbued him from his infancy with maxims calculated
to hoodwink his reason—to lead him astray—to prevent him from
examining that which he is told he must believe. Of this there cannot well
exist a more decisive proof than the great extent of country, the millions
of human beings who faithfully and without examination have adopted the
idle dreams, the rank absurdities, of that arch impostor Mahomet. However
this may be, we shall be obliged again to reply to Plato, and to those of
his followers who impose upon us the necessity of believing that which we
cannot comprehend, that, in order to know that a thing exists, it is at
least necessary to have some idea of it; that this idea can only come to
us by the medium of our senses; that consequently every thing of which our
senses do not give us a knowledge, is in fact nothing for us; and can only
rest upon our faith; upon that admission which is pretty generally, even
by the theologian himself, considered as rather a sandy foundation whereon
to erect the altar of truth: that if there be an absurdity in not
accrediting the existence of that which we do not know, there is no less
extravagance in assigning it qualities; in reasoning upon its properties;
in clothing it with faculties, which may or may not be suitable to its
mode of existence; in substituting idols of our own creation; in combining
incompatible attributes, which will neither bear the test of experience
nor the scrutiny of reason; and then endeavouring to make the whole pass
current by dint of the word infinite, which we will now examine.

Infinite, according to Dennis, means “boundless, unlimited.” Doctor Clarke
thus describes it:—he says, “The self-existent being must be a most
simple, unchangeable incorruptible being; without parts, figure, motion,
divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter. For all
these things do plainly and necessarily imply finiteness in their very
notion, and are utterly inconsistent with complete infinity.” Ingenuously,
is it possible for man to form any true notion of such a quality? The
theologians themselves acknowledge he cannot. Further, the Doctor allows,
“That as to the particular manner of his being infinite, or every where
present, in opposition to the manner of created things being present in
such or such finite places, this is as impossible for our finite
understandings to comprehend or explain, as it is for us to form an
adequate idea of infinity.” What is this, then, but that which no man can
explain or comprehend? If it cannot be comprehended, it cannot be
detailed; if it cannot be detailed, it is precisely “that of which nothing
can with truth be affirmed;” and this is Dr. Clarke’s own explanation of
nothing. Indeed, is not the human mind obliged by its very nature to join
limited quantities to other quantities, which it can only conceive as
limited, in order to form to itself a sort of confused idea of something
beyond its own grasp, without ever reaching the point of infinity, which
eludes every attempt at definition? Then it would appear that it is an
abstraction, a mere negation of limitation.

Our learned adversary seems to think it strange that the existence of
incorporeal, immaterial substances, the essence of which we are not able
to comprehend, should not be generally accredited. To enforce this belief,
he says, “There is not so mean and contemptible a plant or animal, that
does not confound the most enlarged understanding, upon earth: nay, even
the simplest and plainest of all inanimate beings have their essence or
substance hidden from us in the deepest and most impenetrable obscurity.”

We shall reply to him,

First, That the idea of an immaterial substance; or being without
extent, is only an absence of ideas, a negation of extent, as we have
already shewn; that when we are told a being is not matter, they speak to
us of that which is not, and do not teach us that which is; because by
insisting that a being is such, that it cannot act upon any of our senses,
they, in fact, inform us that we have no means of assuring ourselves
whether such being exists or not.

Secondly, We shall avow without the least hesitation, that men of
the greatest genius, of the most indefatigable research, are not
acquainted with the essence of stones, plants, animals, nor with the
secret springs which constitute some, which make others vegetate or act:
but then at least we either feel them or see them; our senses have a
knowledge of them in some respects; we can perceive some of their effects;
we have something whereby to judge of them, either accurately or
inaccurately; we can conceive that which is matter, however varied,
however subtle, however minute, by analogy with other matter; but our
senses cannot compass that which is immaterial on any side; we cannot by
any possible means understand it; we have no means whatever of
ascertaining its existence; consequently we cannot even form an idea of
it; such a being is to us an occult principle, or rather a being which
imagination has composed, by deducting from it every known quality. If we
are ignorant of the intimate combination of the most material beings, we
at least discover, with the aid of experience, some of their relations
with ourselves: we have a knowledge of their surface, their extent, their
form, their colour, their softness, their density; by the impressions they
make on our senses, we are capable of discriminating them—of
comparing them—of judging of them in some manner—of seeing
them—of either avoiding or courting them, according to the different
modes in which we are affected by them; we cannot apply any of these tests
to immaterial beings; to spirits; neither can those men who are
unceasingly talking to mankind of these inconceivable things.

Thirdly, We have a consciousness of certain modifications in
ourselves, which we call sentiment, thought, will, passions: for want of
being acquainted with our own peculiar essence; for want of precisely
understanding the energy of our own particular organization, we attribute
these effects to a concealed cause, distinguished from ourselves; which
the theologians call a spiritual cause, inasmuch as it appears to act
differently from our body. Nevertheless, reflection, experience, every
thing by which we are enabled to form any kind of judgment, proves that
material effects can only emanate from material causes. We see nothing in
the universe but physical, material effects, these can only be produced by
analogous causes; it is, then certainly more rational to attribute them to
nature herself, of which we may know something, if we will but deign to
meditate her with attention, rather than to spiritual causes, of which we
must for ever remain ignorant, let us study them as long as we please.

If incomprehensibility be not a sufficient reason for absolutely denying
the possibility of immateriality, it certainly is not of a cogency to
establish its existence; we shall always be less in a capacity to
comprehend a spiritual cause, than one that is material; because
materiality is a known quality; spirituality is an occult, an unknown
quality; or rather it is a mode of speech of which we avail ourselves to
throw a veil over our own ignorance. We are repeatedly told that our
senses only bring us acquainted with the external of things; that our
limited ideas are not capable of conceiving immaterial beings: we agree
frankly to this position; but then our senses do not even shew us the
external of these immaterial substances, Which the theologians will
nevertheless attempt to define to us; upon which they unceasingly dispute
among themselves; upon which even until this day they are not in perfect
unison with each other. The great John Locke in his familiar letters,
says, “I greatly esteem all those who faithfully defend their opinions;
but there are so few persons who, according to the manner they do defend
them, appear fully convinced of the opinions they profess, that I am
tempted to believe there are more sceptics in the world than are generally
imagined.”

Abady, one of the most strenuous supporters of immaterialism, says, “The
question is not what incorporeity is, but whether it be.” To settle this
disputable point, it were necessary to have some data whereon to form our
judgment; but how assure ourselves of the existence of that, of which we
shall never be competent to have a knowledge? If we are not told what this
is; if some tangible evidence be not offered to the human mind; how shall
we feel ourselves capacitated to judge whether or not its existence be
even possible? How form an estimate of that picture whose colours elude
our sight, whose design we cannot perceive, whose features have no means
of becoming familiar to our mind, whose very canvas refuses itself to our
all research, of which the artist himself can afford no other idea, no
other description, but that it is, although he himself can neither shew us
how or where! We have seen the ruinous foundations upon which men have
hitherto erected this fanciful idea of immateriality; we have examined the
proofs which they have offered, if proofs they can be called, in support
of their hypothesis; we have sifted the evidence they have been willing to
have accredited, in order to establish their position; we have pointed out
the numberless contradictions that result from their want of union on this
subject, from the irreconcileable qualities with which they clothe their
imaginary system. What conclusion, then, ought fairly, rationally,
consistently, to be drawn from the whole? Can we, or can we not admit
their argument to be conclusive, such as ought to be received by beings
who think themselves sane? Will it allow any other inference than that it
has no existence; that immateriality is a quality hitherto unproved; the
idea of which the mind of man has no means of compassing? Still they will
insist, “there are no contradictions between the qualities which they
attribute to these immaterial substances; but there is a difference
between the understanding of man and the nature of these substances.” This
granted, are they nearer the point at which they labour? What standard is
it necessary man should possess, to enable him to judge of these
substances? Can they shew the test that will lead to an acquaintance with
them? Are not those who have thus given loose to their imagination, who
have given birth to this system, themselves men? Does not the
disproportion, of which they speak with such amazing confidence, attach to
themselves as well as to others? If it needs an infinite mind to
comprehend infinity—to form an idea of incorporeity—can the
theologian himself boast he is in a capacity to understand it? To what
purpose then is it they speak of these things to others? Why do they
attempt descriptions of that which they allow to be indescribable? Man,
who will never be an infinite being, will never be able to conceive
infinity; if, then, he has hitherto been incompetent to this perfection of
knowledge, can he reasonably flatter himself he will ever obtain it; can
he hope under any circumstances to conquer that which according to the
shewing of all is unconquerable?

Nevertheless it is pretended, that it is absolutely necessary to know
these substances: but how prove the necessity of having a knowledge of
that which is impossible to be known? We are then told that good sense and
reason are sufficient to convince us of its existence: this is taking new
ground, when the old has been found untenable: for we are also told that
reason is a treacherous guide; one that frequently leads us astray; that
in religious matters it ought not to prevail: at least then they ought to
shew us the precise time when we must resume this reason. Shall we consult
it again, when the question is, whether what they relate is probable;
whether the discordant qualities which they unite are consistently
combined; whether their own arguments have all that solidity which they
would themselves wish them to possess? But we have strangely mistaken them
if they are willing that we should recur to it upon these points; they
will instead, insist we ought blindly to be directed by that which they
vouchsafe to inform us; that the most certain road to happiness is to
submit in all things to that which they have thought proper to decide on
the nature of things, of which they avow their own ignorance, when they
assert them to be beyond the reach of mortals. Thus it would appear that
when we should consent to accredit these mysteries, it would never arise
of our own knowledge; seeing this can no otherwise obtain but by the
effect of demonstrable evidence; it would never arise from any intimate
conviction of our minds; but it would be entirely on the word of the
theologian himself, that we should ground our faith; that we should yield
our belief. If these things are to the human species what colours are to
the man born blind, they have at least no existence with relation to
ourselves. It will avail the blind man nothing to tell him these colours
have no less existence, because he cannot see them. But what shall we say
of that portrait whose colours the blind man attempts to explain, whose
features he is willing we should receive upon his authority, whose
proportions are to be taken from his description, merely because we know
he cannot behold them?

The Doctor, although unwilling to relinquish his subject, removes none of
the difficulty when he asks, “Are our five senses, by an absolute
necessity in the nature of the thing, all and the only possible ways of
perception? And is it impossible and contradictory there should be any
being in the universe, indued with ways of perception different from these
that are the result of our present composition? Or are these things, on
the contrary, purely arbitrary; and the same power that gave us these, may
have given others to other beings, and might, if he had pleased have given
to us others in this present state?” It seems perfectly unnecessary to the
true point of the argument to reason upon what can or cannot be done: I
therefore reply, that the fact is, we have but five senses: by the aid of
these man is not competent to form any idea whatever of immateriality; but
he is also in as absolute a state of ignorance, upon what might be his
capabilities of conception, if he had more senses. It is rather
acknowledging a weakness in his evidence, on the part of the Doctor, to be
thus obliged to rest it upon the supposition of what might be the case, if
man was a being different to what he is; in other words, that they would
be convincing to mankind if the human race were not human beings.
Therefore to demand what the Divinity could have done in such a case, is
to suppose the thing in question, seeing we cannot form an idea how far
the power of the Divinity extends: but we may be reasonably allowed to use
the theological argument in elucidation; these men very gravely insist,
upon what authority must be best known to themselves, “that God cannot
communicate to his works that perfection which he himself possesses;” at
the same moment they do not fail to announce his omnipotence. Will it
require any capacity, more than is the common lot of a child, to
comprehend the absurd contradiction of the two assertions? As beings
possessing but five senses, we must then, of necessity, regulate our
judgment by the information they are capable of affording us: we cannot,
by any possibility, have a knowledge of those, which confer the capacity
to comprehend beings, of an order entirely distinguished from that in
which we occupy a place. We are ignorant of the mode in which even plants
vegetate, how then be acquainted with that which has no affinity with
ourselves? A man born blind, has only the use of four senses; he has not
the right, however, of assuming it as a fact, there does not exist an
extra sense for others; but he may very reasonably, and with great truth
aver, that he has no idea of the effects which would be produced in him,
by the sense which he lacks: notwithstanding, if this blind man was
surrounded by other men, whose birth had also left them devoid or sight,
might he not without any very unwarrantable presumption, be authorized to
inquire of them by what right, upon what authority, they spoke to him of a
sense they did not themselves possess; how they were enabled to reason, to
detail the minutiae of that sensation upon which their own peculiar
experience taught them nothing?

In short, we can again reply to Dr. Clarke, and to the theologians, that
following up their own systems, the supposition is impossible, and ought
not to be made, seeing that the Divinity, who according to their own
shewing, made man, was not willing that he should have more than five
senses; in other words, that he should be nothing but what he actually is;
they all found the existence of these immaterial substances upon the
necessity of a power that has the faculty to give a commencement to
motion. But if matter has always existed, of which there does not seem to
exist a doubt, it has always had motion, which is as essential to it as
its extent, and flows from its primitive properties. Indeed the human
mind, with its five senses, is not more competent to comprehend matter
devoid of motion, than it is to understand the peculiar quality of
immateriality: motion therefore exists only in and by matter; mobility is
a consequence of its existence; not that the great whole can occupy other
parts of space than it actually does; the impossibility of that needs no
argument, but all its parts can change their respective situations—do
continually change them; it is from thence results the preservation, the
life of nature, which is always as a whole immutable: but in supposing, as
is done every day, that matter is inert, that is to say, incapable of
producing any thing by itself, without the assistance of a moving power,
which sets it in motion, are we by any means enabled to conceive that
material nature receives this activity from an agent, who partakes in
nothing of material substance? Can man really figure to himself, even in
idea, that that which has no one property of matter, can create matter,
draw it from its own peculiar source, arrange it, penetrate it, give it
play, guide its course? Is it not, on the contrary, more rational to the
mind, more consistent with truth, more congenial to experience, to suppose
that the being who made matter is himself material: is there the smallest
necessity to suppose otherwise? Can it make man either better or worse,
that he should consider the whole that exists as material? Will it in any
manner make him a worse subject to his sovereign; a worse father to his
children; a more unkind husband; a more faithless friend?

Motion, then, is co-eternal with matter: from all eternity the particles
of the universe have acted and reacted upon each other, by virtue of their
respective energies; of their peculiar essences; of their primitive
elements; of their various combinations. These particles must have
combined in consequence of their affinity; they must have been either
attracted or repelled by their respective relations with each other; in
virtue of these various essences, they must have gravitated one upon the
other; united when they were analagous; separated when that analogy was
dissolved, by the approach of heterogeneous matter; they must have
received their forms, undergone a change of figure, by the continual
collision of bodies. In a material world the acting powers must be
material: in a whole every part of which is essentially in motion, there
is no occasion for a power distinguished from itself; the whole must be in
perpetual motion by its own peculiar energy. The general motion, as we
have elsewhere proved, has its birth from the individual motion, which
beings ever active must uninterruptedly communicate to each other. Thus
every cause produces its effect; this effect in its turn becomes a cause,
which in like manner produces an effect; this constitutes the eternal
chain of things, which although perpetually changing in its detail,
suffers no change in its whole.

Theology, after all, has seldom done more than personify this eternal
series of motion; the principle of mobility inherent to matter: it has
clothed this principle with human qualities, by which it has rendered it
unintelligible: in applying these properties, they have taken no means of
understanding how far they were suitable or not: in their eagerness to
make them assimilate, they have extended them beyond their own conception;
they have heaped them together without any judgment; and they have been
surprised when these qualities, contradictory in themselves, did not
enable them satisfactorily to account for all the phenomena they beheld;
from thence they have wrangled; accused each other of imbecility; yet
infuriated themselves against whoever had the temerity to question that
which they did not themselves understand; in short, they have acted like a
man who should insist that all other men should have precisely the same
vision that he himself had dreamed.

Be this as it may, the greater portion of what either Dr. Clarke or the
theologians tell us, becomes, in some respects, sufficiently intelligible
as soon as applied to nature—to matter: it is eternal, that is to
say, it cannot have had a commencement, it never will have an end; it is
infinite, that is to say, we have no conception of its limits.
Nevertheless, human qualities, which must be always borrowed from
ourselves, and with others we have a very slender acquaintance, cannot be
well suitable to the entire of nature; seeing that these qualities are in
themselves modes of being, or modes which appertain only to particular
beings: not to the great whole which contains them.

Thus, to resume the answers which have been given to Dr. Clarke, we shall
say: First, we can conceive that matter has existed from all
eternity, seeing that we cannot conceive it to have been capable of
beginning. Secondly, that matter is independent, seeing there is
nothing exterior to itself; that it is immutable, seeing it cannot change
its nature, although it is unceasingly changing its form and its
combinations. Thirdly, that matter is self-existent, since not
being able to conceive it can be annihilated, we cannot possibly conceive
it can have commenced to exist. Fourthly, that we do not know the
essence, or the true nature of matter, although we have a knowledge of
some of its properties; of some of its qualities: according to the mode in
which they act upon us. Fifthly, that matter not having had a
beginning, will never have an end, although its numerous combinations, its
various forms, have necessarily a commencement and a period. Sixthly,
that if all that exists, or every thing our mind can conceive is matter,
this matter is infinite; that is to say, cannot be limited by any thing;
that it is omnipresent, seeing there is no place exterior to itself,
indeed, if there was a place exterior to it, that would be a vacuum. Seventhly,
that nature is unique, although its elements or its parts may be varied to
infinity, indued with properties extremely opposite; with qualities
essentially different. Eighthly, that matter, arranged, modified,
and combined in a certain mode, produces in some beings what we call
intelligence, which is one of its modes of being, not one of its essential
properties, Ninthly, that matter is not a free agent, since it
cannot act otherwise than it does, in virtue of the laws of its nature, or
of its existence; that consequently, heavy bodies must necessarily fall;
light bodies by the same necessity rise; fire must burn; man must
experience good and evil, according to the quality of the beings whose
action he experiences. Tenthly, that the power or the energy of
matter, has no other bounds than those which are prescribed by its own
existence. Eleventhly, that wisdom, justice, goodness, &c. are
qualities peculiar to matter combined and modified, as it is found in some
beings of the human species; that the idea of perfection is an abstract,
negative, metaphysical idea, or mode of considering objects, which
supposes nothing real to be exterior to itself. Twelfthly, that
matter is the principle of motion, which it contains within itself: since
matter alone is capable of either giving or receiving motion: this is what
cannot be conceived of immateriality or simple beings destitute of parts,
devoid of extent, without mass, having no ponderosity, which consequently
cannot either move itself or other bodies.

CHAP. V.

Examination of the Proofs offered by DESCARTES, MALEBRANCHE, NEWTON,
&c.

If the evidence of Clarke did not prove satisfactory—if the
theologians of his day disputed the manner in which he handled his subject—if
they were disposed to think he had not established his argument upon
proper foundations, it did not seem probable that either the system of
Descartes, the sublime reveries of Malebranche, or the more methodical
mode adopted by Newton, were at all likely to meet with a better
reception; the same objections will lie against them all, that they have
not demonstrated the existence of their immaterial substances; although
they have incessantly spoken of them, as if they were things of which they
had the most intimate knowledge. Unfortunately this is a rock which the
most sublime geniuses have not been competent to avoid: the most
enlightened men have done little more than stammer upon a subject which
they have all concurred in considering of the highest importance; which
they unceasingly hold forth as the most necessary for man to know; without
at the same time considering he is not in a condition to occupy himself
with objects inaccessible to his senses—which his mind,
consequently, can never grasp—which his utmost research cannot bring
into that tangible shape by which alone he can be enabled to form a
judgment.

To the end that we may be convinced of that want of solidity which the
greatest men have not known how to give to the proofs they have offered,
but which they have successively imagined has established their positions,
let us briefly examine what the most celebrated philosophers, what the
most subtile metaphysicians have said. For this purpose we will begin with
Descartes, the restorer of philosophy among the moderns, to whose sublime
errors we are indebted for the effulgent truths of the Newtonian system.
This great man himself tells us, “All the strength of argument which I
have hitherto used to prove the existence of immaterial substances,
consists in this, that I acknowledge it would not be possible, my nature
was such as it is, that is to say, that I should have in me the idea of
immateriality, if this incorporeity did not truly exist; this same
immateriality, of which the idea is in me, possesses all those high
perfections of which our mind can have some slight idea, without however
being able to comprehend them.” In another place he says, “We must
necessarily conclude from this alone, that because I exist, and have the
idea of immateriality, that is to say, of a most perfect being, the
existence is therefore most evidently demonstrated.” There are not,
perhaps, many except Descartes himself, to whom this would appear quite so
conclusive; who would be impressed with the conviction which he seems to
imagine is so very substantive.

First, We shall reply to Descartes, it is not a warrantable
deduction, that because we have an idea of a thing, we must therefore
conclude it exists; to give validity to such a mode of reasoning would be
productive of the greatest mischief; would, in fact, tend to subvert all
human institutions. Our imagination presents us with the idea of a sphinx,
or of an hippogriff, besides a thousand other fantastical beings; are we,
on that authority, to insist that these things really exist? Is the mere
circumstance of our having an idea of various parts of nature,
discrepantly jumbled together, without any other evidence as to the
assemblage, a sufficient warrantry for calling upon mankind to accredit
the existence of such heterogeneous masses? If a philosopher of the most
consummate experience, of the greatest celebrity, one who enjoyed the
confidence of mankind above every other, was to detail the faculties and
perfections of these visionary beings, although he should hold them forth
as the perfection of all natural combinations, would, I say, any
reasonable being lend himself to the asseveration?

Secondly, It is obvious that the mere circumstance of existence,
does not prove the absolute existence of any thing anterior to itself;
although in man, as well as the other beings of nature, it is evidence
that something has existed before him. If this argument was to be
admitted, are they aware how far it, would carry them? To maintain that
the existence of one being demonstrably proves the existence of an
anterior being, would be, in fact, denying that any thing was
self-existent. The fallacy of such a position is too glaring to need
refutation.

Thirdly, It is not possible he should have a distinct, positive
idea of immateriality, of which be, as well as the theologian, labours to
prove the existence. It is impossible for man, for a material being, to
form to himself a correct idea, or indeed any idea, of incorporeity; of a
substance without extent, acting upon nature, which is corporeal; a truth
which it may not be presuming too much to say we have already sufficiently
proved.

Fourthly, It is equally impossible for man to have any clear,
decided idea of perfection, of infinity, of immensity, and other
theological attributes. To Descartes we must therefore reply as we have
done to Dr. Clarke on his twelfth proposition.

Thus nothing can well be less conclusive than the proofs upon which
Descartes rests the existence of immateriality. He gives it thought and
intelligence, but how conceive these qualities without a subject to which
they may adhere? He pretends that we cannot conceive it but “as a power
which applies itself successively to the parts of the universe.” Again, he
says, “that an immaterial substance cannot be said to have extent, but as
we say of fire contained in a piece of iron, which has not, properly
speaking, any other extension than that of the iron itself.” According to
these notions we shall be justified in taxing him with having announced in
a very clear, in a most unequivocal manner, that this is nature herself:
this indeed is a pure Spinosism; it was decidedly on the principles of
Descartes that Spinosa drew up his system; in fact it flows out of it
consecutively.

We might, therefore, with great reason, accuse Descartes of atheism,
seeing that he very effectually destroys the feeble proofs he adduces in
support of his own hypothesis; we have solid foundation for insisting that
his system overturns the idea of the creation, because if from the
modification we subtract the subject, the modification itself disappears:
and if, according to the Cartesians, this immateriality is nothing without
nature, they are complete Spinosians, with another name. If incorporeity
is the motive-power of this nature, it no longer exists independently; it,
in fact, exists no longer than the subject to which it is inherent
subsists. Thus no longer existing independently, it will exist only while
the nature which it moves shall endure; without matter, without a subject
to move, to preserve, what is to become of it, according to this doctrine,
or rather according to this elucidation of a system which is in itself
untenable?

It will be obvious from this, that Descartes, far from establishing on a
rocky foundation the existence of this immateriality, totally destroys his
own system. The same thing will necessarily happen to all those who reason
upon his principles; they will always finish by confuting him, and by
contradicting themselves. The same want of just inference, the same
discrepancy, will obtrude themselves in the principles of the celebrated
Father Malebranche; which, if considered with the slightest attention,
appear to conduct directly to Spinosism; in fact, can any thing be more in
unison with the language of Spinosa himself, than to say, as does
Malebranche, “that the universe is only an emanation from God; that we see
every thing in God, that every thing we see is only God; that God alone
does every thing that is done; that all the action, with every operation
that takes place in nature, is God himself; in a word, that God is every
being and the only being.” Is not this formally asserting that nature
herself is God? Moreover, at the same time Malebranche assures us we see
every thing in God, he pretends that it is not yet clearly demonstrated
that matter and bodies have existence; that faith alone teaches us these
mysteries, of which, without it, we should not have any knowledge
whatever. In reply, it might be a very fair question, how the existence of
the being who created matter can be demonstrated, if the existence of this
matter itself be yet a problem? He himself acknowledges “that we can have
no distinct demonstration of the existence of any other being than of that
which is necessary;” he further adds, “that if it be closely examined, it
will be seen, that it is not even possible to know with certitude, if God
be or be not truly the creator of a material, of a sensible world.”
According to these notions, it is evident, that, following up the system
of Malebranche, man has only his faith to guarantee the existence of the
world; yet faith itself supposes its existence; if it be not, however,
certain that it does exist, and the Bishop of Cloyne, Dr. Berkeley, has
also held this in doubt, how shall we be persuaded that we must believe
the oracles which have been delivered to a visionary world?

On the other hand, these notions of Malebranche completely overturns all
the theological doctrines of free agency. How can the liberty of man’s
action be reconciled with the idea that it is the Divinity who is the
immediate mover of nature; who actually gives impulse to matter and
bodies, without whose immediate interference nothing takes place; who
pre-determines his creatures to every thing they do? How can it be
pretended, if this doctrine is to be accredited, that human souls have the
faculty of forming thoughts—have the power of volition—are in
a condition to move themselves—have the capacity to modify their
existence? If it be supposed with the theologians, that the conservation
of the creatures in the universe is a continued creation, must it not
appear, that being thus perpetually recreated, they are enabled to commit
evil? It will then be a self-evident fact, that, admitting the system of
Malebranche, God does every thing, and that his creatures are no more than
passive instruments in his hands. Under this idea they could not be
answerable for their sins, because they would have no means of avoiding
them. Under this notion they could neither have merit or demerit; they
would be like a sharp instrument in their own hands, which whether it was
applied to a good or to an evil purpose, it would attach to themselves,
not to the instrument: this would annihilate all religion: it is thus that
theology is continually occupied with committing suicide.

Let us now see, if the immortal Newton, the great luminary of science, the
champion of astronomical truth, will afford us clearer notions, more
distinct ideas, more certain evidence of the existence of immaterial
substances. This great man, whose comprehensive genius unravelled nature,
whose capacious mind developed her laws, seems to have bewildered himself,
the instant he lost sight of them. A slave to the prejudices of his
infancy, he had not the courage to hold the lamp of his own enlightened
understanding to the agent theology has so gratuitously associated with
nature; he has not been able to allow that her own peculiar powers were
adequate to the production of that beautiful phenomena, he has with such
masterly talents so luminously explained. In short, the sublime Newton
himself becomes an infant when he quits physics, when he lays aside
demonstration, to lose himself in the devious sinuosities, in the
inextricable labyrinths, in the delusive regions of theology. This is the
manner in which he speaks of the Divinity:

“This God,” says he, “governs all, not as the soul of the world, but as
the lord and sovereign of all things. It is in consequence of his
sovereignty that he is called the Lord God, [Greek letters], pantokrator,
the universal emperor. Indeed the word God is relative and relates itself
with slaves; the Deity is the dominion or the sovereignty of God, not over
his own body, as those think who look upon God as the soul of the world,
but over slaves.”

From this it will be seen that Newton, as well as the theologians, makes
the Divinity a pure spirit, who presides over the universe as a monarch,
as a lord paramount; that is to say, what man defines in earthly
governors, despot, absolute princes, powerful monarchs, whose governments
have no model but their own will, who exercise an unlimited power over
their subjects, transformed into slaves; whom they usually compel to feel
in a very grievous manner the weight of their authority. But according to
the ideas of Newton, the world has not existed from eternity, the staves
of God have been formed in the course of time; from this it would be a
just inference, that before the creation of the world the god of Newton
was a sovereign without subjects. Let us see if this truly great
philosopher is more in unison with himself in the subsequent ideas which
he delivers on this subject.

“The supreme God,” he says, “is an eternal, infinite, and absolutely
perfect being; but however perfect a being may be, if he has no
sovereignty he is not the supreme God. The word God signifies Lord, but
every lord is not god; it is the sovereignty of the spiritual Being which
constitutes God; it is the true sovereignty which constitutes the true
God; it is the supreme sovereignty which constitutes the supreme God; it
is a false sovereignty which constitutes a false god. From true
sovereignty, it follows, that the true God is living, intelligent, and
powerful; and from his other perfections, it follows, that he is supremely
or sovereignly perfect. He is eternal, infinite, omniscient; that is to
say, he exists from eternity, and will never have an end; he governs all,
and he knows every thing that is done, or that can be done. He is neither
eternity nor infinity, but he is eternal and infinite; he is not space or
duration, but he exists and is present.” The term here used is adest,
which appears to have been placed there to avoid saying that God is
contained in space.

In all this unintelligible series, nothing is to be found but incredible
efforts to reconcile the theological attributes, the abstract with the
human qualities, which have been ascribed to the Divinity; we see in it
negative qualities, which can no longer be suitable to man, given,
however, to the Sovereign of nature, whom he has supposed a king. However
it may be, this picture always supposes the Supreme God to have occasion
for subjects to establish his sovereignty. It makes God stand in need of
man for the exercise of his empire; without these, according to the text,
he would not be a king; he could have had no empire when there was
nothing: but if this description of Newton was just, if it really
represented the Divinity, we might be very fairly permitted to ask, Does
not this Spiritual King exercise his spiritual empire in vain, upon
refractory beings, who do not at all times do that which he is willing
they should; who are continually struggling against his power; who spread
disorder in his states? This Spiritual Monarch, who is master of the
minds, of the souls, of the wills, of the passions of his slaves, does he
leave them the freedom of revolting against him? This infinite Monarch,
who fills every thing with his immensity, who governs all, does he also
govern the man who sins; does he direct his actions; is he in him when he
offends his God? The devil, the false god, the evil principle, hath he
not, according to this, a more extensive empire than the true God, whose
projects, if we are to believe the theologians, he is unceasingly
overturning? In earthly governments the true sovereign is generally
considered to be him whose power in a state influences the greater number
of his subjects. If, then, we could suppose him to be omnipresent, that
is, present in all places, should we not say he was the sad witness to all
the outrages committed against his authority, and we should not entertain
a very exalted opinion of his power if he permitted them to continue.
This, it is true, would be arguing upon a monarch of this world, still it
would be the language held by observers.

Is the spirituality of the Divinity well supported by those who say he
fills all space, who from that instant give him extent, ascribe to him
volume, make him correspond with the various points of space? This is the
very reverse of an immaterial substance.

“God is one,” continues Newton, “and he is the same for ever, and every
where, not only by his virtue alone, or by his energy, but also by his
substance.” But how are we to conceive that a being who is in continual
activity, who produces all the changes which beings undergo, can always be
himself the same? What is to be understood by either this virtue or this
energy? These are relative terms, which do not present any clear, distinct
idea to our mind, except as they apply to man: what are we, however, to
understand by the divine substance? If this substance be spiritual, that
is, devoid of extent, how can there exist in it any parts? How can it give
impulse to matter, how set it in motion? How can it even be conceived by
mortals?

Nevertheless Newton informs us, “that all things are contained in him, and
are moved in him, but without reciprocity of action: God experiences
nothing by the motion of bodies; these experience no resistance whatever
by his omnipresence.” It would here appear that he clothes the Divinity
with that which bears the character of vacuum—of nothing; without
that, it would be almost impossible not to have a reciprocal action or
relation between these substances, which are either penetrated or
encompassed on all sides. It must be obvious, that in this instance our
scientific author does not distinctly understand himself.

He proceeds, “It is an incontestible truth, that God exists necessarily,
and the same necessity obliges to exist always and every where: from
whence it follows, that he is in every thing similar to itself; he is all
eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, all
action; but in a mode by no means human, by no means corporeal, and which
is totally unknown to us. In the same manner as a blind man has no idea of
colours, it is that we have no idea of the mode in which God feels and
understands.” The necessary existence of the Divinity is precisely the
thing in question; it is this existence that it was needful to have
verified by proofs as clear, by evidence as distinct, by demonstration as
strong, as gravitation and attraction. One would have hardly thought it
possible the expansive capabilities of Newton would not have compassed it.
But oh, unrivalled genius! so mighty, so powerful, so colossal, while yet
you was a geometrician; so insignificant, so weak, so inconsistent; when
you became a theologian; that is to say, when you reasoned upon that which
can neither be calculated, nor submitted to experience; how could you
think of speaking to us on a subject which, by your own confession is to
you just what a picture is to a man born blind? Wherefore quit nature,
which had already explained to you so much? Why seek in imaginary spaces
those causes, those powers, that energy, which she would have distinctly
pointed out to you, had you been willing to have consulted her with your
usual sagacity? The gigantic, the intelligent Newton, suffers himself to
be hoodwinked—to be blinded by prejudice; he has not courage to look
a question fairly in the face, when that question involves notions which
habit has rendered sacred to him; he turns his eyes from truth, he casts
behind him his experience, he lulls to sleep his reason, when it becomes
necessary to probe opinions full of contradictions, yet fraught with the
best interests of humanity.

Let us, however, continue to examine how far the most transcendent genius
is capable of leading himself astray, when once he abandons experience,
when once he chains up his reason, when once he suffers himself to be
guided by his imagination.

“God,” continues the father of modern philosophy, “is totally destitute of
body and of corporeal figure; here is the reason why he cannot be either
seen, touched, or understood; and ought not to be adored under any
corporeal form.” What idea, however, can be formed of a being who is
resembled by nothing of which we have any knowledge? What are the
relations that can be supposed to exist between such very dissimilar
beings? When man renders this being his adoration, does he not, in fact,
in despite of himself, make him a being similar to his own species; does
he not suppose that, like himself, he is sensible to homage—to be
won by presents—gained by flattery; in short, he is treated like a
king of the earth, who exacts the respect, demands the fealty, requires
the obedience of all who are submitted to him. Newton adds, “we have ideas
of his attributes, but we do not know that it is any one substance; we
only see the figures and the colours of bodies; we only hear sounds; we
only touch the exterior surfaces; we only scent odours; we only taste
flavours: no one of our senses, no one of our reflections, can shew us the
intimate nature of substances: we have still less ideas of God.”

If we have an idea of the attributes of God, it is only because we clothe
him with those which belong to ourselves; which we never do more than
aggrandize, which we only augment or exaggerate; we then mistake them for
those qualities with which we were at first acquainted. If in all those
substances which are pervious to our senses, we only know them by the
effects they produce on us, after which we assign them qualities, at least
these qualities are something tangible, they give birth to clear and
distinct ideas. This superficial knowledge, however slender it may be,
with which our senses furnish us, is the only one we can possibly have;
constituted as we are, we find ourselves under the necessity of resting
contented with it, and we discover that it is sufficient for our wants;
but we have not even the most superficial idea of immateriality, or a
substance distinguished from all those with which we have the slightest
acquaintance. Nevertheless, we hear men hourly reasoning upon it,
disputing about its properties, advancing its faculties, as if they had
the most demonstrable evidence of the fact; tearing each other in pieces,
because the one does not readily admit what the other asserts, upon a
subject which no man is competent to understand.

Our author goes on “We only have a knowledge of God by his attributes, by
his properties, by the excellent and wise arrangement which he has given
to all things, and by their FINAL CAUSES: we admire him in consequence of
his perfections.” I repeat, that we have no real knowledge of the
Divinity; that we borrow his attributes from ourselves; but it is evident
these cannot be suitable to the Universal Being, who neither can have the
same nature nor the same properties as particular beings; it is
nevertheless after ourselves that we assign him intelligence, wisdom,
perfection, in subtracting from them what we call defects. As to the
order, or the arrangement of the universe, man finds it excellent, esteems
it the perfection of wisdom, as long as it is favorable to his species; or
when the causes which are co-existent with himself do not disturb his own
peculiar existence; otherwise he is apt to complain of confusion, and
final causes vanish: he then attributes to an immutable God, motives
equally borrowed from his own peculiar mode of action, for deranging the
beautiful order he so much admires in the universe. Thus it is always in
himself, that is, in his own individual mode of feeling, that he draws up
the ideas of the order, the wisdom, the excellence, the perfection which
he ascribes to the Deity; whilst the good as well as the evil which take
place in the world, are the necessary consequence of the essence of
things; of the general, immutable laws of nature; in short, of the
gravitation, of the repulsion of matter; of those unchangeable laws of
motion, which Newton himself has so ably thrown into light; but which he
has by a strange fatuity forborne to apply when the question was
concerning the cause of these phenomena, which prejudice has refused to
the capabilities of nature. He goes on, “We revere, and we adore God, on
account of his sovereignty: we worship him like his slaves; a God
destitute of sovereignty, of providence, and of final causes, would be no
more than nature and destiny.” It is true that superstition enjoins man to
adore its gods like ignorant slaves, who tremble under a master whom they
know not; he certainly prays to them on all occasions, sometimes
requesting nothing less than an entire change in the essence of things, to
gratify his capricious desires, and it is perhaps well for him they are
not competent to grant his request: in the origin, as we have shewn, these
gods were nothing more than nature acting by necessary laws, clothed under
a variety of fables; or necessity personified under a multitude of names.
However this may be, we do not believe that true religion, that sterling
worship which renders man grateful, whilst it exalts the majesty of the
Divinity, requires any such meanness from man that he should act like a
slave; he is rather expected to sit down to the banquet prepared for him,
with all the dignity of an invited guest; under the cheering consciousness
of a welcome that is never accorded to slaves; nothing is required at his
hands, but that he should conduct himself temperately in the
banquetting-house; that he should be grateful for the good cheer he
receives; that he should have virtue; (which we have already sufficiently
explained is to render himself useful, by making others happy); that he
should not by pertinaciously setting up whimsical opinions, and insisting
on their adoption by his neighbour, disturb the harmony of the feast; that
he should be sufficiently intelligent to know when he is really
felicitous, and not seek to put down the gaiety of his fellow guests; but
that he should rise from the board satisfied with himself, contented with
others; in short, to comprise the whole in a trite axiom of one of the
Greek philosophers, he should learn the invaluable secret, “to bear
and forbear.”

But to proceed. Newton tells us, “that from a physical and blind
necessity, which should preside every where, and be always the same, there
could not emanate any variety in the beings; the diversity which we
behold, could only have its origin in the ideas and in the will of a being
which exists necessarily;” but wherefore should not this diversity spring
out of natural causes, from matter acting upon matter; the action of which
either attracts and combines various yet analogous elements, or else
separates beings by the intervention of those substances which have not a
disposition to unite? Is not bread the result of the combination of flour,
yeast and water? As for the blind necessity, as it is elsewhere said, we
must acknowledge it is that of which we are ignorant, either of its
properties or its energies; of which being blind ourselves we have no
knowledge of its mode of action. Philosophers explain all the phenomena
that occur by the properties of matter; and though they feel the want of a
more intimate acquaintance with natural causes, they do not therefore the
less believe them deducible from these properties or these causes. Are,
therefore, the philosophers atheists, because they do not reply, it is God
who is the author of these effects? Is the industrious workman, who makes
gunpowder, to be challenged as an atheist, because he says the terrible
effects of this destructive material, which inspired the native Americans
with such awe, which raised in their winds such wonder, are to be ascribed
to the junction of the apparently harmless substances of nitre, charcoal
and sulpher, set in activity by the accession of trivial scintillations,
produced from the collision of steel with flint, merely because some
bigoted Priest of the Sun, who is ignorant of the composition,
chooses to think it is not possible such a striking phenomenon could be
the work of any thing short of the secret agents, whom he has himself
appointed to govern the world?

“It is allegorically said that God sees, hears, speaks, smiles, loves,
hates, desires, gives, receives, rejoices, grows angry, fights, makes, or
fashions, &c. because all that is said of God, is borrowed from the
conduct of man, by an imperfect analogy.” Man has not been able to act
otherwise, for want of being acquainted with nature and her eternal
course: whenever he has imagined a peculiar energy which he has not been
able to fathom, he has given it the name of God; and he has then made him
act upon the self-same principles, as he himself would adopt, according to
which he would act if he was the master. It is from this proneness to Theanthropy,
that has flowed all those absurd, and frequently dangerous ideas, upon
which are founded the superstitions of the world; who all adore in their
gods either natural causes of which they are ignorant, or else powerful
mortals of whose malice they stand in awe. The sequel will shew the fatal
effects that have resulted to mankind from the absurd ideas they have very
frequently formed to themselves of the Divinity; that nothing could be
more degrading to him, more injurious to themselves, than the idea of
comparing him to an absolute sovereign, to a despot, to a tyrant. For the
present let us continue to examine the proofs offered in support of their
various systems.

It is unceasingly repeated that the regular action, the invariable order,
which reigns in the universe, the benefits heaped upon mortals, announce a
wisdom, an intelligence, a goodness, which we cannot refuse to
acknowledge, in the cause which produces these marvellous effects. To this
we must reply, that it is unquestionably true that not only these things,
but all the phenomena he beholds, indicate the existence of something
gifted very superiorly to erring man; the great question, however, is one
that perhaps will never be solved, what is this being? Is this question
answered by heaping together the estimable qualities of man? Speaking with
relation to ourselves, which is all that the theologian really does,
although in such numerous regions he pretends to do a great deal more, we
can apply the terms goodness, wisdom, intelligence, the best with which we
are acquainted, to this being for the want of having those that may be
appropriate; but I maintain, this does not, in point of fact, afford us
one single idea of the Great Cause of causes; we admire his works;
and knowing that what we approve highly in our own species, we attribute
to their being wise, we say the Divinity displays wisdom. So far it is
well; but this, after all, is a human quality. If we consult experience,
we shall presently be convinced that our wisdom does not bear the least
affinity to the actions attributed to the Divinity. To get at this a
little closer, we must endeavour to find out what we do not call wisdom in
man; this will help us to form an estimate, how very incompetent we are to
describe the qualities of a being that differs so very materially from
ourselves. We most certainly should not call him a wise man, who having
built a beautiful residence, should himself set it on fire; and thus
destroy what he had laboured so much to bring to perfection: yet this
happens every day in nature, without its being in any manner a warrantry
for us to charge her with folly. If therefore we were to form our
judgments after our own puny ideas of wisdom, what should we say? Why, in
point of fact, just what the man does, who, thinking he has had too much
rain, implores fine weather? Which, properly translated, is neither more
nor less than giving the Divinity to understand he best knows what is
proper for himself. The just, the only fair inference to be drawn from
this, is, that we positively know nothing about the matter; that those who
pretend they do, would, if it was upon any other subject, he suspected of
having an unsound mind. We do not mean to insist that we are in the right,
but we mean to aver that the object of this work is not so much either to
build up new systems, or to put down old ones, as by shewing man the
inconclusiveness of his reasonings upon matters not accessible to his
comprehension—to induce him to be more tolerant to his neighbour—to
invite him to be less rancorous against those who do not see with his eyes—to
hold forth to him motives for forbearance, against those whose system of
faith may not exactly harmonize with his own—to render him less
ferocious in support of opinions, which, if he will but discard his
prejudices, he may find not so solidly bottomed as he imagines. All we
know is scarcely more than that the motion we witness in the universe is
the necessary consequence of the laws of matter; that the uniformity of
this motion is evidence of their immutability; that it is not too much to
say it cannot cease to act in the manner it does, as long as the same
causes operate, governed by the same circumstances. We evidently see that
motion, however regular in our mind, that order, however beautiful to our
admiring optics, yields to what we term disorder, to that which we
designate frightful confusion, as soon as new causes, not analogous to the
preceding, either disturb or suspend their action. We further know that a
better knowledge of nature, the consequence of time, the result of
patient, laborious, physical researches, with the comparison of facts and
the application of experience, has enabled man in many instances to divert
from himself the evil effects of inevitable causes, which anterior to
these discoveries overwhelmed his unhappy progenitors with ruin. How far
these salutary developements are to be carried by industry, what may be
achieved by honesty, what light is to be gathered from the recession of
prejudice, the wisest among men is not competent to decide. Certain it is,
that phenomena which for ages were supposed to denounce the anger of the
Deity against mankind, are now well understood to be common effects of
natural causes.

Order, as we have elsewhere shewn, is only the effects which result to
ourselves from a series of motion; there cannot be any disorder relatively
to the great whole; in which all that takes place is necessary; in which
every thing is determined by laws which nothing can change. The order of
nature may be damaged or destroyed relatively to ourselves, but it is
never contradicted relatively to herself, since she cannot act otherwise
than she does: if we attribute to her the evils we sustain, we are equally
obliged to acknowledge we owe to her the good we experience.

It in said, that animals furnish a convincing proof of the powerful cause
of their existence; that the admirable harmony of their parts, the mutual
assistance they lend each other, the regularity with which they fulfill
their functions, the preservation of these parts, the conservation of such
complicated wholes, announce a workman who unites wisdom with power; in
short, whole tracts of anatomy and botany have been copied to prove
nothing more than that these things exist, for of the power that produced
them there cannot remain a doubt. We shall never learn more from these
erudite tracts, save that there exists in nature certain elements with an
aptitude to attraction; a disposition to unite, suitable to form wholes,
to induce combinations capable of producing very striking effects. To be
surprised that the brain, the heart, the arteries, the veins, the eyes,
the ears of an animal, act as we see them—that the roots of plants
attract juices, or that trees produce fruit, is to be surprised that a
tree, a plant, or an animal exists at all. These beings would not exist,
or would no longer be that which we know they are, if they ceased to act
as they do: this is what happens when they die. If the formation, the
combination, the modes of action, variously possessed by these beings, if
their conservation for a season, followed by their destruction or
dissolution, prove any thing, it is the immutability of those laws which
operate in nature: we cannot doubt the power of nature; she produces all
the animals we behold, by the combination, of matter, continually in
motion; the harmony that subsists between the component parts of these
beings, is a consequence of the necessary laws of their nature, and of
that which results from their combination. As soon as this accord ceases,
the animal is necessarily destroyed: from this we must conclude that every
mutation in nature is necessary; is only a consequence of its laws; that
it could not be otherwise than it is, under the circumstances in which it
is placed.

Man, who looks upon himself as the chef d’oeuvre, furnishes more
than any other production a proof of the immutability of the laws of
nature: in this sensible, intelligent, thinking being, whose vanity leads
him to believe himself the sole object of the divine predilection, who
forms his God after his own peculiar model, we see only a more inconstant,
a more brittle machine; one more subject to be deranged by its extreme
complication, than the grosser beings: beasts destitute of our knowledge,
plants that vegetate, stones devoid of feeling, are in many respects
beings more highly favored than man: they are at least exempted from the
sorrows of the mind—from the torments of reflection—from that
devouring, chagrin to which he is so frequently a prey. Who is he who
would not be a plant or a stone, every time reminiscence forces upon his
imagination the irreparable loss of a beloved object? Would it not be
better to be an inanimate mass, than a restless, turbulent, superstitious
being, who does nothing but tremble under the imaginary displeasure of
beings of his own creation; who to support his own gloomy opinions,
immolates his fellow creatures at the shrine of his idol; who ravages the
country, and deluges the earth with the blood of those who happen to
differ from him on a speculative point of an unintelligible creed? Beings
destitute of life, bereft of feeling, without memory, not having the
faculties of thought, at least are not afflicted by the idea of either the
past, the present, or the future; they do not at any rate believe
themselves in danger of becoming eternally unhappy, because they way have
reasoned badly; or because they happened to be born in a land where truth
has never yet shed its refulgent beams on the darkened mind of perplexed
mortals.

Let it not then be said that we cannot have an idea of a work, without
also having an idea of the workman, as distinguished from his work: the
savage, when he first beheld the terrible operation of gunpowder, did not
form the most distant idea that it was the work of a man like himself.
Nature is not to be contemplated as a work of this kind; she is
self-existent. In her bosom every thing is produced: she is an immense
elaboratory, provided with materials, who makes the instruments of which
she avails herself in her operations. All her works are the effects of her
own energies; of those agents which she herself produces; of those
immutable laws by which she sets every thing in activity. Eternal,
indestructible elements, ever in motion, combine themselves variously, and
thus give birth to all beings, to all the phenomena which fill the weak
eyes of erring mortals with wonder and dismay; to all the effects, whether
good or bad, of which man experiences the influence; to all the
vicissitudes he undergoes, from the moment of his birth until that of his
death; to order and to confusion, which he never discriminates but by the
various modes in which he is affected: in short, to all those miraculous
spectacles with which he occupies his meditation—upon which he
exercises his reason—which frequently spread consternation over the
surface of the earth. These elements need nothing when circumstances
favour their junction, save their own peculiar properties, whether
individual or united, with the motion that is essential to them, to
produce all those phenomena which powerfully striking the senses of
mankind, either fill him with admiration, or stagger him with alarm.

But supposing for a moment that it was impossible to conceive the work,
without also conceiving the workman, who watches over his work, where must
we place this workman? Shall it be interior or exterior to his production?
Is he matter and motion, or is he only space or the vacuum? In all these
cases either he would be nothing, or he would be contained in nature: as
nature contains only matter and motion, it must be concluded that the
agent who moves it is material; that he is corporeal; if this agent be
exterior to nature, then we can no longer form any idea of the place which
he occupieth: neither can we better conceive an immaterial being; nor the
mode in which a spirit without extent can act upon matter from which it is
separated. These unknown spaces, which imagination has placed beyond the
visible world, can have no existence for a being, who with difficulty sees
down to his feet; he cannot paint to his mind any image of the power which
inhabit them; but if he is compelled to form some kind of a picture, he
must combine at random the fantastical colours which he is ever obliged to
draw from the world he inhabits: in this case he will really do no more
than reproduce in idea, part or parcels of that which he has actually
seen; he will form a whole which perhaps has no existence in nature, but
which it will be in vain he strives to distinguish from her; to place out
of her bosom. When he shall be ingenuous with himself, When he shall be no
longer willing to delude others, he will be obliged to acknowledge, that
the portrait he has painted, although in its combination it resembles
nothing in the universe, is nevertheless in all its constituent members an
exact delineation of that which nature presents to our view. Hobbes in his
Leviathan says, “The universe, the whole mass of things, is
corporeal, that is to say, body; and hath the dimensions of magnitude,
namely, length, breadth, and depth: also every part of body is likewise
body, and hath the like dimensions; and consequently every part of the
universe is body; and that which is not body, is no part of the universe;
and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing;
and consequently no where: nor does it follow from hence, that spirits are
nothing, for they have dimensions, and are therefore really bodies; though
that name in common speech be given to such bodies only as are visible, or
palpable, that is, that have some degree of opacity: but for spirits they
call them incorporeal; which is a name of more honour, and may therefore
with more piety be attributed to God himself, in whom we consider not what
attribute expresseth best his nature, which is incomprehensible; but what
best expresseth our desire to honour him.”

It will be insisted that if a statue or a watch were shewn to a savage,
who had never before seen either, he would not be able to prevent himself
from acknowledging that these things were the works of some intelligent
agent of greater ability, possessing more industry than himself: it will
be concluded from thence, that we are in like manner obliged to
acknowledge that the universe, that man, that the various phenomena, are
the works of an agent, whose intelligence is more comprehensive, whose
power far surpasses our own. Granted: who has ever doubted it? the
proposition is self-evident; it cannot admit of even a cavil. Nevertheless
we reply, in the first place, that it is not to be doubted that
nature is extremely powerful; diligently industrious: we admire her
activity every time we are surprised by the extent, every time we
contemplate the variety, every time we behold those complicated effects
which are displayed in her works; or whenever we take the pains to
meditate upon them: nevertheless, she is not really more industrious in
one of her works than she is in another; she is not fathomed with more
ease in those we call her most contemptible productions, than she is in
her most sublime efforts: we no more understand how she has been capable
of producing a stone or a metal, than the means by which she organized a
head like that of the illustrious Newton. We call that man industrious who
can accomplish things which we cannot; nature is competent to every thing:
as soon therefore as a thing exists, it is a proof she has been capable of
producing it: but it is never more than relatively to ourselves that we
judge beings to be industrious: we then compare them to ourselves; and as
we enjoy a quality which we call intelligence, by the assistance of which
we accomplish things, by which we display our diligence, we naturally
conclude from it, that those works which most astonish us, do not belong
to her, but are to be ascribed to an intelligent being like ourselves, but
in whom we make the intelligence commensurate with the astonishment these
phenomena excite in us; that is to say, in other words, to our own
peculiar ignorance, and the weakness incident to our nature.

In the second place, we must observe, that the savage, to whom
either the statue or the watch is brought, will or will not have ideas of
human industry: if he has ideas of it, he will feel that this watch or
this statue, way be the work of a being of his own species, enjoying
faculties of which he is himself deficient: if he has no idea of it, if he
has no comprehension of the resources of human art, when he beholds the
spontaneous motion of the watch, he will be impressed with the belief that
it is an animal, which cannot be the work of man. Multiplied experience
confirms this mode of thinking which is ascribed to the savage. The
Peruvians mistook the Spaniards for gods, because they made use of
gunpowder, rode on horseback, and came in vessels which sailed quite
alone. The inhabitants of the island of Tenian being ignorant of fire
before the arrival of Europeans, the first time they saw it, conceived it
to be an animal who devoured the wood. Thus it is, that the savage, in the
same manner as many great and learned men, who believe themselves much
more acute, will attribute the strange effects that strike his organs, to
a genius or to a spirit; that is to say, to an unknown power; to whom he
will ascribe capabilities of which he believes the beings of his own
species are entirely destitute: by this he will prove nothing, except that
he is himself ignorant of what man is capable of producing. It is thus
that a raw unpolished people raise their eyes to heaven, every time they
witness some unusual phenomenon. It is thus that the people denominate all
those strange effects, with the natural causes of which they are ignorant,
miraculous, supernatural, divine; but these are not by reasonable persons
therefore considered proofs of what they assert: as the multitude are
generally unacquainted with the cause of any thing, every object becomes a
miracle in their eyes; at least they imagine God is the immediate cause of
the good they enjoy—of the evil they suffer. In short, it is thus
that the theologians themselves solve every difficulty that starts in
their road; they ascribe to God all those phenomena, of the causes of
which either they are themselves ignorant, or else unwilling that man
should be acquainted with the source.

In the third place, the savage, in opening the watch, and examining
its parts, will perhaps feel, that this machinery announces a work which
can only be the result of human labour. He will perhaps perceive, that
they very obviously differ from the immediate productions of nature, whom
he has not observed to produce wheels made of polished metal. He will
further notice, perhaps, that these parts when separated, no longer act as
they did when they were combined; that the motion he so much admired,
ceases when their union is broken. After these observations, he will
attribute the watch to the ingenuity of man; that is to say, to a being
like himself, of whom he has some ideas, but whom he judges capable to
construct machines to which he is himself utterly incompetent. In short,
he will ascribe the honour of his watch to a being known to him in some
respects, provided with faculties very far superior to his own; but he
will be at an immense distance from the belief, that this material work,
whose ingenuity pleases him so much, can be the effect of an immaterial
cause; or of an agent destitute of organs, without extent; whose action
upon material beings cannot be within, the sphere of his comprehension.
Nevertheless, man, when he cannot embrace the causes of things, does not
scruple to insist that they are impossible to be the production of nature,
although he is entirely ignorant how far the powers of this nature extend;
to what her capabilities are equal. In viewing the world, we must
acknowledge material causes for many of those phenomena which take place
in it; those who study nature are continually adding fresh discoveries to
this list of physical causes; science, as she enriches the intellectual
stores of human enjoyment, every day throws a broader light on the
energies of nature, which prejudice, aided by its almost
inseparable companion, ignorance, would for ever bind down in the
fetters of impotence.

Let us not, however, be told, that pursuing this hypothesis, we attribute
every thing to a blind cause—to the fortuitous concurrence of atoms—to
chance. Those only are called blind causes of which we know not either the
combination, the laws, or the power. Those effects are called fortuitous,
with whose causes man is unacquainted; to which his experience affords him
no clue; which his ignorance prevents him from foreseeing. All those
effects, of which he does not see the necessary connection with their
causes, he attributes to chance. Nature is not a blind cause; she never
acts by chance; nothing that she does would ever be considered fortuitous,
by him who should understand her mode of action—who had a knowledge
of her resources—who was intelligent in her ways. Every thing that
she produces is strictly necessary—is never more than a consequence
of her eternal, immutable laws; all is connected in her by invisible
bonds; every effect we witness flows necessarily from its cause, whether
we are in a condition to fathom it, or whether we are obliged to let it
remain hidden from our view. It is very possible there should be ignorance
on our part; but the words spirit, intelligence, will not remedy this
ignorance; they will rather redouble it, by arresting our research; by
preventing us from conquering those impediments which obstruct us in
probing the natural causes of the effects, with which our visual faculties
bring us acquainted.

This may serve for an answer to the clamour of those who raise perpetual
objections to the partizans of nature, by unceasingly accusing them with
attributing every thing to chance. Chance is a word devoid of sense, which
furnishes no substantive idea; at least it indicates only the ignorance of
its employers. Nevertheless, we are triumphantly told, it is reiterated
continually, that a regular work cannot be ascribed to the concurrence of
chance. Never, we are informed, will it be possible to arrive at the
formation of a poem such as the Iliad, by means of letters thrown together
promiscuously or combined at random. We agree to it without hesitation;
but, ingenuously, are the letters which compose a poem thrown with the
hand in the manner of dice? It would avail as much to say, we could not
pronounce a discourse with the feet. It is nature, who combines according
to necessary laws, under given circumstances, a head organized in a mode
suitable to bring forth a poem: it is nature who assembles the elements,
which furnish man with a brain competent to give birth to such a work: it
is nature, who, through the medium of the imagination, by means of the
passions, in consequence of the temperament which she bestows upon man,
capacitates him to produce such a masterpiece of fancy; such a
never-fading effort of the mind: it is his brain modified in a certain
manner, crowded with ideas, decorated with images, made fruitful by
circumstances, that alone can become the matrix in which a poem can be
conceived—in which the matter of it can be digested: this is the
only womb whose activity could usher to an admiring world, the sublime
stanzas which develope the story of the unfortunate Priam, and immortalize
their author. A head organized like that of Homer, furnished with the same
vigour, glowing with the same vivid imagination, enriched with the same
erudition, placed under the same circumstances, would necessarily, and not
by chance, produce the poem of the Iliad; at least, unless it be denied
that causes similar in every thing must produce effects perfectly
identical. We should without doubt be surprised, if there were in a
dice-box a hundred thousand dice, to see a hundred thousand sixes follow
in succession; but if these dice were all cogged or loaded, our surprise
would cease: the particles of matter may be compared to cogged dice, that
is to say, always producing certain determinate effects under certain
given circumstances; these particles being essentially varied in
themselves, countless in their combinations, they are cogged in myriads of
different modes. The head of Homer, or of Virgil, was no more than an
assemblage of particles, possessing peculiar properties; or if they will,
of dice cogged by nature; that is to say, of beings so combined, of matter
so wrought, as to produce the beautiful poems of the Iliad or the Aeneid.
As much may be said of all other productions: indeed, what are men
themselves but cogged dice—machines into which nature has infused
the bias requisite to produce effects of a certain description? A man of
genius produces a good work, in the same manner as a tree of a good
species, placed in a prolific soil, cultivated with care, grafted with
judgment, produces excellent fruit.

Then is it not either knavery or puerility, to talk of composing a work by
scattering letters with the hand; by promiscuously mingling characters; or
gathering together by chance, that which can only result from a human
brain, with a peculiar organization, modified after a certain manner? The
principle of human generation does not develope itself by chance; it
cannot be nourished with effect, expanded into life, but in the womb of a
woman: a confused heap of characters, a jumble of symbols, is nothing more
than an assemblage of signs, whose proper arrangement is adequate to paint
human ideas; but in order that these ideas may be correctly delineated, it
is previously requisite that they should have been conceived, combined,
nourished, connected, and developed in the brain of a poet; where
circumstances make them fructify, mature them, and bring them forth in
perfection, by reason of the fecundity, generated by the genial warmth and
the peculiar energy of the matrix, in which these intellectual seeds shall
have been placed. Ideas in combining, expanding, connecting, and
associating themselves, form a whole, like all the other bodies of nature:
this whole affords us pleasure, becomes a source of enjoyment, when it
gives birth to agreeable sensations in the mind; when it offers to our
examination pictures calculated to move us in a lively manner. It is thus
that the history of the Trojan war, as digested in the head of Homer,
ushered into the world with all the fascinating harmony of numbers
peculiar to himself, has the power of giving a pleasurable impulse to
heads, who by their analogy with that of this incomparable Grecian, are in
a capacity to feel its beauties.

From this it will be obvious, that nothing can be produced by chance; that
no effect can exist without an adequate cause for its existence; that the
one must ever be commensurate with the other. All the works of nature grow
out of the uniform action of invariable laws, whether our mind can with
facility follow the concatenation of the successive causes which operate;
or whether, as in her more complicated productions, we find ourselves in
the impossibility of distinguishing the various springs which she sets in
motion to give birth to her phenomena. To nature, the difficulty is not
more to produce a great poet, capable of writing an admirable poem, than
to form a glittering stone or a shining metal which gravitates towards a
centre. The mode she adopts to give birth to these various beings, is
equally unknown to us, when we have not meditated upon it; frequently the
most sedulous attention, the most patient investigation affords us no
information; sometimes, however, the unwearied industry of the philosopher
is rewarded, by throwing into light the most mysterious operations. Thus
the keen penetration of a Newton, aided by uncommon diligence, developed
the starry system, which, for so many thousand years, had eluded the
research of all the astronomers by whom he was preceded. Thus the sagacity
of a Harvey giving vigour to his application, brought out of the obscurity
in which for almost countless centuries it had been buried, the true
course pursued by the sanguinary fluid, when circulating through the veins
and arteries of man, giving activity to his machine, diffusing life
through his system, and enabling him to perform those actions which so
frequently strike an astonished world with wonder and regret. Thus
Gallileo, by a quickness of perception, a depth of reasoning peculiar to
himself, held up to an admiring world, the actual form and situation of
the planet we inhabit; which until then had escaped the observation of the
most profound geniuses—the most subtle metaphysicians—the
whole host of priests; which when first promulgated was considered so
extraordinary, so contradictory to all the then received opinions, either
sacred or profane, that he was ranked as an atheist, as an impious
blasphemer, to hold communion with whom, would secure to the communers a
place in the regions of everlasting torment; in short, it was held an
heresy of such an indelible dye, that notwithstanding the infallibility of
his sacred function, Pope Gregory, who then filled the papal chair,
excommunicated all those who had the temerity to accredit so abominable a
doctrine.

Man is born by the necessary concurrence of those elements suitable to his
construction; he increases in bulk, corroborates his system, expands his
powers, in the same manner as a plant or a stone; which as well as
himself, are augmented in their volume, invigorated in their capabilities,
by the addition of homogeneous matter, that exists within the sphere of
their attraction. Man feels, thinks, receives ideas, acts after a certain
manner, that is to say, according to his organic structure, which is
peculiar to himself; that renders him susceptible of modifications, of
which the stone and the plant are utterly incapable. On the other hand,
the organization of these beings is of a nature to enable them to receive
other modifications, which man is not more capacitated to experience, than
the stone or the plant are those which constitute him what he is. In
consequence of this peculiar arrangement, the man of genius produces works
of merit; the plant when it is healthy yields delicious fruits the stone
when it is placed in a suitable matrix possesses a glittering brilliance
which dazzles the eyes of mortals; each in their sphere of action both
surprise and delight us; because we feel that they excite in us
sensations, that harmonize with what we call order; in consequence of the
pleasure they infuse, by the rarity, by the magnitude, and by the variety
of the effects which they occasion us to experience. Nevertheless, that
which is found most admirable in the productions of nature, that which is
most esteemed in the actions of man, most highly valued in animals, most
sought after in vegetation, most in request among fossils, is never more
than the natural effects of the different particles of matter, diversely
arranged, variously combined, submitted to numerous modifications; from
matter thus united result organs, brains, temperament, taste, talents, all
the multifarious properties, all the multitudinous qualities, which
discriminate the beings whose multiplied activity make up the sum of what
is designated animated nature.

Nature then produces nothing but what is necessary; it is not by
fortuitous combinations, by chance throws, that she exhibits to our view
the beings we behold; all her throws are sure, all the causes she employs
have infallibly their effects. Whenever she gives birth to extraordinary,
marvellous, rare beings, it is, that the requisite order of things the
concurrence of the necessary productive causes, happens but seldom. As
soon as those beings exist, they are to be ascribed to nature, equally
with the most familiar of her productions; to nature every thing is
equally possible, equally facile, when she assembles together the
instruments or the causes necessary to act. Thus it seems presumption in
man to set limits to the powers of nature, which he so very imperfectly
understands. The combinations, or if they will, the throws that she makes
in an eternity of existence, can easily produce all the beings that have
existed: her eternal march must necessarily bring forth, again and again,
the most astonishing circumstances; the most rare occurrences; those most
calculated to rouse the wonder, to elicit the admiration of beings, who
are only in a condition to give them a momentary consideration; who can
get nothing more than a glimpse, without ever having either the leisure or
the means to search into causes, which lie hid from their weak eyes, in
the depths of Cimmerian obscurity. Countless throws during eternity, with
elements and combinations varied almost to infinity, quite with relation
to man, suffice to produce every thing of which he has a knowledge, with
multitudes of other effects, of which he will never have the least
conception.

Thus, we cannot too often repeat to the metaphysicians, to the supporters
of immateriality, to the inconsistent theologians, who commonly ascribe to
their adversaries the most ridiculous opinions, in order to obtain an
easy, short-lived triumph in the prejudiced eyes of the multitude; or in
the stagnant minds of those who never examine deeply; that chance is
nothing but a word, as well as many other words, imagined solely to cover
the ignorance of those to whom the course of nature is inexplicable—to
shield the idleness of others who are too slothful to seek into the
properties of acting causes. It is not chance that has produced the
universe, it is self-existent; nature exists necessarily from all
eternity: she is omnipotent because every thing is produced by her
energies; she is omnipresent, because she fills all space; she is
omniscient, because every thing can only be what it actually is; she is
immovable, because as a whole she cannot be displaced; she is immutable,
because her essence cannot change, although her forms may vary; she is
infinite, because she cannot have any bounds; she is all perfect, because
she contains every thing: in short, she has all the abstract qualities of
the metaphysician, all the moral faculties of the theologian, without
involving any contradiction, since that which is the assemblage of all,
must of necessity contain the properties of all.

However concealed may be her ways, the existence of nature is indubitable;
her mode of action is in some respects known to us. Experience amply
demonstrates we might, if we were more industrious, become better
acquainted with her secrets; but with an immaterial substance, with a pure
spirit, the mind of man can never become familiar: he has no means by
which he can picture to himself this incomprehensible, this inconceivable
quality: in despite therefore of the roundness of assertion adopted by the
theologian, notwithstanding all the subtilties of the metaphysician, it
will always be for man, while he remains such as he now is, in the
language of Doctor Samuel Clarke, that, of which nothing can with truth
be affirmed.

CHAP. VI.

Of Pantheism; or of the Natural Ideas of the Divinity.

The false principle that matter is not self-existent; that by its nature
it is in an impossibility to move itself; consequently incompetent to the
production of those striking phenomena which arrest our wondering eyes in
the wide expanse of the universe; it will be obvious, to all who seriously
attend to what has preceded, is the origin of the proofs upon which
theology rests the existence of immateriality. After these suppositions,
as gratuitous as they are erroneous, the fallacy of which we have exposed
elsewhere, it has been believed that matter did not always exist, but that
its existence, as well as its motion, is a production of time; due to a
cause distinguished from itself; to an unknown agent to whom it is
subordinate. As man finds in his own species a quality which he calls
intelligence, which presides over all his actions, by the aid of which he
arrives at the end he proposes to himself; he has clothed this invisible
agent with this quality, which he has extended beyond the limits of his
own conception: he magnified it thus, because, having made him the author
of effects of which he found himself incapable, he did not conceive it
possible that the intelligence he himself possessed, unless it was
prodigiously amplified, would be sufficient to account for those
productions, to which his erring judgment led him to conclude the natural
energy of physical causes were not adequate.

As this agent was invisible, as his mode of action was inconceivable, he
made him a spirit, a word that really means nothing more than that he is
ignorant of his essence, or that he acts like the breath of which he
cannot trace the motion. Thus, in speaking of spirituality, he designated
an occult quality, which he deemed suitable to a concealed being, whose
mode of action was always imperceptible to the senses. It would appear,
however, that originally the word spirit was not meant to designate
immateriality; but a matter of a more subtile nature than that which acted
coarsely on the organs: still of a nature capable of penetrating the
grosser matter—of communicating to it motion—of instilling
into it active life—of giving birth to those combinations—of
imparting to them those modifications, which his organic structure
rendered him competent to discover. Such was, as has been shewn, that
all-powerful Jupiter, who in the theology of the ancients, was originally
destined to represent the etherial, subtile matter that penetrates,
vivifies, and gives activity to all the bodies of which nature is the
common assemblage.

It would be grossly deceiving ourselves to believe that the idea of
spirituality, such as the subtilty of dreaming metaphysicians present it
in these days, was that which offered itself to our forefathers in the
early stages of the human mind. This immateriality, which excludes all
analogy with any thing but itself—which bears no resemblance to any
thing of which man is capacitated to have a knowledge, was, as we have
already observed, the slow, the tardy fruit of his imagination, after he
had quitted experience, and renounced his reason. Men reared in luxurious
leisure, unceasingly meditating, without the assistance of those natural
helps with which attentive observation would have furnished them, by
degrees arrived at the formation of this incomprehensible quality, which
is so fugitive, that although man has been compelled to reverence it, to
accredit it against all the evidence of his senses, they have never yet
been enabled to give any other explanation of its nature, than by using a
term to which it is impossible to attach any intelligible idea. Seraphis
said, with tears in his eyes, “that in making him adopt the opinion of
spirituality, they had deprived him of his God.” Many fathers of the
church have given a human form to the Divinity, and treated all those as
heretics who made him spiritual. Thus by dint of reasoning, by force of
subtilizing, the word spirit no longer presents any one image upon which
the mind can fix itself; when they are desirous to speak of it, it becomes
impossible to understand them, seeing that each visionary paints it after
his own manner; and in the portrait he forms, consults only his own
temperament, follows nothing but his own imagination, adopts nothing but
his own peculiar reveries; the only point in which they are at all in
unison, is in assigning to it inconceivable qualities, which they
naturally enough believe are best suited to the incomprehensible beings
they have delineated: from the incompatible heap of these qualities,
generally resulted a whole, whose existence they thus rendered impossible.
In short, this word, which has occupied the research of so many learned
and intelligent men; which is considered of such importance to mankind,
has been, in consequence of theological reveries, always fluctuating:
these never bearing the least resemblance to each other, it has become
destitute of any fixed sense, a mere sound, to which each who echoes it
affixes his own peculiar ideas, which are never in harmony with those of
his neighbour; which indeed are not even steady in himself, but like the
camelion, assume the colour of every differing circumstance. This
unintelligible word has been substituted for the more intelligible one of
matter; man, when clothed with power, has entertained the most rancorous
antipathies, pursued the most barbarous persecutions, against those who
have not been enabled to contemplate this changeable idea under the same
point of view with himself.

There have, however, been men who had sufficient courage to resist this
torrent of opinion—to oppose themselves to this delirium; who have
believed, that the object which was announced as the most important for
mortals, as the sole object worthy of their thoughts, demanded an
attentive examination; who apprehended that if experience could be of any
utility, if judgment could afford any advantage, if reason was of any use
whatever, it must, most unquestionably be, to consider this quality so
opposed to every thing in nature, which was said to regulate all the
beings which she contains. These quickly saw they could not subscribe to
the general opinion of the uninformed, who never examine any thing, who
take every thing upon the credit of others; much less was it consistent
with sound sense to agree with their guides, who, either deceivers or
deceived, forbade others to submit it to the scrutiny of reason; who were
themselves frequently in an utter incapacity to pass it under such an
ordeal. Thus some thinkers, disgusted with the obscure and contradictory
notions which others had through habit mechanically attached to this
incomprehensible property, had the temerity to shake off the yoke which
had been imposed upon them from their infancy: calling reason to their aid
against those terrors with which they alarmed the ignorant, revolting at
the hideous descriptions under which they attempted to defend their
hypothesis, they had the intrepidity to tear the veil of delusion; to rend
asunder the barriers of imposture; they considered with calm resolution,
this formidable prejudice, contemplated with a serene eye this unsupported
opinion, examined with cool deliberation this fluctuating notion, which
had become the object of all the hopes, the source of all the fears, the
spring of all the quarrels which distracted the mind, and disturbed the
harmony of blind, confiding mortals.

The result of these inquiries has uniformly been, a conviction that no
rational proof has ever been adduced in support of this hypothesis; that
from the nature of the thing itself, none can be offered; that an
incorporeity is inconceivable to corporeal beings; that these only behold
nature acting after invariable laws, in which every thing is material;
that all the phenomena of which the world is the theatre, spring out of
natural causes; that man as well as all the other beings is the work or
this nature, is only an instrument in her hand, obliged to accomplish the
eternal decrees of an imperious necessity.

Whatever efforts the philosopher makes to penetrate the secrets of nature,
he never finds more, as we have many times repeated, than matter; various
in itself, diversely modified in consequence of the motion it undergoes.
Its whole, as well as its parts, displays only necessary causes producing
necessary effects, which flow necessarily one out of the other: of which
the mind, aided by experience, is more or less competent to discover the
concatenation. In virtue of their specific properties, all the beings that
come under our review, gravitate towards a centre—attract analogous
matter—repel that which is unsuitable to combination—mutually
receive and give impulse—acquire qualities—undergo
modifications which maintain them in existence for a season—are born
and dissolved by the operation of an inexorable decree, that obliges every
thing, we behold to pass into a new mode of existence. It is to these
continued vicissitudes that are to be ascribed all the phenomena, whether
trivial or of magnitude; ordinary or extraordinary; known or unknown;
simple or complicated; which are operated in the universe. It is by these
mutations alone that we have any knowledge of nature: she is only
mysterious to those who contemplate her through the veil of prejudice: her
course is always simple to those who look at her without prepossession.

To attribute the effects to which we are witnesses, to nature, to matter,
variously combined with the motion that is inherent to it, is to give them
an intelligible and known cause; to attempt to penetrate deeper, is to
plunge ourselves into imaginary regions, where we find only a chaos of
obscurities—where we are lost in an unfathomable abyss of
incertitude. Let us then be content with contemplating nature, who, being
self-existent, must in her essence possess motion; which cannot be
conceived without properties, from which result perpetual action and
re-action; or those continual efforts which give birth to such a numerous
train of circumstances; in which a single molecule cannot be found, that
does not necessarily occupy the place assigned to it, by immutable and
necessary laws—that is for an instant in an absolute state of
repose. What necessity can there exist to seek out of matter for a power
to give it play, since its motion flows as necessarily out of its
existence as its bulk, its form, its gravity, &c. since nature in
inaction would no longer be nature?

If it be demanded, How can we figure to ourselves, that matter by its own
peculiar energy can produce all the effects we witness? I shall reply,
that if by matter it is obstinately determined to understand nothing but a
dead, inert mass, destitute of every property, incapable of moving itself,
we shall no longer have a single idea of matter; we shall no longer be
able to account for any thing. As soon, however, as it exists, it must
have properties; as soon as it has properties, without which it could not
exist, it must act by virtue of those properties; since it is only by its
action we can have a knowledge of its existence, be conscious of its
properties. It is evident that if by matter be understood that which it is
not, or if its existence be denied, those phenomena which strike our
visual organs cannot be attributed to it. But if by nature be understood
(that which she really is), an heap of existing matter, possessing various
properties, we shall be obliged to acknowledge that nature must be
competent to move herself; by the diversity of her motion, must have the
capability, independent of foreign aid, to produce the effects we behold;
we shall find that nothing can be made from nothing; that nothing is made
by chance; that the mode of action of every particle of matter, however
minute, is necessarily determined by its own peculiar, or by its
individual properties.

We have elsewhere said, that that which cannot be annihilated—that
which in its nature is indestructible—cannot have been inchoate,
cannot have had a beginning to its existence, but exists necessarily from
all eternity; contains within itself a sufficient cause for its own
peculiar existence. It becomes then perfectly useless to seek out of
nature a cause for her action which is in some respects known to us; with
which indefatigable research may, judging of the future by the past,
render us more familiar. As we know some of the general properties of
matter; as we can discover some of its qualities, wherefore should we seek
its motion in an unintelligible cause, of which we are not in a condition
to become acquainted with any one of its properties? Can we conceive that
immateriality could ever draw matter from its own source? Impossible; it
is not within the grasp of human intellect. If creation is an eduction
from nothing, there must have been a time when matter had not existence;
there must consequently be a time when it will cease to be: this latter is
acknowledged by many theologians themselves to be impossible. Do those who
are continually talking of this mysterious act of omnipotence, by which a
mass of matter has been, all at once, substituted to nothing, perfectly
understand what they tell us? Is there a man on earth who conceives that a
being devoid of extent can exist, become the cause of the existence of
beings who have extent—act upon matter—draw it from his own
peculiar essence—set it in motion? In truth, the more we consider
theology, the more we must be convinced that it has invented words
destitute of sense; substituted sounds to intelligible realities.

For want of consulting experience, for want or studying nature, for want
of examining the material world, we have plunged ourselves into an
intellectual vacuum, which we have peopled with chimeras, We have not
stooped to consider matter, to study its different periods, to follow it
through its numerous, changes. We have either ridiculously or knavishly
confounded dissolution, decomposition, the separation of the elementary
particles of bodies, with their radical destruction; we have been
unwilling to see that the elements are indestructible; although the forms
are fleeting, and depend upon transitory combination. We have not
distinguished the change of figure, the alteration of position, the
mutation of texture, to which matter is liable, from its annihilation,
which is impossible; we have falsely concluded, that matter Was not a
necessary being—that it commenced to exist—that this existence
was derived from that which possessed nothing in common with itself—that
that which was not substance, could give birth to that which is. Thus an
unintelligible name has been substituted for matter, which furnishes us
with true ideas of nature; of which at each instant we experience the
influence, of which we undergo the action, of which we feel the power, and
of which we should have a much better knowledge, if our abstract opinions
did not continually fasten a bandage over our eyes.

Indeed the most simple notions of philosophy shew us, that, although
bodies change and disappear, nothing is however lost in nature; the
various produce of the decomposition of a body serves for elements,
supplies materials, forms the basis, lays the foundation for accretions,
contributes to the maintenance of other bodies. The whole of nature
subsists, and is conserved only by the circulation, the transmigration,
the exchange, the perpetual displacement of insensible atoms—the
continual mutation of the sensible combinations of matter. It is by this
palingenesia, this regeneration, that the great whole, the mighty
macrocosm subsists; who, like the Saturn of the ancients, is perpetually
occupied with devouring her own children.

It will not then be inconsistent with observation, repugnant to reason,
contrary to good sense, to acknowledge that matter is self-existent; that
it acts by an energy peculiar to itself; that it will never be
annihilated. Let us then say, that matter is eternal; that nature has
been, is, and ever will be occupied with producing and destroying; with
doing and undoing; with combining and separating; in short, with following
a system of laws resulting from its necessary existence. For every thing
that she doth, she needs only to combine the elements of matter; these,
essentially diverse, necessarily either attract or repel each other; come
into collision, from whence results either their union or dissolution; by
the same laws that one approximates, the other recedes from their
respective spheres of action. It is thus that she brings forth plants,
fossils, animals, men; thus she gives existence to organized, sensible,
thinking beings, as well as to those who are destitute of either feeling
or thought. All these act for the season of their respective duration,
according to immutable laws, determined by their various properties;
arising out of their configuration; depending on their masses; resulting
from their ponderosity, &c. Here is the true origin of every thing
which is presented to our view; this indicates the mode by which nature,
according to her own peculiar powers, is in a state to produce all those
astonishing effects which assail our wondering eyes; all that phenomena to
which mankind is the witness; as well as all the bodies who act diversely
upon the organs with which he is furnished, of which he can only judge
according to the manner in which these organs are affected. He says they
are good, when they are analogous to his own mode of existence—when
they contribute to the maintenance of the harmony of his machine: he says
they are bad, when they disturb this harmony. It is thus he ascribes
views, ideas, designs, to the being he supposes to be the power by which
nature is moved; although all the experience we are able to collect,
unequivocally proves, that she acts after an invariable, eternal code of
laws.

Nature is destitute of those views which actuate man; she acts
necessarily, because she exists: her system is immutable, and founded upon
the essence of things. It is the essence of the seed of the male, composed
of primitive elements, which serve for the basis of an organized being, to
unite itself with that of the female; to fructify it; to produce, by this
combination, a new organized being; who, feeble in his origin, not having
yet acquired a sufficient quantity of material particles to give him
consistence, corroborates himself by degrees; strengthens himself by the
daily accretion of analogous matter; is nourished by the modifications
appropriate to his existence: matured by the continuation of circumstances
calculated to give vigour to his frame; thus he lives, thinks, acts,
engenders in his turn other organized beings similar to himself. By a
consequence of his temperament and of physical laws, this generation does
not take place, except when the circumstances necessary to its production
find themselves united. Thus this procreation is not operated by chance;
the animal does not fructify, but with an animal of his own species,
because this is the only one analogous to himself, who unites the
qualities, who combines the circumstances, suitable to produce a being
resembling himself; without this he would not produce any thing, or he
would only give birth to a being who would be denominated a monster,
because it would be dissimilar to himself. It is of the essence of the
grain of plants, to be impregnated by the pollen or seed of the stygma of
the flower; in this state of copulation they in consequence develope
themselves in the bowels of the earth; expand by the aid of water; shoot
forth by the accession of heat; attract analogous particles to corroborate
their system: thus by degrees they form a plant, a shrub, a tree,
susceptible of that life, filled with that motion, capable of that action
which is suitable to vegetable existence. It is of the essence of
particular particles of earth, homogeneous in their nature, when separated
by circumstances, attenuated by water, elaborated by heat, to unite
themselves in the bosom of mountains, with other atoms which are
analogous; to form by their aggregation, according to their various
affinities, those bodies possessing more or less solidity; having more or
less purity, which are called diamonds, chrystals, stones, metals,
minerals. It is of the essence of exhalations raised by the heat of the
atmosphere, to combine, to collect themselves, to dash against each other,
and either by their union or their collision to produce meteors, to
generate thunder. It is of the essence of some inflammable matter to
gather itself together, to ferment in the caverns of the earth, to
increase its active force by augmenting its heat, and then explode, by the
accession of other matter suitable to the operation, with that tremendous
force which we call earthquakes; by which mountains are destroyed; cities
overturned; the inhabitants of the plains thrown into a state of
consternation; these full of alarm, unused to meditate on natural effects,
unconscious of the extent of physical powers, stretch forth their hands in
dismay, heave the most desponding sighs, utter aloud their complaints, and
earnestly implore a cessation of those evils, which nature, acting by
necessary laws, obliges them to experience as necessarily as she does
those benefits by which she fills them with the most extravagant joy. In
short, it is of the essence of certain climates to produce men so
organized, whose temperament is so modified, that they become either
extremely useful or very prejudicial to their species, in the same manner
as it is the property of certain portions of the land, to bring forth
either delicious fruits or dangerous poisons.

In all this nature acts necessarily; she pursues an undeviating course,
which we are bound to consider the perfection of wisdom; because she
exists necessarily, has her modes of action determined by certain,
invariable laws, which themselves flow out of the constituent properties
of the various beings she contains, and those circumstances, which the
eternal motion she is in must necessarily bring about. It is ourselves who
have a necessary aim, which is our own conservation; it is by this that we
regulate all the ideas we form to ourselves of the causes acting in
nature; it is according to this standard we judge of every thing we see or
feel. Animated ourselves, existing after a certain manner, possessing a
soul endowed with rare and peculiar qualities, we, like the savage,
ascribe a soul and animated life to every thing that acts upon us.
Thinking and intelligent ourselves, we give these, faculties to those
beings whom we suppose to be more powerful than mortals; but as we see the
generality of matter incapable of modifying itself, we suppose it must
receive its impulse from some concealed agent, some external cause, which
our imagination pictures as similar to ourselves. Necessarily attracted by
that which is advantageous to us, repelling by an equal necessity that
which is prejudicial to our manner of existence; we cease to reflect that
our modes of feeling are due to our peculiar organization, modified by
physical causes: in this state, either of inattention or ignorance, we
mistake the natural results of our own peculiar structure, for instruments
employed by a being whom we clothe with our own passions—whom we
suppose actuated by our own views—who, possessing our ideas,
embraces a mode of thinking and acting similar to ourselves.

If after this it be asked, What is the end of nature? We shall reply that
on this head we are ignorant; that it is more than probable no man will
ever fathom the secret; but we shall also say, it is evidently to exist,
to act, to conserve her whole. If then it be demanded, Wherefore she
exists? We shall again reply, of this we know nothing at present, possibly
never shall; but we shall also say, she exists necessarily, that her
operations, her motion, her phenomena, are the necessary consequences of
her necessary existence. There necessarily exists something; this is
nature or the universe, this nature necessarily acts as she does. If it be
wished to substitute any other word for nature, the question will still
remain as it did, as to the cause of her existence; the end she has in
view. It is not by changing of terms that a geometrician can solve
problems; one word will throw no more light on a subject than another,
unless that word carries a certain degree of conviction in the ideas which
it generates. As long as we speak of matter, if we cannot develope all its
properties, we shall at least have fixed, determinate ideas; something
tangible, of which we have a slight knowledge, that we can submit to the
examination of our senses: but from the moment we begin to talk of
immateriality, of incorporeity, from thence our ideas become confused; we
are lost in a labyrinth of conjecture—we have no one means of
seizing the subject on any side—we are, after the most elaborate
arguments, after the most subtle reasoning, obliged to acknowledge we
cannot form the most slender opinion respecting it, that has any thing
substantive for its support. In short, that it is precisely that thing “of
which every thing may be denied, but of which nothing can with truth be
affirmed.” Let us clothe this incomprehensible being with whatever
qualities we may, it will be always in ourselves we seek the model; they
will be our own faculties that we delineate, our own passions that we
describe. In like manner man, as long as he is ignorant, will always
conjecture that it is for himself alone the universe was formed; not
withstanding, he has nothing more to do, than to open his eyes in order to
be undeceived. He will then see, that he undergoes a common destiny,
equally partakes with all other beings of the benefits, shares with them
without exception the evils of life; like them he is submitted to an
imperious necessity, inexorable in its decrees; which is itself nothing
more than the sum total of those laws which nature herself is obliged to
follow.

Thus every thing proves that nature, or matter, exists necessarily; that
it cannot in any moment swerve from those laws imposed upon it by its
existence. If it cannot be annihilated, it cannot have been inchoate. The
theologian himself agrees that it requires a miracle to annihilate an
atom. But is it possible to derogate from the necessary laws of existence?
Can that which exists necessarily, act but according to the laws peculiar
to itself? Miracle is another word invented to shield our own sloth, to
cover our own ignorance; it is that by which we wish to designate those
rare occurrences, those solitary effects of natural causes, whose
infrequency do not afford us means of diving into their springs. It is
only saying by another expression, that an unknown cause hath by modes
which we cannot trace, produced an uncommon effect which we did not
expect, which therefore appears strange to us. This granted, the
intervention of words, far from removing the ignorance in which we found
ourselves with respect to the power and capabilities of nature, only
serves to augment it, to give it more durability. The creation of matter
becomes to our mind as incomprehensible, and appears as impossible as its
annihilation.

Let us then conclude that all those words which do not present to the mind
any determinate idea, ought to be banished the language of those who are
desirous of speaking so as to be understood; that abstract terms, invented
by ignorance, are only calculated to satisfy men destitute of experience;
who are too slothful to study nature, too timid to search into her ways;
that they are suitable only to content those enthusiasts, whose curious
imagination pleases itself with making fruitless endeavours to spring
beyond the visible world; who occupy themselves with chimeras of their own
creation: in short, that these words are useful only to those whose sole
profession it is to feed the ears of the uninformed with pompous sounds,
that are not comprehended by themselves—upon the sense of which they
are in a state of perpetual hostility with each other—upon the true
meaning of which they have never yet been able to come to a common
agreement; which each sees after his own peculiar manner of contemplating
objects, in which there never was, nor probably never will be, the least
harmony of feeling.

Man is a material being; he cannot consequently have any ideas, but of
that which like himself is material; that is to say, of that which is in a
capacity to act upon his organs, which has some qualities analogous with
his own. In despite of himself, he always assigns material properties to
his gods; the impossibility he finds in compassing them, has made him
suppose them to be spiritual; distinguished from the material world.
Indeed he, must be content, either not to understand himself, or he must
have material ideas of the Divinity; the human mind may torture itself as
long as it pleases, it will never, after all its efforts, be enabled to
comprehend, that material effects can emanate from immaterial causes; or
that such causes can have any relation with material beings. Here is the
reason why man, as we have seen, believes himself obliged to give to his
gods, these morals which he so much so highly esteems, in those beings of
his race, who are fortunate enough to possess them: he forgets that a
being who is spiritual, adopting the theological hypothesis, cannot from
thence either have his organization, or his ideas; that it cannot think in
his mode, nor act after his manner; that consequently it cannot possess
what he calls intelligence, wisdom, goodness, anger, justice, &c. as
he himself understands those terms. Thus, in truth, the moral qualities
with which he has clothed the Divinity, supposes him material, and the
most abstract theological notions, are, after all, founded upon a direct,
undeniable Anthropomorphism.

In despite of all their subtilties, the theologians cannot do otherwise;
like all the beings of the human species, they have a knowledge of matter
alone: they have no real idea of a pure spirit. When they speak of the
intelligence, of the wisdom, of the designs of their gods, they are always
those of men which they describe, that they obstinately persist in giving
to beings, of which, according to their own shewing, to the evidence they
themselves adduce, their essence does not render them susceptible; who if
they had those qualities with which they clothe them, would from that very
moment cease to be incorporeal; would be in the truest sense of the word,
substantive matter. How shall we reconcile the assertion, that beings who
have not occasion for any thing—who are sufficient to them selves—whose
projects must be executed as soon as they are formed; can have volition,
passions, desires? How shall we attribute anger to beings without either
blood or bile? How can we conceive an omnipotent being (whose wisdom we
admire in the striking order he has himself established in the universe,)
can permit that this beautiful arrangement should be continually
disturbed, either by the elements in discord, or by the crimes of human
beings? In short, this being cannot have any one of the human qualities,
which always depend upon the peculiar organization of man—upon his
wants—upon his institutions, which are themselves always relative to
the society in which he lives. The theologian vainly strives to
aggrandize, to exaggerate in idea, to carry to perfection by dint of
abstraction, the moral qualities of man; they are unsuitable to the
Divinity; in vain it is asserted they are in him of a different nature
from what they are in his creatures; that they are perfect; infinite;
supreme; eminent; in holding this language, they no longer understand
themselves; they can have no one idea of the qualities they are
describing, seeing that man can never have a conception of them, but
inasmuch as they bear an analogy to the same qualities in himself.

It is thus that by force of metaphysical subtilty, mortals have no longer
any fixed, any determinate idea of the beings to which they have given
birth. But little contented with understanding physical causes, with
contemplating active nature; weary of examining matter, which experience
proves is competent to the production of every thing, man has been
desirous to despoil it of the energy which it is its essence to possess,
in order to invest it in a pure spirit; in an immaterial substance; which
he is under the necessity of re-making a material being, whenever he has
an inclination either to form an idea of it to himself, or make it
understood by others. In assembling the parts of man, which he does no
more than enlarge, which he swells out to infinity, he believes he forms
an immaterial being, who, for that reason, acquires the capability of
performing all those phenomena, with the true causes of which he is
ignorant; nevertheless those operations of which he does comprehend the
spring, he as sedulously denies to be due to the powers of this being;
time, therefore, according to these ideas, as he advances the progress of
science, as he further developes the secrets of nature, is continually
diminishing the number of actions ascribed to this being—is
constantly circumscribing his sphere of action. It is upon the model of
the human soul that he forms the soul of nature, or that secret agent from
which she receives impulse. After having made himself double, he makes
nature in like manner twofold, and then he supposes she is vivified by an
intelligence, which he borrows from himself, Placed in an impossibility of
becoming acquainted with this agent, as well as with that which he has
gratuitously distinguished from his own body; he has invented the word
spiritual to cover up his ignorance; which is only in other words avowing
it is a substance entirely unknown to him. From that moment, however, he
has no ideas whatever of what he himself has done; because he first
clothes it with all the qualities he esteems in his fellows, and then
destroys them by an assurance, that they in no wise resemble the qualities
he has been so anxious to bestow. To remedy this inconvenience, he
concludes this spiritual substance much more noble than matter; that its
prodigious subtilty, which he calls simplicity, but which is only the
effect of metaphysical abstraction, secures it from decomposition, from
dissolution, from all those revolutions, to which material bodies, as
produced by nature, are evidently exposed.

It is thus, that man always prefers the marvellous to the simple; the
unintelligible to the intelligible; that which he cannot comprehend, to
that which is within the range of his understanding; he despises those
objects which are familiar to him; he estimates those alone with which he
is incapable of having any intercourse: that of which he has only confused
vague ideas, he concludes must contain something important for him to know—must
have something supernatural in its construction. In short, he needs
mystery to move his imagination—to exercise his mind—to feed
his curiosity; which never labours harder, than when it is occupied with
enigmas impossible to be guessed at; which from that very circumstance, he
judges to be extremely worthy of his research. This, without doubt, is the
reason he looks upon matter, which he has continually under his eyes,
which he sees perpetually in action, eternally changing its form, as a
contemptible thing—as a contingent being, that does not exist
necessarily; consequently, that cannot exist independently: this is the
reason why he has imagined a spirit, which he will never be able to
conceive; which on that account he declares to be superior to matter;
which he roundly asserts to be anterior to nature, and the only
self-existent being. The human wind found food in these mystical ideas,
they unceasingly occupied it; the imagination had play, it embellished
them after its own manner: ignorance fed itself with the fables to which
these mysteries gave rise; habit identified them with the existence of man
himself: when each could ask the other concerning these ideas, without any
one being in a capacity to return a direct answer, he felt himself
gratified, he immediately concluded that the general impossibility of
reply stamped them with the wondrous faculty of immediately interesting
his welfare; of involving his most prominent interests, more than all the
things put together, with which he had any possible means of becoming
intimately acquainted. Thus they became necessary to his happiness; he
believed he fell into a vacuum without them; he became the decided enemy
to all those who endeavoured to lead him back to nature, which he had
learned to despise; to consider only as an impotent mass, an heap of inert
matter, not possessing any energy but what it received from causes
exterior to itself; as a contemptible assemblage of fragile combinations,
whose forms were continually subject to perish.

In distinguishing nature from her mover, man has fallen into the same
absurdity as when he separated his soul from his body; life from the
living being; the faculty of thought from the thinking being: deceived on
his own peculiar nature, having taken up an erroneous opinion upon the
energy of his own organs, he has in like manner been deceived upon the
organization of the universe; he has distinguished nature from herself;
the life of nature from living nature; the action of nature from active
nature. It was this soul of the world—this energy of nature—this
principle of activity, which man first personified, then separated by
abstraction; sometimes decorated with imaginary attributes; sometimes with
qualities borrowed from his own peculiar essence. Such were the aerial
materials of which man availed himself to construct the incomprehensible,
immaterial substances, which have filled the world with disputes—which
have divided man from his fellow—which to this day he has never been
able to define, even to his own satisfaction. His own soul was the model.
Deceived upon the nature of this, he never had any just ideas of the
Divinity, who was, in his mind, nothing more than a copy exaggerated or
disfigured to that degree, as to make him mistake the prototype upon which
it had been originally formed.

If, because man has distinguished himself from his own existence, it has
been impossible for him ever to form to himself any true idea of his own
nature; it is also because he has distinguished nature from herself, that
both herself and her ways have been mistaken. Man has ceased to study
nature, that he might, recur by thought to a substance which possesses
nothing in common with her; this substance he has made the mover of
nature, without which she would not be capable of any thing; to whom every
thing that takes place in her system, must be attributed; the conduct of
this being has appeared mysterious, has been held up as marvellous,
because he seemed to be a continual contradiction: when if man had but
recurred to the immutability of the laws of nature, to the invariable
system she pursues, all would have appeared intelligible; every thing
would have been reconciled; the apparent contrariety would have vanished.
By thus taking a wrong view of things, wisdom and intelligence appeared to
be opposed by confusion and disorder; goodness to be rendered nugatory by
evil; while all is only just what it must inevitably be, under the given
circumstances. In consequence of these erroneous opinions, in the place of
applying himself to the study of nature, to discover the method of
obtaining her favors, or to seek the means of throwing aside his
misfortunes; in the room of consulting his experience; in lieu of
labouring usefully to his own happiness; he has been only occupied with
expecting these things by channels through which they do not flow; he has
been disputing upon objects be never can understand, while he has totally
neglected that which was within the compass of his own powers; which he
might have rendered propitious to his views, by a more industrious
application of his own talent; by a patient investigation, for the purpose
of drawing at the fountain of truth, the limpid balsam that alone can heal
the sorrows or his heart.

Nothing could be well more prejudicial to his race, than this extravagant
theory; which, as we shall prove, has become the source of innumerable
evils. Man has been for thousands of years trembling before idols of his
own creation—bowing down before them with the most servile homage—occupied
with disarming their wrath—sedulously employed in propitiating their
kindness, without ever advancing a single step on the road he so much
desires to travel. He will perhaps continue the same course for centuries
to come, unless by some unlooked for exertion on his part, he shall happen
to discard the prejudices which blind him; to lay aside his enthusiasm for
the marvellous; to quit his fondness for the enigmatical; rally round the
standard of his reason: unless, taking experience for his guide, he march
undauntedly forward under the banner of truth, and put to the rout that
host of unintelligible jargon, under the cumbrous load of which he has
lost sight of his own happiness; which has but too frequently prevented
him from seeking the only means adequate either to satisfy his wants, or
to ameliorate the evils which he is necessarily obliged to experience.

Let us then re-conduct bewildered mortals to the altar of nature; let us
endeavour to destroy that delusion which the ignorance of man, aided by a
disordered imagination, has induced him to elevate to her throne; let us
strive to dissipate that heavy mist which obscures to him the paths of
truth; let us seek to banish from his mind those visionary ideas which
prevent him from giving activity to his experience; let us teach him if
possible not to seek out of nature herself, the causes of the phenomena he
admires—to rest satisfied that she contains remedies for all his
evils—that she has manifold benefits in store for those, who,
rallying their industry, are willingly patiently to investigate her laws—that
she rarely withholds her secrets from the researches of those who
diligently labour to unravel them. Let us assure him that reason alone can
render him happy; that reason is nothing more than the science of nature,
applied to the conduct of man in society; that this reason teaches that
every thing is necessary; that his pleasures as well as his sorrows are
the effects of nature, who in all her works follows only laws which
nothing can make her revoke; that his interest demands he should learn to
support with equanimity of mind, all those evils which natural means do
not enable him to put aside. In short, let us unceasingly repeat to him,
it is in rendering his fellow creature happy, that he will himself arrive
at a felicity he will in vain expect from others, when his own conduct
refuses it to him.

Nature is self-existent; she will always exist; she produces every thing;
contains within herself the cause of every thing; her motion is a
necessary consequence of her existence; without motion we could form no
conception of nature; under this collective name we designate the
assemblage of matter acting by virtue of its peculiar energies. Every
thing proves to us, that it is not out of nature man ought to seek the
Divinity. If we have only an incomplete knowledge of nature and her ways—if
we have only superficial, imperfect ideas of matter, how shall we be able
to flatter ourselves with understanding or having any certain notions of
immateriality, of beings so much more fugitive, so much more difficult to
compass, even by thought, than the material elements; so much more shy of
access than either the constituent principles of bodies, their primitive
properties, their various modes of acting, or their different manner of
existing? If we cannot recur to first causes, let its content ourselves
with second causes, with those effects which we can submit to experience,
let us collect the facts with which we have an acquaintance; they will
enable us to judge of what we do not know: let us at least confine
ourselves to the feeble glimmerings of truth with which our senses furnish
us, since we do not possess means whereby to acquire broader masses of
light.

Do not let us mistake for real sciences, those which have no other basis
than our imagination; we shall find that such can at most be but
visionary: let us cling close to nature which we see, which we feel, of
which we experience the action; of which at least we understand the
general laws. If we are ignorant of her detail, if we cannot fathom the
secret principles she employs in her most complicated productions, we are
at least certain she acts in a permanent, uniform, analogous, necessary
manner. Let us then observe this nature; let us watch her movements; but
never let us endeavour to quit the routine she prescribes for the beings
of our species: if we do, we shall not only be obliged to return, but we
shall also infallibly be punished with numberless errors, which will
darken our mind, estrange us from reason; the necessary consequence will
be countless sorrows, which we may otherwise avoid. Let us consider we are
sensible parts of a whole, in which the forms are only produced to be
destroyed; in which combinations are ushered into life, that they may
again quit it, after having subsisted for a longer or a shorter season.
Let us look upon nature as an immense elaboratory which contains every
thing necessary for her action; who lacks nothing requisite for the
production of all the phenomena she displays to our sight. Let us
acknowledge her power to be inherent in her essence; amply commensurate to
her eternal march; fully adequate to the happiness of all the beings she
contains. Let us consider her as a whole, who can only maintain herself by
what we call the discord of the elements; that she exists by the continual
dissolution and re-union of her parts; that from this springs the
universal harmony; that from this the general stability has its birth. Let
us then re-establish omnipotent nature, so long mistaken by man, in her
legitimate rights. Let us place her on that adamantine throne, which it is
for the felicity of the human race she should occupy. Let us surround her
with those ministers who can never deceive, who can never forfeit our
confidence—Justice and Practical Knowledge. Let us listen to
her eternal voice; she neither speaks ambiguously, nor in an
unintelligible language; she may be easily comprehended by the people of
all nations; because Reason is her faithful interpreter. She offers
nothing to our contemplation but immutable truths. Let us then for ever
impose silence on that enthusiasm which leads us astray; let us put to the
blush that imposture which would riot on our credulity; let us discard
that gloomy superstition, which has drawn us aside from the only worship
suitable to intelligent beings. Above all, never let us forget that the
temple of happiness can only be reached through the groves of virtue,
which surround it on every side; that the paths which lead to these
beautiful walks can only be entered by the road of experience, the portals
of which are alone opened to those who apply to them the key of truth:
this key is of very simple structure, has no complicated intricacy of
wards, and is easily formed on the anvil of social intercourse, merely by
not doing unto others that which you would not wish they should do unto
you.

CHAP. VII.

Of Theism.—Of the System of Optimism.—Of final Causes.

Very few men have either the courage or the industry to examine opinions,
which every one is in agreement to acknowledge; there is scarcely any one
who ventures to doubt their truth, even when no solid arguments have been
adduced in their support. The natural supineness of man readily receives
them without examination upon the authority of others—communicates
them to his successors in the season of their infancy; thus is transmitted
from race to race, notions which once having obtained the sanction of
time, are contemplated as clothed with a sacred character, although
perhaps to an unprejudiced mind, who should be bent on searching into
their foundation, no proofs will appear, that they ever were verified. It
is thus with immateriality: it has passed current from father to son for
many ages, without these having done any thing more than habitually
consign to their brain those obscure ideas which were at first attached to
it, which it is evident, from the admission even of its advocates, can
never be removed, to admit others of a more enlightened nature. Indeed how
can it possibly be, that light can be thrown upon an incomprehensible
subject: each therefore modifies it after his own manner; each gives it
that colouring that most harmonizes with his own peculiar existence; each
contemplates it under that perspective which is the issue of his own
particular vision: this from the nature of things cannot be the same in
every individual: there must then of necessity be a great contrariety in
the opinions resulting. It is thus also that each man forms to himself a
God in particular, after his own peculiar temperament—according to
his own natural dispositions: the individual circumstances under which he
is found, the warmth of his imagination, the prejudices he has received,
the mode in which he is at different times affected, have all their
influence in the picture he forms. The contented, healthy man, does not
see him with the same eyes as the man who is chagrined and sick; the man
with a heated blood, who has an ardent imagination, or is subject to bile,
does not pourtray him under the same traits as he who enjoys a more
peaceable soul, who has a cooler fancy, who is of a more phlegmatic habit.
This is not all; even the same individual does not view him in the same
manner at different periods of his life: he undergoes all the variations
of his machine—all the revolutions of his temperament—all
those continual vicissitudes which his existence experiences. The idea of
the Divinity is said to be innate; on the contrary, it is perpetually
fluctuating in the mind of each individual; varies every moment in all the
beings of the human species; so much so, that there are not two who admit
precisely the same Deity; there is not a single one, who, under different
circumstances, does not see him variously.

Do not then let us be surprised at the variety of systems adopted by
mankind on this subject; it ought not to astonish us that there is so
little harmony existing among men upon a point of such consequence; it
ought not to appear strange that so much contradiction should prevail in
the various doctrines held forth; that they should have such little
consistency, such slender connection with each other; that the professors
should dispute continually upon the rectitude of the opinions adopted by
each: they must necessarily wrangle upon that which each contemplates so
variously—upon which there is hardly a single mortal who is
constantly in accord with himself.

All men are pretty well agreed upon those objects which they are enabled
to submit to the test of experience; we do not hear any disputes upon the
principles of geometry; those truths that are evident, that are easily
demonstrable, never vary in our mind; we never doubt that the part is less
than the whole; that two and two make four; that benevolence is an amiable
quality; that equity is necessary to man in society. But we find nothing
but perpetual controversy upon all those systems which have the Divinity
for their object; they are full of incertitude; subject to continual
variations: we do not see any harmony either in the principles of
theology, or in the principles of its graduates. Even the proofs offered
of his existence have been the subject of cavil; they have either been
thought too feeble, have been brought forward against rule, or else have
not been taken up with sufficient zeal to please the various reasoners who
advocate the cause; the corollaries drawn from the premises laid down, are
not the same in any two nations, scarcely in two individuals; the thinkers
of all ages, in all countries, are perpetually in rivalry with each other;
unceasingly quarrel upon all the points of religion; can never agree
either upon their theological hypotheses, or upon the fundamental truths
which should serve for their basis; even the attributes, the very
qualities ascribed, are as warmly contested by some, as they are zealously
defended by others.

These never-ending disputes, these perpetual variations, ought, at least,
to convince the unprejudiced, that the ideas of the Divinity have neither
the generally-admitted evidence, nor the certitude which are attributed to
them; on the contrary, these contrarieties in the opinions of the
theologians, if submitted to the logic of the schools, might be fatal to
the whole of them: according to that mode of reasoning, which at least has
the sanction of our universities, all the probabilities in the world
cannot acquire the force of a demonstration; a truth is not made evident
but when constant experience, reiterated reflection, exhibits it always
under the same point of view; the evidence of a proposition cannot be
admitted unless it carries with it a substantive demonstration; from the
constant relation which is made by well constituted senses, results that
evidence, that certitude, which alone can produce full conviction: if the
major proposition of a syllogism should be overturned by the minor, the
whole falls to the ground. Cicero, who is no mean authority on such a
subject, says expressly, “No reasoning can render that false, which
experience has demonstrated as evident.” Wolff, in his Ontology, says;
“That which is repugnant in itself, cannot possibly be understood; that
those things which are in themselves contradictions, must always be
deficient of evidence.” St. Thomas says, “Being, is all that which is not
repugnant to existence.”

However it may be with these qualities, which the theologians assign to
their immaterial beings, whether they may be irreconcileable, or whether
they are totally incomprehensible, what can result to the human species in
supposing them to have intelligence and views? Can an universal
intelligence, whose care must be equally extended to every thing that
exists, have more direct, more intimate relations with man, who only forms
an insensible portion of the great whole? Can we seriously believe that it
is to make joyful the insects, to gratify the ants of his garden, that the
Monarch of the universe has constructed and embellished his habitation?
Would our feeble eyes, therefore, become stronger—would our narrow
views of things be enlarged—should we be better capacitated to
understand his projects—could we with more certitude divine his
plans, enter into his designs—would our exility of judgment be
competent to measure his wisdom, to follow the eternal order he has
established? Will those effects, which flow from his omnipotence, emanate
from his providence—whether we estimate them as good, or whether we
tax them as evil—whether we consider them beneficial, or view them
as prejudicial—be less the necessary results of his wisdom, of his
justice, of his eternal decrees? In this case can we reasonably suppose
that a Being, so wise, so just, so intelligent, will derange his system,
change his plan, for such weak beings as ourselves? Can we rationally
believe we have the capacity to address worthy prayers, to make suitable
requests, to point out proper modes of conduct to such a Being? Can we at
all flatter ourselves that to please us, to gratify our discordant wishes,
he will alter his immutable laws? Can we imagine that at our entreaty he
will take from the beings who surround us their essences, their
properties, their various modes of action? Have we any right to expect he
will abrogate in our behalf the eternal laws of nature, that he will
disturb her eternal march, arrest her ever-lasting course, which his
wisdom has planned; which his goodness has conferred; which are, in fact,
the admiration of mankind? Can we hope that in our favour fire will cease
to burn, when we approximate it too closely; that fever shall not consume
our habit, when contagion has penetrated our system; that gout shall not
torment us, when an intemperate mode of life shall have amassed the
humours that necessarily result from such conduct; that an edifice
tumbling in ruins shall not crush us by its fall, when we are within the
vortex of its action? Will our vain cries, our most fervent supplications,
prevent a country from being unhappy, when it shall be devastated by an
ambitious conqueror; when it shall be submitted to the capricious will of
unfeeling tyrants, who bend it beneath the iron rod of their oppression?

If this infinite intelligence gives a free course to those events which
his wisdom has prepared; if nothing happens in this world but after his
impenetrable designs; we ought silently to submit; we have in fact nothing
to ask; we should be madmen to oppose our own weak intellect to such
capacious wisdom; we should offer an insult to his prudence if we were
desirous to regulate them. Man must not flatter himself that he is wiser
than his God; that he is in a capacity to make him change his will; with
having power to determine him to take other means than those which he has
chosen to accomplish his decrees. An intelligent Divinity can only have
taken those measures which embrace complete justice; can only have availed
himself of those means which are best calculated to arrive at his end; if
he was capable of changing them, he could neither be called wise,
immutable, nor provident. If it was to be granted, that the Divinity did
for a single instant suspend those laws which he himself has given, if he
was to change any thing in his plan, it would be supposing he had not
foreseen the motives of this suspension; that he had not calculated the
causes of this change; if he did not make these motives enter into his
plan, it would be saying he had not foreseen the causes that render them
necessary: if he has foreseen them without making them part of his system,
it would be arraigning the perfection of the whole. Thus in whatever
manner these things are contemplated, under whatever point of view they
are examined, it is evident that the prayers which man addresses to the
Divinity, which are sanctioned by the different modes of worship, always
suppose he is supplicating a being whose wisdom and providence are
defective; in fact, that his own is more appropriate to his situation. To
suppose he is capable of change in his conduct, is to bring his
omniscience into question; to vitally attack his omnipotence; to arraign
his goodness; at once to say, that he either is not willing or not
competent to judge what would be most expedient for man; for whose sole
advantage and pleasure they will, notwithstanding, insist he created the
universe: such are the inconsistent doctrines of theology; such the
imbecile efforts of metaphysics.

It is, however, upon these notions, extravagant as they may appear, ill
directed as they assuredly are, inconclusive as they must be acknowledged
by unprejudiced minds, that are founded all the superstitions and many of
the religions of the earth. It is by no means an uncommon sight, to see
man upon his knees before an all-wise God, whose conduct he is
endeavouring to regulate; whose decrees he wishes to avert; whose plan he
is desirous to reform. These inconsistent objects he is occupied with
gaining, by means equally repugnant to sound sense; equally injurious to
the dignity of the Divinity: adopting his own sensations as the criterion
of the feelings of the Deity; in some places he tries to win him to his
interests by presents; sometimes we behold even the princes of the earth
attempting to direct his views, by offering him splendid garments, upon
which their own fatuity sets an inordinate value, merely because they have
laboured at them themselves; some strive to disarm his justice by the most
splendid pageantry; others by practices the most revolting to humanity;
some think his immutability will yield to idle ceremonies; others to the
most discordant prayers; it not unfrequently happens that to induce him to
change in their favour his eternal decrees, those who have opposite
interests to promote, each returns him thanks for that which the others
consider as the greatest curse that can befal them. In short, man is
almost every where prostrate before an omnipotent God, who, if we were to
judge by the discrepancy of their requests, never has rendered his
creatures such as they ought to be; who to accomplish his divine views has
never taken the proper measures, who to fulfil his wisdom has continual
need of the admonitions of man, conveyed either in the form of thanks or
prayers.

We see, then, that superstition is founded upon manifest contradictions,
which man must always fall into when he mistakes the natural causes of
things—when he shall attribute the good or evil which he experiences
to an intelligent cause, distinguished from nature, of which he will never
be competent to form to himself any certain ideas. Indeed, man will always
be reduced, as we have so frequently repeated, to the necessity of
clothing his gods with his own imbecile qualities: as he is himself a
changeable being, whose intelligence is limited; who, placed in divers
circumstances, appears to be frequently in contradiction with himself;
although he thinks he honours his gods in giving them his own peculiar
qualities, he in fact does nothing more than lend them his own
inconstancy, cover them with his own weakness, invest them with his own
vices. It is thus that in reasoning, he is unable to account for the
necessity of things—that he imagines there is a confusion which his
prayers will have a tendency to remove—that he thinks the evils of
life more than commensurate with the good: he does not perceive that an
undeviating system, by operating upon beings diversely organized, whose
circumstances are different, whose modes of action are at variance, must
of necessity sometimes appear to be inimical to the interests of the
individual, while it embraces the general good of the whole. The
theologian may subtilize, exaggerate, render as unintelligible as he
pleases, the attributes with which he clothes his divinities, he will
never be able to remove the contradictions which arise from the discordant
qualities which he thus heaps together; neither will he be able to give
man any other mode of judging than what arises from the exercise of his
senses, such as they are actually found. He will never be able to furnish
the idea of an immutable being, while he shall represent this being as
capable of being irritated and appeased by the prayers of mortals. He will
never delineate the features of omnipotence under the portrait of a being
who cannot restrain the actions of his inferiors. He will never hold up a
standard of justice, while he shall mingle it with mercy, however amiable
the quality; or while he shall represent it as punishing those actions,
which the perpetrators were under the necessity of committing. Neither
will he be able, under any circumstances, to make a finite mind comprehend
infinity; much less when he shall represent this infinity as bounded by
finity itself.

From this it will be obvious, that immaterial substances, such as are
depicted by the theologians, can only be looked upon as the offspring of a
metaphysical brain, unsupported by any of those proofs which are usually
required to establish the propositions laid down among men; all the
qualities which they ascribe to them, are only those which are suitable to
material substances; all the abstract properties with which they invest
them, are incomprehensible by material beings; the whole taken together,
is one confused mass of contradictions: they have held forth to man, that
it highly imported to his interests to know, to understand these
substances; he has consequently set his intellect in action to discover
some means of compassing an end, said to be so consequential to his
welfare; he has, however, been unable to make any progress, because no
clue could be offered to him of the road he must pursue; all was mere
assertion unsupported by evidence; the whole was enveloped in complete
darkness, into which the least scintillation of light could never
penetrate. Notwithstanding, as soon as man believes himself greatly
interested in knowing a thing, he labors to form to himself an idea of
that, the knowledge of which he thinks so important; if insuperable
obstacles impede his inquiries—if difficulties of a magnitude to
alarm his industry intervene—if with immense labour he makes but
little progress, then the slender success that attends his research, aided
by a slothful disposition, while it wearies his diligence disposes him to
credulity. It was thus, that a crafty ambitious Arab, subtle and knavish
in his manners, insinuating in his address, profiting by this credulous
inclination, made his countrymen adopt his own fanciful reveries as
permanent truths, of which it was not permitted them for an instant to
doubt; following up these opinions with enthusiasm, he stimulated them on
to become conquerors; obliging the conquered to lend themselves to his
system, he gave currency to a creed, invented solely for the purpose of
enslaving mankind, which now spreads over immense regions inhabited by a
numerous population, although like other systems it does not escape
sectarianism, having above seventy branches. Thus ignorance, despair,
sloth, the want of reflecting habits, place the human race in a state of
dependance upon those who build up systems, while upon the objects which
are the foundations, they have no one settled idea: once adopted, however,
whenever these systems are brought into question, man either reasons in a
very strange manner, or else is the dupe of very deceitful arguments: when
they are agitated, and he finds it impossible to understand what is said
concerning them when his mind cannot embrace the ambiguity of these
doctrines, he imagines those who speak to him are better acquainted with
the objects of their discourse than himself; these seizing the favourable
opportunity, do not let it slip, they reiterate to him with Stentorian
lungs, “That the most certain way is to agree with what they tell him; to
allow himself to be guided by them;” in short, they persuade him to shut
his eyes, that he may with greater perspicuity distinguish the road he is
to travel: once arrived at this influence, they indelibly fix their
lessons; irrevocably chain him to the oar; by holding up to his view the
punishments intended for him by these imaginary beings, in case he refuses
to accredit, in the most liberal manner, their marvellous inventions; this
argument, although it only supposes the thing in question, serves to close
his mouth—to put an end to his research; alarmed, confused,
bewildered, he seems convinced by this victorious reasoning—attaches
to it a sacredness that fills him with awe—blindly conceives that
they have much clearer ideas of the subject than himself—fears to
perceive the palpable contradictions of the doctrines announced to him,
until, perhaps, some being, more subtle than those who have enslaved him,
by labouring the point incessantly, attacking him on the weak side of his
interest, arrives at throwing the absurdity of his system into light, and
finally succeeds by inducing him to adopt that of another set of
speculators. The uninformed man generally believes his priests have more
senses than himself; he takes them for superior beings; for divine men. He
only sees that which these priests inform him he must contemplate; to
every thing else his eyes are completely hoodwinked; thus the authority of
the priests frequently decides, without appeal, that which is useful
perhaps only to the priesthood.

When we shall be disposed to recur to the origin of things, we shall ever
find that it has been man’s imagination, guided by his ignorance, under
the influence of fear, which gave birth to his gods; that enthusiasm or
imposture have generally either embellished or disfigured them; that
credulity readily adopted the fabulous accounts which interested duplicity
promulgated respecting them; that these dispositions, sanctioned by time,
became habitual. Tyrants finding their advantage in sustaining them, have
usually established their power upon the blindness of mankind, and the
superstitious fears with which it is always accompanied. Thus, under
whatever point of view it is considered, it will always be found that error
cannot be useful to the human species.

Nevertheless, the happy enthusiast, when his soul is sensible of its
enjoyments, when his softened imagination has occasion to paint to itself
a seducing object, to which he can render thanks for the kindness he
experiences, will ask, “Wherefore deprive me of a being that I see under
the character of a sovereign, filled with wisdom, abounding in goodness?
What comfort do I not find in figuring to myself a powerful, intelligent,
indulgent monarch, of whom I am the favorite; who continually occupies
himself with my welfare—unceasingly watches over my safety—who
perpetually administers to my wants—who always consents that under
him I shall command the whole of nature? I believe I behold him constantly
showering his benefits on man; I see his Providence labouring for his
advantage without relaxation; he covers the earth with verdure to delight
him; he loads the trees with delicious fruits to gratify his palate; he
fills the forests with animals suitable to his nourishment; he suspends
over his head planets with innumerable stars, to enlighten him by day, to
guide his erring steps by night; he extends around him the azure firmament
to gladden his sight; he decorates the meadows with flowers to please his
fancy; he causes crystal fountains to flow with limpid streams to slake
his thirst; he makes rivulets meander through his lands to fructify the
earth; he washes his residence with noble rivers, that yield him fish in
abundance. Ah! suffer me to thank thee, Author of so many benefits: do not
deprive me of my charming sensations. I shall not find my illusions so
sweet, so consolatory in a severe destiny—in a rigid necessity—in
a blind inanimate matter—in a nature destitute of intelligence,
devoid of feeling.”

“Wherefore,” will say the unfortunate, from whom his destiny has
rigorously withheld those benefits which have been lavished on so many
others; “wherefore ravish from me an error that is dear to me? Wherefore
annihilate to me a being, whose consoling idea dries up the source of my
tears—who serves to calm my sorrows? Wherefore deprive me of an
object which I represent to myself as a compassionate, tender father; who
reproves me in this world, but into whose arms I throw myself with
confidence, when the whole of nature appears to have abandoned me?
Supposing it no more than a chimera, the unhappy have occasion for it, to
guarantee them against frightful despair: is it not cruel, is it not
inhuman, to be desirous of plunging them into a vacuum, by seeking to
undeceive them? Is it not an useful error, preferable to those truths
which deprive the mind of every consolation, which do not hold forth any
relief from its sorrows?”

Thus will equally reason the Negro, the Mussulman, the Brachman, and
others. We shall reply to these enthusiasts, no! truth can never render
you unhappy; it is this which really consoles us; it is a concealed
treasure, much superior to all the superstitions ever invented by fear; it
can cheer the heart; give it courage to support the burthens of life; make
us smile under adversity; elevate the soul; render it active; furnishes it
with means to resist the attacks of fate; to combat misfortunes with
success. This will shew clearly that the good and evil of life are
distributed with an equal hand, without respect to man’s peculiar
comforts; that all beings are equally regarded in the universe; that every
thing is submitted to necessary laws; that man has no right whatever to
think himself a being peculiarly favoured—who is exempted from the
common operations of the eternal routine; that it is folly to think he is
the only being considered—one for whose enjoyment alone every thing
is produced; an attention to facts will suffice to put an end to this
delusion, however pleasant may be the indulgence of such a notion; the
most superficial glance of the eye will be sufficient to undeceive us in
the idea, that he is the final cause of the creation—the
constant object of the labours of nature, or of its Author. Let us
seriously ask him, if he does not witness good constantly blended with
evil? If he does not equally partake of them with the other beings in
nature? To be obstinately bent to see only the evil, is as irrational as
to be willing only to notice the good. Providence seems to be just as much
occupied for one class of beings as for another. We see the calm succeed
the storm; sickness give place to health; the blessings of peace follow
the calamities of war; the earth in every country bring forth roots
necessary for the nourishment of man, produce others suitable to his
destruction. Each individual of the human species is a compound of good
and bad qualities; all nations present a varied spectacle of virtues,
growing up beside vices; that which gladdens one being, plunges another
into sadness—no event takes place that does not give birth to
advantages for some, to disadvantages for others. Insects find a safe
retreat in the ruin of the palace, which crushes man in its fall; man by
his death furnishes food for myriads of contemptible insects; animals are
destroyed by thousands that he may increase his bulk; linger out for a
season a feverish existence. We see beings engaged in perpetual hostility,
each living at his neighbour’s expence; the one banquetting upon that
which causes the desolation of the other; some luxuriously growing into
flesh upon the misery which wears others into skeletons—profiting by
misfortunes, rioting upon disasters, which ultimately, reciprocally
destroy them. The most deadly poisons spring up beside the most wholesome
fruits the earth equally nourishes the fatal steel which terminates man’s
career, and the fruitful corn that prolongs his existence; the bane and
its antidote are near neighbours, repose on the same bosom, ripen under
the same sun, equally court the hand of the incautious stranger. The
rivers which man believes flow for no other purpose than to irrigate his
residence, sometimes swell their waters, overtop their banks, inundate his
fields, overturn his dwelling, and sweep away the flock and shepherd. The
ocean, which he vainly imagines was only collected together to facilitate
his commerce supply him with fish, and wash his shores; often wrecks his
ships, frequently bursts its boundaries, lays waste his lands, destroys
the produce of his industry, and commits the most frightful ravages. The
halcyon, delighted with the tempest, voluntarily mingles with the storm;
rides contentedly upon the surge; rejoiced by the fearful howlings of the
northern blast, plays with happy buoyancy upon the foaming billows, that
have ruthlessly dashed in pieces the vessel of the unfortunate mariner;
who, plunged into an abyss of misery, with tremulous emotion clings to the
wreck; views with horrific despair, the premature destruction of his
indulged hopes; sighs deeply at the thoughts of home; with aching heart,
thinks of the cherished friends his streaming eyes will never more behold
in an agony of soul dwells upon the faithful affection of an adored wife,
who will never again repose her drooping head upon his manly bosom; grows
wild with the appalling remembrance of beloved children, his wearied arms
will never more encircle with parental fondness; then sinks for ever, the
unhappy victim of circumstances that fill with glee the fluttering bird,
who sees him yield to the overwhelming force of the infuriate waves. The
conqueror displays his military skill, fights a sanguinary battle, puts
his enemy to the rout, lays waste his country, slaughters thousands of his
fellows, plunges whole districts into tears, fills the land with the moans
of the fatherless, the wailings of the widow, in order that the crows may
have a banquet—that ferocious beasts may gluttonously gorge
themselves with human gore—that worms may riot in luxury.

Thus when there is a question concerning an agent we see act so variously;
whose motives seem sometimes to be advantageous, sometimes disadvantageous
for the human race; at least each individual will judge after the peculiar
mode in which he is himself affected; there will consequently be no fixed
point, no general standard in the opinions men will form to themselves.
Indeed our mode of judging will always be governed by our manner of
seeing, by our way of feeling. This will depend upon our temperament,
which itself springs out of our organization, and the peculiarity of the
circumstances in which we are placed; these can never be the same for all
the beings of our species. These individual modes of being affected, then,
will always furnish the colours of the portrait which man may paint to
himself of the Divinity; it must therefore be obvious they can never be
determinate—can have no fixity—can never be reduced to any
graduated scale; the inductions which they may draw from them, can never
be either constant or uniform; each will always judge after himself, will
never see any thing but himself or his own peculiar situation in the
picture he delineates.

This granted, the man who has a contented, sensible soul, with a lively
imagination, will paint the Divinity under the most charming traits; he
will believe that he sees in the whole of nature nothing but proofs of
benevolence, evidence of goodness, because it will unceasingly cause him
agreeable sensations. In his poetical extacy he will imagine he every
where perceives the impression of a perfect intelligence—of an
infinite wisdom—of a providence tenderly occupied with the welfare
of man; self-love joining itself to these exalted qualities, will put the
finishing hand to his persuasion, that the universe is made solely for the
human race; he will strive in imagination to kiss with transport the hand
from which he believes he receives so many benefits; touched with his
kindness, gratified with the perfume of roses whose thorns he does not
perceive, or which his extatic delirium prevents him from feeling, he will
think he can never sufficiently acknowledge the necessary effects, which
he will look upon as indubitable testimony of the divine predilection for
man. Completely inebriated with these feelings, this enthusiast will not
behold those sorrows, will not notice that confusion of which the universe
is the theatre: or if it so happens, he cannot prevent himself from being
a witness, he will be persuaded that in the views of an indulgent
providence, these calamities are necessary to conduct man to a higher
state of felicity; the reliance which he has in the Divinity, upon whom he
imagines they depend, induces him to believe, that man only suffers for
his good; that this being, who is fruitful in resources, will know how to
make him reap advantage from the evils which he experiences in this world:
his mind thus pre-occupied, from thence sees nothing that does not elicit
his admiration call forth his gratitude; excite his confidence; even those
effects which are the most natural, the most necessary, appear in his eyes
miracles of benevolence; prodigies of goodness: he shuts his eyes to the
disorders which could bring these amiable qualities into question: the
most cruel calamities, the most afflicting events, the most heart-rending
circumstances, cease to be disorders in his eyes, and do nothing, more
than furnish him with new proofs of the divine perfections; he persuades
himself that what appears defective or imperfect, is only so in
appearance; he admires the wisdom, acknowledges the bounty of the
Divinity, even in those effects which are the most terrible for his race—most
suitable to discourage his species—most fraught with misery for his
fellow.

It is, without doubt, to this happy disposition of the human mind, in some
beings of his order, that is to be ascribed the system of Optimism,
by which enthusiasts, furnished with a romantic imagination, seem to have
renounced the evidence of their senses: to find that even for man every
thing is good in nature, where the good has constantly its concomitant
evil, and where minds less prejudiced, less poetical, would judge that
every thing is only that which it can be—that the good and the evil
are equally necessary—that they have their source in the nature of
things; moreover, in order to attribute any particular character to the
events that take place, it would be needful to know the aim of the whole:
now the whole cannot have an aim, because if it had a tendency, an aim, or
end, it would no longer be the whole, seeing that that to which it tended
would be a part not included.

It will be asserted by some, that the evils which we behold in this world
are only relative, merely apparent; that they prove nothing against the
good: but does not man almost uniformly judge after his own mode of
feeling; after his manner of co-existing with those causes by which he is
encompassed; which constitute the order of nature with relation to
himself; consequently, he ascribes wisdom and goodness to all that which
affects him pleasantly, disorder to that state of things by which he is
injured. Nevertheless every thing which we witness in the world conspires
to prove to us, that whatever is, is necessary; that nothing is done by
chance; that all the events, good or bad, whether for us or for beings of
a different order, are brought about by causes acting after certain and
determinate laws; that nothing can he a sufficient warrantry in us to
clothe with any one of our human qualities, either nature or the
motive-power which has been given to her.

With respect to those who pretend that supreme wisdom will know how to
draw the greatest benefits for us, even out of the bosom of those
calamities which it is permitted we shall experience in this world; we
shall ask them, if they are themselves the confidents of the Divinity; or
upon what they found these assertions so flattering to their hopes? They
will, without doubt, tell us they judge by analogy; that from the actual
proofs of goodness and wisdom, they have a just right to conclude in
favour of future bounty. Would it not be a fair reply to ask, If they
reason by analogy, and man has not been rendered completely happy in this
world, what analogy informs them he will be so in another? If, according
to their own shewing, man is sometimes made the victim of evil in his
present existence, in order that he may attain a greater good, does not
analogical reasoning, which they say they adopt, clearly warrant a
deduction, that the same afflictions, for the same purposes, will be
equally proper, equally requisite in the world to come?

Thus this language founds itself upon ruinous hypotheses, which have for
their bases only a prejudiced imagination. It, in fact, signifies nothing
more than that man once persuaded, without any evidence, of his future
happiness, will not believe it possible he can be permitted to be unhappy:
but might it not be inquired what testimony does he find, what substantive
knowledge has he obtained of the peculiar good that results to the human
species from those sterilities, from those famines, from those contagions,
from those sanguinary conflicts, which cause so many millions of men to
perish; which unceasingly depopulate the earth, and desolate the world we
inhabit? Is there any one who has sufficient compass of comprehension to
ascertain the advantages that result from the evils that besiege us on all
sides? Do we not daily witness beings consecrated to misfortune, from the
moment they quitted the womb of the parent who brought them into
existence, until that which re-committed them to the earth, to sleep in
peace with their fathers; who with great difficulty found time to respire;
lived the constant sport of fortune; overwhelmed with affliction, immersed
in grief, enduring the most cruel reverses? Who is to measure the precise
quantity of misery required to derive a certain portion of good? Who is to
say when the measure of evil will be full which it is necessary to suffer?

The most enthusiastic Optimists, the Theists themselves, the
partizans of Natural Religion, as well as the most credulous and
superstitious, are obliged to recur to the system of another life, to
remedy the evils man is decreed to suffer in the present; but have they
really any just foundation to suppose the next world will afford him a
happiness denied him in this? If it is necessary to recur to a doctrine so
little probable as that of a future existence, by what chain of reasoning
do they establish their opinion, that when he shall no longer have organs,
by the aid of which he is at present alone enabled either to enjoy or to
suffer, he shall be able to compensate the evils he has endured; to enjoy
a felicity, to partake of a pleasure this organic structure has refused
him while on his pilgrimage through the land of his fathers.

From this it will be seen, that the proofs of a sovereign intelligence, or
of a magnified human quality drawn from the order, from the harmony, from
the beauty of the universe, are never more than those which are derived
from men who are organized and modified after a certain mode; or whose
cheerful imagination is so constructed as to give birth to agreeable
chimeras which they embellish according to their fancy: these illusions,
however, must be frequently dissipated even in themselves, whenever their
machine becomes deranged; when sorrows assail them, when misfortune
corrodes their mind; the spectacle of nature, which under certain
circumstances has appeared to them so delightful, so seducing, must then
give place to disorder, must yield to confusion. A man of melancholy
temperament, soured by misfortunes, made irritable by infirmities, cannot
view nature and her author under the same perspective, as the healthy man
of a sprightly humour, who is contented with every thing. Deprived of
happiness, the fretful man can only find disorder, can see nothing but
deformity, can find nothing but subjects to afflict himself with; he only
contemplates the universe as the theatre of malice, as the stage for
tyrants to execute their vengeance; he grows superstitious, he gives way
to credulity, and not unfrequently becomes cruel, in order to serve a
master whom he believes he has offended.

In consequence of these ideas, which have their growth in an unhappy
temperament, which originate in a peevish humour, which are the offspring
of a disturbed imagination, the superstitious are constantly infected with
terror, are the slaves to mistrust, the creatures of discontent,
continually in a state of fearful alarm. Nature cannot have charms for
them; her countless beauties pass by unheeded; they do not participate in
her cheerful scenes; they look upon this world, so marvellous to the happy
man, so good to the contented enthusiast, as a valley of tears, in
which a vindictive fate has placed them only to expiate crimes committed
either by themselves or by their fathers; they consider themselves as sent
here for no other purpose than to be the sharers of calamity; the sport of
a capricious fortune; that they are the children of sorrow, destined to
undergo the severest trials, to the end that they may everlastingly arrive
at a new existence, in which they shall be either happy or miserable,
according to their conduct towards the ministers of a being who holds
their destiny in his hands. These dismal notions have been the source of
all the irrational systems that have ever prevailed; they have given birth
to the most revolting practices, currency to the most absurd customs.
History abounds with details of the most atrocious cruelties, under the
imposing name of public worship; nothing has been considered either too
fantastical or too flagitious by the votaries of superstition. Parents
have immolated their children; lovers have sacrificed the objects of their
affection; friends have destroyed each other: the most bloody disputes
have been fomented; the most interminable animosities have been
engendered, to gratify the whim of implacable priests, who by crafty
inventions have obtained an influence over the people; to please blind
zealots, who have never been able either to give fixity to their ideas, or
to define their own feelings. Idle dreamers nourished with bile,
intoxicated with theologic fury—atrabilarians, whose melancholic
humour frequently disposes them to wickedness—visionaries, whose
devious imaginations, heated with intemperate zeal, generally leads them
to the extremes of fanaticism, working upon ignorance, whose usual bias is
credulity, have incessantly disturbed the harmony of mankind, kindled the
inextinguishable flame of discord, and in an almost uninterrupted
succession, strewed the earth with the mangled carcasses of the
multitudinous victims to mad-brained error, whose only crime has been
their incapacity to dream according to the rules prescribed by these
infuriate maniacs; although these have never been uniform—never
assimilated in any two countries—never borne the same features in
any two ages, nor even had the united concurrence of the persecuting
contemporaries.

It is then in the diversity of temperament, arising from variety of
organization—in the contrariety of passions, springing out of this
miscellany, modified by the most opposite circumstances, that must be
sought the difference we find in the opinions of the theist, the optimist,
the happy enthusiast, the zealot, the devotee, the superstitious of all
denominations; they are all equally irrational—the dupes of their
imagination—the blind children of error. What one contemplates under
a favorable point of view, the other never looks upon but on the dark
side; that which is the object of the most sedulous research to one set,
is that which the others most seek to avoid: each insists he is right; no
one offers the least shadow of substantive proof of what he asserts; each
points out the great importance of his mission, yet cannot even agree with
his colleagues in the embassy, either upon the nature of their
instructions, or the means to be adopted. It is thus whenever man sets
forth a false supposition, all the reasonings he makes on it are only a
long tissue of errors, which entail on him an endless series of
misfortunes; every time he renounces the evidence of his senses, it is
impossible to calculate the bounds at which his imagination will stop;
when he once quits the road of experience, when he travels out of nature,
when he loses sight of his reason, to strike into the labyrinths of
conjecture, it is difficult to ascertain where his folly will lead him—into
what mischievous swamps this ignis fatuus of the mind may beguile
his wandering steps. It is certainly true, the ideas of the happy
enthusiast will be less dangerous to himself, less baneful to others, than
those of the atrabilarious fanatic, whose temperament may render him both
cowardly and cruel; nevertheless the opinions of the one and of the other
will not be less chimerical; the only difference will be, that of the
first will produce agreeable, cheerful dreams; while that of the second
will present the most appalling visions, terrific spectres, the fruit of a
peevish transport of the brain: there will, however, never be more than a
step between them all; the smallest revolution in the machine, a slight
infirmity, an unforeseen affliction, suffices to change the course of the
humours—to vitiate the temperament—to endanger the
organization—to overturn the whole system of opinions of the
happiest. As soon as the portrait is found disfigured, the beautiful order
of things is overthrown relatively to himself; melancholy grapples him—pusillanimity
benumbs his faculties—by degrees plunges, him into the rankest
depths of gloomy superstition; he then degenerates into all those
irregularities which are the dismal harvest of fanatic ignorance ploughed
with credulity.

Those ideas, which have no archetype but in the imagination of man, must
necessarily take their complexion from his own character; must be clothed
with his own passions; must constantly follow the revolutions of his
machine; be lively or gloomy; favourable or prejudicial; friendly or
inimical; sociable or savage; humane or cruel; according as he whose brain
they inhabit shall himself be disposed; in fact, they can never be more
than the shadow of the substance he himself interposes between the light
and the ground on which they are thrown. A mortal plunged from a state of
happiness into misery, whose health merges into sickness, whose joy is
changed into affliction, cannot in these vicissitudes preserve the same
ideas; these naturally depend every instant upon the variations, which
physical sensations oblige his organs to undergo. It will not therefore
appear strange that these opinions should be fluctuating, when they depend
upon the state of the nervous fluid, upon the greater or less portion of
igneous matter floating in the sanguinary vessels.

Theism, or what is called Natural Religion, cannot have
certain principles; those who profess it must necessarily be subject to
vary in their opinions—to fluctuate in their conduct, which flows
out of them. A system founded upon wisdom and intelligence, which can
never contradict itself, when circumstances change will presently be
converted into fanaticism; rapidly degenerate into superstition; such a
system, successively meditated by enthusiasts of very distinct characters,
must of necessity experience vicissitudes, and quickly depart from its
primitive simplicity. The greater part of those philosophers who have been
disposed to substitute theism for superstition, have not felt that it was
formed to corrupt itself—to degenerate. Striking examples, however,
prove this fatal truth. Theism is almost every where corrupted; it has by
degrees given way to those superstitions, to those extravagant sects, to
those prejudicial opinions with which the human species is degraded. As
soon as man consents to acknowledge invisible powers out of nature, upon
which his restless mind will never be able invariably to fix his ideas—which
his imagination alone will be capable of painting to him; whenever he
shall not dare to consult his reason relatively to those powers, it must
necessarily be, that the first false step leads him astray, that his
conduct as well as his opinions becomes in the long run perfectly absurd.

Those are usually called Theists, who, undeceived upon the greater number
of grosser errors to which the uninformed, the superstitiously ignorant,
tend the most determined support, simply hold the notion of unknown agents
endowed with intelligence, wisdom, power and goodness, in short, full of
infinite perfections, whom they distinguish from nature, but whom they
clothe after their own fashion; to whom they ascribe their own limited
views; whom they make act according to their own absurd passions. The
religion of Abraham appears to have originally been a kind of theism,
imagined to reform the superstition of the Chaldeans; Moses modified it,
and gave it the Judaical form. Socrates was a theist, who lost his life in
his attack on polytheism; his disciple Aristocles, or Plato, as he was
afterwards called from his large shoulders, embellished the theism of his
master, with the mystical colours which he borrowed from the Egyptian and
Chaldean priests, which he modified in his own poetical brain, and
preserved a remnant of polytheism. The disciples of Plato, such as
Proclus, Ammonius, Jamblicus. Plotinus, Longinus, Porphyrus, and others,
dressed it up still more fantastically, added a great deal of
superstitious mummery, blended it with magic, and other unintelligible
doctrines. The first doctors of Christianity were Platonists, who combined
the reformed Judaism with the philosophy taught in Academia. Mahomet, in
combating the polytheism of his country, seems to have been desirous of
restoring the primitive theism of Abraham, and his son Ishmael; yet this
has now seventy-two sects. Thus it will be obvious, that theism has no
fixed point, no standard, no common measure more than other systems: that
it runs from one supposition to another, to find in what manner evil has
crept into the world. Indeed it has been for this purpose, which perhaps
after all will never be satisfactorily explained, that the doctrine of
free-agency was introduced; that the fable of Prometheus and the box of
Pandora was imagined; that the history of the Titanes was invented;
notwithstanding, it must be evident that these things as well as all the
other trappings of superstition, are not more difficult of comprehension
than the immaterial substances of the theists; the mind who can admit that
beings devoid of parts, destitute of organs, without bulk, can move
matter, think like man, have the moral qualities of human nature, need not
hesitate to allow that ceremonies, certain motions of the body, words,
rites, temples, statues, can equally contain secret virtues; has no
occasion to withhold its faith from the concealed powers of magic,
theurgy, enchantments, charms, talismans, &c.; can shew no good reason
why it should not accredit inspirations, dreams, visions, omens,
soothsayers, metamorphoses, and all the host of occult sciences: when
things so contradictory to the dictates of reason, so completely opposed
to good sense are freely admitted, there can no longer be an thing which
ought to possess the right to make credulity revolt; those who give
sanction to the one, may without much hesitation believe whatever else is
offered to their credence. It would be impossible to mark the precise
point at which imagination ought to arrest itself—the exact boundary
that should circumscribe belief—the true dose of folly that may be
permitted them; or the degree of indulgence that can with safety be
extended to those priests who are in the habit of teaching so variously,
so contradictorily, what man ought to think on the subjects they handle so
advantageously to themselves; who when it becomes a question what
remuneration is due from mankind for their unwearied exertions in his
favour, are, in spite of all their other differences, in the most perfect
union; except perhaps when they come to the division of the spoil: in
this, indeed, the apple of discord sometimes takes a tremendous roll. Thus
it will be clear that there can be no substantive grounds for separating
the theists from the most superstitious; that it becomes impossible to fix
the line of demarcation, which divides them from the most credulous of
men; to shew the land-marks by which they can be discriminated from those
who reason with the least conclusive persuasion. If the theist refuses to
follow up the fanatic in every step of his cullibility, he is at least
more inconsequent than the last, who having admitted upon hearsay an
inconsistent, whimsical doctrine, also adopts upon report the ridiculous,
strange means which it furnishes him. The first sets forth with an absurd
supposition, of which he rejects the necessary consequences; the other
admits both the principle and the conclusion. There are no degrees in
fiction any more than in truth. If we admit the superstition, we are bound
to receive every thing which its ministers promulgate, as emanating from
its principle. None of the reveries of superstition embrace any thing more
incredible than immateriality; these reveries are only corollaries drawn
with more or less subtilty from unintelligible subjects, by those who have
an interest in supporting the system. The inductions which dreamers have
made, by dint of meditating on impenetrable materials, are nothing more
than ingenious conclusions, which have been drawn with wonderful accuracy,
from unknown premises, that are modestly offered to the sanction of
mankind by enthusiasts, who claim an unconditional assent, because they
assure us no one of the human race is in a capacity either to see, feel,
or comprehend the object of their contemplation. Does not this somewhat
remind us of what Rabelais describes as the employment of Queen Whim’s
officers, in his fifth book and twenty-second chapter?

Let us then acknowledge, that the man who is this most credulously
superstitious, reasons in a more conclusive manner, or is at least more
consistent in his credulity, than those, who, after having admitted a
certain position of which they have no one idea, stop short all at once,
and refuse to accredit that system of conduct which is the immediate, the
necessary result of a radical and primitive error. As soon as they
subscribe to a principle fatally opposed to reason, by what right do they
dispute its consequences, however absurd they may be found? We cannot too
often repeat, for the happiness of mankind, that the human mind, let it
torture itself as much as it will, when it quits visible nature leads
itself astray; for want of an intelligent guide it wanders in tracks that
bewilder its powers, and is quickly obliged, to return into that with
which it has at least some, acquaintance. If man mistakes nature and her
energies, it is because he does not sufficiently study her—because
he does not submit to the test of experience the phenomena he beholds; if
he will obstinately deprive her of motion, he can no longer have any ideas
of her. Does, he, however, elucidate his embarrassments, by submitting her
action to the agency of a being of which he makes himself the model? Does
he think he forms a god, when he assembles into one heterogeneous mass,
his own discrepant qualities, magnified until his optics are no longer
competent to recognize them, and then unites to them certain abstract
properties of which he cannot form to himself any one conception? Does he,
in fact, do more than collect together that which becomes, in consequence
of its association, perfectly unintelligible? Yet, strange as it may
appear, when he no longer understands himself—when his mind, lost in
its own fictions, becomes inadequate to decipher the characters he has
thus promiscuously assembled—when he has huddled together a heap of
incomprehensible, abstract qualities, which he is obliged to acknowledge
are the mere creatures of imagination, not within the reach of human
intellect, he firmly persuades himself he has made a most accurate and
beautiful portrait of the Divinity; he ostentatiously displays his
picture, demands the eulogy of the spectator, and quarrels with all those
who do not agree to adulate his creative powers, by adopting the
inconceivable being he holds forth to their worship; in short, to question
the existence of his extravaganza, rouses his most bitter reproaches;
elicits his everlasting scorn; entails on the incredulous his eternal
hatred.

On the other hand, what could we expect from such a being, as they have
supposed him to be? What could we consistently ask of him? How make an
immaterial being, who has neither organs, space, point, or contact,
understand that modification of matter called voice? Admit that this is
the being who moves nature—who establishes her laws—who gives
to beings their various essences—who endows them with their
respective properties; if every thing that takes place is the fruit of his
infinite providence—the proof of his profound wisdom, to what end
shall we address our prayers to him? Shall we solicit him to acknowledge
that the wisdom and providence with which we have clothed him, are in fact
erroneous, by entreating him to alter in our favour his eternal laws?
Shall we give him to understand our wisdom exceeds his own, by asking, him
for our pleasure to change the properties of bodies—to annihilate
his immutable decrees—to trace back the invariable course of things—to
make beings act in opposition to the essences with which he has thought it
right to invest them? Will he at our intercession prevent a body ponderous
and hard by its nature, such as a stone, for example, from wounding, in
its fall a sensitive being such as the human frame? Again, should we not,
in fact, challenge impossibilities, if the discordant attributes brought
into union by the theologians were correct; would not immutability oppose
itself to omnipotence; mercy to the exercise of rigid justice;
omniscience, to the changes that might be required in foreseen plans? In
physics, in consequence of the general research after a perpetual motion,
science has drawn forth the discovery, that by amalgamating metals of
contrary properties, the contractile powers of one kind, under given
circumstances which cause the dilation of the other, by their opposite
tendencies neutralize the actual effects of each, taken separately, and
thus produce an equality in the oscillations, that, neither possessed
individually.

It will perhaps, be insisted, that the infinite science of the Creator of
all things, is acquainted with resources in the beings he has formed,
which are concealed from imbecile mortals; that consequently without
changing any thing, either in the laws of nature, or in the essence of
things, he is competent to produce effects which surpass the comprehension
of our feeble understanding; that these, effects will in no wise be
contrary to that order which he himself has established in nature.
Granted: but then I reply, first, that every thing which is
conformable to the nature of things, can neither be called supernatural
nor miraculous: many things are, unquestionably, above our comprehension;
but then all that is operated in the world is natural—grows out of
those immutable laws by which nature is regulated. In the second
place, it will be requisite to observe, that by the word miracle an effect
is designed, of which, for want of understanding nature, she is believed
incapable. In the third place, it is worthy of remark, that the
theologians, almost universally, insist that by miracle is meant not an
extraordinary effort of nature, but an effect directly opposite to her
laws, which nevertheless they equally challenge to have been prescribed by
the Divinity. Buddaeus says, “a miracle is an operation by which the laws
of nature, upon which depend the order and the preservation of the
universe, are suspended.” If, however, the Deity, in those phenomena that
most excite our surprise, does nothing more than give play to springs
unknown to mortals, there is, then, nothing in nature, which, in this
sense, may not be looked upon as a miracle; because the cause by which a
stone falls is as unknown to us, as that which makes our globe turn on its
own axis. Thus, to explain the phenomena of nature by a miracle, is, in
other words, to say we are ignorant of the actuating causes; to attribute
them to the Divinity, is to agree we do not comprehend the resources of
nature: it is little better than accrediting magic. To attribute to a
sovereignly intelligent, immutable, provident, wise being, those miracles
by which he derogates from his own laws, is at one blow to annihilate all
these qualities: it is an inconsistency that would shame a child. It
cannot be supposed that omnipotence has need of miracles to govern the
universe, nor to convince his creatures, whose minds and hearts must be in
his own hands. The last refuge of the theologian, when driven off all
other ground, is the possibility of every thing he asserts, couched in the
dogma, “that nothing is impossible to the Divinity.” He makes this
asseveration with a degree of self-complacency, with an air of triumph,
that would almost persuade one he could not be mistaken; most assuredly,
with those who dip no further than the surface, he carries complete
conviction. But we must take leave to examine a little the nature of this
proposition, and we do apprehend that a very slight degree of
consideration will shew that it is untenable. In the first place,
as we have before observed, the possibility of a thing by no means proves
its absolute existence: a thing may be extremely possible, and yet not be.
Secondly, if this was once to become an admitted argument, there
would be, in fact, an end of all morality and religion. The Bishop of
Chester, Doctor John Wilkins, says, “would not such men be generally
accounted out of their wits, who could please themselves by entertaining
actual hopes of any thing, merely upon account of the possibility of it,
or torment themselves with actual fears of all such evils as are possible?
Is there any thing imaginable wore wild and extravagant amongst those in
bedlam than this would be?” Thirdly, the impossibility would
reasonably appear to be on the other side, so far from nothing being
impossible, every thing that is erroneous would seem to be actually so;
the Divinity could not possibly either love vice, cherish crime, be
pleased with depravity, or commit wrong; this decidedly turns the argument
against them; they must either admit the most monstrous of all
suppositions, or retire from behind the shield with which they have
imagined they rendered themselves invulnerable.

To those who may be inclined to inquire, whether it would not be better
that all things were operated by a good, wise, intelligent Being, than by
a blind nature, in which not one consoling quality is found; by a fatal
necessity always inexorable to human intreaty? It may be replied, first,
that our interest does not decide the reality of things, and that when
this should be even wore advantageous than it is pointed out, it would
prove nothing. Secondly, that as we are obliged to admit some
things are operated by nature, it is certainly on the side of probability
that she performs the others; especially as her capabilities are more
substantively proved by every age as it advances. Thirdly, that
nature duly studied furnishes every thing necessary to render us as, happy
as our essence admits. When, guided by experience, we shall consult her,
with cultivated reason; she will discover to us our duties, that is to
say, the indispensable means to which her eternal and necessary laws have
attached our preservation, our own happiness, and that of society. It is
decidedly in her bosom that we shall find wherewith to satisfy our
physical wants; whatever is out of nature, can have no existence
relatively to ourselves.

Nature, then, is not a step-mother to us; we do not depend upon an
inexorable destiny. Let us therefore endeavour to become more familiar
with her resources; she will procure us a multitude of benefits when we
shall pay her the attention she deserves: when we shall feel disposed to
consult her, she will supply us with the requisites to alleviate both our
physical and moral evils: she only punishes us with rigour, when,
regardless of her admonitions, we plunge into excesses that disgrace us.
Has the voluptuary any reason to complain of the sharp pains inflicted by
the gout, when experience, if he had but attended to its counsels, has so
often warned him, that the grossness of sensual indulgence must inevitably
amass in his machine those humours which give birth to the agony he so
acutely feels? Has the superstitious bigot any cause for repining at the
misery of his uncertain ideas, when an attentive examination of that
nature, he holds of such small account, would have convinced him that the
idols under whom he trembles, are nothing but personifications of herself,
disguised under some other name? It is evidently by incertitude, discord,
blindness, delirium, she chastises those who refuse to, acknowledge the
justice of her claims.

In the mean time, it cannot be denied, that a pure Theism, or what is
called Natural Religion, may not be preferable to superstition, in the
same manner as reform has banished many of the abuses of those countries
who have embraced it; but there is nothing short of an unlimited and
inviolable liberty of thought, that can permanently assure the repose of
the mind. The opinions of men are only dangerous when they are restrained,
or when it is imagined necessary to make others think as we ourselves
think. No opinions, not even those of superstition itself, would be
dangerous, if the superstitious did not think themselves obliged to
enforce their adoption, or had not the power to persecute those who
refused. It is this prejudice, which, for the benefit of mankind, it is
essential to annihilate; and if the thing be not achievable, then the next
object which philosophy may reasonably propose to itself, will be to make
the depositaries of power feel that they never ought to permit their
subjects to commit evil for either superstitious or religious opinions. In
this case, wars would be almost unheard of amongst men: instead of
beholding the melancholy spectacle of man cutting the throat of his fellow
man, because this cannot see with his eyes, we shall witness him
essentially labouring to his own happiness by promoting that of his
neighbour; cultivating the earth in peace; quietly bringing forth the
productions of nature, instead of puzzling his brain with theological
disputes, which can never be of the smallest advantage, except to the
priests. It must be a self-evident truth, that an argument by men, upon
that which is not accessible to man, could only have been invented by
knaves, who, like the professors of legerdemain, were determined to riot
luxuriously on the ignorance and credulity of mankind.

CHAP. VIII.

Examination of the Advantages which result from Man’s Notions on the
Divinity.—Of their Influence upon Mortals;—upon Politics;—upon
Science;—upon the Happiness of Nations, and that of Individuals.

The slender foundation of those ideas which men form to themselves of
their gods, must have appeared obvious in what has preceded; the proofs
which have been offered in support of the existence of immaterial
substances, have been examined; the want of harmony that exists in the
opinions upon this subject, which all concur in agreeing to be equally
impossible to be known to the inhabitants of the earth, has been shewn;
the incompatibility of the attributes with which, theology has clothed
incorporeity, has been explained. It has been proved, that the idols which
man sets up for adoration, have usually had their birth, either in the
bosom of misfortune, when ignorance was at a loss to account for the
calamities of the earth upon natural principles, or else have been the
shapeless fruit of melancholy, working upon an alarmed mind, coupled with
enthusiasm and an unbridled imagination. It has been pointed out how these
prejudices, transmitted by tradition from father to son, grafting
themselves upon infant minds, cultivated by education, nourished by fear,
corroborated by habit, have been maintained by authority; perpetuated by
example. In short, every thing must have distinctly evidenced to us, that
the ideas of the gods, so generally diffused over the earth, has been
little more than an universal delusion of the human race. It remains now
to examine if this error has been useful.

It needs little to prove error can never be advantageous for mankind; it
is ever founded upon his ignorance, which is itself an acknowledged evil;
it springs out of the blindness of his mind to acknowledged truths, and
his want of experience, which it must be admitted are prejudicial to his
interests: the more importance, therefore, he shall attach to these
errors, the more fatal will be the consequences resulting from their
adoption. Bacon, the illustrious sophist, who first brought philosophy out
of the schools, had great reason when he said, “The worst of all things is
deified error.” Indeed, the mischiefs springing from superstition or
religious errors, have been, and always will be, the most terrible in
their consequences—the most extensive in their devastation. The more
these errors are respected, the more play they give to the passions; the
more value is attached to them, the more the mind is disturbed; the more
they are insisted upon, the more irrational they render those, who are
seized with the rage for proselytism; the more they are cherished, the
greater influence they have on the whole conduct of our lives. Indeed,
there can he but little likelihood that he who renounces his reason, in
the thing which he considers as most essential to his happiness, will
listen to it on any other occasion.

The slightest reflection will afford ample proof to this sad truth: in
those fatal notions which man has cherished on this subject, are to be
traced the true sources of all those prejudices, the fountain of all those
sorrows, to which he is the victim. Nevertheless, as we have elsewhere
said, utility ought to be the only standard, the uniform scale, by which
to form a judgment on either the opinions, the institutions, the systems,
or the actions of intelligent beings; it is according to the measure of
happiness which these things procure for us, that we ought either to cover
them with our esteem, or expose them to our contempt. Whenever they are
useless it is our duty to despise them; as soon as they become pernicious,
it is imperative to reject them; reason imperiously prescribes that our
detestation should be commensurate with the evils which they cause.

Taking these principles for a land-mark, which are founded on our nature,
which must appear incontestible to every reasonable being, with experience
for a beacon, let us coolly examine the effects which these notions have
produced on the earth. We have already, in more than one part of the work,
given a glimpse of the doctrine of that morals, which having only for
object the preservation of man, and his conduct in society, can have
nothing, in common with imaginary systems: it has been shewn, that the
essence of a sensitive, intelligent, rational being, properly meditated,
would discover motives competent to moderate the fury of his passions—to
induce him to resist his vicious propensities—to make him fly
criminal habits—to invite him to render himself useful to those
beings for whom his own necessities have a continual occasion; thus, to
endear himself to his, fellow mortals, to become respectable in his own
esteem. These motives will unquestionably be admitted to possess more
solidity, to embrace greater, potency, to involve more truth, than those
which are borrowed from systems that want stability; that assume more
shapes than there are languages; that are not tangible to the tact of
humanity; that must of necessity present a different perspective to all
who shall view them through the medium of prejudice. From what has been
advanced, it will be felt that education, which should make man in early
life contract good habits, adopt favorable dispositions, fortified by a
respect for public opinion, invigorated by ideas of decency, strengthened
by wholesome laws, corroborated by the desire of meriting the friendship
of others, stimulated by the fear of losing his own esteem, would be fully
adequate to accustom him to a laudable conduct, amply sufficient to divert
him from even those secret crimes, from which he is obliged to punish
himself by remorse; which costs him the most incessant labour to keep
concealed, by the dread of that shame, which must always follow their
publicity. Experience demonstrates in the clearest manner, that the
success of a first crime disposes him to commit a second; impunity leads
on to the third, this to a lamentable sequel that frequently closes a
wretched career with the most ignominious exhibition; thus the first
delinquency is the commencement of a habit: there is much less distance
from this to the hundredth, than from innocence to criminality: the man,
however, who lends himself to a series of bad actions, under even the
assurance of impunity, is most woefully deceived, because he cannot avoid
castigating himself: moreover, he cannot know at what point of iniquity he
shall stop. It has been shewn, that those punishments which society, for
its own preservation, has the right to inflict on those who disturb its
harmony, are more substantive, more efficacious, more salutary in their
effects, than all the distant torments held forth by the priests; they
intervene a more immediate obstacle to the stubborn propensities of those
obdurate wretches, who, insensible to the charms of virtue, are deaf to
the advantages that spring from its practice, than can be opposed by the
denunciations, held forth in an hereafter existence, which he is at the
same moment taught may be avoided by repentance, that shall only take
place when the ability to commit further wrong has ceased. In short, one
would be led to think it obvious to the slightest reflection, that
politics, founded upon the nature of man, upon the principles of society,
armed with equitable laws, vigilant over morals, faithful in rewarding
virtue, constant in visiting crime, would be more suitable to clothe
ethics with respectability, to throw a sacred mantle over moral goodness,
to lend stability to public virtue, than any authority that can be derived
from contested systems, the conduct of whose professors frequently
disgrace the doctrines they lay down, which after all seldom do more than
restrain those whose mildness of temperament effectually prevents them
from running into excess; those who, already given to justice, require no
coercion. On the other hand, we have endeavoured to prove that nothing can
be more absurd, nothing actually more dangerous, than attributing human
qualities to the Divinity which cannot but choose to find themselves in a
perpetual contradiction.

Plato has said “that virtue consists in resembling God.” But how is man to
resemble a being, who, it is acknowledged, is incomprehensible to mankind—who
cannot be conceived by any of those means, by which he is alone capable of
having perceptions? If this being, who is shewn to man under such various
aspects, who is said to owe nothing to his creatures, is the author of all
the good, as well as all the evil that takes place, how can he be the
model for the conduct of the human race living together in society? At
most he can only follow one side of the character, because among his
fellows, he alone is reputed virtuous who does not deviate in his conduct
from justice; who abstains from evil; who performs with punctuality those
duties he owes to his fellows. If it be taken up, and insisted he is not
the author of the evil, only of the good, I say very well: that is
precisely what I wanted to know; you thereby acknowledge he is not the
author of every thing; we are no longer at issue; you are inconclusive to
your own premises, consequently ought not to demand an implicit reliance
on what you choose to assert.

But, replies the subtle theologian, that is not the affair; you must seek
it in the creed I have set forth—in the religion of which I am a
pillar. Very good: Is it then actually in the system of fanatics, that man
should draw up his ideas of virtue? Is it in the doctrines which these
codes hold forth, that he is to seek for a model? Alas! do they not
pourtray their idols: under the most unwholesome colours; do they not
represent them as following their caprice in every thing, who love or
hate, who choose or reject, who approve or condemn according to their
whim, who delight in carnage, who send discord amongst men, who act
irrationally, who commit wantonness, who sport with their feeble subjects,
who lay continual snares for them, who rigorously interdict the use of
their reason? What, let us seriously ask, would become of morality, if men
proposed to themselves such portraits for models!

It was, however, for the most part, systems of this temper that nations
adopted. At was in consequence of these principles that what has been
called religion in most countries, was far removed from being favourable
to morality; on the contrary, it often shook it to its foundation—frequently
left no vestige of its existence. It divided man, instead of drawing
closer the bonds of union; in the place of that mutual love, that
reciprocity of succour, which ought ever to distinguish human society, it
introduced hatred and persecution; it made them seize every opportunity to
cut each other’s throat for speculative opinions, equally irrational; it
engendered the most violent heart-burnings—the most rancorous
animosities—the most sovereign contempt. The slightest difference in
their received opinions rendered them the most mortal enemies; separated
their interests for ever; made them despise each other; and seek every
means to render their existence miserable. For these theological
conjectures, nations become opposed to nations; the sovereign frequently
armed himself against his subjects; subjects waged war with their
sovereign; citizens gave activity to the most sanguinary hostility against
each other; parents detested their offspring; children plunged the pointed
steel, the barbed arrow, into the bosoms of those who gave them existence;
husbands and wives disunited, became the scourges of each other; relations
forgetting the ties of consanguinity, tore each other to pieces, or else
reciprocally consigned them to oblivion; all the bonds of society were
rent asunder; the social compact was broken up; society committed suicide:
whilst in the midst of this fearful wreck—regardless of the horrid
shrieks called forth by this dreadful confusion—unmindful of the
havock going forward on all sides—each pretended that he conformed
to the views of his idol, detailed to him by his priest—fulminated
by the oracles. Far from making himself any reproach, for the misery he
spread abroad, each lauded his own individual conduct; gloried in the
crimes he committed in support of his sacred cause.

The same spirit of maniacal fury pervaded the rites, the ceremonies, the
customs, which the worship, adopted by superstition, placed so much above
all the social virtues. In one country, tender mothers delivered up their
children to moisten with their innocent blood the altars of their idols;
in another, the people assembled, performed the ceremony of consolation to
their deities, for the outrages they committed against them, and finished
by immolating to their anger human victims; in another, a frantic
enthusiast lacerated his body, condemned himself for life to the most
rigorous tortures, to appease the wrath of his gods. The Jupiter of the
Pagans was a lascivious monster; the Moloch of the Phenicians was a
cannibal; the savage idol of the Mexican requires thousands of mortals to
bleed on his shrine, in order to satisfy his sanguinary appetite.

Such are the models superstition holds out to the imitation of man; is it
then surprising that the name of these despots became the signal for
mad-brained enthusiasm to exercise its outrageous fury; the standard under
which cowardice wreaked its cruelty; the watchword for the inhumanity of
nations to muster their barbarous strength; a sound which spreads terror
wherever its echo could reach; a continual pretext for the most barefaced
breaches of public decorum; for the most shameless violation of the moral
duties? It was the frightful character men gave of their gods, that
banished kindness from their hearts—virtue from their conduct—felicity
from their habitations—reason from their mind: almost every where it
was some idol, who was disturbed by the mode in which unhappy mortals
thought; this armed them with poignards against each other; made them
stifle the cries of nature; rendered them barbarous to themselves;
atrocious to their fellow creatures: in short, they became irrational,
breathed forth vengeance, outraged humanity, every time that, instigated
by the priest, they were inclined to imitate the gods of their idolatry,
to display their zeal, to render themselves acceptable in their temples.

It is not, then, in such systems, man ought to seek either for models of
virtue, or rules of conduct suitable to live in society. He needs human
morality, founded upon his own nature; built upon invariable experience;
submitted to reason. The ethics of superstition will always he prejudicial
to the earth; cruel masters cannot be well served, but by those who
resemble them: what then becomes of the great advantages which have been
imagined resulted to man, from the notions which have been unceasingly
infused into him of his gods? We see that almost all nations acknowledge
them; yet, to conform themselves to their views, they trampled under foot
the clearest rights of nature—the most evident duties of humanity;
they appeared to act as if it was only by madness the most incurable—by
folly the most preposterous—by the most flagitious crimes, committed
with an unsparing hand, that they hoped to draw down upon themselves the
favor of heaven—the blessings of the sovereign intelligence they so
much boast of serving with unabated zeal; with the most devotional fervor;
with the most unlimited obedience. As soon, therefore, as the priests give
them to understand their deities command the commission of crime, or
whenever there is a question of their respective creeds, although they are
wrapt in the most impenetrable obscurity, they make it a duty with
themselves to unbridle their rancour—to give loose to the most
furious passions; they mistake the clearest precepts of morality; they
credulously believe the remission of their own sins will be the reward of
their transgressions against their neighbour. Would it not be better to be
an inhabitant of Soldania in Africa, where never yet form of worship
entered, or the name of God resounded, than thus to pollute the land with
superstitious castigation—with the enmity of priests against each
other?

Indeed, it is not generally in those revered mortals, spread over the
earth to announce the oracles of the gods, that will be found the most
sterling virtues. These men, who think themselves so enlightened, who call
themselves the ministers of heaven, frequently preach nothing but hatred,
discord, and fury in its name: the fear of the gods, far from having a
salutary influence over their own morals, far from submitting them to a
wholesome discipline, frequently do nothing more than increase their
avarice, augment their ambition, inflate their pride, extend their
covetousness, render them obstinately stubborn, and harden their hearts.
We may see them unceasingly occupied in giving birth to the most lasting
animosities, by their unintelligible disputes. We see them hostilely
wrestling with the sovereign power, which they contend is subordinate to
their own. We see them arm the chiefs of nations against the legitimate
magistrates; distribute to the credulous multitude the most mortal
weapons, to massacre each other in the prosecution of those futile
controversies, which sacerdotal vanity clothes with the most interesting
importance. Do these men, who advance the beauty of their theories, who
menace the people with eternal vengeance, avail themselves of their own
marvellous notions to moderate their pride—to abate their vanity—to
lessen their cupidity—to restrain their turbulence—to bring
their vindictive humours under control? Are they, even in those countries
where their empire is established upon pillars of brass, fixed on
adamantine rocks, decorated with the most curious efforts of human
ingenuity—where the sacred mantle of public opinion shields them
with impunity—where credulity, planted in the hot-bed of ignorance,
strikes the roots of their authority into the very centre of the earth;
are they, I would ask, the enemies to debauchery, the foes to
intemperance, the haters of those excesses which they insist a severe God
interdicts to his adorers? On the contrary, are they not seen to be
emboldened in crime; intrepid in iniquity; committing the most shameful
atrocities; giving free scope to their irregularities; indulging their
hatred; glutting their vengeance; exercising the most savage cruelties on
the miserable victims to their cowardly suspicion? In short, it may be
safely advanced, without fear of contradiction, that scarcely any thing is
more frequent, than that those men who announce these terrible creeds—who
make men tremble under their yoke—who are unceasingly haranguing
upon the eternity and dreadful nature of their punishments—who
declare themselves the chosen ministers of their oracular laws—who
make all the duties of morality centre in themselves; are those whom
superstition least contributes to render virtuous; are men who possess the
least milk of human kindness; the fewest feelings of tenderness; who are
the most intolerant to their neighbours; the most indulgent to themselves;
the most unsociable in their habits; the most licentious in their manners;
the most unforgiving in their disposition. In contemplating their conduct,
we should be tempted to accredit, that they were perfectly undeceived with
respect to the idols whom they serve; that no one was less the dupe to
those menaces which they so solemnly pronounce in their name, than
themselves. In the hands of the priests of almost all countries, their
divinities resembled the head of Medusa, which, without injuring him who
shewed it, petrified all others. The priests are generally the most crafty
of men, and many among them are substantively wicked.

Does the idea of these avenging, these remunerating systems, impose upon
some princes of the earth, who found their titles, who rest their power
upon them; who avail themselves of their terrific power to intimidate
their subjects; to make the people, often rendered unhappy by their
caprice, hold them in reverence? Alas! the theological, the supernatural
ideas, adopted by the pride of some sovereigns, have done nothing more
than corrupt politics—than metamorphose, them into an abject
tyranny. The ministers of these idols, always tyrants themselves, or the
cherishers of despots, are unceasingly crying out to monarchs that they
are the images of the Divinity. Do they not inform the credulous multitude
that heaven is willing they should groan under the most cruel bondage;
writhe under the most multifarious injustice; that to suffer is their
inheritance; that their princes have the indubitable right to appropriate
the goods, dispose of the persons, coerce the liberty; command the lives
of their subjects? Do not some of these chiefs of nations, thus poisoned
in the name of deified idols, imagine that every indulgence of their
wayward humour is freely permitted to them? At once competitors,
representatives, and rivals of the celestial powers, do they not, in some
instances, exercise after their example the most arbitrary despotism? Do
they not, in the intoxication into which sacerdotal flattery has plunged
them, think that like their idols, they are not accountable to man for
their actions, that they owe nothing to the rest of mortals, that they are
bound by no bonds but their own unruly will, to their miserable subjects?

Then it is evident that it is to theological notions, to the loose
flattery of its ministers, that are to be ascribed the despotism, the
tyrannical injustice, the corruption, the licentiousness of some princes,
and the blindness of those people, to whom in heaven’s name they interdict
the love of liberty; who are forbid to labour effectually to their own
happiness; to oppose themselves to violence, however flagrant; to exercise
their natural rights, however conducive to their welfare. These
intoxicated rulers, even while adoring their avenging gods, in the act of
bending others to their worship, do not scruple to outrage them by their
irregularities—by their want of moral virtue. What morality is this,
but that of men who offer themselves as living images, as animated
representatives of the Divinity? Are those monarchs, then, who are
habitually unjust, who wrest without remorse the bread from the hands of a
famished people, to administer to the profligacy of their insatiable
courtiers—to pamper the luxury of the vile instruments of their
enormities, atheists? Are, then, those ambitious conquerors, who not
contented with oppressing their own slaves, carry desolation, spread
misery, deal out death among the subjects of others, atheists? Do we not
witness in some of those potentates who rule over nations by divine
right, (a patent of power, which every usurper claims as his own)
ambitious mortals, whose exterminating fury nothing can arrest; with
hearts perfectly insensible to the sorrows of mankind; with minds without
energy; with souls without virtue; who neglect their most evident duties,
with which they do not even deign to become acquainted; powerful men, who
insolently set themselves above the rules of equity; knaves who make a
sport of honesty? Generally speaking, is there the least sincerity in the
alliances which these rulers form among themselves? Do they ever last
longer than for the season of their convenience? Do we find substantive
virtues adorn those who most abjectly submit themselves to all the follies
of superstition? Do they not tax each other as violators of property—as
faithlessly aggrandizing themselves at the expence of their neighbour; in
fact, do we not see them endeavouring to surprise, anxious to over-reach,
ready to injure each other, without being arrested by the menaces of their
creeds, or at all yielding to the calls of humanity? In general, they are
too haughty to be humane; too inflated with ambition to be virtuous; they
make a code for themselves, which they cannot help violating. Charles the
Fifth used to say, “that being a warrior, it was impossible for him to
have either conscience or religion.” His general, the Marquis de Piscaire,
observed, that “nothing was more difficult, than to serve at one and the
same time, the god Mars and Jesus Christ.” Indeed, nothing
can be more opposed to the true spirit of Christianity than the profession
of arms; notwithstanding the Christian princes have the most numerous
armies, and are in perpetual hostility with each other: perhaps the clergy
themselves do not hold forth the most peaceable examples of the doctrine
they teach; they sometimes wrangle for tithes, dispute for trifling
enjoyments, quarrel for worldly opinion, with as much determined
obstinacy, with as, much settled rancour, with as little charity, as could
possibly inhabit the bosom of the most unenlightened Pagan, whose
ignorance they despise—whose superstition they rank as the grossest
effort of idolatrous debasement. It might almost admit of doubt whether
they would be quite pleased to see the mild maxims of the Evangelists, the
true Christian meekness, rigidly followed—whether they might not
think the complete working of their own system would clash with their own
immediate interests? Is it a demonstrable axiom that the ministers of the
Christian faith do not think soldiers are beings extremely well calculated
to give efficacy to their doctrine—solidity to their advantages—durability
to their claims? Be this as it may, priests as well as monarchs have
occasionally waged war for the most futile interests; impoverished a
people from the anti-christian motives; wrested from each other with all
the venom of furies, the bloody remnant of the nations they have laid
waste; in fact, to judge by their conduct on certain occasions, it might
have been a question if they were not disputing who should have the credit
of making the greater number of miserable beings upon earth. At length,
either wearied with their own fury, exhausted by their own devouring
passions, or compelled by the stern hand of necessity, they have permitted
suffering humanity to take breath; they have allowed the miseries
concomitant on war, to cease for an instant their devastating havoc; they
have made peace in the name of that God, whose decrees, as attested by
themselves, they have been so wantonly outraging,—still ready,
however, to violate their most solemn pledges, when the smallest interest
could offer them a pretext.

Thus it will be obvious, in what manner the idea of the Divinity operates
on the priest, as well as upon those who are called his images; who insist
they have no account to render but to him alone. Among these
representatives of the Divine Majesty, it is with difficulty during
thousands of years we find some few who have equity, sensibility, virtue,
or even the most ordinary talent. History points out some of these
vicegerents of the Deity, who in the exacerbation of their delirious rage,
have insisted upon displacing him, by exalting themselves into gods; and
exacting the most obsequious worship; who have inflicted the most cruel
torments on those who have opposed themselves to their madness, and
refused to acknowledge the Divinity of their persons. These men, whose
licentiousness knew no limits, from the impunity which attended their
actions, notwithstanding they had learned to despise public opinion, to
set decency at defiance, to indulge in the most shameless vice: in spite
of the power they possessed; of the homage they received; of the terror
they inspired: although they had learned to counterfeit, with great
effect, the whole catalogue of human virtues; found it impossible, even
with the addition of their enormous wealth, wrenched from the necessities
of laborious honesty, to counterfeit the animating blush, which modest
merit brings forth, when eulogized by some happy being whose felicity he
has occasioned, by following the great law of nature—which says, “love
thy neighbour as thyself.” On the contrary, we see them grow listless
with satiety; disgusted with their own inordinate indulgences; obliged to
recur to strange pleasures, to awaken their benumbed faculties; to run
headlong into the most costly follies, in the fruitless attempt to keep up
the activity of their souls, the spring of which they had for ever
relaxed, by the profligacy of their enjoyment.

History, although it describes a multitude of vicious rulers, whose
irregular propensities were of the most mischievous consequence to the
human race, nevertheless, shews us but few who have been atheists. The
annals of nations, on the contrary, offer to our view great numbers of
superstitious princes, governed by their mistresses, led by unworthy
favorites, leagued with priests, who passed their lives plunged in luxury;
indulging the most effeminate pursuits; following the most childish
pleasures; pleased with ostentatious show; slaves even to the fashion of
the vestments that covered them; but strangers to every manly virtue;
insensible to the sorrows of their subjects; although uniformly good to
their hungry courtiers, invariably kind to those cringing sycophants who
surrounded their persons, and poisoned their ears with the most fulsome
flattery: in short, superstitious persecutors, who, to render themselves
acceptable to their priests, to expiate their own shameful irregularities,
added to all their other vices that of tyrannizing over the mind, of
fettering the conscience, of destroying their subjects for their opinions,
when they were in hostility with their own received doctrines. Indeed,
superstition in princes frequently allied itself with the most horrid
crimes; they have almost all professed religion, although very few of them
have had a just knowledge of morality—have practiced any useful
substantive virtue. Superstitious notions, on the contrary, often serve to
render them more blind, to augment their evil inclinations; to set them at
a greater distance from moral goodness. They for the most part believe
themselves assured of the favor of heaven; they think they faithfully
serve their gods, that the anger of their divinities is appeased, if for a
short season they shew themselves attached to futile customs—lend
themselves to absurd rites—perform some ridiculous duties, which
superstition imposes on them, with a view to obtain their assistance in
the prosecution of its own plans, very rarely in strict unison with their
immediate interest. Nero, the cruel, sanguinary, matricidal Nero, his
hands yet reeking with the blood of that unfortunate being who had borne
him in her womb, who had, with agonizing pains, given the monster to the
world that plunged the dagger in her heart, was desirous to be initiated
into the Eleusinian Mysteries. The odious Constantine himself,
found in the priests, accomplices disposed to expiate his crimes. The
infamous Philip, whose ungovernable ambition caused him to be called the
daemon of the south, whilst he assassinated his wife and son, caused the
throats of the wretched Batavians to be cut for their religious opinions.
It is thus, that the priests of superstition sometimes persuade sovereigns
they can atone for crimes, by committing others of a more atrocious kind—of
an increased magnitude.

It would be fair to conclude, from the conduct of so many princes, who had
so much superstition, but so slender a portion of virtue, that the notion
of their gods, far from being useful to them, only served to render them
wore corrupt—to make them more abominable than they already were;
that the idea of an avenging power, placed in the perspective of futurity,
imposed but little restraint on the turbulence of deified tyrants, who
were sufficiently powerful not to fear the reproaches of their subjects—who
had the insensibility to be deaf to the censure of their fellows—who
were gifted with an obduracy of soul, that prevented their having
compassion for the miseries of mankind, from whom they fancied themselves
so pre-eminently distinguished; which, in fact, they were, if crime can be
allowed for the standard of distinction. Neither heaven nor earth
furnishes a balsam of sufficient efficacy to heal the inveterate wounds of
beings cankered to this degree: for such chronic diseases, there is “no
balm in Gilead:” there is no curb sufficiently coercive to rein in the
passions, to which superstition itself gives activity; which only makes
them more unruly; renders them more inveterately rash. Whenever men
flatter themselves with easily expiating their sins—when they soothe
themselves with the consolitary idea of appeasing the anger of the gods by
a show of earnestness, they then deliver themselves up, with the most
unrestrained freedom, to the bent of their criminal pursuits. The most
dissolute men are frequently in appearance extremely attached to
superstition: it furnishes them with a means of compensating by
ceremonies, that of which they are deficient in morals: it is much easier
for them to adopt a faith, to believe in a doctrine, to conform themselves
to certain rituals, than to renounce their habits, resist their passions,
or relinquish the pursuit of that pleasure, which results to unprincipled
minds from the prosecution of the most diabolical schemes.

Under chiefs, depraved even by superstition, nations continued necessarily
to be corrupted. The great conformed themselves to the vices of their
masters; the example of these distinguished men, whom the uninformed
erroneously believe to be happy, was followed by the people; courts thus
became the sinks from whence issued the epidemic contagion of licentious
indulgence. The law only held forth pictures of honesty; the dispensers of
jurisprudence were partial, partook of the mania of the times, were
labouring under the general disease; Justice suffered her balance to rust,
occasionally removed her bandage, although she always wore it in the
presence of the poor; genuine ideas of equity had grown into disuse;
distinct notions of right and wrong became troublesome and unfashionable;
education was neglected; it served only to produce prejudiced beings,
grounded in ignorance—devotees, always ready to injure themselves—fanatics,
eager to shew their zeal ever willing to annoy their unfortunate
neighbours. Superstition, sustained by tyranny, ousted every other
feeling, hoodwinked its destined victims, rendered those tractable whom it
had the intention to despoil. Whoever doubts of these truisms, has only to
turn over the pages of history, he will find myriads of evidence to much
more than is here stated. Machiavel, in his Political Discourses upon
Titus Livius, labours the point hard, to shew the utility of
superstition to the Roman Republic: unfortunately, however, the examples
he brings forward in its support, incontestibly prove that none but the
senate profited by the infatuation of the people, who availed itself of
their blindness more effectually to bend them to its yoke.

Thus it was that nations, destitute of equitable laws, deficient in the
administration of justice, submitted to irrational government, continued
in slavery by the monarch, chained up in ignorance by the priest, for want
of enlightened institutions, deprived of reasonable education, became
corrupt, superstitious, and flagitious. The nature of man, the just
interests of society, the real advantage of the sovereign, the true
happiness of the people, once mistaken, were completely lost sight of; the
morality of nature, founded upon the essence of man living in society, was
equally unknown; lay buried under an enormous load of prejudice, that no
common efforts were competent to remove. It was entirely forgotten that
man has wants; that society was formed that he might, with greater
security, facilitate the means of satisfying them; that government, to be
legitimate, ought to have for object, the happiness—for end, the
means of maintaining the indivisibility of the community; that
consequently it ought to give activity to springs, full play to motives
suitable to have a favorable influence over sensible beings. It was quite
overlooked, that virtue faithfully rewarded, vice as regularly visited,
had an elastic force, of which the public authorities could efficaciously
avail themselves, to determine their citizens to blend their interests; to
work out their own felicity, by labouring to the happiness of the body of
which they were members. The social virtues were unknown, the amor
patriae became a chimera. Men thus associated, thus blinded by their
superstitious bias, credulously believed their own immediate interest
consisted in injuring each other; they were solely occupied with meriting
the favor of those men, who fatally accreditted the doctrine of clerical
flatterers, of silver-toned courtiers, which taught that they wore
distinctly interested in injuring the whole.

This is the mode in which the human heart has become perverted; here is
the genuine source of moral evil; the hot-bed of that epidemical
depravity, the cause of that hereditary corruption, the fountain of that
inveterate delinquency, which pervaded the earth; rendering the abundance
of nature nothing better than a curse; blasting the fairest prospects of
humanity; degrading man below the beast of the forest; sinking his
intellectual faculties in the most savage barbarity; rendering him the
vile instrument of lawless ambition; the wretched tool by which the
fetters of his species were firmly rivetted; obliging him to moisten his
harvest with the bitter tears of the most abject slavery. For the purpose
of remedying so many crying evils, grown insupportable, recourse was had
to new superstitions. Notwithstanding this alone had produced them, it was
still imagined, that the menaces of heaven would restrain passions which
every thing conspired to rouse in all hearts; fatuity persuaded monarchs
that ideal, metaphysical barriers, terrible fables, distant phantoms,
would be competent to curb those inordinate desires, to rein in that
impetuous propensity to crime, that rendered society incommodious to
itself; credulity fancied that invisible powers would be more efficacious,
than those visible motives that evidently invited mortals to the
commission of mischief. Every thing was understood to be achieved, by
occupying man’s mind with gloomy chimeras, with vague, undefinable
terrors, with avenging angels; and politics madly believed that its own
interests grew out of the blind submission of its subjects, to the
ministers of these delusive doctrines.

What was the result? Nations had only sacerdotal laws; theological
morality; accommodated to the interests of the hierarchy—suitable to
the views of subtle priests: who substituted reveries for realities,
opinions for reason, rank fallacies for sterling truths; who made
ceremonies supply the place of virtue; a pious blindness supersede the
necessity of an enlightened understanding; undermined the sacredness of
oaths, and placed fanaticism on the altars of sociability. By a necessary
consequence of that confidence which the people were compelled to give to
the ministers of superstition, two distinct authorities were established
in each state, who were substantially at variance, in continual hostility
with each other. The priest fought the sovereign with the formidable
weapon of opinion; it generally proved sufficiently powerful to shake the
most established thrones. Thus, although the hierarchy was unceasingly
admonishing the people to submit themselves to the divine authority of
their sovereigns, because it was derived immediately from heaven, yet,
whenever it so happened that the monarch did not repay their advocacy, by
blindly yielding his own authority to the supervisance of the priests,
these made no scruple of threatening him with loss of his temporalities;
fulminated their anathemas, interdicted his dominions, and sometimes went
the length of absolving his subjects from allegiance. Superstition, in
general, only upholds despotism, that it may with greater certainty direct
its blows against its enemies; it overthrows it whenever it is found to
clash with its interests. The ministers of invisible powers preach up
obedience to visible powers, only when they find these humbly devoted to
themselves. Thus the sovereign was never at rest, but when abjectly
cringing to his priest, he tractably received his lessons—lent
himself to his frantic zeal—and piously enabled him to carry on the
furious occupation of proselytism. These priests, always restless, full of
ambition, burning with intolerance, frequently excited the sovereign to
ravage his own states—encouraged him to tyranny: when, pursuing this
sacerdotal mania, he feared to have outraged humanity, to have incurred
the displeasure of heaven, he was quickly reconciled to himself, upon
promise of undertaking some distant expedition, for the purpose of
bringing some unfortunate nation within the pale of their own particular
creed. When the two rival powers united themselves, morality gained
nothing by the junction; the people were neither more happy, nor more
virtuous; their morals, their welfare, their liberty, were equally
overwhelmed by the combined powers. Thus, superstitious princes always
felt interested in the maintenance of theological opinions, which were
rendered flattering to their vanity, favorable to their power. Like the
grateful perfumes of Arabia, that are used to cover the ill scent of a
deadly poison, the priest lulled them into security by administering to
their sensualities; these, in return, made common cause with him: fully
persuaded that the superstition which they themselves adopted, must be the
most wholesome for their subjects, most conducive to their interests,
those who refused to receive the boon, thus gratuitously forced upon them,
were treated as enemies, held up to public scorn, and rendered the victims
of punishment. The most superstitious sovereign became, either politically
or through piety, the executioner of one part of his slaves; he was taught
to believe it a sacred duty to tyrannize over the mind—to overwhelm
the refractory—to crush the enemy of his priest, under an idea that
he was therefore hostile to his own authority. In cutting the throats of
these unfortunate sceptics, he imagined he at once discharged his
obligations to heaven, and gave security to his own power. He did, not
perceive, that by immolating victims to his priest, he in fact
strengthened the arm of his most formidable foe—the real enemy to
his authority—the rival of his greatness—the least subjected
of his subjects.

But the prevalence of these false notions, with which both the minds of
the sovereign and the people were prepossessed, it was found that every
thing in society concurred to gratify the avidity, to bolster the pride,
to glut the vengeance of the sacerdotal order: every where, it was to be
observed, that the most turbulent, the most dangerous, the most useless
men, were those who were the most amply rewarded. The strange spectacle
presented itself, of beholding those who were born the bitterest enemies
to sovereign power, cherished by its fostering care—honoured at its
hands: the most rebellious subjects were looked upon as the pillars of the
throne; the corrupters of the people were rendered the exclusive masters
of education; the least laborious of the citizens were richly rewarded for
their idleness—munificently remunerated for the most futile
speculations—held in respect for their fatal discord—gorged
with benefits for their inefficacious prayers: they swept off the fat of
the land for their expiations, so destructive to morals, so calculated to
give permanency to crime. Thus, by a strange fatuity, the viper that
could, and frequently did, inflict the most deadly sting on the bosom of
confiding credulity, was pampered and nourished by the unsuspecting hand
of its destined victim.

For thousands of years, nations as well as sovereigns were emulously
despoiling themselves to enrich the expounders of superstition; to enable
them to wallow in abundance: they loaded them with honors, decorated them
with titles, invested them with privileges, granted them immunities, for
no other purpose than to make them bad citizens, unruly subjects,
mischievous beings, who revenged upon society the advantages they had
received. What was the fruit that kings and people gathered from their
imprudent kindness? What was the harvest these men yielded to their
labour? Did princes really become more powerful; were nations rendered
more happy; did they grow more flourishing; did men become more rational?
No! Unquestionably, the sovereign lost the greater portion of his
authority; he was the slave of his priest; and when he wished to preserve
the remnant that was left, or to recover some part of what had been
wrested from him, he was obliged to be continually wrestling against the
men his own indulgence, his own weakness, had furnished with means, to set
his authority at defiance: the riches of society were lavished to support
the idleness, maintain the splendour, satiate the luxury of the most
useless, the most arrogant, the most dangerous of its members.

Did the morals of the people improve under the pastoral care of these
guides, who were so liberally rewarded? Alas! the superstitious never knew
them, their fanatic creed had usurped the place of every virtue; its
ministers, satisfied with upholding the doctrines, with preserving the
ceremonies so useful to their own interests, only invented fictitious
crimes—multiplied painful penances—instituted absurd customs;
to the end, that they might turn even the transgressions of their slaves
to their own immediate profit. Every where they exercised a monopoly of
expiatory indulgences; they made a lucrative traffic of pretended pardons
from above; they established a tariff, according to which crime was no
longer contraband, but freely admitted upon paying the customs. Those
subjected to the heaviest impost, were always such as the hierarchy judged
most inimical to its own stability; you might at a very easy rate obtain
permission to attack the dignity of the sovereign, to undermine the
temporal power, but it was enormously dear to be allowed to touch even the
hem of the sacerdotal garments. Thus heresy, sacrilege, &c. were
considered crimes of a much deeper dye, that fixed an indelible stain on
the perpetrator, alarmed the mind of the priestly order, much more
seriously than the most inveterate villainy, the most determined
delinquency, which more immediately involved the true interests of
society. Thence the ideas of the people were completely overturned,
imaginary crimes terrified them, while real crimes had no effect upon
their obdurate hearts. A man, whose opinions were at variance with the
received doctrines, whose abstract systems did not harmonize with those of
his priest, was more loathed than a corrupter of youth; more abhorred than
an assassin; more hated than an oppressor; was held in greater contempt
than a robber; was punished with greater rigor than the seducer of
innocence. The acme of all wickedness, was to despise that which the
priest was desirous should be looked upon as sacred. The celebrated Gordon
says, “the most abominable of heresies, is to believe there is any other
god than the clergy.” The civil laws concurred to aid this confusion of
ideas; they inflicted the most serious penalties, punished in the most
atrocious manner those unknown crimes which imagination had magnified into
the most flagitious actions; heretics, infidels, were brought to the
stake, and publicly burnt with the utmost refinement of cruelty; the brain
was tortured to find means of augmenting the sufferings of the unhappy
victims to sacerdotal fury; whilst calumniators of innocence, adulterers,
depredators of every description, knaves of all kinds, were at a trifling
cost absolved from their past iniquity, and opened a new account of future
delinquency.

Under such instructors what could become of youth? The period of
juvenility was shamefully sacrificed to superstition. Man, from his
earliest infancy, was poisoned with unintelligible notions; fed with
mysteries; crammed with fables; drenched with doctrines, in which he was
compelled to acquiesce without being able to comprehend. His brain was
disturbed with phantoms, alarmed with chimeras, rendered frantic by
visions. His genius was cramped with puerile pursuits, mechanical
devotions, sacred trifles. Superstition at length so fascinated the human
mind, made such mere automata of mankind, that the people consented to
address their gods in a dialect they did not themselves understand: women
occupied their whole lives in singing Latin, without comprehending a word
of the language; the people assisted very punctually, without being
competent to explain any part of the worship, under an idea that it was
taken kindly they should thus weary themselves; that it was sufficient to
shew their persons in the sacred temples, which were beautifully decorated
to fascinate their senses. Thus man wasted his most precious moments in
absurd customs; spent his life in idle ceremonies; his bead was crowded
with sophisms, his mind was loaded with errors; intoxicated with
fanaticism, he was the declared enemy to reason; for ever prepossessed
against truth, the energy of his soul was resisted by shackles too
ponderous for its elasticity; the spring gave way, and he sunk into sloth
and wretchedness: from this humiliating state he could never again soar;
he could no longer become useful either to himself or to his associates:
the importance he attached to his imaginary science, or rather the
systematic ignorance which served for its basis, rendered it impossible
for the most fertile soil to produce any thing but thorns; for the best
proportioned tree to yield any thing but crabs.

Does a superstitious, sacerdotal education, form intrepid citizens,
intelligent fathers of families, kind husbands, just masters, faithful
servants, loyal subjects, pacific associates? No! it either makes peevish
enthusiasts or morose devotees, who are incommodious to themselves,
vexatious to others: men without principle, who quickly pour the waters of
Lethe over the terrors with which they have been disturbed; who know no
moral obligation, who respect no virtue. Thus superstition, elevated above
every thing else, held forth the fanatical dogma, “Better to obey the gods
than men;” in consequence, man believed he must revolt against his prince,
detach himself from his wife, detest his children, estrange himself from
his friends, cut the throats of his fellow-citizens, every time they
questioned the veracity of his faith: in short, a superstitious education,
when it had its effect, only served to corrupt the juvenile heart—to
fascinate youthful winds with its pageantry—to degrade the human
soul—to make man mistake the duties he owed to himself, his
obligations to society, his relations with the beings by whom he was
surrounded.

What advantages might not nations have reaped, if they would have employed
on useful objects, those riches, which ignorance has so shamefully
lavished on the expounders of superstition; which fatuity has bestowed on
the most useless ceremonies? What might not have been the progress of
genius, if it had enjoyed those ample remunerations, granted during so
many ages to those priests who at all times opposed its elevation? What
perfection might not science have attained, what height might not the arts
have reached, if they had had the same succours that were held forth with
a prodigal hand to enthusiasm and futility? Upon what rocks might not
morality have been rested, what solid foundations might not politics have
found, with what majestic grandeur might not truth have illumined the
human horizon, if they had experienced the same fostering cares, the same
animating countenance, the same public sanction, which accompanied
imposture—which was showered upon fanaticism—which shielded
falsehood from the rude attack of investigation—which gave impunity
to its ministers?

It is then obvious, that superstitious, theological notions, have not
produced any of those solid advantages that have been held forth; if may
be doubted whether they were not always, and ever will remain, contrary to
healthy politics, opposed to sound morality; they frequently change
sovereigns into restless, jealous, mischievous, divinities; they transform
their subjects into envious, wicked slaves, who by idle pageantry, by
futile ceremonies, by an exterior acquiescence in unintelligible opinions,
imagine themselves amply compensated for the evil they commit against each
other. Those who have never had the confidence to examine these sublimated
opinions; those who feel persuaded that their duties spring out of these
abstruse doctrines; those who are actually commanded to live in peace, to
cherish each other, to lend mutual assistance, to abstain from evil, and
to do good, presently lose sight of these sterile speculations, as soon as
present interests, ungovernable passions, inveterate habits, or
irresistible whims, hurry them away. Where are we to look for that equity,
that union of interest, that peace, that concord, which these unsettled
notions, supported by superstition, backed with the full force of
authority, promise to the societies placed under their surveillance? Under
the influence of corrupt courts, of time-serving priests, who, either
impostors or fanatics, are never in harmony with each other, are only to
be discerned vicious men, degraded by ignorance—enslaved by criminal
habits—swayed by transient interests—guided by shameful
pleasures—sunk in a vortex of dissipation; who do not even think of
the Divinity. In despite of his theological ideas, the subtle courtier
continues to weave his dark plots, labours to gratify his ambition, seeks
to satisfy his avidity, to indulge his hatred, to wreak his vengeance, to
give full swing to all the passions inherent to the perversity of his
being: maugre that frightful hell, of which the idea alone makes her
tremble, the woman of intrigue persists in her amours; continues her
harlotry, revels in her adulteries. Notwithstanding their dissipated
conduct, their dissolute manners, their entire want of moral principle,
the greater part of those who swarm in courts, who crowd in cities, would
recoil with horror, if the smallest doubt was exhibited of the truth of
that creed which they outrage every moment, of their lives. What
advantage, then, has resulted to the human race from those opinions, so
universal, at the same time so barren? They seem rarely to have had any
other kind of influence than to serve as a pretext for the most dangerous
passions—as a mantle of security for the most criminal indulgences.
Does not the superstitious despot, who would scruple to omit the least
part of the ceremonies of his persuasion, on quitting the altars at which
he has been sacrificing, on leaving the temple where they have been
delivering the oracles and terrifying crime in the name of heaven, return
to his vices, reiterate his injustice, increase his political crimes,
augment his transgressions against society? Issuing from the sacred fane,
their ears still ringing with the doctrines they have heard, the minister
returns to his vexations, the courtier to his intrigues, the courtezan to
her prostitution, the publican to his extortions, the merchant to his
frauds, the trader to his tricks.

Will it be pretended that those cowardly assassins, those dastardly
robbers, those miserable criminals, whom evil institutions, the negligence
of government, the laxity of morals, continually multiply; from whom the
laws, in many instances too sanguinary, frequently wrest their existence;
will it, I say, be pretended that the malefactors who regularly furnish
the gibbets, who daily crowd the scaffolds, are either incredulous or
atheists? No! Unquestionably, these unfortunate beings, these wretched
outcasts, these children of turpitude, firmly believe in God; his name has
been repeated to them from their infancy; they have been informed of the
punishment destined for sinners: they have been habituated in early life
to tremble at his judgments; nevertheless they have outraged society;
their unruly passions, stronger than their fears, not having been coerced
by visible motives, have not, for much more cogent reasons, been
restrained by those which are invisible: distant, concealed punishments
will never be competent to arrest those excesses which present and assured
torments are incapable of preventing.

In short, does not every day’s experience furnish us the lesson, that men,
persuaded that an all-seeing Deity views them, hears them, encompasses
them, do not on that account arrest their progress when the furor exists,
either for gratifying their licentious passions, or committing the most
dishonest actions? The same individual who would fear the inspection of
the meanest of his fellows, whom the presence of another man would prevent
from committing a bad action, from delivering himself up to some
scandalous vice, freely sins, cheerfully lends himself to crime, when he
believes no eyes beholds him but those of his God. What purpose, then,
does the conviction of the omniscience, the ubiquity, the omnipotence of
the Divinity answer, if it imposes much less on the conduct of the human
being, than the idea of being overlooked by the least of his fellow men?
He who would not have the temerity to commit a crime, even in the presence
of a child, will make no scruple of boldly committing it, when he shall
have only his God for a witness. These facts, which are indubitable, ill
serve for a reply to those who insist that the fear of God is more
suitable to restrain the actions of men, than wholesome laws, with strict
discipline. When man believes he has only his God to dread, he commonly
permits nothing to interrupt his course.

Those persons who do not in the least suspect the power of superstitious
notions, who have the most perfect reliance on their efficacy, very
rarely, however, employ them, when they are desirous to influence the
conduct of those who are subordinate to them; when they are disposed to
re-conduct them to the paths of reason. In the advice which a father gives
to his vicious, criminal son, he rather represents to him the present
temporal inconveniencies to which his conduct exposes him, than the danger
he encounters in offending an avenging God; he points out to him the
natural consequences of his irregularities, his health damaged by
debaucheries; the loss of his reputation by criminal pursuits; the ruin of
his fortune by gambling; the punishments of society, &c. Thus the
DEICOLIST himself, on the most important occasions of life, reckons more
stedfastly upon the force of natural motives, than upon those supernatural
inducements furnished by superstition: the same man, who vilifies the
motives that an atheist can have to do good and abstain from evil, makes
use of them himself on this occasion, because he feels they are the most
substantive he can employ.

Almost all men believe in an avenging and remunerating God; yet nearly in
all countries the number of the wicked bears a larger proportion than that
of the good. If the true cause of this general corruption be traced, it
will be more frequently found in the superstitious notions inculcated by
theology, than in those imaginary sources which the various superstitions
have invented to account for human depravity. Man is always corrupt
wherever he is badly governed; wherever superstition deifies the
sovereign, his government becomes unworthy: this perverted and assured of
impunity, necessarily render his people miserable; misery, when it exceeds
the point of endurance, as necessarily renders them wicked. When the
people are submitted to irrational masters, they are never guided by
reason. If they are blinded by priests, who are either deceived or
impostors, their reason become useless. Tyrants, when combined with
priests, have generally been successful in their efforts to prevent
nations from becoming enlightened—from seeking after truth—from
ameliorating their condition—from perfectioning their morals; and
never has the union smiled upon liberty: the people, unable to resist the
mighty torrent produced by the confluence of two such rivers, have usually
sunk into the most abject slavery. It is only by enlightening the mass of
mankind, by demonstrating truth, that we can promise to render him better;
that we can indulge the hope of making him happy. It is by causing both
sovereigns and subjects to feel their true relations with each other, that
their actual interests will be improved; that their politics will be
perfectioned: it will then be felt and accredited, that the true art of
governing mortals, the sure method of gaining their affections, is not the
art of blinding them, of deceiving them, or of tyrannizing over them. Let
us, then, good humouredly consult reason, avail ourselves of experience,
interrogate nature; we shall, perhaps, find what is requisite to be done,
in order to labour efficaciously to the happiness of the human race. We
shall most assuredly perceive, that error is the true source of the evils
which embitter our existence; that it is in cheering the hearts, in
dissipating those vain phantoms which alarm the ignorant, in laying the
axe to the root of superstition, that we can peaceably seek after truth;
that it is only in the conflagration of this baneful tree, we can ever
expect to light the torch which shall illumine the road to felicity. Then
let man study nature; observe her immutable laws; let him dive into his
own essence; let him cure himself of his prejudices: these means will
conduct him by a gentle declivity to that virtue, without which he must
feel he can never be permanently happy in the world he inhabits.

If man could once cease to fear, from that moment he would be truly happy.
Superstition is a domestic enemy which he always carries within himself:
those who will seriously occupy themselves with this formidable phantom,
must be content to endure continual agonies, to live in perpetual
inquietude: if they will neglect the objects most worthy of interesting
them, to run after chimeras, they will commonly pass a melancholy
existence, in groaning, in praying, in sacrificing, in expiating faults,
either real or imaginary, which they believe calculated to offend their
priests; frequently in their irrational fury they will torment themselves,
they will make it a duty to inflict on their own persons the most
barbarous punishments: but society will reap no benefit from these
mournful opinions—from the tortures of these pious irrationals;
because their mind, completely absorbed by their gloomy reveries, their
time dissipated in the most absurd ceremonies, will leave them no
opportunity of being really advantageous to the community of which they
are members. The most superstitions men are commonly misanthropists, quite
useless to the world, and very injurious to themselves: if ever they
display energy, it is only to devise means by which they can increase
their own affliction; to discover new methods to torture their mind; to
find out the most efficacious means to deprive themselves of those objects
which their nature renders desirable. It is common in the world to behold
penitents, who are intimately persuaded that by dint of barbarous
inflictions on their own persons, by means of a lingering suicide, they
shall merit the favor of heaven. Madmen of this species are to be seen
every where; superstition has in all ages, in all places, given birth to
the most cruel extravagances, to the most injurious follies.

If, indeed, these irrational devotees only injure themselves, and deprive
society of that assistance which they owe to it, they without doubt do
less mischief than those turbulent, zealous fanatics, who, infuriated with
their superstitious ideas, believe themselves bound to disturb the world,
to commit actual crimes, to sustain the cause of what they denominate the
true faith. It not unfrequently happens that in outraging morality, the
zealous enthusiast supposes he renders himself agreeable to his God. He
makes perfection consist either in tormenting himself, or in rending
asunder, in favour of his fanatical ideas, the most sacred ties that
connect mortals with each other.

Let us, then, acknowledge, that the notions of superstition, are not more
suitable to procure the welfare, to establish the content, to confirm the
peace of individuals, than they are of the society of which they are
members. If some peaceable, honest, inconclusive enthusiasts, find either
comfort or consolation in them, there are millions who, more conclusive to
their principles, are unhappy during their whole life; who are perpetually
assailed by the most melancholy ideas; to whom their disordered
imagination shews these notions, as every instant involving them in the
most cruel punishments. Under such formidable systems, a tranquil,
sociable devotee, is a man who has not reasoned upon them.

In short, every thing serves to prove, that superstitious opinions have
the strongest influence over men; that they torment them unceasingly,
divide them from their dearest connections, inflame their minds, envenom
their passions, render them miserable without ever restraining their
actions, except when their own temperament proves too feeble to propel
them forward: all this holds forth one great lesson, that superstition
is incompatible with liberty, and can never furnish good citizens.

CHAP. IX.

Theological Notions cannot be the Basis of Morality.—Comparison
between Theological Ethics and Natural Morality.—Theology
prejudicial to the human Mind.

Felicity is the great end of human existence; a supposition therefore, to
be actually useful to man, should render him happy. By what parity of
reasoning can he flatter himself that an hypothesis, which does not
facilitate his happiness in his present duration, may one day conduct him
to permanent bliss? If mortals only sigh, tremble, and groan in this
world, of which they have a knowledge, upon what foundation is it they
expect a more felicitous existence hereafter, in a world of which they
know nothing? If man is every where the child of calamity, the victim to
necessary evil, the unhappy sufferer under an immutable system, ought he
reasonably to indulge a greater confidence in future happiness?

On the other hand, a supposition which should throw light on every thing,
which should supply an easy solution to all the questions to which it
could be applied, when even it should not be competent to demonstrate the
certitude, would probably be true: but that system which should only
obscure the clearest notions, render more insoluble the problems desired
to be resolved by its means, would most assuredly be looked upon as
fallacious; as either useless or dangerous. To be convinced of this
principle, let us examine, without prejudice, if the theological ideas of
the Divinity have ever given the solution to any one difficulty. Has the
human understanding progressed a single step by the assistance of this
metaphysical science? Has it not, on the contrary, had a tendency to
obscure the wore certain science of morals? Has it not, in many instances,
rendered the most essential duties of our nature problematical? Has it not
in a great measure confounded the notions of virtue and vice, of justice
and injustice? Indeed, what is virtue, in the eyes of the generality of
theologians? They will instantly reply, “that which is conformable to the
will of the incomprehensible beings who govern nature.” But way it not be
asked, without offence to the individual opinions of any one, what are
these beings, of whom they are unceasingly talking, without having the
capacity to comprehend them? How can we acquire a knowledge of their will?
They will forthwith reply, with a confidence that is meant to strike
conviction on uninformed minds, by recounting what they are not, without
even attempting to inform us what they are. If they do undertake to
furnish an idea of them, they will heap upon their hypothetical beings a
multitude, of contradictory, incompatible attributes, with which they will
form a whole, at once impossible for the human mind to conceive or else
they will refer to oracles, by which they insist their intentions have
been promulgated to mankind. If, however, they are requested to prove the
authenticity of these oracles, which are at such variance with each other,
they will refer to miracles in support of what they assert: these
miracles, independent of the difficulty there must exist to repose in them
our faith, when, as we have seen, they are admitted even by the
theologians themselves, to be contrary to the intelligence, the
immutability, to the omnipotency of their immaterial substances, are,
moreover, warmly disputed by each particular sect, as being impositions,
practised by the others for their own individual advantage. As a last
resource, then, it will be necessary to accredit the integrity, to rely on
the veracity, to rest on the good faith of the priests, who announce these
oracles. On this again, there arises two almost insuperable difficulties,
in the first place, who shall assure us of their actual mission?
are we quite certain none of them may be mistaken? how shall we be
justified in giving credence to their powers? are they not these priests
themselves, who announce to us that they are the infallible interpreters
of a being whom they acknowledge they do not at all know? In the second
place, which set of these oracular developements are we to adopt? For to
give currency to the whole, would, in point of fact, annihilate them
entirely; seeing, that no two of them run in unison with each other. This
granted, the priests, that is to say, men extremely suspicious, but little
in harmony with each other, will be the arbiters of morality; they will
decide (according to their own uncertain knowledge, after their various
passions, in conformity to the different perspectives under which they
view these things,) on the whole system of ethics; upon which absolutely
rests the repose of the world—the sterling happiness of each
individual. Would this be a desirable state? would it be that from which
humanity has the best founded prospect of that felicity, which is the
desired object of his research? Again; do we not see that either
enthusiasm or interest is the only standard of their decisions? that their
morals are as variable as their caprice? those who listen to them, very
rarely discover to what line they will adhere. In their various writings,
we have evidence of the most bitter animosities; we find continual
contradictions; endless disputes upon what they themselves acknowledge to
be the most essential points; upon those premises, in the substantive
proof of which their whole system depends; the very beings they depict as
their source of their various creeds, are pourtrayed as variable as
themselves; as frequently changing their plans as these are their
arguments. What results from all this to a rational man? It will be
natural for him to conclude, that neither inconstant gods, nor vacillating
priests, whose opinions are more fluctuating than the seasons, can be the
proper models of a moral system, which should be as regular, as
determinate, as invariable as the laws of nature herself; as that eternal
march, from which we never see her derogate.

No! Arbitrary, inconclusive, contradictory notions, abstract,
unintelligible speculations, can never be the sterling bases of the
ethical science! They must be evident, demonstrable principles, deduced
from the nature of man, founded upon his wants, inspired by rational
education, rendered familiar by habit, made sacred by wholesome laws, that
will flash conviction on our mind, render systems useful to mankind, make
virtue dear to us—that will people nations with honest men—fill
up the ranks with faithful subjects—crowd them with intrepid
citizens. Incomprehensible beings can present nothing to our imagination,
save vague ideas, which will never embrace any common point of union
amongst those who shall contemplate them. If these beings are painted as
terrible, the mind is led astray; if changeable, it always precludes us
from ascertaining the road we ought to pursue. The menaces held forth by
those, who, in despite of their own assertions, say they are acquainted
with the views, with the determination of these beings, will seldom do
more than render virtue unpleasant; fear alone will then make us practise
with reluctance, that which reason, which our own immediate interest,
ought to make us execute with pleasure. The inculcation of terrible ideas
will only serve to disturb honest persons, without in the least arresting
the progress of the profligate, or diverting the course of the flagitious:
the greater number of men, when they shall be disposed to sin, to deliver
themselves up to vicious propensities, will cease to contemplate these
terrific ideas, will only behold a merciful God, who is filled with
goodness, who will pardon the transgressions of their weakness. Man never
views things but on that side which is most conformable to his desires.

The goodness of God cheers the wicked; his rigour disturbs the honest man.
Thus, the qualities with which theology clothes its immaterial substances,
themselves turn out disadvantageous to sound morality. It is upon this
infinite goodness that the most corrupt men will have the audacity to
reckon, when they are either hurried along by crime, or given up to
habitual vice. If, then, they are reminded of their criminal courses, they
reply, “God is good, his mercy is infinite, his clemency boundless:” thus
it may be said that religion itself is pressed into the service of vice,
by the children of turpitude. Superstition, above all, rather abets crime
than represses it, by holding forth to mortals that by the assistance of
certain ceremonies, the performance of certain rites, the repetition of
certain prayers, aided by the payment of certain sums of money, they can
appease the anger of their gods, assuage the wrath of heaven, wash out the
stains of their sins, and be received with open arms into the happy number
of the elect—be placed in the blissful abodes of eternity. In short,
do not the priests of superstition universally affirm, that they possess
infallible secrets, for reconciling the most perverse to the pale of their
respective systems?

It must be concluded from this, that however these systems are viewed, in
whatever manner they are considered, they cannot serve for the basis of
morality, which in its very nature is formed to be invariably the same.
Irascible systems are only useful to those who find an interest in
terrifying the ignorance of mankind, that they may advantage themselves of
his fears—profit by his expiations. The nobles of the earth, who are
frequently men not gifted with the most exemplary morals—who do not
on all occasions exhibit the most perfect specimens of self-denial—who
would not, perhaps, be at all times held up as mirrors of virtue, will not
see these formidable systems, when they shall be inclined to listen to
their passions; to lend themselves to the indulgence of their unruly
desires: they will, however, feel no repugnance to make use of them to
frighten others, to the end that they may preserve unimpaired their
superiority; that they may keep entire their prerogatives; that they may
more effectually bind them to servitude. Like the rest of mankind, they
will see their God under the traits of his benevolence; they will always
believe him indulgent to those outrages they may commit against their
fellows, provided they shew due respect for him themselves: superstition
will furnish them with easy means to turn aside his Wrath; its ministers
seldom omit a profitable opportunity, to expiate the crimes of human
nature.

Morality is not made to follow the caprices of the imagination, the fury
of the passions, the fluctuating interests of men: it ought to possess
stability; to be at all times the same, for all the individuals of the
human race; it ought neither to vary in one country, nor in one race from
another: neither superstition nor religion, has a privilege to make its
immutability subservient to the changeable laws of their systems. There is
but one method to give ethics this solidity; it has been more than once
pointed out in the course of this work: it is only to be founded upon the
nature of man, bottomed upon his duties, rested upon the relations
subsisting between intelligent beings, who are in love, with their
happiness, who are occupied with their own preservation, who live together
in society that they may With greater facility ascertain these ends. In
short we must take for the basis of morality the necessity of things.

In weighing these principles, which are self evident, confirmed by
constant experience, approved by reason, drawn from nature herself, we
shall have an undeviating tone of conduct; a sure system of morality, that
will never be in contradiction with itself. Man will have no occasion to
recur to theological speculations to regulate his conduct in the visible
world. We shall then be capacitated to reply to those who pretend that
without them there can be no morality. If we reflect upon the long tissue
of errors, upon the immense chain of wanderings, that flow from the
obscure notions these various systems hold forth—of the sinister
ideas which superstition in all countries inculcates; it would be much
more conformable to truth to say, that all sound ethics, all morality,
either useful to individuals or beneficial to society, is totally
incompatible with systems which never represent their gods but under the
form of absolute monarchs, whose good qualities are continually eclipsed
by dangerous caprices. Consequently, we shall be obliged to acknowledge,
that to establish morality upon a steady foundation, we must necessarily
commence by at least quitting those chimerical systems upon which the
ruinous edifice of supernatural morality has hitherto been constructed,
which during such a number of ages, has been so uselessly preached up to a
great portion of the inhabitants of the earth.

Whatever may have been the cause that placed man in his present abode,
that gave him the faculties he possesses; whether the human species be
considered as the work of nature, or whether it be supposed that he owes
his existence to an intelligent being, distinguished from nature; the
existence of man, such as he is, is a fact; we behold in him a being who
thinks, who feels, who has intelligence, who loves himself, who tends to
his own conservation, who in every moment of his duration strives to
render his existence agreeable; who, the more easily to satisfy his wants
and to procure himself pleasure, congregates in society with beings
similar to himself; of whom his conduct can either conciliate the favour,
or draw upon him the disaffection. It is, then, upon these general
sentiments, inherent in his nature, which will subsist as long as his race
shall endure, that we ought to found morality; which is only a science
embracing, the duties of men living together in society.

These duties have their spring in our nature, they are founded upon our
necessities, because we cannot reach the goal of happiness, if we do not
employ the requisite means: these means constitute the moral science. To
be permanently felicitous, we must so comport ourselves as to merit the
affection, so act as to secure the assistance of those, beings with whom
we are associated; these will only accord us their love, lend us their
esteem, aid us in our projects, labour to our peculiar happiness, but in
proportion as our own exertions shall be employed for their advantage. It
is this necessity, flowing naturally out of the relations of mankind, that
is called MORAL OBLIGATION. It is founded upon reflection, rested upon
those motives competent to determine sensible, intelligent beings, to
pursue that line of conduct, which in best calculated to achieve that
happiness towards which they are continually verging. These motives in the
human species, never can be other than the desire, always regenerating, of
procuring good and avoiding evil. Pleasure and pain, the hope of
happiness, or the fear of misery, are the only motives suitable to have an
efficacious influence on the volition of sensible beings. To impel them
towards this end, it is sufficient these motives exist and be understood
to have a knowledge of them, it is only requisite to consider our own
constitution: according to this, we shall find we can only love those
actions, approve that conduct, from whence result actual and reciprocal
utility; this constitutes VIRTUE. In consequence, to conserve ourselves,
to make our own happiness, to enjoy security, we are compelled to follow
the routine which conducts to this end; to interest others in our own
preservation, we are obliged to display an interest in theirs; we must do
nothing that can have a tendency to interrupt that mutual co-operation
which alone can lead to the felicity desired. Such is the true
establishment of moral obligation.

Whenever it is attempted to give any other basis to morality than the
nature of man, we shall always deceive ourselves; none other can have the
least stability; none can be more solid. Some authors, even of great
integrity, have thought, that to give ethics more respectability in the
eyes of man, to render more inviolable those duties which his nature
imposes on him, it was needful to clothe them with the authority of a
being whom they have made superior to nature—whom they have rendered
more powerful than necessity. Theology, seizing on these ideas, with its
own general want of just inference, has in consequence invaded morality;
has endeavoured to connect it with its various systems. By some it has
been imagined, this union would render virtue more sacred; that the fear
attached to invisible powers, who govern nature, would lend more weight,
would give more efficacy to its laws; in short, it has been believed that
man, persuaded, of the necessity of the moral system, seeing it united
with superstition, would contemplate superstition itself as necessary to
his happiness. Indeed it is the supposition that these systems are
essential to morality, that sustains the theological ideas—that
gives permanency to the greater part of all the creeds on earth; it is
erroneously imagined that without them man would neither understand nor
practise the duties he owes to others. This prejudice once established,
gives currency to the opinion that the vague ideas growing out of these
systems are in such a manner connected with morality, are so linked with
the actual welfare of society, that they cannot be attacked without
overturning the social duties that bind man to his fellow. It is thought
that the reciprocity of wants, the desire of happiness, the evident
interests of the community, would be mere skeleton motives, devoid of all
active energy, if they did not borrow their substance from these various
systems; if they were not invested with the force derived from these
numerous creeds; if they were not clothed with the sanction of those ideas
which have been made the arbiters of all things.

Nothing, however, is more borne out by the evidence of experience, nothing
has more thoroughly impressed itself on the minds of reflecting men, than
the danger always arising from connecting truth with fiction; the known
with the unknown; the delirium of enthusiasm, with the tranquillity of
reason. Indeed what has resulted from the confused alliance, from the
marvellous speculations, which theology has made with the most substantive
realities? of mixing up its evanescent conjectures with the confirmed
aphorisms of time? The imagination bewildered, has mistaken truth:
superstition, by aid of its gratuitous suppositions, has commanded nature—made
reason bow, under its bulky yoke,—submitted man to its own peculiar
caprices; very frequently in the name of its gods obliged him to stifle
his nature, to piously violate the most sacred duties of morality. When
these superstitions have been desirous of restraining mortals whom they
had previously hood-winked, whom they had rendered irrational, it gave
them only ideal curbs, imaginary motives; it substituted unsubstantial
causes, for those which were substantive; marvellous supernatural powers,
for those which were natural, and well understood; it supplied actual
realities, by ideal romances and visionary fables. By this inversion of
principle, morality had no longer any fixed basis: nature, reason, virtue,
demonstration, were laid prostrate before the most undefinable systems;
were made to depend upon oracular promulgations, which never spake
distinctly; indeed, they generally silenced reason, were often delivered
by fanatics, which time proved to be impostors; by those who, always
adopting the appellation of inspired beings, gave forth nothing but the
wanderings of their own delirium, or else were desirous of profiting by
the errors which they themselves instilled into mankind. Thus these men
became deeply interested in preaching abject submission, non-resistance,
passive-obedience, factitious virtues, frivolous ceremonies; in short, an
arbitrary morality, conformable to their own reigning passions; frequently
prejudicial to the rest of the human race.

It was thus, in making ethics flow from these various systems, they in
point of fact submitted it to the dominant passions of men, who had a
direct interest in moulding it to their own advantage. In being disposed
to found it upon undemonstrated theories, they founded it upon nothing; in
deriving it from imaginary sources, of which each individual forms to
himself his own notion, generally adverse to that of his neighbour; in
resting it upon obscure oracles, always delivered ambiguously, frequently
interpreted by men in the height of delirium, sometimes by knaves, who had
immediate interests to promote, they rendered it unsteady—devoid of
fixed principle,—too frequently left it to the mercy of the most
crafty of mankind. In proposing to man the changeable creeds of the
theologians for a model, they weakened the moral system of human actions;
frequently annihilated that which was furnished by nature; often
substituted in its place nothing but the most perplexing incertitude; the
most ruinous inconsistency. These systems, by the qualities which are
ascribed, to them, become inexplicable enigmas, which each expounds as
best suits himself; which each explains after his own peculiar mode of
thinking; in which the theologian ever finds that which most harmonizes
with his designs; which he can bend to his own sinister purposes; which he
offers as irrefragible evidence of the rectitude of those actions, which
at bottom have nothing but his own advantage in view. If they exhort the
gentle, indulgent, equitable man, to be good, compassionate, benevolent;
they equally excite the furious, who is destitute of these qualities, to
be intolerant, inhuman, pitiless. The morality of these systems varies in
each individual; differs in one country from another; in fact, those
actions which some men look upon as sacred, which they have learned to
consider meritorious, make others shudder with horror—fill them with
the most painful recollections. Some see the Divinity filled with
gentleness and mercy; others behold him as full of wrath and fury, whose
anger is to be assuaged by the commission of the most shocking cruelties.

The morality of nature is clear, it is evident even to those who outrage
it. It is not thus with superstitious morality; this is as obscure as the
systems which prescribe it; or rather as fluctuating as the passions, as
changeable as the temperaments, of those who expound them; if it was left
to the theologians, ethics ought to be considered as the science of all
others the most problematical, the most unsteady, the most difficult to
bring to a point; it would require the most profound, penetrating genius,
the most active, vigorous mind, to discover the principles of those duties
man owes to himself, that he ought to exercise towards others; this would
render the sources of the moral system attainable by a very small number
of individuals; would effectually lock them up in the cabinets of the
metaphysicians; place them under the treacherous guardianship of priests:
to derive it from those systems, which are in themselves undefinable, with
the foundations of which no one is actually acquainted, which each
contemplates after his own mode, modifies after his own peculiar ideas, is
at once to submit it to the caprice of every individual; it is completely
to acknowledge, we know not from whence it is derived, nor whence it has
its principles. Whatever may be the agent upon whom they make nature, or
the beings she contains, to depend; with whatever power they way suppose
him invested, it is very certain that man either does, or does not exist;
but as soon as his existence is acknowledged, as soon as it is admitted to
be what it actually is, when he shall be allowed to be a sensible being
living in society, in love with his own felicity, they cannot without
either annihilating him, or new modelling him, cause him to exist
otherwise than he does. Therefore, according to his actual essence,
agreeable to his absolute qualities, conformable to those modifications
which constitute him a being, of the human species, morality becomes
necessary to him, and the desire of conserving himself will make him
prefer virtue to vice, by the same necessity that he prefers pleasure to
pain. If, following up the doctrine of the theologians, “that man hath
occasion for supernatural grace to enable him to do good,” it must be very
injurious to sound principles of morality; because he will always wait for
“the call from above,” to exercise that virtue, which is indispensable to
his welfare. Tertullian, nevertheless says expressly, “wherefore will ye
trouble yourselves, seeking after the law of God, whilst ye have that
which is common to all the world, and which is written on the tablets of
nature?”

To say, that man cannot possess any moral sentiments without embracing the
discordant systems offered to his acceptance, is, in point of fact,
saying, that he cannot distinguish virtue from vice; it is to pretend that
without these systems, man would not feel the necessity of eating to live,
would not make the least distinction, would be absolutely without choice
in his food: it is to pretend, that unless he is fully acquainted with the
name, character, and qualities of the individual who prepares a mess for
him, he is not competent to discriminate whether this mess be agreeable or
disagreeable, good or bad. He who does not feel himself satisfied what
opinions to adopt, upon the foundation and moral attributes of these
systems, or who even formally denies them, cannot at least doubt his own
existence-his own functions—his own qualities—his own mode of
feeling—his own method of judging; neither can he doubt the
existence of other organized beings similar to himself; in whom every
thing discovers to him qualities analogous with his own; of whom he can,
by certain actions, either gain the love or incur the hatred—secure
the assistance or attract the ill-will—merit the esteem or elicit
the contempt; this knowledge is sufficient to enable him to distinguish
moral good and evil. In short, every man enjoying a well-ordered
organization, possessing the faculty of making true experience, will only
need to contemplate himself in order to discover what he owes to others:
his own nature will enlighten him much more effectually upon his duties,
than those systems in which he will consult either his own unruly
passions, those of some enthusiast, or those of an impostor. He will
allow, that to conserve himself, to secure his own permanent welfare, he
is frequently obliged to resist the blind impulse of his own desires; that
to conciliate the benevolence of others, he must act in a mode conformable
to their advantage; in reasoning thus, he will find out what virtue
actually is; if he puts his theory into practice, he will be virtuous; he
will be rewarded for his conduct by the harmony of his own machine; by the
legitimate esteem of himself, confirmed by the good opinion of others,
whose kindness he will have secured: if he acts in a contrary mode, the
trouble that will ensue, the disorder of his frame, will quickly warn him
that nature, thwarted by his actions, disapproves his conduct, which is
injurious to himself; to which he will be obliged to add the condemnation
of others, who will hate him. If the wanderings of his mind prevent him
from seeing the more immediate consequences of his irregularities, neither
will he perceive the distant rewards, the remote punishments, which these
systems hold forth; because they will never speak to him so distinctly as
his conscience, which will either reward or punish him on the spot.
Theology has never yet known how to give a true definition of virtue:
according to it, it is an effort of grace, that disposes man to do that
which is agreeable to the Divinity. But what is this grace? How doth it
act upon man? How shall we know what is agreeable to a Divinity who is
incomprehensible to all men?