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    <h1>
      SUPERSTITION IN ALL AGES
    </h1>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Jean Meslier
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h3>
      1732
    </h3>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h5>
      A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, WHO, AFTER A PASTORAL SERVICE OF THIRTY YEARS AT
      ETREPIGNY IN CHAMPAGNE, FRANCE, WHOLLY ABJURED RELIGIOUS DOGMAS, AND LEFT
      AS HIS LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT TO HIS PARISHIONERS, AND TO THE WORLD, TO
      BE PUBLISHED AFTER HIS DEATH, THE FOLLOWING PAGES, ENTITLED: COMMON SENSE.
    </h5>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h3>
      Translated from the French original by Miss Anna Knoop
    </h3>
    <h3>
      1878
    </h3>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p class="toc">
        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> LIFE OF JEAN MESLIER BY VOLTAIRE. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> COMMON SENSE. </a>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> I.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;APOLOGUE. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> II</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WHAT IS THEOLOGY? <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> III.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> IV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MAN BORN NEITHER RELIGIOUS
        NOR DEISTICAL. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> V</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT
        IS NOT NECESSARY TO BELIEVE IN A GOD <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0009"> VI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION IS FOUNDED UPON
        CREDULITY. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> VII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EVERY
        RELIGION IS AN ABSURDITY. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> VIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        NOTION OF GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0012">
        IX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ORIGIN OF SUPERSTITION. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0013"> X</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ORIGIN OF ALL RELIGION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IN THE NAME OF RELIGION
        CHARLATANS TAKE ADVANTAGE <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> XII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION
        ENTICES IGNORANCE BY THE AID OF THE MARVELOUS. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0016"> XIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> XIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THERE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN
        ANY RELIGION IF . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> XV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL
        RELIGION WAS BORN OF THE DESIRE TO DOMINATE. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0019"> XVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THAT WHICH SERVES AS A BASIS
        FOR ALL RELIGION IS VERY UNCERTAIN. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0020"> XVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE
        CONVINCED OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0021"> XVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> XIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS NOT
        PROVED. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> XX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO
        SAY THAT GOD IS A SPIRIT, IS TO SPEAK WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> XXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SPIRITUALITY IS A CHIMERA.
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> XXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL WHICH
        EXISTS SPRINGS FROM THE BOSOM OF MATTER. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0026"> XXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICAL GOD
        OF MODERN THEOLOGY? <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> XXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT
        WOULD BE MORE RATIONAL TO WORSHIP THE SUN THAN A SPIRITUAL GOD. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> XXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A SPIRITUAL GOD IS
        INCAPABLE OF WILLING AND OF ACTING. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0029"> XXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WHAT IS GOD? <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> XXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REMARKABLE CONTRADICTIONS
        OF THEOLOGY. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> XXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO
        ADORE GOD IS TO ADORE A FICTION. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0032">
        XXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE INFINITY OF GOD AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF KNOWING
        THE DIVINE <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> XXX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT
        IS NEITHER LESS NOR MORE CRIMINAL TO BELIEVE IN GOD THAN NOT TO <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> XXXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE BELIEF IN GOD IS
        NOTHING BUT A MECHANICAL HABITUDE <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0035"> XXXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS A PREJUDICE WHICH HAS
        BEEN HANDED FROM FATHER TO CHILDREN <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0036"> XXXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ORIGIN OF PREJUDICES. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> XXXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW THEY TAKE ROOT AND
        SPREAD. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> XXXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MEN
        WOULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED IN THE PRINCIPLES OF MODERN THEOLOGY <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> XXXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE WONDERS OF NATURE DO
        NOT PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0040">
        XXXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE WONDERS OF NATURE EXPLAIN THEMSELVES BY
        NATURAL CAUSES. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> XXXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION.
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> XXXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE WORLD
        HAS NOT BEEN CREATED, AND MATTER MOVES BY ITSELF. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0043"> XL</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> XLI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OTHER PROOFS THAT MOTION IS
        IN THE ESSENCE OF MATTER <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> XLII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        EXISTENCE OF MAN DOES NOT PROVE THAT OF GOD. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0046"> XLIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOWEVER, NEITHER MAN NOR THE
        UNIVERSE IS THE EFFECT OF CHANCE. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0047"> XLIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;NEITHER DOES THE ORDER OF THE
        UNIVERSE PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0048"> XLV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0049"> XLVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A PURE SPIRIT CAN NOT BE
        INTELLIGENT <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0050"> XLVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL
        THE QUALITIES WHICH THEOLOGY GIVES TO ITS GOD ARE CONTRARY <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0051"> XLVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> XLIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT
        THE HUMAN RACE IS THE OBJECT AND THE END <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0053"> L</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;GOD IS NOT MADE FOR MAN, NOR MAN
        FOR GOD. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0054"> LI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT
        IS NOT TRUE THAT THE OBJECT OF THE FORMATION OF THE . . . <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0055"> LII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WHAT IS CALLED PROVIDENCE
        IS BUT A WORD VOID OF SENSE. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0056">
        LIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THIS PRETENDED PROVIDENCE IS LESS OCCUPIED IN
        CONSERVING . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0057"> LIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;NO!
        THE WORLD IS NOT GOVERNED BY AN INTELLIGENT BEING. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0058"> LV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;GOD CAN NOT BE CALLED
        IMMUTABLE. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0059"> LVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EVIL
        AND GOOD ARE THE NECESSARY EFFECTS OF NATURAL CAUSES <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0060"> LVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE VANITY OF THEOLOGICAL
        CONSOLATIONS <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0061"> LVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ANOTHER
        IDLE FANCY. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0062"> LIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IN
        VAIN DOES THEOLOGY EXERT ITSELF TO ACQUIT GOD OF MAN'S DEFECTS. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0063"> LX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WE CAN NOT BELIEVE IN A
        DIVINE PROVIDENCE <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0064"> LXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION.
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0065"> LXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THEOLOGY
        MAKES OF ITS GOD A MONSTER OF NONSENSE, OF INJUSTICE <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0066"> LXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL RELIGION INSPIRES BUT A
        COWARDLY AND INORDINATE FEAR <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0067">
        LXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THERE IS IN REALITY NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN . . .
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0068"> LXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ACCORDING
        TO THE IDEAS WHICH THEOLOGY GIVES OF DIVINITY <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0069"> LXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;BY THE INVENTION OF THE DOGMA
        OF THE ETERNAL TORMENTS OF HELL <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0070">
        LXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THEOLOGY IS BUT A SERIES OF PALPABLE
        CONTRADICTIONS. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0071"> LXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        PRETENDED WORKS OF GOD DO NOT PROVE AT ALL . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0072"> LXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE PERFECTION OF GOD DOES
        NOT SHOW TO ANY MORE ADVANTAGE . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0073"> LXX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THEOLOGY PREACHES THE
        OMNIPOTENCE OF ITS GOD <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0074"> LXXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ACCORDING
        TO ALL THE RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE EARTH <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0075"> LXXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT
        EVIL DOES NOT COME FROM GOD. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0076">
        LXXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE FORESIGHT ATTRIBUTED TO GOD <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0077"> LXXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ABSURDITY OF THE THEOLOGICAL
        FABLES UPON ORIGINAL SIN <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0078"> LXXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        DEVIL, LIKE RELIGION, WAS INVENTED TO ENRICH THE PRIESTS. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0079"> LXXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IF GOD COULD NOT RENDER
        HUMAN NATURE SINLESS, HE HAS NO RIGHT . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0080"> LXXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT
        GOD'S CONDUCT MUST BE A MYSTERY TO MAN <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0081"> LXXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS ABSURD TO CALL HIM A
        GOD OF JUSTICE AND GOODNESS <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0082">
        LXXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A GOD WHO PUNISHES THE FAULTS WHICH HE COULD HAVE
        PREVENTED <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0083"> LXXX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FREE
        WILL IS AN IDLE FANCY. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0084"> LXXXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WE
        SHOULD NOT CONCLUDE FROM THIS THAT SOCIETY HAS NOT THE RIGHT . . . <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0085"> LXXXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REFUTATION OF THE
        ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF FREE WILL. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0086">
        LXXXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0087"> LXXXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;GOD HIMSELF, IF THERE WAS A
        GOD, WOULD NOT BE FREE <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0088"> LXXXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EVEN
        ACCORDING TO THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES, MAN IS NOT FREE <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0089"> LXXXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL EVIL, ALL DISORDER, ALL
        SIN, CAN BE ATTRIBUTED BUT TO GOD <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0090"> LXXXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MEN'S PRAYERS TO GOD PROVE
        SUFFICIENTLY THAT THEY ARE NOT . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0091"> LXXXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE REPARATION OF THE
        INIQUITIES AND THE MISERIES OF THIS <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0092"> LXXXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THEOLOGY JUSTIFIES THE EVIL
        AND INJUSTICE PERMITTED BY ITS GOD, <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0093"> XC</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REDEMPTION, AND THE CONTINUAL
        EXTERMINATIONS ATTRIBUTED TO JEHOVAH <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0094"> XCI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW CAN WE DISCOVER A TENDER,
        GENEROUS, AND EQUITABLE FATHER <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0095">
        XCII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE LIFE OF MORTALS, ALL WHICH TAKES PLACE HERE
        BELOW <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0096"> XCIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT
        IS NOT TRUE THAT WE OWE ANY GRATITUDE TO WHAT WE CALL . . . <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0097"> XCIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO PRETEND THAT MAN IS THE
        BELOVED CHILD OF PROVIDENCE <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0098">
        XCV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;COMPARISON BETWEEN MAN AND ANIMALS. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0099"> XCVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THERE ARE NO MORE
        DETESTABLE ANIMALS IN THIS WORLD THAN TYRANTS. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0100"> XCVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REFUTATION OF MAN'S
        EXCELLENCE. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0101"> XCVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
        ORIENTAL LEGEND. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0102"> XCIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT
        IS FOOLISH TO SEE IN THE UNIVERSE ONLY THE BENEFACTIONS OF GOD <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0103"> C</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WHAT IS THE SOUL? WE KNOW
        NOTHING ABOUT IT <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0104"> CI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        EXISTENCE OF A SOUL IS AN ABSURD SUPPOSITION <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0105"> CII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS EVIDENT THAT THE WHOLE
        OF MAN DIES. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0106"> CIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;INCONTESTABLE
        PROOFS AGAINST THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE SOUL. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0107"> CIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE ABSURDITY OF SUPERNATURAL
        CAUSES <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0108"> CV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS
        FALSE THAT MATERIALISM CAN BE DEBASING TO THE HUMAN RACE. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0109"> CVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0110"> CVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE DOGMA OF ANOTHER LIFE
        IS USEFUL BUT FOR THOSE WHO PROFIT BY IT <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0111"> CVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS FALSE THAT THE DOGMA
        OF ANOTHER LIFE CAN BE CONSOLING <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0112">
        CIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES ARE IMAGINARY <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0113"> CX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EVERY RELIGION IS BUT A
        SYSTEM IMAGINED FOR THE PURPOSE . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0114"> CXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ABSURDITY AND INUTILITY OF THE
        MYSTERIES <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0115"> CXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION.
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0116"> CXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION.
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0117"> CXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
        UNIVERSAL GOD SHOULD HAVE REVEALED A UNIVERSAL RELIGION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0118"> CXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE PROOF THAT RELIGION IS
        NOT NECESSARY <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0119"> CXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL
        RELIGIONS ARE RIDICULED BY THOSE OF OPPOSITE . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0120"> CXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OPINION OF A CELEBRATED
        THEOLOGIAN. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0121"> CXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        DEIST'S GOD IS NO LESS CONTRADICTORY . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0122"> CXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WE DO NOT PROVE AT ALL THE
        EXISTENCE OF A GOD BY SAYING . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0123"> CXX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL THE GODS ARE OF A
        BARBAROUS ORIGIN; ALL RELIGIONS ARE . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0124"> CXXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES BEAR
        THE SEAL OF STUPIDITY OR BARBARITY. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0125"> CXXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MORE ANCIENT AND GENERAL
        A RELIGIOUS OPINION IS . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0126">
        CXXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SKEPTICISM IN THE MATTER OF RELIGION <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0127"> CXXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REVELATION REFUTED. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0128"> CXXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WHERE, THEN, IS THE PROOF
        THAT GOD DID EVER SHOW HIMSELF TO MEN <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0129"> CXXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;NOTHING ESTABLISHES THE
        TRUTH OF MIRACLES. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0130"> CXXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IF
        GOD HAD SPOKEN, IT WOULD BE STRANGE THAT HE HAD SPOKEN <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0131"> CXXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OBSCURE AND SUSPICIOUS
        ORIGIN OF ORACLES. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0132"> CXXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ABSURDITY
        OF PRETENDED MIRACLES. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0133"> CXXX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REFUTATION
        OF PASCAL'S MANNER OF REASONING <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0134">
        CXXXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EVEN ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THEOLOGY ITSELF
        . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0136"> CXXXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EVEN
        THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS, TESTIFIES . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0137"> CXXXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE FANATICISM OF THE
        MARTYRS <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0138"> CXXXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THEOLOGY
        MAKES OF ITS GOD AN ENEMY OF COMMON SENSE <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0139"> CXXXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FAITH IS IRRECONCILABLE WITH
        REASON <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0140"> CXXXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW
        ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS IS THE SOPHISTRY OF THOSE . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0141"> CXXXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW PRETEND THAT MAN OUGHT
        TO BELIEVE VERBAL TESTIMONY <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0142">
        CXXXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FAITH TAKES ROOT BUT IN WEAK, IGNORANT, OR
        INDOLENT MINDS. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0143"> CXXXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO
        TEACH THAT THERE EXISTS ONE TRUE RELIGION IS AN ABSURDITY, <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0144"> CXL</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION IS NOT NECESSARY
        TO MORALITY AND TO VIRTUE. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0145">
        CXLI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION IS THE WEAKEST RESTRAINT THAT CAN BE
        OPPOSED . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0146"> CXLII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HONOR
        IS A MORE SALUTARY AND A STRONGER CHECK THAN RELIGION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0147"> CXLIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION IS CERTAINLY
        NOT A POWERFUL CHECK UPON THE PASSIONS <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0148"> CXLIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ORIGIN OF THE MOST ABSURD,
        THE MOST RIDICULOUS, AND . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0149">
        CXLV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION IS FATAL TO POLITICS; IT FORMS BUT
        LICENTIOUS . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0150"> CXLVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CHRISTIANITY
        EXTENDED ITSELF BUT BY ENCOURAGING DESPOTISM <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0152"> CXLVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE ONLY AIM OF RELIGIOUS
        PRINCIPLES IS TO PERPETUATE . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0153"> CXLVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW FATAL IT IS TO
        PERSUADE KINGS THAT THEY HAVE ONLY GOD . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0154"> CLXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A RELIGIOUS KING IS A
        SCOURGE TO HIS KINGDOM. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0155"> CL</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        SHIELD OF RELIGION IS FOR TYRANNY <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0156"> CLI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION FAVORS THE ERRORS OF
        PRINCES <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0157"> CLII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WHAT
        IS AN ENLIGHTENED SOVEREIGN? <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0158">
        CLIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE DOMINANT PASSIONS AND CRIMES OF PRIESTCRAFT.
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0159"> CLIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CHARLATANRY
        OF THE PRIESTS. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0160"> CLV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;COUNTLESS
        CALAMITIES ARE PRODUCED BY RELIGION <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0161"> CLVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EVERY RELIGION IS INTOLERANT,
        AND CONSEQUENTLY DESTRUCTIVE OF <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0162">
        CLVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ABUSE OF A STATE RELIGION. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0163"> CLVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION GIVES LICENSE TO
        THE FEROCITY OF THE PEOPLE <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0164">
        CLIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REFUTATION OF THE ARGUMENT, THAT THE EVILS
        ATTRIBUTED TO RELIGION <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0165"> CLX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL
        MORALITY IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0166"> CLXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MORALS OF THE GOSPEL ARE
        IMPRACTICABLE. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0167"> CLXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
        SOCIETY OF SAINTS WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0168"> CLXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HUMAN NATURE IS NOT
        DEPRAVED <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0169"> CLXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OF
        JESUS CHRIST, THE PRIEST'S GOD. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0170">
        CLXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE DOGMA OF THE REMISSION OF SINS HAS BEEN INVENTED
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0171"> CLXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE FEAR
        OF GOD IS POWERLESS AGAINST HUMAN PASSIONS. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0172"> CLXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE INVENTION OF HELL IS
        TOO ABSURD TO PREVENT EVIL. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0173">
        CLXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ABSURDITY OF THE MORALITY AND OF THE RELIGIOUS
        VIRTUES <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0174"> CLXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WHAT
        DOES THAT CHRISTIAN CHARITY AMOUNT TO <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0175"> CLXX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONFESSION, THAT GOLDEN MINE
        FOR THE PRIESTS <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0176"> CLXXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        SUPPOSITION OF THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD IS NOT NECESSARY <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0177"> CLXXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION AND ITS
        SUPERNATURAL MORALITY ARE FATAL TO THE PEOPLE <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0178"> CLXXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW THE UNION OF RELIGION
        AND POLITICS IS FATAL TO THE PEOPLE <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0179"> CLXXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CREEDS ARE BURDENSOME AND
        RUINOUS TO THE MAJORITY OF NATIONS. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0180"> CLXXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION PARALYZES MORALITY.
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0181"> CLXXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FATAL
        CONSEQUENCES OF PIETY. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0182"> CLXXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        SUPPOSITION OF ANOTHER LIFE IS NEITHER CONSOLING TO MAN . . . <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0183"> CLXXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN ATHEIST HAS MORE
        MOTIVES FOR ACTING UPRIGHTLY <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0185">
        CLXXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN ATHEISTICAL KING WOULD BE PREFERABLE TO ONE WHO
        IS RELIGIOUS <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0186"> CLXXX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        MORALITY ACQUIRED BY PHILOSOPHY IS SUFFICIENT TO VIRTUE. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0187"> CLXXXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OPINIONS RARELY
        INFLUENCE CONDUCT. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0188"> CLXXXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;-REASON
        LEADS MEN TO IRRELIGION AND TO ATHEISM <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0189"> CLXXXIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FEAR ALONE CREATES
        THEISTS AND BIGOTS. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0190"> CLXXXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CAN
        WE, OR SHOULD WE, LOVE OR NOT LOVE GOD? <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0191"> CLXXXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE VARIOUS AND
        CONTRADICTORY IDEAS WHICH EXIST EVERYWHERE <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0192"> CLXXXVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE EXISTENCE OF GOD,
        WHICH IS THE BASIS OF ALL RELIGION <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0193"> CLXXXVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PRIESTS, MORE THAN
        UNBELIEVERS, ACT FROM INTEREST. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0194">
        CLXXXVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PRIDE, PRESUMPTION, AND CORRUPTION OF THE HEART
        <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0195"> CLXXXIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PREJUDICES
        ARE BUT FOR A TIME, AND NO POWER IS DURABLE <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0196"> CXC</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW MUCH POWER AND
        CONSIDERATION THE MINISTERS OF THE GODS . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0197"> CXCI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WHAT A HAPPY AND GREAT
        REVOLUTION WOULD TAKE PLACE . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0198"> CXCII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE RETRACTION OF AN
        UNBELIEVER AT THE HOUR OF DEATH <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0199">
        CXCIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IT IS NOT TRUE THAT ATHEISM SUNDERS ALL THE TIES
        OF SOCIETY. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0200"> CXCIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REFUTATION
        OF THE ASSERTION THAT RELIGION IS NECESSARY <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0201"> CXCV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EVERY RATIONAL SYSTEM IS NOT
        MADE FOR THE MULTITUDE. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0202"> CXCVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FUTILITY
        AND DANGER OF THEOLOGY. WISE COUNSELS TO PRINCES. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0203"> CXCVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FATAL EFFECTS OF RELIGION
        UPON THE PEOPLE AND THE PRINCES. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0204">
        CXCVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0205"> CXCIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HISTORY TEACHES US THAT ALL
        RELIGIONS WERE ESTABLISHED . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0206">
        CC</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ALL RELIGIONS, ANCIENT AND MODERN, HAVE MUTUALLY
        BORROWED . . . <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0207"> CCI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THEOLOGY
        HAS ALWAYS TURNED PHILOSOPHY FROM ITS TRUE COURSE. <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0208"> CCII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;-THEOLOGY NEITHER EXPLAINS
        NOR ENLIGHTENS ANYTHING IN THE WORLD <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0209"> CCIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOW THEOLOGY HAS FETTERED
        HUMAN MORALS AND RETARDED THE PROGRESS <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0210"> CCIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONTINUATION. <br /><br /><br />
        <a href="#link2H_4_0211"> CCV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;WE COULD NOT REPEAT TOO
        OFTEN HOW EXTRAVAGANT AND FATAL RELIGION <br /><br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0212"> CCVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;RELIGION IS PANDORA'S BOX,
        AND THIS FATAL BOX IS OPEN. <br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0213">
        ABSTRACT OF THE TESTAMENT OF JOHN MESLIER </a> <br /> <br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0214"> I</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OF RELIGIONS.<br /> <br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0215"> II</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OF MIRACLES.<br /> <br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0216"> III</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SIMILARITY BETWEEN ANCIENT AND
        MODERN MIRACLES.<br /> <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0217"> IV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OF
        THE FALSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.<br /> <br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0219"> V</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. (1) OF THE
        OLD TESTAMENT.<br /> <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0220"> VI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
        HOLY SCRIPTURES. (2) THE NEW TESTAMENT.<br /> <br /><br /> <a
        href="#link2H_4_0221"> VII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ERRORS OF
        DOCTRINE AND OF MORALITY. <br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0222">
        PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. </a><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0223"> PREFATORY NOTE
        BY THE TRANSLATOR </a><br /> <a href="#link2H_PREF2"> PREFACE OF THE
        EDITOR OF THE FRENCH EDITION OF 1830. </a><br />
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      LIFE OF JEAN MESLIER BY VOLTAIRE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Jean Meslier, born 1678, in the village of Mazerny, dependency of the
      duchy of Rethel, was the son of a serge weaver; brought up in the country,
      he nevertheless pursued his studies and succeeded to the priesthood. At
      the seminary, where he lived with much regularity, he devoted himself to
      the system of Descartes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Becoming curate of Etrepigny in Champagne and vicar of a little annexed
      parish named Bue, he was remarkable for the austerity of his habits.
      Devoted in all his duties, every year he gave what remained of his salary
      to the poor of his parishes; enthusiastic, and of rigid virtue, he was
      very temperate, as much in regard to his appetite as in relation to women.
    </p>
    <p>
      MM. Voiri and Delavaux, the one curate of Varq, the other curate of
      Boulzicourt, were his confessors, and the only ones with whom he
      associated.
    </p>
    <p>
      The curate Meslier was a rigid partisan of justice, and sometimes carried
      his zeal a little too far. The lord of his village, M. de Touilly, having
      ill-treated some peasants, he refused to pray for him in his service. M.
      de Mailly, Archbishop of Rheims, before whom the case was brought,
      condemned him. But the Sunday which followed this decision, the abbot
      Meslier stood in his pulpit and complained of the sentence of the
      cardinal. "This is," said he, "the general fate of the poor country
      priest; the archbishops, who are great lords, scorn them and do not listen
      to them. Therefore, let us pray for the lord of this place. We will pray
      for Antoine de Touilly, that he may be converted and granted the grace
      that he may not wrong the poor and despoil the orphans." His lordship, who
      was present at this mortifying supplication, brought new complaints before
      the same archbishop, who ordered the curate Meslier to come to Donchery,
      where he ill-treated him with abusive language.
    </p>
    <p>
      There have been scarcely any other events in his life, nor other benefice,
      than that of Etrepigny. He died in the odor of sanctity in the year 1733,
      fifty-five years old. It is believed that, disgusted with life, he
      expressly refused necessary food, because during his sickness he was not
      willing to take anything, not even a glass of wine.
    </p>
    <p>
      At his death he gave all he possessed, which was inconsiderable, to his
      parishioners, and desired to be buried in his garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      They were greatly surprised to find in his house three manuscripts, each
      containing three hundred and sixty-six pages, all written by his hand,
      signed and entitled by him, "My Testament." This work, which the author
      addressed to his parishioners and to M. Leroux, advocate and procurator
      for the parliament of Meziers, is a simple refutation of all the religious
      dogmas, without excepting one. The grand vicar of Rheims retained one of
      the three copies; another was sent to Monsieur Chauvelin, guardian of the
      State's seal; the third remained at the clerk's office of the justiciary
      of St. Minehould. The Count de Caylus had one of those three copies in his
      possession for some time, and soon afterward more than one hundred were at
      Paris, sold at ten Louis-d'or apiece. A dying priest accusing himself of
      having professed and taught the Christian religion, made a deeper
      impression upon the mind than the "Thoughts of Pascal."
    </p>
    <p>
      The curate Meslier had written upon a gray paper which enveloped the copy
      destined for his parishioners these remarkable words: "I have seen and
      recognized the errors, the abuses, the follies, and the wickedness of men.
      I have hated and despised them. I did not dare say it during my life, but
      I will say it at least in dying, and after my death; and it is that it may
      be known, that I write this present memorial in order that it may serve as
      a witness of truth to all those who may see and read it if they choose."
    </p>
    <p>
      At the beginning of this work is found this document (a kind of honorable
      amend, which in his letter to the Count of d'Argental of May 31, 1762,
      Voltaire qualifies as a preface), addressed to his parishioners.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You know," said he, "my brethren, my disinterestedness; I do not
      sacrifice my belief to any vile interest. If I embraced a profession so
      directly opposed to my sentiments, it was not through cupidity. I obeyed
      my parents. I would have preferred to enlighten you sooner if I could have
      done it safely. You are witnesses to what I assert. I have not disgraced
      my ministry by exacting the requitals, which are a part of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I call heaven to witness that I also thoroughly despised those who
      laughed at the simplicity of the blind people, those who furnished piously
      considerable sums of money to buy prayers. How horrible this monopoly! I
      do not blame the disdain which those who grow rich by your sweat and your
      pains, show for their mysteries and their superstitions; but I detest
      their insatiable cupidity and the signal pleasure such fellows take in
      railing at the ignorance of those whom they carefully keep in this state
      of blindness. Let them content themselves with laughing at their own ease,
      but at least let them not multiply their errors by abusing the blind piety
      of those who, by their simplicity, procured them such an easy life. You
      render unto me, my brethren, the justice that is due me. The sympathy
      which I manifested for your troubles saves me from the least suspicion.
      How often have I performed gratuitously the functions of my ministry. How
      often also has my heart been grieved at not being able to assist you as
      often and as abundantly as I could have wished! Have I not always proved
      to you that I took more pleasure in giving than in receiving? I carefully
      avoided exhorting you to bigotry, and I spoke to you as rarely as possible
      of our unfortunate dogmas. It was necessary that I should acquit myself as
      a priest of my ministry, but how often have I not suffered within myself
      when I was forced to preach to you those pious lies which I despised in my
      heart. What a disdain I had for my ministry, and particularly for that
      superstitious Mass, and those ridiculous administrations of sacraments,
      especially if I was compelled to perform them with the solemnity which
      awakened all your piety and all your good faith. What remorse I had for
      exciting your credulity! A thousand times upon the point of bursting forth
      publicly, I was going to open your eyes, but a fear superior to my
      strength restrained me and forced me to silence until my death."
    </p>
    <p>
      The abbot Meslier had written two letters to the curates of his
      neighborhood to inform them of his Testament; he told them that he had
      consigned to the chancery of St. Minnehould a copy of his manuscript in
      366 leaves in octavo; but he feared it would be suppressed, according to
      the bad custom established to prevent the poor from being instructed and
      knowing the truth.
    </p>
    <p>
      The curate Meslier, the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the
      meteors fatal to the Christian religion, worked his whole life secretly in
      order to attack the opinions he believed false. To compose his manuscript
      against God, against all religion, against the Bible and the Church, he
      had no other assistance than the Bible itself, Moreri Montaigne, and a few
      fathers.
    </p>
    <p>
      While the abbot Meslier naively acknowledged that he did not wish to be
      burned till after his death, Thomas Woolston, a doctor of Cambridge,
      published and sold publicly at London, in his own house, sixty thousand
      copies of his "Discourses" against the miracles of Jesus Christ.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a very astonishing thing that two priests should at the same time
      write against the Christian religion. The curate Meslier has gone further
      yet than Woolston; he dares to treat the transport of our Saviour by the
      devil upon the mountain, the wedding of Cana, the bread and the fishes, as
      absurd fables, injurious to divinity, which were ignored during three
      hundred years by the whole Roman Empire, and finally passed from the lower
      class to the palace of the emperors, when policy obliged them to adopt the
      follies of the people in order the more easily to subjugate them. The
      denunciations of the English priest do not approach those of the Champagne
      priest. Woolston is sometimes indulgent, Meslier never. He was a man
      profoundly embittered by the crimes he witnessed, for which he holds the
      Christian religion responsible. There is no miracle which to him is not an
      object of contempt and horror; no prophecy that he does not compare to
      those of Nostredamus. He wrote thus against Jesus Christ when in the arms
      of death, at a time when the most dissimulating dare not lie, and when the
      most intrepid tremble. Struck with the difficulties which he found in
      Scripture, he inveighed against it more bitterly than the Acosta and all
      the Jews, more than the famous Porphyre, Celse, Iamblique, Julian,
      Libanius, and all the partisans of human reason.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were found among the books of the curate Meslier a printed
      manuscript of the Treatise of Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, upon the
      existence of God and His attributes, and the reflections of the Jesuit
      Tournemine upon Atheism, to which treatise he added marginal notes signed
      by his hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      DECREE
    </p>
    <p>
      of the NATIONAL CONVENTION upon the proposition to erect a statue to the
      curate Jean Meslier, the 27 Brumaire, in the year II. (November 17, 1793).
      The National Convention sends to the Committee of Public Instruction the
      proposition made by one of its members to erect a statue to Jean Meslier,
      curate at Etrepigny, in Champagne, the first priest who had the courage
      and the honesty to abjure religious errors.
    </p>
    <p>
      PRESIDENT AND SECRETARIES.
    </p>
    <p>
      SIGNED&mdash;P. A. Laloy, President; Bazire, Charles Duval, Philippeaux,
      Frecine, and Merlin (de Thionville), Secretaries.
    </p>
    <p>
      Certified according to the original.
    </p>
    <p>
      MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE OF DECREES AND PROCESS-VERBAL.
    </p>
    <p>
      SIGNED&mdash;Batellier, Echasseriaux, Monnel, Becker, Vernetey, Pérard,
      Vinet, Bouillerot, Auger, Cordier, Delecloy, and Cosnard.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.
    </h2>
    <p>
      When we wish to examine in a cool, calm way the opinions of men, we are
      very much surprised to find that in those which we consider the most
      essential, nothing is more rare than to find them using common sense; that
      is to say, the portion of judgment sufficient to know the most simple
      truths, to reject the most striking absurdities, and to be shocked by
      palpable contradictions. We have an example of this in Theology, a science
      revered in all times, in all countries, by the greatest number of mortals;
      an object considered the most important, the most useful, and the most
      indispensable to the happiness of society. If they would but take the
      trouble to sound the principles upon which this pretended science rests
      itself, they would be compelled to admit that the principles which were
      considered incontestable, are but hazardous suppositions, conceived in
      ignorance, propagated by enthusiasm or bad intention, adopted by timid
      credulity, preserved by habit, which never reasons, and revered solely
      because it is not comprehended. Some, says Montaigne, make the world
      believe that which they do not themselves believe; a greater number of
      others make themselves believe, not comprehending what it is to believe.
      In a word, whoever will consult common sense upon religious opinions, and
      will carry into this examination the attention given to objects of
      ordinary interest, will easily perceive that these opinions have no solid
      foundation; that all religion is but a castle in the air; that Theology is
      but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system; that it is but a long
      tissue of chimeras and contradictions; that it presents to all the
      different nations of the earth only romances devoid of probability, of
      which the hero himself is made up of qualities impossible to reconcile,
      his name having the power to excite in all hearts respect and fear, is
      found to be but a vague word, which men continually utter, being able to
      attach to it only such ideas or qualities as are belied by the facts, or
      which evidently contradict each other. The notion of this imaginary being,
      or rather the word by which we designate him, would be of no consequence
      did it not cause ravages without number upon the earth. Born into the
      opinion that this phantom is for them a very interesting reality, men,
      instead of wisely concluding from its incomprehensibility that they are
      exempt from thinking of it, on the contrary, conclude that they can not
      occupy themselves enough about it, that they must meditate upon it without
      ceasing, reason without end, and never lose sight of it. The invincible
      ignorance in which they are kept in this respect, far from discouraging
      them, does but excite their curiosity; instead of putting them on guard
      against their imagination, this ignorance makes them positive, dogmatic,
      imperious, and causes them to quarrel with all those who oppose doubts to
      the reveries which their brains have brought forth. What perplexity, when
      we attempt to solve an unsolvable problem! Anxious meditations upon an
      object impossible to grasp, and which, however, is supposed to be very
      important to him, can but put a man into bad humor, and produce in his
      brain dangerous transports. When interest, vanity, and ambition are joined
      to such a morose disposition, society necessarily becomes troubled. This
      is why so many nations have often become the theaters of extravagances
      caused by nonsensical visionists, who, publishing their shallow
      speculations for the eternal truth, have kindled the enthusiasm of princes
      and of people, and have prepared them for opinions which they represented
      as essential to the glory of divinity and to the happiness of empires. We
      have seen, a thousand times, in all parts of our globe, infuriated
      fanatics slaughtering each other, lighting the funeral piles, committing
      without scruple, as a matter of duty, the greatest crimes. Why? To
      maintain or to propagate the impertinent conjectures of enthusiasts, or to
      sanction the knaveries of impostors on account of a being who exists only
      in their imagination, and who is known only by the ravages, the disputes,
      and the follies which he has caused upon the earth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Originally, savage nations, ferocious, perpetually at war, adored, under
      various names, some God conformed to their ideas; that is to say, cruel,
      carnivorous, selfish, greedy of blood. We find in all the religions of the
      earth a God of armies, a jealous God, an avenging God, an exterminating
      God, a God who enjoys carnage and whose worshipers make it a duty to serve
      him to his taste. Lambs, bulls, children, men, heretics, infidels, kings,
      whole nations, are sacrificed to him. The zealous servants of this
      barbarous God go so far as to believe that they are obliged to offer
      themselves as a sacrifice to him. Everywhere we see zealots who, after
      having sadly meditated upon their terrible God, imagine that, in order to
      please him, they must do themselves all the harm possible, and inflict
      upon themselves, in his honor, all imaginable torments. In a word,
      everywhere the baneful ideas of Divinity, far from consoling men for
      misfortunes incident to their existence, have filled the heart with
      trouble, and given birth to follies destructive to them. How could the
      human mind, filled with frightful phantoms and guided by men interested in
      perpetuating its ignorance and its fear, make progress? Man was compelled
      to vegetate in his primitive stupidity; he was preserved only by invisible
      powers, upon whom his fate was supposed to depend. Solely occupied with
      his alarms and his unintelligible reveries, he was always at the mercy of
      his priests, who reserved for themselves the right of thinking for him and
      of regulating his conduct.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus man was, and always remained, a child without experience, a slave
      without courage, a loggerhead who feared to reason, and who could never
      escape from the labyrinth into which his ancestors had misled him; he felt
      compelled to groan under the yoke of his Gods, of whom he knew nothing
      except the fabulous accounts of their ministers. These, after having
      fettered him by the ties of opinion, have remained his masters or
      delivered him up defenseless to the absolute power of tyrants, no less
      terrible than the Gods, of whom they were the representatives upon the
      earth. Oppressed by the double yoke of spiritual and temporal power, it
      was impossible for the people to instruct themselves and to work for their
      own welfare. Thus, religion, politics, and morals became sanctuaries, into
      which the profane were not permitted to enter. Men had no other morality
      than that which their legislators and their priests claimed as descended
      from unknown empyrean regions. The human mind, perplexed by these
      theological opinions, misunderstood itself, doubted its own powers,
      mistrusted experience, feared truth, disdained its reason, and left it to
      blindly follow authority. Man was a pure machine in the hands of his
      tyrants and his priests, who alone had the right to regulate his
      movements. Always treated as a slave, he had at all times and in all
      places the vices and dispositions of a slave.
    </p>
    <p>
      These are the true sources of the corruption of habits, to which religion
      never opposes anything but ideal and ineffectual obstacles; ignorance and
      servitude have a tendency to make men wicked and unhappy. Science, reason,
      liberty, alone can reform them and render them more happy; but everything
      conspires to blind them and to confirm them in their blindness. The
      priests deceive them, tyrants corrupt them in order to subjugate them more
      easily. Tyranny has been, and will always be, the chief source of the
      depraved morals and habitual calamities of the people. These, almost
      always fascinated by their religious notions or by metaphysical fictions,
      instead of looking upon the natural and visible causes of their miseries,
      attribute their vices to the imperfections of their nature, and their
      misfortunes to the anger of their Gods; they offer to Heaven vows,
      sacrifices, and presents, in order to put an end to their misfortunes,
      which are really due only to the negligence, the ignorance, and to the
      perversity of their guides, to the folly of their institutions, to their
      foolish customs, to their false opinions, to their unreasonable laws, and
      especially to their want of enlightenment. Let the mind be filled early
      with true ideas; let man's reason be cultivated; let justice govern him;
      and there will be no need of opposing to his passions the powerless
      barrier of the fear of Gods. Men will be good when they are well taught,
      well governed, chastised or censured for the evil, and justly rewarded for
      the good which they have done to their fellow-citizens. It is idle to
      pretend to cure mortals of their vices if we do not begin by curing them
      of their prejudices. It is only by showing them the truth that they can
      know their best interests and the real motives which will lead them to
      happiness. Long enough have the instructors of the people fixed their eyes
      on heaven; let them at last bring them back to the earth. Tired of an
      incomprehensible theology, of ridiculous fables, of impenetrable
      mysteries, of puerile ceremonies, let the human mind occupy itself with
      natural things, intelligible objects, sensible truths, and useful
      knowledge. Let the vain chimeras which beset the people be dissipated, and
      very soon rational opinions will fill the minds of those who were believed
      fated to be always in error. To annihilate religious prejudices, it would
      be sufficient to show that what is inconceivable to man can not be of any
      use to him. Does it need, then, anything but simple common sense to
      perceive that a being most clearly irreconcilable with the notions of
      mankind, that a cause continually opposed to the effects attributed to
      him; that a being of whom not a word can be said without falling into
      contradictions; that a being who, far from explaining the mysteries of the
      universe, only renders them more inexplicable; that a being to whom for so
      many centuries men addressed themselves so vainly to obtain their
      happiness and deliverance from their sufferings; does it need, I say, more
      than simple common sense to understand that the idea of such a being is an
      idea without model, and that he is himself evidently not a reasonable
      being? Does it require more than common sense to feel that there is at
      least delirium and frenzy in hating and tormenting each other for
      unintelligible opinions of a being of this kind? Finally, does it not all
      prove that morality and virtue are totally incompatible with the idea of a
      God, whose ministers and interpreters have painted him in all countries as
      the most fantastic, the most unjust, and the most cruel of tyrants, whose
      pretended wishes are to serve as rules and laws for the inhabitants of the
      earth? To discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of
      theology, of revelation, or of Gods; they need but common sense; they have
      only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to
      consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of
      each of the members who compose it, and they will easily understand that
      virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury to beings of their
      species. Let us teach men to be just, benevolent, moderate, and sociable,
      not because their Gods exact it, but to please men; let us tell them to
      abstain from vice and from crime, not because they will be punished in
      another world, but because they will suffer in the present world. There
      are, says Montesquieu, means to prevent crime, they are sufferings; to
      change the manners, these are good examples. Truth is simple, error is
      complicated, uncertain in its gait, full of by-ways; the voice of nature
      is intelligible, that of falsehood is ambiguous, enigmatical, and
      mysterious; the road of truth is straight, that of imposture is oblique
      and dark; this truth, always necessary to man, is felt by all just minds;
      the lessons of reason are followed by all honest souls; men are unhappy
      only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant only because everything
      conspires to prevent them from being enlightened, and they are wicked only
      because their reason is not sufficiently developed.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      COMMON SENSE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Detexit quo dolose Vaticinandi furore sacerdotes mysteria, illis spe
      ignota, audactur publicant.&mdash;PETRON. SATYR.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      I.&mdash;APOLOGUE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      There is a vast empire governed by a monarch, whose conduct does but
      confound the minds of his subjects. He desires to be known, loved,
      respected, and obeyed, but he never shows himself; everything tends to
      make uncertain the notions which we are able to form about him. The people
      subjected to his power have only such ideas of the character and the laws
      of their invisible sovereign as his ministers give them; these suit,
      however, because they themselves have no idea of their master, for his
      ways are impenetrable, and his views and his qualities are totally
      incomprehensible; moreover, his ministers disagree among themselves in
      regard to the orders which they pretend emanated from the sovereign whose
      organs they claim to be; they announce them diversely in each province of
      the empire; they discredit and treat each other as impostors and liars;
      the decrees and ordinances which they promulgate are obscure; they are
      enigmas, made not to be understood or divined by the subjects for whose
      instruction they were intended. The laws of the invisible monarch need
      interpreters, but those who explain them are always quarreling among
      themselves about the true way of understanding them; more than this, they
      do not agree among themselves; all which they relate of their hidden
      prince is but a tissue of contradictions, scarcely a single word that is
      not contradicted at once. He is called supremely good, nevertheless not a
      person but complains of his decrees. He is supposed to be infinitely wise,
      and in his administration everything seems contrary to reason and good
      sense. They boast of his justice, and the best of his subjects are
      generally the least favored. We are assured that he sees everything, yet
      his presence remedies nothing. It is said that he is the friend of order,
      and everything in his universe is in a state of confusion and disorder;
      all is created by him, yet events rarely happen according to his projects.
      He foresees everything, but his foresight prevents nothing. He is
      impatient if any offend him; at the same time he puts every one in the way
      of offending him. His knowledge is admired in the perfection of his works,
      but his works are full of imperfections, and of little permanence. He is
      continually occupied in creating and destroying, then repairing what he
      has done, never appearing to be satisfied with his work. In all his
      enterprises he seeks but his own glory, but he does not succeed in being
      glorified. He works but for the good of his subjects, and most of them
      lack the necessities of life. Those whom he seems to favor, are generally
      those who are the least satisfied with their fate; we see them all
      continually revolting against a master whose greatness they admire, whose
      wisdom they extol, whose goodness they worship, and whose justice they
      fear, revering orders which they never follow. This empire is the world;
      its monarch is God; His ministers are the priests; their subjects are men.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      II.&mdash;WHAT IS THEOLOGY?
    </h2>
    <p>
      There is a science which has for its object only incomprehensible things.
      Unlike all others, it occupies itself but with things unseen. Hobbes calls
      it "the kingdom of darkness." In this land all obey laws opposed to those
      which men acknowledge in the world they inhabit. In this marvelous region
      light is but darkness, evidence becomes doubtful or false, the impossible
      becomes credible, reason is an unfaithful guide, and common sense changed
      into delirium. This science is named Theology, and this Theology is a
      continual insult to human reason.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      III.
    </h2>
    <p>
      By frequent repetition of if, but, and perhaps, we succeed in forming an
      imperfect and broken system which perplexes men's minds to the extent of
      making them forget the clearest notions, and to render uncertain the most
      palpable truths. By the aid of this systematic nonsense, all nature has
      become an inexplicable enigma for man; the visible world has disappeared
      to give place to invisible regions; reason is obliged to give place to
      imagination, which can lead us only to the land of chimeras which she
      herself has invented.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      IV.&mdash;MAN BORN NEITHER RELIGIOUS NOR DEISTICAL.
    </h2>
    <p>
      All religious principles are founded upon the idea of a God, but it is
      impossible for men to have true ideas of a being who does not act upon any
      one of their senses. All our ideas are but pictures of objects which
      strike us. What can the idea of God represent to us when it is evidently
      an idea without an object? Is not such an idea as impossible as an effect
      without a cause? An idea without a prototype, is it anything but a
      chimera? Some theologians, however, assure us that the idea of God is
      innate, or that men have this idea from the time of their birth. Every
      principle is a judgment; all judgment is the effect of experience;
      experience is not acquired but by the exercise of the senses: from which
      it follows that religious principles are drawn from nothing, and are not
      innate.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      V.&mdash;IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BELIEVE IN A GOD, AND THE MOST REASONABLE
      THING IS NOT TO THINK OF HIM.
    </h2>
    <p>
      No religious system can be founded otherwise than upon the nature of God
      and of men, and upon the relations they bear to each other. But, in order
      to judge of the reality of these relations, we must have some idea of the
      Divine nature. But everybody tells us that the essence of God is
      incomprehensible to man; at the same time they do not hesitate to assign
      attributes to this incomprehensible God, and assure us that man can not
      dispense with a knowledge of this God so impossible to conceive of. The
      most important thing for men is that which is the most impossible for them
      to comprehend. If God is incomprehensible to man, it would seem rational
      never to think of Him at all; but religion concludes that man is criminal
      if he ceases for a moment to revere Him.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VI.&mdash;RELIGION IS FOUNDED UPON CREDULITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are told that Divine qualities are not of a nature to be grasped by
      limited minds. The natural consequence of this principle ought to be that
      the Divine qualities are not made to employ limited minds; but religion
      assures us that limited minds should never lose sight of this
      inconceivable being, whose qualities can not be grasped by them: from
      which we see that religion is the art of occupying limited minds with that
      which is impossible for them to comprehend.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      VII.&mdash;EVERY RELIGION IS AN ABSURDITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Religion unites man with God or puts them in communication; but do you say
      that God is infinite? If God is infinite, no finite being can have
      communication or any relation with Him. Where there are no relations,
      there can be no union, no correspondence, no duties. If there are no
      duties between man and his God, there exists no religion for man. Thus by
      saying that God is infinite, you annihilate, from that moment, all
      religion for man, who is a finite being. The idea of infinity is for us in
      idea without model, without prototype, without object.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      VIII.&mdash;THE NOTION OF GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If God is an infinite being, there can be neither in the actual world or
      in another any proportion between man and his God; thus the idea of God
      will never enter the human mind. In the supposition of a life where men
      will be more enlightened than in this one, the infinity of God will always
      place such a distance between his idea and the limited mind of man, that
      he will not be able to conceive of God any more in a future life than in
      the present. Hence, it evidently follows that the idea of God will not be
      better suited to man in the other life than in the present. God is not
      made for man; it follows also that intelligences superior to man&mdash;such
      as angels, archangels, seraphims, and saints&mdash;can have no more
      complete notions of God than has man, who does not understand anything
      about Him here below.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      IX.&mdash;ORIGIN OF SUPERSTITION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      How is it that we have succeeded in persuading reasonable beings that the
      thing most impossible to understand was the most essential for them. It is
      because they were greatly frightened; it is because when men are kept in
      fear they cease to reason; it is because they have been expressly enjoined
      to distrust their reason. When the brain is troubled, we believe
      everything and examine nothing.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      X.&mdash;ORIGIN OF ALL RELIGION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Ignorance and fear are the two pivots of all religion. The uncertainty
      attending man's relation to his God is precisely the motive which attaches
      him to his religion. Man is afraid when in darkness&mdash;physical or
      moral. His fear is habitual to him and becomes a necessity; he would
      believe that he lacked something if he had nothing to fear.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XI.&mdash;IN THE NAME OF RELIGION CHARLATANS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE
      WEAKNESS OF MEN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      He who from his childhood has had a habit of trembling every time he heard
      certain words, needs these words, and needs to tremble. In this way he is
      more disposed to listen to the one who encourages his fears than to the
      one who would dispel his fears. The superstitious man wants to be afraid;
      his imagination demands it. It seems that he fears nothing more than
      having no object to fear. Men are imaginary patients, whom interested
      charlatans take care to encourage in their weakness, in order to have a
      market for their remedies. Physicians who order a great number of remedies
      are more listened to than those who recommend a good regimen, and who
      leave nature to act.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XII.&mdash;RELIGION ENTICES IGNORANCE BY THE AID OF THE MARVELOUS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If religion was clear, it would have fewer attractions for the ignorant.
      They need obscurity, mysteries, fables, miracles, incredible things, which
      keep their brains perpetually at work. Romances, idle stories, tales of
      ghosts and witches, have more charms for the vulgar than true narrations.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XIII.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In the matter of religion, men are but overgrown children. The more absurd
      a religion is, and the fuller of marvels, the more power it exerts; the
      devotee thinks himself obliged to place no limits to his credulity; the
      more inconceivable things are, the more divine they appear to him; the
      more incredible they are, the more merit he gives himself for believing
      them.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XIV.&mdash;THERE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ANY RELIGION IF THERE HAD NEVER
      BEEN ANY DARK AND BARBAROUS AGES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The origin of religious opinions dates, as a general thing, from the time
      when savage nations were yet in a state of infancy. It was to coarse,
      ignorant, and stupid men that the founders of religion addressed
      themselves in all ages, in order to present them with Gods, ceremonies,
      histories of fabulous Divinities, marvelous and terrible fables. These
      chimeras, adopted without examination by the fathers, have been
      transmitted with more or less changes to their polished children, who
      often do not reason more than their fathers.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XV.&mdash;ALL RELIGION WAS BORN OF THE DESIRE TO DOMINATE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The first legislators of nations had for their object to dominate, The
      easiest means of succeeding was to frighten the people and to prevent them
      from reasoning; they led them by tortuous paths in order that they should
      not perceive the designs of their guides; they compelled them to look into
      the air, for fear they should look to their feet; they amused them upon
      the road by stories; in a word, they treated them in the way of nurses,
      who employ songs and menaces to put the children to sleep, or to force
      them to be quiet.
    </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XVI.&mdash;THAT WHICH SERVES AS A BASIS FOR ALL RELIGION IS VERY
      UNCERTAIN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The existence of a God is the basis of all religion. Few people seem to
      doubt this existence, but this fundamental principle is precisely the one
      which prevents every mind from reasoning. The first question of every
      catechism was, and will always be, the most difficult one to answer.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XVII.&mdash;IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE CONVINCED OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Can one honestly say that he is convinced of the existence of a being
      whose nature is not known, who remains inaccessible to all our senses, and
      of whose qualities we are constantly assured that they are
      incomprehensible to us? In order to persuade me that a being exists, or
      can exist, he must begin by telling me what this being is; in order to
      make me believe the existence or the possibility of such a being, he must
      tell me things about him which are not contradictory, and which do not
      destroy one another; finally, in order to convince me fully of the
      existence of this being, he must tell me things about him which I can
      comprehend, and prove to me that it is impossible that the being to whom
      he attributes these qualities does not exist.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XVIII.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      A thing is impossible when it is composed of two ideas so antagonistic,
      that we can not think of them at the same time. Evidence can be relied on
      only when confirmed by the constant testimony of our senses, which alone
      give birth to ideas, and enable us to judge of their conformity or of
      their incompatibility. That which exists necessarily, is that of which the
      non-existence would imply contradiction. These principles, universally
      recognized, are at fault when the question of the existence of God is
      considered; what has been said of Him is either unintelligible or
      perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to
      every man of common sense.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XIX.&mdash;THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS NOT PROVED.
    </h2>
    <p>
      All human intelligences are more or less enlightened and cultivated. By
      what fatality is it that the science of God has never been explained? The
      most civilized nations and the most profound thinkers are of the same
      opinion in regard to the matter as the most barbarous nations and the most
      ignorant and rustic people. As we examine the subject more closely, we
      will find that the science of divinity by means of reveries and subtleties
      has but obscured it more and more. Thus far, all religion has been founded
      on what is called in logic, a "begging of the question;" it supposes
      freely, and then proves, finally, by the suppositions it has made.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XX.&mdash;TO SAY THAT GOD IS A SPIRIT, IS TO SPEAK WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING
      AT ALL.
    </h2>
    <p>
      By metaphysics, God is made a pure spirit, but has modern theology
      advanced one step further than the theology of the barbarians? They
      recognized a grand spirit as master of the world. The barbarians, like all
      ignorant men, attribute to spirits all the effects of which their
      inexperience prevents them from discovering the true causes. Ask a
      barbarian what causes your watch to move, he will answer, "a spirit!" Ask
      our philosophers what moves the universe, they will tell you "it is a
      spirit."
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XXI.&mdash;SPIRITUALITY IS A CHIMERA.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The barbarian, when he speaks of a spirit, attaches at least some sense to
      this word; he understands by it an agent similar to the wind, to the
      agitated air, to the breath, which produces, invisibly, effects that we
      perceive. By subtilizing, the modern theologian becomes as little
      intelligible to himself as to others. Ask him what he means by a spirit?
      He will answer, that it is an unknown substance, which is perfectly
      simple, which has nothing tangible, nothing in common with matter. In good
      faith, is there any mortal who can form the least idea of such a
      substance? A spirit in the language of modern theology is then but an
      absence of ideas. The idea of spirituality is another idea without a
      model.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XXII.&mdash;ALL WHICH EXISTS SPRINGS FROM THE BOSOM OF MATTER.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Is it not more natural and more intelligible to deduce all which exists,
      from the bosom of matter, whose existence is demonstrated by all our
      senses, whose effects we feel at every moment, which we see act, move,
      communicate, motion, and constantly bring living beings into existence,
      than to attribute the formation of things to an unknown force, to a
      spiritual being, who can not draw from his ground that which he has not
      himself, and who, by the spiritual essence claimed for him, is incapable
      of making anything, and of putting anything in motion? Nothing is plainer
      than that they would have us believe that an intangible spirit can act
      upon matter.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      XXIII.&mdash;WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICAL GOD OF MODERN THEOLOGY?
    </h2>
    <p>
      The material Jupiter of the ancients could move, build up, destroy, and
      propagate beings similar to himself; but the God of modern theology is a
      sterile being. According to his supposed nature he can neither occupy any
      place, nor move matter, nor produce a visible world, nor propagate either
      men or Gods. The metaphysical God is a workman without hands; he is able
      but to produce clouds, suspicions, reveries, follies, and quarrels.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXIV.&mdash;IT WOULD BE MORE RATIONAL TO WORSHIP THE SUN THAN A SPIRITUAL
      GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Since it was necessary for men to have a God, why did they not have the
      sun, the visible God, adored by so many nations? What being had more right
      to the homage of mortals than the star of the day, which gives light and
      heat; which invigorates all beings; whose presence reanimates and
      rejuvenates nature; whose absence seems to plunge her into sadness and
      languor? If some being bestowed upon men power, activity, benevolence,
      strength, it was no doubt the sun, which should be recognized as the
      father of nature, as the soul of the world, as Divinity. At least one
      could not without folly dispute his existence, or refuse to recognize his
      influence and his benefits.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXV.&mdash;A SPIRITUAL GOD IS INCAPABLE OF WILLING AND OF ACTING.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The theologian tells us that God does not need hands or arms to act, and
      that He acts by His will alone. But what is this God who has a will? And
      what can be the subject of this divine will? Is it more ridiculous or more
      difficult to believe in fairies, in sylphs, in ghosts, in witches, in
      were-wolfs, than to believe in the magical or impossible action of the
      spirit upon the body? As soon as we admit of such a God, there are no
      longer fables or visions which can not be believed. The theologians treat
      men like children, who never cavil about the possibilities of the tales
      which they listen to.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXVI.&mdash;WHAT IS GOD?
    </h2>
    <p>
      To unsettle the existence of a God, it is only necessary to ask a
      theologian to speak of Him; as soon as he utters one word about Him, the
      least reflection makes us discover at once that what he says is
      incompatible with the essence which he attributes to his God. Therefore,
      what is God? It is an abstract word, coined to designate the hidden forces
      of nature; or, it is a mathematical point, which has neither length,
      breadth, nor thickness. A philosopher [David Hume] has very ingeniously
      said in speaking of theologians, that they have found the solution to the
      famous problem of Archimedes; a point in the heavens from which they move
      the world.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXVII.&mdash;REMARKABLE CONTRADICTIONS OF THEOLOGY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Religion puts men on their knees before a being without extension, and
      who, notwithstanding, is infinite, and fills all space with his immensity;
      before an almighty being, who never executes that which he desires; before
      a being supremely good, and who causes but displeasure; before a being,
      the friend of order, and in whose government everything is in disorder.
      After all this, let us conjecture what this God of theology is.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXVIII.&mdash;TO ADORE GOD IS TO ADORE A FICTION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In order to avoid all embarrassment, they tell us that it is not necessary
      to know what God is; that we must adore without knowing; that it is not
      permitted us to turn an eye of temerity upon His attributes. But if we
      must adore a God without knowing Him, should we not be assured that He
      exists? Moreover, how be assured that He exists without having examined
      whether it is possible that the diverse qualities claimed for Him, meet in
      Him? In truth, to adore God is to adore nothing but fictions of one's own
      brain, or rather, it is to adore nothing.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXIX.&mdash;THE INFINITY OF GOD AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF KNOWING THE
      DIVINE ESSENCE, OCCASIONS AND JUSTIFIES ATHEISM.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Without doubt the more to perplex matters, theologians have chosen to say
      nothing about what their God is; they tell us what He is not. By negations
      and abstractions they imagine themselves composing a real and perfect
      being, while there can result from it but a being of human reason. A
      spirit has no body; an infinite being is a being which is not finite; a
      perfect being is a being which is not imperfect. Can any one form any real
      notions of such a multitude of deficiencies or absence of ideas? That
      which excludes all idea, can it be anything but nothingness? To pretend
      that the divine attributes are beyond the understanding of the human mind
      is to render God unfit for men. If we are assured that God is infinite, we
      admit that there can be nothing in common between Him and His creatures.
      To say that God is infinite, is to destroy Him for men, or at least render
      Him useless to them.
    </p>
    <p>
      God, we are told, created men intelligent, but He did not create them
      omniscient: that is to say, capable of knowing all things. We conclude
      that He was not able to endow him with intelligence sufficient to
      understand the divine essence. In this case it is demonstrated that God
      has neither the power nor the wish to be known by men. By what right could
      this God become angry with beings whose own essence makes it impossible to
      have any idea of the divine essence? God would evidently be the most
      unjust and the most unaccountable of tyrants if He should punish an
      atheist for not knowing that which his nature made it impossible for him
      to know.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXX.&mdash;IT IS NEITHER LESS NOR MORE CRIMINAL TO BELIEVE IN GOD THAN NOT
      TO BELIEVE IN HIM.
    </h2>
    <p>
      For the generality of men nothing renders an argument more convincing than
      fear. In consequence of this fact, theologians tell us that the safest
      side must be taken; that nothing is more criminal than incredulity; that
      God will punish without mercy all those who have the temerity to doubt His
      existence; that His severity is just; since it is only madness or
      perversity which questions the existence of an angry monarch who revenges
      himself cruelly upon atheists. If we examine these menaces calmly, we
      shall find that they assume always the thing in question. They must
      commence by proving to our satisfaction the existence of a God, before
      telling us that it is safer to believe, and that it is horrible to doubt
      or to deny it. Then they must prove that it is possible for a just God to
      punish men cruelly for having been in a state of madness, which prevented
      them from believing in the existence of a being whom their enlightened
      reason could not comprehend. In a word, they must prove that a God that is
      said to be full of equity, could punish beyond measure the invincible and
      necessary ignorance of man, caused by his relation to the divine essence.
      Is not the theologians' manner of reasoning very singular? They create
      phantoms, they fill them with contradictions, and finally assure us that
      the safest way is not to doubt the existence of those phantoms, which they
      have themselves invented. By following out this method, there is no
      absurdity which it would not be safer to believe than not to believe.
    </p>
    <p>
      All children are atheists&mdash;they have no idea of God; are they, then,
      criminal on account of this ignorance? At what age do they begin to be
      obliged to believe in God? It is, you say, at the age of reason. At what
      time does this age begin? Besides, if the most profound theologians lose
      themselves in the divine essence, which they boast of not comprehending,
      what ideas can common people have?&mdash;women, mechanics, and, in short,
      those who compose the mass of the human race?
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXXI.&mdash;THE BELIEF IN GOD IS NOTHING BUT A MECHANICAL HABITUDE OF
      CHILDHOOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Men believe in God only upon the word of those who have no more idea of
      Him than they themselves. Our nurses are our first theologians; they talk
      to children of God as they talk to them of were-wolfs; they teach them
      from the most tender age to join the hands mechanically. Have the nurses
      clearer notions of God than the children, whom they compel to pray to Him?
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXXII.&mdash;IT IS A PREJUDICE WHICH HAS BEEN HANDED FROM FATHER TO
      CHILDREN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Religion is handed down from fathers to children as the property of a
      family with the burdens. Very few people in the world would have a God if
      care had not been taken to give them one. Each one receives from his
      parents and his instructors the God which they themselves have received
      from theirs; only, according to his own temperament, each one arranges,
      modifies, and paints Him agreeably to his taste.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXXIII.&mdash;ORIGIN OF PREJUDICES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The brain of man is, especially in infancy, like a soft wax, ready to
      receive all the impressions we wish to make on it; education furnishes
      nearly all his opinions, at a period when he is incapable of judging for
      himself. We believe that the ideas, true or false, which at a tender age
      were forced into our heads, were received from nature at our birth; and
      this persuasion is one of the greatest sources of our errors.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXXIV.&mdash;HOW THEY TAKE ROOT AND SPREAD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Prejudice tends to confirm in us the opinions of those who are charged
      with our instruction. We believe them more skillful than we are; we
      suppose them thoroughly convinced themselves of the things they teach us.
      We have the greatest confidence in them. After the care they have taken of
      us when we were unable to assist ourselves, we judge them incapable of
      deceiving us. These are the motives which make us adopt a thousand errors
      without other foundation than the dangerous word of those who have
      educated us; even the being forbidden to reason upon what they tell us,
      does not diminish our confidence, but contributes often to increase our
      respect for their opinions.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXXV.&mdash;MEN WOULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED IN THE PRINCIPLES OF MODERN
      THEOLOGY IF THEY HAD NOT BEEN TAUGHT AT AN AGE WHEN THEY WERE INCAPABLE OF
      REASONING.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The instructors of the human race act very prudently in teaching men their
      religious principles before they are able to distinguish the true from the
      false, or the left hand from the right. It would be as difficult to tame
      the spirit of a man forty years old with the extravagant notions which are
      given us of Divinity, as to banish these notions from the head of a man
      who has imbibed them since his tenderest infancy.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXXVI.&mdash;THE WONDERS OF NATURE DO NOT PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are assured that the wonders of nature are sufficient to a belief in
      the existence of a God, and to convince us fully of this important truth.
      But how many persons are there in this world who have the leisure, the
      capacity, the necessary taste, to contemplate nature and to meditate upon
      its progress? The majority of men pay no attention to it. A peasant is not
      at all moved by the beauty of the sun, which he sees every day. The sailor
      is not surprised by the regular movements of the ocean; he will draw from
      them no theological inductions. The phenomena of nature do not prove the
      existence of a God, except to a few forewarned men, to whom has been shown
      in advance the finger of God in all the objects whose mechanism could
      embarrass them. The unprejudiced philosopher sees nothing in the wonders
      of nature but permanent and invariable law; nothing but the necessary
      effects of different combinations of diversified substance.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXXVII.&mdash;THE WONDERS OF NATURE EXPLAIN THEMSELVES BY NATURAL CAUSES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Is there anything more surprising than the logic of so many profound
      doctors, who, instead of acknowledging the little light they have upon
      natural agencies, seek outside of nature&mdash;that is to say, in
      imaginary regions&mdash;an agent less understood than this nature, of
      which they can at least form some idea? To say that God is the author of
      the phenomena that we see, is it not attributing them to an occult cause?
      What is God? What is a spirit? They are causes of which we have no idea.
      Sages! study nature and her laws; and when you can from them unravel the
      action of natural causes, do not go in search of supernatural causes,
      which, very far from enlightening your ideas, will but entangle them more
      and more and make it impossible for you to understand yourselves.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XXXVIII&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Nature, you say, is totally inexplicable without a God; that is to say, in
      order to explain what you understand so little, you need a cause which you
      do not understand at all. You pretend to make clear that which is obscure,
      by magnifying its obscurity. You think you have untied a knot by
      multiplying knots. Enthusiastic philosophers, in order to prove to us the
      existence of a God, you copy complete treatises on botany; you enter into
      minute details of the parts of the human body; you ascend into the air to
      contemplate the revolutions of the stars; you return then to earth to
      admire the course of the waters; you fly into ecstasies over butterflies,
      insects, polyps, organized atoms, in which you think to find the greatness
      of your God; all these things will not prove the existence of this God;
      they will only prove that you have not the ideas which you should have of
      the immense variety of causes and effects that can produce the infinitely
      diversified combinations, of which the universe is the assemblage. This
      will prove that you ignore nature, that you have no idea of her resources
      when you judge her incapable of producing a multitude of forms and beings,
      of which your eyes, even by the aid of the microscope, see but the least
      part; finally, this will prove, that not being able to know the sensible
      and comprehensible agents, you find it easier to have recourse to a word,
      by which you designate an agent, of whom it will always be impossible for
      you to form any true idea.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XXXIX.&mdash;THE WORLD HAS NOT BEEN CREATED, AND MATTER MOVES BY ITSELF.
    </h2>
    <p>
      They tell us gravely that there is no effect without a cause; they repeat
      to us very often that the world did not create itself. But the universe is
      a cause, not an effect; it is not a work, has not been made, because it
      was impossible that it should be made. The world has always been, its
      existence is necessary. It is the cause of itself. Nature, whose essence
      is visibly acting and producing, in order to fulfill her functions, as we
      see she does, needs no invisible motor far more unknown than herself.
      Matter moves by its own energy, by the necessary result of its
      heterogeneity; the diversity of its movements or of its ways of acting,
      constitute only the diversity of substances; we distinguish one being from
      another but by the diversity of the impressions or movements which they
      communicate to our organs.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XL.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      You see that everything in nature is in a state of activity, and you
      pretend that nature of itself is dead and without energy! You believe that
      all this, acting of itself, has need of a motor! Well! who is this motor?
      It is a spirit, that is to say, an absolutely incomprehensible and
      contradictory being. Conclude then, I say to you, that matter acts of
      itself, and cease to reason about your spiritual motor, which has nothing
      that is necessary to put it into motion. Return from your useless
      excursions; come down from an imaginary into a real world; take hold of
      second causes; leave to theologians their "First Cause," of which nature
      has no need in order to produce all the effects which you see.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XLI.&mdash;OTHER PROOFS THAT MOTION IS IN THE ESSENCE OF MATTER, AND THAT
      IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO SUPPOSE A SPIRITUAL MOTOR.
    </h2>
    <p>
      It is but by the diversity of impressions or of effects which substances
      or bodies make upon us, that we feel them, that we have perceptions and
      ideas of them, that we distinguish them one from another, that we assign
      to them peculiarities. Moreover, in order to perceive or to feel an
      object, this object must act upon our organs; this object can not act upon
      us without exciting some motion in us; it can not produce any motion in us
      if it is not itself in motion. As soon as I see an object, my eyes must be
      struck by it; I can not conceive of light and of vision without a motion
      in the luminous, extended, and colored body which communicates itself to
      my eye, or which acts upon my retina. As soon as I smell a body, my
      olfactory nerve must be irritated or put into motion by the parts exhaled
      from an odorous body. As soon as I hear a sound, the tympanum of my ear
      must be struck by the air put in motion by a sonorous body, which could
      not act if it was not moved of itself. From which it follows, evidently,
      that without motion I can neither feel, see, distinguish, compare, nor
      judge the body, nor even occupy my thought with any matter whatever. It is
      said in the schools, that the essence of a being is that from which flow
      all the properties of that being. Now then, it is evident that all the
      properties of bodies or of substances of which we have ideas, are due to
      the motion which alone informs us of their existence, and gives us the
      first conceptions of it. I can not be informed or assured of my own
      existence but by the motions which I experience within myself. I am
      compelled to conclude that motion is as essential to matter as its
      extension, and that it can not be conceived of without it. If one persists
      in caviling about the evidences which prove to us that motion is an
      essential property of matter, he must at least acknowledge that substances
      which seemed dead or deprived of all energy, take motion of themselves as
      soon as they are brought within the proper distance to act upon each
      other. Pyrophorus, when enclosed in a bottle or deprived of contact with
      the air, can not take fire by itself, but it burns as soon as exposed to
      the air. Flour and water cause fermentation as soon as they are mixed.
      Thus dead substances engender motion of themselves. Matter has then the
      power to move itself, and nature, in order to act, does not need a motor
      whose essence would hinder its activity.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XLII.&mdash;THE EXISTENCE OF MAN DOES NOT PROVE THAT OF GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Whence comes man? What is his origin? Is he the result of the fortuitous
      meeting of atoms? Was the first man formed of the dust of the earth? I do
      not know! Man appears to me to be a production of nature like all others
      she embraces. I should be just as much embarrassed to tell you whence came
      the first stones, the first trees, the first elephants, the first ants,
      the first acorns, as to explain the origin of the human species.
      Recognize, we are told, the hand of God, of an infinitely intelligent and
      powerful workman, in a work so wonderful as the human machine. I would
      admit without question that the human machine appears to me surprising;
      but since man exists in nature, I do not believe it right to say that his
      formation is beyond the forces of nature. I will add, that I could
      conceive far less of the formation of the human machine, when to explain
      it to me they tell me that a pure spirit, who has neither eyes, nor feet,
      nor hands, nor head, nor lungs, nor mouth, nor breath, has made man by
      taking a little dust and blowing upon it. The savage inhabitants of
      Paraguay pretend to be descended from the moon, and appear to us as
      simpletons; the theologians of Europe pretend to be descended from a pure
      spirit. Is this pretension more sensible?
    </p>
    <p>
      Man is intelligent, hence it is concluded that he must be the work of an
      intelligent being, and not of a nature devoid of intelligence. Although
      nothing is more rare than to see man use this intelligence, of which he
      appears so proud, I will admit that he is intelligent, that his
      necessities develop in him this faculty, that the society of other men
      contributes especially to cultivate it. But in the human machine and in
      the intelligence with which it is endowed, I see nothing that shows in a
      precise manner the infinite intelligence of the workman who has the honor
      of making it. I see that this admirable machine is subject to derangement;
      that at that time this wonderful intelligence is disordered, and sometimes
      totally disappears; from this I conclude that human intelligence depends
      upon a certain disposition of the material organs of the body, and that,
      because man is an intelligent being, it is not well to conclude that God
      must be an intelligent being, any more than because man is material, we
      are compelled to conclude that God is material. The intelligence of man no
      more proves the intelligence of God than the malice of men proves the
      malice of this God, of whom they pretend that man is the work. In whatever
      way theology is taken, God will always be a cause contradicted by its
      effects, or of whom it is impossible to judge by His works. We shall
      always see evil, imperfections, and follies resulting from a cause claimed
      to be full of goodness, of perfections, and of wisdom.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      XLIII.&mdash;HOWEVER, NEITHER MAN NOR THE UNIVERSE IS THE EFFECT OF
      CHANCE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Then you will say that intelligent man and even the universe and all it
      encloses, are the effects of chance. No, I answer, the universe is not an
      effect; it is the cause of all effects; all the beings it embraces are the
      necessary effects of this cause which sometimes shows to us its manner of
      acting, out which often hides from us its way. Men may use the word
      "chance" to cover their ignorance of the true causes; nevertheless,
      although they may ignore them, these causes act, but by certain laws.
      There is no effect without a cause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nature is a word which we make use of to designate the immense assemblage
      of beings, diverse substances, infinite combinations, and all the various
      motions which we see. All bodies, whether organized or not organized, are
      the necessary results of certain causes, made to produce necessarily the
      effects which we see. Nothing in nature can be made by chance; all follow
      fixed laws; these laws are but the necessary union of certain effects with
      their causes. An atom of matter does not meet another atom by accident or
      by hazard; this rencounter is due to permanent laws, which cause each
      being to act by necessity as it does, and can not act otherwise under the
      same circumstances. To speak about the accidental coming together of
      atoms, or to attribute any effects to chance, is to say nothing, if not to
      ignore the laws by which bodies act, meet, combine, or separate.
    </p>
    <p>
      Everything is made by chance for those who do not understand nature, the
      properties of beings, and the effects which must necessarily result from
      the concurrence of certain causes. It is not chance that has placed the
      sun in the center of our planetary system; it is by its very essence, the
      substance of which it is composed, that it occupies this place, and from
      thence diffuses itself to invigorate the beings who live in these planets.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XLIV.&mdash;NEITHER DOES THE ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF
      A GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The worshipers of a God find, especially in the order of the universe, an
      invincible proof of the existence of an intelligent and wise being who
      rules it. But this order is only a result of motions necessarily brought
      on by causes or by circumstances which are sometimes favorable and
      sometimes injurious to ourselves; we approve the former and find fault
      with the latter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nature follows constantly the same progress; that is to say, the same
      causes produce the same effects, as long as their action is not
      interrupted by other causes which occasion the first ones to produce
      different effects. When the causes, whose effects we feel, are interrupted
      in their action by causes which, although unknown to us, are no less
      natural and necessary, we are stupefied, we cry out miracles: and we
      attribute them to a cause far less known than all those we see operating
      before us. The universe is always in order; there can be no disorder for
      it. Our organization alone is suffering if we complain about disorder.
      Bodies, causes, beings, which this world embraces, act necessarily in the
      manner in which we see them act, whether we approve or disapprove their
      action. Earthquakes, volcanoes, inundations, contagions, and famines are
      effects as necessary in the order of nature as the fall of heavy bodies,
      as the course of rivers, as the periodical movements of the seas, the
      blowing of the winds, the abundant rains, and the favorable effects for
      which we praise and thank Providence for its blessings.
    </p>
    <p>
      To be astonished that a certain order reigns in the world, is to be
      surprised to see the same causes constantly producing the same effects. To
      be shocked at seeing disorder, is to forget that the causes being changed
      or disturbed in their action, the effects can no longer be the same. To be
      astonished to see order in nature, is to be astonished that anything can
      exist; it is to be surprised at one's own existence. What is order for one
      being, is disorder for another. All wicked beings find that everything is
      in order when they can with impunity put everything into disorder; they
      find, on the contrary, that everything is in disorder when they are
      prevented from exercising their wickedness.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XLV.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Supposing God to be the author and the motor of nature, there could be no
      disorder relating to Him; all causes which He would have made would
      necessarily act according to their properties the essences and the
      impulsions that He had endowed them with. If God should change the
      ordinary course of things, He would not be immutable. If the order of the
      universe&mdash;in which we believe we see the most convincing proof of His
      existence, of His intelligence, His power, and His goodness&mdash;should
      be inconsistent, His existence might be doubted; or He might be accused at
      least of inconstancy, of inability, of want of foresight, and of wisdom in
      the first arrangement of things; we would have a right to accuse Him of
      blundering in His choice of agents and instruments. Finally, if the order
      of nature proves the power and the intelligence, disorder ought to prove
      the weakness, inconstancy, and irrationality of Divinity. You say that God
      is everywhere; that He fills all space; that nothing was made without Him;
      that matter could not act without Him as its motor. But in this case you
      admit that your God is the author of disorder; that it is He who deranges
      nature; that He is the Father of confusion; that He is in man; and that He
      moves man at the moment when he sins. If God is everywhere, He is in me;
      He acts with me; He is deceived when I am deceived; He questions with me
      the existence of God; He offends God with me. Oh, theologians! you never
      understand yourselves when you speak of God.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XLVI.&mdash;A PURE SPIRIT CAN NOT BE INTELLIGENT, AND TO ADORE A DIVINE
      INTELLIGENCE IS A CHIMERA.
    </h2>
    <p>
      To be what we call intelligent, we must have ideas, thoughts, will; to
      have ideas, thoughts, and will, we must have organs; to have organs, we
      must have a body; to act upon bodies, we must have a body; to experience
      trouble, we must be capable of suffering; from which it evidently follows
      that a pure spirit can not be intelligent, and can not be affected by that
      which takes place in the universe.
    </p>
    <p>
      Divine intelligence, divine ideas, divine views, you say, have nothing in
      common with those of men. So much the better! But in this case, how can
      men judge of these views&mdash;whether good or evil&mdash;reason about
      these ideas, or admire this intelligence? It would be to judge, to admire,
      to adore that of which we can form no idea. To adore the profound views of
      divine wisdom, is it not to worship that of which it is impossible for us
      to judge? To admire these same views, is it not admiring without knowing
      wry? Admiration is always the daughter of ignorance. Men admire and
      worship only what they do not understand.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XLVII.&mdash;ALL THE QUALITIES WHICH THEOLOGY GIVES TO ITS GOD ARE
      CONTRARY TO THE VERY ESSENCE WHICH IT SUPPOSES HIM TO HAVE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      All these qualities which are given to God are not suited to a being who,
      by His own essence, is devoid of all similarity to human beings. It is
      true, they think to find this similarity by exaggerating the human
      qualities with which they have clothed Divinity; they thrust them upon the
      infinite, and from that moment cease to understand themselves. What is the
      result of this combination of man with God, or of this theanthropy? Its
      only result is a chimera, of which nothing can be affirmed without causing
      the phantom to vanish which they had taken so much trouble to conjure up.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dante, in his poem of Paradise, relates that the Divinity appeared to him
      under the figure of three circles, which formed an iris, whose bright
      colors arose from each other; but having wished to retain its brilliant
      light, the poet saw only his own face. In worshiping God, man adores
      himself.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XLVIII.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The slightest reflection suffices to prove to us that God can not have any
      of the human qualities, virtues, or perfections. Our virtues and our
      perfections are the results of our temperament modified. Has God a
      temperament like ours? Our good qualities are our habits relative to the
      beings in whose society we live. God, according to you, is a solitary
      being. God has no one like Him; He does not live in society; He has no
      need of any one; He enjoys a happiness which nothing can alter. Admit,
      then, upon your own principles, that God can not possess what we call
      virtues, and that man can not be virtuous in regard to Him.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XLIX.&mdash;IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT THE HUMAN RACE IS THE OBJECT AND THE
      END OF CREATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Man, charmed with his own merits, imagines that it is but his own kind
      that God proposed as the object and the end in the formation of the
      universe. Upon what is this so flattering opinion based? It is, we are
      told, upon this: that man is the only being endowed with an intelligence
      which enables him to know the Divine nature, and to render to it homage
      worthy of it. We are assured that God created the world for His own glory,
      and that the human race was included in His plan, in order that He might
      have somebody to admire and glorify Him in His works. But by these
      intentions has not God visibly missed His end?
    </p>
    <p>
      1. According to you, it would always be impossible for man to know his
      God, and he would be kept in the most invincible ignorance of the Divine
      essence.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. A being who has no equals, can not be susceptible of glory. Glory can
      result but from the comparison of his own excellence with that of others.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. If God by Himself is infinitely happy and is sufficient unto Himself,
      why does He need the homage of His feeble creatures?
    </p>
    <p>
      4. In spite of all His works, God is not glorified; on the contrary, all
      the religions of the world show Him to us as perpetually offended; their
      great object is to reconcile sinful, ungrateful, and rebellious man with
      his wrathful God.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      L.&mdash;GOD IS NOT MADE FOR MAN, NOR MAN FOR GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If God is infinite, He is created still less for man, than man is for the
      ants. Would the ants of a garden reason pertinently with reference to the
      gardener, if they should attempt to occupy themselves with his intentions,
      his desires, and his projects? Would they reason correctly if they
      pretended that the park of Versailles was made but for them, and that a
      fastidious monarch had had as his only object to lodge them superbly? But
      according to theology, man in his relation to God is far beneath what the
      lowest insect is to man. Thus by the acknowledgment of theology itself,
      theology, which does but occupy itself with the attributes and views of
      Divinity, is the most complete of follies.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LI.&mdash;IT IS NOT TRUE THAT THE OBJECT OF THE FORMATION OF THE UNIVERSE
      WAS TO RENDER MEN HAPPY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      It is pretended, that in forming the universe, God had no object but to
      render man happy. But, in a world created expressly for him and governed
      by an all-mighty God, is man after all very happy? Are his enjoyments
      durable? Are not his pleasures mingled with sufferings? Are there many
      people who are contented with their fate? Is not mankind the continual
      victim of physical and moral evils? This human machine, which is shown to
      us as the masterpiece of the Creator's industry, has it not a thousand
      ways of deranging itself? Would we admire the skill of a mechanic, who
      should show us a complicated machine, liable to be out of order at any
      moment, and which would after a while destroy itself?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LII.&mdash;WHAT IS CALLED PROVIDENCE IS BUT A WORD VOID OF SENSE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We call Providence the generous care which Divinity shows in providing for
      our needs, and in watching over the happiness of its beloved creatures.
      But, as soon as we look around, we find that God provides for nothing.
      Providence neglects the greatest part of the inhabitants of this world.
      Against a very small number of men, who are supposed to be happy, what a
      multitude of miserable ones are groaning beneath oppression, and
      languishing in misery! Whole nations are compelled to starve in order to
      indulge the extravagances of a few morose tyrants, who are no happier than
      the slaves whom they oppress! At the same time that our philosophers
      energetically parade the bounties of Providence, and exhort us to place
      confidence in it, do we not see them cry out at unforeseen catastrophes,
      by which Providence plays with the vain projects of men; do we not see
      that it overthrows their designs, laughs at their efforts, and that its
      profound wisdom pleases itself in misleading mortals? But how can we place
      confidence in a malicious Providence which laughs at and sports with
      mankind? How can I admire the unknown course of a hidden wisdom whose
      manner of acting is inexplicable to me? Judge it by its effects! you will
      say; it is by these I do judge it, and I find that these effects are
      sometimes useful and sometimes injurious to me.
    </p>
    <p>
      We think to justify Providence by saying, that in this world there are
      more blessings than evil for each individual man. Let us suppose that the
      blessings which this Providence makes us enjoy are as one hundred, and
      that the evils are as ten per cent.; would it not always result that
      against these hundred degrees of goodness, Providence possesses a tenth
      degree of malignity?&mdash;which is incompatible with the perfection we
      suppose it to have.
    </p>
    <p>
      All the books are filled with the most flattering praises of Providence,
      whose attentive care is extolled; it would seem to us, as if in order to
      live happy here below, man would have no need of exerting himself.
      However, without labor, man could scarcely live a day. In order to live, I
      see him obliged to sweat, work, hunt, fish, toil without relaxation;
      without these secondary causes, the First Cause (at least in the majority
      of countries) could provide for none of his needs. If I examine all parts
      of this globe, I see the uncivilized as well as the civilized man in a
      perpetual struggle with Providence; he is compelled to ward off the blows
      which it sends in the form of hurricanes, tempests, frost, hail,
      inundations, sterility, and the divers accidents which so often render all
      their labors useless. In a word, I see the human race continually occupied
      in protecting itself from the wicked tricks of this Providence, which is
      said to be busy with the care of their happiness. A devotee admired Divine
      Providence for having wisely made rivers to flow through all the places
      where men had built large cities. Is not this man's way of reasoning as
      sensible as that of many learned men who do not cease from telling us of
      Final Causes, or who pretend to perceive clearly the benevolent views of
      God in the formation of things?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LIII.&mdash;THIS PRETENDED PROVIDENCE IS LESS OCCUPIED IN CONSERVING THAN
      IN DISTURBING THE WORLD&mdash;MORE AN ENEMY THAN A FRIEND OF MAN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Do we see, then, that Divine Providence manifests itself in a sensible
      manner in the conservation of its admirable works, for which we honor it?
      If it is Divine Providence which governs the world, we find it as much
      occupied in destroying as in creating; in exterminating as in producing.
      Does it not at every instant cause thousands of those same men to perish,
      to whose preservation and well-being it is supposed to give its continual
      attention? Every moment it loses sight of its beloved creatures; sometimes
      it tears down their dwellings; sometimes it destroys their harvests,
      inundates their fields, devastates by a drought, arms all nature against
      man, sets man against man, and finishes by causing him to expire in pain.
      Is this what you call preserving a universe? If we attempted to consider
      without prejudice the equivocal conduct of Providence relative to mankind
      and to all sentient beings, we should find that very far from resembling a
      tender and careful mother, it rather resembles those unnatural mothers
      who, forgetting the unfortunate fruits of their illicit amours, abandon
      their children as soon as they are born; and who, pleased to have
      conceived them, expose them without mercy to the caprices of fate.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Hottentots&mdash;wiser in this particular than other nations, who
      treat them as barbarians&mdash;refuse, it is said, to adore God, because
      if He sometimes does good, He as often does harm. Is not this reasoning
      more just and more conformed to experience than that of so many men who
      persist in seeing in their God but kindness, wisdom, and foresight; and
      who refuse to see that the countless evils, of which the world is the
      theater, must come from the same Hand which they kiss with transport?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LIV.&mdash;NO! THE WORLD IS NOT GOVERNED BY AN INTELLIGENT BEING.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The logic of common sense teaches us that we should judge a cause but by
      its effects. A cause can not be reputed as constantly good, except when it
      constantly produces good, useful, and agreeable effects. A cause which
      produces good at one time, and evil at another, is a cause which is
      sometimes good and sometimes bad. But the logic of Theology destroys all
      this. According to it, the phenomena of nature, or the effects which we
      see in this world, prove to us the existence of an infinitely good Cause,
      and this Cause is God. Although this world is full of evils, although
      disorder reigns here very often, although men groan every moment under the
      fate which oppresses them, we ought to be convinced that these effects are
      due to a benevolent and immutable Cause; and many people believe it, or
      pretend to believe it!
    </p>
    <p>
      Everything which takes place in the world proves to us in the clearest way
      that it is not governed by an intelligent being. We can judge of the
      intelligence of a being but by the means which he employs to accomplish
      his proposed design. The aim of God, it is said, is the happiness of our
      race; however, the same necessity regulates the fate of all sentient
      beings&mdash;which are born to suffer much, to enjoy little, and to die.
      Man's cup is full of joy and of bitterness; everywhere good is side by
      side with evil; order is replaced by disorder; generation is followed by
      destruction. If you tell me that the designs of God are mysteries, and
      that His views are impossible to understand, I will answer, that in this
      case it is impossible for me to judge whether God is intelligent.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LV.&mdash;GOD CAN NOT BE CALLED IMMUTABLE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      You pretend that God is immutable! But what is it that occasions the
      continual instability in this world, which you claim as His empire? Is any
      state subject to more frequent and cruel revolutions than that of this
      unknown monarch? How can we attribute to an immutable God, powerful enough
      to give solidity to His works, the government of a world where everything
      is in a continual vicissitude? If I think to see a God unchanging in all
      the effects advantageous to my kind, what God can I discover in the
      continual misfortunes by which my kind is oppressed? You tell me that it
      is our sins that force Him to punish us. I will answer that God, according
      to yourselves, is not immutable, because the sins of men compel Him to
      change His conduct in regard to them. Can a being who is sometimes
      irritated, and sometimes appeased, be constantly the same?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LVI.&mdash;EVIL AND GOOD ARE THE NECESSARY EFFECTS OF NATURAL CAUSES. WHAT
      IS A GOD WHO CAN CHANGE NOTHING?
    </h2>
    <p>
      The universe is but what it can be; all sentient beings enjoy and suffer
      here: that is to say, they are moved sometimes in an agreeable, and at
      other times in a disagreeable way. These effects are necessary; they
      result from causes that act according to their inherent tendencies., These
      effects necessarily please or displease me, according to my own nature.
      This same nature compels me to avoid, to remove, and to combat the one,
      and to seek, to desire, and to procure the other. In a world where
      everything is from necessity, a God who remedies nothing, and allows
      things to follow their own course, is He anything else but destiny or
      necessity personified? It is a deaf God who can effect no change on the
      general laws to which He is subjected Himself. What do I care for the
      infinite power of a being who can do but a very few things to please me?
      Where is the infinite kindness of a being who is indifferent to my
      happiness? What good to me is the favor of a being who, able to bestow
      upon me infinite good, does not even give me a finite one?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LVII.&mdash;THE VANITY OF THEOLOGICAL CONSOLATIONS IN THE TROUBLES OF THIS
      LIFE. THE HOPE OF A HEAVEN, OF A FUTURE LIFE, IS BUT IMAGINARY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      When we ask why, under a good God, so many are wretched, we are reminded
      that the present world is but a pass-way, designed to conduct man to a
      happier sphere; we are assured that our sojourn on the earth, where we
      live, is for trial; they silence us by saying that God would not impart to
      His creatures either the indifference to the sufferings of others, or the
      infinite happiness which He reserved for Himself alone. How can we be
      satisfied with these answers?
    </p>
    <p>
      1. The existence of another life has no other guaranty than the
      imagination of men, who, in supposing it, have but manifested their desire
      to live again, in order to enter upon a purer and more durable state of
      happiness than that which they enjoy at present.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. How can we conceive of a God who, knowing all things, must know to
      their depths the nature of His creatures, and yet must have so many proofs
      in order to assure Himself of their proclivities?
    </p>
    <p>
      3. According to the calculations of our chronologists, the earth which we
      inhabit has existed for six or seven thousand years; during this time the
      nations have, under different forms, experienced many vicissitudes and
      calamities; history shows us that the human race in all ages has been
      tormented and devastated by tyrants, conquerors, heroes; by wars,
      inundations, famines, epidemics, etc. Is this long catalogue of proofs of
      such a nature as to inspire us with great confidence in the hidden views
      of the Divinity? Do such constant evils give us an exalted idea of the
      future fate which His kindness is preparing for us?
    </p>
    <p>
      4. If God is as well-disposed as they assure us He is, could He not at
      least, without bestowing an infinite happiness upon men, communicate to
      them that degree of happiness of which finite beings are susceptible? In
      order to be happy, do we need an Infinite or Divine happiness?
    </p>
    <p>
      5. If God has not been able to render men happier than they are here
      below, what will become of the hope of a Paradise, where it is pretended
      that the elect or chosen few will rejoice forever in ineffable happiness?
      If God could not or would not remove evil from the earth (the only
      sojourning place we know of), what reason could we have to presume that He
      can or will remove it from another world, of which we know nothing? More
      than two thousand years ago, according to Lactance, the wise epicure said:
      "Either God wants to prevent evil, and can not, or He can and will not; or
      He neither can nor will, or He will and can. If He wants to, without the
      power, He is impotent; if He can, and will not, He is guilty of malice
      which we can not attribute to Him; if He neither can nor will, He is both
      impotent and wicked, and consequently can not be God; if He wishes to and
      can, whence then comes evil, or why does He not prevent it?" For more than
      two thousand years honest minds have waited for a rational solution of
      these difficulties; and our theologians teach us that they will not be
      revealed to us until the future life.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LVIII.&mdash;ANOTHER IDLE FANCY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are told of a pretended scale for human beings; it is supposed that God
      has divided His creatures into different classes, each one enjoying the
      degree of happiness of which he is susceptible. According to this romantic
      arrangement, all beings, from the oyster to the angel, enjoy the happiness
      which belongs to them. Experience contradicts this sublime revery. In the
      world where we are, we see all sentient beings living and suffering in the
      midst of dangers. Man can not step without wounding, tormenting, crushing
      a multitude of sentient beings which he finds in his path, while he
      himself, at every step, is exposed to a throng of evils seen or unseen,
      which may lead to his destruction. Is not the very thought of death
      sufficient to mar his greatest enjoyment? During the whole course of his
      life he is subject to sufferings; there is not a moment when he feels sure
      of preserving his existence, to which he is so strongly attached, and
      which he regards as the greatest gift of Divinity.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
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    <h2>
      LIX.&mdash;IN VAIN DOES THEOLOGY EXERT ITSELF TO ACQUIT GOD OF MAN'S
      DEFECTS. EITHER THIS GOD IS NOT FREE, OR HE IS MORE WICKED THAN GOOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The world, it will be said, has all the perfection of which it was
      susceptible; by the very reason that the world was not the God who made
      it, it was necessary that it should have great qualities and great
      defects. But we will answer, that the world necessarily having great
      defects, it would have been better suited to the nature of a good God not
      to create a world which He could not render completely happy. If God, who
      was, according to you, supremely happy before the world was created, had
      continued to be supremely happy in the created world, why did He not
      remain in peace? Why must man suffer? Why must man exist What is his
      existence to God? Nothing or something. If his existence is not useful or
      necessary to God, why did He not leave him in nothingness? If man's
      existence is necessary to His glory, He then needed man, He lacked
      something before this man existed!
    </p>
    <p>
      We can forgive an unskillful workman for doing imperfect work, because he
      must work, well or ill, or starve; this workman is excusable; but your God
      is not. According to you, He is self-sufficient; in this case, why does He
      create men? He has, according to you, all that is necessary to render man
      happy; why, then, does He not do it? You must conclude that your God has
      more malice than goodness, or you must admit that God was compelled to do
      what He has done, without being able to do otherwise. However, you assure
      us that your God is free; you say also that He is immutable, although
      beginning in time and ceasing in time to exercise His power, like all the
      inconstant beings of this world. Oh, theologians! you have made vain
      efforts to acquit your God of all the defects of man; there is always
      visible in this God so perfect, "a tip of the [human] ear."
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LX.&mdash;WE CAN NOT BELIEVE IN A DIVINE PROVIDENCE, IN AN INFINITELY GOOD
      AND POWERFUL GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Is not God the master of His favors? Has He not the right to dispense His
      benefits? Can He not take them back again? His creature has no right to
      ask the reason of His conduct; He can dispose at will of the works of His
      hands. Absolute sovereign of mortals, He distributes happiness or
      unhappiness, according to His pleasure. These are the solutions which
      theologians give in order to console us for the evils which God inflicts
      upon us. We would tell them that a God who was infinitely good, would not
      be the master of His favors, but would be by His own nature obliged to
      distribute them among His creatures; we would tell them that a truly
      benevolent being would not believe he had the right to abstain from doing
      good; we would tell them that a truly generous being does not take back
      what he has given, and any man who does it, forfeits gratitude, and has no
      right to complain of ingratitude. How can the arbitrary and whimsical
      conduct which theologians ascribe to God, be reconciled with the religion
      which supposes a compact or mutual agreement between this God and men? If
      God owes nothing to His creatures, they, on their part, can not owe
      anything to their God. All religion is founded upon the happiness which
      men believe they have a right to expect from the Divinity, who is supposed
      to tell them: "Love, adore, obey me, and I will render you happy!" Men on
      their side say to Him: "Make us happy, be faithful to your promises, and
      we will love you, we will adore you, we will obey your laws!" In
      neglecting the happiness of His creatures, in distributing His favors and
      His graces according to His caprice, and taking back His gifts, does not
      God violate the contract which serves as a base for all religion?
    </p>
    <p>
      Cicero has said with reason that if God does not make Himself agreeable to
      man, He can not be his God. [Nisi Deus homini placuerit, Deus non erit.]
      Goodness constitutes Divinity; this Goodness can manifest itself to man
      only by the advantages he derives from it. As soon as he is unfortunate,
      this Goodness disappears and ceases to be Divinity. An infinite Goodness
      can be neither partial nor exclusive. If God is infinitely good, He owes
      happiness to all His creatures; one unfortunate being alone would be
      sufficient to annihilate an unlimited goodness. Under an infinitely good
      and powerful God, is it possible to conceive that a single man could
      suffer? An animal, a mite, which suffers, furnishes invincible arguments
      against Divine Providence and its infinite benefactions.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      LXI.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      According to theologians, the afflictions and evils of this life are
      chastisements which culpable men receive from Divinity. But why are men
      culpable? If God is Almighty, does it cost Him any more to say, "Let
      everything remain in order!"&mdash;"let all my subjects be good, innocent,
      fortunate!"&mdash;than to say, "Let everything exist?" Was it more
      difficult for this God to do His work well than to do it so badly? Was it
      any farther from the nonexistence of beings to their wise and happy
      existence, than from their non-existence to their insensate and miserable
      existence? Religion speaks to us of a hell&mdash;that is, of a fearful
      place where, notwithstanding His goodness, God reserves eternal torments
      for the majority of men. Thus, after having rendered mortals very
      miserable in this world, religion teaches them that God can make them much
      more wretched in another. They meet our objections by saying, that
      otherwise the goodness of God would take the place of His justice. But
      goodness which takes the place of the most terrible cruelty, is not
      infinite kindness. Besides, a God who, after having been infinitely good,
      becomes infinitely wicked, can He be regarded as an immutable being? A God
      filled with implacable fury, is He a God in whom we can find a shadow of
      charity or goodness?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXII.&mdash;THEOLOGY MAKES OF ITS GOD A MONSTER OF NONSENSE, OF INJUSTICE,
      OF MALICE, AND ATROCITY&mdash;A BEING ABSOLUTELY HATEFUL.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Divine justice, such as our theologians paint it, is, without doubt, a
      quality intended to make us love Divinity. According to the notions of
      modern theology, it appears evident that God has created the majority of
      men with the view only of punishing them eternally. Would it not have been
      more in conformity with kindness, with reason, with equity, to create but
      stones or plants, and not sentient beings, than to create men whose
      conduct in this world would cause them eternal chastisements in another? A
      God so perfidious and wicked as to create a single man and leave him
      exposed to the perils of damnation, can not be regarded as a perfect
      being, but as a monster of nonsense, injustice, malice, and atrocity. Far
      from forming a perfect God, the theologians have made the most imperfect
      of beings. According to theological ideas, God resembles a tyrant who,
      having deprived the majority of his slaves of their eyesight, would
      confine them in a cell where, in order to amuse himself he could observe
      incognito their conduct through a trap-door, in order to have occasion to
      cruelly punish all those who in walking should hurt each other; but who
      would reward splendidly the small number of those to whom the sight was
      spared, for having the skill to avoid an encounter with their comrades.
      Such are the ideas which the dogma of gratuitous predestination gives of
      Divinity!
    </p>
    <p>
      Although men repeat to us that their God is infinitely good, it is evident
      that in the bottom of their hearts they can believe nothing of it. How can
      we love anything we do not know? How can we love a being, the idea of whom
      is but liable to keep us in anxiety and trouble? How can we love a being
      of whom all that is told conspires to render him supremely hateful?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXIII.&mdash;ALL RELIGION INSPIRES BUT A COWARDLY AND INORDINATE FEAR OF
      THE DIVINITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Many people make a subtle distinction between true religion and
      superstition; they tell us that the latter is but a cowardly and
      inordinate fear of Divinity, that the truly religious man has confidence
      in his God, and loves Him sincerely; while the superstitious man sees in
      Him but an enemy, has no confidence in Him, and represents Him as a
      suspicious and cruel tyrant, avaricious of His benefactions and prodigal
      of His chastisements. But does not all religion in reality give us these
      same ideas of God? While we are told that God is infinitely good, is it
      not constantly repeated to us that He is very easily offended, that He
      bestows His favors but upon a few, that He chastises with fury those to
      whom He has not been pleased to grant them?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXIV.&mdash;THERE IS IN REALITY NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE
      MOST SOMBRE AND SERVILE SUPERSTITION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If we take our ideas of God from the nature of the things where we find a
      mixture of good and evil, this God, according to the good and evil which
      we experience, does naturally appear to us capricious, inconstant,
      sometimes good, sometimes wicked, and in this way, instead of exciting our
      love, He must produce suspicion, fear, and uncertainty in our hearts.
      There is no real difference between natural religion and the most sombre
      and servile superstition. If the Theist sees God but on the beautiful
      side, the superstitious man looks upon Him from the most hideous side. The
      folly of the one is gay of the other is lugubrious; but both are equally
      delirious.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXV.&mdash;ACCORDING TO THE IDEAS WHICH THEOLOGY GIVES OF DIVINITY, TO
      LOVE GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If I take my ideas of God from theology, God shows Himself to me in such a
      light as to repel love. The devotees who tell us that they love their God
      sincerely, are either liars or fools who see their God but in profile; it
      is impossible to love a being, the thought of whom tends to excite terror,
      and whose judgments make us tremble. How can we face without fear, a God
      whom we suppose sufficiently barbarous to wish to damn us forever? Let
      them not speak to us of a filial or respectful fear mingled with love,
      which men should have for their God. A son can not love his father when he
      knows he is cruel enough to inflict exquisite torments upon him; in short,
      to punish him for the least faults. No man upon earth can have the least
      spark of love for a God who holds in reserve eternal, hard, and violent
      chastisements for ninety-nine hundredths of His children.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXVI.&mdash;BY THE INVENTION OF THE DOGMA OF THE ETERNAL TORMENTS OF HELL,
      THEOLOGIANS HAVE MADE OF THEIR GOD A DETESTABLE BEING, MORE WICKED THAN
      THE MOST WICKED OF MEN, A PERVERSE AND CRUEL TYRANT WITHOUT AIM.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The inventors of the dogma of eternal torments in hell, have made of the
      God whom they call so good, the most detestable of beings. Cruelty in man
      is the last term of corruption. There is no sensitive soul but is moved
      and revolts at the recital alone of the torments which the greatest
      criminal endures; but cruelty merits the greater indignation when we
      consider it gratuitous or without motive. The most sanguinary tyrants,
      Caligula, Nero, Domitian, had at least some motive in tormenting their
      victims and insulting their sufferings; these motives were, either their
      own safety, the fury of revenge, the design to frighten by terrible
      examples, or perhaps the vanity to make parade of their power, and the
      desire to satisfy a barbarous curiosity. Can a God have any of these
      motives? In tormenting the victims of His wrath, He would punish beings
      who could not really endanger His immovable power, nor trouble His
      felicity, which nothing can change. On the other hand, the sufferings of
      the other life would be useless to the living, who can not witness them;
      these torments would be useless to the damned, because in hell is no more
      conversion, and the hour of mercy is passed; from which it follows, that
      God, in the exercise of His eternal vengeance, would have no other aim
      than to amuse Himself and insult the weakness of His creatures. I appeal
      to the whole human race! Is there in nature a man so cruel as to wish in
      cold blood to torment, I do not say his fellow-beings, but any sentient
      being whatever, without fee, without profit, without curiosity, without
      having anything to fear? Conclude, then, O theologians! that according to
      your own principles, your God is infinitely more wicked than the most
      wicked of men. You will tell me, perhaps, that infinite offenses deserve
      infinite chastisements, and I will tell you that we can not offend a God
      whose happiness is infinite. I will tell you further, that offenses of
      finite beings can not be infinite; that a God who does not want to be
      offended, can not consent to make His creatures' offenses last for
      eternity; I will tell you that a God infinitely good, can not be
      infinitely cruel, nor grant His creatures infinite existence solely for
      the pleasure of tormenting them forever.
    </p>
    <p>
      It could have been but the most cruel barbarity, the most notorious
      imposition, but the blindest ambition which could have created the dogma
      of eternal damnation. If there exists a God who could be offended or
      blasphemed, there would not be upon earth any greater blasphemers than
      those who dare to say that this God is perverse enough to take pleasure in
      dooming His feeble creatures to useless torments for all eternity.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXVII.&mdash;THEOLOGY IS BUT A SERIES OF PALPABLE CONTRADICTIONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      To pretend that God can be offended with the actions of men, is to
      annihilate all the ideas that are given to us of this being. To say that
      man can disturb the order of the universe, that he can grasp the lightning
      from God's hand, that he can upset His projects, is to claim that man is
      stronger than his God, that he is the arbiter of His will, that it depends
      on him to change His goodness into cruelty. Theology does nothing but
      destroy with one hand that which it builds with the other. If all religion
      is founded upon a God who becomes angry, and who is appeased, all religion
      is founded upon a palpable contradiction.
    </p>
    <p>
      All religions agree in exalting the wisdom and the infinite power of the
      Divinity; but as soon as they expose His conduct, we discover but
      imprudence, want of foresight, weakness, and folly. God, it is said,
      created the world for Himself; and so far He has not succeeded in making
      Himself properly respected! God has created men in order to have in His
      dominion subjects who would render Him homage; and we continually see men
      revolt against Him!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXVIII.&mdash;THE PRETENDED WORKS OF GOD DO NOT PROVE AT ALL WHAT WE CALL
      DIVINE PERFECTION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are continually told of the Divine perfections; and as soon as we ask
      the proofs of them, we are shown the works in which we are assured that
      these perfections are written in ineffaceable characters. All these works,
      however, are imperfect and perishable; man, who is regarded as the
      masterpiece, as the most marvelous work of Divinity, is full of
      imperfections which render him disagreeable in the eyes of the Almighty
      workman who has formed him; this surprising work becomes often so
      revolting and so odious to its Author, that He feels Himself compelled to
      cast him into the fire. But if the choicest work of Divinity is imperfect,
      by what are we to judge of the Divine perfections? Can a work with which
      the author himself is so little satisfied, cause us to admire his skill?
      Physical man is subject to a thousand infirmities, to countless evils, to
      death; the moral man is full of defects; and yet they exhaust themselves
      by telling us that he is the most beautiful work of the most perfect of
      beings.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXIX.&mdash;THE PERFECTION OF GOD DOES NOT SHOW TO ANY MORE ADVANTAGE IN
      THE PRETENDED CREATION OF ANGELS AND PURE SPIRITS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      It appears that God, in creating more perfect beings than men, did not
      succeed any better, or give stronger proofs of His perfection. Do we not
      see in many religions that angels and pure spirits revolted against their
      Master, and even attempted to expel Him from His throne? God intended the
      happiness of angels and of men, and He has never succeeded in rendering
      happy either angels or men; pride, malice, sins, the imperfections of His
      creatures, have always been opposed to the wishes of the perfect Creator.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXX.&mdash;THEOLOGY PREACHES THE OMNIPOTENCE OF ITS GOD, AND CONTINUALLY
      SHOWS HIM IMPOTENT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      All religion is visibly founded upon the principle that "God proposes and
      man disposes." All the theologies of the world show us an unequal combat
      between Divinity on the one side, and His creatures on the other. God
      never relies on His honor; in spite of His almighty power, He could not
      succeed in making the works of His hands as He would like them to be. To
      complete the absurdity, there is a religion which pretends that God
      Himself died to redeem the human race; and, in spite of His death, men are
      not in the least as this God would desire them to be!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXI.&mdash;ACCORDING TO ALL THE RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE EARTH, GOD WOULD
      BE THE MOST CAPRICIOUS AND THE MOST INSENSATE OF BEINGS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Nothing could be more extravagant than the role which in every country
      theology makes Divinity play. If the thing was real, we would be obliged
      to see in it the most capricious and the most insane of beings; one would
      be obliged to believe that God made the world to be the theater of
      dishonoring wars with His creatures; that He created angels, men, demons,
      wicked spirits, but as adversaries, against whom He could exercise His
      power. He gives them liberty to offend Him, makes them wicked enough to
      upset His projects, obstinate enough to never give up: all for the
      pleasure of getting angry, and being appeased, of reconciling Himself, and
      of repairing the confusion they have made. Had Divinity formed at once His
      creatures such as they ought to be in order to please Him, what trouble He
      might have spared Himself! or, at least, how much embarrassment He might
      have saved to His theologians! According to all the religious systems of
      the earth, God seems to be occupied but in doing Himself injury; He does
      it as those charlatans do who wound themselves, in order to have occasion
      to show the public the value of their ointments. We do not see, however,
      that so far Divinity has been able to radically cure itself of the evil
      which is caused by men.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXII.&mdash;IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT EVIL DOES NOT COME FROM GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      God is the author of all; still we are assured that evil does not come
      from God. Whence, then, does it come? From men? But who has made men? It
      is God: then that evil comes from God. If He had not made men as they are,
      moral evil or sin would not exist in the world. We must blame God, then,
      that man is so perverse. If man has the power to do wrong or to offend
      God, we must conclude that God wishes to be offended; that God, who has
      created man, resolved that evil should be done by him: without this, man
      would be an effect contrary to the cause from which he derives his being.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXIII.&mdash;THE FORESIGHT ATTRIBUTED TO GOD, WOULD GIVE TO GUILTY MEN
      WHOM HE PUNISHES, THE RIGHT TO COMPLAIN OF HIS CRUELTY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The faculty of foresight, or the ability to know in advance all which is
      to happen in the world, is attributed to God. But this foresight can
      scarcely belong to His glory, nor spare Him the reproaches which men could
      legitimately heap upon Him. If God had the foresight of the future, did He
      not foresee the fall of His creatures whom He had destined to happiness?
      If He resolved in His decrees to allow this fall, there is no doubt that
      He desired it to take place: otherwise it would not have happened. If the
      Divine foresight of the sin of His creatures had been necessary or forced,
      it might be supposed that God was compelled by His justice to punish the
      guilty; but God, enjoying the faculty of foresight and the power to
      predestinate everything, would it not depend upon Himself not to impose
      upon men these cruel laws? Or, at least, could He not have dispensed with
      creating beings whom He might be compelled to punish and to render unhappy
      by a subsequent decree? What does it matter whether God destined men to
      happiness or to misery by a previous decree, the effect of His foresight,
      or by a subsequent decree, the effect of His justice. Does the arrangement
      of these decrees change the fate of the miserable? Would they not have the
      right to complain of a God who, having the power of leaving them in
      oblivion, brought them forth, although He foresaw very well that His
      justice would force Him sooner or later to punish them?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXIV.&mdash;ABSURDITY OF THE THEOLOGICAL FABLES UPON ORIGINAL SIN AND
      UPON SATAN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Man, say you, issuing from the hands of God, was pure, innocent, and good;
      but his nature became corrupted in consequence of sin. If man could sin,
      when just leaving the hands of God, his nature was then not perfect! Why
      did God permit him to sin, and his nature to become corrupt? Why did God
      allow him to be seduced, knowing well that he would be too weak to resist
      the tempter? Why did God create a Satan, a malicious spirit, a tempter?
      Why did not God, who was so desirous of doing good to mankind, why did He
      not annihilate, once for all, so many evil genii whose nature rendered
      them enemies of our happiness? Or rather, why did God create evil spirits,
      whose victories and terrible influences upon the human race He must have
      foreseen? Finally, by what fatality, in all the religions of the world,
      has the evil principle such a marked advantage over the good principle or
      over Divinity?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXV.&mdash;THE DEVIL, LIKE RELIGION, WAS INVENTED TO ENRICH THE PRIESTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are told a story of the simple-heartedness of an Italian monk, which
      does him honor. This good man preaching one day felt obliged to announce
      to his auditory that, thanks to Heaven, he had at last discovered a sure
      means of rendering all men happy. "The devil," said he, "tempts men but to
      have them as comrades of his misery in hell. Let us address ourselves,
      then, to the Pope, who possesses the keys of paradise and of hell; let us
      ask him to beseech God, at the head of the whole Church, to reconcile
      Himself with the devil; to take him back into His favor; to re-establish
      him in His first rank. This can not fail to put an end to his sinister
      projects against mankind." The good monk did not see, perhaps, that the
      devil is at least fully as useful as God to the ministers of religion.
      These reap too many benefits from their differences to lend themselves
      willingly to a reconciliation between the two enemies ties, upon whose
      contests their existence and their revenues depend. If men would cease to
      be tempted and to sin, the ministry of priests would become useless to
      them. Manicheism is evidently the support of all religions; but
      unfortunately the devil, being invented to remove all suspicion of malice
      from Divinity, proves to us at every moment the powerlessness or the
      awkwardness of his celestial Adversary.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXVI.&mdash;IF GOD COULD NOT RENDER HUMAN NATURE SINLESS, HE HAS NO RIGHT
      TO PUNISH MAN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Man's nature, it is said, must necessarily become corrupt. God could not
      endow him with sinlessness, which is an inalienable portion of Divine
      perfection. But if God could not render him sinless, why did He take the
      trouble of creating man, whose nature was to become corrupt, and which,
      consequently, had to offend God? On the other side, if God Himself was not
      able to render human nature sinless, what right had He to punish men for
      not being sinless? It is but by the right of might. But the right of the
      strongest is violence; and violence is not suited to the most Just of
      Beings. God would be supremely unjust if He punished men for not having a
      portion of the Divine perfections, or for not being able to be Gods like
      Himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Could not God have at least endowed men with that sort of perfection of
      which their nature is susceptible? If some men are good or render
      themselves agreeable to their God, why did not this God bestow the same
      favor or give the same dispositions to all beings of our kind? Why does
      the number of wicked exceed so greatly the number of good people? Why, for
      every friend, does God find ten thousand enemies in a world which depended
      upon Him alone to people with honest men? If it is true that God intends
      to form in heaven a court of saints, of chosen ones, or of men who have
      lived in this world according to His views, would He not have had a court
      more numerous, more brilliant, and more honorable to Him, if it were
      composed of all the men to whom, in creating them, He could have granted
      the degree of goodness necessary to obtain eternal happiness? Finally,
      were it not easier not to take man from nothingness than to create him
      full of defects, rebellious to his Creator, perpetually exposed to lose
      himself by a fatal abuse of his liberty? Instead of creating men, a
      perfect God ought to have created only docile and submissive angels. The
      angels, it is said, are free; a few among them have sinned; but all of
      them have not sinned; all have not abused their liberty by revolting
      against their Master. Could not God have created only angels of the good
      kind? If God could create angels who have not sinned, could He not create
      men sinless, or those who would never abuse their liberty by doing evil.
      If the chosen ones are incapable of sinning in heaven, could not God have
      made sinless men upon the earth?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXVII.&mdash;IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT GOD'S CONDUCT MUST BE A MYSTERY TO
      MAN, AND THAT HE HAS NO RIGHT TO EXAMINE AND JUDGE IT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are told that the enormous distance which separates God from men, makes
      God's conduct necessarily a mystery for us, and that we have no right to
      interrogate our Master. Is this statement satisfactory? But according to
      you, when my eternal happiness is involved, have I not the right to
      examine God's own conduct? It is but with the hope of happiness that men
      submit to the empire of a God. A despot to whom men are subjected but
      through fear, a master whom they can not interrogate, a totally
      inaccessible sovereign, can not merit the homage of intelligent beings. If
      God's conduct is a mystery to me, it is not made for me. Man can not
      adore, admire, respect, or imitate a conduct of which everything is
      impossible to conceive, or of which he can not form any but revolting
      ideas; unless it is pretended that he should worship all the things of
      which he is forced to be ignorant, and then all that he does not
      understand becomes admirable.
    </p>
    <p>
      Priests! you teach us that the designs of God are impenetrable; that His
      ways are not our ways; that His thoughts are not our thoughts; that it is
      folly to complain of His administration, whose motives and secret ways are
      entirely unknown to us; that there is temerity in accusing Him of unjust
      judgments, because they are incomprehensible to us. But do you not see
      that by speaking in this manner, you destroy with your own hands all your
      profound systems which have no design but to explain the ways of Divinity
      that you call impenetrable? These judgments, these ways, and these
      designs, have you penetrated them? You dare not say so; and, although you
      season incessantly, you do not understand them more than we do. If by
      chance you know the plan of God, which you tell us to admire, while there
      are many people who find it so little worthy of a just, good, intelligent,
      and rational being; do not say that this plan is impenetrable. If you are
      as ignorant as we, have some indulgence for those who ingenuously confess
      that they comprehend nothing of it, or that they see nothing in it Divine.
      Cease to persecute for opinions which you do not understand yourselves;
      cease to slander each other for dreams and conjectures which are
      altogether contradictory; speak to us of intelligible and truly useful
      things; and no longer tell us of the impenetrable ways of a God, about
      which you do nothing but stammer and contradict yourselves.
    </p>
    <p>
      In speaking to us incessantly of the immense depths of Divine wisdom, in
      forbidding us to fathom these depths by telling us that it is insolence to
      call God to the tribunal of our humble reason, in making it a crime to
      judge our Master, the theologians only confess the embarrassment in which
      they find themselves as soon as they have to render account of the conduct
      of a God, which they tell us is marvelous, only because it is totally
      impossible for them to understand it themselves.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXVIII.&mdash;IT IS ABSURD TO CALL HIM A GOD OF JUSTICE AND GOODNESS, WHO
      INFLICTS EVIL INDISCRIMINATELY ON THE GOOD AND THE WICKED, UPON THE
      INNOCENT AND THE GUILTY; IT IS IDLE TO DEMAND THAT THE UNFORTUNATE SHOULD
      CONSOLE THEMSELVES FOR THEIR MISFORTUNES, IN THE VERY ARMS OF THE ONE WHO
      ALONE IS THE AUTHOR OF THEM.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Physical evil commonly passes as the punishment of sin. Calamities,
      diseases, famines, wars, earthquakes, are the means which God employs to
      chastise perverse men. Therefore, they have no difficulty in attributing
      these evils to the severity of a just and good God. However, do we not see
      these plagues fall indiscriminately upon the good and the wicked, upon the
      impious and the pious, upon the innocent and the guilty? How can we be
      made to admire, in this proceeding, the justice and the goodness of a
      being, the idea of whom appears so consoling to the unfortunate? Doubtless
      the brain of these unfortunate ones has been disturbed by their
      misfortunes, since they forget that God is the arbiter of things, the sole
      dispenser of the events of this world. In this case ought they not to
      blame Him for the evils for which they would find consolation in His arms?
      Unfortunate father! you console yourself in the bosom of Providence for
      the loss of a cherished child or of a wife, who made your happiness! Alas!
      do you not see that your God has killed them? Your God has rendered you
      miserable; and you want Him to console you for the fearful blows He has
      inflicted upon you.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fantastic and supernatural notions of theology have succeeded so
      thoroughly in overcoming the simplest, the clearest, the most natural
      ideas of the human spirit, that the pious, incapable of accusing God of
      malice, accustom themselves to look upon these sad afflictions as
      indubitable proofs of celestial goodness. Are they in affliction, they are
      told to believe that God loves them, that God visits them, that God wishes
      to try them. Thus it is that religion changes evil into good! Some one has
      said profanely, but with reason: "If the good God treats thus those whom
      He loves, I beseech Him very earnestly not to think of me." Men must have
      formed very sinister and very cruel ideas of their God whom they call so
      good, in order to persuade themselves that the most frightful calamities
      and the most painful afflictions are signs of His favor! Would a wicked
      Genii or a Devil be more ingenious in tormenting his enemies, than
      sometimes is this God of goodness, who is so often occupied with
      inflicting His chastisements upon His dearest friends?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXIX.&mdash;A GOD WHO PUNISHES THE FAULTS WHICH HE COULD HAVE PREVENTED,
      IS A FOOL, WHO ADDS INJUSTICE TO FOOLISHNESS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      What would we say or a father who, we are assured, watches without
      relaxation over the welfare of his feeble and unforeseeing children, and
      who, however, would leave them at liberty to go astray in the midst of
      rocks, precipices, and waters; who would prevent them but rarely from
      following their disordered appetites; who would permit them to handle,
      without precaution, deadly arms, at the risk of wounding themselves
      severely? What would we think of this same father, if, instead of blaming
      himself for the harm which would have happened to his poor children, he
      should punish them for their faults in the most cruel way? We would say,
      with reason, that this father is a fool, who joins injustice to
      foolishness. A God who punishes the faults which He could have prevented,
      is a being who lacks wisdom, goodness, and equity. A God of foresight
      would prevent evil, and in this way would be saved the trouble of
      punishing it. A good God would not punish weaknesses which He knows to be
      inherent in human nature. A just God, if He has made man, would not punish
      him for not being strong enough to resist his desires. To punish weakness,
      is the most unjust tyranny. Is it not calumniating a just God, to say that
      He punishes men for their faults, even in the present life? How would He
      punish beings whom He alone could correct, and who, as long as they had
      not received grace, can not act otherwise than they do?
    </p>
    <p>
      According to the principles of theologians themselves, man, in his actual
      state of corruption, can do nothing but evil, for without Divine grace he
      has not the strength to do good. Moreover, if man's nature, abandoned to
      itself, of destitute of Divine help, inclines him necessarily to evil, or
      renders him incapable of doing good, what becomes of his free will?
      According to such principles, man can merit neither reward nor punishment;
      in rewarding man for the good he does, God would but recompense Himself;
      in punishing man for the evil he does, God punishes him for not having
      been given the grace, without which it was impossible for him to do
      better.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXX.&mdash;FREE WILL IS AN IDLE FANCY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Theologians tell and repeat to us that man is free, while all their
      teachings conspire to destroy his liberty. Trying to justify Divinity,
      they accuse him really of the blackest injustice. They suppose that,
      without grace, man is compelled to do evil: and they maintain that God
      will punish him for not having been given the grace to do good! With a
      little reflection, we will be obliged to see that man in all things acts
      by compulsion, and that his free will is a chimera, even according to the
      theological system. Does it depend upon man whether or not he shall be
      born of such or such parents? Does it depend upon man to accept or not to
      accept the opinions of his parents and of his teachers? If I were born of
      idolatrous or Mohammedan parents, would it have depended upon me to become
      a Christian? However, grave Doctors of Divinity assure us that a just God
      will damn without mercy all those to whom He has not given the grace to
      know the religion of the Christians.
    </p>
    <p>
      Man's birth does not depend upon his choice; he was not asked if he would
      or would not come into the world; nature did not consult him upon the
      country and the parents that she gave him; the ideas he acquired, his
      opinions, his true or false notions are the necessary fruits of the
      education which he has received, and of which he has not been the master;
      his passions and his desires are the necessary results of the temperament
      which nature has given him, and of the ideas with which he has been
      inspired; during the whole course of his life, his wishes and his actions
      are determined by his surroundings, his habits, his occupations, his
      pleasures, his conversations, and by the thoughts which present themselves
      involuntarily to him; in short, by a multitude of events and accidents
      which are beyond his control. Incapable of foreseeing the future, he knows
      neither what he will wish, nor what he will do in the time which must
      immediately follow the present. Man passes his life, from the moment of
      his birth to that of his death, without having been free one instant. Man,
      you say, wishes, deliberates, chooses, determines; hence you conclude that
      his actions are free. It is true that man intends, but he is not master of
      his will or of his desires. He can desire and wish only what he judges
      advantageous for himself; he can not love pain nor detest pleasure. Man,
      it will be said, sometimes prefers pain to pleasure; but then, he prefers
      a passing pain in the hope of procuring a greater and more durable
      pleasure. In this case, the idea of a greater good determines him to
      deprive himself of one less desirable.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not the lover who gives to his mistress the features by which he is
      enchanted; he is not then the master to love or not to love the object of
      his tenderness; he is not the master of the imagination or the temperament
      which dominates him; from which it follows, evidently, that man is not the
      master of the wishes and desires which rise in his soul, independently of
      him. But man, say you, can resist his desires; then he is free. Man
      resists his desires when the motives which turn him from an object are
      stronger than those which draw him toward it; but then, his resistance is
      necessary. A man who fears dishonor and punishment more than he loves
      money, resists necessarily the desire to take possession of another's
      money. Are we not free when we deliberate?&mdash;but has one the power to
      know or not to know, to be uncertain or to be assured? Deliberation is the
      necessary effect of the uncertainty in which we find ourselves with
      reference to the results of our actions. As soon as we believe ourselves
      certain of these results, we necessarily decide; and then we act
      necessarily according as we shall have judged right or wrong. Our
      judgments, true or false, are not free; they are necessarily determined by
      ideas which we have received, or which our mind has formed. Man is not
      free in his choice; he is evidently compelled to choose what he judges the
      most useful or the most agreeable for himself. When he suspends his
      choice, he is not more free; he is forced to suspend it till he knows or
      believes he knows the qualities of the objects presented to him, or until
      he has weighed the consequence of his actions. Man, you will say, decides
      every moment on actions which he knows will endanger him; man kills
      himself sometimes, then he is free. I deny it! Has man the ability to
      reason correctly or incorrectly? Do not his reason and his wisdom depend
      either upon opinions that he has formed, or upon his mental constitution?
      As neither the one nor the other depends upon his will, they can not in
      any wise prove his liberty.
    </p>
    <p>
      If I make the wager to do or not to do a thing, am I not free? Does it not
      depend upon me to do or not to do it? No; I will answer you, the desire to
      win the wager will necessarily determine you to do or not to do the thing
      in question. "But if I consent to lose the wager?" Then the desire to
      prove to me that you are free will have become to you a stronger motive
      than the desire to win the wager; and this motive will necessarily have
      determined you to do or not to do what was understood between us. But you
      will say, "I feel myself free." It is an illusion which may be compared to
      that of the fly in the fable, which, lighting on the shaft of a heavy
      wagon, applauded itself as driver of the vehicle which carried it. Man who
      believes himself free, is a fly who believes himself the master-motor in
      the machine of the universe, while he himself, without his own volition,
      is carried on by it. The feeling which makes us believe that we are free
      to do or not to do a thing, is but a pure illusion. When we come to the
      veritable principle of our actions, we will find that they are nothing but
      the necessary results of our wills and of our desires, which are never
      within our power. You believe yourselves free because you do as you
      choose; but are you really free to will or not to will, to desire or not
      to desire? Your wills and your desires, are they not necessarily excited
      by objects or by qualities which do not depend upon you at all?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXXI.&mdash;WE SHOULD NOT CONCLUDE FROM THIS THAT SOCIETY HAS NOT THE
      RIGHT TO CHASTISE THE WICKED.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If the actions of men are necessary, if men are not free, what right has
      society to punish the wicked who infest it? Is it not very unjust to
      chastise beings who could not act otherwise than they did? If the wicked
      act from the impulse of their corrupt nature, society in punishing them
      acts necessarily on its side from the desire to preserve itself. Certain
      objects produce in us the feeling of pain; therefore our nature compels us
      to hate them, and incites us to remove them. A tiger pressed by hunger,
      attacks the man whom he wishes to devour; but the man is not the master of
      his fear of the tiger, and seeks necessarily the means of exterminating
      it.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXXII.&mdash;REFUTATION OF THE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF FREE WILL.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If everything is necessary, if errors, opinions, and ideas of men are
      fated, how or why can we pretend to reform them? The errors of men are the
      necessary results of their ignorance; their ignorance, their obstinacy,
      their credulity, are the necessary results of their inexperience, of their
      indifference, of their lack of reflection; the same as congestion of the
      brain or lethargy are the natural effects of some diseases. Truth,
      experience, reflection, reason, are the proper remedies to cure ignorance,
      fanaticism, and follies; the same as bleeding is good to soothe congestion
      of the brain. But you will say, why does not truth produce this effect
      upon many of the sick heads? There are some diseases which resist all
      remedies; it is impossible to cure obstinate patients who refuse to take
      the remedies which are given them; the interest of some men and the folly
      of others naturally oppose them to the admission of truth. A cause
      produces its effect only when it is not interrupted in its action by other
      causes which are stronger, or which weaken the action of the first cause
      or render it useless. It is entirely impossible to have the best arguments
      accepted by men who are strongly interested in error; who are prejudiced
      in its favor; who refuse to reflect; but it must necessarily be that truth
      undeceives the honest souls who seek it in good faith. Truth is a cause;
      it produces necessarily its effect when its impulse is not interrupted by
      causes which suspend its effects.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXXIII.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      To take away from man his free will, is, we are told, to make of him a
      pure machine, an automaton without liberty; there would exist in him
      neither merit nor virtue What is merit in man?
    </p>
    <p>
      It is a certain manner of acting which renders him estimable in the eyes
      of his fellow beings. What is virtue? It is the disposition that causes us
      to do good to others. What can there be contemptible in automatic machines
      capable of producing such desirable effects? Marcus Aurelius was a very
      useful spring to the vast machine of the Roman Empire. By what right will
      a machine despise another machine, whose springs would facilitate its own
      play? Good people are springs which assist society in its tendency to
      happiness; wicked men are badly-formed springs, which disturb the order,
      the progress, and harmony of society. If for its own interests society
      loves and rewards the good, she hates, despises, and removes the wicked,
      as useless or dangerous motors.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXXIV.&mdash;GOD HIMSELF, IF THERE WAS A GOD, WOULD NOT BE FREE; HENCE
      THE USELESSNESS OF ALL RELIGION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The world is a necessary agent; all the beings which compose it are united
      to each other, and can not do otherwise than they do, so long as they are
      moved by the same causes and possessed of the same qualities. If they lose
      these qualities, they will act necessarily in a different way. God Himself
      (admitting His existence a moment) can not be regarded as a free agent; if
      there existed a God, His manner of acting would necessarily be determined
      by the qualities inherent in His nature; nothing would be able to alter or
      to oppose His wishes. This considered, neither our actions nor our prayers
      nor our sacrifices could suspend or change His invariable progress and His
      immutable designs, from which we are compelled to conclude that all
      religion would be entirely useless.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXXV.&mdash;EVEN ACCORDING TO THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES, MAN IS NOT FREE ONE
      INSTANT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If theologians were not constantly contradicting each other, they would
      know, from their own hypotheses, that man can not be called free for an
      instant. Is not man supposed to be in a continual dependence upon God? Is
      one free, when one could not have existed or can not live without God, and
      when one ceases to exist at the pleasure of His supreme will? If God
      created man of nothing, if the preservation of man is a continual
      creation, if God can not lose sight of His creature for an instant, if all
      that happens to him is a result of the Divine will, if man is nothing of
      himself, if all the events which he experiences are the effects of Divine
      decrees, if he can not do any good without assistance from above, how can
      it be pretended that man enjoys liberty during one moment of his life? If
      God did not save him in the moment when he sins, how could man sin? If God
      preserves him, God, therefore, forces him to live in order to sin.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXXVI.&mdash;ALL EVIL, ALL DISORDER, ALL SIN, CAN BE ATTRIBUTED BUT TO
      GOD; AND CONSEQUENTLY, HE HAS NO RIGHT TO PUNISH OR REWARD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Divinity is continually compared to a king, the majority of whose subjects
      revolt against Him and it is pretended that He has the right to reward His
      faithful subjects, and to punish those who revolt against Him. This
      comparison is not just in any of its parts. God presides over a machine,
      of which He has made all the springs; these springs act according to the
      way in which God has formed them; it is the fault of His inaptitude if
      these springs do not contribute to the harmony of the machine in which the
      workman desired to place them. God is a creating King, who created all
      kinds of subjects for Himself; who formed them according to His pleasure,
      and whose wishes can never find any resistance. If God in His empire has
      rebellious subjects, it is God who resolved to have rebellious subjects.
      If the sins of men disturb the order of the world, it is God who desired
      this order to be disturbed. Nobody dares to doubt Divine justice; however,
      under the empire of a just God, we find nothing but injustice and
      violence. Power decides the fate of nations. Equity seems to be banished
      from the earth; a small number of men enjoy with impunity the repose, the
      fortunes, the liberty, and the life of all the others. Everything is in
      disorder in a world governed by a God of whom it is said that disorder
      displeases Him exceedingly.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXXVII.&mdash;MEN'S PRAYERS TO GOD PROVE SUFFICIENTLY THAT THEY ARE NOT
      SATISFIED WITH THE DIVINE ECONOMY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Although men incessantly admire the wisdom the goodness, the justice, the
      beautiful order of Providence, they are, in fact, never contented with it.
      The prayers which they continually offer to Heaven, prove to us that they
      are not at all satisfied with God's administration. Praying to God, asking
      a favor of Him, is to mistrust His vigilant care; to pray God to avert or
      to suppress an evil, is to endeavor to put obstacles in the way of His
      justice; to implore the assistance of God in our calamities, means to
      appeal to the very author of these calamities in order to represent to Him
      our welfare; that He ought to rectify in our favor His plan, which is not
      beneficial to our interests. The optimist, or the one who thinks that
      everything is good in the world, and who repeats to us incessantly that we
      live in the best world possible, if he were consistent, ought never to
      pray; still less should he expect another world where men will be happier.
      Can there be a better world than the best possible of all worlds? Some of
      the theologians have treated the optimists as impious for having claimed
      that God could not have made a better world than the one in which we live;
      according to these doctors it is limiting the Divine power and insulting
      it. But do not theologians see that it is less offensive for God, to
      pretend that He did His best in creating the world, than to say that He,
      having the power to produce a better one, had the malice to make a very
      bad one? If the optimist, by his system, does wrong to the Divine power,
      the theologian, who treats him as impious, is himself a reprobate, who
      wounds the Divine goodness under pretext of taking interest in God.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXXVIII.&mdash;THE REPARATION OF THE INIQUITIES AND THE MISERIES OF THIS
      WORLD IN ANOTHER WORLD, IS AN IDLE CONJECTURE AND AN ABSURD SUPPOSITION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      When we complain of the evils of which this world is the theater, we are
      referred to another world; we are told that there God will repair all the
      iniquities and the miseries which He permits for a time here below.
      However, if leaving His eternal justice to sleep for a time, God could
      consent to evil during the period of the existence of our globe, what
      assurance have we that during the existence of another globe, Divine
      justice will not likewise sleep during the misfortunes of its inhabitants?
      They console us in our troubles by saying, that God is patient, and that
      His justice, although often very slow, is not the less certain. But do you
      not see, that patience can not be suited to a being just, immutable, and
      omnipotent? Can God tolerate injustice for an instant? To temporize with
      an evil that one knows of, evinces either uncertainty, weakness, or
      collusion; to tolerate evil which one has the power to prevent, is to
      consent that evil should be committed.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      LXXXIX.&mdash;THEOLOGY JUSTIFIES THE EVIL AND INJUSTICE PERMITTED BY ITS
      GOD, ONLY BY CONCEDING TO THIS GOD THE RIGHT OF THE STRONGEST, THAT IS TO
      SAY, THE VIOLATION OF ALL RIGHTS, OR IN COMMANDING FROM MEN A STUPID
      DEVOTION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      I hear a multitude of theologians tell me on all sides, that God is
      infinitely just, but that His justice is not that of men! Of what kind, or
      of what nature is this Divine justice then? What idea can I form of a
      justice which so often resembles human injustice? Is it not confounding
      all our ideas of justice and of injustice, to tell us that what is
      equitable in God is iniquitous in His creatures? How can we take as a
      model a being whose Divine perfections are precisely contrary to human
      perfections? God, you say, is the sovereign arbiter of our destinies; His
      supreme power, that nothing can limit, authorizes Him to do as He pleases
      with His works; a worm, such as man, has not the right to murmur against
      Him. This arrogant tone is literally borrowed from the language which the
      ministers of tyrants hold, when they silence those who suffer by their
      violences; it can not, then, be the language of the ministers of a God of
      whose equity they boast. It can not impose upon a being who reasons.
      Ministers of a just God! I tell you then, that the greatest power is not
      able to confer even upon your God Himself the right to be unjust to the
      vilest of His creatures. A despot is not a God. A God who arrogates to
      Himself the right to do evil, is a tyrant; a tyrant is not a model for
      men. He ought to be an execrable object in their eyes. Is it not strange
      that, in order to justify Divinity, they made of Him the most unjust of
      beings? As soon as we complain of His conduct, they think to silence us by
      claiming that God is the Master; which signifies that God, being the
      strongest, He is not subjected to ordinary rules. But the right of the
      strongest is the violation of all rights; it can pass as a right but in
      the eyes of a savage conqueror, who, in the intoxication of his fury,
      imagines he has the right to do as he pleases with the unfortunate ones
      whom he has conquered; this barbarous right can appear legitimate only to
      slaves, who are blind enough to think that everything is allowed to
      tyrants, who are too strong for them to resist.
    </p>
    <p>
      By a foolish simplicity, or rather by a plain contradiction of terms, do
      we not see devotees exclaim, amidst the greatest calamities, that the good
      Lord is the Master? Well, illogical reasoners, you believe in good faith
      that the good Lord sends you the pestilence; that your good Lord gives
      war; that the good Lord is the cause of famine; in a word, that the good
      Lord, without ceasing to be good, has the will and the right to do you the
      greatest evils you can endure! Cease to call your Lord good when He does
      you harm; do not say that He is just; say that He is the strongest, and
      that it is impossible for you to avert the blows which His caprice
      inflicts upon you. God, you say, punishes us for our highest good; but
      what real benefit can result to a nation in being exterminated by
      contagion, murdered by wars, corrupted by the examples of perverse
      masters, continually pressed by the iron scepter of merciless tyrants,
      subjected to the scourge of a bad government, which often for centuries
      causes nations to suffer its destructive effects? The eyes of faith must
      be strange eyes, if we see by their means any advantage in the most
      dreadful miseries and in the most durable evils, in the vices and follies
      by which our kind is so cruelly afflicted!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XC.&mdash;REDEMPTION, AND THE CONTINUAL EXTERMINATIONS ATTRIBUTED TO
      JEHOVAH IN THE BIBLE, ARE SO MANY ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS INVENTIONS WHICH
      PRESUPPOSE AN UNJUST AND BARBAROUS GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      What strange ideas of the Divine justice must the Christians have who
      believe that their God, with the view of reconciling Himself with mankind,
      guilty without knowledge of the fault of their parents, sacrificed His own
      innocent and sinless Son! What would we say of a king, whose subjects
      having revolted against him, in order to appease himself could find no
      other expedient than to put to death the heir to his crown, who had taken
      no part in the general rebellion? It is, the Christian will say, through
      kindness for His subjects, incapable of satisfying themselves of His
      Divine justice, that God consented to the cruel death of His Son. But the
      kindness of a father to strangers does not give him the right to be unjust
      and cruel to his son. All the qualities that theology gives to its God
      annul each other. The exercise of one of His perfections is always at the
      expense of another.
    </p>
    <p>
      Has the Jew any more rational ideas than the Christian of Divine justice?
      A king, by his pride, kindles the wrath of Heaven. Jehovah sends
      pestilence upon His innocent people; seventy thousand subjects are
      exterminated to expiate the fault of a monarch that the kindness of God
      resolved to spare.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XCI.&mdash;HOW CAN WE DISCOVER A TENDER, GENEROUS, AND EQUITABLE FATHER IN
      A BEING WHO HAS CREATED HIS CHILDREN BUT TO MAKE THEM UNHAPPY?
    </h2>
    <p>
      In spite of the injustice with which all religions are pleased to blacken
      the Divinity, men can not consent to accuse Him of iniquity; they fear
      that He, like the tyrants of this world, will be offended by the truth,
      and redouble the weight of His malice and tyranny upon them. They listen,
      then, to their priests, who tell them that their God is a tender Father;
      that this God is an equitable Monarch, whose object in this world is to
      assure Himself of the love, obedience, and respect of His subjects; who
      gives them the liberty to act, in order to give them occasion to deserve
      His favors and to acquire eternal happiness, which He does not owe them in
      any way. In what way can we recognize the tenderness of a Father who
      created the majority of His children but for the purpose of dragging out a
      life of pain, anxiety, and bitterness upon this earth? Is there any more
      fatal boon than this pretended liberty which, it is said, men can abuse,
      and thereby expose themselves to the risk of eternal misery?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XCII.&mdash;THE LIFE OF MORTALS, ALL WHICH TAKES PLACE HERE BELOW,
      TESTIFIES AGAINST MAN'S LIBERTY AND AGAINST THE JUSTICE AND GOODNESS OF A
      PRETENDED GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In calling mortals into life, what a cruel and dangerous game does the
      Divinity force them to play! Thrust into the world without their wish,
      provided with a temperament of which they are not the masters, animated by
      passions and desires inherent in their nature, exposed to snares which
      they have not the skill to avoid, led away by events which they could
      neither foresee nor prevent, the unfortunate beings are obliged to follow
      a career which conducts them to horrible tortures.
    </p>
    <p>
      Travelers assert that in some part of Asia reigns a sultan full of
      phantasies, and very absolute in his will. By a strange mania this prince
      spends his time sitting before a table, on which are placed six dice and a
      dice-box. One end of the table is covered with a pile of gold, for the
      purpose of exciting the cupidity of the courtiers and of the people by
      whom the sultan is surrounded. He, knowing the weak point of his subjects,
      speaks to them in this way: "Slaves! I wish you well; my aim is to enrich
      you and render you all happy. Do you see these treasures? Well, they are
      for you! try to win them; let each one in turn take this box and these
      dice; whoever shall have the good luck to raffle six, will be master of
      this treasure; but I warn you that he who has not the luck to throw the
      required number, will be precipitated forever into an obscure cell, where
      my justice exacts that he shall be burned by a slow fire." Upon this
      threat of the monarch, they regarded each other in consternation; no one
      willing to take a risk so dangerous. "What!" said the angry sultan, "no
      one wants to play? Oh, this does not suit me! My glory demands that you
      play. You will raffle then; I wish it; obey without replying!" It is well
      to observe that the despot's dice are prepared in such a way, that upon a
      hundred thousand throws there is but one that wins; thus the generous
      monarch has the pleasure to see his prison well filled, and his treasures
      seldom carried away. Mortals! this Sultan is your God; His treasures are
      heaven; His cell is hell; and you hold the dice!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XCIII.&mdash;IT IS NOT TRUE THAT WE OWE ANY GRATITUDE TO WHAT WE CALL
      PROVIDENCE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are constantly told that we owe an infinite gratitude to Providence for
      the countless blessings It is pleased to lavish upon us. They boast above
      all that our existence is a blessing. But, alas! how many mortals are
      really satisfied with their mode of existence? If life has its sweets, how
      much of bitterness is mingled with it? Is not one bitter trouble
      sufficient to blight all of a sudden the most peaceful and happy life? Is
      there a great number of men who, if it depended upon them, would wish to
      begin, at the same sacrifice, the painful career into which, without their
      consent, destiny has thrown them? You say that existence itself is a great
      blessing. But is not this existence continually troubled by griefs, fears,
      and often cruel and undeserved maladies. This existence, menaced on so
      many sides, can we not be deprived of it at any moment? Who is there,
      after having lived for some time, who has not been deprived of a beloved
      wife, a beloved child, a consoling friend, whose loss fills his mind
      constantly? There are very few mortals who have not been compelled to
      drink from the cup of bitterness; there are but few who have not often
      wished to die. Finally, it did not depend upon us to exist or not to
      exist. Would the bird be under such great obligations to the bird-catcher
      for having caught it in his net and for having put it into his cage, in
      order to eat it after being amused with it?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XCIV.&mdash;TO PRETEND THAT MAN IS THE BELOVED CHILD OF PROVIDENCE, GOD'S
      FAVORITE, THE ONLY OBJECT OF HIS LABORS, THE KING OF NATURE, IS FOLLY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In spite of the infirmities, the troubles, the miseries to which man is
      compelled to submit in this world; in spite of the danger which his
      alarmed imagination creates in regard to another, he is still foolish
      enough to believe himself to be God's favorite, the only aim of all His
      works. He imagines that the entire universe was made for him; he calls
      himself arrogantly the king of nature, and ranks himself far above other
      animals. Poor mortal! upon what can you establish your high pretensions?
      It is, you say, upon your soul, upon your reason, upon your sublime
      faculties, which place you in a condition to exercise an absolute
      authority over the beings which surround you. But weak sovereign of this
      world, art thou sure one instant of the duration of thy reign? The least
      atoms of matter which you despise, are they not sufficient to deprive you
      of your throne and life? Finally, does not the king of animals terminate
      always by becoming food for the worms?
    </p>
    <p>
      You speak of your soul. But do you know what your soul is? Do you not see
      that this soul is but the assemblage of your organs, from which life
      results? Would you refuse a soul to other animals who live, who think, who
      judge, who compare, who seek pleasure, and avoid pain even as you do, and
      who often possess organs which are better than your own? You boast of your
      intellectual faculties, but these faculties which render you so proud, do
      they make you any happier than other creatures? Do you often make use of
      this reason which you glory in, and which religion commands you not to
      listen to? Those animals which you disdain because they are weaker or less
      cunning than yourself, are they subject to troubles, to mental anxieties,
      to a thousand frivolous passions, to a thousand imaginary needs, of which
      your heart is continually the prey? Are they, like you, tormented by the
      past, alarmed for the future?
    </p>
    <p>
      Limited solely to the present, what you call their instinct, and what I
      call their intelligence, is it not sufficient to preserve and to defend
      them and to provide for their needs? This instinct, of which you speak
      with disdain, does it not often serve them much better than your wonderful
      faculties? Their peaceable ignorance, is it not more advantageous than
      these extravagant meditations and these futile investigations which render
      you miserable, and for which you are driven to murdering beings of your
      own noble kind? Finally, these animals, have they, like mortals, a
      troubled imagination which makes them fear not only death, but even
      eternal torments? Augustus, having heard that Herod, king of Judea, had
      murdered his sons, cried out: "It would be better to be Herod's pig than
      his son!" We can say as much of men; this beloved child of Providence runs
      much greater risks than all other animals. After having suffered a great
      deal in this world, do we not believe ourselves in danger of suffering for
      eternity in another?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XCV.&mdash;COMPARISON BETWEEN MAN AND ANIMALS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      What is the exact line of demarcation between man and the other animals
      which he calls brutes? In what way does he essentially differ from the
      beasts? It is, we are told, by his intelligence, by the faculties of his
      mind, by his reason, that man is superior to all the other animals, which
      in all they do, act but by physical impulsions, reason taking no part. But
      the beasts, having more limited needs than men, do very well without these
      intellectual faculties, which would be perfectly useless in their way of
      living. Their instinct is sufficient for them, while all the faculties of
      man are hardly sufficient to render his existence endurable, and to
      satisfy the needs which his imagination, his prejudices, and his
      institutions multiply to his torment.
    </p>
    <p>
      The brute is not affected by the same objects as man; it has neither the
      same needs, nor the same desires, nor the same whims; it early reaches
      maturity, while nothing is more rare than to see the human being enjoying
      all of his faculties, exercising them freely, and making a proper use of
      them for his own happiness.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XCVI.&mdash;THERE ARE NO MORE DETESTABLE ANIMALS IN THIS WORLD THAN
      TYRANTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are assured that the human soul is a simple substance; but if the soul
      is such a simple substance, it ought to be the same in all the individuals
      of the human race, who all ought to have the same intellectual faculties;
      however, this is not the case; men differ as much in qualities of mind as
      in the features of the face. There are in the human race, beings as
      different from one another as man is from a horse or a dog. What
      conformity or resemblance do we find between some men? What an infinite
      distance between the genius of a Locke, of a Newton, and that of a
      peasant, of a Hottentot, or of a Laplander!
    </p>
    <p>
      Man differs from other animals but by the difference of his organization,
      which causes him to produce effects of which they are not capable. The
      variety which we notice in the organs of individuals of the human race,
      suffices to explain to us the difference which is often found between them
      in regard to the intellectual faculties. More or less of delicacy in these
      organs, of heat in the blood, of promptitude in the fluids, more or less
      of suppleness or of rigidity in the fibers and the nerves, must
      necessarily produce the infinite diversities which are noticeable in the
      minds of men. It is by exercise, by habitude, by education, that the human
      mind is developed and succeeds in rising above the beings which surround
      it; man, without culture and without experience, is a being as devoid of
      reason and of industry as the brute. A stupid individual is a man whose
      organs are acted upon with difficulty, whose brain is hard to move, whose
      blood circulates slowly; a man of mind is he whose organs are supple, who
      feels very quickly, whose brain moves promptly; a learned man is one whose
      organs and whose brain have been exercised a long while upon objects which
      occupy him.
    </p>
    <p>
      The man without culture, experience, or reason, is he not more despicable
      and more abominable than the vilest insects, or the most ferocious beasts?
      Is there a more detestable being in nature than a Tiberius, a Nero, a
      Caligula? These destroyers of the human race, known by the name of
      conquerors, have they better souls than those of bears, lions, and
      panthers? Are there more detestable animals in this world than tyrants?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XCVII.&mdash;REFUTATION OF MAN'S EXCELLENCE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Human extravagances soon dispel, in the eyes of reason, the superiority
      which man arrogantly claims over other animals. Do we not see many animals
      show more gentleness, more reflection and reason than the animal which
      calls itself reasonable par excellence? Are there amongst men, who are so
      often enslaved and oppressed, societies as well organized as those of
      ants, bees, or beavers? Do we ever see ferocious beasts of the same kind
      meet upon the plains to devour each other without profit? Do we see among
      them religious wars? The cruelty of beasts against other species is caused
      by hunger, the need of nourishment; the cruelty of man against man has no
      other motive than the vanity of his masters and the folly of his
      impertinent prejudices. Theorists who try to make us believe that
      everything in the universe was made for man, are very much embarrassed
      when we ask them in what way can so many mischievous animals which
      continually infest our life here, contribute to the welfare of men. What
      known advantage results for God's friend to be bitten by a viper, stung by
      a gnat, devoured by vermin, torn into pieces by a tiger? Would not all
      these animals reason as wisely as our theologians, if they should pretend
      that man was made for them?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XCVIII.&mdash;AN ORIENTAL LEGEND.
    </h2>
    <p>
      At a short distance from Bagdad a dervis, celebrated for his holiness,
      passed his days tranquilly in agreeable solitude. The surrounding
      inhabitants, in order to have an interest in his prayers, eagerly brought
      to him every day provisions and presents. The holy man thanked God
      incessantly for the blessings Providence heaped upon him. "O Allah," said
      he, "how ineffable is Thy tenderness toward Thy servants. What have I done
      to deserve the benefactions which Thy liberality loads me with! Oh,
      Monarch of the skies! oh, Father of nature! what praises could be worthy
      to celebrate Thy munificence and Thy paternal cares! O Allah, how great
      are Thy gifts to the children of men!" Filled with gratitude, our hermit
      made a vow to undertake for the seventh time the pilgrimage to Mecca. The
      war, which then existed between the Persians and the Turks, could not make
      him defer the execution of his pious enterprise. Full of confidence in
      God, he began his journey; under the inviolable safeguard of a respected
      garb, he passed through without obstacle the enemies' detachments; far
      from being molested, he receives at every step marks of veneration from
      the soldiers of both sides. At last, overcome by fatigue, he finds himself
      obliged to seek a shelter from the rays of the burning sun; he finds it
      beneath a fresh group of palm-trees, whose roots were watered by a limpid
      rivulet. In this solitary place, where the silence was broken only by the
      murmuring of the waters and the singing of the birds, the man of God found
      not only an enchanting retreat, but also a delicious repast; he had but to
      extend the hand to gather dates and other agreeable fruits; the rivulet
      can appease his thirst; very soon a green plot invites him to take sweet
      repose. As he awakens he performs the holy cleansing; and in a transport
      of ecstasy, he exclaimed: "O Allah! HOW GREAT IS THY GOODNESS TO THE
      CHILDREN OF MEN!" Well rested, refreshed, full of life and gayety, our
      holy man continues on his road; it conducts him for some time through a
      delightful country, which offers to his sight but blooming shores and
      trees filled with fruit. Softened by this spectacle, he worships
      incessantly the rich and liberal hand of Providence, which is everywhere
      seen occupied with the welfare of the human race. Going a little farther,
      he comes across a few mountains, which were quite hard to ascend; but
      having arrived at their summit, a hideous sight suddenly meets his eyes;
      his soul is all consternation. He discovers a vast plain entirely
      devastated by the sword and fire; he looks at it and finds it covered with
      more than a hundred thousand corpses, deplorable remains of a bloody
      battle which had taken place a few days previous. Eagles, vultures,
      ravens, and wolves were devouring the dead bodies with which the earth was
      covered. This sight plunges our pilgrim into a sad reverie. Heaven, by a
      special favor, had made him understand the language of beasts. He heard a
      wolf, gorged with human flesh, exclaim in his excessive joy: "O Allah! how
      great is Thy kindness for the children of wolves! Thy foreseeing wisdom
      takes care to send infatuation upon these detestable men who are so
      dangerous to us. Through an effect of Thy Providence which watches over
      Thy creatures, these, our destroyers, murder each other, and thus furnish
      us with sumptuous repasts. O Allah! HOW GREAT IS THY GOODNESS TO THE
      CHILDREN OF WOLVES!"
    </p>
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    <h2>
      XCIX.&mdash;IT IS FOOLISH TO SEE IN THE UNIVERSE ONLY THE BENEFACTIONS OF
      HEAVEN, AND TO BELIEVE THAT THIS UNIVERSE WAS MADE BUT FOR MAN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      An exalted imagination sees in the universe but the benefactions of
      Heaven; a calm mind finds good and evil in it. I exist, you will say; but
      is this existence always a benefit? You will say, look at this sun, which
      shines for you; this earth, which is covered with fruits and verdure;
      these flowers, which bloom for our sight and smell; these trees, which
      bend beneath the weight of fruits; these pure streams, which flow but to
      quench your thirst; these seas, which embrace the universe to facilitate
      your commerce; these animals, which a foreseeing nature produces for your
      use! Yes, I see all these things, and I enjoy them when I can. But in some
      climates this beautiful sun is most always obscured from me; in others,
      its excessive heat torments me, produces storm, gives rise to dreadful
      diseases, dries up the fields; the meadows have no grass, the trees are
      fruitless, the harvests are scorched, the springs are dried up; I can
      scarcely exist, and I sigh under the cruelty of a nature which you find so
      benevolent. If these seas bring me spices, riches, and useless things, do
      they not destroy a multitude of mortals who are dupes enough to go after
      them?
    </p>
    <p>
      Man's vanity persuades him that he is the sole center of the universe; he
      creates for himself a world and a God; he thinks himself of sufficient
      consequence to derange nature at his will, but he reasons as an atheist
      when the question of other animals is involved. Does he not imagine that
      the individuals different from his species are automatons unworthy of the
      cares of universal Providence, and that the beasts can not be the objects
      of its justice and kindness? Mortals consider fortunate or unfortunate
      events, health or sickness, life and death, abundance or famine, as
      rewards or punishments for the use or misuse of the liberty which they
      arrogate to themselves. Do they reason on this principle when animals are
      taken into consideration? No; although they see them under a just God
      enjoy and suffer, be healthy and sick, live and die, like themselves, it
      does not enter their mind to ask what crimes these beasts have committed
      in order to cause the displeasure of the Arbiter of nature. Philosophers,
      blinded by their theological prejudices, in order to disembarrass
      themselves, have gone so far as to pretend that beasts have no feelings!
    </p>
    <p>
      Will men never renounce their foolish pretensions? Will they not recognize
      that nature was not made for them? Will they not see that this nature has
      placed on equal footing all the beings which she produced? Will they not
      see that all organized beings are equally made to be born and to die, to
      enjoy and to suffer? Finally, instead of priding themselves preposterously
      on their mental faculties, are they not compelled to admit that they often
      render them more unhappy than the beasts, in which we find neither
      opinions, prejudices, vanities, nor the weaknesses which decide at every
      moment the well-being of men?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      C.&mdash;WHAT IS THE SOUL? WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT. IF THIS PRETENDED
      SOUL WAS OF ANOTHER ESSENCE FROM THAT OF THE BODY, THEIR UNION WOULD BE
      IMPOSSIBLE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The superiority which men arrogate to themselves over other animals, is
      principally founded upon the opinion of possessing exclusively an immortal
      soul. But as soon as we ask what this soul is, they begin to stammer. It
      is an unknown substance; it is a secret force distinguished from their
      bodies; it is a spirit of which they can form no idea. Ask them how this
      spirit, which they suppose like their God, totally deprived of a physical
      substance, could combine itself with their material bodies? They will tell
      you that they know nothing about it; that it is a mystery to them; that
      this combination is the effect of the Almighty power. These are the clear
      ideas which men form of the hidden, or, rather, imaginary substance which
      they consider the motor of all their actions! If the soul is a substance
      essentially different from the body, and which can have no affinity with
      it, their union would be, not a mystery, but a thing impossible. Besides,
      this soul, being of an essence different from that of the body, ought to
      act necessarily in a different way from it. However, we see that the
      movements of the body are felt by this pretended soul, and that these two
      substances, so different in essence, always act in harmony. You will tell
      us that this harmony is a mystery; and I will tell you that I do not see
      my soul, that I know and feel but my body; that it is my body which feels,
      which reflects, which judges, which suffers, and which enjoys, and that
      all of its faculties are the necessary results of its own mechanism or of
      its organization.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      CI.&mdash;THE EXISTENCE OF A SOUL IS AN ABSURD SUPPOSITION, AND THE
      EXISTENCE OF AN IMMORTAL SOUL IS A STILL MORE ABSURD SUPPOSITION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Although it is impossible for men to have the least idea of the soul, or
      of this pretended spirit which animates them, they persuade themselves,
      however, that this unknown soul is exempt from death; everything proves to
      them that they feel, think, acquire ideas, enjoy or suffer, but by the
      means of the senses or of the material organs of the body. Even admitting
      the existence of this soul, one can not refuse to recognize that it
      depends wholly on the body, and suffers conjointly with it all the
      vicissitudes which it experiences itself; and however it is imagined that
      it has by its nature nothing analogous with it; it is pretended that it
      can act and feel without the assistance of this body; that deprived of
      this body and robbed of its senses, this soul will be able to live, to
      enjoy, to suffer, be sensitive of enjoyment or of rigorous torments. Upon
      such a tissue of conjectural absurdities the wonderful opinion of the
      immortality of the soul is built.
    </p>
    <p>
      If I ask what ground we have for supposing that the soul is immortal: they
      reply, it is because man by his nature desires to be immortal, or to live
      forever. But I rejoin, if you desire anything very much, is it sufficient
      to conclude that this desire will be fulfilled? By what strange logic do
      they decide that a thing can not fail to happen because they ardently
      desire it to happen? Man's childish desires of the imagination, are they
      the measure of reality? Impious people, you say, deprived of the
      flattering hopes of another life, desire to be annihilated. Well, have
      they not just as much right to conclude by this desire that they will be
      annihilated, as you to conclude that you will exist forever because you
      desire it?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CII.&mdash;IT IS EVIDENT THAT THE WHOLE OF MAN DIES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Man dies entirely. Nothing is more evident to him who is not delirious.
      The human body, after death, is but a mass, incapable of producing any
      movements the union of which constitutes life. We no longer see
      circulation, respiration, digestion, speech, or reflection. It is claimed
      then that the soul has separated itself from the body. But to say that
      this soul, which is unknown, is the principle of life, is saying nothing,
      unless that an unknown force is the invisible principle of imperceptible
      movements. Nothing is more natural and more simple than to believe that
      the dead man lives no more, nothing more absurd than to believe that the
      dead man is still living.
    </p>
    <p>
      We ridicule the simplicity of some nations whose fashion is to bury
      provisions with the dead&mdash;under the idea that this food might be
      useful and necessary to them in another life. Is it more ridiculous or
      more absurd to believe that men will eat after death than to imagine that
      they will think; that they will have agreeable or disagreeable ideas; that
      they will enjoy; that they will suffer; that they will be conscious of
      sorrow or joy when the organs which produce sensations or ideas are
      dissolved and reduced to dust? To claim that the souls of men will be
      happy or unhappy after the death of the body, is to pretend that man will
      be able to see without eyes, to hear without ears, to taste without a
      palate, to smell without a nose, and to feel without hands and without
      skin. Nations who believe themselves very rational, adopt, nevertheless,
      such ideas.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CIII.&mdash;INCONTESTABLE PROOFS AGAINST THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE SOUL.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The dogma of the immortality of the soul assumes that the soul is a simple
      substance, a spirit; but I will always ask, what is a spirit? It is, you
      say, a substance deprived of expansion, incorruptible, and which has
      nothing in common with matter. But if this is true, how came your soul
      into existence? how did it grow? how did it strengthen? how weaken itself,
      get out of order, and grow old with your body? In reply to all these
      questions, you say that they are mysteries; but if they are mysteries, you
      understand nothing about them. If you do not understand anything about
      them, how can you positively affirm anything about them? In order to
      believe or to affirm anything, it is necessary at least to know what that
      consists of which we believe and which we affirm. To believe in the
      existence of your immaterial soul, is to say that you are persuaded of the
      existence of a thing of which it is impossible for you to form any true
      idea; it is to believe in words without attaching any sense to them; to
      affirm that the thing is as you claim, is the highest folly or assumption.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CIV.&mdash;THE ABSURDITY OF SUPERNATURAL CAUSES, WHICH THEOLOGIANS
      CONSTANTLY CALL TO THEIR AID.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Are not theologians strange reasoners? As soon as they can not guess the
      natural causes of things, they invent causes, which they call
      supernatural; they imagine them spirits, occult causes, inexplicable
      agents, or rather words much more obscure than the things which they
      attempt to explain. Let us remain in nature when we desire to understand
      its phenomena; let us ignore the causes which are too delicate to be
      seized by our organs; and let us be assured that by seeking outside of
      nature we can never find the solution of nature's problems. Even upon the
      theological hypothesis&mdash;that is to say, supposing an Almighty motor
      in matter&mdash;what right have theologians to refuse their God the power
      to endow this matter with thought? Would it be more difficult for Him to
      create combinations of matter from which results thought, than spirits
      which think? At least, in supposing a substance endowed with thought, we
      could form some idea of the object of our thoughts, or of what thinks in
      us; while attributing thought to an immaterial being, it is impossible for
      us to form the least idea of it.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CV.&mdash;IT IS FALSE THAT MATERIALISM CAN BE DEBASING TO THE HUMAN RACE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Materialism, it is objected, makes of man a mere machine, which is
      considered very debasing to the human race. But will the human race be
      more honored when it can be said that man acts by the secret impulsions of
      a spirit, or a certain something which animates him without his knowing
      how? It is easy to perceive that the superiority which is given to mind
      over matter, or to the soul over the body, is based upon the ignorance of
      the nature of this soul; while we are more familiarized with matter or the
      body, which we imagine we know, and of which we believe we have understood
      the springs; but the most simple movements of our bodies are, for every
      thinking man, enigmas as difficult to divine as thought.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CVI.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The esteem which so many people have for the spiritual substance, appears
      to result from the impossibility they find in defining it in an
      intelligible way. The contempt which our metaphysicians show for matter,
      comes from the fact that "familiarity breeds contempt." When they tell us
      that the soul is more excellent and noble than the body, they tell us
      nothing, except that what they know nothing about must be more beautiful
      than that of which they have some faint ideas.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      CVII.&mdash;THE DOGMA OF ANOTHER LIFE IS USEFUL BUT FOR THOSE WHO PROFIT
      BY IT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE CREDULOUS PUBLIC.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are constantly told of the usefulness of the dogma of life hereafter.
      It is pretended that even if it should be a fiction, it is advantageous,
      because it imposes upon men and leads them to virtue. But is it true that
      this dogma renders men wiser and more virtuous? The nations where this
      fiction is established, are they remarkable for the morality of their
      conduct? Is not the visible world always preferred to the invisible world?
      If those who are charged to instruct and to govern men had themselves
      enlightenment and virtue, they would govern them far better by realities
      than by vain chimeras; but deceitful, ambitious, and corrupt, the
      legislators found it everywhere easier to put the nations to sleep by
      fables than to teach them truths; than to develop their reason; than to
      excite them to virtue by sensible and real motives; than to govern them in
      a reasonable way.
    </p>
    <p>
      Theologians, no doubt, have had reasons for making the soul immaterial.
      They needed souls and chimeras to populate the imaginary regions which
      they have discovered in the other life. Material souls would have been
      subjected, like all bodies, to dissolution. Moreover, if men believe that
      everything is to perish with the body, the geographers of the other world
      would evidently lose the chance of guiding their souls to this unknown
      abode. They would draw no profits from the hopes with which they feast
      them, and from the terrors with which they take care to overwhelm them. If
      the future is of no real utility to the human race, it is at least of the
      greatest advantage to those who take upon themselves the responsibility of
      conducting mankind thither.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CVIII.&mdash;IT IS FALSE THAT THE DOGMA OF ANOTHER LIFE CAN BE CONSOLING;
      AND IF IT WERE, IT WOULD BE NO PROOF THAT THIS ASSERTION IS TRUE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      But, it will be said, is not the dogma of the immortality of the soul
      consoling for beings who often find themselves very unhappy here below? If
      this should be an illusion, is it not a sweet and agreeable one? Is it not
      a benefit for man to believe that he can live again and enjoy, sometime,
      the happiness which is refused to him on earth? Thus, poor mortals! you
      make your wishes the measure of the truth! Because you desire to live
      forever, and to be happier, you conclude from thence that you will live
      forever, and that you will be more fortunate in an unknown world than in
      the known world, in which you so often suffer! Consent, then, to leave
      without regret this world, which causes more trouble than pleasure to the
      majority of you. Resign yourselves to the order of destiny, which decrees
      that you, like all other beings, should not endure forever. But what will
      become of me? you ask! What you were several millions of years ago. You
      were then, I do not know what; resign yourselves, then, to become again in
      an instant, I do not know what; what you were then; return peaceably to
      the universal home from which you came without your knowledge into your
      material form, and pass by without murmuring, like all the beings which
      surround you!
    </p>
    <p>
      We are repeatedly told that religious ideas offer infinite consolation to
      the unfortunate; it is pretended that the idea of the immortality of the
      soul and of a happier life has a tendency to lift up the heart of man and
      to sustain him in the midst of the adversities with which he is assailed
      in this life. Materialism, on the contrary, is, we are told, an afflicting
      system, tending to degrade man, which ranks him among brutes; which
      destroys his courage, whose only hope is complete annihilation, tending to
      lead him to despair, and inducing him to commit suicide as soon as he
      suffers in this world. The grand policy of theologians is to blow hot and
      to blow cold, to afflict and to console, to frighten and to reassure.
    </p>
    <p>
      According to the fictions of theology, the regions of the other life are
      happy and unhappy. Nothing more difficult than to render one worthy of the
      abode of felicity; nothing easier than to obtain a place in the abode of
      torments that Divinity prepares for the unfortunate victims of His eternal
      fury. Those who find the idea of another life so flattering and so sweet,
      have they then forgotten that this other life, according to them, is to be
      accompanied by torments for the majority of mortals? Is not the idea of
      total annihilation infinitely preferable to the idea of an eternal
      existence accompanied with suffering and gnashing of teeth? The fear of
      ceasing to exist, is it more afflicting than the thought of having not
      always been? The fear of ceasing to be is but an evil for the imagination,
      which alone brought forth the dogma of another life.
    </p>
    <p>
      You say, O Christian philosophers, that the idea of a happier life is
      delightful; we agree; there is no one who would not desire a more
      agreeable and a more durable existence than the one we enjoy here below.
      But, if Paradise is tempting, you will admit, also, that hell is
      frightful. It is very difficult to merit heaven, and very easy to gain
      hell. Do you not say that one straight and narrow path leads to the happy
      regions, and that a broad road leads to the regions of the unhappy? Do you
      not constantly tell us that the number of the chosen ones is very small,
      and that of the damned is very large? Do we not need, in order to be
      saved, such grace as your God grants to but few? Well! I tell you that
      these ideas are by no means consoling; I prefer to be annihilated at once
      rather than to burn forever; I will tell you that the fate of beasts
      appears to me more desirable than the fate of the damned; I will tell you
      that the belief which delivers me from overwhelming fears in this world,
      appears to me more desirable than the uncertainty in which I am left
      through belief in a God who, master of His favors, gives them but to His
      favorites, and who permits all the others to render themselves worthy of
      eternal punishments. It can be but blind enthusiasm or folly that can
      prefer a system which evidently encourages improbable conjectures,
      accompanied by uncertainty and desolating fear.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CIX.&mdash;ALL RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES ARE IMAGINARY. INNATE SENSE IS BUT THE
      EFFECT OF A ROOTED HABIT. GOD IS AN IDLE FANCY, AND THE QUALITIES WHICH
      ARE LAVISHED UPON HIM DESTROY EACH OTHER.
    </h2>
    <p>
      All religious principles are a thing of imagination, in which experience
      and reason have nothing to do. We find much difficulty in conquering them,
      because imagination, when once occupied in creating chimeras which
      astonish or excite it, is incapable of reasoning. He who combats religion
      and its phantasies by the arms of reason, is like a man who uses a sword
      to kill flies: as soon as the blow is struck, the flies and the fancies
      return to the minds from which we thought to have banished them.
    </p>
    <p>
      As soon as we refuse the proofs which theology pretends to give of the
      existence of a God, they oppose to the arguments which destroy them, an
      innate conviction, a profound persuasion, an invincible inclination
      inherent in every man, which brings to him, in spite of himself, the idea
      of an Almighty being which he can not altogether expel from his mind, and
      which he is compelled to recognize in spite of the strongest reasons that
      we can give him. But if we wish to analyze this innate conviction, upon
      which so much weight is placed, we will find that it is but the effect of
      a rooted habit, which, making them close their eyes against the most
      demonstrative proofs, leads the majority of men, and often the most
      enlightened ones, back to the prejudices of childhood. What can this
      innate sense or this ill-founded persuasion prove against the evidence
      which shows us that what implies contradiction can not exist?
    </p>
    <p>
      We are told, very gravely, that it is not demonstrated that God does not
      exist. However, nothing is better demonstrated, notwithstanding all that
      men have told us so far, than that this God is an idle fancy, whose
      existence is totally impossible, as nothing is more evident or more
      clearly demonstrated than that a being can not combine qualities so
      dissimilar, so contradictory, so irreconcilable as those which all the
      religions of the earth ascribe to Divinity. The theologian's God, as well
      as the God of the theist, is He not evidently a cause incompatible with
      the effects attributed to Him? In whatever light we may look upon it, we
      must either invent another God, or conclude that the one which, for so
      many centuries, has been revealed to mortals, is at the same time very
      good and very wicked, very powerful and very weak, immutable and
      changeable, perfectly intelligent and perfectly destitute of reason, of
      plan, and of means; the friend of order and permitting disorder; very just
      and very unjust; very skillful and very awkward. Finally, are we not
      obliged to admit that it is impossible to reconcile the discordant
      attributes which are heaped upon a being of whom we can not say a single
      word without falling into the most palpable contradictions? Let us attempt
      to attribute but a single quality to Divinity, and what is said of it will
      be contradicted immediately by the effects we assign to this cause.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CX.&mdash;EVERY RELIGION IS BUT A SYSTEM IMAGINED FOR THE PURPOSE OF
      RECONCILING CONTRADICTIONS BY THE AID OF MYSTERIES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Theology could very properly be defined as the science of contradictions.
      Every religion is but a system imagined for the purpose of reconciling
      irreconcilable ideas. By the aid of habitude and terror, we come to
      persist in the greatest absurdities, even when they are the most clearly
      exposed. All religions are easy to combat, but very difficult to
      eradicate. Reason can do nothing against habit, which becomes, as is said,
      a second nature. There are many persons otherwise sensible, who, even
      after having examined the ruinous foundations of their belief, return to
      it in spite of the most striking arguments.
    </p>
    <p>
      As soon as we complain of not understanding religion, finding in it at
      every step absurdities which are repulsive, seeing in it but
      impossibilities, we are told that we are not made to conceive the truths
      of the religion which is proposed to us; that wandering reason is but an
      unfaithful guide, only capable of conducting us to perdition; and what is
      more, we are assured that what is folly in the eyes of man, is wisdom in
      the eyes of God, to whom nothing is impossible. Finally, in order to
      decide by a single word the most insurmountable difficulties which
      theology presents to us on all sides, they simply cry out: "Mysteries!"
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXI.&mdash;ABSURDITY AND INUTILITY OF THE MYSTERIES FORGED IN THE SOLE
      INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      What is a mystery? If I examine the thing closely, I discover very soon
      that a mystery is nothing but a contradiction, a palpable absurdity, a
      notorious impossibility, on which theologians wish to compel men to humbly
      close the eyes; in a word, a mystery is whatever our spiritual guides can
      not explain to us.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is advantageous for the ministers of religion that the people should
      not comprehend what they are taught. It is impossible for us to examine
      what we do not comprehend. Every time that we can not see clearly, we are
      obliged to be guided. If religion was comprehensible, priests would not
      have so many charges here below.
    </p>
    <p>
      No religion is without mysteries; mystery is its essence; a religion
      destitute of mysteries would be a contradiction of terms. The God which
      serves as a foundation to natural religion, to theism or to deism, is
      Himself the greatest mystery to a mind wishing to dwell upon Him.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXII.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      All the revealed religions which we see in the world are filled with
      mysterious dogmas, unintelligible principles, of incredible miracles, of
      astonishing tales which seem imagined but to confound reason. Every
      religion announces a concealed God, whose essence is a mystery;
      consequently, it is just as difficult to conceive of His conduct as of the
      essence of this God Himself. Divinity has never spoken to us but in an
      enigmatical and mysterious way in the various religions which have been
      founded in the different regions of our globe. It has revealed itself
      everywhere but to announce mysteries, that is to say, to warn mortals that
      it designs that they should believe in contradictions, in impossibilities,
      or in things of which they were incapable of forming any positive idea.
    </p>
    <p>
      The more mysteries a religion has, the more incredible objects it presents
      to the mind, the better fitted it is to please the imagination of men, who
      find in it a continual pasturage to feed upon. The more obscure a religion
      is, the more it appears divine, that is to say, in conformity to the
      nature of an invisible being, of whom we have no idea.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is the peculiarity of ignorance to prefer the unknown, the concealed,
      the fabulous, the wonderful, the incredible, even the terrible, to that
      which is clear, simple, and true. Truth does not give to the imagination
      such lively play as fiction, which each one may arrange as he pleases. The
      vulgar ask nothing better than to listen to fables; priests and
      legislators, by inventing religions and forging mysteries from them, have
      served them to their taste. In this way they have attracted enthusiasts,
      women, and the illiterate generally. Beings of this kind resign easily to
      reasons which they are incapable of examining; the love of the simple and
      the true is found but in the small number of those whose imagination is
      regulated by study and by reflection. The inhabitants of a village are
      never more pleased with their pastor than when he mixes a good deal of
      Latin in his sermon. Ignorant men always imagine that he who speaks to
      them of things which they do not understand, is a very wise and learned
      man. This is the true principle of the credulity of nations, and of the
      authority of those who pretend to guide them.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXIII.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      To speak to men to announce to them mysteries, is to give and retain, it
      is to speak not to be understood. He who talks but by enigmas, either
      seeks to amuse himself by the embarrassment which he causes, or finds it
      to his advantage not to explain himself too clearly. Every secret betrays
      suspicion, weakness, and fear. Princes and their ministers make a mystery
      of their projects for fear that their enemies in penetrating them would
      cause them to fail. Can a good God amuse Himself by the embarrassment of
      His creatures? A God who enjoys a power which nothing in the world can
      resist, can He apprehend that His intentions could be thwarted? What
      interest would He have in putting upon us enigmas and mysteries? We are
      told that man, by the weakness of his nature, is not capable of
      comprehending the Divine economy which can be to him but a tissue of
      mysteries; that God can not unveil secrets to him which are beyond his
      reach. In this case, I reply, that man is not made to trouble himself with
      Divine economy, that this economy can not interest him in the least, that
      he has no need of mysteries which he can not understand; finally, that a
      mysterious religion is not made for him, any more than an eloquent
      discourse is made for a flock of sheep.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXIV.&mdash;A UNIVERSAL GOD SHOULD HAVE REVEALED A UNIVERSAL RELIGION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Divinity has revealed itself in the different parts of our globe in a
      manner of such little uniformity, that in matters of religion men look
      upon each other with hatred and disdain. The partisans of the different
      sects see each other very ridiculous and foolish. The most respected
      mysteries in one religion are laughable for another. God, having revealed
      Himself to men, ought at least to speak in the same language to all, and
      relieve their weak minds of the embarrassment of seeking what can be the
      religion which truly emanated from Him, or what is the most agreeable form
      of worship in His eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      A universal God ought to have revealed a universal religion. By what
      fatality are so many different religions found on the earth? Which is the
      true one amongst the great number of those of which each one pretends to
      be the right one, to the exclusion of all the others? We have every reason
      to believe that not one of them enjoys this advantage. The divisions and
      the disputes about opinions are indubitable signs of the uncertainty and
      of the obscurity of the principles which they profess.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXV.&mdash;THE PROOF THAT RELIGION IS NOT NECESSARY, IS THAT IT IS
      UNINTELLIGIBLE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If religion was necessary to all men, it ought to be intelligible to all
      men. If this religion was the most important thing for them, the goodness
      of God, it seems, ought to make it for them the clearest, the most
      evident, and the best demonstrated of all things. Is it not astonishing to
      see that this matter, so essential to the salvation of mortals, is
      precisely the one which they understand the least, and about which, during
      so many centuries, their doctors have disputed the most? Never have
      priests, of even the same sect, come to an agreement among themselves
      about the manner of understanding the wishes of a God who has truly
      revealed Himself to them. The world which we inhabit can be compared to a
      public place, in whose different parts several charlatans are placed, each
      one straining himself to attract customers by depreciating the remedies
      offered by his competitors. Each stand has its purchasers, who are
      persuaded that their empiric alone possesses the good remedies;
      notwithstanding the continual use which they make of them, they do not
      perceive that they are no better, or that they are just as sick as those
      who run after the charlatans of another stand. Devotion is a disease of
      the imagination, contracted in infancy; the devotee is a hypochondriac,
      who increases his disease by the use of remedies. The wise man takes none
      of it; he follows a good regimen and leaves the rest to nature.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXVI.&mdash;ALL RELIGIONS ARE RIDICULED BY THOSE OF OPPOSITE THOUGH
      EQUALLY INSANE BELIEF.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Nothing appears more ridiculous in the eyes of a sensible man than for one
      denomination to criticize another whose creed is equally foolish. A
      Christian thinks that the Koran, the Divine revelation announced by
      Mohammed, is but a tissue of impertinent dreams and impostures injurious
      to Divinity. The Mohammedan, on his side, treats the Christian as an
      idolater and a dog; he sees but absurdities in his religion; he imagines
      he has the right to conquer his country and force him, sword in hand, to
      accept the faith of his Divine prophet; he believes especially that
      nothing is more impious or more unreasonable than to worship a man or to
      believe in the Trinity. The Protestant Christian, who without scruple
      worships a man, and who believes firmly in the inconceivable mystery of
      the Trinity, ridicules the Catholic Christian because the latter believes
      in the mystery of the transubstantiation. He treats him as a fool, as
      ungodly and idolatrous, because he kneels to worship the bread in which he
      believes he sees the God of the universe. All the Christian denominations
      agree in considering as folly the incarnation of the God of the Indies,
      Vishnu. They contend that the only true incarnation is that of Jesus, Son
      of the God of the universe and of the wife of a carpenter. The theist, who
      calls himself a votary of natural religion, is satisfied to acknowledge a
      God of whom he has no conception; indulges himself in jesting upon other
      mysteries taught by all the religions of the world.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXVII.&mdash;OPINION OF A CELEBRATED THEOLOGIAN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Did not a famous theologian recognize the absurdity of admitting the
      existence of a God and arresting His course? "To us," he said, "who
      believe through faith in a true God, an individual substance, there ought
      to be no trouble in believing everything else. This first mystery, which
      is no small matter of itself, once admitted, our reason can not suffer
      violence in admitting all the rest. As for myself, it is no more trouble
      to accept a million of things that I do not understand, than to believe
      the first one."
    </p>
    <p>
      Is there anything more contradictory, more impossible, or more mysterious,
      than the creation of matter by an immaterial Being, who Himself immutable,
      causes the continual changes that we see in the world? Is there anything
      more incompatible with all the ideas of common sense than to believe that
      a good, wise, equitable, and powerful Being presides over nature and
      directs Himself the movements of a world which is filled with follies,
      miseries, crimes, and disorders, which He could have foreseen, and by a
      single word could have prevented or made to disappear? Finally, as soon as
      we admit a Being so contradictory as the theological God, what right have
      we to refuse to accept the most improbable fables, the most astonishing
      miracles, the most profound mysteries?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXVIII.&mdash;THE DEIST'S GOD IS NO LESS CONTRADICTORY, NO LESS FANCIFUL,
      THAN THE THEOLOGIAN'S GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The theist exclaims, "Be careful not to worship the ferocious and strange
      God of theology; mine is much wiser and better; He is the Father of men;
      He is the mildest of Sovereigns; it is He who fills the universe with His
      benefactions!" But I will tell him, do you not see that everything in this
      world contradicts the good qualities which you attribute to your God? In
      the numerous family of this mild Father I see but unfortunate ones. Under
      the empire of this just Sovereign I see crime victorious and virtue in
      distress. Among these benefactions, which you boast of, and which your
      enthusiasm alone sees, I see a multitude of evils of all kinds, upon which
      you obstinately close your eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      Compelled to acknowledge that your good God, in contradiction with
      Himself, distributes with the same hand good and evil, you will find
      yourself obliged, in order to justify Him, to send me, as the priests
      would, to the other life. Invent, then, another God than the one of
      theology, because your God is as contradictory as its God is. A good God
      who does evil or who permits it to be done, a God full of equity and in an
      empire where innocence is so often oppressed; a perfect God who produces
      but imperfect and wretched works; such a God and His conduct, are they not
      as great mysteries as that of the incarnation? You blush, you say, for
      your fellow beings who are persuaded that the God of the universe could
      change Himself into a man and die upon a cross in a corner of Asia. You
      consider the ineffable mystery of the Trinity very absurd Nothing appears
      more ridiculous to you than a God who changes Himself into bread and who
      is eaten every day in a thousand different places.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well! are all these mysteries any more shocking to reason than a God who
      punishes and rewards men's actions? Man, according to your views, is he
      free or not? In either case your God, if He has the shadow of justice, can
      neither punish him nor reward him. If man is free, it is God who made him
      free to act or not to act; it is God, then, who is the primitive cause of
      all his actions; in punishing man for his faults, He would punish him for
      having done that which He gave him the liberty to do. If man is not free
      to act otherwise than he does, would not God be the most unjust of beings
      to punish him for the faults which he could not help committing? Many
      persons are struck with the detail of absurdities with which all religions
      of the world are filled; but they have not the courage to seek for the
      source whence these absurdities necessarily sprung. They do not see that a
      God full of contradictions, of oddities, of incompatible qualities, either
      inflaming or nursing the imagination of men, could create but a long line
      of idle fancies.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXIX.&mdash;WE DO NOT PROVE AT ALL THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD BY SAYING THAT
      IN ALL AGES EVERY NATION HAS ACKNOWLEDGED SOME KIND OF DIVINITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      They believe, to silence those who deny the existence of a God, by telling
      them that all men, in all ages and in all centuries, have believed in some
      kind of a God; that there is no people on the earth who have not believed
      in an invisible and powerful being, whom they made the object of their
      worship and of their veneration; finally, that there is no nation, no
      matter how benighted we may suppose it to be, that is not persuaded of the
      existence of some intelligence superior to human nature. But can the
      belief of all men change an error into truth? A celebrated philosopher has
      said with all reason: "Neither general tradition nor the unanimous consent
      of all men could place any injunction upon truth." [Bayle.] Another wise
      man said before him, that "an army of philosophers would not be sufficient
      to change the nature of error and to make it truth." [Averroës]
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a time when all men believed that the sun revolved around the
      earth, while the latter remained motionless in the center of the whole
      system of the universe; it is scarcely more than two hundred years since
      this error was refuted. There was a time when nobody would believe in the
      existence of antipodes, and when they persecuted those who had the courage
      to sustain it; to-day no learned man dares to doubt it. All nations of the
      world, except some men less credulous than others, still believe in
      sorcerers, ghosts, apparitions, spirits; no sensible man imagines himself
      obliged to adopt these follies; but the most sensible people feel obliged
      to believe in a universal Spirit!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXX.&mdash;ALL THE GODS ARE OF A BARBAROUS ORIGIN; ALL RELIGIONS ARE
      ANTIQUE MONUMENTS OF IGNORANCE, SUPERSTITION, AND FEROCITY; AND MODERN
      RELIGIONS ARE BUT ANCIENT FOLLIES REVIVED.
    </h2>
    <p>
      All the Gods worshiped by men have a barbarous origin; they were visibly
      imagined by stupid nations, or were presented by ambitious and cunning
      legislators to simple and benighted people, who had neither the capacity
      nor the courage to examine properly the object which, by means of terrors,
      they were made to worship. In examining closely the God which we see
      adored still in our days by the most civilized nations, we are compelled
      to acknowledge that He has evidently barbarous features. To be barbarous
      is to recognize no right but force; it is being cruel to excess; it is but
      following one's own caprice; it is a lack of foresight, of prudence, and
      reason. Nations, who believe yourselves civilized! do you not perceive
      this frightful character of the God to whom you offer your incense? The
      pictures which are drawn of Divinity, are they not visibly borrowed from
      the implacable, jealous, vindictive, blood-thirsty, capricious,
      inconsiderate humor of man, who has not yet cultivated his reason? Oh,
      men! you worship but a great savage, whom you consider as a model to
      follow, as an amiable master, as a perfect sovereign.
    </p>
    <p>
      The religious opinions of men in every country are antique and durable
      monuments of ignorance credulity, of the terrors and the ferocity of their
      ancestors. Every barbarian is a child thirsting for the wonderful, which
      he imbibes with pleasure, and who never reasons upon that which he finds
      proper to excite his imagination; his ignorance of the ways of nature
      makes him attribute to spirits, to enchantments, to magic, all that
      appears to him extraordinary; in his eyes his priests are sorcerers, in
      whom he supposes an Almighty power; before whom his confused reason
      humiliates itself, whose oracles are for him infallible decrees, to
      contradict which would be dangerous. In matters of religion the majority
      of men have remained in their primitive barbarity. Modern religions are
      but follies of old times rejuvenated or presented in some new form. If the
      ancient barbarians have worshiped mountains, rivers, serpents, trees,
      fetishes of every kind; if the wise Egyptians worshiped crocodiles, rats,
      onions, do we not see nations who believe themselves wiser than they,
      worship with reverence a bread, into which they imagine that the
      enchantments of their priests cause the Divinity to descend? Is not the
      God-bread the fetish of many Christian nations, as little rational in this
      point as that of the most barbarous nations?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXI.&mdash;ALL RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES BEAR THE SEAL OF STUPIDITY OR
      BARBARITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In all times the ferocity, the stupidity, the folly of savage men were
      shown in religious customs which were often cruel and extravagant. A
      spirit of barbarity has come down to our days; it intrudes itself into the
      religions which are followed by the most civilized nations. Do we not
      still see human victims offered to Divinity? In order to appease the wrath
      of a God whom we suppose as ferocious, as jealous, as vindictive, as a
      savage, do not sanguinary laws cause the destruction of those who are
      believed to have displeased Him by their way of thinking?
    </p>
    <p>
      Modern nations, at the instigation of their priests, have even excelled
      the atrocious folly of the most barbarous nations; at least do we not find
      that it never entered into a savage's mind to torment for the sake of
      opinions, to meddle in thought, to trouble men for the invisible actions
      of their brains? When we see polished and wise nations, such as the
      English, French, German, etc., notwithstanding all their enlightenment,
      continue to kneel before the barbarous God of the Jews, that is to say, of
      the most stupid, the most credulous, the most savage, the most unsocial
      nation which ever was on the earth; when we see these enlightened nations
      divide themselves into sects, tear one another, hate and despise each
      other for opinions, equally ridiculous, upon the conduct and the
      intentions of this irrational God; when we see intelligent persons occupy
      themselves foolishly in meditating on the wishes of this capricious and
      foolish God; we are tempted to exclaim, "Oh, men! you are still savages!
      Oh, men! you are but children in the matter of religion!"
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXII.&mdash;THE MORE ANCIENT AND GENERAL A RELIGIOUS OPINION IS, THE
      GREATER THE REASON FOR SUSPECTING IT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Whoever has formed true ideas of the ignorance, credulity, negligence, and
      sottishness of common people, will always regard their religious opinions
      with the greater suspicion for their being generally established. The
      majority of men examine nothing; they allow themselves to be blindly led
      by custom and authority; their religious opinions are specially those
      which they have the least courage and capacity to examine; as they do not
      understand anything about them, they are compelled to be silent or put an
      end to their reasoning. Ask the common man if he believes in God. He will
      be surprised that you could doubt it. Then ask him what he understands by
      the word God. You will confuse him; you will perceive at once that he is
      incapable of forming any real idea of this word which he so often repeats;
      he will tell you that God is God, and you will find that he knows neither
      what he thinks of Him, nor the motives which he has for believing in Him.
    </p>
    <p>
      All nations speak of a God; but do they agree upon this God? No! Well,
      difference of opinion does not serve as evidence, but is a sign of
      uncertainty and obscurity. Does the same man always agree with himself in
      his ideas of God? No! This idea varies with the vicissitudes of his life.
      This is another sign of uncertainty. Men always agree with other men and
      with themselves upon demonstrated truths, regardless of the position in
      which they find themselves; except the insane, all agree that two and two
      make four, that the sun shines, that the whole is greater than any one of
      its parts, that Justice is a benefaction, that we must be benevolent to
      deserve the love of men, that injustice and cruelty are incompatible with
      goodness. Do they agree in the same way if they speak of God? All that
      they think or say of Him is immediately contradicted by the effects which
      they wish to attribute to Him. Tell several artists to paint a chimera,
      each of them will form different ideas of it, and will paint it
      differently; you will find no resemblance in the features each of them
      will have given to a portrait whose model exists nowhere. In painting God,
      do any of the theologians of the world represent Him otherwise than as a
      great chimera, upon whose features they never agree, each one arranging it
      according to his style, which has its origin but in his own brain? There
      are no two individuals in the world who have or can have the same ideas of
      their God.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXIII.&mdash;SKEPTICISM IN THE MATTER OF RELIGION, CAN BE THE EFFECT OF
      BUT A SUPERFICIAL EXAMINATION OF THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Perhaps it would be more truthful to say, that all men are either skeptics
      or atheists, than to pretend that they are firmly convinced of the
      existence of a God. How can we be assured of the existence of a being whom
      we never have been able to examine, of whom it is impossible to form any
      permanent idea, whose different effects upon ourselves prevent us from
      forming an invariable judgment, of whom no idea can be uniform in two
      different brains? How can we claim to be completely persuaded of the
      existence of a being to whom we are constantly obliged to attribute a
      conduct opposed co the ideas which we had tried to form of it? Is it
      possible firmly to believe what we can not conceive? In believing thus,
      are we not adhering to the opinions of others without having one of our
      own? The priests regulate the belief of the vulgar; but do not these
      priests themselves acknowledge that God is incomprehensible to them? Let
      us conclude, then, that the conviction of the existence of a God is not as
      general as it is affirmed to be.
    </p>
    <p>
      To be a skeptic, is to lack the motives necessary to establish a judgment.
      In view of the proofs which seem to establish, and of the arguments which
      combat the existence of a God, some persons prefer to doubt and to suspend
      their judgment; but at the bottom, this uncertainty is the result of an
      insufficient examination. Is it, then, possible to doubt evidence?
      Sensible people deride, and with reason, an absolute pyrrhonism, and even
      consider it impossible. A man who could doubt his own existence, or that
      of the sun, would appear very ridiculous, or would be suspected of
      reasoning in bad faith. Is it less extravagant to have uncertainties about
      the non-existence of an evidently impossible being? Is it more absurd to
      doubt of one's own existence, than to hesitate upon the impossibility of a
      being whose qualities destroy each other? Do we find more probabilities
      for believing in a spiritual being than for believing in the existence of
      a stick without two ends? Is the notion of an infinitely good and powerful
      being who permits an infinity of evils, less absurd or less impossible
      than that of a square triangle?
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us conclude, then, that religious skepticism can be but the effect of
      a superficial examination of theological principles, which are in a
      perpetual contradiction of the clearest and best demonstrated principles!
      To doubt is to deliberate upon the judgment which we should pass.
      Skepticism is but a state of indecision which results from a superficial
      examination of subjects. Is it possible to be skeptical in the matter of
      religion when we design to return to its principles, and look closely into
      the idea of the God who serves as its foundation? Doubt arises ordinarily
      from laziness, weakness, indifference, or incapacity. To doubt, for many
      people, is to dread the trouble of examining things to which one attaches
      but little interest. Although religion is presented to men as the most
      important thing for them in this world as well as in the other, skepticism
      and doubt on this subject can be for the mind but a disagreeable state,
      and offers but a comfortable cushion. No man who has not the courage to
      contemplate without prejudice the God upon whom every religion is founded,
      can know what religion to accept; he does not know what to believe and
      what not to believe, to accept or to reject, what to hope or fear;
      finally, he is incompetent to judge for himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Indifference upon religion can not be confounded with skepticism; this
      indifference itself is founded upon the assurance or upon the probability
      which we find in believing that religion is not made to interest us. The
      persuasion which we have that a thing which is presented to us as very
      important, is not so, or is but indifferent, supposes a sufficient
      examination of the thing, without which it would be impossible to have
      this persuasion. Those who call themselves skeptics in regard to the
      fundamental points of religion, are generally but idle and lazy men, who
      are incapable of examining them.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXIV.&mdash;REVELATION REFUTED.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In all parts of the world, we are assured that God revealed Himself. What
      did He teach men? Does He prove to them evidently that He exists? Does He
      tell them where He resides? Does He teach them what He is, or of what His
      essence consists? Does He explain to them clearly His intentions and His
      plan? What He says of this plan, does it agree with the effects which we
      see? No! He informs us only that "He is the One that is," [I am that I am,
      saith the Lord] that He is an invincible God, that His ways are ineffable,
      that He becomes furious as soon as one has the temerity to penetrate His
      decrees, or to consult reason in order to judge of Him or His works. Does
      the revealed conduct of God correspond with the magnificent ideas which
      are given to us of His wisdom, goodness, justice, of His omnipotence? Not
      at all; in every revelation this conduct shows a partial, capricious
      being, at least, good to His favorite people, an enemy to all others. If
      He condescends to show Himself to some men, He takes care to keep all the
      others in invincible ignorance of His divine intentions. Does not every
      special revelation announce an unjust, partial, and malicious God?
    </p>
    <p>
      Are the revealed wishes of a God capable of striking us by the sublime
      reason or the wisdom which they contain? Do they tend to the happiness of
      the people to whom Divinity has declared them? Examining the Divine
      wishes, I find in them, in all countries, but whimsical ordinances,
      ridiculous precepts, ceremonies of which we do not understand the aim,
      puerile practices, principles of conduct unworthy of the Monarch of
      Nature, offerings, sacrifices, expiations, useful, in fact, to the
      ministers of God, but very onerous to the rest of mankind. I find also,
      that they often have a tendency to render men unsocial, disdainful,
      intolerant, quarrelsome, unjust, inhuman toward all those who have not
      received either the same revelations as they, or the same ordinances, or
      the same favors from Heaven.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXV.&mdash;WHERE, THEN, IS THE PROOF THAT GOD DID EVER SHOW HIMSELF TO
      MEN OR SPEAK TO THEM?
    </h2>
    <p>
      Are the precepts of morality as announced by Divinity truly Divine, or
      superior to those which every rational man could imagine? They are Divine
      only because it is impossible for the human mind to see their utility.
      Their virtue consists in a total renunciation of human nature, in a
      voluntary oblivion of one's reason, in a holy hatred of self; finally,
      these sublime precepts show us perfection in a conduct cruel to ourselves
      and perfectly useless to others.
    </p>
    <p>
      How did God show Himself? Did He Himself promulgate His laws? Did He speak
      to men with His own mouth? I am told that God did not show Himself to a
      whole nation, but that He employed always the organism of a few favored
      persons, who took the care to teach and to explain His intentions to the
      unlearned. It was never permitted to the people to go to the sanctuary;
      the ministers of the Gods always alone had the right to report to them
      what transpired.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      CXXVI.&mdash;NOTHING ESTABLISHES THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If, in the economy of all Divine revelations, I am unable to recognize
      either the wisdom, the goodness, or the equity of a God; if I suspect
      deceit, ambition, selfish designs in the great personages who have
      interposed between Heaven and us, I am assured that God has confirmed, by
      splendid miracles, the mission of those who have spoken for Him. But was
      it not much easier to show Himself, and to explain for Himself? On the
      other hand, if I have the curiosity to examine these miracles, I find that
      they are tales void of probability, related by suspicious people, who had
      the greatest interest in making others believe that they were sent from
      the Most High.
    </p>
    <p>
      What witnesses are referred to in order to make us believe incredible
      miracles? They call as witnesses stupid people, who have ceased to exist
      for thousands of years, and who, even if they could attest the miracles in
      question, would be suspected of having been deceived by their own
      imagination, and of permitting themselves to be seduced by the illusions
      which skillful impostors performed before their eyes. But, you will say,
      these miracles are recorded in books which through constant tradition have
      been handed down to us. By whom were these books written? Who are the men
      who have transmitted and perpetuated them? They are either the same people
      who established these religions, or those who have become their adherents
      and their assistants. Thus, in the matter of religion, the testimony of
      interested parties is irrefragable and can not be contested!
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      CXXVII.&mdash;IF GOD HAD SPOKEN, IT WOULD BE STRANGE THAT HE HAD SPOKEN
      DIFFERENTLY TO ALL THE ADHERENTS OF THE DIFFERENT SECTS, WHO DAMN EACH
      OTHER, WHO ACCUSE EACH OTHER, WITH REASON, OF SUPERSTITION AND IMPIETY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      God has spoken differently to each nation of the globe which we inhabit.
      The Indian does not believe one word of what He said to the Chinaman; the
      Mohammedan considers what He has told to the Christian as fables; the Jew
      considers the Mohammedan and the Christian as sacrilegious corruptors of
      the Holy Law, which his God has given to his fathers. The Christian, proud
      of his more modern revelation, equally damns the Indian and the Chinaman,
      the Mohammedan, and even the Jew, whose holy books he holds. Who is wrong
      or right? Each one exclaims: "It is I!" Every one claims the same proofs;
      each one speaks of his miracles, his saints, his prophets, his martyrs.
      Sensible men answer, that they are all delirious; that God has not spoken,
      if it is true that He is a Spirit who has neither mouth nor tongue; that
      the God of the Universe could, without borrowing mortal organism, inspire
      His creatures with what He desired them to learn, and that, as they are
      all equally ignorant of what they ought to think about God, it is evident
      that God did not want to instruct them. The adherents of the different
      forms of worship which we see established in this world, accuse each other
      of superstition and of ungodliness. The Christians abhor the superstition
      of the heathen, of the Chinese, of the Mohammedans. The Roman Catholics
      treat the Protestant Christians as impious; the latter incessantly declaim
      against Roman superstition. They are all right. To be impious, is to have
      unjust opinions about the God who is adored; to be superstitious, is to
      have false ideas of Him. In accusing each other of superstition, the
      different religionists resemble humpbacks who taunt each other with their
      malformation.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      CXXVIII.&mdash;OBSCURE AND SUSPICIOUS ORIGIN OF ORACLES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The oracles which the Deity has revealed to the nations through His
      different mediums, are they clear? Alas! there are not two men who
      understand them alike. Those who explain them to others do not agree among
      themselves; in order to make them clear, they have recourse to
      interpretations, to commentaries, to allegories, to parables, in which is
      found a mystical sense very different from the literal one. Men are needed
      everywhere to explain the wishes of God, who could not or would not
      explain Himself clearly to those whom He desired to enlighten. God always
      prefers to use as mediums men who can be suspected of having been deceived
      themselves, or having reasons to deceive others.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      CXXIX.&mdash;ABSURDITY OF PRETENDED MIRACLES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The founders of all religions have usually proved their mission by
      miracles. But what is a miracle? It is an operation directly opposed to
      the laws of nature. But, according to you, who has made these laws? It is
      God. Thus your God, who, according to you, has foreseen everything,
      counteracts the laws which His wisdom had imposed upon nature! These laws
      were then defective, or at least in certain circumstances they were but in
      accordance with the views of this same God, for you tell us that He
      thought He ought to suspend or counteract them.
    </p>
    <p>
      An attempt is made to persuade us that men who have been favored by the
      Most High have received from Him the power to perform miracles; but in
      order to perform a miracle, it is necessary to have the faculty of
      creating new causes capable of producing effects opposed to those which
      ordinary causes can produce. Can we realize how God can give to men the
      inconceivable power of creating causes out of nothing? Can it be believed
      that an unchangeable God can communicate to man the power to change or
      rectify His plan, a power which, according to His essence, an immutable
      being can not have himself? Miracles, far from doing much honor to God,
      far from proving the Divinity of religion, destroy evidently the idea
      which is given to us of God, of His immutability, of His incommunicable
      attributes, and even of His omnipotence. How can a theologian tell us that
      a God who embraced at once the whole of His plan, who could make but
      perfect laws, who can change nothing in them, should be obliged to employ
      miracles to make His projects successful, or grant to His creatures the
      faculty of performing prodigies, in order to execute His Divine will? Is
      it probable that a God needs the support of men? An Omnipotent Being,
      whose wishes are always gratified, a Being who holds in His hands the
      hearts and the minds of His creatures, needs but to wish, in order to make
      them believe all He desires.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      CXXX.&mdash;REFUTATION OF PASCAL'S MANNER OF REASONING AS TO HOW WE SHOULD
      JUDGE MIRACLES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      What should we say of religions that based their Divinity upon miracles
      which they themselves cause to appear suspicious? How can we place any
      faith in the miracles related in the Holy Books of the Christians, where
      God Himself boasts of hardening hearts, of blinding those whom He wishes
      to ruin; where this God permits wicked spirits and magicians to perform as
      wonderful miracles as those of His servants; where it is prophesied that
      the Anti-Christ will have the power to perform miracles capable of
      destroying the faith even of the elect? This granted, how can we know
      whether God wants to instruct us or to lay a snare for us? How can we
      distinguish whether the wonders which we see, proceed from God or the
      Devil? Pascal, in order to disembarrass us, says very gravely, that we
      must judge the doctrine by miracles, and the miracles by the doctrine;
      that doctrine judges the miracles, and the miracles judge the doctrine. If
      there exists a defective and ridiculous circle, it is no doubt in this
      fine reasoning of one of the greatest defenders of the Christian religion.
      Which of all the religions in the world does not claim to possess the most
      admirable doctrine, and which does not bring to its aid a great number of
      miracles?
    </p>
    <p>
      Is a miracle capable of destroying a demonstrated truth? Although a man
      should have the secret of curing all diseases, of making the lame to walk,
      of raising all the dead of a city, of floating in the air, of arresting
      the course of the sun and of the moon, will he be able to convince me by
      all this that two and two do not make four; that one makes three and that
      three makes but one; that a God who fills the universe with His immensity,
      could have transformed Himself into the body of a Jew; that the eternal
      can perish like man; that an immutable, foreseeing, and sensible God could
      have changed His opinion upon His religion, and reform His own work by a
      new revelation?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXXI.&mdash;EVEN ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THEOLOGY ITSELF, EVERY
      NEW REVELATION SHOULD BE REFUTED AS FALSE AND IMPIOUS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      According to the principles of theology itself, whether natural or
      revealed, every new revelation ought to be considered false; every change
      in a religion which had emanated from the Deity ought to be refuted as
      ungodly and blasphemous. Does not every reform suppose that God did not
      know how at the start to give His religion the required solidity and
      perfection? To say that God in giving a first law accommodated Himself to
      the gross ideas of a people whom He wished to enlighten, is to pretend
      that God neither could nor would make the people whom He enlightened at
      that time, as reasonable as they ought to be to please Him.
    </p>
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    <p>
      Christianity is an impiety, if it is true that Judaism as a religion
      really emanated from a Holy, Immutable, Almighty, grid Foreseeing God.
      Christ's religion implies either defects in the law that God Himself gave
      by Moses, or impotence or malice in this God who could not, or would not
      make the Jews as they ought to be to please Him. All religions, whether
      new, or ancient ones reformed, are evidently founded on the weakness, the
      inconstancy, the imprudence, and the malice of the Deity.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXXII.&mdash;EVEN THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS, TESTIFIES AGAINST THE TRUTH
      OF MIRACLES AND AGAINST THE DIVINE ORIGIN WHICH CHRISTIANITY CLAIMS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If history informs me that the first apostles, founders or reformers of
      religions, performed great miracles, history teaches me also that these
      reforming apostles and their adherents have been usually despised,
      persecuted, and put to death as disturbers of the peace of nations. I am
      then tempted to believe that they have not performed the miracles
      attributed to them. Finally, these miracles should have procured to them a
      great number of disciples among those who witnessed them, who ought to
      have prevented the performers from being maltreated. My incredulity
      increases if I am told that the performers of miracles have been cruelly
      tormented or slain. How can we believe that missionaries, protected by a
      God, invested with His Divine Power, and enjoying the gift of miracles,
      could not perform the simple miracle of escaping from the cruelty of their
      persecutors?
    </p>
    <p>
      Persecutions themselves are considered as a convincing proof in favor of
      the religion of those who have suffered them; but a religion which boasts
      of having caused the death of many martyrs, and which informs us that its
      founders have suffered for its extension unheard-of torments, can not be
      the religion of a benevolent, equitable, and Almighty God. A good God
      would not permit that men charged with revealing His will should be
      misused. An omnipotent God desiring to found a religion, would have
      employed simpler and less fatal means for His most faithful servants. To
      say that God desired that His religion should be sealed by blood, is to
      say that this God is weak, unjust, ungrateful, and sanguinary, and that He
      sacrifices unworthily His missionaries to the interests of His ambition.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXXIII.&mdash;THE FANATICISM OF THE MARTYRS, THE INTERESTED ZEAL OF
      MISSIONARIES, PROVE IN NOWISE THE TRUTH OF RELIGION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      To die for a religion does not prove it true or Divine; this proves at
      most that we suppose it to be so. An enthusiast in dying proves nothing
      but that religious fanaticism is often stronger than the love of life. An
      impostor can sometimes die with courage; he makes then, as is said, "a
      virtue of necessity." We are often surprised and affected at the sight of
      the generous courage and the disinterested zeal which have led
      missionaries to preach their doctrine at the risk even of suffering the
      most rigorous torments. We draw from this love, which is exhibited for the
      salvation of men, deductions favorable to the religion which they have
      proclaimed; but in truth this disinterestedness is only apparent. "Nothing
      ventured, nothing gained!" A missionary seeks fortune by the aid of his
      doctrine; he knows that if he has the good fortune to retail his
      commodity, he will become the absolute master of those who accept him as
      their guide; he is sure to become the object of their care, of their
      respect, of their veneration; he has every reason to believe that he will
      be abundantly provided for. These are the true motives which kindle the
      zeal and the charity of so many preachers and missionaries who travel all
      over the world.
    </p>
    <p>
      To die for an opinion, proves no more the truth or the soundness of this
      opinion than to die in a battle proves the right of the prince, for whose
      benefit so many people are foolish enough to sacrifice themselves. The
      courage of a martyr, animated by the idea of Paradise, is not any more
      supernatural than the courage of a warrior, inspired with the idea of
      glory or held to duty by the fear of disgrace. What difference do we find
      between an Iroquois who sings while he is burned by a slow fire, and the
      martyr St. Lawrence, who while upon the gridiron insults his tyrant?
    </p>
    <p>
      The preachers of a new doctrine succumb because they are not the
      strongest; the apostles usually practice a perilous business, whose
      consequences they can foresee; their courageous death does not prove any
      more the truth of their principles or their own sincerity, than the
      violent death of an ambitious man or a brigand proves that they had the
      right to trouble society, or that they believed themselves authorized to
      do it. A missionary's profession has been always flattering to his
      ambition, and has enabled him to subsist at the expense of the common
      people; these advantages have been sufficient to make him forget the
      dangers which are connected with it.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXXIV.&mdash;THEOLOGY MAKES OF ITS GOD AN ENEMY OF COMMON SENSE AND OF
      ENLIGHTENMENT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      You tell us, O theologians! that "what is folly in the eyes of men, is
      wisdom before God, who is pleased to confound the wisdom of the wise." But
      do you not pretend that human wisdom is a gift from Heaven? In telling us
      that this wisdom displeases God, is but folly in His eyes, and that He
      wishes to confound it, you proclaim that your God is but the friend of
      unenlightened people, and that He makes to sensible people a fatal gift,
      for which this perfidious Tyrant promises to punish them cruelly some day.
      Is it not very strange that we can not be the friend of your God but by
      declaring ourselves the enemy of reason and common sense?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXXV.&mdash;FAITH IS IRRECONCILABLE WITH REASON, AND REASON IS PREFERABLE
      TO FAITH.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Faith, according to theologians, is consent without evidence. From this it
      follows that religion exacts that we should firmly believe, without
      evidence, in propositions which are often improbable or opposed to reason.
      But to challenge reason as a judge of faith, is it not acknowledging that
      reason can not agree with faith? As the ministers of religion have
      determined to banish reason, they must have felt the impossibility of
      reconciling reason with faith, which is visibly but a blind submission to
      those priests whose authority, in many minds, appears to be of a greater
      importance than evidence itself, and preferable to the testimony of the
      senses. "Sacrifice your reason; give up experience; distrust the testimony
      of your senses; submit without examination to all that is given to you as
      coming from Heaven." This is the usual language of all the priests of the
      world; they do not agree upon any point, except in the necessity of never
      reasoning when they present principles to us which they claim as the most
      important to our happiness.
    </p>
    <p>
      I will not sacrifice my reason, because this reason alone enables me to
      distinguish good from evil, the true from the false. If, as you pretend,
      my reason comes from God, I will never believe that a God whom you call so
      good, had ever given me reason but as a snare, in order to lead me to
      perdition. Priests! in crying down reason, do you not see that you slander
      your God, who, as you assure us, has given us this reason?
    </p>
    <p>
      I will not give up experience, because it is a much better guide than
      imagination, or than the authority of the guides whom they wish to give
      me. This experience teaches me that enthusiasm and interest can blind and
      mislead them, and that the authority of experience ought to have more
      weight upon my mind than the suspicious testimony of many men whom I know
      to be capable of deceiving themselves, or very much interested in
      deceiving others.
    </p>
    <p>
      I will not distrust my senses. I do not ignore the fact that they can
      sometimes lead me into error; but on the other hand, I know that they do
      not deceive me always. I know very well that the eye shows the sun much
      smaller than it really is; but experience, which is only the repeated
      application of the senses, teaches me that objects continually diminish by
      reason of their distance; it is by these means that I reach the conclusion
      that the sun is much larger than the earth; it is thus that my senses
      suffice to rectify the hasty judgments which they induced me to form. In
      warning me to doubt the testimony of my senses, you destroy for me the
      proofs of all religion. If men can be dupes of their imagination, if their
      senses are deceivers, why would you have me believe in the miracles which
      made an impression upon the deceiving senses of our ancestors? If my
      senses are faithless guides, I learn that I should not have faith even in
      the miracles which I might see performed under my own eyes.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXXVI.&mdash;HOW ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS IS THE SOPHISTRY OF THOSE WHO WISH
      TO SUBSTITUTE FAITH FOR REASON.
    </h2>
    <p>
      You tell me continually that the "truths of religion are beyond reason."
      Do you not admit, then, that these truths are not made for reasonable
      beings? To pretend that reason can deceive us, is to say that truth can be
      false, that usefulness can be injurious. Is reason anything else but the
      knowledge of the useful and the true? Besides, as we have but our reason,
      which is more or less exercised, and our senses, such as they are, to lead
      us in this life, to claim that reason is an unsafe guide, and that our
      senses are deceivers, is to tell us that our errors are necessary, that
      our ignorance is invincible, and that, without extreme injustice, God can
      not punish us for having followed the only guides which He desired to give
      us. To pretend that we are obliged to believe in things which are beyond
      our reason, is an assertion as ridiculous as to say that God would compel
      us to fly without wings. To claim that there are objects on which reason
      should not be consulted, is to say that in the most important affairs, we
      must consult but imagination, or act by chance.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our Doctors of Divinity tell us that we ought to sacrifice our reason to
      God; but what motives can we have for sacrificing our reason to a being
      who gives us but useless gifts, which He does not intend that we should
      make use of? What confidence can we place in a God who, according to our
      Doctors themselves, is wicked enough to harden hearts, to strike us with
      blindness, to place snares in our way, to lead us into temptation?
      Finally, how can we place confidence in the ministers of this God, who, in
      order to guide us more conveniently, command us to close our eyes?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXXVII.&mdash;HOW PRETEND THAT MAN OUGHT TO BELIEVE VERBAL TESTIMONY ON
      WHAT IS CLAIMED TO BE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR HIM?
    </h2>
    <p>
      Men persuade themselves that religion is the most serious affair in the
      world for them, while it is the very thing which they least examine for
      themselves. If the question arises in the purchase of land, of a house, of
      the investment of money, of a transaction, or of some kind of an
      agreement, you will see each one examine everything with care, take the
      greatest precautions, weigh all the words of a document, to beware of any
      surprise or imposition. It is not the same with religion; each one accepts
      it at hazard, and believes it upon verbal testimony, without taking the
      trouble to examine it. Two causes seem to concur in sustaining men in the
      negligence and the thoughtlessness which they exhibit when the question
      comes up of examining their religious opinions. The first one is, the
      hopelessness of penetrating the obscurity by which every religion is
      surrounded; even in its first principles, it has only a tendency to repel
      indolent minds, who see in it but chaos, to penetrate which, they judge
      impossible. The second is, that each one is afraid to incommode himself by
      the severe precepts which everybody admires in the theory, and which few
      persons take the trouble of practicing. Many people preserve their
      religion like old family titles which they have never taken the trouble to
      examine minutely, but which they place in their archives in case they need
      them.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXXVIII.&mdash;FAITH TAKES ROOT BUT IN WEAK, IGNORANT, OR INDOLENT MINDS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The disciples of Pythagoras had an implicit faith in their Master's
      doctrine: "HE HAS SAID IT!" was for them the solution of all problems. The
      majority of men act with as little reason. A curate, a priest, an ignorant
      monk, will become in the matter of religion the master of one's thoughts.
      Faith relieves the weakness of the human mind, for whom application is
      commonly a very painful work; it is much easier to rely upon others than
      to examine for one's self; examination being slow and difficult, it is
      usually unpleasant to ignorant and stupid minds as well as to very ardent
      ones; this is, no doubt, why faith finds so many partisans.
    </p>
    <p>
      The less enlightenment and reason men possess, the more zeal they exhibit
      for their religion. In all the religious factions, women, aroused by their
      directors, exhibit very great zeal in opinions of which it is evident they
      have not the least idea. In theological quarrels people rush like a
      ferocious beast upon all those against whom their priest wishes to excite
      them. Profound ignorance, unlimited credulity, a very weak head, an
      irritated imagination, these are the materials of which devotees, zealots,
      fanatics, and saints are made. How can we make those people understand
      reason who allow themselves to be guided without examining anything? The
      devotees and common people are, in the hands of their guides, only
      automatons which they move at their fancy.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXXXIX.&mdash;TO TEACH THAT THERE EXISTS ONE TRUE RELIGION IS AN
      ABSURDITY, AND A CAUSE OF MUCH TROUBLE AMONG THE NATIONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Religion is a thing of custom and fashion; we must do as others do. But,
      among the many religions in the world, which one ought we to choose? This
      examination would be too long and too painful; we must then hold to the
      faith of our fathers, to that of our country, or to that of the prince,
      who, possessing power, must be the best. Chance alone decides the religion
      of a man and of a people. The French would be to-day as good Mussulmen as
      they are Christians, if their ancestors had not repulsed the efforts of
      the Saracens. If we judge of the intentions of Providence by the events
      and the revolutions of this world, we are compelled to believe that it is
      quite indifferent about the different religions which exist on earth.
      During thousands of years Paganism, Polytheism, and Idolatry have been the
      religions of the world; we are assured today, that during this period the
      most flourishing nations had not the least idea of the Deity, an idea
      which is claimed, however, to be so important to all men. The Christians
      pretend that, with the exception of the Jewish people, that is to say, a
      handful of unfortunate beings, the whole human race lived in utter
      ignorance of its duties toward God, and had but imperfect ideas of Divine
      majesty. Christianity, offshoot of Judaism, which was very humble in its
      obscure origin, became powerful and cruel under the Christian emperors,
      who, driven by a holy zeal, spread it marvelously in their empire by sword
      and fire, and founded it upon the ruins of overthrown Paganism. Mohammed
      and his successors, aided by Providence, or by their victorious arms,
      succeeded in a short time in expelling the Christian religion from a part
      of Asia, Africa, and even of Europe itself; the Gospel was compelled to
      surrender to the Koran. In all the factions or sects which during a great
      number of centuries have lacerated the Christians, "THE REASON OF THE
      STRONGEST WAS ALWAYS THE BEST;" the arms and the will of the princes alone
      decided upon the most useful doctrine for the salvation of the nations.
      Could we not conclude by this, either that the Deity takes but little
      interest in the religion of men, or that He declares Himself always in
      favor of opinions which best suit the Authorities of the earth, in order
      that He can change His systems as soon as they take a notion to change?
    </p>
    <p>
      A king of Macassar, tired of the idolatry of his fathers, took a notion
      one day to leave it. The monarch's council deliberated for a long time to
      know whether they should consult Christian or Mohammedan Doctors. In the
      impossibility of finding out which was the better of the two religions, it
      was resolved to send at the same time for the missionaries of both, and to
      accept the doctrine of those who would have the advantage of arriving
      first. They did not doubt that God, who disposes of events, would thus
      Himself explain His will. Mohammed's missionaries having been more
      diligent, the king with his people submitted to the law which he had
      imposed upon himself; the missionaries of Christ were dismissed by default
      of their God, who did not permit them to arrive early enough. God
      evidently consents that chance should decide the religion of nations.
    </p>
    <p>
      Those who govern, always decide the religion of the people. The true
      religion is but the religion of the prince; the true God is the God whom
      the prince wishes them to worship; the will of the priests who govern the
      prince, always becomes the will of God. A jester once said, with reason,
      that "the true faith is always the one which has on its side 'the prince
      and the executioner.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      Emperors and executioners for a long time sustained the Gods of Rome
      against the God of the Christians; the latter having won over to their
      side the emperors, their soldiers and their executioners succeeded in
      suppressing the worship of the Roman Gods. Mohammed's God succeeded in
      expelling the Christian's God from a large part of the countries which He
      formerly occupied. In the eastern part of Asia, there is a large country
      which is very flourishing, very productive, thickly populated, and
      governed by such wise laws, that the most savage conquerors adopted them
      with respect. It is China! With the exception of Christianity, which was
      banished as dangerous, they followed their own superstitious ideas; while
      the mandarins or magistrates, undeceived long ago about the popular
      religion, do not trouble themselves in regard to it, except to watch over
      it, that the bonzes or priests do not use this religion to disturb the
      peace of the State. However, we do not see that Providence withholds its
      benefactions from a nation whose chiefs take so little interest in the
      worship which is offered to it. The Chinese enjoy, on the contrary,
      blessings and a peace worthy of being envied by many nations which
      religion divides, ravages, and often destroys. We can not reasonably
      expect to deprive a people of its follies; but we can hope to cure of
      their follies those who govern the people; these will then prevent the
      follies of the people from becoming dangerous. Superstition is never to be
      feared except when it has the support of princes and soldiers; it is only
      then that it becomes cruel and sanguinary. Every sovereign who assumes the
      protection of a sect or of a religious faction, usually becomes the tyrant
      of other sects, and makes himself the must cruel perturbator in his
      kingdom.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXL.&mdash;RELIGION IS NOT NECESSARY TO MORALITY AND TO VIRTUE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are constantly told, and a good many sensible persons come to believe
      it, that religion is necessary to restrain men; that without it there
      would be no check upon the people; that morality and virtue are intimately
      connected with it: "The fear of the Lord is," we are told, "the beginning
      of wisdom." The terrors of another life are salutary terrors, and
      calculated to subdue men's passions. To disabuse us in regard to the
      utility of religious notions, it is sufficient to open the eyes and to
      consider what are the morals of the most religious people. We see haughty
      tyrants, oppressive ministers, perfidious courtiers, countless
      extortioners, unscrupulous magistrates, impostors, adulterers, libertines,
      prostitutes, thieves, and rogues of all kinds, who have never doubted the
      existence of a vindictive God, or the punishments of hell, or the joys of
      Paradise.
    </p>
    <p>
      Although very useless for the majority of men, the ministers of religion
      have tried to make death appear terrible to the eyes of their votaries. If
      the most devoted Christians could be consistent, they would pass their
      whole lives in tears, and would finally die in the most terrible alarms.
      What is more frightful than death to those unfortunate ones who are
      constantly reminded that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of
      a living God;" that they should "seek salvation with fear and trembling!"
      However, we are assured that the Christian's death has great consolations,
      of which the unbeliever is deprived. The good Christian, we are told, dies
      with the firm hope of enjoying eternal happiness, which he has tried to
      deserve. But this firm assurance, is it not a punishable presumption in
      the eyes of a severe God? The greatest saints, are they not to be in doubt
      whether they are worthy of the love or of the hatred of God Priests who
      console us with the hope of the joys of Paradise, and close your eyes to
      the torments of hell, have you then had the advantage of seeing your names
      and ours inscribed in the book of life?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXLI.&mdash;RELIGION IS THE WEAKEST RESTRAINT THAT CAN BE OPPOSED TO THE
      PASSIONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      To oppose to the passions and present interests of men the obscure notions
      about a metaphysical God whom no one can conceive of; the incredible
      punishments of another life; the pleasures of Heaven, of which we can not
      form an idea, is it not combating realities with chimeras? Men have always
      but confused ideas of their God; they see Him only in the clouds; they
      never think of Him when they wish to do wrong. Whenever ambition, fortune,
      or pleasure entices them or leads them away, God, and His menaces, and His
      promises weigh nothing in the balance. The things of this life have for
      men a degree of certainty, which the most lively faith can never give to
      the objects of another life.
    </p>
    <p>
      Every religion, in its origin, was a restraint invented by legislators who
      wished to subjugate the minds of the common people. Like nurses who
      frighten children in order to put them to sleep, ambitious men use the
      name of the gods to inspire fear in savages; terror seems well suited to
      compel them to submit quietly to the yoke which is to be imposed upon
      them. Are the ghost stories of childhood fit for mature age? Man in his
      maturity no longer believes in them, or if he does, he is troubled but
      little by it, and he keeps on his road.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXLII.&mdash;HONOR IS A MORE SALUTARY AND A STRONGER CHECK THAN RELIGION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      There is scarcely a man who does not fear more what he sees than what he
      does not see; the judgments of men, of which he experiences the effects,
      than the judgments of God, of whom he has but floating ideas. The desire
      to please the world, the current of custom, the fear of being ridiculed,
      and of "WHAT WILL THEY SAY?" have more power than all religious opinions.
      A warrior with the fear of dishonor, does he not hazard his life in
      battles every day, even at the risk of incurring eternal damnation?
    </p>
    <p>
      The most religious persons sometimes show more respect for a servant than
      for God. A man that firmly believes that God sees everything, knows
      everything, is everywhere, will, when he is alone, commit actions which he
      never would do in the presence of the meanest of mortals. Those even who
      claim to be the most firmly convinced of the existence of a God, act every
      instant as if they did not believe anything about it.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXLIII.&mdash;RELIGION IS CERTAINLY NOT A POWERFUL CHECK UPON THE PASSIONS
      OF KINGS, WHO ARE ALMOST ALWAYS CRUEL AND FANTASTIC TYRANTS BY THE EXAMPLE
      OF THIS SAME GOD, OF WHOM THEY CLAIM TO BE THE REPRESENTATIVES; THEY USE
      RELIGION BUT TO BRUTALIZE THEIR SLAVES SO MUCH THE MORE, TO LULL THEM TO
      SLEEP IN THEIR FETTERS, AND TO PREY UPON THEM WITH THE GREATER FACILITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      "Let us tolerate at least," we are told, "the idea of a God, which alone
      can be a restraint upon the passions of kings." But, in good faith, can we
      admire the marvelous effects which the fear of this God produces generally
      upon the mind of the princes who claim to be His images? What idea can we
      form of the original, if we judge it by its duplicates? Sovereigns, it is
      true, call, themselves the representatives of God, His lieutenants upon
      earth. But does the fear of a more powerful master than themselves make
      them attend to the welfare of the peoples that Providence has confided to
      their care? The idea of an invisible Judge, to whom alone they pretend to
      be accountable for their actions, should inspire them with terror! But
      does this terror render them more equitable, more humane, less avaricious
      of the blood and the goods of their subjects, more moderate in their
      pleasures, more attentive to their duties? Finally, does this God, by whom
      we are assured that kings reign, prevent them from vexing in a thousand
      ways the peoples of whom they ought to be the leaders, the protectors, and
      fathers? Let us open our eyes, let us turn our regards upon all the earth,
      and we shall see, almost everywhere, men governed by tyrants, who make use
      of religion but to brutalize their slaves, whom they oppress by the weight
      of their vices, or whom they sacrifice without mercy to their fatal
      extravagances. Far from being a restraint to the passions of kings,
      religion, by its very principles, gives them a loose rein. It transforms
      them into Divinities, whose caprices the nations never dare to resist. At
      the same time that it unchains princes and breaks for them the ties of the
      social pact, it enchains the minds and the hands of their oppressed
      subjects. Is it surprising, then, that the gods of the earth believe that
      all is permitted to them, and consider their subjects as vile instruments
      of their caprices or of their ambition?
    </p>
    <p>
      Religion, in every country, has made of the Monarch of Nature a cruel,
      fantastic, partial tyrant, whose caprice is the rule. The God-monarch is
      but too well imitated by His representatives upon the earth. Everywhere
      religion seems invented but to lull to sleep the people in fetters, in
      order to furnish their masters the facility of devouring them, or to
      render them miserable with impunity.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXLIV.&mdash;ORIGIN OF THE MOST ABSURD, THE MOST RIDICULOUS, AND THE MOST
      ODIOUS USURPATION, CALLED THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS. WISE COUNSELS TO
      KINGS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In order to guard themselves against the enterprises of a haughty Pontiff
      who desired to reign over kings, and in order to protect their persons
      from the attacks of the credulous people excited by their priests, several
      princes of Europe pretended to have received their crowns and their rights
      from God alone, and that they should account to Him only for their
      actions. Civil power in its battles against spiritual power, having at
      length gained the advantage, and the priests being compelled to yield,
      recognized the Divine right of kings and preached it to the people,
      reserving to themselves the right to change opinions and to preach
      revolution, every time that the divine rights of kings did not agree with
      the divine rights of the clergy. It was always at the expense of the
      people that peace was restored between the kings and the priests, but the
      latter maintained their pretensions notwithstanding all treaties.
    </p>
    <p>
      Many tyrants and wicked princes, whose conscience reproaches them for
      their negligence or their perversity, far from fearing their God, rather
      like to bargain with this invisible Judge, who never refuses anything, or
      with His priests, who are accommodating to the masters of the earth rather
      than to their subjects. The people, when reduced to despair, consider the
      divine rights of their chiefs as an abuse. When men become exasperated,
      the divine rights of tyrants are compelled to yield to the natural rights
      of their subjects; they have better market with the gods than with men.
      Kings are responsible for their actions but to God, the priests but to
      themselves; there is reason to believe that both of them have more faith
      in the indulgence of Heaven than in that of earth. It is much easier to
      escape the judgments of the gods, who can be appeased at little expense,
      than the judgments of men whose patience is exhausted. If you take away
      from the sovereigns the fear of an invisible power, what restraint will
      you oppose to their misconduct? Let them learn how to govern, how to be
      just, how to respect the rights of the people, to recognize the
      benefactions of the nations from whom they obtain their grandeur and
      power; let them learn to fear men, to submit to the laws of equity, that
      no one can violate without danger; let these laws restrain equally the
      powerful and the weak, the great and the small, the sovereign and the
      subjects.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fear of the Gods, religion, the terrors of another life&mdash;these
      are the metaphysical and supernatural barriers which are opposed to the
      furious passions of princes! Are these barriers sufficient? We leave it to
      experience to solve the question! To oppose religion to the wickedness of
      tyrants, is to wish that vague speculations should be more powerful than
      inclinations which conspire to fortify them in it from day to day.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXLV.&mdash;RELIGION IS FATAL TO POLITICS; IT FORMS BUT LICENTIOUS AND
      PERVERSE DESPOTS, AS WELL AS ABJECT AND UNHAPPY SUBJECTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are told constantly of the immense advantages which religion secures to
      politics; but if we reflect a moment, we will see without trouble that
      religious opinions blind and lead astray equally the rulers and the
      people, and never enlighten them either in regard to their true duties or
      their real interests. Religion but too often forms licentious, immoral
      tyrants, obeyed by slaves who are obliged to conform to their views. From
      lack of the knowledge of the true principles of administration, the aim
      and the rights of social life, the real interests of men, and the duties
      which unite them, the princes are become, in almost every land,
      licentious, absolute, and perverse; and their subjects abject unhappy, and
      wicked. It was to avoid the trouble of studying these important subjects,
      that they felt themselves obliged to have recourse to chimeras, which so
      far, instead of being a remedy, have but increased the evils of the human
      race and withdrawn their attention from the most interesting things. Does
      not the unjust and cruel manner in which so many nations are governed here
      below, furnish the most visible proofs, not only of the non-effect
      produced by the fear of another life, but of the non-existence of a
      Providence interested in the fate of the human race? If there existed a
      good God, would we not be forced to admit that He strangely neglects the
      majority of men in this life? It would appear that this God created the
      nations but to be toys for the passions and follies of His representatives
      upon earth.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXLVI.&mdash;CHRISTIANITY EXTENDED ITSELF BUT BY ENCOURAGING DESPOTISM, OF
      WHICH IT, LIKE ALL RELIGION, IS THE STRONGEST SUPPORT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If we read history with some attention, we shall see that Christianity,
      fawning at first, insinuated itself among the savage and free nations of
      Europe but by showing their chiefs that its principles would favor
      despotism and place absolute power in their hands. We see, consequently,
      barbarous kings converting themselves with a miraculous promptitude; that
      is to say, adopting without examination a system so favorable to their
      ambition, and exerting themselves to have it adopted by their subjects. If
      the ministers of this religion have since often moderated their servile
      principles, it is because the theory has no influence upon the conduct of
      the Lord's ministers, except when it suits their temporal interests.
    </p>
    <p>
      Christianity boasts of having brought to men a happiness unknown to
      preceding centuries. It is true that the Grecians have not known the
      Divine right of tyrants or usurpers over their native country. Under the
      reign of Paganism it never entered the brain of anybody that Heaven did
      not want a nation to defend itself against a ferocious beast which
      insolently ravaged it. The Christian religion, devised for the benefit of
      tyrants, was established on the principle that the nations should renounce
      the legitimate defense of themselves. Thus Christian nations are deprived
      of the first law of nature, which decrees that man should resist evil and
      disarm all who attempt to destroy him. If the ministers of the Church have
      often permitted nations to revolt for Heaven's cause, they never allowed
      them to revolt against real evils or known violences.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is from Heaven that the chains have come to fetter the minds of
      mortals. Why is the Mohammedan everywhere a slave? It is because his
      Prophet subdued him in the name of the Deity, just as Moses before him
      subjugated the Jews. In all parts of the world we see that priests were
      the first law-givers and the first sovereigns of the savages whom they
      governed. Religion seems to have been invented but to exalt princes above
      their nations, and to deliver the people to their discretion. As soon as
      the latter find themselves unhappy here below, they are silenced by
      menacing them with God's wrath; their eyes are fixed on Heaven, in order
      to prevent them from perceiving the real causes of their sufferings and
      from applying the remedies which nature offers them.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXLVII.&mdash;THE ONLY AIM OF RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES IS TO PERPETUATE THE
      TYRANNY OF KINGS AND TO SACRIFICE THE NATIONS TO THEM.
    </h2>
    <p>
      By incessantly repeating to men that the earth is not their true country;
      that the present life is but a passage; that they were not made to be
      happy in this world; that their sovereigns hold their authority but from
      God, and are responsible to Him alone for the misuse of it; that it is
      never permitted to them to resist, the priesthood succeeded in
      perpetuating the misconduct of the kings and the misfortunes of the
      people; the interests of the nations have been cowardly sacrificed to
      their chiefs. The more we consider the dogmas and the principles of
      religion, the more we shall be convinced that their only aim is to give
      advantage to tyrants and priests; not having the least regard for the good
      of society. In order to mask the powerlessness of these deaf Gods,
      religion has succeeded in making mortals believe that it is always
      iniquity which excites the wrath of Heaven. The people blame themselves
      for the disasters and the adversities which they endure continually. If
      disturbed nature sometimes causes the people to feel its blows, their bad
      governments are but too often the immediate and permanent causes from
      which spring the continual calamities that they are obliged to endure. Is
      it not the ambition of kings and of the great, their negligence, their
      vices, their oppression, to which are generally due sterility, mendacity,
      wars, contagions, bad morals, and all the multiplied scourges which
      desolate the earth?
    </p>
    <p>
      In continually directing the eyes of men toward Heaven, making them
      believe that all their evils are due to Divine wrath, in furnishing them
      but inefficient and futile means of lessening their troubles, it would
      appear that the only object of the priests is to prevent the nations from
      dreaming of the true sources of their miseries, and to perpetuate them.
      The ministers of religion act like those indigent mothers, who, in need of
      bread, put their hungry children to sleep by songs, or who present them
      toys to make them forget the want which torments them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Blinded from childhood by error, held by the invincible ties of opinion,
      crushed by panic terrors, stupefied at the bosom of ignorance, how could
      the people understand the true causes of their troubles? They think to
      remedy them by invoking the gods. Alas! do they not see that it is it the
      name of these gods that they are ordered to present their throat to the
      sword of their pitiless tyrants, in whom they would find the most visible
      cause of the evils under which they groan, and for which they uselessly
      implore the assistance of Heaven? Credulous people! in your adversities
      redouble your prayers, your offerings, your sacrifices; besiege your
      temples, strangle countless victims, fast in sackcloth and in ashes, drink
      your own tears; finally, exhaust yourselves to enrich your gods: you will
      do nothing but enrich their priests; the gods of Heaven will not be
      propitious to you, except when the gods of the earth will recognize that
      they are men like yourselves, and will give to your welfare the care which
      is your due.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXLVIII.&mdash;HOW FATAL IT IS TO PERSUADE KINGS THAT THEY HAVE ONLY GOD
      TO FEAR IF THEY INJURE THE PEOPLE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Negligent, ambitious, and perverse princes are the real causes of public
      adversities, of useless and unjust wars continually depopulating the
      earth, of greedy and despotic governments, destroying the benefactions of
      nature for men. The rapacity of the courts discourages agriculture, blots
      out industry, causes famine, contagion, misery; Heaven is neither cruel
      nor favorable to the wishes of the people; it is their haughty chiefs, who
      always have a heart of brass.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is a notion destructive to wholesome politics and to the morals of
      princes, to persuade them that God alone is to be feared by them, when
      they injure their subjects or when they neglect to render them happy.
      Sovereigns! It is not the Gods, but your people whom you offend when you
      do evil. It is to these people, and by retroaction, to yourselves, that
      you do harm when you govern unjustly.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nothing is more common in history than to see religious tyrants; nothing
      more rare than to find equitable, vigilant, enlightened princes. A monarch
      can be pious, very strict in fulfilling servilely the duties of his
      religion, very submissive to his priests, liberal in their behalf, and at
      the same time destitute of all the virtues and talents necessary for
      governing. Religion for the princes is but an instrument intended to keep
      the people more firmly under the yoke. According to the beautiful
      principles of religious morality, a tyrant who, during a long reign, will
      have done nothing but oppress his subjects, rob them of the fruits of
      their labor, sacrifice them without pity to his insatiable ambition; a
      conqueror who will have usurped the provinces of others, who will have
      slaughtered whole nations, who will have been all his life a real scourge
      of the human race, imagines that his conscience can be tranquillized, if,
      in order to expiate so many crimes, he will have wept at the feet of a
      priest, who will have the cowardly complaisance to console and reassure a
      brigand, whom the most frightful despair would punish too little for the
      evil which he has done upon earth.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXIX.&mdash;A RELIGIOUS KING IS A SCOURGE TO HIS KINGDOM.
    </h2>
    <p>
      A sincerely religious sovereign is generally a very dangerous chief for a
      State; credulity always indicates a narrow mind; devotion generally
      absorbs the attention which the prince ought to give to the ruling of his
      people. Docile to the suggestions of his priests, he constantly becomes
      the toy of their caprices, the abettor of their quarrels, the instrument
      and the accomplice of their follies, to which he attaches the greatest
      importance. Among the most fatal gifts which religion has bestowed upon
      the world, we must consider above all, these devoted and zealous monarchs,
      who, with the idea of working for the salvation of their subjects, have
      made it their sacred duty to torment, to persecute, to destroy those whose
      conscience made them think otherwise than they do. A religious bigot at
      the head of an empire, is one of the greatest scourges which Heaven in its
      fury could have sent upon earth. One fanatical or deceitful priest who has
      the ear of a credulous and powerful prince, suffices to put a State into
      disorder and the universe into combustion.
    </p>
    <p>
      In almost all countries, priests and devout persons are charged with
      forming the mind and the heart of the young princes destined to govern the
      nations. What enlightenment can teachers of this stamp give? Filled
      themselves with prejudices, they will hold up to their pupil superstition
      as the most important and the most sacred thing, its chimerical duties as
      the most holy obligations, intolerance, and the spirit of persecution, as
      the true foundations of his future authority; they will try to make him a
      chief of party, a turbulent fanatic, and a tyrant; they will suppress at
      an early period his reason; they will premonish him against it; they will
      prevent truth from reaching him; they will prejudice him against true
      talents, and prepossess him in favor of despicable talents; finally they
      will make of him an imbecile devotee, who will have no idea of justice or
      of injustice, of true glory or of true greatness, and who will be devoid
      of the intelligence and virtue necessary to the government of a great
      kingdom. Here, in brief, is the plan of education for a child destined to
      make, one day, the happiness or the misery of several millions of men.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CL.&mdash;THE SHIELD OF RELIGION IS FOR TYRANNY, A WEAK RAMPART AGAINST
      THE DESPAIR OF THE PEOPLE. A DESPOT IS A MADMAN, WHO INJURES HIMSELF AND
      SLEEPS UPON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Priests in all times have shown themselves supporters of despotism, and
      the enemies of public liberty. Their profession requires vile and
      submissive slaves, who never have the audacity to reason. In an absolute
      government, their great object is to secure control of the mind of a weak
      and stupid prince, in order to make themselves masters of the people.
      Instead of leading the people to salvation, priests have always led them
      to servitude.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the sake of the supernatural titles which religion has forged for the
      most wicked princes, the latter have generally united with the priests,
      who, sure of governing by controlling the opinion of the sovereign
      himself, have charge of tying the hands of the people and of keeping them
      under their yoke. But it is vain that the tyrant, protected by the shield
      of religion, flatters himself with being sheltered from all the blows of
      fate. Opinion is a weak rampart against the despair of the people.
      Besides, the priest is the friend of the tyrant only so long as he finds
      his profit by the tyranny; he preaches sedition and demolishes the idol
      which he has made, when he considers it no longer in conformity with the
      interests of Heaven, which he speaks of as he pleases, and which never
      speaks but in behalf of his interests. No doubt it will be said, that the
      sovereigns, knowing all the advantages which religion procures for them,
      are truly interested in upholding it with all their strength. If religious
      opinions are useful to tyrants, it is evident that they are useless to
      those who govern according to the laws of reason and of equity. Is there
      any advantage in exercising tyranny? Does not tyranny deprive princes of
      true power, the love of the people, in which is safety? Should not every
      rational prince perceive that the despot is but an insane man who injures
      himself? Will not every enlightened prince beware of his flatterers, whose
      object is to put him to sleep at the edge of the precipice to which they
      lead him?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLI.&mdash;RELIGION FAVORS THE ERRORS OF PRINCES, BY DELIVERING THEM FROM
      FEAR AND REMORSE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If the sacerdotal flatteries succeed in perverting princes and changing
      them into tyrants, the latter on their side necessarily corrupt the great
      men and the people. Under an unjust master, without goodness, without
      virtue, who knows no law but his caprice, a nation must become necessarily
      depraved. Will this master wish to have honest, enlightened, and virtuous
      men near him? No! he needs flatterers in those who approach him,
      imitators, slaves, base and servile minds, who give themselves up to his
      taste; his court will spread the contagion of vice to the inferior
      classes. By degrees all will be necessarily corrupted, in a State whose
      chief is corrupt himself. It was said a long time ago that the princes
      seem ordained to do all they do themselves. Religion, far from being a
      restraint upon the sovereigns, entitles them, without fear and without
      remorse, to the errors which are as fatal to themselves as to the nations
      which they govern. Men are never deceived with impunity. Tell a prince
      that he is a God, and very soon he will believe that he owes nothing to
      anybody. As long as he is feared, he will not care much for love; he will
      recognize no rights, no relations with his subjects, nor obligations in
      their behalf. Tell this prince that he is responsible for his actions to
      God alone, and very soon he will act as if he was responsible to nobody.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLII.&mdash;WHAT IS AN ENLIGHTENED SOVEREIGN?
    </h2>
    <p>
      An enlightened sovereign is he who understands his true interests; he
      knows they are united to those of his nation; he knows that a prince can
      be neither great, nor powerful, nor beloved, nor respected, so long as he
      will command but miserable slaves; he knows that equity, benevolence, and
      vigilance will give him more real rights over men than fabulous titles
      which claim to come from Heaven. He will feel that religion is useful but
      to the priests; that it is useless to society, which is often troubled by
      it; that it must be limited to prevent it from doing injury; finally, he
      will understand that, in order to reign with glory, he must make good
      laws, possess virtues, and not base his power on impositions and chimeras.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLIII.&mdash;THE DOMINANT PASSIONS AND CRIMES OF PRIESTCRAFT. WITH THE
      ASSISTANCE OF ITS PRETENDED GOD AND OF RELIGION, IT ASSERTS ITS PASSIONS
      AND COMMITS ITS CRIMES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The ministers of religion have taken great care to make of their God a
      terrible, capricious, and changeable tyrant; it was necessary for them
      that He should be thus in order that He might lend Himself to their
      various interests. A God who would be just and good, without a mixture of
      caprice and perversity; a God who would constantly have the qualities of
      an honest man or of a compliant sovereign, would not suit His ministers.
      It is necessary to the priests that we tremble before their God, in order
      that we have recourse to them to obtain the means to be quieted. No man is
      a hero to his valet de chambre. It is not surprising that a God clothed by
      His priests in such a way as to cause others to fear Him, should rarely
      impose upon those priests themselves, or exert but little influence upon
      their conduct. Consequently we see them behave themselves in a uniform way
      in every land; everywhere they devour nations, debase souls, discourage
      industry, and sow discord under the pretext of the glory of their God.
      Ambition and avarice were at all times the dominating passions of the
      priesthood; everywhere the priest places himself above the sovereign and
      the laws; everywhere we see him occupied but with the interests of his
      pride, his cupidity, his despotic and vindictive mood; everywhere he
      substitutes expiations, sacrifices, ceremonies, and mysterious practices;
      in a word, inventions lucrative to himself for useful and social virtues.
      The mind is confounded and reason interdicted with the view of ridiculous
      practices and pitiable means which the ministers of the gods invented in
      every country to purify souls and render Heaven favorable to nations.
      Here, they practice circumcision upon a child to procure it Divine
      benevolence; there, they pour water upon his head to wash away the crimes
      which he could not yet have committed; in other places he is told to
      plunge himself into a river whose waters have the power to wash away all
      his impurities; in other places certain food is forbidden to him, whose
      use would not fail to excite celestial indignation; in other countries
      they order the sinful man to come periodically for the confession of his
      faults to a priest, who is often a greater sinner than he.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLIV.&mdash;CHARLATANRY OF THE PRIESTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      What would we say of a crowd of quacks, who every day would exhibit in a
      public place, selling their remedies and recommending them as infallible,
      while we should find them afflicted with the same infirmities which they
      pretend to cure? Would we have much confidence in the recipes of these
      charlatans, who would bawl out: "Take our remedies, their effects are
      infallible&mdash;they cure everybody except us?" What would we think to
      see these same charlatans pass their lives in complaining that their
      remedies never produce any effect upon the patients who take them?
      Finally, what idea would we form of the foolishness of the common man who,
      in spite of this confession, would continue to pay very high for remedies
      which will not be beneficial to him? The priests resemble alchemists, who
      boldly assert that they have the secret of making gold, while they
      scarcely have clothing enough to cover their nudity.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ministers of religion incessantly declaim against the corruption of
      the age, and complain loudly of the little success of their teachings, at
      the same time they assure us that religion is the universal remedy, the
      true panacea for all human evils. These priests are sick themselves;
      however, men continue to frequent their stands and to have faith in their
      Divine antidotes, which, according to their own confession, cure nobody!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLV.&mdash;COUNTLESS CALAMITIES ARE PRODUCED BY RELIGION, WHICH HAS
      TAINTED MORALITY AND DISTURBED ALL JUST IDEAS AND ALL SOUND DOCTRINES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Religion, especially among modern people, in taking possession of
      morality, totally obscured its principles; it has rendered men unsocial
      from a sense of duty; it has forced them to be inhuman toward all those
      who did not think as they did. Theological disputes, equally
      unintelligible for the parties already irritated against each other, have
      unsettled empires, caused revolutions, ruined sovereigns, devastated the
      whole of Europe; these despicable quarrels could not be extinguished even
      in rivers of blood. After the extinction of Paganism the people
      established a religious principle of going into a frenzy, every time that
      an opinion was brought forth which their priests considered contrary to
      the holy doctrine. The votaries of a religion which preaches externally
      but charity, harmony, and peace, have shown themselves more ferocious than
      cannibals or savages every time that their instructors have excited them
      to the destruction of their brethren. There is no crime which men have not
      committed in the idea of pleasing the Deity or of appeasing His wrath. The
      idea of a terrible God who was represented as a despot, must necessarily
      have rendered His subjects wicked. Fear makes but slaves, and slaves are
      cowardly, low, cruel, and think they have a right to do anything when it
      is the question of gaining the good-will or of escaping the punishments of
      the master whom they fear. Liberty of thought can alone give to men
      humanity and grandeur of soul. The notion of a tyrant God can create but
      abject, angry, quarrelsome, intolerant slaves. Every religion which
      supposes a God easily irritated, jealous, vindictive, punctilious about
      His rights or His title, a God small enough to be offended at opinions
      which we have of Him, a God unjust enough to exact uniform ideas in regard
      to Him, such a religion becomes necessarily turbulent, unsocial,
      sanguinary; the worshipers of such a God never believe they can, without
      crime, dispense with hating and even destroying all those whom they
      designate as adversaries of this God; they would believe themselves
      traitors to the cause of their celestial Monarch, if they should live on
      good terms with rebellious fellow-citizens. To love what God hates, would
      it not be exposing one's self to His implacable hatred? Infamous
      persecutors, and you, religious cannibals! will you never feel the folly
      and injustice of your intolerant disposition? Do you not see that man is
      no more the master of his religious opinions, of his credulity or
      incredulity, than of the language which he learns in childhood, and which
      he can not change? To tell men to think as you do, is it not asking a
      foreigner to express his thoughts in your language? To punish a man for
      his erroneous opinions, is it not punishing him for having been educated
      differently from yourself? If I am incredulous, is it possible for me to
      banish from my mind the reasons which have unsettled my faith? If God
      allows men the freedom to damn themselves, is it your business? Are you
      wiser and more prudent than this God whose rights you wish to avenge?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLVI.&mdash;EVERY RELIGION IS INTOLERANT, AND CONSEQUENTLY DESTRUCTIVE OF
      BENEFICENCE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      There is no religious person who, according to his temperament, does not
      hate, despise, or pity the adherents of a sect different from his own. The
      dominant religion (which is never but that of the sovereign and the
      armies) always makes its superiority felt in a very cruel and injurious
      manner toward the weaker sects. There does not exist yet upon earth a true
      tolerance; everywhere a jealous God is worshiped, and each nation believes
      itself His friend to the exclusion of all others.
    </p>
    <p>
      Every nation boasts itself of worshiping the true God, the universal God,
      the Sovereign of Nature; but when we come to examine this Monarch of the
      world, we perceive that each organization, each sect, each religious
      party, makes of this powerful God but an inferior sovereign, whose cares
      and kindness extend themselves but over a small number of His subjects who
      pretend to have the exclusive advantage of His favors, and that He does
      not trouble Himself about the others.
    </p>
    <p>
      The founders of religions, and the priests who maintain them, have
      intended to separate the nations which they indoctrinated, from other
      nations; they desired to separate their own flock by distinctive features;
      they gave to their votaries Gods inimical to other Gods as well as the
      forms of worship, dogmas, ceremonies, separately; they persuaded them
      especially that the religions of others were ungodly and abominable. By
      this infamous contrivance, these ambitious impostors took exclusive
      possession of the minds of their votaries, rendered them unsocial, and
      made them consider as outcasts all those who had not the same ideas and
      form of worship as their own. This is the way religion succeeded in
      closing the heart, and in banishing from it that affection which man ought
      to have for his fellow-being. Sociability, tolerance, humanity, these
      first virtues of all morality are totally in compatible with religious
      prejudices.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLVII.&mdash;ABUSE OF A STATE RELIGION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Every national religion has a tendency to make man vain, unsocial, and
      wicked; the first step toward humanity is to permit each one to follow
      peacefully the worship and the opinions which suit him. But such a conduct
      can not please the ministers of religion, who wish to have the right to
      tyrannize over even the thoughts of men. Blind and bigoted princes, you
      hate, you persecute, you devote heretics to torture, because you are
      persuaded that these unfortunate ones displease God. But do you not claim
      that your God is full of kindness? How can you hope to please Him by such
      barbarous actions which He can not help disapproving of? Besides, who told
      you that their opinions displease your God? Your priests told you! But who
      guarantees that your priests are not deceived themselves or that they do
      not wish to deceive you? It is these same priests! Princes! it is upon the
      perilous word of your priests that you commit the most atrocious and the
      most unheard-of crimes, with the idea of pleasing the Deity!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLVIII.&mdash;RELIGION GIVES LICENSE TO THE FEROCITY OF THE PEOPLE BY
      LEGITIMIZING IT, AND AUTHORIZES CRIME BY TEACHING THAT IT CAN BE USEFUL TO
      THE DESIGNS OF GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      "Never," says Pascal, "do we do evil so thoroughly and so willingly as
      when we do it through a false principle of conscience." Nothing is more
      dangerous than a religion which licenses the ferocity of the people, and
      justifies in their eyes the blackest crimes; it puts no limits to their
      wickedness as soon as they believe it authorized by their God, whose
      interests, as they are told, can justify all their actions. If there is a
      question of religion, immediately the most civilized nations become true
      savages, and believe everything is permitted to them. The more cruel they
      are, the more agreeable they suppose themselves to be to their God, whose
      cause they imagine can not be sustained by too much zeal. All religions of
      the world have authorized countless crimes. The Jews, excited by the
      promises of their God, arrogated to themselves the right of exterminating
      whole nations; the Romans, whose faith was founded upon the oracles of
      their Gods, became real brigands, and conquered and ravaged the world; the
      Arabians, encouraged by their Divine preceptor, carried the sword and the
      flame among Christians and idolaters. The Christians, under pretext of
      spreading their holy religion, covered the two hemispheres a hundred times
      with blood. In all events favorable to their own interests, which they
      always call the cause of God, the priests show us the finger of God.
      According to these principles, religious bigots have the luck of seeing
      the finger of God in revolts, in revolutions, massacres, regicides,
      prostitutions, infamies, and, if these things contribute to the advantage
      of religion, we can say, then, that God uses all sorts of means to secure
      His ends. Is there anything better calculated to annihilate every idea of
      morality in the minds of men, than to make them understand that their God,
      who is so powerful and so perfect, is often compelled to use crime to
      accomplish His designs?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLIX.&mdash;REFUTATION OF THE ARGUMENT, THAT THE EVILS ATTRIBUTED TO
      RELIGION ARE BUT THE SAD EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS OF MEN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      When we complain about the violence and evils which generally religion
      causes upon earth, we are answered at once, that these excesses are not
      due to religion, but that they are the sad effect of men's passions. I
      would ask, however, what unchained these passions? It is evidently
      religion; it is a zeal which renders inhuman, and which serves to cover
      the greatest infamy. Do not these disorders prove that religion, instead
      of restraining the passions of men, does but cover them with a cloak that
      sanctifies them; and that nothing would be more beneficial than to tear
      away this sacred cloak of which men make such a bad use? What horrors
      would be banished from society, if the wicked were deprived of a pretext
      so plausible for disturbing it!
    </p>
    <p>
      Instead of cherishing peace among men, the priests stirred up hatred and
      strife. They pleaded their conscience, and pretended to have received from
      Heaven the right to be quarrelsome, turbulent, and rebellious. Do not the
      ministers of God consider themselves to be wronged, do they not pretend
      that His Divine Majesty is injured every time that the sovereigns have the
      temerity to try to prevent them from doing injury? The priests resemble
      that irritable woman, who cried out fire! murder! assassins! while her
      husband was holding her hands to prevent her from beating him.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLX.&mdash;ALL MORALITY IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Notwithstanding the bloody tragedies which religion has so often caused in
      this world, we are constantly told that there can be no morality without
      religion. If we judge theological opinions by their effects, we would be
      right in assuming that all morality is perfectly incompatible with the
      religious opinions of men. "Imitate God," is constantly repeated to us.
      Ah! what morals would we have if we should imitate this God! Which God
      should we imitate? Is it the deist's God? But even this God can not be a
      model of goodness for us. If He is the author of all, He is equally the
      author of the good and of the bad we see in this world; if He is the
      author of order, He is also the author of disorder, which would not exist
      without His permission; if He produces, He destroys; if He gives life, He
      also causes death; if He grants abundance, riches, prosperity, and peace,
      He permits or sends famines, poverty, calamities, and wars. How can you
      accept as a model of permanent beneficence the God of theism or of natural
      religion, whose favorable intentions are at every moment contradicted by
      everything that transpires in the world? Morality needs a firmer basis
      than the example of a God whose conduct varies, and whom we can not call
      good but by obstinately closing the eyes to the evil which He causes, or
      permits to be done in this world.
    </p>
    <p>
      Shall we imitate the good and great Jupiter of ancient Paganism? To
      imitate such a God would be to take as a model a rebellious son, who
      wrests his father's throne from him and then mutilates his body; it is
      imitating a debauchee and adulterer, an incestuous, intemperate man, whose
      conduct would cause any reasonable mortal to blush. What would have become
      of men under the control of Paganism if they had imagined, according to
      Plato, that virtue consisted in imitating the gods?
    </p>
    <p>
      Must we imitate the God of the Jews? Will we find a model for our conduct
      in Jehovah? He is truly a savage God, really created for an ignorant,
      cruel, and immoral people; He is a God who is constantly enraged,
      breathing only vengeance; who is without pity, who commands carnage and
      robbery; in a word, He is a God whose conduct can not serve as a model to
      an honest man, and who can be imitated but by a chief of brigands.
    </p>
    <p>
      Shall we imitate, then, the Jesus of the Christians? Can this God, who
      died to appease the implacable fury of His Father, serve as an example
      which men ought to follow? Alas! we will see in Him but a God, or rather a
      fanatic, a misanthrope, who being plunged Himself into misery, and
      preaching to the wretched, advises them to be poor, to combat and
      extinguish nature, to hate pleasure, to seek sufferings, and to despise
      themselves; He tells them to leave father, mother, all the ties of life,
      in order to follow Him. What beautiful morality! you will say. It is
      admirable, no doubt; it must be Divine, because it is impracticable for
      men. But does not this sublime morality tend to render virtue despicable?
      According to this boasted morality of the man-God of the Christians, His
      disciples in this lower world are, like Tantalus, tormented with burning
      thirst, which they are not permitted to quench. Do not such morals give us
      a wonderful idea of nature's Author? If He has, as we are assured, created
      everything for the use of His creatures, by what strange caprice does He
      forbid the use of the good things which He has created for them? Is the
      pleasure which man constantly desires but a snare that God has maliciously
      laid in his path to entrap him?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXI.&mdash;THE MORALS OF THE GOSPEL ARE IMPRACTICABLE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The votaries of Christ would like to make us regard as a miracle the
      establishment of their religion, which is in every respect contrary to
      nature, opposed to all the inclinations of the heart, an enemy to physical
      pleasures. But the austerity of a doctrine has a tendency to render it
      more wonderful to the ignorant. The same reason which makes us respect, as
      Divine and supernatural, inconceivable mysteries, causes us to admire, as
      Divine and supernatural, a morality impracticable and beyond the power of
      man. To admire morals and to practice them, are two very different things.
      All the Christians continually admire the morals of the Gospel, but it is
      practiced but by a small number of saints; admired by people who
      themselves avoid imitating their conduct, under the pretext that they are
      lacking either the power or the grace.
    </p>
    <p>
      The whole universe is infected more or less with a religious morality
      which is founded upon the opinion that to please the Deity it is necessary
      to render one's self unhappy upon earth. We see in all parts of our globe
      penitents, hermits, fakirs, fanatics, who seem to have studied profoundly
      the means of tormenting themselves for the glory of a Being whose goodness
      they all agree in celebrating. Religion, by its essence, is the enemy of
      joy and of the welfare of men. "Blessed are those who suffer!" Woe to
      those who have abundance and joy! These are the rare revelations which
      Christianity teaches!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXII.&mdash;A SOCIETY OF SAINTS WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      In what consists the saint of all religions? It is a man who prays, fasts,
      who torments himself, who avoids the world, who, like an owl, is pleased
      but in solitude, who abstains from all pleasure, who seems frightened at
      every object which turns him a moment from his fanatical meditations. Is
      this virtue? Is a being of this stamp of any use to himself or to others?
      Would not society be dissolved, and would not men retrograde into
      barbarism, if each one should be fool enough to wish to be a saint?
    </p>
    <p>
      It is evident that the literal and rigorous practice of the Divine
      morality of the Christians would lead nations to ruin. A Christian who
      would attain perfection, ought to drive away from his mind all that can
      alienate him from heaven&mdash;his true country. He sees upon earth but
      temptations, snares, and opportunities to go astray; he must fear science
      as injurious to faith; he must avoid industry, as it is a means of
      obtaining riches, which are fatal to salvation; he must renounce
      preferments and honors, as things capable of exciting his pride and
      calling his attention away from his soul; in a word, the sublime morality
      of Christ, if it were not impracticable, would sever all the ties of
      society.
    </p>
    <p>
      A saint in the world is no more useful than a saint in the desert; the
      saint has an unhappy, discontented, and often irritable, turbulent
      disposition; his zeal often obliges him, conscientiously, to disturb
      society by opinions or dreams which his vanity makes him accept as
      inspirations from Heaven. The annals of all religions are filled with
      accounts of anxious, intractable, seditious saints, who have distinguished
      themselves by ravages that, for the greater glory of God, they have
      scattered throughout the universe. If the saints who live in solitude are
      useless, those who live in the world are very often dangerous. The vanity
      of performing a role, the desire of distinguishing themselves in the eyes
      of the stupid vulgar by a strange conduct, constitute usually the
      distinctive characteristics of great saints; pride persuades them that
      they are extraordinary men, far above human nature; beings who are more
      perfect than others; chosen ones, which God looks upon with more
      complaisance than the rest of mortals. Humility in a saint is, is a
      general rule, but a pride more refined than that of common men. It must be
      a very ridiculous vanity which can determine a man to continually war with
      his own nature!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXIII.&mdash;HUMAN NATURE IS NOT DEPRAVED; AND A MORALITY WHICH
      CONTRADICTS THIS FACT IS NOT MADE FOR MAN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      A morality which contradicts the nature of man is not made for him. But
      you will say that man's nature is depraved. In what consists this
      pretended depravity? Is it because he has passions? But are not passions
      the very essence of man? Must he not seek, desire, love that which is, or
      that which he believes to be, essential to his happiness? Must he not fear
      and avoid that which he judges injurious or fatal to him? Excite his
      passions by useful objects; let him attach himself to these same objects,
      divert him by sensible and known motives from that which can do him or
      others harm, and you will make of him a reasonable and virtuous being. A
      man without passions would be equally indifferent to vice and to virtue.
    </p>
    <p>
      Holy doctors! you constantly tell us that man's nature is perverted; you
      tell us that the way of all flesh is corrupt; you tell us that nature
      gives us but inordinate inclinations. In this case you accuse your God,
      who has not been able or willing to keep this nature in its original
      perfection. If this nature became corrupted, why did not this God repair
      it? The Christian assures me that human nature is repaired, that the death
      of his God has reestablished it in its integrity. How comes it then, that
      human nature, notwithstanding the death of a God, is still depraved? Is
      it, then, a pure loss that your God died? What becomes of His omnipotence
      and His victory over the Devil, if it is true that the Devil still holds
      the empire which, according to you, he has always exercised in the world?
    </p>
    <p>
      Death, according to Christian theology, is the penalty of sin. This
      opinion agrees with that of some savage Negro nations, who imagine that
      the death of a man is always the supernatural effect of the wrath of the
      Gods. The Christians firmly believe that Christ has delivered them from
      sin, while they see that, in their religion as in the others, man is
      subject to death. To say that Jesus Christ has delivered us from sin, is
      it not claiming that a judge has granted pardon to a guilty man, while we
      see him sent to torture?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXIV.&mdash;OF JESUS CHRIST, THE PRIEST'S GOD.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If, closing our eyes upon all that transpires in this world, we should
      rely upon the votaries of the Christian religion, we would believe that
      the coming of our Divine Saviour has produced the most wonderful
      revolution and the most complete reform in the morals of nations. The
      Messiah, according to Pascal, [See Thoughts of Pascal] ought of Himself
      alone to produce a great, select, and holy people; conducting and
      nourishing it, and introducing it into the place of repose and sanctity,
      rendering it holy to God, making it the temple of God, saving it from the
      wrath of God, delivering it from the servitude of sin, giving laws to this
      people, engraving these laws upon their hearts, offering Himself to God
      for them, crushing the head of the serpent, etc. This great man has
      forgotten to show us the people upon whom His Divine Messiah has produced
      the miraculous effects of which He speaks with so much emphasis; so far,
      it seems, they do not exist upon the earth!
    </p>
    <p>
      If we examine ever so little the morals of the Christian nations, and
      listen to the clamors of their priests, we will be obliged to conclude
      that their God, Jesus Christ, preached without fruit, without success;
      that His Almighty will still finds in men a resistance, over which this
      God either can not or does not wish to triumph. The morality of this
      Divine Doctor which His disciples admire so much, and practice so little,
      is followed during a whole century but by half a dozen of obscure saints,
      fanatical and ignorant monks, who alone will have the glory of shining in
      the celestial court; all the remainder of mortals, although redeemed by
      the blood of this God, will be the prey of eternal flames.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXV.&mdash;THE DOGMA OF THE REMISSION OF SINS HAS BEEN INVENTED IN THE
      INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      When a man has a great desire to sin, he thinks very little about his God;
      more than this, whatever crimes he may have committed, he always flatters
      himself that this God will mitigate the severity of his punishments. No
      mortal seriously believes that his conduct can damn him. Although he fears
      a terrible God, who often makes him tremble, every time he is strongly
      tempted he succumbs and sees but a God of mercy, the idea of whom quiets
      him. Does he do evil? He hopes to have the time to correct himself, and
      promises earnestly to repent some day.
    </p>
    <p>
      There are in the religious pharmacy infallible receipts for calming the
      conscience; the priests in every country possess sovereign secrets for
      disarming the wrath of Heaven. However true it may be that the anger of
      Deity is appeased by prayers, by offerings, by sacrifices, by penitential
      tears, we have no right to say that religion holds in check the
      irregularities of men; they will first sin, and afterward seek the means
      to reconcile God. Every religion which expiates, and which promises the
      remission of crimes, if it restrains any, it encourages the great number
      to commit evil. Notwithstanding His immutability, God is, in all the
      religions of this world, a veritable Proteus. His priests show Him now
      armed with severity, and then full of clemency and gentleness; now cruel
      and pitiless, and then easily reconciled by the repentance and the tears
      of the sinners. Consequently, men face the Deity in the manner which
      conforms the most to their present interests. An always wrathful God would
      repel His worshipers, or cast them into despair. Men need a God who
      becomes angry and who can be appeased; if His anger alarms a few timid
      souls, His clemency reassures the determined wicked ones who intend to
      have recourse sooner or later to the means of reconciling themselves with
      Him; if the judgments of God frighten a few faint-hearted devotees who
      already by temperament and by habitude are not inclined to evil, the
      treasures of Divine mercy reassure the greatest criminals, who have reason
      to hope that they will participate in them with the others.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXVI.&mdash;THE FEAR OF GOD IS POWERLESS AGAINST HUMAN PASSIONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The majority of men rarely think of God, or, at least, do not occupy
      themselves much with Him. The idea of God has so little stability, it is
      so afflicting, that it can not hold the imagination for a long time,
      except in some sad and melancholy visionists who do not constitute the
      majority of the inhabitants of this world. The common man has no
      conception of it; his weak brain becomes perplexed the moment he attempts
      to think of Him. The business man thinks of nothing but his affairs; the
      courtier of his intrigues; worldly men, women, youth, of their pleasures;
      dissipation soon dispels the wearisome notions of religion. The ambitious,
      the avaricious, and the debauchee sedulously lay aside speculations too
      feeble to counterbalance their diverse passions.
    </p>
    <p>
      Whom does the idea of God overawe? A few weak men disappointed and
      disgusted with this world; some persons whose passions are already
      extinguished by age, by infirmities, or by reverses of fortune. Religion
      is a restraint but for those whose temperament or circumstances have
      already subjected them to reason. The fear of God does not prevent any
      from committing sin but those who do not wish to sin very much, or who are
      no longer in a condition to sin. To tell men that Divinity punishes crime
      in this world, is to claim as a fact that which experience contradicts
      constantly The most wicked men are usually the arbiters of the world, and
      those whom fortune blesses with its favors. To convince us of the
      judgments of God by sending us to the other life, is to make us accept
      conjectures in order to destroy facts which we can not dispute.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXVII.&mdash;THE INVENTION OF HELL IS TOO ABSURD TO PREVENT EVIL.
    </h2>
    <p>
      No one dreams about another life when he is very much absorbed in objects
      which he meets on earth. In the eyes of a passionate lover, the presence
      of his mistress extinguishes the fires of hell, and her charms blot out
      all the pleasures of Paradise. Woman! you leave, you say, your lover for
      your God? It is that your lover is no longer the same in your estimation;
      or your lover leaves you, and you must fill the void which is made in your
      heart. Nothing is more common than to see ambitious, perverse, corrupt,
      and immoral men who are religious, and who sometimes exhibit even zeal in
      its behalf; if they do not practice religion, they promise themselves they
      will practice it some day; they keep it in reserve as a remedy which,
      sooner or later, will be necessary to quiet the conscience for the evil
      which they intend yet to do. Besides, devotees and priests being a very
      numerous, active, and powerful party, it is not astonishing to see
      impostors and thieves seek for its support in order to gain their ends. We
      will be told, no doubt, that many honest people are sincerely religious
      without profit; but is uprightness of heart always accompanied with
      intelligence? We are cited to a great number of learned men, men of
      genius, who are very religious. This proves that men of genius can have
      prejudices, can be pusillanimous, can have an imagination which seduces
      them and prevents them from examining objects coolly. Pascal proves
      nothing in favor of religion, except that a man of genius can possess a
      grain of weakness, and is but a child when he is weak enough to listen to
      prejudices. Pascal himself tells us "that the mind can be strong and
      narrow, and just as extended as it is weak." He says more: "We can have
      our senses all right, and not be equally able in all things; because there
      are men who, being right in a certain sphere of things, lose themselves in
      others."
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXVIII.&mdash;ABSURDITY OF THE MORALITY AND OF THE RELIGIOUS VIRTUES
      ESTABLISHED SOLELY IN THE INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      What is virtue according to theology? It is, we are told, the conformity
      of men's actions with the will of God. But who is God? He is a being whom
      no one is able to conceive of, and whom, consequently, each one modifies
      in his own way. What is the will of God? It is what men who have seen God,
      or whom God has inspired, have told us. Who are those who have seen God?
      They are either fanatics, or scoundrels, or ambitious men, whose word we
      can not rely upon. To found morality upon a God that each man represents
      differently, that each one composes by his own idea, whom everybody
      arranges according to his own temperament and his own interest, is
      evidently founding morality upon the caprice and upon the imagination of
      men; it is basing it upon the whims of a sect, faction, or party, who,
      excluding all others, claim to have the advantage of worshiping the true
      God.
    </p>
    <p>
      To establish morality, or the duties of man, upon the Divine will, is
      founding it upon the wishes, the reveries, or the interests of those who
      make God talk without fear of contradiction. In every religion the priests
      alone have the right to decide upon what pleases or displeases their God;
      we may rest assured that they will decide upon what pleases or displeases
      themselves.
    </p>
    <p>
      The dogmas, ceremonies, the morality and the virtues which all religions
      of the world prescribe, are visibly calculated only to extend the power or
      to increase the emoluments of the founders and of the ministers of these
      religions; the dogmas are obscure, inconceivable, frightful, and, thereby,
      very liable to cause the imagination to wander, and to render the common
      man more docile to those who wish to domineer over him; the ceremonies and
      practices procure fortune or consideration to the priests; the religious
      morals and virtues consist in a submissive faith, which prevents
      reasoning; in a devout humility, which assures to the priests the
      submission of their slaves; in an ardent zeal, when the question of
      religion is agitated; that is to say, when the interest of these priests
      is considered, all religious virtues having evidently for their object the
      advantage of the priests.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXIX.&mdash;WHAT DOES THAT CHRISTIAN CHARITY AMOUNT TO, SUCH AS
      THEOLOGIANS TEACH AND PRACTICE?
    </h2>
    <p>
      When we reproach the theologians with the sterility of their religious
      virtues, they praise, with emphasis, charity, that tender love of our
      neighbor which Christianity makes an essential duty for its disciples.
      But, alas! what becomes of this pretended charity as soon as we examine
      the actions of the Lord's ministers? Ask if you must love your neighbor if
      he is impious, heretical, and incredulous, that is to say, if he does not
      think as they do? Ask them if you must tolerate opinions contrary to those
      which they profess? Ask them if the Lord can show indulgence to those who
      are in error? Immediately their charity disappears, and the dominating
      clergy will tell you that the prince carries the sword but to sustain the
      interests of the Most High; they will tell you that for love of the
      neighbor, you must persecute, imprison, exile, or burn him. You will find
      tolerance among a few priests who are persecuted themselves, but who put
      aside Christian charity as soon as they have the power to persecute in
      their turn.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Christian religion which was originally preached by beggars and by
      very wretched men, strongly recommends alms-giving under the name of
      charity; the faith of Mohammed equally makes it an indispensable duty.
      Nothing, no doubt, is better suited to humanity than to assist the
      unfortunate, to clothe the naked, to lend a charitable hand to whoever
      needs it. But would it not be more humane and more charitable to foresee
      the misery and to prevent the poor from increasing? If religion, instead
      of deifying princes, had but taught them to respect the property of their
      subjects, to be just, and to exercise but their legitimate rights, we
      should not see such a great number of mendicants in their realms. A
      greedy, unjust, tyrannical government multiplies misery; the rigor of
      taxes produces discouragement, idleness, indigence, which, on their part,
      produce robbery, murders, and all kinds of crime. If the sovereigns had
      more humanity, charity, and justice, their States would not be peopled by
      so many unfortunate ones whose misery becomes impossible to soothe.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Christian and Mohammedan States are filled with vast and richly
      endowed hospitals, in which we admire the pious charity of the kings and
      of the sultans who erected them. Would it not have been more humane to
      govern the people well, to procure them ease, to excite and to favor
      industry and trade, to permit them to enjoy in safety the fruits of their
      labors, than to oppress them under a despotic yoke, to impoverish them by
      senseless wars, to reduce them to mendicity in order to gratify an
      immoderate luxury, and afterward build sumptuous monuments which can
      contain but a very small portion of those whom they have rendered
      miserable? Religion, by its virtues, has but given a change to men;
      instead of foreseeing evils, it applies but insufficient remedies. The
      ministers of Heaven have always known how to benefit themselves by the
      calamities of others; public misery became their element; they made
      themselves the administrators of the goods of the poor, the distributors
      of alms, the depositaries of charities; thereby they extended and
      sustained at all times their power over the unfortunates who usually
      compose the most numerous, the most anxious, the most seditious part of
      society. Thus the greatest evils are made profitable to the ministers of
      the Lord.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Christian priests tell us that the goods which they possess are the
      goods of the poor, and pretend by this title that their possessions are
      sacred; consequently, the sovereigns and the people press themselves to
      accumulate lands, revenues, treasures for them; under pretext of charity,
      our spiritual guides have become very opulent, and enjoy, in the sight of
      the impoverished nations, goods which were destined but for the miserable;
      the latter, far from murmuring about it, applaud a deceitful generosity
      which enriches the Church, but which very rarely alleviates the sufferings
      of the poor.
    </p>
    <p>
      According to the principles of Christianity, poverty itself is a virtue,
      and it is this virtue which the sovereigns and the priests make their
      slaves observe the most. According to these ideas, a great number of pious
      Christians have renounced with good-will the perishable riches of the
      earth; have distributed their patrimony to the poor, and have retired into
      a desert to live a life of voluntary indigence. But very soon this
      enthusiasm, this supernatural taste for misery, must surrender to nature.
      The successors to these voluntary poor, sold to the religious people their
      prayers and their powerful intercession with the Deity; they became rich
      and powerful; thus, monks and hermits lived in idleness, and, under the
      pretext of charity, devoured insultingly the substance of the poor.
      Poverty of spirit was that of which religion made always the greatest use.
      The fundamental virtue of all religion, that is to say, the most useful
      one to its ministers, is faith. It consists in an unlimited credulity,
      which causes men to believe, without examination, all that which the
      interpreters of the Deity wish them to believe. With the aid of this
      wonderful virtue, the priests became the arbiters of justice and of
      injustice; of good and of evil; they found it easy to commit crimes when
      crimes became necessary to their interests. Implicit faith has been the
      source of the greatest outrages which have been committed upon the earth.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXX.&mdash;CONFESSION, THAT GOLDEN MINE FOR THE PRIESTS, HAS DESTROYED
      THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      He who first proclaimed to the nations that, when man had wronged man, he
      must ask God's pardon, appease His wrath by presents, and offer Him
      sacrifices, obviously subverted the true principles of morality. According
      to these ideas, men imagine that they can obtain from the King of Heaven,
      as well as from the kings of the earth, permission to be unjust and
      wicked, or at least pardon for the evil which they might commit.
    </p>
    <p>
      Morality is founded upon the relations, the needs, and the constant
      interests of the inhabitants of the earth; the relations which subsist
      between men and God are either entirely unknown or imaginary. The religion
      associating God with men has visibly weakened or destroyed the ties which
      unite men.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mortals imagine that they can, with impunity, injure each other by making
      a suitable reparation to the Almighty Being, who is supposed to have the
      right to remit all the injuries done to His creatures. Is there anything
      more liable to encourage wickedness and to embolden to crime, than to
      persuade men that there exists an invisible being who has the right to
      pardon injustice, rapine, perfidy, and all the outrages they can inflict
      upon society? Encouraged by these fatal ideas, we see the most perverse
      men abandon themselves to the greatest crimes, and expect to repair them
      by imploring Divine mercy; their conscience rests in peace when a priest
      assures them that Heaven is quieted by sincere repentance, which is very
      useless to the world; this priest consoles them in the name of Deity, if
      they consent in reparation of their faults to divide with His ministers
      the fruits of their plunderings, of their frauds, and of their wickedness.
      Morality united to religion, becomes necessarily subordinate to it. In the
      mind of a religious person, God must be preferred to His creatures; "It is
      better to obey Him than men!" The interests of the Celestial Monarch must
      be above those of weak mortals. But the interests of Heaven are evidently
      the interests of the ministers of Heaven; from which it follows evidently,
      that in all religions, the priests, under pretext of Heaven's interest's,
      or of God's glory, will be able to dispense with the duties of human
      morals when they do not agree with the duties which God is entitled to
      impose.
    </p>
    <p>
      Besides, He who has the power to pardon crimes, has He not the right to
      order them committed?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXI.&mdash;THE SUPPOSITION OF THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD IS NOT NECESSARY TO
      MORALITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are constantly told that without a God, there can be no moral
      obligation; that it is necessary for men and for the sovereigns themselves
      to have a lawgiver sufficiently powerful to compel them to be moral; moral
      obligation implies a law; but this law arises from the eternal and
      necessary relations of things among themselves, which have nothing in
      common with the existence of a God. The rules which govern men's conduct
      spring from their own nature, which they are supposed to know, and not
      from the Divine nature, of which they have no conception; these rules
      compel us to render ourselves estimable or contemptible, amiable or
      hateful, worthy of reward or of punishments, happy or unhappy, according
      to the extent to which we observe them. The law that compels man not to
      harm himself, is inherent in the nature of a sensible being, who, no
      matter how he came into this world, or what can be his fate in another, is
      compelled by his very nature to seek his welfare and to shun evil, to love
      pleasure and to fear pain. The law which compels a man not to harm others
      and to do good, is inherent in the nature of sensible beings living in
      society, who, by their nature, are compelled to despise those who do them
      no good, and to detest those who oppose their happiness. Whether there
      exists a God or not, whether this God has spoken or not, men's moral
      duties will always be the same so long as they possess their own nature;
      that is to say, so long as they are sensible beings. Do men need a God
      whom they do not know, or an invisible lawgiver, or a mysterious religion,
      or chimerical fears in order to comprehend that all excess tends
      ultimately to destroy them, and that in order to preserve themselves they
      must abstain from it; that in order to be loved by others, they must do
      good; that doing evil is a sure means of incurring their hatred and
      vengeance? "Before the law there was no sin." Nothing is more false than
      this maxim. It is enough for a man to be what he is, to be a sensible
      being in order to distinguish that which pleases or displeases him. It is
      enough that a man knows that another man is a sensible being like himself,
      in order for him to know what is useful or injurious to him. It is enough
      that man needs his fellow-creature, in order that he should fear that he
      might produce unfavorable impressions upon him. Thus a sentient and
      thinking being needs but to feel and to think, in order to discover that
      which is due to him and to others. I feel, and another feels, like myself;
      this is the foundation of all morality.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXII.&mdash;RELIGION AND ITS SUPERNATURAL MORALITY ARE FATAL TO THE
      PEOPLE, AND OPPOSED TO MAN'S NATURE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We can judge of the merit of a system of morals but by its conformity with
      man's nature. According to this comparison, we have a right to reject it,
      if we find it detrimental to the welfare of mankind. Whoever has seriously
      meditated upon religion and its supernatural morality, whoever has weighed
      its advantages and disadvantages, will become convinced that they are both
      injurious to the interests of the human race, or directly opposed to man's
      nature.
    </p>
    <p>
      "People, to arms! Your God's cause is at stake! Heaven is outraged! Faith
      is in danger! Down upon infidelity, blasphemy, and heresy!"
    </p>
    <p>
      By the magical power of these valiant words, which the people never
      understand, the priests in all ages were the leaders in the revolts of
      nations, in dethroning kings, in kindling civil wars, and in imprisoning
      men. When we chance to examine the important objects which have excited
      the Celestial wrath and produced so many ravages upon the earth, it is
      found that the foolish reveries and the strange conjectures of some
      theologian who did not understand himself, or, the pretensions of the
      clergy, have severed all ties of society and inundated the human race in
      its own blood and tears.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXIII.&mdash;HOW THE UNION OF RELIGION AND POLITICS IS FATAL TO THE
      PEOPLE AND TO THE KINGS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The sovereigns of this world in associating the Deity in the government of
      their realms, in pretending to be His lieutenants and His representatives
      upon earth, in admitting that they hold their power from Him, must
      necessarily accept His ministers as rivals or as masters. Is it, then,
      astonishing that the priests have often made the kings feel the
      superiority of the Celestial Monarch? Have they not more than once made
      the temporal princes understand that the greatest physical power is
      compelled to surrender to the spiritual power of opinion? Nothing is more
      difficult than to serve two masters, especially when they do not agree
      upon what they demand of their subjects. The union of religion with
      politics has necessarily caused a double legislation in the States. The
      law of God, interpreted by His priests, is often contrary to the law of
      the sovereign or to the interest of the State. When the princes are firm,
      and sure of the love of their subjects, God's law is sometimes obliged to
      comply with the wise intentions of the temporal sovereign; but more often
      the sovereign authority is obliged to retreat before the Divine authority,
      that is to say, before the interests of the clergy. Nothing is more
      dangerous for a prince, than to meddle with ecclesiastical affairs (to put
      his hands into the holy-water pot), that is to say, to attempt the reform
      of abuses consecrated by religion. God is never more angry than when the
      Divine rights, the privileges, the possessions, and the immunities of His
      priests are interfered with.
    </p>
    <p>
      Metaphysical speculations or the religious opinions of men, never
      influence their conduct except when they believe them conformed to their
      interests. Nothing proves this truth more forcibly than the conduct of a
      great number of princes in regard to the spiritual power, which we see
      them very often resist. Should not a sovereign who is persuaded of the
      importance and the rights of religion, conscientiously feel himself
      obliged to receive with respect the orders of his priests, and consider
      them as commandments of the Deity? There was a time when the kings and the
      people, more conformable, and convinced of the rights of the spiritual
      power, became its slaves, surrendered to it on all occasions, and were but
      docile instruments in its hands; this happy time is no more. By a strange
      inconsistency, we sometimes see the most religious monarchs oppose the
      enterprises of those whom they regard as God's ministers. A sovereign who
      is filled with religion or respect for his God, ought to be constantly
      prostrate before his priests, and regard them as his true sovereigns. Is
      there a power upon the earth which has the right to measure itself with
      that of the Most High?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXIV.&mdash;CREEDS ARE BURDENSOME AND RUINOUS TO THE MAJORITY OF
      NATIONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Have the princes who believe themselves interested in propagating the
      prejudices of their subjects, reflected well upon the effects which are
      produced by privileged demagogues, who have the right to speak when they
      choose, and excite in the name of Heaven the passions of many millions of
      their subjects? What ravages would not these holy haranguers cause should
      they conspire to disturb a State, as they have so often done?
    </p>
    <p>
      Nothing is more onerous and more ruinous for the greatest part of the
      nations than the worship of their Gods! Everywhere their ministers not
      only rank as the first order in the State, but also enjoy the greater
      portion of society's benefits, and have the right to levy continual taxes
      upon their fellow-citizens. What real advantages do these organs of the
      Most High procure for the people in exchange for the immense profits which
      they draw from them? Do they give them in exchange for their wealth and
      their courtesies anything but mysteries, hypotheses, ceremonies, subtle
      questions, interminable quarrels, which very often their States must pay
      for with their blood?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXV.&mdash;RELIGION PARALYZES MORALITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Religion, which claims to be the firmest support of morality, evidently
      deprives it of its true motor, to substitute imaginary motors,
      inconceivable chimeras, which, being obviously contrary to common sense,
      can not be firmly believed by any one. Everybody assures us that he
      believes firmly in a God who rewards and punishes; everybody claims to be
      persuaded of the existence of a hell and of a Paradise; however, do we see
      that these ideas render men better or counterbalance in the minds of the
      greatest number of them the slightest interest? Each one assures us that
      he is afraid of God's judgments, although each one gives vent to his
      passions when he believes himself sure of escaping the judgments of men.
      The fear of invisible powers is rarely as great as the fear of visible
      powers. Unknown or distant sufferings make less impression upon people
      than the erected gallows, or the example of a hanged man. There is
      scarcely any courtier who fears God's anger more than the displeasure of
      his master. A pension, a title, a ribbon, are sufficient to make one
      forget the torments of hell and the pleasures of the celestial court. A
      woman's caresses expose him every day to the displeasure of the Most High.
      A joke, a banter, a bon-mot, make more impression upon the man of the
      world than all the grave notions of his religion. Are we not assured that
      a true repentance is sufficient to appease Divinity? However, we do not
      see that this true repentance is sincerely expressed; at least, we very
      rarely see great thieves, even in the hour of death, restore the goods
      which they know they have unjustly acquired. Men persuade themselves, no
      doubt, that they will submit to the eternal fire, if they can not
      guarantee themselves against it. But as settlements can be made with
      Heaven by giving the Church a portion of their fortunes, there are very
      few religious thieves who do not die perfectly quieted about the manner in
      which they gained their riches in this world.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXVI.&mdash;FATAL CONSEQUENCES OF PIETY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Even by the confession of the most ardent defenders of religion and of its
      usefulness, nothing is more rare than sincere conversions; to which we
      might add, nothing is more useless to society. Men do not become disgusted
      with the world until the world is disgusted with them; a woman gives
      herself to God only when the world no longer wants her. Her vanity finds
      in religious devotion a role which occupies her and consoles her for the
      ruin of her charms. She passes her time in the most trifling practices,
      parties, intrigues, invectives, and slander; zeal furnishes her the means
      of distinguishing herself and becoming an object of consideration in the
      religious circle. If the bigots have the talent to please God and His
      priests, they rarely possess that of pleasing society or of rendering
      themselves useful to it. Religion for a devotee is a veil which covers and
      justifies all his passions, his pride, his bad humor, his anger, his
      vengeance, his impatience, his bitterness. Religion arrogates to itself a
      tyrannical superiority which banishes from commerce all gentleness,
      gaiety, and joy; it gives the right to censure others; to capture and to
      exterminate the infidels for the glory of God; it is very common to be
      religious and to have none of the virtues or the qualities necessary to
      social life.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXVII.&mdash;THE SUPPOSITION OF ANOTHER LIFE IS NEITHER CONSOLING TO MAN
      NOR NECESSARY TO MORALITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We are assured that the dogma of another life is of the greatest
      importance to the peace of society; it is imagined that without it men
      would have no motives for doing good. Why do we need terrors and fables to
      teach any reasonable man how he ought to conduct himself upon earth? Does
      not each one of us see that he has the greatest interest in deserving the
      approbation, esteem, and kindness of the beings which surround him, and in
      avoiding all that can cause the censure, the contempt, and the resentment
      of society? No matter how short the duration of a festival, of a
      conversation, or of a visit may be, does not each one of us wish to act a
      befitting part in it, agreeable to himself and to others? If life is but a
      passage, let us try to make it easy; it can not be so if we lack the
      regards of those who travel with us.
    </p>
    <p>
      Religion, which is so sadly occupied with its gloomy reveries, represents
      man to us as but a pilgrim upon earth; it concludes that in order to
      travel with more safety, he should travel alone; renounce the pleasures
      which he meets and deprive himself of the amusements which could console
      him for the fatigues and the weariness of the road. A stoical and morose
      philosophy sometimes gives us counsels as senseless as religion; but a
      more rational philosophy inspires us to strew flowers on life's pathway;
      to dispel melancholy and panic terrors; to link our interests with those
      of our traveling companions; to divert ourselves by gaiety and honest
      pleasures from the pains and the crosses to which we are so often exposed.
      We are made to feel, that in order to travel pleasantly, we should abstain
      from that which could become injurious to ourselves, and to avoid with
      great care that which could make us odious to our associates.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXVIII.&mdash;AN ATHEIST HAS MORE MOTIVES FOR ACTING UPRIGHTLY, MORE
      CONSCIENCE, THAN A RELIGIOUS PERSON.
    </h2>
    <p>
      It is asked what motives has an atheist for doing right. He can have the
      motive of pleasing himself and his fellow-creatures; of living happily and
      tranquilly; of making himself loved and respected by men, whose existence
      and whose dispositions are better known than those of a being impossible
      to understand. Can he who fears not the Gods, fear anything? He can fear
      men, their contempt, their disrespect, and the punishments which the laws
      inflict; finally, he can fear himself; he can be afraid of the remorse
      that all those experience whose conscience reproaches them for having
      deserved the hatred of their fellow-beings. Conscience is the inward
      testimony which we render to ourselves for having acted in such a manner
      as to deserve the esteem or the censure of those with whom we associate.
      This conscience is based upon the knowledge which we have of men, and of
      the sentiments which our actions must awaken in them. A religious person's
      conscience persuades him that he has pleased or displeased his God, of
      whom he has no idea, and whose obscure and doubtful intentions are
      explained to him only by suspicious men, who know no more of the essence
      of Divinity than he does, and who do not agree upon what can please or
      displease God. In a word, the conscience of a credulous man is guided by
      men whose own conscience is in error, or whose interest extinguishes
      intelligence.
    </p>
    <p>
      Can an atheist have conscience? What are his motives for abstaining from
      secret vices and crimes of which other men are ignorant, and which are
      beyond the reach of laws? He can be assured by constant experience that
      there is no vice which, in the nature of things, does not bring its own
      punishment. If he wishes to preserve himself, he will avoid all those
      excesses which can be injurious to his health; he would not desire to live
      and linger, thus becoming a burden to himself and others. In regard to
      secret crimes, he would avoid them through fear of being ashamed of
      himself, from whom he can not hide. If he has reason, he will know the
      price of the esteem that an honest man should have for himself. He will
      know, besides, that unexpected circumstances can unveil to the eyes of
      others the conduct which he feels interested in concealing. The other
      world gives no motive for doing well to him who finds no motive for it
      here.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXIX.&mdash;AN ATHEISTICAL KING WOULD BE PREFERABLE TO ONE WHO IS
      RELIGIOUS AND WICKED, AS WE OFTEN SEE THEM.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The speculating atheist, the theist will tell us, may be an honest man,
      but his writings will cause atheism in politics. Princes and ministers,
      being no longer restrained by the fear of God, will give themselves up
      without scruple to the most frightful excesses. But no matter what we can
      suppose of the depravity of an atheist on a throne, can it ever be any
      greater or more injurious than that of so many conquerors, tyrants,
      persecutors, of ambitious and perverse courtiers, who, without being
      atheists, but who, being very often religious, do not cease to make
      humanity groan under the weight of their crimes? Can an atheistical king
      inflict more evil on the world than a Louis XI., a Philip II., a
      Richelieu, who have all allied religion with crime? Nothing is rarer than
      atheistical princes, and nothing more common than very bad and very
      religious tyrants.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXX.&mdash;THE MORALITY ACQUIRED BY PHILOSOPHY IS SUFFICIENT TO VIRTUE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Any man who reflects can not fail of knowing his duties, of discovering
      the relations which subsist between men, of meditating upon his own
      nature, of discerning his needs, his inclinations, and his desires, and of
      perceiving what he owes to the beings necessary to his own happiness.
      These reflections naturally lead to the knowledge of the morality which is
      the most essential for society. Every man who loves to retire within
      himself in order to study and seek for the principles of things, has no
      very dangerous passions; his greatest passion will be to know the truth,
      and his greatest ambition to show it to others. Philosophy is beneficial
      in cultivating the heart and the mind. In regard to morals, has not he who
      reflects and reasons the advantage over him who does not reason?
    </p>
    <p>
      If ignorance is useful to priests and to the oppressors of humanity, it is
      very fatal to society. Man, deprived of intelligence, does not enjoy the
      use of his reason; man, deprived of reason and intelligence, is a savage,
      who is liable at any moment to be led into crime. Morality, or the science
      of moral duties, is acquired but by the study of man and his relations. He
      who does not reflect for himself does not know true morals, and can not
      walk the road of virtue. The less men reason, the more wicked they are.
      The barbarians, the princes, the great, and the dregs of society, are
      generally the most wicked because they are those who reason the least. The
      religious man never reflects, and avoids reasoning; he fears examination;
      he follows authority; and very often an erroneous conscience makes him
      consider it a holy duty to commit evil. The incredulous man reasons,
      consults experience, and prefers it to prejudice. If he has reasoned
      justly, his conscience becomes clear; he finds more real motives for
      right-doing than the religious man, who has no motives but his chimeras,
      and who never listens to reason. Are not the motives of the incredulous
      man strong enough to counterbalance his passions? Is he blind enough not
      to recognize the interests which should restrain him? Well! he will be
      vicious and wicked; but even then he will be no worse and no better than
      many credulous men who, notwithstanding religion and its sublime precepts,
      continue to lead a life which this very religion condemns. Is a credulous
      murderer less to be feared than a murderer who does not believe anything?
      Is a religious tyrant any less a tyrant than an irreligious one?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXXI.&mdash;OPINIONS RARELY INFLUENCE CONDUCT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      There is nothing more rare in the world than consistent men. Their
      opinions do not influence their conduct, except when they conform to their
      temperament, their passions, and to their interests. Religious opinions,
      according to daily experience, produce much more evil than good; they are
      injurious, because they very often agree with the passions of tyrants,
      fanatics, and priests; they produce no effect, because they have not the
      power to balance the present interests of the majority of men. Religious
      principles are always put aside when they are opposed to ardent desires;
      without being incredulous, they act as if they believed nothing. We risk
      being deceived when we judge the opinions of men by their conduct or their
      conduct by their opinions. A very religious man, notwithstanding the
      austere and cruel principles of a bloody religion, will sometimes be, by a
      fortunate inconsistency, humane, tolerant, moderate; in this case the
      principles of his religion do not agree with the mildness of his
      disposition. A libertine, a debauchee, a hypocrite, an adulterer, or a
      thief will often show us that he has the clearest ideas of morals. Why do
      they not practice them? It is because neither their temperament, their
      interests, nor their habits agree with their sublime theories. The rigid
      principles of Christian morality, which so many attempt to pass off as
      Divine, have but very little influence upon the conduct of those who
      preach them to others. Do they not tell us every day to do what they
      preach, and not what they practice?
    </p>
    <p>
      The religious partisans generally designate the incredulous as libertines.
      It may be that many incredulous people are immoral; this immorality is due
      to their temperament, and not to their opinions. But what has their
      conduct to do with these opinions? Can not an immoral man be a good
      physician, a good architect, a good geometer, a good logician, a good
      metaphysician? With an irreproachable conduct, one can be ignorant upon
      many things, and reason very badly. When truth is presented, it matters
      not from whom it comes. Let us not judge men by their opinions, or
      opinions by men; let us judge men by their conduct; and their opinions by
      their conformity with experience, reason, and their usefulness for
      mankind.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXXII.&mdash;REASON LEADS MEN TO IRRELIGION AND TO ATHEISM, BECAUSE
      RELIGION IS ABSURD, AND THE GOD OF THE PRIESTS IS A MALICIOUS AND
      FEROCIOUS BEING.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Every man who reasons soon becomes incredulous, because reasoning proves
      to him that theology is but a tissue of falsehoods; that religion is
      contrary to all principles of common sense; that it gives a false color to
      all human knowledge. The rational man becomes incredulous, because he sees
      that religion, far from rendering men happier, is the first cause of the
      greatest disorders, and of the permanent calamities with which the human
      race is afflicted. The man who seeks his well-being and his own
      tranquillity, examines his religion and is undeceived, because he finds it
      inconvenient and useless to pass his life in trembling at phantoms which
      are made but to intimidate silly women or children. If, sometimes,
      libertinage, which reasons but little, leads to irreligion, the man who is
      regular in his morals can have very legitimate motives for examining his
      religion, and for banishing it from his mind. Too weak to intimidate the
      wicked, in whom vice has become deeply rooted, religious terrors afflict,
      torment, and burden imaginative minds. If souls have courage and
      elasticity, they shake off a yoke which they bear unwillingly. If weak or
      timorous, they wear the yoke during their whole life, and they grow old,
      trembling, or at least they live under burdensome uncertainty.
    </p>
    <p>
      The priests have made of God such a malicious, ferocious being, so ready
      to be vexed, that there are few men in the world who do not wish at the
      bottom of their hearts that this God did not exist. We can not live happy
      if we are always in fear. You worship a terrible God, O religious people!
      Alas! And yet you hate Him; you wish that He was not. Can we avoid wishing
      the absence or the destruction of a master, the idea of whom can but
      torment the mind? It is the dark colors in which the priests paint the
      Deity which revolt men, moving them to hate and reject Him.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXXIII.&mdash;FEAR ALONE CREATES THEISTS AND BIGOTS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If fear has created the Gods, fear still holds their empire in the mind of
      mortals; they have been so early accustomed to tremble even at the name of
      the Deity, that it has become for them a specter, a goblin, a were-wolf
      which torments them, and whose idea deprives them even of the courage to
      attempt to reassure themselves. They are afraid that this invisible
      specter will strike them if they cease to be afraid. The religious people
      fear their God too much to love Him sincerely; they serve Him as slaves,
      who can not escape His power, and take the part of flattering their
      Master; and who, by continually lying, persuade themselves that they love
      Him. They make a virtue of necessity. The love of religious bigots for
      their God, and of slaves for their despots, is but a servile and simulated
      homage which they render by compulsion, in which the heart has no part.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXXIV.&mdash;CAN WE, OR SHOULD WE, LOVE OR NOT LOVE GOD?
    </h2>
    <p>
      The Christian Doctors have made their God so little worthy of love, that
      several among them have thought it their duty not to love Him; this is a
      blasphemy which makes less sincere doctors tremble. Saint Thomas, having
      asserted that we are under obligation to love God as soon as we can use
      our reason, the Jesuit Sirmond replied to him that that was very soon; the
      Jesuit Vasquez claims that it is sufficient to love God in the hour of
      death; Hurtado says that we should love God at all times; Henriquez is
      content with loving Him every five years; Sotus, every Sunday. "Upon what
      shall we rely?" asks Father Sirmond, who adds: "that Suarez desires that
      we should love God sometimes. But at what time? He allows you to judge of
      it; he knows nothing about it himself; for he adds: 'What a learned doctor
      does not know, who can know?'" The same Jesuit Sirmond continues, by
      saying: "that God does not command us to love Him with human affection,
      and does not promise us salvation but on condition of giving Him our
      hearts; it is enough to obey Him and to love Him, by fulfilling His
      commandments; that this is the only love which we owe Him, and He has not
      commanded so much to love Him as not to hate Him." [See "Apology, Des
      Lettres Provinciales," Tome II.] This doctrine appears heretical, ungodly,
      and abominable to the Jansenists, who, by the revolting severity which
      they attribute to their God, render Him still less lovable than their
      adversaries, the Jesuits. The latter, in order to make converts, represent
      God in such a light as to give confidence to the most perverse mortals.
      Thus, nothing is less established among the Christians than the important
      question, whether we can or should love or not love God. Among their
      spiritual guides some pretend that we must love God with all the heart,
      notwithstanding all His severity; others, like the Father Daniel, think
      that an act of pure love of God is the most heroic act of Christian
      virtue, and that human weakness can scarcely reach so high. The Jesuit
      Pintereau goes still further; he says: "The deliverance from the grievous
      yoke of Divine love is a privilege of the new alliance."
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXXV.&mdash;THE VARIOUS AND CONTRADICTORY IDEAS WHICH EXIST EVERYWHERE
      UPON GOD AND RELIGION, PROVE THAT THEY ARE BUT IDLE FANCIES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      It is always the character of man which decides upon the character of his
      God; each one creates a God for himself, and in his own image. The
      cheerful man who indulges in pleasures and dissipation, can not imagine
      God to be an austere and rebukeful being; he requires a facile God with
      whom he can make an agreement. The severe, sour, bilious man wants a God
      like himself; one who inspires fear; and regards as perverse those that
      accept only a God who is yielding and easily won over. Heresies, quarrels,
      and schisms are necessary. Can men differently organized and modified by
      diverse circumstances, agree in regard to an imaginary being which exists
      but in their own brains? The cruel and interminable disputes continually
      arising among the ministers of the Lord, have not a tendency to attract
      the confidence of those who take an impartial view of them. How can we
      help our incredulity, when we see principles about which those who teach
      them to others, never agree? How can we avoid doubting the existence of a
      God, the idea of whom varies in such a remarkable way in the mind of His
      ministers? How can we avoid rejecting totally a God who is full of
      contradictions? How can we rely upon priests whom we see continually
      contending, accusing each other of being infidels and heretics, rending
      and persecuting each other without mercy, about the way in which they
      understand the pretended truths which they reveal to the world?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXXVI.&mdash;THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, WHICH IS THE BASIS OF ALL RELIGION,
      HAS NOT YET BEEN DEMONSTRATED.
    </h2>
    <p>
      However, so far, this important truth has not yet been demonstrated, not
      only to the incredulous, but in a satisfactory way to theologians
      themselves. In all times, we have seen profound thinkers who thought they
      had new proofs of the truth most important to men. What have been the
      fruits of their meditations and of their arguments? They left the thing at
      the same point; they have demonstrated nothing; nearly always they have
      excited the clamors of their colleagues, who accuse them of having badly
      defended the best of causes.
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    <h2>
      CLXXXVII.&mdash;PRIESTS, MORE THAN UNBELIEVERS, ACT FROM INTEREST.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The apologists of religion repeat to us every day that the passions alone
      create unbelievers. "It is," they say, "pride, and a desire to distinguish
      themselves, that make atheists; they seek also to efface the idea of God
      from their minds, because they have reason to fear His rigorous
      judgments." Whatever may be the motives which cause men to be irreligious,
      the thing in question is whether they have found truth. No man acts
      without motives; let us first examine the arguments&mdash;we shall examine
      the motives afterward&mdash;and we shall find that they are more
      legitimate, and more sensible, than those of many credulous devotees who
      allow themselves to be guided by masters little worthy of men's
      confidence.
    </p>
    <p>
      You say, O priests of the Lord! that the passions cause unbelievers; you
      pretend that they renounce religion through interest, or because it
      interferes with their irregular inclinations; you assert that they attack
      your Gods because they fear their punishments. Ah! yourselves in defending
      this religion and its chimeras, are you, then, really exempt from passions
      and interests? Who receive the fees of this religion, on whose behalf the
      priests are so zealous? It is the priests. To whom does religion procure
      power, credit, honors, wealth? To the priests! In all countries, who make
      war upon reason, science, truth, and philosophy and render them odious to
      the sovereigns and to the people? Who profit by the ignorance of men and
      their vain prejudices? The priests! You are, O priests, rewarded, honored,
      and paid for deceiving mortals, and you punish those who undeceive them.
      The follies of men procure you blessings, offerings, expiations; the most
      useful truths bring to those who announce them, chains, sufferings,
      stakes. Let the world judge between us.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXXVIII.&mdash;PRIDE, PRESUMPTION, AND CORRUPTION OF THE HEART ARE MORE
      OFTEN FOUND AMONG PRIESTS THAN AMONG ATHEISTS AND UNBELIEVERS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Pride and vanity always were and always will be the inherent vices of the
      priesthood. Is there anything that has a tendency to render men haughty
      and vain more than the assumption of exercising Heavenly power, of
      possessing a sacred character, of being the messengers of the Most High?
      Are not these dispositions continually increased by the credulity of the
      people, by the deference and the respect of the sovereigns, by the
      immunities, the privileges, and the distinctions which the clergy enjoy?
      The common man is, in every country, more devoted to his spiritual guides,
      whom he considers as Divine men, than to his temporal superiors, whom he
      considers as ordinary men. Village priests enjoy more honor than the lord
      or the judge. A Christian priest believes himself far above a king or an
      emperor. A Spanish grandee having spoken hastily to a monk, the latter
      said to him, arrogantly, "Learn to respect a man who has every day your
      God in his hands and your queen at his feet."
    </p>
    <p>
      Have the priests any right to accuse the unbelievers of pride? Do they
      distinguish themselves by a rare modesty or profound humility? Is it not
      evident that the desire to domineer over men is the essence of their
      profession? If the Lord's ministers were truly modest, would we see them
      so greedy of respect, so easily irritated by contradictions, so prompt and
      so cruel in revenging themselves upon those whose opinions offend them?
      Does not modest science impress us with the difficulty of unraveling
      truth? What other passion than frenzied pride can render men so ferocious,
      so vindictive, so devoid of toleration and gentleness? What is more
      presumptuous than to arm nations and cause rivers of blood, in order to
      establish or to defend futile conjectures?
    </p>
    <p>
      You say, O Doctors of Divinity! that it is presumption alone which makes
      atheists. Teach them, then, what your God is; instruct them about His
      essence; speak of Him in an intelligible way; tell of Him reasonable
      things, which are not contradictory or impossible! If you are not in the
      condition to satisfy them; if, so far, none of you have been able to
      demonstrate the existence of a God in a clear and convincing way; if,
      according to your own confession, His essence is as much hidden from you
      as from the rest of mortals, pardon those who can not admit that which
      they can neither understand nor reconcile. Do not accuse of presumption
      and vanity those who have the sincerity to confess their ignorance; accuse
      not of folly those who find it impossible to believe in contradictions.
      You should blush at the thought of exciting the hatred of the people and
      the vengeance of the sovereigns against men who do not think as you do
      upon a Being of whom you have no idea yourselves. Is there anything more
      audacious and more extravagant than to reason about an object which it is
      impossible to conceive of?
    </p>
    <p>
      You tell us it is corruption of the heart which produces atheists; that
      they shake off the yoke of the Deity because they fear His terrible
      judgments. But why do you paint your God in such black colors? Why does
      this powerful God permit that such corrupt hearts should exist? Why should
      we not make efforts to break the yoke of a Tyrant who, being able to make
      of the hearts of men what He pleases, allows them to become perverted and
      hardened; blinds them; refuses them His grace, in order to have the
      satisfaction of punishing them eternally for having been hardened,
      blinded, and not having received the grace which He refused them? The
      theologians and the priests must feel themselves very sure of Heaven's
      grace and of a happy future, in order not to detest a Master so capricious
      as the God whom they announce to us. A God who damns eternally must be the
      most odious Being that the human mind could imagine.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CLXXXIX.&mdash;PREJUDICES ARE BUT FOR A TIME, AND NO POWER IS DURABLE
      EXCEPT IT IS BASED UPON TRUTH, REASON, AND EQUITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      No man on earth is truly interested in sustaining error; sooner or later
      it is compelled to surrender to truth. General interest tends to the
      enlightenment of mortals; even the passions sometimes contribute to the
      breaking of some of the chains of prejudice. Have not the passions of some
      sovereigns destroyed, within the past two centuries in some countries of
      Europe, the tyrannical power which a haughty Pontiff formerly exercised
      over all the princes of his sect? Politics, becoming more enlightened, has
      despoiled the clergy of an immense amount of property which credulity had
      accumulated in their hands. Should not this memorable example make even
      the priests realize that prejudices are but for a time, and that truth
      alone is capable of assuring a substantial well-being?
    </p>
    <p>
      Have not the ministers of the Lord seen that in pampering the sovereigns,
      in forging Divine rights for them, and in delivering to them the people,
      bound hand and foot, they were making tyrants of them? Have they not
      reason to fear that these gigantic idols, whom they have raised to the
      skies, will crush them also some day? Do not a thousand examples prove
      that they ought to fear that these unchained lions, after having devoured
      nations, will in turn devour them?
    </p>
    <p>
      We will respect the priests when they become citizens. Let them make use,
      if they can, of Heaven's authority to create fear in those princes who
      incessantly desolate the earth; let them deprive them of the right of
      being unjust; let them recognize that no subject of a State enjoys living
      under tyranny; let them make the sovereigns feel that they themselves are
      not interested in exercising a power which, rendering them odious, injures
      their own safety, their own power, their own grandeur; finally, let the
      priests and the undeceived kings recognize that no power is safe that is
      not based upon truth, reason, and equity.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXC.&mdash;HOW MUCH POWER AND CONSIDERATION THE MINISTERS OF THE GODS
      WOULD HAVE, IF THEY BECAME THE APOSTLES OF REASON AND THE DEFENDERS OF
      LIBERTY!
    </h2>
    <p>
      The ministers of the Gods, in warring against human reason, which they
      ought to develop, act against their own interest. What would be their
      power, their consideration, their empire over the wisest men; what would
      be the gratitude of the people toward them if, instead of occupying
      themselves with their vain quarrels, they had applied themselves to the
      useful sciences; if they had sought the true principles of physics, of
      government, and of morals. Who would dare reproach the opulence and credit
      of a corporation which, consecrating its leisure and its authority to the
      public good, should use the one for studying and meditating, and the other
      for enlightening equally the minds of the sovereigns and the subjects?
    </p>
    <p>
      Priests! lay aside your idle fancies, your unintelligible dogmas, your
      despicable quarrels; banish to imaginary regions these phantoms, which
      could be of use to you only in the infancy of nations; take the tone of
      reason, instead of sounding the tocsin of persecution against your
      adversaries; instead of entertaining the people with foolish disputes, of
      preaching useless and fanatical virtues, preach to them humane and social
      morality; preach to them virtues which are really useful to the world;
      become the apostles of reason, the lights of the nations, the defenders of
      liberty, reformers of abuses, the friends of truth, and we will bless you,
      we will honor you, we will love you, and you will be sure of holding an
      eternal empire over the hearts of your fellow-beings.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXCI.&mdash;WHAT A HAPPY AND GREAT REVOLUTION WOULD TAKE PLACE IN THE
      UNIVERSE, IF PHILOSOPHY WAS SUBSTITUTED FOR RELIGION!
    </h2>
    <p>
      Philosophers, in all ages, have taken the part that seemed destined for
      the ministers of religion. The hatred of the latter for philosophy was
      never more than professional jealousy. All men accustomed to think,
      instead of seeking to injure each other, should unite their efforts in
      combating errors, in seeking truth, and especially in dispelling the
      prejudices from which the sovereigns and subjects suffer alike, and whose
      upholders themselves finish, sooner or later, by becoming the victims.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the hands of an enlightened government the priests would become the
      most useful of citizens. Could men with rich stipends from the State, and
      relieved of the care of providing for their own subsistence, do anything
      better than to instruct themselves in order to be able to instruct others?
      Would not their minds be better satisfied in discovering truth than in
      wandering in the labyrinths of darkness? Would it be any more difficult to
      unravel the principles of man's morals, than the imaginary principles of
      Divine and theological morals? Would ordinary men have as much trouble in
      understanding the simple notions of their duties, as in charging their
      memories with mysteries, unintelligible words, and obscure definitions
      which are impossible for them to understand? How much time and trouble is
      lost in trying to teach men things which are of no use to them. What
      resources for the public benefit, for encouraging the progress of the
      sciences and the advancement of knowledge, for the education of youth, are
      presented to well-meaning sovereigns through so many monasteries, which,
      in a great number of countries devour the people's substance without an
      equivalent. But superstition, jealous of its exclusive empire, seems to
      have formed but useless beings. What advantage could not be drawn from a
      multitude of cenobites of both sexes whom we see in so many countries, and
      who are so well paid to do nothing. Instead of occupying them with sterile
      contemplations, with mechanical prayers, with monotonous practices;
      instead of burdening them with fasts and austerities, let there be excited
      among them a salutary emulation that would inspire them to seek the means
      of serving usefully the world, which their fatal vows oblige them to
      renounce. Instead of filling the youthful minds of their pupils with
      fables, dogmas, and puerilities, why not invite or oblige the priests to
      teach them true things, and so make of them citizens useful to their
      country? The way in which men are brought up makes them useful but to the
      clergy, who blind them, and to the tyrants, who plunder them.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXCII.&mdash;THE RETRACTION OF AN UNBELIEVER AT THE HOUR OF DEATH, PROVES
      NOTHING AGAINST INCREDULITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The adherents of credulity often accuse the unbelievers of bad faith
      because they sometimes waver in their principles, changing opinions during
      sickness, and retracting them at the hour of death. When the body is
      diseased, the faculty of reasoning is generally disturbed also. The infirm
      and decrepit man, in approaching his end, sometimes perceives himself that
      reason is leaving him, he feels that prejudice returns. There are diseases
      which have a tendency to lessen courage, to make pusillanimous, and to
      enfeeble the brain; there are others which, in destroying the body, do not
      affect the reason. However, an unbeliever who retracts in sickness, is not
      more rare or more extraordinary than a devotionist who permits himself,
      while in health, to neglect the duties that his religion prescribes for
      him in the most formal manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      Cleomenes, King of Sparta, having shown little respect for the Gods during
      his reign, became superstitious in his last days; with the view of
      interesting Heaven in his favor, he called around him a multitude of
      sacrificing priests. One of his friends expressing his surprise, Cleomenes
      said: "What are you astonished at? I am no longer what I was, and not
      being the same, I can not think in the same way."
    </p>
    <p>
      The ministers of religion in their daily conduct, often belie the rigorous
      principles which they teach to others, so that the unbelievers in their
      turn think they have a right to accuse them of bad faith. If some
      unbelievers contradict, in sight of death or during sickness, the opinions
      which they entertained in health, do not the priests in health belie
      opinions of the religion which they hold? Do we see a great multitude of
      humble, generous prelates devoid of ambition, enemies of pomp and
      grandeur, the friends of poverty? In short, do we see the conduct of many
      Christian priests corresponding with the austere morality of Christ, their
      God and their model?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXCIII.&mdash;IT IS NOT TRUE THAT ATHEISM SUNDERS ALL THE TIES OF SOCIETY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Atheism, we are told, breaks all social ties. Without belief in God, what
      becomes of the sacredness of the oath? How can we bind an atheist who can
      not seriously attest the Deity? But does the oath place us under stronger
      obligations to the engagements which we make? Whoever dares to lie, will
      he not dare to perjure himself? He who is base enough to violate his word,
      or unjust enough to break his promises in contempt of the esteem of men,
      will not be more faithful for having taken all the Gods as witnesses to
      his oaths. Those who rank themselves above the judgments of men, will soon
      put themselves above the judgments of God. Are not princes, of all
      mortals, the most prompt in taking oaths, and the most prompt in violating
      them?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXCIV.&mdash;REFUTATION OF THE ASSERTION THAT RELIGION IS NECESSARY FOR
      THE MASSES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Religion, they tell us, is necessary for the masses; that though
      enlightened persons may not need restraint upon their opinions, it is
      necessary at least for the common people, in whom education has not
      developed reason. Is it true, then, that religion is a restraint for the
      people? Do we see that this religion prevents them from intemperance,
      drunkenness, brutality, violence, frauds, and all kinds of excesses?
    </p>
    <p>
      Could a people who had no idea of the Deity, conduct itself in a more
      detestable manner than many believing people in whom we see dissolute
      habits, and the vices most unworthy of rational beings? Do we not see the
      artisan or the man of the people go from his church and plunge headlong
      into his usual excesses, persuading himself all the while that his
      periodical homage to God gives him the right to follow without remorse his
      vicious practices and habitual inclinations? If the people are gross and
      ignorant, is not their stupidity due to the negligence of the princes who
      do not attend to the public education, or who oppose the instruction of
      their subjects? Finally, is not the irrationality of the people plainly
      the work of the priests, who, instead of interesting them in a rational
      morality, do nothing but entertain them with fables, phantoms, intrigues,
      observances, idle fancies, and false virtues, upon which they claim that
      everything depends?
    </p>
    <p>
      Religion is, for the people, but a vain attendance upon ceremonies, to
      which they cling from habit, which amuses their eyes, which enlivens
      temporarily their sleepy minds, without influencing the conduct, and
      without correcting their morals. By the confession even of the ministers
      at the altars, nothing is more rare than the interior and spiritual
      religion, which is alone capable of regulating the life of man, and of
      triumphing over his inclinations. In good faith, among the most numerous
      and the most devotional people, are there many capable of understanding
      the principles of their religious system, and who find them of sufficient
      strength to stifle their perverse inclinations?
    </p>
    <p>
      Many people will tell us that it is better to have some kind of a
      restraint than none at all. They will pretend that if religion does not
      control the great mass, it serves at least to restrain some individuals,
      who, without it, would abandon themselves to crime without remorse. No
      doubt it is necessary for men to have a restraint; but they do not need an
      imaginary one; they need true and visible restraints; they need real
      fears, which are much better to restrain them than panic terrors and idle
      fancies. Religion frightens but a few pusillanimous minds, whose weakness
      of character already renders them little to be dreaded by their
      fellow-citizens. An equitable government, severe laws, a sound morality,
      will apply equally to everybody; every one would be forced to believe in
      it, and would feel the danger of not conforming to it.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXCV.&mdash;EVERY RATIONAL SYSTEM IS NOT MADE FOR THE MULTITUDE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      We may be asked if atheism can suit the multitude? I reply, that every
      system which demands discussion is not for the multitude. What use is
      there, then, in preaching atheism? It can at least make those who reason,
      feel that nothing is more extravagant than to make ourselves uneasy, and
      nothing more unjust than to cause anxiety to others on account of
      conjectures, destitute of all foundation. As to the common man, who never
      reasons, the arguments of an atheist are no better suited to him than a
      philosopher's hypothesis, an astronomer's observations, a chemist's
      experiments, a geometer's calculations, a physician's examinations, an
      architect's designs, or a lawyer's pleadings, who all labor for the people
      without their knowledge.
    </p>
    <p>
      The metaphysical arguments of theology, and the religious disputes which
      have occupied for so long many profound visionists, are they made any more
      for the common man than the arguments of an atheist? More than this, the
      principles of atheism, founded upon common sense, are they not more
      intelligible than those of a theology which we see bristling with
      insolvable difficulties, even for the most active minds? The people in
      every country have a religion which they do not understand, which they do
      not examine, and which they follow but by routine; their priests alone
      occupy themselves with the theology which is too sublime for them. If, by
      accident, the people should lose this unknown theology, they could console
      them selves for the loss of a thing which is not only entirely useless,
      but which produces among them very dangerous ebullitions.
    </p>
    <p>
      It would be very foolish to write for the common man or to attempt to cure
      his prejudices all at once. We write but for those who read and reason;
      the people read but little, and reason less. Sensible and peaceable people
      enlighten themselves; their light spreads itself gradually, and in time
      reaches the people. On the other hand, those who deceive men, do they not
      often take the trouble themselves of undeceiving them?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXCVI.&mdash;FUTILITY AND DANGER OF THEOLOGY. WISE COUNSELS TO PRINCES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If theology is a branch of commerce useful to theologians, it has been
      demonstrated to be superfluous and injurious to the rest of society. The
      interests of men will succeed in opening their eyes sooner or later. The
      sovereigns and the people will some day discover the indifference and the
      contempt that a futile science deserves which serves but to trouble men
      without making them better. They will feel the uselessness of many
      expensive practices, which do not at all contribute to public welfare;
      they will blush at many pitiful quarrels, which will cease to disturb the
      tranquillity of the States as soon as they cease to attach any importance
      to them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Princes! instead of taking part in the senseless contentions of your
      priests, instead of espousing foolishly their impertinent quarrels,
      instead of striving to bring all your subjects to uniform opinions, occupy
      yourselves with their happiness in this world, and do not trouble
      yourselves about the fate which awaits them in another. Govern them
      justly, give them good laws, respect their liberty and their property,
      superintend their education, encourage them in their labors, reward their
      talents and their virtues, repress their licentiousness, and do not
      trouble yourselves upon what they think about objects useless to them and
      to you. Then you will no longer need fictions to make yourselves obeyed;
      you will become the only guides of your subjects; their ideas will be
      uniform about the feelings of love and respect which will be your due.
      Theological fables are useful but to tyrants, who do not understand the
      art of ruling over reasonable beings.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXCVII.&mdash;FATAL EFFECTS OF RELIGION UPON THE PEOPLE AND THE PRINCES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Does it require the efforts of genius to comprehend that what is beyond
      man, is not made for men; that what is supernatural, is not made for
      natural beings; that impenetrable mysteries are not made for limited
      minds? If theologians are foolish enough to dispute about subjects which
      they acknowledge to be unintelligible to themselves, should society take a
      part in their foolish quarrels? Must human blood flow in order to give
      value to the conjectures of a few obstinate visionists? If it is very
      difficult to cure the theologians of their mania and the people of their
      prejudices, it is at least very easy to prevent the extravagances of the
      one and the folly of the other from producing pernicious effects. Let each
      one be allowed to think as he chooses, but let him not be allowed to annoy
      others for their mode of thinking. If the chiefs of nations were more just
      and more sensible, theological opinions would not disturb the public
      tranquillity any more than the disputes of philosophers, physicians,
      grammarians, and of critics. It is the tyranny of princes which makes
      theological quarrels have serious consequences. When kings shall cease to
      meddle with theology, theological quarrels will no longer be a thing to
      fear.
    </p>
    <p>
      Those who boast so much upon the importance and usefulness of religion,
      ought to show us its beneficial results, and the advantages that the
      disputes and abstract speculations of theology can bring to porters, to
      artisans, to farmers, to fishmongers, to women, and to so many depraved
      servants, with whom the large cities are filled. People of this kind are
      all religious, they have implicit faith; their priests believe for them;
      they accept a faith unknown to their guides; they listen assiduously to
      sermons; they assist regularly in ceremonies; they think it a great crime
      to transgress the ordinances to which from childhood they have been taught
      to conform. What good to morality results from all this? None whatever;
      they have no idea of morality, and you see them indulge in all kinds of
      rogueries, frauds, rapine, and excesses which the law does not punish. The
      masses, in truth, have no idea of religion; what is called religion, is
      but a blind attachment to unknown opinions and mysterious dealings. In
      fact, to deprive the people of religion, is depriving them of nothing. If
      we should succeed in destroying their prejudices, we would but diminish or
      annihilate the dangerous confidence which they have in self-interested
      guides, and teach them to beware of those who, under the pretext of
      religion, very often lead them into fatal excesses.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CXCVIII.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Under pretext of instructing and enlightening men, religion really holds
      them in ignorance, and deprives them even of the desire of understanding
      the objects which interest them the most. There exists for the people no
      other rule of conduct than that which their priests indicate to them.
      Religion takes the place of everything; but being in darkness itself, it
      has a greater tendency to misguide mortals, than to guide them in the way
      of science and happiness. Philosophy, morality, legislation, and politics
      are to them enigmas. Man, blinded by religious prejudices, finds it
      impossible to understand his own nature, to cultivate his reason, to make
      experiments; he fears truth as soon as it does not agree with his
      opinions. Everything tends to render the people devout, but all is opposed
      to their being humane, reasonable, and virtuous. Religion seems to have
      for its object only to blunt the feeling and to dull the intelligence of
      men.
    </p>
    <p>
      The war which always existed between the priests and the best minds of all
      ages, comes from this, that the wise men perceived the fetters which
      superstition wished to place upon the human mind, which it fain would keep
      in eternal infancy, that it might be occupied with fables, burdened with
      terrors, and frightened by phantoms which would prevent it from
      progressing. Incapable of perfecting itself, theology opposed
      insurmountable barriers to the progress of true knowledge; it seemed to be
      occupied but with the care to keep the nations and their chiefs in the
      most profound ignorance of their true interests, of their relations, of
      their duties, of the real motives which can lead them to prosperity; it
      does but obscure morality; renders its principles arbitrary, subjects it
      to the caprices of the Gods, or of their ministers; it converts the art of
      governing men into a mysterious tyranny which becomes the scourge of
      nations; it changes the princes into unjust and licentious despots, and
      the people into ignorant slaves, who corrupt themselves in order to obtain
      the favor of their masters.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      CXCIX.&mdash;HISTORY TEACHES US THAT ALL RELIGIONS WERE ESTABLISHED BY THE
      AID OF IGNORANCE, AND BY MEN WHO HAD THU EFFRONTERY TO STYLE THEMSELVES
      THE ENVOYS OF DIVINITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If we take the trouble to follow the history of the human mind, we will
      discover that theology took care not to extend its limits. It began by
      repeating fables, which it claimed to be sacred truths; it gave birth to
      poesy, which filled the people's imagination with puerile fictions; it
      entertained them but with its Gods and their incredible feats; in a word,
      religion always treated men like children, whom they put to sleep with
      tales that their ministers would like still to pass as incontestable
      truths. If the ministers of the Gods sometimes made useful discoveries,
      they always took care to hide them in enigmas and to envelope them in
      shadows of mystery. The Pythagorases and the Platos, in order to acquire
      some futile attainments, were obliged to crawl to the feet of the priests,
      to become initiated into their mysteries, to submit to the tests which
      they desired to impose upon them; it is at this cost that they were
      permitted to draw from the fountain-head their exalted ideas, so seducing
      still to all those who admire what is unintelligible. It was among
      Egyptian, Indian, Chaldean priests; it was in the schools of these
      dreamers, interested by profession in dethroning human reason, that
      philosophy was obliged to borrow its first rudiments. Obscure or false in
      its principles, mingled with fictions and fables, solely made to seduce
      imagination, this philosophy progressed but waveringly, and instead of
      enlightening the mind, it blinded it, and turned it away from useful
      objects. The theological speculations and mystical reveries of the
      ancients have, even in our days, the making of the law in a great part of
      the philosophical world. Adopted by modern theology, we can scarcely
      deviate from them without heresy; they entertain us with aerial beings,
      with spirits, angels, demons, genii, and other phantoms, which are the
      object of the meditations of our most profound thinkers, and which serve
      as a basis to metaphysics, an abstract and futile science, upon which the
      greatest geniuses have vainly exercised themselves for thousands of years.
      Thus hypotheses, invented by a few visionists of Memphis and of Babylon,
      continue to be the basis of a science revered for the obscurity which
      makes it pass as marvelous and Divine. The first legislators of nations
      were priests; the first mythologists and poets were priests; the first
      philosophers were priests; the first physicians were priests. In their
      hands science became a sacred thing, prohibited to the profane; they spoke
      only by allegories, emblems, enigmas, and ambiguous oracles&mdash;means
      well-suited to excite curiosity, to put to work the imagination, and
      especially to inspire in the ignorant man a holy respect for those whom he
      believed instructed by Heaven, capable of reading the destinies of earth,
      and who boldly pretended to be the organs of Divinity.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CC.&mdash;ALL RELIGIONS, ANCIENT AND MODERN, HAVE MUTUALLY BORROWED THEIR
      ABSTRACT REVERIES AND THEIR RIDICULOUS PRACTICES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The religions of these ancient priests have disappeared, or, rather, they
      have changed their form. Although our modern theologians regard the
      ancient priests as impostors, they have taken care to gather up the
      scattered fragments of their religious systems, the whole of which does
      not exist any longer for us; we will find in our modern religions, not
      only the metaphysical dogmas which theology has but dressed in another
      form, but we still find remarkable remains of their superstitious
      practices, of their theurgy, of their magic, of their enchantments.
    </p>
    <p>
      Christians are still commanded to regard with respect the monuments of the
      legislators, the priests, and the prophets of the Hebrew religion, which,
      according to appearances, has borrowed from Egypt the fantastic notions
      with which we see it filled. Thus the extravagances invented by frauds or
      idolatrous visionists, are still regarded as sacred opinions by the
      Christians!
    </p>
    <p>
      If we but look at history, we see striking resemblances in all religions.
      Everywhere on earth we find religious ideas periodically afflicting and
      rejoicing the people; everywhere we see rites, practices often abominable,
      and formidable mysteries occupying the mind, and becoming objects of
      meditation. We see the different superstitions borrowing from each other
      their abstract reveries and their ceremonies. Religions are generally
      unformed rhapsodies combined by new Doctors of Divinity, who, in composing
      them, have used the materials of their predecessors, reserving the right
      of adding or subtracting what suits or does not suit their present views.
      The religion of Egypt served evidently as a basis for the religion of
      Moses, who expunged from it the worship of idols. Moses was but an
      Egyptian schismatic, Christianity is but a reformed Judaism. Mohammedanism
      is composed of Judaism, of Christianity, and of the ancient religion of
      Arabia.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CCI.&mdash;THEOLOGY HAS ALWAYS TURNED PHILOSOPHY FROM ITS TRUE COURSE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      From the most remote period theology alone regulated the march of
      philosophy. What aid has it lent it? It changed it into an unintelligible
      jargon, which only had a tendency to render the clearest truth uncertain;
      it converted the art of reasoning into a science of words; it threw the
      human mind into the aerial regions of metaphysics, where it unsuccessfully
      occupied itself in sounding useless and dangerous abysses. For physical
      and simple causes, this philosophy substituted supernatural causes, or,
      rather, causes truly occult; it explained difficult phenomena by agents
      more inconceivable than these phenomena; it filled discourse with words
      void of sense, incapable of giving the reason of things, better suited to
      obscure than to enlighten, and which seem invented but to discourage man,
      to guard him against the powers of his own mind, to make him distrust the
      principles of reason and evidence, and to surround the truth with an
      insurmountable barrier.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CCII.&mdash;-THEOLOGY NEITHER EXPLAINS NOR ENLIGHTENS ANYTHING IN THE
      WORLD OR IN NATURE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If we would believe the adherents of religion, nothing could be explicable
      in the world without it; nature would be a continual enigma; it would be
      impossible for man to comprehend himself. But, at the bottom, what does
      this religion explain to us? The more we examine it, the more we find that
      theological notions are fit but to perplex all our ideas; they change all
      into mysteries; they explain to us difficult things by impossible things.
      Is it, then, explaining things to attribute them to unknown agencies, to
      invisible powers, to immaterial causes? Is it really enlightening the
      human mind when, in its embarrassment, it is directed to the "depths of
      the treasures of Divine Wisdom," upon which they tell us it is in vain for
      us to turn our bold regards? Can the Divine Nature, which we know nothing
      about, make us understand man's nature, which we find so difficult to
      explain?
    </p>
    <p>
      Ask a Christian philosopher what is the origin of the world. He will
      answer that God created the universe. What is God? We do not know anything
      about it. What is it to create? We have no idea of it! What is the cause
      of pestilences, famines, wars, sterility, inundations, earthquakes? It is
      God's wrath. What remedies can prevent these calamities? Prayers,
      sacrifices, processions, offerings, ceremonies, are, we are told, the true
      means to disarm Celestial fury. But why is Heaven angry? Because men are
      wicked. Why are men wicked? Because their nature is corrupt. What is the
      cause of this corruption? It is, a theologian of enlightened Europe will
      reply, because the first man was seduced by the first woman to eat of an
      apple which his God had forbidden him to touch. Who induced this woman to
      do such a folly? The Devil. Who created the Devil? God! Why did God create
      this Devil destined to pervert the human race? We know nothing about it;
      it is a mystery hidden in the bosom of the Deity.
    </p>
    <p>
      Does the earth revolve around the sun? Two centuries ago a devout
      philosopher would have replied that such a thought was blasphemy, because
      such a system could not agree with the Holy Book, which every Christian
      reveres as inspired by the Deity Himself. What is the opinion to-day about
      it? Notwithstanding Divine Inspiration, the Christian philosophers finally
      concluded to rely upon evidence rather than upon the testimony of their
      inspired books.
    </p>
    <p>
      What is the hidden principle of the actions and of the motions of the
      human body? It is the soul. What is a soul? It is a spirit. What is a
      spirit? It is a substance which has neither form, color, expansion, nor
      parts. How can we conceive of such a substance? How can it move a body? We
      know nothing about it. Have brutes souls? The Carthusian assures you that
      they are machines. But do we not see them act, feel, and think in a manner
      which resembles that of men? This is a pure illusion, you say. But why do
      you deprive the brutes of souls, which, without understanding it, you
      attribute to men? It is that the souls of the brutes would embarrass our
      theologians, who, content with the power of frightening and damning the
      immortal souls of men, do not take the same interest in damning those of
      the brutes. Such are the puerile solutions which philosophy, always guided
      by the leading-strings of theology, was obliged to bring forth to explain
      the problems of the physical and moral world.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CCIII.&mdash;HOW THEOLOGY HAS FETTERED HUMAN MORALS AND RETARDED THE
      PROGRESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT, OF REASON, AND OF TRUTH.
    </h2>
    <p>
      How many subterfuges and mental gymnastics all the ancient and modern
      thinkers have employed, in order to avoid falling out with the ministers
      of the Gods, who in all ages were the true tyrants of thought! How
      Descartes, Malebranche, Leibnitz, and many others have been compelled to
      invent hypotheses and evasions in order to reconcile their discoveries
      with the reveries and the blunders which religion had rendered sacred!
      With what prevarications have not the greatest philosophers guarded
      themselves even at the risk of being absurd, inconsistent, and
      unintelligible whenever their ideas did not correspond with the principles
      of theology! Vigilant priests were always ready to extinguish systems
      which could not be made to tally with their interests. Theology in every
      age has been the bed of Procrustes upon which this brigand extended his
      victims; he cut off the limbs when they were too long, or stretched them
      by horses when they were shorter than the bed upon which he placed them.
    </p>
    <p>
      What sensible man who has a love for science, and is interested in the
      welfare of humanity, can reflect without sorrow and pain upon the loss of
      so many profound, laborious, and subtle heads, who, for many centuries,
      have foolishly exhausted themselves upon idle fancies that proved to be
      injurious to our race? What light could have been thrown into the minds of
      many famous thinkers, if, instead of occupying themselves with a useless
      theology, and its impertinent disputes, they had turned their attention
      upon intelligible and truly important objects. Half of the efforts that it
      cost the genius that was able to forge their religious opinions, half of
      the expense which their frivolous worship cost the nations, would have
      sufficed to enlighten them perfectly upon morality, politics, philosophy,
      medicine, agriculture, etc. Superstition nearly always absorbs the
      attention, the admiration, and the treasures of the people; they have a
      very expensive religion; but they have for their money, neither light,
      virtue, nor happiness.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CCIV.&mdash;CONTINUATION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Some ancient and modern philosophers have had the courage to accept
      experience and reason as their guides, and to shake off the chains of
      superstition. Lucippe, Democritus, Epicurus, Straton, and some other
      Greeks, dared to tear away the thick veil of prejudice, and to deliver
      philosophy from theological fetters. But their systems, too simple, too
      sensible, and too stripped of wonders for the lovers of fancy, were
      obliged to surrender to the fabulous conjectures of Plato, Socrates, and
      Zeno. Among the moderns, Hobbes, Spinoza, Bayle, and others have followed
      the path of Epicurus, but their doctrine found but few votaries in a world
      still too much infatuated with fables to listen to reason.
    </p>
    <p>
      In all ages one could not, without imminent danger, lay aside the
      prejudices which opinion had rendered sacred. No one was permitted to make
      discoveries of any kind; all that the most enlightened men could do was to
      speak and write with hidden meaning; and often, by a cowardly
      complaisance, to shamefully ally falsehood with truth. A few of them had a
      double doctrine&mdash;one public and the other secret. The key of this
      last having been lost, their true sentiments often became unintelligible
      and, consequently, useless to us. How could modern philosophers who, being
      threatened with the most cruel persecution, were called upon to renounce
      reason and to submit to faith&mdash;that is to say, to priestly authority&mdash;I
      say, how could men thus fettered give free flight to their genius, perfect
      reason, or hasten human progress? It was but in fear and trembling that
      the greatest men obtained glimpses of truth; they rarely had the courage
      to announce it; those who dared to do it have generally been punished for
      their temerity. Thanks to religion, it was never permitted to think aloud
      or to combat the prejudices of which man is everywhere the victim or the
      dupe.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CCV.&mdash;WE COULD NOT REPEAT TOO OFTEN HOW EXTRAVAGANT AND FATAL
      RELIGION IS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Every man who has the boldness to announce truths to the world, is sure to
      receive the hatred of the priests; the latter loudly call upon the powers
      that be, for assistance; they need the assistance of kings to sustain
      their arguments and their Gods. These clamors show the weakness of their
      cause.
    </p>
    <p>
      "They are in embarrassment when they cry for help."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not permitted to err in the matter of religion; on every other
      subject we can be deceived with impunity; we pity those who go astray, and
      we have some liking for the persons who discover truths new to us. But as
      soon as theology supposes itself concerned, be it in errors or
      discoveries, a holy zeal is kindled; the sovereigns exterminate; the
      people fly into frenzy; and the nations are all stirred up without knowing
      why. Is there anything more afflicting than to see public and individual
      welfare depend upon a futile science, which is void of principles, which
      has no standing ground but imagination, and which presents to the mind but
      words void of sense? What good is a religion which no one understands;
      which continually torments those who trouble themselves about it; which is
      incapable of rendering men better; and which often gives them the credit
      of being unjust and wicked? Is there a more deplorable folly, and one that
      ought more to be abated, than that which, far from doing any good to the
      human race, does but blind it, cause transports, and render it miserable,
      depriving it of truth, which alone can soften the rigor of fate?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      CCVI.&mdash;RELIGION IS PANDORA'S BOX, AND THIS FATAL BOX IS OPEN.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Religion has in every age kept the human mind in darkness and held it in
      ignorance of its true relations, of its real duties and its true
      interests. It is but in removing its clouds and phantoms that we may find
      the sources of truth, reason, morality, and the actual motives which
      inspire virtue. This religion puts us on the wrong track for the causes of
      our evils, and the natural remedies which we can apply. Far from curing
      them, it can but multiply them and render them more durable.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us, then, say, with the celebrated Lord Bolingbroke, in his posthumous
      works: "Theology is the Box of Pandora; and if it is impossible to close
      it, it is at least useful to give warning that this fatal box is open."
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      I believe, my dear friends, that I have given you a sufficient
      preventative against all these follies. Your reason will do more than my
      discourses, and I sincerely wish that we had only to complain of being
      deceived! But human blood has flowed since the time of Constantine for the
      establishment of these horrible impositions. The Roman, the Greek, and the
      Protestant churches by vain, ambitious, and hypocritical disputes have
      ravaged Europe, Asia, and Africa. Add to these men, whom these quarrels
      murdered, the multitudes of monks and of nuns, who became sterile by their
      profession, and you will perceive that the Christian religion has
      destroyed half of the human race.
    </p>
    <p>
      I conclude with the desire that we may return to Nature, whose declared
      enemy the Christian religion is, and which necessarily instructs us to do
      unto others as we would wish them to do unto us. Then the universe will be
      composed of good citizens, just fathers, obedient children, tender
      friends. Nature has given us this Religion, in giving us Reason. May
      fanaticism pervert it no more! I die filled with these desires more than
      with hope.
    </p>
    <p>
      ETREPIGNY, March 15, 1732
    </p>
    <p>
      JOHN MESLIER <a name="link2H_4_0213" id="link2H_4_0213">
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    <h2>
      ABSTRACT OF THE TESTAMENT OF JOHN MESLIER
    </h2>
    <h3>
      By Voltaire;
    </h3>
    <h2>
      OR, SENTIMENTS OF THE CURATE OF ETREPIGNY ADDRESSED TO HIS PARISHIONERS.
    </h2>
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    <h2>
      I.&mdash;OF RELIGIONS.
    </h2>
    <p>
      As there is no one religious denomination which does not pretend to be
      truly founded upon the authority of God, and entirely exempt from all the
      errors and impositions which are found in the others, it is for those who
      purpose to establish the truth of the faith of their sect, to show, by
      clear and convincing proofs, that it is of Divine origin; as this is
      lacking, we must conclude that it is but of human invention, and full of
      errors and deceptions; for it is incredible that an Omnipotent and
      Infinitely good God would have desired to give laws and ordinances to men,
      and not have wished them to bear better authenticated marks of truth, than
      those of the numerous impostors. Moreover, there is not one of our
      Christ-worshipers, of whatever sect he may be, who can make us see, by
      convincing proofs, that his religion is exclusively of Divine origin; and
      for want of such proof they have been for many centuries contesting this
      subject among themselves, even to persecuting each other by fire and sword
      to maintain their opinions; there is, however, not one sect of them all
      which could convince and persuade the others by such witnesses of truth;
      this certainly would not be, if they had, on one side or the other,
      convincing proofs of Divine origin. For, as no one of any religious sect,
      enlightened and of good faith, pretends to hold and to favor error and
      falsehood; and as, on the contrary, each, on his side, pretends to sustain
      truth, the true means of banishing all errors, and of uniting all men in
      peace in the same sentiments and in the same form of religion, would be to
      produce convincing proofs and testimonies of the truth; and thus show that
      such religion is of Divine origin, and not any of the others; then each
      one would accept this truth; and no person would dare to question these
      testimonies, or sustain the side of error and imposition, lest he should
      be, at the same time, confounded by contrary proofs: but, as these proofs
      are not found in any religion, it gives to impostors occasion to invent
      and boldly sustain all kinds of falsehoods.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here are still other proofs, which will not be less evident, of the
      falsity of human religions, and especially of the falsity of our own.
      Every religion which relies upon mysteries as its foundation, and which
      takes, as a rule of its doctrine and its morals, a principle of errors,
      and which is at the same time a source of trouble and eternal divisions
      among men, can not be a true religion, nor a Divine Institution. Now,
      human religions, especially the Catholic, establish as the basis of their
      doctrine and of their morals, a principle of errors; then, it follows that
      these religions can not be true, or of Divine origin. I do not see that we
      can deny the first proposition of this argument; it is too clear and too
      evident to admit of a doubt. I pass to the proof of the second
      proposition, which is, that the Christian religion takes for the rule of
      its doctrine and its morals what they call faith, a blind trust, but yet
      firm, and secured by some laws or revelations of some Deity. We must
      necessarily suppose that it is thus, because it is this belief in some
      Deity and in some Divine Revelations, which gives all the credit and all
      the authority that it has in the world, and without which we could make no
      use of what it prescribes. This is why there is no religion which does not
      expressly recommend its votaries to be firm in their faith. ["Estate
      fortes in fide!"] This is the reason that all Christians accept as a
      maxim, that faith is the commencement and the basis of salvation, that it
      is the root of all justice and of all sanctification, as it is expressed
      at the Council of Trent.&mdash;Sess. 6, Ch. VIII.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now it is evident that a blind faith in all which is proposed in the name
      and authority of God, is a principle of errors and falsehoods. As a proof,
      we see that there is no impostor in the matter of religion, who does not
      pretend to be clothed with the name and the authority of God, and who does
      not claim to be especially inspired and sent by God. Not only is this
      faith and blind belief which they accept as a basis of their doctrine, a
      principle of errors, etc., but it is also a source of trouble and division
      among men for the maintenance of their religion. There is no cruelty which
      they do not practice upon each other under this specious pretext.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now then, it is not credible that an Almighty, All-Kind, and All-Wise God
      desired to use such means or such a deceitful way to inform men of His
      wishes; for this would be manifestly desiring to lead them into error and
      to lay snares in their way, in order to make them accept the side of
      falsehood. It is impossible to believe that a God who loved unity and
      peace, the welfare and the happiness of men, would ever have established
      as the basis of His religion, such a fatal source of trouble and of
      eternal divisions among them. Such religions can not be true, neither
      could they have been instituted by God. But I see that our
      Christ-worshipers will not fail to have recourse to their pretended
      motives for credulity, and that they will say, that although their faith
      and belief may be blind in one sense, they are nevertheless supported by
      such clear and convincing testimonies of truth, that it would be not only
      imprudence, but temerity and folly not to surrender one's self. They
      generally reduce these pretended motives to three or four leading
      features. The first, they draw from the pretended holiness of their
      religion, which condemns vice, and which recommends the practice of
      virtue. Its doctrine is so pure, so simple, according to what they say,
      that it is evident it could spring but from the sanctity of an infinitely
      good and wise God.
    </p>
    <p>
      The second motive for credulity, they draw from the innocence and the
      holiness of life in those who embraced it with love, and defended it by
      suffering death and the most cruel torments, rather than forsake it: it
      not being credible that such great personages would allow themselves to be
      deceived in their belief, that they would renounce all the advantages of
      life, and expose themselves to such cruel torments and persecutions, in
      order to maintain errors and impositions. Their third motive for
      credulity, they draw from the oracles and prophecies which have so long
      been rendered in their favor, and which they pretend have been
      accomplished in a manner which permits no doubt. Finally, their fourth
      motive for credulity, which is the most important of all, is drawn from
      the grandeur and the multitude of the miracles performed, in all ages, and
      in every place, in favor of their religion.
    </p>
    <p>
      But it is easy to refute all these useless reasonings and to show the
      falsity of all these evidences. For, firstly, the arguments which our
      Christ-worshipers draw from their pretended motives for credulity can
      serve to establish and confirm falsehood as well as truth; for we see that
      there is no religion, no matter how false it may be, which does not
      pretend to have a sound and true doctrine, and which, in its way, does not
      condemn all vices and recommend the practice of all virtues; there is not
      one which has not had firm and zealous defenders who have suffered
      persecution in order to maintain their religion; and, finally, there is
      none which does not pretend to have wonders and miracles that have been
      performed in their favor. The Mohammedans, the Indians, the heathen, as
      well as the Christians, claim miracles in their religions. If our
      Christ-worshipers make use of their miracles and their prophecies, they
      are found no less in the Pagan religions than in theirs. Thus the
      advantage we might draw from all these motives for credulity, is found
      about the same in all sorts of religions. This being established, as the
      history and practice of all religions demonstrate, it evidently follows
      that all these pretended motives for credulity, upon which our
      Christ-worshipers place so much value, are found equally in all religions;
      and, consequently, can not serve as reliable evidences of the truth of
      their religion more than of the truth of any other. The result is clear.
    </p>
    <p>
      Secondly. In order to give an idea of the resemblance of the miracles of
      Paganism to those of Christianity, could we not say, for example, that
      there would be more reason to believe Philostratus in what he recites of
      the life of Apollonius than to believe all the evangelists in what they
      say of the miracles of Jesus Christ; because we know, at least that
      Philostratus was a man of intelligence, eloquence, and fluency; that he
      was the secretary of the Empress Julia, wife of the Emperor Severus, and
      that he was requested by this empress to write the life and the wonderful
      acts of Apollonius? It is evident that Apollonius rendered himself famous
      by great and extraordinary deeds, since an empress was sufficiently
      interested in them to desire a history of his life. This is what can not
      be said of Jesus Christ, nor of those who have furnished us His biography,
      for they were but ignorant men of the common people, poor workmen,
      fishermen, who had not even the sense to relate consistently the facts
      which they speak of, and which they mutually contradict very often. In
      regard to the One whose life and actions they describe, if He had really
      performed the miracles attributed to Him, He would have rendered Himself
      notable by His beautiful acts; every one would have admired Him, and there
      would be statues erected to Him as was done for the Gods; but instead of
      that, He was regarded as a man of no consequence, as a fanatic, etc.
      Josephus, the historian, after having spoken of the great miracles
      performed in favor of his nation and his religion, immediately diminishes
      their credibility and renders it suspicious by saying that he leaves to
      each one the liberty of believing what he chooses; this evidently shows
      that he had not much faith in them. It also gives occasion to the more
      judicious to regard the histories which speak of this kind of things as
      fabulous narrations. [See Montaigne, and the author of the "Apology for
      Great Men."] All that can be said upon this subject shows us clearly that
      pretended miracles can be invented to favor vice and falsehood as well as
      justice and truth.
    </p>
    <p>
      I prove it by the evidence of what even our Christ-worshipers call the
      Word of God, and by the evidence of the One they adore; for their books,
      which they claim contain the Word of God, and Christ Himself, whom they
      adore as a God-made man, show us explicitly that there are not only false
      prophets&mdash;that is to say, impostors&mdash;who claim to be sent by
      God, and who speak in His name, but which show as explicitly that these
      false prophets can perform such great and prodigious miracles as shall
      deceive the very elect. [See Matthew, chapter xxiv., verses 5, 21-27.]
      More than this, all these pretended performers of miracles wish us to put
      faith only in them, and not in those who belong to an opposite party.
    </p>
    <p>
      On one occasion one of these pretended prophets, named Sedecias, being
      contradicted by another, named Michea, the former struck the latter and
      said to him, pleasantly, "By what way did the Spirit of God pass from me
      to you?"
    </p>
    <p>
      But how can these pretended miracles be the evidences of truth? for it is
      clear that they were not performed. For it would be necessary to know:
      Firstly, If those who are said to be the first authors of these narrations
      truly are such. Secondly, If they were honest men, worthy of confidence,
      wise and enlightened; and to know if they were not prejudiced in favor of
      those of whom they speak so favorably. Thirdly, If they have examined all
      the circumstances of the facts which they relate; if they know them well;
      and if they make a faithful report of them. Fourthly, If the books or the
      ancient histories which relate all these great miracles have not been
      falsified and changed in course of time, as many others have been?
    </p>
    <p>
      If we consult Tacitus and many other celebrated historians, in regard to
      Moses and his nation, we shall see that they are considered as a horde of
      thieves and bandits. Magic and astrology were in those days the only
      fashionable sciences; and as Moses was, it is said, instructed in the
      wisdom of the Egyptians, it was not difficult for him to inspire
      veneration and attachment for himself in the rustic and ignorant children
      of Jacob, and to induce them to accept, in their misery, the discipline he
      wished to give them. That is very different from what the Jews and our
      Christ-worshipers wish to make us believe. By what certain rule can we
      know that we should put faith in these rather than in the others? There is
      no sound reason for it. There is as little of certainty and even of
      probability in the miracles of the New Testament as in those of the Old.
    </p>
    <p>
      It will serve no purpose to say that the histories which relate the facts
      contained in the Gospels have been regarded as true and sacred; that they
      have always been faithfully preserved without any alteration of the truths
      which they contain; since this is perhaps the very reason why they should
      be the more suspected, having been corrupted by those who drew profit from
      them, or who feared that they were not sufficiently favorable to them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Generally, authors who transcribe this kind of histories, take the right
      to enlarge or to retrench all they please, in order to serve their own
      interests. This is what even our Christ-worshipers can not deny; for,
      without mentioning several other important personages who recognized the
      additions, the retrenchments, and the falsifications which have been made
      at different times in their Holy Scriptures, their saint Jerome, a famous
      philosopher among them, formally said in several passages of his
      "Prologues," that they had been corrupted and falsified; being, even in
      his day, in the hands of all kinds of persons, who added and suppressed
      whatever they pleased; so, "Thus there were," said he, "as many different
      models as different copies of the Gospels."
    </p>
    <p>
      In regard to the books of the Old Testament, Esdras, a priest of the law,
      testifies himself to having corrected and completed wholly the pretended
      sacred books of his law, which had partly been lost and partly corrupted.
      He divided them into twenty-two books, according to the number of the
      Hebraic letters, and wrote several other books, whose doctrine was to be
      revealed to the learned men alone. If these books have been partly lost
      and partly corrupted, as Esdras and St. Jerome testify in so many
      passages, there is then no certainty in regard to what they contain; and
      as for Esdras saying he had corrected and compiled them by the inspiration
      of God Himself there is no certainty of that, since there is no impostor
      who would not make the same claim. All the books of the law of Moses and
      of the prophets which could be found, were burned in the days of
      Antiochus. The Talmud, considered by the Jews as a holy and sacred book,
      and which contains all the Divine laws, with the sentences and notable
      sayings of the Rabbins, of their interpretation of the Divine and of the
      human laws, and a prodigious number of other secrets and mysteries in the
      Hebraic language, is considered by the Christians as a book made up of
      reveries, fables, impositions, and ungodliness. In the year 1559 they
      burned in Rome, according to the command of the inquisitors of the faith,
      twelve hundred of these Talmuds, which were found in a library in the city
      of Cremona. The Pharisees, a famous sect among the Jews, accepted but the
      five books of Moses, and rejected all the prophets. Among the Christians,
      Marcion and his votaries rejected the books of Moses and the prophets, and
      introduced other fashionable Scriptures. Carpocrates and his followers did
      the same, and rejected the whole of the Old Testament, and contended that
      Jesus Christ was but a man like all others. The Marcionites repudiated as
      bad, the whole of the Old Testament, and rejected the greater part of the
      four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul. The Ebionites accepted but the
      Gospel of St. Matthew, rejecting the three others, and the Epistles of St.
      Paul. The Marcionites published a Gospel under the name of St. Matthias,
      in order to confirm their doctrine. The apostles introduced other
      Scriptures in order to maintain their errors; and to carry out this, they
      made use of certain Acts, which they attributed to St. Andrew and to St.
      Thomas.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Manicheans wrote a gospel of their own style, and rejected the
      Scriptures of the prophets and the apostles. The Etzaites sold a certain
      book which they claimed to have come from Heaven; they cut up the other
      Scriptures according to their fancy. Origen himself, with all his great
      mind, corrupted the Scriptures and forged changes in the allegories which
      did not suit him, thus corrupting the sense of the prophets and apostles,
      and even some of the principal points of doctrine. His books are now
      mutilated and falsified; they are but fragments collected by others who
      have appeared since. The Ellogians attributed to the heretic Corinthus the
      Gospel and the Apocalypse of St. John; this is why they reject them. The
      heretics of our last centuries reject as apocryphal several books which
      the Roman Catholics consider as true and sacred&mdash;such as the books of
      Tobias, Judith, Esther, Baruch, the Song of the Three Children in the
      Furnace, the History of Susannah, and that of the Idol Bel, the Wisdom of
      Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, the first and second book of Maccabees; to which
      uncertain and doubtful books we could add several others that have been
      attributed to the other apostles; as, for example, the Acts of St. Thomas,
      his Circuits, his Gospel, and his Apocalypse; the Gospel of St.
      Bartholomew, that of St. Matthias, of St. Jacques, of St. Peter and of the
      Apostles, as also the Deeds of St. Peter, his book on Preaching, and that
      of his Apocalypse; that of the Judgment, that of the Childhood of the
      Saviour, and several others of the same kind, which are all rejected as
      apocryphal by the Roman Catholics, even by the Pope Gelasee, and by the S.
      S. F. F. of the Romish Communion. That which most confirms that there is
      no foundation of truth in regard to the authority given to these books, is
      that those who maintain their Divinity are compelled to acknowledge that
      they have no certainty as a basis, if their faith did not assure them and
      oblige them to believe it. Now, as faith is but a principle of error and
      imposture, how can faith, that is to say, a blind belief, render the books
      reliable which are themselves the foundation of this blind belief? What a
      pity and what insanity! But let us see if these books have of themselves
      any feature of truth; as, for example, of erudition, of wisdom, and of
      holiness, or some other perfections which are suited only to a God; and if
      the miracles which are cited agree with what we ought to think of the
      grandeur, goodness, justice, and infinite wisdom of an Omnipotent God.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is no erudition, no sublime thought, nor any production which
      surpasses the ordinary capacities of the human mind. On the contrary, we
      shall see on one side fabulous tales similar to that of a woman formed of
      a man's rib; of the pretended terrestrial Paradise; of a serpent which
      spoke, which reasoned, and which was more cunning than man; of an ass
      which spoke, and reprimanded its master for ill-treating it; of a
      universal deluge, and of an ark where animals of all kinds were inclosed;
      of the confusion of languages and of the division of the nations, without
      speaking of numerous other useless narrations upon low and frivolous
      subjects which important authors would scorn to relate. All these
      narrations appear to be fables, as much as those invented about the
      industry of Prometheus, the box of Pandora, the war of the Giants against
      the Gods, and similar others which the poets have invented to amuse the
      men of their time.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the other hand we will see a mixture of laws and ordinances, or
      superstitious practices concerning sacrifices, the purifications of the
      old law, the senseless distinctions in regard to animals, of which it
      supposes some to be pure and others to be impure. These laws are no more
      respectable than those of the most idolatrous nations. We shall see but
      simple stories, true or false, of several kings, princes, or individuals,
      who lived right or wrong, or who performed noble or mean actions, with
      other low and frivolous things also related.
    </p>
    <p>
      From all this, it is evident that no great genius was required, nor Divine
      Revelations to produce these things. It would not be creditable to a God.
    </p>
    <p>
      Finally, we see in these books but the discourses, the conduct, and the
      actions of those renowned prophets who proclaimed themselves especially
      inspired by God. We will see their way of acting and speaking, their
      dreams, their illusions, their reveries; and it will be easy to judge
      whether they do not resemble visionaries and fanatics much more than wise
      and enlightened persons.
    </p>
    <p>
      There are, however, in a few of these books, several good teachings and
      beautiful maxims of morals, as in the Proverbs attributed to Solomon, in
      the book of Wisdom and of Ecclesiastes; but this same Solomon, the wisest
      of their writers, is also the most incredulous; he doubts even the
      immortality of the soul, and concludes his works by saying that there is
      nothing good but to enjoy in peace the fruits of one's labor, and to live
      with those whom we love.
    </p>
    <p>
      How superior are the authors who are called profane, such as Xenophon,
      Plato, Cicero, the Emperor Antoninus, the Emperor Julian, Virgil, etc., to
      the books which we are told are inspired of God. I can truly say that the
      fables of Aesop, for example, are certainly more ingenious and more
      instructive than all these rough and poor parables which are related in
      the Gospels.
    </p>
    <p>
      But what shows us that this kind of books is not of Divine Inspiration,
      is, that aside from the low order, coarseness of style, and the lack of
      system in the narrations of the different facts, which are very badly
      arranged, we do not see that the authors agree; they contradict each other
      in several things; they had not even sufficient enlightenment or natural
      talents to write a history.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here are some examples of the contradictions which are found among them.
      The Evangelist Matthew claims that Jesus Christ descended from king David
      by his son Solomon through Joseph, reputed to be His father; and Luke
      claims that He is descended from the same David by his son Nathan through
      Joseph.
    </p>
    <p>
      Matthew says, in speaking of Jesus, that, it being reported in Jerusalem
      that a new king of the Jews was born, and that the wise men had come to
      adore Him, the king Herod, fearing that this pretended new king would rob
      him of his crown some day, caused the murder of all the new-born children
      under two years, in all the neighborhood of Bethlehem, where he had been
      told that this new king was born; and that Joseph and the mother of Jesus,
      having been warned in a dream by an angel, of this wicked intention, took
      flight immediately to Egypt, where they stayed until the death of Herod,
      which happened many years afterward.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the contrary, Luke asserts that Joseph and the mother of Jesus lived
      peaceably during six weeks in the place where their child Jesus was born;
      that He was circumcised according to the law of the Jews, eight days after
      His birth; and when the time prescribed by the law for the purification of
      His mother had arrived, she and Joseph, her husband, carried Him to
      Jerusalem in order to present Him to God in His temple, and to offer at
      the same time a sacrifice which was ordained by God's law; after which
      they returned to Galilee, into their town of Nazareth, where their child
      Jesus grew every day in grace and in wisdom. Luke goes on to say that His
      father and His mother went every year to Jerusalem on the solemn days of
      their Easter feast, but makes no mention of their flight into Egypt, nor
      of the cruelty of Herod toward the children of the province of Bethlehem.
      In regard to the cruelty of Herod, as neither the historians of that time
      speak of it, nor Josephus, the historian who wrote the life of this Herod,
      and as the other Evangelists do not mention it, it is evident that the
      journey of those wise men, guided by a star, this massacre of little
      children, and this flight to Egypt, were but absurd falsehoods. For it is
      not credible that Josephus, who blamed the vices of this king, could have
      been silent on such a dark and detestable action, if what the Evangelist
      said had been true.
    </p>
    <p>
      In regard to the duration of the public life of Jesus Christ, according to
      what the first three Evangelists say, there could be scarcely more than
      three months from the time of His baptism until His death, supposing He
      was thirty years old when He was baptized by John, according to Luke, and
      that He was born on the 25th of December. For, from this baptism, which
      was in the year 15 of Tiberius Caesar, and in the year when Anne and
      Caiaphas were high-priests, to the first Easter following, which was in
      the month of March, there was but about three months; according to what
      the first three Evangelists say, He was crucified on the eve of the first
      Easter following His baptism, and the first time He went to Jerusalem with
      His disciples; because all that they say of His baptism, of His travels,
      of His miracles, of His preaching, of His death and passion, must have
      taken place in the same year of His baptism, for the Evangelists speak of
      no other year following, and it appears even by the narration of His acts
      that He performed them consecutively immediately after His baptism, and in
      a very short time, during which we see but an interval of six days before
      his Transfiguration; during these six days we do not see that He did
      anything. We see by this that He lived but about three months after His
      baptism, from which, if we subtract the forty days and forty nights which
      He passed in the desert immediately after His baptism, it would follow
      that the length of His public life from His first preaching till His
      death, would have lasted but about six weeks; and according to what John
      says, it would have lasted at least three years and three months, because
      it appears by the Gospel of this apostle, that, during the course of His
      public life He might have been three or four times at Jerusalem at the
      Easter feast which happened but once a year.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now if it is true that He had been there three or four times after His
      baptism, as John testifies, it is false that He lived but three months
      after His baptism, and that He was crucified the first time He went to
      Jerusalem.
    </p>
    <p>
      If it is said that these first three Evangelists really mean but one year,
      but that they do not indicate distinctly the others which elapsed since
      His baptism; or that John understood that there was but one Easter,
      although he speaks of several, and that he only anticipated the time when
      he repeatedly tells us that the Easter feast of the Jews was near at hand,
      and that Jesus went to Jerusalem, and, consequently, that there is but an
      apparent contradiction upon this subject between the Evangelists, I am
      willing to accept this; but it is certain that this apparent contradiction
      springs from the fact, that they do not explain themselves in all the
      circumstances that are noted in the narration which they make. Be that as
      it may, there will always be this inference made, that they were not
      inspired by God when they wrote their biographies of Christ.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here is another contradiction in regard to the first thing which Jesus
    </p>
    <p>
      Christ did immediately after His baptism; for the first three Evangelists
      state, that He was transported immediately by the Spirit into the desert,
      where He fasted forty days and forty nights, and where He was several
      times tempted by the Devil; and, according to what John says, He departed
      two days after His baptism to go into Galilee, where He performed His
      first miracle by changing water into wine at the wedding of Cana, where He
      found Himself three days after His arrival in Galilee, more than thirty
      leagues from the place in which He had been.
    </p>
    <p>
      In regard to the place of His first retreat after His departure from the
      desert, Matthew says that He returned to Galilee, and that leaving the
      city of Nazareth, He went to live at Capernaum, a maritime city; and Luke
      says, that He came at first to Nazareth, and afterward went to Capernaum.
    </p>
    <p>
      They contradict each other in regard to the time and manner in which the
      apostles followed Him; for the first three say that Jesus, passing on the
      shore of the Sea of Galilee, saw Simon and Andrew his brother, and that He
      saw at a little distance James and his brother John with their father,
      Zebedee. John, on the contrary, says that it was Andrew, brother of Simon
      Peter, who first followed Jesus with another disciple of John the Baptist,
      having seen Him pass before them, when they were with their Master on the
      shores of the Jordan.
    </p>
    <p>
      In regard to the Lord's Supper, the first three Evangelists note that
      Jesus Christ instituted the Sacrament of His body and His blood, in the
      form of bread and wine, the same as our Roman Christ-worshipers say; and
      John does not mention this mysterious sacrament. John says that after this
      supper, Jesus washed His apostles' feet, and commanded them to do the same
      thing to each other, and relates a long discourse which He delivered then.
      But the other Evangelists do not speak of the washing of the feet, nor of
      the long discourse He gave them then. On the contrary, they testify that
      immediately after this supper, He went with His apostles upon the Mount of
      Olives, where He gave up His Spirit to sadness, and was in anguish while
      His apostles slept, at a short distance. They contradict each other upon
      the day on which they say the Lord's Supper took place; because on one
      side, they note that it took place Easter-eve, that is, the evening of the
      first day of Azymes, or of the feast of unleavened bread; as it is noted
      (1) in Exodus, (2) in Leviticus, and (3) in Numbers; and, on the other
      hand, they say that He was crucified the day following the Lord's Supper,
      about midday after the Jews had His trial during the whole night and
      morning. Now, according to what they say, the day after this supper took
      place, ought not to be Easter-eve. Therefore, if He died on the eve of
      Easter, toward midday, it was not on the eve of this feast that this
      supper took place. There is consequently a manifest error.
    </p>
    <p>
      They contradict each other, also, in regard to the women who followed
      Jesus from Galilee, for the first three Evangelists say that these women,
      and those who knew Him, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary, mother
      of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee's children, were looking on
      at a distance when He was hanged and nailed upon the cross. John says, on
      the contrary, that the mother of Jesus and His mother's sister, and Mary
      Magdalene were standing near His cross with John, His apostle. The
      contradiction is manifest, for, if these women and this disciple were near
      Him, they were not at a distance, as the others say they were.
    </p>
    <p>
      They contradict each other upon the pretended apparitions which they
      relate that Jesus made after His pretended resurrection; for Matthew
      speaks of but two apparitions: the one when He appeared to Mary Magdalene
      and to another woman, also named Mary, and when He appeared to His eleven
      disciples who had returned to Galilee upon the mountain where He had
      appointed to meet them. Mark speaks of three apparitions: The first, when
      He appeared to Mary Magdalene; the second, when He appeared to His two
      disciples, who went to Emmaus; and the third, when He appeared to His
      eleven disciples, whom He reproaches for their incredulity. Luke speaks of
      but two apparitions the same as Matthew; and John the Evangelist speaks of
      four apparitions, and adds to Mark's three, the one which He made to seven
      or eight of His disciples who were fishing upon the shores of the Tiberian
      Sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      They contradict each other, also, in regard to the place of these
      apparitions; for Matthew says that it was in Galilee, upon a mountain;
      Mark says that it was when they were at table; Luke says that He brought
      them out of Jerusalem as far as Bethany, where He left them by rising to
      Heaven; and John says that it was in the city of Jerusalem, in a house of
      which they had closed the doors, and another time upon the borders of the
      Tiberian Sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus is much contradiction in the report of these pretended apparitions.
      They contradict each other in regard to His pretended ascension to heaven;
      for Luke and Mark say positively that He went to heaven in presence of the
      eleven apostles, but neither Matthew nor John mentions at all this
      pretended ascension. More than this, Matthew testifies sufficiently that
      He did not ascend to heaven; for he said positively that Jesus Christ
      assured His apostles that He would be and remain always with them until
      the end of the world. "Go ye," He said to them, in this pretended
      apparition, "and teach all nations, and be assured that I am with you
      always, even unto the end of the world." Luke contradicts himself upon the
      subject; for in his Gospel he says that it was in Bethany where He
      ascended to heaven in the presence of His apostles, and in his Acts of the
      Apostles (supposing him to have been the author) he says that it was upon
      the Mount of Olives. He contradicts himself again about this ascension;
      for he notes in his Gospel that it was the very day of His resurrection,
      or the first night following, that He ascended to heaven; and in the Acts
      of the Apostles he says that it was forty days after His resurrection;
      this certainly does not correspond. If all the apostles had really seen
      their Master gloriously rise to heaven, how could it be possible that
      Matthew and John, who would have seen it as well as the others, passed in
      silence such a glorious mystery, and which was so advantageous to their
      Master, considering that they relate many other circumstances of His life
      and of His actions which are much less important than this one? How is it
      that Matthew does not mention this ascension? And why does Christ not
      explain clearly how He would live with them always, although He left them
      visibly to ascend to heaven? It is not easy to comprehend by what secret
      He could live with those whom He left.
    </p>
    <p>
      I pass in silence many other contradictions; what I have said is
      sufficient to show that these books are not of Divine Inspiration, nor
      even of human wisdom, and, consequently, do not deserve that we should put
      any faith in them.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      II.&mdash;OF MIRACLES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      But by what privilege do these four Gospels, and some other similar books,
      pass for Holy and Divine more than several others, which bear no less the
      title of Gospels, and which have been published under the name of some
      other apostles? If it is said that the reputed Gospels are falsely
      attributed to the apostles, we can say the same of the first ones; if we
      suppose the first ones to be falsified and changed, we can think the same
      of the others. Thus there is no positive proof to make us discern the one
      from the other; in spite of the Church, which assumes to deride the
      matter, it is not credible.
    </p>
    <p>
      In regard to the pretended miracles related in the Old Testament, they
      could have been performed but to indicate on the part of God an unjust and
      odious discrimination between nations and between individuals; purposely
      injuring the one in order to especially favor the other. The vocation and
      the choice which God made of the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in
      order to make for Himself of their posterity a people which He would
      sanctify and bless above all other peoples of the earth, is a proof of it.
      But it will be said God is the absolute master of His favors and of His
      benefits; He can grant them to whomsoever He pleases, without any one
      having the right to complain or to accuse Him of injustice. This reason is
      useless; for God, the Author of nature, the Father of all men, ought to
      love them all alike as His own work, and, consequently, He ought to be
      equally their protector and their benefactor; giving them life, He ought
      to give all that is necessary for the well-being of His creatures.
    </p>
    <p>
      If all these pretended miracles of the Old and of the New Testament were
      true, we could say that God would have had more care in providing for the
      least good of men than for their greatest and principal good; that He
      would have punished more severely trifling faults in certain persons than
      He would have punished great crimes in others; and, finally, that He would
      not have desired to show Himself as beneficent in the most pressing needs
      as in the least. This is easy enough to show as much by the miracles which
      it is pretended that He performed, as by those which He did not perform,
      and which He would have performed rather than any other, if it is true
      that He performed any at all. For example, it is claimed that God had the
      kindness to send an angel to console and to assist a simple maid, while He
      left, and still leaves every day, a countless number of innocents to
      languish and starve to death; it is claimed that He miraculously preserved
      during forty years the clothes and the shoes of a few people, while He
      will not watch over the natural preservation of the vast quantities of
      goods which are useful and necessary for the subsistence of great nations,
      and that are lost every day by different accidents. It is claimed that He
      sent to the first beings of the human race, Adam and Eve, a devil, or a
      simple serpent, to seduce them, and by this means ruin all men. This is
      not credible! It is claimed, that by a special providence, He prevented
      the King of Gerais, a Pagan, from committing sin with a strange woman,
      although there would be no results to follow; and yet He did not prevent
      Adam and Eve from offending Him and falling into the sin of disobedience&mdash;a
      sin which, according to our Christ-worshipers was to be fatal, and cause
      the destruction of the human race. This is not credible!
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us come to the pretended miracles of the New Testament. They consist,
      as is pretended, in this: that Jesus Christ and His apostles cured,
      through the Deity, all kinds of diseases and infirmities, giving sight to
      the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, making the lame to
      walk, curing the paralytics, driving the devils from those who were
      possessed, and bringing the dead to life.
    </p>
    <p>
      We find several of these miracles in the Gospels, but we see a good many
      more of them in the books that our Christ-worshipers have written of the
      admirable lives of their saints; for in these lives we nearly everywhere
      read that these pretended blessed ones cured diseases and infirmities,
      expelled the devils wherever they encountered them, solely in the name of
      Jesus or by the sign of the cross; that they controlled the elements; that
      God favored them so much that He even preserved to them His Divine power
      after their death, and that this Divine power could be communicated even
      to the least of their clothing, even to their shadows, and even to the
      infamous instruments of their death. It is said that the shoe of St.
      Honorius raised a dead man on the sixth of January; that the staff of St.
      Peter, that of St. James, and that of St. Bernard performed miracles. The
      same is said of the cord of St. Francis, of the staff of St. John of God,
      and of the girdle of St. Melanie. It is said that St. Gracilien was
      divinely instructed as to what he ought to believe and to teach, and that
      he, by the influence of his prayer, removed a mountain which prevented him
      from building a church; that from the sepulchre of St. Andrew flowed
      incessantly a liquor which cured all sorts of diseases; that the soul of
      St. Benedict was seen ascending to Heaven clothed with a precious cloak
      and surrounded by burning lamps; that St. Dominic said that God never
      refused him anything he asked; that St. Francis commanded the swallows,
      swans, and other birds to obey him, and that often the fishes, rabbits,
      and the hares came and placed themselves on his hands and on his lap; that
      St. Paul and St. Pantaleon, having been beheaded, there flowed milk
      instead of blood; that the blessed Peter of Luxembourg, in the first two
      years after his death (1388 and 1389), performed two thousand four hundred
      miracles, among which forty-two dead were brought to life, not including
      more than three thousand other miracles which he has performed since; that
      the fifty philosophers whom St. Catherine converted, having all been
      thrown into a great fire, their whole bodies were afterward found and not
      a single hair was scorched; that the body of St. Catherine was carried off
      by angels after her death, and buried by them upon Mount Sinai; that the
      day of the canonization of St. Antoine de Padua, all the bells of the city
      of Lisbon rang of themselves, without any one knowing how it was done;
      that this saint being once near the sea-shore, and calling the fishes,
      they came to him in a great multitude, and raised their heads out of the
      water and listened to him attentively. We should never come to an end if
      we had to report all this idle talk; there is no subject, however vain,
      frivolous, and even ridiculous, on which the authors of these "LIVES OF
      THE SAINTS" do not take pleasure in heaping miracles upon miracles, for
      they are skillful in forging absurd falsehoods.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is certainly not without reason that we consider these things as lies;
      for it is easy to see that all these pretended miracles have been invented
      but by imitating the fables of the Pagan poets. This is sufficiently
      obvious by the resemblance which they bear one to another.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      III.&mdash;SIMILARITY BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN MIRACLES.
    </h2>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers claim that God endowed their saints with power to
      perform the miracles related in their lives, some of the Pagans claim also
      that the daughters of Anius, high-priest of Apollo, had really received
      from the god Bacchus the power to change all they desired into wheat, into
      wine, or into oil, etc.; that Jupiter gave to the nymphs who took care of
      his education, a horn of the goat which nursed him in his infancy, with
      this virtue, that it could give them an abundance of all they wished for.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers assert that their saints had the power of raising
      the dead, and that they had Divine revelations, the Pagans had said before
      them that Athalide, son of Mercury, had obtained from his father the gift
      of living, dying, and coming to life whenever he wished, and that he had
      also the knowledge of all that transpired in this world as well as in the
      other; and that Esculapius, son of Apollo, had raised the dead, and, among
      others, he brought to life Hyppolites, son of Theseus, by Diana's request;
      and that Hercules, also, raised from the dead Alceste, wife of Admetus,
      King of Thessalia, to return her to her husband.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers say that Christ was miraculously born of a
      virgin, the Pagans had said before them that Remus and Romulus, the
      founders of Rome, were miraculously born of a vestal virgin named Ilia, or
      Silvia, or Rhea Silvia; they had already said that Mars, Argus, Vulcan,
      and others were born of the goddess Juno without sexual union; and, also,
      that Minerva, goddess of the sciences, sprang from Jupiter's brain, and
      that she came out of it, all armed, by means of a blow which this god gave
      to his own head.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers claim that their saints made water gush from
      rocks, the Pagans pretend also that Minerva made a fountain of oil spring
      forth from a rock as a recompense for a temple which had been dedicated to
      her.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers boast of having received images from Heaven
      miraculously, as, for example, those of Notre-Dame de Loretto, and of
      Liesse and several other gifts from Heaven, as the pretended Holy Vial of
      Rheims, as the white Chasuble which St. Ildefonse received from the Virgin
      Mary, and other similar things: the Pagans boasted before them of having
      received a sacred shield as a mark of the preservation of their city of
      Rome, and the Trojans boasted before them of having received miraculously
      from Heaven their Palladium, or their Idol of Pallas, which came, they
      said, to takes its place in the temple which they had erected in honor of
      this Goddess.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers pretend that Jesus Christ was seen by His
      apostles ascending to Heaven, and that several of their pretended saints
      were transported to Heaven by angels, the Roman Pagans had said before
      them, that Romulus, their founder, was seen after his death; that
      Ganymede, son of Troas, king of Troy, was transported to Heaven by Jupiter
      to serve him as cup-bearer that the hair of Berenice, being consecrated to
      the temple of Venus, was afterward carried to Heaven; they say the same
      thing of Cassiope and Andromedes, and even of the ass of Silenus.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers pretend that several of their saints' bodies were
      miraculously saved from decomposition after death, and that they were
      found by Divine Revelations, after having been lost for a long time, the
      Pagans say the same of the holy of Orestes, which they pretend to have
      found through an oracle, etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers say that the seven sleeping brothers slept during
      one hundred and seventy-seven years, while they were shut up in a cave,
      the Pagans claim that Epimenides, the philosopher, slept during
      fifty-seven years in a cave where he fell asleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers claim that several of their saints continued to
      speak after losing the head, or having the tongue cut out, the Pagans
      claim that the head of Gambienus recited a long poem after separation from
      his body.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers glorify themselves that their temples and
      churches are ornamented with several pictures and rich gifts which show
      miraculous cures performed by the intercession of their saints, we also
      see, or at least we formerly saw in the temple of Esculapius at Epidaurus,
      many paintings of miraculous cures which he had performed.
    </p>
    <p>
      If our Christ-worshipers claim that several of their saints have been
      miraculously preserved in the flames without having received any injury to
      their bodies or their clothing, the Pagans claim that the Holy women of
      the temple of Diana walked upon burning coals barefooted without burning
      or hurting their feet, and that the priests of the Goddess Feronie and of
      Hirpicus walked in the same way upon burning coals in the fires which were
      made in honor of Apollo.
    </p>
    <p>
      If the angels built a chapel for St. Clement at the bottom of the sea, the
      little house of Baucis and of Philemon was miraculously changed into a
      superb temple as a reward of their piety. If several of their saints, as
      St. James and St. Maurice, appeared several times in their armies, mounted
      and equipped in ancient style, and fought for them, Castor and Pollux
      appeared several times in battles and fought for the Romans against their
      enemies; if a ram was miraculously found to be offered as a sacrifice in
      the place of Isaac, whom his father Abraham was about to sacrifice, the
      Goddess Vesta also sent a heifer to be sacrificed in the place of Metella,
      daughter of Metellus: the Goddess Diana sent a hind in the place of
      Iphigenie when she was at the stake to be sacrificed to her, and by this
      means Iphigenie was saved.
    </p>
    <p>
      If St. Joseph went into Egypt by the warning of an angel, Simonides, the
      poet, avoided several great dangers by miraculous warnings which had been
      given to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      If Moses forced a stream of water to flow from a rock by striking it with
      his staff, the horse Pegasus did the same: by striking a rock with his
      foot a fountain issued.
    </p>
    <p>
      If St. Vincent Ferrier brought to life a dead man hacked into pieces,
      whose body was already half roasted and half broiled, Pelops, son of
      Tantalus king of Phrygia, having been torn to pieces by his father to be
      sacrificed to the Gods, they gathered all the pieces, joined them, and
      brought them to life.
    </p>
    <p>
      If several crucifixes and other images have miraculously spoken and
      answered, the Pagans say that their oracles have spoken and given answers
      to those who consulted them, and that the head of Orpheus and that of
      Policrates gave oracles after their death.
    </p>
    <p>
      If God revealed by a voice from Heaven that Jesus Christ was His Son, as
      the Evangelists say, Vulcan showed by the apparition of a miraculous
      flame, that Coceculus was really his son.
    </p>
    <p>
      If God has miraculously nourished some of His saints, the Pagan poets
      pretend that Triptolemus was miraculously nourished with Divine milk by
      Ceres, who gave him also a chariot drawn by two dragons, and that Phineus,
      son of Mars, being born after his mother's death, was nevertheless
      miraculously nourished by her milk.
    </p>
    <p>
      If several saints miraculously tamed the ferocity of the most cruel
      beasts, it is said that Orpheus attracted to him, by the sweetness of his
      voice and by the harmony of his instruments, lions, bears, and tigers, and
      softened the ferocity of their nature; that he attracted rocks and trees,
      and that even the rivers stopped their course to listen to his song.
    </p>
    <p>
      Finally, to abbreviate, because we could report many others, if our
      Christ-worshipers pretend that the walls of the city of Jericho fell by
      the sound of their trumpets, the Pagans say that the walls of the city of
      Thebes were built by the sound of the musical instruments of Amphion; the
      stones, as the poets say, arranging themselves to the sweetness of his
      harmony; this would be much more miraculous and more admirable than to see
      the walls demolished.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is certainly a great similarity between the Pagan miracles and our
      own. As it would be great folly to give credence to these pretended
      miracles of Paganism, it is not any the less so to have faith in those of
      Christianity, because they all come from the same source of error. It was
      for this that the Manicheans and the Arians, who existed at the
      commencement of the Christian Era, derided these pretended miracles
      performed by the invocation of saints, and blamed those who invoked them
      after death and honored their relics.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us return at present to the principal end which God proposed to
      Himself, in sending His Son into the world to become man; it must have
      been, as they say, to redeem the world from sin and to destroy entirely
      the works of the pretended Devil, etc. This is what our Christ-worshipers
      claim also, that Jesus Christ died for them according to His Father's
      intention, which is plainly stated in all the pretended Holy Books. What!
      an Almighty God, who was willing to become a mortal man for the love of
      men, and to shed His blood to the last drop, to save them all, would yet
      have limited His power to only curing a few diseases and physical
      infirmities of a few individuals who were brought to Him; and would not
      have employed His Divine goodness in curing the infirmities of the soul!
      that is to say, in curing all men of their vices and their depravities,
      which are worse than the diseases of their bodies! This is not credible.
      What! such a good God would desire to preserve dead corpses from decay and
      corruption; and would not keep from the contagion and corruption of vice
      and sin the souls of a countless number of persons whom He sought to
      redeem at the price of His blood, and to sanctify by His grace! What a
      pitiful contradiction!
    </p>
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    <h2>
      IV.&mdash;OF THE FALSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Let us proceed to the pretended visions and Divine Revelations, upon which
      our Christ-worshipers establish the truth and the certainty of their
      religion.
    </p>
    <p>
      In order to give a just idea of it, I believe it is best to say in
      general, that they are such, that if any one should dare now to boast of
      similar ones, or wish to make them valued, he would certainly be regarded
      as a fool or a fanatic.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here is what the pretended Visions and Divine Revelations are:
    </p>
    <p>
      God, as these pretended Holy Books claim, having appeared for the first
      time to Abraham, said to him: "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
      kindred and from thy father's house, into a land that I will show thee."
      Abraham, having gone there, God, says the Bible, appeared the second time
      to him, and said, "Unto thy seed will I give this land," and there builded
      he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. After the death of
      Isaac, his son, Jacob going one day to Mesopotamia to look for a wife that
      would suit him, having walked all the day, and being tired from the long
      distance, desired to rest toward evening; lying upon the ground, with his
      head resting upon a few stones, he fell asleep, and during his sleep he
      saw a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to Heaven; and
      beheld the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the
      Lord stood above it, and said: "I am the Lord, God of Abraham thy father,
      and the God of Isaac; the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it,
      and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou
      shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to
      the south and in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth
      be blessed. And behold, I am with thee and will keep thee in all places
      whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land: for I will
      not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." And
      Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: "Surely the Lord is in this
      place, and I knew it not." And he was afraid, and said: "How dreadful is
      this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate
      of Heaven." And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone
      that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil
      on the top of it, and made at the same time a vow to God, that if he
      should return safe and sound, he would give Him a tithe of all he might
      possess.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here is yet another vision. Watching the flocks of his father-in-law,
      Laban, who had promised him that all the speckled lambs produced by his
      sheep should be his recompense, he dreamed one night that he saw all the
      males leap upon the females, and all the lambs they brought forth were
      speckled. In this beautiful dream, God appeared to him, and said: "Lift up
      now thine eyes and see that the rams which leap upon the cattle are
      ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled; for I have seen all that Laban does
      unto thee. Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the
      land of thy kindred." As he was returning with his whole family, and with
      all he obtained from his father-in-law, he had, says the Bible, a wrestle
      with an unknown man during the whole night, until the breaking of the day,
      and as this man had not been able to subdue him, He asked him who he was.
      Jacob told Him his name; and He said: "Thy name shall be called no more
      Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men,
      and hast prevailed."
    </p>
    <p>
      This is a specimen of the first of these pretended Visions and Divine
      Revelations. We can judge of the others by these. Now, what appearance of
      Divinity is there in dreams so gross and illusions so vain? As if some
      foreigners, Germans, for instance, should come into our France, and, after
      seeing all the beautiful provinces of our kingdom, should claim that God
      had appeared to them in their country, that He had told them to go into
      France, and that He would give to them and to their posterity all the
      beautiful lands, domains, and provinces of this kingdom which extend from
      the rivers Rhine and Rhone, even to the sea; that He would make an
      everlasting alliance with them, that He would multiply their race, that He
      would make their posterity as numerous as the stars of Heaven and as the
      sands of the sea, etc., who would not laugh at such folly, and consider
      these strangers as insane fools!
    </p>
    <p>
      Now there is no reason to think otherwise of all that has been said by
      these pretended Holy Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in regard to
      the Divine Revelations which they claim to have had. As to the institution
      of bloody sacrifices, the Holy Scriptures attribute it to God. As it would
      be too wearisome to go into the disgusting details of this kind of
      sacrifices, I refer the reader to Exodus. [See chapters xxv., xxvii.,
      xxyiii., and xxix.]
    </p>
    <p>
      Were not men insane and blind to believe they were honoring God by tearing
      into pieces, butchering, and burning His own creatures, under the pretext
      of offering them as sacrifices to Him? And even now, how is it that our
      Christ-worshipers are so extravagant as to expect to please God the
      Father, by offering up to Him the sacrifice of His Divine Son, in
      remembrance of His being shamefully nailed to a cross upon which He died?
      Certainly this can spring only from an obstinate blindness of mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      In regard to the detail of the sacrifices of animals, it consists but in
      colored clothing, blood, plucks, livers, birds' crops, kidneys, claws,
      skins, in the dung, smoke, cakes, certain measures of oil and wine, the
      whole being offered and infected by dirty ceremonies as filthy and
      contemptible as the most extravagant performances of magic. What is most
      horrible of all this is, that the law of this detestable Jewish people
      commanded that even men should be offered up as sacrifices. The
      barbarians, whoever they were, who introduced this horrible law, commanded
      to put to death any man who had been consecrated to the God of the Jews,
      whom they called Adonai: and it is according to this execrable precept
      that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, and that Saul wanted to sacrifice
      his son.
    </p>
    <p>
      But here is yet another proof of the falsity of these revelations of which
      we have spoken. It is the lack of the fulfillment of the great and
      magnificent promises by which they were accompanied, for it is evident
      that these promises never have been fulfilled.
    </p>
    <p>
      The proof of this consists in three principal points:
    </p>
    <p>
      Firstly. Their posterity was to be more numerous than all the other
      nations of the world.
    </p>
    <p>
      Secondly. The people who should spring from their race were to be the
      happiest, the holiest, and the most victorious of all the people of the
      earth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thirdly. His covenant was to be everlasting, and they should possess
      forever the country He should give them. Now it is plain that these
      promises-never were fulfilled.
    </p>
    <p>
      Firstly. It is certain that the Jewish people, or the people of Israel&mdash;which
      is the only one that can be regarded as having descended from the
      Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the only ones to whom these
      promises should have been fulfilled&mdash;have never been so numerous that
      it could be compared with the other nations of the earth, much less with
      the sands of the sea, etc., for we see that in the very time when it was
      the most numerous and the most flourishing, it never occupied more than
      the little sterile provinces of Palestine and its environs, which are
      almost nothing in comparison with the vast extent of a multitude of
      flourishing kingdoms which are on all sides of the earth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Secondly. They have never been fulfilled concerning the great blessings
      with which they were to be favored; for, although they won a few small
      victories over some poor nations whom they plundered, this did not prevent
      them from being conquered and reduced to servitude; their kingdom
      destroyed as well as their nation, by the Roman army; and even now the
      remainder of this unfortunate nation is looked upon as the vilest and most
      contemptible of all the earth, having no country, no dominion, no
      superiority.
    </p>
    <p>
      Finally, these promises have not been fulfilled in respect to this
      everlasting covenant, which God ought to have fulfilled to them; because
      we do not see now, and we have never seen, any evidence of this covenant;
      and, on the contrary, they have been for many centuries excluded from the
      possession of the small country they pretended God had promised that they
      should enjoy forever. Thus, since these pretended promises were never
      fulfilled, it is certain evidence of their falsity; which proves, plainly,
      that these pretended Holy Books which contain them were not of Divine
      inspiration. Therefore it is useless for our Christ-worshipers to pretend
      to make use of them as infallible testimony to prove the truth of their
      religion.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
    </h2>
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    <h2>
      V.&mdash;(1) OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Our Christ-worshipers add to their reasons for credulity and to the proofs
      of the truth of their testimony, the prophecies which are, as they
      pretend, sure evidences of the truth of the revelations or inspirations of
      God, there being no one but God who could predict future events so long
      before they came to pass, as those which have been predicted by the
      prophets.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us see, then, who these pretended prophets are, and if we ought to
      consider them as important as our Christ-worshipers pretend they are.
      These men were but visionaries and fanatics, who acted and spoke according
      to the impulsions of their ruling passions, and who imagined that it was
      the Spirit of God by which they spoke and acted; or they were impostors
      who feigned to be prophets, and who, in order to more easily deceive the
      ignorant and simple-minded, boasted of acting and speaking by the Spirit
      of God. I would like to know how an Ezekiel would be received who should
      say that God made him eat for his breakfast a roll of parchment; commanded
      him to be tied like an insane man, and lie three hundred and ninety days
      upon his right side, and forty days upon his left, and commanded him to
      eat man's dung upon his bread, and afterward, as an accommodation, cow's
      dung? I ask how such a filthy statement would be received by the most
      stupid people of our provinces?
    </p>
    <p>
      What can be yet a greater proof of the falsity of these pretended
      prophecies, than the violence with which these prophets reproach each
      other for speaking falsely in the name of God, reproaches which they claim
      to make in behalf of God. All of them say, "Beware of the false prophets!"
      as the quacks say, "Beware of the counterfeit pills!" How could these
      insane impostors tell the future? No prophecy in favor of their Jewish
      nation was ever fulfilled. The number of prophecies which predict the
      prosperity and the greatness of Jerusalem is almost innumerable; in
      explanation of this, it will be said that it is very natural that a
      subdued and captive people should comfort themselves in their real
      afflictions by imaginary hopes&mdash;as a year after King James was
      deposed, the Irish people of his party forged several prophecies in regard
      to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      But if these promises made to the Jews had been really true, the Jewish
      nation long ago would have been, and would still be, the most numerous,
      the most powerful, the most blessed, and the most victorious of all
      nations.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      VI.&mdash;(2) THE NEW TESTAMENT.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Let us examine the pretended prophecies which are contained in the
      Gospels.
    </p>
    <p>
      Firstly. An angel having appeared in a dream to a man named Joseph,
      father, or at least so reputed, of Jesus, son of Mary, said unto him:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Joseph, thou son of David fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for
      that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring
      forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name JESUS; for He shall save His
      people from their sins." This angel said also to Mary:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou
      shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name
      Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and
      the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David. And He
      shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there
      shall be no end!" Jesus began to preach and to say:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Take no thought for your
      life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body
      what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than
      raiment, for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these
      things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and
      all these things shall be added unto you."
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, let every man who has not lost common sense, examine if this Jesus
      ever was a king, or if His disciples had abundance of all things. This
      Jesus promised to deliver the world from sin. Is there any prophecy which
      is more false? Is not our age a striking proof of it? It is said that
      Jesus came to save His people. In what way did He save it? It is the
      greatest number which rules any party. For example, one dozen or two of
      Spaniards or Frenchmen do not constitute the French or Spanish people; and
      if an army of a hundred and twenty thousand men were taken prisoners of
      war by an army of enemies which was stronger, and if the chief of this
      army should redeem only a few men, as ten or twelve soldiers or officers,
      by paying their ransom, it could not be claimed that he had delivered or
      redeemed his army. Then, who is this God who has been sacrificed, who died
      to save the world, and leaves so many nations damned? What a pity! and
      what horror!
    </p>
    <p>
      Jesus Christ says that we have but to ask and we shall receive, and to
      seek and we shall find. He assures us that all we ask of God in His name
      shall be granted, and that if we have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, we
      could by one word remove mountains. If this promise is true, nothing
      appears impossible to our Christ-worshipers who have faith in Jesus.
      However, the contrary happens. If Mohammed had made the promises to his
      votaries that Christ made to His, without success, what would not be said
      about it. They would cry out, "Ah, the cheat! ah, the impostor!" These
      Christ-worshipers are in the same condition: they have been blind, and
      have not even yet recovered from their blindness; on the contrary, they
      are so ingenious in deceiving themselves, that they pretend that these
      promises have been fulfilled from the beginning of Christianity; that at
      that time it was necessary to have miracles, in order to convince the
      incredulous of the truth of religion; but that this religion being
      sufficiently established, the miracles were no longer necessary. Where,
      then, is their proof of all this?
    </p>
    <p>
      Besides, He who made these promises did not limit them to a certain time,
      or to certain places, or to certain persons; but He made them generally to
      everybody. The faith of those who believe, says He, shall be followed by
      these miracles; "They shall cast out devils in My name, they shall speak
      in divers tongues, they shall handle serpents," etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      In regard to the removal of mountains, He positively says that "whoever
      shall say to a mountain: 'Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea;'
      it shall be done;" provided that he does not doubt in his heart, but
      believes all he commands will be done. Are not all these promises given in
      a general way, without restriction as to time, place, or persons?
    </p>
    <p>
      It is said that all the sects which are founded in errors and imposture
      will come to a shameful end. But if Jesus Christ intends to say that He
      has established a society of followers who will not fall either into vice
      or error, these words are absolutely false, as there is in Christendom no
      sect, no society, and no church which is not full of errors and vices,
      especially the Roman Church, although it claims to be the purest and the
      holiest of all. It was born into error, or rather it was conceived and
      formed in error; and even now it is full of delusions which are contrary
      to the intentions, the sentiments, or the doctrine of its Founder, because
      it has, contrary to His intention, abolished the laws of the Jews, which
      He approved, and which He came Himself, as He said, to fulfill and not to
      destroy. It has fallen into the errors and idolatry of Paganism, as is
      seen by the idolatrous worship which is offered to its God of dough, to
      its saints, to their images, and to their relics.
    </p>
    <p>
      I know well that our Christ-worshipers consider it a lack of intelligence
      to accept literally the promises and prophecies as they are expressed;
      they reject the literal and natural sense of the words, to give them a
      mystical and spiritual sense which they call allegorical and figurative;
      claiming, for example, that the people of Israel and Judea, to whom these
      promises were made, were not understood as the Israelites after the body,
      but the Israelites in spirit: that is to say, the Christians which are the
      Israel of God, the true chosen people that by the promise made to this
      enslaved people, to deliver it from captivity, it is understood to be not
      the corporal deliverance of a single captive people, but the spiritual
      deliverance of all men from the servitude of the Devil, which was to be
      accomplished by their Divine Saviour; that by the abundance of riches, and
      all the temporal blessings promised to this people, is meant the abundance
      of spiritual graces; and finally, that by the city of Jerusalem, is meant
      not the terrestrial Jerusalem, but the spiritual Jerusalem, which is the
      Christian Church.
    </p>
    <p>
      But it is easy to see that these spiritual and allegorical meanings having
      only a strange, imaginary sense, being a subterfuge of the interpreters,
      can not serve to show the truth or the falsehood of a proposition, or of
      any promises whatever. It is ridiculous to forge such allegorical
      meanings, since it is only by the relations of the natural and true sense
      that we can judge of their truth or falsehood. A proposition, a promise,
      for example, which is considered true in the proper and natural sense of
      the terms in which it is expressed, will not become false in itself under
      cover of a strange sense, one which does not belong to it. By the same
      reasoning, that which is manifestly false in its proper and natural sense,
      will not become true in itself, although we give it a strange sense, one
      foreign to the true.
    </p>
    <p>
      We can say that the prophecies of the Old Testament adjusted to the New,
      would be very absurd and puerile things. For example, Abraham had two
      wives, of which the one, who was but a servant, represented the synagogue,
      and the other one, his lawful wife, represented the Christian Church; and
      that this Abraham had two sons, of which the one born of Hagar, the
      servant, represented the Old Testament; and the other, born of Sarah, the
      wife, represented the New Testament. Who would not laugh at such a
      ridiculous doctrine?
    </p>
    <p>
      Is it not amusing that a piece of red cloth, exhibited by a prostitute as
      a signal to spies, in the Old Testament is made to represent the blood of
      Jesus Christ shed in the New? If&mdash;according to this manner of
      interpreting allegorically all that is said, done, and practiced in the
      ancient law of the Jews&mdash;we should interpret in the same allegorical
      way all the discourses, the actions, and the adventures of the famous Don
      Quixote de la Mancha, we would find the same sort of mysteries and
      ridiculous figures.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is nevertheless upon this absurd foundation that the whole Christian
      religion rests. Thus it is that there is scarcely anything in this ancient
      law that the Christ-worshiping doctors do not try to explain in a mystical
      way to build up their system. The most false and the most ridiculous
      prophecy ever made is that of Jesus, in Luke, where it is pretended that
      there will be signs in the sun and in the moon, and that the Son of Man
      will appear in a cloud to judge men; and this is predicted for the
      generation living at that time. Has it come to pass? Did the Son of Man
      appear in a cloud?
    </p>
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    <h2>
      VII.&mdash;ERRORS OF DOCTRINE AND OF MORALITY.
    </h2>
    <p>
      The Christian Apostolical Roman Religion teaches, and compels belief, that
      there is but one God, and, at the same time, that there are three Divine
      persons, each one being God. This is absurd; for if there are three who
      are truly God, then there are three Gods. It is false, then, to say that
      there is but one God; or if this is true, it is false to say that there
      are really three who are God, for one and three can not be claimed to be
      one and the same number. It is also said that the first of these pretended
      Divine persons, called the Father, has brought forth the second person,
      which is called the Son, and that these first two persons together have
      produced the third, which is called the Holy Ghost, and, nevertheless,
      these three pretended Divine persons do not depend the one upon the other,
      and even that one is not older than the other. This, too, is manifestly
      absurd; because one thing can not receive its existence from another thing
      without some dependence on this other; and a thing must necessarily exist
      in order to give birth to another. If, then, the Second and the Third
      persons of Divinity have received their existence from the First person,
      they must necessarily depend for their existence on this First person, who
      gave them birth, or who begot them, and it is necessary also that the
      First person of the Divinity, who gave birth to the two other persons,
      should have existed before them; because that which does not exist can not
      beget anything. Nevertheless, it is repugnant as well as absurd to claim
      that anything could be begotten or born without having had a beginning.
      Now, according to our Christ-worshipers, the Second and Third persons of
      Divinity were begotten and born; then they had a beginning, and the First
      person had none, not being begotten by another; it therefore follows
      necessarily that one existed before the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our Christ-worshipers, who feel these absurdities and can not avoid them
      by any good reasoning, have no other resource than to say that we must
      ignore human reason and humbly adore these sublime mysteries without
      wishing to understand them; but that which they call faith is refuted when
      they tell us that we must submit; it is telling us that we must blindly
      believe that which we do not believe. Our Christ-worshipers condemn the
      blindness of the ancient Pagans, who worshiped several Gods; they deride
      the genealogy of those Gods, their birth, their marriages, and the
      generating of their children; yet they do not observe that they themselves
      say things which are much more ridiculous and absurd.
    </p>
    <p>
      If the Pagans believed that there were Goddesses as well as Gods, that
      these Gods and Goddesses married and begat children, they thought of
      nothing, then, but what is natural; for they did not believe yet that the
      Gods were without body or feeling; they believed they were similar to men.
      Why should there not be females as well as males? It is not more
      reasonable to deny or to recognize the one than the other; and supposing
      there were Gods and Goddesses, why should they not beget children in the
      ordinary way? There would be certainly nothing ridiculous or absurd in
      this doctrine, if it were true that their Gods existed. But in the
      doctrine of our Christ-worshipers there is something absolutely ridiculous
      and absurd; for besides claiming that one God forms Three, and that these
      Three form but One, they pretend that this Triple and Unique God has
      neither body, form, nor face; that the First person of this Triple and
      Unique God, whom they call the Father, begot of Himself a Second person,
      which they call the Son, and which is the same as His Father, being, like
      Him, without body, form, or face. If this is true, why is it that the
      First one is called Father rather than mother, or the Second called Son
      rather than daughter? For if the First one is really father instead of
      mother, and if the Second is son instead of daughter, there must be
      something in both of these two persons which causes the one to be father
      rather than mother, and the other to be son rather than daughter. Now who
      can assert that they are males and not females? But how should they be
      rather males than females, as they have neither body, form, nor face? That
      is not an imaginable thing, and destroys itself. No matter, they claim
      chat these two Persons, without body, form, or face, and, consequently,
      without difference of sex, are nevertheless Father and Son, and that they
      produced by their mutual love a third person, whom they called the Holy
      Ghost, who has, like the other two, no body, no form, and no face. What
      abominable nonsense!
    </p>
    <p>
      As our Christ-worshipers limit the power of God the Father to begetting
      but one Son, why do they not desire that this Second person, and the
      Third, should have the same power to beget a Son like themselves? If this
      power to beget a son is perfection in the First person, it is, then, a
      perfection and a power which does not exist in the Second and in the Third
      person. Thus these two Persons, lacking a perfection and a power which is
      found in the First one, they are consequently not equal with Him. If, on
      the contrary, they say that this power to beget a son is no perfection,
      they should not attribute it, then, to the First person any more than to
      the other two; for we should attribute perfections only to an absolutely
      perfect being. Besides, they would not dare to say that the power to beget
      a Divine person is not a perfection; and if they claim that this First
      person could have begotten several sons and daughters, but that He desired
      but this only Son, and that the two other persons did not desire to beget
      any others, we could ask them, firstly, from whence they know this, for we
      do not see in their pretended Holy Scriptures that any One of these Divine
      personages reveals any such assertions; how, then, can our
      Christ-worshipers know anything about it? They speak but according to
      their ideas and to their hollow imaginations. Secondly, we could not avoid
      saying, that if these pretended Divine personages had the power of
      begetting several children, and did not wish to make use of it, the
      consequence would be that this Divine power was ineffectual. It would be
      entirely without effect in the Third person, who did not beget or produce
      any, and would be almost without effect in the two others, because they
      limited it. Then this power of begetting or producing an unlimited number
      of children would remain idle and useless; it would be inconsistent to
      suppose this of Divine Personages, One of whom had already produced a Son.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our Christ-worshipers blame and condemn the Pagans because they attribute
      Divinity to mortal men, and worship them as Gods after their death; they
      are right in doing this. But these Pagans did only what our
      Christ-worshipers still do in attributing Divinity to their Christ; doing
      which, they condemn themselves also, because they are in the same error as
      these Pagans, in that they worship a man who was mortal, and so very
      mortal that He died shamefully upon a cross.
    </p>
    <p>
      It would be of no use for our Christ-worshipers to say that there was a
      great difference between their Jesus Christ and the Pagan Gods, under the
      pretense that their Christ was, as they claim, really God and man at the
      same time, while the Divinity was incarnated in Him, by means of which,
      the Divine nature found itself united personally, as they say, with human
      nature; these two natures would have made of Jesus Christ a true God and a
      true man; this is what never happened, they claim, in the Pagan Gods.
    </p>
    <p>
      But it is easy to show the weakness of this reply; for, on the one hand,
      was it not as easy to the Pagans as to the Christians, to say that the
      Divinity was incarnated in the men whom they worshiped as Gods? On the
      other hand, if the Divinity wanted to incarnate and unite in the human
      nature of their Jesus Christ, how did they know that this Divinity would
      not wish to also incarnate and unite Himself personally to the human
      nature of those great men and those admirable women, who, by their virtue,
      by their good qualities, or by their noble actions, have excelled the
      generality of people, and made themselves worshiped as Gods and Goddesses?
      And if our Christ-worshipers do not wish to believe that Divinity ever
      incarnated in these great personages, why do they wish to persuade us that
      He was incarnated in their Jesus? Where is the proof? Their faith and
      their belief; but as the Pagans rely on the same proof, we conclude both
      to be equally in error.
    </p>
    <p>
      But what is more ridiculous in Christianity than in Paganism, is that the
      Pagans have generally attributed Divinity but to great men, authors of
      arts and sciences, and who excelled in virtues useful to their country.
      But to whom do our God-Christ-worshipers attribute Divinity? To a nobody,
      to a vile and contemptible man, who had neither talent, science, nor
      ability; born of poor parents, and who, while He figured in the world,
      passed but for a monomaniac and a seditious fool, who was disdained,
      ridiculed, persecuted, whipped, and, finally, was hanged like most of
      those who desired to act the same part, when they had neither the courage
      nor skill. About that time there were several other impostors who claimed
      to be the true promised Messiah; amongst others a certain Judas, a
      Galilean, a Theodorus, a Barcon, and others who, under this vain pretext,
      abused the people, and tried to excite them, in order to win them, but
      they all perished.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us pass now to His discourses and to some of His actions, which are
      the most singular of this kind: "Repent," said He to the people, "for the
      kingdom of Heaven is at hand; believe these good tidings." And He went all
      over Galilee preaching this pretended approach of the kingdom of Heaven.
      As no one has seen the arrival of this kingdom of Heaven, it is evident
      that it was but imaginary. But let us see other predictions, the praise,
      and the description of this beautiful kingdom.
    </p>
    <p>
      Behold what He said to the people:
    </p>
    <p>
      The kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his
      field. But while he slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat,
      and went his way. Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure
      hidden in a field, the which, when a man has found, he hideth again, and
      for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.
      Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchantman seeking goodly
      pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all
      he had, and bought it. Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like unto a net
      that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it was
      full, they drew to shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels,
      but cast the bad away. It is like a grain of mustard-seed, which a man
      took and sowed in his field which, indeed, is the least of all seeds, but
      when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, etc.
    </p>
    <p>
      Is this a language worthy of a God? We will pass the same judgment upon
      Him if we examine His actions more closely. Because, firstly, He is
      represented as running all over a country preaching the approach of a
      pretended kingdom; Secondly, as having been transported by the Devil upon
      a high mountain, from which He believed He saw all the kingdoms of the
      world; this could only happen to a visionist; for it is certain, there is
      no mountain upon the earth from which He could see even one entire
      kingdom, unless it was the little kingdom of Yvetot, which is in France;
      thus it was only in imagination that He saw all these kingdoms, and was
      transported upon this mountain, as well as upon the pinnacle of the
      temple. Thirdly, when He cured the deaf-mute, spoken of in St. Mark, it is
      said that He placed His fingers in the ears, spit, and touched his tongue,
      then casting His eyes up to Heaven, He sighed deeply, and said unto him:
      "Ephphatha!" Finally, let us read all that is related of Him, and we can
      judge whether there is anything in the world more ridiculous.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having considered some of the silly things attributed to God by our
      Christ-worshipers, let us look a little further into their mysteries. They
      worship one God in three persons, or three persons in one God, and they
      attribute to themselves the power of forming Gods out of dough, and of
      making as many as they want. For, according to their principles, they have
      only to say four words over a certain quantity of wine or over these
      little images of paste, to make as many Gods of them as they desire. What
      folly! With all the pretended power of their Christ, they would not be
      able to make the smallest fly, and yet they claim the ability to produce
      millions of Gods. One must be struck by a strange blindness to maintain
      such pitiable things, and that upon such vain foundation as the equivocal
      words of a fanatic. Do not these blind theologians see that it means
      opening a wide door to all sorts of idolatries, to adore these paste
      images under the pretext that the priests have the power of consecrating
      them and changing them into Gods?
    </p>
    <p>
      Can not the priests of the idols boast of having a similar ability?
    </p>
    <p>
      Do they not see, also, that the same reasoning which demonstrates the
      vanity of the gods or idols of wood, of stone, etc., which the Pagans
      worshiped, shows exactly the same vanity of the Gods and idols of paste or
      of flour which our Christ-worshipers adore? By what right do they deride
      the falseness of the Pagan Gods? Is it not because they are but the work
      of human hands, mute and insensible images? And what kind of Gods are
      those which we preserve in boxes for fear of the mice?
    </p>
    <p>
      What are these boasted resources of the Christ-worshipers? Their morality?
      It is the same as in all religions, but their cruel dogmas produced and
      taught persecution and trouble. Their miracles? But what people has not
      its own, and what wise men do not disdain these fables? Their prophecies?
      Have we not shown their falsity? Their morals? Are they not often
      infamous? The establishment of their religion? but did not fanaticism
      begin, and has not intrigue visibly sustained this edifice? The doctrine?
      but is it not the height of absurdity?
    </p>
    <p>
      End Of The Abstract By Voltaire.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
    </h2>
    <p>
      By translating into both the English and German languages Le Bon Sens,
      containing the Last Will and Testament of the French curate JEAN MESLIER,
      Miss Anna Knoop has performed a most useful and meritorious task, and in
      issuing a new edition of this work, it is but justice to her memory [Miss
      Knoop died Jan. 11, 1889.] to state that her translation has received the
      endorsement of our most competent critics.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a letter dated Newburyport, Mass., Sep. 23, 1878, Mr. James Parton, the
      celebrated author, commends Miss Knoop for "translating Meslier's book so
      well," and says that:
    </p>
    <p>
      "This work of the honest pastor is the most curious and the most powerful
      thing of the kind which the last century produced. . . . . Paine and
      Voltaire had reserves, but Jean Meslier had none. He keeps nothing back;
      and yet, after all, the wonder is not that there should have been one
      priest who left that testimony at his death, but that all priests do not.
      True, there is a great deal more to be said about religion, which I
      believe to be an eternal necessity of human nature, but no man has uttered
      the negative side of the matter with so much candor and completeness as
      Jean Meslier."
    </p>
    <p>
      The value of the testimony of a catholic priest, who in his last moments
      recanted the errors of his faith and asked God's pardon for having taught
      the catholic religion, was fully appreciated by Voltaire, who highly
      commended this grand work of Meslier. He voluntarily made every effort to
      increase its circulation, and even complained to D' Alembert "that there
      were not as many copies in all Paris as he himself had dispersed
      throughout the mountains of Switzerland." [See Letter 504, Voltaire to
      D'Alembert] He earnestly entreats his associates to print and distribute
      in Paris an edition of at least four or five thousand copies, and at the
      suggestion of D'Alembert, made an abstract or abridgment of The Testament
      "so small as to cost no more than five pence, and thus to be fitted for
      the pocket and reading of every workman." [Letter 146, from D'Alembert.]
    </p>
    <p>
      The Abbé Barruel claims in his Memoirs [See History of Jacobinism by the
      Abbé Barruel, 4 vols. 8 VO, translated by the Hon. Robert Clifford, F. R.
      S., and printed in London in 1798. The learned Abbé defines Jacobinism as
      "the error of every man who, judging of all things by the standard of his
      own reason, rejects in religious matters every authority that is not
      derived from the light of nature. It is the error of every man who denies
      the possibility of any mystery beyond the limits of his reason, of every
      one who, discarding revelation in defence of the pretended rights of
      Reason, Equality, and Liberty, seeks to subvert the whole fabric of the
      Christian religion." B. 4.] to detect in the writings of Voltaire and of
      the leading Encyclopedists, a conspiracy not only against the Altar but
      also against the Throne. He severely denounces the "Last Will of Jean
      Meslier,&mdash;that famous Curate of Etrepigni,&mdash;whose apostasy and
      blasphemies made so strong an impression on the minds of the populace,"
      and he styles the plan of D'Alembert for circulating a few thousand copies
      of the Abstract of the Will, as a "base project against the doctrines of
      the Gospel." [Ibid, page 145] He even asserts his belief that:
    </p>
    <p>
      "The Jacobins will one day declare that all men are free, that all men are
      equal; and as a consequence of this Equality and Liberty they will
      conclude that every man must be left to the light of reason. That every
      religion subjecting man's reason to mysteries, or to the authority of any
      revelation speaking in God's name, is a religion of constraint and
      slavery; that as such it should be annihilated in order to reestablish the
      indefeasible rights of Equality and Liberty as to the belief or disbelief
      of all that the reason of man approves or disapproves: and they will call
      this Equality and Liberty the reign of Reason and the empire of
      Philosophy." [History of Jacobinism, page 51.]
    </p>
    <p>
      The results which the Abbé Barruel so clearly foresaw have at length been
      realized. The labors of the Jacobins have not been in vain, and the
      Revolution they incited has restored France to the government of the
      people!
    </p>
    <p>
      "With ardent hope for the future," says President Carnot in his centennial
      address, May 5, 1889, "I greet in the palace of the monarchy the
      representatives of a nation that is now in complete possession of herself,
      that is mistress of her destinies, and that is in the full splendor and
      strength of liberty. The first thoughts on this solemn meeting turn to our
      fathers. The immortal generation of 1789, by dint of courage and many
      sacrifices, secured for us benefits which we must bequeath to our sons as
      a most precious inheritance. Never can our gratitude equal the grandeur of
      the services rendered by our fathers to France and to the human race. . .
      . The Revolution was based upon the rights of man. It created a new era in
      history and founded modern society."
    </p>
    <p>
      This is literally true. The freethinkers of France have taught mankind the
      doctrines of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. They have taught the
      dignity of human reason, and the sacredness of human rights. They have
      broken the bondage of the altar, and severed the shackles of the throne;
      and it is to be regretted that at the centennial celebration held in this
      city on April 30th, 1889, the appointed orator [See the Centennial Address
      of the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew.] did not realize the grandeur of the
      occasion, and did not, like Carnot, pay a just tribute to our allies, the
      reformers of Europe, as well as to the fathers of the republic. But the
      people of America will remember what the politician has forgotten. They
      will remember the names and deeds of their foreign benefactors as well as
      of the American patriots of '76. When they recall the illustrious
      Europeans who fought for our liberties they will remember the name of
      Lafayette; when they think of the Declaration of Independence they will
      not forget the name of Thomas Jefferson; and when they speak of "the times
      that tried men's souls" they will recall with gratitude the name of Thomas
      Paine.
    </p>
    <p>
      Although the ecclesiastical conclave at Rome claims the power of working
      miracles in defiance of Nature's laws, yet with or without miracles, they
      have never answered the simple arguments advanced by Jean Meslier;
      although they claim to hold the keys of Paradise, and bind on earth the
      souls that are to be bound in heaven, yet year by year their waning power
      refutes their senseless boast; although they boldly assert the dogma of
      popish infallibility, yet the loss of the temporal power once wielded by
      Rome, and the death of each succeeding pontiff, attest both the Pope's
      fallibility and the Pope's mortality. Indeed, the successor of St. Peter
      is but human&mdash;the sacred college at Rome is but mortal; and faith and
      dogma cannot forever resist the influence of light and knowledge. The
      power of Catholicism is surely declining throughout Europe; and if it has
      become aggressive in our American cities, is it not because the friends of
      freedom have forgotten the well-known axiom that "eternal vigilance is the
      price of liberty"?
    </p>
    <p>
      PETER ECKLER.
    </p>
    <p>
      New York, May 21, 1889.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      PREFATORY NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR
    </h2>
    <p>
      Some years ago a copy of John Meslier fell into my hands. I was struck
      with the simple truthfulness of his arguments, and the thought never left
      me of the happy change that would be produced all over the world when the
      religious prejudices should be dispelled, and when all the different
      nations and sects would unite and lend each other a friendly hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Since I had the opportunity of hearing the speeches and lectures of
      liberal men, it has seemed to me that the time has come for this work of
      John Meslier to be appreciated, and I concluded to translate it into the
      language of my adopted country, presuming that many would be happy to
      study it.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this faith I offer it now to the public, and I hope that the name of
      John Meslier will be honored as one of the greatest benefactors of
      humanity.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      PREFACE OF THE EDITOR OF THE FRENCH EDITION OF 1830.
    </h2>
    <p>
      It is said that truth is generally revealed by dying lips. When men full
      of health and enjoying all the pleasures of life, exert themselves without
      ceasing, to excite minds and to take advantage of their fanaticism by
      wearing the mask of religion, it will not be without interest or
      importance to know what other men, invested with the same ministry, have
      taught under the impulse of a conscience quickened by the approach of the
      final hour. Their confessions are more valuable because they carry with
      them the spirit of contrition. It is then that the truth, which is no
      longer obscured by narrow passions and sordid interests, presents itself
      in all its brilliancy, and imposes upon him who has kept it hidden during
      his life, the duty, and even the necessity, of unveiling it fully at his
      death. It is then that human speech, losing in a measure its terrestrial
      nature, becomes persuasive and convincing.
    </p>
    <p>
      We know this fact of a celebrated preacher who in the beginning of the
      Revolution stood in the same pulpit which we are pleased to call the
      pulpit of truth, and with his hand upon his heart declared that till then
      he had taught only falsehood. He did more; he implored his parishioners to
      forgive him for the gross errors in which he had kept them, and
      congratulated them upon having at last arrived at a period when it was
      permitted to establish the empire of reason upon the ruins of prejudice.
      Times have changed very much, it is true; however, so long as the press
      shall be able to combat the fatal errors of religious fanaticism, and
      perhaps even to some extent prevent its violence, it will be the duty of
      every friend of humanity to reproduce continually the full retractions
      which opposed the sincerity and conscience of the dying to the bad faith
      and hypocritical avidity of the living. Guided by this intention, and
      ashamed to see the human race, in a land just freed from the yoke of
      prejudice, give birth to a disgraceful juggling which will terminate in
      dominating authority, and associate itself with the persecutions of which
      our incredulous or dissenting ancestors were the sad victims, we believe
      it useful to reprint the last lessons of a priest&mdash;an honest man&mdash;bequeathed
      to his fellow-citizens and to posterity. The service we render to
      Philosophy will be so much the greater when we can consider as immutable,
      perpetual, permanent, and ready to appear in the hour of need, the edition
      which we are preparing of "COMMON SENSE, BY THE PRIEST JEAN MESLIER, AND
      HIS DYING CONFESSION."
    </p>
    <p>
      To do justice to these two works, to which we have added analytical notes,
      which will greatly facilitate our researches, we will limit ourselves by
      giving the imposing approbation of two philosophers of the eighteenth
      century&mdash;Voltaire and d'Alembert. They certainly understood much
      better the sublimity of evangelical morality, and spoke of it in a manner
      more worthy of its author, than did those who deified it to profit by its
      divinity, and who abused so cruelly the ignorance and barbarity of the
      first centuries, to establish, in the interest of their fortunes and
      power, so many base prejudices, so many puerile and superstitious
      practices.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here is what Voltaire and d'Alembert thought of the curate Meslier and of
      his work. Their letters are presented here in order to excite curiosity
      and convince the judgment:
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO D'ALEMBERT.
    </p>
    <p>
      FERNEY, February, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      They have printed in Holland the Testament of Jean Meslier. I trembled
      with horror in reading it. The testimony of a priest, who, in dying, asks
      God's pardon for having taught Christianity, must be a great weight in the
      balance of Liberals. I will send you a copy of this Testament of the
      anti-Christ, because you desire to refute it. You have but to tell me by
      what manner it will reach you. It is written with great simplicity, which
      unfortunately resembles candor.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO THE SAME.
    </p>
    <p>
      FERNEY, February 25, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      Meslier also has the wisdom of the serpent. He sets an example for you;
      the good grain was hidden in the chaff of his book. A good Swiss has made
      a faithful abstract and this abstract can do a great deal of good. What an
      answer to the insolent fanatics who treat philosophers like libertines.
      What an answer to you, wretches that you are, this testimony of a priest,
      who asks God's pardon for having been a Christian!
    </p>
    <p>
      D'ALEMBERT'S ANSWER.
    </p>
    <p>
      PARIS, March 31, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      A misunderstanding has been the cause, my dear philosopher, that I
      received but a few days since the work of Jean Meslier, which you had sent
      almost a month ago. I waited till I received it to write to you. It seems
      to me that we could inscribe upon the tombstone of this curate: "Here lies
      a very honest priest, curate of a village in Champagne, who, in dying,
      asks God's pardon for having been a Christian, and who has proved by this,
      that ninety-nine sheep and one native of Champagne do not make a hundred
      beasts." I suspect that the abstract of his work is written by a Swiss,
      who understands French very well, though he affects to speak it badly.
      This is neat, earnest, and concise, and I bless the author of the
      abstract, whoever he may be. "It is of the Lord to cultivate the vine."
      After all, my dear philosopher, a little longer, and I do not know whether
      all these books will be necessary, and whether man will not have enough
      sense to comprehend by himself that three do not make one, and that bread
      is not God. The enemies of reason are playing a very foolish part at this
      moment, and I believe that we can say as in the song:
    </p>
    <p>
      "To destroy all these people You should let them alone."
    </p>
    <p>
      I do not know what will become of the religion of Christ, but its
      professors are in false garb. What Pascal, Nicole, and Arnaud could not
      do, there is an appearance that three or four absurd and ignorant fanatics
      will accomplish. The nation will give this vigorous blow within, while she
      is doing so little outside, and we will put in the abbreviated
      chronological pages of the year 1762: "This year France lost all its
      colonies and expelled the Jesuits." I know nothing but powder, which with
      so little apparent force, could produce such great results.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO D'ALEMBERT.
    </p>
    <p>
      DELICES, July 12, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      It appears to me that the Testament of Jean Meslier has a great effect;
      all those who read it are convinced; this man discusses and proves. He
      speaks in the moment of death, at the moment when even liars tell the
      truth fully. This is the strongest of all arguments. Jean Meslier is to
      convert the world. Why is his gospel in so few hands? How lukewarm you are
      at Paris! You hide your light under a bushel!
    </p>
    <p>
      D'ALEMBERT'S ANSWER.
    </p>
    <p>
      PARIS, July 31, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      You reproach us with lukewarmness, but I believe I have told you already
      that the fear of the fagot is very cooling. You would like us to print the
      Testament of Jean Meslier and distribute four or five thousand copies. The
      infamous fanaticism, for infamous it is, would lose little or nothing, and
      we should be treated as fools by those whom we would have converted. Man
      is so little enlightened to-day only because we had the precaution or the
      good fortune to enlighten him little by little. If the sun should appear
      all of a sudden in a cave, the inhabitants would perceive only the harm it
      would do their eyes. The excess of light would result only in blinding
      them.
    </p>
    <p>
      D'ALEMBERT TO VOLTAIRE.
    </p>
    <p>
      PARIS, July 9, 1764.
    </p>
    <p>
      Apropos, they have lent me that work attributed to St. Evremont, and which
      is said to be by Dumarsais, of which you spoke to me some time ago; it is
      good, but the Testament of Meslier is still better!
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO D'ALEMBERT.
    </p>
    <p>
      FERNEY, July 16, 1764.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Testament of Meslier ought to be in the pocket of all honest men; a
      good priest, full of candor, who asks God's pardon for deceiving himself,
      must enlighten those who deceive themselves.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO THE COUNT D'ARGENTAL.
    </p>
    <p>
      AUX DELICES, February 6, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      But no little bird told me of the infernal book of that curate, Jean
      Meslier; a very important work to the angels of darkness. An excellent
      catechism for Beelzebub. Know that this book is very rare; it is a
      treasure!
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO THE SAME.
    </p>
    <p>
      AUX DEUCES, May 31, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is just that I should send you a copy of the second edition of Meslier.
      In the first edition they forgot the preface, which is very strange. You
      have wise friends who would not be sorry to have this book in their secret
      cabinet. It is excellent to form youthful minds. The book, which was sold
      in manuscript form for eight Louis-d'or, is illegible. This little
      abstract is very edifying. Let us thank the good souls who give it
      gratuitously, and let us pray God to extend His benedictions upon this
      useful reading.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO D'AMILAVILLE.
    </p>
    <p>
      AUX DEUCES, February 8, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      My brother shall have a Meslier soon as I shall have received the order;
      it would seem that my brother has not the facts. Fifteen to twenty years
      ago the manuscript of this work sold for eight Louis-d'or; it was a very
      large quarto. There are more than a hundred copies in Paris. Brother
      Thiriot understands the facts. It is not known who made the abstract, but
      it is taken wholly, word for word, from the original. There are still many
      persons who have seen the curate Meslier. It would be very useful to make
      a new edition of this little work in Paris; it can be done easily in three
      or four days.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO THE SAME.
    </p>
    <p>
      FERNEY, December 6, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I believe there will never be another impression of the little book of
      Meslier. Think of the weight of the testimony of one dying, of a priest,
      of a good man.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO THE SAME.
    </p>
    <p>
      FERNEY, July 6, 1764.
    </p>
    <p>
      Three hundred Mesliers distributed in a province have caused many
      conversions. Ah, if I was assisted!
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO THE SAME.
    </p>
    <p>
      FERNEY, September 29, 1764.
    </p>
    <p>
      There are too few Mesliers and too many swindlers.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO THE SAME.
    </p>
    <p>
      AUX DELICES, October 8, 1764.
    </p>
    <p>
      Names injure the cause; they awaken prejudice. Only the name of Jean
      Meslier can do good, because the repentance of a good priest in the hour
      of death must make a great impression. This Meslier should be in the hands
      of all the world.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO MADAM DE FLORIAN.
    </p>
    <p>
      AUX DELICES, May 20, 1762.
    </p>
    <p>
      My dear niece, it is very sad to be so far from you. Read and read again
      Jean Meslier; he is a good curate.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO THE MARQUIS D'ARGENCE.
    </p>
    <p>
      March 2, 1763.
    </p>
    <p>
      I have found a Testament of Jean Meslier, which I send you. The simplicity
      of this man, the purity of his manners, the pardon which he asks of God,
      and the authenticity of his book, must produce a great effect. I will send
      you as many copies as you want of the Testament of this good curate.
    </p>
    <p>
      VOLTAIRE TO HELVETIUS.
    </p>
    <p>
      AUX DEUCES, May 1, 1763.
    </p>
    <p>
      They have sent me the two abstracts of Jean Meslier. It is true that it is
      written in the style of a carriage-horse, but it is well suited to the
      street. And what testimony! that of a priest who asks pardon in dying, for
      having taught absurd and horrible things! What an answer to the platitudes
      of fanatics who have the audacity to assert that philosophy is but the
      fruit of libertinage!
    </p></html>