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Kitchener
2001
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Table of Contents
The System of Nature. Volume 2 ............................................................... 4
Chapter I. Of the confuted and contradictory ideas of Theology. .............. 4
Chapter II. Examination of the Proofs of the Existence of the Divinity, as
given by Clarke. ........................................................................... 19
Chapter III. Examination of the Proofs of the Existence of God given by
Descartes, Malebranche, Newton, &c. ......................................... 43
Chapter IV. Of Pantheism, or of the Natural Ideas of the Divinity. ......... 55
Chapter V. Of Theism or Deism; of the System of Optimism; and of Final
Causes. ......................................................................................... 66
Chapter VI. Examination of the Advantages which result to men from
their Notions on the Divinity, or of their Influence upon Morals,
upon Politics, upon the Sciences, upon the Happiness of Nations
and Individuals. ............................................................................ 84
Chapter VII. Theological Notions cannot be the Basis of Morality.
Comparison between Theological Morality and Natural Morality.
Theology Prejudicial to the Progress of the Human Mind. .......... 97
Chapter VIII. Men can form no Conclusion from the Ideas which are
given them of the Divinity: Of the want of Just Interference in, and
of the Inutility of, their Conduct on his Account. ...................... 109
Chapter IX. Defence of the Sentiments contained in this Work. Of
Impiety. Do there exist Atheists? ............................................... 124
Chapter X. Is Atheism compatible with Morality? ................................ 132
Chapter XI. Of the Motives which lead to Atheism? Can this System be
Dangerous? Can it be Embraced by the Uninformed? ............... 141
Chapter XII. A Summary of the Code of Nature. .................................. 158
Appendix. The True Meaning Of the System of Nature. ....................... 167
Notes ...................................................................................................... 193
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The System of Nature. Volume 2
Chapter I. Of the confuted and contradictory ideas of Theology.
Every thing that has been said, proves pretty clearly, that in despite of all his efforts, man
has never been able to prevent himself from drawing together from his own peculiar nature,
the qualities he has assigned to the being who governs the universe. The contradictions
necessarily resulting from the incompatible assemblage of these human qualities, which
cannot become suitable to the same subject, seeing that the existence of one destroys the
existence of the other, have been shown: — the theologians themselves have felt the
insurmountable difficulties which their Divinities presented to reason: they were so
substantive, that as they felt the impossibility of withdrawing themselves out of the dilemma,
they endeavoured to prevent man from reasoning, by throwing his mind into confusion —
by continually augmenting the perplexity of those ideas, already so discordant, which they
offered him of their God. By this means they enveloped him in mystery, covered him with
dense clouds, rendered him inaccessible to mankind: thus they themselves became the
interpreters, the masters of explaining, according either to their fancy or their interest, the
ways of that enigmatical being they made him adore. For this purpose they exaggerated him
more and more — neither time nor space, nor the entire of nature could contain his
immensity — every thing became an impenetrable mystery. Although man has originally
borrowed from himself the traits, the colours, the primitive lineaments of which he composed
his God; although he has made him a jealous powerful, vindictive monarch, yet his theology,
by force of dreaming, entirely lost sight of human nature; and in order to render his Divinities
still more different from their creatures, it assigned them, over and above tne usual qualities
of man, properties so marvellous, so uncommon, so far removed from every thing of which
his mind could form a conception, that he lost sight of them himself. From thence he
persuaded himself these qualities were divine, because he could no longer comprehend them;
he believed them worthy of God, because no man could figure to himself any one distinct
idea of him. Thus theology obtained the point of persuading man he must believe that which
he could not conceive; that he must receive with submission improbable systems; that he
must adopt, with pious deference, conjectures contrary to his reason; that this reason itself
was the most agreeable sacrifice he could make on the altars of his fantastical master who
was unwilling he should use the gift he had bestowed upon him. In short, it had made mortals
implicitly believe that they were not formed to comprehend the thing of all others the most
important to themselves.
1
On the other hand, man persuaded himself that the gigantic, the
truly incomprehensible attributes which were assigned to his celestial monarch, placed
between him and his slaves a distance so immense, that this proud master could not be by
any means offended with the comparison; that these distinctions rendered him still greater;
made him more powerful, more marvellous, more inaccessible to observation. Man always
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 5
entertains the idea, that what he is not in a condition to conceive, is much more noble, much
more respectable, than that which he has the capacity to comprehend: he imagines that his
God, like tyrants, does not wish to be examined too closely.
These prejudices in man for the marvellous, appear to have been the source that gave birth
to those wonderful, unintelligible qualities with which theology clothed the sovereign of the
world. The invincible ignorance of the human mind, whose fears reduced him to despair,
engendered those obscure, vague notions, with which he decorated his God. He believed he
could never displease him, provided he rendered him incommensurable, impossible to be
compared with any thing of which he had a knowledge; either with that which was most
sublime, or that which possessed the greatest magnitude. From hence the multitude of
negative attributes with which ingenious dreamers have successively embellished their
phantom God, to the end that they might more surely form a being distinguished from all
others, or which possessed nothing in common with that which the human mind had the
faculty of being acquainted with.
The theological metaphysical attributes, were in fact nothing hut pure negations of the
qualities found in man, or in those beings of which he has a knowledge; by these attributes
their God was supposed exempted from every thing which they considered weakness or
imperfection in him, or in the beings by whom he is surrounded. To say that God is infinite,
as has been shown, is only to affirm, that unlike man, or the beings with whom he is
acquainted, he is not circumscribed by the limits of space; this, however, is what he can
never in any manner comprehend, because he is himself finite.
2
When it is said that God is
eternal
;
it signifies he has not had, like man or like every thing that exists, a beginning, and
that he will never have an end: to say he is immutable, is to say that unlike himself or every
thing which he sees, God is not subject to change: to say he is immaterial, is to advance, that
their substance or essence is of a nature not conceivable by himself, but which must from that
very circumstance be totally different from every thing of which he has cognizance.
It is from the confused collection of these negative qualities, that has resulted the
theological God; the metaphysical whole of which it is impossible for man to form to himself
any correct idea. In this abstract being every thing is infinity — immensity — spirituality —
omniscience — order — wisdom — intelligence — omnipotence. In combining these vague
terms, or these modifications, the priests believed they formed something, they extended
these qualities by thought, and they imagined they made a God, whilst they only composed
a chimera. They imagined that these perfections or these qualities must be suitable to this
God, because they were not suitable to any thing of which they had a knowledge; they
believed that an incomprehensible being must have inconceivable qualities. These were the
materials of which theology availed itself to compose the inexplicable phantom before which
they commanded the human race to bend the knee.
Nevertheless, a being so vague, so impossible to be conceived, so incapable of definition,
so far removed from every thing of which man could have any knowledge, was but little
calculated to fix his restless views; his mind requires to be arrested by qualities which he is
capacitated to ascertain — of which he is in a condition to form a judgment. Thus after it had
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 6
subtilized this metaphysical God, after it had rendered him so different in idea, from every
thing that acts upon the senses, theology found itself under the necessity of again assimilating
him to man, from whom it had so far removed him: it therefore again made him human by
the moral qualities which it assigned him; it felt that without this it would not be able to
persuade mankind there could possibly exist any relation between him and the vague,
ethereal, fugitive, incommensurable being they are called upon to adore. They perceived that
this marvellous God was only calculated to exercise the imagination of some few thinkers,
whose minds were accustomed to labour upon chimerical subjects, or to take words for
realities; in short it found, that for the greater number of the material children of the earth it
was necessary to have a God move analogous to themselves, more sensible, more known to
them. In consequence the Divinity was reclothed with human qualities; theology never felt
the incompatibility of these qualities with a being it had made essentially different from man,
who consequently could neither have his properties, nor be modified like himself. It did not
see that a God who was immaterial, destitute of corporeal organs, was neither able to think
nor to act as material beings, whose peculiar organizations render them susceptible of the
qualities, the feelings, the will, the virtues, that are found in them. The necessity it felt to
assimilate God to their worshippers, to make an affinity between them, made it pass over
without consideration these palpable contradictions, and thus theology obstinately continued
to unite those incompatible qualities, that discrepance of character, which the human mind
attempted in vain either to conceive or to reconcile: according to it, a pure spirit was the
mover of the material world; an immense being was enabled to occupy space, without
however excluding nature; an immutable deity was the cause of those continual changes
operated in the world: an omnipotent being did not prevent those evils which were
displeasing to him; the source of order submitted to confusion: in short, the wonderful
properties of this theological being every moment contradicted themselves.
There is not less discrepance, less incompatibility, less discordance in the human
perfections, less contradiction in the moral qualities attributed to them, to the end that man
might be enabled to form to himself some idea of this being. These were all said to be
eminently
possessed by God, although they every moment contradicted each other: by this
means they formed a kind of patch-work character, a heterogenous being, entirely
inconceivable to man, because nature had never constructed any thing like him, whereby he
was enabled to form a judgment. Man. was assured that God was eminently good — that it
was visible in all his actions. Now goodness is a known quality, recognisable in some beings
of the human species; this is, above every other, a property he is desirous to find in all those
upon whom he is in a state of dependance: but he is unable to bestow the title of good on any
among his fellows, except their actions produce on him those effects which he approves —
that he finds in unison with his existence — in conformity with his own peculiar modes of
thinking. It was evident, according to this reasoning, that God did not impress him with this
idea; he was said to be equally the author of his pleasures, as of his pains, which were to be
either secured or averted by sacrifices or prayers: but when man suffered by contagion, when
he was the victim of shipwreck, when his country was desolated by war, when he saw whole
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 7
nations devoured by rapacious earthquakes, when he was a prey to the keenest sorrows, how
could he conceive the bounty of that being? How could he perceive the order he had
introduced into the world, while he groaned under such a multitude of calamities? How was
he able to discern the beneficence of a God whom he beheld sporting as it were with his
species? How could he conceive the consistency of that being who destroyed that which he
was assured he had taken such pains to establish, solely for his own peculiar happiness?
What becomes of those final causes, which, without any ground, they give as the most
incontestable proof of the existence of an omnipotent and wise God, who, nevertheless, can
preserve his work only by destroying it, and who has not been able to give it all at once that
degree of perfection and consistency, of which it was susceptible. God is said to have created
the universe only for man, and was willing that, under him, he should be king of nature.
Feeble monarch! of whom a grain of sand, some atoms of bile, some misplaced humours,
destroy at once the existence and the reign: yet thou pretendest that a good God has made
every thing for thee! Thou desirest that the entire of nature should be thy domain, and thou
canst not even defend thyself from the slightest of her shocks! Thou makest to thyself a God
for thyself alone; thou supposes! that he watcheth for thy preservation; thou supposes! that
he unceasingly occupieth himself only for thy peculiar happiness; thou imagines! every thing
was made solely for thy pleasure; and, following up thy presumptuous ideas, thou hast the
audacity to call him good! seest thou not that the kindness exhibited towards thee, in
common with other beings, is contradicted?
Dost thou not see that those beasts which thou
supposest submitted to thine empire, frequently devour thy fellow-creatures; that fire
consumeth them; that the ocean swalloweth them up; that those elements of which thou
admirest the order, frequently sweep them off the face of the earth? Dost thou not see that
this power, which thou callest God, which thou pretendest laboureth only for!hee, which thou
supposest entirely occupied wilh thy species, flattered by thy homage, touched with thy
prayers, cannot be called good, since he acts necessarily? Indeed, according to thy own ideas,
dost thou not admit that thy God is the universal cause of all, who must think of maintaining
the great whole, from which thou hast so foolishly distinguished him. Is he not then accord-
ing to myself, the God of nature — of the ocean — of rivers — of mountains — of the earth,
in which thou occupiest so very small a space — of all those other globes!hat thou seest roll
in the regions of space — of those orbs that revolve round the sun that enlighteneth thee? —
Cease, then, obstinately to persist in beholding nothing but thyself in nature; do not flatter
thyself that the human race, which reneweth itself, which disappeareth like the leaves on the
trees, can absorb all the care, can engross all the tenderness of the universal being, who,
according to thyself ruleth the destiny of all things.
What is the human race compared to the earth?
What is this earth compared to the sun?
What is our sun compared to those myriads of suns which at immense distances occupy the
regions of space? not for the purpose of diverting thy weak eyes; not with a view to excite
thy stupid admiration, as thou vainly imaginest; since multitudes of them are placed out of
the range of thy visual organs, hut to occupy the place which necessity ham assigned them.
Mortal, feeble and vain! restore thyself to thy proper sphere; acknowledge every where the
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 8
effect of necessity; recognise in thy benefits, behold in thy sorrows, the different modes of
action of those various beings endowed with such a variety of properties of which nature is
the assemblage; and do not any longer suppose that its pretended mover can possess such
incompatible qualities as would be the result of human views, or of visionary ideas, which
have no existence but in thyself.
Notwithstanding experience, which contradicts at each moment the beneficent views which
man supposes in his God, theologians do not cease to call him good: when he complains of
the disorders and calamities of which he is so frequently the victim, they assure him that
these evils are only apparent: they tell him, that if his limited mind were capable of
fathoming the depths of divine wisdom and the treasures of his goodness, he would always
find the greatest benefits to result from that which he calls evil. But in spite of these frivolous
answers, man will never be able to find good but in those objects which:impel him in a
manner favourable to his actual mode of existence; he shall always be obliged to find
confusion and evil in every thing that painfully affects him, even cursorily: if God is the
author of those two modes of feeling, so very opposite to each other, he must naturally
conclude that this being is sometimes good and sometimes wicked; at least, if he will not
allow either the one or the other, it must be admitted that he acts necessarily. A world where
man experiences so much evil cannot be submitted to a God who is perfectly good; on the
other hand, a world where he experiences so many benefits, cannot be governed by a wicked
God. Thus he ts obliged to admit of two principles equally powerful, who are in hostility with
each other; or rather, he must agree that the same God is alternately kind and unkind; this
after all is nothing more than avowing he cannot be otherwise than he is; in this case is it not
useless to sacrifice to him, to pray, seeing it would be nothing but
destiny —
the necessity
of things submitted to invariable rules.
In order to justify this God from the evils the human species experience, the deist is
reduced to the necessity of calling them punishments inflicted by a
just
God for the
transgressions of man. If so, man has the power to make his God suffer. To offend
presupposes relations between the one who offends and another who is offended; but what
relations can exist between the infinite being who has created the world and feeble mortals?
To offend any one. is to diminish the sum of his happiness; it is to afflict him, to deprive him
of something, to make him experience a painful sensation. How is it possible man can
operate on the well-being of the omnipotent sovereign of nature, whose happiness is
unalterable?
How can the physical actions of a material substance have any influence over
an immaterial substance, devoid of parts, having no point of contact? How can a corporeal
being make an incorporeal being experience incommodious sensations? On the other hand,
justice,
according to the only ideas man can ever form of it, supposes a permanent disposition
to render to each what is due to him; the theologian will not admit that God owes any thing
to man; he insists that the benefits he bestows are all the gratuitous effects of his own
goodness; that he has the right to dispose of the work of his hands according to his Own
pleasure; to Plunge it if he please into the abyss oi misery. But it is easy to see, that
according to man’s idea of justice, this does not even contain the shadow of it; that it is, in
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 9
fact, the mode of action adopted by what he calls the most frightful tyrants. How then can
he be induced to call God just who acts after this manner? Indeed, while he sees innocence
suffering, virtue in tears, crime triumphant, vice recompensed, and at the same time is told
the being whom theology has invented is the author, he will never be able to acknowledge
them to have
justice.
3
But, says the deist, these evils are transient; they will only last for a
time: very well, but then your God is unjust, at least for a time. It is for their good that he
chastises his friends. But if he is good, how can he consent to let them suffer even for a time?
If he knows every thing why reprove his favourites from whom he has nothing to fear? If he
is really omnipotent, why not spare them these transitory pains, and procure them at once a
durable and permanent felicity? If his power cannot be shaken, why make himself uneasy at
the vain conspiracies they would form against him?
Where is the man filled with kindness, endowed with humanity, who does not desire with
all his heart to render his fellow-creatures happy? If God really had man’s qualities
augmented, would he not by the same reasoning, exercise his infinite power to render them
all happy? Nevertheless we scarcely find any one who is perfectly satisfied with his
condition on earth: for one mortal that enjoys, we behold a thousand who suffer; for one rich
man who lives in the midst of abundance, there are thousands of poor who want common
necessaries: whole nations groan in indigence, to satisfy the passions of some avaricious
princes, of some few nobles, who are not thereby rendered more contented — who do not
acknowledge themselves more fortunate on that account. In short, under the dominion of an
omnipotent God, whose goodness is infinite, the earth is drenched with the tears of the
miserable. What must be the inference from all this? That God is either negligent of, or
incompetent to, his happiness. But the deist will tell you coolly, that the judgments of his
God are impenetrable! How do we understand this term? Not to be taught — not to be
informed — impervious — not to be pierced: in this case it would be an unreasonable
question to inquire by what authority do you reason upon them? How do you become
acquainted with these impenetrable mysteries? Upon what foundation do you attribute virtues
which you cannot penetrate? What idea do you form to yourself of a justice that never
resembles that of man?
To withdraw themselves from this, deists will affirm that the justice of their God is
tempered with mercy, with compassion, with goodness: these again are human qualities:
what, therefore, shall we understand by them? What idea do we attach to mercy? Is it not a
derogation from the severe rules of an exact, a rigorous justice, which causes a remission of
some part of a merited punishment? In a prince, clemency is either a violation of justice, or
the exemption from a too severe law: but the laws of a God infinitely good, equitable, and
wise, can they ever be too severe, and, if immutable, can he alter them? Nevertheless, man
approves of clemency in a sovereign, when its too great facility does not become prejudicial
to society; he esteems it, because it announces humanity, mildness, a compassionate, noble
soul; qualities he prefers in his governors to rigour, cruelty, inflexibility: besides, human laws
are defective; they are frequently too severe; they are not competent to foresee all the
circumstances of every case: the punishments they decree are not always commensurate with
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 10
the offence: he therefore does not always think them just; but he feels very well, he
understands distinctly, that when the sovereign extends his mercy, he relaxes from his justice
— that if mercy be merited, the punishment ought not to take place — that then its exercise
is no longer clemency, but justice: thus he feels, that in his fellow-creatures these two
qualities cannot exist at the same moment. How then is he to form his judgment of a being
who is represented to possess both in the extremest degree?
They then say, well, but in the next world this God will reward you for all the evils you
suffer in this: this, indeed, is something to look to, if it had not been invented to shelter
divine justice, and to exculpate him from those evils which he so frequently causes his
greatest favourites to experience in this world: it is there, deists tell us, that the celestial
monarch will procure for his elect that unalterable happiness, which he has refused them on
earth; it is there he will indemnify those whom he loves for that transitory injustice, those
afflicting trials, which he makes them suffer here below. In the meantime, is this invention
calculated to give us those clear ideas suitable to justify providence? If God owes nothing
to his creatures, upon what ground can they expect, in a future life, a happiness more real,
more constant, than that which they at present enjoy? It will be founded, say theologians,
upon his promises contained in his revealed oracles. But are they quite certain that these
oracles have emanated from him? On the other hand, the system of another life does not
justify this God for the most fleeting and transitory injustice; for does not injustice, even
when it is transient, destroy that immutability which they attribute to the Divinity? In short,
is not that omnipotent being whom they have made the author of all things, himself the first
cause or accomplice of the offences which they commit against him? Is he not the true author
of evil, or of the sin which he permits, whilst he is able to prevent it; and in this case can he,
consistently with justice, punish those whom he himself renders culpable? We have already
seen the multitude of contradictions, the extravagant hypotheses, which the attributes
theology gives to its God, must necessarily produce. A being clothed at one time with so
many discordant qualities, will always be undefinable; they only present a train of ideas
which will destroy each other, and he will in consequence remain a being of the imagination.
This God has, say they, created the heavens, the earth, and the creatures who inhabit it, to
manifest his own peculiar glory: but a monarch who is superior to all beings, who has neither
rivals nor equals in nature, who cannot be compared to any of his creatures, is he susceptible
of the desire of glory? Can he fear to be debased and degraded in the eyes of his fellow-
creatures? Has he occasion for the esteem, the homage, or the admiration of men? The love
of glory is in us only the desire of giving our fellow-creatures a high opinion of ourselves;
this passion is laudable, when it stimulates us to perform great and useful actions; but more
frequently it is only a weakness attached to our nature, it is only a desire in us to be
distinguished from those beings with whom we compare ourselves. The God of whom they
speak to us, ought to be exempt from this passion; according to theology he has no fellow-
creatures, he has no competitors, he cannot be offended with those ideas which we form of
him. His power cannot suffer any diminution, nothing is able to disturb his eternal felicity;
must we not conclude from this that he cannot be either susceptible of desiring glory, or
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 11
sensible to the praises and esteem of men?
If this God is jealous of his prerogatives, of his
titles, of his rank, and of his glory, wherefore does he suffer that so many men should offend
him? Why does he permit so many others to have such unfavourable opinions of him? Why
allows he others to have the temerity to refuse him that incense which is so flattering to his
pride? — How comes he to permit that a mortal like me, should dare attack his rights, his
titles, and even his existence? It is in order to punish thee, you will say, for having made a
bad use of his favours. But why does he permit me to abuse his kindness?
Or why are not the
favours which he confers on me sufficient to make me act agreeably to his views?
It is
because he has made thee free. Why has he given me liberty, of which he must have foreseen
that I should be inclined to make an improper use? Is it then a present worthy of his
goodness, to give me a faculty that enables me to brave his omnipotence, to detach from him
his adorers, and thus render myself, eternally miserable? Would it not have been much more
advantageous for me never to have been born, or at least to have been placed in the rank of
brutes or stones, than to have been in despite of myself placed amongst intelligent beings,
there to exercise the fatal power of losing myself without redemption, by offending or
mistaking the arbiter of my fate? Had not God much better have shown his omnipotent
goodness, and would he not have laboured much more efficaciously to his true glory, if he
had obliged me to render him homage, and thereby to have merited an ineffable happiness?
The system of the liberty of man, which we have already destroyed, was visibly imagined
to wipe from the author of nature the reproach which they must offer him in being the author,
the source, the first cause of the crimes of his creatures. In consequence of this fatal present
given by a beneficent God, men, according to the sinister ideas of theology, will for the most
part be eternally punished for their faults in this world. Farfetched and endless torments are
by the justice of a merciful and compassionate God, reserved for fragile beings, for transitory
offences, for false reasonings, for involuntary errours, for necessary passions, which depend
on the temperament this God has given them; circumstances in which he has has placed
them, or, if they will, the abuse of this pretended liberty, which a provident God ought never
to have accorded to beings capable of abusing it. Should we call that father good, rational,
just, clement, or compassionate, who should arm with a dangerous and sharp knife the hands
of a petulant child, with whose imprudence he was acquainted, and who should punish him
all his life, for having wounded himself with it? — Should we call that prince just, merciful,
and compassionate, who did not proportion the punishment to the offence, who should put
no end to the torments of that subject who in a state of inebriety should have transiently
wounded his vanity, without however causing him any real injustice — above all, after
having himself taken pains to intoxicate him? Should we look upon that monarch as all-
powerful, whose dominions should be in such a state of anarchy, that, with the exception of
a small number of faithful subjects, all the others should have the. power every instant to
despise his laws, insult him, and frustrate his will? O, theologians! confess that your God is
nothing but a heap of qualities, which form a whole as perfectly incomprehensible to your
mind as to mine; by dint of overburdening him with incompatible qualities, ye have made
him truly a chimera, which all your hypotheses cannot maintain in the existence you are
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 12
anxious to give him.
They will, however, reply to these difficulties, that goodness, wisdom, and justice, are, in
God, qualities so eminent, or have such little similarity to ours, that they have no relation
with these qualities when found in men. But I shall answer, how shall I form to myself ideas
of these divine perfections, if they bear no resemblance to those of the virtues which I find
in my fellow-creatures, or to the dispositions which I feel in myself? If the justice of God is
not that of men; if it operates in that mode which men call injustice, if his goodness, his
clemency, and his wisdom do not manifest themselves by such signs, that we are able to
recognise them; if all his divine qualities are contrary to received ideas; if in theology all the
human actions are obscured or overthrown, how can mortals like myself pretend to announce
them, to “have a knowledge of them, or to explain them to others? Can theology give to the
mind the ineffable boon of conceiving that which no man is in a capacity to comprehend?
Can it procure to its agents the marvellous faculty of having precise ideas of a God composed
of so many contradictory qualities? In short, is the theologian himself a God?
They silence us by saying, that God himself has spoken, that he has made himself known
to men. But when, where, and to whom has he spoken? Where are these divine oracles? A
hundred voices raise themselves in the same moment, a hundred hands show them to me in
absurd and discordant collections: I run them over, and through the whole 1 find that the
God
of wisdom
has spoken an obscure, insidious, and irrational language. I see that the
God of
goodness
has been cruel and sanguinary; that the
God of justice
has been unjust and partial,
has ordered iniquity; that the
God of mercies
destines the most hideous punishments to the
unhappy victims of his anger. Besides, obstacles present themselves when men attempt to
verify the pretended relations of a Divinity, who, in two countries, has never literally holden
the same language; who has spoken in so many places, at so many times, and always so
variously, that he appears every where to have shown himself only with the determined
design of throwing the human mind into the strangest perplexity.
Thus, the relations which they suppose between men and their God can only be founded
on the moral qualities of this being; if these are not known to men, they cannot serve them
for models. It is needful that these qualities were natural in a known being in order to be
imitated; how can I imitate a God of whom the goodness and the justice do not resemble
mine in any thing, or rather are directly contrary to that which I call either just or good? If
God partakes in nothing of that which forms us. how can we even distantly, propose to
ourselves the imitating him, the resembling him, the following a conduct necessary to please
him by conforming ourselves to him? What can in effect, be the motives of that worship, of
that homage, and of that obedience, which we are told to render to the Supreme Being, if we
do not establish them upon his goodness, upon his veracity, upon his justice, in short, upon
qualities which we are able to understand? How can we have clear ideas, of these qualities
in God if they are no longer of the same nature as our own?
They will no doubt tell us, that there cannot be any proportion between the creator and his
work; that the clay has no right to demand of the potter who has formed it,
why have you
fashioned me thus?
But if there be no proportion between the workman and his work; if there
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 13
be no analogy between them, what can be the relations which will subsist between them? If
God is incorporated, how does he act upon bodies, or how can corporeal beings be able to
act upon him, offend him, disturb his repose, excite in him emotions of anger?
If man is
relatively to God only an
earthen vase,
this
vase
owes neither prayers nor thanks to the potter
for the form which he has been pleased to give it. If this potter irritates himself against his
vase
for having formed it badly, or for having rendered it incapable of the uses to which he
had destined it, the potter, if he is not an irrational being, ought to take to himself the defects
which he finds in it; he certainly has the power to break it, and the
vase
cannot prevent him;
it will neither have motives nor means to soften his anger, but will be obliged to submit to
its destiny; and the potter would be completely deprived of reason if he were to punish his
vase, rather than, by forming it anew, give it a figure more suitable to his designs.
We see, that according to these notions, men have no more relation with God than stones.
But if God owes nothing to men, if he is not bound to show them either justice or goodness,
men cannot possibly owe any thing to him. We have no knowledge of any relations between
beings which are not reciprocal; the duties of men amongst themselves are founded upon
their mutual wants; if God has not occasion for them, they cannot owe him any thing, and
men cannot possibly offend him. In the meantime, the authority of God can only be founded
on the good which he does to men, and the duties of these towards God, can have no other
motives than the hope of that happiness which they expect from him; if he does not owe them
this happiness, all their relations are annihilated, and their duties no longer exist. Thus, in
whatever manner we view the theological system, it destroys itself. Will theology never feel
that the more it endeavours to exalt its God, to exaggerate his grandeur, the more
incomprehensible it renders him to us? That the farther it removes him from man, or the
more it debases this man, the more it weakens the relations which they have supposed
between this God and him; if the sovereign of nature is an infinite being and totally different
from our species, and if man is only in his eyes a worm or a speck of dirt, it is clear there
cannot be any
moral relations
between two beings so little analogous to each other; and
again it is still more evident that the
vase
which he has formed is not capable of reasoning
upon him.
It is, however, upon the relation subsisting between man and his God that all worship is
founded, and all the religions of the world have a despotic God for their basis; but is not
despotism an unjust and unreasonable power? Is it not equally to undermine his goodness,
his justice, and his infinite wisdom, to attribute to the Divinity the exercise of such a power?
Men in seeing the evils with which they are frequently assailed in this world, without being
able to guess by what means they have deserved the divine anger, will always be tempted to
believe that the master of nature is a
sultan,
who owes nothing to his subjects, who is not
obliged to render them any account of his actions, who is not bound to conform himself to
any law, and who is not himself subjected to those rules which he prescribes for others; who
in consequence can be unjust, who has the right to carry his vengeance beyond all bounds;
in short, the theologians pretend that God would have the right of destroying the universe,
and replunging it into the chaos from whence his wisdom has withdrawn it; whilst the same
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 14
theologians, quote to us the order and marvellous arrangement of this world, as the most
convincing proof of his existence.
4
In short, theology invests their God with the incommunicable privilege of acting contrary
to all the laws of nature and of reason, whilst it is upon his reason, his justice, his wisdom
and his fidelity in the fulfilling his pretended engagements, that they are willing to establish
the worship which we owe him, and the duties of morality. What an ocean of contradictions!
A being who can do every thing, and who owes nothing to any one, who, in his eternal
decrees, can elect or reject, predestinate to happiness or to misery, who has the right of
making men the playthings of his caprice, and to afflict them without reason, who could go
so far as even to destroy and annihilate the universe, is he not a tyrant or a demon? is there
any thing more frightful than the immediate consequences to be drawn from these revolting
ideas given to us of their God, by those who tell us to love him, to serve him, to imitate him,
and to obey his orders? Would it not be a thousand times better to depend upon blind matter,
upon a nature destitute of intelligence, upon chance, or upon nothing, upon a God of stone
or of wood, than upon a God who is laying snares for men, inviting them to sin, and
permitting them to commit those crimes which he could prevent, to the end that he may have
the barbarous pleasure of punishing them without measure, without utility to himself, without
correction to them, and without their example serving to reclaim others? A gloomy terrour
must necessarily result from the idea of such a being; his power will wrest from us much
servile homage; we shall call him good to flatter him or to disarm his malice; but, without
overturning the essence of things, such a God will never be able to make himself beloved by
us, when we shall reflect that he owes us nothing, that he has the right of being unjust, that
he has the power to punish his creatures for making a bad use of the liberty which he grants
them, or for not having had that grace which he has been pleased to refuse them.
Thus, in supposing that God is not bound towards us by any rules, theologians visibly sap
the foundation of all religion. A theology which assures us that God has been able to create
men for the purpose of rendering them eternally miserable, shows us nothing but an evil and
malicious genius, whose malice is inconceivable, and infinitely surpasses the cruelty of the
most depraved beings of our species. Such is nevertheless the God which they have the
confidence to propose for a model to the human species! Such is the Divinity which is adored
even by those nations who boast of being the most enlightened in this world!
It is however upon the moral character of the Divinity, that is to say, upon his goodness,
his wisdom, his equity, and his love of order, that they pretend to establish our morals, or the
science of those duties which connect us to the beings of our species. But as his perfections
and his goodness are contradicted very frequently and give place to weakness, to injustice,
and to cruelties, we are obliged to pronounce him changeable, fickle, capricious, unequal in
his conduct, and in contradiction with himself, according to the various modes of action
which they attribute to him. Indeed, we sometimes see him favourable to, and sometimes
disposed to injure the human species; sometimes a friend to reason and the happiness of
society; sometimes he interdicts the use of reason, he acts as the enemy of all virtue, and he
is flattered with seeing society disturbed. However, as we have seen mortals crushed by fear,
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 15
hardly ever daring to avow that their God was unjust or wicked, to persuade themselves that
he authorized them to be so, it was concluded simply that every thing which they did
according to his pretended order or with the view of pleasing him, was always good, however
prejudicial it might otherwise appear in the eyes of reason. They supposed him the master
of creating the just and the unjust, of changing good into evil, and evil into good, truth into
falsehood, and falsehood into truth: in short, they gave him the right of changing the eternal
essence of things; they made this God superior to the laws of nature, of reason, and virtue;
they believed they could never do wrong in following his precepts, although the most absurd,
the most contrary to morals, the most opposite to good sense, and the most prejudicial to the
repose of society. With such principles do not let us be surprised at those horrours which
religion causes to be committed on the earth. The most atrocious religion was the most
consistent.
5
In founding morals upon the immoral character of a God, who changes his conduct, man
will never be able to ascertain what conduct he ought to pursue with regard to that which he
owes to God, or to others. Nothing then was more dangerous than to persuade him there
existed a being superior to nature, before whom reason must remain silent; to whom, to be
happy hereafter, he must sacrifice every thing here. His pretended orders, and his example
must necessarily be much stronger than the precepts of human morals; the adorers of this
God, cannot then listen to nature and good sense, but when by chance they accord with the
caprice of their God, in whom they suppose the power of annihilating the invariable relation
of beings, of changing reason into folly, justice into injustice, and even crime into virtue. By
a consequence of these ideas, the religious man never examines the will and the conduct of
this celestial despot according to ordinary rules; every inspired man that comes from him,
and those who shall pretend they are charged with interpreting his oracles, will always
assume the right of rendering him irrational and criminal; his first duty will always be to
obey his God without murmuring.
Such are the fatal and necessary consequences of the moral character which they give to
the Divinity, and of the opinion which persuades mortals they ought to pay a blind obedience
to the absolute sovereign whose arbitrary and fluctuating will regulates all duties. Those who
first had the confidence to tell men, that in matters of religion, it was not permitted them to
consult their reason, nor the interests of society, evidently proposed to themselves to make
them the sport of the instruments of their own peculiar wickedness. It is from this radical
errour, then, that have sprung all those extravagances, which the different religions have
introduced upon the earth; that sacred fury which has deluged it in blood; those inhuman
persecutions which have so frequently desolated nations; in short, all those horrid tragedies,
of which the name of the Most High have the cause and the pretext. Whenever they have
been desirous to render men unsociable, they have cried out that it was the will of God they
should be so. Thus the theologians themselves have taken pains to caluminate and to defame
the phantom which they have erected upon the ruins of human reason, of a nature well
known, and a thousand times preferable to a tyrannical God, whom they render odious to
every honest man. These theologians are the true destroyers of their own peculiar idol, by the
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 16
contradictory qualities which they accumulate on him: it is these theologians, as we shall yet
prove in the sequel, who render morals uncertain and fluctuating, by founding them upon a
changeable and capricious God, much more frequently unjust and cruel, than good: it is they
who overturn and annihilate him, by commanding crime, carnage, and barbarity, in the name
of the sovereign of the universe, and who interdict us the use of reason, which alone ought
to regulate all our actions and ideas.
However, admitting for a moment that God possesses all the human virtues in an infinite
degree of perfection, we shall presently be obliged to acknowledge that he cannot connect
them with those metaphysical, theological, and negative attributes, of which we have already
spoken. If God is a spirit, how can he act like man, who is a corporeal being?
A pure spirit
sees nothing; it neither hears our prayers nor our cries, it cannot be conceived to have
compassion for our miseries, being destitute of those organs by which the sentiments of pity
can be excited in us. He is not
immutable,
if his disposition can change: he is not
infinite,
if
the totality of nature, without being him, can exist conjointly with him; he is not
omnipotent,
if he permits, or if he does not prevent disorder in the world: he is not
omnipresent,
if he is
not in the man who sins, or if he leaves at the moment in which he commits the sin. Thus,
in whatever manner we consider this God, the human qualities which they assign him,
necessarily destroy each other; and these same qualities cannot, in any possible manner,
combine themselves with the supernatural attributes given him by theology.
With respect to the pretended
revelation
of the will of God, far from being a proof of his
goodness, or of his commiseration for men, it would only be a proof of his malice. Indeed,
all revelation supposes the Divinity guilty of leaving the human species, during a
considerable time, unacquainted with truths the most important to their happiness. This
revelation, made, to a small number of chosen men, would moreover show a partiality in this
being, an unjust predilection but little compatible with the goodness of the common Father
of the human race. This revelation destroys also the divine immutability, since, by it, God
would have permitted at one time, that men should be ignorant of his will, and at another
time, that they should be instructed in it. This granted, all revelation is contrary to the notions
which they give us of the justice or of the goodness of a God, who they tell us is immutable,
and who, without having occasion to reveal himself, or to make himself known to them by
miracles, could easily instruct and convince men, and inspire them with those ideas, which
he desires; in short, dispose of their minds and of their hearts. What if we should examine
in detail all those pretended revelations, which they assure us have been made to mortals?
We shall see that this God only retails fables unworthy of a wise being: acts in them, in a
manner contrary to the natural notions of equity; announces enigmas and oracles impossible
to be comprehended; paints himself under traits incompatible with his infinite perfections;
exacts puerilities which degrade him in the eyes of reason; deranges the order which he has
established in nature, to convince creatures, whom he will never cause to adopt those ideas,
those sentiments, and that conduct, with which he would inspire them. In short, we shall find,
that God has never manifested himself, but to announce inexplicable mysteries, unintelligible
doctrines, ridiculous practices; to throw the human mind into fear, distrust, perplexity, and
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 17
above all, to furnish a never-failing source of dispute to mortals.
6
We see, then, that the ideas which theology gives us of the Divinity will always be
confused and incompatible, and will necessarily disturb the repose of human nature. These
obscure notions, these vague speculations, would be of great indifference, if men did not
regard their reveries on this unknown being, upon whom they believe they depend, as
important, and if they did not draw from them conclusions pernicious to themselves. As they
never will have a common and fixed standard, whereby to form a judgment on this being, to
whom various and diversely modified imaginations have given birth, they will never be able
either to understand each other, or to be in accord with each other upon those ideas they shall
form to themselves of him. From hence, that necessary diversity of religious opinions, which,
in all ages, has given rise to the most irrational disputes which they always look upon as very
essential, and which has consequently always interested the tranquillity of nations. A man
with a heated imagination, will not accommodate himself to the God of a phlegmatic and
tranquil man; and infirm, bilious, discontented man, will never see this God in the same point
of view as he who enjoys a constitution more sound, whence commonly results gayety,
contentment, and peace. An equitable, kind, compassionate, tender-hearted man, will not
delineate to himself the same portrait of his God, as the man who is of a harsh unjust,
inflexible, wicked character Each individual will modify his God after his own peculiar
manner of existing, after his own mode of thinking according to his particular mode of
feeling. A wise, honest, rational man will never figure to himself that a God can he unjust
and cruel.
Nevertheless, as fear necessarily presided at the formation of those Gods man set up for the
object of his worship; as the ideas of the Divinity was always associated with that of terrour;
as the recollection of sufferings, which he attributed to God, often made him tremble;
frequently awakened in his mind the most afflicting reminiscence; sometimes filled him with
inquietude, sometimes~inflamed his imagination, sometimes overwhelmed him with dismay.
The experience of all ages proves, that this vague name became the most important of all
considerations — was the affair which most seriously occupied the human race: that it every
where spread consternation — produced the most frightful ravages, by the delirious
inebriation resulting from the opinions with which it intoxicated the mind. Indeed, it is
extremely difficult to prevent habitual fear, which of all human passions is the most
incommodious, from becoming a dangerous leaven, which, in the long run, will sour,
exasperate, and give malignancy to the most moderate temperament.
If a misanthrope, in hatred of his race, had formed the project of throwing man into the
greatest perplexity — if a tyrant, in the plenitude of his unruly desire to punish, had sought
out the most efficacious means; could either the one or the other have imagined that which
was so well calculated to gratify their revenge, as thus to occupy him unceasingly with being
not only unknown to him, but which can never be known, which, notwithstanding, they
should be obliged to contemplate as the centre of all their thoughts — as the only model of
their conduct — as the end of all their actions — as the subject of all their research — as a
thing of more importance to them than life itself, upon which all their present felicity, all
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 18
their future happiness, must necessarily depend? If man was subjected to an absolute
monarch, to a sultan who should keep himself secluded from his subjects; who followed no
rule but his own desires; who did not feel himself bound by any duty; who could for ever
punish the offences committed against him; whose fury it was easy to provoke; who was
irritated even by the ideas, the thoughts of his subjects; whose displeasure might be incurred
without even their own knowledge; the name of such a sovereign would assuredly be
sufficient to carry trouble, to spread terrour, to diffuse consternation into the very souls of
those who should hear it pronounced; his idea would haunt them every where — would
unceasingly afflict them — would plunge them into despair. What tortures would not their
mind endure to discover this formidable being, to ascertain the secret of pleasing him! What
labour would not their imagination bestow, to discover what mode of conduct might be able
to disarm his anger! What fears would assail them, lest they might not have justly hit upon
the means of assuaging his wrath! What disputes would they not enter into upon the nature,
the qualities of a ruler, equally unknown to them all! What a variety of means would not be
adopted, to find favour in his eyes; to avert his chastisement!
Such is the history of the effects the name of God has produced upon the earth. Man has
always been panic-struck at it, because he never was able to form any correct opinion, any
fixed ideas upon the subject; because every thing conspired either to give his ideas a
fallacious turn, or else to keep his mind in the most profound ignorance; when he was willing
to set himself right, when he was sedulous to examine the path which conducted to his
felicity, when he was desirous of probing opinions so consequential to his peace, involving
so much mystery, yet combining both his hopes and his fears, he was forbidden to employ
the only proper method —
his reason,
guided by his experience; he was assured this would
be an offence the most indelible. If he asked, wherefore his reason had been given him, since
he was not to use it in matters of such high behest? he was answered, those were mysteries
of which none but the initiated could be informed; that it sufficed for him to know, that the
reason which he seemed so highly to prize, which he held in so much esteem, was his most
dangerous enemy — his most inveterate, most determined foe. He is told that he must believe
in God, not question the mission of the priests; in short, that he had nothing to do with the
laws he imposed, but to obey them: when he then required that these laws might at least be
made comprehensible to him; that he might be placed in a capacity to understand them; the
old answer was returned, that they were
mysteries;
he must not inquire into them. Thus he
had nothing steady; nothing permanent, whereby to guide his steps; like a blind man left to
himself in the streets, he was obliged to grope his way at the peril of his existence. This will
serve to show the urgent necessity there is for truth to throw its radiant lustre on systems big
with so much importance; that are so calculated to corroborate the animosities, to confirm
the bitterness of soul, between those whom nature intended should always act as brothers.
By the magical charms with which this God was surrounded, the human species has
remained either as if it was benumbed, in a state of stupid apathy, or else it has become
furious with fanaticism: sometimes, desponding with fear, man cringed like a slave who
bends under the scourge of an inexorable master, always ready to strike him; he trembled
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 19
under a yoke made too ponderous for his strength: he lived in continual dread of a vengeance
he was unceasingly striving to appease, without ever knowing when he had succeeded: as
he was always bathed in tears, continually enveloped in misery — as he was never permitted
to lose sight of his fears — as he was continually exhorted to nourish his alarm, he could
neither labour for his own happiness nor contribute to that of others; nothing could exhilarate
him: he became the enemy of himself, the persecutor of his fellow-creatures, because his
felicity here below was interdicted; he passed his time in heaving the most bitter sighs, his
reason being forbidden him, he fell into either a state of infancy or delirium, which submitted
him to authority; he was destined to this servitude from the hour he quitted bis mother’s
womb, until that in which he was returned to his kindred dust; tyrannical opinion bound him
fast in her massive fetters; a prey to the terrours with which he was inspired, he appeared to
have come upon the earth for no other purpose than to dream — with no other desire than
to groan — with no other motives than to sigh; his only view seemed to be to injure himself;
to deprive himself of every rational pleasure; to embitter his own existence; to disturb the
felicity of others. Thus, abject, slothful, irrational, he frequently became wicked, under the
idea of doing honour to his God; because they instilled into his mind that it was his duty to
avenge his cause, to sustain his honour, to propagate his worship.
Mortals were prostrate from race to race, before vain idols to which fear had given birth
in the bosom of ignorance, during the calamities of the earth; they tremblingly adored
phantoms which credulity had placed in the recesses of their own brain, where they found
a sanctuary which time only served to strengthen; nothing could undeceive them; nothing
was competent to make them feel, it was themselves they adored — that they bent the knee
before their own work — that they terrified themselves with the extravagant pictures they
had themselves delineated: they obstinately persisted in prostrating themselves, in perplexing
themselves, in trembling; they even made a crime of endeavouring to dissipate their fears;
they mistook the production of their own folly; their conduct resembled that of children, who
having disfigured their own features, become afraid of themselves when a mirror reflects the
extravagance they have committed. These notions so afflicting for themselves, so grievous
to others, have their epoch in the calamitous idea of a God; they will continue, perhaps
augment, until their mind, enlightened by discarded reason, illumined by truth, shall attach
no more importance to this unintelligible word; until man, bursting the chains of superstition,
taking a rational view of that which surrounds him, shall no longer refuse to contemplate
nature under her true character; shall no longer persist in refusing to acknowledge she
contains within herself the cause of that wonderful phenomena which strikes on the dazzled
optics of man: until thoroughly persuaded of the weakness of their claims to the homage of
mankind, he shall make one simultaneous, mighty effort, and overthrow the altars of God and
his priests.
Chapter II. Examination of the Proofs of the Existence of the
Divinity, as given by Clarke.
The unanimity of man in acknowledging the Divinity, is commonly looked upon as the
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 20
strongest proof of his existence. There is not, it is said, any people on the earth who have not
some ideas, whether true or false, of an all-powerful agent who governs the world. The
rudest savages, as well as the most polished nations, are equally obliged to recur by thought
to the first cause of every thing that exists; thus it is affirmed, the cry of nature herself ought
to convince us of the existence of a God, of which she has taken pains to engrave the notion
in the minds of men: they therefore conclude, that the idea of God is innate. But if this
existence rests upon no better foundations than the unanimity of man on this subject, it is not
placed upon so solid a rock as those who make this asseveration may imagine: the fact is,
man is not generally agreed upon this point; if he was, superstition could have no existence;
the idea of God cannot be
innate,
because, independent of the proofs offered on every side
of the almost impossibility of innate ideas, one simple fact will set such an opinion for ever
at rest, except with those who are obstinately determined not to be convinced by even their
own arguments: if this idea was innate, it must be every where the same; seeing that that
which is antecedent to man’s being, cannot have experienced the modifications of his
existence, which are posterior. Even if it were waived, that the same idea should be expected
from all mankind, but that only every nation should have their ideas alike on this subject,
experience will not warrant the assertion, since nothing can be better established than that
the idea is not uniform even in the same town; now this would be an insuperable quality in
an innate idea. It not unfrequently happens, that in the endeavour to prove too much, that
which stood firm before the attempt is weakened; thus a bad advocate frequently injures a
good cause, although he may not be able to overturn the rights on which it is rested. It would,
therefore, perhaps, come nearer to the point if it was said, that the natural curiosity of
mankind has in all ages, and in all nations, led him to seek after the primary cause of the
phenomena he beholds; that owing to the variations of his climate, to the difference of his
organization, the greater or less calamity he has experienced, the variety of his intellectual
faculties, and the circumstances under which he has been placed, man has had the most
opposite, contradictory, extravagant notions of this Divinity.
If disengaged from prejudice, we analyze this proof, we shall see that the universal consent
of man, so diffused over the earth, actually proves little more than that he has been in all
countries exposed to frightful revolutions, experienced disasters, been sensible to sorrows
of which he has mistaken the physical causes; that those events to which he has been either
the victim or the witness, have called forth his admiration or excited his fear; that for want
of being acquainted with the powers of nature, for want of understanding her laws, for want
of comprehending her infinite resources, for want of knowing the effects she must
necessarily produce under given circumstances, he has believed these phenomena were due
to some secret agent of which he has had vague ideas — to beings whom he has supposed
conducted themselves after his own manner; who were operated upon by similar motives
with himself.
The consent then of man in acknowledging a God, proves nothing, except that in the bosom
of ignorance he has either admired the phenomena of nature, or trembled under their
influence; that his imagination was disturbed by what he beheld or suffered; that he has
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 21
sought in vain to relieve his perplexity, upon the unknown cause of the phenomena he
witnessed, which frequently obliged him to quake with terrour: the imagination of the human
race has laboured variously upon these causes, which have almost always been
incomprehensible to him; although every thing confessed his ignorance, his inability to
define this cause, yet he maintained that he was assured of its existence; when pressed, he
spoke of a spirit, (a word to which it was impossible to attach any determinate idea,) which
taught nothing but the sloth, which evidenced nothing but the stupidity of those who
pronounced it.
It ought, however, not to excite any surprise that man is incapable of forming any
substantive ideas, save of those things which act, or which have heretofore acted upon his
senses; it is very evident that the only objects competent to move his organs are material —
that none but physical beings can furnish him with ideas — a truth which has been rendered
sufficiently clear in the commencement of this work, not to need any further proof. It will
suffice therefore to say, that the idea of God is not an innate, but an acquired notion; that it
is the very nature of this notion to vary from age to age; to differ in one country from
another; to be viewed variously by individuals. What do I say? It is, in fact, an idea hardly
ever constant in the same mortal. This diversity, this fluctuation, this change, stamps it with
the true character of an acquired opinion. On the other hand, the strongest proof that can be
adduced that these ideas are founded in errour, is, that man by degrees has arrived at
perfectioning all the sciences which have any known objects for their basis, whilst the
science of deism has not advanced; it is almost every where at the same point; men seem
equally undecided on this subject; those who have most occupied themselves with it, have
effected but little; they seem, indeed, rather to have rendered the primitive ideas man formed
to himself on this head more obscure.
As soon as it is asked of man, what is the God before whom he prostrates himself,
forthwith his sentiments are divided. In order that his opinions should be in accord, it would
be requisite that uniform ideas, analogous sensations, unvaried perceptions, should every
where have given birth to his notions upon
this subject: but this would suppose organs
perfectly similar, modified by sensations which have a perfect affinity: this is what could not
happen: because man, essentially different by his temperament, who is found under
circumstances completely dissimilar, must necessarily have a great diversity of ideas upon
objects which each individual contemplates so variously. Agreed in some general points,
each made himself a God after his own manner; he feared him, he served him, after his own
mode. Thus the God of one man, or of one nation, was hardly ever that of another man, or
of another nation. The God of a savage, unpolished people, is commonly some material
object, upon which the mind has exercised itself but little; this God appears very ridiculous
in. the eyes of a more polished community, whose minds have laboured more intensely upon
the subject. A spiritual God, whose adorers despise the worship paid by the savage to a
coarse, material object, is the subtile production of the brain of thinkers, who, lolling in the
lap of polished society quite at their leisure, have deeply meditated, have long occupied
themselves with the subject. The theological God, although incomprehensible, is the last
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 22
effort of the human imagination; it is to the God of the savage, what an inhabitant of the city
of Sybaris, where effeminacy and luxury reigned, where pomp and pageantry had reached
their climax, clothed with a curiously embroidered purple habit of silk, was to a man either
quite naked, or simply covered with the skin of a beast, perhaps newly slain. It is only in
civilized societies, that leisure affords the opportunity of dreaming — that ease procures the
facility of reasoning; in these associations, idle speculators meditate, dispute, form
metaphysics: the faculty of thought is almost void in the savage, who is occupied either with
hunting, with fishing, or with the means of procuring a very precarious subsistence by dint
of almost incessant labour. The generality of men, even among us, have not more elevated
notions of the Divinity, have not analyzed him more than the savage. A spiritual, immaterial
God, is formed only to occupy the leisure of some subtile men, who have no occasion to
labour for a subsistence. Theology, although a science so much vaunted, considered so
important to the interests of man, is only useful to those who live at the expense of others;
or of those who arrogate to themselves the privilege of thinking for all those who labour. —
This futile science becomes, in some polished societies, who are not on that account more
enlightened, a branch of commerce extremely advantageous to its professors, but equally
unprofitable to the citizens; above all when these have the folly to take a very decided
interest in their unintelligible opinions.
What an infinite distance between an unformed stone, an animal, a star, a statue, and the
abstracted Deity, which theology has clothed with attributes under which it loses sight of him
itself! The savage without doubt deceives himself in the object to which he addresses his
vows; like a child he is smitten with the first object that strikes his sight — that operates
upon him in a lively manner; like the infant, his fears are alarmed by that from which he
conceives he has either received an injury or suffered disgrace; still his ideas are fixed by a
substantive being, by an object which he can examine by his senses. The Laplander who
adores a rock — the negro who prostrates himself before a monstrous serpent, at least see
the objects they adore. The idolater falls upon his knees before a statue, in which he believes
there resides some concealed virtue, some powerful quality, which he judges may be either
useful or prejudicial to himself; but that subtile reasoner, called a theologian, who in
consequence of his unintelligible science, believes he has a right to laugh at the savage, to
deride the Laplander, to scoff at the negro, to ridicule the idolater, does not perceive that he
himself is prostrate before a being of his own imagination, of which it is impossible he
should form to himself any correct idea, unless, like the savage, he re-enters into visible
nature, to clothe him with qualities capable of being brought within the range of his
comprehension.
Thus the notions on the Divinity, which obtain credit even at the present day, are nothing
more than a general terrour diversely acquired, variously modified in the mind of nations,
which do not tend to prove any thing, save that they have received them from their trembling,
ignorant ancestors. These Gods have been successively altered, decorated, subtilized, by
those thinkers, those legislators, those priests, who have meditated deeply upon them; who
have prescribed systems of worship to the uninformed; who have availed themselves of their
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 23
existing prejudices, to submit them to their yoke; who have obtained a dominion over their
minds by seizing on their credulity — by making them participate in their errours — by
working on their fears; these dispositions will always be a necessary consequence of man’s
ignorance, when steeped in the sorrows of his heart.
If it be true, as asserted, that the earth has never witnessed any nation so unsociable, so
savage, to be without some form of religious worship — who did not adore some God. —
but little will result from it respecting its reality. — The word God, will rarely be found to
designate more than the unknown cause of those effects which man has either admired or
dreaded. Thus, this notion so generally diffused, upon which so much stress is laid, will
prove little more than that man in all generations has been ignorant of natural causes — that
he has been incompetent, from some cause or other, to account for those phenomena which
either excited his surprise or roused his fears. If at the present day a people cannot be found
destitute of some kind of worship, entirely without superstition, who do not acknowledge a
God, who have not adopted a theology more or less subtile, it is because the uninformed
ancestors of these people have all endured misfortunes — have been alarmed by terrifying
effects, which they have attributed to unknown causes — have beheld strange sights, which
they have ascribed to powerful agents, whose existence they could not fathom; the details
of which, together with their own bewildered notions, they have handed down to their
posterity who have not given them any kind of examination.
Besides, the universality of an opinion by no means proves its truth. Do we not see a great
number of ignorant prejudices, a multitude of barbarous errours, even at the present day,
receive the almost universal sanction of the human race?
Are not all the inhabitants of the
earth imbued with the idea of magic — in the habit of acknowledging occult powers — given
to divination — believers in enchantment — the slaves to omens — supporters of witchcraft
— thoroughly persuaded of the existence of ghosts? If some of the most enlightened persons
are cured of these follies, they still find very zealous partisans in the greater number of
mankind, who accredit them with the firmest confidence. It would not, however, be
concluded by men of sound sense, that therefore these chimeras actually have existence,
although sanctioned with the credence of the multitude. Before Copernicus, there was no one
who did not believe that the earth was stationary, that the sun described his annual revolution
round it. Was, however, this universal consent of man, which endured for so many thousand
years, less an errour on that account?
7
Each man has his God: but do all these Gods exist?
In reply it will be said each man has his ideas of the sun; do all these suns exist? However
narrow may be the pass by which superstition imagines it has thus guarded its favourite
hypothesis, nothing will perhaps be more easy than the answer: the existence of the sun is
a fact verified by the daily use of the senses; all the world see the sun; no one hath ever seen
God; nearly all mankind has acknowledged the sun to be both luminous and hot: however
various may be the opinions of man, upon this luminary, no one has ever yet pretended there
was more than one attached to our planetary system, or
that the sun is not luminous and hot
;
but we find many very rational men have said,
THERE IS
NO GOD
.
Those who think this
proposition hideous and irrational, and who affirm that God exists, do they not tell us at the
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 24
same time that they have never seen him, and therefore know nothing of him? Theology is
a science, where every thing is built upon laws inverted from those common to the globe we
inhabit.
If man, therefore, had the courage to throw aside his prejudices, which every thing
conspires to render as durable as himself — if divested of fear he would examine coolly —
if guided by reason he would dispassionately view the nature of things, the evidence adduced
in support of any given doctrine; he would, at least, be under the necessity to acknowledge,
that the idea of the Divinity is not innate — that it is not anterior to his existence — that it
is the production of time, acquired by communication with his own species
8
— that,
consequently, there was a period, when it did not actually exist in him: he would see clearly,
that he holds it by tradition from those who reared him: that these themselves received it
from their ancestors: that thus tracing it up, it will be found to have been derived in the last
resort, from ignorant savages, who were our first fathers. — The history of the world will
show that crafty legislators, ambitious tyrants, blood-stained conquerors, hare availed
themselves of the ignorance, the fears, the credulity of his progenitors, to turn to their own
profit an idea to which they rarely attached any other substantive meaning than that of
submitting them to the yoke of their own domination.
Without doubt, there have been mortals who have boasted they have seen the Divinity; but
the first man who dared to say this was a liar, whose object was to take advantage of the
simplicity of some, or an enthusiast, who promulgated for truths, the crazy reveries of his
own distempered imagination? Nevertheless, is it not a truth, that these doctrines of crafty
men are at this day the creed of millions, transmitted to them by their ancestors, rendered
sacred by time, read to them in their temples, and adorned with all the ceremonies of
religious worship? Indeed that man, would not experience the most gentle treatment from the
infuriated Christian, who should to his face venture to dispute the divine mission of his Jesus.
Thus the ancestors of the Europeans have transmitted to their posterity, those ideas of the
Divinity which they manifestly received from those who deceived them; whose impositions,
modified from age to age, subtilized by the priests, clothed with the reverential awe inspired
by fear, have by degrees acquired that solidity, received that corroboration, attained that
veteran stability, which is the natural result of public sanction, backed by theological parade.
The word God is, perhaps, among the first that vibrate on the ear of man; it is reiterated to
him incessantly; he is taught to lisp it with respect; to listen to it with fear; to bend the knee
when it is reverberated: by dint of repetition, by listening to the fables of antiquity, by
hearing it pronounced by all ranks and persuasions, he seriously believes all men bring the
idea with them into the world. He thus confounds a mechanical habit with instinct; whilst it
is for want of being able to recall to himself the first circumstances under which his
imagination was awakened by this name; for want of recollecting all the recitals made to him
during the course of his infancy (for want of accurately defining what was instilled into him
by his education; in short, because his memory does not furnish him with the succession of
causes that have engraven it on his brain, that he believes this idea is really inherent to his
being; innate in all his species.
9
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 25
It is, however, uniformly by habit, that man admires, that he fears a being, whose name he
has attended to from his earliest infancy. As soon as he hears it uttered, he, without
reflection, mechanically associates it with those ideas with which his imagination has been
filled by the recitals of others; with those sensations which he has been instructed to
accompany it. Thus, if for a season man would be ingenuous with himself, he would concede
that the idea of a God, and of those attributes with which he is clothed, have their foundation,
take their rise in, and are the fruit of the opinions of his fathers, traditionally infused into him
by education — confirmed by habit — corroborated by example — enforced by authority.
That it very rarely happens he examines these ideas; that they are for the most part adopted
by inexperience, propagated by tuition, rendered sacred by time, inviolable from respect to
his progenitors, reverenced as forming a part of those institutions he has most learned to
value. He thinks he has always had them, because he has had them from his infancy; he
considers them indubitable, because he is never permitted to question them — because he
never has the intrepidity to examine their basis.
If it had been the destiny of a Brahmin, or a Mussulman, to have drawn his first breath on
the shores of Africa, he would adore, with as much simplicity, with as much fervour, the
serpent reverenced by the negroes, as he does the God his own metaphysicians have offered
to his reverence. He would be equally indignant if any one should presumptuously dispute
the divinity of this reptile, which he would have learned to venerate from the moment he
quitted the womb of his mother, as the most zealous, enthusiastic fakir, when the marvellous
wonders of his prophet should be brought into question; or as the most subtile theologian
when the inquiry turned upon the incongruous qualities with which he has decorated his
Gods. Nevertheless, if this serpent God of the negro should be contested, they could not at
least dispute his existence. Simple as may be the mind of this dark son of nature, uncommon
as may be the qualities with which he has clothed his reptile, he still may be evidenced by
all who choose to exercise their organs of sight. It
is
by no means the same with the
immaterial, incorporeal, contradictory God, or with the deified man, which our modern
thinkers have so subtilly composed. By dint of dreaming, of reasoning, and of subtilizing,
they have rendered his existence impossible to whoever shall dare to examine it coolly. We
shall never be able to figure to ourselves a being, who is only composed of abstractions and
of negative qualities; that is to say, who has no one of those qualities, which the human mind
is susceptible of judging. Our theologians do not know that which they adore; they have not
one real idea of the being with which they unceasingly occupy themselves; this being would
have been long since annihilated, if those to whom they announced him had dared to
examine into his existence.
Indeed, at the very first step we find ourselves arrested; even the existence of this most
important and most revered being, is yet a problem for whoever shall coolly weigh the proofs
which theology gives of it; and although, before reasoning or disputing upon the nature and
the qualities of a being, it was necessary to verify his existence, that of the Divinity is very
far from being demonstrable to any man who shall be willing to consult good sense. — What
do I say? The theologians themselves have scarcely ever been in unison upon the proofs of
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 26
which they have availed themselves to establish the divine existence. Since the human mind
has occupied itself with its God (and when has it not been occupied with it?) it has not
hitherto arrived at demonstrating the existence of this interesting object, in a manner
satisfactory to those themselves who are anxious that we should be convinced of it. From age
to age, new champions of the Divinity, profound philosophers, and subtile theologians, have
sought new proofs of the existence of God, because they were, without doubt, but little
satisfied with those of their predecessors. Those thinkers who flattered themselves with
having demonstrated this great problem, were frequently accused of
ATHEISM
,
and of having
betrayed the cause of God, by the weakness of those arguments with which they had
supported it.
10
Men of very great genius, have indeed successively miscarried in their
demonstrations, or in the solutions which they have given of it; in believing they had
surmounted a difficulty, they have continually given birth to a hundred others. It is to no
purpose that the greatest metaphysicians have exhausted all their efforts to prove that God
existed, to reconcile his incompatible attributes, or to reply to the most simple objections;
they have not yet been able to succeed. The difficulties which are opposed to them, are
sufficiently clear to be understood by an infant; whilst, in the most learned nations, they will
be troubled to find twelve men capable of understanding the demonstrations, the solutions,
and the replies of a
Descartes,
of a
Leibnitz,
and of a
Clarke,
when they endeavour to prove
to us the existence of the Divinity. Do not let us be at all astonished; men never understand
themselves when they speak to us of God, how then should they be able to understand each
other, or agree amongst themselves, when
they
reason upon the nature and the qualities of
a being, created by various imaginations, which each man is obliged to see diversely, and
upon the account of whom men will always be in an equal state of ignorance, for want of
having a common standard upon which to form their judgments of him.
To convince ourselves of the little solidity of those proofs which they give us of the
existence of the theological God, and of the inutility of those efforts which they have made
to reconcile his discordant attributes, let us hear what the celebrated
Doctor Samuel Clarke
has said, who, in his treatise
concerning the being and attributes of God,
is supposed to have
spoken in the most convincing manner.
11
Those who have followed him, indeed, have done no more than repeat his ideas, or present
his proofs under new forms. After the examination which we are going to make, we dare say
it will be found that his proofs are but little conclusive, that his principles are unfounded, and
that his pretended solutions are not suitable to resolve any thing. In short, in the God of
Doctor Clarke,
as well as in that of the greatest theologians, they will only see a chimera
established upon gratuitous suppositions, and formed by the confused assemblage of
extravagant qualities, which render his existence totally impossible; in a word, in this God
will only be found a vain phantom, substituted to the energy of nature, which has always
been obstinately mistaken. We are going to follow, step by step, different propositions in
which this learned theologian develops the received opinions upon the Divinity. Dr. Clarke
sets out with saying: —
1st. “
Something existed from all eternity
.”
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 27
This proposition is evident — has no occasion for proofs. Matter has existed from all
eternity, its forms alone are evanescent; matter is the great engine used by nature to produce
all her phenomena, or rather it is nature herself. We have some idea of matter, sufficient to
warrant the conclusion that this has always existed. First, that which exists, supposes
existence essential to its being. That which cannot annihilate itself, exists necessarily; it is
impossible to conceive that that which cannot cease to exist, or that which cannot annihilate
itself, could ever have had a beginning. If matter cannot be annihilated, it could not
commence to be. Thus we say to Dr. Clarke, that it is matter, it is nature, acting by her own
peculiar energy, of which no particle is ever in an absolute state of rest, which has always
existed. The various material bodies which this nature contains often change their form, their
combination, their properties, their mode of action; but their principles or elements are
indestructible — have never been able to commence. What the doctor actually understands,
when he makes the assertion, that “an eternal duration is now actually past,” is not quite so
clear; yet he affirms, that “not to believe it would be a real and express contradiction.”
2
d.
“
There has existed from eternity some one
“
unchangeable and independent being
.”
We may fairly inquire what is this being? Is it independent of its own peculiar essence, or
of those properties which constitute it such as it is? We shall further inquire, if this being,
whatever it may be, can make the other beings which it produces, or which it moves, act
otherwise than they do, according to the properties which it has given them? And in this ease
we shall ask, if this being, such as it may be supposed to be, does not act necessarily; if it is
not obliged to employ indispensable means to fulfil its designs, to arrive at the end which it
either has, or may be supposed to have in view? Then we shall say, that nature is obliged to
act after her essence; that every thing which takes place in her is necessary; and that if they
suppose it governed by a Deity, this God cannot act otherwise than he does, and
consequently is himself subjected to necessity.
A man is said to be independent, when he is determined in his actions only by the general
causes which are accustomed to move him; he is equally said to be dependant on another,
when he cannot act but in consequence of the determination which this last gives him. A
body is dependant on another body when it owes to it its existence, and its mode of action.
A being existing from eternity cannot owe his existence to any other being; he cannot then
be dependant upon him, except he owes his action to him; but it is evident that an eternal or
self-existent being contains in his own nature every thing that is necessary for him to act:
then, matter being eternal, is necessarily independent in the sense we have explained; of
course, it has no occasion for a mover upon which it ought to depend.
This eternal being is also immutable, if by this attribute be understood that he cannot
change his nature; but if it be intended to infer by it that he cannot change his mode of action
or existence, it is without doubt deceiving themselves, since even in supposing an immaterial
being, they would be obliged to acknowledge in him different modes of being, different
volitions, different ways of acting; particularly if he was not supposed totally deprived of
action, in which case he would be perfectly useless. Indeed, it follows of course that to
change his mode of action he must necessarily change his manner of being. From hence it
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 28
will be obvious, that the theologians, in making their God immutable, render him
immoveable; consequently he cannot act. An immutable being, could evidently neither have
successive volition, nor produce successive action; if this being has created matter, or given
birth to the universe, there must have been a time in which he was willing that this matter,
this universe, should exist; and this time must have been preceded by another time, in which
he was willing that it might not yet exist. If God be the author of all things, as well as of the
motion and of the combinations of matter, he is unceasingly occupied in producing and
destroying; in consequence, he cannot be called immutable, touching his mode of existing.
The material world always maintains itself by motion, and the continual change of its parts;
the sum of the beings who compose it, or of the elements which act in it, is invariably the
same; in this sense the immutability of the universe is much more easy of comprehension,
much more demonstrable than that of any other being to whom they would attribute all the
effects, all the mutations which take place. Nature is not more to be accused of mutability,
on account of the succession of its forms, than the eternal being is by the theologians, by the
diversity of his decrees.
12
3d. “
That unchangeable and independent being, which has existed from eternity without
any eternal cause of its existence, must be self-existent, that
is,
necessarily existing
.”
This proposition is merely a repetition of the first; we reply to it by inquiring, Why matter,
which is indestructible, should not be self-existent? It is evident that a being who had no
beginning, must be self-existent; if he had existed by another, he would have commenced to
be; consequently he would not be eternal. Those who make matter coeternal with God, do
no more than multiply beings without necessity.
4th
“
What the substance or essence of that being which is self-existent, or necessarily
existing, is, we have no idea; neither is it at all possible for us to comprehend it
.”
Dr. Clarke would have spoken more correctly if he had said his essence is impossible.
Nevertheless, we shall readily concede that the essence of matter is incomprehensible, or at
least, that we conceive it very feebly by the manner in which we are affected by it; but we
must also concede that we are much less able to conceive the Divinity, who is impervious
on any side. Thus it must necessarily be concluded, that it is folly to argue upon it, since it
is by matter alone we could have any knowledge of him; that is to say, by which we could
assure ourselves of his existence — by which we could at all guess at his qualities. In short,
we must conclude, that every thing related of the Divinity, either proves him material, or else
proves the impossibility in which the human mind will always find itself, of conceiving any
being different from matter; without extent, yet omnipresent; immaterial, yet acting upon
matter; spiritual, yet producing matter; immutable, yet putting every thing in activity, &c.
Indeed it must be allowed that the incomprehensibility of the Divinity does not distinguish
him from matter; this will not be more easy of comprehension when we shall associate it
with a being much less comprehensible than itself; and of this last we have some slender
knowledge through some of its parts. We do not certainly know the essence of any being, if
by that word we are to understand that which constitutes its peculiar nature. We only know
matter by the sensations, the perceptions, the ideas which it furnishes; it is according to these
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 29
that we judge it to be either favourable or unfavourable, following the particular disposition
of our organs. But when a being does not act upon any part of our organic structure, it does
not exist for us; we cannot, without exhibiting folly, without betraying our ignorance, without
falling into obscurity, either speak of its nature, or assign its qualities; our senses are the only
channel by which we could have formed the slightest idea of it. The incomprehensibility of
the Divinity ought to convince man that it is folly to seek after it; but this, however, would
not suit with those priests who are willing to reason upon him continually, to show the depth
of their learning — to persuade the uninformed they understand that which is
incomprehensible to all men; by which they expect to be able to submit him to their own
views. Nevertheless, if the Divinity be incomprehensible, we must conclude that a priest,
does not comprehend him better than other men; and the wisest or the surest way is, not to
be guided by the imagination of a theologian.
5
th.
“
Though the substance, or essence of the self-existent being; is in itself absolutely
incomprehensible to us, yet many of the essential attributes of his nature are strictly
demonstrable, as well as his existence. Thus, in the first place, the self-existent being must
of necessity be eternal
.”
This proposition differs in nothing from the first, except Dr. Clarke does here understand
that as the self-existent being had no beginning, he can have no end. However this may be,
we must ever inquire, Why should not this be matter? We shall further observe, that matter
not being capable of annihilation, exists necessarily, consequently will never cease to exist;
that the human mind has no means of conceiving how matter should originate from that
which is not itself matter: is it not obvious, that matter is necessary; that there is nothing,
except its powers, its arrangement, its combinations, which are contingent or evanescent?
The general motion is necessary, but the given motion is not so; only during the season that
the particular combinations subsist, of which this motion is the consequence, or the effect:
we may be competent to change the direction, to either accelerate or retard, to suspend or
arrest, a particular motion, but the general motion can never possibly be annihilated. Man,
in dying, ceases to live; that is to say, he no longer either walks, thinks or acts in the mode
which is peculiar to human organization: but the matter which composed his body, the matter
which formed his mind, does not cease to move on that account: it simply becomes
susceptible of another species of motion.
6
th.
“
The self-existent being must of necessity be infinite and omnipresent
.”
The word
infinite
presents only a negative idea which excludes all bounds: it is evident that
a being who exists necessarily, who is independent, cannot be limited by any thing which is
out of himself; he must consequently be his own limits: in this sense we may say
he is
infinite.
Touching what is said of his omnipresence, it is equally evident that if there be nothing
exterior to this being, either there is no place in which he must not be present, or that there
will be only himself and the vacuum. This granted, I shall inquire if matter exists; if it does
not at least occupy a portion of space? In this case, matter, or the universe, must exclude
every other being who is not matter, from that place which the material beings occupy in
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 30
space. In asking whether the God of the theologians be by chance the abstract being which
they call the vacuum or space, they will reply, no! They will further insist, that their God,
who is not matter, penetrates that which is matter. But it must be obvious, that to penetrate
matter, it is necessary to have some correspondence with matter, consequently to have extent;
now to have extent, is to have one of the properties of matter. If the Divinity penetrates
matter, then he is material; by a necessary deduction he is inseparable from matter; then if
he is omnipresent, he will be in every thing. This the theologian will not allow: he will say
it is a mystery; by which I shall understand that he is himself ignorant how to account for the
existence of his God; this will not be the case with making nature act after immutable laws;
she will of necessity be every where, in my body, in my arm, in every other material being,
because matter composes them all.
7
th.
“
The self-existent being must of necessity be but one
.”
If there be nothing exterior to a being who exists necessarily, it must follow that he is
unique. It will be obvious that this proposition is the same with the preceding one; at least,
if they are not willing to deny the existence of the material world or to say with Spinosa, that
there is not, and that we cannot conceive any other substance than God.
Praeter Deum neque
dari neque concipi potest substantia,
says this celebrated atheist, in his fourteenth
proposition.
8
th.
“
The self-existent and original cause of all things, must be an intelligent being
.”
Here Dr. Clarke most unquestionably assigns a human quality: intelligence is a faculty
appertaining to organized or animated beings, of which we have no knowledge out of these
beings. To have intelligence, it is necessary to think; to think, it is requisite to have ideas; to
have ideas, supposes senses; when senses exist they are material; when they are material,
they cannot be a pure spirit, in the language of the theologian.
The necessary being who comprehends, who contains, who produces animated beings,
contains, includes, and produces intelligence. But has the great whole a peculiar intelligence,
which moves it, which makes it act, which determines it in the mode that intelligence moves
and determines animated bodies; or rather, is not this intelligence the consequence of
immutable laws, a certain modification resulting from certain combinations of matter, which
exists under one form of these combinations, but is wanting under another form? This is
assuredly what nothing is competent to prove. Man having placed himself in the first rank
in the universe, has been desirous to judge of every thing after what he saw within himself,
because he has pretended that in order to be perfect it was necessary to be like himself. Here
is the source of all his erroneous reasoning upon nature and his Gods. He has therefore
concluded that it would be injurious to the Divinity not to invest him with a quality which
is found estimable in man — which he prizes highly — to which he attaches the idea of
perfection — which he considers as a manifest proof of superiority. He sees his fellow-
creature is offended when he is thought to lack intelligence; he therefore judges it to be the
same with the Divinity. He denies this quality to nature, because he considers her a mass of
ignoble matter, incapable of self-action, although she contains and produces intelligent
beings. But this is rather a personification of an abstract quality, than an attribute of the
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 31
Deity, with whose perfections, with whose mode of existence, he cannot by any possible
means become acquainted according to the fifth proposition of Dr. Clarke himself. It is in the
earth that is engendered those living animals called worms; yet we do not say the earth is a
living creature. The bread which man eats, the wine that he drinks, are not themselves
thinking substances; yet they nourish, sustain, and cause those beings to think, who are
susceptible of this modification of their existence. It is likewise in nature, that is formed
intelligent, feeling, thinking beings; yet it cannot be rationally said, that nature feels, thinks,
and is intelligent after the manner of these beings, who nevertheless spring out of her bosom.
How, they will say to us, refuse to the Creator, these qualities which we discover in his
creatures! The work would then be more perfect than the workman!
God who hath made the
eye, shall he not see? God, who hath formed the ear, shall he not hear?
But if we adopt this
mode of reasoning, ought we not to attribute to God all the other qualities that we shall meet
with in his creatures? Should we not say, with equal foundation, that the God who has made
matter, is himself matter; that the God who has fashioned the body, must possess a body; that
the God who has made so many irrational beings, is irrational himself; that the God who has
created man who sins, is liable himself to sin? If, because the works of God possess certain
qualities, and are susceptible of certain modifications, we conclude that God possesses them
also, we shall be obliged by parity of reasoning to conclude that God is material, has extent,
has gravity, is wicked, &c.
To attribute wisdom, or an infinite intelligence to God, that is to say, to the universal mover
of nature, there should be neither folly, nor evil, nor wickedness, nor confusion on the earth.
They will perhaps tell us, that, even according to our own principles, evil and disorder are
necessary; but our principles do not admit of a wise and intelligent God, who should have
the power of preventing them. If, in admitting such a God, evil is not less necessary, what
end can this God, so wise, so powerful, and so intelligent, be able to serve, seeing that he is
himself subjected to necessity? From thence he is no longer independent, his power vanishes,
he is obliged to admit a free course to the essence of things; he cannot prevent causes from
producing their effects; he cannot oppose himself to evil; he cannot render man more happy
than he is; he cannot, consequently, be good; he is perfectly useless; he is no more than the
unconcerned witness of that which must necessarily happen; he cannot do otherwise than will
every thing which takes place in the world. Nevertheless, they tell us, in the succeeding
proposition, that —
9
th.
“
The self-existent and original cause of all things, is not a necessary agent, but a being
endowed with liberty and choice
.”
Man is called
free,
when he finds within himself motives which determine him to action,
or when his will finds no obstacle to the performance of that to which his motives have
determined him. God, or the necessary being, of which question is here made, does he not
find obstacles to the execution of his projects?
Is he willing that evil should be committed,
or can he not prevent it? In this case, he is not free, and the will meets with continual
obstacles; or else, we must say, he consents to the commission of sin; that he is willing we
should offend him; that he suffers men to restrain his liberty, and derange his projects. How
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 32
will the theologians draw themselves out of this perplexing intricacy?
On the other hand, the God whom they suppose cannot act, but in consequence of the laws
of his peculiar existence, we should be enabled then to call a
being endowed with liberty,
as
far as his actions should not be determined by any thing which should be exterior to himself,
but this would visibly be an abuse of terms: indeed, we cannot say. that a being who is not
capable of acting otherwise than he does, and who can never cease to. act, but in virtue of
the laws of his peculiar existence, is a being possessed of liberty — there is evidently
necessity in all his actions. Ask a theologian, if God has power to reward crime, and punish
virtue? Ask him again, if God can love him, or if he is a free agent when the action of a man
necessarily produces in him a new will? A man is a being exterior to God, and nevertheless
they pretend, that the conduct of this man has an influence on this being endowed with
liberty, and necessarily determines his will. In short, we demand if God can avoid to will that
which he willeth, and not do that which he doeth? Is not his will necessitated by intelligence,
wisdom and views which they suppose him to have? If God be thus connected, he is no more
a free agent than man: if every thing which he does be necessary, he is nothing more than
destiny, fatality, the
fatum
of the ancients, and the moderns have not changed the Divinity,
although they have changed his name.
They will, perhaps, tell us, that God is free, insomuch that he is not bound by the laws of
nature, or by those which he imposes on all beings. Nevertheless, if it be true that he has
made these laws, if they are the effect of his infinite wisdom, of. his supreme intelligence,
he is by his essence obliged to follow them, or else it must be acknowledged that it would
be possible for God to act irrationally. Theologians fearing, without doubt, to restrain the
liberty of God, have supposed that he was not subjected to any laws, as we have before
proved; in consequence, they have made him a despotic, fantastical, and strange being,
whose power gives him the right to violate all the laws which he has himself established. By
the pretended miracles which they have attributed to him, he derogates from the laws of
nature; by the conduct which they have supposed him to hold, he acts very frequently in a
mode contrary to his divine wisdom, and to the reason which he has given to men, to regulate
their judgments. If God is a free agent in this sense, all religion is useless; it can only found
itself upon those immutable rules which this God has prescribed to himself, and upon those
engagements which he has entered into with the human species? As soon as religion does not
suppose him bound by his covenants, it destroys itself, it commits suicide.
10
th.
“
The self-existent being, the supreme cause of all things, must of necessity hare
infinite power
.”
There is no power but in him, this power then has no limits; but if it is God who enjoys this
power, man ought not to have the power of doing evil; without which he would be in a state
to act contrary to the divine power; there would be exteriorly to God a power capable of
counterbalancing his, or of preventing it from producing those effects which he proposes to
himself; the Divinity would be obliged to suffer that evil which he could prevent.
On the other hand, if man is free to sin, God is not himself a free agent, his conduct is
necessarily determined by the actions of man. An equitable monarch is not a free agent when
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 33
he believes himself obliged to act conformably to the laws which he has sworn to observe,
or which he cannot violate without wounding his justice. A monarch is not powerful when
the least of his subjects has the power of insulting him, of openly resisting him, or secretly
making all his projects miscarry. Nevertheless, all the religions of the world, show us God
under the character of an absolute sovereign, of whom nothing is capable to constrain the
will, nor limit the power; whilst on the other hand, they assure us that his subjects have at
each instant the power and the liberty to disobey him and annihilate his designs: from
whence it is evident that all the religions of the world destroy with one hand what they
establish with the other: so that, according to the ideas with which they furnish us, their God
is neither free, powerful, nor happy.
11
th.
“
The supreme cause and
author of things, must of necessity be infinitely wise
.”
Wisdom and folly are qualities founded on our peculiar judgment; now in this world, which
God is supposed to have created, to preserve, to move, and to penetrate, there happens a
thousand things, which appear to us as follies, and even the creatures for whom we imagine
the universe to have been made, are frequently much more foolish and irrational than prudent
and wise. The author of every thing which exists, must be equally the author of that which
we call irrational, and of that which we judge to be extremely wise. On the other hand, to
judge of the intelligence and the wisdom of a being, it were necessary, at least, to foresee the
end which he proposes to himself. What
is
the aim of God? It is, they tell us, his own
peculiar glory; but does this God attain this end, and do not sinners refuse to glorify him?
Besides, suppose God is sensible to glory, is not this supposing him to have our follies and
our weaknesses? Is not this saying he is haughty? If they tell us that the aim of the divine
wisdom is to render men happy, I shall always ask, wherefore these men, in despite of his
views, so frequently render themselves miserable?
If they tell me, the views of God are
impenetrable to us, I shall reply, in the first place, that in this case it is at random that they
tell me the Divinity proposes to himself the happiness of his creatures, an object, which, in
fact, is never attained; I shall, in the second place, reply, that, ignorant of his real aim, it is
impossible for us to judge of his wisdom, and that to be willing to reason upon it shows
madness.
12
th
. “
The supreme cause and author of all things, must of necessity be a being of infinite
goodness, justice, and truth, and all other moral perfections; such as become the supreme
governor and judge of the world
.”
The idea of
perfection
is an abstract, metaphysical, negative idea, which has no archetype,
or model, exterior to ourselves. A perfect being would be a being similar to ourselves, whom,
by thought, we should divest of all those qualities which we find prejudicial to us, and which,
for that reason, we call
imperfections;
it is always relatively to ourselves, and to our mode
of feeling and of thinking, and not in itself, that a thing is perfect or imperfect; it is according
to this, that a thing is more or less useful or prejudicial, agreeable or disagreeable. In this
sense, how can we attribute perfection to the self-existent being? Is God perfectly good
relatively to men? But men are frequently wounded by his works, and are obliged to
complain of the evils, which they suffer in this world. Is God perfect, relative to his works?
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 34
But do we not frequently see the most complete disorder, range itself on the side of order?
These works of the Divinity so perfect, are they not changed, are they not destroyed
unceasingly; do they not oblige us to experience, in despite of ourselves, those sorrows and
troubles which balance the pleasures and the benefits which we receive from nature? Do not
all the religions of the world suppose a God continually occupied in remaking, repairing,
undoing, and rectifying his marvellous works?
They will not fail telling us, that God cannot
possibly communicate to his works that perfection, which he himself possesses. In this case,
we shall say, that the imperfections of this world, being necessary for God himself, he never
will be able to remedy them, even in another world;
and we shall conclude, that this God,
cannot be to us of any utility whatever.
The metaphysical or theological attributes of the Divinity, make him an abstract and
inconceivable being as soon as they distinguish him from nature and from all the beings
which she contains: the moral qualities make him a being of the human species although by
negative attributes it is endeavoured to remove him to a distance from man. The theological
God is an insulated being, who in truth cannot have any relation with any of the beings of
which we have a knowledge, The moral God is never more than a man who is believed to
be rendered perfect, in removing from him by thought, the imperfections of human nature.
The moral qualities of men are founded upon the relations between them, and upon their
mutual wants. The theological God cannot certainly have moral qualities, or human
perfections; he has no occasion for men, he has no relation with them, seeing that no
relations can exist which are not reciprocal. A pure spirit cannot assuredly have relations
with material beings, at least in parts; an infinite being cannot be susceptible of any relation
with infinite beings; an eternal being cannot have relations with perishable and transitory
beings. The one being who has neither species nor cause, who has no fellow creatures, who
does not live in society, who has nothing in common with his creatures, if he really existed,
could not possess any of those qualities, which we call perfections; he would be of an order
so different from man, that we should not be able to assign him either vices or virtues. It is
unceasingly repeated to us, that God owes us nothing; that no being is comparable to him;
that our limited understanding cannot conceive his perfections; that the human mind is not
formed to comprehend his essence: but do they not, even by this, destroy our relation with
this being, so dissimilar, so disproportionate, so incomprehensible to us? All relation
supposes a certain analogy; all duties suppose a resemblance, and reciprocal wants, to render
to any one the obligations we owe him, it is necessary to have a knowledge of him.
They will, without doubt, tell us, that God has made himself known by revelation. But does
not this revelation suppose the existence of the God we dispute? Does not this revelation
itself destroy the moral perfections, which they attribute to him? Does not all revelation
suppose in men, ignorance, imperfection, and perversity, which a beneficent, wise,
omnipotent, and provident God, ought to have prevented? Does not all particular revelation
suppose in this God a preference, a predilection, and an unjust partiality for some of his
creatures; dispositions that visibly contradict his infinite goodness and justice?
Does not this
revelation announce in him aversion, hatred, or at least indifference for the greater number
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 35
of the inhabitants of the earth, or even a fixed design of blinding them, in order that they may
lose themselves? In short, in all the known revelations, is not the Divinity, instead of being
represented as wise, equitable, and filled with tenderness for man, continually depicted to us
as a fantastical, iniquitous, and a cruel being; as one who is willing to seduce his children;
as one who is laying snares for them, or making them lay snares for themselves: and as one
who punishes them for having fallen into them? The truth is, the God of
Doctor Clarke,
and
of the
Christians,
cannot be looked upon as a perfect being, at least, if in theology they do
not call those qualities
perfections,
which reason and good sense call striking imperfections
or odious dispositions. Nay more, there are not in the human race individuals so wicked, so
vindictive, so unjust, so cruel, as the tyrant on whom the Christians prodigally lavish their
servile homage, and on whom their theologians heap those perfections which the conduct
they ascribe to him contradicts every moment. The more we consider the theological God,
the more impossible and contradictory will he appear; theology seems only to have formed
him, immediately to destroy him. What is this, in fact, but a being of whom they can affirm
nothing that is not instantly contradicted? What is this but a good God who is unceasingly
irritating himself; an omnipotent God who never arrives at the end of his designs; a God
infinitely happy, whose felicity is perpetually disturbed; a God who loves order, and who
never maintains it; a just God who permits his most innocent subjects to be exposed to
continual injustice? What is this but a pure spirit who creates and who moves matter? What
is this but an immutable being who is the cause of the motion and those changes which are
each moment operating in nature? What is this but an infinite being who is, however,
coexistent with the universe? What is this but an omniscient being who believes himself
obliged to make trial of his creatures? What is this but an omnipotent being who never can
communicate to his works that perfection which he would find in them? What is this but a
being clothed with every divine quality, and of whom the conduct is always human? What
is this but a being who is able to do every thing, and who succeeds in nothing, who never
acts in a manner worthy of himself? Like man, he is wicked, unjust, cruel, jealous, irascible,
and vindictive; like man, he miscarries in all his projects; and this with all the attributes
capable of guarantying him from the defects of our species. If we would but be ingenuous,
we should confess, that this being is nothing; and we shall find the phantom imagined to
explain nature, is perpetually in contradiction with this very nature, and that instead of
explaining any thing, it only serves to throw every thing into perplexity and confusion.
According to Clarke himself, “
nothing is that of which every thing can truly be denied, and
nothing can truly be affirmed. So that the idea of nothing, if I may so speak, is absolutely the
negation of all ideas. The idea, therefore, either of a, finite or infinite nothing is a
contradiction in terms.”
Let them apply this principle to what our author has said of the
Divinity, and they will find that he
is
by his own confession, an
infinite nothing;
since the
idea of this Divinity is the
absolute negation of all ideas
which men are capable of forming
to themselves. Spirituality is indeed a mere negation of corporeity; to say God is spiritual,
is it not affirming to us that they do not know what he is? They tell us there are substances
which we can neither see nor touch, but which do not exist the less on that account. Very
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 36
well, hut then we can neither reason upon them nor assign them qualities. Can we have a
better conception of infinity which is a mere negation of those limits which we find in all
beings? Can the human mind comprehend what is infinite, and in order to form to itself a
kind of a confused idea is it not obliged to join limited quantities to other quantities which
again it only conceives as limited? Omnipotence, eternity, omniscience, and perfection, are
they any thing else but abstractions or mere negations of the limitation of power, of duration,
and of science?
If it is pretended that God is nothing of which man can have a knowledge,
can see, can feel; if nothing can be said positively, it is at least permitted us to doubt his
existence; if it it pretended that God is what our theologians describe him, we cannot help
denying the existence or we possibility of a being who is made the subject of those qualities
which the human mind will never be able to conceive or reconcile.
According to Clarke, “
the self-existent being must be a most simple, unchangeable,
incorruptible being; without parts, figure, motion, divisibility, or any other such properties
as we find in matter. For all these things do plainly and necessarily imply finiteness in their
very notion, and are utterly inconsistent with complete infinity
.” Indeed! and is it possible
to form any true notion of such a being? The theologians themselves agree, that men cannot
have a complete notion of God; but that which they have here presented us, is not only
incomplete, but it also destroys in God all those qualities upon which our mind is capable of
fixing any judgment. Doctor Clarke is obliged to avow, that, “
as to the particular manner
of his being infinite, or everywhere present, in opposition to the manner of created things
being present in such or such infinite places; this is as impossible for our finite
understandings to comprehend or explain, us it is for us to form, an adequate idea of
infinity.”
But what is this but a being which no man can either explain or comprehend? It is
a chimera, which, if it existed, could not possibly interest man.
Plato, the great creator of chimeras, says that “
those who admit nothing but what they can
see and feel, are stupid and ignorant beings, who refuse to admit the reality of the existence
of invisible things.”
Our theologians hold the same language to us: our European religions,
have visibly been infected with the reveries of the Platonists, which evidently are no more
than the result of obscure notions, and of the unintelligible metaphysics of the Egyptian
Chaldean, and Assyrian priests, among whom Plato drew up his pretended philosophy.
Indeed, if philosophy consists in the knowledge of nature, we shall be obliged to agree, that
the Platonic doctrines in nowise merit this name, seeing that he has only drawn the human
mind from the contemplation of visible nature, to throw it into an intellectual world, where
it finds nothing but chimeras. Nevertheless, it is this fantastical philosophy, which regulates
all our opinions at present. Our theologians, still guided by the enthusiasm of Plato, discourse
with their followers only of
spirits; intelligent, incorporeal substances; invisible powers;
angels; demons of mysterious virtues; supernatural effects; divine inspiration; innate ideas,
&c.,
&c.
13
To believe in them, our senses are entirely useless; experience is good for nothing,
imagination, enthusiasm, fanaticism, and the workings of fear, which our religions prejudices
give birth to in us, are
celestial inspirations,
divine warnings, natural sentiments, which we
ought to prefer to reason, to judgment, and to good sense. After having imbued us from our
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 37
infancy with these maxims, so proper to hoodwink us. and to lead us astray, it is very easy
for them to make us admit the greatest absurdities under the imposing name of
mysteries,
and
to prevent us from examining that which they tell us to believe. Be this as it may, we shall
reply to Plato, and to all those doctors, who, like him, impose upon us the necessity of
believing that which we cannot comprehend, that to believe a thing exists, it is at least
necessary to have some idea of it; that this idea can only come to us by the medium of our
senses; that every thing which our senses do not give us a knowledge of, is nothing to us; that
if there is an absurdity in denying the existence of that which we do not know
?
there is
extravagance in assigning to it unknown qualities, and that there is stupidity in trembling
before true phantoms, or in respecting vain idols, clothed with incompatible qualities, which
our imaginations have combined, without ever being able to consult experience and reason.
This will serve as a reply to Doctor Clarke, who says: “
How weak then, and foolish is it to
raise objections against the being of God from the incomprehensibleness of his essence! —
and to represent it as a strange and incredible thing, that there should exist any incorporeal
substance, the essence of which we are not able to comprehend!”
He had said, a little higher:
“
There is not so mean and contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most
enlarged understanding upon earth: nay, even the simplest and plainest of all inanimate
beings have their essence or substance hidden from us in the deepest and most impenetrable
obscurity. How weak then, and foolish it is to raise objections against the being of God from
the incomprehensibleness of his essence
!”
We shall reply to him, first, that the idea of an immaterial substance or being, without
extent, is only an absence of ideas, a negation of extent, and that when they tell us a being
is not matter, they speak to us of that which is not, and do not teach us that which is; and that
in saying a being cannot act upon our senses, they teach us that we have no means of
assuring ourselves whether he exists or not.
Secondly, we shall confess, without hesitation, that men of the greatest genius, are not
acquainted with the essence of stones, plants, animals, nor the secret springs which constitute
some and which make others vegetate or act; but that at least we see them, that our senses
at least have a knowledge of them in some respects; that we can perceive some of their
effects, according to which we judge them well or ill; whilst our senses cannot compass, on
any side, an immaterial being, and, consequently, cannot furnish us with any one idea of it;
such a being is to us an
occult quality,
or rather
a being of the imagination
: if we are ignorant
of the essence or of the intimate combination of the roost material beings, we shall at least
discover with the help of experience, some of their relations with ourselves: we know their
surface, their extent, their form, their colour, their softness, and their hardness, by the
impressions which they make on us: we are capable of distinguishing them, of comparing
them, of judging of them, of seeing them and of flying from them, according to the different
modes in which we are affected by them: we cannot have the same knowledge of the
immaterial God, nor of those spirits, of whom men, who cannot have more ideas of them
than other mortals, are unceasingly talking to us.
Thirdly, we have a knowledge of modifications in ourselves which we call sentiments,
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 38
thoughts, will, and passions; for want of being acquainted with our own peculiar essence, and
the energy of our particular organization, we attribute these effects to a concealed cause, and
one distinguished from ourselves which we call a
spiritual
being, because it appeared they
acted differently from our body: nevertheless, reflection proves to us that material effects can
only emanate from a material cause. We only see even in the universe, physical and material
effects, which can only be produced by an analogous cause, and which we shall attribute, not
to a spiritual cause of which we are ignorant, but to nature itself, which we may know in
some respects if we will deign to meditate with attention.
If the incomprehensibility of God is not a reason for denying his existence, it is not one to
establish that he is immaterial, and we shall yet less comprehend him as spiritual than as
material, since materiality is a known quality, and spirituality is an occult or unknown
quality, or rather a mode of speaking of which we avail ourselves only to throw a veil over
our ignorance. It would be bad reasoning in a man born blind, if he denied the existence of
colours, although these colours can have no relation with the senses in the absence of sight,
but merely with those who have it in their power to see and know them; this blind man,
however, would appear perfectly ridiculous, if he undertook to define them. If there were
beings who had real ideas of God and of a pure spirit, and our theologians should thence
undertake to define them, they would be just as ridiculous as the blind man.
We are repeatedly told that our senses only show us the external things, that our limited
senses are not able to conceive a God; we agree therein, but these same senses do not even
show us the external of this Divinity that our theologians would define to us, to whom they
ascribe attributes upon which they unceasingly dispute, though even to this time they are not
come to the proof of his existence. “
I greatly esteem,”
says Locke, “
all those who faithfully
defend their opinion; but there are so few persons who after the manner they do defend them,
appear fully convinced of the opinions they profess, that I am tempted to believe there are
more sceptics in the world than are generally imagined
.”
14
Abbadie tells us, that “
the question is, whether there be a God, and not what this God is.”
But how assure ourselves of the existence of a being concerning which we shall never be
able to have a knowledge?
If they do not tell us what this being is, how shall we feel
ourselves capacitated to judge whether or not his existence be possible? We have seen the
ruinous foundation upon which men have hitherto erected the phantom created by their
imagination; we have examined the proofs of which they avail themselves to establish his
existence; we have pointed out the numberless contradictions which result from those
irreconcilable qualities with which they pretend to decorate him. What conclusion must we
draw from all this, except that he does not exist? It is true, they assure us,
there are no
contradictions between the divine attributes, but there is a disproportion between our
understanding and the nature of the Supreme being.
This granted, what standard is it
necessary man should possess to enable him to judge of his God? Are not they men, who
have imagined this being, and who have clothed him with attributes ascribed him by
themselves? If it needs «n infinite mind to comprehend the Divinity, can the theologians
boast of being themselves in a capacity to conceive him? To what purpose then do they speak
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 39
of him to others? Man who will never be an infinite being, will he be more capable of
conceiving his God in a future world, than he is in the one which he at this day inhabits? If
hitherto we have no knowledge of God, we can never flatter ourselves with obtaining it
hereafter, seeing that we shall never be Gods.
Nevertheless, it is pretended that it is necessary to know this God; but how prove the
necessity of having a knowledge of that which is impossible to be known? We are then told,
that good sense and reason are sufficient to convince us of the existence of a God. But, on
the other hand, am I not told that reason is a treacherous guide in religious matters? Let them
at least show us the precise time when we must abandon this reason, which shall have
conducted us to the knowledge of God. Shall we consult it again, when there shall be a
question to examine whether what they relate of this God is probable, if he can unite the
discordant qualities which they ascribe to him, if he has spoken the language which they
have attributed to him? Our priests never will permit us to consult reason upon these things;
they will still pretend that we ought blindly to believe that which they tell us, and that the
most certain way is to submit ourselves to that which they have thought proper to decide on
the nature of a being, concerning whom they avow they are ignorant, and who is in nowise
within the reach of mortals. Besides, our reason cannot conceive infinity, therefore it cannot
convince us of the existence of a God; and if our priests have a more sublime reason than that
which is found in us, it will be then on the words of our priests that we shall believe in God;
we shall never be ourselves perfectly convinced: intimate conviction can only be the effect
of evidence and demonstration.
A thing is demonstrated to be impossible, not only as soon as we are incapable of having
true ideas of it, but also whenever the ideas we can form of it contradict themselves, destroy
themselves, and are repugnant to one another. We can have no true ideas of a spirit; the ideas
we are able to form of it are contradictory, when we say that a being, destitute of organs and
of extent, can feel, can think, can have will or desires. The theological God cannot act: it is
repugnant to his divine essence to have human qualities; and if we suppose these qualities
infinite, they will only be more unintelligible, and more difficult or impossible to he
reconciled.
If God is to the human species what colours are to the man born blind, this God has no
existence with relation to us; if it is said that he unites the qualities which are assigned to
him, this God is impossible. If we are blind, let us not reason either upon God or upon his
colours; let us not ascribe to him attributes; let us not occupy ourselves, with him. The
theologians are blind men, who would explain to others, who are also blind, the shades and
the colours of a portrait representing an original which they have not even stumbled upon in
the dark.
15
Let us not be told then that the original, the portrait, and his colours do not exist
the less, because the blind man cannot explain them to us nor form to himself an idea of
them, by the evidence of those men who enjoy the faculty of sight; but where are those
quick-sighted mortals who have seen the Divinity, who have a better knowledge of him than
ourselves, and who have the right to convince us of his existence?
Doctor Clarke tells us,
it is sufficient that the attributes of God may be possible, and such
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 40
as there is no demonstration to the contrary.
Strange method of reasoning! Would theology
then be the only science in which it was permitted to conclude, that a thing is as soon as it
is possible to be?
After having brought forward reveries without foundation, and propositions
which nothing support, has he quitted them to say that they are truths, because the contrary
cannot be demonstrated? — Nevertheless it is extremely possible to demonstrate that the
theological God is impossible; to prove it, it is sufficient to make it seen, as we have not
ceased to do, that a being formed by the monstrous combination of contrasts, the most
offensive to reason, cannot exist.
Nevertheless, it is always insisted upon, and we are told that it is not possible to conceive
that intelligence or thought can be properties and modifications of matter, of which, however,
Doctor Clarke avows we ignore the energy and the essence, or of which he has said that men
of the greatest genius have had but superficial or incomplete ideas. But could it not be asked
of him if it is easier to conceive that intelligence and thought may be properties of spirit, of
which we have certainly far less ideas than we have of matter? If we have only obscure and
imperfect ideas of the most sensible and gross bodies, should we be able to have a more
distinct knowledge of an immaterial substance, or of a spiritual God, who does not act upon
any one of our senses, and who if he did act upon them, would cease from thence to be
immaterial?
Doctor Clarke has no foundation for telling us that “
immaterial substances are not
impossible
;” or that “a
substance immaterial is not a contradictory notion. Now whoever
asserts that it is contradictory, must affirm that whatever is not matter is nothing.”
Every
thing that acts upon our senses, is matter; a substance destitute of extent or of the properties
of matter cannot make itself felt by us, nor consequently give us perceptions or ideas:
constituted as we are, that of which we have no ideas has no existence with relation to us.
Thus, there is no absurdity in maintaining that all which is not matter is nothing; on the
contrary, this is a truth so striking, that there is nothing short of the most inveterate prejudice
or knavery that, can doubt or deny it.
Our learned adversary does not remove the difficulty in asking: “
Are our five senses, by an
absolute necessity in the nature of the thing, all and the only possible ways of perception?
And is it impossible, and contradictory there should be any being in the universe endued with
ways of perception different from, those which are the result of our present composition? Or,
are these things, on the contrary, purely arbitrary; and the same power that gave us these
may have given others to other beings, and might, if he had pleased, have given to us others
in this present state
?” I reply, first, that before we presume what God can or cannot do, it
were necessary to have proved his existence. I reply also, that we have in fact but five
senses;
16
that by their aid it is impossible for man to conceive such a being as they suppose
the theological God to be; that we are absolutely ignorant what would be the extent of our
conception if we had more senses. Thus to demand what God could have done in such a case,
is also to suppose the thing in question, seeing that we cannot have a knowledge how far can
go the power of a being of which we have no idea. We have no more knowledge of that
which angels, beings different from ourselves, intelligences superior to us, can feel and
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 41
know. We are ignorant of the mode in which plants vegetate; how should we know any thing
of beings of an order entirely distinguished from our own?
At least we can rest assured that
if God is infinite, as it is said he is, neither the angels nor any subordinate intelligence can
conceive him. If man is an enigma to himself, how should he be able to comprehend that
which is not himself? It is necessary then that we confine ourselves to judge with the five
senses we have. A blind man has only the use of four senses; he has not the right of denying
that there does exist an extra sense for others; but he can say, with truth and reason, that he
has no idea of the effects which would be produced with the sense which he lacks. It is with
these five senses that we are reduced to judge of the Divinity which no one amongst the
theologians can show us, or see better than ourselves. Would not a blind man, surrounded
with other men. devoid of sight, be authorized to demand of them by what right they spoke
to him of a sense which, they themselves did not possess, or of a being upon which their own
peculiar experience taught them nothing?
17
In short, we can again reply to Doctor Clarke, that, according to his system, the supposition
is impossible, and ought not to be made, seeing that God having, according to himself, made
man, was willing, without doubt, that he should have no more than five senses, or that he was
what he actually is, because it was necessary that he should be thus to conform to the wise
views and to the immutable designs which theology gives him.
Doctor Clarke, as well as all other theologians, found the existence of their God upon the
necessity of a power that may have the ability to begin motion. But if matter has always
existed, it has always had motion, which as we have proved, is as essential to it as its extent,
and flows from its primitive properties. There is, then, motion only in matter, and mobility
is a consequence of its existence; not that the great whole can itself occupy other parts of
space than those which it actually occupies, but its parts can change, and do change
continually their respective situations; it is from thence results the conservation and the life
of nature, which is always immutable in its whole. But in supposing, as is done every day,
that matter is inert, that is to say, incapable of producing any thing by itself without the
assistance of a moving power which gives it motion, can we ever conceive that material
nature receives its motion from a power that has nothing material? Can man really figure to
himself that a substance, which has no one of the properties of matter, can create matter,
draw it from its own peculiar source, arrange it, penetrate it direct its motion, and guide its
course?
Motion, then, is coeternal with matter. From all eternity the particles of the universe have
acted one upon the other in virtue of their energies, of their peculiar essences, of their
primitive elements, and of their various combinations. These particles must have combined
in consequence of their analogy or relations, attracted and repelled each other, have acted and
reacted, gravitated one upon the other, been united and dissolved, received their forms, and
been changed by their continual collisions. In a material world, the acting-power must be
material; in a whole, of which the parts are essentially in motion, there is no occasion for an
acting power distinguished from itself; the whole must be in perpetual motion by its own
peculiar energy. The general motion, as we have elsewhere proved, has its birth from the
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 42
particular motions which beings communicate to each other without interruption.
We see, then, that theology, in supposing a God who gives motion to nature, and who was
distinguished from it, has done no more than multiply beings, or rather has only personified
the principle of mobility inherent in matter: in giving to this principle human qualities, it has
only lent its intelligence, thought — perfections which can in nowise be suitable to it. Every
thing which Doctor Clarke, and all the modern theologians, tell us of their God, becomes,
in some respects, sufficiently intelligible as soon as we apply it to nature and to matter; it is
eternal, that is to say, it cannot have had a commencement, and it will never have an end; it
is infinite, that is to say, we have no conception of its limits, &c. But human qualities, always
borrowed from ourselves, cannot be suitable to it, seeing that these qualities are modes of
being, or modes which only belong to particular beings, and not to the whole which contains
them.
Thus to resume the answers which have been given to Doctor Clarke, we hall say first, we
can conceive that matter has existed from all eternity, seeing that we cannot conceive it to
have had a beginning. Secondly, that matter is independent, seeing there is nothing exterior
to it; that it is immutable, seeing it cannot change its nature, although it is unceasingly
changing its form or combination. Thirdly, that matter is self-existent; since, not being able
to conceive that it can be annihilated, we cannot conceive it can possibly have commenced
to exist. — Fourthly, that we do not know the essence or true nature of matter, although we
have a knowledge of some of its properties and qualities according to the mode in which it
acts upon us; this is what we cannot say of God. Fifthly, that matter, not having had a
beginning, will never have an end, although its combinations and its forms have a
commencement and an end. Sixthly, that if all which exists, or every thing that our mind can
conceive, is matter, this matter is infinite; that is to say, cannot be limited by any thing; that
it is omnipresent, if there is no place exterior to itself; indeed, if there was a place exterior
to it, this would be a vacuum, and then God would be the vacuum. Seventhly, that nature is
only one, although its elements or its parts may be varied to infinity, and indued with
properties extremely different. Eighthly, that matter, arranged, modified, and combined, in
a certain mode, produces in some beings, that which we call intelligence; it is one of its
modes of being, but it is not one of its essential properties. Ninthly, that matter is not a free
agent, since it cannot act otherwise than it does in virtue of the laws of its nature, or of its
existence, and consequently, fall, heavy bodies must necessarily fall, light bodies must rise,
fire must burn; man must feel good and evil, according to the nature of the beings of which
he experiences the action.
Tenthly, that the power or the energy of matter has no other bounds than those which are
prescribed by its own nature. Eleventhly, that wisdom, justice, goodness, &c. are qualities
peculiar to matter combined and modified as it is found in some beings of the human species,
and that the idea of perfection is an abstract, negative, metaphysical idea, or a mode of
considering objects which supposes nothing real to be exterior to ourselves. In fine,
twelfthly, that matter is the principle of motion, which it contains within itself, since matter
only is capable of giving and receiving motion: this is what cannot be conceived of an
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 43
immaterial and simple being, destitute of parts; who, devoid of extent, of mass, of weight,
cannot either move himself, or move other bodies — much less, create, produce, and
preserve them
Chapter III. Examination of the Proofs of the Existence of God
given by Descartes, Malebranche, Newton, &c.
God is incessantly spoken of, and yet no one has hitherto arrived at demonstrating his
existence; the most sublime geniuses have been obliged to run aground against this rock; the
most enlightened men have done no more than stammer upon a matter which every one
concurred in considering the most important; as if it could be necessary to occupy ourselves
with objects inaccessible to our senses, and of which our mind cannot take any hold!
To the end that we may convince ourselves of the little solidity which the greatest men
have given to those proofs by which they have successively imagined to establish the
existence of God, let us briefly examine what the most celebrated philosophers have said;
and let us begin with Descartes, the restorer of modern philosophy. This great man himself
tells us: “All the strength of argument which I have hitherto used to prove the existence of
God, consists in this, that I acknowledge it would not be possible my nature was such as it
is, that is to say, that I should have in me the idea of a God, if God did not truly exist; this
same God, I say, of whom the idea is in me, that is to say, who possesses all those
high
perfections
of which our mind can have some slight idea, without, however, being able to
comprehend them.”
See Meditation III, upon the Existence of God
, p. 71–2.
He had said, a little before, page 69: “We must necessarily conclude from this alone, that
because I exist and have the idea of a most perfect being, that is to say, of God, the existence
of God is most evidently demonstrated.”
First, we reply to Descartes, that we have no right to conclude that the thing exists because
we have an idea of it; our imagination presents to us the idea of a sphynx or of a hippogriff,
without having the right from that circumstance to conclude that these things really exist.
Secondly, we say to Descartes, that it is not possible he should have a positive and true idea
of God, of whom, as well as the theologians, he would prove the existence. It is impossible
for men. for material beings, to form to themselves a real and true idea of a spirit; of a
substance destitute of extent; of an incorporeal being, acting upon nature, which is corporeal
and material; a truth which we have already sufficiently proved.
Thirdly, we shall say to him, that it is impossible man should have any positive and real
idea of perfection, of infinity, of immensity, and of the other attributes which theology
assigns to the Divinity. We shall then make the same reply to Descartes, which we have
already made in the preceding chapter to the twelfth proposition of Doctor Clarke.
Thus nothing is less conclusive than the proofs upon which Descartes rests the existence
of God. He makes of this God thought and intelligence; but how conceive intelligence or
thought, without a subject to which these qualities may adhere? Descartes pretends that we
cannot conceive God, but “
as a power which applies itself successively to the parts of the
universe
.” He again says, that “
God cannot be said to have extent but as we say of fire
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 44
contained in a piece of iron, which has not, properly speaking, any other extension than that
of the iron itself.”
But, according to these notions, we have the right to tax him with
announcing in a very clear manner, that there is no other God than nature; this is a pure
Spinosism.
In fact, we know that it is from the principles of Descartes that Spinosa drew up
his system, which flows from them necessarily.
We might, then, with great reason accuse Descartes of atheism, seeing that he destroys in
a very effectual manner the feeble proofs which he gives of the existence of a God. We have
then foundation for saying to him that his system overturns the idea of the creation. Indeed,
before God had created matter, he could not co-exist nor be co-extended with it; and in this
case according to Descartes, there was no God; seeing that by taking from the modifications
their subject, these modifications must themselves disappear. If God, according to the
Cartesians, is nothing but nature, they are quite
Spinosians;
if God is the motive-power of
this nature, if God no longer exists by himself, he exists no longer than the subject to which
he is inherent subsists; that is to say, nature, of which he is the motive-power. Thus, God no
longer exists by himself, he will only exist as long as the nature which he moves; without
matter, or without a subject to move, to conserve, to produce, what will become of the
motive-power of the universe? If God is this motive-power, what will become of him without
a world, in which he can make use of his action?
18
We see, then, that Descartes, far from establishing on a solid foundation the existence of
a God, totally destroys him. The same thing will happen necessarily to all those who shall
reason upon him; they finish always by confuting him, and by contradicting themselves. We
shall find the same want of just inference, and the same contradictions, in the principles of
the celebrated father Malebranche, which, if considered with the slightest attention, appear
to conduct us directly to
Spinosism;
indeed, what can be more conformable to the language
of Spinosa, than to say, that “
the universe is only an emanation from God; that we see every
thing in God; that every thing which we see is only God; that
God alone does every thing
that is done; that all the action, and every operation which takes place in all nature is
himself; in a word, that God is every being, and the only
being
?”
Is not this formally saying that nature is God? Besides, at the same time that Malebranche
assures us we see every thing in God, he pretends, that “
it is not yet clearly demonstrated
that matter and bodies have existence, and that faith alone teaches us these mysteries, of
which, without it, we should not have any knowledge whatever.”
In reply, it may be
reasonably asked of him, how the existence of God, who has created matter, can be
demonstrated, if the existence of this matter itself is yet a problem?
Malebranche himself acknowledges that we can have no precise demonstration of the
existence of any other being than of that which is necessary; he adds, that “
if it be closely
examined, it will be seen that it is not even possible to know, with certitude, if God be or be
not truly the creator of a material and sensible world.”
After these notions, it is evident, that
according to
Father
Malebranche, men have only their faith to guaranty the existence of
God; but faith itself supposes this existence; if it be not certain that God exists, how shall we
be persuaded that we must believe that which it is reported he says?
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 45
On the other hand, these notions of Malebranche evidently overturn all theological
doctrines. How can the liberty of man be reconciled with the idea of a God who is the
motive-power of all nature; who immediately moves matter and bodies; without whose
consent nothing is done in the universe; who predetermines the creatures to every thing
which they do? How can they, with this belief, pretend that human souls have the faculty of
forming thoughts, wills; of moving and of modifying themselves? If it be supposed, with the
theologians, that the conservation of his creatures is a continued creation, is it not God who,
in preserving them, enables them to commit evil? It is evident, that, according to the system
of Malebranche, God does every thing, and his creatures are no more than passive
instruments in his hands; their sins, as well as their virtues, appertain to him; men can neither
have merit nor demerit; this is what annihilates all religion. It is thus that theology is
perpetually occupied with destroying itself.
19
Let us now see if the immortal Newton will give us ideas more true, and proofs more
certain, of the existence of God. This man, whose extensive genius, has unravelled nature
and its laws has bewildered himself as soon as he lost sight of them; a slave to the prejudices
of his infancy, he has not had the courage to hold the flambeau of his enlightened
understanding up to the chimera which they have gratuitously associated with nature; he has
not allowed that its own peculiar powers were sufficient for it to produce all those
phenomena which he has himself so happily explained. In short, the sublime Newton is no
more than an infant, when he quits physics and demonstration, to lose himself in the
imaginary regions of theology. Here is the manner in which he speaks of the Divinity”
20
“This God,” says he, “governs all, not as the soul of the world, but as the lord and
sovereign of all things. It is in consequence of his sovereignty that he is called the Lord God,
{ }, the universal emperor. Indeed, the word God is relative and relates to
slaves; the deity is the dominion or the sovereignty of God, not over his own body, as those
who look upon God as the soul of the world think, but over slaves.”
We see from thence that Newton, as well as all the theologians, makes of his God a pure
spirit, who presides over the universe; a monarch, a lord paramount, a despot, that is to say,
a powerful man; a prince, whose government takes for a model that which the kings of the
earth sometimes exercise over their subjects, transformed into slaves, whom ordinarily they
make to feel, in a very grievous manner, the weight of their authority. Thus the God of
Newton is a despot, that is to say, a man, who has the privilege of being good when it pleases
him, unjust and perverse when his fancy so determines him. But, according to the ideas of
Newton, the world has not existed from all eternity, the
slaves
of God have been formed in
the course of time, therefore, we must conclude from it that before the creation of the world,
the God of Newton was a sovereign without subjects and without estates. Let us see if this
great philosopher is more in accord with himself, in the subsequent ideas which he gives us
of his deified despot.
“The supreme God,” he says, “is an eternal, infinite, and absolutely perfect being, but
however perfect a being he may be, if he has no sovereignty, he is not the supreme God: the
word
GOD
signifies lord, but every lord is not God; it is the sovereignty of the spiritual being
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 46
which constitutes God; it is the true sovereignty which constitutes the true God; it is the
supreme sovereignty which constitutes the supreme God; it is a false sovereignty which
constitutes a false God. From true sovereignty, it follows, that the true God is living,
intelligent and powerful; and from his other perfections, it follows, that he is supremely or
sovereignly perfect. He is eternal, infinite, omniscient; that is to say, that he exists from all
eternity, and will never have an end:
durat ab aeterno, ab infinite in infinitum;
he governs
all and he knows every thing that is done, or that can be done. He is neither eternity nor
infinity, but he is eternal and infinite; he is not space nor duration, but he exists and is present
(
adest
).”
21
In all this unintelligible rigmarole, we see nothing but incredible efforts to reconcile the
theological attributes or the abstract qualities with the human qualities given to the deified
monarch; we see in it negative qualities, which are no longer suitable to man, given,
however, to the sovereign of nature, whom they have supposed a king. — However it may
be, here is always the supreme God who has occasion for subjects to establish his
sovereignty; thus God needs men for the exercise of his empire, without which he would not
be a king. When there was nothing, of what was God lord? However this may be, this lord,
this spiritual king, does he not exercise his spiritual empire in vain upon beings who
frequently do not that which he wills they should do, who are continually struggling against
him, who spread disorder in his states?
This spiritual monarch is the master of the minds of
the souls, of the wills, and of the passions, of his subjects, to whom he has left the freedom
of revolting against him. This infinite monarch, who fills every thing with his immensity, and
who governs all, does he govern the man who sins, does he direct his actions, is he in him
when he offends his God? The Devil, the false God, the evil principle, has he not a more
extensive empire than the true God, whose projects, according to the theologians, he is
unceasingly overturning? The true sovereign, is it not he whose power in a state influences
the greater number of his subjects? If God is omnipresent, is he not the sad witness and the
accomplice of those outrages which are every where offered to his divine majesty? If he fills
all, has he not extent, does he not correspond with various points of space, and from thence
does he not cease to be spiritual?
“God is one,” continues Newton, “and he is the same for ever and every where, not only
by his virtue alone, or his energy, but also by his substance.”
But how can a being who acts, who produces all those changes which beings undergo,
always be the same? What is understood by the virtue or energy of God? These vague words,
do they present any clear idea to our mind? What is understood by the divine substance? If
this substance is spiritual and devoid of extent, how can there exist in it any parts? How can
it put matter in motion? How can it be conceived?
Nevertheless, Newton tells us, that “all things are contained in him, and are moved in him,
but without reciprocal action (
sed sine mutua passione
). God experiences nothing by the
motion of bodies; these experience no opposition whatever by his omnipresence.
It here appears, that Newton gives to the Divinity characters which are suitable only to
vacuum and to nothing. Without that, we cannot conceive that it is possible not to have a
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 47
reciprocal action or relation between those substances which are penetrated, wwhich are
encompassed on all sides. It appears evident that here the author does not understand himself.
“It is an incontestable truth that God exists necessarily, and the same necessity obliges him
to exist always and every where: from whence it follows that he is in every thing similar to
itself; he is all eyes, all ears, all brain, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, and all action; but
in a mode by no means human, by no means corporeal, and which is totally unknown to us.
In the same manner as a blind man has no idea of colours, it is thus we have no idea of the
mode in which God feels and understands.”
The necessary existence of the Divinity, is precisely the thing in question; it is this
existence which it is necessary to have verified by proofs as clear, and demonstration as
strong, as gravitation and attraction. If the thing had been possible, the genius of Newton
would, without doubt, have compassed it. But, oh man! so great and so powerful, when you
were a geometrician; so little and so weak, when you became a theologian; that is to say,
when you reasoned upon that which can neither be calculated nor submitted to experience;
how could you think of speaking to us of a being who is, by your own confession, to you just
what a picture is to a blind man? Wherefore quit nature, to seek in imaginary spaces, those
causes, those powers, and that energy, which nature would have shown you in itself, if you
had been willing to consult her with your ordinary sagacity? But the great Newton has no
longer any courage; he voluntarily blinds himself, when the question is a prejudice which
habit has made him look upon as sacred. Let us continue, however, to examine how far the
genius of man is capable of leading itself astray, when once he abandons experience and
reason, and suffers himself to be guided by his imagination.
God,” continues the father of modern philosophy, “is totally destitute of body and of
corporeal figure; here is the reason why he cannot be either seen or touched, or understood;
and ought not to be adored under any corporeal form.”
But what ideas can be formed of a being who is nothing of that of which we have a
knowledge? What are the relations which can be supposed to exist between us and him? To
what end adore him? Indeed if you do adore him, you will be obliged, in despite of yourself,
to make him a being similar to man; sensible, like him, to homage, to presents, and to
flattery; in short, you will make him a king, who, like those of the earth, exacts the respect
of all who are subjected to them. Indeed, he adds: —
“We have ideas of his attributes, but we do not know that it is any one substance; we only
see the figures and the colours of bodies, we only hear sounds, we only touch the exterior
surfaces, we only smell odours, we only taste flavours; no one of our senses, no one of our
reflections, can show us the intimate nature of substances; we have still less ideas of God.”
If we have an idea of the attributes of God, it is only because we give him those belonging
to ourselves, which we never do more than aggrandize or exaggerate to that height as to
make them mistaken for those qualities we knew at first. If, in all those substances which
strike our senses, we only know the effects which they produce on us, and after which we
assign them qualities, at least these qualities are something, and give birth to distinct and
clear ideas in us. That superficial knowledge, or whatever it may be, which our senses
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 48
furnish us, is the only one we can possibly have; constituted as we are, we find ourselves
obliged to be contented with it, and we see that it is sufficient for our wants: but we have not
even the most superficial idea of a God distinguished from matter, or from all known
substances; nevertheless, we are reasoning upon him unceasingly!
“We only have a knowledge of God by his attributes, by his properties, and by the excellent
and wise arrangement which he has given to all things, and their
final causes;
and we admire
him in consequence of his perfections.”
I repeat, that we have no knowledge of God, but by those of his attributes which we borrow
from ourselves; but it is evident they cannot become suitable to the universal being, who can
have neither the same nature nor the same properties as particular beings, such as ourselves.
It is after ourselves, that we assign to God, intelligence, wisdom and perfection, in
abstracting from him that which we call defects in ourselves. As to the order or the
arrangement of the universe, of which we make a God the author, we find it excellent and
wise, when it is favourable to us, or when the causes which are coexistent with ourselves do
not disturb our own peculiar existence; otherwise, we complain of the confusion, and
the
final causes
vanish. We attribute to an immutable God, motives, equally borrowed from our
own peculiar mode of action, for deranging the beautiful order which we admire in the
universe. Thus it is always in ourselves, that is in our peculiar mode of feeling, that we draw
up the ideas of order, the attributes of wisdom, of excellence, and of perfection, which we
give to God; whilst all the good and all the evil which happen in the world, are the necessary
consequences of the essences of things, and of the general laws of matter, in short, of the
gravity, of the attraction, and of the repulsion, and of the laws of motion, which Newton
himself has so well developed, but which he dared not apply, as there was a question
concerning the phantom to which prejudice ascribes the honour of all those effects, of which
nature is itself the true cause.
“We revere and we adore God on account of his sovereignty: we worship him like his
slaves; a God destitute of sovereignty, of providence, and of final causes, would be no more
than nature and destiny.”
It is true, we adore God like ignorant slaves, who tremble under a master whom they know
not; we foolishly pray to him, although he is represented to us as immutable; although, in
truth, this God is nothing more than nature acting by necessary laws necessarily personified,
or destiny, to which the name of God is given.
Nevertheless, Newton tells us, “from a physical and blind necessity, which should preside
every where, and he always the same, there could not emanate any variety in beings; the
diversity which we see, could only have their origin in the ideas and the will of a being which
exists necessarily.”
Wherefore should this diversity not happen from natural causes, from matter acting by
itself, and of which the motion attracts and combines various, and yet analogous elements:
or separates beings, by the aid of those substances which are not found suitable to unite? Is
not
bread
the result of the combination of flower, yest, and water. As for the blind necessity,
as is elsewhere said, it is that of which we ignore the energy, or of which, being blind
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 49
ourselves, we have no knowledge, of the mode of action. Philosophers explain all
phenomena by the properties of matter; and though they feel the want of being acquainted
with the natural causes, they do not less believe them deducible from their properties or their
causes. The philosophers, then, in this, are atheists! otherwise, they would reply, that it is
God who is the author of all these phenomena.
“It is allegorically said, that God sees, hears, speaks, smiles, lives, hates, desires, gives,
receives, rejoices, or becomes angry, fights, makes and fashions, &c. For all that is said of
God, is borrowed from the conduct of men, by a kind of imperfect analogy.”
Men have not been able to do otherwise, for want of being acquainted with nature and her
ways; they have imagined a peculiar energy, to which they have given the name of God, and
they have made him act according to the same principles, as they are themselves made to act
upon, or according to which they would act, if they were the masters: it is from this
theanthropy
that have flowed all those absurd and frequently dangerous ideas, upon which
are founded all the religions of the world, who all adore in their God a powerful and wicked
man. We shall see by the sequel, the fatal effects which have resulted to the human species,
from those ideas which they have formed to themselves of the Divinity, whom they have
never considered but as an absolute sovereign, a despot, and tyrant. As for the present, let us
continue to examine the proofs which are given to us by the deists of the existence of their
God, whom they imagine they see every where.
Indeed, it is unceasingly repeated to us that the regulated motion, the invariable order,
which we see reign in the universe, those benefits which are heaped upon men, announce a
wisdom, an intelligence, a goodness, which we cannot refuse acknowledging in the cause
which produces such marvellous effects. We shall reply, that the regulated motion which we
witness in the universe, is the necessary consequence of the laws of matter; it cannot cease
to act in the manner it does, so long as the same causes act in it; these motions cease to be
regulated, order gives place to disorder, as soon as new causes disturb or suspend the action
of the first. Order, as we have elsewhere shown, is only the effect which results to us from
a series of motion; there cannot be any real disorder relative to the great whole, where every
thing that takes place is necessary and determined by laws that nothing can change. The
order of nature may be contradicted or destroyed, relatively to us, but never is it contradicted
relatively to itself, since it cannot act otherwise than it does. If, after the regulated and well-
ordered motion which we see, we attribute intelligence, wisdom, and goodness, to the
unknown or supposed cause of these effects, we are obliged in a similar manner to attribute
to him extravagance and malice, every time that these motions become confused, that is to
say, cease to be regulated relatively to us, or that we are ourselves disturbed by them, in our
mode of existence.
It is pretended that animals furnish us with a convincing proof of a powerful cause of their
existence; it is said, that the admirable harmony of their parts, which we see lend each other
mutual assistance, to the end of fulfilling their functions and maintaining them together,
announce to us a workman, who unites wisdom to power.
22
We cannot doubt the power of nature; she produces all the animals we see, by the aid of
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 50
the combination of matter which is a continual action; the harmony that subsists between the
parts of these same animals, is a consequence of the necessary laws of their nature and of
their combination; as soon as this accord ceases, the animal is necessarily destroyed. What
becomes then of the wisdom, of the intelligence, or the goodness of that pretended cause to
whom they ascribe the honour of this so much boasted harmony? These animals, so
marvellous, which are said to be the work of an immutable God, are they not continually
changing; and do they not always finish by decaying? Where is the wisdom, the goodness,
the foresight, and the immutability, of a workman, who appears only to be occupied with
deranging and breaking the springs of those machines, which are announced to us as the
chefs d’oeuvres
of his power and of his ability. If this God cannot do otherwise, he is neither
free nor omnipotent. If he changes his will, he is not immutable. If he permits those
machines, which he has rendered sensible, to experience pain, he wants goodness. If he has
not been able to render his works more solid, it is that he wants the ability. In seeing that
animals, as well as all the other works of the Divinity, decay, we cannot prevent ourselves
from concluding therefrom, either that every thing nature does is necessary, and is only a
consequence of its laws, or that the workman who made it is destitute of plan, of power, of
stability, of ability, of goodness.
Man, who looks upon himself as the
chef-d’oeuvre
of the Divinity, furnishes more than
every other production, a proof of the incapacity or of the malice of his pretended author: in
this sensible, intelligent, and thinking being, who believes himself the constant object of the
divine predilection, and who forms his God after his own peculiar model, we only see a more
inconstant, more brittle machine, which is more subject to derange itself, by its great
complication, than the grosser beings. Beasts, destitute of our knowledge, plants, which
vegetate, stones, devoid of feeling, are, in many respects, beings more favoured than man;
they are, at least, exempted from the sorrows of the mind; from the torments of thought; from
that devouring chagrin, of which he is so frequently the prey. Who is he that would not be
an animal or a stone, every time he recalls to his imagination the irreparable loss of a beloved
object?
Would it not be better to be an inanimate mass, than a restless, superstitious being,
who does nothing but tremble here below under the yoke of his God, and who again foresees
infinite torments in a future life? Beings, destitute of feeling, of life, of memory, and of
thought, are not afflicted by the idea of the past, of the present, or of the future; they do not
believe themselves in danger of becoming eternally unhappy from having reasoned badly,
like many of those favoured beings who pretend it is for them alone that the architect of the
world has constructed the universe.
23
Let us not be told that we cannot have the idea of a work without having also that of a
workman distinguished from his work.
Nature, is not a work;
she has always been self-
existent; it is in her bosom that every thing is operated; she is an immense elaboratory,
provided with materials, and who makes the instruments of which she avails herself to act:
all her works are the effect of her own energy, and of those agents or causes which she
makes, which she contains, which she puts in action. Eternal, uncreated, indestructible
elements, always in motion, in combining themselves variously, give birth to all the beings
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 51
and to all the phenomena which our eyes behold; to all the effects, good or bad, which we
feel; to the order or the confusion which we never distinguish but by the different modes in
which we are affected; in short, to all those wonderful phenomena upon which we meditate
and reason. For that purpose, these elements have occasion only for their properties, whether
particular or united, and the motion which is essential to them, without its being necessary
to recur to an unknown workman to arrange, fashion, combine, conserve, and dissolve them.
But, supposing, for an instant, that it were impossible to conceive the universe without a
workman, who has formed it, and who watches over his work, where shall we place this
workman?
shall it be within or without the universe?
is he matter or motion; or rather, is he
only space, nothing, or the vacuum?
In all these cases, either he would be nothing, or he
would be contained in nature, and submitted to her laws. If he be in nature, I can only see
matter in motion, and I must conclude from it that the agent who moves it is corporeal and
material, and that consequently, he is subject to dissolution. If this agent be exterior to nature,
I have then no longer any idea of the place which he occupies, neither can I conceive an
immaterial being, nor the mode in which a spirit without extent, can act upon the matter from
which it is separated. Those unknown spaces which the imagination has placed beyond the
visible world, have no existence relatively to a being who sees with difficulty down to his
feet; the ideal power which inhabits them cannot be painted to my mind, but when my
imagination shall combine at random the fantastical colours which it
is
always obliged to
draw from the world where I am; in this case, I shall do no more than reproduce in idea that
which my senses shall have really perceived, and this God, which I strive to distinguish from
nature, or to place out of its bosom, will always return into it necessarily and in despite of
me.
24
It will be insisted that if a statue or a watch were shown to a savage, who had never before
seen either, he would not be able to prevent himself from acknowledging that these things
were the works of some intelligent agent, of more ability, and more industrious than himself:
it will be concluded from thence, that we are in like manner obliged to acknowledge that the
machine of the universe, that man, that the various phenomena of nature, are the works of
an agent, whose intelligence and power far surpasses our own.
I reply, in the first place, that we cannot doubt that nature is extremely powerful and very
industrious; we admire her activity, every time that we are surprised by those extensive,
various, and complicated effects which we find in those of her work, which we take the
trouble to meditate upon; nevertheless, she is neither more nor less industrious in one of her
works than in another. We no more understand how she has been capable of producing a
stone or a metal, than a head organized like that of Newton. We call that man industrious,
who can do things, which we ourselves cannot do; nature can do every thing, and as soon as
a thing exists, it is a proof that she has been capable of making it. Thus it is never more than
relatively to ourselves that we judge nature to be industrious; we compare her then to
ourselves; and as we enjoy a quality which we call
intelligence,
by the assistance of which
we produce works, or by which we show our industry, we conclude from it, that those works
of nature, which astonish us the most, do not belong to her, but are to be ascribed to an
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 52
intelligent workman like ourselves, but in whom we proportion the intelligence to the
astonishment which his works produce in us, that is to say, to our own peculiar weakness and
ignorance.
In the second place, the savage to whom a statue or a watch shall be brought, will or will
not have ideas of human industry: if he has ideas of it, he will feel that this watch or this
statue, may be the work of a being of his own species, enjoying those faculties which he
himself lacks. If the savage has no idea of human industry and of the resources of art, in
seeing the spontaneous motion of a watch, he will believe that it is an animal, which cannot
be the work of man. Multiplied experience, confirms the mode of thinking which I ascribe
to this savage.
25
Thus in the same manner as a great many men, who believe themselves
much more acute than he, this savage will attribute the strange effects he sees, to a Genius,
to a Spirit, to a God; that is to say, to an
unknown power,
to whom he will assign capabilities
of which he believes the beings of his own species to be absolutely destitute; by this he will
prove nothing, except that he is ignorant of what man is capable of producing. It is thus that
a raw, unpolished people raise their eyes to heaven, every time they witness some unusual
phenomenon. It is thus that the people call
miraculous, supernatural, divine,
all those strange
effects of the natural causes of which they are ignorant; and as for the greater part, they do
not know the cause of any thing; every thing is a miracle to them, or at least they imagine
that God is the cause of all the good and of all the evil which they experience. In short, it is
thus that theologians solve all difficulties in attributing to God every thing of which they are
ignorant, or of which they are not willing men should understand the true causes.
In the third place, the savage, in opening the watch and examining its parts, will feel,
perhaps, that these parts announce a work which can only be the result of human labour. He
will see that they differ from the immediate productions of nature, whom he has not seen
produce wheels made of a polished metal. He will again see that these parts, separated from
each other, no longer act as they did when they were together; after these observations, the
savage will attribute the watch to the ingenuity of man, that is to say, to a being like himself,
of whom he has ideas, but whom he judges capable of doing things which he does not
himself know how to do; in short, he will ascribe the honour of this work to a being known
in some respects, provided with some faculties superior to his own, but he will be far from
thinking that a material work can be the effect of an immaterial cause, or of an agent destitute
of organs and of extent, of whom it is impossible to conceive the action upon material
beings: whilst, for want of being acquainted with the power of nature, we ascribe the honour
of her work to a being of whom we have much less knowledge than of her, and to which,
without knowing it, we attribute those amongst her labours which we comprehend the least.
In seeing the world, we acknowledge a material cause of those phenomena which take place
in it; and this cause is nature, of whom the energy is shown to those who study her.
Let us not be told, that, according to this hypothesis, we attribute every thing to a blind
cause, to the fortuitous concurrence of atoms; to
chance,
We only call those
blind causes,
of
which we know not the combination, the power, and the laws. We call
fortuitous,
those
effects of which we are ignorant of the causes, and which our ignorance and inexperience
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 53
prevent us from foreseeing. We attribute to
chance,
all those effects of which we do not see
the necessary connexion with their causes. Nature is not a blind cause; she does not act by
chance; nothing that she does would ever be fortuitous to him who should know her mode
of acting, her resources, and her course. Every thing which she produces is necessary, and
is never more than a consequence of her fixed and constant laws; every thing in her is
connected by invisible bands, and all those effects which we see flow necessarily from their
causes, whether we know them or not. It is very possible there should be ignorance on our
part, but the words
God, Spirit, Intelligence,
will not remedy this ignorance: they will do no
more than redouble it by preventing us from seeking the natural causes of those effects which
our visual faculties make us acquainted with.
This may serve for an answer to the eternal objection which is made to the partisans of
nature, who are unceasingly accused of
attributing every thing to chance.
Chance is a word
devoid of sense, or at least it indicates only the ignorance of those who employ it.
Nevertheless we are told, and it is reiterated continually, that a regular work cannot be
ascribed to the combinations of chance. Never, we are informed, will it be possible to arrive
at the formation of a poem, such as the Iliad, by means of letters thrown or combined
together at random. We agree to it without hesitation; but, ingeniously, are those letters
thrown with the hand like dice, which compose a poem? It would avail as much to say that
we could pronounce a discourse with the feet. It is nature who combines, after certain and
necessary laws, a head organized in a manner to make a poem, it is nature who gives man
a brain suitable to give birth to such a work; it is nature who, by the temperament, the
pagination, the passions which she gives to man, capacitates him to produce a
chef-d’oeuvre
:
it is his brain, modified in a certain manner, decorated with ideas or images, made fruitful
by circumstances, which can become the only matrix in which a poem can be conceived and
developed. A head organized like that of Homer, furnished with the same vigour and the
same imagination, enriched with the same knowledge, placed in the same circumstances, will
produce necessarily, and not by chance, the poem of the Iliad; at least if it he not denied that
causes similar in every thing, must produce effects perfectly identical.
26
It is, then, puerility, or knavery, to talk of composing, by a throw of the hand, or by
mingling letters together by chance, that which can only be done with the assistance of a
brain organized and modified in a certain manner. The human seed does not develop itself
by chance, it cannot be conceived or formed but in the womb of a woman. A confused heap
of characters or of figures, is only an assemblage of signs, destined to paint ideas; but in
order that these ideas may be painted, it is previously necessary that they may have been
received, combined, nourished, developed, and connected, in the head of a poet, where
circumstances make them fructify and ripen, on account of the fecundity, of the heat, and of
the energy of the soil where these
intellectual seeds
have been thrown. Ideas, in combining,
extending, connecting, and associating themselves, form a whole, like all the bodies of
nature: this whole pleases us, when it gives birth to agreeable ideas in our mind; when they
offer us pictures which move us in a lively manner; it is thus that the poem of Homer,
engendered in his head, has the power of pleasing heads analogous and capable of feeling
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 54
its beauties.
We see, then, that nothing is made by chance. All the works of nature grow out of certain
uniform and invariable laws, whether our mind can with facility follow the chain of the
successive causes which she puts in action, or whether, in her more complicated works, we
may find ourselves in the impossibility of distinguishing the different springs which she
causes to act.
27
It is not more difficult for nature to produce a great poet, capable of
composing an admirable work, than to produce a glittering metal or a stone, which gravitates
towards a centre. The mode which she takes to produce these different beings, is equally
unknown to us, when we have not medicated upon it. Man is born by the necessary
concurrence of some elements; he increases and is strengthened in the same manner as a
plant or a stone, which is, as well as he, increased and augmented by those substances which
come and join themselves thereto: this man, feels, thinks, acts, and receives ideas, that is to
say, is, by his peculiar organization, susceptible of modifications, of which the plant and the
stone are totally incapable: in consequence, the man of genius produces works, and the plant
fruits, which please and surprise us, by reason of those sensations which they operate in us;
or on account of the rarity, the magnitude, and the variety of the effects which they occasion
us to experience. That which we find most admirable in the productions of nature, and in
those of animals or men, is never more than a natural effect of the parts of matter, diversely
arranged and combined; from whence result in them organs, brains, temperaments, tastes,
properties, and different talents.
Nature, then, makes nothing but what is necessary; it is not by fortuitous combinations, and
by chance throws, that she produces the beings we see; all her throws are sure, all the causes
which she employs have, infallibly, their effects. When she produces extraordinary,
marvellous and rare beings, it is, that, in the order of things, the necessary circumstances, or
the concurrence of the productive causes of these beings, happen but seldom. As soon as
these beings exist, they are to be ascribed to nature, to whom every thing is equally easy, and
to whom every thing is equally possible, when she assembles the instruments or the causes
necessary to act. Thus, let us never limit the powers of nature. The throws and the
combinations which she makes during eternity, can easily produce all beings; her eternal
course must necessarily bring and bring again the most astonishing circumstances, and the
most rare, for those beings who are only for a moment enabled to consider them, without
ever having either the time or the means of searching into the bottom of causes. Infinite
throws during eternity, with the elements, and combinations infinitely varied, suffice to
produce every thing of which we have a knowledge, and many other things which we shall
never know.
Thus, we cannot too often repeat to the Deicolists, or supporters of the being of a God, who
commonly ascribe to their adversaries ridiculous opinions, in order to obtain an easy and
transitory triumph in the prejudiced eyes of those who dare examine nothing deeply, that
chance is nothing
but a word, as well as the word God, imagined to cover the ignorance in
which men are of the causes acting in a nature whose course is frequently inexplicable. It is
not chance that has produced the universe, it is of itself that which it is; it exists necessarily
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 55
and from all eternity. However concealed may be the ways of nature, her existence is
indubitable; and her mode of acting is, at least, much more known to us than that of the
inconceivable being, which, it has been pretended, is associated with her; which has been
distinguished from her; which has been supposed necessary and self-existent, although,
hitherto, it has neither been possible to demonstrate his existence, to define him, to say any
thing reasonable of him, nor to form upon his account any thing more than conjectures,
which re- flection has destroyed as soon as they have been brought forth.
Chapter IV. Of Pantheism, or of the Natural Ideas of the Divinity.
We see, by that which has preceded, that all the proofs upon which theology pretends to
found the existence of its God, have their origin in the false principle that matter is not self-
existent, and is, by its nature, in an impossibility of moving itself; and, consequently, is
incapable of producing those phenomena which attract our wondering eyes in the wide
expanse of the universe. After these suppositions, so gratuitous and
so
false, as we have
already shown elsewhere,
28
it has been believed that matter did not always exist but that it
was indebted for its existence and for its motion to a cause distinguished from itself; to an
unknown agent, to whom it was subordinate. As men find in themselves a quality which they
call
intelligence,
which presides over all their actions, and by the aid of which they arrive at
the end they propose to themselves, they have attributed intelligence to this invisible agent;
but they have extended, magnified, and exaggerated this quality in him, because they have
made him the author of effects of which they believed themselves incapable, or which they
did not suppose natural causes had sufficient energy to produce.
As this agent could never be perceived, nor his mode of action conceived, he was made a
spirit,
a word which designates that we are ignorant what he is, or that he acts like the breath
of which we cannot trace the action. Thus, in assigning him
spirituality,
we did no more than
give to God an occult quality, which was judged suitable to a being always concealed, and
always acting in a mode imperceptible to the senses. It appears, however, that, originally, by
the word
spirit
it was meant to designate a matter more subtile than that which coarsely
struck the organs; capable of penetrating this matter, of communicating to it motion and life,
of producing in it those combinations and those modifications which our visual organs
discover. Such was. as we have seen, that Jupiter, who was originally designed to represent
in the theology of the ancients the ethereal matter which penetrates, gives activity, and
vivifies all the bodies of which nature is the assemblage.
Indeed it would be deceiving ourselves to believe that the idea of God’s spirituality, such
as we find it at the present day, presented itself in the early stages of the human mind. This
immateriality,
which excludes all analogy and all resemblance with any thing we are in a
capacity to have a knowledge of, was, as we have already observed, the slow and tardy fruit
of men’s imagination, who, obliged to meditate, without any assistance drawn from
experience, upon the concealed mover of nature, have, by degrees, arrived at forming this
ideal phantom; this being, so fugitive, that we have been made to adore it without being able
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 56
to designate its nature, otherwise than by a word to which it is impossible we should attach
any true idea.
29
Thus by dint of reasoning and subtilizing, the word God no longer presents
any one image; when they spoke of it, it was impossible to understand them, seeing that each
painted it in his own manner, and in the portrait which he made of it, consulted only his own
peculiar temperament, his own peculiar imagination, and his own peculiar reveries; if they
were in unison in some points, it was to assign him inconceivable qualities, which they
believed were suitable to the incomprehensible being to which they had given birth; and from
the incompatible heap of these qualities resulted only a whole, perfectly impossible to have
existence. In short, the master of the universe, the omnipotent mover of nature, that being
which is announced as of the most importance to be known, washy theological reveries,
reduced to be no more than a vague word destitute of sense; or, rather a vain sound, to which
each attaches his own peculiar ideas. Such is the God who has been substituted to matter, to
nature; such is the idol to which men are not permitted to refuse paying their homage.
There have been, however, men of sufficient courage to resist this torrent of opinion and
delirium. They believed that the object which was announced as the most important for
mortals, as the only centre of their actions and their thoughts, demanded an attentive
examination. They apprehended that if experience, judgment, or reason, could be of any
utility, it must be. without doubt, to consider the sublime monarch who governed nature, and
who regulated the destiny of all those beings which it contains. They quickly saw they could
not subscribe to the general opinion of the uninformed, who examine nothing; and much less
with their guides, who, deceivers or deceived, forbade others to examine it, or perhaps, were
themselves incapable of making such an examination. Thus, some thinkers had the temerity
to shake off the yoke which had been imposed upon them in their infancy; disgusted with the
obscure, contradictory, and nonsensical notions which they had been made, by habit, to
attach mechanically to the vague name of a God impossible to be defined; supported by
reason against the terrours with which this formidable chimera was environed; revolting at
the hideous paintings under which it was pretended to represent him, they had the intrepidity
to tear the veil of delusion and imposture; they considered, with a calm eye, this pretended
power, become the continual object of the hopes, the fears, the reveries, and the quarrels of
blind mortals. The spectre quickly disappeared before them; the tranquillity of their mind
permitted them to see every where, only a nature acting after invariable laws, of whom the
world is the theatre; of whom men, as well as all other beings, are the works and the
instruments, obliged to accomplish the eternal decrees of
necessity.
Whatever efforts we make to penetrate into the secrets of nature, we never find in them,
as we have many times repeated, more than matter, various in itself, and diversely modified
by the assistance of motion. Its whole, as well as all its parts, show us only necessary causes
and effects, which flow the one from the other, and of which, by the aid of experience, our
mind is more or less capable of discovering the connexion. In virtue of these specific
properties, all the beings we see gravitate attract and repel each other; are born and dissolved,
receive and communicate motion, qualities, modifications, which maintain them, for a time,
in a given existence, or which make them pass into a new mode of existence. It is to these
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 57
continual vicissitudes that are to be ascribed all the phenomena, great or small, ordinary or
extraordinary, known or unknown, simple or complicated, which we see operated in the
world. It is by these changes that we have a knowledge of nature; she is only mysterious to
those who consider her through the veil of prejudice, her course being always simple to those
who look at her without prepossession.
To attribute the effects our eyes witness to nature, to matter variously combined, to the
motion which is inherent in it, is to give them a general and known cause; to penetrate
deeper, is to plunge ourselves in imaginary regions, where we only find an abyss of
incertitudes and obscurities. Let us not seek, then, a moving principle out of nature of which
the essence always was to exist and to move itself; which cannot he conceived to be without
properties, consequently, without motion; of which all the parts are in action, reaction, and
continual efforts; where a single molecule cannot be found that is in absolute repose, and
which does not necessarily occupy the place as signed to it by necessary laws. What occasion
is there to seek out of matter a motive-power to give it play, since its motion flows
necessarily from its existence, its extent, its forms, its gravity, &c., and since nature in
inaction would no longer be nature?
If it be demanded how we can figure to ourselves, that matter, by its own peculiar energy,
can produce all the effects we witness? I shall reply, that if by matter it is obstinately
determined to understand nothing but a dead and inert mass, destitute of every property,
without action, and incapable of moving itself, we shall no longer have a single idea of
matter. As soon as it exists, it must have properties and qualities; as soon as it has properties,
without which it could not exist, it must act by virtue of those properties, since it is only by
its action that we can have a knowledge of its existence and its properties. It is evident, that
if by matter be understood that which it is not, or if its existence be denied, those phenomena
which strike our visual organs, cannot be attributed to it. But if by
nature
be understood that
which she truly is, a heap of existing matter, furnished with properties, we shall be obliged
to acknowledge that nature must move herself, and by her diversified motion be capable,
without foreign aid, of producing the effects which we behold; we shall find that nothing can
be made from nothing; that nothing is made by chance; that the mode of acting of every
particle of matter is necessarily determined by its own peculiar essence, or by its individual
properties.
We have elsewhere said, that that which cannot be annihilated or destroyed cannot have
commenced to have existence. That which cannot have had a beginning, exists necessarily,
or contains within itself the sufficient cause of its own peculiar existence. It is, then, useless
to seek out of nature or of a self-existent cause, which is known to us at least in some
respects, another cause whose existence is totally unknown. We know some general
properties in matter, we discover some of its qualities; wherefore seek for its existence in an
unintelligible cause, which we cannot know by any one property? Wherefore recur to the
inconceivable and chimerical operation which has been designated by the word
creation
?
30
Can we conceive that an immaterial being has been able to draw matter from his own
peculiar source? If creation is
an education from nothing
must we not conclude from it that
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 58
God, who has drawn it from his own peculiar source, has drawn it from nothing, and is
himself nothing?
Do those who are continually talking to us of this act of the divine
omnipotence, by which an infinite mass of matter has been, all at once, substituted to
nothing, well understand what they tell us? Is here a man on earth, who conceives that a
being devoid of extent, can exist, become the cause of the existence of beings, who have
extent; act upon matter, draw it from his own peculiar essence, and set it in motion? In truth,
the more we consider theology, and its ridiculous romances, the more we must be convinced
that it has done no more than invent words, devoid of sense, and substituted sounds to
intelligible realities.
For want of consulting experience, of studying nature and the material world, we have
thrown ourselves into an intellectual world, which we have peopled with chimeras. We have
not stooped to consider matter, nor to follow it through its different periods and changes. We
have either ridiculously or knavishly confounded dissolution, decomposition, the separation
of the elementary particles of which bodies are composed, with their radical destruction; we
have been unwilling to see that the elements were indestructible, although their forms were
fleeting and depended upon transitory combinations. We have not distinguished the change
of figure, of position, of texture, to which matter is liable from its annihilation, which is
totally impossible; we have falsely concluded that matter was not a necessary being, that it
had commenced to exist, that it owed its existence to an unknown being, more necessary than
itself; and this ideal being has become the creator, the motive-power, the preserver of the
whole of nature. Thus a rain name only has been substituted for matter, which furnishes us
with true ideas of nature, of which, at each moment we experience the action and the power,
and of which we should have a much better knowledge if our abstract opinions did not
continually place a bandage before our eyes.
Indeed, the most simple notions of philosophy show us, that although bodies change and
disappear, nothing is, however, lost in nature; the various produce of the decomposition of
a body serves for elements, for materials, and for basis to the formation, to the accretion, to
the maintenance of other bodies. The whole of nature subsists and is conserved only by the
circulation, the transmigration, the exchange, and the perpetual displacing of insensible
particles and atoms, or of the sensible combinations of matter. It is by this
palingenesia,
or
regeneration, that the great whole subsists, who, like the Saturn of the ancients, is perpetually
occupied with devouring his own children. But it may be said, in some respects, that the
metaphysical God, who has usurped his throne, has deprived him of the faculty of
procreating and of acting, ever since he has been put in his place.
Let us acknowledge then, that matter is self-existent, that it acts by its own peculiar energy,
and that it will never be annihilated. Let us say, that matter is eternal, and that nature has
been, is, and ever will be occupied with producing, with destroying, with doing, and undoing;
with following laws resulting from its necessary existence. For every thing that she does, she
needs only to combine elements and matter, essentially diverse, which attract and repel each
other, dash against each other or unite themselves, remove from or approximate each other,
hold themselves together or separate themselves. It is thus, that she brings forth plants,
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 59
animals, men; organized, sensible and thinking beings, as well as those destitute of feeling
and of thought. All these beings act only for the term of their respective duration, according
to invariable laws, determined by their properties, by their configuration, their masses, their
weight, &c. Here is the true origin of every thing which presents itself to our view, showing
the mode in which nature, by its own peculiar power, is in a state to produce all those effects,
of which our eyes witness, as well as all the bodies which act diversely upon the organs
which we are furnished, and of which, we judge only according to the manner in which these
organs are affected. We say they are good, when they are congenial to us, or contribute to
maintain harmony in ourselves; we say they are bad, when they disturb this harmony; and
we ascribe, in consequence, an aim, ideas, designs, to the being, whom we make the motive-
power of a nature which we see destitute of projects and intelligence.
Nature is effectually destitute of them; she has no intelligence or end; she acts necessarily,
because she exists necessarily. Her laws are immutable and founded upon the essence of
things. It is the essence of the seed of the male, composed of the primitive elements, which
serve for the basis of an organized being, to unite itself with that of the female, to fructify it,
to produce, by its combination with it, a new organized being, who, feeble in his origin, for
want of a sufficient quantity of particles of matter, suitable to give him consistence,
strengthens himself by degrees, by the daily and continual addition of particles, analogous
and appropriate to his being; thus he lives, he thinks, he is nourished, and he engenders, in
his turn, organized beings similar to himself. By a consequence of permanent and physical
laws, generation does not take place, except when the circumstances necessary to produce
it find themselves united. Thus, this procreation is not operated by chance; the animal does
not produce but with an animal of his own species, because this is the only one analogous
to himself, or who unites the qualities suitable to the producing a being similar to himself;
without this, he would not produce any thing, he would only produce a being, denominated
monstrous,
because it would be dissimilar to himself. It is of the essence of the grain of
plants, to be fructified by the seed of the stamina of the flower, to develop themselves in
consequence in the bowels of the earth, to grow with the assistance of water, to attract for
that purpose analogous particles, to form by degrees a plant, a shrub, a tree susceptible of the
life, the action, the motion, suitable to vegetables. It is of the essence of particles of earth,
attenuated, divided, elaborated by water and by heat, to unite themselves, in the bosom of
mountains, with those which are analogous to them, and to form by their aggregation,
according as they are more or less similar or analogous, bodies, more or less solid and pure,
which we denominate crystals, stones, metals, minerals. It is the essence of the exhalations,
raised by the heat of the atmosphere, to combine, to collect themselves, to dash against each
other, and, by their combination or their collision, to produce meteors and thunder. It is the
essence of some inflammable matter to collect itself, to ferment, to heat itself in the caverns
of the earth, to produce those terrible explosions and those earthquakes which destroy
mountains, plains, and the habitations of alarmed nations; these complain to an unknown
being, of the evils which nature makes them experience as necessarily as those benefits
which fill them with joy. In short, it is the essence of certain climates, to produce men so
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 60
organized and modified, that they become either extremely useful, or very prejudicial to their
species, in the same manner as it is the property of certain portions of soil to bring forth
agreeable fruits, or dangerous poisons.
In all this, nature has no end; she exists necessarily, her modes of acting are fixed by
certain laws, which flow themselves from the constituent properties of the various beings
which she contains, and those circumstances which the continual motion she is in must
necessarily bring about. It is ourselves who have a necessary aim, which is our own
conservation; it is by this that we regulate all the ideas we form to ourselves of the causes
which act upon us, and by which we judge of them. Animated and living ourselves, we. like
the savages, ascribe a soul and life to every thing that acts upon us: thinking and intelligent
ourselves, we ascribe to every thing intelligence and thought; but as we see matter incapable
of so modifying itself, we suppose it to be moved bv another agent or cause, which we
always make similar to ourselves. Necessarily attached by that which is advantageous to use,
and repelled by that which is prejudical, we cease to reflect that our modes of feeling are due
to our peculiar organization, modified by physical causes, which, in our ignorance we
mistake for instruments employed by a being to whom we ascribe our ideas, our views, our
passions, our mode of thinking and of acting.
If it be asked of us, after this, what is the end of nature?
we shall reply, that it
is
to act, to
exist, to conserve her whole. If it be asked of us, wherefore she exists? we shall reply, that
she exists necessarily, and that all her operations, her motions, and her works, are necessary
consequences of her necessary existence. There exists something that is necessary, this is
nature or the universe, and this nature acts necessarily as she does. If it be wished to
substitute the word
God
to that
of nature,
it may be demanded with equal reason, wherefore
this God exists, as well as it can be asked, what is the end of the existence of nature. Thus,
the word God will not instruct us as to the end of his existence. But in speaking of nature or
of the material universe, we shall have fixed and determinate ideas of the cause of which we
speak; whilst in speaking of a theological God, we shall never know what he can be, or
whether he exists, nor the qualities which we can with justice assign him. If we give him
attributes, it will always be ourselves who must conjecture them, and it will be for ourselves
alone that the universe will be formed: ideas which we have already sufficiently refuted. To
undeceive ourselves, it is sufficient to open our eyes, and see that we undergo, in our mode,
a destiny, of which we partake in common with all the beings of which nature is the
assemblage; like us, they are subjected to necessity, which is no more than the sum total of
those laws which nature is obliged to follow.
Thus every thing proves to us, that nature or matter exists necessarily, and cannot swerve
from those laws which its existence imposes on it. If it cannot be annihilated, it cannot have
commenced to be. The theologians themselves agree that it were necessary to have an act of
the divine omnipotence, or that which they call a miracle, to annihilate a being; but a
necessary being, cannot perform a miracle; he cannot derogate from the necessary laws of
his existence; we must conclude, then, that if God is the necessary being, every thing that he
does, is a consequence of the necessity of his existence, and that he can never derogate from
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 61
its laws. On the other hand, we are told, that the creation is a miracle, but this creation would
be impossible to a necessary being, who could not act freely in any one of his actions.
Besides, a miracle is to us only a rare effect, the natural cause of which we ignore; thus,
when we are told that
God works a miracle,
we are taught nothing, save that an unknown
cause has produced, in an unknown manner, an effect that we did not expect, or which
appears strange to us. This granted, the intervention of a God, far from removing the
ignorance in which we find ourselves respecting the power and the effects of nature, serves
only to augment it. The creation of matter, and the cause to whom is ascribed the honour of
this creation, are to us, things as incomprehensible, or as impossible, as is its annihilation.
Let us then conclude, that the word
God,
as well as the word
create,
not presenting to the
mind any true idea, ought to be banished the language of all those who are desirous to speak
so as to be understood. These are abstract words, invented by ignorance; they are only
calculated to satisfy men destitute of experience, too idle, or too timid to study nature and
its ways; to content those enthusiasts, whose curious imagination pleases itself with springing
beyond the visible world, to run after chimeras. In short, these words are useful to those only,
whose sole profession is to feed the ears of the uninformed with pompous words, which are
not understood by themselves, and upon the sense and meaning of which they are never in
harmony with each other.
Man is a material being; he cannot have any ideas whatever but of that which is material
like himself; that is to say, of that which can act upon his organs, or of that which, at least,
has qualities analogous to his own. In despite of himself, he always assigns material
properties to his God, which the impossibility of compassing has made him suppose to be
spiritual, and distinguished from nature or the material world. Indeed, either he must be
content not to understand himself, or he must have material ideas of a God who is supposed
to be the creator, the mover, the conserver of matter; the human mind may torture itself as
long as it will, it will never comprehend that material effects can emanate from an immaterial
cause, or that this cause can have any relation with material beings. Here is, as we have seen,
the reason why men believe themselves obliged to give to God those moral qualities, which
they have themselves; they forget that this being, who is purely spiritual, cannot, from
thence, have either their organization, or their ideas, or their modes of thinking and acting,
and that, consequently, he cannot possess that which they call intelligence, wisdom,
goodness, anger, justice, &c. Thus, in truth, the moral qualities which have been attributed
to the Divinity, suppose him material, and the most abstract theological notions are founded
upon a true and undeniable
anthropomorphism
.
31
The theologians, in despite of all their subtilties, cannot do otherwise; like all the beings
of the human species, they have a knowledge of matter alone, and have no real idea of a pure
spirit. When they speak of intelligence, of wisdom, and of design in the Divinity, they are
always those of men which they ascribe to him, and which they obstinately persist in giving
to a being, of whom the essence they ascribe to him, does not render him susceptible. How
shall we suppose a being, who has occasion for nothing, who is sufficient for himself, whose
projects must be executed as soon as they are formed, to have wills, passions, and desires?
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 62
How shall we attribute anger to a being who has neither blood nor bile? How an omnipotent
being, whose wisdom and the beautiful order which he has himself established in the
universe we admire, can permit that this beautiful order should be continually disturbed,
either by the elements in discord, or by the crimes of human creatures? In short, a God, such
as he has been depicted to us, cannot have any of the human qualities, which always depend
on our peculiar organization, on our wants, on our institutions, and which are always relative
to the society in which we live. The theologians vainly strive to aggrandize, to exaggerate
in idea, to carry to perfection, by dint of abstractions, the moral qualities which they assign
to their God; in vain they tell us that they are in him of a different nature from what they are
in his creatures; that they are
perfect, infinite, supreme, eminent;
in holding this language,
they no longer understand themselves; they have no one idea of the qualities of which they
are speaking to us, seeing that a man cannot conceive them but inasmuch as they bear an
analogy to the same qualities in himself.
It is thus, that by subtilizing, mortals have not one fixed idea of the God to whom they have
given birth. But little contented with a physical God, with an active nature, with matter
capable of producing every thing, they must despoil it of the energy which it possesses in
virtue of its essence, in order to invest it in a pure spirit, which they are obliged to remake
a material being, as soon as they are inclined to form an idea of it themselves, or make it
understood by others. In assembling the parts of man, which they do no more than enlarge
and spin out to infinity, they believe they form a God. It is upon the model of the human
soul, that they form the soul of nature, or the secret agent from which she receives impulse.
After having made man double, they make nature double, and they suppose that this nature
is vivified by an intelligence. In the impossibility of knowing this pretended agent, as well
as that which they have gratuitously distinguished from their own body, they have called it
spiritual, that is to say, of an unknown substance; from this, of which they have no ideas
whatever, they have concluded that the spiritual substance was much more noble than matter,
and that its prodigious subtility, which they have called
simplicity,
and which is only an
effect of their metaphysical abstractiosn, secured it from decomposition, from dissolution,
and from all the revolutions to which material bodies are evidently exposed.
It is thus, that men always prefer the marvellous to the simple; that which they do not
understand, to that which they can understand; they despise those objects which are familiar
to them, and estimate those alone which they are not capable of appreciating: from that of
which they have only had vague ideas, they have concluded that it contains something
important, supernatural, and divine. In short, they need mystery to move their imagination,
to exercise their mind, to feed their curiosity, which is never more in labour than when it is
occupied with enigmas impossible to be guessed at, and which they judge, from thence,
extremely worthy of their researches.
32
This, without doubt, is the reason why they look upon
matter, which they have under their eyes, which they see act and change its forms, as a
contemptible thing, as a contingent being, which does not exist necessarily and by itself. This
is the reason why they imagine a spirit, which they will never be able to conceive, and which,
for this reason, they declare to be superior to matter, existing necessarily by himself, anterior
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 63
to nature; its creator, its mover, its preserver, and its master. The human mind found food in
this mystical being; it was occupied by it unceasingly; the imagination embellished it in its
own manner; ignorance fed itself with the fables which had been recounted of it; habit
identified this phantom with the existence of man. it became necessary to him; man believed
he fell into a vacuum when it was tried to detach him from it, to lead him back to a nature
which he had long ago learnt to despise, or to consider only as an impotent mass of matter,
inert, dead, and without energy; or as a contemptible assemblage of combinations and of
forms subject to perish.
In distinguishing nature from its mover, men have fallen into the same absurdity as when
they have distinguished their soul from their body, life from the living being, the faculty of
thought from the thinking being. Deceived on their own peculiar nature, and upon the energy
of their organs, men have in like manner been deceived upon the organization of the
universe; they have distinguished nature from herself; the life of nature from living nature;
the action of this nature from acting nature. It was this soul of the world, this energy of
nature, this active principle which men personified, then separated by abstraction, sometimes
decorated with imaginary attributes, sometimes with qualities borrowed from their own
peculiar essences. Such were the aerial materials of which men availed themselves to
compose their God; their own soul was the model; deceived upon the nature of this, they
never had any true ideas of the Divinity, who was only a copy exaggerated or disfigured to
that degree, as to mistake the prototype upon which it had been originally formed.
If, because man has been distinguished from himself, it has been impossible ever to form
any true ideas of him, it is also for having distinguished nature from herself that nature and
her ways were always mistaken. Men have ceased to study nature, to recur by thought to her
pretended cause, to her concealed motive-power, to the sovereign which has been given her.
This motive-power has been made an inconceivable being, to whom every thing that takes
place in the universe has been attributed; his conduct has appeared mysterious and
marvellous because he was a continual contradiction; it has been, supposed that his wisdom
and his intelligence were the sources of order; that his goodness was the spring of every
benefit; that his rigid justice or his arbitrary power was the supernatural cause of the
confusion and the evils with which we are afflicted. In consequence, instead of applying
himself to nature, to discover the means of obtaining her favours, or of throwing aside his
misfortunes; in the room of consulting experience; in lieu of labouring usefully to his
happiness, man was only occupied with addressing himself to the fictitious cause which he
had gratuitously associated with nature; he rendered his homage to the sovereign which he
had given to this nature; he expected every thing from him and no longer relied either upon
himself or upon the assistance of a nature become impotent and contemptible in his eyes.
Nothing could be more prejudicial to the human species than this extravagant theory,
which, as we shall presently prove, has become the source of all his evils. Solely occupied
with the imaginary monarch which they had elevated to the throne of nature, mortals no
longer consulted any thing; they neglected experience, they despised themselves, they
mistook their own powers, they laboured not to their own well-being; they became slaves,
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 64
trembling under the caprices of an ideal tyrant, from whom they expected every good, or
from whom they feared those evils which afflicted them. — Their life was employed in
rendering servile homage to an idol, of whom they believed themselves eternally interested
in meriting the goodness, in disarming the justice, in calming the wrath; they were only
happy when consulting reason, taking experience for their guide, and making an abstraction
of their romantic ideas, they took courage, gave play to their industry, and applied
themselves to nature, who alone can furnish the means of satisfying their wants and their
desires, and of throwing aside or diminishing those evils which they are obliged to
experience.
Let us, then, reconduct bewildered mortals to the altar of nature; let us destroy those
chimeras which their ignorant and disordered imagination believed it was bound to elevate
to her throne. Let us say to them, that there is nothing either above or beyond nature; let us
teach them that nature is capable of producing, without any foreign aid, all those phenomena
which they admire, all the benefits which they desire, as well as all the evils which they
apprehend. Let us inform them that experience will conduct them to a knowledge of this
nature; that she takes a pleasure in unveiling herself to those who study her; that she
discovers her secrets to those who by their labour dare wrest them from her, and that she
always rewards elevation of soul, courage, and industry. Let us tell them, that reason alone
can render them happy; that that reason is nothing more than the science of nature applied
to the conduct of men in society; let us instruct them that those phantoms with which their
minds have been so long and so vainly occupied, can neither procure them the happiness
which they demand with loud cries, nor avert from their heads those inevitable evils to which
nature has subjected them, and which reason ought to teach them to support, when they
cannot avoid them by natural means. Let us teach them that every thing is necessary; that
their benefits and their sorrows are the effects of a nature, who in all her works follows laws
which nothing can make her revoke. In short, let us unceasingly repeat to them, that it is in
rendering their fellow-creatures happy, that they will themselves arrive at a felicity which
they will expect in vain from heaven, when the earth refuses it to them. Nature is the cause
of every thing; she is self-existent; she will always exist; she is her own cause; her motion
is a necessary consequence of her necessary existence; without motion, we could have no
conception of nature; under this collective name we designate the assemblage of matter
acting in virtue of its own peculiar energies. This granted, for what purpose should we
interpose a being more incomprehensible than herself to explain her modes of action,
marvellous, no doubt, to every one, but much more so to those who have not studied her?
Will men be more advanced or more instructed when they shall be told that a being which
they are not formed to comprehend, is the author of those visible effects, the natural causes
of which they cannot unravel? In short, will the unaccountable being which they call
God,
enable them to have a better knowledge of nature which is acting perpetually upon them?
33
Indeed, if we were desirous to attach some sense to the word
God,
of which mortals form
such false and such obscure ideas, we should find that it can designate only active nature, or
the sum total of the unknown powers which animate the universe, and which oblige beings
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 65
to act in virtue of their own peculiar energies, and, consequently, according to necessary and
immutable laws. But, in this case, the word
God
will only be synonymous to
destiny, fatality,
necessity;
it is however to this abstract idea, personified and deified, that they attribute
spirituality,
another abstract idea, of which we cannot form any conception. It is to this
abstraction that is assigned intelligence, wisdom, goodness, and justice, of which such a
being cannot be the subject. It is with this metaphysical idea, as it is pretended, that the
beings of the human species have direct relation. It is to this idea, personified, deified,
humanized, spiritualized, decorated with the most incompatible qualities, to which are
attributed will, passions, desires, &c. It is this personified idea which is made to speak in the
different revelations which are announced in every country as emanating from heaven!
Every thing proves to us, then, that it is not out of nature we ought to seek the Divinity.
When we shall be disposed to have an idea of him, let us say that nature is God; let us say
that nature contains every thing we can have a knowledge of, since it is the assemblage of
all the beings capable of acting upon us, and which can, consequently, be interesting to us.
Let us say, that it is this nature which does every thing; that that which she does not do, is
impossible to be done; that that which is said to exist out of her does not exist, and cannot
have existence; seeing that there can be nothing beyond the great whole. In short, let us say,
that those invisible powers, which the imagination has made the movers of the universe,
either are no more than the powers of acting nature, or are nothing.
If we have only an incomplete know- ledge of nature and her ways, if we have only
superficial and imperfect ideas of matter, why should we flatter ourselves with knowing or
having any certain ideas of a being much more fugitive and more difficult to compass in
thought than the elements, than the constituent principles of bodies, than their primitive
properties, than their modes of acting and existing? If we cannot recur to the first cause, let
us content ourselves with second causes, and those effects which experience shows us; let
us gather true and known facts; they will suffice to make us judge of that which we know
not; let us confine ourselves to the feeble glimmerings of truth with which our senses furnish
us, since we have no means whereby to acquire greater.
Do not let us take for real sciences those which have no other basis than our imagination;
they can only be visionary. Let us cling to nature which we see, which we feel, which acts
up- on us, of which, at least, we know the general laws. If we are ignorant of the secret
principles which she employs in her complicated works, we are at least certain that she acts
in a permanent, uniform, analogous and necessary manner. Let us then observe this nature;
let us never quit the routine which prescribes for us; if we do, we shall infallibly be punished
with numberless errours, which will darken our mind, estrange us from reason — the
necessary consequence of which will be countless sorrows, which we may otherwise avoid.
Let us not adore, let us not flatter after the manner of men, a nature who is deaf, and who acts
necessarily, and of which nothing can derange the course. Do not let us implore a whole
which can only maintain itself by the discord of elements, from whence the universal
harmony and the stability of the whole has its birth. Let us consider that we are sensible parts
of a whole destitute of feeling, in which all the forms and the combinations are destroyed
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 66
after they are born, and have subsisted for a lon»er or shorter time. Let us look upon nature
as an immense laboratory which contains every thing necessary for hei to act and to produce
all those works which are displayed to our sight. Let us acknowledge her power to be
inherent in her essence. Do not let us attribute her works to an imaginary cause which has
no other existence than in our brain. Let us rather forever banish from our mind a phantom
calculated to disturb it, and to prevent our pursuing the simple, natural, and certain means
which can conduct us to happiness. Let us, then, restore this nature, so long mistaken, to her
legitimate rights: let us listen to her voice, of which reason is the faithful interpreter; let us
silence that enthusiasm and imposture which, unfortunately, have drawn us aside from the
only worship suitable to intelligent beings.
Chapter V. Of Theism or Deism; of the System of Optimism; and
of Final Causes.
Very few men have he courage to examine the God which every one is in agreement to
acknowledge; there is scarcely any one who dares to doubt his existence although it has
never been proved: each receives in infancy, without any examination, the vague name of
God, which his fathers transmit him, which they consign to his brain with those obscure ideas
which they themselves have attached to it, and which every thing conspires to render habitual
in him: nevertheless, each modifies it in his own manner; indeed, as we have frequently
observed, the unsteady notions of an imaginary being cannot be the same in all the
individuals of the human species; each man has his mode of considering him: each man
makes to himself a God in particular, after his own peculiar temperament, his natural
dispositions, his imagination, more or less exalted, his individual circumstances, the
prejudices he has received, and the mode in which he is affected at different times. The
contented and healthy man does not see his God with the same eyes as the man who is
chagrined and sick; the man who has a heated blood, an ardent imagination, or is subject to
bile, does not see him under the same traits as he who enjoys a more peaceable soul, who has
a cooler imagination, who is of a more phlegmatic character. This is not all: even the same
man does not see him in the same manner in the different periods of his life; his God
undergoes all the variations of his own machine, all the revolutions of his own temperament,
those continual vicissitudes which his being experiences. The idea of the Divinity, whose
existence is looked upon as so demonstrable, this idea which is pretended to be innate or
infused in all men, this idea, of which we are assured that the whole of nature is earnest in
furnishing us with proofs, is perpetually fluctuating in the mind of each individual, and
varies, at each moment, in all the beings of the human species; there are not two who admit
precisely the same God, there is not a single one who, in different circumstances, does not
see him variously.
Do not, then, let us be surprised at the weakness of those proofs which are furnished of the
existence of a being which men will never see but within themselves. Do not let us be
astonished at seeing them so little in harmony with each other upon the various systems
which they set up relatively to him, upon the worship which they render to him; their
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 67
disputes on his account, the want of just inference in their opinions, the little consistency and
connexion in their systems, the contradictions in which they are un- ceasingly falling when
they would speak of him, the incertitude in which their mind finds itself every time it is
occupied with this being so arbitrary, ought not to appear strange to us; they must necessarily
dispute when they reason upon an object seen diversely under various circumstances, and
upon which there is not a single man that can be constantly in accord with himself.
All men are agreed upon those objects which they are enabled to submit to the test of
experience; we do not hear any disputes upon the principles of geometry; those truths which
are evident and demonstrated, never vary in our mind; we never doubt that the part is less
than the whole, that two and two make four, that benevolence is an amiable quality, that
equity is necessary to man in society. But we find nothing but disputes, but incertitude, but
variations, upon all those systems which have the Divinity for their object; we see no
harmony in the principles of theology; the existence of God, which is announced to us every
where as an evident and demonstrated truth, is only so for those who have not examined the
proofs upon which it is founded. These proofs frequently appear false or feeble to those
themselves who. otherwise, do not by any means doubt of his existence; the inductions or
the corollaries which are drawn from this pretended truth, said to be so clear, are not the
same in two nations or even in two individuals; the thinkers of all ages and of all countries
unceasingly quarrel amongst themselves upon religion, upon their theological hypothesis,
upon the fundamental truths which serve for the basis of them, upon the attributes and the
qualities of a God with whom they vainly occupy themselves, and the idea of whom varies
continually in their own brain.
These disputes and these perpetual variations ought at least to convince us, that the ideas
of the Divinity have neither the evidence nor the certitude which are attributed to them, and
that it may be permitted to doubt the reality of a being which men see so diversely, and upon
which they are never in ac- cord, and of which the image so often varies with themselves.
In despite of all the efforts and the subtilties of its most ardent defenders, the existence of a
God is not even probable, and if it should be, can all the probabilities of the world acquire
the force of a demonstration?
Is it not astonishing, that the existence of the being the most
important to believe and to know has not even probability in its favour, whilst truths much
less important, are clearly demonstrated to us?
Should it not be concluded from this that no
man is fully assured of the existence of a being which he sees so subject to vary within
himself, and which for two days in succession does not present itself under the same traits
to his mind? There is nothing short of evidence that can fully convince us. A truth is not
evident to us, but when constant experience and reiterated reflections always show it to us
under the same point of view. From the constant relation which is made by well-constituted
senses, results that evidence and that certitude which can alone produce full conviction. What
becomes, then, of the certitude of the existence of the Divinity? Can his discordant qualities
have existence in the same subject?
And has a being, who is nothing but a heap of
contradictions, probability in his favour? Can those who admit it, be convinced of it
themselves? And, in this case, ought they not to permit that we should doubt those pretended
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 68
truths, which they announce as demonstrated and as evident, whilst they themselves feel that
they are wavering in their own heads? The existence of this God and of the divine attributes
cannot be things demonstrated for any man on earth; his non-existence and the impossibility
of the incompatible qualities which theology assigns him will be evidently demonstrated to
whoever shall be disposed to feel that it is impossible the same subject can unite those
qualities which reciprocally destroy each other, and which all the efforts of the human mind
will never be able to conciliate.
34
However it may be with these qualities, whether irreconcilable, or totally
incomprehensible, which the theologians assign to a being already inconceivable by himself,
whom they make the author or the architect of the world, what can result to the human
species in supposing him to have intelligence and views? Can a universal intelligence whose
care ought to be extended to every thing that exists, have relations more direct and more
intimate with man, who only forms an insensible portion of the great whole? Is it, then to
make joyful the insects and the ants of his garden, that the Monarch of the universe has
constructed and embellished his habitation? Should we be better capacitated to have a
knowledge of his projects, to divine his plan, to measure his wisdom with our feeble eyes,
and could we better judge of his works from our own narrow views? The effects, good or
bad, favourable or prejudicial to ourselves, which we may imagine to emanate from his
omnipotence and from his providence, will they be less the necessary effects of his wisdom,
of his justice, of his eternal decrees? In this case, can we suppose that a God so wise, so just,
so intelligent, will change his plan for us? Overcome by our prayers and our servile homage,
will he, to please us, reform his immutable decrees? Will he take away from beings their
essences and their properties? Will he abrogate, by miracles, the eternal laws of a nature, in
which his wisdom and his goodness are admired? Will he cause that in our favour, fire shall
cease to burn when we shall approach it too nearly? Will he so order it, that fever, that the
gout shall cease to torment us when we shall have amassed those humours of which these
infirmities are the necessary consequence? Will he prevent an edifice that tumbles in ruins
from crushing us by its fall, when we shall pass beside it? Will our vain cries and the most
fervent supplications, prevent our country from being unhappy, it shall be devastated by an
ambitious conqueror, or governed by tyrants who oppress it?
If this infinite intelligence is always obliged to give a free course to those events which his
wisdom has prepared; if nothing happens in this world but after his impenetrable designs, we
have nothing to ask of him; we should be madmen to oppose ourselves to them; we should
offer an insult to his prudence if we were desirous to regulate them. Man must not flatter
himself with being wiser than his God, with being capable of engaging him to change his
will; with having the power to determine him to take other means than those which he has
chosen to accomplish his decrees; an intelligent God can only have taken those measures
which are the most just, and those means which are the most certain, to arrive at his end; if
he were capable of changing them, he neither could be called wise, immutable, nor
provident. If God did suspend, for an instant, those laws which he himself fixed, if he could
change any thing in his plan, it is because he could not have foreseen the motives of this
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 69
suspension, or of this change; if he had not made these motives enter into his plan, it is that
he had not foreseen them; if he has foreseen them, without making them enter into his plan,
it is that he has not been able. Thus, in whatever manner these things are contemplated, the
prayers which men address to the Divinity, and the different worships which they render him,
always suppose they believe they have to deal with a being whose wisdom and providence
are small, and capable of change, or who, in despite of his omnipotence, cannot do that
which he is willing, or that which would be expedient for men, for whom, nevertheless, it is
pretended that he has created the world.
It is, however, upon these notions, so badly directed, that are founded all the religions of
the earth. We every where see man on this kness before a wise God, of whom he strives to
regulate the conduct, to avert the decrees, to reform the plans; every where man is occupied
with gaining him to his interests, by meannesses and presents: in overcoming his justice by
dint of prayers, by practices, by ceremonies, and by expiations, which he believes will make
him change his resolutions; every where man supposes that he can offend his creator, and
disturb his eternal felicity; every where man is prostrate before an omnipotent God, who
finds himself in the impossibility of rendering his creatures such as they ought to be, to
accomplish his divine views, and fulfil his wisdom!
We see, then, that all the religions of the world are onlv founded upon those manifest
contradictions into which men will fall every lime they mistake nature, and attribute the good
or the evil which they experience at her hands, to an intelligent cause, distinguished from
herself, of which they will never be able to form to themselves any certain ideas. Man will
always be reduced, as we have so frequently repealed, to the necessity of making a man of
his God; but man is a changeable being, whose intelligence is limited, whose passions vary,
who, placed in diverse circumstances, appears to be frequently in contradiction with himself:
thus, although man believes he does honour to his God, in giving him his own peculiar
qualities, he does no more than lend him his inconstancy, his weakness, and his vices. The
theologians, or the fabricators of the divinity, may distinguish, subtilize, and exaggerate his
pretended perfections; render them as unintelligible as they please, it will ever be, that a
being who is irritated and is appeased by prayers, is not immutable; that a being who is
offended, is neither omnipotent nor perfectly happy; that a being who does not prevent the
evil he can restrain, consents to evil; that a being who gives liberty to sin, has resolved, in
his eternal decrees, that sin should be committed; that a being who punishes those faults
which he has permitted to be done, is sovereignly unjust and irrational; that an infinite being
who contains qualities infinitely contradictory, is an impossible being, and
is
only a chimera.
Let us then be no longer told, that the existence of God is at least a prob lem. A God, such
as the theologians depict him, is totally impossible; all the qualities which can be assigned
to him, all the perfections with which they shall embellish him, will still be found every
moment in contradiction. As for the abstract and negative qualities with which they may
invest him, they will always be unintelligible, and will only prove the inutility of the efforts
of the human mind, when it wishes to define beings which have no existence. As soon as
men believe themselves greatly interested in knowing a thing, they labour to form to
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, volume 2, 70
themselves an idea of it; if they find great obstacles, or even an impossibility of enlightening
their ignorance, then the small success that attends their researches, disposes them to
credulity; hence crafty knaves or enthusiasts profit of this credulity to make their inventions
or their reveries (which they deliver out as permanent truths, of which it is not permitted to
doubt) pass current. It is thus that ignorance, despair, idleness, the want of reflecting habits,
place the human species in a state of dependence on those who are charged with the care of
building up those systems upon those objects of which he has no one idea. As soon as there
is a question of the Divinity and of religion, that is to say, of objects of which it is impossible
to comprehend any thing, men reason in a very strange mode, or are the dupes of very
deceitful reasonings. As soon as men see themselves in a total impossibility of understanding
what is said, they imagine that those who speak to them are better acquainted with the things
of which they discourse than themselves; these do not fail to repeat to them that
the most
certain way is to agree with that which they tell them,
to allow themselves to be guided by
them, and to shut their eyes: they menace them with the anger of the irritated phantom, if
they refuse to believe what they tell them; and this argument, although it only supposes the
thing in question, closes the mouth of poor mortals, who, convinced by this victorious
reasoning, fear to perceive the palpable contradictions of the doctrines announced to them
— blindly agree with their guides, not doubting that they have much clearer ideas of those
marvellous objects with which they unceasingly entertain them, and on which their
profession obliges them to meditate. The uninformed believes his priests have more senses
than himself, he takes them for divine men, or demigods. He sees in that which he adores
only what the priests tell him, and from every thing which they sav of him, it results, to every
man who thinks, that God is only a being of the imagination, a phantom clothed with those
qualities which the priests have judged suitable to give him, to redouble the ignorance, the
incertitude, and the fear of mortals. It is thus the authority of the priests decide, without
appeal, on the thing, which is useful only to the priesthood.
When we shall be disposed to recur to the origin of things, we shall always find that it is
ignorance and fear which have created Gods; that it is imagination, enthusiasm, and
imposture, which have embellished or disfigured them; that it is weakness that adores them,
that it is credulity which nourishes them, that it is habit which respects them, that it is tyranny
who sustains them, to the end that tyrants may profit by the blindness of men.
We are unceasingly told of the advantages that result to men, from the belief of a God. We
shall presently examine if these advantages be as real as they are said to be; in the mean time,
let us ascertain whether the opinion of the existence of a God be an errour or a truth? If it is
an errour, it cannot be useful to the human species; if it is a truth, it ought to be susceptible
of proofs so clear as to be compassed by all men, to whom this truth is supposed to be
necessary and advantageous. On the other hand, the utility of an opinion does not render it
more certain on that account. This suffices to reply to Doctor Clarke, who asks,
if it is not
a thing very desirable, and which any wise man would wish to be true,for the great benefit
and happiness of men, that there were a God, an intelligent and wise, a just and good being,
to govern the world.
We shall say to him, first, that the supposed author of a nature in which
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, volume 2, 71
we are obliged to see, at each instant, confusion by the side of order, wickedness by the side
of goodness, folly by the side of wisdom, justice by the side of injustice, can no more be
qualified to be good, wise, intelligent, and just, than to be wicked, irrational, and perverse;
at least, as far as the two principles in nature are equal in power, of whch the one unceasingly
destroys the works of the other. We shall say. secondly, that the benefit which can result
from a supposition, neither renders it either more certain or more probable Indeed, where
should we be,
if, because a thing would be useful, we went so far as to conclude from it that
it really existed? We shall say, thirdly, that every thing which has been related until the
present moment, proves, that it is repugnant to all common notions, and impossible to be
believed, that there should be a being associated with nature. We shall further say, that it is
impossible to believe very sincerely the existence of a being of which we have not any real
idea, and to which we cannot attach any that does not instantly destroy it. Can we believe the
existence of a being of which we can affirm nothing, who is only a heap of negations of
every thing of which w
e
have a knowledge? In short, is it possible firmly to believe the
existence of a being upon which the human mind cannot fix any judgment which is not found
to be instantly contradicted?
But the happy enthusiast, when the soul is sensible of its enjoyments, and when the
softened imagination has occasion to paint to itself a seducing object to which it can render
thanks for its pretended kindness, will ask, “Wherefore deprive me of a God whom I see
under the character of a sovereign, filled with wisdom and goodness? What comfort do I not
find in figuring to myself a powerful, intelligent, and good monarch, of whom I am the
favourite, who occupies himself with my well-being, who unceasingly watches over my
safety, who administers to my wants, who consents that under him I command the whole of
nature?
I believe I behold him unceasingly diffusing his benefits on man; I see his providence
labouring for him without relaxation; he covers the earth with verdure, and loads the trees
with delicious fruits to gratify his palate; he fills the forest with animals suitable to nourish
him; he suspends over his head planets and stars, to enlighten him during the day, to guide
his uncertain steps during the night; he extends around him the azure firmament; to rejoice
his eyes, he decorates the meadows with flowers; he washes his jesidence with fountains,
with rivulets, and with rivers. Ah! suffer me to thank the author of so many benefits. Do not
deprive me of my charming phantom; I shall not find my illusions so sweet in a severe and
rigid necessity, in a blind and inanimate matter, in a nature destitute of intelligence and
feeling.”
“Wherefore,” the unfortunate will say, from whom his destiny has rigorously withheld
those benefits which have been lavished on so many others, “Wherefore ravish from me an
errour that is dear to me? Wherefore annihilate to me a God, whose consoling idea dries up
the source of my tears, and serves to calm my sorrows? — Wherefore deprive me of an
object, which I represent to myself as a compassionate and tender father, who reproves me
in this world, but into whose arms I throw myself with confidence, when the whole of nature
appears to have abandoned me? Supposing even that this God is no more than a chimera, the
unhappy have occasion for him, to guaranty them from a frightful despair: is it not inhuman
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, volume 2, 72
and cruel to be desirous to plunge them into a vacuum, by seeking to undeceive them? Is it
not a useful errour, preferable to those truths which deprive the mind of every consolation,
and which do not hold forth any relief from its sorrows?”
No! I shall reply to these enthusiasts, truth can never render you unhappy; it is this which
really consoles us; it is a concealed treasure, which, much superior to those phantoms
invented by fear, can cheer the heart and give it courage to support the burdens of life; it
elevates the mind, it renders it active, it furnishes it with means to resist the attacks of fate,
and to combat, with success, bad fortune. I shall then ask them upon what they found this
goodness, which they foolishly attribute to their God? But this God, I shall say to them, is
he then benevolent to all men? For one mortal who enjoys abundance and the favours of
fortune, are there not millions who languish in want and misery? Those who take for model
the order on which they suppose this God the author, are they then the most happy in this
world?
The goodness of this being, to some favourite individual, does it never contradict
itself? Even those consolations which the imagination seeks in his bosom, do they not
announce misfortunes brought on by his decrees, and of which he is the author? Is not the
earth covered with unfortunates, who appear to come upon it only to suffer, to groan, and to
die? Does this divine providence give itself up to sleep during those contagions, those
plagues, those wars, those disorders, those moral and physical revolutions, of which the
human race is continually victim? This earth, of which the fecundity is looked upon as a
benefit from heaven, is it not in a thousand places dry, barren, and inexorable? — Does it not
produce poisons, by the side of the most delicious fruits? — Those rivers and those seas,
which are believed to be made to water our abode, and to facilitate our commerce, do they
not frequently inundate our fields, overturn our dwellings, and carry away men and their
flocks?
35
In short, this God, who presides over the universe, and who watches unceasingly
for the preservation of his creatures, does he not almost always deliver them up to the chains
of many inhuman sovereigns, who make sport of the misery of their unhappy subjects, whilst
these unfortunates vainly address themselves to heaven, that their multiplied calamities may
cease, which are visibly due to an irrational administration and not to the wrath of Heaven?
The unhappy man, who seeks conolation in the arms of his God, ought at least to remember
that it is this same God, who being the master of all, disrihutes the good and the evil: if
nature is believed to be subjected to his supreme orders, this God is as frequently unjust,
filled with malice, with imprudence, with irrationality, as with goodness, wisdom, and
equity. If the devotee, less prejudiced and more consistent, would reason a little, he would
suspect that his God was a capricious God, who frequently made him suffer; he
would not
seek to console himself in the arms of his executioner, whom he has the folly to mistake for
a friend or for his father.
Do we not, indeed, see in nature a constant mixture of good and evil? To obstinately see
only the good, is as irrational as only to perceive the evil. We see the calm succeed to the
storm, sickness to health, and peace to war. The earth produces in every country plants
necessary to the nourishment of man, and plants suitable to his destruction. Each individual
of the human species is a necessary compound of good and bad qualities; all nations present
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 73
us with the variegated spectacle of vices and virtue; that which rejoices one individual,
plunges many others into mourning and sadness; there happens no event that has not
advantages for some, and disadvantages for others. Nature, considered in its whole, shows
us beings alternately subjected to pleasure and grief, born to die, and exposed to those
continual vicissitudes from which no one of them is exempt. The most superficial glance of
the eye will suffice, then to undeceive us as to the idea that man is the
final cause
of the
creation, the constant object of the labours of nature, or of its author, to whom they can
attribute, according to the visible state of things, and the continual revolutions of the human
race, neither goodness nor malice; neither justice nor injustice; neither intelligence nor
irrationality. In short, in considering nature without prejudice, we shall find that all beings
in the universe are equally favoured, and that every thing which exists, undergoes the
necessary laws from which no being can be exempted.
Thus, when there is a question concerning an agent we see act so variously as nature, or
as its pretended mover, it is impossible to assign him qualities according to his works, which
are sometimes advantageous and sometimes prejudicial to the human species; or at least,
each man will be obliged to judge of him after the peculiar mode in which he is himself
affected; there will be no fixed point or standard in the judgments which men shall form of
him; our mode of judging will always be founded upon our mode of seeing and of feeling,
and our mode of feeling will depend on our temperament, on our organization, on our
particular circumstances, which cannot be the same in all the individuals of our species.
These different modes of being affected, then, will always furnish the colours of the portraits
which men may paint to themselves of the Divinity; consequently these ideas cannot be
either fixed or certain; the inductions which they may draw from them, can never be either
constant or uniform; each will always judge after himself, and will never see any thing but
himself, or his own peculiar situation, in his God.
This granted, men who are contented, who have a sensible soul, a lively imagination, will
paint the Divinity under the most charming traits; they will believe they see in the whole of
nature, which will unceasingly cause them agreeable sensations, nothing but proofs of
benevolence and goodness; in their poetical ecstacy, they will imagine they perceive every
where the impression of a perfect intelligence, of an infinite wisdom, of a providence
tenderly occupied with the well-being of man; self-love joining itself to these exalted
qualities, will put the finishing hand to their persuasion that the universe is made solely for
the human race; they will strive, in imagination, to kiss with transport the hand from whom
they believe they receive so many benefits; touched with these favours, gratified with the
perfume of these roses, of which they do not see the thorns, or which their ecstatic delirium
prevents them from feeling, they will think they can never sufficiently acknowledge the
necessary effects, which they look upon as indubitable proofs of the divine predilection for
man. Inebriated with these prejudices, enthusiasts will not perceive those sorrows and that
confusion of which the universe is the theatre; or, if they cannot prevent themselves from
seeing them, they will be persuaded that, in the views of a benevolent providence, these
calamities are necessary to conduct man to a higher state of felicity; the reliance which they
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, volume 2, 74
have placed in the Divinity, upon whom they imagine they depend, induces them to believe
that man only suffers for his good, and that this being, who is fruitful in resources, will know
how to make him reap advantage from the evils he experiences in this world. Their mind,
thus pre-occupied, from thence sees nothing that does not excite their admiration, their
gratitude, and their confidence; even those effects which are the most natural and the most
necessary, appear to them to be miracles of benevolence and goodness; obstinately persisting
in seeing wisdom and intelligence every where, they shut their eyes to the disorders which
could contradict those amiable qualities they attribute to the being with whom their hearts
are engrossed; the most cruel calamities, the most afflicting events to the human race, cease
to appear to them disorders, and only furnish them with new proofs of the divine perfections:
they persuade themselves that what appears to them defective or imperfect, is only so in
appearance; and they admire the wisdom and the bounty of their God, even in those ef- fects
which are the most terrible, and the most suitable to discourage them. It is, without doubt,
to this stupid intoxication, to this strange infatuation, to which is to be ascribed the system
of
optimism,
by which enthusiasts, furnished with a romantic imagination, appear to have
renounced the evidence of their senses, and thus they find, that, even for man,
every thing
is good
in a nature where the good is found constantly accompanied with evil, and where
minds less prejudiced, and imaginations less poetical, would judge that every thing is only
that which it can be; that the good and the evil are equally necessary; that they emanate from
the nature of things, and not from a fictitious hand, which, if it really existed, or did every
thing that we see, could be called wicked with as much reason as he is inaptly said to be
filled with goodness. Besides, to be enabled to justify providence for the evils, the vices, and
the disorders which we see in the whole which is supposed to be the work of his hands, we
should know the aim of the whole. Now, the whole cannot have an aim, because, if it had an
aim, a tendency, an end, it would no longer be the whole.
We shall be told, that the disorders and the evils which we see in this world, are only
relative and apparent, and prove nothing against divine wisdom and goodness. But can it not
be replied, that the so much boasted benefits, and he marvellous order, upon which the
wisdom and goodness of God are founded, are, in a like manner, only relative and apparent?
It is uniformly our mode of feeling, and of coexisting with those causes by which we are
encompassed, which constitutes the order of nature with relation to ourselves, and which
authorizes us to ascribe wisdom or goodness to its author; ought not our modes of feeling and
of existing authorize us to call that disorder which injures us, and to ascribe imprudence or
malice to the being whom we shall suppose to put nature in motion? In short, that which we
see in the world conspires to prove that every thing is necessary; that nothing is done by
chance; that all the events, good or bad, whether for us, whether for beings of a different
order, are brought about by causes, acting after certain and determinate laws; and that
nothing can authorize us to ascribe any one of our human qualities either to nature, or to the
motive-power that has been given to her.
With respect to those who pretend that the supreme wisdom will know how to draw the
greatest benefits for us, even out of the bosom of those evils which he permits us to
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, volume 2, 75
experience in this world, we shall ask them if they are themselves the confidants of the
Divinity; or upon what they found their flattering hopes? They will tell us, without doubt,
that they judge ot the conduct of God by analogy; and that, by the actual proofs of his
wisdom and goodness, they have a just right to conclude in favour of his future bounty and
wisdom. We shall reply to them, that they admit, according to these gratuitous suppositions,
that the goodness and the wisdom of their God contradict themselves so frequently in this
world, that nothing can assure them that his conduct will ever cease to be the same with
respect to those men who experience here below sometimes his kindness and sometimes his
disfavour. If, in despite of his omnipotent goodness, God has not been either able or willing
to render his beloved creatures completely happy in this world, what reason is there to
believe that he either will be able or willing to do it in another?
Thus, this language only founds itself upon ruinous hypotheses which have for basis only
a prejudiced imagination; it only shows that men, once persuaded, without motives and
without cause, of the goodness of their God, cannot figure to themselves that he will consent
to render his creatures constantly unhappy. But on the other hand, what real and known good
do we see result to the human species from those sterilities, from those famines, from those
contagions, from those sanguinary combats, which cause so many millions of men to perish,
and which unceasingly depopulate and desolate the world which we inhabit? Is there any one
capable to ascertain the advantages which result from all those evils which besiege us on all
sides? Do we not see daily, beings consecrated to misfortune from the moment they quit the
womb of their mother, until that in which they descend into the silent grave, who, with great
difficulty, found time to respire, and lived the constant sport of affliction, of grief, and of
reverses of fortune? How, or when, will this God, so bountiful, draw good from the evils
which he causes mankind to suffer?
The most enthusiastic
optimists,
the
theists,
themselves, the partisans of
natural religion,
(which is any thing bui
natural
or founded upon reason,) are as well as the most credulous
and superstitious, obliged to recur to the system of another life, to exculpate the Divinity
from those evils which he decrees to be suffered in this by those themselves whom they
suppose to be most agreeable in his eyes. Thus, in setting forth the idea that God is good and
filled with equity, we cannot dispense with admitting a long series of hypotheses which, as
well as the existence of this God, have only imagination for a basis, and of which we have
already shown the futility. It is necessary to recur to the doctrine, so little probable, of a
future life, and of the immortality of the soul, to justify the Divinity; we are obliged to say,
that for want of having been able or willing to render man happy in this world, he will
procure him an unalterable happiness when he shall no longer exist, or when he shall no
longer have those organs by the aid of which he is enabled to enjoy it at present.
And after all, these marvellous hypotheses are insufficient tojustify the Divinity for his
wickedness or for his transitory injustice. If God has been unjust and cruel for an instant,
God has derogated, at least for that moment, from his divine perfections; then he is not
immutable; his goodness and justice are then subject to contradict themselves for a time; and,
in this case, who can guaranty that the qualities which we confide in, will not contradict
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 76
themselves even in a future life invented to exculpate God for those digressions which he
permits in this world? What is this but a God who is perpetually obliged to depart from his
principles, and who finds himself unable to render those whom he loves happy, without
unjustly doing them evil, at least during their abode here below? Thus, to justify the Divinity
it will be necessary to recur to other hypotheses; we must suppose that man can offend his
God, disturb the order of the universe, be injurious to the felicity of a being sovereignly
happy, and derange the designs of the omnipotent being. To reconcile many things, we must
recur to the system of the liberty of man.
36
At length, we shall find ourselves obliged to
admit, one after another, the most improbable, the most contradictory, and the most false
ideas, as soon as we admit that the universe is governed by an intelligence filled with
wisdom, with justice, and with goodness; this principle alone, if we are consistent, is
sufficient to lead us insensibly into the grossest absurdities.
This granted, all those who speak of the divine goodness, wisdom, and intelligence, which
are shown in the works of nature; who offer these same works as incontestable proofs of the
existence of a God, or of a perfect agent, are men prejudiced or blinded by their own
imagination, who see only a corner of the picture of the universe, without embracing the
whole. Intoxicated with the phantom which their mind has formed to itself, they resemble
those lovers who do not perceive any defect in the objects of their affection; they conceal,
dissimulate, and justify their vices and deformities, and frequently end with mistaking them
for perfections.
We see, then, that the proofs of the existence of a sovereign intelligence, drawn from the
order, from the beauty, from the harmony of the universe, are quite ideal, and have no reality
but for those who are organized and modified in a certain mode, or whose cheerful
imagination is constructed to give birth to agreeable” chimeras which they embellish
according to their fancy. These illusions, however, must be frequently dissipated even in
themselves whenever their machine becomes deranged; the spectacle of nature, which, under
certain circumstances, has appeared to them so delightful and so seducing, must then give
place to disorder and confusion. A man of a melancholy temperament, soured by misfortunes
or infirmities, cannot view nature and its author under the same perspective as the healthy
man of a sprightly humour, and contented with every thing. Deprived of happiness, the
peevish man can only find disorder, deformity, and subjects to afflict himself with; he only
contemplates the universe as the theatre of the malice or the vengeance of an angry tyrant;
he cannot sincerely love this malicious being, he hates him at the bottom of his heart, even
when rendering him the most servile homage: trembling, he adores a hateful monarch, of
whom the idea produces only sentiments of mistrust, of fear, of pusillanimity; in short, he
becomes superstitious, credulous, and very often cruel after the example of the master whom
he believes himself obliged to serve and to imitate.
In consequence of these ideas, which have their birth in an unhappy temperament and a
peevish humour, the superstitious are continually infected with terrours, with mistrusts, with
alarms. Nature cannot have charms for them; they do not participate in her cheerful scenes,
they only look upon this world, so marvellous and so good to the contented enthusiast, as a
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 77
valley of tears,
in which a vindictive and jealous God has placed them only to expiate crimes
committed either by themselves or their fathers; they consider themselves to be here the
victims and the sport of his despotism, to undergo continual trials, to the end that they may
arrive for ever at a new existence, in which they shall be happy or miserable, according to
the conduct which they shall have held towards the fantastical God who holds their destiny
in his hands.
These are the dismal ideas which have given birth to all the worships, to all the most
foolish and the most cruel superstitions, to all the irrational practices, all the absurd systems,
all the extravagant notions and opinions, all the doctrines, the ceremonies, the rites, in short,
to all the religions on the earth;
37
they have been, and always will be an eternal source of
alarm, of discord and of delirium, for those dreamers who are nourished with bile, or
intoxicated with divine fury, whose atrabilious humour disposes to wickedness, whose
wandering imagination disposes to fanaticism, whose ignorance prepares them for credulity,
and who blindly submit to their priests: these, for their own interests, avail themselves
frequently of their fierce and austere God to excite them to crimes, and to induce them to
ravish from others that repose of which they are themselves deprived.
It is, then, in the diversity of temperaments and passions that we must seek the difference
we find between. the God of the theist, the optimist, the happy enthusiast, and that of the
devotee, the superstitious, the zealot, whose intoxication so frequently renders him
unsociable and cruel. They are all equally irrational; they are the dupes of their imagination;
the one, in the transport of their love, see God only on the favourable side; the others never
see him but on the unfavourable side. Every time we set forth a false supposition, all the
reasonings we make on it are only a long series of errours; every time we renounce the
evidence of our senses, of experience, of nature, and of reason, it is impossible to calculate
the bounds at which the imagination will stop. It is true the ideas of the happy enthusiast will
be less dangerous to himself and to others, than those of the superstitious atrabilious man.
whose temperament shall render him both cowardly and cruel; nevertheless the Gods of the
one and the other are not the less chimerical; that of the first is the produce of agreeable
dreams, that of the second is the fruit of a peevish transport of the brain.
There will never be more than a step between theism and superstition. The smallest
revolution in the machine, a slight infirmity, an unforseen affliction, suffices to change the
course of the humours, to vitiate the temperament, to overturn the system of opinions of the
theist, or of the happy devotee; as soon as the portrait of his God is found disfigured, the
beautiful order of nature will be overthrown relatively to him, and melancholy will, by
degrees, plunge him into superstition, into pusillanimity, and into all those irregularities
which produce fanaticism and credulity.
The Divinity, existing but in the imagination of men, must necessarily take its complexion
from their character, he will have their passions; he will constantly follow the revolutions of
their machine, he will be lively or sad, favourable or prejudicial, friendly or inimical,
sociable or fierce, humane or cruel, according as he who carries him in his brain shall be
himself disposed. A mortal, plunged from a state of happiness into misery, from health into
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 78
sickness, from joy into affliction, cannot, in these vicissitudes, preserve the same God. What
is this but a God who depends at each instant upon the variations which natural causes make
the organs of man undergo? A strange God, indeed! of whom the floating idea depends on
the greater or less portion of heat and fluidity of our blood!
No doubt that a God constantly good, filled with wisdom, embellished with qualities
amiable and favourable to man, would be a more seductive chimera than the God of the
fanatic and of the superstitious; but he is not less for that reason a chimera, that will become
dangerous when the speculators, who shall be occupied with it, shall change their
circumstances or their temperament; these, looking upon him as the author of all things, will
see their God change, or will at least be obliged to consider him as a being full of
contradictious, upon which there is no depending with certainty; from thence incertitude and
fear will possess their mind; and this God, whom at first they fancied so charming, will
become a subject of terrour to them, likely to plunge them in the most gloomy superstition,
from which, at first sight, they appeared to be at an infinite distance.
Thus theism, or the pretended
natural religion,
cannot have certain principles, and those
who profess it are necessarily subject to vary in their opinions of the Divinity, and in their
conduct which flows from them. Their system, originally founded upon a wise and intelligent
God, whose goodness can never contradict itself, as soon as circumstances change, must
presently be converted into fanaticism, and into superstition. This system, successively
meditated by enthusiasts of different characters, must experience continual variations, and
very quickly depart from its pretended primitive simplicity. The greater part of those
philosophers have been disposed to substitute theism to superstition, but they have not felt
that theism was formed to corrupt itself and to degenerate. Indeed, striking examples prove
this fatal truth; theism is every where corrupted; it has by degrees formed those superstitions,
those extravagant and prejudicial sects, with which the human species is infected. As soon
as man consents to acknowledge invisible powers out of nature, upon which his restless mind
will never be able invariably to fix its ideas, and which his imagination alone will be capable
of painting to him; whenever he shall not dare to consult his reason relatively to these
imaginary powers, it must necessarily be, that this first false step leads him astray, and that
his conduct, as well as his opinions, becomes, in the long run, perfectly absurd.
38
We call
theists
or
deists,
among ourselves, those who, undeceived in a great number of
grosser errours will which the uninformed and superstitious are successively filled, simply
hold to the vague notion of the Divinity which they consider as an unknown agent, endued
with intelligence, wisdom, power, and goodness; in short full of infinite perfections.
According to them, this being is distinguished from nature; they found his existence upon the
order and the beauty which reigns in the universe. Prepossessed in favour of his benevolent
providence, they obstinately persist in not seeing the evils of which this universal agent must
be the reputed cause whenever he does not avail himself of his power to prevent them.
Infatuated by these ideas, of which we have shown the slender foundation, it is not surprising
there should be but little harmony in their systems, and in the consequences which they draw
from them. Indeed, some suppose, that this imaginary being, retired into the profundity of
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 79
his essence, after having brought matter out of nothing, abandoned it for ever to the motion
which he had once given to it. They have occasion for God only to give birth to nature; this
done, every thing that takes place in it is only a necessary consequence of the impulse which
was given to it in the origin of things; he was willing that the world should exist; but too
great to enter into the detail of its administration, he delivered all the events to second or
natural causes; he lives in a state of perfect indifference as to his creatures, who have no
relation whatever with him, and who can in no wise disturb his unalterable happiness. From
whence we see the least superstitious of the
deists
make of their God a being useless to men;
but they have occasion for a word to designate the first cause or the unknown power to
which, for want of being acquainted with the energy of nature, they believe they ought to
attribute its primitive formation, or, if they will, the arrangement of matter which is coeternal
with God.
Other
theists,
furnished with a more lively imagination, suppose more particular relations
between the universal agent and the human species; each of them, according to the fecundity
of his genius, extends or diminishes these relations, supposes duties from man towards his
Creator, believes that to please him, he must imitate his pretended goodness, and, like him,
do good to his creatures. Some imagine to themselves that this God, being just, reserves
rewards for those who do good, and chastisements for those who commit evil to their fellow-
creatures. From whence we see that these
humanize
their Divinity a little more than the
others, in making him like unto a sovereign, who punishes or recompenses his subjects,
according to their fidelity in fulfilling their duties, and the laws which he imposes on them:
they cannot, like the pure
deists,
content themselves with an immoveable and indifferent
God; they need one who approaches nearer to themselves; or who, at least, can serve them
to explain some of those enigmas which this world presents. As each of these speculators,
which we denominate
theists
to distinguish them from the first, makes a separate system of
religion for himself, they are in nowise in accord in their worship, nor in their opinions; there
are found between them shades frequently imperceptible, which, from simple
deism,
conducts some among them to superstition; in short, but little in harmony with themselves,
they do not know uponwhat to fix.
39
We must not be astonished; if the God of the
deist
is useless, that of the theist is necessarily
full of contradictions: both of them admit a being, who s nothing but a mere fiction. Do they
make him material? he returns from thence into nature. Do they make him spiritual? they
have no longer any real ideas of him. Do they give him moral attributes? they immediately
make a man of him. of whom they only extend the perfections, but of whom the qualities are
in contradiction every moment, as soon as they suppose him the author of all things. Thus,
whenever one of the human species experiences misfortunes, you will see him deny
providence, laugh at final causes, obliged to acknowledge either that God is impotent, or that
he acts in a mode contradictory to his goodness. Yet, those who suppose a just God, are they
not obliged to suppose duties and regulations, emanating from this being, whom they cannot
offend if they do not know his will? Thus the
theist,
one after another, to explain the conduct
of his God, finds himself in continual embarrassment, from which he knows not how to
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 80
withdraw himself; but, in admitting all the theological reveries, without even excepting those
absurd fables which were imagined to render an account of the strange economy of this
being, so good, so wise, so full of equity; it will be necessary, from supposition to
supposition, to recur to the sin of
Adam,
or to
the fall of the rebel angels.
or to the crime of
Prometheus,
and the box
of Pandora,
to find in what manner evil has crept into a world
subjected to a benevolent intelligence. It will be necessary to suppose the free agency of
man; it will be necessary to acknowledge, that the creature can offend his God, provoke his
anger, move his passions, and calm them afterwards by superstitious ceremonies and
expiations. If they suppose nature to be subject to a concealed agent, endued with occult
qualities, acting in a mysterious manner, wherefore should it not be supposed that
ceremonies, motions of the body, words, rites, temples, and statues can equally contain secret
virtues, suitable to reconcile them to the mysterious being whom they adore? Wherefore
should they not give faith to the concealed powers of magic, of theurgy, of enchantments,
of charms, and of talismans? Wherefore not believe in inspirations, in dreams, in visions, in
omens, and in soothsayers? Who knows if the motive power of the universe, to manifest
itself to men, has not been able to employ impenetrable ways, and has not had recourse to
metamorphoses, to incarnations, and to transubstantiations? Do not all these reveries flow
from the absurd notions which men have formed to themselves of the Divinity? All these
things, and the virtues which are attached to them, are they more incredible and less possible
than the ideas of
theism,
which suppose that an inconceivable, invisible, and immaterial God
has been able to create and can move matter; that a God destitute of organs, can have
intelligence, think like men, and have moral qualities; that a wise and intelligent God can
consent to disorder; that an immutable and just God can permit that innocence should be
oppressed for a time? When a God so contradictory, or so much opposed to the dictates of
good sense, is admitted, there is no longer any thing to make reason revolt at. As soon as
they suppose such a God, they can believe any thing; it is impossible to point out where they
ought to arrest the progress of their imagination. If they presume relations between man and
this incredible being, they must rear him altars, make him sacrifices, address him with
continual prayers, and offer him presents. If nothing can be conceived of this being, is it not
the most certain way to refer to his ministers, who by situation must have meditated upon
him, to make him known to others? In short, there is no revelation, no mystery, no practice
that it may not be necessary to admit upon the word of the priests, who, in each country, are
in the habit of teaching to men that which they ought to think of the Gods, and of suggesting
to them the means of pleasing them.
We see, then, that the
deists
or
theists,
have no real ground to separate themselves from the
superstitious, and that it is impossible to fix the line of demarcation, which separates them
from the most credulous men, or from those who reason the least upon religion. Indeed, it
is difficult to decide with precision the true dose of folly which may be permitted them. If
the deists refuse to follow the superstitious in every step their credulity leads them, they are
more inconsistent than these last, who, after having admitted upon hearsay, an absurd,
contradictory, and fantastical Divinity, also adopt upon report, the ridiculous and strange
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 81
means which are furnished them to render him favourable to them. The first set forth a false
supposition, of which they reject the necessary consequences; the others admit both the
principle and the conclusion.
40
The God, who exists only in imagination, demands an
imaginary worship; all theology is a mere fiction; there are no degrees in falsehood, no more
than in truth. If God exists, every thing which his ministers say of him must be believed; all
the reveries of superstition have in them nothing more incredible than the incompatible
Divinity, which serves for their foundation; these reveries themselves, are only corollaries
drawn with more or less subtlety, inductions which enthusiasts or dreamers have deduced
from his impenetrable essence, from his unintelligible nature, and from his contradictory
qualities. Wherefore then, stop on the road?
Is there, in any one religion in the world, a
miracle more impossible to be believed than that of the
creation,
or the eduction from
nothing? Is there a mystery more difficult to be comprehended than a God impossible to be
conceived, and whom, however, it is necessary to admit? Is there any thing more
contradictory, than an intelligent and omnipotent workman, who only produces to destroy?
Is there any thing of greater inutility than to associate with nature an agent, who cannot
explain any one of the phenomena of nature?
Let us conclude, then, that the man who is the most credulously superstitious reasons in a
manner more conclude, or, at least, more consistent than those, who, after having admitted
a God of whom they have no idea, stop all at once, and refuse to admit those systems of
conduct which are the immediate and necessary result of a radical and primitive errour. As
soon as they subscribe to a principle opposed to reason, by what right do they dispute its
consequences, however absurd they may find them?
The human mind, we cannot too often repeat for the happiness of men, may torment itself
as much as it will; whenever it quits visible nature, it leads itself astray, and is presently
obliged to return. If a man mistakes nature and her energy, he has occasion for a God to
move her: he will no longer have any ideas of her, and he is instantly obliged to form a God,
of whom he is himself the model; he believes he makes a God, in giving him his own
qualities, which he believes he renders more worthy the sovereign of the world, by
exaggerating them, whilst, by dint of abstractions, of negations, of exaggerations, he
annihilates them, or renders them totally unintelligible. When he does no longer understand
himself, and loses himself in his own fictions, he imagines he has made a God, whilst he has
only made an imaginary being. A God clothed with mortal qualities has always man for a
model; a God clothed with the attributes of theology, has a model no where, and does not
exist relatively to us: from the ridiculous and extravagant combination of two beings so
diverse, there can only result a pure chimera, with which our mind can have no relation, and
with which it is of the greatest inutility to occupy our selves.
Indeed, what could we expect from a God such as he is supposed to be? What could we ask
of him? If he is spiritual, how can he move matter, and arm it against us? If it be he who
establishes the laws of nature; if it be he who he who gives to beings their essence and their
properties; if every thing that takes place is a proof and the work of his infinite providence,
of his profound wisdom, to what end address prayers to him? Shall we pray to him to alter,
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 82
in our favour, the invariable course of things? Could he, even if he would, annihilate his
immutable decrees, or retrace his steps? Shall we demand, that, to please us, he shall make
the beings act in a mode opposite to the essence which he has given them? Can he prevent
that a body, hard by its nature, such as a stone, shall not wound, in falling, a brittle body,
such as the human frame, whose essence is to feel? Thus, let us not demand miracles of this
God, whatever he may be; in despite of the omnipotence which he is supposed to have, his
immutability would oppose itself to the exercise of his power; his goodness would oppose
itself to the exercise of his rigid justice; his intelligence would oppose itself to those changes
that he might be disposed to make in his plan. Whence we see, that theology itself, by dint
of discordant attributes, makes of its God an immoveable being, useless to man, to whom
miracles are totally impossible. We shall perhaps be told, that the infinite science of the
Creator of all things knows in the beings which he has formed resources concealed to
imbecile mortals; and that without changing any thing, either in the laws of nature or in the
essence of things, he is able to produce effects which surpass our feeble understanding,
without, however, these effects being contrary to the order which he has himself established.
I reply, that every thing which is conformable to the nature of beings, can neither be called
supernatural
nor
miraculous.
Many things are, without doubt, above our conception, but
every thing that takes place in the world, is natural, and can be much more simply attributed
to nature, than to an agent of whom we have no idea. In the second place, that by the word
miracle,
an effect is meant, of which, for want of knowing nature, she is believed to be
incapable. In the third place, that by
miracle,
the theologians of all countries pretend to
indicate, not an extraordinary operation of nature, but an effect directly opposite to her laws
of this nature; to which, however, we are assured that God has prescribed
his
laws.
41
On the
other hand, if God, in those of his works which surprise us, or which we do not comprehend,
does no more than give play to springs unknown to men, there is nothing in nature that, in
this sense, may not be looked upon as a miracle, seeing that the cause which makes a stone
fall, is as unknown to us, as that which makes our globe turn. In short, if God, when he
performs a miracle, only avails himself of the knowledge which he has of nature, to surprise
us, he simply acts like some men more cunning than others, or more instructed than the
uninformed, who astonish them with their tricks and their marvellous secrets, by taking
advantage of their ignorance, or of their incapacity. To explain the phenomena of nature by
miracles, is to say, that we are ignorant of the true causes of these phenomena: to attribute
them to a God, is to confess that we do not know the resources of nature, and that we need
a word to designate them; it is to believe in magic. To attribute to an intelligent, immutable,
provident, and wise being, those miracles by which he derogates from his laws, is to
annihilate in him these qualities.
42
An omnipotent God would not have occasion for miracles
to govern the world, nor to convince his creatures, whose minds and hearts would be in his
own hands. All the miracles announced by all the religions of the world, as proofs of the
interest which the Most High takes in them, prove nothing but the inconstancy of this being,
and the impossibility in which he finds himself to persuade men of that which he would
inculcate.
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 83
In short, and as a last resource, it will be demanded, whether it would not be better to
depend on a good, wise, intelligent being, than on a blind nature, in which we do not find any
quality that is consoling to us, or on a fatal necessity always inexorable to our cries? I reply,
first, that our interest does not decide the reality of things, and that if even it should be more
advantageous to us to have to do with a being as favourable as God is pointed out to us, this
would not prove the existence of this being. Secondly, that this being, so good and so wise,
is, on the other hand, represented to us as an irrational tyrant, and that it would be more
advantageous for man to depend on a blind nature, than on a being whose good qualities are
contradicted every instant by the same theology which has invented them. Thirdly, that
nature, duly studied, furnishes us with every thing necessary to render us as happy as our
essence admits. When, by the assistance of experience, we shall consult nature, or cultivate
our reason, she will discover to us our duties, that is to say, the indispensable means to which
her eternal and necessary laws have attached our preservation, our own happiness, and that
of society. It is in nature that we shall find wherewith to satisfy our physical wants; it is in
nature we shall find those duties defined, without which we cannot live happy in our sphere.
Out of nature, we only find prejudicial chimeras which render us doubtful as to what we owe
to ourselves and to the other beings with whom we are associated.
Nature is not, then, a stepmother to us; we do not depend upon an inexorable destiny. Let
us rely on nature alone; she will procure us a multitude of benefits, when we shall pay her
the attention she deserves: she will furnish us wherewithal to alleviate our physical and moral
evils, when we shall be disposed to consult her: she does not punish us or show us rigour,
except when we despise her to prostitute our incense to the idols which our imagination has
elevated to the throne that belongs to her. It is by incertitude, discord, blindness, and
delirium, that she visibly chastises all those who put a monster-God in the place which she
ought to occupy.
In supposing, even for an instant, this nature to be inert, inanimate, blind, or, if they will,
in making chance the God of the universe, would it not be better to depend absolutely upon
nothing than upon a God necessary to be known, and of whom we cannot form any one idea,
or if we shall form one, to whom we are obliged to attach notions the most contradictory, the
most disagreeable, the most revolting, and most prejudicial to the repose of human beings?
Were it not better to depend on destiny or on fatality, than on an intelligence so irrational as
to punish his creatures for the little intelligence and understanding which he has been pleased
to give them?
Were it not better to throw ourselves into the arms of a blind nature, destitute
of wisdom and of views, than to tremble all our We under the scourge of an omnipotent
intelligence, who has combined his sublime plans in such a manner that feeble mortals
should have the liberty of counteracting and destroying them, and thus becoming the constant
victims of his implacable wrath.
43
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 84
Chapter VI. Examination of the Advantages which result to men
from their Notions on the Divinity, or of their Influence upon Morals,
upon Politics, upon the Sciences, upon the Happiness of Nations
and Individuals.
We have hitherto seen the slender foundation of those ideas which men form to themselves
of the Divinity; the little solidity there is in the proofs by which they suppose his existence:
the want of harmony in the opinions they have formed of this being, equally impossible to
be known to the inhabitants of the earth: we have shown the incompatibility of those
attributes which theology assigns to him: we have proved that this being, whose name alone
has the power of inspiring fear, is nothing but the shapeless fruit of ignorance, of an alarmed
imagination, of enthusiasm, of melancholy: we have shown that the notions which men have
formed of him. only date their origin from the prejudices of their infan cy, transmitted by
education, strengthened by habit, nourished by fear, maintained and perpetuated by authority.
In short, every thing must have convinced us, that the idea of God, so generally diffused over
the earth, is no more than a universal errour of the human species. It remains now to examine
if this errour be useful.
No errour can be advantageous to the human species; it is ever founded upon his ignorance,
or the blindness of his mind. The more importance men shall attach to their prejudices, the
more is the fatal consequences of their errours. Thus, Bacon had great reason for saying that
the worst of all things, is deified errour.
Indeed, the inconveniences which result from our
religious errours have been, and always will be, the most terrible and the most extensive. The
more we respect these errours, the more play they give to our passions, the more they disturb
our mind, the more irrational they render us, the greater influence they have on the whole
conduct of our lives. There is but little likelihood that he who renounces his reason in the
thing which he considers as the most essential to his happiness, will listen to it on any other
occasion.
If we reflect a little, we shall find the most convincing proof of this sad truth; we shall see
in those fatal notions which men have cherished of the Divinity, the true source of those
prejudices and of those sorrows of every kind to which they are the victims. Nevertheless,
as we have elsewhere said, utility ought to be the only rule and the uniform standard of those
judgments which are formed on the opinions, the institutions, the systems, and the actions
of intelligent beings; it is according to the happiness which these things procure for us, that
we ought to attach to them our esteem; whenever they are useless, we ought to despise them;
as soon as they become pernicious, we ought to reject them: and reason prescribes that we
should detest them in proportion to the magnitude of the evils they cause.
From these principles, founded on our nature, and which will appear incontestable to every
reasonable being, let us coolly examine the effects which the notions of the Divinity have
produced on the earth. We have already shown, in more than one part of this work, that
morals, which have only for object that man should preserve himself and live in society, had
nothing in common with those imaginary systems which he can form to himself upon a
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 85
power distinguished from nature; we have proved, that it sufficed to meditate on the essence
of a sensible, intelligent, and rational being, to find motives to moderate his passions, to
resist his vicious propensities, to make him fly criminal habits, to render himself useful and
dear to those beings for whom he has a continual occasion. These motives are, without doubt,
more true, more real, more powerful, than those which it is believed ought to be borrowed
from an imaginary being, calculated to be seen diversely by all those who shall meditate
upon him. We have demonstrated, that education, in making us, at an early period, contract
good habits, favourable dispositions, strengthened by the laws, by a respect for public
opinion, by ideas of decency, by the desire of meriting the esteem of others, by the fear of
losing our own esteem, would be sufficient to accustom us to a laudable conduct, and to
divert us even from those secret crimes for which we are obliged to punish ourselves by fear,
shame, and remorse. Experience proves that the success of a first secret crime disposes us
to commil a second, and this a third; that the first action is the commencement of a habit; that
there is much less distance from the first crime to the hundredth than from innocence to
criminality; that a man who permits himself to commit a series of bad actions, in the
assurance of impunity, deceives himself, seeing that he is always obliged to punish himself,
and that, moreover, he cannot know where he shall stop. ‘We have shown, that those
punishments which, for its own preservation, society has the right to inflict on all those who
disturb it, are, for those men who are insensible to the charms of virtue or the advantages
which result from the practice of it, more real, more efficacious, and more immediate
obstacles, than the pretended wrath or the distant punishments of an invisible power, of
whom the idea is effaced every time that impunity in this world is believed to be certain. In
short, it is easy to feel that politics, founded upon the nature of man and of society, armed
with equitable laws, vigilant with regard to the morals of men, faithful in rewarding virtue
and punishing crime, would be more suitable to render morality respectable and sacred than
the chimerical authority of that God who is adored by all the world, and who never restrains
any but those who are already sufficiently restrained by a moderate temperament, and by
virtuous principles.
On the other hand, we have proved that nothing was more absurd and more dangerous than
attributing human qualities to the Divinity, which, in fact, are found in continual
contradiction with themselves; a goodness, a wisdom, and an equity, which we see every
instant counterbalanced or denied by wickedness, by confusion, by an unjust despotism,
which all the theologians of the world have at all times attributed to this same Divinity. It is
then very easy to conclude from it that God, who is shown to us under such different aspects,
cannot be the model of man’s conduct, and that his moral character cannot serve for an
example to beings living together in society, who are only reputed virtuous when their
conduct does not deviate from that benevolence and justice which they owe to their fellow-
creatures. A God superiour to every thing, who owes nothing to his subjects, who has
occasion for no one, cannot be the model of creatures who are full of wants, and
consequently must have duties.
Plato has said, that
virtue consisted in resembling God.
But where shall we find this God
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 86
whom man ought to resemble? Is it in nature? Alas! he who is supposed to be the mover of
it, diffuses indifferently over the human race great evils and great benefits; he is frequently
unjust to the purest souls; he accords the greatest favours to the most perverse mortals; and
if, as we are assured, he must show himself one day more equitable, we shall be obliged to
wait for that time to regulate our conduct upon his own.
Shall it be in the revealed religions, that we shall draw up our ideas of virtue? Alas! do they
not all appear to be in accord in announcing a despotic, jealous, vindictive, and selfish God,
who knows no law, who follows his caprice in every thing, who loves or who hates, who
chooses or reproves, according to his whim; who acts irrationally, who delights in carnage,
rapine, and crime; who plays with his feeble subjects, who overloads them with puerile laws,
who lays continual snares for them, who rigorously prohibits them from consulting their
reason?
What would become of morality, if men proposed to themselves such Gods for
models.
It is, however, some Divinity of this temper which all nations adore. Thus, we see it is in
consequence of these principles, that religion, in all country far from being favourable to
morality, shakes it and annihilates it. It divides men in the room of uniting them; in the place
of loving each other, and lending mutual succours one to the other, they dispute with each
other, they despise each other, they hate each other, they persecute each other, and they
frequently cut each others’ throats for opinions equally irrational: the slightest difference in
their religious notions, renders them from that moment enemies, separates their interests, and
sets them into continual quarrels. For theological conjectures, nations become opposed to
other nations; the sovereign arms himself against his subjects; citizens wage war against their
fellow-citizens; fathers detest their children, these plunge the sword into the bosom of their
parents; husbands and wives are disunited; relations forget each other; all the social bonds
are broken; society rends itself in pieces by its own hands, whilst, in the midst of this horrid
confusion, each pretends that he conforms to the views of the God whom he serves, and does
not reproach himself with any one of those crimes which he commits in the support of his
cause.
We again find the same spirit of whim and madness in the rites, the ceremonies, and the
practices, which all the worships in the world appear to have placed so much above the social
or natural virtues. Here mothers deliver up their children to feed their God; there subjects
assemble themselves in, the ceremony of consoling their God for those pretended outrages
which they have committed against him, by immolating to him human victims. In another
country, to appease the wrath of his God. a frantic madman tears himself and condemns
himself for life to rigorous tortures. The Jehovah of the Jews is a suspicious tyrant, who
breathes nothing but blood, murder, and carnage, and who demands that they should nourish
him with the vapours of animals. The Jupiter of the Pagans is a lascivious monster. The
Moloch of the Phoenicians is a cannibal; the pure mind of the Christians resolved, in order
to appease his fury, to crucify his own son; the savage God of the Mexicans cannot be
satisfied without thousands of mortals which are immolated to his sanguinary appetite.
Such are the models which the Divinity presents to men in all the superstitions of the
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 87
world. Is it then surprising that his name has become the signal of terrour, madness, cruelty,
and inhumanity for all nations, and serves as a continual pretext for the most shameful and
impudent violation of the duties of morality?
It is the frightful character that men every
where give of their God, that banishes goodness for ever from their hearts, morality from
their conduct, felicity and reason from their habitations; it is every where a God who is
disturbed by the mode in which unhappy mortals think, that arms them with poniards one
against the other, that makes them stifle the cries of nature, that renders them barbarous to
themselves and atrocious to their fellow creatures; in short, they become irrational and
furious every time that they wish to imitate the God whom they adore, to merit his love, and
to serve him with zeal.
It is not, then, in heaven that we ought to seek either for models of virtue, or the rules of
conduct necessary to live in society. Man needs human morality, founded upon his own
nature, upon invariable experience, upon reason: the morality of the Gods will always be
prejudicial to the earth; cruel Gods cannot be well served but by subjects who resemble them.
What becomes, then, of those great advantages which have been imagined resulted from the
notions which are unceasingly given us of the Divinity? We see that all nations acknowledge
a God who is sovereignly wicked; and to conform themselves to his views
;
they trample
under feet the most evident duties of humanity; they appear to act as if it were only by crimes
and madness that they hoped to draw down upon themselves the favours of the sovereign
intelligence, of whose goodness they boast so much. As soon as there is a question of
religion, that is to say, of a chimera, whose obscurity has made them place him above either
reason or virtue, men make it a duty with themselves to give loose to all their passions; they
mistake the clearest precepts of morality, as soon as their priests give them to understand that
the Divinity commands them to commit crimes, or that it is by transgressions that they will
be able to obtain pardon for their faults.
Indeed, it is not in those revered men, diffused over the whole earth, to announce to men
the oracles of Heaven, that we shall find real virtues. Those enlightened men, who call
themselves the ministers of the Most High, frequently preach nothing but hatred, discord, and
fury, in his name: the Divinity, far from having a useful influence over their own morals,
commonly does no more than render them more ambitious, more covetous, more hardened,
more obstinate, and more proud We see them unceasingly occupied in giving birth to
animosities, by their unintelligible quarrels. We see them wrestling against the sovereign
authority, which they pretend is subject to their’s. We see them arm the chiefs of a nation
against their legitimate magistrates. We see them distribute to the credulous people weapons
to massacre each other with in those futile disputes, which the sacerdotal vanity makes to
pass for matters of importance. Those men, so persuaded of the existence of a God, and who
menace the people with his eternal vengeance, do they avail themselves of these marvellous
notions to moderate their pride, their cupidity, their vindictive and turbulent humour? In
those countries, where their empire is established in the most solid manner, and where they
enjoy impunity, are they the enemies of that debauchery, that intemperance, and those
excesses, which a severe God interdicts to his adorers? On the contrary, do we not see them
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 88
from thence emboldened in crime, intrepid in iniquity, giving a free scope to their
irregularities, to their vengeance, to their hatred, and suspicious cruelties? In short, it may
be advanced without fear, that those who, in every part of the earth, announce a terrible God,
and make men tremble under his yoke; that those men, who unceasingly meditate upon him,
and who undertake to prove his existence to others, who decorate him with pompous
attributes, who declare themselves his interpreters, who make all the duties of morality to
depend upon him, are those whom this God contributes the least to render virtuous, humane,
indulgent, and sociable. In considering their conduct, we should be tempted to believe that
they are perfectly undeceived with respect to the idol whom they serve, and that no one is
less the dupe of those menaces which they pronounce in his name, than themselves. In the
hands of the priests of all countries, the Divinity resembles the head of
Medusa,
which)
without injuring him who showed it, petrified all the others. The priests are generally the
most crafty of men, the best among them are truly wicked.
Does the idea of an avenging and remunerating God impose more upon those princes, on
those Gods of the earth who found their power and the titles of their grandeur upon the
Divinity himself; who avail themselves of his terrific name to intimidate, and make those
people hold them in reverence who are so frequently rendered unhappy by their caprice?
Alas! the theological and supernatural ideas, adopted by the pride of sovereigns, have done
no more than corrupt politics and have changed them into tyranny. The ministers of the Most
High, always tyrants themselves, or the cherishers of tyrants, are they not unceasingly crying
to monarchs, that they are the images of the Deity?
Do they not tell the credulous people, that
Heaven wills that they should groan under the most cruel and the most multifarious injustice;
that to suffer is their inheritance; that their princes, like the Supreme Being, have the
indubitable right to dispose of the goods, the persons, the liberty, and the lives of their
subjects? Do not those chiefs of nations, thus poisoned in the name of the Divinity, imagine
that every thing is permitted them? Competitors, representatives, and rivals of the celestial
power, do they not exercise, after his example, the most arbitrary despotism? Do they not
think, in the intoxication in to which sacerdotal flattery has plunged them, that, like God,
they are not accountable to men for their actions, that they owe nothing to the rest of mortals,
that they are bound by no bonds to their miserable subjects?
Then it is evident, that it is to theological notions, and to the loose flattery of the ministers
of the Divinity, that are to be ascribed the despotism, the tyranny, the corruption, and the
licentiousness of princes, and the blindness of the people, to whom, in the name of Heaven,
they interdict the love of liberty, to labour to their own happiness, to oppose themselves to
violence, to exercise their natural rights. These intoxicated princes, even in adoring an
avenging God, and in obliging others to adore him, never cease a moment to outrage him by
their irregularities and their crimes. Indeed, what morality is this, but that of men who offer
themselves as living images and representatives of the Divinity? Are they, then, atheists,
those monarchs who, habitually unjust, wrest, without remorse, the bread from the hands of
a famished people, to administer to the luxury of their insatiable courtiers, and the vile
instruments of their iniquities? Are they atheists, those ambitious conquerors, who, but little
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 89
contented with oppressing their own subjects,carry desolation, misfortune, and death, among
the subjects of others? What do we see in those potentates, who reign by
divine right
over
nations, except ambitious mortals, whom nothing can arrest, with hearts perfectly insensible
to the sorrows of the human species? souls without energy, and without virtue, who neglect
the most evident duties, with which they do not even deign to become acquainted? powerful
men, who insolently place themselves above the rules of natural equity?
44
knaves who make
sport of honesty? In the alliances which those deified sovereigns form between themselves,
do we find even the shadow of sincerity? In those princes, when even they are subjected, in
the most abject manner, to superstition, do we meet with the smallest real virtue? We only
see in them robbers, too haughty to be humane, too great to be just, who make for themselves
alone a code of perfidies, violence, and treason; we only see in them wicked beings, ready
to overreach, surprise, and injure each other; we only find in them furies, always at war, for
the most futile interests, empoverishing their people, and wresting from each other the
bloody remnants of nations; it might be said, that they dispute who shall make the reatest
number of miserable beings on the earth! At length, wearied with their own fury, or forced
by the hand of necessity to make peace, they attest the most insidious treaties in the name of
God, ready to violate their most solemn oaths, as soon as the smallest interest shall require
it.
45
This is the manner in which the idea of God imposes on those who call themselves his
images, who pretend they have no account to render but to him alone! Amongst these
representatives of the Divinity, it is with difficulty we find, during thousands of years, one
who has equity, sensibility, or the most ordinary talents and virtues. The people, brutalized
by superstition, suffer infants who are made giddy with flattery, to govern them with an iron
sceptre; these madmen, transformed into Gods, are the masters of the law; they decide for
society, whose tongue is tied; they have the power to create both the just and the unjust; they
exempt themselves from those rules which their caprice imposes on others; they neither
know relations nor duties; they have never learned to fear, to blush, or to feel remorse: their
licentiousness has no limits, because it is assured of remaining unpunished; in consequence,
they disdain public opinion, decency, and the judgments of men whom they are enabled to
overwhelm by the weight of their enormous power. We see them commonly given up to vice
and debauchery, because the listlessness and the disgust which follow the surfeit of satiated
passions, oblige them to recur to strange pleasures and costly follies, to awaken activity in
their benumbed souls. In short, accustomed only to fear God, they always conduct
themselves as if they had nothing to fear.
History, in all countries, shows us only a multitude of vicious and mischievous potentates;
nevertheless, it shows us but few who have been atheists. The annals of nations, on the
contrary, offer to our view a great number of superstitious princes, who passed their lives
plunged in luxury and effeminacy, strangers to every virtue, uniformly good to their hungry
courtiers, and insensible of the sorrows of their subjects; governed by mistresses and
unworthy favourites; leagued with priests against the public happiness; in short, persecutors,
who, to please their God, or expiate their shameful irregularities, joined to all their other
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 90
crimes, that, of tyrannising over the thought, and of murdering citizens for their opinions.
Superstition in princes is allied with the most horrid crimes; almost all of them have religion,
very few of them have a knowledge of true morality, or practise any useful virtue. Religious
notions only serve to render them more blind and more wicked; they believe themselves
assured of the favour of Heaven; they think that their Gods are appeased, if, for a little, they
show themselves attached to futile customs, and to the ridiculous duties which superstition
imposes on them. Nero, the cruel Nero, his hands yet stained with the blood of his own
mother, was desirous to be initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis. The odious Constantine
found, in the Christian priests, accomplices disposed to expiate his crimes. That infamous
Philip, whose cruel ambition caused him to be called the
Demon of the South,
whilst he
assassinated his wife and his son, piously caused the throats of the Batavians to be cut for
religious opinions. It is thus that superstitious blindness persuades sovereigns that they can
expiate crimes by crimes of still greater magnitude.
Let us conclude, then, from the conduct of so many princes, so very religious, but so little
imbued with virtue, that the notions of the Divinity, far from being useful to them, only
served to corrupt them, and to render them more wicked than nature had made them. Let us
conclude, that the idea of an avenging God can never impose restraint on a deified tyrant,
sufficiently powerful or sufficiently insensible not to fear the reproaches or the hatred of
men; sufficiently hardened not to have compassion for the sorrow of the human species, from
whom they believe themselves distinguished: neither heaven nor earth has any remedy for
a being perverted to this degree; there is no curb capable of restraining his passions to which
religion itself continually gives loose, and whom it renders more rash and inconsiderate.
Every time that they flatter themselves with easily expiating their crimes, they deliver
themselves up with greater facility to crime. The most dissolute men are frequently extremely
attached to religion; it furnishes them with means of compensating by forms that of which
they are deficient in morals: it is much easier to believe or to adopt doctrines, and to conform
themselves to ceremonies, than to renounce their habits or to resist their passions.
Under chiefs, depraved even by religion, nations continued necessarily to be corrupted. The
great conformed themselves to the vices of their masters; the example of these distinguished
men, whom the uninformed believe to be happy, was followed by the people; courts became
sinks, whence issued continually the contagion of vice. The law, capricious and arbitrary,
alone delineated honesty; jurisprudence was iniquitous and partial; justice had her bandage
over her eyes only to the poor; the true ideas of equity were effaced from all minds;
education, neglected, served only to produce ignorant and irrational beings; devotees, always
ready to injure themselves; religion, sustained by tyranny, took place of every thing; it
rendered those people blind and tractable whom the government proposed to despoil.
46
Thus nations, destitute of a rational administration of equitable laws, of useful instruction,
of a reasonable education, and always continued by the monarch and the priest in ignorance
and in chains, have become religious and corrupted. The nature of man, the true interests of
society, the real advantage of the sovereign and of the people once mistaken, the morality
of nature, founded upon the essence of man living in society, was equally unknown. It was
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 91
forgotten that man has wants, that society was only formed to facilitate the means of
satisfying them, that government ought to have for object the happiness and maintenance of
this society; that it ought, consequently, to make use of motives suitable to have a favourable
influence over sensible beings. It was not seen that re- compenses and punishments form the
powerful springs of which public authority could efficaciously avail itself to determine the
citizens to blend their interests, and to labour to their own felicity, by labouring to that of the
body of which they are members. The social virtues were unknown; the love of country
became a chimera; men associated, had only an interest in injuring each other, and had no
other care than that of meriting the favour of the sovereign, who believed himself interested
in injuring the whole.
This is the mode in which the human heart has become perverted; here is the true source
of moral evil, and of that hereditary, epidemical, and inveterate depravity, which we see
reign over the whole earth. It is for the purpose of remedying so many evils, that recourse has
been had to religion, which has itself produced them; it has been imagined that the menaces
of Heaven would restrain those passions which every thing conspired to rouse in all hearts;
men foolishly persuaded themselves that an ideal and metaphysical barrier, that terrible
fables, that distant phantoms, would suffice to restrain their natural desires and impetuous
propensities; they believed that invisible powers would be more efficacious than all the
visible powers, which evidently invite mortals to commit evil. They believed they had gained
every thing in occupying their minds with dark and gloomy chimeras, with vague terrours,
and with an avenging Divinity; and politics foolishly persuaded itself that it was for its own
interests the people should blindly submit to the ministers of the Divinity.
What resulted from this?
Nations had only a sacerdotal and theological morality,
accommodated to the views and to the variable interests of priests, who substituted opinions
and reveries to truth, customs to virtue, a pious blindness to reason, fanaticism to sociability.
By a necessary consequence of that confidence which the people gave to ministers of the
Divinity, two distinct authorities were established in each state, who were continually at
variance and at war with each other; the priest fought the sovereign with the formidable
weapon of opinion; it generally proved sufficiently powerful to shake thrones.
47
The
sovereign was never at rest, but when abjectly devoted to his priests, and tractably received
their lessons, and lent his assistance to their phrensy. These priests, always restless,
ambitious, and intolerant, excited the sovereign to ravage his own states, they encouraged
him to tyranny, they reconciled him with Heaven when he feared to have outraged it. Thus,
when two rival powers united themselves, morality gained nothing by the junction; the
people were neither more happy, nor more virtuous; their morals, their wellbeing, their
liberty were overwhelmed by the united forces of the God of heaven, and the God of the
earth. Princes, always interested in the maintenance of theological opinions, so flattering to
their vanity, and so favourable to their usurped power, for the most part made a common
cause with their priests; they believed that that religious system which they themselves
adopted must be the most convenient and useful to the interests of their subjects; and,
consequently, those who refused to adopt it, were treated by them as enemies. The most
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 92
religious sovereign became, either politically, or through piety, the executioner of one part
of his subjects: he believed it to be a sacred duty to tyrannise over thought, to overwhelm and
to crush the enemies of his priests, whom he always believed to be the enemies of his own
authority. In cutting their throats, he imagined he did that which at once discharged his duty
to Heaven, and what he owed to his own security. He did not perceive, that by immolating
victims to his priests, he strengthened the enemies of his power, the rivals of his greatness,
the least subjected of his subjects.
Indeed, owing to the false notions with which the minds of sovereigns and the superstitious
people have been so long prepossessed, we find that every thing in society concurs to gratify
the pride, the avidity, and the vengeance of the sacerdotal order. Every where we see that the
most restless, the most dangerous, and the most useless men, are those who are recompensed
the most amply. We see those who are born enemies to the sovereign power, honoured and
cherished by it; the most rebellious subjects looked upon as the pillars of the throne, the
corrupters of youth rendered the exclusive masters of education; the least laborious of the
citizens, richly paid for their idleness, for their futile speculations, for their fatal discord, for
their inefficacious prayers, for their expiations, so dangerous to morals, and so suitable to
encourage crime.
For thousands of years, nations and sovereigns have been emulously despoiling themselves
to enrich the ministers of the Gods, to enable them to wallow in abundance, loading them
with honours, decorating them with titles, privileges, and immunities, thus making them bad
citizens. What fruits did the people and kings gather from their imprudent kindness, and from
their prodigality? Have princes become more powerful; have nations become more happy,
more flourishing, and more rational? No! without doubt; the sovereign lost the greater
portion of his authority; he was the slave of his priests, or he was obliged to be continually
wrestling against them; and the greater part of the riches of society was employed to support
in idleness, luxury, and splendour, the most useless and the most dangerous of its members.
Did the morals of the people improve under these guides who were so liberally paid? Alas!
the superstitious never knew them; religion had taken place of every thing else in them; its
ministers, satisfied with maintaining the doctrines and the customs useful to their own
interests, only invented fictitious crimes, multiplied painful or ridiculous customs, to the end
that they might turn even the transgressions of their slaves to their own profit. Every where
they exercised a monopoly of expiations; they made a traffic of the pretended pardons from
above, they established a book of rates for crimes; the most serious were always those which
the sacerdotal order judged the most injurious to his views.
Impiety, heresy, sacrilege,
blasphemy,
&c., vague words, and devoid of sense, which have evidently no other object
than chimeras, interesting only the priests, alarmed their minds much more than real crimes,
and truly interesting to society. Thus, the ideas of the people were totally overturned;
imaginary crimes frightened them much more than real crimes. A man whose opinions and
abstract systems did not harmonize with those of the priests, was much more abhorred than
an assassin, than a tyrant, than an oppressor, than a robber, than a seducer, or than a
corrupter. The greatest of all wickedness, was the despising of that which the priests were
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 93
desirous should be looked upon as sacred.
48
The civil laws concurred also to this confusion
of ideas; they punished in the most atrocious manner those unknown crimes which the
imagination had exaggerated; heretics, blasphemers, and infidels, were burnt; no punishment
was decreed against the corrupters of inno- cence, adulterers, knaves, and calumniators.
Under such instructors, what could become of youth? It was shamefully sacrificed to
superstition. Man from his infancy was poisoned by them with unintelligible notions; they
fed him with mysteries and fables; they drenched him with a doctrine in which he was
obliged to acquiesce, without being awe to comprehend it; they disturbed his mind with vain
phantoms; they cramped his genius with sacred trifles, with puerile duties, and with
mechanical devotions.
49
They made him lose his most precious time in customs and
ceremonies: they filled his head with sophisms and with errours; they intoxicated him with
fanaticism; they prepossessed him for ever against reason and truth; the energy of his mind
was placed under continual shackles; he could never soar, he could never render himself
useful to his associates; the importance which they attached to the divine science, or rather
the systematic ignorance which served for the basis of religion, rendered it impossible for the
most fertile soil to produce any thing but thorns.
Does a religious and sacerdotal education form citizens, fathers of families, husbands, just
masters, faithful servants, humble subjects, pacific associates? No! it either makes peevish
and morose devotees, incommodious to themselves and to others, or men without principles,
who quickly sink in oblivion the terrours with which they have been imbued, and who never
knew the laws of morality. Religion was placed above every thing; the fanatic was told,
that
it were better to obey God than man;
in consequence, he believed that he must revolt against
his prince, detach himself from his wife, detest his child, estrange himself from his friend,
cut the throats of his fellow-citizens, every time that they questioned the interests of Heaven.
In short, religious education, when it had its effect, only served to corrupt juvenile hearts, to
fascinate youthful minds, to degrade young minds, to make man mistake that which he owed
to himself, to society, and to the beings which surrounded him.
What advantages might not nations have reaped, if they would have employed, on useful
objects, those riches which ignorance has so shamefully lavished on the ministers of
imposture! What progress might not genius have made, if it had enjoyed those recompenses,
granted during so many ages, to those who are at all times opposed to its elevation! To what
a degree might not the useful sciences, the arts, morality, politics, and truth, have been
perfected, if they had had the same succours as falsehood, delirium, enthusiasm, and
inutility!
It is, then, evident, that the theological notions were and will be perpetually contrary to
sound politics and to sound morality; they change sovereigns into mischievous, restless, and
jealous Divinities; they make of subjects envious and wicked slaves, who, by the assistance
of some futile ceremonies, or by their exterior acquiescence to some unintelligible opinions,
imagine themselves amply compensated for the evil which they commit against each other.
Those who have never dared to examine into the existence of a God, who rewards and
punishes; those who persuade themselves that their duties are founded upon the divine will;
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 94
those who pretend that this God desires that men should live in peace, cherishing each other,
lending each mutual assistance, and abstaining from evil, and that they should do good to
each other, presently lost sight of these steril speculations, as soon as present interests,
passions, habits, or importunate whims, hurry them away. Where shall we find the equity,
the union, the peace and concord, which these sublime notions, supported by superstition and
divine authority, promise to those societies under whose eyes they are unceasingly placing
them? Under the influence of corrupt courts and priests, who are either impostors or fanatics,
who are never in harmony with each other, I only see vicious men, degraded by ignorance,
enslaved by criminal habits, swayed by transient interests, or by shameful pleasures, who do
not even think of their God. In despite of his theological ideas, the courtier continues to
weave his dark plots: he labours to gratify his ambition, his avidity,his hatred, his vengeance,
and all those passions inherent to the perversity of his being: maugre that hell, of which the
idea alone makes her tremble, the corrupt woman persists in her intrigues, her impostures,
and her adulteries. The greater part of men, dissipated, dissolute, and without morals, who
fill cities and courts, would recoil with horrour, if the smallest doubt was exhibited to them
of the existence of that God whom they outrage. What good results from the practice of this
opinion so universal and so barren, which never has any other kind of influence on the
conduct, than to serve as a pretext to the most dangerous passions? On, quitting that temple,
in which they have been sacrificing, delivering out the divine oracles, and terrifying crime
in the name of Heaven, does not the religious despot, who would scruple to omit the
pretended duties which superstition imposes on him, return to his vices, his injustice, his
political crimes, his transgressions against society? Does not the minister return to his
vexations, the courtier to his intrigues, the woman of gallantry to her prostitution, the
publican to his extortions, the merchant to his frauds and tricks?
Will it be pretended that those assassins, those robbers, those unfortunates, whom the
injustice or the negligence of government multiply, and from whom laws, frequently cruel,
barbarously wrest their life; will they pretend, I say, that these malefactors, who every day
fill our gibbets and our scaffolds, are incredulous or atheists?
No! unquestionably these
miserable beings, these outcasts of society, believe in God; his name has been repeated to
them in their infancy; they have been told of the punishments destined for crimes; they have
been habituated in early life to tremble at his judgments; nevertheless they have outraged
society; their passions, stronger than their fears, not having been capable of restraint by the
visible motives, have not for much stronger reasons been restrained by invisible motives; a
concealed God, and his distant punishments, never will be able to hinder those excesses,
which present and assured torments are incapable of preventing.
In short, do we not, every moment, see men persuaded that their God views them, hears
them, encompasses them, and yet who do not stop on that account when they have the desire
of gratifying their passions, and of committing the most dishonest actions? The same man
who would fear the inspection of an- other man, whose presence would prevent him from
committing a bad action, delivering himself up to some scandalous vice, permits himself to
do everything, when he believes he is seen only by his God. What purpose, then, does the
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 95
conviction of the existence of this God of his omniscience, of his ubiquity or his presence
in all parts, answer since it imposes much less on the conduct of man, than the idea of being
seen by the least of his fellow-men? He who would not dare to commit a fault even in the
presence of an infant, will make no scruple of boldly committing it, when he shall have only
his God for witness. These indubitable facts may serve for a reply to those who shall tell us,
that the fear of God is more suitable to restrain the actions of men, than the idea of having
nothing to fear from him. When men believe they have only their God to fear, they
commonly stop at nothing.
Those persons, who do not suspect the most trivial of religious notions, and of their
efficacy, very rarely employ them when they are disposed to influence the conduct of those
who are subordinate to them, and to reconduct them into the paths of reason. In the advice
which a father gives to his vicious or criminal son, he rather represents to him the present and
temporal inconveniences to which his conduct exposes him, than the danger he encounters
in offending an avenging God: he makes him foresee the natural consequences of his
irregularities, his health deranged by his debaucheries, the loss of his reputation, the ruin of
his fortune by play, the punishments of society, &c. Thus the deicolist himself, in the most
important occasions of life, reckons much more upon the force of natural motives, than upon
the supernatural motives furnished by religion: the same man who vilifies the motives which
an atheist can have to do good, and abstain from evil, makes use of them on this occasion,
because he feels the full force of them.
Almost all men believe in an avenging and remunerating God; nevertheless, in all
countries, we find that the number of the wicked exceed by much that of honest men. If we
trace the true cause of so general a corruption, we shall find it in the theological notions
themselves and not in those imaginary sources which the different religions of the world have
invented, in order to account for human depravity. Men are corrupt, because they are almost
every where badly governed; they are unworthily governed, because religion has deified the
sovereigns; these perverted, and assured of impunity, have necessarily rendered their people
miserable and wicked. Submitted to irrational masters, the people have never been guided
by reason. Blinded by priests, who are impostors, their reason became useless; tyrants and
priests have combined their efforts with success, to prevent nations from becoming
enlightened, from seeking after truth, from meliorating their condition, from rendering their
morals more honest, and from obtaining liberty.
It is only by enlightening men, by demonstrating truth to them, that we can promise
ourselves to render them better and happier. It is by making known to sovereigns and to
subjects their true relations, and their true interests, that politics will be perfected, and that
it will be felt that the art of governing mortals is not the art of blinding them, of deceiving
them, or of tyrannising over them. Let us, then, consult reason; let us call in experience to
our aid; let us interrogate nature, and we shall find what is necessary to be done in order to
labour efficaciously to the happiness of the human species. We shall see that errour is the
true source of the evils of our species; that it is in cheering our hearts, in dissipating those
vain phantoms, of which the idea makes us tremble, in laying the axe to the root of
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 96
superstition, that we can peaceably seek after truth, and find in nature the torch that can guide
us to felicity. Let us, then, study nature; let us observe its immutable laws; let us search into
the essence of man; let us cure him of his prejudices, and by these means we shall conduct
him, by an easy and gentle declivity, to virtue, without which he will feel that he cannot be
permanently happy in the world which he inhabits.
Let us, then, undeceive mortals with regard to those Gods who every where make nothing
but unfortunates. Let us substitute visible nature to those unknown powers who have in all
times only been worshipped by trembling slaves, or by delirious enthusiasts. Let us tell them
that, in order to be happy, they must cease to fear.
The ideas of the Divinity, which, as we have seen, are of such inutility, and so contrary to
sound morality, do not procure more striking advantages to individuals than to society. In
every country, the Divinity was, as we have seen, represented under the most revolting traits,
and the superstitious man, when consistent in his principles, was always an unhappy being;
superstition is a domestic enemy which man always carries within himself. Those who shall
seriously occupy themselves with this formidable phantom, will live in continual agonies and
inquietude; they will neglect those objects which are the most worthy of their attention to run
after chimeras; they will commonly pass their melancholy days in groaning, in praying, in
sacrificing, and in expiating the faults, real or imaginary, which they believe likely to offend
their rigid God. Frequently in their fury, they will torment themselves, they will make a duty
of inflicting upon themselves the most barbarous punishments to prevent the blows of a God
ready to strike; they will arm themselves against themselves, in the hopes of disarming the
vengeance and the cruelty of an atrocious master, whom they think they have irritated; they
will believe they appease an angry God in becoming the executioners of themselves, and
doing themselves all the harm their imagination shall be capable of inventing, society reaps
no benefit from the mournful notions of these pious irrationals; their mind finds itself
continually absorbed
by
their sad reveries, and their time is dissipated in irrational
ceremonies. The most religious men are commonly misanthropists, extremely useless to the
world, and injurious to themselves. If they show energy, it is only to imagine means to afflict
themselves, to put themselves to torture, to deprive themselves of those objects which their
nature desires. We find, in all the countries of the earth,
penitents
intimately persuaded that
by dint of barbarities exercised upon themselves, and lingering suicide, they shall merit the
favour of a ferocious God, of whom, however, they every where publish the goodnes. We
see madmen of this species in all parts of the world; the idea of a terrible God has in all times
and in all places, given birth to the most cruel extravagances!
If these irrational devotees only injure themselves, and deprive society of that assistance
which they owe it, they without doubt, do less harm than those turbulent and zealous fanatics
who filled with their religious ideas, believe themselves obliged to disturb the world, and to
commit actual crimes to sustain the cause of their celestial phantom. It very frequently
happens, that in outraging morality, the fanatic supposes he renders himself agreeable to his
God. He makes perfection consist either in tormenting himself, or breaking, in favour of his
fantastical notions, the most sacred ties which nature has made for mortals.
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 97
Let us, then, acknowledge, that the ideas of the Divinity are not more suitable to procure
the well-being, the content, and peace of individuals than of the society of which they are
members. If some peaceable, honest, inconclusive enthusiasts find consolation and comfort
in their religious ideas, there are millions who, more conclusive to their principles, are
unhappy during their whole life, perpetually assailed by the melancholy ideas of a fatal God
their disordered imagination shows them every instant. Under such a formidable God, a
tranquil and peaceable devotee is a man who has not reasoned upon him.
In short, every thing proves that religious ideas have the strongest influence over men to
torment, divide, and render them unhappy; they inflame the mind, envenom the passions,
without ever restraining them, except when the temperament proves too feeble to propel them
forward.
Chapter VII. Theological Notions cannot be the Basis of Morality.
Comparison between Theological Morality and Natural Morality.
Theology Prejudicial to the Progress of the Human Mind.
A supposition to be useful to men ought to render them happy. What right have we to
flatter ourselves that an hypothesis which here makes only unhappy beings, may one day
conduct us to permanent felicity? If God has only made mortals to tremble and to groan in
this world, of which they have a knowledge, upon what foundation can they expect that he
will, in the end, treat them with more gentleness in an unknown world. If we see a man
commit crying injustice, even transiently, ought it not to render him extremely suspected by
us, and make him forever forfeit our confidence?
On the other hand, a supposition which should throw light on every thing, or which should
give an easy solution to all the questions to which it could be applied, when even it should
not be able to demonstrate the certitude, would probably be true: but a system which should
only obscure the Clearest notions, and render more insoluble all the problems desired to be
resolved by its means, would most certainly be looked upon as false, as useless, as
dangerous. To convince ourselves of this principle, let us examine, without prejudice, if the
existence of the theological God has ever given the solution of any one difficulty. Has the
human understanding progressed a single step by the assistance of theology?
This science,
so important and so sublime, has it not totally obscured morality? Has it not rendered the
most essential duties of our nature doubtful and problematical?
Has it not shamefully
confounded all notions of justice and injustice, of vice and of virtue? Indeed, what is virtue
in the ideas of our theologians? It is, they will tell us, that which is conformable to the will
of the incomprehensible being who governs nature. But what is this being, of whom they are
unceasingly speaking without being able to comprehend it; and how can we have a
knowledge of his will? They will forthwith tell you what this being is not. without ever being
capable of telling you what he is; if they do undertake to give you an idea of him, they will
heap upon this hypothetical being a multitude of contradictory and incompatible attributes,
which will form a chimera impossible to be conceived; or else they will refer you to those
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 98
supernatural revelations, by which this phantom has made known his divine intentions to
men. But how will they prove the authenticity of these revelations? It will be by miracles!
How can we believe miracles, which, as we have seen, are contrary even to those notions
which theology gives us of its intelligent, immutable, and omnipotent Divinity? As a last
resource, then, it will be necessary to give credit to the honesty and good faith of the priests,
who are charged with announcing the divine oracles. But who will assure us of their mission?
Are they not these priests themselves who announce to us, that they are the infallible
interpreters of a God whom they acknow- ledge they do not know. This granted, the priests,
that is to say, men extremely suspicious, and but little in harmony among themselves, will
be the arbiters of morality; they will decide, according to their uncertain knowledge, or their
passions, those laws which ought to be followed; enthusiasm or interest are the only standard
of their decisions; their morality is as variable as their whims and their caprice; those who
listen to them will never know to what line of conduct they should adhere; in their inspired
books, we shall always find a Divinity of little morality, who will sometimes command crime
and absurdity; who will sometimes be the friend and sometimes the enemy of the human
race; who will sometimes be benevolent, reasonable, and just; and who will sometimes be
irrational, capricious, unjust, and despotic. What will result from all this to a rational man?
It will be, that neither inconstant Gods nor their priests, whose interests vary every moment,
can be the models or the arbiters of a morality which ought to be as regular and as certain as
the invariable laws of nature, from which we never see her derogate.
No! arbitrary and inconclusive opinions, contradictory notions, abstract and unintelligible
speculations, can never serve for the basis of the science of morals. They must be evident
principles, deduced from the nature of man, founded upon his wants, inspired by education,
rendered familiar by habit, made sacred by laws: these will carry conviction to our minds,
will render virtue useful and dear to us, and will people nations with honest men and good
citizens. A God, necessarily incomprehensible, presents nothing but a vague idea to our
imagination; a terrible God leads it astray; a changeable God, and who is frequently in
contradiction with himself, will always prevent us from ascertaining the road we ought to
pursue. The menaces made to us, on the part of a fantastical being, who is unceasingly in
contradiction with our nature, of which he is the author, will never do more than render virtue
disagreeable; fear alone will make us practise that which reason and our own immediate
interest ought to make us execute with pleasure. A terrible or wicked God, which is one and
the same thing, will only serve to disturb honest people, without arresting the progress of the
profligate and flagitious; the greater part of men, when they shall be disposed to sin, or
deliver themselves up to vicious propensities, will cease to contemplate the terrible God, and
will only see the merciful God, who is filled with goodness; men never view things but on
the side which is most conformable to their desires.
The goodness of God cheers the wicked, his rigour disturbs the honest man. Thus, the
qualities which theology attributes to its God, themselves turn out disadvantageous to sound
morality. It is upon this infinite goodness that the most corrupt men will have the audacity
to reckon when they are hurried along by crime, or given up to habitual vice. If, then, we
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 99
speak to them of their God, they tell us that
God is good,
that his clemency and his mercy
are infinite. Does not superstition, the accomplice of the iniquities of mortals, unceasingly
repeat to them, that by the assistance of certain ceremonies, of certain prayers, of certain acts
of piety, they can appease the anger of their God, and cause themselves to be received with
open arms by this softened and relenting God? Do not the priests of all nations pos- sess
infallible secrets for reconciling the most perverse men to the Divinity?
It must be concluded from this, that under whatever point of view the Divinity is
considered, he cannot serve for the basis of morality, formed to be always invariably the
same. An irascible God is only useful to those who have an interest in terrifying men, that
they may take advantage of their ignorance, of their fears, and of their expiations; the nobles
of the earth who are commonly mortals the most destitute of virtue and of morals, will not
see this formidable God, when they shall be inclined to yield to their passions; they will,
however, make use of him to frighten others, to the end that they may enslave them, and keep
them under their guardianship, whilst they will themselves only contemplate this God under
the traits of his goodness; they will always see him indulgent to those outrages which they
commit against his creatures, provided they have a respect for him themselves; besides,
religion will furnish them with easy means of appeasing his wrath. This religion appears to
have been invented only to furnish to the ministers of the Divinity an opportunity to expiate
the crimes of human nature.
Morality is not made to follow the caprices of the imagination, the passions, and the
interests of men: it ought to possess stability; it ought to be the same for all the individuals
of the human race; it ought not to vary in one country, or in one time, from another; religion
has no right to make its immutable rules bend to the changeable laws of its Gods. There is
only one method to give morality this firm solidity; we have more than once, in the course
of this work, pointed it out;
50
there is no other way than to found it upon our duties, upon the
nature of man, upon the relations subsisting between intelligent beings, who are, each of
them, in love with their happiness, and occupied with conserving themselves; who live
together in society, that they may more surely attain these ends. In short, we must take for
the basis of morality the necessity of things.
In weighing these principles, drawn from nature, which are self-evident, confirmed by
constant experience, and approved by reason, we shall have a certain morality, and a system
of conduct, which will never be in contradiction with itself. Man will have no occasion to
recur to theological chimeras to regulate his conduct in the visible world. We shall then be
capacitated to reply to those who pretend that without a God, there cannot be any morality;
and that this God, by virtue of his power and the sovereign empire which belongs to him over
his creatures, has alone the right to impose laws, and to subject them to those duties to which
they are compelled. If we reflect on the long train of errours and of wanderings which flow
from the obscure notions we have of the pivinity, and on the sinister ideas which all religions
in every country give, it would be more conformable to truth to say, that all sound morality,
all morality useful to the human species, all morality advantageous to society, is totally
incompatible with a being who is never presented to men but under the form of an absolute
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 100
monarch, whose good qualities are continually eclipsed by dangerous caprices: consequently,
we shall be obliged to acknowledge that, to establish morality upon a sure foundation, we
must necessarily commence by overturning the chimerical systems upon which they have
hitherto founded the ruinous edifice of supernatural morality, which, during so many ages,
has been uselessly preached up to the inhabitants of the earth.
Whatever may have been the cause that placed man in the abode which he inhabits, and
that gave him his faculties; whether we consider the human species as the work of nature,
or whether we suppose that he owes his existence to an intelligent being, distinguished from
nature; the existence of man, such as he is, is a fact; we see in him a being who feels, who
thinks, who has intelligence, who loves himself, who tends to his own conservation; who,
in every moment of his life, strives to render his existence agreeable; who, the more easily
to satisty his wants, and to procure himself pleasure, lives in society with beings similar to
himself, whom his conduct can render favourable or disaffected to him. It is, then, upon these
general sentiments, inherent in our nature, and which will subsist as long as the race of
mortals, that we ought to found morality, which is only the science of the duties of men
living in society.
Here, then, are the true foundations of our duties; these duties are necessary, seeing that
they flow from our peculiar nature, and that we cannot arrive at the happiness we propose
to ourselves, if we do not take the means without which we shall never obtain it. Then, to be
permanently happy, we are obliged to merit the affection and the assistance of those beings
with whom we are associated; these will not take upon themselves to love us, to esteem us,
to assist us in our projects, to labour to our peculiar felicity, but in proportion as we are
disposed to labour to their happiness. It is this necessity which is called
moral obligation.
It
is founded upon reflection, on the motives capable of determining sensible and intelligent
beings, who tend towards an end, to follow the conduct necessary to arrive at it. These
motives can be in us only the desire, always regenerating, of procuring ourselves good, and
of avoiding evil. Pleasure and pain, the hope of happiness or the fear of misery, are the only
motives capable of having an effiacious influence on the will of sensible beings; to
compel
them, then, it is sufficient that these motives exist, and may be understood; to know them,
it is sufficient to consider our constitution, according to which we can love or approve in
ourselves only those actions from whence result our real and reciprocal utility, which
constitutes virtue. In consequence, to conserve ourselves, to enjoy security, we are
compelled
to follow the conduct necessary to this end; to interest others in our own conservation, we
are obliged to interest ourselves in their’s, or to do nothing that may interrupt in them the will
of co-operating with us to our own felicity. Such are the true foundations of
moral
obligation.
We shall always deceive ourselves, when we shall give any other basis to morality than the
nature of man; we cannot have any that is more solid and more certain. Some authors, even
of integrity, have thought, that, to render more respectable and more sacred, in the eyes of
men, those duties which nature imposes on them, it was necessary to clothe them with the
authority of a being, which they made superior to nature, and stronger than necessity.
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 101
Theology has, inconsequence, invaded morality, or has strove to connect it with the religious
system; it has been thought that this union would render virtue more sacred; that the fear of
the invisible power who governs nature, would give more weight and efficacy to its laws; in
short, it has been imagined, that men, persuaded of the necessity of morality, in seeing it
united with religion, would look upon this religion itself as necessary to their happiness.
Indeed, it is the supposition that a God is necessary to support morality, that sustains the
theological ideas, and the greater part of the religious systems of the earth; it is imagined
that, without a God, man would neither have a knowledge of, nor practise that which he owes
to others. This prejudice once established, it is always believed that the vague ideas of a
metaphysical God are in such a manner connected with morality and the welfare of society,
that the Divinity cannot be attacked without overturning at the same time the duties of nature.
It is thought, that want, the desire of happiness, the evident interest of society, and of
individuals, would be impotent motives, if they did not borrow all their force and their
sanction
from an imaginary being who has been made the arbiter of all things.
But it is always dangerous to connect fiction with truth, the unknown with the known, the
delirium of enthusiasm with the tranquillity of reason. Indeed, what has resulted from the
confused alliance which theology has made of its marvellous chimeras with realities? The
imagination bewildered, truth is mistaken; religion, by the aid of its phantom, would
command nature, make reason bend under its yoke, subject man to its own peculiar caprices,
and frequently, in the name of the Divinity, it obliges him to stifle his nature, and to piously
violate most evident duties of morality. When this same religion was desirous of restraining
mortals whom it had taken care to render blind and irrational, it gave them only ideal curbs
and motives; it could substitute only imaginary causes to true causes; marvellous and
supernatural motive-powers to those which were natural and known; romances and fables,
to realities. By this inversion of principles, morality no longer had any fixed basis; nature,
reason, virtue, demonstrations, depended upon an undefinable God, who never spoke
distinctly, who silenced reason, who only explained himself by inspired beings, by
impostors, by fanatics, whose delirium or the desire of profiting by the wanderings of men,
interested them in preaching up only an abject submission, factitious virtues, frivolous
ceremonies; in short, an arbitrary morality, conformable to their own peculiar passions, and
frequently very prejudicial to the rest of the human species.
Thus, in making morality flow from God, they in reality subjected it to the passions of men.
In being disposed to found it upon a chimera, they founded it upon nothing; in deriving it
from an imaginary being, of whom every one forms to himself a different notion, of whom
the obscure oracles were interpreted either by men in a delirium, or by knaves; in
establishing it upon his pretended will, goodness, or malignity; in short, in proposing to man,
for his model, a being who is supposed to be changeable, the theologians, far from giving to
morality a steady basis, have weakened, or even annihilated that which is given by nature,
and have substituted in its place nothing but incertitude. This God, by the qualities which are
given him, is an inexplicable enigma, which each expounds after his own manner, which
each religion explains in its own mode, in which all the theologians of the world discover
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 102
every thing that suits their purpose, and according to which each man separately forms his
morals, conformable to his peculiar character. If God tells the gentle, indulgent, equitable
man to be good, compassionate, and benevolent, he tells the furious man, who is destitute
of compassion, to be intolerant, inhuman, and without pity. The morality of this God varies
in each man, from one country to another: some people shiver with horrour at the sight of
those actions which other people look upon as sacred and meritorious. Some see God filled
with gentleness and mercy; others judge him to be cruel, and imagine that it is by cruelties
they can acquire the advantage of pleasing him.
The morality of nature is clear; it is evident even to those who outrage it. It is not so with
religious morality, this is as obscure as the Divinity who prescribes it, or rather as changeable
as the passions and the temperaments of those who make him speak, or who adore him. If
it were left to the theologians, morality ought to be considered as a science the most
problematical, the most uncertain, and the most difficult to fix. It would require the most
subtile or the most profound genius, the most penetrating and active mind, to discover the
principles of the duties of man towards himself and others. Are not, then, the true sources of
morality calculated to be known only to a small number of thinkers or of metaphysicians?
To derive it from a God. whom nobody sees but within himself, and which each modifies
after his own peculiar ideas, is to submit it to the caprice of each man; to derive it from a
being which no man upon the earth can boast of knowing, is to say they do not know whence
it could come to us. Whatever may be the agent upon whom they make nature, and all the
beings which it contains, depend, whatever power they may suppose him to have, it is very
possible that man should or should not exist; but as soon as he shall have made him what he
is, when he shall have rendered him sensible, in love with his own being, and living in
society, he cannot, without annihilating or new-moulding him, cause him to exist otherwise
than he does. According to his actual essence, qualities, and modifications, which constitute
him a being of the human species, morality is necessary to him, and the desire of conserving
himself will make him prefer virtue to vice, by the same necessity that it makes him prefer
pleasure to pain.
51
To say that man cannot possess any moral sentiments without the idea of God, is to say that
he cannot distinguish vice from virtue; it is to pretend that, without the idea of God, man
would not feel the necessity of eating to live, would not make any distinction or choice in his
food: it is to pretend that, without being acquainted with the name, the character, and the
qualities of him who prepares a mess for us, we are not in a state to judge whether this mess
be agreeable or disagreeable, good or bad. He who does not know what opinion to hold upon
the existence and the moral attributes of a God, or who formally denies them, cannot at least
doubt his own existence, his own qualities, his own mode of feeling and of judging: neither
can he doubt the existence of other organized beings like himself, in whom every thing
discovers to him qualities analogous with his own. and of whom he can, by certain actions,
attract the love or the hatred, the assistance or the ill-will, the esteem or the contempt: this
knowledge is sufficient to enable him to distinguish moral good and evil. In short, every man
enjoying a well-ordered organization, or the faculty of making true experience, will only
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 103
have to contemplate himself, in order to discover what he owes to others: his own nature will
enlighten him much better upon his duties than those Gods, in which he can only consult his
own passions, or those of some enthusiasts or impostors. He will allow, that to conserve
himself, and secure his own permanent wellbeing, he is obliged to resist the impulse,
frequently blind, of his own desires; and that to conciliate the benevolence of others, he must
act in a mode conformable to their advantage; in reasoning thus, he will find out what virtue
is;
52
if he put this theory into practice, he will he virtuous; he will be rewarded for his
conduct, by the happy harmony of his machine, by the legitimate esteem of himself,
confirmed by the kindness of others: if he act in a contrary mode, the trouble and the disorder
of his machine will quickly warn him that nature, whom he thwarts, disapproves his conduct,
which is injurious to himself, and he will be obliged to add the condemnation of others, who
will hate him and blame his actions. If the wanderings of his mind prevent him from seeing
the most immediate consequences of his irregularities, neither will he perceive the distant
rewards and punishments of the invisible monarch, whom they have so vainly placed in the
empyreum; this God will never speak to him in so distinct a manner as his conscience, which
will either reward him or punish him on the spot.
Every thing that has been advanced, evidently proves, that religious morality is an infinite
loser, when compared with the morality of nature, with which it is found in perpetual
contradiction. Nature invites man to love himself, to preserve himself, to incessantly augment
the sum of his happiness: religion orders him to love only a formidable God, that deserves
to be hated; to detest himself, to sacrifice to his frightful idol the most pleasing and legitimate
pleasures of his heart. Nature tells man to consult reason, and to take it for his guide: religion
teaches him that his reason is corrupted, that it is only a treacherous guide, given by a
deceitful God to lead his creatures astray. Nature tells man to enlighten himself, to search
after truth, to instruct himself in his duties: religion enjoins him to examine nothing, to
remain in ignorance, to fear truth; it persuades him, that there are no relations more important
than those which subsist between him and a being of whom he will never have any
knowledge. Nature tells the being who is in love with his welfare, to moderate his passions,
to resist them when they are destructive to himself, to counterbalance them by real motives
borrowed from experience: religion tells the sensible being to have no passions, to be an
insensible mass, or to combat his propensities by motives borrowed from the imagination,
and variable as itself. Nature tells man to be sociable to love his fellow-creatures, to be just,
peaceable, indulgent, and benevolent, to cause or suffer his associates to enjoy their opinions:
religion counsels him to fly society, to detach himself from his fellow-creatures, to hate them
when their imagination does not procure them dreams conformable to his own, to break the
most sacred bonds to please his God, to torment, to afflict to persecute, and to massacre those
who will not be mad after his own manner. Nature tells man in society to cherish glory, to
labour to render himself estimable, to be active, courageous, and industrious: religion tells
him to be humble, abject, pusillanimous, to live in obscurity, to occupy himself with prayers,
with meditations, and with ceremonies; it says to him, be useful to thyself, and do nothing
for others.
53
Nature proposes to the citizen for a model, men endued with honest, noble,
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, volume 2, 104
energetic souls, who have usefully served their fellow-citizens; religion commends to them
abject souls, extols pious enthusiasts, frantic penitents, fanatics, who, for the most ridiculous
opinions, have disturbed empires. Nature tells the husband to be tender, to attach himself to
the company of his mate, and to cherish her in his bosom: religion makes a crime of his
tenderness, and frequently obliges him to look upon the conjugal bonds as a state of pollution
and imperfection. Nature tells the father to cherish his children, and to make them useful
members of society: religion tells him to rear them in the fear of God, and to make them
blind and superstitious, incapable of serving society, but extremely well calculated to disturb
its repose. Nature tells children to honour, to love, to listen to their parents, to be the support
of their old age: religion tells them to prefer the oracles of tlieir God, and to trample father
and mother under feet,in support of the divine interests. Nature says to the philosopher,
occupy thyself with useful objects, consecrate thv cares to thy country, make for it
advantageous discoveries, calculated to perfectionate its condition: religion says to him,
occupy thyself with useless reveries, with endless disputes, with researches suitable to sow
the seeds of discord and carnage, and obstinately maintain opinions which thou will never
understand thyself. Nature tells the perverse man to blush for his vices for his shameful
propensities, for his crimes; it shows him, that his most secret irregularities will necessarily
have an influence on his own felicity religion says to the most corrupted and wicked man,
“Do not irritate a God, whom thou knowest not; but if, against his laws, thou deliverest
thyself up to crime, remember that he will be easily appeased; go into his temple, humiliate
thyself at the feet of his ministers, expiate thy transgressions by sacrifices, by offerings, by
ceremonies, and by prayers: these important ceremonies will pacify thy conscience, and
cleanse thee in the eyes of the Eternal.”
The citizen, or the man in society, is not less depraved by religion, which is always in
contradiction with sound politics. Nature says to man,
thou art free, no power on earth can
legitimately deprive thee of thy rights:
religion cries out to him, that, he is a slave,
condemned by his God to groan all his life under the iron rod of his representatives. Nature
tells man to
love the country which gave him birth,
to serve it faithfully, to blend his interests
with it against all those who shall attempt to injure it: religion orders him to obey, without
murmuring, the tyrants who oppress his country, to serve them against it, to merit their
lavours, by enslaving their fellow-citizens under their unruly caprices. Nevertheless, if the
sovereign be not sufficiently devoted to his priests, religion quickly changes its language; it
calls upon subjects to become rebels, it makes it a duty in
them to resist their master, it cries
out to them, that it is better to obey God than man. Nature tells princes they are men; that it
is not their whim that can decide what is just, and what is unjust,
that the public will maketh
the law:
religion, sometimes says to them, that they are Gods, to whom nothing in this world
ought to offer resistance; sometimes it transforms them into tyrants whom enraged Heaven
is desirous should be immolated to its wrath.
Religion corrupts princes; these princes corrupt the law, which, like themselves, becomes
unjust; all the institutions are perverted; education forms only men who are base, blinded
with prejudices, smitten with vain objects, with riches, with pleasures which they can obtain
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 105
only by iniquitous means: nature is mistaken, reason is disdained, virtue is only a chimera,
quickly sacrificed to the slightest interest; and religion, far from remedying these evils, to
which it has given birth, does no more than aggravate them still farther; or else only causes
steril regret, which it quickly effaces; and thus man is obliged to yield to the torrent of habit,
of example, of propensities, and of dissipation, which conspire to hurry all his species to
commit crimes, who will not renounce their own wellbeing.
Here is the mode in which religion and politics unite their efforts to pervert, abuse, and
poison the heart of man; all the human institutions appear to have only for their object to
render man base or wicked. Do not, then, let us be at all astonished, if morality is every
where only a barren speculation, from which every one is obliged to deviate in practice, if
he will not risk the rendering himself unhappy. Men can be moral only when renouncing
their prejudices, they consult their nature; but the continual impulses, which their minds are
receiving every moment, on the part of more powerful motives, quickly oblige them to forget
those rules which nature points out to them. They are continually floating between vice and
virtue; we see them inceasingly in contradiction with themselves; if sometimes they feel the
value of an honest conduct, experience very soon shows them that this conduct cannot lead
them to any thing good, and can even become an invincible obstacle to that happiness which,
their heart never ceases to search after. In corrupt societies it is necessary to become corrupt,
in order to become happy.
Citizens, led astray at the same time both by their spiritual and temporal guides, neither
knew reason nor virtue. The slaves of both Gods and men, they had all the vices attached to
slavery; kept in a perpetual state of infancy, they had neither knowledge nor principles; those
who preached up virtue to them, knew nothing of it themselves, and could not undeceive
them with respect to those playthings in which they had learned to make their happiness
consist. In vain they cried out to them to stifle those passions which every thing conspired
to unloose: in vain they made the thunder of the Gods roll to intimidate men, whom
tumultuous passions rendered deaf. It was quickly perceived, that the Gods of heaven were
much less feared than those of the earth; that the favours of these procured a much more
certain wellbeing than the promises of the others; that the riches of this world were preferable
to the treasures which heaven reserved for its favourites; that it was much more advantageous
for men to conform themselves to the views of visible powers than to those of powers whom
they never saw.
In short, society, corrupted by its chiefs, and guided by their caprices, could only bring
forth corrupt children. It gave birth only to avaricious, ambitious, jealous, and dissolute
citizens, who never saw any thing happy but crime, who beheld meanness rewarded,
incapacity honoured, fortune adored, rapine favoured, and debauchery esteemed; who every
where found talents discouraged, virtue neglected, truth proscribed, elevation of soul
crushed, justice trodden under feet, moderation languishing in misery, and obliged to groan
under the weight of haughty injustice.
In the midst of this disorder, of this confusion of ideas, the precepts of morality could only
be vague declamations, incapable of convincing any one What barrier can religion, with its
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, volume 2, 106
imaginary motive-powers, oppose to the general corruption? When it spake reason, it was
not heard; its Gods were not sufficiently strong to resist the torrent; its menaces coulc not
arrest those hearts which every thing hurried on to evil; its distan promises could not
counterbalance pre sent advantages; its expiations, always ready to cleanse mortals from their
iniquities, emboldened them to persevere in crime, its frivolous ceremonies calmed their
consciences; in short its zeal, its disputes, and its whims, only multiplied and exasperated the
evils with which society found itself afflicted; in the most vitiated nationsthere were a
multitude of devotees’ and very few honest men. Great and small listened to religion when
it appeared favourable to their passions; they listened to it no longer when it counteracted
them. Whenever this religion was conformable to morality, it appeared incommodious it was
only followed when it combated morality, or totally destroyed it. The despot found it
marvellous when it assured him he was a God upon earth; that his subjects were born to
adore him alone, and to administer to his phantasms. He neglected religion when it told him
to be just: from hence he saw that it was in contradiction with itself, and that it was useless
to preach equity to a deified mortal. Besides, he was assured that his God would pardon
every thing as soon as he should consent to recur to his priests, always ready to reconcile
him. The most wicked subjects reckoned, in the same manner, upon their divine assistance:
thus religion, far from restraining them, assured them of impunity; its menaces could not
destroy the effects which its unworthy flattery had produced in princes; these same menaces
could not annihilate the hopes which its expiations furnished to all. Sovereigns, puffed up
with pride, or always certain of expiating their crimes, no longer feared the Gods; become
Gods themselves, they believed they were permitted to do any thing against poor pitiful
mortals, whom they no longer considered in any other light than as playthings, destined to
amuse them on this earth.
If the nature of man were consulted in politics, which supernatural ideas have so
shamefully depraved, it would completely rectify the false notions which are entertained
equally by sovereigns and subjects: it would contribute, more amply than all the religions in
the world, to render society happy, powerful, and flourishing under rational authority. Nature
would teach them, that it is for the purpose of enjoying
a greater quantum of happiness that
mortals live together in society; that it is its own conservation, and its felicity that every
society should have for its constant and invariable end; that without equity, a nation only
resembles a congregation of enemies; that the most cruel enemy to man is be who deceives,
in order to enslave him; that the scourge most to be feared by him is those priests who
corrupt his chiefs, and who assure them of impunity tor their crimes, in the name of the
Gods. It would prove to them, that association is a misfortune under unjust, and negligent,
and destructive governments.
This nature, interrogated by princes, would teach them, that they are men, and not Gods;
that their power is only derived from the consent of other men; that they are citizens, charged
by other citizens with the care of watching over the safety of the whole; that the law ought
to be only the expression of the public will, and that it is never permitted them to counteract
nature, or to thwart the invariable end of society. This nature would make these monarchs
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, volume 2, 107
feel that, in order to be truly great and powerful, they ought to command elevated and
virtuous minds, and not minds equally degraded by despotism and superstition. This nature
would teach sovereigns that, in order to be cherished by their subjects, they ought to afford
them succours, and cause them to enjoy those benefits which the wants of their nature
demand; that they ought to maintain them inviolably in the possession of their rights, of
which they are the defenders and the guardians. This nature would prove to all those princes
who should deign to consult her, that it is only by good works and kindness that they can
merit the love and attachment of the people; that oppression only raises up enemies against
them; that violence procures them only an unsteady power; that force cannot confer any
legitimate right on them; and that beings essentially in love with happiness, must sooner or
later finish by revolting against an authority that only makes itself felt by violence.
This, then, is the manner in which nature the sovereign of all beings, and to whom all are
equal, would speak to one of those superb monarchs whom flattery has deified: “Untoward,
headstrong child! Pigmy, so proud of commanding pigmies! Have they, then, assured thee
that thou wert a God?
Have they told thee that thou wert something supernatural? But know,
that there is nothing superior to me. Contemplate thine own insignificance, acknowledge
thine impotence against the slightest of my blows. I can break thy sceptre, I can take away
thy life, I can reduce thy throne to powder, I can dissolve thy people, I can even destroy the
earth, which thou inhabitest: and thou believest thyself a God! Be, then, again thyself;
honestly avow that thou art a man, made to submit to my laws, like the least of thy subjects.
Learn, then, and never let it escape thy memory, that thou art the man of thy people; the
minister of thy nation; the interpreter and the executor of its will; the fellow-citizen of those
whom thou hast the right of commanding only because they consent to obey thee, in view
of the wellbeing which thou promisest to procure for them. Reign, then, on these conditions;
fulfil thy sacred engagements. Be benevolent, and above all, equitable. If thou art willing to
have thy power assured to thee, never abuse it; let it be circumscribed by the immoveable
limits of eternal justice. Be the father of thy people, and they will cherish thee as thy
children. But if thou neglectest them; if thou separates! thine interests from those of thy great
family; if thou refusest to thy subjects the happiness which thou owest them; if thou armest
thyself against them, thou shalt be like all tyrants, the slave of gloomy care, of alarm, and of
cruel suspicion. Thou wilt become the victim of thine own folly. Thy people, in despair, will
no longer acknowledge thy
divine rights.
In vain, then, thou wouldst sue for aid to that
religion which has deified thee; it can avail nothing with those people whom misery has
rendered deaf; Heaven will abandon thee to the fury of those enemies which thy phrensy
shall have made thee. The Gods can effect nothing against my irrevocable decrees, which
will, that man shall be irritated against the cause of his sorrows.”
In short, every thing would make known to rational princes, that they have no occasion for
Heaven to be faithfully obeyed on earth; that all the powers of Heaven will not sustain them
when they shall act the tyrant, that their true friends are those who undeceive the people of
their delusion; that their real enemies are those who intoxicate them with flattery, who harden
them in crime, who make the road to heaven too easy for them; who feed them with
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, volume 2, 108
chimeras, calculated to draw them aside from those cares and those sentiments which they
owe to their nations.
54
It is, then, I repeat it, only by reconducting men to nature that we can procure them evident
notions, and certain knowledge; it is only by showing them their true relations with each
other that we can place them on the road to happiness. The human mind, blinded by
theology, has scarcely advanced a single step, Man’s religious systems have rendered him
dubious of the most demonstrable truths. Superstition influenced every thing, and served to
corrupt all. Philosophy, guided by it, was no longer any thing more than imaginary science:
it quitted the real world to plunge into the ideal world of metaphysics; it neglected nature to
occupy itself with Gods, with spirits, and with invisible powers, which only served to render
all questions more obscure and more complicated. In all difficulties, they brought in the
Divinity, and from thence things only became more and more perplexed, until nothing could
be explained. Theological notions appear to have been invented only to put man’s reasons
to flight, to confound his judgment, to deceive his mind, to overturn his clearest ideas of
every science. In the hands of the theologians, logic, or the art of reasoning, was nothing
more than an unintelligible jargon, calculated to support sophism and falsehood, and to prove
the most palpable contradictions. Morality became, as we have seen, uncertain and wavering,
because it was founded on an ideal being, who was never in accord with himself; his
goodness, his justice, his moral qualities, and his useful precepts, were continually
contradicted by an iniquitous conduct, and the most barbarous commands. Politics, as we
have said, were perverted by the false ideas which were given to sovereigns of their rights.
Jurisprudence and the laws were subjected to the caprice of religion, who put shackles on the
labour, the commerce, the industry, and the activity of nations. Every thing was sacrificed
to the interests of the theologians; for every science, they only taught obscure and
quarrelsome metaphysics which, hundreds of times, caused the blood of those people to flow
who were incapable of understanding it.
Born an enemy to experience, theology, that
supernatural
science, was an invincible
obstacle to the progress of the natural sciences, as it almost always threw itself in their way.
It was not permitted for natural philosophy, for natural history, or for anatomy, to see any
thing but through the medium of the jaundiced eye of superstition. The most evident facts
were rejected with disdain, and proscribed with horrour, whenever they could not be made
to square with the hypotheses of religion.
55
In short, theology unceasingly opposed itself to
the happiness of nations, to the progress of the human mind, to useful researches, and to the
liberty of thought: it kept man in ignorance, all his steps guided by it were no more than
errours. Is it resolving a question in natural philosophy, to say that an effect which surprises
us, that an unusual phenomenon, that a volcano, a deluge, a comet, &c., are signs of divine
wrath, or works contrary to the laws of nature? In persuading nations, as it has done, that the
calamities, whether physical or moral, which they experience, are the effects of the will of
God, or chastisements, which his power inflicts on them is it not preventing them from
seeking after remedies for these evils?
56
Would it not have been more useful to have studied
the nature of things, and to seek in nature herself, in human industry, for succours against
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 109
those sorrows with which mortals are afflicted than to attribute the evil which man
experiences to an unknown power, against whose will it cannot be supposed there is any
relief? The study of nature, the search after truth, elevates the mind, expands the genius, and
is calculated to render man active and courageous; theological notions appear to have been
made to debase him, to contract his mind, to plunge him into despondency.
57
In the place of
attributing to the divine vengeance those wars, those famines, those sterilities, those
contagions, and that multitude of calamities which desolate the people, would it not have
been more useful, and more consistent with truth, to have shown that these evils were to he
ascribed to their own folly, or rather to the passions, to the want of energy, and to the tyranny
of their princes, who sacrifice nations to their frightful delirium?
These irrational people,
instead of amusing themselves with expiations for their pretended crimes, and seeking to
render themselves acceptable to imaginary powers, should they not have sought in a more
rational administration the true means of avoiding those scourges to which they were the
victims? Natural evils demand natural remedies: ought not experience long since to have
convinced mortals of the inefficacy of supernatural remedies, of expiations, of prayers, of
sacrifices, of fasting, of processions, &c., which all the people of the earth have vainly
opposed to the disasters which they experienced?
Let us then conclude, that theology and its notions, far from being useful to the human
species, are the true sources of all those sorrows which afflict the earth, of all those errours
by which men are blinded, of those prejudices which benumb them, of that ignorance which
renders them credulous, of those vices which torment them, of those governments which
oppress them. Let us then conclude, that those divine and supernatural ideas with which we
are inspired from our infancy, are the true causes of our habitual folly, of our religious
quarrels, of our sacred dissensions, of our inhuman persecutions. Let us at length
acknowledge, that they are the fatal ideas which have obscured morality, corrupted politics,
retarded the progress of the sciences, and even annihilated happiness and peace in the heart
of man. Let it then be no longer dissimulated, that all those calamities, for which man turns
his eyes towards heaven, bathed in tears, are to be ascribed to those vain phantoms which his
imagination has placed there; let him cease to implore them; let him seek in nature, and in
his own energy, those resources which the Gods, who are deaf to his cries, will never procure
for him. Let him consult the desires of his heart, and he will find that which he owes to
himself, and that which he owes to others; let him examine the essence and the aim of
society, and he will no longer be a slave; let him consult experience, he will find truth, and
he will acknowledge that errour can never possibly render him happy.
58
Chapter VIII. Men can form no Conclusion from the Ideas which
are given them of the Divinity: Of the want of Just Interference in,
and of the Inutility of, their Conduct on his Account.
If, as we have proved, the false ideas which men have in all times formed to themselves
of the Divinity, far from being of utility, are prejudicial to morality, to politics, to the
happiness of society, and the members who compose it; in short, to the progress of the
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, volume 2, 110
human understanding; reason and our interest ought to make us feel the necessity of
banishing from our mind these vain and futile opinions, which will never do more than
confound it, and disturb the tranquillity of our hearts. In vain should we flatter ourselves with
arriving at the rectification of theological notions; false in their principles, they are not
susceptible of reform. Under whatever shape an errour presents itself, as soon as men, shall
attach a great importance to it it will end, sooner or later, by producing consequences as
extensive as dangerous. Besides, the inutility of the researches which in all ages have been
made after the Divinity, of whom the notions have never had any other effect than to obscure
him more and more, even for those themselves who have most meditated upon him; this
inutility, I say ought it not to convince us, that these notions are not within the reach of our
capacity, and that this imaginary being will not be better known by us, or by our descendants,
than it has been by our ancestors, either the most savage or the most ignorant? The object
which men in all ages have the most considered, reasoned upon the most, and written upon
the most, remains, nevertheless, the least known; nay, time has only rendered it more
impossible to be conceived. If God be such as modern theology depicts him, he he must be
himself a God who is capable of forming an idea of him.
59
We know little of man, we hardly
know ourselves and our own faculties, and we are disposed to reason upon a being
inaccessible to all our senses! Let us, then, travel in peace over the line described for us by
nature, without diverging from it, to run after chimeras; let us occupy ourselves with our true
happiness; let us profit by the benefits which are spread before us; let us labour to multiply
them, by diminishing the number of our errours; let us sub-. mit to those evils which we
cannot avoid; and do not let us augment them by filling our mind with prejudices calculated
to lead it astray.
When
we shall reflect on it, every thing will clearly prove that the pretended
science of God, is, in truth, nothing but a presumptuous ignorance, masked under pompous
and unintelligible words. In short, let us terminate unfruitful researches; let us, at least,
acknowledge our invincible ignorance; it will be more advantageous to us than an arrogant
science, which hitherto has done I nothing more than sow discord on the earth and affliction
in our hearts.
In supposing a sovereign intelligence, who governs the world; in supposing a God, who
exacts from his creatures that they should know him, that they should be convinced of his
existence, of his wisdom, of his power, and who is desirous they should render him homage,
it must be allowed, that no man on earth completely fulfils in this respect the views of
Providence. Indeed, nothing is more demonstrable than the impossibility in which the
theologians find themselves to form to their mind any idea whatever of their Divinity.
60
The
weakness and the obscurity of the proofs which they give of his existence; the contradictions
into which they fall; the sophisms and the begging of the question which they employ,
evidently prove that they are very frequently in the greatest incertitude upon the nature of the
being with whom it is their profession to occupy themselves. But, granting that they have a
knowledge of him, that his existence, his essence, and his attributes were so fully
demonstrated to them as not to leave one doubt in their mind, do the rest of human beings
enjoy the same advantage? Ingenuously, how many persons will be found in the world who
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, volume 2, 111
have the leisure, the capacity, and the penetration necessary to understand what is meant to
be designated under the name of an immaterial being, of a pure spirit, who moves matter,
without being matter himself; who is the motivepower of nature, without being contained in
nature, and without being able to touch it? Are there, in the most religious societies, many
persons who are in a state to follow their spiritual guides in those subtile proofs which they
give them of the existence of the God which they make them adore?
Very few men. without doubt, are capable of a profound and connected meditation; the
exercise of thought is, for the greater part, a labour as painful as it is unusual. The people,
obliged to toil hard in order to subsist, are commonly incapable of reflection. Nobles, men
of the world, women, and young people, occupied with their own affairs, with the care of
gratifying their passions, of procuring themselves pleasure, think as rarely as the uninformed.
There are not, perhaps, two men in a hundred thousand, who have seriously asked themselves
the question, what it is they understand by the word
God
? whilst it is extremely rare to find
persons to whom the existence of God is a problem: nevertheless, as we have said, conviction
supposes that evidence which can alone procure certitude to the mind. Where, then, are the
men who are convinced of the existence of their God? Who are those in whom we shall find
the complete certitude of this pretended truth, so important to all? Who are the persons who
have given themselves an accurate account of the ideas which they have formed to
themselves upon the Divinity, upon his attributes, and upon his essence? Alas! I see in the
whole world only some speculators, who, by dint of occupying themselves with him, have
foolishly believed they have discovered something in the confused and unconnected
wanderings of their imagination; they have endeavoured to form a whole, which, chimerical
as it is, they have accustomed themselves to consider as really existing: by dint of musing
upon it, they have sometimes persuaded themselves they saw it distinctly, and they have
succeeded in making others believe it, who have not mused upon it quite so much as
themselves.
It is only upon hearsay that the mass of the people adore the God of their fathers and their
priests: authority, confidence, submission, and habit, take place of conviction and proofs;
they prostrate themselves, and pray, because their fathers have taught them to fall down and
worship; but wherefore have these fallen upon their knees? It is because, in times far-distant,
their legislators and their guides have imposed it on them as a duty. “Adore and believe,”
have they been told, “those Gods, whom ye cannot comprehend; yield yourselves in this
respect to our profound wisdom; we know more than you about the Divinity.” But wherefore
should I take this matter on your authority? It is because God wills it thus; it is because God
will punish you, if you dare resist. But is not this God the thing in question? And yet, men
have always satisfied themselves with this circle of errours; the idleness of their mind made
them find it more easy to yield themselves to the judgment of others. All religious notions
are uniformly founded on authority; all the religions of the world forbid examination, and are
not disposed that men should reason upon them; it is authority that wills they should believe
in God; this God is himself founded solely upon the authority of some men, who pretend to
have a knowledge of him, and to be sent to announce him to the earth. A God made by men,
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, volume 2, 112
has, without doubt, occasion for men to make him known to men.
61
Is it not, then, for the priests, the inspired, and the metaphysicians, that the conviction of
the existence of a God would be reserved, which is nevertheless said to be so necessary for
the whole human species? But shall we find any harmony among the theological notions of
the different inspired men, or those thinkers who are scattered over the earth? Those
themselves, who make a profession of adoring the same God, are they in accord with respect
to him? Are they contented with the proofs which their colleagues bring of his existence? Do
they unanimously subscribe to the ideas which they present upon his nature, upon his
conduct, upon the manner of understanding his various oracles? Is there one country on earth
where the science of God is really perfectionated? Has this science obtained any degree of
that consistency and uniformity which we see attached to human knowledge, in the most
futile arts, or in those trades which are most despised? The words
spirit, immateriality,
creation, predestination, grace
; this multitude of subtile distinctions with which theology is
throughout filled in some countries; these inventions, so ingeniously imagined by those
thinkers who have succeeded each other during so many ages, have done no more, alas! than
perplex things; and hitherto the science the most necessary to man, has never been able to
acquire the least degree of stability. For thousands of years past, these idle dreamers have
been relieving each other to meditate on the Divinity, to divine his concealed ways, to invent
hypotheses suitable to develop this important enigma. Their slender success has not at all
discouraged theological vanity; they have always spoken of God; they have disputed; they
have cut each others’ throats for him; and this sublime being nevertheless remains the most
unknown and the most examined.
62
Men would have been too happy, if, confining themselves to those visible objects which
interest them, they had employed, in perfectionating the real sciences, the laws, the morals,
and their education, half those efforts which they have wasted in their researches after the
Divinity. They had been also much wiser, and more fortunate, if they had agreed to let their
idle and unemployed guides quarrel between themselves, and fathom those depths calculated
to stun and amaze them without intermeddling with their irrational disputes. But it is the
essence of ignorance to attach importance to every thing it does not understand. Human
ranity makes the mind bear up against difficulties. The more an object eludes our inquiry, the
more efforts we make to compass it, because, from thence, our pride is spurred on, our
curiosity is irritated, and it appears interesting to us. On the other hand, the longer and more
laborious our researches have been, the more importance we attach to our real or pretended
discoveries, the more we are desirous not to have lost our time; besides, we are always ready
to defend warmly the soundness of our judgment. Do not let us, then, be surprised at the
interest which ignorant people have at all times taken in the discoveries of their priests; nor
at the obstinacy which these have always manifested in their disputes. Indeed, in combating
for his God, each fought only for the interests of his own vanity, which, of all human
passions, is the most quickly alarmed, and the most suitable to produce very great follies.
If, throwing aside for a moment the fatal ideas which theology gives us of a capricious
God, whose partial and despotic decrees decide the condition of human beings, we would
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, volume 2, 113
only fix our eyes upon his pretended goodness, which all men, even when trembling before
this God, agree to give him: if we suppose him to have in view what they have ascribed to
him; to have laboured only to his own glory; to exact the homage of intelligent beings; to
seek in all his works only the wellbeing of the human species r how can we reconcile all this
with the ignorance, truly invincible, in which this God, so glorious and so good, leaves the
greater part of mankind with respect to him? If God is desirous to be known, cherished, and
thanked, wherefore does he not show himself, under favourable traits, to all those intelligent
beings, by whom he would be loved and adored?
Wherefore does he not manifest himself
to all the earth in an unequivocal manner, much more likely to coavince us than those
particular revelations which appear to accuse the Divinity of a fatal partiality for some of his
creatures? Has the omnipotent no better means of showing himself to men than those
ridiculous metamorphoses, those pretended incarnations, which are attested by writers so
little in harmony with each other?
Instead of such a number of miracles, invented to prove
the divine mission of so many legislators held in reverence by the different people of the
world, could not the sovereign of minds have convinced at once the human mind of those
things with which he was desirous it should be acquainted? In the room of suspending a sun
in the vaulted firmament; in lieu of diffusing without order the stars and constellations, which
fill up the regions of space, would it not have been more conformable to the views ot a God
so jealous of his glory, and so well-intentioned towards man, to have written, in a manner
not liable to dispute, his name, his attributes, his everlasting will, in indelible characters, and
equally legible to all the inhabitants of the earth?
63
No one, then, could have doubted the
existence of a God, of his manifest will, of his visible intentions; no mortal would have dared
to place himself in a situation to attract his wrath; in short, no man would have had the
audacity to have imposed on men in his name, or to have interpreted his will, according to
his own whim and caprice.
Theology is truly the vessel of the Danaides. By dint of contradictory qualities and bold
assertions, it has so shackled its God, as to make it impossible for him to act. Indeed, when
even we should suppose the existence of the theological God, and the reality of those
attributes, so discordant, which are given him, we can conclude nothing from them to
authorize the conduct or sanction the worship which they prescribed. If God be infinitely
good, what reason have we to fear him? If he be infinitely wise, wherefore disturb ourselves
with our condition? If he be omniscient, wherefore inform him of our wants, and fatigue him
with our prayers?
If he be omnipresent, wherefore erect temples to him? If he be Lord of all,
wherefore make sacrifices and offerings to him? If he be just, wherefore believe that he
punishes those creatures whom he has filled with imbecility? If his grace works every thing
in man, what reason has he to reward him? If he be omnipotent, how can he be offended; and
how can we resist him? If he be rational, how can he be enraged against those blind mortals
to whom he has left the liberty of acting irrationally? If he be immutable, by what right shall
we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he be inconceivable, wherefore should we
occupy ourselves with him? If he has spoken, wherefore is the universe not convinced? If the
knowledge of a God be the most necessary thing, wherefore is it not more, evident and more
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manifest?
But, on the other hand, the theological God has two faces. Nevertheless, if he be wrathful,
jealous, vindictive, and wicked, as theology supposes him to be, without being disposed to
allow it, we shall no longer be justified in addressing our prayers to him, nor in sorrowfully
occupying ourselves with his idea. On the contrary, for our present happiness, and for our
quiet, we ought to make a point of banishing him from our thought; we ought to place him
in the rank of those necessary evils, which are only aggravated by a consideration of them.
Indeed if God be a tyrant, how is it possible to love him? Are not affection and tenderness
sentiments incompatible with habitual fear? How could we experience love for a master who
gives to his slaves the liberty of offending him, to the end that he may take them on their
weak side, and punish them with the utmost barbarity? If to this odious character, God has
joined omnipotence; if he hold in his hands the unhappy playthings of this fantastic cruelty,
what can we conclude from it? Nothing; save that, whatever efforts we may make to escape
our des- tiny, we shall always be incapacitated to withdraw ourselves from it. If a God, cruel
or wicked by his nature, be armed with infinite power, and take pleasure in rendering us
eternally mis- erable, nothing will divert him from it; his wickedness will always pursue its
course; his malice would, without doubt, prevent him from paying any attention to our cries;
nothing would be able to soften his obdurate heart.
Thus, under whatever point of view we contemplate the theological God, we have no
worship to render him, no prayers to offer up to him. If he be perfectly good, intelligent,
equitable, and wise, what have we to ask of him? If he be supremely wicked, if he be
gratuitously cruel, as all men believe, without daring to avow it, our evils are without
remedy; such a God would deride our prayers, and, sooner or later, we should be obliged to
submit to the rigour of the lot which he has destined for us.
This granted, he who can undeceive himself with regard to the afflicting notions of the
Divinity, has this advantage over the credulous and trembling superstitious mortal, that he
establishes in his heart a momentary tranquillity, which, at least, renders him happy in this
life. If the study of nature has banished from him those chimeras with which the superstitious
man is infested, he enjoys a security of which this one is himself deprived. In consulting
nature, his fears are dissipated; his opinions, true or false, become steady; and a calm
succeeds the storm which panic terrours and wavering notions excite in the hearts of all men
who occupy themselves with the Divinity. If the human soul, cheered by philosophy, had the
boldness to consider things coolly, it would no longer behold the universe governed by an
implacable tyrant, always ready to strike. If he were rational, he would see that, in
committing evil, he did not disturb nature; that he did not outrage his author; he injures
himself alone, or he injures other beings, capable of feeling the effects of his conduct; from
thence, he knows the line of his duties; he prefers virtue to vice, and for his own permanent
repose, satisfaction, and felicity in this world, he feels himself interested in the practice of
virtue, in rendering it habitual to his heart, in avoiding vice, in detesting crime, during the
whole time of his abode amongst intelligent and sensible beings, from whom he expects his
happiness. By attaching himself to these rules, he will live contented with him- self, and be
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cherished by those who shall be capable of experiencing the influence of his actions; he will
expect, without inquietude, the term when his existence shall have a period; he will have no
reason to dread the existence which shall follow the one he at present enjoys; he will not fear
to be deceived in his reasonings; guided by demonstration and honesty, he will perceive, that,
if contrary to his expectation, there did exist a good God, he would not punish him for his
involuntary errours, depending upon the organization he should have received.
Indeed, if there did exist a God; if God were a being full of reason, equity, and goodness,
and not a ferocious, irrational, and malicious genius, such as religion is pleased so frequently
to depict him; what could a virtuous atheist have to apprehend, who, believing at the moment
of his death he falls asleep for ever, should find himself in the presence of a God whom he
should have mistaken and neglected during his life?
“O, God!” would he say, “father, who hast rendered thyself invisible to thy child!
inconceivable and hidden author, whom I could not discover! pardon me, if my limited
understanding has not been able to know thee in a nature where every thing has appeared to
me to be necessary! Excuse me, if my sensible heart has not discerned thine august traits
under those of the austere tyrant whom superstitious mortals tremblingly adore. I could only
see a phantom in that assemblage of irreconcilable qualities, with which the imagination has
clothed thee. How should my coarse eyes perceive thee in a nature in which all my senses
have never been able to know but material beings and perishable forms? Could I, by the aid
of these senses, discover thy spiritual essence, of which they could not furnish any proof?
How should I find the invariable demonstration of thy goodness in thy works, which I saw
as frequently prejudicial as favourable to the beings of my species? My feeble brain, obliged
to form its judgments after its own capa-city, could it judge of thy plan, of thy wisdom, of
thine intelligence, whilst the universe presented to me only a continued mixture of order and
confusion, of good and of evil, of formation and destruction?
Have I been able to render
homage to thy justice, whilst I so frequently saw crime triumphant and virtue in tears? Could
I acknowledge the voice of a being filled with wisdom, in those ambiguous, contradictory,
and puerile oracles which impostors published in thy name, in the different countries of the
earth which I have quitted? If I have refused to believe thine existence, it is because I have
not known, either what thou couldst be, or where thou couldst be placed, or the qualities
which could be assigned to thee. My ignorance is excusable, because it was invincible: my
mind could not bend itself under the authority of some men, who acknowledged themselves
as little enlightened upon thine essence as myself, and who, for ever disputing amongst
themselves, were in harmony only in imperiously crying out to me to sacrifice to them that
reason which thou hast given men. But, O God! if thou cherishest thy creatures, I also have
cherished them like thee; I have endeavoured to render them happy in the sphere in which
I have lived. If thou art the author of reason, I have always listened to it, and followed it; if
virtue please thee, my heart has always honoured it; I have never outraged it; and, when my
powers have permitted me, I have myself practised it; I was an affectionate husband, a tender
father, a sincere friend, a faithful and zealous citizen. I have held out consolation to the
afflicted: if the foibles of my nature have been injurious to myself, or incommodious to
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others, I have not, at least, made the unfortunate groan under the weight of my injustice; I
have not devoured the substance of the poor; I have not seen without pity the widow’s tears;
I have not heard without commiseration the cries of the orphan. If thou didst render man
sociable, if thou wast disposed that society should subsist and be happy, I have been the
enemy of all those who oppressed him, or deceived him, in order that they might take
advantage of his misfortunes.
“If I have thought amiss of thee, it is because my understanding could not conceive thee;
if I have spoken ill of thee, it is because my heart, partaking too much of human nature,
revolted against the odious portrait which was painted of thee. My wanderings have been the
effect of a temperament which thou hast given me; of the circumstances in which, without
my consent, thou hast placed me; of those ideas which, in despite of me, have entered into
my mind. If thou art good and just, as we are assured thou art, thou canst not punish me for
the wanderings of my imagination, for faults caused by my passions, which are the necessary
consequence of the organization which I have received from thee. Thus, I cannot fear thee,
I cannot dread the condition which thou prepares! for me. Thy goodness cannot have
permitted that I should incur punishments for inevitable errours. Wherefore didst thou not
rather prevent my being born, than have called me into the rank of intelligent beings, there
to enjoy the fatal liberty of rendering myself unhappy? If thou punishest me with severity,
and eternally, for having listened to the reason which thou gavest me; if thou correctest me
for my illusions; if thou art wroth, because my feebleness has made me fall into those snares
which thou hast every where spread for me; thou wilt he the most cruel and the most unjust
of tyrants; thou wilt not be a God, but a malicious demon, to whom I shall be obliged to
yield, and satiate the barbarity; but of whom I shall at least congratulate myself to have for
some time shook off the insupportable yoke.”
It is thus that a disciple of nature would speak, who, transported all at once into the
imaginary regions, should, there find a God, of whom all the ideas were in direct
contradiction to those which wisdom, goodness, and justice furnish us here. Indeed, theology
appears to have been invented only to overturn in our mind all natural ideas. This illusory
science seems to be bent on making its God a being the most contradictory to human reason.
It is nevertheless, according to this reason that we are obliged to judge in this world; if in the
other, nothing is conformable to this, nothing is of more inutility than to think of it, or reason
upon it. Besides, wherefore leave it to the judgment of men, who are themselves only
enabled to judge like us?
However, in supposing God the author of all, nothing is more ridiculous than the idea of
pleasing him, or irritating him by our actions, our thoughts, or our words; nothing is more
incon- clusive than to imagine that man, the work of his hands, can have merits or demerits
with respect to him. It is evident that he cannot injure an omnipotent being, supremely happy
by his essence. It is evident that he cannot displease him, who has made him what he is: his
passions, his desires, and his propensities, are the necessary consequence of the organization
which he has received; the motives which determine his will towards good or evil, are
evidently due to qualities inherent to the beings which God places around him. If it be an
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intelligent being who has placed us in the circumstances in which we are, who has given the
properties to those causes which, in acting upon us, modify our will, how can we offend him?
If I have a tender, sensible, and compassionate soul, it is because I have received from God
organs easily moved, from whence results a lively imagination, which education has
cultivated. If I am insensible and cruel, it is because he has given me only refractory organs,
from whence results an imagination of little feeling, and a heart difficult to be touched. If I
profess a religion, it is because I have received it from parents, from whom it did not depend
upon me to receive my birth, who professed it before me, whose authority, example, and
instructions, have obliged my mind to conform itself to theirs. If I am incredulous, it is
because, little susceptible of fear or enthusiasm for unknown objects, my circumstances have
so ordered it, that I should undeceive myself of the chimeras with which I had occupied
myself in my infancy.
It is then, for want of reflecting on his principles, that the theologian tells us that man can
please or displease the powerful God who has formed him. Those who believe they have
merited well, or deserved punishment of their God, imagine that this being will be obliged
to them for the organization which he has himself given them, and will punish them for that
which he has refused them. In consequence of this idea, so extravagant, the affectionate and
tender devotee natters himself he shall be recompensed for the warmth of his imagination.
The zealous devotee doubts not that his God will some day reward him for the acrimony of
his bile or the heat of his blood. Penitent, frantic, and atrabilious beings, imagine that God
will keep a register of those follies which their vicious organization or their fanaticism make
them commit; and, above all, will be extremely contented with their melancholy humour, the
gravity of their countenance, and their antipathy to pleasure. Devotees, zealous, obstinate,
and quarrelsome beings, cannot persuade themselves that their God, which they always form
after their own model, can be favourable to those who are more phlegmatic, who have less
bile in their composition, or have a cooler blood circulating through their veins, Each mortal
believes his own organization is the best, and the most conformable to that of his God.
What strange ideas must these blind mortals have of their Divinity, who imagine that the
absolute master of all can be offended with the motions which take place in their body or in
their mind! What contradiction, to think that his unalterable happiness can he disturbed, or
hsi plan deranged by the transitory shocks which the imperceptible fibres of the brain of one
of his creatures experience. Theology gives us very ignoble ideas of a God, of whom,
however, it is unceasingly exalting the power, the greatness, and the goodness.
Without a very marked derangement of our organs, our sentiments hardly ever vary upon
those objects which our senses, experience, and reason have clearly demonstrated to us. In
whatever circumstances we are found, we have no doubt either upon the whiteness of snow,
the light of day, or the utility of virtue. It is not so with those objects which depend solely
on our imagination, and which are not proved to us by the constant evidence of our senses;
we judge of them variously, according to the disposition in which we find ourselves. These
dispositions vary by reason of the involutary impressions which our organs receive at each
instant on the part of an infinity of causes, either exterior to us, or contained within our own
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machine. These organs are, without our knowledge, perpetually modified, relaxed, or bent,
by the greater or less weight or elasticity in the air; by heat or cold, by dryness or humidity,
by health or sickness, by the heat of the blood, by the abundance of the bile, by the state of
the nervous system, &c. These different causes necessarily have an influence on the
momentary ideas, thoughts, and opinions of man. He is, consequently, obliged to see
variously those objects which his imagination presents to him, without being able to be
corrected by experience and memory. Here is the reason why man is obliged continually to
see his God and his religious chimeras under different aspects. In a moment when his fibres
find themselves disposed to tremble, he will be cowardly and pusillanimous, he will think
of this God only with trembling; in a moment when these same fibres shall be more firm, he
will contemplate this same God with more coolness. The theologian, or the priest, will call
his pusillanimity,
inward feeling, warning from Heaven, secret inspiration
; but he who
knows man, will say that this is nothing but a mechanical motion, produced by a physical or
natural cause. Indeed, it is by a pure physical mechanism that we can explain all the
revolutions which take place frequently from one moment to another in the systems, in all
the opinions, and in all the judgments of men: in consequence, we see them sometimes
reasoning justly, and sometimes irrationally.
Here is the mode by which, without recurring to grace, to inspirations, to visions, and to
supernatural movements, we can render ourselves an account of that uncertain and wavering
state into which we sometimes see persons fall, otherwise extremely enlightened, when there
is a question of religion. Frequently, in despite of all reasoning, momentary dispositions
reconduct them to the prejudices of their infancy, from which on other occasions they appear
to be completely undeceived. These changes are very marked, especially in infirmities and
sickness, and at the approach of death. The barometer of the understanding is then frequently
obliged to fall. Those chimeras which they despised, or which, in a state of health, they set
down at their true value, are then realized. They tremble, because the machine is enfeebled;
they are irrational, because the brain is incapable of exactly fulfilling its functions. It is
evident that these are the true chances which the priests have the knavery to make use of
against incredulity, and from which they draw proofs of the re- ality of their sublime
opinions. Those
conversions,
or those changes, which take place in the ideas of men, have
always their origin in some physical derangement of their machine, brought on by chagrin,
or by some natural and known cause.
Subjected to the continual influence of physical causes, our systems, then, always follow
the variations of our body; we reason well when our body is healthy and well-constituted;
we reason badly when this body is deranged; from thence our ideas disconnect themselves,
we are no longer capable of associating them with precision, of finding our principles, to
draw from them just inferences; the brain is shaken, and we no longer see any thing under
its true point of view. Such a man does not see his God, in frosty weather, under the same
traits as in cloudy and rainy weather: he does not contemplate him in the same manner in
sorrow as in gayety, when in company as when alone. Good sense suggests to us, that it is
when the body is sound, and the mind undk. turbed by any mist, that we can reason with
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precision; this state can furnish us with a general standard suitable to regulate our judgments,
and even rectify our ideas, when unexpected causes shall make them waver.
If the opinions of the same individual upon his God are wavering and subject to vary, how
many changes must they experience in the various beings who compose the human race? If
there do not, perhaps, exist two men who see a physical object exactly under the same point
of view, what much greater variety must they not have in their modes of contemplating those
things which have existence only in their imagination? What an infinity of combinations of
ideas must not minds, essentially different, make to themselves, to compose an ideal being,
which each moment of life must present under a different form? It would then be an irrational
enterprise to attempt to prescribe to men what they ought to think of religion and of God,
which are entirely under the cognizance of the imagination, and for which, as we have very
frequently repeated, mortals will never have any common standard. To combat the religious
opinions of men, is to combat with their imagination, with their organization, and with their
habits, which suf- fice to identify with their existence the most absurd and the least founded
ideas. The more imagination men have, the greater enthusiasts will they be in matters of
religion, and reason will be less capable of undeceiving them of their chimeras: these
chimeras will become a food necessarv for their ardent imagination. In fine, to combat the
religious notions of men, is to combat the passion which they have for the marvellous. In
despite of reason, those persons who have a lively imagination, are perpetually reconducted
to those chimeras which habit render dear to them, even when they are troublesome and fatal.
Thus, a tender soul has occasion for a God that loves him the happy enthusiast needs a God
who rewards him: the unfortunate enthusiast wants a God, who takes part in his sorrows; the
melancholy devotee has occasion for a God who chagrins him and who maintains him in that
trouble which has become necessary to his diseased organization; the frantic
penitent needs
a cruel God, who imposes on him an obligation to be inhuman towards himself; whilst the
furious fanatic would believe himself unhappy if he were deprived of a God who orders him
to make others experience the effects of his inflamed humours and of his unruly passions.
He is without question, a less danserous enthusiast who feeds himself with agreeable
illusions, than he whose soul is tormented by odious spectres. If a virtuous and tender mind
does not commit ravages in society, a mind agitated by incommodious passions, cannot fail
to become, sooner or later, troublesome to his fellow-creatures. The God of a Socrates, or of
a Fenelon, may be suitable to minds as gentle as theirs; but he cannot be the God of a whole
nation, in which it will always be extremely rare to find men of their temper. The Divinity,
as we have frequently said, will always be for the greater portion of mortals a frightful
chimera, calculated to disturb their brain, to set their passions afloat, and to render them
injurious to their associates. If honest men only see their God as filled with goodness;
vicious, restless, inflexible, and wicked men, will give to their God their own character, and
will authorize themselves, from this example, to give a free course to their own passions.
Each man can see his chimera only with his own eyes; and the number of those who will
paint the Divinity as hideous, afflicting, and cruel, will be always greater and more to be
feared, than those who describe him under seducing colours; for one mortal whom this
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chimera can render happy, there will be thousands which it will make miserable; it will be,
sooner or later, an inexhaustible source of divisions, of extravagancies, and of madness; it
will disturb the mind of the ignorant, over whom impostors and fanatics will always have an
influence; it will frighten the cowardly and the pusillanimous, whom their weakness will
incline to perfidy and cruelty; it will make the most honest tremble, who, even while
practising virtue, will fear the displeasure of a fantastical and capricious God; it will not stop
the progress of the wicked, who will put it aside, in order to deliver themselves up to crime;
or who will even avail themselves of this divine chimera to justify, their transgressions. In
short, in the hands of tyrants, this God, who is himself a tyrant, will only serve to crush the
liberty of the people, and violate, with impunity, the rights of equity. In the hands of priests,
this God will be a talisman, suitable to intoxicate, blind, and subjugate equally the sovereign
and the subject; in fine, in the hands of the people, this idol will always be a two-edged
weapon, with which they will give themselves the most mortal wounds.
On the other hand, the theological God, being, as we have seen, only a heap of
contradictions; being represented, in despite of his immutability, sometimes as goodness
itself, sometimes as the most cruel and the most unjust of beings; being besides contemplated
by men, whose machines experience continual variations; this God, I say, cannot at all times
appear the same to those who occupy themselves with him. Those who form the most
favourable ideas of him are frequently obliged to acknowledge that the portrait, which they
paint to themselves, is not always conformable to the original. The most fervent devotees,
the most prepossessed enthusiasts cannot prevent themselves from seeing the traits of their
Divinity change; and if they were capable of reasoning, they would feel the want of just
inference in the conduct which they unceasingly hold with respect to him. Indeed, would
they not see, that his conduct appeared to contradict, every moment, the marvellous
perfections which they assign to their God?
To pray to the Divinity, is it not doubting of his
wisdom, of his benevolence, of his providence, of his omniscience, and of his immutability?
Is it not to accuse him of neglecting his creatures, and to ask him to alter the eternal decree
of his justice, to change those invariable laws which he has himself determined? To pray to
God, is it not to say to him: “O, my God, I acknowledge your wisdom, your omniscience,
and your infinite goodness; nevertheless, you forget me; you lose sight of your creature; you
are ignorant, or you feign ignorance of that which he wants; do you not see that I suffer from
the marvellous arrangement which your wise laws have made in the universe? Nature,
against your commands, actually renders mine existence painful; change, then, I pray you,
the essence which your will has given to all beings. See that the elements, at this moment,
lose in my favour their distinguishing properties; order it so, that heavy bodies shall not fall,
that fire shall not burn, that the brittle frame which I have received from you shall not suffer
those shocks which it experiences every instant. Rectify, for my happiness, the plan which
your infinite prudence has marked out from all eternity.” Such are very nearly the prayers
which men form; such are the ridiculous demands which they every moment make to the
Divinity, of whom they extol the wisdom, the intelligence, the providence, and the equity,
whilst they are hardly ever contented with the effects of his divine perfections.
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Men are not more consistent in the thanksgivings which they believe themselves obliged
to offer him. Is it not just, say they, to thank the Divinity for his kindness? Would it not be
the height of ingratitude to refuse our homage to the author of our existence, and of every
thing that contributes to render it agreeable? But I shall say to them, then your God acts from
interest; similar to men, who, even when they are the most disinterested, expect at least that
we should give them proofs of the impression which their kindness makes upon us. Your
God, so powerful, and so great, has he occasion that you should prove to him the sentiments
of your acknowledgments? Besides, upon what do you found this gratitude? Does he
distribute his benefits equally to all men? Are the greater number among them contented with
their condition? you yourself, are you alwavs satisfied with your existence? It will be
answered me, without doubt, that this existence alone is the greatest of all benefits. But how
can we look upon it as a signal advantage? This existence, is it not in the necessary order of
things? Has it not necessarily entered into the unknown plan of your God?
Does the stone
owe any thing to the architect for having judged it necessary to his building? Do you know
better than this stone the concealed views of your God? If you are a thinking and sensible
being, do you not find that this marvellous plan incommodes you every instant; do not even
your prayers to the architect of the world prove that you are discontented?
You were born
without your consent; your existence is precarious; you suffer against your will; your
pleasures and your sorrows do not depend upon you; you are not master of any thing; you
have not the smallest conception of the plan formed by the architect of the universe whom
you never cease to admire, and in which, without your consent, you find yourself placed; you
are the continual sport of the necessity which you deify: after having called you into life,
your God obliges you to quit it. Where, then, are those great obligations which you believe
you owe to Providence? This same God, who gives you the breath of life, who furnishes you
your wants, who conserves you, does he not in a moment ravish from you these pretended
advantages? If you consider existence as the greatest of all benefits, is not the loss of this
existence, according to yourself, the greatest of all evils? If death and sorrow are formidable
evils, do not this grief and death efface the benefit of existence, and the pleasure that may
sometimes accompany it? If your birth and your funeral, your enjoyments and your sorrows,
have equally entered into the views of his providence, I see nothing that can authorize you
to thank him. What can be the obligations which you have to a master who, in despite of you,
obliges you to enter into this world, there to play a dangerous and unequal game, by which
you may gain or lose an eternal happiness?
They speak to us, indeed, of another life, where we are assured that man will be completely
happy. But in sup- posing for a moment the existence of this other life, which has as little
foundation as that of the being from whom it is expected, it were necessary, at least for man
to suspend his acknowledgment until he enter into this other life: in the life of which we have
a knowledge, men are much more freouently discontented than fortunate if God, in the world
which we occupy, has not been able or willing to permit that his beloved creatures might be
perfectly happy, how shall we assure ourselves that he will have the power or the disposition
to render them in the end more happy than they are now?
They will then cite to us the
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revelations, the formal promises of the Divinity, who engages to compensate his favourites
for the sorrows of the present life. Let us, for an instant, admit the authenticity of these
promises; do not these revelations themselves teach us that the divine goodness reserves
eternal punishments for the greater number of men? If these menaces be true, do mortals,
then, owe acknowledgments to a God who, without consulting them, only gives them their
existence, that they may, with the assistance of their pretended liberty, run the risk of
rendering themselves eternally miserable?
Would it not have been more beneficial for them
not to have existed, or at least to have existed only like stones or brutes, from whom it is
supposed God exacts nothing, than to enjoy those extolled faculties — the privilege of
having merits or demerits — which may conduct intelligent beings to the most frightful
misfortunes? In paying attention to the small number of the elect, and to the great number
of the condemned, where is the man of feeling who, if he had been the master, had consented
to run the risk of eternal damnation?
Thus, under whatever point of view we contemplate the theological phantom men, if they
were consistent, even in their errours, neither owe him prayers, nor homage, nor worship, nor
thanksgivings. But in matters of religion, mortals never reason; they only follow the impulse
of their fears, of their imagination, of their temperament, of their peculiar passions, or those
guides who have acquired the right of controuling their understandings. Fear has made Gods;
terrour increasingly accompanies them; it is impossible to reason when we tremble. Thus
men will never reason when there shall be a question of those objects of which the vague
idea will ever be associated to that of terrour. If a mild and honest enthusiast sees his God
only as a beneficent father, the greater portion of mortals will only view him as a formidable
sultan, a disagreeable tyrant, and a cruel and perverse genius. Thus, this God will always be
for the human race a dangerous leaven, suitable to imbitter it, and put it into a fatal
fermentation. If, to the peaceable, humane, and moderate devotee, could be left the good God
which he has formed to himself after his own heart, the interest of the human race demands
that an idol should be overthrown to which fear has given birth, which is nourished by
melancholy, of whom the idea and the name are only calculated to fill the universe with
carnage and with follies.
We do not, however, flatter ourselves that reason will be at all once capable of delivering
the human race from those errours with which so many causes united have conspired to
poison it. The vainest of all projects would be the expectation of curing in an instant those
epidemical and hereditary errours, rooted during so many ages, and continually fed and
corroborated by the ignorance, the passions, the customs, the interests, the fears, and the
calamities of nations, always regenerating. The ancient revolutions of the earth have brought
forth its first Gods, new revolutions would produce new ones, if the old ones should chance
to be forgotten. Ignorant, miserable, and trembling beings, will always form to them- selves
Gods, or else their credulity will make them receive those which imposture or fanaticism
shall announce to them.
Then do not let us propose more to ourselves than to hold reason to those who may be able
to understand it; to present truth to those who can sustain its lustre; to undeceive those who
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, volume 2, 123
shall not be inclined to oppose obstacles to demonstration, and who will not obstinately
persist in errour. Let us infuse courage into those who have not the power to break with their
illusions. Let us cheer the honest man who is much more alarmed by his fears than the
wicked, who, in despite of his opinions, always follows his passions; let us console the
unfortunate, who groan under a load of prejudices, which he has not examined; let us
dissipate the incertitude of him who doubts, and who, ingenuously seeking after truth finds
in philosophy itself only wavering opinions, little calculated to fix his mind. Let us banish
from the man of genius the chimera which makes him waste his time: let us wrest his gloomy
phantom from the intimidated mortal, who, duped by his own fears, becomes useless to
society: let us remove from the atrabilarious being a God who afflicts him, who exasperates
him, and who does nothing more than kindle his anger: let us tear from the fanatic the God
who arms him with poniards; let us pluck from impostors and from tyrants a God who serves
them to terrify, enslave, and despoil, the human species. In removing from honest men their
formidable notions, let us not encourage the wicked, the enemies of society; let us deprive
them of those resources upon which they reckon to expiate their transgressions; to uncertain
and distant terrours, which cannot stop their excesses, let us substitute those which are real
and present; let them blush at seeing themselves what they are; let them tremble at finding
their conspiracies discovered; let them have the fear of one day seeing those mortals whom
they abuse, cured of the errours of which they avail themselves to enslave them.
If we cannot cure nations of their inveterate prejudices, let us endeavour, at least, to prevent
them from again falling into those excesses into which religion has so frequently hurried
them; let men form to themselves chimeras; let them think of them as they will, provided
their reveries do not make them forget they are men, and that a sociable being is not made
to resemble ferocious animals. Let us balance the fictitious interests of heaven, by the
sensible interests of the earth. Let sovereigns, and the people, at length acknowledge that the
advantages re- sulting from truth, from justice, from good laws, from a rational education,
and from a human and peaceable morality, are much more solid than those which they so
vainly expect from their Divinities: let them feel that benefits so real and
so
precious ought
not to be sacrificed to uncertain hopes, so frequently contradicted by experience. In order to
convince themselves, let every rational man consider the numberless crimes which the name
of God has caused upon the earth; let them study his frightful history, and that of his odious
ministers, who have every where fanned the spirit of madness, discord, and fury. Let princes,
and subjects at least, sometimes learn to resist the passions of these pretended interpreters
of the Divinity, especially when they shall command them in his name to be inhuman,
intolerant, and barbarous; to stifle the cries of nature, the voice of equity, the remonstrances
of reason, and to shut their eyes to the interests of society.
Feeble mortals! how long will your imagination, so active and so prompt to seize on the
marvellous, continue to seek, out of the universe, pretexts to make you injurious to
yourselves, and to the beings with whom ye live in society? Wherefore do ye not follow in
peace the simple and easy route which your nature has marked out for ye?
Wherefore strew
with thorns the road of life? Wherefore multiply those sorrows
to which your destiny exposes
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 124
ye? What advantages can ye expect from a Divinity which the united efforts of the whole
human species have not been able to make you acquainted with? Be ignorant, then, of that
which the human mind is not formed to comprehend; abandon your chimeras; occupy
yourselves with truth; learn the art of living happy; perfection your morals, your
governments, and your laws; look to education, to agriculture, and to the sciences that are
truly useful; labour with ardour; oblige nature by your industry to become propitious to ye,
and the Gods will not be able to oppose any thing to your felicity. Leave to idle thinkers, and
to useless enthusiasts, the unfruitful labour of fathoming depths from which ye ought to
divert your attention: enjoy the benefits attached to your present existence; augment the
number of them, never throw yourselves forward beyond your sphere. If you must have
chimeras, permit your fellow-creatures; to have theirs also; and do not cut the throats of your
brethren, when they cannot rave in your own manner. If ye will have Gods, let your
imagination give birth to them; but do not suffer these imaginary beings so far to intoxicate
ye as to make ye mistake that which ye owe to those real beings with whom ye live. If ye will
have unintelligible systems, it ye cannot be contented without marvellous doctrines, if the
infirmities of your nature require an invisible crutch, adopt such as may suit with your
humour; select those which you may think most calculated to support your tottering frame,
do not insist on your neighbours making the same choice with yourself: but do not suffer
these imaginary theories to infuriate your mind: always remember that, among the duties you
owe to the
real
beings with whom ye are associated, the foremost, the most consequential,
the most immediate, stands a reasonable indulgence for the foibles of others.
Chapter IX. Defence of the Sentiments contained in this Work. Of
Impiety. Do there exist Atheists?
What has been said, in the course of this work, ought to be sufficient to undeceive those
men who are capable of reasoning on the prejudices to which they attach so much
importance. But the most evident truths must prove abortive against enthusiasm, habit, and
fear; nothing is more difficult than to destroy errour, when long prescription has given it
possession of the human mind. It is unassailable when it is supported by general consent,
propagated by education, when it has grown inveterate by custom, when it is fortified by
example, maintained by authority, and unceasingly nourished by the hopes and the fears of
the people, who look upon their errours as a remedy for their sorrows. Such are the united
forces which sustain the empire of the Gods in this world, and which appear to render their
throne firm and immoveable.
We need not, then, be surprised, to see the greater number of men cherish their own
blindness, and fear the truth. Every where we find mortals obstinately attached to phantoms,
from which they expect their happiness, notwithstanding these phantoms are evidently the
source of all their sorrows. Smitten with the marvellous, disdaining that which is simple and
easy to be comprehended, but little instructed in the ways of nature, accustomed to neglect
the use of their rea- son, the uninformed, from age to age, prostrate themselves before those
invisible powers which they have been taught to adore. They address their most fervent
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, volume 2, 125
prayers to them, they implore them in their misfortunes, they despoil themselves for them
of the fruits of their labour, they are unceasingly occupied with thanking these vain idols for
benefits which they have not received, or in demanding of them favours which they cannot
obtain. Neither experience nor reflection can undeceive them; they do not perceive that their
Gods have always been deaf; they ascribe to it their own conduct; they believe them to be
irritated; they tremble, they groan, and they sigh at their feet; they strew their altars with
presents; they do not see that these beings, so powerful, are subjected to nature, and are never
propitious hut when this nature is favourable. It is thus that nations are the accomplices of
those who deceive them, and are as much opposed to truth, as those who lead them astray.
In matters of religion, there are very few persons who do not partake, more or less, of the
opinions of the uninformed. Every man who throws aside the received ideas, is generally
looked upon as a madman, a presumptuous being, who insolently believes himself much
wiser than others. At the magical names of religion and the Divinity, a sudden and panic
terrour takes possession of men’s minds; and as soon as they see them attacked, society is
alarmed, each imagines that he already sees the celestial monarch lift his avenging arm
against the country where rebellious nature has produced a monster, with sufficient temerity
to brave his wrath. Even the most moderate persons tax the man with folly and sedition who
dares to contest, with this imaginary sovereign, those rights which good sense has never
examined. In consequence, whoever undertakes to tear the veil of prejudice, appears an
irrational being, and a dangerous citizen; his sentence is pronounced with a voice almost
unanimous; the public indignation, stirred up by fanaticism and imposture, renders it
impossible for him to be heard; every one believes himself culpable if he does not display
his fury against him, and his zeal in favour of a terrible God, whose anger is supposed to be
provoked. Thus, the man who consults his reason, the disciple of nature, is looked upon as
a public pest; the enemy of an injurious phantom is regarded as the enemy of the human
species; he who would establish a lasting peace amongst men, is treated as the disturber of
society; they unanimously proscribe him who should be disposed to cheer affrighted mortals
by breaking those idols under which prejudice has obliged them to tremble. At the bare name
of an atheist, the superstitious man quakes, and the deist himself is alarmed; the priest enters
the judgment-seat with fury, tyranny prepares his funeral pile; the uninformed applaud those
punishments which irrational laws decree against the true friend of the human species.
Such are the sentiments which every man must expect to excite who shall dare to present
to his fellow-creatures that truth which all appear to be in search of, but which all fear to
find, or else mistake when we are disposed to show it to them. Indeed, what is an atheist?
He
is a man, who destroys chimeras prejudicial to the human species, in order to reconduct men
back to nature, to experience, and to reason. He is a thinker, who, having meditated upon
matter, its energy, its properties, and its modes of acting, has no occasion, in order to explain
the phenomena of the universe, and the operations of nature, to invent ideal powers,
imaginary intelligences, beings of the imagination, who, far from making him understand this
nature better, do no more than render it capricious, inexplicable, unintelligible, and useless
to the happiness of mankind.
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, volume 2, 126
Thus, the only men who can have simple and true ideas of nature, are considered as absurd
or knavish speculators. Those who form to themselves intelligible notions of the motive-
power of the universe, are accused of denying the existence of this power: those who found
every thing that is operated in this world, upon constant and certain laws, are accused of
attributing every thing to chance
; they are taxed with blindness and delirium by those
enthusiasts whose imagination, always wandering in a vacuum attributes the effects of nature
to fictitious causes, which have no existence but in their own brain; to beings of the
imagination, to chimerical powers which they obstinately persist in preferring to real and
known causes. No man, in his proper senses, can deny the energy of nature, or the existence
of a power, by virtue of which matter acts and puts itself in motion; but no man can, without
renouncing his reason, attribute this power to a being placed out of nature, distinguished from
matter, having nothing in common with it. Is it not saying that this power does not exist, to
pretend that it resides in an unknown being, fonned by a heap of unintelligible qualities, of
incompatible attributes, from whence necessarily results a whole impossible to have
existence? The indestructible elements, the atoms of Epicurus, of which the motion, the
meeting, and the combination, have produced all heings, are, without doubt, causes much
more real than the theological God. Thus, to speak precisely, they are the partisans of an
imaginary and contradictory being, impossible to be conceived, which the human mind
cannot compass on any side, who offer us nothing but a vague name, of which nothing can
be affirmed; they are those, I say, who make of such a being the creator, the author, the
preserver of the universe, who are irrational. Are not those dreamers, who are incapable of
attaching any one positive idea to the cause of which they are unceasingly speaking,
true
atheists?
Are not those thinkers, who make a pure nothing the source of all the beings, truly
blind men? Is it not the height of folly to personify abstractions, or negative ideas, and then
to prostrate ourselves before the fiction of our own brain?
Nevertheless, they are men of this emper who regulate the opinions of:he world, and who
hold out to public scorn and vengeance, those who are ore rational than themselves. If you
will believe but these profound dreamers there is nothing short of madness and phrensy that
can reject in nature motive-power, totally incomprehensible. Is it, then, delirium to prefer the
known to the unknown? Is it a crime to consult experience, to call in the evidence of our
senses, in the examination of the thing the most important to be known? Is it a horrid outrage,
to address ourselves to reason: to prefer its oracles to the sublime decisions of some sophists,
who themselves acknowledge that they do not comprehend any thing of the God whom they
announce to us?
Nevertheless, according to them, there is no crime more worthy of
punishment, there is no enterprise more dangerous against society, than to despoil the
phantom, which they know nothing about, of those inconceivable qualities, and of that
imposing equipage, with which imagination, ignorance, fear, and imposture, have emulated
each other in surrounding him; there is nothing more impious and more criminal than to
cheer up mortals against a spectre, of which the idea alone has been the source of all their
sorrows; there is nothing more necessary, than to exterminate those audacious beings, who
have sufficient temerity to attempt to break an invisible charm, which keeps the human
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, volume 2, 127
species benumbed in errour; — to be disposed to break man’s chains, was to rend asunder
his most sacred bonds.
In consequence of these clamours, Perpetually renovated by imposture, and repeated by
ignorance, those nations, which reason, in all ages, has sought to undeceive, have never
dared to listen to her benevolent lessons. The friends of mankind were never listened to,
because they were the enemies of their chimeras. Thus, the people continue to tremble; very
few philosophers have the courage to cheer them; scarcely any person dares brave public
opinion, infected by superstition; they dread the power of imposture, and the menaces of
tyranny, which always seek to support themselves by illusions. The yell of triumphant
ignorance, and haughty fanaticism, at all times stifled the feeble voice of nature; she was
obliged to keep silence, her lessons were quickly forgotten, and when she dared to speak, it
was frequently only in an enigmatical language, unintelligible to the greater number of men.
How should the uninformed, who with difficulty compass truths the most evident and the
most distinctly announced, have been able to comprehend the mysteries of nature, presented
under half words and emblems?
In contemplating the outrageous language which is excited among the theologians, by the
opinions of the atheists, and the punishments which at their instigation were frequently
decreed against them; should we not be authorized to conclude, that these doctors either are
not so certain as they say they are of the existence of their God, or else that they do not
consider the opinions of their adversaries to be quite so absurd as they pretend? It is always
distrust, weakness, and fear, that render men cruel; they have no anger against those whom
they despise: they do not look upon folly as a punishable crime: we should be content with
laughing at an irrational mortal, who should deny the existence of the sun; we should not
punish him, if we were not irrational ourselves. This theological fury never proves more than
the weakness of its cause; the inhumanity of these interested men, whose profession it is to
announce chimeras to nations, proves to us, that they alone have an interest in these invisible
powers, of whom they successfully avail themselves to terrify mortals.
64
They are, however,
tyrants of the mind, who, but little consistent with their own principles, undo with one hand,
that which they rear with the other: they are those, who after having made a Divinity, filled
with goodness, wisdom, and equity, traduce, disgrace, and completely annihilate him, by
saying, that he is cruel, that he is capricious, unjust, and despotic, that he thirsts after the
blood of the unhappy. This granted, these men are truly impious.
He who knows not the Divinity, cannot do him an injury, nor consequently, be called
impious. “
To be impious”
says Epicurus, “is
not to take away from the uninformed the Gods
which they have, it is to attribute to these Gods the opinions of the uninformed.”
To be
impious, is to insult a God in whom we believe; it is to knowingly outrage him. To be
impious, is to admit a good God, whilst at the same time we preach persecution and carnage.
To be impious, is to deceive men, in the name of a God, whom we make use of as a pretext
for our unworthy passions. To be impious, is to say, that a God, who is supremely happy and
omnipotent, can be offended by his feeble creatures. To be impious is to speak falsely on the
part of a God whom we suppose to be the enemy of falsehood. In fine, to be impious, is to
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, volume 2, 128
make use of the Divinity, to disturb society, to enslave them to tyrants; it is to persuade them,
that the cause of imposture is the cause of God; it is to impute to God those crimes which
would annihilate his divine perfections. To be impious and irrational at the same time, is to
make a mere chimera of the God whom we adore.
On the other hand, to be pious, is to serve our country; it is to be useful to our fellow-
creatures; to labour to their wellbeing: every one can put in his claim to it, according to his
faculties; he who meditates, can render himself useful, when he has the courage to announce
truthj to combat erroar, to attack those prejudices which every where oppose themselves to
the happiness of mankind; it is to be truly useful, and it is even a duty, to wrest from the
hands of mortals, those weapons which fanaticism distributes to them, to deprive imposture
and tyranny of that fatal empire of opinion, of which they successfully avail themselves at
all times and in all places, to elevate themselves upon the ruins of liberty, security, and public
felicity. To be truly pious, is to religiously observe the wholesome laws of nature, and to
follow faithfully those duties which she prescribes to us; to be pious, is to be humane,
equitable, and benevolent; is to respect the
rights of men.
To be pious and rational, is to reject
those reveries, which would lead us to mistake the sober councils of reason.
Thus, whatever fanaticism and imposture may say, he who denies the existence of a God,
seeing that it hag no other foundation than an alarmed imagination; he who rejects a God
perpetually in contradiction with himself; he who banishes from his mind and his heart, a
God continually wres- tling with nature, reason, and the happiness of men; he, I say, who
undeceives himself ori so dangerous a chimera, may be reputed pious, honest and virtuous,
when his conduct shall not deviate from those invariable rules which nature and reason
prescribe to him. Because a man refuses to admit a contradictory God, as well as the obscure
oracles which are given out in his name, does it then follow, that such a man, refuses to
acknowledge the evident and demonstrable laws of a nature upon which he depends, of
which he experiences the power, of which he is obliged to fulfil the necessary duties, under
pain of being punished in this world? It is true, that if virtue, by chance, consisted in an
ignominious renunciation of reason, in a destructive fanaticism, in useless customs, the
atheist could not pass for a virtuous being; but if virtue consist in doing to society all the
good of which we are capable, the atheist may lay claim to it; his courageous and tender
heart will not be guilty for hurling his legitimate indignation against prejudices, fatal to the
happiness of the human species.
Let us listen, however, to the imputations which the theologians lay upon the atheists’; let
us coolly and without peevishness examine the calumnies which they vomit forth against
them: it appears to them that atheism is the highest degree of delirium that can assail the
mind, the greatest stretch of perversity that can inflict the human heart; interested in
blackening their adversaries, they make absolute incredulity appear to be the effect of crime
or folly. We do not, say they to us, see those men fall into the honours of atheism, who have
reason to hope that the future state will be for them a state of happiness. In short, according
to our theologians, it is the interest of their passions which makes them seek to doubt the
existence of a being, to whom they art accountable for the abuses of this life; it is the fear of
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, volume 2, 129
punishment alone which is known to atheists; they are unceasingly repeating the words of
a Hebrew prophet, who pretends that nothing but folly makes men deny the existence of the
Divinity.
65
If you believe some others, “nothing is blacker than the heart of an atheist,
nothing is more false than his mind.” “Atheism,” according to them, “can only be the
offspring of a tortured conscience, that seeks to disengage itself from the cause of its
trouble.” “We have a right,” says Derham, “to look upon an atheist as a monster amongst
rational beings, as one of those extraordinary productions which we hardly ever meet with
in the whole human species, and who opposing himself to all other men, re- volts not only
against reason and human nature, but against the Divinity himself.”
We shall simply reply to all these calumnies, by saying, that is for the reader to judge if the
system of atheism be as absurd as these profound speculators, perpetually in dispute on the
uninformed, contradictory, and fantastical productions of their own brain, would have it
believed to be?
66
It is true, perhaps, that hitherto the system of naturalism has not been
developed in all its extent; unprejudiced persons will, at least, be enabled to know whether
the author has reasoned well or ill, whether he has disguised the most important difficulties,
whether he has been disingenuous, whether, like unto the enemies of human reason, he has
had recourse to subterfuges, to sophisms, and to subtile distinctions, which ought always to
make it be suspected
of
those who use them, either that they do not know, or that they fear
the truth. It belongs, then, to candour, to disinterestedness, and to reason, to judge whether
the natural principles, which have been here brought forward, be destitute of foundation; it
is to these upright judges, that a disciple of na- ture submits his opinions; he has a right to
except against the judgment of enthusiasm, of presumptuous ignorance, and interested
knavery. Those persons who are accustomed, to think, will, at least, find reasons to doubt
many of those marvellous notions, which appear as incontestable truths, only to those who
have never examined them by the standard of good sense. We agree with Derham that
atheists are rare; superstition has so disfigured nature, and its rights, enthusiasm has so
dazzled the human mind; terrouf has so disturbed the hearts of men; imposture and tyranny
have so enslaved thought; in fine, errour, ignorance, and delirium, hate so perplexed and
entangled the clearest ideas, that nothing is more uncommon, than to find men who have
sufficient courage to undeceive themselves of notions, which every thing conspires to
identify with their existence. Indeed, many
iheolo
gians, in despite of those invectives with
which they attempt to overwhelm atheists, appear frequently to have doubted whether any
existed in the world, or if there were persons who could honestly deny the existence of a
God.
67
Their uncertainty was, without doubt, founded upon the absurd ideas which they
ascribe to their adversaries, whom they have unceasingly accused of attributing every thing
to
chance,
to
blind,
causes, to
dead
and
inert
matter, incapable of acting by itself. We have,
I think, sufficiently justified the partisans of nature, from these ridiculous accusations; we
have, throughout the whole, proved, and we repeat it, that
chance
is a word devoid of sense,
which, as well as the word
God,
announces nothing but an ignorance of true causes. We have
demonstrated that matter is not dead; that nature, essentially active, and selfexistent, had
sufficient energy to produce all the beings which it contains, and all the phenomena which
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, volume 2, 130
we behold. We have, throughout, proved, that this cause was much more real, and more easy
to be conceived than the fictitious, contradictory, inconceivable, and impossible cause, to
which theology ascribes the honour of those great effects which it admires. We have made
it evident, that the incomprehensibility of natural effects was not a sufficient reason for
assigning them a cause, still more incomprehensible than all those of which we can have a
knowledge. In fine, if the incomprehensibility of God does not authorize us to deny his
existence, it is at least certain that the incompatibility of the attributes which they accord to
him, authorizes us to deny that the being who unites them can be any thing more than a
chimera, of which the existence is impossible.
This granted, we shall be able to fix the sense that ought to be attached to the name of
atheist,
which, notwithstanding, the theologians, lavish indiscriminately upon all those who
deviate in any thing from their revered opinion. If by
atheist,
be designated a man who
denies the existence of a power inherent in matter, and without which we cannot conceive
nature, and if it be to this power that the name of
God
is given, there do not exist any atheists,
and the word under which they are designated would only announce fools: but, if by
atheists,
be understood men without enthusiasm, guided by experience, and the evidence of their
senses, who see nothing in nature but that which they find really to have existence, or that
which they are capacitated to know; who do not perceive, and cannot perceive, any thing but
matter, essentially active and move- able, diversely combined, enjoying from itself various
properties, and capable of producing all the beings which display themselves to our visual
faculties: if by
atheists,
be understood, natural philosophers, who are convinced that, without
recurring to a chimerical cause, they can explain every thing simply by the laws of motion,
by the relations subsisting between beings, by their affinities, their analogies, their attraction,
and their repulsion; by their proportions, their composition, and their decomposition:
68
if by
atheists
be understood those persons who do not know what a
spirit
is, and who do not see
the necessity of
spiritualizing,
or of rendering incomprehensible those corporeal, sensible,
and natural causes, which they see act uniformly; who do not find that to separate the
motivepower from the universe, to give it to a being placed out of the great whole, to a being
of an essence totally inconceivable, and whose abode cannot be shown, is a means of
becoming better acquainted with it: if, by
atheists,
be understood those men who ingenuously
allow that their mind cannot conceive nor reconcile the negative attributes, and the
theological abstractions, with the human and moral qualities, which are attributed to the
Divinity; or those men, who pretend that from this incompatible alliance, there can only
result an imaginary being, seeing that a pure spirit is destitute of the organs necessary to
exercise the qualities and faculties of human nature: if by
atheists
be designated those men
who reject a phantom, of whom the odious and discordant qualities are calculated only to
disturb the human species, and plunge it into very prejudicial follies: if I say, thinkers of this
sort, are those who are called
atheists,
it is not possible to doubt of their existence; and there
would be found a considerable number of them, if the lights of sound natural philosophy, and
of just reason, were more generally diffused; from thence they would neither be considered
as irrational, nor as furious beings, but as men devoid of prejudice, of whom the opinions,
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, volume 2, 131
or, if they will, the ignorance, would be much more useful to the human species, than those
sciences, and those vain hypotheses, which have so long been the true causes of all man’s
sorrows.
On the other hand, if by
atheists,
it is wished to designate those men who are themselves
obliged to avow that they have no one idea of the chimera whom they adore, or which they
announce to others; who cannot render themselves an account, either of the nature, or of the
essence of their deified phantom; who can never agree amongst themselves, upon the proofs
of the existence of their God, of his qualities, or of his mode of action; who, by dint of
negations, have made him a pure
nothing;
who prostrate themselves, or cause others to fall
prostrate, before the absurd fictions of their own delirium; if, I say, by
atheists,
be designated
men of this kind, we shall be obliged to allow that the world is filled with atheists; and we
shall even be obliged to place in this number the most active theologians who are
unceasingly reasoning upon that which they do not understand; who are disputed upon a
being of whom they cannot demonstrate the existence; who by their contradictions very
efficaciously undermine his existence: who annihilate their perfect good being by the
numberless imperfections which they ascribe to him; who; who rebel against this God, by
the atrocious character under which they depict him. In short, we shall be able to consider,
as true atheists, those credulous people, who, upon hearsay, and from tradition, fall upon
their knees before a being of whom they have no other ideas, than those which are furnished
them by their spiritual guides, who themselves acknowledge that they comprehend nothing
about the matter. An atheist is a man who does not believe the existence of a God; now, no
one can be certain of the existence of abeing whom he does not conceive, and who is said
to unite incompatible qualities.
What has been said, proves that the theologians themselves, have not always known the
sense which they would attach to the word
atheist
; they have vaguely calumniated and
combated them as persons, whose sentiments and principles were opposed to their own.
Indeed, we find that these sublime doctors, always infatuated with their own particular
opinions, have frequently been lavish in their accusations of atheism, against all those whom
they were disposed to injure and to blacken, and whose systems they sought to render odious:
they were certain of alarming the uninformed and the silly, by vague imputation, or by a
word to which ignorance attaches an idea of terrour, because they have no knowledge of its
true sense. In consequence of this policy, we have frequently seen the partisans of the same
religious sect, the adorers of the same God, reciprocally treat each other as atheist, in the heat
of their theological quarrels: to be an atheist, in this sense, is not to have, in every point,
exactly the same opinions as those with whom we dispute upon religion. In all times, the
uninformed have considered those as atheists, who did not think of the Divinity, precisely
in the same manner as the guides whom they were accustomed to follow. Socrates, the adorer
of a unique God, was no more than an atheist in the eyes of the Athenian people.
Still more, as we have already observed, those persons have frequently been accused of
atheism, who have taken the greatest pains to establish the existence of a God, but who have
not produced satisfactory proofs of it.
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 132
When on a similar subject the proofs were frail and perishable, it was easy for their
enemies to make them pass for atheists, who have wickedly betrayed the cause of the
Divinity by defending him too feebly. I shall here stop, to show what little foundation there
is, for that which is said to be an evident truth, whilst it is so frequently attempted to be
proved, and yet can never be verified, even to the satisfaction of those who boast so much
of being intimately convinced of it; at least, it is certain, that in examining the principles of
those who have essayed to prove the existence of God, they have been generally found weak
or false, because they could not be either solid or true; the theologians themselves, have been
obliged to discover, that their adversaries could draw from them inductions quite contrary
to those notions, which they have an interest in maintaining; in consequence, they have been
frequently very highly incensed, against those who believed they had discovered the most
forcible proofs of the existence of their God; they did not perceive, that it was impossible not
to lay themselves open to attack in establishing principles, or systems, visibly founded upon
an imaginary and contradictory being, which each man sees variously.
69
In a word, all those who have taken the cause of the theological God in hand, with the most
vigour, have been taxed with atheism and irreligion; his most zealous partisans have been
looked upon as deserters and traitors; the most religious theologians have not been able to
guaranty themselves from this reproach; they have mutually lavished it on each other, and
all have, without doubt, merited it, if by atheists be designated those men who have not any
idea of their God which does not destroy itself, as soon as they are willing to submit it to the
touchstone of reason.
70
Chapter X. Is Atheism compatible with Morality?
After having proved the existence of atheists, let us return to the calumnies which arc
lavished upon them, by the deicolists. “An atheist,” according to Abbadie, “cannot be
virtuous; to him
virtue
is only a chimera,
probity
no more than a vain scruple,
honesty
nothing but foolishness. He knows no other law than his interest; where this sentiment
prevails, conscience is only a prejudice, the law of nature only an illusion, right no more than
errour; benevolence has no longer any foundation; the bonds of society arc loosened; fidelity
is removed; the friend is ready to betray his friend; the citizen to deliver up his country; the
son to assassinate his father in order to enjoy his inheritance, whenever he shall find an
occasion, and that authority or silence, will shield him from the arm of the secular power,
which alone is to be feared. The most inviolable rights, and the most sacred laws, must no
longer be considered, but as dreams and visions.”
71
Such, perhaps, would be the conduct, not of a thinking, feeling, and reflecting being,
susceptible of reason, but of a ferocious brute, of an irrational creature who should not have
any idea of the natural relations which subsist be- tween beings necessary to their reciprocal
happiness. Can it be supposed, that a man, capable of experience, furnished with the faintest
glimmerings of good sense, would lend himself to the conduct which is here ascribed to the
atheist, that is to say, to a man, who is sufficiently susceptible of reflection to undeceive
himself by reasoning upon those prejudices, which every thins strives to show him as
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 133
important and sacred? Can it, I say, be supposed, that there is. in any polished society, a
citizen sufficiently blind not to acknowledge his most natural duties, his dearest interests, the
danger which he runs in disturbing his fellow-creatures, or in following no other rule than
his momentary appetites? A being, who reasons the least in the world, is he not obliged to
feel that society is advantageous to him, that he has need of assistance, that the esteem of his
fellow-creatures is necessary to his happiness, that he has every thing to fear from the wrath
of his associates, that the laws menace whoever dare infringe them?
Every man, who has
received a virtuous education, who has in his infancy experienced the tender cares of a father,
who has in consequence tasted the sweetness of friendship, who has received kindness, who
knows the value of benevolence and equity, who feels the pleasure which the affection of our
fellow-creatures procures for us, and the inconveniences which result from their aversion and
their contempt, is he not obliged to tremble at losing such manifest advantages, and at
incurring by his conduct such visible dangers?
Will not the hatred, the fear, the contempt of
himself, disturb his repose, every time that, turning inwardly upon his own conduct, he shall
contemplate himself with the same eyes as others? Is there, then, no remorse, but for those
who believe in a God? The idea of being seen by a being of whom we have at best very
vague notions, is it more forcible, than the idea of being seen by men, of being seen by
ourselves, of being obliged to fear, of being in the cruel necessity of hating ourselves, and
to blush in thinking of our conduct, and of the sentiments which it must infallibly inspire?
This granted, we shall reply, deliberately, to this Abbadie, that an atheist is a man who
knows nature and its laws, who knows his own nature, and who knows what it imposes upon
him. An atheist has experience, and this experience proves to him, every moment, that vice
can injure him, that his most concealed faults, that his most secret dispositions may be
detected and display him in open day; this experience proves to him that society is useful to
his happiness; that his interest demands he should attach himself to the country which
protects him, and which enables him to enjoy in security the benefits of nature; every thing
shows him, that in order to be happy, he must make himself beloved; that his father is for
him the most certain of friends; that ingratitude would remove from him his benefactor; that
justice is necessary to the maintenance of every association; and that no man, whatever may
be his power, can be content with himself, when he knows he is an object of public hatred.
He who has maturely reflected upon himself, upon his own nature, and upon that of his
associates, upon his own wants, and upon the means of satisfying them, cannot be prevented
from knowing his duties, from discovering that which he owes to himself, and that which he
owes to others; then he has morality, he has real motives to conform himself to its dictates;
he is obliged to feel that these duties are necessary; and if his reason be not disturbed by
blind passions, or by vicious habits, he will feel that virtue is for all men the surest road to
felicity. The atheists, or the fatalists, found all their systems upon necessity; thus, their moral
speculations, founded upon the necessity of things, are at least, much more permanent and
more invariable than those which only rest upon a God who changes his aspect according to
the dispositions and the passions of all those who contemplate him. The nature of things, and
its immutable laws, are not subject to vary; the atheist is always obliged to call that which
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 134
injures him, vice and folly; to call that which is advantageous to society, or which contributes
to its permanent happiness, virtue.
We see, then, that the principles of the atheist are much less liable to be shaken than those
of the enthusiast, who founds his morality upon an imaginary being, of whom the idea so
frequently varies, even in his own brain. If the atheist deny the existence of a God, he cannot
deny his own existence, nor that of beings similar to himself with whom he sees himself
surrounded; he cannot doubt the relations which subsist between them and him, he cannot
question the necessity of the duties which flow from these relations; he cannot, then, be
dubious on the principles of morality, which is nothing more than the science of the relations
subsisting between beings living together in society.
If, satisfied with a barren speculative knowledge of his duties, the atheist do not apply them
to his conduct; if hurried away by his passions, or by criminal habits, if given up to shameful
vices, if possessing a vicious temperament, he appear to forget his moral principles, it does
not follow that he has no principles, or that his principles are false; it can only be concluded
from such conduct, that, in the intoxication of his passions, in the confusion of his reason,
he does not put in practice speculations extremely true; that he forgets principles ascertained,
to follow those propensities which lead him astray.
Nothing is more common amongst men than a very marked discrepance between the mind
and the heart; that is to say, between the temperament, the passions, the habits, the whims,
the imagination, and the mind, or the judgment, assisted by reflection. Nothing is more rare,
than to find these things in harmony; it is then that we see speculation influence practice. The
most certain virtues, are those which are founded upon the temperament of men. Indeed, do
we not every day see mortals in contradiction with them selves? Does not their judgment
unceasingly condemn the extravagances to which their passions deliver them up?
In short,
does not every thing prove to us, that men, with the best theory, have sometimes the worst
practice: and with the most vicious theory have frequently the most estimable conduct? In
the blindest, the most atrocious superstitions, and those which are the most contrary to reason
we meet with virtuous men; the mildness of their character, the sensibility of their heart, the
excellence of their temperament, reconduct them to humanity, and to the laws of nature, in
despite of their furious theories. Amongst the adorers of a cruel, vindictive, and jealous God,
we find peaceable minds, who are enemies to persecution, to violence, and to cruelty; and
amongst the disciples of a God filled with mercy and clemency, we see monsters of barbarity
and inhumanity. Nevertheless, the one and the other acknowledge that their God ought to
serve them for a model: wherefore do they not conform themselves to him? If is because the
temperament of man is always more powerful than his God; it is because the most wicked
Gods cannot always corrupt a virtuous mind, and that the most gentle Gods cannot always
restrain hearts driven along by crime. The organization will always be more puissant than
religion: present objects, momentary interests, rooted habits, public opinion, have much more
power than imaginary beings, or than theories which themselves depend upon the
organization of man.
The point in question, then, is to examine if the principles of the atheist are true, and not
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 135
if his conduct is commendable. An atheist, who, having an excellent theory, founded upon
nature, experience, and reason, delivers himself up to excesses, dangerous to himself, and
injurious to society, is, without doubt, an inconsistent man. But he is not more to be feared
than a religious and zealous man, who believing in a good, equitable, and perfect God, does
not scruple to commit the most frightful excesses in his name. An atheistical tyrant would
not be more to be dreaded than a fanatical tyrat. An incredulous philosopher is not so
dreadful as an enthusiastic priest, who fans the flame of discord among his fellow-citizens.
Would then an atheist clothed with power, be equally dangerous as a persecuting king, a
savage inquisitor, a whimsical devotee, or a morose bigot?
These are assuredly more
numerous than atheists, of whom the opinions and the vices are far from being in a condition
to have an influence upon society, which is too much blinded by prejudice to be disposed to
give them a hearing.
An intemperate and voluptuous atheist is not a man more to be feared than he who is
superstitious, who knows how to connect licentiousness, libertinism, and corruption of
morals, with his religious notions. Can it be imagined, with sincerity, that a man, because he
is an atheist, or because he does not fear the vengeance of Gods, will be continually
intoxicated, will corrupt the wife of his friend, will break open his neighbour’s dwelling, and
permit himself to commit all those excesses, which are the most prejudicial to himself, or the
most deserving of punishment? The blemishes of an atheist, have not, then, any thing more
extraordinary in them, than those of the religious man, they have nothing to reproach his
doctrine with. A tyrant, who should be incredulous, would not he a more incommodious
scourge to his subjects than a religious tyrant; would the people of the latter be more nappy
from the circumstance that the tiger who governed them believed in a God. heaped presents
upon his priests, and humiliated himself at their feet? At least, under the dominion of an
atheist, they would not have to apprehend religious vexations, persecutions for opinions,
proscriptions, or those strange outrages, for which the interests of Heaven are frequently the
pretext, under the mildest princes. If a nation be the victim of the passions and the folly of
a sovereign who is an infidel, it will not, at least suffer from his blind infatuation for
theological systems, nor from his fanatical zeal, which of all the passions that infest kings,
is always the most destructive and the most dangerous. An atheistical tyrant, who should
persecute for opinions, would be a man not consistent with his principles; he would only
furnish one more example, that mortals much more frequently follow their passions, their
interests, their temperaments, than their speculations. It is, at least, evident, that an atheist
has one pretext less than a credulous prince, for exercising his natural wickedness.
Indeed, if men condescended to examine things coolly, they would find that the name of
God is never made use of on earth, but for a pretext to indulge their passions. Ambition,
imposture, and tyranny, have formed a league, to avail themselves of its influence, to the end
that they may blind the people, and bend them beneath their yoke. The monarch makes use
of it, to give a divine lustre to his person, the sanction of Heaven to his rights, and the
confidence of its oracles to his most unjust and most extravagant whims. The priest uses it,
to give currency to his pretensions, to the end that he may, with impunity, gratify his avarice,
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 136
pride, and independence. The vindictive and enraged superstitious being introduces the cause
of his God, that he may give free scope to his fury, which he qualifies with zeal. In short,
religion becomes dangerous, because it justifies and renders legitimate or commendable
those passions and crimes, of which it gathers the fruit: according to its ministers, every thing
is permitted to revenge the Most High; thus the Divinity appears to be made only to authorize
and palliate the most injurious transgressions. The atheist, when he commits crimes, cannot,
at least, pretend that it is his God who commands and approves them; this is the excuse
which the superstitious being offers up for his wickedness; the tyrant for his persecutions;
the priest for his cruelty and sedition; the fanatic for his excesses; the penitent for his
inutility.
“They are not,” says Bayle, “the general opinions of the mind, which determine us to act,
but the passions.” Atheism is a system, which will not make a good man wicked, neither will
it make a wicked man good. “Those,” says the same author, “who embraced the sect of
Epicurus, did not become debauchees because they had embraced the doctrine of Epicurus;
they only embraced the doctrine of Epicurus, then badly understood, because they were
debauchees.”
72
In the same manner, a perverse man may embrace atheism, because he will
flatter himself, that this system will give full scope to his passions? he will nevertheless be
deceived; atheism, if well understood, is founded upon nature and reason, which never will,
like religion, either justify or expiate the crimes of the wicked.
From the doctrine which makes morality depend upon the existence and the will of a God
who is proposed to men for a model, there unquestionably results a very great inconvenience.
Corrupt minds, in discovering how much each of these suppositions are erroneous or
doubtful, let loose the rein of all their vices, and concluded that there were no real motives
to do good; they imagined that virtue, like the Gods, was only a chimera, and that there was
not any reason for practising it in this world. Nevertheless, it is evident, that it is not as
creatures of God that we are bound to fulfil the duties of morality; it is as men, as sensible
beings, living together in society, and seeking to secure ourselves a happy existence, that we
feel the moral obligation. Whether there exists a God, or whether he exists not, our duties
will be the same; and our nature, if consulted, will prove,
that vice is an evil, and that virtue
is a real and substantial
good.
73
If, then, there be found atheists, who have denied the distinction of good and evil, or who
have dared to strike at the foundation of all morality, we ought to conclude, that upon this
point they have reasoned badly; that they have neither been acquainted with the nature of
man, nor known the true source of his duties; that they have falsely imagined that morality
as well as theology, was only an ideal science, and that the Gods once destroyed, there
remained no longer any bonds to connect mortals. Nevertheless, the slightest reflection
would have proved to them that morality is founded upon the immutable relations subsisting
between sensible, intelligent and sociable beings; that withouf virtue no society can maintain
itself; that without putting a curb on his desires, no man can conserve himself. Men are
constrained from their nature to love virtue, and to dread crime, by the same necessity that
obliges them to seek happiness, and fly from sorrow; thus nature obliges them to place a
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 137
difference between those objects which please them, and those which injure them. Ask a man
who is sufficiently irrational to deny the difference between virtue and vice, if it would be
indifferent to him, to be beaten, robbed, calumniated, repaid with ingratitude, dishonoured
by his wife, insulted by his children, and betrayed by his friend His answer will prove to you,
that, whatever he may say, he makes a difference in the actions of men; and that the
distinction of good and evil does not depend either upon the conventions of men, or upon the
ideas which they can have upon the Divinity; upon the punishments or upon the recompense
which he prepares them in the other life. On the contrary, an atheist, who should reason with
justness, would feel himself much more interested than another, in practising those virtues
to which he finds his happiness attached in this world. If his views do not extend themselves
beyond the limits of his present existence, he must at least desire to see his days roll on in
happiness and in peace. Every man. who, during the calm of his passions, falls back upon
himself, will feel that his interest invites him to conserve himself; that his felicity demands
that he should take the necessary means to enjoy life peaceably, and exempt from alarm and
remorse. Man owes something to man, not because he would offend a God if he were to
injure his fellow-creature, but because, in doing him an injury, he would offend a man, and
would violate the laws of equity, in the maintenance of which, every being of the human
species finds himself interested.
We every day see persons who are possessed of great talents, knowledge, and penetration,
join to them the most hideous vices, and have a very corrupt heart: their opinions may be true
in some respects, and false in a great many others; their principles may be just, but the
inductions which they draw from them are frequently defective and precipitate. A man may
have at the same time sufficient knowledge to undeceive himself of some of his errours, and
too little energy to divest himself of his vicious propensities. Men
are only that which their
organization, modified by habit, by education, by example, by the government, by transitory
or permanent circumstances, makes them. Their religious ideas and their imaginary systems
are obliged to yield or accommodate themselves to their temperaments, their propensities,
and their interests. If the system, which makes man an atheist, does not remove from him the
vices which he had before, neither does it give him any new ones: whereas, superstition
furnishes its disciples with a thousand pretexts for committing evil without remorse, and even
to applaud them- selves for the commission of crime. Atheism, at least, leaves men such as
they are; it will not render a man more intemperate, more debauched, more cruel, than his
temperament before invited him to be; whereas superstition gives loose to the most terrible
passions, or else procures easy expiations for the most dishonourable vices. “Atheism,” says
Chancellor Bacon, “leaves to man reason, philosophy, natural piety, laws, reputation, and
every thing that can serve to conduct him to virtue; but superstition destroys all these things,
and erects itself into a tyranny over the understandings of men: this is the reason why
atheism never disturbs the government, but renders man more clear-sighted, as seeing
nothing beyond the bounds of this life.” The same author adds, that the times in which men
have turned towards atheism have been the most tranquil: whereas superstition has always
inflamed their minds and carried them on to the greatest disorders, because it infatuates the
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 138
people with novelties, which wrest from, and carry with them all the authority of
government.”
74
Men habituated to meditate, and to make study a pleasure, are not commonly dangerous
citizens; whatever may be their speculations, they never )roduce sudden revolutions upon
the; erth. The minds of the people, at all times susceptible of being inflamed by the
marvellous and by enthusiasm, obstinately resist the most simple truths, and never heat
themselves for systems which demand a long train of reflection and reasoning. The system
of atheism can only be the result of long and connected study; of an imagination cooled by
experience and reasoning. The peaceable Epicurus never disturbed Greece; the poem of
Lucretius caused no civil wars in Rome; Bodin was not the author of the league; the writings
of Spinosa have not excited the same troubles in Holland, as the disputes of Gomar and
d’Arminius. Hobbes did not cause blood to flow in England, although, in bis time, religious
fanaticism made a king perish on the scaffold.
In short, we can defy the enemies to human reason to cite a single example which proves,
in a decisive manner, that opinions purely philosophical, or directly contrary to religion, have
ever excited disturbances in the state. Tumults have always arisen from theological opinions,
because both princes and people have always foolishly believed they ought to take a part in
them. There is nothing so dangerous as that empty philosophy which the theologians have
combined with their systems. It is to philosophy corrupted by priests, to which it peculiarly
belongs to fan the flames of discord, invite the people to rebellion, and cause rivers of blood
to flow. There is no theological question which has not occasioned immense mischief to
man; whilst all the writings of the atheists, whether ancient or modern, have never caused
any evil but to their authors, whom omnipotent imposture has frequently immolated at his
shrine.
The principles of atheism are not formed for the mass of the people, who are commonly
under the tutelage of their priests; they are not calculated for those frivolous and dissipated
minds who fill society with their vices and their inutility; they are not suited to the ambitious,
to those intriguers, and restless minds, who find their interest in disturbing the harmony of
the social compact; much less are they made for a great number of persons enlightened in
other respects, who have but very rarely the courage to completely divorce themselves from
the received prejudices.
So many causes unite themselves to confirm men in those errours, which they have been
made to suck in with their mother’s milk, that every step that removes them from these
fallacies, costs them infinite pains. Those persons who are most enlightened, frequently cling
on some side to the general prejudice. We feel ourselves as it were isolated; we do not speak
the language of society, when we are alone in our opinions, it requires courage to adopt a
mode of thinking that has but few approvers. In those countries where human knowledge has
made some progress, and where, besides, a certain freedom of thinking is enjoyed, we can
easily find a great number of deists or of incredulous beings, who, contented with having
trampled under the foot the grosser prejudices of the uninformed, have not dared to go back
to the source, and cite the Divinity himself before the tribunal of reason. If these thinkers did
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, volume 2, 139
not stop on the road, reflection would quickly prove to them, that the God whom they have
not the courage to examine is a being as injurious, and as revolting to good sense, as any of
those doctrines, mysteries, fables, or superstitious customs, of which they have already
acknowledged the futility; they would feel, as we have already proved, that all these things
are no more than the necessary consequences of those primitive notions which men have
indulged respecting their divine phantom, and that, in admitting this phantom, they have no
longer any rational cause to reject those inductions which the imagination must draw from
it. A little attention would show them that it is precisely this phantom who is the true cause
of all the evils of society; that those endless quarrels, and those bloody disputes to which
religion and the spirit of party every instant give birth, are the inevitable effects of the
importance which they attach to a chimera, ever calculated to kindle the minds of men into
combustion. In short, it is easy to convince ourselves that an imaginary being, who is always
painted under a terrific aspect, must act in a lively manner upon the imagination, and must
produce, sooner or later, disputes, enthusiasm, fanaticism, and delirium.
Many persons acknowledge that the extravagances to which religion gives birth, are real
evils; many persons complain of the abuse of religion; but there are very few who feel that
this abuse and these evils are the necessary consequences of the fundamental principles of
all religion, which can itself be founded only upon those grievous notions which men are
obliged to form of the Divinity. We daily see persons undeceived upon religion, who pretend,
nevertheless, that this religion
is
necessary for the people,
who could not be kept within
bounds without it. But to reason thus, is it not to say, that poison is useful to the people, that
it is proper to poison them, to prevent them from making a bad use of their power?
Is it not
to pretend that it is advantageous to render them absurd, irrational, and extravagant; that they
have need of phantoms, calculated to make them giddy, to blind them, and to submit them
to fanatics or to impostors, who will avail themselves of their follies to disturb the repose of
the world? Besides, is it quite true that religion has a useful influence over the morals of the
people? It is very easy to see that it enslaves them without rendering them better; it makes
a herd of ignorant slaves, whom their panic terrours keep under the yoke of tyrants and
priests; it forms stupid beings, who know no other virtue than a blind submission to futile
customs, to which they attach a much greater value than to real virtues, or to the duties of
morality, which have never been made known to them. If, by chance, this religion restrains
some few timid individuals, it does not restrain the greatest number, who suffer themselves
to be hurried along by the epidemical vices with which they are infected. It is in those
countries where superstition has the greatest power, wherein we shall always find the least
morality. Virtue is incompatible with ignorance, superstition, and slavery; slaves are only
kept in subordination by the fear of punishments; ignorant children are intimidated only for
an instant by imaginary terrours. To form men, to have virtuous citizens, it is necessary to
instruct them, to show them truth, to speak reason to them, to make them feel their interests,
to learn them to respect themselves, and to fear shame; to excite in them the ideas of true
honour
, to make them know the value of virtue, and the motives for following it. How can
these happy effects be expected from religion, which degrades men, or from tyranny which
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, volume 2, 140
only proposes to itself to vanquish them, to divide them, and to keep them in an abject
condition?
The false ideas which so many persons have of the utility of religion, which they at least
judge to be calculated to restrain the people, arise from the fatal prejudice that there are
useful errours,
and that truth may be dangerous. This principle is completely calculated to
eternise the sorrows of the earth; whoever shall have the courage to examine these things,
will acknowledge, without hesitation, that all the miseries of the human species are to be
ascribed to their errours, and that of these, religious errours must be the most prejudicial from
the haughtiness with which they inspire sovereigns, from the importance which is attached
to them, from the abject condition which they prescribe to subjects, from the phrensy which
they excite among the people: we shall therefore be obliged to conclude, that the sacred
errours of men are those of which the interest of mankind demands the most complete
destruction, and that it is principally to the annihilation of them, that sound philosophy ought
to be employed. It is not to be feared, that this attempt will produce either disorders or
revolutions; the more freedom with which truth shall be spoken, the more convincing it will
appear; the more simple it shall be, the less it will seduce men who are smitten with the
marvellous; even those men who seek after truth with the most ardour, have an irresistible
inclination, that urges them on, and incessantly disposes them to reconcile errour with its
opposite.
75
Here is, unquestionably, the reason why atheism, of which, hitherto, the principles have not
been sufficiently developed, appears to alarm even those persons who are the most destitute
of prejudice. They find the interval too great between the vulgar superstition, and absolute
irreligion; they believe they take a wise medium, in compounding with errour; they reject the
consequence while admitting the principle; they preserve the phantom with out foreseeing
that, sooner or later, it must produce the same effects, and give birth, one after another, to the
same follies in the heads of human beings. The major part of the incredulous and of the
reformers, do no more than prune a cankered tree, to whose roots they have not dared to
apply the axe; they do not see that this tree will, in the end, reproduce the same fruits.
Theology, or religion, will always be a heap of combustible matter; generated in the
imagination of mankind, it will always finish by causing conflagrations. As long as the
sacerdotal order shall have the privilege of infecting youth, of habituating it to tremble before
words, of alarming nations with the name of a terrible God, fanaticism will be master of the
mind, imposture will, at its pleasure, sow discord in the state. The most simple phantom,
perpetually fed, modified, and exaggerated by the imagination of men, will by degrees
become a colossus sufficiently powerful to upset every mind and overthrow empires. Deism
is a system at which the human mind cannot stop long; founded upon a chimera, sooner or
later, it will be seen to degenerate into an absurd and dangerous superstition. Many
incredulous beings, and many deists are met with in those countries where liberty of thought
reigns; that is to say, where the civil power has known how to counterbalance superstition.
But above all, atheists will be found in those nations, where superstition, backed by the
sovereign authority, makes the weight of its yoke felt, and imprudently abuses its unlimited
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 141
power.
76
Indeed, when, in this kind of countries, science, talents, the seeds of reflection are
not entirely stifled; the greater part of the men who think, revolt at the crying abuses of
religion, at its multifarious follies, at the corruption and the tyranny of its priests, at those
chains which it imposes believing with reason, that they can never remove themselves too
far from its principles; the God who serves for the basis of such a religion, becomes as
odious to them as the religion itself; if this oppresses them they ascribe it to God. they feel
that a terrible, jealous, and vindictive God, must be served by cruel ministers; consequently,
this God becomes a detestable object to every enlightened and honest mind amongst whom
are always found the love of equity, liberty, humanity, and indignation against tyranny.
Oppression gives a spring to the soul, it obliges man to examine closely the cause of his
sorrows; misfortune is a powerful incentive, that turns the mind to the side of truth. How
formidable must not irritated reason be to falsehood? [t tears away its mask, it follows it even
into its last entrenchment; it at east inwardly enjoys its confusion.
Chapter XI. Of the Motives which lead to Atheism? Can this
System be Dangerous? Can it be Embraced by the Uninformed?
The preceding reflections will furnish us wherewith to reply to those who ask what interest
men have in not admitting a God? The tyrannies, the persecutions, the numberless outrages
committed in the name of this God, the stupidity and the slavery into which the ministers of
this God every where plunge the people; the bloody disputes to which this God gives birth;
the number of unhappy beings with which his fatal idea fills the world, are they then not
motives sufficiently powerful sufficiently interesting to determine al sensible men who are
capable of thinking to examine the titles of a being who causes so many evils to the
inhabitants of the earth?
A theist, very estimable for his talents, asks,
if there can be any other cause than an evil
disposition which can make men atheists
?
77
I reply to him, yes, there are other causes; there
is the desire of having a knowledge of interesting truths; there is the powerful interests of
knowing what opinion to hold upon the object which is announced to us as the most
important; there is the fear of deceiving ourselves upon the being who occupies himself with
the opinions of men, and who does not permit that they should deceive themselves respecting
him with impunity. But when these motives or these causes should not subsist, are not
indignation, or
;
if they will, an
evil disposition,
legitimate causes, good and powerful
motives, for closely examining the pretensions and the rights of an invisible tyrant, in whose
name so many crimes are committed on the earth? Can any man, who thinks, who feels, who
has any elasticity in his soul, prevent himself from being incensed against an austere despot,
who is visibly the pretext and the source of all those evils with which the human species is
assailed on every side? Is it not this fatal God who is at once the cause and the pretext of that
iron yoke which oppresses men, of that slavery in which they live, of that blindness which
covers them, of that superstition which disgraces them, of those irrational customs which
torment them, of those quarrels which divide them, of those outrages which they experience?
Must not every mind in which humanity is not extinguished, irritate itself against a phantom,
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 142
who, in every country, is made to speak only like a capricious, inhuman, and irrational
tyrant?
To motives so natural, we shall join those which are still more urgent and personal to every
man who reflects: namely, that troublesome fear, which must have birth, and be unceasingly
nourished by the idea of a capricious God, so touchy, that he irritates himself against man,
even for his most secret thoughts, who can be offended without our knowing it, and whom
we are never certain of pleasing; who, moreover, is not restrained by any of the ordinary
rules of justice, who owes nothing to the feeble work of his hands, who permits his creatures
to have unhappy propensities, who gives them liberty to follow them, to the end that he may
have the odious satisfaction of punishing them for faults, which he suffers them to commit?
What can be more reasonable, and more just, than to verify the existence, the qualities, and
the rights of a judge, who is so severe that he will everlastingly avenge the crimes of a
moment?
Would it not be the height of folly, to wear without inquietude, like the greater
number of mortals, the overwhelming yoke of, a God, always ready to crush us in his fury.
The frightful qualities with which the Divinity is disfigured by those impostors who
announce his decrees, oblige every rational being to drive him from his heart, to shake off
his detestable yoke, and to deny the existence of a God, who is rendered lateful by the
conduct which is ascribed to him; to scorn a God who is rendered ridiculous by those fables,
which in every country are detailed of him. If there existed a God who was jealous of his
glory, the crime the most calculated to irritate him would unquestionably be the blasphemy
of those knaves who unceasingly paint him under the most revolting character; this God
ought to be much more offended against his hideous ministers than against those who deny
his existence. The phantom which superstition adores, while cursing him at the bottom of his
heart, is an object so terrible that every wise man who meditates upon it. is obliged to refuse
him his homage, to hate him, to prefer annihilation to the fear of falling into his cruel hands.
It is frightful,
the fanatic cries out to us,
to fall into the hands of the living God
; and in order
that he may escape falling into them, the man who thinks maturely, will throw himself into
the arms of nature; and it is there alone that he will find a safe asylum against those continual
storms, which supernatural ideas produce in the mind.
The deist will not fail to tell the atheist that God is not such as superstition paints him. But
the atheist will reply to him, that superstition itself, and all the absurd and prejudicial notions
to which it gives birth, are only corollaries of those false and obscure principles which are
held respecting the Divinity. That his incomprehensibility suffices to authorize the
incomprehensible absurdities and mysteries which are told of him, that these mysterious
absurdities flow necessarily from an absurd chimera which can only give birlh to other
chimeras, which the bewildered imagination of mortals will incessantly multiply. This
fundamental chimera must be annihilated to assure the repose of man, that he may know his
true relations and his duties, and obtain that serenity of soul without which there is no
happiness on the earth. If the God of the superstitious be revolting and mournful, the God of
the theist will always be a contradictory being, who will become fatal, when he shall
meditate on him, or with which, sooner or later, imposture will not fail to abuse him. Nature
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 143
alone, and the truths which she discovers to us, are capable of giving to the mind and to the
heart, a firmness, which falsehood will not be able to shake.
Let us again reply to those who unceasingly repeat, that the interest of the passions alone
conduct us to atheism, and that it is the fear of punishments to come, that determine corrupt
men to make efforts to annihilate this judge whom they have reason to dread.
We shall, without hesitation, agree that the interests and the passions of men excite them
to make inquiries; without interest no man is tempted to seek; without passion no man will
seek vigorously. The question, then, to be examined here, is, if the passions and interests,
which determine some thinkers to examine the rights of God are legitimate or not? We have
exposed these interests, and we have found that every rational man finds in his inquietudes
and his fears, reasonable motives, to ascertain whether or not it be necessary to pass his life
in lerpetual fears and agonies? Will it be said, that an unhappy being, unjustly condemned
to groan in chains, has not the right of desiring to break them, or to take some means of
liberating himself from his prison, and from those punishments which menace him at each
instant? Will it be pretended that his passion for liberty has no legitimate foundation, and that
he does an injury to the companions of his misery, in withdrawing himself from the strokes
of tyranny, and in furnishing them with assistance to escape from these strokes also? Is, then,
an incredulous man any thing more than one who has escaped from the general prison in
which tyrannical imposture detains all mankind? Is not ah atheist who writes, one that has
escaped, and furnishes to those of his associates, who have sufficient courage to follow him,
the means of setting themselves free from the terrours which menace them?
78
We also agree, that frequently the corruption of morals, debauchery, licentiousness, and
even levity of mind, can conduct men to irreligion or to incredulity; but it is possible to be
a libertine, irreligious, and to make a parade of incredulity, without being an atheist on that
account: there is unquestionably a difference between those who are led to irreligion by dint
of reasoning, and those who reject or despise religion, only because they look upon it as a
melancholy object, or an incommodious restraint. Many people renounce received prejudices
through vanity, or upon hearsay; these pretended strong minds have examined nothing for
themselves, they act on the authority of others, whom they suppose to have weighed things
more maturely. This kind of incredulous beings have not, then, any certain ideas, and are hut
little capacitated to reason for themselves; they are hardly in a state to follow the reasoning
of others. They are irreligious in the same manner as the majority of men are religious, that
is to say, by credulity, like the people, or through interest, like the priests. A voluptary, a
debauchee, buried in drunkenness; an ambitious mortal, an intriguer, a frivolous and
dissipated man, a loose woman, a choice spirit of the day, are they personages really capable
of judging of a religion which they have not deeply examined and maturely weighed, of
feeling the force of an argument, of comparing the whole of a system? If they sometimes
discover some faint glimmerings of truth amidst the tempest of their passions, which blind
them, these leave on them only some evanescent traces, no sooner received than obliterated.
Corrupt men attack the Gods only when they conceive them to be the enemies of their
passions.
79
The honest man attacks them because he finds they are inimical to virtue,
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 144
injurious to his happiness, contradictory to his repose, and fatal to the human species.
Whenever our will is moved by concealed and complicated motives, it is extremely
difficult to decide what determines it; a wicked man may be led to irreligion or to atheism
by those motives which he dare not avow even to himself: he may form to himself an illusion
and only follow the interest of his passions in believing he seeks after truth; the fear of an
avenging God will perhaps determine him to deny his existence without much examination,
uniformly because he is incommodious to him. Nevertheless, the passions happen to be
sometimes just; a great interest carries us on to examine things more closely: it may
frequently make a discovery of the truth, even to him who seeks after it the least, or who is
only desirous of being lulled asleep, and of deceiving himself. It is the same with a perverse
man who stumbles upon the truth, as it is with him who, flying from an imaginary danger,
should find in his road a dangerous serpent, which in his haste he should kill; he does that
by accident, and without design, which a man less troubled in his mind would have done
with premeditated deliberation. A wicked man who fears his God, and who would escape
from him, may certainly discover the absurdity of those notions which are entertained of him,
without discovering for that reason that those same notions in no wise change or alter the
evidence and the necessity of his duties.
To judge properly of things, it is necessary to be disinterested; it is necessary to have an
enlightened and connected mind to compass a great system. It belongs only co the honest
man, to examine the proofs of the existence of a God, and the principles of religion; it
belongs only to the man acquainted with nature and its ways, to embrace with intelligence
the cause of the System of Nature. The wicked and the ignorant are incapable of judging with
candour; the honest and virtuous are alone competent judges in so weighty an affair. What
do I say?
is not the virtuous man from thence in a situation to desire the existence of a God
who remunerates the goodness of men?
If he renounce these advantages which his virtue
gives him the right to hope for, it is because he finds them imaginary, as well as the
remunerator who is announced to him; and that in reflecting on the character of this God, he
is obliged to acknowledge that it is not possible to rely upon a capricious despot, and that the
enormities and follies to which he serves as a pretext, infinitely surpass the pitiful advantages
that can result from his idea. Indeed, every man who reflects, quickly perceives that for one
timid mortal, of whom this God restrains the feeble passions, there are millions whom he
cannot curb, and of whom, on the contrary, he excites the fury; for one that he consoles, there
are millions whom he affrights, whom he afflicts, whom he obliges to groan; in short, he
finds that against one inconsistent enthusiast, which this God, whom he believes good,
renders happy, he carries discord, carnage, and affliction, into vast countries, and plunges
whole people in grief and tears.
However this may be, do not let us inquire into the motives which may determine a man
to embrace a system: let us examine the system, let us convince ourselves if it be true, and
if we shall find that it is founded upon truth, we shall never be able to esteem it dangerous.
It is always falsehood which injures men; if errour be visibly the source of their sorrows,
reason is the true remedy for them. Do not let us farther examine the conduct of a man who
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, volume 2, 145
presents us with a system; his ideas, as we have already said, may be extremely sound, when
even his actions are highly deserving censure. If the system of atheism cannot render him
perverse who is not so by his temperament, it cannot render him good who does not
otherwise know the motives which should conduct him to virtue. At least, we have proved
that the superstitious man, when he has strong passions and a depraved heart, finds even in
his religion a thousand pretexts more than the atheist for injuring the human species. The
atheist has not, at least, the mantle of zeal to cover his vengeance, his transports and his fury;
the atheist has not the faculty of expiating, at the expense of money or by the aid of certain
ceremonies the outrages which he commits against society; he has not the advantage of being
able to reconcile himself with his God, and by some easy custom to quiet the remorse of his
disturbed conscience; if crime has not deadened every feeling of his heart, he is obliged
continually to carry within himself an inexorable judge, who unceasingly reproaches him for
his odious conduct, who forces him to blush, to hate himself, and to fear the looks and the
resentment of others. The superstitious man, if he be wicked, gives himself up to crime,
which is followed by remorse; but his religion quickly furnishes him with the means of
getting rid of it; his life is generally no more than a long series of errour and grief, of sin and
expiation: still more, he frequently commits, as we have al- ready seen, crimes of greater
magnitude, in order to expiate the first: destitute of any permanent ideas of morality, he
accustoms himself to look upon nothing as a crime, but that which the ministers and the
interpreters of his God forbid him to commit: he considers as virtues, or as the means of
effacing his transgressions, actions of the blackest die, which are frequently held out to him
as agreeable to this God. It is thus we have seen fanatics expiate, by the most atrocious
persecutions, their adulteries, their infamy, their unjust wars, and their usurpations; and to
wash away their iniquities, bathe themselves in the blood of those superstitious beings,
whose infatuation made them victims and martyrs.
An atheist, if he has reasoned justly. if he has consulted nature, has principles more certain,
and always more humane than the superstitious: his religion, whether gloomy or enthusiastic,
always conducts the latter either to folly or to cruelty. The imagination of an atheist will
never be intoxicated to that degree, to make him believe that violence, injustice, persecution,
or assassination, are virtuous or legitimate actions. We every day see that religion, or the
cause of Heaven, hoodwinks those persons who are humane, equitable, and rational on every
other occasion so much that they make it a dutt to treat with the utmost barbarity those men
who step aside from their mode of thinking. A heretic, an incredulous being, ceases to be a
man in the eyes of the superstitious. Every society, infected with the venom of religion,
offers us innumerable examples of juridicial assassinations, which the tribunals commit
without scruple, and without remorse; judges, who are equitable on every other occasion, are
no longer so as soon as there is a question of theological chimeras; in bathing themselves in
blood, they believe they conform to the views of the Divinity. Almost every where, the laws
are subordinate to superstition, and make themselves accomplices in its fury; they legitimate
or transform into duties those cruelties which are the most contrary to the rights of
humanity.
80
Are not all these avengers of religion blind men, who, with gayety of heart, and
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 146
through piety and duty, immolate to it those victims which it ap- points? Are they not tyrants,
who have the injustice to violate thought, and who have the folly to believe they can enslave
it? Are they not fanatics on whom the law, dictated by inhuman prejudices, impose the
necessity of becoming ferocious brutes? Are not all those sovereigns, who, to avenge
Heaven, torment and persecute their subjects, and sacrifice human victims to the wickedness
of their anthrophpoagite Gods, men whom religious zeal has converted into tigers? Are not
those priests, so careful of the soul’s health, who insolently break into the sanctuary of the
thoughts, to the end that they may find in the opinions of man motives for injuring him,
odious knaves and disturbers of the mind’s repose, whom religion honours, and whom reason
detests? What villains are more odious in the eyes of humanity than those infamous
inquisitors,
who, by the blindness of princes, enjoy the advantage of judging their own
enemies, and of committing them to the flames? Nevertheless the superstition of the people
makes them re spected, and the favour of kings overwhelms them with kindness! Do not a
thousand examples prove that religion has every where produced and justified the most
unaccountable horrours? Has it not a thousand times armed men with the poniards of
homicides, let loose passions much more terrible than those which it pretended to restrain,
and broken the most sacred bonds of mortals?
Has it not. under the pretexts of duty, of faith,
of piety, of zeal, favoured cruelty, stupidity, ambition, and tyranny? Has not the cause of God
made murder, perfidy, perjury, rebellion, and regicide legitimate? Have not those princes,
who frequently have made themselves the avengers of Heaven, the lictors of religion,
hundreds of times been its victims? In short, has not the name of God been the signal for the
most dismal follies, and the most frightful and wicked outrages? Have not the altars of the
Gods every where swam in blood; and under whatever form they may have shown the
Divinity, was he not always the cause or the pretext of the most insolent violation of the
rights of humanity?
81
Never will an atheist, as long as he enjoys his right senses, persuade himself that similar
actions can be justifiable; never will he believe that he who commits them can be an
estimable man; there is no one but a superstitious being, whose blindness makes him forget
the most evident principles of morality, of nature, and of reason, who can possibly imagine
that the most destructive crimes are virtues. If the atheist be perverse, he, at least, knows that
he does wrong; neither God nor his priests will be able to persuade him that he does right,
and whatever crimes he may allow himself to commit, he will never be capable of exceeding
those which superstition causes to be committed without scruple, by those whom it
intoxicates with its fury, or to whom it holds forth crimes themselves as expiations and
meritorious actions.
Thus the atheist, however wicked he may be supposed to be, will at most be only on a level
with the devotee, whose religion frequently encourages him to commit crime which it
transforms into virtue. As to conduct, if he be debauched, voluptuous, intemperate, and
adulterous, the atheist differs in nothing from the most credulous superstitious being, who
frequently knows how to connect with his credulity those vices and crimes which his priests
will always pardon, provided he render homage to their power. If he be in Hindostan, nis
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 147
bramins will wash him in the Ganges while reciting a prayer. If he be a Jew, upon making
an offering, his sins will be effaced; if he be in Japan, he will be cleansed by performing a
pilgrimage; if he be a Mahometan, he will be reputed a saint for having visited the tomb of
his prophet: if he be a Christian, he will pray, he will fast, he will throw himself at the feet
of his priests and confess his faults to them; these will give him absolution in the name of the
Most High, will sell him the indulgences from Heaven, but never will they censure him for
those crimes which he shall have committed in support of their several faiths.
We are constantly told, that the indecent or criminal conduct of the priests and of their
sectaries proves nothing against the goodness of their religious systems; but wherefore do
they not say the same thing of the conduct of the atheist, who, as we have already proved,
may have a very good and very true system of morality, even while leading a dissolute life?
If it be necessary to judge the opinions of mankind according to their conduct, which is the
religion that would bear this scrutiny? Let us, then, examine the opinions of the atheist
without approving of his conduct; let us adopt his mode of thinking, if we judge it to be true,
useful, and rational; let us reject his mode of acting, if we find it blameable. At the sight of
a work filled with truth, we do not embarrass ourselves with the morals of the workman. Of
what importance is it to the universe whether Newton were a sober or an intemperate, a
chaste or a debauched man? It only remains for us to examine whether he reasoned well, if
his principles be certain, if the parts of his system are connected, if his work contains more
demonstrable truths than bold ideas. Let us judge in the same manner of the principles of an
atheist; if they are strange and unusual, that is a reason for examining them more strictly; if
he has spoken truth, if he has demonstrated his positions, let us yield to the evidence; if he
be deceived in some parts let us distinguish the true from the false, but do not let us fall into
the hackneyed prejudice, which on account of one errour in the detail, rejects a multitude of
incontestable truths.
82
The atheist, when he is deceived, has unquestionably as much right to
throw his faults on the fragility of his nature as the superstitious man. An atheist may have
vices and defects, he may reason badly; but at least his errours will never have the
consequences of religious novelties; they will not, like these, kindle up the fire of discord in
the bosom of nations; the atheist will not justify his vices and his wanderings by religion; he
will not pretend to infallibility, like those self-conceited theologians who attach the divine
sanction to their follies, and who suppose that Heaven authorizes those sophisms, those
falsehoods, and those errours, which they believe themselves obliged to distribute over the
face of the earth.
It will perhaps be said that the refusal to believe in the Divinity, will rend asunder one of
the most powerful bonds of society, in making the sacredness of an oath vanish. I reply, that
perjury is by no means rare in the most religious nations, nor even amongst those persons
who make a boast of being the most thoroughly convinced of the existence of the Gods.
Diagoras, superstitious as he was, became, it is said, an atheist on seeing that the Gods had
not thundered their vengeance on a man who had taken them as evidence to a falsity. Upon
this principle, how many atheists ought to be made among us? From the principle which has
made an invisible and an unknown being the depositary of man’s engagements, we do not
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, volume 2, 148
see it result that their engagements and their most solemn contracts are more solid for this
vain formality. Conductors of nations, it is you above all, that I call upon to witness my
assertions!
This God, of whom ye say ye are the images, from whom ye pretend to hold the
right of governing; this God, whom ye so often make the witness of your oaths, the guarantee
of your treaties; this God, of whom ye declare ye fear the judgment, has he much weight with
ye, whenever there is a question of the most futile interest? Do ye religiously observe those
sacred engagements which ye have made with your allies, and with your subjects? Princes!
who to so much religion frequently join so little probity, I see the power of truth overwhelms
ye; without doubt, you blush at this question; and you are constrained to allow that you
equally mock Gods and men. What do I say? Does not religion itself frequently absolve you
from your oaths? Does it not prescribe that you should be perfidious, and violate plighted
faith, above all, when there is a question of its sacred interests, does it not order you to
dispense with the engagements you have made with those whom it condemns? And after
having rendered you perfidious and perjured, has it not sometimes arrogated the right of
absolving your subjects from those oaths which bound them to you!
83
If we consider things
attentively, we shah see, that under such chiefs, religion and politics are schools of perjury.
Therefore, knaves of every condition never recoil when it is necessary to attest the name of
God to the most manifest frauds, and for the vilest interests. What end then do oaths answer?
They are snares in which simplicity alone can suffer itself to be caught; oaths are every
where vain formalities, they impose nothing on villains, nor do they add any thing to the
engagements of honest men, who, without oaths, would not have had the temerity to violate
them. A perfidious and perjured superstitious being, unquestionably has not any advantage
over an atheist who should fail in his promises; neither the one nor the other any longer
deserves the confidence of their fellow-citizens nor the esteem of good men: if one does not
respect his God in whom he believes, the other neither respects his reason, his reputation, nor
public opinion, in which all rational men cannot refuse to believe.
84
It has been frequently asked, if there ever was a nation that had no idea of the Divinity, and
if a people uniformly composed of atheists would be able to subsist? Whatever some
speculators may say, it does not appear likely that there ever has been upon our globe a
numerous people, who have not had an idea of some invisible power, to whom they have
shown marks of respect and submission.
85
Man, inasmuch as he is a fearful and ignorant
animal, necessarily becomes superstitious in his misfortunes: either he forms a God for
himself, or he admits the God which others are disposed to give him. It does not then appear
that we can rationally suppose there may have been, or that there actually is, a people upon
the earth a total stranger to the notion of some Divinity. One will show us the sun, or the
moon and stars; the other will show us the sea, the lakes, the rivers, which furnish him. his
subsistence; the trees which afford him an asylum against the inclemency of the air; another
will show us a rock of an odd form, a high mountain or volcano that frequently astonishes
him; another will present you with his crocodile, whose malignity he fears; his dangerous
serpent, the reptile to which he attributes his good or his bad fortune. In short, each man will
make you see his phantasm, his domestic or tutelary God with respect.
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 149
But from the existence of his Gods, the savage does not draw the same inductions as the
civilized and polished man; the savage does not believe it a duty to reason much upon his
Divinities; he does not imagine that they ought to influence his morals, nor entirely occupy
his thoughts: content with a gross, simple, and exterior worship, he does not believe that
these invisible powers trouble themselves with his conduct towards his fellow-creatures; in
short, he does not connect his morality with his religion. This morality is coarse, as must be
that of all ignorant people; it is proportioned to his wants, which are few; it is frequently
irrational, because it is the fruit of ignorance, of inexperience, and of the passions of men,
but slightly restrained in their infancy. It is only in numerous, stationary, and civilized
societies, where man’s wants multiply themselves, and his interests clash, that he is obliged
to have recourse to governments, to laws, and to public worship, in order to maintain
concord: it is then that men approximating, reason and combine their ideas, refine and
subtilize their notions; it is then that those who govern them, avail themselves of the fear of
invisible powers to keep them within bounds, to render them docile, and oblige them to obey
and live peaceably. It is thus that by degrees, morals and politics find themselves connected
with religious systems. The chiefs of nations, frequently superstitious themselves, but little
enlightened upon their own interests, hut little versed in sound morality, and but little
instructed in, the true motive-powers of the human heart, believe that they have done every
thing for their own authority as well as for the happiness and repose of society, in rendering
their subjects superstitious, in menacing them with the wrath of their invisible phantoms, in
treating them like children, who are appeased with fables and chimeras. By the assistance of
these marvellous inventions, to which even the chiefs and the conductors of nations are
themselves frequently the dupes, and which are transmitted from race to race in their duties,
sovereigns are dispensed from the trouble of instructing themselves; they neglect the laws,
they enervate themselves in ease and sloth, they follow nothing but the caprice, they repose
in their deities the care of restraining their subjects; they confide the instruction of the people
to priests, who are commissioned to render them good, submissive, and devout, and to teach
them, in an early age, to tremble under the yoke of the visible and invisible Gods. It
is thus
that nations are kept by their tutors in a perpetual state of infancy, and are only restrained by
vain chimeras. It is thus that politics, jurisprudence, education, and morality, are every where
infected with superctition. It is thus that men no longer know any duties but those of religion;
it is thus that the idea of virtue is falsely associated with that of those imaginary powers to
which imposture gave that language which is most con- ducive to its own immediate
interests. It is thus that men are persuaded that without a God there no longer exists any
morality for them. It is thus that princes and subjects, equally blind to their true interests, to
the duties of nature, and to their reciprocal rights, have habituated themselves to consider
religion as necessary to morals, as indispensably requisite to govern men, and as the most
certain means of arriving at power and happiness.
It is from these dispositions, of which we have so frequently demonstrated the falsity, that
so many persons, otherwise extremely enlightened, look upon it as an impossibility, that a
society of atheists could subsist for any length of time. It does not admit a question, that a
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 150
numerous society who should neither have religion, morality, government, laws, education,
nor principles, could not maintain itself, and that it would simply draw together beings
disposed to injure each other, or children who would only blindly follow the most fatal
impulsions; but then, with all the religion in the world, are not human societies very nearly
in this state? Are not the sovereigns of almost every; country in a continual state of warfare
with their subjects? Are not these
subjects, in despite of religion and the terrible notions which it gives them of the Divinity,
unceasingly occupied in reciprocally injuring each other, and rendering themselves mutually
unhappy? Does not religion itself, with its supernatural notions, unremittingly flatter the
vanity and the passions of sovereigns, and throw oil into the fire of discord between those
citizens who are divided in opinion? Could those
infernal
powers, who are supposed to be
ever upon the watch to injure the human species, be capable of producing greater evils upon
the earth than spring from fanaticism, and the fury to which theology gives birth? In short,
could atheists, assembled together in society, however irrational they may be supposed to be,
conduct themselves towards each other in a more criminal manner, than do these
superstitious beings, filled with real vices and extravagant chimeras, who have, during so
many ages, done nothing more than destroy themselves and cut each other’s throats, without
reason, and without pity? It cannot be pretended they would; on the contrary, we boldly
assert, that a society of atheists, destitute of all religion, governed by wholesome laws,
formed by a good education, invited to virtue by recompenses, deterred from crime by
equitable punishments, and disentangled from illusions, falsehood, and chimeras, would be
infinitely more honest and more virtuous than those religious societies, in which every thing
conspires to intoxicate the mind and to corrupt the heart.
When we shall be disposed usefully to occupy ourselves with the happiness of men, it is
with the Gods in heaven that the reform must commence; it is by abstracting these imaginary
beings, destined to affright people who are ignorant and in a state of infancy, that we shall
be able to promise ourselves to conduct man to a state of maturity. It cannot be too often
repeated, there is no morality without consulting the nature of man and his true relations with
the beings of his species; no fixed principles for man’s conduct in regulating it upon Unjust,
capricious, and wicked Gods; no sound politics, without consulting the nature of man, living
in society to satisfy his wants, and to assure his happiness and its enjoyment. No wise
government can found itself upon a despotic God, he will always make tyrants of his
representatives. No laws will be good without consulting the nature and the end ot society.
No jurisprudence can be advantageous for nations, if it is regulated upon the caprice and
passions of deified tyrants. No education will be rational, unless it be founded upon reason,
and not upon chimeras and prejudices. In short there is no virtue, no probity, no talents,
under corrupt masters, and under the conduct of those priests who render men the enemies
of themselves and of others, and who seek to stifle in them the germs of reason, science, and
courage.
It will, perhaps, be asked, if we can reasonably flatter ourselves with ever arriving at the
point of making a people entirely forget their religious opinions, or the ideas which they have
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 151
of the Divinity?
I reply, that the thing appears utterly impossible, and that this is not the end
which we can propose to ourselves. The idea of a God, inculcated from the most tender
infancy, does not appear of a nature to admit eradication from the mind of the majority of
mankind: it would, per- haps, be as difficult to give it to those persons, who, arrived at a
certain age, should never have heard it spoken of, as to banish it from the minds of those who
have been imbued with it from their earliest infancy. Thus it cannot be supposed that it is
possible to make a whole nation pass from the abyss of superstition, that is to say, from the
bosom of ignorance and of delirium, into absolute atheism, which supposes reflection, study,
knowledge, a long series of experience, the habit of contemplating nature, the science of the
causes of its various phenomena, of its combinations, of its laws, of the beings who compose
it, and of their different properties. In order to be an atheist, or to be assured of the powers
of nature, it is necessary to have meditated profoundly; a superficial glance of the eye will
not make us acquainted with her powers; eyes but little exercised, will unceasingly be
deceived; the ignorance of actual causes will make us suppose those which are imaginary;
and ignorance will thus reconduct the natural philosopher himself to the feet of a phantom,
in which his limited vision, or his idleness will make him believe he shall find the solution
of every difficulty.
Atheism, as well as philosophy and all profound and abstract sciences, then, is not
calculated for the uninformed, neither is it suitable for the majority of mankind. There are
in all populous and civilized nations, persons whose circumstances enable them to meditate,
to make researches and useful discoveries, which, sooner or later, finish by extending
themselves and becoming beneficial when they have been judged advantageous and true. The
geometrician, the mechanic the chymist, the physician, the civilian, the artisan himself,
labour in their closets or in their workshops, seeking the means to serve society each in his
sphere; nevertheless, not one of these sciences or professions are known to the uninitiated,
who, however, do not fail in the long run to profit by, and reap the advantages of those
labours of which they themselves have no idea. It is for the mariner that the astronomer
labours: it is for him that the geometrician and the mechanic calculate: it is for the mason and
the labourer that the skilful architect draws learned designs. Whatever may be the pretended
utility of religious opinions, the profound and subtile theologian cannot boast of labouring,
of writing, or of disputing for the advantage of the people, whom, however, they contrive to
tax exorbitantly for those systems and those mysteries which they will never understand, and
which never can at any time be of any utility whatever to them.
It is not, then, for the multitude that a philosopher ought to propose to himself to write or
to meditate. The principles of atheism, or the
System of Nature,
are not even calculated, as
we have shown, for a great number of persons, extremely enlightened on other points, but
frequently top much prepossessed in favour of received prejudices. It is extremely rare to
find men who, to an enlarged mind, extensive knowledge, and great talents, join either a
well-regulated imagination, or the courage necessary to combat successfully those habitual
chimeras with which the brain has been long inoculated. A secret and invincible inclination
frequently reconducts, in despite of all reasoning, the most solid and the best-fortified minds
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 152
to those prejudices which they see generally established, and of which they have themselves
drank copiously from their most tender infancy. Nevertheless, by degrees, those principles
which then appear strange or revolting, when they have truth on their side, insinuate
themselves into the mind, become familiar extend themselves far and wide, and produce the
most advantageous effects over every society: in time, men familiarize themselves with those
ideas which originally they had looked upon as absurd and irrational; at least, they cease to
consider those as odious who profess opinions upon things of which experience makes it
evident, they may be permitted to have doubts without danger to the public.
The diffusion of ideas, then, amongst men, is not to be dreaded. Are they useful? By
degrees they will fructify. The man who writes, must neither fix his eyes upon the time in
which he lives, nor upon his actual fellow-citizens, nor upon the country which he inhabits.
He must speak to the human species, he must foresee future generations; in vain will he
expect the applauses of his contemporaries; in vain shall he flatter himself with seeing his
precocious principles received kindly by prejudiced minds; if he has told truth, the ages that
shall follow will render justice to his efforts; meantime, let him content himself with the idea
of having done well, or with the secret suffrages of those few friends to truth who inhabit the
earth. It is after his death that the writer of truth triumphs; it is then that the stings of hatred
and the shafts of envy, either exhausted or blunted, give place to truth, which being eternal,
must sur- vive all the errours of the earth.
86
Besides, we shall say with Hobbes, that “We cannot do men any harm by proposing our
ideas to them; the worst mode is to leave them in doubt and dispute; indeed, are they not so
already?” If an author who writes be deceived, it is because he may have reasoned badly. Has
he laid down false principles?
It remains to examine them. Is his system false and ridiculous?
It will serve to make truth appear in its greatest splendour; his work will fall into contempt;
and the writer, if he be witness to its fall, will be sufficiently punished for his temerity; if he
be dead, the living cannot disturb his ashes. No man writes with a design to injure his fellow-
creatures; he always proposes to himself to merit their suffrages, either by amusing them, by
exciting their curiosity, or by communicating to them discoveries which he believes useful.
No work can be dangerous; above all, if it contains
truth.
It would not be so, even if it
contained principles evidently contrary to experience and good sense. Indeed, what would
result from a work that should now tell us the sun is not luminous; that parricide is
legitimate; that robbery is allowable; that adultery is not a crime?
The smallest reflection
would make us feel the falsity of these principles, and the whole human race would protest
against them. Men would laugh at the folly of the author, and presently his book and his
name would be known only by their ridiculous extravagancies. There is nothing but religious
follies that are pernicious to mortals; and wherefore? It is because authority always pretends
to establish them by violence, to make them pass for virtues, and rigorously punishes those
who should be disposed to laugh at or to examine them. If men were more rational, they
would consider religious opinions and theological systems with the same eyes as systems of
natural philosophy, or problems in geometry: these latter never disturb the repose of society,
although they sometimes excite very warm disputes amongst some of the learned.
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 153
Theological quarrels would never be attended with any evil consequences, if men could
arrive at the desirable point of making those who have power in their hands, feel that they
ought not to have any other sensations than those of indifference and contempt, for the
disputes of persons who do not themselves understand the marvellous questions upon which
they never cease disputing.
It is at least, this indifference, so just, so rational, so advantageous for states, that sound
philosophy proposes to introduce by degrees upon the earth. Would not the human species
be much happier, if the sovereigns of the world, occupied with the welfare of their subjects,
and leaving to superstition its futile contests, submitted religion to politics; obliged its
haughty ministers to become citizens; and carefully prevented their quarrels from
interrupting the public tranquillity? What advantages would there not result to science,
to
the
progress of the human mind, to the perfectionating of morality, of jurisprudence, of
legislation, of education, from the liberty of thought?
At present genius every where finds
shackles; religion continually opposes itself to its course: man, enveloped with bandages,
does not enjoy any one of his faculties; his mind itself is tortured, and appears continually
wrapped up in the swaddling clothes of infancy. The civil power, leagued with the spiritual
power, appears only disposed to rule over brutalized slaves, confined in an obscure prison,
where they make each other reciprocally feel the effects of their mutual ill-humour.
Sovereigns detest liberty of thought, because they fear truth; this truth appears formidable
to them, because it would condemn their excesses; these excesses are dear to them, because
they know no more than their subjects their true interests, which ought to blend themselves
into one.
Let not the courage of the philosopher, however, be abated by so many united obstacles,
which would appear to exclude for ever truth from its dominion; reason from the mind of
man; arid nature from its rights. The thousandth part of those cares which are bestowed to
infect the human mind, would be sufficient to make it whole. Do not then let us despair, do
not let us do man the injury to believe that truth is not made for him; his mind seeks after it
incessantly; his heart desires it; his happiness demands it loudly; he fears it or mistakes it,
only because religion, which has overthrown all his ideas, perpetually keeps the bandeau of
delusion over his eyes, and strives to render him a total stranger to virtue.
Maugre the prodigious exertions that are made to drive truth, reason, and science, from the
earth; time, assisted by the progressive knowledge of ages, may be able one day to enlighten
even those princes who are so outrageous against truth, such enemies to justice, and to the
liberty of mankind. Destiny will, perhaps, one day conduct them to the throne of some
enlightened, equitable, courageous, and benevolent sovereign, who acknowledging the true
source of human miseries, shall apply to them the remedies with which wisdom has furnished
him: perhaps he will feel that those Gods, from whom he pretends he derives his power, are
the true scourges of his people; that the ministers of these Gods are his own enemies and
rivals; that the religion which he looks upon as the support of his power, does, in fact, only
weaken and shake it; that superstitious morality is false; and serves only to pervert his
subjects, and to give them the vices of slaves, in lieu of the virtues of the citizen; in short, he
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 154
will see in religious errours, the fruitful source of the sorrows of the human species; he will
feel that they are incompatible with every equitable administration.
Until this desirable epoch for humanity, the principles of
naturalism
will be adopted only
by a small num- ber of thinkers, they cannot flatter themselves with having a great
many.approvers or proselytes; on the contrary, they will find ardent adversaries, or
contemners, even in those persons who, upon every other subject, discover the most acute
minds and display the greatest knowledge. Those men who have the greatest share of talents,
as we have already observed, cannot always resolve to divorce themselves completely from
their religious ideas; imagination, so necessary to splendid talents, frequently forms in them
an insurmountable obstacle to the total extinction of prejudice; this depends much more on
the judgment than on the mind. To this disposition, already so prompt to form illusions for
them, is also joined the power of habit; to a great many men it would be wresting from them
a portion of themselves to take away their ideas of God; it would be depriving them of an
accustomed aliment; it would be plunging them into a vacuum, and obliging their
distempered minds to perish for want of exercise.
87
Let us not, then, be surprised if very great and learned men obstinately shut their eyes, or
run counter to their ordinary sagacity, every time there is a question respecting an object
which they have not the courage to examine with that attention which they have lent to many
others. Lord Chancellor Bacon pretends that “
a little philosophy disposes men to atheism,
but that great depth reconducts them to religion
,” If we analyze this proposition, we shall
find it to signify, that very moderate and indifferent thinkers are quickly enabled to perceive
the gross absurdities of religion, but that little accustomed to meditate, or destitute of those
certain principles which could serve to guide them, their imagination presently replaces them
in the theological labyrinth, from whence reason, too weak, appeared disposed to withdraw
them. Timid souls fear even to take courage again; minds accustomed to be satisfied with
theological solutions, no longer see in nature any thing but an inexplicable enigma, an abyss
which it is impossible to fathom. Habituated to fix their eyes upon an ideal and mathematical
point, which they have made the centre of every thing, the universe becomes a jumble to
them, whenever they lose sight of it; and in the confusion in which they find themselves
involved, they rather prefer returning to the prejudices of their infancy, which appear to
explain every thing, than to float in the vacuum, or quit that foundation which they judge to
be immoveable. Thus, the proposition of Bacon, appears to indicate nothing, except it be, that
the most experienced persons cannot defend themselves against the illusions of their
imagination, the impetuosity of which resists the strongest reasoning.
Nevertheless, a deliberate study of nature is sufficient to undeceive every man who will
calmly consider things: he will see that every thing in the world is connected by links
invisible to the superficial and to the too impetuous observer, but extremely intelligible to
him who views things with coolness. He will find that the most unusual, and the most
marvellous, as well as the most trifling and ordinary effects are equally inexplicable; but that
they must flow from natural causes, and that supernatural causes, under whatever name they
may be designated, with whatever qualities they may be decorated, will do no more than
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 155
increase difficulties, and make chimeras multiply. The simplest observation will
incontestably prove to him that every thing is necessary, that all the effects which he
perceives are material, and can only originate in causes of the same nature, when even he
should not be able, by the assistance of the senses, to recur to these causes. Thus his mind
will every where show turn nothing but matter acting sometimes in a manner which his
organs permit him to follow, and sometimes in a mode imperceptible to him: he will see that
all beings follow constant and invariable laws, by which all combinations form and destroy
themselves, all forms change, whilst the great whole ever remains the same. Then cured of
th« notions with which he was imbued, undeceived in those erroneous ideas, which, from
habit, he attached to imaginary beings, he will cheerfully consent to be ignorant of that which
his organs cannot compass; he will know that obscure terms, devoid of sense, are not
calculated to explain difficulties; and guided by reason, he will throw aside all hypotheses
of the imagination, to attach himself to those realities which are confirmed by experience.
The greater number of those who study nature, frequently do not consider, that with the
eyes of prejudice they will never discover more than that which they have resolved
beforehand to find; as soon as they perceive facts contrary to their own ideas, they quickly
turn aside, and believe their eyes have deceived them; or else, if they turn hack, it is in hopes
to be able to reconcile them with those notions with which their mind is imbued. It is thus
we find enthusiastic philosophers, whose prepossessions show them, even in those things
which most openly contradict their opinions, incontestable proofs of those systems with
which they are preoccupied. Hence those pretended demonstrations of the existence of a
good God, which are drawn from final causes, from the order of nature, from his kindness
to man, &c., &c. Do the same enthusiasts perceive disorder, calamities, and revolutions?
They induct new proofs from the wisdom, the intelligence, the bounty of their God, whilst
all these things as visibly contradict these qualities, as the first appear to confirm or to
establish them. These prejudiced observers are in an ecstasy at the sight of the periodical
motion and order of the stars, at the productions of the earth, at the astonishing harmony of
the parts of animals; they forget, however, the laws of motion, the powers of attraction and
repulsion, and of gravitation, and assign all these great phenomena to an unknown cause of
which they have no idea! In short, in the heat of their imagination, they place man in the
centre of nature; they believe him to be the object and the end of all that exists; that it is for
him that every thing is made; that it is to rejoice and please him that every thing has been
created; whilst they do not perceive that very frequently the whole of nature appears to be
loosed against him and that destiny obstinately persists in rendering him the most miserable
of beings.
88
Atheism is only so rare because every thing conspires to intoxicate man, from his most
tender age, with a dazzling enthusiasm, or to puff him up with a systematic and organized
ignorance which is of all ignorance the most difficult to vanquish and to root out. Theology
is nothing more than a science of words, which, by dint of repetition, we accustom ourselves
to substitute for things; as soon as we feel disposed to analyze them, we find that they do not
present us with any actual sense. There are very few men in the world who think deeply, who
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 156
render to themselves an account of their ideas, and who have penetrating minds; justness of
intellect is one of the rarest gifts which nature bestows on the human species.
89
Too lively
an imagination, an over-eager curiosity, are as powerful obstacles to the discovery of truth,
as too much phlegm, a slow con- ception, indolence of mind, the want of a thinking habit.
All men have more or less imagination, curiosity, phlegm, bile, indolence, activity: it is from
the just equilibrium, which nature has observed in their organization, that justness of mind
depends. Nevertheless, as we have heretofore said, the organization of man is subject to
change, and the judgment of his mind varies with the changes which his machine is obliged
to undergo: hence those almost perpetual revolutions which take place in the ideas of
mortals, above all when there is a question concerning those of objects upon which
experience does not furnish them with any fixed basis whereon to support them.
To seek and discover truth, which every thing strives to conceal from us, and which (the
accomplices of those who lead us astray) we are frequently disposed to dissimulate to
ourselves, or which our habitual terrours make us fear to find, there needs a just mind, an
upright heart, in good faith with itself, and an imagination tempered with reason. With these
dispositions, we shall discover truth, which never shows itself either to the enthusiast,
smitten with his reveries; to the superstitious being, nourished with melancholy; to the vain
man, puffed up with His presumptuous ignorance; to the man devoted to dissipation and to
his pleasures; or to the reasoner, disingenuous with himself, who is only disposed to form
illusions to his mind. With these dispositions the attentive philosopher, the geometrician, the
moralist, the politician, the theologian himself, when he shall sincerely seek truth, will find
that the angular stone, which serves for the foundation of all religious systems, evidently
supports falsehood. The philosopher will find in matter a sufficient cause of his existence,
of his motion, of hia combination, of his modes of acting, always regulated by general laws
incapable of varying. The geometrician will calculate the active force of matter, and without
quitting nature, he will find that, to explain her phenomena, it is not necessary to have
recourse to a being or to a power incommensurable with all known powers. The politician,
instructed in the true motive-powers, wnich can act on the mind of nations, will feel that it
is not necessary to recur to imaginary motive-powers, whilst were are real ones to act upon
the will of the citizens, and to determine them to labour to the maintenance of their
association; he will acknowledge that a fictitious motive-power is only calculated to slacken
or disturb the motion of a machine so complicated as that of society. He who shall more
honour truth than the subtilties of theology, will quickly perceive that this vain science is
nothing more than an unintelligible heap of false hypotheses, begging of principles, of
sophisms, of vitiated circles, of futile distinctions, of captious subtilties, of disingenuous
arguments, from which it is not possible there should result any thing but puerilities, or
endless disputes. In short, all men who have sound ideas of morality, of virtue, of that which
is useful to man in society, whether to conserve himself, or to conserve the body of which
he is a member, will acknowledge that men. in order to discover their relations and their
duties, have only to consult their own nature, and ought to be particularly careful not to found
them upon a contradictory being, or to borrow them from a model which will do more than
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 157
disturb their minds, and render them uncertain of their proper mode of acting.
Thus every rational thinker, in renouncing his prejudices, may feel the inutility and the
falsity of so many abstract systems, which hitherto have only served to confound all our
notions and render doubtful the clearest truths. In re-entering his proper sphere, and quitting
the regions of the empyreum, where his mind can only bewilder itself; in consulting reason,
man will discover that of which he needs a knowledge, and undeceive himself of those
chimerical causes which enthusiasm, ignorance, and falsehood, have every where substituted
to true causes and to real motive-powers, that act in a nature out of which the human mind
can never ramble without going astray, and without rendering itself miserable.
The Deicolists, and all theologians, unceasingly reproach their adversaries, with their taste
for
paradoxes,
or for
systems,
whilst they themselves found all their reasoning upon
imaginary hypotheses, and make a principle of renouncing experience, of despising nature,
of setting down as of no account the evidence of their senses, and of submitting their
understanding to the yoke of authority. Would not, then the
disciples of nature
be justified
in saying to these men: — “We only assure ourselves of that which we see; we yield to
nothing but evidence; if we have a system, it is founded only upon facts. We perceive in
ourselves and every where else nothing but matter, and we conclude from it, that matter can
both feel and think. We see that every thing operates in the world after mechanical laws, by
the properties, by the combination, by the modification of matter, and we seek no other
explication of the phenomena which nature presents. We conceive only a single and unique
world, in which every thing is linked together, where each effect is due to a natural cause,
either known or unknown, which it produces according to necessary laws. We affirm nothing
that is not demonstrable, and which you are not obliged to admit as well as us; the principles
which we lay down are clear and evident: they are facts; if some things be obscure and
unintelligible to us, we ingenuously agree to their obscurity; that is to say, to the limits of our
own knowledge.
90
But we do not imagine an hypothesis in order to explain these effects; we
either consent to be for ever ignorant of them, or else we wait until time, experience, and the
progress of the human mind shall throw a light upon them. Is not our manner of
philosophizing the true one! Indeed, in every thing which we advance on the subject of
nature, we proceed precisely in the same manner as our adversaries them- selves proceed in
all the other sciences, such as
natural history, natural philosophy, mathematics, chymistry
morality, and politics.
We scrupulously confine ourselves to that which is known to us
through the medium of our senses, the only instruments which nature has given us to
discover truth. What is the conduct of our adversaries? In order to explain things which are
unknown to them, they imagine beings still more unknown than those things which they are
desirous of explaining; beings of whom they themselves acknowledge they have no one
notion!
They invert, then, the true principles of logic, which consist in proceeding from that
which is most known to that with which we are least acquainted. But upon what do they
found the existence of these beings by whose aid they pretend to resolve all difficulties?
It
is upon the universal ignorance of men, upon their inexperience, upon their terrours, upon
their disordered imaginations, upon a pretended
intimate sense,
which is in reality only the
D’Holbach,
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, volume 2, 158
effect of ignorance, fear, the want of a reflecting habit, and the suffering themselves to be
guided by authority. Such, O theologians, are the ruinous foundations upon which ye build
the edifice of your doctrine! After this, ye find it impossible to form to yourselves any
precise idea of those Gods who serve for the basis of your systems; ye are unable to
comprehend either their attributes, their existence, the nature of their residence, or their
manner of acting. Thus, even by your own confession, ye are in a state of profound ignorance
on the primary elements (of which it is indispensably requisite to have a knowledge) of a
thing which ye constitute the cause of all that exists. Thus, under whatever point of view ye
are contemplated, it is ye that build systems in the air, and of all systematizers ye are the
most absurd; because, in relying on your imagination to create a cause, this cause ought at
least to diffuse light over the whole; it is upon this condition alone that its
incomprehensibility could be pardoned: but can this cause serve to explain any thing? Does
it make us conceive more clearly the origin of the world, the nature of man, the faculties of
the soul, the source of good and of evil?
No, unquestionably, this imaginary cause either
explains nothing, multiplies of itself the difficulties to infinity, or throws embarrassments and
obscurity on all those matters in which they have made it interpose. Whatever may be the
question agitated, it becomes complicated as soon as they introduce the name of God: this
name envelops the clearest sciences in clouds, and renders the most evident notions
complicated and enigmatical. What idea of morality does your Divinity present to man, upon
whose will and example you found all the virtues? Do not all our revelations show him to us
under the character of a tyrant who sports witn the human species; who commits evil for the
pleasure of doing it, who only governs the world according to the rules of his unjust
caprices? All vour ingenious systems, all your mysteries, all the subtleties which ye have
invented, are they capable of clearing your God, whom ye say is so perfect, from that
blackness and atrocity with which good sense cannot fail to accuse him?
In short, is it not in
his name that ye disturb the universe, that ye persecute, that ye exterminate all who refuse
to subscribe to those systematical reveries which ye have decorated with the pompous name
of religion.
Acknowledge, then, O theologians? that ye are, not only systematically absurd,
but also that ye finish by being atrocious and cruel from the importance which your pride
and your interest attach to those ruinous systems, under which ye equally overwhelm human
reason and the felicity of nations
.”
Chapter XII. A Summary of the Code of Nature.
Truth is the only object worthy the research of every wise man; since that which is false
cannot be useful to him: whatever constantly injures him cannot be founded upon truth;
consequently, ought to be for ever proscribed. It is, then, to assist the human mind, truly to
labour for his happiness, to point out to him the clew by which he may extricate himself from
those frightful labyrinths in which his imagination wanders; from those sinuosities whose
devious course makes him err, without ever finding a termination to his incertitude. Nature
alone, known through experience, can furnish him with this desirable thread; her eternal
energies pan alone supply the means of attacking the Minotaur; of exterminating the figments
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of hypocrisy; of destroying those monsters, who during so many ages, have devoured the
unhappy victims, which the tyranny of the ministers of a pretended God have exactec as a
cruel tribute from affrighted mortals. By steadily grasping this inestimable clew, man can
never be led astray — will never ramble out of his course; but if, careless of its invaluable
properties, for a single instant he suffers it to drop from his hand; if, like another Theseus,
ungrateful for the favour, he abandons the fair bestower, he will infallibly fall again into his
ancient wanderings; most assuredly become the prey to the cannibal offspring of the White
Bull. In vain shall he carry his views towards heaven, to find resources which are at his feet;
so long as man, infatuated with his religious notions, shall seek in an imaginary world the
rule of his earthly conduct, he will be without orinciples; while he shall pertinaciously
contemplate the regions of a fanciful heaven, so long he will grope in those where he actually
finds himself; his uncertain steps will never encounter the welfare he desires; never lead him
to that repose after which he so ardently sighs, nor conduct him to that surety which is so
decidedly requisite to consolidate his happiness.
But man, blinded by his prejudices, rendered obstinate in injuring his fellow, by his
enthusiasm, ranges himself in hostility even against those who are sincerely desirous of
procuring for him the most substantive benefits. Accustomed to be deceived, he is in a state
of continual suspicion; habitu- ated to mistrust himself, to view his reason with diffidence,
to look upon truth as dangerous, he treats as enemies even those who most eagerly strive to
encourage him; forewarned in early life against delusion, by the subtlety of imposture, he
believes himself imperatively called upon to guard, with the most sedulous activity, the
bandeau with which they have hoodwinked him; he thinks his future welfare involved in
keeping it for ever over his eyes; he therefore wrestles with all those who attempt to tear it
from his obscured optics. If his visual organs, accustomed to darkness, are for a moment
opened, the light offends them; he is distressed by its effulgence; he thinks it criminal to be
enlightened; he darts with fury upon those who hold the flambeau by which he is dazzled.
In consequence, the atheist is looked upon as a malignant pest, as a public poison, which like
another Upas, destroys every thing within the vortex of its influence; he who dares to arouse
mortals from the lethargic habit which the narcotic doses administered by the theologians
have induced, passes for a perturbator; he who attempts to calm their frantic transports, to
moderate the fury of their maniacal paroxysms, is himself viewed as a madman, who ought
to be closely chained down in the dungeons appropriated to lunatics; he who invites his
associates to rend their chains asunder, to break their galling fetters, appears only like an
irrational, inconsiderate being, even to the wretched captives themselves: who have been
taught to believe, that nature formed them for no other purpose than to tremble: only called
them into existence that they might be loaded with shackles. In consequence of these fatal
prepossessions, the
Disciple of Nature
is generally treated as an assassin; is commonly
received by his fellow-citizens in the same manner as the feathered race receive the doleful
bird of night, which, as soon as it quits its retreat, all the other birds follow with a common
hatred, uttering a variety of doleful cries.
No, mortals blended by terrour! The friend of nature, is not your enemy; its interpreter is
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not the minister of falsehood; the destroyer of your vain phantoms is not the devastator of
those truths necessary to your happiness; the disciple of reason is not an irrational being, who
either seeks to poison you, or to infect you with a dangerous delirium. If he wrests the
thunder from the hands of those terrible Gods that affright ye, it is that ye may discontinue
your march, in the midst of storms, over roads that ye can only distinguish by the sudden, but
evanescent glimmerings of the electric fluid. If he breaks those idols, which fear has served
with myrrh and frankincense — which superstition has surrounded by gloomy despondency
— which fanaticism has imbrued with blood; it is to substitute in their place those consoling
truths that are calculated to heal the desperate wounds ye have received; that are suitable to
inspire you with courage, sturdily to oppose yourselves to such dangerous errours; that have
power to enable you to resist such formidable enemies. If he throws down the temples,
overturns the altars so frequently bathed with the bitter tears of the unfortunate, blackened
by the most cruel sacrifices, smoked with servile incense, it is that he may erect a fane sacred
to peace; a hall dedicated to reason; a durable monument to virtue, in which ye may at all
times find an asylum against your own phrensy; a refuge from your own ungovernable
passions; a sanctuary against those powerful men, by whom ye are oppressed. If he attacks
the haughty pretensions of deified tyrants, who crush ye with an iron sceptre, it is that ye may
enjoy the rights of your nature; it is to the end that ye may be substantively freemen, in mind
as well as in body; that ye may not be slaves, eternally chained to the oar of misery; it is that
ye may at length be governed by men who are citizens, who may cherish their own
semblances, who may protect mortals like themselves, who may actually consult the interests
of those from whom they hold their power. If he battles with imposture, it is to re-establish
truth in those rights which, have been so long usurped by fiction. If he undermines the base
of that unsteady, fanatical morality, which has hitherto done nothing more than perplex your
minds, without correcting your hearts; it is to give to ethics an immoveable basis, a solid
foundation, secured upon your own nature; upon the reciprocity of those wants which are
continually regenerating in sensible beings: dare, then, to listen to his voice; you will find it
much more intelligible than those ambiguous oracles, which are announced to you as the
offspring of a capricious Divinity; as imperious decrees that are unceasingly at variance with
themselves. Listen, then, to nature, she never contradicts her own eternal laws.
“O thou!” cries this nature to man, “who, following the impulse I hare given you, during
your whole existence, incessantly tend towards happiness, do not strive to resist my
sovereign law. Labour to your own felicity; partake without fear of the banquet which is
spread before you, and be happy; you will find the means legibly written on your own heart.
Vainly dost thou, O superstitious being! seek after thine happiness beyond the limits of the
universe, in which my hand hath placed thee: vainly shalt thou ask it of those inexorable
phantoms, which thine imagination, ever prone to wander, would establish upon my eternal
throne: vainly dost thou expect it in those celestial regions, to which thine own delirium halh
given a locality and a name: vainly dost thou reckon upon capricious deities with whose
benevolence thou art in such ecstasies, whilst they only fill thine abode with calamity —
thine heart with dread — thy mind with illusions — thy bosom with groans. Dare, then, to
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affranchise thyself from the trammels of religion, my self-conceited, pragmatic rival, who
mistakes my rights; renounce those Gods, who are usurpers of my privileges, and return
under the dominion of my laws. It is in my empire alone that true liberty reigns. Tyranny is
unknown to its soil; equity unceasingly watches over the rights of all my subjects, maintains
them in the possession of their just claims; benevolence, grafted upon humanity, connects
them by amicable bonds; truth enlightens them, and never can imposture blind them with his
obscuring mists. Return, then, my child, to thy fostering mother’s arms! Deserter, trace back
thy wandering steps to nature! She will console thee for thine evils; she will drive from thine
heart those appalling fears which overwhelm thee; those inquietudes that distract thee; those
transports which agitate thee; those hatreds that separate thee from thy fellow-man, whom
thou shouldst love as thyself. Return to nature, to humanity, to thyself! Strew flowers over
the road of life: cease to contemplate the future; live to thine own happiness; exist for thy
fellowcreatures; retire into thyself, examine thine own heart, then consider the sensitive
beings by whom thou art surrounded, and leave those Gods who can effect nothing towards
thy felicity. Enjoy thyself, and cause others also to enjoy those comforts which I have placed
with a liberal hand, for all the children of the earth, who all equally emanate from my bosom:
assist them to support the sorrows to which destiny has submitted them in common with
thyself. Know, that I approve thy pleasures, when without injuring thyself, they are not fatal
to thy brethren, whom I have rendered indispensably necessary to thine own individual
happiness. These pleasures are freely permitted thee, if thou indulgest them with moderation;
with that discretion, which I myself have fixed. Be happy, then, O man! Nature invites thee
to participate in it; but always remember, thou canst not be so alone; because I invite all
mortals to happiness as well as thyself; thou will find it is only in securing their felicity that
thou canst consolidate thine own. Such is the decree of thy destiny: if thou shalt attempt to
withdraw thyself from its operation, recollect that hatred will pursue thee; vengeance
overtake thy steps; and remorse be ever ready at hand to punish the infractions of its
irrevocable dscrees.
“Follow, then, O man! in whatever station thou findest thyself, the routine I have described
for thee, to obtain that happiness to which thou hast an indispensable right to challenge
pretension. Let the sensations of humanity interest thee for the condition of other men, who
are thy fellow-creatures; let thine heart have commiseration for their misfortunes; let thy
generous hard spontaneously stretch forth to lend succour to the unhappy mortal who is
overwhelmed by his destiny; always bearing in thy recollection, that it may fall heavy upon
thyself, as it now does upon him. Acknowledge, then, without guile, that every unfortunate
has an inalienable right to thy kindness. Above all, wipe from the eyes of oppressed
innocence the trickling crystals of agonizing feeling; let the tears of virtue in distress fall
upon thy sympathizing bosom; let the genial glow of sincere friendship animate thir.e honest
heart; let the fond attachment of a mate, cherished by thy warmest affection, make thee forget
the sorrows of life: be faithful to her love, responsible to her tenderness, that she may reward
thee by a reciprocity of feeling; that under the eyes of parents, united in virtuous esteem, thy
offspring may learn to set a proper value on practical virtue; that after having occupied thy
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riper years, they may comfort thy declining age, gild with content thy setting sun, cheer the
evening of thine existence, by a dutiful return of that care which thou shall have bestowed
on their imbecile infancy.
“Be just, because equity is the support of human society! Be good, because goodness
connects all hearts in adamantine bonds! Be indulgent, because feeble thyself, thou livest
with beings who partake of thy weakness! Be gentle, because mildness attracts attention! Be
thankful, because gratitude feeds benevolence, nourishes generosity! Be modest, because
haughtiness is disgusting to beings at all times well with themselves. Forgive injuries,
because revenge perpetuates hatred! Do good to him who injureth thee, in order to snow
thyself more noble than he is; to nake a friend of him, who was once thine enemy! Be
reserved in thy demeanour, temperate in thine enjoyment, chaste in thy pleasures, because
voluptuousness begets weariness, intemperance engenders disease; forward manners are
revolting: excess at all times relaxes the springs of thy machine, will ultimately destroy thy
being, and render thee hateful to thyself, contemptible to others.
“Be a faithful citizen; because the community is necessary to thine own security; to the
enjoyment of thine own existence; to the furtherance of thine own happiness. Be loyal, and
submit to legitimate authority; because it is requisite to the maintenance of that society which
is necessary to thyself. Be obedient to the laws; because they are, or
ought, to be,
the
expression of the public will, to which thine own particular will ought ever to be subordinate.
Defend thy country with zeal; because it is that which renders thee happy, which contains
thy property, as well as those beings dearest to thine heart: do not permit this common parent
of thyself, as well as of thy fellow-citizens, to fall under the shackles of tyranny; because
from thence it will be no more than thy common prison. If thy country, deaf to the equity of
thy claims, refuses thee happiness — if, submitted to an unjust power, it suffers thee to be
oppressed, withdraw thyself from its bosom in silence, but never disturb its peace.
“In short, be a man; be a sensible rational being; be a faithful husband; a tender father; an
equitable master; a zealous citizen; labour to serve thy country by thy prowess, by thy talents
by thine industry; above all, by thy virtues. Participate with thine associates those gifts which
nature has bestowed upon thee; diffuse happiness among thy fellow-mortals; inspire thy
fellow-citizens with content; spread joy over all those who approach thee that the sphere of
thine actions, enlivened by thy kindness, illumined by thy benevolence, may react upon
thyself; be assured that the man who makes others happy, cannot himself be miserable. In
thus conducting thyself, whatever may be the injustice of others, whatever may be the
blindness of those beings with whom it is thy destiny to live, thou wilt never be totally bereft
of the recompense which is thy due; no power on earth will be able to ravish from thee that
never-failing source of the purest felicity, inward content; at each moment thou wilt fall back
with pleasure upon thyself; thou wilt neither feel the rankling of shame, the terrour of internal
alarm, nor find thy heart corroded by remorse. Thou wilt esteem thyself; thou wilt be
cherished by the virtuous, applauded and loved by all good men, whose suffrages are much
more valuable than those of the bewildered multitude. Nevertheless, if externals occupy thy
contemplation, smiling countenances will greet thy presence; happy faces will express the
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interest they have in thy welfare; jocund beings will make thee participate in their placid
feelings. A life so spent, will each moment be marked by the serenity of thine own mind, by
the affection of the beings who environ thee; will be made cheerful by the friendship of thy
fellows; will enable thee to rise a contented, satisfied guest from the general feast, conduct
thee gently down the declivity of life, lead thee peaceably to the period of thy days, for die
thou must: but already thou wilt survive thyself in thought; thou wilt always live in the
remembrance of thy friends; in the grateful recollection of those beings whose comforts have
been augmented by thy fiiendly attentions; thy virtues will, beforehand, have erected to thy
fame an imperishable monument. If Heaven occupied itself with thee ‘it would feel satisfied
with thy conduct, when it shall thus have contented the earth.
“Beware, then, how thou complainest of thy condition; be just, be kind, be virtuous, and
thou canst never be wholly destitute of felicity. Take heed how thou enviest the transient
pleasure of seductive crime; the deceitful power of victorious tyranny; the specious
tranquillity of interested imposture; the plausible manners of venal justice; the showy,
ostentatious parade of hardened opulence. Never be tempted to increase the number of
sycophants to an ambitious despot; to swell the catalogue of slaves to an unjust tyrant; never
suffer thyself to be allured to infamy, to the practice of extortion, to the commission of
outrage, by the fatal privilege of oppressing thy fellows; always recollect it will be at the
expense of the most bitter remorse thou wilt acquire this baneful advantage. Never be the
mercenary accomplice of the spoilers of thy country; they are obliged to blush secretly
whenever they meet the public eye.
“For, do not deceive thyself, it is I who punish, more surely than the Gods, all the crimes
of the earth; the wicked may escape the laws of man, but they never escape mine. It is I who
have formed the hearts, as well as the bodies of mortals; it is I who have fixed the laws which
govern them. If thou deliverest thyself up to voluptuous enjoyment, the companions of thy
debaucheries may applaud thee; but I shall punish thee with the most cruel infirmities; these
will terminate a life of shame with deserved contempt. If thou givest thyself up to
intemperate indulgences, human laws may not correct thee, but I shall castigate thee severely
by abridging thy days. If thou art vicious, thy fatal habits will recoil on thine own head.
Princes, those terrestrial Divinities, whose power places them above the laws of mankind,
are nevertheless obliged to tremble under the silent operation of my decrees. It is I who
chastise them; it is I who fill their breasts with suspicion; it is I who inspire them with
terrour; it is I who make them writhe under inquietude; it is I who make them shudder with
honour, at the very name of august truth; It is I who, amidst the crowd of nobles who
surround them, make them feel the inward workings of shame; the keen anguish of guilt; the
poisoned arrows of regret; the cruel stings of remorse; it is I who, when they abuse my
bounty, diffuse weariness over their benumbed souls; it is I who follow uncreated, eternal
justice; it is I who, without distinction of persons, know how to make the balance even; to
adjust the chastisement to the fault; to make the misery bear its due proportion to the
depravity; to inflict punishment commensurate with the crime. The laws of man are just, only
when they are in conformity with mine; his judgments are rational, only when I have dictated
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them: my laws alone are immutable, universal, irrefragable; formed to regulate the condition
of the human race, in all ages, in all places, under all circumstances.
“If thou doubtest mine authority, if thou questionest the irresistible power I possess over
mortals, contemplate the vengeance I wreak on all those who resist my decrees. Dive into
the recesses of the hearts of those various criminals, whose countenances, assuming a forced
smile, cover minds torn with anguish. Dost thou not behold ambition tormented day and
night, with an ardour which nothing can extinguish? Dost thou not see the mighty conqueror
become the lord of devastated solitudes; his victorious career, marked by a blasted
cultivation, reign sorrowfully over smoking ruins; govern unhappy wretches who curse him
in their hearts; while his mind, gnawed by remorse, sickens at the gloomy aspect of his own
triumphs? Dost thou believe that the tyrant, encircled with his flatterers, who stun him with
their praise, is unconscious of the hatred which his oppression excites; of the contempt which
his vices draw upon him; of the sneers which his inutility call forth; of the scorn which his
debaucheries entail upon his name? Dost thou think that the haughty courtier does not
inwardly blush at the galling insults he brooks, and despise, from the bottom of his heart,
those meannesses by which he is compelled to purchase favours? Contemplate the indolent
child of wealth, behold him a prey to the lassitude of unmeasured enjoyment, corroded by
the satiety which always follows his exhausted pleasures. View the miser with an emaciated
countenance, the consequence of his own penurious disposition, whose callous heart is
inaccessible to the calls of misery, groaning over the accumulating load of useless treasure,
which at the expense of himself, he has laboured to amass. Behold the gay voluptuary, the
smiling debauchee, secretly lament the health they have so inconsiderately damaged, so
prodigally thrown away: see disunion, joined to hatred, reign between those adulterous
married couples. See the liar deprived of all confidence; the knave stript of all trust; the
hypocrite fearfully avoiding the penetrating looks of his inquisitive neighbour; the impostor
trembling at the very name of formidable truth. Bring under your review the heart of the
envious, uselessly dishonoured; that withers at the sight of his neighbour’s prosperity. Cast
your eyes on the frozen heart of the ungrateful wretch, whom no kindness can warm, no
benevolence thaw, no beneficence convert into a genial fluid. Survey the iron feelings of that
monster whom the sighs of the unfortunate cannot mollify. Behold the revengeful being
nourished with venomous gall, whose very thoughts are serpents; who in his rage consumes
himself. Envy, if thou canst, the waking slumbers of the homicide; the starlings of the
iniquitous judge; the restlessness of the oppressor of innocence; the fearful visions of the
extortioner; whose couches are infested with the torches of the furies. Thou tremblest without
doubt at the sight of that distraction which, amidst their splendid luxuries, agitates those
farmers and receivers of taxes, who fatten upon public calamity — who devour the substance
of the orphan — who consume the means of the widow — who grind the hard earnings of
the poor: thou shudderest at witnessing the remorse which rends the minds of those reverend
criminals, whom the uninformed believe to be happy, whilst the contempt which they have
for themselves, the unerring shafts of secret upbraidings, are incessantly revenging an
outraged nation. Thou seest, that content is for ever banished the heart — quiet for ever
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driven from the habitations of those miserable wretches on whose minds I have indelibly
engraved the scorn, th« infamy, the chastisement which they deserve. But, no! thine eyes
cannot sustain the tragic spectacle of my vengeance. Humanity obliges thee to partake of
their merited sufferings; thou art moved to pity for these unhappy people, to whom
consecrated errours renders vice necessary; whose fatal habits make them familiar with
crime. Yes; thou shunnest them without hating them; thou wouldst succour them, if their
contumacious perversity had left thee the means. When thou comparest thine own condition,
when thou examinest thine own mind, thou wilt have just cause to felicitate thyself, if thou
shall find that peace has taken up her abode with thee; that contentment dwells at the bottom
of thine own heart. In short, thou seest accomplished upon them, as well as upon thyself, the
unalterable decrees of destiny, which imperiously demand, that crime shall punish itself, that
virtue never shall be destitute of remuneration.”
Such is the sum of those truths which are contained in the
Code of Nature
; such are the
doctrines, which its disciples can announce. They are unquestionably preferable to that
supernatural religion which never does any thing but mischief to the human species. Such
is the worship that is taught by that sacred reason, which is the object of contempt with the
theologian — which meets the insult of the fanatic, who only estimates that which man can
neither conceive nor practise; who makes his morality consist in fictitious duties; his virtue
in actions generally useless, frequently pernicious to the welfare of society; who, for want
of being acquainted with nature, which is before their eyes, believe themselves obliged to
seek in ideal worlds imaginary motives, of which every thing proves the inefficacy. The
motive which the morality of nature employs, is the self-evident interest of each individual,
of each community, of the whole human species, in all times, in every counlry, under all
circumstances. Its worship is the sacrifice of vice, the practice of real virtues; its object is the
conservation of the human race, the happiness of the individual, the peace of mankind; its
recompenses are affection, esteem, and glory; or in their default, contentment of mind, with
merited self-esteem, of which no power will ever be able to deprive virtuous mortals; its
punishments, are hatred, contempt, and indignation; which society always reserves for those
who outrage its interests; from which even the most powerful can never effectually shield
themselves.
Those nations who shall be disposed to practise a morality so wise, who shall inculcate it
in infancy, whose laws shall unceasingly confirm it, will neither have occasion for
superstition, nor for chimeras. Those who shall obstinately prefer figments to their dearest
interests, will certainly march forward to ruin. If they maintain themselves for a season, it
is because the power of nature sometimes drives them back to reason, in despite of those
prejudices which appear to lead them on to certain destruction. Superstition, leagued with
tyranny for the waste of the human species, are themselves frequently obliged to implore the
assistance of a reason which they contemn; of a nature which they disdain: which they
debase; which they endeavour to crush under the ponderous bulk of their false Divinities.
Religion, in all times so fatal to mortals, when attacked by reason, assumes the sacred mantle
of public utility; it rests its importance on false grounds, founds its rights upon the
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indissoluble alliance which it pretends subsists between Morality and itself, although it never
ceases for a single instant to wage against it the most cruel hostility. It is, unquestionably,
by this artifice, that it has seduced so many sages. In the honesty of their hearts, they believe
it useful to politics; necessary to restrain the ungovernable fury of the passions; thus
hypocritical superstition, in order to mask to superficial observers its own hideous character,
always knows how to cover itself with the sacred armour of utility; to buckle on the
invulnerable shield of virtue; it has, therefore, been believed imperative to respect it, and
favour imposture, because it has artfully entrenched itself behind the altars of truth. It is from
this intrenchment, we ought to drive it; it should be dragged forth to public view; stripped
of its surreptitious panoply; exposed in its native deformity; in order that the human race may
become acquainted with its dissimulation; that mankind may have a knowledge of its crimes;
that the universe may behold its sacrilegious hands, armed with homicidal poniards, stained
with the blood of nations, whom it either intoxicates with its fury, or immolates without pity
to the violence of its passions.
The Morality of Nature is the only religion which her interpreter offers to his fellow-
citizens, to nations, to the human species, to future races, weaned from those prejudices
which have so frequently disturbed the felicity of their ancestors. The friend of mankind
cannot be the friend of God, who at all times has been a real scourge to the earth. The
Apostle of Nature will no be the instrument of deceitful chimeras, by which this world is
made only an abode of illusions; the adorer of truth will not compromise with falsehood; he
will make no covenant with errour, conscious it must always be fatal to mortals. He knows
that the happiness of the human race imperiously exacts that the dark unsteady edifice of
superstition should be razed to its foundations, in order to elevate on its ruins a temple to
nature suitable to peace — a fane sacred to virtue. He feels it is only by extirpating, even to
the most slender fibres, the poisonous tree, that during so many ages has overshadowed the
universe, that the inhabitants of this world will be able to use their own eyes — to bear with
steadiness that light which is competent to illumine their understanding — to guide their
wayward steps — to give the necessary ardency to their minds. If his efforts should be vain;
if he cannot inspire with courage beings too much accustomed to tremble; he will, at least,
applaud himself for having dared the attempt. Nevertheless, he will not judge his exertions
fruitless, if he has only been enabled to make a single mortal happy: if his principles have
calmed the conflicting transports of one honest mind; if his reasonings have cheered up some
few virtuous hearts. At least he will have the advantage of having banished from his own
mind the importunate terrour of superstition; of having expelled from his own heart the gall
which exasperates zeal: of having trodden under foot those chimeras with which the
uninformed are tormented. Thus, escaped from the peril of the storm, he will calmly
contemplate from the summit of his rock, those tremendous hurricanes which superstition
excites; he will hold forth a succouring hand to those who shall he willing to accept it; he
will encourage them with his voice; he will second them with his unwearied exertions, and
in the warmth of his own compassionate heart, he will exclaim: —
“O Nature, sovereign of all beings! and ye, her adorable daughters, Virtue, Reason, and
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Truth! remain for ever our only Divinities: it is to you that belong the praises of the human
race: to you appertains the homage of the earth. Show us, then, O Nature! that which man
ought to do, in order to obtain the happiness which thou makest him desire. Virtue! Animate
him with thy beneficent fire. Reason! Conduct his uncertain steps through the paths of life.
Truth! Let thy torch illumine his intellect, dissipate the darkness of his road. Unite, O
assisting Deities! your powers, in order to submit the hearts of mankind to your dominion.
Banish errour from our mind; wickedness from our hearts; confusion from our footsteps;
cause knowledge to extend its salubrious reign; goodness to occupy our minds; serenity to
dwell in our bosoms. Let imposture, confounded, never again dare to show its head. Let our
eyes, so long either dazzled or blindfolded, be at length fixed upon those objects we ought
to seek. Dispel for ever those mists of ignorance, those hideous phantoms, together with
those seducing chimeras, which only serve to lead us astray Extricate us from that dark abyss
into which we are plunged by superstition; overthrow the fatal empire of delusion; crumble
the throne of falsehood; wrest from their polluted hands the power they have usurped.
Command men, without sharing your authority with mortals: break the chains that bind them
down in slavery: tear away the bandeau by which they are hoodwinked; allay the fury that
intoxicates them; break in the hands of sanguinary, lawless tyrants, that iron sceptre with
which they are crushed; exile to the imaginary regions, from whence fear has imported them,
those Gods by whom they are afflicted. Inspire the intelligent being with courage; infuse
energy into his system, that, at length, he may feel his own dignity; that he may dare to love
himself; to esteem his own actions when they are worthy; that a slave only to your eternal
laws, he may no longer fear to enfranchise himself from all other trammels; that blest with
freedom, he may have the wisdom to cherish his fellow-creature; and become happy
bylearning to perfection his own condition; instruct him in the great lesson, that the high road
to felicity, is prudently to partake himself, and also to cause others to enjoy, the rich banquet
which thou, O Nature! hast so bountifully set before him. Console thy children for those
sorrows to which their destiny submits them, by those pleasures which wisdom allows them
to partake; teach them to yield silently to necessity. Conduct them without alarm to that
period which all beings must find;
let them learn that time changes all things, that
consequently they are made neither to avoid death nor to fear its arrival
.”
The End.
Appendix. The True Meaning Of the System of Nature.
Introduction.
Man, unfortunately for himself, wishes to exceed the limits of his sphere, and to transport
himself beyond the visible world. He neglects experience, and feeds himself with
conjectures. Early prepossessed by artful men against reason, he neglects its cultivation.
Pretending to know his fate in another world, he is inatentive to his happiness in the present.
The author’s object is, to recal man to reason by rendering it dear to him, — to dissipate
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, volume 2, 168
the clouds which obscure the way to this happiness, — to offer reflections useful to his peace
and comfort, and favourable to mental improvement.
So far from wishing to destroy the duties of morality, it is the author’s object to give them
double force, and establish them on the altar of virtue, which alone merits the homage of
mankind.
Chapter I. On Nature.
Man is the work of nature, and subject to her laws, from which he cannot free himself,
noreven exceed in thought. A being formed by nature, he is nothing beyond the great whole
of which he forms a part. Beings supposed to be superior to, or distinguished from, nawe, are
mere chimeras, of which no real idea can be formed.
Man is a being purely physical. The moral man is only the physical man, considered in a
certain point of view. His organization is the work of nature; his visible actions and invisible
movements are equally the natural effects and consequences of his mechanism. His
inventions are the effect of his essence. His ideas proceed from the same cause. Art is only
nature, acting by instruments which she has herself made — all is the impulse of nature.
It is to physics and experience, that man in all his researches ought to have recourse. Nature
acts by simple laws. When we quit experience, imagination leads us astray. ‘Tis from want
of experience that men have formed wrong ideas of matter.
91
Indolence is gratified in following example: habit, and authority, rather than experience,
which demands activity, or reason, which requires reflection. Hence an aversion to every
thing that deviates from ordinary rules, and an implicit respect for ancient institutions.
Credulity proceeds from inexperience. By consulting experience and contemplating the
universe we shall only find in it matter and motion.
Chapter II. Of Motion and its Ori
g
in.
It is motion which alone forms the connexions between our organs and external and
internal objects.
A cause is a being that puts another in motion, or which produces the change that one body
effects upon another by means of motion. We only know the manner in which a body acts
upon us by the change it produces. It is from actions only that we can judge of interior
motions, as thoughts, and other sentiments — when we see a man flying we conclude him
to be afraid.
The motion of bodies is a necessary consequence of their essence. Every being has laws
of motion peculiar to itself.
Every body in the universe is in motion. Action is essential to matter. All beings but come
into existence, increase, diminish, and ultimately perish; metals, minerals, &c.. are all in
action. The stones which lie upon the ground act upon it by pressure. Our sense of smell is
acted upon by emanations from the most compact bodies.
Motion is inherent in nature, which is the great whole, out of which nothing can exist, and
is essential to it. Matter moves by its own energy, and possesses properties, according to
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which it acts.
In attributing the motion of matter to a cause, we must suppose, that matter itself has come
into existence — a thing impossible; for since it cannot be annihilated, how can we imagine
it to have had a beginning?
Whence has matter come?
It has always existed. What is the original cause of its motion?
Matter has always been in motion, as motion is a consequence of its existence, and existence
always supposes properties in ‘he existing body. Since matter possesses properties, its
manner of action necessarily flows from its form of existence. Hence a heavy body must fall.
Chapter III. Of Matter and its Motion.
The changes, forms, and modificaations of matter alone proceed from motion. By motion,
every body in nature is formed, changed, enlarged, diminished, and destroyed.
Motion produces a perpetual transmigration, exchange, and circulation of the particles of
matter. These particles separate themselves to form new bodies. One body nourishes other
bodies; and those afterwards restore to the general mass the elements which they had
borrowed from it. Suns are produced by the combinations of mattery and those wonderful
bodies, which man in his transitory existence only sees for a moment, will one day, perhaps,
be dispersed by motion.
Chapter IV. Laws of Motion common to all Bein
g
s — Attraction and
Repulsion — Necessity.
We consider effects as natural, when we see their acting cause. When we see an
extraordinary effect, whose cause is unknown to us, we have recourse to imagination, which
creates chimeras.
The visible end of all the motions of bodies, is the preservation of their actual form of
existence, attracting what is favourable, and repelling what is prejudicial to it. From the
moment of existence, we experience motions peculiar to a determined essence.
Every cause produces an effect, and there cannot be an effect without a cause. If every
motion, therefore, be ascribable to a cause; and these causes being determined by their
nature, essence and properties; we must conclude, that they are all necessary, and that every
being in nature, in its given properties and circumstances, can only act as it does. Necessity
is the infallible and constant tie of causes to their effects: and this irresistible power,
universal necessity, is only a consequence of the nature of things, in virtue of which the
whole acts by immutable laws.
92
Chapter V. Of Order and Disorder — Intelli
g
ence and Chance.
The view of the regular motions of nature produces, in the human mind, the idea of order.
This word only expresses a thing relative to ourselves. The idea of order or disorder is no
proof that they really exist in nature, since there every thing is necessary. Disorder in relation
to a being is nothing but its passage into a new order or form of existence. Thus, in our eyes,
death is the greatest of all disorders; but death only changes our essence. We are not less
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, volume 2, 170
subject afterwards to the laws of motion.
Intelligence is called the power of acting according to an end, which we know the being
possesses to whom we ascribe it. We deny its existence in beings whose forms of action are
dif- ferent from ours.
When we do not perceive the connexion of certain effects with their causes, we attribute
them to chance When we see, or think we see, what is called order, we ascribe it to an
intelligence, a quality borrowed from ourselves, and from the particular form in which we
are affected.
An intelligent being thinks, wills, and acts, to arrive at an end. For this purpose, organs, and
an end similar to our own, are necessary. They would above all be necessary to an
intelligence supposed to govern nature, as without organs, there can neither be ideas,
intuition, thought, will, plan nor action. Matter, when combined in a certain manner, assumes
action, intelligence, and life.
93
Chapter VI. Of Man. his Physical and Moral Distinctions — His Ori
g
in.
Man is always subject to necessity. His temperament is independent of him yet it influences
his passions. His blood more or less abundant or warm, his nerves more or less relaxed, the
aliments upon which he feeds, all act upon him and influence him.
Man is an organized whole, composed of different matters, which act according to their
respective properties. The difficulty of discovering the causes of his motions and ideas,
produced the division of his essence into two natures. He invented words, because ignorant
of things.
Man, like every thing else, is a production of nature. What is his origin? We want
experience to answer the question.
Has he always existed, or is he an instantaneous production of nature? Either of the cases
is possible. Matter is eternal, but its forms and combinations are transitory. It is probable, that
he was produced at a particular period of our globe, upon which he, like its other
productions, varies according to the difference of climate. He was doubtless produced male
and female, and will exist so long as the globe remains in its present state. When that is
changed, the human species must give way to new beings, capable of incorporating
themselves with the new qualities which the globe will then posseis.
When we are unable to account for the production of man, to talk of God and of creation,
is but confessing our ignorance of the energy of nature.
Man has no right to believe himself a privileged being in nature. He is subject to the same
vicissitudes as its other productions. The idea of human excellence is merely founded on the
the partiality which man feels for himself.
Chapter VII. Of the Soul and its Spirituality.
What is called the soul moves with us. Now, motion is a property of matter. The soul also
shows itself material in the invincible obstacles which it encounters on the part of the body.
If the soul causes me to move my arm when there is no obstacle in the way, it ceases doing
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so when the arm is pressed down by a heavy weight. Here then is a mass of matter which
annihilates an impulse given by a spiritual cause, which, being unconnected with matter,
ought to meet with no resistance from it.
Motion supposes extent and solidity in the body that is moved. When we ascribe action to
a cause, we must therefore consider that cause to be material.
While I walk forward, I do not leave my soul behind me. Soul, therefore, possesses one
quality in common with the body and peculiar to matter. The soul makes a part of the body,
and experiences all its vicissitudes, in passing through a state of infancy and of debility, in
partaking of its pleasures and pains; and with the body exhibiting marks of dulness, debility,
and death. In short, it is only the body viewed in relation to some of its functions.
What sort of substance is it which can neither be seen nor felt? An immaterial being, yet
acting upon matter!
How can the body inclose a fugitive being, which eludes all the senses.
Chapter VIII. Of the Intellectual Faculties — All derived from Sensation.
Sensation is a manner of being affected, peculiar to certain organs of animated bodies,
occasioned by the presence of a material object. Sensibility is the result of an arrangement
peculiar to animals. The organs reciprocally communicate impressions to one another.
Every sensation is a shock given to organs; a perception, that shock communicated to the
brain; an idea the image of the object which occasioned the sensation and perception. If our
organs, therefore, be not moved, we can neither have perceptions nor ideas.
Memory produces imagination We form a picture of the things we have seen, and, by
imagination, transport ourselves to what we do not see.
Passions are movements of the will, determined by the objects which act upon it, according
to our actual form of existence.
The intellectual faculties attributed to the soul, are modifications ascribable to the objects
which strike the senses. Hence a trembling in the members, when the brain is affected by the
movement called fear.
94
Chapter IX. Diversity of the Intellectual Faculties — They depend, like
the Moral Qualities, on Physical Causes. — Natural Principles of Society.
Temperament decides the moral dualities. This we have from nature, and from our parents.
Its. different kinds are determined by the quality of the air we breathe, by the climate we
inhabit, by education, and the ideas it inspires.
By making mind spiritual, we administer to it improper remedies. Constitution, which can
be changed, corrected and modified, should alone be the object of our attention.
Genius is an effect of physical sensibility. It is the faculty possessed by some human
beings, of seizing, at one glance, a whole and its different parts.
By experience, we foresee effects not yet felt — hence prudence and foresight. Reason is
nature modified by experience.
The final end of man is self-preservation, and rendering his existence happy. Experience
shows him the need he stands in of others to attain that object, and points out the means of
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rendering them subservient to his views. He sees what is agreeable or disagreeable to them,
and these experiences give him the idea of justice, &c. Neither virtue nor vice are founded
on conventions, but only rest upon relations subsisting among all human beings.
Men’s duties to one another arise from the necessity of employing those means which tend
to the end proposed by nature. It is by promoting the happiness of other men, that we engage
them to promote our own.
Politics should be the art of directing the passions of men to the good of society. Laws
ought to have no other object than the direction of their actions also to the same object.
Happiness is the uniform object of all the passions. These are legitimate and natural, and can
neither be called good or bad, but in so far as they affect other men. To direct the passions
to virtue, it is necessary to show mankind advantages resulting from its practice.
Chapter X. The Mind draws no Ideas from itself — We have no Innate
ideas.
If we can only form ideas of material objects, how can their cause be supposed immaterial?
To this, dreams are opposed as an objection; but in sleep the brain is filled with a crowd
of ideas which it received when awake. Memory always produces imagination. Thecause of
dreams must be physical, as they most frequently proceed from food, humours, and
fermentations, unanalogous to the healthy state of man.
The ideas supposed to be innate, are those which are familiar to, and, as it were,
incorporated with us; but it is always through the medium of the senses that we acquire them.
They are the effect of education, example, and habit. Such are the ideas formed of God,
which evidently proceed from the descriptions given of him.
Our moral ideas are the fruits of experience alone. The sentiments of paternal and filial
affection are the result of reflection and habit.
Man acquires all his notions and ideas. The words beauty, intelligence, order, virtue, grief,
pain and pleasure, are, to me, void of meaning, unless I compare them with other objects.
Judgment presupposes sensibility; and judgment itself is the fruit of comparison.
Chapter XI. Of the System of Man’s Liberty.
Man is a physical being, subject to nature, and consequently to necessity. Born without our
consent, our organization is independent of us, and our ideas come to us involuntarily. Action
is the sequel of an impulse communicated by a sensible object.
I am thirsty, and see a well; can I hinder myself from wishing to drink of it? But I am told,
the water is poisoned, and I abstain from drinking
Will it be said, that in this case I am free?
Thirst necessarily determined me to drink; the
discovery of poison necessarily determines me not to drink. The second motive is stronger
than the first, and I abstain from drinking. But an imprudent man, it may be said, will drink.
In this case his first impulse will be strongest. In either case, the action is necessary. He who
drinks is a madman; but the actions of madmen are not less necessary than those of other
men.
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, volume 2, 173
A debauchee may be persuaded to change his conduct. This circumstance does not prove
that he is free; but only, that motives can be found, sufficient to counteract the effect of those
which formerly acted upon him.
Choice by no means proves liberty; since hesitation only finishes when the will is
determined by sufficient motives; and man cannot hinder motives from acting upon his will.
Can he prevent himself from wishing to possess what he thinks desirable? No; but we are
told he can resist the desire, by reflecting upon its consequences. But has he the power of
reflecting? Human actions are never free; they necessarily proceed from constitution, and
from received ideas, strengthened by example, education, and experience. The motive which
determines man is always beyond his power.
Notwithstanding the system of human liberty, men have universally founded their systems
upon necessity alone. If motives were thought incapable of influencing the will, why make
use of morality, education, legislation, and even religion? We establish institutions to
influence the will; a clear proof of our conviction, that they must act upon it. These
institutions are necessity demonstrated to man.
The necessity that governs the physical, governs also the moral world, where every thing
is also subject to the same law.
Chapter XII. Examination of the Opinions which maintain the System of
Necessity to be Dan
g
erous.
If men’s actions are necessary, by what right, it is asked, are crimes punished, since
involuntary actions are never the objects of punishment?
Society is an assemblage of sensible beings, susceptible of reason, who love pleasure, and
hate pain. Nothing more is necessary to engage their concurrence to the general welfare.
Necessity is calculated to impress all men. The wicked are madmen against whom others
have a right to defend themselves. Madness is an involuntary and necessary state, yet
madmen are confined. But society should never excite desires, and afterwards punish them.
Robbers are often those whom society has deprived of the means of subsistence.
By ascribing all to necessity, we are told the ideas of just and unjust, of good and evil, are
destroyed. No; though no man acts from necessity, his actions are just and good relative to
the society whose welfare he promotes. Every man is sensible that he is compelled to love
a certain mode of conduct in his neighbour. The ideas of pleasure and pain, vice and virtue,
are founded upon our own essence.
Fatalism neither emboldens crime, nor stifles remorse, always felt by the wicked. They
have long escaped blame or punishment, they are not on that account better satisfied with
themselves. Amidst perpetual pangs, struggles, and agitations, they can neither find repose
nor happiness. Every crime costs them bitter torments and sleepless nights. The system of
fatality establishes morality, by demonstrating its necessity.
Fatality, it is said, discourages man, paralyzes his mind, and breaks the ties that connect
him with society. But does the possession of sensibility depend upon myself? My sentiments
are necessary, and founded upon nature. Though I know that all men must die, am I on that
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, volume 2, 174
account, the less affected by the death of a wife, a child, a father, or a friend?
Fatalism ought to inspire man with a useful submission and resignation to his fate. The
opinion, that all is necessary, will render him tolerant. He will lament and pardon his
fellowmen. He will be humble and modest, from knowing that he has received every thing
which he possesses.
Fatalism, it is said, degrades man into a mere machine. Such language is the iavention of
ignorance, respecting
what constitutes his true dignity. Every machine is valuable, when it
performs well the functions to which it is destined. Nature is but a machine of which the
human species makes a part. Whether the soul be mortal or immortal, we do not the less
admire its grandeur and sublimity in a Socrates.
The opinion of fatalism is advantageous to man. It prevents useless remorse from
disturbing his mind. It teaches him the propriety of enjoying with moderation, as pain ever
accompanies excess. He will follow the paths of virtue, since every thing shows its necessity
for rendering him estimable to others and contented with himself.
Chapter XIII. Of the Soul’s Immortality — The Do
g
ma of a Future State
— Fear of Death.
The soul, step by step, follows the different states of the body. With the body, it comes into
existence, is feeble in infancy, partakes of its pleasures and pains, its states of health and
disease, activity or depression; with the body, is asleep or awake, and yet it has been
supposed immortal!
Nature inspires man with the love of existence, and the desire of its continuation produced
the belief of the soul’s immortality. Granting the desire of immortality to be natural, is that
any proof of its reality? We desire the immortality of the body, and this desire is frustrated.
Why should not the desire of the soul’s immortality be frustrated also?
The soul is only the principle of sensibility. To think, to suffer, to enjoy, is to feel. When
the body, therefore, ceases to live, it cannot exercise sensibility. Where there are no senses,
there can be no ideas. The soul only perceives by means of the organs: how then is it possible
for it to feel, after the dissolution? We are told of divine power — but divine Power cannot
make a thing exist and not exist at the same time. It cannot make the soul think without the
means necessary to acquire thoughts.
The destruction of his body always alarms man, notwithstanding the opinion of the soul’s
immortality; a sure proof that he is more affected by the present reality, than by the hope of
a distant futurity.
The very idea of death is revolting to man, yet he does every thing in his power to render
it more frightful. It is a period which delivers us up defenceless to the undescribable rigours
of a pitiless despot. This, it is said, is the strongest rampart against human irregularities. But
what effect have those ideas produced upon those who are, or at least pretend to be,
persuaded of their truth? The great bulk of mankind seldom think of them; never, when
hurried along by passion, prejudice, or example. If they produce any effect, it is only upon
those to whom they are unnecessary in urging to do good, and restraining from evil. They
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, volume 2, 175
fill the hearts of good men with terrour, but have not the smallest influence over the wicked.
Bad men may be found among infidels, but infidelity by no means implies wickedness. On
the contrary, the man who thinks and meditates, better knows motives for being good, than
he who permits himself to be blindly conducted by the motives of others. The man who does
not expect another state of existence, is the more interested in prolonging his life, and
rendering himself dear to his fellow-men, in the only state of existence with which he is
acquainted. The dogma of a future state destroys our happiness in this life; we sink under
calamity, and remain in errour, in expectation of being happy hereafter.
The present state has served as the model of the future. We feel pleasure and pain — hence
a heaven and a hell. A body is necessary for enjoying heavenly pleasures — hence the dogma
of a resurrection.
But whence has the idea of hell arisen? Because, like a sick person who clings even to a
miserable existence, man prefers a life of pain to annihilation, which he considers as the
greatest of calamities. That notion was besides counterbalanced by the idea of divine mercy.
Did not men, by a happy inconsistency, deviate in their conduct from those insolent ideas,
the terrours ascribed to a future state are so strong, that they would sink into brutality, and
the world become a desert.
Although this dogma may operate upon the passions, do we see fewer wicked men among
those who are the most firmly persuaded of its truth? Men who think themselves restrained
by those terrours, impute to them effects ascribable only to present motives, such as timidity,
and apprehension of the consequences of doing a bad action. Can the fears of a distant
futurity re- strain the man upon whom those of immediate punishment produce no effect?
Religion itself destroys the effect of those terrours. The remission of sin emboldens the
wicked man to his last moment. This dogma is consequently opposed to the former.
The inspirers of those terrours admit them to be ineffectual; priests are continually
lamenting that man is still hurried on by his vicious inclinations. In fine, for one timid man
who is restrained by those terrours, there are millions whom they render ferocious, useless,
and wicked, and turn aside from their duties to society, which they are continually
tormenting.
Chapter XIV. Of Education — Morality and Laws sufficient to Restrain
Man — Desire of Immortality — Suicide.
Let us not seek motives to action in this world, in a distant futurity. It is to experience and
truth that we ought to have recourse, in providing remedies to those evils which are incident
to our species. There, too, must be sought those motives which give the heart inclinations
useful to society.
Education, above all, gives the mind habits, useful to the individual and to society. Men
have no need either of celestial rewards or supernatural punishments.
Government stands in no need of fables for its support. Present rewards and punishments
are more efficacious than those of futurity, and they only ought to be employed. Man is every
where a slave, and consequently void of honour; base, interested, and dissimulating. These
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, volume 2, 176
are the vices of governments. Man is every where deceived, and prevented from cultivating
his reason; he is consequently stupid and unreasonable: every where he sees vice and crime
honoured; and therefore concludes the practice of vice to lead to happiness, and, that of
virtue a sacrifice of himself. Every where he is miserable, and compelled to wrong his
neighbours, that he may be happy. Heaven is held up to his view, but the earth arrests his
attention. Here he will, at all events, be happy. Were mankind happier and better governed,
there would be no need of resorting to fraud for governing them.
Cause man to view this state as alone capable of rendering him happy; bound his hopes to
this life, instead of amusing him with tales of a futurity; show him what effect his actions
have over his neighbours; excite his industry; reward his talents; make him active, laborious,
benevolent and virtuous; teach him to value the affection of his contemporaries, and let him
know the consequences of their hatred.
However great the fear of death may be, chagrin, mental affliction, and misfortunes, cause
us sometimes to regard it as a refuge from human injustice.
Suicide has been variously considered. Some have imagined that man has no right to break
the contract which he has entered into with society. But upon examining the connexions
which subsist between man and nature, they will be found neither to be voluntary on the one
part, nor reciprocal on the other. Man’s will had no share in bringing him into the world, and
he goes out of it against his inclination. All his actions are compulsatory. He can only love
existence upon condition that it renders him happy.
By examining man’s contract with society, we shall find that it is only conditional and
reciprocal, and supposes mutual advantages to the contracting parties. Convenience is the
bond of connexion. Is it broken? Man from that moment becomes free. Would we blame the
man who, finding himself destitute of the means of subsistence in the city retires into the
country?
He who dies, only retires into solitude.
The difference of opinion upon this, as well as other subjects, is necessary. The suicide will
tell you, that in his situation, your conduct would be precisely similar: but to be in the
situation of another, we must possess his organization, constitution, and passions; be, in
short, himself, placed in the same circumstances, and actuated by the same motives. These
maxims may be thought dangerous: but maxims alone do not lead men to the adoption of
such violent resolutions. It is a constitution whetted by chagrin, a vicious organization, a
derangement of the machine — in a word, necessity. Death is a resource of which oppressed
virtue should never be deprived.
Chapter XV. Of Man’s Interest, or the Ideas he forms of Happiness —
Without Virtue he cannot be Happy.
Interest is the object to which every man, according to his constitution, attaches happiness.
The same happiness does not suit all men, as that of every man depends upon his peculiar
organization. It may, therefore, be easily conceived, that in beings of such different natures,
what constitutes the pleasure of one man, may be indifferent, or even disgusting to another.
No man can determine what will constitute the happiness of his neighbour.
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, volume 2, 177
Compelled, however, to judge of actions from their effects upon ourselves, we approve of
the interest which animates them, according to the advantage which they produce to the
human species. Thus, we admire valour, generosity, talents, and virtue.
It is the nature of man to love himself, to preserve his existence, and to render it happy.
Experience and reason soon convince him, that he cannot alone command the means of
procuring happiness. He sees other human beings engaged in the same pursuit, yet capable
of assisting him to attain his desired object. He perceives, that they will favour his views in
so far only as they coincide with their own interest. He will then conclude, that to secure his
own happiness, he must conciliate their attachment, approbation, and assistance; and that it
is necessary to make them find advantages in promoting his views. The procuring of those
advantages to mankind constitutes virtue. The wise man finds it his interest to be virtuous.
Virtue is nothing more than the art of rendering a man happy, by contributing to the
happiness of others. Merit and virtue are founded upon the nature and wants of man.
The virtuous man is always happy. In every face he reads the right which he has acquired
over the heart. Vice is compelled to yield to virtue, whose superiority she blushingly
acknowledges. Should the man of virtue sometimes languish in contempt or obscurity, the
justice of his cause forms his consolation for the injustice of mankind. This consolation is
denied to the wicked, whose hearts are the abode of anxiety, shame, and remorse.
Chapter XVI. The Erroneous Opinions entertained by Man of Happiness
are the True Causes of his Misery.
Nothing can be more frivolous than the declamations of a gloomy philosopher against the
love of power, grandeur, riches, or pleasure. Every thing which promises advantages is a
natural object, of desire.
Paternal authority, those of rank, riches, genius, and talents are founded upon those
advantages. It is only on account of the advantages they produce, that the sciences are
estimable. Kings, rich and great men, may impose upon us by show and splendour, but it is
from their benefits alone that they have legitimate power over us.
Experience teaches us, that the calamities of mankind have sprung from religious opinions.
The ignorance of natural causes created Gods, and imposture made them terrible. Man lived
unhappy, because he was told that God had condemned him to misery. He never entertained
a wish of breaking his chains, as he was taught, that stupidity, the renouncing of reason,
mental debility, and spiritual debasement, were the means of obtaining eternal felicity.
Kings, transformed by men into Gods, seemed to inherit the right of government: and politics
became the fatal art of sacrificing the happiness of all to the caprice of an individual.
The same blindness pervaded the science of morality. Instead of founding it upon the
nature of man, and the relations which subsist between him and his fellows, or upon the
duties resulting from those relations, religion established an imaginary connexion between
man and invisible beings. The Gods, always painted as tyrants, became the model of human
conduct. When man injured his neighbour, he thought he had offended God, and believed
that he could pacify him by presents and humility. Religion corrupted morality, and the
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 178
expiations of piety completed its destruction. Religious remedies were disgusting to human
passions, because unsuited to the nature of man: and they were called divine. Virtue appeared
hateful to man, because it was represented to him as inimical to pleasure. In the observance
of
his
duties, he saw nothing but a sacrifice of every thing dear; and real motives to induce
such a sacrifice were never shown him. The present prevailed over the future, the visible over
the invisible. Man became wicked, as every thing told him, that to enjoy happiness it was
necessary to be so.
Melancholy devotees, finding the objects of human desire incapable of satisfying the heart,
decried them as pernicious and abominable. Blind physicians! who take the natural state of
man for that of disease! Forbid man to love and to desire, and you wrest from him his being!
Bid him hate and despise himself, and you take away his strongest motives to virtue.
In spite of our complaints against fortune, there are many happy men in this world. There
are also to be found sovereigns, ambitious of making nations happy; elevated souls who
encourage genius, succour indigence, and possess the desire of engaging admiration.
Poverty itself is not excluded from happiness. The poor man, habituated to labour, knows
the sweets of repose.
With limited knowledge, and few ideas he has still fewer desires. The sum total of good
exceeds that of evil. There is no happiness in the gross, though much of it in the detail. In the
whole course of a man’s life few days are altogether unhappy. — Habit lightens our sorrows,
and suspended grief is enjoyment. Every want, at the moment of its gratification becomes
a pleasure. Absence of pain and of sickness is a happy state, which we enjoy without being
sensible of it. Hope assists us to support calamity. In short, the man who thinks himself the
most unhappy, sees not the approach of death without terrour, unless despair has, to his eyes,
disfigured the whole of nature. When nature denies us any pleasure, she leaves open a door
for our departure; and should we not make use of it, it is because we still find a pleasure in
existence.
Chapter XVII. Ori
g
in of our Ideas concernin
g
the Divinity.
Evil is necessary to man, since without it he would be ignorant of what is good. Without
evil, he could neither have choice, will, passions, nor inclinations; he could neither have
motives for loving nor hating. He would then be an automaton, and no longer man.
The evil which he saw in the universe, suggested to man the idea of a Divinity. A crowd
of evils, such as plagues, famines, earthquakes, inundations, and conflagrations, terrified
him. But what ideas did he form of the cause which produced such effects? Man never
imagined nature the cause of the calamities which afflicted herself. Finding no agent on
earth, capable of producing such effects, he directed his attention to heaven, the imagined
residence of beings, whose enmity destroyed his felicity in this world.
Terrour was always associated with the idea of those powerful beings.
From known objects, men judge of unknown. Man gave, from himself, a will, intelligence,
and passions similar to his own, to every unknown cause which acted upon him. Influenced
himself by submission and presents, he employed these to gain the favour of the Divinity.
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 179
The business relative to those offerings was confided to old men, and much ceremony was
used in making them. The ceremonies were continued, and became custom. Thus religion
and priestcraft were introduced into the world.
The mind of man (whose essence it is to labour incessantly upon unknown objects, to
which it originally attached consequence, and dares not afterwards coolly examine) soon
modified those systems.
By a necessary consequence of those opinions, nature was soon stripped of all power. Man
could not conceive the possibility of nature’s permitting him to suffer, were she not herself
subject to a power, inimical to his happiness, and having an interest in punishing and
afflicting him.
Chapter XVIII. Of Mytholo
g
y and Theolo
g
y.
Man originally worshipped nature. All things were spoken of allegorically, and every part
of nature was personified. Hence a Saturn, Jupiter, Apollo, &c. The vulgar did not perceive
that it was nature and her parts which were thus allegorized. The source from which Gods
were taken was soon forgotten. An incomprehensible being was formed from the power of
nature, and called its mover. Thus nature was separated from herself, and became considered
as an inanimate mass incapable of action.
It became necessary to ascribe qualities to this moving power. This being, or, latterly,
spirit, intelligence, incorporeal being; that is to say, a sub- stance different from any that we
know, was seen by nobody. Men could only ascribe it to qualities from themselves. What
they called human perfection was the model in miniature of the perfection of the Divinity.
But, on the other hand, in viewing the calamities and disorders to which the world was so
subject, why not attribute to him malice, imprudence, and caprice? This difficulty was
thought removed in creating enemies to him.
This is the origin of the rebellious angels. Notwithstanding his power, he could not subdue
them. He is understood to be in the same situation with regard to those men who offend him.
Having thus, in their own opinion, satisfactorily accounted for human misery, another
difficulty occurred. It could not be denied, that just men were sometimes included in the
punishments of God.
It was then said, that because man had sinned, God might avenge himself upon the innocent
— like those wicked princes, who proportion punishment more to the grandeur and power
of the party offended, than to the magnitude and reality of the offence. The most wicked
men, and the most tyrannical governments, have been the models of a Divinity, and his
divine administration.
Chapter XIX. Absurd and Extraordinary Theolo
g
ical Opinions.
God, we are told, is good, — but God is the author of all things. All the calamities which
afflict mankind, must, of course, be imputed to him. Good and evil suppose two principles:
if there be only one, he must alternately be good and wicked.
God. say theologians, is just, and evil is a chastisement for the injuries which men have
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 180
done him. To offend any one, supposes the existence of connexions between the offending
and offended parties. To offend is to cause pain; but how can a feeble creature like man, who
has received his very existence from God, act against an infinite power, which never
consents to sin or disorder?
Justice supposes the disposition of rendering to every one his due; and we are told, that
God owes us nothing: that, without prejudice to his equity, he may plunge the work of his
hand into an abyss of misery. Evils are said only to be temporary — surely, then, they are
unjust, during a certain period. God chastises his friends for their good: but if God be good,
can he permit them to suffer, even for a moment?
If God be omniscient, why try his friends, from whom he knows he has nothing to fear?
If
omnipotent, why be disturbed by the petty plots raised against him?
What good man does not wish to render his fellow-creatures happy? Why does not God
make man happy? No man has reason to be contented with his lot. What can be said to all
this? God’s judgments are impenetrable. In this case, how can men pretend to reason about
him? Since unsearchable, upon what foundation can a single virtue be attributed to him?
What idea can we form of a justice which bears no resemblance to that of man?
His justice is said to be balanced by his mercy, but his mercy derogates from his justice.
If unchangeable, can he for a moment alter his designs?
God, say the priests, created the world for his own glory. But already superior to every
thing, was any addition wanting to his glory? The love of glory is the desire of being
distinguished among our equals. If God be susceptible of it, why does he permit any one to
abuse his favours? or why are they insufficient to make us act according to his wishes
1
Because he has made me a free agent. But why grant me a liberty which he knows I will
abuse?
In consequence of this freedom, men will be eternally punished in the other world, for the
faults they have committed in this life. But why punish eternally the faults of a moment?
what would we think of the king, that eternally punished one of his subjects, who, in the
moment of intoxication, had offended his pride, without however doing him any real injury,
especially had he himself previously intoxicated him? Would we consider the monarch as
all-powerful, who is forced to permit all his subjects, with the exception of a few faithful
friends, to insult his laws, and even his own person, and thwart him in every measure?
It is said, that the qualities of God are so unlike to those of man, and so eminent, that no
resemblance whatever subsists between-them. But in this case, how can we form an idea of
them? Why does theology presume to announce them?
But God has spoken, and made himself known to man. When and to whom? where are
those divine oracles? in absurd and contradictory collections where the God of wisdom
speaks an obscure, insidious, and foolish language; where the God of benevolence is cruel
and sanguinary; where the God of justice is unjust, partial, and ordains iniquity; where the
God of mercy decrees the most horrid punishment to the victims of his wrath.
The relations subsisting between God and man, can be only founded upon moral qualities.
But if man be ignorant of these, how can they serve as the model for his conduct? how can
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 181
he possibly imitate them?
There is no proportion between God and man; and where that is wanting, there can be no
relations. If God be incorporeal, how can he act upon bodies? how can they act upon him,
so as to give him offence, disturb his repose, and excite his anger? If the potter be displeased
with the bad shape of the vessel he has made, whom has he but himself to blame for it?
If God owes man nothing, man owes him as little. Relations must be reciprocal, and duties
are founded upon mutual wants. If these are useless to God, he cannot owe any thing for
them, and man cannot him. God’s authority can only be founded upon the good which he
bestows upon men; and their duties must solely rest upon the favours which they expect from
him. If God do not owe man happiness, every relation between them is annihilated.
How can we reconcile the qualities ascribed to God with his metaphysical attributes? How
can a pure spirit act like man, a corporeal being? A pure spirit can neither hear our prayers,
nor be softened by our miseries. If immutable, he cannot change. If all nature, without being
God, can exist in conjunction with him, he cannot be infinite. If he either suffers, or cannot
prevent, the evils and disorders of the world, he cannot be omnipotent. He cannot be every
where, if he is not in man while he commits sin, or
goes
out of him at the moment of its
commission.
A revelation would prove malice in the Deity. It supposes, that he has for a long time
denied man a knowledge necessary to his happiness. If it be made to a small number only,
it is a partiality inconsistent with his justice. Revelation would destroy God’s immutability,
as it supposes him to have done at one period what he wished not to do at another. What kind
of revelation is it, which cannot be understood? If one man only were incapable of
understanding it, that circumstance would be alone sufficient to convict God of injustice.
Chapter XX. Examination of Dr. Clarke’s Proofs of the Existence of a
Deity.
All men, it is said, believe in the existence of a deity, and the voice of nature is alone
sufficient to establish it. It is an innate idea.
But what proves that idea to be acquired is, the nature of the opinion, which varies from
age to age, and from nation to nation. That it is unfounded, is evident from this, that men
have perfected every science, which has a real object, while that of God has been always in
nearly the same state. There is no subject upon which men have entertained such a variety
of opinions.
Admitting every nation to have a form of worship, that circumstance by no means proves
the existence of a God. The universality of an opinion does not prove its truth. Have not all
nations believed in the existence of witchcraft and of apparitions? Previous to Copernicus,
did not all men believe that the earth was immoveable, and that the sun turned round it?
The ideas of God and his qualities are only founded upon the opinions of our fathers,
infused into us by education; by habits contracted in infancy, and strengthened by example
and authority. Hence the opinion, that all men are born with an idea of the Divinity. We
retain those ideas, without ever having reflected upon them.
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 182
Dr. Clarke has adduced the strongest arguments which have ever yet been advanced in
support of the existence of a Deity. His propositions may be reduced into the following: —
1. “Something has existed from all eternity.” Yes; but what is it?
Why not matter, rather
than spirit? When a thing exists, existence must be essential to it. That which cannot be
annihilated, necessarily exists: such is matter. Matter, therefore, has always existed.
2. “An independent and unchangeable being has existed from all eternity.”
First of all, what is this being? Is it independent of its own essence? No; for it cannot make
the beings whom it produces act otherwise than according to their given properties. One body
only depends upon another, in so far as it owes existence and form of action to it. By this
trifle alone can matter be dependent. But if matter be eternal, it cannot be indebted for its
existence to another being; and if eternal and self-existing, it is evident that, in virtue of those
qualities, it contains within itself every thing requisite for action. Matter being eternal, has
no need of a maker.
Is this being unchangeable? No; as such a being could neither will nor produce successive
actions. If this being created matter, there was a time in which it had resolved that matter
should not exist, and another that it should. This being, therefore, cannot be unchangeable.
3. “This eternal, immutable, and independent being is self-existence.” But since matter is
eternal, why should it not be self-existent?
4. “The essence of a self-existent being is incomprehensible.” True, and such is the essence
of matter.
5. “A necessarily self-existing being is necessarily eternal.” But it would have that property
in common with matter? Why, then, separate this being from the universe?
6. “The self-existing being must be infinite, and every where present.” Infinite! be it so; but
we have no reason to think that matter is finite. Every where present! No; matter certainly
occupies a part of space, and from that part, at least, the Divinity must be excluded.
7. “The necessarily self-existent being must be one.” Yes, if nothing can exist out of it. But
can any one deny the existence of the universe?
8. “The self-existent being is necessarily intelligent.” But intelligence
is
a human quality.
To have intelligence, thoughts and senses are necessary. A being that has senses is material,
and cannot be a pure spirit. But does this being, this great whole, possess a particular
intelligence which puts it in motion; Since nature contains intelligent beings, why strip her
of intelligence?
9. “The self-existent being is a free agent.” But does God find no difficulty in executing
his plans? Does he wish the continuance of evil, or can he not prevent it? In that case, he
either permits sin or is not free. He can only act according to the laws of his essence. His will
is determined by the wisdom and qualities which are attributed to him: He is not free.
10. “The supreme cause of all things possesses infinite power.” But if man be free to
commit sin, what becomes of God’s infinite power?
11. “The author of all things is necessarily wise.” If he be the author of all things, he is
author of many things which we think very foolish.
12. “The supreme cause necessarily possesses every moral perfection.” The idea of
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 183
perfection is abstract. It is relative to our mode of perception that a thing appears perfect to
us. When injured by his works, and forced to lament the evils we suffer, do we think God
perfect? Is he so in respect to his works, where we universally see confusion blended with
order?
If it be pretended that we cannot know God, and that nothing positive can be said about
him, we may well be allowed to doubt of his existence. If incomprehensible, can we be
blamed for not understanding him?
We are told that common sense and reason are sufficient to demonstrate his his existence;
but we are also told that, in these matters, reason is an unfaithful guide. Conviction, besides,
is always the effect of evidence and demonstration.
Chapter XXI. Examinations of the Proofs of the Existence of a Divinity.
No variety, it is said, can arise from a blind physical necessity, which must always be
uniform; that the variety we see around us can only proceed from the will and ideas of a
necessarily existing being.
Why should not this variety arise from natural causes — from a self-acting matter, whose
motion joins and combines various and analogous elements? Is not a loaf of bread produced
from the combination of meal, yeast, and water? Blind necessity is a name which we give
to a power with whose energy we are unacquainted.
But it is said that the regular movements and admirable order of the universe, and the
benefits daily bestowed upon man, announce wisdom and intelligence. Those movements are
the necessary effects of the laws of nature, which we call either good or bad, as they effect
ourselves.
Animals, it is asserted, are a proof of the powerful cause which created them. The power
of nature cannot he doubted. Are animals, on account of the harmony of their parts, the work
of an invisible being? They are continually changing, and finally perish. If God cannot form
them otherwise, he is neither free nor powerful; if he change his mind, he is not immutable;
if he allow machines, whom he has created sensible, to experience sorrow, he is destitute of
bounty; if he cannot make his works more durable, he is deficient in skill.
Man, who thinks himself the chief work in nature, proves either the malice or incapacity
of his pretended author. His machine is more subject to derangement than that of other
beings. Who, upon the loss of a loved object, would not rather be a beast or a stone than a
human being? Better be an inanimated rock than a devotee, trembling under the yoke of his
God, and foreseeing still greater torments in a future state of existence!
Is it possible, say theologians, to conceive the universe to be without a maker, who watches
over his workmanship? Show a statue or a watch to a savage, which he has not before seen,
and he will at once conclude it to be the work of a skilful artist.
1. Nature is very powerful and industrious; but we are as little acquainted with the manner
in which she forms a stone or a mineral as a brain organized like that of Newton. Nature can
do all things, and the existence of any thing proves itself to be one of her productions. Let
us not conclude that the works which most astonish us are not of her production.
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 184
2. The savage to whom a watch is shown will either have ideas of human industry or he
will not. If he has. he will at once consider it to be the production of a being of his own
species; if not, he will never think it the work of a being like himself. He will consequently
attribute it to a genius or spirit, i.e., to an unknown power, whom he will suppose capable of
producing effects beyond those of human beings. By this, the savage will only prove his
ignorance of what man is capable of performing.
3. Upon opening and examining the watch, the savage will perceive that it must be a work
of man. He will at once perceive its difference from the immediate works of nature, whom
he never saw produce wheels of polished metal. But he will never suppose a material work
the production of an immaterial being. In viewing the world, we see a material cause of its
phenomena, and this cause is nature, whose energy is known to those who study her.
Let us not be told, that we thus attribute every thing to blind causes, and to a fortuitous
concourse of atoms: we call those causes blind of which we are ignorant: we attribute effects
to chance, when we do not perceive the tie which connects them with their causes. Nature
is neither a blind cause, nor does she act by chance: all her productions are necessary, and
always the effect of fixed laws. There may be ignorance on our part, but the words Spirit,
God, and Intelligence, will not remedy, but only increase that ignorance.
This is a sufficient answer to the eternal objection made to the partisans of nature, of
attributing every thing to chance. Chance is a word void of meaning, and only exposes the
ignorance of those who use it. We are told that a regular work cannot be formed by the
combinations of chance; that an epic poem, like the Iliad, can never be produced by letters
thrown together at random. Certainly not. It is nature that combines, according to fixed laws,
an organized head capable of producing such a work. Nature bestows such a temperament
and organization upon a brain, that a head, constituted like that of Homer, placed in the same
circumstances, must necessarily produce a poem like the Iliad, unless it be denied that the
same causes produce the same effects.
Every thing is the effect of the combinations of matter. The most admirable of her
productions which we behold, are only the natural effects of her parts, differently arranged.
95
Chapter XXII. Of Deism, Optimism, and Final Causes.
Admitting the existence of a God. and even supposing him possessed of views and of
intelligence, what is the result to mankind? What connexion can subsist between us and such
a being? Will the good or bad effects proceeding from his omnipotence and providence be
other than those of his wisdom, justice, and eternal decrees? Can we suppose that he will
change his plans on our account? Overcome by our prayers, will he cause the fire to cease
from burning, or prevent a falling building from crushing those who are passing beneath it?
What can we ask of him, if he be compelled to give a free course to the events which he has
ordained? Opposition, on our part, would be phrensy.
Why deprive me of my God, says the happy enthusiast, who favours me, whom I view as
a benevolent sovereign continually watching over me? Why, says the unfortunate man,
deprive me of my God, whose consoling idea dries up my tears?
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 185
I answer by asking them, on what do they found the goodness which they attribute to God?
For one happy human being, how many do we not see miserable? Is he good to all men?
How many calamities do we not daily see, while he is deaf to our prayers? Every man,
therefore, must judge of the Divinity according as he is affected by circumstances.
In finding every thing good in the world, where good is necessarily attended with evil, the
optimists seem to have renounced the evidence of their senses. Good is, according to them,
the end of the whole. But the whole can have no end: if it had, it would cease being the
whole.
God, say some men, knows how to benefit us by the evils which he permits us to suffer in
this life. But how do they know this? Since he has treated us ill in this life, what assurance
have we of a better treatment in a future state? What good can possibly result from the
plagues and famines which desolate the earth? It is necessary to create another world to
exculpate the Divinity from blame for the calamities he makes us suffer in the present.
Some men suppose that God, after creating matter out of nothing, abandoned it for ever to
its primary impulse. These men only want a God to produce matter, and suppose him to live
in complete indifference as to the fate of his workmanship. Such a God is a being quite
useless to man.
Others have imagined certain duties to be due by man to his Creator. Others suppose that,
in consequence of his justice, he will reward and punish. They make a man of their God. But
these attributes contradict each other; for, by supposing him the author of all things, he must,
consequently, be the author of both good and evil. We might as well believe all things.
It is asked of us, would you rather depend upon blind nature than on a good, wise, and
intelligent being?
But, 1. Our interest does not determine the reality of things. 2. This being, so
supereminently wise and good, is presented to us as a foolish tyrant, and it would be better
for man to depend upon blind nature than upon such a being. 3. Nature, when well studied,
teaches us the means of becoming happy, so far, at least, as our essence will permit. She
informs us of the proper means of acquiring happiness.
Chapter XXIII. Examination of the Supposed Advanta
g
es which result to
Man from the Notions of a Divinity, or their Influence upon Morals,
Politics, Science, the Welfare of Nations, and of Individuals.
Morality, originally having only for its object the self-preservation of man, and his welfare
in society, had nothing to do with religious systems. Man, from his own mind, found motives
for moderating his passions and resisting his vicious inclinations, and for rendering himself
useful and estimable to those of whom he constantly stood in need.
Those systems which describe God as a tyrant cannot render him an object of imitation to
man. They paint him jealous, vindictive, and interested. Thus religion divides men. They
dispute with and persecute one another, and never reproach themselves with crimes
committed in the name of God.
The same spirit pervades religion. There we hear of nothing but victims; and even the pure
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 186
Spirit of the Christians must have his own son murdered to appease his fury.
Man requires a morality, founded upon nature and experience.
Do we find real virtue among priests? Are these men, so firmly persuaded of God’s
existence, the less addicted to debauchery and intemperance? Upon seeing their conduct, we
are apt to think that they are entirely undeceived in their opinions of the Divinity.
Does the idea of a rewarding and avenging God impose upon those princes who derive
their power, as they pretend, from the Divinity himself? Are those wicked and remorseless
monarchs who spread destruction around them atheists? They call the Divinity to witness,
at the very moment when they are about to violate their oaths.
Have religious systems bettered the morals of the people? Religion, in their opinion,
supersedes every thing. Its ministers, content with supporting dogmas and rites, useful to
their own power, multiply troublesome ceremonies, with a view of drawing profit by their
slaves transgressing them. Behold the work of religion and priestcraft in a sale of the favours
of Heaven! The unmeaning words, impiety, blasphemy, sacrilege, and heresy, were invented
by priests; and those pretended crimes have been punished with the greatest severities.
What must be the fate of youth under such preceptors? From infancy the human mind is
poisoned with unintelligible notions and disturbed by phantoms, genius is cramped by a
mechanical devotion, and man wholly prejudiced against reason and truth.
Does religion form citizens, fathers, or husbands?
It is placed above every thing. The
fanatic is told that he must obey God, and not man; consequently, when he thinks himself
acting in the cause of Heaven, he will rebel against his country, and abandon his family.
Were education directed to useful objects, incalculable benefits would arise therefrom to
mankind. Notwithstanding their religious education, how many men are subject to criminal
habits. In spite of a hell, so horrid even in description, what crowds of abandoned criminals
fill our cities! Those men would recoil with horrour from him who expressed any doubts of
God’s existence. From the temple, where sacrifices have been made, divine oracles uttered,
and vice denounced in the name of Heaven, every man returns to his former criminal courses.
Are condemned thieves and murderers either atheists or unbelievers? — those wretches
believe in a God. They have continually heard him spoken of; neither are they strangers to
the punishment which he has destined to crimes. But a hidden God and distant punishments
are ill calculated to restrain crimes, which present and certain chastisements do not always
prevent.
The man who would tremble at the commission of the smallest crime in the face of the
world, does not hesitate for a moment when he thinks himself only seen by God. So feeble
is the idea of divinity when opposed to human passions.
Does the most religious father, in advising his son, speak to him of a vindictive God? His
constitution destroyed by debauchery, his fortune ruined by gaming, the contempt of society
— these are the motives he employs.
The idea of a God is both useless and contrary to sound morality: — it neither procures
happiness to society nor to individuals. Men always occupied with phantoms, live in
perpetual terrour. They neglect their most important concerns, and pass a miserable existence
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 187
in groans, prayers, and expiations. They imagine that they appease God by subjecting
themselves to every evil. What fruit does society derive from the lugubrious notions of
thosepions madmen? They are either misanthropes, useless to themselves and to the world,
or fanatics who disturb the peace of nations. If religious ideas console a few timid and
peaceable enthusiasts, they render miserable during life millions of others, infinitely more
consistent with their principles. The man who can be tranquil under a terrible God must be
a being destitute of reason.
Chapter XXIV. Reli
g
ious Opinions cannot be the Foundation of Morality
— Parallel between Reli
g
ious and Natural Morality — Reli
g
ion impedes
the Pro
g
ress of the Mind.
Arbitrary and inconsistent opinions, contradictory notions, abstract and unintelligible
speculations, can never serve as a foundation to morality; which must rest upon clear and
evident principles, deduced from the nature of man, and founded upon experience and
reason. Morality is always uniform, and never follows the imagination, passions, or interests
of man. It must be stable and equal for all men, never varying with time or place. Morality,
being the science of the duties of man living in society, must be founded on sentiments
inherent in our nature. In a word, its basis must be necessity.
Theology is wrong in supposing that mutual wants, the desire of happiness, and the evident
interests of societies and of individuals are insufficient motives to influence man. The
ministers of religion subject morality to human passions by making it flow from God. They
found morality upon nothing by founding it upon a chimera?
The ideas entertained of God, owing to the different views which are taken of him, vary
with the fancy of every man, from age to age, from one country to another.
Compare the morality of religion with that of nature, and they will be found essentially
different. Nature invites men to love one another, to preserve their existence, and to augment
their happiness. Religion commands him to love a terrible God, to hate himself, and sacrifice
his soul’s most precious joys to his frightful idol. Nature bids man consult his reason;
religion tells him that reason is a fallible guide. Nature bids him search for truth; religion
prohibits all investigation. Nature bids man be sociable, and love his neighbours; religion
commands him to shun society, and sequester himself from the world. Nature enjoins
tenderness and affection to the husband; religion considers matrimony as a state of impurity
and corruption. Nature bids the wicked man resist his shameful propensities, as destructive
to his happiness; religion, while she forbids crime, promises pardon to the criminal, by
humbling himself before its ministers, by sacrifices, offerings, ceremonies, and prayers.
The human mind, perverted by religion, has hardly advanced a single step in improvement.
Logic has been uniformly employed to prove the most palpable absurdities. Theology has
inspired kings with false ideas of their rights, by telling them that they hold their power from
God. The laws became subject to the caprices of religion. Physics, anatomy, and natural
history were only permitted to see with the eyes of superstition. The most clear facts were
refuted, when inconsistent with religious hypothesis.
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 188
Is a question in natural philosophy solved by saying, that phenomena, such as volcanoes
or deluges, are proofs of Divine wrath? Instead of ascribing wars and famines to the anger
of
God,
would it not have been more useful to show men that they proceeded from their own
folly, and from the tyranny of their princes? Men would then have sought a remedy to their
evils in a better government. Experience would have convinced man of the inefficacy of
fasts, prayers, sacrifices, and processions, which never produced any good.
Chapter XXV. Man, from the ideas which are
g
iven of the Deity, can
conclude nothin
g
— Their Absurdity and Uselessness.
Supposing the existence of an intelligence, like that held out by theology, it must be owned
that no man has hitherto corresponded to the wishes of providence. God wishes himself to
be known by men, and even the theologians can form no idea of him. Admitting that they did
so, that his being and attributes are evident to them, do the rest of mankind enjoy the same
advantages?
Few men are capable of profound and constant meditation. The common people of both
sexes, condemned to toil for subsistence, never reflect. People of fashion, all females, and
young people of both sexes, only occupied about their passions and their pleasures, think as
little as the vulgar. There are not, perhaps, ten men of a million of people, who have seriously
asked themselves what they understand by God; and even fewer can be found who have
made a problem of the existence of a Divinity: yet conviction supposes evidence, which can
alone produce certainty. Who are the men that are convinced of God’s existence? Entire
nations worship God upon the authority of their fathers and their priests. Confidence,
authority, and habit, stand in the stead of conviction and proof. All rests upon authority;
reason and investigation are universally prohibited.
Is the conviction of the existence of a God, so important to all men, reserved only to priests
and the inspired? Do we find the same unanimity among them as with those occupied with
studying the knowledge of useful arts? If God wishes to be known to all men, why does he
not show himself to the whole world, in a less equivocal and more convincing manner than
he has hitherto done in those relations which seem to charge him with partiality? Are fables
and metamorphoses the only means which he can make use of? Why have not his name,
attributes, and will, been written in characters legible by all men?
By ascribing to him contradictory qualities, theology has put its God in a situation where
he cannot act. Admitting that he existed with such extraordinary and contradictory qualities,
we can neither reconcile to common sense nor to reason the conduct and worship prescribed
towards him.
If infinitely good, why fear him? if infinitely wise, why interest ourselves about our fate?
if omniscient, why tell him of our wants, or fatigue him with our prayers? if every where,
why erect to him temples? if master of all, why make him sacrifices and offerings? if just,
whence has arisen the belief that he will punish man, whom he has created weak and feeble?
if reasonable, why be angry with a blind creature like man? if immutable, why do we pretend
to change his decrees? and if inconceivable, why presume to form any idea of him?
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 189
But if, on the other hand, he be irascible, vindictive, and wicked, we are not bound to offer
up to him our prayers. If a tyrant, how can we love him? How can a master be loved by his
slaves, whom he has permitted to offend him that he might have the pleasure of punishing
them? If all-powerful, how can man fly from his wrath? If unchangeable, how can man
escape his fate?
Thus, in whatever point of view we consider God, we can neither render him prayers nor
worship.
Even admitting the existence of a Deity, full of equity, reason, and benevolence, what
would a virtuous atheist have to fear, who should unexpectedly find himself in the presence
of a being whom, during life, he had misconceived and neglected?
“O, God!” he might say, “inconceivable being, whom I could not discover, pardon, that the
limited understanding thou hast given me has been inadequate to thy discovery! How could
I discover thy spiritual essence by the aid of sense alone? I could not submit my mind to the
yoke of men, who, confessedly not more enlightened than I, agreed only among themselves
in bidding me renounce the reason which thou hast given! But, O God! if thou lovest thy
creatures, I have also loved them! If virtue pleaseth thee, my heart ever honoured it. I have
consoled the afflicted; never did I devour the substance of the poor. I have ever been just,
bountiful, and compassionate.”
In spite of reason, men are often, by disease, brought back to the prejudices of infancy.
This is most frequently the case with sick people: upon the approach of death, they tremble,
because the machine is enfeebled; the brain being unable to perform its functions, they of
course fall into deliriums. Our systems experience the changes of our body.
Chapter XXVI. Apolo
g
y for the Sentiments contained in this Work.
Men tremble at the very name of an atheist. But who is an atheist? The man who brings
mankind back to reason and experience, by destroying prejudices inimical to their happiness;
who has no need of resorting to supernatural powers in explaining the phenomena of nature.
It is madness, say theologians, to suppose incomprehensible motions in nature. Is it
madness to prefer the known to the unknown? — to consult experience and the evidence of
our senses? — to address ourselves to reason, and prefer her oracles to the decision of
sophists, who even confess themselves ignorant of the God they announce?
When we see priests so angry with atheistical opinions, should we not suspect the justice
of their cause?
Spiritual tyrants! ‘tis ye who have defamed the Divinity, by besmearing him
with the blood of the wretched! You are the truly impious. Impiety consists in insulting the
God in whom it believes. He who does not believe in a God cannot injure him, and cannot
of course be impious.
On the other hand, if piety consists in serving our country, in being useful to our fellow-
creatures, and in observing the laws of nature, an atheist is pious, honest, and virtuous, when
his conduct is regulated by the laws which reason and virtue prescribe to him.
Men, we are told, who have reason to expect future happiness, never fall into atheism. The
interest of the passions and the fear of punishment alone make atheists. But men who
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 190
endeavour to enlighten that reason which imprints every idea of virtue, are not calculated to
reject the existence of a future state, from an apprehension of its chastisements.
It is true, the number of atheists is inconsiderable, because enthusiasm has dazzled the
human mind, and the progress of errour has been so very great, that few men have courage
to search for truth. If by atheists are meant those who, guided by experience and the evidence
of their senses, see nothing in nature but what really exists; if by atheists are meant natural
philosophers, who think every thing may be accounted for by the laws of motion, without
having recourse to a chimerical power; if by atheists are meant those who know not what a
spirit is, and who reject a phantom whose opposite qualities only disturb mankind; doubtless,
there are many atheists: and their number would be greater, were the knowledge of physics
and sound reason more generally disseminated.
An atheist does not believe in the existence of a God. No man can he certain of the
existence of an inconceivable being, in whom inconsistent qualities are said to be united. In
this sense, many theologians would be atheists, as well as those credulous beings who
prostrate themselves before a being of whom they have no other idea than that given them
by men avowedly comprehending nothing of him themselves.
Chapter XXVII. Is Atheism Compatible with Sound Morality?
Though the atheist denies the existence of a God, he neither denies his own existence nor
that of other men; he cannot deny the existence of relations which subsist between men, nor
the duties which necessarily result from those relations. He cannot doubt the existence of
morality, or the science of the relations which subsist between men living in society. Though
he may sometimes seem to forget the moral principles, it does not follow that they do not
exist. He may act inconsistently with his principles, but a philosophical infidel is not so much
an object of dread as an enthusiastic priest. Though the atheist disbelieves in the existence
of a God, can it be thought that he will indulge to excesses dangerous to himself and subject
to punishments?
Whether would men be happier under an atheistical prince, or a believing tyrant,
continually bestowing presents upon priests? Would we not have to fear religious quarrels
from the latter? Would not the name of God, of which the monarch avails himself, sometimes
serve as an excuse for the persecutions of the tyrant? Would he not at least hope to find in
religion a pardon for his crimes?
Much inconveniency may arise from making morality depend upon the existence of a God.
When corrupt minds discover the falsehood of those suppositions, they will think virtue
itself, like the Deity, a mere chimera, and see no reason to practise it in life. It is, however,
as beings living in society, that we are bound by morality. Our duties must always be the
same, whether a God exist or not.
If some atheists deny the existence of good and of evil, it only proves their own ignorance.
A natural sentiment causes man to love pleasure and hate pain. Ask the man who denies the
existence of virtue and vice, would he be indifferent at being robbed, calumniated, betrayed,
and insulted? His answer will prove that he makes a distinction between men’s actions: that
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 191
the distinctions of good and evil depend neither upon human conventions nor the idea of a
Deity; neither do they depend upon the rewards or punishments of a future state of existence.
The atheist, believing only in the present life, at least wishes to live happy. Atheism, says
Bacon, renders man prudent, as it limits his views to this life. Men accustomed to study and
meditation never are bad citizens.
Some men, undeceived themselves in religious matters, pretend that religion is useful to
the people, since, without it, they could not be governed. But has religion had a useful
influence upon popular manners? It enslaves, without making obedient; it makes idiots,
whose sole virtue consists in a blind submission to paltry and silly ceremonies, to which
more consequence is attached than to real virtue or pure morality. Children are only
frightened for a moment by imaginary terrours. It is only by showing men the truth that they
can appreciate its value, and find motives for cultivating it.
It is chiefly among nations where superstition, aided by authority, makes its heavy yoke
be felt, and imprudently abuses its power, that the number of atheists is considerable.
Oppression infuses energy into the mind, and occasions a strict investigation into the causes
of its evils. Calamity is a powerful goad, stimulating the mind to the side of truth.
Chapter XXVIII. Motives which lead to Atheism — Can this be
Dan
g
erous?
What interest, we are asked, can men have to deny the existence of God? But are the
tyrannies exercised in his name, and the slavery in which men groan under priests, sufficient
motives for determining us to examine into the pretensions of a class that occasions so much
mischief in the world? Can there be a stronger motive than the incessant dread excited by the
belief in a being who is angry with our most secret thoughts, whom we may unknowingly
offend, who is never pleased with us, who gives man evil inclinations that he may punish
him for them, who eternally punishes the crime of a moment?
The deist will tell us that we only paint superstition: but such a supposition will never
prove the existence of a Deity. If the God of superstition be a disgusting being, that of deism
must always be inconsistent and impossible. The depraved devotee finds in religion a
thousand pretexts for being wicked. The atheist has no cloak of zeal to cover his vengeance
and fury.
No sensible atheist thinks that the cruel actions caused by religion are capable of being
justified. If the atheist be a bad man, he knows when he is committing wrong. Neither God
nor his priests can then persuade him that he has been acting properly.
The indecent and criminal conduct of his ministers, say some men, proves nothing against
religion. May not the same thing be said of an atheist of good principles and a bad practice?
Atheism, it is said, destroys the force of oaths; but perjury is common enough with those
nations who boast the most of their piety. Are the most holy kings faithful to their oaths?
Does not religion itself sometimes grant a dispensation from them, especially when the
perjury is beneficial to the holy cause? Do criminals refrain from swearing, when necessary
to their justification? Oaths are a foolish formality, which neither impose upon villains nor
D’Holbach,
The System of Nature
, volume 2, 192
add any thing to the engagements of good men.
It has been asked, whether a people ever existed that had not some idea of a Deity; and
could a nation of atheists exist?
A timid and ignorant animal, like man, necessarily becomes superstitious under calamity.
He either creates a God himself or takes that which is offered him by another. But the savage
does not draw the same conclusion from the existence of his Gods as the polished citizen.
A nation of savages content themselves with a rude worship, and never reason about the
Divinity. It is only in civilized states that men subtilize those ideas.
A numerous society, without either religion, morality, government, laws, or principles,
doubtless cannot exist, since it would only be an assemblage of men mutually disposed to
injure one another. But, in spite of all religions n the world, are not all human societies nearly
in that state? A society of atheists, governed by good laws, whom rewards excite to virtue,
and punishments deter from crime, would be infinitely more virtuous than those religious
societies in which every thing tends to disturb the mind and to deprave the heart.
We cannot expect to take away from a whole nation its religious ideas, because they have
been inculcated from the tenderest infancy. But the vulgar, in the long run, may reap
advantages from labours, of which they at present have no idea. Atheism, having truth on its
side, will gradually insinuate itself into the mind, and become familiar to man.
Chapter XXIX. Abrid
g
ement of the System of Nature.
O ye, says Nature, who, according to the impulse which I have given you, tend every
instant towards happiness, do not resist my sovereign law! labour at your felicity; enjoy
without fear; be happy.
Return, O devotee, to Nature! She will banish from thy heart the terrours which are
overwhelming thee. Cease to contemplate futurity. Live for thyself and thy fellow-creatures.
I approve of thy pleasures, while they neither injure thee nor others, whom I have rendered
necessary to thy happiness.
Let humanity interest thee in the fate of thy fellow-creature. Consider that, like him, thou
mayest one day be miserable. Dry up the tears of distressed virtue and injured innocence. Let
the mild fervour of friendship, and the esteem of a loved companion, make thee forget the
pains of life.
Be just, since equity supports the human race. Be good, as bounty attaches every heart. Be
indulgent, since thou livest among beings weak like thyself. Be modest, as pride hurts the
self-love of every human being. Pardon injuries, as vengeance eternizes hatred. Do good to
him who injures thee, that thou mayest show thyself greater than he, and also gain his
friendship. Be moderate, temperate, and chaste, since voluptuousness, intemperance, and
excess, destroy thy being, and render thee contemptible.
It is I who punish the crimes of this world. The wicked man may escape human laws, but
mine he can never fly from. Abandon thyself to intemperance, and man will not punish thee,
but I will punish thee, by shortening thy existence. If addicted to vice, thou wilt perish under
thy fatal habits. Princes, whose power surpasseth human laws, tremble under mine. I punish
1.
It is quite evident that every religion is founded upon the absurd principle, that man is
obliged to accredit finally, that which he is in the most complete impossibility of
comprehending. According even to theological notions, man, by his nature, must be in an
invincible ignorance
relatively to God.
2.
Hobbes, in his
Leviathan
says: “Whatsoever we imagine, is finite. Therefore there is no
idea, or conception of any thing we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an image of
infinite magnitude, nor conceive infinite swiftness, infinite time, infinite force, or infinite
power. When we say any thing is infinite, we signify only, that we are not able to conceive
the ends and bound of the thing named, having no conception of the thing, but of our own
inability.” Sherlock says: “The word infinite is only a negation, which signifies that which
has neither end, nor limits, nor extent, and, consequently, that which has no positive and
determinate nature, and is therefore nothing;” he adds, “that nothing but custom has caused
this word to be adopted, which without that, would appear devoid of sense, and a
contradiction.”
3.
Dies defidet si velim numerare quibus bonis male eventrit; nec minus si commemorem
quibus malis optime.
Cicer. de Nat. Deor. lib. iii.
If a virtuous king possessed the ring of
Gyges,
that is to say, had the faculty of rendering
himself invisible, would be not make use of it to remedy abuses to reward the good, to
prevent the conspiracies of the wicked, to make order and happiness reign throughout his
states? God is an invisible and all-powerful monarch, nevertheless his states are the theatre
of crime, of confusion: he remedies nothing.
4.
“We conceive, at least,”
says Doctor Costrill,
“that God is able to overturn the universe,
and replunge it into chaos.”
See his Defence of Religion, Natural and Revealed.
5.
The modern religion of Europe has visibly caused more ravages and troubles than any
other known superstition; it was in that respect very consistent with its principles. They may
well preach tolerance and mildness in the name of a despotic God, who alone has a right to
them by infusing suspicion and terrour into their minds. Look into the hearts of those
criminals, whose smiling countenances conceal an anguished soul. See the covetous miser,
haggard and emaciated, groaning under wealth, acquired by the sacrifice of himself. View
the gay voluptuary, secretly writhing under a broken constitution; see the mutual hatred and
contempt which subsist between the adulterous pair! The liar, deprived of all confidence; the
icy heart of ingratitude, which no act of kindness can dissolve; the iron soul of the monster
whom the sight of misfortune could never soften; the vindictive being, nourishing in his
bosom the gnawing vipers which are consuming him! Envy, if thou darest, the sleep of the
murderer, the iniquitous judge, or the oppressor, whose couches are surrounded by the
torches of the furies! But no! humanity obliges thee to partake of their merited torments.
Comparing thyself with them, and finding thy bosom the constant abode of peace, thou wilt
find a subject of self-congratulation. Finally, behold the decree of destiny fulfilled on all! She
wills that virtue shall never go unrewarded, but crime be ever its own punishment.
Notes
the homage of the earth, who is extremely jealous, who wills that they should admit some
doctrines, who punishes cruelly for erroneous opinions, who demands zeal from his adorers,
such a God must make fanatical persecutors of all consistent men. The theology of the
present day is a subtile venom, calculated to infect all by the importance Which attached to
it. By dint of
metaphysics
, modern theologians have become systematically absurd and
wicked: by once admitting the odious ideas which they gave of me Divinity, it was
impossible to make them understand that they ought to be humane, equitable, pacific,
indulgent, or tolerant; they pretended and proved that these humane and social virtues, were
not seasonable in the cause of religion, and would be treason and crimes in the eyes of the
celestial Monarch, to whom every thing ought to be sacrificed.
6.
It is evident that all revelation, which
is
not clear, or which teaches
mysteries,
cannot be
the work of a wise and intelligent being: as soon as he speaks, we ought to presume, it is for
the purpose of being understood by those to whom he manifests himself. To speak so as not
to be understood, only shows folly or want of good faith. It is, then, very clear, that all things
which the priesthood have called
mysteries,
are inventions, made to throw a thick veil over
their own peculiar contradictions, and their own peculiar ignorance of the Divinity. But they
think to solve all difficulties by saying
it is a mystery;
taking care, however, that men should
know nothing of that pretended science, of which they have made themselves the
depositaries.
7.
Yet to have doubted the truth of such a generally-diffused opinion, one that had received
the sanction of so many learned men — that was clothed with the sacred vestments of so
many ages of credulity — that had been adopted by Moses, acknowledged by Solomon,
accredited by the Persian magi — that Elijah had not refuted — that obtained the fiat of the
most respectable universities, the most enlightened legislators, the wisest kings, the most
eloquent ministers: in short, a principle that embraced all the stability that could be derived
from the universal consent of all ranks: to have doubted of this, would at one period been
held as the highest degree of profanation, as the most presumptuous scepticism, as an
impious blasphemy, that would have threatened the very existence of that unhappy country
from whose unfortunate bosom such a venomous, sacrilegious mortal could have arisen. It
is well known what opinion was entertained of Galileo for maintaining the existence of the
antipodes. Pope Gregory excommunicated as atheists all those who gave it credit.
8.
When men shall be willing coolly to examine the proof of the existence of a God, drawn
from general consent, they will acknowledge, that they can gather nothing from it, except
that all men have guessed that there existed in nature unknown motive powers, unknown
causes; a truth of which no one has ever doubted, seeing that it is impossible to suppose
effects without causes. Thus the only difference betwixt the
ATHEISTS
and the
THEOLOGIANS
,
or the
WORSHIPPERS
or
GOD
,
is, that the first assign to all the phenomena
material, natural,
sensible,
and
known
causes; whereas, the last assign them
spiritual, supernatural,
unintelligible,
and
unknown
causes. The God of the theologians, is it in effect any other thing
than an
occult power
?
9.
Iambicus, who was a Pythagorean philosopher not in the highest repute with the learned
world, although one of those visionary priests in some estimation with theologians, (at least,
if we may venture to judge by the unlimited draughts they have made on the bank of his
doctrines) who was unquestionably a favourite with the emperor Julian, says, that “anteriorly
to all use of reason, the notion of the
GODS
is inspired by nature, and that we have even a sort
of feeling of the Divinity, preferable to the knowledge of him.”
10.
Descartes, Paschal, and Dr. Clarke himself, have been accused of
ATHEISM
by the
theologians of their time; this has not prevented subsequent theologians from making use of
their proofs, and giving them as extremely valid.
See further on, the tenth chapter.
Not long
since, a celebrated author, under the name of Doctor Bowman, published a work, in which
he pretends, that all the proofs of the existence of God hitherto offered, are crazy and futile:
he substitutes his own in their place, full as little convincing as the others.
11.
Although many people look upon the work of Doctor Clarke, as the most solid and the
most convincing, it is well to observe, that many theologians of his time, and of his country,
have by no means judged of it in the same manner, and have looked upon his proofs as
insufficient, and his method as dangerous to his cause. Indeed, Doctor Clarke has pretended
to prove the existence of God
a priori,
this is what others deem impossible, and look upon
it, with reason,
as begging the question.
This manner of proving it has been rejected by the
school-men, such as
Albert the Great, Thomas d’Aquinus, John Scot,
and by the greater part
of the moderns, with the exception of
Suarez.
They have pretended that the existence of God
was impossible to be demonstrated
a priori,
seeing that there is nothing anterior to the first
of causes; but that this existence could only be proved a
posteriori
; that is to say, by its
effects. In consequence, the work of Doctor Clarke was attacked rudely by a great number
of theologians, who accused him of innovation, and of deserting their cause, by employing
a method unusual, rejected, and but little suitable to prove any thing. Those who may wish
to know the reasons which have been used against the demonstrations of
Clarke,
will find
them in an English work, entitled,
An Inquiry into the ideas of Space, Time, Immensity, &c.,
by Edmund Law,
printed at
Cambridge,
1734. If the author proves in it with success, that the
demonstrations
a priori,
of
Doctor Clarke,
are false, it will be easy to convince ourselves by
every thing which is said in our work, that all the demonstrations
a
posteriori,
are not better
founded. For the rest the great esteem in which they hold the book of
Clarke
at the present
day, proves that the theologians are not in accord amongst themselves, frequently changing
their opinions, and are not difficult upon the demonstrations which they give of the existence
of a being which hitherto is by no means demonstrated. However, it is certain that the work
of
Clarice,
in despite of the contradictions which he has experienced, enjoys the greatest
reputation.
12.
Here we shall be able to perceive that, supposing the laws by which nature acts to be
immutable, it does not require any of these logical distinctions to account for the changes that
take place: the mutation which results, is, on the contrary, a striking proof of the immutability
of the system which produces them; and completely brings nature under the range of this
second proposition as stated by Dr. Clarke.
13.
Whoever will take the trouble to read the works of
Plato
and his disciples, such as
Proclus, Jamblicus, Plotinus,
&c. will find in them almost all the doctrines and metaphysical
subtilties of the
Christian Theology.
Moreover, they will find the origin of the s
ymbols,
the
rites,
the
sacraments,
in short, of the
theurgy,
employed in Christian worship, who, as well
in their religious ceremonies as in their doctrines, have done no more than follow, more of
less faithfully, the road which had been traced out for them by the
priests o
f
paganism.
Religious follies are not so various as they are imagined.
With respect to the ancient philosophy, with the exception of that of Democritus and
Epicurus, it was, for the most part, a true
Theosophy,
imagined by the Egyptian and Assyrian
priests: Pythagoras and Plato have been no more than theologians, filled with enthusiasm,
tad perhaps with knavery. At least, we find in them a
sacerdotal
and mysterious mind, which
will always indicate, that they seek to deceive, or that they are not willing men should be
enlightened. It is in
nature,
and not in
theology,
that we must draw up an intelligible and true
philosophy.
14.
See his
Familiar Letters.
Hobbes says, that if men found their interest in it, they would
doubt the truth of
Euclid’s Elements.
15.
I find, in the work of Doctor Clarke, a passage of Melchoir Canus, bishop of the
Canaries, which could be opposed to all the theologians in the world, and all their arguments:
Puderet me dicere non me intelligere, si ipsi intelligerent qui tractarunt. Heraclitus said, if
it were demanded of a blind man what a sight was, he would reply that it was blindness. St.
Paul announced his God to the Athenians as being precisely the
unknown
God to whom they
had raised an altar. St. Denis, the areopagite, says, it is when they acknowledge they do not
know God, that they know him the best. Tunc deum maxime cognoscimus, cum ignorare
eum cognoscimus. It is upon this
unknown.
God that all theology is founded! It is upon this
unknown
God that they reason unceasingly!! It is for the honour of this
unknown
God, that
they cut the throats of men!!!
16.
The theologians frequently speak to us of an
intimate sense,
of a
natural instinct, by
the
aid of which we discover or feel the divinity and the pretended truths of religion. But if we
only examine these things, we shall find that this
intimate sense
and this
instinct
are no more
than the effects of habit, of enthusiasm, of inquietude, and of prejudice, which, frequently
in despite of all reason, lead us back to prejudices which our mind, when tranquil, cannot but
reject.
17.
In supposing, as the theologians do, that God imposes upon men the necessity of
knowing him, their pretension appears as irrational as would be the idea of a landholder to
whom they should ascribe the whim that the ants of his garden could know him and might
reason pertinently upon him.
18.
See
The Impious Man Convinced, or a Dissertation against Spinosa,
page 115) and
sequel.
Amsterdam,
1685.
19.
See
The Impious Man Convinced,
p. 143 and 214.
20.
See
Principia Mathematica,
page 528, and sequel. London edition, 1726.
21.
The word
adest,
which Newton makes use of in the text, appears to be placed there to
avoid saying that God is contained in space.
22.
We have already remarked, elsewhere, that many authors, with a view of proving the
existence of a divine intelligence, have copied whole tracts of
anatomy
and
botany,
which
prove nothing, except that there exists in nature elements suitable to unite, to arrange
themselves, to co-order themselves, in a mode to form wholes, or combinations susceptible
of producing particular effects. Thus these writings, loaded with erudition, only make known
that there exists in nature beings diversely organized, formed in a certain manner, suitable
to certain uses, who would no longer exist under the form they at present have, if their
particles ceased to act as they do, that is to say, to be disposed in such a manner, as to lend
each other mutual succours. To be surprised that the
brain,
the
heart,
the
eyes,
the
arteries,
and
veins,
of an animal act as we see them, that the roots of a plant attract juices, or that a
tree produces fruit, is to be surprised that an animal, a plant, or a tree exists. These beings
would not exist, or would no longer be that which we know they are, if they ceased to act as
they do; this is what happens when they die. If their formation, their combination, their
modes of action and of conserving themselves some time in life, was a proof that these
beings are the effects of an intelligent cause; their destruction, their dissolution, the total
cessation of their mode of acting, their death, ought to prove, in the same manner, that these
beings are the effects of a cause destitute of intelligence, and of permanent views. If we are
told that his views are unknown to us; we shall ask, by what right then they can ascribe them
to this cause, or how it can be reasoned upon?
23.
Cicero says: “Inter hominem et belluam hoc maxime interest, quod haec ad id solum
quod adest, quod que praesens est, se accommodat, paululum admodum sentiens praeteritum
et futurum.” Thus, what it has been wished to make pass as a prerogative of man, is only a
real disadvantage. Seneca has said: “Nos et venturo torquemur et praeterito, timoris enim
tormentum memoria reducit, providentia anticipat; nemo tantum praesentibus miser est.”
Could we not demand of every honest man, who tells us that a good God created the universe
for the happiness of our sensible species,
would you yourself have created a world which
contains so many wretches
. would it not have been better to have abstained from creating so
great a number of sensible beings, than to have called them into his for the purpose of
making them suffer?
24.
Hobbes says: “The world is corporeal; it has the dimensions of size, that is to say, length,
breadth, and depth. Each portion of a body, is a body, and has these same dimensions:
consequently, each part of the universe is a body, and that which is not a body, is no part of
the universe; but as the universe is every thing, that which does not make a part of it, is
nothing, and can be no part.” See Hobbes’ Leviathan, chap. 46.
25.
The Americans took the Spaniards for Gods, because they made use of gunpowder, rode
on horseback, and had vessels which sailed quite alone. The inhabitants of the island of
Tenian, having no knowledge of fire before the arrival of the Europeans, took it, the first time
they saw it, for an animal which devoured wood.
26.
Should we not be astonished if there were in a dice-box a hundred thousand dice, to see
a hundred thousand
sixes follow in succession?
Yes, without doubt, it will be said; but if
these dice were all
cogged
or
loaded,
we should cease to be surprised. Well then, the
particles of matter may be compared to
cogged
dice, that is to say, always producing certain
determined effects; these particles being essentially varied in themselves, and in their
combination, they are
cogged
in an infinity of different modes. The head of Homer, or the
head of Virgil, was no more than the assemblage of particles, or if they choose, of dice,
cogged
by nature; that is to say, of beings combined and wrought in a manner to produce the
Iliad or the Æneid. As much may be said of all the other productions, whether they be those
of intelligence, or of the handiwork of men. Indeed, what are men, except dice
cogged
, or
machines which nature has rendered capable of producing works of a certain kind? A of
genius produces a good work, in the same manner as a tree of good species, place in good
ground, and cultivated with care, produces excellent fruit.
27.
It is not often that the most sedulous attention, the most patient investigation, afford us
the information we are seeking after; sometimes, however, the unwearied industry of the
philosopher is rewarded by throwing into light the most mysterious operations of Nature.
Thus the keen penetration of a Newton, aided by uncommon diligence, developed the starry
system, which, for so many thousand years, had eluded the research of all the astronomers
by whom he was preceded. Thus the sagacity of a Harvey giving vigour to his application,
brought out of the obscurity in which for almost countless centuries it had been buried, the
true course pursued by the sanguinary fluid, when circulating through the veins and arteries
of man, giving activity to his machine, diffusing life through his system, and enabling him
to perform those actions which so frequently strike an astonished world with wonder and
regret. Thus Galileo, by a quickness of perception, a depth of reasoning peculiar to himself,
held up to an admiring world, the actual form and situation of the planet we inhabit, which,
until then, had escaped the observation of the most profound geniuses — the most subtile
metaphysician — and which, when first promulgated, was considered so contradictory to all
the then received opinions, (besides giving the lie to the story of Joshua stopping the sun, as
recorded in the Holy Bible!) that he was ranked as an impious blasphemer, to hold
communion with whom would infallibly secure to the communers a place in the regions of
everlasting torment: indeed, Pope Gregory, who then filled the papal chair, excommunicated
all those who had the temerity to accredit so abominable a doctrine!
28.
See
first part, chapter second,
where we have shown that motion is essential to matter.
This chapter is only a summary of the first five chapters of the first part, which it is intended
to recall to the reader; the will pass to the next if these ideas are remembered.
29.
See what has been said upon this in the
seventh chapter
of the
first part.
Although the
first doctors of the
Christian Church
may, for the greater part, have drawn from the
Platonic
philosophy their obscure notions of
spirituality,
of
incorporeal, and immaterial substances,
of intellectual powers, &c.
we have only to open their works, to convince ourselves that they
had not that idea of God which the theologians of the present day give us.
Tertullian,
as we
have elsewhere said, considered God as corporeal.
Seraphis
said, crying,
that they had
deprived him. of his God,
in making him adopt the opinion of
spirituality,
which was not,
however, so much subtilized then as it has been since, Many
fathers of the Church
have
given a human form to God, and have treated as heretics those who made him a spirit.
The
Jupiter
of the pagan theology is looked upon as the youngest child of
Saturn
or of Time: the
spiritual God
of the
Christians
is a much more recent production of time; it is only by dint
of subtilizing that this God, the conqueror of all those Gods who preceded him, has been
formed by degrees.
Spirituality
is become the last refuge of theology, which has arrived at
making a God more than aerial in the hope, no doubt, that such a God would be inaccessible;
indeed, he is so, for to attack him is to combat a mere chimera.
30.
Some theologians have frankly confessed that the theory of the creation was founded on
an hypothesis supported by very little probability, and which had been invented some
centuries after Jesus Christ. An author, who endeavoured to refute Spinosa. assumes that
Tertullain was the first who advanced this opinion against another Christian philosopher who
maintained the eternity of matter.
See
“
The Impious Man Convinced
,” end of the
advertisement. Even the author of this work admits that it is impossible to combat Spinosa
without admitting the eternal coexistence of matter with God.
31.
Anthropomorphism
is supposing God to have a bodily shape: a sect of this persuasion
appeared in Egypt in 359 of the Christian era.
32.
A great many nations have adored the sun; the sensible effects of this star, which appears
to infuse life into all nature, must naturally have induced men to worship it. — Yet, whole
people have abandoned this God
so
visible, to adopt an abstract and metaphysical God. If the
reason of this phenomenon should be asked, we shall reply, that the God who is most
concealed, most mysterious, and most unknown, must always, for that very reason, be more
pleasing to the imagination of the uninformed, than the God whom they see daily. An
unintelligible and mysterious tone is essentially necessary to the ministers of all religions:
a clear, intelligible religion, without mystery, would appear less divine to the generality of
men, and would be less useful to the sacerdotal order, whose interest it
is
that the people
should comprehend nothing of that which they believe to be the most important to them.
This, without doubt, is the secret of the clergy. The priest must have an unintelligible God,
whom he makes to speak and act in an unintelligible manner, reserving to himself the right
of explaining his orders after his own manner.
33.
Let
us
say, with Cicero:
Magna stultilia est earum rerum deos facere effectores, causae
rerum non quaerere.
Cic. de divinitat. lib. ii.
34.
Cicero has said, Plura discrepantia vera esse non possunt. From whence we see, that no
reasoning, no revelation, no miracle can render that false which experience has demonstrated
to us as evident; that there is nothing short of a confusion, an overturning of the brains, that
can cause contradictions to be admitted. According to the celebrated Wolfe, in his Ontology,
§ 99: Possibile est quod nullum in se repugnantium habet, quod contradictione caret. After
this definition the existence of God must appear impossible, seeing that there is a
contradiction in saying that a spirit without extent can exist in extension, or move matter
which has extent. — Saint Thomas, says that ens est quod non repugnat esse. This granted,
a God, such as he is defined to be, is only a being of the imagination, since he can have
existence no where. According to Bilfinger,
de deo. anima et mundo,
§5, Essentia est primus
rerum conceptus constitutivus vel quidditativus, cujus ope caetera, quae de re aliqua dicentur,
demonstrari possunt. In this case, could it not be demanded of him, if any one has an idea of
the divine essence? Which is the understanding that constitutes God that which he is, and
whence flows the demonstration of every thing which is said of him? Ask a theologian if
God can commit crime?
He will tell you no, seeing that crime is repugnant to justice, which
is his essence. But this theologian does not see that, in supposing God a spirit, it is full as
repugnant to his essence to have created or to move matter, as to commit a crime repugnant
to his justice.
35.
Nevertheless,
on the whole,
there is no such a thing as real evil. Insects find a safe retreat
in the ruins of the palace which crushes man in its fall; man by his death furnishes food for
myriads of contemptible insects whilst animals are destroyed by thousands that he may
increase his bulk, and linger out for a season a feverish existence. The halcyon, delighted
with the tempest, voluntarily mingles with the storm — rides contentedly upon the surge;
rejoiced by the fearful howlings of the northern blast, plays with happy buoyancy upon the
foaming billows, that have ruthlessly dashed in pieces the vessel of the unfortunate mariner,
who, plunged into an abyss of misery, with tremulous emotion clings to the wreck — views
with horrific despair the premature destruction of his indulged hopes — sighs deeply at the
thoughts of home — with aching heart thinks of the cherished friends his streaming eyes will
never more behold — in agony dwells upon the faithful affection of an adored companion,
who will never again repose her drooping head upon his manly bosom — grows wild with
the appalling remembrance of beloved children his wearied arms will never more encircle
with parental fondness; then sinks for ever the unhappy victim of circumstances that fill with
glee the fluttering bird, who sees him yield to the overwhelming force of the infuriate waves.
The conqueror displays his military skill, fights a sanguinary battle, puts his enemy to the
rout, lays waste his country, slaughters thousands of his fellows, plunges whole districts into
tears, fills the land with the moans of the fatherless, the wailings of the widow, in order that
the crows may have a banquet — that ferocious beasts may gluttonously gorge themselves
with human gore — that worms may riot in luxury!
36.
Is there any thing more inconclusive than he ideas of some
Theists
who deny the liberty
of man, and who, notwithstanding, obstinately persist in speaking of an avenging and
remunerating God? How can a just God punish necessary actions?
37.
History abounds with details of the most atrocious cruelties under the imposing name
of “
God’s will
,” “
God’s judgments
:”
nothing has been considered either too fantastical or too
flagitious by the votaries of superstition. Parents have immolated their children; lovers have
sacrificed the objects of their affection; friends have destroyed each other; the most bloody
disputes have been fomented; the most interminable animosities have been engendered, to
gratify the whim of implacable priests, who, by crafty inventions, have obtained an influence
over the people.
38.
The religion of Abraham appears to have originally been a theism imagined to reform
the superstition of the Chaldeans; the theism of Abraham was corrupted by Moses, who
availed himself of it to form the Judaical superstition. Socrates was a theist, who, like
Abraham, believed in divine inspirations; his disciple, Plato, embellished the theism of his
master with the mystical colours which he borrowed from the Egyptian and Chaldean priests,
and which he modified himself in his poetical brain. The disciples of Plato such as Proclus,
Jamblichus, Plotinus, Porphyrus, &c. were true fanatics, plunged in the grossest superstition.
In short, the first doctors of Christianity were Platonists, who combined the Judaical
superstition, reformed by the Apostles or by Jesus, with Platonism. Many people have looked
upon Jesus as a true theist, whose religion has been by degrees corrupted. Indeed, in the
books which contain the law which is attributed to him, there is no mention either of
worship, or of priests, or of sacrifices, or of offerings, or of the greater part of the doctrines
of actual Christianity, which has become the most prejudicial of all the superstitions of the
earth. Mahomet, in combating the polytheism of his country, was only desirous of bringing
back the Arabs to the primitive theism of Abraham and of his son Ishmael, and yet
Mahometism is divided into
seventy-two
sects. All this proves that theism is always more or
less mingled with fanaticism, which sooner or later finishes by producing ravages and
misery.
39.
It is easy to perceive that the writings of the
theists
and of the
deists
are commonly as
much filled with paralogisms, or fallacious syllogisms, and with contradictions, as those of
the theologians; their systems are frequently in the last degree inconsequent. One says that
every thing is necessary, denies the spirituality and the immortality of the soul, refusing to
believe the liberty of man. Could we not ask them, in this case, of what service can be their
God? They have occasion for a word, which custom has rendered necessary to them. There
are very few men in the world who dare he consistent: but let us invite all the
deicolists,
or
supporters of the existence of a God, under whatever denomination they may be designated,
to inquire of themselves, if it he possible for them to attach any fixed, permanent, and
invariable idea, always compatible with the nature of things, to the being whom they
designate under the name of God, and they will see, that, as soon as they distinguish him
from nature, they will no longer understand any thing about him. The repugnance which the
greater part of men show for
atheism
, perfectly
resembles the
horrour
of a
vacuum
: they
have occasion to believe something the mind cannot remain in suspense; above all, when
they persuade themselves that thing interest them in a very lively manner; and then, rather
than believe nothing, they will believe every thing that shall be desired, and will image in
that the most certain mode is to take a part.
40.
A very profound philosopher has remarked, and with reason, that
deism
must be subject
to as many heresies and schisms as religion. The
deists
have principles in common with the
superstitious, and these have frequently the advantage in their disputes against them. If there
exists a God, that is to say, a being of whom we have no idea, and who, nevertheless, has
relations with us, wherefore should we not worship him? But what rule shall we follow in
the worship we ought to render him?
The most certain way will be to adopt the worship of
our fathers and of our priests. It will not depend upon us to seek another; this worship, is it
absurd? It will not be permitted us to examine it Thus, however absurd it may prove, the
most certain way will be to conform to it: and we may plead as an excuse, that an unknown
cause can act in a mode inconceivable to us that the views of God
are an impenetrable
abyss;
that it is very expedient blindly to leave them to our guides: that we shall act wisely
in looking upon them as
infallible,
&c Whence we see that a consequent
theism
can conduct
us, step by step, to the most abject credulity, to superstition, and even to the most dangerous
fanaticism. Is fanaticism, then any other thing than an irrational passion for a being, who has
no existence but in the imagination?
Theism
is, with relation to superstition, that which
reform
or
Protestantism
has been to the
Roman Catholic religion
The reformers, shocked at
some absurd mysteries, have not contested others which were no less revolting. As soon as
the theological God is admitted, there is nothing more in religion which may not be adopted.
On the other hand, if, notwithstanding the
reform,
the
Protestants
have frequently been
intolerant, it is to be feared that the
theists
may be the same; it is difficult not to be angry in
favour of an object which we believe of the utmost importance. God is to be feared only
because his interests disturb society. In the meantime, it cannot be denied that pure
theism,
or that which is called
natural religion,
is preferable to superstition, the same as the
reform
has banished many abuses from those countries which have embraced it. There is nothing
short of an unlimited and inviolable liberty of thought, that can permanently assure peace to
the mind. The opinions of men are only dangerous when they are restrained, or when it is
imagined necessary to make others think in the same manner as we ourselves think. No
opinions, not even those of superstition, would be dangerous, if the superstitious did not
think themselves obliged to persecute them, and had not the power to do so; it is this
prejudice, which, for the benefit of mankind, it is essential to annihilate, and if the thing be
impossible, the object which philosophy may reasonably propose to itself will be to make the
depositaries of power; feel this case, wars would be almost unheard of amongst men, and
instead of beholding the melancholy spectacle of man cutting the throat of his fellow man,
because he will not see his God with his own peculiar eyes, we shall see him labouring
essentially to
his
own happiness, by promoting that of his neighbour; cultivating the fields
and bringing forth the productions of nature, instead of puzzling his brain with theological
disputes, which can never be of the smallest advantage to any one except the
priests.
41.
A miracle, says Buddæus, is an operation by which the laws of nature, upon which
depend the order and the preservation of the universe, are suspended. — See
Treatise on
Atheism,
p. 140.
42.
The last refuge of the deist and theologian, when driven off all other ground, is the
possibility of every thing he asserts, couched in the dogma, “that nothing is impossible with
God.” They mark this asseveration with a degree of self-complacency, with an air of triumph,
that would almost persuade one they could not be mistaken; most assuredly with him who
dips no further than the surface, they carry complete conviction. But if we examine a little
the nature of this proposition, we will find that it is untenable. In the first place, the
possibility of a thing, by no means proves its absolute existence: a thing may be extremely
possible, and yet not be. Secondly, if this was once an admitted argument, there would be,
in fact, an end of all morality. The Bishop of Chester, Dr. John Wilkins, says: “Would not
such men be generally accounted out of their wits, who could please themselves by
entertaining actual hopes of any thing, merely upon account of the possibility of it, or
torment themselves with actual fears of all such evils as are possible? Is there any thing
imaginable more wild and extravagant than this would be?” Thirdly, the impossibility would
reasonably appear to be on the other side; so far from nothing being impossible, every thing
that is erroneous, would seem to be so; for, if a God existed, he could not possibly either love
vice, cherish crime, be pleased with depravity, or commit wrong. This decidedly turns the
argument against them, and leaves them no other alternative but to retire I from behind the
shield with which they have imagined they rendered themselves invulnerable.
43.
Lord Shaftesbury, although a very zealous
theist
, says with reason that “many honest
people should have a more tranquil mind if they were assured that they had only a blind
destiny for their guide: they tremble more in thinking that there is a God, than if they
believed that he did not exist.”
See his Letter on Enthusiasm;
see also
Chapter XIII.
44.
The Emperor Charles the Fifth used to say, that,
being a warrior, it was impossible for
him to have either conscience or religion:
his general, the Marquis de Pescaire, said, that
nothing was more difficult, than to serve at one and the same time the God Mars and Jesus
Christ.
Generally speaking, nothing is more contrary to the spirit of Christianity than the
profession of arms; and. yet the Christian princes have most numerous armies, and are
perpetually at war. Moreover, the clergy would be extremely sorry that the maxims of the
evangelists, or the Christian meekness should be rigidly followed, which in nowise accords
with their interests. This clergy have occasion for soldiers to give solidity to their doctrines
and their rights. This proves to what a degree religion is calculated to impose on the passions
of men.
45.
Nihil est quod credere de se
Non possit, cum laudatur dei aqua, potestas. —
Juvenal Sat., 4. v. 79.
46.
Machiavelli, in Chap. 11–13 of his
Political Discourses upon Titus Livius,
endeavours
to show the utility of superstition to the Roman republic; but unfortunately, the examples by
which he supports it, proves, that none but the senate profited by the blindness of the people,
and availed themselves of it to keep them under their yoke.
47.
It is well to observe, that the priests, who are perpetually crying out to the people to
submit themselves to their sovereigns, because their authority is derived from Heaven,
because they are the images of the Divinity, change their language whenever the sovereign
does not blindly submit to them. The clergy upholds despotism only that it may direct its
blows against its enemies, but it overthrows it whenever it finds it contrary to its interests.
The ministers of the invisible powers only preach up obedience to the visible powers when
these are humbly devoted to them.
48.
The celebrated Gordon says, that the most abominable of heresies is, to believe there is
any other God than the clergy.
49.
Superstition has fascinated the human mind to such a degree, and made such mere
machines of men, that there are a great many countries, in which the people do not
understand the language of which they make use to speak of their God. We see
women
who
have no other occupation all their lives, than singing Latin, without understanding a word of
the language. The people who comprehend no part of their worship, assist at it very
punctually, under an idea that it is sufficient to show themselves to their God, who takes it
kind of them that they should come and weary themselves in his temples.
50.
See vol. i. chap. viii. of this work; also what
is
said in chap, xii., and at the conclusion
of chap. xiv of the came volume.
51.
According to theology, man has occasion for supernatural grace to do good: this doctrine
was, without doubt, very hurtful to sound morality. Men always waited for the
call from
above
to do good, and those who governed them never employed the
calls from below,
that
is to say, the natural motives to excite them to virtue. Nevertheless,
Tertullian
says to us:
“Wherefore will ye trouble yourselves, seeking after the law of God, whilst ye have that
which is common to all the world, and which is written on the tablets of nature?” —
Tertull.
De Corona Militis.
52.
Hitherto theology has not known how to give a true definition of virtue. According to
it, it is an effect of grace, that disposes us to do that which is agreeable to the Divinity. But
what is the Divinity?
What is grace? How does it act upon man?
What is that which is
agreeable to God? Wherefore does not this God give to all men the grace to do that which
is agreeable in his eyes?
Adhuc sub judice lis est.
Men are unceasingly told to do good,
because God requires it; never have they been informed what it was to do good, and priests
have never been able to tell them what God was, nor that which he was desirous they should
do.
53.
It is very easy to perceive that religious worship does a real injury to political societies,
by the loss of time, by the laziness and inaction which it causes, and of which it makes a
duty. Indeed, religion suspends the most useful labours during a considerable portion of the
year.
54.
Ad generum cereris, sine coede et vulnere pauci.
Descendant reges et sicca morto tyranni.
Juvenal, sat.
xv. 110.
55.
Virgil, the bishop of Saltzburg, was condemned by the church, for having dared to
maintain the existence of the antipodes. All the world are acquainted with the persecutions
which Galileo suffered for pretending; that the sun did not make its revolution round the
earth. Descartes was put to death in a foreign land. Priests have a right to be enemies to the
sciences; the progress of reason will annihilate, sooner or later, superstitious ideas. Nothing
that is founded on
nature
and on
truth
can ever be lost; the works of imagination and of
imposture must be overturned first or last.
56.
In the year 1725, the city of Paris was afflicted with a scarcity, which it was thought
would cause an insurrection of the people; they brought down the shrine of St. Genevieve,
the patroness or tutelary goddess of the Parisians, and it was carried in procession to cause
this calamity to cease, which was brought on by monopolies in which the mistress of the then
prime minister was interested.
In the year 1795, England was afflicted with a scarcity, brought on by an ill judged war
against the French people, for having thrown off the tyranny of their monarchy, in which
contest immense quantities of gram and other provisions were destroyed, to prevent them
falling into the hands of the French republicans, and also by the dismemberment of Poland
(the granary of Europe) by the king of Prussia and the empress of Russia, whose troops laid
waste every thing they came near, because a general named Kosciusko, of the most
exemplary courage, had, with a chosen body of brave Poles, endeavoured, though vainly, to
prevent the cruel injustice, by opposing force to force. This alarming scarcity induced a
meeting, at the London Tavern, in London, to consider of the means to alleviate the
distresses of the English people, which proved as fruitless as the opposition of the Poles to
these crowned robbers. At this meeting, a Doctor Vincent, a Christian priest, and the then
master of Westminster school, made a grave and solemn speech, in which he attributed the
whole calamity to the chastisement of God for the sins of the
The name of this God is always made use of by wicked and abandoned men to cover their
own iniquities, and screen themselves from the resentment of the people; the priests, those
pests to society, who are immediately interested in their peculations and oppressions, always
maintain the doctrine of these designing knaves, and the ignorance of the citizens suffer these
fables to pass for incontestable truths: it is thus that
kingcraft
and priestcraft, in uniting their
forces, always keep men in a state of degrading slavery, never suffering the bandeau of
delusion to be removed from before their eyes, by decreeing in the name of God, the most
cruel punishments against those who attempt to throw the light of day on the secret caverns
of imposition and despotism.
57.
Non enim aliunde venit animo robur, quam abonis artibus, quam a contemplatione
naturae.
Senec. quaest. Natur.
lib. vi. chap, xxxii.
58.
The author of the book of wisdom, has said, and with reason, infandorum enim idolorum
cultura, omnis mali est causa et initium et finis. See chap. xxiv. Ver. 27. He did not see that
his God was an idol more prejudicial than all the others. At all events, it appears that the
dangers of superstition have been felt by all those who have sincerely taken to heart the
interest of the human species. This, without doubt, is the reason why philosophy, which is
the fruit of reflection, was almost always at open war with religion, which, as we have
shown, is itself the fruit of ignorance, of imposture, of enthusiasm, and of imagination.
59.
A modern poet has composed a piece of poetry, that received the sanction of the French
academy, upon the
attributes of God
in which the following line was particularly applauded:
— “To
say what he is, ‘twere need to be himself
.”
60.
Procopius, the first bishop of the Goths, says, in a very solemn manner: “I esteem it a
very foolish temerity to be disposed to penetrate into the knowledgeof the nature of God.”
And farther on he acknowledges, that he “has nothing more to say of him, except that he is
perfectly good. He who knoweth more, whether he be ecclesiastic or layman, has only to tell
it.”
61.
Men are always as credulous as children upon those objects which relate to religion; as
they comprehend nothing about it, and are nevertheless told that they must believe it, they
imagine they rim no risk in joining sentiments with their priests, whom they suppose to have
been able to discover that which they do not themselves understand. The most rational people
say to themselves,
What shall I do? what interest can so many people have to deceive?
I say
to them, they do deceive you, either because they are themselves deceived, or because they
have a great interest in deceiving you.By the confession of the theologians themselves, men
are without
religion
: they have only
superstition.
Superstition, according to them,
is a
worship of the Divinity, badly understood and irrational,
or else,
a worship rendered to a
false Divinity.
But where are the people or the clergy, who will allow that their Divinity is
false, and their worship irrational? How shall it be decided, who is right or who is wrong?
It is evident, that in this affair, all men are equally wrong. Indeed, Buddaeus, in his
Treatise
on Atheism,
tells us: “In order that a religion may be true, not only the object of the worship
must be true, but we must also have a just idea of it. He, then, who adores God, without
knowing him, adores him in a perverse and corrupt manner, and is guilty of superstition.”
This granted, could it not be demanded of all the theologians in the world, if they can boast
of having a
just idea,
or a real knowledge of the Divinity?
62.
If things were coolly examined, it would be acknowledged that religion is by no means
formed for the greater part of mankind, who are utterly incapable of comprehending any of
those aerial subtil ties upon which it rests. Who is the man that understands any thing of the
fundamental principles of his religion; of the spirituality of God; of the immateriality of the
soul; of the mysteries of which he is told every day?
Are there many people who can boast
of perfectly understanding the state of the question in those theological speculations, which
have frequently the power of disturbing the repose of mankind? Nevertheless, even women
believe themselves obliged to take a part in the quarrels excited by idle speculators, who are
of less utility to society than the meanest artisan.
63.
I foresee that the theologians will oppose to this passage, their
caeli enarrant gloriam
Dei.
But we shall reply to them, that the heavens prove nothing, except the power of nature,
the immutability of its laws, the power of attraction, of repulsion, of gravitation, the energy
of matter; and that the heavens in no way announce the existence of an immaterial cause, of
a God who is in contradiction with himself, and who can never do that which he wishes to
do.
64.
Lucian describes Jupiter, who, disputing with Menippus, is disposed to strike him down
with thunder; upon which the philosopher says to him: “Ah! thou waxeth wroth, thou usest
thy thunder! then thou art in the wrong.”
65.
Dexit insipiens in corde suo non est Deus. In taking away the negation, the proposition
would be nearer truth. Those who shall be disposed to see the abuse which theological spleen
knows how to scatter upon atheists, have only to read a work of Doctor Bentley, entitle
The
Folly of Atheism:
it is translated into Latin, in octavo.
66.
In seeing the theologians so frequently accuse the atheists with being absurd, we should
be tempted to believe that they have no idea of that which the atheists have to oppose to
them; it is true, they have established an excellent method; the priests say and publish what
they please, whilst their adversaries can never defend themselves.
67.
Those same persons, who at the present day discover atheism to be such a strange
system, admit there could have been atheists formerly. Is it, then, that nature has endued us
with a less portion of reason than she did men of other times? Or should it be that the God
of the present day would be less absurd than the Gods of antiquity? Has the human species
then acquired information, with respect to this concealed motive-power of nature? Is the God
of modern mythology, rejected by Vanini, Hobbes, Spinosa, ana some others, more to be
credited than the Gods of the pagan mythology, rejected by Epicurus, Strato, Theodoras,
Diagoras, &c. &c.?
Tertullian pretended that Christianity had dissipated that ignorance in
which the pagans were immersed, respecting the divine essence, and that there was not an
artisan among the Christians who did not see God, and who did not know him. Nevertheless,
Tertullian himself admitted a corporeal God, and was there fore an atheist, according to the
notions of modern theology. —
See the note to chap.
iv.
of this volume.
68.
Dr. Cudworth, in his
Systema Intellectuale,
chap. ii. reckons four species of atheists
among the ancients: 1st, The disciples of Anaximander, called Hylopathians, who attributed
the formation of every thing to matter, destitute of feeling. 2d, The atomists, or the disciples
of Democritus, who attributed every thing to the concurrence of atoms. 3d, The stoical
atheists, who admitted a blind nature, but acting under certain laws. 4th, The Hylozoists, or
the disciples of Strato, who attributed life to matter. It is well to observe, that the most
learned natural philosophers of antiquity have been atheists, either openly or secretly; but
their doctrine was always opposed by the superstition of the uninformed, and almost totally
eclipsed by the fanatical and marvellous philosophy of Pythagoras, and above all by that of
Plato. So true it is, that enthusiasm, and that which is vague and obscure, commonly prevail
over that which is simple, natural, and intelligible. — See
Le Clerc’s Select Pieces,
vol. ii.
69.
What can we think of the sentiments of a man who expresses himself like Paschal, in the
eighth article of his thoughts, wherein he discovers a most complete incertitude upon the
existence of God? “I have examined,” says he, “if this God, of whom all the world speak,
might not have left some marks of himself. I look every where, and every where I see
nothing but obscurity. Nature criers me nothing, that may not be a matter of doubt and
inquietude. If I saw nothing in nature which indicated a Divinity, I should determine with
myself to believe nothing about it. If I every where saw the sign of a creator, I should repose
myself in peace, in the belief of one. But seeing too much to deny, and too little to assure me
of his existence, I am in a situation that I lament, and in which I have a hundred times
wished, that if a God does sustain nature, he would give unequivocal marks of it, and that if
the signs which he has given be deceitful, that he would suppress them entirely: that he said
all or nothing, to the end that I might see which side I ought to follow.” Here is the state of
a good mind, wrestling with the prejudices that enslave it.
70.
Whence we may conclude that errour will not stand the test of investigation — that it
will not pass the ordeal of comparison — that it is in its hues a perfect chameleon, that
consequently it can never do more than lead to the most absurd deductions. Indeed, the most
ingenious systems, when they have their foundations in hallucination, crumble like dust
under the rude hand of the essayer: the most sublinated doctrines, when they lack the
substantive quality of rectitude, evaporate under he scrutiny of the sturdy examiner who tries
them in the crucible. It is not, therefore, by levelling abusive language against those who
investigate sophisticated theories, that they will either be purged of their absurdities, acquire
solidity, or find an establishment to give them perpetuity. In short, moral obliquities can
never be made rectilinear by the mere application of unintelligible terms, or by the
inconsiderate jumble of discrepant properties, however gaudy the assemblage.
71.
See
Abbadie on the Truth of Christian Religion,
vol. i, chap. xvii.
72.
See Bayle’s
Thoughts on Various Subjects,
sec. 177. Seneca has said before him: Ita non
ab Epicuro impulsi luxuriantur, sed vitiis dediti, luxuriam suam in philosophioe sinu
abseondunt. — See
Seneca, de vita beata,
chap. xii.
73.
We are assured, that there have been found philosophers and atheists, who deny the
distinction of
vice
and
virtue,
and who have preached up debauchery and licentiousness of
manners: in this number, may be reckoned Aristippus, and Theodoras, surnamed the
Atheist,
Bion, the Boristhenite, Pyrrho, &c. amongst the ancients, (see
Diogenes Laertius
,) and
amongst the moderns, the author of the
Fable of the Bees,
which, however, could only be
intended to show, that in the present constitution of things, vices have identified themselves
with nations, and have become necessary to them, in the same manner as strong liquors to
those who have habituated themselves to their use. The author who published the
Man
Automaton
, has reasoned upon morality like a madman. If all these authors had consulted
nature upon morality, as well as upon religion, they would have found that, far from being
conducive to vice and depravity, it is conducive to virtue.
Nunquam aliud natura, aliud
sapientift dicit.
Juvenal,
sat.
14, v. 321.
Notwithstanding the pretended dangers which so many people believe they see in atheism,
antiquity did not judge of it so unfavourably. Diogenes Laertius informs us, that Epicurus
was in great favour, that his country caused statues to be erected to him, that he had a
prodigious number of friends, and that his school subsisted for a very long period. See
Diogenes Laertius,
x. 9. Cicero, although an enemy to the opinions of the Epicureans, gives
a brilliant testimony to the probity of Epicurus and his disciples, who were remarkable for
the friendship they bore each other. See
Cicero de Finibus,
11. 25. The philosophy of
Epicurus was publicly taught in Athens during many centuries, and Lactanthis says, that it
was the most followed. Epicuri disciplina multo celebrior semper fuit quam caeteromm.
V.
Institut. Divin.
iii.17. In the time of Marcus Aurelius, there was at Athens a public professor
of the philosophy Epicurus, paid by that emperor, who was himself a stoic.
74.
See the Moral Essays of Bacon.
75.
The illustrious Bayle, who teaches us
so
ably to think, says, with abundant reason, that
“there is nothing but a good and solid philosophy, which can like another Hercules,
exterminate those monsters called popular errours: it is that alone which can set the mind at
liberty.” See Thoughts on Various Subjects, § 21. Lucretius had said before him:
Hunc igitur terrorem animi, tenebrasque necesse est
Non radii solis, neque lucida tela dici
Discutiant, sed
naturae
species, ratioque.
lib. i. v 147.
76.
Atheists are, it is said, more rare in England and in Protestant countries, where toleration
is established, than in Roman Catholic countries, where the princes are commonly intolerant
and enemies to the liberty of thought. In Japan, in Turkey, in Italy, and above all in Rome,
many atheists are found. The more power superstition has, the more those minds which it has
not been able to subdue will revolt against it. It is Italy that produced Jordano Bruno,
Campanella, Vanini, &c. There is every reason to believe, that had it not been for the
persecutions and ill treatment of the synagogue, Spinosa would never have perhaps
promulgated his system. It may also be presumed, that the honours produced in England by
fanaticism, which cost Charles I. his head, pushed Hobbes on to atheism: the indignation
which he also conceived at the power of the priests, suggested, perhaps, his principles so
favourable to the absolute power of kings. He believed that it was more expedient for a state
to have a single civil despot, a sovereign over religion itself, than to have a multitude of
spiritual tyrants, always ready to disturb it. Spinosa seduced by the ideas of Hobbes, fell into
the same errour in his
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
, as well as in his
Treatise de Jure
Ecclesiaticarum.
77.
See Lord Shaftesbury in his Letter on Enthusiasm. Spencer says, that “it is by the
cunning of the devil who strives to render the Devinity hateful, that he is represented to us
under that revolting character which renders him like unto the head of Medusa, insomuch
that men are sometimes obliged to plunge into atheism, in order to disengage themselves
from this hideous demon.” But it might be said to Spencer, that the
demon who strives to
render the Divinity hateful
is the interest of the clergy, which was in all times and in every
country, to terrify men, in order to make them the slaves and the instruments of their
passions. A God who should not make men tremble would be of no use whatever to the
priests.
78.
The priests unceasingly repeat that it is pride, vanity, and the desire of distinguishing
himself from the generality of mankind, that determines man to incredulity. In this they act
like the great, who treat all those as
insolent,
who refuse to cringe before them. Would not
every rational man have a right to ask a priest, where is thy superiority in matters of
reasoning? What motives can I have to submit my reason to thy delirium? On the other hand,
may it not be said to tne clergy that it is interest which makes them priests: that it is interest
which renders them theologians; that it is the interest ot their passions, of their pride, of their
avarice, of their ambition, &c., which attaches them to their systems, of which they alone
reap the benefits?
Whatever it may be, the priests, contented with exercising their empire
over the uninformed, ought to permit those men who think, not to bend their knee before
their vain idols. Tertullian has said, quis enim philosophum sacrificare compellit! See
Tertull.
Apolog. Chap.
614.
79.
Arian says, that when men imagine the Gods are in opposition to their passions, they
abuse them overturn their altars. The bolder the sentiments of an atheist, and the more
strange and
suspicious they appear to other men, the more strictly and scrupulously he ought
to observe and to perform his duties, especially if he be not desirous that his morals should
calumniate
his system, which, duly weighed, will make the necessity and the certitude of
morality felt, whilst every species of religion tends to reader it problematical, or even to
corrupt it.
80.
The president Grammont relates, with a satisfaction truly worthy a cannibal, the
particulars of the punishment of Vanini, who was burnt at Toulouse, although he had
disavowed the opinions with which he was accused. This president even goes so far as to find
wicked the cries and howlings which torment wrested from this unhappy victim of religious
cruelty.
81.
It is right to remark that the religion of the Christians which boasts of giving to men the
most just ideas of the Divinity; which every time that it is accused of being turbulent and
sanguinary, only shows its God as on the side of goodness and mercy; which prides itself on
having taught the purest system of morality; which pretends to have established for ever
concord and peace amongst those who profess it: It is well, I say, to remark that it has caused
more divisions and disputes, more political and civil wars, more crimes of every species, than
all the other religions of the world united. We will perhaps be told, that the progress of
learning will prevent this superstition from producing in future such dismal effects as those
which it has formerly done; but we shall reply, that fanaticism will ever be equally
dangerous, or that the cause not being removed, the effects will always be the same. Thus
so long as superstition shall be held in consideration, and shall have power, there will be
disputes, persecutions, regicides, disorders, &c., &c. So lung as mankind shall be sufficiently
irrational to look upon religion as a thing of the first importance to them, the ministers of
religion will have the opportunity of confounding every thing on earth under the pretext of
serving the interest of the Divinity, which will never he other than their own peculiar
interests. The Christian church would only have one mode of wiping away the accusation
which is brought against it of being intolerant or cruel, and that would be solemnly to declare
that it is not allowable to persecute or injure any one for his opinions;
but this is what its
ministers will never do.
82.
Dr. Johnson (the Christian
bear
or
hog
) says in his preface to his dictionary, that “where
a man shall have executed his task with all the accuracy possible, he will only be allowed to
have done his duty; but if he commit the slightest errour, a thousand snarlers are ready to
point it out.”
83.
It is a maxim constantly received in the Roman Catholic religion, that is to say, in that
sect of Christianity, the most superstitious and the most numerous,
that no faith is to be held
with heretics.
The general council of Constance decided thus, when, notwithstanding the
emperor’s passport, it decreed John Hus, and Jerome Prague to be burnt. The Roman Pontiff
has, it is well known, the right of relieving his secretaries from their oaths, and annulling
their vows; the same Pontiff has frequently arrogated to himself the right of deposing kings,
and of absolving their subjects from their oaths of fidelity.
It is very extraordinary that oaths should be prescribed by the laws of those nations who
profess the Christian religion, whilst Christ has expressly prohibited the use of them.
84.
“An oath,” says Hobbes, “adds nothing to an obligation, it only augments, in the
imagination of him who swears, the fear of violating an engagement, which he would have
been obliged to keep ever without any oath.”
85.
It has been sometimes believed that the Chinese were
atheists
; but this errour is due to
the Christian Missionaries, who are accustomed to treat all those as
atheists
who do not hold
opinions similar to their own upon the Divinity. It always appears that the Chinese are a
people extremely superstitious, but that they are governed by chiefs who are not so, without,
however, their being atheists for that reason. If the empire of China be as flourishing as it is
said, to be, it at least furnishes a very forcible proof that those who govern, have no occasion
to be superstitious in order to govern with propriety, a people who is so.
It is pretended that the Greenlanders have no idea of the Divinity. Nevertheless, it is difficult
to believe it of a nation so savage and so ill-treated by Nature.
86.
It is a problem with a great many people, if
truth
may not be injurious. The best
intentioned persons are themselves frequently in great doubt upon this important point.
Truth
never injures any but those who deceive men: these have the greatest interest in being
undeceived.
Truth
may be injurious to him who announces it, but no
truth
can possibly injure
the human species, and never can it be too clearly announced to beings always little disposed
to listen to, or comprehend it. If all those who write to announce important truths,
which are
always considered
as
me most dangerous,
were sufficiently warmed with the public welfare
to speak freely, even at the risk of disposing their readers, the human race would be much
more enlightened and much happier than it is. To write in ambiguous words, is frequently
to write to nobody. The human mind is idle, we must spare it as much as possible the trouble
and embarrassment of reflecting. What time and study does it not require at the present day
to unravel the ambiguous oracles of the ancient philosophers, whose true sentiments are
almost entirely lost to us! If
truth
be useful to men, it is an injustice to deprive them of it; if
truth
ought to be admitted, we must admit its consequences, which also are
truths.
Men, for
the most part, are fond of
truth,
but its consequences inspire them with so much fear, that
frequently they prefer remaining in errour, of which habit prevents them from feeling the
deplorable effects.
87.
Menage has remarked, that history speaks of very few incredulous women, or female
atheists. This is not surprising, their organization renders them fearful, the nervous system
undergoes periodical variations in them, and the education which they receive, disposes them
to credulity. Those amongst them who have a sound constitution, and imagination, have
occasion for chimeras suitable to occupy their idleness; above all, when the world abandons
them, devotion and its ceremonies then become a business or an amusement for them.
88.
The progress of sound philosophy will always be fatal to superstition, which nature will
continually contradict. Astronomy has caused judiciary astrology to vanish; experimental
philosophy, the study of natural history and chymistry, render it impossible for jugglers,
priests, and sorcerers, to perform miracles. Nature, deeply studied, must necessarily cause
that phantom, which ignorance has substituted in its place, to disappear.
89.
It is not to be understood here that nature has any choice in the formation of her beings,
it is merely to be considered that the circumstances which enable the junction of a certain
quantity of those atoms or parts necessary to form a human machine in such due proportions
that one disposition shall not overbalance the other, and thus render the judgment erroneous
by giving it a particular bias, very rarely occur. We know the process of making gunpowder;
nevertheless, it will sometimes happen, that the ingredients have been so happily blended,
that this destructive article is of a superior quality to the general produce of the manufactory,
without, however, the chymist being on that account entitled to any particular commendation;
circumstances have be«n favourable, and these seldom occur.
90.
Nescire qusedam magna pars est sapientiae.
91.
Men have fallen into a thousand errours, by ascribing an existence to the objects of our
interior perceptions, distinct from ourselves, in the game manner as we conceive them
separately. It becomes of importance, therefore, to examine the nature of the distinctions
which subsist among those objects.
Some of these are so distinct from others, that they cannot exist together. The surface of a
body cannot at the same time be both white ana black in all
its
parts: nor can one body be
more or less extended than another of the same dimensions. Two ideas, thus distinguished,
necessarily exclude one another: since the existence of one of them necessarily infers the
non-existence of the other, and, consequently, its own separate and independent existence.
This class I call real or exclusive existence.
But there is another class, which, in opposition to the former, I call fictitious, or imaginary
existence. While a body is passing from one colour or shape to another, we successively
experience different sensations: yet it is evident that we remain the same, it only being that
body which changes colour or shape. But the body is neither its colour nor shape, since it
could exist without them, and still be the same body. Neither is the shape or figure of a body,
its colour, motion, extent, nor hardness; because those qualities are distinct from each other,
and any of them can exist separate from and independent of the rest. But as they can exist
together, they are not distinguished like those which cannot exist together at the same time.
They cannot have a separate and distinct existence from bodies whose properties they are.
The same power by which a white body exists, is that by which its whiteness also exists.
What we call whiteness cannot exist of itself, separate from a body. This is the distinction
between things capable of being separated, though found joined together, and which, though
exciting in us different impressions, may yet be separately considered, and become so many
distant objects of perception. This class of imaginary or fictitious objects, existing only in
our mind, must not be confounded with the first class of objects, which have a real,
exclusive, and independent existence of their own.
Innumerable errours have arisen by confounding those distinctions. In mathematics, for
example, we hear every moment of points and lines, or extensions without length, and
surfaces having length and breadth without depth, — though geometers themselves confess,
that such bodies neither do nor can exist, but in the mind, while every body in nature is truly
extended in every sense. Unskilful materialists have fallen into gross absurdities, by
mistaking, for real and distinct existences, the different properties of extension, separately
considered by mathematicians. Hence, they formed the world of atoms, or small bodies,
without either bulk or extension, yet possessing infinite hardness, and a great variety of
forms. Bodies such as those can only exist in the minds of atomists.
If even able men can be so clumsily deceived, by not distinguishing between the real
existence of external bodies, and the fictitious existence of perceptions, existing only in the
mind, it is not to be wondered at, that a multitude of errours should have arisen, in
comparing, not only those perceptions themselves, but even their mutual relations with one
another.
I do not say, that sensations can exist separate from ourselves. The sentiments of pleasure
and pain, though not distinct from him who feels them, certainly are so from my mind, which
perceives, reflects upon, and compares them with other sensations. As the sentiment of real
existence is clearer than that of imaginary or fictitious, we imagine that a similar distinction
exists between all the objects that the mind conceives. Hence the operations of mind, and its
different properties, have been considered, like real beings as so many entities having a real
existence of their own, and have thus acquired a physical existence, which they dp not
possess of themselves. Hence our mind has been distinguished from ourselves, as the part
is from its whole. The mind itself has been separated from the soul, or that which animates,
from that which makes us live. In the mind, a distinction has been made between the
understanding and the will; in other words, between that which perceives and that which
wills, that which wills and that which wills not Our perceptions have been distinguished from
ourselves, and from one another; hence thoughts, ideas, &c., which are nothing but the
faculty of perception itself, viewed in relation to some of its functions. All these, however,
are only modifications of our essence, and no more distinguished from themselves, nor from
us, than extension, solidity, shape, colour, motion, or rest, from the same body. Yet absolute
distinctions have been made between them, and they have been considered as so many small
entities, of which we form the assemblage. According, therefore, to those philosophers, we
are composed of thousands of little bodies, as distinct from one another as the different trees
in a forest, each of which exists by a particular and independent power.
With regard to things really distinct from us, not only their properties, but even the relations
of those properties, have been distinguished from themselves, and from one another; and to
these a real existence has been given. It was observed, that bodies act upon, strike and repel
one another, and, in consequence of their action and reaction, changes were produced in
them. When, for example, I put my hand to the fire, I feel what is called heat: in this case,
fire is the cause, and heat the effect. To abridge language, general terms, applying to
particular ideas of a similar nature,” were invented. The body that produces the change in
another, was called the cause, and the body suffering the change, the effect. As those terms
produce in the mind some idea of existence, action, reaction, and change, the habit of using
them makes men believe that they have a clear and distinct perception of them. By the
continual use of these words, men have at length believed, that there can exist a cause,
neither a substance, nor a body; a cause, though distinct from all matter, without either action
or reaction, yet capable of producing every supposable effect.
92.
Changes are produced in bodies by their action and reaction upon one another. The same
body, at present a cause, was previously an effect; or. in other words, the body which
produces a change in another, by acting upon it, has itself undergone a change by the action
of another body. One body may, in relation to others, be, at the same time, both cause and
effect. While I push forward a body with the stick in my hand, the motion of the stick, which
is the effect of my impulse, is the cause of the progression of the body that is pushed. The
word
cause,
only denotes the perception of the change which one body produces in another,
considered in relation to the body that produces it; and the word
effect,
signifies nothing more
than the perception of the same change, considered relatively to the body that suffers it. The
absurdity of supposing the existence of independent and absolute causes, which neither are
nor can be effects, must appear obvious to every unbiassed understanding.
The infinite progression of bodies which have been in succession, cause and effect, soon
fatigued men desirous of discovering a general cause for every particular effect. They all at
once, therefore, ascended to a first cause, supposed to be universal, in relation to which every
particular cause is an effect, though not itself the effect of any cause. The only idea they can
give of it is, that it produced all things; not only the form of their existence, but even their
existence itself. It is not, according to them, either a body, or a being like particular beings;
in a word, it is the universal cause. And this is all they can say about it.
From what has been said, it must appear, that this universal cause is but a chimera, a mere
phantom, almost an imaginary or fictitious being, only existing in the minds of those who
consider it. It is, however, the Destiny of the Greeks, — the God of philosophers, Jews, and
Christians, — the Benevolent Spirit of the new Parisian sect of Saint-Simonians; the only
sect which has ever yet attempted to found a worship upon principles bearing any
resemblance to morality, reason, or common sense.
Those who, without acknowledging this universal cause, content themselves with particular
causes, have generally distinguished them from material substances. Seeing the same change
often produced by different actions or causes, they conceived the existence of particular
causes, distinct from sensible bodies. Some have ascribed to them intelligence and will, —
hence gods, demons, genii, good and bad spirits. Others, who cannot conceive the existence
of a mode of action different from their own, have imagined certain virtues to proceed from
the influence of the stars, chance, and a thousand other dark, unintelligible terms, which
signify nothing more than blind and necessary causes.
93.
Among the innumerable errours into which men are continually falling, by confounding
fictitious with real objects, is that of supposing an infinite power, cause, wisdom, or
intelligence, to exist, from only considering the properties of wisdom, power, and
intelligence, in the beings whom they see. The term
infinite
is totally incompatible with the
existence of any thing finite, positive or real: in other words, it carries with it the
impossibility of real existence. Those who call a power, quantity, or number infinite, speak
of something undetermined, of which no just idea can be formed; because, however extended
the idea may be, it must fall short ot the thing represented. An infinite number, for example,
can neither be conceived nor expressed. Admitting for a moment, the existence of such a
number, it may be asked, whether a certain part, the half for example, may not be taken from
it? This half is finite, and may be counted and expressed; but by doubling it, we make a sum
equal to an infinite number, which will then be determined, and to which a unit may at least
be added. This sum will then be greater than it was before, though infinite, or that to which
nothing could be added, yet we can make no addition to it! It is, therefore, at the same time,
both infinite and finite, and consequently possesses Properties exclusive of one another. We
might, with equal propriety, conceive the existence of a white body which is not white, or,
in other words, a mere chimera; all we can say of which is, that it neither does nor can exist.
What has been said of an infinite number, equally applies either to an infinite cause,
intelligence, or power. As there are different degrees of causation, intelligence, and power
those degrees must be considered as units, the sum of which will express the quantity of the
power, and intelligence, of such causes. An infinity of power, action, or intelligence, to
which nothing can be added, nor conceived, is impossible, never has existed, and never can
exist.
94.
Man is born with a disposition to know, or to feel and receive impressions from the
action of other bodies upon him. Those impressions are called sensations, perceptions, or
ideas. These impressions leave a trace or vestige of themselves, which are sometimes excited
in the absence of the objects which occasioned them. This is the faculty of memory, or the
sentiment by which a man has a knowledge of former impressions, accompanied by a
perception of the distinction between the time he received, and that in which he remembers
them.
Every impression produces an agreeable or disagreeable sensation. When lively, we call it
pleasure, or pain; when feeble, satisfaction, ease, inconvenience, or uneasiness. The first of
these sentiments impels us towards objects, and makes us use efiorts to join and attach them
to ourselves, to augment and prolong the force of the sensation, to renew and recall it when
it ceases. We love objects which produce such sensations, and are happy in possessing them:
we seek and desire their possession, and are miserable upon losing them. The sentiment of
pain induces us to fly and shun objects which produce it, to fear, hate, and detest their
presence.
We are so constituted, as to love pleasure and hate pain; and this law, engraven by nature on
the heart of every human being, is so powerful, that in every action of life it forces our
obedience. Pleasure is attached to every action necessary to the preservation of life, and pain
to those of an opposite nature. Love of pleasure, and hatred of pain, induce us, without either
examination or reflection, to act so as to obtain possession of the former and the absence of
the latter.
The impressions once received, it is not in man’s power either to prolong or to render them
durable. There are certain limits beyond which human efforts cannot exceed. Some
impressions are more poignant than others, and render us either happy or miserable. An
impression, pleasant at its commencement, frequently produces pain in its progress. Pleasure
and pain are so much blended together, that it is seldom that the one is felt without some part
of the other.
Man, like every other animal, upon coming into the world, abandons himself to present
impressions, without foreseeing their consequences or issue. Foresight can only be acquired
by experience, and reflection upon the impressions communicated to us by objects Some
men, in this respect, continue infants all their lives, never acquiring the faculty of foresight!
and even among the most wise few are to be found, upon whom, at some periods of life,
certain violent impressions, those of love, for example, the most violent of all, have not
reduced into a state of childhood, foreseeing nothing, and permitting themselves to be guided
by momentary impulses.
As we advance in years, we acquire more experience in comparing new and unknown objects
with the idea or image of those whose impression memory has preserved. We judge of the
unknown from the known, and consequently, know whether those ought to be sought for or
avoided.
The faculty of comparing present with absent objects, which exist only in the memory,
constitutes reason. It is the balance with which we weigh things; and by recalling those that
are absent, we can judge of the present, by their relations to one another. This is the boasted
reason which man, upon I know not what pretext, arrogates to himself to the exclusion of all
other animals. We see all animals possessing evident marks of judgment and comparison.
Fishes resort to the same spot at the precise hour in which they have been accustomed to
receive food. The weaker animal? form themselves into societies for mutual defence. The
sagacity of the dog is generally known, and the foresight of the bee has long been proverbial.
The bears of Siberia, and the elephants of India, seem to possess a decided superiority in
understanding over the human savages and slaves, who inhabit those countries.
Some philosophers suppose the existence of the sense of touch in man, in a superior degree
than in other animals, sufficient to account for his superiority over them. If to that we add,
the advantage of
a greater
longevity, and a capacity of supporting existence all over the
globe, an advantage peculiar to the human species, perhaps we have enumerated all the
causes of superiority which man ever received from nature, whatever may be his pretensions.
Speech, or the power of communicating ideas, is common to almost all animals. Some of
them even possess it in a higher degree than man in certain states society. Dampierre
describes a nation, whose speech consisted in the howling of a few guttural sounds, and
whose vocabulary did not contain more than thirty words.
95.
Whatever may be their pretensions, the partisans of religion can only prove, that every
thing is the effect of a cause; that we are often ignorant of the immediate causes of the effects
we see; that even when we discover them, we find that they are the effects of other causes,
and so on,
ad infinitum.
But they neither have proved, nor can they prove, the necessity of
ascending to a first eternal cause, the universal cause of all particular ones, producing not
only the properties, but even the existence of things, and which is independent of every other
cause. It is true, we do not always know the tie, chain, and progress of every cause; but what
can be inferred from that? Ignorance can never be a reasonable motive either of belief or of
determination.
I am ignorant of the cause that produces a certain effect, and cannot assign one to my own
satisfaction. But must I be contented with that assigned by another more presumptuous,
though no better informed than I, who says he is convinced; especially when I know the
existence of such a cause to be impossible? The watch of a shipwrecked European having
fallen into the hands of an Indian tribe, they held a consultation to discover the cause of its
extraordinary movements. For a long time, they could resolve upon nothing. At length, one
of the group, bolder than the rest, declared it to be an animal of a species different from any
with which they were acquainted; and as none of them could convince him that those
movements of the watch could proceed from any other principle than that which produces
animal life and action, he thought himself entitled to oblige the assembly to accept of his
explication.
