r
A PRESERVATIVE
AGAINST RELIGIOUS PREJUDICES.
,Pti// ^ H '
-
BY BARON D'ftOLBACH
49r\ -n
AUTHOR OF THE SYSTEM OF NATURE, THE SOCIAL, SYSTEM, GOOD Q .
SENSE, CHRISTIANITY UNVEILED, ECCE HOMO, UNIVERSAL
MORALITY, RELIGIOUS CRUELTY, &c., &c., &c.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, BY
ANTHONY C. MIDDLETON, M. D
. . . "Arctis
Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo."
LUCKETII De Rerum JVatura, lib. iv. v. 6, 7.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY JOSIAH P. MENDUM,
1870.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
JOSIAIJ P. MENDUM,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
ELECTROTYBED AT THE
BOSTOK STEREOTYPE TOUNDRT.
NAIGEOFS PREFACE
1768.
FOR many years this work has been known
under the title of Letters to Eugenia. The secre-
tive character of those, however, into whose hands
the manuscript at first fell; the singular and yet
actual pleasure that is caused generally enough in
the minds of all men by the exclusive possession
of any object whatever ; that kind of torpor, servi-
tude, and terror in which the tyrannical power of
the priests then held all minds even those who
by the superiority of their talents ought naturally
to be the least disposed to bend under the odious
yoke of the clergy, all these circumstances
united contributed so much to stifle in its birth,
if I may so express myself, this important manu-
script, that for a long time it was supposed to be
lost ; so much did those who possessed it keep it
carefully concealed, and so constantly did they
refuse to allow a copy to be taken. The manu-
IV NAIGEON 8 PREFACE.
scripts, indeed, were so scarce, even in the libraries
of the curious, that the late M. De Boze, whose
pleasure it was to collect the rarest works belong-
ing to every species of literature, could never
succeed in acquiring a copy of the Letters to Eu-
genia, and in his time there were only three in
Paris ; it may have been from design, propter
metum Judceorum ; * it may have been there we're
actually no more known.
It is not till within five or six years that MSS.
of these letters have become more common ; and
there is reason to believe that they are now con-
siderably multiplied, since the copy from which
this edition is printed has been revised and cor-
rected by collation with six others, that have been
collected without any great difficulty. Unhappily,
all these copies swarm with faults, which corrupt
the sense, and comprehend many variations, but
which also, to use the language of the Biblical
critics, have served sometimes to discover and to
fix the true reading ! More often, however, they
have rendered it more uncertain than it was before
what one ought to be followed a new proof of
the multiplicity of copies, because the more nu-
merous are the manuscripts of a work, the more
* On account of fear of the Jews, or, in other words, the intolerant
clergy of the despotic government.
NAIGEON S PREPACK. T
they differ from each other, as any one may be
fully convinced by consulting those of the Letter
of Thrasybulus to Leucippus, and the various read-
ings of the New Testament collected by the
learned Mill, and which amount to more than
thirty thousand.
However this may be, we have spared no pains
to reestablish the text in all its purity; and we
venture to say, that, witli the exception of four or
five passages, which we found corrupted in all the
manuscripts that we had an opportunity to collate,
and which we have amended to the best of our
ability, the edition of these letters that we now
offer to the reader will probably conform almost
exactly with the original manuscript of the
author.
With regard to the author's name and quality
We can offer nothing but conjectures. The only
particulars of his life upon which there is a general
agreement are, that he lived upon terms of great
intimacy with the Marquis de la Fare, the Abbe*
de Chaulieu, the Abbd Terrasson, Fontenelle, M.
de Lassere", &c. The late MM. Du Marsais and
Falconnet have often been heard to declare that
these letters were composed by some one belong-
ing to the school of Seaux. All that we can pro-
nounce with certainty is the fact, that it is only
vi NAIGEON'S PREFACE.
necessary to read the work to be entirely convinced
the author was a man of extensive knowledge,
and one who had meditated profoundly concerning
the matters ilpon which he has treated. His style
is clear, simple, easy, and in which we may remark
a certain urbanity, that leads us to be sure that he
was not an obscure individual, nor one to whom
good company and polished society were unfa-
miliar. But what especially distinguishes this
work, and which should endear it to all good
and virtuous people, is the signal honesty which
pervades and characterizes it from the very be-
ginning to the end. It is impossible to read it
without conceiving the highest idea of the author's
probity, whoever he may have been without
desiring to have had him for a friend, to have
lived with him, and, in a word, without rendering
justice to the rectitude of his intentions, even
when we do not approve of his sentiments. The
love of virtue, universal benevolence, respect to
the 'laws, an inviolable attachment to the duties
of morality, and, in fine, all that can contribute
to render men better, is strongly recommended in
these Letters. If, on the one hand, he completely
overthrows the ruinous edifice of Christianity, it is
to erect, on the other hand, the immovable foun-
dations of a system of morality legitimately estab-
NAIGEON'S PREFACE. vii
lished upon the nature of man, upon his physical
wants, and upon his social relations a base in-
finitely better and more solid than that of religion,
because sooner or later the lie is discovered, re-
jected, and necessarily drags with it what served
to sustain it. On the contrary, the truth subsists
eternally, and consolidates itself as it grows old :
Opinionum commenta delet dies, natures judicia
confirmed.*
The motto affixed to many of the manuscript
copies of these Letters proves that the worthy man
to whom we owe them did not desire to be known
as their author, and that it was neither the love
of reputation, nor the thirst of glory, nor the am-
bition of being distinguished by bold opinions,
which the priests, and the satellites subjected to
them by ignorance, denominate impieties, which
guided his pen. It was only the desire of doing
good to his fellow-beings by enlightening them,
which actuated him, and the wish to uproot, so
to speak, religion itself, as being the source of all
the woes which have afflicted mankind for so many
ages. This is the motto of which we spoke :
" Si j'ai raison, qu'importe a qui je suis ? "
(If reason's mine, no matter who I am.)
* " Time effaces the comments of opinion, but it confirms the judg-
ments of nature." CICERO.
viii NAIGEON'S PHEFACE.
It is a verse of Corneille, whose application is
exceedingly, appropriate, and which should be upon
the frontispiece of all books of this nature.
We are unable- to say anything more certain
concerning the person to whom our author has
addressed his w r ork. It appears, however, from
many circumstances in these Letters, that she was
not a supposititious marchioness, like her of the
Worlds of M. de* Fontenelle, and that they have
really been written to a woman as distinguished
by her rank as by her manners. Perhaps she was
a lady of the school of the Temple, or of Seaux.
But these details, in reality, as well as those which
concern the name and the life of our author, the
date of his birth, that of his death, &c., are of
tittle importance, and could only serve to satisfy
the vain curiosity of some idle readers, who avid-
iously collect these kind of anecdotes, who receive
from them a kind of existence in the world, and
who feel more satisfaction from being instructed
in them than from the discovery of a truth. I
know that they endeavor to justify their curiosity
by saying that when a person reads a book which
creates a public sensation, and with which he is
himself much pleased, it is natural he should de-
sire to know to whom a grateful homage should
be addressed. In this case the desire is so much
NAIGEON S PREFACE. IX
the more unreasonable because it cannot be satis-
fied ; first, because when death and proscription is A/
the penalty, there has never been and there never
will be a man of letters so imprudent, and, to
speak plainly, so strangely daring, as to publish,
or during his life to allow a book to be printed,
in which he tramples under foot temples, altars,
and the statues of the gods, and where he attacks
without any disguise the most consecrated reli-
gious opinions; secondly, because it is a matter
of public notoriety that all the works of this char-
acter which have appeared for many years are the
secret testaments of numbers of great men, obliged
during their .lives to conceal their light under a
bushel, whose heads death has withdrawn from
the fury of persecutors, and whose cold ashes, con-
sequently, do not hear in the tomb either the im-
portunate and denunciatory cries of the supersti-
tious, or the just eulogiums of the friends of truth ;
thirdly and lastly, because this curiosity, so unfor-
tunately entertained, may compromise in the most
cruel manner the repose, the fortune, and the liberty
of the relatives and friends of the authors of these
bold books ! This single consideration ought, then,
to determine those hazarders of conjectures, if they
'have really good intentions, to wrap in the inmost
x NAIGEON'S PREFACE.
folds of their hearts whatever suspicions they may
entertain concerning the author, however true or
false they may be, and to turn their inquiring
spirits to a use more beneficial for both themselves
and others.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
IN 1819 an anonymous translation of the LET-
TERS TO EUGENIA was published in London by
Richard Carlile. This translation in some of its
parts was sufficiently complete and correct, but in
others it was at absolute variance with the original
work ; in other parts, also, it was interlarded with
matter not written byd'Holbach; and in others,
large portions of the original Letters were entirely
omitted, as were likewise a number of notes and
the whole of the preliminary observations, with
which the volume was introduced to the public by
Naigeon*, so long the intimate friend of both d' Hoi-
bach and Diderot. In again presenting the work
in an English dress, the London translation has
been made the foundation of this, but the whole
has been thoroughly revised and collated with the
original. The omitted portions have been trans-
lated and inserted in their proper places, and though
some passages of the London work, not entirely
faithful to the original, have been allowed to stand,
Xll TRANSLATOR S PREFACE.
yet the book, as it now appears, is essentially a
new one, and is the most accurate and complete
translation of the LETTERS TO EUGENIA which has
ever been made into the English language.
The work at first came anonymously from the
press, and the mystery of its authorship was sedu-
lously maintained in the introductory observations
of Naigeon, in consequence of the danger which
then attended the issue of Infidel productions, not
only in France but throughout Christendom. The
book was printed in Amsterdam, at d'Holbach's
own expense, by Marc- Michael Rey, a noble printer,
to whom the world is greatly indebted for the ines-
timable aid he rendered the philosophers. But bold
as he was, and then living in a country the most
free of any in the world, he dared not openly send
these LETTERS from his own press. They were
issued in 1768, in two duodecimo volumes, with-
out any publisher's name, and with the imprint of
London on the title page, in order to set those per-
secutors at bay who were prowling for victims,
and who sought to burn author, printer, and book
at the same pile. The prudence of the author and
printer saved them from this fate ; but the book had
hardly reached France before its sale was forbidden
under penalty of fines and imprisonment, and it
was condemned by an act of Parliament to be
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xiii
burnt by the public executioner in the streets of
Paris, all of which particulars will be narrated in
the BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF BARON D'HOLBACH,
which I am now preparing for the press.
Of the excellence of the LETTERS TO EUGENIA,
nothing need here be said. The work speaks for
itself, and abounds in that eloquence peculiar to
its author, and overflows with kindly sentiments of
humanity, benevolence and virtue. Like d'Hol-
bach's other works, it is distinguished by an ardent
love of liberty, and an invincible hatred of despot-
ism ; by an unanswerable logic, by deep thought,
and by profound ideas. The tyrant and the priest
are both displayed in their true colors ; but while
the author shows himself inexorable as fate towards
oppressive hierarchies and false ideas, he is tender
as an infant to the unfortunate, to those overbur-
dened with unreasonable impositions, to those who
need consolation and guidance, and to those search-
ing after truth. Addressed, as the LETTERS were,
to a lady suffering from religious falsehoods and
terrors, the object of the writer is set forth in the
motto from Lucretius which he placed on the title
page, and which may thus be expressed in Eng-
lish:
" Reason's pure light I seek to give the mind,
And from Religion's fetters free mankind."
6 A. C. M.
xiv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The name of the lady was designedly kept in
secrecy, and was unknown, except to a very few,
till some years after d'Holbach's death. We now
know from the Feuilles Posthumes of Lequinio,
who had it from Naigeon, that the Letters were
written several years before their publication, for
the instruction of a lady formerly distinguished at
the French Court for her graces and virtues. They
were addressed to the charming Marguerite, Mar-
chioness de Vermandois. Her husband held the
lucrative post of farmer-general to the king, and
besides inherited large estates. He possessed ex-
cellent natural abilities, and his mind was strength-
ened and adorned by culture and letters. Had his
modesty permitted him to appear as such, he would
now be known as a poet of genius and merit, for
he wrote some poems and plays that were much
admired by all who were allowed to peruse them.
He was married in 1763, on the day he completed
his twenty-first year, to Marguerite Justine d'Es-
trades, then only nineteen years of age, and whom
he saw for the first time in his life only six weeks
before they became husband and wife. Like most
of the matches then made among the higher classes
in France, this was one of a purely mercenary
character. The father of the Marquis de Verman-
dois, and the father of Marguerite, as a means of
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xv
joining their estates, contracted their children with-
out deigning to consult the wishes of the parties,
and obedience or disinheritance was the only alter-
native. When the compact was concluded, Mar-
guerite was taken from the convent where for five
years she had lived as a boarder and scholar, and
commenced her married life and her course in the
fashionable world at the same, time. The match
was far more fortunate than such matches then
generally proved to be. Marguerite's husband was
passionately attached to her, and that attachment
was returned. The Marquis was a friend of Baron
d'Holbach, and soon after his marriage introduced
his wife to him. Among all the beauties of Paris
the Marchioness was one of the most lovely and
fascinating. Her features were remarkably beau-
tiful, and the bloom and clearness of her complexion
were such as absolutely to render necessary the old
comparison of the rose and the lily to do them
justice. To these were added a voluptuous figure,
agreeable manners, the graces and vivacity of wit,
and the still more enduring attractions of good
humor, purity, and benevolence. A female like
her could not but be dea'r to all who enjoyed her
intimacy, and a strong friendship sprang up be-
tween her and Baron d'Holbach. Greatly pleased
with him at first, Marguerite was afterwards as
xvi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
greatly shocked. When their intercourse had be-
come so familiar as to permit that frankness and
freedom of conversation which prevails among in-
timate friends, she discovered that the Baron was
an unbeliever in the Christian dogmas which she
had learned at the convent, where, in consequence
of her mother's death, she had been educated. She
had been taught that an Infidel was a monster in
all respects, and she was astounded to find unbe-
lievers in men so agreeable in manners and person,
and so profound in learning, as d'Holbach, Didero^
d'Alembert, and others. She could deny neither
their goodness nor their intellectual qualities, and
while she admired the individuals she shuddered at
their incredulity. Especially did she mourn over
Baron d'Holbach. He had a wife as charming as
herself, formerly the lovely Mademoiselle d'Aine,
whose beautiful features and seductive figure pre-
sented
" A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal."
Nothing was more natural than that two such
women should imbibe the deepest tenderness for
each other. But alas ! the Baron's wife was tainted
with her husband's heresies ; and yet in their home
did the Marchioness see all the domestic virtues
exemplified, and beheld that sweet harmony and
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xvii
unchangeable affection for which the d'Holbachs
were eminently distinguished among their acquaint-
ances, and which was remarkable from its striking
contrast with the courtly and Christian habits of
the day. At a loss what to do, the Marchioness
consulted her confessor, and was advised to with-
draw entirely from the society of the Baron and
his wife, unless she was willing to sacrifice all her
hopes of heaven, and to plunge headlong down to
hell. Her natural good sense and love of her
friends struggled with her monastic education and
reverence for the priests. The conflict rendered
her miserable ; and unable to enjoy happiness, she
retired to her husband's country seat, where she
brooded over her wishes and her terrors. In this
state of mind she at length wrote a touching letter
to the Baron, and laid open her situation, request-
ing him to comfort, console, and enlighten her.
Such was the origin of the book now presented in
an English dress to the reader. It accomplished
its purpose with the Marchioness de Vermandois,
and afterwards its author concluded to publish the
work, in hopes it might be equally useful to others.
The Letters were written in 1764, when d'Holbach
was in the forty-second year of his age. Twelve
different works he had before written and published,
and all without the affix of his name. Eleven
b*
XV111 TRANSLATOR S PREFACE.
were upon mineralogy, the arts and the sciences,
and one only upon theology. That one had been
secretly printed in 1761, at Nancy, with the imprint
of London, and was honored with a parliamentary
statute condemning its publication and forbidding
its sale or circulation. Christian hatred bestowed
upon it the additional honor of causing it to be
burned in the streets of Paris by the public execu-
tioner. But the prudence of the author protected
his life. He attributed the book to a dead man,
who had been known to entertain sceptical views.
It was entitled CHRISTIANITY UNVEILED, and bore
on its title page the name of BOULANGER. This
was d'Holbach's first contribution to Infidel litera-
ture, and the second similar work written by him
was the LETTERS TO EUGENIA. These were the pre-
ludes to more than a quarter of a hundred different
productions numbering among them such books
as Good Sense, The System of Nature, Ecce Homo,
Priests Unmasked, &c., &c., all printed anonymously
or pseudonymously at his own expense, without a
possibility of pecuniary advantage, and with such
extraordinary secrecy as to show that he was actu-
ated by no desire of literary fame. It was love of
truth alone that impelled d'Holbach to write. Bril-
liant, profound, eloquent and excellent as were his
writings, attracting notice as they did from the
TRANSLATOR'^ PREFACE. xix
civil and religious powers, commented upon as they
were by such men as Voltaire and Frederick the
Great, admired as they were by that class who felt
and combated the evils of tyranny as well as of
religion, of kings as well as of priests, that class
who almost drew their life from the books of him
and his compeers, he was never seduced from
the rule he originally laid down for his literary
conduct.
A very few persons he was obliged to trust in
order to get his writings printed, and but for that
fact Baron d'Holbach would now only be known
as a gentleman of great wealth, extensive benevo-
lence, and uncommon liberality, as a man of pro-
found learning and agreeable colloquial powers,
as the bountiful friend of men of letters, as the
soother of the distressed, as the protector of the
miserable, and as the affectionate husband and
father. So much of him we should have known ;
but that he was the author of those books which
roused intolerant priests and corrupt magistrates,
consistories and parliaments, monarchs and phi-
losophers, the people and their oppressors, that
he was the Archimedes that thus moved the
world, would not have been known had he
not employed another philosopher, by the name of
Naigeon, to carry*his manuscripts to Amsterdam,
xx TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
and to direct their printing by Marc-Michel Rey.
It was Naigeon who carried the manuscript of the
LETTERS TO EUGENIA to Holland, together with a
number of others by the same author, which also
appeared during the year 1768, an eventful year
in the history of Infidel progress. The Letters'
were carefully revised by d'Holbach before they
were sent to press. All the passages of a purely
personal character were omitted, some new matter
was incorporated, and some sentences were added
purposely to keep the author and the lady he
addressed in impenetrable obscurity. To raise the
veil from a man of so much worth and genius, as
well as to carry out his idea of doing good, is one
of the reasons which have led to the present prep-
aration and publication of this book.
A. C. M.
CONTENTS.
LETTER I.
OF THE SOURCES OF CREDULITY, AND OF THE MOTIVES WHICH
SHOULD LEAD TO AN EXAMINATION OF RELIGION, ..Page 1
LETTER II.
OF THE IDEAS WHICH RELIGION GIVES us OF THE DIVINITY 29
LETTER III.
AN EXAMINATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, OF THE NATURE
OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND OF THE PROOFS UPON
WHICH CHRISTIANITY is FOUNDED, 46
LETTER IV.
OF THE FUNDAMENTAL DOGMAS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, . . 76
LETTER V.
OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, AND OF THE DOGMA OF
ANOTHER LIFE, 91
LETTER VI.
OF THE MYSTERIES, SACRAMENTS, AND RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES
OF CHRISTIANITY, 130
(xxi)
XX11 CONTENTS.
LETTER VII.
OF THE PIOUS RITES, PRAYERS, AND AUSTERITIES OF CHRIS-
TIANITY, 136
LETTER VIII.
OF EVANGELICAL VIRTUES AND CHRISTIAN PERFECTION, 154
LETTER IX.
OF THE ADVANTAGES CONTRIBUTED TO GOVERNMENT BY RE-
LIGION, 184
LETTER X.
OF THE ADVANTAGES RELIGION CONFERS ON THOSE WHO PRO-
FESS IT, 211
LETTER XI.
OF HUMAN OR NATURAL MORALITY, 5233
LETTER X-II.
OF THE SMALL CONSEQUENCE TO BE ATTACHED TO MEN'S SPEC-
ULATIONS, AND THE INDULGENCE WHICH SHOULD BE EX-
TENDED TO THEM,... 255
LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
(xxiii)
LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
LETTER I.
OF THE SOURCES OF CREDULITY, AND OF THE MOTIVES
WHICH SHOULD LEAD TO AN EXAMINATION OF RELIGION.
I AM unable, Madam, to express the grievous
sentiments that the perusal of your letter produced
in my bosom. Did not a rigorous duty retain me
where I am, you would see me flying to your suc-
cor. Is it, then, true that Eugenia is miserable ?
Is even she tormented with chagrin, scruples, and
inquietudes ? In the midst of opulence and gran-
deur ; -assured of the tenderness and esteem of a
husband who adores you; enjoying at court the
advantage, so rare, of being sincerely beloved by
every one ; surrounded by friends who render sincere
homage to your talents, your knowledge, and your
tastes, how can you suffer the pains of melan-
choly and sorrow ? Your pure and virtuous soul can
surely know neither shame nor remorse. Always
so far removed from the weaknesses of your sex,
on what account can you blush ? Agreeably occu-
pied with your duties, refreshed with useful reading
and entertaining conversation, and having within
1 (i)
2 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
your reach every diversity of virtuous pleasures,
how happens it that fears, distastes, and cares come
to assail a heart for which every thing should pro-
cure contentment and peace ? Alas ! even if your
letter had not confirmed it but too much, from the
trouble which agitates you I should have recog-
nized without difficulty the work of superstition.
This fiend alone possesses the power of disturbing
honest souls, without calming the passions of the
corrupt ; and when once she gains possession of a
heart, she has the ability to annihilate its repose
forever.
Yes, Madam, for a long time I have known the
dangerous effects of religious prejudices. I was
myself formerly troubled with them. Like you I
have trembled under the yoke of religion ; and if a
careful and deliberate examination had not fully
undeceived me, instead of now being in a state to
console you and to reassure you against yourself,
you would see me at the present moment partaking
your inquietudes, and augmenting in your mind
the lugubrious ideas with which I perceive you to
be tormented. Thanks to Reason and Philosophy,
an unruffled serenity long ago irradiated my under-
standing, and banished the terrors with which I
was formerly agitated. What happiness for me if
the peace which I enjoy should put it in my power
to break the charm which yet binds you with the
chains of prejudice?
Nevertheless, without your express orders, I should
never have dared to point out to you a mode of
LETTER I. 3
thinking widely different from your own, nor to
combat the dangerous opinions to which you have
been persuaded your happiness is attached. But
for your request I should have continued to enclose
in my own breast opinions odious to the most part
of men accustomed to see nothing except by the
eyes of judges visibly interested in deceiving them.
Now, however, a sacred duty obliges me to speak.
Eugenia, unquiet and alarmed, wishes me to explore
her heart ; she needs assistance ; she wishes to fix
her ideas upon an object which interests her repose
and her felicity. I owe her the truth. It would be
a crime longer to preserve silence. Although my
attachment for her did not impose the necessity of
responding to her confidence, the love of truth
would oblige me to make efforts to dissipate the
chimeras which render her unhappy.
I shall proceed then, Madam, to address you with
the most complete frankness. Perhaps at the first
glance my ideas may appear strange ; but on exam-
ining them with still further care and attention, they
will cease to shock you. Reason, good faith, and
truth cannot do otherwise than exert great influ-
ence over such an intellect as yours. I appeal,
therefore, from your alarmed imagination to your
more tranquil judgment ; I appeal from custom and
prejudice to reflection and reason. Nature has
given you a gentle and sensible soul, and has im-
parted an exquisitely lively imagination, and a cer-
tain admixture of melancholy which disposes to
despondent revery. It is from this peculiar mental
4 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
constitution that arise the woes that now afflict
you. Your goodness, candor, and sincerity pre-
clude your- suspecting in others either fraud or
malignity. The gentleness of your character pre-
vents your contradicting notions that would appear
revolting if you deigned to examine them. You
have chosen rather to defer to the judgment of
others, and to subscribe to their ideas, than to con-
sult your own reason and rely upon your own un-
derstanding. The vivacity of your imagination
causes you to embrace with avidity the dismal
delineations which are presented to you ; certain
men, interested in agitating your mind, abuse your
sensibility in order to produce alarm ; they cause
you to shudder at the terrible words, death, judg-
ment, hell, punishment, and eternity; they lead you
to turn pale at the very name of an inflexible judge,
whose absolute decrees nothing can change ; you
fancy that you see around you those demons whom
he has made the ministers of his vengeance upon
his weak creatures ; thus is your heart filled with
affright ; you fear that at every instant you may
offend, without being aware of it, a capricious God,
always threatening and always enraged. In con-
sequence of such a state of mind, all those mo-
ments of your life which should only be productive
of contentment and peace, are constantly poisoned
by inquietudes, scruples, and panic terrors, from
which a soul as pure as yours ought to be forever
exempt. The agitation into which you are thrown
by these fatal ideas suspends the exercise of your
faculties ; your reason is misled by a bewildered
LETTER I. 5
imagination, and you are afflicted with perplexities,
with despondency, and with suspicion of yourself.
In this manner you become the dupe of those men
who, addressing the imagination and stifling reason, ^
long since subjugated the universe, and have actu-
ally persuaded reasonable beings that their reason
is either useless or dangerous.
Such is, Madam, the constant language of the
apostles of superstition, whose design has always
been, and will always continue to be, to, destroy
human reason in order to exercise their power with
impunity over mankind. Throughout the globe
the perfidious ministers of religion have been either
the concealed or the declared enemies of reason,
because they always see reason opposed to their
views. Every where do they decry it, because they
truly fear that it will destroy their empire by dis-
covering their conspiracies and the futility of their
fables. Every where upon its ruins they struggle
to erect the empire of fanaticism and imagination. | /
To attain this end with more certainty, they have
unceasingly terrified mortals with hideous paint-
ings, have astonished and seduced them by marvels
and mysteries, embarrassed them by enigmas and
uncertainties, surcharged them with observances
and ceremonies, filled their minds with terrors and
scruples, and fixed their eyes upon a future, which,
far from rendering them more virtuous and happy
here below, has only turned them from the path of
true happiness, and destroyed it completely and for-
ever in their bosoms.
1*
*
6 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
Such are the artifices which the ministers of re-
ligion every where employ to enslave the earth and
to retain it under the yoke. The human race, in
all countries, has become the prey of the priests.
The priests have given the name of religion to
systems invented by them to subjugate men, whose
imagination they had seduced, whose understand-
ing they had confounded, and whose reason they
had endeavored to extinguish.
It is especially in infancy that the human mind
is disposed to receive whatever impression is made
upon it. Thus our priests have prudently seized
upon the youth to inspire them with ideas that they
could never impose upon adults. It is during the
most tender and susceptible age of men that the
priests have familiarized the understanding of our
\J race with monstrous fables, with extravagant and
disjointed fancies, and with ridiculous chimeras,
which, by degrees, become objects that are respected
and that are feared during life.
We need only open our eyes to see the unworthy
means employed by sacerdotal policy to stifle the
dawning reason of men. During their infancy they
are taught tales which are ridiculous, impertinent,
contradictory, and criminal, and to these they are
enjoined to pay respect. They are gradually im-
pregnated with inconceivable mysteries that are
announced as sacred truths, and they are accus-
tomed to contemplate phantoms before which they
habitually tremble. In a word, measures are taken
which are the best calculated to render those blind
LETTER I. 7
who do not consult their reason, and to render
those base who constantly shudder whenever they
recall the ideas with which their priests infected
their minds at an age when they were unable to
guard against such snares.
Recall to mind, Madam, the dangerous cares
which were taken in the convent where you were
educated, to sow in your mind the germs of those
inquietudes that now afflict you. It was there
that they began to speak to you of fables, prodi-
gies, mysteries, and doctrines that you actually \/
revere, while, if these things were announced to-
day for the first time, you would regard them as
ridiculous, and as entirely unworthy of attention.
I have often witnessed your laughter at the sim-
plicity with which you formerly credited those tales
of sorcerers and ghosts, that, during your childhood,
were related by the nuns who had charge of your
education. When you entered society where for
a long time such chimeras have been disbelieved,
you were insensibly undeceived, and at present
you blush at your former credulity. Why have
you not the courage to laugh, in a similar manner,
at an infinity of other chimeras with no better
foundation, which torment you even yet, and which
only appear more respectable, because you have
not dared to examine them with your own eyes,
or because you see them respected by a public who
have never explored them? If my Eugenia is. en-
lightened and reasonable upon all other topics,
why does she renounce her understanding and her
8 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
judgment whenever religion is in question? In
the mean time, at this redoubtable word her soul is
disturbed, her strength abandons her, her ordinary
penetration is at fault, her imagination wanders,
she only sees through a cloud, she is unquiet and
afflicted. On the watch against reason, she dares
not call that to her assistance. She persuades her-
self that the best course for her to take is to allow
herself to follow the opinions of a multitude who
never examine, and who always suffer themselves
to be conducted by blind or deceitful guides.
To reestablish peace in your mind, dear Madam,
cease to despise yourself; entertain a just confidence
in your own powers of mind, and feel no chagrin at
finding yourself infected with a general and invol-
untary epidemic from which it did not depend on
you to escape. The good Abbe de St. Pierre had
reason when he said that devotion was the small pox
of the soul. I will add that it is rare the disease
does not leave its pits for life. Indeed, see how
often the most enlightened persons persist forever
in the prejudices of their infancy ! These notions
are so early inculcated, and so many precautions
are continually taken to render them durable, that
if any thing may reasonably surprise us, it is to see
any one have the ability to rise superior to such
influences. The most sublime geniuses are often
the playthings of superstition. The heat of their
imagination sometimes only serves to lead them
the farther astray, and to attach them to opinions
which would cause them to blush did they but
LETTER I. 9
consult their reason. Pascal constantly imagined >k
that he saw hell yawning under his feet; Malle-
branche was extravagantly credulous ; Hobbes had
a great terror of phantoms and demons ; * and the
immortal Newton wrote a ridiculous commentary v
on the vials and visions of the Apocalypse. In a |
word, every thing proves that there is nothing more
difficult than to efface the notions with which we
are imbued during our infancy. The most sensi-
ble persons, and those who reason with the most
correctness upon every other matter, relapse into
their infancy whenever religion is in question.
Thus, Madam, you need not blush for a weak-
ness which you hold in common with almost all
the world, and from which the greatest men are not
always exempt. Let your courage then revive, Jt
and fear not to examine with perfect composure
the phantoms which alarm you. In a matter which
so greatly interests your repose, consult that en-
lightened reason which places you as much above
the vulgar, as it elevates the human species above
the other animals. Far from being suspicious of
your own understanding and intellectual faculties,
turn your just suspicion against those men, far
less enlightened and honest than you, who, to van-
quish you, only address themselves to your lively
imagination ; who have the cruelty to disturb the
serenity of your soul ; who, under the pretext of
attaching you only to heaven, insist that you must
* On this subject see Bayle's Diet. Crit., art. Hobbes, Rem. N.
10 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
sunder the most tender and endearing ties ; and in
fine, who oblige you to proscribe the use of that
beneficent reason whose light guides your conduct
so judiciously and so safely.
Leave inquietude and remorse to those corrupt
women who have cause to reproach themselves, or
who have crimes to expiate. Leave superstition to
those silly and ignorant females whose narrow
minds are incapable of reasoning or reflection.
Abandon the futile and trivial ceremonies of an
objectionable devotion to those idle and peevish
women, for whom, as soon as the transient reign
of their personal charms is finished, there remains
no rational relaxation to fill the void of their days,
and who seek by slander and treachery to console
themselves for the loss of pleasures which they can
no longer enjoy. Resist that inclination which
seems to impel you to gloomy meditation, solitude,
and melancholy. Devotion is only suited to inert
and listless souls, while yours is formed for action.
You should pursue the course I recommend for the
sake of your husband, whose happiness depends
upon you ; you owe it to the children, who will
soon, undoubtedly, need all your care and all your
instructions for the guidance of their hearts and un-
derstandings ; you owe it to the friends who honor
you, and who will value your society when the
beauty which now adorns your person and the vo-
luptuousness which graces your figure have yielded
to the inroads of time ; you owe it to the circle in
which you move, and to the world which has a
LETTER I. 11
right to your example, possessing as you do virtues
that are far more rare to persons of your rank than
devotion. In fine, you owe happiness to yourself;
for, notwithstanding the promises of religion, you
will never find happiness in those agitations into
which I perceive you cast by the lurid ideas of
superstition. In this path you will only encounter
doleful chimeras, frightful phantoms, embarrass-
ments without end, crushing uncertainties, inex-
plicable enigmas, and dangerous reveries, which
are only calculated to disturb your repose, to de-
prive you of happiness, and to render you incapa-
ble of occupying yourself with that of others. It
is very difficult to make those around us happy
when we are ourselves miserable and deprived of
peace.
If you will even slightly make observations upon
those about you, you will find abundant proofs of
what I advance. The most religious persons are
rarely the most amiable or the most social. Even
the most sincere devotion, by subjecting those who
embrace it to wearisome and crippling ceremonies,
by occupying their imaginations with lugubrious
and afflicting objects, by exciting their zeal, is but
little calculated to give to devotees that equality
of temper, that sweetness of an indulgent disposi-
tion, and that amenity of character, which consti-
tute the greatest charms of personal intercourse.
A thousand examples might be adduced to con-
vince you that devotees who are the most occupied
in superstitious observances to please God are not
12 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
those women who succeed best in pleasing those
by whom they are surrounded. If there seems to
be occasionally an exception to this rule, it is on
the part of those who have not all the zeal and
fervor which is exacted by their religion. Devotion
is either a morose and melancholy passion, or it is
a violent and obstinate enthusiasm. Religion im-
poses an exclusive and entire regard upon its slaves.
All that an acceptable Christian gives to a fellow-
creature is a robbery from the Creator. A soul
filled with religious fervor fears to attach itself to
things of the earth, lest it should lose sight of its
jealous God, who wishes to engross constant atten-
tion, who lays it down as a duty to his creatures
that they should sacrifice to him their most agree-
able and most innocent inclinations, and who orders
that they should render themselves miserable here
below, under the^ idea of pleasing him. In accord-
ance with such principles, we generally see devotees
executing with much fidelity the duty of torment-
ing themselves and disturbing the repose of others.
They actually believe they acquire great merit with
the Sovereign of heaven by rendering themselves
perfectly useless, or even a scourge to the inhabit-
ants of the earth.
I am aware, Madam, that devotion in you does
not produce effects injurious to others ; but I fear
that it is only more injurious to yourself. The
goodness of your heart., the sweetness of your dis-
position, and the beneficence which displays itself
in all your conduct, are all so great that even reli-
LETTER I. 13
gion does not impel you to any dangerous excesses.
Nevertheless, devotion often causes strange meta-
morphoses. Unquiet, agitated, miserable within
yourself, it is to be feared that your temperament
will change, that your disposition will become
acrimonious, and that the vexatious ideas over
which you have so long brooded will sooner or
later produce a disastrous influence upon- those who
approach you. Does not experience constantly
show us that religion effects changes of this kind ?
What are called conversions, what devotees regard
as special acts of divine grace, are very often only
lamentable revolutions by which real vices and
odious qualities are substituted for amiable and
useful characteristics. By a deplorable conse- \
quence of these pretended miracles of grace we
frequently see sorrow succeed to enjoyment, a
gloomy and unhappy state to one of innocent gay-
ety, lassitude and chagrin to activity and hilarity,
and slander, intolerance, and zeal to indulgence
and gentleness ; nay, what do I say ? cruelty itself
to humanity. In a word, superstition is a danger-
ous leaven, that is fitted to corrupt even the most J
honest hearts.
Do you not see, in fact, the excesses to which
fanaticism and zeal drive the wisest and best mean-
ing men ? Princes, magistrates, and judges become ...
inhuman and pitiless as soon as there is a question
of the interests of religion. Men of the gentlest
disposition, the most indulgent, and the most equi-
table, upon every other matter, religion transforms to
2
c
14 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
ferocious beasts. The most feeling and compassion-
ate persons believe themselves in conscience obliged
to harden their hearts, to do violence to their better
instincts, and to stifle nature, in order to show
themselves cruel to those who are denounced as
enemies to their own manner of thinking. Recall
to your mind, Madam, the cruelties of nations and
governments in alternate persecutions of Catholics
or Protestants, as either happened to be in the
ascendant. Can you find reason, equity, or hu-
manity in the vexations, imprisonments, and exiles
that in our days are inflicted upon the Jansenists ?
And these last, if ever they should attain in their
turn the power requisite for persecution, would not
probably treat their adversaries with more modera-
tion or justice. Do you not daily see individuals
who pique themselves upon their sensibility un-
blushingly express the joy they would feel at the
extermination of persons to whom they believe
they owe neither benevolence nor indulgence, and
whose only crime is a disdain for prejudices that
the vulgar regard as sacred, or that an erroneous
and false policy considers useful to the state ?
Superstition has so greatly stifled all sense of
humanity in many persons otherwise truly estima-
ble, that they have no compunctions at sacrificing
the most enlightened men of the nation because
they could not be the most credulous or the most
submissive to the authority of the priests.
In a word, devotion is only calculated to fill the
heart with a bitter rancor, that banishes peace and
LETTER I. 15
harmony from society. In the matter of religion,
every one believes himself obliged to show more
or less ardor and zeal. Have I not often seen you
uncertain yourself whether you ought to sigh or
smile at the self-depreciation of devotees ridicu-
lously inflamed by that religious vanity which
grows out of sectarian conventionalities? You
also see them participating in theological quarrels,
in which, without comprehending their nature or
purport, they believe themselves conscientiously
obliged to mingle. I have a hundred times seen
you astounded with their clamors, indignant at
their animosity, scandalized at their cabals, and
filled with disdain at their obstinate ignorance.
Yet nothing is more natural than these outbreaks ;
ignorance has always been the mother of devotion.
To be a devotee has always been synonymous to .
having an imbecile confidence in priests. It is to \
receive all impulsions from them ; it is to think
and act only according to them ; it is blindly to
adopt their passions and prejudices ; it is faithfully ^/
to fulfil practices which their caprice imposes.
Eugenia is not formed to follow such guides.
They would terminate by leading her widely astray,
by dazzling her vivid imagination, by infecting her
gentle and amiable disposition with a deadly poi-
son. To master with more certainty her under-
standing, they would render her austere, intolerant,
and vindictive. In a word, by the magical power
of superstition and supernatural notions, they
would succeed, perhaps, in transforming to vices
16 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
those happy dispositions that nature has given you.
Believe me, Madam, you would gain nothing by
such a metamorphosis. Rather be what you really
are. Extricate yourself as soon as possible from
that state of incertitude and languor, from that
alternative of despondency and trouble, in which
you are immersed. If you will only take your
reason and virtue for guides, you will soon break
the fetters whose dangerous effects you have begun
to feel.
Assume "the courage, then, I repeat it, to exam-
ine for yourself this religion, which, far from pro-
curing you the happiness it promised, will only
prove an inexhaustible source of inquietudes and
alarms, and which will deprive you, sooner or later,
of those rare qualities which render you so dear to
society. Your interest exacts that you should ren-
der peace to your mind. It is your duty carefully
to preserve that sweetness of temper, that indul-
gence, and that cheerfulness, by which you are so
much endeared to all those who approach you.
You owe happiness to yourself, and you owe it to
those who surround you. Do not, then, abandon
yourself to superstitious reveries, but collect all the
strength of your judgment to combat the chimeras
which torment your imagination. They will dis-
appear as soon as you have considered them with
your ordinary sagacity.
Do not tell me, Madam, that your understanding
is too weak to sound the depths of theology. Do
not tell me, in the language of our priests, that the
LETTER I. 1<
truths of religion are mysteries that we must adopt
without comprehending them, and that it is neces-
sary to adore in silence. By expressing themselves-
in this manner, do you not see they really proscribe
and condemn the very religion to which they are so
solicitous you should adhere ? Whatever is super-
natural is unsuited to man, and whatever is beyond
his comprehension ought not to occupy his atten-
tion. To adore what we are not able to know, is
to adore nothing. To believe in what we cannot
conceive, is to believe in nothing. To admit with-
out examination every thing we are directed to
admit, is to be basely and stupidly credulous. To
say that religion is above reason, is to recognize
the fact that it was not made for reasonable beings ;
it is to avow that those who teach it have no more
ability to fathom its depths than ourselves ; it is to
confess that our reverend doctors do not themselves
understand the marvels with which they daily en-
tertain us.
If the truths of religion were, as they assure us, ~
necessary to all men, they would be clear and
intelligible to all men. If the dogmas which this
religion teaches were as important as it is asserted,
they would not only be within the comprehension
of the doctors who preach them, but of all those
who hear their lessons. Is it not strange that the
very persons whose profession it is to furnish them-
selves with religious knowledge, in order to impart
it to others, should recognize their own dogmas as
beyond their own understanding, and that they
2*
LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
should obstinately inculcate to the people what
they acknowledge they do not comprehend them-
selves? Should we have much confidence in a
physician, who, after confessing that he was utterly
ignorant of his art, should nevertheless boast of
the excellence of his remedies ? This, however, is
the constant practice of our spiritual quacks. By
a strange fatality, the most sensible people consent
to be the dupes of those empirics who are perpetu-
ally obliged to avow their own profound ignorance.
But if the mysteries of religion are incompre-
hensible for even those who inculcate it, if among
those who profess it there is no one who knows
precisely what he believes, or who can give an
account of either his conduct or belief, this is
not so in regard to the difficulties with which we
oppose this religion. These objections are simple,
within the comprehension of all persons of ordi-
nary ability, and capable of convincing every man
who, renouncing the prejudices of his infancy, will
deign to consult the good sense that nature has
bestowed upon all beings of the human race.
For a long period of time, subtle theologians
have, without relaxation, been occupied in warding
off the attacks of the incredulous, and in repairing
the breaches made in the ruinous edifice of religion
by adversaries who combated under the flag of
reason. In all times there have been people who
felt the futility of the titles upon which the priests
have arrogated the right of enslaving the under-
standings of men, and of subjugating and despoil-
LETTER I. 19
ing nations. Notwithstanding all the efforts of the
interested and frequently hypocritical men who
have taken up the defence of religion, from which
they and their confederates alone are profited, these
apologists have never been able to vindicate suc-
cessfully their divine system against the attacks of
incredulity. Without cessation they have replied
to the objections which have been made, but never
have they refuted or annihilated them. Almost in
every instance the defenders of Christianity have
been sustained by oppressive laws on the part of
the government ; and it has only been by injuries,
by declamations, by punishments and persecutions,
that they have replied to the allegations of reason.
It is in this manner that they have apparently
remained masters of the field of battle which their
adversaries could not openly contest. Yet, in spite
of the disadvantages of a combat so unequal, and
although the partisans of religion were accoutred
with every possible weapon, and could show them-
selves openly, in accordance with law, while their
adversaries had no arms but those of reason, and
could not appear personally but at the peril of
fines, imprisonment, torture, and death, and were
restricted from bringing all their arsenal into ser-
vice, yet they have inflicted profound, immedica-
ble, and incurable wounds upon superstition. Still,
if we believe the mercenaries of religion, the excel-
lence of their system makes it absolutely invulner-
able to every blow which can be inflicted upon it;
and they pretend Ihey have a thousand times in a
20 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
victorious manner answered the objections which
are continually renewed against them. In spite
of this great security, we see them excessively
alarmed every time a new combatant presents
himself, and the latter may well and successfully
use the most common objections, and those which
have most frequently been urged, since it is evident
that up to the present moment the arguments have
never been obviated or opposed with satisfactory
replies. To convince you, Madam, of what I here
advance, you need only compare the most simple
and ordinary difficulties which good sense opposes
to religion, with the pretended solutions that have
been given. You will perceive that the difficulties,
evident even to the capacities of a child, have
never been removed by divines the most practised
in dialectics. You will find in their replies only
subtle distinctions, metaphysical subterfuges, unin-
telligible verbiage, which can never be the language
of truth, and which demonstrates the embarrass-
ment, the impotence, and the bad faith of those
who are interested by their position in sustaining
a desperate cause. In a word, the difficulties
which have been urged against religion are clear,
and within the comprehension of every one, while
the answers which have been given are obscure,
entangled, and far from satisfactory, even to per-
sons most versed in such jargon, and plainly indi-
cating that the authors of these replies do not
themselves understand what they say.
If you consult the clergy, they will not fail to
LETTER I. 21
set forth the antiquity of their doctrine, which has
always maintained itself, notwithstanding the con-
tinual attacks of the Heretics, the Mecreans, and
the Impious generally, and also in spite of the
persecutions of the Pagans. You have, Madam,
too much good sense not to perceive at once that
the antiquity of an opinion proves nothing in its j /
favor. If antiquity was a proof of truth, Chris-
tianity must yield to Judaism, and that in its turn
to the religion of the Egyptians and Chaldeans,
or, in other words, to the idolatry which was greatly
anterior to Moses. For thousands of years it was
universally believed that the sun revolved round
the earth, which remained immovable ; and yet it
is not the less true that the sun is fixed, and the
earth moves around that. Besides, it is evident
that the Christianity of to-day is not what it for-
merly was. The continual attacks that this religion
has suffered from heretics, commencing with its
earliest history, proves that there never could have
existed any harmony between the partisans of a
pretended divine system, which offended all rules
of consistency and logic in its very first principles.
Some parts of this celestial system were always
denied by devotees who admitted other parts. If
infidels have often attacked religion without appar-
ent effect, it is because the best reasons become
useless against the blindness of a superstition sus-
tained by the public authority, or against the tor-
rent of opinion and custom which sways the minds
of most men. With regard to the persecutions
22 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
which the church suffered on the part of the pagans,
he is but slightly acquainted with the effects of
fanaticism and religious obstinacy who does not
perceive that tyranny is calculated to excite and
extend what it persecutes most violently.
You are not formed to be the dupe of names
and authorities. The defenders of the popular
superstition will endeavor to overwhelm you by
the multiplied testimony of many illustrious and
learned men, who not only admitted the Christian
religion, but who were also its most zealous sup-
porters. They will adduce holy divines, great
philosophers, powerful reasoners, fathers of the
church, and learned interpreters, who have succes-
sively advocated the system. I will not contest
the understanding of the learned men who are
cited, which, however, was often faulty, but will
content myself with repeating that frequently the
greatest geniuses are not more clear sighted in mat-
ters of religion than the people themselves. They
did not. examine the religious opinions they taught ;
it may be because they regarded them as sacred,
or it may be because they never went back to first
principles, which they would have found altogether
unsound, if they had considered them without
prejudice. It may also have happened because
they were interested in defending a cause with
which their own position was allied. Thus their
testimony is exceptionable, and their authority
carries no great weight.
With regard to the interpreters and commenta-
LETTEE I. 23
tors, who for so many ages have painfully toiled to
elucidate the divine laws, to explain the sacred
books, and to fix the dogmas of Christianity, their
very labors ought to inspire us with suspicion con-
cerning a religion which is founded upon such
books and which preaches such dogmas. They
prove that works emanating from the Supreme Be-
ing are obscure, unintelligible, and need human
assistance in order to be understood by those to -v
whom the Divinity wished to reveal his will. The
laws of a wise God would be simple and clear.
Defective laws alone need interpreters.
It is not, then, Madam, upon these interpreters
that you should rely ; it is upon yourself ; it is
your own reason that you should consult. It is
your happiness, it is your repose, that is in question ;
and these objects are too serious to allow their de-
cision to be delegated to any others than yourself.
If religion is as important as we are assured, it
undoubtedly merits the greatest attention. If it is
upon this religion that depends the happiness of
men both in this world and in another, there is no
subject which interests us so strongly, and which
consequently demands a more thorough, careful,
and considerate examination. Can there be any
thing, then, more strange than the conduct of the
great majority of men ? Entirely convinced of the
necessity and importance of religion, they still
never give themselves the trouble to examine it
thoroughly; they follow it in a spirit of routine
and from habit ; they never give any reason for its
24 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
dogmas ; they revere it, they submit to it, and they
groan under its weight, without ever inquiring
wherefore. In fine, they rely upon others to ex-
amine it; and they whose judgment they so blind-
ly receive are precisely those persons upon whose
opinions they should look with the most suspicion.
The priests arrogate the possession of judging ex-
clusively and without appeal of a system evidently
invented for their own utility. And what is the
language of these priests ? Visibly interested in
maintaining the received opinions, they exhibit
them as necessary to the public good, as useful
and consoling for us all, as intimately connected
with morality, as indispensable to society, and, in
a word, as of the very greatest importance. After
having thus prepossessed our minds, they next pro-
hibit our examining the things so important to be
known. What must be thought of such conduct ?
You can only conclude that they desire to deceive
you, that they fear examination only because
religion cannot sustain it, and that they dread
reason because it is able to unveil the incalculably
dangerous projects of the priesthood against the
human race.
For these reasons, Madam, as I cannot too often
repeat, examine for yourself; make use of your
own understanding ; seek the truth in the sincerity
of your heart ; reduce prejudice to silence ; throw
off the base servitude of custom ; be suspicious of
imagination ; and with these precautions, in good
faith with yourself, you can weigh with an impar-
LETTER I. 25
tial hand the various opinions concerning religion.
From whatever source an opinion may come,
acquiesce only in that which shall be convincing to
your understanding, satisfactory to your heart,
conformable to a healthy morality, and approved
by virtue. Reject with disdain whatever shocks
your reason, and repulse with horror'those notions
so criminal and injurious to morality which religion
endeavors to palm off' for supernatural and divine
virtues.
What do I say ? Amiable and wise Eugenia,
examine rigorously the ideas that, by your own
desire, I shall hereafter present you. Let not your
confidence in me, or your deference to my weak
understanding, blind you in regard to my opinions.
I submit them to your judgment. Discuss them,
combat them, and never give them your assent
until you are convinced that in them you recognize
the truth. My sentiments are neither divine ora-
cles nor theological opinions which it is not per-
mitted to canvass. If what I say is true, adopt my
ideas. If I am deceived, point out my errors, and
I am ready, to recognize them and to subscribe my
own condemnation. It will be very pleasant,
Madam, to learn truths of you which, up to the
present time, I have vainly sought in the writings
of our divines. If I have at this moment any
advantage over you, it is due entirely to that tran-
quillity which I enjoy, and of which at present you
are unhappily deprived. The agitations of your
mind, the inquietudes of your body, and the at-
3
26 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
tacks of an exacting and ceremonious devotion,
with which your soul is perplexed, prevent you, for
the moment, from seeing things coolly, and hinder
you from making use of your own understanding;
but I have no doubt that soon your intellect,
strengthened by reason against vain chimeras, will
regain its natural vigor and the superiority which
belongs to it. In awaiting this moment that I
foresee and so much desire, I shall esteem myself
extremely happy if my reflections shall contribute
to render you that tranquillity of spirit so necessary
to judge wisely of things, and without which there
can be no true happiness.
I perceive, Madam, though rather tardily, the
length of this letter ; but I hope you will pardon it,
as well as my frankness. They will at least prove
the lively interest I take in your painful situation,
the sincere desire I feel to bring it to a termination,
and the strong inclination w T hich actuates me to re-
store you to your accustomed serenity. Less
pressing motives would never have been sufficient
to make me break silence. Your own positive
orders were necessary to lead me to speak of ob-
jects which, once thoroughly examined, give no un-
easiness to a healthy mind. It has been a law
with me never to explain myself upon the subject
of religion. Experience has often convinced me
that the most useless of enterprises is to seek to
undeceive a prejudiced mind. I was very far from
believing that I ought ever to write upon these
subjects. You alone, Madam, had the power to
LETTER I.' 27
conquer my indolence, and to impel me to change
my resolution. Eugenia afflicted, tormented with
scruples, and ready to plunge herself into gloomy
austerities and superstitions, calculated to render
her unamiable to others, without contributing hap-
piness to herself, honored me with her confidence,
and requested counsel of her friend. She exacted
that I should speak. " It is enough," I said ; " let
me write for Eugenia ; let me endeavor to restore
the repose she has lost ; let me labor with ardor
for her upon whose happiness that of so many others
is dependent."
Such, Madam, are the motives which induce me
to take my pen in hand. In looking forward to the
time when you will be undeceived, I shall dare at
least to flatter myself that you will not regard me
with the same eyes with which priests and devo-
tees look upon every one who has the temerity to
contradict their ideas. To believe them, every man
who declares himself against religion is a bad citi-
zen, a madman armed to justify his passions, a
perturbator of the public repose, and an enemy of
his fellow-citizens, that cannot be punished with too
much rigor. My conduct is known to you ; and
the confidence with which you honor me is suffi-
cient for my apology. It is for you alone that I
write. It is to dissipate the clouds that obscure
your mental horizon that I communicate reflec-
tions which, but for reasons so pressing, I should
have always enclosed in my own bosom. If by
chance they shall hereafter fall into other hands
28 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
than yours, and be found of some utility, I shall
felicitate myself for having contributed to the es-
tablishment of happiness by leading back to reason
minds which had wandered from it, by making
truth to be felt and known, and by unmasking im-
postures which have caused so many misfortunes
upon the earth.
In a word, I submit my reasoning to your judg-
ment, I confide fully in your discretion, and I allow
myself to conclude that my ideas, after you are dis-
abused of the vain terrors with which you are now
oppressed, will fully convince you that this religion,
which is exhibited to men as a concern the most
important, the most true, the most interesting, and
the most useful, is only a tissue of absurdities, is
calculated to confound reason, to disturb the
understanding, and can be advantageous to none
save those who make use of it to govern the human
race. I shall acknowledge myself in the wrong if
I do not prove, in the clearest manner, that religion
is false, useless, and dangerous, and that morality,
in its stead, should occupy the spirits and animate
the souls of all men.
I shall enter more particularly into the subject in
my next letter. I shall go back to first principles,
and in the course of this correspondence I flatter
myself I shall completely demonstrate that these
objects, which theology endeavors to render intri-
cate, and to envelop with clouds, in order to make
them more respectable and sacred, are not only
entirely susceptible of being understood by you,
LETTER II. 29
but that they are likewise within the comprehen-
sion of every one who possesses even an ordinary
share of good sense. If my frankness shall appear
too undisguised, I beg you to consider, Madam,
that it is necessary I should address you explicitly
and clearly. I now consider it my duty to admin-
ister an energetic and prompt remedy for the mal-
ady with which I perceive you to be attacked.
Besides, I venture to hope that in a short time you
will feel gratified that I have shown you the truth
in all its integrity and brilliancy. You will par-
don me for having dissipated the unreal and yet
harassing phantoms which infested your mind.
But let my success be what it may, my efforts to
confer tranquillity upon you will at least be evi-
dences of the interest I take in your happiness, of
my zeal to serve you, and of the respect with which
I am your sincere and attached friend.
LETTER II.
OF THE IDEAS WHICH RELIGION GIVES ITS OF THE
DIVINITY
EVERY religion is a system of opinions and
conduct founded upon the notions, true or false,
that we entertain of the Divinity. To judge of
the truth of any system, it is requisite to examine
its principles, to see if they accord, and to satisfy
30 LETTEES TO EUGENIA.
ourselves whether all its parts lend a mutual sup-
port to each other. A religion, to be true, should
give us true ideas of God ; and it is by our reason
alone that we are able to decide whether what
theology asserts concerning this being and his
attributes is true or otherwise. Truth for men is
only conformity to reason ; and thus the same
reason which the clergy proscribe is, in the last
resort, our only means of judging the system that
religion proposes for our assent. That God can
only be the true God who is most conformable to
our reason, and the true worship can be no other
than that which reason approves.
Religion is only important in accordance with
the advantages it bestows upon mankind. The
best religion must be that which procures its disci-
ples the most real, the most extensive, and the most
durable advantages. A false religion must neces-
sarily bestow upon those who practise it only a
false, chimerical, and transient utility. Reason
must be the judge whether the benefits derived are
real or imaginary. Thus, "as we constantly see, it
belongs to reason to decide whether a religion, a
mode of worship, or a system of conduct is ad-
vantageous or injurious to the human race.
It is in accordance with these incontestable prin-
ciples that I shall examine the religion of the
Christians. I shall commence by analyzing the
ideas which their system gives us of the Divinity,
which it boasts of presenting to us in a more per-
fect manner than all other religions in the world.
LETTER II. 31
I shall examine whether these ideas accord with
each other, whether the dogmas taught by this
religion are conformable to those fundamental
principles which are every where acknowledged,
whether they are consonant with them, and whether
the conduct which Christianity prescribes answers
to the notions which itself gives us of the Divinity.
I shall conclude the inquiry by investigating the
advantages that the Christian religion procures the
human race advantages, according to its parti-
sans, that infinitely surpass those which result from
all the other religions of the earth.
The Christian religion, as the basis of its belief,
sets forth an only God, which it defines as a pure
spirit, as an eternal intelligence, as independent
and immutable, who has infinite power, who is the
cause of all things, who foresees all things, who
fills immensity, who created from nothing the
world and all it encloses, and who preserves and
governs it according to the laws of his infinite
wisdom, and the perfections of his infinite good-
ness and justice, which are all so evident in his
works.
Such are the ideas that Christianity gives us of
the Divinity. Let us now see whether they accord
with the other notions presented to us by this
religious system, and which it pretends were re-
vealed by God himself; or, in other words, that these
truths were received directly from the Deity, who
concealed them from the remainder of mankind,
32 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
and deprived them of a knowledge of his essence.
Thus the Christian religion is founded upon a
special revelation. And to whom was the revela-
tion made ? At first to Abraham, and then to his
posterity. The God of the universe, then, the
Father, of all men, was only willing to be known
to the descendants of a Chaldean, who for a long
series of years were the exclusive possessors of the
knowledge of the true God. By an effect of his
special kindness, the Jewish people was for a long
time the only race favored with a revelation equally
necessary for all men. This was the- only people
which understood the relations between man and
the Supreme Being. All other nations wandered
in darkness, or possessed no ideas of the Sovereign
of nature but such as were crude, ridiculous, or
criminal.
Thus, at the very first step, do we not see that
Christianity impairs the goodness and justice of
its God ? A revelation to a particular people only
announces a partial God, who favors a portion of
his children, to the prejudice of all the others;
who consults only his caprice, and not real merit;
who, incapable of conferring happiness upon all
men, shows his tenderness solely to some individ-
uals, who have, however, no titles upon his consid-
eration not possessed by the others. What would
you say of a father who, placed at the head of a
numerous family, had no eyes but for a single one
of his children, and who never allowed himself to
LETTER II. 33
be seen by any of them except that favored one ?
What would you say if he was displeased with
the rest for not being acquainted with his features,
notwithstanding he would never allow them to ap-
proach his person ? Would you not accuse such a
father of caprice, cruelty, folly, and a want of
reason, if he visited with his anger the children
whom he had himself excluded from his presence ?
Would you not impute to him an injustice of
which none but the most brutal of our species
could be guilty if he actually punished them for
not having executed orders which he was never
pleased to give them ?
Conclude, then, with me, Madam, that the rev-
elation of a religion to only a single tribe or nation
sets forth a God neither good, impartial, nor equita-
ble, but an unjust and capricious tyrant, who,
though he may show kindness and preference to
some of his creatures, at any rate acts with the
greatest cruelty towards all the others. This ad-
mitted, revelation does not prove the goodness, but
the caprice and partiality of the God that religion
represents to us as full of sagacity, benevolence,
and equity, and that it describes as the common
father of all the inhabitants of the earth. If the
interest and self-love of those whom he favors
makes them admire the profound views of a God
because he has loaded them with benefits to the
prejudice of their brethren, he must appear very
unjust, on the other hand, to all those who are the
victims of his partiality. A hateful pride alone
34 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
could induce a few persons to believe that they
were, to the exclusion of all others, the cherished
children of Providence. Blinded by their vanity,
they do not perceive that it is to give the lie to
universal and infinite goodness to suppose that
God was capable of favoring with his preference
some men or nations, to the exclusion of others.
All ought to be equal in his eyes if it is true they
are all equally the work of his hands.
It is, nevertheless, upon partial revelations that
are founded all the religions of the world. In the
same manner that every individual believes him-
self the most important being in the universe,
every nation entertains the Idea that it ought to
enjoy the peculiar tenderness of the Sovereign of
nature, to the exclusion of all the others. If the
inhabitants of Hindostan imagine that it was for
them alone that Brama spoke, the Jews and the
Christians have persuaded themselves that it was
only for them that the world was created, and that
it is solely for them that God was revealed.
But let us suppose for a moment that God has
really made himself known. How could a pure
spirit render himself sensible ? What form did he
take ? Of what material organs did he make use
in order to speak ? How can an infinite Being
communicate with those which are finite ? I may
be assured that, to accommodate himself to the
weakness of his creatures, he made use of the
agency of some chosen men to announce his wishes
to all the rest, and that he filled these agents with
LETTER II. 35
~\
his spirit, and spoke by their mouths. But can we \
possibly conceive that an infinite Being could unite /
himself with the finite nature of man ? How can "
I be certain that he who professes to be inspired
by the Divinity does not promulgate his own
reveries or impostures as the oracles of heaven ?
What means have I of recognizing whether God
really speaks by his voice ? The immediate reply
will be, that God, to give weight to the declarations
of those whom he has chosen to be his interpreters,
endowed them with a portion of his own omnip-
otence, and that they wrought miracles to prove
their divine mission.
I therefore inquire, What is a miracle ? I am
told that it is an operation contrary to the laws of
nature, which God himself has fixed ; to which I
reply, that, according to the ideas I have formed of
the divine wisdom, it appears to me impossible that
an immutable God can change the wise laws which
he himself has established. I thence conclude that
miracles are impossible, seeing they are incompati-
ble with our ideas of the wisdom and immutability
of the Creator of the universe. Besides, these mira-
cles would be useless to God. If he be omnipotent,
can he not modify the -minds of his creatures ac- (
cording to his own will ?
To convince and to persuade them, he has only
to will that they shall be convinced and persuaded.
He has only to tell them things that are clear and
sensible, things that may be demonstrated ; and to
evidence of such a kind they will not fail to give
their assent. To do this, he will have no need
36 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
either of miracles or interpreters ; truth alone is
sufficient to win mankind.
Supposing, nevertheless, the utility and possibility
of these miracles, how shall I ascertain whether the
wonderful operation which I see performed by the
interpreter of the Deity be conformable or contrary
to the laws of nature ? Am I acquainted with all
these laws ? May not he who speaks to me in
the name of the Lord execute by natural means,
though to me unknown, those works which appear
altogether extraordinary ? How shall I assure my-
self that he does not deceive me ? Does not
my ignorance of the secrets and shifts of his art
expose me to be the dupe of an able impostor, who
might make use of the name of God to -inspire me
with respect, and to screen his deception ? Thus
his pretended miracles ought to make me suspect
him, even though I were a witness of them ; but
how would the case stand, were these miracles said
to have been performed some thousands of years
before my existence ? I shall be told that they
were attested by a multitude of witnesses ; but if
I cannot trust to myself when a miracle is perform-
ing, how shall I have confidence in others, who may
be either more ignorant oj more stupid than my-
self, or who perhaps thought themselves interested
in supporting by their testimony tales entirely
destitute of reality ?
If, on the contrary, I admit these miracles, what
do they prove to me ? Will they furnish me with
a belief that God has made use of his omnipotence
to convince me of things which are in direct oppo-
LETTER II. 37
sition to the ideas I have formed of his essence,
his nature, and his divine perfections ? If I be per-
suaded that- God is immutable, a miracle will not
force me to believe that he is subject to change. If
I be convinced that God is just and good, a miracle
will never be sufficient to persuade me that he is un-
just and wicked. If I possess an idea of his wisdom,
all the miracles in the world would not persuade me
that God would act like a madman. Shall I be told
that he would consent to perform miracles that de-
stroy his divinity, or that are proper only to erase
from the minds of men the ideas which they ought
to entertain of his infinite perfections ? This, how-
ever, is what would happen were God himself to
perform, or to grant the power of performing, mira-
cles in favor of a particular revelation. He would,
in that case, derange the course of nature, to teach
the world that he is capricious, partial, unjust, and
cruel ; he would make use of his omnipotence pur-
posely to convince us that his goodness was insuf-
ficient for the welfare of his creatures ; he would
make a vain parade of his power, to hide his ina-
bility to convince mankind by a single act of his
will. In short, he would interfere with the eternal
and immutable laws of nature, to show us that he
is subject to change, and to announce to mankind
some important news, which they had hitherto been
destitute of, notwithstanding all his goodness.
Thus, under whatever point of view we regard
revelation, by whatever miracles we may suppose
it attested, it will always be in contradiction to the
4
38 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
ideas we have of the Deity. They will show us
that he acts in an unjust and an arbitrary manner,
consulting only his own whims in the favors he
bestows, and continually changing his conduct ;
that he was unable to communicate all at once to
mankind the knowledge necessary to their exist-
ence, and to give them that degree of perfection
of which their natures were susceptible. Hence,
Madam, you may see that the supposition of a
revelation can never be reconciled with the infinite
goodness, justice, omnipotence, and immutability
of the Sovereign of the universe.
They will not fail to tell you that the Creator of
all things, the independent Monarch of nature is
the master of his favors ; that he owes nothing to
his creatures ; that he can dispose of them as he
pleases, without any injustice, and without their
having any right of complaint ; that man is inca-
pable of sounding the profundity of his decrees;
and that his justice is not the justice of men. But
all these answers, which divines have continually in
their mouths, serve only to accelerate the destruc-
tion of those sublime ideas which they have given
us of the Deity. The result appears to be, that
God conducts himself according to the maxims of
a fantastic sovereign, who, satisfied in having re-
warded some of his favorites, thinks himself jus-
tified in neglecting the rest of his subjects, and to
leave them groaning in the most deplorable misery.
You must acknowledge, Madam, it is not on such
a model that we can form a powerful, equitable,
LETTER II. 39
and beneficent God, whose omnipotence ought to
enable him to procure happiness to all his sub-
jects, without fear of exhausting the treasures of
his goodness.
If we are told that divine justice bears no re-
semblance to the justice of men, I reply, that in this -
case we are not authorized to say that God is
just ; seeing that by justice it is not possible for
us to conceive any thing except a similar quality
to that called justice by the beings of our own
species. If divine justice bears no resemblance to
human justice, if, on the contrary, this justice
resembles what we call injustice, then' all our
ideas confound themselves, and we know not either
what we mean or what we say when we affirm
that God is just. According to human ideas,
(which are, however, the only ones that men are
possessed of,) justice will always exclude caprice
and partiality ; and never can we prevent ourselves
from regarding as iniquitous and vicious a sove-
reign who, being both able and willing to occupy
himself with the happiness of his subjects, should
plunge the greatest number of them into misfor-
tune, and reserve his kindness for those to whom
his whims have given the preference.
With respect to telling us that God owes nothing
to his creatures, such an atrocious principle is de-
structive of every idea of justice and goodness,
and tends visibly to sap the foundation of all
religion. A God that is just and good owes hap-
piness to every being to whom he has given exist-
40 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
ence ; he ceases to be just and good if he produce
them only to render them miserable ; and he would
be destitute of both wisdom and reason were he to
give them birth only to be the victims of his caprice.
What should we think of a father bringing children
into the world for the sole purpose of putting their
eyes out and tormenting them at his ease ?
On the other hand, all religions are entirely
founded upon the reciprocal engagements which
are supposed to exist between God and his crea-
tures. If God owes nothing to the latter, if he is
not under an obligation to fulfil his engagements
to them when they have fulfilled theirs to him, of
what use is religion? What motives can men
have to offer th'eir homage and worship to the Di-
vinity ? Why should they feel much desire to love
or serve a master who can absolve himself of all
duty towards those who entered his service with
an expectation of the recompense promised under
such circumstances ?
It is easy to see that the destructive ideas of
divine justice which are inculcated are only found-
ed upon a fatal prejudice prevalent among the
generality of men, leading them to suppose that
unlimited power must inevitably exempt its pos-
sessor from an accordance with the laws of equity ;
that force can confer the right of committing bad
actions ; and that no one could properly demand an
account of his conduct of a man sufficiently pow-
erful to carry out all his caprices. These ideas are
evidently borrowed from the conduct of tyrants,
LETTER II. 41
who no sooner find themselves possessed of abso-
lute power than they cease to recognize any other
rules than their own fantasies, and imagine that
justice has no claims upon potentates like them.
It is upon this frightful model that theologians
have formed that God whom they, notwithstanding,
assert to be a just being, while, if the conduct they
attribute to him was true, we should be constrained
to regard him as the most unjust of tyrants, as the
most partial of fathers, as the most fantastic of
princes, and, in a word, as a being the most to be |
feared and the least worthy of love that the imagi- /
nation could devise. We are informed that the
God who created all men has been unwilling to be
known except to a very small number of them, and
that while this favored portion exclusively enjoyed
the benefits of his kindness, all the others were
objects of his anger, and were only created by him
to be left in blindness for the very purpose of pun- 1
ishing them in the most cruel manner. "We see
these pernicious characteristics of the Divinity pen-
etrating the entire economy of the Christian reli-
gion ; we find them in the books which are pre-
tended to be inspired, and we discover them in the ->>
dogmas of predestination and grace. In a word,
every thing in religion announces a despotic God,
whom his disciples vainly attempt to represent to us
as just, while all that they declare of him only proves
his injustice, his tyrannical caprices, his extrava-
gances, so frequently cruel, and his partiality, so per-
nicious to the greater portion of the human race. J
4*
4*2 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
When we exclaim against conduct which, in the
eyes of all reasonable men, must appear so exces-
sively capricious, it is expected that our mouths
will be closed by the assertion that God is omnipo-
tent, that it is for him to determine how he will
bestow benefits, and that he is under no obliga-
tions to any of his creatures. His apologists end
by endeavoring to intimidate us with the frightful
and iniquitous punishments that he reserves for
those who are so audacious as to murmur.
It is easy to perceive the futility of these argu-
ments. Power, I do contend, can never confer the
right of violating equity. Let a sovereign be as
powerful as he may, he is not on that account less
blamable when in rewards and punishments he
follows only his caprice. It is true, -we may
fear him, we may flatter him, we may pay him
servile homage ; but never shall we love him sin-
cerely ; never shall we serve him faithfully ; never
shall we look up to him as the model of justice and
goodness. If those who receive his kindness be-
lieve him to be just and good, those who are the
objects of his folly and rigor cannot prevent them-
selves from detesting his monstrous iniquity in
their hearts.
If we be told that we are only as worms of earth
relatively to God, or that we are only like a vase in
the hands of a potter, I reply in this case, that there
can neither be connection nor moral duty between
the creature and his Creator ; and I shall hence
conclude that religion is useless, seeing that a
LETTER II. 43
worm of earth can owe nothing to a man who
crushes it, and that the vase can owe nothing to
the potter that has formed it. In the supposition
that man is only a worm or an earthen vessel in
the eyes of the Deity, he would be incapable either
of serving him, glorifying him, honoring him, or
offending him. We are, however, continually told
that man is capable of merit and demerit in the
sight of his God, whom he is ordered to love, serve,
and worship. We are likewise assured that it was
man alone whom the Deity had in view in all his
works ; that it is for him alone the universe was
created ; for him alone that the course of nature
was so often deranged ; and, in short, it was with
a view of being honored, cherished, and glorified
by man that God has revealed himself to us. Ac-
cording to the principles of the Christian religion,
God does not cease, for a single instant, his occu-
pations for man, this worm of earth, this earthen
vessel, which he has formed. Nay, more : man is
sufficiently powerful to influence the honor, the
felicity, and the glory of his God ; it rests with
man to please him or to irritate him, to deserve his
favor or his hatred, to appease him or to kindle his
wrath.
Do you not perceive, Madam, the striking con-
tradictions of those principles which, nevertheless,
form the basis of all revealed religions? Indeed,
we cannot find one of them that is not erected on
the reciprocal influence between God and man,
and between man and God. Our own species,
44 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
which are annihilated (if I may use the expression)
every time that it becomes necessary to whitewash
the Deity from some reproachful stain of injustice
and partiality, these miserable beings, to whom
it is pretended that God owes nothing, and who,
we are assured, are unnecessary to him for his own
felicity, the human race, which is nothing in his
eyes, becomes all at once the principal performer
on the stage of nature. We find that mankind
are necessary to support the glory of their Creator ;
we see them become the sole objects of his care ;
we behold in them the power to gladden or afflict
him ; we see them meriting his favor and provoking
his wrath. According to these contradictory no-
tions concerning the God of the universe, the source
of all felicity, is he not really the most wretched of
beings? We behold him perpetually exposed to
the insults of men, who offend him by their
thoughts, their words, their actions, and their neg-
lect of duty. They incommode him, they irritate
him, by the capriciousness of their minds, by their
actions, their desires, and even by their ignorance.
If we admit those Christian principles which sup-
pose that the greater portion of the human race ex-
cites the fury of the Eternal, and that very few of
them live in a manner conformable to his views,
will it not necessarily result therefrom, that in the
immense crowd of beings whom God has created
for his glory, only a very small number of them
glorify and please him ; while all the rest are oc-
cupied in vexing him, exciting his wrath, troubling
LETTER II. 45
his felicity, deranging the order that he loves, frus-
trating his designs, and forcing him to change his
immutable intentions ?
You are, undoubtedly, surprised at the contra-
dictions to be encountered at the very first step we
take in examining this religion ; and I take upon
myself to predict that your embarrassment will
increase as you proceed therein. Jf you coolly
examine the ideas presented to us in the revelation
common both to Jews and Christians, and con-
tained in the books which they tell us are sacred,
you will find that the Deity who speaks is always
in contradiction with himself; that he becomes his
own destroyer, and is perpetually occupied in un-
doing what he has just done, and in repairing his
own workmanship, to which, in the first instance,
he was incapable of giving that degree of perfection
he wished it to possess. He is never satisfied
with his own works, and cannot, in spite of his
omnipotence, bring the human race to the point of /
perfection he intended. The books containing the
revelation, on which Christianity is founded, every x
where display to us a God of goodness in the com-
mission of wickedness ; an omnipotent God, whose
projects unceasingly miscarry ; an immutable God,
changing his maxims and his conduct ; an omnis-
cient God, continually deceived unawares ; a reso- \
lute God, yet repenting of his most important
actions ; a God of wisdom, whose arrangements
never attain success. He is a great God, who ,
occupies himself with the most puerile trifles ; an
c
40 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
all-sufficient God, yet subject to jealousy ; a pow-
erful God, yet suspicious, vindictive, and cruel ;
and a just God, yet permitting and prescribing the
most atrocious iniquities. In a word, he is a per-
fect God, yet displaying at the same time such im-
perfections and vices that the most despicable of
men would blush to resemble him.
Behold, Madam, the God whom this religion
orders you to adore in spirit and in truth. I re-
serve for another letter an analysis of the holy
books which you are taught to respect as the
oracles of heaven. I now perceive for the first
time that I have perhaps made too long a disser-
tation ; and I doubt not you have already per-
ceived that a system built on a basis possessing so
little solidity as that of the God whom his devo-
tees raise with one hand and destroy with the
other, can have no stability attached to it, and can
only be regarded as a long tissue of errors and con-
tradictions. I am, &c.
LETTER III.
AN EXAMINATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, OF THE
NATURE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND OF THE
PROOFS UPON WHICH CHRISTIANITY is FOUNDED.
You have seen, Madam, in my preceding letter,
the incompatible and contradictory ideas which this
LETTER III. 4i
religion gives us of the Deity. You will have seen
that the revelation which is announced to us,
instead of being the offspring of his goodness and
tenderness for the human race, is really only a
proof of injustice and partiality, of which a God
who is equally just and good would be entirely
incapable. Let us now examine whether the ideas
suggested to, us by these books, containing the
divine oracles, are more rational, more consistent,
or more conformable to the divine perfections.
Let us see whether the statements related in the
Bible, whether the commands prescribed to us in
the name of God himself, are really worthy of God,
and display to us the characters of infinite wis-
dom, goodness, power, and justice.
These inspired books go back to the origin of the
world. Moses, the confidant, the interpreter, the
historian of the Deity, makes us (if we may use
such an expression) witnesses of the formation of
the universe. He tells us that the Eternal, tired of
his inaction, one fine day took it into his head to
create a world that was necessary to his glory. To
effect this, he forms matter out of nothing ; a pure
spirit produces a substance which has no affinity
to himself ; although this God* fills all space with
his immensity, yet still he found room enough in
it to admit the universe, as well as all the material
bodies contained therein.
These, at least, are the ideas which divines wish
us to form respecting the creation, if such a thing
were possible as that of possessing a clear idea of a
48 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
pure spirit producing matter. But this discussion
is throwing us into metaphysieal researches, which I
wish to avoid. It will be sufficient to you that you
may console yourself for not being able to compre-
hend it, seeing that the most profound thinkers, who
talk about the creation or the eduction of the world
from nothing, have no ideas on the subject more
precise than those which you form to yourself. As
soon, Madam, as you take the trouble to reflect
thereon, you will find that divines, instead of ex-
plaining things, have done nothing but invent
words, in order to render them dubious, and to con-
found all our natural conceptions.
I will not, however, tire you by a fastidious dis-
play of the blunders which fill the narrative of
Moses, which they announce to us as being dic-
tated by the Deity. If we read it with a little
attention, we shall perceive in every page philo-
sophical and astronomical errors, unpardonable in
an inspired author, and such as we should consider
ridiculous in any man, who, in the most superficial
manner, should have studied and contemplated
nature.
You will find, for example, light created before
the sun, although this star is visibly the source of
light which communicates itself to our globe. You
will find the evening and the morning established
before the formation of this same sun, whose pres-
ence alone produces day, whose absence produces
night, and whose different aspects constitute morn-
ing and evening. You will there find that the
LETTER III. 49
moon is spoken of as a body possessing its own
light, in a similar manner as the sun possesses it,
although this planet is a dark body, and receives
its light from, the sun. These ignorant blunders
are sufficient to show you that the Deity who
revealed himself to Moses was quite unacquainted
with the nature of those substances which he had
created out of nothing, and that you at present pos-
sess more information respecting them than was
once possessed by the Creator of the world.
I am not ignorant that our divines have an answer
always ready to those difficulties which would attack
their divine science, and place their knowledge far
below that of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and even
below that of young people who have scarcely
studied the first elements of natural philosophy.
They will tell us that God, in order to render him-
self intelligible to the savage and ignorant Jews,
spoke in conformity to their imperfect notions, in
the false and incorrect language of the vulgar. We
must not be imposed upon by this solution, which
our doctors regard as triumphant, and which they
so frequently employ when it becomes necessary to
justify the Bible against the ignorance and vulgari-
ties contained therein. We answer them, that a
God who knows every thing, and can perform every
thing, might by a single word have rectified the
false notions of the people he wished to enlighten,
and enabled them to know the nature of bodies
more perfectly than the most able men who have
since appeared. If it be replied that revelation is
5
50 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
not intended to render men learned, but to make
them pious, I answer that revelation was not sent
to establish false notions ; that it would be unworthy
of God to borrow the language of falsehood and
ignorance ; that the knowledge of nature, so far
from being an injury to piety, is, by the avowal of
divines, the most proper study to display the great-
ness of God. They tell us that religion would be
unmovable, were it conformable to true knowledge ;
that we should have no objections to make to the
recital of Moses, nor to the philosophy of the Holy
Scriptures, if we found nothing but what was con-
tinually confirmed by experience, astronomy, and
the demonstrations of geometry.
To maintain a contrary opinion, and to say that
God is pleased in confounding the knowledge of
men and in rendering it useless, is to pretend that
he is pleased with making us ignorant and change-
able, and that he condemns the progress of the
human mind, although we ought to suppose him
the author of it. To pretend that God was obliged
in the Scriptures to .conform himself to the lan-
guage of men, is to pretend that he withdrew his
assistance from those he wished to enlighten, and
that he was unable of rendering them susceptible
of comprehending the language of truth. This is
an observation not to be lost sight of in the exam-
ination of revelation, where we find in each page
that God expresses himself in a manner quite un-
worthy of the Deity. Could not an omnipotent
God, instead of degrading himself, instead of con-
LETTER III. 51
descending to speak the language of ignorance, so
far enlighten them as to make them understand a
language more true, more noble, and more conform-
able to the ideas which are given us of the Deity ?
An experienced master by degrees enables his
scholars to understand what he wishes to teach
them, and a God ought to be able to communicate
to them immediately all the knowledge he intended
to give them.
However, according to Genesis, God, after cre-
ating the world, produced man from the dust of
the earth. In the mean while we are assured that
he created him in his own image', but what was
the image of God ? How could man, who is at
least partly material, represent a pure spirit, which
excludes all matter ?
How could his imperfect mind be formed on the
model of a mind possessing all perfection, like that
which we suppose in the Creator of the universe ?
What resemblance, what proportion, what affinity
could there be between a finite mind united to a
body, and the infinite spirit of the Creator ? These,
doubtless, are great difficulties ; hitherto it has been
thought impossible to decide them ; and they will
probably for a long time employ the minds of those
who strive to understand the incomprehensible
meaning of a book which God provided for our
instruction.
But why did God create man ? Because he
wished to people the universe with intelligent
beings, who would render him homage, who should
52 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
witness his wonders, who should glorify him, who
should meditate and contemplate his works, and
merit his favors by their submission to his laws.
Here we behold man becoming necessary to the
dignity of his God, who without him would live
without being glorified, who would receive no hom-
age, and who would be the melancholy Sovereign
of an empire without subjects a condition not
suited to his vanity. I think it useless to remark
to you what little conformity we find between
those ideas and such as are given us of a self-suffi-
cient being, who, without the assistance of any
other, is supremely happy. All the characters in
which the Bible portrays the Deity are always bor-
rowed from man, or from a proud monarch ; and
we every where find that instead of having made
man after his own image, it is man that has always
made God after the image of himself, that has con-
ferred on him his own way of thinking, his own
virtues, and his own vices.
But did this man whom the Deity has created
for his glory faithfully fulfil the wishes of his Cre-
ator? This subject that he has just acquired
will he be obedient? will he render homage to his
power ? will he execute his will ? He has done
nothing of the kind. Scarcely is he created when
he becomes rebellious to the orders of his Sovereign ;
he eats a forbidden fruit which God has placed in
his way in order to tempt him, and by this act
draws the divine wrath not only on himself, but on
all his posterity. Thus it is that he annihilates at
LETTER in. 53
one blow the great projects of the Omnipotent,
who had no sooner made man for his glory than
he becomes offended with that conduct which he
ought to have foreseen.
Here he finds himself obliged to change his
projects with regard to mankind ; he becomes their
enemy, and condemns them and the whole of the
race (who had not yet the power of sinning) to
innumerable penalties, to cruel calamities, and to
death! What do I say? To punishments which
death itself shall not terminate ! Thus God, who
wished to be glorified, is not glorified ; he seems to
have created man only to offend him, that he might
afterwards punish the offender.
In this recital, which is founded on the Bible,
can you recognize, Madam, an omnipotent God, \/
whose orders are always accomplished, and whose
projects are all necessarily executed? In a God
who tempts us, or who permits us to be tempted,
do you behold a being of beneficence and sincer-
ity ? In a God who punishes the being he has
tempted, or subjected to temptation, do you per-
ceive any equity ? In a God who extends his ven-
geance even to those who have not sinned, do you
behold any shadow of justice? In a God who is
irritated at what he knew must necessarily happen,
can you imagine any foresight? In the rigorous
punishments by which this God is destined to
avenge himself of his feeble creatures, both in this
world and the next, can you perceive the least ap-
pearance of goodness ?
5*
54 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
It is, however, this history, or rather this fable,
on which is founded the whole edifice of the
Christian religion.
If the first man had not been disobedient, the
human race had not been the object of the divine
wrath, and would have had no need of a Redeemer.
If this God, who knows all things, foresees all
things, and possesses all power, had prevented or
foreseen the fault of Adam, it would not have been
necessary for God to sacrifice his own innocent Son
to appease his fury. Mankind, for whom he created
the universe, would then have been always happy ;
they would not have incurred the displeasure of
that Deity who demanded their adoration. In a
word, if this apple had not been imprudently eaten
by Adam and his spouse, mankind would not have
suffered so much misery, man would have enjoyed
without interruption the immortal happiness to
which God had destined him, and the views of
Providence towards his creatures would not have
been frustrated.
It would be useless to make reflections on no-
tions so whimsical, so contrary to the wisdom, the
power, and the justice of the Deity. It is doing
quite enough to compare the different objects which
the Bible presents to us, to perceive their inutility,
absurdities, and contradictions. We there see, con-
tinually, a wise God conducting himself like a
madman. He defeats his own projects that he
may afterwards repair them, repents of .what he
has done, acts as if he had foreseen nothing, and
LETTER III. 55
is forced to permit proceedings which his omnipo-
tence could not prevent. In the writings revealed
by this God, he appears occupied only in blacken-
ing his own character, degrading himself, vilifying
himself, even in the eyes of men whom he would
excite to worship him and pay him homage ; over-
turning and confounding the minds of those whom
he had designed to enlighten. What has just been
said might suffice to undeceive us with respect to
a book which would pass better as being intended
to destroy the idea of a Deity, than as one con-
taining the oracles dictated and revealed by him.
Nothing but a heap of absurdities could possibly
result from principles so false and irrational ; never-
theless, let us take another glance at the principal
objects which this divine work continually offers to
our consideration. Let us pass on to the Deluge.
The holy books tell us, that in spite of the will of
the Almighty, the whole human race, who had
already been punished by infirmities, accidents, and
death, continued to give themselves up to the most
unaccountable depravity. God becomes irritated,
and repents having created them. Doubtless he
could not have foreseen this depravity ; yet, rather
than change the wicked disposition of their hearts,
which he holds in his own hands, he performs the
most surprising, the most impossible of miracles.
He at once drowns all the inhabitants, with the
exception of some favorites, whom he destines to
re-people the earth with a chosen race, that will
render themselves more agreeable to their God.
OO LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
But does the Almighty succeed in this new project ?
The chosen race, saved from the waters of the
deluge, on the wreck of the earth's destruction,
begin again to offend the Sovereign of nature,
abandon themselves to new crimes, give themselves
up to idolatry, and forgetting the recent effects of
celestial vengeance, seem intent only on provoking
heaven by their wickedness. In order to provide a
remedy, God chooses for his favorite the idolater
Abraham. To him he discovers himself ; he orders
him to renounce the worship of his fathers, and
embrace a new religion. To guarantee this cove-
nant, the Sovereign of nature prescribes a melan-
choly, ridiculous, and whimsical ceremony, to the
observance of which a God of wisdom attaches his
favors. The posterity of this chosen man are con-
sequently to enjoy, for everlasting, the greatest
advantages ; they will always be the most partial
objects of tenderness, with the Almighty ; they will
be happier than all other nations, whom the Deity
will abandon to occupy himself only for them.
These solemn promises, however, have not pre-
vented the race of Abraham from becoming the
slaves of a vile nation, that was detested by the
Eternal ; his dear friends experienced the most
cruel treatment on the part of -the Egyptians. God
could not guarantee them from the misfortune that
had befallen them ; but in order to free them again,
he raised up to them a liberator, a chief, who per-
formed the most astonishing miracles. At the
voice of Moses all nature is confounded ; God
LETTER III. 57
employs him to declare his will ; yet he who could
create and annihilate the world could not subdue
Pharaoh. The obstinacy of this prince defeats, in
ten successive trials r the divine omnipotence, of
which Moses is the depositary. - After having vainly
attempted to overcome a monarch whose heart
God had been pleased to harden, God has recourse
to the most ordinary method of rescuing his peo-
ple ; he tells them to run off, after having first
counselled them to rob the Egyptians. The fugi-
tives are pursued ; but God, who protects these rob-
bers, orders the sea to swallow up the miserable
people who had the temerity to run after their
property.
The Deity would, doubtless, have reason to be
satisfied with the conduct of a people that he had
just delivered by such a great number of mira-
cles. Alas ! neither Moses nor the Almighty could
succeed in persuading this obstinate people to
abandon the false gods of that country where they
had been so miserable ; they preferred them to the
living God who had just saved them. All the
miracles which the Eternal was daily performing
in favor of Israel could not overcome their stub-
bornness, which was still more inconceivable and
wonderful than the greatest miracles. These won-
ders, which are now extolled as convincing proofs
of the divine mission of Moses, were by the con-
fession of this same Moses, who has himself trans-
mitted us the accounts, incapable of convincing
the people who were witnesses of them, and never
58 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
produced the good effects which the Deity pro-
posed to himself in performing them.
The credulity, the obstinacy, the continual de-
pravity of the Jews, Madam, are the most indubi-
table proofs of the falsity of the miracles of Moses,
as well as those of all his successors, to whom the
Scriptures attribute a supernatural power. If, in
the face of these facts, it be pretended that these
miracles are attested, we shall be compelled, at
least, to agree that, according to the Bible account,
they have been entirely useless, that the Deity has
been constantly baffled in all his projects, and that
he could never make of the Hebrews a people sub-
missive to his will.
We find, however, God continues obstinately
employed to render his people worthy of him ; he
does not lose sight of them for a moment ; he
sacrifices whole nations to them, and sanctions
their rapine, violence, treason, murder, and usurpa-
tion. In a word, he permits them to do any thing
to obtain his ends. He is continually sending them
chiefs, prophets, and wonderful men, who try in
vain to bring them to their duty. The whole his-
tory of the Old Testament displays nothing but
the vain efforts of God to vanquish the obstinacy
of his people. To succeed in this, he employs
kindnesses, miracles, and severity. Sometimes he
delivers up to them whole nations, to be hated,
pillaged, and exterminated ; at other times he per-
mits these same nations to exercise over his favor-
ite people the greatest of cruelties. He delivers
LETTER III. 59
them into the hands of their enemies, who are like-
wise the enemies of God himself. Idolatrous na-
tions become masters of the Jews, who are left
to feel the insults, the contempt, and the most
unheard-of severities, and are sometimes compelled
to sacrifice to idols, and to violate the law of their
God. The race of Abraham becomes the prey of
impious nations. The Assyrians, Persians, Greeks,
and Romans make them successively undergo the
most cruel treatment and suffer the most bloody
outrages, and God even permits his temple to be /
polluted in order to punish the Jews.
To terminate, at length, the troubles of his cher-
ished people, the pure Spirit that created the universe
sends his own Son. It is said that he had already
been announced by his prophets, though this was
certainly done in a manner admirably adapted to
prevent his being known on his arrival. This Son
of God becomes a man through his kindness for \
the Jews, whom he came to liberate, to enlighten,
and to render the most happy of mortals. Being
clothed with divine omnipotence, he performs the
most astonishing miracles, which do not, however,
convince the Jews. He can do every thing but
convert them. Instead of converting and liberat-
ing the Jews, he is himself compelled, notwith-
standing all his miracles, to undergo the most
infamous of punishments, and to terminate his life
like a common malefactor. God is condemned to
death by the people he came to save. The Eternal
hardened and blinded those among whom he sent
60 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
his own Son ; he did not foresee that this Son
would be rejected. What do I say ? He man-
aged matters in such a way as not to be recog-
nized, and took such steps that his favorite people
derived no benefit from the coming of the Messiah.
In a word, the Deity seems to have taken the
greatest care that his projects, so favorable to the
Jews, should be nullified and rendered unprof-
itable !
When we expostulate against a conduct so
strange and so unworthy of the Deity, we are told
it was necessary for every thing to take place in
such a manner, for the accomplishment of prophe-
cies which had announced that the Messiah should
be disowned, rejected, and put to death. But why
did God, who knows all, and who foresaw the fate
of his dear Son, form the project of sending him
among the Jews, to whom he must have known
that his mission would be useless ? Would it not
have been easier neither to announce him nor send
him ? Would it not have been more conformable
to divine omnipotence to spare himself the trouble
of so many miracles, so many prophecies, so much
useless labor, so much wrath, and so many suffer-
ings to his own Son, by giving at once to the
human race that degree of perfection he intended
for them ?
We are told it was necessary that the Deity
should have a victim ; that to repair the fault of
the first man, no expedient would be sufficient but
the death of another God ; that the only God of the
LETTER III. 61
universe could not be appeased but by the blood
of his own Son. I reply, in the first place, that
God had only to prevent the first man from com-
mitting a fault ; that this would have spared him
much chagrin and sorrow, and saved the life of his
dear Son. I reply, likewise, that man is incapable
of offending God unless God either permitted it or
consented to it. I shall not examine how it is pos-
sible for God to have a Son, who, being as much a
God as himself, can be subject to death. I reply,
also, that it is impossible to perceive such a grave
fault and sin in taking an apple, and that we can
find very little proportion between the crime com-
mitted against the Deity by eating an apple and
his Son's death.
I know well enough I shall be told that these
are all mysteries ; but I, in my turn, shall reply, that
mysteries are imposing words, imagined by men
who know not how to get themselves out of the
labyrinth into which their false reasonings and
senseless principles have once plunged them.
Be this as it may, we are assured that the Mes-
siah, or the deliverer of the Jews, had been clearly
predicted and described by the prophecies contained
in the Old Testament. In this case, I demand
why the Jews have disowned this wonderful
man, this God whom God sent to them. They
answer me, that the incredulity of the Jews was
likewise predicted, and that divers inspired writers
had announced the death of the Son of God. To
which I reply, that a sensible God ought not to
6
62 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
have sent him under such circumstances, that an
omnipotent God ought to have adopted measures
more efficacious and certain to bring his people into
the way in which he wished them to go. If he
wished not to convert and liberate the Jews, it was
quite useless to send his Son among them, and
thereby expose him to a death that was both cer-
tain and foreseen.
They will not fail to tell me, that in the end the
divine patience became tired of the excesses of the
Jews ; that the immutable God, who. had sworn
an eternal alliance with the race of Abraham,
wished at length to break the treaty, which he had,
however, assured them should last forever. It is
pretended that God had determined to reject the
Hebrew nation, in order to adopt the Gentiles,
whom he had hated and despised nearly four thou-
sand years. I reply, that this discourse is very
little conformable to the ideas we ought to have of
a God who changes not, whose mercy is infinite,
and whose goodness is inexhaustible. I shall tell
them, that in this case the Messiah announced by
the Jewish prophets was destined for the Jews, and
that he ought to have been their liberator, instead
of destroying their worship and their religion. If
it be possible to unravel any thing in these obscure,
enigmatical, and symbolical oracles of the prophets
of Judea, as we find them in the Bible, if there
be any means of guessing the meaning of the ob-
scure riddles, which have been decorated with the
pompous name of prophecies, we shall perceive
LETTER III. 63
that the inspired writers, when they are in a good
humor, always promised the Jews a man that will
redress their grievances, restore the kingdom of
Judah, and not one that should destroy the religion
of Moses. If it were for the Gentiles that the
Messiah should come, he is no longer the Messiah
promised to the Jews and announced by their
prophets. If Jesus be the Messiah of the Jews, he
could not be the destroyer of their nation.
Should I be told that Jesus himself declared that
he came to fulfil the law of Moses, and not to
abolish it, I ask why Christians do not observe the
law of the Jews ?
Thus, in whatever light we regard Jesus Christ,
we perceive that he could not be the man whom
the prophets have predicted, since it is evident that
he came only to destroy the religion of the Jews,
which, though instituted by God himself, had-
nevertheless become disagreeable to him. If this
inconstant God, who was wearied with the wor-
ship of the Jews, had at length repented of his
injustice towards the Gentiles, it was to them that
he ought to have sent his Son. By acting in this
way he would at least have saved his old friends
from a frightful deicide, which he forced them to
commit, because they were not able to recognize
the God he sent amongst them. Besides, the Jews
were very pardonable in not acknowledging their
expected Messiah in an artisan of Galilee, who
was destitute of all the characteristics which the
prophets had related, and during whose lifetime
64 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
his fellow-citizens were neither liberated nor
happy.
We are told that he performed miracles. He
healed the sick, caused the lame to walk, gave
sight to the blind, and raised the dead. At length
he accomplished his own resurrection. It might be-
so believed ; yet he has visibly failed in that
miracle for which alone he came upon earth. He
y was never able either to persuade or to convert the
Jews, who witnessed all the daily wonders that he
performed. Notwithstanding those prodigies, they
placed him ignominiously on the cross. In spite
of his divine power, he was incapable of escaping
punishment. He wished to die, to render the Jews
culpable, and to have the pleasure of rising again
the third day, in order to confound the ingratitude
and obstinacy of his fellow-citizens. What is the
result? Did his fellow-citizens concede to this
great miracle, and have they at length acknowl-
edged him ? Far from it ; they never saw him.
The Son of God, who arose from the dead in
secrecy, showed himself only to his adherents.
They alone pretend to have conversed with him ;
they alone have furnished us with the particulars
of his life and miracles ; and yet by such suspi-
cious testimony they wish to convince us of the
divinity of his mission eighteen hundred years
after the event, although he could not convince his
\ contemporaries, the Jews.
We are then told that many Jews have been
converted to Jesus Christ ; that after his death
LETTER III. 65
many others were converted; that the witnesses
of the life and miracles of the Son of God have
sealed their testimony with their blood ; that men
will not die to attest falsehood ; that by a visible
effect of the divine power, the people of a great
part- of the earth have adopted Christianity, and
still persist in the belief of this divine religion.
In all this I perceive nothing like a miracle. I
see nothing but what is conformable to the ordinary
progress of the human mind. An enthusiast, a
dexterous impostor, a crafty juggler, can easily find
adherents in a stupid, ignorant^ and superstitious
populace. These followers, captivated by counsels,
or seduced by promises, consent to quit a painful
and laborious life, to follow a man who gives them
to understand that he will make them fisliers of
men; that is to say, he will enable them to subsist
by his cunning tricks, at the expense of the multi-
tude who are always credulous. The juggler, with
the assistance of his remedies, can perform cures
which seem miraculous to ignorant spectators.
These simple creatures immediately regard him as
a supernatural being. He adopts this opinion him-
self, and confirms the high notions which his parti-
sans have formed respecting him. He feels himself
interested in maintaining this opinion among his
sectaries, and finds out the secret of exciting their
enthusiasm. To accomplish this point, our em-
piric becomes a preacher ; he makes use of riddles,
obscure sentences, and parables to the multitude, x \
that always admire what they do not understand.
c *
66 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
To render himself more agreeable to the people, he
declaims among poor, ignorant, foolish men, against
the rich, the great, the learned; but above all,
against the priests, who in all ages have been ava-
ricious, imperious, uncharitable, and burdensome to
the people. If these discourses be eagerly received
among the vulgar, who are always morose, envious,
and jealous, they displease all those who see them-
selves the objects of the invective and satire of the
popular preacher.
They consequently wish to check his progress,
they lay snares for him, they seek to surprise him
in a fault, in order that they may unmask him and
have their revenge. By dint of imposture, he out-
wits them ; yet, in consequence of his miracles and
illusions, he at length discovers himself. He is then
seized and punished, and none of his adherents
abide by him, except a few idiots, that nothing can
undeceive ; none but partisans, accustomed to lead
with him a life of idleness ; none but dexterous
knaves, who wish to continue their impositions on
the public, by deceptions similar to those of their
old master, by obscure, unconnected, confused, and
fanatical harangues, and by declamations against
magistrates andpriests. These, who have the power
in their own hands, finish by persecuting them, im-
prisoning them, flogging them, chastising them, and
putting them to death. Poor wretches, habituated
to poverty, undergo all these sufferings with a forti-
tude which we frequently meet with in malefactors.
In some we find their courage fortified by the zeal
LETTER III. 67
of fanaticism. This fortitude surprises, agitates,
excites pity, and irritates the spectators against
those who torment men whose constancy makes
them looked upon as being innocent, who, it is sup-
posed, may possibly be right, and for whom com-
passion likewise interests itself. It is thus that
enthusiasm is -propagated, and that persecution
always augments the number of the partisans of
those who are persecuted.
I shall leave to you, Madam, the trouble of
applying the history of our juggler, and his adher-
ents, to that of the founder, the apostles, and the
martyrs of the Christian religion.
With whatever art they have written the life of
Jesus Christ, which we hold only from his apostles,
or their disciples, it furnishes a sufficiency of ma-
terials on which to found our conjectures. I shall
only observe to you, that the Jewish nation was
remarkable for its credulity ; that the companions
of Jesus \vere chosen from among the dregs of the
people ; that Jesus always gave a preference to the
populace, with whom he wished, undoubtedly, to
form a rampart against the priests; and that, at
last, Jesus was seized immediately after the most
splendid of his miracles. We see him put to death
immediately after the resurrection of Lazarus, which,
even according to the gospel account, bears the
most evident characters of fraud, which are visible
to every one who examines it without prejudice.
I imagine, Madam, that what I have just stated
will suffice to show you what opinion you ought
08 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
to entertain respecting the founder of Christianity
and his first sectaries. These have been either
dupes or fanatics, who permitted themselves to be
seduced by deceptions, and by discourses conforma-
ble to their desires, or by dexterous impostors, who
knew how to make the best of the tricks of their
old master, to whom they have become such able
successors. In this way did they establish a re-
ligion which enabled them to live at the people's
expense, and which still maintains in abundance
those we pay, at such a high rate, for transmitting
from father to son the fables, visions, and wonders
which were born and nursed in Judea. The prop-
agation of the Christian faith, and the constancy
of their martyrs, have nothing surprising in them.
The people flock after all those that show them
wonders, and receive without reasoning on it every
thing that is told them. They transmit to their
children the tales they have heard related, and by
degrees these opinions are adopted by kings, by the
great, and even by the learned.
As for the martyrs, their constancy has nothing
supernatural in it. The first Christians, as well as
all new sectaries, were treated, by the Jews and
pagans, as disturbers of the public peace. They
were already sufficiently intoxicated with the fanati-
cism with which their religion inspired them, and
were persuaded that God held himself in readiness
to crown them, and to receive them into his eternal
dwelling. In a word, seeing the heavens opened,
and being convinced that the end of the world
LETTER III. 69
was approaching, it is not surprising that they had
courage to set punishment at defiance, to endure it
with constancy, and to despise death. To these
motives, founded on their reiigious opinions, many
others were added, which are always of such a
nature as to operate strongly upon the minds of
men. Those who, as Christians, were imprisoned
and ill-treated on account of their faith, were visited,
consoled, encouraged, honored, and loaded with
kindnesses by their brethren, who took care of and
succored them during their detention, and who
almost adored them after their death. Those, on
the other hand, who displayed weakness, were
despised and detested, and when they gave way to
repentance, they were compelled to undergo a rig-
orous penitence, which lasted as long as they lived.
Thus were the most powerful motives united to
inspire the martyrs with courage ; and this courage
has nothing more supernatural about it than that
which determines us daily to encounter the most
perilous dangers, through the fear of dishonoring
ourselves in the eyes of our fellow-citizens. Cow-
ardice would expose us to infamy all the rest of our
days. There is nothing miraculous in the con-
stancy of a man to whom an offer is made, on the
one hand, of eternal happiness and the highest
honors, and who, on the other hand, sees himself
menaced with hatred, contempt, and the most
lasting regret.
You perceive, then, Madam, that nothing can
be easier than to overthrow the proofs by which
70 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
Christian doctors establish the revelation which
they pretend is so well authenticated. Miracles,
martyrs, and prophecies prove nothing.
Were all the wonders true that are related in the
Old and New Testament, they would afford no
proof in favor of divine omnipotence, but, on the
contrary, would prove the inability under which
the Deity has continually labored, of convincing
mankind of the truths he wished to announce to
them. On the other hand, supposing these mira-
cles to have produced all the effects which the
Deity had a right to expect from them, we have no
longer any reason to believe them, except on the
tradition and recitals of others, which are often
suspicious, faulty, and exaggerated. The miracles
of Moses are attested only by Moses, or by Jewish
writers interested in making them believed by the
people they wished to govern. The miracles of
Jesus are attested only by his disciples, who sought
to obtain adherents, in relating to a credulous peo-
ple prodigies to which they pretended to have been
witnesses, or which some of them, perhaps, believed
they had really seen. All those who deceive man-
kind are not always cheats; they are frequently
deceived by those who are knaves in reality. Be-
sides, I believe I have sufficiently proved, that
miracles are repugnant to the essence of an immu-
table God, as well as to his wisdom, which will not
permit him to alter the wise laws he has himself
established. In short, miracles are useless, since
those related in Scripture have not produced the
effects which God expected from them.
LETTER III. 71
The proof of the Christian religion taken from
prophecy has no better foundation. Whoever will
examine without prejudice these oracles pretended
to be divine will find only an ambiguous, unintel-
ligible, absurd, and unconnected jargon, entirely
unworthy of a God who intended to display his
prescience, and to instruct his people with regard
to future events. There does not exist in the Holy
Scriptures a single prophecy sufficiently precise to
be literally applied to Jesus Christ. To convince
yourself of this truth, ask the most learned of our x
doctors which are the formal prophecies wherein 1 s
they have the happiness to discover the Messiah.
You will then perceive that it is only by the aid of
forced explanations, figures, parables, and mystical
interpretations, by which they are enabled to bring
forward any thing sensible and applicable to the
god-made-man whom they tell us to adore. It
would seem as if the Deity had made predictions
only that we might understand nothing about them.
In these equivocal oracles, whose meaning it is
impossible to penetrate, we find nothing but the
language of intoxication, fanaticism, and delirium.
When we fancy we have found something intelli-
gible, it is easy to perceive that the prophets in-
tended io speak of events that took place in their
own age, or of personages who had preceded them.
It is thus that our doctors apply gratuitously to
Christ prophecies or rather narratives of what hap-
pened respecting David, Solomon, Cyrus, &c.
We imagine we see the chastisement of the
72 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
Jewish people announced in recitals where it is
evident the only matter in question was the Baby-
lonish captivity. In this event, so long prior to
Jesus Christ, they have imagined finding a predic-
tion of the dispersion of the Jews, supposed to be
a visible punishment for their deicide, and which
they now wish to pass off' as an indubitable proof
of the truth of Christianity.
It is not, then, astonishing that the ancient and
modern Jews do not see in the prophets what our
doctors teach us, and what they themselves imagine
they have seen. Jesus himself has not been more
happy in his predictions than his predecessors. In
the gospel he announces to his disciples in the most
formal manner the destruction of the world and the
last judgment, as events that were at hand, and
which must take place before the existing genera-
tion had passed away. Yet the world still endures,
and appears in no danger of finishing. It is true,
our doctors pretend that, in the prediction of Jesus
Christ, he spoke of the ruin of Jerusalem by Ves-
pasian and Titus ; but none but those who have
not read the gospel would submit to such a change,
or satisfy themselves with such an evasion. Be-
sides, in adopting it we must confess at least that
the Son of God himself was unable to prophesy
with greater precision than his obscure predecessors.
Indeed, at every page of these sacred books,
which we are assured were inspired by God -him-
self, this God seems to have made a revelation only
to conceal himself. He does not speak but to be
LETTER III. 73
misunderstood. He announces his oracles in such
a way only that we can neither comprehend them
nor make any application of them. He performs
miracles only to make unbelievers. He manifests
himself to mankind only to stupefy their judgment
and bewilder the reason he has bestowed on them.
The Bible continually represents God to us as a
seducer, an enticer, a suspicious tyrant, who knows
not what kind of conduct to observe with respect
to his subjects; who amuses himself by laying
snares for his creatures, and who tries them that he
may "have the pleasure of inflicting a punishment
for yielding to his temptations. This God is occu-
pied only in building to destroy, in demolishing to
rebuild. Like a child disgusted with its play-
things, he is continually undoing what he has done,
and breaking what was the object of his desires.
We find no foresight, no constancy, no consistency
in his conduct ;. no connection, no clearness in his
discourses. When he performs any thing, he
sometimes approves what he has done, and at
other times repents of it. He irritates and vexes
himself with what he has permitted to be done,
and, in spite of his infinite power, he suffers man
to offend him, and consents to let Satan, his crea-
ture, derange all his projects. In a word, the reve-
lations of the Christians and Jews seem to have
been imagined only to render uncertain and to
annihilate the qualities attributed to the Deity, and
which are declared to constitute his essence. The
whole Scripture, the entire system of the Christian
7
74 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
religion, appears to be founded only on the incapa-
bility of God, who was unable to render the human
race as wise, as good, and as happy as he wished
them. The death of his innocent Son, who was
immolated to his vengeance, is entirely useless for
the most numerous portion of the earth's inhabit-
ants ; almost the whole human race, in spite of the
continual efforts of the Deity, continue to offend
him, to frustrate his designs, resist his will, and to
persevere in their wickedness.
It is on notions so fatal, so contradictory, and so
unworthy of a God who is just, wise, and -good,
of a God that is rational, independent, immutable,
and omnipotent, on whom the Christian religion is
founded, and which religion is said to be established
forever by God, who, nevertheless, became disgusted
with the religion of the Jews, with whom he had
made and sworn an eternal covenant.
Time must prove whether God be more constant
and faithful in fulfilling his engagements with the
Christians than he has been to fulfil those he made
with Abraham and his posterity. I confess, Madam,
that his past conduct alarms me as to what he may
finally perform. If he himself acknowledged by
the mouth of Ezekiel that the laws he had given
to the Jews were not good, he may very possibly,
some day or other, find fault with those which he
has given to Christians.
Our priests themselves seem to partake of my
suspicions, and to fear that God will be wearied
of that protection which he has so long granted to
LETTER III. 75
his church. The inquietudes which they evince,
the efforts which they make to hinder the civiliza-
tion of the world, the persecutions which they
raise against all those who contradict them, seem ~~"\
to prove that they mistrust the promises of Jesus
Christ, and that they are not certainly convinced
of the eternal durability of a religion which does
not appear to them divine, but because it gives
them the right to command like gods over their
fellow-citizens. They would undoubtedly consider
the destruction of their empire a very grievous
thing ; but yet if the sovereigns of the earth and
their people should once grow weary of the sacer-
dotal yoke, we may be sure the Sovereign of
heaven would not require a longer time to become
equally disgusted.
However this may be, Madam, I venture to hope
the perusal of this letter will fully undeceive you
of a blind veneration for books which are called
divine, although they appear as if invented to de-
grade and destroy the God who is asserted to be
their author. My first letter, I feel confident, ena-
bled you to perceive that the dogmas established
by these same books, or subsequently fabricated to
justify the ideas thus given of God, are not less
contrary to all notions of a Deity infinitely perfect. .
A system which in the outset is based upon false
principles can never become any thing else than a
mass of falsehoods. I am, &c.
c
76 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
LETTER IV.
Or THE FUNDAMENTAL DOGMAS OF THE CHRISTIAN
RELIGION.
You are aware, Madam, that our theological
doctors pretend these revealed books, which I sum-
marily examined in my preceding letter, do not
include a single word that was not inspired by the
Spirit of God. What I have already said to you
is sufficient to show that in setting out with this
supposition, the Divinity has formed a work the
most shapeless, imperfect, contradictory, and unin-
telligible which ever existed; a work, in a word,
of which any man of sense would blush with
shame to be the author. If any prophecy hath
verified itself for the Christians, it is that of Isaiah,
which, saith, " Hearing ye shall hear, but shall not
understand." But in this case we reply that it was
sufficiently useless to speak not to be compre-
hended ; to reveal that which cannot be compre-
hended is to reveal nothing.
We need not, then, be surprised if the Christians,
notwithstanding the revelation of which they assure
us they have been the favorites, have no precise ideas
either of the Divinity, or of his will, or the way in
which his oracles are to be interpreted. The book
from which they should be able to do so serves
only to confound the simplest notions, to throw
them into the greatest incertitude, and create eter-
nal disputations. If it was the project of the
LETTER IV. 77
Divinity, it would, without doubt, be attended with \
perfect success. The teachers of Christianity never
agree on the manner in which they are to under-
stand the truths that God has given himself the
trouble to reveal ; all the efforts which they have
employed to this time have not yet been capable
cf making any thing clear, and the dogmas which
they have successively invented have been insuffi-
cient to justify to the understanding of one man
of good sense the conduct of an infinitely perfect /
Being.
Hence, many among them, perceiving the incon-
veniences which would result from the reading of
the holy books, have carefully kept them out of the
hands of the vulgar and illiterate ; for they plainly
foresaw that if they were read by such they would
necessarily bring on themselves reproach, since it
would never fail that every honest man of good
sense would discover in those books only a crowd
of absurdities. Thus the oracles of God are riot
even made for those for whom they are addressed ;
it is requisite to be initiated in the mysteries of a
priesthood, to have the privilege of discerning in
the holy writings the light which the Divinity des-
tined to all his dear children. But are the theolo-
gians themselves able to make plain the difficulties
which the sacred books present in every page ? By
meditating on the mysteries which they contain,
have they given us ideas more plain of the inten-
tions of the Divinity? No; without doubt they
explain one mystery by citing another ; they scatter
78 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
new obscurities on previous obscurities ; rarely do
they agree among themselves ; and when by chance
their opinions coincide, we are not more enlight-
ened, nor is our judgment more convinced ; on the
other hand, our reason is the more confounded.
If they do agree on some point, it is only to tell
us that human reason, of which God is the author,
is depraved; but what is the purport of this coinci-
dence in their opinions, if it be not to tax the Deity
with imbecility, injustice, and malignity? For
why should God, in creating a reasonable being,
not have given him an understanding which noth-
ing could corrupt? They reply to us by saying
" that the reason of man is necessarily limited ;
that perfection could not be the portion of a crea-
ture ; that the designs of God are not like those of
man." But, in this case, why should the Divinity
be offended by the necessary imperfections which
he discovers in his creatures? How can a just
God require that our mind must admit what it
was not made to comprehend? Can he who is
above our reason be understood by us, whose rea-
son is so limited ? If God be infinite, how can a
finite creature reason respecting him ? If the mys-
teries and hidden designs of the Divinity are of
such a nature as not to be comprehended by man,
what good can we derive from their investigation ?
Had God designed that we should occupy our
thoughts with his purposes, would he not have
given us an understanding proportionate to the
things he wished us to penetrate ?
LETTER IV. 79
You see, then, Madam, that in depressing our
reason, in supposing it corrupted, our priests, at
the same time, annihilate even the necessity of
relioion, which cannot be either useful or important V
to us, if above our comprehension. They do more
in supposing human reason depraved ; they accuse
God of injustice, in requiring that our reason should
conceive what cannot be conceived. They accuse
him of imbecility in not rendering this reason more
perfect. In a word, in degrading man they degrade
God, and rob him of those attributes which com-
pose his essence. Would you call him a just and
good parent, who, wishing that his children should
walk by an obscure route, filled with difficulties,
would only give them for their conduct a light too
weak to find their way, and to avoid the continual
dangers by which they are surrounded ? Should
you consider that the father had adequately pro-
vided for their security by giving them in writing *\
unintelligible instructions, which they could not
decipher by the weak light he had given them ?
Our spiritual directors will not fail to tell us that
the corruption of reason and the weakness of the
human understanding are the consequences of sin.
But why has man become sinful ? How has the
good God permitted his dear children, for whom he
created the universe, and of whom he exacts obe-
dience, to offend him, and thereby extinguish, or,
at least, weaken the light he had given them ? On
the other hand, the reason of Adam ought to be,
without doubt, completely perfect before his fall.
SO LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
In this case, why did it not prevent that fall and
its consequences ? Was the reason of Adam cor-
rupted even beforehand by incurring the wrath of
his God? Was it depraved before he had done
any thing to deprave it ?
To justify this strange conduct of Providence,
to clear him from passing as the author of sin, to
save him the ridicule of being the cause or the
accomplice of offences which he did against him-
self, the theologians have imagined a being subor-
dinate to the divine power. It is the secondary
being they make the author of all the evil which
is committed in the universe. In the impossibility
of reconciling the continual disorders of which the
world is the theatre with the purposes of a Deity
replete with goodness, the Creator and Preserver of
the universe, who delights in order, and who seeks
only the happiness of his creatures, they have
trumped up a destructive genius, imbued with
wickedness, who conspires to render men misera-
ble, and to overthrow the beneficent views of the
Eternal. This bad and perverse being they call
Satan, the Devil, the Evil One ; and w T e see him
play a great game in all the religions of the w^orld,
the founders of which have found in the impo-
tence of Deity the sources of both good and evil.
By the aid of this imaginary being they have been
enabled to resolve all their difficulties ; yet they
could not foresee that this invention, which went
to annihilate or abridge the power of Deity, was a
system filled with palpable contradictions, and that
LETTER IV. 81
if the Devil were really the author of sin,- it would
be he, in all justice, who ought to undergo all its J
punishment.
If God is the author of all, it is he who created
the Devil ; if the Devil is wicked, if he strives to \ /
counteract the projects of the Divinity, it is the
Divinity who has allowed the overthrow of his
projects, or who has not had sufficient authority to
prevent the Devil from exercising his power. If
God had wished that the Devil should not have ex-
isted, the Devil would not have existed. God could
annihilate him at one word, or, at least, God could
change his disposition if injurious to us, and con-
trary to the projects of a beneficent Providence.
Since, then, the Devil does exist, and does such
marvellous things as are attributed to him, we are
compelled to conclude that the Divinity has found
it good that he should exist and agitate, as he does,
all his works by a perpetual interruption and per-
version of his designs.
Thus, Madam, the invention of the Devil does
not remedy the evil ; on the contrary, it but entan-
gles the priests more and more. By placing to
Satan's account all the evil which he commits in
the world, they exculpate the Deity of nothing;
all the power with which they have supposed the
Devil invested is taken from that assigned to the
Divinity ; and you know very well that according
to the notions of the Christian religion, the Devil
has 'more adherents than God himself; they are
always stirring their fellow-creatures up to revolt
82 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
against God; without ceasing, in despite of God,
Satan leads them into perdition, except one man
only, who refused to follow him, and who found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. You are not igno-
rant that the millions that follow the standard of
Beelzebub are to be plunged with him into eternal
misery.
But then has Satan himself incurred the dis-
grace of the All-powerful? By what forfeit has
he merited becoming the eternal object of the
anger of that God who created him ? The Chris-
tian religion will explain all. It informs us that
the Devil was in his origin an angel; that is to say,
a pure spirit, full of perfections, created by the
Divinity to occupy a distinguishing situation in
the celestial court, destined, like the other minis-
ters of the Eternal, to receive his orders, and to
enjoy perpetual blessedness. But he lost himself
through ambition ; his pride blinded him, and he
dared to revolt against his Creator; he engaged
other spirits, as pure as himself, in the same sense-
less enterprise ; in consequence of his rashness, he
was hurled headlong out of heaven, his miserable
adherents were involved in his fall, and, having
been hardened by the divine pleasure in their fool-
ish dispositions, they have no other occupation
assigned them in the universe than to tempt man-
kind, and endeavor to augment the number of the
enemies of God, and the victims of his wrath.
It is by the assistance of this fable that -the
Christian doctors perceive the fall of Adam, pre-
LETTER IV. 83
pared by the Almighty himself anterior to the
creation of the world. Was it necessary that
the Divinity should entertain a great desire that
man might sin, since he would thereby have
an opportunity of providing the means of making
him sinful? In effect, it was the Devil who, in
process of time, covered with the skin of a
serpent, solicited the mother of the human race to
disobey God, and involve her husband in her re-
bellion. But the difficulty is not removed by these
inventions. If Satan, in the time he was an angel,
lived in innocence, and merited the good will of his
Maker, how came God to suffer him to entertain
ideas of pride, ambition, and rebellion? How
came this angel of light so blind as not to see the
folly of such an enterprise ? Did he not know that
his Creator was all-powerful? Who was it that
tempted Satan ? What reason had the Divinity
for selecting him to be the object of his fury, the
destroyer of his projects, the enemy of his power?
If pride be a sin, if the idea itself of rebellion is
the greatest of crimes, sin was, then, anterior to sin,
and Lucifer offended God, even in his state of
purity ; for, in fine, a being pure, innocent, agreeable
to his God, who had all the perfections of which
a creature could be susceptible, ought to be ex-
empt from ambition, pride, and folly. We ought,
also, to say as much for our first parent, who, not-
withstanding his wisdom, his innocence, and the
knowledge infused into him by God himself, could
not prevent himself from falling into the tempta-
tion of a demon.
84 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
Hence, in every shift, the priests invariably make
God the author of sin. It was God who tempted
Lucifer before the creation of the world ; Lucifer,
in his turn, became the tempter of man and the
cause of all the evil our race suffers. It appears,
therefore, that God created both angels and men
to give them an opportunity of sinning.
It is easy to perceive the absurdity of this sys-
tem, to save which the theologians have invented
another still more absurd, that it might become^he
foundation of all. their religious revelations, and by
means of which they idly imagine they can fully
justify the divine providence. The system of truth
supposes the free will of man that he is his own
master, capable of doing good or ill, and of direct-
ing his own plans. At the words free will, I
already perceive, Madam, that you tremble, and
doubtless anticipate a metaphysical dissertation.
Rest assured of the contrary ; for I flatter myself
that the question will be simplified and rendered
clear, I shall not merely say for you, but for all
your sex who are not resolved to be wilfully blind.
To say that man is a free agent is to detract
from the power of the Supreme Being; it is. to
pretend that God is not the master of his own
will ; it is to advance that a weak creature can,
when it pleases him, revolt against his Creator,
derange his projects, disturb the order which he
loves, render his labors useless, afflict him with
chagrin, cause him sorrow, act with effect against
him, and arouse his anger and his passions. Thus,
LETTER IV. 85
at the first glance, you perceive that this principle
gives rise to a crowd of absurdities. If God is the
friend of order, every thing performed by his crea-
tures would necessarily conduce to the mainte-
nance of this order, because otherwise the divine will
would fail to have its effect. If God has plans,
they must of necessity be always executed ; if man
can afflict his God, man is the master of this God's
happiness, and the league he has formed with the
Devil is potent enough to thwart the plans of the
Divinity. In a word, if man is free to sin, God is
no longer Omnipotent.
In reply, we are told that God, without detri-
ment to his Omnipotence, might make man a free
agent, and that this liberty is a benefit by which
God places man in a situation where he may merit
the heavenly bounty ; but, on the other hand, this
liberty likewise exposes him to encounter God's
hatred, to offend him, and to be overwhelmed by
infinite sufferings. From this I conclude that this
liberty is not a benefit, and that it evidently is in-
consistent with divine goodness. This goodness
would be more real if men had always sufficient
resolution to do what is pleasing to God, conform-
ably to order, and conducive to the happiness of
their fellow-creatures. If men, in virtue of their
liberty, do things contrary to the will of God, God,
who is supposed to have the prescience of foresee-
ing all, ought to have taken measures to prevent
men from abusing their liberty ; if he foresaw they
would sin, he ought to have given them the means
86 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
of avoiding it ; if he could not prevent them
from doing ill, he has consented to the ill they have
done ; if he has consented, he should not be of-
fended ; if he is offended, or if he punish them for
the evil they have done with his permission, he is
unjust and cruel ; if he suffer them to rush on to
their destruction, he is bound afterwards to take
them to himself; and he cannot with reason find
fault with them for the abuse of their liberty, in
being deceived or seduced by the objects which he
himself had placed in their way to seduce them, to
tempt them, and to determine their wills to do
evil*
What would you say of a father who should
give to his children, in the infancy of age, and
when they were without experience, the liberty of
satisfying their disordered appetites, till they should
convince themselves of their evil tendency ? Would
not such a parent be in the right to feel uneasy at
the abuse which they should make of their liberty
which he had given them ? Would it not be ac-
counted malice in this parent, who should have
foreseen what was to happen, not to have furnished
his children with the capacity of directing their
own conduct so as to avoid the evils they might be
assailed with? Would it not show in him the
height of madness were he to punish them for the
evil which he had done, and the chagrin which
* See what Bayle says, Diet. Crit., art. Origene, Rem. E., art.
Pauliciens, Rem. E., F., M., and torn. iij. of the R?po)ises aux Ques-
tions d'lin Provincial.
LETTER IV. 87
they occasioned him ? Would it not- be to him-
self that we should ascribe the sottishness and
wickedness of his children ?
You see, then, the points of view under which
this system of men's free will shows us the Deity.
This free will becomes a present the most danger-
ous, since it puts man in the condition of doing
evil that is truly frightful. We may thence con-
clude that this system, far from justifying God,
makes him capable of malice, imprudence, and' in-
justice. But this is to overturn all our ideas of a
being perfectly, nay, infinitely wise and good, con-
senting to punish his creatures for sins which he
gave them the power of committing, or, which is
the same, suffering the Devil to inspire them with
evil. All the subtilties of theology have really
only a tendency to destroy the very notions itself
inculcates concerning the Divinity. This theology
is evidently the tub of the Danaides.
It is a fact, however, that our theologians have
imagined expedients to support their ruinous sup-
positions. You have often heard mention made
of predestination and grace terrible words, which
constantly excite disputes among us, for which
reason would be forced to blush if Christians did
not make it a duty to renounce reason, and which
contests are attended with consequences very dan-
gerous to society. But let not this surprise you ;
these false and obscure principles have even among
the theologians produced dissensions; and their
quarrels would be indifferent if they did not
88 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
attach more importance to them than they really
deserve.
But to proceed. The system of predestination
supposes that God, in his eternal secrets, has re-
solved that some men should be elected, and, being
thus his favorites, receive special grace. By this
grace they are supposed to be made agreeable to
God, and meet for eternal happiness. But then an
infinite number of others are destined to perdition,
and receive not the grace necessary to eternal sal-
vation. These contradictory and opposite propo-
sitions make it pretty evident that the system is
absurd. It makes God, a being infinitely perfect
and good, a partial tyrant, who has created a vast
number of human beings to be the sport of his
caprice and the victims of his vengeance. It sup-
poses that God will punish his creatures for not
having received that grace which he did not deign
to give them ; it presents this God to us under
traits- so revolting that the theologians are forced
to avow that the whole is a profound mystery, into
which the human mind cannot penetrate. But if
man is not made to lift his inquisitive eye on this
frightful mystery, that is to say, on this astonish-
ing absurdity, which our teachers have idly en-
deavored to square to their views of Deity, or to
reconcile the atrocious injustice of their God with
his infinite goodness, by what right do they wish
us to adore this mystery which they would compel
us to believe, and to subscribe to an opinion that
saps the divine goodness to its very foundation ?
LETTER IV. 89
How do they reason upon a dogma, and quarrel
with acrimony about a -system of which even them-
selves can comprehend nothing ?
The more you examine religion, the more occa-
sion you will have to be convinced that those
things which our divines call mysteries are nothing
else but the difficulties with which they are them-
selves embarrassed, when they are unable to avoid
the absurdities into which their own false principles
necessarily involve them. Nevertheless, this word
is not enough to impose upon us; the reverend
doctors do not themselves understand the things
about which they incessantly speak. They invent
words from an inability to explain things, and they *N
give the name of mysteries to what they compre-
hend no better than ourselves.
All the religions in the world are founded upon
predestination, and all the pretended revelations
among" men, as has been already pointed out to
you, inculcate this odious dogma, which makes
Providence an unjust mother-in-law, who shows a
blind preference for some of her children to the
prejudice of all the others. They make God a ty-
rant, who punishes the inevitable faults to which
he has impelled them, or into which he has allowed
them to be seduced. * This dogma, which served
as the foundation of Paganism, is now the grand
pivot of the Christian religion, whose God should
excite no less hatred than the most wicked divini-
ties of idolatrous people. With such notions, is it
not astonishing that this God should appear, to
8*
90 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
those who meditate on his attributes, an object
sufficiently terrible to agitate the imagination, and
to lead some to indulge in dangerous follies ?
The dogma of another life serves also to excul-
pate the Deity from these apparent injustices or
aberrations, with which he might naturally be ac-
cused. It is pretended that it has pleased him to
distinguish his friends on earth, seeing he has amply
provided for their future happiness in an abode
prepared for their souls. But, as I believe I have
already hinted, these proofs that God makes some
good, and leaves others wicked, either evince in-
justice on his part, at least temporary, or they
contradict his omnipotence. If God can do all
things, if he is privy to all the thoughts and actions
of men, what need has he of any proofs ? If he
has resolved to give them grace necessary to save
them, has he not assured them they will not perish ?
If he is unjust and cruel, this God is not immuta-
ble, and belies his character ; at least for a time he
derogates from the perfections which we should
expect to find in him. What would you think of
a king, who, during a particular time, would dis-
cover to his favorites traits the most frightful, in
order that 'they might incur his disgrace, and who
should afterwards insist on "their believing him a
very good and amiable man, to obtain his favor
again ? Would not such a prince be pronounced
wicked, fanciful, and tyrannical? Nevertheless,
this supposed prince might be. pardoned by some,
if for his own interest, and the better to assure
LETTER V. 91
himself of the attachment of his friends, he might
give them some smiles of his favor. It is not so
with God, who knows all, who can do all, who has
nothing to fear from the dispositions of his crea-
tures. From all these reasonings, we may see that
the Deity, whom the priests have conjured up,
plays a great game, very ridiculous, very unjust, on
the supposition that he tries his servants, and that
he allows them to suffer in this world, to prepare
them for another. The theologians have not failed
to discover motives in this conduct of God which
they can as readily justify ; but these pretended
motives are borrowed from the omnipotence of this
being, by his absolute power over his creatures, to
whom he is not obliged to render an account of his
actions ; but especially in this .theology, which pro-
fesses to justify God, do we not see it make him a
despot and tyrant more hateful than any of his
creatures ? J am, &c.
LETTER V.
OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, AND OF THE
DOGMA OF ANOTHER LIFE.
WE have now, Madam, come to the examination
of the dogma of a future life, in which it is sup-
posed that the Divinity, after causing men to pass
through the temptations, the trials, and the diffi-
9:2 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
culties of this life, for the purpose of satisfying
himself whether they are worthy of his love or his
hatred, will bestow the recompenses or inflict the
chastisements which they deserved. This dogma,
which is one of the capital points of the Christian
religion, is founded on a great many hypotheses or
suppositions, which we have already glanced at,
and which we have shown to be absurd and in-
compatible with the notions which the same religion
gives us of the Deity. In effect, it supposes us
capable of offending or pleasing the Author of
Nature, of influencing his humor, or exciting his pas-
sions; afflicting, tormenting, resisting, and thwart-
ing the plans of Deity. It supposes, moreover, the
free-will of man a system w T hich we have seen in-
compatible with the goodness, justice, and omnipo-
tence of the Deity. It supposes, further, that God
has occasion of proving his creatures, and making
them, if I may so speak, pass a novitiate to know
what they are worth when he shall square accounts
with them. It supposes in God, who has created
men for happiness only, the inability to put, by one
grand effort, all men in the road, whence they may
infallibly arrive at permanent felicity. It supposes
that man will survive himself, or that the same
being, after death, will continue to think, to feel,
and act as he did in this life. In a word, it sup-
poses the immortality of the soul an opinion un-
known to the Jewish lawgiver, who is totally silent
on this topic to the people to whom God had man-
ifested himself; an opinion which even in the time
LETTER V. 93
of Jesus Christ one sect at Jerusalem admitted,
while another sect rejected ; an opinion about which
the Messiah, who came to instruct them, deigned
to fix the ideas of those who might deceive them-
selves in this respect ; an opinion which appears
to have been engendered in Egypt, or in India, ante-
rior to the Jewish religion, but which was unknown
among the Hebrews till they took occasion to in-
struct themselves in the Pagan philosophy of the
Greeks, and doctrines of Prato.
Whatever might be the origin of this doctrine, it
was eagerly adopted by the Christians, who judged
it very convenient to their system of religion, all
the parts of which are founded on the marvellous,
and which made it a crime to admit any truths
agreeable to reason and common sense. Thus,
without going back to the inventors of this incon-
ceivable dogma, let us examine dispassionately
what this opinion really is ; let us endeavor to pen-
etrate to the principles on which it is supported ;
let us adopt it, if we shall find it an idea conforma-
ble to reason ; let us reject it, if it shall appear
destitute of proof, and at variance with common
sense, even though it had been received as an estab-
lished truth in all antiquity, though it may have
been adopted by many millions of mankind.
Those who maintain the opinion of the soul's im-
mortality, regard it that is, the soul as a being
distinct from the body, as a substance, or essence,
totally different from the corporeal frame, and they
designate it by the name of spirit. If we ask them
94 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
what a spirit is, they tell us it is not matter ; and
if we ask them what they understand by that which
is not matter, which is the only thing of which we
cannot form an idea, they tell us it is a spirit. In
general, it is easy to see that men the most savage,
as well as the most subtle thinkers, make use of the
word spirit to designate all the causes of which
they cannot ^forrn clear notions ; hence the word
spirit hath been used to designate a being of which
none can form any idea.
Notwithstanding, the divines pretend that this
unknown being, entirely different from the body,
of a substance which has nothing conformable with
itself, is, nevertheless, capable of setting the body
in motion ; arid this, doubtless, is a mystery very
inconceivable. We have noticed the alliance be-
tween this spiritual substance and the material
body, whose functions it regulates. As the divines
have supposed that matter could neither think, nor
will, nor perceive, they have believed that it might
conceive much better those operations attributed
to a being of which they had ideas less clear than
they can form of matter. In consequence, they
have imagined many gratuitous suppositions to
explain the union of the soul with the body. In
fine, in the impossibility of overcoming the insur-
mountable barriers which oppose them, the priests
have made man twofold, by supposing that he con-
tains something distinct from himself; they have
cut through all difficulties by saying that this union
is a great mystery, which man cannot understand-,
LETTER V. 95
and they have everlasting recourse to the omnipo-
tence of God, to his supreme will, to the miracles
which he has always wrought ; and those last are
never-failing, final resources, which the theologians
reserve for .every case wherein they can find no
other mode of escaping 'gracefully from the argu-
ment of their adversaries.
You see, then, to what we reduce all the jargon
of the metaphysicians, all the profound reveries
which for so many ages have been so industriously
hawked about in defence of the soul of man ; an
immaterial substance, of which no living being can
form an idea ; a spirit, that is to say, a being totally
different from any thing we know. All the theo-
logical verbiage ends here, by telling us, in a round
of pompous terms, fooleries that impose on -the
ignorant, that we do not know what essence the
soul is of; but we call it a spirit because of its
nature, and because we feel ourselves agitated by
some unknown agent ; we cannot comprehend the
mechanism of the soul ; yet can we feel ourselves
moved, as it were, by an effect of the power of
God, whose essence is far removed from ours, and
more concealed from us than the human soul itself.
By the aid of this language, from which you can-
not possibly learn any thing, you will be as wise,
Madam, as all the theologians in the world.
If you would desire to form ideas the most pre-
cise of yourself, banish from you the prejudices of
a vain theology, which only consists in repeating
words without attaching any new ideas to them,
96 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
and which are insufficient to distinguish the soul
from the body, which appear only capable of mul-
tiplying beings without reason, of rendering more
incomprehensible and more obscure, notions less
distinct than we already have of ourselyes. These
notions should be at least the most simple and the
most exact, if we consult our nature, experience,
and reason. They prove that man knows nothing
but by his material sensible organs, that he sees
only by his eyes, that he feels by his touch, that he
hears by his ears ; and that when either of these
organs is actually deranged, or has been previously
wanting, or imperfect, man can have none of the
ideas that organ is capable of furnishing him with,
neither thoughts, memory, reflection, judgment,
desire,, nor will. Experience shows us that corpo-
real and material beings are alone capable of being
moved and acted upon, and that without those
organs we have enumerated the soul thinks not,
feels not, wills not, nor is moved. Every thing
shows us that the soul undergoes always the same
vicissitudes as the body ; it grows to maturity,
gains strength, becomes weak, and puts on old age,
like the body ; in fine, every thing we can under-
stand of it goes to prove that it perishes with the
body. Jt is indeed folly to pretend that man will
feel when he has no organs appropriate for that
sentiment; that he will see and hear without eyes
or ears; that he will have ideas without having
senses to receive impressions from physical objects,
or to give rise to perceptions in his understanding ;
LETTER V. 97
in fine, that he will enjoy or suffer when he has no
longer either nerves or sensibility.
Thus every thing conspires to prove that the soul
is the same thing as the' body, viewed relatively to
some of its functions, which are more obscure than
others. Every thing serves to convince us that
without the body the soul is nothing, and that all
the operations which are attributed to the soul
cannot be exercised any longer when the body is
destroyed. Our body is a machine, which, so long
as we live, is susceptible of producing the effects
which have been designated under different names,
one from another ; sentiment is one of these effects,
thought is another, reflection a third. This last
passes sometimes by other names, and our brain
appears to be the seat of all our organs ; it is that
which is the most susceptible. This organic ma-
chine, once destroyed or deranged, is no longer
capable of producing the same effects, or of exer-
cising the same functions. It is with our body as
it is with a watch which indicates the hours, and
which goes not if the spring or a pinion be broken.
Cease, Eugenia, cease to torment yourself about
the fate which shall attend you when death will
have separated you from all that is dear on earth.
After the dissolution of this life, the soul shall
cease to exist; those devouring flames with which
you have been threatened by the priests will have
no effect upon the soul, which can neither be sus-
ceptible then of pleasures nor pains, of agreeable or
sorrowful ideas, of lively or doleful reflections.
9
98 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
It is only by means of the bodily organs that
we feel, think, and are merry or sad, happy or mis-
erable; this body once reduced to dust, we will
have neither perceptions nor sensations, and, by
consequence, neither memory nor ideas ; the dis-
persed particles will no longer have the same quali-
ties they possessed when united ; nor will they any
longer conspire to produce the same effects. In a
word, the body being destroyed, the soul, which is
merely a result of all the parts of the body in
action, will cease to be what it is ; it will be reduced
to nothing with the life's breath.
Our teachers pretend to understand the soul
well ; they profess to be able to distinguish it from
the body ; in short, they can do nothing without
it ; and therefore, to keep up the farce, they have
been compelled to admit the ridiculous dogma of
the Persians, known by the name of the resurrec-
tion. This system supposes that the particles of
the body which have been scattered at death will
be collected at the last day, to be replaced in their
primitive condition. But that this strange phe-
nomenon may take place, it is necessary that the
particles of our destroyed bodies, of which some
have been converted into earth, others have passed
into plants, others into animals, some of one spe-
cies, others of another, even of our own ; it is
requisite, I say, that these particles, of which some
have been mixed with the waters of the deep,
others have been carried on the wings of the wind,
and which have successively belonged to many
LETTER V. 99
different men, should be reunited to reproduce the
individual to whom they formerly belonged. If
you cannot get over this impossibility, the theolo-
gians will explain it to you by saying, very briefly,
" Ah ! it is a profound mystery, which we cannot
comprehend." They will inform you that the resur-
rection is a miracle, a supernatural effect, which is
to result from the divine power. It is thus they
overcome all the difficulties which the good sense
of a few opposes to their rhapsodies.
If, perchance, Madam, you do not wish to remain
content with these sublime reasons, against which
your good sense will naturally revolt, the clergy
will endeavor to seduce your imagination by vague
pictures of the ineffable delights which will be en-
joyed in Paradise by the souls and bodies of those
who have adopted their reveries ; they will aver
that you cannot refuse to believe them upon their
mere word without encountering the eternal indig-
nation of a God of pity ; and they will attempt to
alarm your fancy by frightful delineations of the
cruel torments which a God of goodness has pre-
pared for the greater number of his creatures.
But if you consider the thing coolly, you will
perceive the futility of their flattering promises and
of their puny threatenings, which are uttered merely
to catch the unwary. You may easily discover
that if it could be true that man shall survive him-
self, God, in recompensing him, would only recom-
pense himself for the grace which he had granted ;
and when he punished him, he punished him for
100 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
not receiving the grace which he had hardened him
against receiving. This line of conduct, so cruel
and barbarous, appears equally unworthy of a wise
God as it is of a being perfectly good.
If your mind, proof against the terrors with
which the Christian religion penetrates its secta-
ries, is capable of contemplating these frightful
circumstances, which it is imagined will accom-
pany the carefully-invented punishments which
God has destined for the victims of his vengeance,
you will find that they are impossible, and totally
incompatible with the ideas which they themselves
have put forth of the Divinity. In a word, you
will perceive that the chastisements of another life
are but a crowd of chimeras, invented to disturb
human reason, to subjugate it beneath the feet of
imposture, to annihilate forever the repose of slaves
whom the priesthood would inthrall and retain
under its yoke.
In short, Eugenia, the priests would make you
believe that these torments will be horrible, a
thing which accords not with our ideas of God's
goodness ; they tell you they will be eternal, a
thing which accords not with our ideas of the jus-
tice of God, who, one would very naturally sup-
pose, will proportion chastisements to faults, and
who, by consequence, will not punish without end
the beings whose actions are bounded by time.
They tell us that the offences against God "are in-
finite, and, by consequence, that the Divinity,
without doing violence to his justice, may avenge
LETTER V. 101
himself as God, that is to say, avenge himself to
infinity. In this case I shall say that this God is
not good ; that he is vindictive, a character which
always announces fear and weakness. In fine, I
shall say that among the imperfect beings who
compose the human species, there is not, perhaps,
a single one who, without some advantage to him-
self, without personal fear, in a word, without folly,
would consent to punish everlastingly the wretch
who might have the misfortune to offend him, but
who no longer had either the ability or the inclina-
tion to commit another offence. Caligula found,
at least, some little amusement to forsake for a
time the cares of government, and enjoy the spec-
tacle of punishment which he inflicted on those
unfortunate men whom he had an interest in de-
stroying. But what advantage can it be to God
to heap on the damned everlasting torments ? Will
this amuse him ? Will their frightful punishments
correct their faults ? Can these examples of the
divine severity be of any service to those on earth,
who witness not their friends in hell ? Will it not
be the most astonishing of all the miracles of
Deity to make the bodies of the damned invulnej-
able, to resist, through the ceaseless ages of eter-
nity, the frightful torments destined for them ?
You see, then, Madam, that the ideas which the
priests give us of hell make of God a being in-
finitely more insensible, more wicked and cruel
than the most barbarous of men. They add to all
this that it will be the Devil and the apostate angels,
9*
102 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
that is to say, the enemies of God, whom he will
employ as the ministers of his implacable ven-
geance. These wicked spirits, then, will execute
the commands which this severe judge will pro-
nounce against men at the last judgment. For
you must know, Madam, that a God who knows
all will at some future time take an account of
what he already knows. So, then, not content
with judging men at death, he will assemble the
whole human race with great pomp at the last or
general judgment, in which he will confirm his
sentence in the view of the whole human race,
assembled to receive their doom. Thus on the
wreck of the world will he pronounce a definitive
judgment, from which there will be no appeal.
But, in attending this memorable judgment,
what will become of the souls of men, separated
from their bodies, which have not yet been resusci-
tated? The souls of the just will go directly to
enjoy the blessings of Paradise ; but what is to
become of the immense crowd of souls imbued
with faults or crimes, and on whom the infallible
parsons, who are so well instructed in what is pass-
ing in another world, cannot speak with certainty
as to their fate ? According to some of these wise-
acres, God will place the souls of such as are not
wholly displeasing to him in a place of punish-
ment, where, by rigorous torments, they shall have
the merit of expiating the faults w r ith which they
may stand chargeable at death. According to this
fine system, so profitable to our spiritual guides,
LETTER V. 103
God has found it the most simple method to build \
a fiery furnace for the special purpose of tormenting
a certain proportion of souls who have not been
sufficiently purified at death to enter Paradise, but
who, after leaving them some years united with
the body, and giving them time necessary to
arrive at that amendment of life by which they
may become partakers of the supreme felicity of
heaven, ordains that they shall expiate their of-
fences in torment. It is on this ridiculous notion
that our priests have bottomed the doctrine of pur-
gatory, which every good Catholic is obliged to
believe for the benefit of the priests, who reserve to
themselves, as is very reasonable, the power of /
compelling by their prayers a just and immutable '
God to relax in his sternness, and liberate the cap-
tive souls, which he had only condemned to under-
go this purgation in order that they might be made
meet for the joys of Paradise.
With respect to the Protestants, who are, as
every one knows, heretics and impious, you will
observe that they pretend not to those lucrative
views of the Roman doctors. On the contrary,
they think that, at the instant of death, every man
is irrevocably judged ; that he goes directly to
glory or into a place of punishment, to suffer the
award of evil by the enduring of punishments for
which God had eternally prepared both the sufferer
and his torments ! Even before the reunion of
soul and body at the final judgment, they fancy
that the soul of the wicked (which, on the principle
104 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
of all souls being spirits^ must be the same in
essence as the soul of the elect,) will, though de-
prived of those organs by which it felt, and thought,
and acted, be capable of undergoing the agency or
action of a fire ! It is true that some Protestant
theologians tell us that the fire of hell is a spiritual
fire, and, by consequence, very different from the
material fire vomited out of Vesuvius, and ^Etna,
and Hecla. Nor ought we to doubt that these
informed doctors of the Protestant faith know very
well what they say, and that they have as precise
and clear ideas of a spiritual fire as they have of
the ineffable joys of Paradise, which may be as
spiritual as the punishment of the damned in hell.
Such are, Madam, in a few words, the absurdi-
ties, not less revolting than ridiculous, which the
dogmas of a future life and of the immortality of
the soul have engendered in the minds of men.
Such are the phantoms which have been invented
and propagated, to seduce and alarm mortals, to
excite their hopes and their fears ; such the illu-
sions that so powerfully operate on weak and feel-
ing beings. But as melancholy ideas have more
effect upon the imagination than those which are
agreeable, the priests have always insisted more
forcibly on what men have to fear on the part of a
terrible God than on what they have to hope from
the mercy of a forgiving Deity, full 'of goodness.
Princes the most wicked are infinitely more re-
spected than those who are famed for indulgence
and humanity. The priests have had the art to
LETTER V. 105
throw us into uncertainty and mistrust by the two-
fold character which they have given the Divinity.
If they promise us salvation, they tell us that we
must work it out for ourselves, "with fear and
trembling." It is thus that they have contrived to
inspire the minds of the most honest men with dis-
may and doubt, repeating without ceasing that
time only must disclose who are worthy of the
divine love, or who are to be the objects of the
divine wrath. Terror has been and always will be
the most certain means of corrupting and enslaving
the mind of man.
They will tell us, doubtless, that the terrors
which religion inspires are salutary terrors ; that
the dogma of another life is a bridle sufficiently
powerful to prevent the commission of crimes and
restrain men within the path of duty. To unde-
ceive one's self of this maxim, so often thundered
in our ears, and so generally adopted on the au-
thority of the priests, we have only to open our
eyes. Nevertheless, we see some Christians thor-
oughly persuaded of another life, who, notwith-
standing, conduct themselves as if they had nothing
to fear on the part of a God of vengeance, nor any
thing to hope from a God of mercy. When any
of these are engaged in some great project, at all
times they are tempted by some strong passion or
by some bad habit, they shut their eyes on another
life, they see not the enraged judge, they suffer
themselves to sin, and when it is committed, they
comfort themselves by saying, that God is good.
106 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
Besides, they console themselves by the same contra-
dictory religion which shows them also this same
God, whom it represents so susceptible of wrath,
as full of mercy, bestowing his grace on all those
who are sensible of their evils and repent. In a
word, I see none whom the fears of hell will restrain
when passion or interest solicit obedience. The
very priests who make so many efforts to convince
us of their dogmas too often evince more wicked-
ness of conduct than we find in those who have
never heard one word about another life. Those
who from infancy have been taught these terrifying
lessons are neither less debauched, nor less proud,
nor less passionate, nor less unjust, nor less avari-
cious than others who have lived and died ignorant
of Christian purgatory and Paradise. In fine, the
dogma of another life has little or no influence on
them ; it annihilates none of their passions ; it is a
bridle merely with some few timid souls, who,
without its knowledge, would never have the hardi-
hood to be guilty of any great excesses. This
dogma is very fit to disturb the quiet of some
honest, timorous persons, and the credulous, whose
imagination it inflames, without ever staying the
hand of great rogues, without imposing on them
more than the decency of civilization and a spe-
cious morality of life, restrained chiefly by the
coercion of public laws.
In short, to sum all up in one thought, I behold
a religion gloomy and formidable to make impres-
sions very lively, very deep, and very dangerous on
LETTER V. 107
a mind such as yours, although it makes but very
momentary impressions on the minds of such as
are hardened in crime, or whose dissipation destroys
constantly the effects of its threats. More lively
affected than others by your principles, you have
been but too often and too seriously occupied for
your happiness by gloomy and harassing objects,
which have powerfully affected your sensible im-
agination, though the same phantoms that have
pursued you have been altogether banished from
the mind of those who have had neither your vir-
tues, your understanding, nor your sensibility.
According to his principles, a Christian must
always live in fear ; he can never know with cer-
tainty whether he pleases or displeases God ; the
least movement of pride or of covetousness, the
least desire, will suffice to merit the divine anger,
and lose in one moment the fruits of years of de-
votion. It is not surprising that, with these fright-
ful principles before them, many Christians should
endeavor to find in solitude employment for their
lugubrious reflections, where they may avoid the
occasions that solicit them to do wrong, and em-
brace such means as are most likely, according to
their notions of the likelihood of the thing, to
expiate the faults which they fancy might incur
the eternal vengeance of God.
Thus the dark notions of a future life leave those
only in peace who think slightly upon it ; and they
are very disconsolate to all those whose tempera-
ment determines them to contemplate it. They
108 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
are but the atrocious ideas, however, which the
priests study to give us of the Deity, and by which
they have compelled so many worthy people to
throw themselves into the arms of incredulity. If
some libertines, incapable of reasoning, abjure
a religion troublesome to their passions, or which
abridges their pleasures, there are very many who
have maturely examined it, that have been dis-
gusted with it, because they could not consent to
live in the fears it engendered, nor to nourish the
despair it created. They have then abjured this
religion, fit only to fill the soul with inquietudes,
that they might find in the bosom of reason the
repose which it insures to good sense.
Times of the greatest crimes are always times
of the greatest ignorance. It is in these times, or
usually so, that the greatest noise is made about
religion. Men then follow mechanically, and
without examination, the tenets which their priests
impose on them, without ever diving to the bottom
of their doctrines. In proportion as mankind be-
come enlightened, great crimes become more rare,
the manners of men are more polished, the sciences
are cultivated, and the religion which they have
coolly and carefully examined loses sensibly its
credit. It is thus that we see so many incred-
ulous people in the bosom of society become more
agreeable and complacent now than formerly, when
it depended on the caprice of a priest to involve
them in troubles, and to invite the people to crimes
in the hope of thereby meriting heaven.
LETTER V. 109
Religion is consoling only to those who have no
embarrassment about it ; the indefinite and vague
recompense which it promises, without giving ideas
of it, is made to deceive those who make no reflec-
tions on the impatient, variable, false, and cruel
character which this religion gives of its God. But
how can it make any promises on the part of a
God whom it represents as a tempter, a seducer
who appears, moreover, to take pleasure in laying
the most dangerous snares for his weak creatures ?
How can it reckon on .the favors of a God full of
caprice, who it alternately informs us is replete
with tenderness or with hatred? By what right
does it hold out to us the rewards of a despotic and
tyrannical God, who does or does not choose men
for happiness, and w r ho consults only his own fan-
tasy to destine some of his creatures to bliss and
others to perdition ? Nothing, doubtless, but the
blindest enthusiasm could induce mortals to place
confidence in such a God as the priests have
feigned ; it is to folly alone we must attribute the
love some well-meaning people profess to the God
of the parsons ; it is matchless extravagance alone
that could prevail on men to reckon on the
unknown rewards which are promised them by
this religion, at the same time that it assures us
that God is the author of grace, but that we have
no right to expect any thing from him.
In a word, Madam, the notions of another life,
far from consoling, are fit only to imbitter all the
sweets of the present life. After the sad and
10
110 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
gloomy ideas which Christianity, always at variance
With itself, presents us with of its God, it then
affirms, that we are much more likely to incur his
terrible chastisements, than possessed of power by
which we may merit ineffable rewards ; and it pro-
ceeds to inform us, that God will give grace to
whomsoever he pleases, yet it remains with them-
selves whether they escape damnation ; and a life
the most spotless cannot warrant them to presume
that they are worthy of his favor. In good truth,
would not total annihilation be preferable to such
beings, rather than falling into the hands of a Deity
so hard-hearted ? Would not every man of sense
prefer the idea of complete annihilation to that of
a future existence, in order to be the sport of the
eternal caprice of a Deity, so cruel as to damn and
torment, without end, the unfortunate beings whom
he created so weak, that he might punish them
for faults inseparable from their nature ? If God
is good, as we are assured, notwithstanding the
cruelties of which the priests suppose him capable,
is it not more consonant to all our ideas of a being
perfectly good, to believe that he did not create
them to sport with them in a state of eternal dam-
nation, which they had not the power of choosing,
or of rejecting and shunning ? Has not God treated
the beasts of the field more favorably than he has
treated man, since he has exempted them from sin,
and by consequence has not exposed them to suffer
an eternal unhappiness ?
The dogma of the immortality of the soul, or of
LETTER V. Ill
a future life, presents nothing consoling in the
Christian religion. On the contrary, it is calcu-
lated expressly to fill the heart of the Christian,
following out his principles, with bitterness and
continual alarm. I appeal to yourself, Madam,
whether these sublime notions have any thing con-,
soling in them? Whenever this uncertain idea
has presented itself to your mind, has it not filled
you with a cold and secret horror ? Has the con-
sciousness of a life so virtuous and so spotless as
yours, secured you against those fears which are
inspired by the idea of a being jealous, severe,
capricious, w T hose eternal disgrace the least fault is
sure of incurring, and in whose eyes the smallest
weakness, or freedom the most involuntary, is
sufficient to cancel years of strict observance of all
the rules of religion ?
I know very well what you will advance to sup-
port yourself in your prejudices. The ministers of
religion possess the secret of tempering the alarms
which they have the art to excite. They strive to
inspire confidence in those minds which they dis-
cover accessible to fear. They balance, thus, one
passion against another. They hold in suspense
the minds of their slaves, in the apprehension that
too much confidence would only render them less
pliable, or that despair would force them to throw
off the yoke. To persons terribly frightened about
their state after death, they speak only of the hopes
which we may entertain of the goodness of God.
To those who have too much confidence, they
112 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
preach up the terrors of the Lord, and the judg-
ments of a severe God. By this chicanery they
contrive to subject or retain under their yoke all
those who are weak enough to be led by the con-
tradictory doctrines of these blind guides.
They tell you, besides, that the sentiment of the
immortality o the soul is inherent in man ; that
the soul is consumed by boundless desires, and that
since there is nothing on this earth capable of satis-
fying it, these are indubitable proofs that it is
destined to subsist eternally. In a w r ord, that as
we naturally desire to exist always, we may natu-
rally conclude that we shall always exist. But
what think you, Madam, of such reasonings ? To
what do they lead ? Do we desire the continuation
of this existence, because it may be blessed and
happy, or because we know not what may become
of us ? But we cannot desire a miserable existence,
or, at least, one in which it is more than probable
we may be miserable rather than happy. If, as
the Christian religion so often repeats, the number
of the elect is very small, and salvation very diffi-
cult, the number of the reprobate very great, and
damnation very easily obtained, who is he who
would desire to exist always with so evident a risk
of being eternally damned ? Would it not have
been better for us not to have been born, than to
have been compelled against our nature to play a
game so fraught with peril ? Does not annihila-
tion itself present to us an idea preferable to that
of an existence which may very easily lead us to
LETTER V. 113
eternal tortures ? Suffer me, Madam, to appeal to
yourself. If, before you had come into this world,
you had had your choice of being born, or of riot
seeing the light of this fair sun, and you could have
been made to comprehend, but for one moment,
the hundred thousandth part of the risks you run
to be eternally unhappy, would you not have
determined never to enjoy life ?
It is an easy matter, then, to perceive the proofs
on which the priests pretend to found this dogma
of the immortality of the soul and a' future life.
The desire which we might have of it could only
be founded on the hope of enjoying eternal happi-
ness. But does religion give us this assurance ?
Yes, say the clergy, if you submit faithfully to the
rules it prescribes. But to conform one's self to
these rules, is it not necessary to have grace from
Heaven ? And, are we then sure we shall obtain
that grace, or if we do, merit Heaven ? Do the
priests not repeat to us, without ceasing, that God
is the author of grace, and that he only gives it to a
small number of the elect ? Do they not daily tell
us that, except one man, who rendered himself
worthy of this eternal happiness, there are millions
going the high road to damnation? This being
admitted, every Christian, who reasons, would be a
fool to desire a future existence which he has so
many motives to fear, or to reckon on a happiness
which every thing conspires to show him is as un-
certain, as difficult to be obtained, as it is unequiv-
ocally dependent on the fantasies of a capricious
10*
114 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
Deity, who sports with the misfortunes of his crea-
tures.
Under every point of view in which we regard
the dogma of the soul's immortality, we are com-
pelled to consider it as a chimera invented by men
who have realized their wishes, or who have not
been able to justify Providence from the transitory
injustices of this world. This dogma was received
with avidity, because it flattered the desires, and
especially the vanity of man, who arrogated to
himself a Superiority above all the beings that
enjoy existence, and which he would pass by and
reduce to mere clay ; who believed himself the
favorite of God, without ever taxing his attention
with this other fact that God makes him every
instant experience vicissitudes, calamities, and
trials, as all sentient natures experience ; that
God made him, in fine, to undergo death, or disso-
lution, which is an invariable law that all that
exists must find verified. This haughty creature,
who fancies himself a privileged being, alone agree-
able to his Maker, does not perceive that there
are stages in his life when his existence is more
uncertain and much more weak than that of the
other animals, or even of some inanimate things.
Man is unwilling to admit that he possesses not
the strength of the lion, nor the swiftness of the
stag, nor the durability of an oak, nor the solidity
of marble or metal. He believes himself the great-
est favorite, the most sublime, the most noble ; he
believes himself superior to all other animals
LETTER V. 115
because he possesses the faculties of thinking, judg-
ing, and reasoning. But his thoughts only render
him more wretched than all the animals whom he
supposes deprived of this faculty, or who, at least,
he believes, do not enjoy it in the same degree with
himself. Do not the faculties of thinking, of re-
membering, of foresight, too often render him un-
happy by the very idea of the past, the present, and
the future ? Do not his passions drive him to ex-
cesses unknown to the other animals ? Are his judg-
ments always reasonable and wise ? Is reason so
largely developed in the great mass of men that the
priests should interdict its use as dangerous ? Are
mankind sufficiently advanced in knowledge to be
able to overcome the prejudices and chimeras
which render them unhappy during the greatest
part of their lives ? In fine, have the beasts some
species of religious impressions, which inspire con-
tinual terrors in their breast, making them look upon
some awful event, which imbitters their softest
pleasures, which enjoins them to torment them-
selves, and which threatens them with eternal dam-
nation ? No !
In truth, Madam, if you weigh in an equitable
balance the pretended advantages of man above
the other animals, you will soon see how evanes-
cent is this fictitious superiority which he has arro-
gated to himself. We find that all the produc-
tions of nature are submitted to the same laws ;
that all beings are only born to die ; they produce
their like to destroy themselves ; that all sentient
110 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
beings are compelled to undergo pleasures and
pains; they appear and they disappear; they are
and they cease to be ; they evince under one form
that they will quit it to produce another. Such are
the continual vicissitudes to which every thing that
exists is evidently subjected, and from which man
is not exempt, any more than the other beings and
productions that he appropriates to his use as lord
of the creation. Even our globe itself undergoes
change ; the seas change their place ; the moun-
tains are gathered in heaps or levelled into plains ;
every thing that breathes is destroyed at last, and
man alone pretends to an eternal duration.
It is unnecessary to tell me that we degrade man
when we compare him with the beasts, deprived of
souls and intelligence ; this is no levelling doc-
trine, but one which places him exactly where
nature places him, but from which his puerile van-
ity has unfortunately driven him. All beings are
equals ; under various and different forms they act
differently ; they are governed in their appetites
and passions by laws which are invariably the
same for all of the same species ; every thing
which is composed of parts will be dissolved ;
every thing which has life must part with it at
death ; all men are equally compelled to submit to
this fate ; they are equal at death, although during
life their power, their talents, and especially their
virtues, establish a marked difference, which, though
real, is only momentary. What will they be after
death ? They will be exactly what they were ten
years before they were born.
LETTER V. 117
Banish, then, Eugenia, from your mind forever
the terrors which death has hitherto filled you with.
It is for the wretched a safe haven against the
misfortunes of this life. If it appears a cruel alter-
native to those who enjoy the good things of this
world, why do they not console themselves with
the idea of what they do actually enjoy? Let
them call reason to their aid ; it will calm the in-
quietudes of their imagination, but too greatly
alarmed ; it will disperse the clouds which religion
spreads over their minds ; it will teach them that
this death, so terrible in apprehension, is really
nothing, and that it will neither be accompanied
with remembrance of past pleasures nor of sorrow
now no more.
Live, then, happy and tranquil, amiable Euge-
nia ! Preserve carefully an existence so interesting
and so necessary to all those with whom you live.
Allow not your health to be injured, nor trouble
your quiet with melancholy ideas. Without being
teased by the prospect of an event which has no
right to disturb your repose, cultivate virtue, which
has always been your favorite, so necessary to your
internal peace, and which has rendered you so dear
to all those who have the happiness of being your
friends. Let your rank, your credit, your riches,
your talents be employed to make others happy, to
support the oppressed, to succor the unfortunate,
to dry up the tears of those whom you may have
an opportunity of comforting ! Let your mind be
occupied about such agreeable and profitable em-
118 . LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
ployments as are likely to please you ! Call in the
aid of your reason to dissipate the phantoms which
alarm you, to efface the prejudices which you have
imbibed in early life ! In a word, comfort your-
self, and remember that in practising virtue, as you
do, you cannot become an object of hatred to God,
who, if he has reserved in eternity rigorous punish-
ments for the social virtues, will be the strangest,
the most cruel, and the most insensible of beings !
You demand of me, perhaps, " In destroying the
idea of another world, what is to become of the
remorse, those chastisements so useful to mankind,
and so well calculated to restrain them within the
bounds of propriety ?" I reply, that remorse will
always subsist as long as we shall be capable of
feeling its pangs, even when we cease to fear the
distant and uncertain vengeance of the Divinity.
In the commission of crimes, in allowing one's self
to be the sport of passion, in injuring our species,
in refusing to do them good, in stifling pity, every
man -whose reason is not totally deranged perceives
clearly that he will render himself odious to others,
that he ought to fear their enmity. He will blush,
then, if he thinks he has rendered himself hateful
and detestable in their eyes. He knows the con-
tinual need he has of their esteem and assistance.
Experience proves to him that vices the most con-
cealed are injurious to himself. He lives in per-
petual fear lest some mishap should unfold his
weaknesses and secret faults. It is from all these
ideas that we are to look for regret and remorse,
LETTER V. 119
even in those who do not believe in the chimeras
of another world. With regard to those whose
reason is deranged, those who are enervated by
their passions, or perhaps linked to vice by the
chains of habit, even with the prospect of hell open
before them, they will neither live less vicious nor less
wicked. An avenging God will never inflict on any
man such a total want of reason as may make him
regardless of public opinion, trample decency under
foot, brave the laws, and expose himself to derision
and human chastisements. Every man of sense
easily understands that in this world the esteem
and affection of others are ^necessary for his happi-
ness, and that life is but a burden to those who by
their vices injure themselves, and render themselves
reprehensible in the eyes of society.
The true means, Madam, of living happy in this
world is to do good to .your fellow-creatures ; to
kibor for the happiness of your species is to have
virtue, and with virtue we can peaceably and
without remorse approach the term which nature
has fixed equally for all beings a term that your
youth causes you now to see only at a distance
a term that you ought not to accelerate by your
fears a term, in fine, that the cares and desires
of all those who know you will seek to put off till,
full of days and contented with the part you have
played in the scene of the world, you shall yourself
desire to gently reenter the bosom of nature.
I am, &c.
120 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
LETTER VI.
OF THE MYSTERIES, SACRAMENTS, AND RELIGIOUS CERE-
MONIES OF CHRISTIANITY.
THE reflections, Madam, which I have already
offered you in these letters ought, I conceive, to
have sufficed to undeceive you, in a great measure,
of the lugubrious and afflicting notions with which
you have been inspired by religious prejudices.
However, to fulfil the task which you have imposed
on me, and to assist you in freeing yourself from
the unfavorable ideas you may have imbibed from
a system replete with irrelevancies and contradic-
tions, I shall continue to examine the strange mys-
teries with which Christianity is garnished. They
are founded on ideas so odd and so contrary to
reason, that if from infancy we had not been famil-
iarized with them, we should blush at our species in-
having for one instant believed and adopted them.
The Christians, scarcely content with the crowd
of enigmas with which the books of the Jews are
filled, have besides fancied they must add to them
a great many incomprehensible mysteries, for which
they have the most profound veneration. Their
impenetrable obscurity appears to be a sufficient
motive among them for adding these. Their
priests, encouraged by their credulity, which noth-
ing can outdo, seem to be studious to multiply the
articles' of their faith, and the number of incon-
ceivable objects which they have said must be
LKTTER VI. 121
received with submission, and adored even if not
understood.
The first of these mysteries is the Trinity, which
supposes that one God, self-existent, who is a pure
spirit, is, nevertheless, composed of three Divini-
ties, which have obtained the names of persons.
These three Gods, who are designated under the
respective names of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, are, nevertheless, but one God only.
These three persons are equal in power, in wisdom,
in perfections ; yet the second is subordinate to the
first, in consequence of which he was compelled to
become a man, and be the victim of the wrath of
his Father. This is what the priests call the mys-
tery of the incarnation. Notwithstanding his inno-
cence, his perfection, his purity, the Son of God
became the object of the vengeance of a just God,
who is the same as the Son in question, but who
would not consent to appease himself but by the
death of his own Son, who is a portion of himself.
The Son of God, not content with becoming man,
died without having sinned, for the salvation of
men who had sinned. God preferred to the pun-
ishment of imperfect beings, whom he did not
choose to amend, the punishment of his only Son,
full of divine perfections. The death of God be-
came necessary to reclaim the human kind from
the slavery of Satan, who without that would not
have quitted his prey, and who has been found suf-
ficiently powerful against the Omnipotent to oblige
him to sacrifice his Son. This is what the priests
1J
122 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
designate by the name of the mystery of redemp-
tion.
It is assuredly sufficient to expose such opinions
to demonstrate their absurdity. It is evident, if
there exists only a single God, there cannot be
three. We may, it is true, contemplate the Deity
after the manner of Plato, who, before the birth of
Christianity, exhibited him under three different
points of view, that is to say, as all-wise, as all-
powerful, as full of reason, and as infinite in good-
ness ; but it was verily the excess of delirium to per-
sonify these three divine qualities, or transform them
into real beings. We can readily imagine these
moral attributes to be united in the same God, but
it is egregious folly to fashion them into three dif-
ferent Gods ; nor will it remedy this metaphysical
polytheism to assert that these three are one. Be-
sides, this revery never entered the head of the
Hebrew legislator. The Eternal, in revealing him-
self to Moses, did not announce himself as triple.
There is not one syllable in the Old Testament
about this Trinity, although a notion so bizarre,
so marvellous, and so little consonant with our
ideas of a divine being, deserved to have been for-
mally announced, especially as it is the foundation
and corner stone of the Christian religion, which
was from all eternity an object of the divine solici-
tude, and on the establishment of which, if we
may credit our sapient priests, God seems to have
entertained serious thoughts long before the crea-
tion of the world.
Nevertheless, the second person, or the second
LETTER VI. 123
God of the Trinity, is revealed in flesh ; the Son
of God is made man. But how could the pure
Spirit who presides over the universe beget a son ?
How could this son, who before his incarnation
was only a pure spirit, combine that ethereal essence
with a material body, and envelop himself with it ?
How could the divine nature amalgamate itself
with the imperfect nature of man, and how could
an immense and infinite being, as the Deity is
represented, be formed in the womb of a. virgin ?
After what manner could a pure spirit fecundate
this favorite virgin ? Did the Son of God enjoy
in the womb of his mother the faculties of omnip-
otence, or was he like other children during his
infancy, weak, liable to infirmities, sickness, and
intellectual imbecility, so conspicuous in the years
of childhood ; and if so, what, during this period,
became of the divine wisdom and power ? In fine,
how could God suffer and die ? How could a just
God consent that a God exempt from all sin should
endure the chastisements which are due to sinners ?
Why did he not appease himself without immo-
lating a victim so precious and so innocent ? What
would you think of that sovereign who, in the
event of his subjects rebelling against him, should
forgive them all, or a select number of them, by
putting to death his only and beloved son, who had
not rebelled ?
The priests tell us that it was out of tenderness
for the human kind that God wished to. accom-
plish this sacrifice. But I still ask if it would not
have been more simple, more conformable to all
124 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
our ideas of Deity, for God to pardon the iniqui-
ties of the human race, or to have prevented them
committing transgressions, by placing them in a
condition in which, by their own will, they should
never have sinned ? According to the entire sys-
tem of the Christian religion, it is evident that God
did only create the world to have an opportunity
of immolating his Son for the rebellious beings he
might have formed and preserved immaculate.
The fall of the rebellious angels had no visible end
to serve but to effect and hasten the fall of Adam.
It appears from this system that God permitted
the first man to sin that he might have the pleasure
of showing his goodness in sacrificing his " only
begotten Son " to reclaim men from the thraldom
of Satan. He intrusted to Satan as much power
as might enable him to work the ruin of our race,
with the view of afterwards changing the projects
of the great mass of mankind, by making one God
to die, and thereby destroy the power of the Devil
on the earth.
But has God succeeded in these projects to the
end he proposed ? Are men entirely rescued from
the dominion of Satan? Are they not still the
slaves of sin ? Do they find themselves in the
happy impossibility of kindling the divine wrath ?
Has the blood of the Son of God washed away
the sins of the whole world ? Do those who are
reclaimed, those to whom he has made himself
known, those who believe, offend not against
heaven? Has the Deity, who ought, without
doubt, to be perfectly satisfied with so memorable a
LETTER VI. 125
sacrifice, remitted to them the punishment of sin ?
Is it not necessary to do something more for them ?
And since the death of his Son, do we find the
Christians exempt from disease and from death?
Nothing of all this has happened. The measures
taken from all eternity by the wisdom and pre-
science of a God who should find against his plans
na obstacles have been overthrown. The death
of God himself has been of no utility to the world.
All the divine projects have militated against the
free-will of man, but they have not destroyed the
power of Satan. Man continues to sin and to
die ; the Devil keeps possession of the field of
battle ; and it is for a very small number of the
elect that the Deity consented to die.
You do indeed smile, Madam, at my being
obliged seriously to combat such chimeras. If
1hey have something of the marvellous in them, it
is quite adapted to the heads of children, not of
men, and ought not to be admitted by reasonable
beings. All the notions we can form of those
things must be mysterious ; yet there is no subject
more demonstrable, according to those whose inter-
est it is to have it believed, though they are as in-
capable as ourselves to comprehend the matter.
For the priests to say that they believe such ab-
surdities, is to be guilty of manifest falsehood ;
because a proposition to be believed must necessa-
rily be understood. To believe what they do not
comprehend is to adhrre sotti^hly to the absurdities
of others ; to believe things which are not compre-
11*
126 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
bended by those who gossip about them is the
height of folly; to believe blindly the mysteries of
the Christian religion is to admit contradictions of
which they who declare them are not convinced.
In fine, is it necessary to abandon one's reason
among absurdities that have been received without
examination from ancient priests, who were either
the dupes of more knowing men, or themselves the
impostors who fabricated the tales in question ?
If you ask of me how men have not long ago
been shocked by such absurd and unintelligible
reveries, I shall proceed, in my turn, to explain to
you this secret of the church, this mystery of our
priests. It is not necessary, in doing this, to pay
any attention to those general dispositions of man,
especially when he is ignorant and incapable of
reasoning. All men are curious, inquisitive ; their
curiosity spurs them on to inquiry, and their imagi-
nation busies itself to clothe with mystery every
thing the fancy conjures up as important to happi-
ness. The vulgar mistake even what they have
the means of knowing, or, which is the same thing,
what they are least practised in they are dazzled
with ; they proclaim it, accordingly, marvellous,
prodigious, extraordinary; it is a phenomenon.
They neither admire nor respect much what is
always visible to their eyes; but whatever strikes
their imagination, whatever gives scope to the
mind, becomes itself the fruitful source of oilier
ideas far more extravagant. The priests have had
the art to prevail on the people to believe in their
LETTER VI. 127
secret correspondence with the Deity ; they have
been thence much respected, and in all countries
their professed intercourse with an unseen Divinity
has given room for their announcement of things
the most marvellous and mysterious.
Besides, the Divinity being a being whose im-
penetrable essence is veiled from mortal sight, it
has been commonly admitted by the ignorant, that
what could not be seen by mortal eye must neces-
sarily be divine. Hence sacred, mysterious, and
divine, are synonymous terms ; and these imposing
words have sufficed to place the human race on
their knees to adore what seeks not their inflated
devotion.
The three mysteries which I have examined are
received unanimously by all sects of Christians ;
but there are others on which the theologians are
not agreed. In fine, we see men, who, after they
have admitted, without repugnance, a certain num-
ber of absurdities, stop all of a sudden in the way,
and refuse to admit more. The Christian Protes-
tants are in this case. They reject, with disdain,
the mysteries for which the Church of Rome shows
the greatest respect ; and yet, in the matter of mys-
teries, it is indeed difficult to designate the point
where the mind ought to stop.
Seeing, then, that our doctors, better advised,
undoubtedly, than those of the Protestants, have
adroitly multiplied mysteries, one is naturally led
to conclude, they despaired of governing the mind
of man, if there-was any thing in their religion that
128 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
was clear, intelligible, and natural. More mysteri-
ous than the priests of Egypt itself, they have found
means to change every thing into mystery ; the very
movements of the body, usages the most indifferent,
ceremonies the most frivolous, have become, in the
powerful hands of the priests, sublime and divine
mysteries. In the Roman religion all is magic, all
is prodigy, all is supernatural. In .the decisions
of our theologians, the side which they espouse is
almost always that which is the most abhorrent to
reason, the most calculated to confound and over-
throw common sense. In consequence, our priests
are by far the most rich, powerful, and considera-
ble. The continual want which we have of their
aid to obtain from Heaven that grace which it is
their province to bring down for us, places us in
continual dependence on those marvellous men who
have received their commission to treat with the
Deity, and become the ambassadors between Heav-
en and us.
Each of our sacraments envelops a great mys-
tery. They are ceremonies to which the Divinity,
they say, attaches some secret virtue, by unseen
views, of which we can form no ideas. In baptism,
without which no man can be saved, the water
sprinkled OH the head of the child washes his spirit-
ual soul, and carries away the defilement which is
a consequence of the sin committed in the person
of Adam, who sinned for all men. By the myste-
rious virtue of this water, and of some words
equally unintelligible, the infant finds itself recon-
LETTER VI. 129
ciled to God, as his first father had made him
guilty without his knowledge and consent. In all
this, Madam, you cannot, by possibility, compre-
hend the complication of these mysteries, with
which no Christian can dispense, though, assuredly,
there is not one believer who knows what the vir-
tue of the marvellous water consists in, which is
necessary for his regeneration. Nor can you con-
ceive how the supreme and equitable Governor of
the universe could impute faults to those who have
never been guilty of transgressions. Nor can you
comprehend how a wise Deity can attach his favor
to a futile ceremony,' which, without changing the
nature of the being who has derived an existence
it neither commenced nor was consulted in, must,
if administered in winter, be attended with serious
consequences to the health of the child.
In Confirmation, a sacrament or ceremony, which,
to have any value, ought to be administered by a
bishop, the laying of the hands on the head of the
young confirmant makes the Holy Spirit descend
upon him, and procures the grace of God to uphold
him in the faith. You see, Madam, that the efficacy
of this sacrament is unfortunately lost in my per-
son ; for, although in my youth I had been duly
confirmed, I have not been preserved against smil-
ing at this faith, nor have I been kept invulnerable
in the credence of my priests and forefathers.
In the sacrament of Penitence, or confession, a
ceremony which consists in putting a priest in pos-
session of all one's faults, public or private, you will
130 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
discover mysteries equally marvellous. In favor of
this submission, to which every good Catholic is
necessarily obliged to submit, a priest, himself a
f sinner, charged with full powers by the Deity, par-
\ dons and remits, in His name, the sins against
which God is enraged. God reconciles himself
with every man who humbles himself before the
priest, and in accordance with the orders of the
latter, he opens heaven to the wretch whom he had
before determined to exclude. If this sacrament
doth not always procure grace, very distinguishing
to those who use it, it has, at all events, the advan-
tage of rendering them pliaWe to the clergy, who,
by its means, find an easy sway in their spiritual
empire over the human mind, an empire that en-
ables them, not unfrequently, to disturb society, and
more often the repose of families, and the very con-
science of the person confessing.
There is among the Catholics another sacrament,
which contains the most strange mysteries. It is
that of the Eucharist. Our teachers, under pain
of being damned, enjoin us to believe that the Son
of God is compelled by a priest to quit the abodes
of glory, and to come and mask himself under
the appearance of bread ! This bread becomes
forthwith the body of God this God multiplies
himself in all places, and at all times^when and
where the priests, scattered over the face of the
earth, find it necessary to command his presence in
the shape of bread yet we see only one and the
same God, who receives the homage and adoration
LETTER VI. 131
of all those good people who find it very ridiculous
in the Egyptians to adore lupines and onions. But
the Catholics are not simply content with worship-
ping a bit of bread, which they consider by the con-
jurations of a priest as divine ; they eat this bread,
and then persuade themselves that they are nour-
ished by the body or substance of God himself.
The Protestants, it is true, do not admit a mystery
so very odd, and regard those who do as real idol-
aters. What then ? This marvellous dogma is,
without doubt, of the greatest utility to the priests.
In the eyes of those who admit it, they become
very important gentlemen, who have the power of
disposing of the Deity, whom they make to descend
between their hands ; and thus a Catholic priest A
is, in fact, the creator of his God !
There is, also, Extreme Unction, a sacrament
which consists in anointing with oil those sick per-
sons who are about to depart into the other world,
and which not only soothes their bodily pains, but
also takes away the sins of their souls. If it pro-
duces these good effects, it is an invisible and
mysterious method of manifesting obvious results;
for we frequently behold sick persons have their
fears of death allayed, though the operation may
but too often accelerate their dissolution. But our
priests are so full of charity, and they interest them-
selves so greatly in the salvation of souls, that they
like rather to risk their own health beside the sick
bed of persons afflicted with the most contagious
diseases, than lose the opportunity of administering
their salutary ointment.
132 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
Ordination is another very mysterious ceremony,
by which the Deity secretly bestows his invisible
grace on those whom he has selected to fill the
office of the holy priesthood. According to the Cath-
olic religion, God gives to the priests the power of
making God himself, as we have shown above ;
a privilege which without doubt cannot be suffi-
ciently admired. With respect to the sensible
effects of this sacrament, and of the visible grace
which it confers, they are enabled, by the help of
some words and certain ceremonies, to change a
profane man into one that is sacred ; that is to say,
who is not profane any longer. By this spiritual
metamorphosis, this man becomes capable of en-
joying considerable revenues without being obliged
to do any thing useful for society. On the con-
trary, heaven itself confers on him the right of de-
ceiving, of annoying, and of pillaging the profane
citizens, who labor for his ease and luxury.
Finally, Marriage is a sacrament that confers
mysterious and invisible graces, of which we in
truth have no very precise ideas. Protestants and
Infidels, who look upon marriage as a civil con-
tract, and not as a sacrament, receive neither more
nor less of its visible grace than the good Catholics.
The former see not that those who are married
enjoy by this sacrament any secret virtue, whence
they may become more constant and faithful to the
engagements they have contracted. And I believe
both you and I, Madam, have known many people
on whom it has only conferred the grace of cordially
detesting each other.
LETTER VI. 133
I will not now enter upon the consideration of a
multitude of other magic ceremonies, admitted by
some Christian sectaries and rejected by others, but
to which the devotees who embrace them, attach
the most lofty ideas, in the firm persuasion, that
God will, on that account, visit them with his in-
visible grace. All these ceremonies, doubtless, con-
tain great mysteries, and the method of handling
or speaking of them is exceedingly mysterious. It
is thus that the water on which a priest has pro-
nounced a few words, contained in his conjuring
book, acquires the invisible virtue of chasing away
wicked spirits, who are invisible by their nature. It
is thus that the oil, on which a bishop has muttered
some certain formula, becomes capable of commu-
nicating to men, and even to some inanimate sub-
stances, such as wood, stone, metals, and walls,
those invisible virtues which they did not pre-
viously possess. In fine, in all the ceremonies of
the church, we discover mysteries, and the vulgar,
who comprehend nothing of them, are not the less
disposed to admire, to be fascinated with, and to
respect with a blind devotion. But soon would
they cease to have this veneration for these fool-
eries, if they comprehended the design and end
the priests have in view by enforcing their ob-
servance.
The priests of all nations have begun by being
charlatans, castle builders, divines, and sorcerers.
We find men of these characters in nations the
most ignorant and savage, where they live by the
12
134 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
ignorance and credulity of others. They are re-
garded by their ignorant countrymen as superior
beings, endowed with supernatural gifts, favorites
of the very Gods, because the uninquiring multi-
tude see them perform things which they take to be
mighty marvellous, or which the ignorant have al-
ways considered marvellous. In nations the most
polished, the people are always the same ; persons
the most sensible are not often of the same ideas,
especially on the subject of religion ; and the
priests, authorized by the ancient folly of the mul-
titude, continue their old tricks, and receive univer-
sal applause.
You are not, then, to be surprised, Madam, if
you still behold our pontiffs and our priests exercise
then- magical rites, or rear castles before the eyes
of people prejudiced in favor of their ancient illu-
sions, and who attach to these mysteries a degree
of consequence, seeing they are not in a condition
to comprehend the motives of the fabricators.
Every thing that is mysterious has charms for the
ignorant; the marvellous captivates all men; per-
sons the most enlightened find it difficult to defend
themselves against these illusions. Hence you
may discover that the priests are always opinion-
atively attached to these rites and ceremonies of
their worship ; and it has never been without some
violent revolution that they have been diminished
or abrogated. The annihilation of a trifling cer-
emony has often caused rivers of blood to flow.
The people have believed themselves lost and un-
LETTER VI. 135
done when one bolder than the rest wished to inno-
vate in matters of religion ; they have fancied that
they were to be deprived of inestimable advantages
and invisible but saving grace, which they have
supposed to be attached by the Divinity himself to
some movements of the body. Priests the most
adroit have overcharged religion with ceremonies,
and practices, and mysteries. They fancied that
all these were so many cords to bind ihe people to
their interest, to allure them by enthusiasm, and
render them necessary to their idle and luxurious
existence, which is not spent without much money
extracted from the hard earnings of the people, and
much of that respect which is but the homage of
slaves to spiritual tyrants.
You cannot any longer, I persuade myself, Mad-
am, be made the dupe of these holy jugglers, who
impose on the vulgar by their marvellous tales.
You must now be convinced that the things which
I have touched upon as mysteries are profound ab-
surdities, of which their inventors can render no rea-
sonable account either to themselves or to others.
You must now be certified that the movements of
the body and other religious ceremonies must be
matters perfectly indifferent to the wise Being whom
they describe to us as the great mover of all things.
You conclude, then, that all these marvellous rites,
in which our priests announce so much mystery,
and in which the people are taught to consider the
whole of religion as consisting, are nothing more
than puerilities, to which people of understanding
136 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
ought never to submit. That they are usages cal-
culated principally to alarm the minds of the weak,
and keep in bondage those who have not the cour-
age to throw off the yoke of priests. I am, &c.
LETTER VII.
OF THE PIOUS RITES, PRAYERS, AND AUSTERITIES OF
CHRISTIANITY.
You now know, Madam, what you ought to at-
tach to the mysteries and ceremonies of that reli-
gion you propose to meditate on, and adore in
silence. I proceed now to examine some of those
practices to which the priests tell us the Deity at-
taches his complaisance and his favors. In conse-
quence of the false, sinister, contradictory, and in-
compatible ideas, which all revealed religions give
us of the Deity, the priests have invented a crowd
of unreasonable usages, but which are conformable
to these erroneous notions that they have framed
of this Being. God is always regarded as a man
full of passion, sensible to presents, to flatteries,
and marks of submission ; or rather as a fantastic
and punctilious sovereign, who is very seriously
angry when we neglect to show him that respect
and obeisance which the vanity of earthly poten-
tates exacts from their vassals.
It is after these notions so little agreeable to the
LETTER VII. 187
Deity, that the priests have conjured up a crowd of
practices and strange inventions, ridiculous, incon-
venient, and often cruel ; but by which they inform
us we shall merit the good favor of. God, or disarm
the wrath of the Universal Lord. With some, all
consists in prayers, offerings, and sacrifices, with
which they fancy God is well pleased. They for-
get that a God who is good, who knows all things,
has no need to be solicited ; that a God who is the
author of all things has no need to be presented
with any part of his workmanship; that a God
who knows his power has no need of either flat-
teries or submissions, to remind him of his gran-
deur, his power, or his rights ; that a God who is
Lord of all has no need of offerings which belong
to himself; that a God who has no need of any
thing cannot be won by presents, nor grudge to his
creatures the goods which they have received from
his divine bounty.
For the want of making these reflections, simple
as they are, all the religions in the world are filled
with an infinite number of frivolous practices, by
which men have long strove to render themselves
acceptable to the Deity. The priests who are al-
ways Heclared to be the ministers, the favorites, the
interpreters of God's will, have discovered how
they might most easily profit by the errors of man-
kind, and the presents which they offer to the
Deity. They are thence interested to enter into the
false ideas of the people, and even to redouble the
darkness of their minds. They have invented
12*
138 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
means to please unknown powers who dispose
of their fate to excite their devotion and their
zeal for those invisible beings of whom they
were themselves the visible representatives. These
priests soon perceived that in laboring for the Gods
they labored for themselves, and that they could
appropriate the major part of the presents, sacrifices,
and offerings, which were made to beings who
never showed themselves in order to claim what
their devotees intended for them.
You thus perceive, Madam, how the priests have
made common cause with the Divinity. Their
policy thence obliged them to favor and increase
the errors of the human kind. They talk of this
ineffable Being as of an interested monarch, jeal-
ous, full of vanity, who gives that it may be re-
stored to him again ; who exacts continual signs
of submission and respect ; who desires, without
ceasing, that men may reiterate their marks of
respect for him ; who wishes to be solicited ; who
bestows no grace unless it be accorded to importu-
nity for the purpose of making it more valuable ;
and, above all, who allows himself to be appeased
and propitiated by gifts from which his ministers
derive the greatest advantage.
It is evident that it is upon these ideas bor-
rowed from monarchical courts here below that are
founded all the practices, ceremonies, and rites
that we see established in all the religions of the
earth. Each sect has endeavored to make its God
a monarch the most redoubtable, the greatest, the
most despotic, and the most selfish. The people
LETTER VII. 139
acquainted simply with human opinions, and full
of debasement, have adopted without examination
the inventions which the Deity has shown them as
the fittest to obtain his favor and soften his wrath.
The priests fail not to adapt these practices, which
they have invented, to their own system of religion
and personal interest ; and the ignorant and vulgar
have allowed themselves to be blindly led by these
guides. Habit has familiarized them with things
upon which they never reason, and they make a
duty of the routine which has been transmitted to
them from age to age, and from father to child.
The infant, as soon as it can be made to under-
stand any thing, is taught mechanically to join its
little hands in prayer. His tongue is forced to lisp
a formula which it does not comprehend, addressed
to a God which its understanding can never con-
ceive. In the arms of its nurse it is carried into
the temple or church, where its eyes are habituated
to contemplate spectacles, ceremonies, and pre-
tended mysteries, of which, even when it shall have
arrived at mature age, it will still understand noth-
ing. If at this latter period any one should ask
the reason of his conduct, or desire to know why
he made this conduct a sacreci and important duty,
he could give no explanation, except that he was
instructed in his tender years to respectfully observe
certain usages, which he must regard as sacred, as
they were unintelligible to him. If an attempt
was made to undeceive him in regard to these
habitual futilities, either he would not listen, or he
140 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
would be irritated against whoever denied the
notions rooted in his brain. Any man who wished
to lead him to good sense, and who reasoned against
the habits he had contracted, would be regarded by
him as ridiculous and extravagant, or he would
repulse him as an infidel and blasphemer, because
his instructions lead him thus to designate every
man who fails to pursue the same routine as him-
self, or who does not attach the same ideas as
the devotee to things which the latter has never
examined.
What horror does it not fill the Christian devotee
with if you tell him that his priest is unnecessary!
What would be his surprise if you were to prove
to him, even on the principles of his religiqn, that
the prayers which in his infancy he had been taught
to consider as the most agreeable to his God, are
unworthy and unnecessary to this Deity ! For if
God knows all, what need is there to remind him
of the wants of his creatures whom he loves ?
If God is a father full of tenderness and goodness,
is it necessary to ask him to " give us day by day
our daily bread"? If this God, so good, foresaw
the wants of his children, and knew much better
than they what they could not know of themselves,
whence is it he bids them importune him to grant
them their requests ? If this God is immutable and
wise, how can his creatures change the fixed reso-
lution of the Deity ? If this God is just and good,
how can he injure us, or place us in a situation to
require the use of that prayer which entreats the
Deity not to lead us into temptation ?
LETTER VII. 141
You see by this, Madam, that there is but a very
small portion of what the Christians pretend they
understand and consider absolutely necessary that
accords at all with what they tell us has been dic-
tated by God himself. You see that the Lord's
prayer itself contains many absurdities and ideas
totally contrary to those which every Christian
ought to have of his God. If you ask a Christian
why he repeats without ceasing this vain formula,
on which he never reflects, he can assign little other
reason than that he was taught in his infancy to
clasp his hands, repeat words the meaning of which
his priest, not himself, is alone bound to understand.
He may probably add that he has ever been taught
to consider this formula requisite, as it was the
most sacred and the most proper to merit the favor
of Heaven.
We should, without doubt, form the same judg-
ment of that multitude of prayers which our teach-
ers recommend to us daily. And if we believe
them, man, to please God, ought to pass a large
portion of his existence in supplicating Heaven to
pour down its blessings on him. But if God is
good, if he cherishes his creatures, if he knows
their wants, it seems superfluous to pray to him.
If God changes not, he has never promised to alter
his secret decrees, or, if he has, he is variable in his
fancies, like man ; to what purpose are all our peti-
tions to him ? If God is offended with us, will he
not reject prayers which insult his goodness, his
justice, and infinite wisdom ?
V
142 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
What motives, then, have our priests to incul-
cate constantly the necessity of prayer ? It is that
they may thereby hold the minds of mankind in
opinions more advantageous to themselves. They
represent God to us under the traits of a monarch
difficult of access, who cannot be easily pacified,
but of whom they are the ministers, the, favorites,
and servants. They become intercessors between
this invisible Sovereign and his subjects of this
nether world. They sell to the ignorant their inter-
cession with the All-powerful; they pray for the
people, and by society they are recompensed with
real advantages, with riches, honors, and ease. It
is on the necessity of prayer that our priests, our
monks, and all religious men establish their lazy
existence ; that they profess to win a place in
heaven for their followers and paymasters, who,
without this intercession, could neither obtain the
favor of God, nor avert his chastisements and the
calamities the world is so often visited with. The
prayers of the priests are regarded as a universal
remedy for all evils. All the misfortunes of nations
are laid before these spiritual guides, who generally
find public calamities a source of profit to them-
selves, as it is then they are amply paid for their
supposed mediation between the Deity and his
suffering creatures. They never teach the people
that these things spring from the course of nature
and of laws they cannot control. O, no. They
make the world believe they are the judgments of
an angry God. The evils for which they can find
LETTER VII. 143
no remedy are pronounced marks of the divine
wrath ; they are supernatural, and the priests must
be applied to. God, whom they call so good, ap-
pears sometimes obstinately deaf to their entrea-
ties. Their common Parent, so tender, appears to
derange the order of nature to manifest his anger.
The God who is so just, sometimes punishes men
who cannot divine the cause of his vengeance.
Then, in their distress, they flee to the priests, who
never fail to find motives for the divine wrath.
They tell them that God has been offended ; that
he has been neglected ; that he exacts prayers,
offerings, and sacrifices ; that he requires, in order
to be appeased, that his ministers should receive
more consideration, should be heard more atten-
tively, and should be more enriched. Without
this, they announce to the vulgar that their har-
vests will fail, that their fields will be inundated,
that pestilence, famine, war, and contagion will
visit the earth ; and when these misfortunes have
arrived, they declare they may be removed by
means of prayers.
If fear and terror permitted men to reason, they
would discover that all the evils, as well .as the
good things of this life, are necessary consequences
of the order of nature. They would perceive that
a wise God, immutable in his conduct, cannot
allow any thing to transpire but according to those
laws of which he is regarded as the author. They
would discover that the calamities, sterility, mala-
dies, contagions, and even death itself are effects
V
144 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
as necessary as happiness, abundance, health, and
life itself. They would find that wars, wants, and
famine are often the effects of human imprudence ;
that they would submit to accidents which they
could not prevent, and guard against those they
could foresee; they would remedy by simple and
natural means those against which they possessed
resources ; and they would undeceive themselves
in regard to those supernatural means and those
useless prayers of which the experience of so many
ages ought to have disabused men, if they were
capable of correcting their religious prejudices.
This would not, indeed, redound to the advan-
tage of the priests, since they would become use-
less if men perceived the inefficacy of their prayers,
the futility of their practices, and the absence of
all rational foundation for those exercises of piety
which place the Imman race upon their knees.
They compel their votaries always to run down
those who discredit their pretensions. They ter-
rify the \veak minded by frightful ideas which they
hold out to them of the Deity. They forbid them
to reason ; they make them deaf to reason, by con-
forming them to ordinances the most out of the
way, the most unreasonable, and the most contra-
dictory to the very principles on which they pre-
tend to establish them. They change practices,
arbitrary in themselves, or, at most, indifferent and
useless, into important duties, which they proclaim
the most essential of all duties, and the most
sacred and moral. They know that man ceases to
LETTER VII. 145
reason in proportion as he suffers or is wretched.
Hence, if he experiences real misfortunes, the
priests make sure of him ; if he is not unfortunate
they menace him ; they create imaginary fears and
troubles.
In fine, Madam, when you wish to examine with
your own eyes, and not by the help of the preten-
sions set up and imposed on you by the ministers
of religion, you will be compelled to acknowledge
the things we have been considering as useful to
the priests alone ; they are useless to the Deity, and
to society they are often very obviously pernicious.
Of what utility can it be in any family to behold
an excess of devotion in the mother of that family ?
One would suppose it is not necessary for a lady
to pass all her time in prayers and in meditations,
to the neglect of other duties. Much less is it the
part of a Catholic mother to be closeted in mystic
conversation with her priest. Will her husband,
her children, and her friends applaud her who loses
most of her time in prayers, and meditations, and
practices, which can tend only to render her sour,
unhappy, and discontented? Would it not be
much better that a father or a mother of a family
should be occupied with what belonged to their
domestic affairs than to spend their time in masses,
in hearing sermons, in meditating on mysterious
and unintelligible dogmas, or boasting about ex-
ercises of piety that tend to nothing ?
Madam, do you not find in the country you in-
habit a great many devotees who are sunk in
13
146 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
debt, whose fortune is squandered away on priests,
and who are incapable of retrieving it ? Content
to put their conscience to rights on religious mat-
ters, they neither trouble themselves about the
education of their children, nor tire arrangement
of their fortune, nor the discharge of their debts.
Such men as would be thrown into despair did
they omit one mass, will consent to leave their
creditors without their money, ruined by their neg-
ligence as much as by their principles. In truth,
Madam, on what side soever you survey this
religion, you will find it good for nothing.
What shall we say of those fetes which are so
multiplied amongst us ? Are they not evidently
pernicious to society ? Are not all days the .same
to the Eternal ? Are there gala days in heaven ?
Can God be honored by the business of an artisan
or a merchant, who, in place of earning bread on
which his family may subsist, squanders away his
time in the church, and afterwards goes to spend his
money in the public house ? It is necessary, the
priests will tell you, for man to have repose. But
will he not seek repose when he is fatigued by the
labor of his hands ? Is it not more necessary that
every man should labor in his vocation than go to
a temple to chant over a service which benefits
only the priests, or hear a sermon of which he can
understand nothing? And do not such as find
great scruple in doing a necessary labor on Sunday
frequently sit down and get drunk on. that day,
consuming in a few hours the receipts of their
LETTER VH. 147
week's labor ? But it is for the interest of the
clergy that all other shops should be shut when
theirs are open. We may thence easily discover
why fetes are necessary.
Is it not contrary to all the notions which we
can form of the goodness and wisdom of the Di-
vinity, that religion should form into duties both
abstinence and privations, or that penitences and
austerities should be the sole proofs of virtue ?
What should be said of a father who should place
his children at a table loaded with the fruits of the
earth, but who, nevertheless, should debar them
from touching certain of them, though both nature
and reason dictated then- use and nutriment ? Can
we, then, suppose that a Deity wise and good
interdicts to his creatures the enjoyment of inno-
cent pleasures, which may contribute to render life
agreeable, or that a God who has created all things,
every object the most desirable to the nourishment
and health of man, should nevertheless forbid him
their use ? The Christian religion appears to doom
its votaries to the punishment of Tantalus. The
most part of the superstitions in the world have
made of God a capricious and jealous sovereign,
who amuses himself by tempting the passions and
exciting the desires of his slaves, without permit-
ting them the gratification of the one or the enjoy-
ment of the other. We see among all sects the
portraiture of a chagrined Deity, the enemy of in-
nocent amusements, and offended at the well being
of his creatures. We see in all countries many
148 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
men so foolish as to imagine they will merit
"heaven by fighting against their nature, refusing
the goods of fortune, and tormenting themselves
under an idea that they will thereby render them-
selves agreeable to God. Especially do they be-
lieve that they will by these means disarm the fury
of God, and prevent the inflictions of his chastise-
ments, if they immolate themselves to a being who
always requires victims.
We find these atrocious, fanatical, and senseless
ideas in the Christian religion, which supposes its
God as cruel to exact sufferings from men as death
from his only Son. If a God exempt from all sin is
himself also the sufferer for the sins of all, which
is the doctrine of those who maintain universal
redemption, it is not surprising to see men that are
sinners making it a duty to assemble in large
meetings, and invent the means of rendering them-
selves miserable. These gloomy notions have
banished men to the desert. They have fanati-
cally renounced society and the pleasures of life,
to be buried alive, believing they would merit
heaven if they afflicted themselves with stripes
and passed their existence in mummical ceremo-
nies, as injurious to their health as useless to their
country. And these are the false ideas by which
the Divinity is transformed into a tyrant as bar-
barous as insensible, who, agreeably to priestcraft,
has prescribed how both men and women might
live in ennui, penitence, sorrow, and tears ; for the
perfection of monastic institutions consists in the
LETTER VII. 149
ingenious art of self-torture. But sacerdotal pride
finds its account in these austerities. Rigid monks
glory in barbarous rules, the observance of which
attracts the respect of the credulous, who imagine
that men who torment themselves are indeed the
favorites of heaven. But these monks, who follow
these austere rules, are fanatics, who sacrifice
themselves to the pride of the clergy who live in
luxury and in wealth, although their duped, imbe-
cile brethren have been known to make it a point
of honor to die of famine.
How often, Madam, has your attention not been
aroused when you recalled to mind the fate of the
poor religious men of the desert, whom an unne-
cessary vow has condemned, as it were voluntarily,
to a life as rigorous as if spent in a prison ! Se-
duced by the enthusiasm of youth, or forced by the
orders of inhuman parents, they have been obliged
to carry to the tomb the chains of their captivity.
They have been obliged to submit without appeal
to a stern superior, who finds no consolation in the
discharge of his slavish task but in making his
empire more hard to those beneath him. You have
seen unfortunate young ladies obliged to renounce
their rank in society, the innocent pleasures of
youth, the joys of their se*, to groan forever under
a rigorous despotism, to which indiscreet vows had
bound them. All monasteries present to us an
odious group of fanatics, who have separated
themselves from society to pass the remainder of
their lives in unhappiness. The society of these
13*
150 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
devotees is calculated solely to render their lives
mutually more unsupportable. But it seems
strange- that men should expect to merit heaven
by suffering the torments of hell on earth ; yet so
it is, and reason has too often proved insufficient
to convince them of the contrary.
If this religion does not call all Christians to
these sublime perfections, it nevertheless enjoins
on all its votaries suffering and mortifying of the
body. The church prescribes privations to all her
children, and abstinences and fasts ; these things
they practise among us as duties ; and the devotees
imagine they render themselves very agreeable
to the Divinity when they have scrupulously ful-
filled those minute and puerile practices, by which
they tell us that the priests have proof whether
their patience and obedience be such as are dic-
tated by and acceptable to Heaven. What a
ridiculous idea is it, for example, to make of the
Deity a trio of persons ; to teach the faithful that
this Deity takes notice of what kinds of food his
people eat ; that he is displeased if they eat beef
or mutton, but that he is delighted if they eat
beans and fish ! In good sooth, Madam, our
priests, who sometimes give us very lofty ideas of
God, please themselves >ut too often with making
him strangely contemptible !
The life of a good Christian or of a devotee is
crowded with a host of useless practices, which
would be at least pardonable if they procured any
good for society. But it is not for that purpose
LETTER VII. 151
that our priests make so much ado about them ;
they only wish to have submissive slaves, suffi-
ciently blind to respect their caprices as the orders
of a wise God ; sufficiently stupid to regard all
their practices as divine duties, and they who scru-
pulously observe them as the real favorites of the
Omnipotent. What good can there result to the
world from the abstinence of meats, so much
enjoined on some Christians, especially when other
Christians judge this injunction a very ridiculous
law, and contrary to reason and the order of things
established in nature ? It is not difficult to per-
ceive amongst us that this injunction, openly vio-
lated by the rich, is an oppression on the poor,
who are compelled to pay dearly for an indifferent,
often an unwholesome diet, that injures rather than
repairs the natural strength of their constitution.
Besides, do not the priests sell this permission to
the rich, to transgress an injunction the poor must
not violate with impunity ? In fine, they seem to
have multiplied our practices, our duties, and our
tortures, to have the advantage of multiplying our
faulty, and making a good bargain out of our pre-
tended crimes.
The more we examine religion the more reason
shall we have to be convinced that it is beneficial
1o the priests alone. Every part of this religion
conspires to render us submissive to the fantasies
of our spiritual guides, to labor for their grandeur,
to contribute to their riches. They appoint us to
perform disadvantageous duties ; they prescribe
152 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
impossible perfections, purposely that we may trans-
gress ; they have thereby engendered in pious minds
scruples and difficulties which they condescendingly
appease for money. A devotee is obliged to ob-
serve, without ceasing, the useless and frivolous
rules of his priest, and even then he is subject to
continual reproaches ; he is perpetually in want of
his priest to expiate his pretended faults with which
he charges himself, and the omission of duties that
he regards as the most important acts of his life,
but w r hich are rarely such as interest society or
benefit it by their performance. By a train of reli-
gious prejudices with which the priests infect the
mind of their weak devotees, these believe them-
selves infinitely, more culpable when they have
omitted some useless practice, than if they had
committed some great injustice or atrocious sin
against humanity. It is commonly sufficient for
the devotees to be on good terms with God, whether
they be consistent in their actions with man, or in
the practice of those duties they owe to their fel-
low beings.
Besides, Madam, what real advantage does so-
ciety derive from repeated prayers, abstinences,
privations, seclusions, meditations, and austerities,
to which religion attaches so much value ? Do all
the mysterious practices of the priests produce any
real good ? Are they capable of calming the pas-
sions, of correcting vices, and of giving virtue to
those who most scrupulously observe them ? Do
we not daily see persons who believe themselves
LETTER VII. 153
damned if they forget a mass, if they eat a fowl on
Friday, if they neglect a confession, though they
are guilty at the same time of great dereliction to
society ? Do they not hold the conduct of those
very unjust, and very cruel, who happen to have
the misfortune of not thinking and doing as they
think and act? These practices, out of which a
great number of men have created essential duties,
but too commonly absorb all moral duties ; for if
the devotees are over-religious, it is rare . to find
them virtuous. Content with doing what religion
requires, they trouble themselves very little about
other matters. They believe themselves the favored
of God, and that it is a proof of this if they are
detested by men, whose good opinion they are
seldom anxious to deserve. The whole life of a
devotee is spent in fulfilling, with scrupulous ex-
actitude, duties indifferent to God, unnecessary to
himself, and useless to others. He fancies he is
virtuous when he has performed the rites which
his religion prescribes ; when he has meditated on
mysteries of which he understands nothing ; when
he has struggled with sadness to do things in which
a man of sense can perceive no advantage ; in fine,
when he has endeavored to practise, as much as in
him lies, the Evangelical or Christian virtues, in
which he thinks all morality essentially consists.
I shall proceed in my next letter to examine these
virtues, and to prove to you that they are contrary
to the ideas we ought to form of God, useless to
ourselves, and often dangerous to others. In the
mean time, I am, &c.
1'54 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
LETTER VIII.
OF EVANGELICAL VIRTUES AND CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.
IF we believe the priests, we shall be persuaded,
that the Christian religion, by the beauty of its
morals, excels philosophy and all the other religious
systems in the world. According to them, the un-
assisted reason of the human mind could never
have conceived sounder doctrines of morality, more
heroical virtues, or precepts more beneficial to so-
ciety. But this is not all; the virtues known or
practised among the heathens are considered as
false virtues; far from deserving our esteem, and
the favor of the Almighty, they are entitled to
noihing but contempt; and, indeed, are flagrant
sins in the sight of God. In short, the priests labor
1o convince us, that the Christian ethics are purely
divine, and the lessons inculcated so sublime, that
they could proceed from nothing less than the
Deity.
If, indeed, we call that divine which men can
neither conceive nor perform; if by divine virtues
we are to understand virtues to which the mind of
man cannot possibly attach the least idea of utility ;
if by divine perfections are meant those qualities
which are not only foreign to the nature of man,
but which are irreconcilably repugnant to it,
then, indeed, we shall be compelled to acknowledge
that the morals of Christianity are divine ; at least
we shall be assured that they have nothing in com-
LETTER VIII. 155
mon with that system of morality which arises
out of the nature and relations of men, but on
the contrary, that they, in many instances, con-
found the best 'conceptions we are able to form of
virtue.
Guided by the light of reason, we comprehend
under the name of virtue those habitual dispo-
sitions of the heart which tend to the happiness
and the real advantage of those with whom we
associate, and by the exercise of which our fellow-
creatures are induced to feel a reciprocal interest in
our welfare. Under the Christian system the name
of virtues is bestowed upon dispositions which it is
impossible to possess without supernatural grace;
and which, when possessed, are useless, if not in-
jurious, both to ourselves and others. The moral-
ity of Christians is, in good truth, the morality of
another world. Like the philosopher of antiquity,
they keep their eyes fixed upon the stars till they
fall into a well, unperceived, at their feet. The
only object which their scheme of morals proposes
to itself is, to disgust their minds with the things
of this world, in order that they may place their
entire affections upon things above, of which they
have no knowledge whatever; their happiness here
below forms no part of their consideration ; this
life, in the view of a Christian, is nothing but a
pilgrimage, leading to another existence, infinitely
more interesting to his hopes, because infinitely
beyond the reach of his understanding. Besides,
before we can deserve to be happy in the world
150 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
which we do not know, we are informed that we
must be miserable in the world which we do know ;
and, above all things, in order to secure to our-
selves happiness hereafter, it is especially necessary
that we altogether resign the use of our own rea-
son ; that is to say, we must seal up our eyes in
utter darkness, and surrender ourselves to the gui-
dance of our priests. These are the principles upon
which the fabric of Christian morals is evidently
constructed.
Let us now proceed, Madam, to a more detailed
examination of the virtues upon which the Chris-
tian religion is built. These virtues are Evangeli-
cal, &c. If destitute of them, we are assured that
it is in vain for us to seek the favor of the Deity.
Of these virtues the first is FAITH. According
to the doctrine of the church, faith is the gift of
God, a supernatural virtue, by means of which we
are inspired with a firm belief in God, and in all
that he has vouchsafed to reveal to man, all hough
our reason is utterly unable to comprehend it.
Faith is, says the church, founded upon the word
of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
Thus faith supposes, that God has spoken to man
but what evidence have we that God has spoken
to man? The Holy Scriptures. Who is it that
assures us the Holy Scriptures contain the word of
God ? It is the church. But who is it that assures
us the church cannot and will not deceive us ? The
Holy Scriptures. Thus the Scriptures bear witness
to the infallibility of the church and the church,
LETTER VIII. 157
in return, testifies the truth of the Scriptures.
From this statement of the case, you must perceive,
that faith is nothing more than an implicit belief in
the priests, whose assurances we adopt as the foun-
dation of opinions in themselves incomprehensible.
It is true, that as a confirmation of the truth of
Scripture, we are referred to miracles but it is
these identical Scriptures which report to us and
testify of those very miracles. Of the absolute im-
possibility of any miracles, I flatter myself that I
have already convinced you.
Besides, I cannot but think, Madam, that you
must be, by this time, thoroughly satisfied how ab-
surd it is to say that the understanding is convinced
of any thing which it does not comprehend ; the
insight I have given you into the books which the
Christians call sacred, must have left upon your
mind a firm persuasion, that they never could have
proceeded from a wise, a good, an omniscient, a
just, and all-powerful God. If, then, we cannot
yield them a real belief, what we call faith can be
nothing more than a blind and irrational adherence
to a system devised by priests, whose crafty self-
ishness has made them careful from the earliest
infancy to fill our tender minds with prepossessions
in favor of doctrines which they judged favorable
to then* own interests. Interested, however, as they
are in the opinions which they endeavor to force
upon us as truth, is it possible for these priests to
believe them themselves? Unquestionably not
the thing is out of nature. They are men like our-
14
158 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
selves, furnished with the same faculties, and neither
they nor we can be convinced of any thing which
lies equally beyond the scope of us all. If they
possessed an additional sense, we should perhaps
allow that they might comprehend what is unin-
telligible to us ; but as we clearly see that they
have no intellectual privileges above the rest of the
species, we are compelled to conclude, that their
faith, like the faith of other Christians, is a blind
acquiescence in opinions derived, without exami-
nation, from their predecessors ; and that they
must be hypocrites when they pretend to believe in
doctrines of the truth of which they cannot be con-
vinced, since these doctrines have been shown to
be destitute of that degree of evidence which is
necessary to impress the mind with a feeling of
their probability, much less of their certainty.
It will be said that faith, or the faculty of be-
lieving things incredible, is the gift of God, and
can only be known to those upon whom God has
bestowed the favor. My answer is, that, if that be
the case, we have no alternative but to wait till the
grace of God shall be shed upon us and that in
the mean time we may be allowed to doubt whether
credulity, stupidity, and the perversion of reason can
proceed, as favors, from a rational Deity who has
endowed us with the power of thinking. If God
be infinitely wise, how can folly and imbecility be
pleasing to him ? If there were such a thing as
faith, proceeding from grace, it would be the privi-
lege of seeing things otherwise than as God has
LETTER VIII. 159
made them ; and if that were so, it follows, that the
whole creation would be a mere cheat. No man
can believe the Bible to be the production of God
without doing violence to every consistent notion
that he is able to form of Deity ! No man can be-
lieve that one God is three Gods, and that those
three Gods are one God, without renouncing all
pretension to common sense, and persuading him-
self that there is no such thing as certainty in the
world.
Thus, Madam, we are bound to suspect that
what the church calls a gift from above, a super-
natural grace, is, in fact, a perfect blindness, an ir-
rational credulity, a brutish submission, a vague
uncertainty, a stupid ignorance, by -which we are
led to acquiesce, without investigation, in every
dogma that our priests think fit to impose upon us
by which we are led to adopt, without knowing
why, the pretended opinions of men who can have
no better means of arriving at the truth than we
have. In short, we are authorized in suspecting
that no motive but that of blinding us, in order
more effectually to deceive us, can actuate those
men who are eternally preaching to us about a vir-
tue which, if it could exist, would throw into utter
confusion the simplest and clearest perceptions of
the human mind.
This supposition is amply confirmed by the con-
duct of our ecclesiastics forgetting what they
have told us, that grace is the gratuitous present of
God, bestowed or withheld at his sovereign pleas-
160 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
ure, they nevertheless indulge their wrath against
V all those who have not received the gift of faith ;
they keep up one incessant anathema against all
unbelievers, and nothing less than absolute exter-
mination of heresy can appease their anger wher-
ever they have the strength to accomplish it. So
that heretics and unbelievers are made accountable
for the grace of God, although they never received
it ; they are punished in this world for those ad-
vantages which God has not been pleased to ex-
tend to them in their journey to the next. In the
estimation of priests and devotees, the want of
faith is the most unpardonable of all offences
it is precisely that offence which, in the cruelty of
their absurd injustice, they visit with the last rigors
of punishment, for you cannot be ignorant, Mad-
am, that in all countries where the clergy possess
sufficient influence, the flames of priestly charity
are lighted up to consume all those who are defi-
cient in the prescribed allowance of faith.
When we inquire the motive for their unjust and
senseless proceedings, we are told that faith is the
most necessary of all things, that faith is of the
most essential service to morals, that without faith
a man is a dangerous and wicked wretch, a pest to
society. And, after all, is it our own choice to
have faith ? Can we believe just what we please ?
Does it depend upon ourselves not to think a prop-
osition absurd which our understanding shows us
to be absurd ? How could we avoid receiving, in
our infancy, whatever impressions and opinions our
LETTER VIII. 161
teachers and relations chose to implant in us ?
And where is the man who can boast that he has
faith that he is fully convinced of mysteries
which he cannot conceive, and wonders which he
cannot comprehend ?
Under these circumstances how can faith be ser-
viceable to morals ? If no one can have faith but
i upon the assurance of another, and consequently "
""" cannot entertain a real conviction, what becomes
of the social virtues? Admitting that faith were
possible, what connection can exist between such
occult speculations and the manifest duties of
mankind, duties which are palpable to every one
who, in the least, consults his reason, his interest,
or the welfare of the society to which he belongs ?
Before I can be satisfied of the advantages of jus-
tice, temperance, and benevolence, must I first be-
lieve in the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharist,
and all the fables of the Old Testament? If I
believe in all the atrocious murders attributed by
the Bible to that God whom I am bound to con-
sider as the fountain of justice, wisdom, and good-
ness, is it not likely that I shall feel encouraged to
the commission of crimes when I find them sanc-
tioned by such an example ? Although unable to
discover the value of so many mysteries which I
cannot understand, or of so many fanciful and
cumbersome ceremonies prescribed by the church,
am I, on that account, to be denounced as a more
dangerous citizen than those who persecute, tor-
ment, and destroy every one of their fellow-crea-
14*
162 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
tures who does not think and act at their dictation ?
The evident result of all these considerations must
be, that he who has a lively faith and a blind zeal
for opinions contradictory to common sense, is more
irrational, and consequently more wicked than the
man whose mind is untainted by such detestable
doctrines ; for when once the priests have gained
their fatal ascendency over his mind, and have
persuaded him that, by committing all sorts of
enormities, he is doing the work of the Lord, there
can be no doubt that he will make greater havoc
in the happiness of the world, than the man whose
reason tells him that such excesses cannot be ac-
ceptable in the sight of God.
The advocates of the church will here interrupt
me, by alleging that if divested of those sentiments
which religion inspires, men would no longer live
under the influence of motives strong enough to
induce an abstinence from vice, or to urge them on
in the career of virtue when obstructed by painful
sacrifices. In a word, it will be affirmed that
unless men are convinced of the existence of an
avenging and remunerating God, they are released
from every motive to fulfil their duties to each
other in the present life.
You are, doubtless, Madam, quite sensible of the
futility of such pretences, put forth by priests who,
in order to render themselves more necessary, are
indefatigable in endeavoring to persuade us that
their system is indispensable to the maintenance of
social order. To annihilate their sophistries it is
LETTER VIII. 163
sufficient to reflect upon the nature of man, his
true interests, and the end for which society is
formed. Man is a feeble being, whose necessities
render him constantly dependent upon the support
of others, whether it be for the preservation or the
pleasure of his existence ; he has no means of in-
teresting others in his welfare .except by his man-
ner of conducting himself towards them ; that
conduct which renders him an object of affection
to others is called virtue whatever is pernicious
to society is called crime and where the conse-
quences are injurious only to the individual him-
self, it is called vice. Thus every man must
immediately perceive that he consults his own
happiness by advancing that of others that
vices, however cautiously disguised from public
observation, are, nevertheless, fraught with ruin to
him who practises them and that crimes are sure
to render the perpetrator odious or contemptible in
the eyes of his associates, who are necessary to his
own happiness. In short, education, public opin-
ion, and the laws point out to us our mutual duties
much more clearly than the chimeras of an incom-
prehensible religion.
Every man on consulting with himself will feel
indubitably that he desires his own conservation ;
experience will teach him both what he ought to do
and what to avoid to arrive at this end ; in conse-
quence he will shrink from those excesses which
endanger his being; he will debar himself from
those gratifications which in their course would
104 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
render his existence miserable ; and he would make
sacrifices, if it was necessary, in the view of pro-
curing himself advantages more real than those of
which he momentarily deprived himself. Thus he
would know what he owes to himself and what he
owes to others.
Here, Madam, you have a short but perfect sum-
mary of all morals, derived, as they must be, from
the nature of man, the uniform experience and the
universal reason of mankind. These precepts are
compulsory upon our minds, for they show us that
the consequences of our conduct flow from our ac-
tions with as natural and inevitable a certainty as
the return of a stone to the earth after the impetus
is exhausted which detained it in the air. It is nat-
ural and inevitable that the man who employs him-
self in doing good must be preferred to the man
who does mischief. Every thinking being must be
penetrated with the truth of this incontrovertible
maxim, and all the ponderous volumes of theology
that ever were composed can add nothing to the
force of his conviction ; every thinking being will,
therefore, avoid a conduct calculated to injure either
himself or others ; he will feel himself under the
necessity of doing good to others, as the only
method of obtaining solid happiness for himself,
and of conciliating to himself those sentiments on
the part of others, without which he could derive
no charms from society.
You perceive, then, Madam, that faith cannot in
any manner contribute to the correction of social
LETTER VIII. 1G5
conduct, and you will feel that the popular super-
natural notions cannot add any thing to the obli-
gations that our nature imposes upon us. In fact,
the more mysterious and incomprehensible are the
dogmas of the church, the more likely are they to
draw us aside from the plain dictates of Nature
and the straight-forward directions of Reason,
whose voice is incapable of misleading us. A
candid survey of the causes which produce an
infinity of evils that afflict society will quickly
point out the speculative tenets of theology as
their most fruitful source. The intoxication of
enthusiasm and the frenzy of fanaticism concur in
overpowering reason, and by rendering men blind
and unreflecting, convert them into enemies both
of themselves and the rest of the world. It is im-
possible for the worshippers of a tyrannical, par-
tial, and cruel God to practise the duties of justice
and philanthropy. As soon as the priests have
succeeded in stifling within us the commands of
Reason, they have already converted us into slaves,
in whom they can kindle whatever passions it may
please them to inspire us with.
Their interest, indeed, requires that we should
be slaves. They exact from us the surrender of
our reason, because our reason contradicts their
impostures, and would ruin their plans of aggran-
dizement. Faith is the instrument by which they
enslave us and make us subservient to their own
ambition. Hence arises their zeal for the propaga-
tion of the faith ; hence arises their implacable
160 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
hostility to science, and to all those who refuse
submission to their yoke ; hence arises their inces-
sant endeavor to establish the dominion of Faith,
(that is to say, their own dominion,) even by fire
and sword, the only arguments they condescend to
employ.
It must be confessed that society derives but
little advantage from this supernatural faith which
the church has exalted into the first of virtues. As
it regards God, it is perfectly useless to him, since
if he wishes mankind to be convinced, it is suffi-
cient that he wills them to be so. It is utterly un-
worthy of the supreme wisdom of God, who cannot
exhibit himself to mortals in a manner contradic-
tory to the reason with which he has endowed
them. It is unworthy of the divine justice, which
cannot require from mankind to be convinced of
that which they cannot understand. It denies the
very existence of God himself, by inculcating a
belief totally subversive of the only rational idea
we are able to form of the Divinity.
As it regards morality, faith is also useless.
Faith cannot render it either more sacred or more
necessary than it already is by its own inherent
essence, and by the nature of man. Faith is not
only useless, but injurious to society, since, under
the plea of its pretended necessity, it frequently
fills the world with deplorable troubles and horrid
crimes. In short, faith is self-contradictory, since
by it we are required to believe in things inconsis-
tent with each other, and even incompatible with
LETTER VIII. 107
the principles laid down in the books which we
have already investigated, and which contain what
we are commanded to believe.
To whom, then, is faith found to be advan- ,
tageous? To a few men, only, who, availing \f
themselves of its influence to degrade the human
mind, contrive to render the labor of the whole
world tributary to their own luxury, splendor, and
power. Are the nations of the earth any happier
for their faith, or their blind reliance on priests?
Certainty not. We do not there find more moral-
ity, more, virtue, more industry, or more happiness ;
but, on the contrary, wherever the priests are power-
ful, there the people are sure to be found abject in
their minds and squalid in their condition.
But Hope Hope, the second in order of the
Christian perfections, is ever at hand to console us
for the evils inflicted by Faith. We are commanded
to be firmly convinced that those who have faith,
that is to say, those who believe in priests, shall be
amply rewarded in the other world for their meri-
torious submission in this. Thus hope is founded
on faith, in the same manner as faith is established
upon hope ; faith enjoins us to entertain a devout
hope that our faith will be rewarded. And what
is it we are told to hope for? For unspeakable
benefits ; that is, benefits for which language con-
tains no expression. So that, after all, we know
not what it is we are to hope for. And how can
we feel a hope or even a wish for any object that
is undefinable ? How can priests incessantly speak
168 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
to us of things of which they, at the same time,
acknowledge it is impossible for us to form any
ideas ?
It thus appears that hope and faith have one
common foundation ; the same blow which over-
turns the one necessarily levels the other with the
ground. But let us pause a moment, and endeavor
to discover the advantages of Christian hope
amongst men. It encourages to the practice of
virtue ; it supports the unfortunate under the stroke
of affliction ; and consoles the believer in the hour
of adversity. But what encouragement, what
support, what consolation can be imparted to the
mind from these undefined and undefinable shad-
ows ? No one, indeed, will deny that hope is suf-
ficiently useful to the priests, who never fail to cail
in its assistance for the vindication of Providence,
whenever any of the elect have occasion to com-
plain of the unmerited hardship or the transient
injustice of his dispensations. Besides, these
priests, notwithstanding their beautiful systems,
find themselves unable to fulfil the high-sounding
promises they so liberally make to all the faithful,
and are frequently at a loss to explain the evils
which they bring upon their flocks by means of
the quarrels they engage in, and the false notions
of religion they entertain ; on these occasions the
priests have a standing appeal to hope, telling their
dupes that man was not created for this world,
that heaven is his home, and that his sufferings
here will be counterbalanced by indescribable bliss
LETTER VIII. 169
hereafter. Thus, like quacks, whose nostrums have
ruined the health of their patients, they have still
left to themselves the advantage of selling hopes
to those whom they know themselves unable to
cure. Our priests resemble some of our physicians,
who begin by frightening us into our complaints,
in order that they may make us customers for the
hopes which they afterwards sell to us for their
weight in gold. This traffic constitutes, in reality,
all that is called religion.
The third of the Christian virtues is Charity;
that is, to love God above all things, and our neigh-
bors as ourselves. But before we are required to
love God above all things, it seems reasonable that
religion should condescend to represent him as
worthy of our love. In good faith, Madam, is it
possible to feel that the God of the Christians is
entitled to our love ? Is it possible to feel any
other sentiments than those of aversion towards a
partial, capricious, cruel, revengeful, jealous, and
sanguinary tyrant? How can we sincerely love
the most terrible of beings, the living God, into
whose hands it is dreadful to think of falling,
the God who can consign to eternal damnation
those very creatures who, without his own consent,
would never have existed ? Are our theologians
aware of what -they say, when they tell us that the
fear of God is the fear of a child for its parent,
which is mingled with love ? Are we not bound
to hate, can we by any means avoid detesting, a
barbarous father, whose injustice is so boundless
15
c
170 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
;-
is to punish the whole human race, though inno-
cent, in order to revenge himself upon two indi-
viduals for the sin of the apple, which sin he him-
self might have prevented if he had thought proper ?
In short, Madam, it is a physical impossibility to
love above all things a God whose whole conduct,
as described in the Bible, fills us with a freezing
horror. If, therefore, the love of God, as the Jan-
senists assert, is indispensable to salvation, we
cannot wonder to find that the elect are so few.
Indeed, there are not many persons who can
restrain themselves from hating this God ; and the
doctrine of the Jesuits is, that to abstain from
hating him is sufficient for salvation. The power
of loving a God whom religion paints as the most
detestable of beings would, doubtless, be a proof of
the most supernatural grace, that is, a grace the
most contrary to nature ; to love that which we do
not know, is, assuredly, sufficiently difficult; to
love that which we fear, is still more difficult ; but
to love that which is exhibited to us in the most
repulsive colors, is manifestly impossible.
We must, after all this, be thoroughly convinced
that, except by means of an invisible grace never
- communicated to the profane, no Christian in his
sober senses can love his God ; even those devotees
who pretend to that happiness ar& apt to deceive
themselves ; their conduct resembles that of hypo-
critical flatterers, who, in order to ingratiate them-
selves with an odious tyrant, or to escape his
resentment, make every profession of attachment,
LETTER VIII. 171
whilst, at the bottom of their hearts, they execrate
him ; or, on the other hand, they must be con-
demned as enthusiasts, who, by means of a heated
imagination, become the dupes of their own illu-
sions, and only view the favorable side of a God
declared to be the fountain of all good, yet, never- ,
theless, constantly delineated to us with every fea- )
ture of wickedness. Devotees, when sincere, are
like women given up to the infatuation of a blind
passion by which they are enamoured with lovers
rejected by the rest of the sex as unworthy of their
affection. It was said by Madame de Sevigne*
that she loved God as a perfectly well-bred gentle-
man, with whom she had never been acquainted.
But can the God of the Christians be esteemed a
well-bred gentleman ? Unless her head was turned,
one would think that she must have been cured of
her passion by the slightest reference to her imagi-
nary lover's portrait as drawn in the Bible, or as it
is spread upon the canvas of our theological artists.
With regard to the love of our neighbor, where
was the necessity of religion to teach us our duty,
which as men we cannot but feel, of cherishing
sentiments of good will towards each other? It is
only by showing in our conduct an affectionate
disposition to others that we can produce in them
correspondent feelings towards ourselves. The
simple circumstance of being men is quite suffi-
cient to give us a claim upon the heart of every
man who is susceptible of the sweet sensibilities
of our nature. Who is better acquainted than
172 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
yourself, Madam, with this truth ? Does not your
compassionate soul experience at every moment
the delightful satisfaction of solacing the unhappy ?
Setting aside the superfluous precepts of religion,
think you that you could by any efforts steel your
heart against the tears of the unfortunate ? Is it
not by rendering our fellow-creatures happy that
we establish an empire in their hearts ? Enjoy,
then, Madam, this delightfuLsovereignty ; continue
to bless with your beneficence all that surround
you ; the consciousness of being the dispenser of
so much good will always sustain your mind with
the most gratifying self-applause ; those who have
received your kindness will reward you with then-
blessings,, and afford you the tribute of affection
which mankind are ever eager to lay at the feet of
their benefactors.
Christianity, not satisfied with recommending
the love of our neighbor, superadds the injunction
of loving our enemies. This precept, attributed to
the Son of God himself, forms the ground on which
our divines claim for their religion a superiority of
moral doctrine over all that the philosophers of
antiquity were known to teach. Let us, therefore,
examine how far this precept admits of being re-
duced to practice. True, an elevated mind may
easily place itself above a sense of injuries ; a noble
spirit retains no resentful recollections ; a great soul
revenges itself by a generous clemency ; but it is
an absurd contradiction to require that a man shall
entertain feelings of tenderness and regard for
LETTER VIII. 173
those whom he knows to be bent on his destruc-
tion ; this love of our enemies, which Christianity
is so vain of having promulgated, turns out, then,
to be an impracticable commandment, belied and
denied by every Christian at every moment of his
life. How preposterous to talk of loving that
which annoys us ! of cherishing an attachment
for that which gives us pain! of receiving an
outrage with joy! of loving those who subject
us to misery and suffering! No; in the midst of
these trials our firmness may perhaps be strength-
ened by the hope of a reward hereafter ; but it is a
mere fallacy to talk of our entertaining a sincere
love for those whom we deem the authors of our
afflictions; the least that we can do is to avoid
them, which will not be looked upon as a very
strong indication of our love.
Notwithstanding the solemn formality with
which the Christian religion obtrudes upon us
these vaunted precepts of love of our neighbor,
love of our enemies, and forgiveness of injuries, it
cannot escape the observation of the weakest
among us, that those very men who are the loudest
in praising are also the first and most constant in
violating them. Our priests especially seem to
consider themselves exempt from the troublesome
necessity of adopting for their own conduct a too
literal interpretation of this divine law. They have
invented a most convenient salvo, since they affect
to exclude all those who do not profess to think as
they dictate, not only from the kindness of neigh-
15*
174 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
bors, but even from the rights of fellow-creatures.
On this principle they defame, persecute, and de-
stroy every one who displeases them. When do
you see a priest forgive ? When revenge is out of
his reach ! But it is never their own injuries they
punish ; it is never their own enemies they seek to
exterminate. Their disinterested indignation burns
with resentment against the enemies of the Most
High, who, without their assistance, would be in-
capable of adjusting his own quarrels ! By an un-
accountable coincidence, however, it is sure to
happen that the enemies of the church are the
enemies of the Most High, who never fails to
make common cause with the ministers of the
faith, and who would take it extremely ill if his
ministers should relax in the measure of punish-
ment due to their common enemy. Thus our
priests are cruel and revengeful from pure zeal ;
they would ardently wish to forgive their own ene-
mies, but how could they justify themselves to the
God of Mercies if they extended the least indul-
gence to his enemies ?
A true Christian loves the Creator above all
things, and consequently he must love him in pref-
erence to the creature. We feel a lively interest
in every thing that concerns the object of our love ;
from all which, it follows that we must evince our
zeal, and even, when necessary, we must not hesi-
tate to exterminate our neighbor, if he says or does
what is displeasing or injurious to God. In such
a case, indifference would be criminal ; a sincere
LETTER VIII. 175
love of God breaks out into a holy ardor in his
cause, and our merit rises in proportion to our
violence.
These notions, absurd as they are, have been
sufficient in every age to produce in the world a
multitude of crimes, extravagances, and follies,
the legitimate offspring of a religious zeal. In-
fatuated fanatics, exasperated by priests against
each other, have been driven into mutual hatred,
persecution, and destruction ; they have thought
themselves called upon to avenge the Almighty;
they have carried their insane delusions so far as
to persuade themselves that the God of clemency
and goodness could look on with pleasure while
they murdered their brethren ; in the astonishing
blindness of their stupidity, they have imagined
that in defending the temporalities of the church,
they were defending God himself. In pursuance
of these errors, contradicted even by the descrip-
tion which they themselves give us of the Divinity,
the priests of every age have found means to in-
troduce confusion into the peaceful habitations of
men, and to destroy all who dared to resist their
tyranny. Under the laughable idea of revenging
the all-powerful Creator, these priests have discov-
ered the secret of revenging themselves, and that,
too, without drawing down upon themselves the
hatred and execration so justly due to their vindic-
tive fury and unfeeling selfishness. In the name
of the God of nature, they stifled the voice of na-
ture in the breasts of men ; in the name of the
176 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
God of goodness, they incited men to the fury of
wild beasts ; in the name of the God of mercies,
they prohibited all forgiveness !
It is thus, Madam, that the earth has never
ceased to groan with the ravages committed by
maniacs under the influence of that zeal which
springs from the Christian doctrine of the love of
God. The God of the Christians, like the Janus
of Roman mythology, has two faces ; sometimes
he is represented with the benign features of mercy
and goodness ; sometimes murder, revenge, and
fury issue from his nostrils. And what is the
consequence of this double aspect but that the
Christians are much more easily terrified at his
frightful lineaments than they are recovered from
their fears by his aspect of mercy ! Having been
taught to view him as a capricious being, they are
naturally mistrustful of him, and imagine that the
safest part they can act for themselves is to set
about the work of vengeance with great zeal ;
they conclude that a cruel master cannot find fault
with cruel imitators, and that his servants cannot
render themselves more acceptable than by extir-
pating all his enemies.
The preceding remarks show very clearly, Mad-
am, the highly pernicious consequences which
result from the zeal engendered, by the love of
God. If this love is a virtue, its benefits are con-
fined to the priests, who arrogate to themselves the
exclusive privilege of declaring when God is of-
fended ; who absorb all the offerings and monopo-
LETTER VIII. 177
lize all the homage of the devout ; who decide \
upon the opinions that please or displease him ; Y
who undertake to inform mankind of the duties
this virtue requires from them, and of the proper
time and manner of performing them; who are
interested in rendering those duties cruel and in-
timidating in order to frighten mankind into a
profitable subjection ; who convert it into the in-
strument of gratifying their own malignant pas-
sions, by inspiring men with a spirit of headlong
and raging intolerance, which, in its furious course
of indiscriminate destruction, holds nothing sacred,
and which has inflicted incredible ravages upon all
Christian countries.
In conformity with such abominable principles,
a Christian is bound to detest and destroy all
whom the church may point out as the enemies of
God. Having admitted the paramount duty of
yielding their entire affections to a rigorous master,
quick to resent, and offended even with the invol-
untary thoughts and opinions of his creatures,
they of course feel themselves bound, by entering
with zeal into his quarrels, to obtain for him a ven-
geance worthy of a God that is to say, a ven-
geance that knows no bounds. A conduct like
this is the natural offspring of those revolting
ideas which our priests give us of the Deity. A
good Christian is therefore necessarily intolerant.
It is true that Christianity in the pulpit preaches
nothing but mildness, meekness, toleration, peace,
and concord ; but Christianity in the world is a
178 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
stranger to all these virtues; nor does she ever
exercise them except when she is deficient in the
necessary power to give effect to her destructive
zeal. The real truth of the matter is, that Chris-
tians think themselves absolved from every tie of
humanity except with those who think as they
do, who profess to believe the same creed ; they
have a repugnance, more or less decided, against
all those who disagree with their priests in theologi-
cal speculation. How common it is to see persons
of the mildest character and most benevolent dis-
position regard with aversion the adherents of a dif-
ferent sect from their own ! The reigning religion
that is, the religion of the sovereign, or of the
priests in whose favor the sovereign declares him-
self crushes all rival sects, or, at least, makes
them fully sensible of its superiority and its hatred,
in a manner extremely insulting, and calculated to
raise their indignation. By these means it fre-
quently happens that the deference of the prince
to the wishes of the priests has the effect of alien-
ating the hearts of his most faithful subjects, and
brings him that execration which ought in justice
to be heaped exclusively upon his sanctimonious
instigators.
In short, Madam, the private rights of conscience
are nowhere sincerely respected ; the leaders of the
various religious sects begin, in the very cradle, to
teach all Christians to hate and despise each other
about some theological point which nobody can
understand. The clergy, when vested with power,
LETTER VIII. 179
never preach toleration ; on the contrary, they
consider every man as an enemy who is a friend
to religious freedom, accusing him of. lukewarm-
ness, infidelity, and secret hostility; in short, he
is denominated a false brother. The Sorbonne
declared, in the sixteenth century, that it was
heretical to say that heretics ought not to be
burned. The ferocious St. Austin preached tol-
eration at one period, but it was before he was
duly initiated in the mysteries of the sacerdotal
policy, which is ever repugnant to toleration.
Persecution is necessary to our priests, to deter
mankind from opposing themselves to their ava-
rice, their ambition, their vanity, and their obsti-
nacy. The sole principle which holds the church
together is that of a sleepless watchfulness on
the part of all its members to extend its power,
to increase the multitude of its slaves, to fix odium
on all who hesitate to bend their necks to its yoke,
or who refuse their assent to its arbitrary decis-
ions.
Our divines have, therefore, you see, very good
reasons for raising humility into the rank of virtue.
An amiable modesty, a diffident mildness of de-
meanor, are unquestionably calculated to promote
the pleasures and the advantages of society ; it is
equally certain that insolence and arrogance are
disgusting, that they wound our self-love and ex-
cite our aversion by their repulsive conduct ; but
that amiable modesty which charms all who come
within its influence is a far different quality from
180 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
that which is designated humility in the vocabulary
of Christians. A. truly humble Christian despises
his own unworthiness, avoids the esteem of others,
mistrusts his own understanding, submits with do-
cility to the unerring guidance of his spiritual mas-
ters, and piously resigns to his priest the clearest
and most irrefutable conclusions of reason.
But to what advantage can this pretended virtue
lead its followers ? How can a man of sense and
integrity despise himself? Is not public opinion
the guardian of private virtue ? If you deprive men
of the love of glory, and the desire of deserving the
approbation of their fellow-citizens, are you not
divesting them of the noblest and most powerful
incitements by which they can be impelled to bene-
fit their country ? What recompense will remain
to the benefactors of mankind, if, first of all, we are
unjust enough to refuse them the praise they merit,
and afterwards debar them from the satisfaction of
self-applause, and the happiness they would feel in
the consciousness of having done good to an un-
grateful world ? What infatuation, what amazing
infatuation, to require a man of upright character,
of talents, intelligence, and learning, to think him-
self on a level with a selfish priest, or a stupid
fanatic, who deal out their absurd fables and in-
coherent dreams ! ^
Our priests are never weary of telling their flocks
that pride leads on to infidelity, and that a humble
and submissive spirit is alone fitted to receive the
truths of the gospel. In good earnest, should we
LETTER VIII. 181
not be utterly bereft of every claim to the name of
rational beings, if we consent to surrender our judg-
ment and our knowledge at the command of a
hierarchy, who have nothing to give us in exchange
but the most palpable absurdities ? With what face
can a reverend Doctor of Nonsense dare to exact
from my understanding a humble acquiescence in
a bundle of mysterious opinions, for which he is
unable to offer me a single solid reason? Is it,
then, presumptuous to think one's self superior to a
class of pretenders, whose systems are a mass of
falsities, absurdities, and inconsistencies, of which
they contrive to make mankind at once the dupes
and the victims ? Can pride or vanity be, with
justice, imputed to you, Madam, if you see reason
to prefer the dictates of your own understand-
ing to the authoritative decrees of Mrs. D ,
whose senseless malignity is obvious to all her
acquaintance ?
If Christian humility is a virtue at all, it can be
one only in the cloister ; society can derive no sort of
benefit from it ; it enervates the mind ; it benefits
nobody but priests, who, under the pretext of ren-
dering men humble, seek, in reality, only to degrade
them, to stifle in their souls every spark of science
and of courage, that they may the more easily im-
pose the yoke of faith, that is to say, their own
yoke. Conclude, then, with me, that the Christian
virtues are chimerical, always useless, and some-
times pernicious to men, and attended with ad-
vantage to none but priests. Conclude that this
16
182 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
religion, with all the boasted beauty of its morality,
recommends to us a set of virtues, and enjoins a
line of conduct, at variance with good sense. Con-
clude that, in order to be moral and virtuous, it is
far from necessary to adopt the unintelligible creed
of the priests, or to pride ourselves upon the empty
virtues they preach, and still less to annihilate all
sense of dignity in ourselves, by a degrading sub-
jection to the duties they require. Conclude, in
short, that the friend of virtue is not, of necessity,
the friend of priestcraft, and that a man may be
adorned with every human perfection, without pos-
sessing one of the Christian virtues.
All who examine this matter with a candid and in-
telligent eye, cannot fail to see that true morality
that is to say, a morality really serviceable to man-
kind is absolutely incompatible with the Chris-
tian religion, or any other professed revelation.
Whoever imagines himself the favored object of the
Creator's love, must look down with disdain upon
his less fortunate fellow-creatures, especially if he
regards that Creator as partial, choleric, revengeful,
and fickle, easily incensed against us, even by our
involuntary thoughts, or our most innocent words
and actions ; such a man naturally conducts him-
self with contempt and pride, with harshness and
barbarity towards all others whom he may deem
obnoxious to the resentment of his Heavenly King.
Those men, whose folly leads them to view the
Deity in the light of a capricious, irritable, and un-
appeasable despot, can be nothing but gloomy and
LETTER VIII. 183
trembling slaves, ever eager to anticipate the ven-
geance of God upon all whose conduct or opinions
they may conceive likely to provoke the celestial
wrath. As soon as the priests have succeeded in
reducing men to a state of stupidity gross enough
to make them believe that their ghostly fathers are
the faithful organs of the divine will, they naturally
commit every species of crime, which their spiritual \/
teachers may please to tell them is calculated to
pacify the anger of their offended God. Men, silly
enough to accept a system of morals from guides
thus hollow in reasoning, arid thus discordant in
opinion, must necessarily be unstable in their prin-
ciples, and subject to every variation that the in-
terest of their guides may suggest. In short, it is
impossible to construct a solid morality, if we take
for our foundation the attributes of a deity so un-
just, so capricious, and so changeable as the God
of the Bible, whom we are commanded to imitate
and adore.
Persevere, then, my dear Madam, in the practice
of those virtues which your own unsophisticated
heart approves ; they will insure you a rich harvest
of happiness in the present existence ; they will in-
sure you a rich return of gratitude, respect, and
love from all who enjoy their benign influence;
they will insure you the solid satisfaction of a well-
founded self-esteem, and thus provide you with that
unfailing source of inward gratification which arises
from the consciousness of having contributed to the
welfare of the human race. I am, &c.
184 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
LETTER IX.
OF THE ADVANTAGES CONTRIBUTED TO GOVERNMENT BY
RELIGION.
HAVING already shown you, Madam, the feeble-
ness of those succors which religion furnishes to
morals, I shall now proceed to examine whether
it procure advantages in themselves really politic,
and whether it be true, as has so often been urged
by the priests, that it is absolutely necessary to the
existence of every government. Were we disposed
to shut our eyes, and deliver ourselves up to the
language of our priests, we should believe that their
opinions are necessary to the public tranquillity,
and the repose and security of the State ; that princes
could not, without their aid, govern the people, and
exert themselves for the prosperity of their empire.
Nor is this all; our spiritual pilots approach the
throne, and gaining the ear of the sovereign, make
him also believe that he has the greatest interest in
conforming to their caprices, in order to subject
men to the divine yoke of royalty. These priests
mingle in all important political quarrels, and they
too often persuade the rulers of the earth that the
enemies of the church are the enemies of all power,
and that in sapping the foundations of the altar,
the foundations of the throne are likewise necessa-
rily overthrown.
We have, then, only to open our eyes and con-
sult history, to be convinced of the falsity of these
LETTER IX. 185
pretensions, and to appreciate the important services
which the Christian priests have rendered to their
sovereigns. Ever since the establishment of Chris-
tianity, we have seen, in all the countries in which
this religion has gained ground, that two rival pow-
ers are perpetually at war one with the other. We
find a government within the government; that is
to say, we find the Church, a body of priests, con-
tinually opposed to the sovereign power, and in
virtue of their pretended divine mission and sacred
office, pretending to give laws to all the sovereigns
of the earth. We find the clergy, puffed up and
besotted with the titles they have given themselves,
laboring to exact the obedience due to the sov-
ereign, pretending to chimerical and dangerous
prerogatives, which none are suffered to question,
without risking the displeasure of the Almighty.
And so well have the priesthood managed this
matter, that in many countries w T e actually see the
people more inclined to lean to the authority of the
Vicars of Jesus Christ than to that of the civil
government. The priesthood claim the right of
commanding monarchs themselves, and sustained
by their emissaries and the credulity of the people,
their ridiculous pretensions have engaged princes
in the most serious affairs, sown trouble and dis-
cord in kingdoms, and so shook thrones as to com-
pel their occupants to make submission to an
intolerant hierarchy.
Such are the important services which religion
has a thousand times rendered to kings. The peo-
16*
186 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
pie, blinded by superstition, could hesitate but litile
between God and the princes of the earth. The
priests, being the visible organs of an invisible mon-
arch, have acquired an immense credit with preju'
diced minds. The ignorance of the people places
them, as well as their sovereigns, at the mercy of
the priests. Nations have continually been dragged
into their futile though bloody quarrels; princes,
for a long series of years, have either had to dispute
their authority with the clergy, or become their
tools or dupes.
The continual attention which the princes of Eu-
rope have been forced to pay to the clergy has pre-
vented them from occupying their thoughts about
the. welfare of their subjects, who, in many in-
stances the dupes of the priesthood, have opposed
even the good their rulers desired to procure them.
In like manner, the heads of the people, their kings
and governors, too weak to resist the torrent of
opinions propagated by the clergy, have been forced
to yield, to bow, nay, even to caress the priesthood,
and to consent to grant it all its demands. When-
ever they have wished to resist the encroachments
of the clergy, they have encountered concealed
snares or open opposition, as the holy power was
either too weak to act in the face of day, or strong
enough to contend in the sunshine. When princes
have wished to be listened to by the clergy, these
last have invariably contrived to make them cow-
ardly, and to sacrifice the happiness and respect of
their people. Often have the hands of parricides
LETTER IX. 187
and rebels been armed, by a proud and vindictive
priesthood, against sovereigns the most worthy of
reigning. The priests, under pretext of avengingX
God, inflict their anger upon monarchs themselves,
whenever the latter are found indisposed to bend /
under their yoke. In a word, in all countries we /
perceive that the ministers of religion have exer-
cised in all ages the most unbridled license. We
every where see empires torn by their dissensions ;
thrones overturned by their, machinations; princes
immolated to their power and revenge ; subjects
animated to revolt against the prince that ought to
give them more happiness than they actually en-
joyed ; and when we take the retrospect of these,
we find that the ambition, the cupidity, and vanity
of the clergy have been the true causes and motives
of all these outrages on the peace of the universe.
And it is thus that their religion has so often pro-
duced anarchy, and overturned the very empires
they pretended to support by its influence.
Sovereigns have never enjoyed peace but when,
shamefully devoted to priests, they submitted to
their caprices, became enslaved to their opinions,
and allowed them to govern in place of themselves.
Then was the sovereign power subordinate to the
sacerdotal, and the prince was only the first ser-
vant of the church ; she degraded him to such a
degree as to make him her hangman ; she obliged
him to execute her sanguinary decrees ; she forced
him to dip his hands in the blood of his own sub-
jects whom the clergy had proscribed ; she made
18.8 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
/ him the visible instrument of her vengeance, her
fury, and her concealed passions. Instead of oc-
cupying himself with the happiness of his people,
the sovereign has had the complaisance to torment,
to persecute, and to immolate honest citizens,
thus exciting the just hatred of a portion of his
people, to whom he should have been a father, to
gratify the ambition and the selfish malevolence of
Some priests, always aliens in the state which nour-
ishes them, and who only style themselves mem-
bers of the realm in order to domineer, to distract,
to plunder, and to devour with impunity.
How little soever you are disposed to reflect, you
will be convinced, Madam, that I do not exagger-
ate these things. Recent examples prove to you
that even in this age, so ambitious of being con-
sidered enlightened, nations are not secure from the
shocks that the priests have ever caused nations to
suffer. You have a hundred times sighed at the
sight of the sad follies which puerile questions have
produced among us. You have shuddered at the
frightful consequences which have resulted from the
unreasonable squabbles of the clergy. You have
trembled with all good citizens at the sight of the
tragical effects which have been brought about by
the furious wickedness of a fanaticism for which
nothing is sacred. In fine, you have seen the sov-
ereign authority compelled to struggle incessantly
against rebellious subjects, who pretend that their
conscience or the interests of religion have obliged
them to resist opinions the most agreeable to com-
mon sense, and the most equitable.
LETTER IX. 189
Our fathers, more religious and less enlightened
than ourselves, were witnesses of scenes yet more
terrible. They saw civil wars, leagues openly
formed against their sovereign, and the capital
submerged in the blood of murdered citizens ; two
monarchs successively immolated to the fury of the
clergy, who kindled in all parts the fire of sedition.
They afterwards saw kings at war with their own
subjects ; a famous sovereign, Louis XIV., tarnish-
ing all his glory by persecuting, contrary to the
faith of treaties, subjects who would have lived
tranquil, if they had only been allowed to enjoy in
peace the liberty of conscience ; and they saw, in
fine, this same prince, the dupe of a false policy,
dictated by intolerance, banish, along with the
exiled Protestants, the industry of his states, and
forcing the arts and manufactures of our nation to
take refuge in the dominions of our most impla-
cable enemies.
We see religion throughout Europe, without ces-
sation, exerting a baleful influence upon temporal
affairs ; we see it direct the interests of princes ;
we see it divide and make Christian nations en-
emies of each other, because their spiritual guides
do not all entertain the same opinions. Germany
is divided into two religious parties whose interests
are perpetually at variance. We every where per-
ceive that Protestants are born the enemies of the
Catholics, and are always in antagonism to them ;
while, on the other hand, the Catholics are leagued
with their priests against all those whose mode of
190 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
thinking is less abject and less servile than their
own.
Behold, Madam, the signal advantages that na-
tions derive from religion ! But we are certain to
be told that these terrible effects are due to the pas-
sions of men, and not to the Christian religion,
which incessantly inculcates charity, concord, in-
dulgence, and peace. If, however, we reflect even
a moment on the principles of this religion, we
should immediately perceive that they are incom-
patible with the fine maxims that have never been
practised by the Christian priests, except when they
lacked the power to persecute their enemies and
inflict upon them the weight of their rage. The
adorers of a jealous God, vindictive and sangui-
nary, as is obviously the character of the God of the
Jews and Christians, could not evince in their con-
duct moderation, tranquillity, and humanity. The
adorers of a God who takes offence at the opinions
of his weak creatures, who reprobates and glories
in the extermination of all who do not worship him
in a particular way, for the which, by the by, he
gives them neither the means nor the inclination,
must necessarily be intolerant persecutors. The
adorers of a God who has not thought fit to illu-
minate with an equal portion of light the minds of
all his creatures, who reveals his favor and bestows
his kindness on a few only of those creatures, who
leaves the remainder in blindness and uncertainty
to follow their passions, or adopt opinions against
which the favored wage war, must of necessity be
LETTER IX. 191
eternally at odds with the rest of the world, canting \,
about their oracles and mysteries, supernatural pre-
cepts, invented purely to torment the human mind, I
to enthral it, and leave man answerable for what he J
could not obey, and punishable for what he was
restrained from performing. We need not then be
astonished if, since the origin of Christianity, our
priests have never been a single moment without
disputes. It appears that God only sent his Son
upon earth that his marvellous doctrines might
prove an apple of discord both for his priests and
his adorers. The ministers of a church founded by
Christ himself, who promised to send them his
Holy Spirit to lead them into all the truth, have
never been in unison with their dogmas. We have
seen this infallible church for whole ages enveloped
in error. You know, Madam, that in the fourth
century, by the acknowledgment of the priests
themselves, the great body of the church followed
the opinions of the Arians, who disavowed even
the divinity of Jesus Christ. The spirit of God
must then have abandoned his church ; else why
did its ministers fall into this error, and dispute
afterwards about so fundamental a dogma of the
Christian religion ?
Notwithstanding these continual quarrels, the
church arrogates to itself the right of fixing the
faith of the true believers, and in this it pretends to
infallibility ; and if the Protestant parsons have
renounced the lofty and ridiculous pretensions of
their Catholic brethren, they are not less certain in
192 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
the infallibility of their decisions; for they talk
with the authority of oracles, and send to hell and
damnation all who do not yield submission to their
dogmas. Thus on both sides of the cross they
wish their assertions to be received by their adher-
ents as if they came direct from heaven. The
priests have always been at discord among them-
selves, and have perpetually cursed, anathematized,
and doomed each other to hell. The vanity of each
holy clique has caused it to adhere obstinately to its
own peculiar opinions, and to treat its adversaries
as heretics. Violence alone has generally decided
the discussions, terminated the disputes, and fixed
the standard of belief. Those pugnacious, brawl-
ing priests who were artful enough to enlist sove-
reigns on their side were orthodox^ or, in other
words, boasted that they were the exclusive pos-
sessors of the true doctrine. They made use of
their credit to crush their adversaries, whom they
always treated with the greatest barbarity.
But, after all, whatever the clergy may say, we
shall find, even with a small share of attention,
that it has ever been kings and emperors who, in
the last resort, fixed the faith of the disputatious
Christians. It has been by downright blows of
the sword that those theological notions most
pleasing to the Deity have been sustained in all
countries. The true belief has invariably been that
which had princes for its adherents. The faithful
were those who had strength sufficient to extermi-
nate their enemies, whom they never failed to treat
LETTER IX. 193
as the enemies of God. In a word, princes have
been truly infallible ; we should regard them as the
true founders of religious faith ; they are the judges
who have decided, in all ages, what doctrines should
be admitted or rejected ; and they are, in fine, the
authorities which have always fixed the religion
of their subjects.
Ever since Christianity has been adopted by
some nations, have we not seen that religion has
almost entirely occupied the attention of sove-
reigns? Either the princes, blinded by supersti-
tion, were devoted to the priests, or the rulers of
nations believed that prudence exacted a conces-
sion on their part to the clergy, the true masters
of their people, who considered nothing more
sacred or more great than the ministers of their
God. In neither case was the body politic ever
consulted ; it was cowardly sacrificed to the inter-
ests of the court, or the vanity and luxury of the
priests. It is by a continuation of superstition on
the part of the princes that we behold the church so
richly endowed in times of ignorance; when men
believed they would enrich Deity by putting all their
wealth into the hands of the priests of a good God
the declared enemy of riches. Savage warriors, des-
titute of the manners of men, flattered themselves
that they could expiate all their sins by founding
monasteries and giving immense wealth to a set
of men who had made vows of poverty. It was
believed that they would merit from the All-power-
ful a great advantage by recompensing laziness,
17
194 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
which, in the priests, was regarded as a great good,
and that the blessings procured by their prayers
would be in proportion to the continual and press-
ing demands their poverty made on the wealthy.
It is thus that by the superstition of princes, by
that of the powerful classes, and of the people
themselves, the clergy have become opulent and
powerful ; that monachism was honored, and citi-
zens the most useless, the least submissive, and the
most dangerous, were the best recompensed, the
most considered, and the best paid. They were
loaded with benefits, privileges, and immunities;
they enjoyed independence, and they had that great
power which flowed from so great license. Thus
were priests placed above sovereigns themselves by
the imprudent devotion of the latter, and the for-
mer were enabled to give the law and trouble the
state with impunity.
The clergy, arrived at this elevation of power and
grandeur, became redoubtable even to monarchs.
They were obliged to bend under the yoke or be
at war with clerical power. When the sovereigns
yielded, they became mere slaves to the priests, the
instruments of their passions, and the vile adorers
of their power. When they refused to yield, the
priests involved them in the most cruel embarrass-
ments ; they launched against them the anathemas
of the church ; the people were incited against
them in the name of heaven ; the nations divided
themselves between the celestial and the terrestrial
monarch, and the latter was reduced to great ex-
LETTER IX. 195
tremities to sustain a throne which the priests could
shake or even destroy at pleasure. There was a
time in Europe when both the welfare of the prince
and the repose of his kingdom depended solely
upon the caprice of a priest. In these times of
ignorance, of devotion, and of commotions so fa-
vorable to the clergy, a weak and poor monarch,
surrounded by a miserable nation, was at the mer-
cy of a Roman pontiff, who could at any instant
destroy his felicity, excite his subjects against him,
and precipitate him into the abyss of misery.
In general, Madam, we find that in countries
where religion holds dominion, the sovereign is
necessarily dependent upon the priests ; he has no
power except by the consent of the clergy ; that
power disappears as soon as he displeases the self- x
styled vicegerents of God, who are very soon able
to array his subjects against him. The people, in
accordance with the principles of their religion,
cannot hesitate between God and their sovereign. -^
God never .says any thing except what his priests j
say for him ; and the ignorance and folly in which -
they are kept by their spiritual guides prevent them
from inquiring whether God's ambassadors faith-
fully render his decrees.
Conclude, then, with me, that the interests of a
sovereign who would rule equitably are unable to
accord with* those of the ministers of the Christian
religion, who in all ages have been the most tur-
bulent citizens, the most rebellious, the most diffi-
cult to render subservient to law and order, and
196 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
whose resistance has extended to the very assassi-
nation of obnoxious rulers. We shall be told that
Christianity is a firm support of government ; that
it regards magistrates as the images of the Deity ;
and that it teaches that all power comes from on
high. These maxims of the clergy are, however,
best calculated to lull kings on the couch of slum-
ber ; they are calculated to natter those on whom
the clergy can rely, and who will serve their ambi-
tion ; and their flatterers can soon change their
tone when the princes have the temerity to ques-
tion the pernicious tendency of priestly influence,
or when they do not blindly lend themselves to all
their views. Then the sovereign is an impious
wretch, a heretic; his destruction is laudable;
heaven rejoices in his overthrow. And all this is
the religion of the Bible !
You know, Madam, that these odious maxims
have been a thousand times enforced by the priests,
who say the prince has encroached upon the author'
ity of the church ; and the people respond that it is
better to obey God than man. The priests are only
devoted to the princes when the princes are blindly
led by the priests. These last preach arrogantly
that the former ought to be exterminated, when
they refuse to obey the church, that is to say, the
priests ; yet, how terrible soever may be these
maxims, how dangerous soever their practice to the
security of the sovereign and the tranquillity of
the state, they are the immediate consequences
drawn from Judaism and Christianity. We find
LETTER IX. 197
in the Old Testament that the regicide is applaud-
ed; that treason and rebellion are approved. As
soon as it is supposed that God is offended with
the thoughts of men, as soon as it is supposed
that heretics are displeasing to him, it is very
natural to conclude that an impious and heretical
sovereign, that is to say, one who does not obey a
clerical body that set themselves up as the direct-
ors of his belief, who opposes the sacred views of
an infallible church, and who might occasion the
loss and apostasy of a large part of the nation,
it is natural that the priests should conclude it to
be legitimate for subjects to attack such a prince,
alleging their religion to be the most important
thing in the world, and dearer than life itself. Ac-
tuated by such principles, it is impossible that a
Christian zealot should not think he rendered a
service to heaven by punishing its enemy, and a
service to his country by disembarrassing it of
a chief who might interpose an obstacle to his
eternal happiness.
The obedience of the clergy is never otherwise
than conditional. The priests submit to a prince,
they flatter his power, and they sustain his author-
ity, provided he submits to their orders, makes no
obstacles to their projects, touches none of their
interests, and changes none of the dogmas upon
which the ministers of the cHurch have founded
their own grandeur. In fine, provided a govern-
ment recognizes, as divine, clerical privileges that
17*
198 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
are plainly opposed to popular rights, and tend to
subvert them, the hierarchy will submit to it.
These considerations prove how dangerous are
the priesthood, since the end they purpose by all
their projects is dominion over the mind of man-
kind, and by subjugating it to enslave their per-
sons, and render them the creatures of despotism
and tyranny. And we shall find, upon examina-
tion, that, with one or two exceptions, the pious
have been the enemies of the progress of science
and the development of the human understanding ;
for by brutalizing mankind they have invariably
striven to bind them to their yoke. Their avarice,
their thirst of power and wealth, have led them to
plunge their fellow-citizens in ignorance, in misery,
and unhappiness. They discourage the cultivation
of the earth by their system of tithes, their extor-
tions, and their secret projects ; they annihilate
activity, talents, and industry; their pride is to
reign on the ruin of the rest of their species. The
finest countries in Europe have, when blindly sub-
missive to the priests, been the worst cultivated,
the thinnest peopled, and the most wretched. The
Inquisition in Spain, Italy, and Portugal has only
tended to impoverish those countries, to debase the
mind, and render their subjects the veriest slaves
of superstition. And in countries where we see
heaven showering down abundance, the people are
poor and famished, while the priests and monks
are opulent and bloated. Their kings are without
LETTER IX. 199
power and without glory ; their subjects languish
in indigence and wretchedness.
The priests boast of the utility of their office.
Independently of their prayers, from which the
world has for so many ages derived neither instruc-
tion nor peace, prosperity nor happiness, their pre-
tensions to teach the rising generations are often
frivolous, and sometimes arrogant, since we have
found others equally well calculated to the dis-
charge of those functions, who have been good
citizens, that have not drawn from the pockets of
their neighbors the tenth of their earnings. Thus,
in what light soever we view them, the pretensions
of the priests are reduced to a nonentity, compared
to the disservice they render the community by
their exactions and dissolute lives.
In what consists, in effect, the education that
our spiritual guides have, unhappily for society,
assumed the vocation of imparting to youth ?
Does it tend to make reasonable, courageous, and
virtuous citizens ? No ; it is incontestable that it
creates ignoble men, whose entire lives are tor-
mented with imaginary terrors ; it creates super-
stitious slaves, who only possess monastic virtues,
and who, if they follow faithfully the instructions
of their masters, must be perfectly useless to soci-
ety ; it forms intolerant devotees, ready to detest
all those who do not think like themselves ; and it
makes fanatics, who are ready to rebel against any
government as soon as they are persuaded it is
rebellious to the church. What do the priests
200 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
teach their pupils ? They cause them to lose
much precious time in reciting prayers, in mechan-
ically repeating theological dogmas, of which, even
in mature life, they comprehend nothing. They
teach them the dead languages, which, at the best,
only serve for entertainment, being by no means
necessary in the present form of society. They
terminate these fine studies by a philosophy which,
in clerical hands, has become a mere play of words,
a jargon void of sense, and which is exactly calcu-
lated to fit them for the unintelligible science called
theology. But is this theology itself useful to na-
tions ? Are the interminable disputes which arise
between profound metaphysicians of such a char-
acter as to be interesting to the people who do not
comprehend them ? Are the people of Paris and
the provinces much advanced in heavenly knowl-
edge when the priests dispute among themselves
about what should really be thought of grace ?
In regard to the instruction imparted by the
clergy, it is indeed necessary to have faith in order
to discover its utility. Their boasted instruction
consists in teaching ineffable mysteries, marvellous
dogmas, narrations and fables perfectly ridiculous,
panic terrors, fanatical and lugubrious predictions,
frightful menaces, and above all, systems so pro-
found that they who announce are not able to
comprehend them. In truth, Madam, in all this I
can see nothing useful. Should nations feel any
, extraordinary obligations to teachers who concoct
v. doctrines that must always remain impenetrable
LETTER IX. 201
for the whole human race ? It must be confessed
that our priests, who so painfully occupy them-
selves in arranging a pure creed for us, must sig-
nally lose all their labor. At any rate, the people
are not much in the situation to profit by such
sublime toils. Very frequently the pulpit becomes
the theatre of discord ; the sacred disclaimers launch
injuries at each other, infusing their own passions
into the bosoms of their Christian auditors, kin-
dling their zeal against the enemies of the church,
and becoming themselves the trumpets of party
spirit, fury, and sedition. If these preachers teach
morality, it is a kind of supernatural morality, little
adapted to the nature of man. If they inculcate
virtue, it is that theological virtue whose inutility
we have sufficiently shown. If by chance some
one among them allows himself to preach that
rrrorality and virtue which is practical, human, and
social, you know, Madam, that he is proscribed by
his confederates, and becomes an object of their
acrimonious criticisms and their deadly hatred.
He is also disdained by devotees who are attached
to evangelical virtues that they cannot compre-
hend, and who consider nothing as more important
than mysterious forms and ceremonies, in which
zealots make morality to consist.
See, then, in what limits are entertained the im-
portant services that the ministers of the Lord have
for so many centuries rendered to nations ! They
are not worth, in all conscience, the excessive price
which is paid for them. On the contrary, if priests
202 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
were treated according to their real merit, if their
functions were appreciated at their just value, it-
would, perhaps, be found that they did not merit a
larger salary than those empirics who, at the cor-
ners of the streets, vend remedies more dangerous
than the evils they promise to cure.
It is by subjecting the immense revenues, lands,
abbeys, and estates, which clerical bodies have
levied upon the credulity of men, to just and equal
taxation, as with other property ; it is by rendering
the church and state entirely distinct ; it is by
stripping the hierarchy of immunities not possessed
by other citizens, and of privileges both chimerical
and injurious ; it is by rigorously exacting the same
civil obedience alike from priests and people,
that government can be rightly administered, that
justice can be impartially rendered, and that the
nation, as a whole, can be trained to courage,
activity, industry, intelligence, tranquillity, and pa-
triotism. So long as there are two powers in a
state, they will necessarily be at variance, and the
one which arrogates the favor of the Almighty will
have immense advantages over that which claims
no authority above the earth. If both pretend to
emanate from the same source, the people would
not know which to believe ; they would range
themselves on each side ; the combat would be
furious, and the power of the government would
be unable to maintain itself against the many
heads of the ecclesiastical hydra. The magicians
of Pharaoh yielded to the Jewish priests, and in
LETTER IX. :_/. 203
conflicts between the church and state, the immu-
nities of the priests,
" Like Aaron's serpent, swallowed all the rest."
If such is the case, you will inquire, Madam, how
can an enlightened civil power ever make obedient
citizens of rebellious priests, who have so long pos-
sessed the confidence of the people, and who can
with impunity render themselves formidable to any
government ? I reply, that in spite of the vigilant
cares and the redoubled efforts of the priesthood,
the people have begun to be more enlightened ;
they are becoming weary of the heavy yoke, which
they w r ould not have borne so long had they not
believed it was imposed upon them by the Most
High, and that it was necessary to their happiness.
It is impossible for error to be eternal ; it must
give way to the power of truth. The priests, who
think, know this well, and the whole ecclesiastical
body continually declaim against all those who
wish to enlighten the human race and unveil the
conspiracies of their spiritual guides. They fear
the piercing eyes of philosophy ; they fear the
reign of reason, which will never be that of tyranny
or anarchy. Governments, then, ought not to share
the fears of the clergy, nor render themselves the
executors of their vengeance ; they injure them-
selves when they sustain the cause of their turbu-
lent rivals, who have ever been the enemies of civil
polity and perturbers of the public repose. The
magistrates of a state league themselves with their
LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
enemies when they form an alliance with the
priesthood, or prevent the people from recognizing
their errors.
Governments. are more interested than individ-
uals in the destruction of errors that often lead to
confusion, anarchy, and rebellion. If men had not
become gradually enlightened, nations would now,
as formerly, be under the yoke of the Roman pon-
tiff, who could occasion revolution in their midst,
overturn the laws, and subvert the government.
But for the insensible progress of reason, states
would now be filled with a tumultuous crowd of
devotees, ready to revolt at the signal of an unquiet
priest or a seditious monk.
You perceive, then, Madam, that men who think,
and who teach others to think, are more useful to
governments than those who wish to stifle reason
and to proscribe forever the liberty of thought.
You see that the true friends of a stable govern-
ment are those who seek most sedulously to en-
lighten, educate, and elevate the people. You feel
that by banishing knowledge and persecuting phi-
losophy, government sacrifices its dearest interests
to a seditious clergy, whose ambition and avarice
push them to usurp boundless authority, and whose
pride always makes them indignant at being in
subjection to a power which they contend should
be subordinate to themselves.
There is no priest who does not consider him-
self superior to the highest ruler of any country.
We have often seen the priesthood avow preten-
LETTER IX. 205
sions of this character. The clergy are always
enraged when an attempt is made to subject them
to the secular power. Such an attempt they re-
gard as profane, and they denounce it as tyranny
whenever it is sought to be enforced. They pre-
tend that in all times the priesthood has been
sacred, that its rights come from God himself, and
that no government can, without sacrilege, or with-
out outraging the Divinity, touch the property, the
privileges, or the immunities which have been
snatched from ignorance and credulity. Whenever
the civil authority would touch the objects con-
sidered inviolable and sacred in the hands of the
priests, their clamors cannot be appeased ; they
make efforts to excite the people against the govern-
ment ; they denounce all authority as tyrannical
when it has the temerity to think of subjecting
them to the laws, of reforming their abuses, and
neutralizing their power to injure. But they con-
sider authority legitimate when it crushes their
enemies, though it appears insupportable as soon
as it is reasonable and favorable to the people.
The priests are essentially the most wicked of
men, and the worst citizens of a state. A miracle
would be necessary to render them otherwise. In
all countries they are the spoiled children of na-
tions. They are proud and haughty, since they V^
pretend it is from God himself they received their
mission and their power. They are ingrates, since
they assume to owe only to God benefits which
they visibly hold from the generosity of govern-
18
206 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
ments and the people. They are audacious, be-
cause for many ages they have enjoyed supremacy
with impunity. They are unquiet and turbulent,
because they are never without the desire of play-
ing a great part. They are quarrelsome and fac-
tious, because they are never able to find out a
method of enabling men to understand the pre-
tended truths they teach. They are suspicious,
defiant, and cruel, . because they sensibly feel that
they may well dread the discovery of their impos
tures. They are the spontaneous enemies of truth
because they justly apprehend it will annihilate
their pretensions. They are implacable in their
vengeance, because it would be dangerous to par-
don those who wish to crush their doctrines, whose
weakness they know. They are hypocrites, be-
cause most of them possess too much sense to be-
lieve the reveries they retail to others. They are
obstinate in their ideas, because they are inflated
with vanity, and because they could not consist-
ently deviate from a method of thinking of which
they pretend God is the author. We often see
them unbridled and licentious in their manners, be-
cause it is impossible that idleness, effeminacy, and
luxury should not corrupt the heart. We some-
times see them austere and rigid in their conduct
in order to impose on the people and accomplish
their ambitious views. If they are hypocrites and
rogues, they are extremely dangerous ; and if they
are fanatical in good faith, or imbecile, they are not
less to be feared. In fine, we almost always see
LETTER IX. 207
them rebellious and seditious, because an authority
derived from God is not disposed to bend to au-
thority derived from men.
You have here, Madam,-^, faithful portrait of the
members of a powerful body, in whose favor gov-
ernments, for a long time, have believed it their
duty to sacrifice the other interests of the state.
You here see the citizens whom prejudice most
richly recompenses, whom princes honor in the eyes
of the people, to whom they give their confidence,
whom they regard as the support of their power,
and whom they consider as necessary to the hap-
piness and security of their kingdoms. You can
judge yourself whether the likeness delineated is
correct. You are in a position to discover their in-
trigues, their underplots, their conduct, and their
discourse, and you will always find that their con-
stant object is to flatter princes for the purpose of
governing them and keeping nations in slavery.
It is to please citizens so dangerous that sover-
eigns mingle in theological questions, take the part
of those who succeed in seducing them, persecute
all those who do not submit, proscribe with fury
the friends of reason, and by repressing knowledge
injure their own power. Because the priests, who
urge princes to sacrilege when they combat for
them, are indignant against the same princes when
they refuse to destroy the enemies of their own
particular clerical body. They likewise denounce
sovereigns as impious if the latter treat theological
disputes with the indifference they merit.
208 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
When hereafter, reclaimed from their prejudices,
princes wish to govern for the good of all, let them
cease to hear the interested and often sanguinary
councils of these pretended divine men, who, re-
garding themselves as the centre of all things, wish
to have sacrificed for this object the happiness, the
repose, the riches, and the honors of the. state.
Let the sovereign never enter into their dissensions,
let him never persecute for religious opinions,
which, among sectaries, are commonly on both
sides equally ridiculous and destitute of founda-
tion. They would never involve the government
if the sovereign had not the weakness to mingle in
them. Let him give unlimited freedom to the
course of thinking, while he directs by just laws the
course of acting on the part of his subjects. Let
him permit every one to dream or speculate as he
pleases, provided he conducts himself otherwise as
an honest man and a good citizen. At least let
the prince not oppose the progress of knowledge,
which alone is capable of extricating his people
from ignorance, barbarity, and superstition, which
have made victims of so many Christian rulers.
Let him be assured that enlightened and instructed
citizens are more law-abiding, industrious, and
peaceable than stupid slaves without knowledge
and without reason, who will always be ready to
take all the passions with which a fanatic wishes
to inspire them.
Let the sovereign especially occupy himself with
the education of his subjects, nor leave the clergy
LETTER IX. 209
unobstructedly to impregnate his people with mys-
tic notions, foolish reveries, and superstitious prac-
tices, which are only proper for fanatics. Let him
at least counterbalance the inculcation of these fol-
lies by teaching a morality conformable to the good
of the state, useful to the happiness of its mem-
bers, and social and reasonable. This morality
would inform a man what he owed to himself, to
society, to his fellow-citizens, and to the magis-
trates who administered the laws. This morality
would not form men who would hate each other
for speculative opinions, nor dangerous enthusiasts,
nor devotees blindly submissive to the priests. It
would create a tranquil, intelligent, and industrious
community; a body of inhabitants submissive to
reason and o'bedient to just and legitimate author-
ity. In a word, from such morality would spring
virtuous men and good citizens, and it would be the
surest antidote against superstition and fanaticism.
In this manner the empire of the clergy would be
diminished, and the sovereign would have a less
portentous rival ; he would, without opposition, be
assured of all rational and enlightened citizens;
the riches of the clergy would in part reenter soci-
ety, and be of use in benefiting the people ; insti-
tutions now useless would be put to advantageous
uses; a portion of the possessions of the church,
originally destined for the poor, and so long appro-
priated by avaricious priests, would come into the
hands of the suffering and the indigent, their le-
gitimate proprietors. Supported by a nation who
18*
210 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
were sensible of the advantages he had procured
them, the prince would no longer fear the cries of
fanaticism, and they would soon be no longer
heard. The priests, the lazy monks, and turbulent
\/ persons living in forced celibacy, could no longer
calculate on the future, and, aliens in the state
which nourished them, they would visibly diminish.
The government, more rich and powerful, would
be in a better situation to diffuse its benefits ; and
enlightened, virtuous, and beneficent men would
constitute the support, the glory, and the grandeur
of the state.
Such, Madam, are the ends which all govern-
ments would propose who opened their eyes to
their own true interests. I flatter myself that these
designs will not appear to you either'impossible or
chimerical. Knowledge and science, which begin
to be generally diffused, are already advancing
these results ; they are giving an impulse to the
march of the human mind, and in time, govern-
ments and people, without tumult or revolution,
will be freed from the yoke which has oppressed
them so long.
Do we see any thing useful in the pious endow-
ments of our ancestors ? We find them to consist
of institutions invented to continue a lazy, monas-
tic life ; costly temples elevated and enriched by
indigent people to augment the pride of the priests,
and to erect altars and palaces. From the founda-
tion of Christianity the whole object of religion has
been to aggrandize the priesthood on the ruins of
LETTER X. 211
nations and governments. A jealous religion has
exclusively seized on the minds of men, and per-
suaded them that they live upon earth merely to
occupy themselves with their future happiness in
the unknown regions of the empyrean. It is time
that this prestige should cease ; it is time that the
human race should occupy itself with its own true
interests. The interests of the people will always
be incompatible with those of the guides who be-
lieve they have acquired an imprescriptible right to
lead men astray. The more you examine the
Christian religion, the more will you be convinced
that it can be advantageous only to those whose
object it is easily to guide mankind after having
plunged them into darkness. I am, &c.
LETTER X.
OF THE ADVANTAGES RELIGION CONFERS ON THOSE WHO
PROFESS IT.
I DARE flatter myself, Madam, that I have clearly
demonstrated to you, that the Christian religion,
far from being the support of sovereign authority,
is its greatest enemy ; and of having plainly con-
vinced you, that its ministers are, by the very nature
of their functions, the rivals of kings, and adver-
saries the most to be feared by all who value or
exercise temporal power. In a word, I think I have
212 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
persuaded you, that society might, without damage,
dispense with the services they render, or at least
dispense with paying for them so extravagantly.
Let us now examine the advantages which this
religion procures to individuals, who are most
strongly convinced of its pretended truths, and who
conform the most rigidly to its precepts. Let us
see if it is calculated to render its disciples more
contented, more happy, and more virtuous than
they would be without the burden of its ministers.
To decide the question, it is sufficient to look
around us, and to consider the effects that religion
produces on minds really penetrated with its pre-
tended truths. We shall generally find in those
who the most sincerely profess and the most ex-
actly practise them, a joyless and melancholy dis-
position, which announces no contentment, nor that
interior peace of which they speak so incessantly,
without ever exhibiting any undoubted manifesta-
tions of it. Whoever is in the enjoyment of peace
within, shows some exterior marks of it; but the
internal satisfaction of devotees is commonly so
concealed, that we may well suspect it of being
nothing but a mere chimera. Their interior peace,
which they allege gives them a good conscience,
V is visible to others only by a bilious and petulant
humor, that is not usually much applauded by those
who come under its influence. If, however, there
are occasionally some devotees who actually dis-
play the serene countenance of satisfaction and
enjoyment, it is because the dismal ideas of religion
LETTER X. ... 213
are rendered inoperative by a happy temperament ;
or that such persons have not fully become im-
pregnated with their system of faith, whose legiti-
mate effect is to plunge its devotees into terrible
inquietudes and sombre chagrins.
Thus, Madam, we are brought back to the con-
tradictory discourses of those priests who, after
having caused terror by their desolating dogmas,
attempt to reassure us by vague hopes, and exhort
us to place confidence in a God whom they have
themselves so repulsively delineated. It is idle for
them to tell us the yoke of Jesus Christ is light. It
is insupportable to those who consider it properly.
It is only light for those who bear it without reflec-
tion, or for those who assume it in order to impose
it upon others, without intending to suffer its
annoyances themselves.
Suffer me, Madam, to refer you to yourself.
Were you happy, contented, or gay, when you
made me the depository of the secret inquietudes
inflicted upon you by prejudices, and which had
commenced taking that fatal empire over your mind
which I have endeavored to destroy ? Was not
your soul involved in woe in spite of your judg-
ment ? Were you not taking measures to wither
all your happiness ? In favor of religion, were you
not ready to renounce the world, and disregard all
you owe to society ? If I was afflicted, I was not
surprised. The Christian religion inevitably de-
stroys the happiness and repose of those who are
subjected by it ; alarms and terrors are the objects
214 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
of its pleasures ; it cannot make those happy who
fully receive it. It would certainly have plunged
you into distress. All your faculties would have
been injured, and your too susceptible imagination
would have been carried to such dangerous ex-
tremes, that many others would have grieved at the
result. A gentle and beneficent spirit, like yours,
could never receive peace from Christianity. The
evils of religion are sure, while its consolations are
contradictory and vague. They cannot give that
temper and tranquillity to the mind which is neces-
sary to enable men to labor for their own happiness
and that of others.
In effect, as I have already observed, it is very
difficult for an individual to occupy himself with
the happiness of another when he is himself mis-
erable. The devotee, who imposes penances on his
own head, who is suspicious of every thing, who is
full of self-reproaches, and who is heated by vision-
ary meditation, by fasting and seclusion, must
naturally be irritated against all those who do not
believe it their duty to make such absurd sacrifices.
He can scarcely avoid being enraged at those
audacious persons who neglect practices or duties
that are claimed as the exactions of dod. He will
desire to be with those only who view things as he
/ does himself; he will keep himself apart from all
others, and will end by hating them. He believes
himself obliged to make a loud and public parade
of his mode of thinking, and he signalizes his zeal
even at the risk of appearing ridiculous. If he
LETTER X. 215
showed indulgence, he would" doubtless fear he
should render himself an accomplice in a neglect of
his God. He would reprehend such sinners, and it
would be with acrimony, because his own soul
was filled with it. In fine, if zealous, he would
always be under the dominion of anger, and would
only be indulgent in proportion as he was not
bigoted.
Religious devotion tends to arouse fierce senti-
ments, that sooner or later manifest themselves in a
manner disagreeable for others. The mystical dev-
otees clearly illustrate this. They are vexed with
the world, and it could not exist if the extrava-
gances required by religion were altogether carried
out. The world cannot be united to Jesus Christ.
God demands our entire heart, and nothing is" al-
lowed to remain for his weak creatures. To pro-
duce the little zeal for heaven which Christians
have, it is requisite to torment them, and thus lead
them to the practice of those marvellous virtues In
which they imagine is placed all their safety. A
strange religion, which, practised in all its rigor,
would drag society to ruin ! The sincere devotee
proposes impossible attainments, of which human
nature is not capable; and as, in spite of all his
endeavors, he is unable to succeed in their acqui-
sition, he is always discontented with himself. He
regards himself as the object of God's anger; he
reproaches himself with all that he does; he suffers
remorse for all the pleasures he experiences, and
fears that they may occasion a fall from grace.
21t> LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
For his greater security, he often avoids society
which may at any moment turn him from his pre-
tended duties, excite him to sin, and render him
the witness or accomplice of what is offensive to
zealots. In fine, if the devotee is very zealous, he
cannot prevent himself from avoiding or detesting
beings, who, according to his gloomy notions of
religion, are perpetually occupied in irritating God.
On the other hand, you know, Madam, that it is
chagrin and melancholy that lead to devotion. It
is usually not till the world abandons and dis-
pleases men that they have recourse to heaven ;
it is in the arms of religion that the ambitious seek
to console themselves for their disgraces and dis-
appointed projects ; dissolute and loose women
turn devotees when the world discards them, and
they offer to God hearts wasted, and charms that
are no longer in repute. The ruin of their attrac-
tions admonishes them that their empire is no
longer of this world ; filled with vexation, consumed
with chagrin, and irritated against a society where
they were deprived of enacting an agreeable part,
they yield themselves up to devotion, and distin-
guish themselves by religious follies, after having
run the race of fashionable vices, and been engaged
in worldly scandals. With rancor in their hearts,
they offer a gloomy adoration to a God who in-
demnifies them most miserably for their ascetic
worship. In a word, it is passion, affliction, and
despair to which most conversions must be at-
tributed; and they are persons of such character
LETTER X. 217
who deliver themselves to the priests, and these
mental aberrations and physical afflictions are the
marvellous strokes of grace of which God makes
use to lead men to himself.
It is not, then, surprising if we see persons sub-
ject to this devotion most commonly ruled by sor-
row and passion. These mental moods are per-
petually aggravated by religion, which is exactly
calculated to imbitter more and more the souls
thus filled with vexations. The conversation of a
spiritual director is a weak consolation for the loss V
of a lover ; the remote and flattering hopes of
another world rarely make up for the realities of
this ; nor do the fictitious occupations of religion
suffice to satisfy souls accustomed to intrigues,
dissipation, and scandalous pleasures.
Thus, Madam, we see that the effects of these
brilliant conversions, so well adapted to give pleas-
ure to the Omnipotent and to his court, present
nothing advantageous for the inhabitants of this
lower world. If the changes produced by grace
do not render those more happy upon whom they
are operated, they cannot cause much admira-
tion on the part of those who witness them. In-
deed, what advantages does society reap from the
greater part of conversions ? Do the persons so \
touched by grace become better ? Do they make
amends for the evil they have done, or are they
heartily and generously engaged in doing good to
those by whom they are surrounded ? A mistress,
for example, who has been arrogant and proud,
19
218 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
does conversion render her humble and gentle ?
Does the unjust and cruel man recompense those
to whom he has done evil? Does the robber
return t'o society the property of which he has
plundered it? Does the dissipated and licentious
woman repair by her vigilant cares the wrongs that
her disorders and dissipations have occasioned ?
No, far from it. These persons so touched and
converted by God ordinarily content themselves
with praying, fasting, religious offerings, frequent-
ing churches, clamoring in favor of their priests,
intriguing to sustain a sect, decrying all who dis-
agree with their particular spiritual director, and
exhibiting an ardent and ridiculous zeal for ques-
tions that they do not understand. In this manner
they imagine they get absolution from God, and
give indemnification to men; but society gains
nothing from their miraculous conversion. On the
other hand, devotion often exalts, infuriates, and
strengthens the passions which formerly animated
the converts. It turns these passions to new ob-
jects, and religion justifies the intolerant and cruel
excesses into which they rush for the interest of
their sect. It is thus that an ambitious personage
becomes a proud and turbulent fanatic, and be-
lieves himself justified by his zeal ; it is thus that
a disgraced courtier cabals in the name of heaven
against his own enemies ; and it is thus that a
malignant and vindictive man, under the pretext of
avenging God, seeks the means of avenging him-
self. Thus, also, it happens that a woman, to in-
LETTER X. 219
demnify herself for having quitted rouge, considers
she has the right to outrage with her acrid humor
a husband whom she had previously, in a different
manner, outraged many times. She piously de-
nounces those who allow themselves the indul-
gence of the most innocent pleasures ; in the belief
of manifesting religious earnestness, she exhales
downright passion, envy, jealousy, and spite ; and
in lending herself warmly to the interests of
heaven she shows an excess of ignorance, insanity,
and credulity.
But is it necessary, Madam, to insist upon this ?
You live in a country where you see many dev-
otees, and few virtuous people among them. If
you will but slightly examine the matter, you will
find that among these persons so persuaded of
their religion, so convinced of its importance and
utility, who speak incessantly of its consolations,
its sweets, and its virtues, you will find that
among these persons there are very few who are
rendered happier, and yet fewer who are rendered
better. Are they vividly penetrated with the senti-
ments of their afflicting and terrible religion ? You
will find them atrabilious, disobliging, and fierce.
Are they more lightly affected by their creed ? You
will then find them less bigoted, more beneficent,
social, and kind. The religion of the court, as you
know, is a continual mixture of devotion and pleas-
ure, a circle of the exercises of piety and dissipa-
tion, of momentary fervor and continuous irregu-
larities. This religion connects Jesus Christ with
220 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
the pomps of Satan. We there see sumptuous
display, pride, ambition, intrigue, vengeance, envy,
and libertinism ah 1 amalgamated with a religion
whose maxims are austere. Pious casuists, inter-
ested for the great, approve this alliance, and give
the lie to their own religion in order to derive ad-
vantage from circumstances and from the passions
and vices of men. If these court divines were too
rigid, they would affright their fashionable disci-
ples seeking to reach heaven on " flowery beds of
ease," and who embrace religion with the under-
standing that they are to be allowed no inconsid-
erable latitude. This is doubtless the reason why
Jansenism, which wished to renew the austere
principles of primitive Christianity, obtained no
general influence at the Parisian court. The
monkish precepts of early Christianity could only
suit men of the temper of those who first embraced
it. They were adapted for persons who were ab-
ject, bilious, and discontented, who, deprived of
luxury, power, and honors, became the enemies of
grandeurs from which they were excluded. The
devotees had the art of making a merit of their
aversion and disdain for what they could not
obtain.
Nevertheless, a Christian, in consonance with his
principles, should " take no thought for the morrow;"
should have no individual possessions ; should flee
from the world and its pomps ; should give his
coat to the thief who stole his cloak ; and, if smit-
ten on one cheek, should turn the other to the
LETTER X. 221
aggressor.. It is upon Stoicism that religious fanat-
ics built their gloomy philosophy. The so-called
perfections which Christianity proposes place man
in a perpetual war with himself, and must render
him miserable. The true Christian is an enemy
both of himself and the human race, and for his
own consistency should live secluded in darkness,
like an owl. His religion renders him essentially
unsocial, and as useless to himself as he is disa-
greeable to others. What advantage can society
receive from a man who trembles without cessa-
tion, who is in a state of superstitious penance,
who prays, and who indulges in solitude? Or
what better is the devotee who flies from the world
and deprives himself even of innocent pleasures, in
the fear that God might damn him for participa-
tion in them ?
What results from these maxims of a moral ^
fanaticism ? It happens that laws so atrocious v
and cruel are enacted, that bigots alone are willing
to execute them. Yes, Madam, blameless as you
know my whole life to have been, consonant to
integrity and honesty as you know my conduct to
be, and free as I have ever been from intolerance,
my existence would be endangered were these let-
ters I am now writing to you to appear in print, or
even be circulated in manuscript with my name
attached to them as author. Yes, Christians have
made laws, now dominant here in France, which
would tie me to the stake, consume my body with
fire, bore my tongue with a red hot iron, deprive
19*
222 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
me of sepulture, strip my family of my property,
and for no other cause than for my opinions con-
cerning Christianity and the Bible. Such is the
horrid cruelty engendered by Christianity. It has
sometimes been called in question whether a socie-
ty of atheists could exist ; but we might with more
propriety ask if a society of fierce, impracticable, vis-
ionary, and fanatical Christians, in all the plenitude
of their ridiculous system, could long subsist.*
What would become of a nation all of whose inhab-
itants wished to attain perfection by delivering them-
selves over to fanatical contemplation, to ascetical
penance, to monkish prayers, and to that state of
things set forth in the Acts of the Apostles ? What
would be the condition of a nation where no one
took any "thought for the morrow" ? where all
were occupied solely with heaven, and all totally
neglected whatever related to this transitory and
passing life ? where all made a merit of celibacy,
according to the precepts of St. Paul ? and
where, in consequence of constant occupation in
the ceremonials of piety, no one had leisure to de-
vote to the well-being of men in their worldly and
temporal concerns ? It is evident that such a
society could only exist in the Thebaid, and even
there only for a limited time, as it must soon be
* Upon this topic consult what Bayle says, Continuation des Pensees
diverses sur la Comete, Sections 124, 125, tome iv., Rousseau de Gentve,
in his Contrat Social, 1. 4, ah 8. See also the Lettres tcrites de la
Montague, letter first, pp. 45 to 54, edit. 8vo. The author discusses
the same matter, and confirms his opinions by new reasonings, which
particularly deserve perusal. Note of the Editor, (NAIGEON.)
LETTER X. 223
annihilated. If some enthusiasts exhibit examples
of this sort, we know that convents and nunneries
are supported by that portion of society which they
do not enclose. But who would provide for a
country that abandoned every thing else for the
purpose of heavenly contemplations ?
We may therefore legitimately conclude that the
Christian religion is not fitted for this world ; that
it is not calculated to insure the happiness either
of societies or individuals ; that the precepts and
counsels of its God are impracticable, and more
adapted to discourage the human, race, and to
plunge men into despair and apathy, than to render
them happy, active, and virtuous. A Christian is
compelled to make an abstraction of the maxims
of his religion if he wishes to live in the world ;
he is no longer a Christian when he devotes his
cares to his earthly good ; and, in a word, a real
Christian is a man of another world, and is not
adapted for this.
Thus we see that Christians, to humanize them-
selves, are constantly obliged to depart from their
supernatural and divine speculations. Their pas- ,
sions are not repressed, but on the contrary are Y
often thus rendered more fierce and more calculated
to disturb society. Masked under the veil of reli-
gion, they generally produce more terrible effects.
It is then that ambition, vengeance, cruelty, anger,
calumny, envy, and persecution, covered by the
deceptive name of zeal, cause the greatest ravages,
range without bounds, and even delude those who
224 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
are -transported by these dangerous passions. Re-
ligion does not annihilate these violent agitations
of the mind in the hearts of its devotees, but often
excites and justifies them ; and experience proves
that the most rigid Christians are very far from
being the best of men, and that they have no right
to reproach the incredulous either concerning the
pretended consequences of their principles, or for
the passions which are falsely alleged to spring
from unbelief.
Indeed, the charity of the peaceful ministers of
religion and of their pious adherents does not pre-
vent their blackening their adversaries with a view
of rendering them odious, and of drawing down
upon their heads the malevolence of a supersti-
tious community, and the persecution of tyrannical
and oppressive laws ; their zeal for God's glory per-
mits them to employ indifferently all kinds of
weapons ; and calumny, especially, furnishes them
always a most powerful aid. According to them,
there are no irregularities of the heart which are
not produced by incredulity ; to renounce religion,
say they, is to give a free course to unbridled pas-
sions, and he who does not believe surely indi-
cates a corrupt heart, depraved manners, and fright-
ful libertinism. In a word, they declare that every
man who refuses to admit their reveries or their
marvellous morality, has no motives to do good,
and very powerful ones to commit evil.
It is thus that our charitable divines caricature
and misrepresent the opponents of their supremacy,
LETTER X. 225
and describe them as dangerous brigands, whom
society, for its own interest, ought to proscribe and
destroy. It results from these imputations that
those who renounce prejudices and consult reason
are considered the most unreasonable of men ; that
they who condemn religion on account of the
crimes it has produced upon the earth, and for <
which it has served as an eternal pretext, are
regarded as bad citizens ; that they who complain
of the troubles that turbulent priests have so often
excited, are set down as perturbators of the repose
of nations ; and that they who are shocked at the
contemplation of the inhuman and unjust persecu- /
tions which have been excited by priestly ambition
and rascality, are men who have no idea of justice,
and in whose bosoms the sentiments of humanity
are necessarily stifled. They who despise the false
and deceitful motives by which, to the present time,
it has been vainly attempted through the other
world to make men virtuous, equitable, and benefi-
cent, are denounced as having no real motives to
practise the virtues necessary for their well-being
here. In fine, the priests scandalize those who
wish to destroy sacerdotal tyranny, and impostures
dangerous alike to nations and people, as enemies
of the state so dangerous that the laws ought to
punish them.
But I believe, Madam, that you are now thor-
oughly convinced that the true friends of Ihe human
race and of governments cannot also be the friends
of religion and of priests. Whatever may be the
226 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
motives or the passions which determine men to
incredulity, whatever may be the principles which
flow from it, they cannot be so pernicious as those
which emanate directly and necessarily from a
religion so absurd and so atrocious as Christianity.
Incredulity does not claim extraordinary privileges
as flowing from a partial God; it pretends to no
right of despotism over men's consciences ; it has
no pretexts for doing violence to the minds of man-
kind; and it does not hate and persecute for a
difference of opinion. In a word, the incredulous
have not an infinity of motives, interests, and pre-
texts to injure, with which the zealous partisans
of religion are abundantly provided.
The unbeliever in Christianity, who reflects, per-
ceives that without going out of this world there
are pressing and real motives which invite to vir-
tuous conduct ; he feels the interest that he has in
self-preservation, and of avoiding whatever is cal-
culated to injure another ; he sees himself united
by physical and reciprocal wants with men who
would despise him if he had vices, who would
detest him if he was guilty of any action contrary
to justice and virtue, and who would punish him
if he committed any crimes, or if he outraged the
laws. The idea of decency and order, the desire
of meriting the approbation of his fellow-citizens,
and the fear of being subjected to blame and pun-
ishment, are sufficient to govern the actions of
every rational man. If, however, a citizen is in a
sort of delirium, all the credulity in the world will
LETTER X. - 227
not be able to restrain him. If he is powerful
enough to have no fear of men on this earth, he
will not regard the divine law more than the hatred
and the disdain of the judges he has constantly
before his eyes.
But the priests may perhaps tell us that the fear
of an avenging God at least serves to repress a
great number of latent crimes that would appear
but for the influence of religion. Is it true, how-
ever, that religion itself prevents these latent crimes ?
Are not Christian nations full of knaves of all
kinds, who secretly plot the ruin of their fellow-
beings? Do not the most ostensibly credulous
persons indulge in an infinity of vices for which
they would blush if they were by chance brought
to light? A man who is the most persuaded that
God sees all his actions frequently does not blush
to commit deeds in secret from which he would
refrain if beheld by the meanest of human beings.
What, then, avails the powerful check on the
passions which religion is said to interpose ? If
we could place any reliance on what is said by our
priests, it would appear that neither public nor
secret crimes could be committed in countries
where then* instructions are received ; the priests
would appear like a brotherhood of angels, and
every religious man to be without faults. But men
forget their religious speculations when they are
under the dominion of violent passions, when they
are bound by the ties of habit, or when they are
blinded by great interests. Under such circum-
228 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
stances they do not reason. Whether a man is
virtuous or vicious depends on temperament, habit,
and education. An unbeliever may have strong
passions, and may reason very justly on the sub-
ject of religion, and very erroneously in regard to
his conduct. The religious dupe is a poor meta-
physician, and if he also acts badly he is both im-
becile and wicked.
It is true the priests deny that unbelievers ever
reason correctly, and pretend they must always be
in the wrong to prefer natural sense to their author-
ity. But in this decision they occupy the place of
both judges and parties, and the verdict should be
rendered by disinterested persons. In the mean
time the priests themselves seem to doubt the
soundness of their own allegations; they call the
secular arm to the aid of their arguments; they
marshal on their side fines, imprisonment, confisca-
tion of goods, boring and branding with hot irons,
and death at the stake, at this time in France, and
in other and in most countries of Christendom ;
they use the scourge to drive men into paradise ;
they enlighten men by the blaze of the fagot ; they
inculcate faith by furious and bloody strokes of
the sword ; and they have the baseness to stand in
dread of men who cannot announce themselves or
openly promulgate their opinions without running
the risk of punishment, and even death. This
conduct does not manifest that the priests are
strongly persuaded of the power of their argu-
ments. If our clerical theologians acted in good
LETTER X. 229
faith, would they not rejoice to open a free course
to thorough discussion ? Would they not be grati-
fied to allow doubters to propose difficulties, the
solution of which, if Christianity is so plain and
clear, would serve to render it more firm and solid ?
They find it answers their ends better to use their
adversaries as the Mexicans do their slaves, whom
they shackle before attacking, and then kill for
daring to defend themselves.
It is very probable unbelievers may be found
whose conduct is blamable, and this" is because
they in this respect follow the same line of reason-
ing as the devotee. The most fanatical partisans
of religion are forced to confess that among their
adherents a small number of the elect only are
rendered virtuous. By what right, then, do they
exact that incredulity, which pretends to nothing
supernatural, should produce effects which, accord-
ing to their own admissions, their pretended divine
religion fails to accomplish ? If all believers were
invariably good men, the cause of religion would
be provided with an adamantine bulwark, and
especially if unbelievers were persons without
morality or virtue. But whatever the priests may
aver, the unbelievers are more virtuous than the
devotees. A happy temperament, a judicious edu-
cation, the desire of living a peaceable life, the
dislike to attract hatred or blame, and the habit of
fulfilling the moral duties, always furnish motives
to abstain from vice and to practise virtue more
powerful and more true than those presented by
20
230 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
religion. Besides, the incredulous person has not
an infinity of resources which Christianity bestows
upon its superstitious followers. The Christian
can at any time expiate his crimes by confession
and penance, and can thus reconcile himself with
God, and give repose to his conscience ; the unbe-
liever, on the other hand, who has perpetrated a
wrong, can reconcile himself neither with society,
which he has outraged, nor with himself, whom he
is compelled to hate. If he expects no reward in
another life, he has no interest but to merit the
homage that in all enlightened countries is rendered
to virtue, to probity, and to a conduct constantly
honest; he has no inducement but to avoid the
penalties and the disdain that society decrees
against those who trouble its well-being, and who
refuse to contribute to its welfare.
It appears evident that every man who consults
his understanding should be more reasonable than
one who only consults his imagination. It is evi-
dent that he who consults his own nature and that
of the beings who surround him, ought to have
truer ideas of good and evil, of justice and injus-
tice, and of honesty and dishonesty, than he who,
to regulate his conduct, consults only the records
of a concealed God, whom his priests picture as
wicked, unjust, changeable, contradicting himself,
and who has sometimes ordered actions the most
contrary to morality and to all the ideas that we
have of virtue. It is evident that he who regulates
his conduct upon sacerdotal morality will only fol-
LETTER X. 231
low the caprice and passions of the priests, and
will be a very dangerous man, while believing him-
self very virtuous. In fine, it is evident that while
conforming himself to the precepts and counsels
of religion, a man may be extremely pious without
possessing the shadow of a virtue. Experience
has proved that it is quite possible to adhere to all
the unintelligible dogmas of the priests, to observe
most scrupulously all the forms, and ceremonies,
and services they recommend, and orally to pro-
fess all the Christian virtues, without having any
of the qualities necessary to his own happiness,
and to that of the beings with whom he lives.
The saints, indeed, who are proposed to us as
models, were useless members of society. We see
them to have been either gloomy fanatics, who
sacrificed themselves to the desolating ideas of
their religion, or excited fanatics, who, under pre-
text of serving religion, have perpetually disturbed
the repose of nations, or enthusiastic theologians,
who from their own dreams have deduced systems
exactly calculated to infuriate the brains of their
adherents. A saint, when he is tranquil, proposes
nothing whose accomplishment will benefit man-
kind, and only aims to keep himself safe and
secluded in his retreat. A saint, when he is active,
only appears to promulgate reveries dangerous to
the world, and to uphold the interests of the
church, that he confounds with the interest of
God.
In a word, Madam, I cannot too often repeat it,
232 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
every system of religion appears to be designed for
the utility of the priests ; the morality of Christian-
ity has in view only the interests of the priest-
hood ; all the virtues that it teaches have solely for
an object the church and its ministers ; and these
ends are always to subject the people, to draw a
profit from their toil, and to inspire them with a
blind credulity. We ought, therefore, to practise
morality and virtue without entering into these con-
spiracies. If the priests disapprove of those who
do not agree with them, and refuse to award any
probity to the thinkers who reject their injurious
and useless notions, society, which needs for its
own sustenance real and human virtues, will not
adopt the sentiments nor espouse the quarrels of
these men, visibly leagued together against it. If
the ministers of religion require their dogmas, their
mysteries, and their fanatical virtues to support
their usurped empire, the civil government has a
need of reasonable, virtues, of an evident, and above
all, of a pacific morality, in order to exercise its
legitimate rights. In fine, the individuals, who com-
pose every society, demand a morality which will
render them happy in this world, without embar-
rassing themselves with what only pretends to
secure their felicity in an imaginary sphere, of which
they have no ideas except those received from the
priests themselves.
The priests have had the art to unite their re-
ligious system with some moral tenets which are
really good. This renders their mysteries more
LETTER XI. 233
sacred, and lends authority to their ambiguous dog-
mas. By the aid of this artifice, they have given
currency to the opinion that without religion there
can be neither morality nor virtue. I hope, Madam,
in my next letter, to complete the exposure of this
prejudice, and to demonstrate, to whoever will re-
flect, how uncertain, abstract, and deceitful are the
notions which religion has inspired. I shall clearly
show, that they have often infected philosophers
themselves ; that up to the present time, they have
retarded the progress of morality ; and that they
have transformed a science the most certain, plain,
and sensible to every thinking man, into a system
at once doubtful and enigmatical, and full of
difficulties. I am, Madam, &c.
LETTER XI.
OF HUMAN OR NATURAL MORALITY.
BY this time, Madam, you will have reflected on
what I had the honor to address to you, and per-
ceived how impossible.it is to found a certain and
invariable morality on a religion enthusiastic, am-
biguous, mysterious, and contradictory, and which
never agreed with itself. You know that the God
who appears to have taken pleasure in rendering
himself unintelligible, that the God who is partial
and changeable, that the God whose precepts are
20*
234 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
at variance one with another, can never serve as
the base on which to rear a morality that shall be-
come practicable among the inhabitants of the
earth. In short, how can we found justice and
goodness on attributes that are unjust and evil;
yet attributes of a Being who tempts man, whom
he created, for the purpose of punishing him when
tempted? How can we know when we do the
will of a God who has said, Thou shalt not kill,
and who yet allows his people to exterminate whole
nations ? What idea can we form of the morality
of that God who declares himself pleased with the
sanguinary conduct of Moses, of the rebel, the
assassin, the adulterer7 David? Is it possible to
found the holy duties of humanity on a God whose
favorites have been inhuman persecutors and cruel
monsters? How can we deduce our duties from
the lessons of the priests of a God of peace, who,
nevertheless, breathes only sedition, vengeance, and
carnage ? How can we take as models for our
conduct saints, who were useless enthusiasts, or
turbulent fanatics, or seditious apostates ; who,
under the pretext of defending the cause of God,
have stirred up the greatest ravages on the earth?
What wholesome morality can we reap from the
adoption of impracticable virtues, from their being
supernatural, which are visibly useless to ourselves,
to those among whom we live, and in their conse-
quences often dangerous ? How can we take as
guides in our conduct priests, whose lessons are a
tissue of unintelligible opinions, (for all religion is
LETTER XI. 235
but opinion,} puerile and frivolous practices, which
these gentlemen prefer to real virtues? In fine,
how can we be taught the truth, conducted in an
unerring path, by men of a changeable morality,
calculated upon and actuated by their present in-
terests, and who, although they pretend to preafh
good-will to men, humanity, and peace, have, as
their text-book, a volume stained with the records
of injustice, inhumanity, sedition, and perfidy?
You know, Madam, that it is impossible to found
morality on notions that are so unfixed and so con-
trary to all our natural ideas of virtue. By virtue,
we ought to understand the habitual dispositions
to do \vhatever will procure us the happiness of
ourselves and our species. By virtue, religion
understands only that which may contribute to
render us favorable to a hidden God, who attaches
his favor to practices and opinions that are too
often hurtful to ourselves, and little beneficial to
others. The morality of the Christians is a mystic
morality, which resembles the dogmas of their re-
ligion ; it is obscure, unintelligible, uncertain, and
subject to the interpretation of frail creatures. This
morality is never fixed, because it is subordinate to
a religion which varies incessantly its principles,
and which is regulated according to the pleasure
of a despotic divinity, and, more especially, accord-
ing to the pleasure of priests, whose interests are
changing daily, whose caprices are as variable as
the hours of their existence, and who are, conse-
quently, not always in agreement with one another.
23G LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
The writings which are the sources whence the
Christians have drawn their morality, are not only
an abyss of obscurity, but demand continual expli-
cations from their masters, the priests, who, in ex-
plaining, make them still more obscure, still more
contradictory. If these oracles of heaven prescribe
to us in one place the virtues truly useful, in another
part they approve, or prescribe, actions entirely op-
posed to all the ideas that we have of virtue. The
same God who orders us to be good, equitable, and
beneficent, who forbids the revenging of injuries,
who declares himself to be the God of clemency
and of goodness, shows himself to be implacable
in his rage; announces himself as bringing the
sword, and not peace ; tells us that he is come to
set mankind at variance ; and, finally, in order to
revenge his wrongs, orders rapine, treason, usurpa-
tion, and carnage. In a word, it is impossible to
find in the Scriptures any certain principles or sure
rules of morality. You there see, in one part, a
small number of precepts, useful and intelligible,
and in another part maxims the most extravagant,
and the most destructive to the good and happi-
ness of all society.
It is in punctuality to fulfil the superstitious and
frivolous duties, that the morality of the Jews in
the Old Testament writings is chiefly conspicuous ;
legal observances, rites, ceremonies, are all that
occupied the people of Israel. In recompense for
their scrupulous exactness to fulfil these duties,
they were permitted to commit the most frightful
LETTER XI. 237
of crimes. The virtues recommended by the Son of
God, in the New Testament, are not in reality the
same as those which God the Father had made ob-
servable in the former case. The New Testament
contradicts the Old. It announces that God is not
pacified by sacrifices, nor by offerings, nor by frivo-
lous rites. It substitutes in place of these, super-
natural virtues, of which I believe I have sufficiently
proved the inutility, the impossibility, and the in-
compatibility with the well-being of man living in
society. The Son of God, by the writers of the
New Testament, is set at variance with himself;
for he destroys in one place what he establishes in
another; and, moreover, the priests have appro-
priated to themselves all the principles of his mis-
sion. They are in unison only with God when
the precepts of the Deity accord with their present
interest. Is it their interest to persecute? They
find that God ordains persecution. Are they them-
selves persecuted ? They find that this pacific God
forbids persecution, and views with abhorrence the
persecution of his servants. Do they find that
superstitious practices are lucrative to themselves ?
Notwithstanding the aversion of Jesus Christ from
offerings, rites, and ceremonies, they impose them on
the people, they surcharge them with mysterious
rites : they respect these more than those duties
which are of essential benefit to society. If Jesus
has not wished that they should avenge themselves,
they find that his Father has delighted in vengeance.
If Jesus has declared that his kingdom is not of
238 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
this world, and if he has shown contempt of riches,
they nevertheless find in the Old Testament suffi-
cient reasons for establishing a hierarchy for the
governing of the world in a spiritual sense, as kings
do in a political one, for the disputing with
kings about their power, for exercising in this
world an authority the most unlimited, a license
the most terrific. In a word, if they have found in
the Bible some precepts of a moral tendency and
practical utility, they have also found others to
justify crimes the most atrocious.
Thus, in the Christian religion, morality uni-
formly depends on the fanaticism of priests, their
passions, their interests : its principles are never
fixed ; they vary according to circumstances : the
God of whom they are the organs, and the inter-
preters, has not said any thing but what agrees best
with their views, and what never contravenes their
interest. Following their caprices, he changes his
advice continually ; he approves, and disapproves,
of the same actions : he loves, or detests, the same
conduct; he changes crime into virtue, and virtue
into crime.
What is the result from all this ? It is that Ihe
Christians have not sure principles in morality : it
varies with the policy of the priests, who are in a
situation to command the credulity of mankind,
and who, by force of menaces and terrors, oblige
men to shut their eyes on their contradictions, and
minds the most honest to commit faults the great-
est which can be committed against religion. It
LETTER XI. 239
is thus that under a God who recommends the love
of our neighbor, the Christians accustom them-
selves from infancy to detest an heretical neighbor,
and are almost always in a disposition to over-
whelm him by a crowd of arguments received from
their priests. It is thus that, under a God who
ordains we should love our enemies and forgive
their offences, the Christians hate and destroy the
enemies of their priests, and take vengeance, with-
out measure, for injuries which they pretend to have
received. It is thus, that under a just God, a God
who never ceases to boast of his goodness, the
Christians, at the signal of their spiritual guides,
become unjust and cruel, and make a merit of
having stifled the cries of nature, the voice of
humanity, the counsels of wisdom, and of public
interest,
In a word, all the ideas of justice and of injustice,
of good and evil, of happiness and of misfortune, are
necessarily confounded in the head of a Christian.
His despotic priest commands him, in the name of
God, to put no reliance on his reason, and the man
who is compelled to abandon it for the guidance
of a troubled imagination will be far more likely
to consult and admit the most stupid fanaticism as
the inspiration of the Most High. In his blindness,
he casts at his feet duties the most sacred, and he
believes himself virtxious in outraging every virtue.
Has he remorse ? his priest appeases it speedily,
and points out some easy practices by which he
may soon recommend himself to God. Has he
240 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
committed injustice, violence, and rapine ? he may
repair all by giving to the church the goods of
which he has despoiled worthy citizens ; or by re-
paying by largesses, which will procure him the
prayers of the priests and the favor of heaven. For
the priests never reproach men, who give them of
this world's goods, with the injustice, the cruelties,
and the crimes they have been guilty, to support
the church and befriend her ministers ; the faults
which have almost always been found the most
unpardonable, have always been those of most dis-
service to the clergy. To question the faith and
reject the authority of the priesthood, have always
been the most frightful crimes ; they are truly the
sin against the Holy Ghost, which can never be
forgiven either in this world or in that which is to
come. To despise these objects which the priests
have an interest in making to be respected, is
sufficient to qualify one for the appellation of a
blasphemer and an impious man. These vague
words, void of sense, suffice to excite horror in the
mind of the weak vulgar. The terrible word sac-
rilege designates an attempt on the person, the
goods, and the rights of the clergy. The omission
of some useless practice is exaggerated and repre-
sented as a crime more detestable than actions
which injure society. In favor of fidelity to fulfil
the duties of religion, the priest easily pardons his
slave submitting to vices, criminal debaucheries,
and excesses the most horrible. You perceive, then,
Madam, that the Christian morality has really in
LETTER XI. 241
view but the utility of the priests. Why, then,
should you be surprised that they endeavor to make
themselves arbitrary and sovereign ; that they deem
as faults, and as criminal, all the virtues which agree
not with their marvellous systems ? The Christian
morality appears only to have been proposed to
blind men, to disturb their reason, to render them
abject and timid, to plunge them into vassalage, to
make them lose sight of the earth which they in-
habit, for visions of bliss in heaven. By the aid
of this morality, the priests have become the true
masters here below; they have imagined virtues
and practices useful only to themselves ; they have
proscribed and interdicted those which were truly
useful to society ; they have made slaves of their
disciples, who make virtue to consist in blind sub-
mission to their caprices.
To lay the foundations of a good morality, it
is absolutely necessary to destroy the prejudices
which the priests have inspired in us ; it is neces-
sary to begin by rendering the mind of man ener-
getic, and freeing it from those vain terrors which
have enthralled it ; it is necessary to renounce those
supernatural notions which have, till now, hindered
men from consulting the volume of nature, which
have subjected reason to the yoke of authority ; it
is necessary to encourage man, to undeceive him
as ' to those prejudices which have enslaved him ;
to annihilate in his bosom those false theories which
corrupt his nature, and which are, in fact, infidel
guides, destructive of the real happiness of the
21
242 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
species. It is necegsary to undeceive him as to
the idea of his loathing himself, and especially that
other idea, that some of his fellow-creatures are not
to labor with their hands for their support, but in
spiritual matters for his happiness. In fine, it is
necessary to influence him with self-love, that he
may merit the esteem of the world, the benevolence
and consideration of those with whom he is asso-
ciated by the ties of nature or public economy.
The morality of religion appears calculated to
confound society and replunge its members into
the savage state. The Christian virtues tend evi-
dently to isolate man, to detach him from those to
whom nature has united him, and to unite him to
the priests to make him lose sight of a happi-
ness the most solid, to occupy himself only with
dangerous chimeras. We only live in society to
procure the more easily those kindnesses, succors,
and pleasures, which we could not obtain living by
ourselves. If it had been destined that we should
live miserably in this world, that we should detest
ourselves, fly the esteem of others, voluntarily afflict
ourselves, have no attachment for any one, society
would have been one heap of confusion, the human
kind savages and strangers to one another.
However, if it is true that God is the author of
man, it is God who renders man sociable ; it is
God who wishes man to live in society where he
can obtain the greatest good. If God is good, he
cannot approve that men should leave society to
become miserable ; if God is the author of reason,
LETTER XI. 243
he can only wish that men who are possessed of
reason should employ this distinguishing gift to
procure for themselves all the happiness its exer-
cise can bring them. If God has revealed himself,
it is not in some obscure way, but in a revelation
the most evident and clear of all those supposed
revelations, which are visibly contrary to all the
notions we can form of the Divinity. We are not,
however, obliged to dive into the marvellous to
establish the duties man owes to man, since God
has very plainly showji them in the wants of one
and the good offices of another person. But it is
only by consulting our reason that we can arrive
at the means of contributing to the felicity of our
species. It is then evident that in regarding man
as the creature of God, God must have designed
that man should consult his reason, that it might
procure him the most solid happiness, and those
principles of virtue which nature approves.
What, then, might not our opinions be were we
to substitute the morality of reason for the moral-
ity of religion ? In place of a partial and reserved
morality for a small number of men, let us substi-
tute a universal morality, intelligible to all the
inhabitants of the earth, and of which all can find
the principles in nature. Let us study this nature,
its wants, and its clesires ; let us examine the
means of satisfying it ; let us consider what is the
end of our existence in society ; we shall see that
all those who are thus associated are compelled by
their natures to practise affection one to another,
244 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
benevolence, esteem, and relief, if desired ; we
shall see what is that line of conduct which neces-
sarily excites hatred, ill-will, and all those misfor-
tunes which experience makes familiar to man-
kind ; our reason will tell us what actions are the
most calculated to excite real happiness and good
will the most solid and extensive ; let us weigh
these with those that are founded on visionary
theories ; their difference will at once be percepti-
ble ; the advantages which are permanent we will
not sacrifice for those that are momentary; we
will employ all our faculties to augment the happi-
ness of our species ; we will labor with persever-
ance and courage to extirpate evil from the earth ;
we will assist as much as we can those who are
without friends ; we will seek to alleviate their
distresses and their pains ; we will merit their
regard, and thus fulfil the end of our being on
earth.
In conducting ourselves, in this manner, our
reason prescribes a morality agreeable to nature,
reasonable to all, constant in its operation, effec-
tive in its exercise in benefiting all, in contributing
to the happiness of society, collectively and indi-
vidually, in distinction to the mysticism preached
up by priests. We shall find in our reason and in
our nature the surest guides, superior to the clergy,
who only teach us to benefit themselves. We
shall thus enjoy a morality as durable as the race
of man. We shall have precepts founded on the
necessity of things, that will punish those trans-
LETTER XI. 245
grossing them, and rewarding those who obey
them. Every man who shall prove himself to be
just, useful, beneficent, will be an object of love to
his fellow-citizens ; every man who shah 1 prove
himself unjust, useless, and wicked will become
an object of hatred to himself as well as to others ;
he will be forced to tremble at the violation of the
laws ; he will be compelled to do that which is
good to gain the good will of mankind and pre-
serve the regard of those who have the power of
obliging him to be a useful member of the state.
Thus, Madam, if it should be demanded of you
what you would substitute for the benefit of socie-
ty, in place of visionary reveries, I reply, a sensible
morality, a good education, profitable habits, self-
evident principles of duty, wise laws, which even
the wicked cannot misunderstand, but which may
correct their evil purposes, and recompenses that
may tend to the promotion of virtue. The educa-
tion of the present day tends only to make youth
the slaves of superstition ; the virtues which it in-
culcates on them are only those of fanaticism, to
render the mind subject to the priests for the
remainder of life ; the motives to duty are only
fictitious and imaginary ; the rewards and punish-
ments which it exhibits in an obscure glimmering,
produce no other effect than to make useless en-
thusiasts and dangerous fanatics. The principles
on which enthusiasm establishes morality are
changing and. ruinous ; those on which the moral-
ity of reason is established are fixed, and cannot be
21*
246 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
overturned. Seeing, then, that- man, a reasonable
being, should be chiefly occupied about his preser-
vation and happiness that he should love virtue
that he should be sensible of its advantages
that he should fear the consequences of crime is
it to be wondered I should insist so much on the
practice of virtue as his chief good ? Men ought
to hate crime because it leads to misery. Society,
to exist, must receive the united virtue of its
members, obedience to good laws, the activity and
intelligence of citizens to defend its privileges and
its rights. Laws are good when they invite the
members of society to labor for reciprocal good
offices. Laws are just when they recompense or
punish in proportion to the good or evil which is
done to society. Laws supported by a visible
authority should be founded on present motives;
and thus they would have more force than those
of religion, which are founded on uncertain mo-
tives, imaginary and removed from this world, and
which experience proves cannot suffice to curb the
passions of bad men, nor show them their duty by
the fear of punishments after death.
If in place of stifling human reason, as is too
much done, its perfectibility were studied ; if in
place of deluging the world with visionary notions,
truth were inculcated ; if in place of pleading a su-
pernatural morality, a morality agreeable to human-
ity and resulting from experience were preached,
we should no longer be the dupes of imaginary
theories, nor of terrifying fables as the bases of
LETTER XI. 247
virtue. Every one would then perceive that it is
to the practice of virtue, to the faithful observation
of the duties of morality, that the happiness of in-
dividuals and of society is to be traced. Is he a
husband ? He will perceive that his essential hap-
piness is to show kindness, attachment, and ten-
derness to the companion of his life, destined by
his own choice to share his pleasures and endure '
his misfortunes. And, on the other hand, she, by
consulting her true interests, will perceive that they
consist in rendering homage to her husband, in
interdicting every thought that could alienate her
affections, diminish her esteem and confidence in
him. Fathers and mothers will perceive that their
children are destined to be one day their consola-
tion and support in old age, and that by conse-
quence they have the greatest interest in inspiring
them in early life with sentiments of which they
may themselves reap the benefit when age or mis-
fortune may require the fruits of those advantages
that result from a good education. Their chil-
dren, early taught to reflect on these things, will
find their interest to lie in meriting the kindness of
their parents, and in giving them proofs that the
virtues they are taught will be communicated to
their posterity. The master will perceive that, to
be served with affection, he owes good will, kind-
ness, and indulgence to those at whose hands he
would reap advantages, and by whose labor he
would increase his prosperity ; and servants will
discover how much their happiness depends on
248 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
fidelity, industry, and good temper in their situa-
tions. Friends will find the advantages of a kin-
dred heart for friendship, and the reciprocity of
good offices. The members of the same family
will perceive the necessity of preserving that union
which nature has established among them, to
render mutual benefits in prosperity or in adversity.
Societies, if they reflect on the end of their associa-
tion, will perceive that to secure it they must ob-
serve good faith and punctuality in their engage-
ments. The citizen, when he consults his reason,
will perceive how much it is necessary, for the good
of the nation to which he belongs, that he should
exert himself to advance its prosperity, or, in its
misfortunes, to retrieve its glory. By consequence
every one in his sphere, and using his faculties for
this great end, will find his own advantage in re-
straining the bad as dangerous, and opposing ene-
mies to the state as enemies to himself.
In a word, every man who will reflect for himself
will be compelled to acknowledge the necessity of
virtue for the happiness of the world. It is so ob-
vious that justice is the basis of all society ; that
good will and good offices necessarily procure for
men affection and respect ; that every man who re-
spects himself ought to seek the esteem of others ;
that it is necessary to merit the good opinion of
society; that he ought to be jealous of his reputa-
tion ; that a weak being, who is every instant ex-
posed to misfortunes, ought to know what are his
duties, and how he should practise them for the
LETTER XI. 249
benefit of himself and the assembly of which he is
a member.
If we reflect for one moment on the effects of the
passions, we shall perceive the necessity of repress-
ing them, if we would spare ourselves vain regrets
and useless sorrows, which certainly always afflict
those who obey not the laws. Thus, a single re-
flection will suffice to show the impropriety of
anger, the dreadful consequences of revenge, cal-
umny, and backbiting. Every one must perceive
that in giving a free course to unbridled desires, he
becomes the enemy of society, and then it is the
part of the laws to restrain him who renounces his
reason and despises the motives that ought to
guide him.
If it is objected that man is not a free agent, and
therefore is unable to restrain his passions, and that
consequently the law ought not to punish him, I
reply that the community are impelled by the same
necessity to hate what is injurious, and for their
own conservation and happiness have the right to
restrain an unhappily organized individual who is
impelled to injure himself and others. The inevi-
table faults of men necessarily excite the hatred of
those who suffer from them.
If the man who consults his reason has real and
powerful motives for doing good to others and ab-
staining from injuring them, he has present motives
equally urgent to restrain him from the commission
of vice. Experience may suffice to show him that
if he becomes sooner or later the victim of his
V
250 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
excesses, he ceases to be the friend of virtue, and
exists only to serve vice, which will infallibly punish
him. This being allowed, prudence, or the desire
of preserving one's self free from the contamina-
tion of evil, ought to inculcate to every man his
path of duty ; and, unless blinded by his passions,
he must perceive how much moderation in his
pleasures, temperance, chastity, contribute to hap-
piness ; that those who transgress in these respects
are necessarily the victims of ill health, and too
often pass a life both infirm and unfortunate, which
terminates soon in death.
How is it possible, then, Madam, from visionary
theories to arrive at these conclusions, and establish
from supernatural phantasms the principles of pri-
vate and public virtue ? Shall we launch into un-
known regions to ascertain our duty and to keep our
station in society ? Is it not sufficient if we wish
to be happy that we should endeavor to preserve our-
selves in those maxims which reason approves, and
on which virtue is founded? Every man who
would perish, who would render his existence mis-
erable, whoever would sacrifice permanent happi-
ness for present pleasure, is a fool, who reflects not
on the interests that are dearest to him.
If there are any principles so clear as the moral-
ity of humanity has been and is still proved to be,
they are such as men ought to observe. They are
not obscure notions, mysticism, contradictions,
which have made of a science the most obvious
and best demonstrated, an unintelligible science,
LETTER XI. 251
mysterious and uncertain to those for whom it is
designed. In the hands of the priests, morality has
become an enigma ; they have founded our duties
on the attributes of a Deity whom the mind of man
cannot comprehend, in place of founding them on
the character of man himself. They have thrown
in among them the foundations of an edifice which
is made for this earth. They have desired to reg-
ulate our manners agreeably to equivocal oracles
which every instant contradict themselves, and
which too often render their devotees useless to
society and to themselves. They have pretended
to render their morality more sacred by inviting us
to look for recompenses and punishments removed
beyond this life, but which they announce in the
name of the Divinity. In fine, they have made
man a being who may not even strive at perfection,
by a preordination of some to bliss, and consequent
damnation of others, whose insensibility is the re-
sult of this selection.
Need we not, then, wonder that this supernatural
morality should be so contrary to the nature and
the mind of man ? It is in vain that it aims at the
annihilation of human nature, which is so much
stronger, so much more powerful, than imagination.
In despite of all the subtile and marvellous spec-
ulations of the priests, man continues always to
love himself, to desire his well being, and to flee
misfortune and sorrow. He has then always been
actuated by the same passions. When these p'as-
sions have been moderate, and have tended to the
252 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
public good, they are legitimate, and we approve
those actions which are their effects. When these
passions have been disordered, hurtful to society, or
to the individual, he condemns them ; they punish
him ; he is dissatisfied with his conduct which
others cannot approve. Man always loves his
pleasures, because in their enjoyment he fulfils
the end of his existence ; if he exceeds their just
bounds he renders himself miserable.
The morality of the clergy, on the other hand,
appears calculated to keep nature always at vari-
ance with herself, for it is almost always without
effect even on the priesthood. Their chimeras serve
but to torture weak minds, and to set the passions
at war with nature and their dogmas. When this
morality professes to restrain the wicked, to curb
the passions of men, it operates in opposition to
the established laws of natural religion ; for by
preserving all its rigor, it becomes impracticable ;
and it meets with real devotees only in some few
fanatics who have renounced nature, and who
would be singular, even if their oddities were in-
jurious to society. This morality, adopted for the
most part by devotees, without eradicating their
habits or their natural defects, keeps them always
in a state of opposition even with themselves.
Their life is a round of faults and of scruples, of
sins and remorse, of crimes and expiations, of
pleasures which they enjoy, but for which they
again reproach themselves for having tasted. In a
word, the morality of superstition necessarily car-
LETTER XI. 253
ries with it into the heart and the family of its dev-
otees inward distress and affliction ; it makes of
enthusiasts and fanatics scrupulous devotees; it
makes a great many insensible and miserable ; it
renders none perfect, few good ; and those only tol-
erable whom nature, education, and habit had
moulded for happiness.
It is our temperament which decides our condi-
tion ; the acquisition of moderate passions, of hon-
est habits, sensible opinions, laudable examples, and
practical virtues, is a difficult task, but not impossi-
ble when undertaken with reason for one's guide.
It is difficult to be virtuous and happy with a tem-
perament so ardent as to sway the passions to its
will. One must in calmness consult reason as to
his duty. Nature, in giving us lively passions and
a susceptible imagination, has made us capable
of suffering the instant we transgress her bounds.
She then renders us necessary to ourselves, and we
cannot proceed to consult our real interest if we
continue in indulgence that she forbids. The pas-
sions which reason cannot restrain are not to be
bridled by religion. It is in vain that we hope to
derive succors from religion if we despise and re-
fuse what nature offers us. Religion leaves men
just such as nature and habit have made them ;
and if it produce any changes on some few, I be-
lieve 1 have proved that those changes are not al-
ways for the better.
Congratulate yourself, then, Madam, on being
born with good dispositions, of having received
22
254 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
honest principles, which shall carry you through
life in the practice of virtue, and in the love of a
fine and exalted taste for the rational pleasures of
our nature. Continue to be the happiness of your
family, which esteems and honors you. Continue
to diffuse around you the blessings you enjoy ; con-
tinue to perform only those actions which are es-
teemed by all the world, and all men will respect
you. Respect yourself, and others will respect you.
These are the legitimate sentiments of virtue and
of happiness. Labor for your own happiness, and
you will promote that of your family, who will love
you in proportion to the good you. do it. Allow
me to congratulate myself if, in all I have said, I
have in any measure swept from your mind those
clouds of fanaticism which obscure the reason ; and
to felicitate you on your having escaped from vague
theories of imagination. Abjure superstition, which
is calculated only to make you miserable ; let the
morality of humanity be your uniform religion;
that your happiness may be constant, let reason be
your guide ; that virtue may be the idol of your
soul, cultivate and love only what is virtuous and
good in the world ; and if there be a God who is
interested in the happiness of his creatures, if
there be a God full of justice and goodness, he will
not be angry with you for having consulted your
reason ; if there be another life, your happiness in
it cannot be doubtful, if God rewards every one
according to the good done here.
I am, with respect, &c.
LETTER XII. 255
LETTER XII.
OF THE SMALL CONSEQUENCE TO BE ATTACHED TO MEN'S
SPECULATIONS, AND THE INDULGENCE WHICH SHOULD
BE EXTENDED TO THEM.
PERMIT me, Madam, to felicitate you on the
happy change which you say has taken place in
your opinions. Convinced by reasons as simple as
obvious, your mind has become sensible of the fu-
tility of those notions which have for a long time
agitated it ; and the inefficacy of those pretended
succors which religious men boasted they could
furnish, is now apparent to you. You perceive the
evident dangers which result from a system that
serves only to render men enemies to individual
and general happiness. I see with pleasure that
reason has not lost its authority over your mind,
and that it is sufficient to show you the truth that
you may embrace it. You may congratulate your-
self on this, which proves the solidity of your judg-
ment. For it is glorious to give one's self up to
reason, and to be the votary of common sense.
Prejudice so arms mankind that the world is full
of people who slight their judgment ; nay, who re-
sist the most obvious pleas of their understanding.
Their eyes, long shut to the light of truth, are un-
able to bear its rays ; but they can endure the glim-
merings of superstition, which plunges them in still
darker obscurity.
I am not, however, astonished at the embarrass-
256 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
ment you have hitherto felt, nor at your cautious
examination of my opinions, which are better un-
derstood the more thoroughly they are examined
and compared with those they oppose. ' It is im-
possible to annihilate at once deep-rooted preju-
dices. The mind of man appears to waver in a void
when those ideas are attacked on which it has long
rested. It finds itself in a new world, wherein all
is unknown. Every system of opinion is but the
effect of habit. The mind has as great difficulty
to disengage itself from its custom of thinking,
and reflect on new ideas, as the body has to re-
main quiescent after it has long been accustomed
to exercise. Should you, for instance, propose to
your friend to leave off snuff, as a practice neither
healthful nor agreeable in company, he will not
probably listen to you, or if he should, it will be
with extreme pain that he can bring himself to
renounce a habit long familiarized to him.
It is precisely the same with all our prej udices ;
those of religion have the most powerful hold of
us. From infancy we have been familiarized with
them ; 'habit has made them a sort of want we
cannot dispense with : our mode of thinking is
formed, and familiar to us ; our mind is accustomed
to engage itself with certain classes of objects ; and
our imagination fancies that it wanders in chaos
when it is not fed with those chimeras to which it
had been long accustomed. Phantoms the most
horrible are even clear to it ; objects the most
familiar to it, if viewed with the calm eye of rea-
son, are disagreeable and revolting.
LETTER XII. 257
Religion, or rather its superstitions, in conse-
quence of the marvellous and bizarre notions it
engenders, gives the mind continual exercise ; and
its votaries fancy they are doomed to a dangerous
inaction when they are suddenly deprived of the
objects on which their imagination exerted its
powers. Yet is this exercise so much the more
necessary as the imagination is by far the most
lively faculty of the mind. Hence, without doubt,
it becomes necessary men should replace stale
fooleries by those which are novel. This is, more-
over, the true reason why devotion so often affords
consolation in great disgraces, gives diversion for
chagrin, and replaces the strongest passions, when
they have been quenched by excess of pleasure and
dissipation. The marvellous arguments, chimeras
multiply as religion furnishes activity and occupa-
tion to the fancy ; habit renders them familiar, and
even necessary ; terrors themselves even minister
food to the imagination ; and religion, the religion
of priestcraft, is full of terrors. Active and unquiet
spirits continually require this nourishment; the
imagination requires to be alternately alarmed and
consoled ; and there are thousands who cannot
accustom themselves to tranquillity and the so-
briety of reason. Many persons also require phan-
toms to make them religious, and they find these
succors in the dogmas of priestcraft.
These reflections will serve to explain to you the
continual variations to which many persons are
subject, especially on the subject of religion. Sen-
22*
258 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
sible, like barometers, you behold them wavering
without ceasing; their imagination floats, and is
never fixed ; so often as you find them freely given
up to the blackness of superstition, so often may
you behold them the slaves of pernicious prejudices.
Whenever they tremble at the feet of their priests,
then are their necks under the yoke. Even people
of spirit and understanding in other affairs are not
altogether exempt from these variations of mental
religious temperament; but their judgment is too
frequently the dupe of the imagination. And others,
again, timid and doubting, without spirit, are in
perpetual torment.
What do I say ? Man is not, and cannot always
be, the same. His frame is exposed to revolutions
and perpetual vicissitudes ; the thoughts of his
mind necessarily vary with the different degrees of
changes to which his body is exposed. When the
body is languid and fatigued, the mind has not
usually much inclination to vigor and gayety. The
debility of the nerves commonly annihilates the
energies of the soul, although it be so remarkably
distinguished from the body ; persons of a bilious
and melancholy temperament are rarely the sub-
jects of joy ; dissipation importunes some, gayety
fatigues others. Exactly after the same fashion,
there are some who love to nourish sombre ideas,
and these religion supplies them. Devotion affects
them like the vapors ; superstition is an inveterate
malady, for which there is no cure in medicine.
And it is impossible to keep him free from super-
LETTER XII. 259
stition, whose breast, the slave of fear, was never
sensible of courage ; nay, soldiers and sailors, the
bravest of men, have too often been the victims of
superstition. It is education alone that operates
in radically curing the human mind of its errors.
Those who think it sufficient, Madam, to render
a reason for the variations which we so frequently
remark in the ideas of men, acknowledge that there
is a secret bent of the minds of religious persons to
prejudices, from which we shall almost in vain en-
deavor to rescue their understandings. You per-
ceive, at present, what you ought to think of those
secret transitions which our priests would force on
you, as the inspirations of heaven, as divine solici-
tations, the effects of grace ; though they are, never-
theless, only the effects of those vicissitudes to which
our constitution is liable, and which affect the ro-
bust, as well as the feeble ; the man of health, as
well as the valetudinarian.
If we might form a judgment of the correctness
of those notions which our teachers boast of, in
respect to our dissolution at death, we shall find
reason to be satisfied, that there is little or no
occasion that we should have our minds disturbed
during our last moments. It is then, say they, that
it is necessary to attend to the condition of man ;
it is then that man, undeceived as to the things
of this life^ acknowledges his errors. But there is,
perhaps, no idea in the whole circle of theology
more unreasonable than this, of which the credu-
lous, in all ages, have been the dupes. Is it not at
200 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
the time of a man's dissolution that he is the least
capable of judging of his true interest ? His bodily
frame racked, it may be, with pain, his mind is
necessarily weakened or chafed ; or if he should be
free from excruciating pain, the lassitude and yield-
ing of nature to the irrevocable decrees of fate at
death, unfit a man for reasoning and judging of the
sophisms that are proposed as panaceas for all his
errors. There are, without doubt, as strange no-
tions as those of religion ; but who knows that
body and soul sink alike at death ?
It is in the case of health that we can promise
ourselves to reason with justness ; it is then that the
soul, neither troubled by fear, nor altered by dis-
ease, nor led astray by passion, can judge soundly
of what is beneficial to man. The judgments of
the dying can have no weight with men in good
health ; and they are the veriest impostors who lend
them belief. The truth can alone be known, when
both body and mind are in good health. No man,
without evincing an insensible and ridiculous pre-
sumption, can answer for the ideas he is occupied
with, when worn out with sickness and disease ;
yet have the inhuman priests the effrontery to per-
suade the credulous to take as their examples the
words and actions of men necessarily deranged in
intellect by the derangement of their corporeal
frame. In short, since the ideas of men neces-
sarily vary with the different variations of their
bodies, the man who presumes to reason on his
death bed with the man in health, arrogates what
ought not to be conceded.
LETTER XII. 261
Do not, then, Madam, be discouraged nor sur-
prised, if you should sometimes think of ancient
prejudices reclaiming the rights they have for a long
time exercised over your reason ; attribute, then,
these vacillations to some derangement in your
frame, to some disordered movements of mind,
which, for a time, suspend your reason. Think that
there are few people who are constantly the same,
and who see with the same eyes. Our frame being
subject to continual variations, it necessarily fol-
lows that our modes of thinking will vary. We
think one custom the result of pusillanimity, when
the nerves are relaxed and our bodies fatigued.
We think justly when our body is in health ; that
is to say, when all its parts are fulfilling their
various functions. There is one mode of thinking,
or one state of mind, which in health we call un-
certainty, and which we rarely experience when
our frame is in its ordinary condition. We do not
then reason justly, when our frame is not in a con-
dition to leave our mind subject to incredulity.
What, then, is to be done, when we would calm
our mind, when we wish to reflect, even for an
instant? Let reason be our guide, and we shall
soon arrive at that mode of thinking which shall
be advantageous to ourselves. In effect, Madam,
how can a God who is just, good, and reasonable,
be irritated by the manner in which we shall think,
seeing that our thoughts are always involuntary,
and that we cannot believe as we would, but as our
convictions increase, or become weakened ? Man
262 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
is not, then, for one instant, the master of his ideas,
which are every moment excited by objects over
which he has no control, and causes which depend
not on his will or exertions. St. Augustine him-
self bears testimony to this truth : " There is not,"
says he, " one man who is at all times master of
ihat which presents itself to his spirit." Have we
not, then, good reason to conclude, that our thoughts
are entirely indifferent to God, seeing they are ex-
cited by objects over which we have no control,
and, by consequence, that they cannot be offensive
to the Deity ?
If our teachers pique themselves on their princi-
ples, they ought to carry along with them this truth,
that a just God cannot be offended by the changes
which take place in the minds of his creatures.
They ought to know that this God, if he is wise,
has no occasion to be troubled with the ideas that
enter the mind of man ; that if they do not compre-
hend all his perfections, it is because their compre-
hension is limited. They ought to recollect, that
if God is all-powerful, his glory and his power can-
not be affected by the opinions and ideas of weak
mortals, any more than the notions they form of
him can alter his essential attributes. In fine; if
our teachers had not made it a duty to renounce
common sense, and to close with notions that carry
in their consequences the contradictory evidence of
their premises, they would not refuse to avow that
God would be the most unjust, the most iinrea-
sonable, the most cruel of tyrants, if he should
LETTER XII. 203
punish beings whom he himself created imperfect,
and. possessed of a deficiency of reason and com-
mon sense.
Let us reflect a little longer, and we shall find that
the theologians have studied to make of the Divin-
ity a ferocious master, unreasonable and changing,
who exacts from his creatures qualities they have
not, and services they cannot perform. The ideas
they have formed of this unknown being are almost
always borrowed from those of men of power, who,
jealous of their power and respect from their sub-
jects, pretend that it is the duty of these last to
have for them sentiments of submission, and pun-
ish with rigor those who, by their conduct or their
discourse, announce sentiments not sufficiently re-
spectful to their superiors. Thus you see, Madam,
that God has been fashioned by the clergy on the
model of an uneasy despot, suspicious of his sub-
jects, jealous of the opinions they may entertain
of him, and who, to secure his power, cruelly chas-
tises those who have not littleness of mind sufficient
to flatter his vanity, nor courage enough to resist
his power.
It is evident, that it is on ideas so ridiculous, and
so contrary to those which nature offers us of the
Divinity, that the absurd system of the. priests is
founded, which they persuade themselves is very
sensible and agreeable to the opinions of mankind;
and which is very seriously insulted, they say, if
men think differently; and which will punish with
severity those who abandon themselves to the gui-
264 . LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
dance of reason, the glory of man. Nothing can be
more pernicious to the human kind than this fatal
madness, which deranges all our ideas of a just
God of a God, good, wise, all-powerful, and
whose glory and power neither the devotion nor
rebellion of his creatures can affect. In consequence
of these impertinent suppositions of the priesthood,
men have ever been afraid to form notions agrt-eu-
ble to the mysterious Sovereign of the universe, on
whom they are dependent ; jtheir mind is put to the
torture to divine his incomprehensible nature, and,
in their fear of displeasing him, they have assigned
to him human attributes, without perceiving that
when they pretend to honor him, they dishonor
Deity, and that being compelled to bestow on him
V qualities that are incompatible with Deity, they
actually annihilate from their mind the pure repre-
sentation of Deity, as witnessed in all nature. It
is thus, that in almost all the religions on the face
of the earth, under the pretext of making known
the Divinity, and explaining his views towards
mortals, the priests have rendered him incompre-
hensible, and have actually promulgated, under the
garb of religion, nothing save absurdities, by which,
if we admit them, we shall destroy those notions
which nature gives us of Deity.
When we reflect on the Divinity, do we not see
that mankind have plunged farther and farther into
darkness, as they assimilated him to themselves;
that their judgment is always disturbed when they
would make their Deity the object of their medita-
LETTER XII. * ' 265
tions ; that they cannot reason justly, because they
never have any but obscure and absurd ideas ; that
they are almost always in uncertainty, and never
agree with themselves, because their principles are
replete with doubt ; that they always tremble, be-
cause they imagine that it is very dangerous to
be deceived ; that they dispute without ceasing,
because that it is impossible to be convinced of any
thing, when they reason on objects of which they
know nothing, and which the imaginations of men
are forced to paint differently; in fine, that they
cruelly torment one another about opinions equally
uninteresting, though they attach to them the great-
est importance, and because the vanity of the one
party never allows it to subscribe to the reveries
of the other ?
It is thus that the Divinity has become to us a
-source of evil, division, and quarrels ; it is thus that
his name alone inspires terror ; it is thus that re-
ligion has become the signal of so many combats,
and has always been the true apple of discord
among unquiet mortals, who always dispute with
the greatest heat, on subjects of which they can
never have any true ideas. They make it a duty
to think and reason on his attributes ; and they can
never arrive at any just conclusions, because their
mind is never in a condition to form true notions
of what strikes their senses. In the impossibility
of knowing the Deity by themselves, they have re-
course to the opinion of others, whom they consider
more adroit in theology, and who pretend to an
23
266 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
intimate acquaintance with God, being inspired by
him, and having secret intelligence of his purposes
with regard to the human kind. Those privileged
men teach nothing to the nations of the earth, ex-
cept what their reveries have reduced to a system,
without giving them ideas that are clear and defi-
nite. They paint God under characters the most
agreeable to their own interests ; they make of
him a good monarch for those who blindly submit
to their tenets, but terrible to those who refuse to
blindly follow them.
Thus you perceive, Madam, what those men are
who have obviously made of the Deity an object so
bizarre as they announce liim, and who, to render
their opinions the more sacred, have pretended that
he is grievously offended when we do not admit
implicitly the ideas they promulgate of God. In
the books of Moses God defines himself, I am that
I am; yet does this inspired writer detail the his-
tory of this God as a tyrant who tempts men, and
who punishes them for being tempted; who exter-
minated all the human kind by a deluge, except a
few of one family, because one man had fallen ; in
a word, who, in all his conduct, behaves as a des-
pot, whose power dispenses with all the rules of
justice, reason, and goodness.
Have the successors of Moses transmitted to us
ideas more clear, more sensible, more comprehensi-
ble of the Divinity ? Has the Son of God made
his Father perfectly known to us ? Has the church,
perpetually boasting of the light she diffuses
LETTER XII. 267
among men, become more fixed and certain, to do
away our uncertainty? Alas! in spite of all
these supernatural succors, we know nothing in
nature beyond the grave ; the ideas which are com-
municated to us, the recitals of our infallible teach-
ers, are calculated only to confound our judgment,
and reduce our reason to silence. They make of
God a pure spirit ; that is to say, a being who has
nothing in common with matter*, and who, never-
theless, has created matter, which he has produced
from his own fiat his essence or substance.
They have made him the mirror of the universe,
and the soul of the universe. They have made
him an infinite being, who fills all space by his im-
mensity, although the material world occupies some
part in space. They have made him a being all
powerful, but whose projects are incessantly vary-
ing, who neither can nor will maintain man in
good order, nor permit the freedom of action ne-
cessary for rational beings, and w r ho is alternately
pleased and displeased with the same beings and
their actions. They make him an infinite good
Father, but who avenges himself without measure.
They make of him a monarch infinitely just, but
who confounds the innocent with the guilty, who
has mingled injustice and cruelty, in causing his
own Son to be put to death to expiate the crimes
of the human kind ; though they are incessantly
sinning and repenting for pardon. They make of
him a being full of wisdom and foresight, yet in-
sensible to the folly and shortsightedness of mor-
268 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
tals. They make him a reasonable being who
becomes angry at the thoughts of his creatures,
though involuntary, and consequently necessary ;
thoughts which he himself puts into their heads ;
and who condemns them to eternal punishments
if they believe not in reveries that are incompatible
with the divine attributes, or who dare to doubt
whether God can possess qualities that are not
capable of being reconciled among themselves.
Is it, then, surprising that so many good people
are shocked at the revolting ideas, so contradictory
and so appalling, which hurl mortals into a state
of uncertainty and doubt as to the existence of the
Deity, or even to force them into absolute denial
of the same ? It is impossible to admit, in effect,
the doctrine of the Deity of priestcraft, in which
we constantly see infinite perfections, allied with
imperfections the most striking; in which, when
we reflect but momentarily, we shall find that it
cannot produce but disorder in the imagination,
and leaves it wandering among errors that reduce it
to despair, or some impostors, who, to subjugate
mankind, have wished to throw them into embar-
rassment, confound their reason, and fill them with
terror. Such appear, in effect, to be the motives
of those who have the arrogance to pretend to a
secret knowledge, which they distribute among
mankind, though they have no knowledge even of
themselves. They always paint God under the
traits of an inaccessible tyrant, who never shows
himself but to his ministers and favorites, who
LETTER XII.
please to veil him from the eyes of the vulgar ;
and who are violently irritated when they find any
who oppose their pretensions, or when they re-
fuse to believe the priests and their unintelligible
farragoes.
If, as I have often said, it be impossible to be-
lieve what we cannot comprehend, or to be inti-
mately convinced of that of which we can form no
distinct and clear ideas, we may thence conclude
that, when the Christians assure us they believe
that God has announced himself in some secret
and peculiar way to them that he has not done to
other men, either they are themselves deceived, or
they wish to deceive us. Their faith, or their be-
lief in God, is merely an acceptance of what their
priests have taught them of a Being whose exist-
ence they have rendered more than doubtful to
those who would reason and meditate. The
Deity cannot, assuredly, be the being whom the
Christians admit on the word of their theologians.
Is there, in good truth, a man in the world who can
form any idea of a spirit ? If we ask the priests
what a spirit is, they will tell us that a spirit is an
immaterial being who has none of the passions of
which men are the subjects. But what is an im-
material spirit ? It is a being that has none of the
qualities which we can fathom; that has neither
form, nor extension, nor color.
But how can we be assured of the existence of
a being. who has none of these qualities? It is by
faith, say the priests, that we must be assured of
23*
270 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
his existence. But what is this faith ? It is to ad-
here, without examination, to what the priests tell
us. But what is it the priests tell us of God?
They tell us of things which we can neither com-
prehend nor they reconcile among themselves. The
existence, even of God, has, in their hands, become
the most impenetrable mystery in religion. But
d6 the priests themselves comprehend this ineffable
God, whom they announce to other men ? Have
they just ideas of him ? Are they themselves sin-
cerely convinced of the existence of a being who
unites incompatible qualities which reciprocally ex-
clude the one or the other ? We cannot admit it ;
and we are authorized to conclude, that when the
priests profess to believe in God, either they know
not what they say, or they wish to deceive us.
Do not then be surprised, Madam, if you should
find that there are, in fact, people who have ven-
tured to doubt of the existence of the Deity of the
theologians, because, on meditating on the descrip-
tions given of him, they have discovered them to
be incomprehensible, or replete with contradiction.
Do not be astonished if they never listen, in reason-
ing, to any arguments that- oppose themselves to
common sense, and seek, for the existence of the
priests' Deity, other proofs than have yet been
offered mankind. His existence cannot be demon-
strated in revelations, which we discover, on exam-
ination, to be the work of imposture ; revelations
sap the foundations laid down for belief in a
Divinity, which they would wish to establish.
LETTER XII. 271
This existence cannot be founded on the qualities
which our priests have assigned to the Divinity, see-
ing that, in the association of these qualities, there
only results a God whom we cannot comprehend,
and by consequence of whom we can form no cer-
tain ideas. This existence cannot be founded on the
moral qualities which our priests attribute to the
Divinity, seeing these are irreconcilable in the same
subject, who cannot be at once good and evil, just
and unjust, merciful and implacable, wise and the
enemy of human reason.
On what, then, ought we to found the existence
of God ? The priests themselves tell us that it is
on reason, the spectacle of nature, and on the
marvellous order which appears in the universe.
Those to whom these motives for believing in the
existence of the Divinity do not appear convincing,
find not, in any of the religions in the world, mo-
tives more persuasive ; for all systems of theology,
framed for the exercise of the imagination, plunge
us into more uncertainty respecting their evidence,
when they appeal to nature for proofs of what they
advance.
What, then, are we to think of the God of the
clergy ? Can we think that he exists, without rea-
soning on that existence ? And what shall we
think of those who are ignorant of this God, or
have no belief in his existence ; who cannot dis-
cover him in the works of nature, either as good or
evil ; who behold only order and disorder succeed-
ing alternately ? What idea shall we form of.
those men who regard matter as eternal, as
272 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
actuated on by laws peculiar to itself; as suf-
ficiently powerful to produce itself under all the
forms we behold ; as perpetually exerting itself in
nourishing and destroying itself, in combining and
dissolving itself; as incapable of love or of hatred;
as deprived of the faculties of intelligence and sen-
timent known to belong to beings of our species, but
capable of supporting those beings whose organi-
zation has made them intelligent, sensible, and
reasonable ?
What shall we say of those Freethinkers who
find neither good nor evil, neither order nor dis-
order, in the universe ; that all things are but rela-
tive to different conditions of beings, of which they
have evidence; and that all that happens in the
universe is necessary, and subjected to destiny?
In a word, what shall we think of these men ?
Shall we say that they have only a different
manner of viewing things, or that they use different
words in expressing themselves? They call that
Nature which others call the Divinity; they call
that Necessity which all others call the Divine
decrees ; they call that the Energy of Nature which
others call the Author of Nature; they call that
Destiny, or Fate, which others call God, whose laws
are always going forward.
Have we, then, any right to hate and to exter-
minate them ? No, without doubt ; at least, we
cannot admit that we have any reason that those
should perish, who speak only the same language
with ourselves, and who are reciprocally beneficial
LETTER XII. 273
to us. Nevertheless, it is to this degree of extrava-
gance that the baneful .ideas of religion have carried
the human .mind. Harassed, and set on by their
priests, men have hated and assassinated each
other, because that in religious matters they agree
not to one creed. Vanity has made some imagine
that they are better than others, more intelligible,
although they see that theology is a language
which they neither understand, nor which they
themselves could invent. The very name of Free-
thinker suffices to irritate them, and to arm the
fury of others, who repeat, without ceasing, the
name of God, without having any precise idea of
the Deity. If, by chance, they imagine that they
have any notions of him, they are only confused,
contradictory, incompatible, and senseless notions,
which have been inspired in their infancy by their
priests, and those who, as we have seen, have
painted God in all those traits which their im-
agination furnished, or those who appear more
conformed to their passions and interests than to
the well-being of their fellow-creatures.
The least reflection will, nevertheless, suffice to
make any one perceive, that God, if he is just and
good, cannot exist as a being known to some, but
unknown to others. If Freethinkers are men void
of reason, God would be unjust to punish them for
being blind and insensible, or for having too little
penetration and understanding to perceive the force
of those natural proofs on which the existence of
the Deity has been founded. A God full of equity
274 LETTERS' TO EUGENIA.
cannot punish men for having been blind or devoid
of reason. The Freethinkers, as foolish as they are
supposed, are beings less insensible than those who
make professions of believing in a God full of quali-
ties that destroy one another ; they are less dan-
gerous than the adorers of a changeable Deity, who,
they imagine, is pleased with the extermination of
\ / a large portion of mankind, on account of their
opinions. Our speculations are indifferent to God,
whose glory man cannot tarnish whose power
mortals cannot abridge. They may, however, be
advantageous to ourselves ; they may be perfectly
indifferent to society, whose happiness they may
not affect ; or they may be the reverse of all this.
For it is evident that the opinions of men do not
influence the happiness of society.
Hence, Madam, let us leave men to think as they
please, provided that they act in such a manner as
promotes the general good of society. The thoughts
V of men injure not others ; their actions may their
reveries never. Our ideas, our thoughts, our sys-
tems, depend not on us. He who is fully convinced
on one point, is not satisfied on another. All men
have not the same eyes, nor the same brains ; all
have not the same ideas, the same education, or the
same opinions ; they never agree wholly, when they
have the temerity to reason on matters that are
enveloped in the obscurity of imaginative fiction,
and which cannot be subject to the usual evi-
dence accompanying matters of report, or historic
relation.
LETTER XII. 275
Men do not long dispute on objects that are
cognizable to their senses, and which they can sub-
mit to the test of experience. The number of self-
evident truths on which men agree is very small ;
and the fundamentals of morality are among this
number. It is obvious to all men of sense, that
beings, united in society, require to be regulated
by justice, that they ought to respect the happiness
of each other, that mutual succor is indispensable ;
in a word, that they are obliged to practise virtue,
and to be useful to society, for personal happiness.
It is evident to demonstration, that the interest of
our preservation excites us to moderate our desires,
and put a bridle on our passions ; to renounce dan-
gerous habits, and to abstain from vices which can
only injure our fortune, and undermine our health.
These truths are evident to every being whose pas-
sions have not dominion over his reason ; they
are totally independent of theological speculations,
which have neither evidence nor demonstration, and
which our mind can never verify ; they have noth-
ing in common with the religious opinions on which
the imagination soars from earth to sky, nor with
the fanaticism and credulity which are so frequently
producing among mankind the most opposite prin-
ciples to morality and the well-being of society.
They who are of the -Freethinkers' opinions are
not more dangerous than they who are of the priests'
opinions. In short, Christianity has produced ef-
fects more appalling than heathenism. The specu-
lative principles of the Freethinkers have done no
276 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
injury to society ; the contagious principles of
fanaticism and enthusiasm have only served to
spread disorder on the earth. If there are danger-
ous notions and fatal speculations in the world,
they are those of the devotees, who obey a religion
that divides men, and excites their passions, and
who sacrifice the interests of society, of sovereigns,
and their subjects, to their own ambition, their ava-
rice, their vengeance and fury.
There is no question that the Freethinker has
motives to be good, even though he admit not
notions* that bridle his passions. It is true that the
Freethinker has no invisible motives, but he has
motives, and a visible restraint, which, if he reflects,
cannot fail to regulate his actions. If he doubts
about religion, he does not question the laws of
moral obligation ; nor that it is his duty to mod-
erate his passions, to labor for his happiness and
that of others, to avoid hatred, disdain, and discord
as crimes ; and that he should shun vices which
may injure his constitution, reputation, and fortune.
Thus, relatively to his morality, the Freethinker has
principles more sure than those of superstition and
fanaticism. In fine, if nothing can restrain the
Freethinker, a thousand forces united 'would not
prevent the fanatic from the commission of crimes,
and the violation of duties the most sacred.
Besides, I believe that I have already proved that
the morality of superstition has no certain princi-
ples ; that it varies with the interests of the priests,
who explain the intentions of the Divinity, as they
LETTER XII. 277
find these accordant or discordant to their views
and interests ; which, alas ! are too often the result
of cruel and wicked purposes. On the contrary,
the Freethinker, who has no morality but what he
draws from the nature and character of man, and
the constant events which transpire in society, has
a certain morality that is not founded either on the
caprice of circumstances or the prejudices of man-
kind ; a morality that tells him when he does evil,
and blames him for the evil so done, and that is
superior to the morality of the intolerant fanatic
and persecutor.
You thus perceive, Madam, on which side the
morality of the Freethinkers leans, what advan-
tages it possesses over that inculcated on the super-
stitious devotee, who knows no other rule than the
caprice of his 'priest, nor any other morality than
what suits the interest of the clergy, nor any other
virtues than such as make him the slave of their
will, and which are too often in opposition to the
great interests of mankind. Thus you perceive,
that what is understood by the natural morality of
the Freethinker, is much more constant and more
sure than that of the superstitious, who believe
they can render themselves agreeable' to God by
the intercession of priests. If the Freethinker is
blind or corrupted, by not knowing his duties which
nature prescribes to him, it is precisely in the same
way as the superstitious, whose invisible motives
and sacred guides prevent him not from going
occasionally astray.
24
278 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
These reflections will serve to confirm what I
have already said, to prove that morality has noth-
ing in common with religion ; and that religion
is its own enemy, though it pretends to dispense
with support from other sources. True morality
is founded on the nature of man ; the morality of
religion is founded only on "the chimeras of im-
agination, and on the caprice of those who speak
of the Deity in a language too often contrary to
nature and right reason.
Allow me, then, Madam, to repeat to you, that
morality is the only natural religion for man ; the
only object worthy his notice on earth ; the only
worship which he is required to render to the Deity.
It is uniform, and replete with obvious duties, which
rest not on the dictation of priests, blabbing chit-
chat they do not understand. If it be this morality
which 1 have defined, that makes us what we are,
ought we not to labor strenuously for the happiness
of our race ? If it be this morality that makes us
reasonable ; that enables us to distinguish good from
evil, the useful from the hurtful ; that makes us
sociable, and enables us to live in society to receive
and repay mutual benefits ; we ought at least to
respect all those who are its friends. If it be this
morality which sets bounds to our temper, it is that
which interdicts the commission in thought, word,
or action, of what would injure another, or disturb
the happiness of society. If it attach us to the
preservation of all that is dear to us, it points out
how-by a certain line of conduct we may preserve
LETTER XII. 279
ourselves ; for its laws, clear and of easy practice,
inflict on those who disobey them instant punish-
ment, fear, and remorse ; on the other hand, the
observance of its duties is accompanied with im-
mediate and real advantages, and notwithstanding
the depravity which prevails on earth, vice always
finds itself punished, and virtue is not always
deprived of the satisfaction it yields, of the esteem
of men, and the recompense of society; even if
men are in other respects unjust, they will concede
to the virtuous the due meed of praise.
Behold, Madam, to what the dogmas of natural
religion reduce us : in meditating on it, and in
practising its duties, we shall be truly religious,
and filled with the spirit of the Divinity ; we shall
be admired and respected by men ; we shall be in
the right way to be loved by those who rule over
us, and respected by those who serve us ; we shall
be truly happy in this world, and we shall have
nothing to fear in the next.
These are laws so clear, so demonstrable, and
whose infraction is so evidently punished, whose
observance is so surely recompensed, that they
constitute the code of nature of all living beings,
sentient and reasoning ; all acknowledge their au-
thority; all find in them the evidence of Deity,
and consider those as sceptics who doubt their
efficacy. The Freethinker does not refuse to ac-
knowledge as fundamental laws, those which are
obviously founded on the God of Nature, and on
the immutable and necessary circumstances of
280 LETTERS TO EUGENIA.
things cognizable to the faculties of sentient na-
tures. The Indian, the Chinese, the savage, per-
ceives these self-evident laws, whenever he is not
carried headlong by his passions into crime and
error. In fine, these laws, so true, and so evident,
never can appear uncertain, obscure, or false, as
are those superstitious chimeras of the imagination,
which knaves have substituted for the truths of
nature and the dicta of common sense ; and those
devotees who know no other laws than those of the
caprices of their priests, necessarily obey a moral-
ity little calculated to produce personal or general
happiness, but much calculated to lead to extrava-
gance and inconvenient practices.
Hence, charming Eugenia, you will allow man-
kind to think as they please, and judge of them
after their actions. Oppose reason to their sys-
tems, when they are pernicious to themselves or
others ; remove their prejudices if you can, that
they may not become the victims of their caprices ;
show them the truth, which may always remove
error ; banish from their minds the phantom^ which
disturb them ; advise them not to meditate on the
mysteries of their priests; bid them renounce all
those illusions they have substituted for morality ;
and advise them to turn their thoughts -on that
which conduces to their happiness. Meditate
yourself on your own nature, and the duties which
it imposes on you. Fear those chastisements which
follow inattention to this law. Be ambitious to be
approved by your own understanding, and you will
LETTER XII. 281
rarely fail to receive the applauses of the human
kind, as a good member of society.
If you wish to meditate, think with the greatest
strength of your mind on your nature. Never
abandon the torch of reason; cherish truth sin-
cerely. When you are in uncertainty, pause, or
follow what appears the most probable, always
abandoning opinions that are destitute of foun-
dation, or evidence of their truth and benefit to
society. Then will you, in good truth, yield to the
impulse of your heart when reason is your guide ;
then will you consult in the calmness of passion,
and counsel yourself on the advantages of virtue,
and the consequences of its want ; and you may
flatterf.yourself that you cannot be displeasing to a
wise God, though you disbelieve absurdities, nor
agreeable to a good God in doing things hurtful
to yourself or to others.
Leaving you now to your own reflections, I shall
terminate the series of Letters you have allowed
me to address you. Bidding you an affectionate
farewell, I am truly yours.
24*
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