Superstition In All Ages (1732) Part 19

CXCVIII.--CONTINUATION.

Under pretext of instructing and enlightening men, religion really holds them in ignorance, and deprives them even of the desire of understanding the objects which interest them the most. There exists for the people no other rule of conduct than that which their priests indicate to them.

Religion takes the place of everything; but being in darkness itself, it has a greater tendency to misguide mortals, than to guide them in the way of science and happiness. Philosophy, morality, legislation, and politics are to them enigmas. Man, blinded by religious prejudices, finds it impossible to understand his own nature, to cultivate his reason, to make experiments; he fears truth as soon as it does not agree with his opinions. Everything tends to render the people devout, but all is opposed to their being humane, reasonable, and virtuous. Religion seems to have for its object only to blunt the feeling and to dull the intelligence of men.

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

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

If we take the trouble to follow the history of the human mind, we will discover that theology took care not to extend its limits. It began by repeating fables, which it claimed to be sacred truths; it gave birth to poesy, which filled the people's imagination with puerile fictions; it entertained them but with its G.o.ds and their incredible feats; in a word, religion always treated men like children, whom they put to sleep with tales that their ministers would like still to pa.s.s as incontestable truths. If the ministers of the G.o.ds sometimes made useful discoveries, they always took care to hide them in enigmas and to envelope them in shadows of mystery. The Pythagorases and the Platos, in order to acquire some futile attainments, were obliged to crawl to the feet of the priests, to become initiated into their mysteries, to submit to the tests which they desired to impose upon them; it is at this cost that they were permitted to draw from the fountain-head their exalted ideas, so seducing still to all those who admire what is unintelligible.

It was among Egyptian, Indian, Chaldean priests; it was in the schools of these dreamers, interested by profession in dethroning human reason, that philosophy was obliged to borrow its first rudiments. Obscure or false in its principles, mingled with fictions and fables, solely made to seduce imagination, this philosophy progressed but waveringly, and instead of enlightening the mind, it blinded it, and turned it away from useful objects. The theological speculations and mystical reveries of the ancients have, even in our days, the making of the law in a great part of the philosophical world. Adopted by modern theology, we can scarcely deviate from them without heresy; they entertain us with aerial beings, with spirits, angels, demons, genii, and other phantoms, which are the object of the meditations of our most profound thinkers, and which serve as a basis to metaphysics, an abstract and futile science, upon which the greatest geniuses have vainly exercised themselves for thousands of years. Thus hypotheses, invented by a few visionists of Memphis and of Babylon, continue to be the basis of a science revered for the obscurity which makes it pa.s.s as marvelous and Divine. The first legislators of nations were priests; the first mythologists and poets were priests; the first philosophers were priests; the first physicians were priests. In their hands science became a sacred thing, prohibited to the profane; they spoke only by allegories, emblems, enigmas, and ambiguous oracles--means well-suited to excite curiosity, to put to work the imagination, and especially to inspire in the ignorant man a holy respect for those whom he believed instructed by Heaven, capable of reading the destinies of earth, and who boldly pretended to be the organs of Divinity.

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

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

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

If we but look at history, we see striking resemblances in all religions. Everywhere on earth we find religious ideas periodically afflicting and rejoicing the people; everywhere we see rites, practices often abominable, and formidable mysteries occupying the mind, and becoming objects of meditation. We see the different superst.i.tions borrowing from each other their abstract reveries and their ceremonies.

Religions are generally unformed rhapsodies combined by new Doctors of Divinity, who, in composing them, have used the materials of their predecessors, reserving the right of adding or subtracting what suits or does not suit their present views. The religion of Egypt served evidently as a basis for the religion of Moses, who expunged from it the worship of idols. Moses was but an Egyptian schismatic, Christianity is but a reformed Judaism. Mohammedanism is composed of Judaism, of Christianity, and of the ancient religion of Arabia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the hidden principle of the actions and of the motions of the human body? It is the soul. What is a soul? It is a spirit. What is a spirit? It is a substance which has neither form, color, expansion, nor parts. How can we conceive of such a substance? How can it move a body?

We know nothing about it. Have brutes souls? The Carthusian a.s.sures you that they are machines. But do we not see them act, feel, and think in a manner which resembles that of men? This is a pure illusion, you say.

But why do you deprive the brutes of souls, which, without understanding it, you attribute to men? It is that the souls of the brutes would embarra.s.s our theologians, who, content with the power of frightening and d.a.m.ning the immortal souls of men, do not take the same interest in d.a.m.ning those of the brutes. Such are the puerile solutions which philosophy, always guided by the leading-strings of theology, was obliged to bring forth to explain the problems of the physical and moral world.

CCIII.--HOW THEOLOGY HAS FETTERED HUMAN MORALS AND r.e.t.a.r.dED THE PROGRESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT, OF REASON, AND OF TRUTH.

How many subterfuges and mental gymnastics all the ancient and modern thinkers have employed, in order to avoid falling out with the ministers of the G.o.ds, who in all ages were the true tyrants of thought! How Descartes, Malebranche, Leibnitz, and many others have been compelled to invent hypotheses and evasions in order to reconcile their discoveries with the reveries and the blunders which religion had rendered sacred!

With what prevarications have not the greatest philosophers guarded themselves even at the risk of being absurd, inconsistent, and unintelligible whenever their ideas did not correspond with the principles of theology! Vigilant priests were always ready to extinguish systems which could not be made to tally with their interests. Theology in every age has been the bed of Procrustes upon which this brigand extended his victims; he cut off the limbs when they were too long, or stretched them by horses when they were shorter than the bed upon which he placed them.

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

CCIV.--CONTINUATION.

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

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

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

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

"They are in embarra.s.sment when they cry for help."

It is not permitted to err in the matter of religion; on every other subject we can be deceived with impunity; we pity those who go astray, and we have some liking for the persons who discover truths new to us.

But as soon as theology supposes itself concerned, be it in errors or discoveries, a holy zeal is kindled; the sovereigns exterminate; the people fly into frenzy; and the nations are all stirred up without knowing why. Is there anything more afflicting than to see public and individual welfare depend upon a futile science, which is void of principles, which has no standing ground but imagination, and which presents to the mind but words void of sense? What good is a religion which no one understands; which continually torments those who trouble themselves about it; which is incapable of rendering men better; and which often gives them the credit of being unjust and wicked? Is there a more deplorable folly, and one that ought more to be abated, than that which, far from doing any good to the human race, does but blind it, cause transports, and render it miserable, depriving it of truth, which alone can soften the rigor of fate?

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

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

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

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

I conclude with the desire that we may return to Nature, whose declared enemy the Christian religion is, and which necessarily instructs us to do unto others as we would wish them to do unto us. Then the universe will be composed of good citizens, just fathers, obedient children, tender friends. Nature has given us this Religion, in giving us Reason.

May fanaticism pervert it no more! I die filled with these desires more than with hope.

ETREPIGNY, March 15, 1732