Superstition In All Ages (1732) Part 9

XCIX.--IT IS FOOLISH TO SEE IN THE UNIVERSE ONLY THE BENEFACTIONS OF HEAVEN, AND TO BELIEVE THAT THIS UNIVERSE WAS MADE BUT FOR MAN.

An exalted imagination sees in the universe but the benefactions of Heaven; a calm mind finds good and evil in it. I exist, you will say; but is this existence always a benefit? You will say, look at this sun, which shines for you; this earth, which is covered with fruits and verdure; these flowers, which bloom for our sight and smell; these trees, which bend beneath the weight of fruits; these pure streams, which flow but to quench your thirst; these seas, which embrace the universe to facilitate your commerce; these animals, which a foreseeing nature produces for your use! Yes, I see all these things, and I enjoy them when I can. But in some climates this beautiful sun is most always obscured from me; in others, its excessive heat torments me, produces storm, gives rise to dreadful diseases, dries up the fields; the meadows have no gra.s.s, the trees are fruitless, the harvests are scorched, the springs are dried up; I can scarcely exist, and I sigh under the cruelty of a nature which you find so benevolent. If these seas bring me spices, riches, and useless things, do they not destroy a mult.i.tude of mortals who are dupes enough to go after them?

Man's vanity persuades him that he is the sole center of the universe; he creates for himself a world and a G.o.d; he thinks himself of sufficient consequence to derange nature at his will, but he reasons as an atheist when the question of other animals is involved. Does he not imagine that the individuals different from his species are automatons unworthy of the cares of universal Providence, and that the beasts can not be the objects of its justice and kindness? Mortals consider fortunate or unfortunate events, health or sickness, life and death, abundance or famine, as rewards or punishments for the use or misuse of the liberty which they arrogate to themselves. Do they reason on this principle when animals are taken into consideration? No; although they see them under a just G.o.d enjoy and suffer, be healthy and sick, live and die, like themselves, it does not enter their mind to ask what crimes these beasts have committed in order to cause the displeasure of the Arbiter of nature. Philosophers, blinded by their theological prejudices, in order to disembarra.s.s themselves, have gone so far as to pretend that beasts have no feelings!

Will men never renounce their foolish pretensions? Will they not recognize that nature was not made for them? Will they not see that this nature has placed on equal footing all the beings which she produced?

Will they not see that all organized beings are equally made to be born and to die, to enjoy and to suffer? Finally, instead of priding themselves preposterously on their mental faculties, are they not compelled to admit that they often render them more unhappy than the beasts, in which we find neither opinions, prejudices, vanities, nor the weaknesses which decide at every moment the well-being of men?

C.--WHAT IS THE SOUL? WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT. IF THIS PRETENDED SOUL WAS OF ANOTHER ESSENCE FROM THAT OF THE BODY, THEIR UNION WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE.

The superiority which men arrogate to themselves over other animals, is princ.i.p.ally founded upon the opinion of possessing exclusively an immortal soul. But as soon as we ask what this soul is, they begin to stammer. It is an unknown substance; it is a secret force distinguished from their bodies; it is a spirit of which they can form no idea. Ask them how this spirit, which they suppose like their G.o.d, totally deprived of a physical substance, could combine itself with their material bodies? They will tell you that they know nothing about it; that it is a mystery to them; that this combination is the effect of the Almighty power. These are the clear ideas which men form of the hidden, or, rather, imaginary substance which they consider the motor of all their actions! If the soul is a substance essentially different from the body, and which can have no affinity with it, their union would be, not a mystery, but a thing impossible. Besides, this soul, being of an essence different from that of the body, ought to act necessarily in a different way from it. However, we see that the movements of the body are felt by this pretended soul, and that these two substances, so different in essence, always act in harmony. You will tell us that this harmony is a mystery; and I will tell you that I do not see my soul, that I know and feel but my body; that it is my body which feels, which reflects, which judges, which suffers, and which enjoys, and that all of its faculties are the necessary results of its own mechanism or of its organization.

CI.--THE EXISTENCE OF A SOUL IS AN ABSURD SUPPOSITION, AND THE EXISTENCE OF AN IMMORTAL SOUL IS A STILL MORE ABSURD SUPPOSITION.

Although it is impossible for men to have the least idea of the soul, or of this pretended spirit which animates them, they persuade themselves, however, that this unknown soul is exempt from death; everything proves to them that they feel, think, acquire ideas, enjoy or suffer, but by the means of the senses or of the material organs of the body. Even admitting the existence of this soul, one can not refuse to recognize that it depends wholly on the body, and suffers conjointly with it all the vicissitudes which it experiences itself; and however it is imagined that it has by its nature nothing a.n.a.logous with it; it is pretended that it can act and feel without the a.s.sistance of this body; that deprived of this body and robbed of its senses, this soul will be able to live, to enjoy, to suffer, be sensitive of enjoyment or of rigorous torments. Upon such a tissue of conjectural absurdities the wonderful opinion of the immortality of the soul is built.

If I ask what ground we have for supposing that the soul is immortal: they reply, it is because man by his nature desires to be immortal, or to live forever. But I rejoin, if you desire anything very much, is it sufficient to conclude that this desire will be fulfilled? By what strange logic do they decide that a thing can not fail to happen because they ardently desire it to happen? Man's childish desires of the imagination, are they the measure of reality? Impious people, you say, deprived of the flattering hopes of another life, desire to be annihilated. Well, have they not just as much right to conclude by this desire that they will be annihilated, as you to conclude that you will exist forever because you desire it?

CII.--IT IS EVIDENT THAT THE WHOLE OF MAN DIES.

Man dies entirely. Nothing is more evident to him who is not delirious.

The human body, after death, is but a ma.s.s, incapable of producing any movements the union of which const.i.tutes life. We no longer see circulation, respiration, digestion, speech, or reflection. It is claimed then that the soul has separated itself from the body. But to say that this soul, which is unknown, is the principle of life, is saying nothing, unless that an unknown force is the invisible principle of imperceptible movements. Nothing is more natural and more simple than to believe that the dead man lives no more, nothing more absurd than to believe that the dead man is still living.

We ridicule the simplicity of some nations whose fashion is to bury provisions with the dead--under the idea that this food might be useful and necessary to them in another life. Is it more ridiculous or more absurd to believe that men will eat after death than to imagine that they will think; that they will have agreeable or disagreeable ideas; that they will enjoy; that they will suffer; that they will be conscious of sorrow or joy when the organs which produce sensations or ideas are dissolved and reduced to dust? To claim that the souls of men will be happy or unhappy after the death of the body, is to pretend that man will be able to see without eyes, to hear without ears, to taste without a palate, to smell without a nose, and to feel without hands and without skin. Nations who believe themselves very rational, adopt, nevertheless, such ideas.

CIII.--INCONTESTABLE PROOFS AGAINST THE SPIRITUALITY OF THE SOUL.

The dogma of the immortality of the soul a.s.sumes that the soul is a simple substance, a spirit; but I will always ask, what is a spirit? It is, you say, a substance deprived of expansion, incorruptible, and which has nothing in common with matter. But if this is true, how came your soul into existence? how did it grow? how did it strengthen? how weaken itself, get out of order, and grow old with your body? In reply to all these questions, you say that they are mysteries; but if they are mysteries, you understand nothing about them. If you do not understand anything about them, how can you positively affirm anything about them?

In order to believe or to affirm anything, it is necessary at least to know what that consists of which we believe and which we affirm. To believe in the existence of your immaterial soul, is to say that you are persuaded of the existence of a thing of which it is impossible for you to form any true idea; it is to believe in words without attaching any sense to them; to affirm that the thing is as you claim, is the highest folly or a.s.sumption.

CIV.--THE ABSURDITY OF SUPERNATURAL CAUSES, WHICH THEOLOGIANS CONSTANTLY

CALL TO THEIR AID.

Are not theologians strange reasoners? As soon as they can not guess the natural causes of things, they invent causes, which they call supernatural; they imagine them spirits, occult causes, inexplicable agents, or rather words much more obscure than the things which they attempt to explain. Let us remain in nature when we desire to understand its phenomena; let us ignore the causes which are too delicate to be seized by our organs; and let us be a.s.sured that by seeking outside of nature we can never find the solution of nature's problems. Even upon the theological hypothesis--that is to say, supposing an Almighty motor in matter--what right have theologians to refuse their G.o.d the power to endow this matter with thought? Would it be more difficult for Him to create combinations of matter from which results thought, than spirits which think? At least, in supposing a substance endowed with thought, we could form some idea of the object of our thoughts, or of what thinks in us; while attributing thought to an immaterial being, it is impossible for us to form the least idea of it.

CV.--IT IS FALSE THAT MATERIALISM CAN BE DEBASING TO THE HUMAN RACE.

Materialism, it is objected, makes of man a mere machine, which is considered very debasing to the human race. But will the human race be more honored when it can be said that man acts by the secret impulsions of a spirit, or a certain something which animates him without his knowing how? It is easy to perceive that the superiority which is given to mind over matter, or to the soul over the body, is based upon the ignorance of the nature of this soul; while we are more familiarized with matter or the body, which we imagine we know, and of which we believe we have understood the springs; but the most simple movements of our bodies are, for every thinking man, enigmas as difficult to divine as thought.

CVI.--CONTINUATION.

The esteem which so many people have for the spiritual substance, appears to result from the impossibility they find in defining it in an intelligible way. The contempt which our metaphysicians show for matter, comes from the fact that "familiarity breeds contempt." When they tell us that the soul is more excellent and n.o.ble than the body, they tell us nothing, except that what they know nothing about must be more beautiful than that of which they have some faint ideas.

CVII.--THE DOGMA OF ANOTHER LIFE IS USEFUL BUT FOR THOSE WHO PROFIT BY IT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE CREDULOUS PUBLIC.

We are constantly told of the usefulness of the dogma of life hereafter.

It is pretended that even if it should be a fiction, it is advantageous, because it imposes upon men and leads them to virtue. But is it true that this dogma renders men wiser and more virtuous? The nations where this fiction is established, are they remarkable for the morality of their conduct? Is not the visible world always preferred to the invisible world? If those who are charged to instruct and to govern men had themselves enlightenment and virtue, they would govern them far better by realities than by vain chimeras; but deceitful, ambitious, and corrupt, the legislators found it everywhere easier to put the nations to sleep by fables than to teach them truths; than to develop their reason; than to excite them to virtue by sensible and real motives; than to govern them in a reasonable way.

Theologians, no doubt, have had reasons for making the soul immaterial.

They needed souls and chimeras to populate the imaginary regions which they have discovered in the other life. Material souls would have been subjected, like all bodies, to dissolution. Moreover, if men believe that everything is to perish with the body, the geographers of the other world would evidently lose the chance of guiding their souls to this unknown abode. They would draw no profits from the hopes with which they feast them, and from the terrors with which they take care to overwhelm them. If the future is of no real utility to the human race, it is at least of the greatest advantage to those who take upon themselves the responsibility of conducting mankind thither.

CVIII.--IT IS FALSE THAT THE DOGMA OF ANOTHER LIFE CAN BE CONSOLING; AND IF IT WERE, IT WOULD BE NO PROOF THAT THIS a.s.sERTION IS TRUE.

But, it will be said, is not the dogma of the immortality of the soul consoling for beings who often find themselves very unhappy here below?

If this should be an illusion, is it not a sweet and agreeable one? Is it not a benefit for man to believe that he can live again and enjoy, sometime, the happiness which is refused to him on earth? Thus, poor mortals! you make your wishes the measure of the truth! Because you desire to live forever, and to be happier, you conclude from thence that you will live forever, and that you will be more fortunate in an unknown world than in the known world, in which you so often suffer! Consent, then, to leave without regret this world, which causes more trouble than pleasure to the majority of you. Resign yourselves to the order of destiny, which decrees that you, like all other beings, should not endure forever. But what will become of me? you ask! What you were several millions of years ago. You were then, I do not know what; resign yourselves, then, to become again in an instant, I do not know what; what you were then; return peaceably to the universal home from which you came without your knowledge into your material form, and pa.s.s by without murmuring, like all the beings which surround you!

We are repeatedly told that religious ideas offer infinite consolation to the unfortunate; it is pretended that the idea of the immortality of the soul and of a happier life has a tendency to lift up the heart of man and to sustain him in the midst of the adversities with which he is a.s.sailed in this life. Materialism, on the contrary, is, we are told, an afflicting system, tending to degrade man, which ranks him among brutes; which destroys his courage, whose only hope is complete annihilation, tending to lead him to despair, and inducing him to commit suicide as soon as he suffers in this world. The grand policy of theologians is to blow hot and to blow cold, to afflict and to console, to frighten and to rea.s.sure.

According to the fictions of theology, the regions of the other life are happy and unhappy. Nothing more difficult than to render one worthy of the abode of felicity; nothing easier than to obtain a place in the abode of torments that Divinity prepares for the unfortunate victims of His eternal fury. Those who find the idea of another life so flattering and so sweet, have they then forgotten that this other life, according to them, is to be accompanied by torments for the majority of mortals?

Is not the idea of total annihilation infinitely preferable to the idea of an eternal existence accompanied with suffering and gnashing of teeth? The fear of ceasing to exist, is it more afflicting than the thought of having not always been? The fear of ceasing to be is but an evil for the imagination, which alone brought forth the dogma of another life.

You say, O Christian philosophers, that the idea of a happier life is delightful; we agree; there is no one who would not desire a more agreeable and a more durable existence than the one we enjoy here below.

But, if Paradise is tempting, you will admit, also, that h.e.l.l is frightful. It is very difficult to merit heaven, and very easy to gain h.e.l.l. Do you not say that one straight and narrow path leads to the happy regions, and that a broad road leads to the regions of the unhappy? Do you not constantly tell us that the number of the chosen ones is very small, and that of the d.a.m.ned is very large? Do we not need, in order to be saved, such grace as your G.o.d grants to but few?

Well! I tell you that these ideas are by no means consoling; I prefer to be annihilated at once rather than to burn forever; I will tell you that the fate of beasts appears to me more desirable than the fate of the d.a.m.ned; I will tell you that the belief which delivers me from overwhelming fears in this world, appears to me more desirable than the uncertainty in which I am left through belief in a G.o.d who, master of His favors, gives them but to His favorites, and who permits all the others to render themselves worthy of eternal punishments. It can be but blind enthusiasm or folly that can prefer a system which evidently encourages improbable conjectures, accompanied by uncertainty and desolating fear.

CIX.--ALL RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES ARE IMAGINARY. INNATE SENSE IS BUT THE EFFECT OF A ROOTED HABIT. G.o.d IS AN IDLE FANCY, AND THE QUALITIES WHICH ARE LAVISHED UPON HIM DESTROY EACH OTHER.