Superstition In All Ages (1732) | Page 3

responsible. There is no miracle
which to him is not an object of contempt and horror; no prophecy that
he does not compare to those of Nostredamus. He wrote thus against
Jesus Christ when in the arms of death, at a time when the most
dissimulating dare not lie, and when the most intrepid tremble. Struck
with the difficulties which he found in Scripture, he inveighed against it
more bitterly than the Acosta and all the Jews, more than the famous
Porphyre, Celse, Iamblique, Julian, Libanius, and all the partisans of
human reason.
There were found among the books of the curate Meslier a printed
manuscript of the Treatise of Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, upon
the existence of God and His attributes, and the reflections of the Jesuit
Tournemine upon Atheism, to which treatise he added marginal notes
signed by his hand.
DECREE
of the NATIONAL CONVENTION upon the proposition to erect a
statue to the curate Jean Meslier, the 27 Brumaire, in the year II.
(November 17, 1793). The National Convention sends to the
Committee of Public Instruction the proposition made by one of its
members to erect a statue to Jean Meslier, curate at Etrepigny, in
Champagne, the first priest who had the courage and the honesty to
abjure religious errors.
PRESIDENT AND SECRETARIES.
SIGNED--P. A. Laloy, President; Bazire, Charles Duval, Philippeaux,
Frecine, and Merlin (de Thionville), Secretaries.
Certified according to the original.
MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE OF DECREES AND
PROCESS-VERBAL.

SIGNED--Batellier, Echasseriaux, Monnel, Becker, Vernetey, Pérard,
Vinet, Bouillerot, Auger, Cordier, Delecloy, and Cosnard.

PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.
When we wish to examine in a cool, calm way the opinions of men, we
are very much surprised to find that in those which we consider the
most essential, nothing is more rare than to find them using common
sense; that is to say, the portion of judgment sufficient to know the
most simple truths, to reject the most striking absurdities, and to be
shocked by palpable contradictions. We have an example of this in
Theology, a science revered in all times, in all countries, by the greatest
number of mortals; an object considered the most important, the most
useful, and the most indispensable to the happiness of society. If they
would but take the trouble to sound the principles upon which this
pretended science rests itself, they would be compelled to admit that
the principles which were considered incontestable, are but hazardous
suppositions, conceived in ignorance, propagated by enthusiasm or bad
intention, adopted by timid credulity, preserved by habit, which never
reasons, and revered solely because it is not comprehended. Some, says
Montaigne, make the world believe that which they do not themselves
believe; a greater number of others make themselves believe, not
comprehending what it is to believe. In a word, whoever will consult
common sense upon religious opinions, and will carry into this
examination the attention given to objects of ordinary interest, will
easily perceive that these opinions have no solid foundation; that all
religion is but a castle in the air; that Theology is but ignorance of
natural causes reduced to a system; that it is but a long tissue of
chimeras and contradictions; that it presents to all the different nations
of the earth only romances devoid of probability, of which the hero
himself is made up of qualities impossible to reconcile, his name
having the power to excite in all hearts respect and fear, is found to be
but a vague word, which men continually utter, being able to attach to
it only such ideas or qualities as are belied by the facts, or which
evidently contradict each other. The notion of this imaginary being, or
rather the word by which we designate him, would be of no

consequence did it not cause ravages without number upon the earth.
Born into the opinion that this phantom is for them a very interesting
reality, men, instead of wisely concluding from its incomprehensibility
that they are exempt from thinking of it, on the contrary, conclude that
they can not occupy themselves enough about it, that they must
meditate upon it without ceasing, reason without end, and never lose
sight of it. The invincible ignorance in which they are kept in this
respect, far from discouraging them, does but excite their curiosity;
instead of putting them on guard against their imagination, this
ignorance makes them positive, dogmatic, imperious, and causes them
to quarrel with all those who oppose doubts to the reveries which their
brains have brought forth. What perplexity, when we attempt to solve
an unsolvable problem! Anxious meditations upon an object impossible
to grasp, and which, however, is supposed to be very important to him,
can but put a man into bad humor, and produce in his brain dangerous
transports. When interest, vanity, and ambition