Superstition In All Ages (1732) | Page 5

of their guides, to the folly of their institutions, to
their foolish customs, to their false opinions, to their unreasonable laws,
and especially to their want of enlightenment. Let the mind be filled
early with true ideas; let man's reason be cultivated; let justice govern
him; and there will be no need of opposing to his passions the
powerless barrier of the fear of Gods. Men will be good when they are
well taught, well governed, chastised or censured for the evil, and justly
rewarded for the good which they have done to their fellow-citizens. It
is idle to pretend to cure mortals of their vices if we do not begin by
curing them of their prejudices. It is only by showing them the truth
that they can know their best interests and the real motives which will
lead them to happiness. Long enough have the instructors of the people
fixed their eyes on heaven; let them at last bring them back to the earth.
Tired of an incomprehensible theology, of ridiculous fables, of
impenetrable mysteries, of puerile ceremonies, let the human mind
occupy itself with natural things, intelligible objects, sensible truths,
and useful knowledge. Let the vain chimeras which beset the people be
dissipated, and very soon rational opinions will fill the minds of those
who were believed fated to be always in error. To annihilate religious
prejudices, it would be sufficient to show that what is inconceivable to

man can not be of any use to him. Does it need, then, anything but
simple common sense to perceive that a being most clearly
irreconcilable with the notions of mankind, that a cause continually
opposed to the effects attributed to him; that a being of whom not a
word can be said without falling into contradictions; that a being who,
far from explaining the mysteries of the universe, only renders them
more inexplicable; that a being to whom for so many centuries men
addressed themselves so vainly to obtain their happiness and
deliverance from their sufferings; does it need, I say, more than simple
common sense to understand that the idea of such a being is an idea
without model, and that he is himself evidently not a reasonable being?
Does it require more than common sense to feel that there is at least
delirium and frenzy in hating and tormenting each other for
unintelligible opinions of a being of this kind? Finally, does it not all
prove that morality and virtue are totally incompatible with the idea of
a God, whose ministers and interpreters have painted him in all
countries as the most fantastic, the most unjust, and the most cruel of
tyrants, whose pretended wishes are to serve as rules and laws for the
inhabitants of the earth? To discover the true principles of morality,
men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of Gods; they need but
common sense; they have only to look within themselves, to reflect
upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the
object of society and of each of the members who compose it, and they
will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an
injury to beings of their species. Let us teach men to be just, benevolent,
moderate, and sociable, not because their Gods exact it, but to please
men; let us tell them to abstain from vice and from crime, not because
they will be punished in another world, but because they will suffer in
the present world. There are, says Montesquieu, means to prevent crime,
they are sufferings; to change the manners, these are good examples.
Truth is simple, error is complicated, uncertain in its gait, full of
by-ways; the voice of nature is intelligible, that of falsehood is
ambiguous, enigmatical, and mysterious; the road of truth is straight,
that of imposture is oblique and dark; this truth, always necessary to
man, is felt by all just minds; the lessons of reason are followed by all
honest souls; men are unhappy only because they are ignorant; they are
ignorant only because everything conspires to prevent them from being

enlightened, and they are wicked only because their reason is not
sufficiently developed.

COMMON SENSE.
Detexit quo dolose Vaticinandi furore sacerdotes mysteria, illis spe
ignota, audactur publicant.--PETRON. SATYR.

I.--APOLOGUE.
There is a vast empire governed by a monarch, whose conduct does but
confound the minds of his subjects. He desires to be known, loved,
respected, and obeyed, but he never shows himself; everything tends to
make uncertain the notions which we are able to form about him. The
people subjected to his power have only such ideas of the character and
the laws of their invisible sovereign as his ministers give them; these
suit, however, because they themselves have no idea