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