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.