Part 3

In order to attack this truth, let it not be said, that the idea of a God is of all others the most incomprehensible; and if it is possible to derive useful instruction from so metaphysical a principle, we ought to expect more good from precepts which depend on the common relations of life. Such an objection is a mere subtilty; the distinct knowledge of the essence of a God, the creator of the world, is, undoubtedly above the comprehension of men of every age, and all faculties; but it is not the same with the vague idea of a heavenly power, who punishes and who rewards; parental authority, and the helplessness of infancy, prepare us early for ideas of obedience and command; and the world is such a stupendous wonder, a theatre of such continual prodigies, that it is easy to annex, at an early period, hope and fear to the idea of a Supreme Being. Thus, the infinity of a God, creator and director of the universe, is so far from having power to divert our respect and adoration, that even the clouds with which he invelopes himself, lend a new force to religious sentiments. A man often remains uninterested amidst: the discoveries of his reason; but it is always easy to move him, whenever we address ourselves to his imagination; for this faculty of our mind excites us continually to action, by presenting to our eyes a great space, and by keeping us always at a certain distance from the object we have in view. Man is so disposed to wonder at a power, of which he is ignorant of the springs; this sentiment is so natural to him, that what we ought to guard against the most in his education, is the inconsiderate insinuation of various terrors, of which he is susceptible. Thus, not only the true idea of the existence of an All-powerful God, but mere credulous faith in superstitious opinions, will always have more power over the common class of men, than abstract precepts, or general considerations. I know not even, if it might not be said, with truth, that the future of this short life, when we contemplate it, is further from us than the distant perspective offered to the mind by religion; because our imagination is less restrained, and the minutest description of reason can never equal in power, the lively and impulsive ardour of the affections of our souls.

I resume the series of my reflections, and set down here an important observation: which is, that the more the increase of taxes keeps the people in despondency and misery, the more indispensable is it to give them a religious education; for it is in the irritation of wretchedness, that we all have need of a powerful restraint and of daily consolations. The successive abuse of strength and authority, in overturning all the relations which originally existed between men, have raised, in the midst of them, an edifice so artificial, and in which there reigns so much disproportion, that the idea of a God is become more necessary than ever, to serve as a leveller of this confused assemblage of disparities; and if we can ever imagine, that a people should exist, subject only to the laws of a political morality, we should represent, without doubt, a rising nation, which would be restrained by the vigour of patriotism in its prime; a nation which would occupy a country where riches had not had time to accumulate; where the distance of the habitations from each other contributed to the maintenance of domestic manners; where agriculture, that simple and peaceful occupation, would be the favourite employment; where the work of the hands would obtain a recompense proportioned to the scarcity of the workmen, and the extensive usefulness of the labour; we should represent, in short, a nation where the laws and the form of government would favour, during a long time, equality of rank and property. But in our ancient kingdoms in Europe, where the growth of riches continually augments the difference of fortunes and the distance of conditions;—in our old political bodies, where we are crowded together, and where misery and magnificence are ever mingled, it must be a morality, fortified by religion, that shall restrain these numerous spectators of so many possessions and objects of envy, and who, placed so near every thing which they call happiness, can yet never aspire to it.

It may be asked, perhaps, in consequence of these reflections, whether religion, which strengthens every tie, and fortifies every obligation, is not favourable to tyranny? Such a conclusion would be unreasonable; but religion, which affords comfort under every affliction, would necessarily sooth also the ills which arise from despotism; however, it is neither the origin, nor the support of it: religion, well understood, would not lend its support but to order and justice; and the instructions of political morality proposes to itself the same end. Thus, in both plans of education, the rights of the sovereign, as well as those of the citizens, constitute simply one of the elementary parts of the general system of our duties.

I shall only observe, that the insufficiency of political morality would appear still more obvious, in a country where the nation, subject to the authority of an absolute prince, would have no share in the government; for personal interest no longer having an habitual communication with the general interest, there would be just ground to fear, that in wishing to hold out the union of these two interests as the essential motive of virtue, the greater number would retain only this idea, that personality was admitted for the first principle; and consequently every one ought to reserve to himself the right of judging of the times and circumstances when self-love and patriotism are to be separated, or united. And how many errors would not this produce? Public good, like all abstract ideas, has not a precise definition; it is for the greater part of mankind a sea without bounds, and it requires not much address or shrewdness to confound all our analogies. We may know how we would form, according to our taste, the alliance of all the moral ideas, in considering with what facility men know how to reconcile with one quality the habitual infirmities of their character; he who wounds without discretion, prides himself in his frankness and courage; he who is cowardly and timid in his sentiments and in his words, boasts of his caution and circumspection; and by a new refinement of which I have seen singular examples, he who asks of the sovereign pecuniary favours, endeavours to persuade him that he is impelled to this solicitation, only by a noble love of honourable distinction; every one is ingenious in fixing the point of union which connects his passions with some virtue: would they then be less expert at finding some conformity between their own interest and that of the public?

I cannot, I avow, without disgust, and even horror, conceive the absurd notion of a political society, destitute of that governing motive afforded by religion, and restrained only by a pretended connexion of their private interest with the general. What circumscribed judges! What a multiplicity of opinions, sentiments, and wills! All would be in confusion, if we left to men the liberty of drawing their own conclusions: they must absolutely have a simple idea to regulate their conduct, especially when the application of this principle may be infinitely diversified. God in delivering his laws on Mount Sinai, had need but to say, _Thou shalt not steal_; and with the awful idea of that God, whom every thing recals to our minds, whom every thing impresses on the human heart, this short commandment preserves, at all times, a sufficient authority; but when political philosophy says, _Thou shalt not steal_, it would be necessary to add to this precept a train of reasoning, on the laws of right, on the inequality of conditions, and on the various social relations; in order to persuade us that it comprehends every motive, that it answers all objections, and resists all attacks. It is necessary, further, that by the lessons of this philosophy the most uncultivated minds should be qualified to follow the different ramifications which unite, disunite, and reunite afresh the personal to the public interest: what an enterprize! It is, perhaps, like wishing to employ a course of anatomy, in order to direct a child in the choice of such aliments as are proper for it, instead of beginning to conduct it by the counsels and the authority of its mother.

The same remarks are applicable to all the virtues, of which the observance is essential to public order: what method would plain reasoning take to persuade a single man, that he ought not to deprive a husband of the affections of his wife? Where would you assign him a distinct recompense for the sacrifice of his passion? What windings should we not be obliged to run over, to demonstrate to an ambitious man, that he ought not, in secret, to calumniate his rival; to the solitary miser, armed with indifference, that he ought not to remove himself from every occasion of doing good; to a disposition ardent and revengeful, that he ought not to obey those urgent impulses which hurry him away; to a man in want, that he ought not to have recourse to falsehood to procure attention, or to deceive in any other manner? And how many other positions would offer the same difficulties, and still greater? Abstract ideas, the best arranged, can never conquer us but by long arguments, since the peculiar nature of these ideas is to disengage our reasoning from the feelings, and consequently from striking and sudden impressions; besides, political morality, like every thing which the mind only produces, would be always for us merely an opinion; an opinion from which we should have a right to appeal, at any time, to the tribunal of our reason. The lessons of men are nothing but representations of their judgment; and the sentiments of some draw not the will of others. There is not any principle of morality, which, under forms absolutely human, would not be susceptible of exceptions, or of some modification; and there is nothing so compounded as the idea of the connexion of virtue with happiness: in short, while our understanding has a difficulty in comprehending and clearly distinguishing that union, the objects of our passions are every where apparent, and all our senses are preengaged by them. The miser beholds gold and silver; the ambitious man, those honours which are conferred on others; the debauchee, the objects of his luxury; virtue has nothing left but reasoning; and is then in want of being sustained by religious sentiments, and by the enlivening hopes which accompany them.

Thus, in a government where you would wish to substitute political morality for a religious education, it would become, perhaps, indispensable to guard men from receiving any ideas calculated to exalt their minds; it would be necessary to divert them from the different competitions which excite self-love and ambition; they must withdraw themselves from the habitual society of women; and it would be still more incumbent on them to abolish the use of money, that attracting and confused image of all kinds of gratifications: in short, in taking from men their religious hopes, and depriving them thus of the encouragements to virtue which the imagination gives birth to, every exertion must be tried to prevent this unruly imagination from seconding vice, and all the passions contrary to public order: it was because Telemachus was accompanied by a Divinity, that he could, without danger, visit the sumptuous court of Sesostris, and the enchanting abodes of Eucharis and Calypso.

It is indeed an age the most pleasant, as well as the safest of our life, which we cannot pass without a guide; we must then, in order to pass with security through the tempestuous days of youth, have principles which command us, and not reflections to counsel us; these have not any power but in proportion to the vigour of the mind, and the mind is only formed by experience and a long conflict of opinions.

Religious instructions have the peculiar advantage of seizing the imagination, and of interesting our sensibility, those two brilliant faculties of our early years: thus, then even supposing that we could establish a course of political morality, sufficiently propped by reasoning, for defending from vice men enlightened by maturity, I should still say, that a similar philosophy would not be suitable to youth, and that this armour is too heavy for them.

In short, the lessons of human wisdom, which cannot govern us during the ardour of our passions, are equally insufficient, when our strength being broken by disease, we are no longer in a state to comprehend a variety of relations; instead of which, such is the pleasing emotions that accompany the language of religion, that in the successive decline of our faculties, this language still keeps pace with them.

Nevertheless, if we were ever to be persuaded, that there was on earth a more certain encouragement to virtue than religion, its powers would be immediately weakened; it would not be half so interesting, nor could reign when divided; if its sentiments did not overflow, as we may say, the human heart, all its influence would vanish.

Religious instruction, in assembling all the means proper to excite men to virtue, neglects not, it is true, to point out the relations, which exist between the observance of the laws of morality and the happiness of life; but it is as an accessary motive, that these considerations are presented; and it is not necessary to support them by the same proofs as a fundamental principle requires. Also, when people are taught early that vices and crimes lead to misery on earth, these doctrines make not a lasting impression on them, but in proportion as we succeed at the same time, in convincing them of the constant influence of a Providence over all the events of this world.

One important reason still exempts religious professors, from attaching themselves to demonstrate, that the principal advantages which excite the envy of men, are an absolute consequence of the observance of the laws of order: it is, that sacrifices, supported by an idea of duty, are changed into real satisfactions; and the sentiments, which the virtuous enjoy from piety, compose an essential part of their happiness. But what consolation can a man have by way of return; what secret approbation can we grant him, when we know not any other authority than that of political morality, and when virtue is nothing but an opposition between private and public interest?

Religion certainly proposes to man his own happiness, as an object and ultimate end; but as this happiness is placed at a distance, religion conducts us to it by wholesome restrictions and temporary sacrifices; it regards only the sublimest part of us, that which disunites us from the present moment, in order to connect us with futurity; it offers us hopes, which withdraw us from worldly interest, so far as is necessary to prevent us from being immoderately devoted to the disorderly impressions of our senses, and the tyranny of our passions. Irreligion, on the contrary, whose lessons teach us, that we are only masters of the present moment, concentres us more and more within ourselves, and there is nothing beautiful or good in this condition; for grandeur, of every kind, relates to the extent of those relations which we comprehend; and, in a like acceptation, our sentiments submit to the same laws.

Those who represent the obligations of religion as indifferent, assure us, that we may repose safely the maintenance of morality on some general sentiments, which we have adopted; but do not consider that these sentiments derive their origin, and almost all their force, from that spirit of religion which they wish to weaken. Yes, even humanity, this emotion of a noble soul, is animated and fortified by the idea of a Supreme Being; the alliance between men holds but feebly from the conformity of their organization; nor can it be attributed to the similitude of their passions, that continual source of so much hatred; it depends essentially on our connexion with the same author, the same superintendant, the same judge; it is founded on the equality of our right to the same hopes, and on that train of duties inculcated by education, and rendered respectable by the habitual dominion of religious opinions. Alas! it is a melancholy avowal, that men have so many infirmities, so much injustice, selfishness, and ingratitude, at least, in the eyes of those who have observed them collectively, that we never can keep them in harmony by the mere lessons of wisdom: it is not always because they are amiable that we love them; it is sometimes, and very often indeed, because we ought to love them, that we find them amiable. Yes, goodness and forbearance, these qualities the most simple, still require to be compared, from time to time, with an idea general and predominate, the band of all our virtues. The passions of others wound us in so many ways, and there is often so much depth and energy in our self-love, that we have need of some succour to be constantly generous in our sentiments, and to be really interested for all our fellow-creatures, in the midst of whom we are placed.

In short, not to dissemble, if a man once came to consider himself as a being that is the child of chance, or of blind necessity, and tending only to the dust from whence he sprung, and to which he must return, he would despise himself; and far from seeking to rise to noble and virtuous reflections, he would consider this species of ambition as a fantastic idea, which consumes in a vain and illusory manner, a part of those fleeting minutes which he has to pass on earth; and all his attention being fixed on the shortness of life, and on the eternal silence which must close the scene, he would only think _how to devour this reign of a moment_.

How dangerous then would it be, on this supposition, to show to men the extremity of the chain which unites them together! It is in worldly affairs this knowledge of having received the last favour, which renders them ungrateful towards those from whom they no longer expect any thing; and the same sentiment would weaken the power of morality if our lease was manifestly only for this world. It is then religion which ought to strengthen those ties, and defend the entire system of our duty against the stratagems of reasoning and the artifices of our minds; it is necessary, in order to oblige all men, to consider with respect the laws of morality, to teach them early that the social virtues are an homage rendered to the perfections and to the beneficent intentions of the Sovereign Author of Nature, of that Infinite Being who is pleased with the preservation of order, and the private sacrifices which the accomplishment of this grand design requires. And when I see modern philosophers tracing, with an able hand, the general plan of our duties; when I see them fix with judgment the reciprocal obligations of citizens, and giving, at last, for the basis to this legislation, personal interest and the love of praise: I recollect the system of those Indian philosophers, who, after having studied the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, being perplexed to determine the power which sustained the vaulted firmament, thought they had freed it from difficulty, by placing the universe on the back of an elephant, and this elephant on a tortoise. We shall imitate these philosophers, and, like them, shall never proceed but by degradation, whenever, by endeavouring to form a chain of duties and moral principles, we do not place the last link above worldly considerations, and beyond the limits of our social conventions.

CHAP. II. _The same Subject continued. A Parallel between the Influence of Religious Principles, and of Laws and Opinions._

After having examined, as I have just done, in the preceding chapter, if it were possible to found morality on the connexion of private with public interest, it remains for me to consider, if the punishments inflicted by the sovereign, if the sceptre, which public opinion sways, have sufficient power to restrain men, and bind them to the observance of their duty.

It is necessary to proceed by common ideas, in order to advance one degree in the research of truth: thus I ought at first, in this place, to recollect, that the penal laws cannot be applied but to offences known and proved; this consideration contracts their power within a very narrow circle; however, crimes secretly committed, are not the only ones which are beyond the cognizance of laws; we must place in this rank every reprehensible action, which, for want of a distinct character, can never be pointed out; the number of them is prodigious: the rigour of parents, ingratitude of children, the inhumanity of abandoning their nurses, treachery in friendship, the violation of domestic comfort, disunion sown in the bosoms of families, levity of principles in every social connexion, perfidious counsels, artful and slanderous insinuations, rigorous exercise of authority, favour and partiality of judges, their inattention, their idleness and severity, endeavours to obtain places of importance, with a consciousness of incapacity, corrupt flatteries addressed to sovereigns or ministers, statesmen indifferent to public good, their vile and pernicious jealousies, and their political dissensions, excited in order to render themselves necessary, wars instigated by ambition, intolerance under the cover of zeal; in short, many other fatal evils which the laws cannot either follow or describe, and which often do much mischief, before they give any opportunity for public censure. We ought not even to desire that this censure pass certain bounds, because authority, applied to obscure faults, or those susceptible of various interpretations, easily degenerates into tyranny; and as there is nothing so transitory as thought, nothing so secret as our sentiments; none but an invisible power, whose authority seems to participate of the divine, has a right to enter into the secrets of our hearts.

It is then only, at the tribunal of his own conscience, that a man can be interrogated about a number of actions and intentions which escape the inspection of government. Let us beware of overturning the authority of a judge so active and enlightened; let us beware of weakening it voluntarily, and let us not be so imprudent as to repose only on social discipline. I will even venture to say, that the power of conscience is perhaps still more necessary in the age we live in, than in any of the preceding; though society no longer presents us with a view of those vices and crimes which shock us by their deformity; yet licentiousness of morals, and refinement of manners, have almost imperceptibly blended good and evil, vice and decency, falsehood and truth, selfishness and magnanimity; it is more important then ever, to oppose to this secret depravity, an interior authority, which pries into the mysterious windings of disguise, and whose action may be as penetrating as our dissimulation seems artful and well contrived.