"are his passions. And what other laws should we "look for? If they sometimes lead him astray, is not "Nature, who bestowed them upon him an accom"plice at least in his criminality? But he is made "sensible of their impulse, only as a warning never "to gratify them.

'

"The difficulty of finding subsistence, wars, imposts, prejudices, calumnies, implacable enemies, perfidious friends, treacherous feniales, four hun-"dred sorts of bodily distemper, those of the mind, "both more cruel and more numerous, render him "the most wretched of creatures that ever saw the "light. It were much better that he had never been "born. He is every where the victim of some "tyrant. Other animals are furnished with the

means of fighting, or at least of flying; but Man "has been tossed on the Earth by chance, without "an asylum, without claws, without fangs, without "velocity, without instinct, and almost without a skin; and as if it were not enough for him to be persecuted by all nature, he is in a state of perpe"tual war with his own species. "try to defend himself from it.

In vain would he Virtue steps in, and

"binds his hands, that Vice in safety may cut his "throat. He has no choice but to suffer, and to be "silent.

"What after all is this virtue, about which such parade is made? A combination of his imbecility; a result of his temperament. With what illusions "is she fed? Absurd opinions, founded merely on "the sophisms of designing men, who have acquired "a supreme power by recommending humility, and "immense

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" immense riches by preaching up poverty. Every thing expires with us. From experience of the past, let us form a judgement of the future; we were nothing before our birth; we shall be nothing "after death. The hope of our virtues is a mere "human invention, and the instinct of our passions "is of divine institution.

"But there is no GOD.* If there were, He "would be unjust. What being of unlimited power "and goodness would have exposed to so many ills "the existence of his creatures; and laid it down as "a law, that the life of some could be supported only

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by the death of others? So much disorder is a proof "that there is no GOD. It is fear that formed him. "How must the World have been astonished at such "a metaphysical idea, when Man first, under the in"fluence of terror, thought proper to cry out that there was a GOD! What could have made him

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"GOD? Why should he be GOD? What pleasure "could he take in that perpetual circle of woes, of regenerations, and of deaths ?"t

*The reply is in Study VIII.

The refutation of these objections will be found by the nu, meral characters, which correspond to each particular Study. All of them are there resolved directly or indirectly: for it was not possible to follow in a Work of this kind the scholastic order of a system of philosophy.

STUDY

SUCH

UCH are the principal objections which have been raised in almost every Age against a Providence, and which no one will accuse me of having stated too feebly. Before I attempt a refutation of them, I must be permitted to make a few reflections on the persons who maintain them.

Did these murmurings proceed from some wretched mariners, exposed at sea to all the revolutions of the Atmosphere, or from some oppressed peasant, labouring under the contempt of that society whom his labour is feeding, my astonishment would be less. But our Atheists are for the most part well sheltered from the injuries of the Elements, and especially those of Fortune. The greatest part of them have never so much as travelled. As to the ills of Civil Society, they most unreasonably complain; for they enjoy it's sweetest and most respectful homage, after having burst asunder all it's bands, by the propagation of their opinions. What have they not written on Friendship, on Love, on Patriotism, and on all the Human Affections, which they have reduced to the level of those of beasts, while some of them could render

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render human affection almost divine by the sublimity of their talents!

Are they not in part the very persons to whom many of our calamities may be justly imputed, for their flattering in a thousand different ways the passions of our modern tyrants, whilst a cross rising in the midst of a desert comforts the miserable? It is a matter of no small difficulty to retain these last in a rational devotion; and it is a moral phenomenon which appeared to me for a long time inexplicable, to behold in every Age atheism springing up among men who have most reason to cry up the goodness of Nature, and superstition among those who have the justest ground of complaint against her. It is amidst the luxury of Greece and Rome, in the bosom of the wealth of Indostan, of the pomp of Persia, of the voluptuousness of China, of the overflowing abundance of European Capitals, that men first started up who dared to deny the existence of a DEITY. On the contrary, the houseless Tartars, the Savages of America, continually pressed with famine; the Negroes, without foresight, and without a police; the inhabitants of the rude climates of the North, such as the Laplanders, the Greenlanders, the Esquimaux, see Gods every where, even in a flint, in a pebble.

..

I long thought that atheism, in the rich and luxurious was a dictate of conscience. "I am rich, and I "am a knave," must be their reasoning, "therefore "there is no GOD." "Besides, if there is a "GOD, I have an account to render." But these reasonings, though natural, are not general. There

are

are atheists, who possess legitimate fortunes, and use them morally well, at least externally. Besides, for the contrary reason, the poor man ought to argue thus: "I am industrious, honest, and miserable; "therefore there must be no Providence." But in

Nature herself we must look for the source of this ratiocination.

In all countries the poor rise early, labour the ground, live in the open air, and in the fields. They are penetrated with that active power of Nature which fills the Universe. But their reason sinking under the pressure of calamity, and distracted by their daily occasions, is unable to support it's lustre. It stops short, without generalizing, at the sensible ef fects of this invisible cause. They believe, from a sentiment natural to weak minds, that the objects of their religious worship will be at their disposal, in proportion as they are within their reach. Hence it is that the devotions of the common people in every country are presented in the fields, and have natural objects for their centre. It always attracts the religion of the peasantry. A hermitage on the side of a mountain, a chapel at the source of a stream, a good image of the Virgin in wood niched in the trunk of an oak, or under the foliage of a hawthorn, have to them a much more powerful attraction than the gilded altars of our Cathedrals. I except those, however, whom the love of money has completely debauched, for such persons must have saints of silver, even in the country.

The principal religious acts of the people in Turkey, in Persia, in the Indies, and in China, are pil

grimages