Letters To Eugenia Part 3

You perceive, then, Madam, that nothing can be easier than to overthrow the proofs by which Christian doctors establish the revelation which they pretend is so well authenticated. Miracles, martyrs, and prophecies prove nothing.

Were all the wonders true that are related in the Old and New Testament, they would afford no proof in favor of divine omnipotence, but, on the contrary, would prove the inability under which the Deity has continually labored, of convincing mankind of the truths he wished to announce to them. On the other hand, supposing these miracles to have produced all the effects which the Deity had a right to expect from them, we have no longer any reason to believe them, except on the tradition and recitals of others, which are often suspicious, faulty, and exaggerated. The miracles of Moses are attested only by Moses, or by Jewish writers interested in making them believed by the people they wished to govern. The miracles of Jesus are attested only by his disciples, who sought to obtain adherents, in relating to a credulous people prodigies to which they pretended to have been witnesses, or which some of them, perhaps, believed they had really seen. All those who deceive mankind are not always cheats; they are frequently deceived by those who are knaves in reality. Besides, I believe I have sufficiently proved, that miracles are repugnant to the essence of an immutable G.o.d, as well as to his wisdom, which will not permit him to alter the wise laws he has himself established. In short, miracles are useless, since those related in Scripture have not produced the effects which G.o.d expected from them.

The proof of the Christian religion taken from prophecy has no better foundation. Whoever will examine without prejudice these oracles pretended to be divine will find only an ambiguous, unintelligible, absurd, and unconnected jargon, entirely unworthy of a G.o.d who intended to display his prescience, and to instruct his people with regard to future events. There does not exist in the Holy Scriptures a single prophecy sufficiently precise to be literally applied to Jesus Christ.

To convince yourself of this truth, ask the most learned of our doctors which are the formal prophecies wherein they have the happiness to discover the Messiah. You will then perceive that it is only by the aid of forced explanations, figures, parables, and mystical interpretations, by which they are enabled to bring forward any thing sensible and applicable to the _G.o.d-made-man_ whom they tell us to adore. It would seem as if the Deity had made predictions only that we might understand nothing about them.

In these equivocal oracles, whose meaning it is impossible to penetrate, we find nothing but the language of intoxication, fanaticism, and delirium. When we fancy we have found something intelligible, it is easy to perceive that the prophets intended to speak of events that took place in their own age, or of personages who had preceded them. It is thus that our doctors apply gratuitously to Christ prophecies or rather narratives of what happened respecting David, Solomon, Cyrus, &c.

We imagine we see the chastis.e.m.e.nt of the Jewish people announced in recitals where it is evident the only matter in question was the Babylonish captivity. In this event, so long prior to Jesus Christ, they have imagined finding a prediction of the dispersion of the Jews, supposed to be a visible punishment for their _deicide_, and which they now wish to pa.s.s off' as an indubitable proof of the truth of Christianity.

It is not, then, astonis.h.i.+ng that the ancient and modern Jews do not see in the prophets what our doctors teach us, and what they themselves imagine they have seen. Jesus himself has not been more happy in his predictions than his predecessors. In the gospel he announces to his disciples in the most formal manner the destruction of the world and the last judgment, as events that were at hand, and which must take place before the existing generation had pa.s.sed away. Yet the world still endures, and appears in no danger of finis.h.i.+ng. It is true, our doctors pretend that, in the prediction of Jesus Christ, he spoke of the ruin of Jerusalem by Vespasian and t.i.tus; but none but those who have not read the gospel would submit to such a change, or satisfy themselves with such an evasion. Besides, in adopting it we must confess at least that the Son of G.o.d himself was unable to prophesy with greater precision than his obscure predecessors.

Indeed, at every page of these sacred books, which we are a.s.sured were inspired by G.o.d himself, this G.o.d seems to have made a revelation only to conceal himself. He does not speak but to be misunderstood. He announces his oracles in such a way only that we can neither comprehend them nor make any application of them. He performs miracles only to make unbelievers. He manifests himself to mankind only to stupefy their judgment and bewilder the reason he has bestowed on them. The Bible continually represents G.o.d to us as a seducer, an enticer, a suspicious tyrant, who knows not what kind of conduct to observe with respect to his subjects; who amuses himself by laying snares for his creatures, and who tries them that he may have the pleasure of inflicting a punishment for yielding to his temptations. This G.o.d is occupied only in building to destroy, in demolis.h.i.+ng to rebuild. Like a child disgusted with its playthings, he is continually undoing what he has done, and breaking what was the object of his desires. We find no foresight, no constancy, no consistency in his conduct; no connection, no clearness in his discourses. When he performs any thing, he sometimes approves what he has done, and at other times repents of it. He irritates and vexes himself with what he has permitted to be done, and, in spite of his infinite power, he suffers man to offend him, and consents to let Satan, his creature, derange all his projects. In a word, the revelations of the Christians and Jews seem to have been imagined only to render uncertain and to annihilate the qualities attributed to the Deity, and which are declared to const.i.tute his essence. The whole Scripture, the entire system of the Christian religion, appears to be founded only on the incapability of G.o.d, who was unable to render the human race as wise, as good, and as happy as he wished them. The death of his innocent Son, who was immolated to his vengeance, is entirely useless for the most numerous portion of the earth's inhabitants; almost the whole human race, in spite of the continued efforts of the Deity, continue to offend him, to frustrate his designs, resist his will, and to persevere in their wickedness.

It is on notions so fatal, so contradictory, and so unworthy of a G.o.d who is just, wise, and good, of a G.o.d that is rational, independent, immutable, and omnipotent, on whom the Christian religion is founded, and which religion is said to be established forever by G.o.d, who, nevertheless, became disgusted with the religion of the Jews, with whom he had made and sworn an eternal covenant.

Time must prove whether G.o.d be more constant and faithful in fulfilling his engagements with the Christians than he has been to fulfil those he made with Abraham and his posterity. I confess, Madam, that his past conduct alarms me as to what he may finally perform. If he himself acknowledged by the mouth of Ezekiel that the laws he had given to the Jews _were not good_, he may very possibly, some day or other, find fault with those which he has given to Christians.

Our priests themselves seem to partake of my suspicions, and to fear that G.o.d will be wearied of that protection which he has so long granted to his church. The inquietudes which they evince, the efforts which they make to hinder the civilization of the world, the persecutions which they raise against all those who contradict them, seem to prove that they mistrust the promises of Jesus Christ, and that they are not certainly convinced of the eternal durability of a religion which does not appear to them divine, but because it gives them the right to command like G.o.ds over their fellow-citizens. They would undoubtedly consider the destruction of their empire a very grievous thing; but yet if the sovereigns of the earth and their people should once grow weary of the sacerdotal yoke, we may be sure the Sovereign of heaven would not require a longer time to become equally disgusted.

However this may be, Madam, I venture to hope the perusal of this letter will fully undeceive you of a blind veneration for books which are called _divine_, although they appear as if invented to degrade and destroy the G.o.d who is a.s.serted to be their author. My first letter, I feel confident, enabled you to perceive that the dogmas established by these same books, or subsequently fabricated to justify the ideas thus given of G.o.d, are not less contrary to all notions of a Deity infinitely perfect. A system which in the outset is based upon false principles can never become any thing else than a ma.s.s of falsehoods. I am, &c.

LETTER IV. Of the fundamental dogmas of the Christian Religion

You are aware, Madam, that our theological doctors pretend these revealed books, which I summarily examined in my preceding letter, do not include a single word that was not inspired by the Spirit of G.o.d.

What I have already said to you is sufficient to show that in setting out with this supposition, the Divinity has formed a work the most shapeless, imperfect, contradictory, and unintelligible which ever existed; a work, in a word, of which any man of sense would blush with shame to be the author. If any prophecy hath verified itself for the Christians, it is that of Isaiah, which saith, "Hearing ye shall hear, but shall not understand." But in this case we reply that it was sufficiently useless to speak not to be comprehended; to reveal _that_ which cannot be comprehended is to reveal _nothing_.

We need not, then, be surprised if the Christians, notwithstanding the revelation of which they a.s.sure us they have been the favorites, have no precise ideas either of the Divinity, or of his will, or the way in which his oracles are to be interpreted. The book from which they should be able to do so serves only to confound the simplest notions, to throw them into the greatest incert.i.tude, and create eternal disputations. If it was the project of the Divinity, it would, without doubt, be attended with perfect success. The teachers of Christianity never agree on the manner in which they are to understand the truths that G.o.d has given himself the trouble to reveal; all the efforts which they have employed to this time have not yet been capable of making any thing clear, and the dogmas which they have successively invented have been insufficient to justify to the understanding of one man of good sense the conduct of ah infinitely perfect Being.

Hence, many among them, perceiving the inconveniences which would result from the reading of the holy books, have carefully kept them out of the hands of the vulgar and illiterate; for they plainly foresaw that if they were read by such they would necessarily bring on themselves reproach, since it would never fail that every honest man of good sense would discover in those books only a crowd of absurdities. Thus the oracles of G.o.d are not even made for those for whom they are addressed; it is requisite to be initiated in the mysteries of a priesthood, to have the privilege of discerning in the holy writings the light which the Divinity destined to all his dear children. But are the theologians themselves able to make plain the difficulties which the sacred books present in every page? By meditating on the mysteries which they contain, have they given us ideas more plain of the intentions of the Divinity? No; without doubt they explain one mystery by citing another; they scatter In this case, why did it not prevent that fall and its consequences? Was the reason of Adam corrupted even beforehand by incurring the wrath of his G.o.d? Was it depraved before he had done any thing to deprave it?

To justify this strange conduct of Providence, to clear him from pa.s.sing as the author of sin, to save him the ridicule of being 'the cause or the accomplice of offences which he did against himself, the theologians have imagined a being subordinate to the divine power. It is the secondary being they make the author of all the evil which is committed in the universe. In the impossibility of reconciling the continual disorders of which the world is the theatre with the purposes of a Deity replete with goodness, the Creator and Preserver of the universe, who delights in order, and who seeks only the happiness of his creatures, they have trumped up a destructive genius, imbued with wickedness, who conspires to render men miserable, and to overthrow the beneficent views of the Eternal.. This bad and perverse being they call Satan, the Devil, the Evil One; and we see him play a great game in all the religions of the world, the founders of which have found in the impotence of Deity the sources of both good and evil. By the aid of this imaginary being they have been enabled to resolve all their difficulties; yet they could not foresee that this invention, which went to annihilate or abridge the power of Deity, was a system filled with palpable contradictions, and that if the Devil were really the author of sin, it be he, in all justice, who ought to undergo punishment.

If G.o.d is the author of all, it is he who created the Devil; if the Devil is wicked, if he strives to counteract the projects of the Divinity, it is the Divinity who has allowed the overthrow of his projects, or who has not had sufficient authority to prevent the Devil from exercising his power. If G.o.d had wished that the Devil should not have existed, the Devil would not have existed. G.o.d could annihilate him at one word, or, at least, G.o.d could change his disposition if injurious to us, and contrary to the projects of a beneficent Providence. Since, then, the Devil does exist, and does such marvellous things as are attributed to him, we are compelled to conclude that the Divinity has found it good that he should exist and agitate, as he does, all his works by a perpetual interruption and perversion of his designs.

Thus, Madam, the invention of the Devil does not remedy the evil; on the contrary, it but entangles the priests more and more. By placing to Satan's account all the evil which he commits in the world, they exculpate the Deity, of nothing; all the power with which they have supposed the Devil invested is taken from that a.s.signed to the Divinity; and you know very well that according to the notions of the Christian religion, the Devil has more adherents than G.o.d himself; they are always stirring their fellow-creatures up to revolt against G.o.d; without ceasing, in despite of G.o.d, Satan leads them into perdition, except one man only, who refused to follow him, and who found grace in the eyes of the Lord. You are not ignorant that the millions that follow the standard of Beelzebub are to be plunged with him into eternal misery.

But then has Satan himself incurred the disgrace of the All-powerful? By what forfeit has he merited becoming the eternal object of the anger of that G.o.d who created him? The Christian religion will explain all. It informs us that the Devil was in his origin an angel; that is to say, a pure spirit, full of perfections, created by the Divinity to occupy a distinguis.h.i.+ng situation in the celestial court, destined, like the other ministers of the Eternal, to receive his orders, and to enjoy perpetual blessedness. But he lost himself through ambition; his pride blinded him, and he dared to revolt against his Creator; he engaged other spirits, as pure as himself, in the same senseless enterprise; in consequence of his rashness, he was hurled headlong out of heaven, his miserable adherents were involved in his fall, and, having been hardened by the divine pleasure in their foolish dispositions, they have no other occupation a.s.signed them in the universe than to tempt mankind, and endeavor to augment the number of the enemies of G.o.d, and the victims of his wrath.

It is by the a.s.sistance of this fable that the Christian doctors perceive the fall of Adam, prepared by the Almighty himself anterior to the creation of the world. Was it necessary that the Divinity should entertain a great desire that man might sin, since he would thereby have an opportunity of providing the means of making him sinful? In effect, it was the Devil who, in process of time, covered with the skin of a serpent, solicited the mother of the human race to disobey G.o.d, and involve her husband in her rebellion. But the difficulty is not removed by these inventions. If Satan, in the time he was an angel, lived in innocence, and merited the good will of his Maker, how came G.o.d to suffer him to entertain ideas of pride, ambition, and rebellion? How came this angel of light so blind as not to see the folly of such an enterprise? Did he not know that his Creator was all-powerful? Who was it that tempted Satan? What reason had the Divinity for selecting him to be the object of his fury, the destroyer of his projects, the enemy of his power? If pride be a sin, if the idea itself of rebellion is the greatest of crimes, _sin was, then, anterior to sin_, and Lucifer offended G.o.d, even in his state of purity; for, in fine, a being pure, innocent, agreeable to his G.o.d, who had all the perfections of which a creature could be susceptible, ought to be exempt from ambition, pride, and folly. We ought, also, to say as much for our first parent, who, notwithstanding his wisdom, his innocence, and the knowledge infused into him by G.o.d himself, could not prevent himself from falling into the temptation of a demon.

Hence, in every s.h.i.+ft, the priests invariably make G.o.d the author of sin. It was G.o.d who tempted Lucifer before the creation of the world; Lucifer, in his turn, became the tempter of man and the cause of all the evil our race suffers. It appears, therefore, that G.o.d created both angels and men to give them an opportunity of sinning.

It is easy to perceive the absurdity of this system, to save which the theologians have invented another still more absurd, that it might become the foundation of all their religious revelations, and by means of which they idly imagine they can fully justify the divine providence.

The system of truth supposes _the free will_ of man--that he is his own master, capable of doing good or ill, and of directing his own plans. At the words _free will_, I already perceive, Madam, that you tremble, and doubtless antic.i.p.ate a metaphysical dissertation. Rest a.s.sured of the contrary; for I flatter myself that the question will be simplified and rendered clear, I shall not merely say for you, but for all your s.e.x who are not resolved to be wilfully blind.

To say that man is a free agent is to detract from the power of the Supreme Being; it is to pretend that G.o.d is not the master of his own will; it is to advance that a weak creature can, when it pleases him, revolt against his Creator, derange his projects, disturb the order which he loves, render his labors useless, afflict him with chagrin, cause him sorrow, act with effect against him, and arouse his anger and his pa.s.sions. Thus, at the first glance, you perceive that this principle gives rise to a crowd of absurdities. If G.o.d is the friend of order, every thing performed by his creatures would necessarily conduce to the maintenance of this order, because otherwise the divine will would fail to have its effect If G.o.d has plans, they must of necessity be always executed; if man can afflict his G.o.d, man is the master of this G.o.d's happiness, and the league he has formed with the Devil is potent enough to thwart the plans of the Divinity. In a word, if man is free to sin, G.o.d is no longer Omnipotent.

In reply, we are told that G.o.d, without detriment to his Omnipotence, might make man a free agent, and that this liberty is a benefit by which G.o.d places man in a situation where he may merit the heavenly bounty; but, on the other hand, this liberty likewise exposes him to encounter G.o.d's hatred, to offend him, and to be overwhelmed by infinite sufferings. From this I conclude that this liberty is _not_ a benefit, and that it evidently is inconsistent with divine goodness. This goodness would be more real if men had always sufficient resolution to do what is pleasing to G.o.d, conformably to order, and conducive to the happiness of their fellow-creatures. If men, in virtue of their liberty, do things contrary to the will of G.o.d, G.o.d, who is supposed to have the prescience of foreseeing all, ought to have taken measures to prevent men from abusing their liberty; if he foresaw they would sin, he ought to have given them the means of avoiding it; if he could not prevent them from doing ill, he has consented to the ill they have done; if he has consented, he should not be offended; if he is offended, or if he punish them for the evil they have done with his permission, he is unjust and cruel; if he suffer them to rush on to their destruction, he is bound afterwards to take them to himself; and he cannot with reason find fault with them for the abuse of their liberty, in being deceived or seduced by the objects which he himself had placed in their way to seduce them, to tempt them, and to determine their wills to do evil.*

* See what Bayle says, Diet. Crit., art. Origene, Rem. E.t art. Pauliciens, Rem. E., F., M., and torn. iii. of the Reponses aux Questions d'un Provincial.

What would you say of a father who should give to his children, in the infancy of age, and when they were without experience, the liberty of satisfying their disordered appet.i.tes, till they should convince themselves of their evil tendency? Would not such a parent be in the right to feel uneasy at the abuse which they should make of their liberty which he had given them? Would it not be accounted malice in this parent, who should have foreseen what was to happen, not to have furnished his children with the capacity of directing their own conduct so as to avoid the evils they might be a.s.sailed with? Would it not show in him the height of madness were he to punish them for the evil which he had done, and the chagrin which they occasioned him? Would it not be to himself that we should ascribe the sottishness and wickedness of his children?

You see, then, the points of view under which this system of men's free will shows us the Deity. This free will becomes a present the most dangerous, since it puts man in the condition of doing evil that is truly frightful. We may thence conclude that this system, far from justifying G.o.d, makes him capable of malice, imprudence, and injustice.

But this is to overturn all our ideas of a being perfectly, nay, infinitely wise and good, consenting to punish his creatures for sins which he gave them the power of committing, or, which is the same, suffering the Devil to inspire them with evil. All the subtilties of theology have really only a tendency to destroy the very notions itself inculcates concerning the Divinity. This theology is evidently the tub of the Danaides.

It is a fact, however, that our theologians have imagined expedients to support their ruinous suppositions. You have often heard mention made of _predestination_ and _grace_--terrible words, which constantly excite disputes among us, for which reason would be forced to blush if Christians did not make it a duty to renounce reason, and which contests are attended with consequences very dangerous to society. But let not this surprise you; these false and obscure principles have even among the theologians produced dissensions; and their quarrels would be indifferent if they did not attach more importance to them than they really deserve.

But to proceed. The system of predestination supposes that G.o.d, in his eternal secrets, has resolved that some men should be elected, and being thus his favorites, receive special grace. By this grace they are supposed to be made agreeable to G.o.d, and meet for eternal happiness.

But then an infinite number of others are destined to perdition, and receive not the grace necessary to eternal salvation. These contradictory and opposite propositions make it pretty evident that the system is absurd. It makes G.o.d, a being infinitely perfect and good, a partial tyrant, who has created a vast number of human beings to be the sport of his caprice and the victims of his vengeance. It supposes that G.o.d will punish his creatures for not having received that grace which he did not deign to give them; it presents this G.o.d to us under traits so revolting that the theologians are forced to avow that the whole is a profound mystery, into which the human mind cannot penetrate. But if man is not made to lift his inquisitive eye on this frightful mystery, that is to say, on this astonis.h.i.+ng absurdity, which our teachers have idly endeavored to square to their views of Deity, or to reconcile the atrocious injustice of their G.o.d with his infinite goodness, by what right do they wish us to adore this mystery which they would compel us to believe, and to subscribe to an opinion that saps the divine goodness to its very foundation?

How do they reason upon a dogma, and quarrel with acrimony about a system of which even themselves can comprehend nothing?

The more you examine religion, the more occasion you will have to be convinced that those things which our divines call _mysteries_ are nothing else but the difficulties with which they are themselves embarra.s.sed, when they are unable to avoid the absurdities into which their own false principles necessarily involve them. Nevertheless, this word is not enough to impose upon us; the reverend doctors do not themselves understand the things about which they incessantly speak.

They invent words from an inability to explain things, and they give the name of _mysteries_ to what they comprehend no better than ourselves.

All the religions in the world are founded upon predestination, and all the pretended revelations among men, as has been already pointed out to you, inculcate this odious dogma, which makes Providence an unjust mother-in-law, who shows a blind preference for some of her children to the prejudice of all the others. They make G.o.d a tyrant, who punishes the inevitable faults to which he has impelled them, or into which he has allowed them to be seduced. This dogma, which served as the foundation of Paganism, is now the grand pivot of the Christian religion, whose G.o.d should excite no less hatred than the most wicked divinities of idolatrous people. With such notions, is it not astonis.h.i.+ng that this G.o.d should appear, to those who meditate on his attributes, an object sufficiently terrible to agitate the imagination, and to lead some to indulge in dangerous follies?

The dogma of another life serves also to exculpate the Deity from these apparent injustices or aberrations, with which he might naturally be accused. It is pretended that it has pleased him to distinguish his friends on earth, seeing he has amply provided for their future happiness in an abode prepared for their souls. But, as I believe I have already hinted, these proofs that G.o.d makes some good, and leaves others wicked, either evince injustice on his part, at least temporary, or they contradict his omnipotence. If G.o.d can do all things, if he is privy to all the thoughts and actions of men, what need has he of any proofs? If he has resolved to give them grace necessary to save them, has he not a.s.sured them they will not perish? If he is unjust and cruel, this G.o.d is not immutable, and belies his character; at least for a time he derogates from the perfections which we should expect to find in him.

What would you think of a king, who, during a particular time, would discover to his favorites traits the most frightful, in order that they might incur his disgrace, and who should afterwards insist on their believing him a very good and amiable man, to obtain his favor again?

Would not such a prince be p.r.o.nounced wicked, fanciful, and tyrannical?

Nevertheless, this supposed prince might be pardoned by some, if for his own interest, and the better to a.s.sure himself of the attachment of his friends, he might give them some smiles of his favor. It is not so with G.o.d, who knows all, who can do all, who has nothing to fear from the dispositions of his creatures. From all these reasonings, we may see that the Deity, whom the priests have conjured up, plays a great game, very ridiculous, very unjust, on the supposition that he tries his servants, and that he allows them to suffer in this world, to prepare them for another. The theologians have not failed to discover motives in this conduct of G.o.d which they can as readily justify; but these pretended motives are borrowed from the omnipotence of this being, by his absolute power over his creatures, to whom he is not obliged to render an account of his actions; but especially in this theology, which professes to justify G.o.d, do we not see it make him a despot and tyrant more hateful than any of his creatures? I am, &c.

LETTER V. Of the Immortality of the Soul, and of the Dogma of another Life

We have now, Madam, come to the examination of the dogma of a future life, in which it is supposed that the Divinity, after causing men to pa.s.s through the temptations, the trials, and the difficulties of this life, for the purpose of satisfying himself whether they are worthy of his love or his hatred, will bestow the recompenses or inflict the chastis.e.m.e.nts which they deserved. This dogma, which is one of the capital points of the Christian religion, is founded on a great many hypotheses or suppositions, which we have already glanced at, and which we have shown to be absurd and incompatible with the notions which the same religion gives us of the Deity. In effect, it supposes us capable of offending or pleasing the Author of Nature, of influencing his humor, or exciting his pa.s.sions; afflicting, tormenting, resisting, and thwarting the plans of Deity. It supposes, moreover, the free-will of man--a system which we have seen incompatible with the goodness, justice, and omnipotence of the Deity. It supposes, further, that G.o.d has occasion of proving his creatures, and making them, if I may so speak, pa.s.s a novitiate to know what they are worth when he shall square accounts with them. It supposes in G.o.d, who has created men for happiness only, the inability to put, by one grand effort, all men in the road, whence they may infallibly arrive at permanent felicity. It supposes that man will survive himself, or that the same being, after death, will continue to think, to feel, and act as he did in this life.

In a word, it supposes the immortality of the soul--an opinion unknown to the Jewish lawgiver, who is totally silent on this topic to the people to whom G.o.d had manifested himself; an opinion which even in the time of Jesus Christ one sect at Jerusalem admitted, while another sect rejected; an opinion about which the Messiah, who came to instruct them, deigned to fix the ideas of those who might deceive themselves in this respect; an opinion which appears to have been engendered in Egypt, or in India, anterior to the Jewish religion, but which was unknown among the Hebrews till they took occasion to instruct themselves in the Pagan philosophy of the Greeks, and doctrines of Plato.

Whatever might be the origin of this doctrine, it was eagerly adopted by the Christians, who judged it very convenient to their system of religion, all the parts of which are founded on the marvellous, and which made it a crime to admit any truths agreeable to reason and common sense. Thus, without going back to the inventors of this inconceivable dogma, let us examine dispa.s.sionately what this opinion really is; let us endeavor to penetrate to the principles on which it is supported; let us adopt it, if we shall find it an idea conformable to reason; let us reject it, if it shall appear dest.i.tute of proof, and at variance with common sense, even though it had been received as an established truth in all antiquity, though it may have been adopted by many millions of mankind.

Those who maintain the opinion of the soul's immortality, regard it--that is, the soul--as a being distinct from the body, as a substance, or essence, totally different from the corporeal frame, and they designate it by the name of _spirit_. If we ask them what a spirit is, they tell us it is not matter; and if we ask them what they understand by that which is not matter, which is the only thing of which we cannot form an idea, they tell us it is a spirit. In general, it is easy to see that men the most savage, as well as the most subtle thinkers, make use of the word _spirit_ to designate all the causes of which they cannot form clear notions; hence the word spirit hath been used to designate a being of which none can form any idea.

Notwithstanding, the divines pretend that this unknown being, entirely different from the body, of a substance which has nothing conformable with itself, is, nevertheless, capable of setting the body in motion; and this, doubtless, is a mystery very inconceivable. We have noticed the alliance between this spiritual substance and the material body, whose functions it regulates. As the divines have supposed that matter could neither think, nor will, nor perceive, they have believed that it might conceive much better those operations attributed to a being of which they had ideas less clear than they can form of matter. In consequence, they have imagined many gratuitous suppositions to explain the union of the soul with the body. In fine, in the impossibility of overcoming the insurmountable barriers which oppose them, the priests have made man twofold, by supposing that he contains something distinct from himself; they have cut through all difficulties by saying that this union is a great mystery, which man cannot understand; and they have everlasting recourse to the omnipotence of G.o.d, to his supreme will, to the miracles which he has always wrought; and those last are never-failing, final resources, which the theologians reserve for every case wherein they can find no other mode of escaping gracefully from the argument of their adversaries.

You see, then, to what we reduce all the jargon of the metaphysicians, all the profound reveries which for so many ages have been so industriously hawked about in defence of the soul of man; an immaterial substance, of which no living being can form an idea; a spirit, that is to say, a being totally different from any thing we know. All the theological verbiage ends here, by telling us, in a round of pompous terms,--fooleries that impose on the ignorant,--that we do not know what essence the soul is of; but we call it a spirit because of its nature, and because we feel ourselves agitated by some unknown agent; we cannot comprehend the mechanism of the soul; yet can we feel ourselves moved, as it were, by an effect of the power of G.o.d, whose essence is far removed from ours, and more concealed from us than the human soul itself. By the aid of this language, from which you cannot possibly learn any thing, you will be as wise, Madam, as all the theologians in the world.

If you would desire to form ideas the most precise of yourself, banish from you the prejudices of a vain theology, which only consists in repeating words without attaching any new ideas to them, and which are insufficient to distinguish the soul from the body, which appear only capable of multiplying beings without reason, of rendering more incomprehensible and more obscure, notions less distinct than we already have of ourselves. These notions should be at least the most simple and the most exact, if we consult our nature, experience, and reason. They prove that man knows nothing but by his material sensible organs, that he sees only by his eyes, that he feels by his touch, that he hears by his ears; and that when either of these organs is actually deranged, or has been previously wanting, or imperfect, man can have none of the ideas that organ is capable of furnis.h.i.+ng him with,--neither thoughts, memory, reflection, judgment, desire, nor will. Experience shows us that corporeal and material beings are alone capable of being moved and acted upon, and that without those organs we have enumerated the soul thinks not, feels not, wills not, nor is moved. Every thing shows us that the soul undergoes always the same vicissitudes as the body; it grows to maturity, gains strength, becomes weak, and puts on old age, like the body; in fine, every thing we can understand of it goes to prove that it perishes with the body. It is indeed folly to pretend that man will feel when he has no organs appropriate for that sentiment; that he will see and hear without eyes or ears; that he will have ideas without having senses to receive impressions from physical objects, or to give rise to perceptions in his understanding; in fine, that he will enjoy or suffer when he has no longer either nerves or sensibility.

Thus every thing conspires to prove that the soul is the same thing as the body, viewed relatively to some of its functions, which are more obscure than others. Every thing serves to convince us that without the body the soul is nothing, and that all the operations which are attributed to the soul cannot be exercised any longer when the body is destroyed. Our body is a machine, which, so long as we live, is susceptible of producing the effects which have been designated under different names, one from another; sentiment is one of these effects, thought is another, reflection a third. This last pa.s.ses sometimes by other names, and our brain appears to be the seat of all our organs; it is that which is the most susceptible. This organic machine, once destroyed or deranged, is no longer capable of producing the same effects, or of exercising the same functions. It is with our body as it is with a watch which indicates the hours, and which goes not if the spring or a pinion be broken. Cease, Eugenia, cease to torment yourself about the fate which shall attend you when death will have separated you from all that is dear on earth. After the dissolution of this life, the soul shall cease to exist; those devouring flames with which you have been threatened by the priests will have no effect upon the soul, which can neither be susceptible then of pleasures nor pains, of agreeable or sorrowful ideas, of lively or doleful reflections.

It is only by means of the bodily organs that we feel, think, and are merry or sad, happy or miserable; this body once reduced to dust, we will have neither perceptions nor sensations, and, by consequence, neither memory nor ideas; the dispersed particles will no longer have the same qualities they possessed when united; nor will they any longer conspire to produce the same effects. In a word, the body being destroyed, the soul, which is merely a result of all the parts of the body in action, will cease to be what it is; it will be reduced to nothing with the life's breath.