that he fears nothing so
much, as to have nothing to fear.

Men are imaginary invalids, whose weakness empirics are interested to
encourage, in order to have sale for their drugs. They listen rather to
the physician, who prescribes a variety of remedies, than to him, who
recommends good regimen, and leaves nature to herself.

12.

If religion were more clear, it would have less charms for the ignorant,
who are pleased only with obscurity, terrors, fables, prodigies, and
things incredible. Romances, silly stories, and the tales of ghosts and
wizards, are more pleasing to vulgar minds than true histories.

13.

In point of religion, men are only great children. The more a religion is
absurd and filled with wonders, the greater ascendancy it acquires over
them. The devout man thinks himself obliged to place no bounds to his
credulity; the more things are inconceivable, they appear to him divine;
the more they are incredible, the greater merit, he imagines, there is in
believing them.

14.

The origin of religious opinions is generally dated from the time, when
savage nations were yet in infancy. It was to gross, ignorant, and
stupid people, that the founders of religion have in all ages addressed
themselves, when they wished to give them their Gods, their mode of
worship, their mythology, their marvellous and frightful fables. These
chimeras, adopted without examination by parents, are transmitted, with
more or less alteration, to their children, who seldom reason any more
than their parents.

15.

The object of the first legislators was to govern the people; and the
easiest method to effect it was to terrify their minds, and to prevent
the exercise of reason. They led them through winding bye-paths, lest they
might perceive the designs of their guides; they forced them to fix their
eyes in the air, for fear they should look at their feet; they amused them
on the way with idle stories; in a word, they treated them as nurses do
children, who sing lullabies, to put them to sleep, and scold, to make
them quiet.

16.

The existence of a God is the basis of all religion. Few appear to doubt
his existence; yet this fundamental article utterly embarrasses every mind
that reasons. The first question of every catechism has been, and ever
will be, the most difficult to resolve. (In the year 1701, the
holy fathers of the oratory of Vendome maintained in a thesis, this
proposition--that, a