people without some supernatural admixture, the better to maintain their
personal pretensions. They had two doctrines, one for themselves, and
the other for the people. Sometimes, as they were divided into several
orders, each of them reserved to itself certain mysteries. Thus all the
inferior orders were at once rogues and dupes, and the great system of
hypocrisy was only known in all its completeness to a few adepts.
Christianity belonged to the same class. Its priests, we must admit, 'in
spite of their knaveries and their vices, were enthusiasts ready to
perish for their doctrines.' In vain did Julian endeavour to deliver the
empire from the scourge. Its triumph was the signal for the incurable
decay of all art and knowledge. The Church may seem to have done some
good in things where her interests did not happen to clash with the
interests of Europe, as in helping to abolish slavery, for instance; but
after all 'circumstances and manners' would have produced the result
necessarily and of themselves. Morality, which was taught by the priests
only, contained those universal principles that have been unknown to no
sect; but it created a host of purely religious duties, and of imaginary
sins. These duties were more rigorously enjoined than those of nature,
and actions that were indifferent, legitimate, or even virtuous, were
more severely rebuked and punished than real crimes. Yet, on the other
hand, a moment of repentance, consecrated by the absolution of a priest,
opened the gates of heaven to the worst miscreants.[60]

In the opening of the last of these remarks there is much justice. So
there is in the striking suggestion made in another place, that we
should not bless erroneous systems for their utility, simply because
they help to repair some small part of the mischief of which they have
themselves been the principal cause.[61] But on the whole it is obvious
that Condorcet was unfitted by his temper, and that of the school to
which he most belonged, from accepting religion as a fact in the
history of the human mind that must have some positive explanation. To
look at it in this way as the creation of a handful of selfish impostors
in each community, was to show a radical incompetence to carry out the
scheme which had been so scientifically projected. The picture is ruined
by the angry caricature of what ought to have been one of the most
important figures in it. To this place the Christian Church is
undeniably ent