es, than to admit none at all.

Bayle exhausts himself in recounting all the infamies imputed by fable
to the gods of antiquity. His adversaries answer him with commonplaces
that signify nothing. The partisans of Bayle and his enemies have
almost always fought without making contact. They all agree that Jupiter
was an adulterer, Venus a wanton, Mercury a rogue. But, as I see it,
that is not what needs consideration. One must distinguish between
Ovid's Metamorphoses and the religion of the ancient Romans. It is quite
certain that never among the Romans or even among the Greeks, was there
a temple dedicated to Mercury the rogue, Venus the wanton, Jupiter the
adulterer.

The god whom the Romans called _Deus optimus_, very good, very great,
was not reputed to encourage Clodius to sleep with Caesar's wife, or
Caesar to be King Nicomedes' Sodomite.

Cicero does not say that Mercury incited Verres to steal Sicily,
although Mercury, in the fable, had stolen Apollo's cows. The real
religion of the ancients was that Jupiter, _very good and very just_,
and the secondary gods, punished the perjurer in the infernal regions.
Likewise the Romans were long the most religious observers of oaths.
Religion was very useful, therefore, to the Romans. There was no command
to believe in Leda's two eggs, in the changing of Inachus' daughter into
a cow, in the love of Apollo for Hyacinthus.

One must not say therefore that the religion of Numa dishonoured the
Deity. For a long time, therefore, people have been disputing over a
chimera; which happens only too often.

The question is then asked whether a nation of atheists can exist; it
seems to me that one must distinguish between the nation properly so
called, and a society of philosophers above the nation. It is very true
that in every country the populace has need of the greatest curb, and
that if Bayle had had only five or six hundred peasants to govern, he
would not have failed to announce to them the existence of a God,
rewarder and revenger. But Bayle would not have spoken of Him to the
Epicureans who were rich people, fond of rest, cultivating all the
social virtues, and above all friendship, fleeing the embarrassment and
danger of public affairs, in fine, leading a comfortable and innocent
life. It seems to me that in this way the dispute is finished as regards
society and politics.

For entirely savage races, it has been said already that one cannot
count them among either the a