that man should
resist evil and disarm all who attempt to destroy him. If the ministers
of the Church have often permitted nations to revolt for Heaven's cause,
they never allowed them to revolt against real evils or known violences.

It is from Heaven that the chains have come to fetter the minds of
mortals. Why is the Mohammedan everywhere a slave? It is because his
Prophet subdued him in the name of the Deity, just as Moses before him
subjugated the Jews. In all parts of the world we see that priests were
the first law-givers and the first sovereigns of the savages whom they
governed. Religion seems to have been invented but to exalt princes
above their nations, and to deliver the people to their discretion. As
soon as the latter find themselves unhappy here below, they are silenced
by menacing them with God's wrath; their eyes are fixed on Heaven, in
order to prevent them from perceiving the real causes of their
sufferings and from applying the remedies which nature offers them.

CXLVII.--THE ONLY AIM OF RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES IS TO PERPETUATE THE
TYRANNY OF KINGS AND TO SACRIFICE THE NATIONS TO THEM.

By incessantly repeating to men that the earth is not their true
country; that the present life is but a passage; that they were not made
to be happy in this world; that their sovereigns hold their authority
but from God, and are responsible to Him alone for the misuse of it;
that it is never permitted to them to resist, the priesthood succeeded
in perpetuating the misconduct of the kings and the misfortunes of the
people; the interests of the nations have been cowardly sacrificed to
their chiefs. The more we consider the dogmas and the principles of
religion, the more we shall be convinced that their only aim is to give
advantage to tyrants and priests; not having the least regard for the
good of society. In order to mask the powerlessness of these deaf Gods,
religion has succeeded in making mortals believe that it is always
iniquity which excites the wrath of Heaven. The people blame themselves
for the disasters and the adversities which they endure continually. If
disturbed nature sometimes causes the people to feel its blows, their
bad governments are but too often the immediate and permanent causes
from which spring the continual calamities that they are obliged to
endure. Is it not the ambition of kings and of the great, their
negligence, their vices, their oppression, to which are generally due
sterility,