nimals have
sufficient strength to protect themselves, and those which are born to a
wandering solitary life are armed, man is covered by a soft skin, has no
powerful teeth or claws with which to terrify other creatures, but weak
and naked by himself is made strong by union.

God has bestowed upon him two gifts, reason and union, which raise him
from weakness to the highest power; and so he, who if taken alone would
be inferior to every other creature, possesses supreme dominion. Union
has given him sovereignty over all animals; union has enabled a being
born upon the earth to assume power over a foreign element, and bids him
be lord of the sea also; it is union which has checked the inroads of
disease, provided supports for our old age, and given us relief from
pain; it is union which makes us strong, and to which we look for
protection against the caprices of fortune. Take away union, and you
will rend asunder the association by which the human race preserves
its existence; yet you will take it away if you succeed in proving that
ingratitude is not to be avoided for itself, but because something is
to be feared for it; for how many are there who can with safety be
ungrateful? In fine, I call every man ungrateful who is merely made
grateful by fear.

XIX. No sane man fears the gods; for it is madness to fear what is
beneficial, and no man loves those whom he fears. You, Epicurus, ended
by making God unarmed; you stripped him of all weapons, of all power,
and, lest anyone should fear him, you banished him out of the world.
There is no reason why you should fear this being, cut off as he is, and
separated from the sight and touch of mortals by a vast and impassable
wall; he has no power either of rewarding or of injuring us; he dwells
alone half-way between our heaven and that of another world, without the
society either of animals, of men, or of matter, avoiding the crash of
worlds as they fall in ruins above and around him, but neither hearing
our prayers nor interested in us. Yet you wish to seem to worship this
being just as a father, with a mind, I suppose, full of gratitude; or,
if you do not wish to seem grateful, why should you worship him, since
you have received no benefit from him, but have been put together
entirely at random and by chance by those atoms and mites of yours?
"I worship him," you answer, "because of his glorious majesty and his
unique nature." Granting that you do this, you clearly do it witho