ests may perhaps tell us that the fear of an avenging God
at least serves to repress a great number of latent crimes that would
appear but for the influence of religion. Is it true, however, that
religion itself prevents these latent crimes? Are not Christian
nations full of knaves of all kinds, who secretly plot the ruin of
their fellow-beings? Do not the most ostensibly credulous persons
indulge in an infinity of vices for which they would blush if they
were by chance brought to light? A man who is the most persuaded that
God sees all his actions frequently does not blush to commit deeds in
secret from which he would refrain if beheld by the meanest of human
beings.

What, then, avails the powerful check on the passions which religion
is said to interpose? If we could place any reliance on what is said
by our priests, it would appear that neither public nor secret crimes
could be committed in countries where their instructions are received;
the priests would appear like a brotherhood of angels, and every
religious man to be without faults. But men forget their religious
speculations when they are under the dominion of violent passions,
when they are bound by the ties of habit, or when they are blinded by
great interests. Under such circumstances they do not reason. Whether
a man is virtuous or vicious depends on temperament, habit, and
education. An unbeliever may have strong passions, and may reason very
justly on the subject of religion, and very erroneously in regard to
his conduct. The religious dupe is a poor metaphysician, and if he
also acts badly he is both imbecile and wicked.

It is true the priests deny that unbelievers ever reason correctly,
and pretend they must always be in the wrong to prefer natural sense
to their authority. But in this decision they occupy the place of both
judges and parties, and the verdict should be rendered by
disinterested persons. In the mean time the priests themselves seem to
doubt the soundness of their own allegations; they call the secular
arm to the aid of their arguments; they marshal on their side fines,
imprisonment, confiscation of goods, boring and branding, with hot
irons, and death at the stake, at this time in France, and in other
and in most countries of Christendom; they use the scourge to drive
men into paradise; they enlighten men by the blaze of the fagot; they
inculcate faith by furious and bloody strokes of the sword; and they
have the baseness to stand in