hich are, in fact, infidel guides, destructive of the real
happiness of the species. It is necessary to undeceive him as to the
idea of his loathing himself, and especially that other idea, that
some of his fellow-creatures are not to labor with their hands for
their support, but in spiritual matters for his happiness. In fine, it
is necessary to influence him with self-love, that he may merit the
esteem of the world, the benevolence and consideration of those with
whom he is associated by the ties of nature or public economy.

The morality of religion appears calculated to confound society and
replunge its members into the savage state. The Christian virtues tend
evidently to isolate man, to detach him from those to whom nature has
united him, and to unite him to the priests--to make him lose sight of
a happiness the most solid, to occupy himself only with dangerous
chimeras. We only live in society to procure the more easily those
kindnesses, succors, and pleasures, which we could not obtain living
by ourselves. If it had been destined that we should live miserably in
this world, that we should detest ourselves, fly the esteem of others,
voluntarily afflict ourselves, have no attachment for any one, society
would have been one heap of confusion, the human kind savages and
strangers to one another.

However, if it is true that God is the author of man, it is God who
renders man sociable; it is God who wishes man to live in society
where he can obtain the greatest good. If God is good, he cannot
approve that men should leave society to become miserable; if God is
the author of reason, he can only wish that men who are possessed of
reason should employ this distinguishing gift to procure for
themselves all the happiness its exercise can bring them. If God has
revealed himself, it is not in some obscure way, but in a revelation
the most evident and clear of all those supposed revelations, which
are visibly contrary to all the notions we can form of the Divinity.
We are not, however, obliged to dive into the marvellous to establish
the duties man owes to man, since God has very plainly shown them in
the wants of one and the good offices of another person. But it is
only by consulting our reason that we can arrive at the means of
contributing to the felicity of our species. It is then evident that
in regarding man as the creature of God, God must have designed that
man should consult his reason, that it might procure him t