the three imposters 7

the three imposters 7

§ 4.

 

In this manner prejudice was changed into superstition. It was rooted

in such a way that the most ignorant people believed themselves

capable of explaining the doctrine of final causes, as if they had

an entire knowledge of them.--Thus, instead of proving that Nature

did nothing in vain, they imagined that God and Nature thought after

the manner of men. Experience taught them that an infinite number

of calamities disturbed the pleasures of life--storms, earthquakes,

plagues, hunger, thirst, &c. They attributed all these evils to

divine wrath, and believed that the Deity was irritated against

mankind for their offences; nor could the daily occurring examples

which prove that good and evil happen alike to the just and unjust,

disabuse them of their prejudices. This error prevailed, because they

found it easier to remain in their natural ignorance, than to divest

themselves of notions established for so many ages; and to adopt

something in their stead, having at least the appearance of truth.

 

 

 

§ 5.

 

This prejudice conducted them straightway to another, which was, that

all the judgments of God were incomprehensible; and that consequently

they were beyond the cognizance of truth, and above the strength of

human reason; a mistake which would have existed at the present day,

if mathematical knowledge, natural philosophy, and other sciences

had not extinguished it.

 

 

 

§ 6.

 

There is no necessity for a long dissertation to prove that nature

never aims at any definite end, and that all these final causes are

only human fictions. It is sufficient to show that this doctrine

deprives the Deity of all the perfections which have been attributed

to him; and this we will endeavor to do.

 

If God acts for an end, either for himself or for any other being, he

desires that which he does not possess; and it must be granted from

these premises that, as there was a time when God had no object for

which to act, he wished to have one; that is to say, that he stood in

need of something. But not to overlook anything which may strengthen

the arguments of those who maintain the opposite opinion, suppose,

for a moment, that a stone detached from a battlement fell upon an

individual and killed him; it proves, say our opponents, that this

stone fell for the purpose of killing this person, because it could not

so have happened unless God had wished it. If we reply that it was the

wind which caused its fall at the time when the unfortunate individual

was passing, they demand at once, how it happened that he was passing

exactly at the time when the wind brought down the stone. We answer,

that he was on his way to dine with a friend who had invited him;

they wish to know why his friend had invited him on that day rather

than on any other. They put in this manner an infinitude of absurd

questions to force you to confess that the will of God alone (which

is the refuge of the ignorant) was the real cause of the fall of

this stone. When they examine the structure of the human body, they

fall into ecstacies; but because they are ignorant of the causes of

those effects which appear to them so marvellous, they conclude that

it must be a supernatural effect, when the causes which are known to

us account for it. This is the reason why the man who wishes deeply

to examine the works of creation, and like a true philosopher to

penetrate into their natural causes, irrespective of those prejudices

which ignorance has created, is branded as an infidel, or speedily

clamoured down by the malice of those whom the vulgar acknowledge as

the interpreters of Nature and of the Gods. These mercenary spirits

are well aware that the ignorance which holds the people in wonderment,

is that which gives them bread, and upholds their credit.

 

 

 

§ 7.

 

Men being thus imbued with the ridiculous opinion that every thing

which they behold is created for themselves, have made it a point

of religion to engross every thing, and to judge of its value by the

profit which it brings. Accordingly they have invented notions which

do them service in explaining the nature of things, and enable them

to judge of good and evil, order and disorder, heat and cold, beauty

and ugliness, &c. which are by no means what they imagine. Because

they are able to frame their ideas in this way, they think that they

are in a position to judge of praise and blame; of good and evil. They

call that good which respects their divine worship, and turns to their

own profit; and that which does neither the one nor the other they

denominate evil; and because the ignorant are incapable of judging,

and have no conception of any thing save through the medium of their

imagination, which they mistake for judgment, they tell us that

nothing can be learned from nature, and forthwith invent a particular

arrangement of the world. In short they think that matters are ill or

well constituted according to the facility or the difficulty which they

have in conceiving of them when presented to them through the medium

of their senses. People are best pleased with what gives least fatigue

to the brain. These individuals have wisely resolved to prefer order

to confusion, as if order were any thing else than a pure fiction of

the imagination. Thus to say that the Deity has made every thing with

order, is to pretend that it is in favour of the human imagination

that he has created the world in a manner the most easy for it to form

a conception of;--or, which is the same thing, that they know with

certainty all the relations and all the designs of whatever exists;

an assertion too absurd to merit any serious refutation.

 

 

 

§ 8.

 

With respect to their other opinions, they are purely the result of

this same imagination, having no basis in reality, and being only

different modifications of which that faculty is susceptible. Thus,

when the impressions made upon the nervous system through the medium

of the eyes are agreeable, they pronounce that the objects viewed

are beautiful. Smells are good or bad; tastes are sweet or bitter,

things touched are hard or soft, according as the sensation produced

is unpleasant or otherwise--as scents, and tastes, and contact, and

sounds affect the system. Following up these ideas, men have believed

that the Deity is pleased with melody, while others have believed that

all the movements of the celestial bodies were one harmonious concert;

a proof, that these men are persuaded that things are really such as

they conceive them to be, or that the world is entirely ideal.--It

is not to be wondered at therefore, if we scarcely ever meet with

two individuals of the same opinion: indeed some make it their boast

to doubt of every thing; for, although all men have a similar bodily

conformation, and resemble each other in many respects, there are still

as many respects in which they differ. Accordingly it must follow,

that what pleases this party displeases that; and what appears good

to one man appears evil to another.--We must conclude therefore,

that their various opinions must be attributed to their different

organizations and the diversity of their co-existences--that reason

has little connection with them; and in short, that their conceptions

of the material world are the decided results of imagination.

 

 

 

§ 9.

 

It is therefore evident, that all the reasonings which the generality

of mankind are accustomed to employ when they set themselves to

explain what nature is, are only their own modes of imagining that

which is most uncalculated to make good their own position. They give

names to their ideas, as if they existed in any other quarter than in

their own prejudiced brain; but instead of calling them mere chimeras,

they designate them Beings. There is extremely little difficulty in

refuting the arguments grounded on such opinions.

 

If it is true, as they advance, that the universe is nothing more

than an emanation from, or simply a necessary consequence to,

the Divine nature, whence spring those imperfections and defaults

which we perceive in it? This objection is easily answered. It is

impossible for men to judge of the perfection or imperfection of any

Being, without a thorough knowledge of his nature and essence [28],

and it is a strange abuse of terms to assert that any thing is more

or less perfect according as it pleases or displeases, or as it is

useful or noxious to human nature. To terminate the argument with

those who demand why God has not created all men good and happy, it

is sufficient to state that every thing is necessarily what it is;

and that, in nature there is no imperfection, since all flows from

the necessity of things.

 

 

 

§ 10.

 

This being established, if it is asked, "What then is God?" I answer

that the word imports that universal Being "in whom," as St. Paul says,

"we live, and move, and have our being. [29]" This opinion conveys

no unworthy notions of the Divinity, for if all things are in God,

all things must necessarily flow from his essence, and consequently be

of such essence as he himself; for it is impossible to conceive that

beings entirely material should be maintained and comprehended in a

Being who is not so. This opinion is not new. Tertullian, one of the

most learned of the Christian fathers, maintained in his discourse

against Appelles, that whatever is not corporeal is nothing; and in

that against Praxeas that every Existence is a body. He adds, "who

will deny that God is a body, although God is a Spirit [30]?" It is

of importance to observe that this doctrine was not condemned in any

of the four first OEcumenical or General Councils of the Christian

Church. [31]

 

 

 

§ 11.

 

These ideas are clear and simple, and the only ones which an unbiased

mind can form of God. However, there are few contented with this

simplicity. A gross people accustomed to the gratification of their

senses, have conceived that God resembles the kings of the earth. That

pomp and splendor which surround the latter have dazzled them so much,

that to uproot the idea that God has no resemblance whatever to earthly

sovereigns, would be to deprive them of the hope of meeting celestial

courtiers, and of enjoying in their company, the same pleasures

which they had tasted at regal courts; it would take from them the

only consolation which keeps them from despair amidst the miseries of

this life. They assert that G