Eugenia is not formed to follow such guides. They would terminate by leading her widely astray, by dazzling her vivid imagination, by infecting her gentle and amiable disposition with a deadly poison. To master with more certainty her understanding, they would render her austere, intolerant, and vindictive. In a word, by the magical power of superstition and supernatural notions, they would succeed, perhaps, in transforming to vices those happy dispositions that nature has given you. Believe me, Madam, you would gain nothing by such a metamorphosis. Rather be what you really are. Extricate yourself as soon as possible from that state of incertitude and languor, from that alternative of despondency and trouble, in which you are immersed. If you will only take your reason and virtue for guides, you will soon break the fetters whose dangerous effects you have begun to feel.
Assume the courage, then, I repeat it, to examine for yourself this religion, which, far from procuring you the happiness it promised, will only prove an inexhaustible source of inquietudes and alarms, and which will deprive you, sooner or later, of those rare qualities which render you so dear to society. Your interest exacts that you should render peace to your mind. It is your duty carefully to preserve that sweetness of temper, that indulgence, and that cheerfulness, by which you are so much endeared to all those who approach you. You owe happiness to yourself, and you owe it to those who surround you. Do not, then, abandon yourself to superstitious reveries, but collect all the strength of your judgment to combat the chimeras which torment your imagination. They will disappear as soon as you have considered them with your ordinary sagacity.
Do not tell me, Madam, that your understanding is too weak to sound the depths of theology. Do not tell me, in the language of our priests, that the truths of religion are mysteries that we must adopt without comprehending them, and that it is necessary to adore in silence. By expressing themselves in this manner, do you not see they really proscribe and condemn the very religion to which they are so solicitous you should adhere? Whatever is supernatural is unsuited to man, and whatever is beyond his comprehension ought not to occupy his attention. To adore what we are not able to know, is to adore nothing. To believe in what we cannot conceive, is to believe in nothing. To admit without examination every thing we are directed to admit, is to be basely and stupidly credulous. To say that religion is above reason, is to recognize the fact that it was not made for reasonable beings; it is to avow that those who teach it have no more ability to fathom its depths than ourselves; it is to confess that our reverend doctors do not themselves understand the marvels with which they daily entertain us.
If the truths of religion were, as they assure us, necessary to all men, they would be clear and intelligible to all men. If the dogmas which this religion teaches were as important as it is asserted, they would not only be within the comprehension of the doctors who preach them, but of all those who hear their lessons. Is it not strange that the very persons whose profession it is to furnish themselves with religious knowledge, in order to impart it to others, should recognize their own dogmas as beyond their own understanding, and that they should obstinately inculcate to the people, what they acknowledge they do not comprehend themselves? Should we have much confidence in a physician, who, after confessing that he was utterly ignorant of his art, should nevertheless boast of the excellence of his remedies? This, however, is the constant practice of our spiritual quacks. By a strange fatality, the most sensible people consent to be the dupes of those empirics who are perpetually obliged to avow their own profound ignorance.
But if the mysteries of religion are incomprehensible for even those who inculcate it—if among those who profess it there is no one who knows precisely what he believes, or who can give an account of either his conduct or belief—this is not so in regard to the difficulties with which we oppose this religion. These objections are simple, within the comprehension of all persons of ordinary ability, and capable of convincing every man who, renouncing the prejudiced of his infancy, will deign to consult the good sense, that nature has bestowed upon all beings of the human race.
For a long period of time, subtle theologians.. have, without relaxation, been occupied in warding off the attacks of the incredulous, and in repairing the breaches made in the ruinous edifice of religion by adversaries who combated under the flag of reason. In all times there have been people who felt the futility of the titles upon which the priests have arrogated the right of enslaving the understandings of men, and of subjugating and despoiling nations. Notwithstanding all the efforts of the interested and frequently hypocritical men who have taken up the defence of religion, from which they and their confederates alone are profited, these apologists have never been able to vindicate successfully their divine system against the attacks of incredulity. Without cessation they have replied to the objections which have been made, but never have they refuted or annihilated them. Almost in every instance the defenders of Christianity have been sustained by oppressive laws on the part of the government; and it has only been by injuries, by declamations, by punishments and persecutions, that they have replied to the allegations of reason. It is in this manner that they have apparently remained masters of the field of battle which their adversaries could not openly contest. Yet, in spite of the disadvantages of a combat so unequal, and although the partisans of religion were accoutred with every possible weapon, and could show themselves openly, in accordance with law, while their adversaries had no arms but those of reason, and could not appear personally but at the peril of fines, imprisonment, torture, and death, and were restricted from bringing all their arsenal into service, yet they have inflicted profound, immedicable, and incurable wounds upon superstition. Still, if we believe the mercenaries of religion, the excellence of their system makes it absolutely invulnerable to every blow which can be inflicted upon it; and they pretend they have a thousand times in a victorious manner answered the objections which are continually renewed against them. In spite of this great security, we see them excessively alarmed every time a new combatant presents himself, and the latter may well and successfully use the most common objections, and those which have most frequently been urged, since it is evident that up to the present moment the arguments have never been obviated or opposed with satisfactory replies. To convince you, Madam, of what I here advance, you need only compare the most simple and ordinary difficulties which good sense opposes to religion, with the pretended solutions that have been given. You will perceive that the difficulties, evident even to the capacities of a child, have never been removed by divines the most practised in dialectics. You will find in their replies only subtle distinctions, metaphysical subterfuges, unintelligible verbiage, which can never be the language of truth, and which demonstrates the embarrassment, the impotence, and the bad faith of those who are interested by their position in sustaining a desperate cause. In a word, the difficulties which have been urged against religion are clear, and within the comprehension of every one, while the answers, which have been given are obscure, entangled, and far from satisfactory, even to persons most versed in such jargon, and plainly indicating that the authors of these replies do not themselves understand what they say.
If you consult the clergy, they will not fail to set forth the antiquity of their doctrine, which has always maintained itself, notwithstanding the continual attacks of the Heretics, the Mecreans, and the Impious generally, and also in spite of the persecutions of the Pagans. You have, Madam, too much good sense not to perceive at once that the antiquity of an opinion proves nothing in its favor. If antiquity was a proof of truth, Christianity must yield to Judaism, and that in its turn to the religion of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, or, in other words, to the idolatry which was greatly anterior to Moses. For thousands of years it was universally believed that the sun revolved round the earth, which remained immovable; and yet it is not the less true that the sun is fixed, and the earth moves around that. Besides, it is evident—that