Of the importance of religious opinions

Men, according to the opinion of some, have received from nature a secret tendency towards every thing just, good, and virtuous; and from this happy inclination, the task of the moralist is confined to prevent the alteration of our original constitution: an easy task, add they, and which may be fulfilled without any extraordinary effort, and without having recourse to religion.

We ought, at first, to observe, that the existence of this excellent innate goodness has been a long time a subject of debate, as every assertion always will be, of which we cannot demonstrate the truth, either by argument or experience. We shall never be able to perceive distinctly the natural dispositions of men, since, to our view, they are never separated from the improvement, or the modification, which they owe to education and habit. One or two examples they produce of children arrived at maturity found in a forest; but we are ignorant at what precise age they were abandoned by their parents, and what might have been their dispositions, if, brought back to society, they had not been guided by instruction, or restrained by fear and subordination. It is not very probable, that man derived from his original nature all the dispositions which lead to goodness; such a thought agrees not with his pride or dignity, since the intellectual faculties with which he is endowed, the power he has of gradually tending to perfection, announce to him that he ought to fulfil his career with the assistance of reason, and that, very different from those beings governed by an invariable instinct, he should elevate himself as much above them, by cultivating the abilities entrusted to him, as by the granduer of the destiny to which he is permitted to aspire.

Reason, however, our faithful guide, would be insufficient to attach us to sentiments of order, justice, and beneficence, if it was not seconded by a nature proper to receive the impression of every noble sentiment; but such reflections, far from favouring any system of independence or impiety, receive from religious opinions their principal force. What is, in effect, in this respect the course of our thoughts? We attribute, at first, to a Supreme and Universal Being all the perfections which seem to constitute his essence; and from this principle we are led to presume, that we, his intelligent creatures, and his most noble work, participate, in some manner, of the Divine spirit, of which we are an emanation: but, if we could ever be persuaded, that our confidence in the idea of a God is a deceitful illusion, we should not have any reason to believe that the mere child of nature, blind and without a guide, would be disposed to good, rather than evil. We must derive our opinion of innate goodness from a secret sentiment, and from a perfect conviction of the existence of a power which keeps every thing in order, the model of all perfection: but, as we obtain equally from this power, the faculties which render us capable of acquiring knowledge, of improving by experience, of extending our views into futurity, and elevating our thoughts to God; we should not know how to distinguish these last expedients of ability and virtue from those which belong to our first instinct; and we have no interest in doing it.

That which we perceive most clearly is, that there is a correspondence, a harmony between all the parts of our moral nature; and therefore we cannot deny the existence of our natural inclination towards goodness, nor consider this inclination as a disposition which has not need of any religious sentiment to acquire strength, and become a rational conductor through the rough road of life. The production of salutary fruits requires, before all things, a favourable soil; but this advantage would be useless without seed and the labour of the husbandman, and the fertilizing warmth of the sun: the Author of Nature has thought fit that a great number of causes should concur continually to renovate the productions of the earth; and the same intention, the same plan, seems to have determined the principle and the developement of all the gifts of the mind: it is necessary, in order to attach intelligent beings to the love of virtue, and respect for morality, that not only happy natural dispositions, but still more, a judicious education, good laws, and, above all, a continual intercourse with the Supreme Being, from which alone can arise firm resolutions, and every ardent thought, should concur; but men ambitious of submitting a great number of relations to their weak comprehension, would wish to confine them to a few causes. We shall discover, every moment, the truth of this observation; actuated by a similar motive, many wish to attribute every thing to education; whilst others pretend, that our natural dispositions are the only source of our actions and intentions, of our vices and virtues. Perhaps, in fact, there is, in the universe, but one expedient and spring, one prolific idea, the root of every other: yet, as it is at the origin of this idea, and not in its innumerable developements, that its unity can be perceived, the first grand disposer of nature: only ought to be in possession of the secret; and we, who see, of the immense mechanism of the world, but a few wheels, become almost ridiculous, when we make choice sometimes of one, and sometimes of another, to refer to it exclusively, the cause of motion, and the simplest properties of the different parts of the natural or moral world.