I shall present, at first, this objection in all its force, or rather I will not seek to weaken it; it would be needless to recal to the memory of men all the evils that have happened during a long series of years, with which we have reason to reproach the blind and savage zeal of religious fanaticism. Every one has present to his mind those multiplied acts of intolerance which have sullied the annals of history; every one knows the scenes of discord, of war, and fury, which theological controversies have caused amongst men; they have been informed of the fatal consequences which these enterprizes have brought in their train, and which the rare virtues of a great king have not been able to justify. In short, to maintain, in all ages, a remembrance of the fatal abuses which have been committed in the name of the God of Peace, it would be sufficient to describe those direful days, when some different tenet produced a sentence of proscription, and the frightful signal of the most cruel frenzies.

It is thus then, that in all times, by an absurd tyranny, or by a ferocious enthusiasm, triumphs have been contrived for the eager detractors of religion. Let us examine, however, if the deductions that they wish to draw from these errors of the human mind, are founded on reason and justice.

I shall not stop to observe, that religion has oftener been the pretext, than the true motive, of the unhappy convulsions of which it appears at present the sole origin; or stop to recal the various political advantages, which could only arise from such a grand principle of action; those august testimonies are commemorated in history: I shall only borrow the support of reason, and shall bound my discussion to a few simple reflections.

Do you think, that by relating the different abuses of authority we could prove the advantage of anarchy? Could we decry every species of jurisprudence, by recounting all the ills which have been produced by chicane? Should we be able to throw an odium on the sciences, by recalling all the fatal discoveries which are owing to our researches? Would it be proper to stifle every kind of self-love and activity, by reciting the different crimes which covetousness, pride, and ambition have given rise to? And ought we, then, to desire to annihilate religion, because fanaticism has made an instrument of it to distress the human species? All these questions are similar, and all should be resolved in the same manner: thus we may say with respect to them, that in all our interests and passions, it is by acquired knowledge, and the light of reason, that right is separated from wrong; but we ought never to confound their proximity with a real identity.

Fanaticism and religion have not any connection, though very often these ideas are found united. It is not the worship of the common Father of men; it is not the morality of the gospel, whose precepts lead to goodness and forbearance, which inspires the spirit of persecution; we should attribute it to a blind madness, resembling all those wild errors and crimes which dishonour humanity. But since, at present, the excesses to which men abandon themselves do not induce us to condemn, as a misfortune, all the sentiments of which the criminal passions are only the extreme, why do we wish to refuse religion the gratitude which is its due, because sometimes it has given birth to hatred and unhappy divisions? It would be necessary rather to remark, that intolerant zeal is, of all the errors of the human mind, that on which the progress of our knowledge appears to have had most influence. In fact, whilst fanaticism, gradually weakened, seems to be now verging to its decline, the disorders connected with the common passions of ambition, love of wealth, and thirst of pleasure, remain in all their force. However, what sentiment, what predominant idea, has a greater claim to pardon for its mistakes than devotion? By what an infinite number of benefits the pure spirit of religion makes amends for the abuses which spring from the false interpretation of its precepts. It is to this spirit, as we have shown, that men owe the stability of public order and the firm principles of justice: it procures the indigent the succours of charity, and virtue its encouragement; oppressed innocence its only refuge, and sensibility its dearest hopes. Yes, the pure spirit of religion surrounds us on every side, it makes the charm, of solitude, the band of society, the invigorater of intimate affections; and can we calumniate it and wish to destroy it, on recollecting the tyrannic opinions of some priests and sovereigns, whose principles and conduct we now detest?

I shall further remark, and ask why men denounce a sentence of reprobation against religion, and give as the motive, the ancient wars of which it has been the origin; whilst they never contest the importance of commerce, though rivers of blood have been continually shed for the smallest advantage on this account? Can they be so mistaken in their judgment, as to compare a few pecuniary advantages, which one political state never enjoys, but at the expence of another, with those, as precious as they are universal, of which religion is the origin and support?

In short, among the various arguments that are employed to attack these opinions, the most frivolous, undoubtedly, is that which derives all its force from the errors and faults of which the present times do not furnish any example. What should we say if, at the moment when a superb edifice was firm on its foundation, we should be exhorted to level it with the ground, by a relation of all the accidents its erection occasioned?

Throwing then a painful retrospect on the period of history, when religion was made the pretext of wars and cruelty; let us oppose to the return of those sanguinary scenes, let us oppose to the spirit of intolerance all the force of wisdom, and the instructions of that religion which they pretend to serve by a blind zeal. But far from freeing us from the respect which we owe to such salutary opinions, which men have abused, let us take advantage of experience, as a new defence against the wanderings of our imaginations, and the surprises of our passions^[2].