The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Invocation.
• The Ruins: Or, a Survey of the Revolutions of Empires.
• Chap. I.: The Tour.
• Chap. II.: Meditations.
• Chap. III.: The Apparition.
• Chap. IV.: The Hemisphere.
• Chap. V.: Condition of Man In the Universe.
• Chap. VI.: Original State of Man.
• Chap. VII.: Principles of Society.
• Chap. VIII.: Source of the Evils of Society.
• Chap. IX.: The Origin of Government and Laws.
• Chap. X.: General Causes of the Prosperity of Ancient States.
• Chap. XI.: General Causes of the Revolutions and Ruin of Ancient States.
• Chap. XII.: Lessons Taught By Ancient, Repeated In Modern Times.
• Chap. XIII.: Will the Human Race Be Ever In a Better Condition Than At Present.
• Chap. XIV.: Grand Obstacle to Improvement.
• Chap. XV.: New Age.
• Chap. XVI.: A Free and Legislative People.
• Chap. XVII.: Universal Basis of All Right and All Law.
• Chap. XVIII.: Consternation and Conspiracy of Tyrants.
• Chap. XIX.: General Assembly of the People.
• Chap. XX.: Investigation of Truth.
• Chap. XXI.: Problem of Religious Contradictions.
• Chap. XXII.: Origin and Genealogy of Religious Ideas.
• Sect. I.: Origin of the Idea of God: Worship of the Elements, and the Physical Powers of Nature.
• Sect. II.: Second System: Worship of the Stars, Or Sabeism.
• Sect. III.: Third System: Worship of Symbols, Or Idolatry.
• Sect. IV.: Fourth System: Worship of Two Principles, Or Dualism.
• Sect. V.: Mystical Or Moral Worship, Or the System of a Future State.
• Sect. VI.: Sixth System: the Animated World, Or Worship of the Universe Under Different Emblems.
• Sect. VII.: Seventh System: Worship of the Soul of the World, That Is, the Element of Fire, the Vital Principle of the Universe.
• Sect. VIII.: Eighth System: the World a Machine: Worship of the Demi-ourgos, Or Supreme Artificer.
• Sect. IX.: Religion of Moses, Or Worship of the Soul of the World (you-piter).
• Sect. X.: Religion of Zoroaster.
• Sect. XI.: Budoism, Or Religion of the Samaneans.
• Sect. XII.: Braminism, Or the Indian System.
• Sect. XIII.: Christianity, Or the Allegorical Worship of the Sun, Under the Cabalistical Names of Chris-en Or Christ, and Y
• Chap. XXIII.: End of All Religions the Same.
• Chap. XXIV.: Solution of the Problem of Contradictions.

CHAP. XXIV.

SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF CONTRADICTIONS.

The legislators then resumed their address. “O nations!” said they; “we have heard the discussion of your opinions; and the discord that divides you has suggested to us various reflections, which we beg leave to propose to you as questions which it is necessary you should solve.

“Considering, in the first place, the numerous and contradictory creeds you have adopted, we would ask on what motives your persuasion is founded? Is it from deliberate choice that you have enlisted under the banners of one prophet rather than under those of another? Before you adopted this doctrine in preference to that, did you first compare, did you maturely examine them? Or has not your belief been rather the chance result of birth, and of the empire of education and habit? Are you not born Christians on the banks of the Tiber, Mahometans on those of the Euphrates, Idolaters on the shores of India, in the same manner as you are born fair in cold and temperate regions, and of a sable complexion under the African sun! And if your opinions are the effect of your position on the globe, of parentage, of imitation, are such fortuitous circumstances to be regarded as grounds of conviction and arguments of truth?

“In the second place, when we reflect on the proscriptive spirit and the arbitrary intolerance of your mutual claims, we are terrified at the consequences that flow from your principles. Nations! who reciprocally doom each other to the thunder-bolts of celestial wrath, suppose the universal Being, whom you revere, were at this moment to descend from heaven among this crowd of people, and, clothed in all his power, were to sit upon this throne to judge you: suppose him to say—“Mortals! I consent to adopt your own principles of justice into my administration. Of all the different religions you profess, a single religion shall now be preferred to the rest; all the others, this vast multitude of standards, of nations, of prophets, shall be condemned to everlasting destruction. Nor is this enough: among the different sects of the chosen religion one only shall experience my favour, and the rest be condemned. I will go farther than this: of this single sect of this one religion, I will reject all the individuals whose conduct has not corresponded to their speculative precepts. O man! few indeed will then be the number of the elect you assign me! Penurious hereafter will be the stream of beneficence which will succeed to my unbounded mercy? Rare and solitary will be the catalogue of admirers that you henceforth destine to my greatness and my glory.”

And the legislators arising said: “It is enough; you have pronounced your will. Ye nations, behold the urn in which your names shall be placed; one single name shall be drawn from the multitude; approach and conclude this terrible lottery.”—But the people, seized with terror, cried: “No, no; we are brethren and equals, we cannot consent to condemn each other.”—Then the legislators having resumed their seats, continued: “O men! who dispute upon so many subjects, lend an attentive ear to a problem we submit to you, and decide it in the exercise of your own judgments.”—The people accordingly lent the strictest attention; and the legislators lifting one hand towards heaven, and pointing to the sun, said: “O nations, is the form of this sun which enlightens you triangular or square?”—And they replied with one voice, “It is neither, it is round.”

Then taking the golden balance that was upon the altar, “This metal,” asked the legislators, “which you handle every day, is a mass of it heavier than another mass of equal dimensions of brass?”—“Yes,” the people again unanimously replied; “gold is heavier than brass.”

The legislators then took the sword. “Is this iron less hard than lead?”—“No,” said the nations.

“Is sugar sweet and gall bitter?—“Yes.”

“Do you love pleasure, and hate pain?”—“Yes.”

“Respecting these objects and a multiplicity of others of a similar nature, you have then but one opinion. Now tell us, is there an abyss in the centre of the earth, and are there inhabitants in the moon?”

At this question a general noise was heard, and every nation gave a different answer. Some replied in the affirmative, others in the negative; some said it was probable, others that it was an idle and ridiculous question, and others that it was a subject worthy of enquiry; in short there prevailed among them a total disagreement.

After a short interval, the legislators having restored silence: “Nations,” said they, “how is this to be accounted for? We proposed to you certain questions, and you were all of one opinion without distinction of race or sect: fair or black, disciples of Mahomet or of Moses, worshippers of Bedou or of Jesus, you all gave the same answer. We now propose another question, and you all differ! whence this unanimity in one case, and this discordance in the other.”

And the groupe of simple and untaught men replied: “The reason is obvious. Respecting the first questions, we see and feel the objects; we speak of them from sensation: respecting the second, they are above the reach of our senses, and we have no guide but conjecture.”

“You have solved the problem,” said the legislators; “and the following truth is thus by your own confession established: Whenever objects are present and can be judged of by your senses, you invariably agree in opinion; and your differ in sentiment only when they are absent and out of your reach.

“From this truth flows another equally clear and deserving of notice. Since you agree respecting what you with certainty know, it follows, that when you disagree, it is because you do not know, do not understand, are not sure of the object in question: or in other words, that you dispute, quarrel and fight among yourselves, for what is uncertain, for that of which you doubt. But is this wife; is this the part of rational and intelligent beings?

“And is it not evident, that it is not truth for which you contend; that it is not her cause you are jealous of maintaining, but the cause of your own passions and prejudices; that it is not the object as it really exists that you wish to verify, but the object as it appears to you; that it is not the evidence of the thing that you are anxious should prevail, but your personal opinion, your mode of seeing and judging? There is a power that you want to exercise, an interest that you want to maintain, a prerogative that you want to assume; in short, the whole is a struggle of vanity. And as every individual, when he compares himself with every other, finds himself to be his equal and fellow, he resists by a similar feeling of right; and from this right, which you all deny to each other, and from the inherent consciousness of your equality, spring your disputes, your combats and your intolerance.

“Now, the only way of restoring unanimity is by returning to nature, and taking the order of things which she has established for your director and guide; and this farther truth will then appear from your uniformity of sentiment:

“That real objects have in themselves an identical, constant, and invariable mode of existence, and that in your organs exists a similar mode of being affected and impressed by them.

“But at the same time, inasmuch as these organs are liable to the direction of your will, you may receive different impressions, and find yourselves under different relations towards the same objects; so that you are with respect to them, as it were a sort of mirror, capable of reflecting them such as they are, and capable of disfiguring and misrepresenting them.

“As often as you perceive the objects, such as they are, your feelings are in accord with the objects, and you agree in opinion; and it is this accord that constitutes truth.

“On the contrary, as often as you differ in opinion, your dissentions prove that you do not see the objects such as they are, but vary them.

“Whence it appears, that the cause of your dissentions is not in the objects themselves, but in your minds, in the manner in which you perceive and judge.

“If therefore we would arrive at uniformity of opinion, we must previously establish certainty, and verify the resemblance which our ideas have to their models. Now this cannot be obtained, except so far as the objects of our enquiry can be referred to the testimony and subjected to the examination of our senses. Whatever cannot be brought to this trial is beyond the limits of our understanding; we have neither rule to try it by, nor measure by which to institute a comparison, nor source of demonstration and knowledge concerning it.

“Whence it is obvious, that, in order to live in peace and harmony, we must consent not to pronounce upon such objects, nor annex to them importance; we must draw a line of demarcation between such as can be verified and such as cannot, and separate by an inviolable barrier, the world of fantastic beings from the world of realities: that is to say, all civil effect must be taken away from theological and religious opinions.

“This, O nations, is the end that a great people, freed from their fetters and prejudices, have proposed to themselves; this is the work in which, by their command, and under their immediate auspices, we were engaged, when your kings and your priests came to interrupt our labours. . . . Kings and priests, you may yet for a while suspend the solemn publication of the laws of nature; but it is no longer in your power to annihilate or to subvert them.”

A loud cry was then heard from every quarter of the general assembly of nations; and the whole of the people, unanimously testifying their adherence to the sentiments of the legislators, encouraged them to resume their sacred and sublime undertaking. “Investigate,” said they, “the laws which nature, for our direction, has implanted in our breasts, and form from thence an authentic and immutable code. Nor let this code be calculated for one family, or one nation only, but for the whole without exception. Be the legislators of the human race, as ye are the interpreters of their common nature. Shew us the line that separates the world of chimeras, from that of realities; and teach us, after so many religions of error and delusion, the religion of evidence and truth.”

Upon this, the legislators resuming their enquiry into the physical and constituent attributes of man, and the motives and affections which govern him in his individual and social capacity, unfolded in the following terms the laws on which Nature herself has founded his felicity.

END OF THE FIRST PART.

NOTES.