Truth
The Three Imposters 3
Abstract
Concerning Religions
Happy the man who, studying Nature’s laws,
Through known effects can trace the secret cause;
His mind possessing in a quiet state,
Fearless of Fortune, and resigned to Fate.Dryden’s Virgil. Georgics Book II, l. 700
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Sunday, July 25, 1999
God
Everyone should know the Truth but few do. Most are incapable of looking for it or cannot be bothered. The world is therefore full of stupid and ignorant opinions. The irrational nonsense spoken about God, the soul and the spirit depends upon ignorance deliberately cultivated. People are prejudiced and so readily accept the views of those who spread prejudice as the source of their own power or prestige.
To cure this disease is difficult because, once accepted, superstitious ideas are contagious. No one has the courage or inclination to examine and test them. The spreaders of ignorance warn the gullible against skeptics and thinkers, fearing that the Truth might impress even their gullible flocks.
Historically the power of the church has even made it dangerous for honest people to challenge the errors of theology. It is too important for these impostors that the people remain in ignorance and not be disabused of superstition. Consequently people are kept from the Truth or and are sacrificed to the rage of false prophets and selfish souls.
If people understood the abyss in which this ignorance casts them, they would throw off the yoke of these venal minds, since Reason would immediately discover the Truth. To prevent this they depict Reason as incapable of inspiring any good sentiment and, when we try to censure those who are not reasonable, we find them persuading us that the Truth is mistaken. These enemies of Truth fall also into such perpetual contradictions that it is difficult to perceive what their real pretensions are. Men should use Common Sense and no one in the world should be prevented from using it.
Teachers should try to correct false reasoning and efface prejudices, then people will begin to accept the Truth and learn that God is not all they imagine.
To do this, wild speculation is not necessary or needed to discover the secrets of Nature. Good sense shows that God is neither passionate nor jealous, that justice and mercy are false titles attributed to him, and that nothing of what the Prophets and Apostles have said constitutes his nature nor his essence. These doctors were neither cleverer nor better informed than the rest of us. Far from it, what they say is so gross that it must be simple people only who would believe them.
To make it clearer, let us see if they are different from other men.
As to their birth and the ordinary functions of life, they possessed nothing above the human. They were born of man and woman and lived the same as ourselves. But mentally God must have favoured them more than others, for they claimed an understanding more brilliant than anyone else. God apparently loved the prophets more than the rest of mankind.
Apparently he frequently communicated with them and believed them also of good faith. If this is true and people are not essentially the same, then these prophets were of extraordinary attainments and were created expressly to utter the oracles of God. But if they were more intelligent than others and had more perfect understanding, what do we find in their writings to convince us that it is true?
Most of their writings is too obscure to understand and put together in such a poor way that it is hard to believe that they understood it themselves. They must have been very ignorant impostors. They absurdly and ridiculously boasted of receiving directly from God all that they announced to the people but that God only spoke to them in dreams. Dreams are quite natural, and a person must be quite vain or senseless to boast that God speaks to him in them. When faith is added, he must be quite credulous since there is no evidence that dreams are oracles. Suppose that God did reveal himself through dreams, by visions, or in any other way, how are we to know a man is not deceiving himself, or is lying?
Note that the ancient prophets who were not so highly regarded then as we regard them today, sometimes had to turn to punishing the people to keep them in check. When the people were tired of their sophistry, they turned from obedience and had to be restrained by various punishments. Jesus was overwhelmed because he did not have a sufficient army at his back to sustain his opinions, unlike Moses who at one time killed 24,000 men for opposing his law. Furthermore, the Prophets so often contradicted each other that, among four hundred of them, king Ahab was not able to find one whose predictions were reliable (1 Kings 22:6).
The aim of their prophecies was to perpetuate their memories by causing mankind to believe that they had private conference with God. With such a large choice it is not surprising that sometimes a prophet was correct.
Let us examine the ideas which the Prophets had of God, and we will smile at their grossness and contradictions. For them, God is a purely material being. Micah sees him seated. Daniel clothed in white and in the form of an old man, and Ezekiel like a fire. So much for the Old Testament, now for the New. The disciples of Jesus imagined the Holy Spirit as a dove; the apostles, as tongues of fire, and St. Paul, as a light which blinded him.
To show their contradictory opinions:
- Samuel (1 Sam 15:29) believed that God never repented of his own resolution;
- Jeremiah (Jer 18:10) says that God repented of a resolve he had taken;
- Joel (Joel 2:13) says that he only repents of the evil he has done to mankind.
- Genesis (Gen 4:7) informs us that man is prone to evil but that He has nothing for him but blessings, but
- Paul (Rom 9:10) says that men have no command of concupiscence except by the grace and particular calling of God.
These are the noble sentiments that these good people have of God, and what they would have us believe.
Whether sensible or not, they are quite worldly. Yet they say God has nothing in common with matter, is a sensible and material being and is something incomprehensible to our understanding. How are these contradictions to be harmonised, and how, since they are so plain, is it proper to believe them. How can we accept the testimony of people so clownish that they, notwithstanding all the artifices of Moses, imagined a calf to be their God? If we forget the dreams of a race raised in servitude, and superstitious, we can agree that ignorance has produced credulity, and credulity falsehood, whence arises all the errors which exist today.
Why Mankind created an invisible being called God
Those who ignore physical causes have a natural fear of the unknown. Where there exists a power which to them is dark or unseen, thence comes a desire to pretend the existence of invisible beings, their own phantoms which they invoke in adversity, whom they praise in prosperity, and of whom in the end they make Gods. And as the visions of men go to extremes, must we be astonished if there are created an innumerable quantity of Divinities?
It is the same perceptible fear of invisible powers which has been the origin of Religions, that each person forms to his own model. Many people to whom it was important that mankind should possess such fancies, have not scrupled to encourage mankind in such beliefs. They have made it their law until they have prevailed upon the people to blindly obey them by the fear of the future.
The Gods having been invented in this way resembled man and, like them, created everything for some purpose for they unanimously agree that God has made nothing except for man, and reciprocally that man is made only for God. “Man is the noblest work of God”—but nobody ever said so except man.
Not surprisingly people have been ready to accept such a general conclusion, and thence have created false ideas of good and evil, merit and sin, praise and blame, order and confusion, beauty and deformity—and similar qualities.
Everyone is born in profound ignorance, and the only natural thing to them is a desire to discover what may be useful and proper, and evade what may be inexpedient. To be free it suffices to feel personally that one can wish and desire without being annoyed by whatever causes us so to wish and desire, if we do not know. People are happy only to do things that they like, and so they like to know the outcome of their action, because, knowing it, they will be sure of what to do.
Now they find in and about themselves many means of achieving what they want. They find they have ears to hear, eyes to see, animals to nourish, a sun to give light. They have concluded that everything in nature was made for them to use and enjoy.
Then, satisfying themselves that they could not have made this world, they conclude that it was the work of one—a Supreme Being—or several Gods who meant it for the use and pleasure of man alone. They imagine it has been made for them and that man to the Gods was extremely precious. But as each one has different inclinations it became proper to adore God according to the humour of each, to attract his blessings and to cause Him to make all Nature subject to his desires.
This argument becomes Superstition, and is spread among even the least rational and stupid of people so that they think they understand the doctrine of final causes as if they had perfect knowledge. In place of showing that nature has made nothing in vain, they show that God and Nature dream as well as men, and that they may not be accused of doubting things, let us see how they have put forth their false reasoning on this subject.
Experience causing them to see a myriad of inconveniences marring the pleasure of life, such as storms, earthquakes, sickness, famine and thirst, they draw the conclusion that nature has not been made only for their enjoyment. All these evils are the wrath of the Gods, who are vexed by the offences of man.
They cannot be disabused of these ideas by the daily instances which should prove to them that blessings and evils have been always common to the wicked and the good. They will not agree to a proposition so plain and perceptible. For them, it is easier to stay ignorant in a belief established since antiquity than to find more likely answers.
To explain the contradictions of this archaic belief system they add another—the belief that the judgements of God are incomprehensible, and the knowledge of Truth is beyond the human mind. Mankind would be still living in error if it were not for the sciences which have shown otherwise.
Nature or God does not propose any end and all final causes are human fictions. This doctrine removes from God the perfection ascribed to him, as may be proved: If God acted for a result, either for himself or another, he must want what he hasn’t got—he does not have what he wants because he wants it; he is therefore not omnipotent.
To omit nothing that may be applied to this reasoning, let us oppose it with those of a contrary nature. If a stone falls on a person and kills them, the stone fell with the intent of killing that person, and that could only happen by the will of God. If you reply that the wind caused the stone to drop at the moment the man passed, they will ask why the man should have passed precisely at the time when the wind moved the stone. If you reason further, they add questions after questions, finally avowing that it was indeed the will of God.
Again when they note the beauty of the human body, they stand in admiration and conclude how a thing which to them appears so marvellous must be a supernatural work, in which the causes known to us could have no part.
Someone not happy with the prejudice of the ignorant says they want to know the real cause of supposed miracles. So, like true scholars, they investigate their natural causes. Then those whom the vulgar revere as the expounders of Nature and of God maliciously brand them as impious and heretical. These mercenary characters do not question the ignorance which holds the people in amazement, because they depend upon it for their living and credit.
Since everything Mankind sees is made for themselves, they have made it a religious duty to rigorously apply it to their benefit and see what they can get out of it. This criterion then provides the ideas they have of good and evil, of order and confusion, of heat and cold, of beauty and ugliness.
Priding themselves in having free will they judge themselves able to decide between praise and blame, sin and merit, calling everything good which redounds to their profit and which concerns divine worship, and to the contrary denominate as evil that which agrees with neither.
Because the ignorant are not capable of judging what may be a little abstruse, and having no idea of things except through imaginings which they consider understanding, these folk who know not what represents order in the world believe all that they imagine. Some think that whatever they pronounce as being good order is, though little thought shows it is not. Others openly display their weariness of the means of investigation, being satisfied to remain as they are, preferring order to confusion, as if order was an absolute and not someone’s judgement, and confusion is the result of enquiry.
If the impression made upon the nerves by the means of the eyes is agreeable, we say that these objects are beautiful, that odours are good or bad, that tastes are sweet or bitter, that which we touch hard or soft, sounds, harsh or agreeable. We should not then be surprised if we rarely found two men of the same opinion, and some who glorify themselves in doubting everything. For while we have bodies which resemble each other, they differ, and it should not astonish us that what seems good to one appears bad to another, what pleases this one displeases the other.
We may infer that opinions only differ by fancy, that understanding passes for little, and things which happen every day are purely the effects of the mind. If one should consult the lights of understanding of philosophers he would have faith that everybody would agree to the truth, and that judgements would be more uniform and reasonable than they are.
Why would the universe have imperfections—many disagreeable objects, so many disorders, so much evil, so many crimes, the bad odour of putrefaction and other like occurrences—if it were made by God? We deceive ourselves in thinking that a thing is more or less perfect, as it pleases or displeases, is useful or useless to human nature.
What God Is
We have fought the popular idea of the Divinity, but have not yet said what God is.
The word is to us an Infinite Being, one of whose attributes is to be eternal and infinite. Neither matter or quantity have anything unworthy of God, for if all is God, and all comes surely from his essence and it being incomprehensible that anything material should be contained in what is not, it follows quite absolutely that He is all that he contains.
This is not a new opinion. Tertullian, a father of the Christians, pronounced against Apelles: “that which is not matter is nothing”. And he said against Praxias: “all substance is matter”. This doctrine was not condemned in any of the four first Councils of the Christian Church, ecumenical and general.
(Note: Nice in the year 345, under the Emperor Constantine the Great and Pope Sylvester I; Constantinople in the year 381, under the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodore and the Pope Damase I; Ephesus in the year 431, under the Emperor Theodore, the younger, and Valentinian and under the Pope Celestin; Chalcedon in the year 451, under Valentinian and Martian, and under Pope Leo I.)
Few are satisfied with such simplicity and sound judgement.
Boorish people, accustomed to adulation of opinion, demand a God who resembles earthly kings. The pomp and circumstance surrounding royalty so fascinates that to remove their hope of, after death, increasing the number of heavenly courtiers, is to take away their consolation for their despair over the miseries of life.
They want a just and avenging God, who rewards and punishes like kings, a God susceptible of all human passions and weaknesses. They give him feet, hands, and ears, and yet they do not regard a God so constituted as material. They say that man is his masterpiece, and even his own image, but do not allow that the copy is like the original. In a word, the God of the people of today is subject to as many forms as Jupiter of the pagans, and what is still more strange, these follies contradict each other and shock good sense.
The vulgar reverence them because they firmly believe what the Prophets have said, although these visionaries among the Hebrews, were the same as the augurs and the diviners among the pagans—nowadays Astrologers and various Fanatics. They consult the Bible as if God or nature was therein expounded to them in a special manner. But this book is only a compilation of fragments, gathered at various times, selected by several persons, and given to the people according to the fancy of the Rabbins, who approved some, and rejected others to see if they conformed or opposed the Law of Moses.
(Note: According to the Talmud the Rabbins deliberated whether they should omit the Book of Proverbs and of Ecclesiastes from the number of canonicals, and would have done so had they not found in several places that they eulogized the Mosaic law. They would have done the same with the prophecies of Ezekiel had not a certain Chananias undertook to harmonize them with the same law.)
Yes, such is the malice and stupidity of some people that they prefer to pass their lives worshipping a book received from ignorant people, a book with little order or method, which everyone admits is confused and badly conceived, and which only serves to foment divisions. Yet they advance it as the word of God
Christians would rather adore this phantom than listen to the law of Nature which God—that is to say, Nature, which is the active principle—has written in the heart of man. All other laws are human fictions, illusions forged not by Demons or evil spirits which are fanciful ideas but by Princes and their sycophants, the Ecclesiastics, who justify their authority, and enrich them by the traffic in an infinity of chimeras which sell to the ignorant at a good price.
The laws supported are on the authority of the Bible, in which appear a thousand instances of extraordinary and impossible things. It speaks of recompenses or punishments for good or bad actions, but wisely defers them for a future life, relying that the trick will not be discovered in this one, no one having returned from the other to tell the news. People kept ever wavering between hope and fear, are held to their duty by the belief they aver that God has created man only to render him eternally happy or unhappy, and which has given rise to the infinity of religions which we are about to discuss.
Religion and how and why so many have been introduced in the world
Before the word Religion was introduced in the world mankind only had to follow natural laws and conform to common sense. This understanding united peoples and so very simple was this bond of unity that nothing was more rare than dissensions.
But when fear created the superstition that there were invisible powers and Gods, they raised altars to these imaginary beings, so that in putting off the yoke of Nature and Reason, they subjected themselves by vain ceremonies and superstitious worship to frivolous phantoms of the imagination. That is whence arose this word Religion which makes so much noise in the world.
Having admitted invisible forces which were all-powerful over them, they worshipped them to appease them, and further imagined that Nature was a being subordinate to this power. It was a great mace that threatened them or a slave that acted only by the order that some invisible power gave him.
Since this false idea had broken their will they had only scorn for Nature, and respect only for those pretended beings that they called their Gods. Thence came the ignorance in which mankind was plunged, and from which the well-informed, however deep the abyss, could have rescued them, if their zeal had not been extinguished by those who led them blindly, and who lived by imposture. But though there was but little appearance of success in the enterprise, it was not necessary to abandon the party of truth, and only in consideration of those who were afflicted with the symptoms of so great an evil, were generous souls available to represent matters as they were.
Fear which created Gods, made also Religion, and when men imbibed the notion that there were invisible agencies which were the cause of their good and bad fortune, they lost their good sense and reason substituting for their chimeras so many Divinities who had care of their conduct.
After having forged these Gods they were curious to know of what matter they consisted, and finally imagined that they should be of the same substance as the soul.
Then being persuaded that the latter resembled the shadows which appear in a mirror, or during sleep, they believed that some Gods were real substances but so thin and subtle that to distinguish them from bodies they called them Spirits. So that bodies and spirits were in effect the same thing, and differed neither more nor less, and to be both corporeal and incorporeal is a most incomprehensible thing. The reason given is that each spirit has a proper form, and is included within some limit, that is to say that it has some boundaries, and consequently must be a body however thin and subtle it might be.
The ignorant—the greater part of mankind—having settled in this manner the substance of their Gods, tried also to determine by what methods these invisible powers produced their effects. Not being able to do this definitely by reason of their ignorance, they put faith in their conjectures, blindly judging the future by the past, while seeing neither cohesion nor dependence.
In all that they undertook they saw but the past, and foretold good or evil for the future according as the same enterprise had at another time turned out either good or bad. Phormion having defeated the Lacedemonians at the battle of Naupacte, the Athenians, after his death, chose another general of the same name. Hannibal having succumbed to the arms of Scipio Africanus, the Romans, remembering this great success, sent another Scipio to the same country against Caesar.
These acts gained nothing for either the Athenians or the Romans. So after two or three experiences, good or bad fortune is made synonymous with certain names or places. Others make use of certain words called enchantments, which they believe to be efficacious; some cause trees to speak, create man from a morsel of bread, and transform anything that may appear before them.
Invisible powers being established in this way, straightway men revere them as they do their rulers, by tokens of submission and respect, as witness offerings, prayers, and similar things. Later, on such occasions were used sacrifices of blood, instituted for the benefit of the sacrificers and the ministers called to the service of these beautiful Gods.
These causes of Religion, that is, Hope and Fear, leaving out the passions, judgements and various resolutions of mankind, have produced the great number of extravagant beliefs which have caused so much evil, and the many revolutions which have convulsed the nations.
The honour and revenue which attaches to the priesthood, and which has since been accorded to the ministry of the Gods, and those having ecclesiastical charges, inflame the ambition and the avarice of cunning individuals. They profit by the stupidity of the people, who readily submit in their weakness, and we know how insensibly is caused the easy habit of encouraging falsehood and hating truth.
The empire of falsehood being established, and the ambitious ones encouraged by the advantage of being above their fellows, the latter try to gain repute by a pretence of being friendly with the invisible Gods whom the vulgar fear. For better success, each schemes in his own way, and multiplies deities so that they are met at every turn.
The formless matter of the world they term the god Chaos, and the same honour is accorded to heaven, earth, the sea, the wind, and the planets, and they are made both male and female. Further on we find birds, reptiles, the crocodile, the calf, the dog, the lamb, the serpent, the hog, and all kinds of animals and plants constitute the better part. Each river and fountain bears the name of a God, each house had its own, each man his genius. In fact all space above and beneath the earth was occupied by spirits, shades and demons.
It was not enough to keep a Divinity in all imaginable places. They sought not to offend time, day, night, concord, love, peace, victory, contention, mildew, honour, virtue, fever, and health, or to insult these charming divinities whom they always imagined ready to discharge lightning on the heads of men, provided temples and altars were not erected to them.
As a sequel, some started to fear their own special genius, whom some invoked under the name of Muses, while others adored their own ignorance under the name of Fortune. The latter sanctified their debauches in the name of Cupid, their rage in the name of Furies, and their natural parts under the name of Priapus. In a word, there was nothing which did not bear the name of a God or a Demon.
The founders of Religion having based their impostures on the ignorance of the people, took great care to maintain them by the adoration of images which they pretended were inhabited by the Gods. This caused a flood of gold and benefactions called holy things, to pour into the coffers of the priests. These gifts were regarded as sacred, and designed for the use of these holy ministers, and none were so audacious as to pretend to their office, or even to touch them.
To allure the people more successfully, these priests made prophecies and pretended to penetrate the future by the commerce which they boasted of having with the Gods. There is nothing so natural as to know destiny. These impostors were too well informed to omit any circumstance so advantageous for their designs. Some were established at Delos, others at Delphos and elsewhere, where by ambiguous oracles they replied to the demands made of them.
Women even were engaged in these impostures, and the Romans in their great calamities had recourse to the Sibylline books. Fools and lunatics passed for enthusiasts, and those who pretended to converse with the dead were called necromancers.
Others read the future by the flight of birds, or by the entrails of beasts. Indeed the eyes, the hands, the face, or an extraordinary object, all seemed to them to possess a good or bad omen, so it is true that the ignorant will receive any desired impression when the secret of their wish is found.
Sensible and Obvious Truths
It is not sufficient to have discovered the disease if we do not apply a remedy. It would be better to leave the sick man in ignorance. Error can only be cured by Truth, and since Moses, Jesus and Mahomet were what we have represented them, we should not seek in their writings for the veritable idea of the Divinity. The apparitions and the divine conformation of the former and the latter, and the divine filiation of the second, are sufficient to convince us that all is but imposture.
God is either a natural being or one of infinite extent who resembles what he contains—material without being. Either way he is neither just nor merciful, nor jealous, nor a God in any way as may be imagined, and as a consequence is neither a punisher nor a remunerator. This idea of punishment and recompense only exists in the minds of the ignorant who only conceive that simple being called God, under images which by no means represent him.
Those who use their understanding without confounding its operations with those of the imagination, and who are powerful enough to abandon the prejudice of a limited education, are the only ones who have sound, clear and distinct ideas. They consider him as the source of all beings which are produced without distinction: one being no more than another in His regard, and man no more difficult to produce than a worm or a flower.
That is why no one should believe that this natural and infinite being, which is commonly called God, esteems man more than an ant, or a lion more than a stone, or who has any regard for beauty or ugliness, for good or bad, for the perfect or imperfect. Or that he desires to be praised, prayed, sought for or caressed, or that he cares what men are, or say, whether susceptible of love or hate, or in a word that he thinks more of man than of any other creatures of whatever nature they be. All these distinctions are only the invention of a narrow mind. Ignorance has created them and interest keeps them alive.
No good sensible man can be convinced of hell, a soul, spirits or devils, in the manner of which they are commonly spoken. All these great senseless words have only been contrived to delude or intimidate the people. Let those then who wish to know the truth read what follows, with a liberal spirit and an intention to only give their judgement with deliberation.
The myriads of stars that we see above us are allowed to be so many solid bodies which move, and among which there is not one designed as the Court Divine where God is like a King in the midst of his courtiers. None is the abode of the blest, nor where all good souls fly after leaving this body and world.
What is called Heaven is nothing but the continuation of our atmosphere, more subtle and more refined, where the stars move without being sustained by any solid mass more than the Earth on which we live, and which like the stars is suspended in the midst of space.
As may be imagined, a Heaven intended for the eternal abode of the happy and of God, was the same among the pagans. Gods and goddesses were also represented in the same way, and so too a Hell or a subterranean place where it was pretended that the wicked souls descended to be tormented.
But this word “hell” taken in its proper and natural signification means nothing but a “lower place”, which poets have invented to oppose the dwelling of the celestial inhabitants, who are said to be very sublime and exalted. That is what the Latin word Infernus or inferni signifies, and also the Greek word Hades. It is an obscure place like the sepulchre, or any other low and hidden place.
All the rest of what has been said is only pure fiction and the invention of poets whose symbolical discourses are taken literally by feeble, timid and melancholy minds, as well as by those who are interested in sustaining this opinion.
The Soul
The Soul is something more delicate and more difficult to treat of than either Heaven or Hell. That is why it is proper to satisfy Your Majesty’s curiosity, to speak of it a little more at length. Before saying what I desire on this subject, I will recall in a few words what the most celebrated Philosophers have thought of it.
Soul is a spirit or an immaterial substance, a kind of divinity, a very subtle air, or a harmony of all parts of the body. Others have remarked that it is the most subtle and fine part of the blood, which is separated from it in the brain and is distributed by the nerves. So the source of the Soul is the heart where it is produced, and the place where it performs its noblest function is the Brain, because there it is well purified from the grosser parts of the blood.
These are the principal opinions which have been held concerning the Soul, but to render them more perceptible let us divide them into material and spiritual, and name the supporters of each theory that we may not err.
Pythagoras and Plato have said that the soul is spiritual. It is a being capable of existence without the aid of the body, and can move itself. All the particular souls of animals are portions of the universal soul of the world. These portions are spiritual and immortal, and of the same nature, as we may conceive that one hundred little fires are of the same nature as the great fire at which they have been kindled.
These philosophers believed the animated universe a substance, spiritual, immortal and invisible, pursuing always that which attracts, which is the source of all movements, and of all Souls which are small particles of it. Now, as Souls are very pure, and infinitely superior to the body, they do not unite immediately, but by means of a subtle body, such as flame, or that subtle and extensive air which the vulgar take for heaven. Afterwards they take a body less subtle, then another a little more impure, and always thus by degrees, until they can unite with the sensible bodies of animals, whither they descend like into dungeons or sepulchres.
The death of the body, they say, is the life of the soul wherein it was buried, and where it exercises but weakly its most beautiful functions. Thus at the death of the body the soul comes out of its prison untrammelled by matter, and reunites with the soul of the universe, whence it came. Thus, following this thought, all the Souls of animals are of the same nature, and the diversity of their functions comes only from the difference in the bodies that they enter.
Aristotle admits further, a universal understanding common to all beings, and which acts in regard to particular intelligences as light does in regard to the eyes. As light makes objects visible, the universal understanding makes objects intelligible. This philosopher defines the Soul as that which makes us live, feel, think and move, but he does not say what the Being is that is the source and principle of these noble functions. Consequently we must not look to him to dispel the doubt which exists concerning the Nature of the Soul.
Dicearchus, Asclesiade (Aesculapius?), and in some ways Galen, have also believed the soul to be incorporeal but in another manner. They have said that it is nothing more than the harmony of all parts of the body, which results in an exact blending and disposition of the humours and spirits. Thus, they say, health is not a part of him who is well, however it be his condition, so that, however, the soul be in the animal, it is not one of its parts, but a mutual accord of all of which it is composed.
These authors believe the soul to be incorporeal on a principle quite opposed to their intent. They say it is not a body, but only something inseparably attached to a body. But in good reasoning, that it is quite corporeal, since corporeality is not only that which is a body, but all which is form or accident that cannot be separated from matter.
These are the philosophers who have believed the soul incorporeal or immaterial, who, as you see, are not in accord with themselves, and consequently do not merit any belief. Let us now consider those who have avowed it to be a body.
Diogenes believed that it was formed of air, from which he has inferred the necessity of breathing, and defines it as an air which passes from the mouth through the lungs to the heart, where it is warmed, And whence it is distributed through the entire body.
Leucippus and Democritus have claimed that it was Fire, as that element is composed of atoms which easily penetrate all parts of the body, and makes it move. Hippocrates has said that it is a composition of water and fire. Empedocles says that it includes the four elements. Epicurus believed like Democritus, that the soul is composed of fire, but he adds that in that composition there enters some air, a vapour, and another nameless substance of which is formed a very subtle spirit, which spreads through the body and which is called the soul.
To have as perfect an idea as is possible of the souls of animals, let us admit that in all, without excepting man, it is of the same nature, and has no different functions, except in so far as their organs and humours differ. Hence we must believe what follows.
There is in the universe a very subtle spirit, or a very delicate matter, and always in motion, the source of which is in the Sun, and the remainder is spread in all the other bodies, more or less, according to Nature or their consistency. That is the Soul of the Universe which governs and vivifies it, and of which some portion is distributed among all the parts that compose it.
This Soul, and the most pure Fire which is in the universe does not burn of itself, but by the different movements that it gives to the particles of other bodies where it enters, it burns and reflects its heat. The visible fire has more of this spirit than air, the latter more than water, and the earth much less than the latter. Among the mixed bodies, plants have more than minerals, and animals more than either.
To conclude, this fire being enclosed in the body, it is rendered capable of thought, and that is what is called the soul, or what is called animal spirits, which are spread in all parts of the body. Now, this soul being of the same nature in all animals, disperses at the death of man in the same manner as in other animals. It follows that what Poets and Theologians sing or preach of the other world, is a chimera which they have invented, and which they narrate for reasons that are easy to guess.
Spirits called Demons
We have fully commented on how the belief in Spirits was introduced among men, and how these Spirits were but phantoms which existed in their imagination. The ancient Philosophers were not sufficiently clear to explain to the people what these phantoms were, and did not allow themselves to say that they could raise them.
Some seeing that these phantoms dissolved and had no consistence, called them immaterial, incorporeal, forms without matter, or colors and figures without being. Others said that they were animated bodies, but were composed of air, or some other more subtle matter which condensed at their will when they wished to appear.
These two kinds of Philosophers though opposed in the opinion which they had of phantoms, agreed in the name which they gave them, for all called them Demons. In this they were little more enlightened than those who believed they saw in their sleep the souls of the dead, and that see their own soul when they look in a mirror, and who believed they saw reflected in the water the souls of the stars.
After this foolish fancy they fell into an error which is hardly less supportable, that is, the current idea that these phantoms had infinite power. Whatever they did not understand was an infinite power. An absurd but ordinary belief of the ignorant
This ridiculous opinion was no sooner published than the Sovereigns began to use it to support their power. They established a belief concerning spirits which they called Religion, so that the fear which the people possessed for invisible powers would hold them to their obedience.
To have it carry more influence they distinguished the demons as good and bad. The latter to encourage men to obey their laws, and the former to restrain and prevent them from infringing them. Now to learn what these demons were it is only necessary to read the Greek poets and their histories, and above all what Hesiod says in his Theogony where he fully treats of the origin and propagation of the Gods.
The Greeks were the first who invented them, and by them they were propagated through the medium of their colonies, and their conquests in Asia, Egypt and Italy. The Jews who were dispersed in Alexandria and elsewhere got their acquaintance with them from the Greeks. They used them as effectively as the other peoples but with this difference: they did not call them Demons like the Greeks, but good and bad spirits. They reserved for the good Demons the name of Spirit of God, and calling those Prophets who were said to possess this good spirit called the Divine, which they held as responsible for great blessings, and cacodaemons or Evil spirits on the contrary those which were provocative of great Evil.
This distinction of good and evil made them name as Demoniacs those whom we call lunatics, visionaries, madmen and epileptics, and those who spoke to them in an unknown tongue. A man ill-shaped and of evil look was to their notion possessed of an unclean spirit, and a mute of a dumb spirit.
Now, these words spirit and demon became so familiar to them that they spoke of them on all occasions, so that it is evident that the Jews believed like the Greeks, that these phantoms were not mere chimeras and visions, but real beings that existed independent of imagination.
The Bible is filled with these words Spirits, Demons and Fiends. Yet nowhere is it said when they were first known, nor the time of their creation, which is hardly pardonable in Moses, who is earnest in depicting the Creation of Heaven, Earth and Man.
No more then is Jesus Christ who had such close intimacy with them, who commanded them so absolutely according to the Gospel, and who spoke so often of angels and good and bad spirits, but without saying whether they were corporeal or spiritual. So it is plain that he knew no more than the Greeks had taught other nations, in which he is not less culpable then for denying to all men the virtue of faith and piety which he professed to be able to give them.
But to return to the Spirits. The words Demon, Satan and Devil are not proper names which designated any individual, and had no credence except among the ignorant whether of the Greeks who invented them, or of the Jews where they were tolerated. So the latter being overrun by them gave them names—which signified enemy, accuser, inquisitor—as well to invisible powers as to their own adversaries, the Gentiles, whom they said inhabited the Kingdom of Satan; there being none but themselves, in their own opinion, who dwelt in that of God.
As Jesus Christ was a Jew, and consequently imbued with these silly opinions, we read everywhere in the Gospels, and in the writings of his Disciples, of the Devil, of Satan and Hell as if they were something real and effective. While it is true, as we have shown, that there is nothing more imaginary, and when what we have said is not sufficient to prove it, but two words will suffice to convince the most obstinate.
All Christians agree unanimously that God is the first principle and the foundation of all things, that he has created and preserves them, and without his support they would fall into nothingness. God must have therefore have created the Devil, Satan and the rest. If evil exists, it can only be by the work of God and he must also have decreed their relative strengths.
Now can one conceive that God would maintain a creature, not only who curses him unceasingly, and who mortally hates him, but even who tries to corrupt his friends, to have the pleasure of being cursed by a multitude of mouths? How can we comprehend that God should preserve the Devil to have him do his worst to dethrone him if he could, and to alienate from his service his elect and his favourites? What would be the object of God in such conduct?
Now what can we say in speaking of the Devil and Hell. If God does all, and nothing can be done without him, how does it happen that the Devil hates him, curses him, and takes away his friends? Now he is either agreeable, or he is not. If he is agreeable, it is certain that the Devil in cursing him only does what he should, since he can only do what God wills. Consequently, it is not the Devil, but God in person who curses himself; a situation more absurd than ever.
If it is not in accord with His will then it is not true that He is all powerful. Thus there are two principles, one of Good, the other of Evil, one which causes one thing and the other that does quite the contrary. To what does this reasoning lead us? To avow without contradiction that there is no God such as is conceived, nor Devil, nor Soul, nor Paradise, such as has been depicted. That the Theologians, those who relate fables for truth, are persons of bad faith who maliciously abuse the credulity of the ignorant by telling them what they please.
Are the people capable of nothing but chimera? Should they be fed with insipid food in which is found only emptiness, nothingness and folly, and not a grain of the salt of truth and wisdom?
Centuries have passed, one after the other, in which mankind has been infatuated by these absurd imaginations which have been advocated. But during all the period there have also been found sincere minds who have written against the injustice of the Doctors in Tiaras, Mitres and Gowns, who have kept mankind in such deplorable blindness which seems to increase every day.
