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System of Nature Volume 2 ! ! " ! ## $ ! # % &&# ' !()*). Kitchener 2001 Batoche Books 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada email: [email protected] Table of Contents The System of Nature. Volume 2 ............................................................... 4 Chapter I. Of the confuted and contradictory ideas of Theology. .............. 4 Chapter II. Examination of the Proofs of the Existence of the Divinity, as given by Clarke. ........................................................................... 19 Chapter III. Examination of the Proofs of the Existence of God given by Descartes, Malebranche, Newton, &c. ......................................... 43 Chapter IV. Of Pantheism, or of the Natural Ideas of the Divinity. ......... 55 Chapter V. Of Theism or Deism; of the System of Optimism; and of Final Causes. ......................................................................................... 66 Chapter VI. Examination of the Advantages which result to men from their Notions on the Divinity, or of their Influence upon Morals, upon Politics, upon the Sciences, upon the Happiness of Nations and Individuals. ............................................................................ 84 Chapter VII. Theological Notions cannot be the Basis of Morality. Comparison between Theological Morality and Natural Morality. Theology Prejudicial to the Progress of the Human Mind. .......... 97 Chapter VIII. Men can form no Conclusion from the Ideas which are given them of the Divinity: Of the want of Just Interference in, and of the Inutility of, their Conduct on his Account. ...................... 109 Chapter IX. Defence of the Sentiments contained in this Work. Of Impiety. Do there exist Atheists? ............................................... 124 Chapter X. Is Atheism compatible with Morality? ................................ 132 Chapter XI. Of the Motives which lead to Atheism? Can this System be Dangerous? Can it be Embraced by the Uninformed? ............... 141 Chapter XII. A Summary of the Code of Nature. .................................. 158 Appendix. The True Meaning Of the System of Nature. ....................... 167 Notes ...................................................................................................... 193 The System of Nature. Volume 2 Chapter I. Of the confuted and contradictory ideas of Theology. Every thing that has been said, proves pretty clearly, that in despite of all his efforts, man has never been able to prevent himself from drawing together from his own peculiar nature, the qualities he has assigned to the being who governs the universe. The contradictions necessarily resulting from the incompatible assemblage of these human qualities, which cannot become suitable to the same subject, seeing that the existence of one destroys the existence of the other, have been shown: — the theologians themselves have felt the insurmountable difficulties which their Divinities presented to reason: they were so substantive, that as they felt the impossibility of withdrawing themselves out of the dilemma, they endeavoured to prevent man from reasoning, by throwing his mind into confusion — by continually augmenting the perplexity of those ideas, already so discordant, which they offered him of their God. By this means they enveloped him in mystery, covered him with dense clouds, rendered him inaccessible to mankind: thus they themselves became the interpreters, the masters of explaining, according either to their fancy or their interest, the ways of that enigmatical being they made him adore. For this purpose they exaggerated him more and more — neither time nor space, nor the entire of nature could contain his immensity — every thing became an impenetrable mystery. Although man has originally borrowed from himself the traits, the colours, the primitive lineaments of which he composed his God; although he has made him a jealous powerful, vindictive monarch, yet his theology, by force of dreaming, entirely lost sight of human nature; and in order to render his Divinities still more different from their creatures, it assigned them, over and above tne usual qualities of man, properties so marvellous, so uncommon, so far removed from every thing of which his mind could form a conception, that he lost sight of them himself. From thence he persuaded himself these qualities were divine, because he could no longer comprehend them; he believed them worthy of God, because no man could figure to himself any one distinct idea of him. Thus theology obtained the point of persuading man he must believe that which he could not conceive; that he must receive with submission improbable systems; that he must adopt, with pious deference, conjectures contrary to his reason; that this reason itself was the most agreeable sacrifice he could make on the altars of his fantastical master who was unwilling he should use the gift he had bestowed upon him. In short, it had made mortals implicitly believe that they were not formed to comprehend the thing of all others the most important to themselves.1 On the other hand, man persuaded himself that the gigantic, the truly incomprehensible attributes which were assigned to his celestial monarch, placed between him and his slaves a distance so immense, that this proud master could not be by any means offended with the comparison; that these distinctions rendered him still greater; made him more powerful, more marvellous, more inaccessible to observation. Man always D’Holbach, The System of Nature, volume 2, 5 entertains the idea, that what he is not in a condition to conceive, is much more noble, much more respectable, than that which he has the capacity to comprehend: he imagines that his God, like tyrants, does not wish to be examined too closely. These prejudices in man for the marvellous, appear to have been the source that gave birth to those wonderful, unintelligible qualities with which theology clothed the sovereign of the world. The invincible ignorance of the human mind, whose fears reduced him to despair, engendered those obscure, vague notions, with which he decorated his God. He believed he could never displease him, provided he rendered him incommensurable, impossible to be compared with any thing of which he had a knowledge; either with that which was most sublime, or that which possessed the greatest magnitude. From hence the multitude of negative attributes with which ingenious dreamers have successively embellished their phantom God, to the end that they might more surely form a being distinguished from all others, or which possessed nothing in common with that which the human mind had the faculty of being acquainted with. The theological metaphysical attributes, were in fact nothing hut pure negations of the qualities found in man, or in those beings of which he has a knowledge; by these attributes their God was supposed exempted from every thing which they considered weakness or imperfection in him, or in the beings by whom he is surrounded. To say that God is infinite, as has been shown, is only to affirm, that unlike man, or the beings with whom he is acquainted, he is not circumscribed by the limits of space; this, however, is what he can never in any manner comprehend, because he is himself finite.2 When it is said that God is eternal; it signifies he has not had, like man or like every thing that exists, a beginning, and that he will never have an end: to say he is immutable, is to say that unlike himself or every thing which he sees, God is not subject to change: to say he is immaterial, is to advance, that their substance or essence is of a nature not conceivable by himself, but which must from that very circumstance be totally different from every thing of which he has cognizance. It is from the confused collection of these negative qualities, that has resulted the theological God; the metaphysical whole of which it is impossible for man to form to himself any correct idea. In this abstract being every thing is infinity — immensity — spirituality — omniscience — order — wisdom — intelligence — omnipotence. In combining these vague terms, or these modifications, the priests believed they formed something, they extended these qualities by thought, and they imagined they made a God, whilst they only composed a chimera. They imagined that these perfections or these qualities must be suitable to this God, because they were not suitable to any thing of which they had a knowledge; they believed that an incomprehensible being must have inconceivable qualities. These were the materials of which theology availed itself to compose the inexplicable phantom before which they commanded the human race to bend the knee. Nevertheless, a being so vague, so impossible to be conceived, so incapable of definition, so far removed from every thing of which man could have any knowledge, was but little calculated to fix his restless views; his mind requires to be arrested by qualities which he is capacitated to ascertain — of which he is in a condition to form a judgment. Thus after it had D’Holbach, The System of Nature, volume 2, 6 subtilized this metaphysical God, after it had rendered him so different in idea, from every thing that acts upon the senses, theology found itself under the necessity of again assimilating him to man, from whom it had so far removed him: it therefore again made him human by the moral qualities which it assigned him; it felt that without this it would not be able to persuade mankind there could possibly exist any relation between
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