and that each
citizen should pronounce according to it alone."[3428] "Whatever breaks
up social unity is worthless," and it would be better for the State if
there were no Church.--

Not only is every church suspicious but, if I am a Christian, my belief
is regarded unfavorably. According to this new legislator "nothing is
more opposed to the social spirits than Christianity. . . . A society
of true Christians would no longer form a society of men." For, "the
Christian patrimony is not of this world." It cannot zealously serve
the State, being bound by its conscience to support tyrants. Its law
"preaches only servitude and dependence. . . it is made for a slave,"
and never will a citizen be made out of a slave. "Christian Republic,
each of these two words excludes the other." Therefore, if the future
Republic assents to my profession of Christianity, it is on the
understood condition that my doctrine shall be shut up in my mind,
without even affecting my heart. If I am a Catholic, (and twenty-five
out of twenty-six million Frenchmen are like me), my condition is worse.
For the social pact does not tolerate an intolerant religion; any sect
that condemns other sects is a public enemy; "whoever presumes to say
that there is no salvation outside the church, must be driven out of the
State."

Should I be, finally, a free-thinker, a positivist or skeptic, my
situation is little better.

"There is a civil religion," a catechism, "a profession of faith, of
which the sovereign has the right to dictate the articles, not exactly
as religious dogmas but as sentiments of social import without which
we cannot be a good citizen or a loyal subject." These articles embrace
"the existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent, foreseeing and
provident divinity, the future life, the happiness of the righteous, the
punishment of the wicked, the sacredness of the social contract and of
the laws.[3429] Without forcing anyone to believe in this creed, whoever
does not believe in it must be expelled from the State; it is necessary
to banish such persons not on account of impiety, but as unsociable
beings, incapable of sincerely loving law and justice and, if need be,
of giving up life for duty."

Take heed that this profession of faith be not a vain one, for a new
inquisition is to test its sincerity.

"Should any person, after having publicly recognized these dogmas, act
as an unbeliever, let him be punished with death. He has committed