theory and in practice, that is to say,
who believed in neither a Providence nor a future life; this senate was
an assembly of philosophers, of sensualists and ambitious men, all very
dangerous, who ruined the republic. Epicureanism existed under the
emperors: the atheists of the senate had been rebels in the time of
Sylla and Caesar: under Augustus and Tiberius they were atheist slaves.

I would not wish to have to deal with an atheist prince, who would find
it to his interest to have me ground to powder in a mortar: I should be
quite sure of being ground to powder. If I were a sovereign, I would not
wish to have to deal with atheist courtiers, whose interest it would be
to poison me: I should have to be taking antidotes every day. It is
therefore absolutely necessary for princes and for peoples, that the
idea of a Supreme Being, creator, ruler, rewarder, revenger, shall be
deeply engraved in people's minds.

Bayle says, in his "Thoughts on the Comets," that there are atheist
peoples. The Caffres, the Hottentots, the Topinambous, and many other
small nations, have no God: they neither deny nor affirm; they have
never heard speak of Him; tell them that there is a God: they will
believe it easily; tell them that everything happens through the nature
of things; they will believe you equally. To claim that they are
atheists is to make the same imputation as if one said they are
anti-Cartesian; they are neither for nor against Descartes. They are
real children; a child is neither atheist nor deist, he is nothing.

What conclusion shall we draw from all this? That atheism is a very
pernicious monster in those who govern; that it is also pernicious in
the persons around statesmen, although their lives may be innocent,
because from their cabinets it may pierce right to the statesmen
themselves; that if it is not so deadly as fanaticism, it is nearly
always fatal to virtue. Let us add especially that there are less
atheists to-day than ever, since philosophers have recognized that there
is no being vegetating without germ, no germ without a plan, etc., and
that wheat comes in no wise from putrefaction.

Some geometers who are not philosophers have rejected final causes, but
real philosophers admit them; a catechist proclaims God to the children,
and Newton demonstrates Him to the learned.

If there are atheists, whom must one blame, if not the mercenary tyrants
of souls, who, making us revolt against their knaveries, force