ed. The
errors, in my opinion, are, in this respect, very frequent; people
rarely cherish a child for its own sake. That paternal love of which so
many men make a parade, and by which they believe themselves so warmly
affected, is most frequently nothing more than an effect, either of a
desire of perpetuating their names, or of pride of command...... Do
you not know that Galileo was unworthily dragged to the prison of the
Inquisition, for having maintained that the sun is placed in the centre,
and does not move around the earth; that his system first offended the
weak, and appeared directly contrary to that text of Scripture--'Sun,
stand thou still?' However, able divines have since made Galileo's
principles agree with those of religion. Who has told you, that a
divine more happy or more enlightened than you, will not remove the
contradiction, which you think you perceive between your religion, and
the opinion you resolve to condemn! Who forces you by a precipitate
censure to expose, if not religion, at least its ministers, to the
hatred excited by persecution? Why, always borrowing the assistance of
force and terror, would you impose silence on men of genius, and deprive
mankind of the useful knowledge they are capable of dispensing? You
obey, you say, the dictates of religion. But it commands you to distrust
yourselves, and to love your neighbor. If you do not act in conformity
to these principles, you are then not actuated by the spirit of God.
But you say, by whom then are we inspired? By laziness and pride. It
is laziness, the enemy of thought, which makes you averse to those
opinions, which you cannot, without study and some fatigue of attention,
unite with the principles received in the schools; but which being
proved to be philosophically true, cannot be theologically false. It is
pride, which is ordinarily carried to a greater height in the bigot than
in any other person, which makes him detest in the man of genius the
benefactor of the human race, and which exasperates him against the
truths discovered by humility. It is then this laziness and this pride,
which, disguising themselves under the appearance of zeal, render them
the persecutors of men of learning; and which in Italy, Spain, and
Portugal, have forged chains, built gibbets, and held the torch to the
piles of the Inquisition. Thus the same pride, which is so formidable in
the devout fanatic, and which in all religions makes him persecute, in
the name