which is thus leveled, the
State alone remains standing, and it alone offers any point of adhesion;
all these vines are about to twine themselves in on trunk about the
great central column.

VIII. Indoctrination of mind and intellect.

Indoctrination of mind and intellect.--Civil religion.
--National education.--Egalitarian moral standards.
--Obligatory civism.--The recasting and reduction of human
nature to the Jacobin type.

Let not Man go astray, let us lead him on, let us direct minds and
souls, and, to this end, let us enfold him in our doctrines. He needs
general ideas and the daily experiences flowing out of them; he needs
some theory explaining the origin and nature of things, one which
assigns him his place and the part he has to play in the world, which
teaches him his duties, which regulates his life, which fixes the days
he shall work and the days he shall rest, which stamps itself on
his mind through commemorations, festivals and ceremonies, through a
catechism and a calendar. Up to this time Religion has been the power
charged with this service, interpreted and served by the Church; now
it is to be Reason, interpreted and served by the State.--In this
connection, many among us, disciples of the encyclopedists, constitute
Reason a divinity, and honor her with a system of worship; but it is
plain that they personify an abstraction; their improvised goddess is
simply an allegorical phantom; none of them see in her the intelligent
cause of the world; in the depths of their hearts they deny this Supreme
Cause, their pretended religion being merely a show or a sham.--We
discard atheism, not only because it is false, but again, and more
especially, because it is disintegrating and unwholesome.[2193] We want
an effective, consolatory and fortifying religion, and that religion is
natural religion, which is social as well as true. "Without this,[2194]
as Rousseau has said, it is impossible to be a good citizen......The
existence of divinity, the future life, the sacredness of the social
contract and of the laws," all are its dogmas; "no one may be forced
to believe in these, but whoever dares say that he does not believe in
them, sets himself up against the French people, the human species and
nature." Consequently, we decree that "the French people recognizes the
Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul."--The important thing now
is to plant this entirely philosophic faith in all