d the existence of God? The priests
themselves tell us that it is on reason, the spectacle of nature, and
on the marvellous order which appears in the universe. Those to whom
these motives for believing in the existence of the Divinity do not
appear convincing, find not, in any of the religions in the world,
motives more persuasive; for all systems of theology, framed for the
exercise of the imagination, plunge us into more uncertainty
respecting their evidence, when they appeal to nature for proofs of
what they advance.

What, then, are we to think of the God of the clergy? Can we think
that he exists, without reasoning on that existence? And what shall we
think of those who are ignorant of this God, or have no belief in his
existence; who cannot discover him in the works of nature, either as
good or evil; who behold only order and disorder succeeding
alternately? What idea shall we form of those men who regard matter as
eternal, as actuated on by laws, peculiar to itself; as sufficiently
powerful to produce itself under all the forms we behold; as
perpetually exerting itself in nourishing and destroying itself, in
combining and dissolving itself; as incapable of love or of hatred; as
deprived of the faculties of _intelligence_ and _sentiment_ known to
belong to beings of our species, but capable of supporting those
beings whose organization has made them intelligent, sensible, and
reasonable?

What shall we say of those Freethinkers who find neither good nor
evil, neither order nor disorder, in the universe; that all things are
but relative to different conditions of beings, of which they have
evidence; and that all that happens in the universe is necessary, and
subjected to destiny? In a word, what shall we think of these men?

Shall we say that they have only a different manner of viewing things,
or that they use different words in expressing themselves? They call
that _Nature_ which others call the _Divinity_; they call that
_Necessity_ which all others call the _Divine decrees_; they call that
the _Energy_ of _Nature_ which others call the _Author_ of _Nature_;
they call that _Destiny_, or _Fate_, which others call _God_, whose
laws are always going forward.

Have we, then, any right to hate and to exterminate them? No, without
doubt; at least, we cannot admit that we have any reason that those
should perish, who speak only the same language with ourselves, and
who are reciprocally beneficial to us. Neverthel