most every case, doubt about them will be almost as impossible as
doubt about one's own existence. Hardly one in ten thousand will have
the strength of mind to ask himself seriously and earnestly--is that
true? To call such as can do it strong minds, _esprits forts_, is a
description more apt than is generally supposed. But for the ordinary
mind there is nothing so absurd or revolting but what, if inculcated in
that way, the strongest belief in it will strike root. If, for example,
the killing of a heretic or infidel were essential to the future
salvation of his soul, almost every one would make it the chief event of
his life, and in dying would draw consolation and strength from the
remembrance that he had succeeded. As a matter of fact, almost every
Spaniard in days gone by used to look upon an _auto da fe_ as the most
pious of all acts and one most agreeable to God. A parallel to this may
be found in the way in which the Thugs (a religious sect in India,
suppressed a short time ago by the English, who executed numbers of
them) express their sense of religion and their veneration for the
goddess Kali; they take every opportunity of murdering their friends and
traveling companions, with the object of getting possession of their
goods, and in the serious conviction that they are thereby doing a
praiseworthy action, conducive to their eternal welfare. [Footnote: Cf.
Illustrations of the history and practice of the Thugs, London, 1837;
also the _Edinburg Review_, Oct.-Jan., 1836-7.] The power of religious
dogma, when inculcated early, is such as to stifle conscience,
compassion, and finally every feeling of humanity. But if you want to
see with your own eyes and close at hand what timely inoculation will
accomplish, look at the English. Here is a nation favored before all
others by nature; endowed, more than all others, with discernment,
intelligence, power of judgment, strength of character; look at them,
abased and made ridiculous, beyond all others, by their stupid
ecclesiastical superstition, which appears amongst their other abilities
like a fixed idea or monomania. For this they have to thank the
circumstance that education is in the hands of the clergy, whose
endeavor it is to impress all the articles of belief, at the earliest
age, in a way that amounts to a kind of paralysis of the brain; this in
its turn expresses itself all their life in an idiotic bigotry, which
makes otherwise most sensible and intelligent peop