Necessity of restraining fanaticism.

Prussia regards intolerance as an abomiuation, and an infraction of the natural and divine law, looks on toleration in France as a crime and a heresy (83). What renders the same man so different in different countries? His weakness in Prussia, and his power in France.

When we consider the conduct of Catholic Christians, they at first, when feeble, appear to be lambs; but when strong, they are tygers.

Will the nations, instructed by past misfortunes, never see the necessity of restraining fanaticism, and of banishing from every religion the monstrous doctrine of intolerance? What is it at this hour that shakes the throne of Turkey, and ravages Poland? Fanaticism. It is this that prevents the Catholic Poles from admitting the Dissenters to a participation of their privileges, and makes them prefer war to toleration. In vain do they impute the present miseries of those countries merely to the pride of the nobility; without religion the great could never have armed the nation, and the impotence of their pride would have preserved peace in their country. Popery has been the secret cause of the miseries of Poland.

At Constantinople it is the fanaticism of the Mussulmans, that by loading the Greek Christians with ignominy, has armed them in secret against the empire which they ought to have defended.

Would to heaven that these two examples now before us, and glaring with the evils produced by religi

ous

Men should be judged by their actions and not by their opinions.

ous intolerance, may be the last of the kind; and that hereafter, indifferent to all modes of worship, governments may judge men by their actions, and not by their opinions; that they may regard virtue and genius as the only recommendations to public favour; and be convinced that it is not of a Romish, Turkish, or Lutheran mechanic, but of the most skilful workman that we should purchase a watch: in short, that it is not to extensive faith, but to superior talents, that offices ought to be intrusted.

As long as the doctrine of intolerance subsists, the moral world will contain within its bosom the seeds of new calamities. It is a volcano half extinguished, that may one day blaze forth with greater violence, and produce fresh conflagrations and destruction.

Such are the fears of a citizen, who, the sincere friend of mankind, earnestly wishes their happiness.

I think I have sufficiently proved in this section, that in general all the factitious passions, and civil and religious intolerance in particular, are nothing more in man than a disguised love of power. The long detail into which the proofs of this truth have led me, has doubtless made the reader forget the motives that forced me into this discussion.

My object was to shew, that if in man all the passions above cited be factitious, all men are in consequence susceptible of them. To make this truth still more evident, I shall here present him with the genealogy of the passions.

The genealogy of the passions.

CHAP. XXII.

THE GENEALOGY OF THE PASSIONS.

MAN is animated by a principle of life, which is corporeal sensibility: this sensibility is produced by a love of pleasure and a hatred for pain: it is from those two sentiments united in man, and always present to his mind, that is formed what we call the passion of self-love (84). The love of self produces the desire of happiness, the desire of happiness that of power, and the love of power gives birth to envy, avarice, ambition, and in general all those factitious passions*(S5), that under various denominations are nothing more than a love of power disguised, and are applied to the several means of attaining it.

* Passions, like elements, tho' born to fight,
Yet, mixed, and softened, in his work unite
Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train,

Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain;
These mixed with art, and to due bounds confined,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:
The lights and shades, whose well accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.

9

POPE.

T.

These

Conclusions from the positions already laid down,

These means being different, we see man, according to his situation or the form of government under which he is placed, advance to power by the path of riches, intrigue, ambition, glory, talents, &c. but invariably directing his steps toward that point.

If we here recollect what is said in the second, third, and fourth sections of this work, which is,

1. That all men have an equal aptitude to understanding.

2. That this equal aptitude is a dead power in them, when not vivified by the passions.

3. That the passion of glory is that which most com. monly sets them in action.

4. That all men are susceptible of it in countries where glory conducts to power.

The general conclusion I thence deduce is, that all men organised in the common manner may be animated by the sort of passion proper to elevate them to the highest truths.

The only objection that remains for me to answer is the following. All men, it will be said, may love glory (86), but can this passion be carried by each of them to a degree of force sufficient to put in action the equal aptitude they have to understanding?

To resolve this question, I will suppose that I have concentered all my happiness in the possession of glory; this passion being then as lively in me as the love of myself, will necessarily be confounded in me with that sentiment. It is required therefore to prove,

that

Of the force of self-love.

that the passion of self-love, common to all men, is the same in all; and that it may at least endow them all with that energy and force of attention that is requisite to the acquiring of the greatest ideas.

CHAP. XXIII.

OF THE FORCE OF THE SENTIMENT OF SELF-LOVE.

THE sentiment of self-love, differently modified in different men, is essentially the same in all. This sentiment is independent of the greater or less perfection of the organs. A man may be deaf, blind, lame, and infirm, and yet have the same solicitude for his preservation, the same aversion to pain, and the same love of pleasure.

Neither the force nor weakness of temperament, nor the perfection of the organs, augments or diminishes in us the force of the sentiment of self-love. Women have no less love for themselves than men, and yet have not the same organization. If there were a way to measure the force of this sentiment, it would be by its constancy, its unity, and if I may so say, its habitual presence; now in all these respects the sentiment of self-love is the same in all men.