I need the hypothesis of God to prove my good-will towards a
multitude of sects, whose opinions I do not share, but whose
malice I fear:-- theists; I know one who, in the cause of God,
would be ready to draw sword, and, like Robespierre, use the
guillotine until the last atheist should be destroyed, not
dreaming that that atheist would be himself;-- mystics, whose
party, largely made up of students and women marching under the
banner of MM. Lamennais, Quinet, Leroux, and others, has taken
for a motto, "Like master, like man;" like God, like people; and,
to regulate the wages of the workingman, begins by restoring
religion;-- spiritualists, who, should I overlook the rights of
spirit, would accuse me of establishing the worship of matter,
against which I protest with all the strength of my
soul;--sensualists and materialists, to whom the divine dogma is
the symbol of constraint and the principle of enslavement of the
passions, outside of which, they say, there is for man neither
pleasure, nor virtue, nor genius;--eclectics and sceptics,
sellers and publishers of all the old philosophies, but not
philosophers themselves, united in one vast brotherhood, with
approbation and privilege, against whoever thinks, believes, or
affirms without their permission;--conservatives finally,
retrogressives, egotists, and hypocrites, preaching the love of
God by hatred of their neighbor, attributing to liberty the
world's misfortunes since the deluge, and scandalizing reason by
their foolishness.
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