Unfortunately, they still carry along with them the sympathies of those populations from among whom slavery has disappeared, and this again shows how powerful an agent public opinion is.
If public opinion is sovereign, even in the region of Force, it is very much more so in the region of Craft [Ruse], In truth, this is its true domain. Cunning is the abuse of intelligence, and public opinion is the progress of intelligence. These two powers are at least of the same nature. Imposture on the part of the spoliator implies credulity on the part of those despoiled, and the natural antidote to credulity is truth. Hence it follows that to enlighten men's minds is to take away from this species of spoliation what supports and feeds it.
I shall pass briefly in review some specimens of spoliation which are due to craft exercised on a very extensive scale.
The first which presents itself is spoliation by priestcraft [ruse thêocratique].
What is the object in view? The object is to procure provisions, vestments, luxury, consideration, influence, power, by exchanging fictitious for real services.
If I tell a man, "I am going to render you great and immediate services," I must keep my word, or this man will soon be in a situation to detect the imposture, and my artifice will be instantly unmasked.
But if I say to him, "In exchange for your services I am going to render you immense service, not in this world, but in another; for after this life is ended, your being eternally happy or miserable depends upon me. I am an intermediate being between God and His creature, and I can, at my will, open the gates of heaven or of hell." If this man only believes me, I have him in my power.
This species of imposture has been practised wholesale since the beginning of the world, and we know what plenitude of power was exercised by the Egyptian priests.
It is easy to discover how these impostors proceed. We have only to ask ourselves what we should do were we in their place.
If I arrived among an ignorant tribe with views of this sort, and succeeded by some extraordinary and marvellous act to pass myself off for a supernatural being, I should give myself out for an envoy of God, and as possessing absolute control over the future destinies of man.