“I like that. If I deliver the race of man from a wild beast which is devouring it, am I to be asked what I intend to put in its place?”
“It does not devour it; on the contrary, it is necessary to its existence.”
“Necessary to its existence! That is a horrible blasphemy, the falsity of which will be seen in the future. I love the human race; I would fain see men like myself, free and happy, and superstition and freedom cannot go together. Where do you find an enslaved and yet a happy people?”
“You wish, then, to see the people sovereign?”
“God forbid! There must be a sovereign to govern the masses.”
“In that case you must have superstition, for without it the masses will never obey a mere man decked with the name of monarch.”
“I will have no monarch; the word expresses despotism, which I hate as I do slavery.”
“What do you mean, then? If you wish to put the government in the hands of one man, such a man, I maintain, will be a monarch.”
“I would have a sovereign ruler of a free people, of which he is the chief by an agreement which binds them both, which would prevent him from becoming a tyrant.”
“Addison will tell you that such a sovereign is a sheer impossibility. I agree with Hobbes, of two evils choose the least. A nation without superstition would be a nation of philosophers, and philosophers would never obey. The people will only be happy when they are crushed and down-trodden, and bound in chains.”