LUCIAN,—Just so; under such governments, man is a mere puppet moved at the pleasures of his oppressors, who keep him ignorant, and work him thoroughly: promising him a post mortem happiness in another life, provided he bears the yoke of misery quietly in this:—
"Then the mind's independence insensibly sinks
The taint of one portion enfeebling the whole,
Till oppression, preparing the doubled-twined links,
King and priests draw their victim down—body and soul."
But you forget the immensely different degrees of evil occasioned by the inventions of theology; in England, Ireland, and Wales,* alone, the enormous sum of nine millions nine hundred and twenty thousand pounds is annually squandered in pampering and enriching the dignitaries, and maintaining the rest of a body of ecclesiastics, about thirty thousand in number. This sum is considerably more than half of all the clerical revenues of Christendom; and cannot possibly have any other source than the industry of the people, who, in return for their toil and starvation, are robbed of their senses, their judgments, and their liberties. That religion which attempts, through the aid of civil tyranny, to enforce the belief or acquiescence in the truth of its dogmas, virtually gives a premium to falsehood—renders truth injurious in society, and, by these very actions, proves itself false.
MOD.—The religions of antiquity must have been a down-draught upon industry also, and were used wholly for the purpose of deception. The dominant superstition of a country will always be taken into partnership by the political rulers; not because they think it true,** but as an auxiliary and pillar of government, which confers upon the professors thereof many privileges and immunities, in return for their support.
* To these countries nothing has been more burdensome and
ruinous than the expense of worshipping their gods.
** Wherever truth is compelled to hide her head, there is
necessarily a vicious order of things, both political and
moral. If instructors and governors were themselves
possessed of knowledge and virtue they would govern men more
easily, and much better, by realities than by fables.
LUCIAN.—The Athenians never had an established priesthood, that overwhelming master-curse of modern times; and as for that of the Romans, it did not, from the Pontifex Maximus, down to the lowest priest, exceed from fifty to sixty persons; and as the dignitaries at the head of these were always amongst the first men of the state, their offices were purely honorary. Under these circumstances it was quite impossible that the whole institution could be either oppressive upon industry or dangerous to liberty. As the Roman superstition was supported by the state for no other purpose than that of deception, to serve the ends of political jugglery, or as a means of enabling generals of armies to restrain the rashness of their troops, or excite them to fight with enthusiasm when required; so, in like manner, are the more recently-invented deceptions of theology supported, and from the same motive, by the different nations of Europe, but in a degree, and with effects infinitely more degrading and oppressive to all the real wealth-producers. Of all deceivers who have plagued the worlds none are so deeply ruinous to human happiness, or so deserving of universal execration, as those impostors who pretend to lead men by a light above Nature.
MOD.—The ignorant fears and inquisitiveness of mankind seems to require such leaders; they cannot account for the phænomena of Nature, and therefore they keep a class of men in pay who pretend to explain to them certain personified existences superior to Nature, who work the machinery behind the scenes; and in whom is inherent, they say, the sole power to cause and control all such phænomena. But if the hopes and fears of an ignorant populace impel them to keep such teachers, it is true that those alone who require their services should contribute to their support; yet as riches is power, confederate political rulers make their adopted priesthoods wealthy, by the exaction of tithes and other imposts upon industry; in all of which they are borne out and justified by god's old will.
LUCIAN.—That was one of the reasons why Jahouh, when he ceased to be a Jew, was not made to revoke his old will, which, like his new one, was the word and will of his priests, who were not likely to permit him to forget tithes. The present condition of the English and Irish churches shows that the legal robbery of this exaction has been sadly aggravated since its first introduction into Christianity. For the first eight hundred years of our era tithes were given as alms. We are informed by Sts. Jerome, Bernard, Chrysostom, Wickliffe, Huss, and many other writers who uniformly agree, that tithes were purely voluntary. St. Augustine says: "If we (the priests) do possess anything privately which doth suffice us, the tithes, or alms, are not ours, but the goods of the poor, whose stewards we are; except we do challenge to ourselves a property by some damnable usurpation." Blackstone says that at first tithes were distributed in a fourfold division; one for the share of the Bishop, another for maintaining the fabric of the church, a third for the poor, and a fourth to provide for the incumbent. When the sees of the bishops became otherwise amply endowed, they were prohibited from demanding their usual share; so that the poor became entitled to one-third. As the clergy now eat up the whole, the "usurpation" of St, Augustine has grown more and more "damnable." St. Jerome asserted that, according to St. Paul, it was "by the instigation of the devil" that distinctions of rank in religion were made, by the creation of bishops and other dignitaries.
MOD.—All this serves only to show that human beings, so far as we know their history, have always paid priests to lead or mislead them, through the medium of supematurals, whether these be real or fanciful. In denying any first cause, or creation of matter, I suppose you must allow that man cannot be a spontaneous production of the earth, and therefore the admission of his origin is unavoidable.
LUCIAN.—It is in vain that we see the human species propagated exactly as are all the mammalia classes:—theology prevents a correct view of everything; and it is its business to trample upon analogy and experience, and to feed man with fables about his first production. You ask, how came man into existence? But it would be quite as philosophical to ask how the first tree, worm, or oyster, came into being.* All organised life arises from some energy in the affinities and motions of matter, that is altogether unknown to us, and which gives rise to vegetable and animal life; so that the production of man is nothing more wonderful than that of any shell fish. All generation is motion. But the rational probability is, that the various species of homo found on this globe, were always upon it; Nature propagating each upon that part of its surface that is congenial to the particular species; and that in the almost inconceivably slow process of the change, by which portions of the globe's surface become alternately sea and land, they migrated in succession, as old lands were wasted by the sea, and as new lands afforded asylums.