We must therefore believe that this universal Being whom we generally name God, takes no greater care of a man than of an ant, nor pays more attention to a lion than to a stone; neither regards the beauty or deformity, good or evil, perfection or imperfection. He cares not to be praised, beseeched, sought alter, or flattered; he is not affected by what men say or do; he is not susceptible of love or hatred:[1] in one word he is not more occupied with man than he is with the rest of the other creatures, whatever may be their nature. All these distinctions are merely the inventions of a limited understanding: they originate in ignorance, and self-interest keeps them up.
§ 4.
Thus, therefore, no rational man can believe in God, nor in hell, nor in spirits, nor in devils, in the sense in which the terms are generally understood. These big words have only been coined to intimidate and blind the vulgar. Those who wish to convince themselves of this truth would do well to devote particular attention to what follows, and accustom themselves to suspend their judgment until after mature reflection.
§ 5.
The infinity of stars which we see above us has not escaped the fictions of presumptive credulity. Amongst the glittering hosts, there is one said to have been set apart for the celestial court, where God holds regal state in the midst of his courtiers. This place is the residence of the blessed, wither the souls of the virtuous are conveyed after leaving the body. We need not dwell upon an opinion so frivolous and so contradictory to common sense. It is well enough ascertained that what we denominate the heavens is merely a continuation of the air which surrounds us—a fluid through which the other planets move, like the earth which we inhabit, unsustained and unconnected with any solid mass whatever.
§ 6.
The priests having, like the pagans with their Gods and goddesses, invented a heaven, where God and the blessed might dwell; after the same example next they contrived a hell, or subterranean place, to which, they assure us, the spirits of wicked men go down for the purpose of being everlastingly tormented. Now, the word hell, in its original sense, imports no more than a place dark and deep; and the poets invented it as the opposite to the residence of the blessed, which they represented as high and bright. This is the exact signification of the Latin terms inferus and inferi, and the Greek hades; any dark place such as a sepulchre, or whatever was fearful from its depth and obscurity. The whole sprung from the imagination of the poet and the knavery of the priests—the former knowing how to make an impression in this way, on weak, timid, and melancholy minds; and the latter having rather more substantial reasons for continuing the delusion.