I have already said it:b there are no annals that inform us of the morals and customs of a nation steeped in atheism. Thus one cannot refute by experience the conjecture one makes to begin with on this subject; namely, that atheists are not capableof any moral virtue and that they are ferocious beasts among whom there is more reason to fear for one's life than among tigers and lions. But it is not difficult to show that this conjecture is very uncertain. For since experience shows us that those who believe in a paradise and a hell are capable of committing every sort of crime, it is evident that the inclination to act badly does not stem from the fact that one is ignorant of the existence of God and that it is not corrected by the knowledge one acquires of a God who punishes and rewards. It follows manifestly from this that the inclination to act badly is not found in a soul destitute of the knowledge of God any more than in a soul that knows God; and that a soul destitute of the knowledge of God is no freer of the brake that represses the malignity of the heart than is a soul that has this knowledge. It follows from this in addition that the inclination co act badly comes from the ground of man's nature and that it is strengthened by the passions, which, coming from the temperament as their source, are subsequently modified in many ways according to the various accidents of life. Finally, it follows from this that the inclination to pity, to sobriety, to good-natured conduct, and so forth, does not stem from the fact that one knows there to be a God (for otherwise it would be necessary to say that there has never been a cruel and drunken pagan) but from a certain disposition of the temperament, fortified by education, by personal interest, by the desire to be praised, by the instinct of reason, or by similar motives that are met with in an atheist as well as in other men.
SOURCE: Various Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet (1682)
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