perceive, that belief in a Deity produced morality or inspired courage,
I might be prompted to confess, that the contrary would ensue from
atheism. But the bulk of the world has long believed, or long pretended
to believe in a Deity, yet morality and every commendable quality seem
at a stand. The believer and the unbeliever we often see equally base,
equally immoral. Superstition is certainly only the excess of religion.
That evidently is attended often with immorality and cowardice. I am
tempted to say, from observation, that the belief of a Deity is apt to
drive mankind into vice and baseness; but I check myself in the
assertion, upon considering that very few indeed are those who really
believe in a Deity out of such as pretend to do so. It is impossible
for an intellectual being to believe firmly in that of which he can
give no account, or of which he can form no conception. I hold the
Deity, the fancied Deity, at least, of whom with all his attributes
such pompous descriptions are set forth to the great terror of old
women and the amusement of young children, to be an object of which we
form (as appears when we scrutinise into our ideas) no conception and
therefore can give no account. It is said, after all this, that men do
still believe in such a Deity, I then do say in return, they do not
make use of their intellects. The moment we go into a belief beyond
what we feel, see and understand, we might as well believe in
will-with-a-whisp as in God. But I would fix morality upon a better
basis than belief in a Deity. If it has indeed at present no other
basis, it is not morality, it is selfishness, it is timidity; it is the
hope of reward, it is the dread of punishment. For a great and good
man, shew me one who loves virtue because he finds a pleasure in it,
who has acquired a taste for that pleasure by considering what and
where happiness is, who is not such a fool as to seek misery in
preference to happiness, whose honour is his Deity, whose conscience
is his judge. Put such a man in combat against the superstitious son