institution being founded on religion. Neglect of duties imposed
by religion may increase the general corruption, but it is not
the primary cause; it is only an auxiliary or result. It is
universally admitted, and especially in the matter which now
engages our attention, that the cause of the inequality of
conditions among men--of pauperism, of universal misery, and of
governmental embarrassments--can no longer be traced to
religion: we must go farther back, and dig still deeper.

But what is there in man older and deeper than the religious
sentiment?

There is man himself; that is, volition and conscience, free-will
and law, eternally antagonistic. Man is at war with himself:
why?

"Man," say the theologians, "transgressed in the beginning; our
race is guilty of an ancient offence. For this transgression
humanity has fallen; error and ignorance have become its
sustenance. Read history, you will find universal proof of this
necessity for evil in the permanent misery of nations. Man
suffers and always will suffer; his disease is hereditary and
constitutional. Use palliatives, employ emollients; there is no
remedy."

Nor is this argument peculiar to the theologians; we find it
expressed in equivalent language in the philosophical writings of
the materialists, believers in infinite perfectibility. Destutt
de Tracy teaches formally that poverty, crime, and war are the
inevitable conditions of our social state; necessary evils,