Politicians and the Civil Society: But what I insist upon, is, that
the temporal Benefit of it, or the Contrivance of Oaths and Swearing,
could never have enter'd into the the Heads of Politician, if the Fear
of an invisible Cause had not pre-existed and been supposed to be
universal, any more than they would have contrived matrimony, if the
Desire of Procreation had not been planted in Human Nature and visible
in both Sexes. Passions don't affect us, but when they are provoked:
The Fear of Death is a Reality in our Nature: But the greatest Cowards
may, and often do, live Forty Years and longer, without being
disturb'd by it. The Fear of an invisible Cause is as real in our
Nature, as the Fear of Death; either of them may be conquer'd perhaps;
but so may Lust; and Experience teaches us, that how violent soever
the Desire of Propagating our Species may be whilst we are young, it
goes off, and is often entirely lost in old Age. When I hear a Man
say, that he never felt any Fear of an invisible Cause, that was not
owing to Education, I believe him as much as I do a young married
Woman in Health and Vigour, who tells me, that she never felt any Love
to a Man, that did not proceed from a Sense of her Duty.

Hor. Does this Fear, this Acknowledgment of an invisible Cause,
dispose or excite men any more to the true Religion, than it does to
the grossest and most abominable Idolatry?

Cleo. I don't say it does. But there is no Passion in Human Nature so
beneficial, that, according as it is managed, may not do Mischief as
well as good. What do you think of Love? If this Fear had not been
common to the whole Species, none could have been influenc'd by it;
the Consequence of which must have been, that Men would have rejected
the true Religion as well as the false. There is Nothing that Men may
differ in, in which they will ever be all of the same Opinion: And