Origine de tous les cultes ou religion universelle ([1795] 'an 3') - Page 6

EPISTLE TO MY WIFE.

research, through the charms of the sweetest society? During the twenty-two years that marriage has united us, you have spread happiness over every moment of my life. A good mother, a good wife, a good friend, a good citizen, simple, frank, and generous, you have joined the philosophy of morals to that of opinions; and the most purified reason to the most steady character. The serenity of your brow, an image of the tranquility of your soul, inspires a gentle cheerfulness in those who live in your company. Your husband and books have always been your strongest passion; to love him and to instruct yourself are your sweetest pleasure. The greatest praise that can be made of your taste is your esteem for Voltaire, to whom you devote all the time left to you by the economic cares of your house, the good order of which is the fruit of your oversight and your work. If some moments remain for you, after having exhausted all your admiration on the productions of that immortal genius, of which nature never offered but this one example, you may cast a glance at the Works of your husband. His spirit, like his heart, is yours. His name will increase the interest of this reading for you, and your tenderness for the Author will hide the defects of the Work from you. Read me, and I shall be amply paid for my labor. It is from you alone that the Public shall receive it. It would have been burned without you. I hold more to this Epistle than to the rest of the Work.

DUPUIS.

PREFACE.

ALTHOUGH this Work bears the title of Universal Religion, I am far from claiming to establish a Religion therein that ought to be admitted by all Peoples. Such a foolishness never entered my head. I analyze the opinions of others, and I take great care not to create one myself. The genius of the man who can explain Religions seems to me far above the one who makes them; therefore, it is to the former glory that I aspire. It is for the Public to decide if I have deserved it. I do not hide the fact that I have sought it, not out of the vanity of appearing to have done what others had never done before me; but out of love for the truth, for which I thirst, as well as for justice. All my work has as its object to know in what relations our Fathers placed us with Nature and with Divinity, and to draw aside the mysterious veil under which they shrouded religious science. I examine, not what one ought to think of the Divinity or of the eternal cause that moves the world and produced me; but what men of all ages and all countries have thought of it. Does a God exist, or a supreme cause, living, intelligent, supremely powerful, eternal and incomprehensible to man? This is what I do not examine, and what I believe useless to examine; not only because it seems clear to me, but also because this question does not enter into the plan of my Work; since I am only the historian of the opinions of others, and I do not give my own, which moreover matters little to my Fellow Citizens. What is the Soul? Is it immortal? All these philosophical questions enter into my work only as a historical part, and in no way as a dogmatic one. As a Citizen, I shall be the first to give the example of submission to all opinions that form the general will; above all, when they tend to strengthen the bond of morality and legislation, and to make man better. As a Philosopher, I shall take great care not to command an opinion to others, nor to place myself between my fellow man and the Divinity. Every man has, like me, the right to see only himself and Nature, and to fix the relations in which he believes he ought to be with her, without any intermediate opinion.