LIII

OF THE LEGISLATORS WHO HAVE SPOKEN IN THE NAME OF THE GODS

EVERY PROFANE legislator who dared to feign that the Divinity had dictated to him his laws, was a palpable blasphemer, and a traitor; a blasphemer, because he calumniated the gods; a traitor, because he subjected his country to his own opinions.

There are two sorts of laws, the one natural, common to all, and useful to all. “Thou shalt not steal from, nor shalt thou kill thy neighbor; thou shalt take respectful care of those who gave thee life, and who reared thee in thine infancy; thou shalt not ravish thy brother’s wife; thou shalt not lie to prejudice him; thou shalt assist him in his wants, to merit succor from him in turn.” Such are the laws which nature has promulgated from the extremity of the islands of Japan to our western coasts. Neither Orpheus, nor Hermes, neither Lycurgus, nor Numa, required Jupiter to appear at the roaring of thunder, to foretell these truths engraven in every heart.

If I had met with one of those great quacks in a public square, I should have called out to him, Stop, do not compromise thus with the Divinity; thou wouldst cheat me, if thou makest him come down to teach us what we all knew; thou wouldst doubtless turn him to some other use; thou wouldst avail thyself of my agreeing to eternal truths, be but ill-acquainted with the human heart, to suppose it preach thee to the people as a tyrant who blasphemeth.

Other laws are political: laws purely civil and eternally despotic, which at one time establish ephori, at another consuls, comites by centuries, or comites by tribes, an areopagus or a senate, aristocracy, democracy, or monarchy. We must be but ill acquainted with the human heart, to suppose it could be possible that a profane legislator had ever established any one of those political laws in the name of the gods, otherwise than with an eye to his own interest. Man are thus deceived only for his emolument.

But have all profane legislators been rogues, deserving of a halter? No: just as it is at present in the assemblies of magistrates. Men of honor and upright principles are always to be met with, who propose things useful to society, without boasting that they were revealed to them: so amongst legislators, some have been found who have instituted admirable laws, without attributing them either to Jupiter or Minerva. Such was the Roman senate, which gave laws to Europe, to little Asia and Africa, without deceiving them; and such in our days was Peter the Great, who might have imposed laws upon his subjects more easily than Hermes did upon the Egyptians, Minos upon the Cretans, or Zamolxis upon the ancient Scythians.