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Those people who have no temples have but a small attachment to their own religion. This is the reason why the Tartars have in all times given so great a toleration;[7] why the barbarous nations, who conquered the Roman empire did not hesitate a moment to embrace Christianity; why the savages of America have so little fondness for their own religion; why, since our missionaries have built churches in Paraguay, the natives of that country have become so zealous for ours.

As the deity is the refuge of the unhappy, and none are more unhappy than criminals, men have been naturally led to think temples an asylum for those wretches. This idea appeared still more natural to the Greeks, where murderers, chased from their city and the presence of men, seemed to have no houses but the temples, nor other protectors than the gods.

At first these were only designed for involuntary homicides; but when the people made them a sanctuary for those who had committed great crimes they fell into a gross contradiction. If they had offended men, they had much greater reason to believe they had offended the gods.

These asylums multiplied in Greece. The temples, says Tacitus,[8] were filled with insolvent debtors and wicked slaves; the magistrate found it difficult to exercise his office; the people protected the crimes of men as the ceremonies of the gods; at length the senate was obliged to retrench a great number of them.

The laws of Moses were perfectly wise. The man who involuntarily killed another was innocent; but he was obliged to be taken away from before the eyes of the relatives of the deceased. Moses therefore appointed an asylum for such unfortunate people.[9] The perpetrators of great crimes deserved not a place of safety, and they had none:[10] the Jews had only a portable tabernacle, which continually changed its place; this excluded the idea of a sanctuary. It is true that they had afterwards a temple; but the criminals who would resort thither from all parts might disturb the divine service. If persons who had committed manslaughter had been driven out of the country, as was customary among the Greeks, they had reason to fear that they would worship strange gods. All these considerations made them establish cities of safety, where they might stay till the death of the high-priest.

4. Of the Ministers of Religion. The first men, says Porphyry,[11] sacrificed only vegetables. In a worship so simple, every one might be priest in his own family.

The natural desire of pleasing the deity multiplied ceremonies. Hence it followed, that men employed in agriculture became incapable of observing them all and of filling up the number.

Particular places were consecrated to the gods; it then became necessary that they should have ministers to take care of them; in the same manner as every citizen took care of his house and domestic affairs. Hence the people who have no priests are commonly barbarians; such were formerly the Pedalians,[12] and such are still the Wolgusky.[13]

Men consecrated to the deity ought to be honoured, especially among people who have formed an idea of a personal purity necessary to approach the places most agreeable to the gods, and for the performance of particular ceremonies.

The worship of the gods requiring a continual application, most nations were led to consider the clergy as a separate body. Thus, among the Egyptians, the Jews, and the Persians,[14] they consecrated to the deity certain families who performed and perpetuated the service. There have been even religions which have not only estranged ecclesiastics from business, but have also taken away the embarrassments of a family; and this is the practice of the principal branch of Christianity.

I shall not here treat of the consequences of the law of celibacy: it is evident that it may become hurtful in proportion as the body of the clergy may be too numerous; and, in consequence of this, that of the laity too small.

By the nature of the human understanding we love in religion everything which carries the idea of difficulty; as in point of morality we have a speculative fondness for everything which bears the character of severity. Celibacy has been most agreeable to those nations to whom it seemed least adapted, and with whom it might be attended with the most fatal consequences. In the southern countries of Europe, where, by the nature of the climate, the law of celibacy is more difficult to observe, it has been retained; in those of the north, where the passions are less lively, it has been banished. Further, in countries where there are but few inhabitants it has been admitted; in those that are vastly populous it has been rejected. It is obvious that these reflections relate only to the too great extension of celibacy, and not to celibacy itself.

5. Of the Bounds which the Laws ought to prescribe to the Riches of the Clergy. As particular families may be extinct, their wealth cannot be a perpetual inheritance. The clergy is a family which cannot be extinct; wealth is therefore fixed to it for ever, and cannot go out of it.

Particular families may increase; it is necessary then that their wealth should also increase. The clergy is a family which ought not to increase; their wealth ought then to be limited.

We have retained the regulations of the Levitical laws as to the possessions of the clergy, except those relating to the bounds of these possessions; indeed, among us we must ever be ignorant of the limit beyond which any religious community can no longer be permitted to acquire.

These endless acquisitions appear to the people so unreasonable that he who should speak in their defence would be regarded as an idiot.

The civil laws find sometimes many difficulties in altering established abuses, because they are connected with things worthy of respect; in this case an indirect proceeding would be a greater proof of the wisdom of the legislator than another which struck directly at the thing itself. Instead of prohibiting the acquisitions of the clergy, we should seek to give them a distaste for them; to leave them the right and to take away the deed.

In some countries of Europe, a respect for the privileges of the nobility has established in their favour a right of indemnity over immovable goods acquired in mortmain. The interest of the prince has in the same case made him exact a right of amortisation. In Castile, where no such right prevails, the clergy have seized upon everything. In Aragon, where there is some right of amortisation, they have obtained less; in France, where this right and that of indemnity are established, they have acquired less still; and it may be said that the prosperity of this kingdom is in a great measure owing to the exercise of these two rights. If possible, then, increase these rights, and put a stop to the mortmain.

Render the ancient and necessary patrimony of the clergy sacred and inviolable, let it be fixed and eternal like that body itself, but let new inheritances be out of their power.

Permit them to break the rule when the rule has become an abuse; suffer the abuse when it enters into the rule.

They still remember in Rome a certain memorial sent thither on some disputes with the clergy, in which was this maxim: "The clergy ought to contribute to the expenses of the state, let the Old Testament say what it will." They concluded from this passage that the author of this memorial was better versed in the language of the tax-gatherers than in that of religion.

6. Of Monasteries. The least degree of common sense will let us see that bodies designed for a perpetual continuance should not be allowed to sell their funds for life, nor to borrow for life; unless we want them to be heirs to all those who have no relatives and to those who do not choose to have any. These men play against the people, but they hold the bank themselves.

7. Of the Luxury of Superstition. "Those are guilty of impiety towards the gods," says Plato,[15] "who deny their existence; or who, while they believe it, maintain that they do not interfere with what is done below; or, in fine, who think that they can easily appease them by sacrifices: three opinions equally pernicious." Plato has here said all that the clearest light of nature has ever been able to say in point of religion. The magnificence of external worship has a principal connection with the institution of the state. In good republics, they have curbed not only the luxury of vanity, but even that of superstition. They have introduced frugal laws into religion. Of this number are many of the laws of Solon; many of those of Plato on funerals, adopted by Cicero; and, in fine, some of the laws of Numa on sacrifices.[16]

Birds, says Cicero,[17] and paintings begun and finished in a day are gifts the most divine. We offer common things, says a Spartan, that we may always have it in our power to honour the gods.

The desire of man to pay his worship to the deity is very different from the magnificence of this worship. Let us not offer our treasures to him if we are not proud of showing that we esteem what he would have us despise.

"What must the gods think of the gifts of the impious," said the admirable Plato, "when a good man would blush to receive presents from a villain?"

Religion ought not, under the pretence of gifts, to draw from the people what the necessity of the state has left them; but as Plato says,[18] "The chaste and the pious ought to offer gifts which resemble themselves."

Nor is it proper for religion to encourage expensive funerals. What is there more natural than to take away the difference of fortune in a circumstance and in the very moment which equals all fortunes?

8. Of the Pontificate. When religion has many ministers it is natural for them to have a chief and for a sovereign pontiff to be established. In monarchies, where the several orders of the state cannot be kept too distinct, and where all powers ought not to be lodged in the same person, it is proper that the pontificate be distinct from the empire. The same necessity is not to be met with in a despotic government, the nature of which is to unite all the different powers in the same person. But in this case it may happen that the prince may regard religion as he does the laws themselves, as dependent on his own will. To prevent this inconvenience, there ought to be monuments of religion, for instance, sacred books which fix and establish it. The King of Persia is the chief of the religion; but this religion is regulated by the Koran. The Emperor of China is the sovereign pontiff; but there are books in the hands of everybody to which he himself must conform. In vain a certain emperor attempted to abolish them; they triumphed over tyranny.

9. Of Toleration in point of Religion. We are here politicians, and not divines; but the divines themselves must allow, that there is a great difference between tolerating and approving a religion.

When the legislator has believed it a duty to permit the exercise of many religions, it is necessary that he should enforce also a toleration among these religions themselves. It is a principle that every religion which is persecuted becomes itself persecuting; for as soon as by some accidental turn it arises from persecution, it attacks the religion which persecuted it; not as religion, but as tyranny.

It is necessary, then, that the laws require from the several religions, not only that they shall not embroil the state, but that they shall not raise disturbances among themselves. A citizen does not fulfil the laws by not disturbing the government; it is requisite that he should not trouble any citizen whomsoever.

10. The same Subject continued. As there are scarcely any but persecuting religions that have an extraordinary zeal for being established in other places (because a religion that can tolerate others seldom thinks of its own propagation), it must therefore be a very good civil law, when the state is already satisfied with the established religion, not to suffer the establishment of another.[19]

This is then a fundamental principle of the political laws in regard to religion; that when the state is at liberty to receive or to reject a new religion it ought to be rejected; when it is received it ought to be tolerated.

11. Of changing a Religion. A prince who undertakes to destroy or to change the established religion of his kingdom must greatly expose himself. If his government be despotic, he runs a much greater risk of seeing a revolution arise from such a proceeding, than from any tyranny whatsoever, and a revolution is not an uncommon thing in such states. The reason of this is that a state cannot change its religion, manners and customs in an instant, and with the same rapidity as the prince publishes the ordinance which establishes a new religion.

Besides, the ancient religion is connected with the constitution of the kingdom and the new one is not; the former agrees with the climate and very often the new one is opposed to it. Moreover, the citizens become disgusted with their laws, and look upon the government already established with contempt; they conceive a jealousy against the two religions, instead of a firm belief in one; in a word, these innovations give to the state, at least for some time, both bad citizens and bad believers.

12. Of penal Laws. Penal laws ought to be avoided in respect to religion: they imprint fear, it is true; but as religion has also penal laws which inspire the same passion, the one is effaced by the other, and between these two different kinds of fear the mind becomes hardened.

The threatenings of religion are so terrible, and its promises so great, that when they actuate the mind, whatever efforts the magistrate may use to oblige us to renounce it, he seems to leave us nothing when he deprives us of the exercise of our religion, and to bereave us of nothing when we are allowed to profess it.

It is not, therefore, by filling the soul with the idea of this great object, by hastening her approach to that critical moment in which it ought to be of the highest importance, that religion can be most successfully attacked: a more certain way is to tempt her by favours, by the conveniences of life, by hopes of fortune; not by that which revives, but by that which extinguishes the sense of her duty; not by that which shocks her, but by that which throws her into indifference at the time when other passions actuate the mind, and those which religion inspires are hushed into silence. As a general rule in changing a religion the invitations should be much stronger than the penalties.

The temper of the human mind has appeared even in the nature of punishments. If we take a survey of the persecutions in Japan,[20] we shall find that they were more shocked at cruel torments than at long sufferings, which rather weary than affright, which are the more difficult to surmount, from their appearing less difficult.

In a word, history sufficiently informs us that penal laws have never had any other effect than to destroy.