and will always be, the chief source of the depraved morals and habitual calamities of the people.  These, almost always fascinated by their religious notions or by metaphysical fictions, instead of looking upon the natural and visible causes of their miseries, attribute their vices to the imperfections of their nature, and their misfortunes to the anger of their Gods; they offer to Heaven vows, sacrifices, and presents, in order to put an end to their misfortunes, which are really due only to the negligence, the ignorance, and to the perversity of their guides, to the folly of their institutions, to their foolish customs, to their false opinions, to their unreasonable laws, and especially to their want of enlightenment.  Let the mind be filled early with true ideas; let man’s reason be cultivated; let justice govern him; and there will be no need of opposing to his passions the powerless barrier of the fear of Gods.  Men will be good when they are well taught, well governed, chastised or censured for the evil, and justly rewarded for the good which they have done to their fellow-citizens.  It is idle to pretend to cure mortals of their vices if we do not begin by curing them of their prejudices.  It is only by showing them the truth that they can know their best interests and the real motives which will lead them to happiness.  Long enough have the instructors of the people fixed their eyes on heaven; let them at last bring them back to the earth.  Tired of an incomprehensible theology, of ridiculous fables, of impenetrable mysteries, of puerile ceremonies, let the human mind occupy itself with natural things, intelligible objects, sensible truths, and useful knowledge.  Let the vain chimeras which beset the people be dissipated, and very soon rational opinions will fill the minds of those who were believed fated to be always in error.  To annihilate religious prejudices, it would be sufficient to show that what is inconceivable to man can not be of any use to him.  Does it need, then, anything but simple common sense to perceive that a being most clearly irreconcilable with the notions of mankind, that a cause continually opposed to the effects attributed to him; that a being of whom not a word can be said without falling into contradictions; that a being who, far from explaining the mysteries of the universe, only renders them more inexplicable; that a being to whom for so many centuries men addressed themselves so vainly to obtain their happiness and deliverance from their sufferings; does it need, I say, more than simple common sense to understand that the idea of such a being is an idea without model, and that he is himself evidently not a reasonable being?  Does it require more than common sense to feel that there is at least delirium and frenzy in hating and tormenting each other for unintelligible opinions of a being of this kind?  Finally, does it not all prove that morality and virtue are totally incompatible with the idea of a God, whose ministers and interpreters