Put away all belief in God, and you will see the action and reaction of human passions forming, as it were, a mass of opposite electricities, and preparing the thunder-peal and the furies of the tempest.  Then appear those disorganized societies which are terrified at their own dissolution, until a strong man comes, and, taking advantage of this very terror, takes and chastises these societies, as one chastises an unruly child.  It is a story at once old and new, because, in proportion as God withdraws from human society, in that same proportion the power of the sword replaces the empire of the conscience.  There must be a religion for the people!  Yes, Sirs, but for that people, wide as humanity, which includes us all.

If the existence of God is denied, man falls into despair, and society into dissolution.  What then is my inference?  That atheism is false.  Such a mode of arguing produces an outcry.  “A matter of sentiment!” men exclaim.  “You would build up a doctrine according to your own fancy!  You do not discuss the question calmly, but appeal to interests and prejudices:  you quit the domain of science, which takes cognizance only of facts and reasoning.”  Such expressions are common enough to make it worth while to study their value.  Of course, science must not be an instrument of our caprice.  We are bound to search for truth; and we are unfaithful to our obligations if we try to establish doctrines which serve our passions, or favor our interests, or flatter our tastes and our prejudices.  But the conscience, the heart, the conditions of the existence of human society, are neither prejudices nor personal interests; they are eternal and living realities.  We speak of the conscience, of the heart, of society, and they answer us:  “We do not believe that there are true sciences in that domain; we only wish for facts.”  Occasionally we hear naturalists speak in this way.  We only wish for facts!  Then our thoughts, our feelings, our conscience are not facts!  The man who will give the closest observation to the steps of a fly, or to a caterpillar’s method of crawling, has not a moment’s attention to give to the impulses of the heart, to the rules of duty, to the struggles of the will; and when addressed on the subject of these realities of the soul, the most certain of all realities, he will reply:  “That is no business of mine, I want nothing but facts.”  Let us pass from this aberration, and listen for a moment to other objectors.

We do not deny, it is often said, the reality of our feelings.  Man desires happiness, and seeks it in religious belief; but this is an order of things which science cannot take account of.  Science has only truth for its object, and owes its own existence wholly to the reason.  If it happens to science to give pain to the heart or to the conscience, no conclusion can thence be drawn against the certainty of its results.  “There is no commoner, and at the same time faultier, way of reasoning, than