of prejudices, are not the same among all nations: the opinion of immortality is common to all. It is not a sect: for, besides, that it is the universal religion of the world, that tenet has had neither head nor protector. Men have adopted it themselves, or rather nature has taught them to know it without the assistance of teachers; and, since the beginning of things, it alone has passed from father to son, and has been always received as an indisputable truth. O thou, who believest thy self to be only a mass of clay, quit the world, where thou findest thyself single in belief; go, and in other regions search for men of another species, and similar to the beast; or rather be struck with horror to find thyself single, as it were, in the universe, in revolt against nature, and disavowing thine own heart, and acknowledge, in an opinion common to all men, the general impression of the Author who has formed them all!
Lastly. And with this proof I conclude. The universal fellowship of men, the laws which unite one to the other, the most sacred and inviolable duties of civil life, are all founded only on the certainty of a future state. Thus, if all die with the body, the universe must adopt other laws, manners, and habits, and a total change must take place in every thing. If all die with the body, the maxims of equity, friendship, honour, good faith, and gratitude, are only popular errors; since we owe nothing to men who are nothing to us, to whom no general bond of worship and hope unites us, who will to-morrow sink back to their original nonentity, and who are already no more. If all die with us, the tender names of child, parent, father, friend, and husband, are merely theatrical appellations and a mockery; since friendship, even that springing from virtue, is no longer a lasting tie; since our fathers, who preceded us, are no more; since our children shall not succeed us, for the nonentity in which we must one day be has no consequence; since the sacred society of marriage is only a brutal union, from which, by a strange and fortuitous concurrence, proceed beings who resemble us, but who have nothing in common with us but their nonentity.
What more shall I add? If all dies with us, domestic annals and the train of our ancestors are only a collection of chimeras; since we have no forefathers, and shall have no descendants, anxieties for a name and posterity are therefore ridiculous; the honours we render to the memory of illustrious men, a childish error, since it is absurd to honour what has no existence; the sacred respect we pay to the habitations of the dead, a vulgar illusion; the ashes of our fathers and friends, a vile dust which we should cast to the winds as belonging to no person; the last wishes of the dying, so sacred amongst even the most barbarous nations, the last sound of a machine which crumbles in pieces; and, to comprise all in a word, if all die with us, the laws are then a foolish subjection; kings and rulers phantoms, whom the imbecility of the people has exalted; justice a usurpation on the liberties of men; the law of marriage a vain scruple; modesty a prejudice;
