Having taken for the rule of their conduct and opinions a book so full of blasphemous fables and striking, contradictions concerning God, Christians have never agreed in the interpretation of his will, or precisely known what he exacted from them. Thus they have made this obscure work a bone of contention, an inexhaustible source of quarrels, a common arsenal, where all contending parties have supplied themselves with arms for mutual destruction. Geometricians dispute not concerning the fundamental principles of their science. By what fatality does it happen that Christian revelation, the foundation of a religion on which depends the eternal felicity of man, should be unintelligible, subject to disputes, and often deluge the earth with blood? To judge by effects, such a revelation ought rather to be thought the work of a malign spirit, a genius of darkness and falsehood, than of a God desirous to preserve, enlighten, and beautify mankind. CHAP. XI.--OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY. Were we to believe Christians, there could have been no true morality on earth before the coming of the founder of their sect. They represent the world is having been plunged in darkness and vice at all times and places where Christ was unknown. Yet morality was always necessary to mankind; for, without it, no society can exist. We find, that before the time of Christ, there were flourishing and virtuous nations, and enlightened philosophers, who continually reminded mankind of their duties. The precepts of Socrates, Confucius, and the Gymnosophists of India, are by no means inferior to those of the Messiah of the Christians. We find, amongst heathens, innumerable instances of equity, humanity, temperance, disinterestedness, patience, and meekness, which flatly contradict the pretensions of the Christians, and prove that, before Christ was known on earth, virtues flourished, which were for more real than those he came to teach to men.