I ought now to direct your attention towards other considerations. All that is required by public order, all that is of importance to society, some will say, is, that criminals may not escape the sword of justice, and that an attentive superintendance discover them under the cloud where they seek to conceal themselves. I will not here recal the various obstacles, which are opposed to the plenitude of this vigilance; every one may perceive them, or form an idea of them; but I hasten to observe, that in considering society in its actual state, we ought not to forget, that religious sentiments have greatly diminished the talk of government; a scene quite new would open, if we had for our guide only political morality; it would not then be a few men without principles, who would trouble the public order, more able actors would mix in the throng, some conducted by mature reflection, and others, carried away by seducing appearances, would be incessantly at war with all those, whose fortune excited their jealousy; and then only we should know how many opportunities there are of doing evil, and injuring others. It would also happen, that all these enemies of public order not being disconcerted by the reproaches of their conscience, would become every day more expert in the art of avoiding the observation of justice; and the dangers to which the imprudent exposed themselves, would not discourage the ingenious. It is then, if I may be permitted so to express myself, because the laws find men in a healthy state, prepared by religious instruction, that they can restrain them; but if a system of education merely political was ever to prevail, new precautions and new chains would become absolutely necessary, and after having freed us from the mild ties of religion, the projectors of such a system would increase our civil slavery, would bend our necks under the hardest of all yokes, that which is imposed by our fellow-creatures.