It is then only, after having retraced ourselves the entire system of our duties, it is only after having compared them with the conventions softened by fashionable society, that we are in a state to judge, if the conduct of persons, disengaged from every religious tie, ought to be given as an example, and if their morality can suffice for all the circumstances of life. But in admitting, for a moment, this supposition, we should not have a right to draw any deduction contrary to the truths, which I have endeavoured to establish; for all those who free themselves at a certain age, from the yoke of religion, have been at least prepared by it to respect virtue. Principles inculcated early in life, have a great influence on the human heart, a long time even after our understanding has rejected the reasoning which served as the basis of those principles: the soul, formed when the reason begins to dawn, to the love of order, and sustained in this disposition by the force of habit, never entirely loses this principle. So that, whatever be the opinions adopted when the judgment is formed, it is slowly, and by degrees, that these opinions act on the character and direct the conduct. Besides, while religion maintains amongst the greater number of men, a profound respect for morality, those who reject these sentiments know, nevertheless, that probity leads to esteem, and to the various advantages which depend on it. Of course, a virtuous atheist merely makes us recollect, that he lives where virtue is respected; and it is not the inefficacy, but, on the contrary, the indirect influence of religious opinions, which his conduct demonstrates to me. I think I see, in a beautiful piece of mechanism, a small part broken off from the chain, and which maintains its place, by the force still subsisting of general equilibrium.