What! would you have need of religion to be an honest man? Here is an interrogative, with which they hope to embarrass those who wish to preserve to morality its best support; and the dread that some have of not giving an honourable idea of their sentiments, induces them to reply with quickness, that certainly they should not need the check of religion, and that the dictates of their heart would always be sufficient to direct them. This answer is undoubtedly very respectable; but for my part, I avow, I should merely say, that virtue has so many charms, when it has been a long time practised, that a truly sensible man would continue to be just, even when every religious sentiment was annihilated; but that it is uncertain whether, with a political education, his principles might have been the same; and I should add further, that no one, perhaps, could be certain, that he would have sufficient strength to resist a revolution of ideas similar to those that we have just supposed, were he to fall at the same time into a state of misery and dejection, which would make him revolt at the enjoyments and the triumphs of others. It is always in a like situation, that it is necessary to place ourselves, to judge properly of certain questions; for all those who enjoy the favours of fortune, have, in consequence of this fortunate condition, fewer objects of envy, and are less subject to temptations; and in the midst of the different comforts, which peaceably surround them, it is not the principles of others of which they know the want.