We have seen enough of Montesquieu's attacks on the church. The most violent of them were made in his youth, and in a book avowedly satirical. In mature life, writing in a more philosophical spirit, his language is temperate and wise. "It is bad reasoning against religion," he says, "to bring together in a great work a long enumeration of the evils which she has produced, unless you also recount the good she has done. If I should tell all the harm which civil laws, monarchy, or republican government have done in the world, I should say frightful things."[Footnote: Montesq., v. 117 (liv. xxiv. c. 2).] This idea was far beyond the reach of Voltaire. Montesquieu goes on to argue about different forms of religion. Mahometanism he holds especially suited to despotism, Christianity to limited governments. Catholicism is adapted to monarchies, Protestantism, and especially Calvinism, to republics. Where fatalism is a religious dogma, the penalties imposed by law must be more severe, and the watch kept on the community more vigilant, so that men may be driven by these motives who otherwise would abandon self-restraint; but if the dogma of liberty be established, the case is otherwise. Climate is not without influence on religion. The ablutions required of a Mahometan are useful in his warm country. The Protestant of Northern Europe has to work harder for a living than the Catholic of the South, and therefore desires fewer religious holidays. If a state can prevent the establishment of a new form of religion within its borders, it will find it well to do so; but if several religions are established, they should not be allowed to interfere with each other. Penal laws in religious matters should be avoided; for each religion has its own spiritual penalties, and to put a man between the fear of temporal punishment, on the one hand, and the fear of spiritual punishment on the other, degrades his soul. The possessions of the clergy should be limited by laws of mortmain.[Footnote: Ibid., v. 124-136 (liv. xxiv. c. 5-14).] The spirit of moderation should be the spirit of the legislator. This Montesquieu declared to be the great theme of his book. Political good, like moral good, is always found between extremes.[Footnote: Montesq., v. 379 (liv. xxix. c. 1).] It was this moderation which made the "Spirit of the Laws" distasteful to the more ardent Philosophers. Sharing in many of the feelings of his contemporaries, and especially in their distrust of the church, Montesquieu was yet unwilling to go to the same extremes as they. His chapter on Uniformity and the criticisms made on it by Condorcet, form an admirable instance of this.