My _third_ observation on this head is, _that superstition is an enemy
to civil liberty, and enthusiasm a friend to it._ As superstition groans
under the dominion of priests, and enthusiasm is destructive of all
ecclesiastical power, this sufficiently accounts for the present
observation. Not to mention that enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold
and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of
liberty, as superstition, on the contrary, renders men tame and abject,
and fits them for slavery. We learn from English history, that, during
the civil wars, the _Independents_ and _Deists_, though the most
opposite in their religious principles, yet were united in their
political ones, and were alike passionate for a commonwealth. And since
the origin of _Whig_ and _Tory_, the leaders of the _Whigs_ have either
been _Deists_ or professed _Latitudinarian_s in their principles; that
is, friends to toleration, and indifferent to any particular sect of
_Christians_: while the sectaries, who have all a strong tincture of
enthusiasm, have always, without exception, concurred with that party in
defence of civil liberty. The resemblance in their superstitions long
united the High-Church _Tories_ and the _Roman Catholics_, in support of
prerogative and kingly power, though experience of the tolerating spirit
of the _Whigs_ seems of late to have reconciled the _Catholics_ to that
party.
The _Molinists_ and _Jansenists_ in France have a thousand
unintelligible disputes, which are not worthy the reflection of a man of
sense: but what principally distinguishes these two sects, and alone
merits attention, is the different spirit of their religion. The
_Molinists_, conducted by the _Jesuits_, are great friends to
superstition, rigid observers of external forms and ceremonies, and
devoted to the authority of the priests, and to tradition. The
_Jansenists_ are enthusiasts, and zealous promoters of the passionate
devotion, and of the inward life, little influenced by authority, and,
in a word, but half Catholics. The consequences are exactly conformable
to the foregoing reasoning. The _Jesuits_ are the tyrants of the people,
and the slaves of the court; and the _Jansenists_ preserve alive the
small sparks of the love of liberty which are to be found in the French
nation.
[1] The Chinese literati have no priests or ecclesiastical
establishment.
OF THE DIGNITY OR MEANNESS OF HUMAN NATURE