The people are much disposed to believe their magistrates; and when their magistrates propose to them only a rational belief, they embrace it willingly. There is no need of prodigies to believe in a just God, who reads the heart of man: this is an idea too natural, too necessary, to be combated. It is not necessary to know precisely how God rewards and punishes: to believe in His justice is enough. I assure you that I have seen whole towns with scarcely any other tenet; and that in them I have seen the most virtue. BAMBABEF.--Take heed what you say. You will find philosophers in these times, who will deny both pains and rewards. WHANG.--But you will acknowledge that these philosophers will much more strongly deny your inventions; so you will gain nothing by that. Supposing that there are philosophers who do not agree with my principles, they are not the less honest men; they do not the less cultivate virtue, which should be embraced through love, and not through fear. Moreover, I maintain that no philosopher can ever be assured that Providence does not reserve pains for the wicked, and rewards for the good. For, if they ask me who has told me that God punishes, I shall ask them who has told them that God does not punish. In short, I maintain that the philosophers, far from contradicting, will aid me. Will you be a philosopher? BAMBABEF.--With all my heart. But do not tell the fakirs. And let us, above all, remember that if a philosopher would be of service to human society, he must announce a God. FREE-WILL. From the commencement of the time in which men began to reason, philosophers have agitated this question, which theologians have rendered unintelligible by their absurd subtleties upon grace. Locke is perhaps the first who, without having the arrogance of announcing a general principle, has examined human nature by analysis. It has been disputed for three thousand years, whether the will is free or not; Locke shows that the question is absurd, and that liberty cannot belong to the will any more than color and motion. What is meant by the expression to be free? It signifies power, or rather it has no sense at all. To say that the will _can_, is in itself as ridiculous as if we said that it is yellow, or blue, round, or square. Will is will, and liberty is power. Let us gradually examine the chain of what passes within us, without confusing our minds with any scholastic terms, or antecedent principle.