Project Gutenberg's Atheism Among the People, by Alphonse de Lamartine

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: Atheism Among the People

Author: Alphonse de Lamartine

Translator: Edward E. Hale
            Francis Le Baron

Release Date: May 5, 2008 [EBook #25339]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATHEISM AMONG THE PEOPLE ***




Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Sam W. and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This file was made using scans of public domain works
from the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.)






LAMARTINE ON ATHEISM.

ATHEISM

AMONG

THE PEOPLE

BY

ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.


BOSTON:
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY,
110 Washington Street.
1850.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850,
BY PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED BY
CHARLES W. COLTON,
No. 2 Water Street.


ADVERTISEMENT.

Through the past year, M. de Lamartine has published a monthly journal, called The People’s Counsellor, “Le Conseiller du Peuple.” Each number of this journal contains an Essay, by him, on some specific subject, of pressing interest to the French people,—generally, some political subject.

As a companion to one of these numbers, he published the Essay which we here translate. We have thought that its interest and merit are by no means local; but, that it will be read with as much interest in America, as in France.

Edward E. Hale,
Francis Le Baron.

Worcester, Mass. March 7, 1850.


[Pg 7]

ATHEISM AMONG THE PEOPLE.

I.

I have often asked myself, “Why am I a Republican?—Why am I the partizan of equitable Democracy, organized and established as a good and strong Government?—Why have I a real love of the People—a love always serious, and sometimes even tender?—What has the People done for me? I was not born in the ranks of the People. I was born between the high Aristocracy and what was then called the inferior classes, in the days when there were classes, where are now [Pg 8] equal citizens in various callings. I never starved in the People’s famine; I never groaned, personally, in the People’s miseries; I never sweat with its sweat; I was never benumbed with its cold. Why then, I repeat it, do I hunger in its hunger, thirst with its thirst, warm under its sun, freeze under its cold, grieve under its sorrows? Why should I not care for it as little as for that which passes at the antipodes?—turn away my eyes, close my ears, think of other things, and wrap myself up in that soft, thick garment of indifference and egotism, in which I can shelter myself, and indulge my separate personal tastes, without asking whether, below me,—in street, garret, or cottage, there is a rich People, or a beggar People; a religious People, or an atheistic People; a People of idlers, or of workers; a People of Helots, or of citizens?”

[Pg 9] And whenever I have thus questioned myself, I have thus answered myself:—“I love the people because I believe in God. For, if I did not believe in God, what would the people be to me? I should enjoy at ease that lucky throw of the dice, which chance had turned up for me, the day of my birth; and, with a secret, savage joy, I should say, ‘So much the worse for the losers!—the world is a lottery. Woe to the conquered!’” I cannot, indeed, say this without shame and cruelty,—for, I repeat it, I believe in God.


II.

“And what is there in common,” you will say to me, “between your belief in God and your love for the People?” I answer: My belief in God is not that vague, confused, indefinite, shadowy [Pg 10] sentiment which compels one to suppose a principle because he sees consequences,—a cause where he contemplates effects, a source where he sees the rush of the inexhaustible river of life, of forms, of substances, absorbed for ever in the ocean, and renewed unceasingly from creation. The belief in God, which is thus perceived and conceived, is, so to speak, only a mechanical sensation of the interior eye,—an instinct of intelligence, in some sort forced and brutal,—an evidence, not reasonable, not religious, not perfect, not meritorious; but like the material evidence of light, which enters our eyes when we open them to the day; like the evidence of sound which we hear when we listen to any noise; like the evidence of touch when we plunge our limbs in the waves of the sea, and shiver at the contact. This elementary, [Pg 11] gross, instinctive, involuntary belief in God, is not the living, intelligent, active, and legislative faith of humanity. It is almost animal. I am persuaded that if the brutes even,—if the dog, the horse, the ox, the elephant, the bird, could speak, they would confess, that, at the bottom of their nature, their instincts, their sensations, their obtuse intelligence, assisted by organs less perfect than ours, there is a clouded, secret sentiment of this existence of a superior and primordial Being, from whom all emanates, and to whom all returns,—a shadow of the divinity upon their being, a distant approach to the conception of that idea, which fills the worlds, and for which alone the worlds have been made,—the idea of God!


This may be a bold, but it is not an impious supposition. For God, having [Pg 12] made all things for himself alone, must have placed, upon all that he made, an impress of himself; more or less clear, more or less luminous, more or less profound, a presentiment or a remembrance of a Creator. But this faith, when it stops here, is not worthy of the name. It is a species of Pantheism, that is to say, a confused “visibility,” a physical working together into indissoluble union of something impersonal, something blind, something fatal, and something divine, which, in the elements composing the universe, we may call God. But this “visibility” can give to man no moral decision,—can give to God no worship. The Pantheism of which I am accused as a philosopher and poet, that Pantheism which I have always scorned as a contradiction and as a blasphemy, resembles entirely the reasoning of the man who [Pg 13] should say, “I see an innumerable multitude of rays, therefore there is no sun.”


III.

Faith, or reasonable and effective belief in God, proceeds, undoubtedly, from this first instinct; but in proportion as intelligence develops itself, and human thought expands, it goes from knowledge to knowledge, from conclusion to conclusion, from light to light, from sentiment to sentiment, infinitely farther and higher, in the idea of God. It does not see him with the eyes of the body, because the Infinite is not visible by a narrow window of flesh, pierced in the frontal bone of an insect called Man; but it sees Him, with a thousand times more certainty, by the spirit, that immaterial eye of the soul, which nothing blinds; and after having [Pg 14] seen him with evidence, it reasons upon the consequences of his existence, upon the divine aims of His creation, upon the terrestrial as well as eternal destinies of His creatures, upon the nature of the homage and adoration that God expects, upon his moral laws, upon the public and private duties which he imposes on his creatures by their consciences, upon the liberty He leaves them; so that with the sufferings of conflict He may give to them the merits and the prize of virtue. Thus in man does the instinct of God become Faith. Thus man can speak the greatest word that has ever been spoken upon the earth or in the stars, the word which fills the worlds by itself alone, the word which commenced with them, and which can only end with them;—

“I believe in God!”


[Pg 15]

IV.

It is in this sense, my friends, that I say to you, “I believe in God.”

But, once having said this word with the universe of beings and of worlds, and blessed this invisible God for having rendered himself visible, sensible, evident, palpable, adorable in the mirror of weak human intelligence, made gradually more and more pure, I reason with myself on the best worship to be rendered Him in thought and action. Let me show how, by this reasoning, I am forcibly drawn to the love of the People.

I say to myself, then, “Who is this God? Is he a vain notion, which has no effect on the thoughts and acts of man, his creature; who inspires nothing in him; who gives him no commands; who imposes nothing upon [Pg 16] him; who does not reward, and who does not punish?—No! God is not a mere notion, an idea, an evidence;—God is a law,—the living law, the supreme law, the universal law, the eternal law. Because God is a law on high, he is a duty on the earth; and when man says, ‘I believe in God,’ he says, at the same time, ‘I believe in my duty towards God,—I believe in my duty towards man.’ God is a government!”

And what are these duties? They are of three sorts:—

Duty towards God,—that is to say, the duty of developing, as much as possible, my intelligence and my reason, to arrive at the purest idea and the highest worship of the Supreme Being, by whom and for whom all is, all exists:—Religion.

Private Duties,—that is to say, the [Pg 17] exact and tender discharge of all sentiments to which form has been given, either in written or unwritten laws, which bind me to those, to whom, in the order of nature, I hold most closely,—the nearest to myself in the human group—father, mother, brothers, sisters, wife, children, friends, neighbors:—the Family.

Collective Duties,—that is to say, devotions, even to the sacrifice of myself, even to death, to the progress, the well-being, the preservation, the amelioration of this great human family, of which my family, and my country, are only parts; and of which I myself am only a miserable and vanishing fraction, a leaf of a summer, which vegetates and withers on a branch of the immense trunk of the human race:—Society.

Let us speak to-day only of these last [Pg 18] duties,—because, now we are occupied with politics alone.


V.

God, when one believes in Him as you and I do, imposes then on man a duty towards the society of which he makes a part. You admit it, do you not?

Then follow, and analyze with me this society. Of whom, and how, is it composed?

It is composed, at the same time, of strong and weak, conquerors and conquered, victors and vanquished, oppressors and oppressed, masters and slaves, nobles and serfs, of citizens and bondmen or subjects disinherited and enslaved, considered as living furniture, as tools and laughing-stocks to their fellow-men, as were the Blacks in our colonies before the Republic.

[Pg 19] Thanks to the increase of general reason, to the light of philosophy, to the inspiration of Christianity, to the progress of the idea of justice, of charity, and of fraternity, in laws, manners, and religion, society in America, in Europe, and in France, especially since the Revolution, has broken down all these barriers, all these denominations of caste, all these injurious distinctions among men. Society is composed only of various conditions, professions, functions, and ways of life, among those who form what we call a Nation; of proprietors of the soil, and proprietors of houses; of investments, of handicrafts, of merchants, of manufacturers, of farmers; of day-laborers becoming farmers, manufacturers, merchants, or possessors of houses or capital, in their turn; of the rich, of those in easy circumstances, of the poor, of workmen [Pg 20] with their hands, workmen with their minds; of day-laborers, of those in need, of a small number of men enjoying considerable acquired or inherited wealth, of others of a smaller fortune painfully increased and improved, of others with property only sufficient for their needs; there are some, finally, without any personal possession but their hands, and gleaning for themselves and for their families, in the workshop, or the field, and at the threshold of the homes of others on the earth, the asylum, the wages, the bread, the instruction, the tools, the daily pay, all those means of existence which they have neither inherited, saved, nor acquired. These last are what have been improperly called the People. This name is extended now; it embraces really all the People; but still it is used as the name of the [Pg 21] indigent and suffering part of the People.

It is more especially of this class that I intend to speak, in saying to you, “To love the People, it is necessary to believe in God.”


VI.

The love of the People, the conscience of the citizen, the sentiment which induces the individual to lose himself in the mass, to submit himself to the community, to sacrifice himself to its needs,—his interest, his individuality, his egotism, his ambition, his pride, his fortune, his blood, his life, his reputation even, sometimes, to the safety of his country, to the happiness of the People, to the good of humanity, of which he is a member in the sight of God,—in one word, all these virtues, [Pg 22] necessary under every form of government,—useful under a monarchy, indispensable under a republic,—never have been derived, and never can be derived, from any thing but that single sentence, pronounced with religious faith, at the commencement, in the middle, at the end of all our patriotic acts:—“I believe in God!”

The People who do not believe strongly, efficaciously in this first principle, in this supreme original, in this last end of all existence, cannot have a faith superior to their individual selfishness.

The People who cannot have a principle superior to their individual selfishness, in their acts as citizens, cannot have national virtue.

The People who cannot have national virtue cannot be free; for they can have neither the courage which [Pg 23] enables them to defend their own liberty, nor the conscience which forces them to respect the liberty of others, and to obey the laws, not as an outward force, but as a second conscience.

The People who can neither defend their liberty, nor restrain it, may be, by turns, slaves or tyrants, but they can never be republicans.

Therefore, Atheism in the People is the most invincible obstacle to the establishment and consolidation of that sublime form of government, the idol of all ages, the tendency of all perfect civilization, the dream of every sage, the model of all great souls,—the government of the entire People by the reason and conscience of each citizen,—otherwise called the Republic.


[Pg 24]

VII.

Must I demonstrate to you so simple a truth? Can you not comprehend, without explanation of mine, that a nation, where each citizen thinks only of his own private well-being here below, and sacrifices constantly the general good to his personal and narrow interest;—where the powerful man wishes to preserve all the power for himself alone, without making an equitable and proportional division to the weak;—where the weak wishes to conquer at any price, that he may tyrannize in his turn;—where the rich wishes to acquire and concentrate the greatest possible amount of wealth, to enjoy it alone, and even without circulating it in work, in wages, in assistance, in benevolence, in good deeds to his brothers;—where the poor wishes [Pg 25] to dispossess violently and unjustly those who possess more than himself, instead of recognizing that diversity of chances, of conditions, of professions, of fortunes, of which human life is composed,—instead of acquiring prosperity for his family, in his turn and degree, by effort, by order, by labor, by economy, by the assistance of borrowed capital, by the law of inheritance, by the free transfer of real estate, by free entrance into different callings and trades, by free competition in the money market;—where each class of citizens declares itself an enemy to every other, and heaps upon each other all manner of evil, instead of doing all the good in its power, and uniting in the holy harmony of social unity;—where each individual draws around him, for himself alone, the common mantle, willing to tear it in [Pg 26] pieces for himself, and thus leave the whole world naked,—do you not understand, I say, that such a People, having no God but its selfishness, no judge but interest, no conscience but cupidity, will fall, in a short time, into complete destruction, and, being incapable of a Republican government, because it casts aside the government of God himself, will rush headlong into the government of the brute: the government of the strongest, the despotism of the sword, the divinity of the cannon,—that last resort of anarchy, which is at once the remedy and the death of nations without God!

Now has not this weakening of the sentiment of God in the soul of the People been, from year to year, from century to century, indeed, I might say, the most discouraging and threatening symptom, in the eyes of those who [Pg 27] desire the progress of their race, who aspire to the moral perfection of the human spirit, who hope in Republican institutions, who love the People, who wish to cultivate their reason, who desire that the People should understand themselves, respect themselves, and, finally, by their enlightenment, their conscientiousness, their moderation and virtue, give the lie to those who declare them in a state of perpetual infancy, perpetual madness, or perpetual weakness?

Yes, this is but too true: men have been blotting out God, for a century past, from the souls of the People, and more especially in latter years. The masses have been driven to Atheism, they have been driven on every side and by every hand.

Sometimes, by blasphemies, such as were never heard upon the earth, until [Pg 28] an insult to the Creator became a means of popularity among His creatures; blasphemies which would have darkened the sun and extinguished the stars, if God had not commanded His creation to pass unnoticed the revolt of a blind and foolish insect against Infinity, and refused Himself to sink to the foolishness of avenging impiety! Read those lines which I dare not write, those lines where an apostle of Atheism effaces the name of God from the beautiful creation and endeavors to substitute his own! * * *


VIII.

Sometimes the masses have been driven to Atheism by science. There are some geometers great in paradox, men who, of all the senses that the Creator has given to his creatures, have [Pg 29] cultivated only one, the sense of touch,—leaving out entirely that chief sense, which connects and confirms all others,—the sense of the invisible, the moral sense. These savans, geometers, physicians, arithmeticians, mathematicians, chemists, astronomers, measurers of distances, calculators of numbers, have early acquired the habit of believing only in the tangible. These are the beings who, so to speak, live and think in the dark; all, which is not palpable, does not exist for them. They measure the earth, and say, “We have not met God in any league of its surface!” They heat the alembic, and say, “We have not perceived God in the smoke of any of our experiments!” They dissect dead bodies, and say, “We have not found God, or thought, in any bundle of muscles or nerves in our dissection!” They calculate columns of [Pg 30] figures, long as the firmament, and say, “We have not seen God in the sum of any of our additions!” They pierce, with eye and glass, into the dazzling mysteries of night, to discover, across thousands and thousands of leagues, the groups and the evolutions of the celestial worlds, and say, “We have not discovered God at the end of our telescopes! The existence of God does not concern us; it is no affair of ours!”—Madmen! They do not suspect that the knowledge and adoration of God are, at bottom, the only business of the creature; and that all these distances, these globes, these numbers, these mysteries of the living being, this dissected mechanism of the dead, these compositions and decompositions of combined elements, these hosts of stars, and these eternal evolutions of suns around the divine hand which guides them, have [Pg 31] no other reason for existence, for movement, and for duration, than to compel the acknowledgment, fear, admiration, and adoration of God, by that supreme sense, that sense superior to all other senses, that sense imponderable and impalpable, invisible yet beholding all things,—that sense which we call intelligence!

Alas! it is not that God has denied this sense to these men of figures, of science, and calculation; but they have blinded themselves, they have cultivated the other senses so much, that they have weakened this. They have believed too much in matter, and so they have lost the eye of the spirit. These men, we are told, have made great progress in experimental science, but they have made good, evil, to the People, by saying to them, “We, who are so high, we cannot see [Pg 32] God!—blind men! what do you see, then?”


IX.

Besides these men, there is still another class,—inventors of another science, which they call “Political Economy.” This is the class of Economists. I do not, indeed, speak of all of them: there are among them some who are as spiritual as Fenelon, and these are, perhaps, at this day, the greater number. I speak only of those who, considering this world alone, have been driven, voluntarily or involuntarily, to Atheism in another way. Leaving the eternal and fastidious metaphysical and religions disputes in which the theologians of past centuries wasted the time, the good sense, and the blood of men, to honor their pretended God by immolating to Him the enemies of [Pg 33] their faith, these false economists have said to governments and people, “Leave all this; there is only one science which is good for any thing: it is the science of Wealth. All else is vanity and vexation of spirit.” This is the famous cry, the cry of a materialistic society:—“Grow rich!” The economists of this school, now highly enlightened, legitimate children of the materialists of the Eighteenth Century, see in humanity, only matter and the things that belong to matter; in men, only consumers and producers; in the social functions, only labor of the hands:—to labor, to sow, to reap, to hew, to build, to forge, to weave, to barter, to exchange, to sell, to buy, to acquire, to beget,—this is, according to these disciples of Malthus, the whole of man! These are the Lycurguses and the Moseses, the legislators of a trading [Pg 34] People: the moral, intellectual, spiritual, religious man does not exist for them. They love liberty, not because it ennobles human nature; exercises free will, the most sublime of man’s vital functions; cultivates his highest faculty,—conscience; purifies religion, the fundamental idea of mankind, from the superstitions that debase and dishonor it; sanctifies human society, by leading it to the knowledge and worship of God;—they love it because it abolishes Custom House duties! All legislation, all civilization, all religion, is reduced by them to a well-balanced account! To have and to owe, these are the only two words in their language! What matter to them the spirit, the soul, virtue, sentiment?—What the moral and consoling beliefs, the divine hopes, the supernatural certainties, revealed or proved, or the [Pg 35] immortal destiny, of man?—What the present intellectual life, and the future immaterial life of these harvests of human generations, which God sows that they may bear fruit in his name, may adore his grandeur,—which Death cuts down to bear them, ripe in faith and virtue, up to Heaven? All this can neither be bought nor sold; all this has neither stated price nor net revenue; all this is not current on the Exchange,—therefore it is nothing!

Thus these men count for nothing the forms of worship and the forms of government. They are neither followers of Brama, of Confucius, of Mahomet, of Plato, or of Rousseau; neither absolute monarchists, constitutional royalists, nor republicans. They are of the politics, and of the religion, in which they can manufacture most, buy and sell easiest, trade the best, multiply [Pg 36] fastest! Their civilization is traffic; their God is the dollar! This sect, useful in administering intelligently the affairs of commerce, has been a shadow over intellectual civilization; for it has forgotten heavenly things, and, in forgetting them, has contributed to make the People also forget them.


X.

But that People which forgets God, forgets itself. What right has it to be a People, if it have not its origin and hope in Him? How can the men of any nation expect tyrants to remember and respect its destiny, if they themselves debase this destiny to that of a machine with ten fingers, destined to weave the greatest possible number of yards of cloth in seventy years, to people as many hundred acres as possible [Pg 37] with creatures as much to be pitied and as miserable as themselves, and to serve, from generation to generation, as human manure for the land, to fertilize the soil of their birth, their life, and their graves? How can the moral spiritualism of a People long resist such theories? Where can they find God in this workshop of matter?


XI.

But even this is nothing. The French Revolution came in 1789. It came to put an end to a double philosophy,—the spiritual philosophy of Rousseau’s school, founded in reason and religion, the material philosophy of the school of Helvetius, Diderot, and their disciples, atheistic and cynical. The thought of the first of these philosophies was religious at bottom. It [Pg 38] consisted merely in freeing the luminous idea of God from the shadows by which ignorance, intolerance, the inquisition of temporal dynasties and times of barbarism had falsified it,—in freeing this idea, debased as it was,—obscured, and enchained to thrones,—so as to restore reason to its liberty, to inquiry, to the free conscience of every worship and of every soul; to revive it in the eyes of the People, by leading them to the broad light of day, the evidence of nature, the dignity and efficacy of free worship.

But, for this, it was necessary to dispossess the Middle Ages of their temporal power, of their mort-main possessions, of their civil jurisdictions, of their exclusive privileges, of their legal intolerance against all other divine thoughts, and all other individual or national faith, all other forms of [Pg 39] adoration and worship than what were imposed by the exclusive and established religion. To rally the people to this work, a work legitimate in itself, a work which the abuses of a crafty priesthood had made necessary, seven times, and whose accomplishment they had seven times partially and gradually undertaken, since the time of Charlemagne,—the philosophers of the second school, the irreligious school, the atheistic school, of Diderot and Helvetius, drove the masses from stupidity even to impiety, and the demagogues of ’93 forced them from impiety to Atheism, and from Atheism to blood. Demagogues, those poisoners of liberty, corrupt every revolution in which they mingle; they defile every thing that they touch; they dishonor every truth which they profess, by polluting or perverting it. The age and philosophy, [Pg 40] Heaven and earth, desire what we too desire,—freedom of conscience, voluntary worship,—liberty of the human mind in matters of faith,—the fraternity of altars, invoking, each in its own language, that God whom the whole earth is spelling out, and who reveals, from age to age, still another letter of His divine name.

Instead of this, Atheists and demagogues united to persecute religion, to revenge themselves for the old persecutions of the priesthood. They profaned the temples, violated conscience, blasphemed the God of the faithful, parodied the ceremonies, cast to the winds the pious symbols of worship, and persecuted the ministers of religion.

In the name of the Revolution, and under the menace of terror, they dragged the People to these Saturnalia. They corrupted the eyes, the hands, [Pg 41] the minds, the souls of the populace. These violences to the altar were cast back on the religious idea itself. The People, seeing the temple fall, believed that Heaven itself crumbled; and that, following the profaned image of a vanishing worship, God himself would vanish from the world, with conscience, the supernatural law, the unwritten moral law, the soul and the immortality of the human race!

When the ignorant People no longer saw God between them and annihilation, they plunged into the boundless and bottomless abyss of Atheism, they lost their divine sense, they became brutal as the animal, who sees in the earth only a pasture ground, instead of the footstool of Jehovah.

But these irreligious abominations, and these Saturnalia of Atheism, however much injury they inflicted on the [Pg 42] religious spirit of the People, did not effect so much, perhaps, as the reign which followed this anarchy, the reign of Bonaparte, the so-called restorer of worship. And how?


XII.

The Republic had passed its paroxysm of fever, of demagoguical madness, of persecution. The Directory had finally concentrated and regulated the republican power. This government was composed of men, naturally moderate and tolerant, or made so by the experience and the lassitude of anarchy; the moderate principles of the Revolution of 1789, and of the constituted Assembly, regained their level, thanks to a natural reaction, limited by good sense, as happens after every revolution that overshoots its mark. The [Pg 43] priests officiated, without obstacle, in the temples restored by the municipalities to the faithful, religion was entirely free, even favored by public respect, and by that care for good morals which all serious governments feel. Faith, taking refuge in men’s consciences, was, moreover, more sincere and more active, because it was neither constrained, nor favored, nor altered, nor profaned by the hand of government.

This was, perhaps, the moment when there was the most religion in France,—for this was the moment when, after having had its martyrs, the religious sentiment had a life in itself, and owed nothing to the partial and interested protection of the powers of the State. For, the less the State imposes upon you a God of its own fashion, or its own choice, the more does your conscience rise, and the more does it attach [Pg 44] itself to the God of your own reason, or your own faith!

Bonaparte, whose genius was entirely military, but who, in affairs of moral, civil, and religious government, made it a matter of policy to contradict and extinguish all the truths of the Revolution, hastened to change all this. He wished to parody Charlemagne.

Charlemagne had been the philosopher and revolutionary organizer of his time; Charlemagne had bound together the spiritual and temporal, crowning the Pontiff that he might be crowned by him in turn. Bonaparte desired a State religion, an agreement in which religion and the empire should mutually engage and mutually check each other; a Pope to subdue, to caress, to drive away, to recall, to persecute, by turns; a coronation by the hand of an [Pg 45] enslaved Church; then a Church to chastise, when it did not obey;—in one word, all that shameful and scandalous simony of ancient times, when the temporal power played, in the sight of the nations, with the idea and name of God, in a manner as contemptuous as it was odious.

The People, who saw clearly through this intrigue of an indifferent sovereign,—an Atheist at Toulon, a crafty politician at Marengo, a Mussulman in Egypt, a persecutor at Rome, an oppressor at Savona, a schismatic at Fontainbleau, a saint at Notre Dame de Paris,—protector of religion and profaner of consciences by turns,—felt their belief shaken anew. They asked themselves, “What then is God for us, poor souls, since God is such an instrument of power for great men, and [Pg 46] such a police machine for governments?” Scorn threw them back into Atheism. This was natural.


XIII.

This system was continued, with more sincerity on the part of government, under the dynasty of the Restoration. But the interested favors of the Court, for the higher clergy of a particular worship, irritated the minds of the populace against the priesthood.

The more it lavished power and human dignities upon priestly superiors, the more the mind of the People turned from the religious sentiment. Each favor of royal authority to the privileged Church cast thousands of souls into Atheism.

The Revolution of July suppressed the religion of the State: it was a [Pg 47] progress towards the religion of conscience. But it favored the religion of the majority; it still leaned towards the supremacy of numbers in matters of faith. However, from the moment the State religion was suppressed, the religion of conscience gained ground in men’s hearts. From 1830 to this day, every intelligent observer gladly acknowledges an immense progress in the religious sentiment in France.—Why? Because the suppression of the official religion of the State was a progress in the liberty of conscience, and all progress in liberty of conscience is a progress of human thought toward the idea of God. Go farther still, and complete liberty will destroy Atheism in the People!

But the evil done was immense. The cynicism of Diderot, materialism, scepticism, revolutionary impiety, the [Pg 48] false and hypocritical piety of the empire, the concordat, the restoration of an imperial religion, and of an official and dynastic God by Napoleon, the tendency of the two Bourbon reigns to reconstruct a political church, everlastingly endowed with a monopoly of goods and of souls,—and, finally, the industrialism of the reign of Louis Philippe, turning every thought to trade, to manual labor, to worldly wealth, and making gold the true and only God of the century;—all this has borne its fruits.

Look at these fruits at the present day, and say, if practical Atheism does not devour the souls of this People. But let us proceed.


[Pg 49]

XIV.

For eighteen years, new sects, or, rather, posthumous sects, have disputed for the soul of the People, under the names of Fourierism, of Pantheism, of Communism, of Industrialism, of Economism, and, finally, of Terrorism. Look at them, listen to them, read them, analyze them, sift them, handle them; and say, if, with the exception of a vague deifying of every thing,—that is to say, of nothing, by the Fourierites,—there is a single one of these philosophical, social, or political sects, which is not founded on the most evident practical Atheism; which has not matter for a God; material enjoyments for morality; exclusive satisfaction of the senses for an end; purely sensual gratifications for a paradise; this world for the sole scene of existence; the body [Pg 50] for the only condition of being; the prolonging of life a few more years for its only hope; a sharpening of the senses to material appetites for a perspective; death for the end of all things; after death, an assimilation with the dust of the earth for a future; annihilation for justice, for reward, and for immortality!

No, there has not been since 1830, there has not been since the Revolution, there is not at this moment, one of these schools of pretended apostles, prophets of the future, and saviors of the present, which is not Materialism in action. It is the deadly seed of the century of Helvetius, producing its poisons in the dregs of another century. It is man, deprived of his spiritual and immortal sense, reduced to a solid measure of organized matter, and seeking, not virtue, that key to his future [Pg 51] destiny, in his soul; but, in his senses, mere enjoyment, that end of the brute, who only believes in what he can eat and drink.


XV.

Analyze with me, if you are not overwhelmed with humiliation, the five or six Revelations of the latter days; and ask yourselves, as I have often asked myself, while listening to them, if these revealers of pretended human felicity do indeed address themselves to men, or to herds of fatted cattle! And are they astonished that the intellectual world resists them? Do they complain that the ignorant are their only disciples? Are they indignant that the ideas they attempt to spread, creep, like fetid mists, along the abysses of society, and excite, instead of enthusiasm, only [Pg 52] the fanaticism of hunger and thirst? I can well believe it! What People is there who would become fanatics, only for their own destruction; renounce their moral nature, their divine souls, their immortal destinies, only for a morsel of more savory bread upon their table, for a larger portion of earth under their feet? No! no! enthusiasm soars aloft, it does not fall to earth. Bear me up to Heaven, if you wish to dazzle my eyes; promise me immortality, if you would offer to my soul a motive worthy of its nature, an aim worthy of its efforts, a price worthy of its virtue! But what do your systems of atheistic society show us in perspective? What do they promise us in compensation for our griefs? What do they give us in exchange for our souls? You know,—we will not speak of it.

But, indeed, if these sects survive the [Pg 53] month which sees and which produces them; and, if these questions which they debate, and these systems which they bring before the astonished People, are destined to serve as enigmas to posterity; what will the future say of us? It will only explain the Materialism, Atheism, and brutality of the doctrines and sects by which we have been disturbed for ten or twelve years, as the nightmare of a starving People, whose dreams have, for an object, only a frantic satisfaction of the senses. All these philosophies, or all these deliriums, are the deliriums or philosophies of the stomach! “All this epoch,” future historians will say, “the French must have been a nation distressed by a terrible famine, to have forgotten, in so total an eclipse of the intellectual nature, the great and immortal ideas which have alone inspired even these, the human [Pg 54] race, and rendered the revolutions of the People worthy of the regard of posterity, and of the blood of man. The Eighteenth Century must have been a time when avaricious Nature shut up her bosom, and the earth brought forth neither fruit nor harvests, that this great intellectual People, formerly called the French People, should have forgotten their souls for a morsel of bread, their immortality for an income, and their God for a dollar! Let us turn away our eyes and weep over that age.”


XVI.

See where we were when the Republic arose: happy was it that the People had at bottom more of the true sentiment of God than these masters and heads of sects. For, what would have [Pg 55] become of us, if, in that total eclipse of government, of armed force, and of law, which followed the 24th of February, the People, masters of all, of the fortunes and lives of the citizens, of Heaven and earth, had been a People of Materialists, of Terrorists, and of Atheists? The Revolution would have been a pillage, the Republic a scaffold, the dynasty of the People a deluge of blood. But there was no such thing. God was there. He revealed Himself in the multitude; Materialism disappeared in enthusiasm, which always exhibits the divinity of the human heart.

We heard but one cry,—“Honor to God! Respect for the altars! Liberty to their ministers! Self-denial, harmony, protection to the weak, inviolability of property, assistance to the miserable!” Yes,—on the first day, and during the whole time that the People [Pg 56] was alone and burning with excitement, it was religious! It was not until after the cooling of this enthusiasm that the materialistic sects, who waited their opportunity afar off, and who now torment the People, dared to offer their sensual symbols, and to set up Capital and Interest, the organization of labor, the increase of wages, and equality of conditions in this human manger, as the sole Divinities,—dared to infuse envy against the happy, the breath of hatred as the only consolation to the hearts of the miserable, lightning vengeance against the wrongs of Providence, imprecations against society, blasphemies against the existence of God, the enjoyments and bestialities of the corporeal nature, purchased by complete forgetfulness of the moral nature, and enjoyed in a debauch of ideas, and in a deification of matter.

[Pg 57] This cannot last; the People will not allow themselves to be changed into hogs by the Circes of Atheism. Their souls will flash indignation against their transformers. A day will come when they will see that they are impoverished under the pretext of being enriched; that, when they are robbed of their souls and of God, both their titles to liberty are stolen from them. Atheism and Republicanism are two words which exclude each other. Absolutism may thrive without a God, for it needs only slaves. Republicanism cannot exist without a God, for it must have citizens. And what is it that makes citizens? Two things,—the sentiment of their rights, and the sentiment of their duties as a republican People. Where are your rights, if you have not a common Father in Heaven? Where are your duties, if you have not [Pg 58] a Judge between your brothers and you? Republicanism draws you in both these ways to God.


XVII.

Thus, look at every free People, from the mountains of Helvetia to the forests of America; see even the free British nation, where the Aristocracy is only the head of liberty, where the Aristocracy and Democracy mutually respect each other, and balance each other by an exchange of kindnesses and services which sanctify society while fortifying it. Atheism has fled before liberty: in proportion as despotism has receded, the divine idea has advanced in the souls of men. Liberty lives by morality. What is morality without a God? What is a law without a lawgiver?

I know well, and I shall give you the [Pg 59] reason hereafter; I know well, and I mourn to think of it, that, even up to the present time, the French People have been the least religious People in Europe.

Is this because the intelligence of France has not that force, and that severity, which are needed to carry long enough and far enough the idea of God,—the greatest idea of the human soul;—that idea, as it comes from all the evidences of nature, and all the depths of reflection, being the most powerful and the most grave of human intelligence,—and the intelligence of France being the most superficial, the most light, and the least reflecting of the European races?

Is it because our governments have always been charged with thinking, believing, and praying, for us?

Is it that they have always given us [Pg 60] gods of the Court, worship according to Etiquette, and religions of State, instead of letting us form, make, and practise our faith for ourselves, by reason, by free-will, by voluntary piety, by association, by tradition, by the sympathies of the community, of worship, and of the family?

Is it because we are, and always have been, a military People, a nation of soldiers and adventurers, led by kings, heroes, ambitious men, from battle-field to battle-field, making conquests and not keeping them, ravaging, dazzling, charming, and corrupting Europe, and bearing the manners, vices, bravado, lightness, and impiety of the camp into the homes of the People?

I do not know; but it is certain that the nation has an immense progress to make in serious thought, if it wishes to maintain its liberty. If we look at the [Pg 61] comparative character, in matters of religious sentiment, of the great nations of Europe, America, and even Asia, the advantage is not on our side. While the great men of other nations live and die upon the scene of history, looking towards heaven, our great men seem to live and die in entire forgetfulness of the only idea for which life or death is worth any thing; they live and die looking at the spectators, or, at most, towards posterity.

Thus, even at the present time, while we have had the greatest men, other nations have had the greatest citizens. It is great citizens that a Republic needs!


XVIII.

Open the history of America, the history of England, and the history of [Pg 62] France; read the great lives, the great deaths, the great sufferings, the sublime words, when the ruling passion of life reveals itself in the last moments of the dying,—and compare them!

Washington and Franklin fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell, in their political life, from popularity to ingratitude, from glory to bitter scorn of their citizens,—always in the name of God, for whom they acted; and the liberator of America died, committing to the Divine protection, first, the liberty of his People,—and, afterwards, his own soul to His indulgent judgment.

Strafford, dying for the constitution of his country, wrote to Charles I., to entreat his consent to his punishment, that he might spare trouble to the State: “Put not your trust,” wrote he, after this consent was obtained, “put not your trust in princes, or in the son [Pg 63] of man, because salvation is not in them, but from on high.” While walking to the scaffold, he stopped under the windows of his friend, the Bishop of London; he raised his head towards him, and asked, in a loud voice, the assistance of his prayers in the terrible moment to which he had come. The primate, bowed with age, and bathed in tears, gave, in a stifled voice, his tender benedictions to his unhappy friend, and fell, without consciousness, into the arms of his attendants. Strafford continued his way, sustained by the Divine force, descending from this invocation upon him: he spoke with resignation to the People assembled to see him die. “I fear only one thing,” said he, “and that is, that this effusion of innocent blood is a bad presage for the liberty of my country!” (Alas! why did not the Convention recall these words [Pg 64] among us, in ’93?) Stafford continued:—“Now,” said he, “I draw near my end. One blow will make my wife a widow, my children orphans, deprive my poor servants of an affectionate master, and separate me from my dear brother, and my friends. May God be all of these!” He disrobed himself, and placed his head on the block. “I give thanks,” said he, “to my heavenly Master for helping me to await this blow without fear; for not permitting me to be cast down for a single instant by terror. I repose my head as willingly on this block as I ever laid it down to sleep.” This is faith in Patriotism! See Charles I., in his turn,—that model of a kingly death. At the moment that he was to receive the blow of the axe, the edge of which he had coolly examined and touched, he raised his head, and addressed the [Pg 65] clergyman who was present:—“Remember!” said he; as if he had said, “Remember to advise my sons never to revenge their father!”

Sidney, the young martyr of a patriotism, guilty, because too hasty, died to expiate the dream of the freedom of his country. He said to the jailer, “May my blood purify my soul! I rejoice that I die innocent toward the king, but a victim resigned to the King of Heaven, to whom we owe all life.”

The republicans of Cromwell sought only the way of God, even in the blood of battles. Their politics is nothing but faith; their government, a prayer; their death, a holy hymn;—they sang, like the Templars, on their funeral-pile. We see, we feel, we hear God, above all, in these revolutions, in these great popular movements, and in the souls of the great citizens of these nations.

[Pg 66] But recross the Atlantic, traverse the Channel, approach our own time, open our annals; and listen to the great political actors in the drama of our liberty. It would seem as if God was hidden from the souls of men; as if his name had never been written in the language. History will have the air of being atheistic, while recounting to posterity these annihilations, rather than deaths, of the celebrated men of the greatest years of France. The victims alone have a God; the tribunes and lictors have none.

See Mirabeau on his death-bed. “Crown me with flowers,” said he, “intoxicate me with perfumes, let me die with the sound of delicious music.” Not one word of God, or of his soul! A sensual philosopher, he asks of death only a supreme sensualism; he desires to give a last pleasure even to agony.

[Pg 67] Look at Madam Roland, that strong woman of the Revolution,—upon the car that carries her to death. She looks with scorn upon the stupid People, who kill their prophets and their sibyls. Not one glance to Heaven; only an exclamation for the earth she leaves:—“O, Liberty!”

Approach the prison door of the Girondines: their last night is a banquet, and their last hymn is the Marseillaise!

Follow Camille Desmoulins to punishment:—a cold and indecent pleasantry at the tribunal; one long imprecation on the road to the guillotine;—those are the last thoughts of this dying man, about to appear on high!

Listen to Danton, upon the platform of the scaffold, one step from God and immortality:—“I have enjoyed much; let me go to sleep,” he says;—then, to the executioner, “You will show my [Pg 68] head to the People; it is worth while!” Annihilation for a confession of faith; vanity for his last sigh: such is the Frenchman of these latter days!

What do you think of the religious sentiment of a free People, whose great characters seem to walk thus in procession to annihilation; and die, without even death, that terrible minister, recalling to their minds the fear or the promises of God?

Thus the Republic,—which had no future,—reared by these men, and mere parties, was quickly overthrown in blood. Liberty, achieved by so much heroism and genius, did not find in France a conscience to shelter it, a God to avenge it, a People to defend it, against that other Atheism called Glory! All was finished by a soldier, and by the apostacy of republicans travestied into courtiers! And what could you [Pg 69] expect? Republican Atheism has no reason to be heroic. If it is terrified, it yields. Would one buy it, it sells itself; it would be most foolish to sacrifice itself. Who would mourn for it?—the People are ungrateful, and God does not exist.

Thus end atheistic revolutions!


XIX.

If you wish that this revolution should not have the same end, beware of abject Materialism, degrading Sensualism, gross Socialism, of besotted Communism; of all these doctrines of flesh and blood, of meat and drink, of hunger and thirst, of wages and traffic, which these corruptors of the soul of the People preach to you, exclusively, as the sole thought, the sole hope, as the only duty, and only end of man! [Pg 70] They will soon make you slaves of ease, serfs of your desires.

Are you willing to have inscribed on the tomb of our French race, as on that of the Sybarites, this epitaph: “This People ate and drank well, while they browsed upon the earth?” No! You desire that History should write thus: “This People worshipped well, served God and humanity well,—in thought, in philosophy, in religion, in literature, in arts, in arms, in labor, in liberty, in their Aristocracies, in their Democracies, in their Monarchies, and their Republics! This nation was the spiritual laborer, the conqueror of truth; the disciple of the highest God, in all the ways of civilization,—and, to approach nearer to him, it invented the Republic, that government of duties and of rights, that rule of spiritualism, which finds in ideas its only sovereignty.”

[Pg 71] Seek God, then. This is your nature and your grandeur. And do not seek Him in these Materialisms! For God is not below,—he is on high!

LAMARTINE,

Representative of the People.

THE END.

Transcriber's Note:

This text uses some variant spelling—for example, partizan, demagoguical, apostacy, corruptors. This has been preserved as printed.

The ellipsis in this text uses asterisks rather than dots.

On page 62, the semicolon following 'rose' has been moved to follow 'suffered'—"... fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell ..."

A repetition of the book title has been deleted.






End of Project Gutenberg's Atheism Among the People, by Alphonse de Lamartine

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATHEISM AMONG THE PEOPLE ***

***** This file should be named 25339-h.htm or 25339-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/3/3/25339/

Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Sam W. and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This file was made using scans of public domain works
from the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.)


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
https://gutenberg.org/license).


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at https://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org


Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit https://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.


Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.


Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     https://www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.