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Part III, Chapter III, 2
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There are besides many other reasons, and many other natural principles, which all tend to confirm and inculcate the same salutary doctrine. If we consider the general rules by which external prosperity and adversity are commonly distributed in this life, we shall find, that notwithstanding the disorder in which all things appear to be in this world, yet even here every virtue naturally meets with its proper reward, with the recompense which is most fit to encourage and promote it; and this too so surely, that it requires a very extraordinary concurrence of circumstances entirely to disappoint it. What is the reward most proper for encouraging industry, prudence, and circumspection? Success in every sort of business. And is it possible that in the whole of life these virtues should fail of attaining it? Wealth and external honours are their proper recompense, and the recompense which they can seldom fail of acquiring. What reward is most proper for promoting the practice of truth, justice, and humanity? The confidence, the esteem, and love of those we live with. Humanity does not desire to be great, but to be beloved. It is not in being rich that truth and justice would rejoice, but in being trusted and believed, recompenses which those virtues must almost always acquire. By some very extraordinary and unlucky circumstance, a good man may come to be suspected of a crime of which he was altogether incapable, and upon that account be most unjustly exposed for the remaining part of his life to the horror and aversion of mankind. By an accident of this kind he may be said to lose his all, notwithstanding his integrity and justice; in the same manner as a cautious man, notwithstanding his utmost circumspection, may be ruined by an earthquake or an inundation. Accidents of the first kind, however, are perhaps still more rare, and still more contrary to the common course of things than those of the second; and still it remains true, that the practice of truth, justice, and humanity, is a certain and almost infallible method of acquiring what those virtues chiefly aim at, the confidence and love of those we live with. A person may be very easily misrepresented with regard to a particular action; but it is scarce possible that he should be so with regard to the general tenor of his conduct. An innocent man may be believed to have done wrong: this, however, will rarely happen. On the contrary, the established opinion of the innocence of his manners, will often lead us to absolve him where he has really been in the fault, notwithstanding very strong presumptions. A knave, in the same manner may escape censure, or even meet applause, for a particular knavery, in which his conduct is not understood. But no man was ever habitually such, without being almost universally known to be so, and without being even frequently suspected of guilt, when he was in reality perfectly innocent. And so far as vice and virtue can be either punished or rewarded by the sentiments and opinions of mankind, they both, according to the common course of things, meet even here with something more than exact and impartial justice.
But though the general rules by which prosperity and adversity are commonly distributed, when considered in this cool and philosophical light, appear to be perfectly suited to the situation of mankind in this life, yet they are by no means suited to some of our natural sentiments. Our natural love and admiration for some virtues is such, that we should wish to bestow on them all sorts of honours and rewards, even those which we must acknowledge to be the proper recompenses of other qualities with which those virtues are not always accompanied. Our detestation, on the contrary, for some vices is such, that we should desire to heap upon them every sort of disgrace and disaster, those not excepted which are the natural consequences of very different qualities. Magnanimity, generosity, and justice command so high a degree of admiration, that we desire to see them crowned with wealth, and power, and honours of every kind, the natural consequences of prudence, industry, and application; qualities with which those virtues are not inseparably connected. Fraud, falsehood, brutality, and violence, on the other hand, excite in every human breast such scorn and abhorrence, that our indignation rouses to see them possess those advantages which they may in some sense be said to have merited, by the diligence and industry with which they are sometimes attended. The industrious knave cultivates the soil; the indolent good man leaves it uncultivated. Who ought to reap the harvest? Who starve, and who live in plenty? The natural course of things decides it in favour of the knave: the natural sentiments of mankind in favour of the man of virtue. Man judges, that the good qualities of the one are greatly over-recompensed by those advantages which they tend to procure him, and that the omissions of the other are by far too severely punished by the distress which they naturally bring upon him; and human laws, the consequences of human sentiments, forfeit the life and the estate of the industrious and cautious traitor, and reward, by extraordinary recompenses, the fidelity and public spirit of the improvident and careless good citizen. Thus man is by Nature directed to correct, in some measure, that distribution of things which she herself would otherwise have made. The rules which for this purpose she prompts him to follow, are different from those which she herself observes. She bestows upon every virtue, and upon every vice, that precise reward or punishment which is best fitted to encourage the one, or to restrain the other. She is directed by this sole consideration, and pays little regard to the different degrees of merit and demerit, which they may seem to possess in the sentiments and passions of man. Man, on the contrary, pays regard to this only, and would endeavour to render the state of every virtue precisely proportioned to that degree of love and esteem, and of every vice to that degree of contempt and abhorrence, which he himself conceives for it. The rules which she follows are fit for her, those which he follows for him: but both are calculated to promote the same great end, the order of the world, and the perfection and happiness of human nature.
But though man is thus employed to alter that distribution of things which natural events would make, if left to themselves; though, like the gods of the poets, he is perpetually interposing, by extraordinary means, in favour of virtue, and in opposition to vice, and like them, endeavours to turn away the arrow that is aimed at the head of the righteous, but accelerates the sword of destruction that is lifted up against the wicked; yet he is by no means able to render the fortune of either quite suitable to his own sentiments and wishes. The natural course of things cannot be entirely controuled by the impotent endeavours of man: the current is too rapid and too strong for him to stop it; and though the rules which direct it appear to have been established for the wisest and best purposes, they sometimes produce effects which shock all his natural sentiments. That a great combination of men, should prevail over a small one; that those who engage in an enterprise with fore-thought and all necessary preparation, should prevail over such as oppose them without any; and that every end should be acquired by those means only which Nature has established for acquiring it, seems to be a rule not only necessary and unavoidable in itself, but even useful and proper for rousing the industry and attention of mankind. Yet, when, in consequence of this rule, violence and artifice prevail over sincerity and justice, what indignation does it not excite in the breast of every humane spectator? What sorrow and compassion for the sufferings of the innocent, and what furious resentment against the success of the oppressor? We are equally grieved and enraged, at the wrong that is done, but often find it altogether out of our power to redress it. When we thus despair of finding any force upon earth which can check the triumph of injustice, we naturally appeal to Heaven, and hope, that the great Author of our nature will himself execute hereafter, what all the principles which he has given us for the direction of our conduct, prompt us to attempt even here; that he will complete the plan which he himself has thus taught us to begin; and will, in a life to come, render to every one according to the works which he has performed in this world. And thus we are led to the belief of a future state, not only by the weaknesses, by the hopes and fears of human nature, but by the noblest and best principles which belong to it, by the love of virtue, and by the abhorrence of vice and injustice.
“Does it suit the greatness of God,” says the eloquent and philosophical bishop of Clermont, with that passionate and exaggerating force of imagination, which seems sometimes to exceed the bounds of decorum; “does it suit the greatness of God, to leave the world which he has created in so universal a disorder? To see the wicked prevail almost always over the just; the innocent dethroned by the usurper; the father become the victim of the ambition of an unnatural son; the husband expiring under the stroke of a barbarous and faithless wife? From the height of his greatness ought God to behold those melancholy events as a fantastical amusement, without taking any share in them? Because he is great, should he be weak, or unjust, or barbarous? Because men are little, ought they to be allowed either to be dissolute without punishment, or virtuous without reward? O God! if this is the character of your Supreme Being; if it is you whom we adore under such dreadful ideas; I can no longer acknowledge you for my father, for my protector, for the comforter of my sorrow, the support of my weakness, the rewarder of my fidelity. You would then be no more than an indolent and fantastical tyrant, who sacrifices mankind to his insolent vanity, and who has brought them out of nothing, only to make them serve for the sport of his leisure, and of his caprice.”
When the general rules which determine the merit and demerit of actions, come thus to be regarded, as the laws of an All-powerful Being, who watches over our conduct, and who, in a life to come, will reward the observance, and punish the breach of them; they necessarily acquire a new sacredness from this consideration. That our regard to the will of the Deity, ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct, can be doubted of by no body who believes his existence. The very thought of disobedience appears to involve in it the most shocking impropriety. How vain, how absurd would it be for man, either to oppose or to neglect the commands that were laid upon him by Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Power! How unnatural, how impiously ungrateful not to reverence the precepts that were prescribed to him by the infinite goodness of his Creator, even though no punishment was to follow their violation. The sense of propriety too is here well supported by the strongest motives of self-interest. The idea that, however we may escape the observation of man, or be placed above the reach of human punishment, yet we are always acting under the eye, and exposed to the punishment of God, the great avenger of injustice, is a motive capable of restraining the most headstrong passions, with those at least who, by constant reflection, have rendered it familiar to them.
It is in this manner that religion enforces the natural sense of duty: and hence it is, that mankind are generally disposed to place great confidence in the probity of those who seem deeply impressed with religious sentiments. Such persons, they imagine, act under an additional tye, besides those which regulate the conduct of other men. The regard to the propriety of action as well as to reputation, the regard to the applause of his own breast, as well as that of others, are motives which they suppose have the same influence over the religious man, as over the man of the world. But the former lies under another restraint, and never acts deliberately but as in the presence of that Great Superior who is finally to recompense him according to his deeds. A greater trust is reposed, upon this account, in the regularity and exactness of his conduct. And wherever the natural principles of religion are not corrupted by the factious and party zeal of some worthless cabal; wherever the first duty which it requires, is to fulfil all the obligations of morality; wherever men are not taught to regard frivolous observances, as more immediate duties of religion, than acts of justice and beneficence; and to imagine, that by sacrifices, and ceremonies, and vain supplications, they can bargain with the Deity for fraud, and perfidy, and violence, the world undoubtedly judges right in this respect, and justly places a double confidence in the rectitude of the religious man’s behaviour.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete sixth-edition English text of all parts (the appended Dissertation on the Origin of Languages is not included) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
There are many other reasons, too, and many other natural principles, all tending to confirm and impress upon us the same beneficial doctrine. Consider the general rules by which outward prosperity and adversity are ordinarily distributed in this life. Despite the disorder in which everything in the world seems to stand, even here every virtue naturally meets its fitting reward—the recompense best suited to encourage and promote it—with such certainty that only an extraordinary combination of circumstances can wholly prevent it. What reward best encourages industry, prudence, and care? Success in every kind of enterprise. Is it possible for these virtues to fail to achieve success over a whole lifetime? Wealth and outward honors are their proper reward, which they can seldom fail to acquire. What reward best encourages truth, justice, and humanity? The trust, esteem, and love of those among whom we live. Humanity seeks not greatness but love. Truth and justice delight not in riches but in being trusted and believed, rewards those virtues must almost always obtain. Through some exceptionally unfortunate circumstance, a good man may be suspected of a crime he was wholly incapable of committing, and unjustly exposed for the rest of his life to the horror and aversion of humankind. Such a misfortune may cost him everything, despite his integrity and justice, just as an earthquake or flood may ruin a cautious man despite his utmost care. Accidents of the former kind, however, are perhaps rarer still and still more contrary to the usual course of events than those of the latter. It remains true that practicing truth, justice, and humanity is a sure and almost infallible means of gaining what those virtues chiefly seek: the trust and love of those we live with. One particular action of a person can very easily be misrepresented; the general course of his conduct scarcely can. An innocent man may be believed guilty of wrongdoing, but this will rarely happen. Indeed, an established belief in his blameless character will often lead us to acquit him when he really is at fault, despite strong evidence against him. In the same way, a scoundrel may escape censure or even be applauded for some particular act of dishonesty whose true nature is misunderstood. But no one has ever been habitually dishonest without becoming almost universally known as such, and without even being frequently suspected of guilt when he is in fact wholly innocent. So far as vice and virtue can be punished or rewarded by human feelings and opinions, then, in the ordinary course of things they receive, even in this life, something more than exact and impartial justice.
Yet although the general rules by which prosperity and adversity are ordinarily allotted seem, when viewed coolly and philosophically, perfectly suited to our situation in this life, they by no means satisfy some of our natural feelings. Our natural love and admiration for certain virtues is so strong that we wish to lavish every kind of honor and reward on them, including rewards we must acknowledge to be proper to other qualities that do not always accompany those virtues. Our abhorrence of certain vices, conversely, makes us wish to heap every kind of disgrace and misfortune upon them, including consequences that naturally attend entirely different qualities. Greatness of soul, generosity, and justice command such admiration that we wish to see them crowned with wealth, power, and every kind of honor—the natural fruits of prudence, industry, and diligence, qualities not inseparably bound to those virtues. Fraud, falsehood, brutality, and violence, on the other hand, stir such contempt and abhorrence in every human heart that we are indignant when they enjoy advantages they may in a sense have earned through the diligence and industry sometimes accompanying them. The industrious scoundrel cultivates the soil; the idle good man leaves it untilled. Who should reap the harvest? Who should starve and who should live in plenty? The natural course of things decides for the scoundrel; the natural feelings of humankind decide for the virtuous man. We judge that the former's good qualities are rewarded far beyond their worth by the advantages they tend to bring him, and that the latter's failings are punished far too harshly by the distress they naturally produce. Human laws, born of human feeling, accordingly confiscate the life and estate of the industrious and cautious traitor, while giving exceptional rewards to the fidelity and public spirit of the careless good citizen who failed to provide for himself. Thus nature directs humanity to correct, to a degree, the distribution she would otherwise make herself. The rules she prompts us to follow for this purpose differ from those she follows. To every virtue and vice she assigns precisely the reward or punishment best designed to encourage the one or check the other. Guided by this consideration alone, she pays little regard to the different degrees of merit and demerit they may seem to have in human feeling and passion. We, by contrast, attend to these degrees alone and would try to make the condition of each virtue exactly match the love and esteem, and that of each vice exactly match the contempt and abhorrence, we feel for it. Her rules are fit for her and ours for us; yet both serve the same great end: the order of the world and the perfection and happiness of human nature.
Yet even as people work to alter the distribution that natural events would bring about if left alone—even as, like the gods of the poets, they constantly intervene by extraordinary means for virtue and against vice, seeking to turn aside the arrow aimed at the righteous person's head and speed the sword of destruction raised against the wicked—they are far from able to make the fortunes of either fully accord with their feelings and wishes. The natural course of things cannot be entirely controlled by our feeble efforts. Its current runs too fast and strong for us to stop, and although the rules directing it appear established for the wisest and best purposes, they sometimes have results that shock all our natural feelings. That a large alliance should prevail over a small one; that those who embark on an enterprise with foresight and every necessary preparation should prevail over opponents who have made none; and that every end should be achieved only by the means nature has established for achieving it: all this seems not merely necessary and inevitable, but useful and fitting for stirring human industry and attentiveness. Yet when this rule allows violence and cunning to prevail over sincerity and justice, what indignation rises in every humane spectator's heart! What sorrow and compassion for the innocent who suffer, and what furious resentment at the oppressor's success! We grieve and rage at the wrong alike, yet often find ourselves utterly powerless to set it right. When we despair of finding any power on earth to halt the triumph of injustice, we naturally appeal to Heaven. We hope that the great Author of our nature will himself accomplish hereafter what all the principles he gave us to direct our conduct urge us to attempt here; that he will complete the plan he has taught us to begin; and that in a life to come he will repay everyone according to the deeds done in this world. Thus belief in a future state springs not only from human weakness, hope, and fear, but from the noblest and best principles of our nature: love of virtue and abhorrence of vice and injustice.
“Is it worthy of God's greatness,” asks the eloquent and philosophical bishop of Clermont, with an impassioned and extravagant force of imagination that sometimes seems to exceed the bounds of good taste, “to leave the world he created in such universal disorder? To see the wicked almost always prevail over the just; the innocent dethroned by usurpers; a father made the victim of an unnatural son's ambition; a husband dying under the blow of a barbarous and faithless wife? Should God, from the height of his greatness, watch these mournful events as a fantastic amusement, taking no part in them? Because he is great, should he be weak, unjust, or barbarous? Because human beings are small, should they be allowed either to lead dissolute lives without punishment or to be virtuous without reward? O God! If this is the character of your Supreme Being, if it is you we worship under such dreadful ideas, I can no longer acknowledge you as my father, my protector, the comforter of my grief, the support of my weakness, the rewarder of my fidelity. You would be nothing but an idle and capricious tyrant, sacrificing humankind to his insolent vanity, bringing people out of nothing only to make them the playthings of his leisure and whim.”
When the general rules determining the merit and demerit of actions are thus regarded as the laws of an all-powerful Being who watches over our conduct and who will reward obedience and punish transgression in a life to come, they necessarily take on a new sacredness. No one who believes in the Deity's existence can doubt that regard for his will ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct. The very thought of disobeying him seems to involve the most shocking impropriety. How vain and absurd for us to resist or neglect commands laid upon us by infinite wisdom and infinite power! How unnatural and impiously ungrateful not to revere the precepts of our Creator's infinite goodness, even if violating them brought no punishment! Here the sense of propriety is also reinforced by the strongest motives of self-interest. We may escape human notice or stand beyond the reach of human punishment, but the thought that we always act under God's eye and remain exposed to the punishment of that great avenger of injustice can restrain even the most unruly passions, at least in those who have made that thought familiar through constant reflection.
This is how religion reinforces the natural sense of duty, and why people are generally disposed to place great trust in the integrity of those who appear deeply impressed by religious feeling. They suppose such people are bound by an additional tie besides those governing everyone else. They assume that concern for the propriety of one's actions and for one's reputation, for the approval of one's own heart and for that of others, influence a religious person just as they influence a worldly one. But the religious person faces another restraint and never acts deliberately except as though in the presence of the great Superior who will finally reward him according to his deeds. People therefore place greater trust in the regularity and exactness of his conduct. And wherever the natural principles of religion have not been corrupted by the factional zeal of some worthless clique; wherever religion demands first that we fulfill all our moral obligations; wherever people are not taught to treat trivial observances as more urgent religious duties than acts of justice and beneficence, or to imagine that sacrifices, ceremonies, and empty prayers can buy the Deity's consent to fraud, treachery, and violence—the world is undoubtedly right to judge in this way, and rightly places twice the trust in the upright conduct of a religious person.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete sixth-edition English text of all parts (the appended Dissertation on the Origin of Languages is not included).
Many other reasons and natural principles support and reinforce this helpful belief. Consider the general rules that usually determine who prospers and who suffers in this life. Despite all the apparent disorder in the world, even here each virtue naturally receives the reward best suited to encourage it. This happens so reliably that only a very unusual combination of circumstances can prevent it altogether. What reward best encourages hard work, prudence, and care? Success in every kind of business. Can these qualities fail to bring success over the course of a whole life? Wealth and outward honors are their natural rewards, rewards they rarely fail to gain. What reward best encourages truthfulness, justice, and humanity? The trust, esteem, and love of the people around us. Humanity wants not greatness but love. Truthfulness and justice seek not riches but to be trusted and believed. These qualities almost always earn those rewards. In exceptionally unlucky circumstances, a good man might be suspected of a crime he would never commit. He might then unjustly face people's horror and dislike for the rest of his life. Such an accident could make him lose everything despite his integrity and justice, just as an earthquake or flood could ruin a cautious man despite his utmost care. But accidents of the first kind are perhaps even rarer and further from the ordinary course of events than those of the second. It remains true that being truthful, just, and humane is an almost certain way to win what these virtues chiefly seek: the trust and love of the people around us. It is easy to misrepresent a person's particular action, but almost impossible to misrepresent the general pattern of his conduct. People may believe an innocent man did something wrong, though this will rarely happen. In fact, his established reputation for innocence will often lead us to acquit him when he really is at fault, even when there is strong evidence against him. Similarly, a dishonest man may escape blame or even receive praise for a particular dishonest act if people do not understand what he did. But no one has ever been habitually dishonest without becoming known as such to almost everyone. He is even often suspected when he is completely innocent. So, to the extent that people's feelings and opinions can reward virtue and punish vice, each ordinarily gets even more than strict, impartial justice would give it in this life.
These general rules governing prosperity and hardship may look perfectly suited to human life when we think about them calmly and philosophically. Yet they do not fit some of our natural feelings. We love and admire certain virtues so much that we want to give them every kind of honor and reward, including rewards properly belonging to other qualities they do not always have. Likewise, we hate certain vices so much that we want to bring every kind of disgrace and disaster on them, even those that naturally follow from quite different failings. We admire greatness of spirit, generosity, and justice so much that we want them crowned with wealth, power, and every honor. Yet these are the natural results of prudence, hard work, and steady application, qualities that do not always accompany those virtues. On the other hand, fraud, lies, cruelty, and violence provoke such contempt and disgust that we are outraged to see people guilty of them enjoy benefits they have in one sense earned through the hard work that sometimes accompanies their vices. A hardworking dishonest man cultivates the land; an idle good man leaves it uncultivated. Who should get the harvest? Who should starve, and who should have plenty? The natural course of events favors the dishonest man, while people's natural feelings favor the good man. People think that the first man's good qualities are rewarded far too much by the advantages they bring, and the second man's neglect is punished far too severely by the hardship it causes. Human laws, which grow out of human feelings, therefore take the life and property of a hardworking, cautious traitor. They also give exceptional rewards to an imprudent, careless citizen for loyalty and public spirit. Nature thus directs human beings to correct, to some degree, the way she would otherwise distribute rewards. The rules she prompts them to follow for this purpose differ from the ones she follows herself. Nature gives each virtue and vice exactly the reward or punishment best suited to encourage the virtue or restrain the vice. That is her sole consideration. She takes little account of the degrees of merit and demerit that people attribute to them through their feelings and passions. People, by contrast, consider only those degrees. They want the fortunes of every virtue to match exactly the love and esteem they feel for it, and the fortunes of every vice to match their contempt and disgust. Nature's rules suit nature, and people's rules suit people. Both promote the same great goal: an orderly world and the perfection and happiness of human nature.
People therefore try to change the distribution of fortune that natural events would produce on their own. Like the gods in poetry, they keep intervening by unusual means on behalf of virtue and against vice. They try to turn aside an arrow aimed at a good person's head and speed up the sword of destruction raised against a wicked person. Yet they cannot make either person's fortunes entirely match their feelings and wishes. Weak human efforts cannot fully control the natural course of events. Its current is too fast and strong to stop. Though the rules directing it seem established for the wisest and best purposes, they sometimes produce results that shock all our natural feelings. A large group prevailing over a small one, prepared people prevailing over unprepared opponents, and each goal being attained only through the means nature has provided for attaining it: this rule seems necessary and unavoidable. It even seems useful and proper because it encourages people to work hard and pay attention. Yet when it lets violence and cunning defeat honesty and justice, every humane spectator feels indignation. We feel sorrow and compassion for innocent sufferers and furious resentment at the oppressor's success. We are both grieved and enraged by the wrong, but often have no power at all to put it right. When we despair of finding any earthly force that can stop injustice from triumphing, we naturally turn to Heaven. We hope that the great Author of our nature will later carry out what the principles he gave us already urge us to attempt here. We hope he will complete the plan he taught us to begin and, in a life to come, repay everyone according to their actions in this world. This is how we come to believe in a future life. The belief comes not only from human weakness, hope, and fear. It also comes from the noblest and best parts of our nature: love of virtue and hatred of vice and injustice.
“Is it worthy of God's greatness,” asks the eloquent and philosophical bishop of Clermont, with a passionate and exaggerated imagination that sometimes seems to go beyond what is proper, “to leave the world he created in such widespread disorder? Should he watch the wicked almost always defeat the just; an innocent ruler overthrown by a usurper; a father made the victim of an unnatural son's ambition; a husband dying at the hands of a cruel and faithless wife? Should God, from his exalted position, treat these sad events as imaginary entertainment and take no part in them? Because he is great, should he be weak, unjust, or cruel? Because human beings are small, should they be allowed to live wickedly without punishment or virtuously without reward? O God! If this is what your Supreme Being is like, if it is you we worship under such terrifying ideas, I can no longer call you my father, my protector, the comforter of my grief, the support of my weakness, or the rewarder of my loyalty. You would be nothing but a lazy, capricious tyrant who sacrifices humanity to his arrogant vanity. You would have brought people into existence from nothing only to amuse yourself in your idle hours and indulge your whims.”
When the general rules defining the merit and demerit of actions come to be seen as the laws of an all-powerful being, they take on a new sacredness. This being watches our conduct and will reward obedience and punish disobedience in a future life. No one who believes God exists can doubt that respect for his will should be our supreme rule of conduct. Even the thought of disobeying seems shockingly improper. How pointless and absurd it would be for a human being to resist or ignore commands from infinite wisdom and infinite power! How unnatural and ungrateful toward God not to respect the rules given by the Creator's infinite goodness, even if breaking them brought no punishment. Our sense of propriety also receives strong support here from self-interest. Even if we escape other people's notice or are beyond human punishment, God always sees us, and we are still liable to punishment from this great avenger of injustice. For people who make that thought familiar through constant reflection, it can restrain even their strongest passions.
This is how religion strengthens our natural sense of duty. It is why people generally put great trust in the honesty of those who seem to hold deep religious beliefs. They think such people feel another obligation in addition to those that guide everyone else. They assume that religious people, like people of the world, care about acting properly and protecting their reputation. They also care about their own conscience's approval and other people's approval. But religious people feel another restraint as well. Whenever they act deliberately, they act as though in the presence of a great superior who will ultimately repay them according to their deeds. People therefore trust them more to behave consistently and carefully. And people are surely right to place this double trust in the conduct of religious people wherever religion's natural principles have not been corrupted by the partisan zeal of some worthless faction. They are right wherever religion's first duty is to fulfill every moral obligation; wherever people are not taught to place trivial observances above acts of justice and beneficence as religious duties; and wherever people are not led to believe they can bargain with God, through sacrifices, ceremonies, and empty prayers, for permission to commit fraud, betrayal, and violence.