"Of Superstition and Enthusiasm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

and preserve the sacred principles from oblivion.
Superstition, on the contrary, steals in gradually and
insensibly; renders men tame and submissive; is acceptable to
the magistrate, and seems inoffensive to the people: Till at
last the priest, having firmly established his authority,
becomes the tyrant and disturber of human society, by his
endless contentions, persecutions, and religious wars. How
smoothly did the Romish church advance in her acquisition of
power ? But into what dismal convulsions did she throw all
Europe, in order to maintain it ? On the other hand, our
sectaries, who were formerly such dangerous bigots, are now
become very free reasoners; and the quakers seem to approach
nearly the only regular body of deists in the universe, the literati,
or the disciples of Confucius in China.[4]

My third observation on this head is, that superstition is an
enemy to civil liberty, and enthusiasm a friend to it. As
superstition groans under the dominion of priests, and
enthusiasm is destructive of all ecclesiastical power, this
sufficiently accounts for the present observation. Not to
mention, that enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and
ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of
liberty; as superstition, on the contrary, renders men tame
and abject, and fits them for slavery. We learn from English
history, that, during the civil wars, the independents and
deists, though the most opposite in their religious
principles; yet were united in their political ones, and were
alike passionate for a commonwealth. And since the origin of
whig and tory, the leaders of the whigs have either been
deists or profest latitudnarians in their principles; that is,
friends to toleration, and indifferent to any particular sect
of christians: While the sectaries, who have all a strong
tincture of enthusiasm, have always, without exception,
concurred with that party, in defence of civil liberty. The
resemblance in their superstitions long united the high church
tories, and the Roman catholics, in support of prerogative and
kingly power; though experience of the tolerating spirit of
the whigs seems of late to have reconciled the catholics to
that party.

The molinists and jansenists in France have a thousand
unintelligible disputes, which are not worthy the reflection
of a man of sense: But what principally distinguishes these
two sects, and alone merits attention, is the different spirit
of their religion. The molinists conducted by the jesuits, are
great friends to superstition, rigid observers of external
forms and ceremonies, and devoted to the authority of the
priests, and to tradition. The jansenists are enthusiasts, and
zealous promoters of the passionate devotion, and of the
inward life; little influenced by authority; and, in a word,