1821 Sept. 29 + B ┴

To Toreno

2 o

Letter VII Religion

§.5 Mischievous people

priestly support to Government

Sole safe /[…?]/ […?] for the Defense

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As to the priesthood, the influence of the mischievous application of which you are apprehensive at the hands of that order of men[?] {has two causes} /is produced by the use made of two sorts of instruments; the quantity of the objects of general desire /the instruments of temporal felicity/ which they are in possession of /have at their immediate disposal/, and the faculty they possess of employing in the promoting of their own particular and sinister temporal interest the hopes and fears of men as derived from {superhuman} /rewards and/ punishment and rewards at the hands of an almighty being, principally in a future life. {As to the first} of these instruments, to deprive them of it /the first/ and that most compleatly and effectually is {altogether} /and by immediate means/ in your own power. to deprive them of the other is what can not be effected by any immediate exercise of your own or any other power. To this end all that can be done is by {the liberty of} public discussion directed to this end /and for this purpose pure liberty, liberty without reward would be sufficient: the pockets of those to whom the liberty would afford security against the person would afford a sufficient retribution for the antidote/. By this in the way of clearing mens minds of mischievous delusion whether applied to this particular purpose or any other there is no imaginable good that can not be done, there is no imaginable good but will be done, if the liberty of doing it be but allowed. At present the whole mass of the wealth possessed by the order of men in question is employed in the administering circulating and infecting the poison: were you {to} take half this wealth and employing /employ/ it in the administering of the antidote, you would thus free yourselves from the imputation of partiality. But what you would not free yourselves from, so long as you gave any such application either to such half of the whole mass of this misapplied wealth is the imputation of waste.