There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude… we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.
Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.
The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.
Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.
