Philosophy still exhibits, in deference to popular prejudice
and fanaticism, what the great French maximist defined as 'the
homage that vice pays to virtue.' Such is the rule to which, most
fortunately for the pause of truth, there are many, and some splendid,
exceptions. One of these is worth citing not only because of its
intrinsic merit, but because the thing to be cited includes an opinion
of religion, and a marked distinction between what is _pious_ and what
is honest, that calls for especial notice. The exception referred to is
a paragraph from a paper on Saint Simonianism, written by Colonel
Thompson, and originally published in the Westminster Review, of April
1, 1832, containing these remarkable words:--'The world wants _honest_
law-givers, not pious ones. If piety will make men honest, let them
favour us with the honesty and keep the piety for God and their own
consciences. There never was a man that brought piety upon the board
when honesty would do, without its being possible to trace a transfusion
in the shape of money or money's worth, from his neighbour's pocket into
his. The object of puzzling the question with religion is clear.
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