文档介绍：The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
THE AGE OF REASON
by Thomas Paine, 1794
TO MY FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
I PUT the following work under your protection. It contains my opinions upon Religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that I have
always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to
another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.
Your affectionate friend and fellow-citizen,
THOMAS PAINE
Luxembourg, 8th Pluviose,
Second Year of the French Republic, one and indivisible.
January 27, O. S. 1794.
AGE OF REASON.
PART FIRST.
IT has been my intention, for several years past, to publish my thoughts upon religion. I am well aware of the
difficulties that attend the subject, and from that consideration, had reserved it to a more advanced period of life. I
intended it to be the last offering I should make to my fellow-citizens of all nations, and that at a time when the purity
of the motive that induced me to it, could not admit of a question, even by those who might disapprove the work.
The circumstance that has now taken place in France of the total abolition of the whole national order of priesthood,
and of everything appertaining pulsive systems of religion, pulsive articles of faith, has not only
precipitated my intention, but rendered a work of this kind exceedingly necessary, lest in the general wreck of
superstition, of false systems of government, and false theology, we lose sight of morality, of humanity, and of the
theology that is true.
As several of my colleagues and others of my fellow-citizens of France have given me the example of making their
voluntary and individual profession of faith, I also wi