Excerpt from Thoughts on Religion and Philosophy: A New Translation, With an Original Memoir of the Author, and an Introductory Essay Those periodic agitations to which all social systems, whether civil or religious, are liable, carry with them a twofold and opposite influence; the one, and the most direct, tending to give rise to similar movements in neighbouring communities; and the other, operating with hardly less force, to preclude any such convulsions where else they probably would, or certainly must, have taken place. By the very same spectacle of public commotions, minds of a certain class are animated to action, and hurried into the midst of perils; while others are as effectively deterred from giving scope to their rising energies. In this way every revolution which history records may be reckoned at once to have caused, and to have prevented kindred changes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.