see our own earth filled with abundance,
but we forget to consider how much of that abundance is owing to the
scientific knowledge the vast machinery of the universe has unfolded.

But what are we to think of the Christian system of faith that forms
itself upon the idea of only one world? Alas! what is this to the mighty
ocean of space and the almighty power of the Creator? From whence, then,
could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who had
millions of worlds equally dependent on His protection, should quit the
care of all the rest and come to die in our world, because they say one
man and one woman had eaten an apple?

It has been by rejecting the evidence that the word or works of God in
the creation affords to our senses, and the action of our reason upon
that evidence, that so many wild and whimsical systems of faith, and of
religion, have been fabricated and set up. There may be many systems of
religion that so far from being morally bad are in many respects morally
good; but there can be but one that is true, and that one necessarily
must, as it ever will, be in all things consistent with the
ever-existing word of God that we behold in His works.

I shall close by giving a summary of the deistic belief:

First, that the creation we behold is the real word of God, in which we
cannot be deceived. It proclaims His power, it demonstrates His wisdom,
it manifests His goodness and beneficence.

Secondly, that the moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral
goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation towards all
His creatures. That seeing, as we daily do, the goodness of God to all
men, it is an example calling upon all men to practise the same towards
each other, and consequently that everything of persecution and revenge
between man and man, and everything of cruelty to animals, is a
violation of moral duty.

It is certain that, in one point, all nations of the earth and all
religions agree. All believe in a God. The things in which they disagree
are the redundancies annexed to that belief; and, therefore, if ever an
universal religion should prevail, it will not be in believing anything
new, but in getting rid of redundancies, and believing as man believed
at first. But in the meantime let every man follow, as he has a right to
do, the religion and the worship he prefers.

* * * * *

BLAISE PASCAL

LETTERS TO A PROVINCIAL