to pervert mankind? This is unknown; it is a mystery which
the Deity alone is acquainted with.

It is now universally acknowledged, that the earth turns round the sun.
Centuries ago, this opinion was blasphemy, as being irreconcileable with
the sacred books which every Christian reveres as inspired by the Deity
himself. Notwithstanding divine revelation, astronomers now depend rather
upon evidence, than upon the testimony of their inspired books.

What is the hidden principle of the motions of the human body? The soul.
What is a soul? A spirit. What is a spirit? A substance, which has neither
form, nor colour, nor extension, nor parts. How can we form any idea
of such a substance? How can it move a body? That is not known; it is a
mystery. Have beasts souls? But, do they not act, feel, and think, in a
manner very similar to man? Mere illusion! By what right do you deprive
beasts of a soul, which you attribute to man, though you know nothing at
all about it? Because the souls of beasts would embarrass our theologians,
who are satisfied with the power of terrifying and damning the immaterial
souls of men, and are not so much interested in damning those of beasts.
Such are the puerile solutions, which philosophy, always in the leading
strings of theology, was obliged to invent, in order to explain the
problems of the physical and moral world?

203.

How many evasions have been used, both in ancient and modern times, in
order to avoid an engagement with the ministers of the gods, who have ever
been the tyrants of thought? How many hypotheses and shifts were such men
as Descartes, Mallebranche, and Leibnitz, forced to invent, in order to
reconcile their discoveries with the fables and mistakes which Religion
had consecrated! In what guarded phrases have the greatest philosophers
expressed themselves, even at the risk of being absurd, inconsistent, or
unintelligible, whenever their ideas did not accord with the principles of
theology! Priests have been always attentive to extinguish systems which
opposed their interest. Theology was ever the bed of Procrustes, to be
adapted to which, the limbs of travellers, if too long were cut off, and
if too short were lengthened.

Can any sensible man, delighted with the sciences and attached to the
welfare of his fellow-creatures, reflect, without vexation and anguish,
how many profound, laborious, and subtle brains have been for ages
foolishly occupied in the study of absurdit