ld be as difficult to instill into the mind
of a man, forty years old, the extravagant notions that are given us of
the divinity, as to eradicate them from the mind of him who had imbibed
them from infancy.

36.

It is observed, that the wonders of nature are sufficient to lead us to
the existence of a God, and fully to convince us of this important truth.
But how many are there in the world who have the time, capacity, or
disposition, necessary to contemplate Nature and meditate her progress?
Men, for the most part, pay no regard to it. The peasant is not struck
with the beauty of the sun, which he sees every day. The sailor is not
surprised at the regular motion of the ocean; he will never draw from it
theological conclusions. The phenomena of nature prove the existence of a
God only to some prejudiced men, who have been early taught to behold the
finger of God in every thing whose mechanism could embarrass them. In the
wonders of nature, the unprejudiced philosopher sees nothing but the
power of nature, the permanent and various laws, the necessary effects of
different combinations of matter infinitely diversified.

37.

Is there any thing more surprising than the logic of these divines, who,
instead of confessing their ignorance of natural causes, seek beyond
nature, in imaginary regions, a cause much more unknown than that nature,
of which they can form at least some idea? To say, that God is the author
of the phenomena of nature, is it not to attribute them to an occult
cause? What is God? What is a spirit? They are causes of which we have no
idea. O wise divines! Study nature and her laws; and since you can
there discover the action of natural causes, go not to those that are
supernatural, which, far from enlightening, will only darken your ideas,
and make it utterly impossible that you should understand yourselves.

38.

Nature, you say, is totally inexplicable without a God. That is to say,
to explain what you understand very little, you have need of a cause which
you understand not at all. You think to elucidate what is obscure, by
doubling the obscurity; to solve difficulties, by multiplying them. O
enthusiastic philosophers! To prove the existence of a God, write complete
treatises of botany; enter into a minute detail of the parts of the human
body; launch forth into the sky, to contemplate the revolution of the
stars; then return to the earth to admire the course of waters; behold