o we exist? why is there anything?

_DECLARATION OF THE ADMIRERS, QUESTIONERS AND DOUBTERS WHO HAVE AMUSED
THEMSELVES BY PROPOUNDING TO THE SCHOLARS THE ABOVE QUESTIONS IN NINE
VOLUMES._[23]

We declare to the scholars that, being like them prodigiously ignorant
about the first principles of all things, and about the natural,
typical, mystic, allegorical sense of many things, we refer these things
to the infallible judgment of the Holy Inquisition of Rome, Florence,
Madrid, Lisbon, and to the decrees of the Sorbonne of Paris, perpetual
council of the Gauls.

Our errors springing in no wise from malice, but being the natural
consequence of human frailty, we hope that they will be pardoned to us
in this world and the other.

We beseech the small number of heavenly spirits who are still shut up in
France in mortal bodies, and who, from there, enlighten the universe at
_thirty sous_ the sheet, to communicate their luminousness to us for the
tenth volume which we reckon on publishing at the end of Lent 1772, or
in Advent 1773; and for their luminousness we will pay _forty sous_.

This tenth volume will contain some very curious articles, which, if God
favours us, will give new point to the salt which we shall endeavour to
bestow in the thanks we shall give to these gentlemen.

Executed on Mount Krapack, the thirtieth day of the month of Janus, the
year of the world

according to Scaliger 5722
according to Riccioli 5956
according to Eusebius 6972
according to the Alphonsine Tables 8707
according to the Egyptians 370000
according to the Chaldeans 465102
according to the Brahmins 780000
according to the philosophers infinity

FOOTNOTES:

[23] The Philosophical Dictionary was first published as "Questions on
the Encyclopedia," then reprinted as "Reason by Alphabet," and then
finally, with many additions, became the "Philosophical Dictionary."

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

This text had three occurrences of "Francois I" followed by a
superscripted "er". These have be rendered as Francois Ier in this text.

The following words used an "oe" ligature in the original:

foetus
manoeuvre
oesophagus
Phoenicia
Phoenicians
subpoenaed

Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original.

There is one occurrence of "Vistnou" and one of "Vitsnou". One of thes