ivinity, and what is said
of it will be contradicted immediately by the effects we assign to this
cause.

CX.--EVERY RELIGION IS BUT A SYSTEM IMAGINED FOR THE PURPOSE OF
RECONCILING CONTRADICTIONS BY THE AID OF MYSTERIES.

Theology could very properly be defined as the science of
contradictions. Every religion is but a system imagined for the purpose
of reconciling irreconcilable ideas. By the aid of habitude and terror,
we come to persist in the greatest absurdities, even when they are the
most clearly exposed. All religions are easy to combat, but very
difficult to eradicate. Reason can do nothing against habit, which
becomes, as is said, a second nature. There are many persons otherwise
sensible, who, even after having examined the ruinous foundations of
their belief, return to it in spite of the most striking arguments.

As soon as we complain of not understanding religion, finding in it at
every step absurdities which are repulsive, seeing in it but
impossibilities, we are told that we are not made to conceive the truths
of the religion which is proposed to us; that wandering reason is but an
unfaithful guide, only capable of conducting us to perdition; and what
is more, we are assured that what is folly in the eyes of man, is wisdom
in the eyes of God, to whom nothing is impossible. Finally, in order to
decide by a single word the most insurmountable difficulties which
theology presents to us on all sides, they simply cry out: "Mysteries!"

CXI.--ABSURDITY AND INUTILITY OF THE MYSTERIES FORGED IN THE SOLE
INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.

What is a mystery? If I examine the thing closely, I discover very soon
that a mystery is nothing but a contradiction, a palpable absurdity, a
notorious impossibility, on which theologians wish to compel men to
humbly close the eyes; in a word, a mystery is whatever our spiritual
guides can not explain to us.

It is advantageous for the ministers of religion that the people should
not comprehend what they are taught. It is impossible for us to examine
what we do not comprehend. Every time that we can not see clearly, we
are obliged to be guided. If religion was comprehensible, priests would
not have so many charges here below.

No religion is without mysteries; mystery is its essence; a religion
destitute of mysteries would be a contradiction of terms. The God which
serves as a foundation to natural religion, to theism or to deism, is
Himself the greatest mystery to a