experience ought to have
more weight upon my mind than the suspicious testimony of many men whom
I know to be capable of deceiving themselves, or very much interested in
deceiving others.

I will not distrust my senses. I do not ignore the fact that they can
sometimes lead me into error; but on the other hand, I know that they do
not deceive me always. I know very well that the eye shows the sun much
smaller than it really is; but experience, which is only the repeated
application of the senses, teaches me that objects continually diminish
by reason of their distance; it is by these means that I reach the
conclusion that the sun is much larger than the earth; it is thus that
my senses suffice to rectify the hasty judgments which they induced me
to form. In warning me to doubt the testimony of my senses, you destroy
for me the proofs of all religion. If men can be dupes of their
imagination, if their senses are deceivers, why would you have me
believe in the miracles which made an impression upon the deceiving
senses of our ancestors? If my senses are faithless guides, I learn that
I should not have faith even in the miracles which I might see performed
under my own eyes.

CXXXVI.--HOW ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS IS THE SOPHISTRY OF THOSE WHO WISH TO
SUBSTITUTE FAITH FOR REASON.

You tell me continually that the "truths of religion are beyond reason."
Do you not admit, then, that these truths are not made for reasonable
beings? To pretend that reason can deceive us, is to say that truth can
be false, that usefulness can be injurious. Is reason anything else but
the knowledge of the useful and the true? Besides, as we have but our
reason, which is more or less exercised, and our senses, such as they
are, to lead us in this life, to claim that reason is an unsafe guide,
and that our senses are deceivers, is to tell us that our errors are
necessary, that our ignorance is invincible, and that, without extreme
injustice, God can not punish us for having followed the only guides
which He desired to give us. To pretend that we are obliged to believe
in things which are beyond our reason, is an assertion as ridiculous as
to say that God would compel us to fly without wings. To claim that
there are objects on which reason should not be consulted, is to say
that in the most important affairs, we must consult but imagination, or
act by chance.

Our Doctors of Divinity tell us that we ought to sacrifice our reason to
God; but