the subject more
closely, we will find that the science of divinity by means of reveries
and subtleties has but obscured it more and more. Thus far, all religion
has been founded on what is called in logic, a "begging of the
question;" it supposes freely, and then proves, finally, by the
suppositions it has made.

XX.--TO SAY THAT GOD IS A SPIRIT, IS TO SPEAK WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING AT
ALL.

By metaphysics, God is made a pure spirit, but has modern theology
advanced one step further than the theology of the barbarians? They
recognized a grand spirit as master of the world. The barbarians, like
all ignorant men, attribute to spirits all the effects of which their
inexperience prevents them from discovering the true causes. Ask a
barbarian what causes your watch to move, he will answer, "a spirit!"
Ask our philosophers what moves the universe, they will tell you "it is
a spirit."

XXI.--SPIRITUALITY IS A CHIMERA.

The barbarian, when he speaks of a spirit, attaches at least some sense
to this word; he understands by it an agent similar to the wind, to the
agitated air, to the breath, which produces, invisibly, effects that we
perceive. By subtilizing, the modern theologian becomes as little
intelligible to himself as to others. Ask him what he means by a spirit?
He will answer, that it is an unknown substance, which is perfectly
simple, which has nothing tangible, nothing in common with matter. In
good faith, is there any mortal who can form the least idea of such a
substance? A spirit in the language of modern theology is then but an
absence of ideas. The idea of spirituality is another idea without a
model.

XXII.--ALL WHICH EXISTS SPRINGS FROM THE BOSOM OF MATTER.

Is it not more natural and more intelligible to deduce all which exists,
from the bosom of matter, whose existence is demonstrated by all our
senses, whose effects we feel at every moment, which we see act, move,
communicate, motion, and constantly bring living beings into existence,
than to attribute the formation of things to an unknown force, to a
spiritual being, who can not draw from his ground that which he has not
himself, and who, by the spiritual essence claimed for him, is incapable
of making anything, and of putting anything in motion? Nothing is
plainer than that they would have us believe that an intangible spirit
can act upon matter.

XXIII.--WHAT IS THE METAPHYSICAL GOD OF MODERN THEOLOGY?

The material Jupit