is the most terrible of scourges. Whence the marked
supremacy of the seventeenth century, especially in France? From the
happy accord of religion, science, and chivalry, and from the supremacy
conceded to the first. The more perfect theology is in a country the
more fruitful it is in true science; and that is why Christian nations
have surpassed all others in the sciences, and that is why the Indians
and Chinese will never reach us, so long as we remain respectively as we
are. The more theology is cultivated, honoured, and supreme, then, other
things being equal, the more perfect will human science be: that is to
say, it will have the greater force and expansion, and will be the more
free from every mischievous and perilous connection.[9]

Little would be gained here by serious criticism of a view of this kind
from a positive point. How little, the reader will understand from De
Maistre's own explanations of his principles of Proof and Evidence.
'They have called to witness against Moses,' he says, 'history,
chronology, astronomy, geology, etc. The objections have disappeared
before true science; but those were profoundly wise who despised them
before any inquiry, or who only examined them in order to discover a
refutation, but without ever doubting that there was one. Even a
mathematical objection ought to be despised, for though it may be a
demonstrated truth, still you will never be able to demonstrate that it
contradicts a truth that has been demonstrated before.' His final
formula he boldly announced in these words: '_Que toutes les fois qu'une
proposition sera prouvee par le genre de preuve qui lui appartient,
l'objection quelconque,_ MEME INSOLUBLE, _ne doit plus etre ecoutee._'
Suppose, for example, that by a consensus of testimony it were perfectly
proved that Archimedes set fire to the fleet of Marcellus by a
burning-glass; then all the objections of geometry disappear. Prove if
you can, and if you choose, that by certain laws a glass, in order to be
capable of setting fire to the Roman fleet, must have been as big as the
whole city of Syracuse, and ask me what answer I have to make to that.
'_J'ai a vous repondre qu'Archimede brula la flotte romaine avec un
miroir ardent._'

The interesting thing about such opinions as these is not the exact
height and depth of their falseness, but the considerations which could
recommend them to a man of so much knowledge, both of books and of the
outer facts of life, and o