such as we have found linked together often are so always. Thus, as it
happens usually that that which appears without angles has none, we readily
believe it to be always thus. Such an error is pardonable, and sometimes
inevitable, when it is necessary to act promptly and choose that which
appearances recommend; but when we have the leisure and the time to collect
our thoughts, we are in fault if we take for certain that which is not so.
It is therefore true that appearances are often contrary to truth, but our
reasoning never is when it proceeds strictly in accordance with the rules
of the art of reasoning. If by _reason_ one meant generally the faculty of
reasoning whether well or ill, I confess that it might deceive us, and does
indeed deceive us, and the appearances of our understanding are often as
deceptive as those of the senses: but here it is a question of the linking
together of truths and of objections in due form, and in this sense it is
impossible for reason to deceive us.

66. Thus it may be seen from all I have just said that M. Bayle carries too
far _the being above reason_, as if it included the insoluble nature of
objections: for according to him (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_,
vol. III, ch. 130, p. 651) 'once a dogma is above reason, philosophy can
neither explain it nor comprehend it, nor meet the difficulties that are
urged against it'. I agree with regard to comprehension, but I have already
shown that the Mysteries receive a necessary verbal explanation, to the end
that the terms employed be not _sine mente soni_, words signifying nothing.
I have shown also that it is necessary for one to be capable of answering
the objections, and that otherwise one must needs reject the thesis.

67. He adduces the authority of theologians, who appear to recognize the
insoluble nature of the objections against the Mysteries. Luther is one of
the chief of these; but I have already replied, in Sec. 12, to the passage
where he seems to say that philosophy contradicts theology. There is
another passage (_De Servo Arbitrio_, ch. 246) where he says that the
apparent injustice of God is proved by arguments taken from the [111]
adversity of good people and the prosperity of the wicked, an argument
irresistible both for all reason and for natural intelligence ('Argumentis
talibus traducta, quibus nulla ratio aut lumen naturae potest resistere').
But soon afterwards he shows that he means it only of those