ine-forests, its glaciers, its
precipices, and last of all the silence of infinitude brooding over its
eternal snows.

Common sense, the civiliser, has had an especially hard fight with that
particular form of religion known as Christianity. When Tertullian said
that Christianity was to be believed because it was incredible, he spoke
in the true spirit of faith; just as old Sir Thomas Browne did when he
found the marvels of religion too weak for his credulity, David Hume
expressed the same truth ironically at the conclusion of his _Essay
on Miracles_, when he said that it was not reason that persuaded any
Christian of the truth of his creed, which was established on the higher
ground of faith, and could not be accepted without a miracle.

Common sense is blasphemy. It is the thing which religion dreads most,
and which the priests most mortally hate. Common sense dispenses with
learned disquisitions, and tries everything with simple mother wit. If,
for instance, it hears that a whale swallowed a man, and vomited him
up safe and sound three days after, it does not want to know all the
physiology of men and whales before deciding if the story is true;
it just indulges in a hearty laugh and blows the story to Hades.
Miracle-mongers are quite helpless when a man turns round and says, "My
dear sir, that story's just a trifle too thin." They see his case is a
hopeless one, and leave him to the tender mercies of the Lord of Hosts.

Learning is all very well in its way, but common sense is a great deal
better. It is infinitely the best weapon to use against Christianity.
Without a knowledge of history, without being acquainted with any
science but that of daily life, without a command of Hebrew, Latin and
Greek, or any other language than his own, a plain man can take the
Bible in his hand and easily satisfy himself it is not the word of
God. Common sense tells him not to believe in contradictory statements;
common sense tells him that a man could not have found a wife in a land
where there were no women; common sense tells him that three millions of
people never marched out of any country in one night; common sense tells
him that Jesus Christ could not have "gone up" from two places at once;
common sense tells him that turning devils out of men into pigs is a
fable not half as good as the poorest of AEsop's; common sense tells him
that nobody but a skunk would consent to be saved from the penalty of
his own misdeeds by the su