ou yield the palm for courage? To the Romans.
Parthians, after you, who are the bravest of men? The Romans. Africans,
whom would you fear, if you were to fear any? The Romans. Let us
interrogate the religionists in this fashion, say the deists. Chinese,
what religion would be the best, if your own were not the best?
Naturalism. Mussulmans, what faith would you embrace, if you abjured
Mahomet? Naturalism. Christians, what is the true religion, if it be not
Christianity? Judaism. But you, O Jews, what is the true religion, if
Judaism be false? Naturalism. Now those, continues Cicero, to whom the
second place is awarded by unanimous consent, and who do not in turn
concede the first place to any--it is those who incontestably deserve
that place. (Sec.62.)

* * * * *

In all this we notice one constant characteristic of the eighteenth
century controversy about revealed religion. The assailant demands of
the defender an answer to all the intellectual or logical objections
that could possibly be raised by one who had never been a Christian, and
who refused to become a Christian until these objections could be met.
No account is taken of the mental conditions by which a creed is
engendered and limited; nor of the train of historic circumstance which
prepares men to receive it. The modern apologist escapes by explaining
religion; the apologist of a hundred years ago was required to prove it.
The end of such a method was inevitably a negation. The objective
propositions of a creed with supernatural pretensions can never be
demonstrated from natural or rationalistic premisses. And if they could
be so demonstrated, it would only be on grounds that are equally good
for some other creeds with the same pretensions. The sceptic was left
triumphantly weighing one revealed system against another in an equal
balance.[36]

The position of the writer of the Philosophical Thoughts is distinctly
theistic. Yet there is at least one striking passage to show how
forcibly some of the arguments on the other side impressed him. "I
open," says Diderot, "the pages of a celebrated professor, and I
read--'Atheists, I concede to you that movement is essential to matter;
what conclusion do you draw from that? That the world results from the
fortuitous concourse of atoms? You might as well say that Homer's Iliad,
or Voltaire's Henriade, is a result of the fortuitous concourse of
written characters.' Now for my part, I sho