and imposed upon by the tricks of dexterous
impostors. But, you will say, these miracles are written in books,
which by tradition have been transmitted to us. By whom were these books
written? Who are the men who have transmitted them? They are either the
founders of religions themselves, or their adherents and assigns. Thus,
in religion, the evidence of interested parties becomes irrefragable and
incontestable.

127.

God has spoken differently to every people. The Indian believes not a word
of what He has revealed to the Chinese; the Mahometan considers as fables
what He has said to the Christian; the Jew regards both the Mahometan and
Christian as sacrilegious corrupters of the sacred law, which his God had
given to his fathers. The Christian, proud of his more modern revelation,
indiscriminately damns the Indian, Chinese, Mahometan, and even the
Jew, from whom he receives his sacred books. Who is wrong or right? Each
exclaims, _I am in the right!_ Each adduces the same proofs: each mentions
his miracles, diviners, prophets, and martyrs. The man of sense tells
them, they are all delirious; that God has not spoken, if it is true
that he is a spirit, and can have neither mouth nor tongue; that without
borrowing the organ of mortals, God could inspire his creatures with what
he would have them learn; and that, as they are all equally ignorant what
to think of God, it is evident that it has not been the will of God to
inform them on the subject.

The followers of different forms of worship which are established, accuse
one another of superstition and impiety. Christians look with abhorrence
upon the Pagan, Chinese, and Mahometan superstition. Roman Catholics
treat, as impious, Protestant Christians; and the latter incessantly
declaim against the superstition of the Catholics. They are all right.
To be impious, is to have opinions offensive to the God adored; to be
superstitious, is to have of him false ideas. In accusing one another of
superstition, the different religionists resemble humpbacks, who reproach
one another with their deformity.

128.

Are the oracles, which the Divinity has revealed by his different
messengers, remarkable for clearness? Alas! no two men interpret them
alike. Those who explain them to others are not agreed among themselves.
To elucidate them, they have recourse to interpretations, to commentaries,
to allegories, to explanations: they discover _mystical sense_ very
differen