God to give you this privilege over us? Why did this common father
oblige us to believe on a less degree of evidence than you? He has
spoken to you; be it so; he is infallible, and deceives you not. But
it is you who speak to us! And who shall assure us that you are not in
error yourselves, or that you will not lead us into error? And if we
should be deceived, how will that just God save us contrary to law, or
condemn us on a law which we have not known?"

"He has given you the natural law," said the doctors.

"And what is the natural law?" replied the simple men. "If that law is
sufficient, why has he given any other? If it is not sufficient, why did
he make it imperfect?"

"His judgments are mysteries," said the doctors, "and his justice is not
like that of men."

"If his justice," replied the simple men, "is not like ours, by what
rule are we to judge of it? And, moreover, why all these laws, and what
is the object proposed by them?"

"To render you more happy," replied a doctor, "by rendering you better
and more virtuous. It is to teach man to enjoy his benefits, and not
injure his fellows, that God has manifested himself by so many oracles
and prodigies."

"In that case," said the simple men, "there is no necessity for so many
studies, nor of such a variety of arguments; only tell us which is the
religion that best answers the end which they all propose."

Immediately, on this, every group, extolling its own morality above
that of all others, there arose among the different sects a new and most
violent dispute.

"It is we," said the Mussulmans, "who possess the most excellent morals,
who teach all the virtues useful to men and agreeable to God. We profess
justice, disinterestedness, resignation to providence, charity to
our brethren, alms-giving, and devotion; we torment not the soul with
superstitious fears; we live without alarm, and die without remorse."

"How dare you speak of morals," answered the Christian priests, "you,
whose chief lived in licentiousness and preached impurity? You, whose
first precept is homicide and war? For this we appeal to experience: for
these twelve hundred years your fanatical zeal has not ceased to spread
commotion and carnage among the nations. If Asia, so flourishing in
former times, is now languishing in barbarity and depopulation, it is in
your doctrine that we find the cause; in that doctrine, the enemy of
all instruction, which sanctifies ignorance, which consecrat