nly because a host of
experiences belied the predictions, that men perceived at last that the
art was illusory; but before being undeceived, they were long credulous.

One of the most famous mathematicians in Europe, named Stoffler, who
flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and who long worked
at the reform of the calendar, proposed at the Council of Constance,
foretold a universal flood for the year 1524. This flood was to arrive
in the month of February, and nothing is more plausible; for Saturn,
Jupiter and Mars were then in conjunction in the sign of Pisces. All the
peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa, who heard speak of the prediction,
were dismayed. Everyone expected the flood, despite the rainbow. Several
contemporary authors record that the inhabitants of the maritime
provinces of Germany hastened to sell their lands dirt cheap to those
who had most money, and who were not so credulous as they. Everyone
armed himself with a boat as with an ark. A Toulouse doctor, named
Auriol, had a great ark made for himself, his family and his friends;
the same precautions were taken over a large part of Italy. At last the
month of February arrived, and not a drop of water fell: never was month
more dry, and never were the astrologers more embarrassed. Nevertheless
they were not discouraged, nor neglected among us; almost all princes
continued to consult them.

I have not the honour of being a prince; but the celebrated Count of
Boulainvilliers and an Italian, named Colonne, who had much prestige in
Paris, both foretold that I should die infallibly at the age of
thirty-two. I have been so malicious as to deceive them already by
nearly thirty years, wherefore I humbly beg their pardon.

_ATHEISM_

SECTION I

OF THE COMPARISON SO OFTEN MADE BETWEEN ATHEISM AND IDOLATRY

It seems to me that in the "Encyclopedic Dictionary" the opinion of the
Jesuit Richeome, on atheists and idolaters, has not been refuted as
strongly as it might have been; opinion held formerly by St. Thomas, St.
Gregory of Nazianze, St. Cyprian and Tertullian, opinion that Arnobius
set forth with much force when he said to the pagans: "Do you not blush
to reproach us with despising your gods, and is it not much more proper
to believe in no God at all, than to impute to them infamous
actions?"[1] opinion established long before by Plutarch, who says "that
he much prefers people to say there is no Plutarch, than to say--'There
is an in