what motives can we have for sacrificing our reason to a being
who gives us but useless gifts, which He does not intend that we should
make use of? What confidence can we place in a God who, according to our
Doctors themselves, is wicked enough to harden hearts, to strike us with
blindness, to place snares in our way, to lead us into temptation?
Finally, how can we place confidence in the ministers of this God, who,
in order to guide us more conveniently, command us to close our eyes?

CXXXVII.--HOW PRETEND THAT MAN OUGHT TO BELIEVE VERBAL TESTIMONY ON WHAT
IS CLAIMED TO BE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR HIM?

Men persuade themselves that religion is the most serious affair in the
world for them, while it is the very thing which they least examine for
themselves. If the question arises in the purchase of land, of a house,
of the investment of money, of a transaction, or of some kind of an
agreement, you will see each one examine everything with care, take the
greatest precautions, weigh all the words of a document, to beware of
any surprise or imposition. It is not the same with religion; each one
accepts it at hazard, and believes it upon verbal testimony, without
taking the trouble to examine it. Two causes seem to concur in
sustaining men in the negligence and the thoughtlessness which they
exhibit when the question comes up of examining their religious
opinions. The first one is, the hopelessness of penetrating the
obscurity by which every religion is surrounded; even in its first
principles, it has only a tendency to repel indolent minds, who see in
it but chaos, to penetrate which, they judge impossible. The second is,
that each one is afraid to incommode himself by the severe precepts
which everybody admires in the theory, and which few persons take the
trouble of practicing. Many people preserve their religion like old
family titles which they have never taken the trouble to examine
minutely, but which they place in their archives in case they need them.

CXXXVIII.--FAITH TAKES ROOT BUT IN WEAK, IGNORANT, OR INDOLENT MINDS.

The disciples of Pythagoras had an implicit faith in their Master's
doctrine: "HE HAS SAID IT!" was for them the solution of all problems.
The majority of men act with as little reason. A curate, a priest, an
ignorant monk, will become in the matter of religion the master of one's
thoughts. Faith relieves the weakness of the human mind, for whom
application is commonly a very pai