ould be as
difficult to tame the spirit of a man forty years old with the
extravagant notions which are given us of Divinity, as to banish these
notions from the head of a man who has imbibed them since his tenderest
infancy.

XXXVI.--THE WONDERS OF NATURE DO NOT PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

We are assured that the wonders of nature are sufficient to a belief in
the existence of a God, and to convince us fully of this important
truth. But how many persons are there in this world who have the
leisure, the capacity, the necessary taste, to contemplate nature and to
meditate upon its progress? The majority of men pay no attention to it.
A peasant is not at all moved by the beauty of the sun, which he sees
every day. The sailor is not surprised by the regular movements of the
ocean; he will draw from them no theological inductions. The phenomena
of nature do not prove the existence of a God, except to a few
forewarned men, to whom has been shown in advance the finger of God in
all the objects whose mechanism could embarrass them. The unprejudiced
philosopher sees nothing in the wonders of nature but permanent and
invariable law; nothing but the necessary effects of different
combinations of diversified substance.

XXXVII.--THE WONDERS OF NATURE EXPLAIN THEMSELVES BY NATURAL CAUSES.

Is there anything more surprising than the logic of so many profound
doctors, who, instead of acknowledging the little light they have upon
natural agencies, seek outside of nature--that is to say, in imaginary
regions--an agent less understood than this nature, of which they can at
least form some idea? To say that God is the author of the phenomena
that we see, is it not attributing them to an occult cause? What is God?
What is a spirit? They are causes of which we have no idea. Sages! study
nature and her laws; and when you can from them unravel the action of
natural causes, do not go in search of supernatural causes, which, very
far from enlightening your ideas, will but entangle them more and more
and make it impossible for you to understand yourselves.

XXXVIII--CONTINUATION.

Nature, you say, is totally inexplicable without a God; that is to say,
in order to explain what you understand so little, you need a cause
which you do not understand at all. You pretend to make clear that which
is obscure, by magnifying its obscurity. You think you have untied a
knot by multiplying knots. Enthusiastic philosophers, in order