the cause or accessary, at least in the
eyes of those who allow themselves to be dazzled by false reasons. One may
therefore say that the triumph of true reason illumined by divine grace is
at the same time the triumph of faith and love.

46. M. Bayle appears to have taken the matter quite otherwise: he declares
himself against reason, when he might have been content to censure its
abuse. He quotes the words of Cotta in Cicero, where he goes so far as to
say that if reason were a gift of the gods providence would be to blame for
having given it, since it tends to our harm. M. Bayle also thinks that
human reason is a source of destruction and not of edification (_Historical
and Critical Dictionary_, p. 2026, col. 2), that it is a runner who knows
not where to stop, and who, like another Penelope, herself destroys her own
work.

_Destruit, aedificat, mutat quadrata rotundis._

(_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, p. 725). But he takes
pains especially to pile up many authorities one upon the other, in order
to show that theologians of all parties reject the use of reason just as he
does, and that they call attention to such gleams of reason as oppose
religion only that they may sacrifice them to faith by a mere [100]
repudiation, answering nothing but the conclusion of the argument that is
brought against them. He begins with the New Testament. Jesus Christ was
content to say: 'Follow Me' (Luke v. 27; ix. 59). The Apostles said:
'Believe, and thou shalt be saved' (Acts xvi. 3). St. Paul acknowledges
that his 'doctrine is obscure' (1 Cor. xiii. 12), that 'one can comprehend
nothing therein' unless God impart a spiritual discernment, and without
that it only passes for foolishness (1 Cor. ii. 14). He exhorts the
faithful 'to beware of philosophy' (Col. ii. 8) and to avoid disputations
in that science, which had caused many persons to lose faith.

47. As for the Fathers of the Church, M. Bayle refers us to the collection
of passages from them against the use of philosophy and of reason which M.
de Launoy made (_De Varia Aristotelis Fortuna,_ cap. 2) and especially to
the passages from St. Augustine collected by M. Arnauld (against Mallet),
which state: that the judgements of God are inscrutable; that they are not
any the less just for that they are unknown to us; that it is a deep abyss,
which one cannot fathom without running the risk of falling down the
precipice; that one cannot without temerit