l light that has
remained with us in the midst of corruption; thus it is in accordance with
the whole, and it differs from that which is in God only as a drop of water
differs from the ocean or rather as the finite from the infinite. Therefore
Mysteries may transcend it, but they cannot be contrary to it. One cannot
be contrary to one part without being contrary to the whole. That which
contradicts a proposition of Euclid is contrary to the _Elements_ of
Euclid. That which in us is contrary to the Mysteries is not reason nor is
it the natural light or the linking together of truths; it is corruption,
or error, or prejudice, or darkness.

62. M. Bayle (p. 1002) is not satisfied with the opinion of Josua Stegman
and of M. Turretin, Protestant theologians who teach that the Mysteries are
contrary only to corrupt reason. He asks, mockingly, whether by right
reason is meant perchance that of an orthodox theologian and by corrupt
reason that of an heretic; and he urges the objection that the evidence of
the Mystery of the Trinity was no greater in the soul of Luther than in the
soul of Socinius. But as M. Descartes has well observed, good sense is
distributed to all: thus one must believe that both the orthodox and
heretics are endowed therewith. Right reason is a linking together of
truths, corrupt reason is mixed with prejudices and passions. And in order
to discriminate between the two, one need but proceed in good order, admit
no thesis without proof, and admit no proof unless it be in proper form,
according to the commonest rules of logic. One needs neither any other
criterion nor other arbitrator in questions of reason. It is only through
lack of this consideration that a handle has been given to the sceptics,
and that even in theology Francois Veron and some others, who [108]
exacerbated the dispute with the Protestants, even to the point of
dishonesty, plunged headlong into scepticism in order to prove the
necessity of accepting an infallible external judge. Their course meets
with no approval from the most expert, even in their own party: Calixtus
and Daille derided it as it deserved, and Bellarmine argued quite
otherwise.

63. Now let us come to what M. Bayle says (p. 999) on the distinction we
are concerned with. 'It seems to me', he says, 'that an ambiguity has crept
into the celebrated distinction drawn between things that are above reason
and things that are against reason. The Mysteries of the Gospel ar