now. He cannot even doubt.

390

My God! How foolish this talk is! "Would God have made the world to damn
it? Would He ask so much from persons so weak?" etc. Scepticism is the
cure for this evil, and will take down this vanity.

391

_Conversation._--Great words: Religion, I deny it.

_Conversation._--Scepticism helps religion.

392

_Against Scepticism._--[... It is, then, a strange fact that we cannot
define these things without obscuring them, while we speak of them with
all assurance.] We assume that all conceive of them in the same way; but
we assume it quite gratuitously, for we have no proof of it. I see, in
truth, that the same words are applied on the same occasions, and that
every time two men see a body change its place, they both express their
view of this same fact by the same word, both saying that it has moved;
and from this conformity of application we derive a strong conviction of
a conformity of ideas. But this is not absolutely or finally convincing,
though there is enough to support a bet on the affirmative, since we
know that we often draw the same conclusions from different premisses.

This is enough, at least, to obscure the matter; not that it completely
extinguishes the natural light which assures us of these things. The
academicians[153] would have won. But this dulls it, and troubles the
dogmatists to the glory of the sceptical crowd, which consists in this
doubtful ambiguity, and in a certain doubtful dimness from which our
doubts cannot take away all the clearness, nor our own natural lights
chase away all the darkness.

393

It is a singular thing to consider that there are people in the world
who, having renounced all the laws of God and nature, have made laws for
themselves which they strictly obey, as, for instance, the soldiers of
Mahomet, robbers, heretics, etc. It is the same with logicians. It seems
that their licence must be without any limits or barriers, since they
have broken through so many that are so just and sacred.

394

All the principles of sceptics, stoics, atheists, etc., are true. But
their conclusions are false, because the opposite principles are also
true.

395

_Instinct, reason._--We have an incapacity of proof, insurmountable by
all dogmatism. We have an idea of truth, invincible to all scepticism.

396

Two things instruct man about his whole nature; instinct and experience.

397

The greatness of man is great in that he