principle is a judgment; all judgment is the effect of experience;
experience is not acquired but by the exercise of the senses: from which
it follows that religious principles are drawn from nothing, and are not
innate.




V.--IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BELIEVE IN A GOD, AND THE MOST REASONABLE
THING IS NOT TO THINK OF HIM.

No religious system can be founded otherwise than upon the nature of God
and of men, and upon the relations they bear to each other. But, in
order to judge of the reality of these relations, we must have some idea
of the Divine nature. But everybody tells us that the essence of God is
incomprehensible to man; at the same time they do not hesitate to assign
attributes to this incomprehensible God, and assure us that man can not
dispense with a knowledge of this God so impossible to conceive of. The
most important thing for men is that which is the most impossible for
them to comprehend. If God is incomprehensible to man, it would seem
rational never to think of Him at all; but religion concludes that man
is criminal if he ceases for a moment to revere Him.




VI.--RELIGION IS FOUNDED UPON CREDULITY.

We are told that Divine qualities are not of a nature to be grasped by
limited minds. The natural consequence of this principle ought to be