had they represented the Almighty as compelling Satan to exhibit
himself on a cross in the shape of a snake, as a punishment for his
new transgression, the story would have been less absurd, less
contradictory. But, instead of this they make the transgressor
triumph, and the Almighty fall.

That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived very
good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what I
have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to believe
it, and they would have believed anything else in the same manner.
There are also many who have been so enthusiastically enraptured by
what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man, in making
a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea has forbidden
and deterred them from examining into the absurdity and profaneness
of the story. The more unnatural anything is, the more is it capable
of becoming the object of dismal admiration. [NOTE: The French work
has "blind and" preceding dismal. -- Editor.]

CHAPTER VI - OF THE TRUE THEOLOGY.

BUT if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they
not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair
creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born -- a world
furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up
the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance?
Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still
goes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in future,
nothing to, us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no other
subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man
become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of