gives himself the trouble to analyze things, he is quite surprised to
find, that those words which are continually in the mouths of men, never
present any fixed or determinate idea: he hears them unceasingly
speaking of spirits--of the soul and its faculties--of duration--of
space--of immensity--of infinity--of perfection--of virtue--of reason--
of sentiment--of instinct--of taste, &c. without his being able to tell
precisely, what they themselves understand by these words. Nevertheless,
they do not appear to have been invented, but for the purpose of
representing the images of things; or to paint, by the assistance of the
senses, those known objects on which the mind is able to meditate, which
it is competent to appreciate, to compare, and to judge.

For man to think of that which has not acted on any of his senses, is to
think on words; it is for his senses to dream; it is to seek in his own
imagination for objects to which he can attach his wandering ideas: to
assign qualities to these objects is, unquestionably, to redouble his
extravagance, to set no limits to his folly. If a word be destined to
represent to him an object that has not the capacity to act on any one
of his organs; of which, it is impossible for him to prove either the
existence or the qualities; his imagination, by dint of racking itself,
will nevertheless, in some measure, supply him with the ideas he wants;
he composes some kind of a picture, with the images or colours he is
always obliged to borrow, from the objects of which he has a knowledge:
thus the Divinity has been represented by some under the character of a
venerable old man; by others, under that of a puissant monarch; by
others, as an exasperated, irritated being, &c. It is evident, however,
that man, with some of his qualities, has served for the model of these
pictures: but if he be informed of objects that are represented as pure
spirits--that have neither body nor extent--that are not contained in
space--that are beyond nature,--here then he is plunged into emptiness;