388
Good sense.—They are compelled to say, "You are not acting in good faith; we are not asleep," &c. How I love to see this proud reason humiliated and suppliant! For this is not the language of a man whose right is disputed, and who defends it with the power of armed hands. He is not foolish enough to declare that men are not acting in good faith, but he punishes this bad faith with force.
389
Ecclesiastes shows that man without God is in total ignorance and inevitable misery. For it is wretched to have the wish, but not the power. Now he would be happy and assured of some truth, and yet he can neither know, nor desire not to know. 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?" &c. 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
