Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/36

xxxii "If it should happen that a man, after having lost his readers, should attack any one who had gained some reputation, and by that method should find the means of being read; it might perhaps be suspected that under the pretence of sacrificing this victim to religion, he sacrificed him to his self-love.

"That manner of criticism of which we are speaking, is of all things in the world, the most capable of limiting the extent, and of diminishing, if I may presume to make use of this term, the sum total of rational genius. Theology has its bounds and set forms; because the truths it teaches being known, it is necessary that men should adhere to them; and they ought to be hindered from wandering: it is here that genius ought not to take its flights; it is circumscribed, if I may be allowed the expression, within an enclosure. But it would be making a jest of mankind to put the same enclosure about those who treat of human sciences. The principles of geometry are most true; but if they were applied to things of taste, they would make reason Rh