Page:Voltaire (Hamley).djvu/201

 After producing many of the arguments used by atheists, and discussing them, he says:—

"The philosopher who recognises a God has with him a crowd of probabilities equivalent to certainty, while the atheist has nothing but doubts… It is evident that, in morals, it is most important to recognise a deity. It is certainly for the interest of all men that there should be a divinity who punishes what human justice cannot repress; but it is also clear that it is better not to recognise a God than to adore a barbarous deity, to whom human beings are sacrificed, as has been done by so many nations… It is certain that atheism is not taught in the schools of China, yet many scholars there are atheists, because they are only imperfect philosophers. But it is certainly much better to live with them at Pekin, enjoying all the gentleness of their manners and laws, than to be liable in Goa to groan in chains in the prisons of the Inquisition, and to be brought from them, arrayed in a robe of brimstone colour embroidered with devils, to die at the stake."

And he thus sums up his conclusions:—

Atheism and fanaticism are two monsters, which rend and devour society; but the atheist, in his error, preserves the reason which cuts his claws, while those of the fanatic are sharpened in the incessant madness which afflicts him."

It is easy to understand that neither Jesuits nor Jansenists would approve of writings which dealt thus with their quarrels, any more than the Romish clergy generally would like his ridicule of such modern miracles as, even now, an amazed world is sometimes called on to credit. Talking of a chronicler of these marvels he says:—

"He assures us that a little monk was so much accustomed to perform miracles that the Prior forbade him to exercise his talent. The little monk obeyed; but seeing a poor tiler fall from a roof he hesitated between the desire to save his life