or Hermes of the Egyptians and Greeks; just as the northern peoples compared their Wodan or Odin to this same Mercury.  That is why Mercredi (Wednesday), or the day of Mercury, was called Wodansdag by the northern peoples, but day of Zerdust by the Asiatics, since it is named Zarschamba or Dsearschambe by the Turks and the Persians, Zerda by the Hungarians from the north-east, and Sreda by the Slavs from the heart of Great Russia, as far as the Wends of the Luneburg region, the Slavs having learnt the name also from the Orientals.  These observations will perhaps not be displeasing to the curious.  And I flatter myself that the small dialogue ending the Essays written to oppose M. Bayle will give some satisfaction to those who are well pleased to see difficult but important truths set forth in an easy and familiar way.  I have written in a foreign language at the risk of making many errors in it, because that language has been recently used by others in treating of my subject, and because it is more generally read by those whom one would wish to benefit by this small work.  It is to be hoped that the language errors will be pardoned:  they are to be attributed not only to the printer and the copyist, but also to the haste of the author, who has been much distracted from his task.  If, moreover, any error has crept into the ideas expressed, the author will be the first to correct it, once he has been better informed:  he has given elsewhere such indications of his love of truth that he hopes this declaration will not be regarded as merely an empty phrase.

         &nb
sp;                                                     [73]
       * * * * *

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION ON THE CONFORMITY OF FAITH WITH REASON

* * * * *

1.  I begin with the preliminary question of the conformity of faith with reason, and the use of philosophy in theology, because it has much influence on the main subject of my treatise, and because M. Bayle introduces it everywhere.  I assume that two truths cannot contradict each other; that the object of faith is the truth God has revealed in an extraordinary way; and that reason is the linking together of truths, but especially (when it is compared with faith) of those whereto the human mind can attain naturally without being aided by the light of faith.  This definition of reason (that is to say of strict and true reason) has surprised some persons accustomed to inveigh against reason taken in a vague sense.  They gave me the answer that they had never heard of any such explanation of it:  the truth is that they have never conferred with people who expressed themselves clearly on these subjects.  They have confessed to me, nevertheless, that one could not find fault with reason, understood in the sense which I gave to it.  It is in the same sense that sometimes reason is contrasted with experience.  Reason,