Are the revealed wishes of a God capable of striking us by the sublime reason or the wisdom which they contain?  Do they tend to the happiness of the people to whom Divinity has declared them?  Examining the Divine wishes, I find in them, in all countries, but whimsical ordinances, ridiculous precepts, ceremonies of which we do not understand the aim, puerile practices, principles of conduct unworthy of the Monarch of Nature, offerings, sacrifices, expiations, useful, in fact, to the ministers of God, but very onerous to the rest of mankind.  I find also, that they often have a tendency to render men unsocial, disdainful, intolerant, quarrelsome, unjust, inhuman toward all those who have not received either the same revelations as they, or the same ordinances, or the same favors from Heaven.

CXXV.—­WHERE, THEN, IS THE PROOF THAT GOD DID EVER SHOW HIMSELF TO MEN OR SPEAK TO THEM?

Are the precepts of morality as announced by Divinity truly Divine, or superior to those which every rational man could imagine?  They are Divine only because it is impossible for the human mind to see their utility.  Their virtue consists in a total renunciation of human nature, in a voluntary oblivion of one’s reason, in a holy hatred of self; finally, these sublime precepts show us perfection in a conduct cruel to ourselves and perfectly useless to others.

How did God show Himself?  Did He Himself promulgate His laws?  Did He speak to men with His own mouth?  I am told that God did not show Himself to a whole nation, but that He employed always the organism of a few favored persons, who took the care to teach and to explain His intentions to the unlearned.  It was never permitted to the people to go to the sanctuary; the ministers of the Gods always alone had the right to report to them what transpired.

CXXVI.—­NOTHING ESTABLISHES THE TRUTH OF MIRACLES.

If, in the economy of all Divine revelations, I am unable to recognize either the wisdom, the goodness, or the equity of a God; if I suspect deceit, ambition, selfish designs in the great personages who have interposed between Heaven and us, I am assured that God has confirmed, by splendid miracles, the mission of those who have spoken for Him.  But was it not much easier to show Himself, and to explain for Himself?  On the other hand, if I have the curiosity to examine these miracles, I find that they are tales void of probability, related by suspicious people, who had the greatest interest in making others believe that they were sent from the Most High.