But the nourishment of bodies by food is still an inexplicable mystery.  The cohesion of the parts of matter is still incomprehensible.  These sceptics, therefore, are obliged, in every question, to consider each particular evidence apart, and proportion their assent to the precise degree of evidence which occurs.  This is their practice in all natural, mathematical, moral, and political science.  And why not the same, I ask, in the theological and religious?  Why must conclusions of this nature be alone rejected on the general presumption of the insufficiency of human reason, without any particular discussion of the evidence?  Is not such an unequal conduct a plain proof of prejudice and passion?

Our senses, you say, are fallacious; our understanding erroneous; our ideas, even of the most familiar objects, extension, duration, motion, full of absurdities and contradictions.  You defy me to solve the difficulties, or reconcile the repugnancies which you discover in them.  I have not capacity for so great an undertaking:  I have not leisure for it:  I perceive it to be superfluous.  Your own conduct, in every circumstance, refutes your principles, and shows the firmest reliance on all the received maxims of science, morals, prudence, and behaviour.

I shall never assent to so harsh an opinion as that of a celebrated writer [L’Arte de penser], who says, that the Sceptics are not a sect of philosophers:  They are only a sect of liars.  I may, however, affirm (I hope without offence), that they are a sect of jesters or raillers.  But for my part, whenever I find myself disposed to mirth and amusement, I shall certainly choose my entertainment of a less perplexing and abstruse nature.  A comedy, a novel, or at most a history, seems a more natural recreation than such metaphysical subtleties and abstractions.

In vain would the sceptic make a distinction between science and common life, or between one science and another.  The arguments employed in all, if just, are of a similar nature, and contain the same force and evidence.  Or if there be any difference among them, the advantage lies entirely on the side of theology and natural religion.  Many principles of mechanics are founded on very abstruse reasoning; yet no man who has any pretensions to science, even no speculative sceptic, pretends to entertain the least doubt with regard to them.  The Copernican system contains the most surprising paradox, and the most contrary to our natural conceptions, to appearances, and to our very senses:  yet even monks and inquisitors are now constrained to withdraw their opposition to it.  And shall Philo, a man of so liberal a genius and extensive knowledge, entertain any general undistinguished scruples with regard to the religious hypothesis, which is founded on the simplest and most obvious arguments, and, unless it meets with artificial obstacles, has such easy access and admission into the mind of man?