|
they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.
266. How many stars have telescopes revealed to us which did not exist for
our philosophers of old! We freely attack Holy Scripture on the great number
of stars, saying, "There are only one thousand and twenty-eight, we know
it." There is grass on the earth, we see it--from the moon we would not see
it--and on the grass are leaves, and in these leaves are small animals; but
after that no more. O presumptuous man! The compounds are composed of
elements, and the elements not. O presumptuous man! Here is a fine
reflection. We must not say that there is anything which we do not see. We
must then talk like others, but not think like them.
267. The last proceeding of reason is to recognise that there is an infinity
of things which are beyond it. It is but feeble if it does not see so far as
to know this. But if natural things are beyond it, what will be said of
supernatural?
268. Submission.--We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where
to submit. He who does not do so understands not the force of reason. There
are some who offend against these three rules, either by affirming
everything as demonstrative, from want of knowing what demonstration is; or
by doubting everything, from want of knowing where to submit; or by
submitting in everything, from want of knowing where they must judge.
269. Submission is the use of reason in which consists true Christianity.
270. Saint Augustine.--Reason would never submit, if it did not judge that
there are some occasions on which it ought to submit. It is then right for
it to submit, when it judges that it ought to submit.
271. Wisdom sends us to childhood. Nisi efficiamini sicut parvuli.38
272. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.
273. If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have no mysterious
and supernatural element. If we offend the principles of r
Faye
|
Linear Mode
