ABSTRACT
That there is a God! How is it possible to avoid being penetrated with an awful respect in uttering these words? How reflect on them without the deepest humility, and even an emotion of surprise, that man, this weak creature, this atom dispersed in the immensity of space, undertakes to add some weight to a truth, of which all nature is the splendid witness? However, if this truth is our supreme good, if we are nothing without it, how can we banish it from our minds? Does it not constrain us to dwell continually on the subject? Compared with it, all other thoughts are insignificant and uninteresting; it gives birth to, and sustains all the sentiments on which the happiness of an intelligent creature depends. I confess I tremblingly discussed the different objections which are / employed to destroy our confidence in the existence of a Supreme Being; I dreaded the melancholy which those arguments produced; I was afraid to feel the impression of it myself, and thus to hazard the opinion most dear to my heart, and most essential to my happiness; it appeared to me, that a few general ideas, supported by lively feelings, would have been sufficient for my tranquillity; and without an interest more extended, without the desire of opposing, according to my powers, a spirit of indifference and false philosophy, which is every day gaining ground, I should never have stepped beyond my circle. But, I am far from regretting the part I have taken: I have ran over, without much trouble, those books where the most pernicious doctrines are ingeniously dissemminated; and have thought that a person, endowed with common sense, on whom metaphysical subtleties were obtruded, would resemble those savages who are brought sometimes amongst us, and who, from the depraved refinement of our morals and / manners, have often recalled us, by some natural reflections, to those simple principles which we have abandoned, to those ancient truths whose vestiges are lost.
