strative sciences, and industry at the head of sacred knowledge; whilst the Catholics have ranked them in the class of profane knowledge. It is commissioned, in fine, to pronounce anathema upon theology, and to class as impious every doctrine having for its object to teach men any other means of obtaining life eternal than that of working with all their might to ameliorate the condition of their species.
I have said plainly what worship ought to be, to fulfil in the best possible manner the condition of calling the attention of the faithful to Christian morality, on the day of rest.
I have proved clearly that the worship of the Protestants is devoid of the most influential secondary means of generating in the minds of the faithful a zeal for the public welfare. Thus, I have proved that this second accusation of heresy against the Protestants is well founded.
I bring against the Protestants a third accusation of heresy; I charge them with having adopted a bad dogma.
In the infancy of religion, at the epoch when the people were still plunged in ignorance, their curiosity excited them but very feebly to the study of natural phenomena. The ambition of man did not elevate him to the lofty desire of mastering the whole globe, and modifying it in the most advantageous manner for himself. Men had then few wants of which they had any distinct consciousness; but they were agitated by the most violent passions, founded upon wandering desires and inclinations, founded principally upon a presentiment of the powerful influence which they were destined to exercise over nature. Commerce, which has since civilized the world, was then in its infancy. Every small tribe of men constituted itself into a state of hostility to all the rest of mankind, and citizens were not united by any moral ties with those who were not members of their own city. Thus philanthropy could not exist at this period, except as a speculative sentiment.
