having for their object 'nonentities with formidable names,' should long
ere this have opened men's eyes to the folly of _multiplying causes
without necessity_--another rule of philosophising, for which we are
indebted to Newton, but to which no superstitious philosophiser pays due
attention. Newton himself in his theistical character, wrote and talked
as though most blissfully ignorant of that rule.

The passages given above from his 'Principia' palpably violate it. But
Theists, however learned, pay little regard to any rules of
philosophising, which put in peril their fundamental crotchet.

A distinguished modern Fabulist [38:1] has introduced to us a
philosophical mouse who praised beneficent Deity because of his great
regard for mice: for one half of us, quoth he, received the gift of
wings, so that if they who have none, should by cats happen to be
exterminated, how easily could our 'Heavenly Father,' out of the bats
re-establish our exterminated species.

Voltaire had no objection to fable if it were symbolic of truth; and
here is fable, which, according to its author, is symbolic of the little
regarded truth, that our pride rests mainly on our ignorance, for, as he
sagely says, 'the good mouse knew not that there are also winged cats.'
If she had her speculations concerning the beneficence of Deity would
have been less orthodox, mayhap, but decidedly more rational. The wisdom
of this pious mouse is very similar to that of the Theologian who knew
not how sufficiently to admire God's goodness in causing large rivers
almost always to flow in the neighbourhood of large towns.

To jump at conclusions on no other authority than their own ignorant
assumption, and to Deify errors on no other authority than their own