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. If they did, Atheism would need no apologist, and
Theism have no defenders; for Theism, in all its varieties, presupposes
a supernatural Causer of what experience pronounces natural effects.

The Author is aware that 'Natural Theologians' seek to justify their
rebellion against the rules of philosophising, to which the reader's
attention has been specially directed, by appealing to (what they call)
evidences of design in the universal fabric. But though they think so
highly of the design argument, it is not the less true that that
argument rests on mere assumption of a disputed fact; that even though
it were proved the universe was designed, still whether designed by one
God, two Gods, or two million of Gods, would be unshown; and that Paley,
'the most famous of natural Theologians'--Paley, who wrote as never man
wrote before on the design question, has been satisfactorily refuted _in
his own words_. [63:1]

A distinguished modern Fabulist [63:2] 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 we 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.'