Let us begin with the question of fact; and first of all let us settle
clearly the bearing and object of this discussion. I wish to destroy a
prejudice, and not to create one. I am not proposing to you to take the
votes of savants, in order to know whether God exists. No. Though all
the universities in Europe should unite to vote it dark at mid-day, I
should not cease on that account to believe in the sun, and that,
Gentlemen, in common with you all, and with the mass of my fellow-men. I
have instituted a sort of inquiry in order to ascertain whether modern
naturalists have in general been led to atheistical sentiments, as some
would have us believe. In appealing to the recollections of my own
earlier studies and subsequent reading, I have marked the names of the
men best known in the various sciences, and I have inquired what
religious opinions they may have publicly manifested. I will now give
you briefly the result of my labor.

I have left astronomy out of the question, considering that,
notwithstanding the great notoriety of Laplace, we have in Kepler and
Newton a weight of authority sufficient to counterbalance that which it
is desired to connect with his name. Descending to the earth, we
encounter first of all the general science of our globe, or geography.
In this order of studies a German, Ritter, enjoys an incontestable
preeminence. He is called, even in France, the "creator of scientific
geography." Scientific geography rests for support on nearly all the
sciences: it proceeds from the general results of chemistry, physics,
and geology. Had then the vast knowledge of Ritter turned him away from
God? I had read somewhere[104] that he was one of those savants who have
best realized the union of science and faith. One of my friends who was
personally acquainted with him has described him to me, not only as a
man who adored the Creator in the view of the creation, but as an