those who so speak, understand well the meaning of their own words; and
inquire also what is the method which they employ, and the result at
which they aim. One might ask whether these philosophers are not like
astronomers who should say: "Here are our calculations. It matters
nothing to us whether the stars in their observed course do or do not
agree with them. Science is sovereign; it is amenable only to its own
laws, and visible realities cannot be objections in the way of its
calculations." Let us leave these preliminary remarks, and let us come
to the core of the controversy.

They set the reason on one side, the conscience and heart upon the
other, as an anatomist separates the organic portions of a corpse, and
they say: Truth belongs only to the reason; the conscience and the heart
have no admission into science. Listen to the following express
declaration of the weightiest, perhaps, of French contemporary
philosophers: "The God of the pure reason is the only true God; the God
of the imagination, the God of the feelings, the God of the conscience,
are only idols!"[39] It is impossible to accept this arbitrary division
of the divine attributes. There is but one and the same God, the
Substance of truth, the inexhaustible Source of beauty, the supreme Law
of the wills created to accomplish the designs of His mercy. The
conscience, the heart, the reason rise equally towards Him, following
the triple ray which descends from His eternity upon our transitory
existence. We cannot therefore seriously admit that God of the pure
reason, separated from the God of the conscience and of the heart. Still
let us endeavor to make this concession, for argument's sake, to our
philosopher. Let us suppose that the reason has a God to itself, a God
for the metaphysicians who is not the God of the vulgar. Before we
immolate upon His altar the conscience and the heart, it is worth our
while to examine whether the statue of the God of the reason rests upon