3. By the magical power of "ifs," "buts," "perhaps's," "what do we know,"
etc., heaped together, a shapeless and unconnected system is formed,
perplexing mankind, by obliterating from their minds, the most clear
ideas and rendering uncertain truths most evident. By reason of this
systematic confusion, nature is an enigma; the visible world has
disappeared, to give place to regions invisible; reason is compelled
to yield to imagination, who leads to the country of her self-invented
chimeras.


4. The principles of every religion are founded upon the idea of a GOD.
Now, it is impossible to have true ideas of a being, who acts upon none
of our senses. All our ideas are representations of sensible objects.
What then can represent to us the idea of God, which is evidently an
idea without an object? Is not such an idea as impossible, as an
effect without a cause? Can an idea without an archetype be anything,
but a chimera? There are, however, divines, who assure us that the idea
of God is innate; or that we have this idea in our mother's womb. Every
principle is the result of reason; all reason is the effect of experience;
experience is acquired only by the exercise of our senses: therefore,
religious principles are not founded upon reason, and are not innate.


5. Every system of religion can be founded only upon the nature of God
and man; and upon the relations, which subsist between them. But to
judge of the reality of those relations, we must have some idea of the
divine nature. Now, the world exclaims, the divine nature is
incomprehensible to man; yet ceases not to assign attributes to this