168 HUME 



vni 



all of them, to prove deceitful, philosophy will very soon find 

 herself very unequally yoked with her new associate ; and 

 instead of regulating each principle, as they advance together, 

 she is at every turn perverted to serve the purposes of supersti- 

 tion. For besides the unavoidable incoherences, which must be 

 reconciled and adjusted, one may safely affirm, that all popular 

 theology, especially the scholastic, has a kind of appetite for 

 absurdity and contradiction. If that theology went not beyond 

 reason and common sense, her doctrines would appear too easy 

 and familiar. Amazement must of necessity be raised : 

 Mystery affected : Darkness and obscurity sought after : And a 

 foundation of merit afforded to the devout votaries, who desire 

 an opportunity of subduing their rebellious reason by the belief 

 of the most unintelligible sophisms. 



" Ecclesiastical history sufficiently confirms these reflections. 

 When a controversy is started, some people always pretend 

 with certainty to foretell the issue. Whichever opinion, say 

 they, is most contrary to plain reason is sure to prevail ; even 

 when the general interest of the system requires not that 

 decision. Though the reproach of heresy may, for some time, 

 be bandied about among the disputants, it always rests at last 

 on the side of reason. Any one, it is pretended, that has but 

 learning enough of this kind to know the definition of Arian, 

 Pelagian, Erastian, Socinian, Sabellian, Eutychian, Nestorian, 

 Monothelite, &c., not to mention Protestant, whose fate is yet 

 uncertain, will be convinced of the truth of this observation. 

 It is thus a system becomes absurd in the end, merely from its 

 being reasonable and philosophical in the beginning. 



" To oppose the torrent of scholastic religion by such feeble 

 maxims as these, that it is impossible for the same thing to be 

 and not to be, that the whole is greater than a part, that two and 

 three make Jive, is pretending to stop the ocean with a bulrush. 

 Will you set up profane reason against sacred mystery? No 

 punishment is great enough for your impiety. And the same 

 fires which were kindled for heretics will serve also for the 

 destruction of philosophers." (IV. pp. 481 3.) 



Holding these opinions respecting the recognised 



