INTRODUCTION. 9 



Athens, Rome, or at Alexandria a task above our powers, 

 doubtless, but which we hold ourselves bound in honour to 

 attempt. 



We shall carefully, then, avoid entering into any controversy 

 touching the dogmas of one religion or the other ; we shall not 

 contest the authority of the Scriptures, whatever they may be, 

 Hebrew, Christian, Arabic, or Buddhist ; we have put them on 

 one side, and that is all.* Descartes has truly observed that 

 every scientific question ought to be examined, even those 

 which are most superstitious and most false, " so as to recog- 

 nise their just value, and to guard against being deceived by 

 them/'t One may be free to consider this essay as an attempt 

 of that kind. 



We shall be praised or blamed : we have been so already. 

 We have, for our comfort, the conscientious feeling of having 

 no other object before our eyes but an inquiry into truth, 

 the truth, the common end towards which the power of every 

 man who believes in progress should tend. " Where truth 

 reigns," says M. Chevreul, "no disputes or discussions are 

 possible." J The reign of truth is the reign of concord amongst 

 mankind. It is the golden age. 



* P. J. Proudhon has said, in another arrangement of facts depending on 

 social science, " Revolution is not atheistical ; it does not deny the absolute, 

 it removes it altogether" (De la Justice, vol. ii, p. 301). See, for fuller devel- 

 opment of our ideas on this subject, the Progres of the 20th of May, 1859, 

 article on Science et Religion. 



f Discours sur le Methode. 



J Lettres d If. Villemain sur la Mtthode, Paris, 1856, p. 3. 



