The Sequel to the Count of Gabalis, or New Discourses on the Secret Sciences

New Conversations.

...that is to say, that Faith alone teaches it to him. All reasoning about divine things only serves to accustom and instruct the mind to doubt. If it does not destroy Faith, it would at least diminish its merit if it should happen that a demonstration were found for that which one believes. In order for Faith to have its full value, it must be left in all its obscurity, which constitutes part of its merit. Thus, one can do nothing so pernicious as to fill the minds of young people with a Philosophy that undertakes to prove to them the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and other things of this nature. It is to change Christianity into PeripateticismThe philosophical system of Aristotle; the name comes from the Greek word for "walking," as Aristotle often taught while walking with his students., and to transplant the Cross of Calvary into the LyceumThe school in Athens where Aristotle taught. The speaker is suggesting that modern theology has abandoned the simple faith of the Gospel for Greek intellectualism.. O God! extirpate the SyllogismA formal logical argument consisting of two premises and a conclusion (e.g., All humans are mortal; I am human; therefore, I am mortal). and the EnthymemeA logical shortcut where one of the steps of the argument is left unstated, assuming the audience will fill it in. from your Church, and leave as the only argument the argument of things which are not seen A reference to Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.".

"Sir," I interrupted, "your original: "Oraiſon jaculatoire" ejaculatory prayer A short, sudden prayer or exclamation "darted" up to God in a moment of passion. and your reasoning show me that your great grievance against Aristotle comes from the fact that his strange Philosophy is suited to proving that there is a God."

"You have said it, my son," he told me, "this Philosophy is the ruin of Faith; there is nothing...