"Thus, then, an invisible and imaginary world entered into competition with that which was real. Such, O Persians! was the origin of your renovated earth, your city of resurrection, placed under the equator, and distinguished from all other cities by this singular attribute, that the bodies of its inhabitants cast no shade. Such, O Jews and Christians! disciples of the Persians, was the source of your New Jerusalem, your paradise and your heaven, modelled upon the astrological heaven of Hermes. Meanwhile your hell, O ye Musselmans! a subterraneous pit surmounted by a bridge, your balance of souls and good works, your judgment pronounced by the angels Monkir and Nekir, derives its attributes from the mysterious ceremonies of the cave of Mithra; and your heaven is exactly coincident with that of Osiris, Ormuzd, and Brama.".... "It is evident, that it is not truth for which you contend; that it is not her cause you are jealous of maintaining, but the cause of your own passions and prejudices; that it is not the object as it really exists that you wish to verify, but the object as it appears to you; that it is not the evidence of the thing that you are anxious should prevail, but your personal opinion, your mode of seeing and judging. There is a power that you want to exercise, an interest that you want to maintain, a prerogative that you want to assume: in short, the whole is a struggle of vanity. And as every individual, when he compares himself with every other, finds himself to be his equal and fellow, he resists by a similar feeling of right; and from this right, which you all deny to each other, and from the inherent consciousness of your equality, spring your disputes, your combats, and your intolerance. "Now the only way of restoring unanimity is by returning to nature, and taking the order of things which she has established for your director and guide, and this farther truth will then appear from your uniformity of sentiment. "If we would arrive at uniformity of opinion, we must previously establish certainty, and verify the resemblance which our ideas have to their models. Now, this cannot be obtained, except so far as the objects of our inquiry can be referred to the testimony, and subjected to the examination of our senses. Whatever cannot be brought to this trial is beyond the limits of our understanding: we have neither rule to try it by, nor measure by which to institute a comparison, nor source of demonstration and knowledge concerning it. "Whence it is obvious that, in order to live in peace and harmony, we must consent not to pronounce upon such objects, nor annex to them importance; we must draw a line of demarcation between such as can be verified and such as cannot, and separate, by an inviolable barrier, the world of fantastic beings from the world of realities: that is to say, all civil effect must be taken away from theological and religious opinions.