"As soon as I received your book I hastened to read it, and I tell you very sincerely that I am very content with it. The little difference between our opinions, which you have not pretended to conceal, are inevitable, because they are the consequence of a general dissimilarity in the manner in which we form our conceptions of the nature of philosophy and of the nature of religion. {89} These two great powers may and ought to be in accord, still they are different. To Religion belongs an influence of an elevated and universal kind; to philosophy an influence more restricted, and still very elevated. The one addresses itself to the entire soul, comprising in it the imagination; the other only addresses itself to the reason. The first sets out from mysteries, without which there is no religion; the second sets out from clear and distinct ideas, as has been said both by Descartes and by Bossuet. This distinction is the foundation of my philosophy and of my religion; and this distinction is also, in my view, the principle of their harmony. To confound them is, I think, an infallible mode of confusing them each by the other, as Malebranche has done. To absorb philosophy in religion gave, in Pascal, the result of a faith full of contradiction and of anguish; to absorb religion in philosophy is an extravagant enterprise, of which sound philosophy must disapprove. To admit them both, each in its place, is truth, grandeur, and peace. {90} "Hence you perceive the reason of our differences of opinion, which are no more hurtful to our union, than they are to our old and sincere friendship." I replied to him on the 13th of June:-- "I count, as well as you, my dear friend, upon our dissentiments not being hurtful to our old and sincere friendship; and I feel the more pleasure in so counting, because, independently of our particular and petty dissentiments, there is, as you say, between us a general, a profound difference of opinion. I think, as you do, that philosophy is not to be confounded or absorbed in religion, nor religion in philosophy. I regard them both as free in their manifestations and in their influence; but I do not found their distinction or their accord upon the same grounds as you do. {91} To me, philosophy is but a science, that is the work of man, limited in its sphere and reach, as is man's mind itself. Religion, in its principle and its history, is of divine origin and institution. The one springs from man's avidity of knowledge; the other is the light coming from God, 'which shines upon every man that comes into the world,' and which God continues to maintain and to shed over the world, according to his impenetrable designs, by the act, general or special, of his free will. "I will not say more. We know, both of us, how far our opinions are in the same road, and where is the point of divergence."