XXVIII. The subject of this discourse, especially that part of it which is contained in the second, third, and fourth paragraphs, leads me opportunely to banish an error which is exceedingly vulgarized. The world is so filled with the caprice of the occult influence of the blood, that many people are led away with a notion, that children by the force of it, not only inherit from thence those passions which depend on the temperament, but also a propensity for the religion of their ancestors. They don’t even stop here, for the lower sort extend this influence to the milk with which children are nourished in their infancy, giving credit to this ridiculous maxim, from here and there an uncertain or fabulous experiment or instance, such for example, as a person when he came to the state of manhood having turned Jew, which he imbibed a disposition to do, by having sucked a Jew nurse. XXIX. There is no error more void of all probability than this. If we speak of the true religion, not only the assent which the understanding gives to its dogmas, but also the pious affection which precedes this assent, are both supernatural; consequently, according to sound theology, neither the blood nor the aliment, nor any other natural cause, can have connexion, either with the assent or pious affection. This is all the work of the divine grace, as a substitute for which, there is not the most remote disposition to be found in the whole sphere of nature, and you can only admit negative natural ones, which concur merely to remove impediments, such as a good understanding, and a good native turn of mind. But these good dispositions, in those who possess them, do not depend upon their fathers having professed the true religion; for if this was the case, all the catholics would have good understandings, and would be naturally good-disposed people. XXX. The assent to false religions, is beyond a doubt absolutely natural, because error cannot be derived from a supernatural cause. Upon the whole then it is certain, that this assent does not depend, in any manner whatever, either on the temperament, or on the organization, which are the only things, on which the paternal seed, or the infant aliment, can have any influence; the reason is, because giving assent to an error, depends upon the shape or light in which objects appear or are represented to the understanding, which in different temperaments and organizations may be the same, and in such as are alike different. What doubt can there be, that in the great city of Constantinople, there are vast numbers of men unlike in these and other natural dispositions? Notwithstanding which, they have all faith in the same errors.