XCII. Those men do great injury, not only to philosophy, but to the church also, who rashly endeavour, to interest the doctrine of revelation in the defence of their particular philosophical opinions. This the heretics lay hold of, to calumniate us with converting philosophical sentiments, into articles of faith; and by this artifice, they persuade their followers, that our belief is arduous, and unnecessarily complicated. Upon this presumption, some strangers found their assertions, when they accuse us of countenancing idiotism, and mixing it with religion. It is but a little while ago, that one of them declared in his writings, that the opinions of men in Spain were not more free, than their persons were in Turkey. In order to preserve a due respect for sacred things, it is necessary, not to confound them with profane ones; whoever should begin to erect habitations in temples, would be the author of temples losing that respectful reverence that ought to be preserved in them. There are judges appertaining to the church, whose province it is, to determine what doctrines are useful, what pernicious, and what indifferent. Let us then leave the decision of those matters to them, and don’t let those who sincerely seek the truth, be terrified and disturbed by those scare-crows that are set up by partiality and faction, and sometimes by the pride of those, who have given their names to particular schools, or by the envy of others, who could not arrive at doing so much. SECT. XXV. XCIII. We having shewn now, that we possess no physical science or demonstrative knowledge of natural things, we may entertain a reasonable doubt whether we shall ever be able to attain any such. The most learned Valles, is clear that we shall not; because physical knowledge is confined to singular things, and alledges that from singular things, you can’t derive a science. But as we have observed before, this argument is ill founded, and insufficient. XCIV. We might lay more stress upon two authorities the sceptics alledge in their favour, which are taken from the Ecclesiastes. The first is from Chap. III. in these words. _Cuncta fecit bona in tempore suo, et mundum tradidit disputationi eorum, ut non inveniat homo opus, quod operatus est Deus ab initio usque ad finem._ The second is more formal and precise, and taken from Chap. VIII. _Et intellexi, quod omnium operum Dei nullam possit homo invenire rationem eorum, quæ sunt sub sole: et quantò plus laboraverit ad quærendum, tantò minus inveniat, etiamsi dixerit sapiens se nosse, non poterit reperire._ But in truth, these texts, when they affirm the impossibility of discovering the causes and reason of natural effects, may be understood to allude to the providential, and not to the natural or physical ones. In fact, this is the sense in which some fathers and expositors understand them.