We need only open our eyes to see the unworthy means employed by _sacerdotal policy_ to stifle the dawning reason of men. During their infancy they are taught tales which are ridiculous, impertinent, contradictory, and criminal, and to these they are enjoined to pay respect. They are gradually impregnated with inconceivable mysteries that are announced as sacred truths, and they are accustomed to contemplate phantoms before which they habitually tremble. In a word, measures are taken which are the best calculated to render those blind who do not consult their reason, and to render those base who constantly shudder whenever they recall the ideas with which their priests infected their minds at an age when they were unable to guard against such snares. Recall to mind, Madam, the dangerous cares which were taken in the convent where you were educated, to sow in your mind the germs of those inquietudes that now afflict you. It was there that they began to speak to you of fables, prodigies, mysteries, and doctrines that you actually revere, while, if these things were announced today for the first time, you would regard them as ridiculous, and as entirely unworthy of attention. I have often witnessed your laughter at the simplicity with which you formerly credited those tales of sorcerers and ghosts, that, during your childhood, were related by the nuns who had charge of your education. When you entered society where for a long time such chimeras have been disbelieved, you were insensibly undeceived, and at present you blush at your former credulity. Why have you not the courage to laugh, in a similar manner, at an infinity of other chimeras with no better foundation, which torment you even yet, and which only appear more respectable, because you have not dared to examine them with your own eyes, or because you see them respected by a public who have never explored them? If my Eugenia is enlightened and reasonable upon all other topics, why does she renounce her understanding and her judgment whenever religion is in question? In the mean time, at this redoubtable word her soul is disturbed, her strength abandons her, her ordinary penetration is at fault, her imagination wanders, she only sees through a cloud, she is unquiet and afflicted. On the watch against reason, she dares not call that to her assistance. She persuades herself that the best course for her to take is to allow herself to follow the opinions of a multitude who never examine, and who always suffer themselves to be conducted by blind or deceitful guides.