"If some of my faults and negligences may have by chance given occasion to some one to suspect me of infidelity, I am ready, as some reparation for this and for any other good purpose, to declare to such a one and to every other person and on every occasion and under all circumstances that I have always held, and hold now, the Holy Catholic Religion as the only true and infallible one, thanking without end the good God for having gifted me with such a faith, in which I firmly propose to live and die, in the lively hope of attaining eternal life. I recognize my faith as a gift of God, a supernatural faith. I have not, on this account, however, neglected to use all human means that could confirm me more and more in it and that might drive away any doubt which could arise to tempt me in matters of faith. I have studied my faith with attention as to its foundations, reading for this purpose books of apologetics as well as those written with a contrary purpose, and trying to appreciate the arguments pro and contra. I have tried to realize from what sources spring the strongest arguments which render faith most credible to natural reason and such as cannot fail to make every well-balanced mind which has not been perverted by vice or passion embrace it and love it. May this protest of mine, which I have deliberately drawn up and which I leave to posterity, subscribed with my own hand and which shows to all and everyone that I do not blush at the Gospel--may it, as I have said, produce some good fruit.--Signed at Milan, Jan. 6th, 1815, Alessandro Volta." When Volta wrote this, he was just approaching his sixtieth year and was in the full maturity of his powers. He lived for twelve years after this, looked up to as one of the great thinkers of Europe and as one of the most important men of Italy of this time. Far from being in his dotage, then, he was at the moment surely, if ever, in the best position to know his own mind with regard to his faith and his relations to the Creator.