Therefore, if anything ought to be repugnant to reason, it is the supposition that,--matter being in motion from all eternity, and there being perhaps in the infinite number of possible combinations an infinite number of admirable arrangements,--none of these admirable arrangements would have been met with, out of the infinite multitude of all those which_ matter successively took on.

Therefore the mind ought to be more astonished at the hypothetical duration of chaos."_[37] (Sec.

21.) In a short continuation of the Philosophical Thoughts entitled On the Sufficiency of Natural Religion, Diderot took the next step, and turned towards that faith which the votaries of each creed allow to be the best after their own.

Even here he is still in the atmosphere of negation.

He desires no more than to show that revealed religion confers no advantages which are not already secured by natural religion.