But it is you who speak to us! And who shall assure us that you are not in error yourselves, or that you will not lead us into error?
And if we should be deceived, how will that just God save us contrary to law, or condemn us on a law which we have not known ?" "He has given you the natural law," said the doctors.
"And what is the natural law ?" replied the simple men.

"If that law is sufficient, why has he given any other?
If it is not sufficient, why did he make it imperfect ?" "His judgments are mysteries," said the doctors, "and his justice is not like that of men." "If his justice," replied the simple men, "is not like ours, by what rule are we to judge of it?
And, moreover, why all these laws, and what is the object proposed by them ?" "To render you more happy," replied a doctor, "by rendering you better and more virtuous.

It is to teach man to enjoy his benefits, and not injure his fellows, that God has manifested himself by so many oracles and prodigies." "In that case," said the simple men, "there is no necessity for so many studies, nor of such a variety of arguments; only tell us which is the religion that best answers the end which they all propose." Immediately, on this, every group, extolling its own morality above that of all others, there arose among the different sects a new and most violent dispute.
"It is we," said the Mussulmans, "who possess the most excellent morals, who teach all the virtues useful to men and agreeable to God.

We profess justice, disinterestedness, resignation to providence, charity to our brethren, alms-giving, and devotion; we torment not the soul with superstitious fears; we live without alarm, and die without remorse." "How dare you speak of morals," answered the Christian priests, "you, whose chief lived in licentiousness and preached impurity?
You, whose first precept is homicide and war?
For this we appeal to experience: for these twelve hundred years your fanatical zeal has not ceased to spread commotion and carnage among the nations.

If Asia, so flourishing in former times, is now languishing in barbarity and depopulation, it is in your doctrine that we find the cause; in that doctrine, the enemy of all instruction, which sanctifies ignorance, which consecrates the most absolute despotism in the governors, imposes the most blind and passive obedience in the people, that has stupefied the faculties of man, and brutalized the nations.
"It is not so with our sublime and celestial morals; it was they which raised the world from its primitive barbarity, from the senseless and cruel superstitions of idolatry, from human sacrifices,* from the shameful orgies of pagan mysteries; they it was that purified manners, proscribed incest and adultery, polished savage nations, banished slavery, and introduced new and unknown virtues, charity for men, their equality in the sight of God, forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries, the restraint of all the passions, the contempt of worldly greatness, a life completely spiritual and completely holy!" * Read the cold declaration of Eusebius (Proep.Evang.