As usual with him, in order to see deeper into others, he begins by examining himself: "To say from whence I came, what I am, or where I am going, is above my comprehension.

I am the watch that runs, but unconscious of itself." These questions, which we are unable to answer, "drive us onward to religion; we rush forward to welcome her, for that is our natural tendency.

But knowledge comes and we stop short.
Instruction and history, you see, are the great enemies of religion, disfigured by the imperfections of humanity....

I once had faith.

But when I came to know something, as soon as I began to reason, which happened early, at the age of thirteen, my faith staggered and became uncertain."[5108] This double personal conviction is in the back-ground of his thinking, when he drafted the Concordat: "It will be said that I am a papist.[5109] I am nothing.