Incredulity is sometimes the vice of a fool, and credulity the defect of a man of intelligence.  The latter sees far into the immensity of the Possible; the former scarcely sees anything possible beyond the Actual.  Perhaps this is what produces the timidity of the one, and the temerity of the other.

A demi-scepticism is the mark of a feeble understanding.  It reveals a pusillanimous reasoner, who suffers himself to be alarmed by consequences; a superstitious creature, who thinks he is honouring God by the fetters which he imposes on his reason; a kind of unbeliever who is afraid of unmasking himself to himself.  For if truth has nothing to lose by examination, as is the demi-sceptic’s conviction, what does he think in the bottom of his heart of those privileged notions which he fears to sound, and which are placed in one of the recesses of his brain, as in a sanctuary to which he dares not draw nigh? (Sec. 34.)

Scepticism does not suit everybody.  It supposes profound and impartial examination.  He who doubts because he does not know the grounds of credibility, is no better than an ignoramus.  The true sceptic has counted and weighed the reasons.  But it is no light matter to weigh arguments.  Who of us knows their value with any nicety?  Every mind has its own telescope.  An objection that disappears in your eyes, is a colossus in mine:  you find an argument trivial that to me is overwhelming....  If then it is so difficult to weigh reasons, and if there are no questions which have not two sides, and nearly always in equal measure, how come we to decide with such rapidity? (Sec. 24.)

When the pious cry out against scepticism, it seems to me that they do not understand their own interest, or else that they are inconsistent.  If it is certain that a true faith to be embraced, and a false faith to be abandoned, need only to be thoroughly known, then surely it must be highly desirable that universal doubt should spread over the surface of the earth, and that all nations should consent to have the truth of their religions examined.  Our missionaries would find a good half of their work done for them. (Sec. 36.)

One thing to be remembered is that Diderot, like Vauvenargues, Voltaire, Condorcet, always had Pascal in his mind when dealing with apologetics.  They all recognised in him a thinker with a love of truth, as distinguished from the mere priest, Catholic, Anglican, Brahman, or another.  “Pascal,” says Diderot, “was upright, but he was timid and inclined to credulity.  An elegant writer and a profound reasoner, he would doubtless have enlightened the world, if Providence had not abandoned him to people who sacrificed his talents to their own antipathies.  How much to be regretted, that he did not leave to the theologians of his time the task of settling their own differences; that he did not give himself up to the search for truth, without reserve and without the fear of offending God by using all the intelligence