27.  It may be also that M. Bayle does not mean ‘insoluble objections’ in the sense that I have just explained.  I observe that he varies, at least in his expressions:  for in his posthumous Reply to M. le Clerc he does not admit that one can bring demonstrations against the truths of faith.  It appears therefore that he takes the objections to be insoluble only in respect of our present degree of enlightenment; and in this Reply, p. 35, he even does not despair of the possibility that one day a solution hitherto unknown may be found by someone.  Concerning that more will be said later.  I hold an opinion, however, that will perchance cause surprise, namely that this solution has been discovered entire, and is not even particularly difficult.  Indeed a mediocre intelligence capable of sufficient care, and using correctly the rules of common logic, is in a position to answer the most embarrassing objection made against truth, when the objection is only taken from reason, and when it is claimed to be a ‘demonstration’.  Whatever scorn the generality of moderns have to-day for the logic of Aristotle, one must acknowledge that it teaches infallible ways of resisting error in these conjunctures.  For one has only to examine the argument according to the rules and it will always be possible to see whether it is lacking in form or whether there are premisses such as are not yet proved by a good argument.

28.  It is quite another matter when there is only a question of probabilities, for the art of judging from probable reasons is not yet well established; so that our logic in this connexion is still very [91] imperfect, and to this very day we have little beyond the art of judging from demonstrations.  But this art is sufficient here:  for when it is a question of opposing reason to an article of our faith, one is not disturbed by objections that only attain probability.  Everyone agrees that appearances are against Mysteries, and that they are by no means probable when regarded only from the standpoint of reason; but it suffices that they have in them nothing of absurdity.  Thus demonstrations are required if they are to be refuted.

29.  And doubtless we are so to understand it when Holy Scripture warns us that the wisdom of God is foolishness before men, and when St. Paul observed that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is foolishness unto the Greeks, as well as unto the Jews a stumbling-block.  For, after all, one truth cannot contradict another, and the light of reason is no less a gift of God than that of revelation.  Also it is a matter of no difficulty among theologians who are expert in their profession, that the motives of credibility justify, once for all, the authority of Holy Scripture before the tribunal of reason, so that reason in consequence gives way before it, as before a new light, and sacrifices thereto all its probabilities.  It is more or less as if a new president sent by the prince must show his letters patent in the assembly where he is afterwards