It is said that the idea of God can have no place in a serious science, because this idea comes neither from experience nor from reason; that it is only an hypothesis, and that hypothesis has no place in science.  I reply, grounding my answer on the preceding reasonings:  No science is formed otherwise than by means of hypothesis.  For the solution of the universal problem there exists in the world an hypothesis, proposed to all by tradition, and which bears in particular the names of Moses and of Jesus Christ.  This hypothesis has the right to be examined.  If it explains the facts, it must be held for true.  The idea of God comes therefore within the regular compass of science; the attempt to exclude it is sophistical.

Let us separate the idea of God from the whole body of Christian doctrine of which it forms part, in order that we may give it particular consideration.  What is this hypothesis which bears the names of Moses and Jesus Christ?  It is that the principle of the universe is the Eternal and Infinite Being.  His power is the cause of all that exists; the consciousness of His infinite power constitutes His infinite intelligence.  In Himself, He is He who is; in His relation with the world, He is the absolute cause, the Creator.  This explanation of the universe is not the privilege of a few savants; it is taught and proposed to all; and this is no reason why we should despise it.  If we further observe that this thought has renovated the world, that it upholds all our civilization, that thousands of our fellow-creatures raise their voice to tell us that it is only from this source they have drawn peace, light, and happiness, we shall understand perhaps that contempt would be foolish, and that everything on the contrary invites us to examine with the most serious attention an hypothesis which offers itself to us under conditions so exceptional.

The hypothesis is stated.  We must now submit it to the test of facts.  Where shall we find the elements of its confirmation?  Everywhere, since it is the first cause of all things which is in question:  we shall find them in nature and in humanity; in the motions of the stars as they sweep through the depths of space, and in the rising of the sap which nourishes a blade of grass; in the revolutions of empires, and in the simplest elements of the life of one individual.  There is no science of God; but every science, every study must terminate at that sacred Name.  I shall not undertake, therefore, to enumerate all the confirmations of the thought which makes of the Creator the principle of the universe:  to recount all the proofs of the infinite Being would require an eternal discourse.  We have stammered forth a few of the words of this endless discourse, by showing that, without God, the understanding, the conscience, and the heart lose their support and fall:  this formed the subject of our second lecture.  We saw further that reason makes fruitless attempts to find the universal principle in the objects of our experience—­nature and humanity.  Let us follow up, although we shall not be able to complete it, the study of this inexhaustible subject, by showing that the idea of the Creator alone answers to the demands of the philosophic reason.