“Inspiration:  The understanding he has given you!  Petty, conceited creature!  As if you were the first impious person who had been led astray through his reason corrupted by sin.

“Reason:  Man of God, you would not be the first scoundrel who asserts his arrogance as a proof of his mission.

“Inspiration:  What! do even philosophers call names?

“Reason:  Sometimes, when the saints set them the example.

“Inspiration:  Oh, but I have a right to do it, for I am speaking on God’s behalf.

“Reason:  You would do well to show your credentials before you make use of your privileges.

“Inspiration:  My credentials are authentic, earth and heaven will bear witness on my behalf.  Follow my arguments carefully, if you please.

“Reason:  Your arguments!  You forget what you are saying.  When you teach me that my reason misleads me, do you not refute what it might have said on your behalf?  He who denies the right of reason, must convince me without recourse to her aid.  For suppose you have convinced me by reason, how am I to know that it is not my reason, corrupted by sin, which makes me accept what you say? besides, what proof, what demonstration, can you advance, more self-evident than the axiom it is to destroy?  It is more credible that a good syllogism is a lie, than that the part is greater than the whole.

“Inspiration:  What a difference!  There is no answer to my evidence; it is of a supernatural kind.

“Reason:  Supernatural!  What do you mean by the word?  I do not understand it.

“Inspiration:  I mean changes in the order of nature, prophecies, signs, and wonders of every kind.

“Reason:  Signs and wonders!  I have never seen anything of the kind.

“Inspiration:  Others have seen them for you.  Clouds of witnesses—­the witness of whole nations....

“Reason:  Is the witness of nations supernatural?

“Inspiration:  No; but when it is unanimous, it is incontestable.

“Reason:  There is nothing so incontestable as the principles of reason, and one cannot accept an absurdity on human evidence.  Once more, let us see your supernatural evidence, for the consent of mankind is not supernatural.

“Inspiration:  Oh, hardened heart, grace does not speak to you.

“Reason:  That is not my fault; for by your own showing, one must have already received grace before one is able to ask for it.  Begin by speaking to me in its stead.

“Inspiration:  But that is just what I am doing, and you will not listen.  But what do you say to prophecy?

“Reason:  In the first place, I say I have no more heard a prophet than I have seen a miracle.  In the next, I say that no prophet could claim authority over me.

“Inspiration:  Follower of the devil!  Why should not the words of the prophets have authority over you?