Let it not be objected that speculations of this description upon the mysteries of religion are forbidden.  The word mystery signified, in the first ages of Christianity, something quite different from what it means now:  and the cultivation of revealed truths into truths of reason, is absolutely necessary, if the human race is to be assisted by them.  When they were revealed they were certainly no truths of reason, but they were revealed in order to become such.  They were like the “that makes”—­of the ciphering master, which he says to the boys, beforehand, in order to direct them thereby in their reckoning.  If the scholars were to be satisfied with the “that makes,” they would never learn to calculate, and would frustrate the intention with which their good master gave them a guiding clue in their work.

77

And why should not we too, by the means of a religion whose historical truth, if you will, looks dubious, be conducted in a familiar way to closer and better conceptions of the Divine Being, our own nature, our relation to God, truths at which the human reason would never have arrived of itself?

78

It is not true that speculations upon these things have ever done harm or become injurious to the body politic.  You must reproach, not the speculations, but the folly and the tyranny of checking them.  You must lay the blame on those who would not permit men having their own speculations to exercise them.

79

On the contrary, speculations of this sort, whatever the result, are unquestionably the most fitting exercises of the human heart, generally, so long as the human heart, generally, is at best only capable of loving virtue for the sake of its eternal blessed consequences.

80

For in this selfishness of the human heart, to will to practice the understanding too, only on that which concerns our corporal needs, would be to blunt rather than to sharpen it.  It absolutely will be exercised on spiritual objects, if it is to attain its perfect illumination, and bring out that purity of heart which makes us capable of loving virtue for its own sake alone.

81

Or, is the human species never to arrive at this highest step of illumination and purity?—­Never?

82

Never?—­Let me not think this blasphemy, All Merciful!  Education has its goal, in the Race, no less than in the Individual.  That which is educated is educated for something.

83

The flattering prospects which are open to the people, the Honor and Well-being which are painted to him, what are they more than the means of educating him to become a man, who, when these prospects of Honor and Well-being have vanished, shall be able to do his Duty?

84

This is the aim of human education, and should not the Divine education extend as far?  Is that which is successful in the way of Art with the individual, not to be successful in the way of Nature with the whole?  Blasphemy!  Blasphemy!!