The Science of Theology
Hanover Historical Texts Project
Baron D'Holbach,
Good Sense: or, Natural Ideas Opposed to Supernatural; being a Translation from a Work Called "Le Bon Sens"
corrected and carefully revised by H. D. Robinson
(Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1856) Pages 5-6
Scanned by Aaron Gulyas, February, 1998.
THERE is a science that has for its object only things
incomprehensible. Contrary to all other sciences, it
treats only of what cannot fall under our senses.
Hobbes calls it the kingdom of darkness. It is a
country, where everything is governed by laws,
contrary to those which mankind are permitted to
know in the world they inhabit. In this marvellous
region, light is only darkuess; evidence is doubtful or
false; impossibilities are credible: reason is a deceitful
guide; all d good sense becomes madness. This science
is called theology, and this theology is a continual insult to the reason of man.
By the magical power of "ifs," "buts," "perhapses,"
"what do we know," &c., heaped together, a shapeless
and unconnected system is formed, perplexing mankind, by obliterating from their minds, ideas the most clear and rendering uncertain truths the most evident.
By reason of this systematic confusion, nature is become an enigma, inexplicable to man; the visible world has disappeared, to give place to regions invisible; reason is compelled to yield to imagination,
which leads to the country of her self-invented chimeras.
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