The reader may, if he likes, see in the divisions adopted in doing this, only the indispensable breaks for the methodical exposition of a profound, complicated thought.
[Footnote 1: _Loc.

cit._] If the love of a subject can help one to understand it, it will also, I hope, be recognized that I have not been wanting in this condition.
To write the history of a religion, it is necessary, firstly, to have believed it (otherwise we should not be able to understand how it has charmed and satisfied the human conscience); in the second place, to believe it no longer in an absolute manner, for absolute faith is incompatible with sincere history.

But love is possible without faith.
To abstain from attaching one's self to any of the forms which captivate the adoration of men, is not to deprive ourselves of the enjoyment of that which is good and beautiful in them.

No transitory appearance exhausts the Divinity; God was revealed before Jesus--God will reveal Himself after him.

Profoundly unequal, and so much the more Divine, as they are grander and more spontaneous, the manifestations of God hidden in the depths of the human conscience are all of the same order.