Nous n'avons pas a examiner si cette disposition constitutive de l'esprit humain est bonne ou mauvaise; la seule question que l'on en fait est vaine et sterile.

Nous sommes necessairement amenes par l'observation physchologique a constater qu'il faut que l'homme croie a la fidelite du temoignage de ses sens individuels, et a la valeur de sa raison personelle, avant de faire un pas au-dela."[246] We think it unnecessary to enter into a detailed discussion of this strange and startling theory, especially as the altered position of the writer in his relation to the Church before his death may be held to indicate that to a large extent it had been abandoned by himself.

Nor should we have thought it worthy even of this transient notice, had we not discerned symptoms of an incipient tendency in a similar direction among some writers in the Protestant ranks.

It should be remembered by divines of every communion that the rational faculties of man and their general trustworthiness are necessarily presupposed in any Revelation which may be addressed to them; and that in Scripture itself frequent appeals are made to the works of Creation and Providence, as affording at once a body of natural evidence, and a signal manifestation of His adorable perfections.

It were a vain thing to hope that _faith in God_ may be strengthened by a spirit of _Skepticism_ in regard to Reason, which constitutes part of His own image on the soul of man.
It is but common justice to add that the speculations of Lamennais, so far from being sanctioned, were openly censured, by some of the most distinguished of his fellow-ecclesiastics.