ARTICLE IV
SOLUTION OF THE FOURTH PROBLEM
RELIGION PROVED BY THE OBJECTIONS WHICH PEOPLE
OPPOSE TO IT.
Tue objections which one may make against religion
may be made either in the name of science, or in the name of
reason, or in the name of faith.
Science cannot deny the facts of the existence of religion,
of its establishment and its influence upon the events of
history.
It is forbidden to it to touch dogma; dogma belongs
wholly to faith.
Science ordinarily arms itself against religion with a
series of facts which it is her duty to appreciate, which, in
fact, she does appreciate thoroughly, but which she con-
demns still more energetically than science does.
In doing that, science admits that religion is right, and
herself wrong; she lacks logic, manifests the disorder which
every angry passion introduces into the spirit of man, and
admits the need that it has of being ceaselessly redressed and
directed by the spirit of charity.
Reason, on its side, examines dogma and finds it absurd.
But, if it were not so, reason would understand it; if
reason understood it, it would no longer be the formula of
the unknown.
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