All
corresponds, all is made for each other. Each being is intimately
linked to other beings. Everything is of the same design. There is
only a single architect, a single master, a single guardian. Perhaps
he's deigned to form some genies, some demons, more powerful and more
enlightened than men. And if they exist they are creatures like you;
they are his first subjects and not gods at all. But nothing in nature
advertises to us that they exist, while all nature announces to us one
God and one Father. This God has no need of Mercury and Iris to
signify his orders. He has only to will it and that's enough. If by
Minerva, you understand only the wisdom of God, if by Neptune you
intend only his immutable laws which raise and lower the seas, I would
say to you: He allows you to revere Neptune and Minerva, since under
these emblems you are still adoring only the eternal Being, and so
long as you are not giving occasion to people to misunderstand it.
ANITUS:
What impious balderdash.
SOCRATES:
Always beware of turning religion into metaphysics: Morality is its
essence. Adore and stop disputing. If our ancestors had said that the
Supreme God had descended into the arms of Alcmene, of Danae, of
Semele, and that he had children with them, our ancestors were
imagining dangerous fables.
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