I Do Not Have Enough Faith To

The Difference Between A Man Who Is Led By Opinion Or Emotion And One Who Is Led By Reason. The Former, Whether He Will Or Not, Performs Things Of Which He Is Entirely Ignorant; The Latter Is Subordinate To No One, And Only Does Those Things Which He Knows To Be Of Primary Importance In His Life, And Which On That Account He Desires The Most; And Therefore I Call The Former A Slave, But The Latter Free.

I Say Then, That Belief Is Nothing But A More Vivid, Lively, Forcible, Firm, Steady Conception Of An Object, Than What The Imagination Alone Is Ever Able To Attain. This Variety Of Terms, Which May Seem So Unphilosophical, Is Intended Only To Express That Act Of The Mind, Which Renders Realities, Or What Is Taken For Such, More Present To Us Than Fictions, Causes Them To Weigh More In The Thought, And Gives Them A Superior Influence On The Passions And Imagination.

It Is Evident, From Their Method Of Propagation, That A Couple Of Cats, In Fifty Years, Would Stock A Whole Kingdom; And If That Religious Veneration Were Still Paid Them, It Would, In Twenty More, Not Only Be Easier In Egypt To Find A God Than A Man, Which Petronius Says Was The Case In Some Parts Of Italy; But The Gods Must At Last Entirely Starve The Men, And Leave Themselves Neither Priests Nor Votaries Remaining.

There Is A Set Of Harmless Liars, Frequently To Be Met With In Company, Who Deal Much In The Marvellous. Their Usual Intention Is To Please And Entertain; But As Men Are Most Delighted With What They Conceive To Be The Truth, These People Mistake The Means Of Pleasing, And Incur Universal Blame.

And What Is The Greatest Number? Number One.