These are the grounds, provided by my religion and my philosophy, for carefully avoiding religious controversies. Consider also the circumstances that govern my ordinary relations with my fellow men and you will find me completely justified. I belong to an oppressed people that must rely on the good will of the dominant nation and beseech its protection and succor, which does not always receive it and never without certain restrictions. Liberties that are allowed to every son of man, my coreligionists renounce gladly, if only they are tolerated and protected. They must reckon it as no small kindness if a nation accepts them under endurable conditions, for many states deny them even the right to reside. Do not the laws of your native city forbid your circumcised friend even to visit you in Zurich? How grateful my coreligionists would be to the dominant nation that includes them in the universal love of mankind and allows them unhindered to pray to the Almighty according to the ways of their fathers! They enjoy a most respectable degree of freedom in the state where I dwell. Should they, then, not be reluctant to contest the religion of the dominant majority, that is, to fall upon their protectors on the side that must be the most sensitive for virtuous men?

Following these principles, I was ever determined to avoid with utmost care all religious controversies, unless an extraordinary cause necessitated the altering of my resolution. Private challenges from honorable men I have been bold enough to pass over in silence, and the importunings of petty minds, who felt entitled to attack me publicly because of my religion, I felt entitled to scorn in turn. But the solemn entreaty of a Lavater necessitates that I make my attitudes known publicly, so that none may understand a prolonged silence as contempt or confession.

I have read Bonnet’s book, which you translated, with care. Whether I have been convinced is, after what I have declared here, surely no longer in question. However, I must confess, that even as a defense of the Christian religion it does not seem to me to have the value that you ascribe to it. I know Mr. Bonnet from other of his works as an excellent writer, but I have read many another defense of the same religion – I will not say by Englishmen but by our German countrymen – that seem far more thorough and philosophical than Bonnet’s work which you recommend to effect my conversion. If I am not mistaken, most of this writer’s philosophical premises sprang from German soil, and even [his] Essai de Psychologie, which Mr. Bonnet follows so faithfully, is indebted to German savants for almost everything. When it comes to philosophical principles, the German seldom need borrow from his neighbors.

Still, in my view, Bonnet’s general introductory observations constitute the most well-founded part of this work. But his application and use of these observations in the defense of his religion struck me as so inadmissible, so arbitrary, that I almost failed to recognize Bonnet. I am not pleased that my judgment differs so much from yours. It seems to me that Mr. Bonnet’s inner conviction and his praiseworthy zeal for his religion were supposed to lend a weight to his evidence that another person cannot find in it. Most of his conclusions seem to me to proceed so little from what comes before them that I dare to think I could defend any religion whatsoever with the same arguments. Perhaps the author himself is not to be blamed for this. He can have written only for such readers who, like him, are convinced, and who read only to be strengthened in their faith. When author and reader are already in agreement about the conclusion, they can quickly negotiate the grounds for it. But I must say I am surprised that you, Sir, think this work sufficient to convert someone who, according to his principles, must take an opposite position. You cannot possibly have put yourself in the position of a person who does not bring his convictions with him but is supposed rather to seek to form them from this book. But if you have, indeed, done this and still believe, as you have given me to understand, that Socrates himself would have to find Mr. Bonnet’s arguments irrefutable, then one of us is certainly a remarkable example of the power that prejudices and education can exert over even those who seek the Truth with upright hearts.