 The change of attitude in the next published works is striking. On the one hand, in the Quaestiones and Impiété, skepticism was presented as a sequel to Calvinism; and the denunciation of human reason found in Charron and Montaigne, far from encouraging faith in the mysteries of Christian religion, was seen as inclining men towards atheism and libertinism. On the other hand, Mersenne was no longer denouncing the sciences indistinctly as vain curiosity, his general attitude towards speculative enquiry was much more positive, especially when one came to the mathematical sciences, whose apologetic virtues he wanted now to reveal. He maintained however that our reason is weak, contradictory, particularly in regard philosophical (i.e., physical) issues: