"such an exhausting work of hermeneutic evacuation"

Comte "was more honest than you, studious expurgators of revealed truths.  He at least fabricated the myths of his 'subjective synthesis' fairly and squarely out of whole cloth, not, like you, by reinterpreting a whole religious heritage to which you believe yourself more faithful than anyone, nor by trying to deceive the thirst, and the heart, of those whose faith you imagine you share."

     Jacques Maritain, The peasant of the Garonne:  an old layman questions himself about the present time (New York:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), 7 =Le paysan de la Garonne:  un vieux laïc s'interroge à propos du temps présent (Paris:  Desclée de Brouwer, 1966), 18.  The heading ("un si épuisant travail d'évacuation herméneutique") is from 9-10 =22.