«b& 
 
 
 ,. «.>-* . 
 
 
 
 F, » "^ '•> 
 
 £ 
 
 >* .i^L'» 
 
 <?v *•••' <* 
 
 ** .*<grafc*. ^ .& .!; 
 
 .*** • 
 
 W •' 
 
 V • « • «* ^\ 
 
 
 ^ 
 •^ 
 
 ••. '■* 
 
 ■: ^ 'Mm-- ^ 
 
 
 *" ..'•». •*-< 
 
 
 *°V 
 
 
 •• <« 
 
 V *!,*«?" GU 
 
 
 
 «> 
 
 * ..>V/j:- *«„ <£* .vsfef. ^-aS- .: 
 
 *♦" .' 
 
 
 
 
 *. r oV . 
 
 f; jP^ij 
 
 Ao 1 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 ♦ V A 
 
 • • - ^v <v^ • • • # ^ 
 
 
 
 
• " * 
 
 !nL% * 
 
 *> - ■ •• .V* 
 
 o. * 
 
 
 77^ % <&' ^/♦^rr 
 
 
 
 *.°** 
 
 
 
 ^ ••»•* <$ 
 
 
 <fc> '. 
 
 
 fe. <?? .♦. 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^oV^ . 
 
 ^ % 
 
 •L^L'* > 
 
 <t> ••••" <* 
 
 
 C^A 
 ^ ^ 
 
VOLTAIRE AND ROUSSEAU 
 
 AGAINST THE ATHEISTS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 ESSAYS AND DETACHED PASSAGES PROM 
 THOSE WRITERS, 
 
 IN RELATION TO 
 
 THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 
 
 SELECTED AND TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, 
 
 By J. AKERLY. 
 
 * * * Jo vis omnia plena. — Virgil,, {Bucol. Eel. III.) 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 WILEY AND PUTNAM. 
 
 1845. 
 
t> 
 
 rtt! 
 
 Is 
 
 The Library 
 of Congress 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by 
 
 J. AKERLY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern 
 District of New-York. 
 
 John F. Trow & Co., Printers, 
 33 Ann- street, N. Y. 
 
VOLTAIRE 
 
 FROM "IL FAUT PRENDRE UN PARTI"— WE MUST 
 CHOOSE OUR SIDE. 
 
 I do not allude to choosing sides between 
 Russia and Turkey, for those countries will 
 make peace sooner or later, without any in- 
 terference of mine : 
 
 Nor is the question whether we shall de- 
 clare ourselves in favor of a British party 
 against some other party, for both will soon 
 disappear and make way for new ones : 
 
 Nor do I propose to choose between the 
 Christians of the Greek Church, the Armin- 
 ians, the Eutychians, the Jacobites, the Chris- 
 tians denominated Papists, the Lutherans, 
 
4 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 the Calvinists, the Anglicans, the Primitives 
 styled Quakers, the Anabaptists, the Jan- 
 senists, the Molinists, the Socinians, the Pie- 
 tists, and so many other ists. I desire to 
 keep on good terms with all these gentle- 
 men when I meet them, and to enter into no 
 dispute with them ; for there is not one 
 among them all who, if he should have oc- 
 casion to divide a guinea with me, would not 
 perfectly understand how much was due 
 him, or who would be willing to lose an 
 obolus for the salvation of my soul or of his. 
 
 I shall not take sides between the old and 
 new parliaments of France, for a few years 
 hence we shall hear no more of either : 
 
 Nor between the ancients and the mod- 
 erns, for that is a dispute which will never 
 be settled : 
 
 Nor between the Jansenists and the Mol- 
 inists, for they exist no longer, and h\e or 
 six thousand volumes of their controversial 
 works have become, thank God, as useless 
 as the works of Saint Ephraim : 
 
VOLTAIRE. 5 
 
 Nor between the French and Italian comic 
 operas, for that is a matter of taste: 
 
 But that to which I refer is a trifling little 
 question, viz., — whether there is a God; — 
 and this is what I am about to examine with 
 great seriousness and good faith, for the sub- 
 ject is interesting to me and you too. 
 
 ON THE PRINCIPLE OF ACTION. 
 
 Every thing is in motion ; every thing in 
 nature acts and reacts. 
 
 Our sun turns on its axis with a rapidity 
 which amazes us, and other suns turn like- 
 wise, while an innumerable multitude of 
 planets revolve in their orbits around them. 
 The blood circulates more than twenty times 
 an hour in the lowest of our animals. A 
 straw, borne by the wind, tends by its nature 
 to the centre of the earth, as the earth is at- 
 tracted by the sun, and the sun by it. The 
 everlasting flux and reflux of the ocean is 
 attributable to the same laws. It is in pur- 
 
Q VOLTAIRE. 
 
 suance of the same laws that the vapors 
 which form our atmosphere escape continu- 
 ally from the earth and fall again in the 
 shape of dew, rain, hail, snow, and thunder- 
 storms. 
 
 All is action; even death is active. The / 
 bodies of the dead are decomposed, transform 
 themselves into vegetables, and afford nour- 
 ishment for the living, who, in their turn, 
 nourish others in the same manner. 
 
 What is the principle of this universal 
 action ? 
 
 That principle must be one. The con- 
 stant uniformity discoverable in the laws * 
 which regulate the revolutions of the hea- 
 venly bodies and in the motion of our globe, 
 and which is found to prevail also in every 
 species and genus of animals, vegetables, and 
 minerals, indicates one mover only. If there 
 were two, they would be either different 
 from each other, or hostile to each other, or 
 similar to each other. Were they different, 
 there w T ould be no mutual adaptation in the 
 
VOLTAIRE. 7 
 
 works of nature. Were they hostile, all 
 things would destroy each other. If they 
 are similar, it is as if there were but one : 
 there is, in that case, one more than is 
 required. 
 
 I am confirmed in the belief that there is 
 but a single principle, a single mover, the 
 moment I direct my attention to the un- 
 changing and uniform laws pervading all 
 nature. 
 
 The same gravitation penetrates into all 
 the heavenly bodies, and impels them toward 
 each other, not in proportion to their extent 
 of surface (for that might result from the 
 influence of a fluid), but in proportion to their 
 mass or quantity of matter. 
 
 The squares of the periodic times of the 
 planets are to each other in the same pro- 
 portion as the cubes of their distances from 
 the sun ; and this, let me remark in passing, 
 establishes what Plato had divined (I know 
 not how), that the world is the work of the 
 Everlasting Geometer.^ 
 
8 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 The rays of light are reflected and refract- 
 ed through the whole extent of the universe. 
 All mathematical truths must be such in the 
 star Sirius, as much as in our little dwelling- 
 place. 
 
 If I turn my eyes upon the animal king- 
 dom, I perceive that all quadrupeds and all 
 bipeds without w 7 ings perpetuate their spe- 
 cies by the same copulation, and that all 
 their females are viviparous. 
 
 The females of all birds are oviparous. 
 
 All the species of the same genus propa- 
 gate in the same manner and subsist on the 
 same food. 
 
 Plants of the same genus have the same 
 fundamental properties. 
 
 Assuredly the oak and the hazel have 
 never contracted with each other that they 
 would be reproduced and grow in the same 
 way, any more than the planets, Mars and 
 Saturn, have agreed with each other to be 
 governed by the same laws. 
 
 Then there exists one universal and pow- 
 
VOLTAIRE. 9 
 
 erful Intelligence, which always acts by un- 
 varying laws. 
 
 No one, on seeing an armillary sphere, a 
 painted landscape, drawings in which ani- 
 mals are represented, or anatomical prepa- 
 rations of colored wax, doubts that they are 
 the productions of skilful artists. Can it be 
 that these copies imply an intelligent maker, 
 and that the originals do nothing of the kind'? 
 This of itself appears to me the most con- 
 vincing demonstration of the existence of a 
 God, and I cannot conceive in what way it 
 can be answered. 
 
 OF THE PRINCIPLE OF ACTION AS NECESSARY 
 AND ETERNAL. 
 
 This one mover is very powerful, other- 
 wise he could not regulate so vast and com- 
 plicated a machine. 
 
 He is very intelligent, since we, wiio are < 
 intelligent, can produce nothing equal to the 
 least of the springs of this machine. 
 
10 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 He is a necessary being, inasmuch as the^ 
 machine could not exist, but for him. 
 
 He is eternal, for he cannot have sprung 
 from nonentity, which being nothing can [ 
 produce nothing ; and as soon as something 
 exists, it is clear that something has existed 
 from all eternity. This sublime truth has 
 now become trite. Such has been the pro- 
 gress of the human mind in our times, not- 
 withstanding the efforts our teachers of ig- 
 norance have put forth during so many ages 
 to degrade us. 
 
 WHERE IS THE FIRST PRINCIPLE ? IS IT INFINITE ? 
 
 When the animal called a man demon- 
 strates to me a geometrical proposition, or 
 when he raises a weight, I do not see the 
 first principle of his intelligence and his mo- 
 tions. Still I believe that there is one within 
 him, inferior being as he is. I cannot dis- 
 cover whether this first principle is in his 
 heart, or his head, or his blood, or his whole 
 
VOLTAIRE. 11 
 
 body. In the same manner I infer that there 
 is a first principle in nature, and I see that 
 it is impossible that that principle should not 
 be everlasting. But where is it 1 
 
 If it animates all that IS, it must be in all 
 that IS. This seems unquestionable. It is 
 in all that exists, as motion is in all the body 
 of an animal, if I may be permitted to make 
 use of so inadequate a comparison. 
 
 But if it is in what exists, can it be in 
 what does not exist ? Is the universe infi- 
 nite 1 So we are told ; but who can prove 
 
 it? 
 
 # # * * % # 
 
 I know no reason why God should be 
 infinite. His nature, I apprehend, is to be 
 wherever there is any thing ; but why and 
 how should existing things be infinite? 
 Newton has proved the possibility of a va- 
 cuum, which till then had only been suppo- 
 sed. If there is vacuity in nature, there can 
 be vacuity beyond the limits of nature. What 
 necessity is there that beings should have 
 
|2 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 infinite extension 1 What is infinite exten- 
 sion ? There can be no such thing, any more 
 than any number is infinite. There is no 
 number and no degree of extension to which 
 additions cannot be made. On this point 
 the opinions of Cudworth are more correct 
 than those of Clarke. 
 
 God, says Clarke, is present every where. 
 Yes, doubtless, every where where any thing 
 is, but not where there is nothing at all. To 
 be present to nothing seems to me a contra- 
 diction, an absurdity. I am forced to admit 
 eternity, but I am not forced to admit that 
 there is such a thing as infinity. 
 
 In fine, what matters it to me, whether 
 space be a real being or a mere conception 
 of my understanding? What matters it, 
 whether the necessary, intelligent, powerful, J t 
 eternal, all-creating Being be or be not in^, 
 that imaginary space % In either case, am 
 I the less his work ? Am I the less depend- 
 ent upon him 1 Is he the less my master 1 , 
 I perceive this master of the universe with 
 
 
VOLTAIRE. 13 
 
 the eyes of my understanding ; but I cannot 
 perceive him beyond the bounds of the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 The dispute, whether infinite space be a 
 real being or not, still continues. I am not 
 willing to found my opinion on so unsafe a 
 basis — on a controversy worthy of the school- 
 men ; nor am I willing to make God's throne 
 rest in imaginary space. 
 
 To compare once more small things which 
 seem great to us, w T ith what is great in real- 
 ity, let us suppose that an alguazil at Ma- 
 drid should endeavor to convince one of his 
 Castilian neighbors that the king of Spain 
 is master of the sea which lies north of Cal- 
 ifornia, and should contend that whoever 
 doubts this is guilty of high treason. The 
 Castilian might answer, " I do not even know 
 that there is any sea on the other side of 
 California ; and it is of little importance to 
 me whether there be or not, so long as I 
 have the means of living at Madrid. No 
 discovery of that sea is required to teach me 
 
14 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 that I am under obligation to be faithful to 
 the king, my master, on the banks of the 
 Manc,anares. Whether there be or be not 
 any ships beyond Hudson's bay, his right to 
 command me here remains unchanged. I 
 feel my dependence on him at Madrid, be- 
 cause I know that he is the master of the 
 city." 
 
 So, too, we are dependent on the Great 
 Being, not because he is present out of the '"* 
 world, but because he is present in it. 
 
 I have only to entreat the forgiveness of 
 the Ruler of Nature for having compared 
 him to a frail man, that I might the better 
 illustrate my meaning. 
 
 THAT THE FIRST PRINCIPLE, THE ETERNAL 
 BEING, ARRANGED ALL VOLUNTARILY. 
 
 It is manifest that the Supreme, Necessa-'X 
 ry, and Active Intelligence has a will, and 
 that he has ordered all things because he has 
 so willed. For how could he act and form 
 
VOLTAIRE. 15 
 
 every thing without willing ? He would be, 
 on that supposition, a mere machine, and 
 that machine would imply another first prin- 
 ciple — another mover. We should still have 
 to recur to some primary being endowed 
 with intelligence. We exercise volition, we 
 act, we construct, machines in pursuance of 
 our will ; and so the great and mighty Demi- 
 ourgos* created all because he so willed. 
 
 Spinoza himself recognizes in nature an 
 intelligent and necessary power. But an 
 intelligence destitute of will would be an ab- 
 surdity, for it would serve no end and would 
 effect nothing ; the will to effect any thing 
 being wanting. Consequently, the great 
 and necessary Being has willed all that he 
 has done. 
 
 * Demiourgos, workman, maker. It was often applied to 
 the Deity by the Greek philosophers, as : * * * y AXX ovxoj 
 ye ay.o7Tovfievo) navv eoixs xavxa oocpov rivbq S rj ill ov qy ox ttal 
 cpiXo^wov xexv^aaxt. — Xenophon, {Mem. Soc.} Oeol -frewv, 
 wv iyoi drj inov Qybq, v.. x. X. — Plato, (TimcBUS.) MijxoC- 
 vvv xov ye &ebv a^ioHJcapev rtoxe &vrix6)V 8t\^iovqy (av cpavXo- 
 xegov, x. x. X. — Plato, (De Legg.) Translator. 
 
16 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 I have before remarked that he created all 
 necessarily ; for if his works were not neces- 
 sary, they would be useless. But does this 
 necessity nullify his free will 1 Certainly 
 not. I necessarily will that I may be happy. 
 I do not will this the less because I necessa- 
 rily will it ; on the contrary, I will it only 
 the more forcibly from the fact that my will 
 is invincible. 
 
 Does this necessity deprive him of his free 
 agency ? Not at all. Free agency is noth- 
 ing else than the power of acting. As then 
 the Supreme Being is powerful in the high- 
 est degree, he is the freest of beings. 
 
 Thus, therefore, the great Artificer of the 
 universe is shown to be necessary, eternal,. ( 
 intelligent, powerful, capable of volition, and 
 free. 
 
VOLTAIRE. 17 
 
 FROM " LE PHILOSOPHE IGNORANT.' 
 
 ONE SUPREME ARTIFICER. 
 
 A large part of mankind, seeing moral 
 and physical evil spread throughout the 
 globe, imagined that there were two pow- 
 erful beings ; one of whom wrought all the 
 good, and the other all the evil. 
 s~ If two such beings existed, they would 
 exist necessarily ; they would be everlasting 
 and independent ; they would also occupy 
 all space, would exist, therefore, in the same 
 place, and each would penetrate the other ; 
 which is absurd. 
 
 The notion of these two conflicting pow- 
 ers must have originated in the examples we 
 witness on earth. We see around us some 
 men that are mild, and others that are fero- 
 cious, useful animals and noxious ones, kind 
 masters and tyrants. This suggested the 
 idea of two hostile powers presiding over 
 nature, which is but an Asiatic romance. 
 
18 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 All nature exhibits unity of purpose. The 
 laws of motion and gravity are invariable. 
 It is impossible that two supreme artificers, 
 entirely opposed to each other, should have 
 followed the same laws. This argument is, 
 in my judgment, sufficient of itself to over- 
 throw the doctrine of the Manicheans, and 
 there is no need of encountering them with 
 cumbrous volumes. 
 
 There exists, therefore, a Power, unique, 
 eternal, with whom every thing is connected, 
 on whom every thing depends, but whose 
 nature I am unable to comprehend. 
 
 FROM "TOUT EN DIEU." 
 
 Commentaire sur Malebranche. 
 GOD THE CAUSE OF ALL THINGS. 
 
 It is certain that we cannot give ourselves 
 any sensation ; we cannot even imagine 
 any except such as we have experienced. 
 
VOLTAIRE. 19 
 
 Though every academy in Europe should 
 offer a prize for the invention of a new sense, 
 the prize would never be awarded. We can 
 do nothing purely of ourselves, whether there 
 be an invisible and intangible being in our 
 cerebellum or not. And it must be confess- 
 ed, whatever system we adopt, that the Au- 
 thor of nature has bestowed upon us all that 
 we have — organs, sensations — and ideas, 
 which are the consequence of the latter. 
 
 As we are thus placed at his disposal, 
 / Malebranche, notwithstanding all his errors, 
 was right in declaring, philosophically, that 
 we are in God, and that we behold every 
 thing in God. Saint Paul says the same 
 thing in the language of theology, and Ara- 
 tus and Cato in that of the moralists. 
 
 What, then, are we to understand by the 
 expression, behold every thing in God 7* 
 
 * The doctrine of Malebranche, if I rightly apprehend the 
 opinions of that subtle metaphysician, is briefly as follows: 
 
 That ideas are not mere modes, properties, or attributes, 
 but real entities : 
 
20 VOLTATRE. 
 
 Either these are unmeaning words, or they 
 signify that all our ideas are from God f\y 
 
 That God must have created each of his works in pursu- 
 ance of a previous idea in himself: 
 
 That there exists a kind of repository of ideas (or etendue 
 intelligible, as Malebranche denominates it), which is embo- 
 somed, as it were, in God, and is a part of Him, and which 
 contains the archetypes or model-ideas, not only of all that 
 is, has been, or will be, but of all that can be ; — of all things 
 that are possible : 
 
 That when we look on external objects, we do not see the 
 objects themselves, but the intimate union between the hu- 
 man soul and God enables us to perceive the ideal exem- 
 plars of those objects in that portion of God's substance which 
 constitutes the etendue intelligible; and we may therefore 
 be said to see God, and to see all things in God. 
 
 The following passage, which I translate from the work of 
 Malebranche entitled Dela Recherche de la Verite, will per- 
 haps exhibit his views more clearly. It is from the chapter, 
 " Que nous voyons toutes choses en Dieu." 
 
 "A great number of passages may be found in the writings 
 of St. Augustine, by which he attempts to prove that we see 
 God, even in this life, by the knowledge which we possess of 
 eternal truths. Truth, he observes, is uncreated, immuta- 
 ble, immeasurable, everlasting, superior to all else. It is 
 true by its own nature ; its perfection is not derived from 
 any thing ; it renders created beings more perfect ; and all 
 spirits naturally endeavor to become acquainted with it. 
 Nothing but God can possess all these perfections. Then 
 Truth is God. 
 
VOLTAIRE. 21 
 
 What is meant by receiving ideas ? When 
 we receive, we do not create them ; then 
 they are created by God, just as it is God, not 
 we, who originates motion. All, therefore, 
 is but the action of God upon his creatures. 
 
 a We see some of these immutable and eternal truths. 
 Then we see God. 
 
 " Such is St. Augustine's mode of reasoning. My own is 
 somewhat different, and I would not unfairly take advantage 
 of the authority of so great a name to support my own views. 
 
 " My opinion, then, is that truths, far from being God him- 
 self, are not even substantive beings ; and that this is the case 
 even with those which are eternal, such as that twice two 
 make four. For it is apparent that this truth consists mere- 
 ly in a relation of equality between 4 and twice 2. I say, 
 therefore, that we see God, not as St. Augustine maintains, 
 when we see these truths, but when we perceive the ideas 
 of them, for the ideas are actual beings ; while the equality 
 between the ideas, which is the truth itself, is not a real be- 
 ing. When, for example, we measure a piece of cloth and 
 say that it is three ells long, the cloth and the ells are real 
 beings. But the equality between the three ells and the 
 cloth is not a real being ; it is a mere relation. When we 
 say that twice 2 are 4, the ideas of the numbers are actual 
 entities ; but the equality between them is only a relation. 
 Thus, according to my view, we see God when we perceive 
 everlasting truths ; not that these truths are God, but be- 
 cause the ideas on which they depend are in God," &c, &c. 
 
 Translator, 
 
22 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 GOD INSEPARABLE FROM ALL NATURE. 
 
 It must not thence be inferred that he re- 
 mains in perpetual contact with his works 
 by particular acts and exercises of volition. 
 We are prone always to make God in our 
 likeness. Sometimes we represent him as 
 an absolute monarch issuing orders to the 
 servants in his palace; sometimes as a work- 
 man attending to the wheels of his machine. 
 But can the man who makes a right use of 
 his reason, conceive of God as aught else 
 than an ever active principle % If he was 
 once a principle, he must be so every mo- 
 ment, for his nature cannot change. The 
 comparison of the sun and its light to God 
 and his productions is, no doubt, imperfect ; 
 but it furnishes an idea, however faint and 
 defective, of an ever-subsisting cause and its 
 ever-subsisting effects. 
 
 In short, it is merely as a parrot or an 
 idiot that I utter the name of God, if I have 
 not the idea of a cause which is necessary, 
 
VOLTAIRE. 23 
 
 immeasurable, active, present to all its ef- 
 fects, in all places, and at all times. 
 
 I cannot here be met with the objections 
 advanced against Spinoza. He was told 
 that he had made a God at once intelligent 
 and stupid, spirit and squash, wolf and lamb, 
 who robbed and was robbed, murdered and 
 was murdered ; that his God was a perpet- 
 ual contradiction. But I do not make the 
 universe God. I hold that the universe is 
 an emanation from him, and would observe 
 (to recur again to the feeble comparison of 
 which I have spoken), that a beam of light 
 darted from the sun, and absorbed in the fil- 
 thiest of sewers, does not leave the small- 
 est stain upon the luminary from which it 
 proceeds, nor does the sewer prevent the 
 sun from vivifying all nature throughout our 
 globe. 
 
 It may be objected, however, that the 
 beam, being an emanation from the sun, 
 comes from its very substance ; and that if 
 God's works are emanations from him, they 
 
24 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 are parts of him. Hence I should fear to 
 convey a false idea of God, by appearing to 
 consider him as composed of parts — and 
 those, too, unconnected parts — parts hostile 
 to each other. On this point I repeat what 
 I have already remarked, that my compari- 
 son is extremely imperfect, and that it serves 
 only to furnish a faint image of what cannot 
 be represented by images. I might say, 
 moreover, that a sunbeam passing into the 
 mire does not mingle with the latter, but 
 preserves its invisible essence. Yet it is 
 better to confess that even the purest light 
 is not an adequate emblem of the Deity. 
 Light emanates from the sun, and all things 
 emanate from God. We know not how it 
 is ; but, I repeat, we cannot conceive of God 
 except as the necessary Being from whom 
 all emanates. The multitude regard him 
 as a despot who keeps bailiffs in his ante- 
 chamber. 
 
 I consider all other images which have 
 been employed to shadow forth this Princi- 
 
VOLTAIRE. 25 
 
 pie — a Principle all-pervading, necessarily 
 self-existent, necessarily active throughout 
 immeasurable extension — as still more in- 
 correct than the comparison drawn from the 
 sun and his rays. He has been described 
 as riding the winds, borne on the clouds, 
 surrounded with thunders and lightnings, 
 holding converse with the elements, swell- 
 ing the waves of the ocean. All this is but 
 the expression of our littleness. It is, in 
 truth, highly ridiculous to place in the midst 
 of a fog, half a league from our petty globe, 
 the everlasting Principle of all the millions 
 of globes revolving in immensity. Our light- 
 nings and thunders, which are seen and 
 heard in a circuit of not more than four or 
 five leagues at farthest, are but insignificant 
 effects which are lost in the great whole; 
 and this great whole is what we ought to 
 bear in mind when speaking of God. 
 
 (it must be the same power which passes 
 from our planetary system to the other plan- 
 etary systems thousands and thousands of 
 2 
 
26 VOLTAIRE, 
 
 times more remote from us than our globe is 
 from Saturn. The stars are all governed by 
 the same eternal laws, for if the centripetal 
 and centrifugal forces influence our world, 
 they influence the neighbouring one ; and so 
 on, throughout the universe. The light of 
 Sirius must be the same with that of our sun ; 
 it must possess the same degree of tenuity, 
 the same velocity, the same force ; it must 
 likewise be emitted on all sides in right 
 lines ; and its intensity, also, must vary in- 
 versely as the square of the distance. 
 
 As the light of the fixed stars, which are 
 so many suns, reaches us in a given time ; so 
 in reciprocation, that of our sun reaches 
 them in a given time. As the rays and 
 beams of our sun are subject to refraction, 
 so, unquestionably, the rays of the other suns, 
 darted in like manner upon their attending 
 planets, are refracted in precisely the same 
 mode, if they strike the same media. 
 ^^.As this refraction is necessary to sight, 
 these planets must contain beings possessing 
 
VOLTAIRE. 21 
 
 the faculty of seeing. It is not probable that 
 so excellent a way of turning light to ac- 
 count is left unemployed in the other globes. 
 The instrument being there, we may reason- 
 ably suppose that it is used. Let us always 
 set out with these two principles — (that noth- 
 ing is uselessjand that the great laws of na- 
 ture are every where the same — and it will 
 follow that the innumerable suns kindled in 
 the immensity of space dispense light to in- 
 numerable planets ; that the rays have the 
 same properties as on our little earth ; and 
 that animals enjoy the benefit of them. Of 
 all beings and of all the forms in which the 
 Great Being manifests himself, light is that 
 which gives us the most enlarged idea of the 
 Divinity, far as it is from fully representing 
 him. 
 
 In truth, when we have surveyed the ana- 
 tomical structure of the animals of our globe, 
 we know not whether the inhabitants of the 
 other globes possess similar organs : when 
 
28 VOLTAIRE, 
 
 we have made ourselves acquainted with 
 the weight, elasticity, and uses of our atmos- 
 phere, we are ignorant whether the orbs 
 revolving around Sirius or Aldebaran are 
 encompassed with air resembling ours : our 
 briny ocean does not prove that there are 
 oceans in the other planets : but light is ev- 
 ery where. Our nights are illuminated by a 
 host of suns. It is by light that from a cor- 
 ner of this little ball on w T hich man crawls, 
 a perpetual correspondence is kept up be- 
 tween all those worlds and us. Saturn Jooks 
 upon us, and we upon Saturn. Sirius, which 
 we behold, may also behold us, and certain- 
 ly does behold our sun, although there inter- 
 venes between the two a distance such that 
 a cannon ball, moving at the rate of twelve 
 hundred yards in a second, could not trav- 
 erse it in a hundred and four billions of years. 
 Light is, in reality, a swift messenger fly- 
 ing through the great whole, from world to 
 world. It has some of the properties of 
 
VOLTAIRE. 29 
 
 matter and some that are higher than those; 
 and if any thing can afford some faint, inci- 
 pient idea, some imperfect apprehension of 
 God, it is light, which, like him, is every 
 where, and, like him, operates everywhere.-/ 
 
 FROM THE "HOMELIES." 
 
 (Premiere Homelie.) 
 
 ■ * # * Destroy men's belief in an 
 avenging and remunerating Deity, and Sylla 
 and Marius bathe with delight in the blood 
 of their fellow-citizens ; the cruelties of Au- 
 gustus, Antonius and Lepidus, surpass the 
 atrocities of Sylla ; Nero in cold blood caus- 
 es his mother to be put to death. It is cer- 
 tain that the fear of an avenging God had 
 then disappeared among the Romans. Athe- 
 ism was prevalent, and it would not be dif- 
 ficult to prove from history that atheism 
 may sometimes produce as much evil as the 
 most barbarous superstitions; 
 
30 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 Think you that Pope Alexander VI. be-, 
 lieved there was a God, when, to promote 
 the interests of his son, the offspring of incest, 
 he had recourse in turn to treachery, open 
 violence, the stiletto, the halter, and poison; 
 and when, in mockery of the superstitious 
 weakness of those whom he assassinated, he 
 gave them absolution and indulgences in the 
 midst of the convulsions of death % Certainly, 
 these horrible barbarities upon men w 7 ere 
 insults to the Divinity whom he derided. 
 Let us all confess that in reading the history 
 of this monster and his detestable son, we 
 experience a wish that they may be punish- 
 ed. The idea of an avenging God is neces- 
 sary therefore. 
 
 It may and does too often happen that, 
 though convinced of God's justice, men give 
 way to the fury of their passions. They are 
 then in a state of intoxication. Remorse 
 does not come upon them until reason has 
 resumed her authority, but then it torments 
 the guilty. The atheist may feel, instead 
 
VOLTAIRE. 31 
 
 of remorse, that secret and gloomy horror 
 which accompanies the commission of great 
 crimes. The condition of his soul is harass- 
 ing and unhappy. A man who is stained 
 with blood can no longer taste the sweets 
 of society ; his spirit becomes ruffianly, and 
 enjoys none of the delights of life ; he is 
 frantic as a madman; — but he does not re- 
 pent. He has no fear of being called to an 
 account for the victims he has made. He 
 will always be wicked, and will become 
 hardened in ferocity. 
 
 On the contrary, the man who believes in 
 God will recover from his excitement. He 
 can be violent but for a moment, while the 
 atheist is a monster all his life. Why 1 Be- 
 cause there is a check which restrains the 
 former, while the latter has nothing to con- 
 trol him. 
 
 uWe do not read that the Archbishop of 
 Troll, who caused all the magistrates of 
 Stockholm to be murdered before his eyes, 
 ever condescended even to pretend to atone 
 
32 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 for his crime by the slightest penitence. An 
 atheist, provided he be sure of impunity so 
 far as man is concerned, reasons and acts 
 consistently in being dishonest, ungrateful, a 
 slanderer, a robber, and a murderer. For if 
 there is no God, this monster is his own god, 
 and sacrifices to his purposes whatever he de- 
 sires and whatever stands as an obstacle in 
 his path. The most moving entreaties, the 
 most cogent arguments have no more effect 
 upon him than on a wolf thirsting for blood. 
 | When the two Medici were assassinated 
 by order of Pope Sixtus IV., in a church, at 
 the instant when the god adored by the 
 multitude was raised that they might look 
 upon him, the pope, tranquil in his palace, 
 had nothing to fear, whether the plot should 
 succeed or miscarry. He well knew that 
 the Florentines would never dare avenge 
 themselves; that he could excommunicate 
 them at his ease, and that they would kneel 
 and ask his forgiveness for having ventured 
 to complain. 
 
VOLTAIRE. 33 
 
 It is altogether probable that all the pow- 
 erful men who have passed their lives in that 
 round of crimes which fools denominate 
 strokes of policy, revolutionary remedies, art 
 of governing, &c, have been atheists, f * 
 
 FROM THE " HONNETETES LITTE- 
 RAIRES." 
 
 (Vingt-septieme HonnHete.) 
 
 I have always been convinced that athe- 
 ism cannot do any good, and may do very 
 great harm. I have pointed out the infinite 
 difference between the sages who have writ- 
 ten against superstition and the madmen 
 who have written against God. \There is 
 neither philosophy nor morality in any sys- 
 tem of atheism. 
 
 In none do I see any philosophy : for, in 
 truth, is it reasoning to recognize the evi- 
 dences of genius in one of the spheres of Ar- 
 2* 
 
34 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 chimedes or Posidonius, and in one of those 
 orreries that are sold in England, and yet 
 to recognize no such evidences in the work- 
 manship of the universe? — to admire the 
 copy, and yet persist in refusing to see any 
 intelligence in the original from which the 
 copy is taken % Is not this more absurd than 
 if one were to say that the engravings from 
 Raphael's paintings were made by an intel- 
 ligent artist, but that the paintings made O 
 themselves ! 
 
 *7t* */v* *?? w *a* *n* 
 
 FROM " DIEU ET LES HOMMES." 
 
 aWhat other restraint could be laid on cu- 
 'pidity and on secret and unpunished trans- 
 gressions than the idea of an eternal master 
 who sees us, and will judge even our most 
 hidden thoughts 1 I know not who was the 
 first to teach men this doctrine. If I did, 
 
VOLTAIRE. 35 
 
 and were sure that he did not go farther and 
 corrupt the medicine which he offered to 
 mankind, I would erect an altar in his honor. 
 
 FROxM THE "DICTIONNAIRE PHILO- 
 SOPHIQUE." 
 
 (Article u Dieu") 
 
 /For my part, in nature as in art, I see 
 nothing but final causes ; and I as much be- 
 lieve that apple-trees were made for the 
 purpose of bearing apples, as that watches 
 are made for the purpose of showing the 
 time of day. 
 
 FROM A LETTER TO M. MARTIN KAHLE. 
 
 I shall always be of the opinion that a 
 clock proves a clock-maker, and that the 
 universe proves a God. 
 
36 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 FROM THE "HISTOIRE DE JENNI." 
 
 * * * Italy, in the fifteenth cen~y 
 tury, was full of atheists — and what was the 
 consequence ? Cases of poisoning were as 
 common as invitations to supper ; and there 
 was no more hesitation in plunging a stiletto 
 into the heart of one's friend than in embra- 
 cing him. There were teachers of crime, 
 just as there are now teachers of music or 
 mathematics. * * * 
 
 
 FROM THE SAME. 
 
 Birton — With you, I will call that intelli- ,. 
 gent and powerful Principle which animates 
 all nature, God. But has he deigned to 
 make himself known to us 1 
 
 Friend — Yes, in his works. 
 
 Birton — Has he dictated to us his laws ? 
 Has he spoken to us 1 
 
VOLTAIRE. 37 
 
 Friend— Yes, by the voice of our con- 
 science. Is it not the fact that, if you had 
 killed your father and mother, your con- 
 science would harrow up your soul with 
 remorse as terrible as it would be involun- 
 tary 1 Is not this truth felt and admitted 
 by the whole world ? Now let us descend 
 to crimes of less magnitude, Is there one 
 which does not alarm you at the first glance 
 — which does not make you turn pale, the 
 first time that you commit it — or which does 
 not leave within you the sting of repentance % 
 
 •ii. >A£, AU »ii» -i£* -it. -SL* 
 
 -TV -TF "W *7f" Tv TV" 'Tv 
 
 /-God, by addressing himself to your heart, 
 has expressly commanded you never to de- 
 base yourself by doing what is manifestly 
 criminal. And as to all those equivocal acts 
 which some condemn and others justify, 
 what better rule can we adopt than to ad- 
 here to that great maxim of the first of the 
 Zoroasters, which has been so much dwelt 
 upon in our time by a French author : 
 
 ? mm - a " " nMitt M " "" a " 
 
38 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 which you contemplate be good or bad, abstain 
 from itJl, 
 
 FROM THE "TRAITE DE META- 
 PHYSIQUE." 
 
 I propose to institute an inquiry into the 
 nature of the thinking faculty in the differ- 
 ent species of men ; to examine whence we 
 derive our ideas ; whether we have a soul 
 distinct from the body ; whether the soul is 
 immortal ; whether it is free ; whether it 
 has virtues and vices, &c. But as the great- 
 er part of these questions are connected with 
 that of the existence or non-existence of 
 God, it seems proper to begin by endeavor- 
 ing to fathom the abyss of this great subject. 
 Now, more than ever, let us divest ourselves 
 of all passion and prejudice, and see in good 
 faith what solution we can obtain by our 
 reason, of the inquiry, Is there, or is there not, 
 a God? 
 
VOLTAIRE. 39 
 
 I observe, in the first place, that there are 
 nations who have no knowledge of a cre- 
 ating Deity. These people are barbarous, it 
 is true, and few in number ; but still they 
 are men : and if the knowledge of God's ex- 
 istence were a necessary attribute of human 
 nature, the savage Hottentots would have 
 as sublime an idea of a supreme being as we 
 ourselves. Moreover, among civilized na- 
 tions, children have not the least conception 
 of a God. It is difficult to make them com- 
 prehend the idea ; they often pronounce the 
 word God all their lives without attaching 
 to it any definite meaning. We find, also, 
 that men differ as much in their notions of 
 God as in their religions and laws. Hence I 
 cannot refrain from saying to myself, " Is it 
 possible that the knowledge of God, our 
 creator, our preserver, our all, is less neces- 
 sary to man than his corporeal members — 
 than a nose and the five fingers of each 
 hand, for example 7 Every man comes into 
 the world with a nose and five fingers, but 
 
40 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 not one possesses at birth any knowledge of 
 God. Whether it be a subject for regret or 
 not, the fact is undeniable." 
 
 Let us examine whether we ultimately 
 acquire this knowledge in the same way as 
 we attain to an acquaintance with mathe- 
 matical principles, and with some metaphys- 
 ical ideas. In so important an inquiry, what 
 more judicious course can we pursue than to 
 weigh whatever can be urged on either side, 
 and adopt the conclusion which shall appear 
 to us to be most in conformity with our 
 reason ? 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE 
 EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 There are two modes of arriving at the 
 idea of a being who presides over the uni- 
 verse. The one which to ordinary minds is 
 the most natural and complete, is to direct 
 the attention not only to the order which 
 reigns in the universe, but also to the end 
 
VOLTAIRE. 41 
 
 with an eye to which every thing appears to 
 have been created. Many a huge volume 
 has been written on this subject, yet the 
 contents of them all may be reduced to the 
 following reasoning : 
 
 When I see a watch, the hand of which 
 marks the hours, I conclude that an intelli- 
 gent being arranged the springs of this piece 
 of mechanism loith a vieio to the indication 
 of the hours by the hand. So, when I see 
 the springs of the human body, I conclude 
 that an intelligent being arranged these 
 organs to be received and nourished nine 
 months in the womb ; that eyes were fur- 
 nished for the purpose of seeing ; hands, that 
 objects might be grasped, &c. But from 
 this consideration alone, I can onJy infer the 
 probability that an intelligent and superior 
 being has skilfully prepared and fashioned 
 matter. I cannot conclude from it alone that 
 this being created matter out of nothing, or 
 that he is infinite in every respect. I strive 
 in vain to trace in my mind any connec- 
 
42 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 tion between the following ideas : " It is 
 probable that I am the creature of a being 
 more powerful than myself; hence that be- 
 ing has existed from all eternity ; hence he 
 created every thing ; hence he is infinite, 
 &c." I cannot perceive that the premises 
 above stated lead directly to the conclusions 
 there drawn from them. I perceive only 
 that there is something which is more pow- 
 erful than myself, but nothing farther. 
 
 The other mode of reasoning to which I 
 adverted in the opening of my remarks, is 
 more metaphysical and less easy to be ap- 
 prehended by minds wanting in acute per- 
 ceptions, but it opens a far wider field of 
 knowledge. It is, in brief, as follows : 
 
 I exist; then something exists. If some- 
 thing exists, something has existed from all 
 eternity ; for what exists either is self-exist- 
 ent or has had its existence communicated 
 to it by another being. If what exists is 
 self-existent, it exists necessarily ; it always 
 has existed necessarily ; and it is God. If 
 
VOLTAIRE. 43 
 
 what exists has had existence communica- 
 ted to it from another being, and that other 
 has derived its existence from a third, the 
 last being must necessarily be God. For it 
 is not conceivable that one being can bestow 
 existence on another, unless the former pos- 
 sesses creative power ; and to say that a 
 thing received not merely its form, but its 
 existence from a second thing, and that this 
 second thing received its existence from a 
 third ; the third from a fourth, and so on in 
 infinite succession, is to utter an absurdity, 
 inasmuch as all these beings would exist 
 without any cause for their existence. Taken 
 all in the mass, they would have no external 
 cause ; taken each by itself, they would have 
 no internal cause : that is to say, taken all 
 together, they would owe their existence to 
 nothing ; taken singly, none of them would 
 be self-existent : then it follows that none of 
 them exists necessarily. 
 
 . I am then obliged to confess that there is 
 a being necessarily and from all eternity 
 
44 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 self-existent, and that this being is the 
 source of all others. Hence it results that 
 he is infinite in duration, immensity, and 
 power — for what restraint is there upon 
 him? 
 
 But, it may be said, the material world is 
 the very being we are searching after. Let 
 us inquire in all sincerity whether that be 
 probable. 
 
 If the material world exists of itself, by 
 absolute necessity, it would imply a contra- 
 diction in terms to suppose that the smallest 
 part of the universe could be different in any 
 particular from what it is ; for if that part 
 exists at the present moment by absolute 
 necessity ', the very word excludes every other 
 mode of being. Now, the table on which I 
 write, the pen that I use, certainly have not 
 always been what they now are ; the thoughts 
 which I commit to paper did not exist a mo- 
 ment ago, and consequently they do not 
 necessarily exist. But if each part does not 
 exist by absolute necessity, it is impossible 
 
VOLTAIRE. 45 
 
 that the whole should be self-existent. I 
 produce a motion ; then the motion did not 
 exist before ; then motion is not essential to 
 matter; then the motion of matter comes 
 from something else than itself; then there 
 is a God by whom motion is impressed upon 
 it. So, likewise, intelligence is not essential 
 to matter, for a rock or a heap of wheat does ( 
 not think. Whence, then, do those portions 
 of matter which do think and feel derive the 
 faculty of thinking and feeling 1 It cannot 
 be from themselves, for they feel in spite of 
 themselves ; it cannot be from matter in 
 general, because thought and sensation are 
 not essential to matter. They must have 
 received these properties, then, at the hand 
 of a being, who is supreme, intelligent, in- 
 finite, and the primary cause of all other 
 beings. 
 
 These, in a few words, are the evidences 
 of the existence of a God, and are the out- 
 
46 VOLTAIRE, 
 
 line of many volumes — an outline which the 
 reader can fill up at his own convenience. 
 
 Below are given, with equal brevity, the 
 objections which may be urged against this 
 doctrine. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE BELIEF IN THE EXISTENCE 
 OF GOD. 
 
 First Objection, 
 
 If the material world is not itself God, it 
 was created by him ; or (if that be prefer- 
 red) he delegated the power to create it to 
 some other being, which amounts to the 
 same thing. In making this world he either 
 created it out of nonentity or out of his own 
 divine substance. He cannot have formed 
 it out of nonentity, for that is nothing at all; 
 he cannot have formed it from himself, since 
 in that case, the world would be a part of 
 the divine essence: consequently, I cannot 
 have any idea of creation, and hence I can- 
 not admit that creation took place. 
 
VOLTAIRE, 47 
 
 Second Objection. 
 
 If God made the world, he must have done 
 so either by necessity or of his own free will. 
 
 If by necessity, it must have always been 
 made, for the same necessity existed from 
 all eternity; and on that supposition the 
 world would be eternal and yet created — 
 which involves contradiction. 
 
 If God created it freely and of his own 
 choice merely, without any anterior reason 
 for so doing, this would also involve a con- 
 tradiction — for the supposition that a being 
 infinitely wise created all things without any 
 motive, and that a being infinitely powerful 
 passed an eternity without making the least 
 use of his power, is inconsistent with itself. 
 
 Third Objection. 
 
 If it appears to the greater part of man- 
 kind that an intelligent being has stamped 
 the impress of wisdom upon all nature, so 
 
48 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 that every thing seems to have been made 
 for some specific end ; it is yet more true 
 that in the eyes of philosophers all the oper- 
 ations of nature are carried on by the eter- 
 nal, independent, and unchangeable laws 
 of mathematics ; the structure and duration 
 of the human frame, for example, being re- 
 sults of the equilibrium of fluids and the 
 force of levers. The more we discover of 
 the mechanism of the universe, the more do 
 we find it arranged, from the heavenly bodies 
 to the worm, in conformity with mathemat- 
 ical laws. We are authorized, therefore, to 
 conclude that these laws, operating by their 
 own nature, have necessarily produced ef- 
 fects which are erroneously ascribed to the 
 arbitrary determination of an intelligent 
 power. A field, for instance, produces grass 
 because such is the nature of its soil when 
 moistened by the rain, and not because there 
 are horses that require hay and oats for 
 their subsistence : and the same reasoning 
 may be applied to other things. 
 
VOLTAIRE. 49 
 
 Fourth Objection. 
 
 If the arrangement of the parts of the uni- 
 verse and all that takes place among beings 
 capable of thought and sensation prove the 
 existence of a creator and ruler, still more 
 do they prove that he is a cruel being ; for 
 if we admit the doctrine of final causes we 
 shall be obliged to say that God, the infi- 
 nitely wise and infinitely good, conferred life 
 on all his creatures in order that they might 
 devour each other. In truth, when we turn 
 our eyes upon the animal creation, we find 
 that every species has an irresistible instinct 
 prompting it to destroy some other species. 
 We might pass our whole lives in address- 
 ing reproaches to the Divinity on account of 
 the misery suffered by man alone. It is in 
 vain to tell us that God's wisdom and good- 
 ness are not of the same character as ours. 
 Such an argument will have no weight with 
 multitudes of persons, who will reply that 
 they can only judge of what is just by the 
 
50 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 idea of justice which God is supposed to 
 have given them ; that we can only mea- 
 sure with the measure we have; and that it 
 would be as impossible for us not to consider 
 a being barbarous who should act like a 
 barbarous man, as it is for us to avoid think- 
 ing that any thing is six feet high when we 
 have applied to it a measure two yards in 
 length, and found that the measure and the 
 thing measured appear to correspond. 
 
 " If we are told," say they, " that our mea- 
 sure is not correct, we are told what appar- 
 ently contradicts itself; for it is God himself 
 w T ho has given us this incorrect idea, and so 
 God must have created us only to deceive 
 us. Now it is a manifest inconsistency to 
 assert that a being who is all perfection 
 forces his creatures into error; error being, 
 properly speaking, the only imperfection." 
 Moreover, the materialists will say at last, 
 "There are fewer absurdities in atheism 
 than in deism; for in the former we must, 
 indeed, conceive the world we behold to be 
 
VOLTAIRE. 51 
 
 eternal and infinite — but in the latter we 
 must suppose that another being is so, and 
 to this supposition we must add that of the 
 creation of the world, of which we can have 
 no idea." They will contend, therefore, 
 that there are fewer difficulties in not be- 
 lieving in God than in believing. 
 
 REPLY TO THE FOREGOING OBJECTIONS. 
 
 The arguments against the creation have 
 only the effect of showing that it is impossi- 
 ble for us to conceive of it — that is to say, 
 to conceive of the manner in which it took 
 place. But they do not show that it was im- 
 possible in itself; for before ihe impossibility 
 of the creation can be proved, it is necessary 
 to demonstrate the impossibility of the exist- 
 ence of God. Far, however, from proving 
 that impossibility, we are compelled to ad- 
 mit the impossibility of his non-existence. 
 The argument that there must exist, exter- 
 nally to us, a being infinite, eternal, immeasu- 
 
52 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 rable, omnipotent, free, intelligent, and the 
 darkness by which this light is accompanied, 
 serve only to make it manifest that there is 
 such a light ; for by the very fact that the 
 existence of an infinite being is established, 
 the impossibility of his being comprehended 
 by a finite being is also established. 
 
 In my opinion, they who undertake to 
 deny the necessity of a self-existent being, 
 and they who maintain that matter is such 
 a being, can do nothing more than frame 
 sophisms and put forth absurdities.? His 
 existence is proved, but the determination 
 and discussion of his attributes is altogether 
 a different matter. 
 
 The masters of the art of reasoning, the 
 Lockes and Clarkes, tell us, u This being 
 must be intelligent; for he who has formed 
 all that IS must possess all the perfections 
 which he has imparted to what he has form- 
 ed, otherwise the effect would be more per- 
 fect than its cause :" or, in other w T ords, 
 " There would be in the effect a perfection 
 
VOLTAIRE. 53 
 
 produced by nothing — which is palpably 
 absurd. Since, then, intelligent beings exist, 
 and since matter could not bestow on itself 
 the faculty of thought, the self-existent being, 
 God, must be an intelligent being." 
 
 But might not this argument be retorted 
 thus : " God must be matter, because mate- 
 rial beings exist ; for otherwise matter would 
 have been produced by nothing, and a cause 
 would have produced an effect the elements 
 of which were not contained in that cause." 
 Attempts have been made to elude this ar- 
 gument by slipping in the word perfection. 
 Clarke seems to have anticipated that the 
 objection might be advanced against him ; 
 but he has not ventured to state it in its full 
 force. He presents only the following : " It 
 will be said that God has imparted to matter 
 divisibility and form, though he is himself 
 without form and indivisible." And to this 
 he opposes the very obvious and conclusive 
 answer that form and divisibility are nega- 
 tive qualities and limitations ; and that, 
 
54 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 though a cause cannot communicate to its 
 effect any perfection which it does not itself 
 possess, yet the effect may and must necessa- 
 rily have limitations and imperfections which 
 are not found in the cause. But how would 
 Clarke have replied to an opponent who 
 should have urged such reasoning as the fol- 
 lowing : " Matter is not a negative thing, a 
 limitation, an imperfection. It is something 
 real and positive, which has its attributes as 
 much as spirit. Now how can God have 
 produced a material being, if he, God, is not 
 material V J You are thus driven to confess 
 either that a cause can communicate some-, 
 thing positive of which it is itself destitute, 
 or that matter has no cause for its exist-, 
 ence ; or else to contend that matter is a 
 pure negation and limitation : or, if these 
 three positions are considered untenable, 
 you are constrained to admit that the ex- 
 istence of intelligent beings no more proves 
 that the self-existent being is intelligent, 
 than the existence of material beings proves 
 
VOLTAIRE. 55 
 
 that the self-existent being is material ; for 
 the cases are completely parallel. The 
 same thing may be said of motion. The 
 use of the word perfection is here clearly an 
 
 abuse. ^Who will undertake to assert that 
 
 v 
 matter is an imperfection and thought a per- 
 fection ? I No one, I apprehend, will assume 
 thus to decide in respect to the essence of 
 things. Besides, what is the meaning of 
 perfection^ Does it signify perfection rela- 
 tively to God, or relatively to us % 
 
 I know it may be said that this opinion 
 would lead to the system of Spinoza. I 
 might reply that I cannot help it, and that if 
 my reasoning be sound, it cannot be render- 
 ed unsound by any conclusion deduced from 
 it. Still, nothing would be more unwar- 
 ranted than any such deduction ; for what 
 is said above tends merely to show that our 
 intelligence no more resembles God's intelli- 
 gence, than the mode in which we occupy a 
 eertain portion of space resembles the man- 
 ner in which space is filled by God. God 
 
56 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 is not like the causes with which we are 
 conversant. He was able to create spirit 
 and matter, though himself neither spirit nor 
 matter. Neither of the two is an emanation 
 from him, but both were created by him. I 
 do not know, indeed, quomodo. I prefer 
 stopping short to going astray. I am fully 
 convinced of God's existence, but am equally 
 convinced that I am not capable of compre- 
 hending his attributes and his essence. 
 
 The assertion that God could not create 
 the world either necessarily or by his own 
 free will, is but a sophism which falls to the 
 ground the moment we have proved that 
 there is a God and that the world is not 
 God. The objection resolves itself into this: 
 " 1 cannot understand why God should have 
 created the universe at one time rather than 
 at another, and therefore he cannot have 
 created it." It is as if one were to say, " I 
 cannot understand why such and such a man 
 or such and such a horse did not exist a 
 thousand years earlier, and therefore it is 
 
VOLTAIRE. 57 
 
 not possible that they do exist." Moreover, 
 God's free will is a reason sufficient to ac- 
 count for his creating the world at the time 
 when it was created. If God. IS, he is free ; 
 and he would not be so if he could only act 
 when induced by a sufficient reason, and his 
 own will were not such a reason. Besides, 
 is this sufficient reason to be regarded as 
 within him or without 1 On the latter hy- 
 pothesis, he would not adopt his determi- 
 nations freely ; on the former, what is the 
 sufficient reason but his own will 1 
 
 The laws of mathematics are unchange- 
 able, it is true, but it was not necessary that 
 some particular laws should be selected in 
 preference to others. It was not necessary 
 that the earth should be placed where it is. 
 No mathematical law can act of itself. None 
 does act where there is no movement ; and 
 motion is not self-existent. We must have 
 recourse, therefore, to a prime mover. I 
 admit that the planets, placed at a certain 
 distance from the sun, must pass through 
 3* 
 
58 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 their orbits in conformity with the laws 
 which they do observe, and that their dis- 
 tance may even be regulated by the quantity 
 of matter they contain. But can it be affirm- 
 ed that it was necessary that there should 
 be a fixed quantity of matter in each planet ? 
 — That there should be a fixed number of 
 stars, which number could neither be increas- 
 ed nor diminished 7 And is it required by 
 an absolute necessity inherent in the very 
 nature of things, that there should be on the 
 earth a fixed number of beings 1 Unques- 
 tionably not, for the number varies every 
 day. (All nature, then, from the remotest 
 star to a blade of grass, must be subject to 
 a prime mover. 
 
 As for the objection that the sustenance 
 of cattle was not the essential object for 
 which green fields were made, we have no 
 right (even on the assumption that this is 
 true) to infer that there is no final cause ; 
 but ought only to conclude that there are 
 some final causes with which we are unac- 
 
VOLTAIRE. 59 
 
 quainted. Here we are especially bound to 
 reason with fairness, and not seek to deceive 
 ourselves. When we meet with any thing 
 which always has the same effect — which 
 has that effect only — and which is composed 
 of an infinity of organs, in which an infinity 
 of movements takes place, all concurring to 
 the same result — we cannot, I think, with- 
 out secret unwillingness, deny a final cause. 
 Such is the fact in regard to the germs of all 
 vegetables and all animals. Does it not re- 
 quire some hardihood to affirm that all this 
 has no relation to any end ? 
 
 I grant that there is no demonstration, 
 properly so called, that the stomach was in- 
 tended as the instrument of digestion— just 
 as there is no demonstration that the sun 
 shines. But the materialists, too, are far 
 from being able to demonstrate that the 
 stomach was not designed to perform the 
 function of digestion. I have only to ask 
 that the decision as to which of these opin- 
 ions is more likely to be correct, may be 
 
6Q VOLTAIRE. 
 
 made as impartially as the decisions to which 
 we come in the ordinary transactions of life. 
 
 As to the charges of injustice and cruelty 
 brought against God, I answer, first, that 
 supposing moral evil to exist (though I 
 believe the supposition that it does to be 
 fallacious), it is no less impossible to explain 
 it by the system of the materialists than by 
 that in which a God is recognized. I reply, 
 moreover, that we have no other ideas of 
 justice than such as we have formed of every 
 action which is useful to society and con- 
 formable to the laws established by us for 
 the public welfare. Now these ideas respect 
 only the relations between man and man, 
 and the analogy does not hold good in refer- 
 ence to God. It is as absurd to say of God 
 that he is just or unjust in this sense of the 
 words, as to say that he is blue or square?) 
 
 It is nonsense, therefore, to charge it upon 
 God as a reproach, that flies are eaten by 
 spiders — that the life of men in general does 
 not exceed eighty years — that they make a 
 
VOLTAIRE. g] 
 
 bad use of their free agency by destroying 
 one another — that they are liable to diseases 
 — subject to cruel passions, &c, &c. — for 
 surely we do not imagine that men and flies 
 ought to be immortal. Before asserting 
 that a thing is bad, we should examine 
 whether any thing better could be substitut- 
 ed for it. We certainly cannot judge that a 
 piece of machinery is imperfect, unless we 
 have some idea of the perfection in which it 
 is deficient ; we cannot judge that the three 
 sides of a triangle are unequal, if we have 
 no idea of an equilateral triangle ; we can- 
 not say that a watch goes badly, unless we 
 have a distinct idea of a certain number of 
 equal spaces through which the hand of the 
 watch must pass in equal times. But who 
 can have an idea of the perfection, by its 
 want of which the world, as now constituted, 
 impeaches the divine wisdom 1 
 
 There are difficulties in the doctrine that 
 there is a God ; but in the opposite doctrine 
 there are downright absurdities. Of these 
 
62 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 I propose to offer some examples by sketch- 
 ing a brief outline of what a materialist is 
 obliged to believe. 
 
 NECESSARY CONSEQUENCES OF THE OPINIONS OF 
 THE MATERIALISTS. 
 
 The materialists are compelled to main- 
 tain that the world exists necessarily and of 
 itself; so that for them it would be a contra- 
 diction in terms to say that any particle of 
 matter might not exist, or might exist other- 
 wise than it does. They must hold that the 
 material world includes in its own essence 
 thought and feeling; for it cannot acquire 
 them, since, in that case, it would receive 
 them from nothing ; and as the material 
 world itself is supposed to be all that IS, 
 thought and feeling could not exist apart 
 from it. Then they must be inherent in 
 matter, like extension, divisibility, and the 
 
VOLTAIRE. 63 
 
 capacity of being moved. At the same time, 
 our opponents must allow that there is but a 
 very small number of the parts of the world, 
 in which thought and feeling are found, 
 though they have contended that both are 
 essential to the whole: and also that these 
 thoughts and feelings, though inherent, as 
 they declare, in matter, perish every moment : 
 or else it will be necessary for them to main- 
 tain that there is a Soul of the World, which 
 diffuses itself throughout organized bodies ; 
 and on that hypothesis, this soul must be 
 something else than the world. Thus, on 
 what side soever we turn, we meet with 
 nothing but chimeras which destroy each 
 other./ 
 
 The materialists must hold, also, that mo- 
 tion is essential to matter. Consequently, 
 they are reduced to the necessity of affirm- 
 ing that it has never been possible and never 
 will be possible for motion either to increase 
 or decrease. They will be forced to declare 
 that a hundred thousand men marching at 
 
64 VOLTAIRE. 
 
 once and the discharge of a hundred pieces 
 of artillery occasion no new motion in nature. 
 They must assert, likewise, that there is no 
 free agency, thereby loosening all the bonds 
 that bind society together, and must believe 
 in a fatalism quite as difficult to be compre- 
 hended as free agency, and which their own 
 practice belies. 
 
 Let the candid reader, after maturely 
 weighing the arguments for and against the 
 existence of a creating Deity, now determine 
 on which side the probability lies. 
 
 FROM THE "HENRIADE." 
 
 Amidst a blaze of flame-like light, which pure and change- 
 less shone, 
 
 Was placed, ere time itself began, God's everlasting throne : 
 
 The heavens are spread beneath his feet ; a thousand orbs 
 proclaim, 
 
 Rolling in one unvarying round, their great Creator's name. 
 
VOLTAIRE, 65 
 
 Goodness and Wisdom, joined with Power, compose — mys- 
 terious three 
 Together blended, yet distinct — the Triune Deity.* 
 
 * The original is as follows : 
 
 Au milieu des clartes d'un feu pur et durable 
 Dieu mit avant les temps son tr6ne inebranlable. 
 Le ciel est sous ses pieds ; de mille astres divers 
 Le cours toujours regie l'annonce a l'univers. 
 La puissance, l'amour, avec Pintelligence ? 
 Unis et divises composent son essence, 
 
 END OF EXTRACTS FROM Y0LTAIR3L 
 
ROUSSEAU. 
 
ROUSSEAU. 
 
 FROM "EMILE." 
 
 {Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard.) 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 I exist, and have senses ivhich exert an in- 
 fluence upon me. This is the first truth by 
 which I am struck, and to which I cannot 
 but assent. Is the consciousness of my ex- 
 istence a distinct feeling, or is it something 
 at which I arrive by means of my sensations ? 
 This is my first doubt, and one which I am 
 as yet incompetent to resolve. For, being 
 continually affected by sensations, either 
 directly or indirectly through the mem- 
 
70 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 ory, how can I tell whether the conviction 
 of my own individuality be something apart 
 from those sensations and independent of 
 them, or not ? 
 
 My sensations must be internal, for they 
 make me aware of my existence ; but their 
 cause must be external, or they would not 
 affect me against my will, and without any 
 ability on my part either to produce or pre- 
 vent them. I am confident, therefore, that 
 the sensations which are within me, and 
 their cause or object which is not within me, 
 cannot be one and the same thing. 
 
 Not only do I exist, then, but there exist 
 other beings, namely, the objects of my sen- 
 sations; and even though those objects be 
 nothing but ideas, still they are not myself. 
 
 Now all the external objects with which I 
 become acquainted by my senses and which 
 act upon them, I call matter; and when I 
 conceive of particles of matter combined so 
 as to form individual beings, I call them 
 bodies. Thus, all the disputes of the ideal- 
 
ROUSSEAU. 71 
 
 ists and the materialists are unimportant to 
 me ; their distinctions in relation to the ap- 
 pearances and the realities of bodies are 
 mere chimeras. 
 
 Here, therefore, I am as certain of the 
 existence of the universe as I am of my own. 
 I then reflect on the objects of my sensations, 
 and, finding that I have the faculty of com- 
 paring them, I feel that I am endowed with 
 an active power which I was not before 
 conscious of possessing. 
 
 To perceive is to discover by sensation. 
 To compare is to judge of the properties or 
 proportions of things. There is a difference 
 between discovering things by sensation and 
 judging of their properties or proportions. 
 By sensation objects present themselves be- 
 fore me, separately, one by one, and as na- 
 ture offers them. By comparison, I put these 
 objects in motion, transport them, so to speak, 
 from their places, and set them one upon 
 another, in order to ascertain their similarity 
 or dissimilarity and the general relations in 
 which they stand to each other. The ability 
 
72 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 to attach a meaning to the word IS, consti- 
 tutes in my opinion the distinctive charac- 
 teristic of an active and intelligent being. 
 In a being purely sensitive, I seek in vain for 
 that intelligent faculty which brings ob- 
 jects together and then decides upon them. 
 The nature of such a being does not seem to 
 admit of the faculty. A being of this char- 
 acter may perceive every single object 
 when unconnected with others, or even a 
 whole composed of two—but destitute as 
 it is, of the capacity of bringing them 
 into contact with each other, it can never 
 { compare them, or determine their relative 
 properties. 
 
 To see two things at the same time does 
 not necessarily imply an examination of their 
 relations or the formation of a conclusion as 
 to the points in which they differ. Simply 
 to perceive a number of separate things is 
 not to count them. I may think at the same 
 moment of a small stick and of a large one, 
 without comparing them, without reflecting 
 that one is inferior in size to the other — just 
 
ROUSSEAU. 73 
 
 as I can look at my hand without consider- 
 ing how many fingers it has.* The ideas of 
 comparison, represented by the expressions 
 greater than and less than, as well as the 
 ideas of number indicated by the words one, 
 two, &c, certainly are not sensations, though 
 they only occur to my mind when my sen- 
 sations suggest them. 
 
 It has been said that the sensations of a 
 sensitive being are distinguished from one 
 another by the differences between them. 
 This requires explanation. When the sen- 
 sations are different, it is by their differences 
 that the sensitive being distinguishes them ; 
 when they are similar, they are distinguish- 
 ed by their independence of each other. 
 Otherwise, when two objects, which are 
 equal to each other, produce simultaneous 
 
 * M. de La Condamine (in his Travels) speaks of a peo- 
 ple who could only count as far as three. Yet the individu- 
 als of whom the nation was composed must have often per- 
 ceived the five fingers on each of their hands, though without 
 knowing what was the number, 
 4 
 
74 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 sensations, how would it be possible to 
 distinguish them 7 The two things would 
 inevitably be confounded, and be supposed 
 to be one only, especially on the supposition 
 that the sensations indicating extension have 
 no extension themselves. 
 
 When the two sensations to be compared 
 have been felt, their impression is made — 
 each object has been rendered sensible to 
 us — the two together are rendered sensible; 
 but it does not follow from this that their 
 relations to each other are so. If my con- 
 clusions in respect to these relations were 
 mere sensations, and were derived solely 
 from the objects, they would never deceive 
 me, since it can never be untrue that I feel 
 what I feel. 
 
 Why, then, am I deceived in regard to the 
 relations between these two sticks, especial- 
 ly when they are not parallel ? Why do I 
 say, for instance, that the small stick is one 
 third the size of the large, when, in reality, it 
 is only one fourth ? Why does not the im- 
 
ROUSSEAU. 75 
 
 age — the sensation — correspond to its model, 
 the object? It is because I act when I am 
 drawing my conclusions. The error takes 
 place in the operation of comparison, and 
 my understanding in deciding intermixes its 
 own mistakes with the truth of the sensa- 
 tions. The latter show only the two objects 
 as they are. 
 
 There is another consideration which I 
 am sure will appear striking when you re- 
 flect upon it. It is this, that if we were 
 purely passive in the use of our senses, there 
 would be no intercommunication between 
 them. It would be impossible to know 
 that the body we touch and the object 
 we see are one and the same. Either 
 we should never perceive any thing ex- 
 ternal to us, or whatever affects our 
 five senses would seem to be fixe different 
 things, and we should have no means of 
 learning their identity. 
 
 Whatever name may be bestowed on that 
 faculty of my mind which brings together 
 
76 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 and compares my sensations — * whether 
 it be denoted by the term attention, medi- 
 tation, reflection, or by any other appel- 
 lation — it is not the less something in 
 me, and not in outward objects; something 
 which I- alone call into exercise, though 
 I do so only under the influence of the 
 impression made upon me by outward ob- 
 jects. I cannot at will experience or 
 avoid experiencing the sensation, but 
 I can determine for myself whether I will 
 examine it, when experienced, with more 
 or less attention. 
 
 I am not, therefore, merely a sensitive and 
 passive, but am likewise an active and in- 
 telligent being ; and, whatever philosophers 
 may maintain, I shall venture to aspire even 
 to the honor of thinking , (i know only that 
 truth is in things and not in the opinions 
 which J may have of them; and that the 
 less I mingle of what appertains to myself 
 in the conclusions to which I come, the great- 
 er is the certainty of my approaching truth. 
 
ROUSSEAU. 77 
 
 Hence the rule which I have adopted, of be- 
 ing guided rather by my feelings than by my 
 reason, is confirmed by reason itself. 
 
 Having, if I may so speak, made sure of 
 myself, I begin to look abroad ; and it is with 
 a sort of shuddering that I find myself cast 
 forth and lost in the vast universe in which 
 I am placed — merged, as it were, in the 
 immensity of beings, without knowing what 
 they are, whether considered in reference to 
 each other or to me. I study and observe 
 them, and the first object which presents it- 
 self as a standard of comparison, is myself. 
 
 All that I discern by my senses is matter ; 
 and I deduce all the essential properties of 
 matter from the sensible qualities by which 
 I am enabled to discern it. I see it some- 
 times in motion, and sometimes at rest; 
 whence I infer that neither motion nor rest 
 is essential to it, but that motion (being an 
 action) is the effect of a. cause, and that rest 
 is merely the absence of that cause. When, 
 therefore, there is nothing which acts upon 
 
78 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 matter it does not move ; and hence, from 
 the very fact that rest or motion is indifferent 
 to it, its natural state may be affirmed to be 
 rest. 
 
 I perceive in bodies two kinds of motion, 
 namely, that which is communicated from 
 without, and that which is spontaneous or 
 voluntary. In the former, the moving cause 
 is foreign to the body moved. In the latter, 
 the cause is in the body. I shall not draw 
 from this the conclusion that the motion of 
 a watch, for instance, is spontaneous ; for if 
 the spring were not acted upon by some for- 
 eign force, it would have no tendency to re- 
 coil, and would not pull upon the chain. For 
 the same reason, I cannot admit that the 
 motion of fluids is spontaneous, nor even that 
 such is the case with the phlogiston from 
 which their fluidity proceeds. 
 
 You may ask whether the movements of 
 animals are spontaneous. I reply that I am 
 unable to say, but that analogy would lead 
 to an affirmative conclusion. You will per- 
 
ROUSSEAU. 79 
 
 haps inquire how I know that any motion 
 is spontaneous. I can only answer that my 
 knowledge on this point is derived from what 
 I feel. I will that my arm should move, 
 and it does move in obedience to my volition/^ 
 Any attempt to destroy this feeling by argu- 
 ment is futile. There is no other species of 
 evidence so strong ; and I might with as 
 much reason be told that I do not exist. 
 
 If there were no spontaneousness in the 
 actions of men, nor in any thing which occurs 
 on earth, we should be only the more em- 
 barrassed in endeavoring to ascertain the 
 primary cause of every motion. For myself, 
 I am so firmly convinced that matter in its 
 natural state is at rest and has no power to 
 act of itself, that when I see a body in mo- 
 tion, I suppose at once either that it is alive, 
 or that the movement has been impressed 
 upon it from without. (I cannot concur in 
 the idea that inorganic matter can, of itself, 
 move or produce any actiom 
 
 Yet the visible universe is matter— matter 
 
g0 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 in a state of dispersion and lifeless — destitute 
 of union and organization, and destitute also 
 of that community of feeling which distin- 
 guishes the parts of an animated body ; for 
 we, who are parts of the universe, do not 
 feel ourselves affected by whatever affects 
 any other part. This universe is in motion ; 
 and its movements are regular, uniform, sub- 
 ject to unchanging laws, and give no signs 
 of that liberty by which the movements of 
 men and animals are characterized. The 
 world, then, is not a huge animal moving of 
 its own accord. Its movements have some 
 extraneous cause, and though I cannot per- 
 ceive what it is, my internal convictions of 
 its existence are so strong that I never look 
 upon the sun apparently revolving round 
 the earth, without thinking on the force 
 which impels it ; nor remember that the 
 earth is turning on its axis, without imag- 
 ining that I can see the hand by which it is 
 kept in motion. 
 
 To assert that these movements are the 
 
ROUSSEAU. 81 
 
 result of certain general laws, which, so far 
 as I can discover, have no essential connec- 
 tion with matter, is to offer an explanation 
 altogether unsatisfactory. These laws are 
 not actual beings or substances, and must 
 consequently have some source which is un- 
 known to me) 
 
 By experience and observation we learn 
 what the laws of motion are, and are thus 
 enabled to calculate effects, but we derive 
 from our knowledge of these no power of 
 determining causes. These laws are totally 
 inadequate to account for the system of the 
 world and the movement of the universe. 
 (Descartes constructed the heavens and the 
 earth with dice, but he did not succeed in 
 setting them in motion, and could only make 
 his centrifugal force operate by means of a 
 rotary movement. Newton discovered the 
 law of gravitation. But gravitation alone 
 would speedily convert the universe into a 
 stationary mass, and it was indispensable 
 
 that the theory of a projectile force should 
 
 4* 
 
32 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 be added in order to explain the curves 
 described by the heavenly bodies. Let 
 Descartes inform us what law of physics 
 compels his vortices to whirl ; let Newton 
 show the hand which launched the planets 
 in tangents to their orbits ! 
 
 The first causes of motion are not inherent 
 in matter — the latter receives and imparts, 
 but does not originate the former. The 
 more I observe how the forces of nature act 
 and react upon each other, the more clearly 
 do I see that as we ascend through a long 
 succession of effects resulting from preceding 
 effects, we are always obliged to recognize 
 some WILL as the first cause ; for to suppose 
 an infinite series of causes is tantamount to 
 supposing no cause at all. In a word, every 
 movement not the product of another move- 
 ment can only arise from some spontaneous, 
 voluntary act. The only act of inanimate 
 bodies is movement ; and since there can be, 
 as I have already remarked, no real action 
 without volition, the movements of these 
 
ROUSSEAU. 33 
 
 bodies must be the consequence of volition. 
 This is my first principle. I believe, then, 
 that some WILL moves the universe and 
 animates nature. This is my first Doctrinal 
 Point or Article of Faith. 
 
 Am I asked, how a mere exercise of vo- 
 lition can occasion a physical and corporeal 
 act? I do not know in ichat icay this takes 
 place, but I know from my own experience 
 that it does take place. If I will to perform 
 an act, I perform it ; if I will that my body 
 should move, it moves ; but that an inani- 
 mate body should, of itself, either move or 
 produce motion is incomprehensible, and no 
 instance of such an occurrence can be cited. 
 The will is known by its acts, not by its 
 nature. I recognize it as the source of 
 motion, but to conceive matter to be so, 
 is evidently to conceive of an effect without 
 a cause — which is the same as to have no 
 conception whatever. 
 
 It is no more possible for me to understand 
 in what manner my will occasions a move- 
 
g4 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 ment of my body, than it is to understand in 
 what manner my sensations affect my soul. 
 I know not for what reason one of these mys- 
 teries has been considered more susceptible 
 of explanation than the other. To me, the 
 means by which the two substances are unit- 
 ed appear beyond comprehension, both when 
 I am active and when I am passive. It is 
 extremely singular that this very incompre- 
 hensibility has been made the ground on 
 which the two substances have been con- 
 founded together; as if processes so dissim- 
 ilar could be more easily accounted for when 
 viewed as the work of a single agent, than 
 when regarded as that of two. 
 
 The Doctrinal Point which I have just 
 laid down is obscure, I admit. Yet it has a 
 meaning, and involves nothing repugnant to 
 reason and observation. Can as much be 
 said for materialism ? If motion were an 
 essential property of matter, is it not obvious 
 that the former would always be found in 
 connection with the latter — would always 
 
ROUSSEAU. 85 
 
 belong to it in an equal degree — would be 
 always the same in each individual particle 
 of it — would be incapable of passing from 
 one body to another — would be incapable 
 also of increase or diminution ; — and that 
 we should be unable to conceive of matter 
 at rest ? They who maintain that motion 
 is not one of its essential, but only one of its 
 necessary properties, endeavor to mislead by 
 words which could be more easily refuted if 
 they were not so deficient in sense. For, 
 either movement proceeds from matter itself, 
 in which case it is essential to matter; or 
 it proceeds from a foreign cause, and in that 
 case is only necessary so far forth as the 
 moving cause acts upon matter ; and we are 
 thus carried back to the difficulty before 
 stated. 
 
 \General and abstract ideas have been the 
 springs from which the greatest of human 
 errors have flowed.) The jargon of meta- 
 physics has never led to the discovery of a 
 single truth, and it has filled philosophy with 
 
Q6 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 absurdities of which we are ashamed as 
 soon as we strip them of their high-sound- 
 ing names?) When you are told, my friend, 
 of a blind energy diffused through all nature, 
 do the words convey to your mind any thing 
 deserving to be called an idea ? (They who 
 make use of such unmeaning terms as uni- 
 versal force, necessary motion, imagine they 
 are uttering something extremely profound, 
 while in reality their language signifies no- 
 thing. The idea of motion is merely that of 
 transportation from one place to another. 
 There can be no motion which does not tend 
 iu some direction, for an individual being 
 cannot move in all directions at once. In 
 what direction, then, does matter necessarily 
 move 1 Has all matter, viewed as one body, 
 a uniform movement, or has every atom its 
 own peculiar movement ? On the former 
 supposition, the universe would constitute 
 one solid and indivisible mass ; on the latter, 
 it would form only a scattered and incohe- 
 rent fluid, and the union of any two atoms 
 
ROUSSEAU. 37 
 
 would be forever impossible. In what di- 
 rection does this common movement of mat- 
 ter take place — in a straight line or a circle, 
 upward or downward, to the right or to the 
 left 1 If every molecule has its own partic- 
 ular movement, what can be the causes of 
 these directions and differences 1 If every 
 atom or molecule only turned on its centre, 
 nothing would ever quit its first position, 
 and there would be no transmission of mo- 
 tion ; and even the circular motion alluded 
 to would, in fact, be motion in a fixed direc- 
 tion. To ascribe to matter movement in the 
 abstract, is to employ language which has 
 no intelligible signification ; and to ascribe 
 to it a determinate movement is to imply a 
 cause by which the movement is determined. 
 The more I multiply forces, the greater be- 
 comes the number of new causes which I 
 have to account for, and I can find no com- 
 mon agent to direct them. So far am I from 
 being able to imagine any order as the re- 
 sult of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, that 
 
gg ROUSSEAU. 
 
 I cannot even imagine any collision between 
 those atoms; and the chaos of the universe 
 would be more incomprehensible than its 
 harmony. \JThat the mechanism of the world 
 may be unintelligible to the human mind, 
 I can well conceive ; but he who undertakes 
 to explain it, should speak so as to be 
 understood. 
 
 \Jf matter in motion indicates a will, matter 
 moving in accordance with determinate laws 
 indicates an intelligence. This is my second 
 Article of Faith. Acting, comparing, and se- 
 lecting are operations which mark an active 
 and thinking being: then such a being exists. 
 You will perhaps inquire where I behold him. 
 I Not only do I behold him in the revolving 
 heavens, in the star which gives us light, and 
 in my own frame, but also in the browsing 
 sheep, in the flying bird, in the falling stone, 
 in the leaf blown along by the wind?) 
 
 I can judge of the order of the world, al- 
 though I am ignorant of the end which it 
 was intended to subserve, because for the pur- 
 
ROUSSEAU. 89 
 
 pose of so judging, it is only necessary that 
 I should compare the parts together, study 
 their cooperation and relations, and observe 
 how they harmonize with one another. I 
 know not why the universe exists, but that 
 does not prevent me from seeing how it is 
 regulated, nor from perceiving the nice adap- 
 tation by which the beings that compose it 
 afford aid to each other. I am in the situa- 
 tion of a man who should look for the first 
 time in his life at the works of a watch. He 
 would admire the workmanship, even though 
 he were unacquainted with the use of the 
 instrument and did not see the dial. I do 
 not know, he would say, what all this is for, 
 but it is evident that every part was made 
 with reference to the other parts; I admire 
 the mechanical skill displayed in the details, 
 and I am very sure that all these wheels do 
 not turn in such exact concert without some 
 common object which I cannot ascertain by 
 mere inspection. 
 
 Let us compare the particular ends, the 
 
90 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 means by which those ends are attained, the 
 relations subsisting between the different 
 species of things, and then hearken to the 
 dictates of our feelings, and what sound 
 mind can refuse to yield to their testimony ! 
 LWhere are the eyes not blinded by prejudice, 
 to which the visible order of the universe 
 does not disclose a Supreme Intelligence ! 
 And to what sophistry are we not obliged 
 to have recourse when we refuse to recog- 
 nize the harmony of creation and the admi- 
 rable adaptation of the structure of all the 
 parts to the preservation of the other parts! 
 Prate as much as you please of combinations 
 and chances — what do you gain by out-talk- 
 ing me, so long as you cannot convince me? 
 And how will you destroy the involuntary 
 conviction which, in spite of all my efforts, 
 rises within me, that you are in the wrong?) 
 ^ If organized bodies were fortuitously com- 
 bined in a thousand ways before assuming 
 a regular form ; if, for example, there were 
 stomachs, but no mouths, feet, but no heads, 
 
ROUSSEAU. 91 
 
 hands without arms, and imperfect organs of 
 all kinds, which perished, not from any ex- 
 ternal violence, but from mere absence of 
 the means of self- conservation — how hap- 
 pens it that none of these shapeless produc- 
 tions offer themselves to our view at the 
 present time ? How happens it that nature 
 has prescribed to herself laws by which she 
 was not originally controlled ? When in any 
 undertaking the number of trials which may 
 be made is so great as to counterbalance in 
 some measure the difficulty of the attempt, 
 so that one instance of success may take 
 place, though accompanied by a multitude 
 of failures — under such circumstances, I have 
 no reason for astonishment if the event desir- 
 ed (which is possible, however improbable) 
 should occur. Yet if I were told that the 
 types of a printer* had been thrown on the 
 
 * Rousseau has borrowed this illustration from Cicero : 
 " Hie ego non mirer esse quemquam, qui sibi persuadeat, 
 corpora qu«dam solida, atque individua, vi et gravitate ferri, 
 mundumque effici ornatissimum, et pulcherrimum ex eorum 
 
92 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 ground at random, and had, by sheer acci- 
 dent fallen in such an order as to give the 
 exact words of Virgil's JEneid, the improb- 
 ability would be such that I would not take 
 the trouble of a single step for the purpose 
 of obtaining ocular demonstration of the 
 falsehood of the assertion. In vain mi^ht it 
 
 corporum concursione fortuita 7 Hoc qui existimat fieri potu- 
 isse, non intelligo cur non idem putet, siinnumerabilesunius 
 et viginti formse literarum vel aurea:, vel quales libet, aliquo 
 conjiciantur, posse ex his in terram excussis annales Ennii, 
 ut deinceps legi possint effici: quod nescio an ne in uno qui- 
 dem versupossittantum valere fortuna." — Cicero, {De Nat. 
 Deorum, Lib. ii, 37.) 
 
 How can I fail to be astonished that any one should 
 succeed in persuading himself that certain solid and indivisi- 
 ble bodies were put in motion by their own force and weight, 
 and that the world, with all its splendor and beauty, was 
 produced by the fortuitous concourse of these bodies ? I see 
 not why a man who believes the possibility of this, should 
 not believe also that if a great number of copies of the twen- 
 ty-one letters of the alphabet, made of gold or any other ma- 
 terial, were to be thrown down together in any place, they 
 might fall upon the ground in such a manner as to form the 
 Annals of Ennius, complete. Yet I doubt whether accident 
 could cause even a single verse to be formed in this way." 
 
 How nearly had Cicero approached to the invention of 
 the art of printing ! Translator. 
 
ROUSSEAU. 93 
 
 be said that I had not considered the number 
 of trials which were made before the exper- 
 iment proved successful. How many trials 
 would be required to render such a combi- 
 nation probable! I can discover but one 
 chance in its favor, while there would be an 
 infinity of chances that the combination was 
 not the effect of accident. Besides, the 
 product of combinations and chances must 
 be of the same nature as the elements on 
 which they operate; so that organization 
 and life cannot result from any mere union 
 of atoms?) A chemist, combining different in- 
 gredients in his crucible, cannot endow them 
 with sensation and thought.* 
 
 * Would any one have supposed that human extrava- 
 gance could be carried to such a length ? Amatus Lusitanus 
 declares that he saw a little man an inch long, enclosed in a 
 glass case, whom Julius Camillus.like a second Prometheus, 
 had created by means of Alchymy. Paracelsus, in his trea- 
 tise De Natara Rerum, informs us how these little men may 
 be made, and maintains that the pigmies, fauns, satyrs, and 
 nymphs were engendered by chemical processes. ■ . 
 
 In point of fact, 1 cannot discover that there is any thing 
 wanting to prove the possibility of the truth of these asser- 
 
94 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 I was surprised and almost scandalized in 
 reading the work of Nieuwentyt. How could 
 the man think of composing a book describ- 
 ing such of the wonders of nature as exhibit 
 the wisdom of nature's Author ? Had his 
 book been as large as the world itself, the 
 subject would not have been exhausted ; and 
 as soon as we descend to the details, the 
 greatest wonder of all, viz., the harmony and 
 cooperation of the whole, escapes. (The mind 
 of man cannot fathom even the mystery of 
 the generation of living and organized bodies/? 
 The insurmountable barrier which nature 
 has interposed between their different spe- 
 cies, in order that they might not be con- 
 founded together, is irrefragable proof of her 
 intentions. She has not contented herself 
 with establishing order, but has resorted to 
 
 tions, except some evidence to show that organized bodies 
 are not affected by fire, and that the particles of which they 
 are composed can retain their vitality in a reverberatory 
 furnace ! 
 
ROUSSEAU. 95 
 
 effectual measures to secure it from all 
 disturbance. 
 
 ,-There is not in the universe a being that 
 may not in some respects be viewed as the 
 common centre around which all are arrang- 
 ed ; so that all are reciprocally ends and 
 means in regard to each other. The mind 
 is confused and lost in this infinity of mutual 
 relations, not one of which is itself confused 
 or lost in the complexity of all. In opposi- 
 tion to all this harmony, how preposterous 
 is the idea that matter is but a piece of 
 mechanism blindly constructed, and fortui- 
 tously set in motion ! They who deny the 
 unity of design manifested in the relations 
 between all the parts of the great whole, 
 seek vainly to conceal their absurdities un- 
 der the name of abstractions, co-ordinations, 
 general principles, and under figurative ex- 
 pressions. Say what they may, I cannot 
 conceive of so regularly arranged a system 
 without at the same time conceiving of an 
 
96 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 intelligence by which it is arranged) I 
 cannot believe that matter, passive and life- 
 less as it is, is able to produce living and 
 sentient beings; that blind fatality is able 
 to produce intelligent beings; or that what 
 is itself incapable of thought is able to pro- 
 duce thinking beings; 
 
 I believe, then, that the world is governed 
 by a Will which is both powerful and wise) 
 I see and feel that this is the case, and the 
 knowledge that it is so is of great importance 
 to me. But has the world existed from all 
 eternity, or was it created? Is there one 
 Principle of Things only 1 Or are there two 
 or more 1 and if so, what is their nature? 
 These are subjects of which I am entirely 
 ignorant, and which do not in the least con- 
 cern me. In proportion as the knowledge 
 of them shall become interesting to me, I will 
 endeavor to acquire it : till then, I shall ab- 
 stain from the examination of idle questions 
 which my pride may urge me to attempt to 
 

 ROUSSEAU. Qfl 
 
 solve, but which can have no influence on my 
 conduct and are beyond the reach of my 
 reason?) 
 
 Recollect that I am not inculcating my 
 opinions, but am merely stating them. 
 Whether matter be eternal or created, 
 whether there be or be not a passive prin- 
 ciple, it is certain that the whole is^oNE^ and 
 announces one Intelligence; for I find noth- 
 ing which is not in conformity with the same 
 system, or which does not contribute to the 
 same end, to wit, the maintenance of the 
 whole in the established order. The being 
 whose will and power are co-extensive, 
 whose acts proceed only from himself, who 
 moves the universe and governs all things — 
 that Being, whatever be his nature, I call 
 /God. I attach to this name the attributes 
 of intelligence, power, will (of which I have 
 already spoken), andthatof goodness, which 
 is necessarily inferred from the preceding. 
 But I have not on that account any addition- 
 al knowledge of the being to whom I have 
 
9g ROUSSEAU. 
 
 ascribed this attribute. He is equally above 
 the sphere of my senses and my understand- 
 ing. The more I meditate upon him the 
 more I am confounded. I know with per- 
 fect certainty that he exists, and that he is 
 self-existent; I know that my existence is 
 subordinate to his ; and that whatever comes 
 within the scope of my observation is in the 
 same condition. \ I perceive God every where 
 in his works ; I feel him within me ; I see 
 him all around me ; but the moment I strive 
 to contemplate him in himself — the moment 
 I seek to learn where he is, what he is, what 
 is his essence — he escapes my search, and 
 my agitated mind can grasp nothing^ 
 
 PART SECOND, 
 
 ^^-^Satisfied of my own incapacity, I will 
 never undertake to reason on the nature of 
 God, except in so far as concerns his relations 
 to me. Such reasonings are always rash, 
 and a wise man will tremble when he at- 
 
ROUSSEAU. 99 
 
 tempts them, and feel assured that he is not 
 destined to master the subject: for not to 
 think on the Deity at all is far less repre- 
 hensible than to think evil of him. 
 ^After discovering such of his attributes as 
 enable me to conceive of his existence, I re- 
 turn to myself, and endeavor by all the means 
 at my command to ascertain what rank I 
 hold in the order of things which he con- 
 trols. I find that, so far as regards my spe- 
 cies, I occupy beyond question the highest 
 grade, for by my will and the instruments by 
 which I can execute it, I act on all the bod- 
 ies which surround me, and subject myself 
 to or withdraw myself from their action, 
 more easily and forcibly that any of these 
 can act upon me by mere physical impulsion; 
 and with respect to intelligence, none but 
 myself is capable of taking a survey of the 
 whole. What being on earth, other than 
 man, possesses the power of observing all 
 the rest — of measuring, calculating, foresee- 
 ing their movements, their effects — and of 
 
100 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 uniting, so to speak, the consciousness of the 
 general existence with that of his own indi- 
 vidual existence 1 (What is there so ridicu- 
 lous in believing that all is made for me, 
 when I alone have the ability to comprehend 
 that all is connected with me 2 
 ^-Jt is true, therefore, that man is the mon- 
 arch of the earth on which he dwells, inas- 
 much as he not only subdues ail animals and 
 disposes of the elements by his industry 
 (while no other being on the earth is capable 
 of so much as understanding the processes to 
 which he resorts for that purpose), but by 
 the force of his intellect he makes the stars 
 themselves, though unapproachable, his own. 
 Show me any other animal that is acquaint- 
 ed with the use of fire, or admires the sun ! 
 What ! Must I — endowed, as I am, with 
 the faculty of observing and acquiring the 
 knowledge of all existing things and their 
 relations — J, who know what order, beauty, 
 virtue signify — who have the power of con- 
 templating the universe, of rising in thought 
 
ROUSSEAU. 101 
 
 up to the hand that rules it, and of loving 
 and practising goodness — must I compare 
 myself to brutes? Abject spirit! it is thy 
 pernicious philosophy which renders thee 
 like them ; or, rather, thou strivest in vain 
 to debase thyself; thy genius testifies against 
 thy principles ; thy benevolent heart belies 
 thy theories ; and the very abuse of thy 
 faculties proves their excellence in spite of 
 thee ! 
 
 For myself, as a plain and candid man — 
 as one who has no system to advocate, whom 
 no madness of party impels, and who aspires 
 not to the honor of figuring as the leader of 
 a sect — content with the situation which 
 God has assigned me, I see nothing except 
 him which seems superior to my own race ; 
 and if I were at liberty to select my place 
 in the scale of being, what more could I 
 choose than to be a man ? 
 
 This reflection awakens within me grati- 
 tude rather than pride : for it was not 
 my election which determined my place. 
 
102 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 nor could any merit of mine have entitled 
 me to it, inasmuch as it was fixed before I 
 came into existence. iHow, then, can I see 
 myself so favored without self-congratulation 
 on the honorable rank I occupy, or without 
 blessing the hand to which I am indebted 
 for itfl My first examination of my own 
 nature gives rise in my heart to sentiments 
 of thankfulness and grateful acknowledg- 
 ment to the Creator of the race to which I 
 belong, and from these sentiments proceeds 
 my first offering of homage to the beneficent 
 Divinity. I adore the Supreme Powder, and 
 am filled with tender emotions in view of 
 the benefits which he confers. I need no 
 one to teach me this religion ; it is dictated 
 by nature herself. \Is it not a natural result 
 of our love for ourselves that we should 
 honor that which protects us, and love that 
 which desires to promote our welfare]? 
 
 But when, with the view of ascertaining 
 my individual place among my species, I 
 turn my attention to the various classes of 
 
ROUSSEAU. 1Q3 
 
 men and to the particular individuals who 
 compose them, what then becomes of me ? 
 What a spectacle is here presented ! Where 
 is the order which I had before remarked % 
 The picture offered to our gaze by nature 
 exhibits only harmony and proportion : (in 
 that displayed by the human race, we wit- 
 ness nothing but confusion and disorder.) 
 The elements act in concert, but chaos 
 reigns among men ! The animals are happy ; 
 their king alone is wretched ! Oh, Wisdom, 
 where are thy laws ? Oh, Providence, is it 
 thus thou ffovernest the world ? Beneficent 
 Being, where is thy power ?< I behold evil 
 
 ON THE EARTH ! 
 
 (Would you have supposed it, my friend ? — 
 these gloomy reflections and seeming incon- 
 sistencies first suggested to my mind ideas 
 respecting the soul, more sublime than any 
 which my researches had before led me to 
 form. While meditating on the nature of 
 man, I imagined I could discover two dis- 
 tinct principles, one of which impels him to 
 
104 
 
 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 the study of eternal truth, to the love of jus- 
 tice and moral beauty, elevating him to those 
 regions of the intellectual world the contem- 
 plation of which constitutes the delight of 
 the sage ; while the other draws back his 
 thoughts and prevents them from rising high- 
 er than himself, making him the slave of his 
 senses and of the passions which are their 
 ministers, and thus endeavoring to neutralize 
 the operation of the opposing principle upon 
 hinO Finding myself assailed and urged in 
 different directions by these two contending 
 impulses, I said to myself, No ; man is not 
 one : I will and do not w T ill ; I feel myself 
 enslaved and free at the same moment ; I 
 see the Right, I desire to act in accordance 
 with it, and nevertheless I pursue the Wrong y 
 (j am active when I listen to my reason, pas- 
 sive when governed by my passions; and my 
 greatest misfortune, when I have yielded to 
 the latter, is the consciousness that I might 
 have resisted them) 
 
 My young friend, you may give me your 
 
ROUSSEAU. 105 
 
 confidence ; whatever I say shall at least be 
 said in sincerity. If conscience is but the 
 creature of our prejudices, I am of course in 
 error, and there is nothing from which the 
 principles of morality can be demonstrated. 
 But if to be more solicitous for ourselves than 
 for aught else be our natural disposition, 
 and if, nevertheless, the elementary notions 
 of justice are innate in the human heart; 
 when they who contend that the constitu- 
 tion of man is simple and uncompounded 
 shall have reconciled these contradictions, I 
 will admit that we are formed of but one 
 substance. 
 
 Observe that by the word substance I 
 mean, in general, a being possessing some 
 primary quality, without reference to any 
 special or secondary modification of it. If, 
 therefore, all the primary qualities known to 
 us can be combined in a single being, we 
 are at liberty to conclude that there is but 
 one substance; but if there are qualities in- 
 compatible with each other, there must be 
 5# 
 
106 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 as many different substances as there are 
 cases in which such incompatibility exists. 
 This is a point on which you should reflect. 
 For myself, whateverXocke may maintain, I 
 have only to know that matter is susceptible 
 of extension and division, to be convinced 
 that it is not capable of thought ; and 
 though a philosopher should come to me and 
 affirm that trees feel and rocks think, and 
 should embarrass me by the subtlety of his 
 arguments, yet I should look upon him only 
 as a disingenuous sophist who would rather 
 ascribe sensation to stones than allow that 
 man has a soul. 
 
 Suppose a deaf man were to deny the 
 reality of sounds, because his own ear had 
 never been affected by them. Suppose I 
 should place before him a stringed instrument 
 of music, and the strings of another instru- 
 ment in unison with the former, but conceal- 
 ed from sight, should be made to vibrate. I 
 might say to the deaf man, who would see 
 the tremulous movement of the string, " It 
 
ROUSSEAU. 107 
 
 is the sound which produces that." " Not 
 at all," he would perhaps reply; " the cause 
 of the string's vibration is in itself; such vi- 
 brations are common to all bodies." " Show 
 me, then." I would say, " other bodies in 
 which the vibration takes place, or, at all 
 events, point out the cause of it in this string." 
 " I cannot," he might answer, " but it does 
 not follow that because I do not understand 
 how it is that the string vibrates, I must 
 seek to explain the difficulty by recurring to 
 your sounds, of which I have not the least 
 conception. That would be explaining an 
 obscure effect by a cause still more obscure. 
 Either render your sounds sensible to me, or 
 I shall say that they do not exist." 
 
 The more I reflect on thought itself, and 
 on the constitution of the human mind, the 
 more does the reasoning of the materialists 
 seem to me to resemble that of the deaf man. 
 They are, in truth, deaf to that inward voice 
 which cries in tones which it is difficult to 
 leave unheeded: — f Machines do not think : 
 
108 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 there is no motion nor any form by which re- 
 flection is generated. There is something 
 within thee that strives to break the bonds 
 by which it is confined : space itself cannot 
 contain thee; the universe is too contracted 
 for thee; thy sentiments, thy desires, thy 
 restlessness, thy very pride, proceed from 
 another principle than that diminutive body 
 in which thou feelest thyself imprisoned." 
 
 No merely material being is active of itself. 
 I am so. It is in vain to deny this. I know 
 it by my own feelings, which have more 
 weight with me than any opposing argu- 
 ments. I have a body which acts upon other 
 bodies and is acted upon by them. This re- 
 ciprocal action is not a matter of doubt. But 
 my will is independent of my senses ; I can 
 comply or resist, I can yield to or triumph 
 over them ; and am perfectly aware when I 
 have acted in accordance with my will, and 
 when in obedience to my passions. I am 
 always capable of exercising my will, but 
 not always of carrying it into execution. 
 
ROUSSEAU. 109 
 
 When I give way to temptation, I act under 
 the influence of external objects; when I 
 reproach myself with my weakness, I listen 
 to my will. (The vices into which I fall 
 render me a slave ; my remorse for them 
 proves that I am free*. The consciousness 
 of my freedom is absent only when I cease 
 to be virtuous, and stifle the voice of the soul 
 which cries out against the propensities of 
 the bodyJ 
 
 All my knowledge of volition is derived 
 from my own ; and I am equally ignorant 
 of the nature of the understanding. If it be 
 asked what is the cause which determines my 
 will, I reply by inquiring, what is the cause 
 which determines my judgment 1 — for it is 
 plain that these two causes are in fact the 
 same. If we are satisfied that man is active 
 in judging, that his understanding is nothing 
 else than the power of comparing and de- 
 ciding, we shall see that his free will is a 
 faculty similar to this, or derived from it. His 
 choice as to what is good, is like his judg- 
 
HO ROUSSEAU. 
 
 ment as to what is true ; when his conclu- 
 sions are false, his choice is bad. What 
 then is the cause which determines his will? 
 It is his judgment. And what is the cause 
 which determines his judgment? It is his 
 faculty of intelligence*-his jiower of judging. 
 The determining cause is in himself. Far- 
 ther than this, my knowledge does not extend. 
 Doubtless I am not free not to will my 
 own happiness ; I am not free to will my 
 own misery ; but my freedom of will consists 
 in the very fact that I can will only what is 
 for my own advantage, or what appears to 
 me to be so ; and that no cause foreign to 
 myself determines what I must will. Does 
 it follow that I am not my own master, be- 
 cause I cannot be other than what I am? 
 The principle of every action is the will of a 
 free being. We can go no farther back than 
 this. In this point of view, necessity, not 
 free agency, is a word without meaning. To 
 imagine that there is any act or effect which 
 is not the result of an active principle, is to 
 
ROUSSEAU. 1 1 1 
 
 imagine effects without a cause, and to rea- 
 son in a fallacious circle. Either there is no 
 original impulse, or every original impulse 
 is without any anterior cause ; so that there 
 is no real will except such as is free. Man, 
 then, is a free agent, and, as such, animated 
 with an immaterial substance. This is my 
 third Article of Faith. From these first 
 three, you can readily deduce all the others 
 without my continuing to number them. 
 
 If man is active and free, he acts of him- 
 self. Nothing that he does of his own free 
 will can be considered as entering into the 
 scheme ordained by Providence, nor can the 
 latter be held responsible for it. The Crea- 
 tor does not will the evil which man pro- 
 duces by abusing his liberty ; but he does not 
 prevent man from abusing it, whether because 
 in his eyes the evil which so weak a being 
 can do is very trifling in amount, or because 
 it was not possible to deprive us of our power 
 to do evil without impairing our free agency, 
 
112 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 and thus occasioning greater evil by degrad- 
 ing our nature. He made us free, not that 
 we might do evil, but that we might choose 
 what is good. He has enabled us so to 
 choose, if we rightly employ the faculties he 
 has given us; but has so limited our power 
 that our abuse of our freedom cannot disturb 
 the general harmony. \The evil which men 
 do recoils upon themselves without effecting 
 the least change in the system of the uni- 
 verse, and without interfering with the con- 
 tinued preservation of the human race, not- 
 withstanding the destructive tendencies of 
 man's own acts?) To murmur because God 
 does not prevent us from doing evil, is to 
 murmur because he conferred on us an ex- 
 alted nature ; because he attached to our 
 actions the moral qualities by which they 
 are ennobled ; because he afforded us the 
 opportunity of exhibiting our virtue. The 
 highest enjoyment is self-approbation ; and 
 it is to deserve that approbation that we are 
 
ROUSSEAU, 113 
 
 placed on the earth as free agents, and sub- 
 jected to the temptations of our passions and 
 the restraints of conscience. 
 
 What more could be done for us by Om- 
 nipotence itself? Would it have been pos- 
 sible to compose our nature of contradictions, 
 and bestow the reward of virtuous conduct 
 upon those who had it not in their power to 
 act viciously ? What ! To prevent man 
 from being wicked, ought he to have receiv- 
 ed from the Creator instinct alone, and been 
 made a mere animal ? iKo, God of my soul ! 
 Never will I reproach thee that thou hast 
 created me in thine own image, to the end 
 that I might be free, good, and happy, like 
 thyself]) 
 
 (It is the abuse of our faculties which ren- 
 ders us unhappy and wicked. Our disap- 
 pointments, cares and sorrows proceed from 
 ourselves^ (Moral evil is undeniably our 
 work ; and physical evil would be nothing 
 but for our vices, without which we should 
 be insensible to it. Is it not for our preser- 
 
114 
 
 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 vation that nature makes us feel our wants? 
 Is not bodily pain a sign that the machine 
 is out of order, and a warning to direct our 
 attention to the circumstance ? As for death 
 — do not the wicked embitter their lives and 
 ours 1 Who would desire to live forever ? 
 Death is the remedy for the ills we bring 
 upon ourselves; nature will not permit that 
 our sufferings should be without end. How 
 few are the evils to which man is subject so 
 long as he retains his primitive simplicity ! 
 He lives almost without diseases, as well as 
 without passions, and, in general, neither 
 foresees his death nor feels it when it comes. 
 When he does feel it, his misery renders it 
 an object of desire; and then it ceases to be 
 an evil. Were we but content to be what 
 we are, we should have no reason to deplore 
 our fate ; but in seeking for imaginary bless- 
 ings, we encounter a thousand real ills. (He 
 who cannot endure a little pain must expect 
 to suffer much] When we have ruined our 
 constitutions by a dissipated life, we en- 
 
ROUSSEAU. H5 
 
 deavor to restore them by medicines. To the 
 present evil we add that which we fear in 
 the future. (Our anticipations of death both 
 heighten its terrors and accelerate its ap- 
 proach/ > The more we strive to escape it, 
 the more sensibly it affects us ; and we die 
 of apprehension during our whole lives, com- 
 plaining all the while of nature, on account 
 of the evils we have drawn upon ourselves 
 by violating her precepts. 
 
 {Search not, O man, for the author of evil. 
 Thou art thyself that author. There is no 
 evil in existence save such as thou dost cause 
 or suffer, and both originate with thee. Gen- 
 eral evil can exist only in disorder, and I 
 behold invariable order in the system of the 
 world. Particular evil exists only in the 
 feelings of the being that suffers ; and 
 these feelings man derives from himself and 
 not from nature. Fain has little hold upon 
 any one who reflects but little, and has, in 
 consequence, neither memory nor foresight, 
 
H6 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 \Take away our pernicious civilization, our 
 errors, and our vices — take away the work 
 of man, and all is well. 
 
 \Where all is well, nothing is unjust. Jus- 
 tice is inseparable from goodness. Now 
 goodness is the necessary result of unbound- 
 ed power conjoined with that self-love which 
 is essential to every being endowed with 
 consciousness. He to whom all things are 
 possible, extends, as it were, his own exist- 
 ence with that of the beings he creates. 
 His power is continually exerted in produc- 
 ing and upholding. It does not operate on 
 what does not exist. God is not the God of 
 the dead!) (He could not be a destructive or 
 malevolent being without injuring himself.) 
 He whose power is unlimited cannot will 
 aught but what is good.) Hence the being 
 who is supremely good because he is su- 
 premely powerful, must likewise be supreme- 
 ly just.} Otherwise, he would be made up 
 of inconsistencies ; for the love of order, out 
 
ROUSSEAU. 117 
 
 of which order first arose, is what we call 
 goodness; and the love of order, by which 
 order is maintained, is what we call justice, 
 
 God, it is sometimes said, owes nothing to 
 his creatures. \In my opinion, he owes them 
 all that he promised by bringing them into 
 existence.) To give them the idea of a good, 
 and make them feel the want of it, was to 
 promise it to them. The more I enter into 
 myself—the more I learn by my investiga- 
 tions into my own nature — the more distinct- 
 ly do I trace these words inscribed upon my 
 soul \{Be just j and thou shalt be happy} Such, 
 however, I do not find to be the case when 
 I examine the present state of things : the 
 bad prosper, and the good are oppressed. 
 Observe, moreover, how indignant we are 
 when our expectations of happiness as the 
 result of virtuous conduct are disappointed. 
 Conscience rises up and murmurs against 
 its Creator ; it groans and cries, Thou hast \ 
 deceived me ! 
 
 " / have deceived thee, rash man 1 Who 
 
1 18 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 has thus told thee? Is thy soul annihilated ? 
 Hast thou ceased to exist ? O, Brutus ! O, 
 my son ! Sully not thy noble life by a vol- 
 untary death ! Cast not away thy hope and 
 glory with thy body on the field of Philippi! 
 Why sayest thou, Virtue is but a name* when 
 thou art on the point of enjoying the recom- 
 pense of thine 1 Dost thou imagine thou art 
 about to die ? No ; thou art about to live ; 
 and then it is that I will perform all that I 
 have promised thee." 
 
 One would suppose from the complaints 
 of impatient mortals, that God owed them 
 the reward before they had done any thing 
 to deserve it, and that he was bound to pay 
 them for their virtue in advance. (Ah ! let 
 us first be good, and happiness will come 
 afterward. Let us not demand the prize 
 
 * The exclamation of Brutus a few moments before his 
 death. Florus quotes the sentiment with approbation : 
 
 Quam verum est quod moriens efflavit, u non in re, sed in 
 verbo tantum, esse virtutem!" — (Flor. iv., 7.) 
 
 Translator. 
 
ROUSSEAU. lig 
 
 before we have vanquished, nor the wages 
 before we have labored. It is not in the 
 lists, said ^lutarch, that the victors in our 
 sacred games are crowned ; it is after they 
 have passed over the course. 
 
 If the soul be immaterial, it may survive 
 the body ; and if it survives, the ways of 
 Providence are justified. (Had I no other 
 proof of the immateriality of the soul than 
 the prosperity of the wicked and the sorrows 
 of the good in this world, that alone would 
 be sufficient to remove all doubt from my 
 mind.] Such a jarring discord in the univer- 
 sal harmony would incite me to search for 
 some explanation. I should say to myself, 
 "(All is not over with us when life termi- 
 nates ; all is set right at our deathY 1 might, 
 indeed, be somewhat at a loss when I asked 
 myself what becomes of man when every 
 part of him that is discoverable by our 
 senses is destroyed. To me, this question is 
 relieved of all its difficulty as soon as I admit 
 that he is composed of two substances. As 
 
J20 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 I can perceive nothing except by my senses 
 during my corporeal life, it is not strange that 
 what makes no impression upon them es- 
 capes my observation. When the union of 
 the soul and body is broken up, I can con- 
 ceive that the one may dissolve and the other 
 be preserved.) Why should the destruction 
 of one involve that of the other 7 On the 
 contrary, their natures being so different 
 they were, while together, in a state of con- 
 strained union ; and when the connection 
 ceases, they both return to their natural 
 condition; whereby the active and living 
 recovers all the vigor which it expended in 
 moving the passive and dead substance. 
 Alas ! (My vicious inclinations make me but 
 too well aware that man is but half alive 
 during his earthly existence, and that the 
 life of the soul does but commence at the 
 death of the body.) 
 
 But what is that life 1 Is the soul im- 
 mortal by its very nature ? I know not. 
 My bounded understanding can grasp noth- 
 
ROUSSEAU. j 21 
 
 ing that is unbounded. All that is called 
 infinite is above my comprehension. What 
 can I affirm or deny, or in what way can I 
 reason respecting that of which I understand 
 nothing ? I believe that the soul outlives the 
 body long enough for all to be set right, but 
 who can assert that this is forever 1 Still, I 
 can conceive of the wearing out and destruc- 
 tion of the body by the separation of its 
 component parts ; (but I cannot conceive of 
 such a destruction of the thinking entity ; 
 and as I cannot imagine how it can die, I 
 presume that it does nob As this presump- 
 tion is, moreover, a consoling one, and has 
 nothing unreasonable in it, why should I 
 hesitate to adopt it ? 
 
 (l feel my soul ; I recognize it both by my 
 feelings and my thoughts!) I know that it 
 exists, but know not what is its essence. I 
 cannot reason in relation to ideas which I do 
 not possess. I am well assured of one thing, 
 which is, that our individual identity is kept 
 up only by the memory; and that to be in 
 
122 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 reality the same that I have been, I must 
 remember that I have been. Now, after my 
 death, I cannot recollect what I have been 
 during my life without recalling at the same 
 time what I have felt, and, consequently, 
 what I have done ;, and I have no doubt that 
 the remembrance of this will one day con- 
 stitute the felicity of the good and the tor- 
 ment of the bad.l On earth, a thousand 
 ardent passions deaden conscience and turn 
 away remorse. The humiliations and in- 
 dignities which the practice of virtue draws 
 down upon us, prevent us from discerning 
 all its charms. /But when, freed from the 
 illusions of our bodies and senses, we shall 
 enjoy the contemplation of the Supreme 
 Being and of the eternal truths of which he 
 is the source — when the beauty of order 
 shall strike every faculty of our souls, and 
 we shall employ ourselves exclusively in 
 comparing what we have with what we 
 ought to have done — then will the voice of 
 conscience resume its authoritative tone — 
 
ROUSSEAU. 1£3 
 
 then will feelings of the highest intensity — 
 the pure delight which flows from satisfac- 
 tion with ourselves, and the bitter regret 
 arising from the consciousness of self-degra- 
 dation — mark the condition which each 
 shall have prepared for himself. Ask not, 
 my friend, if other sources of pleasure or 
 pain will be found. I know not ; and that 
 to which I have adverted is sufficient to 
 console me for the miseries of this life and 
 lead me to hope for another. I do not as- 
 sert that the virtuous will be rewarded ; for 
 what other good can a virtuous being expect 
 than the privilege of existing in accordance 
 with its nature T) But I do affirm that they 
 will be happy ; because their Maker, the 
 fountain of all justice, has endowed them 
 with sensibility, and did not create them 
 that they might suffer ; and, not having 
 abused their free agency while on earth, they 
 will not have been prevented by any fault 
 of their own from fulfilling their destiny ; and 
 as their life in this world is one of suffering, 
 
124 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 they will be indemnified in the next) This 
 conviction is based not so much on my opin- 
 ion of man's merit, as on the idea which I 
 entertain of goodness as inseparable from 
 the divine essence. I merely suppose the 
 laws of order to be observed, and God to be 
 consistent with himself. 
 
 Do not inquire of me whether the torments 
 of the wicked will be eternal, or whether 
 their condemnation to everlasting suffering 
 be compatible with the goodness of the 
 Author of their being. Of this, too, I know 
 nothing ; and I have not the idle curiosity 
 which prompts men to meddle with useless 
 questions. What is it to me what will be- 
 come of the wicked ? I take little interest 
 in their fate. Still, I can hardly believe they 
 will be doomed to endless agony. Supreme 
 Justice avenges itself in this life. You, O 
 nations, and your errors are its ministers ! 
 The calamities which you draw upon your- 
 selves by your misdeeds are the instruments 
 of punishment it employs ! In your own 
 
ROUSSEAU. 125 
 
 insatiable hearts, devoured by envy, avarice ; 
 and ambition — in the midst of your illusive 
 prosperity, the avenging passions chastise 
 your crimes ! What need of seeking for a 
 hell in another life 7 (In this it is found in 
 the breasts of the wicked.) 
 
 Where our mortal wants as well as our 
 mad desires cease, there our passions and 
 our crimes must likewise cease. What de- 
 praved act could disembodied spirits commit? 
 Having need of nothing, why should they be 
 wicked? ' If they are destitute of our gross 
 senses, and all their happiness is derived 
 from the contemplation of what exists, they 
 can will nothing but what is good; and he 
 who is no longer wicked cannot be forever 
 miserable : so, at least, I am inclined to be- 
 lieve, though I have not taken the trouble to 
 form a decided opinion. O, merciful and 
 bounteous Being, whatever thy decrees may 
 be, I adore them ! If thou inflictest eternal 
 punishment upon the wicked, far be it from 
 my weak reason to impugn thy justice; but 
 6* 
 
126 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 if, in time, the remorse of these unhappy be- 
 ings passes away — if their pangs have an 
 end, and the same tranquillity awaits us all 
 alike — for this I praise thee ! Are not the 
 wicked my brethren 1 How often have I 
 been tempted to become like them ? If, 
 delivered from their misery, they lose also 
 the malignity by which it is accompanied ; — 
 if they are destined to be happy as well as 
 myself, their happiness, far from exciting 
 jealousy in me, will but augment my own?) 
 /->Thus, by contemplating God in his works, 
 and studying him in such of his attributes as 
 it was important for me to know, I gradual- 
 ly enlarged and multiplied my ideas of that 
 infinite Being, which were before imperfect 
 and narrow. But if these ideas have become 
 more exalted and expanded, they are also 
 more disproportioned to the weakness of the 
 human mind. As I approach in spirit the 
 eternal Source of Light, his brightness daz- 
 zles and confuses me, and I am forced to lay 
 aside all those habits of thought derived 
 
ROUSSEAU. 127 
 
 from meditation on earthly things, which 
 before assisted me in my conceptions of him. 
 Here God is no longer corporeal and cog- 
 nizable by my senses ; the Supreme Intelli- 
 gence that governs the world is no longer 
 th ejworld itself; in vain do I strain and 
 weary my faculties in the effort to compre- 
 hend his incomprehensible essence. When 
 I remember that it is this which imparts life 
 and activity to the living and active sub- 
 stance that directs the movements of ani- 
 mated bodies, and hear it remarked that my 
 soul is spiritual and that God is a spirit, I 
 feel indignant at such a disparaging view of 
 the divine essence. As if God and my soul 
 were of the same nature ! As if God were 
 not the only independent being ; the only 
 one that really acts, feels, thinks, wills, of 
 himself; and the one from whom we derive 
 thought, feeling, activity, will, free agency, 
 existence ! We are free agents only because 
 he has willed that we should be such ; and 
 his mysterious substance is to our souls 
 
12Q ROUSSEAU. 
 
 what our souls are to our bodies. I know 
 not whether he created matter, bodies, spirits, 
 and the universe. The idea of creation con- 
 founds me and surpasses my comprehension. 
 Yet, as far as I am capable of understanding 
 the subject, I believe that he did execute the 
 work of creation, and I know that he gave 
 form to the world and all that IS ; that he 
 constituted and arranged all. 
 
 God is, no doubt, eternal ; but can my 
 mind take in the idea of eternity ? Why 
 put me off with words signifying nothing ? 
 I can understand that he ivas before any 
 thing else ; and that he will be as long as 
 any thing else subsists ; and longer still, if 
 all other things should ever come to an end. 
 That a being with whose nature lam unac- 
 quainted, should communicate existence to 
 other beings, is merely obscure and incom- 
 prehensible; but that such a being and no- 
 nentity should be converted into each other 
 without any external cause, is a palpable 
 contradiction, a manifest absurdity. 
 
ROUSSEAU. 129 
 
 God is intelligent ; but how ? Man is 
 intelligent when he reasons; and the Su- 
 preme Intelligence is exempt from the neces- 
 sity of reasoning. To it there are no such 
 things as premises and conclusions — there is 
 no such thing as a proposition even. It 
 operates by pure intuition. It perceives 
 alike all that is and all that can be ; to 
 it, all truths are but a single idea, as all 
 places are but a point, and all times but one 
 moment. 
 
 Human power works by means ; the divine 
 power works by itself. God can because 
 he wills ; his will is his power. 
 
 (God is good : nothing is plainer. But 
 goodness in man is the love of his fellows ; 
 and this quality in God is the love of order ; 
 for it is order that sustains the universe and 
 binds every part to the whole) 
 (\ am convinced that God is just. This is 
 a result of his goodness. The injustice of 
 men is their own work, not his. The moral 
 disorder which the philosophers consider as 
 
130 ROUSSEAU. 
 
 an argument against a superintending Prov- 
 idence is to me a proof of his existence. But 
 the justice of man consists in giving to all 
 their due ; and the justice of God, in requir- 
 ing from all an account of what he has 
 committed to their care. 
 
 It is by drawing necessary inferences, and 
 by the right use of my reason, that I succeed 
 in discovering, one after another, all these 
 attributes, of which I had originally no idea. 
 Yet I assert that they exist without under- 
 standing them ; which is equivalent to mak- 
 ing no assertion. In vain do I say, u God 
 is thus or thus ; I feel it; I can prove it" I 
 am no better able than before to conceive 
 how God can he thus. 
 
 / In short, the more I strive to contemplate , 
 his infinite essence, the less do I understand , 
 it. He exists, however, and that is sufficient. ! 
 The less I comprehend him, the more I adore 
 him. I humble myself, and exclaim, " Being 
 of beings, I ami because thou art ! To med- 
 itate unceasingly upon thee is to rise to the 
 
ROUSSEAU. 131 
 
 , source whence I sprung. The most appro- 
 < priate use I can make of my reason is to 
 
 deem myself as naught in thy presence : it 
 ■ is rapture to my soul, it is the delight of my 
 
 weakness, to feel myself overwhelmed by 
 
 thy greatness !" 
 
 END OF EXTRACTS FROM ROUSSEAU, AND OF THE WORK. 
 
H 156 82 
 
v^V* "v^^V^ r S^$\</ * 
 
 * V 
 
 • ' & \ 'WW's . * v '^ 
 
 ** A*" 
 
 "o9 
 
 
 "ol? 
 
 
 *W 
 
 
 
 
'-MWS J'\. '°*WW* : A * v i : iBP." P 
 
 • **' 
 
 »° * ^ 
 
 * 4^ °* '.^V .0 
 
 > v ..-•.., *, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '«* V ••*•* V% ^ ^ '•'.-?" 
 
 n 
 
 * 
 
 
 p^^* 
 
 
 \ 4 
 
 K '***<? % ■**£' /\ ••SSS?-" ^\ 
 
 
 
 V*'T^*..^ 
 
 <>^. 
 
 
 <>' 
 
 V *-T^ 
 
 *****... %'-&*.** V-SB-^ ^ 
 
 •i •