THE SYSTEM OF NATURE, VOLUME I (of II)

By Paul Henri Thiery (Baron d’Holbach)

Introduction by Robert D. Richardson, Jr.

INTRODUCTION

Paul Henri Thiery, Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789), was the center of the
radical wing of the philosophes. He was friend, host, and patron to
a wide circle that included Diderot, D’Alembert, Helvetius, and Hume.
Holbach wrote, translated, edited, and issued a stream of books and
pamphlets, often under other names, that has made him the despair of
bibliographers but has connected his name, by innuendo, gossip, and
association, with most of what was written in defense of atheistic
materialism in late eighteenth-century France.

Holbach is best known for The System of Nature (1770) and
deservedly, since it is a clear and reasonably systematic exposition of
his main ideas. His initial position determines all the rest of his
argument. “There is not, there can be nothing out of that Nature which
includes all beings.” Conceiving of nature as strictly limited to matter
and motion, both of which have always existed, he flatly denies that there
is any such thing as spirit or a supernatural. Mythology began, Holbach
claims, when men were still in a state of nature and at the point when
wise, strong, and for the most part benign men were arising as leaders and
lawgivers. These leaders “formed discourses by which they spoke to the
imaginations of their willing auditors,” using the medium of poetry,
because it “seem{ed} best adapted to strike the mind.” Through poetry,
then, and by means of “its images, its fictions, its numbers, its rhyme,
its harmony… the entire of nature, as well as all its parts, was
personified, by its beautiful allegories.” Thus mythology is given an
essentially political origin. These early poets are literally legislators
of mankind. “The first institutors of nations, and their immediate
successors in authority, only spoke to the people by fables, allegories,
enigmas, of which they reserved to themselves the right of giving an
explanation.” Holbach is rather condescending about the process, but since
mythology is a representation of nature itself, he is far more tolerant of
mythology than he is of the next step. “Natural philosophers and poets
were transformed by leisure into metaphysicians and theologians,” and at
this point a fatal error was introduced: the theologians made a
distinction between the power of nature and nature itself, separated the
two, made the power of nature prior to nature, and called it God. Thus man
was left with an abstract and chimerical being on one side and a despoiled
inert nature, destitute of power, on the other. In Holbach’s critique the
point at which theology split off from mythology marks the moment of
nature’s alienation from itself and paves the way for man’s alienation
from nature.

Holbach is thus significant for Romantic interest in myth in two ways.
First, he provides a clear statement of what can be loosely called the
antimythic position, that rationalist condescension and derogation of all
myth and all religion that was never far from the surface during the
Romantic era. Holbach was and is a reminder that the Romantic affirmation
of myth was never easy, uncritical, or unopposed. Any new endorsement of
myth had to be made in the teeth of Holbach and the other skeptics. The
very vigor of the Holbachian critique of myth impelled the Romantics to
think more deeply and defend more carefully any new claim for myth.
Secondly, although Holbach’s argument generally drove against myth and
religion both, he did make an important, indeed a saving distinction
between mythology and theology. Mythology is the more or less harmless
personification of the power in and of nature; theology concerns itself
with what for Holbach was the nonexistent power beyond or behind nature.
By exploiting this distinction it would become possible for a Shelley, for
example, to take a strong antitheological—even an anti-Christian—position
without having to abandon myth.

Holbach was one of William Godwin’s major sources for his ideas about
political justice, and Shelley, who discussed Holbach with Godwin, quotes
extensively from The System of Nature in Queen Mab.
Furthermore, Volney’s Ruins, another important book for Shelley, is
directly descended from The System of Nature. On the other side,
Holbach was a standing challenge to such writers as Coleridge and Goethe
and was reprinted and retranslated extensively in America, where his work
was well known to the rationalist circle around Jefferson and Barlow.

Issued in 1770 as though by Jean Baptiste de Mirabaud (a former perpetual
secretary to the Académie française who had died ten years before), La
Système de la nature was translated and reprinted frequently. The
Samuel Wilkinson translation we have chosen to reprint was the most often
reprinted or pirated version in English. A useful starting point for
Holbach’s work is Jerome Vercruysse, Bibliographie descriptive des
écrits du baron d’Holbach (Paris, 1971). The difficult subject of the
essentially clandestine evolution of biblical criticism as an
anti-Christian and antimyth critique in the early part of the eighteenth
century, before the well-documented era of the biblical critic Eichhorn in
Germany, is illuminated in Ira Wade, The Clandestine Organization and
Diffusion of Philosophic Ideas in France from 1700-1750 (Princeton
Univ. Press, 1938).

Robert D. Richardson, Jr.

University of Denver

{Illustration: Parke sculp’t M. DE MIRABAUD}

THE SYSTEM OF NATURE; OR, THE LAWS OF THE MORAL AND PHYSICAL WORLD.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH OF M. DE MIRABAUD

VOL. I.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE SYSTEM OF NATURE; OR, THE LAWS OF THE
MORAL AND PHYSICAL WORLD.

VOL. I.

DETAILED CONTENTS

PREFACE

MIRABAUD’S SYSTEM OF NATURE

PART I.

CHAP. I.

CHAP. II.

CHAP. III.

CHAP. IV.

CHAP. V.

CHAP. VI.

CHAP. VII.

CHAP. VIII.

CHAP. IX.

CHAP. X.

CHAP. XI

CHAP. XII.

CHAP. XIII.

CHAP. XIV.

CHAP. XV.

CHAP. XVI

CHAP. XVII.

CONCLUSION.

PREFACE

The source of man’s unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The
pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy,
which interweave themselves with his existence, the consequent prejudice
that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the
slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error. He resembles a
child destitute of experience, full of ideal notions: a dangerous leaven
mixes itself with all his knowledge: it is of necessity obscure, it is
vacillating and false:—He takes the tone of his ideas on the
authority of others, who are themselves in error, or else have an interest
in deceiving him. To remove this Cimmerian darkness, these barriers to the
improvement of his condition; to disentangle him from the clouds of error
that envelope him; to guide him out of this Cretan labyrinth, requires the
clue of Ariadne, with all the love she could bestow on Theseus. It exacts
more than common exertion; it needs a most determined, a most undaunted
courage—it is never effected but by a persevering resolution to act,
to think for himself; to examine with rigour and impartiality the opinions
he has adopted. He will find that the most noxious weeds have sprung up
beside beautiful flowers; entwined themselves around their stems,
overshadowed them with an exuberance of foliage, choaked the ground,
enfeebled their growth, diminished their petals; dimmed the brilliancy of
their colours; that deceived by their apparent freshness of their verdure,
by the rapidity of their exfoliation, he has given them cultivation,
watered them, nurtured them, when he ought to have plucked out their very
roots.

Man seeks to range out of his sphere: notwithstanding the reiterated
checks his ambitious folly experiences, he still attempts the impossible;
strives to carry his researches beyond the visible world; and hunts out
misery in imaginary regions. He would be a metaphysician before he has
become a practical philosopher. He quits the contemplation of realities to
meditate on chimeras. He neglects experience to feed on conjecture, to
indulge in hypothesis. He dares not cultivate his reason, because from his
earliest days he has been taught to consider it criminal. He pretends to
know his date in the indistinct abodes of another life, before he has
considered of the means by which he is to render himself happy in the
world he inhabits: in short, man disdains the study of Nature, except it
be partially: he pursues phantoms that resemble an ignis-fatuus, which
at once dazzle, bewilders, and affright: like the benighted traveller led
astray by these deceptive exhalations of a swampy soil, he frequently
quits the plain, the simple road of truth, by pursuing of which, he can
alone ever reasonably hope to reach the goal of happiness.

The most important of our duties, then, is to seek means by which we may
destroy delusions that can never do more than mislead us. The remedies for
these evils must be sought for in Nature herself; it is only in the
abundance of her resources, that we can rationally expect to find
antidotes to the mischiefs brought upon us by an ill directed, by an
overpowering enthusiasm. It is time these remedies were sought; it is time
to look the evil boldly in the face, to examine its foundations, to
scrutinize its superstructure: reason, with its faithful guide experience,
must attack in their entrenchments those prejudices, to which the human
race has but too long been the victim. For this purpose reason must be
restored to its proper rank,—it must be rescued from the evil
company with which it is associated. It has been too long degraded—too
long neglected—cowardice has rendered it subservient to delirium,
the slave to falsehood. It must no longer be held down by the massive
claims of ignorant prejudice.

Truth is invariable—it is requisite to man—it can never harm
him—his very necessities, sooner or later, make him sensible of
this; oblige him to acknowledge it. Let us then discover it to mortals—let
us exhibit its charms—let us shed it effulgence over the darkened
road; it is the only mode by which man can become disgusted with that
disgraceful superstition which leads him into error, and which but too
often usurps his homage by treacherously covering itself with the mask of
truth—its lustre can wound none but those enemies to the human race
whose power is bottomed solely on the ignorance, on the darkness in which
they have in almost every claimed contrived to involve the mind of man.

Truth speaks not to those perverse beings:—her voice can only be
heard by generous souls accustomed to reflection, whose sensibilities make
them lament the numberless calamities showered on the earth by political
and religious tyranny—whose enlightened minds contemplate with
horror the immensity, the ponderosity of that series of misfortunes which
error has in all ages overwhelmed mankind.

To error must be attributed those insupportable chains which tyrants,
which priests have forged for most nations. To error must be equally
attributed that abject slavery into which the people of almost every
country have fallen. Nature designed they should pursue their happiness by
the most perfect freedom.—To error must be attributed those
religious terrors which, in almost every climate, have either petrified
man with fear, or caused him to destroy himself for coarse or fanciful
beings. To error must be attributed those inveterate hatreds, those
barbarous persecutions, those numerous massacres, those dreadful
tragedies, of which, under pretext of serving the interests of heaven, the
earth has been but too frequently made the theatre. It is error
consecrated by religious enthusiasm, which produces that ignorance, that
uncertainty in which man ever finds himself with regard to his most
evident duties, his clearest rights, the most demonstrable truths. In
short, man is almost everywhere a poor degraded captive, devoid of
greatness of soul, of reason, or of virtue, whom his inhuman gaolers have
never permitted to see the light of day.

Let us then endeavour to disperse those clouds of ignorance, those mists
of darkness, which impede man on his journey, which obscure his progress,
which prevent his marching through life with a firm, with a steady grip.
Let us try to inspire him with courage—with respect for his reason—with
an inextinguishable love for truth—with a remembrance of Gallileo—to
the end that he may learn to know himself—to know his legitimate
rights—that he may learn to consult his experience, and no longer be
the dupe of an imagination led astray by authority—that he may
renounce the prejudices of his childhood—that he may learn to found
his morals on his nature, on his wants, on the real advantage of society—that
he may dare to love himself—that he may learn to pursue his true
happiness by promoting that of others—in short, that he may no
longer occupy himself with reveries either useless or dangerous—that
he may become a virtuous, a rational being, in which case he cannot fail
to become happy.

If he must have his chimeras, let him at least learn to permit others to
form theirs after their own fashion; since nothing can be more immaterial
than the manner of men’s thinking on subjects not accessible to reason,
provided those thoughts be not suffered to embody themselves into actions
injurious to others: above all, let him be fully persuaded that it is of
the utmost importance to the inhabitants of this world to be JUST, KIND,
and PEACEABLE.

Far from injuring the cause of virtue, an impartial examination of the
principles of this work will shew that its object is to restore truth to
its proper temple, to build up an altar whose foundations shall be
consolidated by morality, reason, and justice: from this sacred pane,
virtue guarded by truth, clothed with experience, shall shed forth her
radiance on delighted mortals; whose homage flowing consecutively shall
open to the world a new aera, by rendering general the belief that
happiness, the true end of man’s existence, can never be attained but BY
PROMOTING THAT OF HIS FELLOW CREATURE.

In short, man should learn to know, that happiness is simply an emanative
quality formed by reflection; that each individual ought to be the sun of
his own system, continually shedding around him his genial rays; that
these, re-acting, will keep his own existence constantly supplied with the
requisite heat to enable him to put forth kindly fruit.

MIRABAUD’S SYSTEM OF NATURE

By Paul Henri Thiery (Baron D’Holbach)

Translated From The Original, by Samuel Wilkinson

PART I.

LAWS OF NATURE—OF MAN—THE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL—DOCTRINE
OF IMMORTALITY—ON HAPPINESS.

CHAP. I.

Nature and her Laws.

Man has always deceived himself when he abandoned experience to follow
imaginary systems.—He is the work of nature.—He exists in
Nature.—He is submitted to the laws of Nature.—He cannot
deliver himself from them:—cannot step beyond them even in thought.
It is in vain his mind would spring forward beyond the visible world:
direful and imperious necessity ever compels his return—being formed
by Nature, he is circumscribed by her laws; there exists nothing beyond
the great whole of which he forms a part, of which he experiences the
influence. The beings his fancy pictures as above nature, or distinguished
from her, are always chimeras formed after that which he has already seen,
but of which it is utterly impossible he should ever form any finished
idea, either as to the place they occupy, or their manner of acting—for
him there is not, there can be nothing out of that Nature which includes
all beings.

Therefore, instead of seeking out of the world he inhabits for beings who
can procure him a happiness denied to him by Nature, let him study this
Nature, learn her laws, contemplate her energies, observe the immutable
rules by which she acts.—Let him apply these discoveries to his own
felicity, and submit in silence to her precepts, which nothing can alter.—Let
him cheerfully consent to be ignorant of causes hid from him under the
most impenetrable veil.—Let him yield to the decrees of a universal
power, which can never be brought within his comprehension, nor ever
emancipate him from those laws imposed on him by his essence.

The distinction which has been so often made between the physical
and the moral being, is evidently an abuse of terms. Man is a being
purely physical: the moral man is nothing more than this physical being
considered under a certain point of view; that is to say, with relation to
some of his modes of action, arising out of his individual organization.
But is not this organization itself the work of Nature? The motion or
impulse to action, of which he is susceptible, is that not physical? His
visible actions, as well as the invisible motion interiorly excited by his
will or his thoughts, are equally the natural effects, the necessary
consequences, of his peculiar construction, and the impulse he receives
from those beings by whom he is always surrounded. All that the human mind
has successively invented, with a view to change or perfect his being, to
render himself happy, was never more than the necessary consequence of
man’s peculiar essence, and that of the beings who act upon him. The
object of all his institutions, all his reflections, all his knowledge, is
only to procure that happiness toward which he is continually impelled by
the peculiarity of his nature. All that he does, all that he thinks, all
that he is, all that he will be, is nothing more than what Universal
Nature has made him. His ideas, his actions, his will, are the necessary
effects of those properties infused into him by Nature, and of those
circumstances in which she has placed him. In short, art is nothing but
Nature acting with the tools she has furnished.

Nature sends man naked and destitute into this world which is to be his
abode: he quickly learns to cover his nakedness—to shelter himself
from the inclemencies of the weather, first with artlessly constructed
huts, and the skins of the beasts of the forest; by degrees he mends their
appearance, renders them more convenient: he establishes manufactories to
supply his immediate wants; he digs clay, gold, and other fossils from the
bowels of the earth; converts them into bricks for his house, into vessels
for his use, gradually improves their shape, and augments their beauty. To
a being exalted above our terrestrial globe, man would not appear less
subjected to the laws of Nature when naked in the forest painfully seeking
his sustenance, than when living in civilized society surrounded with
ease, or enriched with greater experience, plunged in luxury, where he
every day invents a thousand new wants and discovers a thousand new modes
of supplying them. All the steps taken by man to regulate his existence,
ought only to be considered as a long succession of causes and effects,
which are nothing more than the development of the first impulse given him
by nature.

The same animal, by virtue of his organization, passes successively from
the most simple to the most complicated wants; it is nevertheless the
consequence of his nature. The butterfly whose beauty we admire, whose
colours are so rich, whose appearance is so brilliant, commences as an
inanimate unattractive egg; from this, heat produces a worm, this becomes
a chrysalis, then changes into that beautiful insect adorned with the most
vivid tints: arrived at this stage he reproduces, he generates; at last
despoiled of his ornaments, he is obliged to disappear, having fulfilled
the task imposed on him by Nature, having performed the circle of
transformation marked out for beings of his order.

The same course, the same change takes place in the vegetable world. It is
by a series of combinations originally interwoven with the energies of the
aloe, that this plant is insensibly regulated, gradually expanded, and at
the end of a number of years produces those flowers which announce its
dissolution.

It is equally so with man, who in all his motion, all the changes he
undergoes, never acts but according to the laws peculiar to his
organization, and to the matter of which he is composed.

The physical man, is he who acts by the causes our faculties make
us understand.

The moral man, is he who acts by physical causes, with which our
prejudices preclude us from becoming perfectly acquainted.

The wild man is a child destitute of experience, incapable of
proceeding in his happiness, because he has not learnt how to oppose
resistance to the impulses he receives from those beings by whom he is
surrounded.

The civilized man, is he whom experience and sociality have enabled
to draw from nature the means of his own happiness, because he has learned
to oppose resistance to those impulses he receives from exterior beings,
when experience has taught him they would be destructive to his welfare.

The enlightened man is man in his maturity, in his perfection; who
is capable of advancing his own felicity, because he has learned to
examine, to think for himself, and not to take that for truth upon the
authority of others, which experience has taught him a critical
disquisition will frequently prove erroneous.

The happy man is he who knows how to enjoy the benefits bestowed
upon him by nature: in other words, he who thinks for himself; who is
thankful for the good he possesses; who does not envy the welfare of
others, nor sigh after imaginary benefits always beyond his grasp.

The unhappy man is he who is incapacitated to enjoy the benefits of
nature; that is, he who suffers others to think for him; who neglects the
absolute good he possesses, in a fruitless search after ideal benefits;
who vainly sighs after that which ever eludes his pursuit.

It necessarily results, that man in his enquiry ought always to
contemplate experience, and natural philosophy: These are what he should
consult in his religion,—in his morals,—in his legislation,—in
his political government,—in the arts,—in the sciences,—in
his pleasures,—above all, in his misfortunes. Experience teaches
that Nature acts by simple, regular, and invariable laws. It is by his
senses, man is bound to this universal Nature; it is by his perception he
must penetrate her secrets; it is from his senses he must draw experience
of her laws. Therefore, whenever he neglects to acquire experience or
quits its path, he stumbles into an abyss; his imagination leads him
astray.

All the errors of man are physical: he never deceives himself but when he
neglects to return back to nature, to consult her laws, to call practical
knowledge to his aid. It is for want of practical knowledge he forms such
imperfect ideas of matter, of its properties, of its combinations, of its
power, of its mode of action, and of the energies which spring from its
essence. Wanting this experience, the whole universe, to him, is but one
vast scene of error. The most ordinary results appear to him the most
astonishing phenomena; he wonders at every thing, understands nothing, and
yields the guidance of his actions to those interested in betraying his
interests. He is ignorant of Nature, and he has mistaken her laws; he has
not contemplated the necessary routine which she has marked out for every
thing she holds. Mistaken the laws of Nature, did I say? He has mistaken
himself: the consequence is, that all his systems, all his conjectures,
all his reasonings, from which he has banished experience, are nothing
more than a tissue of errors, a long chain of inconsistencies.

Error is always prejudicial to man: it is by deceiving himself, the human
race is plunged into misery. He neglected Nature; he did not comprehend
her laws; he formed gods of the most preposterous and ridiculous kinds:
these became the sole objects of his hope, and the creatures of his fear:
he was unhappy, he trembled under these visionary deities; under the
supposed influence of visionary beings created by himself; under the
terror inspired by blocks of stone; by logs of wood; by flying fish; or
the frowns of men, mortal as himself, whom his disturbed fancy had
elevated above that Nature of which alone he is capable of forming any
idea. His very posterity laughs at his folly, because experience has
convinced them of the absurdity of his groundless fears—of his
misplaced worship. Thus has passed away the ancient mythology, with all
the trifling and nonsensical attributes attached to it by ignorance.

Not understanding that Nature, equal in her distributions, entirely
destitute of malice, follows only necessary and immutable laws, when she
either produces beings or destroys them, when she causes those to suffer,
whose construction creates sensibility; when she scatters among them good
and evil; when she subjects them to incessant change—he did not
perceive it was in the breast of Nature herself, that it was in her
exuberance he ought to seek to satisfy his deficiencies; for remedies
against his pains; for the means of rendering himself happy: he expected
to derive these benefits from fantastic beings, whom he supposed to be
above Nature; whom he mistakingly imagined to be the authors of his
pleasures, and the cause of his misfortunes. From hence it appears that to
his ignorance of Nature, man owes the creation of those illusive powers;
under which he has so long trembled with fear; that superstitious worship,
which has been the source of all his misery, and the evils entailed upon
posterity.

For want of clearly comprehending his own peculiar nature, his proper
course, his wants, and his rights, man has fallen in society, from FREEDOM
into SLAVERY. He had forgotten the purpose of his existence, or else he
believed himself obliged to suppress the natural desires of his heart, to
sacrifice his welfare to the caprice of chiefs, either elected by himself,
or submitted to without examination. He was ignorant of the true policy of
association—of the object of government; he disdained to listen to
the voice of Nature, which loudly proclaimed the price of all submission
to be protection and happiness: the end of all government is the benefit
of the governed, not the exclusive advantage of the governors. He gave
himself up without enquiry to men like himself, whom his prejudices
induced him to contemplate as beings of a superior order, as Gods upon
earth, they profited by his ignorance, took advantage of his prejudices,
corrupted him, rendered him vicious, enslaved him, and made him miserable.
Thus man, intended by Nature for the full enjoyment of liberty, to
patiently search out her laws, to investigate her secrets, to cling to his
experience; has, from a neglect of her salutary admonitions, from an
inexcusable ignorance of his own peculiar essence, fallen into servility:
has been wickedly governed.

Having mistaken himself, he has remained ignorant of the indispensable
affinity that subsists between him, and the beings of his own species:
having mistaken his duty to himself, it consequently follows, he has
mistaken his duty to others. He made a calculation in error of what his
happiness required; he did not perceive, what he owed to himself, the
excesses he ought to avoid, the desires he ought to resist, the impulses
he ought to follow, in order to consolidate his felicity, to promote his
comfort, and to further his advantage. In short, he was ignorant of his
true interests; hence his irregularities, his excesses, his shameful
extravagance, with that long train of vices, to which he has abandoned
himself, at the expense of his preservation, at the hazard of his
permanent prosperity.

It is, therefore, ignorance of himself that has hindered man from
enlightening his morals. The corrupt authorities to which he had
submitted, felt an interest in obstructing the practice of his duties,
even when he knew them. Time, with the influence of ignorance, aided by
his corruption, gave them a strength not to be resisted by his enfeebled
voice. His duties continued unperformed, and he fell into contempt both
with himself and with others.

The ignorance of Man has endured so long, he has taken such slow, such
irresolute steps to ameliorate his condition, only because he has
neglected to study Nature, to scrutinize her laws, to search out her
expedients, to discover her properties, that his sluggishness finds its
account, in permitting himself to be guided by example, rather than to
follow experience, which demands activity; to be led by routine, rather
than by his reason, which enjoins reflection; to take that for truth upon
the authority of others, which would require a diligent and patient
investigation. From hence may be traced the hatred man betrays for every
thing that deviates from those rules to which he has been accustomed;
hence his stupid, his scrupulous respect for antiquity, for the most
silly, the most absurd and ridiculous institutions of his fathers: hence
those fears that seize him, when the most beneficial changes are proposed
to him, or the most likely attempts are made to better his condition. He
dreads to examine, because he has been taught to hold it irreverent of
something immediately connected with his welfare; his credulity suffers
him to believe the interested advice, and spurns at those who wish to show
him the danger of the road he is travelling.

This is the reason why nations linger on in the most shameful lethargy,
suffering under abuses handed down from century to century, trembling at
the very idea of that which alone can repair their calamities.

It is for want of energy, for want of consulting experience, that
medicine, natural philosophy, agriculture, painting, in fact, all the
useful sciences, have so long remained under the fetters of authority,
have progressed so little: those who profess these sciences, prefer
treading the beaten paths, however imperfect, rather than strike out new
ones,—they prefer the phrensy of their imagination, their voluntary
conjectures, to that laboured experience which alone can extract her
secrets from Nature.

Man, in short, whether from sloth or from terror, having abnegated the
evidence of his senses, has been guided in all his actions, in all his
enterprizes, by imagination, by enthusiasm, by habit, by preconceived
opinions, but above all, by the influence of authority, which knew well
how to deceive him, to turn his ignorance to esteem, his sloth to
advantage. Thus imaginary, unsubstantial systems, have supplied the place
of experience—of mature reflection—of reason. Man, petrified
with his fears, intoxicated with the marvellous, stupified with sloth,
surrendered his experience: guided by his credulity, he was unable to fall
back upon it; he became consequently inexperienced; from thence he gave
birth to the most ridiculous opinions, or else adopted all those vague
chimeras, all those idle notions offered to him by men whose interest it
was to continue him in that lamentable state of ignorance.

Thus the human race has continued so long in a state of infancy, because
man has been inattentive to Nature; has neglected her ways, because he has
disdained experience—because he has thrown by his reason—because
he has been enraptured with the marvellous and the supernatural,—because
he has unnecessarily TREMBLED. These are the reasons there is so much
trouble in conducting him from this state of childhood to that of manhood.
He has had nothing but the most trifling hypotheses, of which he has never
dared to examine either the principles or the proofs, because he has been
accustomed to hold them sacred, to consider them as the most perfect
truths, and which he is not permitted to doubt, even for an instant. His
ignorance made him credulous; his curiosity made him swallow the
wonderful: time confirmed him in his opinions, and he passed his
conjectures from race to race for realities; a tyrannical power maintained
him in his notions, because by those alone could society be enslaved. It
was in vain that some faint glimmerings of Nature occasionally attempted
the recall of his reason—that slight corruscations of experience
sometimes threw his darkness into light, the interest of the few was
founded on his enthusiasm; their pre-eminence depended on his love of the
marvellous; their very existence rested on the firmness of his ignorance;
they consequently suffered no opportunity to escape, of smothering even
the transient flame of intelligence. The many were thus first deceived
into credulity, then forced into submission. At length the whole science
of man became a confused mass of darkness, falsehood, and contradictions,
with here and there a feeble ray of truth, furnished by that Nature, of
which he can never entirely divest himself; because, without his
perception, his necessities are continually bringing him back to her
resources.

Let us then, if possible, raise ourselves above these clouds of
prepossession! Let us quit the heavy atmosphere in which we are
enucleated; let us in a more unsullied medium—in a more elastic
current, contemplate the opinions of men, and observe their various
systems. Let us learn to distrust a disordered conception; let us take
that faithful monitor, experience, for our guide; let us consult Nature,
examine her laws, dive into her stores; let us draw from herself, our
ideas of the beings she contains; let us recover our senses, which
interested error has taught us to suspect; let us consult that reason,
which, for the vilest purposes has been so infamously calumniated, so
cruelly dishonoured; let us examine with attention the visible world; let
us try, if it will not enable us to form a supportable judgment of the
invisible territory of the intellectual world: perhaps it may be found
there has been no sufficient reason for distinguishing them—that it
is not without motives, well worthy our enquiry, that two empires have
been separated, which are equally the inheritance of nature.

The universe, that vast assemblage of every thing that exists, presents
only matter and motion: the whole offers to our contemplation, nothing but
an immense, an uninterrupted succession of causes and effects; some of
these causes are known to us, because they either strike immediately on
our senses, or have been brought under their cognizance, by the
examination of long experience; others are unknown to us, because they act
upon us by effects, frequently very remote from their primary cause. An
immense variety of matter, combined under an infinity of forms,
incessantly communicates, unceasingly receives a diversity of impulses.
The different qualities of this matter, its innumerable combinations, its
various methods of action, which are the necessary consequence of these
associations, constitute for man what he calls the ESSENCE of beings: it
is from these varied essences that spring the orders, the classes, or the
systems, which these beings respectively possess, of which the sum total
makes up that which is known by the term nature.

Nature, therefore, in its most significant meaning, is the great whole
that results from the collection of matter, under its various
combinations, with that contrariety of motion, which the universe presents
to our view. Nature, in a less extended sense, or considered in each
individual, is the whole that results from its essence; that is to say,
the peculiar qualities, the combination, the impulse, and the various
modes of action, by which it is discriminated from other beings. It is
thus that MAN is, as a whole, or in his nature, the result of a certain
combination of matter, endowed with peculiar properties, competent to
give, capable of receiving, certain impulses, the arrangement of which is
called organization; of which the essence is, to feel, to think, to
act, to move, after a manner distinguished from other beings, with which
he can be compared. Man, therefore, ranks in an order, in a system, in a
class by himself, which differs from that of other animals, in whom we do
not perceive those properties of which he is possessed. The different
systems of beings, or if they will, their particular natures,
depend on the general system of the great whole, or that Universal Nature,
of which they form a part; to which every thing that exists is necessarily
submitted and attached.

Having described the proper definition that should be applied to the word
NATURE, I must advise the reader, once for all, that whenever in the
course of this work the expression occurs, that “Nature produces such or
such an effect,” there is no intention of personifying that nature which
is purely an abstract being; it merely indicates that the effect spoken of
necessarily springs from the peculiar properties of those beings which
compose the mighty macrocosm. When, therefore, it is said, Nature
demands that man should pursue his own happiness, it is to prevent
circumlocution—to avoid tautology; it is to be understood, that it
is the property of a being that feels, that thinks, that acts, to labour
to its own happiness; in short, that is called natural, which is
conformable to the essence of things, or to the laws, which Nature
prescribes to the beings she contains, in the different orders they
occupy, under the various circumstances through which they are obliged to
pass. Thus health is natural to man in a certain state; disease is
natural to him under other circumstances; dissolution, or if they
will, death, is a natural state for a body, deprived of some of
those things, necessary to maintain the existence of the animal, &c.
By ESSENCE is to be understood, that which constitutes a being, such as it
is; the whole of the properties or qualities by which it acts as it does.
Thus, when it is said, it is the essence of a stone to fall, it is
the same as saying that its descent is the necessary effect of its gravity—of
its density—of the cohesion of its parts—of the elements of
which it is composed. In short, the essence of a being is its
particular, its individual nature.

CHAP. II.

Of Motion, and its Origin.

Motion is an effect by which a body either changes, or has a tendency to
change, its position: that is to say, by which it successively corresponds
with different parts of space, or changes its relative distance to other
bodies. It is motion alone that establishes the relation between our
senses and exterior or interior beings: it is only by motion that these
beings are impressed upon us—that we know their existence—that
we judge of their properties—that we distinguish the one from the
other—that we distribute them into classes.

The beings, the substances, or the various bodies of which Nature is the
assemblage, are themselves effects of certain combinations or causes which
become causes in their turn. A CAUSE is a being which puts another in
motion, or which produces some change in it. The EFFECT is the change
produced in one body, by the motion or presence of another.

Each being, by its essence, by its peculiar nature, has the faculty of
producing, is capable of receiving, has the power of communicating, a
variety of motion. Thus some beings are proper to strike our organs; these
organs are competent to receiving the impression, are adequate to
undergoing changes by their presence. Those which cannot act on any of our
organs, either immediately and by themselves, or immediately by the
intervention of other bodies, exist not for us; since they can neither
move us, nor consequently furnish us with ideas: they can neither be known
to us, nor of course be judged of by us. To know an object, is to have
felt it; to feel it, it is requisite to have been moved by it. To see, is
to have been moved, by something acting on the visual organs; to hear, is
to have been struck, by something on our auditory nerves. In short, in
whatever mode a body may act upon us, whatever impulse we may receive from
it, we can have no other knowledge of it than by the change it produces in
us.

Nature, as we have already said, is the assemblage of all the beings,
consequently of all the motion of which we have a knowledge, as well as of
many others of which we know nothing, because they have not yet become
accessible to our senses. From the continual action and re-action of these
beings, result a series of causes and effects; or a chain of motion guided
by the constant and invariable laws peculiar to each being; which are
necessary or inherent to its particular nature—which make it always
act or move after a determinate manner. The different principles of this
motion are unknown to us, because we are in many instances, if not in all,
ignorant of what constitutes the essence of beings. The elements of bodies
escape our senses; we know them only in the mass: we are neither
acquainted with their intimate combination, nor the proportion of these
combinations; from whence must necessarily result their mode of action,
their impulse, or their different effects.

Our senses bring us generally acquainted with two sorts of motion in the
beings that surround us: the one is the motion of the mass, by which an
entire body is transferred from one place to another. Of the motion of
this genus we are perfectly sensible.—Thus, we see a stone fall, a
ball roll, an arm move, or change its position. The other is an internal
or concealed motion, which always depends on the peculiar energies of a
body: that is to say, on its essence, or the combination, the
action, and re-action of the minute—of the insensible particles of
matter, of which that body is composed. This motion we do not see; we know
it only by the alteration or change, which after some time we discover in
these bodies or mixtures. Of this genus is that concealed motion which
fermentation produces in the particles that compose flour, which, however
scattered, however separated, unite, and form that mass which we call
BREAD. Such also is the imperceptible motion by which we see a plant or
animal enlarge, strengthen, undergo changes, and acquire new qualities,
without our eyes being competent to follow its progression, or to perceive
the causes which have produced these effects. Such also is the internal
motion that takes place in man, which is called his INTELLECTUAL
FACULTIES, his THOUGHTS, his PASSIONS, his will. Of these we have no other
mode of judging, than by their action; that is, by those sensible effects
which either accompany or follow them. Thus, when we see a man run away,
we judge him to be interiorly actuated by the passion of fear.

Motion, whether visible or concealed, is styled ACQUIRED, when it is
impressed on one body by another; either by a cause to which we are a
stranger, or by an exterior agent which our senses enable us to discover.
Thus we call that acquired motion, which the wind gives to the
sails of a ship. That motion which is excited in a body, that contains
within itself the causes of those changes we see it undergo, is called
SPONTANEOUS. Then it is said, this body acts or moves by its own peculiar
energies. Of this kind is the motion of the man who walks, who talks, who
thinks. Nevertheless, if we examine the matter a little closer, we shall
be convinced, that, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as
spontaneous motion in any of the various bodies of Nature; seeing they are
perpetually acting one upon the other; that all their changes are to be
attributed to the causes, either visible or concealed, by which they are
moved. The will of man is secretly moved or determined by some exterior
cause that produces a change in him: we believe he moves of himself,
because we neither see the cause that determined him, the mode in which it
acted, nor the organ that it put in motion.

That is called SIMPLE MOTION, which is excited in a body by a single
cause. COMPOUND MOTION, that which is produced by two or more different
causes; whether these causes are equal or unequal, conspiring differently,
acting together or in succession, known or unknown.

Let the motion of beings be of whatsoever nature it may, it is always the
necessary consequence of their essence, or of the properties which compose
them, and of those causes of which they experience the action. Each being
can only move and act after a particular manner; that is to say,
conformably to those laws which result from its peculiar essence, its
particular combination, its individual nature: in short, from its specific
energies, and those of the bodies from which it receives an impulse. It is
this that constitutes the invariable laws of motion: I say invariable,
because they can never change, without producing confusion in the essence
of things. It is thus that a heavy body must necessarily fall, if it meets
with no obstacle sufficient to arrest its descent; that a sensible body
must naturally seek pleasure, and avoid pain; that fire must necessarily
burn, and diffuse light.

Each being, then, has laws of motion, that are adapted to itself, and
constantly acts or moves according to these laws; at least when no
superior cause interrupts its action. Thus, fire ceases to burn
combustible matter, as soon as sufficient water is thrown into it, to
arrest its progress. Thus, a sensible being ceases to seek pleasure, as
soon as he fears that pain will be the result.

The communication of motion, or the medium of action, from one body to
another, also follows certain and necessary laws; one being can only
communicate motion to another, by the affinity, by the resemblance, by the
conformity, by the analogy, or by the point of contact, which it has with
that other being. Fire can only propagate when it finds matter analogous
to itself: it extinguishes when it encounters bodies which it cannot
embrace; that is to say, that do not bear towards it a certain degree of
relation or affinity.

Every thing in the universe is in motion: the essence of matter is to act:
if we consider its parts, attentively, we shall discover there is not a
particle that enjoys absolute repose. Those which appear to us to be
without motion, are, in fact, only in relative or apparent rest; they
experience such an imperceptible motion, and expose it so little on their
surfaces, that we cannot perceive the changes they undergo. All that
appears to us to be at rest, does not, however, remain one instant in the
same state. All beings are continually breeding, increasing, decreasing,
or dispersing, with more or less dullness or rapidity. The insect called
EPHEMERON, is produced and perishes in the same day; of consequence, it
experiences the greatest changes of its being very rapidly, in our eyes.
Those combinations which form the most solid bodies, which appear to enjoy
the most perfect repose, are nevertheless decomposed, and dissolved in the
course of time. The hardest stones, by degrees, give way to the contact of
air. A mass of iron, which time, and the action of the atmosphere, has
gnawed into rust, must have been in motion, from the moment of its
formation, in the bowels of the earth, until the instant we behold it in
this state of dissolution.

Natural philosophers, for the most part, seem not to have sufficiently
reflected on what they call the nisus; that is to say, the
incessant efforts one body is making on another, but which,
notwithstanding appear, to our superficial observation, to enjoy the most
perfect repose. A stone of five hundred weight seems to rest quiet on the
earth, nevertheless, it never ceases for an instant, to press with force
upon the earth, which resists or repulses it in its turn. Will the
assertion be ventured, that the stone and earth do not act? Do they wish
to be undeceived? They have nothing to do but interpose their hand betwixt
the earth and the stone; it will then be discovered, that notwithstanding
its seeming repose, the stone has power adequate to bruise it; because the
hand has not energies sufficient, within itself, to resist effectually
both the stone and earth.—Action cannot exist in bodies without
re-action. A body that experiences an impulse, an attraction, or a
pressure of any kind, if it resists, clearly demonstrates by such
resistance that it re-acts; from whence it follows, there is a concealed
force, called by these philosophers vis inertia, that displays
itself against another force; and this clearly demonstrates, that this
inert force is capable of both acting and re-acting. In short, it will be
found, on close investigation, that those powers which are called dead,
and those which are termed live or moving, are powers of the
same kind; which only display themselves after a different manner. Permit
us to go a greater distance yet. May we not say, that in those bodies, or
masses, of which their whole become evident from appearances to us to be
at rest, there is notwithstanding, a continual action, and counter-action,
constant efforts, uninterrupted or communicated force, and continued
opposition? In short, a nisus, by which the constituting portions
of these bodies press one upon another, mutually resisting each other,
acting and re-acting incessantly? that this reciprocity of action, this
simultaneous re-action, keeps them united, causes their particles to form
a mass, a body, and a combination, which, viewed in its whole, has the
appearance of complete rest, notwithstanding no one of its particles
really ceases to be in motion for a single instant? These collective
masses appear to be at rest, simply by the equality of the motion—by
the responsory impulse of the powers acting in them.

Thus it appears that bodies enjoying perfect repose, really receive,
whether upon their surface, or in their interior, a continual communicated
force, from those bodies by which they are either surrounded or
penetrated, dilated or contracted, rarified or condensed: in fact, from
those which compose them; whereby their particles are incessantly acting
and re-acting, or in continual motion, the effects of which are displayed
by extraordinary changes. Thus heat rarifies and dilates metals, which is
evidence deducible that a bar of iron, from the change of the atmosphere
alone, must be in continual motion; that there is not a single particle in
it that can be said to enjoy rest even for a single moment. In those hard
bodies, indeed, the particles of which are in actual contact, and which
are closely united, how is it possible to conceive, that air, cold, or
heat, can act upon one of these particles, even exteriorly, without the
motion being communicated to those which are most intimate and minute in
their union? Without motion, how should we be able to comprehend the
manner in which our sense of smelling is affected, by emanations escaping
from the most solid bodies, of which all the particles appear to be at
perfect rest? How could we, even by the assistance of a telescope, see the
most distant stars, if there was not a progressive motion of light from
these stars to the retina of our eye?

Observation and reflection ought to convince us, that every thing in
Nature is in continual motion—that there is not a single part,
however small, that enjoys repose—that Nature acts in all—that
she would cease to be Nature if she did not act. Practical knowledge
teaches us, that without unceasing motion, nothing could be preserved—nothing
could be produced—nothing could act in this Nature. Thus the idea of
Nature necessarily includes that of motion. But it will be asked, and not
a little triumphantly, from whence did she derive her motion? Our reply
is, we know not, neither do they—that we never shall, that they
never will. It is a secret hidden from us, concealed from them, by the
most impenetrable veil. We also reply, that it is fair to infer, unless
they can logically prove to the contrary, that it is in herself, since she
is the great whole, out of which nothing can exist. We say this motion is
a manner of existence, that flows, necessarily, out of the nature of
matter; that matter moves by its own peculiar energies; that its motion is
to be attributed to the force which is inherent in itself; that the
variety of motion, and the phenomena which result, proceed from the
diversity of the properties—of the qualities—of the
combinations, which are originally found in the primitive matter, of which
Nature is the assemblage.

Natural philosophers, for the most part, have regarded as inanimate, or as
deprived of the faculty of motion, those bodies which are only moved by
the intervention of some agent or exterior cause; they have considered
themselves justified in concluding, that the matter which forms these
bodies is perfectly inert in its nature. They have not forsaken this
error, although they must have observed, that whenever a body is left to
itself, or disengaged from those obstructions which oppose themselves to
its descent, it has a tendency to fall or to approach the centre of the
earth, by a motion uniformly accelerated; they have rather chosen to
suppose a visionary exterior cause, of which they themselves had but an
imperfect idea, than admit that these bodies held their motion from their
own peculiar nature.

These philosophers, also, notwithstanding they saw above them an infinite
number of globes that moved with great rapidity round a common centre,
still adhered to their favourite opinions; and never ceased to suppose
some whimsical causes for these movements, until the immortal NEWTON
clearly demonstrated that it was the effect of the gravitation of these
celestial bodies towards each other. Experimental philosophers, however,
and amongst them the great Newton himself, have held the cause of
gravitation as inexplicable. Notwithstanding the great weight of this
authority, it appears manifest that it may be deduced from the motion of
matter, by which bodies are diversely determined. Gravitation is nothing
more than a mode of moving—a tendency towards a centre: to speak
strictly, all motion is relative gravitation; since that which falls
relatively to us, rises, with relation to other bodies. From this it
follows, that every motion in our microcosm is the effect of gravitation;
seeing that there is not in the universe either top or bottom, nor any
absolute centre. It should appear, that the weight of bodies depends on
their configuration, as well external as internal, which gives them that
form of action which is called gravitation. Thus, for instance, a piece of
lead, spherically formed, falls quickly and direct: reduce this ball into
very thin plates, it will be sustained in the air for a much longer time:
apply to it the action of fire, this lead will rise in the atmosphere:
here, then, the same metal, variously modified, has very different modes
of action.

A very simple observation would have sufficed to make the philosophers,
antecedent to Newton, feel the inadequateness of the causes they admitted
to operate with such powerful effect. They had a sufficiency to convince
themselves, in the collision of two bodies, which they could contemplate,
and in the known laws of that motion, which these always communicate by
reason of their greater or less compactness; from whence they ought to
have inferred, that the density of subtle or ethereal
matter, being considerably less than that of the planets, it could only
communicate to them a very feeble motion, quite insufficient to produce
that velocity of action, of which they could not possibly avoid being the
witnesses.

If Nature had been viewed uninfluenced by prejudice, they must have been
long since convinced that matter acts by its own peculiar activity; that
it needs no exterior communicative force to set it in motion. They might
have perceived that whenever mixed bodies were placed in a situation to
act on each other, motion was instantly excited; and that these mixtures
acted with a force capable of producing the most surprising results.

If particles of iron, sulphur, and water be mixed together, these bodies
thus capacitated to act on each other, are heated by degrees, and
ultimately produce a violent combustion. If flour be wetted with water,
and the mixture closed up, it will be found, after some lapse of time, (by
the aid of a microscope) to have produced organized beings that enjoy
life, of which the water and the flour were believed incapable: it is thus
that inanimate matter can pass into life, or animate matter, which is in
itself only an assemblage of motion.

Reasoning from analogy, which the philosophers of the present day do not
hold incompatible, the production of a man, independent of the ordinary
means, would not be more astonishing than that of an insect with flour and
water. Fermentation and putrid substances, evidently produce living
animals. We have here the principle; with proper materials, principles can
always be brought into action. That generation which is styled uncertain
is only so for those who do not reflect, or who do not permit themselves,
attentively, to observe the operations of Nature.

The generative of motion, and its developement, as well as the energy of
matter, may be seen everywhere; more particularly in those unitions in
which fire, air, and water, find themselves combined. These elements, or
rather these mixed bodies, are the most volatile, the most fugitive of
beings; nevertheless in the hands of Nature, they are the essential agents
employed to produce the most striking phenomena. To these we must ascribe
the effects of thunder, the eruption of volcanoes, earthquakes, &c.
Science offers to our consideration an agent of astonishing force, in
gunpowder, the instant it comes in contact with fire. In short, the most
terrible effects result from the combination of matter, which is generally
believed to be dead and inert.

These facts prove, beyond a doubt, that motion is produced, is augmented,
is accelerated in matter, without the help of any exterior agent:
therefore it is reasonable to conclude that motion is the necessary
consequence of immutable laws, resulting from the essence, from the
properties existing in the different elements, and the various
combinations of these elements. Are we not justified, then, in concluding,
from these precedents, that there may be an infinity of other
combinations, with which we are unacquainted, competent to produce a great
variety of motion in matter, without being under the necessity of having
recourse, for the explanation, to agents who are more difficult to
comprehend than even the effects which are attributed to them?

Had man but paid proper attention to what passed under his review, he
would not have sought out of Nature, a power distinguished from herself,
to set her in action, and without which he believes she cannot move. If,
indeed, by Nature is meant a heap of dead matter, destitute of peculiar
qualities purely passive, we must unquestionably seek out of this Nature
the principle of her motion. But if by Nature be understood, what it
really is, a whole, of which the numerous parts are endowed with various
properties, which oblige them to act according to these properties; which
are in a perpetual ternateness of action and reaction; which press, which
gravitate towards a common center, whilst others depart from and fly off
towards the periphery, or circumference; which attract and repel; which by
continual approximation and constant collision, produce and decompose all
the bodies we behold; then, I say, there is no necessity to have recourse
to supernatural powers, to account for the formation of things, and those
extraordinary appearances which are the result of motion.

Those who admit a cause exterior to matter, are obliged to believe that
this cause produced all the motion by which matter is agitated in giving
it existence. This belief rests on another, namely, that matter could
begin to exist; an hypothesis that, until this moment, has never been
satisfactorily demonstrated. To produce from nothing, or the CREATION, is
a term that cannot give us the least idea of the formation of the
universe; it presents no sense, upon which the mind can rely. In fact, the
human mind is not adequate to conceive a moment of non-existence, or when
all shall have passed away; even admitting this to be a truth, it is no
truth for us, because by the very nature of our organization, we cannot
admit positions as facts, of which no evidence can be adduced that has
relation to our senses; we may, indeed, consent to believe it, because
others say it; but will any rational being be satisfied with such an
admission? Can any moral good spring from such blind assurance? Is it
consistent with sound doctrine, with philosophy, or with reason? Do we, in
fact, pay any respect to the intellectual powers of another, when we say
to him, “I will believe this, because in all the attempts you have
ventured, for the purpose of proving what you say, you have entirely
failed; and have been at last obliged to acknowledge you know nothing
about the matter?” What moral reliance ought we to have on such people?
Hypothesis may succeed hypothesis; system may destroy system: a new set of
ideas may overturn the ideas of a former day. Other Gallileos may be
condemned to death—other Newtons may arise—we may reason—argue—dispute—quarrel—punish
and destroy: nay, we may even exterminate those who differ from us in
opinion; but when we have done all this, we shall be obliged to fall back
upon our original darkness—to confess, that that which has no
relation with our senses, that which cannot manifest itself to us by some
of the ordinary modes by which other things are manifested, has no
existence for us—is not comprehensible by us—can never
entirely remove our doubt—can never seize on our stedfast belief;
seeing it is that of which we cannot form even a notion; in short, that it
is that, which as long as we remain what we are, must be hidden from us by
a veil, which no power, no faculty, no energy we possess, is able to
remove. All who are not enslaved by prejudice agree to the truth of the
position, that nothing can be made of nothing. Many theologians
have acknowledged Nature to be an active whole. Almost all the ancient
philosophers were agreed to regard the world as eternal. OCELLUS LUCANUS,
speaking of the universe, says, “it has always been, and it always will
be.” VATABLE and GROTIUS assure us, that to render the Hebrew phrase
in the first chapter of GENESIS correctly, we must say, “when God made
heaven and earth, matter was without form.” If this be true, and every
Hebraist can judge for himself, then the word which has been rendered created,
means only to fashion, form, arrange. We know that the Greek words create
and form, have always indicated the same thing. According to ST.
JEROME, creare has the same meaning as condere, to found, to
build. The Bible does not anywhere say in a clear manner, that the world
was made of nothing. TERTULLIAN and the father PETAU both admit, that “this
is a truth established more by reason than by authority.” ST. JUSTIN
seems to have contemplated matter as eternal, since he commends PLATO for
having said, that “God, in the creation of the world, only gave impulse
to matter, and fashioned it.” BURNET and PYTHAGORAS were entirely of
this opinion, and even our Church Service may be adduced in support; for
although it admits by implication a beginning, it expressly denies an end:
“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without
end.” It is easy to perceive that that which cannot cease to exist,
must have always been.

Motion becomes still more obscure, when creation, or the formation of
matter, is attributed to a SPIRITUAL being; that is to say, to a being
which has no analogy, no point of contact, with it—to a being which
has neither extent or parts, and cannot, therefore, be susceptible of
motion, as we understand the term; this being only the change of one body,
relatively to another body, in which the body moved presents successively
different parts to different points of space. Moreover, as all the world
are nearly agreed that matter can never be totally annihilated, or cease
to exist; by what reasoning, I would ask, do they comprehend—how
understand—that that which cannot cease to be, could ever have had a
beginning?

If, therefore, it be asked, whence came matter? it is very reasonable to
say it has always existed. If it be inquired, whence proceeds the motion
that agitates matter? the same reasoning furnishes the answer; namely,
that as motion is coeval with matter, it must have existed from all
eternity, seeing that motion is the necessary consequence of its existence—of
its essence—of its primitive properties, such as its extent, its
gravity, its impenetrability, its figure, &c. By virtue of these
essential constituent properties, inherent in all matter, and without
which it is impossible to form an idea of it, the various matter of which
the universe is composed must from all eternity have pressed against, each
other—have gravitated towards a center—have clashed—have
come in contact—have been attracted—have been repelled—have
been combined—have been separated: in short, must have acted and
moved according to the essence and energy peculiar to each genus, and to
each of its combinations.

Existence supposes properties in the thing that exists: whenever it has
properties, its mode of action must necessarily flow from those properties
which constitute, its mode of being. Thus, when a body is ponderous, it
must fall; when it falls, it must come in collision with the bodies it
meets in its descent; when it is dense, when it is solid, it must, by
reason of this density, communicate motion to the bodies with which it
clashes; when it has analogy, when it has affinity with these bodies, it
must be attracted, must be united with them; when it has no point of
analogy with them, it must be repulsed.

From which it may be fairly inferred, that in supposing, as we are under
the necessity of doing, the existence of matter, we must suppose it to
have some kind of properties; from which its motion, or modes of action,
must necessarily flow. To form the universe, DESCARTES asked but matter
and motion: a diversity of matter sufficed for him; variety of motion was
the consequence of its existence, of its essence, of its properties: its
different modes of action would be the necessary consequence of its
different modes of being. Matter without properties would be a mere
nothing; therefore, as soon as matter exists, it must act; as soon as it
is various, it must act variously; if it cannot commence to exist, it must
have existed from all eternity; if it has always existed, it can never
cease to be: if it can never cease to be, it can never cease to act by its
own energy. Motion is a manner of being, which matter derives from its
peculiar existence.

The existence, then, of matter is a fact: the existence of motion is
another fact. Our visual organs point out to us matter with different
essences, forming a variety of combinations, endowed with various
properties that discriminate them. Indeed, it is a palpable error to
believe that matter is a homogeneous body, of which the parts differ from
each other only by their various modifications. Among the individuals of
the same species that come under our notice, no two resemble exactly; and
it is therefore evident that the difference of situation alone will,
necessarily, carry a diversity more or less sensible, not only in the
modifications, but also in the essence, in the properties, in the entire
system of beings. This truth was well understood by the profound and
subtle LEIBNITZ.

If this principle be properly digested, and experience seems always to
produce evidence of its truth, we must be convinced that the matter or
primitive elements which enter into the composition of bodies, are not of
the same nature, and consequently, can neither have the same properties,
nor the same modifications; and if so, they cannot have the same mode of
moving and acting. Their activity or motion, already different, can be
diversified to infinity, augmented or diminished, accelerated or retarded,
according to the combinations, the proportions, the pressure, the density,
the volume of the matter, that enters their composition. The endless
variety to be produced, will need no further illustration than the
commonest book of arithmetic furnishes us, where it will be found, that to
ring all the changes that can be produced on twelve bells only, would
occupy a space of more than ninety-one years. The element of fire is
visibly more active and more inconstant than that of earth. This is more
solid and ponderous than fire, air, or water. According to the quantity of
these elements, which enter the composition of bodies, these must act
diversely, and their motion must in some measure partake the motion
peculiar to each of their constituent parts. Elementary fire appears to be
in Nature the principle of activity; it may be compared to a fruitful
leaven, that puts the mass into fermentation and gives it life. Earth
appears to be the principle of solidity in bodies, from its
impenetrability, and by the firm coherence of its parts. Water is a
medium, to facilitate the combination of bodies, into which it enters
itself, as a constituent part. Air is a fluid whose business it seems to
be, to furnish the other elements with the space requisite to expand, to
exercise their motion, and which is, moreover, found proper to combine
with them. These elements, which our senses never discover in a pure state—which
are continually and reciprocally set in motion by each other—which
are always acting and re-acting, combining and separating, attracting and
repelling—are sufficient to explain to us the formation of all the
beings we behold. Their motion is uninterruptedly and reciprocally
produced from each other; they are alternately causes and effects. Thus,
they form a vast circle of generation and destruction—of combination
and decomposition, which, it is quite reasonable to suppose, could never
have had a beginning, and which, consequently can never have an end. In
short, Nature is but an immense chain of causes and effects, which
unceasingly flow from each other. The motion of particular beings depends
on the general motion, which is itself maintained by individual motion.
This is strengthened or weakened, accelerated or retarded, simplified or
complicated, procreated or destroyed, by a variety of combinations and
circumstances, which every moment change the directions, the tendency, the
modes of existing, and of acting, of the different beings that receive its
impulse.

If it were true, as has been asserted by some philosophers, that every
thing has a tendency to form one unique or single mass, and in that unique
mass the instant should arrive when all was in nisus, all would
eternally remain in this state; to all eternity there would be no more
than one Being and one effort: this would be eternal and universal death.

If we desire to go beyond this, to find the principle of action in matter,
to trace the origin of things, it is for ever to fall back upon
difficulties; it is absolutely to abridge the evidence of our senses; by
which only we can understand, by which alone we can judge of the causes
acting upon them, or the impulse by which they are set in action.

Let us, therefore, content ourselves with saying WHAT is supported by our
experience, and by all the evidence we are capable of understanding;
against the truth of which not a shadow of proof, such as our reason can
admit, has ever been adduced—which has been maintained by
philosophers in every age—which theologians themselves have not
denied, but which many of them have upheld; namely, that matter always
existed; that it moves by virtue of its essence; that all the phenomena of
Nature is ascribable to the diversified motion of the variety of matter
she contains; and which, like the phoenix, is continually regenerating out
of its own ashes.

CHAP. III.

Of Matter.—Of its various Combinations.—Of its diversified
Motion, or of the Course of Nature.

We know nothing of the elements of bodies, but we know some of their
properties or qualities; and we distinguish their various matter by the
effect or change produced on our senses; that is to say, by the variety of
motion their presence excites in us. In consequence, we discover in them,
extent, mobility, divisibility, solidity, gravity, and inert force. From
these general and primitive properties flow a number of others, such as
density, figure, colour, ponderosity, &c. Thus, relatively to us,
matter is all that affects our senses in any manner whatever; the various
properties we attribute to matter, by which we discriminate its diversity,
are founded on the different impressions we receive on the changes they
produce in us.

A satisfactory definition of matter has not yet been given. Man, deceived
and led astray by his prejudices, formed but vague, superficial, and
imperfect notions concerning it. He looked upon it as an unique being,
gross and passive, incapable of either moving by itself, of forming
combinations, or of producing any thing by its own energies. Instead of
this unintelligible jargon, he ought to have contemplated it as a genus
of beings, of which the individuals, although they might possess some
common properties, such as extent, divisibility, figure, &c. should
not, however, be all ranked in the same class, nor comprised under the
same general denomination.

An example will serve more fully to explain what we have asserted, throw
its correctness into light, and facilitate the application. The properties
common to all matter, are extent, divisibility, impenetrability, figure,
mobility, or the property of being moved in mass. FIRE, beside these
general properties, common to all matter, enjoys also the peculiar
property of being put into activity by a motion that produces on our
organs of feeling the sensation of heat; and by another, that communicates
to our visual organs the sensation of light. Iron, in common with matter
in general, has extent and figure; is divisible, and moveable in mass: if
fire be combined with it in a certain proportion, the iron acquires two
new properties; namely, those of exciting in us similar sensations of heat
and light, which were excited by the element of fire, but which the iron
had not, before its combination with the igneous matter. These
distinguishing properties are inseparable from matter, and the phenomena
that result, may, in the strictest sense of the word, be said to result
necessarily.

If we contemplate a little the paths of Nature—if, for a time, we
trace the beings in this Nature, under the different states through which,
by reason of their properties, they are compelled to pass; we shall
discover, that it is to motion, and motion only, that is to be ascribed
all the changes, all the combinations, all the forms, in short, all the
various modifications of matter. That it is by motion every thing that
exists is produced, experiences change, expands, and is destroyed. It is
motion that alters the aspect of beings; that adds to, or takes away from
their properties; which obliges each of them, by a consequence of its
nature, after having occupied a certain rank or order, to quit it, to
occupy another, and to contribute to the generation, maintenance, and
decomposition of other beings, totally different in their bulk, rank, and
essence.

In what experimental philosophers have styled the THREE ORDERS OF NATURE,
that is to say, the mineral, the vegetable, and animal
worlds, they have established, by the aid of motion, a transmigration, an
exchange, a continual circulation in the particles of matter. Nature has
occasion in one place, for those particles which, for a time, she has
placed in another. These particles, after having, by particular
combinations, constituted beings endued with peculiar essences, with
specific properties, with determinate modes of action, dissolve and
separate with more or less facility; and combining in a new manner, they
form new beings. The attentive observer sees this law execute itself, in a
manner more or less prominent, through all the beings by which he is
surrounded. He sees nature full of erratic germe, some of which
expand themselves, whilst others wait until motion has placed them in
their proper situation, in suitable wombs or matrices, in the necessary
circumstances, to unfold, to increase, to render them more perceptible by
the addition of other substances of matter analogous to their primitive
being. In all this we see nothing but the effect of motion, necessarily
guided, modified, accelerated or slackened, strengthened or weakened, by
reason of the various properties that beings successively acquire and
lose; which, every moment, infallibly produces alterations in bodies more
or less marked. Indeed, these bodies cannot be, strictly speaking, the
same in any two successive moments of their existence; they must, every
instant, either acquire or lose: in short, they are obliged to undergo
continual variations in their essences, in their properties, in their
energies, in their masses, in their qualities, in their mode of existence.

Animals, after they have been expanded in, and brought out of, the wombs
that are suitable to the elements of their machine, enlarge, strengthen,
acquire new properties, new energies, new faculties; either by deriving
nourishment from plants analogous to their being, or by devouring other
animals whose substance is suitable to their preservation; that is to say,
to repair the continual deperdition or loss of some portion of their own
substance, that is disengaging itself every instant. These same animals
are nourished, preserved, strengthened, and enlarged, by the aid of air,
water, earth, and fire. Deprived of air, or of the fluid that surrounds
them, that presses on them, that penetrates them, that gives them their
elasticity, they presently cease to live. Water, combined with this air,
enters into their whole mechanism of which it facilitates the motion.
Earth serves them for a basis, by giving solidity to their texture: it is
conveyed by air and water, which carry it to those parts of the body with
which it can combine. Fire itself, disguised and enveloped under an
infinity of forms, continually received into the animal, procures him
heat, continues him in life, renders him capable of exercising his
functions. The aliments, charged with these various principles, entering
into the stomach, re-establish the nervous system, and restore, by their
activity, and the elements which compose them, the machine which begins to
languish, to be depressed, by the loss it has sustained. Forthwith the
animal experiences a change in his whole system; he has more energy, more
activity; he feels more courage; displays more gaiety; he acts, he moves,
he thinks, after a different manner; all his faculties are exercised with
more ease. This igneous matter, so congenial to generation—so
restorative in its effect—so necessary to life, was the JUPITER of
the ancients: from all that has preceded, it is clear, that what are
called the elements, or primitive parts of matter, variously combined,
are, by the agency of motion, continually united to, and assimilated with,
the substance of animals—that they visibly modify their being—have
an evident influence over their actions, that is to say, upon the motion
they undergo, whether visible or concealed.

The same elements, which under certain circumstances serve to nourish, to
strengthen, to maintain the animal, become, under others, the principles
of his weakness, the instruments of his dissolution—of his death:
they work his destruction, whenever they are not in that just proportion
which renders them proper to maintain his existence: thus, when water
becomes too abundant in the body of the animal, it enervates him, it
relaxes the fibres, and impedes the necessary action of the other
elements: thus, fire admitted in excess, excites in him disorderly motion
destructive of his machine: thus, air, charged with principles not
analogous to his mechanism, brings upon him dangerous diseases and
contagion. In fine, the aliments modified after certain modes, in the room
of nourishing, destroy the animal, and conduce to his ruin: the animal is
preserved no longer than these substances are analogous to his system.
They ruin him when they want that just equilibrium that renders them
suitable to maintain his existence.

Plants that serve to nourish and restore animals are themselves nourished
by earth; they expand on its bosom, enlarge and strengthen at its expense,
continually receiving into their texture, by their roots and their pores,
water, air, and igneous matter: water visibly reanimates them whenever
their vegetation or genus of life languishes; it conveys to them those
analogous principles by which they are enabled to reach perfection: air is
requisite to their expansion, and furnishes them with water, earth, and
the igneous matter with which it is charged. By these means they receive
more or less of the inflammable matter; the different proportions of these
principles, their numerous combinations, from whence result an infinity of
properties, a variety of forms, constitute the various families and
classes into which botanists have distributed plants: it is thus we see
the cedar and the hyssop develop their growth; the one rises to the
clouds, the other creep humbly on the earth. Thus, by degrees, from an
acorn springs the majestic oak, accumulating, with time, its numerous
branches, and overshadowing us with its foliage. Thus, a grain of corn,
after having drawn its own nourishment from the juices of the earth,
serves, in its turn, for the nourishment of man, into whose system it
conveys the elements or principles by which it has been itself expanded,
combined, and modified in such a manner, as to render this vegetable
proper to assimilate and unite with the human frame; that is to say, with
the fluids and solids of which it is composed.

The same elements, the same principles, are found in the formation of
minerals, as well as in their decomposition, whether natural or
artificial. We find that earth, diversely modified, wrought, and combined,
serves to increase their bulk, and give them more or less density and
gravity. Air and water contribute to make their particles cohere; the
igneous matter, or inflammable principle, tinges them with colour, and
sometimes plainly indicates its presence, by the brilliant scintillation
which motion elicits from them. These stones and metals, these bodies, so
compact and solid, are disunited, are destroyed, by the agency of air,
water, and fire; which the most ordinary analysis is sufficient to prove,
as well as a multitude of experience, to which our eyes are the daily
evidence.

Animals, plants, and minerals, after a lapse of time, give back to Nature;
that is to say, to the general mass of things, to the universal magazine,
the elements, or principles, which they have borrowed: The earth retakes
that portion of the body of which it formed the basis and the solidity;
the air charges itself with these parts, that are, analogous to it, and
with those particles which are light and subtle; water carries off that
which is suitable to liquescency; fire, bursting its chains, disengages
itself, and rushes into new combinations with other bodies.

The elementary particles of the animal, being thus dissolved, disunited,
and dispersed; assume new activity, and form new combinations: thus, they
serve to nourish, to preserve, or destroy new beings; among others,
plants, which arrived at their maturity, nourish and preserve new animals;
these in their turn yielding to the same fate as the first.

Such is the constant, the invariable course, of Nature; such is the
eternal circle of mutation, which all that exists is obliged to describe.
It is thus motion generates, preserves for a time, and successively,
destroys, one part of the universe by the other; whilst the sum of
existence remains eternally the same. Nature, by its combinations,
produces suns, which place themselves in the centre of so many systems:
she forms planets, which, by their peculiar essence, gravitate and
describe their revolutions round these suns: by degrees the motion is
changed altogether, and becomes eccentric: perhaps the day may arrive when
these wondrous masses will disperse, of which man, in the short space of
his existence, can only have a faint and transient glimpse.

It is clear, then, that the continual motion inherent in matter, changes
and destroys all beings; every instant depriving them of some of their
properties, to substitute others: it is motion, which, in thus changing
their actual essence, changes also their order, their direction, their
tendency, and the laws which regulate their mode of acting and being: from
the stone formed in the bowels of the earth, by the intimate combination
and close coherence of similar and analogous particles, to the sun, that
vast reservoir of igneous particles, which sheds torrents of light over
the firmament; from the benumbed oyster, to the thoughtful and active man;
we see an uninterrupted progression, a perpetual chain of motion and
combination; from which is produced, beings that only differ from each
other by the variety of their elementary matter—by the numerous
combinations of these elements, from whence springs modes of action and
existence, diversified to infinity. In generation, in nutrition, in
preservation, we see nothing more than matter, variously combined, of
which each has its peculiar motion, regulated by fixed and determinate
laws, which oblige them to submit to necessary changes. We shall find, in
the formation, in the growth, in the instantaneous life, of animals,
vegetables, and minerals, nothing but matter; which combining,
accumulating, aggregating, and expanding by degrees, forms beings, who are
either feeling, living, vegetating, or else destitute of these faculties;
which, having existed some time under one particular form, are obliged to
contribute by their ruin to the production of other forms.

Thus, to speak strictly, nothing in Nature is either born, or dies,
according to the common acceptation of those terms. This truth was felt by
many of the ancient philosophers. PLATO says, that according to tradition,
“the living were born of the dead, the same as the dead did come of the
living; and that this is the constant routine of Nature.” He adds from
himself, “who knows, if to live, be not to die; and if to die, be not to
live?” This was the doctrine of PYTHAGORAS, a man of great talent and no
less note. EMPEDOCLES asserts, “there is neither birth nor death, for any
mortal; but only a combination, and a separation of that which was
combined, and that this is what amongst men they call birth, and death.”
Again he remarks, “those are infants, or short-sighted persons, with very
contracted understandings, who imagine any thing is born, which did not
exist before, or that any thing can die or perish totally.”

CHAP. IV.

Laws of Motion, common to every Being of Nature.—Attraction and
Repulsion.—Inert Force.—Necessity.

Man is never surprised at those effects, of which he thinks he knows the
cause; he believes he does know the cause, as soon as he sees them act in
an uniform and determinate manner, or when the motion excited is simple:
the descent of a stone, that falls by its own peculiar weight, is an
object of contemplation to the philosopher only; to whom the mode by which
the most immediate causes act, and the most simple motion, are no less
impenetrable mysteries than the most complex motion, and the manner by
which the most complicated causes give impulse. The uninformed are seldom
tempted either to examine the effects which are familiar to them, or to
recur to first principles. They think they see nothing in the descent of a
stone, which ought to elicit their surprise, or become the object of their
research: it requires a NEWTON to feel that the descent of heavy bodies is
a phenomenon, worthy his whole, his most serious attention; it requires
the sagacity of a profound experimental philosopher, to discover the laws
by which heavy bodies fall, by which they communicate to others their
peculiar motion. In short, the mind that is most practised in
philosophical observation, has frequently the chagrin to find, that the
most simple and most common effects escape all his researches, and remain
inexplicable to him.

When any extraordinary, any unusual, effect is produced, to which our eyes
have not been accustomed; or when we are ignorant of the energies of the
cause, the action of which so forcibly strikes our senses, we are tempted
to meditate upon it, and take it into our consideration. The European,
accustomed to the use of GUNPOWDER, passes it by, without thinking much of
its extraordinary energies; the workman, who labours to manufacture it,
finds nothing marvellous in its properties, because he daily handles the
matter that forms its composition. The American, to whom this powder was a
stranger, who had never beheld its operation, looked upon it as a divine
power, and its energies as supernatural. The uninformed, who are ignorant
of the true cause of THUNDER, contemplate it as the instrument of divine
vengeance. The experimental philosopher considers it as the effect of the
electric matter, which, nevertheless, is itself a cause which he is very
far from perfectly understanding.—It required the keen, the
penetrating mind of a FRANKLIN, to throw light on the nature of this
subtle fluid—to develop the means by which its effects might be
rendered harmless—to turn to useful purposes, a phenomenon that made
the ignorant tremble—that filled their minds with terror, their
hearts with dismay, as indicating the anger of the gods: impressed with
this idea, they prostrated themselves, they sacrificed to JUPITER, to
deprecate his wrath.

Be this as it may, whenever we see a cause act, we look upon its effect as
natural: when this cause becomes familiar to the sight, when we are
accustomed to it, we think we understand it, and its effects surprise us
no longer. Whenever any unusual effect is perceived, without our
discovering the cause, the mind sets to work, becomes uneasy; this
uneasiness increases in proportion to its extent: as soon as it is
believed to threaten our preservation, we become completely agitated; we
seek after the cause with an earnestness proportioned to our alarm; our
perplexity augments in a ratio equivalent to the persuasion we are under:
how essentially requisite it is, we should become acquainted with the
cause that has affected us in so lively a manner. As it frequently happens
that our senses can teach us nothing respecting this cause which so deeply
interests us—which we seek with so much ardour, we have recourse to
our imagination; this, disturbed with alarm, enervated by fear, becomes a
suspicious, a fallacious guide: we create chimeras, fictitious causes, to
whom we give the credit, to whom we ascribe the honour of those phenomena
by which we have been so much alarmed. It is to this disposition of the
human mind that must be attributed, as will be seen in the sequel, the
religious errors of man, who, despairing of the capacity to trace the
natural causes of those perplexing phenomena to which he was the witness,
and sometimes the victim, created in his brain (heated with terror)
imaginary causes, which have become to him a source of the most
extravagant folly.

In Nature, however, there can be only natural causes and effects; all
motion excited in this Nature, follows constant and necessary laws: the
natural operations, to the knowledge of which we are competent, of which
we are in a capacity to judge, are of themselves sufficient to enable us
to discover those which elude our sight; we can at least judge of them by
analogy. If we study Nature with attention, the modes of action which she
displays to our senses will teach us not to be disconcerted by those which
she refuses to discover. Those causes which are the most remote from their
effects, unquestionably act by intermediate causes; by the aid of these,
we can frequently trace out the first. If in the chain of these causes we
sometimes meet with obstacles that oppose themselves to our research, we
ought to endeavour by patience and diligence to overcome them; when it so
happens we cannot surmount the difficulties that occur, we still are never
justified in concluding the chain to be broken, or that the cause which
acts is SUPER-NATURAL. Let us, then, be content with an honest avowal,
that Nature contains resources of which we are ignorant; but never let us
substitute phantoms, fictions, or imaginary causes, senseless terms, for
those causes which escape our research; because, by such means we only
confirm ourselves in ignorance, impede our enquiries, and obstinately
remain in error.

In spite of our ignorance with respect to the meanderings of Nature, (for
of the essence of being, of their properties, their elements, their
combinations, their proportions, we yet know the simple and general laws,
according to which bodies move;) we see clearly, that some of these laws,
common to all beings, never contradict themselves; although, on some
occasions, they appear to vary, we are frequently competent to discover
that the cause becoming complex, from combination with other causes,
either impedes or prevents its mode of action being such as in its
primitive state we had a right to expect. We know that active, igneous
matter, applied to gunpowder, must necessarily cause it to explode:
whenever this effect does not follow the combination of the igneous matter
with the gunpowder—whenever our senses do not give us evidence of
the fact, we are justified in concluding, either that the powder is damp,
or that it is united with some other substance that counteracts its
explosion. We know that all the actions of man have a tendency to render
him happy: whenever, therefore, we see him labouring to injure or destroy
himself, it is just to infer that he is moved by some cause opposed to his
natural tendency; that he is deceived by some prejudice; that, for want of
experience, he is blind to consequences: that he does not see whither his
actions will lead him.

If the motion excited in beings was always simple; if their actions did
not blend and combine with each other, it would be easy to know, and we
should be assured, in the first instance, of the effect a cause would
produce. I know that a stone, when descending, ought to describe a
perpendicular: I also know, that if it encounters any other body which
changes its course, it is obliged to take an oblique direction, but if its
fall be interrupted by several contrary powers, which act upon it
alternately, I am no longer competent to determine what line it will
describe. It may be a parabola, an ellipsis, spiral, circular, &c.
this will depend on the impulse, it receives, and the powers by which it
is impelled.

The most complex motion, however, is never more than the result of simple
motion combined: therefore as soon as we know the general laws of beings
and their action, we have only to decompose, to analyse them, in order to
discover those of which they are combined; experience teaches us the
effects we are to expect. Thus it is clear, the simplest motion causes
that necessary junction of different matter, of which all bodies are
composed: that matter, varied in its essence, in its properties, in its
combinations, has each its several modes of action or motion, peculiar to
itself; the whole motion of a body is consequently the sum total of each
particular motion that is combined.

Amongst the matter we behold, some is constantly disposed to unite, whilst
other is incapable of union; that which is suitable to unite, forms
combinations, more or less intimate, possessing more or less durability:
that is to say, with more or less capacity to preserve their union, to
resist dissolution. Those bodies which are called SOLIDS, receive into
their composition a great number of homogeneous, similar, and analogous
particles, disposed to unite themselves with energies conspiring or
tending to the same point. The primitive beings, or elements of bodies,
have need of supports, of props; that is to say, of the presence of each
other, for the purpose of preserving themselves; of acquiring consistence
or solidity: a truth, which applies with equal uniformity to what is
called physical, as to what is termed moral.

It is upon this disposition in matter and bodies, with relation to each
other, that is founded those modes of action which natural philosophers
designate by the terms attraction, repulsion, sympathy, antipathy,
affinities, relations; that moralists describe under the names of love,
hatred, friendship, aversion. Man, like all the beings in nature,
experiences the impulse of attraction and repulsion; the motion excited in
him differing from that of other beings, only, because it is more
concealed, and frequently so hidden, that neither the causes which excite
it, nor their mode of action are known. This system of attraction and
repulsion is very ancient, although it required a NEWTON to develop it.
That love, to which the ancients attributed the unfolding, or
disentanglement of chaos, appears to have been nothing more than a
personification of the principle of attraction. All their allegories and
fables upon chaos, evidently indicate nothing more than the accord or
union that exists between analogous and homogeneous substances; from
whence resulted the existence of the universe: whilst discord or
repulsion, which they called SOIS, was the cause of dissolution,
confusion, and disorder; there can scarcely remain a doubt, but this was
the origin of the doctrines of the TWO PRINCIPLES. According to DIOGENES
LAERTIUS, the philosopher, EMPEDOCLES, asserted, that “there is a kind
of affection by which the elements unite themselves; and a sort of
discord, by which they separate or remove themselves.”

However it may be, it is sufficient for us to know that by an invariable
law, certain bodies are disposed to unite with more or less facility;
whilst others cannot combine or unite themselves: water combines itself
readily with salt, but will not blend with oil. Some combinations are very
strong, cohering with great force, as metals; others are extremely feeble,
their cohesion slight and easily decomposed, as in fugitive colours. Some
bodies, incapable of uniting by themselves, become susceptible of union by
the agency of other bodies, which serve for common bonds or MEDIUMS. Thus,
oil and water, naturally heterogeneous, combine and make soap, by the
intervention of alkaline salt. From matter diversely combined, in
proportions varied almost to infinity, result all physical and moral
bodies; the properties and qualities of which are essentially different,
with modes of action more or less complex: which are either understood
with facility, or difficult of comprehension, according to the elements or
matter that has entered into their composition, and the various
modifications this matter has undergone.

It is thus, from the reciprocity of their attraction, the primitive
imperceptible particles of matter, which constitute bodies, become
perceptible, form compound substances, aggregate masses; by the union of
similar and analogous matter, whose essences fit them to cohere. The same
bodies are dissolved, their union broken, whenever they undergo the action
of matter inimical to their junction. Thus by degrees are formed, plants,
metals, animals, men; each grows, expands, and increases in its own system
or order; sustaining itself in its respective existence, by the continual
attraction of analogous matter; to which it becomes united, and by which
it is preserved and strengthened. Thus, certain aliments become fit for
the sustenance of man, whilst others destroy his existence: some are
pleasant to him, strengthen his habit; others are repugnant to him, weaken
his system: in short, never to separate physical from moral laws, it is
thus that men, mutually attracted to each other by their reciprocal wants,
form those unions which we designate by the terms, MARRIAGE, FAMILIES,
SOCIETIES, FRIENDSHIPS, CONNEXIONS: it is thus that virtue strengthens and
consolidates them; that vice relaxes or totally dissolves them.

Of whatever nature may be the combination of beings, their motion has
always one direction or tendency: without direction we could not have any
idea of motion: this direction is regulated by the properties of each
being; as soon as they have any given properties, they necessarily act in
obedience to them: that is to say, they follow the law invariably
determined by these same properties; which, of themselves, constitute the
being such as he is found, and settle his mode of action, which is always
the consequence of his manner of existence. But what is the general
direction, or common tendency, we see in all beings? What is the visible
and known end of all their motion? It is to conserve their actual
existence—to preserve themselves—to strengthen their several
bodies—to attract that which is favorable to them—to repel
that which is injurious them—to avoid that which can harm them—to
resist impulsions contrary to their manner of existence, and to their
natural tendency.

To exist, is to experience the motion peculiar to a determinate essence:
to conserve this existence, is to give and receive that motion from which
results its maintenance:—it is to attract matter suitable to
corroborate its being—to avoid that by which it may be either
endangered or enfeebled. Thus, all beings of which we have any knowledge,
have a tendency to conserve themselves, each after its peculiar manner:
the stone, by the firm adhesion of its particles, opposes resistance to
its destruction. Organized beings conserve themselves by more complicated
means, but which are, nevertheless, calculated to maintain their existence
against that by which it may be injured. Man, both in his physical and in
his moral capacity, is a living, feeling, thinking, active being; who,
every instant of his duration, strives equally to avoid that which may be
injurious, and to procure that which is pleasing to him, or that which is
suitable to his mode of existence; all his actions tending solely to
conserve himself. ST. AUGUSTINE admits this tendency in all whether
organized or not.

Conservation, then, is the common point to which all the energies, all the
powers, all the faculties of beings, seem continually directed. Natural
philosophers call this direction or tendency, SELF-GRAVITATION: NEWTON
calls it INERT FORCE: moralists denominate it in man, SELF-LOVE which is
nothing more than the tendency he has to preserve himself—a desire
of happiness—a love of his own welfare—a wish for pleasure—a
promptitude in seizing on every thing that appears favourable to his
conservation—a marked aversion to all that either disturbs his
happiness, or menaces his existence—primitive sentiments, that are
common to all beings of the human species; which all their faculties are
continually striving to satisfy; which all their passions, their wills,
their actions, have eternally for their object and their end. This
self-gravitation, then, is clearly a necessary disposition in man, and in
all other beings; which, by a variety means, contribute to the
preservation of the existence they have received, as long as nothing
deranges the order of their machine, or its primitive tendency.

Cause always produces effect; there can be no effect without cause.
Impulse is always followed by some motion, more or less sensible; by some
change, more or less remarkable in the body which receives it. But motion,
and its various modes of displaying itself, is, as has been already shewn,
determined by the nature, the essence, the properties, the combinations of
the beings acting. It must, then, be concluded that motion, or the modes
by which beings act, arises from some cause; that as this cause is not
able to move or act, but in conformity with the manner of its being or its
essential properties, it must equally be concluded, that all the phenomena
we perceive are necessary; that every being in Nature, under the
circumstances in which it is placed, and with the given properties it
possesses, cannot act otherwise than it does.

Necessity is the constant and infallible relation of causes with their
effects. Fire consumes, of necessity, combustible matter plated within its
circuit of action: man, by fatality, desires either that which really is,
or appears to be serviceable to his welfare. Nature, in all the
extraordinary appearances she exhibits, necessarily acts after her own
peculiar essence: all the beings she contains, necessarily act each after
its own a individual nature: it is by motion that the whole has relation
with its parts; and these parts with the whole: it is thus that in the
general system every thing is connected: it is itself but an immense chain
of causes and effects, which flow without ceasing, one from the other. If
we reflect, we shall be obliged to acknowledge that every thing we see is
necessary; that it cannot be otherwise than it is; that all the beings we
behold, as well as those which escape our sight, act by invariable laws.
According to these laws, heavy bodies fall—light bodies ascend—analogous
substances attract each other—beings tend to preserve themselves—man
cherishes himself; loves that which he thinks advantageous—detests
that which he has an idea may prove unfavourable to him.—In fine, we
are obliged to admit, there can be no perfectly independent energy—no
separated cause—no detached action, in a nature where all the beings
are in a reciprocity of action—who, without interruption, mutually
impel and resist each other—who is herself nothing more than an
eternal circle of motion, given and received according to necessary laws;
which under the same given incidents, invariably produce the same effect.

Two examples will serve to throw the principle here laid down, into light—one
shall be taken from physics, the other from morals.

In a whirlwind of dust, raised by elemental force, confused as it appears
to our eyes, in the most frightful tempest excited by contrary winds, when
the waves roll high as mountains, there is not a single particle of dust,
or drop of water, that has been placed by CHANCE, that has not a cause for
occupying the place where it is found; that does not, in the most rigorous
sense of the word, act after the manner in which it ought to act; that is,
according to its own peculiar essence, and that of the beings from whom it
receives this communicated force. A geometrician exactly knew the
different energies acting in each case, with the properties of the
particles moved, could demonstrate that after the causes given, each
particle acted precisely as it ought to act, and that it could not have
acted otherwise than it did.

In those terrible convulsions that sometimes agitate political societies,
shake their foundations, and frequently produce the overthrow of an
empire; there is not a single action, a single word, a single thought, a
single will, a single passion in the agents, whether they act as
destroyers, or as victims, that is not the necessary result of the causes
operating; that does not act, as, of necessity, it must act, from the
peculiar essence of the beings who give the impulse, and that of the
agents who receive it, according to the situation these agents fill in the
moral whirlwind. This could be evidently proved by an understanding
capacitated to rate all the action and re-action, of the minds and bodies
of those who contributed to the revolution.

In fact, if all be connected in Nature, if all motion be produced, the one
from the other, notwithstanding their secret communications frequently
elude our sight; we ought to feel convinced of this truth, that there is
no cause, however minute, however remote, that does not sometimes produce
the greatest and most immediate effects on man. It may, perhaps, be in the
parched plains of Lybia, that are amassed the first elements of a storm or
tempest, which, borne by the winds, approach our climate, render our
atmosphere dense, and thus operating on the temperament, may influence the
passions of a man, whose circumstances shall have capacitated him to
influence many others, who shall decide after his will the fate of many
nations.

Man, in fact, finds himself in Nature, and makes a part of it: he acts
according to laws, which are appropriate to him; he receives in a manner
more or less distinct, the action and impulse of the beings who surround
him; who themselves act after laws that are peculiar to their essence.
Thus he is variously modified; but his actions are always the result of
his own energy, and that of the beings who act upon him, and by whom he is
modified. This is what gives such variety to his determinations—what
generally produces such contradiction in his thoughts, his opinions, his
will, his actions; in short, in that motion, whether concealed or visible,
by which he is agitated. We shall have occasion, in the sequel, to place
this truth, at present so much contested, in a clearer light: it will be
sufficient for our purpose at present to prove, generally, that every
thing in Nature is necessary—that nothing to be found in it can act
otherwise than it does.

Motion, alternately communicated and received, establishes the connection
or relation between the different orders of beings: when they are in the
sphere of reciprocal action, attraction approximates them; repulsion
dissolves and separates them; the one strengthens and preserves them; the
other enfeebles and destroys them. Once combined, they have a tendency to
conserve themselves in that mode of existence, by virtue of their inert
force; in this they cannot succeed, because they are exposed to the
continual influence of all other beings, who perpetually and successively
act upon them; their change of form, their dissolution, is requisite to
the preservation of Nature herself: this is the sole end we are able to
assign her—to which we see her tend without intermission—which
she follows without interruption, by the destruction and reproduction of
all subordinate beings, who are obliged to submit to her laws—to
concur, by their mode of action, to the maintenance of her active
existence, so essentially requisite to the GREAT WHOLE.

It is thus each being is an individual, who, in the great family, performs
his necessary portion of the general labour—who executes the
unavoidable task assigned to him. All bodies act according to laws,
inherent in their peculiar essence, without the capability to swerve, even
for a single instant, from those according to which Nature herself acts.
This is the central power, to which all other powers, essences, and
energies, are submitted: she regulates the motions of beings, by the
necessity of her own peculiar essence: she makes them concur by various
modes to the general plan: this appears to be nothing more than the life,
action, and maintenance of the whole, by the continual change of its
parts. This object she obtains, in removing them, one by the other; by
that which establishes, and by that which destroys, the relation
subsisting between them; by that which gives them, and that which deprives
them of, their forms, combinations, proportions, and qualities, according
to which they act for a time, after a given mode; these are afterwards
taken from them, to make them act after a different manner. It is thus
that Nature makes them expand and change, grow and decline, augment and
diminish, approximate and remove, forms and destroys them, according as
she finds it requisite to maintain the whole; towards the conservation
which this Nature is herself essentially necessitated to have a tendency.

This irresistible power, this universal necessity, this general energy,
then, is only a consequence of the nature of things; by virtue of which
every thing acts, without intermission, after constant and immutable laws:
these laws not varying more for the whole than for the beings of which it
is composed. Nature is an active living whole, to which all its parts
necessarily concur; of which, without their own knowledge, they maintain
the activity, the life, and the existence. Nature acts and exists
necessarily: all that she contains, necessarily conspires to perpetuate
her active existence. This is the decided opinion of PLATO, when he says,
“matter and necessity are the same thing; this necessity is the mother
of the world.” In point of fact, we cannot go beyond this aphorism,
MATTER ACTS, BECAUSE IT EXISTS; AND EXISTS, TO ACT. If it be enquired how,
or for why, matter exists? We answer, we know not: but reasoning by
analogy, of what we do not know by that which we do, we should be of
opinion it exists necessarily, or because it contains within itself a
sufficient reason for its existence. In supposing it to be created or
produced by a being distinguished from it, or less known than itself,
(which it may be, for any thing we know to the contrary,) we must still
admit, that this being is necessary, and includes a sufficient reason for
his own existence. We have not then removed any of the difficulty, we have
not thrown a clearer light upon the subject, we have not advanced a single
step; we have simply laid aside a being, of which we know some few of the
properties, but of which we are still extremely ignorant, to have recourse
to a power, of which it is utterly impossible we can, as long as we are
men, form any distinct idea; of which, notwithstanding it may be a truth,
we cannot, by any means we possess, demonstrate the existence. As,
therefore, these must be at best but speculative points of belief, which
each individual, by reason of its obscurity, may contemplate with
different optics, under various aspects, they surely ought to be left free
for each to judge after his own fashion: the Hindoo can have no just cause
of enmity against the Christian for his faith: this has no moral right to
question the Mussulman upon his; the numerous sects of each of the various
persuasions spread over the face of the earth, ought to make it a creed to
look with an eye of complacency on the deviation of the others; and rest
upon that great moral axiom, which is strictly conformable to Nature,
which contains the whole of man’s happiness—”Do not unto another,
that which do you not wish another should do unto you;” for it is
evident, according to their own doctrines, out of all the variety of
systems, one only can be right.

We shall see in the sequel, how much man’s imagination labours to form an
idea, of the energies of that Nature he has personified, and distinguished
from herself: in short, we shall examine some of the ridiculous and
pernicious inventions, which, for want of understanding Nature, have been
imagined to impede her course, to suspend her eternal laws, to place
obstacles to the necessity of things.

CHAP. V.

Order and Confusion.—Intelligence.—Chance.

The observation of the necessary, regular, and periodical motion in the
universe, generated in the mind of man the idea of ORDER; this term, in
its original signification, represents nothing more than a mode of
considering, a facility of perceiving, together and separately, the
different relations of a whole; in which is discovered, by its manner of
existing and acting, a certain affinity or conformity with his own. Man,
in extending this idea to the universe, carried with him those methods of
considering things which are peculiar to himself: he has consequently
supposed there really existed in Nature affinities and relations, which he
classed under the name of ORDER; and others which appeared to him not to
conform to those, which he has ranked under the term of CONFUSION.

It is easy to comprehend, that this idea of order and confusion can have
no absolute existence in Nature, where every thing is necessary; where the
whole follows constant and invariable laws, which oblige each being, in
every moment of its duration, to submit to other laws, which flow from its
own peculiar mode of existence. Therefore it is in his imagination, only,
man finds a model of that which he terms order or confusion; which, like
all his abstract, metaphysical ideas, supposes nothing beyond his reach.
Order, however, is never more than the faculty of conforming himself with
the beings by whom he is environed, or with the whole of which he forms a
part.

Nevertheless, if the idea of order be applied to Nature, it will be found
to be nothing but a series of action or motion, which he judges to
conspire to one common end. Thus, in a body that moves, order is the chain
of action, the series of motion, proper to constitute it what it is, and
to maintain it in its actual state. Order, relatively to the whole of
Nature, is the concatenation of causes and effects, necessary to her active
existence—to maintaining her constantly together; but, as it has
been proved in the chapter preceding, every individual being is obliged to
concur to this end, in the different ranks they occupy; from whence it is
a necessary deduction, that what is called the ORDER OF NATURE, can never
be more than a certain manner of considering the necessity of things, to
which all, of which man has any knowledge, is submitted. That which is
styled CONFUSION, is only a relative term, used to designate that series
of necessary action, that chain of requisite motion, by which an
individual being is necessarily changed or disturbed in its mode of
existence—by which it is instantaneously obliged to alter its manner
of action; but no one of these actions, no part of this motion is capable,
even for a single instant, of contradicting or deranging the general order
of Nature; from which all beings derive their existence, their properties,
the motion appropriate to each.

What is termed confusion in a being, is nothing more than its passage into
a new class, a new mode of existence; which necessarily carries with it a
new series of action, a new chain of motion, different from that of which
this being found itself susceptible in the preceding rank it occupied.
That which is called order, in Nature, is a mode of existence, or a
disposition of its particles, strictly necessary. In every other
assemblage of causes and effects, of worlds, as well as in that which we
inhabit, some sort of arrangement, some kind of order would necessarily be
established. Suppose the most incongruous, the most heterogeneous
substances were put into activity, and assembled by a concatenation of
extraordinary circumstances; they would form amongst themselves, a
complete order, a perfect arrangement. This is the true notion of a
property, which may be defined, an aptitude to constitute a being, such as
it is actually found, such as it is with respect to the whole of which it
makes a part.

Order, then, is nothing but necessity, considered relatively to the series
of actions, or the connected chain of causes and effects, that it produces
in the universe. What is the motion in our planetary system; but a series
of phenomena, operated upon according to necessary laws, that regulate the
bodies of which it is composed? In conformity to these laws, the sun
occupies the centre; the planets gravitate towards it, and revolve round
it, in regulated periods: the satellites of these planets gravitate
towards those which are in the centre of their sphere of action, and
describe round them their periodical route. One of these planets, the
earth which man inhabits, turns on its own axis; and by the various
aspects which its revolution obliges it to present to the sun, experiences
those regular variations which are called SEASONS. By a sequence of the
sun’s action upon different parts of this globe, all its productions
undergo vicissitudes: plants, animals, men, are in a sort of morbid
drowsiness during Winter: in Spring, these beings
re-animate, to come as it were out of a long lethargy. In short, the mode
in which the earth receives the sun’s beams, has an influence on all its
productions; these rays, when darted obliquely, do not act in the same
manner as when they fall perpendicularly; their periodical absence, caused
by the revolution of this sphere on itself, produces night and day.
However, in all this, man never witnesses more than necessary effects,
flowing from the nature of things, which, whilst that remains the same,
can never be opposed with propriety. These effects are owing to
gravitation, attraction, centrifugal power, &c.

On the other hand, this order, which man admires as a supernatural
effect, is sometimes disturbed, or changed into what he calls confusion:
this confusion is, however, always a necessary consequence of the laws of
Nature; in which it is requisite to the support of the whole that some of
her parts should be deranged and thrown out of the ordinary course. It is
thus, COMETS present themselves so unexpectedly to man’s wondering eyes;
their eccentric motion disturbs the tranquillity of his planetary system;
they excite the terror of the misinstructed to whom every thing unusual is
marvellous. The natural philosopher, himself, conjectures that in former
ages, these comets have overthrown the surface of this mundane ball, and
caused great revolutions on the earth. Independent of this extraordinary
confusion, he is exposed to others more familiar to him: sometimes,
the seasons appear to have usurped each other’s place; to have quitted
their regular order: sometimes the opposing elements seem to dispute among
themselves the dominion of the world; the sea bursts its limits; the solid
earth is shaken and rent asunder; mountains are in a state of
conflagration; pestilential diseases destroy both men and animals;
sterility desolates a country: then affrighted man utters piercing cries,
offers up his prayers to recall order; tremblingly raises his hands
towards the Being he supposes to be the author of all these calamities;
nevertheless, the whole of this afflicting confusion are necessary
effects, produced by natural causes; which act according to fixed laws,
determined by their own peculiar essence, and the universal essence of
Nature: in which every thing must necessarily be changed, moved, and
dissolved; where that which is called ORDER, must sometimes be disturbed
and altered into a new mode of existence; which to his deluded mind, to
his imagination, led astray by ignorance and want of reflection, appears
CONFUSION.

There cannot possibly exist what is generally termed a confusion of
Nature: man finds order in every thing that is conformable to his own
mode of being; confusion in every thing by which it is opposed:
nevertheless, in Nature, all is in order; because none of her parts are
ever able to emancipate themselves from those invariable rules which flow
from their respective essences: there is not, there cannot
be confusion in a whole, to the maintenance of which what is called
confusion is absolutely requisite; of which the general course can never
be discomposed, although individuals may be, and necessarily are; where
all the effects produced are the consequence of natural causes, that under
the circumstances in which they are placed, act only as they infallibly
are obliged to act.

It therefore follows, there can be neither monsters nor prodigies; wonders
nor miracles in Nature: those which are designated MONSTERS, are certain
combinations, with which the eyes of man are not familiarized; but which,
therefore, are not less the necessary effects of natural causes. Those
which he terms PRODIGIES, WONDERS, or SUPERNATURAL effects, are phenomena
of Nature, with whose mode of action he is unacquainted; of which his
ignorance does not permit him to ascertain the principles; whose causes he
cannot trace; but which his impatience, his heated imagination, aided by a
desire to explain, makes him foolishly attribute to imaginary causes;
which, like the idea of order, have no existence but in himself; and
which, that he may conceal his own ignorance, that he may obtain more
respect with the uninformed, he places beyond Nature, out of which his
experience is every instant demonstrably proving that none of these things
can have existence.

As for those effects which are called MIRACLES, that is to say, contrary
to the unalterable laws of Nature, it must be felt such things are
impossible; because, nothing can, for an instant, suspend the necessary
course of beings, without the whole of Nature was arrested; without she
was disturbed in her tendency. There have neither been wonders nor
miracles in Nature; except for those, who have not sufficiently studied
the laws, who consequently do not feel, that those laws can never be
contradicted, even in the most minute parts, without the whole being
destroyed, or at least without changing her essence, her mode of action;
that it is the height of folly to recur to supernatural causes to explain
the phenomena man beholds, before he becomes fully acquainted with natural
causes—with the powers and capabilities which Nature herself
contains.

Order and Confusion, then, are only relative terms, by which
man designates the state in which particular beings find themselves. He
says, a being is in order, when all the motion it undergoes conspires to
favor its tendency to its own preservation; when it is conducive to the
maintenance of its actual existence: that it is in confusion when the
causes which move it disturb the harmony of its existence, or have a
tendency to destroy the equilibrium necessary to the conservation of its
actual state. Nevertheless, confusion, as we have shown, is nothing but
the passage of a being into a new order; the more rapid the progress, the
greater the confusion for the being that is submitted to it: that which
conducts man to what is called death, is, for him, the greatest of all
possible confusion. Yet this death is nothing more than a passage into a
new mode of existence: it is the eternal, the invariable, the
unconquerable law of Nature, to which the individuals of his order, each
in his turn, is obliged to submit.

The human body is said to be in order, when its various component parts
act in that mode, from which results the conservation of the whole; from
which emanates that which is the tendency of his actual existence; in
other words, when all the impulse he receives, all the motion he
communicates, tends to preserve his health, to render him happy, by
promoting the happiness of his fellow men. He is said to be in health when
the fluids and solids of his body concur to render him robust, to keep his
mind in vigour; when each lends mutual aid towards this end. He is said to
be in confusion, or in ill health, whenever this tendency is
disturbed; when any of the essential parts of his body cease to concur to
his preservation, or to fulfil its peculiar functions. This it is that
happens in a state of sickness, in which, however, the motion excited in
the human machine is as necessary, is regulated by laws as certain, as
natural, as invariable, as that which concurs to produce health. Sickness
merely produces in him a new order of motion, a new series of action, a
new chain of things. Man dies: to him, this appears the greatest confusion
he can experience; his body is no longer what it was—its parts no
longer concur to the same end—his blood has lost its circulation—he
is deprived of feeling—his ideas have vanished—he thinks no
more—his desires have fled—death is the epoch, the cessation
of his human existence.—His frame becomes an inanimate mass, by the
subtraction of those principles by which it was animated; that is, which
made it act after a determinate manner: its tendency has received a new
direction; its action is changed; the motion excited in its ruins
conspires to a new end. To that motion, the harmony of which he calls
order, which produced life, sentiment, thought, passions, health, succeeds
a series of motion of another species; that, nevertheless, follows laws as
necessary as the first; all the parts of the dead man conspire to produce
what is called dissolution, fermentation, putrefaction: these new modes of
being, of acting, are just as natural to man, reduced to this state, as
sensibility, thought, the periodical motion of the blood, &c. were to
the living man: his essence having changed, his mode of action can no
longer be the same. To that regulated motion, to that necessary action,
which conspired to the production of life, succeeds that determinate
motion, that series of action which concurs to produce the dissolution of
the dead carcass; the dispersion of its parts; the formation of new
combinations, from which result new beings; and which, as we have before
seen, is the immutable order of active Nature.

How then can it be too often repeated, that relatively to the great whole,
all the motion of beings, all their modes of action, can never be but in
order, that is to say, are always conformable to Nature; that in all the
stages through which beings are obliged to pass, they invariably act after
a mode necessarily subordinate to the universal whole? To say more, each
individual being always acts in order; all its actions, the whole system
of its motion, are the necessary consequence of its peculiar mode of
existence; whether that be momentary or durable. Order, in political
society, is the effect of a necessary series of ideas, of wills, of
actions, in those who compose it; whose movements are regulated in a
manner, either calculated to maintain its indivisibility, or to hasten its
dissolution. Man constituted, or modified, in the manner we term virtuous,
acts necessarily in that mode, from whence results the welfare of his
associates: the man we stile wicked, acts necessarily in that mode, from
whence springs the misery of his fellows: his Nature, being essentially
different, he must necessarily act after a different mode: his individual
order is at variance, but his relative order is complete: it is equally
the essence of the one, to promote happiness, as it is of the other to
induce misery.

Thus, order and confusion in individual beings, is nothing more than the
manner of man’s considering the natural and necessary effects, which they
produce relatively to himself. He fears the wicked man; he says that he
will carry confusion into society, because he disturbs its tendency and
places obstacles to its happiness. He avoids a falling stone, because it
will derange in him the order necessary to his conservation. Nevertheless,
order and confusion, are always, as we have shewn, consequences, equally
necessary to either the transient or durable state of beings. It is in
order that fire burns, because it is of its essence to burn; on the other
hand, it is in order, that an intelligent being should remove himself from
whatever can disturb his mode of existence. A being, whose organization
renders him sensible, must in virtue of his essence, fly from every thing
that can injure his organs, or that can place his existence in danger.

Man calls those beings intelligent, who are organized after his own
manner; in whom he sees faculties proper for their preservation; suitable
to maintain their existence in the order that is convenient to them; that
can enable them to take the necessary measures towards this end, with a
consciousness of the motion they undergo. From hence, it will be
perceived, that the faculty called intelligence, consists in a possessing
capacity to act comformably to a known end, in the being to which it is
attributed. He looks upon these beings as deprived of intelligence, in
which he finds no conformity with himself; in whom he discovers neither
the same construction, nor the same faculties: of which he knows neither
the essence, the end to which they tend, the energies by which they act,
nor the order that is necessary to them. The whole cannot have a distinct
name, or end, because there is nothing out of itself, to which it can have
a tendency. If it be in himself, that he arranges the idea of order,
it is also in himself, that he draws up that of intelligence. He
refuses to ascribe it to those beings, who do not act after his own
manner: he accords it to all those whom he supposes to act like himself:
the latter he calls intelligent agents: the former blind causes; that is
to say, intelligent agents who act by chance: thus chance is an
empty word without sense, but which is always opposed to that of
intelligence, without attaching any determinate, or any certain idea.

Man, in fact, attributes to chance all those effects, of which the
connection they have with their causes is not seen. Thus he uses the word
chance, to cover his ignorance of those natural causes, which
produce visible effects, by means which he cannot form an idea of; or that
act by a mode of which he does not perceive the order; or whose system is
not followed by actions conformable to his own. As soon as he sees, or
believes he sees, the order of action, or the manner of motion, he
attributes this order to an intelligence; which is nothing more
than a quality borrowed from himself—from his own peculiar mode of
action—from the manner in which he is himself affected.

Thus an intelligent being is one who thinks, who wills, and who
acts, to compass an end. If so, he must have organs, an aim conformable to
those of man: therefore, to say Nature is governed by an intelligence, is
to affirm that she is governed by a being, furnished with organs; seeing
that without this organic construction, he can neither have sensations,
perceptions, ideas, thought, will, plan, nor action which he understands.

Man always makes himself the center of the universe: it is to himself that
he relates all he beholds. As soon as he believes he discovers a mode of
action that has a conformity with his own, or some phenomenon that
interests his feelings, he attributes it to a cause that resembles himself—that
acts after his manner—that has faculties similar to those he
possesses—whose interests are like his own—whose projects are
in unison with and have the same tendency as those he himself indulges: in
short, it is from himself, or the properties which actuate him, that he
forms the model of this cause. It is thus that man beholds, out of his own
species, nothing but beings who act differently from himself; yet believes
that he remarks in Nature an order similar to his own ideas—views
conformable to those which he himself possesses. He imagines that Nature
is governed by a cause whose intelligence is conformable to his own, to
whom he ascribes the honor of the order which he believes he witnesses—of
those views that fall in with those that are peculiar to himself—of
an aim which quadrates with that which is the great end of all his own
actions. It is true that man, feeling his incapability of producing the
vast, the multiplied effects of which he witnesses the operation, when
contemplating the universe, was under the necessity of making a
distinction between himself and the cause which he supposed to be the
author of such stupendous effects; he believed he removed every
difficulty, by amplifying in this cause all those faculties of which he
was himself in possession; adding others of which his own self-love made
him desirous, or which he thought would render his being more perfect:
thus, he gave JUPITER wings, with the faculty of assuming any form he
might deem convenient: it was thus, by degrees, he arrived at forming an
idea of that intelligent cause, which he has placed above Nature, to
preside over action—to give her that motion of which he has chosen
to believe she was in herself incapable. He obstinately persists in
regarding this Nature as a heap of dead, inert matter, without form, which
has not within itself the power of producing any of those great effects,
those regular phenomena, from which emanates what he styles the order
of the Universe. ANAXAGORAS is said to have been the first who
supposed the universe created and governed by an intelligence: ARISTOTLE
reproaches him with having made an automaton of this intelligence; or in
other words, with ascribing to it the production of things, only when he
was at a loss to account for their appearance. From whence it may be
deduced, that it is for want of being acquainted with the powers of
Nature, or the properties of matter, that man has multiplied beings
without necessity—that he has supposed the universe under the
government of an intelligent cause, which he is, and perhaps always will
be, himself the model: in fine, this cause has been personified under such
a variety of shapes, sexes, and names, that a list of the deities he has
at various times supposed to guide this Nature, or to whom he has
submitted her, makes a large volume that occupies some years of his
youthful education to understand. He only rendered this cause more
inconceivable, when he extended in it his own faculties too much. He
either annihilates, or renders it altogether impossible, when he would
attach to it incompatible qualities, which he is obliged to do, to enable
him to account for the contradictory and disorderly effects he beholds in
the world. In fact, he sees confusion in the world; yet, notwithstanding
his confusion contradicts the plan, the power, the wisdom, the bounty of
this intelligence, and the miraculous order which he ascribes to it; he
says, the extreme beautiful arrangement of the whole, obliges him to
suppose it to be the work of a sovereign intelligence: unable, however, to
reconcile this seeming confusion with the benevolence he attaches to this
cause, he had recourse to another effort of his imagination; he made a new
cause, to whom he ascribed all the evil, all the misery, resulting from
this confusion: still, his own person served for the model; to which he
added those deformities which he had learned to hold in disrespect: in
multiplying these counter or destroying causes, he peopled Pandemonium.

It will no doubt be argued, that as Nature contains and produces
intelligent beings, either she must be herself intelligent, or else she
must be governed by an intelligent cause. We reply, intelligence is a
faculty peculiar to organized beings, that it is to say, to beings
constituted and combined after a determinate manner; from whence results
certain modes of action, which are designated under various names;
according to the different effects which these beings produce: wine has
not the properties called wit and courage; nevertheless, it
is sometimes seen that it communicates those qualities to men, who are
supposed to be in themselves entirely devoid of them. It cannot be said
Nature is intelligent after the manner of any of the beings she contains;
but she can produce intelligent beings by assembling matter suitable to
their particular organization, from whose peculiar modes of action will
result the faculty called intelligence; who shall be capable of producing
certain effects which are the necessary consequence of this property. I
therefore repeat, that to have intelligence, designs and views, it is
requisite to have ideas; to the production of ideas, organs or senses are
necessary: this is what is neither said of Nature nor of the causes he has
supposed to preside over her actions. In short experience warrants the
assertion, it does more, it proves beyond a doubt, that matter, which is
regarded as inert and dead, assumes sensible action, intelligence, and
life, when it is combined and organized after particular modes.

From what has been said, it must rationally be concluded that order
is never more than the necessary or uniform connection of causes with
their effects; or that series of action which flows from the peculiar
properties of beings, so long as they remain in a given state; that confusion
is nothing more than the change of this state; that in the universe, all
is necessarily in order, because every thing acts and moves according to
the various properties of the different beings it contains; that in Nature
there cannot be either confusion or real evil, since every thing follows
the laws of its natural existence; that there is neither chance nor
any thing fortuitous in this Nature, where no effect is produced without a
sufficient, without a substantial cause; where all causes act necessarily
according to fixed and certain laws, which are themselves dependant on the
essential properties of these causes or beings, as well as on the
combination, which constitutes either their transitory or permanent state;
that intelligence is a mode of acting, a method of existence natural to
some particular beings; that if this intelligence should be attributed to
Nature, it would then be nothing more than the faculty of conserving
herself in active existence by necessary means. In refusing to Nature the
intelligence he himself enjoys—in rejecting the intelligent cause
which is supposed to be the contriver of this Nature, or the principle of
that order he discovers in her course, nothing is given to chance,
nothing to a blind cause, nothing to a power which is indistinguishable;
but every thing he beholds is attributed to real, to known causes; or to
those which by analogy are easy of comprehension. All that exists is
acknowledged to be a consequence of the inherent properties of eternal
matter, which by contact, by blending, by combination, by change of form,
produces order and confusion; with all those varieties which assail his
sight, it is himself who is blind, when he imagines blind causes:—man
only manifested his ignorance of the powers of motion, of the laws of
Nature, when he attributed, any of its effects to chance. He did
not shew a more enlightened feeling when he ascribed them to an
intelligence, the idea of which he borrowed from himself, but which is
never in conformity with the effects which he attributes to its
intervention—he only imagined words to supply the place of things—he
made JUPITER, SATURN, JUNO, and a thousand others, operate that which he
found himself inadequate to perform; he distinguished them from Nature,
gave them an amplification of his own properties, and believed he
understood them by thus obscuring ideas, which he never dared either
define or analyze.

CHAP. VI.

Moral and Physical Distinctions of Man.—His Origin.

Let us now apply the general laws we have scrutinized, to those beings of
Nature who interest us the most. Let us see in what man differs from the
other beings by which he is surrounded. Let us examine if he has not
certain points in conformity with them, that oblige him, notwithstanding
the different properties they respectively possess, to act in certain
respects according to the universal laws to which every thing is
submitted. Finally, let us enquire if the ideas he has formed of himself
in meditating on his own peculiar mode of existence, be chimerical, or
founded in reason.

Man occupies a place amidst that crowd, that multitude of beings, of which
Nature is the assemblage. His essence, that is to say, the peculiar manner
of existence, by which he is distinguished from other beings, renders him
susceptible of various modes of action, of a variety of motion, some of
which are simple and visible, others concealed and complicated. His life
itself is nothing more than a long series, a succession of necessary and
connected motion; which operates perpetual changes in his machine; which
has for its principle either causes contained within himself, such as
blood, nerves, fibres, flesh, bones; in short, the matter, as well solid
as fluid, of which his body is composed—or those exterior causes,
which, by acting upon him, modify him diversely; such as the air with
which he is encompassed, the aliments by which he is nourished, and all
those objects from which he receives any impulse whatever, by the
impression they make on his senses.

Man, like all other beings in Nature, tends to his own destruction—he
experiences inert force—he gravitates upon himself—he is
attracted by objects that are contrary or repugnant to his existence—he
seeks after some—he flies, or endeavours to remove himself from
others. It is this variety of action, this diversity of modification of
which the human being is susceptible, that has been designated under such
different names, by such varied nomenclature. It will be necessary,
presently, to examine these closely and go more into detail.

However marvellous, however hidden, however secret, however complicated
may be the modes of action, which the human frame undergoes, whether
interiorly or exteriorly; whatever may be, or appear to be the impulse he
either receives or communicates, examined closely, it will be found that
all his motion, all his operations, all his changes, all his various
states, all his revolutions, are constantly regulated by the same laws,
which Nature has prescribed to all the beings she brings forth—which
she developes—which she enriches with faculties—of which she
increases the bulk—which she conserves for a season—which she
ends by decomposing, by destroying: obliging them to change their form.

Man, in his origin, is an imperceptible point, a speck, of which the parts
are without form; of which the mobility, the life, escapes his senses; in
short, in which he does not perceive any sign of those qualities, called
SENTIMENT, FEELING, THOUGHT, INTELLIGENCE, FORCE, REASON, &c. Placed
in the womb suitable to his expansion, this point unfolds, extends,
increases, by the continual addition of matter he attracts, that is
analogous to his being, which consequently assimilates itself with him.
Having quitted this womb, so appropriate to conserve his existence, to
unfold his qualities, to strengthen his habits; so competent to give, for
a season, consistence to the weak rudiments of his frame; he travels
through the stage of infancy; he becomes adult: his body has then acquired
a considerable extension of bulk, his motion is marked, his action is
visible, he is sensible in all his parts; he is a living, an active mass;
that is to say, a combination that feels and thinks; that fulfils the
functions peculiar to beings of his species. But how has he become
sensible? Because he has been by degrees nourished, enlarged, repaired by
the continual attraction that takes place within himself, of that kind of
matter which is pronounced inert, insensible, inanimate; which is,
nevertheless, continually combining itself with his machine; of which it
forms an active whole, that is living, that feels, judges, reasons, wills,
deliberates, chooses, elects; that has the capability of labouring, more
or less efficaciously, to his own individual preservation; that is to say,
to the maintenance of the harmony of his existence.

All the motion and changes that man experiences in the course of his life,
whether it be from exterior objects or from those substances contained
within himself, are either favorable or prejudicial to his existence;
either maintain its order, or throw it into confusion; are either in
conformity with, or repugnant to, the essential tendency of his peculiar
mode of being. He is compelled by Nature to approve of some, to disapprove
of others; some of necessity render him happy, others contribute to his
misery; some become the objects of his most ardent desire, others of his
determined aversion: some elicit his confidence, others make him tremble
with fear.

In all the phenomena man presents, from the moment he quits the womb of
his mother, to that wherein he becomes the inhabitant of the silent tomb,
he perceives nothing but a succession of necessary causes and effects,
which are strictly conformable to those laws that are common to all the
beings in Nature. All his modes of action—all his sensations—all
his ideas—all his passions—every act of his will—every
impulse which he either gives or receives, are the necessary consequences
of his own peculiar properties, and those which he finds in the various
beings by whom he is moved. Every thing he does—every thing that
passes within himself—his concealed motion—his visible action,
are the effects of inert force—of self-gravitation—the
attractive or repulsive powers contained in his machine—of the
tendency he has, in common with other beings, to his own individual
preservation; in short, of that energy which is the common property of
every being he beholds. Nature, in man, does nothing more than shew, in a
decided manner, what belongs to the peculiar nature by which he is
distinguished from the beings of a different system or order.

The source of those errors into which man has fallen, when he has
contemplated himself, has its rise, as will presently be shown, in the
opinion he has entertained, that he moved by himself—that he always
acts by his own natural energy—that in his actions, in the will that
gave him impulse, he was independent of the general laws of Nature; and of
those objects which, frequently, without his knowledge, always in spite of
him, in obedience to these laws, are continually acting upon him. If he
had examined himself attentively, he must have acknowledged, that none of
the motion he underwent was spontaneous—he must have discovered,
that even his birth depended on causes, wholly out of the reach of his own
powers—that, it was without his own consent he entered into the
system in which he occupies a place—that, from the moment in which
he is born, until that in which he dies, he is continually impelled by
causes, which, in spite of himself, influence his frame, modify his
existence, dispose of his conduct. Would not the slightest reflection have
sufficed to prove to him, that the fluids, the solids, of which his body
is composed, as well as that concealed mechanism, which he believes to be
independent of exterior causes, are, in fact, perpetually under the
influence of these causes; that without them he finds himself in a total
incapacity to act? Would he not have seen, that his temperament, his
constitution, did in no wise depend on himself—that his passions are
the necessary consequence of this temperament—that his will is
influenced, his actions determined by these passions; consequently by
opinions, which he has not given to himself, of which he is not the
master? His blood, more or less heated or abundant; his nerves more or
less braced, his fibres more or less relaxed, give him dispositions either
transitory or durable—are not these, at every moment decisive of his
ideas; of his thoughts: of his desires: of his fears: of his motion,
whether visible or concealed? The state in which he finds himself, does it
not necessarily depend on the air which surrounds him diversely modified;
on the various properties of the aliments which nourish him; on the secret
combinations that form themselves in his machine, which either preserve
its order, or throw it into confusion? In short, had man fairly studied
himself, every thing must have convinced him, that in every moment of his
duration, he was nothing more than a passive instrument in the hands of
necessity.

Thus it must appear, that where all is connected, where all the causes are
linked one to the other, where the whole forms but one immense chain,
there cannot be any independent, any isolated energy; any detached power.
It follows then, that Nature, always in action, marks out to man each
point of the line he is bound to describe; establishes the route, by which
he must travel. It is Nature that elaborates, that combines the elements
of which he must be composed;—It is Nature that gives him his being,
his tendency, his peculiar mode of action. It is Nature that develops him,
expands him, strengthens him, increases his bulk—preserves him for a
season, during which he is obliged to fulfil the task imposed on him. It
is Nature, that in his journey through life, strews on the road those
objects, those events; those adventures, that modify him in a variety of
ways, that give him impulses which are sometimes agreeable and beneficial,
at others prejudicial and disagreeable. It is Nature, that in giving him
feeling, in supplying him with sentiment, has endowed him with capacity to
choose, the means to elect those objects, to take those methods that are
most conducive, most suitable, most natural, to his conservation. It is
Nature, who when he has run his race, when he has finished his career,
when he has described the circle marked out for him, conducts him in his
turn to his destruction; dissolves the union of his elementary particles,
and obliges him to undergo the constant, the universal law; from the
operation of which nothing is exempted. It is thus, motion places man in
the matrix of his mother; brings him forth out of her womb; sustains him
for a season; at length destroys him; obliges him to return into the bosom
of Nature; who speedily reproduces him, scattered under an infinity of
forms; in which each of his particles run over again, in the same manner,
the different stages, as necessary as the whole had before run over those
of his preceding existence.

The beings of the human species, as well as all other beings, are
susceptible of two sorts of motion: the one, that of the mass, by which an
entire body, or some of its parts, are visibly transferred from one place
to another; the other, internal and concealed, of some of which man is
sensible, while some takes place without his knowledge, and is not even to
be guessed at, but by the effect it outwardly produces. In a machine so
extremely complex as man, formed by the combination of such a multiplicity
of matter, so diversified in its properties, so different in its
proportions, so varied in its modes of action, the motion necessarily
becomes of the most complicated kind; its dullness, as well as its
rapidity, frequently escapes the observation of those themselves, in whom
it takes place.

Let us not, then, be surprised, if, when man would account to himself for
his existence, for his manner of acting, finding so many obstacles to
encounter, he invented such strange hypotheses to explain the concealed
spring of his machine—if then this motion appeared to him, to be
different from that of other bodies, he conceived an idea, that he moved
and acted in a manner altogether distinct from the other beings in Nature.
He clearly perceived that his body, as well as different parts of it, did
act; but, frequently, he was unable to discover what brought them into
action: from whence he received the impulse: he then conjectured he
contained within himself a moving principle distinguished from his
machine, which secretly gave an impulse to the springs which set this
machine in motion; that moved him by its own natural energy; that
consequently he acted according to laws totally distinct from those which
regulated the motion of other beings: he was conscious of certain internal
motion, which he could not help feeling; but how could he conceive, that
this invisible motion was so frequently competent to produce such striking
effects? How could he comprehend, that a fugitive idea, an imperceptible
act of thought, was so frequently capacitated to bring his whole being
into trouble and confusion? He fell into the belief, that he perceived
within himself a substance distinguished from that self, endowed with a
secret force; in which he supposed existed qualities distinctly differing
from those, of either the visible causes that acted on his organs, or
those organs themselves. He did not sufficiently understand, that the
primitive cause which makes a stone fall, or his arm move, are perhaps as
difficult of comprehension, as arduous to be explained, as those internal
impulses, of which his thought or his will are the effects. Thus, for want
of meditating Nature—of considering her under her true point of view—of
remarking the conformity—of noticing the simultaneity, the unity of
the motion of this fancied motive-power with that of his body—of his
material organs—he conjectured he was not only a distinct being, but
that he was set apart, with different energies, from all the other beings
in Nature; that he was of a more simple essence having nothing in common
with any thing by which he was surrounded; nothing that connected him with
all that he beheld.

It is from thence has successively sprung his notions of SPIRITUALITY,
IMMATERIALITY, IMMORTALITY; in short, all those vague unmeaning words he
has invented by degrees, in order to subtilize and designate the
attributes of the unknown power, which he believes he contains within
himself; which he conjectures to be the concealed principle of all his
visible actions when man once imbibes an idea that he cannot comprehend,
he meditates upon it until he has given it a complete personification:
Thus he saw, or fancied he saw, the igneous matter pervade every thing; he
conjectured that it was the only principle of life and activity; he
proceeded to embody it; he gave it his own form; called it JUPITER, and
ended by worshipping this image of his own creation, as the power from
whom he derived every good he experienced, every evil he sustained. To
crown the bold conjectures he ventured to make on this internal
motive-power, he supposed, that different from all other beings, even from
the body that served to envelope it, it was not bound to undergo
dissolution; that such was its perfect simplicity, that it could not be
decomposed, nor even change its form; in short, that it was by its essence
exempted from those revolutions to which he saw the body subjected, as
well as all the compound beings with which Nature is filled.

Thus man, in his own ideas, became double; he looked upon himself as a
whole, composed by the inconceivable assemblage of two different, two
distinct natures, which have no point of analogy between themselves: he
distinguished two substances in himself; one evidently submitted to the
influence of gross beings, composed of coarse inert matter: this he called
BODY;—the other, which he supposed to be simple, of a purer essence,
was contemplated as acting from itself: giving motion to the body, with
which it found itself so miraculously united: this he called SOUL, or
SPIRIT; the functions of the one, he denominated physical, corporeal,
material; the functions of the other he styled spiritual,
intellectual. Man, considered relatively to the first, was termed the
PHYSICAL MAN; viewed with relation to the last, he was designated the
MORAL MAN. These distinctions, although adopted by the greater number of
the philosophers of the present day, are, nevertheless, only founded on
gratuitous suppositions. Man has always believed he remedied his ignorance
of things, by inventing words to which he could never attach any true
sense or meaning. He imagined he understood matter, its properties, its
faculties, its resources, its different combinations, because he had a
superficial glimpse of some of its qualities: he has, however, in reality,
done nothing more than obscure the faint ideas he has been capacitated to
form of this matter, by associating it with a substance much less
intelligible than itself. It is thus, speculative man, in forming words,
in multiplying beings, has only plunged himself into greater difficulties
than those he endeavoured to avoid; and thereby placed obstacles to the
progress of his knowledge: whenever he has been deficient of facts, he has
had recourse to conjecture, which he quickly changed into fancied
realities. Thus, his imagination, no longer guided by experience, hurried
on by his new ideas, was lost, without hope of return, in the labyrinth of
an ideal, of an intellectual world, to which he had himself given birth;
it was next to impossible to withdraw him from this delusion, to place him
in the right road, of which nothing but experience can furnish him the
clue. Nature points out to man, that in himself, as well as in all those
objects which act upon him, there is never more than matter endowed with
various properties, diversely modified, that acts by reason of these
properties: that man is an organized whole, composed of a variety of
matter; that like all the other productions of Nature, he follows general
and known laws, as well as those laws or modes of action which are
peculiar to himself and unknown.

Thus, when it shall be inquired, what is man?

We say, he is a material being, organized after a peculiar manner;
conformed to a certain mode of thinking—of feeling; capable of
modification in certain modes peculiar to himself—to his
organization—to that particular combination of matter which is found
assembled in him.

If, again, it be asked, what origin we give to beings of the human
species?

We reply, that, like all other beings, man is a production of Nature, who
resembles them in some respects, and finds himself submitted to the same
laws; who differs from them in other respects, and follows particular
laws, determined by the diversity of his conformation.

If, then, it be demanded, whence came man?

We answer, our experience on this head does not capacitate us to resolve
the question: but that it cannot interest us, as it suffices for us to
know that man exists; that he is so constituted, as to be competent to the
effects we witness.

But it will be urged, has man always existed? Has the human species
existed from all eternity; or is it only an instantaneous production of
Nature? Have there been always men like ourselves? Will there always be
such? Have there been, in all times, males and females? Was there a first
man, from whom all others are descended? Was the animal anterior to the
egg, or did the egg precede the animal? Is this species without beginning?
Will it also be without end? The species itself, is it indestructible, or
does it pass away like its individuals? Has man always been what he now
is; or has he, before he arrived at the state in which we see him, been
obliged to pass under an infinity of successive developements? Can man at
last flatter himself with having arrived at a fixed being, or must the
human species again change? If man is the production of Nature, it will
perhaps be asked, Is this Nature competent to the production of new
beings, to make the old species disappear? Adopting this supposition, it
may be inquired, why Nature does not produce under our own eyes new beings—new
species?

It would appear on reviewing these questions, to be perfectly indifferent,
as to the stability of the argument we have used, which side was taken;
that, for want of experience, hypothesis must settle a curiosity that
always endeavours to spring forward beyond the boundaries prescribed to
our mind. This granted, the contemplator of Nature will say, that he sees
no contradiction, in supposing the human species, such as it is at the
present day, was either produced in the course of time, or from all
eternity: he will not perceive any advantage that can arise from supposing
that it has arrived by different stages, or successive developements, to
that state in which it is actually found. Matter is eternal, it is
necessary, but its forms are evanescent and contingent. It may be asked of
man, is he any thing more than matter combined, of which the former varies
every instant?

Notwithstanding, some reflections seem to favor the supposition, to render
more probable the hypothesis, that man is a production formed in the
course of time; who is peculiar to the globe he inhabits, who is the
result of the peculiar laws by which it is directed; who, consequently,
can only date his formation as coeval with that of his planet. Existence
is essential to the universe, or the total assemblage of matter
essentially varied that presents itself to our contemplation; the
combinations, the forms, however, are not essential. This granted,
although the matter of which the earth is composed has always existed,
this earth may not always have had its present form—its actual
properties; perhaps it may be a mass detached in the course of time from
some other celestial body;—perhaps it is the result of the spots, or
those encrustations which astronomers discover in the sun’s disk, which
have had the faculty to diffuse themselves over our planetary system;—perhaps
the sphere we inhabit may be an extinguished or a displaced comet, which
heretofore occupied some other place in the regions of space;—which,
consequently, was then competent to produce beings very different from
those we now behold spread over its surface; seeing that its then
position, its nature, must have rendered its productions different from
those which at this day it offers to our view.

Whatever may be the supposition adopted, plants, animals, men, can only be
regarded as productions inherent in and natural to our globe, in the
position and in the circumstances in which it is actually found: these
productions it would be reasonable to infer would be changed, if this
globe by any revolution should happen to shift its situation. What appears
to strengthen this hypothesis, is, that on our ball itself, all the
productions vary, by reason of its different climates: men, animals,
vegetables, minerals, are not the same on every part of it: they vary
sometimes in a very sensible manner, at very inconsiderable distances. The
elephant is indigenous to, or native of the torrid zone: the rein deer is
peculiar to the frozen climates of the North; Indostan is the womb that
matures the diamond; we do not find it produced in our own country: the
pine-apple grows in the common atmosphere of America; in our climate it is
never produced in the open ground, never until art has furnished a sun
analogous to that which it requires—the European in his own climate
finds not this delicious fruit. Man in different climates varies in his
colour, in his size, in his conformation, in his powers, in his industry,
in his courage, and in the faculties of his mind. But, what is it that
constitutes climate? It is the different position of parts of the same
globe, relatively to the sun; positions that suffice to make a sensible
variety in its productions.

There is, then, sufficient foundation to conjecture that if by any
accident our globe should become displaced, all its productions would of
necessity be changed; seeing that causes being no longer the same, or no
longer acting after the same manner, the effects would necessarily no
longer be what they now are, all productions, that they may be able to
conserve themselves, or maintain their actual existence, have occasion to
co-order themselves with the whole from which they have emanated. Without
this they would no longer be in a capacity to subsist: it is this faculty
of co-ordering themselves,—this relative adaption, which is called
the ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE: the want of it is called CONFUSION. Those
productions which are treated as MONSTROUS, are such as are unable to
co-order themselves with the general or particular laws of the beings who
surround them, or with the whole in which they find themselves placed:
they have had the faculty in their formation to accommodate themselves to
these laws; but these very laws are opposed to their perfection: for this
reason they are unable to subsist. It is thus that by a certain analogy of
conformation, which exists between animals of different species, mules are
easily produced; but these mules, unable to co-order themselves with the
beings that surround them, are not able to reach perfection, consequently
cannot propagate their species. Man can live only in air, fish only in
water: put the man into the water, the fish into the air, not being able
to co-order themselves with the fluids which surround them, these animals
will quickly be destroyed. Transport by imagination, a man from our planet
into SATURN, his lungs will presently be rent by an atmosphere too
rarified for his mode of being, his members will be frozen with the
intensity of the cold; he will perish for want of finding elements
analogous to his actual existence: transport another into MERCURY, the
excess of heat, beyond what his mode of existence can bear, will quickly
destroy him.

Thus, every thing seems to authorise the conjecture, that the human
species is a production peculiar to our sphere, in the position in which
it is found: that when this position may happen to change, the human
species will, of consequence, either be changed or will be obliged to
disappear; seeing that there would not then be that with which man could
co-order himself with the whole, or connect himself with that which can
enable him to subsist. It is this aptitude in man to co-order himself with
the whole, that not only furnishes him with the idea of order, but also
makes him exclaim “whatever is, is right;” whilst every thing is
only that which it can be, as long as the whole is necessarily what it is;
whilst it is positively neither good nor bad, as we understand those
terms: it is only requisite to displace a man, to make him accuse the
universe of confusion.

These reflections would appear to contradict the ideas of those, who are
willing to conjecture that the other planets, like our own, are inhabited
by beings resembling ourselves. But if the LAPLANDER differs in so marked
a manner from the HOTTENTOT, what difference ought we not rationally to
suppose between an inhabitant of our planet and one of SATURN or of VENUS?

However it may be, if we are obliged to recur by imagination to the origin
of things, to the infancy of the human species, we may say that it is
probable that man was a necessary consequence of the disentangling of our
globe; or one of the results of the qualities, of the properties, of the
energies, of which it is susceptible in its present position—that he
was born male and female—that his existence is co-ordinate with that
of the globe, under its present position—that as long as this
co-ordination shall subsist, the human specie will conserve himself, will
propagate himself, according to the impulse, after the primitive laws,
which he has originally received—that if this co-ordination should
happen to cease; if the earth, displaced, should cease to receive the same
impulse, the same influence, on the part of those causes which actually
act upon it, or which give it energy; that then the human species would
change, to make place for new beings, suitable to co-order themselves with
the state that should succeed to that which we now see subsist.

In thus supposing the changes in the position of our globe, the primitive
man did, perhaps, differ more from the actual man, than the quadruped
differs from the insect. Thus man, the same as every thing else that
exists on our planet, as well as in all the others, may be regarded as in
a state of continual vicissitude: thus the last term of the existence of
man is to us as unknown and as indistinct as the first: there is,
therefore, no contradiction in the belief that the species vary
incessantly—that to us it is as impossible to know what he will
become, as to know what he has been.

With respect to those who may ask why Nature does not produce new beings?
we may enquire of them in turn, upon what foundation they suppose this
fact? What it is that authorizes them to believe this sterility in Nature?
Know they if, in the various combinations which she is every instant
forming, Nature be not occupied in producing new beings, without the
cognizance of these observers? Who has informed them that this Nature is
not actually assembling, in her immense elaboratory, the elements suitable
to bring to light, generations entirely new, that will have nothing in
common with those of the species at present existing? What absurdity then,
or what want of just inference would there be, to imagine that the man,
the horse, the fish, the bird, will be no more? Are these animals so
indispensably requisite to Nature, that without them she cannot continue
her eternal course? Does not all change around us? Do we not ourselves
change? Is it not evident that the whole universe has not been, in its
anterior eternal duration, rigorously the same that it now is? that it is
impossible, in its posterior eternal duration, it can be rigidly in the
same state that it now is for a single instant? How, then, pretend to
divine that, to which the infinite succession of destruction, of
reproduction, of combination, of dissolution, of metamorphosis, of change,
of transposition, may be able eventually to conduct it by their
consequence? Suns encrust themselves, and are extinguished; planets perish
and disperse themselves in the vast plains of air; other suns are kindled,
and illumine their systems; new planets form themselves, either to make
revolutions round these suns, or to describe new routes; and man, an
infinitely small portion of the globe, which is itself but an
imperceptible point in the immensity of space, vainly believes it is for
himself this universe is made; foolishly imagines he ought to be the
confident of Nature; confidently flatters himself he is eternal: and calls
himself KING OF THE UNIVERSE!!!

O man! wilt thou never conceive, that thou art but an ephemeron? All
changes in the great macrocosm: nothing remains the same an instant, in
the planet thou inhabitest: Nature contains no one constant form, yet thou
pretendest thy species can never disappear; that thou shalt be exempted
from the universal law, that wills all shall experience change! Alas! In
thy actual being, art not thou submitted to continual alterations? Thou,
who in thy folly, arrogantly assumest to thyself the title of KING OF
NATURE! Thou, who measurest the earth and the heavens! Thou, who in thy
vanity imaginest, that the whole was made, because thou art intelligent!
There requires but a very slight accident, a single atom to be displaced,
to make thee perish; to degrade thee; to ravish from thee this
intelligence of which thou appearest so proud.

If all the preceding conjectures be refused by those opposed to us; if it
be pretended that Nature acts by a certain quantum of immutable and
general laws; if it be believed that men, quadrupeds, fish, insects,
plants, are from all eternity, and will remain eternally, what they now
are: if I say it be contended, that from all eternity the stars have
shone, in the immense regions of space, have illuminated the firmament; if
it be insisted, we must no more demand why man is such as he appears, then
ask why Nature is such as we behold her, or why the world exists? We are
no longer opposed to such arguments. Whatever may be the system adopted,
it will perhaps reply equally well to the difficulties with which our
opponents endeavour to embarrass the way: examined closely, it will be
perceived they make nothing against those truths, which we have gathered
from experience. It is not given to man to know every thing—it is
not given him to know his origin—it is not given him to penetrate
into the essence of things, nor to recur to first principles—but it
is given him, to have reason, to have honesty, to ingenuously allow he is
ignorant of that which he cannot know, and not to substitute
unintelligible words, absurd suppositions, for his uncertainty. Thus, we
say to those, who to solve difficulties far above their reach, pretend
that the human species descended from a first man and a first woman,
created diversely according to different creeds;—that we have some
ideas of Nature, but that we have none of creation;—that the human
mind is incapable of comprehending the period when all was nothing;—that
to use words we cannot understand, is only in other terms to acknowledge
our ignorance of the powers of Nature;—that we are unable to fathom
the means by which she has been capacitated to produce the phenomena we
behold.

Let us then conclude, that man has no just, no solid reason to believe
himself a privileged being in Nature; because he is subject to the same
vicissitudes, as all her other productions. His pretended prerogatives
have their foundation in error, arising from mistaken opinions concerning
his existence. Let him but elevate himself by his thoughts above the globe
he inhabits, he will look upon his own species with the same eyes he does
all other beings in Nature: He will then clearly perceive that in the same
manner that each tree produces its fruit, by reason of its energies, in
consequence of its species: so each man acts by reason of his particular
energy; that he produces fruit, actions, works, equally necessary: he will
feel that the illusion which he anticipates in favour of himself, arises
from his being, at one and the same time, a spectator and a part of the
universe. He will acknowledge, that the idea of excellence which he
attaches to his being, has no other foundation than his own peculiar
interest; than the predilection he has in favour of himself—that the
doctrine he has broached with such seeming confidence, bottoms itself on a
very suspicious foundation, namely IGNORANCE and SELF-LOVE.

CHAP. VII.

The Soul and the Spiritual System.

Man, after having gratuitously supposed himself composed of two distinct
independent substances, that have no common properties, relatively with
each other; has pretended, as we have seen, that that which actuated him
interiorly, that motion which is invisible, that impulse which is placed
within himself, is essentially different from those which act exteriorly.
The first he designated, as we have already said, by the name of a SPIRIT
or a SOUL. If however it be asked, what is a spirit? The moderns will
reply, that the whole fruit of their metaphysical researches is limited to
learning that this motive-power, which they state to be the spring of
man’s action, is a substance of an unknown nature; so simple, so
indivisible, so deprived of extent, so invisible, so impossible to be
discovered by the senses, that its parts cannot be separated, even by
abstraction or thought. The question then arises, how can we conceive such
a substance, which is only the negation of every thing of which we have a
knowledge? How form to ourselves an idea of a substance, void of extent,
yet acting on our senses; that is to say, on those organs which are
material, which have extent? How can a being without extent be moveable;
how put matter in action? How can a substance devoid of parts, correspond
successively with different parts of space? But a very cogent question
presents itself on this occasion: if this distinct substance that is said
to form one of the component parts of man, be really what it is reported,
and if it be not, it is not what it is described; if it be unknown, if it
be not pervious to the senses; if it be invisible, by what means did the
metaphysicians themselves become acquainted with it? How did they form
ideas of a substance, that taking their own account of it, is not, under
any of its circumstances, either directly or by analogy, cognizable to the
mind of man? If they could positively achieve this, there would no longer
be any mystery in Nature: it would be as easy to conceive the time when
all was nothing, when all shall have passed away, to account for the
production of every thing we behold, as to dig in a garden or read a
lecture.—Doubt would vanish from the human species; there could no
longer be any difference of opinion, since all must necessarily be of one
mind on a subject so accessible to every enquirer.

But it will be replied, the materialist himself admits, the natural
philosophers of all ages have admitted, elements and atoms, beings simple
and indivisible, of which bodies are composed:—granted; they have no
more: they have also admitted that many of these atoms, many of these
elements, if not all, are unknown to them: nevertheless, these simple
beings, these atoms of the materialist, are not the same thing with the
spirit, or the soul of the metaphysician. When the natural philosopher
talks of atoms—when he describes them as simple beings, he indicates
nothing more than that they are homogeneous, pure, without mixture: but
then he allows that they have extent, consequently parts, are separable by
thought, although no other natural agent with which he is acquainted is
capable of dividing them: that the simple beings of this genus are
susceptible of motion—can impart action—receive impulse—are
material—are placed in Nature—are indestructible;—that
consequently, if he cannot know them from themselves, he can form some
idea of them by analogy: thus he has done that intelligibly, which the
metaphysician would do unintelligibly: the latter, with a view to render
man immortal, finding difficulties to his wish, from seeing that the body
decayed—that it has submitted to the great, the universal law—has,
to solve the difficulty, to remove the impediment, given him a soul,
distinct from the body, which he says is exempted from the action of the
general law: to account for this, he has called it a spiritual being,
whose properties are the negation of all known properties, consequently
inconceivable: had he, however, had recourse to the atoms of the former—had
he made this substance the last possible term of the division of matter—it
would at least have been intelligible; it would also have been immortal,
since, according to the reasonings of all men, whether metaphysicians,
theologians, or natural philosophers, an atom is an indestructible
element, that must exist to all eternity.

All men are agreed in this position, that motion is the successive change
of the relations of one body with other bodies, or with the different
parts of space. If that which is called spirit be susceptible of
communicating or receiving motion—if it acts—if it gives play
to the organs of body—to produce these effects, it necessarily
follows that this being changes successively its relation, its tendency,
its correspondence, the position of its parts, either relatively to the
different points of space, or to the different organs of the body which it
puts in action: but to change its relation with space, with the organs to
which it gives impulse, it follows of necessity that this spirit most have
extent, solidity, consequently distinct parts: whenever a substance
possesses these qualities, it is what we call MATTER, it can no longer be
regarded as a simple pure being, in the sense attached to it by the
moderns, or by theologians.

Thus it will be seen, that those who, to conquer insurmountable
difficulties, have supposed in man an immaterial substance, distinguished
from his body, have not thoroughly understood themselves; indeed they have
done nothing more than imagined a negative quality, of which they cannot
have any correct idea: matter alone is capable of acting on our senses;
without this action nothing would be capable of making itself known to us.
They have not seen that a being without extent is neither in a capacity to
move itself, nor has the capability of communicating motion to the body;
since such a being, having no parts, has not the faculty of changing its
relation, or its distance, relatively to other bodies, nor of exciting
motion in the human body, which is itself material. That which is called
our soul moves itself with us; now motion is a property of matter—this
soul gives impulse to the arm; the arm, moved by it, makes an impression,
a blow, that follows the general law of motion: in this case, the force
remaining the same, if the mass was two-fold, the blow should be double.
This soul again evinces its materiality in the invincible obstacles it
encounters on the part of the body. If the arm be moved by its impulse
when nothing opposes it, yet this arm can no longer move, when it is
charged with a weight beyond its strength. Here then is a mass of matter
that annihilates the impulse given by a spiritual cause, which spiritual
cause having no analogy with matter, ought not to find more difficulty in
moving the whole world, than in moving a single atom, nor an atom, than
the universe. From this, it is fair to conclude, such a substance is a
chimera—a being of the imagination. That it required a being
differently endowed, differently constituted, to set matter in motion—to
create all the phenomena we behold: nevertheless, it is a being the
metaphysicians have made the contriver, the Author of Nature. As man, in
all his speculations, takes himself for the model, he no sooner imagined a
spirit within himself, than giving it extent, he made it universal; then
ascribed to it all those causes with which his ignorance prevents him from
becoming acquainted, thus he identified himself with the Author of Nature—then
availed himself of the supposition to explain the connection of the soul
with the body: his self-complacency prevented his perceiving that he was
only enlarging the circle of his errors, by pretending to understand that
which it is more than possible he will never be permitted to know; his
self-love prevented him from feeling, that whenever he punished another
for not thinking as he did, that he committed the greatest injustice,
unless he was satisfactorily able to prove that other wrong, and himself
right: that if he himself was obliged to have recourse to hypothesis—to
gratuitous suppositions, whereon to found his doctrine, that from the very
fallibility of his nature, these might be erroneous: thus GALLILEO was
persecuted, because the metaphysicians, the theologians of his day, chose
to make others believe what it was evident they did not themselves
understand.

As soon as I feel an impulse, or experience motion, I am under the
necessity to acknowledge extent, solidity, density, impenetrability in the
substance I see move, or from which I receive impulse: thus, when action
is attributed to any cause whatever, I am obliged to consider it MATERIAL.
I may be ignorant of its individual nature, of its mode of action, or of
its generic properties; but I cannot deceive myself in general properties,
which are common to all matter: this ignorance will only be increased,
when I shall take that for granted of a being, of which from that moment I
am precluded by what I admit from forming any idea, which moreover
deprives it completely either of the faculty of moving itself, giving an
impulse, or acting. Thus, according to the received idea of the term, a
spiritual substance that moves itself, that gives motion to matter, and
that acts, implies a contradiction, that necessarily infers a total
impossibility.

The partizans of spirituality believe they answer the difficulties they
have accumulated, by asserting that “the soul is entire—is whole
under each point of its extent.” If an absurd answer will solve
difficulties, they certainly have done it. But let us examine this reply:—it
will be found that this indivisible part which is called soul, however
insensible or however minute, must yet remain something: then an infinity
of unextended substances, or the same substance having no dimensions,
repeated an infinity of times, would constitute a substance that has
extent: this cannot be what they mean, because according to this
principle, the human soul would then be as infinite as the Author of
Nature; seeing that they have stated this to be a being without extent,
who is an infinity of times whole in each part of the universe. But when
there shall appear as much solidity in the answer as there is a want of
it, it must be acknowledged that in whatever manner the spirit or the soul
finds itself in its extent, when the body moves forward the soul does not
remain behind; if so, it has a quality in common with the body, peculiar
to matter; since it is conveyed from place to place jointly with the body.
Thus, when even the soul should be admitted to be immaterial, what
conclusion must be drawn? Entirely submitted to the motion of the body,
without this body it would remain dead and inert. This soul would only be
part of a two-fold machine, necessarily impelled forward by a
concatenation, or connection with the whole. It would resemble a bird,
which a child conducts at its pleasure, by the string with which it is
bound.

Thus, it is for want of consulting experience, by not attending to reason,
that man has darkened his ideas upon the concealed principle of his
motion. If, disentangled from prejudice—if, destitute of gratuitous
suppositions—if, throwing aside error, he would contemplate his
soul, or the moving principle that acts within him, he would be convinced
that it forms a part of its body, that it cannot be distinguished from it,
but by abstraction; that it is only the body itself, considered relatively
with some of its functions, or with those faculties of which its nature,
or its peculiar organization, renders it susceptible:—he will
perceive that this soul is obliged to undergo the same changes as the
body; that it is born with it; that it expands itself with it; that like
the body, it passes through a state of infancy, a period of weakness, a
season of inexperience; that it enlarges itself, that it strengthens
itself, in the same progression; that like the body, it arrives at an
adult age or reaches maturity; that it is then, and not till then, it
obtains the faculty of fulfilling certain functions; that it is in this
stage, and in no other, that it enjoys reason; that it displays more or
less wit, judgment, and manly activity; that like the body, it is subject
to those vicissitudes which exterior causes obliges it to undergo by their
influence; that, conjointly with the body, it suffers, enjoys, partakes of
its pleasures, shares its pains, is sound when the body is healthy, and
diseased when the body is oppressed with sickness; that like the body, it
is continually modified by the different degrees of density in the
atmosphere; by the variety of the seasons, and by the various properties
of the aliments received into the stomach: in short, he would be obliged
to acknowledge that at some periods it manifests visible signs of torpor,
stupefaction, decrepitude, and death.

In despite of this analogy, or rather this continual identity, of the soul
with the body, man has been desirous of distinguishing their essence; he
has therefore made the soul an inconceivable being: but in order that he
might form to himself some idea of it, he was, notwithstanding, obliged to
have recourse to material beings, and to their manner of acting. The word
spirit, therefore, presents to the mind no other ideas than those
of breathing, of respiration, of wind. Thus, when it is said the soul
is a spirit, it really means nothing more than that its mode of action
is like that of breathing: which though invisible in itself, or acting
without being seen, nevertheless produces very visible effects. But
breath, it is acknowledged, is a material cause; it is allowed to be air
modified; it is not, therefore, a simple or pure substance, such as the
moderns designate under the name of SPIRIT.

It is rather singular that in the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin, the
synonymy, or corresponding term for spirit should signify breath.
The metaphysicians themselves can best say why they have adopted such a
word, to designate the substance they have distinguished from matter: some
of them, fearful they should not have distinct beings enough, have gone
farther, and compounded man of three substances, BODY, SOUL, and
INTELLECT.

Although the word spirit is so very ancient among men, the sense
attached to it by the moderns is quite new: the idea of spirituality, as
admitted at this day, is a recent production of the imagination. Neither
PYTHAGORAS nor PLATO, however heated their brain, however decided their
taste for the marvellous, appear to have understood by spirit an
immaterial substance, or one without extent, devoid of parts; such as that
of which the moderns have formed the human soul, the concealed author of
motion. The ancients, by the word spirit, were desirous to define matter
of an extreme subtilty, of a purer quality than that which acted grossly
on our senses. In consequence, some have regarded the soul as an ethereal
substance; others as igneous matter; others again have compared it to
light. DEMOCRITUS made it consist in motion, consequently gave it a manner
of existence. ARISTOXENES, who was himself a musician, made it harmony.
ARISTOTLE regarded the soul as the moving faculty, upon which depended the
motion of living bodies.

The earliest doctors of Christianity had no other idea of the soul, than
that it was material. TERTULLIAN, ARNOBIUS, CLEMENT of ALEXANDRIA, ORIGEN,
SAINT JUSTIN, IRENAEUS, have all of them discoursed upon it; but have
never spoken of it other than as a corporeal substance—as matter. It
was reserved for their successors at a great distance of time, to make the
human soul and the soul of the world pure spirits; that is to say,
immaterial substances, of which it is impossible they could form any
accurate idea: by degrees this incomprehensible doctrine of spirituality,
conformable without doubt to the views of those who make it a principle to
annihilate reason, prevailed over the others: But it might be fairly
asked, if the pretended proofs of this doctrine owe themselves to a man,
who on a much more comprehensible point has been proved in error; if, on
that which time has shewn was accessible to man’s reason, the great
champion in support of this dogma was deceived; are we not bound to
examine, with the most rigorous investigation, the reasonings, the
evidence, of one who was the decided, the proven child of enthusiasm and
error? Yet DESCARTES, to whose sublime errors the world is indebted for
the Newtonian system, although before him the soul had been considered
spiritual, was the first who established that, “that which thinks ought
to be distinguished from matter;” from whence he concludes rather
hastily, that the soul, or that which thinks in man, is a spirit; or a
simple indivisible substance. Perhaps it would have been more logical,
more consistent with reason, to have said, since man, who is matter, who
has no idea but of matter, enjoys the faculty of thought, matter can
think; that is, it is susceptible of that particular modification called
thought.

However this may be, this doctrine was believed divine, supernatural,
because it was inconceivable to man. Those who dared believe even that
which was believed before; namely, that the soul was material, were
held as rash inconsiderate madmen, or else treated as enemies to the
welfare and happiness of the human race. When man had once renounced
experience; when he had abjured his reason; when he had joined the banner
of this enthusiastic novelty; he did nothing more, day after day, than
subtilize the delirium, the ravings of his imagination: he pleased himself
by continually sinking deeper into the most unfathomable depths of error:
he felicitated himself on his discoveries; on his pretended knowledge; in
an exact ratio as his understanding became enveloped in the mists of
darkness, environed with the clouds of ignorance. Thus, in consequence of
man’s reasoning upon false principles; of having relinquished the evidence
of his senses; the moving principle within him, the concealed author of
motion, has been made a mere chimera, a mere being of the imagination,
because he has divested it of all known properties; because he has
attached to it nothing but properties which, from the very nature of his
existence, he is incapacitated to comprehend.

The doctrine of spirituality, such as it now exists, offers nothing but
vague ideas; or rather is the absense of all ideas. What does it present
to the mind, but a substance which possesses nothing of which our senses
enable us to have a knowledge? Can it be truth that a man is able to
figure to himself a being not material, having neither extent nor parts,
which, nevertheless, acts upon matter without having any point of contact,
any kind of analogy with it; and which itself receives the impulse of
matter by means of material organs, which announce to it the presence of
other beings? Is it possible to conceive the union of the soul with the
body; to comprehend how this material body can bind, enclose, constrain,
determine a fugitive being which escapes all our senses? Is it honest, is
it plain dealing, to solve these difficulties, by saying there is a
mystery in them; that they are the effects of a power, more inconceivable
than the human soul; than its mode of acting, however concealed from our
view? When to resolve these problems, man is obliged to have recourse to
miracles or to make the Divinity interfere, does he not avow his own
ignorance? When, notwithstanding the ignorance he is thus obliged to avow
by availing himself of the divine agency, he tells us, this immaterial
substance, this soul, shall experience the action of the element of fire,
which he allows to be material; when he confidently says this soul shall
be burnt; shall suffer in purgatory; have we not a right to believe, that
either he has a design to deceive us, or else that he does not himself
understand that which he is so anxious we should take upon his word?

Let us not then be surprised at those subtile hypotheses, as ingenious as
they are unsatisfactory, to which theological prejudice has obliged the
most profound modern speculators to recur; when they have undertaken to
reconcile the spirituality of the soul, with the physical action of
material beings, on this incorporeal substance; its re-action upon these
beings; its union with the body. When the human mind permits itself to be
guided by authority without proof, to be led forward by enthusiasm; when
it renounces the evidence of its senses; what can it do more than sink
into error? Let those who doubt this, read the metaphysical romances of
LEIBNITZ, DESCARTES, MALEBRANCHE, CUDWORTH, and many others: let them
coolly examine the ingenious, but fanciful systems entitled the
pre-established harmony of occasional causes; physical pre-motion, &c.

If man wishes to form to himself clear, perspicuous ideas of his soul, let
him throw himself back on his experience—let him renounce his
prejudices—let him avoid theological conjecture—let him tear
the bandages which he has been taught to think necessary, but with which
he has been blind-folded, only to confound his reason. If it be wished to
draw man to virtue, let the natural philosopher, let the anatomist, let
the physician, unite their experience; let them compare their
observations, in order to show what ought to be thought of a substance, so
disguised, so hidden by absurdities, as not easily to be known. Their
discoveries may perhaps teach moralists the true motive-power that ought
to influence the actions of man—legislators, the true motives that
should actuate him, that should excite him to labour to the welfare of
society—sovereigns, the means of rendering their subjects truly
happy; of giving solidity to the power of the nations committed to their
charge. Physical souls have physical wants, and demand physical happiness.
These are real, are preferable objects, to that variety of fanciful
chimeras, each in its turn giving place to the other, with which the mind
of man has been fed during so many ages. Let us, then, labour to perfect
the morality of man; let us make it agreeable to him; let us excite in him
an ardent thirst for its purity: we shall presently see his morals become
better, himself become happier; his soul become calm and serene; his will
determined to virtue, by the natural, by the palpable motives held out to
him. By the diligence, by the care which legislators shall bestow on
natural philosophy, they will form citizens of sound understandings;
robust and well constituted; who, finding themselves happy, will be
themselves accessary to that useful impulse so necessary for their soul.
When the body is suffering, when nations are unhappy, the soul cannot be
in a proper state. Mens sana in corpore sano, a sound mind in a
sound body, will be always able to make a good citizen.

The more man reflects, the more he will be convinced that the soul, very
far from being distinguished from the body, is only the body itself,
considered relatively to some of its functions, or to some of the modes of
existing or acting, of which it is susceptible whilst it enjoys life.
Thus, the soul is man, considered relatively to the faculty he has of
feeling, of thinking, of acting in a mode resulting from his peculiar
nature; that is to say, from his properties, from his particular
organization: from the modifications, whether durable or transitory, which
the beings who act upon him cause his machine to undergo.

Those who have distinguished the soul from the body, appear only to have
distinguished their brain from themselves. Indeed, the brain is the common
center, where all the nerves, distributed through every part of the body,
meet and blend themselves: it is by the aid of this interior organ that
all those operations are performed which are attributed to the soul: it is
the impulse, or the motion, communicated to the nerve, which modifies the
brain: in consequence, it re-acts, or gives play to the bodily organs; or
rather it acts upon itself, and becomes capable of producing within itself
a great variety of motion, which has been designated intellectual
faculties.

From this it may be seen that some philosophers have been desirous to make
a spiritual substance of the brain. It is evidently nothing but ignorance
that has given birth to and accredited this system, which embraces so
little, either of the natural or the rational. It is from not having
studied himself, that man has supposed he was compounded with an agent,
essentially different from his body: in examining this body, he will find
that it is quite useless to recur to hypothesis for the explanation of the
various phenomena it presents to his contemplation; that hypothesis can do
nothing more than lead him out of the right road to the information after
which he seeks. What obscures this question, arises from this, that man
cannot see himself: indeed, for this purpose, that would be requisite
which is impossible; namely, that he could he at one and the same moment
both within and without himself: he may be compared to an Eolian harp,
that issues sounds of itself, and should demand what it is that causes it
to give them forth? It does not perceive that the sensitive quality of its
chords causes the air to brace them; that being so braced, it is rendered
sonorous by every gust of wind with which it happens to come in contact.

When a theologian, obstinately bent on admitting into man two substances
essentially different, is asked why he multiplies beings without
necessity? he will reply, because “thought cannot be a property of
matter.” If, then, it be enquired of him, cannot God give to matter
the faculty of thought? he will answer, “no! seeing that God cannot
do impossible things!” According to his principles, it is as
impossible that spirit or thought can produce matter, as it is impossible
that matter can produce spirit or thought: it might, therefore, be
concluded against him, that the world was not made by a spirit, any more
than a spirit was made by the world. But in this case, does not the
theologian, according to his own assertion, acknowledge himself to be the
true atheist? Does he not, in fact, circumscribe the attributes of the
Deity, and deny his power, to suit his own purpose? Yet these men demand
implicit belief in doctrines, which they are obliged to maintain by the
most contradictory assertions.

The more experience we collect, the more we shall be convinced that the
word spirit, in its present received usage, conveys no one sense
that is tangible, either to ourselves or to those that invented it;
consequently cannot be of the least use, either in physics or morals. What
modern metaphysicians believe and understand by the word, is nothing more
than an occult power, imagined to explain occult qualities
and actions, but which, in fact, explains nothing. Savage nations admit of
spirits, to account to themselves for those effects, which to them appear
marvellous, as long as their ignorance knows not the cause to which they
ought to be attributed. In attributing to spirits the phenomena of Nature,
as well as those of the human body, do we, in fact, do any thing more than
reason like savages? Man has filled Nature with spirits, because he has
almost always been ignorant of the true causes of those effects by which
he was astonished. Not being acquainted with the powers of Nature, he has
supposed her to be animated by a great spirit: not understanding
the energy of the human frame, he has in like manner conjectured it to be
animated by a minor spirit: from this it would appear, that
whenever he wished to indicate the unknown cause of a phenomena, he knew
not how to explain in a natural manner, he had recourse to the word spirit.
In short, spirit was a term by which he solved all his doubts, and
cleared up his ignorance to himself. It was according to these principles
that when the AMERICANS first beheld the terrible effects of gunpowder,
they ascribed the cause to wrathful spirits, to their enraged divinities:
it was by adopting these principles, that our ancestors believed in a
plurality of gods, in ghosts, in genii, &c. Pursuing the same track,
we ought to attribute to spirits gravitation, electricity, magnetism,
&c. &c. It is somewhat singular, that priests have in all ages so
strenuously upheld those systems which time has exploded; that they have
appeared to be either the most crafty or the most ignorant of men. Where
are now the priests of Apollo, of Juno, of the Sun, and a thousand others?
Yet these are the men, who in all times have persecuted those who have
been the first to give natural explanations of the phenomena of Nature, as
witness ANAXAGORAS, ARISTOTLE, GALLILEO, DESCARTES, &c. &c.

CHAP. VIII.

The Intellectual Faculties derived from the Faculty of Feeling.

To convince ourselves that the faculties called intellectual, are
only certain modes of existence, or determinate manners of acting, which
result from the peculiar organization of the body, we have only to analyze
them; we shall then see that all the operations which are attributed to
the soul, are nothing more than certain modifications of the body; of
which a substance that is without extent, that has no parts, that is
immaterial, is not susceptible.

The first faculty we behold in the living man, and that from which all his
others flow, is feeling: however inexplicable this faculty may
appear, on a first view, if it be examined closely, it will be found to be
a consequence of the essence, or a result of the properties of organized
beings; the same as gravity, magnetism, elasticity, electricity,
&c. result from the essence or nature of some others. We shall also
find these last phenomena are not less inexplicable than that of feeling.
Nevertheless, if we wish to define to ourselves a clear and precise idea
of it, we shall find that feeling is a particular manner of being moved—a
mode of receiving an impulse peculiar to certain organs of animated
bodies, which is occasioned by the presence of a material object that acts
upon these organs, and transmit the impulse or shock to the brain.

Man only feels by the aid of nerves dispersed through his body; which is
itself, to speak correctly, nothing more than a great nerve; or may be
said to resemble a large tree, of which the branches experience the action
of the root, communicated through the trunk. In man the nerves unite and
lose themselves in the brain; that intestine is the true seat of feeling:
like the spider in the centre of his web, it is quickly warned of all the
changes that happen to the body, even at the extremities to which it sends
its filaments and branches. Experience enables us to ascertain, that man
ceases to feel in those parts of his body of which the communication with
the brain is intercepted; he feels very little, or not at all, whenever
this organ is itself deranged or affected in too lively a manner. A proof
of this is afforded in the transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences
at Paris: they inform us of a man who had his scull taken off, in the room
of which his brain was recovered with skin; in proportion as a pressure
was made by the hand on his brain, the man fell into a kind of
insensibility, which deprived him of all feeling. BARTOLIN says, the brain
of a man is twice as big as that of an ox. This observation had been
already made by ARISTOTLE. In the dead body of an idiot dissected by
WILLIS, the brain was found smaller than ordinary: he says the greatest
difference he found between the parts of the body of this idiot, and those
of wiser men, was, that the plexus of the intercostal nerves, which is the
mediator between the brain and the heart, was extremely small, accompanied
by a less number of nerves than usual. According to WILLIS, the ape is, of
all animals, that which has the largest brain, relatively to his size: he
is also, after man, that which has the most intelligence: this is further
confirmed, by the name he bears in the soil, to which he is indigenous,
which is ourang outang, or the man beast. There is, therefore,
every reason to believe that it is entirely in the brain, that consists
the difference, that is found not only between man and beasts, but also
between the man of wit, and the fool: between the thinking man, and he who
is ignorant; between the man of sound understanding, and the madman: a
multitude of experience, serves to prove, that those persons who are most
accustomed to use their intellectual faculties, have their brain more
extended than others: the same has been remarked of watermen, that they
have arms much longer than other men.

However this may be, the sensibility of the brain, and all its parts, is a
fact: if it be asked, whence comes this property? We shall reply, it is
the result of an arrangement, of a combination, peculiar to the animal: it
is thus that milk, bread, wine, change themselves in the substance of man,
who is a sensible being: this insensible matter becomes sensible, in
combining itself with a sensible whole. Some philosophers think that
sensibility is a universal quality of matter: in this case, it would be
useless to seek from whence this property is derived, as we know it by its
effects. If this hypothesis be admitted, in like manner as two kinds of
motion are distinguished in Nature, the one called live force, the
other dead, or inert force, two sorts of sensibility will be
distinguished, the one active or alive, the other inert or dead. Then to
animalize a substance, is only to destroy the obstacles that prevent its
being active or sensible. In fact, sensibility is either a quality which
communicates itself like motion, and which is acquired by combination; or
this sensibility is a property inherent in all matter: in both, or either
case, an unextended being, without parts, such as the human soul is said
to be, can neither be the cause of it nor submitted to its operation; but
we may fairly conclude, that all the parts of Nature enjoy the capability
to arrive at animation; the obstacle is only in the state, not in the
quality. Life is the perfection of Nature: she has no parts which do not
tend to it—which do not attain it by the same means. Life in an
insect, a dog, a man, has no other difference, than that this act is more
perfect, relatively to ourselves in proportion to the structure of the
organs: if, therefore, it be asked, what is requisite to animate a body?
we reply, it needs no foreign aid; it is sufficient that the power of
Nature be joined to its organization.

The conformation, the arrangement, the texture, the delicacy of the
organs, as well exterior as interior, which compose men and animals,
render their parts extremely mobile, or make their machine susceptible of
being moved with great facility. In a body, which is only a heap of
fibres, a mass of nerves, contiguous one to the other, united in a common
center, always ready to act; in a whole, composed of fluids and solids, of
which the parts are in equilibrium, the smallest touching each other, are
active in their motion, communicating reciprocally, alternately and in
succession, the impression, oscillations, and shocks they receive; in such
a composition, it is not surprising that the slightest impulse propagates
itself with celerity; that the shocks excited in its remotest parts, make
themselves quickly felt in the brain, whose delicate texture renders it
susceptible of being itself very easily modified. Air, fire, water, agents
the most inconstant, possessing the most rapid motion, circulate
continually in the fibres, incessantly penetrate the nerves: without doubt
these contribute to that incredible celerity with which the brain is
acquainted with what passes at the extremities of the body.

Notwithstanding the great mobility with which man’s organization renders
him susceptible, although exterior as well as interior causes are
continually acting upon him, he does not always feel in a distinct, in a
decided manner, the impulse given to his senses: indeed, he does not feel
it, until it has produced some change, or given some shock to his brain.
Thus, although completely environed by air, he does not feel its action,
until it is so modified, as to strike with a sufficient degree of force on
his organs; to penetrate his skin, through which his brain is warned of
its presence. Thus, during a profound and tranquil sleep, undisturbed by
any dream, man ceases to feel. In short, notwithstanding the continued
motion that agitates his frame, man does not appear to feel, when this
motion acts in a convenient order; he does not perceive a state of health,
but he discovers a state of grief or sickness; because, in the first, his
brain does not receive too lively an impulse, whilst in the others, his
nerves are contracted, shocked, and agitated, with violent, with
disorderly motion: these communicating with his brain, give notice that
some cause acts strongly upon them—impels them in a manner that
bears no analogy with their natural habit: this constitutes, in him, that
peculiar mode of existing which he calls grief.

On the other hand, it sometimes happens that exterior objects produce very
considerable changes on his body, without his perceiving them at the
moment. Often, in the heat of battle, the soldier perceives not that he is
dangerously wounded, because, at the time, the rapidity, the multiplicity
of impetuous motion that assails his brain, does not permit him to
distinguish the particular change a part of his body has undergone by the
wound. In short, when a great number of causes are simultaneously acting
on him with too much vivacity, he sinks under their accumulated pressure,—he
swoons—he loses his senses—he is deprived of feeling.

In general, feeling only obtains, when the brain can distinguish
distinctly, the impressions made on the organs with which it has
communication; it is the distinct shock, the decided modification man
undergoes, that constitutes conscience. Doctor Clarke, says to this
effect: “Conscience is the act of reflecting, by means of which I know
that I think, and that my thoughts, or my actions belong to me, and not to
another.” From this it will appear, that feeling is a mode of
being, a marked change, produced on our brain, occasioned by the impulse
communicated to our organs, whether by interior or exterior agents, by
which it is modified either in a durable or transient manner: it is not
always requisite that man’s organs should be moved by an exterior object,
to enable him to feel that he should be conscious of the changes effected
in him: he can feel them within himself by means of an interior impulse;
his brain is then modified, or rather he renews within himself the
anterior modifications. We are not to be astonished that the brain should
be necessarily warned of the shocks, of the impediments, of the changes
that may happen to so complicated a machine as the human body, in which,
notwithstanding all the parts are contiguous to the brain, and concentrate
themselves in this brain, and are by their essence in a continual state of
action and re-action.

When a man experiences the pains of the gout, he is conscious of them; in
other words, he feels interiorly, that it has produced very marked, very
distinct changes in him, without his perceiving, that he has received an
impulse from any exterior cause; nevertheless, if he will recur to the
true source of these changes, he will find that they have been wholly
produced by exterior agents: they have been the consequence, either of his
temperament; of the organization received from his parents; of the
aliments with which his frame has been nourished; besides a thousand
trivial, inappreciable causes, which congregating themselves by degrees
produce in him the gouty humour; the effect of which is to make him feel
in an acute and very lively manner. The pain of the gout engenders in his
brain an idea, so modifies it that it acquires the faculty of representing
to itself, of reiterating as it were, this pain when even he shall be no
longer tormented with the gout: his brain, by a series of motion
interiorly excited, is again placed in a state analogous to that in which
it was when he really experienced this pain: but if he had never felt it,
he would never have been in a capacity to form to himself any just idea of
its excruciating torments.

The visible organs of man’s body, by the intervention of which his brain
is modified, take the name of senses. The various modifications
which his brain receives by the aid of these senses, assumes a variety of
names. Sensation, perception, and idea, are terms
that designate nothing more than the changes produced in this interior
organ, in consequence of impressions made on the exterior organs by bodies
acting on them: these changes considered by themselves, are called sensations;
they adopt the term perception when the brain is warned of their
presence; ideas is that state of them in which the brain is able to
ascribe them to the objects by which they have been produced.

Every sensation, then, is nothing more than the shock given to the
organs, every perception is this shock propagated to the brain;
every idea is the image of the object to which the sensation and
the perception is to be ascribed. From whence it will be seen, that if the
senses be not moved, there can neither be sensations, perceptions, nor
ideas: this will be proved to those, who can yet permit themselves to
doubt so demonstrable and striking a truth.

It is the extreme mobility of which man is capable, owing to his peculiar
organization, that distinguishes him from other beings that are called
insensible or inanimate; the different degrees of this mobility, of which
the individuals of his species are susceptible, discriminate them from
each other; make that incredible variety, that infinity of difference
which is to be found, as well in their corporeal faculties, as in those
which are mental or intellectual. From this mobility, more or less
remarkable in each human being, results wit, sensibility, imagination,
taste, &c.: for the present, however, let us follow the operation of
the senses; let us examine in what manner they are acted upon, and are
modified by exterior objects:—we will afterwards scrutinize the
re-action of the interior organ or brain.

The eyes are very delicate, very movable organs, by means of which the
sensation of light or colour is experienced: these give to the brain a
distinct perception, in consequence of which, man forms an idea, generated
by the action of luminous or coloured bodies: as soon as the eyelids are
opened, the retina is affected in a peculiar manner; the fluid, the
fibres, the nerves, of which they are composed, are excited by shocks
which they communicate to the brain; to which they delineate the images of
the bodies from which they have received the impulse; by this means, an
idea is acquired of the colour, the size, the form, the distance of these
bodies: it is thus that may be explained the mechanism of sight.

The mobility and the elasticity of which the skin is rendered susceptible,
by the fibres and nerves which form its texture, accounts for the rapidity
with which this envelope to the human body is affected when applied to any
other body; by their agency, the brain has notice of its presence, of its
extent, of its roughness, of its smoothness, of its surface, of its
pressure of its ponderosity, &c. Qualities from which the brain
derives distinct perceptions, which breed in it a diversity of ideas; it
is this that constitutes the touch or feeling.

The delicacy of the membrane by which the interior of the nostrils is
covered, renders them easily susceptible of irritation, even by the
invisible and impalpable corpuscles that emanate from odorous bodies: by
these means sensations are excited, the brain has perceptions, and
generates ideas: it is this that forms the sense of smelling.

The mouth, filled with nervous, sensible, movable, irritable glands,
saturated with juices suitable to the dissolution of saline substances, is
affected in a very lively manner by the aliments which pass through it for
the nourishment of the body; these glands transmit to the brain the
impressions received: perceptions are of consequence; ideas follow: it is
from this mechanism that results taste.

The ear, whose conformation fits it to receive the various impulses of
air, diversely modified, communicates to the brain the shocks or
sensations; these breed the perception of sound, and generate the idea of
sonorous bodies: it is this that constitutes hearing.

Such are the only means by which man receives sensations, perceptions, and
ideas. These successive modifications of his brain are effects produced by
objects that give impulse to his senses; they become themselves causes,
producing in his soul new modifications, which are denominated thought,
reflection, memory, imagination, judgment, will, action; the basis,
however, of all these is sensation.

To form a precise notion of thought, it will be requisite to
examine, step by step, what passes in man during the presence of any
object whatever. Suppose for a moment this object to be a peach: this
fruit makes, at the first view, two different impressions on his eyes;
that is to say, it produces two modifications, which are transmitted to
the brain, which on this occasion experiences two new perceptions, or has
two new ideas or modes of existence, designated by the terms colour
and rotundity; in consequence, he has an idea of a body possessing
roundness and colour: if he places his hand on this fruit, the organ of
feeling having been set in action, his hand experiences three new
impressions, which are called softness, coolness, weight, from
whence result three new perceptions in the brain, he has consequently
three new ideas: if he approximates this peach to his nose, the organ of
smelling receives an impulse, which, communicated to the brain, a
new perception arises, by which he acquires a new idea, called odour:
if he carries this fruit to his mouth, the organ of taste becomes affected
in a very lively manner: this impulse communicated to the brain, is
followed by a perception that generates in him the idea of flavour.
In re-uniting all these impressions, or these various modifications of his
organs, which it have been consequently transmitted to his brain; that is
to say, in combining the different sensations, perceptions, and ideas,
that result from the impulse he has received, he has an idea of a whole,
which he designates by the name of a peach, with which he can then occupy
his thoughts.

From this it is sufficiently proved that thought has a commencement, a
duration, an end; or rather a generation, a succession, a dissolution,
like all the other modifications of matter; like them, thought is excited,
is determined, is increased, is divided, is compounded, is simplified,
&c. If, therefore, the soul, or the principle that thinks, be
indivisible; how does it happen, that this soul has the faculty of memory,
or of forgetfulness; is capacitated to think successively, to divide, to
abstract, to combine, to extend its ideas, to retain them, or to lose
them? How can it cease to think? If forms appear divisible in matter, it
is only in considering them by abstraction, after the method, of
geometricians; but this divisibility of form exists not in Nature, in
which there is neither a point, an atom, nor form perfectly regular; it
must therefore be concluded, that the forms of matter are not less
indivisible than thought.

What has been said is sufficient to show the generation of sensations, of
perceptions, of ideas, with their association, or connection in the brain:
it will be seen that these various modifications are nothing more than the
consequence of successive impulses, which the exterior organs transmit to
the interior organ, which enjoys the faculty of thought, that is to say,
to feel in itself the different modifications it has received, or to
perceive the various ideas which it has generated; to combine them, to
separate them, to extend them, to abridge them, to compare them, to renew
them, &c. From whence it will be seen, that thought is nothing more
than the perception of certain modifications, which the brain either gives
to itself, or has received from exterior objects.

Indeed, not only the interior organ perceives the modifications it
receives from without, but again it has the faculty of modifying itself;
of considering the changes which take place in it, the motion by which it
is agitated in its peculiar operations, from which it imbibes new
perceptions and new ideas. It is the exercise of this power to fall back
upon itself, that is called reflection.

From this it will appear, that for man to think and to reflect, is to
feel, or perceive within himself the impressions, the sensations, the
ideas, which have been furnished to his brain by those objects which give
impulse to his senses, with the various changes which his brain produced
on itself in consequence.

Memory is the faculty which the brain has of renewing in itself the
modifications it has received, or rather, to restore itself to a state
similar to that in which it has been placed by the sensations, the
perceptions, the ideas, produced by exterior objects, in the exact order
it received them, without any new action on the part of these objects, or
even when these objects are absent; the brain perceives that these
modifications assimilate with those it formerly experienced in the
presence of the objects to which it relates, or attributes them. Memory is
faithful, when these modifications are precisely the same; it is
treacherous, when they differ from those which the organs have exteriorly
experienced.

Imagination in man is only the faculty which the brain has of
modifying itself, or of forming to itself new perceptions, upon the model
of those which it has anteriorly received through the action of exterior
objects on the senses. The brain, then, does nothing more than combine
ideas which it has already formed, which it recalls to itself, from which
it forms a whole, or a collection of modifications, which it has not
received, which exists no-where but in itself, although the individual
ideas, or the parts of which this ideal whole is composed, have been
previously communicated to it, in consequence of the impulse given to the
senses by exterior objects: it is thus man forms to himself the idea of centaurs,
or a being composed of a man and a horse, of hyppogriffs, or a
being composed of a horse with wings and a griffin, besides a thousand
other objects, equally ridiculous. By memory, the brain renews in itself
the sensations, the perceptions, and the ideas which it has received or
generated; represents to itself the objects which have actually moved its
organs. By imagination it combines them variously: forms objects in their
place which have not moved its organs, although it is perfectly acquainted
with the elements or ideas of which it composes them. It is thus that man,
by combining a great number of ideas borrowed from himself, such as
justice, wisdom, goodness, intelligence, &c. by the aid of
imagination, has formed various ideal beings, or imaginary wholes, which
he has called JUPITER, JUNO, BRAMAH, SATURN, &c.

Judgment is the faculty which the brain possesses of comparing with
each other the modifications it receives, the ideas it engenders, or which
it has the power of awakening within itself, to the end that it may
discover their relations, or their effects.

Will is a modification of the brain, by which it is disposed to
action, that is to say, to give such an impulse to the organs of the body,
as can induce to act in a manner, that will procure for itself what is
requisite to modify it in a mode analogous to its own existence, or to
enable it to avoid that by which it can be injured. To will is to
be disposed to action. The exterior objects, or the interior ideas,
which give birth to this disposition are called motives, because
they are the springs or movements which determine it to act, that is to
say, which give play to the organs of the body. Thus, voluntary actions
are the motion of the body, determined by the modification of the brain.
Fruit hanging on a tree, through the agency of the visual organs, modifies
the brain in such a manner as to dispose the arm to stretch itself forth
to cull it; again, it modifies it in another manner, by which it excites
the hand to carry it to the mouth.

All the modifications which the interior organ or the brain receives, all
the sensations, all the perceptions, all the ideas that are generated by
the objects which give impulse to the senses, or which it renews within
itself by its own peculiar faculties, are either favourable or prejudicial
to man’s mode of existence, whether that be transitory or habitual: they
dispose the interior organ to action, which it exercises by reason of its
own peculiar energy: this action is not, however, the same in all the
individuals of the human species, depending much on their respective
temperaments. From hence the PASSIONS have their birth: these are more or
less violent; they are, however, nothing more than the motion of the will,
determined by the objects which give it activity; consequently composed of
the analogy or of the discordance which is found between these objects,
man’s peculiar mode of existence, and the force of his temperament. From
this it results, that the passions are modes of existence or modifications
of the brain; which either attract or repel those objects by which man is
surrounded; that consequently they are submitted in their action to the
physical laws of attraction and repulsion.

The faculty of perceiving or of being modified, as well by itself as
exterior objects which the brain enjoys is sometimes designated by the
term understanding. To the assemblage of the various faculties of
which this interior organ is susceptible, is applied the name of intelligence.
To a determined mode in which the brain exercises the faculties peculiar
to itself, is given the appellation of reason. The dispositions or
the modifications of the brain, some of them constant, others transitory,
which give impulse to the beings of the human species, causing them to
act, are styled wit, wisdom, goodness, prudence, virtue, &c.

In short, as there will be an opportunity presently to prove, all the
intellectual faculties—that is to say, all the modes of action
attributed to the soul, may be reduced to the modifications, to the
qualities, to the modes of existence, to the changes produced by the
motion of the brain; which is visibly in man the seat of feeling, the
principle of all his actions. These modifications are to be attributed to
the objects that strike on his senses; of which the impression is
transmitted to the brain, or rather to the ideas, which the perceptions
caused by the action of these objects on his senses have there generated,
and which it has the faculty to re-produce. This brain moves itself in its
turn, re-acts upon itself, gives play to the organs, which concentrate
themselves in it, or which are rather nothing more than an extension of
its own peculiar substance. It is thus the concealed motion of the
interior organ, renders itself sensible by outward and visible signs. The
brain, affected by a modification which is called FEAR, diffuses a
paleness over the countenance, excites a tremulous motion in the limbs
called trembling. The brain, affected by a sensation of GRIEF, causes
tears to flow from the eyes, even without being moved by any exterior
object; an idea which it retraces with great strength, suffices to give it
very little modifications, which visibly have an influence on the whole
frame.

In all this, nothing more is to be perceived than the same substance which
acts diversely on the various parts of the body. If it be objected that
this mechanism does not sufficiently explain the principles of the motion
or the faculties of the soul; we reply, that it is in the same situation
as all the other bodies of Nature, in which the most simple motion, the
most ordinary phenomena, the most common modes of action are inexplicable
mysteries, of which we shall never be able to fathom the first principles.
Indeed, how can we flatter ourselves we shall ever be enabled to compass
the true principle of that gravity by which a stone falls? Are we
acquainted with the mechanism which produces attraction in some
substances, repulsion in others? Are we in a condition to explain the
communication of motion from one body to another? But it may be fairly
asked,—Are the difficulties that occur, when attempting to explain
the manner in which the soul acts, removed by making it a spiritual
being, a substance of which we have not, nor cannot form one idea,
which consequently must bewilder all the notions we are capable of forming
to ourselves of this being? Let us then be contented to know that the soul
moves itself, modifies itself, in consequence of material causes, which
act upon it which give it activity: from whence the conclusion may be said
to flow consecutively, that all its operations, all its faculties, prove
that it is itself material.

CHAP. IX.

The Diversity of the Intellectual Faculties: they depend on Physical
Causes, as do their Moral Qualities.—The Natural Principles of
Society.—Morals.—Politics.

Nature is under the necessity of diversifying all her works. Elementary
matter, different in its essence, must necessarily form different beings,
various in their combinations, in their properties, in their modes of
action, in their manner of existence. There is not, neither can there be,
two beings, two combinations, which are mathematically and rigorously the
same; because the place, the circumstances, the relations; the
proportions, the modifications, never being exactly alike, the beings that
result can never bear a perfect resemblance to each other: their modes of
action must of necessity vary in something, even when we believe we find
between them the greatest conformity.

In consequence of this principle, which every thing we see conspires to
prove to be a truth, there are not two individuals of the human species
who have precisely the same traits—who think exactly in the same
manner—who view things under the same identical point of sight—who
have decidedly the same ideas; consequently no two of them have uniformly
the same system of conduct. The visible organs of man, as well as his
concealed organs, have indeed some analogy, some common points of
resemblance, some general conformity; which makes them appear, when viewed
in the gross, to be affected in the same manner by certain causes: but the
difference is infinite in the detail. The human soul may be compared to
those instruments, of which the chords, already diversified in themselves,
by the manner in which they have been spun, are also strung upon different
notes: struck by the same impulse, each chord gives forth the sound that
is peculiar to itself; that is to say, that which depends on its texture,
its tension, its volume, on the momentary state in which it is placed by
the circumambient air. It is this that produces the diversified spectacle,
the varied scene, which the moral world offers to our view: it is from
this that results the striking contrariety that is to be found in the
minds, in the faculties, in the passions, in the energies, in the taste,
in the imagination, in the ideas, in the opinions of man. This diversity
is as great as that of his physical powers: like them it depends on his
temperament, which is as much varied as his physiognomy. This variety
gives birth to that continual series of action and reaction, which
constitutes the life of the moral world: from this discordance results the
harmony which at once maintains and preserves the human race.

The diversity found among the individuals of the human species, causes
inequalities between man and man: this inequality constitutes the support
of society. If all men were equal in their bodily powers, in their mental
talents, they would not have any occasion for each other: it is the
variation of his faculties, the inequality which this places him in, with
regard to his fellows, that renders morals necessary to man: without
these, he would live by himself, he would remain an isolated being. From
whence it may be perceived, that this inequality of which man so often
complains without cause—this impossibility which each man finds when
in an isolated state, when left to himself, when unassociated with his
fellow men, to labour efficaciously to his own welfare, to make his own
security, to ensure his own conservation; places him in the happy
situation of associating with his like, of depending on his fellow
associates, of meriting their succour, of propitiating them to his views,
of attracting their regard, of calling in their aid to chase away, by
common and united efforts, that which would have the power to trouble or
derange the order of his existence. In consequence of man’s diversity, of
the inequality that results, the weaker is obliged to seek the protection
of the stronger; this, in his turn, recurs to the understanding, to the
talents, to the industry of the weaker, whenever his judgment points out
he can be useful to him: this natural inequality furnishes the reason why
nations distinguish those citizens who have rendered their country eminent
services. It is in consequence of his exigencies that man honors and
recompenses those whose understanding, good deeds, assistance, or virtues,
have procured for him real or supposed advantages, pleasures, or agreeable
sensations of any sort: it is by this means that genius gains an
ascendancy over the mind of man, and obliges a whole people to acknowledge
its powers. Thus, the diversity and inequality of the faculties, as well
corporeal as mental or intellectual, renders man necessary to his fellow
man, makes him a social being, and incontestibly proves to him the
necessity of morals.

According to this diversity of faculties, the individuals of the human
species are divided into different classes, each in proportion to the
effects produced, or the different qualities that may be remarked: all
these varieties in man flow from the individual properties of his soul, or
from the particular modification of his brain. It is thus, that wit,
imagination, sensibility, talents, &c. diversify to infinity the
differences that are to be found in man. It is thus, that some are called
good, others wicked; some are denominated virtuous, others vicious; some
are ranked as learned, others as ignorant; some are considered reasonable,
others unreasonable, &c.

If all the various faculties attributed to the soul are examined, it will
be found that like those of the body they are to be ascribed to physical
causes, to which it will be very easy to recur. It will be found that the
powers of the soul are the same as those of the body; that they always
depend on the organization of this body, on its peculiar properties, on
the permanent or transitory modifications that it undergoes; in a word, on
its temperament.

Temperament is, in each individual, the habitual state in which he
finds the fluids and the solids of which his body is composed. This
temperament varies, by reason of the elements or matter that predominate
in him, in consequence of the different combinations, of the various
modifications, which this matter, diversified in itself, undergoes in his
machine. Thus, in one, the blood is superabundant; in another, the bile;
in a third, phlegm, &c.

It is from Nature—from his parents—from causes, which from the
first moment of his existence have unceasingly modified him, that man
derives his temperament. It is in his mother’s womb that he has attracted
the matter which, during his whole life, shall have an influence on his
intellectual faculties—on his energies—on his passions—on
his conduct. The very nourishment he takes, the quality of the air he
respires, the climate he inhabits, the education he receives, the ideas
that are presented to him, the opinions he imbibes, modify this
temperament. As these circumstances can never be rigorously the same in
every point for any two men, it is by no means surprising that such an
amazing variety, so great a contrariety, should be found in man; or that
there should exist as many different temperaments, as there are
individuals in the human species.

Thus, although man may bear a general resemblance, he differs essentially,
as well by the texture of his fibres and the disposition of his nerves, as
by the nature, the quality, the quantity of matter that gives them play,
that sets his organs in motion. Man, already different from his fellow, by
the elasticity of his fibres, the tension of his nerves, becomes still
more distinguished by a variety of other circumstances: he is more active,
more robust, when he receives nourishing aliments, when he drinks wine,
when he takes exercise: whilst another, who drinks nothing but water, who
takes less juicy nourishment, who languishes in idleness, shall be
sluggish and feeble.

All these causes have necessarily an influence on the mind, on the
passions, on the will; in a word, on what are called the intellectual
faculties. Thus, it may be observed, that a man of a sanguine
constitution, is commonly lively, ingenious, full of imagination,
passionate, voluptuous, enterprising; whilst the phlegmatic man is dull,
of a heavy understanding, slow of conception, inactive, difficult to be
moved, pusillanimous, without imagination, or possessing it in a less
lively degree, incapable of taking any strong measures, or of willing
resolutely.

If experience was consulted, in the room of prejudice, the physician would
collect from morals, the key to the human heart: in curing the body, he
would sometimes be assured of curing the mind. Man, in making a spiritual
substance of his soul, has contented himself with administering to it
spiritual remedies, which either have no influence over his temperament,
or do it an injury. The doctrine of the spirituality of the soul has
rendered morals a conjectural science, that does not furnish a knowledge
of the true motives which ought to be put in activity, in order to
influence man to his welfare. If, calling experience to his assistance,
man sought out the elements which form the basis of his temperament, or of
the greater number of the individuals composing a nation, he would then
discover what would be most proper for him,—that which could be most
convenient to his mode of existence—which could most conduce to his
true interest—what laws would be necessary to his happiness—what
institutions would be most useful for him—what regulations would be
most beneficial. In short, morals and politics would be equally enabled to
draw from materialism, advantages which the dogma of spirituality
can never supply, of which it even precludes the idea. Man will ever
remain a mystery, to those who shall obstinately persist in viewing him
with eyes prepossessed by metaphysics; he will always be an enigma to
those who shall pertinaciously attribute his actions to a principle, of
which it is impossible to form to themselves any distinct idea. When man
shall be seriously inclined to understand himself, let him sedulously
endeavour to discover the matter that enters into his combination, which
constitutes his temperament; these discoveries will furnish him with the
clue to the nature of his desires, to the quality of his passions, to the
bent of his inclinations—will enable him to foresee his conduct on
given occasions—will indicate the remedies that may be successfully
employed to correct the defects of a vicious organization, of a
temperament, as injurious to himself as to the society of which he is a
member.

Indeed, it is not to be doubted that man’s temperament is capable of being
corrected, of being modified, of being changed, by causes as physical as
the matter of which it is constituted. We are all in some measure capable
of forming our own temperament: a man of a sanguine constitution, by
taking less juicy nourishment, by abating its quantity, by abstaining from
strong liquor, &c. may achieve the correction of the nature, the
quality, the quantity, the tendency, the motion of the fluids, which
predominate in his machine. A bilious man, or one who is melancholy, may,
by the aid of certain remedies, diminish the mass of this bilious fluid;
he may correct the blemish of his humours, by the assistance of exercise;
he may dissipate his gloom, by the gaiety which results from increased
motion. An European transplanted into Hindostan, will, by degrees, become
quite a different man in his humours, in his ideas, in his temperament, in
his character.

Although but few experiments have been made with a view to learn what
constitutes the temperament of man, there are still enough if he would but
deign to make use of them—if he would vouchsafe to apply to useful
purposes the little experience he has gleaned. It would appear, speaking
generally, that the igneous principle which chemists designate under the
name of phlogiston, or inflammable matter, is that which in man
yields him the most active life, furnishes him with the greatest energy,
affords the greatest mobility to his frame, supplies the greatest spring
to his organs, gives the greatest elasticity to his fibres, the greatest
tension to his nerves, the greatest rapidity to his fluids. From these
causes, which are entirely material, commonly result the dispositions or
faculties called sensibility, wit, imagination, genius, vivacity, &c.
which give the tone to the passions, to the will, to the moral actions of
man. In this sense, it is with great justice we apply the expressions,
‘warmth of soul,’ ‘ardency of imagination,’ ‘fire of genius,’ &c.

It is this fiery element, diffused unequally, distributed in various
proportions through the beings of the human species, that sets man in
motion, gives him activity, supplies him with animal heat, and which, if
we may be allowed the expression, renders him more or less alive. This
igneous matter, so active, so subtle, dissipates itself with great
facility, then requires to be reinstated in his system by means of
aliments that contain it, which thereby become proper to restore his
machine, to lend new warmth to the brain, to furnish it with the
elasticity requisite to the performance of those functions which are
called intellectual. It is this ardent matter contained in wine, in strong
liquor, that gives to the most torpid, to the dullest, to the most
sluggish man, a vivacity of which, without it, he would be incapable—which
urges even the coward on to battle. When this fiery element is too
abundant in man, whilst he is labouring under certain diseases, it plunges
him into delirium; when it is in too weak or in too small a quantity, he
swoons, he sinks to the earth. This igneous matter diminishes in his old
age—it totally dissipates at his death. It would not be unreasonable
to suppose, that what physicians call the nervous fluid, which so promptly
gives notice to the brain of all that happens to the body, is nothing more
than electric matter; that the various proportions of this matter diffused
through his system, is the cause of that great diversity to be discovered
in the human being, and in the faculties he possesses.

If the intellectual faculties of man, or his moral qualities, be examined
according to the principles here laid down, the conviction must be
complete that they are to be attributed to material causes, which have an
influence more or less marked, either transitory or durable, over his
peculiar organization. But where does he derive this organization, except
it be from the parents from whom he receives the elements of a machine
necessarily analogous to their own? From whence does he derive the greater
or less quantity of igneous matter, or vivifying heat, that decides upon,
that gives the tone to his mental qualities? It is from the mother who
bore him in her womb, who has communicated to him a portion of that fire
with which she was herself animated, which circulated through her veins
with her blood;—it is from the aliments that have nourished him,—it
is from the climate he inhabits,—it is from the atmosphere that
surrounds: all these causes have an influence over his fluids, over his
solids, and decide on his natural dispositions. In examining these
dispositions, from whence his faculties depend, it will ever be found,
that they are corporeal, that they are material.

The most prominent of these dispositions in man, is that physical
sensibility from which flows all his intellectual or moral qualities. To
feel, according to what has been said, is to receive an impulse, to be
moved, to have a consciousness of the changes operated on his system. To
have sensibility is nothing more than to be so constituted as to feel
promptly, and in a very lively manner, the impressions of those objects
which act upon him. A sensible soul is only man’s brain, disposed in a
mode to receive the motion communicated to it with facility, to re-act
with promptness, by giving an instantaneous impulse to the organs. Thus
the man is called sensible, whom the sight of the distressed, the
contemplation of the unhappy, the recital of a melancholy tale, the
witnessing of an afflicting catastrophe, or the idea of a dreadful
spectacle, touches in so lively a manner as to enable the brain to give
play to his lachrymal organs, which cause him to shed tears; a sign by
which we recognize the effect of great grief, of extreme anguish in the
human being. The man in whom musical sounds excite a degree of pleasure,
or produce very remarkable effects, is said to have a sensible or a
fine ear. In short, when it is perceived that eloquence—the beauty
of the arts—the various objects that strike his senses, excite in
him very lively emotions, he is said to possess a soul full of
sensibility.

Wit, is a consequence of this physical sensibility; indeed, wit is
nothing more than the facility which some beings, of the human species
possess, of seizing with promptitude, of developing with quickness, a
whole, with its different relations to other objects. Genius, is
the facility with which some men comprehend this whole, and its various
relations when they are difficult to be known, but useful to forward great
and mighty projects. Wit may be compared to a piercing eye which perceives
things quickly. Genius is an eye that comprehends at one view, all the
points of an extended horizon: or what the French term coup d’oeil.
True wit is that which perceives objects with their relations such as they
really are. False wit is that which catches at relations, which do not
apply to the object, or which arises from some blemish in the
organization. True wit resembles the direction on a hand-post.

Imagination is the faculty of combining with promptitude ideas or
images; it consists in the power man possesses of re-producing with ease
the modifications of his brain: of connecting them, of attaching them to
the objects to which they are suitable. When imagination does this, it
gives pleasure; its fictions are approved, it embellishes Nature, it is a
proof of the soundness of the mind, it aids truth: when on the contrary,
it combines ideas, not formed to associate themselves with each other—when
it paints nothing but disagreeable phantoms, it disgusts, its fictions are
censured, it distorts Nature, it advocates falsehood, it is the proof of a
disordered, of a deranged mind: thus poetry, calculated to render Nature
more pathetic, more touching, pleases when it creates ideal beings, but
which move us agreeably: we, therefore, forgive the illusions it has held
forth, on account of the pleasure we have reaped from them. The hideous
chimeras of superstition displease, because they are nothing more than the
productions of a distempered imagination, that can only awaken the most
afflicting sensations, fills us with the most disagreeable ideas.

Imagination, when it wanders, produces fanaticism, superstitious terrors,
inconsiderate zeal, phrenzy, and the most enormous crimes: when it is well
regulated, it gives birth to a strong predilection for useful objects, an
energetic passion for virtue, an enthusiastic love of our country, and the
most ardent friendship: the man who is divested of imagination, is
commonly one in whose torpid constitution phlegm predominates over the
igneous fluid, over that sacred fire, which is the great principle of his
mobility, of that warmth of sentiment, which vivifies all his intellectual
faculties. There must be enthusiasm for transcendent virtues as well as
for atrocious crimes; enthusiasm places the soul in a state similar to
that of drunkenness; both the one and the other excite in man that
rapidity of motion which is approved, when good results, when its effects
are beneficial; but which is censured, is called folly, delirium, crime,
fury; when it produces nothing but disorder and confusion.

The mind is out of order, it is incapable of judging sanely—the
imagination is badly regulated, whenever man’s organization is not so
modified, as to perform its functions with precision. At each moment of
his existence, man gathers experience; every sensation he has, furnishes a
fact that deposits in his brain an idea which his memory recalls with more
or less fidelity: these facts connect themselves, these ideas are
associated; their chain constitutes experience; this lays the
foundation of science. Knowledge is that consciousness which arises
from reiterated experience—from experiments made with precision of
the sensations, of the ideas, of the effects which an object is capable of
producing, either in ourselves or in others. All science, to be just, must
be founded on truth. Truth itself rests on the constant, the faithful
relation of our senses. Thus, truth is that conformity, that
perpetual affinity, which man’s senses, when well constituted, when aided
by experience, discover to him, between the objects of which he has a
knowledge, and the qualities with which he clothes them. In short, truth
is nothing more than the just, the precise association of his ideas. But
how can he, without experience, assure himself of the accuracy, of the
justness of this association? How, if he does not reiterate this
experience, can he compare it? how prove its truth? If his senses are
vitiated, how is it possible they can convey to him with precision, the
sensations, the facts, with which they store his brain? It is only by
multiplied, by diversified, by repeated experience, that he is enabled to
rectify the errors of his first conceptions.

Man is in error every time his organs, either originally defective in
their nature, or vitiated by the durable or transitory modifications which
they undergo, render him incapable of judging soundly of objects. Error
consists in the false association of ideas, by which qualities are
attributed to objects which they do not possess. Man is in error, when he
supposes those beings really to have existence, which have no local
habitation but in his own imagination: he is in error, when he associates
the idea of happiness with objects capable of injuring him, whether
immediately or by remote consequences which he cannot foresee.

But how can he foresee effects of which he has not yet any knowledge? It
is by the aid of experience: by the assistance which this experience
affords, it is known that analogous, that like causes, produce analogous,
produce like effects. Memory, by recalling these effects, enables him to
form a judgment of those he may expect, whether it be from the same
causes, or from causes that bear a relation to those of which he has
already experienced the action. From this it will appear, that prudence,
foresight, are faculties that are ascribable to, that grow out of
experience. If he has felt that fire excited in his organs painful
sensation, this experience suffices him to know, to foresee, that fire so
applied, will consequently excite the same sensations. If he has
discovered that certain actions, on his part, stirred up the hatred,
elicited the contempt of others, this experience sufficiently enables him
to foresee, that every time he shall act in a similar manner, he will be
either hated or despised.

The faculty man has of gathering experience, of recalling it to himself,
of foreseeing effects by which he is enabled to avoid whatever may have
the power to injure him, to procure that which may be useful to the
conservation of his existence, which may contribute to that which is the
sole end of all his actions, whether corporeal or mental,—his
felicity—constitutes that, which, in one word, is designated under
the name of Reason. Sentiment, imagination, temperament, may be
capable of leading him astray—may have the power to deceive him; but
experience and reflection will rectify his errors, point out his mistakes,
place him in the right road, teach him what can really conduce to, what
can truly conduct him to happiness. From this, it will appear, that reason
is man’s nature, modified by experience, moulded by judgment, regulated by
reflection: it supposes a moderate, sober temperament; a just, a sound
mind; a well-regulated, orderly imagination; a knowledge of truth,
grounded upon tried, upon reiterated experience; in fact, prudence and
foresight: this will serve to prove, that although nothing is more
commonly asserted, although the phrase is repeated daily, nay, hourly,
that man is a reasonable being, yet there are but a very small
number of the individuals who compose the human species, of whom it can
with truth be said; who really enjoy the faculty of reason, or who combine
the dispositions, the experience, by which it is constituted. It ought
not, then to excite surprise, that the individuals of the human race, who
are in a capacity to make true experience, are so few in number. Man, when
he is born, brings with him into the world organs susceptible of receiving
impulse, amassing ideas, of collecting experience; but whether it be from
the vice of his system, the imperfection of his organization, or from
those causes by which it is modified, his experience is false, his ideas
are confused, his images are badly associated, his judgment is erroneous,
his brain is saturated with vicious, with wicked systems, which
necessarily have an influence over his conduct, which are continually
disturbing his mind, and confounding his reason.

Man’s senses, as it has been shewn, are the only means by which he is
enabled to ascertain whether his opinions are true or false, whether his
conduct is useful to himself and beneficial to others, whether it is
advantageous or disadvantageous. But that his senses may be competent to
make a faithful relation—that they may be in a capacity to impress
true ideas on his brain, it is requisite they should be sound; that is to
say, in the state necessary to maintain his existence; in that order which
is suitable to his preservation—that condition which is calculated
to ensure his permanent felicity. It is also indispensable that his brain
itself should be healthy, or in the proper circumstances to enable it to
fulfil its functions with precision, to exercise its faculties with
vigour. It is necessary that memory should faithfully delineate its
anterior sensations, should accurately retrace its former ideas; to the
end, that he may be competent to judge, to foresee the effects he may have
to hope, the consequences he may have to fear, from those actions to which
he may be determined by his will. If his organic system be vicious, if his
interior or exterior organs be defective, whether by their natural
conformation or from those causes by which they are regulated, he feels
but imperfectly—in a manner less distinct than is requisite; his
ideas are either false or suspicious, he judges badly, he is in a
delusion, in a state of ebriety, in a sort of intoxication that prevents
his grasping the true relation of things. In short, if his memory is
faulty, if it is treacherous, his reflection is void, his imagination
leads him astray, his mind deceives him, whilst the sensibility of his
organs, simultaneously assailed by a crowd of impressions, shocked by a
variety of impulsions, oppose him to prudence, to foresight, to the
exercise of his reason. On the other hand, if the conformation of his
organs, as it happens with those of a phlegmatic temperament, of a dull
habit, does not permit him to move, except with feebleness, in a sluggish
manner, his experience is slow, frequently unprofitable. The tortoise and
the butterfly are alike incapable of preventing their destruction. The
stupid man, equally with him who is intoxicated, are in that state which
renders it impossible for them to arrive at or attain the end they have in
view.

But what is the end? What is the aim of man in the sphere he occupies? It
is to preserve himself; to render his existence happy. It becomes then of
the utmost importance, that he should understand the true means which
reason points out, which prudence teaches him to use, in order that he may
with certainty, that he may constantly arrive at the end which he proposes
to himself. These he will find are his natural faculties—his mind—his
talents—his industry—his actions, determined by those passions
of which his nature renders him susceptible, which give more or less
activity to his will. Experience and reason again shew him, that the men
with whom he is associated are necessary to him, are capable of
contributing to his happiness, are in a capacity to administer to his
pleasures, are competent to assist him by those faculties which are
peculiar to them; experience teaches him the mode he must adopt to induce
them to concur in his designs, to determine them to will and incline them
to act in his favour. This points out to him the actions they approve—those
which displease them—the conduct which attracts them—that
which repels them—the judgment by which they are swayed—the
advantages that occur—the prejudicial effects that result to him
from their various modes of existence and from their diverse manner of
acting. This experience furnishes him with the ideas of virtue and of
vice, of justice and of injustice, of goodness and of wickedness, of
decency and of indecency, of probity and of knavery: In short, he learns
to form a judgment of men—to estimate their actions—to
distinguish the various sentiments excited in them, according to the
diversity of those effects which they make him experience. It is upon the
necessary diversity of these effects that is founded the discrimination
between good and evil—between virtue and vice; distinctions which do
not rest, as some thinkers have believed, on the conventions made between
men; still less, as some metaphysicians have asserted, upon the chimerical
will of supernatural beings: but upon the solid, the invariable, the
eternal relations that subsist between beings of the human species
congregated together, and living in society: which relations will have
existence as long as man shall remain, as long as society shall continue
to exist.

Thus virtue is every thing that is truly beneficial, every thing
that is constantly useful to the individuals of the human race, living
together in society; vice every thing that is really prejudicial,
every thing that is permanently injurious to them. The greatest virtues
are those which procure for man the most durable advantages, from which he
derives the most solid happiness, which preserves the greatest degree of
order in his association: the greatest vices, are those which most disturb
his tendency to happiness, which perpetuate error, which most interrupt
the necessary order of society.

The virtuous man, is he whose actions tend uniformly to the
welfare, constantly to the happiness, of his fellow creatures. The vicious
man, is he whose conduct tends to the misery, whose propensities form
the unhappiness of those with whom he lives; from whence his own peculiar
misery most commonly results.

Every thing that procures for a man true and permanent happiness is
reasonable; every thing that disturbs his individual felicity, or that of
the beings necessary to his happiness, is foolish and unreasonable. The
man who injures others, is wicked; the man who injures himself, is an
imprudent being, who neither has a knowledge of reason, of his own
peculiar interests, nor of truth.

Man’s duties are the means pointed out to him by experience, the
circle which reason describes for him, by which he is to arrive at that
goal he proposes to himself; these duties are the necessary consequence of
the relations subsisting between mortals, who equally desire happiness,
who are equally anxious to preserve their existence. When it is said these
duties compel him, it signifies nothing more than that, without
taking these means, he could not reach the end proposed to him by his
nature. Thus, moral obligation is the necessity of employing the
natural means to render the beings with whom he lives happy; to the end
that he may determine them in turn to contribute to his own individual
happiness: his obligation toward himself, is the necessity he is under to
take those means, without which he would be incapable to conserve himself,
or render his existence solidly and permanently happy. Morals, like the
universe, is founded upon necessity, or upon the eternal relation of
things.

Happiness is a mode of existence of which man naturally wishes the
duration, or in which he is willing to continue. It is measured by its
duration, by its vivacity. The greatest happiness is that which has the
longest continuance: transient happiness, or that which has only a short
duration, is called Pleasure; the more lively it is, the more
fugitive, because man’s senses are only susceptible of a certain quantum
of motion. When pleasure exceeds this given quantity, it is changed into
anguish, or into that painful mode of existence, of which he
ardently desires the cessation: this is the reason why pleasure and pain
frequently so closely approximate each other as scarcely to be
discriminated. Immoderate pleasure is the forerunner of regret. It is
succeeded by ennui, it is followed by weariness, it ends in disgust:
transient happiness frequently converts itself into durable misfortune.
According to these principles it will be seen that man, who in each moment
of his duration seeks necessarily after happiness, ought, when he is
reasonable, to manage, to husband, to regulate his pleasures; to refuse
himself to all those of which the indulgence would be succeeded by regret;
to avoid those which can convert themselves into pain; in order that he
may procure for himself the most permanent felicity.

Happiness cannot be the same for all the beings of the human species; the
same pleasures cannot equally affect men whose conformation is different,
whose modification is diverse. This no doubt, is the true reason why the
greater number of moral philosophers are so little in accord upon those
objects in which they have made man’s happiness consist, as well as on the
means by which it may be obtained. Nevertheless, in general, happiness
appears to be a state, whether momentary or durable, in which man readily
acquiesces, because he finds it conformable to his being. This state
results from the accord, springs out of the conformity, which is found
between himself and those circumstances in which he has been placed by
Nature; or, if it be preferred, happiness is the co-ordination of man,
with the causes that give him impulse.

The ideas which man forms to himself of happiness depend not only on his
temperament, on his individual conformation, but also upon the habits he
has contracted. Habit is, in man, a mode of existence—of
thinking—of acting, which his organs, as well interior as exterior,
contract, by the frequent reiteration of the same motion; from whence
results the faculty of performing these actions with promptitude, of
executing them with facility.

If things be attentively considered, it will be found that almost the
whole conduct of man—the entire system of his actions—his
occupations—his connexions—his studies—his amusements—his
manners—his customs—his very garments—even his aliments,
are the effect of habit. He owes equally to habit, the facility with which
he exercises his mental faculties of thought—of judgment—of
wit—of reason—of taste, &c. It is to habit he owes the
greater part of his inclinations—of his desires—of his
opinions—of his prejudices—of the ideas, true or false, he
forms to himself of his welfare. In short, it is to habit, consecrated by
time, that he owes those errors into which everything strives to
precipitate him; from which every thing is calculated to prevent him
emancipating himself. It is habit that attaches him either to virtue or to
vice: experience proves this: observation teaches incontrovertibly that
the first crime is always accompanied by more pangs of remorse than the
second; this again, by more than the third; so on to those that follow. A
first action is the commencement of a habit; those which succeed confirm
it: by force of combatting the obstacles that prevent the commission of
criminal actions, man arrives at the power of vanquishing them with ease;
of conquering them with facility. Thus he frequently becomes wicked from
habit.

Man is so much modified by habit, that it is frequently confounded with
his nature: from hence results, as will presently be seen, those opinions
or those ideas, which he has called innate: because he has been
unwilling to recur back to the source from whence they sprung: which has,
as it were, identified itself with his brain. However this may be, he
adheres with great strength of attachment to all those things to which he
is habituated; his mind experiences a sort of violence, an incommodious
revulsion, a troublesome distaste, when it is endeavoured to make him
change the course of his ideas: a fatal predilection frequently conducts
him back to the old track in despite of reason.

It is by a pure mechanism that may be explained the phenomena of habit, as
well physical as moral; the soul, notwithstanding its spirituality, is
modified exactly in the same manner as the body. Habit, in man, causes the
organs of voice to learn the mode of expressing quickly the ideas
consigned to his brain, by means of certain motion, which, during his
infancy, the tongue acquires the power of executing with facility: his
tongue, once habituated to move itself in a certain manner, finds much
trouble, has great pain, to move itself after another mode; the throat
yields with difficulty to those inflections which are exacted by a
language different from that to which he has, been accustomed. It is the
same with regard to his ideas; his brain, his interior organ, his soul,
inured to a given manner of modification, accustomed to attach certain
ideas to certain objects, long used to form to itself a system connected
with certain opinions, whether true or false, experiences a painful
sensation, whenever he undertakes to give it a new impulse, or alter the
direction of its habitual motion. It is nearly as difficult to make him
change his opinions as his language.

Here, then, without doubt, is the cause of that almost invincible
attachment which man displays to those customs—those prejudices—those
institutions of which it is in vain that reason, experience, good sense
prove to him the inutility, or even the danger. Habit opposes itself to
the clearest, the most evident demonstrations; these can avail nothing
against those passions, those vices, which time has rooted in him—against
the most ridiculous systems—against the most absurd notions—against
the most extravagant hypotheses—against the strangest customs: above
all, when he has learned to attach to them the ideas of utility, of common
interest, of the welfare of society. Such is the source of that obstinacy,
of that stubbornness, which man evinces for his religion, for ancient
usages, for unreasonable customs, for laws so little accordant with
justice, for abuses, which so frequently make him suffer, for prejudices
of which he sometimes acknowledges the absurdity, yet is unwilling to
divest himself of them. Here is the reason why nations contemplate the
most useful novelties as mischievous innovations—why they believe
they would be lost, if they were to remedy those evils to which they have
become habituated; which they have learned to consider as necessary to
their repose; which they have been taught to consider dangerous to be
cured.

Education is only the art of making man contract, in early life,
that is to say, when his organs are extremely flexible, the habits, the
opinions, the modes of existence, adopted by the society in which he is
placed. The first moments of his infancy are employed in collecting
experience; those who are charged with the care of rearing him, or who are
entrusted to bring him up, teach him how to apply it: it is they who
develope reason in him: the first impulse they give him commonly decides
upon his condition, upon his passions, upon the ideas he forms to himself
of happiness, upon the means he shall employ to procure it, upon his
virtues, and upon his vices. Under the eyes of his masters, the infant
acquires ideas: under their tuition he learns to associate them,—to
think in a certain manner,—to judge well or ill. They point out to
him various objects, which they accustom him either to love or to hate, to
desire or to avoid, to esteem or to despise. It is thus opinions are
transmitted from fathers, mothers, nurses, and masters, to man in his
infantine state. It is thus, that his mind by degrees saturates itself
with truth, or fills itself with error; after which he regulates his
conduct, which renders him either happy or miserable, virtuous or vicious,
estimable or hateful. It is thus he becomes either contented or
discontented with his destiny, according to the objects towards which they
have directed his passions—towards which they have bent the energies
of his mind; that is to say, in which they have shewn him his interest, in
which they have taught him to place his felicity: in consequence, he loves
and searches after that which they have taught him to revere—that
which they have made the object of his research; he has those tastes,
those inclinations, those phantasms, which, during the whole course of his
life, he is forward to indulge, which he is eager to satisfy, in
proportion to the activity they have excited in him, and the capacity with
which he has been provided by Nature.

Politics ought to be the art of regulating the passions of man—of
directing them to the welfare of society—of diverting them into a
genial current of happiness—of making them flow gently to the
general benefit of all: but too frequently it is nothing more than the
detestible art of arming the passions of the various members of society
against each other,—of making them the engines to accomplish their
mutual destruction,—of converting them into agents which embitter
their existence, create jealousies among them, and fill with rancorous
animosities that association from which, if properly managed, man ought to
derive his felicity. Society is commonly so vicious because it is not
founded upon Nature, upon experience, and upon general utility; but on the
contrary, upon the passions, upon the caprices, and upon the particular
interests of those by whom it is governed. In short, it is for the most
part the advantage of the few opposed to the prosperity of the many.

Politics, to be useful, should found its principles upon Nature; that is
to say, should conform itself to the essence of man, should mould itself
to the great end of society: but what is society? and what is its end? It
is a whole, formed by the union of a great number of families, or by a
collection of individuals, assembled from a reciprocity of interest, in
order that they may satisfy with greater facility their reciprocal wants—that
they may, with more certainty, procure the advantages they desire—that
they may obtain mutual succours—above all, that they may gain the
faculty of enjoying, in security, those benefits with which Nature and
industry may furnish them: it follows, of course, that politics, which are
intended to maintain society, and to consolidate the interests of this
congregation, ought to enter into its views, to facilitate the means of
giving them efficiency, to remove all those obstacles that have a tendency
to counteract the intention with which man entered into association.

Man, in approximating to his fellow man, to live with him in society, has
made, either formally or tacitly, a covenant; by which he engages to
render mutual services, to do nothing that can be prejudicial to his
neighbour. But as the nature of each individual impels him each instant to
seek after his own welfare, which he has mistaken to consist in the
gratification of his passions, and the indulgence of his transitory
caprices, without any regard to the convenience of his fellows; there
needed a power to conduct him back to his duty, to oblige him to conform
himself to his obligations, and to recall him to his engagements, which
the hurry of his passions frequently make him forget. This power is the law;
it is, or ought to be, the collection of the will of society, reunited to
fix the conduct of its members, to direct their action in such a mode,
that it may concur to the great end of his association—the general
good.

But as society, more especially when very numerous, is incapable of
assembling itself, unless with great difficulty, as it cannot with tumult
make known its intentions, it is obliged to choose citizens in whom it
places a confidence, whom it makes the interpreter of its will, whom it
constitutes the depositaries of the power requisite to carry it into
execution. Such is the origin of all government, which to be
legitimate can only be founded on the free consent of society. Those who
are charged with the care of governing, call themselves sovereigns,
chiefs, legislators: according to the form which society has been willing
to give to its government: these sovereigns are styled monarchs,
magistrates, representatives, &c. Government only borrows its power
from society: being established for no other purpose than its welfare, it
is evident society can revoke this power whenever its interest shall exact
it; change the form of its government; extend or limit the power which it
has confided to its chiefs, over whom, by the immutable laws of Nature, it
always conserves a supreme authority: because these laws enjoin, that the
part shall always remain subordinate to the whole.

Thus sovereigns are the ministers of society, its interpreters, the
depositaries of a greater or of a less portion of its power; but they are
not its absolute masters, neither are they the proprietors of nations. By
a covenant, either expressed or implied, they engage themselves to
watch over the maintenance, to occupy themselves with the welfare of
society; it is only upon these conditions society consents to obey them.
The price of obedience is protection. There is or ought to be a
reciprocity of interest between the governed and the governor: whenever
this reciprocity is wanting, society is in that state of confusion of
which we spoke in the fifth chapter: it is verging on destruction. No
society upon earth was ever willing or competent to confer irrevocably
upon its chiefs the power, the right, of doing it injury. Such a
concession, such a compact, would be annulled, would be rendered void by
Nature; because she wills that each society, the same as each individual
of the human species shall tend to its own conservation; it has not
therefore the capacity to consent to its permanent unhappiness. Laws,
in order that they may be just, ought invariably to have for their end,
the general interest of society; that is to say, to assure to the greater
number of citizens those advantages for which man originally associated.
These advantages are liberty, property, security.

Liberty, to man, is the faculty of doing, for his own peculiar
happiness, every thing which does not injure or diminish the happiness of
his associates: in associating, each individual renounced the exercise of
that portion of his natural liberty which would be able to prejudice or
injure the liberty of his fellows. The exercise of that liberty which is
injurious to society is called licentiousness.

Property, to man, is the faculty of enjoying those advantages which
spring from labour; those benefits which industry or talent has procured
to each member of society.

Security, to man, is the certitude, the assurance, that each
individual ought to have, of enjoying in his person, of finding for his
property the protection of the laws, as long as he shall faithfully
observe, as long as he shall punctually perform, his engagements with
society.

Justice, to man, assures to all the members of society, the
possession of these advantages, the enjoyment of those rights, which
belong to them. From this, it will appear, that without justice, society
is not in a condition to procure the happiness of any man. Justice is also
called equity, because by the assistance of the laws made to
command the whole, she reduces all its members to a state of equality;
that is to say, she prevents them from prevailing one over the other, by
the inequality which Nature or industry may have made between their
respective powers.

Rights, to man, are every thing which society, by equitable laws,
permits each individual to do for his own peculiar felicity. These rights
are evidently limited by the invariable end of all association: society
has, on its part, rights over all its members, by virtue of the advantages
which it procures for them; all its members, in turn, have a right to
claim, to exact from society, or secure from its ministers those
advantages for the procuring of which they congregated, in favour of which
they renounced a portion of their natural liberty. A society, of which the
chiefs, aided by the laws, do not procure any good for its members,
evidently loses its right over them: those chiefs who injure society lose
the right of commanding. It is not our country, without it secures the
welfare of its inhabitants; a society without equity contains only
enemies; a society oppressed is composed only of tyrants and slaves;
slaves are incapable of being citizens; it is liberty, property, and
security, that render our country dear to us; it is the true love of his
country that forms the citizen.

For want of having a proper knowledge of these truths, or for want of
applying them when known, some nations have become unhappy—have
contained nothing but a vile heap of slaves, separated from each other,
detached from society, which neither procures for them any good, nor
secures to them any one advantage. In consequence of the imprudence of
some nations, or of the craft, cunning, and violence of those to whom they
have confided the power of making laws, and carrying them into execution,
their sovereigns have rendered themselves absolute masters of society.
These, mistaking the true source of their power, pretended to hold it from
heaven, to be accountable for their actions to God alone, to owe nothing,
not to have any obligation to society, in a word, to be gods upon earth,
to possess the right of governing arbitrarily. From thence politics became
corrupted: they were only a mockery. Such nations, disgraced and grown
contemptible, did not dare resist the will of their chiefs; their laws
were nothing more than the expression of the caprice of these chiefs;
public welfare was sacrificed to their peculiar interests; the force of
society was turned against itself; its members withdrew to attach
themselves to its oppressors, to its tyrants; these to seduce them,
permitted them to injure it with impunity and to profit by its
misfortunes. Thus liberty, justice, security, and virtue, were banished
from many nations; politics was no longer any thing more than the art of
availing itself of the forces of a people and of the treasure of society;
of dividing it on the subject of its interest, in order to subjugate it by
itself; at length a stupid, a mechanical habit, made them cherish their
oppressors, and love their chains.

Man when he has nothing to fear, presently becomes wicked; he who believes
he has not occasion for his fellow, persuades himself he may follow the
inclinations of his heart without caution or discretion. Thus fear is the
only obstacle society can effectually oppose to the passions of its
chiefs; without it they will quickly become corrupt, and will not scruple
to avail themselves of the means society has placed in their hands, to
make them accomplices in their iniquity. To prevent these abuses, it is
requisite society should set bounds to its confidence; should limit the
power which it delegates to its chiefs; should reserve to itself a
sufficient portion of authority to prevent them from injuring it; it must
establish prudent checks: it must cautiously divide the power it confers,
because re-united, it will by such reunion be infallibly oppressed. The
slightest reflection, the most scanty review, will make men feel that the
burthen of governing and weight of administration, is too ponderous and
overpowering to be borne by an individual; that the scope of his
jurisdiction, that the range of his surveillance, and multiplicity of his
duties must always render him negligent; that the extent of his power has
ever a tendency to render him mischievous. In short, the experience of all
ages will convince nations that man is continually tempted to the abuse of
power: that as an abundance of strong liquor intoxicates his brain, so
unlimited power corrupts his heart; that therefore the sovereign ought to
be subject to the law, not the law to the sovereign.

Government has necessarily an equal influence over the philosophy,
as over the morals of nations. In the same manner that its care produces
labour, activity, abundance, salubrity and justice; its negligence induces
idleness, sloth, discouragement, penury, contagion, injustice, vices and
crimes. It depends upon government either to foster industry, mature
genius, give a spring to talents, or stifle them. Indeed government, the
disturber of dignities, of riches, of rewards, and punishments; the master
of those objects in which man from his infancy has learned to place his
felicity, and contemplate as the means of his happiness; acquires a
necessary influence over his conduct: it kindles his passions; gives them
direction; makes him instrumental to whatever purpose it pleases; it
modifies him; determines his manners; which in a whole people, as in the
individual, is nothing more than the conduct, the general system of wills,
of actions that necessarily result from his education, government, laws,
and religious opinions—his institutions, whether rational or
irrational. In short, manners are the habits of a people: these are good
whenever society draws from them true felicity and solid happiness; they
are bad, they are detestable in the eye of reason, when the happiness of
society does not spring from them; they are unwholesome when they have
nothing more in their favour than the suffrage of time, and the
countenance of prejudice which rarely consults experience, which is almost
ever at variance with good sense: notwithstanding they may have the
sanction of the law, custom, religion, public opinion, or example, they
may be unworthy and may be disgraceful, provided society is in disorder;
that crime abounds; that virtue shrinks beneath the basilisk eye of
triumphant vice; they may then be said to resemble the UPAS, whose
luxuriant yet poisonous foliage, the produce of a rank soil, becomes more
baneful to those who are submitted to its vortex, in proportion as it
extends its branches. If experience he consulted, it will be found there
is no action, however abominable, that has not received the applause, that
has not obtained the approbation of some people. Parricide, the sacrifice
of children, robbery, usurpation, cruelty, intolerance, and prostitution,
have all in their turn been licensed actions; have been advocated; have
been deemed laudable and meritorious deeds with some nations of the earth.
Above all, superstition has consecrated the most unreasonable, the
most revolting customs.

Man’s passions result from and depend on the motion of attraction or
repulsion, of which he is rendered susceptible by Nature; who enables him,
by his peculiar essence, to be attracted by those objects which appear
useful to him, to be repelled by those which he considers prejudicial; it
follows that government, by holding the magnet, can put these passions
into activity, has the power either of restraining them, or of giving them
a favorable or an unfavorable direction. All his passions are constantly
limited by either loving or hating, seeking or avoiding, desiring or
fearing. These passions, so necessary to the conservation of man, are a
consequence of his organization; they display themselves with more or less
energy, according to his temperament; education and habit develope them;
government gives them play, conducts them towards those objects, which it
believes itself interested in making desirable to its subjects. The
various names which have been given to these passions, are relative to the
different objects by which they are excited, such as pleasure, grandeur,
or riches, which produce voluptuousness, ambition, vanity and avarice. If
the source of those passions which predominate in nations be attentively
examined it will be commonly found in their governments. It is the impulse
received from their chiefs that renders them sometimes warlike, sometimes
superstitious, sometimes aspiring after glory, sometimes greedy after
wealth, sometimes rational, and sometimes unreasonable; if sovereigns, in
order to enlighten and render happy their dominions, were to employ only
the tenth part of the vast expenditures which they lavish, only a
tythe of the pains which they employ to render them brutish, to
stupify them, to deceive them, and to afflict them; their subjects would
presently be as wise, would quickly be as happy, as they are now
remarkable for being blind, ignorant, and miserable.

Let the vain project of destroying, the delusive attempt at rooting his
passions from the heart of man, he abandoned; let an effort be made to
direct them towards objects that may be useful to himself, beneficial to
his associates. Let education, let government, let the laws, habituate him
to restrain his passions within those just bounds that experience fixes
and reason prescribes. Let the ambitious have honours, titles,
distinctions, and power, when they shall have usefully served their
country; let riches be given to those who covet them, when they shall have
rendered themselves necessary to their fellow citizens; let commendations,
let eulogies, encourage those who shall be actuated by the love of glory.
In short, let the passions of man have a free, an uninterrupted course,
whenever there shall result from their exercise, real, substantial, and
durable advantages to society. Let education kindle only those, which are
truly beneficial to the human species; let it favour those alone which are
really necessary to the maintenance of society. The passions of man are
dangerous, only because every thing conspires to give them an evil
direction.

Nature does not make man either good or wicked: she combines machines more
or less active, mobile, and energetic; she furnishes him with organs and
temperament, of which his passions, more or less impetuous, are the
necessary consequence; these passions have always his happiness for their
object, his welfare for their end: in consequence they are legitimate,
they are natural, they can only be called bad or good, relatively, to the
influence they have on the beings of his species. Nature gives man legs
proper to sustain his weight, and necessary to transport him from one
place to another; the care of those who rear them strengthens them,
habituates him to avail himself of him, accustoms him to make either a
good or a bad use of them. The arm which he has received from Nature is
neither good nor bad; it is necessary to a great number of the actions of
life; nevertheless, the use of this arm becomes criminal, if he has
contracted the habit of using it to rob, to assassinate, with a view to
obtain that money which he has been taught from his infancy to desire, and
which the society in which he lives renders necessary to him, but which
his industry will enable him to obtain without doing injury to his fellow
man.

The heart of man is a soil which Nature has made equally suitable to the
production of brambles, or of useful grain—of deleterous poison, or
of refreshing fruit, by virtue of the seeds which may be sown in it—by
the cultivation that may be bestowed upon it, In his infancy, those
objects are pointed out to him which he is to estimate or to despise, to
seek after or to avoid, to love or to hate. It is his parents, his
instructors, who render him either virtuous or wicked, wise or
unreasonable, studious or dissipated, steady or trifling, solid or vain.
Their example, their discourse, modify him through his whole life,
teaching him what are the things he ought either to desire or to avoid;
what the objects he ought to fear or to love: he desires them, in
consequence; and he imposes on himself the task of obtaining them,
according to the energy of his temperament, which ever decides the force
of his passions. It is thus that education, by inspiring him with
opinions, by infusing into him ideas, whether true or false, gives him
those primitive impulsions after which he acts, in a manner either
advantageous or prejudicial both to himself and to others. Man, at his
birth, brings with him into the world nothing but the necessity of
conserving himself, of rendering his existence happy: instruction,
example, the customs of the world, present him with the means, either real
or imaginary, of achieving it; habit procures for him the facility of
employing these means: he attaches himself strongly to those he judges
best calculated, most proper to secure to him the possession of those
objects which they have taught him, which he has learned to desire as the
preferable good attached to his existence. Whenever his education—whenever
the examples which have been afforded him—whenever the means with
which he has been provided, are approved by reason, are the result of
experience, every thing concurs to render him virtuous; habit strengthens
these dispositions in him; he becomes, in consequence, a useful member of
society; to the interests of which, every thing ought to prove to him his
own permanent well-being, his own durable felicity, is necessarily allied.
If, on the contrary, his education—his institutions—the
examples which are set before him—the opinions which are suggested
to him in his infancy, are of a nature to exhibit to his mind virtue as
useless and repugnant—vice as useful and congenial to his own
individual happiness, he will become vicious; he will believe himself
interested in injuring society, in rendering his associates unhappy; he
will be carried along by the general current: he will renounce virtue,
which to him will no longer be any thing more than a vain idol, without
attractions to induce him to follow it; without charms to tempt his
adoration; because it will appear to exact, that he should immolate at its
shrine, that he should sacrifice at its altar all those objects which he
has been constantly taught to consider the most dear to himself; to
contemplate as benefits the most desirable.

In order that man may become virtuous, it is absolutely requisite that he
should have an interest, that he should find advantages in practising
virtue. For this end, it is necessary that education should implant in him
reasonable ideas; that public opinion should lean towards virtue, as the
most desirable good; that example should point it out as the object most
worthy esteem; that government should faithfully recompense, should
regularly reward it; that honor should always accompany its practice; that
vice should constantly be despised; that crime should invariably be
punished. Is virtue in this situation amongst men? does the education of
man infuse into him just, faithful ideas of happiness—true notions
of virtue—dispositions really favourable to the beings with whom he
is to live? The examples spread before him, are they suitable to innocence
and manners? are they calculated to make him respect decency—to
cause him to love probity—to practice honesty—to value good
faith—to esteem equity—to revere conjugal fidelity—to
observe exactitude in fulfilling his duties? Religion, which alone
pretends to regulate his manners, does it render him sociable—does
it make him pacific—does it teach him to be humane? The arbiters,
the sovereigns of society, are they faithful in recompensing, punctual in
rewarding, those who have best served their country? in punishing those
who have pillaged, who have robbed, who have plundered, who have divided,
who have ruined it? Justice, does she hold her scales with a firm, with an
even hand, between all the citizens of the state? The laws, do they never
support the strong against the weak—favor the rich against the poor—uphold
the happy against the miserable? In short, is it an uncommon spectacle to
behold crime frequently justified, often applauded, sometimes crowned with
success, insolently triumphing, arrogantly striding over that merit which
it disdains, over that virtue which it outrages? Well then, in societies
thus constituted, virtue can only be heard by a very small number of
peaceable citizens, a few generous souls, who know how to estimate its
value, who enjoy it in secret. For the others, it is only a disgusting
object; they see in it nothing but the supposed enemy to their happiness,
or the censor of their individual conduct.

If man, according to his nature, is necessitated to desire his welfare, he
is equally obliged to love and cherish the means by which he believes it
is to be acquired: it would be useless, it would perhaps be unjust, to
demand that a man should be virtuous, if he could not be so without
rendering himself miserable. Whenever he thinks vice renders him happy, he
must necessarily love vice; whenever he sees inutility recompensed, crime
rewarded—whenever he witnesses either or both of them honored,—what
interest will he find in occupying himself with the happiness of his
fellow-creatures? what advantage will he discover in restraining the fury
of his passions? Whenever his mind is saturated with false ideas, filled
with dangerous opinions, it follows, of course, that his whole conduct
will become nothing more than a long chain of errors, a tissue of
mistakes, a series of depraved actions.

We are informed, that the savages, in order to flatten the heads of their
children, squeeze them between two boards, by that means preventing them
from taking the shape designed for them by Nature. It is pretty nearly the
same thing with the institutions of man; they commonly conspire to
counteract Nature, to constrain and divert, to extinguish the impulse
Nature has given him, to substitute others which are the source of all his
misfortunes. In almost all the countries of the earth, man is bereft of
truth, is fed with falsehoods, and amused with marvellous chimeras: he is
treated like those children whose members are, by the imprudent care of
their nurses, swathed with little fillets, bound up with rollers, which
deprive them of the free use of their limbs, obstruct their growth,
prevent their activity, and oppose themselves to their health.

Most of the superstitious opinions of man have for their object only to
display to him his supreme felicity in those illusions for which they
kindle his passions: but as the phantoms which are presented to his
imagination are incapable of being considered in the same light by all who
contemplate them, he is perpetually in dispute concerning these objects;
he hates his fellow, he persecutes his neighbour, his neighbour in turn
persecutes him, and he believes that in doing this he is doing well: that
in committing the greatest crimes to sustain his opinions he is acting
right. It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him
with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism: if he has a heated
imagination, it drives him on to fury; if he has activity, it makes him a
madman, who is frequently as cruel himself, as he is dangerous to his
fellow-creatures, as he is incommodious to others: if, on the contrary, he
be phlegmatic, and of a slothful habit, he becomes melancholy and useless
to society.

Public opinion every instant offers to man’s contemplation false
ideas of honor, and wrong notions of glory: it attaches his esteem not
only to frivolous advantages, but also to prejudicial interests and
injurious actions; which example authorizes, which prejudice consecrates,
which habit precludes him from viewing with the disgust and horror which
they merit. Indeed, habit familiarizes his mind with the most absurd
ideas, the most unreasonable customs, the most blameable actions; with
prejudices the most contrary to his own interests, and detrimental to the
society in which he lives. He finds nothing strange, nothing singular,
nothing despicable, nothing ridiculous, except those opinions and objects
to which he is himself unaccustomed. There are countries in which the most
laudable actions appear very blameable and ridiculous—where the
foulest and most diabolical actions pass for very honest and perfectly
rational conduct. In some nations they kill the old men; in some the
children strangle their fathers. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians
immolated their children to their gods. Europeans approve duels; he who
refuses to cut the throat of another, or to blow out the brains of his
neighbour, is contemplated by them as dishonoured. The Spaniards and
Portuguese think it meritorious to burn an heretic. In some countries
women prostitute themselves without dishonour; in others it is the height
of hospitality for a man to present his wife to the embraces of the
stranger: the refusal to accept this, excites his scorn and calls forth
his resentment.

Authority commonly believes itself interested in maintaining the
received opinions: those prejudices and errors which it considers
requisite to the maintenance of its power and the consolidation of its
interests, are sustained by force, which is never rational. Princes
themselves, filled with deceptive images of happiness, mistaken notions of
power, erroneous opinions of grandeur, and false ideas of glory, are
surrounded with flattering courtiers, who are interested in keeping up the
delusion of their masters: these contemptible men have acquired ideas of
virtue, only that they may outrage it: by degrees they corrupt the people,
these become depraved, lend themselves to their debaucheries, pander to
the vices of the great, then make a merit of imitating them in their
irregularities. A court is too frequently the true focus of the corruption
of a people.

This is the true source of moral evil. It is thus that every thing
conspires to render man vicious, and give a fatal impulse to his soul:
from whence results the general confusion of society, which becomes
unhappy, from the misery of almost every one of its members. The strongest
motive-powers are put in action to inspire man with a passion for futile
objects which are indifferent to him; which make him become dangerous to
his fellow man, by the means which he is compelled to employ, in order to
obtain them. Those who have the charge of guiding his steps, either
impostors themselves, or the dupes to their own prejudices, forbid him to
hearken to reason; they make truth appear dangerous to him; they exhibit
error as requisite to his welfare, not only in this world, but in the
next. In short, habit strongly attaches him to his irrational opinions, to
his perilous inclinations, and to his blind passion for objects either
useless or dangerous. Here, then, is the reason why for the most part man
finds himself necessarily determined to evil; the reason why the passions,
inherent in his Nature and necessary to his conservation, become the
instruments of his destruction, and the bane of that society, which
properly conducted, they ought to preserve; the reason why society becomes
a state of warfare; why it does nothing but assemble enemies, who are
envious of each other, and are always rivals for the prize. If some
virtuous beings are to be found in these societies, they must be sought
for in the very small number of those, who born with a phlegmatic
temperament have moderate passions, who therefore, either do not desire at
all, or desire very feebly, those objects with which their associates are
continually inebriated.

Man’s nature, diversely cultivated, decides upon his faculties, as well
corporeal as intellectual; upon his qualities, as well moral as physical.
The man who is of a sanguine, robust constitution, must necessarily have
strong passions; he who is of a bilious, melancholy habit, will as
necessarily have fantastical and gloomy passions; the man of a gay turn,
of a sprightly imagination, will have cheerful passions; while the man in
whom phlegm abounds, will have those which are gentle, or which have a
very slight degree of violence. It appears to be upon the equilibrium of
the humours, that depends the state of the man who is called virtuous;
his temperament seems to be the result of a combination, in which the
elements or principles are balanced with such precision that no one
passion predominates over another, or carries into his machine more
disorder than its neighbour.

Habit, as we have seen, is man’s nature modified: this latter furnishes
the matter; education, domestic example, national manners, give it the
form: these, acting on his temperament, make him either reasonable, or
irrational—enlightened, or stupid—a fanatic, or a hero—an
enthusiast for the public good, or an unbridled criminal—a wise man,
smitten with the advantages of virtue, or a libertine, plunged into every
kind of vice. All the varieties of the moral man, depend on the diversity
of his ideas; which are themselves arranged and combined in his brain by
the intervention of his senses. His temperament is the produce of physical
substances, his habits are the effect of physical modifications; the
opinions, whether good or bad, injurious or beneficial, true or false,
which form themselves in his mind, are never more than the effect of those
physical impulsions which the brain receives by the medium of the senses.

CHAP. X.

The Soul does not derive its ideas from itself—It has no innate
Ideas.

What has preceded suffices to prove, that the interior organ of man, which
is called his soul, is purely material. He will be enabled to
convince himself of this truth, by the manner in which he acquires his
ideas,—from those impressions which material objects successively
make on his organs, which are themselves acknowledged to be material. It
has been seen, that the faculties which are called intellectual, are to be
ascribed to that of feeling; the different qualities of those faculties
which are called moral, have been explained after the necessary laws of a
very simple mechanism: it now remains, to reply to those who still
obstinately persist in making the soul a substance distinguished from the
body, or who insist on giving it an essence totally distinct. They seem to
found their distinction upon this, that this interior organ has the
faculty of drawing its ideas from within itself; they will have it, that
man, at his birth, brings with him ideas into the world, which, according
to this wonderful notion, they have called innate. The Jews have a
similar doctrine which they borrowed from the Chaldeans: their rabbins
taught, that each soul, before it was united to the seed that must form an
infant in the womb of a woman, is confided to the care of an angel, which
causes him to behold heaven, earth, and hell: this, they pretend, is done
by the assistance of a lamp, which extinguishes itself as soon as the
infant comes into the world. Some ancient philosophers have held, that the
soul originally contains the principles of several notions or doctrines:
the Stoics designated this by the term PROLEPSIS, anticipated opinions;
the Greek mathematicians, KOINAS ENNOIAS, universal ideas. They
have believed that the soul, by a special privilege, in a nature where
every thing is connected, enjoyed the faculty of moving itself without
receiving any impulse; of creating to itself ideas, of thinking on a
subject, without being determined to such action, by any exterior object;
which by moving its organs should furnish it with an image of the subject
of its thoughts. In consequence of these gratuitous suppositions, of these
extraordinary pretensions, which it is only requisite to expose, in order
to confute some very able speculators, who were prepossessed by their
superstitious prejudices; have ventured the length to assert, that without
model, without prototype to act on the senses, the soul is competent to
delineate to itself, the whole universe with all the beings it contains.
DESCARTES and his disciples have assured us, that the body went absolutely
for nothing, in the sensations, in the perceptions, in the ideas of the
soul; that it can feel, that it can perceive, that it can understand, that
it can taste, that it can touch, even when there should exist nothing that
is corporeal or material exterior to ourselves. But what shall be said of
a BERKELEY, who has endeavoured, who has laboured to prove to man, that
every thing in this world is nothing more than a chimerical illusion; that
the universe exists nowhere but in himself; that it has no identity but in
his imagination; who has rendered the existence of all things
problematical by the aid of sophisms, insolvable even to those who
maintain the doctrine of the spirituality of the soul.

Extravagant as this doctrine of the BISHOP OF CLOYNE may appear, it cannot
well be more so than that of MALEBRANCHE, the champion of innate ideas;
who makes the divinity the common bond between the soul and the body: or
than that of those metaphysicians, who maintain that the soul is a
substance heterogeneous to the body; who by ascribing to this soul the
thoughts of man, have in fact rendered the body superfluous. They have not
perceived they were liable to one solid objection, which is, that if the
ideas of man are innate, if he derives them from a superior being,
independent of exterior causes, if he sees every thing in God; how comes
it that so many false ideas are afloat, that so many errors prevail, with
which the human mind is saturated? From whence comes these opinions, which
according to the theologians are so displeasing to God? Might it not be a
question to the Malebranchists, was it in the Divinity that SPINOZA beheld
his system?

Nevertheless, to justify such monstrous opinions, they assert that ideas
are only the objects of thought. But according to the last analysis, these
ideas can only reach man from exterior objects, which in giving impulse to
his senses modify his brain; or from the material beings contained within
the interior of his machine, who make some parts of his body experience
those sensations which he perceives, which furnish him with ideas, which
he relates, faithfully or otherwise, to the cause that moves him. Each
idea is an effect, but however difficult it may be to recur to the cause,
can we possibly suppose it is not ascribable to a cause? If we can only
form ideas of material substances, how can we suppose the cause of our
ideas can possibly be immaterial? To pretend that man without the aid of
exterior objects, without the intervention of his senses, is competent to
form ideas of the universe, is to assert, that a blind man is in a
capacity to form a true idea of a picture, that represents some fact of
which he has never heard any one speak.

It is very easy to perceive the source of those errors, into which men,
otherwise extremely profound and very enlightened have fallen, when they
have been desirous to speak of the soul: to describe its operations.
Obliged either by their own prejudices, or by the fear of combatting the
opinions of some imperious theologian, they have become the advocates of
the principle, that the soul was a pure spirit: an immaterial substance;
of an essence directly different from that of the body; from every thing
we behold: this granted, they have been incompetent to conceive how
material objects could operate, in what manner gross and corporeal organs
were enabled to act on a substance, that had no kind of analogy with them;
how they were in a capacity to modify it by conveying its ideas; in the
impossibility of explaining this phenomenon, at the same time perceiving
that the soul had ideas, they concluded that it must draw them from
itself, and not from those beings, which according to their own
hypothesis, were incapable of acting on it, or rather, of which they could
not conceive the manner of action; they therefore imagined that all the
modifications, all the actions of this soul, sprung from its own peculiar
energy, were imprinted on it from its first formation, by the Author of
Nature: that these did not in any manner depend upon the beings of which
we have a knowledge, or which act upon it, by the gross means of our
senses.

There are, however, some phenomena, which, considered superficially,
appear to support the opinion of these philosophers; to announce a faculty
in the human soul of producing ideas within itself, without any exterior
aid; these are dreams, in which the interior organ of man, deprived
of objects that move it visibly, does not, however, cease to have ideas—to
be set in activity—to be modified in a manner that is sufficiently
sensible—to have an influence upon his body. But if a little
reflection be called in, the solution to this difficulty will be found: it
will be perceived that, even during sleep, his brain is supplied with a
multitude of ideas, with which the eye or time before has stocked it;
these ideas were communicated to it by exterior or corporeal objects, by
which they have been modified: it will be found that these modifications
renew themselves, not by any spontaneous, not by any voluntary motion on
its part, but by a chain of involuntary movements which take place in his
machine, which determine, which excite those that give play to the brain;
these modifications renew themselves with more or less fidelity, with a
greater or lesser degree of conformity to those which it has anteriorly
experienced. Sometimes in dreaming, he has memory, then he retraces to
himself the objects which have struck him faithfully;—at other
times, these modifications renew themselves without order, and without
connection, very differently from those, which real objects have before
excited in his interior organ. If in a dream he believes he sees a friend,
his brain renews in itself the modifications or the ideas which this
friend had formerly excited—in the same order that they arranged
themselves when his eyes really beheld him—this is nothing more than
an effect of memory. If in his dream he fancies he sees a monster which
has no model in nature, his brain is then modified in the same manner that
it was by the particular, by the detached ideas, with which it then does
nothing more than compose an ideal whole; by assembling, and associating,
in a ridiculous manner, the scattered ideas that were consigned to its
keeping; it is then, that in dreaming he has imagination.

Those dreams that are troublesome, extravagant, whimsical, or unconnected,
are commonly the effect of some confusion in his machine; such as painful
indigestion—an overheated blood—a prejudicial fermentation,
&c.—these material causes excite in his body a disorderly
motion, which precludes the brain from being modified in the same manner
it was on the day before; in consequence of this irregular motion the
brain is disturbed, it only represents to itself confused ideas that want
connection. When in a dream, he believes he sees a Sphinx, a being
supposed by the poets to have a head and face like a woman, a body like a
dog, wings like a bird, and claws like a lion, who put forth riddles and
killed those who could not expound them; either, he has seen the
representation of one when he was awake, or else the disorderly motion of
the brain is such that it causes it to combine ideas, to connect parts,
from which there results a whole without model, of which the parts were
not formed to be united. It is thus, that his brain combines the head of a
woman, of which it already has the idea, with the body of a lioness, of
which it also has the image. In this his head acts in the same manner, as
when by any defect in the interior organ, his disordered imagination
paints to him some objects, notwithstanding he is awake. He frequently
dreams, without being asleep: his dreams never produce any thing so
strange but that they have some resemblance, with the objects which have
anteriorly acted on his senses; which have already communicated ideas to
his brain. The watchful theologians have composed, at their leisure, in
their waking hours, those phantoms, of which they avail themselves, to
terrify or frighten man; they have done nothing more than assemble the
scattered traits which they have found in the most terrible beings of
their own species; by exaggerating the powers, by enlarging the rights
claimed by tyrants, they have formed ideal beings, before whom man
trembles, and is afraid.

Thus, it is seen, that dreams, far from proving that the soul acts by its
own peculiar energy, that it draws its ideas from its own recesses; prove,
on the contrary, that in sleep it is intirely passive, that it does not
even renew its modifications, but according to the involuntary confusion,
which physical causes produce in the body, of which every thing tends to
shew the identity, the consubstantiality with the soul. What appears to
have led those into a mistake, who maintained that the soul drew its ideas
from itself, is this, they have contemplated these ideas, as if they were
real beings, when, in point of fact, they are nothing more than the
modifications produced in the brain of man, by objects to which this brain
is a stranger; they are these objects, who are the true models, who are
the real archetypes to which it is necessary to recur: here is the source
of all their errors.

In the individual who dreams, the soul does not act more from itself, than
it does in the man who is drunk, that is to say, who is modified by some
spirituous liquor: or than it does in the sick man, when he is delirious,
that is to say, when he is modified by those physical causes which disturb
his machine, which obstruct it in the performance of its functions; or
than it, does in him, whose brain is disordered: dreams, like these
various states, announce nothing more than a physical confusion in the
human machine, under the influence of which the brain ceases to act, after
a precise and regular manner: this disorder may be traced to physical
causes, such as the aliments—the humours—the combinations—the
fermentations, which are but little analogous to the salutary state of
man; from hence it will appear, that his brain is necessarily confused,
whenever his body is agitated in an extraordinary manner.

Do not let him, therefore, believe that his soul acts by itself, or
without a cause, in any one moment of his existence; it is, conjointly
with the body, submitted to the impulse of beings, who act on him
necessarily, according to their various properties. Wine taken in too
great a quantity, necessarily disturbs his ideas, causes confusion in his
corporeal functions, occasions disorder in his mental faculties.

If there really existed a being in Nature, with the capability of moving
itself by its own peculiar energies, that is to say, able to produce
motion, independent of all other causes, such a being would have the power
of arresting itself, or of suspending the motion of the universe; which is
nothing more than an immense chain of causes linked one to another, acting
and re-acting by necessary immutable laws, and which cannot be changed,
which are incapable of being suspended, unless the essences of every thing
in it were changed, without the properties of every thing were
annihilated. In the general system of the world, nothing more can be
perceived than a long series of motion, received and communicated in
succession, by beings capacitated to give impulse to each other: it is
thus, that each body is moved by the collision of some other body. The
invisible motion of some soul is to be attributed to causes concealed
within himself; he believes that it is moved by itself, because he does
not see the springs which put it in motion, or because he conceives those
powers are incapable of producing the effects he so much admires: but,
does he more clearly conceive, how a spark in exploding gunpowder, is
capable of producing the terrible effects he witnesses? The source of his
errors arise from this, that he regards his body as gross and inert,
whilst this body is a sensible machine, which has necessarily an
instantaneous conscience the moment it receives an impression; which is
conscious of its own existence by the recollection of impressions
successively experienced; memory by resuscitating an impression anteriorly
received, by detaining it, or by causing an impression which it receives
to remain, whilst it associates it with another, then with a third, gives
all the mechanism of reasoning.

An idea, which is only an imperceptible modification of the brain, gives
play to the organ of speech, which displays itself by the motion it
excites in the tongue: this, in its turn, breeds ideas, thoughts, and
passions, in those beings who are provided with organs susceptible of
receiving analagous motion; in consequence of which, the wills of a great
number of men are influenced, who, combining their efforts, produce a
revolution in a state, or even have an influence over the entire globe. It
is thus, that an ALEXANDER decided the fate of Asia, it is thus, that a
MAHOMET changed the face of the earth; it is thus, that imperceptible
causes produce the most terrible, the most extended effects, by a series
of necessary motion imprinted on the brain of man.

The difficulty of comprehending the effects produced on the soul of man,
has made him attribute to it those incomprehensible qualities which have
been examined. By the aid of imagination, by the power of thought, this
soul appears to quit his body, to carry itself with the greatest ease, to
transport itself with the utmost facility towards the most distant
objects; to run over, to approximate in the twinkling of an eye, all the
points of the universe: he has therefore believed, that a being who is
susceptible of such rapid motion, must be of a nature very distinguished
from all others; he has persuaded himself that this soul in reality does
travel, that it actually springs over the immense space necessary to meet
these various objects; he did not perceive, that to do it in an instant,
it had only to run over itself to approximate the ideas consigned to its
keeping, by means of the senses.

Indeed, it is never by any other means than by his senses, that beings
become known to man, or furnish him with ideas; it is only in consequence
of the impulse given to his body, that his brain is modified, or that his
soul thinks, wills, and acts. If, as ARISTOTLE asserted more than two
thousand years ago,—”nothing enters the mind of man but through
the medium of his senses,”—it follows as a consequence, that
every thing that issues from it must find some sensible object to which it
can attach its ideas, whether immediately, as a man, a tree, a bird, &c.
or in the last analysis or decomposition, such as pleasure, happiness,
vice, virtue, &c. This principle, so true, so luminous, so important
in its consequence, has been set forth in all its lustre, by a great
number of philosophers; among the rest, by the great LOCKE. Whenever,
therefore, a word or its idea does not connect itself with some sensible
object to which it can be related, this word or this idea is unmeaning,
and void of sense; it were better for man that the idea was banished from
his mind, struck out of his language: this principle is only the converse
of the axiom of ARISTOTLE,—”if the direct be evident, the inverse
must be so likewise.” How has it happened, that the profound LOCKE,
who, to the great mortification of the metaphysicians, has placed this
principle of ARISTOTLE in the clearest point of view? how is it, that all
those who, like him, have recognized the absurdity of the system of innate
ideas, have not drawn the immediate, the necessary consequences? How has
it come to pass, that they have not had sufficient courage to apply so
clear a principle to all those fanciful chimeras with which the human mind
has for such a length of time been so vainly occupied? did they not
perceive that their principle sapped the very foundations of those
metaphysical speculations, which never occupy man but with those objects
of which, as they are inaccessible to his senses, he consequently can
never form to himself any accurate idea? But prejudice, when it is
generally held sacred, prevents him from seeing the most simple
application of the most self-evident principles. In metaphysical
researches, the greatest men are frequently nothing more than children,
who are incapable of either foreseeing or deducing the consequence of
their own data.

LOCKE, as well as all those who have adopted his system, which is so
demonstrable,—or to the axiom of ARISTOTLE, which is so clear, ought
to have concluded from it that all those wonderful things with which
metaphysicians have amused themselves, are mere chimeras; mere wanderings
of the imagination; that an immaterial spirit or substance, without
extent, without parts, is, in fact, nothing more than an absence of ideas;
in short, they ought to have felt that the ineffable intelligence which
they have supposed to preside at the helm of the world, is after all
nothing more than a being of their own imagination, on which man has never
been in accord, whom he has pictured under all the variety of forms, to
which he has at different periods, in different climes, ascribed every
kind of attribute, good or bad; but of which it is impossible his senses
can ever prove either the existence or the qualities.

For the same reason, moral philosophers ought to have concluded, that what
is called moral sentiment, moral instinct, that is, innate ideas of
virtue, anterior to all experience of the good or bad effects resulting
from its practice, are mere chimerical notions, which, like a great many
others, have for their guarantee and base only metaphysical speculation.
Before man can judge, he must feel; before he can distinguish good from
evil, he must compare. Morals, is a science of facts: to found
them, therefore, on an hypothesis inaccessible to his senses, of which he
has no means of proving the reality, is to render them uncertain; it is to
cast the log of discord into his lap, to cause him unceasingly to dispute
upon that which he can never understand. To assert that the ideas of
morals are innate, or the effect of instinct, is to pretend
that man knows how to read before he has learned the letters of the
alphabet; that he is acquainted with the laws of society before they are
either made or promulgated.

To undeceive him, with respect to innate ideas or modifications, imprinted
on his soul, at the moment of his birth, it is simply requisite to recur
to their source; he will then see that those with which he is familiar,
which have, as it were, identified themselves with his existence, have all
come to him through the medium of some of his senses; that they are
sometimes engraven on his brain with great difficulty,—that they
have never been permanent,—that they have perpetually varied in him:
he will see that these pretended inherent ideas of his soul, are the
effect of education, of example, above all, of habit, which by reiterated
motion has taught his brain to associate his ideas either in a confused or
a perspicuous manner; to familiarize itself with systems either rational
or absurd. In short, he takes those for innate ideas of which he has
forgotten the origin; he no longer recals to himself, either the precise
epoch, or the successive circumstances when these ideas were first
consigned to his brain: arrived at a certain age he believes he has always
had the same notions; his memory, crowded with experience, loaded with a
multitude of facts, is no longer able to distinguish the particular
circumstances which have contributed to give his brain its present
modifications; its instantaneous mode of thinking; its actual opinions.
For example, not one of his race, perhaps, recollects the first time the
word God struck his ears—the first ideas that it formed in him—the
first thoughts that it produced in him; nevertheless, it is certain that
from thence he has searched for some being with whom to connect the idea
which he has either formed to himself, or which has been suggested to him:
accustomed to hear God continually spoken of, he has, when in other
respects, the most enlightened, regarded this idea as if it were infused
into him by Nature; whilst it is visibly to be attributed to those
delineations of it, which his parents or his instructors have made to him;
which he has, in consequence, modified according to his own particular
organization, and the circumstances in which he has been placed; it is
thus, that each individual forms to himself a God, of which he is himself
the model, or which he modifies after his own fashion.

His ideas of morals, although more real than those of metaphysics, are not
however innate: the moral sentiments he forms on the will, or the judgment
he passes on the actions of man, are founded on experience; which alone
can enable him to discriminate those which are either useful or
prejudicial, virtuous or vicious, honest or dishonest, worthy his esteem,
or deserving his censure. His moral sentiments are the fruit of a
multitude of experience that is frequently very long and very complicated.
He gathers it with time; it is more or less faithful, by reason of his
particular organization and the causes by which he is modified; he
ultimately applies this experience with greater or less facility; to this
is to be attributed his habit of judging. The celerity with which he
applies his experience when he judges of the moral actions of his fellow
man, is what has been termed moral instinct.

That which in natural philosophy is called instinct, is only the
effect of some want of the body, the consequence of some attraction or
some repulsion in man or animals. The child that is newly born, sucks for
the first time; the nipple of the breast is put into his mouth: by the
natural analogy, that is found between the conglomerate glands, filled
with nerves; which line his mouth, and the milk which flows from the bosom
of the nurse, through the medium of the nipple, causes the child to press
it with his mouth, in order to express the fluid appropriate to nourish
his tender age; from all this the infant gathers experience; by degrees
the idea of a nipple, of milk, of pleasure, associate themselves in his
brain: every time he sees the nipple, he seizes it, promptly conveys it to
his mouth, and applies it to the use for which it is designed.

What has been said, will enable us to judge of those prompt and sudden
sentiments, which have been designated the force of blood. Those
sentiments of love, which fathers and mothers have for their children—those
feelings of affection, which children, with good inclinations, bear
towards their parents, are by no means innate sentiments; they are
nothing more, than the effect of experience, of reflection, of habit, in
souls of sensibility. These sentiments do not even exist in a great number
of human beings. We but too often witness tyrannical parents, occupied
with making enemies of their children, who appear to have been formed,
only to be the victims of their irrational caprices or their unreasonable
desires.

From the instant in which man commences, until that in which he ceases to
exist, he feels—he is moved either agreeably or unpleasantly—he
collects facts—he gathers experience; these produce ideas in his
brain, that are either cheerful or gloomy. Not one individual has all this
experience present to his memory at the same time, it does not ever
represent to him the whole clew at once: it is, however, this experience
that mechanically directs him, without his knowledge, in all his actions;
it was to designate the rapidity with, which he applied this experience,
of which he so frequently loses the connection—of which he is so
often at a loss to render himself an account, that he imagined the word instinct:
it appears to be the effect of magic, the operation of a supernatural
power, to the greater number of individuals: it is a word devoid of sense
to many others; but to the philosopher it is the effect of a very lively
feeling to him it consists in the faculty of combining, promptly, a
multitude of experience—of arranging with facility—of
comparing with quickness, a long and numerous train of extremely
complicated ideas. It is want that causes the inexplicable instinct we
behold in animals which have been denied souls without reason, whilst they
are susceptible of an infinity of actions that prove they think—judge—have
memory—are capable of experience—can combine ideas—can
apply them with more or less facility to satisfy the wants engendered by
their particular organization; in short, that prove they have passions
that are capable of being modified. Nothing but the height of folly can
refuse intellectual faculties to animals; they feel, choose, deliberate,
express love, show hatred; in many instances their senses are much keener
than those of man. Fish will return periodically to the spot where it is
the custom to throw them bread.

It is well known the embarrassments which animals have thrown in the way
of the partizans of the doctrine of spirituality; they have been fearful,
if they allowed them to have a spiritual soul, of elevating them to the
condition of human creatures; on the other hand, in not allowing them to
have a soul, they have furnished their adversaries with authority to deny
it in like manner to man, who thus finds himself debased to the condition
of the animal. Metaphysicians have never known how to extricate themselves
from this difficulty. DESCARTES fancied he solved it by saying that beasts
have no souls, but are mere machines. Nothing can be nearer the surface,
than the absurdity of this principle. Whoever contemplates Nature without
prejudice, will readily acknowledge that there is no other difference
between the man and the beast, than that which is to be attributed to the
diversity of his organization.

In some beings of the human species, who appear to be endowed with a
greater sensibility of organs than others, may be seen an instinct, by the
assistance of which they very promptly judge of the concealed dispositions
of their fellows, simply by inspecting the lineaments of their face. Those
who are denominated physiognomists, are only men of very acute
feelings; who have gathered an experience of which others, whether from
the coarseness of their organs, from the little attention they have paid,
or from some defect in their senses, are totally incapable: these last do
not believe in the science of physiognomy, which appears to them perfectly
ideal. Nevertheless, it is certain, that the action of this soul, which
has been made spiritual, makes impressions that are extremely marked upon
the exterior of the body; these impressions, continually reiterated, their
image remains: thus the habitual passions of man paint themselves on his
countenance; by which the attentive observer, who is endowed with acute
feeling, is enabled to judge with great rapidity of his mode of existence,
and even to foresee his actions, his inclinations, his desires, his
predominant passions, &c. Although the science of physiognomy appears
chimerical to a great number of persons, yet there are few who have not a
clear idea of a tender regard—of a cruel eye—of an austere
aspect—of a false, dissimulating look—of an open countenance,
&c. Keen practised optics acquire without doubt the faculty of
penetrating the concealed motion of the soul, by the visible traces it
leaves upon features that it has continually modified. Above all, the eyes
of man very quickly undergo changes according to the motion which is
excited in him: these delicate organs are visibly altered by the smallest
shock communicated to his brain. Serene eyes announce a tranquil soul;
wild eyes indicate a restless mind; fiery eyes pourtray a choleric,
sanguine temperament; fickle or inconstant eyes give room to suspect a
soul either alarmed or dissimulating. It is the study of this variety of
shades that renders man practised and acute: upon the spot he combines a
multitude of acquired experience, in order to form his judgment of the
person he beholds. His judgment, thus rapidly formed, partakes in nothing
of the supernatural, in nothing of the wonderful: such a man is only
distinguished by the fineness of his organs, and by the celerity with
which his brain performs its functions.

It is the same with some beings of the human species, in whom may be
discovered an extraordinary sagacity, which, to the uninformed, appears
miraculous. The most skilful practitioners in medicine, are, no doubt, men
endowed with very acute feelings, similar to that of the physiognomists,
by the assistance of which they judge with great facility of diseases, and
very promptly draw their prognostics. Indeed, we see men who are capable
of appreciating in the twinkling of an eye a multitude of circumstances,
who have sometimes the faculty of foreseeing the most distant events; yet,
this species of prophetic talent has nothing in it of the supernatural; it
indicates nothing more than great experience, with an extremely delicate
organization, from which they derive the faculty of judging with extreme
faculty of causes, of foreseeing their very remote effects. This faculty,
however, is also found in animals, who foresee much better than man, the
variations of the atmosphere with the various changes of the weather.
Birds have long been the prophets, and even the guides of several nations
who pretend to be extremely enlightened.

It is, then, to their organization, exercised after a particular manner,
that must be attributed those wonderous faculties which distinguish some
beings, that astonish others. To have instinct, only signifies to
judge quickly, without requiring to make a long, reasoning on the subject.
Man’s ideas upon vice and upon virtue, are by no means innate; they are,
like all others, acquired: the judgment he forms, is founded upon
experience, whether true or false,—this depends upon his
conformation, and upon the habits that have modified him. The infant has
no ideas either of the Divinity or of virtue; it is from those who
instruct him that he receives these ideas; he makes more or less use of
them, according to his natural organization, or as his dispositions have
been more or less exercised. Nature gives man legs, the nurse teaches him
their use, his agility depends upon their natural conformation, and the
manner in which he exercises them.

What is called taste, in the fine arts, is to be attributed, in the
same manner, only to the acuteness of man’s organs, practised by the habit
of seeing, of comparing, of judging certain objects; from whence results,
to some of his species, the faculty of judging with great rapidity, in the
twinkling of an eye, the whole with its various relations. It is by the
force of seeing, of feeling, of experiencing objects, that he attains to a
knowledge of them; it is in consequence of reiterating this experience,
that he acquires the power, that he gains the habit of judging with
celerity. But this experience is by no means innate, he did not possess it
before he was born; he is neither able to think, to judge, nor to have
ideas, before he has feeling; he is neither in a capacity to love, nor to
hate; to approve, nor to blame, before he has been moved, either agreeably
or disagreeably. Nevertheless, this is precisely what must be supposed by
those who are desirous to make man admit of innate ideas, of opinions;
infused by Nature, whether in morals, metaphysics, or any other science.
That his mind should have the faculty of thought, that it should occupy
itself with an object, it is requisite it should be acquainted with its
qualities; that it may have a knowledge of these qualities, it is
necessary some of his senses should have been struck by them: those
objects, therefore, of which he does not know any of the qualities, are
nullities; or at least they do not exist for him.

It will be asserted, perhaps, that the universal consent of man, upon
certain propositions, such as the whole is greater than its part,
upon all geometrical demonstrations, appear to warrant the supposition of
certain primary notions that are innate, not acquired. It may be replied,
that these notions are always acquired; that they are the fruit of an
experience more or less prompt; that it is requisite to have compared the
whole with its part, before conviction can ensue, that the whole is the
greater of the two. Man when he is born, does not bring with him the idea
that two and two make four; but he is, nevertheless, speedily convinced of
its truth. Before forming any judgment whatever, it is absolutely
necessary to have compared facts.

It is evident, that those who have gratuitously supposed innate ideas, or
notions inherent in man, have confounded his organization, or his natural
dispositions, with the habit by which he is modified; with the greater or
less aptitude he has of making experience, and of applying it in his
judgment. A man who has taste in painting, has, without doubt, brought
with him into the world eyes more acute, more penetrating than another;
but these eyes would by no means enable him to judge with promptitude, if
he had never had occasion to exercise them; much less, in some respects,
can those dispositions which are called natural, be regarded as
innate. Man is not, at twenty years of age, the same as he was when he
came into the world; the physical causes that are continually acting upon
him, necessarily have an influence upon his organization, and so modify
it, that his natural dispositions themselves are not at one period what
they are at another. La Motte Le Vayer says, “We think quite otherwise of
things at one time than at another; when young than when old—when
hungry than when our appetite is satisfied—in the night than in the
day—when peevish than when cheerful. Thus, varying every hour, by a
thousand other circumstances, which keep us in a state of perpetual
inconstancy and instability.” Every day may be seen children, who, to a
certain age—display a great deal of ingenuity, a strong aptitude for
the sciences, who finish by falling into stupidity. Others may be
observed, who, during their infancy, have shown dispositions but little
favourable to improvement, yet develope themselves in the end, and
astonish us by an exhibition of those qualities of which we hardly thought
them susceptible: there arrives a moment in which the mind takes a spring,
makes use of a multitude of experience which it has amassed, without its
having been perceived; and, if I may be allowed the expression, without
their own knowledge.

Thus, it cannot be too often repeated, all the ideas, all the notions, all
the modes of existence, and all the thoughts of man, are acquired. His
mind cannot act, cannot exercise itself, but upon that of which it has
knowledge; it can understand either well or ill, only those things which
it has previously felt. Such of his ideas that do not suppose some
exterior material object for their model, or one to which he is able to
relate them, which are therefore called abstract ideas, are only
modes in which his interior organ considers its own peculiar
modifications, of which it chooses some without respect to others. The
words which he uses to designate these ideas, such as bounty, beauty,
order, intelligence, virtue, &c. do not offer any one sense, if he
does not relate them to, or if he does not explain them by, those objects
which his senses have shewn him to be susceptible of those qualities, or
of those modes of existence, of that manner of acting, which is known to
him. What is it that points out to him the vague idea of beauty, if
he does not attach it to some object that has struck his senses in a
peculiar manner, to which, in consequence, he attributes this quality?
What is it that represents the word intelligence, if he does not
connect it with a certain mode of being and of acting? Does the word order
signify any thing, if he does not relate it to a series of actions, to a
chain of motion, by which he is affected in a certain manner? Is not the
word virtue void of sense, if he does not apply it to those
dispositions of his fellows which produce known effects, different from
those which result from contrary inclinations? What do the words pain
and pleasure offer to his mind in the moment when his organs
neither suffer nor enjoy, if it be not the modes in which he has been
affected, of which his brain conserves the remembrance, of those
impressions, which experience has shewn him to be either useful or
prejudicial? But when he bears the words spirituality, immateriality,
incorporeality, &c. pronounced, neither his senses nor his memory
afford him any assistance; they do not furnish him with any means by which
he can form an idea of their qualities, or of the objects to which he
ought to apply them; in that which is not matter he can only see vacuum
and emptiness, which as long as he remains what he is, cannot, to his
mind, be susceptible of any one quality.

All the errors, all the disputes of men, have their foundation in this,
that they have renounced experience, have surrendered the evidence of
their senses, to give themselves up to the guidance of notions which they
have believed infused or innate; although in reality they are no more than
the effect of a distempered imagination, of prejudices, in which they have
been instructed from their infancy, with which habit has familiarized
them, which authority has obliged them to conserve. Languages are filled
with abstract words, to which are attached confused and vague ideas; of
which, when they come to be examined, no model can be found in Nature; no
object to which they can be related. When man gives himself the trouble to
analyze things, he is quite surprised to find, that those words which are
continually in the mouths of men, never present any fixed or determinate
idea: he hears them unceasingly speaking of spirits—of the soul and
its faculties—of duration—of space—of immensity—of
infinity—of perfection—of virtue—of reason—of
sentiment—of instinct—of taste, &c. without his being able
to tell precisely, what they themselves understand by these words.
Nevertheless, they do not appear to have been invented, but for the
purpose of representing the images of things; or to paint, by the
assistance of the senses, those known objects on which the mind is able to
meditate, which it is competent to appreciate, to compare, and to judge.

For man to think of that which has not acted on any of his senses, is to
think on words; it is for his senses to dream; it is to seek in his own
imagination for objects to which he can attach his wandering ideas: to
assign qualities to these objects is, unquestionably, to redouble his
extravagance, to set no limits to his folly. If a word be destined to
represent to him an object that has not the capacity to act on any one of
his organs; of which, it is impossible for him to prove either the
existence or the qualities; his imagination, by dint of racking itself,
will nevertheless, in some measure, supply him with the ideas he wants; he
composes some kind of a picture, with the images or colours he is always
obliged to borrow, from the objects of which he has a knowledge: thus the
Divinity has been represented by some under the character of a venerable
old man; by others, under that of a puissant monarch; by others, as an
exasperated, irritated being, &c. It is evident, however, that man,
with some of his qualities, has served for the model of these pictures:
but if he be informed of objects that are represented as pure spirits—that
have neither body nor extent—that are not contained in space—that
are beyond nature,—here then he is plunged into emptiness; his mind
no longer has any ideas—it no longer knows upon what it meditates.
This, as will be seen in the sequel, no doubt, is the source of those
unformed notions which some men have formed of the Divinity; they
themselves frequently annihilate him, by assembling incompatible and
contradictory attributes. In giving him morals—in composing him of
known qualities,—they make him a man;—in assigning him the
negative attributes of every thing they know, they render him inaccessible
to their senses—they destroy all antecedent ideas—they make
him a mere nothing. From this it will appear, that those sublime sciences
which are called Theology, Psychology, Metaphysics, have been mere
sciences of words: morals and politics, with which they very frequently
mix, have, in consequence, become inexplicable enigmas, which there is
nothing short of the study of Nature can enable us to expound.

Man has occasion for truth; it consists in a knowledge of the true
relations he has with those beings competent to have an influence on his
welfare; these relations are to be known only by experience: without
experience there can be no reason; without reason man is only a blind
creature, who conducts himself by chance. But, how is he to acquire
experience upon ideal objects, which his senses neither enable him to know
nor to examine? How is he to assure himself of the existence, how
ascertain the qualities of beings he is not able to feel? How can he judge
whether there objects be favorable or prejudicial to him? How is he to
know, without the evidence of his senses, what he ought to love, what he
should hate, what to seek after, what to shun, what to do, what to leave
undone? It is, however, upon this knowledge that his condition in this
world rests; it is upon this knowledge that morals is founded. From whence
it may be seen, that, by causing him to blend vague metaphysical notions
with morals, or the science of the certain and invariable relations which
subsist between mankind; or by weakly establishing them upon chimerical
ideas, which have no existence but in his imagination; these morals, upon
which the welfare of society so much depends, are rendered uncertain, are
made arbitrary, are abandoned to the caprices of fancy, are not fixed upon
any solid basis.

Beings essentially different by their natural organization, by the
modifications they experience, by the habits they contract, by the
opinions they acquire, must of necessity think differently. His
temperament, as we have seen, decides the mental qualities of man: this
temperament itself is diversely modified in him: from whence it
consecutively follows, his imagination cannot possibly be the same;
neither can it create to him the same images. Each individual is a
connected whole, of which all the parts have a necessary correspondence.
Different eyes must see differently, must give extremely varied ideas of
the objects they contemplate, even when these objects are real. What,
then, must be the diversity of these ideas, if the objects meditated upon
do not act upon the senses? Mankind have pretty nearly the same ideas, in
the gross, of those substances that act upon his organs with vivacity; he
is sufficiently in unison upon some qualities which he contemplates very
nearly in the same manner; I say, very nearly, because the intelligence,
the notion, the conviction of any one proposition, however simple, however
evident, however clear it may be supposed, is not, nor cannot be, strictly
the same, in any two men. Indeed, one man not being another man, the first
cannot, for example, have rigorously and mathematically the same notion of
unity as the second; seeing that an identical effect cannot be the result
of two different causes. Thus, when men are in accord in their ideas, in
their modes of thinking, in their judgment, in their passions, in their
desires, in, their tastes, their consent does not arise from their seeing
or feeling the same objects precisely in the same manner, but pretty
nearly; language is not, nor cannot be, sufficiently copious to designate
the vast variety of shades, the multiplicity of imperceptible differences,
which is to be found in their modes of seeing and thinking. Each man,
then, has, to say thus, a language which is peculiar to himself alone, and
this language is incommunicable to others. What harmony, what unison,
then, can possibly exist between them, when they discourse with each
other, upon objects only known to their imagination? Can this imagination
in one individual ever be the same as in another? How can they possibly
understand each other, when they assign to those objects qualities that
can only be attributed to the particular manner in which their brain is
affected.

For one man to exact from another that he shall think like himself, is to
insist that he shall be organized precisely in the same manner—that
he shall have been modified exactly the same in every moment of his
existence: that he shall have received the same temperament, the same
nourishment, the same education: in a word, that he shall require that
other to be himself. Wherefore is it not exacted that all men shall have
the same features? Is man more the master of his opinions? Are not his
opinions the necessary consequence of his Nature, and of those peculiar
circumstances which, from his infancy, have necessarily had an influence
upon his mode of thinking, and his manner of acting? If man be a connected
whole, whenever a single feature differs from his own, ought he not to
conclude that it is not possible his brain can either think, associate
ideas, imagine, or dream precisely in the same manner with that other.

The diversity in the temperament of man, is the natural, the necessary
source of the diversity of his passions, of his taste, of his ideas of
happiness, of his opinions of every kind. Thus, this same diversity will
be the fatal source of his disputes, of his hatreds, of his injustice,
every time he shall reason upon unknown objects, but to which he shall
attach the greatest importance. He will never understand either himself or
others, in speaking of a spiritual soul, or of immaterial substances
distinguished from Nature; he will, from that moment, cease to speak the
same language, and he will never attach the same ideas to the same words.
What, then, shall be, the common standard that shall decide which is the
man that thinks with the greatest justice? What the scale by which to
measure who has the best regulated imagination? What balance shall be
found sufficiently exact to determine whose knowledge is most certain,
when he agitates subjects, which experience cannot enable him to examine,
that escape all his senses, that have no model, that are above reason?
Each individual, each legislator, each speculator, each nation, has ever
formed to himself different ideas of these things; each believes, that his
own peculiar reveries ought to be preferred to those of his neighbours;
which always appear to him an absurd, ridiculous, and false as his own can
possibly have appeared to his fellow; each clings to his own opinion,
because each retains his own peculiar mode of existence; each believes his
happiness depends upon his attachment to his prejudices, which he never
adopts but because he believes them beneficial to his welfare. Propose to
a man to change his religion for yours, he will believe you a madman; you
will only excite his indignation, elicit his contempt; he will propose to
you, in his turn, to adopt his own peculiar opinions; after much
reasoning, you will treat each other as absurd beings, ridiculously
opiniated, pertinaciously stubborn: and he will display the least folly,
who shall first yield. But if the adversaries become heated in the
dispute, which always happens, when they suppose the matter important, or
when they would defend the cause of their own self-love; from thence their
passions sharpen, they grow angry, quarrels are provoked, they hate each
other, and end by reciprocal injury. It is thus, that for opinions, which
no man can demonstrate, we see the Brahmin despised; the Mahommedan hated;
the Pagan held in contempt; that they oppress and disdain each with the
most rancorous animosity: the Christian burns the Jew at what is called an
auto-de-fe, because he clings to the faith of his fathers: the
Roman Catholic condemns the Protestant to the flames, and makes a
conscience of massacring him in cold blood: this re-acts in his turn;
sometimes the various sects of Christians league together against the
incredulous Turk, and for a moment suspend their own bloody disputes that
they may chastise the enemies to the true faith: then, having glutted
their revenge, return with redoubled fury, to wreak over again their
infuriated vengeance on each other.

If the imaginations of men were the same, the chimeras which they bring
forth would be every where the same; there would be no disputes among them
on this subject, if they all dreamt in the same manner; great numbers of
human beings would be spared, if man occupied his mind with objects
capable of being known, of which the existence was proved, of which he was
competent to discover the true qualities, by sure, by reiterated
experience. Systems of Philosophy are not subject to dispute but
when their principles are not sufficiently proved; by degrees experience,
in pointing out the truth and detecting their errors, terminates these
quarrels. There is no variance among geometricians upon the
principles of their science; it is only raised, when their suppositions
are false, or their objects too much complicated. Theologians find
so much difficulty in agreeing among themselves, simply, because, in their
contests, they divide without ceasing, not known and examined
propositions, but prejudices with which they have been imbued in their
youth—in the schools—by each other’s books, &c. They are
perpetually reasoning, not upon real objects, of which the existence is
demonstrated, but upon imaginary systems of which they have never examined
the reality; they found these disputes, not upon averred experience, or
constant facts, but upon gratuitious suppositions, which each endeavours
to convince the other are without solidity. Finding these ideas of long
standing, that few people, refuse to admit them, they take them for
incontestible truths, that ought to be received merely upon being
announced; whenever they attach great importance to them, they irritate
themselves against the temerity of those who have the audacity to doubt,
or even to examine them.

If prejudice had been laid aside, it would perhaps have been discovered
that many of those objects, which have given birth to the most shocking,
the most sanguinary disputes among men, were mere phantoms; which a little
examination would have shown to be unworthy their notice: the priests
of Apollo would have been harmless, if man had examined for himself,
without prejudice, the tenets they held forth: he would have found, that
he was fighting, that he was cutting his neighbour’s throat, for words
void of sense; or, at the least, he would have learned to doubt his right
to act in the manner he did; he would have renounced that dogmatical, that
imperious tone he assumed, by which he would oblige his fellow to unite
with him in opinion. The most trifling reflection would have shewn him the
necessity of this diversity in his notions, of this contrariety in his
imagination, which depends upon his Natural conformation diversely
modified: which necessarily has an influence over his thoughts, over his
will, and over his actions. In short, if he had consulted morals, if he
had fallen back upon reason, every thing would have conspired to prove to
him, that beings who call themselves rational, were made to think
variously; on that account were designed to live peaceable with each
other, to love each other, to lend each other mutual succours whatever may
be their opinions upon subjects, either impossible to be known, or to be
contemplated under the same point of view: every thing would have joined
in evidence to convince him of the unreasonable tyranny, of the unjust
violence, of the useless cruelty of those men of blood, who persecute, who
destroy mankind, in order that they may mould him to their own peculiar
opinions; every thing would have conducted mortals to mildness, to
indulgence, to toleration; virtues, unquestionably of more
real importance, much more necessary to the welfare of society, than the
marvellous speculations by which it is divided, by which it is frequently
hurried on to sacrifice to a maniacal fury, the pretended enemies to these
revered flights of the imagination.

From this it must be evident, of what importance it is to morals to
examine the ideas, to which it has been agreed to attach so much worth; to
which man is continually sacrificing his own peculiar happiness; to which
he is immolating the tranquillity of nations, at the irrational command of
fanatical cruel guides. Let him fall back on his experience; let him
return to Nature; let him occupy himself with reason; let him consult
those objects that are real, which are useful to his permanent felicity;
let him study Nature’s laws; let him study himself; let him consult the
bonds which unite him to his fellow mortals; let him examine the
fictitious bonds that enchain him to the most baneful prejudices. If his
imagination must always feed itself with illusions, if he remains
steadfast in his own opinions, if his prejudices are dear to him, let him
at least permit others to ramble in their own manner, or seek after truth
as best suits their inclination; but let him always recollect, that all
the opinions—all the ideas—all the systems—all the wills—all
the actions of man, are the necessary consequence of his nature, of his
temperament, of his organization, and of those causes, either transitory
or constant, which modify hint: in short, that man is not more a free
agent to think than to act: a truth that will be again proved in the
following chapter.

CHAP. XI

Of the System of Man’s free agency.

Those who have pretended that the soul is distinguished from the
body, is immaterial, draws its ideas from its own peculiar source, acts by
its own energies without the aid of any exterior object; by a consequence
of their own system, have enfranchised it from those physical laws,
according to which all beings of which we have a knowledge are obliged to
act. They have believed that the foul is mistress of its own conduct, is
able to regulate its own peculiar operations; has the faculty to determine
its will by its own natural energy; in a word, they have pretended man is
a free agent.

It has been already sufficiently proved, that the soul is nothing more
than the body, considered relatively to some of its functions, more
concealed than others: it has been shewn, that this soul, even when it
shall be supposed immaterial, is continually modified conjointly with the
body; is submitted to all its motion; that without this it would remain
inert and dead: that, consequently, it is subjected to the influence of
those material, to the operation those physical causes, which give impulse
to the body; of which the mode of existence, whether habitual or
transitory, depends upon the material elements by which it is surrounded;
that form its texture; that constitute its temperament; that enter into it
by the means of the aliments; that penetrate it by their subtility; the
faculties which are called intellectual, and those qualities which are
styled moral, have been explained in a manner purely physical; entirely
natural: in the last place, it has been demonstrated, that all the ideas,
all the systems, all the affections, all the opinions, whether true or
false, which man forms to himself, are to be attributed to his physical
powers; are to be ascribed to his material senses. Thus man is a being
purely physical; in whatever manner he is considered, he is connected to
universal Nature: submitted to the necessary, to the immutable laws that
she imposes on all the beings she contains, according to their peculiar
essences; conformable to the respective properties with which, without
consulting them, she endows each particular species. Man’s life is a line
that Nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth:
without his ever being able to swerve from it even for an instant. He is
born without his own consent; his organizations does in no wise depend
upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the
power of those who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified
by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no controul;
give the hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting.
He is good or bad—happy or miserable—wise or foolish—reasonable
or irrational, without his will going for anything in these various
states. Nevertheless, in despite of the shackles by which he is bound, it
is pretended he is a free agent, or that independent of the causes by
which he is moved, he determines his own will; regulates his own
condition.

However slender the foundation of this opinion, of which every thing ought
to point out to him the error; it is current at this day for an
incontestible truth, and believed enlightened; it is the basis or
religion, which has been incapable of imagining how man could either merit
reward or deserve punishment if he was not a free agent. Society has been
believed interested in this system, because an idea has gone abroad, that
if all the actions of man were to be contemplated as necessary, the right
of punishing those who injure their associates would no longer exist. At
length human vanity accommodated itself to an hypothesis which,
unquestionable, appears to distinguish man from all other physical beings,
by assigning to him the special privilege of a total independence of all
other causes; but of which a very little reflection would have shewn him
the absurdity or even the impossibility.

As a part, subordinate to the great whole, man is obliged to experience
its influence. To be a free agent it were needful that each individual was
of greater strength than the entire of Nature; or, that he was out of this
Nature: who, always in action herself, obliges all the beings she
embraces, to act, and to concur to her general motion; or, as it has been
said elsewhere, to conserve her active existence, by the motion that all
beings produce in consequence of their particular energies, which result
from their being submitted to fixed, eternal, and immutable laws. In order
that man might be a free agent, it were needful that all beings should
lose their essences; it is equally necessary that he himself should no
longer enjoy physical sensibility; that he should neither know good nor
evil; pleasure nor pain; but if this was the case, from that moment he
would no longer be in a state to conserve himself, or render his existence
happy; all beings would become indifferent to him; he would no longer have
any choice; he would cease to know what he ought to love; what it was
right he should fear; he would not have any acquaintance with that which
he should seek after; or with that which it is requisite he should avoid.
In short, man would be an unnatural being; totally incapable of acting in
the manner we behold. It is the actual essence of man to tend to his
well-being; to be desirous to conserve his existence; if all the motion of
his machine springs as a necessary consequence from this primitive
impulse; if pain warns him of that which he ought to avoid; if pleasure
announces to him that which he should desire; if it is in his essence to
love that which either excites delight, or, that from which he expects
agreeable sensations; to hate that which makes him either fear contrary
impressions; or, that which afflicts him with uneasiness; it must
necessarily be, that he will be attracted by that which he deems
advantageous; that his will shall be determined by those objects which he
judges useful; that he will be repelled by those beings which he believes
prejudicial, either to his habitual, or to his transitory mode of
existence; by that which he considers disadvantageous. It is only by the
aid of experience, that man acquires the faculty of understanding what he
ought to love; of knowing what he ought to fear. Are his organs sound? his
experience will be true: are they unsound? it will be false: in the first
instance he will have reason, prudence, foresight; he will frequently
foresee very remote effects; he will know, that what he sometimes
contemplates as a good, may possibly become an evil, by its necessary or
probable consequences: that what must be to him a transient evil, may by
its result procure him a solid and durable good. It is thus experience
enables him to foresee that the amputation of a limb will cause him
painful sensation, he consequently is obliged to fear this operation, and
he endeavours to avoid the pain; but if experience has also shewn him,
that the transitory pain this amputation will cause him may be the means
of saving his life; the preservation, of his existence being of necessity
dear to him, he is obliged to submit himself to the momentary pain with a
view to procuring a permanent good, by which it will be overbalanced.

The will, as we have elsewhere said, is a modification of the brain, by
which it is disposed to action or prepared to give play to the organs.
This will is necessarily determined by the qualities, good or bad,
agreeable or painful, of the object or the motive that acts upon his
senses; or of which the idea remains with him, and is resuscitated by his
memory. In consequence, he acts necessarily; his action is the result of
the impulse he receives either from the motive, from the object, or from
the idea, which has modified his brain, or disposed his will. When he does
not act according to this impulse, it is because there comes some new
cause, some new motive, some new idea, which modifies his brain in a
different manner, gives him a new impulse, determines his will in another
way; by which the action of the former impulse is suspended: thus, the
sight of an agreeable object, or its idea, determines his will to set him
in action to procure it; but if a new object or a new idea more powerfully
attracts him, it gives a new direction to his will, annihilates the effect
of the former, and prevents the action by which it was to be procured.
This is the mode in which reflection, experience, reason, necessarily
arrests or suspends the action of man’s will; without this, he would, of
necessity, have followed the anterior impulse which carried him towards a
then desirable object. In all this he always acts according to necessary
laws, from which he has no means of emancipating himself.

If, when tormented with violent thirst, he figures to himself an idea, or
really perceives a fountain, whose limpid streams might cool his feverish
habit, is he sufficient master of himself to desire or not to desire the
object competent to satisfy so lively a want? It will no doubt be
conceded, that it is impossible he should not be desirous to satisfy it;
but it will be said,—If at this moment it is announced to him, the
water he so ardently desires is poisoned, he will, notwithstanding his
vehement thirst, abstain from drinking it; and it has, therefore, been
falsely concluded that he is a free agent. The fact, however, is, that the
motive in either case is exactly the same: his own conservation. The same
necessity that determined him to drink, before he knew the water was
deleterious, upon this new discovery, equally determines him not to drink;
the desire of conserving himself, either annihilates or suspends the
former impulse; the second motive becomes stronger than the preceding;
that is, the fear of death, or the desire of preserving himself,
necessarily prevails over the painful sensation caused by his eagerness to
drink. But, (it will be said) if the thirst is very parching, an
inconsiderate man, without regarding the danger, will risque swallowing
the water. Nothing is gained by this remark: in this case, the anterior
impulse only regains the ascendency; he is persuaded, that life may
possibly be longer preserved, or that he shall derive a greater good by
drinking the poisoned water, than by enduring the torment, which, to his
mind, threatens instant dissolution: thus, the first becomes the
strongest, and necessarily urges him on to action. Nevertheless, in either
case, whether he partakes of the water, or whether he does not, the two
actions will be equally necessary; they will be the effect of that motive
which finds itself most puissant; which consequently acts in a most
coercive manner upon his will.

This example will serve to explain the whole phaenomena of the human will.
This will, or rather the brain, finds itself in the same situation as a
bowl, which although it has received an impulse that drives it forward in
a straight line, is deranged in its course, whenever a force, superior to
the first, obliges it to change its direction. The man who drinks the
poisoned water, appears a madman; but the actions of fools are as
necessary as those of the most prudent individuals. The motives that
determine the voluptuary, that actuate the debauchee to risk their health,
are as powerful, their actions are as necessary, as those which decide the
wise man to manage his. But, it will be insisted, the debauchee may be
prevailed on to change his conduct; this does not imply that he is a free
agent; but, that motives may be found sufficiently powerful to annihilate
the effect of those that previously acted upon him; then these new motives
determine his will to the new mode of conduct he may adopt, as necessarily
as the former did to the old mode.

Man is said to deliberate when the action of the will is suspended;
this happens when two opposite motives act alternately upon him. To
deliberate, is to hate and to love in succession; it is to be alternately
attracted and repelled; it is to be moved sometimes by one motive,
sometimes by another. Man only deliberates when he does not distinctly
understand the quality of the objects from which he receives impulse, or
when experience has not sufficiently apprised him of the effects, more or
less remote, which his actions will produce. He would take the air, but
the weather is uncertain; he deliberates in consequence; he weighs the
various motives that urge his will to go out or to stay at home; he is at
length determined by that motive which is most probable; this removes his
indecision, which necessarily settles his will either to remain within or
to go abroad: this motive is always either the immediate or ultimate
advantage he finds or thinks he finds in the action to which he is
persuaded.

Man’s will frequently fluctuates between two objects, of which either the
presence or the ideas move him alternately: he waits until he has
contemplated the objects or the ideas they have left in his brain; which
solicit him to different actions; he then compares these objects or ideas:
but even in the time of deliberation, during the comparison, pending these
alternatives of love and hatred, which succeed each other sometimes with
the utmost rapidity, he is not a free agent for a single instant; the good
or the evil which he believes he finds successively in the objects, are
the necessary motives of these momentary wills; of the rapid motion of
desire or fear that he experiences as long as his uncertainty continues.
From this it will be obvious, that deliberation is necessary; that
uncertainty is necessary; that whatever part he takes, in consequence of
this deliberation, it will always necessarily be that which he has judged,
whether well or ill, is most probable to turn to his advantage.

When the soul is assailed by two motives that act alternately upon it, or
modify it successively, it deliberates; the brain is in a sort of
equilibrium, accompanied with perpetual oscillations, sometimes towards
one object, sometimes towards the other, until the most forcible carries
the point, and thereby extricates it, from this state of suspense, in
which consists the indecision of his will. But when the brain is
simultaneously assailed by causes equally strong, that move it in opposite
directions; agreeable to the general law of all bodies, when they are
struck equally by contrary powers, it stops, it is in nisu; it is
neither capable to will nor to act; it waits until one of the two causes
has obtained sufficient force to overpower the other, to determine its
will, to attract it in such a manner that it may prevail over the efforts
of the other cause.

This mechanism, so simple, so natural, suffices to demonstrate, why
uncertainty is painful; why suspense is always a violent state for man.
The brain, an organ so delicate, so mobile, experiences such rapid
modifications, that it is fatigued; or when it is urged in contrary
directions, by causes equally powerful, it suffers a kind of compression,
that prevents the activity which is suitable to the preservation of the
whole, which is necessary to procure what is advantageous to its
existence. This mechanism will also explain the irregularity, the
indecision, the inconstancy of man; and account for that conduct, which
frequently appears an inexplicable mystery, which indeed it is, under the
received systems. In consulting experience, it will be found that the soul
is submitted to precisely the same physical laws as the material body. If
the will of each individual, during a given time, was only moved by a
single cause or passion, nothing would be more easy than to foresee his
actions; but his heart is frequently assailed by contrary powers, by
adverse motives, which either act on him simultaneously or in succession;
then his brain, attracted in opposite directions, is either fatigued, or
else tormented by a state of compression, which deprives it of activity.
Sometimes it is in a state of incommodious inaction; sometimes it is the
sport of the alternate shocks it undergoes. Such, no doubt, is the state
in which man finds himself, when a lively passion solicits him to the
commission of crime, whilst fear points out to him the danger by which it
is attended: such, also, is the condition of him whom remorse, by the
continued labour of his distracted soul, prevents from enjoying the
objects he has criminally obtained.

If the powers or causes, whether exterior or interior, acting on the mind
of man, tend towards opposite points, his soul, is well as all other
bodies, will take a mean direction between the two; in consequence of the
violence with which his soul is urged, his condition becomes sometimes so
painful that his existence is troublesome: he has no longer a tendency to
his own peculiar conservation; he seeks after death, as a sanctuary
against himself—as the only remedy to his despair: it is thus we
behold men, miserable and discontented, voluntarily destroy themselves,
whenever life becomes insupportable. Man is competent to cherish his
existence, no longer than life holds out charms to him; when he is wrought
upon by painful sensations, or drawn by contrary impulsions, his natural
tendency is deranged, he is under the necessity to follow a new route;
this conducts him to his end, which it even displays to him as the most
desirable good. In this manner may be explained, the conduct of those
melancholy beings, whose vicious temperaments, whose tortured consciences,
whose chagrin, whose ennui, sometimes determine them to renounce
life.

The various powers, frequently very complicated, that act either
successively or simultaneously upon the brain of man, which modify him so
diversely in the different periods of his existence, are the true causes
of that obscurity in morals, of that difficulty which is found, when it is
desired to unravel the concealed springs of his enigmatical conduct. The
heart of man is a labyrinth, only because it very rarely happens that we
possess the necessary gift of judging it; from whence it will appear, that
his circumstances, his indecision, his conduct, whether ridiculous, or
unexpected, are the necessary consequences of the changes operated in him;
are nothing but the effect of motives that successively determine his
will; which are dependent on the frequent variations experienced by his
machine. According to these variations, the same motives have not, always,
the same influence over his will, the same objects no longer enjoy the
faculty of pleasing him; his temperament has changed, either for the
moment, or for ever. It follows as a consequence, that his taste, his
desires, his passions, will change; there can be no kind of uniformity in
his conduct, nor any certitude in the effects to be expected.

Choice by no means proves the free-agency of man; he only deliberates when
he does not yet know which to choose of the many objects that move him, he
is then in an embarrassment, which does not terminate, until his will as
decided by the greater advantage he believes be shall find in the object
he chooses, or the action he undertakes. From whence it may be seen that
choice is necessary, because he would not determine for an object, or for
an action, if he did not believe that he should find in it some direct
advantage. That man should have free-agency, it were needful that he
should be able to will or choose without motive; or, that he could prevent
motives coercing his will. Action always being the effect of his will once
determined, as his will cannot be determined but by a motive, which is not
in his own power, it follows that he is never the master of the
determination of his own peculiar will; that consequently he never acts as
a free agent. It has been believed that man was a free agent, because he
had a will with the power of choosing; but attention has not been paid to
the fact, that even his will is moved by causes independent of himself, is
owing to that which is inherent in his own organization, or which belongs
to the nature of the beings acting on him. Indeed, man passes a great
portion of his life without even willing. His will attends the motive by
which it is determined. If he was to render an exact account of every
thing he does in the course of each day, from rising in the morning to
lying down at night, he would find, that not one of his actions have been
in the least voluntary; that they have been mechanical, habitual,
determined by causes he was not able to foresee, to which he was either
obliged to, yield, or with which he was allured to acquiesce; he would
discover, that all the motives of his labours, of his amusements, of his
discourses, of his thoughts, have been necessary; that they have evidently
either seduced him or drawn him along. Is he the master of willing, not to
withdraw his hand from the fire when he fears it will be burnt? Or has he
the power to take away from fire the property which makes him fear it? Is
he the master of not choosing a dish of meat which he knows to be
agreeable, or analogous to his palate; of not preferring it to that which
he knows to be disagreeable or dangerous? It is always according to his
sensations, to his own peculiar experience, or to his suppositions, that
he judges of things either well or ill; but whatever way be his judgment,
it depends necessarily on his mode of feeling, whether habitual or
accidental, and the qualities he finds in the causes that move him, which
exist in despite of himself.

All the causes which by his will is actuated, must act upon him in a
manner sufficiently marked, to give him some sensation, some perception,
some idea, whether complete or incomplete, true or false; as soon as his
will is determined, he must have felt, either strongly or feebly; if this
was not the case he would have determined without motive: thus, to speak
correctly, there are no causes which are truly indifferent to the will:
however faint the impulse he receives, whether on the part of the objects
themselves, or on the part of their images or ideas, as soon as his will
acts, the impulse has been competent to determine him. In consequence of a
slight, of a feeble impulse, the will is weak, it is this weakness of the
will that is called indifference. His brain with difficulty
perceives the sensation, it has received; it consequently acts with less
vigour, either to obtain or remove the object or the idea that has
modified it. If the impulse is powerful, the will is strong, it makes him
act vigorously, to obtain or to remove the object which appears to him
either very agreeable or very incommodious.

It has been believed man was a free agent, because it has been imagined
that his soul could at will recall ideas, which sometimes suffice to check
his most unruly desires. Thus, the idea of a remote evil frequently
prevents him from enjoying a present and actual good: thus, remembrance,
which is an almost insensible, a slight modification of his brain,
annihilates, at each instant, the real objects that act upon his will. But
he is not master of recalling to himself his ideas at pleasure; their
association is independent of him; they are arranged in his brain, in
despite of him, without his own knowledge, where they have made an
impression more or less profound; his memory itself depends upon his
organization; its fidelity depends upon the habitual or momentary state in
which he finds himself; when his will is vigorously determined to some
object or idea that excites a very lively passion in him, those objects or
ideas that would be able to arrest his action no longer present themselves
to his mind; in those moments his eyes are shut to the dangers that menace
him, of which the idea ought to make him forbear; he marches forward
headlong towards the object by whose image he is hurried on; reflection
cannot operate upon him in any way; he sees nothing but the object of his
desires; the salutary ideas which might be able to arrest his progress
disappear, or else display themselves either too faintly or too late to
prevent his acting. Such is the case with all those who, blinded by some
strong passion, are not in a condition to recal to themselves those
motives, of which the idea alone, in cooler moments, would be sufficient
to deter them from proceeding; the disorder in which they are, prevents
their judging soundly; render them incapable of foreseeing the consequence
of their actions; precludes them from applying to their experience; from
making use of their reason; natural operations, which suppose a justness
in the manner of associating their ideas; but to which their brain is then
not more competent, in consequence of the momentary delirium it suffers,
than their hand is to write whilst they are taking violent exercise.

Man’s mode of thinking is necessarily determined by his manner of being;
it must, therefore, depend on his natural organization, and the
modification his system receives independently of his will. From this we
are obliged to conclude, that his thoughts, his reflections, his manner of
viewing things, of feeling, of judging, of combining ideas, is neither
voluntary nor free. In a word, that his soul is neither mistress of the
motion excited in it, nor of representing to itself, when wanted, those
images or ideas that are capable of counterbalancing the impulse it
receives. This is the reason why man, when in a passion, ceases to reason;
at that moment reason is as impossible to be heard, as it is during an
extacy, or in a fit of drunkenness. The wicked are never more than men who
are either drunk or mad: if they reason, it is not until tranquillity is
re-established in their machine; then, and not till then, the tardy ideas
that present themselves to their mind, enable them to see the consequence
of their actions, and give birth to ideas, that bring on them that
trouble, which is designated shame, regret, remorse.

The errors of philosophers on the free-agency of man, have arisen from
their regarding his will as the primum mobile, the original motive
of his actions; for want of recurring back, they have not perceived the
multiplied, the complicated causes, which, independently of him, give
motion to the will itself, or which dispose and modify his brain, whilst
he himself is purely passive in the motion he receives. Is he the master
of desiring or not desiring an object that appears desirable to him?
Without doubt it will be answered, No: but he is the master of resisting
his desire, if he reflects on the consequences. But, I ask, is he capable
of reflecting on these consequences when his soul is hurried along by a
very lively passion, which entirely depends upon his natural organization,
and the causes by which he is modified? Is it in his power to add to these
consequences all the weight necessary to counterbalance his desire? Is he
the master of preventing the qualities which render an object desirable
from residing in it? I shall be told, he ought to have learned to resist
his passions; to contract a habit of putting a curb on his desires. I
agree to it without any difficulty: but in reply, I again ask, Is his
nature susceptible of this modification? Does his boiling blood, his
unruly imagination, the igneous fluid that circulates in his veins, permit
him to make, enable him to apply true experience in the moment when it is
wanted? And, even when his temperament has capacitated him, has his
education, the examples set before him, the ideas with which he has been
inspired in early life, been suitable to make him contract this habit of
repressing his desires? Have not all these things rather contributed to
induce him to seek with avidity, to make him actually desire those objects
which you say he ought to resist.

The ambitious man cries out,—You will have me resist my
passion, but have they not unceasingly repeated to me, that rank, honours,
power, are the most desirable advantages in life? Have I not seen my
fellow-citizens envy them—the nobles of my country sacrifice every
thing to obtain them? In the society in which I live, am I not obliged to
feel, that if I am deprived of these advantages, I must expect to languish
in contempt, to cringe under the rod of oppression?

The miser says,—You forbid me to love money, to seek after
the means of acquiring it: alas! does not every thing tell me, that in
this world money is the greatest blessing; that it is amply sufficient to
render me happy? In the country I inhabit, do I not see all my
fellow-citizens covetous of riches? but do I not also witness that they
are little scrupulous in the means of obtaining wealth? As soon as they
are enriched by the means which you censure, are they not cherished,
considered, and respected? By what authority, then, do you object to my
amassing treasure? what right have you to prevent my using means, which
although you call them sordid and criminal, I see approved by the
sovereign? Will you have me renounce my happiness?

The voluptuary argues,—You pretend that I should resist my
desires; but was I the maker of my own temperament, which unceasingly
invites me to pleasure? You call my pleasures disgraceful; but in the
country in which I live, do I not witness the most dissipated men enjoying
the most distinguished rank? Do I not behold, that no one is ashamed of
adultery but the husband it has outraged? do not I see men making trophies
of their debaucheries, boasting of their libertinism, rewarded, with
applause?

The choleric man vociferates,—You advise me to put a curb on
my passions; to resist the desire of avenging myself: but can I conquer my
nature? Can I alter the received opinions of the world? Shall I not be for
ever disgraced, infallibly dishonoured in society, if I do not wash out,
in the blood of my fellow-creature, the injuries I have received?

The zealous enthusiast exclaims,—You recommend to me
mildness, you advise me to be tolerant, to be indulgent to the opinions of
my fellow-men; but is not my temperament violent? Do I not ardently love
my God? Do they not assure me that zeal is pleasing to him; that
sanguinary inhuman persecutors have been his friends? That those who do
not think as I do are his enemies? I wish to render myself acceptable in
his sight, I therefore adopt the means you reprobate.

In short, the actions of man are never free; they are always the necessary
consequence of his temperament, of the received ideas, of the notions,
either true or false, which he has formed to himself of happiness: of his
opinions, strengthened by example, forfeited by education, consolidated by
daily experience. So many crimes are witnessed on the earth, only because
every thing conspires to render man vicious, to make him criminal; very
frequently, the superstitions he has adopted, his government, his
education, the examples set before him, irresistibly drive him on to evil:
under these circumstances morality preaches virtue to him in vain. In
those societies where vice is esteemed, where crime is crowned, where
venality is constantly recompenced, where the most dreadful disorders are
punished, only in those who are too weak to enjoy the privilege of
committing them with impunity; the practice of virtue is considered
nothing more than a painful sacrifice of fancied happiness. Such societies
chastise, in the lower orders, those excesses which they respect in the
higher ranks; and frequently have the injustice to condemn those in
penalty of death, whom public prejudices, maintained by constant example,
have rendered criminal.

Man, then, is not a free agent in any one instant of his life; he is
necessarily guided in each step by those advantages, whether real or
fictitious, that he attaches to the objects by which his passions are
roused: these passions themselves are necessary in a being who,
unceasingly tends towards his own happiness; their energy is necessary,
since that depends on his temperament; his temperament is necessary,
because it depends on the physical elements which enter into his
composition; the modification of this temperament is necessary, as it is
the infallible result, the inevitable consequence of the impulse he
receives from the incessant action of moral and physical beings.

In despite of these proofs of the want of free-agency in man, so clear to
unprejudiced minds, it will, perhaps, be insisted upon with no small
feeling of triumph, that if it be proposed to any one to move or not to
move his hand, an action in the number of those called indifferent,
he evidently appears to be the master of choosing; from which it is
concluded, evidence has been offered of his free-agency. The reply is,
this example is perfectly simple; man in performing some action which he
is resolved on doing, does not by any means prove his free-agency: the
very desire of displaying this quality, excited by the dispute, becomes a
necessary motive which decides his will either for the one or the other of
these actions: what deludes him in this instance, or that which persuades
him he is a free agent at this moment, is, that he does not discern the
true motive which sets him in action; which is neither more nor less than
the desire of convincing his opponent: if in the heat of the dispute he
insists and asks, “Am I not the master of throwing myself out of the
window?” I shall answer him, no; that whilst he preserves his reason,
there is not even a probability that the desire of proving his
free-agency, will become a motive sufficiently powerful, to make him
sacrifice his life to the attempt; if, notwithstanding this, to prove he
is a free agent, he should actually precipitate himself from the window,
it would not be a sufficient warrantry to conclude he acted freely, but
rather that it was the violence of his temperament which spurred him on to
this folly. Madness is a state that depends upon the heat of the blood,
not upon the will. A fanatic or a hero, braves death as necessarily as a
more phlegmatic man or a coward flies from it. There is, in point of fact,
no difference between the man who is cast out of the window by another,
and the man who throws himself out of it, except that the impulse in the
first instance comes immediately from without, whilst that which
determines the fall in the second case, springs from within his own
peculiar machine, having its more remote cause also exterior. When Mutius
Scaevola held his hand in the fire, he was as much acting under the
influence of necessity, caused by interior motives, that urged him to this
strange action, as if his arm had been held by strong men; pride, despair,
the desire of braving his enemy, a wish to astonish him, an anxiety to
intimidate him, &c. were the invisible chains that held his hand bound
to the fire. The love of glory, enthusiasm for their country, in like
manner, caused Codrus and Decius to devote themselves for their fellow
citizens. The Indian Calanus and the philosopher Peregrinus were equally
obliged to burn themselves, by the desire of exciting the astonishment of
the Grecian assembly.

It is said that free-agency is the absence of those obstacles competent to
oppose themselves to the actions of man, or to the exercise of his
faculties: it is pretended that he is a free agent, whenever, making use
of these faculties, he produces the effect he has proposed to himself. In
reply to this reasoning, it is sufficient to consider that it in no wise
depends upon himself to place or remove the obstacles that either
determine or resist him; the motive that causes his action is no more in
his own power than the obstacle that impedes him, whether this obstacle or
motive be within his own machine or exterior of his person: he is not
master of the thought presented to his mind which determines his will;
this thought is excited by some cause independent of himself.

To be undeceived on the system of his free-agency, man has simply to recur
to the motive by which his will is determined, he will always find this
motive is out of his own controul. It is said, that in consequence of an
idea to which the mind gives birth, man acts freely if he encounters no
obstacle. But the question is, what gives birth to this idea in his brain?
has he the power either to prevent it from presenting itself, or from
renewing itself in his brain? Does not this idea depend either upon
objects that strike him exteriorly and in despite of himself, or upon
causes that without his knowledge act within himself and modify his brain?
Can he prevent his eyes, cast without design upon any object whatever,
from giving him an idea of this object, from moving his brain? He is not
more master of the obstacles; they are the necessary effects of either
interior or exterior causes, which always act according to their given
properties. A man insults a coward, who is necessarily irritated against
his insulter, but his will cannot vanquish the obstacle that cowardice
places to the object of his desire, which is, to resent the insult;
because his natural conformation, which does not depend upon himself,
prevents his having courage. In this case the coward is insulted in
despite of himself, and against his will is obliged patiently to brook the
insult he has received.

The partizans of the system of free-agency appear ever to have confounded
constraint with necessity. Man believes he acts as a free agent, every
time he does not see any thing that places obstacles to his actions; he
does not perceive that the motive which causes him to will is always
necessary, is ever independent of himself. A prisoner loaded with chains
is compelled to remain in prison, but he is not a free agent, he is not
able to resist the desire to emancipate himself; his chains prevent him
from acting, but they do not prevent him from willing; he would save
himself if they would loose his fetters, but he would not save himself as
a free agent, fear or the idea of punishment would be sufficient motives
for his action.

Man may therefore cease to be restrained, without, for that reason,
becoming a free agent: in whatever manner he acts, he will act
necessarily; according to motives by which he shall be determined. He may
be compared to a heavy body, that finds itself arrested in its descent by
any obstacle whatever: take away this obstacle, it will gravitate or
continue to fall; but who shall say this dense body is free to fall or
not? Is not its descent the necessary effect of its own specific gravity?
The virtuous Socrates submitted to the laws of his country, although they
were unjust; notwithstanding the doors of his gaol were left open to him
he would not save himself; but in this he did not act as a free agent; the
invisible chains of opinion, the secret love of decorum, the inward
respect for the laws, even when they were iniquitous, the fear of
tarnishing his glory, kept him in his prison: they were motives
sufficiently powerful, with this enthusiast for virtue, to induce him to
wait death with tranquillity; it was not in his power to save himself,
because he could find no potential motive to bring him to depart, even for
an instant, from those principles to which his mind was accustomed.

Man, says he, frequently acts against his inclination, from whence he has
falsely concluded he is a free agent; when he appears to act contrary to
his inclination, he is determined to it by some motive sufficiently
efficacious to vanquish this inclination. A sick man, with a view to his
cure, arrives at conquering his repugnance to the most disgusting
remedies: the fear of pain, the dread of death, then become necessary and
intelligent motives; consequently, this sick man cannot be said, with
truth, by any means, to act freely.

When it is said, that man is not a free agent, it is not pretended to
compare him to a body moved by a simple impulsive cause: he contains
within himself causes inherent to his existence; he is moved by an
interior organ, which has its own peculiar laws; which is itself
necessarily determined, in consequence of ideas formed from perceptions,
resulting from sensations, which it receives from exterior objects. As the
mechanism of these sensations, of these perceptions, and the manner they
engrave ideas on the brain of man, are not known to him, because he is
unable to unravel all these motions; because he cannot perceive the chain
of operations in his soul, or the motive-principle that acts within him,
he supposes himself a free agent; which, literally translated, signifies
that he moves himself by himself; that he determines himself without
cause; when he rather ought to say, he is ignorant how or for why he acts
in the manner he does. It is true the soul enjoys an activity peculiar to
itself, but it is equally certain that this activity would never be
displayed if some motive or some cause did not put it in a condition to
exercise itself, at least it will not be pretended that the soul is able
either to love or to hate without being moved, without knowing the
objects, without having some idea of their qualities. Gunpowder has
unquestionably a particular activity, but this activity will never display
itself, unless fire be applied to it; this, however, immediately sets in
motion.

It is the great complication of motion in man, it is the variety of his
action, it is the multiplicity of causes that move him, whether
simultaneously or in continual succession, that persuades him he is a free
agent: if all his motions were simple, if the causes that move him did not
confound themselves with each other, if they were distinct, if his machine
was less complicated, he would perceive that all his actions were
necessary, because he would be enabled to recur instantly to the cause
that made him act. A man who should be always obliged to go towards the
west would always go on that side, but he would feel extremely well, that
in so going he was not a free agent: if he had another sense, as his
actions or his motion augmented by a sixth would be still more varied,
much more complicated, he would believe himself still more a free agent
than he does with his five senses.

It is, then, for want of recurring to the causes that move him, for want
of being able to analyse, from not being competent to decompose the
complicated motion of his machine, that man believes himself a free agent;
it is only upon his own ignorance that he founds the profound yet
deceitful notion he has of his free-agency, that he builds those opinions
which he brings forward as a striking proof of his pretended freedom of
action. If, for a short time, each man was willing to examine his own
peculiar actions, to search out their true motives, to discover their
concatenation, he would remain convinced that the sentiment he has of his
natural free-agency is a chimera that must speedily be destroyed by
experience.

Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the multiplicity, the diversity
of the causes which continually act upon man, frequently without even his
knowledge, render it impossible, or at least extremely difficult, for him
to recur to the true principles of his own peculiar actions, much less the
actions of others; they frequently depend upon causes so fugitive, so
remote from their effects, and which, superficially examined, appear to
have so little analogy, so slender a relation with them, that it requires
singular sagacity to bring them into light. This is what renders the study
of the moral man a task of such difficulty; this is the reason why his
heart is an abyss, of which it is frequently impossible for him to fathom
the depth. He is, then, obliged to content himself with a knowledge of the
general and necessary laws by which the human heart is regulated; for the
individuals of his own species these laws are pretty nearly the same, they
vary only in consequence of the organization that is peculiar to each, and
of the modification it undergoes; this, however, is not, cannot be
rigorously the same in any two. It suffices to know that by his essence
man tends to conserve himself, to render his existence happy: this
granted, whatever may be his actions, if he recurs back to this first
principle, to this general, this necessary tendency of his will, he never
can be deceived with regard to his motives. Man, without doubt, for want
of cultivating reason, being destitute of experience, frequently deceives
himself upon the means of arriving at this end; sometimes the means he
employs are unpleasant to his fellows, because they are prejudicial to
their interests; or else those of which he avails himself appear
irrational, because they remove him from the end to which he would
approximate: but whatever may be these means, they have always necessarily
and invariably for object, either an existing or imaginary happiness; are
directed to preserve himself in a state analogous to his mode of
existence, to his manner of feeling, to his way of thinking; whether
durable or transitory. It is from having mistaken this truth, that the
greater number of moral philosophers have made rather the romance, than
the history of the human heart; they have attributed the actions of man to
fictitious causes; at least they have not sought out the necessary motives
of his conduct. Politicians and legislators have been in the same state of
ignorance; or else impostors have found it much shorter to employ
imaginary motive-powers, than those which really have existence: they have
rather chosen to make man wander out of his way, to make him tremble under
incommodious phantoms, than guide him to virtue by the direct road to
happiness; notwithstanding the conformity of the latter with the natural
desires of his heart. So true it is, that error can never possibly be
useful, to the human species.

However this may be, man either sees or believes he sees, much more
distinctly, the necessary relation of effects with their causes in natural
philosophy than in the human heart; at least he sees in the former
sensible causes constantly produce sensible effects, ever the same, when
the circumstances are alike. After this, he hesitates not to look upon
physical effects as necessary, whilst he refuses to acknowledge necessity
in the acts of the human will; these he has, without any just foundation,
attributed to a motive-power that acts independently by its own peculiar
energy, that is capable of modifying itself without the concurrence of
exterior causes, and which is distinguished from all material or physical
beings. Agriculture is founded upon the assurance afforded by
experience, that the earth, cultivated and sown in a certain manner, when
it has otherwise the requisite qualities, will furnish grain, fruit, and
flowers, either necessary for subsistence or pleasing to the senses. If
things were considered without prejudice, it would be perceived, that in
morals education is nothing more than the agriculture of the mind;
that like the earth, by reason of its natural disposition, of the culture
bestowed upon it, of the seeds with which it is sown, of the seasons, more
or less favorable, that conduct it to maturity, we may be assured that the
soul will produce either virtue or vice; moral fruit that will be
either salubrious for man or baneful to society. Morals is the
science of the relations that subsist between the minds, the wills, and
the actions of men; in the same manner that geometry is the science
of the relations that are found between bodies. Morals would be a chimera,
it would have no certain principles, if it was not founded upon the
knowledge of the motives which must necessarily have an influence upon the
human will, and which must necessarily determine the actions of human
beings.

If in the moral as well as in the physical world, a cause of which the
action is not interrupted be necessarily followed by a given effect, it
flows consecutively that a reasonable education, grafted upon
truth, founded upon wise laws,—that honest principles instilled
during youth, virtuous examples continually held forth, esteem attached
solely to merit, recompense awarded to none but good actions, contempt
regularly visiting vice, shame following falsehood as its shadow, rigorous
chastisements applied without distinction to crime, are causes that would
necessarily act on the will of man; that would determine the greater
number of his species to exhibit virtue, to love it for its own sake, to
seek after it as the most desirable good, as the surest road to the
happiness he so ardently desires. But if, on the contrary, superstition,
politics, example, public opinion, all labour to countenance wickedness,
to train man viciously; if, instead of fanning his virtues, they stifle
good principles; if, instead of directing his studies to his advantage,
they render his education either useless or unprofitable; if this
education itself, instead of grounding him in virtue, only inoculates him
with vice; if, instead of inculcating reason, it imbues him with
prejudice; if, instead of making him enamoured of truth, it furnishes him
with false notions; if, instead of storing his mind with just ideas drawn
from experience, it fills him with dangerous opinions; if, instead of
fostering mildness and forbearance, it kindles in his breast only those
passions which are incommodious to himself and hurtful to others; it must
be of necessity, that the will of the greater number shall determine them
to evil; shall render them unworthy, make them baneful to society. Many
authors have acknowledged the importance of a good education, that youth
was the season to feed the human heart with wholesome diet; but they have
not felt, that a good education is incompatible, nay, impossible, with the
superstition of man, since this commences with giving his mind a false
bias: that it is equally inconsistent with arbitrary government, because
this always dreads lest he should become enlightened, and is ever sedulous
to render him servile, mean, contemptible, and cringing; that it is
incongruous with laws that are not founded in equity, that are frequently
bottomed on injustice; that it cannot obtain with those received customs
that are opposed to good sense; that it cannot exist whilst public opinion
is unfavourable to virtue; above all, that it is absurd to expect it from
incapable instructors, from masters with weak minds, who have only the
ability to infuse into their scholars those false ideas with which they
are themselves infected. Here, without doubt, is the real source from
whence springs that universal corruption, that wide-spreading depravity,
of which moralists, with great justice, so loudly complain; without,
however, pointing out those causes of the evil, which are true as they are
necessary: instead of this, they search for it in human nature, say it is
corrupt, blame man for loving himself, and for seeking after his own
happiness, insist that he must have supernatural assistance, some
marvellous interference, to enable him to become good: this is a very
prejudicial doctrine for him, it is directly subversive of his true
happiness; by teaching him to hold himself in contempt, it tends
necessarily to discourage him; it either makes him sluggish, or drives him
to despair whilst waiting for this grace: is it not easy to be perceived,
that he would always have it if he was well educated; if he was honestly
governed? There cannot well exist a wilder or a stranger system of morals,
than that of the theologians who attribute all moral evil to an original
sin, and all moral good to the pardon of it. It ought not to excite
surprise if such a system is of no efficacy; what can reasonably be the
result of such an hypothesis? Yet, notwithstanding the supposed, the
boasted free-agency of man, it is insisted that nothing less than the
Author of Nature himself is necessary to destroy the wicked desires of his
heart: but, alas! no power whatever is found sufficiently efficacious to
resist those unhappy propensities, which, under the fatal constitution of
things, the most vigorous motives, as before observed, are continually
infusing into the will of man; no agency seems competent to turn the
course of that unhappy direction these are perpetually giving to the
stream of his natural passions. He is, indeed, incessantly exhorted to
resist these passions, to stifle them, and to root them out of his heart;
but is it not evident they are necessary to his welfare? Can it not be
perceived they are inherent in his nature? Does not experience prove them
to be useful to his conservation, since they have for object, only to
avoid that which may be injurious to him; to procure that which may be
advantageous to his mode of existence? In short, is it not easy to be
seen, that these passions, well directed, that is to say, carried towards
objects that are truly useful, that are really interesting to himself,
which embrace the happiness of others, would necessarily contribute to the
substantial, to the permanent well-being of society? Theologians
themselves have felt, they have acknowledged the necessity of the
passions: many of the fathers of the church have broached this doctrine;
among the rest Father Senault has written a book expressly on the subject:
the passions of man are like fire, at once necessary to the wants of life,
suitable to ameliorate the condition of humanity, and equally capable of
producing the most terrible ravages, the most frightful devastation.

Every thing becomes an impulse to the will; a single word frequently
suffices to modify a man for the whole course of his life, to decide for
ever his propensities; an infant who has burned his finger by having
approached it too near the flame of a lighted taper, is warned from
thence, that he ought to abstain from indulging a similar temptation; a
man, once punished and despised for having committed a dishonest action,
is not often tempted to continue so unfavourable a course. Under whatever
point of man is considered, he never acts but after the impulse given to
his will, whether it be by the will of others, or by more perceptible
physical causes. The particular organization decides the nature of the
impulse; souls act upon souls that are analogous; inflamed, fiery
imaginations, act with facility upon strong passions; upon imaginations
easy to be inflamed, the surprising progress of enthusiasm; the hereditary
propagation of superstition; the transmission of religious errors from
race to race, the excessive ardour with which man seizes on the
marvellous, are effects as necessary as those which result from the action
and re-action of bodies.

In despite of the gratuitous ideas which man has formed to himself on his
pretended free-agency; in defiance of the illusions of this suppose
intimate sense, which, contrary to his experience, persuades him that he
is master of his will,—all his institutions are really founded upon
necessity: on this, as on a variety of other occasions, practice throws
aside speculation. Indeed, if it was not believed that certain motives
embraced the power requisite to determine the will of man, to arrest the
progress of his passions, to direct them towards an end, to modify him; of
what use would be the faculty of speech? What benefit could arise from
education itself? What does education achieve, save give the first impulse
to the human will, make man contract habits, oblige him to persist in
them, furnish him with motives, whether true or false, to act after a
given manner? When the father either menaces his son with punishment, or
promises him a reward, is he not convinced these things will act upon his
will? What does legislation attempt, except it be to present to the
citizens of a state those motives which are supposed necessary to
determine them to perform some actions that are considered worthy; to
abstain from committing others that are looked upon as unworthy? What is
the object of morals, if it be not to shew man that his interest exacts he
should suppress the momentary ebullition of his passions, with a view to
promote a more certain happiness, a more lasting well-being, than can
possibly result from the gratification of his transitory desires? Does not
the religion of all countries suppose the human race, together with the
entire of Nature, submitted to the irresistible will of a necessary being,
who regulates their condition after the eternal laws of immutable wisdom?
Is not God the absolute master of their destiny? Is it not this divine
being who chooses and rejects? The anathemas fulminated by religion, the
promises it holds forth, are they not founded upon the idea of the effects
they will necessarily produce upon mankind? Is not man brought into
existence without his own knowledge? Is he not obliged to play a part
against his will? Does not either his happiness or his misery depend on
the part he plays?

All religion has been evidently founded upon Fatalism. Among the
Greeks they supposed men were punished for their necessary faults, as may
be seen in Orestes, in Oedipus, &c. who only committed crimes
predicted by the oracles. It is rather singular that the theological
defenders of the doctrine of free-agency, which they endeavour to
oppose to that of predestination,—which according to them is
irreconcileable with Christianity, inasmuch as it is a false and
dangerous system,—should not have been aware that the doctrines of
the fall of angels, original sin, the small number of the elect, the
system of grace, &c. were most incontestibly supporting, by the
most cogent arguments, a true system of fatalism.

Education, then, is only necessity shewn to children: legislation
is necessity shewn to the members of the body politic: morals is
the necessity of the relations subsisting between men, shewn to reasonable
beings: in short, man grants necessity in every thing for which he
believes he has certain, unerring experience: that of which he does not
comprehend the necessary connection of causes with their effects he styles
probability: he would not act as he does, if he was not convinced,
or, at least, if he did not presume he was, that certain effects will
necessarily follow his actions. The moralist preaches reason,
because he believes it necessary to man: the philosopher writes,
because he believes truth must, sooner or later, prevail over falsehood:
tyrants and fanatical priests necessarily hate truth,
despise reason, because they believe them prejudicial to their interests:
the sovereign, who strives to terrify crime by the severity of his
laws, but who nevertheless, from motives of state policy sometimes renders
it useful and even necessary to his purposes, presumes the motives he
employs will be sufficient to keep his subjects within bounds. All reckon
equally upon the power or upon the necessity of the motives they make use
of; each individual flatters himself, either with or without reason, that
these motives will have an influence on the conduct of mankind. The
education of man is commonly so defective, so inefficacious, so little
calculated to promote the end he has in view, because it is regulated by
prejudice: even when this education is good, it is but too often speedily
counteracted, by almost every thing that takes place in society.
Legislation and politics are very frequently iniquitous, and serve no
better purpose than to kindle passions in the bosom of man, which once set
afloat, they are no longer competent to restrain. The great art of the
moralist should be, to point out to man, to convince those who are
entrusted with the sacred office of regulating his will, that their
interests are identified; that their reciprocal happiness depends upon the
harmony of their passions; that the safety, the power, the duration of
empires, necessarily depend on the good sense diffused among the
individual members; on the truth of the notions inculcated in the mind of
the citizens, on the moral goodness that is sown in their hearts, on the
virtues that are cultivated in their breasts; religion should not be
admissible, unless it truly fortified, unless it really strengthened these
motives. But in the miserable state into which error has plunged a
considerable portion of the human species, man, for the most part, is
seduced to be wicked: he injures his fellow-creature as a matter of
conscience, because the strongest motives are held out to him to be
persecuting; because his institutions invite him to the commission of
evil, under the lure of promoting his own immediate happiness. In most
countries superstition renders him a useless being, makes him an abject
slave, causes him to tremble under its terrors, or else turns him into a
furious fanatic, who is at once cruel, intolerant, and inhuman: in a great
number of states arbitrary power crushes him, obliges him to become a
cringing sycophant, renders him completely vicious: in those despotic
states the law rarely visits crime with punishment, except in those who
are too feeble to oppose its course? or when it has become incapable of
restraining the violent excesses to which a bad government gives birth. In
short, rational education is neglected; a prudent culture of the human
mind is despised; it depends, but too frequently, upon bigotted,
superstitious priests, who are interested in deceiving man, and who are
sometimes impostors; or else upon parents or masters without
understanding, who are devoid of morals, who impress on the ductile mind
of their scholars those vices with which they are themselves tormented;
who transmit to them the false opinions, which they believe they have an
interest in making them adopt.

All this proves the necessity of falling back to man’s original errors,
and recurring to the primitive source of his wanderings, if it be
seriously intended to furnish him with suitable remedies for such enormous
maladies: it is useless to dream of correcting his mistakes, of curing him
of his depravity, until the true causes that move his will are unravelled;
until more real, more beneficial, more certain motives are substituted for
those which are found so inefficacious; which prove so dangerous both to
society and to himself. It is for those who guide the human will, who
regulate the condition of nations, who hold the real happiness of man in
their grasp, to seek after these motives,—with which reason will
readily furnish them—which experience will enable them to apply with
success: even a good book, by touching the heart of a great prince, may
become a very powerful cause that shall necessarily have an influence over
the conduct of a whole people, and decide upon the felicity of a portion
of the human race.

From all that has been advanced in this chapter, it results, that in no
one moment of his existence man is a free agent: he is not the architect
of his own conformation; this he holds from Nature, he has no controul
over his own ideas, or over the modification of his brain; these are due
to causes, that, in despite of him, very frequently without his own
knowledge, unceasingly act upon him; he is not the master of not loving
that which he finds amiable; of not coveting that which appears to him
desirable; he is not capable of refusing to deliberate, when he is
uncertain of the effects certain objects will produce upon him; he cannot
avoid choosing that which he believes will be most advantageous to him: in
the moment when his will is determined by his choice, he is not competent
to act otherwise than he does: in what instance, then, is he the master of
his own actions? In what moment is he a free agent?

That which a man is about to do is always a consequence of that which he
has been—of that which he is—of that which he has done up to
the moment of the action: his total and actual existence, considered under
all its possible circumstances, contains the sum of all the motives to the
action he is about to commit; this is a principle, the truth of which no
thinking, being will be able to refuse accrediting: his life is a series
of necessary moments; his conduct, whether good or bad, virtuous or
vicious, useful or prejudicial, either to himself or to others, is a
concatenation of action, a chain of causes and effects, as necessary as
all the moments of his existence. To live, is to exist in a
necessary mode during the points of its duration, which succeed each other
necessarily: to will, is to acquiesce or not in remaining such as
he is: to be free, is to yield to the necessary motives that he
carries within himself.

If he understood the play of his organs, if he was able to recal to
himself all the impulsions they have received, all the modifications they
have undergone, all the effects they have produced, he would perceive,
that all his actions are submitted to that fatality which regulates
his own particular system, as it does the entire system of the universe:
no one effect in him, any more than in Nature, produce itself by chance;
this, as has been before proved, is a word void of sense. All that passes
in him, all that is done by him, as well as all that happens in Nature, or
that is attributed to her, is derived from necessary laws, which produce
necessary effects; from whence necessarily flow others.

Fatality is the eternal, the immutable, the necessary order
established in Nature, or the indispensible connection of causes that act
with the effects they operate. Conforming to this order, heavy bodies
fall, light bodies rise; that which is analogous in matter, reciprocally
attracts; that which is heterogeneous, mutually repels; man congregates
himself in society, modifies each his fellow, becomes either virtuous or
wicked; either contributes to his mutual happiness, or reciprocates his
misery; either loves his neighbour, or hates his companion necessarily;
according to the manner in which the one acts upon the other. From whence
it may be seen, that the same necessity which regulates the physical, also
regulates the moral world: in which every thing is in consequence
submitted to fatality. Man, in running over, frequently without his own
knowledge, often in despite of himself, the route which Nature has marked
out for him, resembles a swimmer who is obliged to follow the current that
carries him along; he believes himself a free agent, because he sometimes
consents, sometimes does not consent, to glide with the stream; which,
notwithstanding, always hurries him forward; he believes himself the
master of his condition, because he is obliged to use his arms under the
fear of sinking.

The false ideas he has formed to himself upon free-agency, are in general
thus founded: there are certain events which he judges necessary;
either because he sees they are effects that are constantly, are
invariably linked to certain causes, which nothing seems to prevent; or
because he believes he has discovered the chain of causes and effects that
is put in play to produce those events: whilst he contemplates as contingent,
other events, of whose causes he is ignorant; the concatenation of which
he does not perceive; with whose mode of acting he is unacquainted: but in
Nature, where every thing is connected by one common bond, there exists no
effect without a cause. In the moral as well as in the physical world,
every thing that happens is a necessary consequence of causes, either
visible or concealed; which are, of necessity, obliged to act after their
peculiar essences. In man, free-agency is nothing more than necessity
contained within himself.

CHAP. XII.

An examination of the Opinion which pretends that the System of
Fatalism is dangerous.

For a being whose essence obliges him to have a constant tendency to his
own conservation, to continually seek to render himself happy, experience
is indispensible: without it he cannot discover truth, which is nothing
more, as has been already said, than a knowledge of the constant relations
which subsist between man, and those objects that act upon him; according
to his experience he denominates those that contribute to his permanent
welfare useful and salutary; those that procure him pleasure, more or less
durable, he calls agreeable. Truth itself becomes the object of his
desires, only when he believes it is useful; he dreads it, whenever he
presumes it will injure him. But has truth the power to injure him? Is it
possible that evil can result to man from a correct understanding of the
relations he has with other beings? Can it be true, that he can be harmed
by becoming acquainted with those things, of which, for his own happiness,
he is interested in having a knowledge? No: unquestionably not. It is upon
its utility that truth founds its worth; upon this that it builds its
rights; sometimes it may be disagreeable to individuals—it may even
appear contrary to their interests—but it will ever be beneficial to
them in the end; it will always be useful to the whole human species; it
will eternally benefit the great bulk of mankind; whose interests must for
ever remain distinct from those of men, who, duped by their own peculiar
passions, believe their advantage consists in plunging others into error.

Utility, then, is the touchstone of his systems, the test of his
opinions, the criterion of the actions of man; it is the standard of the
esteem, the measure of the love he owes to truth itself: the most useful
truths are the most estimable: those truths which are most interesting for
his species, he styles eminent; those of which the utility limits
itself to the amusement of some individuals who have not correspondent
ideas, similar modes of feeling, wants analogous to his own, he either
disdains, or else calls them barren.

It is according to this standard, that the principles laid down in this
work, ought to be judged. Those who are acquainted with the immense chain
of mischief produced on the earth by erroneous systems of superstition,
will acknowledge the importance of opposing to them systems more accordant
with truth, schemes drawn from Nature, sciences founded on experience.
Those who are, or believe they are, interested in maintaining the
established errors, will contemplate, with horror, the truths here
presented to them: in short, those infatuated mortals, who do not feel, or
who only feel very faintly, the enormous load of misery brought upon
mankind by metaphysical speculation; the heavy yoke of slavery under which
prejudice makes him groan, will regard all our principles as useless; or,
at most, as sterile truths, calculated to amuse the idle hours of a few
speculators.

No astonishment, therefore, need be excited at the various judgments
formed by man: his interests never being the same, any more than his
notions of utility, he condemns or disdains every thing that does not
accord with his own peculiar ideas. This granted, let us examine, if in
the eyes of the disinterested man, who is not entangled by prejudice—who
is sensible to the happiness of his species—who delights in truth—the
doctrine of fatalism be useful or dangerous? Let us see if it is a
barren speculation, that his not any influence upon the felicity of the
human race? At has been already shewn, that it will furnish morals with
efficacious arguments, with real motives to determine the will, supply
politics with the true lever to raise the proper activity in the mind of
man. It will also be seen that it serves to explain in a simple manner the
mechanism of man’s actions; to develope in an easy way the arcana of the
most striking phenomena of the human heart: on the other hand, if his
ideas are only the result of unfruitful speculations, they cannot interest
the happiness of the human species. Whether he believes himself a free
agent, or whether he acknowledges the necessity of things, he always
equally follows the desires imprinted on his soul; which are to preserve
his existence and render himself happy. A rational education, honest
habits, wise systems, equitable laws, rewards uprightly distributed,
punishments justly inflicted, will conduct man to happiness by making him
virtuous; while thorny speculations, filled with difficulties, can at most
only have an influence over persons unaccustomed to think.

After these reflections, it will be very easy to remove the difficulties
that are unceasingly opposed to the system of fatalism, which so many
persons, blinded by their superstitious prejudices, are desirous to have
considered as dangerous—as deserving of punishment—as
calculated to disturb public tranquility—as tending to unchain the
passions—to undermine the opinions man ought to have; and to
confound his ideas of vice and of virtue.

The opposers of necessity, say, that if all the actions of man are
necessary, no right whatever exists to punish bad ones, or even to he
angry with those who commit them: that nothing ought to be imputed to
them; that the laws would be unjust if they should decree punishment for
necessary actions; in short, that under this system man could neither have
merit nor demerit. In reply, it may be argued, that, to impute an action
to any one, is to attribute that action to him; to acknowledge him for the
author: thus, when even an action was supposed to be the effect of an
agent, and that agent necessity, the imputation would lie: the
merit or demerit, that is ascribed to an action are ideas originating in
the effects, whether favourable or pernicious, that result to those who
experience its operation; when, therefore, it should be conceded, that the
agent was necessity, it is not less certain, that the action would be
either good or bad; estimable or contemptible, to those who must feel its
influence; in short that it would be capable of either eliciting their
love, or exciting their anger. Love and anger are modes of existence,
suitable to modify, beings of the human species: when, therefore, man
irritates himself against his fellow, he intends to excite his fear, or
even to punish him, in order to deter him from committing that which is
displeasing to him. Moreover his anger is necessary; it is the result of
his Nature; the consequence of his temperament. The painful sensation
produced by a stone that falls on the arm, does not displease the less,
because it comes from a cause deprived of will; which acts by the
necessity of its Nature. In contemplating man as acting necessarily, it is
impossible to avoid distinguishing that mode of action or being which is
agreeable, which elicits approbation, from that which is afflicting, which
irritates, which Nature obliges him to blame and to prevent. From this it
will be seen, that the system of fatalism, does not in any manner change
the actual state of things, and is by no means calculated to confound
man’s ideas of virtue and vice.

Man’s Nature always revolts against that which opposes it: there are men
so choleric, that they infuriate themselves even against insensible and
inanimate objects; reflection on their own impotence to modify these
objects ought to conduct them back to reason. Parents are frequently very
much to be blamed for correcting their children with anger: they should be
contemplated as beings who are not yet modified; or who have, perhaps,
been very badly modified by themselves: nothing is more common in life,
than to see men punish faults of which they are themselves the cause.

Laws are made with a view to maintain society; to uphold its existence; to
prevent man associated, from injuring his neighbour; they are therefore
competent to punish those who disturb its harmony, or those who commit
actions that are injurious to their fellows; whether these associates may
be the agents of necessity, or whether they are free agents, it suffices
to know they are susceptible of modification, and are therefore submitted
to the operation of the law. Penal laws are, or ought to be, those motives
which experience has shewn capable of restraining the inordinate passions
of man, or of annihilating the impulse these passions give to his will;
from whatever necessary cause man may derive these passions, the
legislator proposes to arrest their effect, when he takes suitable means,
when he adopts proper methods, he is certain of success. The Judge, in
decreeing to crime, gibbets, tortures, or any other chastisement whatever,
does nothing more than is done by the architect, who in building a house,
places gutters to carry off the rain, and prevent it from sapping the
foundation.

Whatever may be the cause that obliges man to act, society possesses the
right to crush the effects, as much as the man whose land would be ruined
by a river, has to restrain its waters by a bank: or even, if he is able,
to turn its course. It is by virtue of this right that society has the
power to intimidate, the faculty to punish, with a view to its own
conservation, those who may be tempted to injure it; or those who commit
actions which are acknowledged really to interrupt its repose; to be
inimical to its security; repugnant to its happiness.

It will, perhaps, be argued, that society does not, usually, punish those
faults in which the will has no share; that, in fact, it punishes the will
alone; that this it is which decides the nature of the crime, and the
degree of its atrocity; that if this will be not free, it ought not to be
punished. I reply, that society is an assemblage of sensible beings,
susceptible of reason, who desire their own welfare; who fear evil, and
seek after good. These dispositions enable their will to be so modified or
determined, that they are capable of holding such a conduct as will
conduce to the end they have in view. Education, the laws, public opinion,
example, habit, fear, are the causes that must modify associated man,
influence his will, regulate his passions, restrain the actions of him who
is capable of injuring the end of his association, and thereby make him
concur to the general happiness. These causes are of a nature to make
impressions on every man, whose organization, whose essence, whose sanity,
places him in a capacity to contract the habits, to imbibe the modes of
thinking, to adopt the manner of acting, with which society is willing to
inspire him. All the individuals of the human species are susceptible of
fear, from whence it flows as a natural consequence, that the fear of
punishment, or the privation of the happiness he desires, are motives that
must necessarily more or less influence his will, and regulate his
actions. If the man is to be found who is so badly constituted as to
resist, whose organization is so vicious as to be insensible to those
motives which operate upon all his fellows, he is not fit to live in
society; he would contradict the very end of his association: he would be
its enemy; he would place obstacles to its natural tendency; his
rebellious disposition, his unsociable will, not being susceptible of that
modification which is convenient to his own true interests and to the
interests of his fellow-citizens; these would unite themselves against
such an enemy; and the law which is, or ought to be the expression of the
general will, would visit with condign punishment that refractory
individual upon whom the motives presented to him by society, had not the
effect which it had been induced to expect: in consequence, such an
unsociable man would be chastised; he would be rendered miserable, and
according to the nature of his crime he would be excluded from society as
a being but little calculated to concur in its views.

If society has the right to conserve itself, it has also the right to take
the means: these means are the laws which present or ought to present to
the will of man those motives which are most suitable to deter him from
committing injurious actions. If these motives fail of the proper effect,
if they are unable to influence him, society, for its own peculiar good,
is obliged to wrest from him the power of doing it further injury. From
whatever source his actions may arise, therefore, whether they are the
result of free-agency, or whether they are the offspring of necessity,
society coerces him if, after having furnished him with motives,
sufficiently powerful to act upon reasonable beings, it perceives that
these motives have not been competent to vanquish his depraved nature. It
punishes him with justice, when the actions from which it dissuades him
are truly injurious to society; it has an unquestionable right to punish,
when it only commands those things that are conformable to the end
proposed by man in his association; or defends the commission of those
acts, which are contrary to this end; which are hostile to the nature of
beings associated for their reciprocal advantage. But, on the other hand,
the law has not acquired the right to punish him: if it has failed to
present to him the motives necessary to have an influence over his will,
it has not the right to coerce him if the negligence of society has
deprived him of the means of subsisting; of exercising his talents; of
exerting his industry; of labouring for its welfare. It is unjust, when it
punishes those to whom it has, neither given an education, nor honest
principles; whom it has not enabled to contract habits necessary to the
maintenance of society: it is unjust when it punishes them for faults
which the wants of their nature, or the constitution of society has
rendered necessary to them: it is unjust, it is irrational, whenever it
chastises them for having followed those propensities, which example,
which public opinion, which the institutions, which society itself
conspires to give them. In short, the law is defective when it does not
proportion the punishment to the real evil which society has sustained.
The last degree of injustice, the acme of folly is, when society is so
blinded as to inflict punishment on those citizens who have served it
usefully.

The penal laws, in exhibiting terrifying objects to man, who must
be supposed susceptible of fear, presents him with motives calculated to
have an influence over his will. The idea of pain, the privation of
liberty, the fear of death, are, to a being well constituted, in the full
enjoyment of his faculties, very puissant obstacles, that strongly oppose
themselves to the impulse of his unruly desires: when these do not coerce
his will, when they fail to arrest his progress, he is an irrational
being; a madman; a being badly organized; against whom society has the
right to guarantee itself; against whom it has a right to take measures
for its own security. Madness is, without doubt, an involuntary, a
necessary state; nevertheless, no one feels it unjust to deprive the
insane of their liberty, although their actions can only be imputed to the
derangement of their brain. The wicked are men whose brain is either
constantly or transitorily disturbed; still they must be punished by
reason of the evil they commit; they must always be placed in the
impossibility of injuring society: if no hope remains of bringing them
back to a reasonable conduct—if every prospect of recalling them to
their duty has vanished—if they cannot be made to adopt a mode of
action conformable to the great end of association—they must be for
ever excluded its benefits.

It will not be requisite to examine here, how far the punishments which
society inflicts upon those who offend against it, may be reasonably
carried. Reason should seem to indicate that the law ought to shew to the
necessary crimes of man, all the indulgence that is compatible with the
conservation of society. The system of fatalism, as we have seen, does not
leave crime unpunished; but it is, at least, calculated to moderate the
barbarity with which a number of nations punish the victims to their
anger. This cruelty becomes still more absurd, when experience has shewn
its inutility: the habit of witnessing ferocious punishments familiarizes
criminals with the idea. If it be true that society possesses the right of
taking away the life of its members—if it be really a fact, that the
death of a criminal, thenceforth useless, can be advantageous for society,
which it will be necessary to examine, humanity, at least, exacts that
this death should not be accompanied with useless tortures; with which
laws, perhaps in this instance too rigorous, frequently seem to delight in
overwhelming their victim. This cruelty seems to defeat its own end, it
only serves to make the culprit, who is immolated to the public vengeance,
suffer without any advantage to society; it moves the compassion of the
spectator, interests him in favor of the miserable offender who groans
under its weight; it impresses nothing upon the wicked, but the sight of
those cruelties destined for himself; which but too frequently renders him
more ferocious, more cruel, more the enemy of his associates: if the
example of death was less frequent, even without being accompanied with
tortures, it would be more efficacious. If experience was consulted, it
would be found that the greater number of criminals only look upon death
as a bad quarter of an hour. It is an unquestionable fact, that a
thief seeing one of his comrades, display a want of firmness under the
punishment, said to him: “Is not this what I have often told you, that
in our business, we have one evil more than the rest of mankind?”
Robberies are daily committed, even at the foot of the scaffolds where
criminals are punished. In those nations, where the penalty of death is so
lightly inflicted, has sufficient attention been paid to the fact, that
society is yearly deprived of a great number of individuals who would be
able to render it very useful service, if made to work, and thus indemnify
the community for the injuries they have committed? The facility with
which the lives of men are taken away, proves the incapacity of
counsellors; is an evidence of the negligence of legislators: they find it
a much shorter road, that it gives them less trouble to destroy the
citizens than to seek after the means to render them better.

What shall be said for the unjust cruelty of some nations, in which the
law, that ought to have for its object the advantage of the whole, appears
to be made only for the security of the most powerful? How shall we
account for the inhumanity of those societies, in which punishments the
most disproportionate to the crime, unmercifully take away the lives of
men, whom the most urgent necessity, the dreadful alternative of famishing
in a land of plenty, has obliged to become criminal? It is thus that in a
great number of civilized nations, the life of the citizen is placed in
the same scales with money; that the unhappy wretch who is perishing from
hunger, who is writhing under the most abject misery, is put to death for
having taken a pitiful portion of the superfluity of another whom he
beholds rolling in abundance! It is this that, in many otherwise very
enlightened societies, is called justice, or making the punishment
commensurate with the crime.

Let the man of humanity, whose tender feelings are alive to the welfare of
his species—let the moralist, who preaches virtue, who holds out
forbearance to man—let the philosopher, who dives into the secrets
of Nature—let the theologian himself say, if this dreadful iniquity,
this heinous sin, does not become yet more crying, when the laws decree
the most cruel tortures for crimes to which the most irrational customs
gave birth—which bad institutions engender—which evil examples
multiply? Is not this something like building a sorry, inconvenient hovel,
and then punishing the inhabitant, because he does not find all the
conveniences of the most complete mansion, of the most finished structure?
Man, as at cannot be too frequently repeated, is so prone to evil, only
because every thing appears to urge him on to the commission of it, by too
frequently shewing him vice triumphant: his education is void in a great
number of states, perhaps defective in nearly all; in many places he
receives from society no other principles, save those of an unintelligible
superstition; which make but a feeble barrier against those propensities
that are excited by dissolute manners; which are encouraged by corrupt
examples: in vain the law cries out to him: “abstain from the goods of thy
neighbour;” his wants, more powerful, loudly declare to him that he must
live: unaccustomed to reason, having never been submitted to a wholesome
discipline, he conceives he must do it at the expence of a society who has
done nothing for him: who condemns him to groan in misery, to languish in
indigence: frequently deprived of the common necessaries requisite to
support his existence, which his essence, of which he is not the master,
compels him to conserve. He compensates himself by theft, he revenges
himself by assassination, he becomes a plunderer by profession, a murderer
by trade; he plunges into crime, and seeks at the risque of his life, to
satisfy those wants, whether real or imaginary, to which every thing
around him conspires to give birth. Deprived of education, he has not been
taught to restrain the fury of his temperament—to guide his passions
with discretion—to curb his inclinations. Without ideas of decency,
destitute of the true principles of honour, he engages in criminal
pursuits that injure his country: which at the same time has been to him
nothing more than a step-mother. In the paroxysm of his rage, in the
exacerbation of his mind, he loses sight of his neighbour’s rights, he
overlooks the gibbet, he forgets the torture; his unruly desires have
become too potent—they have completely absorbed his mind; by a
criminal indulgence they have given an inveteracy to his habits which
preclude him from changing them; laziness has made him torpid: remorse has
gnawed his peace; despair has rendered him blind; he rushes on to death;
and society is compelled to punish him rigorously, for those fatal, those
necessary dispositions, which it has perhaps itself engendered in his
heart by evil example: or which at least, it has not taken the pains
seasonably to root out; which it has neglected to oppose by suitable
motives—by those calculated to give him honest principles—to
excite him to industrious habits, to imbue him with virtuous inclinations.
Thus, society frequently punishes those propensities of which it is itself
the author, or which its negligence has suffered to spring up in the mind
of man: it acts like those unjust fathers, who chastise their children for
vices which they have themselves made them contract.

However unjust, however unreasonable this conduct may be, or appear to be,
it is not the less necessary: society, such as it is, whatever may be its
corruption, whatever vices may pervade its institutions, like every thing
else in Nature, is willing to subsist; tends to conserve itself: in
consequence, it is obliged to punish those excesses which its own vicious
constitution has produced: in despite of its peculiar prejudices,
notwithstanding its vices, it feels cogently that its own immediate
security demands that it should destroy the conspiracies of those who make
war against its tranquillity: if these, hurried on by the foul current of
their necessary propensities, disturb its repose—if, borne on the
stream of their ill-directed desires, they injure its interests, this
following the natural law, which obliges it to labour to its own peculiar
conservation, removes them out of its road; punishes them with more or
less rigor, according to the objects to which it attaches the greatest
importance, or which it supposes best suited to further its own peculiar
welfare: without doubt, it deceives itself frequently, both upon these
objects and the means; but it deceives itself necessarily, for want of the
knowledge calculated to enlighten it, with regard to its true interests;
for want of those, who regulate its movements possessing proper vigilance—suitable
talents—the requisite virtue. From this it will appear, that the
injustice of a society badly constituted, and blinded by its prejudices,
is as necessary, as the crimes of those by whom it is hostilely attacked—by
whose vices it is distracted. The body politic, when in a state of
insanity, cannot act more consistently with reason, than one of its
members whose brain is disturbed by madness.

It will still be said that these maxims, by submitting every thing to
necessity, must confound, or even destroy the notions man forms of justice
and injustice; of good and evil; of merit and demerit: I deny it. Although
man, in every thing he does, acts necessarily, his actions are good, they
are just, they are meritorious, every time they tend to the real utility
of his fellows; of the society of which he makes a part: they are, of
necessity, distinguished from those which are really prejudicial to the
welfare of his associates. Society is just, it is good, it is worthy our
reverence, when it procures for all its members, their physical wants,
when it affords them protection, when it secures their liberty, when it
puts them in possession of their natural rights. It is ill this that
consists all the happiness of which the social compact is susceptible:
society is unjust, it is bad, it is unworthy our esteem, when it is
partial to a few, when it is cruel to the greater number: it is then that
it multiplies its enemies, obliges them to revenge themselves by criminal
actions which it is under the necessity to punish. It is not upon the
caprices of political society that depend the true notions of justice and
injustice—the right ideas of moral good and evil—a just
appreciation of merit and demerit; it is upon utility, upon the
necessity of things, which always forces man to feel that there exists a
mode of acting on which he implicitly relies, which he is obliged to
venerate, which he cannot help approving either in his fellows, in
himself, or in society: whilst there is another mode to which he cannot
lend his confidence, which his nature makes him to hate, which his
feelings compel him to condemn. It is upon his own peculiar essence that
man founds his ideas of pleasure and of pain—of right and of wrong—of
vice and of virtue: the only difference between these is, that pleasure
and pain make them instantaneously felt in his brain; he becomes conscious
of their existence upon the spot; in the place of which, the advantages
that accrue to him from justice, the benefit that he derives from virtue,
frequently do not display themselves but after a long train of reflections—after
multiplied experience and complicated attention; which many, either from a
defect in their conformation, or from the peculiarity of the circumstances
under which they are placed, are prevented from making, or at least from
making correctly.

By a necessary consequence of this truism, the system of fatalism,
although it has frequently been so accused, does not tend to encourage man
in crime, to make remorse vanish from his mind. His propensities are to be
ascribed to his nature; the use he makes of his passions depends upon his
habits, upon his opinions, upon the ideas he has received in his
education; upon the examples held forth by the society in which he lives.
These things are what necessarily decide his conduct. Thus, when his
temperament renders him susceptible of strong passions, he is violent in
his desires, whatever may be his speculations.

Remorse is the painful sentiment excited in him by grief, caused
either by the immediate or probable future effect of his indulged
passions: if these effects were always useful to him, he would not
experience remorse; but, as soon as he is assured that his actions render
him hateful, that his passions make him contemptible; or, as soon as he
fears he shall be punished in some mode or other, he becomes restless,
discontented with himself—he reproaches himself with his own conduct—he
feels ashamed—he fears the judgement of those beings whose affection
he has learned to esteem—in whose good-will he finds his own comfort
deeply interested. His experience proves to him that the wicked man is
odious to all those upon whom his actions have any influence: if these
actions are concealed at the moment of commission, he knows it very rarely
happens they remain so for ever. The smallest reflection convinces him
that there is no wicked man who is not ashamed of his own conduct—who
is truly contented with himself—who does not envy the condition of
the good man—who is not obliged to acknowledge that he has paid very
dearly for those advantages he is never able to enjoy, without
experiencing the most troublesome sensations, without making the most
bitter reproaches against himself; then he feels ashamed, despises
himself, hates himself, his conscience becomes alarmed, remorse follows in
it train. To be convinced of the truth of this principle it is only
requisite to cast our eyes on the extreme precautions that tyrants and
villains, who are otherwise sufficiently powerful not to dread the
punishment of man, take to prevent exposure;—to what lengths they
push their cruelties against some, to what meannesses they stoop to others
of those who are able to hold them up to public scorn. Have they not,
then, a consciousness of their own iniquities? Do they not know that they
are hateful and contemptible? Have they not remorse? Is their condition
happy? Persons well brought up acquire these sentiments in their
education; which are either strengthened or enfeebled by public opinion,
by habit, or by the examples set before them. In a depraved society,
remorse either does not exist, or presently disappears; because, in all
his actions, it is ever the judgment of his fellow-man that man is obliged
necessarily to regard. He never feels either shame or remorse for actions
he sees approved, that are practised by the world. Under corrupt
governments, venal souls, avaricious being, mercenary individuals, do not
blush either at meanness, robbery, or rapine, when it is authorized by
example; in licentious nations, no one blushes at adultery except the
husband, at whose expence it is committed; in superstitious countries, man
does not blush to assassinate his fellow for his opinions. It will be
obvious, therefore, that his remorse, as well as the ideas, whether right
or wrong, which man has of decency, virtue, justice, &c. are the
necessary consequence of his temperament, modified by the society in which
he lives: assassins and thieves, when they live only among themselves,
have neither shame nor remorse.

Thus, I repeat, all the actions of man are necessary those which are
always useful, which constantly contribute to the real, tend to the
permanent happiness of his species, are called virtues, and are
necessarily pleasing to all who experience their influence; at least, if
their passions or false opinions do not oblige them to judge in that
manner which is but little accordant with the nature of things: each man
acts, each individual judges, necessarily, according to his own peculiar
mode of existence—after the ideas, whether true or false, which he
has formed with regard to his happiness. There are necessary actions which
man is obliged to approve; there are others, that, in despite of himself,
he is compelled to censure; of which the idea generates shame when his
reflection permits him to contemplate them under the same point of view
that they are regarded by his associates. The virtuous man and the wicked
man act from motives equally necessary: they differ simply in their
organization—in the ideas they form to themselves of happiness: we
love the one necessarily—we detest the other from the same
necessity. The law of his nature, which wills that a sensible being shall
constantly labour to preserve himself, has not left to man the power to
choose, or the free-agency to prefer pain to pleasure—vice to
utility—crime to virtue. It is, then, the essence of man himself
that obliges him to discriminate those actions which are advantageous to
him, form those which are prejudicial to his interest, from those which
are baneful to his felicity.

This distinction subsists even in the most corrupt societies, in which the
ideas of virtue, although completely effaced from their conduct, remain
the same in their mind. Let us suppose a matt, who had decidedly
determined for villainy, who should say to himself—”It is folly to
be virtuous in a society that is depraved, in a community that is
debauched.” Let us suppose also, that he has sufficient address, the
unlooked-for good fortune to escape censure or punishment, during a long
series of years; I say, that in despite of all these circumstances,
apparently so advantageous for himself, such a man has neither been happy
nor contented with his own conduct, He has been in continual agonies—ever
at war with his own actions—in a state of constant agitation. How
much pain, how much anxiety, has he not endured in this perpetual conflict
with himself? How many precautions, what excessive labour, what endless
solicitude, has he not been compelled to employ in this continued
struggle; how many embarrassments, how many cares, has he not experienced
in this eternal wrestling with his associates, whose penetration he
dreads, whose scorn he fears will follow a true knowledge of his pursuits.
Demand of him what he thinks of himself, he will shrink from the question.
Approach the bedside of this villain at the moment he is dying; ask him if
he would be willing to recommence, at the same price, a life of similar
agitation? If he is ingenuous, he will avow that he has tasted neither
repose nor happiness; that each crime filled him with inquietude—that
reflection prevented him from sleeping—that the world has been to
him only one continued scene of alarm—an uninterrupted concatenation
of terror—an everlasting, anxiety of mind;—that to live
peaceably upon bread and water, appears to him to be a much happier, a
more easy condition, than to possess riches, credit, reputation, honours,
on the same terms that he has himself acquired them. If this villain,
notwithstanding all his success, finds his condition so deplorable, what
must be thought of the feelings of those who have neither the same
resources nor the same advantages to succeed in their criminal projects.

Thus, the system of necessity is a truth not only founded upon certain
experience, but, again, it establishes morals upon an immoveable basis.
Far from sapping the foundations of virtue, it points out its necessity;
it clearly shows the invariable sentiments it must excite—sentiments
so necessary, so strong, so congenial to his existence, that all the
prejudices of man—all the vices of his institutions—all the
effect of evil example, have never been able entirely to eradicate them
from his mind. When he mistakes the advantages of virtue, it ought to be
ascribed to the errors that are infused into him—to the
irrationality of his institutions: all his wanderings are the fatal
consequences of error,—the necessary result of prejudices which have
identified themselves with his existence. Let it not, therefore, any
longer be imputed to his nature that he has become wicked, but to those
baneful opinions which he has imbibed with his mother’s milk,—that
have rendered him ambitious, avaricious, envious, haughty, arrogant,
debauched, intolerant, obstinate, prejudiced, incommodious to his fellows,
mischievous to himself. It is education that carries into his system the
germ of those vices which necessarily torment him during the whole course
of his life.

Fatalism is reproached with discouraging man—with damping the
ardour of his soul—with plunging him into apathy—with
destroying the bonds that should connect him with society. Its opponents
say, “If every thing is necessary, we must let things go on, and not be
disturbed by any thing.” But does it depend on man to be sensible or not?
Is he master of feeling or not feeling pain? If Nature has endowed him
with a humane, with a tender soul, is it possible he should not interest
himself in a very lively manner, in the welfare of beings whom he knows
are necessary to his own peculiar happiness? His feelings are necessary:
they depend on his own peculiar nature, cultivated by education. His
imagination, prompt to concern itself with the felicity of his race,
causes his heart to be oppressed at the sight of those evils his
fellow-creature is obliged to endure,—makes his soul tremble in the
contemplation of the misery arising from the despotism that crushes him—from
the superstition that leads him astray—from the passions that
distract him in a state of warfare against his neighbour. Although he
knows that death is the fatal, the necessary period to the form of all
beings, his soul is not affected in a less lively manner at the loss of a
beloved wife,—at the demise of a child calculated to console his old
age,—at the final separation from an esteemed friend who had become
dear to his heart. Although he is not ignorant that it is the essence of
fire to burn, he does not believe he is dispensed from using his utmost
efforts to arrest the progress of a conflagration. Although he is
intimately convinced that the evils to which he is a witness, are the
necessary consequence of primitive errors with which his fellow-citizens
are imbued, he feels he ought to display truth to them, if Nature has
given him the necessary courage; under the conviction, that if they listen
to it, it will, by degrees, become a certain remedy for their sufferings,
that it will produce those necessary effects which it is of its essence to
operate.

If the speculations of man modify his conduct, if they change his
temperament, he ought not to doubt that the system of necessity would have
the most advantageous influence over him; not only is it suitable to calm
the greater part of his inquietude, but it will also contribute to inspire
him with a useful submission, a rational resignation, to the decrees of a
destiny with which his too great sensibility frequently causes him to be
overwhelmed. This happy apathy, without doubt, would be, desirable to
those whose souls, too tender to brook the inequalities of life,
frequently render them the deplorable sport of their fate; or whose
organs, too weak to make resistance to the buffettings of fortune,
incessantly expose them to be dashed in pieces under the rude blows of
adversity.

But, of all the important advantages the human race would be enabled to
derive from the doctrine of fatalism, if man was to apply it to his
conduct, none would be of greater magnitude, none of more happy
consequence, none that would more efficaciously corroborate his happiness,
than that general indulgence, that universal toleration, that must
necessarily spring from the opinion, that all is necessary. In
consequence, of the adoption of this principle, the fatalist, if he had a
sensible soul, would commisserate the prejudices of his fellow-man—would
lament over his wanderings—would seek to undeceive him—would
try by gentleness to lead him into the right path, without ever irritating
himself against his weakness, without ever insulting his misery. Indeed,
what right have we to hate or despise man for his opinions? His ignorance,
his prejudices, his imbecility, his vices, his passions, his weakness, are
they not the inevitable consequence of vicious institutions? Is he not
sufficiently punished by the multitude of evils that afflict him on every
side? Those despots who crush him with an iron sceptre, are they not
continual victims to their own peculiar restlessness—mancipated to
their perpetual diffidence—eternal slaves to their suspicions? Is
there one wicked individual who enjoys a pure, an unmixed, a real
happiness? Do not nations unceasingly suffer from their follies? Are they
not the incessant dupes to their prejudices? Is not the ignorance of
chiefs, the ill-will they bear to reason, the hatred they have for truth,
punished by the imbecility of their citizens, by the ruin of the states
they govern? In short, the fatalist would grieve to witness necessity each
moment exercising its severe decrees upon mortals who are ignorant of its
power, or who feel its castigation, without being willing to acknowledge
the hand from whence it proceeds; he will perceive that ignorance is
necessary, that credulity is the necessary result of ignorance—that
slavery and bondage are necessary consequences of ignorant credulity—that
corruption of manners springs necessarily from slavery—that the
miseries of society, the unhappiness of its members, are the necessary
offspring of this corruption. The fatalist, in consequence, of these
ideas, will neither be a gloomy misanthrope, nor a dangerous citizen; he
will pardon in his brethren those wanderings, he will forgive them those
errors—which their vitiated nature, by a thousand causes, has
rendered necessary—he will offer them consolation—he will
endeavour to inspire them with courage—he will be sedulous to
undeceive them in their idle notions, in their chimerical ideas; but he
will never display against them bitterness of soul—he will never
show them that rancorous animosity which is more suitable, to make them
revolt from his doctrines, than to attract them to reason;—he will
not disturb the repose of society—he will not raise the people to
insurrection against the sovereign authority; on the contrary, he will
feel that the miserable blindness of the great, and the wretched
perverseness, the fatal obstinacy of so many conductors of the people, are
the necessary consequence of that flattery that is administered to them in
their infancy—that feeds their hopes with allusive falsehoods—of
the depraved malice of those who surround them—who wickedly corrupt
them, that they may profit by their folly—that they may take
advantage of their weakness: in short, that these things are the
inevitable effect of that profound ignorance of their true interest, in
which every thing strives to keep them.

The fatalist has no right to be vain of his peculiar talents; no privilege
to be proud of his virtues; he knows that these qualities are only the
consequence of his natural organization, modified by circumstances that
have in no wise depended upon himself. He will neither have hatred nor
feel contempt for those whom Nature and circumstances have not favoured in
a similar manner. It is the fatalist who ought to be humble, who should be
modest from principle: is he not obliged to acknowledge, that he possesses
nothing that he has not previously received?

In fact, will not every thing conduct to indulgence the fatalist whom
experience has convinced of the necessity of things? Will he not see with
pain, that it is the essence of a society badly constituted, unwisely
governed, enslaved to prejudice, attached to unreasonable customs,
submitted to irrational laws, degraded under despotism, corrupted by
luxury, inebriated by false opinions, to be filled with trifling members;
to be composed of vicious citizens; to be made up of cringing slaves, who
are proud of their chains; of ambitious men, without idea of true glory;
of misers and prodigals; of fanatics and libertines! Convinced of the
necessary connection of things, he will not be surprised to see that the
supineness of their chiefs carries discouragement into their country, or
that the influence of their governors stirs up bloody wars by which it is
depopulated, and causes useless expenditures that impoverish it; that all
these excesses united, is the reason why so many nations contain only men
wanting happiness, without understanding to attain it; who are devoid of
morals, destitute of virtue. In all this he will contemplate nothing more
than the necessary action and re-action of physics upon morals, of morals
upon physics. In short, all who acknowledge fatality, will remain
persuaded that a nation badly governed is a soil very fruitful in venomous
reptiles—very abundant in poisonous plants; that these have such a
plentiful growth as to crowd each other and choak themselves. It is in a
country cultivated by the hands of a Lycurgus, that he will witness the
production of intrepid citizens, of noble-minded individuals, of
disinterested men, who are strangers to irregular pleasures. In a country
cultivated by a Tiberius, he will find nothing but villains with depraved
hearts, men with mean contemptible souls, despicable informers, execrable
traitors. It is the soil, it is the circumstances in which man finds
himself placed, that renders him either a useful object or a prejudicial
being: the wise man avoids the one, as he would those dangerous reptiles
whose nature it is to sting and communicate their deadly venom; he
attaches himself to the other, esteems him, loves him, as he does those
delicious fruits with whose rich maturity his palate is pleasantly
gratified, with whose cooling juices he finds himself agreeably refreshed:
he sees the wicked without anger—he cherishes the good with pleasure—he
delights in the bountiful: he knows full well that the tree which is
languishing without culture in the arid, sandy desert, that is stunted for
want of attention, leafless for want of moisture, that has grown crooked
from neglect, become barren from want of loam, whose tender bark is gnawed
by rapacious beasts of prey, pierced by innumerable insects, would perhaps
have expanded far and wide its verdant boughs from a straight and stately
stem, have brought forth delectable fruit, have afforded from its
luxuriant foliage under its lambent leaves an umbrageous refreshing
retreat from the scorching rays of a meridian sun, have offered beneath
its swelling branches, under its matted tufts a shelter from the pitiless
storm, it its seed had been fortunately sown in a more fertile soil,
placed in a more congenial climate, had experienced the fostering cares of
a skilful cultivator.

Let it not then be said, that it is degrading man reduce his functions to
a pure mechanism; that it is shamefully to undervalue him, scandalously to
abuse him, to compare him to a tree; to an abject vegetation. The
philosopher devoid of prejudice does not understand this language,
invented by those who are ignorant of what constitutes the true dignity of
man. A tree is an object which, in its station, joins the useful with the
agreeable; it merits our approbation when it produces sweet and pleasant
fruit; when it affords a favourable shade. All machines are precious, when
they are truly useful, when they faithfully perform the functions for
which they are designed. Yes, I speak it with courage, reiterate it with
pleasure, the honest man, when he has talents, when he possesses virtue,
is, for the beings of his species, a tree that furnishes them with
delicious fruit, that affords them refreshing shelter: the honest man is a
machine of which the springs are adapted to fulfil its functions in a
manner that must gratify the expectation of all his fellows. No, I should
not blush, I should not feel degraded, to be a machine of this sort; and
my heart would leap with joy, if I could foresee that the fruit of my
reflections would one day be useful to my race, consoling to my
fellow-man.

Is not Nature herself a vast machine, of which the human species is but a
very feeble spring? I see nothing contemptible either in her or her
productions; all the beings who come out of her hands are good, are noble,
are sublime, whenever they co-operate to the production of another, to the
maintenance of harmony in the sphere where they must act. Of whatever
nature the soul may be, whether it is made mortal, or whether it be
supposed immortal; whether it is regarded as a spirit, or whether it be
looked upon as a portion of the body; it will be found noble, it will be
estimated great, it will be ranked good, it will be considered sublime, in
a Socrates, in an Aristides, in a Cato: it will be thought abject, it will
be viewed as despicable, it will be called corrupt, in a Claudius, in a
Sejanus, in a Nero: its energies will be admired, we shall be delighted
with its manner, fascinated with its efforts, in a Shakespeare, in a
Corneille, in a Newton, in a Montesquieu: its baseness will be lamented,
when we behold mean, contemptible men, who flatter tyranny, or who
servilely cringe at the foot of superstition.

All that has been said in the course of this work, proves clearly that
every thing is necessary; that every thing is always in order, relatively
to Nature; where all beings do nothing more than follow the laws that are
imposed on their respective classes. It is part of her plan, that certain
portions of the earth shall bring forth delicious fruits, shall blossom
beauteous flowers; whilst others shall only furnish brambles, shall yield
nothing but noxious vegetables: she has been willing that some societies
should produce wise men, great heroes; that others should only give birth
to abject souls, contemptible men, without energy, destitute of virtue.
Passions, winds, tempests, hurricanes, volcanoes, wars, plagues, famines,
diseases, death, are as necessary to her eternal march as the beneficent
heat of the sun, the serenity of the atmosphere, the gentle showers of
spring, plentiful years, peace, health, harmony, life: vice and virtue,
darkness and light, and science are equally necessary; the one are not
benefits, the other are not evils, except for those beings whose happiness
they influence by either favouring or deranging their peculiar mode of
existence. The whole cannot be miserable, but it may contain unhappy
individuals.

Nature, then, distributes with the same hand that which is called order,
and that which is called disorder; that which is called pleasure,
and that which is called pain: in short, she diffuses by the
necessity of her existence, good and evil in the world we inhabit. Let not
man, therefore, either arraign her bounty, or tax her with malice; let him
not imagine that his feeble cries, his weak supplications, can never
arrest her colossal power, always acting after immutable laws; let him
submit silently to his condition; and when he suffers, let him not seek a
remedy by recurring to chimeras that his own distempered imagination has
created; let him draw from the stores of Nature herself, the remedies
which she offers for the evil she brings upon him: if she sends him
diseases, let him search in her bosom for those salutary productions to
which she has given birth, which will cure them: if she gives him errors,
she also furnishes him with experience to counteract them; in truth, she
supplies him with an antidote suitable to destroy their fatal effects. If
she permits man to groan under the pressure of his vices, beneath the load
of his follies, she also shews him in virtue, a sure remedy for his
infirmities: if the evils that some societies experience are necessary,
when they shall have become too incommodious they will be irresistibly
obliged to search for those remedies which Nature will always point out to
them. If this Nature has rendered existence insupportable, to some
unfortunate beings, whom she appears to have selected for her victims,
still death, is a door that will surely be opened to them—that will
deliver them from their misfortunes, although in their puny, imbecile,
wayward judgment, they may be deemed impossible of cure.

Let not man, then, accuse Nature with being inexorable to him, since there
does not exist in her whole circle an evil for which she has not furnished
the remedy, to those who have the courage to seek it, who have the
fortitude to apply it. Nature follows general and necessary laws in all
her operations; physical calamity and moral evil are not to be ascribed to
her want of kindness, but to the necessity of things. Physical calamity is
the derangement produced in man’s organs by physical causes which he sees
act: moral evil is the derangement produced in him by physical causes of
which the action is to him a secret. These causes always terminate by
producing sensible effects, which are capable of striking his senses;
neither the thoughts nor the will of man ever shew themselves, but by the
marked effects they produce either in himself or upon those beings whom
Nature has rendered susceptible of feeling their impulse. He suffers,
because it is of the essence of some beings to derange the economy of his
machine; he enjoys, because the properties of some beings are analogous to
his own mode of existence; he is born, because it is of the nature of some
matter to combine itself under a determinate form; he lives, he acts, he
thinks, because it is of the essence of certain combinations to maintain
themselves in existence by given means for a season; at length he dies,
because a necessary law prescribes that all the combinations which are
formed, shall either be destroyed or dissolve themselves. From all this it
results, that Nature is impartial to all its productions; she submits man,
like all other beings, to those eternal laws from which she has not even
exempted herself; if she was to suspend these laws, even for an instant,
from that moment disorder would reign in her, system; her harmony would be
disturbed.

Those who wish to study Nature, must take experience for their guide;
this, and this only, can enable them to dive into her secrets, to unravel
by degrees, the frequently imperceptible woof of those slender causes, of
which she avails herself to operate the greatest phenomena: by the aid of
experience, man often discovers in her properties, perceives modes of
action entirely unknown to the ages which have preceded him; those effects
which his grandfathers contemplated as marvellous, which they regarded as
supernatural efforts, looked upon as miracles, have become familiar to him
in the present day, and are at this moment contemplated as simple and
natural consequences, of which he comprehends the mechanism—of which
he understands the cause—of which he can unfold the manner of
action. Man, in fathoming Nature, has arrived at discovering the true
causes of earthquakes; of the periodical motion of the sea; of
subterraneous conflagrations; of meteors; of the electrical fluid, the
whole of which were considered by his ancestors, and are still so by the
ignorant, by the uninformed, as indubitable signs of heaven’s wrath. His
posterity, in following up, in rectifying the experience already made,
will perhaps go further, and discover those causes which are totally
veiled from present eyes. The united efforts of the human species will one
day perhaps penetrate even into the sanctuary of Nature, and throw into
light many of those mysteries which up to the present time she seems to
have refused to all his researches.

In contemplating man under his true aspect; in quitting authority to
follow experience; in laying aside error to consult reason; in submitting
every thing to physical laws, from which his imagination has vainly
exerted its utmost power to withdraw them; it will be found that the
phenomena of the moral world follow exactly the same general rules as
those of the physical; that the greater part of those astonishing effects,
which ignorance, aided by his prejudices, make him consider as
inexplicable, and regard as wonderful, are natural consequences flowing
from simple causes. He will find that the eruption of a volcano and the
birth of a Tamerlane are to Nature the same thing; in recurring to the
primitive causes of those striking events which he beholds with
consternation, which he contemplates with fearful alarm, in falling back
to the sources of those terrible revolutions, those frightful convulsions,
those dreadful explosions that distract mankind, lay waste the fairest
works of Nature, ravage nations, and tear up society by the roots; he will
find the wills that compassed the most surprising changes, that operated
the most extensive alterations in the state of things, that brought about
the most unlooked-for events, were moved by physical causes, whose exility
made him treat them as contemptible; whose want of consequence in his own
purblind eyes led him to believe them utterly incapable to give birth to
the phenomena whose magnitude strikes him with such awe, whose stupendous
range fills him with such amazement.

If man was to judge of causes by their effects, there would be no small
causes in the universe. In a Nature where every thing is connected, where
every thing acts and re-acts, moves and changes, composes and decomposes,
forms and destroys, there is not an atom which does not play an important
part—that does not occupy a necessary station; there is not an
imperceptible particle, however minute, which, placed in convenient
circumstances, does not operate the most prodigious effects. If man was in
a capacity to follow the eternal chain, to pursue the concatenated links,
that connect with their causes all the effects he witnesses, without
losing sight of any one of its rings,—if he could unravel the ends
of those insensible threads that give impulse to the thoughts, decision to
the will, direction to the passions of those men who are called mighty,
according to their actions, he would find, they are true atoms which
Nature employs to move the moral world; that it is the unexpected but
necessary function of these indiscernible particles of matter, it is their
aggregation, their combination, their proportion, their fermentation,
which modifying the individual by degrees, in despite of himself,
frequently without his own knowledge, make him think, will, and act, in a
determinate, but necessary mode. If, then, the will and the actions of
this individual have an influence over a great number of other men, here
is the moral world in a state of the greatest combustion, and those
consequences ensue which man contemplates with fearful wonder. Too much
acrimony in the bile of a fanatic—blood too much inflamed in the
heart of a conqueror—a painful indigestion in the stomach of a
monarch—a whim that passes in the mind of a woman—are
sometimes causes sufficient to bring on war—to send millions of men
to the slaughter—to root out an entire people—to overthrow
walls—to reduce cities into ashes—to plunge nations into
slavery—to put a whole people into mourning—to breed famine in
a land—to engender pestilence—to propagate calamity—to
extend misery—to spread desolation far and wide upon the surface of
our globe, through a long series of ages.

The dominant passion of an individual of the human species, when it
disposes of the passions of many others, arrives at combining their will,
at uniting their efforts, and thus decides the condition of man. It is
after this manner that an ambitious, crafty, and voluptuous Arab, gave to
his countrymen an impulse of which the effect was the subjugation and
desolation of vast countries in Asia, in Africa, and in Europe; whose
consequences were sufficiently potential to erect a new, extensive, but
slavish empire; to give a novel system of religion to millions of human
beings; to overturn the altars of their former gods; in short, to alter
the opinions, to change the customs of a considerable portion of the
population of the earth. But in examining the primitive sources of this
strange revolution, what were the concealed causes that had an influence
over this man—that excited his peculiar passions, and modified his
temperament? What was the matter from the combination of which resulted a
crafty, ambitious, enthusiastic, and eloquent man; in short, a personage
competent to impose on his fellow-creatures—capable of making them
concur in his most extravagant views. They were, undoubtedly, the
insensible particles of his blood; the imperceptible texture of his
fibres; the salts, more or less acrid, that stimulated his nerves; the
proportion of igneous fluid that circulated in his system. From whence
came these elements? It was from the womb of his mother; from the aliments
which nourished him; from the climate in which he had his birth; from the
ideas he received; from the air which he respired; without reckoning a
thousand inappreciable, a thousand transitory causes, that in the instance
given had modified, had determined the passions of this importent being,
who had thereby acquired the capacity to change the face of this mundane
sphere.

To causes so weak in their principles, if in the origin the slightest
obstacle had been opposed, these wonderful events, which have astounded
man, would never have been produced. The fit of an ague, the consequence
of bile a little too much inflamed, had sufficed, perhaps, to have
rendered abortive all the vast projects, of the legislator of the
Mussulmen. Spare diet, a glass of water, a sanguinary evacuation, would
sometimes have been sufficient to have saved kingdoms.

It will be seen, then, that the condition of the human species, as well as
that of each of its individuals, every instant depends on insensible
causes, to which circumstances, frequently fugitive, give birth; that
opportunity developes, that convenience puts in action: man attributes
their effects to chance, whilst these causes operate necessarily, act
according to fixed rules: he has frequently neither the sagacity nor the
honesty to recur to their true principles; he regards such feeble motives
with contempt, because he has been taught to consider them as incapable of
producing such stupendous events. They are, however, these motives, weak
as they may appear to be, these springs, so pitiful in his eyes, is which
according to her necessary laws, suffice in the hands of Nature to move
the universe. The conquests of a Gengis-Khan have nothing in them that is
more strange to the eye of a philosopher than the explosion of a mine,
caused in its principle by a feeble spark, which commences with setting
fire to a single grain of powder; this presently communicates itself to
many millions of other contiguous grains, of which the united force, the
multiplied powers, terminate by blowing up mountains, overthrowing
fortifications, or converting populous, well-built cities, into heaps of
ruins.

Thus, imperceptible causes, concealed in the bosom of Nature, until the
moment their action is displayed, frequently decide the fate of man. The
happiness or the wretchedness, the prosperity or the misery of each
individual, as well as that of whole nations, are attached to powers which
it is impossible for him to foresee, which he cannot appreciate, of which
he is incapable to arrest the action. Perhaps at this moment atoms are
amassing, insensible particles are combining, of which the assemblage
shall form a sovereign, who will be either the scourge or the saviour of a
mighty empire. Man cannot answer for his own destiny one single instant;
he has no cognizance of what is passing within himself; he is ignorant of
the causes which act in the interior of his machine; he knows nothing of
the circumstances that will give them activity: he is unacquainted with
what may develope their energy; it is, nevertheless, on these causes,
impossible to be unravelled by him, that depends his condition in life.
Frequently, an unforeseen rencontre gives birth to a passion in his soul,
of which the consequences shall, necessarily, have an influence over his
felicity. It is thus that the most virtuous man, by a whimsical
combination of unlooked-for circumstances, may become in an instant the
most criminal of his species.

This truth, without doubt, will be found frightful—this fact will
unquestionably appear terrible: but at bottom, what has it more revolting
than that which teaches him that an infinity of accidents, as irremediable
as they are unforeseen, may every instant wrest from him that life to
which he is so strongly attached? Fatalism reconciles the good man easily
to death: it makes him contemplate it as a certain means of withdrawing
himself from wickedness; this system shews death, even to the happy man
himself, as a medium between him and those misfortunes which frequently
terminate by poisoning his happiness; that end with embittering the most
fortunate existence.

Let man, then, submit to necessity: in despite of himself it will always
hurry him forward: let him resign himself to Nature, let him accept the
good with which she presents him: let him oppose to the necessary evil
which she makes him experience, those necessary remedies which she
consents to afford him; let him not disturb his mind with useless
inquietude; let him enjoy with moderation, because he will find that pain
is the necessary companion of excess: let him follow the paths of virtue,
because every thing will prove to him, even in this world of perverseness,
that it is absolutely necessary to render him estimable in the eyes of
others, to make him contented with himself.

Feeble, vain mortal, thou pretendest to be a free agent. Alas! dost thou
not see all the threads which enchain thee? Dost thou not perceive that
they are atoms which form thee; that they are atoms which move thee; that
they are circumstances independent of thyself, that modify thy being; that
they are circumstances over which thou hast not any controul, that rule
thy destiny? In the puissant Nature that environs thee, shalt thou pretend
to be the only being who is able to resist her power? Dost thou really
believe that thy weak prayers will induce her to stop in her eternal
march; that thy sickly desires can oblige her to change her everlasting
course?

CHAP. XIII.

Of the Immortality of the Soul;—of the Doctrine of a future
State;—of the Fear of Death.

The reflections presented to the reader in this work, tend to shew what
ought to be thought of the human soul, as well as of its operations and
faculties: every thing proves, in the most convincing manner, that it
acts, that it moves according to laws similar to those prescribed to the
other beings of Nature; that it cannot be distinguished from the body;
that it is born with it; that it grows up with it; that it is modified in
the same progression; in short, every thing ought to make man conclude
that it perishes with it. This soul, as well as the body, passes through a
state of weakness and infancy; it is in this stage of its existence, that
it is assailed by a multitude of modifications; that it is stored with an
infinity of ideas, which it receives from exterior objects through the
medium of the organs; that it amasses facts, that it collects experience,
whether true or false, that it forms to itself a system of conduct,
according to which it thinks, in conformity with which it acts, from
whence results either its happiness or its misery, its reason or its
delirium, its virtues or its vices; arrived with the body at its full
powers, having in conjunction with it reached maturity, it does not cease
for a single instant to partake in common of its sensations, whether these
are agreeable or disagreeable; it participates in all its pleasures; it
shares in all its pains; in consequence it conjointly approves or
disapproves its state; like it, it is either sound or diseased; active or
languishing; awake or asleep. In old age man extinguishes entirely, his
fibres become rigid, his nerves loose their elasticity, his senses are
obtunded, his sight grows dim, his ears lose their quickness, his ideas
become unconnected, his memory fails, his imagination cools: what then
becomes of his soul? Alas! it sinks down with the body; it gets benumbed
as this loses its feeling; becomes sluggish as this decays in activity;
like it, when enfeebled by years it fulfils its functions with pain; this
substance, which is deemed spiritual, which is considered immaterial,
which it is endeavoured to distinguish from matter, undergoes the same
revolutions, experiences the same vicissitudes, submits to the same
modifications, as does the body itself.

In despite of this proof of the materiality of the soul, of its identity
with the body, so convincing to the unprejudiced, some thinkers have
supposed, that although the latter is perishable, the former does not
perish: that this portion of man enjoys the especial privilege of immortality;
that it is exempt from dissolution: free from those changes of form all
the beings in Nature undergo: in consequence of this, man has persuaded
himself, that this privileged soul does not die: its immortality, above
all, appears indubitable to those who suppose it spiritual: after having
made it a simple being, without extent, devoid of parts, totally different
from any thing of which he has a knowledge, he pretended that it was not
subjected to the laws of decomposition common to all beings, of which
experience shews him the continual operation.

Man, feeling within himself a concealed force, that insensibly produced
action, that imperceptibly gave direction to the motion of his machine,
believed that the entire of Nature, of whose energies he is ignorant, with
whose modes of acting he is unacquainted, owed its motion to an agent
analogous to his own soul; who acted upon the great macrocosm, in the same
manner that this soul acted upon his body. Man, having supposed himself
double, made Nature double also: he distinguished her from her own
peculiar energy; he separated her from her mover, which by degrees he made
spiritual. Thus Nature, distinguished from herself, was regarded as the
soul of the world; and the soul of man was considered as opinions
emanating from this universal soul. This notion upon the origin of the
soul is of very remote antiquity. It was that of the Egyptians, of the
Chaldeans, of the Hebrews, of the greater number of the wise men of the
east. It should appear that Moses believed with the Egyptians the
divine emanation of souls: according to him, “God formed man of the
dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a living soul:” nevertheless, the Catholic, at this day,
rejects this system of divine emanation, seeing that it supposes
the Divinity divisible: which would have, been inconvenient to the Romish
idea of purgatory, or to the system of everlasting punishment. Although
Moses, in the above quotation, seems to indicate that the soul was a
portion of the Divinity, it does not appear that the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul was established in any one of the books attributed to him.
It was during the Babylonish captivity, that the Jews learned the doctrine
of future rewards and punishments, taught by Zoroaster to the Persians,
but which the Hebrew legislator did not understand, or, at least, he left
his people ignorant on the subject. It was in those schools, that
Pherecydes, Pythagoras, and Plato, drew up a doctrine so flattering to the
vanity of human nature—so gratifying to the imagination of mortals.
Man thus believed himself a portion of the Divinity; immortal, like the
Godhead, in one part of himself: nevertheless, subsequent religions have
renounced these advantages, which they judged incompatible with the other
parts of their systems; they held forth that the Sovereign of Nature, or
her contriver was not the soul of man, but, that, in virtue of his
omnipotence, he created human souls, in proportion as he produced the
bodies which they must animate; and they taught, that these souls once
produced, by an effect of the same omnipotence, enjoyed immortality.

However it may be with these variations upon the origin of souls, those
who supposed them emanating from the Divinity, believed that after the
death of the body, which served them for an envelope, they returned, by
refunding to their first source. Those who, without adopting the opinion
of divine emanation, admired the spirituality, believed the immortality of
the soul, were under the necessity to suppose a region, to find out an
abode for these souls, which their imagination painted to them, each
according to his fears, his hopes, his desires, and his prejudices.

Nothing is more popular than the doctrine of the immortality of the
soul; nothing is more universally diffused than the expectation of
another life. Nature having inspired man with the most ardent love for his
existence, the desire of preserving himself for ever was a necessary
consequence; this desire was presently converted into certainty: from that
desire of existing eternally which Nature has implanted in him, he made an
argument, to prove that man would never cease to exist. Abady says, “our
soul has no useless desires, it naturally desires an eternal life;” and by
a very strange logic, he concludes that this desire could not fail to be
fulfilled. Cicero, before Abady, had declared the immortality of the soul
to be an innate idea in man; yet, strange to tell, in another part of his
works he considers Pherecydes as the inventor of the doctrine. However
this may be, man, thus disposed, listened with avidity to those who
announced to him systems so conformable to his wishes. Nevertheless, he
ought not to regard as supernatural the desire of existing, which always
was, and always will be, of the essence man; it ought not to excite
surprise, if he received with eagerness an hypothesis that flattered his
hopes, by promising that his desire would one day be gratified; but let
him beware how he concludes that this desire itself is an indubitable
proof of the reality of this future life, with which at present he seems
to be so much occupied. The passion for existence is in man only a natural
consequence of the tendency of a sensible being, whose essence it is to be
willing to conserve himself: in the human being it follows the energy of
his soul—keeps pace with the force of his imagination—always
ready to realize that which he strongly desires. He desires the life of
the body, nevertheless this desire is frustrated; wherefore should not the
desire for the life of the soul be frustrated like the other? The
partizans of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul reason thus: “All
men desire to live for ever, therefore they will live for ever.” Suppose
the argument retorted on them; would it be believed? If it was asserted,
“All men naturally desire to be rich; therefore all men will one day be
rich,” how many partizans would this doctrine find?

The most simple reflection upon the nature of his soul, ought to convince
man that the idea of its immortality is only an illusion of the brain.
Indeed what is his soul, save the principle of sensibility? What is it, to
think, to enjoy, to suffer; is it not to feel? What is life, except it be
the assemblage of modifications, the congregation of motion, peculiar to
an organized being? Thus, as soon as the body ceases to live, its
sensibility can no longer exercise itself; when its sensibility is no
more, it can no longer have ideas, nor in consequence thoughts. Ideas, as
we have proved, can only reach man through his senses; now, how will they
have it, that once deprived of his senses, he is yet capable of receiving
sensations, of having perceptions, of forming ideas? As they have made the
soul of man a being separated from the animated body, wherefore have they
not made life a being distinguished from the living body? Life in a body
is the totality of this motion; feeling and thought make a part of this
motion: thus it is reasonable to suppose, that in the dead man these
motions will cease, like all the others.

Indeed, by what reasoning will it be proved, that this soul, which cannot
feel, think, will, or act, but by aid of man’s organs, can suffer pain, be
susceptible of pleasure, or even have a consciousness of its own
existence, when the organs which should warn it of their presence are
decomposed or destroyed? Is it not evident, that the soul depends on the
arrangement of the various parts of the body; on the order with which
these parts conspire to perform their functions; on the combined motion of
the whole? Thus the organic structure once destroyed, can it be reasonably
doubted the soul will be destroyed also? Is it not seen, that during the
whole course of human life this soul is stimulated, changed, deranged,
disturbed, by all the changes man’s organs experience? And yet it will be
insisted, that this soul acts, thinks, subsists, when these same organs
have entirely disappeared!

An organized being may be compared to a clock, which once broken, is no
longer suitable to the use for which it was designed. To say, that the
soul shall feel, shall think, shall enjoy, shall suffer after the death of
the body; is to pretend that a clock, shivered into a thousand pieces,
will continue to strike the hour; shall yet have the faculty of marking
the progress of time. Those who say, that the soul of man is able to
subsist, notwithstanding the destruction of the body, evidently support
the position, that the modification of a body will be enabled to conserve
itself after the subject is destroyed: this on any other occasion would be
considered as completely absurd.

It will be said that the conservation of the soul after the death of the
body, is an effect of the Divine Omnipotence: but this is supporting an
absurdity by a gratuitous hypothesis. It surely is not meant by Divine
Omnipotence, of whatever nature it may be supposed, that a thing shall
exist and not exist at the same time: unless this be granted, it will be
rather difficult to prove, that a soul shall feel and think without the
intermediates necessary to thought.

Let them then, at least, forbear asserting, that reason is not wounded by
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul; or by the expectation of a
future life. These notions, formed to flatter man, to disturb the
imagination of the uninformed, who do not reason, cannot appear either
convincing or probable to enlightened minds. Reason, exempted from the
illusions of prejudice, is, without doubt, wounded by the supposition of a
soul, that feels, that thinks, that is afflicted, that rejoices, that has
ideas, without having organs; that is to say, destitute of the only known
medium, wanting all the natural means, by which, according to what we can
understand, it is possible for it to feel sensations, have perceptions, or
form ideas. If it be replied, other means are able to exist, which are supernatural
or unknown, it may be answered, that these means of transmitting
ideas to the soul, separated from the body, are not better known to, or
more within the reach of, those who suppose it, that they are of other
men. It is, at least, very certain, it cannot admit even of a controversy,
that all those who reject the system of innate ideas, cannot, without
contradicting their own principles, admit the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul.