But existing of its own nature, or emanating from a producing being, it exists from all eternity, because it exists; and there is no reason that it might not have always existed.

If matter is eternally necessary, it is in consequence impossible-it is contradictory, that it should not exist; but what man can assure us that it is impossible, that it is contradictory, that this fly and this flint have not always existed? We are however obliged to swallow this difficulty, which more astonishes the imagination than contradicts the principles of reasoning.

Indeed, as soon as we have conceived that all has emanated from the supreme and intelligent being; that nothing has emanated from him without reason; that this being, always existing, must always have acted; that consequently all things must have eternally proceeded from the bosom of his existence, we should no more be deterred from believing the matter of which this fly and flint are formed is eternal, than we are deterred from conceiving light to be an emanation of the all-powerful being.

Since I am an extended and thinking being, my extent and thought are the necessary productions of this being. It is evident to me that I cannot give myself extent or thought. I have therefore received both from this necessary being.

Can he have given me what he has not? I have intelligence; I am in space; therefore he is intelligent and is in space.

To say that the eternal being, the all-powerful God,. has from all time necessarily filled the universe with his productions, is not taking from him his free-will; but on the contrary, for free-will is but the power of acting. God has always fully acted; therefore God has. always used the plenitude of his liberty.

The liberty which we call indifference is a word with-out an idea-an absurdity; for this would be to determine without reason; it would be an effect without a cause. Therefore God cannot have this pretended free-will, which is a contradiction in terms. He has therefore always acted by the same necessity which

causes his existence. It is therefore impossible for the world to exist without God; it is impossible for God to exist without the world.

This world is filled with beings who succeed each other; therefore God has always produced beings in succession.

These preliminary assertions are the basis of the ancient eastern philosophy and of that of the Greeks. We must except Democritus and Epicurus, whose corpuscular philosophy has combatted these dogmas. But let us remark, that the Epicureans were founded on an entirely erroneous philosophy, and that the metaphysical system of all the other philosophy subsisted with all the physical systems. All nature, except the void, contradicts Epicurus, and no phenomenon contradicts the philosophy which I explain. Now a philosophy which agrees with all which passes in nature, and which contents the most attentive minds, is it not superior to all other unrevealed systems?

After the assertions of the most ancient philosophers, which I have approached as nearly as possible, what remains to us? A chaos of doubts and chimeras. I believe that there never was a philosopher of a system, who did not confess at the end of his life that he had lost his time. It must be confessed, that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship, towers much above him who imagined innate ideas.

PHYSICIANS,

REGIMEN is superior to medicine, especially as, from time immemorial, out of every hundred physicians, ninety-eight are charlatans. Molière was right in laughing at them; for nothing is more ridiculous than to witness an infinite number of silly women, and men no less women, when they have eaten, drunk, sported, or abstained from repose too much, call in a physician for the head-ache, invoke him like a god, and request him to work the miracle of producing an alliance be

tween health and intemperance, not omitting to fee the said god, who laughs at their folly.

It is not however the less true, that an able physician may preserve life on an hundred occasions,* and restore to us the use of our limbs. When a man falls into an apoplexy, it is neither a captain of infantry nor a serjeant at law who will cure him. If cataracts are formed on my eyes, it is not my neighbour who will relieve me. I distinguish not between physicians and surgeons, these professions being so intimatelyconnected.

Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.

The Roman people had no physicians for more than five hundred years. This people, whose sole occupation was slaughter, in particular cultivated not the art of prolonging life. What therefore happened at Rome to those who had a putrid fever, a fistula, a gangrene, or an inflammation of the stomach? They died. The small number of great physicians introduced into Rome were only slaves. A physician among the great Roman patricians was a species of luxury, like a cook. Every rich man had his perfumers, his bathers, his harpers, and his physician. The celebrated Musa, the physician of Augustus, was a slave; he was freed and made a Roman knight; after which physicians became persons of consideration.

When christianity was so fully established as to bestow on us the felicity of possessing monks, they

*This is not because our days are not numbered. It is certain that everything is the result of an invincible necessity, without which all would proceed by chance-an absolute absurdity. No man can augment either the number of his days, or his hairs; no physician, or even angel, can add one minute to the minutes which the eternal order of things has irrevocably destined to us; but he who is destined to be stricken at a certain moment with an apoplexy may be destined also to meet with an able physician who bleeds him, and does whatever is necessary to save his life. Destiny gives us equally the disease and the remedy-the fever and the bark.-French Ed.

were expressly forbidden, by many councils, from practising medicine. They should have prescribed a precisely contrary line of conduct, if it were desirable to render them useful to mankind.

How beneficial to society, were monks obliged to study medicine and to cure our ailments for God's sake! Having nothing to gain but heaven, they would never be charlatans; they would equally instruct themselves in our diseases and their remedies, one of the finest of occupations, and the only one forbidden them. It has been objected, that they would poison the impious; but even that would be advantageous to the church. Had this been the case,, Luther would never have stolen one half of catholic Europe from our holy father the pope; for in the first fever which might have seized the augustin Luther, a dominican would have prepared his pills. You will tell me that he would not have taken them; but with a little address this might have been managed. But to proceed :

Towards the year 1517 lived a citizen, animated with a christian zeal, named John; I do not mean John Calvin, but John, surnamed of God, who instituted the brothers of charity. This body, instituted for the redemption of captives, is composed of the only useful monks, although not accounted among the orders. The dominicans, bernardines, norbertins, and benedictines, acknowledge not the brothers of charity. They

are simply adverted to in the continuation of the Ecclesiastical History of Fleuri. Why? Because they have performed cures instead of miracles-have been useful and not caballed-cured poor women without either directing or seducing them. Lastly, their institution being charitable, it is proper that other monks should despise them.

Medicine having then become a mercenary profession in the world, as the administration of justice is in, many places, it has become liable to strange abuses. But nothing is more estimable than a physician who,, having studied nature from his youth, knows the pro

perties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and Such a man is very superior to the general of the capuchins, however respectable this general may be.

the poor.

PIRATES, OR BUCCANEERS.

IN the time of cardinal Richelieu, when the Spaniards and French detested each other, because Ferdinand the catholic laughed at Louis XII., and Francis I. was taken at the battle of Pavia by an army of Charles V.-whilst this hatred was so strong, that the false author of the political romance, and political piece of tediousness, called the Political Testament of Cardinal Richelieu, feared not to call the Spaniards an insatiable nation, who rendered the Indies tributaries of hell;"--when in short we were leagued in 1635 with Holland against Spain; when France had nothing in America, and the Spaniards covered the seas with their galleys, then buccaneers began to appear. They were at first French adventurers, whose quality was at most that of corsairs.

One of them, named Legrand, a native of Dieppe, associated himself with fifty determined men, and went to tempt fortune in a bark which had not even a cannon. Towards the isle of Hispaniola (St. Domingo) he perceived a galley strayed from the great Spanish fleet; he approached it as a captain wishing to sell provisions; he mounted, attended by his people; he entered the chamber of the captain who was playing at cards, threw him down, made him prisoner with his cargo, and returned to Dieppe with his vessel laden with immense riches. This adventure was the signal for forty years unheard-of exploits.

French, English, and Dutch buccaneers associated together in the caverns of St. Domingo, of the little islands of St. Christopher and Tortola. They chose a chief for each expedition, which was the first origin of