for minus. And the poor man ought to know that our academies are not enemies either to the king or God.*

SECTION III.

If philosophy has done so much honour to France in the Encyclopedia, it must also be confessed that the ignorance and envy which have dared to condemn this work would have covered France with opprobrium, if twelve or fifteen convulsionaries, who formed a cabal, could be regarded as the organs of France: they were really only the ministers of fanaticism and sedition; those who forced the king to dissolve the body which they had seduced. Their fanatical credulity for convulsions and the miserable impostures of St. Medard was so strong, that they obliged a magistrate, elsewhere wise and respectable, to say in full parliament, that the miracles of the catholic church always existed. By these miracles, we can only understand those of convulsions, for assuredly, it never performed any others; at least, if we believe not in the little children resuscitated by St. Ovid. The time of miracles is passed; the triumphant church has no longer occasion for them. Seriously was there one of the persecutors of the Encyclopedia who understood a word of the articles Astronomy, Dynamics, Geometry, Metaphysics, Botany, Medicine, or Anatomy, of which this book, become so necessary, treats in every volume? + What a crowd of absurd imputations and gross calumnies have they accumulated against this treasure of all the sciences! They should be reprinted at the end of the Encyclopedia, to eternise their shame. See what it is to judge

* See the discourse of the advocate Belleguir on this subject; it is curious enough.-Vol. I. of the Philosophy.

† We well know, that all is not equal in this immense work, and that it is not possible for it to be so. The articles of Cahuac and other similar intruders cannot equal those of Diderot, D'Alembert, Jaucourt, Boucher, D'Argis, Venel, Du Marsais, and so many other true philosophers; but altogether the work is an eternal service rendered to mankind, as a proof of which it is reprinting everywhere. The same honour is not paid to its detractors. That they have existed, is only known by the mention which we make of them.

a work which they were not even fit to study. The fools! they have exclaimed that philosophy ruined catholicism. What then, in twenty millions of people, has one been found who has vexed the least officer of the parish! one who has failed in respect to the churches! one who has publicly proffered against our ceremonies a single word which approached the virulence with which these railers have expressed themselves against the regal authority!

Let us repeat, that philosophy never did evil to the state, and that fanaticism, joined to the esprit du corps, has done much in all times.

SECTION IV.

Substance of Ancient Philosophy.

I have consumed about forty years of my pilgrimage in two or three corners of the world, seeking the philo.sopher's stone called truth. I have consulted all the adepts of antiquity, Epicurus and Augustin, Plato and Malebranche, and I still remain in ignorance. In all the crucibles of philosophers, there are perhaps two or three ounces of gold, but all the rest is caput mortuum, insipid mire, from which nothing can be extracted.

で

It seems to me that the Greeks, our masters, wrote much more to show their intellect, than they made use of their intellect to instruct themselves. I see not a single author of antiquity who has a consistent, methodical, clear system, going from consequence to consequence.

All that I have been able to obtain by comparing and combining the systems of Plato, of the tutor of Alexander, Pythagoras, and the Orientals, is this :

-

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause. The world is arranged according to mathematical laws; therefore it is arranged by an intelligence.

It is not an intelligent being like myself who presided at the formation of the world; for I cannot form a miserable worm; therefore the world is the work of an intelligence prodigiously superior.

Does this being, who possesses intelligence and power in so high a degree, necessarily exist? It must be so; for he must either have received being from another, or through his own nature. If he has received his being from another, which is very difficult to conceive, I must look up to this other, which will in that case be the first cause. On whichever side I turn, I must ad.mit a first cause, powerful and intelligent, who by his own nature is necessarily so.

Has this first cause created things out of nothing? We cannot conceive that to create out of nothing is to change nothing into something. I cannot admit such a creation, at least until I find invincible reasons which force me to admit what my mind can never comprehend.

All that exists appears to exist necessarily, since it exists; for if to-day there is a reason for the existence of things, there was one yesterday; there has been one in all times; and this cause must always have had its effect, without which it would have been an useless cause during eternity.

But how can things have always existed, being visibly under the hand of the first cause? This power must always have acted in like manner. There is no sun without light, there is no motion without a being passing from one point of space to another.

There is therefore a powerful and intelligent being who has always acted; and if this being had not acted, of what use to him would have been his existence? All things are therefore emanations from this first cause.

But how can we imagine that stone and clay may be emanations of the eternal, intelligent, and puissant being?

Of two things one must be either that the matter of this stone and mine necessarily exists of itself, -or that it exists necessarily by this first cause: there is no medium.

Thus, therefore, there are but two parts to take: either to admit matter eternal of itself, or matter eternally proceeding from a powerful, intelligent, eternal being.

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 without 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