terial interests of humanity; on the other hand, it exhibits to us God: but it is still the same reason.

Philosophers have calumniated reason without hearing it. They reproach it with bending itself beneath the yoke of the passions, as if it were bestowed upon us in order to combat them. They do not see that reason is a light, not a force; that its office is, not to conquer, but to enlighten; that it does not master our vicious inclinations, but that it shows us the penalties of them; that it does not enforce virtue, but signalises its delights. Such is reason; positive, inflexible: its oracles must be accomplished either in the face of the world which despises it, or in the depths of conscience, which it enlightens even when succumbing.

This, then, is the most energetic power of nature, for in addressing itself to the intellect it leaves it no other choice than that between truth and falsehood, wisdom or folly, virtue or remorse. Between the two extremes, reason causes her light to shine, the divine reflection of which extends afar in the heavens.

reason.

And in fact, there are two universal revelations; the one external, which is nature; the other internal, which is Nature addresses herself to the senses; all her perceptions are local, varied, and transient. Reason is independent of matter; all its ideas are one-general and eternal. Unity, generality, eternity, is the triple character

of reason.

Vainly do Montaigne and Pascal declare violent war against reason, threatening with the condition of brutes whosoever walks by its light. No one is inclined to believe them. One feels that they deceive themselves, either from humility or pride. That, if you ask them what offends them in reason, they will answer you by decrying politics, medicine, history, jurisprudence, all the physical

and moral sciences;* thus reducing reason to the pleadings of advocates, and to the contradictions of the learned. In this manner, then, do these lofty intellects mistake the work of God, calumniating the only guide which can lead us to virtue; the latter to cast himself upon a blind faith, of which the last term was the sackcloth of the fanatic, and the idolatry of the savage; the former, to cause the triumph of doubt and incredulity.

What a panegyric of reason is this fall of its two most powerful adversaries. And after this, how much surprise do we not feel, when we see Kant, the transcendant genius of the age, with the sole view of striking at reason, submit the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul to the abstractions of a lying logic; weigh the arguments for and against, declare their weight equal, and at last triumph over the impotence of reason? as if true reason had anything to do with these pitiful reasonings. It is very true that Kant's philosophy rests upon that imperceptible confusion which ascribes to reason all the sophistries of the understanding. The understanding is a compound power, and is consequently variable; its faculties are at the same time spiritual and animal; they comprise the sensations and the passions, which have each their separate logic. It is not therefore accorded to them to produce conviction. But reason is a simple power; it has no arguments, no categories, no contradictions; it is reason, that is to say, light. What can darkness effect against light? Reason is always in the right.

Socrates interrogating Menon,+ asked him, "What is virtue ?" "There is," said Menon, "a virtue of man, a virtue of woman, of the child and old man, of the slave and of the citizen." "The question is well answered," * Essais de Montaigne. Pensées de Pascal.

+ Plato's Dialogues.

said Socrates, we asked for only one virtue, and the admirable Menon presents us with a whole collection." Our modern philosophers have treated reason in the same way as Menon treated virtue.

Observe carefully the men who rail at reason, and see if they have not some interest to keep you in darkness, for reason, as we have already said, is the light.

Let us then conclude that, though reason explains nothing, yet it shows us God as the explanation of all. In fact, all the problems which the understanding presents, all the phenomena which nature exhibits, can only be resolved in God; and it is thus that reason arrives at their solution. If then, from the testimony of the senses, man knows that the world exists; so by the testimony of reason, he knows that the world has an author. And this is not merely the reason of a man, it is the reason of the whole human race.

Reason-a faculty of the soul. The fourth light which radiates towards God.

CHAPTER XIV.

CONSCIENCE-A FACULTY OF THE SOUL.

"Nous formons notre conscience au gré de nos passions, et nous croyons avoir tout gagné pourvu que nous puissions nous tromper nous-mêmes."

BOSSUET.

CONSCIENCE becomes awakened by the notions of good and evil of justice and injustice. It is the first faculty of the soul which appears in us; it is powerful, but blind. He who deceives his conscience may become a Ravaillac or

a Marat. Man is not always innocent when his conscience absolves him; he is not always guilty when his conscience accuses him. Have a care, young mother, now is the time; free thy reason in order to expand thy soul, for it is about to pass entirely into the soul of the child. Ah! do not suffer any other thoughts than thine own to penetrate into that sanctuary. It is a question between vice and virtue, between the joy or remorse of a whole life; thou engravest upon brass. The earliest education is effected entirely in the conscience, and conscience is only good when enlightened by reason.

Conscience is the executioner of our bad passions; it has joys which raise us up to heaven, and pains which precipitate us into hell. Inflexible to fortune, power, and pleasure, conscience only gives way before repentance and virtue.

From it we derive faith. Conscience and faith, like two blind men, cast themselves groping in the paths of fanaticism, of superstition, and of idolatry, and arrive ultimately at God. There the human race meet; the want of belief, the sense of the beautiful, the contemplations of the infinite, bring man constantly to this point. Thus, on every side, the soul makes its way through the senses, it breaks out in matter, as the fire in darkness. It wills that one should see it, that one should know it; manifesting its existence by the sentiment of virtue, its greatness by the thought of God, it spreads over this terrestrial life, sublime lights, the source of which exist only in heaven.

Conscience-a faculty of the soul. The fifth light which radiates towards God.

CHAPTER XV.

CONCLUSIONS FROM THE FIVE PRECEDING CHAPTERS.

"Et c'est ainsi, dis-je a mon ame,

Que l'ombre de ce bas lieu,

Tu brules invisible flamme

En la presence de ton Dieu."

LAMARTINE, Harmonies.

THUS, the direction of all the faculties of the soul indicates a point of meeting placed beyond the boundary of this life.

Thus, the veritable man, freed from matter, is an essence which tends towards God, by all the points of his being.

Thus, there is an universal truth, the authority of which is infallible, not because it is universal, for universal errors are known to exist, but because it is in us, because it appears divinely at each birth to constitute the testimony of the human race. This truth is God.

All the faculties of the soul discover him. His existence is the condition of our greatness. His existence is the consolation of our misery. His existence explains all.

God does not prove himself. No animal faculty, no faculty of the intellect reaches up to him. Logic denies him, reasoning denies him, metaphysics deny him, the passions deny him. What matters! the soul perceives him.

This fruitful truth is the source of all truth; this celestial instinct is the source of all virtue. God has not confided us to an unstable intellect, which has equal argument for falsehood and for truth; he has placed us above