may lay waste the earth, but he cannot prevent the ground from being productive, the sun from fecundating, or rivers from fertilising.

Power and foresight; such are the primary attributes of God. These attributes testify to his greatness: he gives life, and he preserves it. This is what he owed to himself in this immense creation, for he owed something to himself, after having given himself a spectator.

But if power and foresight extend even beyond this,—if God be pleased to bestow upon his work treasures which are destined solely to embellish it,-if he lavish upon it pleasures, of which the object is neither creation nor preservation, but happiness! what terms, O God, can express the attributes of thy munificence? what human tongue is worthy of naming and blessing thee? Man is so poor, O God, that he can only offer to thee that which thou hast bestowed upon him; and yet the most sublime proof of this goodness, which has no name upon earth, is it not that a thing of nought can raise itself even up to thee by gratitude and by love?

it;

Yes, God does more than bestow existence, he does more than preserve he embellishes it and renders it full of delights and happiness. Observe the multitude of pleasures, in some measure superfluous, which he attaches to all our senses; or, rather, how faculties are awakened in us which have no other object than pleasure! Say, even if musical harmony were not to exist, would the ear be less fitted to enable us to understand ideas? Was there any necessity, in order to show us objects, to lavish upon them colours, forms, and perspectives, and to render all these harmonies visible and enchanting by the exquisite sentiment of the beautiful? Say, would not the sense of smell perform its office, even were it to remain insensible to the varied odours of fruits and flowers? and might not the

delicacy of taste be lessened without its ceasing to be the stimulus of hunger? The pictures of the country, the melody of the nightingale, thy inspirations, O Beethoven! the perfume of the strawberry, the juice of the peach; all these divine harmonies, all these delicate savours, all these ethereal emanations, seized, chosen, perceived, and analyzed by taste, lavished upon us, and infinitely varied by nature; heightened and multiplied by genius; this is the work of magnificence and goodness! Life would still be a benefit without these benefits, which superabound. Wherefore would so many pleasures be added to so much power, if it were not in order to render goodness visible? In these benevolent prodigalities God has placed his attributes. It is by them that he declares to us that happiness is the spectacle in which he delights.

But when from the physical we pass to the moral world, what a variety of emotions and sentiments do we not perceive! It is neither the cries of pain nor those of joy which transport us: they excite at most some sensations of pity or of pleasure. It is the noble and generous sentiments, those which belong to a superior nature, which expand the soul or which find it out: it is the disinterested love of men, and piety towards God. I more especially admire how the art of expressing them by speech developes and varies their emotions; so that if man had only imagined language, or if he had not received it from the Creator, these sentiments would remain useless in our souls. This is the reason why great writers charm us,this is the reason why great poets elevate us, this is the way, by a stroke of their genius, in which they impart to the vulgar crowd the devotedness of the Gracchi for their country, or the enthusiasm of Socrates for virtue.

And yet more; the sentiments of infinity, glory, and immortality, are mixed up with all the sensations of man.

Amidst the attractions of a terrestrial life, they detach us on a sudden from that which we have most desired, and lead us to death by the attractive prospect of an immortal life. It is these sentiments which throw a majesty over ancient monuments, and a celestial pity over virtue in misfortune. It is they which give so much activity to our hopes, so much sensibility to our adieus, and so much strength to our regrets. Thus, the delightful impressions of taste and of sentiment in the arts and in eloquence being accidentally and almost instinctively seized by great artists in every department, are invariable laws of nature, a prodigality of her gifts. Their source is not in matter. Infinity has another origin than sensation, transporting it beyond the domain of time. As a ray of the sun which has made its way through the dark clouds lights up the verdant meadows on the horizon, and exhibits to us a radiant prospect, so, in like manner, infinity, this ray of the divinity which shines in the darkness of our souls, heightens our earthly enjoyments, and opens to an ephemeral creature the perspectives of eternity.

Well! these pleasures of the soul, this delicacy of taste and sentiment, man could live, and even live happily, without experiencing them. Nature lavishes them on him as a superabundance, as proofs of her munificence and her benevolence; they are the pleasures of the other life brought down into this. By this means, also, God has declared to us that happiness is the spectacle which he loves.

Everywhere in the creation I read these words: magnificence, foresight, goodness. God notifies them to us in an universal language; he wills that the human race should hear them; for truth is no more the appanage of a locality or of a sect, than the benefits of nature are the property of a nation; whence I infer that, that only is true upon the earth which God has expressed to all men, and

L

that he speaks to all men of his works. This is a principle without exception.

A thing is then true, not because it is supported by the testimony of the doctors, not because it presents itself to us with the assent of the human race; it is true because it is the thought of God as expressed in the laws of

nature.

The eyes of all men may see these laws, and no human power can change them. Thus our reason discovers the principle of certainty. It is independent of all human powers. The criterion of truth lies only in the immutable and the eternal.

CHAPTER XI.

SEARCH AFTER TRUTH IN THE LAWS OF NATUREIMMUTABILITY OF THIS CRITERION.

OF ORDER-THE FIRST LAW OF NATURE.

"Il ne faut qu'enoncer ces idées pour en faire sentir toute l'evidence."

ANCILLON sur l'Amour de la Vérité.

In order to avoid false interpretations, which are always dangerous in inquiring into a similar subject, we will define, once for all, the meaning which we attach to the word nature.

Nature is the work of God.

The laws of nature are the established order in this work; they are the thought of God rendered visible to our mortal eyes.

By showing us what God has done, they teach us what God wills.

To study nature is, then, to seek for the will of God in a book written by the very hand of God. There, no errors, no falsifications, are possible: the revelation is universal, and the book which contains it opens itself resplendent with glory beneath the eyes of the human race.

But how am I to know these laws of nature? Do they exist within me, or are they external? Am I to consider as a law of nature the impetuosity of my desires? Am I to yield to inclinations which fascinate me? to pleasures which tempt me? to those devouring passions which are likewise a law of nature, and a voice so energetic, that it too frequently silences all other considerations? These are important questions which agitate the world, and to which certain sophists do not blush to return an answer which would precipitate us lower than the brute.

No, no, the abuse of our faculties is not a law of nature; for everywhere in our excesses we meet with bitterness and disgust. The disorders of the soul, and the evils which afflict the body, sufficiently warn us when we violate the law of nature.

Let us state the principles.

The abuse of our faculties proves only one fact: our moral liberty.

But, from the existence of this liberty, we may perceive the necessity of the rule.

In animals, it is God which marks out the rule, and this rule is a law which no power can infringe. Animals are not free.

In man, on the contrary, it is himself who traces out the rule, and voluntarily places limits to his powers.

He is the only one of all created beings on whom this necessity is imposed; in the first place, as a condition of