University of Virginia Library

STUDY EIGHTH. REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST A DIVINE PROVIDENCE, AND THE HOPES OF A LIFE TO COME, FOUNDED ON THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD AND ON THE MISERIES OF A PRESENT STATE.

'WHAT avails it me,' some one will say, 'that my tyrants are punished, if I am still to be the victim of tyranny? Is it possible that such compensations should be the work of GOD? Great philosophers, who have devoted their whole life to the study of Nature, have refused to acknowledge its Author. Who hath seen GOD at any time? What is it that constitutes GOD? But taking it for granted that an intelligent BEING directs the affairs of this universe, man assuredly is abandoned to himself: no hand has traced his career: as far as he is concerned, there are, apparently, two Deities; the one inviting him to unbounded enjoyment, and the other dooming him to endless privation; one God of Nature, and another God of Religion. Man is left totally uncertain whether of the two he is bound to please; and whatever be the choice which he

is determined to make, how can he tell whether he is rendering himself an object of love or of hatred?

'His virtue itself fills him with doubts and scruples; it renders him miserable, both inwardly and outwardly; it reduces him to a state of perpetual warfare with himself, and with the world, to the interests of which he is obliged to make a sacrifice of himself. If he is chaste, the world calls him impotent; if religious, he is accounted silly; if he discovers benignity of disposition, it is because he wants courage; if he devotes himself for the good of his country, he is fanatic; if simple, he is duped; if modest, he is supplanted; everywhere he is derided, betrayed, despised, now by the philosopher, and now by the devotee. On what foundation can he build the hope of a recompense for so many struggles and mortifications? On a life to come? What assurance has he of its existence? Where is the traveller that ever returned from thence?

'What is the soul of man? Where was it a hundred years ago? Where will it be a century hence? It expands with the senses, and expires when they expire. What becomes of it in sleep, in a lethargy? It is the illusion of pride to imagine it immortal: Nature universally points to death, in his monuments, in his appetites, in his loves, in his friendships: man is universally reduced to the necessity of drawing a veil over this idea. In order to live less miserable, he ought to divert himself, that is, as the word literally imports, he ought to turn aside from that dismal perspective of woes which Nature is presenting to him on every side. To what hopeless lobbers has she not subjected his miserable life? The beasts of the field are a thousand times happier; clothed, lodged, fed by the hand of Nature, they give themselves up without solicitude to the indulgence of their passions, and finish their career without any presentiment of death, and without any fear of an hereafter.

'If there be a GOD who presides over the destiny of all, he must be inimical to the felicity of the human race. What is it to me that the earth is clothed with vegetables, if I have not the shade of a single tree at my disposal? Of what importance to me are the laws of harmony and of love, which govern Nature, if I behold around me only objects faithless and deceiving; or if my fortune, my condition, my religion, impose celibacy upon my? The general felicity diffused over

the earth, serves only as a bitter aggravation of my particular wretchedness. What interest is it possible for me to take in the wisdom of an arrangement which renovates all things, if, as a consequence of that very arrangement, I feel myself sinking, and ready to be lost for ever? One single wretch might arraign Providence, and say with Job the Arabian, chap. iii. 20, Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul? Alas! the appearances of happiness have been disclosed to the view of man, only to overwhelm him with despair of ever attaining it. If a GOD, intelligent and beneficent, governs Nature, diabolical spirits direct and confound at least the affairs of the children of men.'

I shall, first, reply to the principal authorities on which some of these objections are supported. They are extracted, in part, from a celebrated poet, and a learned philosopher, namely, Lucretius and Pliny.

Lucretius has clothed the philosophy of Empedocles and Epicurus in very beautiful verses. His imagery is enchanting; but that philosophy of atoms, which adhere to each other by chance, is so completely absurd, that wherever it appears, the beauty of the poetry is impaired. To what, we may ask him, do these primary atoms, out of which you construct the elements of Nature, owe their existence? Who communicated to them the first movement? How is it possible they should have given to the aggregation of a great number of bodies, a spirit of life, a sensibility, and a will, which they themselves possessed not?

If you believe, with Leibnitz, that those monads, or unities, have perceptions peculiar to themselves, you give up the laws of chance, and must allow to the elements of Nature the intelligence you refuse to its AUTHOR. Descartes has subjected those impalpable principles to the laws of an ingenious geometry; and after him, the heard of philosophers, seduced by the facility of erecting all sorts of systems with the same materials, have applied to them, by turns, the laws of attraction, of fermentation, of crystallization; but all without success.

Lucretius has thought proper to pursue a method still more strange, namely, that in a work, the professed object of which is to materialize the Deity, he sets out with deifying matter. He has given way to this universal principle, that we find it impossible powerfully to interest mankind, whatever

be the object, without presenting to the mind some of the attributes of Deity. On this hypothesis, therefore, in his first book De Rerum Natura, he deifies Venus; ascribes to her the creation of the world; addresses prayers, and bestows on her person the epithet of sacred; he invests her with the character of goodness, justice, intelligence, and power, which belongs to GOD only; in a word, the attributes are so exactly the same, that, suppressing only the word Venus, in the invocation of his poem, you may apply it almost entirely to the Divine Wisdom. He is constrained to admit, in the sequel of his poem, that this goddess, so wonderfully beneficent, is directly chargeable with the ruin of health, of fortune, and, sooner or later, with the loss of reputation: that, from the very lap of the pleasures which she bestows, there issues a something which imbitters enjoyment, torments a man, and renders him miserable.

Pliny takes the directly opposite course. In the very threshold of his Natural History, he affirms there is no God, and the whole work is an elaborate demonstration of the being of GOD. His authority must be of considerable weight, as it is not that of a poet to whom opinions are a matter of indifference, provided he can produce a striking picture; nor that of a sectary, obstinately determined to support a party, whatever violence may be done to conscience; nor, finally, that of a flatterer, making his court to vicious princes. Pliny wrote under the virtuous Titus, and dedicated his book to him. He carries to such a height the love of truth, and contempt of the glory of the age in which he lived, as to condemn the victories of C'sar, in Rome itself, and when addressing a Roman emperor. He is replete with humanity and virtue; and exposes the cruelty of masters to their slaves, the luxury of the great, nay, the dissolute conduct of several empresses. He sometimes pronounces the panegyric of good men; and exalts even above the inventors of arts persons who have rendered themselves illustrious by their continency, modesty, and piety.

His work is a combination of brilliancies, a real encyclopedia, containing the history of the knowledge and the errors of this time. These last are sometimes imputed to him unjustly, for he frequently brings them forward in the view of refuting them. The physicians and apothecaries, who have extracted many of their prescriptions from him, abuse

him, because he finds fault with their conjectural art and systematic spirit. He abounds, besides, in curious information, in profound views, and interesting traditions; and what renders his performance invaluable, he uniformly expresses himself in a picturesque manner. With all this taste, judgment, and knowledge, Pliny is an atheist. Nature, from whom he has derived such various intelligence, may address him in the words of C'sar to Brutus: What, you too, my son!

If I may be permitted to say it, in justification of Pliny, I believe his immortal work to be falsified, where is made to reason as an atheist. All his commentators agree that no author has suffered more from the unfaithfulness of transcribers than he has done; that copies of his Natural History exist in which whole chapters are entirely different. I shall here observe, that the writings of the ancients have passed through more than one unfaithful language, nay worse, more than one suspicious hand. They have met with the fate of their monuments, among which their temples have been most of all degraded. Their books have also been mutilated, chiefly in passages favourable to religion, or the reverse. An instance of this we have in the transcription of Cicero's Treatise on the Nature of the Gods, in which the objections against Providence are omitted.

Montagne upbraids the first Christians with having suppressed, on account of four or five articles which contradicted their creed, a part of the works of Cornelius Tacitus, 'though the emperor Tacitus, his relation, had, by his express edicts, furnished all the libraries in the world with them.'

In our own days, every party exerts itself to run down the reputation and opinions opposed to it. Mankind is, in the hands of religion and philosophy, like the old man in the fable, between two dames of different ages. They had both a mind to trim his locks, each in her own way. The younger picked out all the white hairs, which she could not bear; the old one, for an opposite reason, removed the black; consequently his head was speedily reduced to complete baldness.

It is impossible to adduce a more satisfactory demonstration of this ancient infidelity of the two parties, than an interpolation to be found in the writings of Flavius Josephus, who was contemporary with Pliny. He is made to say, in so

many words, that the Messiah was just born; and he continues his narration, to the end of a voluminous history, without once referring to this wonderful event. How can it be believed that Josephus, who frequently indulges himself in a tedious detail of minute circumstances, should not have reverted a thousand and a thousand times to a birth so deeply interesting to his nation, considering that its very destiny was involved in that event, and that even the destruction of Jerusalem was only one of the consequences of the death of JESUS CHRIST? He, on the contrary, perverts the meaning of the prophecies which announce Him, applying them to Vespasian and Titus; for he, as well as the other Jews, expected a Messiah triumphant. Besides, had Josephus believed in CHRIST, would he not have embraced his religion?

For a similar reason, is it credible that Pliny should commence his Natural History with denying the existence of GOD, and afterwards fill every page of it with expatiating on the wisdom, goodness, providence, and majesty of Nature; on the presages and premonitions, sent expressly from the gods; and even on the miracles divinely operated through the medium of dreams?

Certain savage tribes have been adduced as examples of atheism, and every sequestered corner of the globe has been for this purpose explored. But obscure tribes were no more intended to serve as an example to the human race, than certain mean and obscure families among ourselves could be proposed as proper models to the nation; especially when the object is to support by authority an opinion necessarily subversive of all society. Besides, such assertions are absolutely false. I have read the history of voyages from which they are extracted. The travellers acknowledge they had but a transient view of those people, and were totally unacquainted with their languages. They supposed there could be no religion among them, because they saw no temples; as if any other temple were necessary to the belief in GOD than that of Nature! These same travellers contradict themselves, by relating that those nations, elsewhere represented as destitute of all religion, make obeisance to the moon, by prostrating themselves to the earth, or lifting up their hands to heaven: that they pay respect to the memory of their forefathers, and place viands on their tombs. The immortality

of the soul, admitted how you will, necessarily supposes the existence of GOD.

But if the first of all truths stood in need of testimony from men, we could collect that of the whole human race, from geniuses the most exalted, down to the lowest state of ignorance. This unanimity of testimony is of irresistible weight; for it is impossible that such a thing should exist on the earth as universal error.

Newton, who pursued his researches into the laws of Nature so profoundly, never pronounced the name of GOD without moving his hat, and otherwise expressing the most devout respect. He took pleasure in recalling this sublime idea, and considered it as the natural bond of union among all nations. Corneille le Bruyn, the Dutch painter, relates, that happening to dine one day at his table, in company with several other foreigners, Newton, when the desert was served up, proposed a health to the men of every country who believe in GOD. This was drinking the health of the human race. A belief in GOD arises from the spectacle of Nature simply. A poor ignorant Arabian of the desert was one day asked, How he came to be assured there was a God? 'In the same way,' he replied, 'that I am able to tell by the print impressed on the sand whether it was a man or a beast which passed that way.'

Man, as has been said, cannot imagine any form, or produce a single idea, of which the model is not in Nature. He expands his reason only on the reasons Nature has supplied. GOD must, therefore, necessarily exist, were it but for this, that man has an idea of him. But if we attentively consider that every thing necessary to man exists in a most wonderful adaptation to his necessities, for the strongest of all reasons GOD likewise must exist, He who is the universal adaptation of all the societies of the human race.

But I should wish to know, in what way those who doubt of his existence, on a review of the works of Nature, would desire to be assured of it? Do they wish he should appear under a human form, and assume the figure of an old man, as he is painted in some of our churches? They would say, this is a man. Were He to invest himself with some unknown and celestial form, could we in a human body support the

sight? The complete and unveiled display of even a single one of his works on the earth would be sufficient to confound our feeble organs. For example, if the earth wheels around its axis, as is supposed, there is not a human being in existence, who, from a fixed point in the heavens, could view the rapidity of its motion without horror; for he would behold rivers, oceans, kingdoms, whirling about under his feet with a velocity almost thrice as great as a cannon-ball. But even the swiftness of this diurnal rotation is a mere nothing: for the rapidity with which the globe describes its annual circle, and hurls us round the sun, is seventy-five times greater than that of a bullet shot from the cannon. Were it but possible for the eye to view through the skin the mechanism of our own body, the sight would overwhelm us. Durst we make a single movement if we saw our blood circulating, the nerves pulling, the lungs blowing, the humours filtrating, and all the incomprehensible assemblage of fibres, tubes, pumps, currents, pivots, which sustain an existence at once so frail and so presumptuous?

Would we wish, on the contrary, that GOD should manifest himself in a manner more adapted to his own nature, by the direct and immediate communication of his intelligence, to the exclusion of every intervenient mean?

When some striking truth or affecting sentiment impresses an audience at a theatre, some are melted into tears, others almost choked with an oppressed respiration, others quite in a transport, clapping their hands and stamping with their feet; the females in the boxes actually fainting away. Were these violent agitations of spirit to go on progressively but for a few minutes only, the persons subject to them might lose their reason, perhaps life. What would be the case, then, if the Source of all truth and feeling were to communicate himself to us in a mortal body? GOD has placed us at a suitable distance from his infinite Majesty; near enough to perceive, but not so near as to be annihilated by it. He veils intelligence under the forms of matter, and He restores our confidence respecting the movements of the material world by the sentiment of his intelligence. If at any time he is pleased to communicate himself in a more intimate manner, it is not through the channel of haughty science, but through that of modest virtue. He discloses himself to the simple, and hides his face from the proud.

'But,' it is asked, 'what made GOD? Why should there be a God? Am I to call in question his existence because I am incapable of comprehending his origin? This style of reasoning would lead us to conclude that man doe snot exist: for, Who made man? Why should there be men? Why am I in the world in the eighteenth century? Why did I not arrive in some of the ages which went before? and, Wherefore should I not be here in those which are to come? The existence of GOD is at all times necessary, and that of men only contingent. Nay, the existence of man is the only apparently superfluous existence in the order established upon earth. Many islands have been discovered without inhabitants, which presented abodes the most enchanting, from the disposition of the valleys, of the waters, of the woods, of the animals. Man alone deranges the plans of Nature: he diverts the current from the fountain; he digs into the side of the hill; he sets the forest on fire; he massacres without mercy every thing that breathes; everywhere he degrades the earth, which could do very well without him.

The harmony of this globe would be partially destroyed, perhaps entirely so, were but the smallest genus of plants to be suppressed; for its annihilation would leave a certain space of ground destitute of verdure, and thereby rob of its nourishment the species of insect which there found the support of life. The destruction of the insect again would involve that of the species of bird which in these alone finds the food proper for their young; and so on to infinity. The total ruin of the vegetable and animal kingdoms might take its rise from the failure of a single moss, as we may see that of an edifice commence in a small crevice. But if the human race existed not, it would be impossible to suppose that any thing had been deranged: every brook, every plant, every animal, would always be in its place. Indolent and haughty philosopher, who presumest to demand of Nature wherefore there should be a God, why demandest thou not rather wherefore there should be men?

All his works speak of their AUTHOR. The plain which gradually escapes from my eye, and the capacious vault of heaven which encompasses me on every side, convey to me an idea of his immensity; the fruits suspended on the bough within reach of my hand, announce his providential care; the constant revolution of the seasons display his wisdom; the

variety of provision which his bounty makes, in every climate, for the wants of every thing that lives, the stately port of the forests, the soft verdure of the meadow, the grouping of plants, the perfume and enamel of flowers, an infinite multitude of harmonies, known and unknown, are the magnificent languages which speak of Him to all men in a thousand and a thousand different dialects. Nay, the very order of Nature is superfluous: GOD is the only being whom disorder invokes, and whom human weakness announces. In order to attain the knowledge of his attributes, we need only have a feeling of our own imperfections.

Man has given nothing to himself, he has received all.— But I should consider it an insult to the understanding of my reader, were I to insist longer on the proofs of the existence of GOD. I shall now reply to the objections against his goodness.

The laws which govern man are derived from the same plan of wisdom which has constructed the universe. Man is not a being of a nature perfectly simple. Virtue, which ought to be the great object of his pursuit on earth, is an effort which he makes over himself for the good of mankind, in the pleasing view of GOD only. It proposes to him the Divine Wisdom as models, and presents the most secure and unerring path to happiness. Study Nature, and you will perceive that nothing can be more adapted to the felicity of man, and that virtue carries her reward in her bosom, even in this world.

Let us not complain that GOD has made an unfair distribution of his gifts, when we see the abundance in which bad men live. Whatever is on the earth most useful, beautiful, and best, is within the reach of every man. Obscurity is better than glory, and virtue than talents. The light of the sun, a little field, a wife and children, are sufficient to employ a succession of pleasures to him. Must he have luxuries too? A flower presents him colours more lovely than the pearl dragged from the abysses of the ocean; and a burning coal on his hearth has a brighter lustre, and is infinitely more useful, than the famous gem which glitters on the head of the Grand Mogul.

After all, What did GOD owe to man? Water from the fountain, a little fruit, wool to clothe him, as much land as he is able to cultivate with his own hands. So much for the wants of his body. As to those of the soul, it is sufficient

for him to possess in infancy the love of his parents; in maturity that of his wife; in old age the gratitude of his children; at all seasons the good will of his neighbours, the number of whom is restricted to four or five, according to the extent and form of his domain; so much knowledge of the globe as he can acquire by rambling about for half a day, so as to get home to his own bed at night, or, at most, to the extremity of his domestic horizon; such a sense of Providence as Nature bestows on all men, and which will spring up in his heart fully as well after he has made the circuit of his own field, as after returning from a voyage round the world.

With corporeal enjoyments and mental gratifications like these he ought to be content; whatever more he desires is above his wants, and inconsistent with the distributions of Nature. He cannot acquire superfluity but by the sacrifice of some necessary; public consideration he must purchase at the price of domestic happiness; and a name in the world of science by renouncing his repose. Besides, these honours, attendants, riches, that submission, men so eagerly hunt after, are desired unjustly: a man cannot obtain them but by plundering and enslaving his fellow-citizens: their acquisition exposes to incredible labour and anxiety, the possession is disturbed by incessant care, and privation tears the heart with regret. By pretended blessings such as these, health, reason, conscience, all, is depraved and lost.

Virtuous persons, in truth, are sometimes destitute not only of the blessings of society, but of those of Nature. To this I answer, that their calamities frequently are beneficial to them. When persecuted by the world, they are usually incited to engage in some illustrious career. Affliction is the path of great talents, or of great virtues, which are infinitely preferable.

A resignation to the will of GOD ought in every situation to sooth the soul to peace. But if the illusions of a vain world should ruffle our spirit, let me suggest a consideration which may go far toward restoring our tranquillity. When any thing in Nature bears hard upon us, and inspires mistrust of its AUTHOR, let us suppose an order of things contrary to that which galls us, and we shall find a multitude of consequences resulting from this hypothesis that would involve much greater evils than those of which we complain. If

you wish to justify the order of Nature, it is sufficient to deviate from it; and, in order to refute all human systems, nothing more is necessary than to admit them.

For example, complaints are made of death: but if men were not to die, What would become of their posterity? Long before now there would not have been room for them on the earth. Death, therefore, is a benefit. Men complain of the necessity of labouring: but unless they laboured, How could they pass their time? The reputedly happy of the age, who have nothing to do, are at a loss how to employ it. Labour, therefore, is a benefit. Men envy the beasts the instinct which guides them: but if, from their birth, they knew, like them, all that they ever are to know, What should they do in the world? They would saunter through it without interest or curiosity. Ignorance, therefore, is a benefit.

The other ills of Nature are equally necessary. Pain of body and vexation of spirit are barriers erected by Nature to prevent our deviating from her laws. But for pain bodies would be broken to pieces on the slightest shock; but for chagrin the mind would become the victim of every sickly appetite. Diseases are the efforts of temperaments to purge off some noxious humour. Nature employs disease not to destroy the body, but to preserve it; it is ever the consequence of some violation of her laws, physical and moral. The remedy is frequently obtained by leaving her to act in her own way. The regimen of aliments restores our health of body, and that of men, tranquillity of mind. Whatever opinions disturb our repose in society, they almost always vanish in solitude. Sleep itself dispels our chagrin more gently and infallibly than a book of morals. If our distresses are such as to break our rest, they may be mitigated by having recourse to GOD. Here is the central point towards which all the paths of human life converge. Prosperity, at all seasons, invites us to his presence, but adversity leaves us no choice.

The evils of society are no part of the plan of Nature, but they demonstrate the existence of another order of things: for is it natural to imagine, that the BEING good and just, who has disposed every thing on earth to promote the happiness of man, will permit him to be deprived of it without punishing the wretch who dared to counteract his gracious designs? Will He do nothing in behalf of the virtuous but

unfortunate man, whose constant study was to please him, when he has loaded with blessings so many miscreants who abuse them? After having displayed a bounty which has met with no return, will he fail in executing necessary justice?

'But,' we are told, 'every thing dies with us. Here we ought to believe our own experience; we were nothing before our birth, and we shall be nothing after death.' I adopt the analogy; but if I take my point of comparison from the moment I was nothing, and when I came into existence, what becomes of this argument? Is not one positive proof better than all the negative proofs in the world? You conclude from an unknown past to an unknown future to perpetuate the nothingness of man; and I, for my part, deduce my consequence from the present which I know, to the future which I do not know, as an assurance of this future existence. I proceed on the presumption of a goodness and a justice to come, from the instances of goodness and justice which I see actually diffused over the universe.

Besides, if we have in our present state the desire and presentiment only of a life to come; and if no one ever returned thence to give us information concerning it, the reason is, a proof more sensible would be inconsistent with the nature of our present life on the earth. Evidence on this point must involve the same inconveniences with that of the existence of GOD. Were we assured by some sensible demonstration that a world to come was prepared for us, I have the fullest conviction that all the pursuits of this world would from that instant be abandoned. The passage from the one world to the other being in every man's power, the gulf would be quickly shot: but Nature has involved it in obscurity, and planted doubt and apprehension to guard the passage.

It would appear, we are told by some, that the idea of the immortality of the soul could arise only from the speculations of men of genius, who, considering the combination of this universe, and the connexion which present scenes have with those which preceded them, must have thence concluded that they had a necessary connexion with futurity; or else that this idea of immortality was introduced by legislators to console mankind under the pressure of their political injustice. But if this were the case, how could it have found its way

into the deserts, and been diffused at once, over the islands of the South Seas and Lapland, over Asia and North America, among the inhabitants of Paris and those of the New Hebrides? How is it possible that so many nations, separated by vast oceans, so different in manners and in language, should all believe in the immortality of the soul? Whence could they have derived a belief so flatly contradicted by their daily experience? They every day see their friends die, but the day never comes when any one reappears.

Shall we be told that pride cherishes this fond opinion in their breasts? What, is it pride that induces a wretched negro in the West Indies to hang himself, in the hope of returning to his own country, where a second state of slavery awaits him? Other nations, such as the islanders of Otaheite, restrict the hope of this immortality to a renovation of precisely the same life they are going to leave. Ah! the passions present to man far different plans of felicity; the miseries of his existence, and the illumination of his reason, would long ago have destroyed the life that is, had not the hope of a life to come been, in the human breast, the result of a supernatural feeling.

But wherefore is man the only one of the animals subjected to other evils than those of Nature? Wherefore should he have been abandoned to himself, disposed as he is to go astray? He is, therefore, the victim of some malignant being.

It is the province of religion to take us up where philosophy leaves us. The nature of the ills we endure unfolds their origin. If man renders himself unhappy, it is because he would himself be the arbiter of his own felicity. Man is a god in exile. The reign of Saturn, the Golden Age, Pandora's box, from which issued every evil, at the bottom of which hope only remained: a thousand similar allegories, diffused over all nations, attest the felicity and the fall of a first man.

But there is no need to have recourse to foreign testimonies. We carry the most unquestionable evidence in ourselves. The beauties of Nature bear witness to the existence of GOD, and the miseries of man confirm the truths of religion. Animals are lodged, clothed, fed, by the hand of Nature, without care, and almost without labour. Man alone is overwhelmed with calamity. First, he is born naked;

and is possessed of so little instinct, that if his mother were not to rear him for several years he would perish of hunger, heat, or cold. He knows nothing but from the experience of his parents. They must find him a place to lodge, weave garments for him, provide his food for eight or ten years. Encomiums have been passed on certain countries for their fertility and mildness of climate, but I know of none where subsistence of the simplest kind does not cost man solicitude and labour. In India he must be sheltered from heat, from rain, and from insects. He must there cultivate rice, weed, thrash, shell, and dress it. The banana, useful as it is, must be watered and hedged round, to secure it from the wild beasts. Magazines of provisions must be provided during those seasons when the earth produces nothing. When man has thus collected around him every thing necessary to a quiet and comfortable life, ambition, jealousy, avarice, gluttony, incontinency, or langour, take possession of his heart. He perishes, the victim of his own passions. Undoubtedly to have sunk thus below the level of the beasts, man must have aspired at an equality with the DEITY.

Wretched mortals! See your happiness in virtue, and you will have no ground of complaint against Nature. Despise that useless knowledge, those unreasonable prejudices, which have corrupted the earth, and which every age subverts in its turn. Love those laws which are eternal. Your destiny is not abandoned to chance, nor to mischievous demons. Recall those times, the recollection of which is still fresh among all nations. The brute creation everywhere found the means of supporting life; man alone had neither aliment, nor clothing, nor instinct.

Divine Wisdom left man to himself, in order to bring him back to GOD. She scattered her blessings over the earth, that to gather them he might explore every region of it; that he might expand his reason by the inspection of her works, and that he might love her from a sense of benefits. She placed between herself and him harmless pleasures, rapturous discoveries, pure delights, and endless hopes, to lead him to herself through the path of knowledge and happiness. She fenced his way on both sides, by fear, languor, remorse, pain, and all the ills of life, as boundaries destined to prevent him from losing himself. The mother thus scatters fruit along the ground to induce her children to learn to walk;

she keeps at a little distance, smiles, calls, stretches out her arms towards him; but if he happens to fall, she flies to his assistance, wipes away his tears, and comforts him.

Thus Providence relieves man, supplying his wants in a thousand extraordinary ways. What would have become of him in the earliest ages, had he been abandoned to his own reason, still unaided by experience? Where found he corn, a principal part of the food of so many nations, and which the earth, while it spontaneously produces all sorts of plants, nowhere exhibits? Who taught him agriculture, an art so simple that the most stupid of mankind is capable of learning it, and yet so sublime, that the most intelligent of animals can never pretend to practise it? There is scarcely an animal but what supports its life by vegetables, no one but what has daily experience of their reproduction, and does not employ, in quest of those that suit him, many more combinations than would have been necessary for resowing them.

But on what did man himself subsist till an Isis or a Ceres revealed to him this blessing of the skies? Who showed him, in the first ages of the world, the original fruits of the orchard, scattered over the forest, and the alimentary roots concealed in the bosom of the earth? Must he not have died of hunger before he had collected a sufficiency to support life, or perished by poison before he had learned to select, or sunk under fatigue or restlessness before he had formed round his habitation grass-plots and arbours? This art, the image of creation, was reserved for that being alone who bore the impression of the Divinity.

If Providence had abandoned man to himself, on proceeding from the hands of the Creator, what would have become of him? Could he have said to the plains: Ye unknown forests, show me the fruits, my inheritance? Earth, open, and disclose, int he roots buried under thy surface, my destined aliment? Ye plants, on which my life depends, manifest to me your qualities, and supply the instinct which Nature has denied? Could he have had recourse, in his distress, to the compassion of the beasts, and, ready to perish with hunger, have said to the cow: Take me into the number of thy children, and let me share, with thy offspring, the produce of one of thy superfluous teats? When the north wind made him shiver with cold, would the wild goat and timid sheep have run at his call to warm him with their fleeces? Wandering,

without a protector or asylum, when he heard by night the howlings of ferocious animals demanding their prey, could he have made supplication to the generous dog, and said to him: Be thou my defender, and I will make thee my slave? Who could have subjected to his authority so many animals which stood in no need of him, which surpassed him in cunning, in speed, in strength, unless the hand which, notwithstanding his fall, destined him still to empire, had humbled their heads to the obedience of his will?

How was it possible for him, with reason less infallible than their instinct, to raise himself up to the heavens, measure the course of the stars, cross the ocean, call down the thunder, and imitate most of the works and appearances of Nature? We are astonished at these things now; but I am much rather astonished that a sense of Deity should have spoken to his heart long before a comprehension of the works of Nature had perfected his understanding. View him in the state of nature, engaged in perpetual war with the elements, with beasts of prey, with his fellow-creatures, with himself; frequently reduced to situations of subjection no other animal could possibly support; and he is the only being who discovers, in the very depth of misery, the character of infinity, and the restlessness of immortality. He erects trophies, engraves the record of his achievements on the bark of trees, celebrates his funeral obsequies, and puts reverence on the ashes of his forefathers, from whom he has received an inheritance so fatal.

Agitated by the rage of love or vengeance, when he is not the victim of his fellow-men, he is their tyrant: and he alone knows that justice and goodness govern the world, and that virtue exalts man to heaven. He receives from his cradle none of the presents of nature, no soft fleece, no plumage, no defensive armour, no tool, for a life to painful and so laborious; and he is the only being who invites the gods to his birth, to his nuptials, and to his funeral obsequies.

However far he may have been misled by extravagant opinions, as often as he is struck by unexpected bursts of joy or grief, his soul, by an involuntary movement, takes refuge in the bosom of Deity. He cries out: Ah, my GOD! He raises to heaven suppliant hands, and eyes bathed with tears, in hope of there finding a father. Ah! the wants of man bear witness to the providence of a Supreme Being. He has made

man feeble and ignorant, only that he may stay himself on his strength, and illuminate himself by his light; and so far is it from being true, that chance or malignant spirits domineer over a world, where every thing concurred to destroy a creature so wretched, his preservation, his enjoyments, and his empire, demonstrate that, at all times, a beneficent GOD has been the friend and protector of human life.