the countries over which she has any power. Perhaps,
having "felt the weight of too much liberty" in his own Church, the
excellent author, fundamentally sound in his own views of Christian
doctrine, as is proved abundantly by his writings, has been led by a
natural reaction to give too much weight to the opposite principle of
authority. The concluding pages of his former work, _La Vie Eternelle_,
indicate a mind too painfully and sensitively averse to all controversy
with a corrupt Church, in consideration of the acknowledged excellences
of many of her individual members,--her Pascals, Fenelons, Martin Boos,
Girards, Gratrys, and Lacordaires.--_Translator_.

[86] _De l'autre rive_ (in Russian).

[87] _De l'autre rive_. v. Consolatio.--This chapter is a dialogue
between a lady and a doctor. I have considered the doctor as expressing
the thoughts of the writer. The form of dialogue, however, always allows
an author to express his thoughts, while declining, if need be, the
responsibility of them.

[88] _Le Rationalisme_, par Ausonio Franchi, page 19.--_Force et
matiere_, par le docteur Buechner, page 262.--_Paroles de philosophie
positive_, par Littre, page 36.--_La Metaphysique et la Science_, par
Vacherot, page xiv. (Premiere edition.)

[89] Ps. xiv. 1.

[90] De Natura Deorum.

[91] Nil audet magnum qui putat esse Deos.

[92] See Bossuet: _Sermon sur la dignite de la religion_.

[93] Gen. xlvii. 9.

[94]

Quand tous les biens que l'homme envie
Deborderaient dans un seul coeur,
La mort seule au bout de la vie
Fait un supplice du bonheur.

[95] Pascal.

[96]

Reconnaissez, _Messieurs_, a ces traits eclatants,
Un Dieu tel aujourd'hui qu'il fut dans tous les temps.
Il sait, quand il lui plait, faire eclater sa gloire,
Et son peuple est toujours present a sa memoire.

LECTURE IV.

_NATURE._

(At Geneva, 27th Nov. 1863.--At Lausanne, 25th Jan. 1864.)

GENTLEMEN,

The thoughts of man are numberless; and still, in their indefinite
variety, they never relate but to one or another of these three objects:
nature, or the world of material substances, which are revealed to our
senses; created spirits, similar or superior to that spirit which is
ourselves; and finally God, the Infinite Being, the universal Creator.
Therefore there are two sorts of atheism, and there are only two. The
mind stops at nature, and endeavors to find in material substances the
univer