ght forward, and would constitute the objection.
The objection would have to be answered--Why has good appeared in the
world? And I would just say in passing, that our libraries are full of
treatises upon the origin of evil, and I have never met with one upon
the origin of good. It appears therefore that reason has always
admitted, by a sort of instinct, the identity of good, and of the
principle of being. Our thesis is that the principle of the universe is
good. We are going to try to demonstrate it. Afterwards the difficulty,
evil, will present itself, of which it will be necessary to seek the
explanation. This will be the natural sequel, and the necessary
complement of the course of lectures which we are concluding to-day.

I pass to another difficulty, another challenge which also has been
addressed to me.

Your object, Christians have said to me, is to establish that the
principle and ground of all things is goodness. This you will not be
able to do without departing from your prescribed plan, and entering
upon the domain of Christian faith properly so called. In your
examination of the universe will you leave out of view Jesus Christ and
His work? Do you not know that it is by means of this work that the idea
of the love of God has been implanted in the world, and that it is
thence you have taken it? Do you think to climb to the loftiest heights
of thought, and to make the ascent by some other road than over the
mountain of Nazareth and the hill of Calvary?

Gentlemen, I declared my whole mind on this subject at first starting.
The complete idea of God demands, for its maintenance, the grand
doctrinal foundations of our faith. Christian in its origin, firm faith
in the love of God the Creator requires for its defence the armor of the
Gospel. But before defending this belief, we must first establish it; we
must show that it has natural roots in human nature. Christianity
purifies and strengthens it, but it does not in an absolute sense create
it. The mark of truth is that it does not strike us as something
absolutely new, but that it finds an echo in the depths of our soul.
When we meet with it, we seem to re-enter into the possession of our
patrimony. The Cross of Jesus Christ is without all contradiction the
most transcendent proof of the mercy of the Creator; but the Cross of
Jesus Christ rather warrants the Christian in believing in the Divine
love than gives him the idea of it. We must distinguish in the Gos