acts or only on appearances, always embrace some truths whose sphere,
whether large or small, affords room for a certain number of inferences,
beyond which we fall into absurdity. The ideas of St. Augustine, for
example, contained the following truths: that bodies fall towards the
earth, that they fall in a straight line, that either the sun or the
earth moves, that either the sky or the earth turns, &c. These general
facts always have been true; our science has added nothing to them. But,
on the other hand, it being necessary to account for every thing, we are
obliged to seek for principles more and more comprehensive: that is why
we have had to abandon successively, first the opinion that the world
was flat, then the theory which regards it as the stationary centre of
the universe, &c.

If we pass now from physical nature to the moral world, we still find
ourselves subject to the same deceptions of appearance, to the same
influences of spontaneity and habit. But the distinguishing feature of
this second division of our knowledge is, on the one hand, the good
or the evil which we derive from our opinions; and, on the other, the
obstinacy with which we defend the prejudice which is tormenting and
killing us.

Whatever theory we embrace in regard to the shape of the earth and the
cause of its weight, the physics of the globe does not suffer; and,
as for us, our social economy can derive therefrom neither profit nor
damage. But it is in us and through us that the laws of our moral nature
work; now, these laws cannot be executed without our deliberate aid,
and, consequently, unless we know them. If, then, our science of moral
laws is false, it is evident that, while desiring our own good, we are
accomplishing our own evil; if it is only incomplete, it may suffice for
a time for our social progress, but in the long run it will lead us
into a wrong road, and will finally precipitate us into an abyss of
calamities.

Then it is that we need to exercise our highest judgments; and, be it
said to our glory, they are never found wanting: but then also commences
a furious struggle between old prejudices and new ideas. Days of
conflagration and anguish! We are told of the time when, with the same
beliefs, with the same institutions, all the world seemed happy: why
complain of these beliefs; why banish these institutions? We are slow to
admit that that happy age served the precise purpose of developing the
principle of evil which