mind embraces falsehood as it does truth;
and if so, how is it to be enlightened? When prejudice has once seized
the mind, how is it to be dissipated? How shall we remove the bandage
from our eyes, when the first article in every creed, the first dogma in
all religion, is the absolute proscription of doubt, the interdiction of
examination, and the rejection of our own judgment? How is truth to make
herself known?--If she resorts to arguments and proofs, the timid man
stifles the voice of his own conscience; if she invokes the authority
of celestial powers, he opposes it with another authority of the same
origin, with which he is preoccupied; and he treats all innovation as
blasphemy. Thus man in his blindness, has riveted his own chains,
and surrendered himself forever, without defence, to the sport of his
ignorance and his passions.

To dissolve such fatal chains, a miraculous concurrence of happy
events would be necessary. A whole nation, cured of the delirium of
superstition, must be inaccessible to the impulse of fanaticism. Freed
from the yoke of false doctrine, a whole people must impose upon itself
that of true morality and reason. This people should be courageous and
prudent, wise and docile. Each individual, knowing his rights, should
not transgress them. The poor should know how to resist seduction,
and the rich the allurements of avarice. There should be found leaders
disinterested and just, and their tyrants should be seized with a spirit
of madness and folly. This people, recovering its rights, should
feel its inability to exercise them in person, and should name its
representatives. Creator of its magistrates, it should know at once to
respect them and to judge them. In the sudden reform of a whole nation,
accustomed to live by abuses, each individual displaced should bear with
patience his privations, and submit to a change of habits. This nation
should have the courage to conquer its liberty; the power to defend it,
the wisdom to establish it, and the generosity to extend it to others.
And can we ever expect the union of so many circumstances? But suppose
that chance in its infinite combinations should produce them, shall I
see those fortunate days. Will not my ashes long ere then be mouldering
in the tomb?

Here, sunk in sorrow, my oppressed heart no longer found utterance. The
Genius answered not, but I heard him whisper to himself:

Let us revive the hope of this man; for if he who loves his fellow