yalty. How then is it
that nearly the whole world is governed by monarchs? Ask the rats who
proposed to hang a bell round the cat's neck. But in truth, the real
reason is, as has been said, that men are very rarely worthy of
governing themselves.

It is sad that often in order to be a good patriot one is the enemy of
the rest of mankind. To be a good patriot is to wish that one's city may
be enriched by trade, and be powerful by arms. It is clear that one
country cannot gain without another loses, and that it cannot conquer
without making misery. Such then is the human state that to wish for
one's country's greatness is to wish harm to one's neighbours. He who
should wish that his fatherland might never be greater, smaller, richer,
poorer, would be the citizen of the world.

_FINAL CAUSES_

If a clock is not made to tell the hour, I will then admit that final
causes are chimeras; and I shall consider it quite right for people to
call me "_cause-finalier_," that is--an imbecile.

All the pieces of the machine of this world seem, however, made for each
other. A few philosophers affect to mock at the final causes rejected by
Epicurus and Lucretius. It is, it seems to me, at Epicurus and Lucretius
rather that they should mock. They tell you that the eye is not made for
seeing, but that man has availed himself of it for this purpose when he
perceived that eyes could be so used. According to them, the mouth is
not made for speaking, for eating, the stomach for digesting, the heart
for receiving the blood from the veins and for dispatching it through
the arteries, the feet for walking, the ears for hearing. These persons
avow nevertheless that tailors make them coats to clothe them, and
masons houses to lodge them, and they dare deny to nature, to the great
Being, to the universal Intelligence, what they accord to the least of
their workmen.

Of course one must not make an abuse of final causes; we have remarked
that in vain Mr. Prieur, in "The Spectacle of Nature," maintains that
the tides are given to the ocean so that vessels may enter port more
easily, and to stop the water of the sea from putrefying. In vain would
he say that legs are made to be booted, and the nose to wear spectacles.

In order that one may be certain of the true end for which a cause
functions, it is essential that that effect shall exist at all times
and in all places. There were not ships at all times and on all the
seas; hence one cann