pend its effects.

LXXXIII.--CONTINUATION.

To take away from man his free will, is, we are told, to make of him a
pure machine, an automaton without liberty; there would exist in him
neither merit nor virtue What is merit in man?

It is a certain manner of acting which renders him estimable in the eyes
of his fellow beings. What is virtue? It is the disposition that causes
us to do good to others. What can there be contemptible in automatic
machines capable of producing such desirable effects? Marcus Aurelius
was a very useful spring to the vast machine of the Roman Empire. By
what right will a machine despise another machine, whose springs would
facilitate its own play? Good people are springs which assist society in
its tendency to happiness; wicked men are badly-formed springs, which
disturb the order, the progress, and harmony of society. If for its own
interests society loves and rewards the good, she hates, despises, and
removes the wicked, as useless or dangerous motors.

LXXXIV.--GOD HIMSELF, IF THERE WAS A GOD, WOULD NOT BE FREE; HENCE THE
USELESSNESS OF ALL RELIGION.

The world is a necessary agent; all the beings which compose it are
united to each other, and can not do otherwise than they do, so long as
they are moved by the same causes and possessed of the same qualities.
If they lose these qualities, they will act necessarily in a different
way. God Himself (admitting His existence a moment) can not be regarded
as a free agent; if there existed a God, His manner of acting would
necessarily be determined by the qualities inherent in His nature;
nothing would be able to alter or to oppose His wishes. This considered,
neither our actions nor our prayers nor our sacrifices could suspend or
change His invariable progress and His immutable designs, from which we
are compelled to conclude that all religion would be entirely useless.

LXXXV.--EVEN ACCORDING TO THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES, MAN IS NOT FREE ONE
INSTANT.

If theologians were not constantly contradicting each other, they would
know, from their own hypotheses, that man can not be called free for an
instant. Is not man supposed to be in a continual dependence upon God?
Is one free, when one could not have existed or can not live without
God, and when one ceases to exist at the pleasure of His supreme will?
If God created man of nothing, if the preservation of man is a continual
creation, if God can not lose sight of His creature for