apes all our
senses? Is it honest, is it plain dealing, to solve these difficulties,
by saying there is a mystery in them, that they are the effects of a
power more inconceivable than the human soul, than its mode of acting,
however concealed from our view? When to resolve these problems, man is
obliged to have recourse to miracles, to make the Divinity interfere,
does he not avow his own ignorance? When notwithstanding the ignorance
he is thus obliged to avow by availing himself of the divine agency,
he tells us, this immaterial substance, this soul, shall experience the
action of the element of fire, which he allows to be material; when
he confidently says, this soul shall be burnt; shall suffer in
purgatory--have we not a right to believe, that either he has a design
to deceive us, or else that he does not himself understand that which he
is so anxious we shall take upon his word?"

The ninth chapter, after treating of the diversity of the intellectual
faculties, proceeds, "Man at his birth brings with him into the world
nothing but the necessity of conserving himself, of rendering his
existence happy; instruction, examples, the custom of the world, present
him with the means, either real or imaginary, of achieving it; habit
procures for him the facility of employing these means:"--

"In order that man may become virtuous, it is absolutely requisite that
he should have an interest, that he should find advantages in practicing
virtue. For this end, it is necessary that education should implant in
him reasonable ideas; that public opinion should lean towards virtue, as
the most desirable good; that example should point it out as the object
most worthy of esteem; that government should faithfully recompense,
should regularly reward it; that honor should always accompany its
practice; that vice should constantly be despised; that crime should
invariably be punished. Is virtue in this situation amongst men!
Does the education of man infuse into him just, faithful ideas of
happiness--true notions of virtue---dispositions really favorable to the
beings with whom he is to live? The examples spread before him, are
they suitable to innocence of manners? Are they calculated to make him
respect decency, to cause him to love probity, to practice honesty,
to value good faith, to esteem equity, to revere conjugal fidelity,
to observe exactitude in fulfilling his duties? Religion, which alone
pretends to regulate his manners, does