miss fire,
it is owing to their being stamped out by enemies or the envious;
manifestly, they have conspired against him, and against him plots have
never ceased. First came the philosophers' plot: when his treatise on
"Man" was sent to Paris from Amsterdam, "they felt the blow I struck at
their principles and had the book stopped at the custom-house."[3121]
Next came the plot of the doctors: "they ruefully estimated my enormous
gains. Were it necessary, I could prove that they often met together to
consider the best way to destroy my reputation." Finally, came the plot
of the Academicians; "the disgraceful persecution I had to undergo from
the Academy of Sciences for two years, after being satisfied that my
discoveries on Light upset all that it had done for a century, and that
I was quite indifferent about becoming a member of its body.... Would it
be believed that these scientific charlatans succeeded in underrating
my discoveries throughout Europe, in exciting every society
of savants against me, and in closing against me all the
newspapers?"[3122]--Naturally, the would-be-persecuted man defends
himself, that is to say, he attacks. Naturally, as he is the aggressor,
he is repulsed and put down, and, after creating imaginary enemies, he
creates real ones, especially in politics where, on principle, he
daily preaches insurrection and murder. And finally, he is of course
prosecuted, convicted at the Chatelet court, tracked by the police,
obliged to fly and wander from one hiding-place to another; to live like
a bat "in a cellar, underground, in a dark dungeon;"[3123] once, says
his friend Panis, he passed "six weeks sitting on his behind" like
a madman in his cell, face to face with his reveries.--It is not
surprising that, with such a system, the reverie should become more
intense, more and more gloomy, and, at last settle down into a
confirmed nightmare; that, in his distorted brain, objects should appear
distorted; that, even in full daylight men and things should seem awry,
as in a magnifying, dislocating mirror; that, frequently, on the numbers
(of his journal) appearing too blood-thirsty, and his chronic disease
too acute, his physician should bleed him to arrest these attacks and
prevent their return.[3124]

But it has become a habit: henceforth, falsehood grow in his brain as
if it was their native soil; planting himself on the irrational he
cultivates the absurd, even physical and mathematical. "If we include