nature. Now I have already shown that we can know well the existence of a thing without knowing its nature.
Let us now speak according to the light of nature.
If there be a God, he is infinitely incomprehensible, since having neither parts nor limits he has no relation to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what he is or if he is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the solution of the question? Not we, who have no relation to him.
Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their faith; those who profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason? They declare in putting it forth to the world that it is a foolishness, _stultitiam_, and then you complain that they do not prove it. Were they to prove it they would not keep their word, it is in lacking proof that they are not lacking in sense.--Yes, but although this excuses those who offer it as such, and takes away from them the blame of putting it forth without reason, it does not excuse those who receive it.--Let us then examine this point, and say "God is, or he is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can determine nothing about it. There is an infinite gulf fixed between us. A game is playing at the extremity of this infinite distance in which heads or tails may turn up. What will you wager? There is no reason for backing either one or the other, you cannot reasonably argue in favour of either.
Do not then accuse of error those who have already chosen, for you know nothing about it.--No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice, for again both the man who calls 'heads' and his adversary are equally to blame, they are both in the wrong; the true course is not to wager at all.-- Yes, but you must wager; this depends not on your will, you are embarked in the affair. Which will you choose? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which least interests you. You have two things to lose, truth and good, and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to avoid, error and misery. Since you must needs choose, your reason is no more wounded in choosing one than the other. Here is one point cleared up, but what of your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in choosing heads that God is. Let us weigh the two cases: if you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
Wager then unhesitatingly that he is.--You are right. Yes, I must wager, but I may stake too much.--Let us see. Since there is an equal chance of gain and loss, if you had only to gain two lives for one, you might still wager. But were there three of them to gain, you would have to play, since needs must that you play, and you would be imprudent, since you must play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where the chances of loss or gain are even. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And that being so, were there an infinity of chances of which one only would be for you, you would still be right to stake one to win two, and you would act foolishly, being obliged to play, did you refuse to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there be one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to win.
But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to win, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite; that is decided. Wherever the infinite exists and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no room for hesitation, you must risk the whole. Thus when a man is forced to play he must renounce reason to keep life, rather than hazard it for infinite gain, which is as likely to happen as the loss of nothingness.
For it is of no avail to say it is uncertain that we gain, and certain that we risk, and that the infinite distance between the certainty of that which is staked and the uncertainty of what we shall gain, equals the finite good which is certainly staked against an uncertain infinite. This is not so. Every gambler stakes a certainty to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a finite certainty against a finite uncertainty without acting unreasonably.
It is false to say there is infinite distance between the certain stake and the uncertain gain. There is in truth an infinity between the certainty of gain and the certainty of loss. But the uncertainty of gain is proportioned to the certainty of the stake, according to the proportion of chances of gain and loss, and if therefore there are as many chances on one side as on the other, the game is even.
And thus the certainty of the venture is equal to the uncertainty of the winnings, so far is it from the truth that there is infinite distance between them. So that our argument is of infinite force, if we stake the finite in a game where there are equal chances of gain and loss, and the infinite is the winnings. This is demonstrable, and if men are capable of any truths, this is one.
I confess and admit it. Yet is there no means of seeing the hands at the game?--Yes, the Scripture and the rest, etc.
--Well, but my hands are tied and my mouth is gagged: I am forced to wager and am not free, none can release me, but I am so made that I cannot believe. What then would you have me do?
True. But understand at least your incapacity to believe, since your reason leads you to belief and yet you cannot believe. Labour then to convince yourself, not by increase of the proofs of God, but by the diminution of your passions. You would fain arrive at faith, but know not the way; you would heal yourself of unbelief, and you ask remedies for it. Learn of those who have been bound as you are, but who now stake all that they possess; these are they who know the way you would follow, who are cured of a disease of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began, by making believe that they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc.
Thus you will naturally be brought to believe, and will lose your acuteness.--But that is just what I fear.--Why? what have you to lose?
But to show you that this is the right way, this it is that will lessen the passions, which are your great obstacles, etc.-- What you say comforts and delights me, etc.--If my words please you, and seem to you cogent, know that they are those of one who has thrown himself on his knees before and after to pray that Being, infinite, and without parts, to whom he submits all his own being, that you also would submit to him all yours, for your own good and for his glory, and that this strength may be in accord with this weakness.
_The end of this argument._--Now what evil will happen to you in taking this side? You will be trustworthy, honourable, humble, grateful, generous, friendly, sincere, and true. In truth you will no longer have those poisoned pleasures, glory and luxury, but you will have other pleasures. I tell you that you will gain in this life, at each step you make in this path you will see so much certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you stake, that you will know at last that you have wagered on a certainty, an infinity, for which you have risked nothing.
_Objection._--Those who hope for salvation are so far happy, but they have as a counterpoise the fear of hell.
_Answer._--Who has most reason to fear hell, the man who is in ignorance if there be a hell, and who is certain of damnation if there be; or he who is certainly convinced that there is a hell, and has a hope of being saved if there be?
"I would soon have given up pleasure," say they, "had I but faith."
But I say to you, "you would soon have faith did you leave off your pleasures. Now it is for you to begin. If I could, I would give you faith. I cannot do this, nor discover therefore if what you say is true. But you can easily give up pleasure, and discover if what I say is true."
_Probabilities._--We must live differently in the world, according to these different suppositions: 1. That we could always remain in it. 2. That it is certain we cannot remain here long, and uncertain if we shall remain here an hour. This last supposition is the case with us.
_Instability._--It is horrible to feel all that we possess slipping away from us.
By the law of probabilities you are bound to take pains to seek the truth; for if you die without adoring the true source of all things you are lost. "But," say you, "had he willed that I should adore him, he would have left me tokens of his will." He has done so, but you neglect them. Seek them then, it is well worth your while.
_Dungeon._--I admit that it is not necessary to fathom the opinion of Copernicus, but this: It is all our life is worth to know if the soul be mortal or immortal.
_Fascinatio nugacitatis._--In order that passion may do no hurt, we should act as though we had but a week to live.
If we ought to give a week we ought to give our whole life.
In short, what is it you promise me if not ten years of self-love spent in trying hard to please without success, besides the troubles which are certain? For ten years is the probability.
Let us imagine a number of men in chains, all condemned to death, of whom some are strangled every day in the sight of the others, while those who remain see their own condition in that of their fellows, and wait their turn looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. This is an image of the lot of man.
We must know ourselves, and if that does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves to regulate our lives, and there is nothing more just.
There are but three classes of persons: those who having found God, serve him; those who not having found him, diligently seek him; those who not having found him, live without seeking him. The first are happy and wise, the last are unhappy and fools, those between are unhappy, but they are wise.
It is certain that there is no good without the knowledge of God, that only as we approach him are we happy, and that the ultimate good is to know him certainly; that we are unhappy in proportion as we are removed from him, and that the greatest evil would be certainty of the opposite.
The ordinary world has the power of not thinking about what it does not choose to think about. "Do not reflect on those passages about the Messiah," said the Jew to his son. So our people often act. Thus false religions are preserved, and the true also, as regards many people.
But there are those who have not thus the power of preventing thought, and who think the more the more we forbid them. These get rid of false religions, and of the true also, if they do not find solid reasons.
If we ought to do nothing save on a certainty, we ought to do nothing for Religion, for this is not certain. But how much we do on an uncertainty, as sea voyages, battles! I say then if this be the case we ought to do nothing at all, for nothing is certain, and that there is more certainty in Religion than that we shall see another day, for it is not certain that we shall see to-morrow, but it is certainly possible that we shall not see it. We cannot say so much about Religion. It is not certain that it is, but who will dare to say that it is certainly possible that it is not? But when we work for to-morrow, therefore for the uncertain, we act reasonably.
For we should work for the uncertain by the doctrine of chances already laid down.
We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart, and it is from this last that we know first principles; and reason, which has nothing to do with it, tries in vain to combat them. The sceptics who desire truth alone labour in vain. We know that we do not dream, although it is impossible to prove it by reason, and this inability shows only the weakness of our reason, and not, as they declare, the general uncertainty of our knowledge. For our knowledge of first principles, as _space_, _time_, _motion_, _number_, is as distinct as any principle derived from reason. And reason must lean necessarily on this instinctive knowledge of the heart, and must found on it every process. We know instinctively that there are three dimensions in space, and that numbers are infinite, and reason then shows that there are no two square numbers one of which is double of the other. We feel principles, we infer propositions, both with certainty, though by different ways. It is as useless and absurd for reason to demand from the heart proofs of first principles before it will admit them, as it would be for the heart to ask from reason a feeling of all the propositions demonstrated before accepting them.
This inability should serve then only to humiliate reason, which would fain judge of all things, but not to shake our certainty, as if only reason were able to instruct us. Would to God, on the contrary, that we never needed reason, and that we knew every thing by instinct and feeling! But nature has denied us this advantage, and has on the contrary given us but little knowledge of this kind, all the rest can be acquired by reason only.
Therefore those to whom God has given Religion by an instinctive feeling, are very blessed, and justly convinced. But to those who have it not we can give it only by reasoning, waiting for the time when God shall impress it on their hearts, without which faith is human only, and useless for salvation.
Those to whom God has given Religion by an instinctive feeling are very blessed, and quite convinced. But as for those who have it not, we can give it them only by reasoning, waiting for the time when God himself shall impress it on their heart, without which faith is useless for salvation.
Is then the soul too noble a subject for the feeble light of man? Let us then abase the soul to matter, and see if she knows whereof is made the very body which she animates, and those others which she contemplates and moves at her will. On this subject what have those great dogmatists known who are ignorant of nothing?
This would no doubt suffice if reason were reasonable. She is reasonable enough to admit that she has never found anything stable, but she does not yet despair of reaching it; on the contrary, she is as ardent as ever in the search, and is sure that she has in herself all the necessary powers for this conquest.
We must therefore make an end, and after having examined these powers in their effects, recognise what they are in themselves, and see if reason has power and grasp capable of seizing the truth.
The Preacher shows that man without God is wholly ignorant, and subject to inevitable misery. For to will and to be powerless is to be miserable. Now he wills to be happy, and to be assured of some truth, yet he can neither know, nor not desire to know. He cannot even doubt.
This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and see nothing but obscurity, nature offers me nothing but matter for doubt and disquiet. Did I see nothing there which marked a Divinity I should decide not to believe in him. Did I see every where the marks of a Creator, I should rest peacefully in faith. But seeing too much to deny, and too little to affirm, my state is pitiful, and I have a hundred times wished that if God upheld nature, he would mark the fact unequivocally, but that if the signs which she gives of a God are fallacious, she would wholly suppress them, that she would either say all or say nothing, that I might see what part I should take.
Instead of this, in my present state, ignorant of what I am, and of what I ought to do, I know neither my condition nor my duty. My heart is wholly bent to know where is the true good in order to follow it, nothing would seem to me too costly for eternity.
_THE PHILOSOPHERS._ The principal arguments of the sceptics--to omit those of less importance--are that we have no certainty of the truth of these principles apart from faith and revelation, save so far as we naturally perceive them in ourselves. Now this natural perception is no convincing evidence of their truth, since, having no certainty apart from faith, whether man was created by a good God, by an evil demon, or by chance, it may be doubted whether these principles within us are true or false or uncertain according to our origin.
And more than this: That no one has any certainty, apart from faith, whether he wake or sleep, seeing that in sleep we firmly believe we are awake, we believe that we see space, figure, and motion, we are aware of the lapse and measure of time; in a word we act as though we were awake. So that half of our life being passed in sleep, we have by our own avowal, no idea of truth, whatever we may suppose. Since then all our sentiments are illusions, who can tell but that the other half of life wherein we fancy ourselves awake be not another sleep somewhat different from the former, from which we wake when we fancy ourselves asleep?
And who doubts that if we dreamt in company, and if by chance men's dreams agreed, which is common enough, and if we were always alone when awake, we should believe that the conditions were reversed?
In a word, as we often dream that we dream, and heap vision upon vision, it may well be that this life itself is but a dream, on which the others are grafted, from which we wake at death; having in our lifetime as few principles of what is good and true, as during natural sleep, the different thoughts which agitate us being perhaps only illusions like those of the flight of time and the vain fantasies of our dreams...These are the principal arguments on one side and the other, setting aside those of less importance, such as the talk of the sceptics against the impressions of custom, education, manners, climate, and the like; and these though they influence the majority of ordinary men, who dogmatise only on vain foundations, are upset by the least breath of the sceptics. We have only to see their books if we are not convinced on this point, and we shall soon become assured of it, perhaps only too much.
I pause at the only strong point of the dogmatists, namely, that speaking sincerely and in good faith we cannot doubt of natural principles.
Against this the sceptics set in one word the uncertainty of our origin, which includes that of our nature. Which the dogmatists have been trying to answer ever since the world began.
So then war is opened among men, in which each must take a side, ranging himself either for dogmatism or for scepticism, since neutrality, which is the part of the wise, is the oldest dogma of the sceptical sect. Whoever thinks to remain neutral is before all things a sceptic. This neutrality is the essence of the sect; who is not against them is pre-eminently for them. They are not for themselves, they are neutral, indifferent, in suspense as to all things, themselves included.
What then shall man do in such a state? Shall he doubt of all, doubt whether he wake, whether you pinch him, or burn him, doubt whether he doubts, doubt whether he is? We cannot go so far as that, and I therefore state as a fact that there never has been a perfect finished sceptic; nature upholds the weakness of reason, and prevents its wandering to such a point.
Shall he say on the contrary that he is in sure possession of truth, when if we press him never so little, he can produce no title, and is obliged to quit his hold?
What a chimæra then is man! how strange and monstrous! a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy. Judge of all things, yet a weak earth-worm; depositary of truth, yet a cesspool of uncertainty and error; the glory and offscouring of the Universe.
Who will unravel such a tangle? This is certainly beyond the power of dogmatism and scepticism, and all human philosophy. Man is incomprehensible by man. We grant to the sceptics what they have so loudly asserted, that truth is not within our reach nor to our taste, that her home is not on earth but in heaven, that she dwells within the breast of God, and that we can only know her so far as it pleases him to reveal her. Let us then learn our true nature from truth uncreate and incarnate.
Nature confounds the sceptics, and reason the dogmatists. What then will become of you, O men! who by your natural reason search out your true condition? You can neither avoid both these sects nor live in either.
Know then, proud man, how great a paradox thou art to thyself. Bow down thyself, weak reason; be silent, thou foolish nature; learn that man is altogether incomprehensible by man, and learn from your master your true condition which you ignore. Hear God.
For in a word, had man never been corrupt he would innocently and securely enjoy truth and happiness. And had man never been other than corrupt he would have no idea of virtue or blessedness. But wretched as we are, and even more than if there were no greatness in our condition, we have an idea of happiness and cannot attain it, we feel an image of truth and possess a lie only, alike incapable of absolute ignorance and of certain knowledge, so manifest is it that we once were in a degree of perfection from which we have unhappily fallen!
Yet it is an astonishing thing that the mystery most removed from our knowledge, that of the transmission of sin, should be a thing without which we can have no knowledge of ourselves. For it is certain that nothing more shocks our reason than to say that the sin of the first man rendered those culpable, who, being so distant from the source, seem incapable of participation in it. This transfusion does not only seem to us impossible, but even most unjust, for there is nothing so repugnant to the rules of our miserable justice as to damn eternally an infant incapable of will, for a sin in which he seems to have so scanty a share, that it was committed six thousand years before he was in being. Certainly nothing shocks us more rudely than this doctrine, and yet without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves. The tangle of our condition takes its plies and folds in this abyss, so that man is more inconceivable without the mystery than the mystery is inconceivable to man.
Whence it appears that God, willing to render the difficulty of our being unintelligible to us, has concealed the knot so high, or rather so low, that we cannot reach it; so that it is not by the arrogant exertion of our reason, but by the simple submission of reason, that we can truly know ourselves.
These foundations solidly established on the inviolable authority of Religion make us understand that there are two truths of faith equally constant--the one, that man in his state at creation or in that of grace is elevated above the whole of nature, made like unto God and sharer of his divinity--the other, that in the state of corruption and sin he has fallen from his former state and is made like unto the brutes. These two propositions are equally fixed and certain. The Scripture declares this plainly to us when it says in some places: _Deliciæ meæ esse cum filiis hominum. Effundam spiritum meum super omnen carnem. Dii estis, etc.;_ and in other places, _Omnis caro fænum. Homo assimilatus est jumentis insipientibus et similis factus est illis. Dixi in corde meo de filiis hominum_...Eccles. iii.
By which it clearly appears that man by grace is made like unto God, and a sharer in his divinity, and that without grace he is like the brute beasts, etc.
_Scepticism._--I shall here write my thoughts without order, yet not perhaps in undesigned confusion, that is true order, which will always denote my object by its very disorder.
I should do too much honour to my subject if I treated it with order, because I wish to show that it is incapable of it.
_Scepticism._--All things here are true in part, and false in part.
Essential truth is not thus, it is altogether pure and true. This mixture dishonours and annihilates it. Nothing is purely true, and therefore nothing is true, understanding by that pure truth. You will say it is true that homicide is an evil, yes, for we know well what is evil and false. But what can be named as good? Chastity? I say no, for then the world would come to an end. Marriage? No, a celibate life is better. Not to kill? No, for lawlessness would be horrible, and the wicked would kill all the good. To kill then? No, for that destroys nature. Goodness and truth are therefore only partial, and mixed with what is evil and false.
Were we to dream the same thing every night, this would affect us as much as the objects we see every day, and were an artisan sure to dream every night, for twelve hours at a stretch, that he was a king, I think he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream every night for twelve hours at a stretch that he was an artisan.
Should we dream every night that we were pursued by enemies, and harassed by these painful phantoms, or that we were passing all our days in various occupations, as in travelling, we should suffer almost as much as if the dream were real, and should fear to sleep, as now we fear to wake when we expect in truth to enter on such misfortunes. And, in fact, it would bring about nearly the same troubles as the reality.
But since dreams are all different, and each single dream is diversified, what we see in them affects us much less than what we see when awake, because that is continuous, not indeed so continuous and level as never to change, but the change is less abrupt, except occasionally, as when we travel, and then we say, "I think I am dreaming," for life is but a little less inconstant dream.
_Instinct, reason._--We have an incapacity of proof which no dogmatism can overcome. We have an idea of truth, which no scepticism can overcome.
Nothing more strengthens scepticism than that some are not sceptics; were all so, they would be in the wrong.
This sect draw their strength from their enemies more than from their friends, for the weakness of man appears much more in those who are not, than in those who are conscious of it.
_Against scepticism._--We suppose that we all conceive of things in the same way, but it is a gratuitous supposition, of which we have no proof. I see indeed that the same words are applied on the same occasions, and that every time two men see a body change its place, they both express their view of the same object by the same word, both saying that it has moved, and from this sameness of application we have a strong conviction of a sameness of idea; but this, though it may be enough to justify us in wagering the affirmative, is not finally or completely convincing, since we know that we often draw the same conclusions from different premisses.
This is enough, at any rate, to confuse the matter, not that it wholly extinguishes the natural light which assures us of these things; the academicians would have won, but this obscures it, and troubles the dogmatists to the glory of the sceptical cabal, which consists in this ambiguous ambiguity, and in a certain doubtful haze, from which our doubts cannot take away all the light, nor our natural light banish all the darkness.
_Good sense._--They are obliged to say, "You do not act in good faith; we are not asleep," etc. How I like to see this proud reason humiliated and suppliant. For this is not the language of a man whose right is disputed, and who defends it with the mailed power of his hand. He does not trifle by saying that men are not acting in good faith, but he punishes this bad faith with might.
It may be that there are true demonstrations, but it is not certain.
Thus this proves nothing but that it is not certain that all is uncertain, to the glory of scepticism.
_Ex senatus consultis et plebiscitis scelera exercentur._ _Nihil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum. Quibusdam destinatis sententiis consecrati quæ non probant coguntur defendere._ _Ut omnium rerum sic litterarum quoque intemperantiâ laboramus._ _Id maxime quemque decet quod est cujusque suum maxime._ _Hos natura modos primum dedit._ _Paucis opus est litteris ad bonam mentem._ _Si quando turpe non sit, tamen non est non turpe quum id a multitudine laudetur._ _Mihi sic usus est, tibi ut opus est facto, fac._ The falsity of those philosophers who do not discuss the immortality of the soul. The falsity of their dilemma in Montaigne.
It is beyond doubt that the mortality or immortality of the soul must make an entire difference in morals; yet philosophers have treated morality independently of the question. They discuss to pass the time.
Plato, to dispose towards Christianity.
The soul is immaterial. Philosophers have subdued their passions.
What matter could do that?
Atheists should say things which are perfectly clear, but it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material.
Atheism is a mark of strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
_Against those philosophers who believe in God without Jesus Christ._--They believe that God alone is worthy to be loved and admired, and they have desired to be loved and admired of men, and know not their own corruption. If they feel themselves full of feelings of love and adoration, and if they find therein their chief joy, let them think themselves good, and welcome! But if they find themselves averse from him, if they have no inclination but the wish to establish themselves in the esteem of men, and if their whole perfection consists not in constraining, but yet in causing men to find their happiness in loving them, I say that such a perfection is horrible. What! they have known God, and have not desired solely that men should love him, but that men should stop short at loving them.
They have wished to be the object of the voluntary joy of men.
All the principles of sceptics, stoics, atheists, etc. are true; but their conclusions are false, because the opposite principles are also true.
But perhaps the subject goes beyond the reach of reason. We will therefore examine what she has to say on questions within her powers.
If there be anything to which her own interest must have made her apply herself most seriously, it is the search after her sovereign good. Let us see then in what these strong and clearsighted souls have placed it, and whether they agree.
One says that the sovereign good consists in virtue, another in pleasure, another in the knowledge of nature, another in truth: _Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas_, another in total ignorance, another in indolence, others in neglect of appearances, another in the lack of wonder, _nihil mirari prope res una quæ possit facere et servare beatum_, the true sceptics in their indifference, doubt and perpetual suspense, and others, more wise, think they can find a better way. And this is all we get from them!
We must needs see if this fine philosophy has gained nothing certain from a research so lengthy and so wide, at least perhaps the soul has learned to know herself. We will hear the rulers of the world on this matter. What have they thought of her substance?
Have they been more happy in fixing her seat?
What have they discovered about her origin, duration and departure?
_Search for the true good._--Ordinary men place their good in fortune and external goods, or at least in amusement. Philosophers have shown the vanity of all this, and have placed it where best they could.
Philosophers reckon two hundred and eighty-eight sovereign goods.
_The sovereign good. Dispute about the sovereign good._--_Ut sis contentus temetipso et ex te nascentibus bonis._ There is a contradiction, for finally they advise suicide. Ah! happy life indeed, from which we are to free ourselves as from the plague.
It is well to be weary and harassed by the useless search after the true good, that we may stretch our arms to the Redeemer.
_Conversation._--Great words: Religion. I deny it.
_Conversation._--Scepticism aids Religion.
_Philosophers._--We are full of matters which take us out of ourselves.
Our instinct suggests that we must seek our happiness outside ourselves; our passions hurry us abroad, even when there are no objects to excite them. The objects outside us tempt and call us, even when we do not think of them. And thus it is in vain for philosophers to say, "Enter into yourselves, and you will find your good there;" we believe them not, and those who believe them are the most empty and the most foolish.
This civil war between reason and passion divides those who desire peace into two sects, the one, of those who would renounce their passions and become gods, the other, of those who would renounce their reason and become brute beasts.--Des Barreaux.--But neither has succeeded, and reason still exists, to condemn the baseness and injustice of the passions, and to trouble the repose of those who give themselves over to their sway, and the passions are still vigorous in those who desire to renounce them.
_The Stoics._--They conclude that what has been done once may be done always, and that because the desire of glory gives some degree of power to those possessed by it, others can easily do the same.
These are the movements of fever, which health cannot imitate.
Epictetus concludes that since there are consistent Christians all men can easily be so.
The three kinds of lust have made three sects, and philosophers have done no other thing than follow one of the three lusts.
What the Stoics propose is so difficult and so idle.
The Stoics lay down that all who are not at the highest degree of wisdom are equally frivolous and vicious, as those who are in two inches under water..._Philosophers._--A fine thing to cry to a man who does not know himself, that of himself he should come to God. And a fine thing also to say to a man who knows himself.
_THOUGHTS ON MAHOMET AND ON CHINA._ Jesus Christ.
Heathens. | Mahomet.
_The foundation of our faith._--The heathen religion has no foundation at the present day. We are told that it once had such a foundation by the voice of the oracles, but what are the books which certify this? Are they worthy of credence on account of the virtue of their writers, have they been kept with such care that we may feel certain none have tampered with them?
The Mahomedan religion has for its foundation the Koran and Mahomet.
But was this prophet, who was to be the last hope of the world, foretold? What mark has he that every other man has not who chooses to call himself prophet? What miracles does he himself tell us that he wrought? What mystery has he taught? Even according to his own tradition, what was the morality, what the happiness he offered?
The Jewish religion must be differently regarded in the tradition of the sacred books and in the tradition of the people. Its morality and happiness are ridiculous in the tradition of the people, but admirable in that of their saints. The foundation is admirable, it is the most ancient book in the world, and the most authentic, and whereas Mahomet, in order to ensure the lasting existence of his