on the error that sur

jure it, and lean at last more rounds it, than on the truth itself.

17. It is not only old and early impressions that deceive us the charms of novelty have the same power. Hence arise all the differences among men, who reproach each other, either with following the false impressions of their infancy, or with hastily running after new ones.

Who keeps the golden mean? Let him stand forth and prove it. There is not a single principle, however simply natural, and existing from childhood, that may not be made to appear a false impression, conveyed by instruction or the senses. Because, say they, you have believed from your infancy that a chest was empty when you saw that there was nothing in it, you have assumed that a vacuum is possible. But this is a strong delusion of your senses, confirmed by habit, which science must correct. Others on the contrary say, because you have been taught in the schools, that there is no vacuum in nature, your common sense, which previous to this delusive impression, saw the thing clearly enough, has been corrupted, and must be corrected by a recurrence to the dictates of nature. Now, which is the deceiver here, our senses or our education?

18. All the occupations of men have respect to the obtaining of property; and yet the title by which they possess it, is at first only the whim of the original legislator: and after all, no power that they have, will insure possession. A thousand accidents may rob them of it. It is the same with scientific attainment: Disease takes it away.

19. What are our natural principles, but the result of custom ? In children, they are those which have resulted from the custom of their parents, as the chace in animals.

A different custom would give different natural principles. Experience proves this. And if there are some that custom cannot eradicate, there are some impressions arising from custom, that nature cannot do away. This depends on disposition'.

Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so fiable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself, is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature.

20. If we were to dream every night the same thing, it would probably have as much effect upon us as the objects which we see daily; and if an artisan were sure of dreaming every night for some hours continuance, that he was a king, I think he would be almost as happy as a king, who should dream every night for twelve hours successively, that he was an artisan. If we should dream every night that we are pursued by enemies, and harrassed by distressing phantoms, and that we passed all our days in different occupations, as if we were travelling; we should suffer almost as much as if this were true, and we should' dread to sleep just as much as we dread to awake, when we fear to enter really upon such afflictions. In fact these dreams would be almost as serious an evil, as the reality. But because these dreams are all dif ferent, what we see in them afflicts us much less than what we see when awake, on account of its continuity; -a continuity however, not so equal and uniform that it undergoes no change, but less violently, as in a voyage; and then we say, "I seem to myself to dream ;" or life is a dream a little less variable.

21. We suppose that all men conceive and feel in the same way, the objects that are presented to them: but we suppose this very gratuitously, for we have no proof of it. I see plainly that the same word is used on the same occasion; and that wherever two men see snow, for example, they express their notion of the same object by the same word,-both saying that it is white; and from this agreement of the application of terms, we draw a strong conjecture in favor of a conformity of ideas; but this is not absolutely convincing, though there is good ground for the supposition. 22. When we see an effect regularly recurring, we

conclude that there is a natural necessity for it, as that the sun will rise to-morrow, &c. But in many things nature deceives us, and does not yield a perfect submission to its own laws.

23. Many things that are certain are contrdicted; many that are false pass without contradiction: contradiction is no proof of falsehood, nor universal assent, of truth.

24. The instructed mind discovers that as nature carries the imprint of its author stamped on all things, they all have a certain relation to his two-fold infinity. Thus we see that all the sciences are infinite in the extent to which their researches may be carried.— Who doubts, for instance, that geometry involves in it an infinity of infinities of propositions? It is infinite also in the multitude and the delicacy of its principles; for who does not perceive that any which are proposed as the last, must rest upon themselves, which is absurd; and that in fact they are sustained by others, which have others again for their basis, and must thus eternally exclude the idea of an ultimate proposition.

We see at a glance that arithmetic alone furnishes principles without number, and each science the same.

But if the infinitely small is much less discernible than the infinitely great, philosophers have much more readily pretended to have attained to it; and here all have stumbled. This error has given rise to those terms so commonly in use, as "the principles of things -the principles of of philosophy;" and other simïlar expressions, as conceited, in fact, though not quite so obtrusively so as that insufferably disgusting title, De omni scibili.*

Let us not seek then for assurance and stability. Our reason is perpetually deceived by the variableness of appearances, nothing can fix that which is finite, between the two infinites that enclose it, and fly from it; and when this is well understood, each man will, I

*The title of a thesis maintained at Rome by Jean Pic de la Miranadole. [The author was twenty four years old. A. E.]

believe, remain quietly in the position in which nature has placed him. This medium state, which has fallen to our lot, being always infinitely distant from the extremes, what matters it whether man has or has not a little more knowledge of the things around him? If he has, why then he traces them a degree or two higher. But is he not always infinitely distant from the extremes, and is not the longest human life in finitely short of eternity.

Compared with these infinities, all finite things are equal; and I see no reason why the imagination should Occupy itself with one more than another. Even the least comparison that we institute between ourselves and that which is finite, gives us pain.

25. The sciences have two extremities, which touch each other. The one is that pure natural ignorance in which we are born: the other is that point to which great minds attain, who having gone the whole round of possible human knowledge, find that, they know nothing, and that they end in the same ignorance in which they began. But then this is an intelligent ignorance which knows itself. Out of the many however, who have come forth from their native ignorance, there are some who have not reached this other ex treme; these are strongly tinged with scientific conceit, and set up a claim to be the learned and intelligent. These are the men that disturb the world; and they generally judge more falsely than all others.The crowd and the men of talent generally direct the course of the world; the others despise it and are-despised.

26. We think ourselves much more capable of reaching the centre of things, than of grasping the circumference. The visible expanse of the world, manifestly surpasses us; but as we visibly surpass little things, we think ourselves on a vantage ground for comprehending them; aad yet it does not require less capacity to trace something down to nothing, than upto totality. This capacity, in either case, must be infinite; and it appears, to me that he who can discover

the ultimate principles of things, might reach also to the knowledge of the infinitely great. The one depends on the other; the one leads to the other. These extremities touch and meet in consequence of their very distance. They meet in God, and in God only. If man would begin by studying himself, he would soon see how unable he is to go further. How can a part comprehend the whole? He would aspire probably to know, at least, those parts which are similar in proportion to himself. But all parts of creation have such a relation to each other, and are so intertwined, that I think it is impossible to know one without knowing the other, and even the whole.

Man for instance, has a relation to all that he knows. He needs space to contain him-time for existencemotion that he may live-elements for his substancewarmth aud food to nourish him, and air to breathe. He sees the light, he feels his material body. fact, every thing is allied with him.

In

To understand man, therefore, we must know wherein it is that air is needful for his support; and to understand air, we must trace its relation to human life.

Flame will not live without air; then to comprehend the one, we must comprehend the other also.

Since, then, all things are either caused or causes, assisting or being assisted, mediately or immediately; and all are related to each other by a natural and imperceptible bond which unites together things the most distant and dissimilar; I hold it impossible to know the parts, without knowing the whole, and equally so to know the whole without knowing the parts in detail.

And that which completes our inability to know the essential nature of things is, that they are simple, and that we are a compound of two different and opposing natures, body and spirit; for it is impossible that the portion of us which thinks, can be other than spiritual; and as to the pretence, that we are simply corporeal, that would exclude us still more entirely from the knowledge of things; because there is nothing more inconceivable, than that matter could comprehend itself.