Science, expressed, recognized, and accepted by the voice of all
as divine, is queen of the world. Thus, thanks to the hypothesis
of God, all conservative or retrogressive opposition, every
dilatory plea offered by theology, tradition, or selfishness,
finds itself peremptorily and irrevocably set aside.

I need the hypothesis of God to show the tie which unites
civilization with Nature.

In fact, this astonishing hypothesis, by which man is assimilated
to the absolute, implying identity of the laws of Nature and the
laws of reason, enables us to see in human industry the
complement of creative action, unites man with the globe which he
inhabits, and, in the cultivation of the domain in which
Providence has placed us, which thus becomes in part our work,
gives us a conception of the principle and end of all things.
If, then, humanity is not God, it is a continuation of God; or,
if a different phraseology be preferred, that which humanity does
today by design is the same thing that it began by instinct, and
which Nature seems to accomplish by necessity. In all these
cases, and whichever opinion we may choose, one thing remains
certain: the unity of action and law. Intelligent beings, actors
in an intelligently-devised fable, we may fearlessly reason from
ourselves to the universe and the eternal; and, when we shall
have completed the organization of labor, may say with pride, The
creation is explained.

Thus philosophy's field of exploration is fixed; tradition is the
starting-point of all speculation as to the future; utopia is