the believer, because there is no other; not knowing whether my
formulas, theological in spite of me, would be taken literally or
figuratively; in this perpetual contemplation of God, man, and
things, obliged to submit to the synonymy of all the terms
included in the three categories of thought, speech, and
action, but wishing to affirm nothing on either one side or the
other,--rigorous logic demanded that I should suppose, no more,
no less, this unknown that is called God. We are full of
Divinity, Jovis omnia plena; our monuments, our traditions, our
laws, our ideas, our languages, and our sciences, all are
infected by this indelible superstition outside of which we can
neither speak nor act, and without which we do not even think.

Finally, I need the hypothesis of God to explain the publication
of these new memoirs.

Our society feels itself big with events, and is anxious about
the future: how account for these vague presentiments by the sole
aid of a universal reason, immanent if you will, and permanent,
but impersonal, and therefore dumb, or by the idea of necessity,
if it implies that necessity is self-conscious, and consequently
has presentiments? There remains then, once more, an agent or
nightmare which weighs upon society, and gives it visions.

Now, when society prophesies, it puts questions in the mouths of
some, and answers in the mouths of others. And wise, then, he
who can listen and understand; for God himself has spoken, quia
locutus est Deus.

The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences has proposed the