the hypotheses of monarchy and republicanism, the hypothesis of
Providence! . . . .

A complete criticism of God and humanity.

I point to the programme of the honorable society: it is not I
who have fixed the conditions of my task, it is the Academy of
Moral and Political Sciences. Now, how can I satisfy these
conditions, if I am not myself endowed with infallibility; in
a word, if I am not God or divine? The Academy admits, then,
that divinity and humanity are identical, or at least
correlative; but the question now is in what consists this
correlation: such is the meaning of the problem of certainty,
such is the object of social philosophy.

Thus, then, in the name of the society that God inspires, an
Academy questions.

In the name of the same society, I am one of the prophets who
attempt to answer. The task is an immense one, and I do not
promise to accomplish it: I will go as far as God shall give me
strength. But, whatever I may say, it does not come from me: the
thought which inspires my pen is not personal, and nothing that I
write can be attributed to me. I shall give the facts as I have
seen them; I shall judge them by what I shall have said; I shall
call everything by its strongest name, and no one will take
offence. I shall inquire freely, and by the rules of divination
which I have learned, into the meaning of the divine purpose
which is now expressing itself through the eloquent lips of sages
and the inarticulate wailings of the people: and, though I should