modes of action, in their manner of existence. There is not, neither can
there be, two beings, two combinations, which are mathematically and
rigorously the same; because the place, the circumstances, the
relations; the proportions, the modifications, never being exactly
alike, the beings that result can never bear a perfect resemblance to
each other: their modes of action must of necessity vary in something,
even when we believe we find between them the greatest conformity.

In consequence of this principle, which every thing we see conspires to
prove to be a truth, there are not two individuals of the human species
who have precisely the same traits--who think exactly in the same
manner--who view things under the same identical point of sight--who
have decidedly the same ideas; consequently no two of them have
uniformly the same system of conduct. The visible organs of man, as well
as his concealed organs, have indeed some analogy, some common points of
resemblance, some general conformity; which makes them appear, when
viewed in the gross, to be affected in the same manner by certain
causes: but the difference is infinite in the detail. The human soul may
be compared to those instruments, of which the chords, already
diversified in themselves, by the manner in which they have been spun,
are also strung upon different notes: struck by the same impulse, each
chord gives forth the sound that is peculiar to itself; that is to say,
that which depends on its texture, its tension, its volume, on the
momentary state in which it is placed by the circumambient air. It is
this that produces the diversified spectacle, the varied scene, which
the moral world offers to our view: it is from this that results the
striking contrariety that is to be found in the minds, in the faculties,
in the passions, in the energies, in the taste, in the imagination, in
the ideas, in the opinions of man. This diversity is as great as that of
his physical powers: like them it depends on his temperament, which is