witnessed on the earth, only because every thing conspires to render man
vicious, to make him criminal; very frequently, the superstitions he has
adopted, his government, his education, the examples set before him,
irresistibly drive him on to evil: under these circumstances morality
preaches virtue to him in vain. In those societies where vice is
esteemed, where crime is crowned, where venality is constantly
recompenced, where the most dreadful disorders are punished, only in
those who are too weak to enjoy the privilege of committing them with
impunity; the practice of virtue is considered nothing more than a
painful sacrifice of fancied happiness. Such societies chastise, in the
lower orders, those excesses which they respect in the higher ranks; and
frequently have the injustice to condemn those in penalty of death, whom
public prejudices, maintained by constant example, have rendered
criminal.

Man, then, is not a free agent in any one instant of his life; he is
necessarily guided in each step by those advantages, whether real or
fictitious, that he attaches to the objects by which his passions are
roused: these passions themselves are necessary in a being who,
unceasingly tends towards his own happiness; their energy is necessary,
since that depends on his temperament; his temperament is necessary,
because it depends on the physical elements which enter into his
composition; the modification of this temperament is necessary, as it is
the infallible result, the inevitable consequence of the impulse he
receives from the incessant action of moral and physical beings.

In despite of these proofs of the want of free-agency in man, so clear
to unprejudiced minds, it will, perhaps, be insisted upon with no small
feeling of triumph, that if it be proposed to any one to move or not to
move his hand, an action in the number of those called _indifferent_, he