agent; it is only upon his own ignorance that he founds the profound yet
deceitful notion he has of his free-agency, that he builds those
opinions which he brings forward as a striking proof of his pretended
freedom of action. If, for a short time, each man was willing to examine
his own peculiar actions, to search out their true motives, to discover
their concatenation, he would remain convinced that the sentiment he has
of his natural free-agency is a chimera that must speedily be destroyed
by experience.

Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the multiplicity, the
diversity of the causes which continually act upon man, frequently
without even his knowledge, render it impossible, or at least extremely
difficult, for him to recur to the true principles of his own peculiar
actions, much less the actions of others; they frequently depend upon
causes so fugitive, so remote from their effects, and which,
superficially examined, appear to have so little analogy, so slender a
relation with them, that it requires singular sagacity to bring them
into light. This is what renders the study of the moral man a task of
such difficulty; this is the reason why his heart is an abyss, of which
it is frequently impossible for him to fathom the depth. He is, then,
obliged to content himself with a knowledge of the general and necessary
laws by which the human heart is regulated; for the individuals of his
own species these laws are pretty nearly the same, they vary only in
consequence of the organization that is peculiar to each, and of the
modification it undergoes; this, however, is not, cannot be rigorously
the same in any two. It suffices to know that by his essence man tends
to conserve himself, to render his existence happy: this granted,
whatever may be his actions, if he recurs back to this first principle,
to this general, this necessary tendency of his will, he never can be
deceived with regard to his motives. Man, without doubt, for want of