them to apply with success: even a good book, by touching the heart of a
great prince, may become a very powerful cause that shall necessarily
have an influence over the conduct of a whole people, and decide upon
the felicity of a portion of the human race.

From all that has been advanced in this chapter, it results, that in no
one moment of his existence man is a free agent: he is not the architect
of his own conformation; this he holds from Nature, he has no controul
over his own ideas, or over the modification of his brain; these are due
to causes, that, in despite of him, very frequently without his own
knowledge, unceasingly act upon him; he is not the master of not loving
that which he finds amiable; of not coveting that which appears to him
desirable; he is not capable of refusing to deliberate, when he is
uncertain of the effects certain objects will produce upon him; he
cannot avoid choosing that which he believes will be most advantageous
to him: in the moment when his will is determined by his choice, he is
not competent to act otherwise than he does: in what instance, then, is
he the master of his own actions? In what moment is he a free agent?

That which a man is about to do is always a consequence of that which he
has been--of that which he is--of that which he has done up to the
moment of the action: his total and actual existence, considered under
all its possible circumstances, contains the sum of all the motives to
the action he is about to commit; this is a principle, the truth of
which no thinking, being will be able to refuse accrediting: his life is
a series of necessary moments; his conduct, whether good or bad,
virtuous or vicious, useful or prejudicial, either to himself or to
others, is a concatenation of action, a chain of causes and effects, as
necessary as all the moments of his existence. To _live_, is to exist in
a necessary mode during the points of its duration, which succeed each