itself to the amusement of some individuals who have not correspondent
ideas, similar modes of feeling, wants analogous to his own, he either
disdains, or else calls them _barren_.

It is according to this standard, that the principles laid down in this
work, ought to be judged. Those who are acquainted with the immense
chain of mischief produced on the earth by erroneous systems of
superstition, will acknowledge the importance of opposing to them
systems more accordant with truth, schemes drawn from Nature, sciences
founded on experience. Those who are, or believe they are, interested in
maintaining the established errors, will contemplate, with horror, the
truths here presented to them: in short, those infatuated mortals, who
do not feel, or who only feel very faintly, the enormous load of misery
brought upon mankind by metaphysical speculation; the heavy yoke of
slavery under which prejudice makes him groan, will regard all our
principles as useless; or, at most, as sterile truths, calculated to
amuse the idle hours of a few speculators.

No astonishment, therefore, need be excited at the various judgments
formed by man: his interests never being the same, any more than his
notions of utility, he condemns or disdains every thing that does not
accord with his own peculiar ideas. This granted, let us examine, if in
the eyes of the disinterested man, who is not entangled by prejudice--
who is sensible to the happiness of his species--who delights in truth--
the _doctrine of fatalism_ be useful or dangerous? Let us see if it is a
barren speculation, that his not any influence upon the felicity of the
human race? At has been already shewn, that it will furnish morals with
efficacious arguments, with real motives to determine the will, supply
politics with the true lever to raise the proper activity in the mind of
man. It will also be seen that it serves to explain in a simple manner