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The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature by C. F. (Constantin François) Volney
page 108 of 368 (29%)


CHAPTER XIV.

THE GREAT OBSTACLE TO IMPROVEMENT.


The Genius ceased. But preoccupied with melancholy thoughts, my mind
resisted persuasion; fearing, however, to shock him by my resistance, I
remained silent. After a while, turning to me with a look which pierced
my soul, he said:

Thou art silent, and thy heart is agitated with thoughts which it dares
not utter.

At last, troubled and terrified, I replied:

O Genius, pardon my weakness. Doubtless thy mouth can utter nothing but
truth; but thy celestial intelligence can seize its rays, where my gross
faculties can discern nothing but clouds. I confess it; conviction has
not penetrated my soul, and I feared that my doubts might offend thee.

And what is doubt, replied he, that it should be a crime? Can man
feel otherwise than as he is affected? If a truth be palpable, and
of importance in practice, let us pity him that misconceives it.
His punishment will arise from his blindness. If it be uncertain or
equivocal, how is he to find in it what it has not? To believe without
evidence or proof, is an act of ignorance and folly. The credulous
man loses himself in a labyrinth of contradictions; the man of sense
examines and discusses, that he may be consistent in his opinions. The
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