CHAPTER V.

CONDITION OF MAN IN THE UNIVERSE.


The Genius, after some moments of silence, resumed in these words:

I have told thee already, O friend of truth! that man vainly ascribes
his misfortunes to obscure and imaginary agents; in vain he seeks as the
source of his evils mysterious and remote causes. In the general order
of the universe his condition is, doubtless, subject to inconveniences,
and his existence governed by superior powers; but those powers are
neither the decrees of a blind fatality, nor the caprices of whimsical
and fantastic beings. Like the world of which he forms a part, man is
governed by natural laws, regular in their course, uniform in their
effects, immutable in their essence; and those laws,--the common source
of good and evil,--are not written among the distant stars, nor hidden
in codes of mystery; inherent in the nature of terrestrial beings,
interwoven with their existence, at all times and in all places,
they are present to man; they act upon his senses, they warn his
understanding, and give to every action its reward or punishment. Let
man then know these laws! let him comprehend the nature of the elements
which surround him, and also his own nature, and he will know the
regulators of his destiny; he will know the causes of his evils and the
remedies he should apply.

When the hidden power which animates the universe, formed the globe