them would instantly settle on his arms or his head. The bees, too,
gradually came to put the same trust in him, and his whole life was
surrounded with gentle companionship. He always began the day with the
sun, walking on the high ridge above the slope on which the house lay,
and going through his form of worship. "It did not consist in a vain
moving of the lips, but in a sincere elevation of heart to the author of
the tender nature whose beauties lay spread out before my eyes. This act
passed rather in wonder and contemplation than in requests; and I always
knew that with the dispenser of true blessings, the best means of
obtaining those which are needful for us, is less to ask than to deserve
them."[80] These effusions may be taken for the beginning of the
deistical reaction in the eighteenth century. While the truly scientific
and progressive spirits were occupied in laborious preparation for
adding to human knowledge and systematising it, Rousseau walked with his
head in the clouds among gods, beneficent authors of nature, wise
dispensers of blessings, and the like. "Ah, madam," he once said,
"sometimes in the privacy of my study, with my hands pressed tight over
my eyes or in the darkness of the night, I am of his opinion that there
is no God. But look yonder (pointing with his hand to the sky, with head
erect, and an inspired glance): the rising of the sun, as it scatters
the mists that cover the earth and lays bare the wondrous glittering
scene of nature, disperses at the same moment all cloud from my soul. I
find my faith again, and my God, and my belief in him. I admire and
adore him, and I prostrate myself in his presence."[81] As if that
settled the question affirmatively, any more than the absence of such
theistic emotion in many noble spirits settles it negatively. God became
the highest known formula for sensuous expansion, the synthesis of all
complacent emotions, and Rousseau filled up the measure of his delight
by creating and invoking a Supreme Being to match with fine scenery and
sunny gardens. We shall have a better occasion to mark the attributes of