This is the question. Do not allow it to be put out of sight beneath
details of physiology and researches of natural history, which can
neither settle, nor so much as touch the problem. If therefore you fall
in with any one of these philosophers of matter, bid him take this for
all your answer: "There is one fact which stands out against your theory
and suffices to overthrow it: that fact is--myself!" And since, to have
the better of materialism, it is sufficient to understand well what is
one thought of the mind, one throb of the spiritual heart, one utterance
of the conscience,--add boldly with Corneille's Medea:


I,--I say,--and it is enough.


In fact, nature does not explain man, and to this conclusion has tended
all that I have said to you to-day.

FOOTNOTES:

[97] _Harmonices mundi, libri quinque._

[98] _Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica._

[99]

The whole universe is full of His magnificence.
May this God be adored and invoked for ever!

[100] _Le Rationalisme_, page 19.