(At Geneva, 1st. Dec., 1863.)


GENTLEMEN,

Man has need of God. If he be not fallen into the most abject
degradation, he does not succeed in extinguishing the instinct which
leads him to inquire after his Creator. A false wisdom labors to still
the cravings which the truth alone can satisfy; but false wisdom remains
powerless, and betrays itself continually by some outrageous
contradiction. Here is a curious example of this:

In a book which was famous in the last century, and which was called the
gospel of atheism,[131] the Baron d'Holbach explains as follows the
existence of the universe: "The universe, that vast assemblage of all
that exists, everywhere presents to our view only matter and
motion.--Nature is the grand whole which results from the assemblage of
different material substances, from their different combinations, and
from the different motions which we see in the universe."[132] Here is a
clear doctrine: all that exists, the soul included, is nothing but
matter in motion. I pass from the beginning to the end of the work, and
I arrive at this conclusion: "O nature! sovereign of all beings! and ye,
her adorable daughters, virtue, reason, truth! be ye for ever our sole
divinities; to you it is that the incense and the homage of the earth
are due."[133] If we try to translate this sort of hymn in accordance
with the express definitions of the author, we shall obtain the
following result: "O matter in motion! sovereign of all material
substances in motion! and ye, virtue, reason, truth, who are various
names of matter which moves, be ye the only divinities of that moving