recount all the proofs of the infinite Being would require an eternal
discourse. We have stammered forth a few of the words of this endless
discourse, by showing that, without God, the understanding, the
conscience, and the heart lose their support and fall: this formed the
subject of our second lecture. We saw further that reason makes
fruitless attempts to find the universal principle in the objects of our
experience--nature and humanity. Let us follow up, although we shall not
be able to complete it, the study of this inexhaustible subject, by
showing that the idea of the Creator alone answers to the demands of the
philosophic reason.

Philosophy, in the highest acceptation of the term, is the search after
a solution for the universal problem the terms of which may be stated as
follows: Experience reveals to us that the world is composed of manifold
and diverse beings; and, to come at once to the great division, there
are in the world bodies which we are forced to suppose inert, and minds
which we feel to be intelligent and free. The universe is made up of
manifold existences; this is quite evident, and a matter of experience.
Reason on the other hand forces us to seek for unity. To comprehend, is
to reduce phenomena to their laws, to connect effects with their
causes, consequences with their principles; it is to be always
introducing unity into the diversity. All development of science would
be at once arrested, if the mind could content itself with merely taking
account of facts in the state of dispersion in which they are presented
by experience. Each particular science gathers up a multitude of facts
into a small number of formulæ; and, above and beyond particular
sciences, reason searches for the connection of all things with one
single cause. To determine the relation of all particular existences
with one existence which is their common cause; such is the universal
problem. This problem has been very well expressed by Pythagoras in a