alleviate the hardships of my lodging and entertainment. The
principles of philosophy were associated with the examples of taste;
and by a singular chance, the book, as well as the man, which
contributed the most effectually to my education, has a stronger
claim on my gratitude than on my admiration. Mr. De Crousaz, the
adversary of Bayle and Pope, is not distinguished by lively fancy or
profound reflection; and even in his own country, at the end of a
few years, his name and writings are almost obliterated. But his
philosophy had been formed in the school of Locke, his divinity in
that of Limborch and Le Clerc; in a long and laborious life, several
generations of pupils were taught to think, and even to write; his
lessons rescued the academy of Lausanne from Calvinistic prejudice;
and he had the rare merit of diffusing a more liberal spirit among
the clergy and people of the Pays de Vaud. His system of logic,
which in the last editions has swelled to six tedious and prolix
volumes, may be praised as a clear and methodical abridgment of the
art of reasoning, from our simple ideas to the most complex
operations of the human understanding. This system I studied, and
meditated, and abstracted, till I have obtained the free command of
an universal instrument, which I soon presumed to exercise on my
catholic opinions. Pavilliard was not unmindful that his first
task, his most important duty, was to reclaim me from the errors of
popery. The intermixture of sects has rendered the Swiss clergy
acute and learned on the topics of controversy; and I have some of
his letters in which he celebrates the dexterity of his attack, and
my gradual concessions after a firm and well-managed defence. I was
willing, and I am now willing, to allow him a handsome share of the
honour of my conversion: yet I must observe, that it was principally
effected by my private reflections; and I still remember my solitary
transport at the discovery of a philosophical argument against the