space, several independent beings, each absolute master of its own
portion, than two limited gods in this world, one confined to doing
good, the other to doing evil. If God and matter both exist from
eternity, "here are two necessary entities; and if there be two there
may be thirty. We must confess our ignorance of the nature of
divinity."

It is noticeable that, like most men on whom the idea of God does not
take a very strong hold, Voltaire imagined powers in some respects
superior to Deity. Thus he says above that nature can more easily
suffer several independent gods than two opposed ones. Having supposed
one or several gods to put the universe in order, he supposes an order
anterior to the gods. This idea of a superior order, Fate, Necessity,
or Nature, is a very old one. It is probably the protest of the human
mind against those anthropomorphic conceptions of God, from which it
is almost incapable of escaping. Voltaire and the Philosophers almost
without exception believed that there was a system of natural law and
justice connected with this superior order, taught to man by instinct.
Sometimes in their system God was placed above this law, as its
origin; sometimes, as we have seen, He was conceived as subjected to
Nature. "God has given us a principle or universal reason," says
Voltaire, "as He has given feathers to birds and fur to bears; and
this principle is so lasting that it exists in spite of all the
passions which combat it, in spite of the tyrants who would drown it
in blood, in spite of the impostors who would annihilate it in
superstition. Therefore the rudest nation always judges very well in
the long run concerning the laws that govern it; because it feels that
these laws either agree or disagree with the principles of pity and
justice which are in its heart." Here we have something which seems
like an innate idea of virtue. But we must not expect complete