All this is fairly sensible; but from the time that freedom ceases there
can be no morality, _not even utilitarian_; for it is useless even
from the point of view of his own interests, to preach to a man who is only
a machine moved by the strongest force; and, if he be only that, to lay
down a moral code for him either from the point of view of his own
interests, or from that of morality, or from that of the love of God are
things which are the same and which are as absurd the one as the other. All
philosophy, which does not believe in human liberty, yet which enunciates a
system of morality, is in perpetual contradiction.




PART III

MODERN TIMES



CHAPTER I

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY


Descartes. Cartesianism.


DESCARTES.--The seventeenth century, which was the greatest
philosophic century of modern times and perhaps of any time, began with