No More Learning

In fact, religion and morality, as they now stand, compose a practical
code of misery and servitude: the genius of human happiness must tear
every leaf from the accursed book of God ere man can read the
inscription on his heart. How would morality, dressed up in stiff stays
and finery, start from her own disgusting image should she look in the
mirror of nature! --

6. 45, 46:--

To the red and baleful sun
That faintly twinkles there.

The north polar star, to which the axis of the earth, in its present
state of obliquity, points. It is exceedingly probable, from many
considerations, that this obliquity will gradually diminish, until the
equator coincides with the ecliptic: the nights and days will then
become equal on the earth throughout the year, and probably the seasons
also. There is no great extravagance in presuming that the progress of
the perpendicularity of the poles may be as rapid as the progress of
intellect; or that there should be a perfect identity between the moral
and physical improvement of the human species. It is certain that wisdom
is not compatible with disease, and that, in the present state of the
climates of the earth, health, in the true and comprehensive sense of
the word, is out of the reach of civilized man. Astronomy teaches us
that the earth is now in its progress, and that the poles are every year
becoming more and more perpendicular to the ecliptic. The strong
evidence afforded by the history of mythology, and geological
researches, that some event of this nature has taken place already,
affords a strong presumption that this progress is not merely an
oscillation, as has been surmised by some late astronomers. (Laplace,
"Systeme du Monde". )

Bones of animals peculiar to the torrid zone have been found in the
north of Siberia, and on the banks of the river Ohio. Plants have been
found in the fossil state in the interior of Germany, which demand the
present climate of Hindostan for their production. (Cabanis, "Rapports
du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme", volume 2 page 406. ) The researches
of M.
Bailly establish the existence of a people who inhabited a tract
in Tartary 49 degrees north latitude, of greater antiquity than either
the Indians, the Chinese, or the Chaldeans, from whom these nations
derived their sciences and theology. (Bailly, "Lettres sur les Sciences,
a Voltaire". ) We find, from the testimony of ancient writers, that
Britain, Germany, and France were much colder than at present, and that
their great rivers were annually frozen over. Astronomy teaches us also
that since this period the obliquity of the earth's position has been
considerably diminished.

6. 171-173:--

No atom of this turbulence fulfils
A vague and unnecessitated task,
Or acts but as it must and ought to act.

'Deux examples serviront a nous rendre plus sensible le principe qui
vient d'etre pose; nous emprunterons l'un du physique at l'autre du
moral. Dans un tourbillon de poussiere qu'eleve un vent impetueux,
quelque confus qu'il paraisse a nos yeux; dans la plus affreuse tempete
excitee par des vents opposes qui soulevent les flots,--il n'y a pas une
seule molecule de poussiere ou d'eau qui soit placee au HASARD, qui
n'ait sa cause suffisante pour occuper le lieu ou elle se trouve, et qui
n'agisse rigoureusement de la maniere dont ella doit agir. Un geometre
qui connaitrait exactement les differentes forces qui agissent dans ces
deux cas, at las proprietes des molecules qui sent mues, demontrerait
que d'apres des causes donnees, chaque molecule agit precisement comme
ella doit agir, et ne peut agir autrement qu'elle ne fait.

'Dans les convulsions terribles qui agitent quelquefois les societes
politiques, et qui produisent souvent le renversement d'un empire, il
n'y a pas une seule action, une seule parole, une seule pensee, une
seule volonte, une seule passion dans las agens qui concourent a la
revolution comme destructeurs ou comme victimes, qui ne soit necessaire,
qui n'agissa comme ella doit agir, qui n'opere infailliblemont les
effets qu'eile doit operer, suivant la place qu'occupent ces agens dana
ce tourbillon moral. Cela paraitrait evident pour une intelligence qui
sera en etat de saisir et d'apprecier toutes las actions at reactions
des esprits at des corps de ceux qui contribuent a cette
revolution. '--"Systeme de la Nature", volume 1, page 44.

6. 198:--

Necessity! thou mother of the world!

He who asserts the doctrine of Necessity means that, contemplating the
events which compose the moral and material universe, he beholds only an
immense and uninterrupted chain of causes and effects, no one of which
could occupy any other place than it does occupy, or act in any other
place than it does act.