s an evil. Then say to him: "Here you are,
it seems to me, in contradiction with your system. Everything is right;
the vivacity of my speech therefore is good. All that is has the right
to be; my indignation is therefore a legitimate fact, and it appears to
me that yours cannot be so unless you allow (an admission which would be
contrary to your system) that mine is not so." If you have to do with a
sensible man, he will begin to laugh. If you have met with a blockhead,
he will be more angry than ever. This contradiction comes out in every
page, and in a more serious manner, in the writings of our optimists.
One cannot read them with attention, without meeting incessantly with
the protest of their moral nature against the despotism of a false mode
of reasoning. The man is at every moment making himself heard, the man
who has a heart, a conscience, a reason, and who contradicts the
philosopher without being aware of it. Contradictions these, honorable
to the writer, but dangerous for the reader, because they serve to
invest with brilliant colors doctrines which in themselves are hideous.

No, Gentlemen, it is impossible to succeed in adoring humanity,
preserving the while the least consistency of reasoning. In vain men
wish to accept everything, to tolerate everything; in vain they wish to
impose silence on the inner voice: that voice rebels against the
outrage, and its revolt declares itself in the most manifest
contradictions. The Humanity-God is divided, and the affirmation--
"Everything is right"--will continue false as long as there shall be
upon the earth a single conscience unsilenced, as long as there shall be
in a single heart

. . . . . that mighty hate
Which in pure souls vice ever must create;[153]

that hatred which is nothing else than the indirect manifestation of the
sacred love of goodness.

The doctrine that all is equally good, equally divine, in the
development of humanity, explains nothing, because humanity, torn by a
profound struggle, condemns its own acts, and protests against its
degradations. It cries aloud to itself that there are principles above
facts, a moral law superior to the acts of the will; and all the petty
clamors of a deceitful and deceived philosophy cannot stifle that clear
voice. Not only do these doctrines explain nothing, they do not even
succeed in expressing themselves; language fails them. "Everything is
right and good." What will these words mean