_ De la mauvaise presse consideree comme
excellente.

[155] _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of 15 Feb. 1861, page 854.--_Etudes
critiques sur la litterature contemporaine_, par Edmond Scherer, page x.
et xi.

[156] Sa'nkya--ka'rika', 61 and 64. The text 61 in which occur the words
"Nothing exists" is hard to understand, but there appears to be no doubt
of the meaning of No. 64. _Non sum, non est meum, nec sum ego._

[157] _Etudes critiques sur la litterature contemporaine_, par Edmond
Scherer.--M. Sainte-Beuve, p. 354.

[158] Xavier de Maistre.

[159]

Soyons comme l'oiseau pose pour un instant
Sur des rameaux trop freles,
Qui sent ployer la branche et qui chante pourtant,
Sachant qu'il a des ailes.--VICTOR HUGO.

LECTURE VI.

_THE CREATOR._

(At Geneva, 4th Dec. 1863.--At Lausanne, 27th Jan. 1864.)

GENTLEMEN,

Man is not a simple product of nature; in vain does he labor to degrade
himself by desiring to find the explanation of his spiritual being in
matter brought gradually to perfection. Man is not the summit and
principle of the universe; in vain does he labor to deify himself. He is
great only by reason of the divine rays which inform his heart, his
conscience, and his reason. From the moment that he believes himself to
be the source of light, he passes into night. When thought has risen
from nature up to man, it must needs fall again, if its impetus be not
strong enough to carry it on to God. These assertions do but translate
the great facts of man's intellectual history. "There is no nation so
barbarous," said Cicero,[160] "there are no men so savage as not to
have some tincture of religion. Many there are who form false notions of
the gods; ... but all admit the existence of a divine power and
nature.... Now, in any matter whatever, the consent of all nations is to
be reckoned a law of nature." No discovery has diminished the value of
these words of the Roman orator. In the most degraded portions of human
society, there remains always some vestige of the religious sentiment.
The knowledge of the Creator comes to us from the Christian tradition;
but the idea, more or less vague, of a divine world is found wherever
there are men.

Cicero brings forward this universal consent as a very strong proof of
the existence of the gods. The supporters of atheism dispute the value
of this argument. They say: "General opinion proves nothing. How many
fabulous legends have been set