e of being
affected by them.

"But at the same time, by reason of the mobility of these organs as
subject to your will, you may conceive different affections, and find
yourselves in different relations with the same objects; so that you are
to them like a mirror, capable of reflecting them truly as they are, or
of distorting and disfiguring them.

"Hence it follows, that whenever you perceive objects as they are,
you agree among yourselves, and with the objects; and this similitude
between your sensations and their manner of existence, is what
constitutes their truth with respect to you; and, on the contrary,
whenever you differ in opinion, your disagreement is a proof that you do
not represent them such as they are,--that you change them.

"Hence, also, it follows, that the causes of your disagreement exist
not in the objects themselves, but in your minds, in your manner of
perceiving or judging.

"To establish, therefore, a uniformity of opinion, it is necessary first
to establish the certainty, completely verified, that the portraits
which the mind forms are perfectly like the originals; that it reflects
the objects correctly as they exist. Now, this result cannot be obtained
but in those cases where the objects can be brought to the test, and
submitted to the examination of the senses. Everything which cannot
be brought to this trial is, for that reason alone, impossible to be
determined; there exists no rule, no term of comparison, no means of
certainty, respecting it.

"From this we conclude, that, to live in harmony and peace, we must
agree never to decide on such subjects, and to attach to them no
importance; in a word, we must trace a line of distinction between those
that are capable of verification, and those that are not; and separate
by an inviolable barrier the world of fantastical beings from the world
of realities; that is to say, all civil effect must be taken away from
theological and religious opinions.

"This, O ye people of the earth! is the object proposed by a great
nation freed from her fetters and her prejudices; this is the work
which, under her eye and by her orders, we had undertaken, when your
kings and your priests came to interrupt it. O kings and priests! you
may suspend, yet for a while, the solemn publication of the laws of
nature; but it is no longer in your power to annihilate or to subvert
them."

A general shout then arose from every part of the assembly; and the
nations