ould not explain
the admirable order of the world. Since a watch suggests a watchmaker
he had firstly to prove that the world is a watch and, then see if the
half-finished arrangement, such as it is and which we have observed,
could not better be explained by a simpler theory, more in conformity
with experience, that of eternal matter in which motion is eternal.
Mobile and active particles, of which the different kinds are in
different states of equilibrium, these are minerals, inorganic
substances, marble, lime, air, water and coal.[3314] I form humus out of
this, "I sow peas, beans and cabbages;" plants find their nourishment
in the humus, and "I find my nourishment in the plants." At every meal,
within me, and through me, inanimate matter becomes animate; "I convert
it into flesh. I animalize it. I render it sensitive." It harbors
latent, imperfect sensibility rendered perfect and made manifest.
Organization is the cause, and life and sensation are the effects; I
need no spiritual monad to account for effects since I am in possession
of the cause. "Look at this egg, with which all schools of theology and
all the temples of the earth can be overthrown. What is this egg? An
inanimate mass previous to the introduction of the germ. And what is it
after the introduction of the germ? An insensible mass, an inert fluid."
Add heat to it, keep it in an oven, and let the operation continue
of itself, and we have a chicken, that is to say, "sensibility, life,
memory, conscience, passions and thought." That which you call soul
is the nervous center in which all sensitive chords concentrate. Their
vibrations produce sensations; a quickened or reviving sensation is
memory; our ideas are the result of sensations, memory and signs.
Matter, accordingly, is not the work of an intelligence, but matter,
through its own arrangement, produces intelligence. Let us fix
intelligence where it is, in the organized body; we must not detach it
from its support to perch it in the sky on an imaginary throne. This
disproportionate conception, once introduced into our minds, ends in
perverting the natural play of our sentiments, and, like a monstrous
parasite, abstracts for itself all our substance.[3315] The first
interest of a sane person is to get rid of it, to discard every
superstition, every "fear of invisible powers."[3316]--Then only can he
establish a moral order of things and distinguish "the natural law." The
sky consisting of empty space,