st unseasonable piece of
impertinence.'"[223]

There were still more serious circumstances when exasperation at the
flippant tone about him carried him beyond the ordinary bounds of that
polite time. A guest at table asked contemptuously what was the use of a
nation like the French having reason, if they did not use it. "They mock
the other nations of the earth, and yet are the most credulous of all."
ROUSSEAU: "I forgive them for their credulity, but not for condemning
those who are credulous in some other way." Some one said that in
matters of religion everybody was right, but that everybody should
remain in that in which he had been born. ROUSSEAU, with warmth: "Not
so, by God, if it is a bad one, for then it can do nothing but harm."
Then some one contended that religion always did some good, as a kind of
rein to the common people who had no other morality. All the rest cried
out at this in indignant remonstrance, one shrewd person remarking that
the common people had much livelier fear of being hanged than of being
damned. The conversation was broken off for a moment by the hostess
calling out, "After all, one must nourish the tattered affair we call
our body, so ring and let them bring us the joint." This done, the
servants dismissed, and the door shut, the discussion was resumed with
such vehemence by Duclos and Saint Lambert, that, says the lady who
tells us the story, "I feared they were bent on destroying all religion,
and I prayed for some mercy to be shown at any rate to natural
religion." There was not a whit more sympathy for that than for the
rest. Rousseau declared himself _paullo infirmior_, and clung to the
morality of the gospel as the natural morality which in old times
constituted the whole and only creed. "But what is a God," cried one
impetuous disputant, "who gets angry and is appeased again?" Rousseau
began to murmur between grinding teeth, and a tide of pleasantries set
in at his expense, to which came this: "If it is a piece of cowardice to
suffer ill to be spoken of one's friend behind his back, 'tis a crime to
suffer ill to be spoken of one's God, who is present; and for my part,
sirs, I believe in God." "I admit," said the atheistic champion, "that
it is a fine thing to see this God bending his brow to earth and
watching with admiration the conduct of a Cato. But this notion is, like
many others, very useful in some great heads, such as Trajan, Marcus
Aurelius, Socrates, where it can only p