r source of
demonstration and knowledge concerning it.

"Whence it is obvious that, in order to live in peace and harmony,
we must consent not to pronounce upon such objects, nor annex to them
importance; we must draw a line of demarcation between such as can be
verified and such as cannot, and separate, by an inviolable barrier, the
world of fantastic beings from the world of realities: that is to say,
all civil effect must be taken away from theological and religious
opinions.

"This, O nations! is the end that a great people, freed from their
fetters and prejudices, have proposed to themselves; this is the work
in which, by their command, and under their immediate auspices, we were
engaged, when your kings and your priests came to interrupt our
labors.... Kings and priests! you may yet for awhile suspend the solemn
publication of the laws of nature; but it is no longer in your power to
annihilate or to subvert them."

We conclude with the following:--"Investigate the laws which nature,
for our direction, has implanted in our breasts, and form from thence
an authentic and immutable code. Nor let this code be calculated for one
family, or one nation only, but for the whole with-out exception. Be
the legislators of the human race, as ye are the interpreters of their
common nature. Show us the line that separates the world of chimeras
from that of realities: and each us, after so many religions of error
and delusion, the religion of evidence and truth."

Our space prohibits further quotation in this number; but when we return
to the subject, we shall notice chapter xxi., "Problem of Religious
Contradictions," and also "The Law of Nature; or Principles of
Morality." Few men wrote more on various topics than Volney; and few
have been more respected while living, and esteemed when dead, by those
whose respect and esteem it is always an honor to possess. At the age
of fifty-three, after much travel and great study, Volney consoled his
latter days by marrying his cousin--the hope of his youth--Mdlle. de
Chassebouf. A disorder of the bladder, contracted when traversing the
Arabian deserts, caused his death at the age of sixty-three. He was
buried in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, when Laya, Director of the
French Academy, pronounced a noble panegyric over his grave; and months
after his death he was spoken highly of by some of the most illustrious
men of France. Thus ended the days of one of the Freethinkers of the
past w