sing the organ of his thought in devoting
himself to the study of the principal branches of knowledge; who
observes and compares everything he sees and which affects him; who
forgets himself in examining everything he can see, who insensibly
accustoms himself to judge of everything for himself, instead of
giving a blind assent to the authority of others; finally, who,
stimulated by reverses and especially by injustice, quietly rises by
reflection to the causes which have produced all that we observe
both in nature and in human society; then you will appreciate how
enormous is the difference between the intelligence of the two men
in question.

"If Newton, Bacon, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and so many other men have
done honor to the human species by the extent of their intelligence
and their genius, how nearly does the mass of brutish, ignorant men
approach the animal, becoming a prey to the most absurd prejudices
and constantly enslaved by their habits, this mass forming the
majority of all nations?

"Search deeply the facts in the comparison I have just made, you
will see how in one part the organ which serves for acts of thought
is perfected and acquires greater size and power, owing to sustained
and varied exercise, especially if this exercise offers no more
interruptions than are necessary to prevent the exhaustion of its
powers; and, on the other hand, you will perceive how the
circumstances which prevent an individual from exercising this
organ, or from exercising it habitually only while considering a
small number of objects which are always of the same nature, impede
the development of his intellectual faculties.

"After what I have just stated as to the results in man of a slight
exercise of the organ by which he thinks, we shall no longer be
astonished to see that in the nations which have come to be the most
distinguished, because there is among them a small number of men who
have been able, by observation and reflection, to create or advance
the higher sciences, the multitude in these same nations have not
been for all that exempted from the most absurd errors, and have not
the less always been the dupe of impostors and victims of their
prejudices.

"Such is, in fact, the fatality attached to the destiny of man that,
with the exception of a small number of individuals who live under
favorable though special circumstances, the multi