and
twenty hours. Do you not clearly understand' (adds M. Bayle) 'that their
reason, which had not yet been obscured by sin, would have made them
conclude that they must ask God, as the crowning point of the favours
wherewith he had honoured them, not to permit them to destroy themselves by
an ill use of their powers? And must one not admit that if Adam, through
wrongly making it a point of honour to order his own goings, had refused a
divine direction that would have safeguarded his happiness, he would have
been the prototype of all such as Phaeton and Icarus? He would have been
well-nigh as ungodly as the Ajax of Sophocles, who wished to conquer
without the aid of the gods, and who said that the most craven would put
their enemies to flight with such aid.'

317. M. Bayle also shows (ch. 80) that one congratulates oneself no less,
or even takes more credit to oneself, for having been aided from above,
than for owing one's happiness to one's own choice. And if one does well
through having preferred a tumultuous instinct, which arose suddenly, to
reasons maturely considered, one feels an extraordinary joy in this; for
one assumes that either God, or our Guardian Angel, or something or other
which one pictures to oneself under the vague name of _good luck_ has
impelled us thereto. Indeed, Sulla and Caesar boasted more of their good
luck than of their prudence. The pagans, and particularly the poets (Homer
especially), determined their heroes' acts by divine promptings. The hero
of the _Aeneid_ proceeds only under the direction of a God. It was very
great praise offered to the Emperors if one said that they were victorious
both through their troops and through their gods whom they lent to [318]
their generals: 'Te copias, te consilium et tuos praebente Divos,' said
Horace. The generals fought under the auspices of the Emperors, as if
trusting to the Emperor's good luck, for subordinate officers had no rights
regarding the auspices. One takes credit to oneself for being a favourite
of heaven, one rates oneself more highly for the possession of good fortune
than of talent. There are no people that think themselves more fortunate
than the mystics, who imagine that they keep still while God acts within
them.

318. 'On the other hand', M. Bayle adds (ch. 83), 'a Stoic philosopher, who
attaches to everything an inevitable necessity, is as susceptible as
another man to the pleasure of having chosen well. And every man of sens