cause of these different manners of being, I discovered that, in a great
measure they depended on the anterior impressions of external objects;
and that, continually modified by our senses and organs, we, without
knowing it, bore in our ideas, sentiments, and even actions, the effect
of these modifications. The striking and numerous observations I had
collected were beyond all manner of dispute, and by their natural
principle seemed proper to furnish an exterior regimen, which varied
according to circumstances, might place and support the mind in the state
most favorable to virtue. From how many mistakes would reason be
preserved, how many vices would be stifled in their birth, were it
possible to force animal economy to favor moral order, which it so
frequently disturbs! Climate, seasons, sounds, colors, light, darkness,
the elements, ailments, noise, silence, motion, rest, all act on the
animal machine, and consequently on the mind: all offer a thousand means,
almost certain of directing in their origin the sentiments by which we
suffer ourselves to be governed. Such was the fundamental idea of which
I had already made a sketch upon paper, and whence I hoped for an effect
the more certain, in favor of persons well disposed, who, sincerely
loving virtue, were afraid of their own weakness, as it appeared to me
easy to make of it a book as agreeable to read as it was to compose.
I have, however, applied myself but very little to this work, the title
of which was to have been 'Morale Sensitive' ou le Materialisme du Sage.
--[Sensitive Morality, or the Materialism of the Sage.]--Interruptions,
the cause of which will soon appear, prevented me from continuing it, and
the fate of the sketch, which is more connected with my own than it may
appear to be, will hereafter be seen.

Besides this, I had for some time meditated a system of education, of
which Madam de Chenonceaux, alarmed for her son by that of her husband,
had desired me to consider. The authority of friendship placed this
object, although less in itself to my taste, nearer to my heart than any
other. On which account this subject, of all those of which I have just
spoken, is the only one I carried to its utmost extent. The end I
proposed to myself in treating of it should, I think, have procured the
author a better fate. But I will not here anticipate this melancholy
subject. I shall have too much reason to speak of it in the course of my
work.

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