an you _will_ a single action,
however simple, independent of your organization,--independent of
the organization of others,--independent of the order of things
past,--independent of the order of things to come? You cannot. But if
not independent, you are dependent; if dependent, where is your liberty?
where your freedom of will? Education disposes our characters: can you
control your own education, begun at the hour of birth? You cannot. Our
character, joined to the conduct of others, disposes of our happiness,
our sorrow, our crime, our virtue. Can you control your character?
We have already seen that you cannot. Can you control the conduct of
others,--others perhaps whom you have never seen, but who may ruin
you at a word; a despot, for instance, or a warrior? You cannot. What
remains? that if we cannot choose our characters, nor our fates, we
cannot be accountable for either. If you are a good man, you are a lucky
man; but you are not to be praised for what you could not help. If
you are a bad man, you are an unfortunate one; but you are not to be
execrated for what you could not prevent."*

* Whatever pretensions Monsieur Desmarais may have had to originality,
this tissue of opinions is as old as philosophy itself.--ED.

"Then, most wise Desmarais, if you steal this diamond loop from my
hat, you are only an unlucky man, not a guilty one, and worthy of my
sympathy, not anger?"

"Exactly so; but you must hang me for it. You cannot control events, but
you can modify man. Education, law, adversity, prosperity, correction,
praise, modify him,--without his choice, and sometimes without his
perception. But once acknowledge Necessity, and evil passions cease; you
may punish, you may destroy others, if for the safety and good of the
commonwealth; but motives for doing so cease to be private: you can
have no personal hatred to men for committing actions which they were
irresistibly compelled to commit."

I felt that, however I might listen to and dislike these sentiments, it
would not do for the master to argue with the domestic, especially when
there was a chance that he might have the worst of it. And so I
was suddenly seized with a fit of sleepiness, which broke off our
conversation. Meanwhile I inly resolved, in my own mind, to take the
first opportunity of discharging a valet who saw no difference between
good and evil, but that of luck; and who, by the irresistible compulsion
of Necessity, might some day or oth