Thus, I feel and readily acknowledge, that the discovery upon which I am at work is not my own work; and, therefore, I pray for it as for a signal favor.  Nor can it be otherwise with any man.  It is, therefore, always an impertinence for any man to attribute to his personal genius, vast as he may suppose it to be, the discovery of any law.  God alone discloses His treasures, and, as I have experienced, He only reveals them to the eye of reason raised by humility to contemplation.

Man seeks that which he desires to know with attention and patience proportioned to the ardor of his desire.  The attention of which his mind is capable and the constancy of will brought to bear in pursuit of his research, constitute his only mark of distinction.  Herein lies all the merit to which he can lay just claim.  But at a moment absolutely unforeseen, God reveals to him that which he seeks, I should say that for which he does not seek, and for his due edification it is generally the opposite of what he seeks which is revealed to him.  This is not to be contested.  Thus the things discovered to him cause him such surprise that he never fails to beat his brow when he sees them, as if to prove that he is not the author of their discovery, and that he was far from foreseeing anything like what has been shown to him; and that there may be no possible mistake in the interpretation of the gesture, he invariably accompanies it by the phrase:  “What a fool I am!” All will admit that if a man really believed himself the author of his discovery, he takes a very inopportune time to declare his impotence and his stupidity so distinctly.  But taking none too kindly his avowal which, moreover, is but the proclamation of an indisputable truth, let us rather say that this act of humility is forced from him by the greatness of his surprise.

Happy, very happy is the man whose pride does not instantly react against the humble and truthful confession of his folly.

Ever since I made these remarks I have asked myself the cause of the sterility of the learned bodies, and I do not hesitate to say to-day, that it is because scientists refuse to declare themselves fools, and it is to this lack of sincerity that they doubtless owe the punishment that paralyzes their genius.

How can these men fail to take seriously the little knowledge to which they cling and their fortune and renown; how can these wise men, to whom the world pays incessant homage, consent meekly to confess the infirmity of their reason?  They feign, on the contrary, even when crushed beneath the Divine splendor, an air of great importance; and when the Omnipotent in His mercy deigns to bend to their low level, to lay open to them the treasures of His sovereign thought, do you think that in token of the sacred and respectful admiration which they owe in return for such goodness, they will prostrate themselves like the Seraphim whose knowledge assuredly equals the few notions which they adorn with that title?  Ah! far from it.  You little know these scientists, when you impute to them an act which they would qualify as contemptible and would declare unworthy of a free-thinker!  They stand erect, on the contrary, with head held high, insolently laying claim, by virtue of I know not what conquest of the human mind, to judge the eternal and immovable light of the Divine Reason.