* The inhabitants of Vienna, for example, who harnessed
     themselves like cattle and drew the chariot of Leopold.

Then the legislator, turning to the people—­“People!” said he, “remember what you have just heard; they are two indelible truths.  Yes, you yourselves cause the evils of which you complain; yourselves encourage the tyrants, by a base adulation of their power, by an imprudent admiration of their false beneficence, by servility in obedience, by licentiousness in liberty, and by a credulous reception of every imposition.  On whom shall you wreak vengeance for the faults committed by your own ignorance and cupidity?”

And the people, struck with confusion, remained in mournful silence.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Solution of the problem of contradictions.

The legislator then resumed his discourse:  “O nations!” said he, “we have heard the discussion of your opinions.  The different sentiments which divide you have given rise to many reflections, and furnished several questions which we shall propose to you to solve.

“First, considering the diversity and opposition of the creeds to which you are attached, we ask on what motives you found your persuasion?  Is it from a deliberate choice that you follow the standard of one prophet rather than another?  Before adopting this doctrine, rather than that, did you first compare? did you carefully examine them?  Or have you received them only from the chance of birth, from the empire of education and habit?  Are you not born Christians on the borders of the Tiber, Mussulmans on those of the Euphrates, Idolaters on the Indus, just as you are born fair in cold climates, and sable under the scorching sun of Africa?  And if your opinions are the effect of your fortuitous position on the earth, of consanguinity, of imitation, how is it that such a hazard should be a ground of conviction, an argument of truth?

“Secondly, when we reflect on the mutual proscriptions and arbitrary intolerance of your pretensions, we are frightened at the consequences that flow from your own principles.  Nations! who reciprocally devote each other to the bolts of heavenly wrath, suppose that the universal Being, whom you revere, should this moment descend from heaven on this multitude; and, clothed with all his power, should sit on this throne to judge you; suppose that he should say to you:  Mortals! it is your own justice that I am going to exercise upon you.  Yes, of all the religious systems that divide you, one alone shall this day be preferred; all the others, all this multitude of standards, of nations, of prophets, shall be condemned to eternal destruction.  This is not enough:  among the particular sects of the chosen system, one only can be favored; all the others must be condemned:  neither is this enough;—­from this little remnant of a group I must exclude all those who have not fulfilled the conditions enjoined by its precepts.  O men! to what a small number of elect have you limited your race! to what a penury of beneficence do you reduce the immensity of my goodness! to what a solitude of beholders do you condemn my greatness and my glory!