At present the contending parties, wearied with discord, feel the want of laws, and sigh for the age of order and of peace.  Let but a virtuous chief arise! a just, a powerful people appear! and the earth will raise them to supreme power.  The world is waiting for a legislative people; it wishes and demands it; and my heart attends the cry.

Then turning towards the west:  Yes, continued he, a hollow sound already strikes my ear; a cry of liberty, proceeding from far distant shores, resounds on the ancient continent.  At this cry, a secret murmur against oppression is raised in a powerful nation; a salutary inquietude alarms her respecting her situation; she enquires what she is, and what she ought to be; while, surprised at her own weakness, she interrogates her rights, her resources, and what has been the conduct of her chiefs.

Yet another day—­a little more reflection—­and an immense agitation will begin; a new-born age will open! an age of astonishment to vulgar minds, of terror to tyrants, of freedom to a great nation, and of hope to the human race!

CHAPTER XIV.

The great obstacle to improvement.

The Genius ceased.  But preoccupied with melancholy thoughts, my mind resisted persuasion; fearing, however, to shock him by my resistance, I remained silent.  After a while, turning to me with a look which pierced my soul, he said: 

Thou art silent, and thy heart is agitated with thoughts which it dares not utter.

At last, troubled and terrified, I replied: 

O Genius, pardon my weakness.  Doubtless thy mouth can utter nothing but truth; but thy celestial intelligence can seize its rays, where my gross faculties can discern nothing but clouds.  I confess it; conviction has not penetrated my soul, and I feared that my doubts might offend thee.

And what is doubt, replied he, that it should be a crime?  Can man feel otherwise than as he is affected?  If a truth be palpable, and of importance in practice, let us pity him that misconceives it.  His punishment will arise from his blindness.  If it be uncertain or equivocal, how is he to find in it what it has not?  To believe without evidence or proof, is an act of ignorance and folly.  The credulous man loses himself in a labyrinth of contradictions; the man of sense examines and discusses, that he may be consistent in his opinions.  The honest man will bear contradiction; because it gives rise to evidence.  Violence is the argument of falsehood; and to impose a creed by authority is the act and indication of a tyrant.