Sparta, the Athens, the Rome, whose laws, manners, and heroes he extols with such assurance?  How many generations of men between him and the historians who have preserved the memory of these events?” First, says Rousseau in answer, “it is in the order of things that human circumstances should be attested by human evidence, and they can be attested in no other way.  I can only know that Rome and Sparta existed, because contemporaries assure me that they existed.  In such a case this intermediate communication is indispensable.  But why is it necessary between God and me?  Is it simple or natural that God should have gone in search of Moses to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau?  Second, nobody is obliged to believe that Sparta once existed, and nobody will be devoured by eternal flames for doubting it.  Every fact of which we are not witnesses is only established by moral proofs, and moral proofs have various degrees of strength.  Will the divine justice hurl me into hell for missing the exact point at which a proof becomes irresistible?  If there is in the world an attested story, it is that of vampires; nothing is wanting for judicial proof,—­reports and certificates from notables, surgeons, clergy, magistrates.  But who believes in vampires, and shall we all be damned for not believing?  Third, my constant experience and that of all men is stronger in reference to prodigies than the testimony of some men.”

He then strikes home with a parable.  The Abbe Paris had died in the odour of Jansenist sanctity (1727), and extraordinary doings went on at his tomb; the lame walked, men and women sick of the palsy were made whole, and so forth.  Suppose, says Rousseau, that an inhabitant of the Rue St. Jacques speaks thus to the Archbishop of Paris, “My lord, I know that you neither believe in the beatitude of St. Jean de Paris, nor in the miracles which God has been pleased publicly to work upon his tomb in the sight of the most enlightened and most populous city in the world; but I feel bound to testify to you that I have just seen the saint in person raised from the dead in the spot where his bones were laid.”  The man of the Rue St. Jacques gives all the detail of such a circumstance that could strike a beholder.  “I am persuaded that on hearing such strange news, you will begin by interrogating him who testifies to its truth, as to his position, his feelings, his confessor, and other such points; and when from his air, as from his speech, you have perceived that he is a poor workman, and when having no confessional ticket to show you, he has confirmed your notion that he is a Jansenist, Ah, ah, you will say to him, you are a convulsionary, and have seen Saint Paris resuscitated.  There is nothing wonderful in that; you have seen so many other wonders!” The man would insist that the miracle had been seen equally by a number of other people, who though Jansenists, it is true, were persons of sound sense, good character, and excellent reputation.