The word nature has various meanings; we employ it here to designate matter, and the forces which set it in motion, those forces being conceived as blind and fatal, in opposition to the conscious and free force which constitutes mind.  Matter and the laws of motion are the object of mechanics, of chemistry, and of physics.  Do these sciences suffice for resolving the universal enigma?  Such is precisely the question which offers itself to our examination.

Let us first of all determine what, in presence of the spectacle of the universe, is the natural movement of human thought, when human thought possesses the idea of God.  I open a book trivial enough in its form, but occasionally profound in its contents:  the Journey round my room, of Xavier de Maistre.  The author is relating how he had undertaken to make an artificial dove which was to sustain itself in the air by means of an ingenious mechanism.  I read: 

“I had wrought unceasingly at its construction for more than three months.  The day was come for the trial.  I placed it on the edge of a table, after having carefully closed the door, in order to keep the discovery secret, and to give my friends a pleasing surprise.  A thread held the mechanism motionless.  Who can conceive the palpitations of my heart, and the agonies of my self-love, when I brought the scissors near to cut the fatal bond?—­Zest!—­the spring of the dove starts, and begins to unroll itself with a noise.  I lift my eyes to see the bird pass; but, after making a few turns over and over, it falls, and goes off to hide itself under the table.  Rosine (my dog), who was sleeping there, moves ruefully away.  Rosine, who never sees a chicken, or a pigeon, or the smallest bird, without attacking and pursuing it, did not deign even to look at my dove which was floundering on the floor.  This gave the finishing stroke to my self-esteem.  I went to take an airing on the ramparts.

“I was walking up and down, sad and out of spirits as one always is after a great hope disappointed, when, raising my eyes, I perceived a flight of cranes passing over my head.  I stopped to have a good look at them.  They were advancing in triangular order, like the English column at the battle of Fontenoy.  I saw them traverse the sky from cloud to cloud.—­Ah! how well they fly, said I to myself.  With what assurance they seem to glide along the viewless path which they follow.—­Shall I confess it? alas! may I be forgiven! the horrible feeling of envy for once, once only, entered my heart, and it was for the cranes.  I pursued them, with jealous gaze, to the boundaries of the horizon.  For a long while afterwards, motionless in the midst of the crowd which was moving about me, I kept observing the rapid movement of the swallows, and I was astonished to see them suspended in the air, just as if I had never before seen that phenomenon.  A feeling of profound admiration, unknown to me till then, lighted up my soul.  I seemed to myself to be looking