’Dans les convulsions terribles qui agitent quelquefois les societes politiques, et qui produisent souvent le renversement d’un empire, il n’y a pas une seule action, une seule parole, une seule pensee, une seule volonte, une seule passion dans las agens qui concourent a la revolution comme destructeurs ou comme victimes, qui ne soit necessaire, qui n’agissa comme ella doit agir, qui n’opere infailliblemont les effets qu’eile doit operer, suivant la place qu’occupent ces agens dana ce tourbillon moral.  Cela paraitrait evident pour une intelligence qui sera en etat de saisir et d’apprecier toutes las actions at reactions des esprits at des corps de ceux qui contribuent a cette revolution.’—­“Systeme de la Nature”, volume 1, page 44.

6. 198:—­

Necessity! thou mother of the world!

He who asserts the doctrine of Necessity means that, contemplating the events which compose the moral and material universe, he beholds only an immense and uninterrupted chain of causes and effects, no one of which could occupy any other place than it does occupy, or act in any other place than it does act.  The idea of necessity is obtained by our experience of the connection between objects, the uniformity of the operations of nature, the constant conjunction of similar events, and the consequent inference of one from the other.  Mankind are therefore agreed in the admission of necessity, if they admit that these two circumstances take place in voluntary action.  Motive is to voluntary action in the human mind what cause is to effect in the material universe.  The word liberty, as applied to mind, is analogous to the word chance as applied to matter:  they spring from an ignorance of the certainty of the conjunction of antecedents and consequents.

Every human being is irresistibly impelled to act precisely as he does act:  in the eternity which preceded his birth a chain of causes was generated, which, operating under the name of motives, make it impossible that any thought of his mind, or any action of his life, should be otherwise than it is.  Were the doctrine of Necessity false, the human mind would no longer be a legitimate object of science; from like causes it would be in vain that we should expect like effects; the strongest motive would no longer be paramount over the conduct; all knowledge would be vague and undeterminate; we could not predict with any certainty that we might not meet as an enemy to-morrow him with whom we have parted in friendship to-night; the most probable inducements and the clearest reasonings would lose the invariable influence they possess.  The contrary of this is demonstrably the fact.  Similar circumstances produce the same unvariable effects.  The precise character and motives of any man on any occasion being given, the moral philosopher could predict his actions with as much certainty as the natural philosopher could predict the effects of the mixture of any particular chemical substances.  Why is the aged husbandman more experienced