truths which flow from him; when all the powers of our soul are alive to the beauty of order and we are wholly occupied in comparing what we have done with what we ought to have done, then it is that the voice of conscience will regain its strength and sway; then it is that the pure delight which springs from self-content, and the sharp regret for our own degradation of that self, will decide by means of overpowering feeling what shall be the fate which each has prepared for himself.  My good friend, do not ask me whether there are other sources of happiness or suffering; I cannot tell; that which my fancy pictures is enough to console me in this life and to bid me look for a life to come.  I do not say the good will be rewarded, for what greater good can a truly good being expect than to exist in accordance with his nature?  But I do assert that the good will be happy, because their maker, the author of all justice, who has made them capable of feeling, has not made them that they may suffer; moreover, they have not abused their freedom upon earth and they have not changed their fate through any fault of their own; yet they have suffered in this life and it will be made up to them in the life to come.  This feeling relies not so much on man’s deserts as on the idea of good which seems to me inseparable from the divine essence.  I only assume that the laws of order are constant and that God is true to himself.

Do not ask me whether the torments of the wicked will endure for ever, whether the goodness of their creator can condemn them to the eternal suffering; again, I cannot tell, and I have no empty curiosity for the investigation of useless problems.  How does the fate of the wicked concern me?  I take little interest in it.  All the same I find it hard to believe that they will be condemned to everlasting torments.  If the supreme justice calls for vengeance, it claims it in this life.  The nations of the world with their errors are its ministers.  Justice uses self-inflicted ills to punish the crimes which have deserved them.  It is in your own insatiable souls, devoured by envy, greed, and ambition, it is in the midst of your false prosperity, that the avenging passions find the due reward of your crimes.  What need to seek a hell in the future life?  It is here in the breast of the wicked.

When our fleeting needs are over, and our mad desires are at rest, there should also be an end of our passions and our crimes.  Can pure spirits be capable of any perversity?  Having need of nothing, why should they be wicked?  If they are free from our gross senses, if their happiness consists in the contemplation of other beings, they can only desire what is good; and he who ceases to be bad can never be miserable.  This is what I am inclined to think though I have not been at the pains to come to any decision.  O God, merciful and good, whatever thy decrees may be I adore them; if thou shouldst commit the wicked to everlasting punishment, I abandon my feeble reason