God is intelligent, but how?  Man is intelligent when he reasons, but the Supreme Intelligence does not need to reason; there is neither premise nor conclusion for him, there is not even a proposition.  The Supreme Intelligence is wholly intuitive, it sees what is and what shall be; all truths are one for it, as all places are but one point and all time but one moment.  Man’s power makes use of means, the divine power is self-active.  God can because he wills; his will is his power.  God is good; this is certain; but man finds his happiness in the welfare of his kind.  God’s happiness consists in the love of order; for it is through order that he maintains what is, and unites each part in the whole.  God is just; of this I am sure, it is a consequence of his goodness; man’s injustice is not God’s work, but his own; that moral justice which seems to the philosophers a presumption against Providence, is to me a proof of its existence.  But man’s justice consists in giving to each his due; God’s justice consists in demanding from each of us an account of that which he has given us.

If I have succeeded in discerning these attributes of which I have no absolute idea, it is in the form of unavoidable deductions, and by the right use of my reason; but I affirm them without understanding them, and at bottom that is no affirmation at all.  In vain do I say, God is thus, I feel it, I experience it, none the more do I understand how God can be thus.

In a word:  the more I strive to envisage his infinite essence the less do I comprehend it; but it is, and that is enough for me; the less I understand, the more I adore.  I abase myself, saying, “Being of beings, I am because thou art; to fix my thoughts on thee is to ascend to the source of my being.  The best use I can make of my reason is to resign it before thee; my mind delights, my weakness rejoices, to feel myself overwhelmed by thy greatness.”

Having thus deduced from the perception of objects of sense and from my inner consciousness, which leads me to judge of causes by my native reason, the principal truths which I require to know, I must now seek such principles of conduct as I can draw from them, and such rules as I must lay down for my guidance in the fulfilment of my destiny in this world, according to the purpose of my Maker.  Still following the same method, I do not derive these rules from the principles of the higher philosophy, I find them in the depths of my heart, traced by nature in characters which nothing can efface.  I need only consult myself with regard to what I wish to do; what I feel to be right is right, what I feel to be wrong is wrong; conscience is the best casuist; and it is only when we haggle with conscience that we have recourse to the subtleties of argument.  Our first duty is towards ourself; yet how often does the voice of others tell us that in seeking our good at the expense of others we are doing ill?  We think we are following