151. And here I would remark that this community of reason among all men of all ages and of all climes; this admirable unity, discoverable in the midst of so much variety; this fundamental accord which neither the diversity nor the contradiction of views can destroy, evidently proves that all human souls have one common origin; that thought is not a work of chance; that, besides human intelligences, there is another which serves as their support, illuminates them, and has, from the first moment of their existence, endowed them with all the faculties needed to perceive, and to know what they perceived. The admirable order which reigns throughout the material world, the concert, the unity of plan discoverable in it, are not a more conclusive proof of the existence of God, than are the order, the concert, the unity, offered by reason in its assent to necessary truths. For our own part, we ingenuously confess, that we can discover no more solid, more conclusive, or more clear proof of the existence of God, than that deduced from the world of intelligences. Beyond this it has another advantage, which is, that it takes for its point of departure the act most immediate to us, the consciousness of our own acts. It is true, the proof best adapted to the capacity of ordinary men, is the one founded on the admirable order reigning over the corporeal world: but this is because they are unaccustomed to meditate upon insensible objects, upon what passes within themselves; wherefore it is that they abound more in direct cognitions than in power of reflection. The atheist asks how we can be certain of the existence of God, and demands an apparition of the divinity: very well, this apparition exists, not without, but within us: and although it may be pardonable for men of little reflection not to perceive it, most certainly it is not pardonable for those who pretend to be adepts in metaphysical science, not even to endeavor to discover it. The system of Malebranche, which makes men see every thing in God, cannot be sustained, but it shows a very profound thinker. CHAPTER XXIV. EXISTENCE OF UNIVERSAL REASON. 152. General truths have some relation to particular truths; for since they are not a vain illusion, they must of necessity be connected with some object either existing or possible. Whatever exists is particular; not even possible being can be conceived of, if it be not, so to speak, particularized in the regions of possibility. God himself, being by essence, is not a being in abstract, but an infinite reality. In him, the general idea of the plenitude of being, of all perfection, of infinity, is, so to speak, particularized. General truths would then be vain illusions did they not refer to something particular either existing or possible. Without this relation, cognition would be a purely subjective phenomenon; science would have no object; knowledge would be had, but there would be nothing known.