It is important to repeat continually, that nothing is so easy as to arrange a system, by suppressing or altering the facts that embarrass it. But is it, then, the object of philosophy to produce at any cost a system, instead of seeking to understand the truth and express it as it is? It is objected that such a doctrine has not sufficient character. But is it not sporting with philosophy to demand of it any other character than that of truth? Do men complain that modern chemistry has not sufficient character, because it limits itself to studying facts in their relations, and also in their differences, and because it does not end at a single substance? The only true philosophy that is proper for a century returned from all exaggerations, is a picture of human nature whose first merit is fidelity, which must offer all the traits of the original in their right proportion and real harmony. The unity of the doctrine that we profess is in that of the human soul, whence we have drawn it. Is it not one and the same being that perceives the good, that knows that he is obligated to fulfil it, that knows that he is free in fulfilling it, that loves the good, and judges that the fulfilment or violation of the good justly brings after it reward or punishment, happiness or misery? We draw, then, a true unity from the intimate relation between all the facts that, as we have seen, imply and sustain each other. But by what right is the unity of a doctrine placed in allowing in it only a single principle? Such a unity is possible only in those regions of mathematical abstraction, where one is not disturbed by what is, where one retrenches at will from the object that he is studying, in order to simplify it continually, where every thing is reduced to pure notions. In the reality all is determined, and consequently, all is complex. A science of facts is not a series of equations. In it must be found again the life that is in things, life with its harmony doubtless, but also with its richness and diversity.[232] FOOTNOTES: [216] On indignation, see lecture 11. [217] On remorse, see lecture 11. [218] See the _Gorgias_, with the _Argument_, vol. iii. of our translation. [219] Lectures 1 and 6. [220] Lectures 2, 3, and 6. [221] 1st part, lecture 2. [222] Lecture 2. [223] 1st part, lecture 3. See also vol. v. of the 1st Series, lecture 8. [224] 1st Series, vol. v., lecture 7. [225] See, for the entire development of the theory of liberty, 1st Series, vol. iii., lecture 1, _Locke_, p. 71; lecture 3, _Condillac_, p. 116, 149, etc.; vol. iv., lecture 23, _Reid_, p. 541-574; 2d Series, vol. iii., _Examination of the System of Locke_, lecture 25. [226] Lecture 12. [227] See 1st Series, vol. iv., Lecture on Smith and on the true principle of political economy, p. 278-302. [228] Le crime fait la honte et non pas l'echafaud. [229] See lecture 16, _God, the Principle of the Idea of the Good_. [230] See lecture 16.