What must we conclude from this? That the world is ill-made? No. That cannot be, and is not. That cannot be, for incontestably the world has a just and good author; that is not, for, in fact, we see order reigning in the world; and it would be absurd to misconceive the manifest order that almost everywhere shines forth on account of a few phenomena that we cannot refer to order. The universe endures, therefore it is well made. The pessimism of Voltaire is still more opposed to the aggregate of facts than an absolute optimism. Between these two systematic extremes which facts deny, the human race places the hope of another life. It has found it very irrational to reject a necessary law on account of some infractions; it has, therefore, maintained the law; and from infractions it has only concluded that they ought to be referred to the law, that there will be a reparation. Either this conclusion must be admitted, or the two great principles previously admitted, that God is just, and that the law of merit and demerit is an absolute law, must be rejected. Now, to reject these two principles is to totally overthrow all human belief. To maintain them, is implicitly to admit that actual life must be, elsewhere terminated or continued. But is this continuation of the person possible? After the dissolution of the body, can any thing of us remain? In truth, the moral person, which acts well or ill, which awaits the reward or punishment of its good or bad actions, is united to a body,--it lives with the body, makes use of it, and, in a certain measure, depends on it, but is not it.[253] The body is composed of parts, may decrease or increase; is divisible, essentially divisible, and even infinitely divisible. But that something that has consciousness of itself, that says, _I_, _me_, that feels itself to be free and responsible, does it not also feel that there is in it no division, even no possible division, that it is a being one and simple? Is the _me_ more or less _me_? Is there a half of _me_, a quarter of _me_? I cannot divide my person. It remains identical to itself under the diversity of the phenomena that manifest it. This identity, this indivisibility of the person, is its spirituality. Spirituality is, therefore, the very essence of the person. Belief in the spirituality of the soul is involved in the belief of this identity of the _me_, which no rational being has ever called in question. Accordingly, there is not the least hypothesis for affirming that the soul does not essentially differ from the body. Add that when we say the soul, we mean to say, and do say the person, which is not separated from the consciousness of the attributes that constitute it, thought and will. The being without consciousness is not a person. It is the person that is identical, one, simple. Its attributes, in developing it, do not divide it. Indivisible, it is indissoluble, and may be immortal. If, then, divine justice, in