know matter? It is especially by form, by extension, by something solid that stops you, that resists you in different points of space. But is not a solid essentially divisible? Take the most subtile fluids,--can you help conceiving them as more or less susceptible of division? All thought has its different elements like matter, but in addition it has its unity in the thinking subject, and the subject being taken away, which is one, the total phenomenon no longer exists. Far from that, the unknown subject to which we attach material phenomena is divisible, and divisible _ad infinitum_; it cannot cease to be divisible without ceasing to exist. Such are the ideas that we have, on the one side, of mind, on the other, of matter. Thought supposes a subject essentially one; matter is infinitely divisible. What is the need of going farther? If any conclusion is legitimate, it is that which distinguishes thought from matter. God can indeed make them exist together, and their co-existence is a certain fact, but he cannot confound them. God can unite thought and matter, he cannot make matter thought, nor what is extended simple." [254] See 1st part, lecture 1. [255] See lecture 5, _Mysticism_. [256] 4th Series, vol. iii., _Santa-Rosa_: "After all, the existence of a divine Providence is, to my eyes, a truth clearer than all lights, more certain than all mathematics. Yes, there is a God, a God who is a true intelligence, who consequently has a consciousness of himself, who has made and ordered every thing with weight and measure, whose works are excellent, whose ends are adorable, even when they are veiled from our feeble eyes. This world has a perfect author, perfectly wise and good. Man is not an orphan; he has a father in heaven. What will this father do with his child when he returns to him? Nothing but what is good. Whatever happens, all will be well. Every thing that he has done has been done well; every thing that he shall do, I accept beforehand, and bless. Yes, such is my unalterable faith, and this faith is my support, my refuge, my consolation, my solace in this fearful moment." [257] See our discussion on the _Pensees de Pascal_, vol. i. of the 4th Series. [258] See the end of the first book of the _Republic_, vol. ix. of our translation. [259] _Esprit des Lois_, _passim_. [260] Works of Turgot, vol. ii., _Discours en Sorbonne sur les Avantages que l'etablissement du Christianism a procures au Genre Humain_, etc. [261] In the _Correspondence_, the letter to Dr. Stiles, March 9, 1790, written by Franklin a few months before his death: "I am convinced that the moral and religious system which Jesus Christ has transmitted to us is the best that the world has seen or can see."--We here re-translate, not having the works of Franklin immediately at hand.