Whether we turn our attention to the forces and the laws that animate and govern matter without belonging to it, or as the order of our labors calls us to do, reflect upon the universal and necessary truths which our mind discovers but does not constitute, the least systematic use of reason makes us naturally conclude from the forces and laws of the universe that there is a first intelligent mover, and from necessary truths that there is a necessary being who alone is their substance. We do not perceive God, but we conceive him, upon the faith of this admirable world exposed to our view, and upon that of this other world, more admirable still, which we bear in ourselves. By this double road we succeed in going to God. This natural course is that of all men: it must be sufficient for a sound philosophy. But there are feeble and presumptuous minds that do not know how to go thus far, or do not know how to stop there. Confined to experience, they do not dare to conclude from what they see in what they do not see, as if at all times, at the sight of the first phenomenon that appears to their eyes, they did not admit that this phenomenon has a cause, even when this cause does not come within the reach of their senses. They do not perceive it, yet they believe in it, for the simple reason that they necessarily conceive it. Man and the universe are also facts that cannot but have a cause, although this cause may neither be seen by our eyes nor touched by our hands. Reason has been given us for the very purpose of going, and without any circuit of reasoning, from the visible to the invisible, from the finite to the infinite, from the imperfect to the perfect, and also, from necessary and universal truths, which surround us on every side, to their eternal and necessary principle. Such is the natural and legitimate bearing of reason. It possesses an evidence of which it renders no account, and is not thereby less irresistible to whomsoever does not undertake to contest with God the veracity of the faculties which he has received. But one does not revolt against reason with impunity. It punishes our false wisdom by giving us up to extravagance. When one has confined himself to the narrow limits of what he directly perceives, he is smothered by these limits, wishes to go out of them at any price, and invokes some other means of knowing; he did not dare to admit the existence of an invisible God, and now behold him aspiring to enter into immediate communication with him, as with sensible objects, and the objects of consciousness. It is an extreme feebleness for a rational being thus to doubt reason, and it is an incredible rashness, in this despair of intelligence, to dream of direct communication with God. This desperate and ambitious dream is mysticism.