I shall add, that, even in the narrow circle of our thoughts, it is true, the operations of the mind appear to us often dependant on each other; yet, sometimes their chain is so broken, that our ideas seem really to issue out of nothing; instead of which, in every other production, we know, there is always a visible tie between that which is, and that which was. We must not forget, that at the very time our ideas appear to us connected, that succession is to be attributed to our weakness and ignorance, rather than to the mind, considered in a general manner. Circumscribed in all our means, we are obliged to go continually from the known to the unknown, from probability to certainty, from experience of the past, to conjectures about the future; but this gradation, this course, ought to be absolutely foreign to an intelligence without bounds, which knows and which sees all at the same time; and perhaps we are in the way of this truth, when we perceive, amongst us, the claim of true genius, and the turbulent whirlpool of folly. In short, it is not men persuaded of the existence of a God, that we need require to transport themselves beyond, if I may say so, the domain of thought, in order to search for proofs of their opinion; atheists alone want such an effort, since they alone resist the influence of the simplest sentiments and most natural arguments; since they alone bid us mistrust that distinct connexion which we perceive between the Supreme Intelligence and the perfection of order; that train of causes and effects, between the idea of a God and all the propensities of the soul; it is these considerations, intelligible to all, which give new force to our opinions. Directed by these reflections, and wishing to investigate in a useful manner the subject I have undertaken, I shall not engage in the arguments which turn on the creation of the world. It is sufficient for me to have perceived, that the idea of the creation of the universe is not more inconceivable than the idea of its eternity; I am not indeed obliged, with those who adopt the last system, to suppose something growing out of nothing; but substituting the idea of an eternal existence, instead of that of nothing, is a thought which equally terrifies my imagination; for my mind knows not where to place that eternity and in order to comprehend it still surrounds it with a vacuum. In the system of a created universe, I see something coming out of nothing, by the will of a Being whom I can form an idea of; but in the system of the eternity of matter, my faculties are absorbed in endeavouring to embrace it; in short, both of these modes of existence appear to me in the midst of a vague infinity, which no human power can conceive; and if sometimes the eternal existence of the universe seems less incomprehensible than its creation, it is only because such an idea eludes examination and precludes reasoning.