If there is not a God, if this world and the whole universe was only the production of chance or nature itself, subsisting from all eternity; and if this nature, void of consciousness, had not any guide or superior; in short, if all its movements were the necessary effect of a property ever concealed in its essence, a terrible thought would alarm our imagination: we should not only renounce the hopes which enliven life, we should not only see continually advancing towards us the image of death and annihilation, these dreadful anticipations would not be all—an uncertain cause of fear would trouble the mind. In fact, the revolutions of a blind nature being more obscure than the designs of an Intelligent Being, it would be impossible to discover on what base, in the universe, reposed the destiny of men; impossible to foresee whether, by some one of the laws of that imperious nature, intelligent beings are devoted to perish irrevocably, or revive under some other form; if they are to stumble on new pleasures, or suffer eternally: life and death, happiness and misery, may belong indifferently to a nature whose movements are not directed by any intelligence, are not connected by any moral idea, but solely dependent on a blind property, which is represented by that word, terrible and inexplicable _necessity_. A like nature would resemble the rocks to which Prometheus was bound, that were equally insensible to the agonizing groans of the wretch, and to the joy of the vultures who preyed on his vitals. Thus, in a like system, nothing would be able to fix our opinion with respect to futurity, and guard the sensible part of ourselves from yielding to some unknown force: in short, can we reply without trembling? nothing,—and of course eternal torments might accidentally become our portion. The momentary experience of life might, perhaps, inspire us with a kind of tranquillity; but what is that in immensity, but calculations founded on the observance of a short interval? What is that hope which only a fleeting moment gives weight to? It is as if the fluttering insect, which lives but a day, should consider it as a representation of the eternal condition of the universe. The mixture of pains and pleasures, to which men are subject on earth, is not a certain proof of what may happen in other times and places; for unity, equality, and analogy, all those sources of probability, and principles to judge from, are connected with general ideas of order and harmony, but those ideas are not applicable to a nature subject to necessity.