Let us first of all give our attention to a strange contradiction. Those savants who make of the human soul a simple manifestation of matter, are the same who wish to explain nature without the intervention of the Divine intelligence. In order to keep out of view the design which is displayed in the organization of the world, they take a pleasure in finding nature at fault, and in pointing out its imperfections. Still, they do not pretend to be able to do better than nature; they would not undertake the responsibility of correcting the laws of life, and regulating the course of the seasons. They do not say, "We could make a better world," but "We can imagine a world more perfect than our own." Now what is our answer? Simply this: "You are right." Nature is not the supreme perfection, and therefore we will not worship it. How admirable soever be the visible universe, we have the faculty of conceiving more and better. We understand that the atmosphere might be purified, so that the tempest should not engulf the ships, nor the thunderbolt produce the conflagration. We dream of mountain-heights more majestic than the loftiest summits of our Alps, of waters more transparent than the pure crystal of our lakes, of valleys fresher and more peaceful than the loveliest which hide among our hills. The spectacle of nature awakens in us the powers of thought, and the sentiment of beauty draws us on to the pursuit of an ideal which surpasses all realities. Nature is not perfect: let us be forward to acknowledge it, and let us draw from the fact its legitimate consequence. The stream cannot rise higher than its source. If man conceives an ideal superior to nature, he is not himself the mere product of nature. By what strange contradiction is it affirmed at once that our spirit overpasses the bounds of all the realities which encompass it, and that it has not a source more elevated than those realities? Listen to a thought of that weighty writer Montesquieu:[129] "Those who have said that a blind fatality has produced all the effects which we see in the world, have said a great absurdity; for what greater absurdity than a blind fatality which should have produced intelligent beings?" Without restricting ourselves to this simple and solid argument, let us see how they will explain man by nature. For this end, we must examine the theory of the perfected monkey, which, introduced to us by the lectures of Professor Vogt and the spirited rejoinders of M. de Rougemont, made a great noise as it descended a short time ago from the mountains of Neuchatel.[130] A celebrated orator said one day to an assembly of Frenchmen: "I am long, Gentlemen; but it is your own fault: it is your glory that I am recounting." Have not I the right to say to you: "I am long, Gentlemen, but it is worth while to be so; it is our own dignity which is in question."