those obstacles which prevent their stagnation; they never cease to undulate; sometimes they recoil, then again rush forward, thus continuing to run with more or less velocity, until they are restored to _the ocean of nature_. CHAP. XVII. _Those Ideas which are true, or founded upon Nature, are the only Remedies for the Evils of Man.--Recapitulation.--Conclusion of the first Part._ Whenever man ceases to take experience for his guide, he falls into error. His errors become yet more dangerous, assume a more determined inveteracy, when they are clothed with the sanction of superstition; it is then that he hardly ever consents to return into the paths of truth; he believes himself deeply interested in no longer seeing clearly that which lies before him; he fancies he has an essential advantage in no longer understanding himself; he supposes his happiness exacts that he should shut his eyes to truth. If the majority of moral philosophers have mistaken the human heart--if they have deceived themselves upon its diseases--if they have miscalculated the remedies that are suitable--if the remedies they have administered have been inefficacious or even dangerous--it is because they have abandoned nature--because they have resisted experience--because they have not had sufficient steadiness to consult their reason--because they have renounced the evidence of their senses--because they have only followed the caprices of an imagination either dazzled by enthusiasm or disturbed by fear; because they have preferred the illusions it has held forth to the realities of nature, _who never deceives_.