If philosophy has done so much honor to France in the "Encyclopædia," it must also be confessed that the ignorance and envy which have dared to condemn this work would have covered France with opprobrium, if twelve or fifteen convulsionaries, who formed a cabal, could be regarded as the organs of France; they were really only the ministers of fanaticism and sedition; those who forced the king to dissolve the body which they had seduced. Their fanatical credulity for convulsions and the miserable impostures of St. Médard, was so strong, that they obliged a magistrate, elsewhere wise and respectable, to say in full parliament that the miracles of the Catholic church always existed. By these miracles, we can only understand those of convulsions, for assuredly it never performed any others; at least, if we believe not in the little children resuscitated by St. Ovid. The time of miracles is passed; the triumphant church has no longer occasion for them. Seriously, was there one of the persecutors of the Encyclopædia who understood one word of the articles Astronomy, Dynamics, Geometry, Metaphysics, Botany, Medicine, or Anatomy, of which this book, become so necessary, treats in every volume. What a crowd of absurd imputations and gross calumnies have they accumulated against this treasure of all the sciences! They should be reprinted at the end of the "Encyclopædia," to eternize their shame. See what it is to judge a work which they were not even fit to study. The fools! they have exclaimed that philosophy ruined Catholicism. What, then, in twenty millions of people, has one been found who has vexed the least officer of the parish! one who has failed in respect to the churches! one who has publicly proffered against our ceremonies a single word which approached the virulence with which these railers have expressed themselves against the regal authority! Let us repeat that philosophy never did evil to the state, and that fanaticism, joined to the _esprit du corps,_ has done much in all times. SECTION IV. _Substance Of Ancient Philosophy._ I have consumed about forty years of my pilgrimage in two or three corners of the world, seeking the philosopher's stone called truth. I have consulted all the adepts of antiquity, Epicurus and Augustine, Plato and Malebranche, and I still remain in ignorance. In all the crucibles of philosophers, there are perhaps two or three ounces of gold, but all the rest is _caput mortuum,_ insipid mire, from which nothing can be extracted. It seems to me that the Greeks, our masters, wrote much more to show their intellect, than they made use of their intellect to instruct themselves. I see not a single author of antiquity who has a consistent, methodical, clear system, going from consequence to consequence.