Dolt! Is it possible for what has been not to have been, and can a stick not have two ends? Does He see the future as future or as present? how does He draw the being out of non-existence, and how annihilate the being? DONDINDAC: I have never examined these things. LOGOMACOS: What a blockhead! Come, one must humble oneself, see things in proportion. Tell me, my friend, do you think that matter can be eternal? DONDINDAC: What does it matter to me whether it exists from all eternity or not? I do not exist from all eternity. God is always my master; He has given me the notion of justice, I must follow it; I do not want to be a philosopher, I want to be a man. LOGOMACOS: These blockheads are troublesome. Let us go step by step. What is God? DONDINDAC: My sovereign, my judge, my father. LOGOMACOS: That's not what I'm asking you. What is His nature? DONDINDAC: To be potent and good. LOGOMACOS: But, is He corporeal or spiritual? DONDINDAC: How should I know? LOGOMACOS: What! you don't know what a spirit is? DONDINDAC: Not in the least: of what use would it be to me? should I be more just? should I be a better husband, a better father, a better master, a better citizen? LOGOMACOS: It is absolutely essential you should learn what a spirit is. It is, it is, it is ... I will tell you another time. DONDINDAC: I'm very much afraid that you may tell me less what it is than what it is not. Allow me to put a question to you in my turn. I once saw one of your temples; why do you depict God with a long beard? LOGOMACOS: That's a very difficult question which needs preliminary instruction. DONDINDAC: Before receiving your instruction, I must tell you what happened to me one day. I had just built a closet at the end of my garden; I heard a mole arguing with a cockchafer. "That's a very fine building," said the mole. "It must have been a very powerful mole who did that piece of work." "You're joking," said the cockchafer. "It was a cockchafer bubbling over with genius who is the architect of this building." From that time I resolved never to argue. _HELVETIA_ Happy Helvetia! to what charter do you owe your liberty? to your courage, to your resolution, to your mountains. "But I am your emperor." "But I do not want you any longer." "But your fathers were my father's slaves." "It is for that very reason that their children do not wish to serve you." "But I had the right belonging to my rank." "And we have the right of nature." Why is liberty so rare? Because it is the chiefest good. _HISTORY_ DEFINITION History is the recital of facts given as true, in contradistinction to the fable, which is the recital of facts given as false. There is the history of opinions which is hardly anything but a collection of human errors. The history of the arts can be the most useful of all when it joins to the knowledge of the invention and the progress of the arts the description of their mechanism.