With good-sense alone, and the simplest notions which a bough of the philosophical branch furnishes, and which teach to estimate the things of this life according to their value, there will be formed, among the people, a number of practical philosophers; whilst, among the men of letters, all the penetration imaginable, all the knowledge they think they have, all the wit in the world will form only imperfect philosophers. They will avoid praises, but so as to attain them by some round-about way. They will profess the most ardent zeal for all the citizens, nay, for all men in general; but they will care only for themselves. They will decide upon the most complicated, the most obscure, the most important questions, with an astonishing confidence; but in deciding everything they will clear up nothing. They will wear outwardly the most reserved modesty; inwardly they will be eaten up by ambition. Now, shall we call such persons philosophers? It is thus that we give the name of stars to those meteors, which kindle sometimes in the upper region of the air, make a blaze, and instantly vanish.
In general, I thought, I saw upon a great number of leaves, things entirely contradictory. The century will slide away, and the sentiments upon the same objects will not be reconciled. According to custom, each will speak his opinion, and attack the rest. Disputes will arise; and the most bitter ironies, the strongest invectives, the most cutting railleries, nothing will be spared to raise the laughter of the crowd, and the pity of the wise.
Of an infinite number of plans of different works, that I saw drawn on the leaves of the Fantastical Tree, I remember three. In the first, the point in question is very abstract, but treated in so singular a manner, that perhaps it will not be disagreeable to give here a slight sketch of it.
“When I have examined matter, it has appeared to me, that it could not think, and I have readily admitted Beings purely spiritual. It is true, the least ideas of such substances have never been formed. This proves the sagacity of man does not reach very far: But does it prove there is nothing beyond?
“When I have considered the animals, I have not been able to help thinking them intelligent, and that so much ingenuity was not without some understanding. They are, therefore, said I, provided with a spiritual substance. But what! these insects, these worms, these microscopical animals, who increase without number in the shortest space, have they each a spiritual, that is to say, an unchangeable, immortal soul? I do not imagine, any such thought ever entered into a sound head.
