Baruch Spinoza, you are very confused; but are you as dangerous as you are said to be? I maintain that you are not; and my reason is, that you _are_ confused, that you have written in bad Latin, and that there are not ten persons in Europe who read you from beginning to end, although you have been translated into French. Who is the dangerous author? He who is read by the idle at court and by the ladies.
The author of the "System of Nature" has had the advantage of being read by both learned and ignorant, and by women. His style, then, has merits which that of Spinoza wanted. He is often luminous, sometimes eloquent; although he may be charged, like all the rest, with repetition, declamation, and self-contradiction. But for profundity, he is very often to be distrusted both in physics and in morals. The interest of mankind is here in question; we will, therefore, examine whether his doctrine is true and useful; and will, if we can, be brief.
"Order and disorder do not exist." What! in physics, is not a child born blind, without legs, or a monster, contrary to the nature of the species? Is it not the ordinary regularity of nature that makes order, and irregularity that constitutes disorder? Is it not a great derangement, a dreadful disorder, when nature gives a child hunger and closes the œsophagus? The evacuations of every kind are necessary; yet the channels are frequently without orifices, which it is necessary to remedy. Doubtless this disorder has its cause; for there is no effect without a cause; but it is a very disordered effect.
Is not the assassination of our friend, or of our brother, a horrible disorder in morals? Are not the calumnies of a Garasse, of a Letellier, of a Doucin, against Jansenists, and those of Jansenists against Jesuits, petty disorders? Were not the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Irish massacre, etc., execrable disorders? This crime has its cause in passion, but the effect is execrable; the cause is fatal; this disorder makes us shudder. The origin of the disorder remains to be discovered, but the disorder exists.
"Experience proves to us that the matter which we regard as inert and dead assumes action, intelligence, and life, when it is combined in a certain way."