Book 2
14
Our way of dealing is like that of a crowded assembly.See the fragments of Menander quoted by Upton. Beasts are brought to be sold and oxen; and the greater part of the men come to buy and sell, and there are some few who come to look at the market and to inquire how it is carried on, and why, and who fixes the meeting and for what purpose. So it is here also in this assembly (of life): some like cattle trouble themselves about nothing except their fodder. For to all of you who are busy about possessions and lands and slaves and magisterial offices, these are nothing except fodder. But there are a few who attend the assembly, men who love to look on and consider what is the world, who governs it. Has it no governor? Sunt In Fortunae qui casibus omnnia ponunt, Et mundum credunt nullo rectore moveri. Juvenal, xiii. 86 . And how is it possible that a city or a family cannot continue to exist, not even the shortest time without an administrator and guardian, and that so great and beautiful a system should be administered with such order and yet without a purpose and by chance?From the fact that man has some intelligence Voltaire concludes that we must admit that there is a greater intelligence. (Letter to Mde. Necker. Vol. 67, ed. Kehl. p. 278.) There is then an administrator. What kind of administrator and how does he govern? And who are we, who were produced by him, and for what purpose? Have we some connexion with him and some relation towards him, or none? This is the way in which these few are affected, and then they apply themselves only to this one thing, to examine the meeting and then to go away. What then? They are ridiculed by the many, as the spectators at the fair are by the traders; and if the beasts had any understanding, they would ridicule those who admired anything else than fodder.
To or against those who obstinately persist in what they have determined.
