Conclusions deduced from this chapter.

vantage that is useless when not employed in the search of that particular truth.

The uniformity of frauds (38) employed by the ministers of the false religions, the resemblance of the phantoms seen by them in the intellectual regions (39), and the equal credulity of the people, prove therefore that nature has not given to men that unequal portion of judgment which has been supposed; and that in morality, politics, and metaphysics, if they form very different judgments of the same objects, it arises from their prejudices and the indeterminate significations that are annexed to the same expressions.

I shall only add, that if judgment be reduced to the science or knowledge of the true relations which objects have to each other, and that if whatever be the organization of individuals, that organization as is demonstrated by geometry, makes no change in theconstant proportions with which objects strike them, it necessarily follows that the greater or less perfection of the organs of the senses, can have no influence over our ideas, and that all men organized in the common manner will consequently have an equal aptitude to judgment or understanding. The only method remaining to render this truth more evident, if that be possible, is to fortify the proofs by augmenting them. Let us attempt this by another series of propositions.

Every truth is reducible to a fact.

CHAP. XXIII.

THERE IS NO TRUTH NOT REDUCIBLE TO A FACT.

ALMOST all philosophers agree, that the most sublime truths once simplified and reduced to their plainest terms, may be converted into facts, and in that ca present nothing more to the mind than this proposition, white is white, and black is black (40). The apparent obscurity of certain truths lies not therefore in the truths themselves, but in the confused manner of representing them, and the impropriety of the words used in expressing them. Can they be reduced to simple facts? If every fact can be equally well perceived by every man organized (41) in the common manner, there is no truth which he cannot comprehend. Now if all men can conceive the same truths, they must all have essentially the same aptitude to understanding.

But is it quite certain that every truth may be reduced to those clear propositions above-mentioned ? I shall add only one proof to what the philosophers have already given: I deduce it from the perfectibility of the human mind or understanding; experience demon

strates

All men have equal capacity for perceiving truths.

strates that the understanding is capable of it. Now what does this perfectibility suppose? Two things:

The one, that every truth is essentially comprehensible by every mind.

The other, that every truth may be clearly represented.

The capacity that all men have to learn a trade proves this. If the most sublime discoveries of the ancient mathematicians are at this day comprised in the elements of geometry, and are understood by every student in that science, it is because those discoveries are reduced to facts.

Truths being once brought to this point of simplicity, if there be some among them that men of ordinary capacity cannot comprehend, it is then, they may say, that borne up by experience, like the eagle, who alone among the feathered race can soar above the clouds and gaze upon the sun, the man of genius. alone can raise himself to the intellectual regions, and there sustain the resplendence of a new truth. Now nothing is more contrary to experience. Does a man of genius discover a truth, and represent it clearly? Atthe instant all men of ordinary capacity seize it, and make it their own. The genius is an adventurous chief, who penetrates the region of discoveries: he lays open the road, and men of common capacity rush in crouds after him. They have therefore the force necessary to follow him, otherwise genius would there penetrate alone.

9 3

Period when the highest truths are attainable by common minds

alone. Now to the present day its only privilege is to make the first track*.

But if there be a period when the highest truths are attainable by common minds, when is that period? When freed from the obscurity of words, and reduced to propositions more or less simple, they pass from the empire of genius to that of the sciences. Till then, like those souls who are said to wander in the celestial abodes, waiting till they can animate a body, and appear before the light, the truths yet unknown wander in the regions of discoveries, waiting for some genius to seize, and transport them to this terrestrial sphere. Once descended to the earth, and perceived by superior minds, they become common property.

If in this age, says M. Voltaire, men commonly write better in prose than in the last age, to what do the moderns owe this advantage? To the models they have before them. The moderns could not boast of this superiority, if the genius of the last age, already converted into science (42), had not, if I may so say, entered into circulation. When the discoveries of genius are metamorphosed into sciences, each discovery deposited in their temple becomes a public property; the temple is open to all. Whoever desires to learn,

It seems to follow from this paragraph, that every man who will, may understand all the truths in the sublime science of geometry and the depths of fluxions, provided they be properly explained.

learns,

The highest discoveries in art and science comprehensible to all.

learns, and is sure to make nearly so many feet of science per day. The time fixed for apprenticeship is a proof of this. If the greatest part of arts, at the degree of perfection to which they are now carried, may be regarded as the produce of the discoveries of a hundred men of genius placed end to end; to exercise those arts it is necessary therefore that the workman unite them in himself, and know how properly to apply the ideas of those hundred men of genius: what can be a stronger proof of the perfectibility of the human mind, and of its aptitude to comprehend every sort of truth?

If from the arts I pass to the sciences, it will be equally apparent that the truths, whose discoveries formerly deified their inventor, are now quite common. The system of Newton is taught every where.

It is with the author of a new truth as with an astronomer, whom curiosity or the desire of glory calls up to his observatory. He points his glass to the heavens, and in the immensity of space beholds a new star or satellite. He calls his friends; they go up, and looking through the telescope, behold the same star: for with organs nearly the same, men mnst discover the same objects.

If there were ideas that ordinary men could not attain, there would be truths discovered in the process of ages, that could not be comprehended but by two or three men equally organized. The rest of the human race would be subject in this respect to an in8 4 vincible