R£CAPITULATION* 



373 



cation, whereby we are betrayed into the belief, 

 that the little paths in which we tread, are the only 

 roads leading to knowledge. Thus it is that the 

 natural Sciences, and even the political, which arc 

 refults from them, having been, with us, feparated 

 from each other, each one, in particular, has 

 formed, if I may ufe the expreffion, a lane, without 

 a thoroughfare, of the road by which it entered. 

 Thus it is that the phyfical caufes have, at the long 

 run, made us lofe light of intelleftual ends in the 

 order of Nature, as financial caufes have ftripped 

 us of the hopes of Religion, and of Virtue, in the 

 focial order. 



I afterwards fet out in queft of a faculty better 

 adapted to the difcovery of truth than our reafon, 

 which, after all, is nothing but our perfonal inte- 

 rest merely. I flatter myfelf I have found it in 

 that fublime inftinâ; called fentimenty which is in 

 us the expreffion of natural Laws, and which is 

 invariable among all Nations. By means of it, I 

 have obferved the Laws of Nature, not by tracing 

 them up to their principles, which are known to 

 God only, but by defcending into their refulte, 

 which are deftined to the ufe of Man. I have had 

 the felicity, in purfuance of this track, to perceive 

 certain principles of the correfpondencies, and of 

 the harmonies, which govern the World. 



E b 3 I cannot 



