Page:Rousseau - Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar, 1889.djvu/79



Thank heaven, we are delivered from this formidable apparatus of philosophy. We can be men without being sages. Without spending our days in the study of morality, we possess at a cheaper rate a more certain guide through the immense and perplexing labyrinth of human opinions. It is not enough, however, that such a guide exists,—it is necessary to know and follow her. If she speaks to all hearts, it may be said, how comes it that so few understand her? It is, alas! because she speaks to us in the language of nature, which everything conspires to make us forget. Conscience is timid,—she loves peace and retirement. The world and its noises terrify her. The prejudices she has been compelled to give rise to are her most cruel enemies, before whom she is silent or avoids their presence. Their louder voice entirely overpowers heir's, and prevents her being heard. Fanaticism counterfeits her nature, and dictates in her name the greatest of crimes. Thus, from being often rejected, she at length ceases to speak to us, and answers not our enquiries after being long held in contempt; it also casts us as much trouble to recall, as it did at first to banish her from our bosoms.

How often in my researches have I found myself fatigued from my indifference! How often has uneasiness and disgust, poisoning my meditations, rendered them insupportable! My insensible heart was susceptible only of a lukewarm and languishing zeal for truth. I said to myself, why should I take the trouble to seek after things that have no existence? Virtue is a mere chimera, nor is there anything desirable but the pleasures of sense. When a man has once lost a taste for the pleasures of the mind, how