Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/133

Rh effectual grace, I acknowledge I do not understand what you mean. But I consider it as a very great favor that God has let me, in my misfortune, meet with a man who pours into my heart such consolation as I thought myself incapable of receiving."

The conversation became each day more interesting and instructive. The souls of the two captives seemed to unite in one body. The old man had acquired knowledge, and the young man was willing to receive instruction. At the end of the first month he eagerly applied himself to the study of geometry. Gordon made him read "Rohault's Physics," which book was still in fashion; and he had good sense enough to find in it nothing but doubts and uncertainties.

He afterward read the first volume of the "Enquiry After Truth." This instructive work gave him new light.

"What!" said he, "do our imagination and our senses deceive us to that degree? What! are not our ideas formed by objects, and can we not acquire them by ourselves?"

When he had gone through the second volume, he was not so well satisfied; and he concluded it was much easier to destroy than to build.

His colleague, astonished that a young ignoramus should make such a remark, conceived a very high opinion of his understanding, and was more strongly attached to him.

"Your Malebranche," said he to Gordon one day,