Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 36.djvu/39

Rh was entitled, "A Treatise on the Sovereign Good," and it should have been called "A Treatise on the Sovereign Evil." The author of it maintained that there is no such thing as virtue or vice, and that remorse of conscience is a weakness owing to the prejudice of education, which a man should endeavor to subdue. The author of the following poem maintains, that remorse of conscience is as natural to us as any passion of the human soul. If the violence of passion hurries man into a fault, when come to himself he is sensible of that fault. The wild girl who was found near Châlons, owned, that in her passion she gave her companion a blow, of the consequence of which the poor wretch died in her arms. As soon as she saw her blood, she repented, she wept, she stopped the blood, and dressed the wound with herbs. Those who maintain that this relenting of humanity is only a branch of self-love do that principle a great deal of honor. Let men call reason and conscience by what names they will, they exist, and are the foundation of the law of nature.