Imatges de pàgina
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causes his existence. It is therefore impossible for the world to exist without God; it is impossible for God to exist without the world.

This world is filled with beings who succeed each other; therefore God has always produced beings. in succession.

These preliminary assertions are the basis of the ancient eastern philosophy and of that of the Greeks. We must except Democritus and Epicurus, whose corpuscular philosophy has combatted these dogmas. But let us remark, that the Epicureans were founded on an entirely erroneous philosophy, and that the metaphysical system of all the other philosophy subsisted with all the physical systems. All nature, except the void, contradicts Epicurns, and no phenomenon contradicts the philosophy which I explain. Now a philosophy which agrees with all which passes in nature, and which contents the most attentive minds, is it not supe rior to all other unrevealed systems?

After the assertions of the most ancient philosophers, which I have approached as nearly as possible, what remains to us? A chaos of doubts and chimeras. I believe that there never was a philosopher of a system, who did not confess at the end of his life that he had lost his time. It must be confessed, that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship, towers much above him who imagined innate ideas.

PHYSICIANS,

REGIMEN is superior to medicine, especially as, from time immemorial, out of every hundred physicians, ninety-eight are charlatans. Molière was right in laughing at them; for nothing is more ridiculous than to witness an infinite number of silly women, and men no less women, when they have eaten, drunk, sported, or abstained from repose too much, call in a physician for the head-ache, invoke him like a god, and request him to work the miracle of producing an alliance be

tween health and intemperance, not omitting to fee the said god, who laughs at their folly.

It is not however the less true, that an able physician may preserve life on an hundred occasions, and restore to us the use of our limbs. When a man falls into an apoplexy, it is neither a captain of infantry nor a serjeant at law who will cure him. If cataracts are formed on my eyes, it is not my neighbour who will relieve me. I distinguish not between physicians and surgeons, these professions being so intimately connected.

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Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.

The Roman people had no physicians for more than five hundred years. This people, whose sole occupation was slaughter, in particular cultivated not the art of prolonging life. What therefore happened at Rome to those who had a putrid fever, a fistula, a gangrene, or an inflammation of the stomach? They died. The small number of great physicians introduced into Rome were only slaves. A physician among the great Roman patricians was a species of luxury, like a cook. Every rich man had his perfumers, his bathers, his harpers, and his physician. The celebrated Musa, the physician of Augustus, was a slave; he was freed and made a Roman knight; after which physicians became persons of consideration.

When christianity was so fully established as to bestow on us the felicity of possessing monks, they

*This is not because our days are not numbered. It is certain that everything is the result of an invincible necessity, without which all would proceed by chance-an absolute absurdity. No man can augment either the number of his days, or his hairs; no physician, or even angel, can add one minute to the minutes which the eternal order of things has irrevocably destined to us ; but he who is destined to be stricken at a certain moment with an apo plexy may be destined also to meet with an able physician who bleeds him, and does whatever is necessary to save his life. Destiny gives us equally the disease and the remedy-the fever and the bark.-French Ed.

were expressly forbidden, by many councils, from practising medicine. They should have prescribed a precisely contrary line of conduct, if it were desirable to render them useful to mankind.

How beneficial to society, were monks obliged to study medicine and to cure our ailments for God's sake! Having nothing to gain but heaven, they would never be charlatans; they would equally instruct themselves in our diseases and their remedies, one of the finest of occupations, and the only one forbidden them. It has been objected, that they would poison the impious; but even that would be advantageous to the church. Had this been the case, Luther would never have stolen one half of catholic Europe from our holy father the pope; for in the first fever which might have seized the augustin Luther, a dominican would have prepared his pills.

You will tell me that he would not have taken them; but with a little address this might have been managed. But to proceed :

Towards the year 1517 lived a citizen, animated with a christian zeal, named John; I do not mean John Calvin, but John, surnamed of God, who instituted the brothers of charity. This body, instituted for the redemption of captives, is composed of the only useful monks, although not accounted among the orders. The dominicans, bernardines, norbertins, and benedictines, acknowledge not the brothers of charity. They are simply adverted to in the continuation of the Ecclesiastical History of Fleuri. Why? Because they have performed cures instead of miracles-have been useful and not caballed-cured poor women without either directing or seducing them. Lastly, their institution being charitable, it is proper that other monks should despise them,

Medicine having then become a mercenary profession in the world, as the administration of justice is in many places, it has become liable to strange abuses. But nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the pro

perties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor. Such a man is very superior to the general of the capuchins, however respectable this general may be.

PIRATES, OR BUCCANEERS.

IN the time of cardinal Richelieu, when the Spaniards and French detested each other, because Ferdinand the catholic laughed at Louis XII., and Francis I. was taken at the battle of Pavia by an army of Charles V.-whilst this hatred was so strong, that the false author of the political romance, and political piece of tediousness, called the Political Testament of Cardinal Richelieu, feared not to call the Spaniards "an insatiable nation, who rendered the Indies tributaries of hell;"-when in short we were leagued in 1635 with Holland against Spain; when France had nothing in America, and the Spaniards covered the seas with their galleys, then buccaneers began to appear. They were at first French adventurers, whose quality was at most that of corsairs.

One of them, named Legrand, a native of Dieppe, associated himself with fifty determined men, and went to tempt fortune in a bark which had not even a canTowards the isle of Hispaniola (St. Domingo) he perceived a galley strayed from the great Spanish fleet; he approached it as a captain wishing to sell provisions; he mounted, attended by his people; he entered the chamber of the captain who was playing at cards, threw him down, made him prisoner with his cargo, and returned to Dieppe with his vessel laden with immense riches. This adventure was the signal for forty years unheard-of exploits.

French, English, and Dutch buccaneers associated together in the caverns of St. Domingo, of the little islands of St. Christopher and Tortola. They chose a chief for each expedition, which was the first origin of

kings. Agriculturists would never have wished for a king; they had no need of one to sow, thrash, and sell

corn.

When the buccaneers took a great prize, they bought with it a little vessel and cannon. One happy chance produced twenty others. If they were an hundred in number, they were believed to be a thousand; it was difficult to escape them, still more so to follow them. They were birds of prey who established themselves on all sides, and who retired into inaccessible places: sometimes they ravaged from four to five hundred leagues of coast; sometimes they advanced on foot, or horseback, two hundred leagues up the countries.

They surprised and pillaged the rich towns of Chagra, Maracaybo, Vera-Cruz, Panama, Portorico, Campeachy, the island of St. Catherine, and the suburbs of Carthagena.

One of these pirates, named Olonois,* penetrated to the gates of Havanna, followed by twenty men only. Having afterwards retired into his boat, the governor sent against him a ship of war with soldiers and an executioner. Olonois rendered himself master of the vessel, cut off the heads of the Spanish soldiers, whom he had taken himself, and sent back the executioner to the governor. Such astonishing actions were never performed by the Romans, or by other robbers. The warlike voyage of Admiral Anson round the world is only an agreeable promenade, in comparison with the passage of the buccaneers in the South Sea, and with what they endured on terra firma.

Had their policy been equal to their invincible courage, they would have founded a great empire in America. They wanted females; but instead of ravishing and marrying Sabines, like the Romans, they procured them from the brothels of Paris, which sufficed not to produce a second generation.

They were more cruel towards the Spaniards than the Israelites ever were to the Canaanites. A Dutchman is spoken of, named Roc, who put several Spaniards

*This Olonois was afterwards taken, and eaten by savages.

VOL. V.

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