2 property attributed to a number, than a definition?

If I dared, I would simply define numbers the idea of several unities.

might say, on the contrary, that it is the most favourable of all. Woe to him that is always single! Woe to nature, if the human species and that of animals were not often two and two!

I see white-I have a sensation, an idea of white. It signifies not whether If 2 was of bad augury, 3, by way of these two things are or are not of the recompense, was admirable, and 4 was same species; I can reckon two ideas. divine; but the Pythagoreans and their I see four men and four horses-I have imitators forgot that this mysterious 4, the idea of eight; in like manner, three so divine, was composed of twice that stones and six trees will give me the idea { diabolical number 2! Six had its merit, of nine. because the first statuaries divided their figures into six modules. We have seen that, according to the Chaldeans, God created the world in six gahambars; but 7 was the most marvellous number; for there were at first but seven planets, each planet had its heaven, and that made seven heavens, without any one knowing what was meant by the word 'heaven.' All Asia reckoned seven days for a week. We divide the life of man into seven ages. How many reasons have we in favour of this number!

That I add, multiply, substract, and divide these, are operations of the faculty of thought which I have received from the master of nature; but they are not properties inherent to number. I can square three and cube it, but there is not certainly in nature any number which can be squared or cubed.

I very well conceive what an odd or even number is, but I can never conceive either a perfect or an imperfect one.

The Jews in time collected some scraps of this philosophy. It passed among the first christians of Alexandria with the dogmas of Plato. It is principally displayed in the Apocalypse of Cerinthus, attributed to John the Apostle.

We see a striking example of it in the number of the beast:

Numbers can have nothing by themselves. What properties, what virtue, can ten flints, ten trees, ten ideas, possess because they are ten? What superiority will one number divisible in three even parts have over another divisible in two? Pythagoras was the first, it is said, who discovered divine virtue in numbers. I doubt whether he was the first; for hè had travelled in Egypt, Babylon, and India, and must have related much of their arts and knowledge. The Indians particularly, the inventors of the combined and complicated game of chess, and of cyphers so convenient that the Arabs learned of them, through whom they have been communicated to us after so many ages, these same Indians, I say, joined strange chimeras to their sciences. We know what great pains all the The Chaldeans had still more, and the great scholars have taken to divine the Egyptians more still. We know that self-solution of this enigma. This number, delusion is in our nature. Happy is he who can preserve himself from it! Happy is he who, after having some access of this fever of the mind can recover tolerable health.

Porphyrius, in the Life of Pythagoras, says that the number 2 is fatal. We

"That no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man ; and his number is six hundred three score and six."

composed of three times two at each figure, does it signify three times fatal to the third power? There were two beasts, and we know not yet of which the author would speak.

We have seen that Bossuet, less happy in arithmetic than in funeral orations,

}

cepted the pestilence, and seventy thousand Jews died of it in three days.

St. Ambrosius, in his book of Repentance, and St. Augustin in his book against Faustus, acknowledged that pride and ambition led David to make this calculation. Their opinion is of great weight, and we can certainly submit to their decision by extinguishing all the deceitful lights of our own minds.

this computation, they were sent in di visions of ten thousand into a place which would only hold this number of men closely crowded. This method is very faulty, for by crowding a little less, each division of ten thousand might easily contain only from eight to nine. Further, this method is not at all soldier-like, and it would have been much more easy to have counted the whole by making the soldiers march in rank and file.

It should further be observed, how difficult it was to support seventeen hundred thousand men in the country in Greece, which they went to conquer. We may very well doubt of this number, and the manner of reckoning it; of the

Scripture relates a new numbering in the time of Esdras, when the Jewish nation returned from captivity. "All this multitude (say equally Esdras and Nehemiah, being as one man) amounted to forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty persons." They were all named by families, and they counted the num-whipping given to the Hellespont; and ber of Jews of each family, and the of the sacrifice of a thousand oxen made number of priests. But in these two to Minerva by a Persian king, who knew authors there are not only differences her not, and who adored the sun alone between the numbers and the names of as the only emblem of the Divinity. Befamilies, but we further see an error of sides, the numbering of seventeen huncalculation in both. By the calculation dred thousand men is not complete, even of Esdras, instead of forty-two thousand by the confession of Herodotus, since men, after computation we find but Xerxes further carried with him all the twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and people of Thrace and Macedonia, whom eighteen; and by that of Nehemiah we he forced, he says, to follow him, appafind thirty-one thousand and eighty-nine. {rently the sooner to starve his army. We We must consult the commentators on should therefore do here what all wise this apparent mistake, particularly Dommen do in reading ancient, and even Calmet, who adding to one of these cal-modern histories-suspend our judgment culations what is wanting to the other, and doubt much.

found, says Titus Livius, eighty thousand combatants, all Roman citizens: that implies three hundred and twenty thousand citizens at least, as many old people, women and children, to which we must add at least twenty thousand do

and further adding what is wanted to The first numbering which we have of both of them, solves all the difficulty. a profane nation is that made by Servius To the computations of Esdras and Ne-Tullius, the sixth king of Rome. He hemiah, as reckoned by Calmet, are wanting ten thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven persons; but we find them in families which could not give their genealogy; besides, if there were any fault of the copyist, it could not destroy the veracity of the divinely inspired text.mestics, slaves and freemen. It is to be believed, that the great neighbouring kings of Palestine made numberings of their people as frequently as possible. Herodotus gives us the amount of all those who followed Xerxes, without including his naval forces. He reckons seventeen hundred thousand men, and he pretends, that to arrive at

Now we may reasonably doubt whether the little Roman state contained this number. Romulus only reigned (if we may call him king) over about three thousand bandits, assembled in a little town between the mountains. This town was the worst land of Italy. The circuit of all his country was not three thousand

and thirty-seven thousand men, in the year 14 of our era. The same Echard speaks of a general numbering of the empire for the first year of the same era; but he quotes no Roman author, nor specifies any calculation of the number of citizens. Tillemont speaks not in any way of this numbering.

We have quoted Tacitus and Suetonius, but to very little purpose. The census of which Suetonius speaks is not a numbering of citizens; it is only a list of those to whom the public furnished corn.

paces. Servius was the sixth chief or king of this rising people. The rule of Newton, which is indubitable for elective kingdoms, gives twenty-one years' reign to each king, and by that contradicts all the ancient historians, who have never observed the order of time, nor given any precise date. The five kings of Rome must have reigned about a hundred years. It is certainly not in the order of nature that an ungrateful soil, which was not five leagues in length or three in breadth, and which must have lost many of its inhabitants in its almost continual little wars, could be peopled with three Tacitus only speaks, in book ii. of a hundred and forty thousand souls. There census established among the Gauls, for is not half the number in the same terri-the purpose of raising more tribute on tory at present, when Rome is the me- each head. Augustus never made a caltropolis of the Christian world; when culation of the other subjects of his emthe affluence of foreigners and the am- pire, because they paid not the poll-tax, bassadors of so many nations must serve { which he wished to establish in Gaul. to people the towns; when gold flows from Poland, Hungary, half of Germany, Spain, and France, by a thousand channels into the purse of the Treasury, and must further facilitate population, if other causes intercept it.

As the history of Rome was not written until more than five hundred years after its foundation, it would not be at all surprising if the historians had liberally given Servius Tullius eighty thousand warriors instead of eight thousand, through false zeal for their country. Their zeal would have been much more judicious if they had confessed the weak commencement of their republic. It is much more noble to be raised from so poor an origin to so much greatness, than to have had double the soldiers of Alexander to conquer about fifteen leagues of country in four hundred years.

The census was never taken except of Roman citizens. It is pretended, that under Augustus it amounted to four millions one hundred and thirty-seven thousand, in the year 29 before our vulgar era, according to Tillemont, who is very exact, and Dion Cassius, who is no less so.

Lawrence Echard admits but one numbering, of four millions one hundred

Tacitus says, that Augustus had a memoir, written in his own hand, which contained the revenues of the empire, the fleets and contributary kingdoms. He speaks not of any numbering.

Dion Cassius speaks of a census, but he specifies no number.

Josephus in his Antiquities says, that in the year 759 of Rome (the time answering to the eleventh year of our era) Cyrenius, then constituted Governor of Syria, caused a list to be made of all the property of the Jews, which caused a revolt.

This has no relation to a general numbering, and merely proves, that this Cyrenius was not Governor of Judea (which was then a little province of Syria) until ten years after, and not at the birth of our Saviour.

These seem to me to be all the principal passages that we can collect in profane histories, touching the numberings attributed to Augustus. If we refer to them, Jesus Christ would be born under the government of Varus, and not under that of Cyrenius; and there could have been no universal numbering. But St. Luke, whose authority should prevail over that of Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, Dion Cassius, and all the writers of

and twenty millions. This is a proof that doctor Gad has nothing wherewith to reproach the ministry of France.

As to the capital towns, opinions are further divided. According to some calculators, Paris has seven hundred thousand inhabitants, and according to others

Rome, St. Luke affirms positively, that there was an universal numbering of all the earth, and that Cyrenius was Governor of Judea. We must therefore refer solely to him, without even seeking to reconcile him with Flavius Josephus, or with any other historian. As to the rest, neither the New nor the Old Testa-five hundred thousand. It is thus with ment have been given to us to enlighten London, Constantinople, and Grand points of history, but to announce salu- Cairo. tary truths, before which all events and opinions should vanish. It is thus that we always reply to the false calculations, { contradictions, absurdities, enormous faults of geography, chronology, physics, and even common sense, with which philosophers tell us the holy scripture is filled we cease not to reply, that there is here no question of reason, but of faith and piety.

SECTION II.

As to the subjects of the pope, they will make a crowd in paradise, but the multitude is moderate on earth. Why so?-because they are subjects of the pope. Would Cato the Censor have ever believed that the Romans would come to that pass.

OCCULT QUALITIES.

OCCULT qualities have, for a very long time, been much derided: it would be more proper to deride those who do not With regard to the numbers of the believe in them. Let us for the hunmoderns, kings fear not at present that a dredth time repeat, that every principle, doctor Gad should propose to them on every primitive source of any of the the part of God, either famine, war, or works which come from the hand of the pestilence, to punish them for wishing{demiourgos, is occult, and eternally hidto know the amount of their subjects.den from mortals. None of them know it.

We conjecture and guess, and always } possibly within a few millions of men.

I have carried the number of inhabitants which compose the empire of Russia to twenty-four millions, in the statements which have been sent to me; but I have not guaranteed this valuation, because I { know very little about it. I believe that Germany possessed as many people, reckoning the Hungarians. If I am deceived by one or two millions, we know it is a trifle in such a case.

I beg pardon of the King of Spain, if I have only awarded him seven millions of subjects in our continent. It is a very small number; but Don Ustaris, employed in the ministry, gives him no

more.

What is the centripetal force, the force of gravitation, which acts without contact

at such immense distances?

What causes our hearts to beat sixty times a minute? What other power changes this grass into milk in the udder of a cow? and this bread into the flesh, blood, and bone of that child, who grows proportionally while he eats it, until he arrives at the height determined by nature, after which there is no art which can add a line to it.

Vegetables, minerals, animals, where is your originating principle? In the hands of him who turns the sun upon its axis, and who has clothed it with light.

This lead will never become silver, nor this silver gold; this gold will never become diamond, nor this straw be transWe reckon from about nine to ten mil-formed into lemons and ananas. lions of free beings in the three kingdoms of Great Britain.

In France we count between sixteen

What corpuscular system of physics, what atoms, determine their nature? You know nothing about it, and the cause