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The enthusiastic soldiers, who, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, spread the faith of Islam among the timid race of Bengal, made forcible conversions by the sword, and, penetrating the dense forests of the Eastern frontier, planted the crescent in the villages of Sylhet. Tradition still preserves the names of Adam Shahid, Shah Halal Mujarrad, and Karmfarma Sahib, as three of the most

successful of these enthusiasts.

Now to get back to our given Church: it lives almost entirely for modesty and moneyed piety. It zealously inveighs against the harm done to Joseph and the sheep, but it has made its arrangements with the upper classes and serves as their spiritual defender. It bristles at see-through blouses, but not at slums in which half-naked children starve, and not, above all, at the conditions that keep

three quarters of mankind in misery. It condemns desperate girls who abort a foetus, but it consecrates war, which aborts millions. It has nationalized its God, nationalized him into ecclesiastic organization, and has inherited the Roman empire under the mask of the Crucified. It preserves misery and injustice, having first tolerated and then approved the class power that causes them; it prevents

any seriousness about deliverance by postponing it to St. Never-Ever's Day or shifting it to the beyond.

[F]rom the earliest periods of time [man] alone has divided the empire of the world between him and Nature. …[H]e rather enjoys than possesses, and it is by constant and perpetual activity and vigilance that he preserves his advantage, for if those are neglected every thing languishes, changes, and returns to the absolute dominion of Nature. She resumes her power, destroys the operations of man;

envelopes with moss and dust his most pompous monuments, and in the progress of time entirely effaces them, leaving man to regret having lost by his negligence what his ancestors had acquired by their industry. Those periods in which man loses his empire, those ages in which every thing valuable perishes, commence with war and are completed by famine and depopulation. Although the strength of man

depends solely upon the union of numbers, and his happiness is derived from peace, he is, nevertheless, so regardless of his own comforts as to take up arms and to fight, which are never-failing sources of ruin and misery. Incited by insatiable avarice, or blind ambition, which is still more insatiable, he becomes callous to the feelings of humanity; regardless of his own welfare, his whole

thoughts turn upon the destruction of his own species, which he soon accomplishes. The days of blood and carnage over, and the intoxicating fumes of glory dispelled, he beholds, with a melancholy eye, the earth desolated, the arts buried, nations dispersed, an enfeebled people, the ruins of his own happiness, and the loss of his real power.

The Achaeans of north Greece, which was later to be called Thessaly, seem to have been the great sea-adventurers of the heroic age. With this country were connected the memories of early Greek exploration of the Euxine, in the legend of the ship Argo. And to the Achaeans of Thessaly we must probably refer the earliest notice which preserves the Achaean name in a historical document. An Egyptian

writing tells us that they came in company with other peoples "from the lands of the sea" and invaded Egypt in the year 1229 B. C., when Memptah was king. But the great achievement which made the Achaeans illustrious was one in which southern and northern Greece combined—the expedition against Troy.

For, among the world's incertitudes, this thing called arithmetic is established by a sure reasoning that we comprehend as we do the heavenly bodies. It is an intelligible pattern, a beautiful system, that both binds the heavens and preserves the earth. For is there anything that lacks measure, or transcends weight? It includes all, it rules all, and all things have their beauty because they are

perceived under its standard.

Le Spectateur français, VIIe feuille – 21 août 1722


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Cependant, le jugement qu'on a porté, va son train, sert de règle à je ne sais combien de génies naissants, qui s'y conformeront, qui souffrent pour s'y conformer, et qui ne font rien qui vaille.
Je crois pour moi, qu'à l'exception de quelques génies supérieurs, qui n'ont pu

être maîtrisés, et que leur propre force a préservés de toute mauvaise dépendance, je crois, dis-je, qu'en tout siècle, la plupart des auteurs nous ont moins laissé leur propre façon d'imaginer que la pure imitation de certain goût d'esprit que quelques critiques de leurs amis avaient décidé le meilleur. Ainsi, nous avons très rarement le portrait de l'esprit humain dans sa figure

naturelle : on ne nous le peint que dans un état de contorsion ; il ne va point son pas, pour ainsi dire ; il a toujours une marche d'emprunt qui le détourne de ses voies, et qui le jette dans des routes stériles, à tout moment coupées, où il ne trouve de quoi se fournir qu'avec un travail pénible. S'il allait son droit chemin, il n'aurait d'autre soin à prendre que de développer ses

pensées ; au lieu qu'en se détournant, il faut qu'il les compose, les assujettisse à un certain ordre incompatible avec son feu, et qui écarte l'arrangement naturel qu'amènerait une vive attention sur elles.
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