. . .
I need the hypothesis of God to justify my style.
In my ignorance of everything regarding God, the world, the soul,
and destiny; forced to proceed like the materialist,--that is, by
observation and experience,--and to conclude in the language of
the believer, because there is no other; not knowing whether my
formulas, theological in spite of me, would be taken literally or
figuratively; in this perpetual contemplation of God, man, and
things, obliged to submit to the synonymy of all the terms
included in the three categories of thought, speech, and
action, but wishing to affirm nothing on either one side or the
other,--rigorous logic demanded that I should suppose, no more,
no less, this unknown that is called God. We are full of
Divinity, Jovis omnia plena; our monuments, our traditions, our
laws, our ideas, our languages, and our sciences, all are
infected by this indelible superstition outside of which we can
neither speak nor act, and without which we do not even think.
Finally, I need the hypothesis of God to explain the publication
of these new memoirs.
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