Preface
[1] Here is one of the great and of the finest questions ever raised. This Discourse is not concerned with the metaphysical subtleties that have spread to all departments of Literature, and of which the Programs of Academies are not always free; it is concerned, rather, with one of the truths that affect the happiness of mankind.
[2] I expect I shall not easily be forgiven for the side I have dared to take. Clashing head on with all that is today admired by men, I can only expect universal blame: and it is not for having been honored by the approbation of a few Wise men, that I should expect the approbation of the Public: Thus I have chosen my side; I do not care whether I please Wits or the Fashionable. There will always be men destined to be subjugated by the opinions of their century, their Country, their Society: Some men today act the part of the Freethinker and the Philosopher who, for the same reason, would have been but fanatics at the time of the League. One ought not to write for such Readers when one wants to live beyond one’s century.
[3] One word more, and I have done. Little expecting the honor bestowed on me, I had, after sending off this Discourse, recast and expanded it to the point of making it, as it were, into another Work; I believed myself obliged to restore it today to the state in which it was awarded the prize. I have only thrown in some *notes and let stand two easily recognized additions of which the Academy might perhaps not have approved. I thought that equity, respect, and gratitude required this notice of me.