EDITOR’S NOTICE.

Even if I were to say by what means the work I am now giving to the public fell into my hands, the extraordinary nature of this story would satisfy the reader no more than my silence could trouble them, and it would add nothing to the inestimable value of the gift I am presenting. Surprised and preoccupied by this singularity, I read with a kind of mistrust; but soon my conjectures were stifled by admiration: I found what no philosopher had yet offered us, a complete system systême complet: a comprehensive philosophical framework meant to explain the totality of existence. I felt my mind lean upon and settle on a foundation that corresponded to it in every way; I felt my soul rise and expand; I felt my heart catch fire with a new love for my fellow beings; my imagination was struck with a deeper respect for the Author of all things original: "l'Auteur de toutes choses" — a common Enlightenment-era reference to God or a Deist Creator; I saw the "why" behind so many subjects of complaint against eternal wisdom; finally, finding myself better and happier The use of feminine adjectives in the original French—"meilleure" and "plus heureuse"—indicates that the "Editor" persona is a woman, I thought that it was not by chance that I had been chosen, and that Providence Providence: the protective care of God or nature as a spiritual power had determined me to be the instrument of its publication