THE MANUAL

measured according to infallible rules; and yet they dare to place the Great Architect A term frequently used in Enlightenment Deism and Freemasonry to describe God as a rational creator and master builder of a clockwork universe. on the witness stand, to make him account for the disorders they claim to discover in nature; as if the requirements of an infinite work and of UNIVERSAL HARMONY could be the same as those of the presumptuous man, the sybarite A person who is self-indulgent or devoted to sensuous luxury., the egotist, the proud man, etc.! They know well what grass needs to make it grow; but do they know why a blade of grass organizes and develops in one way rather than another? Nevertheless, they seek to guess how an immense whole was organized and developed, of which, even with a hundred million years of life and calculations, they would still know almost nothing. To conceive the formation of the universe is to the strength of the human mind what the weight of that same universe is to the strength of his body.

Knowing then that the knowledge we can acquire is limited to the discovery of very few works and laws of nature; sure, nonetheless, that the need to know was not given to me in vain, BECAUSE NATURE HAS DONE NOTHING IN VAIN original: "PARCE QUE LA NATURE N'A RIEN FAIT EN VAIN"—a reference to the Aristotelian axiom Natura nihil facit frustra, common in 18th-century philosophy to argue for a purposeful design in the world., I

Architect, UNIVERSAL HARMONY, formation of the universe, laws of nature