[113] Nicomachean Ethics, VI., ii.
[114] We do not mean by this that science cannot be a means of livelihood: nothing more legitimate, on the contrary. We only mean that it is not that alone.
[115] See also the admirable passage of Augustin Thierry in the preface to Dix ans d’étude.
[116] “Answer me, ye illustrious philosophers, ye through whom we know what are the causes which attract bodies to a vacuum; what are in the revolutions of the planets, the relations of the spaces they travel over at equal periods ... how man sees everything in God; how the soul and the body correspond to each other without inter-communication, like two clocks.... Even though you had not taught us any of these things, should we be less numerous, less flourishing, more depraved?” This passage recalls vividly that of Malebranche quoted above. What, however, is most curious about it is that Rousseau in his criticism appropriates Malebranche’s hypothesis.
[117] “Good sense is the best distributed thing in the world,” says Descartes at the beginning of his Discours de la Méthode.
[118] Unless, of course, passion itself implies a duty superior to self-interest: which is not the case here.
[119] See Burlamaqui, Droit naturel, part I., ch. vi.
[120] See the celebrated lines in the Misanthrope, act ii., sc. v.
[121] Virtus in Latin has both meanings.
[122] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by R. W. Browne, III., vi.