Persian Letters Author:Charles de Secondat Montesquieu Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: All these ideas, my dear Ibben, have their only source in our pride. We do not feel our littleness; and, however small we may be, we wish to count for something ... more »in the universe, to cut a figure there, and to be of some consequence in it. We imagine that the annihilation of such a perfect being would degrade all nature: and we cannot conceive that one man more or less in the world —what do I say ?—that the whole world, that a hundred millions of worldsl like ours, can be more than one small frail atom, which God perceives only because His knowledge is all-embracing. Paris, the 15th of the moon of Saphar, 1715. Letter LXXVII? Ibben To Usbek, At Paris. My dear Usbek, it seems to me that, in the eyes of a true Mussulman, misfortunes are not so much punishments as warnings. Those are priceless days upon which we are led to atone for our offences. It is the time of prosperity that ought to be curtailed. To what end is all our impatience, but to show us that we are seeking 1 Cent millions de tandes in some editions. Terres seems preferable, however, as it is an anticlimax to proceed from all men to a hundred millions. " This letter was inserted in the edition of 1754 as a foil to that which precedes it. chapter{Section 4happiness, independently of Him who gives it, because He is happiness itself? If a human creature is composed of two beings, and if the acknowledgment of the necessity of preserving their union is the chief mark of submission to the decrees of our Creator, that necessity should be made a religious law; and if the enforced preservation of this union will make men more responsible for their actions, it should be made a civil law. Smyrna, the last day of the moon of Saphar, 1715. Letter LXXVIII. RlCA TO USBEK, AT . I Send you a copy of a...« less