His own views, however, were more emphatically defined, and more
directly urged, in the other contribution to literature published by
Vauvenargues in his lifetime, the "Reflexions sur divers sujets." Here
he abandons the attempt at forming a philosophical system, and admits
that his sole object is "to form the hearts and the manners" of his
readers. Perhaps the most penetrating of all his sentences is that in
which he says: "If you possess any passion which you feel to be noble
and generous, be sure you foster it." This was diametrically opposed
to all the teaching of the seventeenth-century moralists who had
preceded him, and also had taught us that we should mistrust our
passions and disdain our enthusiasms. To see how completely
Vauvenargues rejected the Christian doctrine of the utter decrepitude
and hopeless inherent badness of the human mind, we have but to gather
some of his sparse thoughts together. He says, in defiance of Pascal
and the Jansenists, "Mankind is the only source of our happiness,
outside that there is nothing." Again, "As it is the heart, in most
people, that doubts, so when once the heart is converted, all is done;
it leads them along the path to virtue.
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