But let us pass on.  If, at every instant of duration, the stars vary their figures, then in these thousand changes, many times a day, there ought to be reproduced the configuration of royal births.  Why then does not every day see the birth of a king?  Why is there a succession on the throne from father to son?  Without doubt there has never been a king who has taken measures to have his son born under the star of royalty.  For what man possesses such a power?  How then did Uzziah beget Jotham, Jotham Ahaz, Ahaz Hezekiah?  And by what chance did the birth of none of them happen in an hour of slavery?  If the origin of our virtues and of our vices is not in ourselves, but is the fatal consequence of our birth, it is useless for legislators to prescribe for us what we ought to do, and what we ought to avoid; it is useless for judges to honour virtue and to punish vice.  The guilt is not in the robber, not in the assassin:  it was willed for him; it was impossible for him to hold back his hand, urged to evil by inevitable necessity.  Those who laboriously cultivate the arts are the maddest of men.  The labourer will make an abundant harvest without sowing seed and without sharpening his sickle.  Whether he wishes it or not, the merchant will make his fortune, and will be flooded with riches by fate.  As for us Christians, we shall see our great hopes vanish, since from the moment that man does not act with freedom, there is neither reward for justice, nor punishment for sin.  Under the reign of necessity and of fatality there is no place for merit, the first condition of all righteous judgment.  But let us stop.  You who are sound in yourselves have no need to hear more, and time does not allow us to make attacks without limit against these unhappy men.