The Supreme has then not only spread life and movement throughout, and willed that its impress should be preserved, but has done more; for he has per… - Adolphe Quetelet

The words cited from my work, when viewed isolatedly, are far from expressing the idea which I wished to attach to them. The works of genius upon which our judgments bear are in general complex; for there is no work, constructed by genius, which does not suppose the exercise of various of its faculties. A skilful analysis could alone make out the part of each of them...

Limits... seem to me of two kinds, ordinary or natural, and extraordinary or beyond the natural. The first limits comprise within them the qualities which deviate more or less from the mean, without attracting attention by excess on one side or the other. When the deviations become greater, they constitute the extraordinary class, having itself its limits, on the outer verge of which are things preternatural... We must conceive the same distinctions in the moral world.

Even in respect to those crimes which seem perfectly beyond human foresight, such as murders committed in general at the close of quarrels, arising without a motive, and under other circumstances to all appearance the most fortuitous or accidental; nevertheless, experience proves that murders are committed annually, not only pretty nearly to the same extent, but even that the instruments employed are in the same proportions. Now, if this occurs in the case of crimes whose origin seems to be purely accidental, what shall we say of those admitted to be the result of reflection.