258.  Nevertheless the very fact that one has no need of that great remedy is a proof that the good already exceeds the evil.  Euripides also said: 

  [Greek:  pleio ta chresta ton kakon einai brotois].
  Mala nostra longe judico vinci a bonis.

Homer and divers other poets were of another mind, and men in general agree with them.  The reason for this is that the evil arouses our attention rather than the good:  but this same reason proves that the evil is more rare.  One must therefore not credit the petulant expressions of Pliny, who would have it that Nature is a stepmother, and who maintains that man is the most unhappy and most vain of all creatures.  These two epithets do not agree:  one is not so very unhappy, when one is full of oneself.  It is [285] true that men hold human nature only too much in contempt, apparently because they see no other creatures capable of arousing their emulation; but they have all too much self-esteem, and individually are but too easily satisfied.  I therefore agree with Meric Casaubon, who in his notes on the Xenophanes of Diogenes Laertius praises exceedingly the admirable sentiments of Euripides, going so far as to credit him with having said things quae spirant [Greek:  theopneuston] pectus.  Seneca (Lib. 4, c. 5, De Benefic.) speaks eloquently of the blessings Nature has heaped upon us.  M. Bayle in his Dictionary, article ‘Xenophanes’, brings up sundry authorities against this, and among others that of the poet Diphilus in the Collections of Stobaeus, whose Greek might be thus expressed in Latin: 

  Fortuna cyathis bibere nos datis jubens,
  Infundit uno terna pro bono mala.

259.  M. Bayle believes that if it were a question only of the evil of guilt, or of moral evil among men, the case would soon be terminated to the advantage of Pliny, and Euripides would lose his action.  To that I am not opposed; our vices doubtless exceed our virtues, and this is the effect of original sin.  It is nevertheless true that also on that point men in general exaggerate things, and that even some theologians disparage man so much that they wrong the providence of the Author of mankind.  That is why I am not in favour of those who thought to do great honour to our religion by saying that the virtues of the pagans were only splendida peccata, splendid vices.  It is a sally of St. Augustine’s which has no foundation in holy Scripture, and which offends reason.  But here we are only discussing a physical good and evil, and one must compare in detail the prosperities and the adversities of this life.  M. Bayle would wish almost to set aside the consideration of health; he likens it to the rarefied bodies, which are scarcely felt, like air, for example; but he likens pain to the bodies that have much density and much weight in slight volume.  But pain itself makes us aware of the importance of health when we are bereft of it.