11.  After all, one finds that all these evils of which we have spoken come accidentally from good causes; and there is reason to infer concerning all we do not know, from all we do know, that one could not have done away with them without falling into greater troubles.  For the better understanding of this the author counsels us to picture the world as a great building.  There must be not only apartments, halls, galleries, gardens, grottoes, but also the kitchen, the cellar, the poultry-yard, stables, drainage.  Thus it would not have been proper to make only suns in the world, or to make an earth all of gold and of diamonds, but not habitable.  If man had been all eye or all ear, he would not have been fitted for feeding himself.  If God had made him without passions, he would have made him stupid; and if he had wished to make man free from error he would have had to deprive him of senses, or give him powers of sensation through some other means than organs, that is to say, there would not have been any man.  Our learned author remarks here upon an idea which histories both sacred and profane appear to inculcate, namely that wild beasts, poisonous plants and other natures that are injurious to us have been armed against us by sin.  But as he argues here only in accordance with the principles of reason he sets aside what Revelation can teach.  He believes, however, that Adam would have been exempted from natural evils (if he had been obedient) only by virtue of divine grace and of a covenant made with God, and that Moses expressly indicates only about seven effects of the first sin.  These effects are: 

1.  The revocation of the gracious gift of immortality.

2.  The sterility of the earth, which was no longer to be fertile of itself, save in evil or useless herbs.

3.  The rude toil one must exercise in order to gain sustenance.

4.  The subjection of the woman to the will of the husband.

[416] 5.  The pains of childbirth.

6.  The enmity between man and the serpent.

7.  The banishment of man from the place of delight wherein God had placed him.

But our author thinks that many of our evils spring from the necessity of matter, especially since the withdrawal of grace.  Moreover, it seems to him that after our banishment immortality would be only a burden to us, and that it is perhaps more for our good than to punish us that the tree of life has become inaccessible to us.  On one point or another one might have something to say in objection, but the body of the discourse by our author on the origin of evils is full of good and sound reflexions, which I have judged it advisable to turn to advantage.  Now I must pass on to the subject of our controversy, that is, the explanation of the nature of freedom.