The world, it will be said, has all the perfection of which it was susceptible; by the very reason that the world was not the God who made it, it was necessary that it should have great qualities and great defects.  But we will answer, that the world necessarily having great defects, it would have been better suited to the nature of a good God not to create a world which He could not render completely happy.  If God, who was, according to you, supremely happy before the world was created, had continued to be supremely happy in the created world, why did He not remain in peace?  Why must man suffer?  Why must man exist What is his existence to God?  Nothing or something.  If his existence is not useful or necessary to God, why did He not leave him in nothingness?  If man’s existence is necessary to His glory, He then needed man, He lacked something before this man existed!

We can forgive an unskillful workman for doing imperfect work, because he must work, well or ill, or starve; this workman is excusable; but your God is not.  According to you, He is self-sufficient; in this case, why does He create men?  He has, according to you, all that is necessary to render man happy; why, then, does He not do it?  You must conclude that your God has more malice than goodness, or you must admit that God was compelled to do what He has done, without being able to do otherwise.  However, you assure us that your God is free; you say also that He is immutable, although beginning in time and ceasing in time to exercise His power, like all the inconstant beings of this world.  Oh, theologians! you have made vain efforts to acquit your God of all the defects of man; there is always visible in this God so perfect, “a tip of the [human] ear.”

LX.—­WE CAN NOT BELIEVE IN A DIVINE PROVIDENCE, IN AN INFINITELY GOOD AND POWERFUL GOD.

Is not God the master of His favors?  Has He not the right to dispense His benefits?  Can He not take them back again?  His creature has no right to ask the reason of His conduct; He can dispose at will of the works of His hands.  Absolute sovereign of mortals, He distributes happiness or unhappiness, according to His pleasure.  These are the solutions which theologians give in order to console us for the evils which God inflicts upon us.  We would tell them that a God who was infinitely good, would not be the master of His favors, but would be by His own nature obliged to distribute them among His creatures; we would tell them that a truly benevolent being would not believe he had the right to abstain from doing good; we would tell them that a truly generous being does not take back what he has given, and any man who does it, forfeits gratitude, and has no right to complain of ingratitude.  How can the arbitrary and whimsical conduct which theologians ascribe to God, be reconciled with the religion which supposes a compact or mutual agreement between this God and