If man is at once active and free, he acts of his own accord; what he does freely is no part of the system marked out by Providence and it cannot be imputed to Providence.  Providence does not will the evil that man does when he misuses the freedom given to him; neither does Providence prevent him doing it, either because the wrong done by so feeble a creature is as nothing in its eyes, or because it could not prevent it without doing a greater wrong and degrading his nature.  Providence has made him free that he may choose the good and refuse the evil.  It has made him capable of this choice if he uses rightly the faculties bestowed upon him, but it has so strictly limited his powers that the misuse of his freedom cannot disturb the general order.  The evil that man does reacts upon himself without affecting the system of the world, without preventing the preservation of the human species in spite of itself.  To complain that God does not prevent us from doing wrong is to complain because he has made man of so excellent a nature, that he has endowed his actions with that morality by which they are ennobled, that he has made virtue man’s birthright.  Supreme happiness consists in self-content; that we may gain this self-content we are placed upon this earth and endowed with freedom, we are tempted by our passions and restrained by conscience.  What more could divine power itself have done on our behalf?  Could it have made our nature a contradiction, and have given the prize of well-doing to one who was incapable of evil?  To prevent a man from wickedness, should Providence have restricted him to instinct and made him a fool?  Not so, O God of my soul, I will never reproach thee that thou hast created me in thine own image, that I may be free and good and happy like my Maker!

It is the abuse of our powers that makes us unhappy and wicked.  Our cares, our sorrows, our sufferings are of our own making.  Moral ills are undoubtedly the work of man, and physical ills would be nothing but for our vices which have made us liable to them.  Has not nature made us feel our needs as a means to our preservation!  Is not bodily suffering a sign that the machine is out of order and needs attention?  Death....  Do not the wicked poison their own life and ours?  Who would wish to live for ever?  Death is the cure for the evils you bring upon yourself; nature would not have you suffer perpetually.  How few sufferings are felt by man living in a state of primitive simplicity!  His life is almost entirely free from suffering and from passion; he neither fears nor feels death; if he feels it, his sufferings make him desire it; henceforth it is no evil in his eyes.  If we were but content to be ourselves we should have no cause to complain of our lot; but in the search for an imaginary good we find a thousand real ills.  He who cannot bear a little pain must expect to suffer greatly.  If a man injures his constitution by dissipation, you try to cure him with medicine; the ill he fears is added to the ill he feels; the thought of death makes it horrible and hastens its approach; the more we seek to escape from it, the more we are aware of it; and we go through life in the fear of death, blaming nature for the evils we have inflicted on ourselves by our neglect of her laws.