If God is infinite, He is created still less for man, than man is for
the ants. Would the ants of a garden reason pertinently with reference
to the gardener, if they should attempt to occupy themselves with his
intentions, his desires, and his projects? Would they reason correctly
if they pretended that the park of Versailles was made but for them, and
that a fastidious monarch had had as his only object to lodge them
superbly? But according to theology, man in his relation to God is far
beneath what the lowest insect is to man. Thus by the acknowledgment of
theology itself, theology, which does but occupy itself with the
attributes and views of Divinity, is the most complete of follies.
LI.--IT IS NOT TRUE THAT THE OBJECT OF THE FORMATION OF THE UNIVERSE WAS
TO RENDER MEN HAPPY.
It is pretended, that in forming the universe, God had no object but to
render man happy. But, in a world created expressly for him and governed
by an all-mighty God, is man after all very happy? Are his enjoyments
durable? Are not his pleasures mingled with sufferings? Are there many
people who are contented with their fate? Is not mankind the continual
victim of physical and moral evils? This human machine, which is shown
to us as the masterpiece of the Creator's industry, has it not a
thousand ways of deranging itself? Would we admire the skill of a
mechanic, who should show us a complicated machine, liable to be out of
order at any moment, and which would after a while destroy itself?