3. Although I am able to make any desired decision, nevertheless my
decision enters into the plan of the universe, because my nature has
not been introduced into this plan subsequently; but it includes me and
my character. But whence originates my character? This includes two
points: is the cause of any man's character to be located in Him who
formed him, or in that man himself? Must we, on the other hand, give
up seeking its cause? Surely: just as it is hopeless to ask why plants
have no sensation, or why animals are not men; it would be the same as
asking why men are not gods. Why should we complain that men do not
have a more perfect nature, if in the case of plants and animals nobody
questions or accuses either these beings themselves, nor the power
which has made them? (This would be senseless, for two reasons): if we
say that they might have been better, we are either speaking of the
qualities which each of them is capable of acquiring by himself; and
in this case we should blame only him who has not acquired them--or,
we are speaking of those qualities which he should derive not from
himself, but from the Creator, in which case it would be as absurd to
claim for man more qualities than he has received, than it would be to
do so in the case of plants or animals. What we should examine is not
if one being be inferior to another, but if it be complete within its
own sphere; for evidently natural inequalities are unavoidable. This
again depends on conformity to nature, not that inequalities depend on
the will of the principle which has regulated all things.