16. The punishments which justly overtake the evil must therefore be
derived from that Order which rules all things with propriety. The
unjust evils, accidents, misery and diseases which seem to overwhelm
the good, may all be said to be consequences of anterior faults.
These evils are intimately related to the course of events, and are
even represented therein by their signs, so that they seem to happen
according to the Reason (of the universe). We must however acknowledge
that they are not produced by natural "reasons," that they are not
within the purview of Providence, and that they are only its accidental
consequences. Thus when a house happens to fall, it buries anybody
below it, whoever he may happen to be; or again, whether some regular
movement drives on some one thing, or even several things, it breaks
or crushes anything that happens to lie in its path. These accidents
which seem unjust, are not evils for those who suffer them, if you
consider how they take their place within the legitimate order of the
universe; perhaps even they constitute just chastisements and are the
expiations of earlier faults. It would be incredible that one series
of beings in the universe should obey its order, while another series
should be subject to chance or caprice. If everything happen through
causes and natural consequences, in conformity with a single "reason,"
and to a single order, the smallest things must form part of that
order, and agree with it. Injustice practiced against somebody else
is an injustice for him who commits it, and must attract a punishment
to him; but by the place which it holds in the universal order, it is
not an injustice, even for him who suffers it. It had to be thus. If
the victim of this injustice was an honest man, for him it can have
only a happy ending. This universal order must not be accused of being
undivine and unjust, but we should insist that distributive justice
exercises itself with perfect propriety. If certain things seem worthy
of blame, it is because they are due to secret causes that escape our
knowledge.