am not authorized to say that
his formation, is above the power of nature. But I can much less conceive
of this formation, when to explain it, I am told, that a pure spirit, who
has neither eyes, feet, hands, head, lungs, mouth nor breath, made man by
taking a little clay, and breathing upon it.

We laugh at the savage inhabitants of Paraguay, for calling themselves
the descendants of the moon. The divines of Europe call themselves the
descendants, or the creation, of a pure spirit. Is this pretension any
more rational? Man is intelligent; thence it is inferred, that he can be
the work only of an intelligent being, and not of a nature, which is void
of intelligence. Although nothing is more rare, than to see man make use
of this intelligence, of which he seems so proud, I will grant that he is
intelligent, that his wants develop this faculty, that society especially
contributes to cultivate it. But I see nothing in the human machine, and
in the intelligence with which it is endued, that announces very precisely
the infinite intelligence of the maker to whom it is ascribed. I see that
this admirable machine is liable to be deranged; I see, that his wonderful
intelligence is then disordered, and sometimes totally disappears; I
infer, that human intelligence depends upon a certain disposition of the
material organs of the body, and that we cannot infer the intelligence of
God, any more from the intelligence of man, than from his materiality. All
that we can infer from it, is, that God is material. The intelligence of
man no more proves the intelligence of God, than the malice of man proves
the malice of that God, who is the pretended maker of man. In spite of all
the arguments of divines, God will always be a cause contradicted by its
effects, or of which it is impossible to judge by its works. We shall
always see evil, imperfection and folly result from such a cause, that is
said to be full of goodness, perfection and wisdom.

43.

"What?" you will say, "is intelligent man, is the universe, and all it
contains, the effect of _chance_?" No; I repeat it, _the universe is not
an effect_; it is the cause of all effects; every being it contains is
the necessary effect of this cause, which sometimes shews us its manner of
acting, but generally conceals its operations. Men use the word _chance_
to hide their ignorance of true causes, which, though not understood, act
not less according to certain laws. There is no effect