, tempests, frost,
hail, inundations, sterility, and the divers accidents which so often
render all their labors useless. In a word, I see the human race
continually occupied in protecting itself from the wicked tricks of this
Providence, which is said to be busy with the care of their happiness. A
devotee admired Divine Providence for having wisely made rivers to flow
through all the places where men had built large cities. Is not this
man's way of reasoning as sensible as that of many learned men who do
not cease from telling us of Final Causes, or who pretend to perceive
clearly the benevolent views of God in the formation of things?

LIII.--THIS PRETENDED PROVIDENCE IS LESS OCCUPIED IN CONSERVING THAN IN
DISTURBING THE WORLD--MORE AN ENEMY THAN A FRIEND OF MAN.

Do we see, then, that Divine Providence manifests itself in a sensible
manner in the conservation of its admirable works, for which we honor
it? If it is Divine Providence which governs the world, we find it as
much occupied in destroying as in creating; in exterminating as in
producing. Does it not at every instant cause thousands of those same
men to perish, to whose preservation and well-being it is supposed to
give its continual attention? Every moment it loses sight of its beloved
creatures; sometimes it tears down their dwellings; sometimes it
destroys their harvests, inundates their fields, devastates by a
drought, arms all nature against man, sets man against man, and finishes
by causing him to expire in pain. Is this what you call preserving a
universe? If we attempted to consider without prejudice the equivocal
conduct of Providence relative to mankind and to all sentient beings, we
should find that very far from resembling a tender and careful mother,
it rather resembles those unnatural mothers who, forgetting the
unfortunate fruits of their illicit amours, abandon their children as
soon as they are born; and who, pleased to have conceived them, expose
them without mercy to the caprices of fate.

The Hottentots--wiser in this particular than other nations, who treat
them as barbarians--refuse, it is said, to adore God, because if He
sometimes does good, He as often does harm. Is not this reasoning more
just and more conformed to experience than that of so many men who
persist in seeing in their God but kindness, wisdom, and foresight; and
who refuse to see that the countless evils, of which the world is the
theater, must come from the same