say ought not to have) taken it away.

7. Chapter II anatomizes evil, dividing it as we do into metaphysical,
physical and moral. Metaphysical evil consists in imperfections, physical
evil in suffering and other like troubles, and moral evil in sin. All these
evils exist in God's work; Lucretius thence inferred that there is no
providence, and he denied that the world can be an effect of divinity:

_Naturam rerum divinitus esse creatam;_

because there are so many faults in the nature of things,

_quoniam tanta stat praedita culpa._

Others have admitted two principles, the one good, the other evil. There
have also been people who thought the difficulty insurmountable, and among
these our author appears to have had M. Bayle in mind. He hopes to [412]
show in his work that it is not a Gordian knot, which needs to be cut; and
he says rightly that the power, the wisdom and the goodness of God would
not be infinite and perfect in their exercise if these evils had been
banished. He begins with the evil of imperfection in Chapter III and
observes, as St. Augustine does, that creatures are imperfect, since they
are derived from nothingness, whereas God producing a perfect substance
from his own essence would have made thereof a God. This gives him occasion
for making a little digression against the Socinians. But someone will say,
why did not God refrain from producing things, rather than make imperfect
things? The author answers appositely that the abundance of the goodness of
God is the cause. He wished to communicate himself at the expense of a
certain fastidiousness which we assume in God, imagining that imperfections
offend him. Thus he preferred that there should be the imperfect rather
than nothing. But one might have added that God has produced indeed the
most perfect whole that was possible, one wherewith he had full cause for
satisfaction, the imperfections of the parts serving a greater perfection
in the whole. Also the observation is made soon afterwards, that certain
things might have been made better, but not without other new and _perhaps_
greater disadvantages. This _perhaps_ could have been omitted: for the
author also states as a certainty, and rightly so, at the end of the
chapter, _that it appertains to infinite goodness to choose the best_; and
thus he was able to draw this conclusion a little earlier, that imperfect
things will be added to those more perfect, so long as they do not preclude
the