t these two excellent men bring up, or rather let us
see what M. Bayle's objection is, for he professes to have profited by the
arguments of M. Arnauld.

219. 'Would it be possible', he says, _Reply to the Questions of a
Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 158, p. 890, 'that a nature whose goodness,
holiness, wisdom, knowledge and power are infinite, who loves virtue
supremely, and hates vice supremely, as our clear and distinct idea of him
shows us, and as well-nigh every page of Scripture assures us, could have
found in virtue no means fitting and suited for his ends? Would it be
possible that vice alone had offered him this means? One would have thought
on the contrary that nothing beseemed this nature more than to establish
virtue in his work to the exclusion of all vice.' M. Bayle here exaggerates
things. I agree that some vice was connected with the best plan of the
universe, but I do not agree with him that God could not find in virtue any
means suited for his ends. This objection would have been valid if there
were no virtue, if vice took its place everywhere. He will say it suffices
that vice prevails and that virtue is trifling in comparison. But I am far
from agreeing with him there, and I think that in reality, properly
speaking, there is incomparably more moral good than moral evil in rational
creatures; and of these we have knowledge of but few.

220. This evil is not even so great in men as it is declared to be. It[265]
is only people of a malicious disposition or those who have become somewhat
misanthropic through misfortunes, like Lucian's Timon, who find wickedness
everywhere, and who poison the best actions by the interpretations they
give to them. I speak of those who do it in all seriousness, to draw thence
evil conclusions, by which their conduct is tainted; for there are some who
only do it to show off their own acumen. People have found that fault in
Tacitus, and that again is the criticism M. Descartes (in one of his
letters) makes of Mr. Hobbes's book _De Cive_, of which only a few copies
had at that time been printed for distribution among friends, but to which
some notes by the author were added in the second edition which we have.
For although M. Descartes acknowledges that this book is by a man of
talent, he observes therein some very dangerous principles and maxims, in
the assumption there made that all men are wicked, or the provision of them
with motives for being so. The late Herr Jacob Thomasius