earth, washed its surface and dissolved and absorbed the solid
salt that was left in the cinders, finally filling up this great cavity in
the surface of our globe, to form the ocean filled with salt water.

245. But, after the fire, one must conclude that earth and water made
ravages no less. It may be that the crust formed by the cooling, having
below it great cavities, fell in, so that we live only on ruins, as among
others Thomas Burnet, Chaplain to the late King of Great Britain, aptly
observed. Sundry deluges and inundations have left deposits, whereof traces
and remains are found which show that the sea was in places that to-day are
most remote from it. But these upheavals ceased at last, and the globe
assumed the shape that we see. Moses hints at these changes in few words:
the separation of light from darkness indicates the melting caused by the
fire; and the separation of the moist from the dry marks the effects of
inundations. But who does not see that these disorders have served to bring
things to the point where they now are, that we owe to them our riches and
our comforts, and that through their agency this globe became fit for
cultivation by us. These disorders passed into order. The disorders, real
or apparent, that we see from afar are sunspots and comets; but we do not
know what uses they supply, nor the rules prevailing therein. Time was when
the planets were held to be wandering stars: now their motion is found to
be regular. Peradventure it is the same with the comets: posterity will
know.

246. One does not include among the disorders inequality of conditions, and
M. Jacquelot is justified in asking those who would have everything equally
perfect, why rocks are not crowned with leaves and flowers? why ants are
not peacocks? And if there must needs be equality everywhere, the poor man
would serve notice of appeal against the rich, the servant against the
master. The pipes of an organ must not be of equal size. M. Bayle will say
that there is a difference between a privation of good and a disorder;
between a disorder in inanimate things, which is purely metaphysical, and a
disorder in rational creatures, which is composed of crime and [279]
sufferings. He is right in making a distinction between them, and I am
right in combining them. God does not neglect inanimate things: they do not
feel, but God feels for them. He does not neglect animals: they have not
intelligence, but God has it for them.