ike convinced if they were not all alike attracted. We see,
therefore, that all those methods by which the common people are in the
habit of explaining Nature are only different sorts of imaginations, and
do not reveal the nature of anything in itself, but only the
constitution of the imagination; and because they have names as if they
were entities existing apart from the imagination, I call them entities
not of the reason but of the imagination. All argument therefore, urged
against us based upon such notions can be easily refuted.

Many people, for instance, are accustomed to argue thus:--If all things
have followed from the necessity of the most perfect nature of God, how
is it that so many imperfections have arisen in Nature--corruption, for
instance, of things till they stink; deformity, exciting disgust;
confusion, evil, crime, etc.? But, as I have just observed, all this is
easily answered. For the perfection of things is to be judged by their
nature and power alone; nor are they more or less perfect because they
delight or offend the human senses, or because they are beneficial or
prejudicial to human nature. But to those who ask why God has not
created all men in such a manner that they might be controlled by the
dictates of reason alone, I give but this answer: Because to Him
material was not wanting for the creation of everything, from the
highest down to the very lowest grade of perfection; or, to speak more
properly, because the laws of His nature were so ample that they
sufficed for the production of everything which can be conceived by an
infinite intellect, as I have demonstrated.

These are the prejudices which I undertook to notice here. If any others
of a similar character remain, they can easily be rectified with a
little thought by any one.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Pp. 132-135.

[13] Beauty, my dear Sir, is not so much a quality of the object beheld,
as an effect in him who beholds it. If our sight were longer or shorter,
or, if our constitution were different, what now appears beautiful to us
would seem misshapen and what we now think misshapen we should regard as
beautiful. The most beautiful hand seen through the microscope will
appear horrible. Some things are beautiful at a distance, but ugly near;
thus things regarded in themselves, and in relation to God, are neither
ugly nor beautiful. Therefore, he who says that God has created the
world so that it might be beautiful is bound to adopt one of