ugliness without configuration, to use their own expression, should
enjoy the same prerogatives as He who is wisdom, power, and beauty
itself, the Creator and the Demiurge of the universe enjoys? This is
not all. If the matter is so great as to be capable of being acted on by
the whole wisdom of God, it would in a way raise its hypostasis to an
equality with the inaccessible power of God, since it would be able to
measure by itself all the extent of the divine intelligence.

If it is insufficient for the operations of God, then we fall into a
more absurd blasphemy, since we condemn God for not being able, on
account of the want of matter, to finish His own works. The
resourcelessness of human nature has deceived these reasoners. Each of
our crafts is exercised upon some special matter--the art of the smith
upon iron, that of the carpenter on wood. In all there is the subject,
the form and the work which results from the form. Matter is taken from
without--art gives the form--and the work is composed at the same time
of form and of matter.

Such is the idea that they make for themselves of the divine work. The
form of the world is due to the wisdom of the supreme Artificer; matter
came to the Creator from without; and thus the world results from a
double origin. It has received from outside its matter and its essence,
and from God its form and figure. They thus come to deny that the mighty
God has presided at the formation of the universe, and pretend that he
has only brought a crowning contribution to a common work; that he has
only contributed some small portion to the genesis of beings; they are
incapable, from the debasement of their reasonings, of raising their
glances to the height of truth. Here, below, arts are subsequent to
matter--introduced into life by the indispensable need of them. Wool
existed before weaving made it supply one of nature's imperfections.