man complains is not the caprice of fate; the darkness that misleads his
reason is not the darkness of God; the source of his calamities is
not in the distant heavens, it is beside him on the earth; it is not
concealed in the bosom of the divinity; it dwells within himself, he
bears it in his own heart.

Thou murmurest and sayest: What! have an infidel people then enjoyed the
blessings of heaven and earth? Are the holy people of God less fortunate
than the races of impiety? Deluded man! where then is the contradiction
which offends thee? Where is the inconsistency which thou imputest to
the justice of heaven? Take into thine own hands the balance of rewards
and punishments, of causes and effects. Say: when these infidels
observed the laws of the heavens and the earth, when they regulated
well-planned labors by the order of the seasons and the course of
the stars, should the Almighty have disturbed the equilibrium of the
universe to defeat their prudence? When their hands cultivated these
fields with toil and care, should he have diverted the course of the
rains, suspended the refreshing dews, and planted crops of thorns?
When, to render these arid fields productive, their industry constructed
aqueducts, dug canals, and led the distant waters across the desert,
should he have dried up their sources in the mountains? Should he have
blasted the harvests which art had nourished, wasted the plains which
peace had peopled, overthrown cities which labor had created, or
disturbed the order established by the wisdom of man? And what is that
infidelity which founded empires by its prudence, defended them by
its valor, and strengthened them by its justice--which built powerful
cities, formed capacious ports, drained pestilential marshes, covered
the ocean with ships, the earth with inhabitants; and, like the
creative spirit, spread life and motion throughout the world? If such
be infidelity, what then is the true faith? Doth sanctity consist in