each enjoys the degree of happiness, of which it is susceptible.
According to this romantic arrangement, from the oyster to the celestial
angels, all beings enjoy a happiness, which is suitable to their nature.
Experience explicitly contradicts this sublime reverie. In this world,
all sensible beings suffer and live in the midst of dangers. Man cannot
walk without hurting, tormenting, or killing a multitude of sensible
beings, which are in his way; while he himself is exposed, at every
step, to a multitude of evils, foreseen or unforeseen, which may
lead him to destruction. During the whole course of his life, he
is exposed to pains; he is not sure, a moment, of his existence,
to which he is so strongly attached, and which he regards as the
greatest gift of the Divinity.


59. The world, it will be said, has all the perfection, of which
it is susceptible: since it is not God who made it, it must have
great qualities and great defects. But we answer, that, as the world
must necessarily have great defects, it would have been more conformable
to the nature of a good God, not to have created a world, which he could
not make completely happy. If God was supremely happy, before the
creation of the world, and could have continued to be supremely happy,
without creating the world, why did he not remain at rest? Why must
man suffer? Why must man exist? Of what importance is his existence
to God? Nothing, or something? If man's existence is not useful
or necessary to God, why did God make man? If man's existence is
necessary to God's glory, he had need of man; he was deficient in
something before man existed. We can pardon an unskilful workman
for making an imperfect work; because he must work, well or ill,
upon penalty of starving. This workman is excusable, but God is not.
According to you, he is self-sufficient; if so, why does he make men?