right to expect from the Deity, who is supposed to say to them:
_Love me, adore me, obey me: and I will make you happy_. Men, on
their part, say to him: _Make us happy, be faithful to your promises,
and we will love you, we will adore you, and obey your laws_.
By neglecting the happiness of his creatures, distributing his
favours according to his caprice, and retracting his gifts, does
not God break the covenant, which serves as the basis of all religion?
Cicero has justly observed, that _if God is not agreeable to man,
he cannot be his God_. Goodness constitutes deity; this goodness
can be manifested to man only by the blessings he enjoys; as soon
as he is unhappy, this goodness disappears, and with it the divinity.
An infinite goodness can be neither limited, partial, nor exclusive.
If God be infinitely good, he owes happiness to all his creatures.
The unhappiness of a single being would suffice to annihilate unbounded
goodness. Under an infinitely good and powerful God, is it possible
to conceive that a single man should suffer? One animal, or mite,
that suffers, furnishes invincible arguments against divine providence
and its infinite goodness.


61. According to theology, the afflictions and evils of this life
are chastisements, which guilty men incur from the hand of God.
But why are men guilty? If God is omnipotent, does it cost him more
to say: "Let every thing in the world be in order; let all my subjects
be good, innocent, and fortunate," than to say: "Let every thing exist"?
Was it more difficult for this God to do his work well, than badly?
Religion tells us of a hell; that is, a frightful abode, where,
notwithstanding his goodness, God reserves infinite torments for
the majority of men. Thus after having rendered mortals very unhappy
in this world, religion tells them, that God can render them still