SECT.  LXXXVIII.  We must necessarily acknowledge the Hand of a First Cause in the Universe without inquiring why that first Cause has left Defects in it.

Thus everything in the universe—the heavens, the earth, plants, animals, and, above all, men—bears the stamp of a Deity.  Everything shows and proclaims a set design, and a series and concatenation of subordinate causes, over-ruled and directed with order by a superior cause.

It is preposterous and foolish to criticise upon this great work.  The defects that happen to be in it proceed either from the free and disorderly will of man, which produces them by its disorder, or from the ever holy and just will of God, who sometimes has a mind to punish impious men, and at other times by the wicked to exercise and improve the good.  Nay, it happens oftentimes that what appears a defect to our narrow judgment in a place separate from the work is an ornament with respect to the general design, which we are not able to consider with views sufficiently extended and simple to know the perfection of the whole.  Does not daily experience show that we rashly censure certain parts of men’s works for want of being thoroughly acquainted with the whole extent of their designs and schemes?  This happens, in particular, every day with respect to the works of painters and architects.  If writing characters were of an immense bigness, each character at close view would take up a man’s whole sight, so that it would not be possible for him to see above one at once; and, therefore, he would not be able to read—that is, put different letters together, and discover the sense of all those characters put together.  It is the same with the great strokes of Providence in the conduct of the whole world during a long succession of ages.  There is nothing but the whole that is intelligible; and the whole is too vast and immense to be seen at close view.  Every event is like a particular character that is too large for our narrow organs, and which signifies nothing of itself and separate from the rest.  When, at the consummation of ages, we shall see in God—that is, in the true point and centre of perspective—the total of human events, from the first to the last day of the universe, together with their proportions with regard to the designs of God, we shall cry out, “Lord, Thou alone art just and wise!”  We cannot rightly judge of the works of men but by examining the whole.  Every part ought not to have every perfection, but only such as becomes it according to the order and proportion of the different parts that compose the whole.  In a human body, for instance, all the members must not be eyes, for there must be hands, feet, &c.  So in the universe, there must be a sun for the day, but there must be also a moon for the night.  Nec tibi occurrit perfecta universitas, nisi ubi majora sic præsto sunt, ut minora non desint.  This is the judgment we ought to make of every part with respect to the whole.  Any other view is narrow and deceitful.  But what are the weak and puny designs of men, if compared to that of the creation and government of the universe?  “As much as the heavens are above the earth, as much,” says God in the Holy Writ, “are My ways and My thoughts above yours.”  Let, therefore, man admire what he understands, and be silent about what he does not comprehend.  But, after all, even the real defects of this work are only imperfections which God was pleased to leave in it, to put us in mind that He drew and made it from nothing.  There is not anything in the universe but what does and ought equally to bear these two opposite characters: on the one side, the seal or stamp of the artificer upon his work, and, on the other, the mark of its original nothing, into which it may relapse and dwindle every moment.  It is an incomprehensible mixture of low and great; of frailty in the matter, and of art in the maker?  The hand of God is conspicuous in everything, even in a worm that crawls on earth.  Nothingness, on the other hand, appears everywhere, even in the most vast and most sublime genius.  Whatever is not God, can have but a stinted perfection; and what has but a stinted perfection, always remains imperfect on the side where the boundary is sensible, and denotes that it might be improved.  If the creature wanted nothing, it would be the Creator Himself; for it would have the fulness of perfection, which is the Deity itself.  Since it cannot be infinite, it must be limited in perfection, that is, it must be imperfect on one side or other.  It may have more or less imperfection, but still it must be imperfect.  We must ever be able to point out the very place where it is defective, and to say, upon a critical examination, “This is what it might have had, what it has not.”