“But is this knowledge an advantage? is it a source of happiness?” demanded the Count. “Why has _God_ bestowed upon us reason by which we are led astray, and learning which serves but to perplex us? With all our superiority, how often are we forced to despise ourselves! Why is the exclusively privileged being the only one liable to error? Is not the instinct of animals preferable to _our_ glimmering reason?” “Both species were not created for the same end. GOD requires not virtue of the brute creation. Were _they_ endowed with reason, with liberty of choice as regards their food and lodgment, the equilibrium of the world would be destroyed. The will of the Creator decided that the surface of the globe, and even its depths, should be filled with animated beings—that life should pervade the universe; in pursuance of which, plains, valleys, forests, from the mountain top to the lowest chasms—trees, rocks, rivers, lakes, oceans, from the sandy desert to the marshy swamp—in all climates and latitudes—from one pole to the other—all is peopled—all instinct with life, all blended in one vast sphere of existence. Whether sheltered in the depths of the wilderness, or behind a blade of grass, the lion and the pismire are alike at the post assigned them by nature. Each has his part to play, his place to guard, his predestined line of action; each is enchained within his proper bound; for every square of the infinite chess-board was from the first appropriately filled. Man alone is free to range over all, to traverse oceans and deserts; pitch his tent on the sand, or construct a floating palace on the waters; to defy the Alpine snows or the fervours of the torrid zone— “‘The world is all before him, where to choose His place of rest, and Providence his guide!’” “But if Providence indeed exert such influence, from whence the crimes arising in all human communities, and the disasters which overwhelm mankind?” cried Charney. “I sympathize in your admiration of all created things; my reason is overwhelmed when I examine the mighty whole, but on descending to the history of the human species——” “My friend,” interrupted Girardi, “arraign not the wisdom of the Almighty because of the errors of mankind, the devastations of a hurricane, or the eruptions of a volcano! Immutable laws are imprinted upon matter; and the work of ages is accomplished, whether a vessel founder in a storm, or a city disappear beneath the surface of the earth. Of what account in the sight of the Almighty a few human existences more or less? Does the Supreme Being believe in the reality of death, the darkness of the grave?