1. When Epicurus[21] derives the existence and constitution of the universe from automatism and chance, he commits an absurdity, and stultifies himself. That is self-evident, though the matter have elsewhere been thoroughly demonstrated.[22] But (if the world do not owe its origin to chance) we will be compelled to furnish an adequate reason for the existence and creation of all these beings. This (teleological) question deserves the most careful consideration. Things that seem evil do indeed exist, and they do suggest doubts about universal Providence; so that some (like Epicurus[23]) insist there is no providence, while others (like the Gnostics[24]), hold that the demiurgic creator is evil. The subject, therefore, demands thorough investigation of its first principles. PARTICULAR AND UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE ASSUMED AS PREMISES. Let us leave aside this individual providence, which consists in deliberating before an action, and in examining whether we should or should not do something, or whether we should give or not give it. We shall also assume the existence of the universal Providence, and from this principle we shall deduce the consequences. PROVIDENCE IS NOT PARTICULAR BECAUSE THE WORLD HAD NO BEGINNING. We would acknowledge the existence of a particular Providence, such as we mentioned above, if we thought that the world had had a beginning of existence, and had not existed since all eternity. By this particular Providence we mean a recognition, in the divinity, of a kind of prevision and reasoning (similar to the reasoning and prevision of the artist who, before carrying out a work, deliberates on each of the parts that compose it[25]). We would suppose that this prevision and reasoning were necessary to determine how the universe could have been made, and on what conditions it should have been the best possible. But as we hold that the world's existence had no beginning, and that it has existed since all time, we can, in harmony with reason and our own views, affirm that universal Providence consists in this that the universe is conformed to Intelligence, and that Intelligence is prior to the universe, not indeed in time--for the existence of the Intelligence did not temporarily precede that of the universe--but (in the order of things), because, by its nature, Intelligence precedes the world that proceeds from it, of which it is the cause, type[26] and model, and cause of unchanged perpetual persistence. HOW INTELLIGENCE CONTINUES TO MAKE THE WORLD SUBSIST.