The order, the picturesqueness, and the effects of nature are commonly known, but its causes and principles are not so. Ask a woman what is the cause the eye sees as soon as it is opened, and ask a learned man the same question. (47.) Many millions of years, nay, many thousand millions of years, in a word, as many as can be comprehended within the limits of time, are but an instant compared to the duration of God, who is eternal; the extent of the whole universe is but a point, an atom, compared to His immensity. If this be so, as I affirm it is, for what proportion can there be between the finite and infinite, I ask what is the length of manʼs life, or what the extent of that speck of dust which is called the earth, nay, of the small part of that earth man owns and inhabits?—The wicked prosper whilst they live.—Yes, some of them, I admit. Virtue is oppressed and vice remains unpunished on this earth.—This happens sometimes, I acknowledge it.—This is unjust.—No, not at all. You should have proved, to warrant this inference, that the wicked are absolutely happy, that virtue is absolutely miserable, and that vice always remains unpunished; that the short time in which the good are oppressed and the wicked prosper is of some duration, and that what we call prosperity and good fortune is something more than a false appearance, a fleeting shadow; and that this atom, the earth, in which virtue and vice so seldom meet with their deserts, is the only spot of the worldʼs stage where people receive rewards and punishments.[892] I cannot more clearly infer that because I am thinking I am a spirit, than conclude from what I do or do not, according as I please, that I am free. Now freedom implies the power of choosing,[893] or, in other words, a voluntary determination for good or evil, so that virtue or vice consists in the doing a good or a bad action. If vice were to remain absolutely unpunished, it would be a real injustice, but for vice to remain unpunished on earth is merely a mystery. However, let us suppose, with the atheist, that it is an injustice; all injustice is a negation or privation of justice, and therefore every injustice presupposes justice. All justice is in conformity to a sovereign reason, and thus I ask, when was it against reason for crime to remain unpunished? At the time, I suppose, when a triangle had not three angles. Now, all conformity to reason is truth; this conformity, as I said just now, always subsisted, and is of the number of those truths we call eternal. But this truth either is not and cannot be, or else it is the object of an intelligence; this intelligence is therefore eternal, and is God.