cause destruction and danger to men if it be true that God has made the world for the sake of man? [1470] If reason is praised as the highest gift of God, is it not manifest that the majority of men only use it to make themselves worse than brutes? In bestowing such a gift God must have been taking but little care of this majority. [1471] Even if we attribute to man direct blame for the misuse of reason, still, why has God bestowed on him a reason which can be so much abused? [1472] The Stoics themselves say that a wise man can nowhere be found. They admit, too, that folly is the greatest misfortune. How, then, can they speak of the care bestowed by God on men, when, on their own confession, the whole of mankind is sunk in the deepest misery? [1473] But allowing that the Gods could not bestow virtue and wisdom upon all, they could, at least, have taken care that it should go well with the good. Instead of this, the experience of hundreds of cases shows that the upright man comes to a miserable end; that crime succeeds; and that the criminal can enjoy the fruits of his misdeeds undisturbed. Where, then, is the agency of Providence? [1474] The facts being entirely different from what the Stoics suppose, what becomes of their inferences? Allowing the presence of design in the world, and granting that the world is as beautiful and good as possible, why is it inconceivable that nature should have formed the world according to natural laws without the intervention of God? Admitting, too, the connection of parts in the universe, why should not this connection be the result simply of natural forces, without a soul of the universe or a deity? [1475] Who can pretend to be so intimately acquainted with the powers of nature, as to be able to prove the impossibility of this assumption? Zeno argued that rational things are better than things irrational, that the world is the best possible, and must therefore be rational. Man, says Socrates, can only derive his soul from the world; therefore the world must have a soul. But what, replies the Academician, [1476] is there to show that reason is best for the world, if it be the best for us? or that there must be a soul in nature for nature to produce a soul? What man is not able to produce, that, argues Chrysippus, must have been produced by a higher being—by deity. But to this inference the same objection was raised by the Academicians as to the former one, viz. that it confounds two different points of view. There may, indeed, be a Being higher than man. But why must there needs be a rational man-like Being? Why a God? Why not nature herself? [1477] Nor did the argument seem to an Academician more conclusive, that as every house is destined to be inhabited, so, too, the world must be intended for the habitation of God. To this there was the obvious reply: [1478] If the world were a house, it might be so; but the very point at issue is whether it is a