POSIDONIUS.—In fact, you cannot surely be serious when you have recourse to such a system: for, in the first place, if you adopt this hypothesis, you must, of course, reject the eternal generations of which you have just now been talking: and, in the second place, you are mistaken with regard to final causes. There are voluntary uses to which we apply the gifts of nature; and there are likewise necessary effects. The Argonauts need not, unless they had pleased, have employed the trees of the forest to build a ship; but these trees were plainly destined to grow on the earth, and to produce fruits and leaves. We need not cover our legs with stockings; but the leg was evidently made to support the body, and to walk, the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the parts of generation to perpetuate the species. If you consider that a star, placed at the distance of four or five hundred millions of leagues from us, sends forth rays of light, which make precisely the same angle in the eyes of every animal, and that, at that instant, all animals have the sensation of light, you must acknowledge that this is an instance of the most admirable mechanism and design. But is it not unreasonable to admit mechanism without a mechanic, a design without intelligence, and such designs without a Supreme Being? LUCRETIUS.—If I admit the Supreme Being, what form must I give Him? Is He in one place? Is He out of all place? Is He in time or out of time? Does He fill the whole of space, or does He not fill it? Why did He make the world? What was His end in making it? Why form sensible and unhappy beings? Why moral and natural evil? On whatever side I turn my mind, everything appears dark and incomprehensible. POSIDONIUS.—’Tis a necessary consequence of the existence of this Supreme Being that His nature should be incomprehensible; for, if He exists, there must be an infinite distance between Him and us. We ought to believe that He is, without endeavoring to know what He is, or how He operates. Are you not obliged to admit asymptotes in geometry, without comprehending how it is possible for the same lines to be always approaching, and yet never to meet? Are there not many things as incomprehensible as demonstrable, in the properties of the circle? Confess, therefore, that you ought to admit what is incomprehensible, when the existence of that incomprehensible is proved. LUCRETIUS.—What! must I renounce the dogmas of Epicurus? POSIDONIUS.—It is better to renounce Epicurus than to abandon the dictates of reason. SECOND COLLOQUY. LUCRETIUS.—I begin to recognize a Supreme Being, inaccessible to our senses, and proved by our reason, who made the world, and preserves it; but with regard to what I have said of the soul, in my third book, which has been so much admired by all the learned men of Rome, I hardly think you can oblige me to alter my opinion.