Yes, without any doubt. Do you not know that there is an infinite art in
those seas and those mountains that you find so crude? do you not know
that all those waters gravitate towards the centre of the earth, and
mount only by immutable laws; that those mountains which crown the
earth are the immense reservoirs of the eternal snows which produce
unceasingly those fountains, lakes and rivers without which my animal
species and my vegetable species would perish? And as for what are
called my animal kingdom, my vegetable kingdom and my mineral kingdom,
you see here only three; learn that I have millions of kingdoms. But if
you consider only the formation of an insect, of an ear of corn, of
gold, of copper, everything will appear as marvels of art.
THE PHILOSOPHER:
It is true. The more I think about it, the more I see that you are only
the art of I know not what most potent and industrious great being, who
hides himself and who makes you appear. All reasoners since Thales, and
probably long before him, have played at blind man's buff with you; they
have said: "I have you!" and they had nothing. We all resemble Ixion; he
thought he was kissing Juno, and all that he possessed was a cloud.
NATURE:
Since I am all that is, how can a being such as you, so small a part of
myself, seize me? Be content, atoms my children, with seeing a few atoms
that surround you, with drinking a few drops of my milk, with vegetating
for a few moments on my breast, and with dying without having known your
mother and your nurse.
THE PHILOSOPHER:
My dear mother, tell me something of why you exist, of why there is
anything.
NATURE:
I will answer you as I have answered for so many centuries all those who
have interrogated me about first principles: I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THEM.
THE PHILOSOPHER:
Would not non-existence be better than this multitude of existences made
in order to be continually dissolved, this crowd of animals born and
reproduced in order to devour others and to be devoured, this crowd of
sentient beings formed for so many painful sensations, that other crowd
of intelligences which so rarely hear reason. What is the good of all
that, Nature?
NATURE:
Oh! go and ask Him who made me.
_NECESSARY_
OSMIN:
Do you not say that everything is necessary?
SELIM:
If everything were not necessary, it would follow that God had made
useless things.
OSMIN:
That is to say that it was necessary to the divine nature to make all
that it has made?
SELIM:
I think so, or at least I suspect it; there are people who think
otherwise; I do not understand them; maybe they are right. I am afraid
of disputes on this subject.
OSMIN:
It is also of another necessary that I want to talk to you.
SELIM:
What! of what is necessary to an honest man that he may live? of the
misfortune to which one is reduced when one lacks the necessary?
OSMIN: