Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 02.djvu/195

Rh the mouth was not made to eat and speak with that the eyes are not admirably contrived for seeing, the ears for hearing, the nerves for feeling. Such audacity is madness. I cannot conceive it.

Let us admit that every animal renders testimony to the supreme fabricator.

The smallest herb perplexes human intellect. So true is this that the aggregate toil of all men could not create a straw unless the seed be sown in the earth. Let it not be said that the seed must rot in the earth to produce. Such nonsense should not be listened to now.

The company felt the force of these proofs more strongly than the others, because they were more palpable. Birton murmured : "Must I then acknowledge God? We shall see. It is not yet proved."

John remained thoughtful, and seemed affected.

.—No, my friends. We make nothing, we can do nothing. It is in our power to arrange, unite, calculate, weigh, measure, but, to make! What a word! The essential Being, existing by Himself, alone can make. This is why quacks, who labor at the philosopher's stone, prove themselves such fools. They boast that they create gold, and they cannot even create clay. Let us then confess, my friends, that there is a necessary and incomprehensible Being who made us.

.—If He exists, where is He? Why is He concealed? Has any one ever seen Him? Should the creator of good hide Himself?