men?  If God owes nothing to His creatures, they, on their part, can not owe anything to their God.  All religion is founded upon the happiness which men believe they have a right to expect from the Divinity, who is supposed to tell them:  “Love, adore, obey me, and I will render you happy!” Men on their side say to Him:  “Make us happy, be faithful to your promises, and we will love you, we will adore you, we will obey your laws!” In neglecting the happiness of His creatures, in distributing His favors and His graces according to His caprice, and taking back His gifts, does not God violate the contract which serves as a base for all religion?

Cicero has said with reason that if God does not make Himself agreeable to man, He can not be his God. [Nisi Deus homini placuerit, Deus non erit.] Goodness constitutes Divinity; this Goodness can manifest itself to man only by the advantages he derives from it.  As soon as he is unfortunate, this Goodness disappears and ceases to be Divinity.  An infinite Goodness can be neither partial nor exclusive.  If God is infinitely good, He owes happiness to all His creatures; one unfortunate being alone would be sufficient to annihilate an unlimited goodness.  Under an infinitely good and powerful God, is it possible to conceive that a single man could suffer?  An animal, a mite, which suffers, furnishes invincible arguments against Divine Providence and its infinite benefactions.

LXI.—­CONTINUATION.

According to theologians, the afflictions and evils of this life are chastisements which culpable men receive from Divinity.  But why are men culpable?  If God is Almighty, does it cost Him any more to say, “Let everything remain in order!”—­“let all my subjects be good, innocent, fortunate!”—­than to say, “Let everything exist?” Was it more difficult for this God to do His work well than to do it so badly?  Was it any farther from the nonexistence of beings to their wise and happy existence, than from their non-existence to their insensate and miserable existence?  Religion speaks to us of a hell—­that is, of a fearful place where, notwithstanding His goodness, God reserves eternal torments for the majority of men.  Thus, after having rendered mortals very miserable in this world, religion teaches them that God can make them much more wretched in another.  They meet our objections by saying, that otherwise the goodness of God would take the place of His justice.  But goodness which takes the place of the most terrible cruelty, is not infinite kindness.  Besides, a God who, after having been infinitely good, becomes infinitely wicked, can He be regarded as an immutable being?  A God filled with implacable fury, is He a God in whom we can find a shadow of charity or goodness?

LXII.—­THEOLOGY MAKES OF ITS GOD A MONSTER OF NONSENSE, OF INJUSTICE, OF MALICE, AND ATROCITY—­A BEING ABSOLUTELY HATEFUL.