With the same hasty change of direction Rousseau says the true question is not whether each of us suffers or not, but whether it is good that the universe should be, and whether our misfortunes were inevitable in its constitution.  Then within a dozen lines he admits that there can be no direct proof either way; we must content ourselves with settling it by means of inference from the perfections of God.  Of course, it is clear that in the first place what Rousseau calls the true question consists of two quite distinct questions.  Is the universe in its present ordering on the whole good relatively either to men, or to all sentient creatures?  Next was evil an inevitable element in that ordering?  Second, this way of putting it does not in the least advance the case against Voltaire, who insisted that no fine phrases ought to hide from us the dreadful power and crushing reality of evil and the desolate plight in which we are left.  This is no exhaustive thought, but a deep cry of anguish at the dark lot of men, and of just indignation against the philosophy which to creatures asking for bread gave the brightly polished stone of sentimental theism.  Rousseau urged that Voltaire robbed men of their only solace.  What Voltaire really did urge was that the solace derived from the attribution of humanity and justice to the Supreme Being, and from the metaphysical account of evil, rests on too narrow a base either to cover the facts, or to be a true solace to any man who thinks and observes.  He ought to have gone on, if it had only been possible in those times, to persuade his readers that there is no solace attainable, except that of an energetic fortitude, and that we do best to go into life not in a softly lined silken robe, but with a sharp sword and armour thrice tempered.  As between himself and Rousseau, he saw much the more keenly of the two, and this was because he approached the matter from the side of the facts, while the latter approached it from the side of his own mental comfort and the preconceptions involved in it.

The most curious part of this curious letter is the conclusion, where Rousseau, loosely wandering from his theme, separates Voltaire from the philosopher, and beseeches him to draw up a moral code or profession of civil faith that should contain positively the social maxims that everybody should be bound to admit, and negatively the intolerant maxims that everybody should be forced to reject as seditious.  Every religion in accord with the code should be allowed, and every religion out of accord with it proscribed, or a man might be free to have no other religion but the code itself.