RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION 377 
name of zature. The Supreme Author of all that 
exists is, then, the immediate creator of matter as 
also of nature, but he is only indirectly the creator 
of what nature can produce. 
““The end that God has proposed to himself in 
creating matter, which forms the basis of all bodies, 
and nature, which divides (dvzse) this matter, forms 
the bodies, makes them vary, modifies them, changes 
them, and renews them in different ways, can be 
easily known to us; for the Supreme Being cannot 
meet with any obstacle to his will in the execution 
of his works; the general results of these works are 
necessarily the object he had in view. Thus this 
end could be no other than the existence of nature, 
of which matter alone forms the sphere, and should 
not be that causing the creation of any special being. 
** Do we find in the two objects created, 2.e., mat- 
ter and zature, the source of the good and evil which 
have almost always been thought to exist in the 
events of this world? To this question I shall an- 
swer that good and evil are only relative to particu- 
lar objects, that they never affect by their temporary 
existence the general result expected (frévi), and 
that for the end which the Creator designed, there 
is in reality neither good nor evil, because every- 
thing in nature perfectly fulfils its object. 
‘“ Has God limited his creations to the existence 
of only matter and nature? This question is vain, 
and should remain without an answer on our part; 
because, being reduced to knowing anything only 
through observation, and to bodies alone, also to 
what concerns them, these being for us the only 
observable objects, it would be rash to speak affirm- 
atively or negatively on this subject. 
‘“ What is a spiritual being? It is what, with the 
aid of the imagination, one would naturally suppose 
(l'on vaudra supposer). Indeed, it is only by means 
of opposing that which is material that we can form 
