RELA TION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION ^yy 



name of nature. 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 {divise) 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, i.e., mat- 

 ter and nature, 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 {pr^vu), 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 afifirm- 

 atively or negatively on this subject. 



" What is a spiritual being ? It is what, with the 

 aid of the imagination, one would naturally suppose 

 {I'on vaudra supposer). Indeed, it is only by means 

 of opposing that which is material that we can form 



