The architect would
in vain display his subtlety, and prove to you, that if this door
or that window were altered, greater ills would ensue. What he
says may be strictly true: The alteration of one particular,
while the other parts of the building remain, may only augment
the inconveniences. But still you would assert in general, that,
if the architect had had skill and good intentions, he might have
formed such a plan of the whole, and might have adjusted the
parts in such a manner, as would have remedied all or most of
these inconveniences. His ignorance, or even your own ignorance
of such a plan, will never convince you of the impossibility of
it. If you find any inconveniences and deformities in the
building, you will always, without entering into any detail,
condemn the architect.
In short, I repeat the question: Is the world, considered in
general, and as it appears to us in this life, different from
what a man, or such a limited being, would, beforehand, expect
from a very powerful, wise, and benevolent Deity? It must be
strange prejudice to assert the contrary. And from thence I
conclude, that however consistent the world may be, allowing
certain suppositions and conjectures, with the idea of such a
Deity, it can never afford us an inference concerning his
existence. The consistence is not absolutely denied, only the
inference. Conjectures, especially where infinity is excluded
from the Divine attributes, may perhaps be sufficient to prove a
consistence, but can never be foundations for any inference.
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