creatures, monsters like those who are born without eyes
and hands.

OSMIN:

Are these necessary things in all time and in all places?

SELIM:

Yes, if they were not they would not be necessary to the human species.

OSMIN:

So a belief which is new is not necessary to this species. Men could
very well live in society and accomplish their duty to God, before
believing that Mahomet had frequent interviews with the angel Gabriel.

SELIM:

Nothing is clearer; it would be ridiculous to think that man could not
accomplish his duty to God before Mahomet came into the world; it was
not at all necessary for the human species to believe in the Alcoran:
the world went along before Mahomet just as it goes along to-day. If
Mahometanism had been necessary to the world, it would have existed in
all places; God who has given us all two eyes to see the sun, would have
given us all an intelligence to see the truth of the Mussulman religion.
This sect is therefore only like the positive laws that change according
to time and place, like the fashions, like the opinions of the natural
philosophers which follow one after the other.

The Mussulman sect could not be essentially necessary to mankind.

OSMIN:

But since it exists, God has permitted it?

SELIM:

Yes, as he permits the world to be filled with foolishness, error and
calamity; that is not to say that men are all essentially made to be
fools and miscreants. He permits that some men be eaten by snakes; but
one cannot say--"God made man to be eaten by snakes."

OSMIN:

What do you mean when you say "God permits"? can nothing happen without
His order? permit, will and do, are they not the same thing for Him?

SELIM:

He permits crime, but He does not commit it.

OSMIN:

Committing a crime is acting against divine justice, it is disobeying
God. Well, God cannot disobey Himself, He cannot commit crime; but He
has made man in such a way that man may commit many crimes: where does
that come from?

SELIM:

There are people who know, but I do not; all that I know is that the
Alcoran is ridiculous, although from time to time it has some tolerably
good things; certainly the Alcoran was not at all necessary to man; I
stick by that: I see clearly what is false, and I know very little that
is true.

OSMIN:

I thought you would instruct me, and you teach me nothing.

SELIM:

Is it not a great deal to recognize people who deceive you, and the
gross and dangerous