ions with
regard to the oneness of God.' Claudian made the same observation,
unburdening his heart in these well-known lines:

_Saepe mihi dubiam traxit sententia mentem_, etc.

But the harmony existing in all the rest allows of a strong presumption
that it would exist also in the government of men, and generally in that of
Spirits, if the whole were known to us. One must judge the works of God as
wisely as Socrates judged those of Heraclitus in these words: What I have
understood thereof pleases me; I think that the rest would please me no
less if I understood it.

147. Here is another particular reason for the disorder apparent in that
which concerns man. It is that God, in giving him intelligence, has
presented him with an image of the Divinity. He leaves him to himself, in a
sense, in his small department, _ut Spartam quam nactus est ornet_. He
enters there only in a secret way, for he supplies being, force, life,
reason, without showing himself. It is there that free will plays its game:
and God makes game (so to speak) of these little Gods that he has thought
good to produce, as we make game of children who follow pursuits which we
secretly encourage or hinder according as it pleases us. Thus man is there
like a little god in his own world or _Microcosm_, which he governs [216]
after his own fashion: he sometimes performs wonders therein, and his art
often imitates nature.

_Jupiter in parvo cum cerneret aethera vitro,_
_Risit et ad Superos talia dicta dedit:_
_Huccine mortalis progressa potentia, Divi?_
_Jam meus in fragili luditur orbe labor._
_Jura poli rerumque fidem legesque Deorum_
_Cuncta Syracusius transtulit arte Senex._
_Quid falso insontem tonitru Salmonea miror?_
_Aemula Naturae est parva reperta manus._

But he also commits great errors, because he abandons himself to the
passions, and because God abandons him to his own way. God punishes him
also for such errors, now like a father or tutor, training or chastising
children, now like a just judge, punishing those who forsake him: and evil
comes to pass most frequently when these intelligences or their small
worlds come into collision. Man finds himself the worse for this, in
proportion to his fault; but God, by a wonderful art, turns all the errors
of these little worlds to the greater adornment of his great world. It is
as in those devices of perspective, where certain beautiful designs look
like mere confusion until