f. Now liberty being no more than that
power, a precarious and borrowed power can constitute but a
precarious, borrowed, and dependent liberty; and, therefore, so
imperfect and so precarious a being cannot but be dependent. But
how is he free? What profound mystery is here! His liberty, of
which I cannot doubt, shows his perfection; and his dependence
argues the nothingness from which he was drawn.

SECT. LXX. The Seal and Stamp of the Deity in His Works.

We have seen the prints of the Deity, or to speak more properly, the
seal and stamp of God Himself, in all that is called the works of
nature. When a man will not enter into philosophical subtleties, he
observes with the first cast of the eye a hand, that was the first
mover, in all the parts of the universe, and set all the wheels of
the great machine a-going. The heavens, the earth, the stars,
plants, animals, our bodies, our minds: everything shows and
proclaims an order, an exact measure, an art, a wisdom, a mind
superior to us, which is, as it were, the soul of the whole world,
and which leads and directs everything to his ends, with a gentle
and insensible, though omnipotent, force. We have seen, as it were,
the architecture and frame of the universe; the just proportion of
all its parts; and the bare cast of the eye has sufficed us to find
and discover even in an ant, more than in the sun, a wisdom and
power that delights to exert itself in the polishing and adorning
its vilest works. This is obvious, without any speculative
discussion, to the most ignorant of men; but what a world of other
wonders should we discover, should we penetrate into the secrets of
physics, and dissect the inward parts of animals, which are framed
according to the most perfect mechanics.

SECT. LXXI. Objection of the Epicureans, who Ascribe Everything to
Chance, considered.

I hear certain philosophers who answer me that all this discourse on
the art that shines in the universe is but a continued sophism.
"All nature," will they say, "is for man's use, it is true; but you
have no reason to infer from thence, that it was made with art, and
on purpose for the use of man. A man must be ingenious in deceiving
himself who looks for and thinks to find what never existed." "It
is true," will they add, "that man's industry makes use of an
infinite number of things that nature affords, and are convenient
for him; but nature did not make those things on purpose for hi