The Manual of Xefolius

THE MANUAL

measured according to infallible rules; and yet they dare to put the Great Architect A common Enlightenment-era term for God, framing the Creator as a master builder or cosmic designer. in the hot seat, to make Him account for the disorders they claim to discover in nature; as if the requirements of an infinite work and of UNIVERSAL HARMONY could be the same as those of the presumptuous man, the sybarite A person devoted to luxury and pleasure, named after the ancient Greek city of Sybaris., the egoist, the proud man, etc.! They know well enough what grass needs to make it grow; but do they know why a blade of grass organizes and develops in one way rather than another? Yet they seek to guess how an immense whole was organized and developed, of which—even with a hundred million years of life and calculations—they would still know next to nothing. Conceiving the formation of the universe is to the strength of the human mind what the weight of that same universe is to the strength of his body.

Knowing, therefore, that the knowledge we can acquire is limited to the discovery of very few of nature’s works and laws; certain, nonetheless, that the need to know was not given to me in vain, BECAUSE NATURE HAS DONE NOTHING IN VAIN, I