Having often written that there is nothing reprehensible, nothing to be complained of in the world, all
things being finished according to a most excellent nature,
he again elsewhere leaves certain negligences to be reprehended, and those not concerning small or base matters.
[p. 465]
For having in his Third Book of Substance related that
some such things befall honest and good men, he says:
‘Is it because some things are not regarded, as in great
families some bran—yea, and some grains of corn also—are scattered, the generality being nevertheless well ordered;
or is it that there are evil Genii set over those things in
which there are real and faulty negligence’ And he
also affirms that there is much necessity intermixed, I let
pass, how inconsiderate it is to compare such accidents befalling honest and good men, as were the condemnation of
Socrates, the burning of Pythagoras, whilst he was yet
living, by the Cyloneans, the putting to death—and that
with torture—of Zeno by the tyrant Demylus, and of
Antiphon by Dionysius, with the letting of bran fall. But
that there should be evil Genii placed by Providence over
such charges,—how can it but be a reproach to God, as
it would be to a king, to commit the administration of his
provinces to evil and rash governors and captains, and
suffer the best of his subjects to be despised and ill-treated
by them? And furthermore, if there is much necessity
mixed amongst affairs, then God has not power over them
all, nor are they all administered according to his reason.
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