osmin.

Do you not assert that everything is necessary?

selim.

If all be not necessary, it follows that God does unnecessary things.

osmin.

That is to say, it was necessary for the Divine Nature to do what it has done.

selim.

I believe, or at least I suspect so. There are men who think differently. I do not understand them; but possibly they are right. I fear to dispute on this subject.

osmin.

It is, however, necessary for me to talk to you upon it.

selim.

In what manner? Would you speak of what is necessary to sustain life, or the evil to which people are reduced who cannot procure it?

osmin.

No; for that which is necessary to one is not always necessary to another. It is necessary for an Indian to possess rice, for an Englishman to eat animal food, as Russians must wear furs, and Africans gauze. One man believes that he has need of a dozen coach-horses, another limits himself to a pair of shoes, and a third walks gayly on his bare feet. I wish to speak to you of that which is necessary to all men.

selim.

It appears to me that God has given us all that is necessary in this sense: eyes to see, feet to walk, a mouth to eat, a gullet to swallow, a stomach to digest, a brain to reason, and organs to produce our kind.

osmin.

How happens it then that men are sometimes born who are deprived of a part of these necessary faculties?

selim.

Because the general laws of nature are liable to accidents which produce monsters; but in general man is provided with all things necessary to his existence in society.

osmin.

Are there not notions common to all men necessary to this purpose?

selim.

Yes; I have travelled with Paul Lucas, and wherever I went I saw that man respected his father and mother; that he thought himself bound to keep his promise; that he pitied oppressed innocence; that he detested persecution; that he regarded freedom of thinking as a right of nature, and the enemies of that freedom as the enemies of the human race. They who think differently appear to me to be badly organized, and monsters, like those who are born without eyes or heads.

osmin.

These necessary things — are they necessary in all times, and in all places?

selim.

Yes: otherwise they would not be necessary to human kind.

osmin.

Therefore, a new creed is not necessary to mankind. Men could live in society, and perform all their duties towards God, before they believed that M............