11. Would you venture to say that, in this universe, this thing or the other thing is an evil, whose origin and cause you are unable to explain and to analyze?21    “To analyze”—dissolvere—is in the ms. marked as spurious. And because it interferes with your lawful, perhaps even your unlawful pleasures, would you say that it is pernicious and adverse? What, then, because cold is disagreeable to your members, and is wont to chill22    In the ms. we find “to chill and numb”—congelare, constringere; but the last word, too, is marked as spurious. the warmth of your blood, ought not winter on that account to exist in the world? And because you are unable23    ms. sustinere (marked as a gloss), “to sustain;” perferre, “to endure.” to endure the hottest rays of the sun, is summer to be removed from the year, and a different course of nature to be instituted under different laws? Hellebore is poison to men; should it therefore not grow? The wolf lies in wait by the sheepfolds; is nature at all in fault, because she has produced a beast most dangerous to sheep? The serpent by his bite takes away life; a reproach, forsooth, to creation, because it has added to animals monsters so cruel.

XI. Tu audeas dicere, hoc et illud est in mundo malum, cujus explicare, dissolvere, neque originem valeas, neque causam? et quia tuas impediat deliciarum, forsitan et libidinum, voluptates, perniciosum esse atque asperum dicas? Quid ergo, quia frigus membris tuis adversum est, et congelare sanguinis tui fervorem solet, idcirco in mundo hyems esse non debet? Et quia perferre flagrantissimos soles non potes, ex anno aestas tollenda est, atque aliis legibus alia rursus ordinanda natura? Veratrum venenum est hominibus, numquid ob hanc causam non debuit nasci? Ovilibus insidiatur lupus, numquid in culpa natura est, quod lanitiis extulit importunissimam belluam? Morsu animam serpens 0733B tollit: maledicam scilicet primordiis rerum, quod 0734A tam saeva prodigia genituris spirantibus addiderunt.