This is not talking considerately, but at a venture; for surely you did not think what an encumbrance anything superfluous or useless is, not only in a man, but a tree.

How troublesome it is to have a finger too much! And why so?
Because neither use nor ornament requires more than five; but your Deity has not only a finger more than he wants, but a head, a neck, shoulders, sides, a paunch, back, hams, hands, feet, thighs, and legs.

Are these parts necessary to immortality?
Are they conducive to the existence of the Deity?
Is the face itself of use?
One would rather say so of the brain, the heart, the lights, and the liver; for these are the seats of life.

The features of the face contribute nothing to the preservation of it.
XXXVI.

You censured those who, beholding those excellent and stupendous works, the world, and its respective parts--the heaven, the earth, the seas--and the splendor with which they are adorned; who, contemplating the sun, moon, and stars; and who, observing the maturity and changes of the seasons, and vicissitudes of times, inferred from thence that there must be some excellent and eminent essence that originally made, and still moves, directs, and governs them.