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Notes on Reading underline l'Esprit des Loix /underline Chap. I. of. the Relation of Laws to underline different Beings /underline

Laws in their most general signification, are the underline necessary /underline Relations resulting from the nature of things. Those who assert that underline a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this World, /underline are highly absurd; for what can be more so, than the pretending that a blind underline fatality /underline could be productive of Intelligent Beings. There is then a primitive reason, and Laws are the Relations subsisting between it and different beings, underline and /underline the Relations of these beings among themselves. God is related to the Universe as Creator and Preserver; the Laws by which He created all things are those by underline which /underline He preserves them.

As the World though formed by the motion of matter, and void of understanding, subsists through so long a succession of Ages, its motions must underline certainly /underline be directed by invariable Laws. The Creation therefore, which seems an Arbitrary Act, suppose the Laws as invariable as those of the underline fatality /underline of the Atheists.

It would be absurd to imagine that the Creator governed the World without those Rules