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Table of Contents
Introduction
In 1761, De la Nature appeared in Amsterdam, initially without the author’s name. The work was written by the French philosopher and naturalist Jean-Baptiste-René Robinet.
The book is not merely a treatise on the natural world. It is a philosophical work that seeks to understand the origin of the universe, the relationship between GOD and creation, the continuity among living beings, the presence of good and evil, and humanity’s place within nature.
Robinet begins with an ancient and enduring question:
If GOD is the cause of everything that exists, how can the presence of evil in nature be explained?
His answer is radical. Every finite being, precisely because it is limited, contains advantages and imperfections, pleasures and sufferings, possibilities for good and possibilities for evil. Evil would therefore not be an independent power opposed to GOD, but an inevitable consequence of the limitations of created beings.
The original edition was published in Amsterdam by E. van Harrevelt in 1761. (fr.wikisource.org)
Structure
De la Nature gradually examines several major themes:
- the existence of a First Cause;
- the unity of divine action within nature;
- the hierarchy and diversity of beings;
- generation and destruction;
- pleasure and suffering;
- good and evil;
- war, society, and inequality;
- truth, error, and human freedom.
Robinet acknowledges the existence of GOD as the necessary Cause of all phenomena, but maintains that the divine nature remains beyond the full reach of human knowledge:
“There is a GOD—that is, a cause of the phenomena whose totality constitutes nature. What He is, we do not know, and we are destined always to remain ignorant of it.”
Human beings may recognise that a Cause exists, but they cannot measure the Infinite through the limited categories of their own minds. For this reason, Robinet recalls the ancient inscription dedicated to the Unknown GOD. (fr.wikisource.org)
The best-known thesis of the work, however, concerns the relationship between good and evil. According to Robinet, every finite perfection carries with it a corresponding imperfection.
Intelligence makes knowledge possible, but also error.
Sensitivity makes pleasure possible, but also exposes us to suffering.
Freedom makes virtue possible, but also vice.
Robinet transforms this observation into a universal law: within nature, there would exist a necessary balance between good and evil.
This is the most original, but also the most problematic, aspect of his thought.
GOD and the Unity of Nature
According to Robinet, nature is neither an autonomous divinity nor a second cause placed alongside GOD.
It is rather the single act of the Cause, the order through which all beings are generated, transformed, and eventually dissolved.
The world is therefore not a collection of isolated realities. Every part depends upon the others and participates in the movement of the entire universe.
In the later development of his work, Robinet would even argue that all matter is composed of “germs” and that there is no completely dead matter opposed to living matter. This theory is scientifically outdated, yet it rests upon a significant philosophical intuition: nature is a continuous, dynamic, and interdependent whole. (persee.fr)
Robinet cannot properly be described as an evolutionist in the modern sense. His theories belong to eighteenth-century natural philosophy and frequently combine perceptive observations, metaphysics, and hypotheses that can no longer be sustained.
Nevertheless, his belief that no being exists in complete separation from the others anticipates what we might now describe as an ecological awareness: to damage one part of nature inevitably means altering the whole.
Selected Quotations
The following passages have been translated from the original French, with spelling and punctuation adapted for clarity.
Nature as the Single Act of the Cause
“At the beginning, the eternal Cause, having, so to speak, linked events one to another so that they would infallibly follow according to His will, touched the first link in the immense chain of things. Through this permanent impression, the universe lives, moves, and perpetuates itself.
From the unity of the Cause proceeds the unity of action. It is by virtue of this single act that everything is accomplished.
Since nature has been studied, no completely separate phenomenon or independent truth has ever been observed within it. There are none, and there can be none. The whole is sustained by the mutual correspondence of its parts. If a single part, violently torn from its place, were to break the continuity, the entire natural order would suffer. It is like an arch whose stones maintain one another in equilibrium: should one alone be removed, the entire structure would collapse.
Nature is not the single Cause, but the single act of that Cause—the order in which all things proceed and in which all beings take their place through an alternation of generations and destructions.”
Part One, Chapter IV. (fr.wikisource.org)
This is probably the most important passage in the entire work.
GOD is the Cause; nature is the act through which His will is manifested in the world. Everything that exists enters into the same chain of generation, movement, transformation, and dissolution.
What appears dead is not entirely foreign to life: it returns to the earth, water, and elements, participating in the formation of new realities. Modern science does not claim that all matter is biologically alive, but it does confirm that matter is continuously transformed and recomposed.
Creation is therefore not a collection of independent objects, but a whole in which every part receives, transmits, and eventually returns what it has received.
The Balance Between Good and Evil
“Some have said that everything is good; others that everything is evil; some that there is more good than evil; others that there is more evil than good. As for me, I have everywhere seen an equal measure of one and the other. I reflected upon this balance, and it appeared to me to be absolutely necessary.”
Preface. (fr.wikisource.org)
This sentence summarises Robinet’s central thesis.
He rejects both absolute optimism and radical pessimism. Every positive faculty also involves a danger: strength may protect or oppress; freedom may produce virtue or sin; intelligence may seek truth or construct falsehood.
The observation is valuable, but Robinet turns it into an excessively rigid formula. There is no demonstration that every good must necessarily produce an equivalent quantity of evil.
From an Abrahamic perspective, good and evil are not two eternally equivalent principles. Good belongs to the will of GOD; evil arises from corruption, limitation, or the disordered use of what has been given.
Truth and Error
“There is no truth that has not been contradicted and demonstrated in as many ways as it has been opposed; there is no error that has not been defended and refuted with equal breadth. Through this opposition of opinions, everything becomes equal. It must be shown that this singular interweaving of truth and falsehood is a necessity in nature, and that error is as necessary to the human mind as truth.”
Part One, Chapter XVIII. (fr.wikisource.org)
Robinet observes that truth rarely appears without opposition. It is disputed, distorted, and confused with mistaken opinions.
Error may indirectly contribute to knowledge because it obliges human beings to verify their sources, examine arguments, and correct their convictions.
Yet truth and error must not be assigned the same value. Falsehood does not become necessary or good merely because it forces someone to defend the truth.
The most important lesson is one of humility: a belief is not true simply because it is shared by the majority, but neither is it true merely because it is original, held by a minority, or persecuted.
Man and the Gnat
“Man possesses a hundred times more perfections than a fly, and a hundred times more defects; he possesses a thousand times more pleasures and a thousand times more miseries. But vices cancel virtues, and miseries counterbalance pleasures: the rational animal is therefore neither truly more perfect nor happier than the gnat.”
Part One, Chapter XXVII. (fr.wikisource.org)
Robinet does not deny that the human being possesses more complex faculties. He challenges, however, the assumption that such faculties automatically make humanity better or happier.
Human intelligence produces medicine, art, and philosophy, but also weapons, propaganda, and systems of oppression. Memory preserves love, but also resentment. Imagination allows us to hope, but also to fear evils that have not yet occurred.
The mathematical comparison between a human being and a gnat is clearly artificial. Nevertheless, its moral significance remains powerful:
To possess greater abilities does not mean possessing greater rights, but bearing greater responsibilities.
War and Perpetual Peace
“I am far from wishing to authorise the belligerent powers to continue the war. The author of the project for perpetual peace has no more zealous supporter than I. I merely show here that nature is inexhaustible in its resources whenever it draws benefit from the wickedness of men.”
Part One, Chapter XVII. (fr.wikisource.org)
Robinet observes that even from the consequences of war there may emerge reforms, knowledge, and a greater awareness of the value of peace.
Yet he makes clear that this does not justify war.
GOD can bring good out of evil without making the evil that was committed good.
The fact that suffering may produce maturity does not absolve the person who caused it. The fact that war may later lead to cooperation does not make the destruction that preceded it just.
The capacity of life to rise again from ruins is a reason for hope, not permission to create new ruins.
ASH Commentary
The most valuable contribution of De la Nature is its vision of the universe as a single interconnected reality.
Nature proceeds from one Cause. No being is completely isolated. Life depends upon life; every creature receives from the world and returns something to it. Human superiority cannot therefore be measured by strength, but by the responsibility with which human beings use the faculties they have received.
The principal limitation of Robinet’s thought is his theory of a necessary balance between good and evil.
When rigidly applied, this theory risks becoming a form of fatalism: if every evil were necessary to compensate for some good, injustice might appear inevitable, or even useful.
Robinet himself sometimes falls into this contradiction. Certain passages of the work attempt to justify social inequality and contain deeply offensive claims concerning enslaved Africans, even interpreting their supposed ignorance as suited to their condition of servitude. This is not a minor detail, but a concrete demonstration of how dangerous a theory of “balance” can become when applied to human injustice. (fr.wikisource.org)
From a perspective grounded in the Holy Scriptures, evil should not be regarded as something that must be preserved so that the world may remain balanced.
Human beings are called to recognise evil, oppose it, and transform the conditions that allow it to flourish.
Nature may recompose what has been dissolved. GOD may bring forth a possibility of good even from the consequences of wicked actions. But this does not mean that evil was necessary, just, or desired.
De la Nature remains an important work not because it solved the problem of evil, but because it reminded humanity that it is not separate from the rest of creation.
The universe lives, moves, and perpetuates itself. Every part supports the others like the stones of a single arch.
The task of the human being is not to dominate this structure arbitrarily, but to recognise one’s place within it and to contribute, through knowledge, justice, and mercy, to its harmony.
Evil may pass through the history of creation, but it does not therefore have to receive the final word.
