Did nature plan for her parts to suffer and be miserable? Did she make them knowing they would fall into harm? Or did she not know what she was doing when she made them? Both ideas are absurd. But forget about nature in general for a moment. Think about individual things and their own natures. How ridiculous is this: First we say that all parts of the whole are naturally meant to change and decay. Then when someone gets sick and dies, we act shocked as if something strange has happened.
And did nature then either of herself thus project and purpose the affliction and misery of her parts, and therefore of purpose so made them, not only that haply they might, but of necessity that they should fall into evil; or did not she know what she did, when she made them? For either of these two to say, is equally absurd. But to let pass nature in general, and to reason of things particular according to their own particular natures; how absurd and ridiculous is it, first to say that all parts of the whole are, by their proper natural constitution, subject to alteration; and then when any such thing doth happen, as when one doth fall sick and dieth, to take on and wonder as though some strange thing had happened?