But why was not man endued with a reason incapable of producing any crimes?
How could the Gods err?
When we leave our effects to our children, it is in hopes that they may be well bestowed; in which we may be deceived, but how can the Deity be deceived?
As Phoebus when he trusted his chariot to his son Phaethon, or as Neptune when he indulged his son Theseus in granting him three wishes, the consequence of which was the destruction of Hippolitus?
These are poetical fictions; but truth, and not fables, ought to proceed from philosophers.

Yet if those poetical Deities had foreseen that their indulgence would have proved fatal to their sons, they must have been thought blamable for it.
Aristo of Chios used often to say that the philosophers do hurt to such of their disciples as take their good doctrine in a wrong sense; thus the lectures of Aristippus might produce debauchees, and those of Zeno pedants.

If this be true, it were better that philosophers should be silent than that their disciples should be corrupted by a misapprehension of their master's meaning; so if reason, which was bestowed on mankind by the Gods with a good design, tends only to make men more subtle and fraudulent, it had been better for them never to have received it.

There could be no excuse for a physician who prescribes wine to a patient, knowing that he will drink it and immediately expire.

Your Providence is no less blamable in giving reason to man, who, it foresaw, would make a bad use of it.