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The powerful images of the tsunami of the 26th December 2004 make us raise the question: What can we do in the presence of disasters of such apocalyptic dimension? How is such a great suffering possible? For the philosophers of the Enlightenment, the earthquake that destroyed the city of Lisboa 250 years ago, on the 1st of November 1755, was also occasion for a reflection on the human condition and for a deepening of the belief in a God that is omnipotent and provident. Cassirer noted that the polemics maintained between Rousseau and Voltaire was a major contribution for the secularization of the problem of evil. In his poem "On the disaster of Lisboa", Voltaire insisted, as another Job, in the complain and in the protest, in the scandal before the radicalism of the problem of evil, which the leibnizian rationalism was totally unable to understand. Far from the optimism that Voltaire himself had previously defended, he adopts now a tragic tone which he considered a manifestation of patience before the things which we are unable to change. On his part, Rousseau, who wrote a long letter to Voltaire on August 18th, 1756, wanted to preserve, regardless of all the objections, his belief in Providence and insisted on the role played by human responsibility in the worsening of the effects caused by the natural catastrophes. Rousseau wonted to leave greater room for hope, being it in future life as well as in the possibilities of the human praxis in order to build o better future for humankind. On the occasion of the Lisbon Earthquake, the two philosophers saw themselves obliged lo a deepening of their mutual beliefs and to put up on effort in order lo give account of a reality in which the greatest urgency was lo convert compassion and the human feelings in o reality to which we would today give The name of solidarity.
